how exciting!

Y’all, I just got the quarterly newsletter from New Mission Systems International and totally did a double take.  I was in the middle of meeting with a client when my son shoved the mail in my face (one trial of the home office).  I put it down without looking at it and then during a lull, my gaze passed over the mail again… and my brain said, “Wait, that picture looks familiar!”  So I picked it up and sure enough, it was my picture!  I flipped it over and lo and behold, it was another one of my pictures!  I opened it up and glanced through the cover story and !!! more of my pictures!

What happened was that last year, I took a trip up to Memphis to see dear friends Mark and Mylissa, who have started this ministry for families with terminally ill children.  Many of these children are patients at St. Jude, some are at other Memphis area hospitals (Le Bonheur is one), and some are scattered around the country, but so many of these families have dropped and/or left everything to try to save their children’s lives and feel very isolated.  Habitat for Hope, Mark and Mylissa’s ministry, reaches out to these families to let them know they are not alone.  They pray with them, take them meals, visit the hospital with them–the list is kind of overwhelming.  They work tirelessly and ask for nothing in return.

Anyway, I flew up for Labor Day weekend last year to have a few family sessions and see their work first hand.  I was there for a birthday party and the final game of the Memphis Redbirds’ baseball season (supporters had donated a block of tickets to Habitat for Hope) and spent the weekend taking lots of pictures.  I have to say that I came home and collapsed.  Their schedule is truly exhausting.

I knew that the story on Habitat for Hope was in the works and I knew they were using my pictures, but all the same, it was very exciting to see the newsletter.  Here’s a link so you can see it too.  Here’s the picture from the back side, the one that caught my eye–one of my all time favorites: