Y'all!
Over the past eight years, I've had the opportunity and joy to add several stamps to my passport. I've been to Guatemala, Uganda (twice), and Kenya (and also got stamps when I left the airport during layovers in Amsterdam and Brussels). Each one of these trips changed my life in profound ways. I wish everyone could/would visit a third-world country once in their lives; I think our world would be a better place for it.
That being said, I've joked that, just once, I'd like to vacation someplace where I don't have to bring my own water! (If you don't know about the water issues facing the majority of the world, check out these sites to learn more and find out how you can help: https://water.cc/, www.charitywater.org.) I hear people say that their vacations are relaxing and luxurious and sometimes I'm envious.
Kevin and I sometimes talk about the perfect vacation - one where we don't have to plan anything but how to get there. It's stressful to us to have to find someplace to eat for every meal, to navigate an unfamiliar place, to deal with crowds, parking, or public transportation. And, if we've taken all the effort to get to a new place, we don't want to miss a single site the place has to offer, but we also don't want to arrive back home completely exhausted. So what's a girl to do?? We had been thinking that a cruise might check all these boxes, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on myself - not when I know there are people living without clean water, starving to death, or deprived of education because they can't afford the school fees. I can help with all of those things - as long as I have money to do so.
So we never booked that dreamed-of vacation. But we got it anyway. Everything we had dreamed of in our fantasy vacation was given to us (yes, given to us) by Little Pink Houses of Hope. Kevin and I just got home from spending the past week on Oak Island, NC. I don't consider myself Southern, but the only appropriate way to introduce this next statement requires some country vernacular: Y'all - Little Pink took care of everything for the entire week. Every. Thing.
And they didn't cheap out or give us the leftovers. We had people tripping over each other in their desire to serve us. Y'all - someone let us use their beach house for the entire week without charge! Their three-bedroom beach house, one block from the sand and waves, just for Kevin and me. Y'all - we had our own "volunstar" assigned to us alone, to make sure we had anything and everything we needed. We even arrived to a refrigerator full of our favorite snacks and drinks, with a gift card for anything else we might want from the store during our stay. We didn't need anything else, though, because y'all - no less than 12 different businesses and organizations provided various meals for us during the week. 12! And in most cases, the donors themselves came and served the food to us, whether a sub on the sand or crab cakes on the water.
Y'all - we didn't even have to lug our stuff to the beach. Little Pink showed up with the chairs, the tent, the sand toys, the boogie boards, and the coolers of drinks. Y'all - people taught us how to paddle board, hosted a fancy tea for the survivors, opened up the NC aquarium just for us, so we could eat dinner in front of the huge tanks, sang us sweet songs they had written, and gave us a professional photo shoot on the beach. And that doesn't even cover the things on the schedule we didn't get to do because of Tropical Storm Julia.
And y'all - it doesn't stop there! We were also showered with gifts - so many things given out of hearts full of love and compassion. Whoever had something they could give, they gave it, whether Mary Kay sunscreen or hand-knitted prayer shawls. Y'all - I have never felt so loved - and by people who didn't even know me. People who would never get anything in return for their kindness, not even a thanks, since we didn't get to meet most of them.
They didn't know all the things that would comprise my dream vacation; even the Little Pink staff didn't know that. Only God knew what would minister most to us and He used these willing people to rain down grace on us. My eyes filled up with tears of wonder at this at least once every day over the past six days and are full again as I write this.
Y'all - there are good things about having cancer.
That being said, I've joked that, just once, I'd like to vacation someplace where I don't have to bring my own water! (If you don't know about the water issues facing the majority of the world, check out these sites to learn more and find out how you can help: https://water.cc/, www.charitywater.org.) I hear people say that their vacations are relaxing and luxurious and sometimes I'm envious.
Kevin and I sometimes talk about the perfect vacation - one where we don't have to plan anything but how to get there. It's stressful to us to have to find someplace to eat for every meal, to navigate an unfamiliar place, to deal with crowds, parking, or public transportation. And, if we've taken all the effort to get to a new place, we don't want to miss a single site the place has to offer, but we also don't want to arrive back home completely exhausted. So what's a girl to do?? We had been thinking that a cruise might check all these boxes, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on myself - not when I know there are people living without clean water, starving to death, or deprived of education because they can't afford the school fees. I can help with all of those things - as long as I have money to do so.
So we never booked that dreamed-of vacation. But we got it anyway. Everything we had dreamed of in our fantasy vacation was given to us (yes, given to us) by Little Pink Houses of Hope. Kevin and I just got home from spending the past week on Oak Island, NC. I don't consider myself Southern, but the only appropriate way to introduce this next statement requires some country vernacular: Y'all - Little Pink took care of everything for the entire week. Every. Thing.
And they didn't cheap out or give us the leftovers. We had people tripping over each other in their desire to serve us. Y'all - someone let us use their beach house for the entire week without charge! Their three-bedroom beach house, one block from the sand and waves, just for Kevin and me. Y'all - we had our own "volunstar" assigned to us alone, to make sure we had anything and everything we needed. We even arrived to a refrigerator full of our favorite snacks and drinks, with a gift card for anything else we might want from the store during our stay. We didn't need anything else, though, because y'all - no less than 12 different businesses and organizations provided various meals for us during the week. 12! And in most cases, the donors themselves came and served the food to us, whether a sub on the sand or crab cakes on the water.
Y'all - we didn't even have to lug our stuff to the beach. Little Pink showed up with the chairs, the tent, the sand toys, the boogie boards, and the coolers of drinks. Y'all - people taught us how to paddle board, hosted a fancy tea for the survivors, opened up the NC aquarium just for us, so we could eat dinner in front of the huge tanks, sang us sweet songs they had written, and gave us a professional photo shoot on the beach. And that doesn't even cover the things on the schedule we didn't get to do because of Tropical Storm Julia.
And y'all - it doesn't stop there! We were also showered with gifts - so many things given out of hearts full of love and compassion. Whoever had something they could give, they gave it, whether Mary Kay sunscreen or hand-knitted prayer shawls. Y'all - I have never felt so loved - and by people who didn't even know me. People who would never get anything in return for their kindness, not even a thanks, since we didn't get to meet most of them.
They didn't know all the things that would comprise my dream vacation; even the Little Pink staff didn't know that. Only God knew what would minister most to us and He used these willing people to rain down grace on us. My eyes filled up with tears of wonder at this at least once every day over the past six days and are full again as I write this.
Y'all - there are good things about having cancer.
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