Joyful Day

In case you didn't know, Andrew and I were selected to go on a mission trip to Johannesburg in South Africa.  The trip is through an newly established group called Swamp Corps. The idea of Swamp Corps is to take a kids camp that has been going on here in Georgia for years to places around the world.  This isn't just any camp. It's a week long 24/7 camp where kids leave their families, come learn about Jesus, build friendships, and develop a relationship with God. This particular camp saved mine and Andrew's life.  It's the place that helped us to be where we are today. The Swamp is what helped build the foundation and inspire us to become disciples of Jesus.

We've been so blessed to also work out there as counselors. Andrew for 7 years and me for 3. That is where we grew individually in our walks with God, helped mentor and train other kids, and grow in our relationship as a couple.  And now......we get to help take all the goodness of this camp to Africa!!

First, Swamp Corps started in Jamaica.  That camp has been going for two years and then Barbados started this year. And now this is Africa's first experience.  Other trips in the works are Kenya, Brazil, and India. God has been working hard.

Well, 10 days ago, I was crying because I thought we couldn't go on this trip anymore. With everything that was happening to our cars we had a lot more set backs financially than what we thought.  I kept telling myself that God wouldn't have selected us out of so many to help with this camp and then not provide. And well today I'm crying again because someone donated 1,000 dollars to Andrew and I!

It was donated anonymously so we can't give a proper thanks to whoever it was, but we are sure it's someone we are close to and knows all the set backs we've had recently. So to whoever you are....you are an angel to us. You've relieved us, built our faith, and made us evermore grateful. We thank you so much!

So with all that said.....

57 DAYS TIL AFRICA

October Ups and Downs

October is a long month. 31 days if you hadn't been keeping track. That leaves a lot of room for things to happen. And oh did "things" happen to us this month. You may have noticed that I haven't updated the blog since earlier in the month. My mind and self have been lost in so many things this. I'm not going to bore you with the stories of the bad things because God has taken care of them and there is no need to complain. 

In short, my car = dead transmission. Andrew and I = car-less for over a week, super stressed, and trying to figure out where money will come from. However, God is a faithful father and didn't let us down. 

We have wonderful friends and parents that support and love us. We thank so much our friends that let us borrow their cars or gave us rides places. And we are SO grateful for our parents making phone calls, knowing people that can help us, for generously donating money, and for letting us use their car temporarily. We have the best people in our lives. Even though it was hard, we were never not taken care of through this tough month. 

We thought losing Andrew's car taught us about faith and gratitude. HAH! We had no idea what God had in store for us. But He definitely took care of us.

Now lets forget about the bad and talk about the good things that happened in this month.

1. It's without a doubt Fall outside! My favorite season of the year. I went out for a walk and picked some colorful leaves to frame. These are just a few of the gorgeous finds I made outside our condo.

2. We've been absolutely loving our CSA produce baskets we get every week! I never want to go back to grocery store produce. Farm fresh is the way to go! These are just a few items from the basket we picked up today. 

The trend has been eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, radishes, and all sorts of greens. This week we got a GIANT sweet potato (not pictured here), fresh garlic, lettuce, and chard (that's what's in the bag). I've found that I LOVE radishes. Simply sauteed with their leaf greens. So simple and yummy. And of course the tomatoes are to die for.

3. I got a letter from my dear friend Lisa. She moved to London back in August and I miss her terribly. It was so nice to hear from her and it was a great encouragement in the midst of all the discouragement.

4. I had an awesome thrift store find to go in our home. I am never able to get out of the house except for school and church with Andrew needing the car every day for work, but one morning I had "car freedom" for 2 hours. 2 HOURS! I can not tell you how excited I was. So with my two hours I went.....thrifting!

$5 dollars. This shelf made my 2 hours of the month worth it. 

(That's our guest book on the wall and one of these days I'll get it framed.) Along with gaining a new shelf to set up in our house...I was able to unpack 4 boxes that same day.

Still got this much to go....

5. My birthday! I'm a mere 23 years old now. My birthday was the 27th but since it feel on the first day of Fall break for school. I decided to "celebrate" my birth this extended weekend. :) Since Andrew and I are on this  spoiled "we only eat farm fresh foods" kick, we went to dinner at Farm 255. DELICIOUS!

And I got some fun gifts that I've been wanting for a long time. 

[And a rain jacket :)]

These running shoes have the Nike + feature so it will record my distances and help me train for any future races. So legit.

So in summary of this long month and this long post, the month of October has shown us how blessed we are.  Blessed more than we will ever know. 

Sorry for such a long post! Had to make up for not posting anything all month. Love you all.