Tour of San Jose!

FINALLY after many months of trying to upload this stupid video, youtube let me upload it. So this is the extremely long tour of our very favorite village, San Jose. It was also the first village we stayed in, so my first experience in the jungle! Ok the video isn't THAT long, but it's longer than the rest of them because I didn't really know what I was doing and that I should walk fast to make it less boring for you guys. But I hope that at least some of you watch and enjoy it :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/S0meCallMeRed?feature=mhsn

18 Days!?!

I know it's been forever since I've written, but I didn't really have much to say I suppose. So then last night I was determined to come up with something to tell you guys, and realized I've known I'm going back to the second YWAM school at the end of this month, only 18 days away from now (so crazy!), and I've mentioned it a couple times here, but haven't really told you guys about what it actually is. Half the time when I say "SOMD" nobody knows what I'm talking about, so this seems like the prime time to fill you in on the details! Or at least as much as I can give you for now..

On June 26th, me and most of the students that were with me in DTS plus a few more students from other places will be starting our School Of Ministry Development, or we refer to it as SOMD because YWAM is all about acronyms as you may have guessed by now. It will be a very similar set up as the schedule for the school I just finished, a 3 month lecture phase and then at least a 2 month outreach. The subjects we'll have speakers talk about each week are (tentatively);

• Principles of Ministry Through Community
• Bibilical Worldview
• Cross-Cultural Communication
• Spiritual Gifts and Strengths Finder
• Personal Evangelism
• Principles of Servant Leadership
• Compassion and Justice in Ministry
• Faith and Finances (for Ministry)
• Preaching and Public Speaking
• People Groups and Belief Systems (World Religions, one of my favorite topics since high school)
• Planning and Leading an Outreach

The last one is kind of important. The big thing about this second school is that our Outreach is really our own. During my DTS, I went with a group to the Amazon, most of the planning was done by the leaders, the location and connections were already covered, it was just a choice between one trip or the other. This outreach portion we will have 3 options. 

1) We can go on our own outreach to wherever and do whatever. We make our own connections, plan our own budget, and really make this outreach our own. The description from the website sums it up a little better than I can: "Custom design your own outreach. You pray, you hear, you plan, you go. YWAM staff will provide guidance, but you will be the one who puts this outreach together. It will be an exciting time of growth as you learn to exercise what God has given you for ministry."

2) Group Outreach. Same concept as the first option, but as a group of 2+ people with the same goals, going to the same place and working together. 

3) Staff Internship. We have the option of staying as an intern and staffing the fall DTS (the school I just finished) and eventually co-leading their outreach. So it would mean being a leader through that school, which means staying an extra 3 months for their lecture phase, and then helping plan and lead their overseas outreach wherever that would be for the next 2 months. This one honestly would be the most expensive, most challenging, and longest commitment since I wouldn't only be staying till November like in the other two options, but would be gone till at least February.

I haven't fully decided which one I'm doing yet, but I do feel God calling me more towards one direction, but I'd rather not make it common knowledge until I know for sure. I haven't even prayed about it that much yet because I didn't want to make any decisions before I even started the school since I know how quickly God can intervene and change my mind. But as soon as the decision is officially made, probably more towards July, you guys can definitely count on more details, specific prayer requests, and my financial situation. 

I'll also probably be sending out my last mailed newsletter once I decide on Outreach so that everyone can for sure hear about it. After that I am planning on keeping my blog up to date for people because it's just too expensive for me to keep sending out 100+ letters when this is free and less time consuming and I can do this way more often. 

Hope this gave you some helpful insight on my future plans -at least what I know for now!

If you wanna check out the website for the school the link is
http://www.ywam-mn.org/index.php/ywam-training/ywam-somd 
or you can just check out ywam-mn.org and see everything my YWAM base has to offer :)