Children of Hope: Reunited

One week from this Monday, we will be driving back to Lynchburg to regroup with the other two teams (for a week or so, and I'll be done June 17.) I will then be hanging out in Lynchburg until approximately June 27 so that I can catch up with friends there and also do some photo shoots (I still have some openings if anyone is interested :)

The end of the tour is near...I have mixed feelings: it'll be wonderful to live out of acloset and not a suitcase! It'll be wonderful to plan my own day instead of having my life planned for me (God has taught me a lot this last year!) It'll be wonderful to escape to Panera or B&N when I need alone time to breathe. You get the picture. However, I'm not ready for the kids to go to their home continent.

The past few weeks have been spent galavanting the Eastern states such as Virginia (the D.C. area), Ohio, Pennsylvania, and now New Jersey (praying for a beautiful day on Monday, because we'll spend it at Ocean City with the team!!) Today we drove past signs on the highway for LANCASTER!! And on top of that, we stopped for lunch at Isaac's which was made complete by a Turkey Hill peach tea. Ah, what a heavenly day :)

This world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. When we arrived at the NJ church today, I struck up conversation (what else is new?) with their summer youth intern who went to Eastern College. Turns out she knows a church friend of mine. Also, I was in the pastor's home tonight and saw a photo of his kids. I recognize one of his sons who is a golfer at Liberty (I photographed some of the golfers my sophomore year for the yearbook.) So weird!!

I'll try not to let this blog post get ridiculously long, so I'll get to the point....in the last two weeks, I was reunited with family members and several friends. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to see familiar faces!

D.C.:

It felt surreal to spend an entire Friday evening with Janine, Dachelle, and Rachel. How lucky am I that all three of those girls live in the D.C. area? We chatted a million mph as we relaxed at Rachel's rock star downtown apartment. She's such a wonderful hostess who prepared chicken parmesan for us to enjoy. I'm so thankful that Janine brought her camera and snapped photos throughout the night....I'll post a few below. After dinner we stepped out into the night air and strolled over to Union Station where a fancy gala was taking place. The thought of sneaking in was slightly tempting; however, we weren't exactly wearing ball gowns. (It looked like a blast though!) After grabbing Starbucks, we went back to the apartment where we wrapped up the night talking on the outdoor balcony. It was a perfect evening with wonderful friends.

The weekend only got better! The next day I met up with my family in old town Alexandria, and we walked in and out of the cute shops. How great to see them again....Chandler is taller than me! On Sunday, my family (and Rachel!!) finally got to meet my "family away from family." They all adored watching the kids sing and dance across the stage....afterwards, they spent a few minutes getting to know the kids and fell in love with them (and the kids enjoyed meeting my family that I have talked lots about!) As my family walked away, Lincoln shouted, "See you in heaven!" which caused them to tear up....

Ohio:

Since we were near Columbus, I got to meet up with my friend, Aaron. As soon as he met Gift and Martin, they pulled him into the backyard to do flips and front handsprings. It was quite impressive to watch the three of them do this! I simply stood on the sidelines taking video (I can do a cartwheel, but that's it!) The evening was spent walking along a country road, getting sprayed with dust as cars drove past us ;) On Sunday he met all 13 of the crazy children at our concert....and he got to take part in a competitive game of Phase 10! It was fun to catch up with Aaron, since our paths had not crossed in the last three years.

I think this pattern of seeing friends will continue, because my friend, Brett, is planning to meet the kids at our Sunday night concert in Ocean City.