Finals...

Hellooooooooooo!

I just want everyone to know that at some point once I'm caught up with my finals at school and have some time to breathe, I will be working on an email update from my time in Panama! For those of you who don't already know, it was fantastic, and I DID in fact get some sun (so THERE). If you did not receive my first email about Panama, but would like to, please comment here, message me on facebook, or text me your email address so I can add you to the list.

Current prayer requests to keep you guys included in my life:
-I spoke at my school about human trafficking and got paid for it! I'm a legit speaker now. So cool. That was a really awesome opportunity that I will have to tell you more about, but after preparing for that presentation, I now have to focus on my finals.
I've got one presentation to do for my Social Problems and Deviance class, which I'm doing on human trafficking of course. I just need to polish it up since I have a short speech on that already, and then please pray that the class would be interested and learn something!

-I'm also doing a big research paper for my College Writing class that I haven't done much for yet... It's of course on human trafficking as well. Actually, it's specifically on the psychological effects of prostitution and sex trafficking, but not straying too far from my passion :) For this one, I really need the motivation and the time to sit down and really tackle this thing since I don't have much of a start on it. I could use as much prayer and encouragement on that one as possible.

-Since I don't have much spare time, I haven't put too much effort into this, but I'd really like to have a new job pretty soon. It's becoming a really unhealthy work environment at my job, and I would like to get involved somewhere that's gonna lead me to my goal later on rather than staying in food service forever. I'm searching for something social work related, or something that looks better on a resume in pursuit of that kinda thing. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm definitely open to hear them! I've applied a couple places, worked on my resume a bit, and am really hoping that I find something in the next couple months. Prayer for an excellent opportunity where God can grow my strengths and learning experience on my way towards my future would be appreciated so much.


This summer, I'm taking one online class, working, and hopefully catching up with people. My life has been extremely chaotic lately, and I decided to take it a little easier over the summer so that I can regroup and reconnect with a lot of you. I really like coffee, lunch, dinner, or dessert dates.... just sayin.... :)

If I can count on you to be praying for me, please let me know how I can return the favor!

When I say I got some sun, I mean I got terribly burned one day in a mountain village, as you can see. However, those lines of red you can see DID turn to tan in comparison to the rest of my skin. Just so everyone is aware. Oh, and this is my new friend Jair who said he was gonna come home with us. 

We Share In His Sufferings To Share In His Glory...?

This post is basically straight from my journal a couple nights ago... I'll probably star ** a couple things to mention down in the comments if you don't know what I'm talking about, like when I refer to the book study I've been doing.



August 22nd, 2013
I'm reading the Wrap Up for the 7 Experiment bible study* I'm now done with. And I just had a pretty important revelation... Well actually Jen Hatmaker (the author of 7) had it for me, but it completely applies to my life right now.
She was in the adoption process with many complications, as it always goes, and she broke down because she couldn't have her kids without roadblocks and every day was difficult to bear because it was one more day her kids wouldn't have parents or a family. She finally told God how much she was hurting and wouldn't stop grieving until she had her kids. He said that the adoption process wasn't just the happiness of bringing kids into a loving home, but for them as new parents (to these kids) to join in the suffering of the orphans. Jesus felt a lot of suffering in his time here, not necessarily being able to fix every problem or heartache he came across.

"If indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory." - Romans 8:17

So my heart hurts all the time, and I hate that I have years of preparation in front of me before I'll "actually make a difference" (ok I know it's not true, but this is how I feel most days). I hate that human trafficking* is everywhere around me, and people get to work with it -to prevent it- all the time or go to Peru or wherever else and do something. I hate that there are women and children slaving away in bondage every single day, and I COULD DO SO MUCH IF I WERE JUST THERE. But here I am just going to school and work every day, feeling like I'm stuck here forever and I'll be old and wrinkly by the time I get to go do something useful for the world. Here I am, getting more depressed as the months go on because of this awful mundane schedule. As much as I understand what a gift and privilege education is and having a job, I wouldn't hesitate to pass it up if I felt I could be just as qualified to go pursue my dream tomorrow.
But here God says I am doing something. Not just the usual of 'being a witness' and 'serving in the little ways' or whatever. But in reality, I am learning their suffering firsthand (as much as possible in the safety of my life of freedom, I'm obviously not learning what it's like to be a slave). I will work one day with women and children who have spent years hating themselves and their situations, but feeling like there's no better option. Even if they're working towards something good, they've still got their past to haunt them, and so do I.
I know someday I'll be able to tell them "this is how I found freedom in the mundane". Obviously I'm still figuring that out... I've come an extremely long way in the past few years (thank you Jesus), but there's more joy to be discovered.
I guess I will understand suffering, yearning, unsatisfied passion, and impatience on a whole new level when this season is over. As much as I still hate it... at least there is some holiness to this place I'm in. God is good, and maybe there's hope for me and my crabbiness after all.

Halloween Rant

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

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-4SszAmspo&feature=context-cha

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). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4UU3gbI1v0&feature=plcp

Enjoy!

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!

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.

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.

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) -

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 :)

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!