Flight Adventure!

Burrrr! Yup it is freezing cold in Washington. haha and I wanted to move to Chicago after graduation, I would have died! Well I just arrived into Portland this morning at approximately 10:40 am. I told my sister I'd rather her fly me to visit her then her fly to my graduation and that way I could spend tons more time with her. She's a big girl now with a job that she can't take off from, Spring Hill Suites Marriott in Vancouver, Washington. After coming back from my roomie road trip to Louisiana, The City of Lights, I immediately packed up to fly out the next day to Portland. I left yesterday evening with connecting flight to Denver and with my luck my flight was delayed due to a blizzard in Denver causing me to miss my connecting flight. Sooo I spent a lovely night in the Denver Airport. I did my best to look at it as an adventure and surprisingly it didn't end up being too bad. I was there from 10 pm till 8:30 this morning... Next time you go to the airport try to find plugs, not so many of them. But I finally found a lil' corner to wiggle my way into, guarding my bag and bundling up in clothes that I had in my carry on, and got about 4 hours of sleep. I really wish I had a picture! I had one arm linked with the strap of my carry one, phone hidden in between my chin and neck, shirts wrapped around my body for extra warmth and a scarf wrapped around my head to block out the lights.I definitely took quite a few moments to laugh at the situation. I did have a great opportunity to catch up with a good friend of mine and was able to see the gorgeous sunrise! plus plus. My next flight went wonderful and now I'm enjoying my sister's cozy hotel while she is in a conference call.

Speaking of the conference calls, I have to admit I had a slight panic attack once I was put in her office to find ways to entertain myself while she was working. (I felt like a little kid going to work with her dad or mom) Oh well as I'm typing this Morgan has come to rescue me to take me to lunch! Stay tuned for more info on the panic attack later! Miss you ALL!

Last Day of Work/ Career Goals

Today is my last day of work at Vineyard Court Suites! Sad but glad. It was a good experience working at the hotel especially since it is in the field of what I want to do as a career. Hotel and Resort Management :) Coming into college I was unsure of what I wanted to do. Well I thought I knew what I wanted to go to college for while in High School. Being the huge animal lover I am, I wanted to be a vet. Luckily I worked at a vet's office to make sure that it was the field that I wanted to pursue. It wasn't long before Dr. Skidmore needed me to help him with an emergency surgery. A huge German Shepard had a busted spleen and we were short on staff that day. So I climbed into some scrubs and smock, put on the lovely surgical gloves and mask and stepped up to the plate. I was doing absolutely wonderful with the dog being cut open, blood everywhere and holding a spleen. Then just as we were finishing I started to think about how I was excited that I had succeeded with all the blood and guts, well you can guess what happened. I passed out! So yea that was the end of my dreams to be a vet. When I went off to college I had a scholarship for the College of Agriculture. After realizing my great amount of dislike for Ag Economics I switched to Ag Leadership with an emphasis in Tourism and minor in Horticulture.

Being that I have a love for mission work and understanding other cultures, my plan is to work with hotels and resorts in conjunction with mission/service work. I have hopes of doing volunteer or non- profit work in the United States some day as well as traveling or living in other countries. I think it would be so neat to work with city non profits that work with horticulture, like community gardens or involving "at risk" youth with gardening and beautification. There are a gazillion programs that work with plants and nature! You should google horticulture therapy sometime :) Horticulture therapy is a lot more enjoyable than plain ole physical therapy and can have the same benefits. I'm not too set on doing one thing, I would hate to try to put limits on God's plans for me. We'll see what God has in store for me!

How you can help- Donations

The A&M Church of Christ has set up my bank account for the internship. All donations are tax-deductible. If you have decided to assist me financially, please return this completed form (copy and paste) to:

A&M Church of Christ

c/o Paige Robinson

2475 Earl Rudder FWY S.

College Station, Texas  77845

 

Please make sure you write Mary Lou Thompson-Brazil in the memo line.

 

¨    $25 per month for 6 months (January- June)

¨    $150 one time payment (entire monthly support in one payment)

¨    Other amount: _________

 

If you would like to receive emails from me please include your email address. Also please write your address for our account records.

 

About the Trip

My desire to be involved in missions started with my first trip to Honduras, thanks to many of you.  I absolutely fell in love with the people and the idea of bringing others to Christ by being a servant. Because of the length of my upcoming internship, I hope to form deep and lasting relationships with the members of the church and community.  A&M Church of Christ has given me the opportunity to go to Itu, Brazil to encourage and disciple the Church in the area.  I will be under the direction of two long-term missionary families and will also partner with Carol Mendoza, my fellow intern.  The main focus of the Itu mission team is to strengthen the local Church and help them become active in the community. Their goal is that a broad range of people will be touched by and exposed to His truth.  Right now is the perfect time for me to serve abroad and I know that it is all thanks to God and his wondrous plan for me.  I am on fire for the Lord and cannot wait use the gifts he has given me to impact the lives of others!

This being said I would be very grateful for support in this endeavor.  I know this trip will be difficult and very trying at times, so first off I need as much prayer as possible. I ask you to pray for guidance and an open mind and heart for me to see and carry out the will of God, and to make a difference in as many lives as possible.  Keeping me in your prayers is the most amazing gift you can give me. 

Secondly, I will be creating a web log, “blog,” that I will update regularly throughout my ministry in Brazil. I will post stories, prayer request, and whatever may come to my mind. On the blog you will find space to comment after the blog. It would mean so much to me for you to keep me up updated and write me comments and letters of encouragement!

Lastly, I ask for financial support.  One of the biggest blessings I have received in regards to the internship is that A&M Church of Christ has offered to pay for half of my living expenses in order to carry out their mission of preparing and training college students to become future members of a mission team.  For 6 months in Brazil I must raise $9000. Thanks to A&M Church of Christ, I only lack $4500.  If you are able to contribute to my internship, I would greatly appreciate any amount you can give, one-time donations, or as a monthly payment option (see enclosed form).

            My departure date is scheduled for January 5, 2009.  It is soon after my graduation but the church there could use me as soon as possible.  In fact I will arrive and the next day start staff training for a camp to be put on in the community two weeks later. They already have my scheduled jammed pack and I can’t wait to get started!

Brazil

As many of you know I have always had a heart for missions.  Going into this semester I had the intentions to take less hours and graduate in May 2009, but 2 weeks into the school year things changed.  I was sitting in class and all of a sudden I thought to myself,  "What in the world am I doing, its silly to wait until May, I don't want to take another semester of classes!" Keep in mind this is after the add/drop week of classes.  God was looking out for me, as always, and blessed me with great advisors that were able to get me into the classes I needed to graduate in December.  Don't you just love it when it is so obvious that God has a hand in things :) Soon after I met with my mentor from church and the program Serve Abroad came up.  Before I knew it I was being offered the opportunity to spend 6 months in Brazil!  Serve Abroad usually takes a year to prepare for but being that my mentor, Traci, is in charge of missions we were able to work out the schedule so I could catch up.  Everything is falling into place! My partner is a girl that I've meet before and instantly hit it off with, I was so excited to hear that we were being paired up.  The church in Itu, Brazil, the missionary families I will be interning under, and the country fit me so well and all that I am passionate about! Now I just have to stay focused on making it through the end of school.  If you are interested in getting involved or supporting me please read the post "How you can help"

AGGIE RING DAY

This semester has been crazy!  To catch everyone up to speed, I graduate Dec 12 from Texas A&M University! Whoop :) A couple of weeks ago I got my Aggie Ring and my dad presented it to me.  Such a sweet moment.  If you don't know already both my parents went to A&M which is where they met and my sister just graduated from there.  My grandpa also graduated from A&M and 50 billion other relatives too.  So it is quite a big deal to finally get my ring.  I remember when my best friend Zoe and I were freshman and we would talk about how we would get chill bumps just thinking about getting our Aggie Ring one day.  Getting a school ring is a big deal here, it means whenever you see someone else with the Aggie ring you have an instant connection and friend.  We like to ourselves as a big family that will always be there to help each other out.  After getting my ring, along with 2 of my roommates we threw a huge ring party.  All I have to say is thank goodness for over zealous moms.  haha. Meredith and Amanda's moms put together the whole thing.  All we had to do was send out the invites.  There is a tradition that when you get your ring you have to dunk it.  Typically it is in a pitcher of beer, but my roomies and I did it in a pint of strawberry ICEE.  Basically everyone watches you and the goal is to see how fast you can drink it and reach your ring.  Well I finished dead last... but I didn't throw up so that is good news!  My friends from out of town came in and my parents were able to stay the night at the hotel I work at so all in all it was amazing!