Night in a Box: A Photo Diary

Night in a Box is a city-wide event in my town to raise money for the local homeless shelter. Church youth groups join together in a parking lot and sleep in cardboard boxes. This year was the 8th year for the event but Colonial's first, at least that I remember. Our box was easily the biggest. It held our entire group. It started at 5pm and runs until 7am. I left around midnight.

I might caption some of the pictures, but most of them won't have anything.

The wind was knocking our walls down so we had to come up with a support system

The hospital was next door

Hot tub!

Our leftover boxes, wait, I mean plates

Haiti: 30 days

Yesterday was 100 days until Orlando and today is 30 days until Haiti!!

I'm joining a team from my church for a weeklong mission trip to Haiti at the beginning of June. We're going to join up with Healing Haiti on the trip. There are 14 of us altogether going.

While we're there, we'll be delivering water, rocking babies, visiting with elderly people, playing with children, and more. I believe we'll be spending more of our time in Port au Prince.

These are homes in Port au Prince.

Grace Village

We'll also be visiting an organization called Grace Village. It's a part of Healing Haiti. It has several different branches.

• Grace Feeding Center Feeding over 400 Children, Elderly and Adults weekly.
• Grace Children's Homes Home to 44 abandoned or orphaned children.
• Grace Medical & Dental Clinic Serving Grace Village and the Village of Titanyen.
• Grace School A Christian school for 380 children.
• Grace Church A community church for up to 1000 people to praise and worship our creator.
• Grace Aquaponics Initiative An integrated Aquaponic Tilapia Farm providing a constant source of protein and fresh vegetables for Grace Feeding Center

While I won't have internet or my phone during the day, in the evenings, the guesthouse we're staying at does have wifi, so I'll be able to post about what I did that day! I won't have pictures until I get home because the team leader will have the only camera. We'll bring them all home on a memory stick.

I'm excited/nervous about the trip. It will be my first major mission trip. I've gone to Tulsa and Arlington and done VBS's for kids, but this is a whole different ball game. I'm one of the youngest on the trip, along with a friend who's my age and two girls from up north that none of us know yet, but I'm still looking forward to it.

I've slowly been gathering up what I need to take with. I bought a protein powder to take to drink for lunch. We'll be provided breakfast and dinner, but our lunches will be out in the field so we have to take our own food. I bought some long skirts to wear to church on the Sunday and to The Hospital for Sick and Dying Babies that we'll visit on one day. I still need lots of basketball shorts. We have strict rules about dress.

We've been asked to bring donations for the trip, so we're all working on gathering items. The donations will go in the checked luggage.

• Toothpaste
• Toothbrushes 
• Maxi pads
• Wound Wash
• Gauze pads - 2x2, 3x3
• Medical Tape
• Bacitracin/Neosporin
• Acne Cream
• Acne Face Wash

If you can help with any of those items, you can take them to Colonial Church or you can give them directly to me and I can take them where they need to go. If you give money, we can buy the items.

100 days until Holiday 1960!

Dear peoples, guess what?!

It's officially 100 days until Orlando, or as we (or at least me,) affectionately call it, "Holiday 1960."

There are six of us that are going to stay at a fabulous new Universal resort that's 50s themed! It has a diner, a bowling alley, and all sorts of cool things!

Our gorgeous hotel

We'll be driving there, so that won't be much fun, but hopefully we'll all get along the whole way there and not fight over the radio.

The lobby!

We're going to go to Disney World, and maybe Universal, and maybe the Kennedy Space Center, and maybe a drive-in movie! We're still deciding.

Ahhh!