Long time no blog!

Hey guys!
I apologize that I haven't written in a while, but I'm back now and I'm about to fill you in on what's been going on over here....so pay attention! :)
First of all, I'll share with you what an AMAZING birthday experience I had. I woke up the morning of my birthday to find banners, balloons, cards, flowers, birthday wishes written with sea shells on the floor right outside my bedroom door. Then as I made my way down to breakfast I found messages written on every step of the staircase! After I picked my jaw up off the floor and slapped myself in the face to make sure I wasn't dreaming, I got down to breakfast and I was blown away with more surprises! All of the staff and students made a special breakfast just for me! They made me my favorite pancakes, played Frank Sinatra, had a birthday cake waiting for me, made me a birthday throne to sit on, and gave me lots of loud and obnoxious birthday flare to wear! Just when I thought all of the birthday surprises were over, I was surprised with a special dinner and table prepared for me and special friends to sit at. After that they took me to a local pub for karaoke night and they all sang me a special song. Over the course of the day "Happy Birthday" was sung to me four times. I truly felt so loved and well...like a queen! The really fun part was that I was actually surprised. I love surprises and it's very rare that I actually am. They really put a lot of thought and planning into it. Now I can't wait until it's the next persons birthday! Everyone gets involved and has a great time. I truly felt like it was everyone's birthday, not just mine.
One of the reasons why I haven't written in a while is because we all just got back from our Midterm Outreach. As I mentioned in a previous entry, my team went to a town called Arbroath here in Scotland for a whole week. It was a challenging experience for all of us, but we all left feeling really good because of the victories we saw.....
The atmosphere was spiritually heavy because of the depression we saw in many people. We also found ourselves drained from the busy schedules, most days we started around 8:00AM and ended around 11:00PM most nights. We had a variety of things to do in Arbroath. One thing I enjoyed was teaching the children about Jesus in the public schools. Here in the UK it's legal to teach them, which was really weird for me since we can't in the US. I kept feeling like I might get in trouble at any moment and had to keep reminding myself that's it's ok. Like I said before, the atmosphere was so heavy in that town, but as soon as I started interacting with the kids I was amazed to see that my energy levels rose immediately. God really spoke to me through them! We got to play games with them and they asked us all kinds of questions about America. They were so precious!
Another thing that I really enjoyed was visiting the drug addiction center. At first I was really intimidated by the thought of going into that place to talk with people because I'm the kind of person that likes to be pursued. When we got there I was truly touched by one particular conversation I had with one of the guys there. He's been addicted to drugs and alcohol for a very long time and willingly opened up and shared his struggles with me. He told me that he had been clean for three days and how hard it's been for him. I really felt lead to share with him how I was set free from drug addictions and alcoholism myself. This opened up a chance to go deeper in our conversation because it felt safe, like we could trust each other. I then felt led to share with him how lonely I was because I new that I needed to leave all of my old friends behind in order to change. I shared with him how hard it was and spent a whole year fighting temptations and searching for something to fill the emptiness I felt. I then told him how I met Jesus and became a believer. Immediately after sharing this the guy had tears in his eyes and thanked me for saying that. He told me that he feels the same way and that he thought he was the only one. It took a lot for me to hold it together and not burst into tears. I knew that my heavenly Father was doing some incredible work at that moment. I told him how proud I was of him and that he's not alone. That man told me that I gave him so much hope that day. I left feeling a sense of peace knowing that the Lord did that! The Lord used what was once garbage in my life and turned it a beautiful piece of artwork, displayed for all to see! What an awesome God! This makes me so much more excited to see what else will happen in while we're in Morocco!
Over the course of that week in Arbroath, our team became much more closer and learned a lot of things about each other which will help us in our next adventure together.
Speaking of Morocco....
I found out that we are leaving on January 1st. From Scotland we will fly into Spain and stay 3 days for a training course to prepare us before heading into Morocco. Once we get into Morocco we will spend most of our time in the city of Agadir. We will most likely be working in orphanages, teaching English to people, building friendships, prayer walking, and possibly taking some language classes for ourselves. Right now there are areas that have been devastated due to flooding. We are praying about how we can be of aide to those regions as well. On our team we have five girls and three guys. Some of you may be curious to know what we will wear....the girls will need to wear loose fitting tops that cover our bums but probably won't need to cover our faces unless we are in a village. We will need to wear our hair tied back at all times because there they have a saying "loose hair=loose women." The girls have also been advised that it is a good idea to wear makeup because most of the women in Morocco do. We don't want to anyone to get the wrong idea about us and we also want to be respectful of their culture. The men will need to dress "smart" as they say here in Great Britain, meaning they should look nice....dress slacks, clean shaved, button up shirt, etc...
All of us are starting to get excited as we learn more about Morocco and keep asking God to break our hearts for the people there.
Life here at the base has been keeping me very busy. We have lectures up until 9:00 at night sometimes. In my free time I enjoy giving all the boys haircuts and teaching the students to crochet mittens and hats (boys included!). I also love to go down to the beach and watch the seals play and swans swim. Sometimes I have to remind myself where I am and try not to take anything for granted. It's so beautiful here, I wish you all could be here with me to see it! It's been really great just to hang out with people and catch up on some reading when there's time. Don't get me wrong....I also really enjoy learning everything that I have learned in class too!
I just want to take a moment to thank you for you words of encouragement. I would have no motivation to write anymore if it weren't for you! So keep 'em coming! My favorite is just hearing from you and learning what you've been up to. It makes me feel like I'm at home with you.
Till next time! :)

Crazy town

Guten tag!

Welcome to more adventures at the Seamill Centre.

I would like to start off by telling you that we are all lunetics here at the base! To entertain ourselves some of us have taken up Table Wrestling. Table Wrestling is something we like to do anytime after 11:00 pm and to best describe it....well...you have to lay on top of the table, get underneath and around back to the top of it without touching the ground....rediculous! :) see video below.

The other night we all had a DTS "Pamper Party." All of us were instructed to wear our favorite colored clothing and show up for an evening of pampering and fun. We all started off by giving each other manicures, pedicures, and facials. Believe it or not, I think the guys liked it the most! We also played a lot of games like musical chairs, four men on a couch, racing games of sorts, etc. It was a blast! We all acted like little kids and laughed, fought, wined, ate lots of sugar and played until midnight. I couldn't help but laugh because one of the girls was so competitive that she even pouted and said "it's not fair!! He cheated! That's not fair!" Then she sat down with her arms folded and pouted....seriously. It was so funny! When we all finished we decided to draw names for Mortals and Angels. Mortals and Angels is pretty much like Secret Santa if any of you have ever played it. We draw names and secretly do nice things for each other for all of next week without the other person knowing who you are. We are the Angels and the person's name that we drew, that we do nice things for, are the Mortals. Next week we'll reveal ourselves to our Mortals. I can't tell you who I got just in case they read my blog. :)

Last weeks teaching was on the Father Heart of God. It was so amazing to hear our speaker tell stories of how God has made Himself known in his life. Many of us cried a lot (good tears) and are discovering true healing. I personally have got a mad crush on Jesus. I'm wrecked for life....in a good way! The guest speaker had us crammed in his room like sardines on the last night of teaching. We all ate pizza and huddled around him to hear more stories. It was so fun because it felt like we were all his children listening to bed time stories. It's amazing to me how I've fallen in love with each and every person here. To me, they are my sisters and brothers. We prank, get mad, laugh, play, cry, and love each other just like siblings do.

During the course of this whole school all of us students are expected to give a 15 minute speech on whatever we want. My turn was on Thursday. What was weird is that I wasn't nervous at all. I was actually really excited to get up there. I talked about how I took the bus for the last 6 or 7 months before coming to Scotland and how God used it to teach me some VERY important things which have forever changed me. I felt like the Lord asked me to share these things with everyone. So before I got up in front in front of the class I just prayed that the Lord would give me peace and his passion for what he wanted me to talk about....and man did he ever use me! People were crying at the end and a lot of them came up to me over the next few days to tell me how impacted they were. People that weren't even there for my speech were coming up to me and talking about it with me. The stories I shared were God's stories. He used me to share His heart that day. What an awesome Father!

Some of us have been going to the local "old man pub" every week. We are going there to be a blessing to the people there and also to make friends. The other night a group of us walked in and found it so quiet that you can hear crickets chirping. Some time went by, and before we knew it people were approaching us and talking with us. This rarely happens in Scotland. If you read my previous blog you may get somewhat of an idea. By the time we left, people were laughing and saying goodbye to us. They definitely look forward to our return next week.....I'm so excited to go back next week too. These men struggle with alcoholism and are so hungry for love. Two of my new friends there are 70 years of age. They have some great stories to tell and I can't wait to hear more!

Love, love, love.

Going on a misson

So I'm going to Morocco for my outreach! Every DTS student wrote down their first and second choice for outreach and each one of us gets to go to our number one! It hardly ever happens where we all get to go to our first choice. Some of us had our hearts set on a certain place but felt the Lord asking us to go elsewhere. Others were very open to go anywhere and listened to what God had to say about our hearts desire and passion for the people of the choice places (Cambodia, Scotland & Morocco). The Morocco team (myself and 7 others) will be leaving shortly after Christmas. We just had our first meeting as a team today which was very exciting. We all shared why we chose Morocco and all of us will be doing research on the country and praying so that we will all begin to have an even bigger heart for the people in Morocco. I'm pretty excited about our team......we all like to laugh a lot and have no problem bonding. :)

Our team will also be going on a Mid-term outreach to Arbroath, Scotland from November 15th-22nd. Arbroath is a small town with a high un-employment rate. Due to the high un-employment rates many people struggle with depression. Since I've been in Scotland I've learned that a lot of the people here have broken hearts. A lot of Westerners think of the movie Braveheart when they think of Scotland....proud of their country and willing to fight for it.....FREEDOM!!!!! Unfortunately that's not the reality for many people here. Many Scots feel like they don't deserve anything and aren't proud of their nation and they don't feel a sense of freedom. A lot of the Scots are very prideful, like they don't want any help and can do things on their own. Many come across as "closed off." There are some people who won't even respond to you if you try to talk to them. It breaks my heart to see this. So, with that being said we are going to Arbroath to bring love and joy to the people there and show them that they are WORTH IT!!!!!! I'm so passionate about going! I'm really looking forward to meeting the people there and planting seeds of love and joy!

Things have still been going very well here at the base. This last weekend I got to take a ferry across to the Isle of Arran. It's a large island which was described to me as "miniature Scotland." It's very beautiful there and has a lot of Scotland's best features all in one island. I went with a group of 4 students. When we got home I remember saying to myself, "Man it feels good to be home!" That's the first time I really felt like this is my home.....it was a very nice feeling! I missed everyone and went around squishing them and couldn't stop smiling. :)
All the lectures here have been really good. There's lots of information to take in and process so I'm taking TONS of notes. Almost all of the speakers here, and many of the staff, are Greg Boyd fans (the pastor at Woodland Hills, my church back at home). It's fun to hear that they know who he is and are inspired and motivated by books that he's written. Many of the speakers teach similar to the way Greg does too.

Well....that's it for now. As always, I would love to receive letters from you!
I love you and miss you all!

Life at the base

Wow, what a crazy, busy, fun, and information-packed week this has been!
Good morning friends! It is Saturday and I'm writing to catch you up to speed on my life here at the base.....woo hoo!!!
This week was "Intro Week." Lot's of information to take in! We started off by getting work duties assigned to us. These are duties we are expected to do each day of the week (excluding weekends) The purpose of these duties are to keep the base running, to keep us busy, to work together as a team, and to hear from God during these times. The choices to choose from were: kitchen duty, hospitality, and housekeeping/maitenance. I am in the kitchen and I love it! The other day I was making a curry stew and ended up smelling like it for two days....but that's ok....I love curry :) I hope no one else minded.

We've been attending lectures and also getting to do a lot of really fun things. On Thursday we got to attend a Celidh (kay-lee). It's a traditional Scottish celebration of eating and dancing. This was a formal event so we all got to dress up and made our way down to the candle lit dining room. The evening started off with a traditional and ceremonial-like presentation of the haggis. Haggis is a sheeps stomach filled with oats and left over parts of the animal like liver and intestines....all the good stuff (I'm trying not to barf as I type this). We were also served nips-n-tatties which are turnips and carrots mashed (like mashed potatoes). Did I eat the haggis? Was I brave enough? Well, the answer is NO! I did eat the gravy though which was made from the juices and fat from the meat...nasty. I'm happy to report that I'm alive and well. Seriously though, it was really awesome to come together like one huge family (about 75 people). It felt like a holiday. So after the meal we got a chance to learn and participate in Scottish dancing! Scottish dancing is danced to a three-count music (like the Polka). It's not hard to learn at all and boy is it a work out! It's a very fast-paced style of dancing. One of my favorites is called The Flying Scotsman. This dance involves eight people....four guys and four girls. We each pair up in two's and stand in corners. Couples dance together and then meet in the middle, and then (this my favorite part) two of the couples come together in the middle, the girls wrap their arms around the guys, and the guys lift them up by their shoulders and spin around. The girls legs end up flying out and the guys move up and down while spinning! It was really fun to be the one flying! I slept very well that night and wow, I'm still feeling sore today!

Speaking of sleep...I am SO incredible happy to report that I've been sleeping well here!!! So well that I sleep right through my alarm clock most mornings! Some of you reading this may already know that I have struggled with insomnia since I was about 14 years old. It's SO nice to be able to sleep through the night. Thank you for all of you that have been lifting me up in prayer! Praise the Lord!!!

We also learned on Thursday of the places that we will be sent to on outreach. We have the weekend to think and pray about which one we would like to go to. The choices are:
Scotland, Cambodia, and Morrocco.
I have no idea which one I would like to go to. I'm open and willing to go wherever. For those of you lifting me up in prayer, please join with me and pray that I will hear the Lord speak clearly and also be open to go wherever He may be calling me.

I would also like to say that my family here is amazing! We have all been connecting and growing together so much already. The other day on our tour of Scotland we went to Loch Lomand (lower part of the Highlands), and on this visit to I got to witness the first official YWAM dare with our DTS. I think it's pretty much a rule that you have to be crazy when you become a YWAMer....although I don't think it's written anywhere. :) There's a large pier with a gorgeous view of the hills and water. On this pier there's a huge sign that says "absolutely no swimming from the pier." So what do we do? We decide to pool together as much money as we can and see if we could get someone to jump in the water! We ended up with 30 pounds (roughly 60 American dollars) and got one girl and two of the guys to take on the challenge of swimming in the ice cold water and race to the pier and back! Luckily I had my camera ready to capture this all on video. While they were in the water a few of the observers in our group ran off with their clothes and shoes! It sure was funny and absolutely insane.

Setting all silliness aside, we have been leaning on eachother for support and prayer and really going deep in our conversations. It's so fun to talk with them because we all come from different walks in life of culture, traditions, values, and so much more. It truly is beautiful to hear so many different accents all in one place too! We have people from South Africa, France, Germany, Canada, Alaska, New York, California, Georgia, Wisconsin, Scotland, England....and even more than that, I just can't remember all of them at this moment. God has called us all to be here together. I can't wait to share with you the experiences to come of how He unfolds His plans for us and unites us more as His body.

Well I'm going to get going now.....I think I will take advantage of this sunny day (very rare this time of year) and get outside!
My love goes out to you!
Oh, and don't be afraid to write me a letter :) It's so fun to look in the mail box and find a letter waiting for you from someone you love at home.
Cheerio!

Greetings from Seamill!

Since the last post I started to feel a little emotional. It could have had something to do with the fact that I was feeling so tired and just "off" and I also was yearning for some in-depth conversation with someone. But the number one thing that I was longer for is God. I felt distant from Him and was praying that He would reveal Himself to me in a mighty way. Even though I knew He was there I felt so alone. I started to journal and pretty much wrote my prayers out on paper and the Lord heard my cry! Gotta love Him!

I went back to my room at about 9pm and was delighted to find another girl in there. Her name is Kate from England. :) We both were very interested in eachother's story. She travels to Scotland EVERY weekend for school and she is studying Natural medicine. Of course she cought my attention right away because I love learning about natural methods to heal the body. Anyway...she asked me what I was doing here and I so I told her about YWAM. This opened up a HUGE door for me to share with her what the Lord has done in my life! She asked me why I chose God and not Alla or Budda, etc. I just began by telling her my story of who I was and how the Lord changed my life. Then something incredible happened. A major wall came crashing down and I could tell something inside of her broke. Her speach was different and there was even a different look in her eyes. I felt a warmth come over me and was led by the Spirit to pray for her as I was listening. She told me how her life has been changing drastically and how she's feeling about it. We definately went deep! I ended up sharing some of my natural oils that I like to put on before bed to help me sleep and of course we talked about natural remodies for a long time. The Lord revealed Himself to me through Kate and also used me to share His love for her. What a mighty God!

Kate and I fell asleep around 10pm and I woke up at 12:45 in the afternoon! Talk about a good nights rest! I needed it badly. I was however running terribly late so I rushed to get ready and off to the train. When I got to the train station I found myself a little panicked. Everyone was hard to understand and I was carrying a little over 100 lbs of luggage! I almost broke down in tears because every time I asked someone for directions I couldn't understand them. Even though people speak English here they use different slang terms....for example...an apartment is called a flat. Ok, so I bucked up, sat down, took some deep breaths to compose myself and waited for the Lord's help to arrive. At this point I didn't even know what platform to stand on. Sure enough, a gentle older woman approached me and asked if the train that I was in front of was going to Largs. I told her that I have no clue and I think she could tell that I was desperate for help by the look on my face. She very calmly found out where the train was going and said to me "this train is the one we need to get on. There's flooding along the way so we'll have to get off at some point, take a bus, and then hop on the train again. You best stick by me and I will help you." Thank you Lord!!! This woman was an answer to my prayers. So I'm on the train and I'm sitting next to the woman and a younger boy, probably around the age of 15 or 16. When it was time to get off the train, the boy offered me a hand with my luggage! I eventually got to West Kilbride (my final destination). After about 10 minutes of waiting and not knowing what to do next, a car pulled up next to me and the man said, "are you going to YWAM?" I said "YES! Thank you Lord!" I got in the car with him and little boy and we pulled up to the base about 5 minutes later. This town is absolutely beautiful and the base is huge! I thought I was going to burst because I was SO happy to finally meet my family! I unpacked my luggage as fast as I could and got a tour of this place! Then I got to meet everyone and I think they thought I was going to burst too because I couldn't stop smiling. :) I felt so relieved to be in the presence of family and I felt right at home from the moment I arrived here. There are 16 students including myself. My roommates name is Rachel and she is from England and she is 30 years old. The two of us had a nice time bonding last night and talked until it was time to go to bed. The other students are:
David 18, US
Inka, 20 Germany
Meredith, 23 Indiana
Kelly, 20 Washington
Jamie, 24 Alaska
Jordan, 19 East Coast US
Jordan, 18 US
Barbie, 23 England
Sarah, 20 Canada
Rachel, 30 England
Holger, 19 Germany
Alex, 23 Indiana
Me!, 24 Minnesota
Emily, 30 Georgia
Jazz (Jasmine), 19 Washington
Leanne, 23 Scotland

Almost everyone went to church this morning and I decided to stay behind and have a slow morning since yesterday was kinda crazy. This afternoon we're going for a hike to see a nearby castle! What a beautiful sun shiny day it is too! Well....that's it for now. Till next time....

Welcome!

So I thought I would give this blogging thing a try. I figured it would be a fun way for you to get into the inner workings of my brain...and to keep you posted with the latest and greatest.

Enter at your own risk! :)

So I'm in Scotland as you know and I'm a tired zombie at the moment, and you'll have to excuse any spelling errors or run on sentances, and such-and-such.

ok, where do I start....

Let's start with yesterday 10/02/08. Yesterday, as you all know, I got to Scotland safely. I met some amazing people, and fell in love with this beautiful land. Well last night I was REALLY bored and had to stay awake until bed time, so I decided to venture out to see what I could find. I had been running on 1 hour of airplane sleep, so I thought it would be a good idea to grab a "sleepy time" beer at a local pub. The plan was to drink a beerskie 2 hours before bed and be off to dreamland. I walked into a nearby pub and found a bunch of old Scottsman sitting at the bar. No one even close to my age in sight. So I walked up to the bar, asked for a recomendation, tasted a Scottish ale or two, made my decision and plopped down. Well at this point I was starved for human interaction and no one was saying anything so I struck up conversation with the lads. I could hardly understand a word that they said. Some of them had very heavy accents so I had to pay close attention and ask them to repeat themselves a lot. I don't think they minded though. They were real fun to talk to because they were friendly and to my knowledge, interested in what I had to say. I learned a lot about Scotland in the short amount of time I spent with them. One valuable piece of information that stuck with me was to NOT drink water from the bathroom sinks....only kitchen sink water is ok to drink. They said that the bathroom sink water is real dirty. This is good for me to know because some of you may know that I'm a huge water drinker and will pretty much drink water from any place I can get it.

So anyway, I said goodbye to my new friends and walked back to the hostel. Sure enough I fell asleep right away at 7:30pm. I ended up waking up several times with the feeling that you get when you oversleep. I was so confused and wondered "where am I?" and "what time is it" each and every time. I got out of bed at 1:30am because I couldn't sleep anymore. I was so lonely and really hungry. It was pretty brutal to think that I had 6 hours before breakfast time. So what did I do? I ate yet another granola bar (I don't think I can eat anymore of those....pretty sure that was the last one if I can help it!). Thankfully I discovered a "TV room" and began to watch Scottish TV. I had a diffucult time paying attention to the show that was airing because there was always a little person (on every channel) at the bottom right hand of the TV screen. Instead of subtitles they have people that take turns signing for the hearing impaired. How interesting! Anyway...I was able to take a little nap at 5:30am and woke just in time for breakfast at 7:30am. Thank you Lord! I was feeling better because I felt a little more rested and knew that people were going to start waking up! So I made my way down to the breakfast hall for unlimitted amounts of coffee, tea, mueseli, fruit, toast, yogurt, and croissants. Everyone down there had different accents and it was so beautiful to hear them speak. It was very refreshing to finally talk to someone.

After breakfast I went for a stroll in Glasgow, took many pictures, and ran into the most beautiful art museum I have ever seen! It looks like a castle! The best part is, is that it didn't cost me a thing to hang out there for as long as I like. So like a zombie, I shuffled my way through the entire museum. I learned a ton about Scottish history and found myself smiling a lot because there were so many cute little scottish school kids running around.

So here I am, back at the coffee shop downstairs from the hostel writing my very first blog entry. I hope you were atleast somewhat entertained by my little adventures so far. I'm just feeling really antsy at this point to meet my new family in Scotland tomorrow. I feel like a little kid on christmas morning. I have butterflies! I'm ready to receive all that the Lord has in store for me while I'm here. His presence has been so strong ever since I left home. It's so good to know that He is using me to shine His light with every person I've encountered so far. God is so good!

Well I think I'm going to try and find a grocery store near by. There's gotta be other snacks besides granola bars around somewhere :)

Cheers! (that's how the Scotts bid farewell or offer thanks)