Loads of Encouragement. Loads of Love.

Lately I have been spending a good deal of time thinking about my friends. I have spent only God knows how much time sitting wherever thanking Him for them. I was recently a leader for a DNow the topic was *insert drum roll here* community!

I have been blessed beyond belief with wonderful friends. Friends with whom I can call and talk about the "Jesus moment" I just had. I can tell all of my dreams and goals for the future, and no matter how ridiculous those may be they support me. They sit and listen to me talk about Africa...and talk...and talk...and talk... Until they are surely tired of it, but they still smile at me as a continue to tell them one more story, one more blog or book I read, one more orphanage I found I would love it visit. And still they ask me questions, they love me, support me.

I have also been so encouraged it blows my mind. I mean pretty much everywhere I turn lately points me towards more encouragement. It's wonderful. From friends at the BSM, my church, my church again, oh hey did I say my church? This week I received two notes in the mail. Notes that were just saying thanks for little things. I love getting real mail, not junk mail, and I love getting sweet notes from people, so putting the two together is magic.

I really have been reminded of just how much I love my church family. My Sunday School class is the most wonderful thing ever. Every Sunday I walk in and I'm greeted by the most loving women I've ever met. Every week I am blessed by them. I love that we have been studying the book of Mark for about two years and we just got to chapter 10. I love being in a room full of Godly women and hearing them share their life.

But just walking the halls of my church is encouraging. I mean have you ever walked around First Baptist Corinth? Isn't it wonderful? I relish my walk from my car to my class. Walking through the children's wing getting hugged, or high fived by mass amounts of children. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I'm just not sure why God decided to bless me with the best friends, and church family ever. But I'm just so glad He did. And if you're reading this I'm sure your on that list. So just know that I am so very thankful for you.

I have Decided to Follow Jesus

We sang those words today during the invitation at church. I love those words. I wanted to share them here. I hope you read them and dwell on them. Allow them to sink into your ears, and heart.

1. I have decided to follow Jesus;
   I have decided to follow Jesus;
   I have decided to follow Jesus;
   No turning back, no turning back.
2. The world behind me, the cross before me;
   The world behind me, the cross before me;
   The world behind me, the cross before me;
   No turning back, no turning back.
3. Though none go with me, still I will follow;
   Though none go with me, still I will follow;
   Though none go with me, still I will follow;
   No turning back, no turning back.
4. Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
   Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
   Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
   No turning back, no turning back.

I mean how wonderful is that? It's our lives as Christians in one song. 

I have decided to follow Jesus.

The world behind me, the cross before me. 

Though none go with me, still I will follow.

Will you decide now to follow Jesus?

No turning back, no turning back. 

p.s. Sorry I haven't posted in well months, it's just that school and life have gotten crazy this semester. I'll try to be better! 

Home?

Well I landed August 4th at about 4 pm. And well, it feels good to be home, but it's just really weird.

I honestly can't decide whether I feel at home, or feel like I just left home.

While driving some where the car I'm in doesn't almost get hit like 50 times. I took a shower using something other than a bucket and a cup. I wasn't woken up by a rooster or by people sweeping. I can't walk out my front door and see beautiful kids everywhere. I wont be riding a motorcycle anytime soon, which I'm sure makes my mother happy.

But I have gotten to spend time with my wonderful friends and family! I have loved getting to sit down and talk to my Mama, brothers, and some friends. I have missed so much!

Going to my wonderful church feels the most like home. I love sitting in my Sunday School class. I love being in Children's Church. I LOVE worship I can understand fully. [Not saying I didn't love worship in Nigeria, but I couldn't understand a good deal of it since it was in Igbo.]

To see more pictures you should check out my facebook. I have posted some there, not all by any means.

I also really wanted to say thank you to all of you. Your prayers this spring and this summer were appreciated more than you could know. Also knowing you guys read my blog means so much to me! I loved going to church and having so many people say something about reading my blog. It really meant  so much knowing that while I was across the ocean so many people were checking on me. Your love and support means SOOOOOOOO MUCH. I can't even begin to tell you.

But continue praying for A Place of Hope. The kids are still there. They are still growing and learning. There are still so many hurting people out there. And just I'm not there doesn't mean you should stop praying for them.

I really do love y'all dearly. I can't wait to see how God continues to change my life.

Goodbyes, Painting, Clinics, VBS, and Possible Returns.

I have less than one week left here. In fact I have 6 days left. 4 more days until I leave Opi, the village I am currently leaving in, and travel to Lagos while I wait for my flight. Can you feel my heart breaking? Because I can.

Goodbyes suck. I have decided I just don't like them at all. 

I can't wait to see my wonderful friends and family! I am so looking forward to the mass amounts of hugs, laughs and stories waiting for me in the States. But I don't want to leave the mass amounts of hugs, laughs, stories that are here for me.

We got some visitors this past week. A pastor, doctor, two college students and the Starlings daughter Anna. While they have been here we painted the boys flat. It is half blue and half red, for Chelsea and Manchester United. The team logos were just finished yesterday. The boys love it so much! For the past few days there have been an endless yells of “Manu for lifffffeee! Chelsea for deathhhhh!” And of course “Chelsea for liffffeee! Manu for deathhhhhhhh!” They also painted the main room in the girls flat, just light blue.

We have done two medical clinics. I got to go to one. I worked as the pharmacist with Bianca, one of the college students who came for the week. It was exhausting, but I enjoyed it. But I now know for sure, God did not create me to be a pharmacist.

VBS is this week. It ends today. It has been going really well. I am in games with Chuks. The kids loved Red Rover, and Tug of War best. The little kids are the hardest to do anything with. The age groups turned into 1 year to 5 years. Do you know how hard it is to get a 15 kids under 5 years old to play the same game? It's nearly impossible.

Tomorrow we are going to hike to a waterfall. It will be me second time to go there. It is sooo beautiful, but there are these bats that are everywhere. And I don't really like them, at all. But I'm excited!

The kids have been asking me when I am coming back. So I am thinking about planning on coming back for at least a short time next summer. I just don't know how long I can go without seeing their sweet little faces.

Well I should roll. I'll see your lovely faces next week! And I am pretty excited about it. I hope you get ready for story time! :]

The box.

I have two weeks left here. And goodness I just don't think it's enough time. I am already making plans on how and when to come back next summer. I just don't know how I ma going to go an entire year without seeing these sweet little faces.

Ever since the kids heard my parents were sending them a box they had been asking almost everyday "Brie! Will the box come today?!" I always told them it will come with Anna. They knew which day Anna would get here, so they had been counting down. 

Well Anna arrived yesterday, so THE BOX got here last night. We called them into my room one at a time so the others were lined up outside of our flat. Kara said it correctly when she said “It's like 12 year old girls waiting for a Jonas Brother's concert.” When some of the kids came in they couldn't even sit still they were so excited. They all left beaming. My favorite might have to be Baby Joy. She is 2 years old. I had my mom send her some dress up shoes, because she is ALWAYS wearing shoes that don't belong to her. So before she walked in our room I put the shoes on the floor. She walked in smiled and simply put them on and began to walk around without saying a word. But as soon as the shoe touched her foot she lit up. We had some trouble getting her to sit still enough to show her the new clothes and toys. She was soooo focused on those shoes.

The kids played with all their new toys all night. And last night for prayer about 5 of them came in wearing their new clothes. They looked SO cute! Good job Mom and Dad!

I don't have much time, so I'm sorry this is so short.

My flight lands in DFW in 14 days. I can't wait to see your beautiful smiling faces. I love you!  

For Miss. Kara Rainwater.

Well I have two more weeks left here. And it's just weird. Kara and I talk a lot about what we are going to miss. And how we are going to go through withdrawals without each other. I mean, spending almost every hour about 5 feet away from each other for 2 months and our beds are about 5 inches apart. Then we will suddenly be a few hours away. WEIRD.

I think I will dedicate this blog to Kara Morgan Rainwater. [Isn't that a cool last name?]

Well for those who don't know I met Kara last summer at Mission Arlington. She worked with Brittany and I for two weeks. She read something about me going to Africa on facebook and called to ask me about it. And then BAM! She was coming!

I'm so glad out of all the people who could have come with me, it was her. We get along really well. Like really well. I don't think we have had any problem at all. Our joke for this is “Well if I have to sleep a few inches away from you, I don't want to have to worry in my sleep.” But really it's just because she's stinking awesome. I LOVE our late night talks about what we are learning while we are hear, what we have experienced with God, and just life in general.

I am so thankful that God knew what He was doing when He brought her with me. I'm pretty sure I would have gone crazy without her. It's just good to have someone to sit and go over the day's events and to remind me of things I have to do.

I'm going to miss her terribly. Seriously. I may have to call her like 50 times a day just to tell her some random thought, joke, or story. I'm sure there will be many trips to Tyler to go visit her.

Side note: We have been painting for the past few days from when we wake up to the point we fall asleep. No exaggeration there. There has been nonstop painting. The flat and the staircase look great, but smell terrible right now. Our next painting project is the flat the boys stay in. One wall will be Manchester United, and another Chelsea. I'm pretty excited about it! Manchester and Chelsea are the two favorite soccer teams around here. Randomly you can here someone yell, “Manu for lifffffe!” And then someone will reply “Chelsea for lifffffe!” So their flat should be too legit to quit.

Oh, tonight Kara and I ate some lizard. This thing was a pretty beastly thing, it looked like a small komodo dragon . It was about a foot and half long, at least. Some of the boys killed it on the way back from the field. They cut it up and put it in a pot. Kara and I ate part of the tail, I thought it tasted a lot like fish. So add lizard to my list of foods I ate while in Nigeria.

There have been many times when I have thought in class, “You know I'll never use that in Africa.” One of those times was when I made an interactive powerpoint in my computers in the classroom class. Well just now I had about 10 kids around my computer looking at my little zoo.

I felt so accomplished that I was teaching kids with my own homework assignment. And they enjoyed it! Man if I ever felt like a teacher it was then!

Well I'm super tired, and we have more painting to do tomorrow! So goodnight!

One month left?

I love skype. I got to talk to some of my wonderful family the past few days. And I am so thankful for it! Man I didn't even realize how much I missed them! And the kids LOVED getting to see some of my family. They jump into the frame, seriously. Some of them jumped.

Well I have less than a month left. And I just can't believe it. I mean, I've lived in Africa for over a month already? Huh? I keep thinking sooner or later I'm going to wake up in my bed and find out it has been a dream. And everyday I thank God that I wake up still in Nigeria and find out it's not a dream. It is in fact reality.

I have been working on my nursing skills. I wont go into great detail on here, when I told Darby he was making faces so I'll spare you some details. But I'm pretty excited about it. I'm learning random things about how to clean wounds, and how to correctly treat things I have never seen before. I LOVE IT. Man is it weird I love this stuff so much? Kara thinks so. I jump at every chance to help Bev take care of someone.

The other night I cleaned a boy's big wound on his ankle. He got hit by a car back in January and still has a large burn on his ankle. I had watched Bev clean and out a bandage on it a few times. And she let me take the reins. I don't like knowing I'm causing someone pain, and the poor boy is in a great deal of pain when his leg gets cleaned. I had to keep reminding him that if I was a doctor I would not be so nice about it. Doctors here are not known for bed side manner. Bev was with someone who had a broken leg getting an X-ray and was crying because well, they had a broken leg. And the doctor yelled, “SHUT UP! Are you a baby?” And I have been told several stories of someone being told their family member died and the doctor told them to stop crying.

The point of that was I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself. But I felt bad that he was in so much pain.

I help in Children's Church every Sunday. But this week they started a class for the kids 7 and under that is separate from the older kids. I was in there, and I loved it of course! The lesson was about creation. I made up motions for each day so the kids could remember on what day what was created.

During church there is a time for testimonies about what God has been doing in people's lives. For the second time now someone brought a chicken as an offering. During a baby dedication the family brought a chicken as well. Kara and I are always thrown off just a bit by it.

Oh hey I got African clothes! And I really do love them! I give Tochi, staff member, a hard time for being so picky about what kind of fabric I buy for myself to wear. But when it comes down it, he picked some good stuff. I guess the boy's got taste. 

Here's a picture of Ugo and I for ya! I hope you enjoy!