Loving the Weather, Loving Florida

Ok, so I am actually going to attempt to use this as a journal on my experience here. May it bring insight to others as well as myself. Pray that I can stick to it. I wont be doing this daily. Just here and there.

THE FLORIDA WEATHER HAS BEEN AWESOME THIS WEEK :) PERFECT TEMPS.

I have truly been loving Florida overall.

These first three months have been some of the most challenging yet wonderful three months of my new post-college journey. I have been learning a lot through my tears, pain, joy, stress, love, etc. Life continues to teach me many things and I am thankful for my screw ups because it is teaching me to be a stonger, smarter, more well-rounded individual. I have had to remind myself quite a bit to wake up in the morning and choose joy. Joy in that I have God in my life, that I have my health, some of the best friends anyone could ever ask for, an amazing family, and a great friend who happens to live with me now. Yes, I do say choose joy because it is a choice. One marked with discipline, faith, trust, and knowing what is right deep down in one's heart.

The best part of my journey down here thus far has got to be working with my kids at the Conductive Education Center of Orlando. I spend most of the day working one on one or sometimes one on two, three, four, five, or even six :/ kids. Makes me really think hard about the size of the family I pray that God will bless me with one day (however, not anytime soon). The kids are simply amazing and while they can have their moments and their bad days, it doesn't matter how bad of a day they are having, they snap out of it quickly and put a smile right back on their cute little faces, even if its coming out of a seizure. Their laughs are pure and come from deep within. We have been very busy working on getting our new school done and it is VERY NICE. We should be moved in by Thanksgiving week and hopefully starting classes there after Thanksgiving. I am excited because it will make my drive shorter and quicker.

Im with the kids from probably 8-2 and then working on the marketing side of things as the assistant marketing director for the rest of the day. I am also loving that part of the job as well. It is a nice change of pace and I get to get out in the community and meet people.

So, that was a quick tid-bit of what I do, now on to today....

Today I finally got a new bike. For those of you that do not know, my bike was stolen back in July and I am now equipped with a new bike and a new car (blessed way beyond what I deserve, but am so thankful). Candace (our program director) gave me the heads up and I went down to buy it from my new buddy John. He is a great guy and he was asking $30 and I ended up getting it for $18. There was some divine intervention in that and we both saw it :) I can even trade it in later for an upgraded bike as I hopefully have a little more money in the months to come (hoping that I can still find a way to save some money and still live off our small stipend, which I will figure out a way very soon. I am very close to actually coming to that point and it excites me.

I woke up and rode for about 20 miles. I road across town into Winter Park and took care of some things on that side of town and then road across University to visit Candace and Sr. Florence at CVIF. It was great spending some time with them and finally seeing the CVIF home base :) It was a nice cool day.

Tonight I will be doing absolutely nothing, but relaxing and catching a movie. It is going to be a beautiful thing. Going to rest up tomorrow (maybe go visit some other volunteers) and then off to bed early because I will be working Saturday and Sunday.

I am looking forward to next weekend, because not only is it Halloween, but it will be my birthday weekend and hoping to celebrate all weekend with various activities taking place.

For those of you reading this, I ask that you continue to keep all of us volunteers (I think there are about 16 of us) in your thoughts and prayers. We are all learning a lot and our missions are especially are in needs of your prayers. Pray that we continue to grow, learn, love, and serve with the greatest being love. Help us to have a love that pushes one another to grow and to challenge them to be the best version of his or herself; a love that does what is best for one another. More specifically, God's def. of love.

Peace!

Michael