‘Love Your Neighbor As Yourself’ Monday

The past few weeks my girls have really enjoyed collecting loose change to help feed our neighbors in need.  It’s a neat service project they are doing through Sunday School.  I had not heard of it before they brought the project home, so I thought it was a great one to post. This week’s installment of ‘Love Your Neighbor as Yourself Monday’ is dedicated to:

Rice Bowls TM

Image Courtesy of Rice Bowls Copyright © Rice Bowls TM

Started in 1980 in Spartanburg, SC, Rice Bowls is a faith based non-profit organization that seeks to provide food for the body and spirit of orphans in the name of Christ. That look to do so through orphanages around the world that are intentional in seeking for each child to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and then in discipling each child to live lives that will be a joy and delight to the Lord.

Rice Bowls is one of the easiest ways for an organization (church, school, business, or community group) to have an impact on the escalating orphan crisis around the world. The small bowls are provided at no cost to you. When filled with change, the funds from Rice Bowls supply much needed food to a strong network of loving, Christian Orphanages. They work directly with these orphanages, which are currently in India, Haiti, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the HIV/AIDS crisis, as well as other factors, have greatly marginalized the lives of children.

I encourage you to go to the Rice Bowls website and learn more about their History, Values and Beliefs. They also have answers to questions like: What Are Rice Bowls?, Why Use Rice Bowls? and How Does It Work?

Each of my daughters brought home a Rice Bowl from church.  They have gathered all the loose change around the house and look forward to bringing their coin filled Rice Bowls back to church on Easter Sunday!

How we can help Rice Bowls serve our neighbors:

*Keep Rice Bowls Program in Your Prayers

*Keep Our Neighbors That Have, That Are And That Will Be Helped By Rice Bowls In Your Prayers

*Order Rice Bowls For Your Church, School, Business or Community Group

*Donate Funds

*Sign-up To Receive Monthly Updates From Rice Bowls Via Email

*Follow Rice Bowls On Facebook

Image Courtesy of Rice Bowls Copyright © Rice Bowls TM

If you have any questions about Rice Bowls or ways we can serve our neighbors in love, please leave a comment to this post and I will do my best to answer your questions and get your the information/resources you may need. God’s Peace.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.”  ~Galatians 5:13-14 NIV

First Day of Spring?!?

This was the Spring scene we woke up to this morning:

What? Crazy!  We live in Texas and THIS is a picture of the first day of Spring. We got over 5 inches in MARCH!  I don’t have any pictures of the girls playing in the snow because they were both getting over bronchitis, but I wanted to make sure to document this Spring phenomenon.

In true Texas style, the snow didn’t even last through the day. I don’t have any memory of getting snow this late in the year before. It was a pleasant surprise!

Gracie’s First Concert – Taylor Swift

A few months back Tamie and Lauren called and invited Gracie and I to go to the Taylor Swift concert with them. We were excited, but would had a long time to wait. It felt like years but the day finally came and it was time to take Gracie to her very first concert!

Gracie had a hair appointment that day and I decided not to cancel but to go ahead and fit it in to the day.  So I picked her up at school and took her to the salon.  I asked them to go ahead and straighten her hair because I wouldn’t have time to fix it at home before we had to go to the concert.  Her hairdresser was so excited when she heard that Gracie was going to the Taylor Swift concert that she said she just HAD to do Taylor Swift girls on Gracie.  I let Gracie pick straight or curly. She picked curly and I am glad she did because it turned out so cute.

Just incase you were wondering, if you want to have “Taylor Swift Curls” it takes a contraption that looks like a cross between a curling iron and those things that people use to guide planes on the tarmac. I had never seen anything like it. But I digress.

Gracie and I picked Tamie & Lauren up at their house.  Here are a few shots before we headed out.

  

We were all anxious to get to the concert but thought it best to eat dinner out by us so we didn’t run into the rest of the concert crowd trying to have dinner before the concert.  Here are the girls enjoying dinner at Celebrity.

So it was finally time to head to the concert. The girls were so silly in the car singing Taylor Swift songs and giggling out of control.  Tamie and I were surprised by how quickly and smoothly we were able to get inside the American Airlines Center.  We were prepared to sit in the car waiting in lines, but we didn’t {well we did later, but I will talk about that in a bit}. So here it the first picture of the girls inside at the concert.  I love this picture because you can see how excited they were!

We were so lucky that Tamie & Scott had found us floor seats for the concert! {Tamie even went to get the tickets when she was super sick…which turned out to be swine flu, poor thing}.  Since this was her first concert, I kept telling Gracie that these may be once in a lifetime seats in the hopes that she would understand what a privilege it was to be sitting where we were {this was the first time I ever had floor seats}.  After we got settled in Lauren was just so excited that she stood up in the walkway in front of us and just started busting a move to the song {All The Single Ladies} they were playing before the concert started.

 

She was really grooving.  These pictures don’t do it justice, but luckily Tamie got a little video clip that she can share with Lauren many years from now {HA!}.

I think Gracie was in sensory overload when we first got there.  But after the first song she joined Lauren in their little dance party.

 

We got to see a new band name Gloriana and Kelly Pickler who were the opening acts.  They were great to watch, but it was time for THE Show!

Here are a few shots from the concert {of course I took way too many…what else is new}.

        

  Here is one of all four of us during the concert!

Gracie wanted to take a few pictures of her own:

Okay so this where the {for sure} once in a lifetime part takes place.  Tamie had been to this concert the first time the tour came through Dallas back in September.  When we found our seats she pointed out that Taylor Swift was going to be on this little stage about 20 feet from us down our row!  That was exciting enough but then she asked and found out that we could go over there a watch that part of the concert right by Taylor Swift!!!  The girls {and I} couldn’t believe it.  So we heard them say she would go down there after here 4th song so as soon as the 4th song was over we were right there in front of the little stage {I have to add that we did go one song earlier, but were asked to wait until one more song was over.  We did, but still got spots right in front of the stage}. Then when we look up we can see Taylor Swift making her way down the stairs, through the crowd.  She was signing autographs and hugging fans…pretty cool.

And before we knew it BAM…she was RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!

I don’t typically get star struck but thought it was pretty awesome to be able to hear and see her perform that close.  The girls were on cloud nine!  Gracie saw Taylor Swift look at her once and that just made her night!

So it was time for the concert to come to an end.  It was a pretty cool finale and Gracie and Lauren were LOVING the confetti.  There was SO much of it.  I can’t even imagine how long it takes to clean all that up.

We headed back to the car where we pulled out and waited {20 minutes or so} to get out of the parking garage.  That was really the hiccup of the night and was to be expected.  You can only empty a parking garage so fast.  The was an impromptu Taylor Swift karaoke performance by what sounded like about a hundred Taylor Swift fans trying to make the best of the time they were stuck in the parking garage.

I know this is a long post, but it was a really fun night and I wanted to try to capture as much of it as I could.  Thank you  so much to Lauren & Tamie for the invitation.  It was a great concert with great friends that I know we will always remember!!