Alejos.

Wow! What an awesome week we had in Bocas Del Torro. We began our trip there on a 9 hour bus ride to Bocas in the middle of the night, followed by 2 water taxis to the island where we spent the rest of the week. We stayed at a YWAM base that was a solar house. So our electricity and water came from the sun and rain... we were off the grid. Which is pretty cool, but then also not so cool when we ran really low on water. So I got the pleasure of bathing in a small creek down the hill. The house is right on the water, so beautiful. And it is also just a small island about 12 miles long I think. We did various things throughout the week on this island... one of my focuses was on a little boy named Alejos.
Alejos is the 2 and a half year old son of an indigenous woman, and her husband is the only father that Alejos knows. He is very sick, malnourished and scared. He just sat most of the time while we were there. He had never taken a step without someone holding his hand and his belly pouched out and his legs were very thin. After building his trust he let me hold him and do some physical therapy with his legs. We fed him and just loved on him. By the end of the week he was walking holding one hand, taking a few steps on his own, and we found a place where he can go and stay to get nourished back to health.
This little guy really touched my heart, he is such a blessing in my life. I have found one of the things in ministry that I absolutely love to do. God taught me so much through this little guy. How many times do we do the same thing with God? He wants to help us get stronger but we cry and we don´t let him hold us and love us... this week I have learned to sit in my Heavenly Father´s lap and trust him to help me get stronger... even if I´m sore after or it hurts during the process...

We are now in San Jose, Costa Rica staying at a YWAM base in Heredia (you can goodle YWAM Herdia and they have a website) and this awesome base has washing machines, hot water, internet and it´s cold here! How awesome is that! My hair looks pretty for the first time in 3.5 months! Haha... I am so blessed to be on this journey with the Lord. I should be updating again soon, maybe even posting a few picture of Alejos and me! Thank you for your prayers... I love you all!

fast typer.

Heyyy friends, this is another fast blog post! We are leaving in 15 minutes to go to Bocas Del Torro for a week, after that week we will go to Costa Rica then travel our way back to base for Thanksgiving!

Be in prayer for:
all travels.. we are traveling a lot... after Costa Rica we will be in cities for 3 or 4 days then moving again.

programs we put on in streets.. that people would be touched

patience for me while traveling.. I can be a grumpy traveler ;)

our team unity...

preparing the hearts of the people we will come in contact with!


I love you all and am so excited to see what God is going to do this outreach! Ill post when I have internet... that could be who knows when! (pray for that too :))

Loveeeee

Bren

cruzada: outreach.

outreach begins today! crazy huh? i am writing in a hurry- which gives me an excuse to not captialize anything :) hahah... anyways- outreach begins today- we will be spending 2 weeks in the city doing street, school, hospital ministry.. performing dramas, giving testimonies, prayer walking, our way cool hip hop dance and other things as well... we are partnering with a team from belize.. i am so excited and cant wait to see what God is gonna do! i love you all.. keep praying.. also dont send any more packages to that last address... we have a new one.. and i dont know what that one is.. i forgot... so just dont send it to those.. love love love.... .b

Errebache, Chrique, Outreach

This past week.. has been awesome! I am beginning to love this country even more the more I see it. Last week was Week 10 of Lecture Phase and our topic was Spiritual Warfare. We got the opportunity to travel around Panama and pray over many cities and places.

The first place we visited was a village called Erebache... so cool. We drove our vans about an hour and a half to a place then hopped on some dugout boats for a 20 minute boat ride tot he village. This village is a smaller one that the chief started for tourism tours. We got to sleep in a hut on a wood floor.. bathe in the river.. swim in the river.. hug a monkey.. have class outside.. and many other exciting things.

We then came back to base had a day we spent praying in the city and then we left for Chirique. Which I LOVE! It is up inthe mountains.... so I got to be cold! It was amazing.. after sweating every day non stop, being cold is quite the treat. They also had awesome coffee, and delcious strawberries. We prayed in several cities and places on the way and got to see the beauty of Panama. Seriously, God is so amazing.. he is so unique and a very taleneted artist! It was awesome.

This next week is our last week of lecture phase.. can you believe it!? Then we start outreach! This weeks teaching is on evangalism and our base director will be teaching once again. It should be awesome. Then we will start our 8 week outreach all over Panama... we will be in Panama City, Bocas Del Toro, and every province of Panama, and also a week in Costa Rica. Which is so cool! I am so excited to see how God is going to move. We are still preparing dramas, dances, and our testimonies in preparation for outreach.

Be praying about how God can use each of my teammates and myself and also for unity in the group. The closer we are with each other the more God can use us! We wanna be his hands, wanna be his feet.. we will go where he sends us, go where he sends us.

Also... I cant remember if I wrote this in a blog or not.. but I thought I had a ton of chiggers on my legs a few weeks ago after Niko... well it wasnt chiggers.. I got a fungus.. but I got some medicine and cream for my legs and I am now not constantly scratching my legs! Praise the Lord.

God is so goooood.

God is good.

I am so late on writing this blog- I apologize! These past few weeks have been crazy busy. 2 weeks ago our teaching was on Story telling and that was very interesting. Probably not my favorite week- but it was interesting to listen to our class tell story sets from the Old Testament. I got the privaledge of telling the story of David and Bathsheba, so that was pretty funny. Anyways- it was a good week. This past week we learned about World View- and the Christian Idea v. Pagan Tyranny v. Pagan Individualism... still learning and thinking about MY World View.. and how it lines up with the Bible.
To be honest- I have had a slump these past 2 weeks.. just not been myself and frustrated.. but I am coming out of it.. and so thankful for that. I am so excited about this next week... We are going to be traveling all week around Panama.. doing a week of teaching on Spiritual Warfare.. going to a village called Erabache and then also Chirique.. which is "colder" than here, and has strawberries! YAY!

My birthday was so good here.. I was worried that it would be bad considering my first one without Chels.. but I woke up to a big box full of cokes, candy, and goodies.. then had my breakfast french toast ready for me at breakfast.. had all my plates and stuff washed.. got to eat mashed patatoes- so good... took my 5th hott shower since I have been here- THEN I slept on a couch!!! Haha.. said I was just gonna hang out for a minute and woke up 2 hours later.. crazy huh? We also went to Bennigans to eat- so good.. and came home to bag of 2 liter coca cola, maria cookies, and munchies! It was a good one.. totally missed twin- but it was still good.

God is good. All the time.

That's all for now! Love.

CHow!

Baptism :)

I am simply amazed at the grace and beauty of God. Today I got to experience something that I will always remember the rest of my life. I was baptized in the Chagre River with 7 other brothers and sisters in Christ. I was baptized when I was 7 years old, after I made the decision to let Jesus into my heart, but it was just going through the steps. I was young and I knew what I was doing but I really do not remember being baptized. The only memory I have of it is from a picture, so when one of the "home" kids told our base director he wanted to be baptized Rich opened it up to anyone. I had a meeting with Rich and we discussed what this baptism would mean to me.
This is what I shared with him- I am ready to lay everything at Jesus' feet. Give complete and total control to my Savior. Let him be Lord of my life. I am done with the things of the past. I am unashamed and am committed to allow the Lord to speak to me, work through me, and use me in any way that he has planned. I want nothing holding me back, it's time for me and God to really spend time together. For me to get to know him, and listen to him.
So at 10 o'clock this morning we headed to the Chagre River.. we had a time of worship and then our time of baptism. I was the 7th to go, it was beautiful to see all of these indigenous youth giving their lives to the Lord. As my turn came, extreme excitement filled my spirit. As I was immersed in the water I let all my shame, pain, sin, and guilt come off of me, let the Holy Spirit take control.. I am pretty sure I yelled whenever I came up. It was a beautiful experience.. and I am so glad I did it. I now can remember the day I was baptized, completely laying everything at His feet.
Another cool thing about the baptism was that 3 nations were represented. All of the other youth that were baptized are from indigenous villages, and they live on base to be able to go to school and get their education. I am so blessed to have experienced this with such beautiful children of God. Praise the Lord. :) I am a new creation, I am alive in Christ, and I am a child of God. Dios es Bueno.

Pura Vida

Costa Rica was absolutely amazing... that country is so beautiful. (We were in Talemanca and Bambu, Costa Rica.) I love Costa Rica! I am pretty sure that I have said that so many times since we have gotten back to Panama. I was able to see a lot of the beauty of Costa Rica; the mountains, rivers, jungle, ocean, and so much more. I am so amazed at the beauty of that country. I think it's going into my second favorite country slot. :) My Niko was so good for me, stretched me in a lot of areas that needed to be stretched. I can't tell you all the details but I can tell you that I would love to see a group from home do a Niko. Part of the Niko is that you don't know anything before you do it. So... you'll just have to trust me that it is a very good and challenging week. The days before and after the Niko in Costa Rica were so much fun- this fun included a WARM SHOWER. Yep... got to take my first warm shower... it was glorious. Hot showers will be heaven.. I am completely convinced... and they will never run out of hott water either. We also went to Puerto Viejo- which is a touristy spot- with a BEAUTIFUL ocean. One downer from the trip is that quite a few people from our group got sick.. including myself. Stomach aches and frequent trips to the restroom. Our group got to know each other a lot this week... haha. But- God is good and so is life. Pura Vida. Pure Life-- is a common saying in Costa Rica.... I think I am going to adapt that phrase as well. Chow.

P.S.-- 95 more days ;)