So, Allume has passed, and I’m still finding myself pondering some of the same things that the Lord has had me pondering for months now. Much of it, I shared in my session at Allume on Blogging as Discipleship.  I’m going to share a few snippits from that session below, but if you want the full on thing (complete with Monty Python impersonation) then you can download my session, along with the whole bundle of almost 30 other incredible speaker sessions HERE!

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I’ve always been a people person. I am an extrovert if there ever was one, but I think the proverbial “lights came on” in my mind when I realized something years ago about myself.

I love a good party. I love to plan them to the enth degree….to decorate…to create atmospheres and environments where people can just come and have a good time.

I’ve been decorating for Christmas, as I’m sure many of you have been as well.  We’ll host a Christmas party this year at my home again, and so the decorating gets amped up a notch.  It’s even more fun to go to great lengths when you get to share it with others.  But… as much as I love to create and prepare, in the end…none of that matters to me as much as the people who walk into my home. When the first person walks through my door, worrying about the environment is done…and the people are what’s important to me.

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Hop on over to the Allume blog today to read the rest and to see the site’s gorgeous new facelift!

Ok, ok, so maybe alluding to a “shot to the heart” is a bit too much Bon Jovi meets Pulp Fiction drama to describe the shots that I actually got yesterday.  Honestly, it was more like an into-the-shoulder-muscle sort of pain that leaves you feeling the next day like maybe you’d worked out really hard the morning prior.  For a kid who got allergy shots a couple of times a week for the better part of 10 years, the needles don’t really put the fear in me.  Besides….here’s a tip for the shot-a-phobic…DON’T LOOK!

In order to head to Bangladesh with Food for the Hungry in January, I had to get fully vaccinated.  Apparently, according to the US State Dept, in case of any major illness in Bangladesh, we better hope that I get my butt airlifted to a different country.  They didn’t list a single medical facility that they recommend in the entire country.

I went yesterday morning to our local Passport Health office to get my vaccinations and to learn a bit during the consultation about the things to expect from my time in Bangladesh.

So check it out…

The good-natured nurse and I may or may not have added additional syringes, bandaids, alcohol swabs, and tylenol to this scene to make you feel more sorry for my aching arms.  In the end, I really just had to get 2 shots.

I did come home also though with a packet of pills to take before my trip and during to keep me from getting Malaria.  I also got a handy dandy little kit of spray to keep mosquitos from biting me through my clothes, 12 hour mosquito lotion that this mosquito-magnet needs to apply both morning and night, and some sting ease in case one of the little boogers finds a hole in my bite-shielding armour!  And um, did you know that malaria carrying mosquitos bite only during the night, and dengue fever carrying mosquitos are only during the day?  Basically, mosquitos in other countries are fierce little creatures and so I intend to employ my handy little mosquito avoidance kit while I’m in Bangladesh!

Wanna know what really did scare the crap out of me (pun totally intended) from my visit to Passport Health though?

Traveler’s Diarrhea!

I am not even kidding you!  Of all the topics and diseases they warned me about, diarrhea is the one they spent the most time addressing!  Make sure to buy hand sanitizer wipes (hello…especially in a utensil-less country that only eats with hands!), drink plenty of fluids, take mini gatorade packages for bottled water, check the manufacturer seal on bottled water to make sure the bottle wasn’t refilled with tap water and the lid glued back on.  Only eat meat that’s been thoroughly cooked, don’t eat any leafy greens or fruits that have been rinsed in the water, put a towel over the faucet to remind yourself not to brush your teeth with the water, and the list goes on.  And basically if you fail to follow these things, you’re risking the runs….and a serious case of them!  The handy dandy kit they gave me that is the largest in size and contents, was the one for diarrhea!  Antibiotics in case I get it, immodium to stop it, more immodium to stop it, electrolytes, and a powdered something or another that is pretty much my drinkable IV drip in case it’s out of control!  And if that doesn’t work…hope for an airlift!?!

As a friend said to me the other day, and I laughed because of this most hilarious video about funny things Christians say, let’s just hope we have some serious “traveling mercies!”

Watch the funny video just for a good laugh, start praying for our trip now, and get excited that you guys get to join me as we head on our Food for the hungry Bloggers trip to Bangladesh in January!

 

I was on a phone call the other day with a wise new friend.  Somehow in the conversation, my friend brought up the words from Psalm 77 about how the Lord makes a way where there was none.

I’ve been thinking about those words quite a bit since.  That day even, I knew I had more to chew on with those words…the reminder that God doesn’t need a way that makes sense or is obvious to get us where he wants us to go.

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Pop on over to Allume today to read the rest of this story!

Once when I was about 15, I remember going to the grocery store at the beach with my uncle.  For some reason he didn’t wear shoes, and I was mortified.  He told me though, that if he walked with authority into the store, that noone would even notice that he wasn’t wearing shoes.  I cringed the whole time thinking that the “no shirt, no SHOES, no service” sign was going to jump off the wall and not allow us to buy anything.  That never happened though, and not a soul in the place noticed that he was shoeless.  (Can I say how badly I just wanted to write…”Not a sole in the place” ….oh friends…pun intended…pun totally intended!)

Anyhow…My point is, that if you do just about anything with authority, you can get away with it!  Or…clothingly speaking, if you put an outfit together with a single piece that demands attention, then just wait and see what you can pull off!

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I know you’re dying to know what that essential clothing item is in my opinion, so hop on over to the style blog, Together in 10, today to find out!  I’m a contributor over there and would love to have you join me!

Breaking News ya’ll!

Here’s the short version.

Through a series of crazy, God-sized events and introductions a few weeks ago, I met this really fantastic gal named Lindsey who works with Food For the Hungry.  We had a beer and talked real life.  We connected.

Then, a week or so later, I got an email from my fun new friend asking if I’d ever be interested in going on a blogging trip with Food for the Hungry.  My answer….”Um….YES!”

Another week later she emailed me and said something to the effect of, “I know this is a long shot, but we have an opening in a FH Bloggers trip we’re taking in January to Bangladesh.  Any chance you’re interested?”

Say WHAT?!?!!!

Ummm…..YES!

Someone pinch me!

I asked my hubs, we prayed about it, and knew that this was an answer to a prayer we’ve been asking the Lord about me and a mission trip for about 6 months now.

Sooo….the short story is that at the end of January I’m headed with a Food for the Hungry team of people to Bangladesh.  I have no idea, besides that God is crazy good, how I ended up with this phenomenally talented group of bloggers, writers, and photographers.  Seriously…me.  Little ol me.

I’ll be writing every day that we’re in Bangladesh (apparently pronounced BONG-la-desh according to some friends of mine who corrected my Southernese butchering of it.)  We’ll share stories, pictures, people, places and real life with you!  So check out the page HERE that’s set up for our trip to learn more!  Can’t wait to share it all with you friends!

Somebody pinch me!  Seriously….PINCH ME!

Photo credit: A Crowded Market in Dhaka, Bangladesh

You know what, we should really just call a spade a spade around here and say that when my life gets crazy, my blog gets quiet.  I’m a writer (wow…feels weird to say that) but before that I’m a liver (and not the kind in your abdomen.)  I want to LIVE and hopefully lately, I’ll get around to writing about all that life happening around me.

So….alot of life has been happening around me.  Like this….

These are some of the crazy peeps I call my friends.  Not a one of them lives in my town, but I tell you what….my heart is knit to theirs.  These are some of the world changers that I had the chance to spend 4 days with at Allume in Harrisburg, PA last week.

In case you missed it, I had a load of stuff to do for Allume.  I was in charge of hospitality for the conference of 400+ people, mostly women, who all love Jesus first, and mostly all blog as well.

Here’s a little sneak peek of something I did (with the help of my incredible friend, Darlene and my new and super-powered friend Carey.)  The Allume stage.

This photo was taken by my sweet new friend, Mandy, from Biblical Homemaking. Oh my words…this girl, aside from having a heart of gold, has the most incredible hair I’ve EVER EVER EVER seen. I could have hair like that maybe…for like $700 worth of extensions….but then they’d fall out, and I’d be worse off.  Nevermind.

The table decorations were pretty awesome too….but you know what…I don’t have a picture of those either.  I’ll find one though….

Ya’ll….I didn’t have time to take a single picture beyond a bunch of silly ones in the Smilebooth.  I had too much to do….too many little details to take care of, too many tiny fires to make sure never got fanned to flame, and then honestly….I just had too much real life connection that needed to happen. One day I’ll take more pictures in the midst of too much fun….one day!  To make matters worse, my phone isn’t an iphone, so I don’t have instagram!  I know….and really, if you want to know what a tekkie fossil I am….I still have a hotmail account too.  Will you all still be my friends? 🙂

So let me tell you what happened at Allume that kinda knocked my socks off.

The first night I was set to give all of the announcements.  The boring kind though.  Stuff like….”please don’t take the table decor”, “if you need a special meal and didn’t sign up for one…sorry about that, but too bad”, “if your baby cries…it’d be awesome if they could do it outside of the room where there’s a speaker”, “some sessions are switching around a bit”….stuff like that.  None of it exciting, but all of it important.

Well, a funny thing happened while I was at the farm (what is that quote from?)  Somewhere in the announcements, I suddenly realized people were laughing at me.  Literally laughing.  My mind kinda jumped around to places like….is there broccoli in my teeth, is there toilet paper on my shoe?!  And then I had this strange moment where I realized that people thought I was funny…apparently really pretty funny because they kept giggling.  Let me just say that you don’t NOT notice when a room of like 450 people are laughing at you.  I think I even exclaimed my surprise out loud at how funny I thought it was that they thought I was funny. More laughing….

I have absolutely no idea….no earthly idea what I did or said that was so funny, so I just kept on doing the announcements.  When I came back to the table, Sarah Mae (my friend and one of the conference hosts) said that she thought that I was funny and that I just HAD to do the announcements the rest of the conference.  So I did.

And ya’ll, it was so stinking fun!  I had absolutely no idea that I’d enjoy speaking like that in public.  And somewhere in there, I found my “element.”

My friend Tsh said last year at the conference during her keynote that, “when we’re in our element, we feel the Lord’s pleasure on us.”  Another friend after the conference said how much he enjoyed watching me “do my thing” on the stage.  Ya’ll….I had absolutely NO IDEA until this past weekend that I even had a “thing.”  But there it was….

I never once felt stressed about the decorations, about the food, about any of the details that go into making an event beautiful, because I knew I could do that part.  And the best thing about all of that was that people noticed.  Not noticed in a “give me accolades” sort of way….but people noticed and felt loved.  Good food and pretty spaces make women feel special, and my heart felt full that I was able to do that for this group of amazing women.

I spoke in a session on Saturday, and I nearly threw up before I did.  I was SO nervous.  I’ve never spoken before, and now suddenly I was funny to all of these people for the past 2 days.  God had given me a real word to share though…one that was serious, and I was suddenly afraid that funny might not be able to do “for real.”  So I prayed with my friend Laura (who was speaking at the same time,) and I cried because I was so nervous, and then I went in and led a session.

And I think it went pretty well.

It’s not up yet, but once the audio file is uploaded, I’ll post here to let you know, so that if you want, you can hear what I had to say.

God didn’t stop there though….because He’s just bigger than all that we dare to hope for.  He’s given me the opportunity to pour into Allume even more next year and to be more involved in all that goes into this amazing thing.  So this coming year, I have more work to do for this conference that has taken residence in a place in my heart…and I couldn’t be more excited!

So if you’re an Allume attendee, if you hope to be, or if you’re a reader here in this space, I’d sure love your prayers as I take on more responsibility to be a part of making this conference happen.  It’s a space where writers come together and get filled up so that they can pour out.  And I love every single thing about that.

Here I am, with Darren Rowse, aka ProBlogger on the final night.  He’d shared a really amazing story that morning about a mudcake that turned out to be one of those profound moments in life (my friend Elizabeth Esther shares really eloquently about the story HERE.)  We had a mudcake made for Darren and presenting it to him may have been one of the highlights for me of the conference….I do love a funny moment!  Darren got to have his cake….and eat it in front of everyone too….forkless!

I’m rambling now.  I woke up at 2:30 and won’t go back to bed until tonight.  My mind is racing and my heart still feel so so full.  God is so much fun, and as my friend Wendy says, sometimes he just shows up as “Jehovah Sneaky” and surprises us with something we’d never have thought of ourselves.  I found my element friends….and now I sure do wonder how the Lord will use it!

I’m back from PA with loads of greatness to share about the weekend at Allume, but I just can’t go into all of that greatness without first sharing what woke me up in the middle of the night.  In fact…I’m going to pay the respects that are properly due and not even share it all in the same post.

At 3:30 am, I jolted awake in a panic.  My heart was pounding and I had to flip on the light to make sure that the place that my mind had just been as I slept wasn’t in fact my reality.  Whew….it wasn’t….for me, but it was for some.

My sister lives in New Jersey and all I could think about were the massive trees lining their yard with wind howling all around and water flooding over the banks of the river into homes there.  I thought about my new friend Darren who got stuck thousands of miles from his family (who are in Australia, no doubt worried that Daddy is stuck in the middle of one of the biggest storms in history.)  I thought about all of the incredible friends I made at Allume who couldn’t get home because of grounded flights, and I worried for my new friends who actually live in the pathway of this “Frankenstorm.”  I worried…..and panicked….and reminded myself that my God is big enough to calm the raging seas…even if he didn’t this time.

Four years ago, my family’s Christmas card picture was taken from this park that now looks just like a part of the river.

It was so real ya’ll….this dream I had.  I was at the beach in Florida with my family.  My husband often doesn’t come down until later because he has to work, so I was there with my parents and the boys.  The condo where we stay is right on the beach, and so when a hurricane warning was issued, my spirit went into get-out-of-dodge mode.  For some reason in the dream, my parents thought we’d be ok to stay, but it didn’t sit well with me, so I threw my boys in the car and started to leave the island.  The storm got worse and we eventually had to stop.  From the looks of things by the road, the random restaurant where we stopped seemed to be away from the edge, so we went in and took cover with the restaurant owner.  I looked out the window of the restaurant only to realize that it was even closer to the water’s edge than the condo where my parents were was.  I saw waves swelling to stories high and water already at the edge of the building.  We were worse off than if we’d never left at all.  I tried to call my husband, but the signal was down.  I clung to my 2-year-old who doesn’t know how to swim, and my 6-year-old knew that things weren’t good.  The water came in and the building began to fill up.  It was like that scene in Titanic where the ship levels are filling and people are trapped below.  We were about to drown…..

And then I woke up.  Panicked.  It wasn’t real.  It’s not real….it’s not real….calm down…pray.  And then I pulled out my computer because somewhere out there I knew that waters really were rising and buildings really were flooding.  And then I prayed.  And prayed some more.  I spent an hour in the middle of the night praying peace over those living a nightmare last night.  Prayed peace and supernatural wellness over babies carried by hand from the NYU hospital whose secondary generator failed.  Peace over parents who suddenly found themselves fighting for their tiny PICU and NICU babies’ lives.

Why didn’t God calm the storm?  Why is creation raging?  Why are homes lost and lives destroyed?

And the only answer that I can muster is that we live in a fallen world, but I do know…I KNOW THAT I KNOW that God is good….and he isn’t called Redeemer for nothing.

Join me in praying peace, blessings, and prosperity over the lives affected by this storm over the next few days and weeks?  I stand with the confidence that the God who created the seas can most certainly redeem the havoc that they wreak.

And tomorrow….tomorrow I’ll tell you about Allume.

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