January Dominican Republic Trip

January is coming faster than I thought. Pretty soon I'll be on a plane headed to Monte Plata, Dominican Republic with 14 high school girls and two other LT staff. Yep, an all girl trip! It's kind of funny, but I'm really excited. For two weeks we as a team will be working with a school in the DR, helping them with work projects outside. I wanted to show you some past pictures of the DR to pique your interest. So here they are. Enjoy and see you soon!

Everglades Wilderness Trip

Well, our Summit Team made it back safely last week from Everglades National Park. It was an amazing experience that helped us grow as a team. LeaderTreks uses the wilderness as a leadership laboratory, so our trip consisted of prepping us for that laboratory. Here's a tour of the trip. We put in at Everglades city on Monday and went south through the wilderness waterway on the left side of the map. By Wednesday we reached the Gulf of Mexico and spent two days on island campsites.

Ah, canoeing: my favorite way of travel. Chase and I are clearly working hard as we paddle through the waterway. In the back you can see the mangrove forests surrounding all the rivers.

I am obviously confident in my canoeing skills. Then I saw what was in the water in the next picture.


Yep, that's a alligator. It may not look big here, but that sucker is 13 feet long. I'm not confident anymore.


The sunset at our second campsite, Watson's Place. Which, by the way, is haunted. Watson used to take slaves out to his land in the Everglades, promising pay for their work, but then murdered them. It's said that his ghost still wanders the forest, looking for more lives to devour. But I slept pretty well that night. Go figure.


The amazing Mrs. Susie Gerber. She's our new favorite addition to Summit. Well, not official, but she's welcome whenever she wants.


A sweet shot from one of our kayaks looking into the passageway to the Gulf.


When we got to our first island campsite, Pavillion Key, we spotted huge manta rays fishing near the shore. Phil decided it would be fun to pet them. Needless to say, Phil is no longer with us.


Renee, Susie, and I pull our canoes onto the key before the tide comes in.


Aww, I love you Pavillion Key!


By the way, Phil survived. I was totally joking. He's loving the fact that this is his job!


An osprey, Florida's state bird, prepares to do some fishing of his own over the ocean waters.


A pretty cool pre-storm shot on Pavillion Key.


Billy and I decided that instead of prepping for the hurricane coming our way, we would read. Our high school English teachers would be so proud.


Storm clouds rolled in, thus the hurrying of us in the picture. Have you ever seen a tornado form over water and come right towards your island? I have. Twice. That night.


Luckily, the next night on Rabbit Key was a little calmer. Our four tents set up on the shore line, just above tide level.


Sunset over the ocean. Beautimous!


Thursday night=Our first fire. We had our team time on the beach next to the flames and it was totally magical.


Then we woke up in the morning to find the tide had completely beached us. That whole area where the guys are walking is supposed to be water. We were literally trapped on our own tropical island. Pretty amazing!


So, while we were waiting, Andy and I decided to race through the mud past the island. Here you can see how close of a race it was......in the beginning.

This is where I notice Andy is 45 pounds lighter than I am, thus making me sink a ton more into the mud and proving that this was a stupid idea.
But I gave it my all, running as much as I could. This was one of the few times I wasn't up to my waist in poop smelling mud.
Sweet victory! But not really. Second place actually, which also means dead last.
Chase looks hopeful, but hope is not enough. What he really needed was water.
Our team:(from front, left to right)Steve, Andy, Me, Phil, Renee, Billy, and Chase. It was an amazing journey and I wouldn't have picked a better team. Thanks for all your prayers. Enjoy your days.

Pawleys Island Staff Missions Trip

Well, the week is over. For those of you who didn't know, I spent the last week in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, which is a small beach town on the Atlantic about 45 minutes south of Myrtle Beach. About 8 of us drove the 16 hours down there on Saturday, September 22, while the others flew because they were attending a wedding of two former staff. Our entire staff of 16, plus two wives and a baby son, spent the week in Glen and Joanne Hall's beautiful home. The Hall's are long time supporters of LeaderTreks and gave us their amazing house for the week while they were on vacation. I have never met this couple, yet I could feel their love through the gift of their house last week. Our trip served two purposes: to serve as a classroom for our summit team on how to run a missions site, and to provide our management team time to cast vision for the company for the coming year. It was a great trip and amazing time to spend with everyone at LeaderTreks. There's so much to explain, so I figured I'd give a tour of our trip.

This picture was taken of the Hall's backyard. They live on the intercoastal waterway, a 3,000 mile river which runs from the Gulf of Mexico along the Atlantic to New Jersey. It was an awesome sight to wake up to each day.

And an awesome sight to go to bed each night.

Their deck served as a retreat of solitude for many of us, and a whole lot of fun too.
A sweet shot from the pier into the river. Steve Gerber, one of my bosses at LT, built this kayak himself. Pretty crazy!Our summit team went to work for a woman named Donnela Smith. At age 24, she is single with five kids and lives in a run down, beat up trailer. Filth pervades the area, yet her and her children have not let that poverty pervade them. They are a wonderful family. LeaderTreks has been working with her this summer and will continue to work with her next year as well as we build a completly new home for her. What we're actually doing is building a house around the trailer, then we'll remove the trailer from the inside. This way, the family has space to live while we're working and the permit is cheaper for a home addition than a whole new home. If we just leave the supports of the trailer under the home, it counts as an addition. News for all who were wondering. Our team did a lot in a week. As you can see, we built a whole new wall in the front of the house, laid down support flooring so the children wouldn't fall in, finished tar papering the whole house, and built steps to the deck.

Greg and Chase concentrate on pounding the wall in as I move the ladder into position. I know, I look like a dork. Get used to it!

Our ministry partner Jess puts a cross in front of each house that has work done on it by our teams. His goal is to someday drive through the streets of Pawleys and see crosses everywhere. It's an amazing goal and an image I'm proud to be a part of.

Don't worry though, we had fun too, on and off the work site. Greg decided to harrass one of Ms. Smith's boys, Nazire. Shortly after this, Nazire slapped him in the face. Sorry Big Head!

On the last day, we felt the need to help Andy cool down a bit, for the temp. was pretty high that week. Greg distracted him, then jumped out of the way so we could soak the poor guy.

On Tuesday night Doug(our main boss at LT) took us all to Myabi's, a Japanese steak house. It was an experience!

Like I said earlier, we made good use of that pier! I'm on the top in the white swim suit.

And yes, we went to the ocean. Twice!

On Friday our whole staff went deep sea fishing in the Atlantic! It was amazing! I caught 11 fish, but only 2 were keepers.

One of our staff, Renee, caught a small dog shark. We kept him and ate him that night. Delicious!

Thanks to everyone who was praying for our trip. We had an amazing time and learned a ton. I continually am thankful for you all. Again, if you're still looking to support, I wouldn't mind it at all. Have a good one.