A Very Special Day in Charlotte

First of all, I want to say what a great time I had yesterday in Charlotte, North Carolina with the amazing people who are leading the charge there for our future Mercy home. I want to give another shout out to Jim and Karen Noble who own Nobles restaurant! Thank you so much for hosting this event, and for anyone in the Charlotte area who is interested in a fine-dining experience, you need to check out Nobles. For those of you more interested in casual dining, they have a sister restaurant called Roosters. I can honestly say that I travel around the world and I have not eaten at a restaurant that’s any better than Nobles. In fact, it may be my very favorite! I wanted you to see the owners of the restaurant, Jim and Karen (pictured below).

By the way, I also had the privilege of meeting Jean Ford yesterday, who attended the luncheon with several of her friends. Jean is actually the sister of Billy Graham (pictured below).

When I told Jean that Nobles is my favorite restaurant of anywhere I had been in the whole world, she looked at me, smiled, and said, “You know what, I eat here often and I have to tell you that I actually agree with that statement.” So now you have it out of the mouth of two or more witnesses. Noble’s is the place to go!

Now back to the luncheon… It was such a special day. I couldn’t help but be excited when I had a chance to hang out with Pastors Derek and Sarah Turner of The Branch Family Church (pictured below).

It was Derek and Sarah and their awesome church who gave us the eight acres of land where we plan to build the future Mercy home in the Charlotte area.

We had an opportunity to mix and mingle some during the luncheon. Check out this small segment of that actually happening in this particular picture of people enjoying their meal.

I also wanted to say how excited I was to have as our special guests, graduates from North Carolina, Bekah and Nicole (pictured below).


Bekah graduated from the St. Louis home in July 2006 and Nicole graduated from the St. Louis home in September 2006. These two girls spoke so powerfully about how their lives were torn apart and how, during their time at Mercy Ministries, they received total restoration. Bekah is now married (pictured right with her husband) and is currently working on her Master’s degree in counseling with hopes to come to work for the Mercy Charlotte home upon completion of her degree.

Nicole (pictured left with her husband) told a very moving story of how she tried to get help for her eating disorder from all of these different places who were all about treatment and charging large sums of money, but instead of getting better, she kept getting worse, and only through her time at Mercy did she receive the healing and restoration that she needed. One of the highlights with Nicole was that she brought her grandfather to the luncheon and on his name tag, he wrote “Pop.” I got a big huge hug from Pop because he was so moved by how his granddaughter has been healed and restored. He actually had tears in his eyes as Nicole was sharing her story.

As if everything that I have shared wasn’t enough, something pretty emotional for me happened at the very end. This man came up to me who looked familiar with a little boy named Chase. It wasn’t until he began to talk to me that I realized who he was – one of our adoptive fathers from years back who had brought his son to the luncheon so he could see me. I haven’t seen Chase since he was a little baby, and it was so cool to be able to give him a big huge hug and see how handsome he is (pictured below).

All in all, it was such a wonderful day and there was not one negative thing about it. I can’t wait until we actually get to build the home and fill it up with girls. Hope you guys enjoy hearing about all the awesome people in North Carolina. We truly have a God-sent team there!