Wow! What a week!!

Actually, month, but the last week felt like a month! The wounded hearts team was here, and things got messy. But it was a good messy, and a safe messy if that makes sense. God brought stuff out in all of us that we didn't know was there. (When I say stuff, I pretty much mean crap.) It was such an amazing learning process, I still can't believe it was only a week. It was so awesome! I am looking forward to going through the workbook again at a slightly slower speed, and just sitting in some of that stuff. Then the last day that the team was here, we all went to the beach, and got some sand surf, and a lot of sun. It was awesome!
I can't believe I only have less than two weeks here in Mexico. God has showed me so much and I know He won't stop for these last weeks, or even after I get home. One more update/blessing that God has dropped in my lap, is housing in the fall in Mankato, MN. I still don't know if I will be going to school or not, but I know that I'm supposed to be in Mankato in the fall. So we'll just have to see what that ends up looking like I guess. Thank you all for your prayers and support, these last six months have completely changed who I am, and how I look at my Heavenly Father. He has changed how I think, and live, and just how I go about my everyday life. I am so blessed!

Wow God, I'm amazed!

Well, this week and next week are Semana Santa (holy week) and so its been pretty chill at the coffee shop, but God has still been for sure showing up! He's been giving us awesome conversational opportunities, and relationships, and we just sense His presence working in the lives of everyone who walks through the doors of the cafe. We've been able to share the gospel, our testimonies, and just speak truth to people!
There was this 15 year old kid named David the other night, and Ricky got to share his testimony and and the gospel to him, and for a 15 year old, he seems wise way beyond his years. God has just been so faithful and its been really cool to see his provision, and blessing overflowing!
God has been doing a work in my life/future as well! He has blessed me with a summer job, that I wasn't even really searching for! Its a job that I've had in the past, and really enjoyed the environment and the people. But it gets better (this is what really excites me) I had asked if I could go on an upcoming missions trip in July for 10 days, (I had done this the first time I worked for them) and they said that it just wouldn't work for me to take that much time off, with the number of temp workers they would be hiring for the summer. So I accepted the fact that I wouldn't be going, but something just didn't feel right about it. I felt like I was supposed to go, but God had also given me this job, so it was kind of a situation where I had to pick one or the other.
Then just last night, when I got home from the cafe, there was an e-mail from the person at Cray who hired me saying that they revisited my request and have decided to hire more temps to facilitate more time off, and so the time off has been approved! I couldn't believe it! God has blessed me so much and none of it were things that I had been asking for or searching out. Sure I had been praying for guidance in which way I should go, but the thought never crossed my mind that he would work it out that both could happen!
One other thing that He has blessed me with is the opportunity to assistant coach a summer soccer team! So I get to first of all, play/coach soccer (which I love) AND have relationships and be a part of the lives of like 20 High schoolers! Not only that, but its my brother's soccer team!! So its youth that I already kind of know, but now I get to be more a part of their lives! Wow God, you have definitely been at work in the last few weeks! Thank you so much for knowing exactly what I need and revealing it to me just when I need to see it!

The coffe shop has opened!

Wow, so much has happened since I've last written! First of all a team from Stanley Wisconsin came down and helped do a ton of stuff at Reyna's house. We put on a brand-new roof, painted inside and out, gave them a small sidewalk, and rewired the entire house. She was so blessed and thankful, it was awesome to see God at work in that house! Side note: Reyna and a couple of the girls have come to church for two weeks now, God is so good! Its nothing we asked or said, she just decided that they needed to be going!

After the team left, David and Leah, Ricky and Tracy and I went to the border. God really renovated the team in a little hotel room in McAllen Texas. :) It was awesome to get away from Cerro Azul, but still be right in the middle of obedience and blessing.

Then on the way home, we picked up Bill, one of the guys from Stanley who stayed behind for an extra couple of weeks, and we built a ton of shelves and a counter-top in Reyna's house, and got her a new stove, and a mattress, and a bunch of pillows! It was so cool! One funny/cool thing, was while we were building the shelves, one of the girls asked what they were and what they were for. When I told her what they were and they were for storage and to put stuff on, her face lit up and she got really excited, it was so cool!

Then pretty much right before Bill left, we started renting the coffee shop, and started working on it. We repainted it, built a bunch of things to go inside, redecorated, and a ton of stuff, it looks so awesome! (There are a ton of pictures on my facebook of all of this stuff by the way) And, We opened last night from 2-10!
It went amazingly well! We had almost more customers than what we knew what to do with! God brought in so many people we were overwhelmed by them all. Not overwhelmed with too many people, just overwhelmed by how good God is. There were people that came, and then returned like an hour later with more people, there were people that wanted to speak English, it was just so awesome! Just on small example of how many people God brought in is that on a good night, the people who previously ran the coffee shop would make about 600 pesos. Last night, God brought in over 2,000 pesos! We couldn't believe the numbers when we heard them, it was so awesome!

Well, today is day number two, and we're excited to see what God continues to do with this place!

Pictures!

So here are some pictures of the house I'm so excited to live in!
Some pics of the sweet back yard, yes, there are orange trees, mango trees, banana trees, and another fruit tree that I've never heard of. It's going to be SWEET!





This is the view out the front of the house, its a hotel...a very nice hotel.


This is the house I'll be staying in, my room is upstairs :) I'm pumped!

This is the room, and bathroom!

And finally an old outhouse, that just looked picture worthy :)

I'm Back!

Well, I’m back here in the great country of Mexico! Its finally warm here now, it’s been in the 40s and 50s which with the humidity, concrete walls, and lack of heat in homes, is quite cold. You know its cold when you can see your breath inside your house.

So far, we’ve spent a lot of time meeting as a team going over things as a base, and generally getting on the same page about where we’re headed this year. I’m really excited about the coffee shop that we’re going to be opening in the middle of February. We’ve gone over supplies we need, and furniture and everything, and spent a lot of time praying about very specific details and what God would have us do with them. We’ve made a lot of progress, but there’s still a lot of work to do yet along with a ton of other things that are going on as well. A new couple has moved down here to be on staff, and they just got a house so we’ve been working on cleaning that and such. This brings me to another thing that really excites me.

I’ve been struggling with what to do about renting a room. The plan was for me to rent a room by myself, but I never felt a peace about it, it just didn’t sit right or something. Then Ricky and Traci (the new couple) were looking for a house and found one with an extra bedroom upstairs, and we were joking around about if they rented that one that that they could rent the room out to me. The people who owned the house weren’t quite sure if they wanted to rent yet, so things were kind of on hold. Meanwhile, they kept looking for a different house, and found a couple, but liked the first one the best, and were kind of holding out on it. Finally the owners decided they wanted to rent, and Ricky and Traci had a house. I was still not feeling good about getting a room on my own. I had found one that would work and it was a good price and such, but it still didn’t feel right. But God knew what I needed and Ricky and Traci ended up asking me if I wanted to rent the room upstairs from them. And all of a sudden this burden that I had been feeling about getting a room just lifted and I couldn’t believe how good it felt. It was awesome!

The last thing that I’m excited about (in the near future anyways) is more fun than anything. When I went through customs I was only given a 50 day visa, so I have to go to the border and spend a few days in the states. As of right now the whole team will be going up and spending a few days in McAllen, Texas kind of as a vacation, but also to get some supplies for the coffee shop and such. It should be a lot of fun!

So as for now, there’s quite a bit of little stuff that needs to be done, so the things I’ll be doing is:
Finishing up the walls I started at David and Leah’s
Helping Ricky and Traci get their house ready to get moved into and then move them into it.
Some work out at the base
And then finally, some stuff (idk what yet exactly) at the coffee shop to get it ready to open, and then helping to run it.

It’s all so exciting, I can’t wait to see what God does with all of the things that are coming up in the next weeks and months.

homeward bound

Wow, its been a while since I've updated, life has been kinda busy lately. I'll be heading home for about three weeks on Monday, so I probably won't be updating during that time, so this is the last time I'll be writing for a while. I've been doing really well with not being homesick, I miss everyone back home, but it was manageable. But now that I know that I'm leaving in a couple days, time seems to be dragging sooo slowly, and I'm definitely getting homesick. As much as I love the 70-80 degree days here, I want/need to go home and see family and friends.
For about the past two weeks, I've been spending a lot of time at David and Leah's house making one room into three rooms. The walls are up, and have one layer of mud on the drywall. The rest will have to wait until January.
On Thursday night, we celebrated Christmas with a family that works at the dump. They are such an amazing family, I don't know how they do everything they do. If you want to know more about his family ask me about hem when I'm back and I would love to tell you what of their story I know. Very briefly: the grandma has raised all of the kids, and I believe there's 8 kids from 18 years to 6 months. Reyna is the grandma's name, and she played cards for the first time in her life at the party. I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.
Well, there's one last thing that's going on tonight before I go home. We're going to go finish up cleaning the park that we started at the amo mi ciudad event two weeks ago. I'm excited to see what it looks like when its finished.
I think that's about all for now, hopefully I will see all/most of you when I'm home. I'd love to tell you about all the things that have been happening here that I just don't have time to write about. Thank you all for your prayers!

An amazing week!

Wow, I have a lot to talk about! This last week was awesome! The team from my church was down here and we all had a blast! God did so much in such a short amount of time; I am so amazed at how good He is. He knew what each of us needed this week, and we all got it.

We started what seemed too early on Monday morning at 9:30, had some food and such, and had some worship time that was awesome! Then Kathy gave a teaching on corporate prayer. (I was super excited when I found out we were going to be learning about corporate prayer; that was one thing that I really wanted to be at Valleybrook for to learn about.) The plans we had for that day, (as well as a couple of other days) didn’t really happen, but God took that and blew our minds. We didn’t end up getting done with our devotional until like 4 pm or something, and then we went to the plaza, which is basically like the town hall, and we all spend some time doing prayer walks. I got to talk (in very broken Spanish) to a number of students for like an hour or so. I was so exhausted afterwards, but pumped at the same time!

Tuesday we started a little earlier and had another prayer walk downtown before lunch. Then after lunch we got to bless a kindergarten school with building some shelves, weeding a flower garden that was very out of hand, pulling vines off of a fence, taking down a chalkboard that they had been using as a bulletin board and put up some actual bulletin boards, and scraping a ceiling that had a ton of peeling paint. It looked amazing when we left!Wednesday we learned a lot more about prayer and finished up at the school and then finished off the night with going to the coffee shop that we’re going to be opening in February.

Thursday was kind of the culmination of all that we had learned about prayer. We really were challenged to put into practice what we had learned. We spent about an hour handing out coffee and cookies to people in the market and then asking if they needed prayer about anything. Everyone on the team has a story to tell about what God showed them through the market ministry and the week as a whole, but that’s Friday. :) After lunch some of us went to the school to finish/re-scrape the ceiling at the school. Kudos to them, I know some of them didn’t want to but they did it with out complaining. The rest of us went to the base and painted some barrels for the recycling program we’re starting. Then as we were leaving I hit a car with the van. :( But God is good; it was all taken car of in a matter of hours. Apparently I am an official YWAMer now that I’ve hit something.:)

Now for Friday, which was awesome! We were planning on going to the beach, but it ended up being cold and rainy so what did we do instead? We worshipped and talked about what God did in each of us throughout the week. Boring huh? NOT! Six hours flew by and by the time we finished at 5 (without even eating lunch I might add) God had brought a ton of healing into the room we were in. I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to explain what He did that day but it can really only be felt; it’s very unexplainable. By the end of the day we were oddly enough thanking God for the crappy weather which forced us to stay and allow what needed to happen to happen.

Then Saturday after the team packed and such we had the “Amo Mi Ciudad” event (I love my city). For three hours about 80 volunteers painted curbs, cut weeds, swept the streets, picked up garbage, and probably a lot of other things I can’t remember right now. Then we all met at the park downtown and had a concert. What was cool about it was the fact that we could play Christian songs (even some worship songs) in English and even the people who weren’t Christians liked the music without knowing what it was.:)

One more thing that was really cool about each day was that it seemed like I needed to go somewhere each morning and every time I thought I would miss the teaching, but somehow I would always get back just as it was getting started. It was a really cool thing to look back on; I was able to run all the errands, but also didn’t miss out on anything I was supposed to hear.

God did so much in all of us: team, staff, volunteers, and everyone else that there’s a ton that happened that I don’t even know about. At the start of the week, I was looking at the schedule and all of the stuff that needed to get done each day, and I felt super overwhelmed. But God did everything that needed to get done each day and everything went so smoothly that there are times that I think back on all the we did, and think “How the heck did we do all of that in six days without dying out of utter exhaustion?” But I always realize right after thinking that God knew what was going to happen that week and He knew what we all needed to see and hear. And obviously He made sure everything happened just as it needed to.:)