A Week in the Life...

Oh, how I've looked forward to this day... a Saturday off when I could go to Haymarket (the famous Boston farmer's market) where people from all over the world come and buy and sell local produce, cheeses, breads and spices. It's one of my favorite things in this city I (temporarily) call home. I LOVE getting to go there, and today I had a good excuse of needing to make a big fruit salad. They always have cheap prices, but today was especially amazing... I think the best I got was 3 containers of raspberries for $2!! DELICIOUS!!

Yesterday evening, before the Lighthouse (our church's weekly College Worship Night) I met three students from Bahrain, whose first language is Arabic. I asked them how to say "thank you" in Arabic, and I learned that it is "shukran." Today, when I made my first purchase of apples (5 for $1) and plums (8 for $1!!), I said "shukran" and had a great interaction with the vendor. I later met several members of a Vietnamese/Cambodian/Chinese family who are Christians, and invited them to my church. It was such a fun, joyful day for my heart. I felt my love for this city just grow in my heart as I walked among the people. I felt the Lord also increase my heart to see Boston prosper, and give me grace to love these people I will only live among for a few more months.

This year marks my 7th year of living in the lovely Boston area. Funny that I live only a 2-minute walk away from the Residence Hall I moved into my Freshman year at B.C. It's crazy, though, that I live with women I didn't even know existed before I came here, and have a huge community of people I get to call family. The Lord really does "set the lonely in families."

Speaking of family...

This past week I spent with my church-planting team. We spent the week getting to know each other more, discussing personalities, giftings, and sharing parts of our lives with each other... I loved it! I sometimes find it difficult to talk about myself a lot, but it was a safe and sweet atmosphere to get to do it, and I really do feel connected in a deeper way to my team. It was so sweet, life-giving, encouraging, and it's helped me to walk in greater confidence in who I'm made to be, as a daughter of God. There is so much the Lord is teaching me in this season, and I can't for all He has in store for me... He is so good!

Thank You, Lord, for your mercy on my life and for giving me hope, a future, and a life that's more FULL than I could have ever imagined!

India!!

Jesus just gets better and better... how can that be if He doesn't change? All I know is that He is revealing Himself more and more to me and our entire team here in India, and I am amazed. It just amazes me that He knows me! Even though I feel like I am always changing my mind or my heart, or I'm faced with new circumstances, He is steadfast by my side and and such a patient leader.

I have been in India for almost a week now. After arriving at about 2am on the 14th, I joined up with a team of friends from Chicago that were here in Bangalore the two weeks before I got here. I got to see them for just a few hours that day, before they got ready to head back to the states, but it was so refreshing to hear their testimonies of encountering God in powerful ways throughout their time here. And then after they left... MY TEAM ARRIVED!!

I wish I could express how excited I was, throughout the whole morning I kept checking my watch to see if it was time to go meet them at the airport! When we finally got there (after about an hour long cab ride) I leaped out of the car and ran to meet them shedding tears of joy!! It was the sweetest thing to see everybody - family, really - after the past month.

The only way to describe our time in India so far is life-changing. Each morning we have been getting together as a team and just asking God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and He has only an abundance to pour out! Because we have just been so filled with the love and power of Jesus each morning, we have been able to go out into the streets of Bangalore and boldly share it with the Indians we meet. We have seen several people healed of physical sickness and pain (in backs, shoulders, stomachs, head, and even open wounds be healed), and several others decide to follow Jesus for the first time. As much as we are seeing external changes, the most incredible thing is that people's hearts are being impacted like never before when they are touched by the love of Jesus.

All I can say is that I love this! I want to live this life everyday! I am amazed more and more each day how God really can share His heart with me so that His desires and dreams become mine, too. I am so thankful that He is not far off, but that He is nearer than I ever thought possible... He just makes life so worth living! :)

On the move...

Signing on from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!!

So today I officially said good-bye to Indonesia and am headed to India, the next leg of the race! My layover in KL is about 8 or 9 hours and its been such a great time to just sit with Jesus and quiet my heart before joining up with friends in India. I'll be getting to India about a day and a half before the rest of my friends from Boston, so I'll be staying with a couple of the girls who recently moved there and are hosting our team!

The last few days in Indonesia I spent on the island of Bali - Java's next-door neighbor. I joined up with Carolyn, Ben, Aeden, and Naomi in Ubud (Bali's cultural capital) at a beautiful hotel nestled among the beautiful rice fields and lush landscape all around. We honed our bargaining skills at the market there, in preparation for Kuta - the beautiful beach on the west coast where all the tourists go. I slowly weaned off of speaking Indonesian after trying to learn as much as I could in Malang.

Some highlights from Bali: the exquisite colors of the flowers and trees, going to an art village in Ubud where they paint some BEAU-tiful canvases!, watching the sunset in Kuta, eating freshly-grilled seafood ON THE BEACH while watching the sunset, diving in the most powerful waves ever, being buried in sand by Aeden and Naomi, eating mexican food... WHAT?!, and the joy of loving perfect strangers. On our last day we met a shopkeeper and got to pray for him that he and his wife would be able to have a baby because they haven't been able to for a long time.

The sweetest thing is that my entire time has been covered by the simplicity of knowing the beauty of God's hand-crafted creation in every moment. More than ever I am convinced that His faithfulness stretches to the skies!

there are a few notes from the journey... I meet up with the Boston crew in a couple of days and I am SO excited for all that's in store for our time in India!
LOVE :)

Another week gone by... :)

Sorry I haven't updated in a while... here goes for the last 2 weeks:
We went to a monthly outreach event that one of the families here has been holding throughout the past year. We were able to meet several Indonesian friends and perform a drama that shared the Good News about the love of Jesus. We were talking about forgiveness that night and one of the girls on our team shared her life story with the whole crowd (of over 50 people) and how amazingly God has worked in her life. It opened up great conversation and relationships with people and I was able to meet a few girls that I've been able to hang out with during the rest of my time here!

After that, we had a weekend village stay in Kucur (KOO-chour) complete with
1. a nice cold mandi (Indonesian style bath where you just dump lil bucketfuls of super cold water on yourself)
2. eating fresh coconut milk after a guy climbed up the tree with his bare hands and feet and a machete
3. teaching 80 children english songs and games (with pretty much 1 translator)
4. entertaining a bus load of Indonesian cigarette factory workers that came from Malang (the city we are based out of) up the mountain to Kucur just to see us "bule-bule" (pronounced BOO-lay, its the Indonesian word for 'white people')
5. INCREDIBLE friends: The family that hosts us are well-respected in the village. It is our friends Eli ("Elly") and Isaachar (they are brother and sister... Eli is 30 and Isaachar 27) and their family that are involved in the church here in Malang. Eli actually went with me and my team to Sumba last year and is tiny and quiet until she gets up to preach or pray and then is like this little fireball of passion and conviction! She is incredible! Our favorite thing to say is "saya suka Eli" which means "I like Eli" in Indonesian.
6. DELICIOUS food: The women in the family and throughout the village come over and spend pretty much all day in the kitchen preparing the meals, and they are the best meals I've had up to this point in my entire time in Malang! Some of the things we ate were: rice, fried corn patties, tempe (fried soy bean... SO good), chicken wings, chicken soup, veggies, some yummy cupcake muffins, and lots of fresh melon.
7. The best part was getting to go through the village meeting families and praying for whatever they wanted prayer for. It was such a sweet time!

After getting back from the village on Sunday we went to a safari park where you just drive through and the animals come up right to your car! We saw lions and tigers and bears (OH MY!) and elephants, deer, giraffes, monkeys, alligators, komodo dragons, leopards, it was amazing! We ate lunch beforehand at this environmental research center (supported by USAID) that has all organic food (we had the best bananas I've ever had there) and it has lil bungalows you can stay in, too... it's gorgeous!!

Last week we had a lot of free time to navigate our own schedule. Ben and Mike (the two dads on our team) taught an IT seminar to educate Indonesians and give them job skills, and Sarah (my sweet friend and roommate throughout the trip) and I helped them. We spent time in the big city park meeting and praying for people, and we even met one man who invited some of us go to his village later that week and help 11 and 12-year olds learn English.

Most of our team left last Thursday to head back to Boston, which brought tears, for sure. After they left I went and stayed at a discipleship house that Eli started a few months ago. It was an awesome few days to get to live with 5 Indonesian girls and see what life is really like living here. We spent an entire night just laughing in bed because we couldn't communicate very well... our thumbing through the dictionary was comical :)

These past 3 or 4 days I've been staying across the street from the girls' house with a couple named MJ and Hayley. They are from a sister church in Texas. Hayley spends most of her time with Eli and the girls at the discipleship house, serving and mentoring them, while MJ has a graphic design and media art business that He is working on here.

That's pretty much it for now... I'm heading to Bali tomorrow for a few days. I'll meet up with one of the families from my original Boston team who stayed longer, too, (Ben, Carolyn, Aeden and Naomi) and I'm hoping to have a few days to relax and allow God to prepare my heart for my next trip to India.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

In Indonesia and LOVING it!

It's Wednesday morning and our team is getting ready to head out to meat another short-term team from Austin, TX for lunch (at a place called "Malibu Steakhouse"... sounds pretty nice, eh?)! So far the trip has been amazing and our entire team is drawing closer to Jesus each day. The 5 little girls are champs and have made the trip SO much fun!

Sadly, our leaders Danny and Lisa were not able to make the trip with us because Danny got pneumonia and the doctors advised that they not come. We were so bummed, and we miss them terribly, but God has been so gracious in uniting our team and really building a family among us as we work together to encourage each other, help the moms with the kids, help adjust to a different culture, etc... it's really amazing and I am so thankful for how God has provided all we need.

Surprisingly, July is cool season (meaning 70s and 80s, haha) in Malang, so we're not dying in the heat! This is the biggest blessing for Sarah and I who experienced the intense heat and humidity last year and were dreading it. It's been cool and so refreshing at night at in the early morning. Normally we wake up at around 5am right as the sun is lighting the sky. For me it's been sweet time to meet with God, pray, journal, worship, and just quiet my heart before each day.

Later today we're going up the mountain to a village called Kucur (Koo-chour) where we'll be staying for two days this weekend. It will give the parents a chance to see what it will be like for the kids. What I'm so excited for is to see my friend Eli ("Ellie") who I met last year - she is an incredible woman who loves God and loves her entire village with more passion than I could express!

Alrighty, well it's time to head out, but hopefully I can give you more of an update later today!
much love!!

Yay for my first post!!! Almost there!

So... before we were ready to board our last flight from Hong Kong to Surabaya, Indonesia we stopped to get a drink (coconut mango bubble tea...mmmm) to take on board and... FREE INTERNET ACCESS!!!

So quick update: we've made it all the way from Boston to New York, then to Vancouver, then our longest flight to Hong Kong, where we were able to meet up with one of our sweet friends, Kathy and she took us to a delicious Hong Kong "Dim Sum" restaurant where they come around with carts of food and you just pick what you want if it looks good! As far as the weather, it was pretty hot and muggy, but it was a nice break from airports and refreshing to be in beautiful Hong Kong.

Well... sorry to be so short... but our flight is getting ready to leave and I'm so excited about finally getting to Indonesia!

Pray that our visas would go well once we get there and that our 3-hour car ride to Malang (where I will be for the next month) goes well!
love you all and miss you already!