Welcome to My Blog – News about our Latvia Trip

Welcome to my new blog – amazing isn’t it that I can share my life with you in this fashion.

Audrianna and I leave for our mission trip with Buckner International, Shoes for Orphan’s Souls, to Latvia in 2 days and my hope is that we will be able to post our adventures on this site while we are gone. It has been amazing how God has provided this trip for us – many of you know that I actually won the trip through WCRF – The Cleveland Moody Broadcasting Station. I heard about it last spring and actually entered my name on May 2 – thinking at the time that I might just be going on this trip. One day in August, Audrianna and I went to Buttermilk Falls (in Beaver County) to have devotions, enjoy God’s creation and time with each other — it was a wonderful time and when we got home there was a message that I had won the trip!! We had to get the World Atlas to find where Latvia is located!!  We started praying that God would open the door for Audrianna to go and the Lord provided the money needed $2800 for her to come along too. To learn more about you can visit Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls .

We will be visiting 9 different Orphanages and seeing over 500 children. Each child will receive a new pair of shoes that we will place on their feet. We will also be doing a small VBS project with the children, making a prayer box with them, teaching them that there is a God who listens to their prayers and cares and loves them. Two of the Orphanages are baby orphanages and we will just hold babies and love them.

We are traveling with 30 people mostly from Ohio, a few from Indiana and 2 from the Buckner home offices in Dallas, Texas. Audrianna is the only teenager going – they say that she will be a “star” because our translators are teenagers as well as some of the orphans and they are very interested in American teenagers!

I have a prayer guide available below this message so that you can pray for us each day . We should have some computer access  and our hope is to be able to access this blog and let you all know how we are and what we are doing. Please pray for my health as I travel – that I will be able to regulate my blood sugars and that I will not have any equipment problems! Also, on Tuesday, November 6 I will be leading devotions for our team – I will sharing the Lord’s concept of recognizing and remembering God’s faithfulness. I know that God will be providing many recognizable moments on this trip.

Many of you know that this past month has been a very hard one for me – I pray that I might be filled with joy at God’s gift of this trip to Latvia and that I will see His mighty hand at work in the lives of those we serve as well as my own life. God is faithful even when I don’t understand.

“I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us- yes the many good things He has done…” Isaiah 63:7