every three weeks :)

Good afternoon!
How is everyone?

I'm finally blogging...it's like every three weeks I get a chance!

The first of the three weeks we had an American speaker who spoke on the importance of family intimacy. He was excellent, and God really spoke to our hearts! He was especially intriguing to me because He is a professional addictions counselor who also works for YWAM. Much of what he had to say was from a psychological perspective and it just got my blood flowin'!! I love it!!

He told us such remarkable stories of God's work in his life and in the lives of others he knows.  Here's a good one:

His son, when he was fifteen decided he wanted to go to Guatemala with TeenMania on a missions outreach. Before going he was in a public place with his dad (our speaker) and there was a bunch of people in this meeting or whatever it was. So Jim, knowing his son had a great passion to tell others about Jesus, encouraged his son to go forward and share the gospel. So he did. What he said was a complete mess of jumbled words that made little sense as it was his first time publicly speaking in this way. But, in the end, he closed with a strong "Come to Jesus!" and God moved in that place and 300 people accepted Christ as their Savior and a blind woman was also completely healed. Now that'll build your faith if you are wondering whether or not God will come through when you 'step-out-of-the-boat' and take a risk for Him! He's simply looking for people who have faith and desire to fulfill His word.

We also had a day where we learned about giving to others..and then we put it into practice by listening to God's voice and giving whatever He wanted to whomever He wanted. So I ended up giving a little goody bag to one of the girls in my class. But what was really moving was watching what people gave to others!! Man, everyone was crying! One girl gave her cellphone. Another guy gave his ipod to another kid. One of my friends gave me her all time favorite necklace! It was really cool!

The next week we had a teacher from Argentina. I decided not to use a translator, and ohh boy was that interesting. Argentinians have a completely different accent in Spanish and plus this guy was a fast-talking mumbler! So, I mean, I got the main ideas...nothing more. But it was a really cool week too. He talked about how much God wants to talk to us and give us revelation. During this week I decided to do my two-month outreach in Argentina and Chile. (!)

A couple of interesting things he had to say were that God has a special plan for this generation which means we will deal with more persecution.

Also, legalism/religiosity is like picking back up the bondage of the law that Christ conquered. Do not be at war with God's best for you! WE are free from the law of sin and death. There is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. We gotta stop living like we are trapped in sin, when we were set free when Christ died and rose again!

This past week was ULTRA busy. We had two separate teachers/schools going on at once as well as a test and a book report due. I literally had no free time. Not even time to fill my little, green water bottle.  Both teachers and topics were excellent! The first was on communications. So we learned about photography (yes!) and video making and all sorts of things and then we got to put it into practice!

The other teacher was another guy from Argentina. I could understand him lots better. He spoke about how it is our job to transform society..first through the way people think. By integrating ourselves in every area of society, we can do this. Those that are doctors, mechanics, teachers, law-makers..all have a mission. For example, we need Christian teachers to go into public schools and begin to challenge and change the things that are thought and taught to our little ones!

Anyway, the week started out pretty rough because I found out that Jesse (the other American girl) was not allowed to go to Argentina/Chile for outreach as she had wanted. She talked to our base director about it and it didn't go well. And all I knew was what she had been told which is that she had character flaws and things to work on and her and I together on the outreach wouldn't be good. So I was really upset because no one even talked to me about it. Then another girl who had planned to go on the trip said she didn't have peace about the leaders and how they handled it with Jesse and would not be going. So I spent a couple days fuming and making assumptions before I had a chance to talk to my leader about the situation. The problem was that they had asked us to seek God's revelation on the topic and I didn't like how they just told us (in the end) where we were going whether we felt led there or not. Then I found out that the girl who told me she wasn't going because of the leaders and the issue with Jesse lied to me, because in reality she was not allowed to go because she had used calling minutes at a near by store and had not paid for them... And the issue with Jesse, my leader explained, was not just randomly decided but prayed about earnestly. And they felt that God would not want us together because we are at different places in our growth and it wouldn't help us plus some other things.  So it got cleared up much more!

The rest of the week was busy but went very well and Then Saturday we got to spend the day at the beach playing volleyball and swimming and laying in hammocks. :) I got really burnt! But it was good to do something recreational for once! Oh and I saw a rainbow that encircled the sun!! How crazy cool is that!! Anyway, gotta go to a meeting!!