Massive Growth

With 19 team members headed to Ireland this year, I thought we had lost it! It was our largest team and we usually only have between 20-30 kids at each camp. Well, who am I to question God. At both camp locations, Athenry and Westside, we started the first day with about 20 kids and it grew each day! By the end of the second week we were serving almost 70 kids! We ABSOLUTELY needed every single person on the team! God sure does have a sense of humor.

Running with the Horses

I cannot believe that this was my sixth trip to Ireland. This year our team went a little later, during the Galway Horse Races. It was so neat to see everyone dressed up in their formals while walking around the downtown! The plan for this summer mission trip was the same as the last few summers; support Discovery Church. I'm going to give you just a little snippet of what we did here.

Our flight arrived in Shannon on Friday afternoon. After a nice lunch at a good friend's home, we pulled out the leaflets (flyers for kids camp) and went door to door in Athenry to let everyone know we would be holding kids' camp the following week. On Satruday, our team went to Shoppe Street in Galway with a team from Discovery Church to support a prayer ministry. A few of us took cards with the church's information to pass out on the street and we informed people that 'just down the way' there were people willing to pray for them. After supporting the prayer ministry, our team went to Westside, our second location for kids camp and passed out the leaflets.
On Sunday, our team gave the 'regular' Sunday School teachers a break and taught the classes. I had the 3-5 year olds. Absolutely adorable:) We made paper crosses and hearts and talked about how much Jesus loves us, sang songs, had treats (of course), and peeled paper off of crayons...you know, the usual! The rest of the day was spent getting everything together for the week of kids' camp. This year we were going to be holding camp in two different locations. One area, Athenry, was very familiar to us and the other location, Westside, was new. The theme we chose was based around the 10 Commandments. Seeing the kids in Athenry was so neat. I heard from a resident of the estate(neighborhood) that the kids started asking last fall 'when are the Americans coming back?'. So when we arrived there were kids already waiting for us on the green(large grassy area where we hold camp). It brought tears to my eyes. We set up a tent for the kids to sit under, since it rains so much, but we were blessed because we had very little rain during the actual camp. The kids worked on a craft every day that tied in with the commandment they were learning. Here they are showing the puppets they made from the first day. As usual, we had game time, but this year we were able to pack a large parachute to play with. The kids had never see this before and were loving it! Everything went pretty well in Athenry. One day we had something happen that we could only laugh at! I heard a familiar ring of the bells and realized that the ice cream truck was turning the corner. Well, this must be the highlight of the day for the children of Athenry because as soon as that truck was in sight, they burst up from their seats and ran toward the truck. We were in the middle of our program! But after about 10 minutes the kids came back, sat down, licked away at their ice cream and were ready for us to continue. I could only laugh. We did have a few bullies this year, but after prayer and moving the camp to the backyard of a private home, we didn't have any more incidents.

Westport was a new 'estate' for our team. There were a few families who lived in the estate that attend the church so their children came to the camp, but we also reached out to several other new families. On the second day of camp we arrived at the green and it was pouring down rain. We saw no one there and knew that the parents would probably not allow their children to come to the camp in this weather. Our team was invited to go for tea at one of the homes where a church member lived. They had a few children, and we though why don't we just hold the camp in their front room? As part of the team drove ahead to ask permission, I was walking with a few people (under a very small umbrella) and Nathan, a new little boy from the neighborhood ran up to me from the playground on the green, soaking wet. He said in the cutest little Irish accent, "Isn't there going to be camp today? I've been waiting on the playground for you to set up." At that moment, I knew we were at Westside for Nathan. I told him that camp would be inside and he ran home to get changed into dry clothes. That was my favorite day of camp. The fruit of Nathan loving camp is that his mother saw how much he enjoyed the program and we were able to share about Discovery Church and extend an invitation. My prayer is that Nathan's family will accept Christ and attend Discovery Church.

On one of our days driving home from camp, we saw an amazing, full double rainbow. I really wasn't able to capture the beauty on camera, but here's a picture for all of you who have ever wanted to see an Irish rainbow:)

I'm sure the racehorses for the Galway Races in Ireland gave it there all that first week of August, but I'm pretty confident that our team did the same for the race we were given to run. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us and encouraged us!

Siberia, February 16-25, 2007

My first trip to Tyumen, Siberia was quite an adventure! The purpose of this trip was to lead worship at our host church, train and encourage Siberian pastors, and host conferences for widows. I was also planning on filming the trip to use for upcoming videos. Our team was made up of 7 people. My parents, a drummer, a worship leader/guitarist, 2 vocalists/pianists, and a violinist(me!).
We flew out of Detroit on Friday, Feb. 16. Our flight was delayed 2 hours so we missed our connecting flight in New York. We had a pretty rough time getting our tickets reissued, but 2 hours later we were given tickets for the next night to Moscow. We arrived a day late in Moscow. We went to pick up the luggage and only 4 of our 10 bags had arrived. Four gift bags for widows, my personal suitcase and one other personal suitcase were lost. I stood in line for 2 hours to report the problem. Our team then took a bus through Moscow to the domestic airport. We had several hours to pass before our evening flight left. We sat at a little cafe and shared with one another.
We arrived in Tyumen, Siberia at 1:30 am and were greeted by several of the pastors from the Christian church. They drove us about 30 minutes into the city and we moved in to our hotel. The hotel rooms were narrow, single rooms with a small European bathroom. Very clean, but very cold!

On Monday we drove to the church to set up for a 10am worship service. The service lasted about 2 hours. It was great! We played several praise and worship songs, shared testimonies and my dad preached. The rest of the week we held the 10am services. As the week passed, the numbers grew. By the end of the week, we even had a Russian bass player!
The services took up our mornings, but we had the late afternoons and evening to do ministry as well. Following the morning service we ate a homemade lunch at the church. The lunches consisted of rice and chicken, homemade noodle soup, beet soup, perogies, fruit and chi(hot tea). We did not want for food! My dad and the two men on the team would stay and minister to a small group of pastors through teaching, prayer and answering questions. My mom, the two other ladies and I would prepare for the widows conferences.

We had 7 widows conferences in that week. A few of them were out in the villages. A typical widows conference includes teaching, a meal, prayer, giving gifts and some music. I was able to play my violin at most of the meetings. It was so sweet because as soon as I finished playing my first song, Amazing Grace, the ladies would start requesting hymns and then start singing as I played. One group of ladies even took out their Russian hymnals to follow along. One particular evening we were holding a conference at the Baptist church and our translator was running late. Well, none of the ladies spoke English so we were trying to communicate with our hands and smiles. I decided to get out my violin and play for them. That is when they took out the hymnals and began to sing. I love how God made music a universal language! At the end of the worship time, one of the younger widows raised her hand and asked to speak. (Our translator had arrived) She said that recently she had been dealing with doubt and insecurity, but when she heard the music she felt the Lord comforting her. That was such a blessing to me!

Day 7 arrived and I still did not have my luggage. The communication between the Moscow airport and ourselves was not very clear, but God answered our prayers and that night I got my bag. Unfortunately, no other bags arrived. We were still missing 5 bags! The excuse that customs gave to us was that we had "tools for measuring and drilling oil and gasoline". Now, that's a joke! Fortunately, we were able to pick up our bags in Moscow on the way home.

Even though I did not have my bag for seven days, the Lord extended the battery life on my video camera so that I was able to capture some great footage. That was another answer to prayer!

The trip was another reminder to me that I have Christian brothers and sisters all over the world. We believe the same things and in the same Lord! We worship together and don't let the language barrier stand between us. Praise the Lord! I can't wait to go back!

Nicaragua, January 13-20, 2007

I led my first official START Ministries trip a week ago. It was awesome! I had been planning for months and coresponding with the missionaries in Nicaragua just as long. Finally the day arrived for me to step on the plane in Detroit and step off into a different culture to proclaim God's good news.
5 team members flew out of Detroit and we were meeting up with the other 4 in Houston. Once the team was complete, I felt like we gelled very quickly!
The plan was to fly into Managua, Nicaragua, spend the night and leave early the next morning to catch an "in-country" flight to Bluefields. Our ministry was to take place in Bluefields.
If you are not familiar with Nicaragua, it is compareable to the size of New York with about 5 million+ people living in the country. Managua is on the west coast and Bluefields is on the east coast. Bluefields is known as a "black water city". The city received it's nickname due to the allowance of outhouses and bathrooms being placed directly over the water. You can only imagine the pollution and smell. As I sat on the balcony porch of our motel the first night and looked out at the water it made me so sad. What could have been an absolutely breathtaking view of the ocean was the view of a disgusting, murky, brown ocean. As I continued to reflect on this, the thought occured to me that this is how our hearts are before we know Jesus. Even if we are incapeable of changing the water in the city, we are not incapeable of sharing the love of Christ. Each murky heart can be cleansed with the blood of Christ. That gave me hope for the week!
The plan of action was kid's camp. We had three days of supplies and lessons prepared. We held two camps a day in two different locations. The morning camp was held at Verbo Church and the afternoon camp was held at Verbo school. The school was next to the dump so the kids were more underpriveleged who came. The camp consisted of singing songs in Spanish, acting out a Bible story, teaching a Bible verse, making a craft, eating a snack and playing games. The first day we had a total of about 100 kids. That was really good, but we were praying that God would double our numbers. So don't be surprised when I tell you that on Tuesday we had 200 kids! And then of course our prayers continued to be answered when on Wednesday we had over 400 kids!
On Thursday we purchased food for 15 families who lived in the dump. There is a young lady in the Verbo church who is ministering to these families on a consistent basis. Our team wanted to support her ministry and be an encouragement to her. We provided flour, salt, sugar, beans, rice, milk, 2 boxes of matches and oatmeal for each family. When the women of the families came to receive the food one of our team members presented the gospel to them.
Several of the children who were listening to the gospel message gave their lives to Christ that day! Praise the Lord!
I found out later that day that our team was the first group to support this young girls ministry. When I spoke with her after the food was distributed and she was given extra supplies for the upcoming weeks, she was in tears. She couldn't believe that someone would care so much about such a small ministry. I told her that no ministry is small in God's eyes. I continue to pray that God will supply her needs as well as the needs of her new ministry.