She lives!!

Hey everybody! SOooo sorry for not blogging in FOREVER! I again have only a little bit of time so I'll have to blog in segments...hopefully again tomorrow. But I'll tell you a little bit of what has happened now.

Okay. To be honest, I really don't want to go into great detail about the first two of the three weeks I will write about. They were one of the hardest times in my entire life! I was greatly challenged spiritually. But God is faithful to never leave us or forsake us, and He proved Himself true during this time.

In short, the first week was called "inner healing". Which consisted of us all having to fast, pray and search our hearts for things that were holding us back from all that God has for us. The concept is good. The way they carried it out was not. For me, confessing sin and publicly forgiving a person, telling my testimony--all of these things are good at the appropriate time. But this seemed forced. Every student was assigned a group and within our group every person had to (after fasting and praying) go up in front of the rest of the group, sit with two leaders, and confess all your sins and forgive all the people you need to forgive and blah blah blah. I felt like I had to come up with stuff to say because I honestly didn't have much at all. I spent most of the week very confused and upset as to why we had to do that. BUT when it was my turn to go in front of everyone, it actually went well. I didn't talk about things that God and I had already resolved, so it was just sort of cleaning my heart before Him and also hearing some encouraging and prophetic words from my leaders.

So that was a very condensed/tame version of week 1. Now for week 2.  I though week 1 was terrible until I came upon week 2!! It was without a doubt, one of the worst weeks EVER, at least the first half. The beginning speaker is from this area of Cartagena and because of this he speaks a million miles an hour. On top of that he was very spontaneous and random with his words and stories...hardly making sense even to the native spanish speakers who were listening. So, because of this it was nearly impossible for someone to translate for us. In fact several tried with little success. But what we gathered from him wasn't what I wanted to hear. He claimed that all of us, even Christians, had dabbled in sin and had opened themselves up to evil spirits that they needed to be liberated from. So, you can guess where it went from there. We were, again, basically forced to fast for 2 days which I did not do the second day. And then everyone was "liberated" so-to-speak. I could not even stay to watch it was so strange. A lot of falling down on the ground and spitting up stuff and yelling.

I spent my time fasting and praying, not to be liberated, but to listen to God for His direction and clarification. And it came. I did not and do not believe that a Christian can have any other spirit within them besides the Holy Spirit of the Living God who permeates our whole being. I was completely uncomfortable with the speaker who did not bring peace or rest, but confusion. God showed me verses that helped clarify what I believed.

I do not write about this to scare anyone or make you worry about me. I write about it to show you how real the spiritual realm is...that we must be constantly on guard and walking in truth in order to know what is of God and what is not. We will recognize evil or good by its fruit. The only fruit I saw from this man was liberation of Christians from evil spirits which is not Biblical. My pastor did clarify for me that many times in places like this where the spiritual realm is much heavier and the people are undereducated as to what is Biblical and true, this stuff can happen.

I did not feel in danger during this time, nor have I ever felt in danger while here. So no worries! The best place for me to be is smack-dab in the center of His will! 

Anyway, enough on that topic because I'm tired of talking about it. But I appreciate your continued prayer in the coming days as we encounter new things and different speakers weekly. We need God's continual guidance!

Okay so after this speaker left mid-week, a man they call 'Papa Jack' came to speak about God's Fatherly Love. He is an american who speaks Spanish, so I was able to understand nearly every word because it was slower! It was ENTIRELY opposite of the other speaker and topic and wow what a blessing! His message was so calm and peaceful and comforting. One question he asked us is, "What would you do if God, the Father, drove up in your driveway at your house one day?" We spent some time writing out the image in our heads--which showed our idea of who God is. It was really interesting! I said, well first I would likely run to the bathroom to check my face in the mirror, then I would change clothes. Then I would run through the house and yell to Cole downstairs to TURN DOWN THE MUSIC, GOD IS HERE!!! haha! and then I would proceed to raid the pantry for anything I could possibly offer Him to eat. Then I would realize, as I typically do when looking in the pantry that there's nothing of interest (what a spoiled brat I am!) and then I would open the fridge and settle on some fruit. By then, of course, God would be at the door knocking. I would open it and probably start sobbing and hugging Him. Then He would say to me, "I already cut up the fruit. Come on, lets go down to the lake and talk for a while."  :))) Isn't if funny to picture ourselves before the Creator of the Universe?! I can hardly imagine it. But anyway, 'Papa Jack' had a lot of interesting insight. One thing he said was: ya know when you are doing devotions alone with God and you....oops..fall asleep? And you think, aww no, not again! So sorry God?! Well, God isn't mad! God is our daddy, so just as a daddy loves it when his little girl falls asleep in his arms out of complete peace and trust, God loves it when we are completely at rest in His presence.  aww. how sweet. :)

okay, I have to go super soon but I will say this: this past week, week 3, if you will, was absolutely incredible. I feel so so blessed by God to have experienced it, and my attitude about being here has greatly changed because of it.

I went with a group of six, myself included, to a town called Arjona outside of Cartagena. It was like a whole different world even though it's basically just over a little mountain! Where Cartagena is noisy, congested, unfriendly, and starless, Arjona is quiet, welcoming, spacious and the sky is peppered with starts every night.  Oh and it even rains there!!! Wow, how I missed the rain!

Okay that's all for now. I know, the best is yet to come--but it's like a good movie. Ya gotta have some suspense!  I love you all and will be writing again very soon to tell you about my week in Arjona!

Blessings,
Chelsie

ahhhh!

ahhh!! I don't have much time to type and I don't even know where to begin! Last week was nuts. Okay I'll do what I did last time and type like crazy and hope it makes sense :)..

Last week (week 2 of school) was all about pushing my limits...like whoa. I fought a negative attitude many times because I felt like I was forced to do everything, nothing was my choice or even worth discussing.
We did a lot of drama practice and as you may or may not know, I HATE acting!! So when they made us act (sometimes in Spanish!) for 3 hours every day in front of the whole group I was NOT a happy girl. So out of my comfort zone...and always when I was soo exhausted. The problem is that every day when everyone else has naptime, I have lunch clean up for an hour and then right after that I have to literally run to the "creativity class" or else I'll be punished for being late. I could care less! oh goodness, haha! But anyway, yeah so acting was interesting, and God has been teaching me a LOT through it.  Especially this: that I am a leader and I'm being watched, so whether I like it or not, I need to be obedient (with a good attitude) so others will follow my example. One day I chose not to have a good attitude and my whole group got dragged down with me and everyone got in trouble. Okay, God, point proven. :) 

Another day during "creativity time" we were told that we would be doing 'street evangelism'. At the time I was so tired I could hardly walk, I was hot, full, and not happy because I didn't really even like the idea of preaching to people on the street. Jesse, the other American, and I were discussing it and how rare it is that people do this in the US and how we didn't even get a chance to voice our opinion or think it through! Well, anyway, on the walk to downtown, I surrendered it to God and was like okay, not one part of me wants to do this right now, but please get the glory. And it ended up going really well...of course! We met foreigners from all over the place, and simply had the chance to hear their hearts and explain the love of Jesus to them. We met these two girls from Belguim who aren't Christians but have some friends who are. I was talking to them and one girl was explaining that she thinks a relationship sounds awesome for some people, but she doesn't feel like she is lacking anything. But it was really good because we gained their trust and walked around town with them and established trust. and we are going to friend them on facebook...so I'm praying for them because they are such beautiful, sweet girls and God loves them so much!

Okay what else, Friday night we canceled class and went to the beach instead. Oh WOW. I needed that!! I had no intention to go swimming but all the foreign girls got dragged into the ocean against their will, so needless to say I went swimming. It was so fun! And we had some cheap, squishy ham, cheese, mayo sandwiches that we have every single friday...and honestly they tasted so good! We had a bonfire and worship on the beach while watching the sunset and everyone roasted marshmellows. I was actually cold on the beach and I LOVED being cold for once!! :)

Okay what else, Saturday we deep cleaned the kitchen after I got in trouble for being a half hour late...I had no clue (I had no clue I was even supposed to help clean. this is a common problem because I miss directions when they talk in Spanish and then they are like...uhhmm where were ou??). But anyway, it was really fun serving with my classmates and listening to their crazy Colombian music! Then Saturday night we had a talent show..that was fun too.

Then Sunday was crazy...church in the morning was beautiful. They had girls dancing during the whole service! Then lunch, clean up and then I did homework for a couple hours. Then we had night service for two and a half hours and honestly, with a bad headache, it felt like the LONGEST two and a half hours of my life!! When the guy got up to do the sermon, we had already been sitting in the dense heat for nearly two hours and then he started, and all of the foreigners were like, "he's joking, right?!" Haha! Then Jesse and I decided we didn't want to eat the dinner which was the infamous skinny hotdog with this huge dry, crusty bun and if you want...pineapple jelly on top! So, instead we purchased pizza and ate some cereal. And since they really don't have milk here we poured this oatmeal drink on our cereal. We recently discovered it at a store and we both think it's sooo good, but everyone here thinks it's nasty...go figure!

But yeah, last week was hard, but really good too. This week is all about inner healing. So it's going to be pretty heavy. I missed class yesterday because I was sick. I slept from 7:30am until 12pm! and LOVED that sleep! Tomorrow we are fasting and seeking God for a while, gearing up for the next week when we will be fasting for 1, 2, or 3 days in preparation for a mini outreach we will be doing in the city for a week. Wow!! I'm enjoying God and how good He is to me. How well He takes care of me when I simply obey Him.

Okay I think that's all for now. I hope you all are well! Miss you!