Adjusting to a Change of Plans

I am a planner by nature. This is a great quality most of the time, but it also causes me to be inflexible at times. I don't like it when situations beyond my control cause me to change what I think are good plans. I am a woman of faith and believe God orchestrates things a certain way for a reason, but that doesn't stop me from becoming very frustrated when things don't go the way I plan.

My plans for this summer hinged around taking one summer school class on Tuesday and Thursday nights and teaching Summer school at the school I work at, since I no longer get paid in the summer. Because of these plans, I had to miss Young Life camp, which makes me sad, but at the same time I felt like I was making the responsible decision for my finances and my master's degree. This schedule would have kept me busy until mid-July when I was planning to head back to Asia for a 2 and a half week trip.

I was supposed to start working summer school on Wednesday, but I got a call on Tuesday and was told I would not be able to work. I am not 100% sure why this happened, though I think it has something to do with my status as an hourly teacher. I would have liked to know this earlier, so I could have planned my summer employment and finances better. It's too late to get a summer job and since I feel strongly about going to Asia, I only had a month and a half to work anyway.

At first I was very upset about this change of plans and even now I am trying to figure out how to survive the summer without completely depleting the money I have set aside for my next semester of grad school. After going to my first day of my summer grad school class, I found out that my class will be over at the end of June. This means I can go to Asia earlier and for a longer period of time. This is very exciting to me! I booked my plane ticket today to leave on July 5th and come back on August 6th. I know there is a reason for these changes to my "perfect" plans and maybe that is so I can be in Asia longer. And yet again I am learning to trust God's plans, even when they are not the same as mine.

Changing my timetable means I have to do a few things. I just found out that I have to get a new passport before I can travel, because the country I go to will only give you a visa if your passport has at least 6 months left on it. Mine expires mid-August. Tomorrow I have to go to the Houston passport office and apply for a rush passport renewal. I am not sure how long it takes, but I think it's about a week. Then, I will need to go to the consulate to get my visa. I am thankful that I live in a large city that has both a passport office and this country's consulate. I pray that I can get all this done in a month.