Final Update

I’m home! I returned to the states on the 12th and I have had some time to settle in and get back on this time schedule before I return back to school. Our last week on campus I was paired up with Emily, another girl on our team, because my ministry partner Lauren went back to the states to start pre-season for soccer. Thankfully a lot of the girls that Emily spent time with were friends with the girls that I spent time with and this made it an easy transition. We continued to hang out with girls in their rooms and around campus.

One night we were going to have girls over for cake and tea at Haley and Paul’s house but it ended up that a lot of girls couldn’t come because of meetings they had to go to. We saw this as a big disappointment because we really wanted to connect the girls to Haley and get to know her better so that they could possibly be mentored by her in the future but also just to establish a relationship between them, her, and the rest of the ministry. But this cancellation was a blessing in disguise. We got to hang out with one of the girls, Kate, and her prayer group that she meets with once a week and we got to pray with them! It was really encouraging to pray with believers from across the world and hear what was on their hearts. And it was just really sweet to pray with Kate who we never prayed with before but had spent so much time with. Then, another great thing that came out of this was that Amanda and Ally got to spend time with a girl who just became a believer who really needed to be shown how to pursue Christ daily and that night Amanda and Ally got to really encourage her to come to the “camp”, the retreat, we were having in Johannesburg that weekend. This girl, Coco, wasn’t even supposed to come to the tea party and yet God made a way for Amanda and Ally to have that conversation with her and she agreed to come to the camp to learn more about her walk with Jesus.

The next night we had tickets to watch the Katjiepiering girls compete against the other res’ in serenade competition. It was so awesome to watch. The girls did fabulously but unfortunately they didn’t make it on to the next level of competition, which was regional.

Then, Friday, we rounded up the girls and guys and we headed for the retreat in Jo’burg. They hold it at this beautiful camp in the middle of nowhere, near a township (the same township we worked at). At this point in the trip I had come down with a really bad sinus infection and I was not doing too hot. It was a really hard couple of days for me at the camp. I wish I had been able to spend time with the girls more but I was feeling too bad and I had to rest for most of the time. I just had to trust that God didn’t need me. In addition to some bad news, while we were away our house in Pretoria was broken into. The boy’s guesthouse was completely broken into and their laptops were stolen. The girl’s house didn’t get anything stolen from it. That same day Tyler, our team leader, got a 24-hr flu. Through all this I feel like God taught us a lot as a team. For me, I didn’t sleep at all but 15 minutes at a time during the night and I didn’t have any access to medicine or food during the night. I felt bad because I think I kept the whole cabin up in my coughing. But in that I just couldn’t help but think about how the township right next to us didn’t have any resources. The access to medicine and the need for food, that I was so frustrated not to have, they didn’t have that either, ever. What do they do when they get sick? Apart from this realization, when I was feeling terrible in the middle of nowhere, I knew God was with me, he was with me and was sufficient for me when I didn’t have any distractions from my pounding head, even when I was thousands of miles from home. And he’s always with me. I just felt the power of his presence so powerful at 4 am in the dark of the camp when no one was awake. Now, I know I’m talking like I was on my deathbed, like I had something much more intense than a sinus infection, but I’m just saying, it was rough. Yeah, maybe I’m a pansy. Anyways I learned a lot from it and it was sweet!

The next morning I went home earlier than the rest of the group and rested. The next Monday and Tuesday before we left for our flight we spent time doing return training and getting to see what Campus Outreach has envisioned for next year on our campuses and how we play a part in that. We just got to discuss with G’Joe and Jake who came out to SA that week about questions and conflicts we had.

The night before we left we invited a bunch of people over to our house for dinner. It was an awesome way to end our trip hanging out with everyone we met and just having the one last time with them, listening to music, and enjoying each other.

The flight back was good times, 18 hours on a direct flight :-). I’m going to miss all the people from Presbyterian College! But I’ll visit them over the course of this year.

Thank you SO MUCH all of you who made this specific opportunity possible. I grew and learned a ton this summer. I thank God for all that you have done and contributed. And to those who didn’t have the opportunity to give, thank you for your influence, and leadership in the development of my walk with Jesus and my faith in Him. For all of you who I have sent this to, you have made a difference in eternity, how glorious!

Just Lean

It has been our second week on campus and God has been gracious. This week we went to field hockey and basketball games, and played in field hockey and basketball games with the girls (pretending we were foreign exchange students); Abbye our girl staff leader left this week and we miss her; we went out to dinner with some girls, and went bowling; and we went to a guys res “club house” for a social with them. It was awesome to have a lot more time with the girls outside of their dorms. It has built so much trust in our relationship with them and it gave us a chance to show them who we really are and just in general to get to know each other better.

I would have to say my favorite part of the week was going out to their social with them. The whole time we have been inviting them to things and finally we got to go to where they were, to spend time in their own element. Both are beneficial, bring them into our circle and also being a part of their circle. It was just so awesome to go to a party with them and show them Christ through that. But it was also fun in a general sense, to just dance with them and get to know more of their friends in a casual setting.

Personally, for me, it was extremely worshipful because I have been praying that God would make the world pale in comparison to his worth and greatness, so at the party I was just able to look around and see how God has changed my heart, where I used to live like a lot of these girls and guys, and God has carried me from that life. He has shown me how he came to give us life and give it to us to the fullest (John 10:10). I searched my whole life (well, ever since I can remember) how to live the best life, and I was always trying to “figure out life”. And for so long, I lived chasing after things of the world to satisfy me, basically chasing after the wind. And when I finally met Christ I felt like John Newton when he wrote, “Amazing Grace”, when he said, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” (If you don’t know John Newton’s story check it out) But anyways, it was just awesome to feel free from all the things that used to enslave me. It made me want to share that much more with the girls, feeling so burdened for them yet having so much compassion for them.

Another favorite part of my week has just been everything I am learning. I feel like I’m learning a ton at once, trying not to get too overwhelmed. What I have learned the most is to lean on the Lord through prayer. I have seen how I just need to be faithful to pray and then to go and He will do the rest. I have learned just not to push things but to allow conversations to go naturally to talking about the gospel. It has been cool to see how each day I become more and more joyful going into the dorms and less fearful, because I'm learning how God will meet me there. I used to rely so much on myself, my words, and my effort to share the gospel, and it would become burdensome and hard, and now I would say its just worshipful. Lauren and I have been blessed to meet girls who are really interested in the ministry and who are so open to learning about who Jesus is. Their names are Shelby, Kate (she's a believer), Chiedza, Nobu, Charmayne, and Nikki.

In general, CCP has given me an amazing vision for campus and for the rest of my life. I learned a lot at LP last summer but it is so much more beneficial when you can actually go into the dorms and apply and practice daily and learn how to do it on your own campus. One thing that has been awesome is to see how God answers prayer. He has answered it generally, in that we have been praying for our CCP team, that we would be a team that would constantly go to God in prayer and he has fulfilled this in us! And then more specifically God has answered our prayers for specific people. Parker and Adam led a guy named Maluzi to the Lord last week. It was the guy that Derrick has been praying for specifically out of all the people and that same day Adam prayed that him and Parker would get to share the gospel with someone and they would come to a decision! SO so awesome.

Please pray for the camp this week. The camp is another name for retreat and we are inviting students to come to it for the weekend. And please continue to pray for the same requests from the previous entries!

Whom then shall I fear?

Two weeks have passed now already and, again, a lot has happened. I left off talking about our trip to Pretoria and getting settled in at the house.

We spent Saturday and Sunday night at the church meeting people and watching the last two games of the World Cup. Then Monday was our Sabbath and we spent time at the house doing whatever we found restful. Tuesday we met up with Sammy and One and went to the Apartheid museum to learn more about South Africa’s culture and history. The museum was in Jo’burg so after the museum we went to Neal Gooch (director of COJ) and his wife Jennifer’s house there. They have four boys that are awesome. It was so cool to learn about how they live and why they live where they live. Neal built a deck on the bacl of their house so that it would look out over the city of Jo’burg where the campuses are that they are ministering on. He also built it facing North Africa, a place where Christians are severely persecuted for the gospel and also the place that Neal, Jennifer and the rest of COJ hopes to influence by influencing the children of the leaders of those countries who have chosen to go to South African universities.

Not only did they build their deck with a mission but the way they designed their children’s rooms and decorated their house reflected the gospel. Because the majority of the children in the world don’t have their own rooms or their own anything, Neal and Jennifer decided to have all three boys share one room so that they would have a little more insight than an American child in how the majority of the world lives. In addition, in their kitchen they had a wall devoted to hanging many Christmas cards of families who have walked with them in the faith, many of them being CO staff in the US and across the world. They based this wall off of the verse, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). So the people on the wall are making up the great cloud of witnesses, those who have witnessed and experienced the truth of the gospel in their lives. I thought that it was really awesome and encouraging. They say that they look to it in times of discouragement.

The rest of the time we spent with them at their house we talked and got to know them and their children better. Towards the end of our time together we gathered and talked about how they came to faith and their walk; how they came on staff; how they met and married; how they have chosen to raise their children; and finally the history and future of COJ. Their story was awesome and I would love to go into detail but I shall go on.

Wednesday Tyler gave a talk on idols in the morning and then we left for a safari! Through Friday we were there and despite the fact that it is winter here it was still really beautiful. The reserve that we went to was called Pilanesburg. We stayed in tents outside of the reserve (thank God, haha). The tents were super cold at night! We got there late Wed. night and then went out at eight the next morning and stayed all day driving through the reserve. The first thing we saw that day was a pride of lions! They walked right passed our vehicle! For that day and the next we also saw hippos, elephants, a leopard (!), zebras, giraffes, wildebeest (gross animals), and many other things I forget the names of, ha. We got back late Friday night hung out and watched Amazing Grace (awesome film, watch it if you haven’t already).

Then, Saturday we received Cultural Training from Sammy, is a graduate from TUKS who is now on CO Pretoria’s staff. The talk was awesome and I learned a lot about the TUKS campus and CO’s position on the campus. Now, come to find out that because of the lack of staff CO has no role on the campus right now. For a year now they haven’t had a name on TUKS campus. There are only two African male graduates on staff, One (pronounced: own-eh) and Sammy. There is no girl staff at all and Haley, the wife of Paul, the campus director of TUKS, has a baby and has limited time to go on campus and build relationships with the students. But with that limited time she has gone on campus and met quite a few girls.

Sammy, in his talk, reminded us of CO’s mission statement: Glorifying God by building up laborers on the campus for the lost world. Because we are going to a place where CO doesn’t have a name he reminded us to “…be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16. He reminded us of a lot of other good scripture and explained the culture of the dorms, which are really called “res” short for residence, the people, and the campus in general. I found it really helpful.

That night we went over to Paul and Hayley’s house and hung out with the staff that live with them and other students as well. I think it is so cool how Neal and Jennifer and Paul and Hayley live in community in which the people they work with live with them and even some of them are people that they disciple. We had a “braai” (South African name for cook out). Sunday, again, we went to church and had a sabbath.

Now, finally, we are on campus and this has been our first week! Everyday we spend two hours in the morning studying scripture and then having lunch and then from 3 to about 10 everyday we spend on campus. The campus is huge and there are a lot different res’ so we are focusing on making relationships in one girls res, Katjiepiering, and one guys res, Taaibos, that are located next to each other. The res’ are exactly like our sororities and fraternities in the states but to an even greater extent. I think it’s awesome. Each res has everything from their own teams (not just sports teams) that compete to having their own social events and wear their own jackets. The events they have can be so huge because they have so many people in each res. We went to one of their events with some girls, it was a man pageant. A lot of people attended and it was a pretty big production. They had a live band and a radio MC come from the most famous radio station here called Jacaranda. Along with all the fun there are also a lot of rules that they have to live by. They have certain study times they have to be in their rooms and they have a curfew at 12 am! Also something that is different is that everyone has their own room. Their accents are neat but their sayings are what really make me laugh. They are so hospitable! They invite you into their rooms and they are really excited to get to know you. They are all around really polite.

Apart from going into the res’ and hanging out with people we also went to a huge rugby event on Tuesday, had Spaghetti dinner on Wednesday at Paul and Hayley’s with guys and girls from the res, and on Thursday we had the first CO weekly meeting in over a year at TUKS and Sammy gave a talk about success. It was about the differences between how the world views success and how God views success. Finally, yesterday was one of my favorite days since we have been here. We went to the church and met up with COJ, CO Charlotte (NC), CO Indiana, CO Greenville, and CO Atlanta. It was really cool to hear each director talk about what God is doing on their campus and in general it was just awesome to be with so many people who are there for the same purpose and so connected through relationships to one another. And then Pete from COJ gave a talk about having a world vision and how that vision of the gospel transforming the world should transform our vision for our lives after college. He talked about the verse “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). It was extremely convicting talk and he asked all of us a really hard question, he said, “Will this CCP be the pinnacle of your involvement with Christ call for the world?” While we all maybe on a good “track” per se right now, we could slowly drift from the faith after college and in just 15 or 20 years look back and laugh that we even went to South Africa to share Christ. So what shall we do, to make sure that we will be following Christ in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, our whole lives? The answer: follow him today.

I will end my post with what I’ve been learning in 1 Peter that we have been studying this summer. In this book I just see the proclamation of God’s holiness all over it. And not just God’s holiness, but because of his holiness we are called to be holy. To be holy is to be set apart. And in order for us to live lives that are set apart from the world we must see how set apart God is from the ways of this world. Through seeing God’s holiness I will fear him, fear is another idea that I have been challenged by recently that Pastor Charles preached about last Sunday. We either fear man or we fear God. Amanda, a girl on my team, talked about what she has been learning from this. She said that she always tells herself she needs to “stop fearing man, stop fearing man”, but now she sees how she can turn from fearing man and cling to Christ and fear God instead; to let go of man and to grab on to God. The verse “‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord…” (1 Peter 3:14-15) has struck me this week. So I see that if I do not see God’s holiness, I do not fear God, instead I fear man, therefore, fearing “what they fear”, things of this world, the world controls me and I am like the world and I am no longer set apart.

In addition to all of this I have been learning a lot through living in this community about community and about myself. We have been reading a book called Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of my favorite lines is when he says, “Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ” (36). Then, I also love when Dietrich discusses the difference between human love and spiritual love saying,


…Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave his freedom to be Christ’s; I must meet him only the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes. This is the meaning of the proposition that we can meet others only through the mediation of Christ. Human love constructs his own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ...Human love lives by uncontrolled and uncontrollable dark desires; spiritual love lives in the clear light of service ordered by the truth. Human love produces human subjection, dependence, constraint; spiritual love creates freedom of the brethren under the word. Human love breeds hot house flowers; spiritual love creates the fruits that grow healthily in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm of God’s outdoors. (36-37)

In closing, please pray for these last two weeks on campus and in community. Please pray that:

That God would cause us to fully identify ourselves with Him when we are on campus. These are a few girls that Lauren and I have met God has put on my heart: Nikki, Kate, Kristine, Suzette, Lee, Courtney, Devon, Wendy, and Happy. Please pray that we will be spirit led in our interactions with them and others we meet. And that those that we meet would be the new laborers on the campus, both Africans and Afrikaans, whose racial barriers have been broken down by the gospel.

That God would bring students to the Wednesday night spaghetti dinners, and the Thursday night weekly bible studies.

That God would continue to show us our brokenness through community we would see each other as Christ see each of us. And that we would be a community that prays and seeks God’s glory in everything we do.

The first seven

After Myrtle Beach we drove to the Clemson area and spent the night at a beautiful lake house that a family that has a good relationship with CO allowed us to use. The next day we rested before we left for the Atlanta airport. We drove to the airport in a 15-passenger van the next day for our 9 o’clock flight to Johannesburg. The next two days of traveling were long. We transferred in London and had a 10 hr lay over! AH! We finally made it to Johannesburg safely. Since then a lot has happened in our first week. We went straight to work when we got there. That morning around 7 am we were picked up from the airport from some of the CO Johannesburg staff and got in the “kumbees” (South African name for bus) and drove straight to the work site where we would be building houses in the townships (slums) for the next three days. Thankfully we had breakfast before we went to the site. We worked a full day alongside other Africans and Afrikaans apart of the church in Delmas (a nearby town). The Lord seriously provided energy for us that day. It was only the Lord because it was such a long two days of very little sleep. The next couple days in the township was beautiful and wonderful. Being in community and having fellowship with people who believe in the same gospel across world never gets old, every time I’m in awe of how big God is. The men got to know the community through doing hard labor alongside each other and the women got to know the community through talking with other women and spending hours and hours with the little children.

I will tell you some of my favorite stories. Lauren (my ministry partner) and Emily were asked by one of the mothers to tell the kids a story about Jesus. They were really nervous and didn’t think what they said would really make sense to them because they were so young. But they had a translator and went ahead. They first prayed that God would use their words, because ultimately it will be God that changes their hearts. They asked at the end of the story if they knew Jesus and loved him and they all said yes. So they don’t know if the kids were sincere so Emily and Lauren were left having to trust that God was present.

Next, I was making “pap” pronounced “pop” because of the SA accent, which is like thick porridge, with one of the mothers in the community, Johanna, and a Afrikaan pastor came up to talk with me and introduce himself. I began talking with him and he told me this awesome story of when he went with his seminary to Angola to minister there. When he arrived there were hundreds of people there to hear what he had to say. He said people came from as far away as Ethiopia to hear them! And they had heard just from word of mouth! He said him and his fellow men looked at one another and said, “Let’s go! Let’s preach the gospel!” And many people came to know the Lord that day. What I loved the most about that story was his excitement and all their excitement to preach the gospel and the way he said, “Let’s go!” Was as if he on the frontlines on a battlefield. It was so awesome.

Finally, another favorite that I witnessed in the townships was seeing this old worn bible, all the pages weathered, sitting on the kitchen table in Johanna’s house. It was laying open and as I looked closer I saw it was written in her language which was like a “no duh” it was written in her language but it was just not what my eyes expected after looking at a English bible my whole life. It was just so encouraging to see God’s word so loved that it was in another language and it was worn from the hands of someone who is dedicated to living for him for so many years.

After three days there we left the townships and headed for Pretoria. On our way there after only driving for 20 mins one of our cars got in a accident as it was turning on to the highway. The driver was someone on our team who like anyone from the U.S. forgot to look left and also right when taking a right hand turn and turned into traffic, not getting on the left hand side of the road. It could have been really messy and someone could have gotten seriously hurt but God’s hand was in it. No one was hurt. One thing that was pretty humorous was that the police didn’t even give the driver a ticket and they didn’t report any information. They like reported the name and birth date! I’ve had this experience with law enforcement in like every other country outside of the U.S.

Now at this point we have left the townships sadly and we are at the residence we will be staying at for the next 4 weeks. It is in Pretoria, South Africa, a very beautiful city. This is where we will be working alongside the CO Jo’burg staff to share the gospel with the students at TUKS (the nickname for the University of Pretoria). The house is beautiful, safe, and located a nice neighborhood. For the past week we have been setting up camp and getting settled in and learning about the city and spending a lot of time with the church that CO Jo’Burg is sponsored by. The past couple nights we have been at the church where there has been an event held each night to invited people to watch the world cup games for 2nd and 3rd place (poor Netherlands). I have enjoyed getting to know the other South Africans apart of the church and singing with them in worship. I am really eager to start spending time on campus and getting to know the students and being challenged by God to be faithful in sharing his gospel. So far what I have seen how little faith I put in the power of the gospel to transform lives and God has been working that disbelief out of me. I have learned to live in light of the truth that "I am the sower and he is the grower" (Mark4:26-29). And I have found so much freedom in this truth.


Here are a few things you can be praying for:

That our team would continue to be united in our mission and to love each other and not afraid to love them by loving Jesus first aka confronting each other about sin when necessary and then also giving each other grace in our failure.

That we would make great friendships on the campus and not be afraid to fully identify ourselves with Christ. That in those relationships we would listen to the spirit and learn when and how to share best with each person according to where they stand spiritually and what they are ready for.

That we would be a team that goes to God constantly in prayer for everything and is what our mission would be built upon
before anything else.

Myrtle Beach

I returned home to Annapolis, Maryland. I spent three weeks at home taking art classes at the community college before my next summer adventure to South Africa with Campus Outreach. The weeks passed by quickly and soon enough I was on a flight to Greenville, SC. I flew down there spent the night and then drove the next day with the rest of the team to Myrtle Beach, SC. Before we left for the beach G’Joe spoke with us about the dynamics of a healthy team versus an unhealthy team. It was things that I had never thought about before and it was extremely insightful. The basis of a healthy team is to have trust in the other team members. So after the talk we discussed how easily we trusted others and we discussed how we come to trust others. It was great and I learned a lot about the team and about myself. It was extremely helpful for me because a couple days before I had just gotten in an argument with one of my best friends (we made up) and through it God spoke through her and revealed to me how much I don’t trust others. I always thought that trusting was equated with how open you were with others about your heart. And through the conversation I learned how trusting is really equated with how you trust what the other person does with the information you give them, how you trust that person to love you and accept and perceive you how you are, and above all how you trust them to think for you and your best interest. In addition and in hand with learning that I fail to trust even those who know me best I saw my failure in my humility and my great reliance on myself and my own opinions. This affects all of my relationships and it all stems out of my trust in God. I see how much I don’t trust God, trust that he is for me, trust that he loves me, and trust that I can rest in him because he is in control.

Coming to Myrtle Beach was wonderful. I spent last summer there. For those who I didn’t explain this to Myrtle Beach is where Campus Outreach holds their summer beach project, or Leadership project. Leadership project is made up of around 80 students every year from 4 different college campuses, Wofford, Presbyterian College, Furman, and Western Carolina. They all live in rooms of a motel rented out by CO with 5 people to a room. They come to learn essentially how to follow Jesus, how to study the bible, how to be discipled and how to disciple. Just as Jesus taught his disciples how to walk and live like he lived an older believer who has walked with God longer will mentor another younger believer and walk with them through life in order to guide them in their walk with God. While they are learning these things they are also working a full time job at a Walmart, McDonald’s, Build-a-bear, Johnny Rockets, Burger King, ect. jobs that aren’t exactly consider desirable in our society. Through the teaching and through the labor each student learns a lot. I learned a lot about God, and the heart of people last summer. I worked at McDonald’s. That job was not easy. I have so much respect for people who work in low wage labor, especially fast food. I could go on about all this but I’ll return to the present. So going back to LP I felt like I was returning to a second huge family, as I told some of you. I saw some of the girls that lived on my hall this past year who just finished their freshman year and it was so awesome to see how much they have learned and how God has grown them.

While our South Africa team or CCP team (cross-cultural project) was down there we stayed at the same motel but we had our own meetings that were more specific to what we were doing in SA. What I learned most in the 10 days that we were down there I learned how I need to value the gospel more than I do any other relationship. That sounds extreme and radical but that is what God calls us to. The gospel is offensive. Out of fear I have not shared the gospel with so many that I love. And it is so contradictory because sharing the gospel with someone is the most loving thing that you give him or her. Sharing with them what they are destined for without Christ (eternally being separated from God) but how through Christ they can know God the Father and have eternal life through him; that is true love. Not only does it love them but it is loving God even more to share the good news (the gospel). God deserves glory from each one of those who aren’t living for him because he created them yet they are worshipping so many other things in the world other than him. Worship is anything that we love, treasure and serve. And outside of God we worship a plethora of things, our bank account, our jobs, our children, our grades, our friends, our social status, or reputation. We maintain all of these things at the expense of first and foremost maintaining our relationship with God. All that to say that our time in Myrtle Beach served us well to reunite as a team and refocus our mind, heart, and soul on our journey ahead.

A bridge

AHhhh…It has been awhile since I last wrote. I want to make a bridge between what I last wrote and the in between time up until now. When in Nicaragua I was experiencing poverty in a different way than I have ever before. I was actually able to hear the stories of the people’s lives from them first hand and hear about how the system worked against them. In their stories each one talked about how they survived, they lived only because God gave them the strength. Sometimes I knew that they believed in Christ and other times they didn’t specify who their God was. And the frustration that I felt when I looked at each of their faces was that they knew God more fully, and had a much deeper relationship with Him than I ever will because they were relying on Him in both a spiritual realm and physical realm. And not only did I envy their relationship with God but I also felt inadequate to have God’s grace (I was forgetting the gospel). I felt as if I needed to make myself physically poor in order to know Him. But He reminded me, and he whispered to me, “It is by my grace that you have been saved, not by works that you have done, not because of your social status or your economical status. I meet with you, Andrea, in the U.S. just as fully as I meet with the poor in Nicaragua, have faith in my son.”

When I said in my last blog, “I feel like I have missed the point. In all the books, bible studies, opinions, discussions, Jesus has been drowned out of my soul. The spirit has become buried by the laundry that I have allowed the pleas of the world to drop on my mind, heart, and soul.” I think that this statement could be easily misunderstood. What I felt and what I meant when I said this was that, yes, I had missed the point but it wasn’t because of the bible studies, or God’s word being inadequate for me to meet with him, and it wasn’t because the opinions or discussions weren’t important or didn’t help me to know God more. I had to do with my own heart. It is so easy to think that you are in union with God because you are doing all the “right” things or that you are reading his word daily when really you are doing all these things for God and your heart isn’t even engaged, and you get worn out, exhausted.

This past February my South Africa team and G’Joe (director of Campus Outreach) were discussing how we live so often doing things for God and not with God. We try to do things such as serve the community, share our faith, and tithe. We can even read the word, pray, confess sin, or burn away idols (the other gods our heart worships) for God and not with him. In reading the word we may, though we shouldn’t, read it in order to check it off the list for that day rather than coming to the word in need of it, seeing it truly as the bread of life. In confessing our failure and burning down idols we may try to just rid of ourselves of our own sin of our own failures by just trying harder the next time rather than giving it up to God, laying it on Jesus and believing that whatever failure we have he has already paid for it on the cross. Just in writing that I want to rejoice in the rest that I find in him!

When I say we do things for God versus with him I mean that we do everything running off of our own fuel our own means and not doing things out of our love and awe of who he is. John Piper, in his book Let the Nations Be Glad (pg 17), puts it well in his discussion of missions,

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is…Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God…Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…. I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Ps. 104:34; 9:2)

Returning back to my trip to Nicaragua with Furman not only was it hard walking through the emotions of feeling as though the poor had a deeper relationship with the Lord, but I found hardship in my doubt and questioning when I met Nicaraguans and Americans that had given their lives to the social justice movement there. In getting to know them I learned what they believed about salvation and about spirituality. I even found many huge differences in beliefs among the Furman students on the trip with me.

There was one person in particular that really made me question. She was 27 and she had been living and working for the Center of Global Education in Latin America, Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua since she graduated college. She grew up in a Evangelical Christian home and she said she had always believed Jesus was the only way until she came to Latin America and met others, one man in particular that she met in Mexico, who was just as spiritual as she but had different beliefs. She said that she still believed in Jesus and he was her salvation but he wasn’t the only way. This was extremely hard for me to hear because this past year at school I had to make some very hard decisions based on God’s word even when my heart didn’t desire what His word was calling me to. And in the past year when my heart wanted differently everyday was a fight to believe that His word was true and that I could trust it. So, when I met this young woman it tempted me to wonder if I really had to believe His word. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) And by this woman saying that she believed in Jesus but believed there were multiple ways of salvation it was obvious that she wasn’t making God’s word the authority in her life. I started realizing in my doubt that whomever the man was that she met in Mexico that was spiritual, she made him the authority, again, not God’s word. I saw that in the same way she made that man the standard, she made a certain amount of spirituality to be the standard, I was also making her the standard in my life for those moments when I would doubt. I was giving more credit to her experiences in Latin America than I was to God’s word. So, by the end of the trip after this revelation, I made up my mind and I decided that despite the doubt I had experienced I was still going to make God’s word the authority in my life and I was going to trust the words of the creator of the universe more than I was going to trust the experiences of a 27 year old in Latin America. And I had more peace after that decision than I had the entire year. It was beautiful. Praise God.

I'm away

It's late and I should be sleeping. It's almost one at least (whoa, crazy!) I guess that's the schedule you get on in Nicaragua. Your day begins at 6 and ends at 6. Simple. Restful. Peaceful. I'm in Nicaragua and it's a place where life makes just a little more sense.

I'm away.

I came on this trip looking for one thing and I have been given far more than ever expected. Nicaragua is a place where you can only have a "Tentative Schedule". There is no such thing as a must. Nothing happens until it happens. Cars pass each other without obnoxious honking. People without rush, they don't know what rush is. They walk miles to get water with buckets on their heads. A mango drops from a tree onto a tin roof creating a BANG! And no one shutters. Nothing has to happen. In a country where you couldn't control anything even if you wanted to, people learn to live without expectation. Fireworks crack overhead for no occasion and car alarms sound. And the breeze still blows. The winter, the rains come and then floods. And the summer, the dry season, then the drought. Your baby may only live to be a few days old but you till the field the next day. You get up and you move. You move through the hardship, the suffering, the discipline of the days, day by day. You see through the oppression. The stones thrown in your face. You see through them to you children on the other side, who sit at your feet, lay their head on your lap, who wait for you at school. You see their face, and they are your joy. And you move. You take the next step despite the pain. You look down to them and then up to God knowing that he is your only strength because your bones are rusty and he is the only oil that will heal them., make them move. You look up with all certainty that there is the water there to quench you thirsty soul. You look up because you know he will carry you. You look up with eyes that pierce, that say, "I want you".

And the spirit moves. Through the mountains where the wind blows, as the white haired feeble woman leaves her home. And she is a part of it. She is a part of it all. The sun breaks through the clouds as she leaves out the peach colored walls wrapped in a shawl walking down the dirty road, long gray strands and all, going where the spirit breathes her.

There is no theology, no strict opinions, no arguments of salvation, but no doubt that the god that made the sun rise yesterday will make it rise again today. It's just Jesus. Jesus living in all these people looks through them at me and says, "where did you go Andrea? Do you remember who I am? Do you know that I'm real? You've lost my face in all the bull****."

They speak a different language one that I barely know. i can barely ask them their name. They don't resemble me one bit. We don't share the same genetic code. Their eyes are brown. Their skin is dark and their hair is a rich noir. But all I need is one look at their face and I know that they are my brothers and sisters.

I have an ipod and they have the trees blowing in the wind. I have faucet they have a pump in the ground. I have a roof they have plastic.

I'm away.

I'm away, "from it all". And I can think for the first time in months. I'm away and I can breathe. I'm away and I can see his face again and he is not so far, but I feel far. I have forgotten. I have gotten lost. I have gotten lost in all the crap all the things that don't matter, ever. And I feel like I have missed the point. In all the books, bible studies, opinions, discussions, Jesus has been drowned out of my soul. The spirit has become buried by the laundry that I have allowed the pleas of the world to drop on my mind, heart, and soul. And in this country, this foreign land I have only just begun to hang up the tee shirts and dresses of doubt on the line to dry and then to walk away to leave them where they belong. But more time will pass before I'm able to walk away. So I start...and it's come time for truth as I look into the Nicaraguan's eyes, into Amanda's and my professor's eyes...

...I cry and I don't understand this cutting pain. I don't know what the future holds and I am scared and I cry out to God.

I am away.

I am seeing Jesus' face again and I am reevaluating and examining my life and this life we all live, this world. God is moving but he's silent, he's been silent for so long. When will he finally reveal himself after this year long slumber? I pray, and pray and he doesn't answer. But he will, he always does. He promised. It won't happen on my time, but his perfect timing I will see his glory. So, i cry, and I wait on the Lord. I wait and I don't know what is to come but I do know whatever it is, it is good. And one day I will look back on this entry and it will be beautiful because God will have carried us to stand in grace and look back in reverent awe at how he has loved us.

Everything is "tentative"

I think I will start by talking about our hotel. It is very nice. It is hard to find nice hotels here. But this one is owned by a family. It is open and the walls are a bright blue. There are plants everywhere and a beautiful garden out front. There are two people staying to one room which is lovely. My roommate is Sarah Barton. She is so awesome we get along so well and she always wants to explore with me.  The rooms are nice. We are definitely not roughing it by any means though that may change. We have AC, two double beds AND a TV. We are living large. The bathroom isn't bad at all. We have a shower and well the water might be hot, it might be cold and it might not come out. So that's how it goes. And sometimes the toilet will flush sometimes it won't. But again, this isn't average. We are lucky to be in this hotel!

We sit together at a long table and we are served every meal at the hotel by three women who cook every meal. They make the juice fresh. I have never had such delicious juice. They use fruits I have never heard of and my taste buds don't have a category for them, ha. Some are a deep red others are a pale yellow and some are slightly green. The food is absolutely fantastic. They put everything in a bowl and we pass it around. There is rice at every meal.

For breakfast we usually eat beans and rice (aroz con frijoles), eggs, toast, juice, and always FRUIT: mango, pineapple, watermelon, banana, papaya, and cantaloupe. The pineapple is white. I have never really liked pineapple. But the pineapple here is totally different and I think it might just actually be fresh and that is why it is white and delicious. It is really soft and not extremely sweet.

For lunch we have all kinds of things but for instance today we had a butter and garlic sauce with shrimp over top of spaghetti. They make everything fresh, the salsa, the guacamole. Dinner is pretty much the same. I am getting to know the staff really well despite my lack of Spanish. It is a smaller hotel and easy to get to know them. They have mango trees within the hotel and there is one right above our room. Every time one falls from the tree it hits our roof and makes a huge bang! I always almost curse. We have climbed on the roof a couple times to collect the fallen fruit and we have eaten them with the staff in the deserted kitchen at 11 npm. They also have a lime tree.

I have been learning a ridiculous amount on this trip and it makes me want to learn this much about a place whenever I travel! There is just so much history, unique qualities about the culture and issues that a country faces to learn about and be able to truly appreciate it! I will give you an idea of how much we have been doing and the extent of the experiences we have had.

Yesterday we went to a jacket factory that is a part of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) where they manufactured Patagonia, North Face, Eddie Bauer, and Columbia jackets. We saw the whole process from raw material to the final product. I even saw a jacket that I owned. It was encouraging to see that the workers actually had good working conditions at least.

We went to the city dump today where everything is dumped. I mean everything. All biohazardous (sp?) waste is dumped there. We saw an IV. There are body parts there, hysterectomies,HIV/AIDS needles, to abortions all in this one dump. Okay so everything is dumped there, so what? Well there are families that spend from 4 am to 4 pm there sifting through the trash everyday for their next meal and for recycling to sell for 30 Cordobas to live off of a day which is roughly a $1.50. When we went there I almost cried seeing children as young as 2 years old looking through the trash and picking it up to eat. There are 750 to 800 families that make their homes in these dumps. This place is more than a breeding ground for disease, it's like a diseases tropical vacation and tons of the children have rashes all over their bodies. I have never seen poverty like this. I feel like everyday that I see all these things I still just don't get it. I don't get that this is truly their reality. Their backyard is literally a wasteland. I described it in our journals as the obvious brokenness of this country or third world countries is as dark as the sin we know is in our hearts. Everything is just so real here. There is no time to mess around with your resources. People need them and your NGO better find an effective way to distribute them.

God seems so close here. God seems so close to these peoples hearts. You ask them what gets them through the day and it's like "of course, God". Seeing their closeness to God, their creator, shows me how far my heart is from Him. But I feel his grace that much more. He whispers. He says, "It doesn't matter who or where you are, rich or poor, selfish or serving, I'll meet you there." I see how messed up this world is and I say, "how did you ever forgive us?...thank you Jesus for coming and living the perfect life I couldn't. Becoming as poor as the people that I see, so that I may inherit your kingdom one day."

We have been dancing two nights. I can barely go out now with a clean conscious knowing that I am spending money that could feed these people or keep their baby from dying from diarrhea by cleaning their water. I gave a dollar, just a dollar to an 8 yr old boy today because I couldn't take saying no to them anymore and the verse Luke 6:30 wouldn't leave my head: Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. This kid acted like it was Christmas morning as he ran to his friends to show off the U.S. dollar bill. I just keep putting myself in their shoes. What if that was 8 yr old Andrea begging for a dollar. Or 8 yr Andrea in the dump searching for her meal among the body parts and the needles?

The organizations and NGOs that we have visited are truly remarkable and making a HUGE difference. Their philosophy on how to best be effective is beautiful and it is changing the hearts and minds of these people one community at a time. It is heart breaking to learn all these things and see all these things but truly the progress that has been made just in the past two years is so so encouraging.

I am going to see be in the O.R. next week watching the surgery of a ministry in Nicaragua that does primarily curative treatment for the community rather than preventative. Doing whatever surgeries that need to be done. It is a plastic surgeon who comes down from Savannah, GA with his wife three times a year to this ministry they started and they do surgeries from like 7 am to 3 pm everyday. I can't wait! The opportunities I am getting I never thought I would get.

We have been in Managua for a week now. We will leave on the 20th to go to Matagalpa for 4 days. And then we will go to Granada for 4 days and then we will be back here to take off for the states. I cannot wait for Matagalpa and Granada. I have heard they are beautiful and that Matagalpa is in the mountains and it is much cooler.

Nicaragua is definitely very different than Costa Rica. You just feel down underdeveloped and impoverished it is in comparison to Costa Rica and you can feel how heavy the hearts of the people are here. There is no down town area. After the earth quake in 1972 everything was destructed. At the time of the earthquake Managua was an up and coming city in Central America and everything that was destructed was never built up again. It just stayed as it was up until now, and so that is what we see.Their aren't even street signs; they never replaced them. You give directions by land marks. Here there is no east or west. There is up and down. "Up" is east, where the sun rises...up. And, yep, "down" is west where the sun sets...goes down.

One of my favorite talks that I have heard since we have been here is the talk about economics about CAFTA, NAFTA, and ALBA. It is crazy how Central America is affected by these "agreements". The speaker was just very good at explaining everything and gave good examples. Not all of our talks are in the same place. We usually go to the speaker where their establishment is or some even come to the hotel or we have a general meeting place. All the speakers are very well informed and experts in their area. I feel so blessed. It is amazing.

In closing one of the funny things here is that we only have a "tentative schedule". They say, "Nothing has happened until it is over". Speakers may or may not show up. The electricity may or may not work. We may have a demonstration or riot in the street and not be able to make it. Luckily nothing has kept us yet. There have only been a couple hiccups. But life is just so different here. There are people out on the street all over the city. You just have to drive down one street and you understand the culture (to an extent). Yes, women all over the place walk around with bowls or water on their heads. There are all kinds of people selling things in the street. There are people in wheel chairs going down the street begging to every car. There are infants at every corner. About half the people ride a horse drawn buggy, the horse looks like it needs antibiotics. There are children dancing and playing drums just for a few cents. I'm haunted by their screaming voices in my head. There are people standing on people shoulders juggling fire. It is absolute chaos. I have never seen anything like it. I can't imagine growing up somewhere where everything is so uncertain, and unstable, and out of control. You just see distrust in all of their faces. They can't even trust their government to regulate their city trash! 

Strangely enough life seems to make more sense here and among all this chaos life is simple. People sit on their porches. They know their neighbors. If they have food they share a meal with them. If things on their schedule that day don't happen then they don't happen.The traffic on the road is crazy but people rarely honk and they are constantly swerving in and out of lanes (I have only seen one car accident). It feels like a play that they have practiced for weeks and they know exactly the next move the other is going to make, ha.

I see myself here or some place like it after I graduate trying to help the cause in all of these countries. But who knows. I don' know. I am really attracted to all of this. I know its no joke; it is only by God's grace that those already here get through the day and stay motivated. But I want to give my life away and stop this selfish crap. This selfish nothingness.