It has been another blessed month. Some opportunities that the Lord has placed in my life in the last month have been working at an orphanage outside of Lima, helping teach english for a group of young people, and having down time here in Lima with my team members (seen above). I has been praying for the Lord to open up some way to get connected here in the city while here for the holidays. And he was faithful. Another blessing is coming up for me as I will be traveling to see my family in Florida in only a couple of days.

So this is me wishing each of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I know that I won't be seeing many of you during the holiday season but I am thinking of you and praying for you. This has been such an awesome year for me. Full of many new experiences and learning how to do life in Peru. The Lord has taught me so much and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful for each of you and your prayer and support. I am praying during this season that I can share the love to those around me that was shown to me when Christ was sent to earth. I have been reading in 1 John and would like to share just a short bit with you.

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." 1 John 4:9 (NSV)

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 1 John 4:11 (ESV)

Still here

Well it's been almost a month. I wanted you all to know that I am still here. Following my trip to Spain I spent a couple of weeks out of town. Now that I am back in Lima I am eager to catch you guys up a little on what has been going on with me and more importantly what the Lord has been doing. More than likely I will be here in Lima for a month or two as there are some things our team will be doing to prepare semester missionaries in January and we are going to enjoy the holidays all together in Lima. I am so very thankful for this upcoming time to be with team and to have some down time.

I never really got to fill you in much on my vacation to Spain. I'll take this time to tell you that it was one of the coolest vacations I have ever done. My friend Brittne and I visited the capital city of Madrid and then headed to the coast to see Barcelona. We kept ourselves super busy because we wanted to see as much as we could in the week that we had. I was wonderful to experience a country that I studied at length in college. I saw Spanish history come to life as I looked at paintings of famous artists in museums, walked through palaces of past kings, looked at building of famous architects, and stood on ground where it all went down. A couple of other highlights were going into La Sagrada Familia (a church designed by the architect Gaudi) and riding mopeds throughout Barcelona. I was so thankful to get away and to see some of the world and the wonderful creation of God. I hope I can go back someday and maybe even visit some other parts of Europe.

Following this trip I came to Lima for only a day or so and headed to a pastors training in an area about 9 hours from Lima called Ayacucho City. It was great for me to see meet and share time with some other believers who are excited to learn more and spread the gospel into their respective communities. We talked about storying the Bible and ways to plant simple churches. What an encouragement and blessing to see nationals living out their faith.

Following this trip I went to another part of Peru with my friend Brittne and three members of a church from the states. This church from Alabama is interested in adopting an area and they came down to check out a specific village and begin to for a vision for how they can bring the gospel their and how to prepare the people of their church for a culture and setting completely different from their own. It was neat to see a fresh perspective and passion for the people of Peru. I was reminded and affirmed by them in my love for these people and in the call that the Lord has placed on my life for this time.

Now I am back here in Lima. We have finally settled into a new apartment after all the chaos with the fire that happened in our apartment. I have a wonderful family down here in my team, they have helped us in all the moving around and all the drama that has surrounded this incident. It's also been so great to have the ability to regularly communicate with my family in KY, they have also loved and supported me through this busy and chaotic few weeks.

In all of this the Lord has urged me to claim this verse:

"Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 4:4-7

Home from Spain

Wanted to let you know that I made it home from an absolutely wonderful trip from Spain. It was such a blessing to get away, see some of the world and enjoy God's creation, and meet some cool people. I will be updating again very soon.

Be praying for me and my team as we are preparing for a pastor training in Ayacucho this coming week. We will be heading there on Sunday and stay for a little less than a week. Many blessings to all of you.

I'd like to add that if there is ever anything specific that I can be praying about for any of you then please let know through a comment or e-mail.

MAD LOVE

My new birthday tune

So when I woke up on my birthday I was thinking... I would really like for someone to sing to me or hear a birthday song, hahaha! I got my computer and checked my Itunes library to see if there might be anything. I found this fun little song from the wonderful decade that is the 80's. If any of you are having a birthday I would highly recommend this songs. It was just the perfect way to start of a birthday!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40K2S0-5Xo0

Strange Days

So the last fews weeks have been a little crazy and weird for me. I got back from a research trip about a week ago (more details on that trip to come) and was enjoying down time at the apartment where we stay in Lima, trying to catch up on things. On Saturday of last week, in the afternoon, some men came to install a gas tank so that we would have gas for our stove and for hot showers. Not long after they had come and gone something happened with the gas tank or with the hot water heater and a sort of explosion/fire took place in the house. I managed to get out of there before it all happened. I can be nothing but thankful to the Lord for getting me out and also that there was not much damage to our house and most of our belongings were just fine.

The time following this incident has been trying for me. I was initially overwhelmed, in shock and later just wore out. This feeling of being wore out seems to linger. But my family here has been so encouraging and hospitable. Since all the events, I've been blessed with a place to stay with a missionary family until things get worked out and we can move to another location. I want to ask for your prayers as I continue to work through this emotionally and also as I try to work with the police and our organization on getting down to exactly what happened and what can be done.

I have been learning more and more about my necessity to depend on the Lord for absolutely everything. I have been depending on him specifically for strength, for comfort, for healing, for rest, for guidance, for joy... I pray that each of you are also depending on the Lord wherever you are and whatever you might be experiencing.

As some of you may now I recently celebrated my 24th birthday. It was amazing to spend time with friends here and to celebrate life. I can't tell you how thoughtful my team has been and how much support and love I was shown for my birthday. It was hard to be away from family as always. I got to talk to my family on skype the day after my birthday and it was life-giving to hear their voices and see their faces.

I am heading out tomorrow on a little adventure/vacation to Spain. Which is actually kind of big for me and really exciting as I have never been to Europe. I will be there for a week with a friend of mine that I work here in Peru. It is going to be such a blessing to get away for a bit and enjoy the Lord's creation and have a time of rest and relaxation. Love you all and will be posting again soon.

Off to research in Apurimac

Well I am off to begin research in some villages in the department of Apurimac, province of Grau. Ryan, Mandy, and I are going to try and get into 12 different villages in the next couple of weeks. We will be back in Lima round the 5th of October as Ryan will be preparing to go on another trip and I will be preparing for a short trip to Spain!

I ask that you would all be in prayer for us as we travel and try to find out lots of information. We are confident that the Lord will provide people for us to talk with, places to stay, and food for our bellies. I am also in prayer for all of you. Love you all and miss you very much!

I wanted to give a shout out to Uncle Vernon because I know he has been keeping up with me so well and trying to pinpoint to the rest of the family all the places that I have traveled to on a map. I thank you so much for your interest and support in what I am doing and especially your many prayers!

Be in touch soon.

Mad Love

Loong time no hear

Hello everyone! I hope that each of you has had a wonderful summer and that you are enjoying the transition to fall. I have to be really honest and say that I am deeply going to miss the fall in the states. My home is such a wonderful place in that fall. I am thinking of the bright oranges, reds, and yellows that cover the yard and hills all around my house and the mums and pumpkins everywhere! If you know me then you most likely know that I love anything that has to do with pumpkin. So enjoy some pumpkin carving or pumpkin delights or pumpkin pie for me!

I wanted to catch you up just a little as to what I have been up to the past months and weeks. I spoke in a previous post about how I had been working for the months of June and July with a couple of college students from the states. That was such a blessing to me to be able to travel with them and also to get into doing research. I was able to visit over 20 villages and make friendships with people in hopes that the gospel will be spread in these places in the near future. I continue to think about those people I have met and pray that they will be reached soon. It was a wonderful time of growing. The Lord continues to give me such a love for the people here in Peru and a desire to serve.

After my two research buddies headed back home for a break before they started school again I remained in Lima for a few weeks and was able to reflect on summer and on all I had learned about research and how it works here and how I can improve as a part of the research team. I also got to meet and spend time with my new teammate, Mandy, with whom I will most likely be serving for most of the rest of my term. It was great to get to know here a bit and talk to her about all I had learned here and what she was in for. It was also such a blessing to get to be here, to eat some good food, to take hot showers and to cook. Some of the things that aren't always possible when I am in the village. AND get this... during the month of July I went a total of about 16 days WITHOUT a shower! WOW, I never thought I would see the day as I am normally a pretty clean girl. But it was actually not that bad but I was reeeeaaaal dirty by the end of over two weeks. I am sure that you are all trying to picture that and it was not pretty and you are probably even a little disgusted which is totally fine cause I was too. But I am thinking it will probably happen again and I may even try to exceed the 16 days at some point in the time I have left.

In mid-August Mandy, another brother who has served here for over three years, Steve, and I went to a region of Peru called Puno to finish up some research that my summer team was unable to finish as we had experienced some illness toward the end of July (some of you may have heard about my bout with the flu... it was icky but God is good and I am healthy as a horse). I was eager to get to work with Mandy and "teach her the ropes" and to get to work with Steve who has been her for a lot of time and served in a lot of different capacities. We researched in four villages that were all very far and we had to take buses and truck rides that would last more than 8 hours one way which wasn't always easy. The Lord was so faithful to provide us with food, shelter, transportation and people to talk to as we visited each place. We did a 10-hour hike to one of the villages which I am now referring to as "my new Everest". It was a difficult hike and at high elevation so it was a struggle but we made it and were so thankful for the time outdoors and just enjoying God's creation and thanking him that we made it! Another funny thing that happened was when we had to ride in a cargo truck from one village because there was no other form of transportation coming through for many days. Sooo we hopped in and rode through the evening and some of the night and it got incredibly cold but again God provided and some people in a town that we passed through gave us some blankets to cover up with. I have no doubt that it would have been a pretty miserable trip without having had those blankets. It has been so amazing to have such tangible ways that the Lord has been providing all along the way. I praise God for all that he has done.

Well that catches you up quite a bit on what has been going on with me recently. I am sorry that these posts are often few and far between but I love being able to tell you about what I have been up to and how God has been working. I hope that wherever you are that the Lord is also teaching you and blessing you. I love you all and will try to update you as soon as I can. I should be heading out in the next day or so to do research for a month or so in a region called Apurimac.

MAD LOVE