Amanda's Crazy Adventures

Life at Home

2008-10-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

Ut has been wonderful to see my family and friends again. Above is my Dad and my girlfriends, minus a few, about to go out my my favorite Sushi restaurant in Portland! Yum! It was incredible!
This is in Palsbo up in the Seattle area where Natalie lives. It was a relaxing time ;0)

Zach and I stuck to our tradition of carving pumpkins together. It was fun ;0)
And then we ate donuts and Zach brought his own Fun-Fetti icing. Thats just wrong. You gonna eat that Trav??

Its been good to be home. I leave for Indonesia on the 24th and will be there for 2 months! I am excited to get back to ministry and seeing my friends! I can't wait!

New Beginnings.....

2008-09-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

So, Life isn't always as it seems........

As I have been telling you all....I was planning to do a school called PhotogenX. I came home from my trip for my supposed one week stay and held a fund raiser selling my photography. It went really well. The turn out was good, the photos all sold and it was great to see everyone. Unfortunately, the amount I needed did not come in. I was so thankful for what did come in, but I was confused because I really had clear words from God to do this trip. When I got home, I was talking with my girlfriends and my mom and we got a verse when we asked God why the money had not come in. In ezekiel 44 it said "then the man brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, the one facing east and it was shut. The Lord said to me "This gate is to remain shut." To me that just meant that although I had been faithful with what I had been told, plans have been changed. I am grateful to God because I know that He has my best interests in mind and athough the school wa something I really wanted to do, it's ok. I know that there are even greater plans for me.

Unsure of what to do next, I went to Seattle with my friend Natalie from my DTS and spent a couple days with her, clearing my head praying and getting new direction. I had said before that if the school didn't work out I would want to go back to Indonesia. So I prayed. I asked God for a word to go or to stay and I feel that I am being led to go back to work with the teams there for a few more months. Right now I a working on a 60 day Visa and I should know very soon when I will be able to get on a plane again. I am very excited to do more work with the people and I miss my friends there so it is a plus to be able to see them. I am thankful for all of the support I have been given by so many of you and I will keep the updates coming as I gear up for this next step. Please keep me in your prayers! You're in mine!

A Beautiful Week of Miracles

2008-09-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

Saying goodbye is not easy. But when God performs miracles for the people you have met and loved, it makes it more of a celebration!

At the beginning of this week God spoke to me and said that this week would be a battle unlike anything we have experienced. He said that we should be bold and not hold back in any way. We went into our times in the sulms on fire for seeing miracles and people saved. Let me just say, God has been faithful and He meant what He said.

This little boy in the picture above is someone we have been praying over for the past few weeks. He was normal at birth but at age one, experienced a terrible fever that left him more like a child with cerebral palsy. When i first met him he could not sit up on his own or control his arms or legs. His head was too heavy for him to hold up and his legs were contorted in strange ways. I met with his family again yesterday and asked if the prayers have helped. They said that he can now sit up on his own!! It's a miracle! I am sooo excited to know that his life has been impacted and that God is healing his body!

We also saw two nearly blind women have they"re eye sight restored! And someone with uneven legs was prayed for and our team members witnessed the shorter leg grow to match the longer leg! I'm serious! It's so awesome how powerful God is and how much our prayers matter!

This week we have seen at least two salv.ations and so many people taught about evang.elism and sprit.ual war.fare. It has been an amzing week so far and with only 3 more days of minist.ry, we are excited to see what will happen.

The boy in the middle is Nenang. He is from a mus.lim family but he likes us so much that he brings his friends when we do mini.stry and visits the families in his community while we pray for them and speak about Je.sus. He gave me a braclet and it was so sweet. I will really miss him.

This is another amazing buffet that Petrina's parents took us to on our day off. Best Tiramisu that I have ever had. Wow. Blessing.

This is a baby that we were able to pray over and bless. He was perfect.

This woman has a lot of grandkids..... :0)

God's creation masked by man's creation ....

Yea, that's an Iguana. He was so cool. haha

Garbage slum......

I don't want to say goodbye to my friends and family I have here in J-city but its coming to an end. We are wrapping up with a dinner in one of the slums and bringing pictures to our new friends. We will never forget our time here.
God is amazing. I am blessed. J-city is tranforming. The Kingdom is near.

Time Flies......

2008-08-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

Only 2 weeks left!!

I can't believe how fast 6 months has gone by. It's really crazy! And as hard as it has been, I have really fallen for the people in J-city and it will be so hard to leave. I have made such close friendships and have built relationships with amazing people in the communities we visit. I have seen God heal people, bring Mus.lims to know Him as their Lord and Sa.vior and countless lives impacted by the love He gives us for others. It will be something I always remember as a very special time in my life. It has been a challenge and a struggle but overall, completely fulfilling and incredible. God is good.

These are just a few photos I have taken this last week in the slums....

This week we said goodbye to our amazing coordinator Bene. We sent her off to go to law school in Holland. It was sad but we were happy to see her move into more of God's plans for her life. These are a few pictures from the party....

Me and Didi

The girls making Bene her encouragement poster!

This is a picture from the diner I went to on my day off.... It was supposed to be an American Diner so there were pictures of celebrities on the walls. And yes, this is Bill and Monica in the middle, right above Mcally Culkin and below OJ Simpson with he glove on hahahahahaha

OH, and on the other wall was a picture of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson during "the Incident" hahahaha SO that's what they think of Americans....nice

This was right before we did a Indonesian tradition of egging and flouring our translator for his birthday......I dont understand it, but it was fun....

This was a Street Kids ministry we ran. We did a drama about the fruits of the spirit, worshipped, gave a message about Je-sus as our comforter, and did an altar call. All the kids accepted Je-sus it was awesome. We prayed over them and just spent time loving on them. It was a lot of fun.

This is Natalie with the Pear of Patience...clever eh??

This was during my message about how Je-sus comforts us....I showed them how much he loves to hug us ;0)
The Faithful Crew

J-city Traffic Baby.....oh yeah....we taxi it everyday.....gotta love almost dying more than once a day.....I sure do

This is just Goofyness.....I love riding my motey-cycle hahaa

This is Ibu Uti.....I think she's incredible. She has been through a lot and after the recent loss of her husband I know she enjoys the company. Its so rewarding spending time with someone who needs the friendship......

Well, I better get going to bed....It's been a long week, I have to be up early tomorrow to prepare for a Youth Service we are leading. I hope to see everyone at my ART show in Salem on the 26th of this month!! I'm only home for one week so make space!! I love you!

I'm back....sorry for the delay....

2008-08-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

So this week was an 8 day-er. Yea that's right....no day off....8 days. I'm so glad that it was my day off today! I can finally write everyone! I have had a good but challenging week. Full of work to do and pushing through barriers. I have been struggling with homesickness and feeling overwhelmed by the intensity of the city. It can get to a point where you really just want to go unnoticed. Because westerners are such a minority here, we are stared at constantly. There is really no let up. So sometimes it's hard to be watched all the time. I know how you feel Brangelina..and I'm sorry. haha The last 2 weeks have flown by though! I thought my birthday was two days ago! I'm definitely gearing up to come home but at the same time, I'm so sad when I think about leaving my new friends here. They are incredible. I'm so afraid I will not be able to see some of them again....I pray I will though. We have so much fun together. I got some new slum photos as well. We celebrated my Oma's birthday on the 16th and that was incredible! A couple other girls and I brought her a birthday cake and sang to her. She took the cake, blew out the candle, cried and thanked God right then and there. It was so special. We spent time with her just laughing and enjoying her amazing company. Before we left we prayed blessings over her and then she made sure she walked with us to get a taxi. She held my hand the whole time and is totally a surrogate Grandma for me!! So cute! I had bug bites and she was putting this special cream on them and fussing over me, it was so precious. :0)

We also went to "The Call Indonesia" which was a 15 hour day of prayer in a stadium with 7,000 Indonesian Youth. We worshiped and prayed for the nation. It was truly special. They had a time of repentance in which people asked God for forgiveness, wrote down their sins, placed it in a bag and then the bags were burned in the middle of the stadium. I believe the heavens were celebrating with much joy that day. It's incredible the things that can happen when a nation repents and turns towards holiness. Just look at Nineva in the book of Jonah. I feel like I witnessed a monumental event in history that day. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera there to capture it, but it was spectacular.

Earlier this week we had a nice dinner over at a good friends new house. She just moved from Perth to J-city and she made us Satay and mixed veggies and rice...yum. And she had an indoor pool so we swam a few laps.. :0) Then we went to Bene's house a few nights later(she's our coordinator for the north) and that dinner was amazing too! Yum. On Wednesday I dyed two older women's hair for them in the slum. Ibu Tini is the headmaster of the school we painted the mural on and then I had enough for her friend's hair also. It was special to honor them in that way. Ibu Tini's husband told her she looked beautiful and young and she blushed. It was so cute. Earlier this week on Sunday, we were invited to a church service. Afterwards the people there offered us hot drinks. It was not just any normal drink you may think of like coffee or tea. Oh no. It was hot, puree of green beans in a bag with a straw. It was interesting. I guess it's some sort of dessert here but in America, beans are not generally dessert haha. It was a funny experience.

And on our day off today, we went with Petrina to meet her Dad. We had not expected having lunch with them but he invited us and we ate at the Grand Hyatt again! Oh my Gosh it's so fancy and the food was amazing! What a huge blessing! Asparagus, prawns, tenderloin, sauteed mushrooms, hot bread, Jasmine ice tea, crab stuffed dumplings, and real mango pudding. I was stuffed to say the least. It was such a beautiful atmosphere there also. Wow, what a treat.

Afterwards we went to La Piazza and met up with some of our friends from ministry. We had some fun taking pictures so I thought I would include my faves ;0)

Gangsta haha

Here are some photos from this last week....

Nice sunset over the swamp slum.......
Yes he's carrying that on a motorcycle.....and this IS normal here! hahaha

Aren't they precious??! I love giving hugs....they love affection, so it's a lot of fun.

Oh my goodness he's so cute
My New Favorite photo

This is green sludge pouring into the canal that runs through the slum....isn't that nice. I love the irony of the children standing on the bridge. We are trying to get this changed but it's a bit of an uphill battle.....

The mural we did on the school .....
That's garbage behind that rose......beauty in unlikely places

That's all for now...Thanks for following along guys. I miss you all! Please keep praying for us here! God Bless!

Birthday!!

2008-08-10T11:13:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2008-08-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

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!!!!!!!!!!

2008-07-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

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!

More Silliness on our free day...

2008-07-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

Who knew we could have two free days in a row with the blessing of a pool, good food and good company?? God is good. Amen.

Leading Church Service.....

2008-07-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I am having more opportunities here than I expected to preach! Preach it sister! haha ok ok not like Gosp.el Church style, but you can imagine how funny it would be if I busted out a loud "Can I get an Amen?!!" I thought about it but it didn't seem appropriate tonight. Haha but Yes, I have been able to participlate in and or lead youth services with the help of my team. I gave my first 20 minute message tonight to a small youth group near the slum we are work in. I talked about asking God for His plans for our lives and how faithful He is to speak with us and confirm his plans. I think it went well and I was happy with the response. I have also been able to help with worship which I love so that's all for now....just trying to stay on top of this whole bloggin thing :0P Loves!!

Painting Away.....

2008-07-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

So today we started painting the mural on the front of the school. We have a surface area of about a three car garage. We started by washing it all down....which took a bit since it was quite dirty. Then we had some old murals to scrape off and then the primer. But today we actually got to start sketching. We prayed and got some ideas from God and felt to go with a theme of "creation." So we're doing a dark sky with stars that fades into a blue sky with a rainbow and cartoon animals and a beach scene and rolling hills and a very large elephant haha It will be very cute when it's done. We have been working with some youth team members from the city and it has been very cool to be abe to disciple them through our time together. They come with us to help translate or just do minis.try but we are very lucky to have had intensive training for three months previous to this and they have not. So being able to teach them that you can hear God's voice and how to follow God's call on their lives has been so uplifting. We have built many friendships here.
On a side note....please pray for oue team because as strange as it sounds, all 21 of us have been or are sick. The spiritual atmosphere here is very heavy and we feel that there is more at work than just the physical environment. My allergies are worse then they have ever been and I just got over losing my voice. We have rarely had our whole team with us during mini.try each day because of illness. SO your prayers are greatly appreciated! Shoot me an email and let me know how you are all doing as well! I love hearing from my friends back home! Love you!!

Emotional

2008-07-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Today was a difficult mini.stry day. The slum we visited was the worst one we have seen yet. The water conditions and amount of garbage was detestable like the other slums but here there were so many sick people and people without jobs or ways to feed their families. At one corner of the slum there is a Christian church run by an amazing pastor named Lydia. She tries to help her small congregation in the best ways she can but there is so much need. Our group from Perth joined with a group of youth from the city and after splitting into groups we went and prayed for some of Pastor Lydia's church members. At one home there was this poor man who developed epilepsy after his third child was born (he has 4 now) and then a month ago he had an accident in the kitchen and burned the side of his foot so horribly that it is still a HUGE gaping wound and is very infected. They were living in this tiny house in the slum and he cannot work so we prayed for him and his wife for healing and I even laid my hands around the wound but we didn't see anything miraculous right then. My faith is that when we go back in the next weeks we will hear that he was healed. We also prayed for this poor family that also helps with the church. They live right next to it and there side "yard" is a stagnant garbage filled waterway. They had 4 children as well but the mother was very sick with a high fever. As I was praying for her she was sweating through her clothing and we found out that even though she is sick she has to go to the bus station to sell food to make money for the family so the children can go to school and eat for a few days. I asked how much she would need so she could stay home and it only equaled 15 American dollars! FOR SCHOOLING and FOOD! She didn't ask but I felt to give her all I had in my wallet. It only equaled $3 but she was so overwhelmed that she started to weep. I can't imagine being that desperate. I was so saddened by their situation. Luckily we were able to pull together from our wallets all she needed so she could stay home for the night and rest.
This is a place where corruption and greed are taking people precious lives in their hands and squeezing them dry. The water is polluted because of large corporate factories dumping waste and a corrupt government that doesn't know how or care to support it's people. We are going to try and get petitions started to stop some of this waterway pollution but we will need your prayers. Please read this and take heart. Ask God how you can pray for these people and these situations. He made each of us and never desired any of us to live in such conditions. I know the kingdom of God can come in this place. No one can do it alone, but with Him, it is possible.

Amazing Free Day

2008-07-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

This is Adam who came to stay with us for a few days before going on his outreach to Brazil! We all became very good friends with him in only 4 days!! He fit in with our crew right away and was a big help and joy to us. We were able to go to his house today and go swimming. We had no idea how much of a treat it was going to be!! God blessed us so much today! His house was incredible and his parents were so hospitable and interesting to speak with. We swam, ate amazing food, went in the sauna, drank coffee and ate Krispy Kreme Donuts!! AND his dad's personal hair stylist, who cuts celebrities hair, came and he asked if anyone needed a hair cut! I didn't get one but two of the girls did and he was amazing! Then we went to eat MEXICAN food! The restaurant had a live band and it was these really good Indonesian guys singing in spanish! haha We got to salsa dance and everything! I thought I was back home for a while haha Ohh oh oh and when the waiter brought out our food he set the plate down and said here is your quesadi-la not quesadilla but just like Napoleon Dynamite with the "L" sound hahaha it was sooooo funny. I had just a really wonderful day and I could not have asked for more! God gave a me a word before we left Perth that we would be receive blessing but I had no idea this is what he meant! God is such a loving and extravagant father! Amen!!

P.S. it turns out that Natalie and I will get to hang with Adam again for six months while he does a school in Kona Hawaii and we are there for PhotogenX! Small world!!

More Photo Fun.....

2008-07-14T11:25:00.001-07:00

This is the church service we ran with one hour's notice.........
Miss Jungtina
The pastor and his wife and some church members...

This was the incredible movie theater with huge recliners and blankets!!
The movie sucked but we were so happy hahaha

Photos for the Stories....

2008-07-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

Petrina is in the middle and it was her lovely parents who treated us to this amazing buffet!! We ate like kings!!!

And NO those are not shots of alcohol.....it's yummy desserts haha

Mural

This is our planning drawing for the mural.....
The kids were very interested.......
It's really coming along!! (I'll post more when it's finished!

Workin in The Hot Hot Sun

2008-07-13T12:22:00.001-07:00

Soooo We started our work this week and we really gave it our all so far! I have never sweat so much in my life! It's a very humid climate and although we are gradually getting used to it a bit, it's still a sweat factory of sorts haha One of the locals today asked me how I was liking the city. I said I loved it but that the heat was pretty rough. She laughed and said that even the locals have a hard time because o the heat! I was glad that I'm not the only one besides my team mates. But there are people who walk around in zip ups and long pants!! Gila! (sorry, that's Indonesian for CRAZY!-----Of course I would know that word, I have already been called that by the local kids haha) But all in all, we are having a great time. We have been going into the slums each day and continuing to build relationship. We are working in a water slum and another large slum that has a canal of very unclean water running through it. The people at the water slum asked us to come and teach English to the children so on Friday that's what we did. Another team had gone before us so the kids already knew some vocab which was neat. Then, at our other slum, we met with a woman who runs a kindergarten. She runs it at a cost to her and charges very little per month per child because the only other school close by is too expensive for any of her neighbors to afford. She charges one dollar per child per month!! And there are only about a hundred kids! Can you imagine running a school on $100 a month??! She is very sweet and we asked if we could paint a mural for them on the wall across form the school. She accepted and we prayed for ideas for the mural. Our entire group got the idea from God to paint clean water. So we plastered the wall and painted a waterfall, flowing into a golden jar that overflowed into a river. I will add pictures as soon as we finish it, but so far it looks really good- for beginners at least ;0) After seeing it, she asked us to repaint the murals on the school! We were excited and said we would love to. SO it looks like we have our work cut out for us for a week or more! Also, on one of the days we visited a house and told stories and made friends. There were about 35 people crowded in the see the Boolehs (white people- haha) They asked us if we would do Indian dances for them! My dutch friend Kim and I were thinking "Indian dances? We're not Indian! What do we say??" Then a very conservative looking Musli.m girl said she knew and would teach us. I whispered to Kim "Whatever you do, just watch your hips, we don't want to offend anyone..." The the Musli.m girl, who had changed into pants, put on the music and started using more hip than Shakira!!! We were following along and people were videotaping our humiliating excuse for dancing! haha The girl was really good and it was so funny to see her shake it like that! haha We couldn't stop laughing, or sweating---Holy Cow Indonesia is hot!! (Especially in a small house with 35+people!! haha It was definitely a very interesting day. Then on Saturday night we ran a youth group and I was able to help lead wor.ship and we gave test.imonies and shared a message of God's father heart for his children. It was very moving and we had a good time of fello.wship with the youth. Today we went to a church for an english service and happened to get there an hour early. We had been told that the pastor wanted us to share a few testimonies but when we got there he said, "so are you ready for your two hour time slot?" We thought, what in the world is he talking about! So long story short, we had an hour to pull together wor.ship and an hour and a half message! haha Even though worsh.ip was a bit shaky because of technical difficulties ( quite funny) we made it through and we were able to pray for people who had been thinking about going into miss.ion work! Puji Tuhan! (Praise God!)
After dinner, one of our team member's parents took us out and blessed us sooooo much with a buffet at the Grand Hyatt! Oh my-lanta the food was incredible!!!! We have been eating so much rice and noodles that we couldn't believe it when we got duck, steak, sushi, pasta, potatoes, and tons of dessert!! We were in heaven!!! It was awesome. Then we went to a movie theater that for $10 gave us a each our own recliner and blanket! It is definitely the nicest theater I have ever been to. Tomorrow for our day off we are going to a friends house that has a pool! Amen!! A pool! Can you believe it!! I get to enjoy the hot weather for a moment by swimming!! I am soooooo excited! And then we are visiting one of the only Mexican restaurants around! and this is huge because by the way, AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE MEXICAN FOOD!! Can you believe it?? I cant! I miss my burritos! I never realized how much we ate Mexican back home until I have gone without it for four looooong months haha SO to close, I miss you all, I'm super busy, God is moving, Blessings are happening and I love you all!!

Our New Focus.....

2008-07-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

Now that GYO is over we are going full force into our slum minis.try. We are visiting some of the roughest areas of the city and bringing along the Indonesian youth during our outreaches. We are meeting people where they are at and developing relationships with them. During our visit today we went to a water slum. It's an area built over water. It may sound picturesque until you realize that the water is stagnant and full of garbage. The bridges in and out and between homes are anything but safe. I included a few pictures here so you can see what I mean.

Unfortunately, the children are running around without shoes near this water all day and there is really no easy place for clean water. What is ironic is that no more than 5 minutes down the road is one of the nicest Malls and gated communites I have ever seen. It's a real shame because the children are extremely beautiful and the families are so hospitable. God's heart is really broken for the poverty in these places. These are some of the people there....

Please Pray for This Place and These People......

Some of my Favorite Photos

2008-07-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

GYO

2008-07-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

The greatest conference of all time! The youth were so on fire,the worship was intense and lives were ultimately changed forever....what else could you ask for??

The conference consisted of worship each morning, lectures and seminars all aimed at helping the youth understand their calling and purpose in the kingdom of God. We had an amazing time together praising God with our Hawaiian and Samoan musicians from Perth. Our international dance team performed powerful hula and tribal New Zealand dances and everyone had fun. We also saw many salvat.ions and lives changed at the realization of what J-esus did for them. I learned a lot as well and was so blessed by how much God showed up and how the spirit moved throughout the four days. On the fourth day we went out for the "Day of Compassion," in which we lead teams of students into the slum areas and to bring love and practical aid to the people. The students really stepped it up and there were salvat.ions and healin.gs!! My team went into a mostly Musli.m area and met some wonderful people. We met a woman who had 34 grand children and 14 great grandchildren! She lived in a home with four families and she herself cared for 5 of the children because their mother had died. We were invited into her home and we played games with the children and had a lot of fun! At the end, we were able to pray for her and she squeezed my hand very hard the entire prayer. Even though I believe she was Musli.m she knew I was Chri.stian and still invited me back. We took alot of pictures and I said that I would love to visit again. We were also able to pray for babies and just create relationship within that slum. It was a real learning time for the students to see that they can be used in their community to reach out and change their nation! It was beautiful and we had a time of celebration that night with everyone. (there were about 1500 people at the conference.)

A little more Info.....

2008-07-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

So I'm here and it has been two crazy weeks. Indonesia is an incredible place. The people are very sweet and fascinated by westerners. I am quite popular because of my supposed "long nose," which they seem to love. The children are gorgeous and there are very many babies. When we arrive we were quite culture shocked. The city is so huge! 12-13 million people on just one part of an island! SO you can imagine that there is a lot of pollution unfortunately. On the first night off the plane, we came outside into 100% humidity and it looked like it was raining. I thought it was mist but we quickly found out that it was just that the pollution is that thick. It's not just a haze, its a full on fog basically. The smells and sites during our hour long bus ride at 2 a.m. was a wake up call to, "wow, we're not in a western nation anymore, are we?" Twenty of us live at the back of a mechanics garage in two duplexes. We have one regular shower and one "bucket shower." If you're wondering what a bucket shower is, its exactly what it sounds like. Luckily we have a western toilet but in many places our only option is a squatty potty. (Also exactly what it sounds like.) The first time using one of those, we lets just say, was interesting. haha Our first week here we finished up the rest of our lecture phase and did a full bible read through. We drove to the place were we will be doing most of our minis.try and took shifts reading in a small church one of our translators was kind enough to put us up in. The drive over there (our first taxi experience) was an eye opener! They do not obey traffic lights or white lines....they use their horn. And i think everyone owns a motorcycle or moped. Its wild!! Death is close every time haha They actually amaze me how close they get to accidents approximately every 20 seconds without actually getting into one. It is sort of like being in Grand Theft Auto or on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Always an adventure. After we were finsihed with lectures and bible reading, we prepared for GYO which stands for Global Youth Outreach. It's a conference that my base was putting on for the Indonesian Youth to mobilize them into their nation and other nations for God. It was INCREDIBLE!! I'll write about it in my next blog down........------>>>> KEEP READING :0)

Here I am in Indo

2008-06-25T23:27:00.001-07:00

So I made it! I'm here and I have already gotten some great shots and met some beautiful people! Everyone is very hospitable and God is really moving here! Loves to all! And please pray for our safety and our impact on this amazing Nation!

2008-05-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

What God is Showing Me

2008-05-13T06:20:00.001-07:00

God has been really humbling me before Him and honestly it has been such a hard lesson to see how prideful I am. I let my pride get in the way of almost anything God wants to tell me. Sometimes when I get to worship on Monday mornings and I just don't feel like worshipping I have to look at myself and ask, if I really believe that God is the creator of the universe, and that He saved my soul, then why don't I stand in awe of Him all the time? If I REALLY truly believed this with all my heart AND understood it, then I would want to be worshiping all day long. This whole teaching time has been a time of understanding though and as I have been learning more and more about who God ACTUALLY is, and not leaning on my own understanding, I am seeing how great He is TO be praised. I am seeing how I have let myself place blocks in my relationship with Him. HUGE blocks. I have allowed sins like pride, unforgiveness, resentment, ungratefulness etc etc get in the way of God speaking to me and of God being loved by me. Now, I am not saying this because I am sitting here in a place of condemnation of myself because I have also learned that thoughts of condemnation come from Satan. The devil wants us to believe that we are a disappointment to God, that no matter how hard we try, it will never be enough. When these are ALL LIES!! It's amazing how many things we take in our minds as truth and start living out of that are actually lies that were created to drive us away from the father. If I see these areas of sin in my life and feel conviction of them, it is simply God letting me know that He desires for me to let them go so that He can work in and through me. This even encompasses working through grief. Earlier this week I was struggling because I had been hearing God very clearly and then all of a sudden I felt like my quiet time wasn't getting much clarity from God. I could feel Him there but I was upset because He was not speaking to me! (or so I thought) So i brought this up to a friend of mine who I consider wise and she said that in times or seasons of her life when God is quiet or not seeming to give her direction, it usually means that He has given her sufficient things to work on at that moment and that she should focus on those. It was so true! God had given me enough on my plate to mill over, think about, and work through that I didn't need more revelation at that moment, I just needed to know He was there for me as I walked through it in faith.

Photos!

2008-05-07T23:25:00.000-07:00

Here are a few Images I have taken since being in Perth!