THANK YOU for supporting our 3-day Journey!

Our team (Me, Christy, Robin, Sarah, Rachel and Pam) and one of some of our favorite signs.   Thanks Christy for the photo.

3-Day 2011

We all finished and finished well! Dallas 3-Day raised over 7 million dolllars for the Susan G. Komen foundation that will go towards breast cancer research.

2011 3-Day For The CURE!

2010 3-Day Team

Pam and Sarah delivered coffee and encouragement last year and will be walking with us this year!

Last year, I never really sent out a letter.  Each time I would write one, things would change.  This year, I sat down and wrote the following.  No editing, no worries, just hit send!  It’s done!    Though Jenn’s not with us this year, we know that she is experiencing the more joy than we can ever imagine!

E-mail I Just Sent Out

Greetings Friends,

As many of you know I participated (with your help) in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For the Cure last November. My friends and I had signed up as a way to honor our dear friend Jenn who was in the midst of an intense battle with Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Little did we know when we signed up, that we would actually be walking in her memory.

My dear friend Jenn lost her battle to the beast of cancer on October 16, 2010. Her faith, strength and perspective throughout were incredible to me (if you don’t know here story, you can read more here).  I personally had the honor and privilege of walking most of the last 10 months of her life with her on a regular basis. We’d eat dinner several times a week, watch ridiculous TV shows together, celebrate Girls Night In with friends, visit Medical City for “Jenn’s Juice” (Chemo), scans and other not so fun appointments (though we made it fun most of the time) and much much more! I also had the blessed privilege of spending Jenn’s last couple of weeks here on earth with her. Though, I confess that it was probably the hardest couple of weeks I have experienced (watching someone suffer and being able to do nothing about it)…it was also such a wonderful time and I know none of us that were there would trade it for the easy route (ever).

Though Jenn lost her battle, after attending my informational meeting last year, I could not help but recognize so many of the scans and treatments that she had received and they were funded either partially or completely by the Susan G. Komen foundation.

I have decided to take a victory lap for Jenn this year! Another dear friend who I was also walking in honor of last has joined our team with her daughter this year too!!!

The training and financial fundraising are a big commitment. However, after walking the path with Jenn, I know that it is nothing in comparison.

In order to walk the 3-day this year, I must raise at least $2300.

Would you consider making a donation? Donations can be made online or by printing the form and sending it snail mail.  Also, many companies will do matching gifts. Consider asking your company if they will make a difference along with you!

For those of you in the Dallas area, our cheer stations were what kept us going out on the walk! Hope to see you out there (again) this year!

Thank you for your consideration and generosity!

Blessings,

Christie

Video Tribute to Jenn

Here is a beautiful tribute to Jenn’s life from her Celebration Service today in Ada.   Read her story here if you have not already.  She was a strong women, a fighter and a faithful friend, wife, and daughter!

Jenn Video Tribute

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The Love of Jesus Tangible in Ada

Jenn candlelight v2

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This morning before I was even out of bed, a dear friend sent me a text with some sweet words of encouragement.  The funny thing is, the words were from a devotional from Jesus Calling of which almost all of my friends here in Dallas happen to also have.  I had left my copy at home, but her text left me wanting to read the whole entry.  So, I of course went straight to Jenn’s office and picked up her copy.

The following is the entry from today (October 14^th, 2010).  I just sat and read it, as I laid resting next to Jenn.  As I listened to every breath and cherished the time I have here, I thought about how honored I am to call her friend and that her family would call me family.  Though the past few days have been filled with deep sadness, I think I can speak on behalf of all of us, that we have been surrounded and blessed by love, prayer and FOOD! J

BE PREPARED TO SUFFER FOR ME, in My Name.  All suffering has meaning in my Kingdom (oh how I wish we could understand it now).  Pain and problems are the opportunities to demonstrate your trust in Me.  Bearing your circumstances bravely — even thanking Me for them —is one of the highest forms of praise.  This sacrifice of thanksgiving rings golden-toned bells of Joy throughout heavenly realms.  On earth also, your patient suffering sends out ripples of good tidings in ever-widening circles (oh how we have seen this to be true).

When suffering strikes, remember that I am sovereign and that I can bring good out of everything.  Do not try to run from the pain (I’m learning.  Curry said this morning, ‘remember Jesus is the Rock and you’re allowed to be human) or hid from problems.  Instead, accept adversity in My Name, offering it up to Me for my purposes.  Thus, your suffering gains meaning and draws you closer to Me.  Joy emerges from ashes of adversity through your trust and thankfulness.

James 1:2-4, Psalm 107:21-22

~Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

 

More to come, just know we are blessed and feel so loved.   Keep the prayers coming.

A Sweet Interlude

In the midst of a crazy time and a lot on my mind, I have enjoyed these sweet photos of my nephews first birthday!!!!  Enjoy them with me!  My nephew is adorable and my brother and sister-in-law are amazing photographers!!!

Yummy and I will leave some on my face just for special photos!

Posing for the camera! The photographers son is an adorable ham! Oh and he's my nephew!

I was bummed to miss his first birthday, but thankful for such fun photos!!!

Re-Post (Simply Because It’s Still On My Mind)

I was on my way to work today and saw a sign that said, “One hour massage for $19.99′”.   My first thought was, wow…I could sure use one of those.  However, moments later my heart broke as I remembered the reality of what many of those ‘store-fronts’ actually represent. 

Though I have many thoughts and am burdened much for the lost and broken world that surrounds me, I thought I would just re-post my thoughts from about a year and a half ago. 

Previously posted 10/2008:

About four weeks ago, I sat in a room full of African women. These women have a history that I will never fully understand and a faith of which I could only hope to emulate. They are refugees and are here in Dallas trying to figure out how to live life in the United States, struggling to get by and all the while challenging me in my faith as I hear about and watch their faith in God.

As they talk about the orphans and widow among them (pointing right across the room at a women who is a widow and is caring for an elderly man and an orphan) and about the many needs within their community, I could not help but feel overwhelmed. It was almost paralyzing and yet, I feel compelled to do SOMETHING! Thankfully, I am fortunate to work at a church, where they are at least trying to make a difference in this community. There is always the balance of trying to figure out how to love and serve them and yet empower and not enable. I don’t think we will ever get that right, but I think the last thing the LORD wants is for us to do nothing.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~James 1:27

The other area that God has been moving is in the area of “Human Trafficking”.  Yes, you read that right.  This is not the trafficking of guns or drugs, but living and breathing human beings…created in the image of a loving God.  There are many different forms of trafficking, but the two that are most prevelant are those who are sold into slavery (working) and those who are sold into the sex industry.  These individuals are forced to believe that there is no option and no hope…no way out.  Without going on my soap box and without created images that will haunt your mind for a long time, let me just say that young and old alike are being forced into slavery and into prostitution.  You might be thinking to yourself, “how sad that people ‘over there’ would do such things and live in such oppression.”  However, I will tell you that the city I live in has the 2nd highest rate of sex trafficking in the United States of America.

I can’t explain the ways the LORD has continued to put this in my path, but I can tell you that just in the last week it has been in my face OVER AND OVER again.  The two big events this week were going to see Call + Response and attending the Art Music Justice Tour.  Both of these events addressed the reality of Human Trafficking in ways that have really disturbed me and it’s my hope that they never stop disturbing me.  The reality that this takes place in our world and in my back yard, is very hard to wrap my brain around.  I don’t understand how anyone could treat others in this way…regardless of where they are from or how they were raised.  Our culture does nothing to help the situation.  The two things that really feed this industry (at least here and I am sure abroad) are greed ($) and lust.  What in our culture does not promote and present both of those things to us on a regular basis?

My faith has been challenged and my heart has been burdened anew.  I have no idea what God is going to have me do with this burden, but one thing I know that I can do is pray and provide others the opportunity to be educated and made aware of these realities.

I have to wrap up for now, but also wanted to say that I think the International Justice Mission is another place to go for more information on this and to find ways that you can help.  Don’t under estimate the power of prayer and changed lives. I have already heard several testimonies of entire families and villages that have been freed from the bondage of slavery and are now in the ‘business’ of helping others that are still bound by the bondage of slavery.  There are women who have been freed from brothels, scared for life, but experiencing healing and hope in their lives and desiring to share their stories so that others can experience the same.

My ramblings are just that…but if nothing else…maybe some of the information on the links provided will be the first knock on the door of your heart.  May our eyes be opened to the darkness of this world and may our hearts live fully in the light of Christ and the power that HE has to change lives.  What a privilege we have to approach the throne of grace with confidence on behalf of those who have no voice (at least not one that can be heard at the moment).

Come Lord Jesus come!