Yay for family and friends!

Oh my goodness I am so sorry for not updated for so long! God has been laying it on my heart to update more consistently so I will work harder to keep the posts coming! Thank you for your patience everyone. :)

It has been a very wonderful couple of months. My relationship with the Lord has been growing more and more everyday and I have been learning so much! One of the interesting things I have learned is that I will always be learning more! God will always be teaching us new things, the learning process doesn't just end, we won't reach that stage where we know everything. For me that is relieving! Learning is fun for me so knowing everything wouldn't be very much fun. lol! Plus not knowing everything has created many opportunities for me and God to have some very interesting conversations. :)

I am still very much involved with the homeless ministries that I have mentioned in previous posts. I wanted to share with everyone more about what we do and how the ministry first started.

The ministry is led by my good friend Solomon. I met Solomon at The Front through my beautiful friend Elena. Elena and Solomon told me about the homeless ministry and I knew right away it was something I wanted to do and something God was leading me to do. So I started coming out to help right away and have loved doing it ever since!

The ministry was started about a year ago when God lead Solomon to go to McDonalds and buy a whole bunch of double cheeseburgers and share them with homeless people in downtown Sarasota. From that night on Solomon knew where God was leading him. He wanted the opportunity to provide food to people who were in need and share Gods love with them. A local church in Bradenton started assisting Solomon in this ministry by helping to provide the meals for these people. So he started going out with some fellow friends and volunteers to serve these wonderful people once a week on Thursday nights (downtown Sarasota at the park across from the Selby Public Library). Even though it is only one night a week it has become so much more to the people out there who are in need. Many strong friendships have been built, people are getting good home cooked (well more church cooked, but you get my meaning!) meals, receiving lots of prayer, coming to Jesus, getting healed and God has been providing jobs and homes!

The word has spread about Solomon coming out on Thursday nights with lots of yummy food and now usually more than 70+ people are coming out! We have started to hand out clothing, shoes and many other necessities as well. And about a month ago God put it on Solomons heart to start going to Tampa on Tuesday nights to help out people in need there. Solomon asked me if I wanted to be involved with Tampa as well and of course I was super excited to have that opportunity and have been helping out on Tuesday nights! Going to Tampa has been a huge blessing for us has been an exciting experience to watch God work in Tampa as well as Sarasota and to be meeting so many new people and developing relationships with them. We've only been going for a few weeks and have had the chance to meet and pray for one man in particular for God to provide work for him and already he got a contract job to help build the new Disney World theme park! He moved to Orlando this week to start working and is getting into a new home! Praise God! :D

So being a part of this ministry has not only helped the people on the streets and ministered to them but it has ministered to me as well! My relationship with my heavenly Daddy has grown crazy amounts as well as my faith! It has been a huge blessing to me and I am very thankful God led me to Florida and to these wonderful people.

I feel like this is also preparation for the time when God sends me out to other countries to share the beautiful love of Jesus. I just have to say how awesome the Kingdom of God is!! And how much fun it is! That common misconception that when you move into the Kingdom of God and start serving the Lord everything becomes tedious and boring is so frustrating because it is so not true! I have never been happier and never had so much fun! :D I am so thankful for that!

I also am very thankful for my family. :) The Millers, Herzogs, Ballingers, Carricks, Broadways and the Barrientez! It was so nice of God to give me the best family ever. :) And no that is not me being biased, that is a fact! I am also very blessed and thankful for the Trevinos (Elena and her family) and for Solomon. Jesus spoils me with the people he puts in my life. :)

And here are a few photos I took a few weeks ago in Tampa. I am going to be getting more pictures on Thursday and Tuesday nights and I will be posting them on my Facebook. :)



My friend Solomon, in the car on our way to Tampa. :)





And another friend of mine who I have met through this ministry, her name is Jill and she has been helping us serve the food and she has been preparing a lot of the food. She is an amazing cook and a such a sweetheart!





This is one of the guys God has been loving on who has been in some tough situations for awhile now, his name is Jose and we all are very blessed to know him. God has been working in his life and we are praying for more breakthrough! Jose has been very open to hearing about Jesus and has told us many times how thankful he is that all of us are coming out there and helping out. :)





The guy on the left is Jeremy and he has been coming out for the past few weeks from a local Tampa church to help serve, pray with people and just love on them. He usually brings his guitar and will play some worship music which is so nice to have while we are out there!





I have more pictures I am working on uploading to my Facebook. So check in there periodically to see more pictures. :)