El Salvador (Pt.1)

It has been over a month since I was in El Salvador. So much has happened and God has opened my eyes to so much. It was one heck of a trip and one crazy summer. God is so good.

We arrived in El Salvador on Thursday where we were blessed to stay in a nice hotel with hot showers and our own beds. The next day we had orientation and then hiked up a volcano! It was crazy. I felt like I was on the "island" from the show Lost! After dinner that day we went to the evening service at the church called Ruta 3:16. It was so awesome to talk in spanish with the Salvadorian people. I will never forget the first conversation I had with Juan, one of our translators. I was talking to him about why I was there and Catalyst when he told me that he saw an angel standing behind me.....an angel! He then proceeded to give me this word about my purpose in El Salvador. I was so encouraged! He then asked me if I liked to pray prophetic prayer or healing prayer more. I said prophetic prayer because I like encouraging people and I also hadn't see much miraculous healing before. He smiled and said to me, "That is going to change on your trip." He was right.

Our team did a lot in El Salvador so I will try to sum it up as best as I can. During the first week we visited this orphanage called "Tia Ana's House". Tia Ana is this incredible lady who used to be a prostitute until God radically changed her life. We heard her testimony that day and then played with a lot of the kids there. They were so cute and I loved being there!

That next day we prayed at two services. When we prayed we asked God how he had created the person and then told them. A lot of the people were so encouraged and it was awesome to hear what God thought of them. That day I saw God heal two people. The first was an older woman. I was praying for her when I heard the Lord say she needed healing. So I had my friend who was a translator come over as we prayed for her back. I simply said, "In Jesus name back be healed" and she said all the pain went away! Praise God. I was mind blown at that second. That evening we also prayed for this man who had breathing problems and he was healed as well.

During that week our team went to this one village called Comesagua in the mountains where we did a two day youth conference. It was beautiful up there. We prayed for a lot of the teens there and a lot of my teammates shared their powerful testimonies. On the second day we went on this hike with the teens through the jungle. It was beautiful and so much fun! I met this one boy named Daele and he was super cool to just hang out and talk with. I know God is going to do some wonderful things with those kids and the church there.

On our day off we did a lot of awesome stuff that I had never done before so I am going to take a brief moment to talk about that haha. I went ziplining for the first time! It was crazy. There were 7 lines than ran through this jungle/coffee plantation. At one point I was about 35 stories high over this valley! It was unreal. Then for lunch we went to this waterfall where one of my teammates was baptized. That was super cool.

One of the craziest nights in El Salvador was when we went to this one church near the ocean. It was freaking hot! That night we were going to pray at a healing service so before hand we asked God for what he wanted to heal and then made up a list as a team. The church worship went on for two hours. It was very lively and a lot of us were just trying to cool down. All the Salvadorian men had dress shirts and pants on. By the end of the service they were drenched in sweat because of how much dancing they were doing. When the message was over we called up people to the alter for healing. We prayed for this guy with back and side pain. I prayed a simple prayer asking God to heal this man and God completely healed him. He said that he felt a release of pain on his side. My teammate and our translator felt it as well. One by one people were being healed. The Spirit of the Lord was so evident in that room. Everyone was filled with the joy of the Lord. It was beautiful. Later that even we found out that everyone was 100% healed. I have never seen God move like that before. I couldn't believe God used me in that way. The end of the night was filled with dancing as we praised the Lord for what he did that night.

It Seemed Like All the Way to Tomorrow and Over It to the Days Beyond

So, once again I am super behind on updating my blog. Things have been super busy and now I am leaving for El Salvador tomorrow morning. I can't believe it. This summer has gone by so fast. These past few weeks have been filled with so much growth. Three weeks ago we had Jim Anderson come in to speak for the week and it was amazing. He talked about the roles of men and women in the church, purity and the daughter's heart. The week ended with an amazing prayer time with a lot of breakthrough in the room. He wrote a book called Unmasked. I highly suggest reading it. The following week we talked about the culture of honor and God's heart for the nations. I learned that honor is about asking for God's perspective on a person or nation. When we look at people we should see how God originally designed them and not the bad things about them. Same goes with the nations. Then this past week we talked about freedom in community. This week was super powerful for me. I learned what it looks like to operate on teams without pride, entitlements and passivity. It all goes back to honoring people above yourself. One line that stuck with me is that "God will offend your mind to expose your heart". Through emotional offenses Jesus will show you what to deal with. For me that is mind-blowing because God has been working on my heart a lot in those areas.
So now it is the night before international outreach and I can't believe that its that time already. Classes are over and now it is time to put what I learned to work. I can't wait to see what God is going to do on this trip. Our first flight is at 6 am in the morning so that means I need to get up 4 hours early.....eeek. We land in good ol' Dallas where we will have a layover until our flight at 4ish and we should be in San Salvador, El Salvador around 7 pm. We will be staying in a nice hotel which is such a blessing because there will be AC and San Salvador is freaking hot. The first week will be working with some churches and praying with some people there. We will be doing various outreaches such as visiting hospitals and feeding children. We will also be doing street evangelism which should be pretty awesome. I have always had a heart for the Latino community and I am so excited to be back in a spanish speaking country again. Please keep our team in your prayers. San Salvador isn't one of the safest cities in the world and is overrun with a lot of gang violence. Though I am not too worried because we have God with us and what else do you need when you have the Lord. We will be in El Salvador for two and a half weeks and then we fly back the 19th of August. I'm expecting God to show up in some crazy ways when we are there and I can't wait to tell you all about it. For now, Goodnight.

Where there's Life there's Hope

These past few weeks have been so awesome and amazing, I have not even been able to find time to blog about it. My apologizes friends. Two weeks ago we had Gary Weins from IHOP come and teach in our class for a week. It was mind blowing. Gary Weins has so much wisdom and knowledge of the Bible. The Word really started to come alive to me during this week. The first few days he spoke about why we pray. Many people see prayer as a "christian duty" but it is so much more than that. Prayer is fellowship with the Lord. The Lord desires to communicate with us and show us who we are. The greatest calling in our life is for us to love him like the 1st Commandment says. God wants chosen lovers who are choosing to love Him. Something so simple as loving the Lord carries so much power when we actually engage with the Lord. So cool. We also talked about the book of Revelation. I never understood it much before but Gary's teaching was super solid on it. Really opened my eyes to the meaning behind the book. It was a really inspiring week.
This summer has been a lot of laying down things for the Lord. God is breaking me out of my comfort zone and teaching me to live outside the influence of fear. God has especially been doing that in the area of local outreach and evangelism. This past week we talked about power evangelism. One quote from Francis Chan that stuck out in my mind this week says, "Simon says, 'Pat your head,' we pat our heads. Jesus says, 'Go therefore and make disciples,' and we memorize that verse." Jesus' model for missions has not changed. It is the same today.You can not convey the gospel without preaching it. So many things get in the way of people actually doing that. For me it's been pride and fear but God has been constantly breaking that down this summer. I know what I am called to do and I carry the testimony of what God has done in my life. We all have powerful stories. The stories are never ending. Each day is a new testimony of what God is doing in my life.
I want to live the kingdom lifestyle that we read about in our Bibles. God has been revealing so much to me about what that means in just one month. I know he is not finished. There is so much hope in living a life for Jesus. I never want to serve anyone else but the Lord. Everything else is meaningless. I want to grow into who God made me to be. God has gifted me in so many things that I hadn't even realized. I want to use all those gifts for his glory. I ain't playing now. This is for real.

Peace and Blessings

This past week has been crazy. I have seen God come through in amazing ways and I feel so blessed. This past Friday was the deadline for all our Catalyst funds that would go to buying the plane tickets for international outreach. I still had $2,200 left to raise on Monday and I didn't think it was possible to get all that money on time. God was really testing my faith in Him. Every morning I had to surrender my fears of not having the money in time and trust in the Lord to provide. I was reading through Matthew when I came across the verse in chapter 19, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." So I started to constantly repeat that in my mind whenever I felt discouraged. Then on the last day God came through. I had $290 to go on Friday after class and in a matter of 30 mins the money came in. It was a miracle.
Being at Catalyst has been amazing. I have been learning so much about the Lord and have drawn so much closer to Him. This week we have been talking about the way God speaks and reveals Himself to us. We started with the verse in 1Samuel that says, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." I have always been so inspired by that verse and hope to approach God like that when I speak to him on a daily basis. So during class we learned more about the ways in which God speaks and then practiced hearing his voice. It was so cool and encouraging to both pray for others and receive prayer.
This past Thursday was our first day of doing local outreach, which is something we will be doing every Tuesday and Thursday. I was so nervous at first to just go out on the streets of Tacoma and pray for people. We were split up into teams of four and our team went out near a university campus. My friend Jon and I started talking to this one guy that was an atheist but we didn't really get the chance to actually pray for him. Then as we were walking around Jon started talking to this other guy named Dibble. We ended up praying for him and he super encouraged by the things God revealed to him through us that we ended up sharing the gospel with him. We then asked him if he wanted to accept the Lord in his heart and he said he was finally ready. We prayed with him again and it was amazing. It was such an awesome moment to see this guy so moved and encouraged by the Lord. Definitely the highlight of my day! I can't wait to see what crazy things God does this next week because last week was insane!!! I'm so thankful to be here. Thank you all for your prayers.

Here is a glimpse of what Tacoma, WA looks like. Took this earlier last week when I was on a walk with my roommate 

The Road Goes Ever On and On

Hey Everybody. I just finished up my first week of Catalyst Training School and it has been awesome! God is just rocking me and breaking me down in such a good way. The first week of Catalyst is Freedom Week, so we have been praying through areas of freedom we need in our lives. One big thing that I got to pray through was fear. Fear has griped me my whole life and kept me back from doing so much. After one of the teachings I was called up to the front and was prayed for in front of the class. It was terrifying at first but as Adam and Aimee led me through a prayer of rebuking fear out of my life I started to feel so much lighter and freer. It felt so good to let go of the fear that had so long been griping me. I felt such joy once the prayer was done. This week we talked on various topics like strongholds, the power of your words, the Father's heart and much more. It's been really emotional but so good. I feel so much peace and love as I draw closer to the Lord. This Thursday we also announced our outreach teams. I am part of the team going to...wait for it...El Salvador!! It makes so much sense because God has put on my heart a love for Latino people. I'm so excited to learn more about ministry this next month and use what I learn to love on the people of El Salvador. It's so exciting! Keep me in prayer as I learn more about myself and how God created me. Also continue to pray for my fundraising for Catalyst. I still have half my support to raise. I'm so happy to be here this summer. I can already see so much growth in myself and am excited to see how will continue to grow me this summer. God is so good :)

Home is now behind you, the world is ahead!

It's true. Home is behind me and I am at Catalyst Training School at last. I am so happy to be here. On Saturday I got to explore Seattle and it is beautiful. I love being surrounded by water and mountains. Also Seattle is a pretty rad place. There are a lot of cool coffee shops and parks. Today we had our Catalyst orientation. We started out with some awesome worship time in the morning and that was wonderful. Then Adam talked about breakthrough in our lives that we want. The biggest thing I hope to learn this summer is to hear the Lord's voice more in my life. I really want this time to be a time of drawing closer to the Lord. Also big news: we find out where we are going on outreach this Thursday! The two locations they have chosen for the students are El Salvador and Fiji. We will all be split up into two teams and our teams will be announced this Thursday. I'm so excited to see where God wants me this summer. I am really enjoying getting to know everyone that is a part of the summer program. It's a really awesome group and I'm excited to grow closer to the Lord with these people. It's only been one day and I already feel like I click really well with everyone. Well, I'm gonna peace out now. I will hopefully post more updates when I find time. Continue to keep me in prayer friends. God bless