Secret Mission

Costa Rica!

Wow, I can't believe I am here...

Since the last blog, my team and I had been in Nicaragua for another three weeks before Kurt and I had a brilliant idea. We decided it was time to do something drastic. Something unconventional...

(Well, other teams had done it in the past, and we actually were planning on doing this experiment for a while, but still...)

We left the team in Nicaragua. Just, left them there. We were all in Managua getting ready to return to the YWAM base in Diriamba when we dropped the news on them. We told them that they would be doing a student-leading week. Kurt and I had bus tickets to our next location, and they were to meet up with us the following Monday.

Needless to say, they were shocked. I was a little surprised at how excited some of them were that we were leaving, but it seemed as though they were up for the challenge. Their assignment was to set up ministry for that week, stay healthy and safe, and make sure to catch their bus ride to Costa Rica.

Our reunion is tomorrow night. We will be eagerly awaiting their arrival as our time apart comes to an end. I am so excited. I cannot wait to see them and recount all that has happened in our absence. Our team was ready for this even if they don't believe it... This next week will hold even more surprises for them, I am counting on it.

Nicaraguafied

Nicaraguafied
Nicaraguafy |nikəˈrägwəˌfī|
verb ( -fies, -fied) [ trans. ]Cause to become coated with dirt, or feel as if part of the soil: I think my new t-shirt has become nicaraguafied. 
Outreach in one month. Tomorrow, October 23, our team will have been in Nicaragua for an entire month. I can't believe it. We are now at our third location, staying at a Korean Missionary base in Cuidad Sandino. We have been helping three different pastors with construction at their churches, providing a neighborhood with hairs cuts, pedicures and even more than that. We have been so blessed by the way the Lord has provided for us. 
I am learning what it means to step beyond what I think I can do. I believe the Lord is drawing me to him as the outreach continues to unfold. I am not perfect, but the Lord is perfecting me. Not that I would ever get there, but he is moving me as if he is convinced there is more for me to gain. It is convincing me of his big plan. He has more intended for me than what is happening now. About a week ago, I was walking with my team on my way to do house visits with a pastor from a church we were staying with. We ran into a group of drunk men, when they stopped us to ask if we had something to say. I started to preach... The words were kind of just spilling out, probably too fast for the translator to catch. A woman in the group broke down crying, confessing her sins and desire for change... 
I love when God does that.

Pray for our team! More updates to come...

Hurricanes and short sleeves.

Hurricane Matthew, You have overstayed your welcome.
Thousands of people left stranded... Er wait, more like a group of 10 DTSers, sitting at a base in Nicaragua wearing our summer clothes, while the rain pours, no - dumps buckets outside our door. The first few days of outreach behind us, thankful for the rest we were able to take in, we are now anticipating the unveiling of the Nicaraguan sun... Thank you, Jesus, for sanity. (Although, that is verging on dramatic).

We made it! We are here in Nicaragua. Flawless travels and many other blessings I could mention, we are settled into our temporary casa for outreach. Leading is new and wonderful, my team is all but negative. We are enjoying ourselves- most of our clothes are sopping wet, but that can't keep us from laughing. I don't understand how the Lord has blessed us with an amazing group of people. Our unity is being strengthened daily, our laughter is getting deeper, our characters are being refined - we are off to a beautiful start.

Keep us in your prayers as we begin to do ministry - with or without the rain. We will start a Bible distribution ministry today, pray for fire. Could fire and rain could mix well? How about this; lets pray for an outpouring of the Spirit and a lessening of the rain, deal?

Love from the Nicaragua team!

Nicaragua love.

Last blog in Kona.
Three months preparing, a short lifetime of running. When you think about each day as one that you wouldn't have stepped into if it had not been for survival of the previous day, your mind starts to turn at the reality of our humanity. Most of us don't know surviving to be a struggle. We need something to sustain us physically, but we need more than sustenance to be alive. Living every day alive brings more possibilities into alignment for the next day. Living alive in the moment makes you fully alive where you are. How do we prepare for the future, yet fully attentive in the present? How do you turn a week of preparation and planning into a week of purpose?...

My train of thought keeps wandering as I sip my coffee, write this blog, turn the pages on the 'to-do' list in my mind, and try to rest all in the same breath. Life is crazy. God is good.

My outreach team is going to Nicaragua. Brazil didn't work out, but I believe it is for a reason. Different blessings have fallen into our ready hands as I watch shaking my head in disbelief at what the Lord has said i'm capable of doing. Does that make sense? I'm trying to make sense of it. All this to say, my co-leader and I have decided that Jesus is the best one to lead our outreach. He is who we are bringing with us. He is who we are going to see. He is who we are working for.

Pray for us as we go. We are planning on working with a Bible distribution project that is focusing on getting Bibles into every home in the country. We need to raise some money as a team for this ministry, but the Lord continues to provide. We are also going to be apart of other ministries as well as He leads. Basically, He is just too good to ruin the surprise of our outreach by filling us in on every detail. We know enough and we are more than happy with that.

Going to the Nations- Holding onto our promises.

Getting ready for outreach: Raising funds. Praying. Meeting with team members. Getting stoked. Drinking more coffee. Praying some more. Dreaming with God.

Our outreach team is getting closer to leaving, and trying to get things together while pressing in for God's heart for Nicaragua and Brazil. Our intercession times have been beautiful... Our visa issues have been nutty...

I am currently waiting on a call from the embassy and praying that our applications go through. There is a good chance our visas will get delayed, but I am praying for a miracle. God can do the impossible.

Our team also needs about $9,500 all together. Which is a huge amount, but I also know God is faithful in this too. We have sought Him on who to call, and who to write, and what to do, and have received support... So now we are waiting, and seeking some more. He has a huge plan for our time in Central and South America, and I believe a huge plan for each student going. They have been encountered by the Lord in so many ways during the lecture phase, and are now praying into their destiny as missionaries of the Gospel in the next 3 months, and, Lord willing in the different spheres for the rest of their lives.

If you think of our team, pray for us! If you want to partner with us financially, contact me. I love the body of Christ, and in this season, our team of 10 is leaning on the members who are able to help them move.

All for Christ and HIS Beautiful name,

Team Amazon

"What Manner of [Vulnerability] is this?"

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will chance. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
- C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves


I read this part of C. S. Lewis' Book this week and was blown away. How many times do we look at love like this? Or forget to look at love like this? From my perception, human nature teaches us one of two things about what love is like:


We must guard ourselves. Don't let anyone get too close or they might truly know you and find there is nothing worth loving. Don't dare make yourself appear weak or in need of love, because then people may abuse you.


Or.


We have to "love" everything and everyone: and that meaning being thrown around from relationship to relationship until one special somebody sticks. We cannot avoid being used and broken before finding worth. And hopefully in finding that person, we can get the most out of them, while bandaging our hearts from the past "special someones."


Love, being God's greatest gift to us is perverted in the worst way - in every area - by the enemy. Satan desires to cut us off from God's enraptured heart for us. God desires freedom from the enemy. If purity can be snatched from intimacy, the enemy gains an advantage. One thing that I love about the love of God is that he knows the ways we are attacked, and comes against those attacks with His jealousy. We often forget or don't even realize God's emotions and that he is always longing, always patient, always contending... Even in the midst of what seems to be our biggest failures. 


 Lewis emphasizes in this paragraph that it requires vulnerability to love. The greatest example of vulnerability to me is the act of God creating people. You, me, and everyone. Each one made with a purpose and an extravagant plan in mind. God dreamed the most beautiful dream when he knit our flesh and hearts at our conception. The dream is alive and possible in his heart at any moment of rebellion in our life. He can start with anyone, at any point. 


The Lord is the God of vulnerable love.

Here, There, and Everywhere.

I am so blessed.

This last week, I had the opportunity to fly home to Colorado to spend the week with my family on the occasion of my brother, David's wedding. It was such a refreshingly fun time. One of my favorite places on earth to be is with my family. It doesn't even really matter what the physical location is, just being together gives me reason to celebrate. This week was just awesome. Not only because of the aforementioned reasons, but the best part is, I gained another sister-in-law! Sonia York is the newest addition to our family, and we all absolutely love her...

After enjoying time at home, I was ready to come back to the community of YWAM and catch up on the happenings of DTS that I had missed out on. The week was on "The Father Heart of God,"and from what I heard from students and staff, it was incredible. Our school was blessed to have John Leach, from Jubilee Fellowship Church come and speak.

This week we have Don Gillman speaking on Missions and giving up rights. After the first class today, I'm pretty much ready to die. Not literally. Well, Maybe. But basically, he challenged us with what it means to die to our old nature. What it means to repent. What it means to live a life worthy of Christ dying on the cross. Incredible.

Along with that, my co-leader, Kurt and I are continuing with outreach preparations. Please keep us in your prayers as we apply for visas, seek the Lord on direction, build team unity, and raise support. We are planning on going to Nicaragua and Brazil, and keeping an open mind if the Lord calls us somewhere else as well.

More to come! That's all for now amigos! :)

Blessings,
Elzabeth