The Engagement

Ok, we were going to write this big detailed flowery account of the engagement but got kind of bogged down with it all. So, here is the fast Felicia version of the night. First, everything about the night was completely inspired by Jesus. All of the details big and small came to him one night about the same time that I was thinking about my perfect engagement scenario. Funny enough, what came to both our minds was the exact same thing and we never said a peep to each other. It all went down at a place called Kahn mine in the beautiful Namibian desert.





This is an old abandoned mining town with the original buildings still standing minus roofs, windows and everything else. Just chipped, peeling concrete shells of walls. Apparently Teunis and his mom, younger brother Gert and Gert's girlfriend Nancy started planning all this months ago. Two weeks ago Gert and Ma were out at the mine a couple times repainting the huge main room with picture windows and 15 feet high walls. They measured for curtains as well and Teunis's mother who is a seamstress started making tons of beautiful, filmy white and blue fairy land curtains.
So the day started like this, Gert and Nancy had left very early to go "camping" with some friends so Teunis took me out for a lovely breakfast at a sweet little cafe. We spent the morning browsing around in shops and popped into his mom's fabric store for a quick chat. We walked home and he soon received a phone call from some random friend asking us if we wanted to go camping that night. Of course we are always game for anything and jumped at the chance. We threw some camping stuff together and took off for the desert. He said we were early to meet the friends so we stopped in the middle of nowhere to hang out, walk around and take pictures.






Finally he said we should drive further down the river bed to see if they were already at a place to camp. Keep in mind that I am completely clueless this whole time. I didn't even have a moment of suspicion that anything other than camping with people I don't know was about to go down. So here we are driving along when finally we come around a corner in this beautiful gorge and I see before me Kahn mine which although I have never been there, I KNOW. For some reason I have been fascinated by Teunis's and our friend Daniel's pictures of Kahn mine ever since I saw them. I instantly had this romantic, fanciful attachment to the place and have been bugging Teunis to take me there ever since we arrived in Namibia. I still didn't get it, I said to him, "Honey! We're at the mine, you didn't tell me we were coming to the mine, what the heck?!" As we pulled up in front of the main building, I noticed that every window in the castle tower on the hill had delicate white curtains fluttering in the breeze, still didn't get it. Then I saw Nancy, who was supposed to be camping, all dressed up and holding a camcorder. Then I got it. I got really excited and we had a special little moment in the car before I jumped out and was directed to follow Nancy up to the castle tower which just happened to have a beautiful little dressing table complete with makeup and a mirror.



I also found the dress I had brought just for this occasion hanging on the wall for me to change into. It took me awhile to calm my fluttering hands down enough to actually be able to do anything sensible. But I eventually got ready and was then able to just enjoy the SPECTACULAR desert sunset with Nancy and we giggled and laughed about all the funny little cover ups and details that happened right under my nose.



Finally we prayed together and then I heard a nice beat start below. The Black Eyed Peas were belting out "I've got a feeling... oohhhh.... that tonight's going to be a good good niiiight."
I leaned out one of my castle windows to see my dashing prince heading up the hill with a torch to fetch his love. He came to me at the pinnacle of the unexpected sunset and led me down the hill to the main building.
















As we made our way down the corridor to the main room where we would have dinner, I saw large pictures of us framed on the walls, each one lit up with a torch and further lit by a chandelier dangling overhead.






As you will see from the pictures, everything was gorgeous, so romantic and ethereal, blue accents everywhere which just happened to match what we were both wearing.

















Gert and Nancy basically spent the evening documenting the night and serving us. None of it would have been possible if not for all the work they and his mom put in to make everything perfect.











We started our meal off with delicious lobster salad made by Gert. The lobster had been pulled out of the ocean the day before by Teunis and Gert, it was amazing .Then we had sushi, another favorite and something I had been saying I wanted for days.







After some nice time together, he had me head towards one of these paper wall sconces I had noticed earlier. There were a bunch of them around the room and they were not lit yet. He handed me a lighter and directed me to step up onto a stool to light the candle inside the first wall sconce.



Once I lit it, words framed by a beautiful design (my tattoo which also happened to be incorporated into the rest of the decor in the room) appeared silhouetted against the candle light.



He had me read each sconce out loud as I lit them up one by one. I quickly became very emotional as I read the beautiful scriptures which were the specific words spoken to him when He was praying about if God would allow him to pursue me for life. With each scripture, Teunis would then turn to me and give me a little gift that represented what I had just read out and how it applied to us.



As I finished reading the last scripture, I turned to him to hear what he would have to say as I had done each time previously. But he was not standing before me, he was on one knee, smiling up at me, candle light glimmering in his eyes, reaching for my hand.



I'm glad that the proposal was filmed because even though I tried to soak in every detail, I was so lost in peace that I didn't register everything said, just the I love you's, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and the will you marry me bit. Those stuck out.



He slipped the ring onto my finger, we embraced for awhile and then he put his arm around my shoulders and tilted his head back to look at the sky. I figured we were just going to have a nice moment looking at the vibrant stars while praising God. But no, all of a sudden fireworks began going off right over our heads. Fireworks -one of my most favorite things on earth, very hard to get in Namibia, expensive and oh so beautiful. And they weren't just crappy little sparkler fireworks, they were the real deal.



After a little while, the fireworks ceased and I was led into yet another candle lit room with a white satin covered mattress to lounge on while I was served cupcakes with pink icing (another most favorite thing on earth) and sparklers.





We enjoyed our cupcakes for a bit and then Teunis got the guitar out and started playing another favorite song of ours which afterward came on the car radio for us to dance to.






The song was Forever by Chris Brown which actually has a great beat for sokkie dancing (a very Afrikaans kind of dance that is soooooo much fun). So we laughed our heads off spinning and swirling all over the place until the song was over.





Finally he led me over to one of the torches so I could check my beautiful ring out. Wow! What a ring, tons of little diamonds, a big fat one in the middle, blue sapphires on the sides (to match my eyes) and on the inside, a tiny little ruby to represent the blood of Jesus over us.





Ahhhhh, writing all this and thinking back over each tiny detail still overwhelms me a bit. He thought of every tiny wonderful little detail to create the most beautiful, special night of my life. Once we had enjoyed everything together, we all changed out of our nice clothes, made a fire, pulled out lamb steaks, sausage, corn and other yummy stuff to have a big old braai (bbq) and enjoy the beauty of the evening together.



So there you have it, the most wonderful engagement imaginable for me and camping at the mine thrown in for fun.








































Enjoy the pictures and thank you all for your love and well wishes. We feel so blessed, loved and poured out on by everyone. Thank you!

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!

From 4 Months Ago. Merry Christmas!

I just found this blog that I had started writing over Christmas but never got around to finishing and posting. Here it is.....four months later. Ha ha

What do you do in the middle of the night when everyone in the house is awake crying, throwing up, and bustling around mothering? I guess write a blog. It is time to recap How the rest of the DTS outreach went anyways. I left off when we had arrived in the hilltribe mountain village of Doi Muser. Our team was able to spend just about 3 weeks working in Doi Muser with pastor Worrechet and his wife and had such a wonderful time. We daily went from house to house talking with the villagers, encouraging, praying with and discipling if they were Christians or doing simple things like shucking corn or sharing an impromptu meal in the street while talking and getting to know any of the non-Christians. Pastor Worrechet has quite a big job as even the majority of people who have accepted the Christian faith, are still entrenched in ancestor worship. There is an age old animistic world view in the Lisu and Lahu tribes that desperately needs to be replaced with the teaching, understanding and embracing of a biblical world view. We were also able to spend a lot of time at a small orphanage with 33 children in it. We fell so in love with each and every one of those kids and saying goodbye to them was definitely the hardest part about leaving. Many of the kids in the orphanage attended the Doi Muser school where we taught english most weekdays. All of the children were great, but of course we had a tendency to publicly praise our orphanage kids as often as possible for their brightness and ability to learn quickly. I will include some pictures of our kids. I was able to use my love for photography to bless them by giving each one of them a portrait of themselves. They loved it and so did I!



The second half of our time in Thailand took us from the lush, misty, mountainous jungles of the north to the chokingly crowded, busy metropolis of Bangkok. I LOVED IT! What a city. The other times I have been in Bangkok it was only for a few days and I didn't go far from where we stayed on the outskirts of the city. This time I learned how to use the sky train, bus and even river boat systems. Boy did I explore on our days off. I found that Bangkok, like most big city's, has little pockets of every region of the world scattered about. There is the Arab section, the Indian section, little Europe and so on. One day I sat in an Irish pub eating a delicious plate of Sunday pot roast with all the wonderful sides and by the looks of the place, the patrons and the live band playing Irish fiddle music, I could have been in Ireland. I just had to refrain from looking out the window at the huge billboards in Thai, the scooters zooming past and asian food markets. Oh ya, I had to try and put out of my mind that the entire Irish fiddle band were little Thai men.
So the ministry we worked with in Bangkok is called the MST project. MST stands for "Males and the Sex Trade". This ministry reaches out to the hundreds of thousands of men who come to Thailand as sex tourists every year. A lot of these guys are broken and hurting inside even though they do a good job of not showing it. We would be down in the red light district almost every night until 1 AM talking and praying with some of the guys. You really have to ask God for the right heart and attitude towards these guys as it would be so easy to judge and hate them for what they are doing. But when you see them as God does, you know that they are just as deserving of God's love and grace as anyone else and they are His son's.
I will bring this to a close as it is getting very long. To sum things up though, God put His love for the nation of Thailand in me and was so faithful to all of us through every step of the outreach. I learned new things, fell more in love with Jesus and was blessed immensely over and over again. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us during the time there. Until next time....

In Thailand

We are in a National Geographic photo spread! Our group has traveled into the lush green mountains outside of a town called Tak in north west Thailand. This area is populated by the Lisu and Lahu tribes and we are the first team of foreigners to serve in the area. So far we have spent a lot of time teaching english in the charity school here as well as the very populated orphanage. The pastor and his wife who we are staying with have taken advantage of our growing skills as english teachers as well and are surpassing us in the race to learn each others languages. We are also spending time with members of the burdgeoning church who are thirsty for discipleship and teaching. They are all still very steeped in their tribal practice of ancestor worship. So we are busy teaching basic Christianity and what it is to have a true relationship with Jesus. Pray for health as one after another we have been coming down with colds. The mountains are much colder than what we were prepared for. The guys love it, not so much the girls. Look for another update when we come down from the mountain again on the 6th of October. Blessings!

Indonesia (old post)

Hey everyone, greetings from J-city. Unlike the Mexico City team that hit the ground running with ministry, we have hit the ground praying and praying and praying. We've also been praying in case I forgot to mention that. The city we are in is a very closed city as far as our Father goes. And the predominant faith here is currently celebrating their most holy season…Ram./adan. Yesterday we were with some leaders of the flock in the Fathers house and were able to encourage them immensely. Each one of us shared a word that was being spoken to us by the Lord and we all prayed and worshiped together. Everyone was filled up! In the evening we played a little soccer with children in a slum. The kids are very shy and it took awhile for them to not run screaming down the street from us. The desire to see pictures of themselves on the camera’s LCD finally won them over though. This morning we are teaching English in two schools and will speak about our family’s and the love that leads us. Lot’s of prayers please! Love to all -J team

Pray for us

The following message is an email that my friend Craig wrote after I spoke with him on skype. Craig, thanks for writing all of this down and getting the word out



Good Morning,

I just had a Skype call with Felicia this morning. She contacted me requesting our prayers. Here are some notes from our conversation:

She and the team are in good spirits. Morale is excellent, and they are in intense prayer and worship daily.

They are experiencing some spiritual oppression at times.
- Liz had a very intense dream and had the impression of a heavy weight on her chest. She was unable to speak above a whisper. Thankfully, another team member heard her struggle and immediately moved to intercede for her and the oppression lifted
- The team was able to enter Asia's largest mosque and walked through praying and interceding. Afterwards, they met at a nearby catholic church to debrief and continue praying. At the church, Felicia felt an intense heaviness and felt like a hand had been placed over her mouth. She couldn't breathe or speak. She even blacked out for a moment.

The MegaCities coordinators hooked our team up with a local pastor. However, the pastor seemingly doesn't have any time for them. The team feels a bit like a burden to the church. The church has only set up a couple of "outreach" events for the team--mostly teaching English in an environment where they're not allowed to share the gospel. There is a real timid feeling about evangelism among the believers there. The church is unable to provide translators.

The church appears to be going through some difficulty. Some young people that are interested in evangelism and outreach have left the church. Felicia feels torn, because she wants to support the young people's vision, but also wants to honor the leadership of the church.

The team has gone into a slum area on their own on at least one occasion. They pray intensely going in and going out. Without any translators, they have been able to play soccer with some kids and make some connection there. She also shared about how fun it was to help a woman with her laundry, even though there was no way to communicate. Can you imagine what it may have been like for this woman where some strangers from far away and no way to speak spent time... Let's pray that somehow God's message of goodness is expressed by this team...

Okay, that's the extent of what I remember about our conversation. Felicia requests that we pray for them as much as we can. So I encourage you to join with our DTS and ask God for favor and blessing. The team will be in Jakarta for the rest of the week, and heads to Thailand on Saturday. Pray for their continued safety.

I shared with Felicia an impression about generations. I was reminded that God often works in generations--He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Maybe the body of Christ in Indonesia is in a wrestling kind of season, like Jacob wrestled with God... and that sometime in the next generation there will be a breakthrough, but that this generation is required to wrestle for their blessing. If that resonates with you, feel free to pray along those lines.

Felicia asked that we pass this info on to the other team from our DTS, but I don't have any contact info for them. BC, can you get that info to me, or can you make sure that this message is passed on to them in a timely way?

Thanks!

Dean Sherman, Ensenada, photos and FOOD!

The San Diego DTS made the move down to Ensenada about a week ago for an action packed 9 days of activity. Our first stop was just across the border at one of our accountant's parent's home in Tijuana where we were blessed by a mouth watering smorgasbord of mexican food. This began the theme of the week for me... eat a lot of authentic Mexican food!
We then continued down to Ensenada arriving just to fall into bed after a long week of class. We were up early the next morning ready to build a house for the Ramirez family. We arrived at the build site and realized we were about to be the all time largest homes of hope team ever! A little side note here, more people does not translate into finishing the house faster. It usually means that there are a ton of people on top of each other, in the way and a generally slower house build. This time it ended up being the most wonderfully diverse group of people ever. We had our DTS which is mostly American with a token South Korean thrown in and a Mexican girl. Along side a few Mexican staff, I was the representative Canadian in the bunch. Then we had two family's from New Zealand one of which had about 8 children. Then there was a good sized handful of British to round us all off. What fun we had. We all walked away from the weekend richly blessed (especially by Blancas delicious empanadas) having made special new friendships.
Monday ushered in the legendary Dean Sherman. Spiritual warfare. Come on you guys! and a few arm jerks every now and again to encourage us to "think outside the box". Another thought provoking, life changing week of hearing from God through one of our speakers. Dean brought a message to our entire YWAM San Diego Baja family on wednesday night that I so wish we could have recorded. It was a milestone message for us I believe and completely prophetic. Dean called us out so to speak. He told us that at different times in the history of YWAM, certain bases have been in the spotlight. And that right now we are in that spotlight, so we had better be careful. What a huge thing to hear from Dean Sherman, what a humbling thing, and in a way, what a scary thing. It's true, if we are in the spotlight we had better be careful to make sure we are every day asking God's presence to go before us, every day be consciously clothed in the armor of God and looking to be in the center of His will. It's an exciting word too! I am extremely fired up over this and yes, humbled to be a part of one of God's movements, one of God's special projects.
We capped today off with some mandatory fun at a water park south of Ensenada and have some big things in store for the rest of the weekend. More to come later...

Homeless Ministry

5:15 am on a Saturday morning and my alarm reminds me to sacrifice a little. Myself and my two roommates roll out of bed and drive through the gray marine layer that has settled thick over the city. We head for the office to start making coffee. In a slight state of grogginess I prayerfully go about the task of making pot after pot of coffee. Eventually we fill a ten gallon cooler with coffee, pile into the vans and head downtown to Harbor Drive where the homeless are beginning to wake up for the day. Some of us end up on the street across from the Convention Center where the homeless crowd is a little older and reserved while the rest of us end up on the other side of Petco Park with the rowdier party crowd. As most people start to wake up they are really grateful to wake up to a cup of coffee and a muffin they don't need to go looking for. And everyone is looking forward to just having someone to chat with. I spend quite a bit of time talking with a guy named Chris who's always been on the street. If I had run into him anywhere else in the city I wouldn't have had a clue he was homeless. Nice guy, articulate, well kept pretty balanced sort of person. Somehow the coming DTS outreach to Thailand came up and he asked all kinds of question that opened the door for me to share why we would go half way across the world or even come downtown to help people. The love of Jesus. So it was the beginning of one of many new relationships made again this past weekend. A chance to step outside of my comfort and sit in someone else's living room (sidewalk) for a bit. One of many

"The Manor"

The hallway smelled like urine and the doors to each room were stained with years of dirt. Through open doorways I could see frail bodies crumpled into balls on cots. As we followed the director of the nursing home down corridor after corridor, my heart was wrenched with sadness at these forgotten peoples lives. The worst part...I wasn't in some third world country, I was next door to my home. And when I say next door, I mean next door. I can see into the concrete courtyard of the nursing home from the windows of the apartment where I live with all of the DTS girls.
For over a year I have walked by, driven by The Manor and felt a stirring in my heart to help in some way. The morning I finally walked in there to offer the help of 16 young people, the activity's director threw her hands up and said, " I prayed for you all this morning!"
So there we were pushing wheel chairs down the hall, serving coffee, juice and cookies and just listening to people who were desperate to be heard. I listened to a Mexican man named Bernardo tell me over and over again how him and his wife had worked really hard all their lives to have nice things and how they never even had children because they just wanted to work hard. Now Bernardo's wife is gone, he has no children and he sits alone with only an occasional cigarette to look forward to.
So here we are, being used to bring a little light and love into ordinarily dark and lonely days. Here we are taking blind people for walks when they would normally just lie in bed all day every day. My heart hurts for these forgotten ones, I wish I could spend hours upon hours with each and every one. For now I'll do the little that I can and pray for more hearts to be touched to come and give a little of their life and their love.

Broken Legged Lamb

Here comes a renewed effort to post weekly updates on my blog...
The first ever San Diego DTS has been in session for almost a month now and let me tell you, it has been something special. With a group of 12 students and 4 staff, there is a very family oriented flavor to this school. We have been hearing amazing, life changing teaching and spent a lot of time praying and interceding for different areas of our city and world together. I have been thrown back into extreme community living with a vengeance as I am living in a 3 bedroom apartment with 9 other girls. It's been crazy and fun.



On a personal note... I have been walking through a very difficult season of life for awhile now as a result of a few different things. For a long time I have tried very hard to keep up appearances and be all things to all people or live up to the expectations that I imagine people are putting on me. But eventually that all falls apart and we come to a place of complete and utter dependence on God's grace and mercy. Which is where I find myself. I have been so comforted by the truth of Jesus being our shepherd. Right now I am that lamb that strayed away and the shepherd had to bring me back and as shepherd's do, break my legs and carry me on his shoulders to have me grow so intimately accustomed to His voice. It is a place of pain yes, but also of a real closeness to my Lord and savior.
I really do apologize for my extended silence. It seems that it is always harder to communicate when one really needs to in a time of difficulty, than it is in good times. But I am coming back again. Much love to all.

Skate Event Update

It's been awhile now since the Revolution Youth Ministry skate event, but I did promise that I would put up some pictures and give an update on how it all went down. So here you have it. For months prior to the event Omar and Stephanie put many, many hours into organizing all the little details that must be covered to legally shut a street down in downtown Ensenada. As you can imagine there were piles of redtape to work through that kept on going right until the end. They found out only days before that they had to hire an ambulance and police officers to work the event in case anything happend. Permits were needed, Business owners on the street had to sign a release allowing the event to go forward and so on.



Finally the day came, the pro skaters with King Of Kings Skate Ministry(KKSM) arrived in San Diego where I met them and hopped a ride. It was time to set up the ramps. KKSM brought a trailer full of ramps down that they donated to the Revolution Ministry which was an awesome blessing. Thanks guys! Finally the skating began. A lot of local talent got to show their stuff and we had a great competition. The KKSM skaters did a demo for quite awhile and Zac set the pace displaying some crazy talent. We even had a suprise guest show up that added to the whole night. Danny Way and his brother were wandering around downtown when they came across the event. If you don't know who Danny Way is, Google him. He is one of the biggest skaters of all time and is best known for the fact that he jumped the Great Wall of China on a skateboard. Incredible. He put up a $100 bill to judge an improptu trick comp.
Side note-I ended up running into Danny a few weeks later in Ikea and stalked him for 45 minutes while he talked on his cell before I was able to chat with him. I told him where I had seen him and thanked his for stopping by and let him know how cool that was for everyone involved. He was really stoked to hear about the skate ministry and offered help if it was ever needed. Good guy.
The night ended with Eli sharing his testimony and giving an awesome gospel message of grace and love. A bunch of the kids there came forward to pray and invite Christ into their lives. It was a really beautiful time. Praise God for what He did!