Bring It All Here

When I was only ten years old I remember sitting perched on the edge of a pew listening to a man tell about life on foreign shores serving the least. I felt something rise in my heart and I knew that somehow my life would find it's direction to the foreign lands he was mentioning.

It seemed like adventure. It seemed like living life on purpose and full of meaning.

Fast forward to me as an adult and my amazing wandering-heart-wild-dreaming husband. We set out for the shores of West Africa and life in the remote bush of a country we'd never seen and knew only from books.

It was everything and nothing I expected all at once. 

Prior to heading to the field we had a great deal of preparation. We listened soberly to to other folks tell about the difficulties of life in another land. We nodded and empathized and tried to walk forward with the knowledge that the journey would be hard.

Our newsletters were hopeful as we raised support and packed our bags. Only a few months into the adventure the newsletters got harder to write. Not only were we facing a huge influx of refugees in desperate need, but reality had set in and it wasn't really the kind of stuff you fill up a tidy newsletter with. 

Nothing really prepares you for the reality of it all.

I'm sharing the rest of the story with the Velvet Ashes community today. Come on over to this new community and read.

Velvet Ashes is a community of encouragement for women serving overseas. 

We would love your help getting the word out.

Here are a few ways you can be involved:

• Tweet (#VelvetAshes) about the launch of the Velvet Ashes site and make sure to follow @Velvet_Ashes on twitter.

 Are you a woman serving overseas? Need encouragement? Get ready to belong! 

{Click to tweet this}

• Give the Velvet Ashes Facebook page a "Like" 

• Join our weekly link-up "The Grove" on your blog. This weeks prompt is "Together".

• Head on over to the site and read the first posts and peruse the "About" page to hear the story behind the name. Leave a comment or two to get things started!