Dearest Student,

I am so excited that you are taking this opportunity to study abroad!!! Prepare yourself for loads of fun, but even more so, be ready for God to change your life. Your time in a foreign country may challenge you, but let it! You're going to grow as a person if you can overcome these mental, emotional, and physical obstacles in your life. You may find that nothing you do afterwards will ever be the same.

Here are the two best pieces of advice that I found useful when I was planning to go abroad, and I hope you can too.

1. Be ready to be tired.

Whether you’re studying for your classes, trying to keep up with the life of your host family, or working hard to figure out the area, there will never be a day that you don’t come home exhausted. Sometimes, it’s a fulfilling sort of tiredness; you feel super accomplished for what you did that day. Other times, it’s the kind of tiredness that grates your nerves and makes it really difficult to be kind to people who annoy you. Value your sleep and drink as much coffee as you need! But above all, know that even when you feel like you can’t keep going you can do all things through Christ. (I repeat that mantra “Through Christ” “Through Christ” “Through Christ” every morning when I don’t want to get out of bed).

2. Make every single moment count.

You're going to find that the time will fly by. But what are you going to do about it? Will you visit new places with your host family? Will you go to more church events? Will you take every moment to live to Gospel or bring hope to someone? Of course, there are responsibilities that need to be fulfilled; for example you'll probably have homework for your university classes and perhaps language classes. For that reason, you cannot spend all of your time exploring and enjoying the culture, but neither should you focus so hard on your studies that you miss out on life. My suggestion? Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “No matter what you do, whether eat or drink, do all for the glory of God.” Because that truly is the only time we can make every moment count. When we take whatever we do and give the glory back to the King of kings and Lord of lords. It won’t matter in 20 years if you got a good grade in your language class, but what will matter is that you learned to communicate. It won’t matter what movie you watched with the family you live with, but what will matter is the relationships you built by doing it. You will be in the heart of the kingdom of God when you willingly make every aspect of life revolve around Him and His people, rather than your own satisfaction.

Once again, I am so excited that you want to do this! It's a huge leap of faith trusting that God will be with you every step of the way, and you might be fearful of not knowing what will come. Trust in Him, and He will help you make this one of the best experiences of your life. You're going to be so glad you went abroad!!

With love,

Sophie