AFRICA Update!

SO! This morning I was doing what most photographers do... sit and edit. Ok, reality, I was laying in my bed, but I was still editing, one of the perks to having a laptop :) My mom brought me in the house phone handed the phone to me with a big grin. I looked at the caller ID to see who it was, no caller ID. I took the phone and answered. On the other end was my dad. Our conversation went like this.

Me: "Hello? This is Leavitt."
Dad: "Hi Leavitt, it's dad, I have some very good news for you."
Me: "What?"
Dad: "I found someone to donate enough points for your flight to Africa, and I'm booking your flight right now. The only question I have is whether or not you want to return on Wednesday or Thursday."

Tears filled my eyes, my heart just soared, and I just became overwhelmed with gratitude and love for whom ever stepped in to give me this once in a life time opportunity.

I've had a couple of rough days prior to this one and I was just struggling immensely with different things life had thrown at me. One of them being finances. I've been trying to figure out how I was going to get to Africa this summer... something that I've wanted to do, but didn't quite know how I was going to make happen. I just felt like things were going to work out... but at the same time I didn't know or couldn't see how it was going to work.

This was an answer to prayers. This was the pause button I needed in my life today. I just needed something to go completely right.

So, today, I'll be sending my VISA application off to the Ghana Embassy. Complete with everything I need to get my VISA. This is no longer just a bucket list item. This is a new reality for me.

Funny story for anyone who cares to continue to read.

In January, I was talking with a friend and told them that I wanted to go to Africa as a photographer. I just thought it would be the neatest thing to do. Besides that, I wanted to do service work and I wanted to really be apart of making a difference. So I started looking around, getting information from different places, and realized that the cost (about $5,000-6,000) was just something that wasn't feasible right now. But it was still something I wanted to do, so hence it went on the bucket list.

 In March I was at the Forever Young Foundation office just dropping some stuff off. I had heard from a few people that Forever Young goes to Africa sometimes and that I needed to go talk to them.That's when I ran into Sterling Tanner.  I just casually asked him when they were going to Africa, what they did, what the cost was and so on. He said that they were going in July, and that they were going to be going to do some humanitarian work down there. He then said that it would be awesome to have a photographer down there. Well, wouldn't you know it. I'm a photographer.

Then Sterling asked me to come along as a photographer and as a participant (WIN WIN!) and then I would get to stay an additional week and go sight seeing (SCORE!) It's a pretty awesome.

So that's that! My flight is booked. I get my shots on Friday (NOT FUN!) and then I'll be all set. I'm ridiculously excited about everything! So, until my next post... probably regarding Africa...

<3 the girl who's gonna be flying on a jet plane