March Madness

Well it has been a while since I've updated this blog. My apologies, it's been once crazy month. Let me try and briefly fill you in on what this month has looked like for me so far and what the rest of it holds.

Early in the month I received the sad news that my grandmother's health was dwindling significantly. She entered a hospice therefore my family (mom, dad, Joel, and April) made the decision to go and see her. I was able to leave the DTS for a short time and join them. As we are unsure of how the illness will progress we wanted to take the time to see her all together. It was a very difficult and emotional time for the family, but also a blessed one as we were able to have a nice visit with my grandma and grandpa, and also see many other relatives that we had not seen in some time. Please pray for my grandparents as they are continuing to walk through this difficult time.

After returning from Quebec, I hit the ground running. Due to a scheduling error I made we were able to have a week to prepare for our outreach by practicing our dramas and dances, planning children's acitivities, and doing some research on the countries we will be traveling to. After our prep week we dived into a double lecture week where the
had 24 hours of teaching (vs. the regular 12 hours) on grace and worship. The students did wonderfully and persevered through the many hours of lecture. 

Last weekend I was invited to bring a team of my students and make the treck down to San Bernadino in southern California to lead a Justice and the Arts evening at my friends Sarah and Aaron Ortega's church.On Friday evening the girls were able to share about various injustices happening worldwide and also here in America. We then invited the youth and young adults to creatively express what God had spoken to them throughout the evening about justice. It was really incredible to see my students express themselves so well and to teach others about some of the things they've learnt over the past few months. Saturday we were able to relax and spend time with Sarah and Aaron which was a lot of

. Then Sunday morning I was able to share with the church about God's heart for Justice and the issue of Human Trafficking. This was my first time speaking in church and Aaron was gracious enough to allow me the whole morning to share. It was such an answer to my prayers to be able to talk about justice and also to be an advocate for this injustice that God has laid on my heart. I hope to be able to continue working on this teaching and sharing in more churches soon.

We are now less than a weeks away from our outreach to Cambodia and the Philippines. The students are getting increasingly excited about leaving. We have only one more week of lectures left and then a few days to finalize everything and then we are off to Asia! Please continue to pray for the staff and students during this extremely busy time. 

Pray that we would be able to get everything finalized here in California. Pray also that God would continue to knit our team together in love and unity and that through that God would use us in mighty ways.

I look forward to sharing with you as much as possible over the next few months the things that God are doing in and through us overseas. My goal is to update this blog with pictures at least once a month. We will also be sending out team updates weekly. I would love to hear from you while I am away and will try to respond to all personal emails as much as the internet allows me in these developing countries.