New seasons and new experiences

It's just starting to get pretty cold down here. It's not getting into the freezing temperatures or anything but coming off of months of mid seventies being the lowest, it's pretty cold. And in this time the Lord has changed a lot of how I look at things and my perspective. He has been rearranging who I believe I am and how he wants me to walk as his daughter. There have been some tough parts of course but it has been incredible to walk this journey with the Lord.

He has also been moving externally in a lot of ways. In one of our Thursday classes, for example, we were talking about a book we were reading called When Heaven Invades Earth. This book is absolutely amazing and basically is calling the modern church to action in the realm of miracles. As we were giving our thoughts and opinions on the chapters we had read, our instructor noticed that our translator had a good sized lump on her hand. So we stopped class and started to pray for her. Within moments began to shrink, it was crazy! By the time we were done it had shrunk by over half.

But in that time of prayer it was also a really cool bonding moment for our class, we could really feel the Holy Spirit in the room and we all got to see a healing together. It was incredible.

Following that, there has been healings in at least one class almost every week. It has been incredible to see a culture of healing develop in myself and in my classmates. God has been teaching me that praying for healing in faith takes a certain level of trust that God is going to move in the way that He promises He will. The more we step out in faith the more I know He will grow us.

Youth Ministry

I also got the opportunity to participate in a ministry I hadn't done before, youth ministry. At about 4 pm my friend and I get on buses that go into the community and pick up the kids. With those kids plus the youth that come from rancho, we pull together quite a crew. When they first get there we have a bonfire going, snacks and time to just hang out. Getting to know the kids has been so fun and I forgot how much I missed working with that age group. And even though communication is still difficult, love transcends all language barriers. Recently, we did a Holy Spirit encounter where we guide them into being able to hear from the Holy Spirit. It was amazing to be able to help and walk with them in that. Seeing God move in the hearts and minds of the youth in the world is a treasure beyond words.

Besides these, there have been a lot of adventures. There have definitely been amazing high points, but there have been lows too. I don't know where I got the notion that missionaries had it all together. That missionaries, because they are following God, literally, didn't struggle with things (internally, I definitely knew there were externally things. I mean God places them in hard places for a reason.) But I think I have a better picture of the truth. We don't leave the things we struggle with behind when we leave our home. Just like anyone else, we tuck those lies we believe and those secret struggles into our suitcase and take them with us. No one realizes how much extra weight it adds to pack it around until they can finally hand it over to God. God is working on everyone all the time and I'm learning to love the things he does trust His process. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Talk to you soon. :)