Hello Everyone!

 I thought I would give you an update on what I have been doing and some of the things I have seen and experienced. 

We have been working with a lady who runs a center where street children can come to shower, eat and learn about God. It is truly an amazing thing and I have loved helping with it. In the late afternoons, we go out to the streets and visit some more children and the families of the children from earlier in the day. This is my favorite part of what we have been doing so far because I love seeing the kid’s expressions. They get so excited when they see you coming…they shout De de (which is like older sister) and run up to you. They want to play, hold your hand, sit on your lap or meet their friends. Even kids you don't know will come up to meet you. Something that really touched me was the other day when we were out on the street, I sat down to talk with someone and stuck my foot in some mud. I didn't want to worry about it, so I just ignored it. I then walked across the street to talk with someone else and a lady saw my foot… she began telling her daughter to rinse off my foot and the daughter was arguing with her mother…I think the girl didn’t want to offend me by saying something but her mother convinced her to help me and so the girl came over and poured some water on my foot to wash it off. It really touched me because they live on the streets where is not very clean and yet they cared enough to not want my foot to be dirty. I have also worked with a lady running a school in the area which is all Hindus and another school in the slums.

I am enjoying the hot weather though it has been extremely hot the last three days. I am also really enjoying the spicy food but I'm still not sure about the Indian sweets. I have eaten a lot of street food and haven't gotten sick which is truly a blessing =)

(The trees and some of the other scenery here remind me of being in Adventure Land at Disneyland.)

 Transportation is such a unique experience from rickshaws to buses….. I am finally getting use to the traffic….. where cars always just miss each other and everyone is honking their horns warning you they are there (even if it isn't necessary). Rickshaws are three wheel bikes with a seat on the back it's pretty snug with two people and you feel really bad that the driver has to cycle the weight of two people but the other day I saw three grown men on the back ! Poor skinny cycler man... We also rode in a motor rickshaw which is about the size of a smart car and the driver crammed 7 people in it! It was an experience to say the least!  They get the most use out of their transportation…….buses always fill up and you end up on top of people… I have also seen four men on one motor cycle- crazy!

In the next week I will be going to work at the Mother Theresa house and then will be getting on a 17 hour train ride which I am looking forward to for another cultural experience!

I am really enjoying being here and I am so thankful for all your prayers and support. 

Thank you, Love you!

Outreach Farewell Video

Here is a video of my group leaving The Lodge!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUQ2eu-S4Ok&feature=youtu.be

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everyone! I just wanted to give you my first updated.

I got to my destination safely! Thank you all for your prayers! This past week I worked at a center for street children which is amazing! The language barrier has been tough but God is helping us work through it. If you could pray for a smoothness in communication that would be great! I will try and do another update soon with more details.


Sunday attire.

Group pictures!

Springtime fun in the sun!

Bowling Fun!

We had a clash and bowl!

Super fun!!!!

Leaving!!!!

Tomorrow I am leaving to go away for about 2 1/2 months. I will try and do an update soon! Thanks for all your prayers and support!

Week 11

Our lecture topic this week was Evangelism. We had a DTS gathering which means that all the DTSs happening in England and Wales all came together for a week ....slept on church floors and shared Jesus with people! I had such a great time! It was challenging but definitely worth it.

Evangelism

Evangelism doesn’t always mean leading someone to Christ right then and there but moving them closer to accepting him. There isn’t a simple way to lead someone to Christ but millions of ways, different for every person. Don’t be afraid of man because we have the best gift to share with people.

I made the decision this week to stand for God! Be a history maker! And never turn away from him even when things get tough!

Outreach

I loved all the different outreaches I did... 

Say One for Me- Asking people on the street if they had any prayer request.

Text A Toasty- Answering college students questions about God or Christianity & making them a grilled cheese or nutela sandwich.

Passing Out flyers for the event we had on Saturday.

Creative Evangelism- Holding signs on the street corners saying what we are and how Christ has freed us from things

Treasure Hunting- Asking God to give you a description of somebody and going out and finding them

Family Fun Day- Face painting, games, balloon sculptures and circus props. This was a great event we had a bunch of people from the community come!

In all these outreaches I had so many good conversations with people trying to share the hope I have in Jesus with them. In Coventry many people were open and also very hurt so it was the perfect opportunity to share Jesus’s LOVE with them!

Summary

This was a great week! I loved meeting so many new people AND learning so many new ways to tell people about Christ.

Week of Craziness!

Creative Evangelism

Family Fun Day

Coventry Cathedral Ruins

Lady I met in the park letting a squire eat out of her hand...

Week 10

Our lecture topic this week was Original Design. I found this week amazing it was all about finding out who God made us to be... I learned a lot and it was really cool to meet more people that are so ON FIRE and in tune with God.

Original Design

God absolutely ADORES ME! He thinks it’s a Heavenly day when he gets to be with me! And that's the same for YOU!

We compare ourselves to others because we don’t see ourselves the way God does.

Stop trying to make things work and let God handle it.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t point things out to condemn us but to FREE us.

We don’t believe lies because we think they our lies but because we think they our true! If we discover who we are then Satan can’t hold those lies to us anymore. Satan speaks as though it were our own thoughts.

Repentance isn’t beating ourselves up over what we did but it’s turing away from those things.

Stop trying to love God! Relax in His presence and you will be overwhelmed by His love which makes you love Him soooo much more!!!

Pray and give God our sleep and the next day.

Vines don’t struggle to produce fruit. Don’t strive.... Remain in God and the fruit will come.

Summary

AMAZING!!!! I would love to do more original design.

Scenery Close By

Week 9

Our lecture topic this week was Old Testament Overview.  The speaker was super fun she made learning about the Old Testament entertaining by how excited she was about it! I loved this week... it was great and it really made me want to learn more about the Old Testament and how it falls into history.

Old Testament Overview

Old Testament reveals God in a Big Drama

Covenants in The Old Testament

Abrahamic

Land

Descendants

Blessing

Mosaic

Love God

Love others

Blessing for obedience

Curse for disobedience

David

Secure homeland

House (Dynasty

Son on throne forever

House (Temple) father/son

We need to Raise our Expectations on what God can do because he can do everything!

We need to keep sowing seeds because then we will have a MASSIVE Harvest!!!!

Always expect God to show up today!

How faithful we are with the little God gives up will effect how much we get eternally.

The Israelites thought of themselves as grasshoppers and were afraid to concur the land God promised them. God sees low self-esteem as a sin. STOP!

Don’t offend God by saying the Cross isn’t good enough to save us.

When the people lived under the Mosaic Covenant they would go in a cycle of... 

Blesses-Complacence-Sin-Cursed-Repents

Our minds are the battle ground

Gods word NEVER changes!!!

Jesus got revelation of His calling through reading The Old Testament!

Mosaic covenant

All those curses were nailed to the cross so it’s illegal for us to apply them to ourselves now!

If the people in Jesus’s time knew who He was, they would have wanted to put Him on the throne instead of the cross and that wasn’t Gods plan!

Outreach

As we were finishing up our outreach this week when I got back to the group I found out one of my leaders was trying to communicate to someone who was deaf! I got really excited and walked over to see if I would be able to communicate with them at all through ASL. It didn’t work super great because our signs are so different but I found out he was from Latvia and I got his email address and am hoping to be able to minister to him some more.

Summary

This week started a new fire in me to dive into the Old Testament and try and understand what it means. The September DTS came back and we got to hear their testimonies about what happened on outreach which was great! I also had a great long weekend in London and I tried to pray for a man there but he didn’t want me to so I prayed for him in my head as I walked away.

LONDON!!!!