Congrats Nichelle!

This is my nineteen-year-old daughter, Nichelle. She's the oldest of my 4 children. Yesterday she received a phone call from Youth With A Mission and they accepted her application to take part in their missionary training. Taken from their website, "Youth With A Mission is an international movement of Christians from many denominations dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world. Also known as YWAM (pronounced "WYE-wam"), our calling is to know God and to make Him known. Back when we began in 1960, our main focus was to get youth into short-term mission work and to give them opportunities to reach out in Jesus' name. Today, we still focus on youth, and we also involve people of almost every age (even many people who choose to spend their "retirement" in active service). Our many ministries fit into three main categories: evangelism, training and mercy ministry. We are currently operating in more than 1000 locations in over 149 countries, with a staff of nearly 16,000."

Nichelle will be leaving as early as June. She will spend her first 3 months training in Maui, Hawaii, followed by 3 months of service in southeast Asia. Talk about seeing things she's never seen! Rick and I are really proud of Nichelle for taking a step in this direction. I think it takes a special kind of person to do something like this. I know Nichelle is that type of person and this will be an incredible experience for her. We're so proud of her for following her heart and taking an opportunity to do something she truly believes in. Please keep Nichelle in your thoughts and prayers as she embarks on this adventure. I'm sure she will be talking about YWAM on her blog soon, so feel free to stop by -- http://nichellerj.wordpress.com/

I have to be honest -- it's been a cRaZy week here with Nicole taking her ACT test, getting accepted to college, and now Nichelle's acceptance to YWAM. Rick, myself, and the boys are going to miss Nichelle and Nicole while they're gone. It's not going to be the same around here without them. It's definitely one of those bittersweet moments for us as parents.