November Update

For some reason my blog site is not allowing me to copy and paste my newsletter onto the blog so I have attached a link to my facebook note with the update. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&suggest&note_id=236489489151

Here are some pictures from the month that I wanted to share...
All of the kids we had during our VBS

Doing a drama called The Family

Ready for some clowning around
Our school at the Mayan ruins

National Pride Day

Every Wednesday we have a theme day to try to spice up our DTS. We have had some pretty good ones so far like Disney Character Day where I was Pocahontas, Bible Character Day where I was Elizabeth and one of my friends was Mary, and Super Hero Day where I dressed up as a "Super Chapina".

A few weeks ago we had a very clever day- National Pride Day- and since there are 6 nations represented in our school everyone dressed in their national colors. I must admit, I had a hard time choosing between the faithful red, white, and blue and my new favorite light blue and white. I had just got a shirt the weekend before that talks about being Guatemalan so I decided that I would go with the Guatemalan colors this time. This is a picture of my friend, Janina from Germany, and I

Then later that morning when we got to class we had a little surprise waiting for us... one of our leaders had found all of our national anthems online and we each got a turn to sing them!!!

Canada was first...
Followed by Germany...

Then Puerto Rico...


Mexico...


And Guatemala

I sang loud and proud along with my other United States citizens and after we sang, without even planning it, we all shouted "play ball!" It was a great day and a great reminder that God is using people from all over the world to do His will here on the earth.

Jericho March

We live a block away from a park that holds Mayan Ruins. Ever since we got here I have had the feeling that we should do some sort of Jericho March around the park. I didn't know exactly when we should do it, though, so I just casually mentioned it to a few people here. Then last weekend we had the chance to work with another DTS (the same school I am doing now) from Antigua Guatemala. They came without a real plan so we began to pray about what God wanted our group of about 30 to do for the day. I had not said much of anything because I wanted someone else to confirm if the Jericho march was what God wanted or not. I definitely did not want it to just be my idea. As we were sharing a few people began to share they felt like we should do something at the park... BINGO, I thought. So I brought the idea I felt God had given me up and everyone agreed they thought it was what God wanted us to do.

The DTS from Antigua had a speaker with them so we attached an ipod- a modern day trumpet- and put it on a dolly and started the march. Here is a picture of our group starting off...

We marched 7 times around the park, which was probably a little less than a mile around. It had been a cloudy morning and it looked like it would rain, but God held the rain off for us all day. Our first time around we stopped at a certain spot where you can see into the park and began to pray because we felt a heaviness there. Only later did we see this shaman performing Mayan acts very near the spot we were praying.It was an amzing time of spritual warfare and on the 7th round we could not help but shouting out and cheering for what God had done. Although it took us from 11:00 to 4:00, we all felt privelidged to be able to be a part of God's work.

update...

Most of our group in Antigua Guatemala


A boy named Angel and I at our weekly children's ministry



Hi, I am so sorry it has taken so long to update. Things here have been really busy as we prepare for our local outreach. Here is the update letter I sent out to Rosedale Bible Church for October. I hope to get another post up before we leave for two weeks on Sunday.

October Update

October has come and almost gone and it is hard to believe how fast time is flying by around here. We have been here for over a month now and had 5 weeks of class so far. All of our classes have been very relevant and applicable to my life. One of the topics that was my favorite was Hearing God's Voice. We had a speaker come from the great state of California and give us the lessons for the week. We learned that God created us for a relationship with Him and that He truly desires to have a dialogue with us. Our other class topics have been The Nature and Character of God, The Father Heart of God and Inner Healing. This has been an amazing time of classroom learning.

Also during this time of training we have started preparing for outreach. We have what we call outreach workshops twice a week. I attend the adult workshop on Monday nights. We have learned 3 dramas that are geared toward adults. One of them is a very powerful drama that tells the story of a broken home and how it affects each member of the family. We are also learning how to prepare a quick street testimony so that we can have that tool ready to go on outreach. I also attend the children workshop on Wednesday nights. There we have learned about 8 clown and puppet skits. We also learned how to give a testimony to children in "kid friendly" language. It is exciting to be able to prepare so many things so that when we go on outreach we will be ready and well equipped.

We leave for our local outreach on November 15. We are going to a small village called Tecpan. It will about a 2 hour drive from where we are in Guatemala City. It is a town that has a huge Mayan influence and as we have been praying we have sensed that it is a very dark place. We are going to be there for 2 weeks bringing the light of God, though, so I am excited to see how God is going to work. Then at the end of December we leave for Mexico City which is our main outreach location. Mexico City is also a very spiritually dark place. We know we will have a challenge ahead of us, but with God we are ready to face it.

Thank you for your continued prayers. I definitely appreciate them and as a school we can feel them. Here are some specific things you can continue to pray for:

+Outreach- both the actual time and our time here as we prepare

+Health- this is a constant prayer request as our bodies get used to the food, climate and living in community

+Team Unity- we feel that God wants to do big things through our team, but we know this can only happen if we are unified so please continue to pray for this important aspect

Thank you again for all of your support! I love knowing that I have a whole army at home who are backing me up!

Intercession...

Every Tuesday and Thursday we have base intercession here. I did not really know what intercession was before I got here so let me just explain a little bit about it in case you are in the same boat I was…

Intercession is basically standing in the gap for someone or something and praying for them. We always start and end our times of intercession here on the base with worship and then we spend some time asking God what is on His heart. He always shows us, in one way or another, because He desires so badly to have that kind of relationship with us- a relationship where He can share what He sees and feels with us. So when we feel like we know what it is God wants us to pray for we begin to do just that- we pray. We have had some amazing times of intercession and God has shown us to pray for this base, the drought in this country, our outreach and various other things.

This past Thursday God showed some of our school leaders that He wanted us to go pray over the soccer park we have right next door to the base. This park was filthy. It had glass and trash all over and the grass was thigh high. Not only was it dirty physically but it was spiritually dirty as well. Most of the weekends you can find at least one group of youth at the park smoking marijuana and there empty alcohol bottles all over. So it is no wonder God wanted us to pray there. So we all walked over and began to worship. I started feeling like God wanted me to pray for unity for our group because I felt like the message He was giving me was that if we didn’t have unity we couldn’t do anything outside of the base. So after I prayed for unity I prayed that the spiritual strongholds of the park would be broken and that the physical mess would be cleaned up. After a time of prayer our group gathered together to talk about what God had spoken to each one of us. There were a few people that felt they were being asked to pray for unity as well. Others felt the need to pray for God to use us to help overcome the spiritual strongholds that were in place at the park. One girl even saw a vision of the walls of the park being pushed down and the love of God flowing in. So we finished our time at the park with a worship march around the walls and left for class.

The next day we were up in our classroom on the second floor of the house and someone said, “Look everyone!!!” We all ran over to the windows where they were and looked over at the park. There were a group of city workers with an edger, a lawn mower, and trash bags. They were cleaning up the park the day after we had prayed there!!! It was so amazing for us to see God’s faithfulness to our obedience.

I wish I would have taken some pictures of the “before” so that you could see the dramatic change from the “before” to the “after”, but here is a picture of what the park looks like now.

Update of the Week...

So, here is an update about last week and there are just a few amazing things that happened here, but seriously, God is moving!!!

Wednesday we broke up into groups to pray for different people who felt like they needed prayer. One of our leaders was having pain in his shoulders and as soon as he mentioned it I felt so strongly that I should be the one to pray for him. So we all prayed and then everyone just started talking. I had been complaining all morning that I had this burning in my right arm and I didn't know why. It wasn't like painful, it just felt like it was on fire. So then I got an idea and asked Efra, the leader who I prayed for, what was specifically hurting him. He said his shoulders were so I asked him if I could just touch him with the arm that had been burning. So I put my hand on his shoulder and suddenly I felt the heat leaving. He said that he felt the heat in his shoulders, in fact he said that my hand was so warm. I touched the other shoulder and he said he felt the same thing, heat, coming from my arm. After I finished my arm was cool again and he said it felt like there was icy hot on his shoulders... AMAZING!!!


One more story from the week... Friday we did what Ken called a treasure hunt. We each prayed for specific things, like color of clothes, names, locations etc of people. We wrote them down on a piece of paper individually and then got into a group of 5 people. My group headed out in search of our "treasure". One of the things that stood out so firmly to me when I was praying was gold jewelry so as we were walking we saw a sign of gold jewelry. That was not exactly what I was thinking, but it was definitely huge in front of my face. Then someone else in our group got power lines and the picture of the jewelry was right under the power lines. Someone else in our group got a black dog and there was a black dog in the house right next to the other two things. Someone else in our group got the color fuchsia and there was a plant with fuchsia flowers right next to the house with the dog. Someone else got a person with an orange shirt and blue pants and right by all these other things there was a man talking on the phone and guess what he was wearing... yes, an orange shirt and blue pants. So we were thinking this was a HOT SPOT and we were right. A few of the guys in our group went up to the guy to ask him how he was and if there was anything they could pray for. He said he was separated from his wife and that he really wanted his family to be back together again. It was so cool to feel like we were exactly where God wanted us doing exactly what He wanted!!! We had a few more encounters on our treasure hunt and they all turned out really amazing. ahhh, I love the way that God is moving!!!


Please pray for me for this week. I know this sounds like a silly prayer request, but I keep getting bitten by bugs here and they are not your average mosquito... they leave scars and itch for like 2 weeks. I have like 5 bites on each leg and today I got one on my face right under my right eye... BOO... also if you could pray for health. I am feeling a sore throat coming on, so I have been stalking up on my vitamin C hoping that I can prevent it. Also please keep praying for our school in general, that we would stay unified and that we would see things with our supernatural eyes instead of our earthly eyes.

Zona 3

Today we had our second week of going to do our local ministry. I am part of the children's ministry that goes to a community outside of the dump. It is amazing to see the change of scenery just a few minutes away from our base. Last week when we went I immediately fell in love with a few of the kids. I was glad to see them back this week. I was up to tell the story so I told them about the Good Samaritan and then we had some songs and since it is Children's Day here in Guatemala (kind of like Mother's Day or Father's Day for kids) we had one of the YWAMers dress up as a clown and pass out candy. It was cool to go back and see some of the same kids two weeks in a row and I especially connected with this precious little girl named Abby. We were just hanging out today and all of a sudden she pulled a pair of blue sparkle star earrings and said "here, these are for you". Obviously I put them on right away and took a picture...



I love the way that this culture shows God's giving spirit!!!

Church...

So I just want to take this Sunday afternoon to talk about the church experiences I have had in Guatemala so far...

Our DTS leaders decided that they would each take us to their churches for 6 weeks and then after that we would be free to choose which church we liked the best of all the churches we visited and continue attending that church during our time here.

The first church we went to was called Fraternidad Cristiana. This church was HUGE!!! It was like the size of an amphitheater with seating for 12,000 people inside. At first I thought I was going to be really turned off by the church because of the size, but as we entered I felt like it was one of those places that was huge but somehow still had the friendly, welcoming feel to it. As soon as our group walked in some ushers came and gave us welcome stickers. Later on during announcements they introduced our group in front of the whole church and we stood and waved to everyone like we were movie stars or something. The worship and message were really good as well and I was definitely impressed with the whole experience. One of the things that also amazed me was that they built the church not too long ago and when they did the pastor felt it was very important not to have loans or debts as they were building so they built this whole amphitheater debt-free!




The second week we were here we went to another church. The congregation was about 75 people and the worship was amazing. The worship leader actually wrote a song that is famous here in Latin America so it was cool to be able to worship in a church with such great leadership. There was also great passion during the worship and instead of passing out bulletins at the door they were passing out kleenex in the isles during worship. It was a little bit out the ordinary for me, but again it was good to experience the passion and love that the worshipers have for God.

Today we went to our third church. It was a Pentecostal church and from the second I walked in I knew I was in for a treat. First of all they don't pass out bulletins or even kleenex at this church, they passed out flags. Actually they didn't pass them out, they were just on a rack on the wall and people who wanted them went over and grabbed them. What happened next not only left me a little bit distracted but it also made it hard for me to keep a straight face at first. The people would wave the flags all around in the air, making it look like some sort of color guard show. I know that this is one way to worship, but it is not a way I have ever experienced before. Then the next thing you know a man is running around the isles waving his flag and blowing a whistle. At this point Janina (one of my classmates) and I looked at each other and couldn't hold it together. We laughed out loud at the sight of this show of worship.

So all this to say that I am definitely getting to experience the culture in a different way through the churches here. Let me just say that I have yet to find a Rosedale Bible Church, or anything close for that matter, but it is awesome to see how different people can worship in spirit and in truth.

September 21, 2009

Also an older post that I wrote before internet. Now we are finally updated...

We still do not have internet at the base, but somehow everyone is surviving… funny how that works that when you have something you become sooo dependant on it, but when it is taken away you find other ways to fill your time. We have definitely found those other ways to fill our time here…

This weekend we had Friday afternoon through Sunday off. We did not really have the time off though because we celebrated my 25th birthday all weekend! It was an amazing celebration with new friends and family. First on Friday night we all stayed up until 12 so that we could start my big day off right. We ate cake, sang, and danced until about 1:30 am. Then on Saturday I woke up and went to breakfast where I was served heart shaped pancakes. How do these people know the way to my heart already?! Then we went to the shopping mall that is right down the street and spent some time enjoying the food court there. I chose Taco Bell for lunch and we had ice cream for dessert! Then before we left the mall we walked by a band that was playing some jazzy music. Mario, one of my DTS classmates, told the band that it was my birthday and so the band played me happy birthday then wanted to take pictures with me. It was fun! Then when I though it was over they decided to give me a free CD!!! What a great birthday gift!

For dinner we had cheeseburgers here at the base and then everyone surprised me with a princess crown, a card, and my favorite Funfetti cake!!! They didn’t even know that was my favorite kind of cake but I was super excited when I saw the kind of cake it was.

Then everyone in our school plus a few extra people from the base went bowling after dinner. On the way a few people stopped at the flower stand and bought me some flowers… by this time I was feeling like a true princess!!!

We all had a blast bowling and then when we got back to the base they told us we had a meeting. We all walked over and… SURPRISE… there was a huge piñata for me!!! What a wonderful birthday I had here in Guatemala!!!

Hello, Guatemala

I wrote this when I first got here and am just now able to post it because we just got internet. The internet is really slow as well, so I will try to get pictures up soon!!!

Well I have arrived and actually had a great trip. I was worried that the start of my day might be not so good because of having to pay extra for my luggage, but thankfully I have a wonderful sister Becky and best friend Layne who are expert packers and they got me through the luggage check-in without having to pay an extra cent!!

I got on my first flight and was pleased with my window seat and had plans to sleep, read, and relax the whole way. God had other plans for me, though, and in fact my mission trip had begun…

A smiling girl, probably around my age, sat down right next to me and I was glad about that. We started small talk and I found out that she was from Palmdale but was living in Cancun doing missions. We kept talking and she revealed that she is actually a Jehovah’s Witness. Now when these people come to your house it is one thing because you can just say no thanks and kindly shut the door, but when they are seated next to you on a 4 hour flight it is kind of hard to ignore them. So we talked and it was actually really neat for me because I asked her about what she believed and got to share what I believed and although neither one of us came out converted I at least got some practice sharing the gospel and talking about what I believe and why.

After having a layover and going through customs in Mexico City I was on my second flight to Guatemala. I got off, got ALL my luggage and found the people from YWAM who were picking me up. Then we came to the “base” that is actually two houses very close to downtown Guatemala City. The houses are awesome and I am excited to be living here! I will be sharing a room with five other girls- two from Germany, one from Canada, one from the United States, and one from Mexico. We have ten people in our school altogether. Everything around this town seems to be alive with people, music and even a wake up call at 4 a.m. from a rooster down the street! I can’t wait to experience Guatemala to its fullest!!!

No internet... no bueno...

Well I am sorry it has taken so long for me to post but we have been at the base about a week now and without internet the whole time. They are hoping to have it up and running tomorrow but then again that is what they said yesterday and the day before...

So I am writing from an internet cafe and cannot post pictures, unfortunately. Tomorrow we are going on a retreat and we will be back Friday or Saturday and HOPEFULLY there will be internet by then.

Everything here has been awesome so far. I love the people and the culture and the city we live in. We are actually really close- about a 10 min walk- away from various shopping centers and malls, which is nice. The thing that has shocked me the most so far was that they have a Taco Bell here!!! Yes, its true. I do not really understand it either, but it is here. I will post proof soon!

The school is off to a great start. There are 10 of us in all- 3 people from the USA including me, 2 Germans, 1 Canadian, 1 Mexican, and 2 Guatemalans. It is an awesome mix of cutlures and personalities and I cannot wait to get to know them better.

Well, for now thats all I am going to have time to share. I hope to have more time to post pictures and share more stories soon! I miss everyone so much and can feel your prayers. Thank you so much!!!

Getting Close

The time is coming soon when I will be packing up (the actual event of packing will probably happen the night before I leave) and flying to Guatemala.


So many emotions are filling me right now- excitement, sadness, joy, peace, and lets be honest, it is a bit overwhelming. It has been so amazing, though, to see how many people are supporting me as I seek to do what God wants me to do with my life. God has really shown me that this is what He wants for me by the way he has provided through people. I am so thankful for everything- the prayers, the financial support, and the encouragement- that people have given me over the past few months. I am so looking forward to this adventure and am ready for it to begin!

Please pray that I will do what God wants me to do with my life.

Nostalgia...

Nathan almost always spills but he does not worry because it is for "the birds"

Sno Shack girls!



That's right, nostalgia has set in... BIG TIME...

I know I only plan on being gone for 6 months, but I have been feeling super nostalgic about everything lately. I went to Frank West School, where I used to teach, yesterday and I teared up. It is going to be weird not going back to work this year. In fact, it will be my first year since kindergarten not going back to school. Weird, really weird. Just the other night I was hanging out with my sister and she just said, "I am going to miss you, Susan" and I wanted to bawl like a baby right then and there. Now, don't get me wrong, I am super excited and cannot wait to be in Guatemala, but it is just going to be hard to leave behind this life as I trade for the life God has for me for this season. The thing that made me most nostalgic was an event that happened last night...

As some of you might know, I have a Sno Shack passion that goes beyond the occasional summer refreshment. I have made it my goal to try every Sno Shack flavor on the list and have been an avid fan for years. This summer I started something wonderful with my niece, Elisabeth. Every Sunday after church and lunch we would swing by Sno Shack on our way home. We dubbed this event Sno Shack Sunday and both looked forward to it every week. I talked to my sister Leann yesterday and she told me that her and Elisabeth had talked about how I would be going away to a different country for a while. Elisabeth quickly said "So no more Sno Shack Sundays?!?" I know exactly how she felt. I got the chance to hang out with Elisabeth and Nathan yesterday night so we swung by Sno Shack after dinner. First of all the one that we always go to was closed. Panic began to set in as I quickly drove to the next nearest little blue hut. Thankfully it was still open because the sign on the window said that today, August 18th was the LAST day it was open for the season... booo hooo... so we enjoyed out last snow cone of the season while I enjoyed my time with these two precious children. I am going to miss this!!!

Patience is a virtue

I borrowed a hiking backpack for my DTS and as soon as I brought it into my room I was ready to fill it up with clothes and other collected items. I am getting so excited and honestly had to talk myself out of packing since I have four weeks left and the "left over" clothes would be slim pickins to make it through. I have been getting things that I think I will need little by little as I shop and have acquired a decent sized pile of stuff in my room. I am beginning to think that I should be diagnosed as an overpacker. Unfortunately, they do not have a cure or prescription readily avalible for overpackeritis so I guess the next best thing is to bring 2 suitcases instead of one... hope the airlines give missionary discounts on checked luggage!