4 Weeks Already!?

So, as of today, I have been in Guatemala for 4 weeks. In all honesty, it feels like I have been here for about 4 months. Time seems to move quite a bit slower here, but I am learning to like it. I only have 6 weeks left, and when all is said and done, I know that I will feel like the time just flew by.

While I see God moving and working in so many different ways on this trip, my time here so far has been very challenging. Being away from my friends, family, and boyfriend have proved to be much harder than I was expecting. I am also finding it difficult to be disconnected from New Life, my church in College Station! God has continued to reveal sin in my life, and He has been continually pounding my flesh...its about as enjoyable as it sounds. I know He is working in my heart, and I am excited to see how much he grows me and reveals to me by the end of this trip.

The hardest thing so far is hearing the stories of why these girls are here. The only word I can use to describe so many of these stories is horrific, and that puts it lightly. It is very hard to accept or understand how God can love the parents who did this to their children. It is an amazing reminder of the beauty of God´s grace, and the fact that I am the worst of all sinners. I am no better than those parents, and God continually reminds me that I did nothing to earn His grace. Those reminders reveal the malice and hate that my sinful heart is capable of.

I am beginning to build some deeper relationships with these girls, and I hope those continue to grow as I share about how God has worked in my life. I am really looking forward to next Wednesday when all the interns get to share our testimonies. I have been so encouraged by how joyful these girls are. I know that they are all trying to heal from their pasts and have some hard issues to work through, but they are so willing to play and laugh and be silly with me.

The house that I eat breakfast and dinner with found out that I studied dance for 15 years. Tonight we are going to have our first ballet lesson after dinner. I am pretty excited about being able to use something that I loved and worked at for so many years in a way that can open the door to deeper relationships and sharing God´s love with these girls!

Please continue to pray for these sweet girls. I absolutely love being able to spend this time with them, and I ultimately just want them to see Christ, not me. I am learning more and more about God´s provision and strength every single day. He is providing for my every need, and I am amazed at how much He has already showed me and brought me through.

I know that this trip will continue to be challenging, and my only hope is to rest on Christ, and press into Him more and more everyday.

¿Estás enferma?

Getting sick on my trip here...check! I've been at The Oasis and the inevitable finally happened, I got
sick. For my family and I, this doesn't really come as a surprise. I've gotten sick: on a ski trip to Colorado in 7th grade, the night before I was supposed to leave for a youth camp, and twice on a Mission trip to Mexico my sophomore year. Needless to say, I have a history of getting sick on trips. I am much better now, and I'm glad it was only a 1-day thing.

The Oasis is beautiful in so many different ways. The actual place is in the mountains with an absolutely beautiful skyline, and it's green everywhere (that's a big deal for a girl born and raised in West Texas)! The staff here is so loving and selfless. The house mothers, we call them Tías, are some of the sweetest women I have ever met, and so good with the girls! The girls are just wonderful! A few younger girls, Roxy, Laura, and Carolina, have been the easiest to play with and talk to. The teenage girls are taking a little more time to warm up to me and the other interns, but that is to be expected. It will only take time. I have had the opportunity to tutor Laura and Carolina in the afternoon. These girls are quite the handful, and I can tell they get frustrated easily. They are 8 and 11 years old and both can't read. I hurt for them because I know how much they want to learn, but they so easily give up when things get challenging. I am hoping to continue to encourage them and hopefully convey to them how smart they both are!

It will take a little time to develop some deeper relationships in order to more easily talk about God and the Gospel, but I see the Tías and other staff members doing an amazing job always speaking truth and wisdom to these girls in love and grace. In a few weeks, all of the interns get to share our testimonies! I'm praying that God will give me wisdom during this time. I'm still struggling with some nasty, wicked sin in my heart, but all I can do is pray and seek God every moment of everyday in order to give me the strength and wisdom to deal with the specific challenges I face every day.

Please pray for these precious girls. They are so sweet and joyful, but they are still dealing with some very hard issues. They have all been abused by their families in some form: sexually, physically, emotionally, or a combination of the three. Pray that God will heal their hearts, and that they will come to accept His deep, unexplainable, unconditional, amazing love for us; that they would accept the truth of who they are, daughters of the Most High King!

My time here is amazing, but I still miss my family, friends, and boyfriend. I can't wait to be able to share all of my experiences with them when I get back to the States. I also found out that I will be able to visit my sister in Antigua in 3 weeks when she comes to Guatemala with a team from The Village! Whoop! Until next time, please continue to pray for these girls, and for my time here! I love you all and cant thank everyone enough for supporting and praying for me during this time! :)

And by the way...trying to explain a ring dunk in Spanish is really difficult. Just FYI.

Are we there yet!?

It's FINALLY time! Tomorrow morning I will finally get to start working at The Oasis and it is an understatement to say that I am beyond excited! I am so ready to meet all of those sweet girls and love them as much as I can! My only desire is to show them the Love of God in any way that I can! I'm so anxious to be there and build relationships that I know will stay with me for many years to come. While I know there will be challenges, I have no doubt that God's strength and love will bring me through, as it has so many time already.

Orientation with the other interns has been a lot of fun! We watched Barcelona BTHO Manchester U! Whoop! Messi absolutely dominated. The best part about it was watching it with about 15 jovenes that Mike and Sandi do a lot of work with! We all repped our Barcelona jerseys and had a blast. We also watched a beautiful and moving documentary called Reparando which highlights a very dangerous area in Guatemala city known as La Limonada. I highly recommend this movie to everyone! I plan on ordering a copy when I get back to the States. Prepare for your heart to be broken for these people.

The documentary also highlighted The Guatemala City dump. It is one of the largest dumps in Central America, the length of nearly 24 football fields. Every day, thousands of men and women who live right next to the dump sift through garbage for 8-10 hours everyday trying to find things of value that can be recycled for money. Most people make barely $3-$5 everyday. We saw that dump today. The smell alone was enough to make my stomach hurt. Since it was a Sunday we only saw one or two scavengers but it was all I could do not to start crying. The amount of poverty and hardship of these people is a direct effect of the brokenness and sin of this world. I thought back to how much I have in The States and how blessed I have been. My heart absolutely broke. I could only look at the dump for a few minutes before I had to turn away. It was absolutely heart wrenching. God is showing me so much and from the short amount of time that I have been here, God has placed a very specific prayer on my heart for this country! It is such a beautiful place but it also has so much darkness. The believers here have so much hope and joy from God! I feel so blessed that God has allowed me to see that and learn about these people and their culture for this short time.

I still miss my amazing family and friends from The States but I've fallen in love with this place. It is still so challenging, and God has revealed so much about my heart that has not been easy to deal with. I know that it will continue to be challenging but I see so much of Him in this beautiful place. I have heard and seen some very difficult things. I have a feeling that when I leave this place in July, I will leave a piece of my heart here as well.

Almost 2 weeks

Tuesday will mark 2 weeks that I have been in Guatemala, and it will also be my last day in Antigua. I can only praise The Lord for His grace and strength in bringing me through the culture shock and intense homesickness I have been feeling. I am learning to love this culture and the people more and more every single day. Now that I have started to adjust and my Spanish continues to improve, I am more able to focus on why the Lord has called me to this trip in this specific time.

On Tuesday, the Glicks will come pick me after language school. On Wedensday, we will go pick up 3 other interns from the airport who will be flying in! I am so excited to meet the girls I will be working with, and I am SO happy to finally have people to really talk to! We will have 4 days of Orientation, sight seeing, and a little bit more language training. I will arrive at The Oasis on Monday, May 30. I am so excited to finally see where I will be working for the rest of the summer!

God continues to challenge me and reveal a lot of messy, wicked sin that so often consumes my heart. He has revealed idolatry for so many different things, a pride that has no ground in antyhing whatsoever, and many times a downright rebellious attitude to God´s will for my time here. So all that baggage and sin didn´t just leave my heart at the airport in Houston? Who knew, right? Praise the Lord that He is not surprised by any of it!

I am excited to get to go to the market today and explore/barter. I will love finding some tangible things to hold on to from this trip and gifts for everyone! I got an email a few minutes ago from a couple who works at an orphanage in Guatemala City called Fundaniños. They used to go to New Life and are supported through the church, but I have never met them. They are in Antigua today and I am REALLY hoping that I can meet up with them for a few hours! It would be wonderful to meet them and spend time hearing about their ministry and time so far in Guatemala.

God has been so amazing to allow my support system to not only remain strong in the States, but even grow. I have receieved email after email from family, friends, friends of my parents, and several people that I usually only talk to once or twice a year. He has used those people to just speak encouragement, truth, and Scripture into my life. I am so greatful for all all of these people that God has placed in my life, especially in this time! I have also been able to utilize modern technology and skype with my boyfriend and sister. It has helped so much, and while I don´t think that will be possible once I get to The Oasis, having that blessing during this time has been absolutely wonderful! I never knew how thankful I could be for video chat and email!

I can see God´s hand in every single area of this trip, and He is providing in so many ways, probably even in ways that I am unaware of. I can´t wait to see His work at The Oasis and in the other ministries that I have had a small glimpse of! I can truly say, without question or doubt, that I now know Christ is absolutely enough for me. My sins are still a battle to work through, but as He sanctifies me and grows me (as hard as it is sometimes), I feel Him drawing me closer to Him and it is absolutely beautiful!

Thank you to everyone who reads this and prays for me and sends me encouraging emails and words of wisdom and truth! I love you all, and I cannot wait to come back and tell all of the stories of how God has worked in this time!

My God, my Sweet King is my all, my everything...more now, than EVER before!

"Do you believe I am truly enough?"

When I was preparing for this trip, several close friends, family, and I all prayed that The Lord would go before and prepare the way for me. Little did I know, in going before me, he had prepared this very simple question that has met me head on, "Do you believe that I am truly enough?"

It would be a lie to say that my first few days here have not been hard, in fact, they have been some of the hardest I have ever had to face. My Spanish needs a lot more work than I thought, which makes communicating with people very difficult. I am going through a lot of culture shock. I miss my parents, my sister, my friends, and my boyfriend. All of these people who play such an integral role in my life can only be accessed through email and the occasional skype conversation. Also, being disconnected from a strong church body has been one of the hardest things. All of this combined has created some very challening days.

So this question has slapped me in the face. Without comfort, the ability to communicate, safety, friends, family, and a church Body, do I TRULY believe that God is enough for me? The Sunday before I left, my pastor, Allen, gave a sermon about idols and used this definition: Idols are good things that people turn in to ultimate things. As the Lord has begun to reveal the insane amount of idolatry in my heart, I have to face the fact that a lot of the time, my sinful heart doesn't believe that God is enough.

As I sit in another country, alone for the most part, I realize that there is no reason to believe that He is not enough. He is bigger than safety, language barriers, comfort, and homesickness. He is the Lord of Lords, and He has called me to this for a specific reason.

I pray daily that I can lean on Him with every fiber of my being and that everyday I will draw closer to Him.

Finally Here!

This will be a short post because it has been a long day and I am exhausted!!

I am so glad to FINALLY be in Guatemala! My mind is all jumbled up with different emotions and thoughts, coupled with exhaustion. I have been up since 5:20 am, and I haven't gotten a break yet, but I love it.

Mike and Sandi, the CAM missionaries, have been wonderful. They are helping me get accustomed to the culture and lifestyle down here, and they have been so welcoming. I am already falling in love with the people here, but I can also tell that I am going to struggle with homesickness. Right now, 10 weeks feels like a super long time to be away from my family and friends, but 10 weeks from now I will look back at this and realize how short of a time it really was.

My prayer is that the Lord will use me in a way that absolutely shocks me. I pray that I can just get out of His way and let Him work and move in such a way that when I look back on it, the only explanation is GOD!

For now, please pray for:
-Boldness both in sharing the Gospel and in speaking Spanish (I have been very timid to use my Spanish so far)
-God's will to be done in every aspect of this trip
-A willing heart to learn this language/culture/people
-Safety, but not at the expense of God's will being done and His glory reigning through this mission.

I love you all and I will post a longer blog soon :D

Single Digits

Today marks T-9 days before I leave. I'm in the single digits of the countdown. A few days ago I looked back at all the emails I had in correspondence with CAM and realized that this has been in the making for over a year (even though God prepared for it before I was ever brought into existence by Him). My first email dates back to March 22, 2010. That's insane! I have been praying about this and preparing for this for so long, and now it is ALMOST here! I have all my shots and vaccinations, have filled out my paperwork, have done all the logistical things I could, and by the beautiful provision of God raised all the money that I need (PRAISE THE LORD!).

Now, it's actually time to go. No more talking, contemplating, or planning. The only thing left is to pack my suitcase, get on that plane next Tuesday, and step out in faith. I have been given such amazing words of encouragement from my parents, other family members, amazing boyfriend, and beautiful friends. I can honestly say that while there is so much I can't really prepare my heart for until I am there, I truly feel that my heart is ready. In the Great Commission, Christ never said "Go and make disciples if you feel called." He simply said "GO". I don't really see much of a choice or suggestion in that. God has given us a CLEAR commandment to go. Not everyone will be called to overseas missions, but all of us have been called. As my pastor, Allen, has put it, "Christian and missionary are and should be synonyms."

Sharing the Gospel is not an option, nor should it be considered a terrible burden on the life of a Christian. The Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is the greatest love story ever told. And here it is:

God, the sustainer and creator of all things, created the world and all that is in the world. He created man in His image for His glory. Man, namely Adam and Eve, sinned against God, causing separation between God and Man. Because of this separation we can no longer live in harmony with God. However, in His infinite and indescribable grace and mercy, God gave His son, Jesus Christ over to the world. Christ was born of a virgin, Mary, and lived a perfect, sinless life, preaching about God and His love for all mankind. Christ became the atonement for the sins of all people, past, present, and future. He was crucified on the cross and rose from the dead three days later, signifying that He conquered death and atoned for sins. On the part of any man or woman who comes to believe in God, it is only by God's grace that we are saved. When our hearts become softened to this great love story, and we not only believe all of these things, but have a repentant heart and name Jesus Christ as the ruler and Lord of our life, only then are we saved.

Our purpose and lives as believers should be marked by that truth. That Jesus Christ who was fully God and fully man, sacrificed Himself in his infinite love and paid our debt that we could never pay. Our lives as believers should reflect that beautiful and undeserved sacrifice. THAT is why I am going to Guatemala, and THAT is where the purpose of my life begins. I am here to glorify God and proclaim His name. Whether that is in College Station, TX or Guatemala City, I am here for HIM, for Christ and Christ alone.

He is my protector, savior, and Lord over my life. He decided my paths, and He will make them straight. My career path is not my own, my money is not my own, my time is not my own, my life is not my own. It is fully and completely His. If you call yourself a Christian, understand that your life, your time, your money, your ____________ should not be your own.