I mean - Happy Easter!! Hope everyone is enjoying this holiday with family and/or friends! I mentioned in my last post that my next post should include pictures from our trip to do disaster relief with Samaritan's Purse partnering with WinShape, and we are driving back from there as I type! What an AMAZING week we've had! But first, let me catch you up on the past 6 weeks since my last update (don't worry - it's not that much)...
My niece and her boyfriend came down to Port Charlotte around the middle of March to visit my sister, so I was able to join them. Here's a picture from that time:
My niece and her boyfriend came down to Port Charlotte around the middle of March to visit my sister, so I was able to join them. Here's a picture from that time:
My sister and I met in Sarasota (half way between us) at the end of March for lunch and had such a great visit with each other! We're going to try to make that a more regular thing!
One thing I forgot to mention in my last update was that our cat got out the night after Tim left for Burkina Faso back around the first of February. Nicole and I tried unsuccessfully until like 1am to track her down, but thankfully we found her the next morning. Unfortunately, we noticed her belly starting to grow, and sure enough, she gave birth to 3 kittens on 4/9. Unlike the past, when we've bred her with another white ragdoll cat, one of these kittens looks very different from all the other kittens we've had:
Now we're pretty much up-to-date, and I can tell you about our trip to the panhandle of Florida. This trip was designed by Winshape to be a marriage service adventure (the first of its kind) partnering with Samaritan's Purse. We went with the Perrella's, and we all decided to leave a day early and spend the night on the way. We found a beautiful place a little over half way there at a golf resort (none of us golf!) which included a 3 bedroom 3 bath condo with pools and walking trails. It was the perfect beginning of what would be a very grueling but rewarding week! Here's a picture on the balcony of our condo, and then from brunch the next day on the road at a very cute hole in the wall local place that we fell in love with. Check out Marie's pancake wrapped bacon dippers! Awesome!
As we drove through Mexico Beach on our way to Panama City where we were staying, we could not believe the devastation!! It looked like the hurricane had happened only a few weeks ago, not 6 months ago! So I can't imagine how it looked immediately after the hurricane! We arrived at the place Winshape had reserved for us later that day (Sunday 4/14), and wow - what a place! It was a brand new 7 bedroom 7 bath house right on the Gulf of Mexico! Beautiful! The 2nd picture shows the bedroom we stayed in - gorgeous view of the water! We took a walk on the beach that evening with the Perrellas and that is the only time we made it to the beach the whole week! Check out that picture of the 8 bed bunk set that Marie was sitting on in the last picture! The place can sleep 22 people! It was incredible!
So, that was the cush part of the week - coming home to that beautiful place! The rest of the week was incredibly demanding in many ways! As our friend, Lee, said, he doesn't think he's ever worked that hard physically for a whole week his entire life, and I would have to concur with that! After a lovely dinner out at a nice restaurant Sunday night with our team of 4 couples, compliments of Bubba and Cindy Cathy (Chick-fil-a heirs), Monday morning we had to leave by 7am and after orientation and receiving our orange shirts, we met our fantastic team leader who drove the U-Haul full of the equipment we would need/use that week. Our first assignment was going through a house that was going to be razed the next day to try to retrieve as many items as we could for the homeowner. It was hard to believe 6 months later the conditions of that house and all the other houses around it! Below are some pictures from that first job. At the end of every job, the homeowner was presented with a Billy Graham Bible that we have all signed, and we pray for them. Chaplains come to every house and spend time with the homeowner during the time we're working there to provide emotional, moral, and spiritual support to them. It really is an incredible ministry that is the brainchild of Franklin Graham.
In the last picture above, our host couple is on the left (we absolutely LOVED them!!), and our Samaritan's Purse team leader was on the right (he was AMAZING!), with the final couple on our team (which we also ADORED!) standing next to him. I'm not going to go into the details of every job we did, but we usually did 2 jobs every day, be it re-tarping a house or hauling debris from the yard or bagging up moldy items in a house for the trash. The last day we spent at the host church helping to prep things in their sanctuary for the remodel, and then helping to clean and store in Samaritan Purse's trucks every item that was used during their almost 6 months there at that site, so they can be used at their next disaster recovery site (where ever that may be), since that was the last day of their time in Panama City.
Since we had 4 couples on our team, we each took a day (Monday - Thursday) to make breakfast for the team, and then make dinner for the team that night. Our host couple did an incredible job coordinating everything and buying all the food ahead for us! So a typical day saw us up between 6am-6:30am having our quiet times, getting ready, eating breakfast, and then heading out around 7am. Tuesday & Thursday we made our own sack lunches to take with us, but Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we had lunch (and Friday we had breakfast) provided to our team by Chick-fil-a. By the time we got back to the house at night and showered and had dinner it was close to 8pm before we all gathered back together and did a marriage devotional together written and provided by Winshape. Then it was drag our butts to bed (if we hadn't fallen asleep on the couch - Jodie and Marie - lol!), and do it again the next day. As I am re-reading what I wrote, it sounds a little like drudgery, but it was anything but! It was truly a joy to serve together, pray together, and share the love of Jesus with the people we served. We couldn't have asked for a better team!! We gelled the very first night together, and just grew in love and appreciation for each other as the week went on. Tim and I can't wait for the next opportunity to serve with Samaritan's Purse again!
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