Mini Outreach

In November I will be going on a mini outreach for one week, it's part of the training and preparation for the big outreach section.  Several different staff are leading different ones and they presented them to us last week giving us all a choice of which one we wanted to go on. They were all to different locations with different goals or focuses. But some of them they could only take a limited amount of people so we had to put our top three choices on a piece of paper and they would go from that. My top three choices were:

1. Romania - which involves photography and working at an orphanage

2. Hungary - Working in Budapest with gypsies

3. Prague, Czech Republic - working with street kids, in the red light district and with youth.

It was hard for the staff because my first two choices were the most popular ones and they could only take 6-7 people for each one of them.  They asked us to pray about our choices and ask God where he wanted us to go. I totally felt Romania on my heart and it was really strong.

On Monday when they read out which teams we were on I was really excited to see where God was leading me. I would have been fine with any of the outreaches and I knew that he would direct the staff and place me where he wanted me.  

So I am going to Romania :) I am really excited! I have a really good group of people on my team and I think we will work really well together.  The leaders of our outreach said they were praying and our names were the ones God said yes to. 

We also heard the locations for our main outreaches this week.  We have a lot of choices. There are two more focused on art and photography which they developed for the photo DTS, but we are allowed to go on the regular ones if we feel called to.

The two photography ones will be in Ethiopia and India. There will be hubs in each country (which will be apartments that we rent out for the three months).  They will be a central meeting place for our team and will also have a temporary darkroom so we can develop and enlarge our film. The leaders of the two hubs are all members of the art ministry Pickapocket. So their plan that we make a book full of photographs and peoples stories. We will be working with people in extreme poverty and becoming their friends and then taking their photos in an effort to help them and end extreme poverty. We will design and put the book together and then they will make copies and sell it. All the money made from it will go right back to help people in extreme poverty.We will have a team of around 15 in each location and then we will split into smaller teams and go out from there for weeks at a time to work in various places or even countries bordering. It sounds really intense, but I think it is what God is calling me to do. I do not know which one I will choose yet though as my first choice. I am still asking for direction in that. 

The other outreach locations that aren't mainly photography focused are in Uganda, Nepal, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Egypt.

I am pretty sure God will lead me and place me where He wants me and knows where I can make the biggest impact. So we will see...

Fall here is beautiful. The colors, the crispy air, the indian summer days... I love it. It is probably my favorite season.  Time is going by so fast and I am learning so much everyday. Each week we have a different speaker from ywam speak on a different topic. Last week was on intercession and spiritual warfare. His name was Rogerio and he was from Brazil. Ok so one thing that was really funny was who he reminded me of :) Well.. if you have ever seen Madagascar (the cartoon) he was like the human version of the king lemur. He was so funny.  But he was a powerful speaker. I have never met anyone who know the bible like this man. It was amazing. One of the best things I got out of everything he talked about was just going to God and asking Him everything. Why do we always go to people to answer our questions or solve our problems. People really aren't that smart and we have stupid emotions and stuff that get in the way and, I know this is hard to admit sometimes,  but we really don't know anything.  God knows everything so we should ask Him.  I think we are so impatient that we want answers right away and so we go to someone tangible and ask them so we can "hear" something right away. But God will answers us, if we just wait and listen.

I have really had to do that while I am here, I mean we are a whole bunch of people from really different backgrounds. Some are very conservative and others are really charasmatic, but we all can live and worship God together. Which is really cool, my time here is between me and God and 

I don't need to get distracted by questioning Him about other people and the way they do things. I really had to go to Him a lot and ask Him what was truth and what was from Him, because I didn't want anything that wasn't from Him.  So I waited and listened and He made everything clear. He really is amazing and I love Him so much.  It is so sad when people are divided because of things like that. We are all God's children, no one is better than another.  Jesus is important, not stupid rules that people make up.  

Anyway I am so exc

ited about everything that I am learning.

         

We just got our second photo assignment today. 

We have to interview and take a picture of a muslim. 

That is so scary, yet exciting. We have two weeks, so we will 

have to go Dresden or somewhere bigger with a masque on our ow

n time.  They tell us the assignments get more and more challenging. Our last one was an apple as well as a elderly person. Its hard though to take pictures of strangers in a country where you do not speak the language. Its hard anyway to take pictures of strangers! You have to get all up in there personal space, not a comfortable thing... for either person :)  It 

should be good though, I am a little nervous about it, but I think it will be a good experience. It will also help prep me for outreach. There's gonna be a lot of awkward get in people's faces and personal space moments. Well I'll let you know how it goes...

So it has almost been a week since the new students have been here.  The first month I was here was only for those participating in the photo discipleship training school, now everyone else is here and we are joined with them for the lecture and training phase.  It was very overwhelming when they first got here. We went from 38 students to 85.  They are saying this is the biggest dts in Europe. At first, I didn't like it.. I just wanted to it to be small and our photo group again. But now I think it will be good. I am meeting some more people. But I am still close with all the photo people.  We started our lectures this week and we are learning about how to deepen our relationship with God and hear his voice. 

I am learning so much, its really cool. I am so happy here, happier than I have been in a really long time. I think its because I know I am where God wants me, and why would He have me somewhere that isn't good for me.  Sure there are days when I miss home and my family, but overall I am getting something I have needed for a really long time. I am spending time with the One who is most important and I am recognizing that He is the most important in my life. I am at the point where I don't want to even imagine life without Him, I never want that. I want more of Him.  One of the staff on the leadership team was speaking yesterday, her name is Lucy. She was just reminding us that God speaks to us all in different ways, through different things. I am seeing that everyday. He blesses me in so many ways, yet I don't always see that or realize thats his way of saying I love you. I am learning now how to see that. One way I realized that He speaks to me is through the cats :) I know it sounds kind of funny, but really I think its true. The cats here are so cool and I think Jesus tells me He loves me through them. I'll be sitting and they will walk up and just jump on my lap and snuggle me. He knows how much I love snuggling kittens.  I think its in the little things like that where we find him speaking to me.  Yet its the little things that get overlooked sometimes. 

This next part of the school is going to be very busy and intense, I will have dts assignments as well as photo assignments.  I am hoping that I keep the motivation that I have now and do well. I know with Jesus helping me I will :)