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!