Clicks for Kids!

Check out my flyers for fundraising for Ghana!  Want to sign up?  Leave a comment on this post with your e-mail and we can set it up!

More on Ghana...

We attend a Life Group, led by Matt and Tammy Garret.  It’s a marriage Life Group that gets together twice a month to discuss the challenges and rewards of striving for a healthy relationship founded on God’s principles.  We absolutely love our group and have gotten really close with the three other couples in the group.  Matt and Tammy are great leaders – they’ve got two amazing kids, and really have big hearts for outreach.

This coming summer, from July 1-10, Matt is headed to Ghana, Africa to work at the orphanage that he and his friend Jeff built back in 2007.   The orphanage isn’t quite like the ‘American’ orphanage you may be thinking off.  Currently, it is open on Saturdays for local orphaned children and local families to come and be fed, hear the Word of God and just be loved on.  Once complete, the orphanage will function more like a traditional orphanage, housing 70-100 children and being open daily as a feeding center and health clinic.  To read more about it you can check out www.fathershouseghana.com. 

When Matt shared with us that he’d be going back this summer I immediately wanted to go.  I’ve always loved missions and I love kids – what better opportunity!  I knew I could not just go on my own accord though; I wanted to be sure it was what God wanted for me.  So, even though Matt and Bill both thought I was supposed to go (Matt even got goose bumps!), I told them I’d pray about it and get back to him.  Well, I did pray about it, for two days.  Then I had a dream.  In the dream I was on sandy beach with bare feet and there were little black feet and little black hands crawling around me and on me and we were laughing and just loving on each other.  I knew right away that was God telling me to take this opportunity He had given me.  So I will be accompanying Matt (and possibly a couple others) on the trip this July to Ghana! 

The main reason I write to tell you all of this is that I sincerely need your prayers for this trip to be a success.  I am a strong believer in the power of prayer, above all else, and I would be so grateful if you could partner with me in praying for this trip.  Some things you could pray for: safe travels to and from Ghana, and while there; health and immunity against any illness that may try to come our way; pray that we will be able to reach hundreds of children and families and bring them into relationship with Jesus.  

Beyond your prayers, if you are led to join me by financially supporting this mission, I would be extremely appreciative. I need to raise just over $2,400 to cover the total cost of the trip (airfare, housing, food, vaccines, passport renewal). I am trying to be creative to raise the money, and I want to extend an invitation to you to participate. By giving to this mission you are able to ‘reach the ends of the world’, as God commands in the Bible, without ever leaving your home! If you are able to donate, you can make checks payable to The Father’s House, and remember, any contribution is tax deductable.  To make it as easy as possible you can message me to get my address to send the donation. This is an incredible journey that God has called me to and I would greatly appreciate any level of support you are able to offer.  

I hope things are going well for you out in blog world. I’d love to hear an update on what’s going on in your life if you have the time. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this letter, and if you have any questions, please let me know. I hope to hear from you soon!

Watch out, I'm on Break!!

This spring break I have found a renewed energy.  I don't know if it's the AMAZING weather we've been having (85-90*).  It could be the fact that I'm uber-excited that our missionary friends are coming home from Thailand in just a few short days.  It could be that I'm only 3 months away from Ghana.  It may also be the mindset of not having to teach this week. 
So all that said, I've gotten a LOT accomplished this week - and it's only Wednesday!
Monday was my "Get Ready for Ghana" day.  I printed off my support letters (stay tuned, I'll post it here in a couple days!), I got out my envelopes and stuffed them, I mowed the back yard, spread insect control over the entire yard, swept the garage and driveway out, picked up and vacuumed the entire house and went and got most of my vaccines for Ghana.  Then hubby got home from work so we had some dinner and spent the rest of the evening playing Super Mario Wii :)
Tuesday I finished up stuffing and addressing the support letters, ran to the post office to mail out my passport renewal stuff, stopped at Bloom and got some SUPER deals on meat and a couple other odds and ends, headed to target to get lots of good deals on all the personal care stuff for our friends coming into town, stopped at Lowes for some paint and then came home.  First on the list was to finish my canvas painting.  It was like this:
And then I finished it and it looks like this:

So that was painting project number one.  Project #2 was in the 2nd bathroom upstairs.  So here's how it conspired... there was this towel rack above the toilet, but we needed more 'storage' area, so we bought this cute shelf/towel rack combo to go there instead.  Well, the construction crew apparently thought that the towel rack was meant to hold up three grown men because that thing was anchored into the wall like mad and left two HUGE holes on either side where it was mounted.  So I puttied them and filled them in, but we have textured walls, so it didn't look amazing.  So I grabbed the paint from the stuff the builders left in the house, and matched the lid to the wall and painted it.  Then. It. Dried.  And it was darker than the rest of the wall!  You can tell what I'm talking about here:

So I was brainstorming with some friends an easy solution.  Can't hang something over it - that'd look funny.  REALLY don't wanna paint the whole wall over again because A) I like the color in there right now, and B) I'd have to paint the entire bathroom because it'd look funny with an 'accent' wall painted a different color.  So we decided on this, what do ya think?

So that was my Tuesday.. the bathroom took a little longer than expected, but I did stop for dinner and took frequent 'breather' breaks - it was over 90* yesterday and we haven't turned our air on yet... and that bathroom is upstairs, so it was really, really, warm out there.  I was actually painting with the lights off as long as I could, til it got dark outside. :)

So it's Wednesday, we're 1/2 way through my Spring Break and I feel so, so accomplished already.  Today's theme, "Yard Sale Day."  We're having a yard sale to benefit our missionary friends coming home.  I spread the word on facebook and to our two life groups and we've got LOTS of donations!  We're really believing to see some BIG results from this sale!  I'll come back around Friday and we'll see if the productivity continues. :)  Till then, buh-bye!