My sister, My best friend

I have been LITERALLY absent from blogging, and to be honest, I don't think I will be doing much of it anymore. Life has been nonstop in the fast lane since I moved back to Bama. I went to Mexico in July, came home and my sister got sick.

The thing is, she was diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome when she was 2 years old around (2001-2002). She was treated with oral chemo, steroids, and other meds and eventually she went into remission.

 She stayed completely symptom free until this August. She woke up one Sunday morning with a swollen face and we knew her illness was back.

Before swollen face:

Swollen face:

Little did we know, this time it's back with a vengeance.
Her doctor in Birmingham started her back on her steroids to try and get it back under control. Her swelling would not come down.
She was admitted to the Children's Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, for 4 days and 3 nights to pull the extra fluid off of her body, and she lost 15 lbs in 4 days of nothing  but water weight! We went home thinking it was over for the time being.

We were released from the hospital on that Friday... she started her first day of Junior High (7th Grade) that Monday. Went to school Monday, Tuesday, checked in late Wednesday because she started swelling again, went all day on Thursday and stayed out Friday because she started throwing up. That Saturday, she was still throwing up, so we took her to the local ER. They gave her some meds and sent us home because all of her lab work and tests looked fine. On Sunday evening she was STILL throwing up, so we packed a suitcase(with anticipation of being admitted to the hospital again)and headed on down to Birmingham (an hour and a half away from my house.)

That is where we have been since August 26. 3 and a half weeks in the hospital. My sister is currently having to do dialysis 3 days a week because she is in kidney failure. At 12 years old. She is still throwing up every day, and because of this, she also has a feeding tube. The Doctors think her kidneys shut down as a result of dehydration from throwing up so much, but in all honesty, they can't say for sure what happened. They are positive her kidneys will "wake up" and being working on their own. That is what we are hoping for. We are giving them 2 more months to start working again before we begin to think of more permanent and long term treatment options such as a permanent cath for dialysis and transplant options. As of now, those things aren't even on the table as options. If and ONLY if we get to three months and she hasn't responded, will we even begin to discuss more permanent treatment options. We have NO idea how long we will be in the hospital. They say once we get the throwing up part under control a little better, we can go home and come back basically 6 days a week for labs/dialysis, plus continue with the feeding through the tube at home so, even after discharge we will have to stay local in order for her to receive the treatment she needs. We have a Facebook page called Prayers for Lexus Helton where my mother and I regularly update her progress or lack of several times a day or as much as we can. I would love for you all to go "like" her page to keep up to date on her condition and to see pictures and tidbits of information LIKE the first official fundraiser we are doing in her benefit! We are selling GREEN for Kidney Disease Awareness bracelets that look like this:

for $8.50 each! That price INCLUDES having the bracelet shipped right to your front doorstep! This is to help off-set the prices for the equipment she will need for at home care when we get discharged, because our insurance pays 0%! Anyways, if you would like to buy one, I have a Paypal account (breannarains@gmail.com) for easy payment by Debit card or you can get in touch with me via breannarains@gmail.com to work out another form of payment that is more convenient for you!
If you pay through PayPal, in the designated message place, please include your shipping address so I can mail yours to you when we receive them. We have to receive 25 orders before we can get them for that price and the DEADLINE is September 30! There is more info on the Facebook page!

I really hope, if nothing else, you will go "like" the Facebook page and if you pray, PLEASE pray for my little sister! Thank you so much!

Old friends

I love the Fourth of July so much! It's always fun to be with family and friends,

but this year was particularly fun for me because one of my old friends, Jacob Stiefel, is a super cool Southern Rock star in Nashville now and he was playing in Fort Payne for their Fourth of July celebration! 
Back when I was about 15(or16)Jacob used to be in this local band called Dixie Road with some other people that me and my mom were close with. 

They used to play a lot locally and they would come shower or crash at our house afterwards and we would go to almost all of their shows and spend all day, even through sound check. It was a lot of fun and some of my best memories of high school. ANYways, I haven't heard Jacob play (or seen him) since I was 16 so it was so fun getting to see him again. And of course there were some other old friends there as well that I haven't seen since the band was together. 

Jacob lives in Nashville now and his band is called Jacob Stiefel and The Truth and they were so good!

He plays at all these cool places in Nashville and travels up North some to play, as well. He also has an album AND he's on iTunes. 


It was so funny... after the show, we went to his merchandise table to see him and he had a LINE of people waiting to get his autograph. It was strange haha because we look back and remember him so differently than people see him now. 

Sometime around 2008.

Now.

(as you can tell, he still likes to wear his shirt unbuttoned haha; some things never change!)

The good thing is, he is still the same Jacob he was when I met him... just a little more famous haha! Either way, it was such a fun time... and the fireworks afterwards were awesome! It was totally worth driving an hour to Fort Payne to hear him and the band... and now I have their album on iTunes so next time I go to a show(and I will go to another show) I will be able to sing along! :)

Viva NashVegas, etc.

Look out blogging world, I am blogging 2 days in a row now! Woah Woah!
So as I mentioned in my last blog... and as you can probably see if you have been reading my blog for a while, there have been a lot of big changes happening here since yesterday! I have a new blog name(header props to my awesomely tech-savy and blogging genius friend Kerrie), color scheme, and URL (www.breannarains.blogspot.com if you had it previously bookmarked.) I am super excited about the changes and new things happening in my life and I hope you are excited to be joining me on this journey! Please be patient with me as I get my blog stuff straightened out(hopefully I will be finished by my next blog post!)

Anyways, enough with formalities. As I mentioned in my last post, when I came back to the South, I flew into Nashville airport. My sister's dad was coming down from Kentucky(to Nashville) to pick her and her friend up the next day and starting on that Monday, my mom had a conference for work to attend, so we had a little mini vacation in Nashville before returning to Alabama that Wednesday. It was really a lot of fun.

On Sunday we were waiting for my sister's dad to come down to get them, so we decided to do a little exploring of downtown Nashville, which was really fun because I have been to Nashville many times before for cheer competitions and dropping my sister off other times, but we never had the chance to explore until this trip.
For lunch we went to Dick's Last Resort which was really good and a lot of fun. The wait staff is paid to be rude and sarcastic to the customers and it's quite funny. They did things like giving me sweet tea twice when I asked for unsweet, giving me 20 lemons in my tea when I asked for tea with lemon, tying y sister's friend's straw in a knot inside her cup, giving my sister a HUGE pitcher full of coke when she asked for a refill, and made us really tall and obnoxious looking hats with funny sayings on them to wear while we were eating. My sister's hat said, "I eat my boogers." Her friend's said, "I still wet the bed." My mom's said, "I tried to give them back to the doctor," and mine said, "I'm more annoying than a midget in a limbo contest." haha. Here are some pics from the restaurant:

They had this body shape taped onto the floor... of course we had to play dead inside of it.  

My hat, lemons, and Lexus's huge pitcher of coke.

After Dick's Last Resort we went walking around downtown and my sister and her friend decided it would be fun to get stared at by wearing their hats outside. Silly girls.

Eventually we stumbled into Wildhorse Saloon, which is world famous, or so I hear. Anyways, they had a lot of random horse statue things everywhere. 

The next day started my mom's work conference, so I was by myself all day for three days in the hotel and it was a lot of fun considering it was SO sunny and hot... and I have been in Oregon for the past 10 months where it has been far from 95 degrees! That being said, I totally underestimated the power of the Southern sun... I was burned so bad after laying by the pool for like 15 minutes! It was horrible. 

All in all, it was an awesome time hanging out in Nashville for a few days before returning to real life back in Bama considering it was probably the only vacation I will get all summer! 

Oh what a night

Or should I say day/weekend?! My birthday was on Thursday and it was so much better than I thought it would be seeing as how this was my first birthday away from home. I plan to give a play-by-play of my day... so just bear with me!
First, I was greeted with a coffee from my favorite coffee place when Audrey got home from taking Deci to school. Journey came in and told me "happy birthday" lots of times... well, she tried to tell me "happy birthday" and it's the thought and effort that makes it special!
The mailman came and brought me lots of birthday cards and a package! I was so excited, because while I was expecting the package... I was definitely NOT expecting cards from anyone!
I received one from Nick and Brandi Longshore that included a Starbucks gift card, one from Nancy, Anna, and Allison Montgomery, one from Miranda and Erik Emanuel(and their sweet children), one from my sweet mother, and one inside the package from my favorite cousin ever, Ashley who lives in Georgia! (and has a blog here, in case you are wondering)
Inside the package was a super awesome journal/scrapbook thing that I am SO excited about using, I just have to think of the perfect thing to do with it first, an awesome 2-3 page letter and, like I mentioned earlier, a card!
I was literally in tears at the outpouring of love from my friends and family back home that I was totally not expecting to experience! Just when I thought my birthday couldn't get any better(seeing as how my friends in Oregon already threw me a surprise birthday party on Monday!), my friend Kylee showed up at the front door with a HUGE chocolate cupcake and beautiful flowers for me! It was so sweet of her to stop by on her way to work... go out of her way(because my house is DEFINITELY not on the way to her job) just to make me feel special!
I'm telling you all... I have the best friends/family in the entire world. You could try to argue that statement with me all day, but I would win! I never expected gifts or anything from anyone(except maybe my mom), but I was blown away at the things I received!
Here is a pic of all my gifts(including the ones already mentioned in my blog about my surprise birthday party.)

Later on in the day, I skyped with my mom, sis, and brother back in Alabama for a while and that was such a fun time! I love getting to skype with my family, but with the 2 hour time difference it is so hard to coordinate a time where we can all sit down with nothing to do for a few minutes. I'm so glad it worked out where I could see them on my birthday. It was definitely more special than just a phone call. 

After our family skype date, Holleigh, Maribel, Audrey and I went out to the Granary (an awesome pizza place in Eugene) to eat. It was so good! Our awesome server took our picture for us:

There is no group of girls I would have rather spent my birthday with! I would have added a couple of people to this picture if I could, though. Since my birthday was a weird day of the week, a lot of people had to work... sad day. But, we had an awesome time and yummy pizza!

After this we went to the rose garden where there is this super old tree that sits smack in the middle of the rose bushes and such. It just so happened to be blooming and it was so beautiful! 

We left the rose garden and took Holleigh back to her car because she had some things to do at home, and Audrey, Maribel, and I went to Yogurt Extreme for dessert! I love frozen yogurt so much... it was only fitting to eat there on my birthday! It was so yummy! 

After Yogurt Extreme, I went to Maribel and Thania's apartment for Bible study and to hang out with my working friends who had finally gotten off work! When I got there, there was another cake waiting on me! It was an orange jello cake and it was awesome! 

I thought my birthday was over(and technically it was) but the next day I received another birthday card and some drawings from 2 of my favorite little girls from back in Alabama, Emma and Ava Rhoden. Also, my mom bought me a NOOK tablet from Barnes&Noble that came in that day as well! I have been playing with it nonstop and already have like 4 books downloaded to it. I love it so much! It's the best birthday gift I think I have ever gotten(thanks mother!)

My birthday festivities continued yesterday(sort of) when Holleigh and I got the chance to go to a Ducks baseball game for free! I love baseball here lately for some reason, and it was like 75 degrees outside... perfect day for baseball! It was an awesome time, for sure! 

I am so thankful that the Lord placed me in a place like this with so many people who care so much about me! I don't know how my birthday would have been without all of these amazing people He has placed in my life. Thank you, Jesus! 

*Tonight is our first service project in the Whiteaker district with The Beautiful Mess! We will be cleaning  up the neighborhood and inviting people back for dinner in the basement afterwards. Please be in prayer for our team as this happens. We really hope the Lord blesses our efforts and plants seeds and fosters relationships tonight.

Hello, my name is...

Breanna! I am totally new at this blogging thing, but I have to admit, I was getting a little jealous of all of my friends(Audrey and Kerrie) that have blogs, so I am going to give this a try! Their blogs are pretty great, and this one is blah in comparison, but I have to start somewhere...just bear with me! So, back on topic. There is so much that I want to blog about first and I am not totally sure where I should start. Maybe with some pictures?

This is my mom(Tammy), my sister(Lexus), and me. This is from right before Christmas. I ventured home on a  long 6 week trip to Mexico (I will get to that in a minute) for 2 weeks, and then to Alabama for 4 long, but wonderful weeks. We went to a local park type thing called Nocollula Falls where they have a huge display of Christmas lights and such during the holidays. In case you can't tell, we were extremely cold!

I currently live in Eugene, Oregon, with a team called The Crash.We are here to change the way Christianity is viewed in a place that is the least churched area in the United States. We hope to build relationships, love on people, and show them the love of Christ ultimately so that they will want what we have, and that is joy in our salvation through Jesus. We will be here a minimum of 5 years, probably, and in that time period we hope to have a church up and going and be able to replace ourselves so that while some of us may stay, the rest can in turn move on to the next place so we can plant churches and change the reputation of Christians throughout the United States and the world eventually. This is a picture of some of our team this year:

Pictured: Luis Corona, Quinton Williams(holding Journey Williams), Derrick May, Audrey Williams, Breanna Rains (me!), Holleigh and Alec Woodward, Deci Williams.
Not Pictured: Jeff Tennant, Richie and Sharee Powell, Zach Gideon

Now! About Mexico... I LOVE IT! Should I leave it at that? Ha! I won't, but I definitely could! I have been going to Mexico with my church in Alabama since 2008, I think? Anyways, I have loved it since the first step I took off of the van onto the dirt roads! I sometimes wish that God would call me to move there so that I would have an excuse, but I know it is His timing and definitely not about my selfish desires.

This is Natasha with Rosa on her back and me with Dulce on my back. All of these people in this picture mean so much to me! Rosa and Dulce are just 2 of the 6 children in the family from the Canal, which is what the area we minister to is known as, that I consider to be my second family. They also have 3 brothers and a sister, and a mom and dad that love them and the Lord very much.

We do a lot of things in Mexico like:

Build houses. In this picture, I am looking up Spanish Bible verses to write on the inside walls of the newly built house. It is so important for these families to be saturated with God's Word, and we strive to help them with that. :)

Here I am painting trim boards for the house. This is obviously an important thing, because we want the houses to look nice, but to be honest this is the WORST thing in my opinion haha, I hate painting trim boards! But, all in the name of the Lord, right?! :)

This past trip, we had the opportunity to go to a wedding for a couple that means a great deal to some members of our team. They planned the date around the time our team would be down so that we were able to attend. It was truly an amazing time! We also got to play games at the wedding.

Like musical chairs! We played some crazy games too, like one where you had to grab hands with a bunch of girls and we all took off running as fast as we could through the room. It was insane and people were falling everywhere. It was definitely an experience I will never forget and I am so glad that we were blessed with that opportunity. 

I could go on and on about Mexico and Oregon, but I will spare you for now! I hope this blog doesn't fail epically, and if it does, oh well! Because I love to write and this will be a good place for me to keep everyone who is interested up to date on our journey here in Oregon, as well as my mission trips and just life as a church planter in general! Talk again soon!

To find out more about me and my family visit my About Me page!