Hello all, friends, family, and the blogging world!
So begins the adventures of heidi smiles... a documentaion of my life for those of you who have the time to read about it! :)
Before sharing more about what I am up to I must throw out a disclaimer to all of you out there who may be reading this or end up reading this at some point! I have never kept a blog, unless you count a livejournal I had back in like 9th grade that I probably posted something on twice, therefore there this blog may be a bit messy grammatically and may not always be so eloquent, but I shall try my best since I really do want to keep everyone updated on this new adventure in my life!
About 4 weeks ago my family and I embarked on a journey over half way across America to an amazing city called New Orleans. A city filled with spirit, music, life, family, and food. Fast forward to about 5 months ago and had you asked me if I would ever find myself moving to New Orleans I would have answered most definitely not. However, God has a plan and that plan isn't always what we expect it to be and so today I find myself living in the great city of New Orleans.
Maybe some of you are wondering what lead to me moving here and for those of you who are, I shall tell you! This past June I graduated from the University of California, Irvine and realized I had to start figuring out what I was going to do with the rest of my life! So, instead of applying to grad schools right away I decided to do a bunch of things that I had been wanting to do, but never made time to do.
So, after moving back home with my parents to save money, I spent the summer helping out at church at youth group (jr high and high school), being a leader in my churches summer day camp and being a counselor at high school camp for a week. I then flew down to Irvine and from there went on a missions trip to New Orleans with a group of people from my church that I had been attending during college.
Everything that I did this last summer has helped me grow so much in who I am and has challenged me to become a better christian and have a closer relationship with Christ. I feel more confident in my beliefs and more comfortable to express those beliefs to others. I would love to share more, but I don't want this post to go on forever, so feel free to ask me about it and I can expand more!
Anyways, back to why I am where I am. My first day in New Orleans volunteering with St Bernard Project I was talking with my Site Supervisor, Daniel, who was in charge at the house I was working on. We talked about how he had ended up in New Orleans and what SBP was all about, how americorps worked, etc. And that very first day he told me I should apply to work with SBP...This sort of shocked me and my first reaction was...hmm..sounds cool, but probably not right now...I need to go to grad school first...but as I began to talk with my team mate Lauren more about this and whether or not it would be a good idea...it occured to me...WHY NOT? and so I began to pray about it and asked my team to pray about it.
Later in the week I had a conversation with my team leader about why I had not gone on more mission trips and how a lot of times I let what people think of me hinder my actions. Coincidentally that same night my other team mate Dominic gave a devotional all about trusting in God and said the same thing I had been talking about only 4 hours earlier about letting what others may think of you hinder you from doing God's will. And then went on to say that God just wants you to Go. This hit me hard...and I knew that God was specifically speaking to me through what dominic was saying! God wanted me to just Go...where to, I wasn't sure, but I knew Grad school was going to have to wait and that I was going to have to Go, no matter how terrifying that seemed.
After that amazing experience in New Orleans I came back to Brentwood determined to figure out what was next and then things began to distract me and I kept putting off everything and then decided to just go ahead and take my exams for grad school just so I had options. However, soon God began to send small signs to me reminding me about New Orleans. First, while working at my Dad's store a man came in and began to talk to me and soon enough I find out he is from the exact neighborhood that I had been volunteering in New Orleans....THEN and I think this was one of the most significant signs for me! I was with my friend Rianna visiting her school that she was attending in the fall for college and we walked into the library and there on the wall was a giant painting with a cross on it and small letters that said "help me" and then in the corner it said "New Orleans, LA"!! I knew that again this was God reminding me that I needed to go back there and I decided right then and there that I was not going to be a Jonah, I was going to go back to New Orleans no matter what it took.
Next began a long process of applying and interviewing and waiting and waiting to find out if I had gotten the job with Americorp at St Bernard Project! And considering I am here in New Orleans you can only guess that I did get the job!
Now!! It has been about three weeks since I started working here and it has been amazing! This city needs so so much help and I can not image myself anywhere but here. There is something so comforting about being exactly where you know God wants you to be. Sometimes, as a human, I doubt that, but then something will happen and I will be reminded, "yes, Heidi, you are meant to be here".
So far I have had two weeks of training and started my actual job for just one week doing site supervising, which is basically where you have volunteers come to the house you are supervising the building process of and you teach them what they need to know to get whatever done that needs to be done! This last week I worked on lots of finishing work on a home that is almost done! Being a site supervisor is a lot of work with my hours being from 8am-5pm 5 to 6 days a week, but it is so much fun and so worth it when you see a family move into their home that they have been out of for 4.5 years! :)
New Orleans is an amazing city filled with amazing people, however a lot of those amazing people have not been able to move home after four years of living in trailers or in a friend or families home. There is so much work that needs to be done and it shocks me how little the rest of the country is aware of the situation here. I mean, even I was shocked, I had no idea that New Orleans even needed any more assistance! I thought that it must have been done, it was four and a half years ago!! how could it not be rebuilt. But I can honestly tell you, it is not!
Now, I hope that you are wondering how you can help!! And there are lots of ways! One super easy way to help that doesn't involve any money or really any of your time minus about 90 seconds is to go on facebook in January, I will remind you all, and vote for SBP on the Chase Community Giving Page! We just recently won round one and received 25,o00 dollars and now if we can win round two we will receive 1 million dollars which will bring 66 families home!! :) Another awesome way would be if you came and volunteered!! I would love to have you and you can even have me as your site supervisor!! :) If you want to do this, ask me for more information and we can make it happen!
Well, this first post has been very long so I shall wrap it up now and promise you that they will not be this long in the future! Thanks for reading! And Merry Christmas!
Love,
Heidi Smiles
