Hello everyone! My name is Wil Bostwick (yep! spelled with just one L), and I currently live in Tempe, Arizona. I have been born and raised in Arizona, and I am absolutely in love with this state. I love the summer's here, and I definitely find any temperature below 70 degrees to be chilly. I have gotten sun burned while driving, I am not related to anybody who owns a black vehicle, and we do brew our own ice tea by just putting the jar outside on the porch... welcome to the desert haha.

Almost everyone in my immediate and extended family lives within an hour of my apartment, which is good because I really love my family. On that topic, I am the oldest child out of three. My brother Andrew is 18. He is stronger than me, but I'm still taller haha. He probably has the most selfless heart out of everyone I know. When I first told him about this trip, he gave me his change jar that night so he could officially be my first donation. My sister Elizabeth is 13, and she is the coolest teenager I have ever met. It's actually really scary having a little sister to be honest, because she's really gorgeous and I'm not home anymore to protect her from boys. But I love her to death, and she has a huge heart for Jesus that makes me so happy to see every time I get to visit her, so I know she's protected by a Greater Protector than I haha. And I am the oldest at 19, but I'll be 20 in about 3 weeks so my teenage years are about at their end. My mom and dad are both really awesome as well. My dad works for the golf company PING, and my mom is a nurse at a school called the Upward Foundation which is a special needs school. They are both really supportive of every (smart) thing that I do, and they both love Jesus a lot too which helps make conversations like "Hey mom and dad, I'm going to Africa for 2 months" go over smoother than most parents would typically react haha.

I am in my second year at Arizona State University, and I am studying Business Marketing. I don't really have a passion for the business world at all, but I do find studying marketing concepts to be quite interesting. The other reason I am in this major is because I dropped out of the Architecture program on my first day of freshman year, and my roommate told me to take Marketing because it is easy haha, but that's beside the point. I have a student job working for ASU Gammage which is a Broadway theatre. It's pretty cool because I get the opportunity to have free front row tickets to shows like The Lion King and Phantom of the Opera and STOMP when they come to town... but I'm not really into the theatre at all so I usually just give the tickets away haha.

I am a student leader in Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) here at ASU, and I lead a freshman dorm small group. I really love this ministry, God used it to completely turn my life upside down for Him when I was a freshman, and now it's just a really cool blessing/opportunity to be able to lead new freshman in a Bible study and watch God do the same thing to them that He did to me. Another fun fact that's really awesome is that about 50 people in CRU live in my apartment complex. There are only 30 rooms, so we pretty much own the place and it's an incredible community to do life in. Most every apartment is unlocked at all times because we pretty much know everyone who lives here. Sleep is hard to come by since a lot of us own fireworks (I fall into that category), and more than half of us are pranksters (yup, I'm in this category too). But though it's literally rather explosive at times, I still think it's a ton of fun to live here. Oh and there are 4 houses within 200 yards of my front door that lots of CRU people live in too, so God is definitely letting us be a huge presence in this once peaceful neighborhood haha.

Let's see, more personal details. Well, I'm actually a pretty quiet person even though that firework/prankster reference I just made might have convinced you otherwise. Music is what makes my heart come alive. Jars of Clay might be my favorite band, but that's too tough of a decision to make. Jars of Clay, Phil Wickham, Tenth Avenue North, Leeland, Hillsong United, Jesus Culture, Misty Edwards and Cory Asbury pretty much describes my iPod. I absolutely love love love to worship. It's funny because I used to go to a Christian school and I was really bitter about having chapels every Wednesday and being "forced" to worship. But when I got to ASU, God completely turned my spirit around 180 degrees and has made worshiping Him the part of my week I look forward to and love the most. He's ironic to say the least haha.

As far as free time is concerned, my friends and I like to go tubing down the Salt River when the water level is high enough. Camping is something I also LOVE to do, but I don't get many opportunities to do that during the school year since homework keeps me really busy. Oh, and in the rare instances when I do have free time and choose to spend it alone, I like to drive to the nearby mountains or canyons or lakes and just explore have quiet time with God there. I suppose looking back on this paragraph, that paints me as the outdoors-y type, which is true. But I have more of an appreciation and captivation with nature rather than an understanding or mastering of it, so I'm by no means even close to the Bear Grylls or Survivorman type haha.

Last summer I went on my first mission trip ever. It was with Campus Crusade for Christ, and we were in East Asia for about 5 weeks doing ministry on college campuses. That trip single handedly changed my life, and my paradigm of how God could work in my life and be intimate with me (side note: this blog doesn't have spell check, so I just took a total random stab in the dark at how to spell paradigm, and I nailed it on my first guess! that is a huge victory for me haha... sorry, back to my story now).

So anyways, I had a blast over there and I was pretty sure that I would spend the rest of my college summers returning to that country. However, God threw me a curve ball and really began putting Africa on my heart at the beginning of last semester instead. I have never been there, and I didn't really have an interest in going either, so it definitely caught me off guard haha. However, I ended up watching a couple videos that featured some ministry going on in Africa, and those films just totally broke my heart. One of the films even kind of felt like a "job training" video a boss would show a new employee to get him excited about his work and show him how to better do his job. After watching it, the Holy Spirit filled me with so much excitement and put this huge conviction on my spirit to go over there instead this summer and love and experience those people. So that's what brings me here!

What I am most excited about for this trip honestly is the unknown. Here are my unknowns... I literally know nothing about Africa, I have no idea what it's like to live out of a backpack for 8 weeks, I don't know what it's like to do life overseas with people whom I've never met in my entire life, and I don't have the foggiest idea what is going to happen inside of my heart when I experience love from people living in the extreme poverty we are going to encounter either. However, God has filled me with so much excitement about each and every one of these unknowns. I can't wait to see what He wants to do with my heart while we're over there, plus I think living out of a backpack is going to be an awesome adventure!

And I truly cannot wait to get to know each of you as well. Just reading everyone's About Me's so far and stalking each of you on facebook a little bit has been such a blessing to me. I know that each and every single one of you has been hand selected by our Father to love His children overseas this summer. He picked each of us specifically to function as one team, one body, in one love, by one Spirit. God has been going ahead of us already, knocking down the walls and opening the gates of African people's hearts so that we can be His hands and feet in a way that will change these people's eternities. He has been molding and sculpting each of our own hearts, and the Holy Spirit has been leading each one of us to this exact trip at this exact time for His exact and beautiful purposes! Isn't that just awesome to think about!?! God just assembled the A-Team, and we're on it! Granted, He does that anytime you go to WalMart and buy Snapple as well since we're always living testaments of Jesus love in everything we do haha. But it's just really exciting to think about how incredible this summer is going to be getting to spend it with so many people whom He has filled with the exact same love and passion to serve Him in this way.

Well, this pretty much wraps up my About Me. I am praying for you all though, and I want to leave you with a piece of encouragement before I finish as well. There is probably one thing, or maybe even multiple things present in each of our hearts at this very moment that God wants to do some major renovating in before we head out on this trip. I've been experiencing this already, and it's been really painful and discouraging to go through in all honesty (turns out open heart surgery doesn't tickle haha, who woulda thought?). But I think the reason for the renovation is that God has some huge plans for us this summer. Plans so big, that we might need softer hearts, more loving hearts, more surrendered hearts, more faithful hearts, and more joyful hearts than we have in us right now. Mark 2:22 says, "And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins". That is what I feel like God has been teaching me these past few weeks, and that is what I want to encourage you all with as well. God may have something so awesome planned for this summer, that we might need new wineskins (hearts) to be able to hold what He wants to fill us with. Hence the need for the surgery haha. And if you find that this is true of you, or if you feel like you might already be going through this, I just wanted to encourage you and let you know that the heart surgery you're experiencing is truly a blessing from the Father meant to prosper you. I hope this helps strengthen at least one of you haha. It really blessed me when it was brought to my attention, so I just wanted to pass it on to each of you.

Can't wait to serve with you all, have an awesome day!

-Wil