India

Back in India. I can’t believe the excitement that was pouring out of me when we finally arrived in Bagdogra. This small town that has an airport, is about an hour away from Siliguri, our finally destination. The drive from the airport to Siliguri was full of familiar sights. Cows in the road, people every where doing their daily work tasks, and the smell of smog. I had forgot the excitement and energy that surrounds this country. I felt like my heart was beating to the rhythm of the streets, or it could have been the intense hindi techno music our taxi drive was playing. Either way, it fit the scene.   

Their is so much God wants to do in this country. We started teaching the day after we arrived. We are teaching the same group of people we taught in April, plus about 6 new ones. We teach simple topics in a way for oral learners to understand. Mainly because most people in the community that we are targeting are illiterate. 

I wish I could put into words the feeling of God's kingdom in this community when the participants go out into the village and teach. Everyday the participants come and we teach them a new topic and by that afternoon we are headed out in small groups and they are teaching others. We see the multiplication of the knowledge right before us. These participants take hold of this information about topics like anemia, feeding a sick child, Tuberculosis, ect and they go and immediately are excited and ready to give what they learned away to whoever we can find in the villages. 

Their is such an anointing that happens, I can't explain it and I think it is only because of the prayer put into the curriculum and the fact that everything we teach is based on the truth that God speaks about in the Bible. Keeping yourself a temple, being holy so that He can dwell in you. All the things we know about health care are started and have root in the BIble. I love it! 

We have really been able to encourage the participants of the seminar. Most of them are mission workers here in India. They live here and see the people in this community and their living conditions on a day to day basis. They fight these issues of helping these people get clean drinking water or helping them get over simple diseases so they don't die or have someone in their family die. They face this everyday. They love these people and as we have told them all this week, the information they are learning is like a key to unlock a prison. The people in this community are in a prison of no education, or false information from witch doctors or who ever. So they are bringing truth and setting these people free. Giving them opportunity to take the new information and live in a cleaner and healthier environment. 

Oh I love it! Well if you can't tell I am really excited to be back in India! More to come...

You are blessed to be a blessing

Helloo.... I have not stopped blogging!

Well transitions are coming to a close and life is becoming more normal. So I will pick back up my normal activites like blogging!

I left America and set out to Europe for a fly by trip to visit a friend that was getting married. I took the long way back to Perth, Australia. It was so much fun to visit my friends from last year. The girls I stayed with and the friend that got married were apart of my birth attendant school. I stayed in Copenhagen for 5 days, seeing and eating all that I could! Mostly chocolate.. lots of chocolate. Then I headed down to Germany where my friend was getting married. We got to spend some amazing days with the grooms parents down in black forest. It looks like you have walked onto the movie set of the sound of music. You could walk up the road and pick yourself some fresh wild black berries if you wanted, or you could go hiking in the forest, or maybe go to the near by lake and go for a little canoe with all the HUGE catfish. It was increadibly beautiful!

Speaking of beauty, my friend, corinna, looked absolutely amazing! She was married and it was such fun getting to be apart of a German wedding and join in celebrating with her and her new husband!
I left germany and was able to spend a day layover in Italy! So I treated myself to some pizza and gelato! Yummy. This trip secured my love for Europe!

The fun had to come to an end and new fun awaited. The fun of transitioning into my new life here in Perth. It is so different being back on this base as staff and not a student. The base is big and so I learned my first lesson of what I like to call getting used to the awkwardness. Once you recognize that everything in life is now awkward because you don't know what is going on, or you don't know anybody, and you don't have a clue, then you are able to move forward in every awkward situation with a strange new confindence. I have been here for three weeks now and I am some what settled but still get asked if I am a new student and what school I am doing. Bahaha..

Well three weeks in and I am already packing again. Getting ready to go back to India! I can't believe it. I added up and it seems that I will have been in India for one third of this year.  I am only going for a one month trip this time. We (my simple health care team) are teaching two different seminars. I am so excited to be going back to communities we have already been in. Seeing people and continuing to get to know people we have already been working with! Oh and to see what God has done since we were last there!

My brother is coming to Australia!!! Trevor is coming to do a discipleship training school with ywam bribane! I am so happy to have him so close! Practically the same time zone! Yah!

Well until next time,

You are blessed to be a blessing

Getting ready...

My summer time is coming to a fast close. One week from today I will be getting on another plane to head out again. I wish I could say it was with a huge excitement and joy but it has been a different set of emotions that I am experiencing.

Many emotions that just need to be given over to Jesus. Fear and anxiety are not part of the plan when you walk in the freedom of Jesus. So battling those things and praying through them has helped.
I think walking away from the family is always hard, but more so this go around. Last time I left, in 2009, I was unaware about the length of time I would be gone, nor did I fully know what that would feel like or mean to be gone for over a year and a half. Now, going back, I understand the struggles, the sacrifice, and the hard parts of being away for so long. I am glad that my family is very supportive. My mom keeps saying " I would rather have you go, even for so long, than sit around here and be miserable and out of God's will." She wants me to go, but I can tell neither one of us are looking forward to next thursday.

God has spoke so much about this next season. He keeps reminding me of the seasons He takes us through and the promises that He has made all of us, but especially made to me personally. I listened to beth moore talk about walking across the Jordan river in Joshua this past week. She talked about how the ark sat in the middle of the river while ever one passed through. That in the middle it is the deepest spot and the hardest to walk out of. That you can look to both sides, you can look back to egypt (comfort, familiarity) and then you can look forward to cain (unknown, a place where you will be a alien for a while). When she put it in that perspective I can see why the Israelites cried lets just go back. We know it, its comfortable, we can make due. What they couldn't see, was the promise land that God was leading them into. So I guess this is where I am at. Ready to hurry over to the other side and experience whatever God is going to open up. I can't see it, and I don't know what is there but I know that God is calling me into a promise land, and that He is faithful.

I am trying to get everything packed! Oh man what a task. Trying to pack for two years under 50 lbs. This is really putting my efficient type A personality to the test! =)
I am looking forward to being back in Perth, but before I get to go to one of my friends weddings in Germany. So I am taking to long route back to perth, through europe where I will spend a few days in Denmark, then a few days in Germany! I can't wait to see these girls and be exposed to their lives and cultures! Don't worry many pictures of come!

Well I will finished up my last week in the states by celebrating a very momentous day. My Birthday! =) Of course I think it is a huge occasion, but most of the world probably sees it as the day after labor day when they have to go back to work... haha...
I have decided I am getting up in numbers so by next year I will have to remove the year off of my birthday on facebook, so people can no longer know how old I really am. All they need to know is that on sept. 7th celebrate that I was born!

Have a good week!

You are blessed to be a blessing!

Food for thought

Two posts in one week... I know, crazy! =) Just had a word strike me this morning that I thought I would share. It is from a sermon by Francis Chan "living with urgency."

2 Corinthians 5:1-5
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by humanly hands. meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

The tent that we live in is our bodies and his whole point was that why are we trying or becoming so satisfied with our earthly tents? Why do we seek after trying to satisfy ourselves or make ourselves comfortable in this place, when the scriptures say that we are not to be comfortable. We are not to be satisfied, that we are supposed to be uncomfortable like one who is walking around naked. I seriously had to think about that how uncomfortable you would feel if you were walking around naked. It says that while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we wish to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. I think because I have spent these past few months back home, and in america this really moved me. I am getting very comfortable. I don't think it was bad to be home, it was quite a blessing, but our mindsets here in america and our desires circulate around being satisfied, while all the advertisements we are faced with tell us that we aren't happy yet, until we have this...fill in the blank.
So while I have been oblivious to needing to stand against this lie, I have become sucked back into this lie that I can be satisfied here on earth. That it is my right, thats dangerous, to be comfortable here on earth. When Francis started reading this scripture this morning it was like I melted thinking about my pride that has risen up in me over these past few weeks. Then it made me sad that I was so easily deceived. Why is it so hard for us to believe God when He tells us that things will be better than we could imagine when we are reconnected with Him. When we make it to our heavenly dwelling. Why are we so afraid to believe that it could be better than now. What if its not? Is that the doubt we have. Then we doubt God's word, then we doubt who God is. I doubted. My prayer this morning is a cry from Mark 9:24 "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief."
We have something amazing waiting for us. It won't even be that long of a wait. For life is but a breath. So when you can't seemed to get satisfied or comfortable in this world. REJOICE! Don't be annoyed, discouraged, or angry that you feel like you have been shafted. You aren't made for this world, and we are just waiting out life in this tent, before we return to our heavenly dwellings with Jesus himself!

You are blessed to be a blessing.

The journey through the summer...

Well time is flying by! I have been spending the summer with my family and making it around to all my friends! I have had a blast spending time back in San Angelo, and living with my mom and brothers. I have to say that I have a new respect and awe for moms. After babysitting my little brother all summer long, I have decided it was not a babysitting job but that I essentially became a mom in training.

Typically day:
wake up, take mom to work, go run, Bible/Jesus time, stephens up, get breakfast Stephen - "don't want to eat"... Me -" you have too", get ourselves ready for the day, chores, games or a puzzle (monopoly usually), stephen ever 5 minutes or right after we would finish an event, " what are we going to do now?" "Can we go to joy-land, main event, movies, water rampage?" Me - "No" make lunch, after lunch run errands, or mow the lawn, or laundry, or grocery shopping... stephen "can we go to pet store?" me- "maybe" then we pick up mom from work, dinner, then whew... sleep.

I mean I am tired from all these responsibilities! =) I have really had fun, but am definitely not ready for that full time!

I also spent the last two weeks  getting ready for a garage sale. Since I am leaving for another two years, mom said I had to go through all the stuff that I had and get rid of it! What a task. I had three closets full of stuff and three or four huge boxes in the garage to go through, sort out, and get ready to sell. We did all this work and had the garage sale last weekend and had about ten people show up! Oh what a disappointment! It turns out that we had our garage sale on the same day as some big flea market in town. Go figure! So now we are gearing up to have another garage sale next weekend! =) We will pray this one goes better! Please pay me to hall all my crap off!

I keep trying to post the video I made that recaps my last year but it won't load. I guess the file is too big. I will keep trying.

I really have had a blast seeing so many people since I have been back! Seeing babies that were in there moms when I left, meeting the new mr. and mrs. that have happened since I left, and just being able to be apart of all the family functions agains; the dinners, games, ect. God has really blessed my time! So now I am gearing up and getting ready to go back! I don't leave until the 9th of september but it is coming quicker than expected! I am still making one more trip to San Angelo, so if I didn't see you the first time, I would love to see you this time!

Until next time...

You are blessed to be a blessing

Stillness...

Well... I gotta a little bit figured out on this new remodel of the blog. It is a work in progress still.
 I am still on the run. I have been hanging out in San Angelo now for a few days. It has been very surreal to be back in my old stopping grounds. I didn't think about it being hard to come back here. But it has been a little bit more difficult than I anticipated. It has been great seeing friends and getting to see all the people that I love and have missed dearly. It has also been eye opening and humbling. I have become such a different person than I was when I first arrived in San Angelo. A lot of that changing happened while I still lived here and then even more over this past year and a half. A long process over many years. Being back has reminded me of a lot of things God healed me from, past hurts and past mistakes. But being back has in some ways reopened them. Not in a bad way, but in a way that is finalizing and is bringing a complete closer to who I was before Jesus, and who I am now. I often think about how many people I influenced in a negative way, or missed opportunity with. It is such an awesome testimony of what God can do. How He can take us from the pit of our desperation, slowly and gently into His glory and loving hand. So no matter how hard it is sometimes, or how uncomfortable some moments can be, I couldn't imagine not being here to show the glory of God. What He has done, where He has taken me and how much He loved me through all of it. The good the bad and the very ugly.
I have had to learn what quietness is like again. This strange and uncomfortable quietness  has become my friend lately. It is so good to sit in the quiet. Yesterday.. I was home all day long. It was raining and I didn't have any plans so I just did some work, some reading, ect. It was so nice but all day long it was quiet. I didn't turn on Itunes. No one called and ever time I would think oh I should call someone.. I didn't. God is teaching me again how to sit in the stillness with Him and it is great to get back to that place. Not that I didn't have a bit of quietness this past year, but it is definitely different having 30 min of quietness vs a whole day or several days in a row. I have enjoyed it in a stretching uncomfortable sort of way to get re aquatinted with Jesus in the stillness. haha.

Well above is a video that I made to recap the year.  I tried to show a glimpse of what God did. Hope you enjoy!

You are blessed to be a blessing!

Confused...

Sorry... trying to update my blog.. but finding it difficult to delete my old background... that is why it looks so funny. Hopefully I will figure it out soon!