His Plan For Me: Miami (photo blog)

As I shared in a recent post, I stayed home here in Arkansas for the majority of the summer, while Eric served in Haiti.

Here is the post I shared about Christ’s plan for the everyday in my life. 

And the community I found while serving apart from Eric this summer

After posting this I received so many messages, emails and texts from you guys, identifying with how I was feeling. Thank you so much. There’s nothing like putting your heart out for the world to read and having a good response back. So with that, I thought I’d update you all on my summer and the ways I was affirmed that it was God’s plan for me – that trusting His will was worth it.

It was so wonderful to get to spend time on some PPM trips, with my PPM family. It was such a beautiful time in Miami – here’s a ton of photos from my time there!

Some general highlights from Miami:

• multi-cultural dynamics are tricky – on every trip, the students or participants are experiencing at minimum, 4 new cultures – that’s a lot of diversity!
• comparing/contrasting our USA trips to our International trips (so much fun!)
• meeting new people and loving on our seasonal staff
• laughing with Liz, a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart for Miami and Haiti
• brainstorming and hearing the vision for the future of this city from our USA staff – they are looking to the future with open hands – God, may You come and be the Center!
• re-connecting with the ministry after a month and a half of being in the office
• simply enjoying the phrase “oh, you need something? we’ll stop by target on the way back” haha! so fun!
• understanding the difficulties of planning a trip domestically and how even though we are on USA soil, PPM and our teams are functioning in a cultural vortex of sorts – residents are generally on their own time and inhabiting a unique blend of foreign/usa culture within the Miami way of life.
• getting to eat homemade Cuban pastries each week – oh my word.
• learning my love for all things Guava – thanks Liz!
• getting to spend time with second generation Haitians living in the States and hear about the struggles they face – especially teenagers and the pressure they feel from their roots of Haiti and their new life in America and how hard it is to balance the two.
• becoming educated on the plight of the immigrant in the States – learning about the realities of suicide/domestic abuse in immigrant families and the lack of public programs to help foreign immigrants transition into a life here in America.
• learning all about pop radio from Liz, Stephen and Robin – and learning that we aren’t fancy at all.
• getting to speak with the children at church in English and Creole and not having a language barrier when it came to communicating with the younger kids
• seeing the vast difference culture plays in fashion in Miami
• getting to see the heart of Christ, displayed in our country and the unity it brought

Thanks again to everyone in PPM Miami and our partners for allowing me to serve with you. <3 <3

-Bethany