The Final Stretch....

Wow... I can't believe we'll be leaving Guatemala for Texas in 8 days. This outreach has gone by so fast! I have loved the time we have spent here in Guatemala City!
Tomorrow we are leaving here to spend a week in Puerto Barrios, which is on the coast... hopefully we'll get a chance to hang out at the beach. I'm pretty tan now, but it would be nice to just relax at the beach :)
We have spent time at a lot of really cool ministries:
YWAM Guatemala, Casa Shalom, a soup kitchen....etc.
We were really able to be fairly consistent in our ministry because we got to return to the same places every week, so we really got to know the people we were hanging out with. 
The places that affected me the most were definitely the orphanages... wow! What precious children! If I had the means, i would be coming home with like, five kids. Each time we went to an orphanage or the garbage dump, i spent time with a precious, darling little child, and it broke my heart to leave them. The kids from the garbage dump were really dirty and starving for attention, and some of them were so emotionally wounded... I spent 2 hours trying to get this little girl to smile, and she had been hurt so badly by someone that she barely looked at me, and at some points she looked like she wanted to smile but she didn't know how. :( I finally convinced her to let me pick her up and swing her around, and she told me she liked it and wanted me to do it again, but you couldn't tell that by her face. Then I told her she could come sit in my lap, and she was really really hesitant... it was so sad. I told her i was her friend and i wasn't going to hurt her, so after awhile, she let me set her in my lap. She was sitting up straight and rigid for a full 15 seconds, and then she relaxed and leaned back against me, and eventually started petting my arm. That was one of the best moments of outreach!! I got to show that little girl that someone does care for her, and that God loves her. wow... still really makes me cry :)
There was a 1 month old little boy that i met at an orphanage, named Diego. His face had little white bumps scattered on it, and he had a few crusts on his head...i wiped him off as best i could, and just held him for three hours. He fell asleep, woke up hungry, i fed him and burped him, then he fell back to sleep. and he was the most precious little boy with the sweetest little baby laugh, and he was really ticklish :D I just prayed over him the whole time, that God would be preparing a family for him and keeping him safe... he was so sweet.
Before this outreach, our team was praying, "God, break our hearts for what breaks yours."
and he did. :) and we will never be the same!

Soup kitchen serving line :)

My friend from Tierra Nueva Daycare :)

Hello from Guatemala! :)

What a wonderful country! :) Everything here is so different and interesting and beautiful. We are blessed to have the most flavorful fruit i have ever tasted, for every single meal. I have really enjoyed being able to have quiet times in the hammock on the rooftop balcony. It's been sunny and warm almost every day. 
We've been working a lot with the homeless and with little kids, which has been really fun, really challenging, and really different. I think that ministering to the homeless is really difficult. We had the opportunity to hand out snacks, sleeping bags, and water to the homeless in Houston, and I just found myself really not knowing what to say. Now we're doing the same thing in a country where we don't speak the language. This is one of the many examples of how God is continually pushing on the boundaries of my comfort zone. :)
Today I gave my testimony for the first time on outreach, at a small church, and i was so nervous. Speaking through a translator takes a lot of the pressure off :)
Anyway, I really like it here a lot! I've had the chance to brush up a lot on my spanish, and learn (what feels like) a little. :) 
I also discovered that i have allergies to the black smoke/smog/exhaust that is all over in the city... my throat got really scratchy and my head is really stuffed now. I was getting headaches, but those have gone away, for now :)

Please be in prayer for:
- Andrea and Andre, a young mom and her son on the team. He has a broken arm and was struggling with a really bad cough for awhile, and it's really wearing on both of them.
- My health... it would be really nice to be able to breathe properly...i want to show off my soccer skills! :)
- direction for after outreach...
     -Come back for School of Evangelism
     -Work, go back to college
- Finances

Thanks everyone! I'll try to update more frequently! :)

 

We had to push our van after it broke down on the highway :)

Stateside Debriefing

Hey everyone! 
I'm back in Lindale on the base for today, then i'll be leaving for Guatemala tomorrow! So excited!

Houston Stateside outreach was awesome! We had the opportunity to minister in several churches and with several ministries reaching out to the homeless. I wish i had time to write about all of the great things that happened, but here are a few awesome things.


 Highlights: 
- I learned that quiet times are *imperative* on outreach. If i went without for a day, it was very obvious in how i acted and in how i felt. and each day, my quiet times were exactly in line with what i needed to hear to get through the day! it was amazing :)
- We were able to put on a vacation bible school after school in two of the poorer neighborhoods, and we were really able to love on the kids and show them God's heart for them.
- I also had the opportunity to pray for a girl (I felt like God was pointing her out to me) and she ended up crying because i prayed exactly what was on her heart without her even telling me about it. Praise God! She ended up bringing her younger sister up to me for prayer later on in the week because we did a chapel service at her school. God really brought a lot of healing through that!


All in all, stateside was really awesome! pray the same for Guatemala! :)
Love you all, and i'll update again as soon as i get a chance!

 

Photo of the Clincher Drama

On the brink...

Wowzer... almost done with Psychology...!!!!
almost.
I need to catch my breath.
Christmas with my family has been really great :) i love those guys. I'm sad to be leaving tomorrow... it seems like I just got home. :(
However! Exciting things are in store!
Dec. 29 ( i think... :D) i leave for Houston to do street ministry, which is going to be awesome!
January 11 ( i think... :D) we leave for Guatemala!!! *SO* excited for that :) and I'll be gone from home until sometime after Feb. 20th...back just in time for my Birthday ;)

Hope ya'll had a great Christmas! :)

Taking a break from decorating the dorm :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... :)

Hello Friends and Cyber-stalkers! :)

It's so good to be home and have a little time to relax!
I was able to hang out with the youth group on Sunday night and sing Christmas carols to some shut-ins in the area. I look forward to doing it every year :) It was really good to see all of my youth group friends and observe how well everything has carried on since a rather drastic student leardership shift... God is so good! :) He's going to accomplish His purposes in a group that is seeking Him, even when it seems like everything is turning upside down. :) Thanks for such a warm welcome home, into the cold weather, everyone! :)

A picture with my neighbors/boyfriend :)

Where has the time gone!?!

Wow! I cannot believe that two weeks from today i will be at home with my family! It seems like i just got here....
and three weeks from today I will be getting ready to leave for outreach!
We will be spending two weeks working in larger cities in Texas, mostly doing street ministry. Then it's off to Guatemala for a month! :)
So this week is ministry prep week. We've been having classes to learn to teach English, VBS, and to learn a drama.
On top of all the meetings and classes, I am pressing in on the deadline for my online psychology class! yikes!

Please be praying for me during this week, as many people are getting sick and starting to lose focus because it's almost break-time. Keyword: ALMOST. We're not there yet!
Please pray for:
- Focus and smart use of my time
- Good health!
- supernatural energy :)
- A good attitude

Me & Joel at a wedding at Dayspring

Happy December! :)

Okay... So, lately I've been feeling bogged down by all of the stuff I have going on. To the point that things that I would normally really enjoy have become just another thing in my schedule to get through.
Thankfully, that's not where the story ends.. praise Jesus :)
Today while we were praying as a class for direction for our individual futures, God spoke to me "Find joy in all that you do." it was that simple. How could i expect to get through the next few weeks alive and well if i was dreading everything i needed to do?
Sometimes God says just exactly what we need to hear, even if we don't recognize the brilliance of what he's saying to us, and how much it really covers all of what we need. :)

Me and Sarah... she's from the same state! :)