If you know me, you know that I like to dream.  I’ve never been much of a dreamer before the past few years, but now I can’t stop.  You see, I think dreams are like stories.  Everyone has one, sometimes we are just afraid to say them out loud.  That’s been on my heart a few months, yall.  If you aren’t dreaming, are you pursuing?  Dreaming doesn’t mean everything you dream about is going to happen, but if you don’t dare to dream, will you ever know?  That’s why I’ve made it a habit to speak my dreams out loud.  To really go for it.  [even though it is scary!]

[me at the Sole Hope house in Jinja, Uganda]

There have been some pretty crazy things that have happened in my life the past few years, since my life has been Gloriously Ruined, and I have to attribute some of those things to my guts to simply tell my crazy dreams to someone.

1. I dreamed of going on a mission trip with my church to use my newly found photography skills to tell stories to bring them back to our church body.  As I was telling my mentor this, our missions pastor called me to ask if I would go with a women’s team to El Salvador a few months later.  Wow God!
2. I also dreamed of going with an adoptive family to photograph that moment when they met their child[ren]!  The day after I officially put the word out on facebook, Jessica [friend + founder of Noonday Collection] asked me to accompany her to Rwanda to meet her son!  and to Uganda to work with some of our artisans!  and she didn’t even see that post on facebook!  again…wow god!
3. It was a long time dream to spend the summer in Ethiopia, working with my beloved Korah community, and when the timing worked out with our adoption, I simply asked my missionary friend if I could live with her family for the summer [who does that?] but I dreamed it, I put it out there, I made the ask, and it happened!

So if you know me well, or we are blogging bffs, you know one of my latest dreams [for the past almost 2 years!] has been to go on a blogger trip.  I might have  for sure stalked out Shaun Groves at the Declare Conference after he sat in my “purposeful photography” session.  I just wanted to see if I was “blogger trip material”.  I dreamed daily of what it would be like to use my voice, and this blog, for good.  I know it’s something I’ve gotten to do on some small level on my visiting orphans trips, and my summer in Ethiopia, but never on a “blogger trip” level.

what exactly is a blogger trip, you ask?  Well before I tell you, can I just finally say that this DREAM came true!!  I’ll be leading a team of 8 [including me] to Uganda in March to work with Sole Hope!  So what’s the point?  Well, all of us bloggers come from all over the country, with different readerships, different online voices, but one common denominator: we love Jesus and we love what He’s doing in and through Sole Hope.  So we will go.  We will serve, we will work, we will write, and we will share stories.  We will give YOU an opportunity to get involved.  We will sit together and dream and pray and use our god given gifts for His glory, and for the good of Sole Hope.

How this whole thing went down is a story for another day.  You’ll be hearing a lot more about this #solehopeblogger trip!  [you can follow that hashtag on social media from here on thru the trip] But I’ll leave you with this…

I’m excited to get to know “in real life” [as we say in bloggy land] these 7 other amazing women!  We have each written a post today about this trip, so make sure to take a second to visit each of their blogs!

 Melissa//Logan//Cara//Erika//Mo//Carey

Today, December 2nd, is 1-2-3 give day with Cultivate Wines!  They have this AMAZING contest going on where they are giving away $100,000!!!!  There are 10 rockstar organizations and for every post/repost on social media [twitter/instagram/facebook] they will give $1 to whatever organization you specify with their designated hashtag.  They will give until the $100,000 is all given away!

@cultivatewines will donate $1 for every post to #solehope! #cultivategives”

so let’s help our our friends at Sole Hope by posting and re-posting, and telling our friends to post EVERY DAY until the $100,000 is gone!  Can you imagine what Sole Hope could do with that kind of cash?  Hire 2 nurses to work jigger removal full time?  provide more shoes to the kids in the villages?  The opportunities are endless!  Let’s get our social media bandwagon GOING on this and help our friends in Jinja, Uganda!  Make sure to use the #cultivategives and #solehope on instagram + twitter + facebook!