El Salvador...the Update post.

So, it has been...

...way too long.

And I'm sorry.

I came here several times before to try and let you know how it all went down, I promise, I did, but...I just didn't know what to say.

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?

I have. Actually, I've had several. Actually...I've had one particular mountaintop experience where I was literally on the top of a mountain.

see?

Just me and the besty, climbing rocks in CA. Four years ago...

Anyway, the mountaintop. A mountaintop experience is something beyond memorable.  You certainly will remember it for the rest of your life, but it is so much more than that. It changes who you are, how you think, what you do. It's something that you have to work for, it includes the grueling climb and the glorious view from the top...and the let-down and release of having to walk yourself back down to flat land. It is specific, and definitely your very own--someone else may have climbed a mountain before, but they did not climb what you climbed, or how you climbed. They did not see what you saw. Your mountaintop experience is your very own...and that makes it dreadfully precious.

It also makes it dreadfully difficult to talk about.

My trip to El Salvador was certainly a mountaintop experience.  I spent two weeks in Zacatecoluca, El Salvador, at a Palabra de Vida camp facility.  During the weekdays, our team went into public schools and performed skits and songs for the student body.

 

After that we were allowed to go into the classrooms with a translator to present the Gospel on a more intimate basis. 

I could give you details...so many details...and the names of team members, and of the schools, and stories and jokes about our time there...but I could not do it justice. I could try to reproduce the situations and moments that meant the most to me, the times when I knew I was learning, when I knew I was climbing...

But you still wouldn't be on my mountain.

The big stuff, the stuff that has to be shared, that which must be shared in order that it really gets fleshed out, that will come out in later posts. You can pretty much count on it. There are things that I have got to write about...so I will. I won't do it here, now, because I would be writing forever. And you would be reading forever.

Here's what you should know right now, though:

We were able to share the gospel with over five thousand people.

Over two thousand of them claimed to accept Christ as their Savior.

I've never before been more struck with how unworthy I am to be involved in the work of sharing the Gospel.
Neither have I been more aware of the fact that sharing the Gospel is the only work in which I should really be involved. That's my identity. It should be, anyway.

I'm not a numbers person, at all. I'm a cynic by nature, and who knows what people are really thinking or committing to when they make commitments.
That being said, though, those numbers rocked my world.

It was my mountaintop. 

Thanks for taking part in it (if you did...). Thanks for praying, thanks for supporting....Thank you. It changed my life. 

And again...sorry it took so long.

El Salvador: Part IV

For those of you who are praying for my team and me as we acclimate to the environment in El Salvador...
















...stop it right now.















!















Just kidding. Mostly. The thing is, we're not in quite in El Salvador yet. Yes, I know, I can hear the shock in your voices now:



"What?! All this time we've been praying for the safety of your flight on the twenty-fifth, praying for a welcome reception that day, praying for you to go to El Salvador!!!"



Well now, my shocked prayer warriors, take heart. Everything is fine. It's just behind. We got to the airport yesterday just in time to be told that our flight had been cancelled. After a moment or two of scratching our heads about what to do next, our team gathered together for a word of prayer, and then left it to our fearless leader to....fearlessly lead.







After a little broken English, a little broken Spanish, a little more confusion, and a little more prayer, we gave all fourteen of our passports to a little lady with a nametag on a lanyard, and hopped on a shuttle to the Hampton Inn.


Yup. Just gave her our passports.  Some things just don't make sense unless you're following God. 



The airline (Taca) put everyone from the flight up in the hotel for the night, gave us vouchers for dinner yesterday and lunch today, gave us a $200 voucher in case we had any luggage that was overweight, and put us on a flight for five o'clock today. 




On the busride to the Inn, Miss Fay and I were able to talk with a lady named Roxanna.  She is going to visit her family in El Salvador.  She was struck by Miss Fay's testimony of having a son who is a missionary in Indonesia.  Who would let their children be so far away for so long?  Someone who knows that God's love and glory is worth it.

The restaurant we ate at, a Colombian joint "Patacon," had incredible food, and an opportunity for me to use a little of my Spanish.

The beds and showers at the hotel are....awesome.


The experience as a whole? One to chalk up as a win, I think.

Praise de Lord.



Is there a lesson to be learned here? Oh yeah. All kinds of lessons.  Let's list them, shall we?

1.) The best thing to do in a crisis situation where one is traveling internationally is to give your passport to a stranger as soon as possible.
2.) Stressfully powering your way to get what you want/need does not always work...we can probably say that it's generally unneccessary. And that's because...
3.) God is in control.
4.) Matching t-shirts and good attitudes are a great testimony for Christ.
5.) The mission field involves every moment, every day. There's no need to wait until you hit foreign soil to testify of God's importance to you.




Alright, so some of that is a little facetious in nature (you can sort out which parts) but the moral of the story is: God wins.  Our plans and schedule are all in his hands.  The extra night of sleep here provided some much needed energy and rest for members of the group who have been feeling a little under the weather. 

"He's got the whole world...in his hands..."



I have greatly exceeded the fifteen-minute limit on the "Business Center" computers in the lobby of the hotel, so that's all I'll write for now. 

Hoping to write again soon! Pray for us. :)

El Salvador: Part III (Written right now, on a real laptop, and not on my iPod)

Today. Today, today, today.

I can't even tell you how much I'm learning, how much I'm enjoying my time here, how much I'm being encouraged.

Word of Life is such a special place.  It is such a blessing to be able to get away from "the real world" for a little while and go to...a bubble. Sometimes people refer to WOL as being bubble-esque (Bubblicious?) in a negative way...but I can only see it as a gift.  We aren't called to bubbles...we can't just spend the entirety of our Christian lives in total avoidance of unbelievers...but I do believe that we are called to periods of refreshment, fellowship, reprieve, focus...you know.  There is so much going on in our lives--work, school, socializing, sports, meetings, reunions, shopping, errands, banking, laundry--it can be so easy to get discouraged and distracted.  How beautiful a gift to be able to come to a setting where the Lord uses every conversation and song and meeting to re-direct my heart to the fact that I am here to serve Him, only.  That is my only purpose in life. Serving God.  Loving God.  Serving God by serving people, loving God by loving people.

That. Is. Why. I'm. Here. On this earth. I have no other purpose. Everything else I do (work, school, socializing, sports, meetings, reunions, shopping, errands, banking, laundry) should be a manifestation of my service to God.

I love being reminded of that. I need to be reminded of that.

So. In case you haven't caught on, I'm appreciating being back at Word of Life for a little bit of focus.

(And to clarify...WOL hardly avoids unbelievers.  It is currently filled with 400 campers, 66 of whom came forward on Saturday night to talk about making a salvation decision, and more of whom are asking questions about the Lord every day.  This isn't like The Village or anything, there is plenty of interaction with the outside world, plenty of ministry.  It's just nice to be in a place where the focus of the staff and the establishment is to glorify the Lord.)

Ahhhhh I have less than ten minutes before practice and SO MUCH MORE TO SAYYYY!!!!


(Did I just put extra letters in my word for emphasis? That's gross.)



Okay, well, I'll leave you with one very exciting tid-bit from today.


...



I LEARNED TO MAKE BALLOON ANIMALS!!!!!!

Well, "animal," actually. Just a dog. I can also make an apple, a pirate sword, and a regular sword...but none of those are animals.

How great is that? Now I can be a missionary/teacher/clown. :D

El Salvador....here we come. 

El Salvador: Part 2 1/2 (Written very very late on Monday, or very early on Tuesday...)

Details, details, details. It has occurred to me that there are just some things that you really need to know...like all of the Word of Life acronyms, the names of my team members, our trip dates...some of the details.  Well, consider this post a "Map Key" of sorts.

WOL acronyms. Know them, love them. (Or just know them...it's not particularly necessary that you have any feelings about them.)

WOL: Word of Life
HBPAC: Harry Bolback Performing Arts Center (One of the buildings on the FL campus, used for GP.)
CC: Conference Center
YC: Youth Camp
GP: Gospel Productions (WOL puts out two productions a year, "The Sights and Sounds of Christmas" and "Jesus, Behold the Man")
GTAC: George Theiss Assembly Center (The building in the YC which all of the BI classes are held during the schoolyear, and where the meetings and rallies are held during summer camp.)
BI or WOLBI: Word of Life Bible Institute

I think that list will give you enough to have a working acronym vocabulary to maneuver your way around this blog. :)

Now, my team members. I am traveling to El Salvador with the WOL 2010-11 Ensemble.  This consists of eight BI students, four boys and four girls, and their director and his wife.

Girls: Ashley Harwell, Brittany Shipton, Tori Emerson, Holley Vann
Guys: Micah, Ethan, Kyle, Josh (boys don't have last names...do they?)
Tom and Fay Phillips are the leaders of the ensemble.

(I was on the ensemble when I was a BI student in 2007-08.  It was an experience that left me with lifelong friends, tons of stories, and lots of growth.  Their going on this trip was what made me initially interested to go along.)

There are also three high school students traveling with us:

Lauren (from Ft. Wayne, Indiana)
Olivia (from Maryland)
Nate [the Great] (from Manasses, Virginia)

Matt Melville is a missionary who works at WOL New York with short term missions.  He has been teaching our classes and will be our fearless leader on the trip.

And then of course there's moi....serving as the "Unit Leader" for the girls.  I get to pour into the lives of these six ladies for the next three weeks in an uninhibited way.

It. Is. So. Awesome. Getting to know them, praying with them, encouraging them, teaching them, learning from them...praise the Lord for His family!!!

And the missing member of our team is Josiah.  He's currently in Argentina (because wouldn't you know it, there's a WOLBI down there, too!) and will meet us in El Salvador.

We will be leaving on Saturday, June 25th and coming back on July 9th.

Hoorah!


That's all, folks!

El Salvador: Part Two (Written on Monday, June 20th)

I apologize for not posting the next day like I said I would.  For ease of travel as well as focus-oriented purposes, I didn't bring a laptop with me to Florida.  I am therefore required to strike a beggar's pose for access to a computer.  If I do come across a generous soul with a laptop, I have to go up to the other end of campus, to the conference center, in order to use the Internet.  (The campus is divided into two sections, the youth camp [where I am being housed this training week in a cabin with the other girls from my trip] at one end, and the conference center at the other end [where the boys are being housed and where we have all of our Student Fusion meetings]. It is about a twelve minute walk from one end of campus to the other.) It all gets kind of difficult to work out with the borrowing and the walking and the writing and the posting when I'm trying to fit it into the already fairly strict schedule for Student Fusion.

Ergo (is that really how you spell that?!) I don't have a lot of opportunities to use a computer and/or post.  This whole post is being thumb-typed into a note on my iPod touch.  I'll post it when I go up to the CC (conference center, that is. WOL runs on acronyms...) in a little while for practice.  This way, I can write whenever I get a few spare minutes, and not try and find time in my schedule for borrowing, walking, and posting to all happen at once.

Have I clarified Student Fusion yet?  That is the name of the WOL program that runs short term mission trips.

And speaking of schedules, I'm sure you're all dying to know what a day in the life of a typical Student Fusion member looks like during training week. Right? Right. Well let me tell you.

7:45--8:45am ----------Breakfast
8:45--9:15am ----------Quiet Time
9:30--10:30am ---------Bible Hour (I'm not sure what happens in the fifteen minutes between Quiet Time and Bible Hour...anything is possible, really.) (Oh yeah. Bible Hour is actually part of summer camp. We're conveniently located in a cabin, while camp is going on...so we take advantage of the opportunities to hear the Word of God taught. Fist pump, it's good stuff.)
11;30--12:30pm--------Student Fusion class
12:30pm----------------Lunch
1:00--2~3:00-----------Student Fusion class
2~3:00--4:00pm--------Free Time/walkingborrowingbloggingtime/devo-planning time
4:15--5:30pm-----------Student Fusion practice
5:30--6:30pm-----------Dinner
(The rest of the evening is full of camp activities--an evening meeting, a rally, a game--in which we generally take part...because we can. :) )
11:00pm----------------In dorms/Devos
11:30~12:00pm---------Lights out

And there it is.  With the exception of Wednesday, our day off, that is what our days will consist of all week. In our classes we get to know one another, discuss and prepare ourselves for the cross-cultural encounters we'll have in El Salvador (because you know how annoying those uninformed, loud Americans can be in a foreign country...), go over a daily group devo that prepares our hearts for the trip, and learn how to implement the tools we'll be using to share the gospel.  Today we started working with the Evangecube...the Gospel message displayed in unfolding boxes of universally understood, colorful pictures. Huzzah for crossing  language barriers!

The practices are where we learn our songs and skits we'll be performingin El Salvador.  I can't tell you much about those yet because I...haven't yet experienced one.  However, the first one starts in about twenty minutes.  I had better get going...after all, I've got a twelve minute walk up to the CC.

Continue to pray for us! I will post again as soon as possible.