Monday, October 3, 2011

Decisions... decisions...

I have just over three months until I get on a plane to head home.  First of all, yikes!  And wow!  This year has flown by.  For the past week I've been seriously thinking about the future and what the next year might possibly look like.  I get easily overwhelmed because there are so many options in front of me.  Would you join me in praying through these options?

One option is to come home, work for 5 months or so and then come right back here independently to continue my work with refugees.  This work has stirred my heart and I've become very passionate about working with refugees... especially youth as I know I'm called to work with youth in some capacity.  I would also start an online program to get my masters degree, probably in counseling.

Another option is to apply to the MD program (check out wgm.org for more info), fundraise and come back in about a year and a half with WGM.

Yet another option is to stay home, work, and start my Masters at an actual school instead of online.  There are many options rights now as far as schools go.  I'm looking at one in Chicago, one in Indiana, and one in Mississippi.  There's one in New Jersey with an amazing youth ministry program, but the cost would be nearly as much as my undergrad at IWU.  Now, with my Masters I also have a lot of things to choose from.  I've been highly recommended to get a Masters of Divinity, though my original plan was a Masters in Youth Ministry.  I've recently been thinking about my work with refugees and a Masters in Counseling, specializing in refugees and PTSD would be incredibly helpful for that work.

In any case I would like to start my Masters within the year.  So I'm trying to figure out if online will work or if I'll need to suck it up and stay home (in America).  Of course some of this is contingent on another person, when/if (and hopefully soon) I get married.

SO, in essence I have lots of questions and lots of decisions to make.  There are things that I want, but I don't know if they're best.  So at this point I'm praying about the next step.  I need to make a decision soon because if I'm coming back to Uganda sooner rather than later I'll need to fundraise and figure out how to come back independently.   If I'm staying in America I'll need to start applying to grad schools/seminaries.

This is what's occupying my mind these days.  I'd appreciate prayer.  My preference for these options change daily.  Tonight, going to IWU and living in Marion is winning... that is, until I think a bit longer and realize that means being out of Africa for at least 3 years.  :(  Oops... back to the drawing board.

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