Togo 2013.

Ok, let's talk about Togo.  I want to do break these posts up, so this post will be about the actual trip - later I want to share with you a little of what I studied and felt like the Lord taught me while I was away as well.  But today, let's just talk about the highs and lows and in's and outs of the actual trip.

So, I left Friday morning to fly to New York.  I may have mentioned before that I didn't know anyone going into this trip other than my leader but I quickly met Darren here in Tampa and so by the time I boarded the plane I already knew my first friend (little did I know, one week later he'd be reviving me at the boarder crossing and become my lifesaver).

We flew from Tampa to New York where we met the rest of our team and after a long period of waiting boarded a flight from JFK to Accra, Ghana.  After landing in Ghana we would travel over 5 hours by bus (with 2 stops to fill out border paperwork) - finally arriving in Togo on Saturday night.

Sunday we attended church, locally.  You all would have loved my trying to sing along the in the local language (note the hymnal below)...

We spent Monday - Thursday on our building project.  To give you an idea of our day - we woke at 5 am, did a quiet time, had a cup of coffee, and was on the work-site by 6 am.  We'd work 6 am- 8 am and then break for breakfast.  Work from breakfast to lunch, break.  Then from lunch til 3pm.  After that we'd shower up (you'd be amazed how dirty we got), had dinner, did a group devotional time, and I tried to drum up nightly spades games, of course.

Before I get to the pictures of the work-site here's a little scoop: we went to lay the foundation (primarily block work) for an aquaponics center.  We built 9 vegetable tanks, 8 fish tanks, and on the ends of the fish tanks, small tanks for waste which will fertilize the veggies.  We're building this on the campus of a school for the blind and they will be able to eat some and sell some of the fish and veggies that will be farmed within the system.  The tank will hold about 8,000 tilapia total and I'm still not sure which veggies will be grown.  But you get the idea.  Here's some visuals:

We finished our work on Thursday so Friday was our free day.  We spent the morning touring the hospital and I tried for the second time ever to give blood.  Someone should have told me before I signed up how much bigger the needles they use in Togo are...then I would have known to fake sick beforehand but I succeeded:

 Yeah, this happened.

 After the initial needle part it wasn't so bad.

 This shows you how....um, fancy the facilities were. Yes, that's our blood going onto a stool on the floor.

We even got a shirt.

For the rest of our free day we hiked up to 'the castle' as we call it but it's actually called chateau.  

That was pretty sweet, and I took tons of photos.  And then we went to a local waterfall and played.

Since we got food poisoning later this same day, the pictures end here.  Although I took about 400 so I'm sure I'll share more along the way, especially of the scenery in Togo.  But this kind of gives you an idea of what we were up to while we were there.  This trip was very much a service based trip, the goal of which was to build something lasting for the community to encourage the missionaries and the gospel in Togo.  We didn't have a ton of interaction with individual people while we were there (that's been one of the big questions I've been asked).

One other occurence worth mentioning is that I was described by a Becca at the school for the blind for her classmates.  Since we shared the same name it was a perfect fit for me to be the volunteer.  What they didn't tell me is how...thorough this process is, including a full body pat down with detailed description! If only you all could have seen my reaction when the hands went before the neck!

As I said before, at a later time I will be sharing more of what the Lord was really laying on my heart while I was away but I wanted to start by giving you a little taste of the trip.

Love,

B

Haiti Update: January.

Image.

Whew, it seems like just yesterday I sat down to write the December update. I supposed that means April is going to sneak up on in a fury of preparations.



Thank you for the kind words since I announced my intentions to go to Haiti. Your encouragement has lifted me up and grown my excitement for all that the Lord has for me on this trip. I've read every comment, text, e-mail, and tweet with your words and soaked them up!

I had my first missions meeting yesterday. I was excited to finally get a little more info after felling like the last month my mind has been swinging with Haiti info. I will say, I got a little scared when I realized how phyical this trip will be. We will be doing construction, which I knew, but this will include lugging and laying 35lb cement bricks for the foundation of a church in Haiti. Ouch. I've been advised along with the rest of my team to train, physically, for the difficulties we will experience physically. Jillian Michaels and I have some big dates coming up!

I'm pleased to announced I've been officially 'approved' to go from the church - so this trip is REAL!

Many of you have been kind enough to want to help! I've spend some time thinking about how this could best be done. I LOVE finding ways to contribute to others mission ambitions myself, so I wanted to find real, tangible ways for you all to be a part of this trip (if you want too) whether you're a friend, neighbor, family member, or blog world friend. So here are some ways you can help, all of which I would be grateful for!...

1. Prayer. I mean it when I say that if what you've got to give is prayer - I will TAKE IT! I am excited, peaceful, and confident in the Lord's provision for my safety, finances, etc but I will take every last prayer with a grateful heart. This is certainly a crazy little adventure of which, I will need the Lord direction every step of the way. If you're committing to pray for me - I'd love to know about it, and I would also love it if you'd remind me along the way that you're praying and how you're praying! That would really to my heart good.

2. Supplies. If you want to 'give' in a tangible way, I still need a few supplies. I shared before that my Mom bought quite a few things from my list for my trip as stocking stuffers, but there's still some basic supply needs. If you aren't in Tampa but you'd like to send me a supply care package, I will happily e-mail you my address (as long as I semi know you - so I'm not giving my address to creepers ha ha).

Here's a list of some of the things I still need:

- Water purifying tablets (you can google them - they're for international travel)
-Granola bars and...
- Other prepackaged snacks
- Peanut butter
- Dry shampoo
- Baby wipes
- Hand sanitizer ( I got some in my stocking but I'm thinking I may need a good bit of this)

(May I state as a disclaimer that if I end up with too much of any of these things I will happily donate them to my fellow travelers. I promise not to hoard 100s of packs of baby wipes all for me)

3. Treasure/Trash. Yep, you read that right. What might be your trash can be turned into treasure. My sweet friend Jess has agreed to host me a yard sale and I will be accepting any donations of things you no longer need/use/want to be sold to benefit my trip. I figured this was a simple way that anyone who wanted to contribute would have a chance to do so, however big or small your donation. So if you want to clean off your bookshelf, clean out your closet, or get rid of a pile of tees taking up too much room in your dresser save them for me! The yard sale will be Saturday, February 18th in the Northdale area - and I will most likely start taking the donations in the week before (I can't store them for 6 weeks...) Again, if you want to ship a box of stuff, I'll take that too.

4. Finances. I wanted to list this last because I'm not a big fan of asking for money. So I'm not going too. I'm just going to put it out there, that if you want to contribute financially to my trip - that would wonderful. The trip itself costs $900 and in addition I have to get immunizations, a passport, etc. So it's not cheap. I trust the Lord to pave the way and feel completely comfortable with it all. But several of you have asked about giving and I am touched my your generosity. If you're interested in giving money wise - please e-mail me for further info.

(Another disclaimer - if there is a crazy influx of funds I do promise not to use your money on a new handbag - if I raise over what I need for this trip, I will be donating the rest to the members of my team who need funding as well. All donations will go towards the Haiti trip)

For more info on any of the above need listings you can e-mail me at: thequeenbc@gmail.com

Thank you for your continued love and support.

Love,
B

A Little Creativity.

Your first couple years out of school whether you finished high school, graduated college, or went on to add a 'Dr.' to your name are interesting. For most of us (unless you happen to have a rich relative who left you a fortune) are poor. Not quite as poor as we were during school when we lived on Ramen noodles and what at Purdue we called 'den pops' (cheap caffeine) but poor in the sense that were still trying to recover from school and get our feet on the ground. These are not the years of elaborate vacations, stock piles of savings, or 4 course dinners - these are the days for creativity.

See, I think a little creativity can go a long way in life. On top of the normal money woes of being 25 and trying to get your footing after college, I also bought a house which though one of the best decisions of my life, has also been THE most expensive (yes, way more than even college!). With that decision I've had to be even more careful to be a good steward of the money I bring in. But I don't believe being responsible has to come at the expense of having fun.

My Dad love to have a good time more than the next person. I remember that most about my childhood. We'd save all year as a family and then go on a huge road trip vacation every summer. As my sister and I got older we both started to think that living out of a suitcase for 8 weeks every summer may have been a little extreme (not to mention he didn't allow us headsets or sleeping during the drive so that we could 'bond' as a family). But what I take away from those now is that you make the the good times in your life and if you play your cards right - you make them the very best times they can be.

That has been THE best 14 months of my life. I love having a place to call home. I love slowly through bargain hunting and penny pinching making my condo the perfect little dream place. I love being able to host people for long weekends or good them dinner or just invite them to use my home and my pool on the weekends. I've had the joy of even allowing a few close friends a weekend there, while I'm out of town. What a cool chance that has been.

I love a challenge. I like to give myself the occasional mind puzzle to figure out. As I've worked to get the word out and raise money for the Walk for Life I've seen first hand how hard it is to raise money these days - whew. Everyone is being tighter with their money than ever before and the fact of the matter is - most of us don't have a lot to give! I purpose to be as generous as I can be not just with my money but with my time, my resources, and my talents (still figuring out what those are). So this week I set out to figure out a creative way to help my friend Tiffany raise support for her missions trip to Russia.

If I had a couple grand to spare, I'd pay her way myself because I believe in her and her passion for that country. She's going with our church, Grace Family Church, and I believe wholeheartedly in what we do as a church for other countries as well. So the desire to help her make this trip happen is there. But the funds, sadly, are not. So, I sat down and wracked my usually worn out brain (I think way too much). I finally had an ah-ha moment a few days ago...

I just had to share the idea with you here even though the plans are in the works and not totally completed. We're having a spa night! While I don't have any sort of beauty-related license (or skills beyond being able to paint my own toenails) I have several friends in the industry. Thankfully, 2 of them are close friends and fellow members of my church. So I reached out to them to see if they'd be willing to donate some time and talent and see if we couldn't throw a spa night to benefit Tiff.

Thankfully, I have generous and ambitious friends! Not only were they willing to help out and donate their time, talent, and supplies but they threw in some great ideas and even suggested we try to raise more money than my original goal. Are they awesome or what? One reached out to a few girls from her graduating class in cosmetology to see if they could come out as well. So the plans are coming together nicely and we think we may even have a date, two sets of times (for two seperate sessions) and will be able to provide a short massage, a mini facial, and brow or lip threading to each person who RSVP's and pays the alloted 'donation' we're requiring.

We agreed to keep it super reasonable but also be sure we raise some funds for Tiff. My contribution in case you were wondering, will be supplying the venue (my place), the goodies, and the fellowship - oh and getting the word out! If having a big mouth is a talent, I've been gifted friends. You know I'll be able to spread the word!

I'm pretty thrilled with how things are coming together but I also wanted to say that I hope none of you are allowing your current situations of much needed responsibility or financial constraints keep you from living life to the fullest. A little creativity and elbow grease can most anything done. Keep at it friends, no task is out of reach.

Love,
B