Since I have been home from the World Race a lot has been going on! Kingdom has been breaking loose every where I go. Why? Because God and His Holy Spirit is already at work every where I go. I just get to join in!! Praise God! Recently, I got to minister at a Youth Camp and prophecy over children that have probably never been prophesied over. It was beautiful to see their eyes open wide as they saw how powerful Jesus is still today.
Lately, the Lord has blessed me with some time to visit many people in the next few months: family, friends, and my boyfriend and his family. Here is a clip below of some of the adventures we have had so far! We will be posting some more later on too.
Love you all. Thank you again for walking with me through the World Race. I am excited that we can continue walking together throughout life and bringing Kingdom all over the world. Our God is so loving and powerful!
Check out our ALL GIRLS TEAM doing the Haka....a traditional New Zealand war cry. We had a lot of fun with this :) Great memories with BELOVED. I will miss you with all of my heart girls!! But, thankfully, we can keep in touch for a life time :D Love you girls!!!
Worship and prayer with my team every morning of every day
Prophesying over each other and practicing out spiritual gifts
Random dance parties throughout the kitchen, bedrooms, pretty much any open space
Team Beloved's silly sayings: "Yeah boy!", "I'm obsessed with you!", "That bucking bronco looks like a rabbit", "I'm about to take off my bra and blast my nips! (Okay, maybe that's a bit inappropriate, but we're an all girls team! What do you expect?! haha), Many other sayings from Song of Songs that probably shouldn't be mentioned...again...all girls team! "I'm mad about it", "I'm so mish (missionary)", "Stop to me right now", "perf megerf", "that was fun", "did you pee your pants again?", "hey Jenny, do you want to eat my scraps/leftovers?", "guys, I farted again and it smells really bad", "the back of your head is redic-A-lous!", "I will cut you!", "ain't nothing wrong with that!"....Okay, now keep in mind, most of these will probably only be funny to us, but they also come included with accents that I cannot write out. haha.
Jenny's spirit claws and random bursts of extreme energy
Seeing BCox do P90x flawlessly and look like she's hardly even trying when everyone else is yelping and falling down
Meeting amazing people from all around the world with intriguing life stories, passions and experiences
Seeing leadership displayed through different ages, cultures and languages
Seeing the Holy Spirit move in similar ways throughout 4 different continents and feeling amazed at how big God is and baffled that his Holy Spirit really is the same all over the world!
Talking about our bowel movements freely
Having a friend with me at all times
Tough love feedback....not so tough love feedback :)
Listening to my o-squad worship or randomly play the guitar
Worship and art in the park with Kige and Heather
Hearing the hearts of our contacts and their amazing ministries
Sharing books and discussing what we've learned
Sharing pretty much everything
What I WON'T miss about the WR:
Having to carry around my own toilet paper and hand sanitizer for lack of such things in bathrooms
Squatty potties - it's not that I mind squatting...it's just fowl squatting over someone else's pee and other things and hoping it doesn't get on you
Not being able to talk to people past "hello!" and "how are you?" because of a language barrier
Having to say goodbye ever few days to 3 weeks to lovely people
Uncomfortably long bus rides with mosquitoes trapped in the bus biting you all over the place
MOSQUITOES! I despise them...
Having to wear bug spray
Nasty smells
Not being able to work out at the gym
Not being able to eat salads and tons and tons of raw vegetables and fruits
Being away from my family
Getting sick
There are many things I will miss and won't miss! But, great thing is that this isn't the end for my adventures overseas. It's just the beginning :D
WARNING: This is a long one...I have 11 months to cover! haha
UKRAINE: * Helped out at a kids camp in a village full of sand....and it was no where near a beach. * Saw bee's that were so huge I swore they were effected by Chernobyl * Got attacked in my face consistently by intentionally annoying flies * Washed dishes for 2-3 hours * Was incredibly grossed out by the amount of mayonnaise served in our meals (I attempted to stay away from most of it) * Did a trust fall about 5-6 feet high and was barely caught by my team while my skirt somehow came completely off of me.... * Tried to get my whole team through a "spider web team-building activity" without touching any of the rope * Cooked for 60+ people *Handed out Bible's door to door *Saw a stork and stork nest!...there were no human babies in it. Hmm.
ROMANIA: * Prayed/warfared for deliverance for a man who was "levitating" and trying to pray for other people. He wouldn't let anyone pray for him in the name of Jesus. Something was off. * Prayed for healing and believed it actually was delivered on the spot to a person who was not even there. * Handed out at least 1,000 fliers inviting people to come to a Christian concert *Prayed for an old lady to be healed and able to walk and saw her stand up and take a few steps for the first time in 15 years! *Ate cabbage rolls and loved them
N. IRELAND: * Arrived in a country without a contact and found one/arrived there within 24 hours of searching * Loved on drunk/high people without having to preach at them * Helped save a girls life who was drunk and fell and hit her head. We rushed her to the hospital despite her desiring to do so and thankfully we got here there just in time. She began to seize and almost died but they were able to revive her. * Talked frequently to a GENIUS homeless man who has a mind like the man in "A Beautiful Mind" * Ate 3 types of meat in one meal and 4 different desserts * Nearly froze in my tent due to rainy Ireland weather. Slept with two pairs of socks, leggings, sweatpants, bra, tank top, shirt, jacket, rain jacket, hood, socks on my hands, sleeping bag liner and sleeping bag. * Worshiped with my squad outside through a rainy storm from 2am until 7am the night before we left the country due to an extremely unfortunate situation concerning one of our teammates. * Sanded and painted a bench * Drank a Guinness bear * Saw an old couple doing an Irish jig * Prayed for healing for people in the middle of a town square * Served people tea, coffee and biscuits for the sole purpose of loving on them
KENYA: * Mastered the squatty potty and bucket showers * Didn't shower for 3 days (that's a lot for me!) * Danced with an African woman on stage * Ate purple potato and sandwiches for breakfast * Lived in the house with our contact and his family * Hand washed all of my clothes * Bought Kenyan jewelery and a traditional Kenyan dress * Rode in Matattoo's (vans designed for 10 people but would fit 25-30) * Shared a room designed for 1 person with 4 other girls * Shared a Queen bed with two other girls and managed to break it * Slept under a web of mosquito nets that kept falling on us * Gave our contact the nickname "JoJo" aka Joseph * Almost got car-jacked at night when we were driving home (we didn't pull over don't worry) * Introduced my team as if it were a dating show (and got them dates!)
UGANDA: * Our shower knob broke and water flooded our house. We couldn't get house owners to turn off water so we had to fill up buckets and dump them out to keep house from flooding more. I put a hose in where the shower knob was and then funneled it up and out the window into the drain. Then we took showers outside with the hose. * Warfared against witchcraft that was present in and out of the church * At more food than I thought was humanly possible because our pastor was offended that we weren't eating much * Did door to door evangelism for 3 weeks straight * Was in a car where the driver got signaled to pull over by the police but instead he gunned it and ran from them. He then hid the car and made us walk to the closest public transportation. * Our team got taken advantage of by a con artist of sorts
TANZANIA: * Danced traditional African dances with a Tanzanian choir * Helped build the framework of a house by hand...with out any machinery * Chopped wood with a machete * Drove a motorcycle by myself for the first time...without lessons to! I just remembered what my Dad told me. * Drove 37 hours through Africa to get to our location * Got typhoid * Got served soda on the bus * Bought corn out of the bus window * Wore a traditional African skirt and head garb * Put a bucket of water on my head * Chased chickens out of my room * Got gastritis
THAILAND: * Sang Christmas songs in Thai * Preached in a rain storm while using a huge leaf as an umbrella * Made a team video and rapped in it * At a full Thanksgiving dinner made by a Thai family * Ran across streets that were jam packed with mopeds * At chicken fried rice almost daily * Made friends with a natural medicine man
CAMBODIA: * Taught English classes * Lived in a village * Ran through rice patties * Went to a YWAM party and dressed up * Got yelled at by an Indian man loudly in the middle of a grocery store because he recognized me from a prior coffee shop and saw that I was reading a book called "When Heaven Invades Earth" ...I don't think he liked that I was reading that... * Drank papaya smoothies * Watched a man plunge my teammates poop out of the toilet with the hose they use to wash themselves with rather than using toilet paper * Got an intestinal infection and kidney stones * Kidney stones dissolved miraculously * Saw a dog with what looked like human boobs
LAOS: * Once again I cannot talk about it much on my blog, but you can ask me via email or facebook message. * Got offered to eat bat but denied haha * Got to pick lettuce from a garden and eat it with sticky rice and homemade Italian dressing
EL SALVADOR: * Got lice * Slept in one room with 4-5 girls on 3 twin mattresses pushed together * Painted murals with oil-based paint * Ate double scoop waffle cone ice cream for 50 cents * Fell asleep in a hammock * Saw a puppy with a fish hook caught in his mouth * Ate papusas * Befriended a famous El Salvadorian model like a brother...gave him a hard time too when we saw that his pictures were posted all over the town and they were of him naked with a rubber duck floaty covering the important parts hahaha * Got to ride a horse without a normal saddle...it was more like a blanket and stirrups
GUATEMALA: * Lived in a town with cobblestone roads and horse-drawn carriages * Had a movie night in a bagel shop * Ate McDonald's for breakfast and loved it! * Answered these four questions given by our contact in front of 15 other people: 1) How old are you and where are you from, 2) Least favorite food, 3) My life's passion, 4) If I have ever been in love and if so...to who. * Did social work house visits and had to hike uphill in the mountains or an hour straight! I thought I was going to die...and the lady wasn't even home once we arrived! * Hung out with and fed women with cerebral palsy * Taught Christian values at public schools
All in all, within 11 months I did a lot of things I never thought I would do and some that I definitely wanted to do. This is not even all of them, but the list is long enough already! Tomorrow will be the official 7 days left on the WR! I can hardly believe it!! So many great memories and so much fun that was had!!! Loved every minute of it! I hope you did too!! :)
Where have the past 11 months gone?!?! June 13th I started this thing called The World Race with out any expectations and now I only have 11 DAYS before it's over?! I guess time really does fly when you are having fun, preaching a ton, being challenged and giving with all that you have! I thought I would share a picture from each country I have been to to begin trying to reach some closure on this amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience....
Country 0: Training Camp - 2 weeks before the WR! Look at how innocent we look! And a bit thinner :-p I started the WR with my knee braces on from prior injuries and along the way the Lord healed me and I got to take both of them off at The Awakening our 3rd month when we were in Ireland! Praise the Lord!
Country 1: Ukraine - We worked at a kids camp and these are some of the fabulous girls we got to work with. They are all missionary kids. The first week we ran a camp for missionary kids and the second week we ran a camp for Ukraine village kids. What a blast! The one on the bottom left cracked me up...ALWAYS!!! She was like a little mom always telling the girls to play nice, put on their sunscreen and to be respectful because people deserve respect. I think she was only like 9!!!
Country 2: Romania - Now this is what we called the "table of love". Yes, there are 12 of us squished around a table for 4-6 just because we love each others company and chit chat! This month we encountered the Holy Spirit like crazy at some concerts we were able to preach at. We prayed for healing over a brain tumor, broken relationships through divorce, freedom from run-away life for a woman daughter and many other things. It was so powerful!!
Country 3: Northern Ireland - We worked with a church called Fisherwick and got to participate in many ministries: healing ministry (the picture above is of us praying for healing for a woman in the middle of town square!), SOS Bus (loving on people who are drunk coming out of bars), street evangelism and more. It was jam packed with the duty to love and it changed my life forever. This church accepted us into their homes within 24 hours of us contacting them! Our original contact bailed on us last minute so we had to rely on the Lord to come through and he did!! This was my favorite month throughout the whole race because of ministry, contacts, location and Holy Spirit encounters.
Country 4: Kenya - First month in Africa on the WR and it was a blast! Our contacts were phenomenal and we were able to live with them so it really felt like a family! We worked with our contacts church and ministered in schools and slum neighborhoods. This picture was taken at a tribal dance. I got pulled up on stage to dance with them :D
Country 5: Uganda - This month was by far the most interesting and spiritually thick out of every other country. Let's just say I felt the presence of the spirit realm in a very powerful way this month. We lived and ministered in a city where the spiritual realm is mostly controlled by witchcraft and other things not of the Lord. Most of my team and I would wake up nightly between 2-5am to pray for peace, freedom and for the presence of God to fall down because the enemy was working hard against us. Even at church we would experience spiritual warfare as the church was once pastored by a false prophet and is on the grounds of a lot of active witchcraft. An interesting month to say the least! Challenging but we all grew A LOT! Thank you Lord for your provision and constant protection. The picture is of myself and a little boy my team and I would visit a lot. His name is Jr.! We preached at church and helped with door to door evangelism every day.
Country 6: Tanzania - They call this hairdoo "Mount Kilimanjaro"!! Haha. I tried to ask teh women to let me braid their hair (thinking that maybe I could figure out cornrows) but instead they played with mine. The outcome??? I'd say it's a good look, wouldn't you?! HAHA. Our ministry this month included helping to build a new house for the pastor and his family, visiting an orphanage, and teaching typing and English to the village people. And of course we preached the gospel too! This ministry location was a hoot to get to! We drove 7 hours through the middle of no where. I literally kept thinking..."Are we going to survive? Are they going to drop us off in the middle of the desert and expect us to be ok? Okay, seriously...we've got to come up and over a hill at some point and a city will appear! ...right?" And sure enough, after 7 hours (and prior 30 hours or travel) we drove up and over a hill and suddenly a whole town appeared! Praise the Lord!
Country 7: Thailand - These are most all of the fabulous women that we worked with in Thailand. They are hard working women who work at a non-profit organization called Step Ahead. They make beautiful leather purses to earn a better life for themselves and their family. This job helps keep them out of poverty and prostitution.
Country 8: Cambodia - This is a picture of myself and two of the adorable kids we worked with. This month we taught English at a YWAM school in a village. They were super precious kids!
Country 9: Laos - Me and a newborn baby goat!!! SOOO PRECIOUS!! If you would like to know more about our adventures for this month ask me via email.
Country 10: U.S. - This was an unexpected detour. SURPRISE! On our way from Asia to central America, we had a layover in LAX (my hometown airport). I had been sick since Tanzania at this point ( 3 1/2 months, going on 4 after having Typhoid, Gastritis {has lingered for 4 months when at max it should heal in 1 month}, intestinal infection, kidney stone, etc) and was not getting better despite multiple medications and visits to the doctors in the past 4 countries. So, my family and I thought it would be best to take a detour and come home for a few weeks to get checked out by U.S. doctors, get better and then head back to finish the WR. It was a good choice that I stayed home and it helped me a lot. I was able to get on some good medications to get my stomach on the track to healing before I burned a whole in it thus creating ulcers. I was home for 4 weeks and then came back to finish the WR. Thankfully, my squad is unique. We usually only get 11 countries in 11 months. But, my squad got 12 countries in 11 months. So, while I was in the States my squad was in Nicaragua and Honduras. I am grateful I still got to complete my 11 countries in 11 months!! And I am on the road to health and healing :)
Country 11: El Salvador - This month we worked with a children's home that rescued children from orphanages that weren't taking care of them. We lived life with them for the month and it was fabulous. They gave me the gift of lice too! How nice....not! haha. All in all, it was a great month and I was really happy to be back with my amazing team. We also gained a new teammate this month!
Country 12: Guatemala - Our final stop!!! Welcome to Team Beloved! :) This month we are working at a hospital with Cerebral Palsy patience (we aren't allowed to take pictures) and are also teaching Christian values at a bunch of schools. We are in Antigua which is a beautiful old fashioned town.
11 days left of this life changing experience!! I can't believe it!!! It has been such an amazing blessing and I am grateful for all of my friends, family and supporters for making this all happen!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!! Many lives have been changed forever, including mine. Good news is..this is just the beginning too!! I have really enjoyed keeping in touch with all of you through skype, email, facebook chat, etc. so I will continue doing so even after the WR is finished.
Yes...I am doing it again...copying a blog from one of my teammates...because it's so dang good!!! This blog was written by Kirsten George. It's about last month in San Salvador, El Salvador. Have fun!
So our contact Bob asked us to paint some of the
rooms in the house this month. We had our work cut out for us, but
thanks to the many talented hands of Team Beloved we were able to finish
quite a few murals this month.
One of the girls had the idea to cover this place in
scriptures. Since the bible tells us to write these words on our hearts
and our heads, it seemed only natural to try and leave the kiddos with a
reminder of how much they are loved. Tio Bob had some great input too.
Together we came up with some really fun projects. Yet when it came down
to it, Tio Bob was like, "Do whatever you want. If I don't like it,
I'll just buy some white paint and paint over it."
Well. Since you put it THAT way...
The first thing we worked on was a banner going
across the top of the living room. Jenny picked out the verse in Isaiah
43:1 which says: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have
summoned you by name; you are mine."
Of course, it says it in Spanish. They don't speak no English here.
Here I am...working on the lettering.
Of course, the boys wouldn't let the girls have ALL
the fun, so in their kitchen we painted a SICK looking Graffito that
says: FUERZA which means STRENGTH.
My (Courtney) cake decorating skills came in handy for the dripping! I put paint in a bag, made a whole and BAM! Drippage :D
Please. No comments about this picture. And no lusting. You don't want to lose any rooms in your mansion, after all.
This wall needed a ton of work. It had some severe
water damage, so we had to scrape the old peeling paint and then seal it
with a waterproof sealer before it was ready to paint on.
Heather Horton can rock a mean roller. Kige working on the tree trunk. Man, she's talented.
Two of the oldest girls, Gabriella and Gabo, apply their green thumbs to the tree.
Pretty cool. I can't wait to see it with more hand
prints! There are nine girls living at the house now, but it can take
more.
One of the things the girls like to do is put pictures on the
walls. They have pictures of themselves, of the people that visited, of
their families. We wanted to give them a specific place to put those
memories, so we made a special wall with our handprints that they could
use for that purpose. It was also a way to leave a mark on their lives,
kind of as a reminder of how they will leave a mark on ours.
Brittany Pries and Brittany Jackson get their paint on. (With a little Heather creeping in the background.)
The biggest project we took on was the painting of
the girls' eating area. Tio Bob told us how the girls' favorite place to
eat was at the beach, so we decided to grant them that wish.
"How precious are your thoughts toward me, oh God. How
great are the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would out number
the grains of sand on the shore! When I awake, I am still with you!"
Psalm 139: 17-18
What a great reminder of how our God thinks of us. We thought the
girls should know this too. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering
this. . .
Jenny Hill painted the sky. ALL OF IT. Then
her back started hurting her from an old injury. Please keep her in
your prayers! We need her at full strength!
So when it comes down to it, The GIRLS team isn't afraid to get DIRTY. And we have the pictures to prove it.
Well, that about sums up last month! I hope you enjoyed it!
I guess you can say that my welcome back to the world race gift was...wait for it...lice!!
Yuck! This is my first and I proclaim it to the last bout of lice. Let's just say I was less than happy to find out this news. Turns out the lice in central America have built up a resistance and seem to think they can camp out on our heads for a long time. Well I say heck no!
Shampoo treatment + picking lice out daily + sleepig with mayonnaise on my head + vinegar rinses = irritated scalp and an irrititated California girl.
But! I am convinced I will win this battle along with some of my teammates.
Searching for a lice comb yesterday was quite hysterical though...imagine two white girls who hardly speak a lick of Spanish making their way through a Guatemalan outside market asking "tienes un peine fino?" The first ten people responded with a laugh and a NO then they would point toward this small path in between two market stores that we were to follow. It was a treasure hunt thats for sure! Although we had no map. Finally after weaving our way in what seemed to be an underground market a kind man took pity in us and showed us the way to the wise man with the peine fino.
Buried below all he possessed, the man pulled out a dusty box with the climbs in it!! Success!!!! It was hysterical. We poured hot water over those bad boys when we got home don't worry.
Then dear Aly smothered my head in mayonnaise, wrapped my head in plastic wrap and put a shower cap on me and sent me to bed.
Haha. Though I'm not excited about having had lice, it sure made for some funny stories!
Victory is mine!
(Note:
this blog was pretty much... but not completely... stolen from Kige.
Yea, I guess I have turned into a blog thief. My bad! You should still
read/ watch it though. For real.)
So,
in Ireland this year, we O-squad-ers had the honor and blessing
to be able to take part in the "Awakening," which is a spiritual
retreat/ conference of sorts where all of the squads on the field were
able to come together in one place. We worshiped, we laughed, we
learned, we cried, and I can tell you, it was probably one of the most
stretching yet most profound moments of the race for me. God did a whole
lot in my life and I learned about and experienced new levels of His
Spirit. LEGIT. There in
Ireland. Halfway across the world.
Well, the good news, is that the next Awakening is going to be
happening in the good ole US of A this year... woo! I think everyone should go. Just
sayin.
Here is a promo video that The World Race put out about last year's
Awakening. Enjoy. :)
Welcome to the new team Beloved!!!! Not only am I back but we got a new team member too!! She is amazing! Her name is Kirsten George aka Kige. She, is the perfect addition for our team. She adds a lot of rawness, humor and boldness! Plus she's a fantastic artist!! And, GENTLEMEN....she is single! But....not until May 12th's at 4:36pm
Kige welcoming me back to the WR with a lovely sign...notice she added a a bit of a flair to the sign aka coffee stain, wrinkles and an added note saying "free candy and puppies" at the bottom! hahahaha.
This is how my girls greeted me!! I was hoping I'd come out to see them standing with signs...I just thought it would be hysterical.
This sign however was even more hysterical!! Apparently BRAOCK Obama was flying around the same time as me. I think he wanted to welcome me back to the WR! Or, ask BP why she spelled his name wrong...haha
Don't fight it....this playground was the perfect size for us to play on!
Adorable :D
We just about evened the teeter-totter out! Yeah Team Beloved!
Today is the day I leave for the WR!! I am feeling so excited to see my team, nervous to leave again but ready to finish strong! I am stoked to be back with my squad again! El Salvador and Guatemala...here I come!!!
Here are a few pics from my time at home....
Me and Alaina, my sister-in-law! I'm gonna miss her so much again! She's become one of my best friends over this past year and a half or so and I got to hang out with her and my brother so much!! Oh man...I tried to get them to come with me :D
The guys (from the left)....Cody (my brother), John (my stepdad), John (Jessica's boyfriend) and Micah (Stepdad John's nephew)
Mama and me!
Mom and John
Being silly...notice all the bunny ears are on me...hahaha
Alaina, Cody and me :) You think I am tall? My bro is dang tall!! I am glad he got the super tall genes! haha
