Hello Nappanee Indiana!

Here I am, back in action! Well I didn't stick so faithfully to keeping up with the blog after being in the Dominican, but I'm back for the summer!

So far it's been a good 3 weeks down here working at Nappanee Missionary Church. My role this summer is Senior High Intern and I'm pumped! Last Wed we had our kickoff and it's gettin me excited to start. In the pic I'm standing in front of the church I'm working at, and it kinda looks like I'm holding it up...but I'm not. :)

The first week down here I moved into the home of Brad and Kellie Fishburn who are being kind enough to let a college kid live with them for the summer! The live about 2 minutes from the church so it's been nice not spending a million dollars on gas this summer! They've been great so it's workin out really well.

After havin the first week to adjust to things I took off the 2nd week to Grand Rapids, MI to take some classes. I just couldn't get away from class and homework only being out from Bethel for 2 weeks...I just missed it too much..ha. It ended up being a lot of fun though. Kory and I both went up there for the week and he took a Global Impact class and I took one in youth ministry. We were both in our classes from 8-5 and then afterwards we would go to the prof's houses and hang out with them and their families eating dinner. Our teachers were unbelieveable. I found myself not even wanting to break for lunch because it was so good to soak up all the wisdom and knowledge they had.

This past week I've been back here at the church, hanging out and having fun....and working on stuff too :) It's been interesting to see time already start to slip away and I've been realizing, if I'm not intentional this summer all of a sudden it will be done and over and I will have missed a lot of oppurtunities. So my biggest goal this summer is working on Time Managment and making the most of every oppurtunity. So, here I go to make the most of today!

Back Home

Incase some of you thought I fell off the face of the earth because I haven't written in so long I apologize! I'm back home and the transition back into American culture has gone as smooth as it could go I think. I spent Christmas at home with my family which was soo nice and now I'm back at Bethel, diving into the crazy, fast-paced life of trying to make the most of everything as it is all zooming by.

I've thought about getting rid of my blog since well, I'm back in America, but I think I'm going to keep it because there is more to say on lessons that I'm still learning from my experience in the Dominican Republic that I think are pretty "blog worthy."

Thanks to everyone who supported me in prayer on my adventure in the DR!

More to come...

3 more days left...

If you wanna check out this website, Brent, our director of the Study Abroad program put together a short video to show at our chapel to promote the trip and you can find it by clicking .....

http://www.bethelcollege.edu/academics/overseas/

Outta control and glad for it!

It's been a crazy ride these past 2 weeks of being sick and even though it hasn't been quite a bowl of cherries, I believe it's through the struggles and the more difficult times that we learn more. So there's been a lot of learning going on the last two weeks. If I could sum up the past 2 weeks all into one sentence I have realized more than anything "I am not in control." That's such a scary feeling at first, but after awhile you begin to realize it's the most freeing sentence you could ever experience.

Cool God moment: I had been back at my host house for one day after getting over "Dang-gay" fever and all the other fun stuff I had, and it was in the middle of the night where I started to get bad stomach cramps. Too make a long story short, they were pretty painful and I didn't know what to do about it, but I just decided to try and tough things out. That day I continued to battle these horrible pains, not knowing why they weren't going away. My parents called that night and being on my last string I let it all out and told them how sick I was feeling but didn't know whether to call the director again or if I should just tough it out or what. After about 10 minutes of frustration and indecision, Cheryl Troyer (the directors wife) walked into my house. What was she doing there!!?? I was SO relieved to see her but so confused at the same time! She told me she had been on the internet reading about a bacterial infection that a girl from our team had and she just got a strong impression from the Lord that she needed to go check on me. So in the night she drove out to El Callejon, to find me in need of some help. So after my Dominican family prayed over me (which was another God moment) we headed to the hospital. Even though I didn't end up having that serious bacteria, I will never forget how God took care of me that whole night. It's been amazing at how he has provided in every situation, throughout this semester. Seeing it in other people's lives while we've been here too has been incredible. We are SOO blessed to have a Creator that loves us and that we can call on in the midst of fear, frustration, helplessness...we have the ability to call on Him when things in our life are out of control because Praise the Lord, he's in control! There's no better feeling than knowing that and experiencing that.

We've been here at the base the past few days with half of our team while the rest of them climb the mountain, Pico Duarte. Even though it was a big bummer I couldn't go, looking back on these few days I am so glad I have been here. Being there for a friend who needed support was the first reason and last night was the second. The Troyers' church is having a retreat here at the base this weekend, so everyone from the church is staying in the dorms and then there are services that go on throughout the day. They brought in a guest speaker from Puerto Rico, so Monica and I had fun hanging out with the Troyers and people from their church last night. We went to the service but really fought to understand what he was saying. We understood the worship songs, but as soon as he started speaking it went over our head. It's weird because you can pick out all of these verbs and words that you know, but it's hard to make sense of it all when he's talking so fast and it's all in different tenses...craziness! We understood that the main thing he was talking about End Times. Later we asked Troyers what he was saying and boy did it blow me away. There is so much going on in the world presenstly that I was so unaware of. We had a really long conversation with them that was incredibly eye-opening. I went to bed last night once again feeling the amazing feeling that I am SO out of control, but Praise the Lord I know the one who's in control....and I am able to have a relationship with him!
Blows my mind...

The "Dang- gay" fever

Well since last time I wrote I thought I was healed and doing much better, but then that next morning I woke up and felt like I was right back where I had started and had another fever and headache all over again. After throwing up, Cheryl Troyer (the directors wife) took me back into the clinic and the doctors decided the medicines must have been too strong for my stomach to handle so they changed my antibiotics around and figured that would help. So I stayed another night at the Troyers house, which is actually pretty fun so it was nice to be there again, it has been my home away from home for the past week. Then this morning when I woke up I felt a lot better without a fever or headache, but my hands burned and itched really bad. As soon as Cheryl looked at my hands she coudln't believe it because it was the rash that you get when you are at the final stage of The Dangue Fever. So come to fine out this whole week I've had Dangue, which makes a lot of sense and explains why I couldn't break the fever, why my body ached so badly, etc. So I'm so glad that I'm in the last stages, because that wasn't any fun! I am so thankful to everyone that was praying for me because I know that's why I'm better now. Now all that's left is convincing the director that I can still climb a mountain in a week with the rest of the group, because I can't miss Pico! Thanks so much for your prayers, God is so good and so faithful when we call on His name!

Answered Prayers!

Just wanted to say thank you so much for everyone that has prayed for me as I've been sick! Not sure if everyone knew but starting Thursday I didn't feel so great and by Friday I was in the clinic with the director's family (the Troyers) taking care of me. They are great people so it was really nice to get to stay in their home and be around english speaking people when you feel so bad. While I was at their house I kept getting worse so Lowell Troyer took me into the clinic and they got me hooked up to an IV which did the trick and got me feeling like a whole new person. Come to find out I ended up having strep throat, a bacterial infection, a urinary tract infection, dehydration, and amoebas! I was supposed to be in the clinic for 48 hours or more but Praise the Lord I got out of there in 24! Thank you so much for everyone that was praying. I'm so excited to be feeling better and to get back into my ministry site by Wed! God has healed me!

Don't Live for the dot

So a quick cool little thing that God has been teaching me is the importance of not living for the "dot" in my life. It's becoming more and more real to me how short life is but how important the decisions we make here are. Jesus is so clear about not living for what is, but for what is to come. The other night Monica and I were talking about this and we drew a dot and right next to the dot we drew a straight line with an arrow on the end of it. Our life is so short...it's a small dot. Eternity is a long line...that never ends. How foolish it would be to live a life for the dot, for myself, for things that would pass away. But how important the dot is because in the way we live in the dot- it affects the line that lasts forever. How crazy it is to realize the small little dot decides how we spend our eternal line. I guess it was some random thoughts on a late night, but God used it to teach me a good lesson.