Never seen a day so beautiful
with the grass this green.

The clouds cast running shadows on the ground.

They try to race me and win.

Gray on the bottom, white on top.

Discolored like the dirty socks in my clothes hamper.

Puffy.

The clouds beckon me to join them

flying

high in the sky.

To become a part of the air.

I swim through the sky.

In about 14 hours, I will be on my way to Haiti, rather God will be leading me there. Though I am excited to do somehting I've never done before, go to another country, and have fun playing soccer with children, I must make sure not to overlook the purpose of this trip. I am going to serve God, to do his will, to bring his love and mercy and peace and hope to the people in Haiti. And I believe that among all the destitution and brokennes down there on the island of Hispaniola, God is there.

I feel so blessed that God chose me and is using his hands to guide me to Haiti. I can only pray that I will be able to have the strengh and compassion needed to work so that the Haitians can see Jesus through my work and my actions. God truly is great and we really are his body.

Honestly, I am not afraid of being unsafe or scared down there in Haiti. What I fear the most is that the Lord is going to break my heart down there. That he's going to show me things and introduce me to kids that are going to hit my heart so hard that it will be impossible to forget. I'm afraid I'm going to want to do more, and that I'm not going to want to leave Haiti... But maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself. All I know now, is that I am so so so thankful for God's prescence in our lives, and that without him, I would be nothing.

home, sweet home

Just spent a long weekend back at home. It's getting stranger and stranger to go back to my parents house, beacuse it's were I lived and grew up for for almost thirteen years of my life, but it's not home anymore. Regardless of that, North Carolina was very warm and sunny this weekend and I enjoyed sitting out on the front steps and just watching the world go by. It was also great getting to see my mom and dad and just spend time with them, watching movies and playing games and all.

I had the plan going into this weekend that I needed to talk about some pretty heavy things with them too. And we did have those discussions. (Unfortunately) the outcome of the conversations may not have gone ideally like I wanted, but I have faith that things are going to work out. Let's just say that I am very unsure of my future-- and even the fall-- right now, but I am accepting that and trying really hard to just hand everything over to God and not to worry at all, because I truly believe that he known the plan for me and that it is a good one....

These hands,
they hold on to earthly things--
but this heart,
with heavenly grace it sings.

The Trees

Tonight,
the tips of the trees were on fire.
They burned with the setting sun.
Auburn red.
Flames engulfing the earth.
They burned as the day came to a close.

Standing straight
their branches envelope the earth.
They are stationed with good posture,
as if they went to Catholic school and were forced to stand up straight in line or else get rapped on the hand with a ruler.
They are like soldiers,
stationary. They cannot move but upwards,
towards the heavens.

Their golden bark glows in the light
as it dims. Their naked limbs are cold
with the coming darkness of night.

They beckon to me to join their party
in the mysterious forest beyond,
to dance underneath them and hear my
heavy feet crunch the dead leaves below them.

I look up and see the sun slipping from branch to branch,
all the way down to the mossy ground.

Give my tiny hands needle and thread
and they will work to mend this broken world.
Rest on my shoulder your frowning head
and it will provide comfort for your woes.
I will lend you my ear,
again and again,
as you pour out your heart and soul to me--
if only your sorrows could be free.

Give me supplies and I will go make,
a tower to heaven for all the world to take.
By His grace we are saved.
He is the maker and I am only the clay.
Justice and peace, love transcending all.... I pray.

Day by day, my steeps quicken with speed,
fastening down for the ever growing need,
that the world continues to bear.
She gives birth to more tears every hour
than a gentle smile could ever hope to devour,
but all hope is not lost yet,
for what's that I see on the horizon--
community, freedom, good-will,
and grace.

One day,
love will be all that is left
to fill up this empty sace.

"Your voice is all I hear somehow"

That's from a Joshua Radin song (Im becoming obsessed with his
music :) ) and I love it because that's exactly how I want to feel about the Lord. I want his voice, his guidance and direction, to be the only thing I hear, the only prescence in my life. I wish I could say that is how it is now, but I would just be kidding myself. It't not easy to train your mind to focus only on God; it takes practice and trial and error. It's hard, because the devil is trying to sneak in there and grab my thoughts and my actions.

But I patiently and persistantly pray for strength to keep my eyes on what is good, holy, and unseen.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (1 Corinthians 4:17-18)

( I didn't take this picture, I just found it online.)

ISN"T HE CUTE!!!!!???

So basically, this was me all weekend. I think I got 11 hours of sleep on Friday night and 12 hours last night. And let me just tell you, the cure for the common cold is totally SLEEP! Sleep + as much Vitamin C as you can get + Zicam cold medicine + juice = getting well fast. I feel so much better than I did last Wednesday and Thursday.

I know I usually post poems and such, but for some reason my creativeness in me has been MIA lately. I'm sure if I sat down and didn't stop thinking untill I pounded out some verses that rhymed, but I hate forces creativity. The best creativitiy comes from passion and from your heart- it's natural.

It's been a great weekend though- Friday I got to Skype (i just discovered Skype and I LOVE IT!) with my best friend from home, Janice, and it was great to talk with her and catch up. She showed me some really cool pictures that a friend of hers, Aaron, took while he was in Haiti. Here are the photos she showed me:

And the reason I'm so excited about these pictures and about sharing them is because I'm going to HAITI in exactly TWO WEEKS!

I'm going with a group of seven other UMD students and recent college graduates through a ministry on campus called THE GATHERING. We're going on a missions trip to Percin, which basically sounds like a little ghetto in a town called Petit Guave. We're going to be focusing most of our time and effort on spending it with the children in this village. I hear we'll be playing lots and lots of soccer (which I'm super excited about) and doing educational activities with them. Another big part of the reason we are going here is to host workshops with the adults in the village to teach them about the importance of family relationships, becuase evidently within Haitian culture, parents don't really associate themselves with their own children and don't even play with their kids.

Can you imagine a five year old boy trying to take care of his newborn baby sister all by himself?

Well, unfortunately that's how it is there- and were hoping to teach them ways in which the adults can be more interactive with their kids and how they can ensure that their children live healthier and better lives.

And I have to raise a totall of $1800 to be able to go, which is alot, but I know its going to be totally worth it, and I still need about $700, so I'm just hoping the Lord will provide somehow- and I know that he will.

So anyways, we'll be in Haiti for a week and I'm just so excited to start new freindships with the Haitians and see what God has in store for us to do there.