Last stop! We were very excited to arrive in Mexico City because we partnered with a YWAM initiative called Mega-Cities. Mega-Cities is a vision that was set in place with the goal to see whole cities turn to Christ. They divided the city into 32 regions, and their aim is to saturate every area of the city by bringing team after team to partner and encourage local churches in evangelism and discipleship. We were a part of the third wave of teams to minister in the city. We were assigned to the region of Iztapalapa. This was the largest region in the city with 1.8 million people. It was also known as one of the most dangerous and heavily influenced by Catholicism. Within Iztapalapa, we linked arms with an incredible host church whose name in English is translated "The Fresh Anointing." We began our first couple of days by praying and seeking God’s heart. One day we felt we were to go to the top of a near by mountain that was near the church, the mountain overlooked Iztapalapa. We prayed and were led to read and declare Isaiah 40-66 over the city. The pastor of the church was very encouraged and excited after 40 of us went up the mountain to pray and declare this portion of scripture together in Spanish and English. It was a powerful time that God used to bring His glory to Iztapalapa and to the local church that we had partnered with. The pastor shared that in July they had received a word that in August they would receive their vision as a church. He excitedly shared that he felt that through us that morning God had given them a piece of the puzzle! How cool! Another really amazing thing is how God was blessing our relationships, we had not been there very long but we built stong friendships. The ladies of the church invited the girls in our team to attend a baby shower on a Saturday night and that same night the guys in our team and some of the guys in the church hung out and went into town to see a movie. The baby shower was nothing like what we would picture a baby shower to be, you know... show up, bring a gift and/or food, socialize... something along those lines. Well this was a 4 hour baby shower that consist of food, games (so many fun games!), gifts, and even a declaration that Jesus is Lord! Seven people accepted Jesus into their heart that night when the the mother and husband who were going to have a precious baby stood and shared their testimony. It was powerful! I have never been to a baby shower like it but it blessed and encouraged all of us girls to be apart of this celebration on earth and in heaven. Our quick stay in Mexico was wonderful. God is worthy of our trust and faith in that He will achieve great things for His Kingdom.
Whew! Well we made it through another long leg of our journey via bus, train, metro, plane, and limousine. Our flight from Barcelona had to make an unscheduled stop in Nova Scotia, Canada to refuel and empty the bathrooms. This stop caused us to miss our connecting flight to Miami. It ended up being a bit of a hassle to rebook our flight from Newark, New Jersey to Miami so that we would not miss our flight to Haiti early the next morning. We ended up being split into two groups and put on different flights. The group I wound up in was the group that flew into the closest airport to Miami that we could being West Palm Beach and compliments to the airline we were shuttled by limousine from West Palm Beach to Miami. It was quite the 3 day adventure! Once arriving into Port-au-Prince we worked and stayed with an organization called ACTS World Relief. They kept us very busy! Within the first couple days, we led 3 church services, 2 open air programs, and visited a local hospital that had been a major relief to the disaster that happened earlier this year. We did many different types of ministry—working in children’s homes with children who had HIV, AIDS, and scabies. We held a service and prayer walk at a refugee camp. We woke up many nights because we could hear people practicing voodoo nearby. We prayed against this fervently. One of the open air services was at a tent campus that had also been established for the disaster relief. We had close to 300 people watching. The response was incredible! As we neared the end of our drama, “Forgiveness,” the crowd was chanting to see the drama again. There is a part of the drama where Jesus is victorious in a fight against sin and what it does to His children. The crowd cheered, and God’s majesty was shining bright! Later that same week, we went to a seaside village where we led a church service. When we first walked into the church there was such a heavy spirit. The word that was on our hearts for them was that He wanted to turn their heavy hearts into hearts overflowing with joy. We started off with worship and puppets, and as we began to praise and declare truth, the atmosphere changed. It went from somber people with heavy hearts to people standing up, dancing, and singing! The pastor was so uplifted that he encouraged us by saying we were apostles and that this church would never be the same. Later in the week, he called ACTS World Relief to personally thank them for sending our team. ACTS World Relief later told us that was the first time they had ever had a pastor call to thank them. Isn’t God good! His favor is abundant! His joy is radiant! We all learned an important lesson that day because we woke up very early that morning to go on a bumpy ride to the church with 17 of us crammed into a little pickup truck for an hour. Many of us were very tired and tempted to coast through what seemed to be just another church service, but in unity, our team chose the moment and asked God to bring His Kingdom into that little church by the beach. Jesus tenderly met His beautiful Bride who turned from sorrow to joy that day! Also, during our stay in Haiti we traveled about 2 hours to a village in the mountains. We stayed at a school that was not in session at the time so we planned different activities for the children near by and prayed over many families and their homes much like we did in Uganda. We stayed at the school for a couple of days, our stay there was wonderful. We had the opportunity to pray with and encourage the man who is running the school. I learned that there are huge spiders in the mountains... I slept for about an hour the first night and the second night I was so tired that at about 2 am I figured out that I could use my earring to pin my bug-net to the sheet that was covering the table I was sleeping on. After I had looked over the job I had done thoroughly and made sure the earring were secure, I decided to use my blanket to lay around the corners to make sure there was NO SPACE at all for anything... any spider to squeeze through. The mountains were beautiful but I was thankful when the day came when we traveled down the mountains back to ACTS World Relief where we continued the rest of our stay in Haiti. There is still suffering from the destruction caused by the earthquake earlier this year, please pray for Haiti because the damage goes beneath what the eye can see; it’s rooted in hearts of many of the people. God is joy.
A camp the Dominican Republic set up for earthquake relief
“To believe God is who He says He is and we are who He says we are.” That was a theme that resurfaced repeatedly through our time in Cevennes. We stayed in a farm house that is being used as a temporary YWAM base. We received teaching from a man with great authority on spiritual warfare. God spoke strongly to our hearts as we received this teaching to prepare us for the rest of our adventure around the world. Aside from hearty teaching, we went into the streets and cafes to allow the Kingdom of God to shine through us as we were learning to naturally walk in His Spirit. We spent a couple of evenings with a family of gypsies. One evening we invited them over to the house to have a barbecue, swim, and play games. For the little ones, we blew up balloons that you can shape into animals. We used a light and fun evening as an opportunity to instill value to a group that is so marginalized. We said goodbye to France and traveled to Spain where we spent the day before our flight the next day. Barcelona, Spain was awesome. We walked around the city and soaked up the vibrant culture and its beauty. We tried to get a good night sleep before we woke up very early as we prepared to travel to Haiti, believing God was going to do great things though us—that He is who He says He is and that we are who He says we are.
Rich soil, heavy hearts, and yet overwhelming amounts of hope was the face of Uganda that quickly greeted us. We stayed at YWAM Hopeland outside of Jinja which is a 77 acre farm surrounded by small villages. Our ministry there was full of time spent walking to homes within these small villages and praying for families and their households. One day we had the opportunity to serve the YWAM base by cleaning up around the base by picking up trash and mopping floors. Women of Hope is a group of women who agree that there is hope in Jesus. They come together every week to encourage, pray, and worship together. This group is mostly made up of widows and single mothers from the surrounding villages who have become victims of HIV and AIDS. A day I will never forget was when the guys on our team went into Jinja to a prison to minister to men on death row while the girls on our team stayed back at the base to spend time with the Women of Hope. This day was so special because we began the day by praying with the women. While praying, one of the girls on our team felt that God wanted us to wash all of the ladies feet. So we prayed about it as a group and became very excited for what God was going to do through this time. We not only had the privilege and honor to wash the feet of about 45 women but we also prayed over each woman as her feet were being washed. We even gave them the option of having their toenails painted! It was a beautiful day as many tears had been shed because of raw love. Uganda blessed our hearts and God continued to show us His favor as we sought Him day after day.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Love.
This afternoon we re-mudded a sweet family's house
We flew from Seoul, South Korea to Hong Kong, China. We had a 12 hour layover so we spent the day in Hong Kong and it worked out to where we could go out into the city instead of having to stay in the airport. It was an interesting city but a valuable experience to know that I have step foot in China. From Hong Kong, China we few into Johannesburg, South Africa where we got on a bus to ride 6 hours to Durban, South Africa where we would be staying at the YWAM base. It was winter there so the weather was colder than what we were used to but it was near the beach and it was the warmest place to be for the 2010 world cup. Durban is a beautiful beach city with over 3 million people. Oh my goodness... "FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup, here we are!" We were pumped and so excited for the opportunity to be a city on a hill in the midst of people who represented different nations, cultures, and traditions from all over the world. A big part of our ministry was evangelism around the soccer stadium and beachside. There was an afternoon we spent praying, asking God how He wanted us to reach out to people. We had the idea to write “free prayer” on pieces of cardboard and stand in different areas. We had a huge response from people who flooded the sidewalks coming or going from a game or to other areas on the beach. What a simple way to reach out, and God used it in a huge way. While in South Africa, we also spent a few days at a day care that was run by a Christian couple. Many of the children who came were from local villages that had a difficult home life, and many of them had HIV. Also, another facet of ministry was working on the streets at night praying for prostitutes who were taking advantage of the fact the World Cup was in full swing. Please pray for Nancy, she was a prostitute that we prayed for that God had brought across our path. We were thankful for the fresh ways God continued to use us on this leg of our journey.
We arrived in Seoul, South Korea late on a Friday night. We had traveled a lot that day so we were exhausted, but we were warmly greeted by students from the Christian Korean High School where later in the week we would be leading an English camp. The students that attend this high school live at the high school Monday through Friday. So when we got there everyone in our team was assigned a room with 3 students. It was a great way for us to get to know them and start building relationships with them. We slept well Friday night and Saturday morning we got settled in a bit more and then met together as a team before we went home with a student for the weekend. That was an awesome experience for all of us. Each person on our team went home for the weekend with a student from the school. We stayed in their homes and spent time with them and their families. They were thrilled to have us. My home-stay student’s English name was Esther. She was wonderful and a joy to spend the weekend with. Her family did not speak any English, but Esther spoke pretty good English. I was very relieved that she and I could carry on a conversation. We did some fun things that weekend, like eating silkworms (mmm-mmm, let me tell ya!), seeing a Korean fresh food market, and riding in a boat on a lake with swans. After arriving back at the high school after the weekend, our team was excited to see one another and prepare for the week. We began the week with a worship service and orientation time. It was heavy on our hearts to be praying that this would be a week that the students will not forget because our heart was that it will be a week that they had a divine encounter with the Living God. Only 30% of all of the students are Christians, and we have been given complete freedom to share and lead them into His sweet presence. Each of us was assigned to teach a class in English for the next three days (14, 50 minute classes with a homeroom class in the mornings). It was really neat to get to do this. I had a precious homeroom class that made beginning the day quite pleasant as I led them in a short devotion time to get our day started. The class that I was assigned to teach was Writing 1. I was a bit nervous about teaching the class because I’ve never taught a classroom of students before but after a couple of periods on the first day, I had a good routine that was working smoothly for me and for the students. I used the time that I had with them to challenge them to see how God and His glory are in everything and to be creative so that they could begin to appreciate writing. I grew attached to my students, and after the days there were over and it was time to leave the high school and go into Seoul, I was very sad to say goodbye. This week’s highlight was us getting to share the gospel through our dramas and testimonies to the entire student body. Around 20 students met Jesus for the first time plus there were many others who thanked us for changing the way they viewed God and that they now understand that it is possible to have a loving relationship with Him. After leaving the high school, we traveled to another part of Seoul where we would complete our stay in South Korea at the YWAM base and receive a week of teaching about missions. Our stay at the YWAM base was great; the teaching was refreshing and encouraging. Because the base was a small base we were able to share close quarters and get to bond more as a team. South Korea was a wonderful experience as we saw God at work overseas and in hearts that are hungry for Him.
We arrived in beautiful San Francisco ready to share Jesus’ love with everyone! This was our first stop on outreach. The first night was really exciting, we had an impromptu worship time where we spent time praying over each other and hearing God’s voice as He was preparing us to go all over the world and preach the gospel. After that first night, our team really opened up to one another so that the rest of our time in California could be spent getting to know each other better as a team and working through struggles that some of us were going through. We had our first ministry time at a sweet church on a Sunday evening. We opened in worship (our team was so blessed to have quite a few musicians), did dramas, shared a couple of testimonies, and ended by opening up the front if anyone would like prayer or would like to accept Jesus into their heart and life. God was speaking to peoples’ hearts as many came up for prayer, and God used us to intercede for all kinds of situations in their lives. Later that week we attended a youth group on a Wednesday night. We showed a video that was made by YWAM titled “Jesus Freaks.” After the video we encouraged students to come up and pray with us and talk to us about what might being going on in their lives. It was a really awesome night for me because I was able to pray with two girls that were crying. After talking and praying with them, I also prayed for their father and younger sister who had come to pick them up at youth group. We spent one whole day being homeless in downtown San Francisco where we had no money, only one slice of bread and one bottle of water for each person. We split into small groups and began to make our way throughout the city. We would walk and pray, asking God what His heart was for the area we were in and for people that we saw. There were times we felt led to go up to someone and talk to them and ask if they would like prayer for anything going on in their lives, we encouraged them, and shared verses with them. This was an important day as we practiced hearing God’s voice while we prayed specific things for people. It was a really cool just to see how God works when we are willing to be used by Him even in the simplest ways. We were nearing the end of our stay in California before heading over to South Korea and there was an evening when we were gathered up as a team and were debriefing about ministry times, praising God and thanking Him for the ways He was beginning to use us. It was during this time that Jacob, our team leader, shared something really special with us. He said that he had been praying for our team before he even met us and that the word God gave him for our team was “power.” He shared that God was going to use us in very powerful ways over the next few months. So at that point, we began to watch as God began to sew power into each ministry time, each day that we sought Him with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul. Our time in California was very much about God meeting us and preparing us for His Kingdom.
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