Sorry that I haven’t update yall on what I have been doing ministry wise but here is a summary of what I have done for the past 6 months. Thank you so much supporters for getting me this far. You’ve read in my previous blogs about what God has done in me personally and my teams and now you know what ministry looked like. God has done amazing things these 6 months and He will do more in the next 5 months. Whether that be out the U.S. or at home but I’d love it to be in Uganda, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and some other Asian country that God leads us to. God isn’t done with me yet.
I’m in need of some assistance. I need your help and I need it now. I need prayer. I need money to be in my account in 17 days.
I know that God has the money and knows the people that are going to give and how much they are going to give. I trust that the money is going to come in abundantly. I have faith that God won’t send me home.
I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to upload pictures of my journey yet but decent internet is hard to find. Please forgive. That is the next thing I am working on.
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RADIANT-Carly Crookston[team leader], Amanda Stoesz, Kelsey Amann, Angel Borthwick, and Katlyn Head
Romania-September 2011
My team, RADIANT, and another team stayed in Dragensti where we worked with Hope Church. During the first two weeks, we went and handed out invitations which usually meant putting it in their fence door. The invitations were for the dedication/opening of the church. We helped prepare the church in any way possible such as scraping paint off window seals, doors, and the floor. We also helped clean up the area where the kids would play. We cleaned out the shed where they keep wood to burn to keep warm during the winters. A lot of the wood seemed like scraps that we would never use. The church was completed while we were there and a week long program was planned. Each day was for different people; one day for women, one for men, one for children, one for youth, and we had a daylong conference.
Hope Church works and lives in community or at least they did for us. We got to know and fall in love with six families and a few other individuals from the church.
There was a big gypsy population where we were. We got to minister to three gypsy children throughout the month. It was a little hard because one of them stole something from someone on another world race team so the church members wanted to keep us safe. We also wanted to show God’s love so we decided to buy clothes, toiletries, and some food for them. They were so grateful and held onto us when we hugged them.
We did some ATL, ask the Lord, on some days. The main thing we did was pick up trash alongside the main road where we lived and where Hope Church was. Our grocery store was on the same road which was about a 15 minute walk from our house. Our contact and the pastor, Raul, did the same when he first came to Dragensti. Raul was the first Christian and the Orthodox Catholics did not want him there starting a church. They told him there wouldn’t be a Christian church in that town. It is now in the middle of the town being a beacon of hope and light in the community.
Transantria-October 2011
RADIANT was alone this month in an unrecognized country between Moldova and Ukraine. We still had to get visas and show our passports every time we went into the country. We lived in the church with our translator for the month. All six of us women slept in one room on five mattresses. Unlike most of the other teams, we had heat, running water, shower with hot water, western toilets, and internet. Our ministry was playing with kids in the afternoon during the week, few house visits, women’s group, and weekly bonfires. Two teenage brothers connected with two of our teammates and became team brothers. They spent as much time as they could with us. They ate meals with us, hung out on our rest days, and did ministry with us sometimes. We cleaned out a man’s apartment that he moved into a little bit before because his children decided that couldn’t take care of him anymore. This apartment had a fire about 10 years ago and hadn’t been cleaned up yet. We also cleaned out Michael’s house that had been his parents but he doesn’t live there all of the time because in the winters, it is hard. He usually sleeps in the church, we don’t if it is the church we were staying in or not. We cleaned up his house, fixed his yard, and spent time with him. Michael always has a smile on and carries so much joy.
Nepal-November 2011
RADIANT was again alone this month and had an amazing contact. His name is Megh and we stayed with his family. We stayed in their son’s room for the month while he slept at a cousin’s house close by. They were working on an addition to the house so that more world racers can come. It is a going to be a whole another house with bedrooms, kitchen, living room, dining room, and a bathroom. One world racer got donations to provide hot water. Megh is also planning to get wifi for his house even though are internet cafes with in a 5 minute walk. This month having Thanksgiving could have been hard with us being so far away from family. God gave us a family and I finally saw my teammates as sisters. Megh was such a great father and Ama was the best. Subash is 20 and differently acted like a brother. We spent all day preparing a feast and our squad leaders joined us. Christy, squad leader, made oreo pie for dessert. We had chicken instead of turkey, dressing/stuffing, cooked vegetables, mashed potatoes, and rolls. We then played a game that Kelsey, one of my teammates, plays on holidays. It was telephone on paper.
Since Megh was working on the addition of the house, ministry was a little on the slim side this month. We folded many tracts; handed them out to everyone we came across when the tracts were in our possession. We went to two different schools one week where we taught English, health, business, and were able to openly talk about Jesus. You heard right, we got to talk about JESUS in a public school. I loved being able to play with them, hear their national anthem and other songs, watch them dance, and take pictures of them. I’m definitely not cut out to be a teacher. I got to go into children Sunday school every Sunday where I either shared my testimony or a story in my life. I tried teaching songs but I realized that I didn’t know enough words or emotions to any but “Father Abraham” which just took me five minutes to remember the title because I haven’t sung it since.
Team LIMITLESS-Gary Lee [team leader], Peter Owens, Angela Harvey, Ashley Holcomb, and KayLynn Love
India-December 2011
LIMITLESS was alone this month village hopping. Village hopping for us was going house to house and praying for the families and then having a service at the night where we pray over people again after. We stayed at one church and would travel to a different each day then come back. We usually left around 2PM and not get back until at least midnight. This first night, we prayed over a house that had a heavy presence of evil spirits. I felt heavy but have never been exposed to evil spirits. Before India, I don’t know how I would answer the question, “Do you believe in demons or evil spirits?” We prayed for a range of different things from blessings to healings to casting out demons. We saw people who haven’t walked in years without a cane walk without pain. We saw demons manifest and then with God’s power, casted them out. Ministry this month was spiritually draining but God gave us strength and never gave us too much.
Kenya-month 4 debrief-late December 2011/early January 2012
Five AIM staff came from America to deliver some teaching and spoke life into us. Peter felt the he needed to go home in hopes of recovering from his depression that came back. We released Christy and Phillip, our original squad leaders, to return home and welcomed Rachel and Christian who are our new squad leaders.
Tanzania-January 2012
Team LIMITLESS was paired with team BAMPH where our ministry was mainly evangelizing. We did door-to-door in the mornings then speaking at a university or a church at night. We split into groups for most of the door-to-doors except one morning. One of our translators, Rachel, lets God direct her to which houses or people we need to talk to. God sets up great divine appointments. We walked into the courtyard of a house and talked to a man that was standing outside. We ask if there anyone who is sick and/needs prayer. We are led into the house, walked down a hallway feeling heavy but not saying a word, then into the room where the man who needed prayer. He needed prayer for his knees. We pray but feel like a dark presence. We start speaking out things we are feeling and asking questions to try to figure out more. We finally found out about the woman who saw an evil spirit and said something about having sex with the spirit. We start praying for the woman where a demon manifests and throws us all around with supernatural strength. We soon realize that the man is evil and needed to get him out of the room. It takes a while to so but is done. We continued to pray for the spirit to flee and realized that there was more than one demon. Once we got all of them out, the woman was able to accept Jesus into her heart.
New team: New Heights-Kyle Markel [team leader], Spencer Adams, Vanessa Butler, Jenna Malinen, Emily Harr, Kaitlyn Allen, and KayLynn
Rwanda-February 2012
We are only here for two and half weeks and do almost the same ministry as in Tanzania. We give devotions Monday-Friday to women and boy at the sewing school in the church building. We then go in two groups to do door-to-door ministry. We then have a break until 5:30PM where we go preach to the congregation. We have Saturdays off and most of our team decided to go see a soccer game that day. We got there a couple of hours early so we first watch the game that was on the big screen then walked across the street to get some drinks and a snack. We also got to the genocide memorial one afternoon which was heartbreaking. We watched Hotel Rwanda that next day. Probably wasn’t the best idea but we did.
