Less than 2 weeks ago I decided I was going to go to the World Cup… now I’m already sitting in the airport in Joburg, on my way out…

It all started when a friend, and former soccer teammate Paul Lavender, messaged me telling me he had extra tickets… I had applied for tickets but was a bit aggressive and applied for two matches… the US/England game and the championship match, of course these games were the highest in demand and I didn’t get tickets.

So when Paul called and told me had tickets it got me thinkin… at first i told him I couldn’t do it, especially cause i had just returned from 6 weeks in Ethiopia and i needed time to catch up… but finally one night at like 2AM i was sitting at my desk and started realizing what a great opportunity it was… I’ve had going to the World Cup on my list of things to do before I turn 25 (I’m 24 now) so this was my last chance, and this being the first World Cup held on African soil I knew it’d be amazing.

I thought and prayed about it a bit more that night and woke up ready to go. I booked the flight a few hours later (for a pretty penny) and began making plans.

I ended up getting a two stopovers in NYC and a 2 day stop over in Senegal to help keep my flight cost down… so I immediately started making plans for my time in NYC and especially Senegal. I wasn’t connected to anyone in Senegal directly but googled and found a few orgs doing some neat work there… also sent of some emails to SIM and others working in the missions industry.

After a couple days… I ended up connected to a group called the Beersheba Project that is doing some really cool irrigation/agricultural mission stuff in Senegal. I’m going to be shooting for them for a couple days… really excited to capture what they are doing and to see Senegal.

Photos of the World Cup to follow…