So I have been praying and thinking a lot... a lot about life and where I see God leading me in the next few years possibly and its kind of scary not going to lie, because where I am seeing Him leading me at this moment, I know it is a really, really big possibility! When I came down here in January I thought that this would be a good place for me to find more of myself, the person, the woman that God wants me to be, and in that finding a deeper relationship with Christ. I wanted to take all that God shows me here back home and apply that to school and work and all of these things that I thought I was going to do when I have to go home in August...
I am a huge day dreamer, something to know about me, so I sit and dream about what my life would look like a few years down the road, married, kids, maybe a great job, you know, "life". For a few months now maybe even before I left home God has been showing me that, yes, those are all possibilities for the life He has for me but what about this as well? And so all the plans that "I" had when coming here to reach the dreams that "I" have all seem to be less important. Since coming here like, almost instantaneously it seems God has put on my heart new dreams and plans for my life and I cant help but "day dream" about what life could be like living here in the DR, or another mission field. Although its not really a dream right now with me living here, it sometimes seems like it. I sit on the couch, like I am doing right now, and look out the front door and think to myself, umm yea I am in a different country right now, crazy! It has defiantly been an eye opening experience so far! God has shown me what life could be like here and the work that I am doing, never would have thought that, and I LOVE it! It has only been a few months, we still have a ways to go!
Going home in August is going to look a lot different than what I thought it would in the beginning. And that’s ok I am good with that because I know that for now that is what God wants me to do. Not that I am already thinking about going home because I defiantly don’t want to think about that, but small steps in the direction of my life are being taken and they are all taken from the moments that He is giving me here and looking at what the future might hold.
So I guess I am just sitting here in amazement at all that He is doing and will continue to do in my life. Yea amazement is the word for my life right now! I will continue to soak it all in and soak Him and what He has yet to show me in too! And as I say this it starts raining! Yep! Gods will is so much bigger than mine, I guess I always knew that but never really saw it and its not just the big things its in all the little things as well!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Lasting Memories!
This week for me kind of started out really slow. Coming off a weekend were I was really being pushed out of my comfort zone and being stretched by God in ways that I really didn’t know before, was new for me and it consumed a lot of my thoughts for the first couple of days of this outreach. I was able to talk to one of the girls from JMU this week while working in the therapy room, and really just share my heart for why I am here now and what could possibly be a future in missions and it was great to connect with her on that because I know she loves it here as well! Let me just say that this whole team was/is amazing!!! They all have such a heart to serve and it really shown through in the work that they all did.
Our group of girls (Hillary, Jenn, Allyssa, Kelsey and Julia, who was from the Jupiter High school group) that came to Genesis were so much fun, there was never a moment where we were not laughing and having fun together at the site unless you count having to watch them say goodbye to the kids at Genesis or watching them drive away in the vans at 2:30 this morning. I really am going to miss these guys but fell like I have made some great new friends in the process! They have inspired me I have a new outlook on being here and it is really exciting. Not that it wasn’t before but they just showed me something different this week, and I think it has to do with having fun and serving God with an open heart, and not to let anything get you down. This team reminded me so much of going through a TEC weekend! Sitting and singing songs, "Devotions" if you are familiar with TEC, and just the fellowship of a Christian community, I have really missed that a lot!
Going forward is a new adventure for me! And even thought every team will not be exactly like JMU, they will all have there own, something, to bring to the DR and the people here just like this team did! God is good and he has reasons for everything, I am defiantly learning to put all of my trust in Him and in the process learning a great deal about myself and the work He still has for me here!
Our group of girls (Hillary, Jenn, Allyssa, Kelsey and Julia, who was from the Jupiter High school group) that came to Genesis were so much fun, there was never a moment where we were not laughing and having fun together at the site unless you count having to watch them say goodbye to the kids at Genesis or watching them drive away in the vans at 2:30 this morning. I really am going to miss these guys but fell like I have made some great new friends in the process! They have inspired me I have a new outlook on being here and it is really exciting. Not that it wasn’t before but they just showed me something different this week, and I think it has to do with having fun and serving God with an open heart, and not to let anything get you down. This team reminded me so much of going through a TEC weekend! Sitting and singing songs, "Devotions" if you are familiar with TEC, and just the fellowship of a Christian community, I have really missed that a lot!
Going forward is a new adventure for me! And even thought every team will not be exactly like JMU, they will all have there own, something, to bring to the DR and the people here just like this team did! God is good and he has reasons for everything, I am defiantly learning to put all of my trust in Him and in the process learning a great deal about myself and the work He still has for me here!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Silence and Solitude...
So today has been an interesting day for me. Really up and down.... In the end though I learned something about myself that God defiantly wanted me to know. Josh asked us to pick a spiritual discipline and write a short summary about it and how we can use it in our lives. At first I thought that I would take the easy way out and pull out "An Invitation to a Journey" and use what it has in there about the disciplines of silence and solitude. Good idea right? I really should have known better because in the last few weeks I cant begin to tell you how much this subject has come up here. So apparently I was meant to get a lot more out of it than I originally thought.
As I sat down to write some notes about the subject this morning I could not concentrate. I had a lot of things on my mind and some issues that I needed to work out and as much as I really wanted to research this and get it done, I couldn’t. So I decided that I needed to get out of the house and find a quiet place to do it. So with "An Invitation to a Journey", my Bible, and a notebook off I went to the gazebo. When I got there I was completely overwhelmed with the view of Jarabacoa, (never having been to this spot since I got here), that all I could do was sit there and look out on in. All I needed to take really was my Bible…
I did this for and hour and a half, just sitting up there praying and thinking about my time here and all the stuff that I had on my mind, all the stuff that had been the original reason for getting out of the house. Again I should have known better. I really learned up there what silence and solitude is all about. I am not the type of person who likes to be by myself. I would much rather be in a room full of people just so that I have someone around me. Being silent on the other hand is not one of my many problems. Most people would say that I am a relatively quiet person. But together these two disciplines can have the effect that only God can bring upon. And I learned that today sitting up in that gazebo...
Well after all of that intenseness up there I really needed some girl talk and so I enlisted Beth to help me out with this and it was perfect. We were able to really talk, something that I really haven’t had since I got here and something that it turns out that we both really needed. God had been putting it on both of our hearts today which just shows how awesome He really is.
Silence and Solitude, although they can really mean a lot for a lot of different people I found mine today. And even though I still have a long way to making it truly my own I think that that is the whole purposes God intended for these disciplines. Lamentations 3:25-28 says "The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him." Sit alone in silence...
So in solitude, which I now understand better, we are being forced to let go and let God. I was reading in "An Invitation to a Journey" and found this about silence, "Silence is bringing ourselves to a point of relinquishing to God our control for our relationship with God. Silence is a reversal of the whole possessing, controlling, grasping dynamic of trying to maintain control for our own existence. Silence is the inner act of letting go." Reading this again today put a whole new aspect on the subject, and reminds me that I need to continue to let God be in control of my life. Because when I take control nothing ever goes right and it gets all bottled up inside to where I cant function anymore, which is exactly what happened today. Put together Silence and Solitude are really all about letting God take control of every aspect of your life and letting Him be there for us in our brokenness, and being a light in our darkness. For everyone it is different and we all have to find what it means for us to be silent before God and find solitude in Him.
So in a matter of speaking I did get my assignment done today but I learned so much more in the process. On another note, we have a new team here after being without one for a couple weeks. They seem really cool. There is a high school group here form Florida and coming latter tonight is a college group from James Madison University. Not going to lie I really do like it when there are no teams here only because I get a lot of down time to reflect and just be in Gods presents, but I think this is going to be good for me this week just to get back in the grove of things. So once again, here we go!
As I sat down to write some notes about the subject this morning I could not concentrate. I had a lot of things on my mind and some issues that I needed to work out and as much as I really wanted to research this and get it done, I couldn’t. So I decided that I needed to get out of the house and find a quiet place to do it. So with "An Invitation to a Journey", my Bible, and a notebook off I went to the gazebo. When I got there I was completely overwhelmed with the view of Jarabacoa, (never having been to this spot since I got here), that all I could do was sit there and look out on in. All I needed to take really was my Bible…
I did this for and hour and a half, just sitting up there praying and thinking about my time here and all the stuff that I had on my mind, all the stuff that had been the original reason for getting out of the house. Again I should have known better. I really learned up there what silence and solitude is all about. I am not the type of person who likes to be by myself. I would much rather be in a room full of people just so that I have someone around me. Being silent on the other hand is not one of my many problems. Most people would say that I am a relatively quiet person. But together these two disciplines can have the effect that only God can bring upon. And I learned that today sitting up in that gazebo...
Well after all of that intenseness up there I really needed some girl talk and so I enlisted Beth to help me out with this and it was perfect. We were able to really talk, something that I really haven’t had since I got here and something that it turns out that we both really needed. God had been putting it on both of our hearts today which just shows how awesome He really is.
Silence and Solitude, although they can really mean a lot for a lot of different people I found mine today. And even though I still have a long way to making it truly my own I think that that is the whole purposes God intended for these disciplines. Lamentations 3:25-28 says "The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him." Sit alone in silence...
So in solitude, which I now understand better, we are being forced to let go and let God. I was reading in "An Invitation to a Journey" and found this about silence, "Silence is bringing ourselves to a point of relinquishing to God our control for our relationship with God. Silence is a reversal of the whole possessing, controlling, grasping dynamic of trying to maintain control for our own existence. Silence is the inner act of letting go." Reading this again today put a whole new aspect on the subject, and reminds me that I need to continue to let God be in control of my life. Because when I take control nothing ever goes right and it gets all bottled up inside to where I cant function anymore, which is exactly what happened today. Put together Silence and Solitude are really all about letting God take control of every aspect of your life and letting Him be there for us in our brokenness, and being a light in our darkness. For everyone it is different and we all have to find what it means for us to be silent before God and find solitude in Him.
So in a matter of speaking I did get my assignment done today but I learned so much more in the process. On another note, we have a new team here after being without one for a couple weeks. They seem really cool. There is a high school group here form Florida and coming latter tonight is a college group from James Madison University. Not going to lie I really do like it when there are no teams here only because I get a lot of down time to reflect and just be in Gods presents, but I think this is going to be good for me this week just to get back in the grove of things. So once again, here we go!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
What A Week!
What a week this has been so far! So much has happened in just the last few days but lets start from the beginning…
Saturday we took a day trip to Santiago, which was really cool just to get away form the house for the day and see another part of the Dominican that we really haven’t seen yet. It was raining though which limited our site seeing which was a bummer but we did get to do some shopping at La Sirena. This very large store reminds me a little of a Wal-Mart back home but in my opinion a lot better. The first floor, yes there are two stories, is a grocery store, and the second has everything else, cloths, shoes, electronics, books and all kinds of stuff. We bought a lot of much needed groceries for dinner making and such. To celebrate one month of being here we went to TGIF's! So good! I didn’t think I was missing American food until I was given the chance to eat it. This little outing was a great diversion for me for a while, I was really missing some people this weekend with TEC going on and all and wanting to be a part of it. Not a feeling I want to have anymore because it was really not fun, but a friend here reminded me that I am here and they are all over there, and as much as I think of them they still have there lives at home and stuff going on. It was a good thing for her to say to me at that point even if it was hard to hear. I know you are all keeping us in prayers and I thank you all for that!
Sunday was another relaxing Sabbath. Only got out of my PJ's to go to church in the afternoon, I am really starting to love the church that we go to here, the people there are so excited to worship the Lord and it show in the way they worship!
The first part of this week was relatively uneventful. Monday and Tuesday were as much at the norm could be at Genesis on any given day. Tuesday night we had our IBS (Intern Bible Study), which was awesome! It reminds me a lot of our Sunday group, All In, although nothing could replace you all who have been apart of that group this past year, it is nice to be able to have something like that here for us. These nights are always fallowed up with a game of Dutch Blitz! I was pretty proud of myself this night because I blitzed 3 times, which is defiantly a record for me since I am always in the negative, but because I blitzed 3 times I didn’t really care all that much!
This is where my week at Genesis got pretty crazy and we still have one more day left, crossing our fingers here! So Wednesday started out really good, I had a fun session with Alfri who is so cute, and then I thought that it would be fun to work with Henny, a really sweet girl in her own way but I love her to death! We were working with scissors and I was showing her how to use them and cut on a strait line and you know normal therapy stuff and she is doing great I am encouraging her to keep going and keep cutting and all of a sudden she takes her child's scissors and cuts right across her finger... so me not really a blood person, scrambles to find some gauze in the cupboard to put pressure on her poor finger which is now bleeding so bad... rushing her down the hall to find Amy, my hands and arms covered in blood but I am not really caring at this point because Henny is crying and looking at her poor hand like, ok so what are you going to do about this, come on now... Ends up she gets 5 stitches and comes back to school as happy as can be her finger wrapped up and waiving her hand in the air all happy, so good ending to this story. While Amy and Jeff, who took on the roll of ambulance driver, were gone to the clinic, Jordani fell of a swing and scraped his knee and hit his nose which took more gauze and band aids to fix up. So needless to say we went out for ice cream after school.
Today I was working with Maribel in the classroom, when another teacher came in saying that one of the boys, Jordani, had cut a classmates ear, Jonathan, with scissors. Really! So I don’t know how many stitches latter but he came back to school all bandaged up as well kind of back to normal he doesn’t really speak all that much but he seemed ok, we will see tomorrow. The kids were terrors today! You couldn’t turn your back without one of them doing something during our recess/ lunch break. So another day deserving of ice cream, only this time with Vicki. I love our talks, she asks a lot of hard questions for me to answer but she is trying to break me out of my shell which is what I need.
So yea one more day to what has become a long week, and then a three day weekend here as they celebrate there independence day! Don’t know what I will end up doing, there are some different things that have been offered or suggested, white water tubing which I will defiantly say no to, but thanks for the invite, a movie in Santiago which would be super fun, and I can defiantly stay here and get some reading done and enjoy the quiet. So we shall see.
Life is good here in the Dominican Republic!
Saturday we took a day trip to Santiago, which was really cool just to get away form the house for the day and see another part of the Dominican that we really haven’t seen yet. It was raining though which limited our site seeing which was a bummer but we did get to do some shopping at La Sirena. This very large store reminds me a little of a Wal-Mart back home but in my opinion a lot better. The first floor, yes there are two stories, is a grocery store, and the second has everything else, cloths, shoes, electronics, books and all kinds of stuff. We bought a lot of much needed groceries for dinner making and such. To celebrate one month of being here we went to TGIF's! So good! I didn’t think I was missing American food until I was given the chance to eat it. This little outing was a great diversion for me for a while, I was really missing some people this weekend with TEC going on and all and wanting to be a part of it. Not a feeling I want to have anymore because it was really not fun, but a friend here reminded me that I am here and they are all over there, and as much as I think of them they still have there lives at home and stuff going on. It was a good thing for her to say to me at that point even if it was hard to hear. I know you are all keeping us in prayers and I thank you all for that!
Sunday was another relaxing Sabbath. Only got out of my PJ's to go to church in the afternoon, I am really starting to love the church that we go to here, the people there are so excited to worship the Lord and it show in the way they worship!
The first part of this week was relatively uneventful. Monday and Tuesday were as much at the norm could be at Genesis on any given day. Tuesday night we had our IBS (Intern Bible Study), which was awesome! It reminds me a lot of our Sunday group, All In, although nothing could replace you all who have been apart of that group this past year, it is nice to be able to have something like that here for us. These nights are always fallowed up with a game of Dutch Blitz! I was pretty proud of myself this night because I blitzed 3 times, which is defiantly a record for me since I am always in the negative, but because I blitzed 3 times I didn’t really care all that much!
This is where my week at Genesis got pretty crazy and we still have one more day left, crossing our fingers here! So Wednesday started out really good, I had a fun session with Alfri who is so cute, and then I thought that it would be fun to work with Henny, a really sweet girl in her own way but I love her to death! We were working with scissors and I was showing her how to use them and cut on a strait line and you know normal therapy stuff and she is doing great I am encouraging her to keep going and keep cutting and all of a sudden she takes her child's scissors and cuts right across her finger... so me not really a blood person, scrambles to find some gauze in the cupboard to put pressure on her poor finger which is now bleeding so bad... rushing her down the hall to find Amy, my hands and arms covered in blood but I am not really caring at this point because Henny is crying and looking at her poor hand like, ok so what are you going to do about this, come on now... Ends up she gets 5 stitches and comes back to school as happy as can be her finger wrapped up and waiving her hand in the air all happy, so good ending to this story. While Amy and Jeff, who took on the roll of ambulance driver, were gone to the clinic, Jordani fell of a swing and scraped his knee and hit his nose which took more gauze and band aids to fix up. So needless to say we went out for ice cream after school.
Today I was working with Maribel in the classroom, when another teacher came in saying that one of the boys, Jordani, had cut a classmates ear, Jonathan, with scissors. Really! So I don’t know how many stitches latter but he came back to school all bandaged up as well kind of back to normal he doesn’t really speak all that much but he seemed ok, we will see tomorrow. The kids were terrors today! You couldn’t turn your back without one of them doing something during our recess/ lunch break. So another day deserving of ice cream, only this time with Vicki. I love our talks, she asks a lot of hard questions for me to answer but she is trying to break me out of my shell which is what I need.
So yea one more day to what has become a long week, and then a three day weekend here as they celebrate there independence day! Don’t know what I will end up doing, there are some different things that have been offered or suggested, white water tubing which I will defiantly say no to, but thanks for the invite, a movie in Santiago which would be super fun, and I can defiantly stay here and get some reading done and enjoy the quiet. So we shall see.
Life is good here in the Dominican Republic!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Another One Come and Gone...
Tonight we said goodbye to our second outreach... This week went by so fast but I feel like I got to know the women that were assigned to Genesis pretty well. They were all so on fire for what they wanted to do here and I think that they all will leave with a little piece of them here and go with something that God and the people here gave to them. It is so great being able to see the changes in people in just a short week here, and I really should not be surprised because I can just look at my own life and see what God has done through this ministry here.
Wednesday we went to Melvin’s house for our "dinner in the community" night. Every time I go to his and his mothers house I am reminded of just how much I have and am humbled by what they have. You can see the love that his mother Gladys has for Melvin, and what Melvin has to share with you is just amazing! I have heard his testimony twice now and both times I have been moved to tears. He is a 21 year old who has CP and yet it doesn’t effect the way that he shares with people all of what God has done in his life and how this struggle has only made him and his faith in the Lord that much stronger. In the past few years he has written 12 songs all of which show a little piece of his testimony, it is so awesome!!!
I also wanted to share a little on a devotional that we had this week and again I have never thought of this verse in this way before and found it very cool! It is in Matthew 6:19-34 where it talks first of "Treasures in Heaven" and then "Do Not Worry." You can totally look at these two separately but when put together it becomes something completely different. And being in ministry and the mission field right now it kind of hit home in a different way. Where your treasures are there is where lies your worries... So how can your heart be in it, if it is with something else that you are worried about? And so how are we to go out and serve when we are always worried about whatever we are always worried about, relationships, finances, life in general, ect. So in taking the step to come here I put all worries aside I had thought and let God take complete control of some situations which was great but I need to learn to put all situations in His hands and not worry say about what I am going to do in August when I get home and let Him show me what that is in His own time.
So defiantly some cool stuff this week! I am excited for the next few weeks where we will have no teams here but will be ready for the next one to get here by then I think. I hope to have pictures up by tomorrow afternoon of this weeks outreach so cheek out Facebook for updates!
Wednesday we went to Melvin’s house for our "dinner in the community" night. Every time I go to his and his mothers house I am reminded of just how much I have and am humbled by what they have. You can see the love that his mother Gladys has for Melvin, and what Melvin has to share with you is just amazing! I have heard his testimony twice now and both times I have been moved to tears. He is a 21 year old who has CP and yet it doesn’t effect the way that he shares with people all of what God has done in his life and how this struggle has only made him and his faith in the Lord that much stronger. In the past few years he has written 12 songs all of which show a little piece of his testimony, it is so awesome!!!
I also wanted to share a little on a devotional that we had this week and again I have never thought of this verse in this way before and found it very cool! It is in Matthew 6:19-34 where it talks first of "Treasures in Heaven" and then "Do Not Worry." You can totally look at these two separately but when put together it becomes something completely different. And being in ministry and the mission field right now it kind of hit home in a different way. Where your treasures are there is where lies your worries... So how can your heart be in it, if it is with something else that you are worried about? And so how are we to go out and serve when we are always worried about whatever we are always worried about, relationships, finances, life in general, ect. So in taking the step to come here I put all worries aside I had thought and let God take complete control of some situations which was great but I need to learn to put all situations in His hands and not worry say about what I am going to do in August when I get home and let Him show me what that is in His own time.
So defiantly some cool stuff this week! I am excited for the next few weeks where we will have no teams here but will be ready for the next one to get here by then I think. I hope to have pictures up by tomorrow afternoon of this weeks outreach so cheek out Facebook for updates!
Monday, February 14, 2011
One Month!!!
So in DR time exactly a month ago we were boarding a plane to come here!!! That is such a weird thing to think about! So much has already happened here and I can say that I am completely at home and only missing a few things... mostly family and my awesome friends. Time is just flying by here and sometimes I have to stop and be like oh yea I am in a different country right now!
This past week was really nice we didn’t have any teams here so we went to our sites each day and I loved the one on one time that I got to spend with the kid for therapy. It is scary how much I am getting to know each of them and coming to love each of them! I don’t want to even think about leaving yet and it has only been a month... These kids keep me laughing but also their way of showing love and affection is so much deeper, they defiantly keep me humble...
I love it here, I love the people, I love life right now! I never thought that I would ever feel this way about life, being exactly were I was supposed to be at the moment I was supposed to be in! God is good, All the time, God is good!
This past week was really nice we didn’t have any teams here so we went to our sites each day and I loved the one on one time that I got to spend with the kid for therapy. It is scary how much I am getting to know each of them and coming to love each of them! I don’t want to even think about leaving yet and it has only been a month... These kids keep me laughing but also their way of showing love and affection is so much deeper, they defiantly keep me humble...
I love it here, I love the people, I love life right now! I never thought that I would ever feel this way about life, being exactly were I was supposed to be at the moment I was supposed to be in! God is good, All the time, God is good!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Day 22!
Yet another beautiful day here in Jarabacoa and an even awesome day at Genesis if that is even a word I don’t know but it works for me! I have been kind of settling down into a routine with the kids and putting together a schedule for therapy and I like the rhythm that I am in right now, although it defiantly goes up and down with day to day occurrences. Please be praying for this little girl named Beranice at Genesis, she has a lot of home problems right now and we are super worried about her...
Ok so I have started to feel that a blog every day is kind of hard to do so I might be cutting back on them a little to maybe twice a week or so but don’t worry I will still be posting everyday happenings here in Jarabacoa! So until then!
Ok so I have started to feel that a blog every day is kind of hard to do so I might be cutting back on them a little to maybe twice a week or so but don’t worry I will still be posting everyday happenings here in Jarabacoa! So until then!
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