So close to being so far away.

Less than two-weeks away!!!

Can you believe it? I'm just looking up in praise and thankfulness today, thinking of all the incredible people in my life and that, even though God doesn't need me, He has chosen me to do a part of His work.

Amazing.

My toes are hanging off the edge of what will surely be my biggest leap of faith and transforming experience yet. I'm so ready for the leap - except for the part about bags being packed or anything that involves actually being physically prepared.

Details Schmetails.

Don't worry, responsible people of the world, I am giong shopping with Morgan and Baby Lucas today and going to NaNa's to dig around for my Kenya skirts. Seeee..... progress. :)

I've been so thankful to be able to absolutely bask in quality time the past two weeks. We had an incredible time at the beach house relaxing, eating, laughing, eating, playing wii, eating, and walking on the beach with family and friends. And this week, I've been so thankful for the good things in life like cousin dates, pedicures, and baby kisses. I truly feel like God is filling me up with love and support from every angle before I go.

Between all the good food, good conversations, and fabulous baby love, my prayers are that I will love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength. And to love my neighbor as my self. Always and everywhere. (Mark 12:29-21) I'm praying that God sends workers to His harvest (Luke 10:2) - that I may be His worker every day and that Bay Area Community Church will rise up together, as a body working for the Kingdom of God, and be transformed as they transform. Please join me in these prayers, as well as prayers for my physical, mental and spiritual health as I prepare and as I travel.

Thank you for reading my blog, for supporting me, and for knowing me. I truly believe that staying connected through our different experiences and using our different giftings is just as significant in this mission as any other part. You can now subscribe to my blog for email updates by scrolling down and putting in your email address on the left-hand column.

Please keep reading. Please keep praying. And please keep seeking the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy, for God was pelase to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heavn, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross."

-Colossians 1:15-20

Christmas Love

Merry Christmas!

I hope your Christmas is full of joy, peace and love! I have felt like it's Christmas for the last 3 months of fundraising and planning as people have given selflessly and offered incredible, endless encouragement. Thank you for offering the love of Christ so abundantly day-in and day-out. I can't imagine what lies ahead as I prepare to leave in less than 3 weeks!

For a very special Christmas gift this year, some generous hearts have donated bricks in people's names as Christmas gifts. It only takes 1,000 bricks to build a house to create "Home" for 3 - 5 orphaned children. Giving them a Home, or a place to belong and to be known, is part of the effort of Ten Thousand Homes to end the orphan crisis in South Africa. With your brick donation, you are helping to end the orphan crisis. Thank you for bringing Home to orphans.

A special thank you to:
- my NaNa
- Larissa and Derek Lee
- LK Wolfe
- Elcie Schedule
- Arispe Family
- Prevou Family
- Lucas Collins
- Lori Bryce
- Kate Cantu
- Granny Sharon

Be blessed this holiday season as the gift in your name has blessed "the least of these".

Home, Sweet Beach House

I finished my last day of work!

I finished it in just the right place - Crystal Beach. I said goodbye to a community that felt like home to me, with teachers and a principal who have experienced tremedous loss and turmoil, and yet only speak of blessings and strength.

My work on Bolivar Peninsula has been an incredible part of my story in understanding what home really is. We talked about it at my final group at Crenshaw Elementary and Middle School - Home is the people that are strength when you are weak, the people that are weak with you when you're both weak, and the place where you can be you - together or falling apart - and be completely loved. Home is seeing and celebrating the image of Christ in one another. I've never seen a group of people more dedicated to doing exactly that.

Now that work if officially over, a very exciting transition is starting. The paperchain countdown is getting shorter, weird traveling dreams are coming more frequently, and now all of my time is to be dedicated to sitting at the feet of Jesus as He prepares my heart, spending quality time with those who are my Home, engaging my church to buy bricks to create Home and houses for orphans at Ten Thousand Homes, and all the busy to-do list kind of technical details.

This week I am so thankful and absolutely delighted to be staying at a beach house with my family, basking in quality time with an endless supply of queso in our bellies and sand between our toes. Seriously... can you think of anything more wonderful?

We are having a blast! It's almost surreal that we are all here together. My sister, Sunny, came in like a Christmas hurricane and, before we could say "Ho Ho Ho", we had a fully-decorated Christmas tree, lights and garland on every inch, and so much Christmas cheer, you can't help but feel Home. Nesting in full force, we laugh at the ways each other creates a "home" feel. Mom buys SO much food, Sister decorates everything, and I bring random details -  Christmas air fresheners, hand soaps, etc.

I took a walk on the beach this morning and was thinking of how different and how much more difficult it is to minister to your family than to strangers and "the least of these". At least for me it is. I was frustrated with myself at first because I feel like I keep getting it wrong - I just am not loving my family members with the love of Christ like I'd like to. My prayers before spending time with my family are so much more Christ-like than my words and actions. And they are the people I love the most.

What's up with that?

God gave me a grace-check right then and there on the beach. He reminded me that we are all broken and I won't ever get it right according to my own abilities.

I won't ever love perfectly. But He does because I can't.

He can love us perfectly through holiday stress, family struggles and through all of our imperfect love. All we can do is remember Who He Is and how He came to such an imperfect world in the most imperfect circumstances so that we could receive perfect love. We can only be amazed that we don't have to get it all right, but that we can always seek Him and seek to be more like Him.

A virgin gave birth to the Son of Man in a manger so that He could bring light and love to the world like we've never seen it - and then be hung on a cross so that we could receive that light and love when we never deserved it. What a perfect time of year to remember that circumstances are beyond our control, and we can only love with all we've got and forgive one another for not loving perfectly.

So, as I head back to the beach house, I will take a moment to say thank you for my incredible family and pray that I love them a little more like Christ today than yesterday. My prayer for my family, this Christmas week, and you is that you experience Home in Christ and surrender expectations to a Holy and undeserved grace.

Merry Christmas!

Enough.

EXACTLY ONE MONTH TILL TAKE-OFF!

I can't believe that I will actually be meeting two of my teammates, Rebekah and Brittany, and embarking on the adventure of a lifetime in 31 days. The preparation alone has been such an incredible part of the journey, I've hardly had time to sit and think about the part about me actually leaving the country!

God made it so very clear to me that I am not to go alone on this trip, and that Bay Area Community Church was to come alongside me. For months now, I've been speaking to lifegroups, youth groups, community members, and participating in some awesome fundraisers. It's been as much of the mission as the actual going part. 

Now that the lifegroups are done and, after tomorrow, the last fundraiser will be over (and I believe we'll top out that fundraising thermometer!!!), I've had a moment or two to take a deep breath and think about what's coming. Needless to say, there's been an occassional adrenaline spike, erratic texting, and an incessant counting of paper chain links.

I've said goodbye to all of my clients and had some really special times to reflect on the last 14 months as a Hurricane Ike crisis counselor. One special commemoration was the installation of the "Tree of Life" mosaic we created in adult survivor support groups and with first-responders in MOD coffeehouse in Galveston, a place created for community. We used broken tiles to create a two-panel work of art. The whole idea of the mosaic was creating something beautiful out of what was broken... putting the pieces together one by one. It's a beautiful testament to recovery and resiliency.

In thinking further about my experience of working as a crisis counselor with an incredible team, I thought about what life looks like now, 15 months after the storm. There is still homelessness, people are going without, and it seems like FEMA trailers are being pulled out from under people at random. And then I looked at the mosaic.

There is no promise in sight that everything that is broken and bruised will get better today or tomorrow. There will be disasters, diseases and devastations. All of that comes with this broken world we reside in.

But He is Sovereign and He has given us each other until He comes back for the ultimate restoration. He has been teaching me this week that, for now, we are enough and we have enough. Not one of us is perfect or undamaged, but, if we put all the good we have together, we are enough.

It's the most beautiful mosaic.

(I've really been hearing God calling out the word "ENOUGH" to me, in case you haven't noticed.)

I've encountered resistance, fear and concern this week. Sometimes it's hard to walk into the unknown and the uncontrollable. The control part can be REALLY hard. But I find peace in the fact that, if nothing else, we can sit with a person in their doubt, fears and anger, and love them. We may not ever get to make everyone happy, have as much money as we need for Christmas shopping, or do everything we want to do... but we have enough to love freely, give what we've been given, and do what we are called to do. Exactly enough.

I've rearranged my Christmas plans according to this idea... with the influence of God's working in my heart, a sermon by Pastor Steven, and this video. I'm leaving in a month. There's not enough time or money to answer to everything society's shouting about in today's Christmas culture. This year, I'm asking for the gift of time to be with and celebrate the people I'm close to. I'm inviting family and friends for good conversations, quality time, and perhaps a time to serve together. I'm so excited to have a Christmas that reflects the reason for the season and to not have to take that little white truck anywhere near the crazy holiday shopping!

What I think I'm getting at here, is the idea of "enough". Rob Bell teaches that for water, basic healthcare and nutrition for everyone in the world, it would cost about $20 billion... That's how much Americans spend each year on ice cream.

We have enough. So much more than enough. We have enough to give. We have enough to walk alongside our sisters and brothers in hard times and love them freely. We have enouogh to end the orphan crisis in Africa.

Let's put all the pieces in, all the gifts we've got, to make something beautiful where there is hurt and devastation.

Let's make mosaics.

"Restore us, O Lord God Almighty;

make your face shine upon us,

that we may be saved."

Psalm 80:19

Record breaking temperatures and blessings

My toes have finally warmed up and I still haven't stopped smiling.

This weekend my thoughts, emotions and body temperature were ALL over the place. My good friend, Loryn, and I started planning a photo fundraiser over a month ago. Loryn is a gifted photographer and offered her time and talent for 30 min photo sessions for a $50 donation toward my trip. We planned for Friday, December 5th and crossed our fingers and said our prayers that it wouldn't rain because there was no back-up weather plan.

And then, Friday, Dec 4th it SNOWED IN TEXAS! I may have refered to it as a blizzard, even though not even one flake stuck on the ground. But, COME ON... SNOW! Needless to say, we got nervous. Loryn was driving in from San Antonio... in the blizzard.

Before we went to sleep Friday night, Loryn and I prayed that God would send His provision, His sunlight, His people, and that every detail would be taken care of in the name of His Glory.Prayers and prayers and prayers prompted us to press on.

So, we woke up Saturday morning, put on 3 of everything, defrosted the car, boiled gallons of water for hot chocolate, and set out at 7:15am in the 35 degree weather to see if any of the 13 families who signed up would come.

THEY CAME! And so did the sun! During 10 hours of posing, snapping pictures and jumping out of bushes with a tambourine to elicit a smile (that was my job), Loryn and I had the privilege of watching God's glory being revealed bigger and more beautiful with every hour that went by. Each detail was covered. And, trust me, there were A LOT of details.

Thank you, first and foremost, Loryn, for your servant-heart and for using your giftings for the glory of God. I pray you will be blessed ten-fold.

And thank you to the friends and families who braved the cold for a good cause! I hope you enjoy your photos and find warmth in the Truth that you gave your time and treasure toward the Kingdom this weekend. With your help, we raised $1782!

Check out Loryn's blog for a preview of the photos. They look awesome!

Also, thank you for those of you who've been praying for me financially. As I shared last week, I've been praying for $1000/week. Last week, by Wednesday, the Lord provided $1044 in addition to the $1728 at the photo fundraiser. No matter how big we dream, God is always bigger. I love serving a God I could never put a limit on.

Please join me in prayer for the next fundraiser, and let me know if you want to come. It's going to be FUN!

MYSTERY DINNER THEATER

Sunday, Dec. 13th at 6pm
Chabuca's in Webster, TX

Tickets are $30/person for a 3-course meal and an interactive mystery show. It's going to be a blast and all proceeds go toward bringing Homes and Hope to orphans and vulnerable children.

RSVP now! Kacychaffin@gmail.com

The photo fundraiser set-up:

The Harveys were the bravest, coldest bunch. They came for an hour photo session at 8am!

Loryn and the Oberts