DUSK!!!

I just found this post from a year ago and it describes exactly what I just did...you ask...why so important? I tell you why :). For the last 7 months of craziness I have been looking forward to simply taking a walk with my dog (alone...without 20 people around me) at dusk and enjoying God's creation: the smell, horses, temperature, lighting, EVERYTHING! GAHHH...it feels so good to be home and the ability to have the time to go on a peaceful walk and converse with Mr. Jesus!! LOVE IT. After being gone so long you realize the blessings you have at home. Here's the post from a year ago!

My saturday = sleep in, wish the padre Happy Bday, wash Tess, good QT, clean room, hang out with DK, and spend the afternoon at a used bookstore (quite thrilling :) ).......and to end the day...why not take Tess for a nice walk. So as dusk hit (my all time favorite time of day)...off Tess and I went on a little stroll. The first thing that I noticed was the incredibly strong smells. As I walked I closed my eyes and literally every couple steps a new smell came about. So I made a game...in my head (always fun!!) I started naming the smells as I walked....the difference between every new flower, the small stream trickling nearby, the smell of the horses, the horses manure, the pine, newly cut lawn, wet grass, the smell of the recently hot cement, the crisp night air, the rain waiting to fall, the smell of night, wet cement...my game was soon ended by the awakening sound of my newly cleaned dog splashing in that once nice smelling stream.........no good. However, as I continued my walk with Tess....I thought..."holy cow, what an imagination our God has!" What an imagination to create distinct smells...to create trees, seasons, dogs, yards, humans......the complexity of it all is overwhelming and at the same time spellbounding because the One who has such a ginormous amount of imagination....has a ginormous amount of love and compassion for me. Kind of humbling to show how small I am and how much I need my Creator. HELLLOOOOOOOO.....AWESOME!!! My walk ended with a nice little sprinkle on the forehead along with small side order of peace.

Montelibano

We went for 4 days to a small town 8 hours away from Cartagena. There we were basically working with a large church doing ministry in schools, in barrios (neighborhoods), and we put on a mission conference for their church. It was actually pretty luxurious as they fed us amazingly and we actually got to sleep in air conditioning....first time I hadn´t been sweating since arriving here in Colombia. It was a really funny weekend and it was a great time to get closer as a team and learn what it means to be flexible.

Becca and I riding on the back of one of our many forms of transportation....this was a horse trailer but we also had the privilege to ride motos around town.

This is one of our school ministries...we are doing here a skit called `La casa se quema`or `The house is burning`....it`s a good ice breaker to start our ministry.

Jacob and Becca doing one of our dramas, `Hearts`in the middle of a barrio.

Another ministry at a school...another drama called `Set Me Free`....super powerful. This school was super interesting because the kids were a sort of rebelious kind...but they paid super close attention and the testimony told could easily relate to their lives....really cool to see.

Another drama....I know...I guess it seems like we do a lot of dramas but they are super powerful. This is `Everything`and that`s me in the middle.

This is just a view of how big the church was....huge. It was super funny though because there was one night where they were worshiping in the way that latinos worship...choreographed dancing and waving of flags....well, they called our team on stage thinking they were going to introduce us.....NO....surprise of all surprises....they were like....OK.....DANCE!!! Yea, that really happened. Wasn´t expecting that. The theme of our outreach has slowly formed into one sentence.......`What just happened?` AMEN

Cartagena, Colombia

OH MY GOSH....CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA......wowza. Where to start. Some facts...Cartagena was conquered by Spaniards early on then making it a huge port. The Old City is identical to Spain. Gorgeous buildings with so much character. The crazy thing about Cartagena is that is SO diverse....you have the indigenous, the Spaniards, and then the Spaniards brought slaves from Africa so you have the african descent here as well. So something like 70% is African descent. Another fact is that it is diverse economically as well...where they have houses in the Old City (tourist part) that are more expensive than a house in Switzerland and then they have neighborhoods where people are living below the poverty level. Some neighborhoods are so bad with gangs if they were to cross into the next neighborhood they could be easily shot. Our time here has been a crazy diverse time of ministry....we started out doing school ministry, then we spent a week being part of a 24/7 prayer house, barrio (poor neighborhood) ministry, beach ministry, a campaign against Infant/child exploitation and sexual abuse., prayer walks through town...that was our first 1.5 week...I will blog more about the other parts here in Colombia. Here are some pics.

View of Cartagena from above.

One of our ministries was a beauty salon....we got to paint finger and toe nails, paint their faces, play soccer with the boys and then do dramas and messages for the kids. Some of the girls that sat in front of me were 5 years old with a 19 year old mother. The abuse rate here is 3 out of 5 girls has been sexually abused...and 2 out of 5 boys has been as well. Many girls by the age of 13 are pregnant.

Here´s a pic of the beauty salon

Our first day arriving we did school ministry where we did dramas, messages, and prayed with kids. This was a very powerful start to our outreach. I had some amazing convos with some girls.
The is a drama called ¨Hearts¨....I´m the mom!!

Here´s Jakob, the Norwegian, and I preparing the ¨Secret Place¨for the 24/7 prayer house. The secret place was a place were people could get away from everyone else in the prayer house...safe haven kinda. The first day we spent 10 hours in the prayer room doing shifts of 2 hours....then the next 5 days we did shifts of 3 hours.........good quality time with God.

Prayer walk at 5 in the morning to the highest point in Cartagena.

Day 1 - COLOMBIA

COLOMBIA..........that's right, I'm in Colombia. CRAZY!!! It's outreach time and my outreach for a month is in Cartagena, Colombia. Yesterday was our first day of ministry. It was quite an introduction to ministry. Was quite an example of how we are going to have to be super flexible. I want to write a quick story/conversation I had with a young girl yesterday. IT WAS AWESOME. For our ministry we were giving a program at a local school for the whole day. It was absolutely insane but fun (at times :) ). After our program we went around praying for the students. For one girl specifically, I sat down and started to ask if she had anything I could pray for. She was like, "nope". She basically was like, I don't believe in that stuff. I then asked her what was truth to her. A little confused, I asked, "is it in humans, is it in what you see...."....she nodded yes. Knowing I wasn't going to try and defend my faith....I turned towards her and said, "God has something to tell you, he wants to tell you that there is more....there is more to life. It says in the Bible, if we seek him we will find him. That's a promise. You can't make a decision off of information you don't know. You can't make a decision off of Christian because we make mistakes....we are human. You have to look at the truth...the Bible to make a decision." She was super attentive, slightly wide eyed that God had something to say to her. She then opened up about how her family had been hurt by a Jehovah witness. I was like, "GAHH...that makes me soo angry when I see people not living their faith...when their actions don't follow their words...I totally understand why you don't believe...I would feel the same." Upon getting on her level she super opened up and began to tell me about her family and how she started talking about her uncles funeral....she asked, "Can people be forgiven?"....that was a HUGE open door. We had an awesome conversation and it ended with her crying at the end with a big smile on her face. I got to speak truth into that she was special, unique, and God gave her specific gifts that only she had....he gave her those gifts because he wanted to use her in ways that He can ONLY use her. It was sooooo fun to be able to speak some truths into her and see her face change over the 20 minute conversation. She was a precious young girl. That was like my first legit fruitful conversation while here and it was such a blessing!! I just wanted to share that with all of you.....mind you...all of that convo was in Spanish, ha!!.....

OH...and I got to translate for the first time in front of group of kids. A girl told her testimony and I got to translate it...it was crazy fun!!

GUANACASTE - Bible distribution

Bible Distribution – the main purpose for coming to YWAM base in Guanacaste was to participate in the nation wide project of distributing bibles to every house in Costa Rica!! They will be the first nation to have a bible in every house. SOOOo…this was definitely a new process for me….never had I gone house to house delivering bibles and talking about Jesus to random people…WOW…it was a good challenge but it was super cool to see the reaction of the people. The Costa Rican people (the majority…a select few not) are so hospitable and friendly. Ya know, in the US…if someone were to walk up to your door you most likely would be like no thank you, give off my door step. However, sense we were GIFTING (free) a Bible…they would invite us in to their house for coffee, tea, bread, a full-on meal, or mangos. Generally we would start by introducing ourselves, giving them the bible, the reason why we are gifting them the bible, why a personal relationship with God is so important and how our personal testimony shows the power of it. Then we would ask for a specific prayer request and people would tell you their deepest needs…multiple people broke down in tears in front of you and many accepted Christ. It was definitely a sight to see and something special to be a part of. It was exciting to be bold about my faith and the hope I have in Christ. It helped to get past a fear of men and a fear of knowing the right things to say. A good growing time.

Beach – two days we went to the beach for our free days. The first day…four other girls and I decided to go horseback riding on the beach…gahhhh….sooo amazing. This has been my dream for a while and I DID IT! Always scary when getting onto the horses and your friend looks at you and asks, “So….how do you stop these things?”……nice. Another girl and I took off on our horses down the beach enjoying a nice gallop on the sand….however, the next day we definitely felt the consequences of that J. All worth the pain.

Mangos – basically….it was mango season and we ate LOTS of mangos…which might have possibly messed up some of our systems but totally worth it….they’re my favorite fruit!!

Countryside – what a blessing being in open air…AHH…I love the country. It was such a need transition. We could take walks, play soccer, go for runs and not be scared to be robbed, watch the sunset…..love me some country!!!

This is one of the drama's we do and we did this one after we played soccer with some local kids.

Sofi (on right) and I got to lead children's ministry on Sunday in Guanacaste....here are all our little kids. We did a skit of Elijah on the mountain (I was Elijah)...many songs, and art!!

PRECIOUS!

I LOVE THIS ONE!

Guanacaste was SUPER dry during this time and this is basically what it looked like during bible distribution.

MEETING!

Pretty country sunset

Church service

NIKO

I SURVIVED….also known as a SURVIVOR!!! OH man…you have no idea how slightly scared I was for this week. I can’t give huge details because I swore I wouldn’t say anything….but it was LONG, hard days AND nights. However, I can say that all my comforts were taken away and it’s meant to push you to the limit in order to see how you work in a team, your style of leadership, and how you act under pressure. The biggest lesson learned was fully relying on God throughout this process…it was just a huge giving up of all my rights and trusting that God is my provider and He can get me through whatever challenge. Large lesson!! It was kind of one of the big moments that I truly felt comforted knowing that my support team at home were sending up prayers for me. I am so blessed by each and every one of you.

This was our first night and part of the second :) sleeping arrangments...lots of roots and girls....

Another sleeping arrangment....much better than the first!!!

Part of our many hikes....I'm pretty sure the scenery rivaled with Avatar - all of NIKO was basically in the jungles on the Costa Rican and Panama border.

My team....Me, Sofi (Costa Rican), Kenna, Carly, Nicole (Canada), Jakob (Norway)...TEAM VELOCITY (super lame, I know)....we had a blast and we learned so much!! We worked really well together even though we ended up coming late into the night on hikes.

PANAMA

WOW…how to explain. Our whole DTS team (40 peeps) took a 5 hr bus ride, 1.5 hr boat ride to a remote island in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Let me just say…amazing. We stayed at the YWAM base there which was basically in the rainforest. It was right off the water and so we got to swim in the Caribbean Sea (first time ever!!) along with the jelly fish and sting rays!!! It was funny because during the week our water ran out so we had to shower in the river….super funny!! The theme of the week in Panama was evangelism….so we did all kinds of evangelism from kids ministry in an indigenous village, nursing home ministry, and street ministry: evang-aerobics (where we did a flash mob aerobics work out in the middle of the street…that was funny), make a friend (find some random person and take them out to coffee/ice cream), prodigal son challenge (find different ways how to tell people the prodigal son story), sand writing (write a message or draw in the sand), treasure hunt (pray for a revelation of a specific person and what the Lord wants to say to them), free hugs and prayer (self explanatory), singing on the street (Jessica, Casey, and I did this…so fun but weird too), verses (write verses down and give them to people who you think the Lord wants you to give it to). This was a good week for me because it really got me out of my comfort zone and doing things that I normally wouldn’t do. Our last day there we had a free day and we got to go scuba diving and to a private beach for the day. SOOO nice…but sooo hot. Here’s some photos.

Some girls we got some amazing pics of!

A little boy in his families hut.

Jess and Casey having some fun times on the dock

This is the view from our dock....so peaceful!

YEP...those are bathrooms and look where all the waste goes!!

The ladies right before we got to go scuba diving

THE DOLPHINS....that were like 10 ft from our boat and they were jumping in the waves

The kids program we did in an indigenous village

This is the bridge crossing from Costa Rica to Panama....yep sooooo not USA secure.

Local Outreach in San Jose

I haven’t really said a whole lot about the ministry part of my travels so I’ll let you in on that part. Every Tuesday in teams we go out into town to do different types of local ministry. This is just preparation to our BIG outreach come April. Here are some of the ministries.

Metro – a local neighborhood kids ministry where we go out poor neighborhoods to play games, sing songs, give a lesson, and hand out snacks.

University – we go to the local university and do a photo project by asking the students, “Who is God to you?” and they then write the answer to their question on their hand. We then take a photo of their answer. This is an amazing way to start conversation.

Homeless – we head downtown at night to feed the homeless bread and coffee….and then just talk to them about life and God.

Salvation Army – one Tuesday we all went to the Salvation Army and had the opportunity to serve them breakfast and just get to know the homeless there.

Garbage pick-up – this is where we just go to a local neighborhood to pick up garbage and bless them by just making it a cleaner environment.

Manuel Antonio

This was our last photo trip which was a full weekend!!! YEA…for getting off the base!! We went to Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica which is an amazing beach town. We got to stay in a hostel and visit the national park there. It was a perfect get away for us to spend with good fellowship, good beach time, good food, and a really long HOT car ride J. Here are some photos.

What is God to you?

A PRECIOUS JOURNAL

OK….please read this because this is so powerful….and pure truth. This is a journal entry from a girl here at school. She has had an amazingly scarred and difficult past. It has been such a blessing to see her find true love and freedom in that love. Here is a recent journal she shared with us and it was such a blessing to all of us.

Pride, Selfishness, Fear….or God?

I started off as a whole and before I knew it I had a crack, where did this come from? What do I do? I can’t let anyone see this. I have to fix it, cover it up, do something.

It’s getting bigger and bigger. I can’t let this break in two, should I cry for help? No…..two pieces became four, four became eight, and eight became sixteen….what’s happening? This isn’t supposed to happen. How do I put myself back together? The pieces won’t stick it hurts. I’m suppose to be strong…I’m supposed to be able to put myself back together, am I not?

Maybe no one will notice, maybe they’ll just walk by and won’t see it. I mean, I still have some good pieces left, I can get by…I’m ok….

….Is it prideful to think I’m ok? Or is it fear admitting that I’m not? Maybe it’s both? Who knows? Is it selfish to want to put myself back together? Am I doubting God just thinking He won’t be able to fix me? Or that He can’t feel what I’m feeling?...

I don’t think that’s it. I want God, but I want to be strong. I want Him to use me but I’m stuck, why can’t I move foreword? Why is it so hard for me to let go? Help me…my heart is broken, I can’t seem to fix it. I don’t want to be prideful, this pain is slowly tearing me down. What do I do? I need an answer.

Should I leave it in the past? should I stop thinking about it? I mean I try but it somehow always catches up to me. Show me! Show me what I should do, where I should go. Should I yell? Should I cry? Because I want to cry but I just can’t seem to do it on my own. I’m scared….

Am I alone in this? I, I, I, me, me, me…pride, selfish, fear…when is it going to end?

(God speaking)…I’m here, turn around….can’t you see ME? I’ve been here all the time. Look at ME, listen to what I have to say.

I need you to let ME completely break you so that I can start from scratch. I need you to let ME do my job. I know you’re hurting. It’s ok to be hurt; it’s ok to feel pain. I’m here, my arms are open…so cry, cry like you’ve never cried before…stop trying to put your broken heart back together again, because the more you try the smaller the pieces get. You’re hurting yourself even more. Can’t you see that when you hurt…I hurt. That your pain is my pain, your wounds are my wounds, your sadness is my sadness…

Remember, I will never leave you, but I need you to trust in Me. Set your fears aside and trust that I’ll put you back together. Stop trying to stick all those broken pieces together because it won’t work.

That happiness you say you have, that smile across your face…I want to make it real, more real than you can ever imagine. I want to take your fears away, your pride away. I want to hold you, hold you in my arms until you start to cry and when you are crying…I’m weeping. When you feel pain, I’m hurting. I will never ever let you go…together we will get through this, but I need you to let ME into your heart so we can start over. Let ME be your happiness, let ME be the one who puts a smile on your face. Let ME completely restore what has been taken from you. Don’t be afraid.

I ask this of you…don’t be afraid. Break yourself completely and lay everything on ME. I will take your burdens, I will rebuild what has been broken, I will renew your pieces and make them a whole again. You will be stronger than ever…better than you can possibly imagine. It’s ok to give up….it’s ok to give up….

Give ME the chance to do what I need to do to make your life completely new and set you free in such a way that you will never have to feel like that again. So don’t hold back, come with ME and walk forward in FREEDOM!!

REMEMBER, I LOVE YOU

READ: Isaiah 61:1-4

Leading Worship

Soooo…last week my two amazing friends Casey, Jessica, and I got the opportunity to lead worship for our DTS class. Super fun…then after…the head of the YWAM School of Worship asked us to lead base worship on Monday….with everyone from the whole base…yikes. Anywho…so we did…and it was the most fun I have had leading worship. It was such a blessing and I have never sang with such talented young ladies as these two. Such a blast. The Lord provides in many unique ways…LOVE IT.

The three of us getting to lead together....Jess, Casey and I

Look at little Kelsey in the corner worshiping it up

Jess on the keys

I ABSOLUTELY loved singing with them....they are the most talented girls and it's sooo much fun to be able to blend our voices so well with these ladies. Yea, for harmony!