Learning

I'm starting to realize God is teaching me a lot, even though I haven't been doing a great job of searching for His teaching most of the time this semester.

I think there are two types of learning...the learning you get for free (whether you like it or not) and the learning you have to actually apply yourself to.

That applying yourself thing? Yeah...I don't always enjoy it when it involves sitting for hours staring at a giant nursing book. That free learning thing? Yeah...I don't always enjoy it when it involves God knocking me over the head with a hard lesson when I wasn't expecting it.

But guess what? That applying yourself thing is such a blessing. I have the incredible opportunity to go to a Christian University where I get an EXCELLENT education and a WONDERFUL community to spend my life here with. God has even given me a brain to use for that applying yourself thing, even if I sometimes chose not to use it. Thank you, God!! Help me to use it as You want me to!

Guess what else? God is such an amazing God that He continuously gives me that free learning thing. For free (duh!). He is constantly teaching me more about Himself. He shows me His creativity through the colors in the leaves around campus (not to mention the squirrels and little bunny rabbits). He shows me His love through my roommates, my friends here, and my friends & family back home. He shows me His innocence (and His PATIENCE) through the children I babysit. He shows me His attention to detail through Alex, the young man on campus who has autism, delivers the mail to various offices, and who probably knows more first and last names on this campus than anyone else. And who can tell you what movie is on in The Merc just from seeing a glimpse of the previews before the movie. Incredible.

I love that free learning thing.

As He has been teaching me for the past, well...twenty-one years, I suppose...God is still teaching me that HE is in control. That HE is Lord. And that HE deserves that title. I'm still learning patience, trust, and faith. I've wrestled with what it looks like to be a Biblical Christian in today's society. I've learned that it still involves preaching the Gospel to yourself every single day. If I ever get to the point where I think I've finally "got it" and I have no more growing or learning to do, then I'm farther than ever from "getting it."

So, amidst filling out medication sheets, doing a wellness fair, studying for the next mental health quiz, and cleaning my fish's horribly dirty tank (sorry for taking so long, Shamu!!), God is gracious enough to pull me closer to Himself and point out that He is the reason I have the ability to do all these things. He is without a doubt the One who brought me to where I am today. He is not leaving me here. He will continue to teach me, to push me to learn more about Him and about His world, for as long as I am alive. Which, thanks to His work through Jesus Christ, is an eternity.

Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Guate Pictures...Finally!!

This was in a Cathedral we visited on our last day. Since it was right before Easter, they had all kinds of things out celebrating Holy Week. This was made completely from produce and there were real birds in the cages. It smelled kind of funny in there...I think the food had been there a while!

Our first view of Panajachel. It was amazing how much more this view meant as we were driving away at the end of the week.

I miss these mountains!!

Adorable.

Volcano :-)

We couldn't ever decide if that was clouds or smoke. But we're pretty sure it was smoke.

I could smell the onions in this field from where I was standing way above it.

Floating dock...nice break after a long day walking around the town

La Clinica!! This is where the clinic is now built in Patanatic. Look at Heart to Heart's page on facebook for more recent pictures. I'm so excited it's getting closer to being done!

This is a partial view of Patanatic from the clinic site. You can see Panajachel in the valley in the background.

Probably not the smartest idea we've ever had...sticking our fingers in a sharp-beaked-bird's cage. This is Deana, my "older sister" on the trip. One of our translators was convinced we had to be related!

The boys made a game out of the rocks on the beach in Panajachel. I think a couple of them actually hit the buoy in the water!

Malorri and Rebecca...love these girls

Aura was one of our Spanish to Maya translators. She knows all three of the Maya languages in the area and is such a sweetheart. We had fun trying to communicate with my broken Spanish and the English she knew. We helped each other learn a lot though!

We ate in our hotel lobby for most of our meals. The servers were amazing and the food was incredible. Chicken and rice DID get a little hard to eat for two meals a day by the end of the trip though...

The three on the left were all from MNU...Mike, Becca, and Rob. Jerry was a retired dentist who works with Heart to Heart and spent a lot of time with our team. He continually cracked us up and was a big help with seeing the vision for the clinic.

Alstromeria, my new favorite kind of flower. They come in all different colors and have little speckles on them!

Living Water

The past couple of days have been amazing. God has been teaching all of us quite a bit, I think. He's definitely been teaching me!! Of course there's the usual "they have so little and are still so happy" part that most people talk about when on/coming back from a missions trip. But it's been more than that. He's showing me how important clean water is. You know in the Bible when Jesus talks to the woman at the well? The one who has had multiple past husbands and is living with a man she isn't married to? When Jesus told her He could offer her living water, a water that wouldn't run out, she was SO excited. What's the big deal? It's not that hard to get water...flip on the faucet, fill up a cup, and ta da! You're in shape. But what about people who don't have faucets? The woman in this story had to walk who knows how far with a big water bowl just to have something to drink, cook with, wash in, etc. There is one house that I know of that our team visited that had that problem. Most of the others have a different problem, though; the water coming out of their faucets isn't clean. What would you do if you knew that the water you were about to drink came from a lake that the sewage was dumped into and would most likely make your stomach freak out? There is an agua pura company here, kind of like culligan. That's an option in some of the bigger towns IF you have the money for it. But what if you don't? What do you tell your children when they run home from school begging for just one glass of water? They have to drink the bad water out of your faucet. There is no other choice. One woman thanked us over and over for her new filter for this very reason.

Jesus offers us a type of water that's even better than this. He offers us what He calls "living water." If we put our trust and hope in Him, He offers us a life that is fuller than anything the world could ever offer us. Living for Him gives us an incredible joy that can't be equalled by money or clothes or friends or good grades or family or being a good person or...you get the idea. This is GREAT news!! We should be even more excited for this than we are for things like KU beating KState in the Big 12 Championship (which I heard happened while I've been here haha)! This news changes our lives. What we think we 'own' is no longer ours. It belongs to Him. That's not a burden, though. He has offered us so much; it's a blessing to be able to share His gospel with others. If we can share our material possessions with them to help them too, all the better! Matthew 25, I believe, talks about how we should live our lives (the passage with sheeps and goats...it even talks about sharing water with those who need it). We know there are hurting people in the world. How does that affect us? Does it push us to do something about it in God's name? Something to think about. It's definitely starting to make me think. I pray it will affect my life in a radical way!

Love you guys!! I'm praying for all of you too...hope your week has been great so far. Pray for the people in our group who are getting a little sick. There are a couple people who had to stay at the hotel today. Tomorrow is going to be a really hard, busy day so we would love to be covered in prayer! Also be praying for an opportunity God is possibly opening up here...I'll explain more when I get back and have more information. Adios!!   <3

Filtros, Clinica, y La Playa!!

Todays update...we went to San Antonio Palopo to install some filters, or filtros. The families were great, but we had trouble getting the lid to close on the bottom half of the filter. Jorge gets in at 10 tonight so we will ask him what the trick to it is. My spanish is much better today than it was yesterday. It still needs a TON of work though!! Please pray that I will be able to learn a lot while I am here. Some of us even started learning some Kakchiquel today! (a Mayan language spoken in the towns around lake Atitlan) On our way back to Panajachel we stopped in Patanatic, the town where our school is helping to build a clinic by raising the money for the materials. We had heard the construction started already, but I guess they are waiting on the plans to be finalized. The people of Patanatic will be the ones building it so that they can have a sense of pride in it as well. It was really neat to see the place where it will be! When we got back to Panajachel we had lunch (yum!!!!) and got to go to la playa (the beach) of the lake. There are a gazillion shops between our hotel and there. Everything is oober colorful and they have a little bit of everything. A la playa I ran into Andrew Miller, a guy I went to high school with. I found out yesterday that he was in Guatemala City, but I had no idea they would be coming here! Way cool to see someone from Berean. Kinda crazy, too! haha. Dinner time...keep praying that God would give us opportunities to share His gospel and that He would teach us all muchooooo while we are here. I want this to be a trip that we dont just forget about once we go home. I would love for it to impact our lives and actually change the way we live somehow. Thanks for all your prayers!!

Amor y besos!!

Panajachel!

We made it!! I'm sooooo ready for bed, so this is gonna be a super short post. Panajachel is cute! There are a lot of stores right outside our hotel door. Lake Atitlan is BEAUTIFUL!! God is still challenging me with different things but is teaching me a lot already! Thank you for your prayers! I'll try to get some pictures posted sometime. :-) Goodnight <3

amazing God, ordinary life

What better way to start a blog than to post at 2:30 in the morning??? Our first flight leaves in less than 4 hours and we'll actually be IN Guatemala (Lord willing!) in 11ish hours. I'm so excited! God has done a lot to lead me to this trip. It definitely was not something that I planned or even could have done on my own.

For those of you who don't know, I was originally going with a group from my school to Haiti. After the earthquake, the trip had to be canceled/postponed until it was actually possible to fly into the country. I was frustrated, to say the least. I had prayed about what trip God wanted me on and was sure He was pulling me towards Haiti. So why did He let it get canceled? While He never showed me an exact reason for the canceled trip to Haiti, God has done incredible things to make it possible for me to go on the Guatemala March trip. A spot was made available when there supposedly weren't any more left. The team was more welcoming than I could have ever hoped for. I went to a meeting to see if I felt like God was calling me to join the team and I walked out with a to-do list to help with upcoming fundraisers. Apparently the rest of the team knew before I did that I would be joining!

I was also somewhat daunted by the task of fund raising. It seemed like such a big deal to ask people in the middle of an economic crisis to support my trip to another country, albeit for a good cause. God used my friends and family to blow my mind away with what He can do. Thank you so so much to those of you who are joining in this trip financially!! God has used you to bless me immensely and I pray that you will be equally blessed through following God's call to support our team. For those of you who are joining our team through your prayers, thank you TONS and please don't stop!! Your prayers will be needed even more now that we're actually headed to Guatemala. If you aren't praying for us yet, please feel free to join the team! We would love more team members, especially ones who are bringing us before Jesus in prayer!!   =)

For those of you wondering where by blog title comes from, read the following lyrics. I was listening to them a couple nights ago and they very accurately described what God has been doing in my heart lately...

I'm Letting Go
Francesca Battistelli

My heart beats, standing on the edge
But my feet have finally left the ledge

Like an acrobat
There’s no turning back

(Chorus)
I’m letting go
Of the life I planned for me
And my dreams
I’m losing control
Of my destiny
It feels like I’m falling and that’s what it’s like to believe
So I’m letting go

This is a giant leap of faith
Trusting and trying to embrace
The fear of the unknown
Beyond my comfort zone

(Chorus)

Giving in to your gravity
Knowing You are holding me
I’m not afraid

(Chorus)

Feels like I’m falling and that’s what it’s like to believe
Feels like I’m falling and this is the life for me

Love you all!!!