My Story Part 2

   As I said earlier, PT and I enjoyed packing boxes for Operation Christmas Child and sending cards and letters to children around the world.

   I read that book, Miracle in a Shoebox, each year to PT and to my class at school.  And I don't remember exactly how it happened, but those precious McWilliams girls (while attending Apollo) told me that their grandparents had been on several mission trips distrubting the shoeboxes with Samaritan's Purse.(It just-so-happened that their grandmother was a friend of my Aunt Gail; and it also just-so-happend that the girls' Aunt Robin was my sorority sister from Louisiana Tech! Isn't that cool?!) So they had their grandparents come from all the way from Arkansas to our school. They shared with our class about having the opportunity to hand-out the shoeboxes to these needy children! Wow! (Now that was a mission trip I could get excited about-humm )

    A few years later, God blessed us with ND! And PT, ND, and I would read our book, shop for our "shoebox child's" gifts, color or write letters to enclose, and pray for the precious child that would receive that box. It was so exciting to witness my boys began to realize the gift of giving.

   In 2005, my parents informed me that they would be going with First Bossier to Juarez, Mexico. Huh? Yes, they were going to Mexico to distribute OCC shoeboxes!!!  I asked to go to along.  I begged to go. There weren't any slots left! I was going to have to wait....

    Until 2006! In January of 2006, I went on my first mission trip! And I WAS SOOO EXCITED!!!

    Our team went to Juarez, Mexico, stayed in a room full of women (can't remember how many),slept on bunkbeds, shared one shower and one toilet.....and I didn't want to leave. 

    It was thrillng to watch the eyes of those adorable children and their grateful parents.  I'm not sure who was more excited- the kids or the team.  It was truly a life changing experience!!  Nothing like I had imagined in Mission Friends, GAs, or Acteens!! This was AWESOME!! An adventure!

    And so each year in January, I would get really excited because I was headed to Mexico!  In 2009, the trip was especially exciting because PT, my friend, Lisa along with her son, JJ, went with us. The boys worked so hard, played hard, and loved on some kids.  Suprisingly, they said they would forfeit some of their Christmas money and gifts to go again. That was BIG! (Teenagers giving up their "stuff" for someone else?!)

    About that time, Juarez became the deadliest city in the world. Needless to say, our church would not be taking groups back there anytime soon. And I was sad...

   I remember almost dreading January 2010.  No mission trip to begin the new year.  Not for me anyway. 

   Brad, our mission's pastor, had planned a trip to Peru, but it was a longer and more expensive trip. I didn't even tell a soul that I was interested in going. But I was...

   As my mom prayed (that Sunday in church) a prayer of thanksgiving that her daughter wasn't going to Peru, the Lord had other plans.  The following day I received a phone call asking if I would like to go on the trip.  What?! How!? By 3 PM on Monday, I was going to Peru. Mrs. Leigh was sick and getting sicker (poor thing), but I was going in her place.On Friday!

    The team was awesome! The missionaries we worked with were wonderful. The people of Peru were hungry for the word. And the county was gorgeous!! I made new friends from home and new friends in Peru.  It was a fantastic trip! 

    It was on that trip that the Lord began speaking to me that I didn't have to go to Mexico or Peru to minister to the poor.  They were in Bossier. Just down the street. Around the corner.  I knew I had to do something.  But what?

     Yes, there's still more...