Okay, so I decided to come back to the world of Xanga. Wow! It’s been like 9 months since I last posted. So much has happened since then. The last thing I mentioned was that I was going to Ethiopia.
Well, I did go to Ethiopia and got back at the end of September. Ethiopia was awesome. I took care of 2 little boys ages 4 and 6. The family I lived with was from Australia and they were really fun. I got to know them very well and enjoyed my time with them. I also got to know their 3 Ethiopian workers quite well. Actually, only one of their workers spoke English so it was kind of hard to get to know the other two, but you can communicate quite a bit with hand motions and facial expressions.
I went to Mexico on a mission trip with a dental team in November. It was a very new experience for me. I got a lot of experience being a “dental assistant” and got to assist with TONS of extractions as well as many “amalgum” and “comoposite” procedures (fillings). I learned two main things through that trip: 1. God truly can use you if you are willing even if you don’t have a clue what you are doing, 2. I don’t want to be a dentist or a hygienist.
December was a pretty bad month for me. Things kept going downhill and I didn’t accomplish much. I was getting depressed and just plain sick and tired of everything. I was overwhelmed, but right before Christmas I came to Psalm 61 in my devotions. I found great encouragement there and things began to improve. On December 31st I was pumped and ready for the new year. Things were going to be better and I was going to depend on God and trust Him and on and on and on…January 1st (Sunday) I slept in and my family forgot I was even home and went to church with out me. Perfect way to start the new year, right?! Well, inspite of a bad start things really did improve. My attitude towards life in general improved most of all and that was mostly because my focus was back on the Lord where it should have been all along.
So anyway I had lots of time for praying, planning, and growing in January. In February I went back to Mexico with the same dental team. Why did I go back if I don’t like dental work? Well, it is a practical way that I can serve the Lord by showing His love to the people in Mexico. Dental work is something that I am not willing to do for money, but I will do it out of love for the Lord if He leads me to. That second trip to Mexico was very rewarding. It was great to see friends I had made the first time down.
In February I started praying about being a team leader with Teen Missions this summer. I had received an email in early February asking me to look into it and pray about it. I went to a missions conference at the end of February at Multnomah Bible College. It was an awesome conference. Right before I left for Mexico I called Teen Missions and told them I would be a team leader. They asked me if I would go with a team to Siberia! I said sure. So that’s the plan for this summer.
All of March was full with getting started with preparations for going to Siberia. I am really looking forward to this opportunity. I am excited about missions and one of the main purposes of Teen Missions is to expose young people to missions with the idea that they will one day be involved in full time missions. I really support that idea and think it is great to give young people the opportunity to serve the Lord overseas. My prayer is that God will use me in each of the the lives of each of the young people on my team. May we all come away from this experience more Christ-like and with a deeper love for God.
So there you go…6 paragraphs and that about sums up the whole of the last 9 months of my life. Of course I spared you from a lot of the details. Now as I plan to update more often, well, there will be more details in my future posts.