If you want to know exactly what kind of work I did this year here it is. This year was truly a taste of every different type of volunteer work and ministry possible! From handing out tracts ( not my favorite!), to preaching, to painting and manual labor, to marriage counseling, to holding a dying woman’s hand. Here I list each country we went to and what we did there, all said in a few words.
1. Chiapas, Mexico. Teaching in a local church. These people did A LOT of church!
2. Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. Lived at orphanage, doing children and youth discipleship ( this included throwing a lot of birthday parties and teaching sewing classes)
3. Ho Chi Minh, Viet nam. College outreach, orphan, and elderly ministry. (This is the month we lived above a place very similar to a brothel, so we went out during the day doing college ministry and at night we got to know the girls who worked at the hotel and prayed.)
4. Rubbish Mountain, Cambodia. Slum ministry. One of my favorite months. Loving on the poorest of poor who literally live and work in trash. We did preaching, teaching, washing lice invested hair, and throwing a life changing revival in which we saw many many super naturally healed through prayer and come to the Lord.
5. Pattaya, Thailand. Bar Ministry, Teaching English. We we went to the bars at night to build relationship with prostitutes and the thousands of men there, and by day we taught the girls english and helped transition them out of the bars.
6. London, England. Outreach to minority groups. this included going door to door and handing out tracts on the streets. This was very uncomfortable for many of us, but God definitely worked and used it!
7. Mozambique. Church discipleship and empowerment. A 45 minute walk every day in the middle of African bush to a church of sticks. We were told to go every day and by the end of 3 weeks they should know the gospel, how to share their story and evangelize. On my first day they didnt know what a Bible was, and by the end they had real intimate relationships with the Lord!
8. Lilongwe, Malawi. Teaching, Preaching, and Testimonies for villages, women and children. Going out everyday preaching for hours and hours and hours and hours! People came to the Lord every every day!
9. Nsoko, Swaziland. AIDS, Orphans, and women ministry. Loving on the oppressed and forgotten. We did an unforgettble womens retreat that set so many of us FREE, and ensured the 8 care points (that feed 800 orphans a day) were functioning as well as possible. We distributed about 1000 pairs of shoes to the locals, mostly children, after washing their feet and praying for them, one by one.
10. Ville Tecii, Romania. Gypsy Outreach. Living in a village of gypsies, who are sterotyped as theives and liars, but proved to be loving, genuine, amazing people, filled with RICH culture. One of my most memorable moments of the race was being baptized on someones front porch in a bath tub with gypsies, by gypsies….all to the tune of accordian and violin music!
11. Lugansk, Ukraine. Teaching English classes and Orphanage work. We built strong friendships with people our age who wanted to learn English and threw many coffee parties for them in our little teeny tiny apartment.
Of course so much more happened than I could EVER describe. If you are more of a visual person enjoy the video’s below that team mate Lindsay Stahl made!
