Love

I've been meaning to post this letter I wrote for awhile now. All that follows came to pass the beginning of August and ever since then our love has grown and grown. Now we only have 50 more sleeps until we are finally together and I can hardly wait.



My Love Story
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 7:53am | Edit Note | Delete
Let me tell you of a love story that I never could have foreseen, a love story that begins and ends in the love of Jesus.
I have a dear friend who I’ve known for years named Daniel. Some years ago Daniel moved to South Africa and became best friends with my love, Teunis Cloete. Through the delightful invention of facebook, I noticed pictures of Teunis every once in awhile when Daniel would post new photos of yet another manly adventure into the wild, up a mountain or up a rock face. Teunis caught my eye to say the least. I still remember the day I was talking to Daniel and casually said, “so, tell me about your friend Teunis.” Daniel’s initial response was, “NO! Down girl!” But he soon went on to tell me about how highly he thought of his best friend and what an amazing man of God he was. Through a set of ridiculous circumstances, Teunis and I were soon chatting on facebook often and getting to know each other rapidly. Every time we talked (which was constantly) we discovered so many things we had in common and felt so free and open to share deeply about our dreams, pasts, everything! The most beautiful part of it all was how centered our friendship was in God, how everything we talked about came back to us just being in awe of who He is, we were and still are giddy with excitement at the things God was speaking to us through each other.
A month ago, Teunis moved to Montreal Canada because of a very clear word God gave him over a year ago to do so. Wow, what a good God we serve. Once Teunis arrived in Montreal, God started to give him words and then a dream that broke his heart and opened his eyes to the issues of human trafficking, and child sexual exploitation, the very things that God has broken my heart for, the very things I want to spend my life fighting against and ministering too.
Since he has been on the same continent as me, it has been even easier for us to connect and it became a daily occurrence for us to have 2-3 hour skype video chats. The more we talked, the more it became abundantly clear that, as he said, everything we were created to be was so perfect for each other. It has been quick, but over the past month, we have every day just fallen deeper in love with Jesus and deeper in love with each other.
Finally, Sunday night, after both of us separately knew in our hearts, beyond a shadow of a doubt that this love was one to last a lifetime, we told each other everything, it came pouring out, every word sweeter than the one before.
I am still reeling over all of this, over how much he loves and cherishes me and that he takes every opportunity to let me know that. I have never felt as precious to anyone besides my Jesus in my whole life and know that it will only get better. It’s a joke that we love each other this much and haven’t even met in person yet. But the beautiful thing is thinking of how amazing that will be when it happens, soon. If we love each other this much now, I fear my heart will stop beating when I am finally in his arms. For now, he is in my country (for those of you who like me sometimes forget that I am Canadian) and I am in his country. Oh the irony of it all. I am so thankful for the amazing peace God has put in both of us over every aspect of our crazy love. That even now, there is no uncomfortable yearning or longing to be anywhere but where God has placed each of us. We rest in knowing that we will be together in God’s flawless timing and that it will be PERFECT! Much love to you all!
Felicia

The Brits are coming! The Brits are coming!

Me, Omar, Ryder and Steph (my best friend) and Ste


A year ago I made two very dear friends when a couple British blokes named Jon and Stephen (Ste) decided to come spend a couple weeks in Ensenada with a mutual friend. Ste was turning 40 and wanted to do a landmark event for his 40th birthday. This is what brought him to Mexico where both of them quickly fell in love with the people and the country. During that time, a dream was born in Ste’s heart, a dream to bring youth from England to serve the nation of Mexico. I am happy to say that Ste’s dream was realized when I had the opportunity of meeting him and the 18 other people joining him at the airport a couple weeks ago.
It was such a joy for me to be able to join the team in Ensenada as we partnered with a few local pastors to minister in the community. One of the ministries we worked with is a day care center for children who’s parents are absent working or living somewhere else. The kids receive a lot of love and are taught about the love of God by the woman who runs it. One day as we played with the kids on the beach, which was incredibly exciting for them, Ste pulled me aside to help him interview Vicky who runs the day care center. For 20 minutes I got to translate as Vicky shared her story and how God had called her to these children. This was a very exciting step for me as far as speaking the Spanish language goes! I found myself translating more and more as the week went on and enjoyed so many wonderful conversations with people all in Spanish!
One day we were doing some fun activities with the children of a certain community in a local church. I was elected to teach English classes at the spur of a moment and was delighted to have a mother and daughter join me. Ariel and Yvonne. They were both so eager to learn and were so joyful. But what impressed me the most was their precious relationship. Yvonne had Ariel at an older age and almost could have been her grandmother. But despite the age difference, the two were like best friends, giggling together, encouraging each other as they learned new words and just having a lot of fun with everything they did together. It blessed me immensely.



Right before I left for South Africa, the team started building a home for a beautiful young family and I was able to get out a build the whole first day. After working 110% all day long, it was time to leave. I knew that I would not be back the next day and wanted to thank the family again for the delicious fresh juice they had made us at lunch time and also bless them before I left. As I spoke out a blessing on their home and their family, Rapahael, the father, welled up with tears and began to cry. He said to me that he never expected when we arrived that he would receive more than just a small basic house. But instead what he saw before him was a beautiful home that had been made with so much love. He then told me that his home was my home any time I needed and that I would always have friends in him and his wife. WOW! I was definitely the one who was the most blessed as the three of us stood there talking
What a perfect week it was! And now, here I am in South Africa. I’ve left summer behind and am nestled in winter clothes and a blanket with a steaming cup of Rooibos tea. More to come on my South African adventures!

The Rescue

Hey I know I haven't shut up about Invisible Children's The Rescue and you might be getting annoyed with how much I have been talking about it, but you're just going to have to get over it, because here I go some more.
I am just amazed and enthralled at what these guys and gals are doing for the nations of Uganda, the Congo and beyond. Their approach of putting a stop to an international atrocity and the tenacity they have shown in doing so is something that would inspire even the most apathetic cynic. For me, it stirs up that familiar longing to drop everything I'm doing and run to the rescue of hurting, exploited men women and children everywhere. Often I find myself asking God why He has me where I am doing what I do. I get restless living in America and long to change my life drastically in a way that will make the lives of others better. I want to give up more so that others will have. I WANT more so that I can give up more.
So back to The Rescue. The 100 city event to raise awareness about the plight of child soldiers in Africa culminated in an incredible way. The Rescue started Saturday the 26th and by the end of the weekend pretty much every city had been rescued by an A list celebrity or a politician EXCEPT for Chicago. People from all over America headed in towards Chicago in cars, buses and planes -Rescue Riders, to join Chicago's unrescued in solidarity. As more and more rescue riders showed up the energy and excitement about what was to come built. The plan was to go for the woman with a voice, Oprah. By thursday the 3 founders of Invisible Children had arrived from the cities they had been in and set about organizing the 500+ people for a fresh assault on Harpo studios. In 2 hours, 500 people pulled together an organized musical based on U2's Pride (in the name of love). They all marched to Oprah's studio, peace signs held high and proceeded to sing their hearts off for a couple hours. A lot of attention was turned their way, but it seemed that Oprah had turned a deaf ear. Eventually it was time to take off and regroup for the next day. After days of sleeplessness, everyone showed up outside of Harpo studio's once more by 5am Friday morning. Oprah showed up, took Jason, Bobby and Laren into the studio with her. Her best friend Gayle handed out gourmet cupcakes to people outside and soon the 3 guys came flying out of the studio screaming and yelling that they were on. What a celebration. Oprah gave Invisible Children the first 8 minutes of her show to Rescue the Chicago group and speak out on behalf of the children of Uganda. She told everyone to go to the website, www.invisiblechildren.com which of course meant the IC servers were crashed every hour from 1pm to 4pm San Diego time as millions of people across the nation did what Oprah told them to as her show aired.
Praise God! This fight against injustice in Africa has just been kicked up a lot of notches. Please inform yourself about the work Invisible Children is doing, tell other people, get involved by writing to your local politicians, give money to Invisible Children. DO SOMETHING!!!!!!
Peace and love to all

San Diego Mission Adventures

Worship on the beach



Tom and the Emo boys



Leaders meeting



Serving at the San Diego Food Bank




It's over, how sad. Our first ever Mission Adventures in SAN DIEGO was amazing. At least if you ask me. Yes there was chaos, yes there were many schedule changes, yes there was exhaustion and yes there were moments of confusion. But peoples lives were changed, touched and blessed. A guy named Tom wandered by as we worshiped God on the beach and ended up giving his life to Christ, we prayed for many people, sorted food in food banks and even inspired Starbucks employees to get out into their community's and serve as we got our 5 am coffee's every morning. We served alongside residents of St. Vincent's program for the homeless to get on their feet and off the streets. We served coffee on the street and brought meals to HIV and AIDS patients.
The night that Tom met Jesus was also the night that God hooked us up with some wonderful, passionate, young worshipers. Our regular worship leader wasn't able to come with us to our beach bonfire but when we arrived at the beach, I walked past a group of emo looking Mexican boys who were singing Jesus songs. A few of the guys went to talk to them and invited them to join us and asked if they would lead some worship. What a divine appointment it turned out to be. Our new friends are so excited about what God is doing in the city of San Diego and in Baja Mexico and have just been itching for ways to get involved. I will be meeting with them some time this week to hook them up with idea's and opportunity's for them to serve and love on their community's.
I pray that this was just the beginning of a new work of God in our community. It was too good for it not to happen again and again!