Shannon Holden Photography

The Hipstamatic iPhone App. I first saw it on a friend’s Facebook page. I downloaded it yesterday and drove my family nuts for the next two hours as I chased them with my iPhone. This app is addictive and so fun!! It turns boring old camera-phone pictures into funky, vintage snapshots that remind me of the pictures in my family photo albums from the 70’s.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my iPhone?

Much love,
Shannon

Africa. Just the word imparts a different feeling to my heart than it did a year ago. A year ago, the word meant safaris and wild animals. It meant dry, barren deserts. It meant a beautiful movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. It meant a continent I never thought I’d see, or be compelled to see.

Today, it makes my heart beat faster, because a part of my heart seems to have been carried there. It means precious women and children whose faces I see in my sleep, people who need our help. It means a little girl named Fostina and a little boy named Makoka whom I’ve never met, but whom I pray for every day. Whom I love. It means God’s love and hope. Africa is no longer just a distant continent to me. It’s real.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you have probably seen my past posts here and here about Wiphan. Wiphan Care Ministries is an organization to which God has been leading me for quite some time. Our sponsor child Fostina attends their school in Zambia. When we made the decision in March to sponsor Fostina, as we clicked the last button to sign up as her sponsors and entered our credit card info for the monthly payment, I knew right away that I needed, wanted to do more. A few days later I woke up in the middle of the night, and heard that almost audible voice in my head saying, “You should go to Africa.”

Excuse me? ME?? Go to Africa? If you know me at all, you probably know that I do not travel well, and especially apart from my family. The idea of getting on a plane to go anywhere fills me with anxiety. I even get nervous driving on the highways in Atlanta!! So for ME to get on a plane to go to another CONTINENT … ALONE???? Um ……

But that pull, that inner voice urging me to go, was persistent. I couldn’t ignore it. So I talked to my sweet friend Andrea, who is one of Wiphan’s board members, and I was shaking as I told her that I thought I was being called to Africa. I said to her, “Is this how it was for you, when you first started getting involved with Africa and the people there? Because I can’t get Africa off my mind. I am eating, sleeping, breathing … Africa.” She said, “That is EXACTLY how I felt. It’s called…THE CALL OF THE LORD! When it’s from the Lord..you can’t get it off your mind… you can’t get it off your heart. It’s also called a miracle because there is nothing in us that could do this.”

That same week, our pastor, Andy Stanley at North Point Community Church, wrapped up a sermon series called “White Flag”. The series was about how we run from God, and this sermon in particular carried the message that surrendering to God’s purpose for our own lives isn’t enough … that we must also surrender ourselves to God’s purpose for the world. I listened to every word, feeling once again like the message was personally delivered directly to me. Andy said, “Have you ever said to your Heavenly Father, ‘God, I surrender to your purposes in the world. Just as I’m available to be good, just as I’m available to be obedient, I am available to be an extension … wherever you send me in the world … of your grace, your compassion, and your abounding love to anyone my life intersects.’”

At the end as we stood to leave, my husband turned to me and said, “I guess you are going to Africa.” On the way home from church, a friend texted me and said, “I guess you are going to Africa.”

And then … I got cold feet. I got distracted by daily life battles, by financial fears, by a hectic schedule with my kids and work, and I let it (or made it?) slip from my mind. But it didn’t go away long. When I confessed my fears and hesitation to my church group, I said, “I just can’t understand why God would even want me to go to Africa. Who am I anyway? How can I serve any purpose? I’m no one important.” And Randy said in reply, “You are important enough that God sent his son to die on a cross for you, and so you are important enough for any work he wants you do.”

So on July 8, I will board a plane for Africa. In God’s perfect way, a spot opened up on a Wiphan trip to Ndola, Zambia with a team from my children’s school. I’ll be traveling with fellow parents, high school students, and my children’s PE teacher. There we will be loving on the children and widows, while our teacher and students put on a sports camp for the children, and we work in other ways to support their school in Zambia and all that Wiphan does there. It seems I might also have the opportunity to serve Wiphan through my photography, to capture some images of the widows and orphans there that Wiphan might use to further tell their story here. Above all, we will help the women and children know that they are forever loved and cherished by God.

As July quickly approaches, I am turning to my family, friends, and even strangers for support. Will you pray for me and our team? Will you pray for safe travels and protection for us, and for our families here at home? Will you pray that God provides for the cost of our travels, and continues to provide for the daily needs of the widows and orphans there? Will you pray that everything we do there, and every story and image we bring back here, will glorify God and lead to something that improves the lives of the women and children we will support?

As with any mission trip, we will also be relying on financial donations to help with the cost (approximately $4200 per person) of the trip. Any of you who might be inclined and able to support this mission financially, I will appreciate your donations more than I can express. Donations are fully tax-deductible. Just go to Wiphan’s Donations page here, click the drop down box to choose “trips”, and please put my name on the Memo line. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for any amount you are able to give … even $10 will help!

Thank you for your prayers and support. I am so blessed by this opportunity to be a part of what God is doing around the world, and I am excited to share my experiences here at home when I return.

Much love,
Shannon

“Everyone needs compassion, a love that’s never failing; Let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness, the kindness of a saviour, the Hope of nations…. So take me as you find me, all my fears and failures, and fill my life again. I give my life to follow everything I believe in; now I surrender.” ~Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding, Hillsong Australia

Images and graphics used with permission.

I’m adding a new feature to the blog. Frequently I’ve run across a new product, sometimes photography-related and sometimes not, that I have thought about sharing on the blog. So today I thought, “Why not?” Many of you have told me how you enjoy the little personal tidbits I throw in here and there. So just for the fun of it, I’m creating a new blog category called, “Today I love …” . I’m sure it will cover a range of topics. And though I may not actually post on this topic every week, I’ll strive to share these little doodads often.

So here we go!

Today I love … my digital picture frame! I admit, for a long time I thought these things were a bit silly. I also thought they were overpriced and liable to break quickly. Last year, I bought one to test out as a potential client product. While I opted not to offer these through my business, I discovered just how much I enjoy this frame! I have a very small 5″ digital photo frame by Pandigital which sits on my kitchen counter. I have filled it with images of my family and kids from the past few years. They aren’t all perfect photographs. Some are even just snaps off my iPhone. But they are all treasured memories.

This past Christmas, I gave a frame as gifts to my dad and my grandmother, and in doing so, spent a full day scanning OLD family snapshots to add to the frame. (Remember, scanning copyrighted photographs including professional portraits is a no no!!) I added these images to my frame as well. Well, whadya know … I LOVE this frame!

Even as a professional photographer, I am ashamed to say that MOST of the photos I take of my own children never leave my computer. Until now. I may not get them printed and into albums as much as I’d like, but at least I am getting them onto the digital frame and ENJOYING them! They aren’t trapped on a hard drive anymore. I sit at my kitchen island in the mornings, eating breakfast with my kids, or enjoying some solitude with a cup of coffee, and just watch the memories scroll by. My daughter loves watching the slideshow and pointing out all the familiar faces. She has even learned to recognize loved ones who have passed, which helps my heart to know they are not faceless names to her. We can both share their smiles as we relive those joyful moments of years gone by.

I’m looking forward to upgrading to a larger frame soon, and maybe even having multiple frames throughout the house. I may be out of wallspace but I’m not out of megabytes yet.

Looking for a Mother’s Day gift? You can’t go wrong with this one.

Much love,
Shannon

A few of you asked the outcome of my recent post. What happened next?

Well, we bought our t-shirts. That was a no-brainer. My kids look so cute in theirs, and they love telling their friends what the shirts mean. They are very excited to share what Wiphan is up to on the other side of the world.

But more importantly, we welcomed a daughter into what I call our “God Family.” After I wrote my middle-of-the-night blog post that day, I went upstairs to wake my husband. I couldn’t wait to discuss this churning in my heart. My daughter was just waking up, so she jumped onto our bed where I was showing the Wiphan site to my husband. Then I clicked on the Sponsorship page. We have been sponsoring a little boy in Kenya named Makoka for about a year. We exchange letters with him, and we have his picture hanging in our kitchen. We pray for him every day and pray for God to provide for him, beyond the small check we send each month. My son says it best, with a simple prayer of “Please help Makoka have a good life.” Don’t all children deserve something that simple?

Have you ever imagine what God might say in a conversation with you? I have. “Lord, please help this child have a good life,” I pray. And I imagine his response to me … “Shannon, I want YOU to help this child have a good life.”

I told Chris that I wanted to sponsor another child. He agreed instantly. So we looked through the faces of those precious boys and girls on the website, and I invited my daughter to choose. She chose Fostina (whose bright yet soulful eyes had already reached me through her photograph), and that was that. Fostina is 11 years old, she likes cows and the color orange, and she wants to be a teacher. She is beautiful.

As I type this, there is a Wiphan team in Africa serving the women and children. One of the team members has an envelope tucked in his suitcase full of photographs and pictures drawn by my children, along with a letter we wrote to Fostina, which he will hand deliver to her this week. How awesome is that? How great is our God! My kids are already planning their next package of gifts for Fostina, to be carried by this summer’s Wiphan team. I’m very hopeful we might receive a letter back from her soon. I’m so anxious to know her better.

Now our nightly prayers include two “God-children”. Lord, please take good care of Makoka and Fostina. Provide their daily needs. Let them know we love them. Let them feel every day how much You love them.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” – Mother Theresa

I’d love to hear if you’ve bought a t-shirt! And even more, I’d love to hear that your heart found a child to sponsor. It’s only $39 per month. That’s less than our family of 5 spends on a trip to the movies! There are 20 more children waiting on a sponsor through Wiphan. Can you help that number go down? Even if you don’t feel led to sponsor a child yourself, do you know someone who might? Please pass this link along to them! Share it on your blogs and Facebook pages.

You know what is amazing about things like this, when God leads us to an organization, a cause, or even just a single child that needs our help? It’s that our heart keeps growing, wanting to do more. At first I just clicked on Wiphan to buy a t-shirt. But my heart ached to go a step further, and Fostina’s eyes looked into mine, and my young daughter felt a connection with a little girl on the other side of the world, and that gave me the next answer I needed.

And now my heart is still yearning to do more … and it’s contemplating possibilities (one very far out of my comfort zone, I might add!!), waiting for God’s will for me to be unveiled. Waiting to see what he will lead me to next. Waiting anxiously.

Much love,
Shannon