Beyond The Work - How Do You Prepare for a Trip?

October 11, 2019

“Sorry, Mom!” - Aiden (age 13)

Want a quick “beyond the work” look into what I am doing less than 48 hours before leaving for East Africa? 

Am I packing my suitcase? No.
Doing laundry? Guess again.
Cleaning house? Not quite.

I’m letting my middle son do a freakin’ FRONT FLIP over me! 

People often ask if it’s hard to leave my family and travel like we do. It’s extremely hard. My heart literally hurts thinking about leaving them again for 10 days. This was not what I had planned for my life... But you know what? I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I feel incredibly LUCKY to do what I get to do. I couldn’t have dreamed this up 11 years ago this month when my world fell apart and I became a single mother to my three precious little boys.

The deepest, darkest parts of our stories can be used to bring HOPE to others...if we only let it...and on the other side of that darkness is a HOPE and a HEALING greater than you can ever imagine.

I can only go and do what we do BECAUSE of the love and support of my husband and boys. They have been working alongside me from the very beginning of SheHopes. When it all gets to be too much, when I tell them that I want to quit, when I tell them I don’t want to leave them again - they are there lovingly pushing me to keep going. “You have to go, Mom. It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Over the last three years we’ve worked with thousands of women and girls around the world. I feel so honored to get to be a small part of helping to empower our sisters across the globe - but I also feel incredibly lucky to come home to the love and support of MY GUYS. ❤️

So much more goes into preparing for each trip, and we can share more about those details if you’d like. There are months of making thoughtful decisions, scheduling, hiring drivers, getting vaccines, planning for translators, booking flights and places to stay, gathering materials… but this part, being with family is at the heart of what we do - and we couldn’t do it without them.

I’ll finish packing tomorrow - but for tonight I have one son to teach how to sew a button on a shirt for his debate tournament tomorrow, one son to take to a sleepover, one son to watch YouTube videos with, and a husband to curl up and soak in these last few hours at home.

Can’t wait to bring you along on this next journey!

Here’s to HOPE... ❤️🌍💪🏽
~ Ginger