The Beginning

This. Is. My. Life.
     The past five months of my life have been pretty spectacular. Some of you know, I’ve been at YWAM Minneapolis. The first three months were a lecture phase, where we had a special speaker come in every week and talk about a certain subject that whole week. Then after those three months we went on an outreach to another country for two months. My outreach was Peru. Ok, let me give you all the details now.
     Let me tell you guys a little bit more about what YWAM really is. It was founded in 1960 by Loren Cunningham. Pretty amazing story. He was a very radical missionary for God, and God told him very clearly that he was supposed to get young people together to bring them on missions. Its all explained in the book called Is that really you, God?  It’s a very good book. We had to read it during lecture phase. There up to 17,000 staff, 30,000 students, in at least 170 different countries, with at least 1,200 bases all over the world. Here are the foundational beliefs that hold all the YWAMs together
1)      The Bible is the authoritative word of God
2)      We have one purpose, to grow with God and know God
3)      We all can hear God’s voice
4)      We practice worship and intercessional prayer
5)      We are visionaries
6)      We are broad structured and decentralized
7)      We are international, interdenominational
8)      We have a Biblical world view
9)      We function in teams
10)   We are leaders in serving
11)   We act first, then teach
12)   We are relationship orientated
13)   There is a very strong value of individuals
14)   We are family orientated
15)   We raise all our support J
16)   We practice hospitality
     Now my base has DTSs which is a Discipleship Training School, which is what I just attended, Mission Adventures, which is almost like a minnie DTS that takes people that are still in high school on short term mission trips every summer, Local Outreaches, and Kids Against Hunger, which packs food and sends it to kids all over the world. The last school that you can do is called SOMD school of ministry development.
     During those first three months we heard talks on subjects like
1)      Hearing God’s Voice
2)      Strategic Missions
3)      Relationships
4)      Social Justice and the Goodness of God – very emotional week!!!
5)      Studying the Bible
6)      Identity and Destiny – very awesome week!!!
7)      Nature and Character of God
8)      The Father Heart of God
9)      The Devine Plumline
10)   Making Choices that Honor God
11)   Spiritual Warfare
     During that time we had things like small groups once a week, where we could get out what we were processing, we also had a “one on one” assigned to each person as a way to verbally process alone what was stirring in each one of us.  We had to read a book every two weeks and answer questions about it. We had local outreaches once a week as well. The students had two options, helping kids at a trailer park called Corcoran Trailer Park with their homework or just spending time with them, or what I did going to the Tibetan Kids Club. We got together in an after school program with a bunch of little Tibetan Kids and tried to teach them Christian morals and about God as secretly as we could, so their parents wouldn’t get mad and keep them from coming. Every day we had “work duties” for two hours. Some had to cook, others clean, or work on maintenance. Every morning we had quiet time for an hour before anything else. Monday we had worship after quiet time. Tuesday we had worship and intercession, Wednesday we had all the people working at the base together for intercession. Thursday we had worship and intercession. Friday we had small group intercession. Also!!! Every Thursday night at 7 we had family night, where anyone could come and we had worship then the speaker of that week would talk a little bit and we would have a testimony or two!!!
     So that was my first three months. I changed a lot even in those months, and I really thought that there wasn’t anything else I could learn on outreach, but we all know that God is never done with us…. Ha ha ha.  Out of the things I learned during that time, I learned that you probably will never be able to make everyone happy, or make everyone like you, and that is perfectly fine. God loves everyone, but it became more personal to me. God loved me. The prettiest thing I could imagine. God made that for me. He made it knowing that one day I would just stare and wonder in its beauty!!!
     Now if you think all of this is amazing, news for all of you,… it only gets better. For the outreaches we had two options. Russia or Peru. I had plans on going to Peru but I still prayed about in non-the-less. God informed me, quite amusingly, that why would he give me such a passion for Latino culture, language, food, and music if he was only going to send me to Russia,… Also in my praying, I had a vision of me walking through the jungle to a river and kids laughing all the way.  So to all or yours surprise,… I CHOSE PERU!! YAY!
     We set out on our way. 7 of us and two staff flew from Minneapolis to Atlanta, then from Atlanta to Lima. Easy right,… NOT!!! For some odd reason, can’t think of what that could be, everywhere we went something went wrong. HMM, stupid satan. Anyways. When leaving to go to Atlanta, our flight was delayed and we didn’t have much time to get to the layover. When we arrived to Atlanta, we ran, I mean RAN to our gate, only to find that the plan left without us. So we were stuck in Atlanta for the night. I do have to say though our spirits were quite high, we sat in the airport singing praise songs!! We weren’t going to let satan win anything. Delta gave us vouchers for food and gave us all hotel rooms until we could leave the next evening. So that is exactly what we did!! The next day we flew safely to Lima! We stayed in Lima that night at the YWAM base there. Then the next day we flew into Iquitos which is the city we were in if we weren’t in the jungle.
     We arrived in Iquitos set up our stuff, met the people at the base! We had a great time exploring the city. We helped out at the base too. We sanded doors for them,  and visited churches. We were only in the city for three days since we were behind. Then we were off to the jungle!!! On our first trip we went to San Jose, San Juan, Shapahesja, Lorencio Prado, and Fortuna. While we were there we dug two wells, and we saved enough to have a third well installed in another village that we went to on the second trip. We deparasited, evangelized, had youth programs, and we had church services every night. We also had someone of us preach or give testimonies along with dramas we did. EVERY NIGHT! Also in the first village, we had a mini youth camp. Which I want to say is like YWAM but in three days. All of us prepared a teaching or two that we had to give in front of all the youth. I had teachings on relationships and inner healing. It actually went very well!!! After about two weeks in the jungle we went back to Iquitos.
     Back at the base we had lots of work ahead of us. We had a youth program in one of the churches called “Bella Luc” beautiful light. We painted a church called “Four Square” and we cleaned, chipped off paint, and repainted a Christian Missionary Alliance Church. We spent a lot of time there. We got to clean the cement floors with brooms, water, and laundry detergent, (don’t worry this is normal). Then we had to get ladders throw water on the building chip off the paint and paint it NEON GREEN, (don’t worry this is normal too). After all our working we did go out to eat a few times, we really enjoyed the Chifa, which is Peruvian Chinese food!!! Then went shopping with the street vendors, we really enjoyed our time.
     After all of this, for about a week in the city, we headed back to the JUNGLE!!!! This time we went to Dos de Mayo (yes second of May, I don’t understand either), Sucre, Bagasan, and Nueva York (yes New York, just in the jungle!!) We did the same things like deparasiting, evangelizing, church services, dramas, and so forth. In the first village we went to though, we have a great story. There was no church there or so we thought, but really there was, it was just abandoned.  We woke up early one morning, mowed the lawns (with machetes, its normal) and cleaned up the church as we washed the walls with brooms and the floors with brooms and soap as well, (normal). As we were cleaning, we stirred attention among the people who helped us out, and we had a church service in it the first day.  It was awesome!!!
     After about 15 days we went back to Iquitos. This time we worked with the alliance church a lot. We had a youth camp there for them This camp lasted about three days. It was awesome. The people were so receptive. After all of this, we actually got to go to the zoo! That was so much fun!!! I held a boa constrictor!! Ha ha ha.
     Ok here is what the jungle was like, my real living conditions that I didn’t really want to tell my mom about, buy hooray for being a radical missionary, sorry mom, its my job J. We slept in huts, if you will, more or less open aired sometimes walled things. The people were very very nice, most were receptive to God, others weren’t but that is always the way it goes, it can break your heart, but we are there to plant the seed, God will do the rest. There were always chickens, ducks, cats, dogs, rats, HUGE spiders, ants, any jungle things in our rooms. We slept in mosquito hammocks. We had to change behind sheets because well, there wasn’t always walls, in fact there was only walls around all the way once. Kids were always following us, and the villagers stare at us like we were at an exhibit. Most of them have never seen “gringos” a lot. We had to put bug spray on like every hour, even then my leg was covered, literally a bug bite every half an inch, guys I WISH  I was exaggerating. We bathed in the river, in our bathing suits, sometimes there was something for us to sit on, but it was always awkward because there were always people staring. Sometimes there was a well at the village where we could fill up buckets of water to pour it on ourselves with bowls. Our dirty clothes??? We washed them in the river with buckets and soap. We let it air dry with hopes there wouldn’t be ants on them when we took it off. Ants bite a lot down in Latin America and HARD. HMM BATHROOMS?? Yeah holes in the ground J sometimes they made the seat look like a toilet. In one village there was an actual toilet but we had to flush down the objects with water we got from the well, hard work,… A lot of us just went wherever we could find a place, I won’t get into details if you don’t want to hear them, but I’ll answer any questions you have!! It was very hot, and humid, after bathing, you didn’t know if you were still wet or sweating again. Yes I was scared every night but I have something that will protect me from anything GOD J
     This whole experience taught me more than I could every express to you all in words. Those of you that see me will have to just watch me. But I will try to tell you all I can.  I learned that my value only comes from God, no one else. I should be at such a place with God that anyone can come up and say the foulest thing to me and I’ll be ok because I know what God says about me is true. Also why do people get upset if people are mad at them, is it for selfish reasons, is it “why is she or he mad at me???? I just want everyone to like me!!” or is it “why is he or she mad, what can I do to fix this and how can I change, how did I offend them” I can’t please everyone, and I’m  not the savior of the world. I can’t do anything on my own and its foolish to try and play God and try to do so. I’m in love with God, and I know He listens to the tiniest thing from me. He has a sense of humor and He wants to give me everything I need. He was always there and will always be there. He wants to love me more than anyone in this world ever can. He wants to fill the hole I have, He wants to show me the world. He hates seeing me in pain, but if I just ask Him, he takes it away so quick. He can talk to other threw me. It’s awesome! I’m glad I have such a gift, also I happen to be quite empathetic, I’m still trying to figure that. I also have this thing were I love to counsel others, still practicing that too, because I obviously can’t do any of this with out Him!!! Anything that you “can’t” live without or anything that you go to when you are upset can turn into a god. I realized that when I’m upset I go straight to music. I was praying the first days and God told me to fast my ipod, I just about had a fit but I agreed. Now when I have issues, I go straight to God, and hey, they get fixed faster, WEIRD!! I also learned, yes I have been hurt in my life, but not letting others in can potentially hurt me more. I am more open, I’ve learned it’s ok to cry, it isn’t a sign of weakness, it shows I can feel and instead of just stuffing down my emotions and not dealing with them, I deal with them I tell how I am feeling and I’m not afraid to be myself and be completely raw before others, even if I do get hurt, God will never reject me. This was very hard for me and took a lot of time, but thank God, God is patient!!!!  I am extremely blessed. I have also found out what my passion in life is. Besides being a missionary and helping people, I want to work with street kids in South America somewhere. If God’s will to go back to Peru, so be it. I have no idea for now.
     My plans so far are, In June, June 26th the second school for YWAM starts, I’m saving up right now.  The topics are:
1)      Principles of Ministry through Community
2)      Biblical Worldview
3)      Cross-Cultural Communication
4)      Spiritual Gifts and Strengths Finder for Ministry
5)      Personal Evangelism
6)      Principles of Leadership
7)      Compassion In Ministry
8)      Faith and Finances for Ministry
9)      Communication your Message Well
10)   Understanding World Religions and the Make-Up of Your City
11)   Practical leadership and discipleship
     It’s a lot like the DTS but more independent now. For example after the first three months, your option for outreach is, alone, where you make  up everything,  with one or more other people, or you help staff the next DTS and then go on outreach with the students. I have been praying and I think that God wants me to do that one. I love counseling others and helping people, and why not practice there.
     I really feel very strongly that God wants me to attend this school. The classroom phase is $2750, outreach phase is $1500 plus airfare to where ever we are going. The difference is, if I’m doing the staffing of the next DTS the finances are different, after lecture phase, its $342 a month, so I would be needing constant support. The school starts June 26th, and doing the internship staffing I would be returning around this time next year. I would be gone for about 8 months. This is something I feel I need to do, especially with all the people I went to DTS with. I made friendships with them like no other, and they all know me more than anyone, and it’ll be good to continue friendships that we all worked so hard on making. Please pray, and if you would like to donate anything please contact me. Also if you have any questions about anything go ahead and ask, I’d love to share!!! Thank you for your time! Sorry it’s so long, but its my past nine months!!! I also promise to write this newsletter thing once a week on updates. Thank you!!! And God Bless!!