good ole wednesdays

they're my favorite...
especially this one.

i got to take my little bro lincoln to get a hair cut (from the amazing jen rivet!!)




that's my boy!! haha.

then i got to eat CAINE'S! oh yeah. (but i'm still a hippie! modified version remember..:)

and then!!! my mom and me and all of my brothers piled in the car to pick my dad up from the new orleans airport! everyone made it home safely!!

thanks for the prayers.
from what i've heard so far, from my dad, angella, and jared, the trip was amazing. and WE all want to live there!

my dad brought back one of the coolest gifts ever for me...




it's a water bottle of african soil. i wrote on it, in a literal sense, "tia" ("this is africa").

it's so cool. i actually have a piece of africa in my room reminding me that what i see is not all there is.


then...
refuge!!

first of all...
elton veals has an annointing that makes me want to curl up in a corner and sob... seriously he has the Holy Spirit running through his music.

last night he sang a song that he wrote called "creed"- it was so powerful...

here's the chorus:

for You kingdom we will cry
for Your orphans we will pray unending
nations will be called
for this is the creed of Your generation

if you haven't heard this song yet- you will. it's gonna be like the number one song for a hundred years!
it was truly soul stirring.

then...
the one and only tyler barry got to share about what happened in him at displace me... and how we can do something to help.

he and ryan and johnny did get permission to show the movie at dutchtown within the next couple of weeks...but it's gonna take a lot of money and work getting it together. so please keep them in your prayers. they have the passion..and they are standing up to take something that is wrong and make it right- doing justice! pray that the people who see this movie at dutchtown will be impacted by it and prompted to do something, too.

also...

instead of pastor jason preaching a message for the closing of our bling series, he decided to show us the movie "emmy". it's one of the invisible children stories. (red bracelet).

so heartbreaking- these kids stories. how do they live like that? their parents die of aids and they are left to be the head of their homes. and relatives can barely help them if at all...

i can't imagine..watching one of my parents die- with the other already gone. how would i live?

at the beginning of the movie, they say that children as young as seven must be taught to work in the fields..because they have to be ready for life- ready to take care of themselves. they don't know when their parents will die, so they must be prepared for it.

it's just crazy. i don't know how to imagine it... again i think of my 7 year old brother. he is just a normal kid who likes to laugh and play computer games and eat candy. but these kids don't even have a childhood. they are forced to become adults before they can even understand.

here, our childhood is filled with love and hope...we know that we will be taken care of and that everything will be okay, but they don't EVER have that.

that's not the way it should be. and we have to do something to give hope to these little lives.

God knows how He wants us to help. we just have to listen and ask for wisdom and understanding to do the right things.