First day!

¡Hola a todos!

Today was our first official day of ministry!  It was grand.  This morning I went with Manuel (a Crusade staff from here in El Salv), Jacob and Craig to shop for cell phones to keep our team in contact while we’re on campus.  There’s some sort of rule that only allows each person to purchase 2 cell phones here…I’m not quite clear on that.  However, the bottom line is that I now have 2 Salvadorian cell phones in my name.  Crazy.  I’ve never owned a cell phone…and now I legally own two. 

After the cell phone adventure came lunch.  Native Salvadorian cuisine…so delicious.  I ate some pupusas, tamales, frijoles and arroz. I was stuffed as I rolled myself out of the restaurant and into the 10 passenger van (that we stuffed 15 people into).  Then it was off to the national Crusade office, where we met more staff and some student leaders.  We worked on using the soularium tool and taught some of the Salvadorian students how to use the tool too.  It was great to get to meet the students and more staff.  After about 2 hours of meetings, we cut loose and had a little dance instruction time while our leaders met alone.  Here’s a portion of our latin dance lesson…Marvin was our leader.

(video coming soon)

After leaving the site, we headed out to Nelly’s Pupuseria where we enjoyed another marvelous Salvadorian meal.  And it was made complete by a quartet of elderly men playing the marimba in the background…so fun!  I am loving my team so much, and am excited for our first day of campus ministry on Monday.  Please be praying that spiritual conversations with Salvadorian students will excite a passion for the Lord in this country.  The staff here is great, and they have really fed the passion of our team, letting us know about how many students need to hear the good news of Christ.  Thanks for all of your support!  I wouldn’t be here without all of your help! 

 

In El Salvador!

Hello all….

After 2 days of intense briefing meetings with other international summer project teams… we were on our way to San Salvador.  Our last day in New Port (for briefing) was especially great.  The El Salv. team went down to Balboa to do a little beach evangelism before catching our red-eye flight at 2 am Friday morning.  We used this great evangelism tool called Soularium, which is a picture survey used to initiate spiritual conversation with people, and eventually lead to a Gospel presentation if people are interested in hearing about it.  What a blessing it was to go out with Kaylee and share the Gospel at the Beach!  Our first attempt, though not soul-saving, was sweet because we met a mother and daughter (Robin and Rebecca) who are on fire for the Lord and even prayed for our trip!  How cool it was to have complete strangers lifting us up in prayer.

Then came the RED EYE.  Oh my.  Crazier than I remember red-eye flights being. Perhaps because it was international, perhaps because I was flying with people I met three days ago, or maybe it was that I had been awake and active for 20 hours before the flight took of.  But it was something.  We arrived in El Salv. somewhere around 8am local time (one hour ahead of Pacific time).  

In other news…I LOVE MY TEAM.  They are an amazing group of people, and I love that we are united in the goal of reaching El Salv. with the Gospel. The girls are especially amazing (maybe I’m biased).  I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in San Salvador with all of them, and we are all napping/updating family and friends with info about our trip. 

Speaking of sleep…I think I’ll catch a few winks before I go out and explore the neighborhood with my team.

Oh, and here’s the women of the team:

I’m Off!

Tomorrow morning I am heading out to Vanguard University in southern California.  I will be there for the next few days.  I’m meeting my team, learning more about the ministry that lies ahead and preparing for life outside the US. 

Tonight I had a sweet commissioning/prayer time with my family, along with the Chesney and Burt families.  We had some time to share about the different ministries that 5 of us will be embarking on in the next few weeks.  It was so sweet to be surrounded by fellow believers, senders, and those going out into the mission field.  I was reminded of my calling, refreshed and am ready to minister out of “overflow.”  That is, my ministry is the result of my love of Christ, my desire to know him and make him known in this world.  Wow.  What a great way to spend my life.  Thanks to the support of everyone, I can share the love I know with others.  My gratitude is so deep.

David Chez read to us tonight…words of refreshment, of preparation for the mission field from Luke 10: After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

 

Prayers for myself and other missionaries that I met with this evening:

Megan Chez- headed to Argentina with CSIDE bright and early tomorrow morning, will be there until July 3

Morgan Burt- also going to Argentina with CSIDE…

Julie Chez- flying to Tanzania with two other women from First Pres Bako on Friday

Amy Kelly-my dear lil sis will also be going to San Salvador (same locale as myself) with Teen Mania within the week…it would be sweet if we ran into each other over the trip!

My team-communication/language barriers…I get the feeling that there are very few bilingual participants…pray that my nerves will be calm and that the HS will flow through me as I try to interpret/translate.  It is very taxing and nerve racking to think about being a main source for communication!

 

Thanks for the prayers….more to come soon!

 

 

50 LBS.

For international flights, the luggage weight limit is set at a strict 50 lbs.  Therefore, I will be packing all of my clothing for my 6 week project, meanwhile keeping track of the weight of my bag.  My mom, sister and I shopped around at Kohl’s tonight in search of the perfect mid-sized luggage.  I found a satisfactory piece, which I hope will satisfy my need for clothing (two to three weeks worth of underwear) and the regulations on luggage weight.

I also think that the large “AMERICAN TOURISTER”  logo on the bag might be a “steal me” sign in Spanish.  Oh well.  God will provide for our safety

 

Also, I read up on “Cruzada” the Latin American branch of Campus Crusade for Christ tonight.  Pray that I would be able to memorize scripture in Spanish this next week!

“Jesús le dijo: Yo soy el camino , la verdad, y la vida; nadie viene al Padre, sino por mí.”

-Juan 14:6

 

New Blog!

¡Hola!

I’ve set up this blog to keep all of my ministry supporters updated!  I will be adding more posts as summer approaches….

If you haven’t heard, I’m headed to San Salvador for 6 weeks this summer to work with Campus Crusade for Christ on a number of university campuses.  I will be on a team of about 15 students who will be sharing the gospel and starting up Crusade “Movements” as the Salvadorian school year begins.

I’m still learning a lot about the ministry in El Salvador as my team will be the first summer project group to go!  Though I don’t know much, I do have a ministry update already….I will be suffering for the Lord by living in a Hilton Hotel while in El Salvador  

I promise there is a reason behind this (security, mostly).  Anyway, I wanted to let you all in on what’s going on!