Life at Home

Ut has been wonderful to see my family and friends again. Above is my Dad and my girlfriends, minus a few, about to go out my my favorite Sushi restaurant in Portland! Yum! It was incredible!
This is in Palsbo up in the Seattle area where Natalie lives. It was a relaxing time ;0)

Zach and I stuck to our tradition of carving pumpkins together. It was fun ;0)
And then we ate donuts and Zach brought his own Fun-Fetti icing. Thats just wrong. You gonna eat that Trav??

Its been good to be home. I leave for Indonesia on the 24th and will be there for 2 months! I am excited to get back to ministry and seeing my friends! I can't wait!

New Beginnings.....

So, Life isn't always as it seems........

As I have been telling you all....I was planning to do a school called PhotogenX. I came home from my trip for my supposed one week stay and held a fund raiser selling my photography. It went really well. The turn out was good, the photos all sold and it was great to see everyone. Unfortunately, the amount I needed did not come in. I was so thankful for what did come in, but I was confused because I really had clear words from God to do this trip. When I got home, I was talking with my girlfriends and my mom and we got a verse when we asked God why the money had not come in. In ezekiel 44 it said "then the man brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, the one facing east and it was shut. The Lord said to me "This gate is to remain shut." To me that just meant that although I had been faithful with what I had been told, plans have been changed. I am grateful to God because I know that He has my best interests in mind and athough the school wa something I really wanted to do, it's ok. I know that there are even greater plans for me.

Unsure of what to do next, I went to Seattle with my friend Natalie from my DTS and spent a couple days with her, clearing my head praying and getting new direction. I had said before that if the school didn't work out I would want to go back to Indonesia. So I prayed. I asked God for a word to go or to stay and I feel that I am being led to go back to work with the teams there for a few more months. Right now I a working on a 60 day Visa and I should know very soon when I will be able to get on a plane again. I am very excited to do more work with the people and I miss my friends there so it is a plus to be able to see them. I am thankful for all of the support I have been given by so many of you and I will keep the updates coming as I gear up for this next step. Please keep me in your prayers! You're in mine!

A Beautiful Week of Miracles

Saying goodbye is not easy. But when God performs miracles for the people you have met and loved, it makes it more of a celebration!

At the beginning of this week God spoke to me and said that this week would be a battle unlike anything we have experienced. He said that we should be bold and not hold back in any way. We went into our times in the sulms on fire for seeing miracles and people saved. Let me just say, God has been faithful and He meant what He said.

This little boy in the picture above is someone we have been praying over for the past few weeks. He was normal at birth but at age one, experienced a terrible fever that left him more like a child with cerebral palsy. When i first met him he could not sit up on his own or control his arms or legs. His head was too heavy for him to hold up and his legs were contorted in strange ways. I met with his family again yesterday and asked if the prayers have helped. They said that he can now sit up on his own!! It's a miracle! I am sooo excited to know that his life has been impacted and that God is healing his body!

We also saw two nearly blind women have they"re eye sight restored! And someone with uneven legs was prayed for and our team members witnessed the shorter leg grow to match the longer leg! I'm serious! It's so awesome how powerful God is and how much our prayers matter!

This week we have seen at least two salv.ations and so many people taught about evang.elism and sprit.ual war.fare. It has been an amzing week so far and with only 3 more days of minist.ry, we are excited to see what will happen.

The boy in the middle is Nenang. He is from a mus.lim family but he likes us so much that he brings his friends when we do mini.stry and visits the families in his community while we pray for them and speak about Je.sus. He gave me a braclet and it was so sweet. I will really miss him.

This is another amazing buffet that Petrina's parents took us to on our day off. Best Tiramisu that I have ever had. Wow. Blessing.

This is a baby that we were able to pray over and bless. He was perfect.





This woman has a lot of grandkids..... :0)

God's creation masked by man's creation ....

Yea, that's an Iguana. He was so cool. haha


Garbage slum......





I don't want to say goodbye to my friends and family I have here in J-city but its coming to an end. We are wrapping up with a dinner in one of the slums and bringing pictures to our new friends. We will never forget our time here.
God is amazing. I am blessed. J-city is tranforming. The Kingdom is near.

Time Flies......

Only 2 weeks left!!

I can't believe how fast 6 months has gone by. It's really crazy! And as hard as it has been, I have really fallen for the people in J-city and it will be so hard to leave. I have made such close friendships and have built relationships with amazing people in the communities we visit. I have seen God heal people, bring Mus.lims to know Him as their Lord and Sa.vior and countless lives impacted by the love He gives us for others. It will be something I always remember as a very special time in my life. It has been a challenge and a struggle but overall, completely fulfilling and incredible. God is good.

These are just a few photos I have taken this last week in the slums....

This week we said goodbye to our amazing coordinator Bene. We sent her off to go to law school in Holland. It was sad but we were happy to see her move into more of God's plans for her life. These are a few pictures from the party....

Me and Didi

The girls making Bene her encouragement poster!

This is a picture from the diner I went to on my day off.... It was supposed to be an American Diner so there were pictures of celebrities on the walls. And yes, this is Bill and Monica in the middle, right above Mcally Culkin and below OJ Simpson with he glove on hahahahahaha

OH, and on the other wall was a picture of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson during "the Incident" hahahaha SO that's what they think of Americans....nice

This was right before we did a Indonesian tradition of egging and flouring our translator for his birthday......I dont understand it, but it was fun....

This was a Street Kids ministry we ran. We did a drama about the fruits of the spirit, worshipped, gave a message about Je-sus as our comforter, and did an altar call. All the kids accepted Je-sus it was awesome. We prayed over them and just spent time loving on them. It was a lot of fun.

This is Natalie with the Pear of Patience...clever eh??

This was during my message about how Je-sus comforts us....I showed them how much he loves to hug us ;0)
The Faithful Crew

J-city Traffic Baby.....oh yeah....we taxi it everyday.....gotta love almost dying more than once a day.....I sure do






This is just Goofyness.....I love riding my motey-cycle hahaa

This is Ibu Uti.....I think she's incredible. She has been through a lot and after the recent loss of her husband I know she enjoys the company. Its so rewarding spending time with someone who needs the friendship......

Well, I better get going to bed....It's been a long week, I have to be up early tomorrow to prepare for a Youth Service we are leading. I hope to see everyone at my ART show in Salem on the 26th of this month!! I'm only home for one week so make space!! I love you!

I'm back....sorry for the delay....

So this week was an 8 day-er. Yea that's right....no day off....8 days. I'm so glad that it was my day off today! I can finally write everyone! I have had a good but challenging week. Full of work to do and pushing through barriers. I have been struggling with homesickness and feeling overwhelmed by the intensity of the city. It can get to a point where you really just want to go unnoticed. Because westerners are such a minority here, we are stared at constantly. There is really no let up. So sometimes it's hard to be watched all the time. I know how you feel Brangelina..and I'm sorry. haha The last 2 weeks have flown by though! I thought my birthday was two days ago! I'm definitely gearing up to come home but at the same time, I'm so sad when I think about leaving my new friends here. They are incredible. I'm so afraid I will not be able to see some of them again....I pray I will though. We have so much fun together. I got some new slum photos as well. We celebrated my Oma's birthday on the 16th and that was incredible! A couple other girls and I brought her a birthday cake and sang to her. She took the cake, blew out the candle, cried and thanked God right then and there. It was so special. We spent time with her just laughing and enjoying her amazing company. Before we left we prayed blessings over her and then she made sure she walked with us to get a taxi. She held my hand the whole time and is totally a surrogate Grandma for me!! So cute! I had bug bites and she was putting this special cream on them and fussing over me, it was so precious. :0)

We also went to "The Call Indonesia" which was a 15 hour day of prayer in a stadium with 7,000 Indonesian Youth. We worshiped and prayed for the nation. It was truly special. They had a time of repentance in which people asked God for forgiveness, wrote down their sins, placed it in a bag and then the bags were burned in the middle of the stadium. I believe the heavens were celebrating with much joy that day. It's incredible the things that can happen when a nation repents and turns towards holiness. Just look at Nineva in the book of Jonah. I feel like I witnessed a monumental event in history that day. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera there to capture it, but it was spectacular.

Earlier this week we had a nice dinner over at a good friends new house. She just moved from Perth to J-city and she made us Satay and mixed veggies and rice...yum. And she had an indoor pool so we swam a few laps.. :0) Then we went to Bene's house a few nights later(she's our coordinator for the north) and that dinner was amazing too! Yum. On Wednesday I dyed two older women's hair for them in the slum. Ibu Tini is the headmaster of the school we painted the mural on and then I had enough for her friend's hair also. It was special to honor them in that way. Ibu Tini's husband told her she looked beautiful and young and she blushed. It was so cute. Earlier this week on Sunday, we were invited to a church service. Afterwards the people there offered us hot drinks. It was not just any normal drink you may think of like coffee or tea. Oh no. It was hot, puree of green beans in a bag with a straw. It was interesting. I guess it's some sort of dessert here but in America, beans are not generally dessert haha. It was a funny experience.

And on our day off today, we went with Petrina to meet her Dad. We had not expected having lunch with them but he invited us and we ate at the Grand Hyatt again! Oh my Gosh it's so fancy and the food was amazing! What a huge blessing! Asparagus, prawns, tenderloin, sauteed mushrooms, hot bread, Jasmine ice tea, crab stuffed dumplings, and real mango pudding. I was stuffed to say the least. It was such a beautiful atmosphere there also. Wow, what a treat.

Afterwards we went to La Piazza and met up with some of our friends from ministry. We had some fun taking pictures so I thought I would include my faves ;0)

Gangsta haha

Here are some photos from this last week....


Nice sunset over the swamp slum.......
Yes he's carrying that on a motorcycle.....and this IS normal here! hahaha


Aren't they precious??! I love giving hugs....they love affection, so it's a lot of fun.

Oh my goodness he's so cute
My New Favorite photo


This is green sludge pouring into the canal that runs through the slum....isn't that nice. I love the irony of the children standing on the bridge. We are trying to get this changed but it's a bit of an uphill battle.....

The mural we did on the school .....
That's garbage behind that rose......beauty in unlikely places


That's all for now...Thanks for following along guys. I miss you all! Please keep praying for us here! God Bless!