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.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
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!
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!
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