Departure Day!

So the day has finally come. I kind of can't believe it, but at the same time, I have to. I'm feeling excited, nervous, and sad simultaneously. It's been hard to say "good-bye" to all of my friends here. I'm going to miss everyone so much!!!

Today, Cari, Marissa, Josiah, and I are heading out around noon (at least, that is the plan haha). We'll stop overnight at Josiah's grandparents' house, and then we'll finish the trip to MTC Friday. We'll drop off all of our stuff and stay overnight at our apartments there. Then, we'll head to Branson, MO to meet the rest of the family for a few days for a family vacation. It'll be great to spend more time as a family!

Thanks everyone for your love and support over the past few days! I'm excited about this new opportunity, but I'll definitely miss all of you!

The Countdown begins... in earnest

So we leave Thursday (yes, I know i said the 10th in a previous post, but, hey, things changed). Cue theme music "Frantic People Packing". Or is it "People Frantically Packing"? Something of that nature...

It's funny how you never know how much stuff you have until you empty ALL of the drawers and pull ALL the stuff out of the closet. And then you find even more stuff. My sisters are enjoying it, though, because they are getting all of my extra things. One of them (I won't release names) was picking up things that weren't in boxes and asking "Are you taking this???" very innocently. She ended up with a lot of things too... don't really know how she talked me into it, but... :D

The one thing that is sad is leaving everyone here!!! I'm saying good-bye to a lot of really good friends, and that is hard. Thank goodness for Skype!

So... 3 days left until we leave!!!

Commissioning Service

This last Sunday, the 29th, our church, Mountain View Alliance, had a wonderful commissioning service for me and my cousin, Josiah, as we prepare to head out to MTC. It was really special! Our pastor Ed preached a very encouraging sermon for us about focusing on the cross of Christ, no matter what others may say, think, or do. Josiah and I were also able to share for a few minutes each how God led each of us individually to be a missionary and to go to MTC. At the end of the service, many of the members came forward to lay hands on us and pray over us as their first full-time missionaries. What a blessing!!!

My parents hosted a reception afterwards with some delicious food and great fellowship with friends, including many I haven't seen for years (such a cool surprise... thanks guys!!!).

It's been so incredible to see the love of all my friends and family. I'm so excited to see what God is going to do through our relationships over the years!

Thanks again to everyone who made Sunday so special for us!!!

By the way, 9 more days until Missouri!!! It's coming up SUPER fast!! :-)

Room Photos

Today my hosts at MTC sent me some pics of my apartment . Pretty sweet looking! I thought I'd post a few to give everyone an idea of where I'll be living.

My apartment is the second door from the right. 67C :-)

Living area, kitchen, and two separate bedrooms

One of the bedrooms

Half-bath minus a shower (shower house is down the road hehehe)

d-day

Ok, so to dispel any more myths, I wanted to officially announce when I'm leaving for MTC (i'm sure for some it can't be soon enough hehehehe :D). We (the fam, Josiah, and I) are going to leave August 10 to head out to Branson, MO for a few days before we head up to the MTC campus to move in on the 15th. I'm super excited, and it's coming up FAST!!! In exactly a month, classes will be starting, and I'll be beginning my preparation for the mission field. Can't wait!!!

More about Nicaragua

So, as I posted a few days ago, Nicaragua was incredible. I wanted to post a bit more detail for those who might be interested as well as a few pics (which I got from my wonderful friend, Jessica... haha thanks :D).

Construction at Iglesia Adonai





Iglesia Adonai with new doors and paint (inside and out)

We arrived late Friday night at about 7:30 Nica time, which is two hours behind GA time. While this wasn't extremely late, it made things slightly difficult because we still had to unpack all of our team gear and eat dinner before going to bed (which wasn't successfully acheived until around 12:30am Nica time...). The next morning, we hit the ground running. We had two studies at Iglesia Adonai (our sister church in Nicaragua) at 10:00am. The men watched the movie "Courageous" in Spanish. The women had a separate study about God's faithfulness even in difficult times. They also painted handbags and fellowshipped. I got to lead worship for the women and participate in the study, which was really neat! Later that same day, at around 4:00pm, the youth from our team (both Americans and Costa Ricans) led the Saturday night Youth Service at the church. We played music, shared some testimonies, presented a powerful drama, and one of the Costa Ricans, Daniel, preached. It was a really powerful time!

The next day, Sunday, we headed back to the church for the Sunday morning service, where we played music and the pastor from our church, Ed, preached with a translator. We ate lunch at the church and fellowshipped until the afternoon youth service where one of our team members gave the sermon in Spanish. He had been praticing this speech all year, and it was really cool to hear him read it in Spanish! It was also neat to see so many of the youth rededicate their lives to serve God.

Iglesia Adonai with beautiful new doors, stonework, and paint!

Monday, we worked at the church all day. The guys mainly worked on digging a trench for water pipes and constructing a sidewalk out of concrete outside of the church. The rest of the team started painting the inside and outside of the church, which was an ongoing project for the entire week. Tuesday and Thursday, we went evangelizing door-to-door in the neighborhood, which was very powerful. Due to the witness of our team members (especially those from Costa Rica), several local people professed genuine faith in Jesus Christ. That was so exciting to see! On Tuesday, we also had a small service at the church, during which Pastor Carlos (the local Nicaraguan pastor) preached. That was very encouraging to hear! Wednesday was definitely our most difficult day because almost half of the team was sick and unable to leave the hotel. Those of us who were feeling well enough went to the church to get as much done as we could. That was discouraging, but God had the victory! We still had our VBS session that day, and we saw almost 140 kids with about 10-12 mothers! How exciting! Thankfully, by Thursday, almost everyone was back on their feet and able to work. Satan tried to stop us, but God overcame him! Friday, we had another VBS session, and we saw about the same number of kids. We also had an evening service at the church (during which we played music and performed our drama again) and a wedding! The cool thing about this wedding is that it was the union of a former gang leader and his girlfriend who had previously been living together, but who now wanted to live in a manner glorifying to God. That was so incredible to witness! During the church service, we also got to share communion as believers from three different nations. That was definitely an amazing experience. How cool it is to see God unite believers as one! And finally, to conclude an already awesome evening, several people were saved, and their profession was genuine. It was so overwhelming to be a small part of God's work there in that neighborhood in Nicaragua! Praise be to God!

All in all, God really used the team despite Satan's attempts to discourage us!

Lake day!

Saturday, we had a tourism day. After spending the morning at the Nicaraguan market, we went to a beautiful lake where we all relaxed, swam, and ate lunch. We all had a lot of fun fellowshipping together after our difficult week.

One of the things that God taught me through this week is how powerful He truly is. No matter what scary circumstances Satan presented us with, God had the victory. It didn't matter what was going on, God prevailed. He brought several people to Himself and caused all of us to get to know Him better. Wow! I wouldn't have traded this experience for ANYTHING else in the universe!!! All glory to God!!!

Nicaragua Team 2012

Housing and Roommate!

Just thought I'd let everyone know, I just learned that I am going to be living in "The Projects" at MTC, which will be quite fun! This housing area has this particular name due to its facilities (or lack thereof). My apartment (which I will be sharing with another girl named Elise) has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a small living area, and a half bath. The missing facilities include a shower and a laundry area. However, I will not be without any means of bathing. The lake is a two minute walk from my apartment, but, thankfully, there are also two shower houses located nearby and a laundry facility (yes, you can breathe again). :-)

But seriously, I'm really excited about going to MTC in about a month. The housing facilities are actually extremely nice, and I'm definitely looking forward to my clases and all the new friends I am going to meet. I can't wait to see what God is going to do!

Thanks for all your prayers and support! I appreciate them more than you will ever know! :-)

Nicaragua Trip

Just got back from Nicaragua today, and we had an amazing trip!!! It was so cool to see everything God did there. We had a LOT of opposition from Satan, but we accomplished much, including finishing painting the inside and outside of the new church building, completing a sidewalk outside of the church, evangelizing in the very poor neighborhood, leading VBS for the Nicaraguan kids, leading worship for each of the services held in the church, performing a powerful drama, and seeing several people profess genuine faith in Jesus Christ!! What an amazing God we serve!

It was also incredible to witness the strong relationships that our team formed with the Costa Rican team and the Nicaraguan locals. We had a lot of fun together, and we all worked well with each other, despite the language barrier. I definitely had a great time improving and practicing my Spanish. I especially enjoyed spending time with my "family" from Costa Rica, the Chaves family, our Puerto Rican friend, Maritza, and our American intern friend, Jessica. They all came on the trip last year, and they are such a blessing to me and my family! The Chaves kids all play musical instruments, which was really helpful when we led worship at the church. They also participated in the drama. Very cool! And all of the Costa Rican team members are VERY hard workers (their tasks in Nicaragua include translating, preaching accounting, preparing and serving food, working on construction, playing on the worship team, and helping to lead VBS)! Our team couldn't do what we do without their help!

I will post more later, and I will try to put up a few pics! Thanks for all your prayers back home!

Host Family and Nicaragua Countdown

I just received an e-mail from my host family at MTC. They are the Snyders, and they will be helping me get settled in to the campus when I arrive. It's pretty exciting!!!

Also, I leave for Nicaragua in 3 days!!! Yippee!!!

I'm Going!!!

I received an official acceptance letter a few weeks ago and have put in my $100 deposit that holds my room! YAY!!!

God has been so faithful in the past few weeks. Here's just a smidgen of what He's done:
~He helped MTC make the decision to accept me!
~He has given me strength to endure some difficult challenges that are going on in my personal and family life.
~He has been providing financially for every need!

What a mighty and awesome God we serve!

On a slightly different topic, I have been discovering how much fun it is to shop at thrift stores! One of my friends found me a beautiful comforter in mint condition (at a thrift store) for my new room at MTC, and I have been having a lot of fun finding little decorations and kitchen items to match (the colors that I'm using, btw, are burgundy, tan, and brown and a few little variations here and there). Someone else gave me a floor lamp that was that icky brass color from the 60's, so I decided I didn't want that color in my room and spray painted it brown! It looks pretty awesome, and I felt very proud of myself for completing my first spray painting project without much damage to myself, the lamp, or anyone else (although I think Josiah might have slightly brown hands today...but I'm sure it was his fault for putting his hands in the way ......... )

Anyways, thanks so much for all of your prayers and support! I appreciate it more than I could ever say!