Where you Invest your Love, You Invest your Life

April 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Let’s put on our party hats and celebrate! It’s National Volunteer Week and organizations all over the country will honor ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Across our great nation volunteers make a difference. This year’s theme is “Celebrating People in Action”. At Habitat for Hope, our volunteers serve families day in and day out. I love these lyrics from Mumford and Sons song Awake My Soul.

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life
Awake my soul, awake my soul Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker

Habitat for Hope Volunteers get it. They choose to invest their love. They choose to invest their lives. They know that we are all on the brink of eternity and they choose to live in such a way that honors their Maker and willingly pour out their hearts on behalf of others. It is truly a beautiful sight to behold. Here’s a note of thanks from one of our apartment families – the Greggs – that best highlights the actions of HFH volunteers.

Effie Gregg and father, Brad

Effie Gregg and father, Brad

Our family would like to thank Habitat for Hope and all of your volunteers. The apartment was a house of healing. When we arrived there were necessities, toiletries etc., waiting. We were blessed with meal upon meal. What a blessing all of the food was to our family, especially during chemo week. There were meals delivered around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our children received gifts paid for with gift cards. The kids were even blessed with stockings already filled. Mom really liked that one! You were the church to us during our time away from our own church family! We felt very loved. Effie is cancer free! We pray that it does not come back, ever! Finally, after six months we are home home. Thank you for making our journey a little easier financially as well as emotionally and spiritually. Our family is grateful for all of you! Last but definitely not least, thanks for your prayers! Sincerely, Brad, Alysia, Essie, Alexis, Nic, and Effie Gregg

Filed Under: Encouragement, Families and Friends, Volunteer Tagged With:

Love and Pasta!

March 4, 2013 by 1 Comment

Written by Jennifer Dover

Do you ever have those days that far exceed anything you could ever imagine, no matter how hard you try? That happened to me this past Friday as a group of precious women met together for the purpose of making pasta.  I did nothing to organize this amazing event, it just happened to take place in my home at the Habitat for Hope property. Many people do this kind of thing together but this was pasta making with a unique purpose. All of the pasta we made will be going to provide a meal to  Habitat For Hope families. We all know how quickly fast food and hospital food gets old, so we hope this will be a little ray of light to some weary taste buds. But, our hearts desire is that it will convey to the recipients that they are loved, that someone cares about them and they are not alone in this battle with their sick child. The really cool thing about Friday was half of the people who came were people I had never met before. It didn’t take long to get to know one another as we all had the opportunity to share our life stories throughout the day. Although we were all very different, we had come together for one purpose and amazing things happened. All the ladies there at some point have experienced hurt, affliction, disappointment and loneliness, just like the families we serve. One particular lady named Emily was currently going through something pretty devastating but the joy of the Lord radiated from her, I noticed it the first moment I laid eyes on her. If you think about Emily this week, say a prayer for her and ask the Lord to encourage her and continue to bring people into her life so she can shine the Light of Jesus on them. The recipients of these delicious meals will  likely never meet many of the ladies who worked hard and joyfully to prepare them a meal. They will never know their stories, all the trials the Lord has or is currently bringing them through, or the beauty of their friendship. But our hope is that they will feel loved, cared for and encouraged – that through something as simple as homemade pasta, Christ would accomplish infinitely more that we could ever ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

 

Filed Under: Encouragement, Families and Friends, Volunteer

Homecomings

February 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

written by Jennifer Dover

Dover and Ewing kids

Dover and Ewing kids

 

The past several months have been filled with times of transition for our family… including a season of life I choose to call homecomings. Each homecoming different but a homecoming none the less. First our family made the move to the Habitat For Hope house. After a long journey and way to much to tell you in this blog post, we arrived at the place the Lord had been preparing us for and it felt good to be home. As with all transitions, there were adjustments to be made. We had to get used to having neighbors right under our feet again and learning to keep our noise level down. That may not sound too hard but when you have 3 energetic loud little boys (and one learning from big brothers), it’s not as easy as it sounds. The really sweet thing about living in the house and in community with another family has been watching our kids bond with theirs and almost immediately became fast friends. We could see the Lord using their kids to help ours make the transition and vise versa. It was a beautiful thing to behold. This family moved out recently, and to the praise and glory of God, got to take their precious baby with them and return home together…as a family. I’ll have to admit I was sad to see them go; yet, overjoyed for them at the same time. Their baby is doing well and is making great progress; they have a steadfast, unwavering faith in God and they are home after 6 months of being away. I can imagine it was an emotional but joyful homecoming. I saved the best homecoming for last, the day my mom went home to be with Jesus. It may seem odd to some people for me to speak of death in this way – but isn’t this what we all long for, to be free from the pain of this imperfect world, and to enter that place where there is no death, tears, or even a hint of sorrow? She is finally free from the pain and suffering that kept her from so much in this life. I am extremely sad because in my flesh I miss her and all that she added to our life, but in my spirit, I rejoice because she has received the goal of her faith, the salvation of her soul. I too long for and await that homecoming day but for now I take joy in the earthly homecomings that are but shadows on the wall of the one to come.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Families and Friends

Brent Nason – 6 years

January 2, 2013 by 1 Comment

Today marks 6 years since our dear 11 year old friend Brent went to live with Jesus. Brent’s mom Tonya wrote this today to honor Christ and to remember Brent. For me, experiencing the days leading up to Brent’s passing was experiencing the tangible risen Christ, who is present and with us. May you be blessed an encouraged today…

nason2 nason2 nason1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t believe that it was six years ago today that Brent got his heavenly healing.. it seems like just yesterday our sweet boy was still here. In the days leading up to today, I’ve thought many times of Brent’s passing and all the things that the Lord allowed us to see. I’ve shared our story, or bits and pieces of it, many times since he left. I thought I’d share some of the most amazing memories with you guys today. I want to share them because they TREMENDOUSLY increased MY faith, and I hope they will yours as well. With that said, this will probably be long cause there’s a LOT of BEAUTIFUL stuff to share. :)

As you can imagine, those were the darkest days of our lives.. we KNEW we were bringing Brent back to St. Jude to let him go HOME. (back from Vermont where we took him as a last attempt to fight) During those days.. I’d say it was probably the last couple of weeks he was here.. something AMAZING happened. God began to prepare Brent to go HOME. One of the first that I can remember was an innocent conversation we heard Brent having with God. (Now, when I say “conversation” I DON’T mean it was just a prayer.. I mean you could literally watch him as he would talk then wait for a response, then he would talk again). Here’s what I’d posted on his website..

“Please God, I just want to see HIM ……. just for a second, I just want to see HIM!”

That went on for a few minutes and Brent closed his prayer. I was a little awe-struck, but as the day went on I forgot the conversation I overheard. THEN, last night as he started to drift off to sleep he started to pray again. This time it was different. Brent was saying, “I’m SO SORRY, GOD!” I just wanted to see You …… I’m SORRY I tried to look!”

WHOA!!!!!! It’s like Brent was standing in the room with God, having his conversation and being the curious little boy he is he tried to sneak a peek! I’m assuming that God told him that he couldn’t see HIM …….. YET! Before his talk with God ended, Brent started to ask …………. “God, it won’t be long will it?? Will it be long?” (I’m assuming he’s trying to persuade God to let him go/see HIM then) Brent then paused and said, “That’s what I thought, it won’t be long.”

There were MANY times that he’d close his eyes and within a moment or two he’d begin talking to the Lord. (He wasn’t talking in his sleep, he was spending time with Jesus) There were times we’d hear him pray out loud, but many of these were just innocent talks with his Creator. Just after these conversations began Brent’s mindset changed. He no longer talked about silly things we’d talked about before.. his mind was on his Jesus! He told pretty much EVERYONE who came in his room during those last days about his Jesus. He asked us to pray almost constantly. He requested that we sing praise songs almost constantly. Link said that one night he awoke in the middle of the night to hear Brent singing Amazing Grace.

I was reading over some of our caringbridge entries during his last days here and found one that just blessed my socks off. I want to share it with you guys, and apologize that this is so lengthy. Here goes.. this entry is dated Saturday, December 23, 2006 9:34 PM CST

“Our PRECIOUS little man is still quite the chatterbox. He’s talking almost non-stop and seems to STAY in some sort of prayer connection with God. He’s still saying things like I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH! You’re the BEST, GOD! I also overheard him praying to God this morning thanking HIM for me! (Don’t think he didn’t have me crying BUCKETS!!) He’s told his Daddy & me a thousand times already how much he LOVES US and what GREAT parents he thinks we are. I’m telling you, just when I think he can’t possibly get ANY sweeter ….. HE DOES.

I meant to share with you the other day about one of our prayer times. Somehow the room was filled with just a few of us females. There was Mylissa, Virginia, Kerry, Meredith, and me all standing around Brent’s bed. He started to get upset from fear of choking. (He’d just almost got choked drinking water, but is doing GREAT NOW!) Brent asked if we could pray for him. (Mylissa said that’s EXACTLY what she was just about to ask) As we moved closer and each placed our hands on Brent, Mylissa started to pray. Brent soon was taking over her prayer with his own. We all hushed and listened in awe of his prayer. As he finished, I told him that I wanted to pray too. As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s hard to cry out on his behalf without getting “teary-eyed.” Brent could hear the emotion in my voice and he then started to pray OVER ME. He said something to the effect of …… “God, please bless my Mama. Give her peace, Lord, and calm her heart…….” I’m simply AMAZED at his ability to pray the way he does. He’s so sensitive to Holy Spirit – it just BLOWS ME AWAY!!!”

One of the last conversations that I remember hearing before he left was one that I will NEVER forget. At this point he’d had many talks with his Jesus.. he said, “LORD, your word doesn’t even BEGIN to tell how BEAUTIFUL You are!”

It’s just mind-blowing to think that the Creator of ALL the world will come and prepare His young child to come HOME. ♥

Well, I’ve kept you long enough.. I hope Brent’s story has encouraged you the way it has encouraged us.. and if you’ve ever doubted, I hope it helped you BELIEVE. :)

Filed Under: Encouragement, Families and Friends

The Joys of Friendship

October 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the great joys of my job is to see people connect with one another in true community. I recently discovered that two HFH volunteers, Sarah and Melissa, met at a dinner hosted by HFH last year and became fast friends. Wow!! I’m going to let these lovely volunteers tell their story.

Sarah: There are so many wonderful things about my friend Melissa. Her positive qualities are boundless, but I think one of my favorites is that she flashes an immediate smile reflective of her warm, kind spirit. I absolutely knew we’d become friends the minute we met in line for the dinner at Hope. Though I do now love her hubby, Andy, I was happy that she was single for the night and could share some fun girl time with me! We enjoyed long conversations about so many things and found that we had a lot in common. She is such an inspiration to me in that she is a strong, Christian woman with a wonderful family and dedicated heart. She finds time to share her talents and devotes herself to serving others in Christ’s name in Memphis and abroad. I sometimes get so caught up with work and related responsibilities, so it’s so nice to have a good role model to show me a better way—being more of a “Mary” in this crazy “Martha” world in which I seem to find myself (great book by Joanna Weaver). I thank God and HFH for giving me the opportunity to find such a great friend. I hope to volunteer with her more often and do more 5Ks with her throughout the year.

Melissa: I would start with the night of the HFH volunteer dinner / comedy concert at Hope Church. Andy was scheduled to go with me but he had to work late so I went on ahead by myself. I felt a bit out of place standing around by myself and wondering if I might just leave because I wasn’t sure who I would sit with at dinner and the concert. But God had another plan for me if I would just hang on a few minutes and trust HIM. While waiting earlier I spotted a young woman in a jacket very similar to one my daughter had given me as a gift. As I admired the jacket I remembered thinking what a pretty lady who seems so sweet and so put together. I moved on to the food line, which again is where I’m usually located ;) and the very same girl was in line behind me we started chatting. She asked if I alone and I said yes. So so we decided to sit together. We sat and talked all through the dinner like we had known each other for years. To my amazement, we had so much in common! Not on the surface, Sarah is young, beautiful,smart, accomplished Dr. with her own practice, I could really go on and on about her, I on the other hand am much older, not so accomplished, married mother of one, a hairstylist who never attended college and blends in a crowd. We really couldn’t be more opposite. We also sat together at the comedy concert and we laughed and laughed at all the same jokes!!! We both even at the same time said let’s jump up as soon as he finishes to get a jump start on the crowd. We exchanged numbers and we texted each other to say what a blessing that night had been to find a new friend. We have gone on to do two 5Ks together and we plan on doing many more together, and in each time we are together we have so much to talk about and to discover that we think of so many things the same way!!! I am so thankful to God and HFH for my friend Sarah!! When I think of her I smile!!!!!

Filed Under: Encouragement, Volunteer
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