First day!

Well this isn't going to be too long but we made it to Honduras and our first day of camp. The children were absolutely adorable and we enjoyed ourselves probably as much as they enjoyed being there. 

I'll include a picture or two but I'll save most for when I return. Wifi is a bit limited. I'll try to update a little as much as I can. Thanks for praying!!

Almost ready!

I am writing to you from my cell phone app this evening to see what it will be like in Honduras. So far so good. 

Well, I head out on my trip in approximately 36 hours. Craziness. I cannot believe it has arrived so quickly. It seems as if it was just a few weeks ago that I was filling out the application and praying about if this was the right trip for me.  And now here it is!

We fly out of BWI on Saturday morning and land in San Pedro Sula Saturday evening. The place we are staying is about an hour and a half from the airport.  Sunday will be our first day at the camp and our first real experience in Honduras. To say I am excited is an understatement. It's taken a while to get to this place, but ready or not, we'll be off shortly! 

I have never been good at packing. It is not a strength of mine. Currently I have things all over my bed and room waiting to be strategically arranged in one large suitcase and one carry on. We shall see how well it goes. I need to do one more load of laundry and then I think I will have everything I need. I spent about 2 hours today running around to various stores to pick up last minute items to either take for myself or for the hundreds of children we will be meeting. Now to just fit it all in my luggage. 

I wanted to take a quick second before I go and finish my preparations to say that I appreciate every one of you who is reading this and praying for our team. You are just as important to this trip as the members of our team. Your support is making this possible. So thank you!

I will try to update this as frequently as possible throughout the trip. Feel free to post questions or comments and I will try to answer them in the next post. 

Well, as I've clearly described, I have lots of packing left to do before I go, so this is farewell for now. Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers! 

Praise and Prayers!

Hello!

So I have exciting praises to report! Our team for Honduras is FULLY FUNDED!! We had a fundraiser at Isaac's Deli last Sunday and raised over $400! That in combination with the gracious gifts of friends and family, each of our team members now has their trip fully paid for. Praise God! Thanks to everyone who has supported us both financially and prayerfully!

Which leads me to the next part of this post: Prayer.
With our trip only 2 weeks away (yikes! so exciting!) I would love if you would partner with us and commit to praying for our team as we are working and ministering in Honduras. As I wrote in my last post, we will be working with Kids Ark International, a camp for the children in Honduras. We will be doing a skit of Jesus feeding the 5000, singing a couple songs in Spanish (or should I say attempting to sing), and helping overall with the daily routine of camp. We will be passing out clothing, food, toys and lots of love. We will also be spending some time in schools and a local orphanage doing similar activities.

Here are some ways you can pray for us:
- Safety of travel to and from the country and our daily trip to camp
- Meshing and working as a team throughout the week
- Mental, physical and emotional health for our team throughout our time in Honduras
- For God's love to flow in us and through us as we work and minister to the people of Honduras
- For us to allow God to work in our lives and wreck our world for the nation of Honduras
one last one (I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm actually slightly concerned)
- That the mosquitoes would not find me delicious (aka, very few bug bites please!)

We've been preparing and praying for our time abroad and we're so excited! Hopefully I will be able to post regular updates while we are there. I am excited to share this experience with you all. Your support has helped me take this step. I am excited for you to experience it with me!

So you have some faces to pray for:

 

 And a goofy one to show off our personalities:

Again, thanks so much for all of your support! Keep checking back for updates!

Heading to Honduras!

Wow, it's been a long time. 

So exciting news: I am officially on the team headed to Honduras from Victory Church this summer!

As most of you probably know, I have a passion for cultures and working with children. It is my hope that someday I will be able to combine these two and teach overseas. While that time is not now, I am looking forward to this opportunity to take the next step in my pursuit! This summer (June 29-July 6, specifically), ten of us are traveling to Kids Ark International, a camp for the children of Honduras.

The camp is located 45 miles south of San Pedro Sula. We will be working with Kids Ark International in their summer camp, visiting local orphanages and schools, and taking a trip to a village to see where some of our “campers” live.

To say that I am excited is an understatement.

I have been praying about where God is going to lead me as far as teaching overseas. Again, it seems that the time is not now, but I still feel drawn to Latin American cultures. As it has been almost 5 years since I've been out of the country and even longer since I've been in a Spanish-speaking country, I feel that this is a great stepping stone to wherever God will eventually lead. Who knows ... maybe I'll find something in Honduras that I can't live without and end up moving there! 

No matter where God leads, I feel that this is most definitely where I am supposed to be for June 29-July 6. The ministry opportunities sound amazing and the kids sound like they will be just fantastic. If you want to keep track of my progress while in preparation and while on the trip, feel free to check back in here. I plan to use this blog as my main form of communication about the trip. I should even be able to post on here while in Honduras. 

The purpose of this blog is not to fund-raise, but if you  happen to feel compelled to give, you can send a check to Victory Church at 1827 Freedom Rd., Suite 103, Lancaster, PA 17601 with "Honduras" written in the memo. Again, that is not the intention of this and I will be gratefully happy if you just pop by this site to check out what's going on in our trip to Honduras!

Blessings to all who read this.  

Kids Ark Website 
Victory Church Website 

Daydreaming or ... something else?

I watched the mid season finale of Covert Affairs last night and the last scene was a fairly adorable one involving a guy and a girl starting a relationship and kissing. The scene lingered with me for the rest of the evening and even into today. I would catch myself thinking about how cute it was or replaying it and thinking "someday."

But really, that will probably never be a real 'someday.'
As women we often look to or create these fantasy scenarios in our brains for how relationships should be, how guys should look or act, what the perfect kiss will be or when. We often just call this daydreaming, but in reality it may in fact be harming us and our future or current relationships.

I'm going to be honest here: I don't know how the rest of the world thinks of pornography, but here is my opinion.
Pornography is harmful to not only the people who watch it, but also the relationships those people are in, will be in and have been in. Pornography is a huge issue and most certainly a leading cause in the immorality and impurity of our nation.

Now, that being said, women (and I am most certainly included in this), these fantasies we linger on and create I truly believe are our own form of pornography. They can have similar effects: they produce unrealistic expectations for you and your partner and ultimately leave you empty and hurting. Now, I'm not saying that it's exactly the same. For men, it is more of a visual or physical thing, or so I am told, but for women, it's emotional. We want to be that girl, feel that way, have that man's arms around us to be loved like that. We want that scenario. We set such high expectations that cannot be reached that we never get that emotional high.

 So, now what do we do? Stop watching chick flicks? Turn off the TV, stop reading books, put down the magazines? Well, maybe, for a little if that's what we need to do to get our minds back, but it doesn't have to be forever. What I'm saying is we have to be mindful. How much play time are we giving this stuff? Are we simply watching a movie or reading a book or are we living through the characters on the screen and in the pages? Think about it.


This is more for myself than anyone else. If anyone else can benefit as well, then it is an added bonus.

Another Fiji Flashback ... God's Love!

I had another Fiji flashback today during worship at church. I remember sitting in the grass on Taveuni and just feeling the love of God in every moment, in the beauty all around me. I felt beautiful sitting in the presence of his love.

Each night with the few hours of electric we had after it got dark (at like 6pm) we as a team would have a time of worship. We pulled out an old keyboard, grabbed the guitar and began singing together in a time of spontaneous praise to the Lord. For several nights in a row we sang a song that simply goes like this:

"Let it rain
Let it rain
Open the floodgates of heaven"

We sang it over and over 20 or 30 minutes of just begging the Lord to pour out his blessings and his love on the island.
This morning at church we sang this song. Immediately I was back in the little house praising God with my teammates.

What amazed me this morning is that for the first time since that time in Fiji almost 5 years ago I truly knew that that type of close relationship with the Lord is possible in "real life." Life off the island seemed bland in comparison. I never thought I could get back to the level of relationship with God that I had then away from that kind of bubble experience. That time was so set apart for the Lord that I never thought I could get back to that place apart from it.

As so many other times, God proved me wrong. He showed me my life now and reminded me that yes it's different from that time in Fiji but our relationship is even more developed than it was. I feel like I'm doing a terrible job of explaining it but what I mean is that you and I can achieve the mountain top experience in our every day life. Our relationship can grow stronger in our daily life by spending time in his word and prayer. Sometimes it even goes beyond that time when we're in the bubble because it's real and applicable.

Another flashback was to the waterfall. We took a day to visit one of the waterfalls in the rainforest. It was a day for me that I will never forget. I led devotions that morning and encouraged my team to dive into his love much like I knew some of my teammates would do later that day. We arrived and I watched in longing at my friends doing what I was momentarily paralyzed to do: make the jump into the literal and figurative pool of the Lord.

God did a work in me that day. It took me a while but I made it to the ledge with the help of a friend and prepared to jump. I backed out of a jump with another friend but a few moments later with just me and God and the water below I took a running leap from the rocks and jumped into the refreshing water.

The words on the screen today were accompanied by this picture. Below it is a picture of the fall in Fiji. They may not look similar in your eyes but in mine they represent the leap that we all must take to trust God and jump into his overflowing love.

So in all, the Lord taught me today that you can break the bubble and go even deeper with the Lord than we ever thought possible - even in your everyday life.

Be encouraged. Take the leap into the pool of God's love.

Remembering the stars

So I've been wanting to write this for a few days now so I figured I would take a quick break from the tiny bit of school work I am doing this weekend and just get it down on paper.

Some nights I really miss my time in Fiji. I don't necessarily miss the bugginess or the humidity, but I miss the simplicity of it all. Late at night when the electricity was turned off, I would sometimes walk outside and just look up at the stars. Thousands of little lights illuminating the ground, so bright I didn't even need a flashlight. There were days -- weeks even -- of no make up, fresh water from the stream showers, hand washed laundry at 6am. Early sunrises and early sunsets with days filled with rainshowers, talks of Jesus and his love and the comfort of friends as close as family. My three most valued possessions were my Bible, notebook (and pen) and the songs coming through my headphones.

I do not miss being away from my family or having no contact with the world beyond the island, but I do miss being disconnected, unplugged, away from the world for a time. Sometimes I truly miss gazing at the beautiful creation around me and marveling at the Creator in a place where nothing else mattered -- just me and the Lord.

I learned so much on that trip. God stretched and grew me in those two months that I spent in the middle of the Pacific. He helped me do things that I never imagined I could accomplish or withstand. I miss the days when I could take the time to sit in the sun and bask in the Savior's presence.

My life here is so different from those two months that I spent amidst the flowers and raindrops -- with new friends and old ones -- living simply to know God and make him known. But it's not a bad different. I'm learning to experience God in new ways -- to fit my schedule around him so that my life can still bring him glory -- so I can still be about the will of my Father.

Although I miss the time with the stars, the raindrops, and the overwhelming love of the Lord, we -- he and I -- are making a new time here. Someday I'm sure I will look back and think on this time and find myself missing now.

Cherish each day. Make the most of it. Make it count for eternity.