The Best of News.

I have news. My precious Heidi has a family. Meet the Petersons.

This sweet family has committed to adopting Heidi, and they're working their tails off with fundraising, paperwork, and getting everything ready for their girl to come home! I'm so inspired by their faith in the Father's provision as they set forth on this adventure and am honored to be walking alongside them and considered a part of Heidi's team. Hop on over to their blog to read more about their story and donate towards their adoption fund!

Guys, people say that miracles don't happen any more. People say that hope is nonsense and prayer is useless.

Heidi was abandoned. Forsaken. Without value. Without hope. But now, love has intervened. Magic has transformed her future. She has hope.

Kind of like us, right? Lost, helpless, trapped by sin. Completely enslaved to death without the intervening love of Christ on our behalf. His magic reversed our doom, like death working backward and cracking the Stone Table in half in The Chronicles of Narnia.

This is the best of news. This is the Gospel.

I'm overwhelmed by His goodness and His beautiful plan for Heidi's life. At school we begin each day with a short chapel time during which we recite The Gloria. It reads:

"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of goodwill.
We praise You.
We bless You.
We adore You.
We glorify You.
We give thanks to You for Your great glory."

Ever since I heard the Peterson's news, I've been repeating and repeating the Gloria in my head, as well as the Scripture verse that I chose for Heidi when I first became her warrior:

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
~Matthew 5:8~

Thank you for celebrating with me.

Vacation

Just got home from a lovely vacation at the Dauphin Island beach. My dear friend Lizzie and I were nannying for three darling families in our church who invited us along. Beach vacation in exchange for snuggling cute babies. Deal.

Me and Augustine, one of the 2 other Ethiopia babies besides the twins in our parish.

Lizzie saving childen from falling of the cannon stand at Fort Gaines. She's a nanny wonderwoman.

We made friends like these. Scratch that. We ran screaming from live jellys in the water.

Looking through the window at the balcksmith at Fort Gaines. Moses may or may not be eating an ancient, filth-covered window bar. We're on it.

Me and Raechel on the beach on the last evening. News: I'm excited to announce that when school starts I'll move out of my own lovely home and board with Raechel and her awesome husband and precious son and daughter in their lovely home. I'm so blessed and excited. She also gets sole credit for all of these beautiful photos.

With vacation over there is nothing standing between me and the reality of being about to start college.

I came home to see this on my (own!) bed:

Beautiful. Exciting. Going to run away crying in fear.

Truth Pandemic - Get the facts about HIV/AIDS and Adoption

What more is there to say?

The truth will set us free.

Fleece Blanket Project

I'm still working to raise a fuss over my girl, Heidi.

And so is my friend Chelsea for her girl, Robyn.

Remember my attempt at raising money for Heidi by making necklaces? Well, I had a couple of requests but not much interest. The fact is, one of my lovely little siblings, who shall remain nameless, took it into his or her head that after I had spent three hours braiding enough silver thread to make two necklaces the best possible plan would be to sneak in with his or her scissors and cut them to pieces.

We all recovered.

However, my desire to complete that particular project was rather squashed. Thankfully, my friend Chelsea still had as much drive as ever, and we got together to brainstorm fundraisers for both of our Reece's Rainbow beauties. We decided on making fleece tie blankets, and we have these two above as examples. You can either order one just like one of these two or you can place a request for color/pattern combination and we'll do all we can to make it happen! Just leave a comment or email me at ama2@bellsouth.net to place and order.

The blankets are double layered fleece made made from 1 1/2 yard of material, and they cost 25$ a piece. It is for our girls, remember.

Unfortunately/fortunately I'm a fan of old school snail mail as far as paying goes (read: I have no idea how to implement one of those chip-in things). So, either send your check via envelope, owl post, whatever, or you can donate the amount directly to Reece's Rainbow and just tell me that you did. I trust you.

So, feeling sweaty? Loving this humid, summer weather? Spending time at the beach? Still in the month of July with the rest of the Western Hemisphere? What you need is definitely a double layered fleece throw blanket. Duh.

Thanks guys. :)

EB

I haven't posted about EB because it is just petrifingly scary and indescribably painful. But it's on my heart, so here I am.

This disease effects the skin, and in most cases makes every single function of normal life agonizing, until the patient either looses the will to live, or his or her body simply can not go on trying to constantly repair the broken skin.

This is on mind for a couple of reasons, I have a minor (comparitively VERY minor) skin defect called eczema, which has caused enough trouble in my life to tune my heart to far, far greater suffereing. Secondly, some of our beloved Reece's Rainbow orphans have it (these precious ones are about to be orphaned no more, praise Jesus!) And the third reason is because of this sweet family. I'm begging you to join me on your knees on behalf of their beautiful son, Tripp, as well as the other families who have been effected by EB.

Thank you.

My Girl

I can't even tell me how much I've had this girl on my heart lately.

Look at her, are you melting? I'm in love.

This little lady has been transferred. An adoptive family from Reece's Rainbow visited her this month and took this drop-dead-gorgeous picture. They wrote:

"Little Heidi was the meekest of the group, she is the smallest girl and stayed close to the caregivers, all the while looking on with great curiosity and smiling at me, melting my heart for sure."

Thats my girl. Update about fundraisers for Heidi in my next post!

Jar Fundraiser for Heidi

First of all, sorry for the extremely blurry picture.

I've had a jar sitting out for my beautiful Heidi-lady since I became her 2011 warrior a couple of months ago. Tonight I turned on a movie and sat down to count out what we'd collected so far. The grand total came out to be $37.72!

This is truly the easiest fundraiser in the world and it sparks conversation when guests see the jar with his/her on your counter.

Set out a jar for your RR baby or your sponsor baby. Just do it.

I love you, Heidi.

Heidi Update

My girl. I love her.

Thank you, Father, for growth, new pictures, and sunflower pig tails.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

A little more B*ntu camp!

The feast on the last day.

Me and the littlest baby in my group, N*rto.

My brother Joseph helping out in the little boys group. He was awesome this week, its the first year he's been old enough to do it and I was so proud of how gently and appropriately he handled those rambunctious little guys.

Water slide!

Dragon-slaying party at the end of the week.

Dancing at the feast. :)

Eating some cotton candy one day.

Beauty.

Some precious little ladies with some seriously silly attitude.

B*ntu Camp

This week was B* camp for me and my classmates. Its the third annual camp we've done with the B*ntu refugees. They are a severely oppressed, under priviledge, Muslim people group here in Nashville.

I have such an incredible time there every year, and I love following up with the kids throughout the year through in little one-day activites and stuff. I have several special relationships with certain kids and the trust level between the kids and our volunteers has grown so much. Jesus be praised. We are continuing to break down barriers in the hope that one day soon we will be able to speak openly about our faith and be heard by receptive little ears and without the danger of the kids being persecuted/banned from seeing us by their families.

More to come, hopefully.

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl

Just read this book, given to me by a friend for my graduation. Oh. My. Word.

Can you say beautiful?
How about fascinating?
Brilliant?
Life-changing?
Hilarious?
Thought-provoking?
All around full of wonder?


Whether or not you can say those things, read it. Readitreaditreaditreadit. I'm hoping to read it atleast once a year.

Spreadin' the love....or the work.

We have a lot of work to do.

In fact, until Jesus returns we are called to be constantly doing one of three things: Working. Resting. Or Worshipping.

And by work I mean Kingdom work, and by rest I mean Kingdom rest (As in, not chocolate bar glutton rest and not endless hours of facebook rest. Real, healthful, body-spirit-soul rest. Says the chocolate-eating facebook addict. Not as I do, people. Not as I do.)

That being said, we have a lot of work to do. We are working with Christ in redeeming, in gardening the world. Our world is a mess, but our work is far from hopeless. Actually, our work is certain to succeed. Good will always prevail over evil in the end. Good is so much bigger than evil.

I digress. But happily. :)

My dear IRL* friend (to steal a phrase from this lovely blog), Chelsea, is working on raising money, like many of you, for a little Reece's Rainbow girl for the 5/5/5 project. I'd be delighted if you jumped over to her cute, green blog (doubtless she would be delighted as well) and poked around to learn more about her fundraising efforts and see what you can do to help.
*in real life

We're working together. We're gardening together. We have a lot of work to do.

And someOne has gone before us. Blessed be His name in all the earth.

Fundraiser for my darling

Everybody remember my little love, Heidi?

I dressed up her picture. :) Did anyone else notice that her hair is frenchbraided? I'm happy that at what ever point this picture was taken there was somebody who loved her enough to fix her gorgeous silky hair. And I am an absolute sucker for plaiting in every form.

Several months ago I was praying/brainstorming for a fundraising idea for Heidi, as I've been pretty inactive about raising money for her. I decided on making necklaces, and calling it Hearts of Heidi. Heidi has a minor heart defect which I don't think is causing her any huge problems now, but still a heart defect is a heart defect. I just want her home and healthy.


I'm making them out of things I have at home: handbraided silver string, nail polish, and scrabble letters, so there isn't any over head. They're 5$ and every bit goes towards Heidi's grant to help with her adoption expenses if/when a family commits to her.

The hearts remind me to pray for Heidi's physical health and her spiritual health. I am hoping to have a specific verse to pray over her soon too.

Contact me at ama2@bellsouth.net if you're interested in a Hearts for Heidi necklace!

A Little More LONDON

Beach!

My friends Kylie, Abby, and me.

The Round Church built by Christians home from the 3rd crusade. This thing is so freaking old. I think its my favorite church we saw.

My friend Claire and I at the Lewes Castle. Please delicately ignore my offensive black leggings/brown dress/converse situation. I know, poor choice. Sometimes my wardrobe just takes over and attacks me. Oh well.

My friend Caroline Grace and I at Bunhill feilds, where many puritan heroes (such as John Bunyan) are buried. We also had outdoor church there.

In St. Pancras station looking at the Eurostar which runs from London through the Chunnel to Paris! Its long. VERY long.

My dear friend Kylie and I on the beach.

Morning train ride from Brighton into London.

With a palace gaurd's horse!

This was a very cold decision. But I'm glad I did it. :)

6 pounds in an Antiquarian bookshop in Cambridge. Happy sigh.

Rooster on the top of All Hallows Barking Church across from the tower of London. Did you know that the rooster was the symbol of protestantism? I didn't. Cool.

Grateful

I graduated from highschool yesterday.

I'm just so grateful for all that the Lord has taught me and will teach me and all of the wise and wonderful people who have poured into me for the past 18 years to get me to this point.

In other news, my pastor preached this morning about being constant in prayer. Um, convicting? Yeah. Remebering to pray for this precious boy. God has given me so many oppportunities. To many to blog about. And I'm so grateful.

England

In no order at all, this is a random assortment of a couple of my Senior Trip to England pictures.

Eating noodles at Wagamama's. Chopsticks and I don't get along.

Sleeping with my friend's Pooh bear in the airport.

Looking at the chalky cliffs of Sussex from the Lewes castle.

Most of my class (missing Sydni, Hannah, Elizabeth, Christian, Elle, Grace, and Hannah) at St. Paul's cathedral.

Sitting in Winston Churchill's chair, wearing Winston Churchill's hat, at Winston Churchill's favorite cigar shop. I am a fan of Winston Churchill.

Inside the heart of Westminster Abbey.

The coast of Brighton, where we stayed.

Me on the English Channel.