Thanksgiving!!

Travey Boy and Nate-Dawg playing some casual chess

Thanksgiving Dinner! So yummy

Me and the boyzzz

Not Cool Hipsters. Mean. 

Sibling date day: walked the Indian River Trail

I had the chance to go home for Thanksgiving and it was such a wonderful week. Good time of rest, family, and adventure. Felt super thankful for my family. So thankful for this time of peace and healing we are experiencing!! Also, over a week and a half period I had 5 official Thanksgiving meals, it was ridiculously amazing. 

Operations Dominate Frisbee

AKA Fall Fellows Retreat

Mission: Fellowship and Edification (and play some serious Frisbee)

Location: the beautiful Camp Oakhill

Time of Occurrence: 7 November- 9 November: 2014

Theme: Justice-- Micah 6:8

Status: Completed

Results: SUCCESS

Earlier in November, the Raleigh Fellows had the opportunity to hit the road with the Crutchfield family and head to Camp Oakhill in Oxford, North Carolina for the annual Fall Fellows Retreat. The weekend was amazing. For starters, we got to meet the other Fellows groups! As you can picture, it was wonderfully awkward at first then incredibly fun and interesting. It was nice to get out of our Raleigh bubble, meet all these incredible people, and remember how big and widespread God’s kingdom is. The other Fellows programs are all over the place and more are popping up each year, what a cool testimony in itself. As we were taken out of Raleigh, we were able to hear and see what God is doing all over the States. Then to top it off, we were taken out of the States and mentally transported to India when we spoke about the abolition movements there. Talk about broadening your horizons. The focus of the weekend was Micah 6:1-8 and specifically about God’s call “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8b).” I personally have heard sermons and conferences on justice many a time, yet I gained fresh perspectives on justice and great insight from the weekend. We had the privilege of hearing from John Richmond, a passionate follower of Christ, previous director of IJM’s slavery work in India (aka a man risking his life to free slaves), and now federal prosecutor serving as the Special Litigation Counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. He was a truly great speaker and story-teller, and what he had to share about Micah 6:8, his personal experiences working with slavery in India, and now in the States was 100% a blessing and 100% convicting.

As you can see, we learned tons and talked about some difficult topics. We also had a ton of fun and got to be silly and ridiculous (a Raleigh Fellow specialty as the other groups learned quickly). We made a camp fire, played corn hole, took crazy golf cart rides, took walks around the camp, jump-roped, etc. Saturday afternoon was the infamous Frisbee tournament that our lovely and talented director, Ashley Crutchfield, looks forward to every year. There is this wonderful, playful (yet actually semi-real) rivalry between the Raleigh Fellows and the Trinity Fellows in Charlottesville, VA. Lets just say that they often beat the Raleigh Fellows in this highly competitive tournament. Let’s also just say that the Raleigh Fellow’s class of 2015 does not mess around and we brought our A-game. We beat Trinity 15-2 and it was a highlight of the weekend no doubt.  We also just had a really great time working together as a team, encouraging each other and sharing together in victory and loss. The weekend was short, but super sweet for sure.

Over and out.
Kelsey Riggs.

No Time, No Energy... So some pics and short description will have to do:)

The Monday before work started, the fellows went to the National White Water Rafting Training Center in Charlotte, NC- SO FUN!!!!!!

I now am in charge of the garden! And leading all volunteer groups! And coordinating the wellness programs for Alliance Medical Ministry. Such a cool organization (google um!!), and am excited to get settled into my role. 

This awesome group of middle schoolers was my first volunteer group that I lead! They were super positive and worked hard, I was so proud:)

Long Time, No Blog. Sorry:/

Life has been so good. Busy, but fun. I got home from Florence Monday afternoon, August 25th and the whirlwind continued. Tuesday I had a great Father-daughter day with my sweet daddeo. We had a really fun day at the beach and then ended our day with a grill out and family dinner.

I know, we cool

Then Wednesday I had lunch with my grandparents and sister and our good friend Melinda. Taste Unlimited, yum. 

 Then dinner with Granga for her birthday! So much fun with family and so much good food.

In between all those meals I had a lot to do to prepare for my move to Raleigh, I got to see some friends, and I had a bunch of doctors appointments and such. Then Saturday I headed to the BURG! So fun. Got to see a ton of my good friends who I hadn't seen since graduation and just have some silly, fun adventures. Then Tuesday I drove to Radford to visit Nathan, who is now a freshman there. It was amazing to see that sweet boy and let him show me around his new home. Then Radford to Raleigh. My new home for the next nine months. I am living with the Bolash family this year, they are nice enough to be my host family. Anyways, I'm here in Raleigh doing the Raleigh Fellows program through the Church of the Apostles. I am working at Alliance Medical part time, taking seminary classes Monday and Friday, volunteering at Neighbor to Neighbor (a tutoring program for inner city kids in Raleigh), working in student ministries at the church (I got middle school), and learning to live life in community with my fellows. It will be a lot, but no doubt an amazing experience. There are eight of us fellows (Me, Bethany, Cailey, Kelsey, Brian, Aaron, Sam, and Wade) and so far we have had an absolute blast together. We had a three day retreat at Atlantic beach these past few days as a part of orientation. We got back last night and had church all morning this morning. We were introduced at church and got to sit in on the student ministries that we will be participating in. 

Two Weeks of Pure Fun

So I finished my exams August 7th (I passed all my classes, praise God!), and my wonderful sister arrived in Florence that afternoon. Pretty happy day:) Then I traveled for two weeks, first with my sister to Croatia. We bused to Ancona, which was a crazy adventure in itself... attempted hitchhiking was involved as was lots of walking and waiting haha, then took a night ferry to Split. We did split, a day trip to Hvar, and ended our trip in Dubrovnik. Then I flew to meet my mom in London, Meggie flew home. Mom and I did London for two and half days and Ireland for the rest. Mom and I did Europe right haha. Nice hotels (and or castles!!), amazing food, and driving stick shift on the left side of the road through Ireland viewing the most breathtaking natural landscapes you've ever seen. There are SO MANY crazy stories and so many good times to write about that it overwhelms me to think about. I therefore decided to do a summary of my trip and add random stories when needed:) Oh and pictures of course!

Last night with all my roomies at our favorite gelateria

These pictures are very out of order:/ These two are from the Guinness factory in Dublin, our last day of the trip.

Cliff Jumping, Yipppeeee

These are all from Croatia. I tried to take a picture but Meggie just kept making me laugh! And yes, we did go cliff jumping:) Dats me in the air!

The garden outside Kensington Palace

Hop on hop off bus tour in London, lol

Big Ben baby

Best store advertising ever... ICECREAM

Buckingham Palace

Mama, ready to run Ireland

Cliffs of Moher

"I'm on top of the world, eh"

Castle number 1

Castle number 2

West Coast Ireland

Kylemore Abbey

Castle number 3 (my fav!)

I like to take walks whenever we arrive at a location, all the castles had amazing grounds to explore. I found these horses in a huge open pasture. I got spontaneous, hopped the fence, pet them and photographed them. It was really fun:) And one kept passing gas, I was dying laughing. 

Made a few friends in Dublin

He now has 10 pigeons he cares for. I got to meet them.

Watched the sunset with my girl Meggie on top of a mountain in Dubrovnik