ICE!

Today we went with some of the family to ICE! at Gaylord Palms in Orlando.  It is 2 million pounds of carved ice, kept at a temperature of 9 degrees, all for your viewing and walking through pleasure.  They give you a parka to wear and, of course, long pants and closed toe shoes are required.  It was very well done and the slide near the end was fun, but I was also ready to be back to the FL weather as it's NINE DEGREES! 

Back to the homeland

On Sunday, December 27th, Michael and I went to Sanford to spend the day.  We met up with Steve and Janet for breakfast before heading over to Westview for church.  Afterwards I went out to Fort Mellon Park (which looks nothing like it did when I lived there) to meet up with some friends from high school.  It was great that people were home and off of work for the holidays to spend time catching up.  I've always been grateful for the friendships I have where we can pick up as if we had never left.

The Sperrys and Me

Charlene, who gave me some of the best practical advice a girl can get.  "You'll know when it's time to stop wearing shorts."  :-)

Erin and Brooke

Kim and Stefany

Some Christmas Pictures

Girls Cottage

The Girls Cottage the day before we are leaving to go to FL for Christmas.  We're excited to see what it looks like in 3 weeks when we return,

Falling in Love

We have officially became Mississippi residents today as we went and got a Mississippi drivers license.  The DMV buiding was back in an industrial park and the place had the look of a mobile home built on the ground.  Inside was your typical DMV set up of a "take a number" machine and waiting chairs.  We were fortunate to only be there for approximately 30 minutes and $42 later we walked out with new ID's.

Last night we visited Macedonia Baptist Church in Petal where Michael Garrett (Homes of Hope Executive Director) was the guest speaker.  He told his story and shared with the church where the ministry was at and his continued vision.  Afterwards the pastor got up and made some closing remarks.  He quoted James 1: 27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." and told the story of how he became familiar with a child in foster care when he volunteered with the school system.  The other night at a Christmas parade he saw this boy walking with only a short sleeve plastic coat that looked to be from a Halloween costume, short pants, and flip flops.  The temperature outside was 30 degrees.  The story was sad and broke your heart but it also inspired another feeling in me.  I've heard pregnant people talk about loving someone they haven't met yet.  Last night, I understood what they were talking about. 

I know that the task in front of us is huge.  It's going to be hard and overwhelming.  There are going to be struggles and frustrations and through them all I hope I can look back and remember how I felt last night.  I'm so excited to meet the girls that will be in our cottage and show them the love of Christ and the love of a family. 

Girls Cottage

Upon our arrival back from Ohio
12/3/2009

An early Christmas gift

We have arrived back in our old stomping grounds- Baltimore! There are no direct flights from Ohio to Mississippi on Southwest so our travels include a 2 hour layover. We were going to see if some people might join us for a late lunch and then I got sick with a cold so that didn't seem like the best idea. But when we arrived at the food court area of the airport we saw a sign that said "Free Wi-Fi, A Holiday Gift from Google". Many a trips I've taken from BWI and every time I'm baffled by the fact they don't provide free wi-fi. But today, Google has come through. I will not switch my internet searching to Bing. I will stay with the search engine that is helping me through our 2 hour layover. Thanks Google!

Contentment

I have been reading a book titled “Clutter-Free Christianity: What God Really Desires for You” by Robert Jeffress. The book talks about the heart and keeping it clear of things displeasing to God such as Chapter 4, A Forgiving Heart: Clearing Away Anger, Bitterness, and Emotional Knots. Overall the book is good but one chapter has really stood out to me and I wanted to share a passage from it.


Chapter 7 is A Content Heart: Finding More in Less. It can be a struggle to be satisfied with what we have instead of wanting either something more or better. The section I want to share with you is what the author titles “Enhancing God’s Reputation”. He writes:

Imagine that a teacher overhears your child talking to a friend at school, complaining about conditions at home: “Our home is filthy with rats running everywhere. My parents leave me home alone so they can party all night. I go to bed hungry every night, because we don’t have enough to eat.” The concerned teacher immediately contacts child protective services to investigate this obvious case of neglect.

However, when the CPS representative arrives at your home, she’s surprised to find an immaculate house with no rodents in sight, a refrigerator and pantry stocked with food, and parents who give every sign of being attentive caregivers. She then relates to you what the teacher overheard your child saying to a friend. How embarrassed would you be? What would you say to your child once the CPS representative left?

I imagine God is similarly embarrassed when He hears us complaining about our living conditions to anyone who will listen. Children of God who are continually dissatisfied with their circumstances or are anxious about whether they’ll have what they need to survive reflect poorly on their heavenly Father. After all, what unbeliever wants to entrust his or her life- or, for that matter, his or her eternity- to a God who can’t provide life’s basic needs to His own children?

If you are a Christian, you’re a living advertisement for God. People read you as they would a billboard. They watch you like they do a television commercial. And they’re deciding: “Do I want some of what she has or not?”

Their answer largely depends on your level of contentment. You might claim that your relationship with Christ is a source of great fulfillment. But if you constantly pursue more (or better, larger, or different), will anyone really believe your faith satisfies? If you constantly complain about your income, your job, or your family, will a non-Christian really believe you when you claim, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”?

Becoming like Jesus Christ involves embracing Jesus’ life purpose: to glorify God. Jesus Himself declared: I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thos hast given Me to do (John 17:4).

To glorify God simply means to make God look good to other people. Contentment- satisfaction with what we have and faith for what we don’t yet have- is a primary way we enhance rather than diminish God’s image. As John Piper wrote, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Girls Cottage

The Girls Cottage upon our arrival back home Florida
11/18/2009

Happy Birthday

November 9, 2009- Michael's 31st Birthday
Today we continued to unpack our stuff and prepare our home for the open house on Sunday.  We're going to leave for Florida tomorrow so we also had to pack some stuff back up.  Thanks to the Garretts Michael got a birthday cookie.  Michael G's plan is to fit as much writing as you can on the cookie so you get all the extra icing.  He wanted them to write out Mississippi but I think we got plenty of icing anyways.

The Girls Cottage on 11/9/09

Volunteers Rock

We are currently living in the Relief House Parent Duplex while the Girls Cottage is being built. Below is a what the yard looked like on Friday and then on Sunday, after volunteers came to landscape.

Here's the Girl's Cottage on 11/6

We finally arrive

Our stuff arrived today- packed just as neatly as when it left Baltimore. Our many thanks go to Bob, Bill, Scott, and Jennifer!

If anybody is looking for a moving company I would recommend ABF. You pack it, they drive it, and you unload it. They were priced reasonably and were very helpful and friendly.

Girls Cottage

On the day we arrived in Purvis. It's going to be a lot of fun watching the building progress.

Grandma's Rule

After stopping over night in Sevierville we traveled on down to Tellico Plains to see Grandma LaFave. We visited and had lunch with her before having to get on the road again. God is awesome in everything but it makes me really smile with the small stuff. I loved being able to have two sets up people to visit right along the route from MD to MS.


Michael and his Grandma

The horses next to Grandma's house. "Hey Mr. Horse, Say hello to your mother for me"

The long and winding road

Have you ever been to Tennessee? The roads are full of ups and downs that wind round and round. However, when you reach your destination, it's beautiful!

We left Baltimore in the morning knowing we would be stuck in some DC traffic. We were but the worst traffic came in Virginia when a 4 lane road went down to 1 lane. Thanks DOT for planning that construction during morning traffic!

The ride, for the most part, was pretty uneventful. However, Michael's car did begin to act up as it had to shift when going up hills so we tried to take it slower than we normally would. With a lot of prayers it made it to TN.

We stayed with the Adams family that night and it was so good to see them. It's awesome when you can just pick right up as if time had never passed and that was definitely the case here. We had dinner, told stories, and laughed and laughed before settling in for the night.

Time to Move

The boxes are packed, the truck has arrived, let's get this show on the road...



I like to pretend I loaded these boxes but I didn't. Packed them and brought them to the truck, but didn't actual do the stacking and tying.


Jennifer showing what she thinks of helping people move.


Me with the complimentary ramp. That's right, I said complimentary.


The real hero's of the day. Without them, the stuff would still have arrived in Mississippi but probably in more pieces.

The Story

In March 2008 one of our Baltimore churches had a mission team come that was a partnership they had established on their own. When the team arrived in Baltimore they accomplished the work that was planned more quickly than originally thought. The team leader contacted their state convention who in turn was able to contact the BBA office and therefore reach Embrace Baltimore. We were able to quickly formulate some extra projects with other churches and the mission team had a great time. It was neat to see that the way our convention is set up it easily allows us to cooperate together to make difficult situations better.

Because we were able to meet this team (University of Southern Mississippi) and connect with them, they contacted our office in September 2008 to say they wanted to come back and serve in Baltimore. I was shocked but thrilled! We facilitated a partnership between USM and New Hope Curtis Bay for a March sport camp. Kris, team leader, and his wife Presley came to Baltimore in January 2009 for a pre-trip and Brandy and I went to the service at NHCC to meet with them. During that evening we were all chatting and Presley asked the question what was next for me after Embrace. I told her that my husband and I felt called to be house parents and were beginning to explore that possibility. She said that she knew of someone who was starting a children’s home and asked if she could pass along our information to him. I agreed thinking it wouldn’t go any further than that. Turns out I was wrong- way wrong.

In April 2009 Michael Garrett from Homes of Hope for Children in Mississippi sent me an email introducing himself and asking if we would be interested in hearing about his ministry. Well, things got a bit crazy during that time at work, as well as we had already started to pursue things with the Florida Baptist Children’s Home so I didn’t call him back until the next month. When I did call him Michael and I talked for nearly an hour about children’s homes. I remember him taking the time to talk with me not just about Homes of Hope but also about things my husband and I should be looking for regardless of where we go.

We continued to talk with both the Florida Baptist Children’s Home and Homes of Hope as well as pray that God would make it clear where we were to go. We visited Mississippi in August and really enjoyed our time there. Hearing Michael’s vision for the organization and the direction it was going made us want to be a part of things but we wanted to be sure this is where God wanted us. We continued to pray for it to be clear. Through several events the FL Baptist Children’s Home lost its appeal and eventually that door was closed. We knew God had answered our prayers and made it clear that Mississippi was where He wanted us.

I will finish with Embrace on October 31^st and on November 3^rd we will begin our road trip to move to Hattiesburg, MS. My time with Embrace has taught me so much and was such a valuable experience. Looking back I can see skills and experiences I will be able to use in this new role. But it also makes me smile to think that God took a Florida girl to Baltimore so she would move to Mississippi.