The Amazons

Well, we’re back from the ends of the earth. At least physically, but my heart and mind often find themselves wondering back to the breathtaking amazons.

Our team spent a total of four weeks in communities and almost four weeks in the city. Some of the time we were on the Brazil side (where they speak Portuguese) and other times in Colombia. In the city we did a lot of teaching in the churches and counseling sessions. In the communities it takes a bit more creativity to do counseling because it’s not really in their culture to open up that much or to tell strangers about their problems. We did a lot of work with youth, sometimes teaching, sometimes playing, sometimes doing small group style conversations. It was an amazing time!

But more than anything, us four girls grew personally. We all had our own giants to face. For example, Lorena is scared of preaching or public speaking, but she did it three times on outreach. Stephanie’s hardest thing to learn was that she herself is trustworthy and has authority to counsel and teach. My growth was discovering lies that I’ve believed for years and lead me to do things I know aren’t logical. We are different women now, more mature and yet more silly (you would be too if you spent two months hanging out with this group of girls!), with more integrity, and clearer plans for our futures.

I always tend to feel most connected to places where I have grown a lot, and the Amazons is no different. I miss the heat and the sunrise over the river. But I also miss the open style the people have of sitting around and talking, wanting to honor us with dinner invitations and gifts. I miss the youth who are so hungry to learn more but don’t find discipleship in the church. It is a beautiful, rich, and needy place. One day I hope to spend more time in the communities.

Now, for the stories I'm sure you've been longing to hear:

Our second day in the Amazons our group and another group loaded up all of our bags and all 12 of us and got into one small boat to travel about an hour and a half down the river. It involved many of us and many of our things getting wet. Then we arrived in a community where they speak an native language and Portuguese. We couldn’t really understand the woman in the house where we were staying and her husband, the pastor, seemed to change his mind frequently about what we were doing and what we shouldn’t do. There’s nothing like stepping off on the right foot! Our team had a series of unfortunate embarrassing moments there. Des happened to walk out the back door, which was the way to the bathroom, to find the pastor’s wife there… right there, bathing. Another night Stephanie was talking to the man of the house and his little daughter Sara runs up and throws her arms around Steph’s legs, resulting in her pants falling slightly…

For a while it has been Stephanie’s dream to hold a monkey. She had an opportunity, actually two. The first time she is holding it and I’m petting it’s head. It took a good 3 minutes to decide that we actually were the enemy and it needed to go into defense mode. AKA pee on Steph’s shirt which actually is borrowed. So, she had high hopes for the second chance she got to hold a monkey. Different monkey, different community, different country actually. It still peed on her shirt, and again, it wasn’t even her shirt.

Later in the outreach, in Macedonia, Desteni and I were walking to the little store by the river and a man walked by us. Now, it’s the amazons so people walk by with fish all the time, some are alive and some less so. Well, Des and I were walking and I turn to look at the man passing us and ended up jumping right into Desteni when I saw he was carrying a baby alligator. I guess it was my bad for not expecting to see one.

The last epic takes place in Macedonia, where there is no electricity. So we use candles after 6:00. Our team was helping with an event for pastors in the area and so there were a lot of people sleeping in the building we also were sleeping in. Since we all had to be at the devotional at 5 am, showers were going to be a problem. Thinking ahead, we decided to get up at 3am, shower, and then go back to bed. Desteni got up first and then would wake the next girl up. When it was my turn, I sat up in bed and felt like I was entering into some weird horror movie, I even got goose bumps. Now what you should know about Desteni is that when she goes to sleep she lays on her back, places her hands on top of the blankets on top of her stomach, smiles at the ceiling, and sleeps. Desteni at this point has gone back to sleep (picture that in your head), but left two candles lit so we can see. She placed one candle on each corner of the head of her bed. I have never seen a site that looked so much like corpse in that dim light. I was scared to check if she was still breathing or not, and then I remembered that I’m an adult and a counselor and a missionary and deal with tarantulas and peeing monkeys, so of course I can deal with my pasturing sleeping with candles at her head. However, if I had had a mirror to talk into I might have been forced to give myself self-counseling, but I’m sure that would have been even more creepy to the other girls than Desteni sleeping in the first place.

The things you learn on outreach!

I will be back in the states from December 10th until January 12th. I can’t wait for Christmas, cold and all! And a late Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Outreach Counseling Style

We have finished the theory part of our counseling school! The last two weeks are known as the sleepless weeks... they involve a paper writing out the 15 sections of a class called “The Divine Plumb Line,” end of the school journal, and presentations. Each outreach team has to practice teaching the divine plumb line, but we have to pretend like we are in a church and have ministry time and everything. Our group did very well, we have some good teachers! And now we are finally catching up on some things like sleep and talking to friends!

Tomorrow I leave for Armenia to visit a friend, Katerine, for a couple days. Armenia is the smallest department in Colombia, but it is the heart that grows a lot of coffee and plantain. Then Sunday we leave for outreach!!!! We travel to Bogota (the capital) by bus and Monday fly into Leticia. Then we get into boats to go up the river to spend two weeks at a community off the Amazon River. We will be spending some time in communities, and two weeks in the city of Leticia, and also some time in Tabatinga (it is the same city on the Brazil side).

A counseling outreach is going to be different from anything I have done before. We work in the churches teaching themes like family systems or identity or restoration or things like that. Then, daily, we also have times for counseling where people will come to us or we might go to visit families in the communities. The counseling is a bit scary to all of us, but we will work in pairs, and the game plan is to just listen to people and be totally dependent on hearing God.

This is what our team looks like: Our leader is Desteni! Amazing counselor, translator (in Spanish and Portuguese) and hilarious best friend. There are only three students in our group: me, Lorena, and Stephanie. Lorena is 20 and her family has pretty much grown up in the base. This is a big growing experience for her, but also wonderful to be able to grow away from her family and let her beautiful, funny self come out of her shell. Stephanie is my Colombia little sister. She is only 17, but an amazing teacher and woman of God. We are all good friends and also have seen eachother’s vulnerable, inner side. It will be an exciting group, but we are also very young and all female. So, please pray:
•Safety for our team
•Wisdom from God in counseling sessions
•My ability to understand and speak Spanish in counseling sessions
•Our leader Desteni, for wisdom, support, peace, ect.
•Insight for what themes to teach in churches and what age group (in some communities there might be great need in the youth and sometimes we might be working with kids)
•Group unity and communication
•Spiritual awarenes

Rain and ice cream... a few of my favorite things

Sometimes the world just seems to have so much need that you don't know where to start and the only answer is to eat ice cream and run in the rain. But then in the prophets I read promise after promise of coming restoration. Actually, Isaiah 49:8-13 is going to become part of the DNA to our ministry. That's I remember that there are things to be doing now, but even so God never asked me to save the world, he just asked me to love him and obey him.

I always get into the sad moods when I'm alone, and it only takes a good 47 seconds being with people to come back to life. God thank you for friends... and for rain and ice cream.

In about 6 weeks we will be leaving for a two-month counseling outreach. Nothing is finalized but hopefully I will be going to Leticia!!!!!!!! Leticia is the city that is on the boarder of Peru and Brazil and is in the Amazons. From there we would enter Brazil. I'm so excited, and there is so much need for family counseling there! Plus I would have to go with my friend Desteni because she'll have to translate into Portuguese! Going to the Amazons has been a dream of mine for 6 years; ever since geogrophy class when my professor lectured about it. What exciting news!

P.S. Random thought for the day: If anyone has a grand piano laying around and can come up with a way to get it to Colombia, I would be happy to receive!

Esperanzas de Vida

Ana Cristina Rincon and I have been praying about starting a ministry for pregnant women considering abortion for a year now. The dream would be to start there and expand the ministry to include adoption programs, working with prostitutes and family counseling. After so much prayer it seems like things are finally starting to happen...

BIG NEWS: This week the director from the similar ministry in Tyler, TX, is coming this week to visit with us and do a conference with our school!!! We have started saving to buy a house or a farm to house girls during their pregnancy so we can give them counsel and a safe place to live while they decide if they want to keep their baby or find a family to adopt. Friday Cristina and I lead intercession for our base, and afterwards two students said they want to commit to our ministry and as we're starting they want to study majors that will be useful (like nursing).

Today I set up an email for the ministry. Just doing that made it feel like this is for real, more than a dream. But it's also a bit overwhelming, we don't know where or how we're going to start meeting women. So please pray:
• that we will have guidance and that our time with the Tyler director will give us good ideas
• an opportunity for Cristinan to visit the ministry in Tyler
• support from local churches and ministries in Medellin
• for more workers
• #1, that soon we would meet our first pregnant woman to start loving and supporting

Walking with the Wise

I feel like the counseling school is something that should be require for life. These two weeks we have been looking at the walls we build in our heart, why, and how to build the “wall of salvation.” It’s such good information, but between all of the application in our notebooks and pastoral time it hits home too.

This school is wonderful! Last school was kind of stressful for all of the staff, but this is like a breath of fresh air for us. There are problems and many things to work on for sure, but it’s just like the house is filled with the presence of God, with safety for openness, and a desire to grow.

Today I was thinking about how blessed I am with the community I get to live in. I have some wonderful friends that are equally passionate about missions (although in different areas of society). There are the kinds you laugh with, cry with, and hold accountable. It made me think of the proverb, “If you walk with the wise you will grow wise.” The proverb doesn’t say don’t hang out with any one but wise. What it does say is “walk” with with wise, like spend your time and let yourself be influenced by the people who are walking in the same direction, the people who are on a path towards God. These are the people we grow with, learn with, we essentially walk with spiritually. Another reminder how God meant for us to live in community, and with good reason.

Story: Desteni and I had to go fix some paper work in DAS (where we go to register our visas and stuff like that). My temporary ID says I’m a male. But they had my real one ready! I was so excited, it feels like I’m official now. But as soon as the lady left the office I noticed the little, bold “M.” Out-loud I said, “Des! I’m still a man!” Then I realized that there were three English speaking men outside of the office, listening. Even in English I don’t communicate what I mean!

Chech out some new pictures from this summer.

FARC

I have finally finished the first week in the counseling school. We have notebooks to do each week that take up all of our time. I think I used all of my creativity in the first week, who knows where my inspiration will come from next week? But it will be so good. We are having great classes about how people build walls of rebellion or rejection. I love the counseling school because the classes are great, but the school is set up so there is a lot of time to personally process all that you're learning. I'm so excited!

I need to update about the situation in Colombia. One of the biggest rebel groups is called the FARC. It claims to be "for the people" but it actually is a pretty violent group against the government. They kidnap many people, and the numbers are growing. Just recently 11 of 12 politicians that had been kidnapped about 5 years ago were killed. The FARC played it off saying that they were killed in a military attempt to rescue them, but, again, that they really are trying to protect the people. There was no military presence involved thought, these people were just outright murdered. In response to this, Thursday there were peace walks in all of the major cities in Colombia. People came out to pray carrying the Colombian flag to show the government and the world that FARC is violent and does not have the people's support. This group has done a lot of damage, there is not a person in Colombia that has not been personally affected, either in their own family or in the family of close friends. One of our neighbor's wife was kidnapped and they paid ransom for five years only to find out that they had killed her in the first month and continued to make money off her. Please continue to pray for this situation and wisdom for our government.