Winding Up in Wisconsin

This weekend I went to visit my roommate from the COAT Program this summer, Melissa. After a few weeks of support raising, we started calling each other on Wednesday nights to provide some accountability and to pray with each other. That has been so encouraging! I really love this optimistic, faith-filled girl! It's really nice to talk to someone else who "gets" the challenges associated with the support raising process and is going through it right now as well. Thankfully I had a chance to see her in person (she gives really good hugs!) before she moves to Rwanda at the end of October.

As long as I'm making shameless plugs for people...you can visit the NMSI website www.nmsi.org/donate and click on "Melissa Schuettpelz" if you want to bless her with a financial donation. Or visit http://www.solacem.org/ to learn all that Solace Ministries is doing to comfort those who have been affected by the mass genocide that occurred in 1994. Solace is the ministry that Melissa will be working with once she moves to Rwanda.

On the way to Wisconsin I picked up Henry, another Summer COAT Program graduate as well as Melissa's boyfriend. There were definatly some laughing times during the weekend---mostly while driving in cars and taking silly pictures. Some of my favorite silly pictures were taken during a walk to a light house on Lake Michigan.

Later we visited the Jelly Belly Factory and got a few free samples (small, but free). I knew that I really liked watermelon flavored Jelly Bellies and blueberry flavored Jelly Bellies, but I wasn't sure what the red Jelly Belly that I liked was called----I discovered that it was raspberry! I'm a fan of the fruity flavors!

Henry was a real big fan of the hats (wink, wink!)---that's why he ended up taking the picture instead of being in it.

Lastly, we took some pictures for Derek and Ashley who were planning on making the trip with us, but weren't able to. (They're the ones on the laptop). We were pretty sad they couldn't come with us, but I got to hang out with them a little on the way home and they really appreciated the bag of Belly Flops we gave them (Jelly Bellies that were too big, too small, stuck together etc.) and the laptop pictures. Below is our interpretation of the funny face Derek is making in the picture on the laptop. I met some really great people this summer!!!!