Grace, It's free for you and me

Marisa, Kaitlin and Carl left, on Saturday morning, with 27 other from our church to go to Bay St. Louis, MS and help with Katrina rebuilding. They are bases out of Jean Larroux' s church Lagniappe ( pronounced lan-yap) Presbyterian. Lagniappe means a little something extra or free like Grace.

Today at 5:17am I got a text from Kaitlin. She had on her Iowa tee shirt, shorts and tennis shoes and she was headed to the kitchen to help cook breakfast.

Carl is working on roofing as is Marisa.

I am praying for safety and unity for the group.

Yesterday, during free time a group drove to New Orleans. It is about an hour away. Carl, Kaitlin and one other are the only ones out of the group of 14 that had ever been there. They drove down town and had beignets.

I really miss them.

John and I are here. John rented some movies for us to watch. Vantage Point and Behind Ememy Lines are two that I have watched with him so far. They really get your heart pumping because of the action. I may need to watch Pollyanna or something calmer soon.

Sheryce came over today and curled my hair because my hairdressers are gone. I am blessed with wonderful friends.

It means- a little something extra

I added a new blog to my blog roll just a minute ago. It is the blog for Lagnaippe Church. Carl, Marisa and Kaitlin plus about 20 others from church are going to do work there next week. I am hoping to see pictures of them up there. Please pray for team unity and that in all they do they will bring Glory to God.

Hat tip to Andrew for this blog

Perspective

A fun and moving story sent to me by Andrew.
Enjoy

Hide it under a bushel, NO!

I am standing amazed at the exceedingly, abundantly, moreness of God- Eph 3:20-21.

We are listening to a series from Tim Keller in our College and Career group. I highly recommend all his messages. He gets you thinking. The message last night was on "How can there be a God with all the suffering in the World?" I'll search around and see if I can find a link for you. It was a wonderful message. It was encouraging. We do not know all the reasons that God has for what we go through but one thing we can hold on to is 'For His Glory'

When I helped Corrie in February, I did it because I love her and she needed me. Corrie brought me a note last night from her mama. Here it is

Dear Ellen and Family,
This is a little thank you for being Corrie's "Mommy" especially when she had her accident. And you should know, it was quite the testimony to various non-Christian family members, they were astonished I didn't fly right down there (I couldn't actually) and I explained that her church family was so 'on it' that one lady actually beat her to the hospital! Thank you, Ellen. The were amazed that Christians do that for each other, when Corrie has only been in Little Rock for a year. So your witness travels far...
Love in our Saviour, Debbie

And I thought I was only going to help a friend in need not give a testimony to non- believers. We never know how God can use what we are going through. May this give us courage today.

The world is watching. I am praying that I show them Jesus today.

More pictures soon

I was not ready to get in the car and come home.

When we got home the Internet was out and just got back online this afternoon. Here are some thoughts and stories about our vacation.

Money is one of six children. All were there this year. That doesn't happen often. If we were all together we were a party of 36. We took pictures on the beach... all of us. We drew a crowd just watching us take pictures. We had different groupings, like the girl cousins then the boy cousins and then all the cousins. The cousins are heavy on boys and for the longest we just had three girl cousins with nine boy cousins. Now we have 5 girls and 10 boys. We had the different families, we had those that had married into the family and we had lots of Grandma and her six children.

Jeremy wanted to build a sand castle. He had molds and a plan and got to work on it. Larry and I sat in out chairs watching him. This man on the beach was also watching. He confronted Jeremy and told him that sand castles was the leading cause of death for children on the beach. Jeremy politely sat down until the crazy man left and then built a HUGE one. He got help from all the cousins. It was so big that folks stopped and took pictures of it.

After we talked about folks stopping to look at us as we took pictures, we stood on our balcony and watched a wedding on the beach. I guess we are all rubberneckers.

Kaitlin and I watched the sunrise one morning from our balcony.

Marisa plays a car game called the Yellow Car game. She even has rules: no work trucks, no playing on Sunday, cars in a car lot don't count etc. I have been aware of the playing of this game for awhile. Even Marisa agreed that the Yellow Car capital is in North Carolina. It is unreal how many cars we saw. Now that I've said this you look for yellow cars and see if you see lots.

Alan realized that it is easier for the cousins to say goodbye because they are so connected with face book chat etc.

I read three books. Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews, The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love by Joan Medicott and the third... I can't remember the name. I gave it to Elaine to read and it's name escapes me. All were good escapism. Nothing from my TBR list, oh well!

We stopped at the Atlanta Aquarium on our way home. John loves marine life. Marisa had never been to one. She got to pet a shark, ray and an sea anemone. (I think that is how you spell it) Kaitlin loves otters and we got to see Sea and River ones play. The Atlanta Aquarium has 4 whale sharks. This is the largest fish. We got to sit in front of a LARGE tank and watch whale sharks, hammerheads, leopard rays and a plethora of other fish. It was just amazing. John thanked us the entire way home.

I told Money that when we retire I want to spend a month at the beach. I love to watch it, smell it and hear it.

I plan to work on my scrapbook soon!

What letter are you?

I have the smartest family.  You know from previous posts that Kailtin loves glow stick pictures.  Well, this is what you get when you have 14 Monroes working together on the beach at 10 pm.  A hat tip to Carl, Alan, Meredith, Andrew, Taylor, Lydia, Sarah, Kaitlin, Marisa, Alex, Thomas, William, John, and Robert.  I am impressed.  I was sitting in a camping chair with Renee and I pushed the shutter button. 

All together

A Monroe tradition is to vacation at the beach. Right now we are at the beach in NC. In the past we have rented houses, condos, and this year we are mostly in a motel. This motel is fun because every room has an ocean view. Raymond's family is in a house about a mile from us. We rented motel umbrellas and chairs. We get up in the morning and they are set up waiting on us.

Carl has 4 brothers and one sister. All the extended family is here except one grandson. When we go out to eat we are Monroe party of 35. We are celebrating Carl's mama's 80 birthday tomorrow. She will be like the Queen of England this year and have two birthdays- one the day she was born and another one when she'll have her celebration.

Today we spent lots of time at the ocean.

Lots of fun memories.

I feel sorry for families that are here with just their small family. When we are together we always have someone to visit with or go into the water with or go back tothe motel with. What a blessing.

I hope to have pictures soon.