Story of Love

My Precious...

No one can understand the joy that a niece or nephew can bring to your life until you experience it. Especially for those who do not have kids of their own quite yet. Graham and I have had a BLAST with Abby! She is almost 5 months old and gets more and more precious every day. I have LOVED watching her personality bloom - she is smiling, laughing, and talking so much recently! Above are a few of my favorite pictures of Abby. We went to the park with her this weekend so as soon as I get the pictures from my camera to my computer, I will put them up!

Ohh Samford...

The weekend that we returned from Kenya, I had the most special treat ---- my friends from college came in town and stayed with me for the weekend! I cannot even begin to say how much fun we had and how great it was to see them! I miss these girls so much and although I'm thankful for phone calls, emails, facebook, etc. that help us stay in touch, nothing compares to spending face to face time with each other! We went to Gilchrist (our favorite lunch spot) in Mountain Brook, walked around Samford and visited the ADPi house, had dinner at Cocina..of course...went to Step Sing, talked about life, and laughed the entire time. So pretty much..we pretended like we were in college again! It was wonderful and such a reminder of how blessed I am with precious friends!

Overwhelmed...

One month later and here I am finally getting back to the blog. Needless to say, it's been a busy month! Kenya was an absolutely amazing trip. It was such a blessing to see the beautiful faces of the people we met last year, and just as great to meet new people. To explain the people of Kenya in just a few words is near impossible. They are the most gracious, beautiful, joyous people...in the midst of the most oppressive, dark, poverty-stricken circumstances. They are truly amazing.

I put together an album of pictures on facebook, but there are way too many to post on the blog. If you would like to see pictures, feel free to visit that album here.

Being honest, I struggled so much more in Kenya this year than I did last year. Everywhere you turn in Kenya there is poverty. Even on the cleanest of streets, it is dirty. Even in the most developed of areas, there is a slum on the borders. Now I realize that there are areas of Kenya that are not like this...but for the most part this is how it is. The emotional burden that I felt while I was there...and continue to feel right now...is so heavy. I felt overwhelmed the entire time I was there. Now don't get me wrong...I LOVED being there and cannot wait to return...I'm just being honest here. But I'll tell you what hit me the most while I was there. While I felt this heavy sense of sorrow and helplessness...the beautiful people of Kenya were smiling, happy, laughing, playing, holding my hands, playing with my hair, wanting their picture taken...this is all they know and they are thankful for the little that they have. Not thankful in the way that we as Americans are thankful; they are TRULY, TRULY thankful for EVERY little thing that they have. Nothing is taken for granted. I learn more from the 7 year olds I play with in Kenya than I almost ever do while sitting in Birmingham, Alabama.

God is doing mighty things through Compassion International - He is changing children, their families, their communities, and ultimately their countries. He is showing them that their hope does not lie in the slums in which they live, but their hope lies in the fact that they have a Lord and Savior in Jesus Christ who is passionate about the poor and who loves them immensely.

Andy Blanks, who went on the trip with us, kept up with his blog while we were in Kenya and seeing that he is a writer, he articulated everything beautifully while we were there....If you would like to read more details about our trip, please visit his blog...http://andyblanks.com/...even if you're not interested in our trip to Kenya, his blog is worth visiting!

Here are just a few pictures from our time there...