A little over ten years ago, I embarked on my first trip to Mozambique. It was my very first time in a developing country. I wasn’t prepared for all the ways it would change me. Before my trip, a physician friend of mine warned me: “You will either love it or hate it. There’s no in-between. You’ll either go only once and hate it, or you’ll fall in love and go back many times.”

I couldn’t imagine this to be true, as I had my life in the U.S.—I was just starting my teaching career in the university; I had a large community of friends, an apartment overlooking the city I had grown up in. I had a cat.

But love always changed everything, and I fell for the beauty of the Indian Ocean; the tropical greenery; the warmth of the Mozambican people; the kids most of all. The small vulnerable orphans became adopted children, and Mozambique would become home for the next decade of my life. What an amazing journey into an incredible country. A journey into God’s heart.

In April of this year, you’ll be able to share that journey with me.