Echo Is Going to India

And you can help her...

I'm planning to help her.

I'm sending her $44.00 (all I have right now) and am doing my part to spread the word about her amazing heart and her amazing dream.

This is Echo

Who is she, you ask?

"I Am What I Am"

This is her best attempt to answer that question in her own words. I'm not sure any of us knows who we are exactly, but I think Echo is pretty darn close to finding out...let's help her. I'm going to.

Who is she to me? Well, I've known her for twelve years. I first met her when she was five. I met her mom and dad at church, and I fell in love with her whole family that day. Her mom and I have been through a lot together, most of it via long-distance Bible studies. We love each other...deeply, and Echo is like a niece to me. I love her with all my heart, and these past few years have been so hard for her...a girl with a dream that no on the outside understands...

Writing In the Sand

I love the way she puts it best:

"They warn me about sickness and danger in India, but I shrug it off! Isn't the life of one person worth all the pain and disease in the world? God, why have you given me so much passion for this! I cannot contain this joy, this unexplainable joy, that you have given me! Why? Why do I love people I have never met? How is that possible? Why do I get butterflies from You like a lovesick girl? I am drunk from Your love. Although I eventually want a husband, I don't need one; not when You romance me this way! Not when you are constantly telling me how wonderful life is going to be, not when you are giving me such dreams...

God, this is all too much, too overwhelming...And I wouldn't want anything less."

Here's the deal...she's going to India, but she doesn't have enough money raised to go. Her heart wrenching story about the futility of her human efforts is documented here. Warning...this will probably make you cry!

Indian Child

Need for Consolation

So, I have been following her fundraising progress for the past couple of months, wishing there was more I could do than send her a mere $44.00. It hit me tonight. I could do this...I could use the small network of friends and family who read my blog and follow me on Twitter and follow me on Facebook to....

help her....

GO TO INDIA!!!!

Indian Colors

Here is what she says about India:

"I feel like India is already my home, even though I have never been.

I am earnestly counting down the days until my mission trip."

And here is what she says about writing, a subject near and dear to my heart. I couldn't have expressed my love of writing in a better way than this:

"I write this down because I feel words are like diamonds.

You dig them up to unearth something beautiful,

and when you rearrange them, a masterpiece unfolds."

They're Starving For Love

So help me help her go.

Click here to donate (her ID# 2630486): 

Global Expeditions

And thanks for passing this along and helping Echo go to India.

(All images were taken from Echo's blog and her Facebook page. I don't know where she found them, but I'm sure she found them when she was searching for her heartbeat.)

Waiting on the Lord

PEACE

There are not enough words to describe the wonderful feeling that true peace brings to my physical body!

Soaring on Wings Like Eagles

"Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who wait upon (hope in) the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." ~Isaiah 40:30-31

I've been waiting on the Lord this past week in regard to my writing. I took a total break. I didn't write, I didn't think about writing, I didn't allow my mind to follow trails of ideas down their imaginative tracks. I just rested.

It was really nice. It was also amazing to see how many times my mind wanted to wander over and "worry" over what I was going to write about, how I was going to make money at this, and how I was going to find work. Thankfully, after a few days of cutting those thoughts off at their inception, this stream of anxiety slowed to a mere trickle.

We Wait Upon the Lord

My rest ended yesterday....and the fruit of my rest? Peace. I have a tremendous amount of peace about my priorities, about finding time to write, and about living with my process without trying to speed it up. You see, it takes me a tremendous amount of time and energy to read and research before I can write an article that meets my own standards of excellence. This part of my process has been very frustrating to me in the past, because I've been trying to keep track of how much money I'm making by the hour. I've put an end to this "counting of my men," and I am now just going to do what's in front of me to do.

The other part of my process I struggle with is what to write about. I have such a broad base of specialized and generalized knowledge in my mind. I'm fascinated by nearly every topic I come up with, but many of them just aren't article-worthy ideas. It has been so hard for me to narrow down and focus and have the confidence that the topic I'm going to write about is relevant to others and will pay off.

Once again, this week of rest has given me a tremendous amount of peace, and yesterday (the day my rest ended) I got an e-mail for a new project. It's a work of fiction written by a dear friend of mine. I get to read, ponder, experience, and edit it for him over the next year with the hope that together we can make a dream of his come true. Then, this morning I woke up after a dream filled with hope and wonder and realized that out of that dream came an interesting, relevant, and inspiring topic for me to write about.

Dyed4You Art

This makes two articles I'm in the process of writing, one book I'm editing, and my three blogs. I trust that the next idea will come when the time is right, again in a dream. In the meantime, I have plenty to work on, so I can continue resting during the day, cutting the random ideas off from my conscious mind as I wait for the one good idea to gel and create a dream for me dream. Yes, this makes perfect sense to me. God has always talked to me through my dreams!

This means that during the day my mind will be completely free to work on the ideas I already have! I'm so glad I rested from my labors this past week, and I'm so glad to be writing again this week!

~Angela