Farewell Party

Tonight is the despedida (farewell party) for our four fearless leaders (as I like to call them). Our directors, Lowell & Cheryl and pastoral care/ministry site supervisors, Nate & Maggie will be leaving us shortly to continue on their journey in ministry with SI in Nicaragua.  It's been a long time coming, but now that it's here I can't believe it. I have been practicing a song all week that I'm going to be sining at the party, and I haven't sung through it once without getting teary-eyed... hopefully I can make it through the whole thing tonight :)

This weekend we are taking our semester students on one of my favorite excursions. We're going to creek through the river from our town to a mountain community where our friend will meet us and cook us lunch! It should be a great time!

Semester Program 2011

We're kicked off! Josh and I just finished our few days of orientation with the semester students and we moved them into their homes today. The past few days have been spent waking up together and worshiping through music, Josh sharing a devotional, and spending alone time with God. And to break up the sitting and receiving information we gave them a scavenger hunt through town, played games to help understand cultural difference, had cake and met the host parents, and had dinner out in town at Pica Pollo (a road side Dominican dining place), and playee games at our house. It's been a busy but great last few days and we're enjoying a little (much needed) rest today!

Hope you are all well! Happy September!

Season of Change & Costa Rica Family Trip

One characteristic of life in missions here is change. People come and go all the time, year 'round. These past several months we've seen the face of SIDR change significantly as we've welcomed on many new staff members and have said farewell to many. One of the lastest staff to leave was Amy Green. She was a great friend and fellow missionette (AG version of Awana). She was the one who gave us our dobermans when we first moved here.

Our interns and volunteers left August 10th after a good debriefing and re-entry period at the beach.
We were so blessed with a great group of interns - it was hard to watch them go.

We're in the preparation stage for our next program - semester students. They arrive Aug 31st. and will be with us until mid-December. This is our favorite time of the year; getting to devote ourselves to a small team of people for 3 1/2 months. This year we have 13 students (12 girls and 1 guy...pray for him!)

Last bit of notice - we went on a vacation with Vicki's family to Costa Rica for 5 days. Vicki's parents, siblings and grandparents (mom's side) all were there. Below is a family photo and some pictures from a boat tour that we did with grandma, grandpa, mom and dad.

                                                                      
                                                                       Family Fun!

                                                                  
                                                                     Baby crocodiles

Land Crabs

Monkeys!

Mangrove Trees

Not sure what type of tree this is... but don't touch it

Flying from Liberia to San Jose the boarding tickets they gave us were laminated tourist brochures... interesting

Egg in the Hole

Sunday evening is usually intern/volunteer Bible study, where everyone comes over to our house and we have a yummy dessert of some kind and of course the Bible study. However, we spent the entire day at the beach which we wrapped up by having an American meal experience (thanks to TGIFridays) and didn't get back to Jarabacoa until after 10pm. So we made a quick change to the plans and decided to have breakfast and Bible study Monday morning before the teams arrived. This morning I had for the very first time "Egg in the Hole".

These are my summer intern/volunteer buds!

Rachel making us Egg in the Hole... it was so good!

Angie cut all the holes out of the bread for this breakfast speciality.

Josh and I feel incredibly blessed - our group of interns/volunteers are amazing! We really believe in our daily investment in them and know that God has called us to work alongside college aged students; mentoring, discipling, and just experiencing life together. I can't believe they leave in three weeks. 

Our summer staff

Summer 2011's Internship and Volunteer Program Participants

This summer we have three volunteers: Jeff, Myles, and Angie. Myles and Angie interned for us last summer and returned for this summer to seek out God's calling for them and to see if SI was a fit for them. Angie has been working in one of our women's social work centers and Myles has been heading up our media site. Jeff has been here since mid-January where he started as an intern and in May moved into the volunteer program and has been also seeking out God's plan for him and searching SI as a possible fit. He's been serving in out special education school.

We have 7 interns remaining (had 9 to begin with): Chris and Meaghan, they are from Louisanna and stayed for 6 weeks. Chris just began dental school and Meaghan is finishing up her senor year of college. One day they want to do dental missions. They are engaged to be married next year. They honored Josh and I by asking us to take them through pre-marital counseling.

Rachel - she's just graduated from Wheaton College and was a semester student of ours last fall. She has really connected with SI and the ministry here and is applying for full time staff.

Christine - she's from California and has been here since mid-January. She's been serving as an intern these past 6 months and also has felt a calling to serve with SI. She would like to work with special needs children and will be going back to the states to finish college.

Brittany - she's from California and has been serving in our women's sports ministry site. Brittany is a gifted muscian and has used her gifts to bless us and our teams every week. She's sweet and always smiling.

Kelly & Jesse - they are a dating couple from Long Beach, CA. Kelly is serving in our art site and Jesse in the men's sport site. Jesse is easy going, laid back, and loud (which is mean in the nicest way). Kelly is soft spoken, thoughtful, creative, and very go with the flow. They want to get married one day.

Ariana - she too is from California and is currently attending ASU. She's really fun and adds great personality to our team dynamic. She is working in one of our women's center's and is connecting well with the girls in that community.

Erin - she's from Colorado (went to school in CA) and just graduated from college. She's applying for medical schools as I type and is pursuing a career as a doctor. She's very joyful, constantly smiling, and has such a heart for serving others.

This picture is from the mountain restaurant - Aroma de Dios - it overlooks our town, Jarabacoa
Here is Chris and Meaghan - our Louisanna buds

Angie... she's from Bellevue which means we "get" each other :) She calls us mom and dad... something that started last year (can't remember why) but has continued ever since then. She's been living with us this summer as our little (or not so little) daughter... good times!

Living it Up!

So this past weekend Josh, I, and our interns/volunteers were all in need of a break. So we took Saturday to relax and reunited that evening for some gumbo fun. We have two interns (who are engaged by the way) who are from Louisianna and they made for us a traditional dish called gumbo. It was delicious! The following day, Sunday, we headed down the mountain to an excursion called 27 Waterfalls where we played in the river for 2 hours cliff jumping, watersliding down natural waterfalls, climbing up waterfalls, and goofing around with each other. It was perfect! Then we headed to our favorite beach, Cabarette, where we hung out until dinner. The water felt like bath water, the wind was in good form therefore allowing kite surfers and wind surfers alike to get good action on the ocean. It was so fun to watch all that talent on the water.

Josh and I feel refreshed and renewed and are having a wonderful time with our new team. Included in this team (of 61 people) is a woman who was a missionary in Mexico for 20 years. She has been such a light and source of wisdom, insight, and great stories.

Josh and I have been without our jeep for about 3 weeks now as our mechanic has been slow on repairing it. So we've become quite Dominican in these past several weeks as we've been carting our laundry in baskets, small matresses, 40 lbs bags of dog food, and groceries on the bag of our moto... we must be quite a site. We checked in on our jeep AGAIN today and it looks like we should have it by the end of the week... but who knows really, that's what he said every other time (sigh).

Forgotten God

Forgotten God

I have been reading the book “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan and have been intentionally wrestling and challenging myself with the things that he writes about. Grappling with these things has been so impactful and amazing to me that I really want to share them with you. If you haven’t read the book yourself I whole hardly recommend it.

“Reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit” – is the tag written below the title of the book. Francis Chan sheds light on American Christianity and its lost condition from the Holy Spirit. The book was not written from a denominational bent; merely just a man seeking what Jesus meant when he said to the disciples that it was better that he leave so the Spirit could come.

With Love

“Without Him [Holy Spirit], people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation.”

America breeds independent, individualistic, I-can-do-it-myself type people. Asking for help or relying on others is typically considered a weakness and not valued in our society. But that’s not how it was meant to be. We are to rely on the Holy Spirit for his guidance and assistance to accomplish greater things. Sure, as humans we can perform tasks and do things, but with God those actions are brought to a powerful level with larger impact.

“But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.”

What does that mean – live in the power of the Spirit? It means to allow the Spirit to fill you up, to trust in Him, and to give Him your life. You do this by reading the Bible, praising God, praying to God, investing your life completely in God. When you do this you will see a changed life. A supernatural life. A life fragrant with passion, joy, and purpose.

“We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.”

How many times… how many times have the words come out of my mouth “I did, all by myself”? How many years have I spent relying on myself, doing it all myself without consulting God, without asking him for help? The difference is unmistakable when I involved God in my life. The burdens aren’t as heavy, I experience 100 times more joy, and the outcome is better. I do not want to do it all by myself ever again.

“If it’s true that the Spirit of God dwells in us and that our bodies are the Holy Spirit’s temple, then shouldn’t there be a huge difference between the person who has the Spirit of God living inside of him or her and the person who does not?”

Ever since I read the story in Exodus about Moses having to wear a veil over his face because it was glowing after having spent time in the presence of God, I knew that I wanted that to be me. I wanted to glow. I wanted people to know that I had been spending time in the presence of God. To this day I still pray that. I know that I have fallen short of being a glowing light for God… many times. But as I read this it encourages me to push on and glow. I want to be different. I want people who don’t know the Lord personally to see that there is something different in me; and most importantly, I want them to want it.

This list isn’t exhaustive. But it’s a glimpse at the way that God is shaping, challenging, and stretching me.