Where has the month of August gone? I kind of freaked out this morning when I searched for the date in my devotional book and really realized that it's already the 26th.

August has been a month of preparation. Steph and I have been spending lots of time around our dorm arranging and cleaning things, preparing rooms, and tying up loose ends. And somehow we managed not to get sick of each other after spending the majority of our time always together.

Although this time has been plenty busy, it's also been a nice break. Being able to spend time with the people I know here in Bouaké has really been a blessing too. All the worries I had of leaving my friends in Korhogo and not having relationships here have completely gone away. Of course I still miss everyone in Korhogo, but I at least know I also have people here.

So now comes the countdown.

Tonight the national youth conference for our association of churches starts. I feel like we've been talking about this camp for months and now it's actually the week of it! The best part is that 17 youth from my church in Korhogo are coming! And the conference is on ICA campus so they will all be right where I live. I am SO excited to see them all and spend this week learning about God and growing with them.

In one week, a former Journeyer, Chazz, arrives and also the university starts classes so all the students will finally be here on campus!

In two weeks, Papa Rod and Angelika come home!

In three weeks, the new Journey Corps team arrives! I am so excited to welcome a full team to Cote d'Ivoire. Finally the dorm will be filled up with plenty of people. We did a count for how many will be here the first week, and there will be about thirty Ivorians, Americans, Germans, and French all together! God has been answering so many prayers in regards to this new team and their orientation so I'm really excited for them to get here.

So pretty soon this calm preparation time will come to an end and we'll take one last deep breath and take the plunge. But it's all good things we're looking forward to. So yes, I realize my title was slightly overdramatic and the orientation of the Journey Corps 2012 team isn't as epic as all the races of Middle Earth uniting under one banner to fight against the armies of Sauron, but I just watched Lord of the Rings and couldn't help myself.