Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Panama City Beach 2011

I went to PCB last week with my family and had a great time.  It has been a dream of mine, since I was about 9 years old, to swim with dolphins.  I found out a few weeks before we left that my dad wanted to take my nephew to this marine park, well we looked it up online to get prices and see what all was there & guess what?  They had a place to swim with dolphins.  I was so excited and was determined I was going to save the money to do it.  Well, my best friend offered to pay for half of it for my Christmas present, she knew how much I have always wanted to do it.  At this point I was beyond excited and could not wait to for it to get her.  It was so much fun & I am so glad I got to experience it.

Brennan :)

She was singing to me



Definetly would love to do that again sometime.  Awesome experience :).  Here are some other pics from the beach

The most amazing sunsets every night

Love this little boy!!





We had to ride the train a million times, he loved this!

My bro & my handsome nephew


These sting rays were very close to the shore the last 2 days we were there.  This was taken from our balcony on the 17th floor.  But the were in about ankle deep water and would wash up on the shore, we counted 30 one day.  It was crazy!!







I will add more later when I get them all uploaded :)


India & Nepal 2011

I have been back for almost 3 & I miss it so much!!  I would get back on a plane tomorrow if I could!  This was the best experience of my life!!  I was blessed to meet some really amazing people!!  I am so glad God made a way for me to go!  Everybody kept telling me that I wouldn't like the food (I am a very picky eater and usually don't try new things) and I wouldn't be able to handle it because I am a germ freak, but I just knew this is what God wanted me to do & the food wasn't that bad at all, it was actually really good :).

The people there were so happy to see us.  They would light up when we walked in a room.  They didn't judge us because we were different, they went out of they way to make us feel welcome.  They were very hospitable and welcomed us into their churches and their homes.  Some of them even cooked lunch & dinner for us.  The kids there were so precious and they would follow us around like we were movie stars or something :).  They loved having their pictures taken and we loved taking pictures with them.







I wish I could post all of them but I have way too many :).

One part of the trip that really touched me was when we went to this school and got to talk to some of the teenagers there.  Most all of them spoke English well, so they got to ask us some questions.  There was this one young lady that kept asking a lot of questions & the teacher said she had been asking questions about God.  You could tell she had a lot of questions and wanted to know more about God but we ran out of time with them.  My heart is still breaking for that young lady because I could tell she wanted to know more and we didnt' have time to really minister to her.  But, I know that God says we are just to plant the seed.  I pray that God will cultivate that seed and that she will come to know HIM as her personal Lord and Savior.  I loved the time we got to spend with the kids and the youth there.  They loved seeing us and welcomed us , some of the little girls had taken time to make all of us flowers, they were so excited that we had come.  I wonder what our churches would look like in America if all of our youth, and adults, were that welcoming when new people (that are totally different from them) come into our churches.

Here are some pictures, I wish I could put more but I had 600 :)

This is the church that my church helped to rebuild

We got to help do a BSI (Bible Skills Institute) graduation




I loved that the buildings were so colorful :)


Our group with Steve Cahun at the Refugee Camp

Butanese Refugee Camp


We were so excited to have KFC :)

This little boy stole all of our hearts.  His name is Mischel & he was precious.  This is Heera & Margaret's son (our awesome hostesses while in Silguri)


Nap :)

This is where they go to worship

They bathe in the river, along with all the goats, pigs, & cattle :(

This was our transportation from the Indian border to the Nepal border :)

On our way to the airport, a little nervous for my first long flights :)

Our room in Kolkata (Calcutta)

Someone lives here.  I am so blessed & take so much for granted!!


Getting ready to board the plane from Kolkata to Silguri

Finally at our destination :)

Some of the food we ate, actually really good!

1st eye camp

Beautiful view outside Heera's home

Some of the girls at the church picked flowers for us, so sweet!


Nepal :)


We did 4 eye camps and saw around 800 people.  It was tough to see some of them because they had so many problems that they thought we were going to be able to fix them.  But they were so excited that we had come and kept thanking us for being there.  It really made me realize how much I take for granted!  We had around 50 salvations, Praise the Lord!!

We made some great friends while we were there!  Thank you to Heera Singh & his wife Margaret for opening up their home to us.  Margaret cooked for us and it was wonderful!!  They were such a blessing to us!!  Also, the week wouldn't have been the same without our awesome translators, David, Kerry, & Napoleon, we couldn't have done it with out them.

I will try to upload more pics later on another post.  There are just so many, it's hard to pick.