Mission Arlington '09 ~ Part 1

Sunday night Wes and I returned home from our mission trip to Arlington, TX. We were originally going to Acuna, Mexico (the place we went last year on a mission trip), but due to the safety issues and problems they have been having at the Mexican border, that trip had to be cancelled. We were sad about that, but knew that God must have had other plans for our group.

The trip was changed to Arlington, and we were going to be helping out at a place called Mission Arlington. We really had no idea what we were going to be doing, which was both exciting and a bit frustrating for those of us who are planners! But it was a good lesson in just letting go and letting God be in control of things. It turned out to be such a wonderful experience! We were blessed for sure to be able to see this place and help them out for a few days.  We were all blown away by Mission Arlington and what all they do for the people in that community, and all in the name of Jesus!  

I will try to tell and show as much as I can about our trip.  I could write for pages and pages about it, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.  Here we are ready to fly out of Buffalo:

 

As a brand new church plant, Restoration Church obviously does not have a huge number of people attending yet, but we had 14 people sign up for this mission trip!  At the time of the sign up, that was about 1/3 of our church!  That in itself is so amazing.

So we all stayed in this building that used to be an office building that Mission Arlington now owns.  It was pretty cool with a common area in the middle with several couches (perfect for playing mafia and other games at night), and bedrooms on either side.  Here is the common area:

Here is Wes's room he shared with 3 other guys:

And here is my room I shared with one other girl:

Here is the main office of Mission Arlington:

Day 1 started with a tour of Mission Arlington just so we could see what all goes on there. It was started over twenty years ago, so it has grown and expanded so much over the years that they now have several buildings.  They have one section that is kind of like a row of townhouses, and they have split those up into a dental clinic, clothing donations, a day shelter, storage, etc. Here is the clothing place where people in need can come in and "shop" for whatever their families need.

Here is the outside of the free dental clinic:

In a separate building, they have the food pantry storage:

And then they have a large warehouse where they store all the furniture donations:

Inside the main office building they also have the food pantry where families get to come in and get one bag of food per week.  They said they have 180 people A DAY come in and get food! This was one of the most amazing things to me.  To think that they have that many people coming in every single day and they never run out of food (which is all donations) - it's like a modern-day version of Jesus feeding the 5,000 when the food just kept multiplying and they had enough for everyone!

After the tour, we went out on our first "job".  Every other week they load up a bus with all kinds of things - household items, toys, perishable foods, etc. - and just unload it at these apartments for people to come get anything they need.  All we had to do was drive up and start unloading, and the people started coming out.  They know Mission Arlington does this every other week, and the best part is that they know the reason they do it.

Precious children:

We went to two apartments and unloaded the stuff and had many people come get many things. Rose, who is a Mission Arlington employee, was with us and she knows a lot of these people and was telling us that they really only take what they need, so we actually had a lot of things left over.  It was so humbling for a lot of us to see this. Most of this stuff we would see as trash to throw out, but to these people it was treasure.

After the apartment giveaways, that afternoon we got to go back to the first apartment we went to to have a kind of backyard Bible club for the kids. This was definitely one of the highlights for a lot of us. These kids were so precious. They loved having us there, and we were able to play with them, color, sing, and share a Bible story.

We shared the story of Jesus healing two blind men, and our group acted it out for them while one of our guys told the story.  Here are Wes and Joe being the blind men:

Here we are playing some games with them:

Wes leading in a game of Simon Says:

This little boy, Matthew, was fascinated with all our cameras.  Here is Tim showing him his pictures:

Precious girl:

Here is Alex (one of Restoration's pastors) in action at Duck Duck Goose:

Me and Matthew:

Day 1 was a full and great day.  We did make a stop that evening at Walmart of course, and this one had Texas longhorns and stars on the outside:
That night we went out for some Texas barbecue, and it was good.  Wes is enjoying his ice cream:

So that was our first day.  The rest of the trip is to be continued so keep checking back........

I'll be loving you forever, NKOTB!

Oh my word.  Last night Wes and I went to Erie, Pennsylvania to see New Kids On The Block in concert.  It was soooooo good and we (or at least I) had a blast!!  It was my sweet husband's suggestion that we go when he heard they were going to be having a show close to us.  How great is he?!  So I've been anticipating this for a couple of months and it definitely lived up to my expectations.

Here I am ready to go to the concert.  This is the actual t-shirt I bought at my first NKOTB concert in 1990 when I was 10 years old!  And if you don't know, that's Joey Joe, my boy on there.

We got there plenty early so we could eat before, so we got to stroll around downtown Erie for a little bit.  

We had originally planned - and were super excited about it - to eat at Chick-fil-A since we don't have one in Buffalo and the closest one to us is in Erie.  Sadly, we forgot that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays! :(  We were crushed.  So we ended up eating at Happy Garden chinese restaurant.  It was good, but there is no comparison.

Here we are waiting for the show to begin.

The concert opened up with a dance crew called Jabbawockeez and they are amazing.  We had seen them on MTV and Ellen before, so that was really cool.

And then it was finally time.  I couldn't believe that 19 years later I was standing there about to see another New Kids concert.  The crowd was awesome - mostly full of women in their late 20s and early 30s like me which was hilarious.  After a video that built up the anticipation, they emerged from the stage and I was screaming like a 10 year old.

Contrary to what a lot of people like to joke about them, they are definitely not old and fat!  They looked great and still had all the classic dance moves down as you can see.

In the middle of the show, they moved to a small round stage at the back of the arena, so of course we ran down there to get closer and man were we close!  We were about ten feet from them!  You can tell I'm a little bit excited.

Look at this amazing shot my hubby got for me of my boy:

The arena was really kind of small, so our seats were much better than I expected since we got the cheapest ones.

At the end, we went down from our seats to stand on the floor.

They blew confetti at the end.  It was so much fun.

This is my favorite - us, the confetti, and the Kids in the background on stage.  Perfect.

It was a great night and one I will remember always.  I just wish all my old NKOTB friends could have been with me!

Wes and I are heading out for our mission trip this Wednesday.  Due to safety concerns at the border, we are not going to be able to go into Mexico as originally planned so we will be staying in Texas for the mission trip.  It's kind of crazy, but we know God had this planned all along, so I know He has something wonderful in store for us and the people there.  If you're reading this, please be in prayer for us and our group this week!  Thank you!

Bowlin' Bowlin' Bowlin'

I didn't realize how long it had been since our last blog update!  Time is passing by so fast, I can't believe it's already mid-March.  We just wish it would get warm up here!  

This past week we had a fun night with our small group and we went bowling.  It was fun, even though no one really did that great.  Here are some pics of the night.

  

Wow, check out this form!!

I guess he's pretty proud of himself.

Goofy guys.

Here we are sad because we're doing so bad.

Oh well, it's still fun!

More goofy guys.

And wow, how about this form?!

The girls:

I needed documentation of this - check out frames 8 and 9 - two strikes in a row for me!!!  (I am "G" because they called me Giggles.)

And Wes's high score - 133!  Woo hoo!

We came home to find a funny little surprise.  This is what we saw when we opened the door:

We have always bragged on our little Boston saying "oh, you can leave anything out, he never bothers anything!"  Oh well I guess those days are over.  Granted, we did leave a tied up bag of trash out on the kitchen floor, so there is only so much temptation a little doggie can handle!

Here is the perpetrator:

How can you get mad at that???