Hey Guys,

Absolutely loving it here. God’s doing crazy things already! I’ve decided that because there is so limited internet access I am going to post my journal entries throughout the time here. Each time I post I will have updates from most of the days in between so I can keep you all updated! Starting with Day 1 which I touched on in the last update. Enjoy!

 

12/23/2011: God totally had our backs right away. Somehow we were able to check more bags than we were allowed to for free. So Crazy.

 

12/25/2011: So blessed to be able to spend Christmas in England with Chloe’s family. Amazing, I love it here. Definitely going back one day.

 

12/26/2011: Totally blessed at the airport…again. We had several overweight bags that we had to check. The lady at the counter found out what we were doing and completely turned a blind eye to our weight on the bags. Yeah, God!

 

12/27/2011: The ride from Juba to Yei was crazy. Almost 5 hours of crazy bumpy roads where we had no idea where we were going or how long it would take. There is no way our bags should have stayed on the top of the car, yet somehow they did. Thank you Jesus!

 

12/28/2011: Yei is amazing. I seriously feel so at home here. Everyone at the YWAM base is so welcoming and hospitable! Playing Frisbee with the kids really broke the ice and was a lot of fun. We got to sit down with George (one of the staff) and talk for a while about the base. I think we are going to do several water projects here. There’s so much potential for this base! One day it’s going to be huge. He has such an amazing heart for the Lord I just know it will be blessed. I definitely want to bring a team out here one day. Maybe next fall? We’ll see!

 

1/1/12: Crazy day today. We went to church in Yei. It was so awesome to see the absolute joy that the people there had. We walked in to sit down and they escorted us up to the front to sit with the pastors and their families. After church we went to this house to talk with someone. We walked through a village of mud huts and what looked like total devastation to come across a huge house. It looked like our houses back home. It had a high fence with barbed wire on the top. Turns out we were sitting in the house of one of the major generals from the south Sudanese army! Holy crap. Crazy. We got to talk to him for a while about a ton of things. He definitely “knows” God, but doesn’t actually know him personally. Hardcore praying for him. He did let us pray for him before we left though. Crazy prompting from the Lord. Back in Kona they taught on the verses in Romans that share the Gospel. I wrote them down on a piece of paper and then shoved it into my bible. Since that day, I felt like I shouldn’t write anything else on it except “The soil makes all the difference.” Well, when we were praying for him I felt like God told me to leave that piece of paper in the house. So when I got up to put my camera bag on to leave I subtly turned my back to everyone and then dropped the piece of paper onto his entertainment center. Who knows what will happen with that, but we’ll see!

            I got to talk with Abraham (one of the boys on base) for a while today. He knows a lot of horrifying things that no 10 year old should ever know. The nation going through war definitely had an impact on him. He also told me about this car that occasionally (or used to, I didn’t understand 100% because of the language barrier) drives down the road. He said it is black with black tinted windows. He said that when the kids see it they all run and hide. He didn’t exactly know what it was, but he did know that if they took a kid you would never see them again. Horrifying. It’s probably either child soldiers or trafficking. Makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about. It broke my heart to hear his response when I asked him what he wants to do when he grows up. He said that there aren’t really any options of things for him to do. There’s such a spirit of hopelessness over this nation.

            I can’t get the idea of staffing a team out here off of my mind. It seems like so many things trigger these thoughts. Still praying into whether its me or the Lord, but we’ll see. I do know that I love it here.

 

I got rocked by a quote that was on a shack in town today. It said:

 

“Lord, bless my enemies before you bless me.”

 

Wow.

 

1/2/2012: Crazy hectic day today. Melodie and I were given the privilege of leading worship for the base this morning. So much fun! We then went as a team over to the other side of the base to find a spot for a rain catchment tank. We found a perfect spot and prayed over it. I have this feeling in my spirit that from that one spot so many lives are going to be changed. We started by leveling the ground to get it prepped for the tank.

            We then went into town to get the supplies. It was extremely exhausting going from place to place to find them and negotiate the prices. 1142 pounds later (about $350 USD) we got all of the supplies. I can’t wait to start teaching themen on the base and from the community the water projects. Educating them in the smallest things will seriously save so many lives.

            We’ve been here for only a week and a half but it is already feeling like home. After sending a Facebook message at the internet place I just sat in one of the chairs and drank a coke. I never realized how much I would enjoy a bottle of coke. So good!

            On the way back to the base I totally got rocked. I looked down and saw how dirty my feet were and then totally thought of the passage where Jesus washed his disciple’s feet. I always thought it was cool, but the significance never clicked to me. My feet were absolutely disgusting. So crazy! Our savior washed the disgustingness of their feet. Totally blows my mind to think about that.

 

1/3/2012: We started the water project today. It was a little frustrating because we already have to get creative with supplies, but it got going after a while. We cut most of the forms and will piece them together soon!

            We also helped lead a bible study at a local church. It was a really good discussion on John 6 where Jesus feeds 5000 men. I never thought to look at it from the perspective of the little boy who had the food that was multiplied. He had so little, yet the Lord did such huge things with it.

            Tomorrow our team is putting on a seminar. Several people got that I would be speaking, yet it really didn’t sit well with me. I was willing to do it if the Lord confirmed it, but it didn’t feel right. We prayed about it as a team and our whole program ended up getting changed. We have 4 speakers for it. Victoria on restoration and identity in Christ, Liz on relationship with our heavenly father, Melodie on co-creation (with Tara painting in the back) and Luke on something. We’re stoked for it.

            I got a crazy word from the Lord today. I felt like he said “San Jose isn’t your home anymore.” I really don’t know what that means yet, but it rocked me. I was also getting a ton of words while we were praying about the seminar. I asked why I was getting so many and I felt like God said “Why wouldn’t you?” So crazy. So rocked. God is so good! Yeah!

 

1/4/2012: Well, to put it simply, we stopped a fire from burning someone’s house down. It was supposed to be a controlled burn to take out dead crops and it caught the wind and went over the fence to someone else’s land and went crazy. There is no doubt in my mind that we had some help from God on this one. There was wind and it was really dry. A couple of us were praying that it would stop in Jesus’ name, then suddenly it just died off. It was in the middle of dead stocks of corn and was like it suddenly came to a halt. So crazy.

            It finally hit me 100%...I’m not home in the states anymore. When the fire was burning someone had their phone out. I asked if they were calling someone for help and they just gave me a look like “uhh…who do you expect me to call??” Yup…not at home anymore. I still feel at home here, but it has just completely hit that I’m not in America anymore.

 

1/5/2012: I got to sit with James for a while yesterday (One of the kids). He helped me learn some Arabic because I was struggling with it. We then got to read some of the bible together. I read a passage to him and then he read John 1. It was so awesome to be able to help him with that. The joy on his face when we finished reading was so crazy to see. I can’t wait to pour into him more in the coming months.

 

1/7/2012: Sitting in the meeting room right now. Were about 14 hours into our 24 hour burn. All of the teams throughout the world (that still sounds so crazy to say) started the 24 hour prayer time at 6:00pm London time last night (about 10am [I think] back in Cali) and constantly have at least two people in this room either praying, worshipping, or reading the bible. I had my sets from 9-11pm, 1-2am, 5-6am, 7-8am, 9-10am, 12-1pm, and 7-9pm. It is crazy how the Lord speaks in the late hours of the night. He’s crazy dropping revelations on the people here. So good!

             We got to do some village ministry the other day. We walked through this trail and came upon some huts. I am completely blown away by the generosity of the South Sudanese people. It makes me sad to think about my mindset, and the mindset that America has. We walk up on a few huts and greet people that we’ve never seen before. Instantly they all rush over to us and greet us like we’re family. They gather any and all chairs that they had and gave them to us while they sat on the ground. My mind was blown. They have very little, yet their outlook towards others is to give. We have so freaking much, yet our mindset is to keep it for ourselves and expect more. We came out here to show the people of South Sudan what the love of Jesus looks like, yet I find them being the ones that truly represent what the self sacrificing love of Christ looks like. Oh, what would happen if Africa started influencing the US instead of the other way around? Crazy lesson on humility.

 

1/8/2012: We’re going to church today. I’m giving my testimony. We’ll see how that goes haha. I’m a little nervous, but God’s placed an excitement on my heart for the message that I’m going to bring with it. Boom, lets do this.

 

1/8/2012: So we got to the church and they threw it out there that they not only wanted a testimony but they wanted someone to preach. Well, I was ready to share so why not right? What’s crazy is that over the past 48 hours God was preparing me to preach today. It’s not so much that he gave ma a sermon that he was giving me a peace to do it and not fear. It’s so easy to share when it’s the holy spirit and not you talking! It was for over a half an hour on how God is not a distant God but one who wants to run with us personally. As a shock to me (and probably a lot of you reading this) I guess I am decent at public speaking after all. Haha man, it’s crazy how God can use us in the midst of our biggest fears to do stuff for him. Yeah, God!