The Terranova's

hi friends! just thought I would give everyone an update on us and tukula.

We had a very wonderful and white christmas. Played about a million games of yahtzee, had many delicious meals, and went ice skating. After a much needed break Joe and I are back to working really hard to get tukula up and going. the website will hopefully up in a week or so. we are trying to finalize some decisions and answer questions for our selfless grant writer, Gray Ladd, Wouldn't know what to do with out him and his wife such blessings. We are in the process of finalizing our budget asumption for the year 2010. We are trying to get some more concrete monthly donors. We have come up with a way to make it a little easier. It's called the $10 for '10 campaign. If you are interested we are looking for people to donate $10 a month for the year 2010. that's a total of $120 for the entire year. that's not a lot but if everyone I know donated that much it would help joe and I return to uganda and make this vision a reality. so if you're interested please let me know melissasuecarter@gmail.com (if you want to give more that's ok too ) : )
I had a man ask me for 75 cents today on my walk to queen street...it felt so weird being the one asked for money as I am the one doing it all the time. I feel like a broken record sometimes. Sorry for that : )

I read this today and thought it was such a simple truth.

"Grace means that in the middle of our struggle the referee blows the whistle and announces the end of the game. We are declared the winners and sent to the showers. It's over for all huffing, puffing piety to earn God's favor, it's finished for all sweat-soaked straining to secure self worth; it's the end of all competitive scrambling to get ahead of others in the game. Grace means that God is on our side and thus we are victors regardless of how well we played the game. We might as well head for the showers and the champagne celebration." - Donald McCullough

It's a nice reminder that we don't have to earn grace or even God's favor - it's just there. we can relax - we can stop taking ourselves so seriously.

That's my hope for the year 2010 - stop taking myself so seriously. It's ok to fail - God won't love me any less. I want to practice forgiveness and I want to love without measuring... I just want to give it intensely and immensely.

2010 is going to be such a fruitful year..I just know it.
now, let's go do.
peace

ps: one of the best things that happened in 2009 was that Joe and and I got married in uganda! woo hoo!