Once again, this was an email update I sent to my weekly prayer support team, and decided to share with everyone. If you'd like to receive more updates like this and commit to praying for me regularly, send me a message with your email address or use the comment section below!
Hello friends!
This last week has flown by in a blur of busyness! Monday night, I finally gave my kickoff presentation about human trafficking at the YWAM base. It was mostly for the YWAM family, and we had a few invited guests. All day Monday, I had new obstacles coming up making things difficult and discouraging, but after a shaky start, the presentation continued and in the end, everyone said that it was really fantastic information. I got a lot of feedback about things to change, edit, or take out due to cultural relevance or other differences, and I’m excited to keep these presentations going in the next few months!
On the note of trafficking presentations, today (Saturday) was my second speaking event at a youth camp hosted by a local church in Iquitos! I had a half hour of speaking, a half hour of question and answer time with the youth, and some time afterwards to talk with the leaders. This was actually the most confident I have felt about one of my presentations, I think that it went extremely well! The encouraging part about this one was that I was able to share for a bit today, and I will be back with this same group in 2 weeks (plus more youth who weren’t present at the camp) for a more in-depth presentation. The students asked excellent questions, a lot of questions I’ve never been asked before, so that shows me they were really attentive! The leaders also commented afterwards that they didn’t expect the students to have so many questions and be so interested in the topic, although they knew it was really important information for them to learn. They’re looking forward to seeing a more full presentation later on, and I’d like to think the youth are also going to be very interested the next time around!
A fun story about this camp opportunity: I had been praying about this presentation beforehand, asking God which things I should focus on more or if He had any specific things to say to this particular group about trafficking. I felt that He put on my heart a couple of statistics about the effects of pornography, which I always talk about (the subject of porn) in my presentations because so many trafficked people are used in pornography, I want people to know that supporting the sex industry in this way is supporting trafficking. So I made a point this week to re-check those statistics, and although I didn’t actually share them in my presentation (because I totally forgot), two separate boys asked about those specific stats in different questions, and I was able to give the answers because I had been reminded by God to look for them. He just constantly reminds me that He knows us on such an intimate level, and He truly has every part of our lives planned and held securely in His hands.
Another big event this week was the beginning of Hefzi-Ba women’s meetings after over a year-long pause! This was a first for Raegan and I, but Becky had put on these events for years as part of the women’s ministry. The format is similar to a youth-group kind of setting, where we have a game/activity, worship, a teaching, and small group time to discuss the message. There were 13 teen girls and women overall (not counting the 6 of us leaders), and we all felt that it was very successful in terms of women reached and the fun we had together during the meeting! I’ll be uploading pictures soon to Facebook… Make sure to “like” the Hefzi-Ba Facebook page to follow our ongoing updates!
Thanks as always for your continued prayers. I hope that your dedication to the ministry of Hefzi-Ba is as encouraging for you guys as it is for me! Until next time, ciao ciao!
-Sarah
 |
| Here I am speaking at the Vida Abundante church youth camp on February 27th! |
No comments:
Post a Comment