Whew. I have a lot to catch you up on!
Costa Rica. In a nut-shell.
Lived on a farm in the jungle. Rested. Bonded with my team over hours of playing cards. Performed the role of “crying girl� in a Christmas performance for over 1,000 kids and their families. Learned how to clear a jungle with a single machete. Made homemade tortillas Christmas morning. Went on a Christmas adventure to the “river� and saw legit monkeys. Built a sweet relationship with a 15 year old boy named Julio. Lost my camera card. Watched God provide a micro-bus and sound system for our team. Drank coffee at least 3 times a day. Fell more in love with my Savior.
If you would enjoy reading a fuller account of our month & especially our Christmas performance, I encourage you to read my squad-mates Nikki’s blog about this month. She did a great job explaining what ministry looked like.
Ch-ch-cha-changes.
Last week our squad convened together in San Jose for a few days before heading to the Philippines. Talk of change was in the air. Two team leaders were rising to take the role of squad leaders and as a result, accompanied with much prayer, teams shifted. Team Arrow felt the affect. Lindsay was asked to be a team leader (AH! She is going to be AMAZING in that role!!) and I was asked to lead the only and first all-girls team on our squad. I am definitely going to miss the junk out of our original team, but I know God has huge things instore for this new group of girls He’s called together. It was ironic, for the past month I’ve been telling the Lord how ready I am to work with girls, with women. We haven’t had much chance since the Race began. Loving on girls, I kept reminding the Lord, is where my heart is. Orphans, trafficked women, girls who are hurting, believing lies about themselves, anything, God, I want to work with them. I want to speak truth to them, build relationship with them, encourage them, tell them how beautiful they are. After three weeks of these prayers God showed me how faithful He is…even if it wasn’t the way I was expecting 🙂 But for-real, I am crazy excited about sharing life with my 5 sisters. I know God specifically and purposefully put us together for His glory and I’m pumped to see what He has in store for us!
Here we are – Team WOW (Women of __________: Wisdom, the Word, Wackiness, Wonder, you name it!) From the left, Tracy, Rebecca, Angela, myself, Cara, and Addie.
53 hours & the Philippines. For the past 2-3 days we’ve been traveling. We left Costa Rica on the 31st and arrived in the Philippines some 50-something hours later. The adventure was fun: celebrating the New Year in the lobby of the LAX airport, sleeping in terminals, finally (after 3 months of talking about how much we would LOVE one) enjoying a Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks, exploring Los Angeles at 1 am & eating my first burger from IN & OUT, realizing I can once again flush toilet paper down the toilet, and reaching all new levels of sleepy-loopy-completely-slap-happy-tired. This month we are a bit outside the capital of Manila working with Kids International Ministry. Their ministry works with orphanages, feeding centers, prostitute outreaches, teen discipleship, and so many other things! Our contact is the BOMB! and wants us to pray into where we feel called to serve and pursue the ministries we are passionate about. What!? How cool is that! I’m super psyched about this month and can’t wait to update once things get into a swing!
