Show and Tell: Mission Trips

Show and Tell, Show and Tell, Show and Tell!!!!

Today’s topic..

Mission Trips and Service Opportunities

This is going to be fun, y’all! I love that Andrea just so happened to pick the topic for TODAY of all days of the year…because our sermon on Sunday was about serving. And we’ve just been introduced to mission trips for 2016 in The Dominican Republic, Honduras, New York City, Los Angeles. And I know I want to go on one of those trips, so i’m just praying about which one right now.

In the summer of 2012 right after I graduated high school, I went on my very first mission trip to New Orleans, Louisiana.

I recapped it a little bit back in July of 2014. For some reason the links to a few of the pictures aren’t working (of course), but there are still some on there. When I signed up for this mission trip I really didn’t know what to expect. I just found myself excited and feeling good about it!

We got there years after Katrina so while there’s always work to be done, there really wasn’t as much as we were all hoping. But we were put in charge of cleaning the yard for a house that the Church we volunteered for owned. This is our youth pastor. He was the best and I owe him so much for pouring into my life at that young age.

We cleared out, moved, stacked, rearranged furniture in school classrooms to be moved for the schools to be cleaned over the summer.

We were able to fellowship and study the Bible with one another.

We painted the girls’ bathroom at one of the elementary schools with Arial from a coloring book. (actually Reeana drew and we painted!)

And the boys’ bathroom with ya know, boy stuff.

And then we were of course able to see the city. We explored all around New Orleans one night. It was fun! Especially when you’re with some of your best friends.

We may or may not have slept while on the job.

But we of course had some fun along the way 🙂

I’ll always remember that mission trip. Like I said, I was with some of my best friends for a week in a city that i’d never been to before, glorifying God’s name. There are few things in life that can top that!!

God calls us to serve the world, the community, our Church, and one another.

 “The greatest among you shall be your servant.” – Matthew 23:11

I love serving my Church. On Sunday mornings this is where you can find me. With my 3 and 4 year olds 🙂

Wednesday nights you’ll probably find me with my freshman girls at youth group.

I co-taught 3rd and 4th grade boys at my old Church on Wednesday nights with Reeana’s dad. Half of these boys were pastor’s kids too 🙂

As for our community…my volleyball team in high school participated in Operation Christmas Child, which my old Church hosted. One Saturday morning we all got together to pack up shoeboxes to send over to the kids in poverty and we had so much. Of course we made it competitive because…we were athletes remember 😉 We broke up into groups, shopped through the dollar store, and packed these boxes while eating some BBQ. It was so much fun! My team rocked 🙂

These are some of my favorite memories.

Now, I know many of you have ministries through your own Church that you are a part of, but we just had one that i’m really considering. One Child Matters is a ministry where you pay $40 every month to sponsor a child until they graduate the program. Your $40 goes to pay for health needs, spiritual needs (Bibles, etc.), education needs, and a community for the child to meet others. You’ll write letters back and forth with your  kiddo. It is a commitment, i’m right there with you. I’m praying about this and maybe you should too?? Our Church is sponsoring kids from the Dominican and Honduras where we might be able to go see them on one of the above mission trips.

OH, don’t forget that you can still sign up for the Online Bible Study!!!

Now I can’t wait to go through and look at yours! And just in case you missed any of my previous Show and Tell Tuesday posts:

A Day In The Life
Halloween Costumes
My First Job
The 5 people you’d invite to dinner
Where I was on 9/11
Who I was in High School
My Back to School Traditions
My Home
My Beauty Routine
My Yard
When I Grow Up
Favorite Party I’ve Hosted
How I Got My Name
My Favorite Vacation
My Favorite Room In Our House
How (2 of my favorite couples) Met Each Other
My Groundhog Day
My Organization Tips and Tricks
My New Year’s Resolutions

Orange Beach and New Orleans

I hope everyone had a relaxing weekend! Today I am going to share about our vacation last week. We spent a week in Orange Beach, Alabama. And we had so much fun. On Saturday morning we were all packed up and on the road by 6:30am. 6 people with our luggage on top of the car.

We were under the impression from dad that it would only be about an 8 or 9 hour drive. We ended up in the car for 13 hours. All I wanted to do was run and run and run after sitting for that long. But finally, we arrived!

Girl’s Room

Boy’s Room

Stocked up Kitchen

Family Room

When we got to our condo and unpacked after dinner it was about 9:30/10:00. First thing we wanted to do was get out to the water! So that’s just what we did…a night stroll along the beach.

After we woke up on Sunday we went to Pensacola, Florida to meet my dad’s friends for brunch. We then stopped at this place:

Joe Patti’s is a popular seafood market down in Florida. This is where we got our seafood that we made for the week. As soon as we thought we were leaving my dad saw something else he wanted. Shrimp, shrimp, scallops, sea bass, crab claws, peaches, tomatoes (at an outside stand), gumbo, clam chowder…he went to town! The rest of Sunday was spent hanging out. We didn’t plan any activities because we didn’t know what the weather was going to do. So the majority of the night we strolled through gulf shores and orange beach. And spent the majority of our night out here:

We were able to go out to the beach Sunday, but Monday was our main beach day.

 

and it was so much fun! We started planning our activities Monday when the weather looked as though it would be okay but nobody had availabilities until Tuesday, so Monday night we went to the local “Adventure Island” to ride go-karts, paddle-boat, and we even got into a hurricane simulator machine.

Tuesday was our ziplining day in the afternoon. Morgan, Ryan, Myself, Rick, Mom and Dad. A picture of our whole motley crew is at the end.

This was definitely the boys’ favorite activity that we did. After this we had a little downtime before our sunset dolphin cruise in the evening. All aboard!

Morgan claimed this was her favorite activity. I bet I know why…we both held a LIVE CRAB! My brothers were way too scared. Chickens!

This crab’s name was Georgette and she lost a claw before I got to hold her. One of the little girls was holding her she squirmed and dropped the crab. The deckhand had to step on her claw to get her, but let me tell you. I laughed for a good 10 minutes afterwards.

Tuesday went by pretty quickly. We had a reservation to Parasail on Wednesday, but it stormed during our time so we had to improvise after they cancelled our flight. Wednesday we just hung out along the beach in the morning during the good weather. Whenever it started to rain we decided to drive around, stop for lottery tickets, and get our t-shirts/souvenirs. Wednesday night we drove across the gulf into Florida to a quiet little beach to take our own pictures with our camera, and tripod.

We got some pretty good shots with the camera that we have. Even this was some quality time together and the boys didn’t get that cranky. Morgan also took some senior pictures while we were there.

My little sis is a beaut. We went to the condo to make seafood after this. We were leaving the next morning, but we were able to sneak in an 8:00am Parasailing Flight. It. Was. Worth. It. My dad did not want to go and the first thing he said when he came down was “That was really fun”. It was so much fun and so relaxing being up there. We went doubles. So it was mom and dad first, then Morgan and Rick, then Ryan and I.

See how excited and happy we all look? Because it was exciting and happy! If you haven’t parasailed, do it once in your life! I promise you won’t regret it. After our Parasailing flight we had to go pack up to. We drove to New Orleans for the night. We just walked around New Orleans because my dad and I were the only ones who had been there. For dinner that night we went to the restaurant of the guy who created “blackened” as a seasoning. It. Was. Delicious. and we got to sit at the Chef’s table.

After, I took everyone for the famous beignets

We walked the streets of NOLA

We wanted to get in before dark though. So we hung out in the hotel room for a while. Friday morning we woke up and traveled to Morgan’s college that she’s playing soccer at.

After a trip to a local hole-in-the-wall diner for lunch. We were sad to say goodbye to vacation.

I’d tell you what we ate the whole, but really all it was is…

Scallops

Seabass & crab claws

Shrimp & Gumbo

And more shrimp!

Foodie Heaven. With some kids’ chicken tenders and fries with a dinner of BBQ thrown in.

This truly was a vacation of a lifetime. And so much fun to hang out with the family. I’ll never forget this trip. If you are planning vacation to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area, or even New Orleans and need phone numbers of the places we went to for activities, or food. E-mail me! colorsoflifeblog@gmail.com

Everywhere we went, we enjoyed and I would be happy to share names!

Happy Monday, friends!

NOLA Mission Trip Flashback

As I put in my Friday the 13th post, mission trips (although i’ve only been on one) are one of my favorite things. The summer after my senior year in high school I went on a mission trip to New Orleans. I got to cross two things off my bucket list that summer…go on a mission trip and visit New Orleans. I had no idea what to expect all I knew is I wanted to go. So, after a lot of support letters sent out and many generous family members and friends (thank you all!) I was headed to NOLA with some of my good friends! Here’s our crew right before we departed:

 So, a long car ride in a van and we are headed to Louisiana. Some people got bored along the way.

During our lunch break we stopped and saw this cool thing in the parking lot.

My church had gone to New Orleans a couple years before this one but I never had the option to go so I was pretty excited this year. We stayed in a house owned by the local Presbyterian Church. Every morning we got up EARLY and traveled to schools in the area to clean/decorate/move furniture/etc to help get them set up for the upcoming school year. One school we went to we were in charge of re-painting the upstairs bathrooms.

(Above left) The mural some of us painted in the boys’ bathroom. (Above center) My youth pastor, Patrick, and I taking a break from our hard work to pose for a picture. (Above right) The mural in the girls’ bathroom.

My talented friend, Reeana was the one who drew the outline, while the rest of us not-as-talented folk just painted it in. You think you love painting until you’re doing it for two days in a row…ow, arthritis. I thought I knew what tired was, but I really had no clue until I was on my feet for basically a week straight!

At another school we moved furniture out of the classrooms for the school administration to get someone to clean  and get ready for the upcoming school year.

My favorite part of the trip was the day we got to sightsee around New Orleans. This was my first time going so everything was new to me. We had limited funds (I was in charge of organizing the activities) so this was one of our activities, a FREE ferry ride across the Mississippi. This is a picture of me that Reeana took. She can draw and photograph. What can’t this girl do?!

We walked around and Madison did this:

We saw this bus with kids singing out the windows:

As activities director of the trip I decided what we did on our free day and we went to the Audubon aquarium:

We also shopped:

Then Reeana and Sarah baked cookies:

Another evening our group walked around the French Quarter. We stopped by Cafe Du Monde for dessert (It’s a must) while we were there. If you haven’t had a beignet yet, purchase yourself a round-trip ticket to NOLA just to get a beignet. Okay, maybe not go to those extremes, but beignets are definitely worth forgetting food allergies for.

One of our last evenings there we went to a house of one of the members from the local Presbyterian Church and had dinner. This is Madison and I with their daughter:

On our last day in New Orleans we took one of our bright neon yellow shirts and had everyone sign it. We hung it on the walls for future groups to see.

As you can see, we all had a blast working in New Orleans from the aftermath of Katrina AND we got to glorify God at the same time. What could be better?