Saturday, March 9, 2013

Little Egypt

 Friends!!

 I glad to report life is MUCH better! I had a ROUGH start to the week this week. We were being taught how to study the bible and I realized, "WOW! I KNOW A LOT LESS THAN I THOUGHT!" not good!! I felt so STUPID that legit I was crying a few times. I had dinner with our leader and his wife (Matt and Erin and Liam of course) and they wanted to just get a chance to see how we are doing without everyone else around. Wed is was my turn. Im fairly certain Matt is a feeler so it was no coincidence. lol. It was good though. Just talking and hearing the wisdom together as a couple they pocess. Its truly amazing. In a sense they talked me off the ledge informing me of things Ive never really known about myself. I called my brother and asked him what he thought and he agreed. And so did another friend.
  I feel extremely pushed here. And most days I hate it. I think if it was like day camp thing were we could go to our own homes and process alone for a little while it wouldnt be as difficult for me. But thats not the case so Im ALWAYS under pressure. Ive not since arriving felt a second of COMPLETE lack of guards up. Its not because the people, its just who I am. When Im with people I stress. Im not totally sure as to why, but i think its mostly wanting everyone to like me or me pleasing them that freaks me out. Im still praying on this. So needless to say I feel like Im breaking because even when Im in my room alone I know at anytime Celia or one of the girls could come knocking and come on in, and I could be asked to do something I hadnt planned in my day. Which bites! lol. Im a planner and stress even more when Im all of a sudden thrown into a place or situation Id not thought Id be doing. But again, Im growing in this area.
    We're coming up on outreach FAST! We leave first couple days in April on our state side and from there we leave to Uganda. Im SOO NERVOUS about this but trying not to fret on all the things they warn us about day in and day out. I know theres gotta be some normalece. I know already Im gonna be outta my comfort zone for Ill mainly only be allowed to wear dresses and skirts. :(  So for me skirts, cause i HATE dresses. lol. But itll be ok. I expect embarrassing moments already regarding that. lol. Pray for me!!!
   We already have gotten a small taste of outreach stories this week on our evangalism quest. I dont know if I have the liberty of sharing the story for it didnt happen to me. But just know it was WOW! Brave trooper we got on this team! :)
    Last night we went into a small community of Egyptians. Its a complete culture within the states for sure! So much so they actually call it "Little Egypt". We went and played with the children as they were in the play ground. Remarkable doesnt even begin to sum it all up! I was mainly with a young, beautiful girl named Sohair. (Its not spelled this way she informed me but just so its easy for you.) She taught me many games and told me many stories. They are BEYOND loving and LOVE touch. There were little to no boundries. Im still unsure how I think and feel on that. We played soccer, trust fall, swung them around in circles, piggy back rides, basically anything you could think of that involves carrying one or two children on your back lol. Super glad to have more men around for certain! lol. They literally were trying to jump into our van and were jumping on the back of the van as we were trying to leave. They do this all the  time Jacob says. (Jacobs how we were connected with this group). I had MANY questions about my hair from both the guys and girls. The girls almost were sad for me and the guys thought it cool. lol I had it in a fohawk. lol. Probably one of my fav quotes of the night was after Matt Knapp was playing soccer with a boy on his back he needed a break. His face was bright red and he was trying to catch his breath. The boy on his back as he was sliding off goes, "Well, this games no longer fun. The camel gets too tired!" and then ran off. lol. #cultureshock lol. Once we were all exhausted from the carrying etc and we were saying no more fights started breaking out left and right. I realized pretty quickly once Celia pointed out how it was happening everywhere (she was with the boys I was with a couple little girls) that these boys are filled with pride. One would kick the other, the other would chase him down and beat him harder. Then he'd get up and chase down the other one giving him a harder beating. As we were stepping in, holding back the aggresser, the "victim" to be would taunt him angering him more. I couldnt help but to feel overwhelmed and angered. The adults or older ppl there that lived there were just letting it go on. I dont know if I was more frustrated by the 10-12 yr olds or them. My heart really started to break to a point I wanted to escape. But overall, what an amazing outreach. I loved hanging with them. I hope we can go back.
    Thats the basic update for this week. Im growing and its not easy but Im excited. I hope Ill start feeling like Im making a difference in others life sooner than before outreach. Keep me in prayer!!

Love Ya'll,
Krista June

Friday, March 1, 2013

2 wks summed in one.. All in fun

Im Sorry friends! The last few weeks have been CRAZY! We had the DTS of 32 students from the fall get home from outreach and we were booked getting to know them, serving dinner, and doing graduation things for them. So Lives been a little CRAZY!
  Within that DTS I think its safe to say Ive met some good friends. Ive never seen such joy in so many of their faces. I dont believe it was all because they were home either. In Fact, some of them I think wished that they werent. The stories and inside jokes flowed throughout the house and I cant say that they were not entertaining to listen to. For the most part, menus the cleaning up after, I thoroughly enjoyed having them here. So, that was basically last wk! :) Im trying to think of stories to share but I cant really.
     The other students made for an interesting time out of class but within it they had no affect. As usually YWAM found a Dimond in the Rough and blessed us with an amazing teacher, Wick Nease. Im mind blown. He spoke on destiny and the biggest point that he made was this, "How many lives will not make it into heaven if we dont act out the destiny in which God has called us to obtain." Yea, it struck me hard too! :) Makes you think twice before not doing something the Holy Spirit tells ya to, eh? lol But it was amazing! Im so incredibly lucky to have had him teach me! Amazing. And he acts out his talk! Doing HUGE work in the mission fields for orphans. Check out streamsofmercy.org! Him and his wife founded it! :)
   One thing that ya'll should know about me if you dont already is I dont tend to sugar coat things or make myself out to be something Im not. I feel thatd be decieving ya'll. So with that being said, this week has been rough. By the end of last... like Sat night I was basically burnt out. Tex and I were up late and I found myself saying, "Man, I just want to be ALONE! ALL ALONE I Need to BUST OUTTA HERE!!" Of course I said this in my head. But I wanted breakfast alone. Me being the only one who can drive a base vehicle I felt like breakfast before church alone would be nice. But I knew that Tex and possibly others were feeling the same way and I couldnt neglect them. So, we made plans to go out to breakfast. And barely just got there! lol It was good, Brenna from home was with us, Celia, Matt and Tex all went out before church and just enjoyed eachother. It was really nice. But if Id known thats where the fun was gonna end Id soaked it all in that much deeper.
   Im not going to share details. I dont believe its fair. But know that this week hasnt been the best, easiest, or even remotely close to not being the worse week here. A lot has happened and I even debated on not writing until next week in hopes that things would turn around and I could give you all the GLORY REMARKABLE things he did ONCE IT WAS OVER! One thing I realized is that we do that FAR too often. We pull through hard situations that noone knows we are going through all by ourselves and then once we are out of that situation share with everyone and praise god. We are called to be a body DURING hard times, not only after. We tend to only show the hunky dory days once the storms gone by. Ive done this most my life, afraid to say, "Hey I need your help." Biblically thats wrong. So friends, I need some prayer for wisdom and a softened heart.
   Johnny Buckner was our speaker this week. A teacher who is 100% lead by the spirit. Its crazy! He was such a blessing to have around! I can honestly say without him whats happening right now would be MUCH harder and MUCH more unlikely to heal or be resolved. But his love is strong and perfect so he gave us Johnny! :) Guy is amazing. I truly cherish his heart!
  With all that being said Im hoping to have all my work done tonight so that way I can just soak up time with Him tomorrow and have massive revelation on how to flip the worst week here to being the best week yet that follows. :) Say a prayer or two for me? :)

 Love ya'll!

Thanks For letting me be real!
Krista June