Leaving SOON!

Here's a quick update before we leave... I may or may not be able to write again before we fly out. We've got one week of classes left where our base director David Clark will be speaking on God's Calling or something like that. He talks about everything under the sun when he speaks so I forget what his actual teaching is called because we go off on so many tangents. So one more week of classes and then on Tuesday, December 13th, we are GONE!

Kinda crazy! I'm gonna be sending out postcards to anyone that wants them (if you do, send me a message somehow, fb or text or at sarah_valentine1@yahoo.com with your address pretty please) that has this lovely picture of our team and it's gonna look all pretty with prayer requests and what ministries we're doing and such. But I wanted to post the picture for those of you who follow my blog and aren't going to give me your address so you can remember our faces and hopefully remember to pray for us for the next 3 months!

Here's the Peru team!
Back row: Brian, Scott, Nate

Front: Debbie, Me, Deanne

Cool Story?

As I told you guys in my last blog, we finally got our tickets to Lima purchased, but I didn't really share the awesome story behind it.

Once upon a time, we (me and Scott) were feeling extremely pressured to purchase tickets from a few different people. Our contacts in both Lima and Iquitos were getting kind of antsy and impatient since we didn't have any set in stone dates of arriving which meant no set in stone plans for any of our Outreach. Our school leaders -Deb and Jeff- needed to know our dates and plans which we didn't have. Students needed to know when we're flying and how much airfare was going to cost, but the cost depended on the day we bought tickets, but we couldn't buy tickets without all the students having their money in. The accounting department was trying to help us work on our budget, but we couldn't do that without knowing the exact amount of days we were going to be there and the exact amount of the airline tickets. So as leaders, me and Scott (well I guess I should speak more for myself but I feel like he would say the same thing) were getting kind of overwhelmed.

It came down to our biggest factor, students having money available to purchase tickets. As we kept waiting for students to get their money in, ticket prices kept going up. So 2 weeks ago, prices were $1345 from Mpls to Lima, then at the beginning of last week, they had gone up to $1473. When it was already a struggle for finances to come in, having them jump that high in a matter of days was pretty disheartening. Basically the only people that had money to purchase tickets on Monday of last week were me, Scott, and one other team member. Even though that was the case, we knew tickets needed to be bought or we were going to run into more problems and higher prices, so me and Scott took some time to pray. We decided to take a huge step of faith. We asked God which day would be best to buy tickets, and we really felt like He was saying Thursday. So we decided to go for it, and trust that He knew this was the best day to do it.

We told the team on Monday -the 21st- that they needed to have their money for airfare in their accounts by Wednesday so we could book the tickets and have them purchased by Thursday. Like I said, most of the team really needed to see a lot of money come in before that was possible, and only having two days to do it seemed kind of intimidating. Especially for one team member, Brian who needed basically every dollar of that price to appear in a matter of two days. I explained that we trusted that God was going to provide funds for every person to be on that Outreach, but if we needed to book separate flights for people who didn't have their money in by Wednesday, that they would just have to come to Peru later. Honestly, it's a scary thought, having one or two students fly separately from the team, but it's been done a lot before so we knew it might happen, especially if Brian didn't have ANY of his Outreach money at that point.

But of course, God provided! Not just for the whole team, but especially for Brian. He made some phone calls that afternoon, and the next day someone came and gave him $3500!! Not just to cover the plane ticket we needed to buy ASAP, but his whole Outreach!! I was completely blown away. I mean I've been telling the team this whole time that if we do the possible, God will do the impossible. It's a YWAM phrase we use all the time, saying basically if we do what we can, make phone calls, send out support letters and such, that God will do what seems to be the impossible and provide everything we need. But to see it take place in such a huge way was such an encouragement! I really felt like God was not just giving a huge blessing to Brian, but for our whole Outreach. I'm still excited about it!

Oh and that's not it. Ticket prices stayed the same steep price up until I emailed our travel agent on Wednesday. Coincidentally, when she booked the tickets after all of our money was provided, the prices went down to $1380. Which meant when our tickets were actually purchased on Thursday (because the airlines have a 24 hour booking period, they have to be booked a day before they're bought), they were about a hundred bucks cheaper than the week before. Uhhh thank you Jesus??? And thank you also for telling us which day would be best and cheapest to buy the tickets?? Yeah, I was pretty pumped. God is so good and even though I thought it was more convenient to give the students a couple days notice and buy the tickets at the end of the week, God knew the prices were going to come back down and because we chose to trust Him, we saved a good amount!

Hooray Ashna!
So the whole team was pretty excited, it was a really awesome way we got to see God provide. Thought I'd share it with you guys. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers, it obviously helped! And please continue to pray for us as Outreach is getting closer and closer! We leave for Peru in 18 days!!

The SOMD Has Graduated!

Weird! My School Of Ministry Development class graduated last night. Well everyone except for us 5 interns. So their outreaches are officially over, and mine is soon to begin!

Speaking of which, the Peru team got our tickets finally purchased yesterday! We'll be flying down to Lima the 13th of December and staying there for about a week. We'll be working with a church in the city there and it sounds like this pastor is more than thrilled we will be there. He's actually requesting that we stay longer than we're planning to, which might end up happening.
After that week (or more?) we will be flying into Iquitos, a city completely surrounded by the Amazon jungle/river. We'll be working with a friend of mine and her women's ministry for the first week, doing CPR training and anything else she needs help with. The next week we will be putting on a youth camp in the city with worship, teachings, games, and building relationships with whoever shows up. "Youth" in latino cultures means anyone from age 8-28, so we're not really sure what range of people to expect, but I am really looking forward to youth camps on this Outreach because they were my favorite part of my Outreach last year. For the rest of our beginning weeks in Iquitos, we will be doing random service projects around the YWAM Iquitos base and working with local churches.

Around January 9th, we will head out on our first river trip. We'll spend about 10 days in the Amazon villages doing another youth camp, we'll have some sort of children's ministries, evangelism, handing out de-parasite medicine, and we will be digging one well. After that trip, we'll go back to the YWAM base in Iquitos for about a week to rest after the strain of living in the jungle, and then we'll travel back to more villages on the river. We'll be doing the same ministries in these communities, and digging one more well if we get the funds to do it. One well costs $1,173 so it's not really money we have in our back pockets but we're hoping to hear back from an organization that has sponsored wells in the past. Be praying for that money to be donated please!

After the second river trip, we will return to Iquitos again and do some ministry in the city for another week or so. We're hoping to do some open-air worship, maybe some dramas, and hanging out with people in the plazas. You never know what you're going to find in the heart of the city there. I'm personally excited to see my hippie friends again that I met last year and I'm hoping to spend good amounts of time with them.

We'll spend our last few days back in Lima doing some debriefing from the trip and hopefully fun outings. We'll come back to Minnesota on February 17th and have a week of debriefing with the DTS staff and the South Africa team as well.


Soooo that sums up what I know about our Outreach so far. I'll keep you guys updated while I'm there as well in their super shady internet cafes. But please please please keep my team in your prayers the next couple months! Me and Scott -leaders- still have lots of planning and preparation to do, so please pray for clarity in decision making, patience, productivity, and restful sleep for us. For the rest of the team, we still need a good chunk of finances to come in to make sure they will all go, and also peace instead of nerves, flexibility as plans change often, rest, and good attitudes for everyone!

Thank you guys so much for your prayers. I really need them and appreciate them :)

Oh and... here's my SOMD class and staff!

Back row: Chris and Jeanne (staff), Jasmine, Jo, Brenden, Scott, Dain (staff), Jenesa, Rachel (staff)

Front then middle: Ahnna, Kallie, Me, Ivan, Caitlin, Becca

10 Things YOU Should Know About Human Trafficking!

This list is from an organization called Not For Sale, an organization focused on the abolition of human trafficking. They have locations globally, including programs in Peru. Dick Wexler, retired father of the co-founder of NFS, came and spoke for a couple hours last week in the DTS I'm staffing. As some of you know, working towards the abolition of human trafficking is my biggest passion and what I plan to do someday in the future. 

This is NFS's list of things they feel North Americans should know about human trafficking. Please note that these are not necessarily the top 10 things I would want someone to know, but I liked the list enough to paraphrase and share with all of you :)

**I starred things when I added my own clarification or examples**

Top 10 Things To Know About Modern-Day Slavery

10. Human Trafficking:
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, enticement, provision, obtaining or receipt of any person by any means for the purpose of facilitation of sexual or economic exploitation.

-definition by the Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force

9. Traffickers use force, fraud, and/or coercion to control victims.

-Ways of force: beatings, confinement, rape (*ie. Beating victim until the victim agrees to do what they ask*)

-Deception/fraud: false offers of employment, marriage, education, etc.

-Coercion: threats to victim or victims’ family, debt bondange, manipulation *(A trafficker can say: “If you escape, I’ll replace you with your sister/best friend/daughter.” A trafficker doesn’t care about your life in particular, they just need a body to use.)

8. The word 'trafficking' is a misnomer!

A victim does not have to be moved to another location for the crime to be considered "trafficking in persons". *If the situation qualifies as modern-day slavery or slave-like conditions, you could be trafficked out of your own home.

7. TIP (Trafficking In Persons) is the fastest growing criminal business activity.

-Over 30 million victims worldwide

-TIP generates about $32 billion per year

-*TIP is estimated to pass up drug trafficking by 2020 as the world’s biggest criminal money-making industry – you can sell drugs once, but humans you can sell over and over again.

-so many more facts at http://love146.org/slavery. Click on the bottom right side of the picture. Love146 is one of my favorite organizations. Or http://www.stopthetraffik.org/uk/page/the-scale-of-human-trafficking

6. Traffickers prey on the powerless:

- 1/2 of the people trafficked are children

- 80% are female

- many live in extreme poverty

- persons trafficked in the USA are usually runaways, homeless, mentally ill, handicapped, immigrants, or refugees.

5. 2 major categories of TIP

Sex Trafficking  (up to 26 different ways such as...)

·                     phone sex

·                     live sex shows and peep shows

·                     stripping

·                     prostitution

·                     pornography

Labor Trafficking

·                     agricultural work

·                     criminal activity

·                     restaurant work

·                     construction

·                     domestic servitude

·                     hotels

·                     mines

·                     street workers (kids selling gum, beggars, etc.)

*These are just some examples, there are plenty more.

4. Average age that girls start to be prostituted in the US *as well as globally* is 13.

3. Countries of origin for trafficked (over borders) victims (as in, trafficked from these countries to other locations):

very high in Asia, India, Eastern Europe. There are lower numbers of trafficked victims coming out of the Americas.

-people are most often (once trafficked) brought to: Europe, the US, some places in southern Asia.

2. The FBI has identified the Twin Cities (Minnesota) as one of the nation’s 13 largest centers for child prostitution.

1. EVERYONE can do something to fight trafficking!

---> pray, become informed, raise awareness, shop wisely, support organizations financially, and come up with your own ideas!

*More ideas/info at websites such as:

notforsalecampaign.org

love146.org

mngirlsnotforsale.org

free2work.org

productsofslavery.org

stopthetraffik.org

callandresponse.com

ijm.org

or just google modern-day slavery or human trafficking!

Hopefully this was helpful to some or all of you. I know I learned new things when I heard all of this and I've been researching this stuff for years, so be informed and share with everyone you can! :)

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!!

Arrived and Already On Brain Overload!

SOMD has officially started! Me and a few friends from DTS met up last Saturday and spent the night together catching up and hanging out before the busy school life started again, and from there me, Ahnna, Kallie, Caitlin, Scott, and Brenden made our way to the YWAM base on Sunday afternoon. We reunited with a few people we'd known before from our base, Jasmine, Jo, Jenesa and Monica, and met Ivan (from Argentina, did his DTS in Chile I think) and Becca (from Texas, did her DTS in England), so we've got 12 students total. It feels like we've already been there a month instead of just a week, but that's usually how it is when you live with people 24/7. Even though it's been a long week with not enough sleep, it has also been really fun and exciting because of our class subject where we learned a LOT about ourselves and each other.

So this week was Strength Finders and Spiritual Gifts. Bonnie, our school counselor, was our speaker. If you haven't heard of Strength Finders (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strengthsfinder-20-tom-rath/1008432146?ean=9781595620156&itm=1&usri=strength%2bfinders#CustomerReviews)   you should definitely look into it. You get the book which has a code in the back to take the online test which takes maybe half an hour, you answer a ton of questions about how you relate to people and situations and stuff, and at the end it gives you a list of 5 of your top strengths based on your answers, and how to work with them in your life.
My top five are Communication, Restorative, Empathy, Input, and Belief. It also gives you descriptions for all of those explaining what they are which the book has general explanations of each one, but after taking the online test the definitions it gives you are based on the questions you specifically answered. So there were a lot of other people in my school with empathy, input, and belief in their top 5 but all of their descriptions of how that strength is evident in their life was WAY different than mine. After I got my results, I brought them to a few of my friends in the living room and asked if someone would read them out loud to me, and it ended up being so funny and entertaining how entirely accurate it was (like Communication really explains why I talk so much...I'm a verbal processor to the core) that we ended up reading them out loud for pretty much every student.

Then a couple days later we took another similar test that would give us results for our Spiritual Gifts which gave us equal insight on ourselves and each other because we had 2 days of discussion on all of them during class. So my list of Spiritual Gifts in order are Mercy-74, Encourager/Exhorter-73, Giver-72, Prophet/Proclaimer/Perceiver-68, Teacher-65, Administrator-61, and Server-53. With the Strength Finders there's a really long list of all the strengths so they just give your top 5, but the Spiritual Gifts, I listed all of them (the results you can get) and the numbers are how high I ranked in each one. So it was very interesting seeing how equally I ranked in the top 3, and even through my 4th one -prophet- every word of the descriptions defines me. It's crazy. If you guys wanna see the explanations for all of them, I'd love to show you somehow so you can understand me and the way I function, but I think this blog is gonna be long enough by itself so I'm not gonna type it all up here.

But like I said, this week was really fun and interesting and I'm so grateful we did it the first week. It really helped us understand why people act the way they do and how their brains work, how they react to situations and why. They purposely did it the first week because last year during this school, lots of people were having conflicts until this week when they could really understand each other and they suggested that this week be first for every school because it's so helpful and I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Sooooo I would love to explain more in depth these gifts and strengths but I kinda have to go. I'm at Caribou with a few people right now, but I wanted to give you guys an update and let you know I'm still alive. I'll be sending out update letters within the next couple weeks I'm pretty sure, so if I still need your address, please give it to me!

Next week our topic according to our schedule is Cross-Cultural Communication which will be interesting considering our speaker is one of the funniest people we have on staff at our base. I'm pretty excited about everything we learned this past week and what's coming up!
Oh also, everything we do is being translated in Spanish because Monica doesn't know much English and Ivan understands most English but not everything, so my translating skills are improving drastically. I'm extremely happy about it :)

Ciao guys! I'll try to update again next week!

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 :)

My Favorite Amazonian Bird!

This was my favorite bird to listen to in Peru. You'll understand when you hear it, at least I hope.

http://youtu.be/QeX-KcViN-Y

The ones we saw were yellow though I think... But they literally make the sound of water dripping! They're called oropendolas apparently. I'm really excited that I found a clip for you guys, I really miss hearing this every day. Especially now that birds are coming back north because they think winter's over (yeah I thought so too guys..) and I'm realizing how boring birds are here. Who knew that was something I'd ever notice?

those dangly lookin things are their nests. and I guess we didn't get any pictures of the actual birds, but obviously you can see them in the video.

Ever Watched River Monsters?

This blog basically is for anyone that has spare time that you might want to spend getting to know some of the things I witnessed :) but not necessarily from my point of view this time.

I just discovered this show because I was looking for some other show I remembered liking on Animal Planet. Thought it would be fun to reminisce and watch the Amazon Assassins episode. Basically I just want to puke. Who convinced me that getting in this river every day to bathe when you CLEARLY can't see anything around you AT ALL was a good idea??? Oh my gosh. It's been how long since I've even been there and I'm still terrified of what could have happened to me haha. I mean Kirstin did get bit by a pirahna twice -while I was in the river with her, did I mention that part?-and Taylor either cut his finger on something or got bit by who knows what -let's be honest, the chances of either of those are equally likely...

But anyways. Here's the link to the first part of the episode http://youtu.be/eSM5yMyI2ig   and from there you can click on the 2nd-6th or 7 parts I don't remember how many. I haven't finished it yet, but actually just watching the first part is fun because I saw the giant dinosaur fish they're talking about! Except we called it a 'paiche'. Saw them at the zoo. We've got some pictures but probably not very good ones. And seriously, they were 7-9 feet long, huuuuuuge fish, they really do jump out of the water like that, but thank goodness I only saw them at the zoo.


So if anyone happens to watch this with me, or even part of it, you should comment so I can talk about it with you! I thought this blog might be a little more fun than my boring back-at-home-life. :)

Not In School, But Still Learning

Being home is hard for me, I don't know if I've said this before, but I feel like my life is on pause. I'm in between YWAM right now, and I've spent pretty much this whole time thinking my brain and heart are also on pause until school starts again because what could I possibly learn while I'm at home? Ha. God has been trying to convince me that there's still growing to do before I go back in the summer, and that these few months of my life are just as important as ones spent at the base or on Outreach.

So what am I learning right now... I've seen how faithful God is to the promises He made me while I was in Peru. We did a lot of talking then -funny how that works out- and He's come through on everything He said He would help me with once I got home. I guess I'd have to go into details to explain what I mean but I'm not going to do that here so if you'd like to hear examples, we should hang out or talk some other way :)

By the way, you can reach me by email at sarah_valentine1@yahoo.com or S0meCallMeRed@hotmail.com. I don't check my email much, but I realized I had never put it in here or on my letters...I think...

What else am I learning.. Ok so a big part of my DTS was having hope for my future that I didn't before. Just not thinking I'm good enough to accomplish anything, thinking other people are so much more faithful to God's work than I am so why would my future ministry be anything worth talking about, like extremely down about myself and my "lack" of gifts and skills, etc. A few people have given me some insight the past couple weeks on what kind of person I'm going to be in the future (through visions and God speaking through them...I don't know how many people following this blog actually believe in this kind of thing so I guess if you want specific details on this too you can ask me). It's really crazy the things I've heard, just tiny glimpses of what could be true of my future ministry if I let it happen. The things I've held onto the most are that I'm supposed to be an encourager and a counselor. It's funny knowing that now because my initial thoughts are "yep that's definitely in the future because I've got a LOT of growing up to do before that's true". I don't consider myself an encouraging person just because I'm such a downer all the time, and I think I'm terrible at consoling people because I'm so blunt all I can say is "yeah that does suck" when people just want to hear "it'll be ok". But God has funny ways of showing me He's working on me right now because I'm getting lots of practice in...
My friend Jo (from YWAM, also went to Peru with me), her dad just died last week. Obviously words can't even describe what she's going through (please please please keep her and her family in your prayers!), but the interesting part is that since me and her are so close, I'm the only one she wants to talk to. I mean at first I was the only person in the world she wanted to talk to, and now I'm the person she can actually be real with and we talk every day about how she's doing and what else is happening in our lives. Because of my personality, my real-ness that I can't help and the fact that I don't want a surface answer of "I'm doing good", I'm realizing it's easier for people to talk to me because they can be themselves and say what's actually on their mind instead of just saying what people want to hear.

I've also been told that my listening is going to be the biggest part of my counseling, that people will take great comfort talking to me about things because I can listen. So I'm really trying to put that into practice and be the person that people can trust so this can really happen someday. I'm starting to believe my future is sincerely going to help/impact a lot of people instead of just hope that I do something kind of worthwhile.

So these are a couple of things I've been thinking a lot about the past few weeks and trying to improve on. Not much else to say for now...
Peace out everyone.

Quick "Home" Update

I went back and read my old posts to see how much I actually explained about YWAM and stories and such. Eventually I'll try to put in some more details about what YWAM is and what they do, and I'd definitely like to share some things I learned during lecture phase, and also still answer questions about Peru/Outreach -you can ask me in comments, facebook, email, whatever.

But one of the things I noticed is that I was talking about job interviews recently so I should probably let you know what I'm doing the next couple months. I'm working for my Aunt Pat right now, doing some office work basically, she wants to go 'paperless' and needed me to teach her how to do it, thus providing me with a part time job because it's really time consuming and she still needs to do her normal work. I had been hoping to get a serving job at a restaurant after a couple weeks of working for Aunt Pat but I think God had other things in mind. I was really planning on making a lot of money between coming home and leaving again, but God kept telling me I needed to let go of that and depend on Him more. And it's not like I'm not making money right now, it's just not half as much as what I wanted and know I could be getting waiting tables. But I've realized I'm doing just fine for now, and God is going to provide for me after SOMD so I need to quit freaking out about it.

I've been decently content the last week, going to work during the day, spending time with friends and my sister at night, and I've found this super random volunteer thing to do on the weekends. I'm stringing origami paper cranes together (there's over 106,000 of them) to represent the number of people in Minnesota that are affected by brain injuries. My mom found it online somehow (craigslist), so we went last weekend and they do it a few times per week, so I'm gonna keep going. I guess it's for the Brain Injury Association of MN now that I've googled it. Like I said, it's super random, but I needed some place to serve at anyways, so this is a good short-time volunteer thing I can do right now.
I've been sending out update newsletters the past week or two to everyone that was on my support team list that I have addresses (and stamp supplies..) for, so if you're not getting letters from me and you'd like to, PLEASE get me your address somehow! It's obviously way cheaper for me to continually update here, but I can also email you my updates (whether you want the mailed copies or the blog posts).

So yeah! Things are good right now, and I'm aiming to update this at least once every couple weeks while I'm home, so keep checking back!
Chau everyone :) -that's how the Peruvians spell Ciao-

this is me and some of the stringed cranes. yeah there's a LOT of them. like this is one corner of the room that was full of them. there's sooo many!

Tour of the Iquitos Base

Here's another video tour, this one would actually be the first one chronologically... This is where we stayed in the city of Iquitos. Sorry I forget sometimes to talk in a normal voice when I'm around my friends... I use accents and weird voices all the time, like the one I keep using here. Also there's a lot of random Spanish words so hopefully you don't miss anything essential.

http://youtu.be/IzyJs50RF6M

Questions?

I've had lots of questions about what things looked like, where we stayed, what we were doing, etc. So I wanted to share one of my 'tour videos' that I tried to take every place we stayed, it should give you a pretty good idea of what an average village looks like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-C_Z-3l8Q


Umm I guess I'm not entirely sure what more to share about Peru. If anyone is actually following this, you should leave me comments with questions or send me a message on facebook and tell me what you want to hear!

In the meantime, I've got a job interview for another restaurant tomorrow, Malones in Maple Grove. It's new, so I hadn't heard of it either. Being home is like my least favorite thing in the world. I hate spending money, I hate not being able to sleep, I hate being away from my YWAM family, and the past couple days especially I've been really missing my camp friends too. I don't know, I've been frustrated lately, but not as much as I expected to be. I guess it's because I know I'm going back and that it's not that far away. But yeah, my newsletter update thing will be going out this next week, so hopefully that will be a better update than this is for those of you that keep up with my life.

Shalom friends. Seriously, if there's anything you actually want me to blog about, (stories, questions, whatever) let me know :)

Peru Outreach Slideshow!

This is the video slideshow Jo worked on for countless hours. I provided the pictures but she did everything else. I know lots of you have already seen this because it's on facebook and we showed it on graduation night, but for anybody that hasn't seen it... Enjoy :)

Apparently Virginia Is For Lovers

Sorry about this really late update guys. Obviously I'm home now. Things have been a little chaotic, especially the first week back (debrief week), and then I just spent a week in Virginia hanging out with Caitlin, a friend from the Russia team, so I've been trying to upload pictures and videos on facebook then realized I've been totally neglecting my blog. But I don't want anyone to get the idea that I won't be using this anymore. I definitely won't update as often (not that I could much in Peru anyway) for the next couple months, but I am planning on going back to the SOMD -School Of Ministry Developement, the second school following the DTS I just completed-. So I would love for anyone following this now to keep the link, check back every once in a while, and then have your connection to my updates in my next lecture phase and outreach!


I'm not really sure where to start... Debrief week, being home (America...ugh), or future plans.
Alright, debrief week was crazy because I was spending every spare minute going through everybody's pictures and getting the best 300 on a disk, something I was supposed to do because I was team photographer. I was also giving those pictures to Jo so she could work on the slideshow we made for graduation night. Everything went wrong a million different times, we stayed up soooo late -more than once-, and all I really wanted to do was spend time with my friends that I knew would be leaving in however many days and I wouldn't be able to see them again for months. It was so much more frustrating than necessary, but we finally got both things done around 3:30 AM on graduation day. Ha.

Graduation night was a blurr... Everything leading up to it and directly after was pretty surreal. After 5 months of never getting away from these friends that are now pretty much family, it was just ending and half the school was leaving that night to go home. All I can really say is thank God for skype. But some fabulous friends of mine from Minneapolis came to see me graduate so that was nice, although I felt bad because my brain was being pulled in so many different directions I'm not sure I paid a lot of attention to them.

Coming home... is weird. Pretty much every single meal makes me sick (my body is no longer used to crazy amounts of sugar, chocolate, and preservatives). It's getting a little better now that it's been so long since I got home, but you'd think I'd be totally back to normal by now. Yeah, not true. Today I was finally able to drink a whole cup of pop without gagging once, but up until that point this afternoon, my poor tummy was still upset about the greasy pizza I ate last night when I was still in Virginia.

Speaking of Virginia, I had been planning to go stay with Cait since before I left on Outreach. A lot of people are thinking it was a random trip that I just had spare change for. Definitely not, I had been planning it and looking forward to it for months. When I was there, we were a little sad because we wanted to do a lot of things like go hiking and have bonfires but it rained a lot and places weren't open, but it was still much needed and much enjoyed quality time with one of my favorite people :)

Other than food though, it's not so much America that's bugging me, more just feeling very restless, un-productive, and annoyed at excessiveness. This should probably be a whole blog in itself honestly. It's hard to describe what I'm going through right now -reverse culture shock isn't really that shocking, it's just not motivating me in any way to do things anymore- and I'm having a very hard time feeling like this is where I belong. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's just proving to me once again that I was not cut out to live a "comfortable" life.
For those of you that are concerned, I have gone job hunting and still am applying at places, mostly restaurants because I've had experience serving and it's quick money. I've got interviews set up for next week and a temporary job until I get hired which is hopefully very soon. But like I said before, I am planning on going back to the YWAM base in June to start the second school. I'm sure I'll talk more about that later. Right now the plan is to work, possibly more than one job, save up, go back in the summer, and see where God takes me from there.


Prayer requests:
-motivation
-loneliness (having 8 roommates for 2 months down to none is one of the biggest shocks for me. I thought I'd love it. I'm a person that needs my alone time, I need space and privacy. and now I hate that I don't have my YWAMers with me)
-job interviews!!!! (first one is at Red Lobster, woo!)
-this applies to everyone in my school. we're all very nervous about how depressed it seems we might get because of the reverse culture shock and being away from the supportive family we have in each other. I guess it doesn't quite make sense the bond we have when you've never experienced something like this, but it's really really hard for all of us right now to be back in the real world where temptation is everywhere and accountability is not.


Thanks so much everyone for following as much as you did, whether your name is Kathy Duffy or whether you read one post. I appreciate any kind of prayer and support I can get, especially the prayer part. I need it, and I'm sure that won't change anytime soon :)

Ciao Peru!

I'll be home this weekend! Hooray!
I seriously can't wait to upload pictures, especially after today. We went to the zoo and it was sooo fun. Me and Bee (Brandy, our extra team member) played with a pink dolphin for a while, my neck is sore from having an anaconda around my shoulders, and I got to touch more monkeys and a capybara too even though we're probably not supposed to touch them... And last night we had macaroni for dinner -the blue box and everything! Luke is so good to me... it's been a pretty good past 24 hours :)
Being in the city again, like before, is kinda bittersweet. The water at the base situation is still a huge frustration and it's hard not to think why not just be back on the river, but I really do love this city. Well, most of it. I think I mentioned that last weekend at one of the churches we helped out with another youth camp kinda thing, most of us preached, we did dramas, and we had some fun worship times, dancing included thanks to me and Jo. Mostly Jo kept that up though because I got too hot after a while. Me and her made a new friend, not very surprising since she becomes friends with someone wherever we go. But she's coming to visit us at the base tomorrow so I'm excited to hang out with her again.
Like I said, most of us preached and man, I was fighting with God when I had to share. Well I didn't have to really but I felt like He wanted me to talk about trust, so I started trying to figure out what I was going to talk about on like Friday. I was speaking Sunday night. By 5:00pm, two hours before I was supposed to speak, I still had no idea what God wanted me to say. I was freaking out... Aside from the fact that I hate hate hate speaking in front of people and that I really wanted to translate it into Spanish before I spoke so I wouldn't have to use a translator, I was so mad that God wasn't giving me anything to really go on except one story from my life but I didn't know how to tie that in and actually make it an hour long. After pouting for probably 30-45 more minutes, I told Him it was all in His hands, and tried writing again. Words started flowing like crazy and I kept writing until literally one or two minutes before I stood up to go to the front. I haven't gone back and read what I wrote so I kind of don't know most of what I said, but a few people came up and told me that's exactly what they needed to hear, and let me tell you this is probably one of the biggest glory moments I had all Outreach. Considering that all the glory of it is going straight to Ashna (God) because seriously none of that would've happened on my own. Pretty sure the biggest theme of this trip for me is that I am capable of so much more than I think I can ever do, but only when I get over myself, stop pouting, and open up my hands for Him to take control of whatever it is I'm holding onto.
On that note, in a team meeting last night, we talked about frustrations and highlights of the trip, and it reminded me of a lot of stories I have... I'll try my best to put the important things in here when I get home and don't have a life again. Speaking of which... We leave Iquitos Friday night sometime around 7pm I think, fly from Lima to Atlanta, and then to MN and I'll be back at the base probably late afternoon on Saturday. I can't tell you how much I am ready to come home and see my Russia friends... Ahhh it's gonna be so great!

I'll see you all SOON!!!

Monkeys Arent Even Cute To Me Anymore

Back in the city again! I would say home sweet home -as close to home as we can get while we're still out of the country- but it's honestly really frustrating here. Like the things we miss the most when we're in the jungle usually have to do with toilets, showers, and ice cream, but the only one of those we can actually have on a regular basis is ice cream. Not gonna lie, I will miss these popsicles an awful lot. But the YWAM base here is just not quality. It makes me more and more greatful for the amazing place and people in the Minnesota base every day. Seriously. I'm kinda just whining right now but after we get done with the youth camp we're helping out at this weekend, we (the girls on our team) will be doing a ton of cleaning around the base for the next week and I can't wait to have a bed with no dirty q-tips, cobwebs, or bugs around the sides. And apparently the well that the base is getting water from keeps drying up and tubes break or something so that we can only shower when we pray really hard (I'm not kidding at all. we've actually got some pretty good stories from it), we pretty much never flush the toilets, and when we do it's normally with a bucket. So... it's nice not to be in the villages, but mostly because I love riding in mototaxis and not worrying about waking up with chickens or dead spiders under my hammock. I've been pretty spent the past couple weeks, missing things like lasagna and dry clothes, can't wait to come home. Still not looking forward to after we're done debriefing because I have no idea what I'm doing with my life or even where I'm living right away, but God will provide. He always does. That's pretty much my biggest prayer request right now is that I would trust God has a plan for me and not stress out about it, and also that I wouldn't want to kill everyone the last week we're here. My mood has been really good though the past couple days so hopefully the last one won't be a problem... But anyways. I'll be home soon! I'll upload pictures and stuff as soon as I can.
Ciao for now!

Back To The Jungle!

We're on our way back up the river tomorrow morning. I wanted to give you guys a lot more than I can right now because other people are waiting to use this computer but...
Ok, like I said, our first village was amazing. When we were leaving Abuelita -grandma- (who I adopted pretty much the first day I met her) told me I should just hide in the other room while my team got on the boat so she could keep me. I told her I would. If there's anyone I could put in my pocket and take home with me it would be her. Or Mama. She's fantastic.
Second, third, and fourth villages were tough. Just really spiritually dark places, rude people (one place in particular), and a lot of us on the team were dealing with a lot of personal crap... The last village made up for it though. Well kind of. It just made the next river trip seem less scary because I remembered how much I really could fall in love with these people.
So a few other things that have happened since my last post or I forgot to mention... I've seen a few monkeys (and touched one), eaten alligator, and my new favorite juice is Camu Camu.

Since I have to leave in a minute, prayer requests...
-energy
-sleep
-migraines (had one at the pastor's house last night which was no good because then everyone else had to eat my food)
-my patience is really running out for everyone which sucks. I really miss alone time. like a lot.
-that we would all feel like we're doing something actually worthwhile and productive even if we're doing a lot of hurry up and waiting.

I'll be back in the city on the 10th I believe so I'll try to update when I can!