The Heart for Hearts Blog Is Back Up & Running!

http://livingadreamersdream.blogspot.com - Check it out! The Heart for Hearts blog is back up and running...... not that it was ever down it's just that since we are 20 days out from the trip I am starting to write about everything Guatemala on that blog! Be sure to sign up for an e-mail alert if you want! I will be posting vlogs while on my trip! Until then I will just be giving written updates on what's happenin!

Yayy!!! 20 days!!!

Guatemala May 2014

It's here!! 35 days until I leave for Guatemala! As that countdown becomes a smaller and smaller number I'm getting more and more excited! If you haven't seen my posts on Facebook about it this is where I will go a little more in depth on what I am doing with the Hogar Miguel Magone in Guatemala in May!

Almost a month ago I was asked by my dear friend Alli if I was interested in going with her and a team that she works with to be a videographer on their trip to Guatemala. The orphanage which has been around since 1997 started out in a woman's home and now functions out of several buildings dedicated to over 80 children between 3 and 16 years of age. The majority of these children have been victims of abuse or neglect. Over the past 3 years the orphanage has been working with a group called Orphans Hope and Legal Shield as well as other donors to build a home for the girls they have taken into their care. This "princess palace" will be a building dedicated to the girls of the orphanage, whereas before the boys were all separated by age group and the girls only had one section of one of the buildings for accommodation, now the girls will be able to have their own space and eventually the orphanage will be able to expand their mission!

So here's where I come in! The orphanage is constantly in need of donations to keep the orphanage to keep up and running! I have been asked to come to Guatemala to spend a week filming material to be developed into promotional video segments, that will help to tell about the orphanage and their mission, and be used to bring in more financial donors. I will be capturing what an average day looks like for the children and people who run the orphanage. If a picture can speak a thousand words then think of how much more a 1 min, 3 min, 5 min, or 10 min video can speak! I will also be capturing the grand opening ceremony for the Maria Auxiladora Hogar (Home).  Having the footage of the grand opening will be a testament to how donations that have been made over the past 3 years have been such an incredible blessing to these little girls. 

I cannot wait for the 20th of May to come around but then again I still have a lot of preparing to do! Before the 10th of May I am needing to raise $1000 towards my trip. I am working completely pro bono and I am also having to raise my own funds to cover expenses of the trip. You can find a break down of my financial needs on my fundraising site: Send Gabrielle To Guatemala 

I am so thankful for the opportunity to go and serve using the skills I have acquired in the field of documentary filmmaking. Allison (my friend asked me to join the team) and I are fully trusting that the Lord will provide everything we need for this trip and that He will continue to provide for the orphanage even after we return to the states. I started to cry a little over a week ago when she told me the day after I started raising money that someone had already pledged to donate some funds to both of us! If any of you would like to give towards my trip to Guatemala you can find more information on how to do that through the link above or the little widget on the side of this page! :] Any amount helps even 5 dollars gets me closer to reaching the goal! 

Anyone who may have followed my previous blog: A Heart for Hearts I will probably be using the same blog to document my time in Guatemala! I will definitely be posting the link in this blog to direct y'all to the other blog when I have posted there. :]

It's so interesting to think that I never saw this trip coming, yet, here it is! It's really happening! I am really getting to live out part of my dreams as an artist and advocate for those who are suffering or are in need. I have already been learning so much as you all know who have been keeping up with this crazy thing I call a blog. I can't imagine what's coming and I'm so excited for it! If you would friends, be keeping me in prayer for the preparation of my heart, mind and spirit, for the preparation of needful things, for our team and their safety and health; for the orphanage and the finalizations with the girls home; and for the film that comes together after I leave central america that it would be a vehicle for future fundraising and support for the orphanage. 

Psalm 10:14But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

If you all have any questions about my trip feel free to ask! Also, if anyone would like to share my fundraising link with friends or family that would be so awesome!

p.s. here is a link to the orphanage's website that was made by a volunteer that worked with them at one point. http://www.hogarmiguelmagone.com

Gratitude

Two posts in one day! Whoop! I honestly couldn't wait to write this one so that's why there are two posts in one day.

Let's start off with how this morning kinda went down. I have this bad habit of staying up till the wee hours of the morning so here I am at 1245 in the morning just laying down to catch some Zzz's when I decide it would be a good idea to check my email because I was expecting a reply from someone whom I had asked about meeting with that day. Well I check the email and find out that the person wants to meet before 8am and I'm like woahhh woahhh woahhh. Before 8am? That's a thing? I totally kidding but honestly I was a little frustrated that I didn't get the email until 1245 in the morning. Realizing I have to get up at 7am I lay down and of course of all nights my mind is reeling. I look back at my phone and its 2am. Poop. Really? Of all the nights I can't sleep it had to be this one? Alarm goes off at 7am and my body and mind didn't know what was going on. It's one of those moments when you honestly can't tell why there is noise and where it's coming from although you wake up to an alarm everyday today is different because you got less than 5 hours of sleep. Bleh. I get up and start the day a little frustrated till I get outside and its gloomy and immediately I am comforted. I put on some copeland and make the drive out to the meeting which I was late to. Afterwards I was sure I was going to head home and lay back down but I guess I felt a little inspired and romanced by "coffee" by copeland so I made my way to starbucks. The Starbucks near the college campus is super urbany and cozy, with edison bulbs and all. So I got myself some breakfast and a vanilla nonfat latte and sat down to read my bible app. I spent a couple hours there and then decided to head home to be productive and prepare for a phone conference I have coming up in less than an hour.

I get home and decide to do some more reading. This time out of my Altar Ego book by Craig Groeschel. I had left off the last time in the middle of a chapter on living with gratitude but it had been several weeks since I last read so I refreshed a bit and then finished the chapter. & Oh... muh gosh. On the second to last page I broke. Like, had to put the book down and grab a tissue because I couldn't contain the tears. Wanna know what that sentence was? ::: "Know that you have everything you need right now." --- So simple right? Yet, so profound. I think we focus a lot on God providing for here and now and future but we forget that we have what we need right now. Right now! Today he has given me my daily bread. Today he has provided me with the ears to hear my alarm go off and get me up to start the day. He has give me a car that's paid off and has gas in the tank and drives me to and from wherever I need to go, whenever. He provided the meeting this morning to connect me with people that will eventually help me to get clients to provide me with funds to pay for my trip to Guatemala. He has provided me with this computer and all my software to use to be able to work and be productive and work as a freelancer for the time being. He has provided me with a bed to sleep in that gave me the best rest I could have received in the 5 hours of sleep I did get. So many things. He provided me with ears to hear and to listen not only to people but to music. Thank God for music. I have everything I need right now yet I am so ungrateful and I am so shamed and humbled.

My frustration this morning with having to get up so early and not knowing till so late was totally unnecessary. So I think about today and how I have everything I need right now because it has been so graciously given and I am so unworthy. Then I begin to think about tomorrow and the further future and think about how the things of tomorrow or the further future that I have at those points may not be the same as the things that I need for today. Needful things constantly change in these seasons of life, and although I may want something right now because I feel that I need it doesn't mean that I will get it and doesn't mean that that Lord should give it. In His perfect timing. &&& the things that I have right now may not be what I have in the future. Any worldly thing could be taken from me at any point in time. Any person I hold dear could be taken at any point in time. I realize I am not showing my gratitude enough.

Craig said it pretty well in his book: "Have you ever gone to a lot of trouble to do something special for someone, but they barely acknowledge your effort? You planned. You saved. You prepared. You thought of every detail. You made everything just right. You worked like crazy to surprised someone, bless someone, honor someone. And they didn't say thank you. Of course you didn't do it to be rewarded, but an acknowledgment would have been nice.
Imagine how God feels when he gives us life, his love, his presence, his blessings, his Son. And we ignore him, continuing to do our own thing. Or perhaps we're a bit more gracious and give a polite token "thanks, God." ...Gratitude kills pride. Gratitude slays self-sufficiency. Gratitude crushes the spirit of entitlement." 

Shoot! Ok, go ahead Craig! So I think what really hit home for me in reading all of this is that I have all that I need right now. Right now, I have what I need. I have to keep telling myself this over and over. I have what I need right now. Looking towards the future its easy to forget the present and it is a present! haha Punny! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. So here I am preparing for a trip to Guatemala in May (which I will talk about hopefully later this week) and I am realizing that although in the future I need to have raised $1000... right now... I have what I need. It's hard to think that way when we think about money because a lot of what we focus on with money is what we need for the future. Needing to pay bills, rent, mortgages, for food, clothes....camera equipment ::cough cough:: haha. If I can trust Him with today and that He has provided me with today what I need to make it till tomorrow then I am thankful and grateful. Perhaps with this I will continue to learn and grow in trusting Him and His future provisions.

Signing off, God Speed <><

// Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Forgive me readers I am soooooo behind on posting. The last month has been pretty eventful, which is great! I'm so thankful to have been busy! So I owe y'all some pictures from my spring break! I will put them in this post and then continue on today with another post about some new things!

So I totally forgot that there was this thing called Spring Break! My dad and sister have a week in March to take off and I never really took Spring Break when I was in college because I was a crazy person double majoring and always in a show or on a film set; so when I heard 'Spring Break' I was like... "what is this spring break that you speak of?"

We booked a trip to Florida two weeks before we left so it was super last minute. Omgsh how incredibly refreshing it was to be back in one of the places I once called home. I started writing this several weeks ago but never finished... so I will just leave you with what I previously wrote:

Spring Break. Something I forgot existed! I think I may have taken one spring break out of the 4 years I was in school. I usually was on set for a film, in a show or had RA duties during breaks. So when the opportunity arose to take spring break with my family this year I was ecstatic! Long story short we found cheap tickets to fly to FL for 5 days. When we got there we stayed at a familiar resort and got to spend a little time in St. Augustine where we used to live. Waking up with the ocean right outside your window is one of the most peaceful things on this earth. If I could wake up every day near the beach or in the mountains that would be the dream! Honestly I think I would prefer the mountains but the beach stole my heart for the time I was there. I ended up with a pretty gnarly sunburn which I am still recovering from but what else is new? haha. Spending time with family away from work and my sisters stress of schoolwork was really nice too. Dad mentioned it was refreshing to be driving down A1A and that it seemed like we were coming back home after a really long trip. I agreed and stated that we should just move back. ;) One of my favorite days was the day I got to spend with several of my wonderful girl-friends. It was so refreshing to be in their company sharing matters of the heart and growing closer to each of them. It takes a lot to be vulnerable with other people especially when it comes to sharing secrets of the heart and things that are on your mind. One particular conversation that encouraged me was one that I had in the car with my dear friend Caron.

It's incredible the things that we are so careful about sharing for fear of being judged for your way of thinking or for fear of being presently judged by your past mistakes. Anyway there was a lot of different things we talked about but there was just something that touched my heart about that moment in the car when we both talked about some of our past mistakes and neither of us knew we both had dealt with some of the same baggage. I was kinda blown away because we both have come so far from those mistakes and we both have learned some of the most valuable lessons of our age. Wow Wow Wow. How incredible and merciful God is and how He can restore ones spirit. I am so thankful for that conversation although it wasn't long, it was a moment to be human and express what humanity looked like in our lives therefore giving God all credit where credit is due for being almighty and redeeming. A moment to be reminded about how human we are and how Great God is. Blows my mind. 

Ok so thats what I had written several weeks ago. I also went to Oklahoma for several days which was a blast! Got to go to a wedding for a childhood friend. Caught the bouquet! Whoop! Spent time with people my age and enjoyed the company of a most beautiful and strong woman named Allison! But here are the pictures to accompany this post about Spring Break.