78

78...that's how many shoes we collected for Soles4Souls. Isn't that amazing??? I was hoping for 50 pair, but 78??? That more than exceeded my expectations.

I love our group! We had a wonderful time talking about the ministries that we are being a part of when we have parties. So far, over $700 has been raised for the family in Ecuador. Then, Stephanie shared about the Soles4Souls. One of the guys who was new to the group and obviously didn't know what was going on, took off the shoes that he had on his feet and added them to the pile for Soles4Souls.

Later on, the girls that were here that are in my village went into my bed room and prayed over one of our girls. Her mom died in May 2006 and Sunday was her birthday. We knew that it was probably hard on her. It was a very sweet time.

Also, three of our friends that we are closed to gave us an Easter basket. They bought us some chocolate, some food that we like, and they made some t-shirts for us (you will see those in the pictures). They put it all together with a cute story that they made up. What a wonderful community that we have here!

Easter Party

The party was so wonderful yesterday. We had 27 people total. First, we had some great food. Brock and I got to cheat, so it was fun to eat all the dessert and stuff that we wanted! Brock cooked some yummy chicken and pork loin. I made two blueberry cream pies with my mother-in-law's recipe. Everyone loved them!

Then, we had the easter egg hunt. Lindsey got the "golden" egg which wasn't really golden at all. It was a real egg (not even boiled) that Brock spray painted orange. She won a chocolate bar from Manabi, Ecuador that was everyone's favorite at the chocolate tasting. The winner of the easter egg hunt got a big basket of really exclusive chocolate from all over the world! The winner was Lucas, again, and he won because he had the most amount of points. If you got a regular egg, you received 1 point. If it was hot pink, it was worth 2 points. If it was camoflauge, it was 3 points. If it had a penny in it, it was an extra point. A seashell was worth two extra points, and a button was worth three. Some of them had questions in them. If you got them right, you received an additional 2 points. The questions were about the people in the room. For example, one question was, "Who was a guest on the Jay Leno show?" That would be our friend, Jas, from Atlanta. He was on it when he was in the group Marvelous 3. Nobody in the room knew him except us, but you could make an educated guess because none of us had been on that show. It was really fun!

One girl got the question, "Who starred on one of our video blogs?" The girl who was answering the question, Mandy, was the one who starred on it and didn't know it (remember her talking about those little wiener dogs?). Another person got the question, "Who thought that she was receiving a myspace message from Corey but it was really from Brock?" The answer was Mallori, but she found that out for the first time here yesterday and this happened over a year ago! Brock was playing on Corey's computer, and when he went on myspace, Corey was still logged in. So, he went to the first girl's comment and commented her back saying something about going out on a date with him. A few weeks later, that girl moved from Colorado to here. She never knew that it was Brock and not Corey until yesterday. I'll will tell you more about the party tomorrow...

The "Purpose" in Parties With a Purpose

I knew that the Lord wanted us to have these parties with a purpose every month, but how would I know what the "purpose" would be? Lots of people had ideas. Then, we determined that we wanted to center it on missions.

To make a long story short, the Lord keeps showing me what He wants us to do the next month. At our chocolate tasting, one of our friends asked us if we wanted shoes. Brock is several sizes bigger than this guy, but he told him to leave it with us and we would know what to do with it. The next day, another person gave me a pair of shoes. Then, we knew that we were supposed to be collecting shoes for soles4souls. It's an organization that collects shoes for people who are without in other countries www.soles4souls.org. Our friend, Stephanie, is a spokes person for them. She is going to share more about it at our party on Easter. So, everyone is coming over to the house on Sunday and bringing some shoes and a side dish. It's going to be great! I'll tell you all about it next week!

Therefore, I am looking forward to Sunday in order to celebrate the Ressurection of my Lord and Savior, hang out with friends, and collect shoes...oh yeah, and to eat chocolate!!!! Pray for us today and tomorrow as we perform and speak three times at this conference in Camp Hill, PA and fly back Saturday night.

Pictures from the Chocolate Tasting

The chocolate tasting table




We had a chocolate fountain


and some hors d'voures


We also had a picture taking area...






Then, Brock shared with everyone.

Emily Singing

This is the youngest child, Emily, from the family in Ecuador singing for us.

Isn't she so cute?

Party!!!

The party was a HUGE success! Thirty-one people were in attendance. We raised $391 last night alone. Plus, with all of the pledges we got, we are going to be able to pay off the family's house!

In the kitchen and hallway, we had hors d'oeurves and a chocolate fountain donning Valentine decor. We even had a picture taking area in the hallway. We took polaroids of everyone at the party.

Then, in the dining room, hiding behind a Valentine's curtain was the chocolate tasting area. We had people go in there in groups of about 4. They would take time to taste each piece of chocolate and record their thoughts as well as rate the chocolate. It was truly an experience!

Chocolate Tasting

To raise money for this family in Ecuador, we are going to have a chocolate tasting at our house tonight! I've ordered chocolate from all over the world. We even got some apples and bread to cleanse our pallets between tastings if we want! We were going to have people over at our house this weekend anyway (you know us), so this time, we are charging a cover charge of $10. That's how we are going to raise the money!

Today is February 8th, and I remember it because it's my sister's birthday. However, it's also a significant date for me. The Lord has often had me start new things on Feb 8th. I first began having a consistent time with the Lord daily on Feb. 8, 1993. I remember praying really hard for a friend on this particular day one year. I even know that on Feb. 8, 2005, the Lord told me to begin writing this blog. That's why it's no surprise to me that we are beginning this chocolate tasting tonight!

I have so much to say about it that I don't know how to begin. This party has two folds. With our particular community, we are going to have a party at our house about once a month. At these parties, we will continue to make great food for everyone and have a great time. The only difference is that we are going to charge at least $10 per person which will go toward some kind of mission or ministry. We are all so excited about this! Michawn said a while back that we have the most parties! Well, we will continue to celebrate...we're just now having parties with a purpose!

The second part of this is that we are going to offer chocolate tasting "kits" to people so that they can have their own chocolate tastings in their houses or churches to raise money for Compassion. I'll go into detail about that more later. I am just so passionate about this right now!!!!

If you want to help out with this particular family in Ecuador or Compassion International, email me at aunygill@yahoo.com.