Praying for Ryan

Ryan Trewin is a nine year old boy who lives in Canal Fulton. I have never met him but every picture I have seen of him he has the biggest smile on his face. For most boys his age I suppose that is common but for this boy, to me, it's unexpected and inspiring to see him so happy. Ryan is bravely battling terminal brain and spinal cancer. He has been given less than a week to live now. I cannot even begin to imagine what he and his famliy are going through.
The salon I work at was located in Canal Fulton for 13 years before moving so our clientelle is still strongly based from that area. I drive through the area almost every day and that is how I first found out about Ryan. I saw little white signs where normally political signs would be in front of houses all through the little town. They have a red superman symbol changed to have an 'R' in the middle with "Pray for Ryan" across the top. Soon I heard many clients talking about the boy. Then almost every store front in Canal Fulton had put up on their signs "Pray for Ryan". In a local youth group Bible study that I went to speak at, I came in to find teenage girls making bracelets in superman colors (or 'super ryan' colors as they called it) to sell at school to help the family with medical bills. There has been parades in his honor and the browns called him up and had him come up to do the coin toss!
I have to say, I absolutely cannot stand what this little boy and his family is going though right now. I do however love seeing a community come together in support of them! And I aboslutely love seeing a community putting all their faith in God to help them. Please join us in prayer for this brave boy and family!
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philipians 4:6-7

Heaven or Jesus

Living in and learning from the community of the body of Christ is an awesome thing. I have been blessed with a wonderful group of friends and family to remind me of this daily. Whether it is in one of my small groups, with some of the girls I work with or just my friends hanging out, 'spiritual' conversations are never hard to come by. Like I said, I am blessed to have the type of community I do.

One of my favorite books is Crazy Love by Francis Chan. (If you haven't read it I highly recommend it!) I have gone through it in different small groups before, read it on my own and now I chose it for my ladie's study at ABT. Each time I've gone through it it has challenged me. Francis Chan lays things out there pretty bluntly and makes you really think and go back to what scripture has to say. As I go through it right now with the girls, I love hearing about what God has been teaching us all each week. I also have a guy friend (Joe) who is reading through it right now and I love hearing what he has to say about it. Each time I see him recently we end up talking about the book and what we've been taught.

The other night as our friends gathered at my house for our typical get-together Joe and I started chatting about what we had read that week. As I went on about how I loved the chapter about 'serving left overs to God', Joe explained how he loved the chapter on 'the profile of a lukewarm Christian'. Then we both agreed how much we liked the next chapter. Chan talks about his grandmother-in-law spending hours praying by her bedside each day and tears being brought to her eyes just by the sight of her bed remembering the intimate time she spent with God. That brought us to talk about how in love with God she must be, how we want be that in love with Him.

We began to talk about Heaven and getting to see Jesus. Next came Joe's deep thought, Joe is famous for his deep thoughts, "What if Jesus were not in Heaven? Would we still want to go to Heaven?". I praise God for His immaculate plan and am so thankful that He sent Jesus to save us and that we one day I will get to spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus. The question sparked a good conversation though. Is our goal Heaven or is it Jesus? Are we in love with the treasures we one day will see or the streets of gold? Or are we in love with our Savior and desire to spend eternity with Him? I love these kind of questions. The ones to get you to reexamine where your heart is at. Joe's final thought for that night "I would rather go through hell with Jesus than Heaven without Him". My thought to go along with that.. "AMEN!"

When my love is Jesus I want to serve Him with every part of me. I want to do anything and everything He asks of me. Serving becomes second nature when done out of love for my King. When love is Heaven alone, it becomes self-seeking to serve. It's out of an obligation or an "I'm suppossed to" feeling. Serving will quickly become a chore and something just to try to get your 'treasures'. I don't see how that is at all how we are supposed to live. Going through motions that were taught to us that we never took to heart. God calls us to love. I could go on posting a ton of scripture that comes to mind when i think of how God calls us to love but I will leave you with just this one..
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves, has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him." 1 John 4:7-9

Honduras Greeting Cards

Hello everyone! I posted this on facebook but I've been told that sometimes the pictures are not showing up and some people wanted to see them who don't have facebooks so I am posting it again on here! :)

December 27 - January 4 a team of 25 will be traveling to Honduras to spend a week serving, learning from and loving on the people there. As well as going to serve with the team, I will be staying until January 20! As a fundraiser to offset the cost of the trip, and as a way of introducing you to some of the sweet faces and sights that we will be taking in, we have put together some unique greeting cards just for you :) There are 5 different cards, all of which are blank inside.

Prices: $2/card OR 6 cards for $10

If you would like to purchase cards feel free to comment with the number and the specific cards you would like.
* If you would like the cards shipped to you, please send a message (at caitedavis@hotmail.com) with your address and include an additional $2 to offset the costs of shipping so that Honduras can receive the bulk of your support!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUPPORTING HONDURAS!

Another way for you to help!

On Wednesday, November 10 we will be having a spaghetti dinner at Akron Baptist Temple ( http://www.abt316.org/ ) to help raise money for our trip to Honduras! We did this for our June trip and it had a great turn out!

In order to put on this dinner we are in need of some donations. We need things like spaghetti sauce, pasta, rolls, salad, salad dressings, butter, baked goods, drinks, paper products etc. If you or anyone you know have any way of donating these items to us it would be greatly appreciated. Also, last time we were donated gift cards by some grocery stores and from some just money to buy the things we need so if you would like to donate money or gift cards that would be great too!

You can contact me at caitedavis@hotmail.com if you'd like to donate or have any questions!

I also hope to see you all at the dinner!!!

Going back to Honduras.. for almost a month!

Well here we go, my first blog. Bear with me, for those of you who are reading this who have been to Honduras with me and have seen me blog.. you know how long these normally take me.

As some of you may know, last December I was blessed with the opportunity to go on a missions trip to Honduras. Having been on missions trips in the past I expected it to grab my heart but was very unaware of how much. Before that trip had even ended I was already thinking about when I would be able to go back and started praying about it. I was then blessed with another opportunity to go again this past June with another team. My heart was captured even more! So most recently, I had taken off a couple days of work over Labor Day Weekend and, with the planning of all about 6 days and God's guidance, I headed back down to Honduras for about 4 way too short days. Yep, only for God (and His super cute kids) would I ever hop on a plane and travel all by myself to a foreign country. Well, after that "tease" of a trip, I have really felt a tugging at my heart to get back there.

So, after lots of prayer, guess what!? I'm going back!! I will be traveling down with another group who will be there December 27th- January 4th. I am so excited to see what God has in store for this team! I know it will be a great trip!! While we are there we will be doing some of the following..
-Visiting children at orphanages
-Feeding people living at the city garbage dump
-Feeding the people who live in the streets.
-Building houses
-Visiting children at hospital, bringing them candy/toys
-Visiting elderly homes
-Helping missionaries with existing projects
-Delivering bags (with food, clothes, blankets, other necessities) in villages

For more info on what we've done before/ things we may be doing I highly encourage you all to check out Ashley Lauer's blog at www.ashinhonduras.blogspot.com
We kept updates for friends and family back home on her blog on both of the first 2 team trips I was on. Along with some great blogs from when Ashley was living there and other teams.

Along with going down with the team, I have the opportunity to stay until January 20! I have been so incredibly blessed with an awesome job (and boss) that allows me to do this. I will be staying with some missionary friends down there and working along side of them trying to show the love of Jesus to everyone we can.

We have two very vital needs for this trip. The first and most important being prayer. Please be praying for the Lord to prepare our hearts to have the compassion we need for the people there. And, please be praying for the Lord to prepare the hearts of those we come in contact with. Pray that we will be used for God's glory in ways we couldn't imagaine.

The second need is financial. The total cost for the team trip is $1,500 per person. So, for me to stay almost a month it will be around $2,000. (This includes our airfare, work fund, food, lodging etc. for the time we are there). If you feel led to support financially, there are two ways you can do so. One being donate directly on my blog through paypal by clicking the 'donate' button above. The other is by mailing a check. If you e-mail me at caitedavis@hotmail.com I will send you the address.

Thank you all so much for your support in advance. While we are there with the team we will be updating what we're doing on Ashley's blog and I will try my best to update my blog while I'm there.

God bless!!