It's one week after returning. It's one week into life at home. It's one week into life away from physical poverty. Apparent physical poverty.  It's one week into apparent spiritual poverty. One week. So much has happened! Visitations accompanied with plenty of story-telling practice.  Training at a new job. Reconnecting with friends and family.  Arranging move-in. Creating flyers, check list, and call lists. Busy, busy, busy! And even though it has been a week, this is my 3rd night home.  I still don't have a bed to call my own and I'm still living...

Dear anyone and everyone who may be expecting me to come back the same, It's not happening.  When I got to training camp, the prayer that was on my heart was that God would change me. I was a girl who struggled with her identity, and wanted to know the joy that was in Christ. I was so scared of being out of my comfort zone, but God (once again) blew me away.  Two months ago I walked down the hallway of the airport to meet the fourteen other people that would become my family. Two months ago I left my home of comfort and luxury to go to the second pooreset country in the western...

When I went to Training Camp before this Nica mission, I had no idea what was to come, spiritually, mentally, physically, or environmentally. The first days at training camp in Tuccoa Falls seemed like eternity – tons of worship and activities to bring us closer to the Lord and to cast our burdens and worries to God. This time for me was… uncomfortable, to say the least. My mind flooded with recollections of sheer emptiness in my past.   Seeing the happiness, joy, and love around me, merely disgusted me instead of uplifting me. My stomach felt stabbed every time I heard a “Praise...

Crowded Buses: So the other day, we started this thing as a team where one or two afternoons a week, we have a team of “open worship” where a teammate leads us in a different way of worship.  Wednesday, Sister Sam was up and we did this thing called “Practicing Personal Parables.”   Basically, she handed each of us a piece of paper with a scenario written on it that applies to life here-like mangos falling out of the tree or the multitude of gnats that showed up last week. We then had 30-ish minutes to come up with a way that we see God in that situation. ...

One of my favorite things to do here at CICRIN is work in the garden. Every morning, 5 or 6 of us lady-folks head out to meet Hilario, the man in charge of the garden and spend 4 or so hours working under his instruction. We do all sorts of things: pick weeds, plant seeds and roots, hoe fields, dig holes, fertilize stuff and water the plants.   Although hoe-ing is not my favorite, it is pretty stinking rewarding! Some days, its really easy because its rained and the ground is soft. Other days, its cracked and dry and full of rocks and you feel like you work for hours and see no...

As I sat down for church service at NewSong after playing a worship set that Marcus, Shawndell and I got asked to do 15 minutes before church started (we keep it exciting here in Nica), I decided to get out my journal and write down some thoughts I was getting.  At first, they were just about how in awe I was of the way God was working in the lives of the community at NewSong, the ways He was changing their lives and ways of thinking. And as I was writing, all I could think of was how much I want to be a part of that! To be so filled with the Spirit that it just overflows onto...