Prepared & Ready

This is what we are. Ready. That's the only word that comes to mind about our trip to Haiti. We are ready. Yes, we are excited, joyful, happy, eager, cheerful, in high spirits, thrilled, in wonder, but mostly, we are ready. We are ready for what the Lord is going to do in us & with us. We are ready to share the love of Jesus with the people of Haiti. We are ready to see Jesus change the lives of people & families. We are ready for our lives to be dramatically changed & for us to never be the same. We are ready to never look at other people or the world the same. READY! Ready because we have been prepared for all these things.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:10

The Lord our God has gone before us & prepared the way for us, He has prepared our hearts, He has prepared the people's hearts, He is always ready & prepared. We are nothing special. We are ordinary people just like everyone else. We sin everyday, we mess up, we make mistakes, we are not perfect, but we have been saved by God's grace & have been redeemed by His love! AMEN. We do not want anyone to think we are trying to tell everyone how good we are by going & serving. We are telling about it because this is what God wants to do with everyone. He wants to use us to be God's workmanship, to do good works, He has already prepared this in advance for us to do! (Eph 2:10) It's hard sometimes but we must be obedient to the Lord & what he is calling us to do. We must say YES! YES LORD!

Ok, I feel like I'm preaching a little so I'll move on, but God is Good & He loves You so much & I could just go on & on about Him.

We are leaving before the crack of dawn.. 2:30 Saturday morning. We will be flying out of ATL at 9:40. We will fly to Miami & board the plane for Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. We will be arriving in Haiti at 4:20. 

We were so blessed by a donation of money from a church in Winfield, but the children of Haiti will be even more blessed because with this money we were able to purchase:

 13 3lb. cans of baby formula which will make 1,157 4 oz. bottles

 60.5 oz of Cocoa Butter (they love it)

 3 lbs. of Dum-Dum suckers for the kids

 2 soccer balls

 baby Advil & Tylenol

 box of 120 crayons

20 bars of antibacterial soap

a HUGE coloring book with 120 stickers

sidewalk chalk

13 oz Vaseline

GOD IS GOOD

Then we get to Berry (my parents house) & we have a package addressed to Kendra Hocutt (maiden name) that has two containers of Similac baby formula in it. It only has an address for a return address, no name, & there is $20 in coupons in it for more formula. There is nothing in the box about it being a trial offer & nothing that we have to pay, & we haven't filled anything out online for this. A gift from God. I love the way He works. He just keeps preparing! AMEN.

We are ready & prepared. We ask that you will be in prayer for us as we travel & are in Haiti. Pray for the people of Haiti, the children of Haiti, the missionaries & groups that are there, & that Jesus would come to be the center of Haiti. We thank you in advance, we have already been feeling the prayers that are being said for us. You know, the enemy doesn't like what we are doing, he has been trying to get to us but our God is bigger & greater & we aren't going to let him get us down! Casey is trying to get a little sinus infection so just pray that will dry up NOW! We will be back the 25th!

Blessings to you all in Jesus' name, we love you, & be ready for picture & update overload! 

Christmas & Excitement

MERRY LATE CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & has a wonderful New Year!
We spent Christmas with Casey's family early since Casey had to work. It was wonderful!

Katy thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas. Ronnie & Tonya got her a toy which she played with nonstop that night! She had the tail ripped off of it by the end of the night. She's a little spoiled. After Christmas with the Elmore's we headed back to Demop.

Casey had to work Christmas Eve 6pm to 6am. Being our first Christmas, I was a little more than excited (sad he had to work though). I set the alarm & got up at 5:30 to have everything ready. Well, it wasn't much, just cinnamon rolls. I do cook but it was very early and we love cinnamon rolls. So, I got it all ready & had his card ready. I was waiting at the door at 6, and after about 5 mins & no Casey I was sad. Yes, Christmas Eve and people can't behave. He got home at 6:35. Our first Christmas was great though. We said we wouldn't get each other gifts, but we did. Casey got me a manicure & pedicure & I will tell you what I got him later! Casey then went to sleep, he had to work Christmas night as well, & I packed up the car & headed to Berry for Christmas with the Hocutt's.

From left to right. The oldest Gidget, third child Cody, our precious Momma, our sweet Daddy, the baby ME, and the second child Joni. 

With my nieces Sarah & Savannah and nephew Jeremiah. My sister Joni's kiddos.

My niece Zoey & nephew Brody, who doesn't like taking pictures & believes he IS spider man. My sister Gidget's kiddos.

We had so much fun. We all opened up gifts then had an amazing Dinner then played games like the ones off minute to win it. We laughed till we cried. I love my families (Hocutts & Elmores). We are truly blessed!

Now, on to what we are so excited about! We will be leaving the 14th of Jan & spending 2 weeks in HAITI. We will be working in orphanages their with a group called Chadasha. You can check out their website here & their blog here. The Lord has given us a love for children & especially the orphaned. We are saying yes to His calling & going. We can't wait to see what He is going to do while we are there. He loves all His children so much & we can't wait to share His love with them! Please be praying for us as we travel & are there! Updates to come!!! Oh, & Casey's Christmas gift was bug spray that is 98% deet! =) He was very excited about it..no really, he was!

Everyone have a Happy & Blessed New Year!!! Blessings & Love!!!

Update

Well, I knew I would be bad at posting regularly, but I will get better. I think it could be due to the fact that I have no charger for my camera and we have no Internet at our apt in Demop. I like to post pictures and I have no new ones so I guess I will just post random ones to this blog for you to have something to look at.

 Well, its been a while since I last posted so I will try and update whats been going on.

 We celebrated my beautiful niece Sarah's birthday on the 10th. She is 15 now and it makes me so sad to see her growing up. The picture below is from last year. She is my oldest niece. She is super athletic & great at anything she plays. She has a huge heart & loves the Lord more than any child I've ever met. He is going to use her BIG & I can't wait to see what's in store for her life. I have 2 other nieces and 2 nephews. That makes 5!!! I love being an aunt. I love spending time with them any chance I get. I'm sure I will have posts about the others soon because all their birthdays are coming up soon!

 We had candy night with the Elmore's. Casey's Mom started this tradition a few years ago and we love it. We all pick a candy or dessert we want to make for Christmas and we all go to their house and make it all together one night. We are all in the kitchen together mixing, measuring, and cooking something so it can get wild but I love that we get together and do it, & that we have lots of candy to eat. =)

 Casey & I moved to a new apt in Demop. It's right down the road from our old one. It's two bedroom, one bathroom just like the other one. Why did we move you may ask?? Well, it's FREE! Yes, that's right, NO RENT. Just a perk of being a police officer. You can stay for free as long as you do a walk through & keep a check on things. Yep!! God is GOOD! We desperately needed this. It is such a blessing to not have to pay rent every month, especially when only one of us has a full time job. I am just a floater. I sub in Demop, then I'll come home & visit & work at the vet's office & at my Dad's store some. It's fun. Something different all the time!

And tonight is Christmas with the Elmore's. We are so excited to be spending all this time with family. Casey has to work nights during Christmas so we are having to celebrate a little early. I do not like that he is working nights, but it happens & we are just thankful for a job that provides for us, so we are not crying. The Lord knows what is good for us and we know that we are there for a reason.
I now have a charger, so I will be getting updated pictures of whats going on. We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. We have something exciting to tell everyone but it will have to wait until the next post. Until then, Blessings in Jesus' name!

I'm New

Hello, blog world. This is all new to me. After reading blogs from friends and others, I have decided it is time for us Elmore's to have one.This blog is going to be a place for us to share our lives with others. We are not perfect and our grammar may not be correct all the time. This blog is about sharing what our Lord is doing with our lives and about our new life together. Hope y'all enjoy.

To start I guess I'll share a little about us.

US: We are Kendra & Casey Elmore. We are not perfect by no means. We are just trying to live out our lives according to the purpose that JESUS has called us. We don't know what it looks like or how things will work out but we know we have been called to high things. We are adventurous folks and like to laugh all the time. We are newlyweds. =) We like to eat healthy and workout (even though we don't do a good job doing either). We love babies, kiddos, toddlers... & animals. They are really fun together :). We've only been married 6 months but we have baby fever like nobody's business (had it since before the wedding), so we got a dog. A jack Russell, her name is Katy and she's pretty awesome I must say. Life is fun. We can't wait to share more about us, what God's doing with us & our adventures! 

Our Katy Bug

Well let's do a quick recap of 2011 for us. It's been wild.

Casey got a job with the Demopolis Police Department (so he moved to Demop last year), he finished Police Academy in March of this year.

I planned our wedding while doing my internship in Elementary Education.

I graduated in May.

We got married in June & moved to Demop.

 I searched for jobs like crazy from April to August (still searching) & didn't get one.

I've been subbing & enjoying the duties as wife! (cooking has become a LOVE already)

Since I don't have a job we have the luxury of visiting family & friends whenever Casey is off work, so whenever he's off you can find us in Berry, Winfield, Birmingham, or just wherever we feel like going. It's really a blessing.

& we're pregnant...

NOPE. Not really, just thought I'd get some hearts racing!!

June 4, 2011 Wonderful Day

Can't do my first blog without saying that I have the most amazing husband! I fall more & more in love with him everyday. The Lord really blessed me beyond what I could have imagined (He likes to do that though, whew, God is good). Life with Casey is fabulous. The first 6 months have been nothing but bliss so I can't imagine what the next 6 (& more) will be like. 

Well, here goes nothing with the blogging! Blessings in Jesus' name!!