Change Change Change

A lot of changes have been happening in the last week, I'll catch you up.

My Grandparents offered to pay me to help them clean out my Grandma's office and scrap 8 pianos and help build a fence.
I won't be able to work most of the month of July because of missions trips and family stuff so I said yes and put in my two weeks notice at the church. That was two weeks ago.

All the girls moved out of the house. Granny moved back in. I sent a ton of stuff home with my parents and moved out of the girls house and into my car. However, I have much more crap than I thought I did and so Lindsay Skoog was wonderful enough to lend me a closet at her house to put some things in that won't fit in my car. 

I trained my replacement for blends last weekend.

Moved lots of beds and other various heavy furniture in Granny's truck on Monday and then this afternoon I said bye to everyone at work and hit the road to Kosciusko Mississippi where I'll be for the next two weeks.

In the midst of all of that I got the rest of the money needed for both my NYC missions trip and my Russia missions trip! Thank you Jesus!!!

So the month of July and the first half of August are going to be pretty crazy going from MS back to AR to be in a friend's wedding and then fly to NYC for missions and then back to AR for a few days and then to TX for a family reunion and then back to AR to prep and leave for Russia and then back to AR to be in another friend's wedding. *Gasping for breath*

Now you are probably asking yourself the same question everyone else asks me when they hear that long plan....Where and what's next after all that?
And the answer is....I have no idea. And I don't really want to know right now honestly, I've got enough to think about for this next month in a half.
 I could go anywhere and do anything. I've got about 47 options. So I'll keep you posted on the deciding process along with how the missions trips go.

THANK YOU for supporting me!

Last minute endeavors and fund raising

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had decided to do a half Ironman this year with Cadre. I started training a month before the race, (something you probably shouldn't do)

Well the race was on Saturday and I made it through! My body felt pretty good through the whole thing except the last 10 miles or so of the bike and the end of my run. Other than that my body held up wonderfully. I finished at 3:28p.m. and got to go shower and eat a burger and hang out some before all the full Ironmaners started showing up at the trail for the run. 


Something you should know about me is I have a very serious condition called anti-sit-and-watch-people-work-itus. (That's the technical term for it) Which basically means that if someone is working or doing something difficult, I'm unable to sit there and watch them do it without helping or doing it too.

So after watching the students run about 2 laps I couldn't stand it anymore and jumped back on my bike and started biking next to people as they ran.
After finishing my half marathon earlier that day I decided that no one should ever have to run this stupid trail by themselves. It's miserably lonely and I was determined that no one else would have to suffer that fate.
That worked out great until my "sit bones" were too sore to sit on the bike seat anymore. So that meant that I had to run. 

Now one of the dangers of anti-sit-and-watch-people-work-itus is that when you're working (or in this case running) next to people you forget about your own body and pain and keep going until everyone is done; that's when accidents happen...Like accidentally running 15ish miles and biking 15ish miles after already swimming 43 laps and biking 56 miles and running 13.1 miles.
Accidents happen....


I also found out that night that I was going to have to work at the church the next morning after all due to not having enough volunteers with Cadre out. So I left a little early to get some sleep before having to be at the church. My body hurt so bad that next morning I had to stand in one place and make the coffee drinks and let Brittany do all the walking. 


BUT! Today I can walk totally fine with almost no pain! All the soreness is gone! Praise the Lord! I have never recovered that fast before! 




Well that was my weekend!


In other news, I'm selling Tshirts to raise money for my trip to Russia! 

The actual shirts I'm selling are grey with white letters instead of white with grey letters so just imagine the colors switched! (don't know why they gave me this photo if it's not what we're using...but oh well!) 
The shirts are $20 and there are men's and women's sizes.
The way they're doing the ordering for the shirts is they're ordering once a month just how many shirts we have requests for, so that we don't have tons of leftovers. 
So if you would like a Tshirt, please email, txt, call, facebook, tweet, carrier pigeon, whatever form of communication is your favorite, and I'll get it put in for the next order and get your shirt to you as soon as it comes in. To pay for the shirts you can write a check to me or cash is also an option.


Here's how to get a hold of me depending on your preferred method of communication:
Email - zford@newlifechurch.tv
Phone - 214-212-7648
Facebook - ZuZu Ford
Twitter - @ZuZuGrace
Snail mail - 3235 Lakeview Dr Conway AR 72032 


If you know of anyone that would be interested in buying a shirt please let me know. 

Also, here's the link to my online giving page again: www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/zuzuford
(please do not pay for the tshirts on the first giving page. I have to turn in part of the money for the cost of the shirt and will deposit the rest of it.)

 Thanks for reading!
 

Russia!!

We had our first Russia meeting on Sunday! It's going to be a really awesome trip. 
Let me tell you a little bit about Change 30 which is the ministry we are going to be working with. 
There is a couple that was very involved in New Life Church here for a long time and they had adopted 3 Russian orphans over the years and felt called to move to Russia.
In Russia, orphans are seen as outcasts, lower members of society that are not worth anything. They are sometimes refused service at restaurants they are looked down upon, they are forgotten. 

• Russia has more than 10 million children-at-risk, most of which live in a government supported orphanage system
• 135,000 children are orphaned yearly – creating an epidemic
• Orphans carry a dreadful stigma throughout their life (unwanted, unworthy and cursed)
• Between 15 and 17 years of age, these orphans “age-out” of the system (graduation)
• Statistics reveal the average life span of a Russian orphan is 30 years of age

Change 30's mission is to change that statistic. 

http://vimeo.com/change30/whyweexist




So like I said in the previous post, I'll be leading a team there the first week of August. So far my team is pretty small but I'm believing that more people will join as the date grows closer. 
In the mean time, I'm working on raising money. The cost of the trip is $2800. I am working on some ideas of things I can sell/services I can offer to help raise money. 
If the Lord lays it on your heart to support me I would be so grateful for whatever you are able to give. Whether its $5 or $500, every cent counts. 
But even more than that, I would appreciate your prayers over this trip. I've never led a team by myself before and this is a big deal so I will need all the prayer I can get. 

I have an account set up with First Giving to make it even easier to support me financially! No more checks and envelopes and stamps and walking to the mailbox! Just go online to...
www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/zuzuford
And you can give online with your credit card and it is tax deductible and you don't even have to get up off the couch! 

I will keep you all updated on what kind of fund raising I will be doing. Thank you all so so much for your continued support! 
God Bless!
 

The latest and greatest

So I was kind of waiting for something exciting to happen in my life before I posted again and that something happened last week!
But first lets rewind to the last month of being back in the country...

My life the last month has consisted of the following:
Working in Blends everyday (we're open in the mornings now)
Working for the campus pastor in the afternoons and sometimes in the mornings while I work Blends
Helping out with/playing on the worship team for Real Life in Cabot (the highschool ministry)
Watching 24 (Hannah and Kenzie got me addicted)
And that's about it!

The last month has had a lot of ups and downs for me as far as trying to figure out if I really am where I am supposed to be. I'll have days where it's all great and I'm enjoying where I am and then I'll have days where I start to think about all the things I want to do and remembering dreams I have for the future and I try to figure out why God has me here because it doesn't make any sense to me.

Then I realized something...
As a first year in 24/7 you are supposed to learn how to trust your leadership, God, your parents etc.
You have no calendar or schedule for your week other than a text message from your second year the night before, telling you what you will need for the next day. If you are told that you need to wear class dress then you know you'll probably have class, you won't know what classes you'll have though, so you have to have everything with you. You have to trust that your second year will tell you to bring everything you need and then you show up prepared for what they tell you with no questions asked.
The point is to teach you to 1. be prepared for anything. 2. trust and relinquish control.

I was not a very good first year student because I always tried to figure out what was going on. And I got really good at it. I would have a good and submissive attitude (most of the time) in front of leadership but I was really trying to figure everything out behind the scenes.

Then what I realized was that I have been doing that to God for the last 6 months. I will say that I trust Him and on the outside look like I've got this trust thing down.
But I've been trying to figure out what God is doing. I go thru all kinds of scenarios in my head of why He has me here and what doors He's going to open for me to jump right into my calling.

The thing is that God is a lot better at planning than I am at figuring things out.

Two Sundays ago I sat in service and they played a recap video of Pastor Rick's trip to Shri Lanka and the whole time I felt something stirring inside of me but couldn't explain it. I had this feeling that God was about to rock my world.

After service I had a conversation with a friend whose been a homesponsor for cadre since I was a first year. I told her about my heart for missions and we talked about New Life missions. She suggested that I talk to Dr Q (the missions pastor) about it and see if there's a way I can get involved with missions here. I thought it was a great idea.

Three days later,
Dr Q walks into Blends and orders coffee. The whole time I'm making his drink I am thinking I should talk to him.
I chickened out.

That night,
I get an e-mail from Dr Q to all pastors and staff asking if anyone is interested and able to lead the mission trip to Russia in August because the person who was going to lead it is no longer able to.
I quickly replied back saying I was interested.

The next day,
I met with Dr Q and the lady who is leading the same trip in June. We talked for about 20 minutes and then I was given the trip.
I'm now officially leading the New Life trip to Russia in August.

*insert excited freak out here*

So far none of the people signed up for this trip have ever been on missions before. So that means I get to train them and shape their missions experience.

I'm so excited.

I'll be updating again when I have more details on the trip!


As far as my job goes, I'll be moving back to part time and just working in Blends around the first of March-ish. I need a break from church admin plus I want to have more time to be able to invest in my Real Life small group girls.
So I'll be trying to pick up odd jobs here and there to make more money as well.

Oh! And I'm also doing a half ironman with Cadre on March 24th. (I mean, after 3 fulls...why not?)
Started running yesterday! I'll need prayer!

That's all folks.

India!

Haiti

Hello all,

Haiti was amazing! Thank you so much for your prayers and support, without them, this trip would not have been a success.

There are so many stories I could share but it would make for a very long blog post so I will give the readers digest version here and if you would like to hear more feel free to ask me!

In Haiti we worked with an organization there called Mission of Hope. It's a really amazing ministry with more vision and fav

or from God than any place I've heard of.

If you want to know more about them, their website is mohhaiti.org

As soon as we got to Haiti we went by the mass

grave where all the earthquake victims were

buried. That was a sobering site for sure...

In the mornings we got to partner up with

some ladies in the church and go out into nearby villages and minister to widows and clean their houses. Some of the widows were paralyzed and all they could do all day every day is just lay there on the dirt or sometimes concrete floor of their house.

We were able to see the villages that Mission of Hope has built houses for earthquake victims in

and hang out with and love on some of the kids there. And we saw where Mission of Hope will be building new schools and more houses.

In the afternoons we did some work projects

to help out the Mission of Hope staff. We

painted their staff housing, did a little touch

up paint here and there, and whatever else

they needed help with.

Then for two nights we put on a women's conference

at the chur

ch. There were so many women there and they were all worshipping so passionately it amazed me. So often I will look out into the crowd when I am on stage playing guitar here in the states and I will see only 4 or 5 people really passionately worshipping and it breaks my heart. But these women, they've got it. They understand what is really important in life.

God is literally all they need because He is literally all they have.

I wish that everyone here in the states could experience that for just a few moments and it would change the way they worship forever.

The second night of the conference we put pearl necklaces on every woman at the conference. Amber told them the process of how a pearl is formed and the message was that each of them is precious to God like a pearl.

Overall the trip was amazing. I would love to go back. Thank you all so much for all your prayers and support.

I'll update on the rest of November hopefully in a few days.

Leaving the Country!

This will be an update on October and then next week I will update again on how Haiti was!

Fall is here! The leaves are changing colors! It's cold and windy outside! It's beautiful! I'm almost sad to leave it for Haiti's hot humid weather....but it's for souls right?

October was pretty busy for me. I had the opportunity to play guitar at several different retreats, youth services, and even for the main service at one of the smaller New Life campuses.

Being on staff at New Life is pretty cool, even if it's just part time right now.

The coolest part by far though, is that four of my closest friends are on staff here as well.

I've also gotten to hang out with Cadre quite a bit since I am working at the church most everyday and they are also at the church everyday. I got to go up and help out with their missions training event that is one of my favorite cadre events.

Had a minor accident with a guy friend of mine on a four-wheeler...I was driving and he was riding on the back going up a really really steep hill...which was a bad idea I know...

Anyway, as we are going up, the front wheels come off the ground and the four-wheeler goes completely vertical, throwing the two of us off, and instead of falling back on top of us like gravity would have required, it stayed on its back two wheels on this very steep hill and didn't move. Which allowed us to get out of the way in case it did fall backwards and then pull the front down so that we could drive it on all four wheels down the hill, forgoing the plan to go up that way...

Once again, thanks to God's crazy protection on my life, my guardian angels, and a mother that prays for me everyday, I walked away with one bruise and a small cut instead of becoming a pancake from a four-wheeler falling on top of me. (Thanks God and Mom:-)

Other than that, life in October pretty much just consisted of working, playing guitar, working, cooking for the girls at my house (yes I cook now!...sometimes) and more working.

Thank you to those of you who sent me money to go to Haiti! My trip is now completely paid for! Praise God! I will take lots of pictures and update as soon as I get back. Please pray for our group and the women we will be ministering to.

I will have my phone and potentially have internet abilities, so I may be twittering, so if you follow me on twitter you can get updates on the trip.

That's all for now, I'm off!