November Happenings

Well it’s been almost a month since I’ve written anything on my blog which seems strange because it does not seem that long yet so much has happened. God is awesome and continues to work in amazing ways in my life and in the lives of those around me. I guess something that’s been hard is that a lot of the growth hasn’t been bamb! Or sudden stuff. If you aren’t looking for it you don’t see it. But when you look back at where I was or we were as a DTS a few weeks ago you really go Wow! We’ve really grown.

Since I haven’t posted in a while I figured I’d write more about events than anything else. One of the major things that has happened is that our leader Chris was in the hospital for 2 weeks with an ulcer. It was pretty major, he was in the military hospital first and they thought it was just dehydration but I guess he was bleeding internally. But God is faithful and Chris is completely restored to health.
Not this past week but the week before we had Troy Sherman come in and talk to us about relationships. It was rad. We spent about 15 hours going through 1 Corinthians 13 and what love is and how it was been skewed so much by society etc…Everything he said was really captivating and really made you think and wrestle with what you truly believed. One of the things that really hit me was that he said “If you pray for something you better be willing to be the answer to your own prayer or shut up.” (his words not mine) Now this doesn’t mean if you pray for China that you go to China. Maybe it does. But say your praying for China. As your praying ask God what you can do. Maybe he’ll call you to move to China, maybe he’ll call you to take a trip there, to give money there, to write a letter to some missionaries that you know there, etc…A lot of times we as Christians just pray and then we say okay well done with that and we forget that we can actually not only offer up the prayer to God but be the answer as well. We are God’s vessels, the hope of glory here on earth, he entrusted us and Jesus proved it by leaving. The world needs us to respond.
Another thing that hit me was during base intercession this week Troy talked about human trafficking. He and his wife do a lot to help end human slavery. I knew it was an issue in the world, but I had no idea the severity of it. 27 million people are currently held captive in human trafficking. Slavery is bigger today than it has ever been in history. And yes it is happening in Minnesota and South Dakota. About half of those trafficked are kids (KIDS! Like 10 years old kids sometimes younger), a lot of time going straight to the sex trade bought and sold as prostitutes. Anyway so I felt called to include that in here to help raise up awareness and I want people to think about ways they can get involved to help end it. Research it, tell others about it, give money to organizations working to end it, write letters to your representatives asking for laws to come hard against those caught. Need ideas or more info? http://www.freedomprojectinternational.org/The_Freedom_Project/Take_Action.html or http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ This is not something that is impossible to end but if we want it to end we each need to decide individually to do something about it. I have decided to make a video about it for outreach and we’re hopefully going to show it to churches that we work and serve in so they can know that this is going on in their city and they can get a heart to help stop it. There’s like a million other things I could say about what Troy talked about like how we as the church answer questions the world isn’t asking which is why they don’t care and don’t understand us. 42!!! Or how it sometimes breaks God’s heart to do a miracle because if we had or were doing our job He wouldn’t have to do it. Or how Americans spend $450 billion a year on Christmas and yet it would only take $10 billion to give everyone in the world clean water for life (1 person dies every 3 seconds from bad drinking water). Or how hybrids are actually bad for the environment, but I won’t go in depth on these things cuz then this would be a book not a blog.
Couple holidays have happened since I last wrote. My birthday was great thank you everyone back home for your birthday wishes or cards etc…Also we had Thanksgiving as a base yesterday it was awesome. We had tons of turkey and mashed potatoes and corn and rolls and Martinellies. Then we went to the Madsen’s (the base leaders) house and had desert, pecan and pumpkin pie, apple cheesecake and all sorts of good stuff.

Then finally today was a really awesome day. I got up at 7 and we went to Colonia Sinaloa and took some siding off a house because they are moving a house there. Then Antonio, Laura and I went and talked to some homeless guys we know. The first guy Rafael I’ve been talking to a lot this week. He is crippled and always is lying down by this one fisherman’s boat because he can’t stand up to walk. (Don’t worry God’s in the process of healing him) Anyway we talked to him some more today and he accepted Christ and Lord and Savior today!!! Wahoo!!! Then we talked to this guy Antonio brought to Christ earlier in the week his name is Armando. And he was just saying like how he didn’t even know things he was doing were sin like praying to saints but now that he knows what sin is he can live a better life. When we asked him at the end what he wanted prayer for he said he wanted prayer for wisdom and strength to help his brothers. This dude has only been a Christian for a week, SO AWESOME!!! Then later we were swimming and Antonio asked me to baptize him so I did. That was awesome. Then we ate tortas and pizza, it was good.
Anyway that is life in YWAM Mazatlan 2009 DTS. I love you all back home thank you for your support and prayers. Happy Thanksgiving!!! And God bless!!!