Fully Funded

I know many people have probably wondered why I would want to go somewhere else this summer. But after Nicaragua there wasn’t any question to me that Nicaragua was going to be the end of my mission trips. On the car ride back home after Nicaragua I was already looking at trips for this summer. Through months of praying God has led me to Uganda, Africa for 23 days this summer! When I first signed up to go my dad told me he thought it was a lovely idea for me to want to go, but in reality it was going to be nearly impossible to get over $4,000 to go. (He’s such a realist.) Shortly after I was accepted I once again started fund raising, and at some moments I feel like I have begged a little, but all the same I have seen God work in ways I never could have imagine.  First, after months of looking for a job, and 18 applications later God provided me with a job where I get far more than enough hours! Which means more money for Uganda! I sold shirts, which I ended up selling 40 making around $500 off of them. And then there were also pure donations. It has been incredible seeing how God has provided once again! With one month and 20 days left until I fly out, I have all my money, plus the money needed to fly Georgia, and money for the necessary shots I need to be able to enter the country!

I would like to thank every single person who has made this possible for me to go! I feel honored that God has called me again to go! 

Shirts for Uganda

Many people think my journey to Uganda starts on July 6th when I walk down a dirt path to the cabins at the AIM training camp. That, however, is not the case. My journey to Uganda, Africa started months ago with raising the funds to get to there. So far I’ve auctioned off a Letters in Nature Alphabet, sold candles, written support letters(www.iamonlyonebutiamone.blogspot.com/2011/11/here-i-am-send-me.html), ect…  And I’m glad to say I already have half my money! Which means I now only need $2,325 to go! To help raise the rest I am selling T-shirts. Fund The Nations has designed the T-shirts. I’m selling each shirt for $20 each. (If I have to mail the shirt/shirts it will be $23 each.) The sizes range from small to 2X. The profit off of each shirt goes straight into my Uganda fund! (That percentage depends on how many shirts I sell but is at least 1/2.)

If you want to order a shirt/shirts send a check made out to me (Candace Jeffcoat) and put your t-shirt size/sizes on the memo line.  Mail it to:

Candace Jeffcoat

c/o Siloam Baptist Church

268 Siloam Church Road

Magee, MS  39111

Thank you all for your support!

Letters in Nature Alphabet for Auction

I am trying to get to Uganda this summer with Adventures in Missions.  To help raise money for this trip I will be selling and auctioning off different items.  My first item for auction is a 20 x 16 framed print of the alphabet made from pictures in nature I took myself.  The bidding starts now at $25.  The highest bid listed at 8:00 pm CST on January 24^th on my Facebook or here on my Blog will be the winner.  If I need to ship the item to you the shipping cost will have to be added to the final price.  Please spread the word! 

Gratitude

1. Creaking hammock

5. The crunch of dried leaves

7. The smell of a rose that has just opened

9. Sunlight hitting a spider web

17. Veins of a rose peddle

22. Sun shining through clouds

33. Water droplets on leaves

42. Globs of lotion

53. Creases in Books

60. Bees collecting pollen

Here I Am, Send Me

First, I would like to thank each of you who donated money, bought candles, and/or gave me prayer support for my trip to Nicaragua this past summer.

One thing God really showed me this past summer in Nicaragua is that Nicaragua isn’t the end, but just the beginning of God’s call for me to foreign missions. This same call is now leading me to the other side of the world to Uganda, Africa for three weeks.  I will be working mainly with kids infected with HIV/AIDS. In 2009 alone 150,000 children were infected with HIV/AIDS, and 1.2 million were orphaned because of it in Uganda. In Uganda we’ll partner with a children’s ministry that aims to nurture vulnerable children by showing them God’s love.

Sadly, this trip isn’t going to come cheap. The total cost is $4,650. To help raise money I’m selling 6-ounce candles for $6 and “Letters in Nature” for $3 each letter and framed inspirational words like Love, Hope, Life, Live, Home and Pray for $15. Even though I’m selling candles and “Letters in Nature” I don’t know if I’ll be able to raise all the money I need. If 46 people donated $100, or if 92 people donated $50, I would have all the money!  If you are interested in candles and/or letters you can email me at Pawsforlife95@yahoo.com. If you would like to donate toward my trip you can go to www.Adventures.org/give click on “Mission Participant”, under “Choose a Program” find “Ambassador” then fill in my name: Candace Jeffcoat. Or send a check c/o Siloam Baptist Church (268 Siloam Church Road, Magee, MS 39111) and write Candace’s Trip in the memo line.

If you can’t support me finically please don’t feel guilty in any way, if you still want to help I always need prayer support.

Thank you in advance for supporting me in however God leads you.

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?”

I said, “Here I am. Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8

Singing With Joy

One of my favorite things we did in Nicaragua was the worship we had almost every morning at 5:30. Worship was something I looked forward to, we would pray, sing, and pray again. After worship we would split off to do our one-on-one with God.  During our mornings with God, God started showing me how to truly worship. The more God showed me about worship the more I started to realize how little I truly knew about it. God told me that worship is so much more than just singing, raising your hands, praying, even though all this is awesome! Worship is a time where we block out the world, and really imagine ourselves standing before God, THE God who made us in His likeness; a God who loves us so much that He gave us His son, so we could be with Him forever! Worshipping Him with the praise and honor that He deserves!

One day God brought me to Psalm 100, which says,

“Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!

Worship the Lord with gladness.

Come before him, singing with joy.

Acknowledge that the Lord is God!

He made us, and we are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving;

go into his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good.

His unfailing love continues forever,

and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”

Verse 2 stood out to me, the second part of it says, “Come before him, singing and joy.” Singing I got. Joy, not so much. I know joy is happy and sometimes loud, but I had always imagined worship being a time that you sang, and thanked God, and that is when you had big God moments. But that wasn’t what God told me. Every time I tried to tell God how I thought it was done He kept pointing me to Psalms 100.

Our last Tuesday in Granada, Padre (the guy who translated for us, but became so much more than just our translator, he was our friend, and was like a dad to us while we were there) had us over at his house. When we were about to leave he gave us each a bracelet he had made for us, and a short note to go with it. My note had a bible verse. The Bible verse Padre gave me was Psalms 100:2! Of all the thousands of verses, Padre chose the one God had been showing me. It was a God thing!

Now that I’m home, I haven’t had worship every morning with my team, but God has continued to teach me how to come before Him, which is to come before Him singing with joy

Free to Dance

Even though I have been home from Nicaragua for the past one and a half weeks. I’ve still been processing everything that happened in Nicaragua and what all God has been teaching me. I think many times people think after you come back from a missions trip you go back to your normal life, and that’s it. That is definitely not how it has been for me.  During half a week at Training Camp then three and half weeks in Nicaragua God changed me.  I knew before this journey had even begun that God was going to do amazing things in those 4 weeks.  But then and even now I still can’t wrap my mind around the fullness of it all. A few years ago we moved from a place I loved, a place that was home to me, a place where I still love to go. But like I said we moved. Sadly during that move my family and I lost many friends. Friends that we never really had the chance to say good-bye to.  It was one of those moves that changes you. You have to decide if it changes you in a good way of a bad way. At the time I told myself that I would not let moving and pain that came with it pull me down. I’m sorry to say that is not how I handled it. Over the past 3 almost 4 years I have known that I never had dealt with the pain and hurt. I knew I needed to, and many times I tried to convince myself that I had, but truthfully I hadn’t.  All this changed this summer. God showed me at Training Camp that I had been fooling myself, and I had to deal with it.  My leader Jessie told me to write down everything I felt I had I right to be mad about, then rip up the paper, and throw it away. I wrote it down, felt a little better, but never ripped it up or throw it away. It just was there in my notebook where I could go anytime I wanted to read, and remember the pain it brought. But after about two weeks I knew it was time to really deal with it completely, which also meant opening all the wounds that I never allowed God to heal. So, I started from scratch, wrote down everything, I took my time this time to really be able to be real with myself and real with God. When I was finished writing everything down I for the last time read everything I had written. After reading it, I stood up from where I was doing my quiet time, went into the bathroom, sat on the floor with the trashcan and started ripping it up and throwing it away. Throwing it away for it to never come back again to haunt me. That day I handed it all to God.  Then I really don’t think I truly got how much God had lifted off me. But after being home I have come to realize just how much God has changed me, and how free I feel now.  A few days ago during one of my best friend and mine’s one and half hour conversations I told her I felt free from the bondage of hurt and pain, and even anger that I had let control a good amount of my life. Now, I truly feel free to dance! Free to be bound (also there is a great book that is called Free to be Bound) in Christ!

  

Orphans Of God

This past Friday my team and I went to a Orphanage just for girls. Earlier in the week someone explained to us that most if not all the girls in the orphanage are not really orphans. There parents are most probably still alive, but their parents did not want them, so they brought them to the orphanage. After hearing this it made me want to go even more. So Friday we set off to go. After about a 10 minute walk we were there. After a Teacher unlocked the front gate so we could come in. The teacher told us we had one hour to spend with the girls. As we walked through a few girls meet us with big hugs. The girls grabbed our hands and brougt us to where we would be for the remander of the hour. As we were setting our water bottles and the rest of our things on a table, more girls came flowing in. As soon as we had set our things down we started singing and play with the girls. It did not take long to realize the girls are starving for people to love on them. And we are just the right people to do so. As I walked back over to the table where I had set my water bottle I notice a little girl sitting by herself, a walked over to her to ask her if she wanted to join in all the playing and singing. When I asked her and just shock her head no, I then sat down and started talking to her in a little to no spanish. After I had said everything I knew in spanish, I just sat there for a few minutes. Thinking that the the 6 year old girl really did not want me there I started to stand up, once she realized what I was doing she grabbed my hand and told me no in a much louder voice than she had been using. I sat right back down knowing that this girl just wanted someone to love and spend to with her. I was completely out of things to say, but me just being there was enough for her.
I only spent about 20 to 30 minutes with her, but it was one of my favorite things so far that I have done in Nicaragua. This girl was probably brought to the orphanage by her parents because they did not want her, and she probably knows that. She might go to bed at night every night thinking about the family that left her. But God does not look at this little 6 year old girl as orphan or a unwanted child. God sees her as a child of his, a child that he will never leave.
I wanted to tell her all this and more, but my lack of spanish would not let me tell her all this. The only thing I could do for this little child was to pray in silents as she colored. And all the time I heared God say was the world might see her as a orphan or a unwanted kid, but to me she will never to a orphan.
That night when we can back to the place we are staying I put my earphones in and listen to Orphans of God. And for the first time when they sang There are No Orphans of God I saw the face of the little girl. Not just the word Orphans.

First week in Niaragua

I cannot come up with a really good blog post. The only thing I know to say is that I have had an amazing week! I have played with kids that none of us know what kind of home they really have, I have eaten a fish that still has eyes in it. Bathed in a lake three times! Slept on the floor with 6 other people ,with bugs all around me. I have spent time with God in the morning while looking at a beautiful sunrise!
God has shown me so much! And I still have tow and a half weeks left!
I will try to write more later.

Heading to Nicaragua Today

 In the last 4 days I have only showered twice, both showers were extremely cold. I have been sleeping on a three high bunk-beds in a room or a building that looks a little more like a barn than a real room. I've brushed my teeth out of a water cooler. I've been eating under a big tent with about 80 other people who have been getting ready to go on a journey God as asked them to go on. Today or midnight last night I left with the rest of my team to continue the journey God has given us for this summer.  After about a 1 1/2 hour drive to the Airport and about 5 1/2 hours finding things to do in the airport, it was time to board the plane that would bring us to Miami. I'm right now sitting on the plane. Some people know I'm not a fan of flying, today is no different. But as soon as we got into the air and I was able to see the beautiful sky, it made the plane ride a little better. 
After we reach Miami we will catch a plane from Miami to Managua Nicaragua. 
By tonight my team and me will be in Nicaragua. And getting ready to show the love of Christ to people who don't know the love of God.