Week 8

Whew what a crazy time it has been I have been in Costa Rica  10 weeks they have had there ups and downs but God continues to shine his faithfulness in my life and he never lets me down.  This week was different then the normal weeks that we have been having normally our weeks  consist of staying at the YWAM base having our normal weekly schedual of class, work duties and whatever else comes up along the way. This week however  my Children at Risk school took a 2 and a half hour bus ride to Jaco a small beach town here in Costa Rica where we had class at a place called Christians surffers where we stay in a hostile on the property and had class under a shelter that they use for their ministery , The speaker was Leslie Freeman a wife  mother of 4 aborable little boys and she spoke on Child Development which I have to say in the first day of  teaching I was blown away. In all the times I have worked with kids I never realized how the best thing I can have with children is a good relationship and getting down on their level and talking to them making them feel like they are just as important as an adult and how it works better rather then just telling  them what to do and how to do to get on their level and to discuss on their level the reasons why we do and don't do certain thinks rather then just sayit is because I told you so. God just really started showing me that I need more patients and love when it comes to working with children and even adults love is  the key in any  in any relationship . basically my whole consept of working with children was changed and it was amazing. God has truly gifted  Leslie with the gift of patients and I was blessed so much by her honesty and openness to us about how she is not perfect and doesn't claim to have it all put together but it is her hearts desire to love and train her children in the ways of the lord and even though she doen't have it all together she is still willing to teach us . This week new and excited things started to progess for me and I know I stated in my last blog about my outreach plan to go to Zimbabwe, well plans have changed for the good. We have 4 weeks left of school and after that I am moving to Jaco to help Scott and Leslie Freeman  with their Skate boarding  ministry that they have ministering to the children and teens just letting them come in and skate and having fun projects for them and basically just being there and loving on the children, and I will  also be  helping  them with their  children and just to be of service to them I am also going to be with Leslies help researching Child Development and also learning spanish. Basically in my outreach I am going in with servants heart willing to do whatever the lord leads me to .  My prayer requests would be that God would give me more patients and love and that he would provide the funding I need to there and he would provide devine oppertunties for me to do ministries there and that most impotantly that I would continue to grow in my relationship with the lord and with others .

Blog week 7

I have now been in Costa Rica for 9 weeks and we just finished our 7th week in my Children at Risk school this week the the speaker was Ro Potter she is from the states and works with the Women and Childrens  avocacy center and she spoke on Human Tafficking annd the different type of trafficking which are Child soldier, forced labour ,trickery by fraud ,sex trafficking .   This week was truly an aweness week for me we heard so many stories of gilrs getting trafficked the one that shocked me the most was the trickery by fraid how girls will be trick into thinking they are signing up for a photo shoot when in reality they are in the end actually being tricked into being trafficked so by the time they realize what has happened it is to late and we were given a bunch of things to help us look out for traffickers the signs of what it might look like this week was very interesting to me and hard i just sat through each day of class and had so many questions going through my head of what makes guys treat girls so horribly? what got them to this point ? we watch a video called Fields of Mudan and it is about young girls who were sold at as young of age as 7 and it  so hard to realize what so many girls go through day in and day out . Before going through this week I had heard about like forced labor but I had never realized that it was trafficking I didn't really know a whole lot about it I mean I had heard of prostitution before but I didn't realize just how common trafficking was and definatly did not realize jsut how horrible it was while going through this week I  was like I so glad to be learning about this just to make me aware of the need around me but I was not really interested as far as working with it but by the end of the week I am now thinking of how I just want to go and talk about the issue to make teens aware of the issue so we can stop  this horrible action . Listening to what girls go through just made me so sad I just had to question how the Madoms and Pimps can do this what they must have gone through to get to the place they are in that that can treat young girls so horrible and not even have a consciene about it .I jst have to wonder how they got so hard ? I have realized more and more since this week how money is the root of all evil and it just horriflies me to think that after  the young girls are sold into human trafficking how all their rights are stripped and how like they think they are going to get an awesome job where they will have great money and as soon as they get to the brothels they end up with nothing and they end up in debt which they can never pay off because they never see any of the money they make even though they are making tons the pimps never let them see any and they are not allowed to pick any of their clothe thay are bought for them it just makes me think they are treated worse then animals we wouldn't treat our  animals like this. On Sat I went to Mero Ministies which is a ministry working with children and it's always such a joy to be around kids and to just love of them but at the same time it is so hard to see thier living conditions and how they ive on a normal day I fell in love with tihs little girl named Melanie she is about 2 years old and ever week I  go she always comes running up to me with the biggest smile and will pretty much hang with me the entire time well on Sat she just clung to me and just snuggled right into me which just bought pure joy to my heart it was so sad knowing that it was my last Sat to go . God has truly been giving me a love like his and continues through out the weeks to break my heart for what breaks his . My plans for going to Zimbabwe are still coming along  which means i need tons of prayer and also financial support I know who owns the cattle on a thousand his and that he will provide what I need I have faith that it will all happen in his time  please join me in prayer about this .

week 6

The week the Speaker was Lance Rawlins who is originally from South Africa But is living in the state working with Women’s and Children Advocate Center , He spoke on Project planning which I really enjoyed since I am not a planner by nature it help me better understand how to plan . One thing that really stuck out to me was something that is defiantly only common sense but sometimes I forget is that in order to get to point B we must start at point A we can not think we can just end up at point B and I realized well I am not even at point A for the project I am interested in working with I need to do a lot of research before I can actually start planning but that is all part of it . Before we step out and go full fledge in a ministry we need to research and we need to get to know the culture of the place we want to minister at, so we can finish the work . Another thing that stuck out to me is to make sure when we go out into a nation we get to know the people and understand their culture and we can not just go into a place and start anything we need to first see what is happening what has work and what hasn’t work so we don’t start something and have it fail due to lack of research . When going into a place we need to go with a servants attitude and to be willing to do whatever needs to be done before we can ever start any project Something I need to ask myself is what do I need to do to accomplish my goal . This week truly inspirited me and just got my mind all fired up . J Also going to Metro this week really just got me thinking about Children and how they need hope as I sat and watch them they are starved for affection and love yes their parents love them but in only a way that they know how . God is truly everyday giving me more and more love for the lost and realizing just how much we need to give people hope of Jesus Christ .

Week 5

God is Amazing we have already completed week 5 of school this is some crazy stuff let me tell you God is moving and molding me more and more and more into his image . This week the speaker was Scott Freeman he spoke on the character and Nature of God he is a great speaker and just made things so interesting and easy to understand and just kept everything going with his many stories and testimonies we were able to take 2 of the 5 days and spend them outside the classroom one day we went to the salvation army to pray and help out in whatever, I volunteered to stay behind and help go through clothes that were donated to the homeless which was hard because as I was going through the clothes sorting them I just had to sit and think these clothes are peoples clothes that are out of style we would never think to wear them and here who ever is going to get them are going to be super thankful because who knows it might be their only nice outfit and then after a little while of sorting clothes we went to help out with sorting shoes they had bags of shoes that were also donated and some didn’t have pairs  but we put shoes together that were close enough ones that looked alike or whatever it just really opened my eyes up to the fact that we are so completely spoiled with out 5 pairs of shoes and who know the person who gets the pair of shoes that don’t match it might be their only pair or even their first pair it just so sad how we always think we need so much and there are people out in the world who have nothing they sleep on the side of the road and the only outfit they have is the one on there backs ,God has been showing me so much opening my eyes up to the things I didn’t want to notice before the needs around us my heart is broken over the needs the world faces I am just so thankful for this opportunity and that God chose me to be apart of his plan and to learn the needs so I can go out and make a difference we also were able to go to the park here in Costa Rica and spend a day out in nature just spending some alone time with God and seeing what he will show us through his nature as I was walking around the park just looking and being in awe of the beauty I went over to a tree and looked down and there were some leaves with white spots on them I had never seen anything like it before and it was so awesome because all these past 6 weeks of me being in Costa Rica I have had many thoughts of why am I am what is my purpose because school is so hard and the topics are so heart breaking and it’s just been super rough for me and I have at times just wanted to go home ,but God in his faithfulness kept me going and through an awesome relaxing weekend that took me with a few others to a beach a few hours away from San Jose he just started revealing himself to me in a whole new way and started showing me again who I was in him and that I did have a purpose for being here and that he was with me even in the hard time and well back to the leaves as I looked at them they just portrayed my life so much because I looked at a very tiny green leaf not a spot of white on it and it was like me before Christ just a blah leaf and then I picked up another tiny leaf and it surprisingly had just one tiny speck of white on it and I reminded me of when I first let Christ into my life he started making me white and then there was a bigger leaf and that had lot of white spots and it just reminded me of all the times I let Christ fill me up he was cleaning out all the garbage from my past and making me white and free of everything and finally a even bigger leaf that was almost completely covered in white spot was just a reminder that the more I continue to let Christ in my life and let him fill me up the whiter my heart becomes and the freer I am in him. I am continually being amazed at God love for me he continues to show me how much I mean to him and that he has a big plan for my life . The more I let him come in and change me and mold into his likeness the bigger be becomes in my life and sometimes even though I may feel like the shoes that we were pairing up that weren’t exactly pairs but we put them together because they would still full fill the purpose whether they matched or not that is the same in our Christian life even though we don’t think we can full fill Gods plan for our lives we need to let God pair us up with whatever he knows best and he will full fill our calling just like a pair of unmatched shoes will protect some ones feet all we have to do is be willing to let God lead us and guide us and he will go before us and help us along even in the rough patches of life even when we feel incapable of our calling God knows best ,One thing I though was really cool about this week was he told us even when we don’t have the faith miracle still happen .another quote he gave that really opened my eyes up was “Kindness has converted more sinners then zeal eloquence or learning” One thing I am learning is God id big enough and God is good enough . God uses us even when we don’t want to just like Jonah didn’t want to go tell Nineveh that it would be destroyed if they didn’t repent he didn’t want to go because he new that it would changed and well God still used him in his unwillingness to change a city , it’s just so much easier when we are willing to do what God wants us to do then when we do it grudgingly . God is bigger then our faith ,What God is looking for is truly repentant hearts people who are willing to do whatever he ask of us with obedience. This week changed my life and I am just so blessed to be a pair of unmatched shoes for Christ . I am so thankful for the opportunities we had this week to learn about his character and to realize just how much I still have to learn and just how good God is and how great of love he has for us . I went into this week with a lot of questions and I came out of this week with God answering them all he showed me so much and is continually revealing himself in a brand new way .

Week 4 !

Wow we are already done with week 4 of my Children at Risk school the weeks are flying by and every week we are taught something new and exciting this journey has been amazing there has been some tough things that have come up and God is working in my life making me a new and better person and it is amazing to watch as time passes just how much God wants us to change if we are only willing to let him have control. This week the speaker was Michelle Grimes and she came to teach us on Discipline /punishment which was a very interesting concept for me because all my life I had viewed them as the same thing she gave us lots of little tips on when working with children what to do and what not to do. we worked a lot in partners coming up with different scenario to better teach and understand children the difference between discipline and punishment is Discipline is setting boundaries for children and in a loving way setting them straight in what they did wrong and Punishment inflicted by way of correction and training Instruction that corrects mold or perfects. This week has been especially good for me with doing so much babysitting and working with children over the years it help me understand them a little better and gave me more creative ideas on what to do and also gave me pointers of what not to do , one of the biggest things I took away from this week which actually kind of shock me when Michelle said it is to never ever tell a child you are proud of them when they do a good job on a project because then if say the next time they don’t do as good of job the child will feel unloved and they will look for love in only performing a good job rather then in just being a good student like will look for praise in there achievements rather then in there normal life. Some of the really cool things we did this week was just kind of acting out some scenarios of children and how we are to react with each one which help me a lot and just gave me so much more understanding of what to do when working with kids. Kids need structure and love and they also need for us to be tough even the trouble kids need us to be tough but yet in a loving way. I also had the privileged to be able to go twice to do metro ministry working with children and just getting out and playing with the children was a super awesome time for me and just continues to break my heart for them as I watch the children live in these places yes they are loved but they have know where to play except for a dead in hill and they are starving for attention and some needing medical help which the parents are to poor to pay for . My eyes are continually being opened up to the needs around us and my heart is continually growing in love for the children in the world . Please continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I continue on this amazing Journey which God has led me on and just pray for me for direction as far as where to do my outreach and also financial support as well.