“If you ever want to make God laugh…tell Him your plans.” 

Well I am super excited to announce my upcoming plans!!!  Believe me, there is no one in the world that is more surprised by this future direction than I am!

So what is my plan?  Get this…I will be moving back to the States in April! Yup, you read that right.   In the past couple months, I feel like God picked me up, turned me around, and set me down facing a completely different direction.  You might have read one of my blog entries (Plan “B”) that talked about the need for missionaries to head into our cities in order to reach the many internationals that have left their closed countries to come and study in the U.S. 

This is a strategy that I knew little about before a few weeks ago.  But the more I research it, the more excited I get about it!  We have such an opportunity to share Christ with so many unreached people - potential leaders from towns and villages that are thousands of miles away- and we never have to leave America! We can minister to people from other nations right here and then they can go back to their nations are reach their family and friends- already experts with the culture and language that would take me years to learn.

I have heard horrible stories of how immigrants and international students have been treated in America.  What if, someone reached out to them?  What if someone invited them into their homes for meals or fellowship?  What if someone treated them as Jesus did?  Can you imagine how open people could be if we as Christians went against the groove and became a friend to the many who feel so isolated here? 

This fall, I will be going back to college…again!  My plan is two-fold:  to attend college for a degree and, at the same time make the college campus my mission field.  I will focus on ministry to students – particularly international students.  I am going to look into ministries like Campus Crusade’s Bridges Ministry and other organizations in Minneapolis that focus on international students and immigrants.  There are so many places I can get involved.  In 2005, there were 3,300 international students at the University of Minnesota, with more than 130 countries represented!  There is such opportunity to share God’s love with these foreign students while they are here.  That way, they can take it back and share it when they return home.

However, the end goal of going to college for me looks different than most.  I want to graduate from college with a “trait”, something that will help me get into countries in the 10/40 window without raising suspicion.  I am still not clear on what degree I am going for, I am going to start taking care of my generals and meanwhile research what “trait” is most needed in the countries I hope to end up in.  I am leaning towards ESL/ Community Development stuff, but I am still “undecided”.

So this is a ROUGH idea of my basic plan:

Graduate from GFM: April 3^rd
Leave Oaxaca: April 8th
Make a detour in Texas to visit with some friends: April 8^th- 13^th
Spend a few days in Minnesota- (I’ll be home for my B-day J): April 13^th-23^rd
Head to New York for a Missions Conference and to visit my New York Family: April 23^rd- May 3^rd

Once I am done running all over the place, I plan to dig in and find the organization that I can do my 2 month internship that is required by GFM.  I hope to find the organization that I will continue to work with through college, that way I will be able to get settled in with the organization before I start school in the Fall.  Hopefully that will help things not feel so overwhelming. 

Well, there it is.  Crazy huh? 

Please let me know if you have questions or if I left anything else out.

I went to a church picnic out in a little pueblo with my friend Carmen and her family yesterday.  It was a really fun afternoon, we had a little church service and then we all ate lunch- potluck style.  After lunch one of the guys invited us out to go and look for something that I soon discovered were a crazy species of ants I had heard about from one of the Church Planting Team members.

So we went out and he found the ant hole and dug it up.  He dug down a foot or two and started pulling out these crazy ants.  They have an ant’s body- like you can see the ants head and a couple of “bumps”, but then it looks like they have a swollen butt.  The butt is full of a sweet liquid that kinda tastes like honey.  So my friends handed me one, told me to pick up the ant by its body (the normal looking part) and suck the juice out.  It was so weird, but it was actually pretty good.

I would have to say- to date- that was the craziest thing I have ever eaten.  I looked it up online and found out that they are called honey ants Honey Ants . Here is a picture for ya:

So last night my friend Leah and I bumped into an interesting guy at our favorite coffee shop in town.  Tlaxiaco is such a small town that it’s pretty shocking to see a white person that we don’t already know here.  So, being the curious cat that I am, I had to know what on earth he was doing in Tlaxiaco. 

So…I asked him.  Turns out his name is Hugo and he’s from France- I immediately asked if he spoke English – since I have ZERO vocabulary in French.  After I found out that he spoke French, English, Spanish, and Arabic, I figured we’d be more than able to communicate! 

I asked him what brought him to Tlaxiaco.  It turns out he is in the middle of a VERY long trip. He is driving a VW Beetle from Argentina up to the United States.  He started in April of 2008 and should wrap up the trip by June this year.   The original idea of this trip was to convert the VW to run on Hydrogen…but, when he went to have the car converted- the plant was on strike- stink!  Hugo decided to continue on with the gasoline powered beetle, but to keep researching potential alternatives to gasoline.

I love meeting new people, and learning about other cultures or ways of thinking. Hugo was really great about explaining his journey to us- such a fascinating story!  I encourage you all to check out more about this trip on his blog:  www.theh2project.com

P.s  I learned a new word!  And it is my favorite French word to date :       Zut lors

A couple of weeks ago we learned about the importance of heading back into the cities in order to reach people coming from their villages or towns into the city in order to work or go to school.  I had never really thought about this form of missions before, but now I realize that it is such a strategic way to accomplish the Great Commission. Just reaching out to people that have left their homes and come to our cities.

 I have been looking into international college ministry ever since and trying to find out all that I can.  While I was looking into it I was kinda getting excited about maybe being able to live in America or another developed country and accomplish some of my goals while doing missions.  It was weird though, because I wasn’t ever super passionate about it.  I am 100% sure that international college ministry is a huge missions field and is a super strategic approach. While I have not ruled out working with an organization with this focus, I couldn’t get away from the call that God placed on my life over 4 years ago.  I have always felt like I am going to end up in a small village somewhere with a tribe who has never had anyone come and share the gospel with them. 

SO, this week Grant- never wanting to make things easy for us- mixed things up again and started showing us videos about orality.  Basically we are learning that a large percentage of the world’s population (approximately 2/3) are oral learners rather than literal learners.  A lot of these people have their own dialect, or mother tongue, that has never been written down.  All of their history and beliefs are passed down through stories.   Most missionaries who go into villages like these live among the people for several years just learning the language.  One of the families in the video took SEVEN years just to learn the language!  Only after the missionaries learn the language do they begin to talk about God. 

We learned about a really cool method where they chronologically teach the Bible- starting in Genesis and slowing going through Revelation.  They share the Bible in a story form- sticking to how the villagers learn and communicate. It is a super neat ministry and it requires A LOT of sacrifice, most of the missionaries we covered have been living in their villages for years- totally cut off from their “homes”.

As we watch the videos, my heart races.  I remember the burden that God placed on my heart over four years ago for unreached people groups living in secluded villages.   At the same time, I cannot see myself heading off to a village tomorrow- I don’t think I can get beyond the idea of being single and just heading off alone like that. 

I feel like as each week goes by and we learn about another missions organization or strategy or a group of people my world gets shaken.  There are so many different kinds of ministries out there.  I might sound like a flip flopper, hopping on whatever train comes through each week.   But I am truly trying to find the perfect fit.   My heart is for the unreached of our world, those who have not yet had the chance to hear the name of Jesus Christ- on that I am clear.  Just how I will go about doing that is what is still quite  blurry. 

Who knows, maybe I will do college ministry for awhile and THEN head out to live with a tribe for the rest of my life. Maybe it will be a mix of plans “A” and “B”.

Today was a super fun day!  My friend Carmen, one of my friends from town who works in a little ice cream shop, and her husband and daughter invited me to explore a side of Tlaxiaco that I had yet to see.

They picked me and took me outside of town to a nearby river and some caves.  The river was small and there wasn’t much water left, but the scenery was really pretty.  We also went to La Cuevas Chalas (some local caves here), the caves were super cool- it was kinda dark so it was a little creepy, but it was such a cool place!  

 Carmen, Aketsali and I at Las Cuevas Chalas

After the caves, we went to Carmen’s husband family’s ranch and had a cookout.  It was super fun!  I even learned a new way to cook meat…you might be used to putting a grill OVER the charcoal…but apparently the grill is unnecessary.  I wish I could have seen the look on my face when Carmen plopped the raw meat directly onto the charcoal!  I think I did a good job of keeping that “oh, sure this is totally normal” look on my face though The food turned out great-charcoal is a great seasoning- who knew!

Carmen cooking some tasajo directly on the charcoal!

Today was such a good day of fellowship with friends, I feel like God has really blessed me with a great friendship on top of the ministry.   It was also really fun to get to see a little bit more of Tlaxiaco.  After Carmen and Gonzalo heard that I haven’t been to see a ton of places here, they kinda took it on themselves to show me around – it will be fun to see if we go anywhere else before school is over.  Now that I have proven to them that gringos can go on mini hikes and that we do eat meat, I think the sky is the limit!

About a week ago it dawned on me that almost every word coming out of my mouth was a negative or sarcastic comment.  Now, of course I had good things to say too, but I truly felt that the majority of my thoughts were negative.  I decided to make a conscious effort to filter the words that left my mouth and to try to see the brighter side of things.  I noticed an immediate difference, within the day my whole attitude changed.

I have felt a sort of blockage from God for some time now, like I wanted to get close to Him and hear from Him, but something was keeping me away.  It felt as though something inside of me that was once growing like crazy- just died. 

It was cool because this week one of the videos we watched in class was about negativity and how much it can affect your life and ministry.  Cool how God works.  So, within a week of deciding to change my attitude and look at the glass as half full and be more aware of what words come out of my mouth, I got this word from God.  It is long…I think God has been wanting to tell me a lot of stuff for awhile, so it kinda stored up until I started listening.

I was asking God about my future and where He was sending me, would He send me to a big city where hundreds of nations are represented, or to a small tribal village who has never had the chance to hear about Christ, and might not unless someone dares to change their entire lifestyle and become like the villagers…it turned into three parts:

~~Heather, it takes all kinds of different people to reach all kinds of different people.  I am molding you, although you aren’t even aware of it. J

It’s not about you and what plans I have for I your life.  It’s about MY PURPOSE!  Stay clear on my purpose and I will make my plans for your life clear to you.  But, if you lose sight of my purpose you will be walking around blind and deaf.

If you lose sight of MY purpose- it will become all about YOU.  You aren’t the one who has come to give salvation- so keep the focus on me.  Alone, you WILL fail.

When you grow weary or tired of doing ministry- you have lost sight of me and my purpose.   Be aware of this, and you will be able to quickly correct it.

If you feel alone or forgotten, you have lost sight of MY purpose.

Remember why you are hear- doing what you are doing.  It is not because you can’t do anything else- it is because I have set you apart since BIRTH.  I have been molding you and shaping you – please, don’t lose sight of my purpose.

It is not about meeting a requirement or checking a box-where is you heart?  Do you want to know where mine is??? It is with those who are on the outside- those who DO NOT KNOW me.  It is so clear.  Love people like I do and you won’t be able to walk by them so easily.  Love them like I do and you won’t keep waiting for an opportunity to tell them about me- you will earnestly ask me to MAKE and opportunity and then you will TAKE it.  Amazing things will happen if you just love like I did and stop being so afraid or shy.

I sent my son that NO ONE should perish.  My heart is for my children.  So many that have not heard what I have done for them.  Many feel rejected and alone- they need to know how much I love them.

Many feel depressed and hopeless, they need to know that I want to give them hope and joy and peace.

Many are dying- they need to know that I died for them- for them, the dying.  I died so that they would have eternal life.

Can you even fathom what I have planned for eternity?  Can you imagine how spectacular and glorious it will be to see my children- from every nation, tribe, and tongue all singing around my throne?

All the differences that nations had on earth, laid aside as all the people come together.  You cannot begin to picture what it will be like.

~~Remember my purpose- remember that you are not bothering people or shoving things down their throat- you are sharing with them a most precious gift -they aren’t able to see how wonderful it is. Keep sharing- follow my example of love and compassion.  What would I do?  What did I do?

Don’t be cheesy or use gimmicks.  Just be real.

Also, in order to tell people how much better life is with me, you need to believe it!  Look back on you life before me… you life away from me.

Remember how it was and how it is now.  You must remember in order to testify to how precious life with me is.

~~Unify- be the body of Christ, a team together.  Build each other up-don’t cut each other down.  What if all the cutting and sarcastic jokes were turned into uplifting words of encouragement?  Imagine what could happen here!!!!  Try it out- see for yourself!!!!

This week in school we read a packet put out by perspectives. One of the parts I found most interesting was a section about how “the world” especially the “10/40 window world” is now being represented in the city!

My original idea of missions is pretty well summed up in a chunk from the packet: “It took some time for the traditional perception of missions as taking place in exotic, rural, primitive, tribal, and jungle context to be modified.  Now the Church must pay the price to develop urban-savvy missionaries, willing to lay down their lives for the city.”

I thought that the only way to reach the truly un-reached was to head out to a village- but I I am learning that while I think of heading IN, many of the people I would be trying to reach are heading OUT, in hopes of a better life.  Most of the people who leave their home towns are heading to the big cities.  People are coming from countries that I would never be able to get into with my American passport- they are coming to us!

Some interesting information from the packet:

• New York has Chinese communities from every province in China.
• Paris has a larger Algerian population than any city in Algeria.
• Many of the women who become prostitutes in the extensive red-light district of Amsterdam are from Latin American countries.
• According to the Institute of International Education in New York, over four hundred thousand nonimmigrating international students- many of them potential future leaders in the home countries- will come to the United States to study in any given year. 

This kind of info is really shaking me up!  I feel like a strategy change might be in order.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not closing the door to heading off to live in a remote village somewhere- I am open to whatever God tells me to do.  But it has got me thinking.

Would I be much more effective as a student at the University of Minnesota- where international students flood in every year- than I could be in a closed village who has never accepted foreigners, where it would take me years to earn acceptance if things went smoothly.

Just to think that there could be a student from a small village in China, Africa, Thailand, or India that I could befriend. Just by extending a friendly welcome and letting them know that I care about them and their culture- instead of the usual rejection that most foreigners receive.  My friend could become a Christian, I could disciple them and then they could go back to their village and – already belonging to the community- have the chance to reach their village in a fraction of the time it would take an outsider! 

At first this seemed silly to me.  I imagined trying to raise missionary support while studying at a school in the U.S. or Amsterdam.  Who would really support such a ministry? 

But I can’t seem to shake this.  It really makes sense.  And for those of you Christians who come into contact with someone from another country or culture on a regular basis- which I am sure most of you do- think of the opportunity that you have been given.  You have the chance to disciple a missionary- a national missionary to their own people!

So all this time I have been trying to get out of “the city”- it has started to hit me that the city could be the best place for me to accomplish the great commission.  Where else can you have a representation of so many different nations concentrated into one area?

Talk about a possible change of plans!!! Yikes!

  Today was one of my favorite day of classes here at GFM.  This week we covered two topics: revival and community development.  Today we got to get outside and put to practice some of the stuff we learned this week.  

  First we learned about solar cooking.  One of the most interesting things we learned in class today was that women who cook over a wooden stove in an enclosed, roofed kitchen end up inhaling the equivalent of smoking 15-20 packs of cigarettes A DAY!  How crazy is that!  With solar cooking that could be totally eliminated.  A lot of the women in the villages also have a lot of eye problems due to all of the smoke- I couldn’t believe what a practical solution to these problems solar cooking is.  It is also convenient and really cuts back on the use of the many resources used for cooking today.  I feel a little “green” talking about this- but is was super interesting to me.  There will definitely be solar cooking in my future.

  GFM has this really cool solar oven that heats up to about 250 or 300 degrees.  It does take a little while to cook, so we put a pot with chicken and veggies and a couple of cake pans with dessert in the oven and then we headed over to start digging a well.   I never thought I would dig a well- but here I am, part of a well digging team!

  It took us about 2 hours to dig down about 6 meters where we struck water.  The school has all of the well digging equipment- I have no idea how to describe it- but  I’ll try.:)We started out with a one meter vertical bar attached to a 6 inch around “drill bit”.  At the top there is a 2 foot t-bar.  To start of one person turns the t-bar in a circle until it fills up with dirt, then you dump out the dirt and repeat.  There is a series of one to 3 meter poles and pins that you keep changing as the hole goes deeper and deeper.  The 2 foot t-bar is also swapped out for a meter long one.  Once the hole gets deeper you get a person on each end of the t-bar and they walk in a circle- which gives better leverage as you hit the tougher soil.   We also had someone sit on top of the t-bar to help us get deeper faster- it reminded me of some kind of circus act- I will try to get some pictures up.  It was quite the experience- so cool to see how east it was to dig a well -with the right tools of course.  

  Now we have a totally new source of free water here at the base.  In March, GFM will be hosting a few short term teams. Part of our school is to help host/lead these teams.  We will be heading out to the villages here with the teams to do some community development projects.  I am sure that this will not be the last well I help dig  It is just so neat how we can help the villages in such a small way that will make a huge difference in their lives!  I am really looking forward to March!

  This week we learned a lot about “two handed” ministry.  One hand being mercy and practical help earthly help right now. The other hand would be sharing Christ and the eternal hope that comes through Christ Jesus.  The concept is basically that you can’t just stop with relief (i.e. feeding the hungry) because what does it matter if someone goes to hell with a full belly- they still go to hell.The hope is to help people with their earthly suffering- to come alongside them as Jesus would have- giving them something to eat, building shelter, providing education and medical attention and health education etc.  ”Love them until they ask why!”  And then you TELL them!  Without the why- their suffering will only be temporarily relieved. Jesus wants us to have a heart for all of His suffering children.  

  We need to see people all as individuals and not a nation or a group that we stereotype- Jesus’ heart breaks for each and every one of them and so should ours.  I really want to strive after His heart and reach out to the people who are most rejected today and most need a friend.  But I also know that God’s heart is that “none of his children should perish”.  

  I guess as I look forward to the future I will be trying to make sure that whatever I do is a balance of loving and showing mercy to a person here on earth. But loving them enough to make sure that I don’t just stop with giving them temporary relief - but love them enough to share with the eternal relief that was purchased for them. 

Classes are back in session now- this week is revival week at GFM and so far it is really good. We watched a couple of videos in class today that take a look at some of the revivals that have taken place all over the world over a span of hundreds of years.  The first book that I am reading this week is called God Chasers by Tommy Tenney- I’m only a chapter in- but I think I’ m really gonna like it! 

Tonight we had a huge party at the base, it’s Dia De Los Reyes a big holiday down here.  We invited people from our “colonia”as well as our friends in town- we had about 100 people come.  We projected Narnia  on the wall, so it was like a mini movie theater we served everyone popcorn and pop.  We stopped the movie about halfway through to let the kids break 3 piñatas- always exciting.  After piñatas we all ate tamales together.  It was so much fun to have a night of fellowship with our friends. 

It’s also really fun to see how well all of us “gringos” come together to accomplish things.  I am really lucky to be living and ministering alongside of such awesome people!OK- better get reading.  I have two books to read by Friday- can we say “crunch time”? :) 

Ok, so today we watched some videos of a live Keith Green concert- as soon as I heard Keith Green all I could think about was my road trip from Milwaukee to Minneapolis with the Dohrman brothers. Let me explain. For some reason Jeremy had a Keith Green record- the one where he is holding a sheep over his shoulders. I thought it must have been some cheesy 70’s music- but after today I have changed my tone. These videos are kinda long but they are worth it. The message is AWESOME and I think it needs to make a comeback. We need someone like this for our generation. Check it out!