April was a HUGE month in the Strange family because we had the privilege of sending Emma on her first international mission trip! And…she can’t wait to go again! Clint and I returned late on Friday evening from the NCCS Mission trip to Haiti. Emma and I met at Cedarcrest Church at 4am that Sunday evening to load up and head back to Haiti with the Cedarcrest team. To say that we were excited would be the understatement of the century! Our team of 16 had a great time getting to know each other in our team meetings leading up to the trip and we had the best time together!
There are hundreds of pictures that I could post from our trip, but I’ll just post a few here to give you an idea. This was my 5th trip to Haiti and Emma has been wanting to go for a long time. I thought my heart might explode from what a blessing it was to see the way that Emma jumped right in and loved the precious Haitian people. We are so blessed that Clint and Eli were super happy to hang at home so that Emma and I could have this experience together. While we were making memories in Haiti, the guys were making plenty of their own at home as well!
Emma really bonded with several of the kids that we met along the week, but she particularly made connections with some of the kids on our team from Cedarcrest that she looks forward to hanging out with for many years to come! One of the last days of our Haiti trip took us back to the town of Canaan. When I was there last time (September 2015), we met a sweet little girl that was very sick. They didn’t even know if she was going to make it. One of our team members was the sister of one of the best doctors in Haiti. They were able to get the little girl to her for care. It was such a blessing to get to see Stephanie on this trip and to know that she is healthy and getting the care she needs for the sickle cell anemia she had been diagnosed with. It was such a gift from God to watch Emma and Stephanie really enjoy spending time together. We hope to see Stephanie again soon!
We returned from Haiti late on Sunday evening and had school first thing that Monday morning. That week went by fast and in a bit of a blur! Fortunately we had Friday off to celebrate Good Friday. Our family made an evening of it as we headed to Alpharetta to enjoy dinner at The El Felix at the Avalon and then the Good Friday concert at Verizon. It was a great Strange family evening! We hung out at home that Saturday and then went to church Easter Sunday morning. It was a great morning of worship! After church we headed down to the Battery at SunTrust Park. We were just going to grab lunch at Antico and then just look around the new Braves stadium. It was a beautiful day! After eating lunch, we decided to get some cheap tickets and head to the game. We sat in the Home Run Porch and loved checking out the new stadium! We had dinner with a friend to round out an awesome Easter weekend!
The rest of April went by quickly. Emma and I have started a new tradition of walking up to Starbucks on Saturday mornings to spend time together and get some exercise. That has been one of our favorite parts of the rental home we are living in. Emma finished up a book report, she joined me for practice with our golf team, the whole family cheered on the NCCS Spring Sports teams, and then Clint headed to San Francisco for work the last week of April. When Clint is out of town…I spend all of my time thinking about how grateful I am that the Lord has given me such an awesome husband and an incredible dad for our kids. Our family is definitely much better when we are all together as the Strange Party of Four! The kids were amazing the week that Clint was out of town and we had lots of fun doing some things out of our normal routine.
The weather has really started getting nice and our family is planning lots of fun evenings eating on the patio and then heading to one of the awesome parks we have here in Acworth. School is winding down and we are making the most of every day!
