Chile!

Friends and Family!!

We have been here for one week today, yet it feels like a month already. We arrived last Tues. at about 230 or something. Our outreach coordinator came to the airport with two other guys and picked us up, our first Chilean greeting! The family we are staying (our outreach coordinator’s family) with is so cool I like them a lot. There are two boys (14, 4) and one girl (7), real good kids. We have fun together. The first day consisted of a lot of interpreting trying to learn ages, names, and things like that in Spanish, lol pretty interesting. :p Since we’ve been here I can definitely tell I know tons more Spanish then I did the first day.

                Anyways, the first couple days we visited a few people, and got living situation under control.  Then on Friday, we got up early and traveled to an Island called Chiloe for an all-night prayer and worship vigil.  Getting there was walk, bus ride, bus ride, bus ride that also went on a ferry, bus ride, walk, walk, spend the night at a Woman’s and her Son’s house, walk, ride on a fishing boat for hour and 15 min with a bunch of other people going to the vigil. I thought it was tons of fun! J Also in between there we visited like 3 houses. Every time we visit a house whether they’re excepting us or not the hostess always serves bread, and Mate (cup of tea we pass around the room and everyone takes a drink). Very hospitable.  Also, the Prayer vigil thingy was very good, yet very very long.  Although it was quite hard to stay awake and to be honest I don’t really remember the last 3 hours, I did learn a lot about culture, language and endurance. I think that it would have been easier to be focused for the whole 9 hours (9pm-6am), if we could have understood all the way what was being said, and known the songs and stuff. Good experience for sure, and many more to come. We were gone for 4 days, oh yeah and I think we will be doing a lot of that while we are here (traveling).  

                Our coordinator said, December is for getting to know the language, and culture well. Then in January we start working. I’m really really excited, but I’m also enjoying learning a bunch of things. For example today, we start with breakfast at 8, then devotions 830, then we have a Spanish teacher that comes at 9 for an hour of class (btw all of this is quite flexible as far as times). Then today after that we just kinda hung out and worked on more Spanish stuff, until the kids got home from school at like 1230 and we split up to go visit people’s houses (which is all part of the getting to know culture and thins). The girls went with wife, and the boys went with husband to some peoples house to visit. At the house we visited there was a Mama home with her 7 year old boy and she was 8 months pregnant. They were very nice and we talked to her awhile (which we spent a lot of time just listening catching more or less of the conversation) then shared some scripture with her. We also prayed with her, which I think is super cool, because I’m learning that it doesn’t matter what language it is that your praying, but God knows both hearts and languages and makes up the difference. Two believers can minister to each other with language barriers, because it is not how you are talking, but that your sprits are syncing. Sigh* I love God J So yeah, I will know more about more outreach stuff we will be doing by ourselves in January, and also when I can understand what he’s saying that we’re doing lol. For now we are just kinda shadowing other missionaries, learning, which I think is very good thing and very helpful, to gain the peoples respect first in this way.

                Welp tomorrow we head off to a marriage conference a long ways from here, which I think the husband is speaking at. Then coming back on thurs. night late.

                So yeah… Until next time! Thank you for reading my blog. If you have more Q’s my email is commited91@gmail.com. Hopefully my next blog will be sooner than later. J Good day People!

Booya!

Hey guys! Each week one of my team members is responsible for writing on our team blog. This week it was my turn so I'll just post what I posted there here :)
If you also want to see this Team Chile blog, message me (commited91@gmail.com)  for the password. And I will send you to send-me.org to go check our blog out :) Love you all!


  This last week was a real big week for most everyone here at the RIC. We had 2 days straight of intense ministry. Thirty young people one by one sat in front of everyone and confessed deeply rooted sins and pain that have effected the way we live our life. Empty wells we've pursued, sins committed against us, and lots of ridiculous things we've done. Some shared hurts so deep that they have never been shared with anyone before this. After they emptied the pain inside of them, Carmel Hendren, and Jeremy Miller prayed with each one afterwards and walked them through steps of letting go and asking the Father to forgive. The two days straight of this were followed by a whole house trip to the park to unwind and relax. We were all emotionally drained from all the heaviness unloaded for hours on top of hours. It was a very freeing experience, and knit us all together much tighter than we've been.
       The sessions this week have been a lot of follow up on what went on last week. So now that we are free of a lot of those things that we've kept inside us for a long time, and old sinful habits, we are learning where to go from here. We're learning how to walk in that freeness, and better glorify God with the things that we've been through, and how to keep those bad habits where they need to be which is far far away. In learning all this I have often found myself answering every struggle of mine with pure willpower, like just pushing through my struggles and trying to overcome them by myself. Well as you might have guessed this doesn't work. The first place we take these things is humbly before God and acknowledging that we can't do this by ourselves, we need Him to be our strength and self-control.    
       A huge highlight for me every week in DTS is outreach. We work with Hispanic kids 3 times a week with homework, at a trailor park not far from the RIC. A local church bought a trailor house there and they use it for kids ministry, such as homework help. Usually the kids will get done a little before we have to leave, then we get to play with them!  They have a park right next door and we push kids on swings, play double dutch, soccer, catch the little ones at the end of the slide, and have tons of fun! If you can't tell thats my favorite part. :) The other day we do outreach we go to a church for ESL (English as a Second Language), some of us sit in on classes and help where needed and some of us do child care for the Mommys and Daddys that are learning English. Its very helpful for spanish learning :p. If you didn't guess I prefer the child care stuff over the classes :p.
          Every Tuesday we have a training Rec thingy. Today we played soccer at a near by feild. Most of us will be going to countries where they play soccer A LOT, such as Chile, so hopefully we'll gain tons of soccer skills by the time we get there :)
            Welp I'm not a super long winded person, so Ima end this here blog thingy right about now. May you all be blessed.
All for the glory of God and the furthering of His Kingdom!  Jean :)

Hey guys! Here is my Address btw, my Mom said I should post it :)
2120 E 5th Ave
Columbus, Oh 43219

All for the glory of our amazing Creator!

Think about who God is... blows your mind when you stop and think about it

Hola!

Well, this week was crazay! Lots of outreach at the trailor park doing homework help. Yesterday we actually went to the trailor park and just got to play with the kids. It was super fun, and the best part is we didn't have to do any homework!! YES! :P
Today we also started our Daniel fast for the weekend. There will be 3 people praying and one reading every hour of the weekend. So I'm signed up next at 430 am. So I better get to bed :) Just thought I'd let you all know a brief update of the week :) Have a wonderful day in Christ! Adios! :)

DTS

Hey guys! I finally found some time to sit down and write on this thingy! :p
Well these first two weeks have been super crazy! I'm already growing and being stretched in crazy super ways physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Here is how my day starts. I wake up at 6 am and go for a jog (except for this morning I got up and played basketball) (your required a certain amount of personal and team exercise every week) then come back take a shower, go to breakfast at 730 then quiet God and I time from 8-9 then a session until lunch time. Which is usually about pretty much anything you can think of to get you ready for a 6 month mission to a country overseas you know nothing about the culture lol :p. Then after that is pretty much never the same from day to day. Every tues. wed. and thurs. we go to a outreach at a trailor park, where we work with a local church ministry to help kids with homework, most of them are hispanic kids so we get lots of spanish practice :). Then sat we help at a youth group at a hispanic church in hilliard, Oh. Which on sundays we also go to they're church. Other things we do around here include, recreation with all reachers, one on ones, work projects, team prep, life groups (accountability groups), things like that :) Also have been playing lots of hacky sack (side note lol).
I have been growing and learning alot about my Father in Heaven. Very awesome things going on in my life. I will try to write more about that later but right now I have like no time left lol. I love you all very much. God Bless!                                      To God be the glory Forever!!!

This is our team blog if you guys also wanna check that out sometimes :) http://www.send-me.org/pages/Reach_CurrentTeamsBLOGS.htm

Hey Guys!!

I am officially starting REACH training today, parking my car for 3 months :)
Just wanted to give you guys some contact information. I forgot what the mailing address is, but I'll have that soon, and my email address is commited91@yahoo.com don't forget to drop me a note.

I miss my family very very much, and my friends, but I am super excited to see what Gods got going on.

Hope to hear from you all! :)
Much love, Jean

1st Post!

This is officially my first of hopefully many posts. Just setting this thingy up so what God is doing will be well bragged about, and spread throughout my family and friends. Leaving in a week from Thursday very exciting yet a little anxious. Leaving my family is going to be really hard, but trying to remind myself, my Father God and I will never have to separate.

Pray Request?
-A safe drive to Columbus, Oh, (also with no police stops :p)
-Be able to stop in the rushing around with my head cut off and spend quiet time with the Lord.
-God is continuing to amaze me with the way He is bringing in the funds for this trip, but to pray that I will keep trusting my Jehovah Jireh.

Have a good day! :)