Wave of emotions

Well it has been a while since I have posted an entry on here. I will continue to leave the pictures to Amanda but I wanted to share some cool things that have happened to me in the past couple of weeks. I hope I don't get too lengthy here!

This past week we had a team from Kansas City Baptist Temple here to do many activities which included a baseball clinic and softball tournament. The week before they arrived we were finishing up the preparations which included meeting with the boys who would participate in the cinic. Most of them attend the public school around the corner from us so we decided to remind them of a few things about the clinic one morning at school. I showed up and they weren't meeting, so I went to find Pedro, one of the sports ministry staff members who also teaches at the school. He said no we aren't meeting until the day before the clinic starts. I said ok well I will see you later to which he replied come with me and see the class I'm in. So we went over to his classroom where he proceeded to introduce me to the class and tell them I had something to share with them! This caught me completely off guard and I asked what I should share. He said talk to them about faith. I quickly began to share about faith and what it means and about my faith in God. I ended up sharing with a 5th, 7th, and 8th grade class about my faith in a public school! As I walked home I just thanked God for that opportunity to be open with these kids. My emotions at that point were pure joy and excitement.

At the end of the week for KCBT I was exhausted and completely sore. I played on a Dominican softball team for the tournament and didn't remember how many muscles are actually in the body that can be sore. On Saturday we split up and went to the homes of the kids from clinic. I was able to visit three of the homes and shared with the whole family about the week. We then invited them to church the next day before we left the house. The next morning we had a great sermon from Marcos Castro, a member of the team. His message was perfect for me and had me thinking all day about it. One of the comments he made during his sermon was something along the line of "if you haven't grown in your faith and walk with God even in the past two months you aren't doing your part." This hit me hard. I had been going through a bit of a dry spell spiritually and I coudln't stop thinking about that the rest of the day. That evening as we prepared for church here at our local church I started to feel tired and had a bit of a headache. I decided I was just going to stay home from church and relax. All of a sudden I had this intense pressure on my chest, it was very uncomfortable and I didn't know what it could be. It didn't hurt at all but was just uncomfortable. I started to pray and sat down to read a book. Amanda then brought Landon to me to feed him his bottle, well I guess we both ended up falling asleep :). When I woke up my headache was gone and I no longer was tired. We ate dinner and went to church. While in church I was still thinking about the morning sermon. As we were finishing up praise and worship some young guys came in and had me move over so they could sit down. After we got readjusted I looked up to see two of the three boys who's house I was in the day before, I turned around to see three more boys sit down as well. Five boys from camp came to church! Right then God spoke to me and said if you aren't even growing yourself how can you help these boys to grow! That is when the giant wave of emotions hit me. I was so excited to see them in church and so disappointed that I had not been preparing myself better.

You are all a part of these emotions for me. You are all praying and supporting us to be here and serve these awesome people. I know reading this long entry can't really capture the emotion of it all but God is doing great things here, for me personally and for this island. Keep praying and keep listening to how God wants you to serve!