What's Next for the Freemans?

Can I just say that I love that you follow my blog? Seriously, I do!

I consider myself blessed to go through each step of life with you readers. You’ve celebrated with us at each milestone - such as our marriage, new jobs and the birth of our daughter, Hannah - and been there for us with everything in between. And it is with great excitement that we announce life’s next step for our family as we sense God pointing us in a whole new direction.

After laboring in prayer over a few years and ministering to college students at our home church in Tyler, we realize our calling to be missionaries within the United States. Specifically, God has led us to Fort Collins, Colorado, where we have been called to start a church and build a community of faith with other young adults and their families. In fact, our goal is to move there before school starts next year.

We have the beginnings of a team in place that includes our best friends, David and Laura Sutton and their little boy, Josiah. David will serve as the pastor. And Chris will serve as the worship leader/associate pastor. There are so many other details I could share about this new journey for us, but I’m honestly afraid I’d bog you down in the nitty-gritty. So if you want more details, just ask. It’s just such an exciting time for us!

I want you to partner with us in prayer as we follow God's lead. We've never started a church from scratch! Not to mention it's hard to move across the country, especially when we’re moving away from other close family and friends. Also, pray for the folks in Fort Collins. We’ve truly fallen in love with this community and long to share what matters most to us, and that’s the love of Christ.

You can keep up with our progress in a number of ways. Obviously, I'll post some updates here. But you can follow us on Twitter, become a fan of our Facebook page or check out our blog -- all of which you can visit from our website, iheartfortcollins.com.

Whew! I'm so glad to finally share that. Here's a picture Chris took from a recent trip to Fort Collins at Christmas. Beautiful, huh?

Swab A Mouth! Save A Life!

Over the holidays, one of my coworkers lost his father to lymphoma. In his honor, a few other coworkers and I decided we would get on the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry. And I'm really excited to say that I did so today.

All they did was take a mouth swab, and they'll analyze the cells to see if there's a match in the system of a person needing a bone marrow transplant. Should they ever find someone that is a potential match, there will more testing before undergoing any donation.

Cancer is something that has always scared me. It's hit close to home as I've watched close family and friends battle the disease. But over the past few years that I've worked in health care, I've come to realize that in many cases it's beatable. With advances in technology and early detection, the survival rate is on the up-and-up. That's good news!

One word of encouragement though: take care of yourself! Eat well and exercise. Do your preventive monthly self-exams and take into consideration what your body is telling you. Schedule an appointment to see a doctor if you're feeling unwell. And find a good support system. We can't do this thing called life on our own.

If you're interested in becoming a donor, or are just curious what I signed up for, read more about it all at http://www.marrow.org/.

Share the Wealth

I learned this week that $1 provides one year of clean water for an African. Talk about stretching your dollars! I can't think of too much I can do with a dollar. I mean, for a dollar I could buy a bottle of water and that could quench my thirst for an afternoon. But quench someone's thirst for a year with buck - that's amazing.

If you're like me, you've flipped straight through those infomercials about the poor and hungry folks in Africa. Those kids with the swollen bellies kill me every time, so I change the channel. Out of site. Out of mind. Right?

But the truth is millions of Africans lack access to clean water. What access some villages do have requires women and children to travel miles to carry home heavy gallons of diseased water. And since 80 percent of all deaths in developing countries are caused by water-borne illnesses, people there with HIV/AIDS must have clean water to survive.

I don't know about you, but I can't think of a time in my life that I didn't have access to water. And I've certainly never had to drink dirty water. That's why it's always been hard for me to identify with this sort of need. But now that I have the facts, I can't help but respond.

So obviously I'm quite inspired about doing my part in overcoming social injustices, both at home and abroad. And while I don't necessarily plan to sell all of my things and live like a hermit, I think it's important to share the wealth. There are many people and organizations that will lay the guilt on thick, which totally turns me off and is quite generally ineffective. But when our motivation is love for God and others, people become more important than the things of this world.

I encourage you to follow this link and learn more. Blood:Water Mission seeks to provide clean blood and water to a country that is often forgotten - Africa. Share the wealth, friends!

Love.

Randi