End of this journey, and the beginning of another.

I have not been able to update since we have come home from outreach because internet is so expensive here! But finally I have the opportunity to finally do it!

Outreach started in Bocas Del Toro, Panama.  We did a lot of city clean up, painting the main park benches, went to an nursing home a few times and made friends with the people there. It was beautiful there, and I reccomend it to anyone for vacation. It is paradise!

Then we drove up to Nicoya, Costa Rica. We spent a week there doing a big ministry called Bible Distribution, where basically you go door to door handing out free bibles.  Sounds a little boring, right? But it was so amazing, and probably the best week of outreach. Around 15 people came to know Christ through that ministry.  There are nearly 89,000 homes in the state of Guanacaste and they have distrubuted around 5,000 bibles since the start of the ministry. Their goal is to give a bible to every house within the next 10 years.

After that week, we took a 17 hour bus ride through Nicaragua to the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. We arrived on halloween, and learned about the gang wars and witch craft going on there. We did a lot of spiritual warfare in the 2 weeks we were in Honduras, and even saw a deliverance from demon possesion (I know, crazy...but that stuff is soo real!). We did many ministries there such as homeless, prostitute, childrens (sooo many kids ministries).  All in all, it was an amazing and successful time.

Our last week of outreach was in El Salvador. We finished with a bang and united as a family. After two months of traveling and working almost non stop, we were all ready to be finished. We debriefed our mission on a beautiful beach in El Salvador and even went to Antigua, Guatemala for a few nights since it is only a three hour drive. All in all, 36 people gave their lives to Christ. God is good, He is real and He is everywhere! These past five months have been the best experience I have ever had in my life, but it is only the beginning.

I am thinking about doing an intense 12 week bible course in January, but I am waiting to see if it is really God´s Will. Thanks for listening and God bless! Katie

3 Weeks Till Outreach..!

Hey family and friends!! I am so excited to write you this today!!

Sorry I have not been able to write very much to you all, I have to buy internet time and as you all my know I am a little short on money.  J  So God has been doing crazy things here in San Jose. 

We are leaving in 3 weeks to begin our adventure.  We will be working with Indigenous tribes in Panama our first week, then traveling back to Costa Rica and distributing Bibles in a town called Nicoya.  When we are finished with that we will be going straight from there to a remote destination in Honduras, and staying with a tribe there.  Aparently we have to take small planes and fly in.  (I had a terrible experience in Iceland a few years ago, and almost vomitted on a small plane like the one we will be taking. I’ll need your prayers!) Our team will be focusing on relationships with the people here in Central America! I am very excited to head out with my team and start the work that we have been training for for the past few months.

            It has not been easy living here in a room with ten other girls.  I love them all to death (they are my sisters!) but it is definitely stretching our characters. 

This is just one story to explain to you my everyday life here at the YWAM San Jose base.

Yesterday, my teammate from New Zealand, Morgan, and I were doing work duties.  Her duty is to clean upstairs and I clean downstairs.  Everyday we do this, and we have it down to a science so that we can finish up fast before dinner.  While I was sweeping the floor, she came running out of the utility closet soaking wet.  She was panicked and yelling to me, but I could not understand because of her heavy New Zealander accent. (Don’t worry, she knows I can’t understand her! Love you Morgs!) J So I went around the corner to see what she was talking about, and saw water spewing everywhere! She had broken the water pipe while she was filling up a bucket and the entire utility closet was becoming soaked.  The pressure was so high, the water probably would have shot up 15 feet! So I acted fast. Threw my Ipod down, and prepared myself for what was to come.  I dove into the geiser and attempted to control the water, but slipped and fell into a sink that is built into the floor. For about 3 minutes I splashed around, with Morgan behind me just laughing. After three mop heads and a bunch of incoherent yelling, we finally had someone turn the water off at the base.  It was an adventure and definitely a time I will never forget. 

Well, I don’t have much time but I just want to say God bless you all.  I still need your prayers for the rest of the money, but I know God will provide for me.  This is where He wants me to be. I love you all and I’ll talk to you later!

My First Blog Ever....

Hey guys!

Katie here blogging from the YWAM base in San Jose, Costa Rica!  Yay for my first blog ever!!

So you may or may not know that I've been living in Costa Rica for the past two months.  I was planning on coming home in August but I've started a missionary school (called DTS) here with Youth With A Mission (www.ywamsj.org). So I will be here until December.  These past 4 weeks have been so incredible and life changing. God has shown me how much he truly loves me. I see Him doing great things in my life and the people's lives around me who are also searching for Him.  He is so great!  It has been amazing getting to know the people I'm going to spend the next four months with.  I live in a dorm with 9 other girls, and we are like one big happy family in Christ.  The men in our DTS are all in relationships, but it is so great talking to them and seeing how men REALLY should be.  I've have never had a group of friends that I could just run to with my problems and know that they have the best intentions for me. We are all searching so intensely for God and His Great Love.  It is a wonderful and overwhelming experience.

So with YWAM, we have 3 months of class (the lecture phase) where we learn in depth about God and the Bible. After the classes are over, we go on a 2 month outreach.  We have three possibilities of where we might go for outreach:

1) Panama

2) Honduras and El Salvador

3) Brazil

Each location would be an is extremely different outreach...If we were to go to Panama, we would be living with an indigenous tribe and working with just them for the 2 months.  Honduras and El Salvador would be a little traveling, and working with different ministries since we have a lot of healthcare workers and artists. We are all very talented in many different areas. Brazil would be the most difficult for a few different reasons.  No one in our DTS speaks Portuguese, it would be an extreme amount of traveling and a lot more money than the other countries in Central America. But wherever God sends us, I'll be extremely happy.

Week 4 of classes are starting in about 10 minutes and we are learning about spiritual warfare.  I am really excited for these next few days, because I'm really interested in the spiritual world.  We can't see it, but the battle for our spirits and souls is in full rage around us 24/7! 

Well my friends and family, I love you all.

And God loves you too, don't forget it!

Signing off, Katie