The many travels of a Missionary Associate

Hello folks, it's been a while. I've been quite busy the last few weeks, and though I haven't traveled any farther than the next state over, I've been to some very interesting and exciting places.

Several weeks ago I visited my good friends from college, Rachel and Ian, in Opelika, AL. I spent the weekend at their house, catching up, remembering some fantastic times at SEU, and playing Settler's of Catan. I had the opportunity to speak at their church on Sunday night, which is actually a small group of incredible people who meet in an antique furniture store to worship and talk about God. They do all sorts of outreach in the surrounding area. It was a really great experience meeting with them and sharing about Cambodia. And it was definitely the first time I've been to church in a furniture store. Pretty cool!

A couple of weekends later I was able to travel way down south to Cochran, Georgia to visit another good friend from college, Anna. Her dad is the pastor of a church there, and I was able to speak on Sunday morning. I shared a little bit about how I was called to missions, how I was invited to Cambodia, and also about how Ben and Kami's stories collided with mine. Anna also did an "interview" with me about the country, language, food, and other things and we opened the floor up for questions from the congregation. They had some really good questions, such as one little boy, with an awesome feux-hawk, who asked what kind of animals they have in Cambodia. The people I met in Cochran were some of the most welcoming and generous, people I have ever met. Got to love good ol' southern hospitality.

Last Tuesday night, I got to share with a Women on Missions group at First Baptist Moreland, GA. A friend I used to work with at the day care, Cortney, invited me to come speak to the group. It was a small, intimate group, so it was basically like having a conversation with a few women. I love those settings, since I'm not the best public speaker in the world.

I recently won tickets off the radio to Atlanta Fest, which is a big Christian Music Festival at Stone Mountain, GA. My sister and I went this past Friday and Saturday. It was one of the best concert experiences of my life, not to mention some quality time with my favorite person in the world: my sister. We saw Family Force 5, RED, Newsboys, Sanctus Real, and my favorite, Brandon Heath. Brandon has been to Cambodia with the band Leeland (you may have seen their music video for the song "Follow you" which was shot there.) I got to meet him after the show and I mentioned to him that I was going as a missionary to Cambodia. He got really excited and said, "Hey, I've been there!" He asked me where I would be living, and I told him Phnom Pehn. He said, "Cool, it's a really big city! If you get some time off, you should try to go to the Siem Reap area. That's where the ancient temples are. It's a really beautiful place." Then, I gave him one of my prayer cards. Hey, you never know what God can do through one simple thing like that. I'm just getting the word out in high places. Ben Heilman thinks I was proposing to my future husband, but no, it was merely an act of missions friendship... ;-)

Some really big news...Ben, Kami, Hannah, and Ethan moved to Cambodia on June 1st! They are officially on the field, and have been posting some fantastic pictures. Seeing them there makes me want to be there as quickly as possible. The missions bug is biting me something fierce!

All in all it has been a great couple of months. The summer is flying by. In the next few weeks I will be speaking at my cousin Melissa's church in Kentucky, then I will be speaking at my beloved home church, Trinity Fellowship, and THEN I will be headed to El Salvador on a short term missions trip with my church's youth group! If I don't blog much in the upcoming month, you'll know why.

Thank you so much for reading, and being my support base. I love each and every one of you, and I hope God is doing incredible things in your lives this summer <3