First off, the miracle you are about to read is not about me. I just saw it. I walked through it. Now I want to share it.
January 19, 2008
It snowed in Alabama. It was the weekend of my little girl's birthday. We had her third birthday party in Roanoke at my mom's house. It was beautiful. Cousins came and made snowmen and had snowball fights. We came back home to Montgomery that night.
January 20, 2008
My Abbie's actual birthday. Wondering if there might be even more snow to come, I get on James Spann's blog to see what he's predicting. No weather reports this morning. Instead, he shares that his friends, Rick and Sherri Burgess, lost their youngest son Bronner the night before in a drowning accident. I have listened to the Rick and Bubba show for years. Bronner was just a few months younger than Abbie. Today was her third birthday. I hurt so much for this family.
August 16, 2008
(Sherri and Betty are the wives of Rick and Bubba, of The Rick and Bubba Show. www.rickandbubba.com)
Sherri Burgess and Betty Bussey spoke to a group of women in Birmingham. I went, with three dear friends of mine. It was the weekend before my birthday. Sherri and Betty shared their faith and how their relationship with God had grown since Bronner went to Heaven. My heart was stirred. I was motivated to be a better wife, mother and friend. I saw a passion for the Lord among the women at this event, and I wanted that passion for myself and those close to me.
The next day at church, I found Susan Fisher, our women's ministry director at Frazer. I told her about the message that Sherri and Betty shared. I told her that we had to have them speak at Frazer. With her support, I started making calls, got the ball rolling, and ultimately got the ladies scheduled for Aug. 22, 2009 at Frazer. Almost exactly one year from when I had heard them the first time.
June 24, 2009
I saw a group of girls tonight in my church. I didn't recognize any of them. They were all very cute, thought they might have been there to rehearse for a pageant. I just kept walking. On with my life and my own business.
But there were grown-ups in their group talking to our senior pastor, his wife and others...Wonder what they have to do with a pageant?
Later, as I watched the 20 or so girls giggle and walk around as my own children played in the atrium near them, I learned that they were orphans who had been rescued from a sex trade operation, somewhere around the Ukraine. There was a man with them who ran the orphanage that protects these girls. These girls. Not somewhere on the other side of the world. Not in a brochure. These girls that I was looking at with my own eyes; and at the same time, I can see my own 4-year-old little girl, and my friends daughters as well. Someone felt the call to be the hands and feet of Christ, and rescued these very girls that I saw from unspeakable crimes. I don't know what the term "rescued" means. I don't know what they might have been exposed to before coming to this orphanage. But now, it's over. They are safe.
I watched the girls leave the atrium and join Frazer's youth outside for an outdoor movie event. They just blended right in.
I don't know what my point is here. This is not a well-written story or anecdote, it's just a thought. Just a seed planted within my soul now. I can't describe what I felt looking at those girls when I learned who they were and where they were from. Seeing them in such close proximity to me and my Abbie was profound. They had been rescued by His Hand.
I will never see foreign missions they same way again.
Later this summer
Philip Cameron is the man who runs these orphanages in Moldova. He came back to Frazer on a Sunday morning. He came back with his group of teenage girls. He spoke in our worship service. He told of how so many of his "daughters" had come to be with his ministry.
My husband and I have our place on the front row on the far left side of the church. We sit with our friends the Brawners, who have a boy and a girl, the same ages as our younger two. Meredith and I, along with the rest of our church family, sat with tears flowing down our faces, hanging on every word from Mr. Cameron as he shared his passion for rescuing young women from unspeakable crimes against them.
We sat wondering what we could do to help. Most of my friends are stay-at-home moms who have pre-school age children, so our opportunities to help are limited. The Lord reminded me that I had taught ESL (English as a second language) a few years ago. Maybe that is something I could do. The girls come to America sometimes. Maybe I could help them learn more English. Later that day, my friend Meredith shared that the Lord laid it on her heart as well during that worship service; that she could learn to teach ESL, and share that with the girls from Moldova. I bumped into another friend that day who had already been to Russia a few years ago. While there, she taught conversational English to teenagers. She was equally stirred by the story of the girls from Moldova, and was open to go again one day. Eager to do something that day, many women at Frazer, including me, bought t-shirts, with the proceeds going to support the ministry.
August 22, 2009
Today is the day. We have promoted the event on radio, tv and print. We've gone door to door hanging up posters and we've handed out 1500 emery boards. Rick and Bubba's wives are coming to Frazer.
Here's a link to their messages:
http://www.frazerumc.org/news/noteasilybroken/
After the ladies spoke, I along with a few other of my girlfriends who helped organize the event got to spend a little bit of time with Sherri and Betty. At the women's event on Saturday, we took up a love offering for the Bronner Burgess Memorial Fund. This is a fund created to allow Rick and Sherri to contribute money to causes that seek to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Turns out, we collected $7,777.77. Sherri has shared that the number 7 has become significant to them, in that it represents completion in the Bible. Bronner was the seventh member of their family. His birthday was May 27. One year earlier, the event where Sherri and Betty spoke in Birmingham, they collected $7,777 for the memorial fund. One year later, they collected almost exactly the same amount again.
The evening of August 23, 2009
Rick and Sherri watch an episode of "The Carpenter Shop" on Frazer's website. In this episode, our senior pastor, Barry Carpenter, interviews Philip Cameron about his ministry to girls in Moldova. Their hearts are stirred.
The morning of August 24, 2009
While on the air, Rick notices two young women outside their radio studio. They are wearing t-shirts, just like the girls from Moldova had on on "The Carpenter Shop" the night before.
He invites them inside. Turns out, it's Melody Cameron, daughter of Philip Cameron. He interviews her on the show, and shares the story of Moldova with listeners all over the country.
Rick told Melody that since the event Frazer hosted over the weekend was sponsored by the women's ministry, and this ministry of her father's sought to help young women and tell them about Christ, that he and Sherri wanted to give ALL of the money raised from that event to their ministry.
what do you think about that?
To learn more about the ministry in Moldova, got to http://www.stallthisengine.org
January 19, 2008
It snowed in Alabama. It was the weekend of my little girl's birthday. We had her third birthday party in Roanoke at my mom's house. It was beautiful. Cousins came and made snowmen and had snowball fights. We came back home to Montgomery that night.
January 20, 2008
My Abbie's actual birthday. Wondering if there might be even more snow to come, I get on James Spann's blog to see what he's predicting. No weather reports this morning. Instead, he shares that his friends, Rick and Sherri Burgess, lost their youngest son Bronner the night before in a drowning accident. I have listened to the Rick and Bubba show for years. Bronner was just a few months younger than Abbie. Today was her third birthday. I hurt so much for this family.
August 16, 2008
(Sherri and Betty are the wives of Rick and Bubba, of The Rick and Bubba Show. www.rickandbubba.com)
Sherri Burgess and Betty Bussey spoke to a group of women in Birmingham. I went, with three dear friends of mine. It was the weekend before my birthday. Sherri and Betty shared their faith and how their relationship with God had grown since Bronner went to Heaven. My heart was stirred. I was motivated to be a better wife, mother and friend. I saw a passion for the Lord among the women at this event, and I wanted that passion for myself and those close to me.
The next day at church, I found Susan Fisher, our women's ministry director at Frazer. I told her about the message that Sherri and Betty shared. I told her that we had to have them speak at Frazer. With her support, I started making calls, got the ball rolling, and ultimately got the ladies scheduled for Aug. 22, 2009 at Frazer. Almost exactly one year from when I had heard them the first time.
June 24, 2009
I saw a group of girls tonight in my church. I didn't recognize any of them. They were all very cute, thought they might have been there to rehearse for a pageant. I just kept walking. On with my life and my own business.
But there were grown-ups in their group talking to our senior pastor, his wife and others...Wonder what they have to do with a pageant?
Later, as I watched the 20 or so girls giggle and walk around as my own children played in the atrium near them, I learned that they were orphans who had been rescued from a sex trade operation, somewhere around the Ukraine. There was a man with them who ran the orphanage that protects these girls. These girls. Not somewhere on the other side of the world. Not in a brochure. These girls that I was looking at with my own eyes; and at the same time, I can see my own 4-year-old little girl, and my friends daughters as well. Someone felt the call to be the hands and feet of Christ, and rescued these very girls that I saw from unspeakable crimes. I don't know what the term "rescued" means. I don't know what they might have been exposed to before coming to this orphanage. But now, it's over. They are safe.
I watched the girls leave the atrium and join Frazer's youth outside for an outdoor movie event. They just blended right in.
I don't know what my point is here. This is not a well-written story or anecdote, it's just a thought. Just a seed planted within my soul now. I can't describe what I felt looking at those girls when I learned who they were and where they were from. Seeing them in such close proximity to me and my Abbie was profound. They had been rescued by His Hand.
I will never see foreign missions they same way again.
Later this summer
Philip Cameron is the man who runs these orphanages in Moldova. He came back to Frazer on a Sunday morning. He came back with his group of teenage girls. He spoke in our worship service. He told of how so many of his "daughters" had come to be with his ministry.
My husband and I have our place on the front row on the far left side of the church. We sit with our friends the Brawners, who have a boy and a girl, the same ages as our younger two. Meredith and I, along with the rest of our church family, sat with tears flowing down our faces, hanging on every word from Mr. Cameron as he shared his passion for rescuing young women from unspeakable crimes against them.
We sat wondering what we could do to help. Most of my friends are stay-at-home moms who have pre-school age children, so our opportunities to help are limited. The Lord reminded me that I had taught ESL (English as a second language) a few years ago. Maybe that is something I could do. The girls come to America sometimes. Maybe I could help them learn more English. Later that day, my friend Meredith shared that the Lord laid it on her heart as well during that worship service; that she could learn to teach ESL, and share that with the girls from Moldova. I bumped into another friend that day who had already been to Russia a few years ago. While there, she taught conversational English to teenagers. She was equally stirred by the story of the girls from Moldova, and was open to go again one day. Eager to do something that day, many women at Frazer, including me, bought t-shirts, with the proceeds going to support the ministry.
The shirt reads: One female, size small, $3500
Clothes should be bought and sold. Not humans.
Clothes should be bought and sold. Not humans.
August 22, 2009
Today is the day. We have promoted the event on radio, tv and print. We've gone door to door hanging up posters and we've handed out 1500 emery boards. Rick and Bubba's wives are coming to Frazer.
Here's a link to their messages:
http://www.frazerumc.org/n
After the ladies spoke, I along with a few other of my girlfriends who helped organize the event got to spend a little bit of time with Sherri and Betty. At the women's event on Saturday, we took up a love offering for the Bronner Burgess Memorial Fund. This is a fund created to allow Rick and Sherri to contribute money to causes that seek to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Turns out, we collected $7,777.77. Sherri has shared that the number 7 has become significant to them, in that it represents completion in the Bible. Bronner was the seventh member of their family. His birthday was May 27. One year earlier, the event where Sherri and Betty spoke in Birmingham, they collected $7,777 for the memorial fund. One year later, they collected almost exactly the same amount again.
The evening of August 23, 2009
Rick and Sherri watch an episode of "The Carpenter Shop" on Frazer's website. In this episode, our senior pastor, Barry Carpenter, interviews Philip Cameron about his ministry to girls in Moldova. Their hearts are stirred.
The morning of August 24, 2009
While on the air, Rick notices two young women outside their radio studio. They are wearing t-shirts, just like the girls from Moldova had on on "The Carpenter Shop" the night before.
He invites them inside. Turns out, it's Melody Cameron, daughter of Philip Cameron. He interviews her on the show, and shares the story of Moldova with listeners all over the country.
Rick told Melody that since the event Frazer hosted over the weekend was sponsored by the women's ministry, and this ministry of her father's sought to help young women and tell them about Christ, that he and Sherri wanted to give ALL of the money raised from that event to their ministry.
what do you think about that?
To learn more about the ministry in Moldova, got to http://www.stallthisengine
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