Dinner Tickets

If you would like to purchase tickets call 770-355-2690 or e-mail me at thethinkers_thedreamers_and_me@yahoo.com.

Wonder and Amazement

I think about a lot of things. I say think when that is not what I really mean. What I mean I don't think has a word. My thoughts stay in my head until they are resolved, the word is not obsession. I would like to not think about these things so much, it would be nice to have a nights sleep where I don't wake up going "Oh crap!!". Not all of my nights are like that sometimes I lay in bed until I fall asleep. I just lay there, thinking. Not of anything in-particular but just of how the day went, what I am doing the next day or why I can never fall asleep when that is my goal.

As of late my thoughts have been on this dinner. I may have mentioned it once of twice before...it keeps me up because of all of the things that need to be done before December 5th. This seems to be consuming my life right now. This and classes. I am not sure what possessed me to take on such a monstrous task. Now that I think of it, it never looked this big. I never realized how much planning goes into something like this. Next week I think that I may be up for 120 hours straight. There is so much to be done. In the end I know that it will be good and we will be in Haiti and things will be amazing. The problem is that the wonder and amazement is not the end result for me right now. I am sure it will be when the dinner is over but as of right now the wonder and amazement is that I am able to get up at 8:30 for my 9 am class and then be up until 2 am and do it again the next day. All I can say is that God has to be there holding me up because I am sure that by myself I cannot run on 4-6 hours of sleep for 3 months straight, that is the wonder and amazement.

And I know that this picture for this blog has nothing to do with this blog but it is what popped up when I typed in wonder and amazement into the google bar. So I thought it worked just fine.

What its like living in an etch-a-sketch...

So...I know that I start my blogs with the word so a lot but I am not really sure what else to say when I start typing. I am amazed that I can even write sometimes. Most days I feel as though I have perpetual writers block. Then when I start to write and think about what I am saying it seems to go away. Anyway I wanted to write a blog about preparation. For the dinner and for the trip, which has been moved from leaving the end of June to leaving in the middle of May. That just happened like two days ago, so it seems that we can be as prepared as we want to be and things change. I think that, that is ok but I do like to have things set in stone and not an etch-a-sketch. We have been planning the Many Nations Dinner for a couple of months now and there has been a huge response, which is a good thing. We are hoping to make at least $1,000 from this. Then we could book tickets and sort of be out of the etch-a-sketch phase of that part of the trip. 

I am using an etch-a-sketch as an example because you can draw pictures in it and then you can shake it up and redraw the same thing just with a few changes. That is how the planning process for this trip has been going. We plan to leave on June 25th, nope you will be leaving May 13th. We plan to get all of the food for the dinner donated, nope, let me show you that I can do things through broke college students and not huge corporations. We have been so shaken for the last few months that I am literally shaking. This has been a stretching project for me because as I said before I like stone, not etch-a-sketches...but what are you going to do when you are trusting in God to get you to a place that only exists today because of Him. I am going to have to get used to living in a etch-a-sketch if this is what I am planning on doing the rest of my life. 

Flood Revisited

Rain, rain on my face

It hasn't stopped raining for days

My world is a flood

Slowly I become one with the mud

But if I can't swim after forty days 

And my mind is crushed by the crashing waves

Lift me up so high that I cannot fall, Lift me up

Lift me up

When I am falling 

Lift me up

I'm weak and I'm dying 

Lift me up

I need you to hold me 

Lift me up

Keep me from drowning again

Downpour in my soul

Splashing in the ocean, I'm losing control

Dark sky all around 

Can't feel my feet touching the ground

But if I can't swim after forty days 

And my mind is crushed by the crashing waves

Lift me up so high that I cannot fall, Lift me up

Lift me up

When I am falling 

Lift me up

I'm weak and I'm dying 

Lift me up 

I need you to hold me 

Lift me up 

Keep me from drowning again

Calm the storms that drench my eyes

Dry the streams still flowing 

Cast down all waves of sin

And guilt that overthrows me

But if I can't swim after forty days 

And my mind is crushed by the crashing waves

Lift me up so high that I cannot fall, Lift me up

Lift me up

When I am falling 

Lift me up 

I'm weak and I'm dying 

Lift me up

I need you to hold me 

Lift me up 

Keep me from drowning again

This is how I have felt the last couple of weeks. I am sure that many of you have heard this song and said "oh yeah, its great" but have you ever really felt what it is like to feel like you are drowning and you are calling out to God and it seems that he doesn't hear a word you are saying. I really have lately. 

As you may know I am planning a trip to Haiti or should I say that God is planning a trip to Haiti this summer and I am just the person he chose to use to get it done. I am not sure but there must be a reason because I am not this crazy on my own...ahem...not to say that God is crazy but this is not something that I would do on my own. And I am not. I have my friend Calah who is helping and Jonathan who is also helping. They have both been there helping me get things done and keeping me sane. We have made a lot of progress. It is just that there is a daunting task ahead of us and we feel as though we "are splashing in the ocean, losing control". we are having a hard time seeing the finished product of the smiling faces of the kids at World Harvest Orphanage. We need a lot of supplies to help out there and do what we want to do there. We are believing that God will supply all of what we need for us. So we know that we shouldn't worry but we can't do all of this on our own without asking like it says in Luke 11:10.

So if you wish to send donations or money send it to the following address:

Alyssa Hallaway

2317 Westland Mill 

Acworth, GA 30102

We will be there for six weeks so...if you cannot help in giving money, give your prayers, support and blessings.

Alyssa

Pennies...

I have realized in the last few months that the only reason that Calah, Jonathan, and I will be going to Haiti this summer is because people have an ample amount of pennies that they want to get rid of. I am not sure when the penny became such a problem for people but, that is ok with me because people are giving them to us. I am not sure how many I have counted in since we began collecting "donations", (whatever helps you sleep at night, I know you hate your pennies...) I think that I have counted at least 1800 pennies. I am not exaggerating either. That is $18.00, just in pennies. I counted 955 just last night, which makes me think that we have counted closer to 2500 pennies. Thats $25.00. 

I remember hearing once that they, whoever they may be, wanted to do away with the penny as currency. HA. Like they could really do that, it is convenient to have two pennies when the change on your bill is like .22 or .02 exactly, then you don't get more pennies back. I laugh a little when people say that they only have like two pennies after we finish our little speech saying what we are doing. The conversation goes a little like this:

"Hi. My friend, Calah, and I are going on a mission trip this summer to Port Au Prince, Haiti. We will be there for two months and we will be working at an orphanage for part of the trip. We are going around asking for donations of spare change to help raise money for supplies for the kids and to actually get us there. Is there anything that you would like to donate?"

"Yeah! Let me look...........................I have like three pennies?"

"That is great! Every little bit helps get us closer to our goal!"

That is about how the conversation goes. But, there are some people that have mountains of change that they give. I mean like eight dollars in change, its crazy. Some people have given us $20 bills when we are just asking for spare change, college students have given us $20 bills and checks for $50. We are so grateful of the kids here on campus. They are all so willing to give. Even when you start slurring what you are saying and tell them that you are paying to get their change or that you are collecting supplies, instead of collecting change. You think it would be easier to repeat the same thing 300 times but you my friend are wrong....11 pm does not agree with my brain and I tend to be incomprehensible but people still hear what I dod or did not say and they give. We have two more dorms to go to and I am hoping that they are as generous as the last 8 that we have been to. 

Then we have to go to all of them again next week to sell dinner tickets...it is going to be great...all in one night... 

The power of the penny amazes me, all day.

Nations Dinner and other stuff

So life has been crazy lately. I say lately meaning the same as it normally is...anyway I have been planning a trip to Haiti this summer, if you don't already know, with a couple of friends. It has been a long, hard, crazy and amazing thing. We have been doing a lot of fundraising and there is even more to be done. We are getting ready to have a big one actually. I have been making banners for it for the last three or four days, they are the photos in this blog. It is the nations dinner. This is going to be really fun I think...we have gone through a lot of preparation for this dinner and I am praying that it goes off without a hitch. I know that it will lord willing. We are hoping to raise like $1,000 dollars for this and then that would cover at least 3 plane tickets maybe 4. We found tickets for $372.40 and that is round trip! Ok so doing the math that covers like 2 3/4 tickets but, that is closer than we are now. We are going to be doing other things as well. We want to raise like $5,000 dollars total and I am realizing that getting 5 people there is harder than getting 1 person there. I know that the Lord will make a way for all of us to get there no matter what. 

I am really excited about this trip. We are going to be working at a orphanage in Haiti, some of you may have heard of it, called World Harvest for Christ New Missions Children's Home. This place really is like a second home to me well, all of Haiti is like a second home to me but WHC is where my Haiti experience began when I was 12. These are the kids that really changed my outlook on life and made me realize that I had a great life and things are not as bad as I think they are. I love these kids and we want to do great things for them this summer. We want to bring in new sheets for all the kids, maybe slap a fresh coat of paint on the walls in the rooms. Who knows? We really just want to love these kids though and spend time playing and caring for them. That is the goal of this trip, to show 

the kids at WHC that they are loved and that someone cares. 

I feel stupid doing this but if you would like to donate to the trip make all checks payable to me, Alyssa Hallaway and send them to me at:

2317 Westland Mill

Acworth, GA 30102

And if you don't feel like you want to send money, send your prayers to us and with us as we go in this trip in June.