The Ultimate Mission Trip Style Guide: Hunger Games Hair

The Ultimate Mission Trip Style Guide is a blog series with tips and tricks from Praying Pelican Missions lady missionaries on how to look good, feel good and take the pressure off of packing your suitcase for a new culture, climate and lifestyle. Our heart is to remove the anxiety and focus from timeless questions like: "What do I wear?" and give you a few tips that we've learned throughout the years. Ultimately, we pray that these posts would be a resource for you as you prepare for your trip. We want to provide you with a few tools that can help you remain focused on what God is teaching you and doing around you during your time abroad, instead of the length of your shorts, the style of your still-wet hair, or how much make-up is appropriate. But of course, throughout it all, we must have fun in the process!


Two words can be used to best describe my hair while on a mission trip: hot mess. If you're anything like me, when I look around I feel like all the other girls look glamorous while I'm walking around with my hair in a pony tail. What's their secret? I have no idea! :)

I have never lost so much hair in my life like I did while serving in Jamaica. All the little girls wanted to platt (braid) my "tall" hair. How could I say no to their cute faces? And so I let them pull and tug and fight over my hair. After my first full week of this I was thoroughly looking forward to recreation day when no one would want to braid my hair, but I was wrong. Every vendor wanted me to pay them to put my hair in platts. Finally, after several weeks of this I gave in to one of the vendors and paid her to put my hair in braids... And it was awesome! And the best part was that the little girls could still play in my hair, I just didn't have to worry about unknotting it afterwards. It was a win-win solution. Plus, I could keep the braids in for weeks without having to do anything to them- it was a dream come true.

The girls love playing in your hair!

But it can be so painful!

I loved not having to do anything to my hair.

Everyone knows that going on a mission trip means early mornings and late nights, and you may not have access to someone who can platt your hair for you before you leave for your next mission trip, so what do you do? You need some simple styles that are easy to manage and don't require blow drying or straightening your hair. Plus, in some remote locations washing your hair may be a luxury if there is a limited water supply. Before this summer I would have had no advice for you, but I had some trendy ladies on trips with me this summer who had some great ways to wear their hair and not look like a ragamuffin like me. One style I learned from the ladies this summer I have named "The Catniss Braid" because it's how Catniss wears her hair in the movie The Hunger Games. This braid is similar to French braiding, but you braid the hair from one ear, down around the hair line at your neck, over towards your other ear, and then down in front of your shoulder in a hanging braid. This style is great because it stays all day without being too tight or heavy. Plus, it's easy to do and keeps your hair off of your neck, which helps keep you cooler.

Start your braid from one ear and wrap around the hairline to the other ear.

Thanks Savanah for letting me use you as a doll!

If you think you are too tomboy to pull this off, know that if I can figure it out, anyone can do it. Happy braiding and may the odds be ever in your favor. :)

Birthday Surprises!

Today is my handsome hubby's 30th birthday. I am so blessed to have him as my best friend and partner in life. He is my rock and I love him with all that I am. I couldn't ask for an better man. :)

Every year I try really hard to think of a present that will top the previous year's gift. One year I got him a Jedi Mickey Mouse statue that had a working light saber. Pretty epic gift if I do say so myself. The problem is that I have the TOUGHEST time waiting until his actual birthday to give it to him. I usually always give him his gift early because I am so excited and I just know he's going to love it.

Well this year I did it. I waited and waited to give him his present on his actual birthday (well I made it with one of his gifts). The suspense is almost painful; it's like I forget that it's his present not mine! I get like this every time I have a gift for someone. I am getting better at controlling my excitement, but giving the gift is more fun for me than receiving one.

I couldn't wait for TJ to open his other birthday gift so that I could see the look on his face. There's a certain level of satisfaction that comes with giving a gift to someone that you know they are really going to enjoy. And what an amazing thing this morning to see the look on his face when he opened his present to see a VT Football Jersey with his name on the back and a #1.

He is my #1 and I hope that we have many more birthdays together. May God continue to bless his life richly. Love you my hubby - happy birthday!

Grateful for Grace

As many of you know, part of my job as a full-time missionary with Praying Pelican Missions is sales. I make tons of calls a week trying to connect with churches and Youth Pastors and get them to come on a trip with us. I sell mission trips. But not just any mission trips - the kind that rock your face off and change your life and the lives of your students forever!

Believe it or not, making calls to complete strangers can be awkward (they are called "cold calls" for a reason.) Even though I know what I will be offering the person on the other line is EPIC, the initial conversation can still be awkward. When I call, I try to relax and sound like I know the person I am asking the receptionist to connect me to, so that she won't shut me down and send me to voice mail thinking I am a telemarketer. Sometimes these calls go really well, and other times not so much.

Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and you know it's not going the way you want, and yet you find yourself unable to stop saying the wrong thing?! That was me today. For example, one call I made today I started by asking for a person who's name had changed. I assumed she got married and stated that, to which the receptionist said, "No, she just changed her name." Then I continued by saying the person's new name wrong. I completely missed a letter in her name. And as the receptionist corrected me I found myself saying, "Right, I know that's not how you say it." I was literally screaming at myself inside telling myself to just shut-up already. So much for relax and pretend like you know the person. When I asked if I could speak with her the receptionist told me I needed to call her cell phone because she is in the other building and they don't have a phone system in there yet. "Oh, well I don't have her cell phone number because I don't actually know her. I'm just calling to introduce myself to her and see what her mission plans are for the youth this year." Yup, I really said that. I almost felt the receptionist sigh - she was as fed up with me as I was. At this point I think she just felt really bad for me and gave me her email and cell phone number. Maybe she just wanted to get off the phone with me. In truth, I wanted to get off the phone with me. What was wrong with me?!

Unfortunately that was not the only time I made a call and after hanging up said, "Well that was a fumble." The truth is that we are not always going to get everything right. As a missionary, I am certainly not the best sales person, and yet this is what God has asked me to do. And He is still going to use me in sales, despite my shortcomings.

I am reminded of the story of Moses in Exodus 4. God has this great assignment for Moses and yet Moses continues to make excuses. As I read this encounter I almost find myself shouting at Moses just to shut up. "Well that was a fumble." I'm sure after having this conversation with God Moses was probably thinking that it could have gone better. "Did I really just say that?" he might have asked himself. And yet God still used Moses. He didn't tell Moses he had to be an excellent orator. Moses just had to be available and obedient.

God used Moses in many great ways after this encounter. Moses led the Israelites out of captivity and gave taught them to walk with God. Through Moses, God chose to give us the law. But grace came through Jesus. John 1:17 tell us, "for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." I am so glad that God didn't stop at the law. All of my not so smooth phone calls certainly would have proved how unworthy I am to work for Him. Fortunately, there is Jesus and He doesn't give me a little grace; He gives me sufficient grace (2 Cor 12:9) - enough grace to wipe out all my fumbles continuously.

I am so glad that God has grace and can use a goof-ball like me to help get people on to the mission field. I'm so glad He gives second and third (and twelfth) chances. I am so grateful for His grace. And the best part is that this extends deeper than to a missionary trying to make sales calls - it applies to my salvation and yours! If I can't make phone calls right then I certainly know I can't get salvation right! But his grace reaches me there too. Ephesians 2:8-9, "For you are saved by grace though faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift - not from works, so that no one can boast." "He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began." 2 Timothy 1:9

If you feel like you need some grace today, search the Bible for the word "grace" and see how much there is to be received! And as I get back to making more awkward cold calls, I'll leave you with this verse from 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."