Speachless......

I am back in St. Croix. It is late, I cannot sleep, I'm not tired. My mind is still replaying the scenes from the last 10 days over and over. My heart goes from rejoicing with people and children to breaking at the sight of things that shouldn't even be seen. These last 10 days has quite possibly been the greatest period of my life. I can't begin to express my experience. I have so many stories, so many pictures but they don't do justice to the memories that are FOREVER engraved in my heart and mind. The best way to describe Haiti right now in my mind is a Beautiful Disaster. I was severely touched by the people and by God on many levels. I have asked many questions to myself and God. I have seen and experienced more than I even expected in my preparation for leaving. This was nothing but AMAZING and I loved every minute of it. Well except for the forced day off when I longed to be in the villages with the people but I know a day off was needed. I will probably make another post before most of you even read this one but I just wanted to write a little something before I drift off to sleep.

HAITI BOUND!

It has been a good week! Last weekend ended so well with us taking the students on an afternoon sailing adventure!!! We were fortunate to have some people in church that have a chartering business to take us out for 6 hours!!! MAN I LOVE SAILING!!! We are leaving for Haiti on monday the 17th and returning on Thanksgiving! I am very excited to leave and I know it will be such a different experience than anything before. This weeks teaching was great challenged me in a few areas and made me really think about myself differently. We got to do a youth group service at church on friday so that was AWESOME!! We did basically the outline of what we'd do in Haiti for a service. We started out with a funny skit had a testimony, another skit and 2 testimonys and one more drama and I had the pleasure of wraping up the service with a sermon. It was actually a sermon that I feel needed to be heard not only to the youth but to my team and most of all MYSELF. I will not be able to update this while I am gone on outreach for 10 days. PLEASE PRAY CONTINUALLY FOR US AS WE GO TO HAITI! For some of you that may not know, Haiti has an extreme past. It was dedicated to Satan a few hundred years ago and actually within the last 5 years has been released from that. It has extreme spiritual influence from Voodoo, I don't speak this to scare you because i'm not scared to go. I am cautious for sure but I know that God is taking us there for a reason and he will make his will be known through us. We all need your help as we do ministry there, so please keep us in your prayers. Nothing fights the enemy like our prayers to God that can bind him in an instant!!! We will be doing various things in our time there. We have VBS plans, hurricane relief, building projects and even possibly some food delivery to hurricane victoms!! We will be staying at the YWAM base in St Marc doing really whatever they need us to do. I can't wait to come back and tell you all about what we did there!!! I know it will be incredible!

Desperate Measures........

This has been a very interesting week!! In some ways it's been extremely Awesome and in others (our new president) not so great. The topic in class this week is Holy Spirit, and I have to tell you I have heard some things this week that have made me really think and dig into the bible to see if I really truly agree. The speaker this week is AMAZING! He is absolutely on of my favorites. I'm actually a bit disappointed that he wasn't here last year. I like being able to hear some of the speakers again and I think Mike Phillips is a man that I could listen to and always walk away with something new. I think this week is INCREDIBLE! I know I say that about every week but it really is a great subject that I really wish could be covered for more than just a week. We are going to Haiti in almost one week and so as you can imagine preparation for this outreach is FULL FORCE! I am so excited to leave and experience this new culture and really see what God does in the lives of all of us. It will be a great challenge for us all and very intense I'm sure. We have decided on a destination for our main outreach Jan. 13 through Feb. 27 and we'll be going to Nicaragua and then maybe spending the last 2 weeks in Costa Rica possibly!!! YAY FOR CENTRAL AMERICA!!! I'm very excited to be going there and hoping that in some way God allows us to have a ministry time to surfers!!! What better way to minister to people then sharing the amazing fellowship time of surfing!!! I'm hoping it could be a possibility to have maybe even an afternoon, OH how I miss it.

I'm not sure how any of you feel about the election results but as a ministry we spent a lot of time praying for the election and although I don't believe in our new presidents beliefs or even have great confidence that he is the best "change" for our nation, I have really found a peace in knowing that all I can do is Pray and God will do what needs to be done. Now is a time where we must all pray for our leaders, every one of them state, senate, congress, and presidential cabinet. Our nation is in a position that unless the hand of God is guiding us we could face very hard times... That's all I'll say about that because I'm not very political and I don't know much.