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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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February 5, 2012

Simply Sunday…Sharing Hope through Showing Love



We, like you LOVE all of the beautiful, sweet and fun Valentine’s Day projects that are popping up everywhere!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our projects…and we have several more in store for you! But, we’ve been introduced to a Valentine’s Day project that is far lovelier than any of these.

“Com amor”
“Você é uma menina linda!” 
“Saiba que você é amada.” 


You might not know what these words mean, but they are words every young lady deserves to hear on  Valentine’s Day!

The lovely Susan, from My Place to Yours, shared with us an extra special Valentine’s Day Project that touched our hearts and spoke to our souls! If you have met Susan, you know that she has a passion for an amazing ministry Hope Unlimited for Children, a ministry that brings Hope to children in Brazil, specifically young women who are living on the streets, many trying to survive by turning to prostitution.

Let me share some of  her words with you: 

As I worked this week, I thought about Valentines Day and my own growing up years.  I suppose my earliest memory is of giving Valentines to my friends at school.  The list of friends’ names that the teacher sent home … and addressing a card for everyone in the class.  Decorating a shoe box with a slit in it to serve as a “mail box” for collecting the Valentines.  You, too, perhaps?  


Hearts and Cupid became favorite “early” Valentine themes …And the conversation hearts were always fun!   n my (now called) “tween” and early teen years, the “day of love” coincided with diary entries and puppy love crushes.  

Eventually, pretty chocolates …

and pretty flowers … and dating entered the picture.


Dating … that human courtship ritual filled with social activities and relational assessment.  That critical time in young life when choices affect the future.  When conscientious, caring parents pray their children have listened.


But what happens when there were no conscientious, caring parents?  When a young girl is abused … or prostituted … by her parents?  When she’s taught that her only value is as a sexual object?  How can she possibly understand what true love is?

via Hope Unlimited 

That is the reality for most of the girls at Hope Unlimited for Children. The concept of dating and marriage, love and family, evoke feelings of confusion and guilt and fear.  But their story doesn’t have to end there …


In Brazil, the Day of Love is in early Summer.  

On that day, surrounded by godly women who love them, the girls at Hope Unlimited are taught about true love and purity and what it means to be of value as one of God’s highest creations … and loved by their Creator. 


Valentines that come from people who took time to make a few extra Valentines for someone they don’t know.  People like you and me.  It’s a very small act that has a huge impact on the way young girls think of themselves … and how they face the future.

Vanessa and I were so moved by Susan’s post! We are going to be spending the next couple of weeks encouraging our friends and family to join us in providing a special “Day of Love” for these young women!  We will be sharing our progress in the next few weeks.  Would you please consider joining us? Here’s how you can help this ministry!

via Hope Unlimited 

If you’d like to join us in making Valentines for the girls of Hope, you can be certain you’ll bring happy smiles and growing confidence into a young girl’s life.  It can be as simple as making a couple of extras when you write Valentines to your loved ones … or you can make an “event” out of it and involve your Sunday School class, ladies Bible study group, mission group, civic organization, Girl Scout troop, sports team … parents of daughters.

Send your Valentines marked “Valentine Project” to
Hope Unlimited for Children
P.O. Box 2707
Los Alamitos, CA 90720

All Valentines received between now and the end of April will be translated and shared at the 2012 Day of Love celebration.

Here are some answers to questions you might have:
*  Most of the girls are in the 10-17 age range.
*  All of the girls speak Brazilian Portuguese.  (A few speak some English, and many of them are working hard on their English!)  If someone wants to include a note, that’s great; it will be translated.  It’s also okay to include a picture of yourself or your family, letting the girl know they’re being thought of/prayed for by a friend.  (They are very familiar with Americans who love them and very proud to display their Valentines!)
Here are a few phrases that might be useful:
Sua amiga (Your friend)
Com amor (With love)
Deus te abençoe. (God bless you.)
Você é uma menina linda!  (You are a beautiful young lady!)
Saiba que você é amada.  (Know that you are loved.)

To read more about the Valentine Project,  you can visit Susan at My Place to Yours  (where she will be happy to answer any questions you  have) or at Hope Unlimited.

Won’t you consider joining us and blessing these young ladies! Let’s show them Christ’s love…the best LOVE of all through our hands…Thank you for joining us on this Simply Sunday…


Updated to add: We thought it would be fun to share which readers of At The Picket Fence participated in this wonderful project! If you decide to make Valentine’s cards for these young ladies whether on your own, as a family, or  you coordinate a group, would you please send us photographs and a little blurb of what you did and we will included it in a follow up post? Let’s show blogland what a great community we bloggers have with each other!


Also a BIG thank you to Vicki at Curly Willow Collections for creating this lovely button to help us promote this project!



You can get the code for your own button from our sidebar! Help us promote this worthwhile project!

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9 Comments Filed Under: Community, Devotionals, Good Thoughts, Simply Sundays

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Comments

  1. NanaDiana says

    February 5, 2012 at 4:58 PM

    What a blessing this is for me. Do you know that my girls were all lamenting the fact that we were going to be gone for the 14 days surrounding Valentine’s Day and so we wouldn’t have time to make our cards/tags this year. Well, NOW we can come home and make them AFTER Valentine’s Day and send them off for this project. These little girls are going to be so excited. I can’t wait to do this and we will share pictures when we are done. God bless you for this post! xo Diana

    Reply
    • At The Picket Fence says

      February 5, 2012 at 10:35 PM

      How wonderful Diana! Thank you for helping to bless these lovely young ladies…We can show them Christ’s love by being HIS hands! Make sure to take pictures and send them to us, we’ll put them in a post.

      Heather

      Reply
  2. Susan (My Place to Yours) says

    February 5, 2012 at 5:05 PM

    Obrigado, ladies! (Thank you!) I can’t wait to see what it looks like when all that Picket Fence reader love stretches from here to Brazil and wraps itself around some fabulous young ladies. I love your hearts, and I’m so very grateful that you’re joining with My Place to Yours and Hope Unlimited for Children to bless young girls with Valentines and, more importantly, with a loving touch from someone who wants them to understand that dating and marriage, love and family, are still beautifully attainable in their lives. Their pasts do not define them!

    Want proof? A fantastic story of a young girl transformed will be posted on Hope’s blog TOMORROW. I hope you’ll check it out. I promise it will be worth the wait! http://www.hopeunlimitedforchildren.blogspot.com

    Reply
    • At The Picket Fence says

      February 5, 2012 at 10:37 PM

      It is a blessing for us to be able to help in some small way spread the word about this ministry and this special project. What a small, simple way to have such a big impact on these young ladies. Looking forward to reading tomorrow’s story. Love you and your precious heart Susan!

      Heather

      Reply
  3. Cameron Meerdink says

    February 5, 2012 at 7:07 PM

    What a wonderful idea! My design assistant (aka my preschooler) and I will get right on this – we’ve been making Valentine’s for days and are running out of people we know to create them for – so this is just perfect! Thank you!

    Reply
    • At The Picket Fence says

      February 5, 2012 at 10:33 PM

      Thank you Cameron! I know each Valentine will be treasured by these young ladies. That’s for being a blessing. Be sure to send us a picture of you all making your Valentines we will share it in a post. 🙂

      Heather

      Reply
  4. Red Rose Alley says

    February 5, 2012 at 10:54 PM

    What a wonderful organization to be involved in. I also love all your pink and red Valentine’s on this post. Ahhhh, it is such a special day of love.
    ~Sheri at Red Rose Alley

    Reply
  5. Susan (My Place to Yours) says

    February 6, 2012 at 12:08 AM

    Thanks for adding the Bloggers for Hope button, ladies! Vicki did an awesome job, didn’t she? I’ve just added a linky to the post I just did: https://myplacetoyours.blogspot.com/2012/02/1.html. I hope everyone who posts about the Valentine Project will link up so we can all read it! (I just linked yours for you.) Thanks again!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Christmas Garland turned Valentine’s Wreath says:
    January 29, 2013 at 3:32 PM

    […] can only imagine their joy as they open their cards and feel the love coming through! Please go HERE to read more about how you can be involved in this project. Thank you so much for joining me today […]

    Reply

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The month of June is coming to a close and it has The month of June is coming to a close and it has been JAM packed! The highlight by far though was my son's graduation from high school. When I started blogging, he was only 6 years old and some of you have been apart of my community here for that entire time. Now, he's 19 and there is a reason parents are told not to blink because the years truly do go faster than I ever could have imagined. He has become such an incredible young man we are so excited to see how God is going to unfold the next chapter of his life. We celebrated with parties galore (SO many open houses to attend!) and made memories we'll forever cherish. My mama heart was filled to bursting with the joy of it all! Now we're taking some time to just enjoy these warm, summer days making even more memories because, when you’re at this stage of parenting, you know all too well how much you need to grasp every opportunity to spend time together.

I hope your summer is off to a great start too dear friends! 🪴
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts o “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Happy first day of summer dear friends!! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted something new here but life has been crazy. I’ll have some new photos of house projects and life events to share with you soon but, got now, I’m just going to enjoy this gorgeous first day of summer after our ridiculously long, wet spring. ☀️
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. Th “It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” (Maud Hart Lovelace) 

Welcome June!
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
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Grateful today and every day for those who were vigilant to the point of death in the preservation of our freedom. May we honor their sacrifice by being vigilant too. #memorialday
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This is one of my most favorite projects from my b This is one of my most favorite projects from my book Life in Season! 

Because, if heaven has a fragrance, I’m fairly certain it smells like lilacs.

I think that somewhere along the way the verse in the Bible that said, ‘heaven will smell like lilacs’ just got lost in translation. But it HAD to have been in there at some point, right?

When I bury my head in the blossoms (which I absolutely MUST do every single time I walk past them), I immediately feel a stirring in my soul.

It seems like I wait forever for my lilac tree to bloom. Every year I anxiously watch as the buds begin to form on the branches and then when the blossoms finally burst forth I begin that agonizing process of deciding the absolute perfect moment to snip them and bring them inside.

And then, after all of that waiting and watching it’s just over…done. Because, unlike heaven, lilacs don’t last for an eternity. So, making my own lilac room spray seemed like the perfect way to enjoy their fragrance long after the blossoms have faded.

Here’s how to make it! Ingredients: Water, Vodka, Lilac fragrance oil. Directions: Fill spray bottle with 50/50 ratio of water to vodka. Add 12 drops of lilac oil. Give it a shake, spray and if the scent isn’t strong enough, simply add a few more drops of lilac oil.

Once you’ve made this lilac scented room spray you will be very tempted to spray it in every room in your house. And someone may want to use it in the bathroom to cover up other less…ummmm….pleasing aromas.

But, do not, I repeat do NOT, let them.

You’ve captured the fragrance of heaven in a bottle and you wouldn’t want to go and tarnish it now would you? 😉
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I’m a MUCH better version of myself when the sun is shining! 🤪 So I’ll just be over here today plotting and planning how my husband and I can be snowbirds someday when the kids are out of the house.

If you could spend your winters (and apparently most of spring too!) in any part of the country, where would it be?
Happy weekend sweet friends!! We’ve had a LOT of Happy weekend sweet friends!! We’ve had a LOT of rain lately (which is saying something when you live in Oregon) and I’ll admit that it’s affecting my moods a bit. I feel like I’m dragging and struggling to find the energy to get stuff done. So don’t mind me if I’m over here looking at photos of my garden in the summertime and finding that it keeps me hopeful about those days to come. They will come, right?! 🤪. 

What are your favorite plants that you look forward to seeing in the summer?
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Two of our bathrooms are also in need of major makeovers. And we’ve saved up enough money over the years to tackle those projects. But, for the most part, we made the decision to use the bulk of that money in another way. While we knew that it was financially wise to invest in our house, we also knew that the greatest investment we could make was in our children. 

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