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! :)