The Ripple Effect – 1 More Missions Surprise!!
God chose 3 people to go on the Ethiopia Missions Trip in February 2011!! I have nooo idea how God picked the 3 blessed winners, but He is perfect in His ways!! This was a God ordained miracle!! I believe this is a divine appointment for …
Bridget Bowen
Randi Shetley
Lori Smith
“Oh, my goodness….where to start? This is SUCH a celebration in a long journey of God changing me and refining me and getting me to surrender to Him. I am so at peace with the craziness we are considering as a family right now. Carolyn knows our story. Adoption, disruption, a constant & confusing tug on my heart to go back….riddled with closed doors. We surrendered the dirt of our lives to God and He has been faithful to plant beautiful perennials there….they just keep blooming and come back bigger, stronger and more gorgeous each time. YOU have blessed me by YOUR faithfulness. I am so inspired.humbled.in.awe! There is no where I want to be except smack dab in the middle of God’s out of this world plan for my life!” (Lori 11/2)
We also randomly selected, at Visiting Orphans Ministry, 3 alternate winners. Just in case, for any reason they can not travel with our team on the missions trip in February- an alternate will go in their place. We will contact you in the order you are listed below.
- Shonna Andrews (Montrose, PA)
- Julie Briggs (Colorado Springs, CO)
- Jill Wald (Ankeny, IA)
You can watch the amazing “Winner’s Video” and laugh, cry, and cheer for the winners!!! My hubby’s surprised look is my all time favorite- I have never seen him sooooo shocked. I think he could have stuffed a watermelon in there:))
1 MORE BIG CRAZY SURPRISE…
The ripple effect has already started!! If you are interested in going …
Anywhere
in the world
on a Visiting Orphans missions trip….
Open your hearts to serve, minister, play, comfort, and love orphans!!
El Salvador, Costa Rica, Haiti, Ecuador, Honduras, China, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, India (new in 2011), Ukraine (new in 2011)
I’m so ecstatic to share this with you. On the video tape, I mentioned a special donation gift of $5000 to be used for missions scholarships. We were able to give away a 3rd trip to Ethiopia, but also donate a 4th trip to Visiting Orphans Ministry. What is so unique about this amazing project, you can join ANY mission trip with Visiting Orphans Ministry!!!! This is a God ordained opportunity for another person to go and serve and love. I have challenged you for weeks to open your heart and do it afraid. Visiting Orphans is starting today their very first ever Missions Trip Project.
Please join us praying for Visiting Orphans and the thousands of orphans they serve everyday!! Help us spread the word on your blogs, FB, Tweets and email blasts!! I don’t want anyone to miss out on this incredible opportunity!!
I want to know, in the comments, where you will go if you win the Visiting Orphans Project and why?
If you are ready to go and serve on a missions trip, please head to Visiting Orphans website and sign up for your trip today. We are all called to simply love. Let’s together fill up every trip to the maximum capacity!!
I'm definitely getting a shirt! My husband is gonna ban me from Starbucks for a year for spending money on shirts I don't technically need…. but so worth it!
I wanted to share another story with you. (Sorry, it's a LONG story!) We live just a few minutes from a huge university. My husband and I have been praying about getting involved with the international students there, a huge ministry opportunity. So Monday my husband and I and 2 of our children went to a camp that a Christian group was holding for the international students. They had lots of outdoorsy, team building activities then dinner and games afterwards. At dinner we ended up sitting with 3 students, from China, Germany, and Uganda! There are only 4 students in the whole university from Uganda and we sat with the only one at the camp that day. Awesome!
When they were telling us where they were from and he said Uganda my husband asked where that was in Africa. I piped in and said "East Africa honey, near the horn but inland." The Ugandan guy looked at me with surprise. He said, "Wow. Most people have no clue or they even think it's in S. America." Then a few minutes later they were talking about learning English and I said to the Uganda guy, "But Ugandans speak a lot of English, right?" Again, he looked at me with amazement. He said, "How do you know so much. Most people have no clue about Uganda."
So I took a deep breath and said, "well, we've been praying that God might grow our family through adoption, hopefully Africa, so I've been educating myself and learning as much as I can." As I was saying the words his face changed and I can only describe it as he shut down. It only lasted about a minute but I felt like throwing up. I thought I'd offended him horribly or something. After about 10 more minutes of light chatting I said a quick prayer and got the guts to ask him what he thought about American's, someone like us, adopting from Uganda. I braced myself for the worst based on his earlier reaction. Then he replied, "That is so cool!" WHAT??!!! Not what I expected. I said, "Really?!" And he opened up and started telling me about all the homeless children, the orphans, the amazing African spirit. He said, "If you did that, that would be one lucky kid." I got big tears in my eyes and was SO relieved to hear him.
My husband and I have talked and we can only think his first reaction when I mentioned it might have been him trying to mask shock or surprise. He has only been in America 2 months and we have no idea what his interaction with "typical American's" has been like.
Anyways, we had a great time and I think it was a God-ordained dinner table. And of course I thought, I have to share this with Kari (the woman I've never met and don't actually know but feel like I do!) 🙂
Wow Shannon! That's an awesome story, thanks for sharing that!
Wow, Shannon, what an amazing story! Thanks for sharing it. I agree with you that Kari is "the woman I've never met and don't actually know but feel like I do,"….even after only a few weeks hanging out here at her blog.
Kari, I'm heading over to VO now to buy my shirt! YAY! And you already know….if I win [or actually, even if I don't 🙂 ] I'm heading to Uganda in June! YAY…and EEK!!
If I win the trip I would love to travel to Uganda. I have a huge heart for orphans especially those who have lost their parents to AIDS. Someday I would love to volunteer over there at a baby orphanage so I can love on all the cute little babies. That would be so awesome. I have won a missions trip before with Operation Christmas Child. We got to distribute OCC shoeboxes to the children in Ecudor. It was an amazing experience, and I loved every minute of it.
I Love these shirts!! So cute and comfy!! If I win this trip I'm giving it to Kari!!
Love,
Sherrie
If I were to win, it would pay the trip to Ethiopia/Uganda with Project Hopeful in April. I'm already TOTALLY going, but to win would mean the money could go back into our adoption fund, so it would be DOUBLE awesome!!!
It's been a real struggle trying to justify going on a mission trip while we are a fundraising family, but we feel like I NEED to, HAVE to go …so I'm going!
I would go to Uganda!
I would love to go to Uganda! That would be my choice…Congrats to the 3 winners of the mission trip!! I am soooo excited for you. I will be praying for you before, during and after your trip!!! I hope this is a total life changing event, I know it would be for me. Take Care and God bless you all!!
I am so excited at where this dream of yours is going. God is so good. And his plans are always so much bigger than our dreams. I'm so thrilled for the 3 that will go on those trips, and stoke for whoever wins the 4th trip. I've been on one short term mission to China. Since then, I have dreamed of going back to China, of going to any country in African (but lately Uganda and Rwanda have been heavy on my heart) and of going to any south American country. I don't know when or where God will take me on the mission field again. But until then, I will keep praying for others, keep supporting in any way I can, and keep praying for all people around the world who need to be tangibly touched by the Love of God through his people.