Glory

These last couple weeks in India have been so spread across the board from our time in Pune to our time in downtown Delhi and even now to our time in Faridabad outside Delhi. Its been a time good time of ministry but also a lot of inconsistency. I feel like more than anything that has really defined our time up to this point. A number of times before we left as we prayed we really felt like God was speaking about interruptions and that ministry would really be in the small things. As I look now from a birds eye view at these last couple weeks I really see how God intended that to be. The moments of sitting with people and just doing life. While on the train we met a guy from Kashmir (disputed territory in northern India) named Danish who has spent a lot of time with us since weve been in Delhi. While in the hotel some of the girls made friends with some other backpackers who ended up coming to dinner with us most nights. These both were small moments but they were interuptions that turned into something so much more. By making ourselves available for God to use in the times that we find incontinent or inopportune weve allowed him to build a relationship with people who see a difference in the way we live. Weve allowed God to show his glory in the small things and found the joy in those.

The other day as a couple of us walked around old Delhi we came across this random building which was down a side alley and was mostly decaying, it had gorgeous carvings though so we decided to explore. Not only was the inside amazing but we discovered from a local that it used to be the courtyard for one of the kings on India. In this small back alley lie a building nearly 500 years old, forgotten and abandoned by the ones who once found it so amazing. Another man showed us a staircase along the inside that wandered to the roof. From the roof was one of the most amazing views of the old city and the red fort. It always amazes me how God works in the small things. The things so intricate and simple yet completely within his design always seen to be the things that bring me the most joy. The sheer fact that he allowed a day like this with a roof overhead and a family who loves and cares from me is a sign his glory. It is shown in the smile of a kid, the love of a friend, the food we eat everyday, or so many others if we really choose to look for it and find it each day. Find the joy in the glory that he shows you today in the small things.

Hope in Pune

I want to introduce you to some friends that I have met during my time in Pune two weeks ago. We worked at an orphanage there which recuses street kids whose parents dont want to or cant provide for them. Most of the kids moms are either prostitutes or beggars. This will be a little more of a photo blog this week instead of wording.....

Jashmim and Pritim: a woman who worked at the orphanage and her son (ie andrew and zach combined via India)

Lata: most amazing little girl, always smiling and happy. some of her siblings are still on the street.

Siddharth

The land of colors....

India! Yes, we are finally here. Its hard to believe its taken this long. It feels like so much time has gone by already, I cant believe it. We got to Mumbai on Tuesday and stayed the night in the city at a hostel so that we could meet the guys on Wednesday at the Mumbai airport. After we picked up our remaining two team members at the airport we headed on to Pune to stay at an orphanage there for about a week. Tuesday we will be heading out for Delhi where we will spend the remaining 5 weeks. At this point we are not totally sure about what we will be doing. We feel as a team its where we are supposed to be and God has given us a pretty good idea of what he wants us to do, now its just a matter of us connecting with the right people to do it. This last half a week at the orphange has been an interesting one adapting to the culture and people. Even having been in India before myself there are a lot of things I had forgotten, mainly the feeling of being a white woman walking around in a country run in which men are held to a higher level than women. For those of you who have walked around Rosarito or some parts of Mexico it is very similar to that. The stares are unbearable at times. Its funny of all the things that I remembered of India the first time around that is not one of them. Despite that this last week has been an intersting time. We had the opportunity to get punjabis and saris this past week to better fit in locally (dont worry a photo will be coming shortly). This morning we also went to a local service at a very large church this morning which was pretty cool. We all wore traditional attire which was pretty cool. I gotta run now but will write again shortly!

And the travel time continues.....

So the last almost 2 weeks have been slewn with travel through approximately 4 countries and one Tuesday we will finally arrive in India making it 5 countries. I didnt get stamps from all of them, I know bummer. Let me just enrich your knowledge though with our exciting travels and the stops along the way.

On march 23rd we left the base in San Pedro, parting with some of the students from our lecture dts group (:( ), to catch a about 4 hr boat to Chetemal, Mexico where we then went through customs (yes I got a green light-those of you who have been through Mexico know what I am talking about), then got a taxi to the bus terminal where we took a 5-6 hr bus ride to Cancun, Mexico. we then stayed in Cancun for two nights at the YWAM base there and made a lovely breakfast (brittany and I were quite proud of ourselves-scrambled eggs, pico, tortillas, and homefried potatoes oh yea!). Then on March 25th we took a plane from Cancun to Philly to New York Laguardia going through US customs in Philly (never knew you went through customs in your first US city you enter-the things you learn). Then we took a taxi to JFK where we had a lovely dinner and PEETE's(!!!!!) (for those of you that live in CA you know my obcession with Peete's). We then got a flight to Quatar (near Saudi Arabia) on Quatar Airways (actually amazing flight). Im justv going to take a moment here to say, I know the name raises a few eyebrows about the airline but it was pretty freaking amazing, probably the best plane food I have ever had and we got Ben and Jerry's ice cream and oreos on the flight!!!!! Anyway, to continue on, we had a slight layover in the Doha airport in Quatar (no I didnt get a stamp, I know total bummer-Im gonna try on the way back though) followed by our flight to Bangkok, Thailand where we arrived on the afternoon of the 28th and have been since then. (picture to the left is some of the girls on our team rocking the thai pants making our jet lag faces)

All that to be said, we have been in Thailand this last week waiting for our visas to India which take about 5 business days. We have been able to do some good ministry, though, while we have been here as well as get over jet lag and do some cultural orientation. We have done a prayer walk at one of the temples in Bangkok, have been to the slums two times (once to meet elderly and work with a group from the Ruth Center and once to help lead a bible study for the elderly and play with kids), and we picked up trash along the streets. Our time in the slums have been, as always on my travels, so good. It is probably one of those things that people least look foward to when they travel, but it is always sooooo good.

Being in a foreign country and confronted with the sheer poverty that exists there is always a hard thing to see; it makes you question what you spend your money on. Do we really appreciate what we have and how we got it, or do we take it for grated because if we loose it we can just get in our car and drive around the corner to get more? 2/3 of the world exists in a state of poverty in comparison to our developed world and yet we rarely take our eyes off the pretty tourist centers when we travel.

Thailand is a country deeply involved in Budhism as well as ancestor worship which can be seen everywhere. Not only are the spectacular temples all over the country with large gold plated Buddha statues but at nearly every business and every corner there are miniture idols that people pray too and place flowers and other offerings around. Each time I enter a culture so different from my own where idol worship is so heavy it stops me dead in my tracks. There are cultures like Thailand that are so beatiful with generous and loving people, warm hearted and kind and yet completely sucked into their idols. It makes you realy think how it all started.... As I sit here on Easter Sunday on my bunk bed in Thailand, I remenised back to our worldview week back on base and Chris' talk about Issac and Ishamel from the Old Testament. The battle waged between two brothers and they both became the father of a house of religion that still stands today. Our world today is never at a lack for choice in which God to follow and so many choose one without seeing it all, without looking at what it is they are serving.

2000 years ago a man died on a tree bearing the sins of the world in an agonizing death and then rose from the dead three days later much to everyone astonishment even his closest followers. He did this not because of anger or judgement but because of love. He willingly put himself on the tree when he could of ended it at any moment but he didnt because of his great love, "greater love than this has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends". 2000 years ago a friend laid down his life so that I could choose to take it up and walk in new life. We all make the decision of what or whom will be our God and I pray we never take the choice lightly because when we do decide we lay a line.

Gone are the days....

In two days we embark to the next phase of our DTS one filled with hope and excitement. These last 3 months has been some of the most challenging but also the most enriching months of my life. I have built some amazing friendships that will hopefully continue to span a lifetime and will change and develop as the seasons of our lives continue to change. It is sad to leave some of our team behind as we join with the sailors to create our team for India. Rene, Marcella, Pete, Richie and I will join with Brittany, Mary, Becky, and Luke from the sailors to create our new team for outreach. Hillary and Alyssa will be going with Lael and Kara from the sailors to Nicaragua.

I know I haven’t written in a couple weeks so I will spend a couple minutes talking about that before I share about what’s next. Three weeks ago we had our faith week where we put into practice what it really looks like to have faith in God not testing him but believing in his goodness. For the sake of future students and any of you who may be inspired to come down and do a DTS with DP I won’t be sharing what we did but I can tell you that my faith in God was definitely tested and that it was an interesting couple of days. I can say though without one ounce of doubt that the dad that I love and serve is a provider, deeply cherishes his children and watches every step even when we don’t trust him and we fall down. This was followed by our mini outreach week where we did some ministry locally here on the island. We lead a bible study for a group of men in town who do woodworking, lead a youth group night, and lead Sunday school for two different ages of kids. The youth group was probably my favorite night out of the events, maybe because of my background. ;) I had also been building a friendship with one of the guys on our team’s little sister so I was able to really hang out with her a little more which was pretty cool. That week we also had the privilege of welcoming the sailors to the base for the first time. Needless to say it had been a lot of prayers and a long time coming waiting for the sailors to come back into town. The last two weeks have been such a crazy rush of things I can’t even believe that they have already passed. Two weeks ago we had a speaker named Bethann. It always amazes me how God uses our stories to pull us together showing us that in him we all have a similar story of redemption. Even more than that though Bethann has a background in counseling so we were able to have some great one on one time talking about that and ideas she had for me for member care. She also had brought with her to the base (totally unrequested) all of the DVD’s for her certification in counseling thorugh the Christian counseling accredidation program, so when I come back in June I can start watching those and getting an actual accredidation for counseling!!!!! I love how God is just like here, I just wanna give you this just because I love you. We somehow have this idea that God only wants to give us the bear minimum of what we need when in reality our daddy just wants to shower us in the abundance of his amazing and gracious love of us. Allow yourself to be spoiled in his goodness and love today. He wants to pour it out, believe in his goodness! Bethann was followed up this past week by Dean Sherman who spoke on spiritual warfare. The sailors stayed docked at the base this week and the team from Belmophan came to join us for the week of lectures. Needless to say we definately had a full base. It was so cool though to see them again after so many weeks and see what God had been doing in their team and through each other. It was a crazy week of questions. I almost had to laugh 2 days in lecture we only got through like 3 slides each day because we were asking so many questions...haha! I guess the Holy Spirit had something else in mind. 

As for outreach we will be leaving Tuesday morning via water taxi to Chetamal, Mexico followed by a bus to Cancun, Mexico and a flight to somewhere in the states then to Bangkok, Thailand for a week to get visas then onto Northern India for our outreach. We will be spending the first two weeks in Pune, India at a orphanage. I am hoping we will have internet but I am not really sure yet. I am also hoping to get a SIM chip for India and will get that number out as soon as I get a chance. I know that isn’t a lot of info but hopefully I will be able to put up some more again soon!

Also, I will be doing a newsletter with a bunch of pictures and info from the lecture phase, if you are interested in seeing what’s been going on (via pictures) and hearing about some of the ways God moved please either leave a comment or email me and I will make sure it gets sent out to you. Love you all and wish you could be here with me!

New Possibilities

I have told you for a couple weeks now that I had some exciting news. In light of the last several weeks I felt like now would be the appropriate time to share with you all what God has done during my time here. As most of you know about a year ago I really felt like God started preparing me for something more. I came to believe that that was a calling to partner with local churches and work with them to really support the missioinaries that they cared for. As I started to discover what that meant I came across the counseling training progarm that YWAM offered that dealt heavely with missionaries and a number of social justice issues. In looking into that deeper I found out that it required the completion of a DTS which in partial is what lead me to DP. As part of the DTS that I am at there is an internship requirement. I had been praying about what God wanted to do with that time and where he wanted me to go. There were a couple good options that I had come across but the more and more I prayed I really felt like God telling me it was my choice. As I talked with the staff here about options, and I feeling like I needed more experience in the mission field myself as well as working with missionaries from not just a church side but an organization, they presented the opportunity for me to come back to DP. They had a need for an intern and outreach facilitator which would work closely with the students helping to coordinate internships, check on them while on internship, create a database of possible internships, and connect with past alumni, in additon to helping organize outreaches. This would allow me to get a good understanding of a number of different cultures and what working as a missionary in that culture is like and counseling them through what is going on there, as well as work as a missionary myself. The initial internship would be 6 months instead of 4 like the typical internship so that I could see my own school as well as the April one thruogh and begin to help the September school with their choices. In additon, it would be with the hope of coming on staff after that. The staff asked me to pray about the option, and over the next couple days I continued to talk with them, as well as fast about the exciting option God had presented me with. After seeking God on it I really felt like it was a green light. Therefore, in late May I will be coming back to Belize with the plan of returning back to DC for a couple months in November with the intention of coming back down here after that. I am not forgetting or neglecting the original vision that God gave me I am simply allowing God to train me a little more before I am able to realize that goal. In addition, DP is hoping to do the counseling school in the near future and at that time I will be able to be a part of the school as a student while also being on staff which will greatly change my fees for the school. I am continuing to hold it in open hands allowing God to do with it what he wills, but I am excited for this new adventure in my life and seeing what God has in store for me through this new ministry and faith in his plan.

Broken and burnt on the lips...

As usual I'm not really even sure where to start, these last couple weeks have probably been some of the most difficult, but also the most rewarding weeks of my DTS yet. I apologize that I haven't written about them yet but they all kind of interconnected, especially emotionally for me. I seriously could write about them each for a page but I will spare you all the details, if you are interested in more info on them just ask and we can chat all about it. Its been three weeks of intense intropection really examining what choices I have made and the things that have happened in the past and how if I don't acknowledge and recognize them they will continue to effect me long into the future.

About 3 weeks ago Matt Attkins from the Seattle area came to speak on the Fathers Heart and how we relate to people as a result of how we understand God and ourselves in light of him. We view God mostly through the lens of our relationships with our earthly fathers and the things that they gave us or failed to give us. Many of you know my relationship with my own dad has had its ups and downs but we defanately haven't been close. I never really imagined how this would effect my relationship with God or even that it had. Our father wants to pour blessings down on us, but we have to acknowledge that and be willing to recieve them, that sounds funny I know but we have so many things that hinder us from really recieving the blessings that God has for us: satan, our fallen nature, the need to expose ourselves to God, loveless teaching, wrong father experiences, and unforgiveness (“like drinking poison and expectings someone else to die”). All of these things were wrapped up in my own relationship with my dad whether I realized them or not. And, to really be able to recieve Gods blessing more than anything we have to walk in faith and obedience to recieve his blessing. To rid ourselves of such behaviors we have to acknowledge the sins in our lives just as I had to do with my own dad. I had to acknowledge what I felt as though I did or didn't recieve from him and I had to forgive him of that and I had to seek forgiveness for my part in our lack of relationship. I wasn't simply a victim of circumstance I had played my part. I think that is probably the most difficult part to acknowledge because its so much easier to just believe things happened to us rather than that we were an active participant in the process. This introspection continued the following week with John Murphy who is in charge of the Snowboarders DTS in Denver, CO. He came and talk on relationships. Yea, I can definately say that I have had my fair share of failures in this area in the past, especially before I was a believer. Really though it all comes back to the father once again and understanding your place with him. We have to figure out are we acting as a son (daughter) or a servant. Do you enjoy and believe in the inheritance of your heavenly farher, believing that he has nothing but the highest and best in store for your life, and he only wishes to shower that on you, or are you one without inheritance simply controlled by the whims of your master. We each have to make that choice of which we are going to be and either we do it conciously or subconciously but either way we make that decision. I challenege you to all examine which are you? I know for me it isnt even a question. I will do what it takes to be a daughter of the most high, believing that God has a plan that is the highest and best for my life, and I will willing lay down what I need to and address whatever I need to in order to see that dream realized in my own life. There are so many qualties that you will exhibit on each I can't even name and explain them all here (again ask if you would like to talk more). In the end it really comes down to probably 3 parts for me: radical obedience, doing life with God not just for him and realizing God's has a plan that is the highest and best for my life. Really all else comes from these parts. In addition to all this, we talked in length about relationships and marriage and what it really takes to make a marriage succesfull, super insightful. There are so many things that have simply become common place today, including divorce and its all stems from not really knowing how to relate to the opposite sex, if we allow it to persist now and don't do anything to change it the next generation will just accept it. We have the power through learning how to do relationships right now, to change what the next generation accepts! Somewhere deep inside, or for some of us right on the surface as believers, we have this fear that what God will bless us with in this life will be proportional to the sin that we did before becoming a believer. Like because we did X God would never want to bless us with Y. What about what we know of God and who he is in scripture would ever bring us to believe this I don't know, but it is simply not true. It goes against everything in his character and nature as a loving and true God. If that is all that you get from this entry I pray that it seeps deep into your soul. You have a loving and true father that seeks to bless you with the highest and best for you regardless of what you have done in the past and without regard to how he blesses anyone else. Honestly, I don't know if we even want to believe this anymore, if we are really honest with ourselves. If we did acknowledge this then we would have to admit that maybe it's worth letting go of the expectations that the world places on us to be “perfect”, that there is always something better, and that, really, we can achieve it if we just try harder. Because once we realize all of that is just crap, we have to let it go. That's scary because it means we aren't in control anymore. The most amazing thing about that though is that simple fact: we aren't in control anymore. I cannot even tell you how freeing that moment is, when you realize you don't have to worry because someone's got it covered. And, let me tell you, he is way better at planning than I could ever even hope to be and he knows me better than I even know myself.I thought that I understood this before I came to DP but what I have come to realize though if that I only understood a fraction of what God intended for this trusting relationship to be. In reality it is so much greater than I ever thought. The staff here have talked a lot about holding everything with open hands allowing your dreams and desires to be taken and molded by God and allowing him to hand you those amazing blessings in return.

During both weeks God brought me to such a place of brokenness about my past, and the ways that I had failed him, even as a believer, rivaling when I was saved. There are those moments in our lives where God just smacks us in the face like in Isiah and we are able to cry “woah is me I am a man of unclean lips”. As we acknowledge these things we are confronted with two choices either to acknowledge our sins and the ways we have failed God or to simply ignore them and opt to live in denial and allow them to furthur poison us. In these I was broken, falling before my savior and seeking his will for my life because that was all I had left that I could do.

Outreach Location!!!

I know it has been a long time coming trust me our team feels that just as much as you all do. Its been an amazing 6 weeks thus far and its hard to believe we are already in week 7. I thought I’d take a break in writing and tell you all about our outreach location that we decided on today. I will be posting about last week probably in the next couple days. So this morning during intercession time they presented our options for outreach: Nicaragua and India. They presented both the options and then asked us to go and pray about them and see where God was leading us. They gave us each a piece of paper and had us write our name and our decision on the paper and then hand it in. It always amazes me how quickly and clearly God speaks when you are seeking him on something. There have been decisions in my life that God has taken his time on, but as I have really developed my relationship with him and dug into what he was asking of me and continued to walk in obedience I have become more aware of his voice speaking. And with that I have seen God speak so clearly and quickly to me it’s been amazing. I think so often we hear God speak to us and we either choose to not believe it was God or to outright ignore what he is saying because we don’t want it. There are times though when we simply have to trust in his plan and not ours and walk in obedience. For me this was one of those times. Before I even got out of my seat to leave the room to pray I knew what God was telling me and as I prayed he confirmed it again over and over. Even as I wrestled with it he was so clear. Asking, do you believe I have the best for you like Jeremiah 29:11 says? Do you trust me? And the answer is always a resounding YES! So therefore, (drum roll please!) I will be heading to India along with 4 other members of my team from the Divers DTS as well as the entire Sailors DTS group from DP in late March. We don’t have any of the details really yet other than the additional cost ($2575) and that they are still working on the details and trying to determine what the best options are for our team.

I know I have been putting off the other big announcement for a little while but I still am going to have to wait till next week to share. I will definitely be sharing about it next week though. And I will also be sharing about the last week sometime toward the end of the week.

Rescue!

As with diving instruction weeks this past one was absolutely insane. In both the topics this week we learned about rescue. The importance of the steps in rescuing someone diving and the importance of the the role that we play in rescuing souls. Both can have life long impact and can apply the law of addition (we also worked on our leadership book this week- John Maxwell, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership). Chris (the director) was back this week teaching both the lectures for class as well as the diving instruction. Its amazing how as we started to explore both, there were so many practical similarities in diving of things we were learning about in class. I wont talk about everything that happened this week as it has been probably one of the biggest weeks yet but I thought I'd share a couple of things that really were amazing. I will be doing a special post next week to share some really exciting news that transpired this past week. As for that all I can say is that Dad has been working in some truly amazing ways and been aligning some very cool things in the process. So as promised here are some highlights of the last week:

Class— The gospel has spread across the eternity of the Old and New Testaments spanning the same message in both. God gives amazing context to his story (gospel=gods tale) for us to understand that through time his message hasn't changed. The message to go and share the gospel is mirrored in the story to Abram in Genesis 12 in the same way as it is to the disciples in Matthew 28. Both express a top line blessing between God and his people and a bottom line between his people blessing the world and all to bring Glory to God through blessing. As New Covenant believers it is so easy to discount certain aspects from the Old Testament as not applying to right now. Yet, the Bible is one book, one story of the amazing love of the creator of this universe loving his creation beyond anything that makes as sense to his creation, beyond what we could hope for or even desire. The even more amazing thing is that when Christ died and the veil of the temple was torn as is written in Matthew 27:51 and Luke 23:45, not only was the literal barrier between us and God torn but as was the figurative barrier on the spiritual level allowing us to come freely to God. Yet, for some reason we don't accept that,and we lock ourselves back in the Old Testament life and the Old Covenant of rules and unbearable yoke that weighs us down and doesn't allow us to accept the story and blessing of the gospel that the father desires in our lives. He hands us the freedom and so desires to bless us but we cant accept that. We have to believe that we have to somehow earn our salvation or earn the gifts that God wants to give us instead of just accepting what he has for us and walking freely into that, dropping the yoke and living a life of freedom and abundance like John 10:10 speaks of.I urge you to realize that we live in the New Covenant. One filled with freedom and grace, love and an abundance of blessings that Dad desires to shower down on you if only you step forward and receive them and him.

Diving-- Although it was a lot of work this week it was also really rewarding and really one of the coolest things was seeing some of the parallels in the needs to study and really be prepared and understand what is coming. We did a number of practice practicals this week in the pool then we spent the whole day yesterday doing EFR (Emergency First Responder) training, tests for Rescue Diver as well as EFR in the morning and then doing all of our open water rescue scenarios in the afternoon. Lets just say it was a long and tiring day. We had four scenarios to do: 1.with a responsive diver underwater with a large cut from hitting something and was out of air, 2.where there was a missing diver underwater that we had to find, 3.with a responsive diver at the surface who was breathing that we had to tow back to the boat 4.an unresponsive diver at the surface who we had to do CPR to and then tow back to the boat which was more than 5 min swimming while stripping all their equipment and then get them into the boat for transport. As you can imagine the last one took a lot of work and wore us out pretty good. In the end though it was also a very rewarding time. Its funny as one of the other girls and I were sitting there we both realized how much we really hoped we would never have to use the training but were realizing how valuable it was to have the information. There are so many things that can go wrong in diving and although a majority of accidents happen from poor judgement there is still such a need to have people prepared to help. Even just knowing the skills of what to do in an accident can be huge to how you respond if you are injured.

Life/Ministry-- this is the section that is probably the most exciting from this week but this is the one you will have to wait for most of the info for..... :) When we went into to renew our visas we also went to Holy Cross School and the San Marco community near by. It is an area very similar to alot of the communities that we spent time in in Africa and in someways much worse. It is a squaters community and pretty much ignored by the rest of the community. We all have those places in our hometown we don't really want to go to or even think about b/c then we would have to acknowledged that they really exist and that we aren't doing anything about it. At this point I will give a little plug for the book I read for my first book report (Share Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution). Probably one of the things that impacted me the most about this is the idea of redistribution. I don't know how many times I've heard God has plenty of resources he can make it happen. What we don't ever acknowledge and should be acknowledging is that WE are the resources. God does want to do amazing things in our world, he wants to cure Aids, he wants to see an end to poverty, he wants every person to have enough food to eat and he wants to use US to do it! Each of us has an amazing talent or resources that God so desperately desires to use (goes perfect with the top line bottom line blessing of the covenants that God makes in the Bible), so why are we so hesitant to do it? Fear that we wont have enough? Pride that we earned it so its “ours” to keep? Are we really that ignorant! I say this knowing that I have done exactly the same. I have sat aside knowing that I had the ability to help someone else in need and I didn't do it because I was concerned with me. How would I be affected? What would I not be able to get? Would I go hungry? But, what if that's what God wants, for us to not have something we want so that someone else has something they need? Ambergris Caye is a destination spot for sure. People could come and visit the island, and like many other places in the world, never see anything but the resorts and scenery if they wanted. That is so not Dad's heart though. He wants us to see the world and its people as it truly is, broken, hurt and desperately crying out for help.

Hope you all enjoyed! I am always available via Skype and would love to chat just shoot me a Facebook for email a couple days before so we can figure out a good time. Classes are mostly in the morning and then studying or other things in the afternoon. Talk to you soon! Also thanks to all the amazing birthday wishes via Facebook was such a cool feeling of how much I am loved.They threw me a party here at the base and was specially gifted with some friends from California, the Johnson's who were able to walk over for the night and brought a package from my mom. Miss you and love you all!

Howling Monkey, Tarantulas and Crocodiles Oh My!

The last week of the month we went to the base in Belmophan (Roaring Creek to be specific) which is about an hour 30 or so from Belize city (unless you take the bus like us which stops at every driveway with a person by it along the way) which in that case makes it closer to 3 hours. We took the water taxi to and from Belize city as well which was about an hour 30 ride as well. Not as fast as the flight but cheaper for sure. There is a DTS running at the same time there as well so we spent the week of lectures with the DTS joining together learning with them. It is in the interior so the base was much more like a camp then ours (see the photos at the end). It is waterlocked on three sides by different creeks that intersect together. Totally a jungle setting though. The first night we were there they took us down to the creek (it was also really hot when we first got there) where we were later informed the crocidiles live (about 50 ft up from where we were). Lets just say that didn't go over to well, haha. We also were introduced to the howler monkeys that night. I was envisioning some sort of orangatang looking thing that had a high pitched squeal sort of noise. They are nothing like that! It is a deep and creepy voice in a totally Jason meets Freddy kind of way. We also had the pleasure of spending the week watching for tarantula holes, little did I know they live in holes in the ground waiting for something to fall down there. Or like the guys in our group ventured to find out if you poke them out with a stick. The guys had a blast holding them, the girls definately didnt go there, we avoided at all cost. We officially had arrived in the jungle! Our speaker for the week was Jason Andrews a local from Roaring Creek, who spoke on the Character and Nature of God. There are so many aspects to him I dont really even know how we fit it into such a short time. Most of the week we spent talking about God's love and what it means for him to love us in a full and life breathing way. The amazing thing is that God is love, it all comes from that and it all goes to that. He is LOVE! Although the lectures were good one of the really highlights was spending time with the other DTS students and getting to know them, four of which were from Belize. Every morning for breakfast and every evening for dinner Marcella and myself would go to the kitchen to make the meals with one of the girls from Belize, Renika. We had such a good time just enjoying each others company and learning about cooking from each other, and some really awesome converstations just being honest with each other. I just love how Dad does that, binding us each together with one common thread, so it doesnt matter your background, your history, your origin, you have something in common. It was just such a sweet time of being with my sisters. It was an interesting and hard week, but in the end it really helped us as a team to bond together and trust each other. The bridge in the middle picture was so scary, it was a cable suspended bridge with these wood slats that totally werent stable at all. Rene actually broke half of one. There was totally a spot too that had like slots way spaced out. sooooo scary!

Biblical Worldview, Diving and The Book of John

Wow! I cant believe we are already getting ready to head into week four. It seems like life and time have just flew by. These last two weeks have been absolutely amazing. Thought I would give you a little run down.....Tomorrow we leave to go to the Belmophan base (capital city) through Friday.

Week before last: the base director came and did our lectures as well as our first dive instructions. Side note: the program is run with a sailing and diving school simutaneously and last school they had some issues with customs so about 2 weeks shy of the end the boats had to leave the country and they are still in Hondurus waiting for all the customs stuff to get figured out so the sailers are currently in Hondurus. The Lynn and Chris are the directors of the base but Chris has been living in Hondurus with the boats while Lynn has been here on the base with us. He flew in for our first week of lectures though and taught on Biblical Worldview and World Religions. We spent the week expanding our understanding of why we think the way we do, very much like a psych class but one specifically designed for you. Was really cool to just sit and think about why we think the way we do and understand what we think we know and what we really know especially when it comes to Dad. There are a lot of things that we think we really know when in reality if we really think about it it is just things we think. We also talked quite a bit about other religions and how they were started and what people who are in the belief actually believe. In addition to all that, we did our first dive certificates. There were 3 of us going for our advanced and advanced open water (they go together) which included some book work but mostly just diving. We did 5 dives including a deep dive, a night dive, a fish id dive, a bouyancy dive and a navagation dive. The deep one and the fish id were probably my favorite one. On the deep one we did this math problem above water and then did another one when we were at depth to see how much the nitrogen at depth effected our brain. It was pretty cool to see the difference in speed when you are at depth. Needless to say it definately took longer to think of the answer under the water...hahaha. The fish id was also really cool because the 3 advancded divers basically got to swim around part of the reef ourselves to id the fish while the basic guys fisnished up one of their dives. There were so many fish it was really unbelievable. Weve seen a bunch of rays as well. I actually almost kneeled on one the other day (they like to hide under the sand). During the night dive we did this thing where we all turned off our lights and got in a circle and moved our hands around and saw all the phosporesence from the organisms in the water. Was kinda exciting to see something in person that I learned about in school. :)

last week: our speaker was Jon Peterson from the Seattle area. I have to say I know we have only had 2 speakers so far but they have both been really cool and totally down to earth not to mention totally excited about what we are doing. They want to get to know us each and talk with us about our lives and P for us. This past week we talked about Bible study focusing on the book of John. It was so cool he had us read the entire book each day in a different way. We read quickly forwards, backwards, outloud, examining it for the I am statements and what Jesus claims and now this weekend we are praying through it. Its amazing how each time something new sticks out even when you have seen it a dozen times and you can anticipate what it going to happen next you still find something new. We also memorized the important pillars in each chapter for the book, yes all 21. It was pretty amazing to see how the story of life flows through each book just like a novel would. So often we just focus on one verse or one chapter in a book instead of the whole thing and thus miss out on a huge portion of the story. What really stood out the most to me is this simple conversation between Peter and Jesus in Chapter 21. At first glance it seems so simple and totally not that big of a deal and yet when you look into the heart of it in the greek it is something so amazing. Here is Jesus talking to Peter after the denial and after he has rose again and 3 times we asks Peter if he loves him. Just as 3 times Peter denied Jesus before he went to the cross. Jesus cries Peter do you agape me and Peter responds yea I philleo you, again he asks Peter do you agape me and Peter says yea I philleo me, then he asks Peter do you even philleo me and finally he responds you know my heart and yet he still says I philleo you and Jesus ends with then feed my sheep. It is such an amazing picture of the love that Dad has for us and all we respond with is yea I love you like my brother. Yet, at the heart of it he dosent want our brotherly love he wants the love that would sacrifice everything we held dear willingly laying it down to run to him like the father runs to the prodigal son, not caring how stupid we look or how much people will respond only bothering to be concerned with the deep passionate love we cary for our savior. So I ask in response do you agape Jesus?

Meet the Team

Name: Hillary Klatt

Age: 18

Home: San Clemente, CA
Interesting thing: she loves musicals and has been in musical theatre her whole life

Name: Alyssa Swander

Age: 19

Home: Champlain, Minnesota

Intersting thing: has worked at a summer camp in the past and 

wants to work in camping ministry

Name: Peter (Pete) Zalivar

Age: 19

Home: San Pedro, Belize (city of the island we are on)

Interesting thing: can make intersting accents (ie Western, Bristish, Jamacian), his dad is also a local pastor

Name: Richie Tzib

Age: 17

Home: San Pedro, Belize

Intersting thing: makes odd/funny noises when laughing (ie Santa) and also a scary high pitched one that is totally crazy

Name: Marcella de Waard

Age: 21
Home: Hendrik Ido Ambacht, Holland
Interesting thing: like baking and animals, her and her husband owned two rabbits before they left -mr and mrs rabbit (totally cute they showed up some photos!), she also has a law degree

Name: Rene de Waard

Age: 24

Home: Hendrik Ido Ambacht, Holland

Interesting thing: he loves to dive and used to be a gardener for a living

Orientate

(photo from the plane flying into the island) That is truly the word of the week. I am currently sitting at the computer in the library on base while the wind howls behind me in the front of the property. We have spent the last couple days being orientated to the base, Belizian food and people and learning about the program in general. (fyi-the food is very common Caribbean style food with rice and beans of some sort during lunch most days) There is a woman Laura who is from near Corozal (in Belize) who cooks lunch and so that meal is typically very Belizian and verrryyyy yummy. We have 7 people on our DTS in total including a couple from Holland and two locals from Ambergris Caye (the island we are on) as well as two other girls from the states. A truly international team, which we are all very excited and encouraged about. Its been interesting already in seeing how we each interact together from our different languages, cultures and backgrounds. I will be introducing you to each of the people on my team in the coming months to give you all a better idea of what life looks like for me right now.

As well as doing orientation we have already started digging into our material for classes which include memorization and meditation passages weekly as well as a LOT of reading. This week we focused on the book of Haggai. I have to admit, although I have read it, I have never really studied it much less meditated on it. One of our team leaders Jeff challenged us to look at what this book meant to us in modern day, in light of looking at ourselves as the temple. As I thought and meditated on this I was completely struck by how much we as modern day followers often neglect the temple of our bodies like the Israelites did to the temple. Just as they physically neglected the temple instead choosing to focus on other aspects of their life we in turn tend to become complacent or lazy in our relationship with Dad effecting the spiritual part of the temple and sometimes even in maintaining our physical health effecting the physical aspect of the temple. It is so easy to become distracted by the things of the world, even the things that don't seem bad. Instead of keeping our singular focus on him our eyes begin to stray making even spending that daily time with Dad so difficult. We become consumed with sports, work, kids, or even ministry and allow those things to take root ahead of Dad. We choose comfort instead of becoming uncomfortable for God and choosing a life that is wholly surrendered and diligent in pursuing him. In the end our efforts are seen through the harvest. If we become and stay complacent then we will reap what we have sowed. Yet, if we acknowledge where we have failed and seek out his guidance we can reorientate ourselves back to him. I have been challenged as a result of truly examining what I am orientating myself with and to? Is it to the things of the world or to the things of God? Each of us has to ask ourselves that question and truly discern what the answer is in order to proceed forward in our walk. It is in the end, one of the only things that matters. If we aren't orientating ourselves to God then everything else will be effected and it will all fall to the wayside.