Week 1 Recap

The first week was interesting.  I have learned more about the Toledo District and the people that Hillside serves.  I have also gotten to know the other long-term staff members a little better.  I really enjoy the people.

The pictures below are from my small plane from Belize City to Punta Gorda.  We made three stops...haha.

The Punta Gorda area is pretty hot with lots of rain and humidity.  It reminds me more of Vanuatu than of a Central American country.  I'll post some more pictures soon.  All of the other students left for the weekend to Livingston, so I stayed and was able to hang out with some of the longer-term staff.  It was a fun weekend even though we mainly just hung around Hillside.  This weekend it rained so much.  We had some thunderstorms, too.  The power went out and one of the trees fell down.

Last week I was at the Hillside Clinic and at a clinic in a village called Laguna.  I didn't do much, but the med students and PA's worked hard to assess and treat patients.  I felt a little in the way, but hopefully as I learn more things I will be able to help with more.  I am also figuring out how best to approach my project.  So, once I understand more about my tasks here, hopefully I will feel like I know what I am doing here.

The picture to the right is around the Hillside Campus.  It was pouring down rain when I took those.

I was able to go to church yesterday.  It was great.  One of the doctors asked me if I wanted to go with her.  I knew some of the songs and there was a variety of people - Belizeans and Americans.  The pastor was really good!  I was so happy to be able to go to church!

We will see what week 2 has in store!

flying with the flu

So... I flew to Belize yesterday to spend four months working on my public health internship.  Saturday I was diagnosed with the flu.  This made packing and flying extremely difficult!  Of course I was not contagious when I flew, but I still did not feel good and I'm still not feeling great, so all prayers are appreciated!

I don't know how my new adventure will play out, but it will definitely be a different four months.  The weather here is hot and humid.  It rained a lot last night, but it is beautiful today!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and let you know I arrived safely!  I will post some pictures soon!  Thanks!

Thanksgiving

Almost a year since I've posted a blog update...I felt like Thanksgiving would be a good time to post what I am thankful for in my life.

First, I am thankful for God's grace!  I am thankful for Jesus and His death and resurrection.  I am thankful that He has saved me, redeemed me, given me hope and a future, loved me, adopted me, forgiven me, the Holy Spirit is in me, and that I can be apart of God's Kingdom eternally, but also here on earth.

I am also thankful for family...all types of family, blood relatives, but I'm also thankful for people who have become part of my family, friends who are life-long, and people that I have met all around the world that I truly value how they have helped shape me and encourage me.  I am thankful that my family is so great and uplifting.  I am thankful that I had the opportunity to grow up in church and learn important life lessons from family members. I am thankful to be able to share Thanksgiving with my family, particularly because my dad is well and that God has healed him from things many times.   I am thankful that I have these people to share my life with, no matter what the season.

I am thankful that I have basic necessities met in my life.  I have food to eat, clean water to drink, a job, clothing, shelter- things that I often take for granted.

I am thankful for this season in my life.  Although school is difficult.  I have help to pay for it.  I have a job where I have great bosses.  I enjoy spending time with the people that work in my department.  I enjoy learning new things and thinking about what I can use them for in the future.

I am thankful that there are things in my life that I can be thankful for and that I am able to recognize that.  I pray that I will never forget that I always have so many things to be thankful for despite any circumstance.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Maybe I'll blog again

I'm in the process of redoing my blog and possibly adding things that are going on in my life...

Australia, Vanuatu, and soon home

So, first of all I'm back in Australia and have been since last Monday. It has beenreally good to be back andsee all of my other new friends that all went to different countries. It also has beenstrange to be back because we have come back to a horrible natural disaster situation in this state of Australia.I'm sure people have heard about the flooding in Queensland. We are safe. Our area of Brisbane didnot flood, but just a few minutes away homes were under water. It is crazy to think of all the people that have lost their homes and family members. Also, several of the placeswe have traveled to throughout our time in Australia have flooded with horrible damage. Our base has had lots of opportunities to help and take people to different towns to rebuild. Please keep all of Australia in your prayers.

Sorry I haven't given an updatein so long! There are so many things that I've learned/experienced on outreach inVanuatu. We spent our first week starting to build a new house on Aore Island where the YWAM base is located. We poured a cement slab for the house, but it was quite different than just pouring a slab in the US-we broke rocks, sifted sand, broke open cement bags, got buckets of water from the well, and mixed it all with shovels. It was my first slab making experience. It was hard work, but fun! We also got to try stingray during that first week.

The next week we started off by traveling to a village called Vatumasan. It was 2 hours by truck and 1½ hours walk through muddy, slippery paths. The school and church are located there. It’s the central meeting place for all the villages around there. We stayed there for a week, going to different villages everyday. We traveled from anywhere between 30 min. to 2 hours by foot. We would worship with them, pray for them, and tell stories with them then head back to the central point where we slept. While we were there we were able to meet with the chief and present him with a gift. While in his village I was able to sit and talk with some of the ladies. I was talking with one lady (the chief’s daughter-in-law) and she was telling me about commemorating the death of her daughter in the next few days. Her daughter was 6 months old and had died of diarrhea. I asked more questions and found out that she had died within 3 days of being sick and on the third day they began to walk down to the hospital, but the baby had taken her last breath on the way down. It was heart breaking. I just wanted to ask more and help with health education. In the same area we were able to pray for another sick baby and the baby got so much better right after, and we heard the next day the baby was well. It was so great. In this area we also had the opportunity to try many new, interesting types of food such as snake, lizard (which was a whole lizard with a stick through it’s body roasted over the fire), and bush cat (pretty much your normal house cat, just wild).

After we left Vatumasan we wentto one of our translator, Selvan’s village for 4 days. We did children’s ministry, prayer walked, did church services, and built relationships with the people. On the first day that we were there we prayed as a team and felt that we needed to focus our messages on Unity. After we had this time as a team we found out that there was actually much tension in the village (the village was separated by a river and the tension was between the people on different sides of the river). As we did children’s ministry the kids from both sides of the river came and played with us all afternoon, and the mother’s of the kids also came to watch. It was amazing because previously the kids from opposite sides of the river would fight all the time, even to the point of throwing rocks at each other. Selvan said that this was the first time her village had anyone come do children’s ministry. In this same village Selvan asked one of us to go talk to her cousin-in-law because she no longer went to church. I went over to her house and the conversation was really slow, not much was happening, but I just kept trying to talk with here about her life. When I felt like she just wouldn’t talk anymore I asked her if I could pray for her for anything. She asked the other girls in the room to leave and then told me that she needed prayer because she was having trouble breathing and that her life with God was gone. I asked her what she meant and she explained that she used to have a relationship with God, but did not anymore. She felt like she couldn’t have that again. I told her some stories about my life and how I had felt like I couldn’t be close to God, but then he would pull me back into his arms, all I had to do was ask and that was the same for her. I told her that is all that God wanted to bring her back to him and to love her completely. I told her that God loved her no matter what she had done in her past and always wanted a relationship with her. It was so cool because then I told her if she wanted she could ask out loud for Jesus to come into her life and so she repeated after me andasked for herself. In the same village a small boy was crying and walking around aimlessly all morning long. I decided to go talk to him to see what was wrong. He walked into a lady’s home and I began to talk with her. As I talked with her I found out the boy was sad because his dad had left for work for a week. He still wasjust crying and so sad. I went over and began to pray for him that God would give him joy and stop anything that was making him cry- immediately the boy stopped crying and didn’t cry anymore the rest of the day. The lady then asked me to pray for her because she was having lots of problems in her life. We were also able to stop at another village for a day and a half where we did children’s ministry and a church service where I shared how I have been able to give over fears and anxiety to God and I can have his light and not be worriedabout the world’s darkness. God really worked through our team and it was exciting to see all He did.

The next week we met up with the New Zealand team, which was a huge blessing. We went back to Aore to finish doing building projects and celebrate Christmas and New Year’s. It was aphysically hard time, but also a great time of making friends with the locals on base and just continuing friendshipsfromour own DTS. We accomplished so much. Christmas Eve was great! Our leaders had gotten people from home to send us stuff secretlyand they brought it with them to Vanuatu. They surprised us with gifts from family and friends from home, which was so amazing and really helped with missing being home for Christmas (thank you so much for everyone who sent something!) Our Christmas day was really fun and different. We woke up and continued putting up decorations that we were making that morning. We helped get ready for a feast that we would have on a tiny island right across from our beach. The feast included pig, which we had picked up a day earlier from another island. When we picked it up it was alive in a bag. It was a little sadto say goodbye to our new friend, but hewas quite tasty. We ate our feast and snorkeled afterwards at the island.Later thatnight we had a gingerbread house contest. It was really fun. A wonderful Christmas day! For New Year’s we celebrated with a movie on base (we had a generator) and then snacks, coffee, and fireworks around a fire. It was so cool to celebrate in such a different way.

The last week we had a mini DTS for people to come to on Aore. We invited people from the villages we had visited. We had 12-15 students (some came late and left early). It was so good because members of our teams taught onthings they had learned on DTS in Australia. It was cool to see how God used each of our team members in different ways. Some shared testimonies, some taught for 1-2 hours, some led intercession and worship, and some made sure everything worked according to schedule. It was great to see people who had seemed so shy getupandshare boldly about what God had done in their lives. I think that the students learned a lot and they were really receptive to all we talked about. I had the opportunity to share on evangelism and relationships. It was what God had put on my heart to share with them. The students were very shy at first, but as the week went on they began to warm up and really open up. It was so exciting to build such great relationships. They had lots of fun learning and playing games with us. It was an amazing week and such a great way to end our time in Vanuatu.

Above is the house we built while we were there and me teaching on our mini-DTS. We had a little going away party for us leaving Vanuatu. We celebrated bygoing to a beautiful blue hole with many of our new friends. The next day we also got to see an amazing waterfall. We ended with good relationships and awesome views! God taught me lots through my Vanuatu experiences and I know I will be able to use them to look back on and help me later in life. It was a great trip!

Saying goodbye to Australia for a bit

Tomorrow morning I leave for Vanuatu for 6 weeks on outreach. We will be doing building projects and village ministry. The third week we are there we have the opportunity to go to a mountain village. It is a 2-3 day hike up the mountain and 2-3 day hike down. That makes me a little nervous, but I know God will take care of us. Please keep us in your prayers, especially for the hike, for the people we come in contact with, and all the building that we will be doing (that we will get lots accomplished and for safety in that). My team has 6 people and then after 3 weeks another team will join us that has 5 people. Vanuatu is supposedly very beautiful and we will get to see some amazing sights, but it is remote and we will not have access to lots of things-no running water, no electricity, no internet (except maybe in town that is a 30 minute boat ride away). I'm excited about living a simple lifestyle for a little while! The picture below is from a girl who went last year. This is one of the buildings at the YWAM base there with the ocean in the background.

The past few weeks here have been good and relaxing, but at the same time still getting things ready for leaving. All the other outreach teams that went to other locations have already left. It was interesting to have all your friends that you've been around everyday for the past 4 months to leave. I've also been thinking about all the things that I've learned while I've been here. I've learned so much. It is hard to think about just the major things, but all the little things make it something major. One big thing I think I've realized more of is the power of prayer. I've learned to pray about everything big or tiny. Also, the big things that we think we can do nothing about, it so powerful to pray for those things, like praying for our world leaders, praying against poverty and disease, praying for world issues. Yes, those are huge things, but when we pray we stand in the gap for those things. Of course, we can do more than just pray, but when the situation seems overwhelming why not intercede for it until we know what else we can do. That has been something God has challenged me with to pray for the issues that break God's heart even when I feel like I can do nothing else. I've been challenged by so many things while I have been here and God has helped my realize more of His provision and how much He cares for me.

I may have internet again, but I don't know when. I'll try and keep people updated as much as possible!

Crazy Colors

We are starting our last week of our road trip. There has been so many great things that have happened on our trip to different places. I finally feel like I have really experienced the Australia I had in my mind and it really shows God's creativity. It is amazing how one different shade of color can make something so beautiful and how the sun can just bring it all together. I've learned lots about God's creation and how it is all made to glorify him. We've had weeks of lectures and weeks of ministry outreach.

I'll start from the first week of traveling. We spent our first week doing a mission's simulation. We were with our whole school, but we were divided up into our outreach teams. We were on Stradbroke Island. We played lots of team building games and even some extremely stretching games for me...We had one night of "mission impossible" where in the middle of the night we had to go through a swamp and do team challenges. That was incredibly challenging and made me realize how to fully rely on God in walking out daily against anxiety and worry about lots of things. It also was good team building with the people I'll be spending 6 weeks with in Vanuatu.

The next week we went to Byron Bay. I loved it there. Byron Bay is really hippie and everyone is very "spiritual." It also has a ton of backpackers. It is really interesting to be around people who are so open-minded and willing to talk about spiritual things. It is a great place to tell people about Jesus there because people from all over the world come to Byron Bay, so if they get to know Jesus then they can take Him back to all their home countries. It was fun just introducing ourselves to new people and having significant conversations. We also got to hang out with the YWAM Byron Bay people and their school leader is from San Angelo. I was so excited! It was great to be around someone who knew about home. While we were there we had lectures with their school over relationships. It was really good to hear more information about Godly design for relationships. I also got to try surfing for the first time...definitely something I want to try again and get better at! It was a great week!

Our third week was in Chinchilla. Chinchilla reminded me of Texas. It was amazing! It is a town that is more inland Australia. Its a bush town and it was so great! I was able to see flat land and red dirt it reminded me of somewhat home. It was a country town, so it was small and friendly. We had lectures over Spiritual Warfare. We also talked a lot about walking in the opposite spirit, which for example if there is a negative attitude somewhere do something that is purposefully positive in that area. That is a simple thing, but really it goes against the bad and helps build up the good. It was really cool because we walked in the opposite spirit for the town...to help build unity and focus in the town we did things as a group that made us had to focus. We talked about praying for areas that we know we are weak in so that devil cannot have a hold in those things and also praying for authorities, nations, families, and communities so we can pray against anything that the devil could and does use and praying for Godly things in those areas. We were able to help the church and youth group out by doing things in the community, as well. It was fun!

Last week we came to Airlie Beach. We did evangelism in the community here. It is a backpacker/traveler community. It was really challenging to go out into the town and try to just start conversations with people. We went out one day just walking around and then sat down not knowing what to do, but then people actually came up and talked to us. It was really cool. I'm learning lots on how to be bold and start relationships with people in everyday life in order that they could have a relationship with God. It's been good! At the end of the week some of us went out to the islands and to snorkel around the Great Barrier Reef area. It was so beautiful and really shows God's artistry, the water, the land, the fish, the coral - the colors were all amazing!!! We are here for one more week. This week we have lectures over the Holy Spirit. It is good being here where it is warm and so beautiful. I'm hoping to learn even more this week!