the great I AM

We have been doing this song at church recently and I'm obsessed with it! The power of God is expressed in a way that shakes me to my bones and makes me want to get up and dance in his glory! Click below to hear the song that I can't get out of my head!

I could listen to this song over and over and over! Oh wait, that's exactly what I've been doing! It's so wonderful to be able to praise God in song.  I love to sing and get lost in the notes and words.

"The mountains shake before him

The demons run and flee

At the mention of the name

King of majesty

There is no power in hell

Or any who can stand

Before the power and the presence of the great i am

The great i am the great i am

The great i am the great i am the great i am"

Una nueva clase!

Today I started my weekly Spanish tutor session with Senora Cristina!  Me and Thomas, a fellow staff member at Lifepoint as well as my trainer at the gym and a guy who loves Mexico as much as I do, learned and practiced our spanish for an hour with Cristina, a really sweet hermana who, it turns out, is a great teacher! 

This came from a passive conversation we had a week ago and now we have a weekly scheduled tutoring session!  I'm so excited.  I've already learned some useful phrases, like:

Do you do go to church?
Vas a la iglesia?

What kind of church do you go to?
Que tipo de iglesia vas?

Do you know Jesus Christ?
Conoces a Jesus Christo?

Do you know Jesus loves you?
Saves que Jesus te ama?

Can I help you?
Puedo ayudarte?

Senor Cristina also gave us homework (WHICH I AM SERIOUSLY SO EXCITED ABOUT!)
In fact, I was so excited that I may have exclaimed that excitement while my pastor was in the room. 
He then informed me that I was the kind of person he hated in school.

You can't please everybody.
Eitherway,  I am hoping that as I continue to learn (I'm also enrolling in a month long class in October!) that I'll be able to share my progress and use it on the coming trips!  And maybe, just maybe I'll stop sounding like a toddler when I translate!

A girl can dream.

Mission Friends: Chrystal & Land of a Thousand Hills

Meet Chrystal!

She is an amazing woman who volunteers in our recovery program at Lifepoint and has recently gone on her first mission trip to Rwanda.  Let's just say, she fell in love.

Please watch this video below to hear her story:

Rwanda from LifePoint Church on Vimeo.

If you'd like to help the Rwandan coffee farmers, you can buy their amazing coffee right here:

Or, if you would like to be a part of providing a roof for the orphanage, you can write checks to Lifepoint Church, designate it "Rwanda Orphanage" and mail it to:

Lifepoint Church
Attn:Kerrie Williams
700 Motley Street

Albertville, AL 35951

This is hopefully the start of a recurring theme on my blog: spotlighting the many amazing friends I have that have followed God's call to "go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19)

Look out for more "Mission Friends" feature blogs in the future!

And the Winner is...

This weekend was one of the most fun weekends of the year at Lifepoint.  Each year our staff tries to top the year before, and somehow it's happened again! 

The LP Awards show (called the "Lippy's") is an event where we (the staff) celebrate our volunteers.  It's an evening where everyone gets dressed up, takes a few photos on the Step-and-Repeat, and enjoys an entertaining awards show -- followed by a nominee after-party. 

Here are a few photos from the event!

This year I got to help present the Worship Arts awards.

My favorite part of the after-party had to have been the amazing photobooth!  As you can tell, we had a lot of fun with it.

Even though the weekend was exhausting (staying up past midnight or close to it a few nights) to set everything up, it was all worth it! 

My most favorite part of the night was the intro video and dance performance I was able to be a part of!  As soon as it's online, I'll be posting it here on my blog.  It's a show you won't forget!

a funny thing happened...

Well, actually, several funny things happened when we were in Mexico! 

For starters, someone (a genius in my book) thought to bring fake mustaches!

LOVE IT!

Ya know what else?  This dog, I learned last week, has been named Kerrie. That's right -- after me!  By the cute little Abel, pictured above.  I'm still not sure if I'm flattered or not ;)

(i'm not gonna lie, I see the resemblance -- we have the same color palet going on haha)

 
Or how about when Roy had to get this shot... in his butt!  And ya know what else makes this funny?  My pharmasist hubby was lucky enough to give it to him! 



Or... the day I decided to try and cook tortillas... needless to say, I couldn't take the heat.  Luckily Josue was there to help me out!

How they don't burn their fingers off, I'll never know!

Oh and then there was this adorable moment when Krystal got a quarter to stick to her forehead!

And one of my favorite funny moments was getting this group photo taken.  Not because of the picture you see below.. but the one after.

of all the kids taking our photo!  I just had to get a picture of them taking a photo of us, while we try to tell them (in english, mind you) how to work our cameras! And of course crazy Amin acting up haha.

I just love that place so much! The more I go, the more it feels like home.  This was a trip where I've felt the most at home on the canal.  Also, I should note I gained about 5 lbs due to my "familia" cooking for me and Wade so much!

Salud!

I'm finally sitting down to my computer to share about last week's Medical Mission Trip we took to Mexico! 

Patients started off at registration...

Continued onto eye exams....

Had their vitals checked...

Went through triage and on into see the doctors...

And finally they finished out at the Pharmacy for meds and hygiene products and prayer....

Isn't Wade's helper so cute? We love Merlan so much :)

For the most part we treated almost everyone for worms and gave out thousands of vitamins!  We saw 206 patients over three days and stayed very busy! I don't know how the doctors, nurses and translators made it everyday with little-to-no breaks, except to say that it was by God. 

Some of the exceptional cases we saw were a girl with a ganglion cyst that we had to break up, a man who had been walking around for 2 months with a piece of Mequite wood in his food, kids with an inch or more of dirt impacted in their ears, extremely high cases of blood sugar, and a baby with pneumonia (pictured above with the doc) whom we had to get to the hospital. Praise God the doctors caught it or the baby wouldn't have made it.

 

I truely believe God had us there at the right time to serve every one of the 206 people that came through the clinic that day. 

In the coming days I just have to share photos and stories of the non-medical aspects of the trip, most of which are just us being goofy! 

But until then I will leave you with a photo of the medical team (some non-medical, but missionaries all the same!)



Dios los bendiga!

"The little engine that could"

Do you remember that story?

Well, this week, I can relate!

Living on little sleep and not able to quite catch up, I finally feel like I'm getting to the top of the hill - which makes sense because it's Hump-Day.

As you may know, I spent the whole of last week in my beloved Reynosa, Mexico! 

*Joy, love, BURSTS of EXCITEMENT!*

I was joined by a medical team who offered a 3-day free clinic for the village we work in! It was a very busy week, as we saw over 200 patients!  But, more about Mexico later this week.

We returned home from our 20 hour van ride early Saturday morning.  We brought along our translators who we hosted for the day.  We went all over town thrifting and enjoying time together.  That evening, several couples from church got together with us and Wade's dad, who was also hosting the missionary family from Mexico for the weekend, for dinner and had the best time hanging out!
*note, no sleep has been had yet

We turned in early at about 10 o'clock, but were woken at 2am with a very scary phone call. Wade's dad had had a heart attack.  By 3am we were at the hospital waiting for him to get a stint put in.  That hour was awful. 
But what was really scary is that his dad almost didn't go to the hospital.  He, like Wade would have, wanted to wait it out at home.  Praise God his wife convinced him to go and not 5 minutes after the doctor came in, he basically flat-lined.  They had to use the paddles on him.
Now he is doing so great and we cannot stop thanking God for holding it off until he made it to the hospital!

While the rest of the week has been a breeze compared to Saturday night/Sunday morning, I've still been just as busy and don't quite feel caught up yet.  The only thing I have on tomorrow's agenda is laundry (and LOTS of it) and an hour at the gym. I'm thinking I'll never love laundry as much as I will tomorrow. 

All this to say, I've been home 5 days and still haven't posted about Mexico. But I can't wait!  It was an amazing week and I hope you stop by to check it out tomorrow and quite possibly the days following!

Isn't family great?

We spent Sunday ourdoors, surrounded by friends and family, who all came together to say goodbye to Audrey and the girls.  One of the most fun things was having Deci, Journey, and their two cousins, Emma and Ava there all there to play! And since they were all together, we figured I'd shoot some photos of them as well.

Check out this Slip-n-slide!

"Wow! How do they make such a big splash?" You ask?

Well, lets just say Wade was an intrical part of the operation.

In fact, sometimes I think he had a little too much fun slinging the kids down the slip-n-slide...

Needless to say, the cousins had so much fun.

Like I said before, we took this opportunity to shoot some photos...

Aren't cousins fun?? 

Speaking of Family Fun...
My oldest Sissy, the beautiful and fun WENDY ROBERTSON will soon be Mrs. Wendy BAKER!!  I'm so happy for you Wendy on your engagement! CONGRATULATIONS!! I love you!

Speaking of awesomeness...

Wade and I will be leaving for Mexico again TOMORROW!!! BAAHHHH! I'm so excited! Hasta Luego amigos! It's family time :)