Tuesday, July 29, 2008

God's Unexpected Changes

My team is in Kona, Hawaii now were they will be putting together the publication to raise awareness for the injustices around the world that we have seen, experienced, and studied over the last nine months. I was planning on meeting them there after our summer break but God seemed to have a different plan for me! As I said before God really pulled me aside and was speaking to me so much while we were in Costa Rica. During those quit times the two weeks before we all left for outreach God started showing me why He put me on this school, which was to see God, myself, and the world in a completely new way. Then He started speaking to me that i had come to that place of seeing those things happen and He was releasing me from the school to move on to something else He would reveal to me in His time. I realized it was harder for me to leave my team then to stay with them because I was comfortable with them and had the next year of my life planned out. Yet I knew that if I could walk by faith in everything else in my life, I could trust Him in this too even though I was scared to death to do it. I knew He would give me the strength to leave my team and move on o whatever He had for me next. 

While I was on outreach in Panama City, Panama, the base administer started talking to me about coming and putting together a publication about the indigenous people. At first I completely wrote the idea off and thought he was crazy because I didn't have experience in something like that. However, the week after outreach I knew that was the unexpected door God was telling me He was going to open to me that I wouldn't have been able to open myself or think to open. So, I am heading home for about a month to rest, prepare, and wait on God. Then the first of August I'm heading down to Panama to work with a team on a publication about the indigenous people. There are so many things in life that these people need their voices to be heard over, so we are setting up a team to work in the six major villages that are in Panama to understand the culture, hear the stories, and capture their lives with photography and film. We are planning on spending 2-4 months gathering everything and putting it all together, along with praying that God provides all the money, equipment, and people to put this project together! 

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Panama Outreach

After the first two weeks of lectures in Costa Rica we all went on outreach to wherever we felt like we were supposed to go. There were four of us that really felt called to go to Panama City to work with the YWAM base there! We spent 7 days traveling, working on the base, and living in one of the villages with the indigenous people. 

The YWAM base in Panama work very closely with the indigenous people and are well established with them. They have started a boarding school at the base for 12- 18 year old kids from the villages. One of the reasons they started to school was to get the girls out of the villages because once they get their menstrual cycle a lot of them get raped. When they become pregnant they are the wife to the baby's father, which means these girls are getting pregnant and married at the age of 12-13 years old. The base is trying to pull them out of there before that happens so they can not only teach them text books and the Word of God but basic life logic skill!



My team of four, plus an old friend from high school, spent 3 days living with the Embera Puru people in the San Juan village getting to see and understand their lifestyles, how they make a living, and tons of other things. They live on the banks of the Pequeni river and are made up of roughly 20 families. They make their living hosting groups of tourists who come to experience the Embera culture, along with striving in many ways to maintain their culture. Even though they are being connected more and more with the technology and the modern world. While the older generation is largely illiterate, the younger generation is now starting to go to university. 

It was an amazing time to just get to see the life of these people. We played in the river with the kids, ate in the huts with the women and babies, and worked with the men. Being there in the villages with the people pressed on my heart even more that I want to be doing this exact kind of stuff in Africa one day! Getting to live with the people in villages/jungles to really capture their lives with my photography and then being able to show the world who they really are and how they really live.




[Scott, Christina, David, Greg, me, Seyoung, & Maribel]














Making Plantain






Doing Landuary in the River




Jewelry the women make to sell to the tourists out of seed from the fruit or coconuts

After that we went back to Panama City where we worked with the 6th grades (12-13 year olds) at the boarding school on the base. We had a time of just sitting and asking questions back and forth so we could understand their culture more, how they feel about the boarding school, and much more. The next day we played games with them and then shared testimonies and teachings with them. We also got to see Panama City while we were there and explored the old and new parts of it and the Panama Canal. It was definitely the best outreach I have had and something that really impacted me. 







Bridge of Americas & the Panama Canal



Friday, July 4, 2008

San Jose, Costa Rica

Before I came to Costa Rica, I went home to be in a wedding and God really used that time to speak to me in so many ways. The biggest thing God told me to do the second I got to Costa Rica was to go big, bold, and strong the last travel month of this school. So that is exactly what I set out to do. I was so excited to get back with my team and finish the travel part and move onto the publication part of the school.



Costa Rica was all about getting to know the worldview, culture, and lifestyle of Latin America. We lived in the YWAM base in San Jose neighborhood, which aloud us to see the life of the families and community around us in a real way. For most of the time we stayed out of the tourist areas and were able to just connect with the people in the neighborhoods. We spent time on the University campus doing survey questions, so we could see what things are like looking through the eyes of being Latino and growing up in a Latino country. They were really open to us and shared a lot about their lives. 








While we were here God really pulled me aside and had me spent time with Him looking at the future vision that He for me, sealing everything He had already done in my life, and drawing me closer to Him. It was amazing to really just be quit with God and see everything that He poured into my heart. I spent time with God in random little things like watching the movie "The End of the Spear", which God used to show me even more that my heart is to only be in Africa but in the jungles and villages of Africa where most people don't go. He really lit a new and amazing passion within me to live out the God given dream I have always had. He also taught me that having quit times was just about sitting down, reading the Bible, and praying. But it was simply about getting alone with Him even if that means going for a run, listening to music, journaling, or watching a movie. Its important to be in God's word daily but there is more to quit time then that. There are times in our lives that God just wants to get alone with us and speak to us through different things, which is exactly what He did during this month.