2011 - What a YEAR!

This past year has been a little crazy – in a completely good way. I’ve always been able to fly by the seat of my pants, my job lends itself to the need of careful planning, but in my personal life, I’ve enjoyed the change that comes to life’s plans when I follow God’s leading. Change and I are buddies.

January 2011 – My husband, our 5 year old child and I visited Ogden, UT for the first time. We’ve spent many vacation days south of Ogden, in the Moab playground 4-wheeling, dirt bike riding and visiting friends, but had never visited the northern half of the state. We were checking out an awesome church in Ogden called the Genesis Project and in short absolutely fell in love with the church and people who go there. More to come later. I also traveled to the Dominican Republic to be with a construction team, but due to bad storms across the eastern USA, the team didn’t make it. So I got to spend a few productive days with VisionTrust Dominicana staff planning out other mission teams that would be visiting later in the year.

February 2011 – I organized a short term mission trip to Guatemala with a church in NY with the goal of installing 50 family sized water filters and 50 personal wood burning stoves (they used open flame floor fires to cook which led to many burns and homes filled with smoke). This trip was amazing.  In summary, we completed the project, saw the standard of living for these families improve immediately and witnessed God move in a small Mayan village. One mother that received a stove told us that she could smell her food cooking for the first time. This village has been weary of the Christian message. There is a VisionTrust Learning Center in this village that educates, feeds, provides spiritual discipleship and basic health care for about 200 children. The teachers are there every day bringing the message of Jesus love to these kids. That message is not always received by the families, but slowly, we are seeing hearts warmed and the mothers joining together to learn about who this God is that loves them.

March 2011 – We visited Ogden, UT again. My husband preached at the Genesis Project weekend services and the pastor, Matt, announced to the church that we would be moving our family from Colorado to Utah so that my husband could become the new children’s pastor. We returned home and put our house on the market – desperately praying that it would sell....and I left for the Dominican Republic to be on a construction team in the rice fields of Couti. 

April 2011 – I organized another trip to Guatemala with two churches, one from CA and one from NC. Our goal was to build 90 beds for 90 children in a village where VisionTrust Guatemala has a learning center. These children were sleeping on the floor (which is common throughout the developing world). As a result, many had insect bites and sores from mice bites as well. The 90 beds were installed and we spent the week conducting Bible lessons, games and crafts for the kids at the center. What FUN!

May 2011 – A week after I returned home from Guatemala we packed up our house and moved to Ogden, UT. A week after arriving in UT, I left for a short term mission trip to Liberia with a church out of IL. We spent the week conducting health assessments on the children who attend one of VisionTrust Liberia’s schools, hosting a teacher training for teachers from three different schools and hosting a pastoral conference where 250 pastors came from all over Monrovia and “up country.” The country of Liberia is worn torn and many non-profits have been in and out of the country over the past decade. The children who attend one of the VisionTrust schools only attend in the morning because they must work in a rock quarry during the afternoon hours breaking large rocks into smaller rocks that can be sold. Their labor is a pivotal part of their family’s income and many do not stay in school after the primary years because of the need to provide for their families.

June 2011 – Spent the month unpacking only the necessities into our new townhome. Praising God at the fast (if felt like it took many prayers, stress and time) sale of our home in Colorado. Celebrated our daughter’s 5^th birthday with her new UT friends and set up my remote office (that’s right, the organization I work for is letting me work remotely – what a blessing!).

July/August 2011 – Came and went so fast. We spent the summer serving at our new church, working on organizing trips, exploring our new town and all the hiking trails surrounding us and hosting friends and family that came to check out our new town and church. My daughter also started kindergarten. 

September 2011 – We started house hunting for a permanent residence in UT. We looked at a few handfuls of foreclosed homes. Made an offer on one – never heard back, spent time frustrated, looked at more, made more offers and finally ended up in a house that had sat vacant for 2 years and is a gift from God.

October 2011 – I had been working on four mission trips for the month of October who were each serving in the Dominican Republic. I personally went on the annual fall Health Assessment Team and got to cross paths with the others teams at the hotel we were sharing. This team was wonderful! Most of the trip members travel together every year for the purpose of assessing children who attend VisionTrust Dominicana projects and to bring children’s vitamins (Oversized – extra luggage - type of vitamin donations that they work to fundraise for months in advance of their trip). We visited six projects sites ranging from schools to after school learning centers to orphanages. Each site has their own story to tell and each child has a chance to break the cycle of poverty they were born into. During our visit to one orphanage, we learned about a teenage girl who had been recently taken away by her mother who works as a prostitute. The girl had lived at the orphanage since she was four years old. There, she was loved and nurtured by a Christian family who has about 20 other orphans in their home. The house mother was worried that the girl was taken to join her mother in prostitution. Please pray for this girl.

For me, the end of the year is usually a time to wind down, spend time in reflection and prepare for the next year of short term mission teams that will travel around the world to the various VisionTrust project sites. This year however, hasn’t slowed down. I’ve helped plan (with an amazing team of hard workers) 33 mission teams in 2011 with almost 400 team members. God is doing great things around the world. The children’s ministry at our new church is thriving. I spend many weekends getting to know the little ones in the nursery and those old enough to attend kid’s church and trying to show them that I love them. Life is full, sometimes I’m really tired, but I wouldn’t trade what God has put before me for anything.

....and don't worry, I'll won't recap this much in each post :)