Twins

I don't think I ever shared this story... This story that has really changed my life and opened my eyes to impossible possibilities!

When in the Philippines, at one particular distribution there were so many children that we split the kids into two separate groups in two separate rooms. Even with separate areas there were about 300 kids per room. In my area we had the kids come up to get their box based on age group and at the end of the line were 2 twin girls. We got the first one through the line but ran out of boxes for the very last girl, so we told her to sit down and we ran over to the other area to get her another box. We gave it to her and the program proceeded without much thought. 

Later when we were walking around, I went over to the girls and the two twin girls were holding up pictures from two twins in America.....

Now take a minute and think of the journey this box went through..

1) the family packs the boxes and drops them of at the church

2) the boxes are picked up from the church along with many boxes from other churches to be delivered to the packing site

3) at the packing site thousand of boxes are thrown every which way with many people going through them and conveyor belts running wild

4) the boxes are shipped over seas to the different countries

5) the boxes spend weeks going through inspections in customs

6) the boxes arrive in the country at the national housing facility and are sorted by the team into all the different groups of boxes to go to different churches and schools

7) the boxes travel to the school or church and are separated out into the different age groups and gender

8) depending on how many kids, the boxes are separated again into smaller sections

.....I have truly witnessed a miracle! There is no possible way that this could have happened with out God! That the boxes even ended up in the same country is a miracle let alone the same school, but to have one girl make it through the line and not the other and then that there was even another distribution at the same school and to happen to grab the EXACT box?!?! 

The most important thing you can do is pray over your boxes. Pray about what to put in them, where they go, and that they make it to the right child! Miracles really do happen and they will with your help! So PACK BOXES!!!! I hope through this blog you have seen the need that I saw and been inspired as I have! The shoe box is such a simple way to fill such a big need! 

Collection week is next week which means there is still time!!! Fill some boxes and watch the miracles God has in store! 

Last homecoming!!

Today was the LAST homecoming!! Me and my 2 Hannah friends took the 2 German foreign exchange students! It was super fun! They'd never been to a homecoming before and we took them to Olive Garden! I will now be traveling to Germany to visit them :)

Change the World One Box At a Time

One of the things you may not know is that absolutely no one on the national team is paid. For every single person it is completely volunteer...most of them having families at home to support and a full time job. They have things happening in their lives like a wife with cancer, a child that passed away, and not enough money to keep a house. Yet through all their turmoil and troubles, they saw that the kids are the ones they should be there for. I believe that the devil will only seek to knock down what he finds threatening.... Therefor do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).....So this is my challenge to you, give up a weeks worth of coffee, Krispy Kreme donuts or whatever your vice is, and pack double the amount of boxes that you did last year! With your help we can see a box in the hands of every child in need and spread the word of God!!

Philly

Today we got caught in the rain.... And by rain I mean downpour! 

And of course we couldn't go to Philly and not have a Philly cheesesteak! 

And to top off our last night of vacation, we stopped at 3 different places for frozen yogurt :)

How I love eating whatever you want since your on vacation!!!

Philadelphia

I can definitely say I like Philadelphia better than NYC! The people here are a bit nicer and its not as busy! We got to do some site seeing yesterday....

The liberty bell

Went to the printing press

Then went to this huge indoor mall type food court... I don't really know how to explain it but it was huge!! 

Sleep please

This morning we got up at 2am to be to the airport by 3, traveled the 4 hours to Tokyo, time traveled the 13 hours to JFK, spent 2 hours going through customs, met mom and dad at the airport and now we are on our way to Philadelphia. It has been a lot of butt time and I'm ready for a bed... Any bed! The flights both had so many movies there just wasn't enough time to sleep :) needless to say, I'm a bit tired!

Extras

Some of the things that happened or we did, I didn't get a chance to talk about so this is just kind of random things....

On one of the days they took us to US land, it was a cemetery of war veterans.

And I found the Nebraska seal!

You'll see in some of the pictures that like this boy in purple, they pose with their hands for pictures and we finally found out that this is called handsome pose :)

The Boy Scouts of the Philippines!

The living conditions here were very extreme in both ways.... On one side you would see something like this, and then on just the other side of the street would be a nice mall with well equipped houses. 

If we could give a box to every "home" like this, we could have a whole new population in Heaven! 

This is me and my roommate Mikayla in our complementary robes and slippers!!

The team was absolutely incredible and I really feel like I've made some lifelong friends :)

 Not to mention our spectacular leaders