Happy Birthday, Ethan!

Happy 7th Birthday, Ethan! 

You are one of the coolest little kids I know and one of the best nephews anyone could ask for! 

I hope you have a great birthday and have lots of fun! 

I love you! 

Aunt Jessica

More Photos from This Summer

WARNING: MANY PICTURES AHEAD!!

Here are some more pictures from my summer internship. 

I can't tell you how much this summer meant to me, but hopefully soon I will write a post about the rest of it.

For now, enjoy these pics of these precious kids who stole my heart! 

:-) 

Sweet Laila. :-) 

 

Levonta!

Isjiaa!

Me and Erin one of my co-workers!

Satoryia steering the boat!

Jacolby helping with the sails.

Lemarkques and Me

Demetrius and Me

Levonta and Me :-)

Shakkarria!

Petting a snake!

Turtles!

Some of our Kids who were old enough got to go to Camp Blue Lake for a week. They love going and it was a challenging time, but it was also really great! This is the kids arriving at Camp!

Levonta and Satoryia on the slide! 
This ended up being one of my favorite photos of the summer!

  Curtis and Me. 

Isaiah

My girls from Whistler that got to come to camp! Tiffany, Brandi, and Satoryia.

This is one Sunday! We hadn't had many kids come to church all summer, but our last Sunday we gave out awards to all the kids that had come to our Kids Camp throughout the summer and these are the ones that came that day. We had 20 kids come and some of their families even came! It was amazing! We weren't expecting anyone to show up and then most of them did!

Levonta on Messy Day!

Oneka and Laila

Markel on the slip-n-slide! They absolutely LOVED this!

       This one is very blurry, but I like it. Me with Brandi, Shakarria, Isjiaa, and Jacolby.

Hope for Orphans

My sister just posted about this and I loved it! 

So, I decided to dedicate a post to it as well! 

:-)

Have you ever heard about The Vintage Pearl? Well, she has a blog and also a business that makes hand-crafted jewelry. I looked through her store today and loved all the stuff that she has! I've never been big on jewelry (mostly just necklaces and my wrist is covered in random stuff ha), but her stuff is really beautiful. I really liked it.
Well, they just released this Hope for Orphans necklace. 

Isn't it awesome? 

It's a ready to ship item too! So, there won't be a long wait to receive it! 

Even better, all profits from this necklace go towards families that are wanting to adopt!
We can help the families and help the children/babies that are waiting for homes. 

This wonderful little necklace is only $25.00! 

A wonderful contribution to a wonderful cause! 

:-)

Stand Firm...Through It All

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

1 Corinthians 15:58

Picture this. We find something new and exciting. Something that we cannot wait to get our hands on and get fully involved with. It goes great, could not be better. Everything is going the way it is supposed to, the way that you dreamed. Your expectations of what you wanted to happen were exceeded. 

Suddenly, something happens. One of your plans gets disrupted. One of your other plans depended on that one, so now it is messed up. People start noticing that something is up and that things are different. All your hard work and time is starting to feel like it was for nothing. You wonder why you went along with this in the first place. A good idea it may have been, but now, you feel as though you were just set up for failure. 

What good could come out of it now? You have nothing left to give. No more time, energy, or willingness. 

It is hard to keep going along with something when you cannot see the outcome. Sometimes, that is what it is like when following Christ. But, we serve an Almighty God who has the ultimate power and authority! We work for Him in the hopes that the Kingdom will be expanded. That is a big task! So, of course it can be discouraging when we do not see any results. 

This is where our faith comes in. We have to remember that we are working for the One who saved us. The One who deserves all of our praise and all of our life. He sees the outcome of our work. When we feel like it ended in a failure or a dead-end, He sees the true outcome. We plant and He sows. 

We are building cathedrals that we can not see.

We have to stand firm and trust that our God is who He says that He is. We have to remember that our struggles, failures, and hard work is not in vain. We have to rest in the fact that we are working for a Holy God and He will not let us fail. It is all for His glory, so that His name will be resounded! We cannot let anything move us. We cannot compromise our beliefs for anyone or anything. We have to give all or nothing. God cannot have only part of our lives, He has to have all of it! He created us for a purpose! We need to live out that purpose. We need to claim that we are children of God sent to do His work. We need to remember that nothing will ever be put in our path that we cannot handle. 

For in our weaknesses we find strength.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

Romans 8:28

Cleaning/Packing Update!

Remember that picture I posted with all the junk and clothes all over my floor?? 

Well, if you didn't get to see it, it looked a little something like this...

Yeah I know. It looks like a tornado ripped through my room! 

But, now! I have sifted through all of that and rolled so many shirts that I actually have a floor again!! See! 

So exciting, I know! 

But, this means a couple of things. My room is getting cleaner (which Mom likes) and this also means that I am halfway through with packing for going back to school!

T-2 Days until Home Sweet Tuscaloosa! 

:-)

Today I went with Mom to this little antique store not too far from us called The Country Goose.

Meanwhile, I have 4 days before I go back to Tuscaloosa for another semester and no packing has been done...what-so-ever. 

This is what my floor looks like right now...

Yeah...I just jump over it everyday or I just don't go on that side of my room. I'm just living out of that duffel bag that is under there somewhere. I mean, I have been living out of for the past 2 months, so it's pretty natural haha

:-)

Today I purchased something online from Apple.

The iPod Touch.
I have an iPod, but it is only 2GB. Meaning it holds 500 songs.
I have way more songs than that and every time that I want to update my iPod, I have to pick and choose songs. I ordered the 8GB Touch. I'm super excited to get it. It holds over 1,000 songs, plenty of room for my music. Plus, wherever there is wireless or free Wi-Fi, I can get on the internet.
I can't wait to get it! Hopefully, it will arrive before I leave for school....I had it 2-Day shipped.
:-) 

 Now, if only I can work on getting a new camera. ;-)

What is your favorite tech toy that you have or wish to have?

Sweet Summer Nights.

:-)