Cookout Fundraiser

I know...I'm a blogging fool these last few days. Ahhh, its the little extra time of not prepping for a day of school that gives me this long-awaited freedom!

What a day it has been! Amazing. Before I go on I just have to say how amazingly blessed and humbled I am by the generosity of the people from our church community (Watershed). Our church has been around now for almost 4 years, still so young. However the amount of love and support is unreal! We have felt nothing but confirmation and peacefulness from this community on the front of moving to Malawi. We couldn't do it without a church that believes in serving, loving and living a life of immense generosity. We love you Watershed peeps!

We have been planning this Cookout Fundraiser for a few weeks now and it went off without a hitch. In fact, it turned out way better than originally planned. We had a family from our church host the cookout in their backyard...there were 3 grills going (see pic below) cooking up yummy, bacon-wrapped shrimp, hot dogs, burgers, along with a ton of sides, and desserts. We originally were going to purchase the burgers and dogs (the shrimp was already paid for) but someone else ended up covering the cost of all the food! What an amazing blessing. There's more....about 70+ people showed up from Watershed, each giving donations towards our cause of moving to Malawi. We also had raffle tickets for sale too. Our raffle items included a donated, brand-new iPod to raffle off, gift cards to restaurants and stores and a cool painting was donated by our good friend and artist, Kendra Miller!

Thanks everyone for an amazing day...we will never forget it.

The guys and their grills.

This is a picture of about half of the group that was there...we (Daniel, Kayla, Jonathan and I) had a time to share with the group about what we will be doing in Malawi.

Here I am sharing with the group what I will be doing in Malawi for this next year.

Daniel had the kids in the group help draw the tickets for the raffle prizes.

Daniel and Rachael at the donations table. The art on the table was part of the raffle.

Last Day of School

Well, I am a little out of order with my blog posts here...forgive me. I have had a lot to catch up on these last weeks. I'm sure tomorrow I will have another new post. We have a Cookout Fundraiser in our honor (and our friends who are also going with us to Malawi). It should be a great time!

Wednesday was my official last day of school with my students! Oh how I miss them already. What a great year it was to watch them grow up in front of me. They started the year being so little...some of them had just turned 4 years old. Now they are almost 5 years, so independent, so grown up...most of them are reading now, writing everything that they can, being creative, learning about God and what it means to love others and live generously. I'm so proud of them all! Here are a few pics of us from our last day together.

Me and my students. Aren't they so cute? Except Mary Kate on the left wasn't smiling at all...and I should note that the little girl in front is a sibling.
We had a last day of school party where we also celebrated the summer birthdays...which is why we are wearing birthday hats in these pictures!

The backs of the tshirts that we made last week. If they look familiar to you, its because I did the same project last year with my preschoolers.

Go Girl

So I just have to add this to my blog...to due my duty to the female race and pass the word along to women everywhere. I actually found out about it on another blog site that I read, so I can't take the credit at all. I laughed so hard when I checked out the site..."Go Girl" is ingenious! I wish I had known about this 10 years ago when I lived in India and traveled to Nepal and other random, off-the-map places. Right now as I write about it, I can think of a handful of places that have been very awkward bathroom times for me. Ha. As funny as the site is with the video and suggested places of use it gives you, I think I am going to have to order a few "Go Girls" for Africa!! And I'm not even going to tell you about the "Diva Cup" (you can google that for yourself), but I think that is also on my to-try-for-Africa list too.

Let me know what you think about "Go Girl"! and don't take life sitting down.

My Best Friend

I love this song...its my new favorite. Of course, I love it because it reminds me of my best friend...my husband! I can't believe that next month we will be celebrating our 2nd anniversary. Two years ago we both were 29 years old...just like the song says, "they don't know how long it takes, waiting for a love like this." I thought that it would never happen...but it did and this marriage, this love, was so worth the long wait! Thank you to the many out there who encouraged us to wait for God's best. I love you, Daniel...thank you for being my best friend!

Last Day of School

I can't believe the day has finally come. It happens every year, and every year I say that it has flown by faster than the year before. It seems like it was just August that I was getting ready to meet my little group of 10 TK'ers (Transitional Kindergarten is what I taught this year). And here I am, 9pm on Tuesday night printing out my "award certificates". I ha

ve their academic certificates at school, as well as their Fruit of the Spirit awards. This year our headmaster has instated that each student in the whole school receive a "Fruit of the Spirit" award. This is so that each student at least receives one award...which I totally agree on...however, I realized while making out my awards that I did not award a "self-control" to any of my kids. Ha. Self-control is something that we struggle with in TK just about 500 bazillion times a day...I just couldn't bring myself to award it just to do it.

The awards that I am working on tonight are candy awards. "Sweet Tart Award" to my little sweet girl in class. "Snickers" to Christian, my quiet guy who is always quietly laughing at someone or another. "Three Musketeers award" to my little teacher's helper who LOVES to help others know what to do next and is certainly the leader of the group. "Lifesaver award" to my Emma who is always helping those who need it. Just to name a few.

It has been a great year...I don't know if my tears will come tomorrow or not, but I know it hasn't hit me yet just how much I will miss this group of kids and their parents. They have matured so much, learned so much...and have taught me so much. I'm sure I will have pictures to post tomorrow.

strawberry obsession

I have been a little obsessed with strawberries this past month. You might recall the post I did a few weeks back on picking strawberries with my girlfriends. Just to give you a time frame, that was the very first weekend of "pickin" at the end of April. Since then I have gone one other time...each time picking 5 lbs @ 1.99 a lb. YUM-O! I swear they taste better when you pick them yourself.

So, the very first time when my I coordinated my group of girlfriends to go was really to scope out this one strawberry farm for a field trip that I wanted to do with my class. I planned it so that we would go this past Friday. It was fabulous...at least I thought so. They kids got to pick just a lb, as that was probably just enough to keep their interest, and they also received a strawberry smoothie that was out of this world. I am obsessed with this little farm and plan to MAYBE go again this Saturday for, what I expect to be, the last pick of the season as it is almost June. :)

Here are a few pics of my little guys on our last field trip of the year. Oh, man, this week is going to be a sad one. The tears already started last week for one of my little guys, Jonathan. His mommy mentioned to me that he cried for 1/2 an hour last week at prayer time before bed because he didn't want Mrs. McCollum to move to Malawi. So cute. I think the big thing at this age, since this year has been the first school year for my little 4 & 5 year olds, is that they don't get the concept that even when they move up to Kindergarten from TK that they will get a new teacher anyways...I think some of them are feeling a little like I am abandoning them...for that I feel a little sad. I pray that this week (well, Tuesday and Wednesday) will be full of peace rather than tears of sadness that we are saying goodbye to each other and our great year together.

Pies for Malawi

I don’t know about you but sometimes I am so amazed by the ways we are able to network and communicate these days…with Facebook, blog, Skype, email, text, Twitter (Daniel’s favorite), cell phones, the list is just endless with how our world has grown smaller. I get made fun of a lot for how much time I do a few of the above each day…but I tell you, I do feel very connected to people, most of the time. I should also admit publicly, there hasn’t been a day in the last year that I haven’t checked my Facebook. Sad, I know. What is really crazy is how many different friends from different chapters of my life have collided into the same Facebook “place”. Anyone else feel the same?

This is where my story begins. About 2 months ago I received a friend request from a childhood friend of mine, Jen. Not only were Jen and I childhood friends, but we grew up together in Okinawa, Japan where our fathers served in the military. We ran into each other again in college when we both attended Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA…that was about 10+ years ago (sheesh, there, I dated myself).

So back to Facebook. Jen requests me to be her friend, I accept. She emails me about life and what I have been up to since college. I reply with a brief life synopsis and ask her the same questions. Of course I mentioned to her that Daniel and I were preparing to move to Malawi, Africa to serve for a year. After exchanging a few emails, we promised to stay in touch.

Last night we received a donation online from Bethel Baptist Church in Phenix, VA. Daniel and I stood there puzzled, as we both had never heard of this church before, let alone Phenix, VA. (yes, that's how it is spelled.) We read the note attached to the donation and I realized that it had been from Jen and her husband, Bob, and their church.

I was amazed and emailed Jen immediately, thanking her over and over again! She informed me that it all started with a simple conversation with her church’s missions committee. She had asked her church to take up a special offering for our cause, but instead it grew into something bigger. The church decided to host a huge cookout at a local festival this past weekend...burgers, hot dogs and homemade goodies! Apparently many of the older ladies of the church baked pies to sell! Pies...50 pies total! I can’t even believe that this little church of 60+ people in southern VA would do all this for Daniel and I. I am blown away by the deep generosity of this small community and the ways that they support and love...even to total strangers. I am touched, Bethel Baptist and Jen! Thank you for serving us so sacrificially in this way!

The pies...I just wish I could hug every single old lady who made these pies! How sweet!


Jen took some of these photos from my Facebook page and made a poster for the fundraiser day and to keep at their church so that the people of the church can be praying for us.

Saturday

Guess what I did today??

I couldn't resist going back to the strawberry farm this morning with Kayla. I am going this Friday with my class on a field trip to this very farm, but I really wanted some strawberries for the week. And what a fantabulous (yes, I made that word up) Saturday morning with one of my best girls, Kayla...picking strawberries @ 9am, talking about our fears and excitements of moving to Malawi (I think I have mentioned this before, but she and her husband, Jonathan, are moving with us!) and following that up with a trip to Charlotte's best and biggest farmers market. LOVE the farmer's market...its just getting good down here in the south with all the veggies coming out now. It was a great day.

We had a nice birthday dinner at my in-law's house tonight. This is Jonathan and Daniel holding our niece, Emma. She is growing up too fast. We can't wait to find out if she is having a brother or sister in a few weeks!

happy birthday daniel!

Friday was Daniel's 31st birthday! yeah! What a great night that we had with our friends for a little birthday dinner at Maggiano's and coffee afterwards at Dean & Deluca. Birthday dinners + friends = always a great time! Tonight we have a cookout with Daniel's family to celebrate with them.

I made these homemade ice cream sandwiches for tonight's family dinner. Yummy, huh??

We both have been pretty busy this week with work. Daniel's work is crazy busy and school for me is coming to a screeching halt. So much to do! I've hardly had time to blog it seems.

Malawi plans are still gearing up and I imagine our month of June we will be in 4th gear (sort of speak) with all the bazillion things to do before moving our of our condo June 30th and mission training in July. WOW...can you believe that we will be moving to Africa in 2.5 months?? Time is flying. Daniel set up a local (NC) phone number through Skype so we can have friends and family call us whenever. It is through Skype but the caller can call from any type of US number (Cell or land line). If we are online through our computers we can accept the call...if not it will go to our VM. The best part is that it doesn't charge the caller an international number. My brother Joel has it in Berlin...it is pretty convenient. We do love regular video skyping too...so skype us if you have a camera..."the mccollum family" is our user name.

the Evening News comes to my Hood

So, Katie Couric is on my street right now! (not that I am a big fan or anything...I'm not.) But I do love when the media recognizes a non-profit that does so much for the children in our "transitional" neighborhoods here in the GREAT city of Charlotte. Oh, man, I really am going to miss this city...and this neighborhood.

I got the Katie Couric lead from a friend on Facebook that volunteers at the 24/7 Prayer Room on our street...another AMAZING plus to our 'hood. (Yes, a prayer room...thats usually where our small group meets on Thursday nights but we are done for the summer. Its such a great place that has a ton of little corners and places to either be alone in prayer or be in a big group. I'm going to miss 24/7.)

Ok...back to Couric. There is a non-profit around the corner from 24/7 that recycles and restores bikes. Daniel bought his from there last year for cheap. "Trips for Kids" actually does more than that. They help kids learn to ride, fix and upkeep bikes. They believe that "cycling is an empowering sport that can help kids achieve “breakthrough” results in their lives." They are making a HUGE difference in the lives of families and children in the city by giving them a sense of ownership and helping them have something that perhaps they could never have afforded to have before. So great, huh?

Daniel and I were just out on a walk and saw the camera crew filming a group of kids getting bike-riding lessons. I am not sure when the Evening News is going to air this segment, but when I know I will let you know so you can see the good that is happening here in the Belmont neighborhood here in the Queen City. :)

8 1/2 more days!

I feel like it has been forever since I have blogged...and it hasn't been because I have nothing to blog about! I DO have so much to catch everyone up on but my days have just been so jam packed with things to do! We had such a great dessert fundraiser last Saturday night that I want to blog about...the pictures are still on my camera! I am usually downloading my pics and posting them as soon as I get home from wherever I have taken pics...but just haven't had a chance to do it yet.

The great news is that I only have 8 1/2 more school days left with my kiddos. I can't believe that this school year has gone so fast. I feel like it was just yesterday we were going to the pumpkin patch. I really am sad that it is almost over. I have been so focused on Malawi lately that I start feeling a bit guilty that I am not spending enough time on school (actually I have felt that way for months). My kids are so sweet and precious. They are so excited that I am moving to Africa and they totally get the need of the children there. We were talking about the African children the other day and one of them said, "I know, Mrs. McCollum, you can go and teach them their ABC's and numbers because thats what you teach us. And then they will know how to do their papers and school work. Thats a great idea...yeah, you can go and teach them!" Luke was so proud of his idea. Then sweet little Lauren said, "yeah, you can teach them because you are such a great teacher to us." Then Lindsey piped up and said that she was giving all her money in her piggy bank to the kids in Africa so they can have medicine and toys. The conversation trailed on with everyone saying what they were going to do for those in Africa that are less privileged and in need. Be still my heart. Later I was telling Daniel about the conversation and it made me so emotional. If their little minds and hearts only soaked up our conversations about Jesus and helping those in need around the world and nothing else, then my 10 months of waking up at 6am were not in vain!

Well...I am off to work on a project to do with them tomorrow. My pictures will have to wait another day!
Love and peace to all.

Our fast trip to VA

I know last weekend I mentioned that I had some things rolling around in my head that I wanted to post on...well, time has gotten away from me once again. There is so much stuff going on with 3 months down until our country departure! And 3 more weeks until I am finished with my school year! I am sad to say goodbye to my students and to teaching, however, my to-do list gets longer by the day and our calendar is pretty much packed out so I am grateful for this school year to soon be behind me. I hope to have a little more time in the coming weeks to post on deeper things rather than just pictures of our weekends.

What a FAST weekend we had in VA. We left Charlotte Friday afternoon and just got home a few hours ago (Sunday night). We haven't been to VA since Christmas and it was so great to see everyone...especially my 3 little nieces! The main reason for our quick trip was Anna's 4 year old birthday party...I can't believe it has been 4 years. She has grown up so fast...and the two other nieces have grown up just as fast especially since we saw them at Christmas.

I'm going to miss my family like crazy when we are gone for the year! Good thing I took all these pictures this weekend to look at when I start missing them...ok, so I took a lot of pictures...196 for the record. I think that's a new PR. :) My brother bought a horse this past year and stables it at their friend's farm/ranch. Anna has been into horses too since she is into whatever her dad is into, hence the horse birthday party that you will see below. What a fun time...it was a perfect day!
The Cowgirl...aka birthday girl. She wanted a horse birthday party...horses are her latest thing.
Anna and her best friend, Charlie. I think this will be a great picture for their wedding reception one day! :) They are so cute.
I love this picture of her blowing the petals off the flower.
Cousins, Chloe and Bella.
My brother, Jeremy, and his family."Miss Melody"
"Miss Melody" and the blonde horse is Justin's horse "Mr. Z"..."Mr. Z" has sent my brother to the ER several times now.