February 10th, 2004

The first step is always the hardest. I reflect on that very briefly as I write this first journal entry...................

Okay, then. This webpage commemorates my first real step into the unknown, discounting of course, my human birth. Today I accepted my invitation to Peace Corps, and with that acceptance will come over 2 years of challenge and possibly trial. God has lead me to this point, and so I am unafraid. He gives me strength, and rest, and joy, for all my life, and all my life's events, good or bad. As I got off the phone with Robert Disney, my placement officer, he said, "Have a good two years." Wow...two years.

I've told many this, but I used to think about this whole thing as an experience that would cause me to miss out on two years of stuff back home, the so-called "normal life." All my friends were getting married, or getting prospects, or would at least have prospects in two years; my family would change - some relatives might die, some might be born; and I would be missing out on some good things. But now I realize that I would be missing out on two years of a life-changing experience if I did stay. I can't let that happen.