WARNING: This is a long one…I have 11 months to cover! haha
UKRAINE:
* Helped out at a kids camp in a village full of sand….and it was no where near a beach.
* Saw bee’s that were so huge I swore they were effected by Chernobyl
* Got attacked in my face consistently by intentionally annoying flies
* Washed dishes for 2-3 hours
* Was incredibly grossed out by the amount of mayonnaise served in our meals (I attempted to stay away from most of it)
* Did a trust fall about 5-6 feet high and was barely caught by my team while my skirt somehow came completely off of me….
* Tried to get my whole team through a “spider web team-building activity” without touching any of the rope
* Cooked for 60+ people
*Handed out Bible’s door to door
*Saw a stork and stork nest!…there were no human babies in it. Hmm.
ROMANIA:
* Prayed/warfared for deliverance for a man who was “levitating” and trying to pray for other people. He wouldn’t let anyone pray for him in the name of Jesus. Something was off.
* Prayed for healing and believed it actually was delivered on the spot to a person who was not even there.
* Handed out at least 1,000 fliers inviting people to come to a Christian concert
*Prayed for an old lady to be healed and able to walk and saw her stand up and take a few steps for the first time in 15 years!
*Ate cabbage rolls and loved them
N. IRELAND:
* Arrived in a country without a contact and found one/arrived there within 24 hours of searching
* Loved on drunk/high people without having to preach at them
* Helped save a girls life who was drunk and fell and hit her head. We rushed her to the hospital despite her desiring to do so and thankfully we got here there just in time. She began to seize and almost died but they were able to revive her.
* Talked frequently to a GENIUS homeless man who has a mind like the man in “A Beautiful Mind”
* Ate 3 types of meat in one meal and 4 different desserts
* Nearly froze in my tent due to rainy Ireland weather. Slept with two pairs of socks, leggings, sweatpants, bra, tank top, shirt, jacket, rain jacket, hood, socks on my hands, sleeping bag liner and sleeping bag.
* Worshiped with my squad outside through a rainy storm from 2am until 7am the night before we left the country due to an extremely unfortunate situation concerning one of our teammates.
* Sanded and painted a bench
* Drank a Guinness bear
* Saw an old couple doing an Irish jig
* Prayed for healing for people in the middle of a town square
* Served people tea, coffee and biscuits for the sole purpose of loving on them
KENYA:
* Mastered the squatty potty and bucket showers
* Didn’t shower for 3 days (that’s a lot for me!)
* Danced with an African woman on stage
* Ate purple potato and sandwiches for breakfast
* Lived in the house with our contact and his family
* Hand washed all of my clothes
* Bought Kenyan jewelery and a traditional Kenyan dress
* Rode in Matattoo’s (vans designed for 10 people but would fit 25-30)
* Shared a room designed for 1 person with 4 other girls
* Shared a Queen bed with two other girls and managed to break it
* Slept under a web of mosquito nets that kept falling on us
* Gave our contact the nickname “JoJo” aka Joseph
* Almost got car-jacked at night when we were driving home (we didn’t pull over don’t worry)
* Introduced my team as if it were a dating show (and got them dates!)
UGANDA:
* Our shower knob broke and water flooded our house. We couldn’t get house owners to turn off water so we had to fill up buckets and dump them out to keep house from flooding more. I put a hose in where the shower knob was and then funneled it up and out the window into the drain. Then we took showers outside with the hose.
* Warfared against witchcraft that was present in and out of the church
* At more food than I thought was humanly possible because our pastor was offended that we weren’t eating much
* Did door to door evangelism for 3 weeks straight
* Was in a car where the driver got signaled to pull over by the police but instead he gunned it and ran from them. He then hid the car and made us walk to the closest public transportation.
* Our team got taken advantage of by a con artist of sorts
TANZANIA:
* Danced traditional African dances with a Tanzanian choir
* Helped build the framework of a house by hand…with out any machinery
* Chopped wood with a machete
* Drove a motorcycle by myself for the first time…without lessons to! I just remembered what my Dad told me.
* Drove 37 hours through Africa to get to our location
* Got typhoid
* Got served soda on the bus
* Bought corn out of the bus window
* Wore a traditional African skirt and head garb
* Put a bucket of water on my head
* Chased chickens out of my room
* Got gastritis
THAILAND:
* Sang Christmas songs in Thai
* Preached in a rain storm while using a huge leaf as an umbrella
* Made a team video and rapped in it
* At a full Thanksgiving dinner made by a Thai family
* Ran across streets that were jam packed with mopeds
* At chicken fried rice almost daily
* Made friends with a natural medicine man
CAMBODIA:
* Taught English classes
* Lived in a village
* Ran through rice patties
* Went to a YWAM party and dressed up
* Got yelled at by an Indian man loudly in the middle of a grocery store because he recognized me from a prior coffee shop and saw that I was reading a book called “When Heaven Invades Earth” …I don’t think he liked that I was reading that…
* Drank papaya smoothies
* Watched a man plunge my teammates poop out of the toilet with the hose they use to wash themselves with rather than using toilet paper
* Got an intestinal infection and kidney stones
* Kidney stones dissolved miraculously
* Saw a dog with what looked like human boobs
LAOS:
* Once again I cannot talk about it much on my blog, but you can ask me via email or facebook message.
* Got offered to eat bat but denied haha
* Got to pick lettuce from a garden and eat it with sticky rice and homemade Italian dressing
EL SALVADOR:
* Got lice
* Slept in one room with 4-5 girls on 3 twin mattresses pushed together
* Painted murals with oil-based paint
* Ate double scoop waffle cone ice cream for 50 cents
* Fell asleep in a hammock
* Saw a puppy with a fish hook caught in his mouth
* Ate papusas
* Befriended a famous El Salvadorian model like a brother…gave him a hard time too when we saw that his pictures were posted all over the town and they were of him naked with a rubber duck floaty covering the important parts hahaha
* Got to ride a horse without a normal saddle…it was more like a blanket and stirrups
GUATEMALA:
* Lived in a town with cobblestone roads and horse-drawn carriages
* Had a movie night in a bagel shop
* Ate McDonald’s for breakfast and loved it!
* Answered these four questions given by our contact in front of 15 other people: 1) How old are you and where are you from, 2) Least favorite food, 3) My life’s passion, 4) If I have ever been in love and if so…to who.
* Did social work house visits and had to hike uphill in the mountains or an hour straight! I thought I was going to die…and the lady wasn’t even home once we arrived!
* Hung out with and fed women with cerebral palsy
* Taught Christian values at public schools
All in all, within 11 months I did a lot of things I never thought I would do and some that I definitely wanted to do. This is not even all of them, but the list is long enough already! Tomorrow will be the official 7 days left on the WR! I can hardly believe it!! So many great memories and so much fun that was had!!! Loved every minute of it! I hope you did too!! 🙂
