I Made It!

I am officially done with my big tests and insane study schedule, but I feel like it paid off. The massive grammar test was easier than I expected. I, along with some others, had some issues with several parts of the test but I don't think it will be that bad.

I am thankful to be done with this part and be able to enjoy the next two weeks as I prepare for all the stuff I'll be doing while I'm back in the states. I'm also thankful that I get to finally rest and relax; and I'm doing it on Isla Tortuga for the day on Saturday.

Isla Tortuga is an island off the Pacific Coast, and some of my friends and I are going. The best part is that this is a gift from some friends who I watched their kids for several days. What a great way to just relax and finally get to breath some fresh, non-city air for the first time in 4 months. Isn't God so great? He knows what we need, exactly when we need it! Yea for God! Thanks for all your prayers!

It's Official

If you have been following my bolg you know that I have been trying to decide between working at Renacer or La Carpio. It's been a hard decision and many things to think about and pray through.

This week has been a good one with Jesus as we discussed where, when, and what. Yesterday I felt like I had a clear answer after spending time with Him, but I wanted to sleep on it to make sure that in the morning I would have the peace that He provides when it's His will.

This morning I woke up having a great peace and I didn't even have a doubt about where I am to be working. This was the first time in a long time there was no doubt left.

I will be spending at least the next year at Renacer, working with the teen girls there. I'm so excited and have started that process now. They are excited to have me join them. I start 5 Oct. Thanks for praying!

One Down and One to Go

Today I took my ECO, the oral exam. I wish I could say I did great and did really showed my ability to speak Spanish, however I feel very opposite of that. I know I'm much harder on myself than I should be and therefore my view of what I did is tainted some. However there were parts that I felt like I did well in.

I just wanted to be able to show my true ability. I felt like I got stuck on easy things that I knew but my nerves got a hold of me and I wanted to say things right so I thought too much about it and then that always causes problems. Oh well. I keep reminding myself that no matter what the paper says I'm able to speak Spanish and communicate with those around me. That is what is important, not if I have an advance low as my level.

Please pray for me that I will just focus on God and not focus on my self-serving and prideful side that can come out in times like this. Today I'm struggling with it. I put too much emphasis on a grade and that's not what is important here. So as I had asked God to do several days ago, to break down my pride, He's doing so.

Thank you for your prayers on my tests. One more to go. I'm going to try to give this one completely to the Lord and take my pridefulness out of it.

The Be All and End All Exams

So the time has finally arrived in which I have not been looking forward to for the past year...the ECO and Gramatica tests. The ECO, which is tomorrow, is a 30 minute oral exam to test my oral proficiency level. Then there's the 3 hour Gramatica test on Friday which covers all of the Spanish grammar that I have learned over the past year! I'm a bit scared. :)

Please pray that I will trust God to help me recall all that I have studied and learned. Also pray that I won't allow my nerves to take over me. Well I'm off to studying some more.

11 Months!

It seems like it was just a few months ago, yet an eternity ago as the same time, when I began my 4am trip to the Springfield Airport with Andrea and Heather. As we drove, I tried to hold back tears and tried not to think too much. Thankfully Andrea and Heather have a way to make me laugh as we joked about rain being in both countries.

I loaded up my three large suitcases that weighed .01 lb less than the max. weight of 50 lbs. Then I hugged the girls for what seemed like eternity. They told me that a year will go by so fast and Christmas will come even faster. I gave them a sarcastic laugh as I thought it will not go by fast. I hesitated to head to the line to enter the terminal but I had to finally go. (I sure felt bad for the workers when they saw my flood of tears streaming down my face.) I couldn’t quit looking back to Andrea and Heather for that last glimpse before I was gone for a very long time. (Wow I’m tearing up now just remembering this.)

Once I got to the terminal, God took over my thoughts and He and I hung out for the rest of the time. God placed a nice gentleman in the terminal, who sat behind me on the plane, to encourage me. His daughter and son-in-law were in the process of raising support to go overseas as missionaries.

I remember the first time I saw the beautiful shores of Costa Rica from up high. How incredible it was. How beautiful it was. I had to turn to God, as fear swept through me, but then He gave me a beautiful rainbow that hung over the vibrant greens of Costa Rica. Then I was on the ground and began my time here. That was 11 months yesterday!

It’s quite amazing how fast time has flown. I have only three weeks left of school and will begin saying good-byes to some incredible people. At least I have about 13 different countries I can go to now and always have a place to stay. I’m amazed at what God has done in these past 11 months and I look forward to the next 2 years to see what He continues to do. He never seems to stop amazing me. I’m so thankful that He has lead me here.

Reckless Abandon

Today I spoke in chapel, for the second time. I some how have a way of starting these things off rough. If you read my post on Saca Tus Mascaras you know I lost my contacts and couldn’t read my notes. Today, thankfully it was in English, but I left my notes at home! Come on! But God is so amazing and spoke through me, from my heart.

It was such a God thing today, I truly believe. I shared through my blog from March 31st how terrified I was last time when I spoke (since that was the first time ever I did something like this.) Yet this time, I had only a tiny bit of nervousness before hand but within about 30 seconds I was comfortable (even without my notes) and I enjoyed it. Isn’t God just incredible! I sure love Him!

Over the past few months, I have been trying to work through some of the lies I believe and I really have wanted to run after Christ with total reckless abandon. Yet, I always end up short. I asked Jesus to give me an example of how to live this type of life. Just as good as Jesus is, He did just that.

About a month ago I woke up early and started to do my Bible study. Right there in front of me was the perfect example, the sinful woman who dried her tears off the feet of Jesus with her hair. (Luke 7:36-50) I have always liked this passage and thought it sweet and beautiful but this day God took me so much deeper into the story that caused me to fall in love with this story.

Jesus and I went back in time, and put myself in each of the main roles to try to grasp the feelings, the hurts, the piety, the disgust, the desperation. After many days of mediating on it, reading it and praying about it; this story has taken on a new meaning to me. I want to learn how to see Jesus for who He is, not for what He can give me, in such a way that I abandon all other thoughts of what people think or care about me; as long as I get to sit at His feet and worship Him. To pour myself out to Him so that He can use me as He so desires. To learn that He IS enough for me and I will never need anything else.

So I shared with my fellow classmates (all who are missionaries, learning Spanish for whatever country God is sending to) my journey through these story. I took them back in time with me to imagine who these people were, what their lives were like, and most importantly to see the life of this woman and how Jesus took compassion on her and love for who she was.

I could write and write about this, but I won’t. However, I’m excited to see how God will continue to mold me as I try to seek Him as this sinful woman did, with total reckless abandon.

April/May 09 Newsletter

Okay so I was really late on this one but I finally got it out! http://lifepointozark.com/media/pdf/2009-05_lovelandNews.pdf

Learning To Ride A Bike

Today I was on a date with Jesus at Parque Bosque. The sun was shinning, the wind was wrestling the leaves, the mountains gave away some of their secrets, and the perfect temperature made it just…well, perfect.

I love watching people and from time to time I would get distracted. There were these two that I couldn’t take my eyes off of for awhile. The man was tall for a tico, his white beard coming out from under his ball cap encircling his proud smile for his grandchild. He was teaching his grand-daughter, who looked to be about 8 years old, how to ride a bike.

He would show her how to get on the bike and would position the peddles for her. The loving grandfather would hold on to either her or the bike as they started off for the grand adventure. At times he would only hold on to the back of the bike, or the front of the bike, or just her shirt; wherever he felt would give her the best chance to do it alone without getting too hurt.

The grandfather was so encouraging and would give her instructions on what to do. Sometimes it wasn’t all fun; she did fall off several times. Yet her grandfather was right there to encourage her to keep trying.

As I enjoyed every minute watching these two, God started showing me this is how He is with us. He will show us one step at a time how to do the next new thing in our lives. He demonstrates how to get started; He even positions the peddles for us. He guides us and when He knows we are ready He begins letting us do more. He is there always with His hand on us being our cheerleader.

He’s there even when we fall off the bike and get hurt. God our Father, picks us up, checks our wounds, does the healing He needs to and helps us back up on the bike again. As we ride, He is running right next to us, never letting us out of His sight or reach. He rejoices in our success and laughs with us. He is ever so gentle and never calls us stupid because it takes us longer than we think it should, or we take detours. He is always there loving us ever so sweetly.

What an awesome God we have that cares to teach us, show us, guide us, love us, and be there for us every moment of the day.

Saca Tus Máscaras

A couple of weeks ago, I helped my friend Kathy at La Carpio with the Saturday group of teenage girls. I taught the lesson.

The afternoon started off a little rough. I had put in my brand new pair of contacts from my brand new boxes, but one was bothering me and I thought it would settle down after a few. So I left and caught my two different buses to head to La Carpio.

By this time it has been 2 hours and my contact was still bothering me. When I got to the building it was locked but I had to get the contact out of my eye and clean it. So I thought for some reason, it was a good idea to do it right there outside. Everything went fine until I was holding it up making sure it was clean and then the wind came. My contact took off like a feather and fell somewhere behind me in the tall grass. The two ticos who were there wouldn't give up trying to find it, though I had. This now meant I was unable to read my notes or even the Bible. But as always God had His plans.

I got to talk to a girl who was 15 and taking care of her 5 year old sister. She had very sad eyes and a heaviness about her that a 15 year old should not have. She told me that she has been living in La Carpio for about a year now. Before that she was living in Nicaragua with her grandparents. Her mother left her in Nicaragua when she was less than two years old and moved to Costa Rica.

This young lady knew only her grandparents as her parents. She never had contact with her mother until her grandparents died and she had to move to Costa Rica and meet her mother for the first time that she can remember. It's a very hard situation for her as her mother's boyfriend isn't the nicest; her mother has 4 other kids; and she is living with "complete strangers". Her fragile heart was breaking before me. This sweet girl helped me out with a lot that day.

The girls played some games for a while and then I began teaching "Saca Tus Máscaras" meaning "Take Off Your Masks." God directed me to talk about how I have worn different masks in my life and what they were and why; and the ones I still struggle with. Then I shared about how they get in our way of living a true life and shared with them what God tells us about them. I then shared that God wants us to put something on every day to protect us but it's not our masks, it's His armor and so we briefly talked about the armor. After the lesson we made masks.

The girls were great to work with and it was fun and I was surprised at how well it went, even without being able to read my notes. God is great to always show up when His Truth is being taught and a person is willing to allow Him to speak through them.

Thank you so much to those of you who were praying. Your prayers helped make this possible. Thank you for being a part of this ministry of changing ashes into beauty of the Lord.

I Cut My Hair Off

So I have been needing a change for a while. Perhaps it's a last 6 months of being in my 20's crisis or something like that. Nonetheless my hair was cut off for some mental break down but I really like it a lot! Here's a few pictures of it.

Sharing in Church

I have been attending a church called Mision Cristiana Enmanuel Siloh for about 2 months now and have fallen in love with it. It's a small church with about 50 people. Besides myself there are only two other gringo families. Last Sunday during service Pastor Alex was talking about us, the gringos, and how we're a blessing to them and how they want to be a blessing to us. Then Pastor Alex asked the church if they would like us to do the next Sunday's service; and so it was we were doing the next service.

Today was that next Sunday's service. I got the pleasure to sing with their praise team along with my friend who played guitar and sung. Our theme was that everyone is a missionary, not just us who left our countries. So each of shared with them a little about how God has called us to missions.

I always love looking back at how God has called me because there's a lot of times that I allow satan's lies to get into my head and heart and I really start questioning if I'm really suppose to be here. But God is amazing and always knows when I need to look back at how He has undoubtedly called me and has opened the doors for me to be here. Then I got to share that great joy with others and even in another language.

The pastor has a tendency to call people out to pray for a certain thing or a person or group. I was up in front with the praise team and he was talking about the family. Yet I must confess I was half listening and half off somewhere else. He was looking at me and I was looking at him and he said something about praying for the families of the church. Then he bowed his head but didn't begin to pray out loud. Then he looked at me and I was like "Oh you mean me." Of course I even said it in Engligh. Silly me. So then I was frazzled and totally butchered it. But thankfully God knows our hearts adn He knows what the prayer was.

It was a great time worshiping God and allowing Him to speak words in another language through each of us. I'm truly blessed.

Urgent

Yesterday I posted the blog below about the safety here. I'm asking once again with great urgency for prayer. It's is rapidly becoming worse and all of the things I have heard of are within a 1/2 mile or less from my house. And where I have to, among many others, walk through.

Today a gringo, who isn't from my school, was shot in the foot and leg just a few blocks away from my home. This is going to sound a little weird but I think you will understand. Thankfully it was because the gringo was being "stupid" and that the robber didn't shoot him "without his idea of cause". Meaning the gringo was out in the park with his computer and had been warned many times that that was a bad idea. Then he tried to fight the armed robber and run away from him instead of just giving him the computer. But God is good and allowed several students to be over in that area this morning to see it all and one of the students was a doctor. So that student was able to attend to the gringo.

Nonetheless it's getting worse rapidly. As mentioned in the post below, please pray for safety, "street smartness", and a spirit of peace, not one of fear. Thank you again.

Prayer For Safety

Please pray for safety for us here. In the past few weeks the number of armed robberies has increased and over the past 4 days or so there's been at least three people robbed at gunpoint walking down the main, very busy road here in broad daylight. This main road and the park is one I go by and use every day.

I'm trying to not live in fear and trust God. At the same time I'm trying to be smart and take only the bare minium with me, I'm even thinking about not carrying my bag for awhile.

Pray for protection and safety if a robbery does happen. Pray for the poilce to begin heavier patrols of the area. Pray that we will all be wise and also not live in fear of our surroundings. Thank you for your immediate prayers in this.