Lets start at the very beginning. . .

The story is long, particularly considering I am rolling the past three months into this initial blog. However I feel that the details of it are important in understanding why it is that I will be leaving for Torino, Italy in only a few weeks.

In 2007 an opportunity came up for me to go to Bologna on a missions trip. Those eight days effected me in more ways than I ever could have prepared for. I saw a country who had absolutely every material good that they wanted, and yet every glance and conversation showed hearts left unsatisfied.

I returned home, but it was clear to many that my heart remained far from New England. I continued with my plans, knowing that ultimately I would find myself back in Italy.

The Plan: Graduate High School. Go to a four year
college. Start a coffee shop. After about twenty years bring that coffee shop overseas to Italy.

It's funny how God's plan is rarely our own, and His timing incomprehensible to our rational minds. After all, He does promise that He'll only give us what we can handle. I believe that stands for our mental capacities to grasp his plan, just as much as the trials He allows us to endure.

Needless to say, I ended up at the community college I had vowed to never attend, building relationships with people I had planned on never seeing again. During that time however, God taught me more than possibly any other experience to date.

The burden to leave continuously lingered, but I had gotten really good at sweeping it under the carpet. Even though it had a tendency to come out full force during the stressful times it was there constantly.

One day, I finally couldn't hold it back anymore. I was talking with not only a friend, but a mentor who encouraged me to go for it. However, the thought of leaving behind a job and coworkers that had greatly invested in my life was a difficult one to grasp.

I was sharing with my boss one day how I had felt a great burden to spend more time with my family,...a burden which I had ignored until I "coincidentally" lost my planner. (God's got quite the sense of humor). She laughed as she told me how similarly her daughter, who had recently been called to relocate, had once felt. She asked me if I felt I was supposed to be going somewhere. When I couldn't find the words I needed, the tears didn't hesitate to speak for me.

On the way home from work there were so many thoughts flooding into my mind, and yet there was no question that I knew I had to go. I wasn't sure when, I wasn't sure why but I knew it was inevitable. I found it hard to keep myself composed during the conversations with my parents that followed in those next few days. Perhaps one of the most difficult thoughts to verbalize was that Massachusetts, had never been my home. I realized this more than ever in Bologna. I should have felt out of my element, and maybe even a little unsure of myself but I had never felt more confident and comfortable than I could ever remember.

Still questioning the timing as well as what I could even be going there for, I came to know of an opportunity helping our Missionaries, who had relocated to Torino. The details of this opportunity are abundant enough for another day's story.) I was still skeptical of the possibilities turning into a reality, but I keep walking through the doors God has opened and I intend to continue to do so.

The curiosity of how God could use someone such as I continues to overwhelm me! I cannot wait to see the places in which He leads my heart throughout this journey.