Atlanta Mission Trip 2011

So I was asked to go on the Atlanta Mission Trip with our high school students. I drove one of the 15 passenger vans down and we get to the church we stayed at and I was a little nervous. It was at an exit I would not have stopped at, much less stayed. We parked and go inside to find out that there is no central air conditioning. They have fans and some of the rooms had window units. It was the beginning of August in Atlanta, I don't even have to tell you how hot it was! We made the most of it and everyone had a glow about them....ok maybe it was just sweat. 3

Our schedule consisted of:
Eating breakfast at 7
making lunch
devotions
going to our working sites - we were broken up into 6 teams and we all had different chores and then we would split up during the day to go to our different sites. My group did the same thing all week and it was INSIDE with air conditioning! I was super excited about that. We went to a place called the Frazier Center and it is a place where adults who can't take care of themselves go to live. They also have a daycare. We were the morning crew so we were able to go play with the kids every morning. I LOVED it! Then we would go eat lunch and head to a place called Open Hands. They serve meals to people. We were on a assembly line of food.
showering - some people took showers on site and some off site. My group was one of the ones that took the showers off site.
Free time - Maybe 15 min... Depending on how long showers took
leader meeting - really neat to be on the Leader side of a mission trip. I had always gone as a student and you do get some more perks when you are a leader ;)
Dinner - taco night was my favorite!
Evening Activity - We got there Sunday night, Monday night we went to Centennial Olympic Park (the fountains were turned off) so we played ultimate frisbee and ate ice cream. Tuesday night we went to Martin Luther King's Memorial (we were def the minority but was fun and interesting). Wednesday night we went to another local church that was super fun and the pastor was great! Thursday night we had a cook out for the community at the church.
Club - This was our time to worship God and give our "Hotlantas" and "Praise God" moments. We sang (the old school songs from when I was in youth group), played games, and had a lesson.
Church group time - This was a time for our church group to get together and talk about our days. We did High's and low's and it was awesome! It was so great to hear the student genuinely concerned and praying for each other.
BED - I think we were so worn out that the fact it was 85 in our room didn't bother us at all.

It is so hard to put everything that happened that week in one blog! When I was first going I really didn't know what to think. I wasn't a leader in high school, still not really a leader, and I was worried about having to get onto the kids. I show up and we have an amazing group of kids. I was so proud to be a leader that was able to just hang out with them and be one of them and I didn't have to tell them to stop or talk to any of them about what they were wearing. There were 3 church groups there together and we soon realized that some of the other people on the trip may have not known Jesus. So the first night we were all pretty discouraged about the other groups but we prayed about it. By the end of the week we figured we were there for the other church groups maybe more than we were for the Atlanta community!

The last night we were there Thursday night the youthworks staff wash the leaders feet and then the leaders wash the students feet. I was really uncomfortable with this idea at first. Then the lady comes and washes my feet first out of all the leaders and so I can't even watch how it is done before she does mine. I was really nervous and it was extremely hard to relax and enjoy the moment. Then after they washed the leader's feet I started going around the room to wash the girls feet. It was such an awesome experience. Everyone was in tears and it was just really sweet to be able to encourage all the girls.

It was an excellent week to see God work in my life and all the students. Here are a couple of pictures of the week.

The whole West Park group before we left!

This is a picture of my group at Open Hands!

Sherry and I!

All the church groups together!

Here is the link for some of the pictures that Derek put in a Picture Slideshow.

Christi's House...

So Christi's sister, Brittany, is having a baby and I was invited to her baby shower. It was a saturday morning and the theme was scrapbook. I had been planning on going for about a month and I first thought I would leave on Friday stop in Murfreesboro and eat dinner with an amazing family I miss. (The dinner plans didn't work out because they decided to come to Knoxville for the weekend. So we completely missed each other.) Then I would continue on and stay at Christi's house Friday and saturday night and come back Sunday afternoon. Well a week before, I was asked to go on a mission trip with our highschoolers here at church. That is awesome I would love to go then I realized the date, we left on sunday afternoon. So I had to cut my weekend short at christi's but we crammed as much in it as we could! :) I got there friday night and we decided to go eat applebees half off apps. Then we got home and hung out to the wee hours of the night and finally went to sleep. I haven't had a sleep over in forever! It was alot of fun to just talk for a while. Then we got up the next morning and some other people came over for the scrapbooking shower. We each got a theme and were told to make a page for Abigail Grace's baby book. It was the neatest idea. We had papers and stickers everywhere!

Then after the party christi and i got to help watch her neice and nephew. They are so cute! Then that night Christi's Dad (Jimmy) was honored at the ice cream party for his years of service. I was super excited to be there for that! They gave him the golden ax. It was a very sweet ceremony.

After dinner I decided it was time for me to head home so I started making the drive home and finally got there at like 11:30. Maybe one day I will be able to get some sleep before I go on a trip! I had a fun time with Flowers even though it was cut short.

August Blur..

Wow where do I begin! I have to keep checking my phone and can not believe it is the middle of August already! We have been crazy busy! Thought I would record it all together and then go into more detail later about each one!

July 22nd - 24th ~ Jennifer and Brian's house in Atlanta, GA

July 29th - 30th ~ Christi's house in Middle Tennessee

July 31st - August 5th ~ Atlanta, GA on a mission trip with the High schoolers.

August 11th - 15th ~ Mom & Dad's place in Juno Beach, FL.

We are ready for a weekend here that we don't have to work! Aspen is ready to relax also! :)



Visiting Jenn & Brian..

A couple of weekends ago we didn't have anything going on so I called Jenn to see if they were busy or if we could go see them and the new house. We decided that we wanted a relaxing weekend for all of us so we really didn't have a ton of sight seeing. Instead we explored their surrounding area and went swimming on Saturday. They have a neighbor hood pool that as a huge slide so Zane and I went down several times! It was alot of fun. We then went to a church with them on Sunday morning and really enjoyed the church. Aspen loved seeing all Jenn and Brian's dogs (especially River). We have to make the two of them stop because they get a little rowdy in the house. Zane and I  decided we should probably head home a little early on Sunday (we never do that, we always wait till the last possible minute before we leave and head home). So we ate lunch after church and then headed home about 2:30. About an hour into our trip Zane starts noticing the tire pressure on the left front is saying low. So he starts watching it and finally after it continues to go down he stops at an exit that has a lot of stuff at it. We get gas in the truck and check the left front it is fine, nothing wrong with it. He starts checking all the other tires and realizes that it is the left back tire that is getting low. He goes inside the gas station and buys one of those tire pressure checkers (we never have one when we need it). All the tires are fine except the back left so we go put air in it. Then we start looking for a tire place to get it fixed. We soon figure out there is one right next to the gas station that was just a little sketchy looking so we see a GOODYEAR sign across the street. Now it is Sunday afternoon at 3:40 by this time and we are praying they are still open. We pull up and see they close at 4:00!! Awesome! Zane goes inside and talks to the owner and they can look at the truck and see what they can do. He explains that we have a dog in the truck and so we will just stay outside (in the heat) with her. The owner said no to bring her inside with us, he has his dog come into the office most of the time anyway. So we took her kennal inside and sat in the air conditioning waiting on the truck. We find out that there is a nail in the side wall of the tire that is not leaking but they can't pull the nail out and fix it. Our problem was a hole in the tread that they could fix. We decided to buy a new tire so that we didn't fix the part that was leaking and then the nail come out and us be in the same boat again. After about 1 1/2 hours we are back on the road headed home and what an adventure it was. It so cool to see how God takes care of us even in not so great situations. We left early so the business was still open. We were able to get off at an exit and not be on the side of the interstate. We stopped at the exit with a place to fix it. God definitely took care of us!