Oh boy. Someone please come and get me off my soap box. Oh wait, I don't actually want you to because I think everyone should seriously consider this :)
Once upon a time.. like a couple days ago.. my wonderful friend Joy posted on facebook a comment about how much money we put into Halloween and what a concept it would be if we instead put that money towards freeing sex slaves, providing education, and feeding the hungry. Of course this is why I'm friends with her, we think about the same things haha. Someone eventually commented that the average American will spend $79 on Halloween this year. $8 billion total. Continuing the conversation, another person mentioned what a huge difference it would make if Americans just spent less money on coffee and put it elsewhere. I mentioned that Americans spend $20 billion on ice cream per year. Anyways, someone else finally challenged Joy asking if she was actually going to put as much money into one of those causes as she did on Halloween expenses, soooo being myself, I decided to provide some quick access to find some good organizations because let's be honest, I fully support all of those things, especially freeing sex slaves.
So I think I'll post those links in a comment to this blog, but I had an idea after I shared some of my favorite organizations that give great things to provide safety, food, and education to people in need. A bunch of my close friends right now are in pretty desperate need of finances so that they can go out and do some of those things. There are two teams leaving my YWAM base in early December going to Nepal and India to practice what they've been learning so far in this Fall Discipleship Training School! Some of them are new students I don't know very well because I'm not at the base anymore and some of them are my close friends, but all of them are paying thousands of dollars for airfare and grounds fees (food, transportation, housing, etc) and they actually need their money in by the end of next week. I think most of them are completely depending on God to provide anywhere from $200-7000 in this short amount of time.
Sooooooo. If you're thinking this typical North American lifestyle of excess is a little lame, please please please consider giving absolutely anything that you can to any of these students and staff going out to serve the Lord and these countries! To partner with them in their ministry, either through prayer or financial support -both are very much needed- you can either contact me for details or check out the YWAM Minneapolis facebook page for their phone number/address (or www.ywam-mn.org). I can give you specific names or a team to donate to, or you can call/email and ask who needs to be supported. Seriously, at this point, every single cent helps. They're looking for monthly/regularly pledged support or one time donations of literally any amount. Plus, checks written out to YWAM with a note attached saying who it's for are tax deductible! And you'll know that the five dollars you chose not to spend this week at Caribou/Starbucks is going to help a student or full time missionary share love with people that have never been shown kindness before. What could really be better than that?
Alright, that was my brilliant idea or maybe just the beginning of a tangent, as usual. Hopefully something you'll consider though? And share! Please! Make sure you also check out the links I'll post in the comments so you can support some legit organizations doing incredible things. But only after you support a YWAM missionary of course. :D
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Videos
This is kind of random in timing since I haven't been in Peru for a long time now, but some people at the Iquitos base just made videos that I absolutely must share. They're especially great if you've been to the Amazon (so fellow YWAMers), even if it was a couple years ago because these pictures go back since the River ministry started.
I figured it would be fun for you guys to see an overview of the ministry of the YWAM Iquitos base. I recognize a lot of the villagers you'll see, and you can actually see pictures with my team (and a couple shots of me) in both videos, which makes me basically famous :)
They're on youtube, I wish I could just embed them here but since they're not my videos, you'll just have to go through the strenuous effort of clicking on these links.
This one shows a bit from each ministry out of YWAM Iquitos
And this one is specifically showing the ministry geared towards youth. Maira and Waldir are the ones that head this up, and we worked with them the majority of our time on my last Outreach (Dec. 2011-Feb. 2012). We did various youth camps and programs throughout the trip which was really fun for me because this is my favorite age group to work with (teens and young adults).
Enjoy!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
My Crazy Summer!
Pretty sure it's been like four years since I've posted.... Another apology, as usual. My summer has been absolute insanity. I started nannying about 10 hours every day, I was a part of Mission Adventures (MA) training weekends at my YWAM base which was about every other weekend, I helped lead two MA trips into Minneapolis, and this week I'm a leader at a junior high event at my old church called Explosion! I'll try to get to all of those at some point. I'll also be starting community college at the end of this month, hopefully will have another job ASAP (huge prayer request), everyone is getting married in the next few weeks so lots of weddings on my schedule, and so many other things are making the end of my summer crazy busy!
Ok. Mission Adventures, for those of you who don't know, is a program run out of a few YWAM bases around the world, and my base in Rockford happens to be one of those locations. Youth groups come in and do an MA trip for 7-14ish days, which means us at YWAM Mpls plan, lead, and host this mission trip. We make all the connections wherever the group wants to go, plan their ministry, and send our leaders on their trip. Some teams go to places like Haiti, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, London for the Olympics this year, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, etc. I think those are all the places we sent teams this year, but I could've missed some.
I had the privilege of leading two trips into Minneapolis last month. Both trips had really different dynamics, but both were super fun. For example, the first team that came in had 9 people total, including their leaders. The next group that came in had like 35 people. Slight difference... And of course, God had different things to teach all of us between the two trips. I'll try to share individual stories for each week in another post.
And now, like I mentioned before, this week I am helping out at Explosion at the church (Cornerstone) where I spent all my youth group years. Explosion is a week long event for junior high kids where we get separated into different colored teams, play games, have worship, extreme challenges (like which team can eat random items out of a bag fastest.. some people got anchovies, sardines, and who knows what else..), we have an amazing speaker, and then the kids are given an opportunity to either have someone pray with them or they can stay back in small groups and talk about what they learned that night. This event is actually where I accepted Jesus for the first time as my Savior -according to my spiritual birthday, I am now 8 years old! hooray! So I really appreciate Explosion and love being a part of it. I have been a leader for the event 3 times before, but I've been gone the past few summers either at camp or at YWAM, so I was super excited to volunteer again this year because I'm living in the Twin Cities! Yay! This week has been really great, loving on kids, seeing students that I led on a team when they were little junior high kids and now they're leading as high schoolers, and dressing up ridiculously to support my team. God is definitely moving, we've had a good handful of kids accept Christ for the first time this week, and last night I was one that helped pray for one of those kids! I talked with him for a long time after and answered a bunch of questions he had, so hopefully he comes back tonight. So exciting!!!!!
Quick prayer requests before I get dressed up in my green team gear for the night. I've been feeling pretty sick the past couple weeks. I think from stress. Upset stomach, headaches/migraines, etc. There's a lot going on, not a lot of time to process, and I really could just use some quality time with God to recharge. Please, please, please be praying for the students tonight as our last night of Explosion! Tomorrow we go to ValleyFair, so tonight is the last night where we'll be sharing a message with them (and of course having tons of fun before that), so please be praying for open hearts and that God would meet them where they're at and speak to them. Also lots of energy for us leaders to continue to love on them with all we've got, and good attitudes, it can get difficult towards the end of the week to keep up with the excitement required for 13 year old kids. But God has been faithful and providing for us so far!
It's seriously been an amazing summer, and most of it I wouldn't change for the world. I can't wait to share stories from the MA trips, hopefully it will bless you guys as much as it blessed me. Thanks for those of you who have continued praying for me and keeping up with me even though I neglect this blog so much!
Ciao friends!
Ok. Mission Adventures, for those of you who don't know, is a program run out of a few YWAM bases around the world, and my base in Rockford happens to be one of those locations. Youth groups come in and do an MA trip for 7-14ish days, which means us at YWAM Mpls plan, lead, and host this mission trip. We make all the connections wherever the group wants to go, plan their ministry, and send our leaders on their trip. Some teams go to places like Haiti, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, London for the Olympics this year, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, etc. I think those are all the places we sent teams this year, but I could've missed some.
I had the privilege of leading two trips into Minneapolis last month. Both trips had really different dynamics, but both were super fun. For example, the first team that came in had 9 people total, including their leaders. The next group that came in had like 35 people. Slight difference... And of course, God had different things to teach all of us between the two trips. I'll try to share individual stories for each week in another post.
And now, like I mentioned before, this week I am helping out at Explosion at the church (Cornerstone) where I spent all my youth group years. Explosion is a week long event for junior high kids where we get separated into different colored teams, play games, have worship, extreme challenges (like which team can eat random items out of a bag fastest.. some people got anchovies, sardines, and who knows what else..), we have an amazing speaker, and then the kids are given an opportunity to either have someone pray with them or they can stay back in small groups and talk about what they learned that night. This event is actually where I accepted Jesus for the first time as my Savior -according to my spiritual birthday, I am now 8 years old! hooray! So I really appreciate Explosion and love being a part of it. I have been a leader for the event 3 times before, but I've been gone the past few summers either at camp or at YWAM, so I was super excited to volunteer again this year because I'm living in the Twin Cities! Yay! This week has been really great, loving on kids, seeing students that I led on a team when they were little junior high kids and now they're leading as high schoolers, and dressing up ridiculously to support my team. God is definitely moving, we've had a good handful of kids accept Christ for the first time this week, and last night I was one that helped pray for one of those kids! I talked with him for a long time after and answered a bunch of questions he had, so hopefully he comes back tonight. So exciting!!!!!
Quick prayer requests before I get dressed up in my green team gear for the night. I've been feeling pretty sick the past couple weeks. I think from stress. Upset stomach, headaches/migraines, etc. There's a lot going on, not a lot of time to process, and I really could just use some quality time with God to recharge. Please, please, please be praying for the students tonight as our last night of Explosion! Tomorrow we go to ValleyFair, so tonight is the last night where we'll be sharing a message with them (and of course having tons of fun before that), so please be praying for open hearts and that God would meet them where they're at and speak to them. Also lots of energy for us leaders to continue to love on them with all we've got, and good attitudes, it can get difficult towards the end of the week to keep up with the excitement required for 13 year old kids. But God has been faithful and providing for us so far!
It's seriously been an amazing summer, and most of it I wouldn't change for the world. I can't wait to share stories from the MA trips, hopefully it will bless you guys as much as it blessed me. Thanks for those of you who have continued praying for me and keeping up with me even though I neglect this blog so much!
Ciao friends!
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| Here's me and my friend Bri, another one of the green team leaders! We are decked out in green and you can only see the top half of us... Don't miss the awesome side ponytail I'm rockin' :) Yeah I definitely don't mind making a fool of myself for the junior high kids... let's be honest, it doesn't take much convincing for me to have a good time with this. |
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Getting Un-stuck From Reverse Culture Shock
Once again, it's been forever since I've given an actual update, but stories from the rest of the trip will probably have to come later. Hopefully the sooner kind of later.. But I was thinking today that maybe I could share something I'm being challenged with now.
I think my reverse culture shock is worse this year than it was last year. Reverse culture shock is a term that refers to the culture shock that happens going back home after being in another culture rather than stepping into a new world and being uncomfortable. I think it's because I connected so much more with the people, the place, and the culture of the Amazon this year. Last year during my DTS, I was still pretty "me" focused, how everything was affecting me, how I missed things like toilets and washing my hands, and how it was "my" outreach. This past trip, leading students of a DTS, I had to completely depend on God for what He wanted to do through us on the outreach because I knew that if I was trying to lead a team being focused on "me", I would crash hard.
It turns out that when you're asking God on a daily basis for His heart for your ministry or the people you're working with, you can't help but see things through a different lens. When your questions stop sounding like "what can I get out of this experience?" and start sounding more like "Lord, how do you want to use me in this experience?", I think God tends to show up in completely new ways. Sometimes that meant being a part of healings and miracles, and sometimes it just meant an energy boost to get me through the next activity. When He came through on those prayers, I connected to the people we were ministering to in an entirely new way for me.
Because of those prayers, I was able to get in the 'missionary' mindset and be willing to do a lot of uncomfortable things for God's glory. It's a stretching experience in anybody's life, but once you start being obedient to what God is asking, you start seeing the fruit of your work and spiritual growth in yourself and possibly others. It's amazing how God rewards obedience just because He's cute and He likes to do that. And it also amazes me how easy it is to forget all those things after just a short time of living in North America again.
What I really want to be doing is to be asking God for His heart for people no matter where I am. I don't want to just connect with people because they're in Peru, I want to connect with people and make a difference everywhere. I'm finding it difficult here at home because it's so simple to slip into old patterns and not care about the world around me. But I don't want to just be a missionary when I'm out in the nations, I want to be glorifying God's kingdom in the Twin Cities and encouraging others around me to do the same.
So a prayer request comes from this I suppose. Would you be praying that I would be asking God how He wants to use me every day here at home? And that I would have the same passion to love Americans as much as Peruvians. It's quite a bit more challenging because let me tell you, Americans are rude and selfish. Let's be honest, I'm still "American" at times, but I personally find it way easier to fall in love with a cute Peruvian slum kid who has nothing but ripped clothes and a great smile verses the screaming kid at Walmart who wants her 7th pillow pet. Just sayin'.
And it's always easier to pray that someone else would do uncomfortable things for God's glory like step out of their comfort zone and share God's love with people even in the suburbs, but I think I actually want to challenge you guys this time around to pray the same thing for yourselves. That doesn't mean I expect you all to report back to me about how you evangelized your whole neighborhood, but if you're taking your relationship with God seriously, you SHOULD be asking Him as often as you can how He wants to use you. A promise I always have to remember is that God will never give you more than you can handle, so if you're afraid He's going to ask you to do something ridiculous, just know that He knows you can handle whatever it is He wants you to do. Maybe it will start with being polite to people at the gas station, or maybe He's ready to take you further than that and you're supposed to ask a friend how you can be praying for them. I don't have the answers for what you should be doing, He does. But I can at least remind you to be asking Him, for me and for yourself :)
If you wanna talk about steps you're taking, it would be a huge encouragement to me! And I would love to be praying for you as well. Anytime you guys wanna chat, hopefully you have my cell number or you can always message me on facebook.
I think my reverse culture shock is worse this year than it was last year. Reverse culture shock is a term that refers to the culture shock that happens going back home after being in another culture rather than stepping into a new world and being uncomfortable. I think it's because I connected so much more with the people, the place, and the culture of the Amazon this year. Last year during my DTS, I was still pretty "me" focused, how everything was affecting me, how I missed things like toilets and washing my hands, and how it was "my" outreach. This past trip, leading students of a DTS, I had to completely depend on God for what He wanted to do through us on the outreach because I knew that if I was trying to lead a team being focused on "me", I would crash hard.
It turns out that when you're asking God on a daily basis for His heart for your ministry or the people you're working with, you can't help but see things through a different lens. When your questions stop sounding like "what can I get out of this experience?" and start sounding more like "Lord, how do you want to use me in this experience?", I think God tends to show up in completely new ways. Sometimes that meant being a part of healings and miracles, and sometimes it just meant an energy boost to get me through the next activity. When He came through on those prayers, I connected to the people we were ministering to in an entirely new way for me.
Because of those prayers, I was able to get in the 'missionary' mindset and be willing to do a lot of uncomfortable things for God's glory. It's a stretching experience in anybody's life, but once you start being obedient to what God is asking, you start seeing the fruit of your work and spiritual growth in yourself and possibly others. It's amazing how God rewards obedience just because He's cute and He likes to do that. And it also amazes me how easy it is to forget all those things after just a short time of living in North America again.
What I really want to be doing is to be asking God for His heart for people no matter where I am. I don't want to just connect with people because they're in Peru, I want to connect with people and make a difference everywhere. I'm finding it difficult here at home because it's so simple to slip into old patterns and not care about the world around me. But I don't want to just be a missionary when I'm out in the nations, I want to be glorifying God's kingdom in the Twin Cities and encouraging others around me to do the same.
So a prayer request comes from this I suppose. Would you be praying that I would be asking God how He wants to use me every day here at home? And that I would have the same passion to love Americans as much as Peruvians. It's quite a bit more challenging because let me tell you, Americans are rude and selfish. Let's be honest, I'm still "American" at times, but I personally find it way easier to fall in love with a cute Peruvian slum kid who has nothing but ripped clothes and a great smile verses the screaming kid at Walmart who wants her 7th pillow pet. Just sayin'.
And it's always easier to pray that someone else would do uncomfortable things for God's glory like step out of their comfort zone and share God's love with people even in the suburbs, but I think I actually want to challenge you guys this time around to pray the same thing for yourselves. That doesn't mean I expect you all to report back to me about how you evangelized your whole neighborhood, but if you're taking your relationship with God seriously, you SHOULD be asking Him as often as you can how He wants to use you. A promise I always have to remember is that God will never give you more than you can handle, so if you're afraid He's going to ask you to do something ridiculous, just know that He knows you can handle whatever it is He wants you to do. Maybe it will start with being polite to people at the gas station, or maybe He's ready to take you further than that and you're supposed to ask a friend how you can be praying for them. I don't have the answers for what you should be doing, He does. But I can at least remind you to be asking Him, for me and for yourself :)
If you wanna talk about steps you're taking, it would be a huge encouragement to me! And I would love to be praying for you as well. Anytime you guys wanna chat, hopefully you have my cell number or you can always message me on facebook.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Grad and Team Pictures!
There's soooo much to update on, I'm a little overwhelmed and not sure where to start. But I did want to give a little something... So I figured that the least I could do would be post a few pictures so that as I'm referring to people in my posts, you can put a face to the names. And it's a quick way for you guys to get to know the people I've been serving God with the past months of my life.
Our 'good' picture of DTS staff and students (there were tons of cameras so we're not always looking in the same direction) -
Our 'good' picture of DTS staff and students (there were tons of cameras so we're not always looking in the same direction) -
Back row: Scott (staff), Jarryd, Nate, Brian, Ageeth, Brenden (staff), Haleigh
Middle: Michelle, Deb (school leader), Ahnna (staff), Debbie, Me (staff), Deanne, Kirstin (staff), Courtney, Tammy, Lara, Dorie, Caitlin (staff), Katie (staff)
Bottom row: Paul, Michelle and Paul's kids :)
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| It seems like not all of us got the 'funny picture' memo... |
And one of our last Peru team photos -
From the top: Nate, Scott, Brian, Deanne, Me, Debbie
Thank you so much to everyone that kept us in your prayers! It means the world to me!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Home Again
I know it's been forever since I've written and I'm probably not even going to write a lot now. But I feel bad because I haven't updated in so long...
So the last week of Peru was insanity (crazy busy) and we finally got home on February 17th. The DTS students and also the SOMD interns (so me and 4 other interns) graduated on February 23rd. That was definitely a satisfying graduation after 9 months. Then we said our goodbyes and everyone left within a few days. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I can share some stories from the last portion of time in Peru when I didn't get a chance to blog.
Since being home... well let's be honest, I haven't really been home much. Actually the day after the last of my SOMD friends left, I went on a road trip with some of the DTS students to Chicago for a couple days. It was an awesome time. We went around the city, saw Millennium Park, went to the ZOO!!, and did other things I don't remember right now because I'm exhausted haha.
So now I'm home... not sure for how long, not sure of future plans, same story as always :) I'll start applying for jobs within the next week probably and I'm spending lots of time with friends, catching up and resting from the past few months. Hope to keep you all updated in the meantime, call or text me if you'd like to get coffee and chat! I've got plenty of time on my hands right now!
PS. Look how funny I am:
Anaconda in the zoo in Iquitos..
So the last week of Peru was insanity (crazy busy) and we finally got home on February 17th. The DTS students and also the SOMD interns (so me and 4 other interns) graduated on February 23rd. That was definitely a satisfying graduation after 9 months. Then we said our goodbyes and everyone left within a few days. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I can share some stories from the last portion of time in Peru when I didn't get a chance to blog.
Since being home... well let's be honest, I haven't really been home much. Actually the day after the last of my SOMD friends left, I went on a road trip with some of the DTS students to Chicago for a couple days. It was an awesome time. We went around the city, saw Millennium Park, went to the ZOO!!, and did other things I don't remember right now because I'm exhausted haha.
So now I'm home... not sure for how long, not sure of future plans, same story as always :) I'll start applying for jobs within the next week probably and I'm spending lots of time with friends, catching up and resting from the past few months. Hope to keep you all updated in the meantime, call or text me if you'd like to get coffee and chat! I've got plenty of time on my hands right now!
PS. Look how funny I am:
Anaconda in the zoo in Iquitos.."Anaconda" in the zoo in Chicago!! 
Hahaha so clever!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
What A Week...
So this past almost 2 weeks has been more on the difficult side. We were working with one church that had multiple locations (so one main church with sister churches around the area that are just starting up) and we stayed at each location for 2 days. It was a good set up with kids programs for a couple hours in the afternoon then youth programs in the evenings, with other random things in between like some pastors preferred evangelism in the plaza rather than youth programs at night. But because of communication problems and just a general latino or warm-cultured manner of things, almost every one of our plans was altered or completely fell through every day. From the first day where it was pouring rain which meant nobody showed up to either of our programs so we just went home (which is completely out of our control of course), to a few days later when we arrived at one of the new locations and the pastor had no idea we were going to be there so we had no ministry planned. As challenging and seriously frustrating as it was, the whole team really learned how to think on our feet and make the most out of opportunities.
For example, one night when zero youth showed up for our service, we decided we weren't just going to sit around. We walked a couple blocks to a plaza and started up some conversations with people. I met two younger girls, one 12 and one 19, and we had an awesome talk. The older one whose name was Ana ended up telling me a lot about her life and something she's going through with her parents. It surprised me how much she told me and just wanted to keep talking and the awesome part was I was able to relate to her through my history and pray for her. I shared with her some things I felt God wanted me to tell her and I think she really took them to heart. It was an amazing time where God really spoke to me how much He cares about very specific things. The fact that I, of all people, just happened to sit down with her and start up a conversation as a stranger and was able to relate to so much of her story and then share with her what God wanted to speak to her... I really felt like I was in the right place because He so badly wanted to communicate His love for this girl that He gave us the idea to walk down to the plaza, made sure my group just happened to sit down with these two girls, and that I would be the one talking to her.
Yeah, I was really in awe the rest of the night of how God uses situations that seem like a lost cause to show how immense His love is for his creation and how He uses us when we're available to do whatever we can. Even when it's a last minute attempt at having some form of ministry for the day when everything else has gone wrong, if we're still there to serve God regardless of the circumstances, He uses it for good. He's so cute :)
Sooooo we will hopefully be leaving for our next river trip tomorrow! Word on the street (ok some YWAM Iquitos staff told me) is that there's going to be a protest starting tonight so the roads might be blocked which means we might have to wait a couple extra days to leave. That would be really unfortunate and mess with all of our plans of course, so please please please be praying for open streets tomorrow or some form of transportation that isn't affected by whatever protest is going on! This protesting thing is super typical of Iquitos so I'm not surprised at all that it's happening, it just might conflict really badly with where we need to go. Also prayers while we're on the river for general safety, health since all of us got sick at some point the last trip, for unity in the team, and that we would take even more steps out of our comfort zone to really serve God, each other, and the communities we're in even when we don't necessarily feel like it.
I know this is a relatively long post compared to my last few. Hopefully it gives some insight into the things we're doing here -with God's help- and I'll post again when we're home!
Chau!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
So Many Children!
So many kids programs this week... But not a lot of time for me to write anything significant. So I wanted to share a quick picture for you guys, this is me and Deanne loving the clown costumes and having a great time with the kids. We've had a lot of laughs this week... Hopefully I'll be able to really update on these past few days soon! If not, we leave for our next river trip on the 30th for 9ish days and we will need LOTS of prayer!! Ahhh I really miss everyone lately and I can't wait to see you all and tell you great stories when I come home! Just a few more weeks here!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
We Survived!
This is me on the boat ride on the way back to Iquitos. As you can see, I survived our first trip up the river with only one or two (million..) bug bites! Don't worry, I've kept up with my malaria pills so I probably won't die even though my skin looks pretty awful.
I also survived translation! It wasn't as horrible as I expected. I even enjoyed it at times. God spoke to me a lot through those times, and I feel like my confidence as a public speaker has grown a TON. I think God really wants to use that in the future which is intimidating for me but apparently I'm a lot more capable than I give myself credit for. Of course I spent a lot of time making up words I didn't quite know and making a fool of myself but I asked God for a good dose of humility before I went up there each time so I didn't beat myself up about it. Actually it made for some good laughs with the youth that were listening every once in a while :)
So like I said in my last blog, we dug our first well in the community of MonteVerde. We were able to bless them with that and also spent 4 days doing a youth camp sharing teachings -on Purpose, Intercession/Prayer, the Father Heart of God, Committment, and Missions-, performed and taught them how to do dramas, Waldir (YWAM Iquitos staff) led worship, we watched a movie called Fireproof which I actually enjoyed a lot, and we had an awesome dance party to end the whole thing on the last night. It was a really good time and we built really solid relationships with the kids/teens there, we laughed a lot and taught them words in English like... monkey. Reason being = we ate monkey twice. It was quite the experience! Don't worry, I have pictures of that too :)
Anyways, it was a pretty sweet trip. We'll have a couple days of rest now, then another week of working with a church here in Iquitos. Not sure what we'll be doing yet, but soon enough we'll be leaving for our second river trip! Then home!
Some general prayer requests for the team.
Sickness has been going around again and as you can see there's plenty of itchy bug bites, so physical healing for us would be awesome.
Continued prayer for team unity and love and patience for each other.
And that we would be more than willing to let God use us in ways that will stretch us out of our comfort zones!
Thank you guys so much for all the encouragement as I've been here and for your continued prayers. It means the world!
Chau until next time!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Leaving For Our First River Trip!
So I'll have to write way more about this later, but this picture (below) is me translating for Debbie -yeah be proud :) - at a church we've worked with the past two weeks. The last couple weeks of work have been really great here in Iquitos, but like I said, I'll have to tell you all about it later because of my lack of internet time.
Basically I have a quick prayer request, but it's kind of a big deal. We no longer have a translator for this river trip coming up of 10 days where we will be doing multiple church services, evangelism, and a youth camp which means about 6 teachings in two days, all of which apparently I will be translating. I am not looking forward to that part. I know that my Spanish has grown a lot since I've been back here, but I do not feel in any way comfortable or capable of translating this much. I know that I need to have more confidence in my ability, but this isn't just me being nervous, this is sincerely a HUGE responsbility, plus the rest of the responsibilities of being a leader on top of that is a lot of pressure. I'm pretty terrified.
Please please please pray that either YWAM Iquitos will find someone today or someone that can meet up with us later... or that God would just crazy bless me with words I never knew before.
Other than this, we are indeed leaving on our first river trip so it will be a new experience for the team and we'll be digging our first well! Please also pray for safety, team unity, and that we would be willing to let God use us to spread his light in dark places!
I'll update when I get back to civilization! Peace out till the 19th!
Sunday, January 1, 2012
And I'm Back!!
Back in Peru!! Hooray!
Sorry it's been this long for an update. We've been crazy busy since we've been here!
So our first week we spent in Lima. Techinically we were actually in a city outside of Lima called Cieneguilla staying with host families. The guys and girls each lived in a separate house and both our families were amazing. The girls family especially... They were so good to us. And kind of rich. They bought us chocolate cake and took us to the beach on our day off... Yeah, we kind of wished we could've stayed there for the whole outreach.
Not only were the families really awesome, but ministry that first week was incredible as well. We did tons of kids ministry. I mean, tons. We were set up with a contact from the YWAM Lima base whose name is Jordi and he runs a couple different kids ministries in a slum area. Actually it's kind of hard to explain the area, but I spose you can see in pictures what I'm talking about. Jordi, his wife, and a few other people run Brazos Abiertos (Arms Open) with a couple programs, one for older kids and one for pre-school age kids. Basically our time there working with him was following his programs for the day with the kids -singing songs, playing inside their building and outside (I did so many puzzles those days..), painting with the kids, we did a super funny and super improvised Christmas skit.. pretty much whatever he asked us to do, we did. They were also digging some holes outside the building to eventually become bathrooms (much needed instead of a squatty potty) so everyone did a bit of that and we also wrapped a lot of presents that they handed out to the kids for Christmas.
Like I kinda said, we spent a LOT of time playing with the kids and having fun at Brazos Abiertos. We also did some work with a local church that week called Jesus La Roca (Jesus the Rock). We preached there a couple times, helped with their 60 kids for Sunday School, and helped out with another kids night program they had.
My favorite day though for sure we spent the morning in a nearby orphanage and then the afternoon at a women's rehab center. Me and Deanne cleaned walls at the orphanage all morning while Debbie played with the kids and Brian, Nate, and Scott painted rooms. Even though we were all doing different things, it was a good morning. The afternoon was the awesome part.
Like I said, we went to a women's rehab center. It's a temporary home for women who have drug or alcohol addictions, eating disorders, or have tried committing suicide. Not a lot of them are there by choice, they're mostly pretty young (youngest I met was 12, oldest maybe in her 30's), so a lot of them are sent by their families to 'get better'. We ate lunch with them and found out that over half of them spoke English pretty well, and not only that, but they were hilarious. Then we did a drama for them and Deanne shared her testimony. We broke into groups after that and the girls asked us tons of questions. Some groups talked about our team's personal stories, some asked questions about God, it was a really great time for us to share with them. I soooo enjoyed getting to know the girls in my group and telling them how I relate to them. When some of them heard parts of my story, they were blown away by the fact that I'm a missionary and they wanted information about YWAM so they can do a DTS in the future. It was so so so encouraging to inspire those women that not only can they find a lot of healing, but they can go and help others do the same thing. It also felt like a huge glimpse into my future because if I'm working with girls coming out of sex slavery they will probably struggle with a lot of the same things, and God spoke to me so much about my future ministry that day. I was getting so excited. The rest of the team really loved our time there too. I would love to go back someday.
I know this post is super long and I've still got almost 2 more weeks to catch up on! So I'm gonna end for now since this is a good synopsis of everything we did our first week. Hopefully I'll be able to post about coming to Iquitos soon!
Sorry it's been this long for an update. We've been crazy busy since we've been here!
So our first week we spent in Lima. Techinically we were actually in a city outside of Lima called Cieneguilla staying with host families. The guys and girls each lived in a separate house and both our families were amazing. The girls family especially... They were so good to us. And kind of rich. They bought us chocolate cake and took us to the beach on our day off... Yeah, we kind of wished we could've stayed there for the whole outreach.
Not only were the families really awesome, but ministry that first week was incredible as well. We did tons of kids ministry. I mean, tons. We were set up with a contact from the YWAM Lima base whose name is Jordi and he runs a couple different kids ministries in a slum area. Actually it's kind of hard to explain the area, but I spose you can see in pictures what I'm talking about. Jordi, his wife, and a few other people run Brazos Abiertos (Arms Open) with a couple programs, one for older kids and one for pre-school age kids. Basically our time there working with him was following his programs for the day with the kids -singing songs, playing inside their building and outside (I did so many puzzles those days..), painting with the kids, we did a super funny and super improvised Christmas skit.. pretty much whatever he asked us to do, we did. They were also digging some holes outside the building to eventually become bathrooms (much needed instead of a squatty potty) so everyone did a bit of that and we also wrapped a lot of presents that they handed out to the kids for Christmas.
Like I kinda said, we spent a LOT of time playing with the kids and having fun at Brazos Abiertos. We also did some work with a local church that week called Jesus La Roca (Jesus the Rock). We preached there a couple times, helped with their 60 kids for Sunday School, and helped out with another kids night program they had.
My favorite day though for sure we spent the morning in a nearby orphanage and then the afternoon at a women's rehab center. Me and Deanne cleaned walls at the orphanage all morning while Debbie played with the kids and Brian, Nate, and Scott painted rooms. Even though we were all doing different things, it was a good morning. The afternoon was the awesome part.
Like I said, we went to a women's rehab center. It's a temporary home for women who have drug or alcohol addictions, eating disorders, or have tried committing suicide. Not a lot of them are there by choice, they're mostly pretty young (youngest I met was 12, oldest maybe in her 30's), so a lot of them are sent by their families to 'get better'. We ate lunch with them and found out that over half of them spoke English pretty well, and not only that, but they were hilarious. Then we did a drama for them and Deanne shared her testimony. We broke into groups after that and the girls asked us tons of questions. Some groups talked about our team's personal stories, some asked questions about God, it was a really great time for us to share with them. I soooo enjoyed getting to know the girls in my group and telling them how I relate to them. When some of them heard parts of my story, they were blown away by the fact that I'm a missionary and they wanted information about YWAM so they can do a DTS in the future. It was so so so encouraging to inspire those women that not only can they find a lot of healing, but they can go and help others do the same thing. It also felt like a huge glimpse into my future because if I'm working with girls coming out of sex slavery they will probably struggle with a lot of the same things, and God spoke to me so much about my future ministry that day. I was getting so excited. The rest of the team really loved our time there too. I would love to go back someday.
I know this post is super long and I've still got almost 2 more weeks to catch up on! So I'm gonna end for now since this is a good synopsis of everything we did our first week. Hopefully I'll be able to post about coming to Iquitos soon!
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| This was one of the girl's I bonded with at Brazos Abiertos. Her name is Milagros (Miracles). After I spun her around and carried her for a couple hours, she really didn't want me to put her down. I didn't mind that much :) |
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