again I say REJOICE!!

Since I don't have an official office, I work from home, Elevation, local coffee shops and if I don't need my computer, the park. This afternoon I decided I didn't want to work from home anymore so I made my way to my favorite Starbucks. I enjoy all the noises of the coffee grinder, the chatter of friends catching up on life, the huge comfy chair I'm sitting in, the wonderful smell of coffee and the warmth of the sunshine streaming in on me through the window-all while listening to some Kirk Franklin. I do love me some gospel. Sigh.....life is good.

For the first time in a long time I feel content, at peace...a true sense of happiness. I know that happiness definitely can be determined by circumstance but I am happy and I am going to soak it in. I've been working on having joy no matter what craziness life may bring. It's been challenging but knowing that God is faithful really helps. Work is crazy right now and I try not to worry too much on the future of Mission Year in Charlotte. I know that it is in God's hands and I trust that He has plan that exceeds anything that I could dream up. I feel a peace about the future and life in Charlotte, it's something I can't really explain but I am very thankful for it. I am slowly learning how to let go of every aspect of my life and let God be in control.

life after love week

It's been over a month since I've blogged-I'm such a slacker! There has been a lot going on lately, I'll try to give a quick overview. Love Week happened and it was a huge success!! I'm not sure if I have mentioned Love Week before but basically it was a week long volunteer event at Elevation. The idea was to have at least 5,000 people from Elevation volunteer 5,000 hours at various organizations around the city in one week-yes, it was as crazy as it sounds! I was one of the people that were running it/ in charge of everything....I pretty much got no sleep that week but it was worth it. All the several months of hard work and planning paid off. We exceeded our goal and had a total of 10,5581 volunteer hours served in Charlotte that week! We made over 12,000 sandwiches for the homeless, rebuilt playgrounds, cleaned up parks, painted, sorted clothes, scrubbed walls, picked up trash, served food, did extreme makeovers to offices, worked in schools and much more all in that week. Plus we were on the news and radio multiple times!

I wasn't sure what I thought of Love Week when I was first asked to help out. I'm not a fan of making sure everyone knows how many good things you are doing for others and I don't like when people think that volunteering for one hour every few months is all they need to do. My goals and ideas on success for Love Week were a bit different than most everyone's else's. I not only wanted to have my events run smoothly with a ton of people but also to open their eyes to the needs of the city. I wanted to make sure people understood who they were serving and how real homelessness and poverty is. I wanted people not to feel sorry for them but to see the face of God in them and allow God's pure and amazing love to shine through them. People began to ask questions about homelessness, injustices, poverty and how to love others who are different than us-it was so great! I absolutely love talking about those things! It's my hope that the people from Elevation will continue to volunteer and serve in Charlotte.

Even though Love Week was crazy, there were several fun things that helped me to stay sane and stress free: v-day package from my momma, swinging with Sam, coffee dates, playing in the snow, lunch with Queen, v-day package from my wonderful ATL friends, bowling, painting rocks, dance parties at Crisis, Lost, and of course many trips to Target. I've been helping plan Love Week since I moved here so life is weird without it. I was sick most of last week which I believe is a result of lack of sleep...no fun. My mom came to visit for a few days-it was sooooo great! That's all for now kids, I need to go to sleep! I promise it won't be a month before I write again....good night!