Social Justice & God's Goodness

That was our topic this past week, mostly having to do with modern day slavery. Our speaker, Karisse Schilling, who I met last year when she spoke in my DTS, works with human trafficking efforts, and as most of you know, this is my passion so I was extremely excited about this whole week. Not only did she talk about sex slavery in particular (what I want to be working with in the future... well with prevention and with girls who have come out of it kind of thing), but slavery on a large scale, and a lot of other injustices happening in the world today.

So she started with her story of surviving I can't even count how many cancers and surgeries (she is a walking miracle every day, let me tell you), and then continued the week talking about pretty hard topics, like I said, modern day slavery -human trafficking is the technical term-, poverty, world hunger, etc. Through that she tied in scriptures and life experiences to show how God is still good through all the evil in the world. I would expand right now but I have to leave in like two minutes so I'm making this a lot shorter than expected. So it's been kind of a heavy week, hearing lots of hard things and statistics but also realizing through it that the evil in the world is not what God intended for us at all and good WILL conquer evil in the end.

Here's a couple videos she showed this week that I really liked. Hopefully soon I can post some more on this because as I already said, working towards justice especially on this specific topic is my life passion so really I could talk about this for days and not be done.

Music video:
World on Fire - Sarah McLachlan
http://youtu.be/FDmPcSWE0WU


Miniature Earth video:
This really puts things into perspective... Appreciate what you have! Like internet!
http://youtu.be/rvTFKpIaQhM

How Well Do You Really Know The Twin Cities?

John Mayer -no, not that John Mayer-, our speaker on World Religions a while back gave us these facts which blew me away. Some of them make sense and some of them I never would have known if it weren't pointed out. But I wanted to share them with you because I found it extremely interesting, especially since I've lived in the Twin Cities my whole life. Plus these are great conversation starters :)

Do you know your city? (Twin Cities)

By Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer, City Vision

1. Largest Somali, Hmong, Oromo Ethiopian, Liberian, Karen Burmese, and Anuak populations in the US, as well as the second largest Tibetan concentration.

2. The Phillips Neighborhood (in South Mpls) has the largest urban concentration of Native Americans.

3. It is the city with the largest number of Korean adoptees.

4. This year (2011) it has the largest homosexual population of the US.

5. One of the largest concentrations of witches in the US (Paganistan), numbering over 20,000.

6. One of the largest concentrations of megachurches of any US city (most megachurches per capita). Also including one gigachurch located in the Twin Cities with attendance of 10,000+.

7. Eight of the top 10 largest Lutheran churches in the US including the largest Lutheran church in the world.

8. MN is the first state in history to have a Muslim Congressman.

­9. Four largest Baptist General Conference churches (BGC) in the US. 

10. One of the Twin Cities Presbyterian churches is ranked as one of the top 10 largest in its denomination in the US.

11. Most Chinese students of any US university at the U of MN.

12. Largest Cambodian Buddhist temple in the US.

13. Largest Hindu temple in North America.

14. Two largest Hmong churches in North America.

15. Largest Oromo church in North America.

16. World headquarters for Eckankar (a cult) which is in Chanhassen.

17. The Phillips Neighborhood is the most diverse neighborhood in the US with over 100 languages spoken.

18. In 2002, the Twin Cities was named by the Brookings Institute as one of the Top 10 Gateway Cities in America for new refugees/immigrants.

19. The Light Rail System sells tickets in 4 languages.

20. Anoka is known as the Halloween Capital of the World.

21. Largest Witch/New Age publishing company in the world is located in the Twin Cities.

22. MN is the only state with a Hindu State Representative.

23. Mormon Temple located in Oakdale.

24. More Hmong gangs than Hmong churches.

25. Quiet Revival with over 1,100 new churches started since 2000 with one new church starting every 3 days and with nearly 60% of the new churches being non-White.

26. Over 3,300 churches total.

27. Over 200 house churches.

28. Over 45,000 deaf people (only 2% of those are Christian).

29. More than 325 African American churches. 

30. Over 225 Hispanic churches.

31. Eat Street (Nicollet Ave) in South Mpls has over 75 ehtnic restaurants in a 6-block area.

32. Over 50% of immigrants live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities.

33. City ranked number one where people volunteer the most.

34. City with the most Somali believers and home to the only Somali church in America.

35. One of only two cities in America with a Norwegian speaking church.

36. City containing over 115 Muslim mosques.

37. City with the highest percentage of working mothers in America.

38. Over 225 Multi-cultural/ethnic churches.

39. City containing over 75 multi-site churches with 2-5 branch campuses.

40. Center for Changing Lives in Minneapolis was built to contain two mosques and one church all in the same building.

41. Most literate city in America (most books, newspapers, libraries, etc. per capita).

42. City with over 100 Gen-X/Post Modern type churches.

43. Minnesota has the highest voting record of any state.

44. 8 Muslim mosques, 6 Hindu temples, 2 Buddhist temples, 1 Sikh, and 1 Jain temple are now all located in former church buildings throughout the Twin Cities.

45. One witch coven meets in a church building in the Twin Cities.

46. Minneapolis is the future site for the new $48 million dollar, 300,000 sq. ft. Muslim Youth Center mosque. The first of its kind in the nation and the largest Muslim mosque in America.

47. People in Minnesota live the longest on average than any state in the US.

48. Number one city in America where people ride bicycles.

Outreach = Internship!

I know it's been an eternity since I've updated... Not a lot to say about the last few weeks except that we've been CRAZY busy. The World Religions week was amazing, we all learned a LOT, I'll post some more from that week later. We also covered Compassion In Ministry, our speaker that week, Ray Highfield was so great. He's from the south, and he cooked for us one night... we all wanted him to stay forever. Then we had Doug Tunney speak on Personal Evangelism which was definitely not my favorite week, but my perspective did change a bit. Last week was Jeff, our school leader, speaking on Servant Leadership, which I thought was a good wrap-up of our whole school. We started lecture phase back in June with finding out our Strengths and Spiritual Gifts and the last day we talked about how those strengths play a role in servant leadership.

It's also probably time I mentioned... I'm officially going to be an intern this fall! My outreach portion of the SOMD is the internship, so I will be staffing the fall DTS -the school I did last fall- and I will be one of the outreach leaders, bringing one of two outreach teams either to Africa (actual country is still un-decided), or back to the Amazon of Peru. I'll let you guys know the official place probably by the beginning of next month. The DTS students will be showing up in less than 2 weeks, and classes start September 26th. Me, Ahnna, and Caitlin are in the process of moving our stuff all over the base right now as they decide where to put us because there's potentially going to be 9 girls and a family coming as students so room situations are still being decided. Please pray for patience for us because it's possible that we'll be moving all of our possessions not once, but 3 times. I guess the worst part of that is that I happened to sprain my ankle pretty badly last week... So I've already moved all my stuff once and my body is so mad at me for all the strain I put on it. Now if we have to move 2 more times this week, I can only imagine how swollen my foot will be.

But anyways. Please be praying for us interns -Scott, Brenden, Ahnna, Caitlin and myself- and the upcoming students and school! We will be needing it very much. The dynamics of this school are going to be really interesting. We've got students from all over (Netherlands, South Africa, Haiti, Minnesota, etc) and a wide range of ages too (18-26) plus the family and possibly another couple who will be coming. It's going to be quite the experience with all of us 20-something's leading people from seriously ALL different walks of life! Prayers for endurance, wisdom, patience, trusting God, and lots and lots of energy would be MUCH appreciated!

We'll be starting DTS prep this week through next week and it will be extremely intense, so if you don't hear from me for a while, just keep praying and hopefully assume that no news is good news! :)

Tour Video of Allen, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

I finally have some real internet that lets me update my blog and upload lots of pictures without taking a million years! Well for the night at least. So you can check out the video of where I stayed last week when I was in South Dakota, and if we're friends on facebook you should look at my lovely new photo album!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-hAOXGdlvg

Recovering From Last Week & Moving Right Along

Last week my school helped lead an MA trip (Mission Adventures) to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Allen, South Dakota. Brenden's (another student) youth group came from Michigan and we spent the training weekend with them, then took our 14 hour van ride there, passed through the badlands, and arrived on Sunday night -the 7th. Most of the week was spent running a VBS -Vacation Bible School- for the kids on the reservation. We had the MA youth group do skits, songs, crafts, and games and my school was basically staff to their trip. The VBS ran from Monday through Thursday, and I can't tell you enough how amazing it was to love on those kids. My age group that I was working with was the 10-12 year olds and I bonded with a few in particular.  We also went to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse on Friday, the best part about that was seeing Brianna Bloom at Mt. Rushmore!! So fun :)

I have about 600 pictures from the week, go figure, and eventually when I have better internet I will upload my pictures onto facebook, and maybe some here too. I also have a tour video -of course- of where we stayed on the reservation, so I'll try to upload that as soon as I can. I know that for sure we have Labor Day weekend off so I think I'll stay at home or something of that sort and spend a good portion of the time uploading a ton of pictures.

But yeah, to sum it up, every part of last week was incredible. I didn't really know what to expect, but for me, it was one of the best mission trips I've ever been on. I seriously would go back in a heart beat. However, I'm extremely sore from carrying kids on my back at all times and I'm really worn out from the long days we had. I kinda need a few days to recover, well everyone in my school would love a few days off, but we went right back into classes today. I'm not that upset about it though because our topic this week is World Religions!

Our speakers' name is John Mayer (that's right), and tomorrow we're taking a tour of Minneapolis as a class because Mpls is a HUGE center of diversity, and I'm really excited. Partially because I love studying world religions/cultures more than any other subject, and partially because I love my city so getting to know all the different ways of life right here is going to be so fun for me.

I'll try to update again later this week, I know I've been neglecting my blogging duties lately... But hopefully you all can understand the busy schedule of at least the last week or so!

This picture is of me and Lily, one of the girls at the VBS. She was bored waiting for the bus home so I picked her up and started spinning. We got some super cute pictures from it :)

A Relatively Quick Update

Just to let you guys know I'm still alive...
The past two weeks have been good, but there's not a lot to share about them. This past week was Faith & Finances, where we talked a lot about the importance of having a support team and how God really provides for our financial needs when we're doing what He's called us to do. Which applies to everyone that supports me financially and through prayer (hopefully all of you reading this :) ). The week before that, our base director David Clark spoke on Our Purpose In God's Plan. Which when David speaks, it's kind of just about anything and everything. I do like when he speaks though because he really enjoys/allows discussion and questions, even challenging ones. So we talked a lot about creation and the end of the world... It was interesting to say the least.

This weekend we're also having our second MA (Mission Adventures) training! This one is a bit less stressful because I know now what to expect and what's expected of me, so I've been more comfortable hanging out with some of the students and even have done some translating (from Spanish to English) for groups when Monica -one of the SOMD students with me- was speaking. I've never translated in a formal setting before, just kind of back and forth between a few people, so that was intimidating but also really exciting and people tell me it's good practice for the future :).

That's pretty much all I can write about for now, I really need to get to work on my book report for the week... We have a book report due every Monday morning and usually I'm so busy I don't get started on it till the weekend. Which makes things kind of crazy during MA weekends, but thankfully I was somewhat responsible and started reading a couple days ago. Turns out I'm becoming an adult or something because I don't procrastinate as much anymore and I even make my bed and keep my stuff clean without anyone having to tell me. It's in the rules that we need to keep our rooms clean and beds made, but I didn't care very much during DTS, so it's like I'm really growing up or something. Ew.

Our First MA Weekend!

This past week was not as fun as expected because almost everything Lucio -our speaker- talked about we learned before our DTS outreach reading Foreign To Familiar by Sarah Lanier. It was basically the book that all of us read on the plain ride either to Russia or Peru, so we kind of already had an idea of everything he was teaching on the first couple days. However it is a really great book, even just for anyone to read whether you choose to be in the mission world or not because it explains the difference between 'hot and cold cultures'.
The idea is that Northern America, Canada, and Northern Europe (places where it is for the most part cold) is considered cold culture, where everywhere else in the world where climate is generally hot is considered hot culture. So that seems really basic, but the reason for talking about the differences really opened my eyes to how people in different areas and cultures go about life. In the cold culture areas -Minnesota as an obvious example-, people are very task and time oriented. We like to have things scheduled out from start to finish so that we have time to do other things and go other places. We don't typically talk to 'strangers' in public places, in fact we get irritated when someone interrupts our plans for the day.
The hot cultured people on the other hand, so think of like a family from the southern part of the States, are veeeery relationship oriented. For example, if you've got a friend in Louisiana, you can show up at a meal time and assume that they will be happy to see you, invite you inside, and feed you a pretty amazing feast. They'll expect you to stay however long you want because you're welcome to any food they have, you're welcome to their house, you're invited to any events they attend and paid for by the host. A cold culture person however would want to know in advance if you're planning on coming over so they can plan out how much food they need to make, whether or not you need to book a hotel room, and they'll assume that if you're going out to a movie with them that you're paying for yourself. Hot culture views the most priority in relationships, then business. Cold culture being the opposite wants to take care of the task and maybe become friends in the process, but probably not. Because of these kind of drastic differences, people often get offended or feel like others are being rude because that's just not how they've lived their entire life. Since I personally have been to many different places around the U.S. and South and Central America, these differences really make a lot of sense and I kind of wish I would've known them sooner. I feel like if everyone knew this kinda thing, we would avoid so many conflicts.
Of course it's a generalization so it's not the exact definition of anybody that lives in these areas, but it's kind of true also when you think about it.

We also did a temperament test which I kind of think would've applied more to the first week learning about our personalities, and unfortunately I don't have my definitions with me so I'll just sum them up.
There's people that are more Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and/or Phlagmatic. I know those words are really weird. I personally am a good split between Choleric and Melancholy. The first two (sanguine and choleric) are typically the outgoing, extroverted people where the melancholy and phlagmatics are much more quiet and introverted. Sanguines are the ones that love people all the time, they're very likeable. Cholerics (don't laugh..) can be kind of harsh and sarcastic, stubborn, and they're not afraid of conflict. Melancholy people tend to be smarter, they can get depressed easily, very loyal in their friendships, they don't often commit to things but when they do, they're extremely deeply committed (this one is my dominant one). Phlagmatic I don't remember much about, but I do think they're very cautious about what they do and they really don't want to hurt people. But yeah that day was interesting too, finding out what everyone fit into most.

Then the excitement of the week! Mission Adventures (MA) is a program run out of our YWAM base that puts on almost a mini-DTS over a weekend for youth groups that then go on a week long mission trip put on by our staff. So our first two teams showed up Thursday night and left this morning for their mission trip at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. One of the parts I love about my school right now is that as students we get to help with the MA training weekends. So we helped teach them dramas, dances, my friends Lisa and Tommy spoke at a few different sessions they had, and we got to hang out and spend a lot of time with them. I really, really appreciate how much preparation they're getting for their mission trip. I've been on mission trips before and we didn't have this kind of thing, and those mission trips were great but I think they could've been so much better if we had this kind of training leading up to it. So they spend 2 1/2 days learning about the culture they're about to go into (some of the teams go to Peru, Panama, etc. so it's different every time), learning how to put on a Vacation Bible School for the kids, and really taking their relationship with God seriously before they go out and share it with the people they're about to serve. It was seriously so much fun, Lisa and Tommy's talks were really great, and I enjoyed the weekend a lot... But we're all SO exhausted from it. We hardly had any free time because their schedule is so packed and we're so much a part of it that all of us were giving 150% for 3 days straight, and now basically all of the students are spending all of today doing nothing so we can recover from our tiredness haha. As worn out as we are though, I think we all had a great time and I'm looking forward to the next two training weekends. We're also going on a trip with a team at the end of August which I'm sure I'll tell you guys all about when it happens :).

This post was much longer than I expected, as usual, so I'll give you a break from reading. Once again, hopefully I can find time to update next weekend! I miss you guys!!