I
can’t believe it is already 2010. Happy New Year! This last year has
been one of the most exciting years of my whole life. One thing I
love about God is that I know this is only beginning. I cannot wait to
see what this New Year holds!
One of the first exciting things I want to share with you is that I
officially have all of my support raised!!! Thank you SOOO much to all
of you who have contributed and joined me in prayer. Raising money
was the one thing that was going to prevent me from coming on the Race,
and I am so thankful that so many of you helped me achieve this goal!
It is amazing to daily watch how the Lord is using that money. Praise
him!
to update much. Also unfortunately, we have been in the Middle East
for 2 months, so we were not able to post much about God, ministry or
Christianity. This is mostly for our contacts protection because they
live in very volatile areas that could turn dangerous if certain groups
found out that they are Christians. So I will try to summarize our
time in Israel with as much discretion as I can.
Martha, Lindsay and Ashley spent much of our days watching 5 wonderful
children for an amazing woman named Tirza. This woman taught us so
much about trusting God and about serving others. From the moment we
entered TIrza’s house, we knew it was a divine appointment. Israel was
a month filled with much prayer, many smiles, great worship and tons of
joy. I loved the ministry we had that month.
Christmas
came, and with it brought much homesickness, but also much joy because
I was surrounded by the most incredible girl friends ever. I am so
blessed to have the friends that I have here on the field. Sadly, our
time in Israel had to come to an end, and the infamous 52-hour travel
day began. Yes, you heard me right, 52 hours. But God knew that we
would need some sort of incentive to travel that much, so he gave us a
tour of the pyramids! We drove all night to get to Egypt, toured
Cairo all day, and then flew overnight into Nairobi. Ironically, it was
cheaper to stay the day in Egypt before heading to Africa, so we all
praised the Lord for such a cool Christmas present.
I
arrived in Africa wide-eyed and expectant. We had about 4 days of
getting accustomed to the culture before my team headed to Bungoma,
Kenya for our month of ministry. We are working with a local church
here and it looks like our days will be completely filled with
ministry. I am so excited about it! I have LOVED where God has had me
the past 5 months, but I am ready to be out of the comfortable Western
culture. This morning I showered in a bucket and we have a hole for a
toilet, all the while staring at 4-inch cockroaches. The people of
Kenya are so welcoming and friendly. Everywhere we go, people
constantly say hello and ask how we are doing. The friendliness of
Kenya stands in stark contrast to the culture of the Middle East.
We’ve only been here a few days, but already we have had a dance party
with the local children, attended three church services, painted a
school, and visited an orphanage. It also looks like we are going to
get to preach about 3 times a week. My prayer is that this month be a
month where I begin to step out in boldness for the Word of God. That
I not fear man, but get excited about the Word of the Lord. I am ready
to be moved to an even deeper place with Him, and I can’t wait to see
how he is going to do it!
Also, it’s been about a month since I’ve had stable enough internet
to post pictures, so there’s about 8 new albums on facebook which you
can view HERE.
should probably finish this off. It’s raining now and the power will
probably go out again…plus my mosquito net is calling my name…..I love
Africa!
