Birthday!!

I'm 22 now!!!!

My birthday was incredible and full of lots of fun and love! In the morning I awoke to breakfast in bed! It was very sweet and I felt loved right away! Then we got ready and went to the mall to meet up with our Indo team members. Natalie bought me starbucks as you can see....a lovely treat for another HOT day! Then we headed off to the garbage dump! haha What a birthday plan eh? Ususally we ride in tiny buses without air conditioning but this day, God filled the bus so there was no room for me and I got to take an air conditioned taxi instead! Yay!! haha

At the slum we were doing mini.stry and also gathering photographs for a promotional video we are making to promote slum adoption in local churches. When we leave, we want to see J-akart-a continue to transform! You would not believe the conditons in this area. The burning garbage, flies and ash in the air was enough to make us want to leave instantly.....but this is their life. Their job is to go through the trash to find things to sell or recycle for money. Can you imagine??
After walking around in that area, we walked through the nearby homes and met this little boy. His name is Marlan. He was cutting out temporary tatoos and I saw him and told him it was my birthday. I had been joking that I wanted a tatoo for my birthday so I told him that it's perfect that I met him. He cut me out a sweet Italian Soccer player tatoo and helped me put it on. After telling his mom it was my birthday she looked surprised and then started kissing him all over his face. We were a bit confused until she said "oh my goodness, I forgot, it's his birthday too!" Oh my. haha We couldn't believe it!! It was special to be able to sing him happy birthday and share that moment. We asked what his favorite candy was so we could pick some up but he said that all he wanted was prayer! Can you believe it??? I ten year old wanting prayer instead of candy?? He was amazing. They happened to actually be a Christian family and we were able to pray for blessings over Marlan and his family. We also prayed for his cousin who is a little girl who is deaf and mute. We asked him if he believed that Jesus could heal his cousin and he said yes. So we asked him to pray with us and it was an amzing time of crying out to God for healing! What a blessing on my birthday. Later that night we got to clean up a bit and have dinner at the mall. Becca and I had a nice time together. Later that night we went to the water slum to teach english. A mu.slim lady my team and I had met and prayed for said that after we had prayed, her stomach problems had been healed! Awesome. Then when we were leaving the slum, all of the translators, who have become good friends, and my team mates surprised me with fireworks!! They had sparklers and all sang me happy birthday right in the slum! haha it was so much fun!! Then they prayed blessings over me. It was very special. We all headed to tea at this very cute tea place where we played Scrabble and Mancala unitl about midnight. It was a good day!
On Saturday we got up way too early :0) and went into the slums again for more min.istry time with new groups of young people. I was able to meet up again with the Mus.lim lady that I had shown the Je-sus video to. We shared the full gos.pel with her and even though she did not accept Je-sus, I know that what we have shared has touched her heart and I believe God will continue to work with her. Later that night we had some free time before my official Birthday dinner so Kim and I went to a Loreal stand where they were doing free makeovers. I got my hair and make up done for free! It was so fun! Then we had awesome Sushi!!

After sushi we went to do Karaoke!!!

Oh my gosh can you say fun?? We had our own room and we crammed in about 25 of us! There were 3 mics and two TV screen to pick songs and we sang for three hours. The background behind the songs was really cheesy 80's videos and some were so hilarious we almost peed our pants. Seriously, Natalie had to stop a song for me because I was dying. There was one of a woman dancing with a seal!! I'm serious! It also was translated wrong sometimes and said very funny things!! It could not have been more fun....(accept maybe if I had friends from home :0) )

This is Mark

Jungtina

One of our translators and friend Devin---I call him brother bear hehe
This is Andy--- he is so sweet
This is Bene our amazing coordinator and friend




Hans----soooooo funny
This is Richard---He has come out of some really hard things but has been with us so much for min.stry and is really going for it with God




I felt so blessed to speak with friends and family back home and I was so taken care of here as well. God is amazing. And I am not the same as I was last year. Amen!!

Passion World Tour

We were blessed enough to go to Passion World Tour which is a night of worship and teaching featuring Chris Tomlin! It was a wonderful time of worship and it was a lot of fun. God knows when we need refreshment of His love and this was a night for that. It also marked the halfway point for our outreach :0)

VIDEO!!!

I uploaded a video to YouTube! I tried to do it on here but Blogger seems to have trouble so please visit this link to see our video of our painting on the school and wall!
Just copy and paste!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vcpmaNUn_0
Hope you enjoy it!!

Another week in WOW

So we had another eventful and long week. We visited new slum areas, one at an old train station where the prostitutes and gangs hang out, and one in a garbage dump. Exciting huh? :0) We prepared a drama to perform at the train station but we're told that an open air preaching time was no longer going to be permitted so we preformed it at a combined church service nearby later that night. During our time at the train station slum, we handed out food for 60 people and were able to lead two people to the Lord! Praise God! One was a poor young girl who had been sold into prostitution. She was told she would be working as a maid but is now under the control of someone who owns her and she is now trapped without money or a safe place to go. Somehow but he grace of God, we were able to share the good news with her and she accepted the Lord. We are going back tomorrow to follow up and spend more time with her. I was also able to share a movie with a Musl.im lady that was made here in Indonesia about a musl.im girl finding Jesus! She enjoyed it and has been allowing us to pray in J-esus' name. We prayed for her and her back was healed! She even says that she knows it was J-esus that healed her! We are so excited. She said she was interested in a relationship but was afraid of what people would think. We prayed that God would reveal more of himself to her and we are praying that when we go back this week, she will accept the J man! Amen

Also, in the garbage slum, I met a little boy named Michael. He had been normal at birth but around age 1 had a terrible fever that has impaired him for life. He now looks like a severe cerebral pasley child. He is 4 years old now and cannot walk or speak but is absolutely precious. I held him and had a great time making him laugh and giving him lots of kisses which he loved! He loves to make the kissing sound, it's adorable. We prayed over their family and even though our group was only in the slum for an hour we saw another man come to know the Lord that day. Also, cool story, one of the girls on our team has been praying for her eye sight to get better and it actually has! She has had it checked twice in the last 3 weeks and it has gotten better each time! She heard God tell her that every time she cries for someone else out of a genuine love for them He will heal her eyes more and more. What a miracle.

This is a slum we really love. I played soccer with these boys and there are so many children!! I'm terrible at soccer but this boy Fredrick was always bringing me the ball. SO sweet.

This day we helped out with something called "The Call Indonesia." It's a project to transform Indonesia to see the kingdom of God come. This was a medical and dental care clinic they set up with the help of the military for about 1000 people.

These kids were excited for pictures....
They nearly knocked me over!!!
Painful to watch haha
Good work Boys..........
They liked learning english....and wanted to know if I would marry a Mus.lim....hahaha
Its been a good week. I just had a nice day off. I am now writing again at 1 am and need to be up Early so I must go but this week will surely bring great photos and stories considering my birthday is on Friday and our schedule puts us in the garbage dump that day! haha I also am going to see Chris Tomlin tomorrow night and many other crazy things are bound to happen! Stay Tuned!! Love you All!!

VERY EXCITING WEEK!!!!!!!!!!

So this week has been absolutely incredible! God is moving so much here in J-city! We saw our first

!!!!!!!!!!!

We actually saw four this week alone!!!!!!!!! We have been able to actually share the love of God with many people and it has been so encouraging! We have also seen healings! I have to tell you the spirits of our team is up up up. We are really feeling the power of God and we want more!! hehe

This is a very sweet sweet lady named Oma (grandma) Kristina. She is a beautiful woman who I met in the first slum we visited during our first week. I saw her and felt that i needed to tell her how beautiful she was. She said she was just a grandma, how could she be beautiful but in my two Indonesia words I assured her she is ;0) Ever since that day, when she sees us coming up the road she gets out of her chair to give me a big hug! I love it so much and I had been wanting to badly to speak with her but it seemed that we were always in passing so I never had time or a translator. On one of our limited speech meetings she hugged we and looked me in the eyes and did the "father, son, Holy Sp.irit" sign (catholic) and I was so surprised and happy because I had just assumed she was Mus.lim! I decided after that to write her a scripture from an Indonesian bible. I asked one of my translators to help me write her a special note from me as well and I tried for two weeks to deliver it to her! (she was never home!) When I finally saw her she was so blesses and insisted that I come up to her home so I took one of our translators and we spent a wonderful hour with her! She is so funny and sweet! I told her that she really reminds me of my Grandma and she said that I reminded her of her grand daughter! So we decided that we have each other here and I now have a surrogate Grandma since mine are so far away! hehe I absolutely love her! Her birthday is on August 16th, 8 days after mine so I am going to bring her a cake and throw her a little party! I cant wait!

We also started to do family portraits in the water slum to honor the families there. This is one of the families and the little baby in my middle is actually a year old. The baby on the right is three months old but yet so much bigger. We were able to encourage the mother to take her baby to the hospital to runs some tests on why she is not gaining weight properly. We also were able to pray over her. We will be checking in with her soon.

On Saturday we did a mini Discipleship Tra.ining school for our translators and some youth that come with us during ministry. I was able to speak on the topic of hearing God's voice. We had a good time of teaching and then we went into the community to put Love in Action!

This is the slum we went into. We saw TWO Sal.vations this day! The students were pumped!

This story is incredible..... So remember in my last blog entry where I wrote about the little girl with Typhoid that we prayed for and her fever went down as we prayed??? Well the next day, SHE WAS COMPLETELY HEALED!! We went back and she was running around playing full of energy and had no signs of sickness! Her parents were very happy and we give all glory to the Big Man!! Hallelujah

We were blessed to be able to see our other team members who stay in other parts of the city. Since we went through lecture phase all together we became close and it is hard not to see them so it was so nice to have a wor.ship time, good home cooked dinner and Madagascar for our movie! So funny!
This is Samuel from Brazil and Steve from LA
This is Philippe from Switzerland and Sarah from Canada
Then a few of us today for our day off went to the mall....Its one where you can bargain so we were excited but then we went in.....
Can you say overwhelming hahaha

Anyways that's all for now. It's 1 am and I have to be up around 7:30! Love you and Miss you all! God Bless You!!!

A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words

We have been diligently working in slums 5-6 days a week. Earlier this week we started painting the mural on the front of the kindergarten. We have gotten quite far with it this week and its turning out so cute! I will post photos when it is finished! This is Becca helping us out with a little base coat.......

This is a little girl named Linda that I met today. She was very sweet and her mom and younger sister came along with us for a while after we met them in a very large slum area. We were able to treat some open wounds on her foot and hopefully they will be healing soon.......
This man was proud of his shop and asked me to take a photo....He looks quite regal :0)
This is a big open field are where the kids run and play....it was surprising to see so much land....there is not much space in J-akarta for open fields



The kids are always asking for photos

Yes this is the middle of many many neighborhoods. Garbage everywhere. Today we walked in between slums and even worse then the bridges we have walked before was having NO bridge. The ground is covered in garbage and old clothes soaked in sewage and waste and many of the children do NOT wear shoes so their feet sink in and become covered in this. It's normal for them......



This is my teammate Juntina....this was her 25th birthday party...She's wonderful!
Nathan and one of ours translators, a hilarious guy named Hans

These are the cute kids we teach English to at the Kindergarten. This week we taught them to say "I love my family."

When we waited on the Lord the previous week for some words or strategies for our ministry times in the water slum, we felt to teach the kids practical encouraging phrases that reflect the Kingdom of God, like “I love you!” or “You look beautiful today!”or "Can I hug you?" Lo and behold, the kids got it, they took it home to the parents, and as we were leaving, a glorious chorus wafted through the walkways --- moms and dads and brothers and sisters chiming in “I love you! I love you too!” and everyone was hugging!! It was so cute. I really loved that moment and I know God did too ;0) We have been working hard and asking God everyday for strategies and ideas to reach out to the people. We have been visiting youth groups in the area and getting the young people to come with us into the slums. Many of them have never seen this part of their city so up close even though a huge part of the population lives in these conditions. Its so encouraging to see them step out and get into the heart of what God sees. I have been excited to see changes and have been really seeing God's faithfulness. COOL STORY....today we were praying for this little Mu.slim girl who has typhoid fever. She lives in the slum and was very sick last week as well. When we laid hands on her to pray she was burning up. I was so worried about how hot she was. As we were praying we could feel her cooling down! And after the prayer her temperature had lowered considerably! She slept during the prayer and was almost un-wakable but when we visited again a couple hours later, she was awake and alert and still cool. It was incredible! Praise God! We will continue to work and I ask for your prayers. I also need a bit of prayer for finances. I have been sick and have needed to visit the doctor so I am in need of a little extra this month. If you feel led to help out in anyway you can use my US Bank account # 153655438510 or any prayer will be very appreciated! I love and miss you all!