Team Malawi Individual Updates

A little something from Amy

Well we are almost done with our ministry in Malawi, and it has, for the most part, been a blast. I have loved the time the whole group spends in mguayi, the village surrounding our dorms. I have really enjoyed connecting with two little girls named Jennite and Edena who have managed to give me a great arm work out every time! For sports ministry twice a week I have been visiting a village called mzumala, and it has been great interacting with the same kids. My favorite moment from sports has been getting to go to a girl named Ellen's house in the village and just spending time with her, washing dishes, drawing water from a well, and meeting her family. The Malawian people I have met are so friendly and relational, it has been such a blessing to spend time getting to know them and meeting their families. Another highlight from the trip has been going to Chiwango (a village about 2hrs from where we stay) and chasing chickens in the yard. As stupid as it sounds, the four of us that were "chicken hunting" had so much fun doing such a simple, silly thing; I think a lot of what made that such a memorable experience was just the relational bonding that has made so much of this trip amazing. The 16 other interns are incredible people and it has made this time in Lilongwe very worth while. I would so appreciate continued prayer for the remaining week of ministry we have left, and also for patience with one another as we grow tired and anxious about leaving soon. Praise God for what He is doing here and for how He is teaching all of us more about who He wants us to be!

A word from Tracy

Bo! That's Chichewa for "what's up!?" or "Hey!" Speaking of Chichewa, I'm becoming quite the little learner. So far I've mastered the basic body parts; kwapa (armpit) and lilime (tongue) are some of my favorite words to say. I've also mastered the phrase "Ndiku pita kwatu!" (I am going home!) and love to shout it out of context all the time just to confuse the locals.
Its an absolute adventure here in Malawi. Besides having a blast cramming as many Chichewa words and phrases into my head as possible, I've fallen in love with many other aspects of the culture as well.
The food, the music, the hospitality- these are the things I greatly appreciate about the Malawian culture. I've noticed that most things done here are done in community and with multiple members of the family present. Whether it's cooking, eating, dancing, doing chores, or entertaining guests, it is always a family affair. As a traveler coming from the U.S., it's a very refreshing observation. My favorite village we visit on a regular basis is a village called Muzu. I've been bringing my unicycle there twice a week and to my delight the teenagers are becoming quick learners. A lot of them will definitely be skilled riders in no time, which is great because I'm planning on leaving my unicycle at Muzu when we go back to the states. A new movement has begun in Malawi… the splendid art of unicycling!
Another highlight for me has been the fact that I celebrated my 21stmy 21st birthday here in Malawi! Along with receiving a care package from my family, I also got a special birthday cake and a gift from the COTN staff. No doubt about it, this birthday will never be forgotten!
As crazy as it sounds, it hasn't completely hit me that I'm actually in Africa. I'm loving each day each day here as I continue to see God's beauty and power in the lives of the people I meet. The Body of Christ is definitely alive and growing here in Malawi, and it's been an honor to be able to observe and partake in all of what God is doing in this part of the world.
Praises from myself
- my health
- my ability to be open and flexible with the culture
- the relationships established with other inters as well as the locals
Prayer Requests
- renewed energy and rest
- boldness in sharing the gospel
- patience and humility

A note from Sami

My favorite moment on deputation occurred in Muzu during sports ministry. I have a little girl jennifa is about three or four and she follows me around endlessly and to be honest I look forward to it each day. She doesn't smile and hardly talks. She just quietly follows me around or sits in my arms. One day she wasn't at the field and I kept asking for her and then I look over and this girl is carrying her towards me, she looks squeaky clean and dressed in new clean clothes. They set her in front of me and simply say "jennifa!" I know who she was and my heart lept with joy. I love her and hope she keeps it safe.
Praises
- I thank God for continued connection with kids
- For growing relationships with inters
- For continued growth in God
Prayer requests
- Health
- Rest, Energy
- That God will bless the village Muzu
- That Gods hands will be apperent in the lives of Jennifa, Krissy, Kidd, Wezzi and Precious

Team Turkey Update

Wow…where has the time gone? We have been planning to blog for a while but have been busy with the kids and time has been slipping away. The last few weeks have been an incredible whirlwind of excitement and busyness.
In the past few weeks we have been able to see some of Turkey’s beauty. We went to Duden Falls with Verna, our coordinator. It’s a gorgeous waterfall that flows throughout the city and pours into the Mediterranean. We really enjoyed the experience and it was nice to get out of the city.

Recently, we were invited to two birthday parties, which were a lot of fun and it was interesting to see how different cultures celebrate occasions. We learned some Turkish dance techniques that involved wearing jiggling skirts around your waist. Turkish people are incredible dancers and they start very young. Even our three year olds at the Kres are impressing us with their belly dancing moves.
Despite what you may think, we still have not fully adjusted to the heat, and are envious when we see Turkish people in jeans and long-sleeved shirts not even sweating.
Work at the Kres is going well. In true Turkish fashion, the number of kids that come everyday has dramatically fluctuated since the first half of our trip, which is a bit intimidating, but keeps us on our toes. It is teaching us to be more flexible, and learn that everything happens in God’s timing. Lately we’ve been reading lots of books with the kids, and even though they are in English and we hardly have a translator, they are always so thrilled to listen. The pictures are so help to make up for what gets lost in translation. One thing that we are so proud of is the unbelievable amount of English that our kids have been able to absorb. It is our favorite thing to hear them using what we’ve taught them and reciting English phrases in their cute little accents.

The longer we are here, the more our eyes are opened to God’s work going on in Turkey,, and our role in the process despite not being able to openly talk about our faith—especially to the kids. Not being able to use our words has helped remind us that we are a small part of how God is working, and that our actions are just as important as our words. Although it is difficult to measure, we can see how our subtle influence makes a difference in the projects that Verna oversees here in Antalya.
We are really enjoying ourselves and we’re trying to soak up our last week and a half here by going to the beach as often as we can, and appreciating the scenery. It is so bittersweet to be coming to a close as we realize that saying goodbye to the kids we’ve been working with will be quite tough. We feel so blessed to have witnessed the generosity and kindness of the Turkish people. Until next time,
Team Turkey

Team Ireland deserves some type of medal

Yes another update so soon- we should get an award, or maybe not.

To pick up where we left off, we arrived at Lowe Memorial outside of Belfast on Saturday, the 20th, and began working with 13 other people from age 16 to 22. Our leader was Christine, who we met when we first arrived in Belfast, so it was comforting to know 1 out of the 13 new people.

Saturday and Sunday were much like our previous camps in which we decorated and talked about the coming week on Saturday and then Sunday were introduced to the congregation and ate dinner with families afterward. We were each assigned prayer partners from the congregation and Kiel and Nicole went to the house of their partners. We stayed upstairs at the church, and had all of our meals down in the kitchen. At the other camps we could have showers daily, but we only had showers three times at Lowe, so we could hardly handle our own stench by the end.

We led the Bible Club in the morning to the theme 'Go For Gold', which had a ridiculous song to go with it. We even made up some 'killer' motions, that Quinn did oh so enthusiastically every morning. We also led teen events every evening. The first night we had less than 10 teens, but by the end of the week we had almost 20. It was encouraging to have local non-Christians attend the events, which involved a water balloon fight, and even a girls/guys night.We met some great teammates once again and had plenty of laughs singing a rap song called 'INDEPENDENT' and Kiel, Jenna, and Quinn had some sweet times playing Squash ball.

Our week of vacation began after Lowe, so we hopped on the train to Dublin on Saturday morning and stayed at a hostel right in the city. It sounds great, but there was literally too much sound as we were right across the street from a pub/nightclub that played real good dance songs until 2am in the morning. Our time in Dublin included visiting the Book of Kells and a really old library with over 200,000 books at Trinity College. We had money budgeted to us before the trip began and Nicole as treasurer misread the amount on the Food envelope, which means we only have 50 euro a day for food, which means we have to make almost all of our meals-oops. We headed out of Dublin on Tuesday morning at 7 and took a 7 hour bus trip to Dingle, on the west coast. We were so excited to be out of the city, but were greeted by the strongest rain that the city has had in years.

Time is up on the computer, but look forward to more info in our next update.

Kiel, Quinn, Jenna, Nicole

An Inda-long update from Team India

Inda-Update

Well, we are alive! In case you have not heard there were 7 bomb blasts here in Bangalore and many others in another city in India. We are all safe and the blasts were far enough away we did not hear or see them (Bangalore is a very big city). But besides not getting blown up, we have been really busy.

Shortly after our hospital trips we had a unique opportunity to bless Prem & Rita, our inda-parents (inda- is a prefix we use to describe something in India. This was developed because, although most things that we could get in the U.S. are available to us here, everything has a unique Indian addition). What we did is made them an American meal. Rita had been raving about how last years team had made Lasagna so we decided not to be outdone. We made Lasagna AND brownies. We were surprised that we were able to get all the materials (with much improvisation, of course) and shocked when it all turned out delicious. Despite a minor miscalculation on cooking time (dinner at 8:30pm) we had a great time laughing around the dinner table.

The following Saturday (July 19th) we went on a trip with the boys that live at the school to a place called Nandi Hills. It has been an enjoyable experience to invest deeper in the relationships we have been building with the boys in the hostel. The hills were beautiful and it was fun to get out of Bangalore to hike around.

That next week Prem took us to visit some of the ministries in Bangalore. It has been encouraging to see the way that people have let their passions really be shaped and fulfilled by God. First we went to the Bible Society of India, which is the largest translator of bibles in India and has been around for about 100 years. They had all kinds of bible paraphernalia, most of which we didn’t know existed (the entire bible on one page?). Then, Wednesday we toured the Baptist Hospital in Bangalore and got to spend some time with some other college students from the U.S. they were are very friendly, but it was kind of strange to interact with white people again (I know that sounds weird, but you don’t realize the cultural bubble we live in in the Northwest until you come to a country where you are the minority).

On Thursday we went to see The Dark Knight in the theater 1km away. It was an inda-movie. Once we found our assigned seats, but before the feature presentation began the houselights came on and everyone stood up, removed their hats, and sang the national anthem. Then almost exactly an hour and half into the movie the screen when blank, the houselights came on and everyone got up to leave. This was the intermission (every movie in India has one) Kevin and Roderick went to get some snacks, but came back to the seats empty handed. The movie commenced and within twenty minutes a person came to our seats with a tray of food. Kevin gave her some rupees and she gave him and Roderick the tray of food. This was the food that they had ordered during the intermission and it was delivered to our seats.

Friday of that week was when we were set to leave for Goa. Goa is an old Portuguese colony that is right on the Arabian Sea. The beach was beautiful and the water was warm, even though it rained the majority of the time. But the most memorable part of the trip was the inda-train ride. We had to travel overnight by train, 14 hours, to get to the state of Goa. It was quite an adventure. We had to get on to the train quickly; it only stopped at our station for 2 minutes (I’m not joking). Once on, we found the accommodations rather cozy. We settled in and got a full night sleep. In the morning we were a little more ambitious and explored the train some. We got to talk with the couple in the compartment next to ours and found out they live in the same neighborhood in b’lore and were in the same compartment as us on the ride back from Goa too. We have exchanged mobile numbers and hope to have dinner with them some time before we leave. The train gave us a new perspective on how pleasant and engaging the Indian people are. As we walked down the isles of the train we would run into random people that would ask us all about our time here and about the states. A common greeting after hearing we are from the U.S. is “America, huh? George Bush?” once we got a “How’s Bushy?” On the way to the toilet or just exploring we were often offered cigarettes, biscuits, beer, or anything else they had to give. The experience convicted us that we have been much too reclusive here and need to get out and meet people. At one of the stops Kevin and Roderick got off the train to get us all breakfast (Masala Dosa….mmmm). We began to worry when the train started moving and we still didn’t know where they were. A couple minutes after we left the station they came, panting, up to the compartment and we learned that they had waited until the train started moving, intentionally, so they could dramatically run and jump onto the train.

Once in b’lore Wednesday was our first day back at school and it was also Amber’s last day before she went home. Amber was another missionary here at Prem & Rita’s, working at the school. She hails from the thriving metropolis of Ritzville, Washington and attends Witworth University as a student of theology. Amber was really part of the team and she (having arrived two weeks before us) was like our inda-big sister. After school we visited a ministry called World Cassette Outreach of India. They make recordings of the bible in different languages and dialects in India to provide to the illiterate, tribal people of India (approximately 52% of India is illiterate. That number is hugely underestimated due to the fact that the Indian government defines literacy as being able you sign your name). It is also noteworthy that they seek to do it in different dialects and languages because the common estimate for the number of languages used in India is over 1600. Also visiting that ministry was a group of students from Northwestern College in Iowa who have been in India a month and are leaving tomorrow. It was fun talking with them and comparing experiences. Amber’s flight was scheduled to leave b’lore at 6am Thursday morning so she had to leave the house at 2:30am to get there in time. The girls stayed up with her while the boys slept until 2:30. When it was time for her to go we all saw her off. Today we had a half-day at school so, reinvigorated by the experience of talking with people on the train, we set out to be more social. God blessed us. While we were in a sweets shop one guy mid-twenties noticed our white skin (not hard to do) and decided to strike up a conversation. It was really fun; we got cokes and talked about culture and actors and by no fault of our own, religion. As it turns out he is a Muslim and he was very open with his faith and we were obliged to reciprocate that openness. After talking for 45 minutes we had to go, but we got his number and hope to meet with him again soon. This afternoon Prem took us to two more ministries: Far East Broadcasting Associates (FEBA) and Gospel Recordings. FEBA uses radio and handwritten, personal follow-up to encourage and share the gospel with all of India. Due to federal regulations they are not allowed to overtly share the gospel on the radio, but that is where the personal follow-up comes in. FEBA gets thousands of letters from listeners around the country and use those avenues to bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ. They have even seen Hindu priests come to Christ through their programs and letters. Gospel Recordings focuses on the illiterate peoples of India and provides tools for churches and missionaries to share the gospel in over 500 languages using pictures and recorded scripts.

At school we are sort of being weaned off of the kids. Whether it is for their sake or ours, we are not sure. We have spent the last couple of days doing some much-needed organizing work in the library of the school. Roderick has also been tasked with writing several descriptions of events for Rita to use in promoting the school. If we are honest with ourselves we are starting to get anxious to be coming home, but we still have a lot of great things planned and every intention of being fully present here until the final moment. We miss you all terribly and always appreciate your emails of encouragement. Please be praying for the ministries we’ve mentioned. They are fighting the good fight and doing so with such passion and drive.

Love Teamindia.

What the sheesh is Dengue doing in Chapab?

Us in front of the plaque on the completed house.

Unibows - and yes, that is Stu's hair.

The people that mean the most to us in Chapab.

Hello everybody!!! After a long week of goodbyes, hellos and fiestas (as always) our team is back in Mérida resting up a bit. We just finished up our time in Chapab - finishing the house we built, our VBS classes and english classes.

First we will begin with our recent exciting events: just last week we found out that this "meat" called "sheesh" we had been eating in Chan Chans was actually tripe. And what is tripe you ask... it is "the first and second divisions of the stomach of a ruminant, esp. oxen, sheep, or goats, used as food" (dictionary.com). And apparently they use the word sheesh here to describe the remnants of something that noone wants. Mmmm. On that note, we also found out that our little pueblo of Chapab had a small infestation of Dengue. This came to our attention one day when a man with a blower full of insect death juice showed up to spray our house and we were told not to go back inside for a while. That was neat-o, since none of us got dengue shots. Somehow we made it out alive though, so its OK. Next was spoons. Yes, we taught our families how to play spoons.... it was awesome. The entire concept of the game was not completely understood by all, which made the game all the more fun. As a summary, Stu and Josh cheated for grandpa Don Berto and grandma Griselda so that they wouldn't lose every time, and whenever someone got 4 of a kind he/she would scream and lunge to the middle of the table. No words can describe the glory of this event, but there was much laughing and lots of comments about cheating in English that they didn't understand. Oh and we played again the next day with 21 people... it was incredible.

ALSO, during our time in Chapab we have been trying to share the finer side of the American dining experience with our families via desserts. They loved our cake, but we recently discovered that they HATE apple crisp. We spent a couple hours making it for them only to discover that our dessert was "really good" (according to our families) but that thye in fact hated it and wanted Josh to finish all of their plates for them. Weird. Seems like they prefer their salty chili covered apples instead (seriously...). They did love the Rice Krispy Treats though.

Our last week of events with the church also went very well. We finished our house just before we had to leave, leaving a plaque with our names and commitioning the house in the name of God. We also had more kids than ever - 40+ each day - and got them to chant "GO HUSKIES", Husky football game style. it was awesome. Take that, Oregon. It was really neat since we were finally getting to know some of the kids better, making the VBS scene a lot more exciting and fun for everyone. We had a "clausura" (goodbye party) for the VBS with 2 piñatas, lots of kids and complete chaos which was a great way to close off our time in Chapab, though it was sad to say goodbye to all the kids. We also taught our English class the word "awesome" and closed off with some English jeopardy.

Luckily we did not have to give our final goodbyes to our families, since we will be seeing them in 3 weeks for our final goodbye party, so that made it all a bit more bearable - but it was still sad, and its a bit weird to think about moving on to our next village and new family.

As for recent news, Nicole has recently obtained a new nickname: Sleepy Bear. I will leave the interpretation of the name up to the reader. We've been having an awesome time as a team, talking about lots of random things, painting each other (we've been painting a school the last two days) and just having good conversation. We're all a bit nervous but also excited to move on to our next village, so prayer for that transition would be awesome. Also prayer for continued team bonding, our remaining projects, health and the relationships that we have made so far would be greatly appreciated.

God bless all of you and thank you for thinking about us as we are thinking about you all.

TIM Mexi-Mala,
Nicole, Anna, Josh and Stu

Team Ireland update...its about time. :)

Hey everyone,

You may be wondering, but we are still alive- we have just been busy and have slacked off a bit with updating the blog.

There is much to update on, but we’ll try to fill you in on everything. After finishing at Faughanvale, we had five days off to travel and recuperate. We didn’t realize how tired we were until we stopped moving, and then it hit us hard. We left the camp on Sunday and stayed at a hostel in Londonderry by the North Coast. We were in a room with about five other people and had some pretty weird, and funny experiences. On Monday we traveled around the city on walls that are old- maybe very old?! We visited a museum about the history of the “troubles”, which is what the violent times of unrest are called. That night we met up with some friends from our last camp for dinner and then headed to Downhill Hostel, which is right on the ocean. The woman who owns it used to go the UPC, so we felt at home even though we were a far way from it. We stayed there for two nights and had a blast. We borrowed wet suits and boogie boards and Kiel and Jenna rode the waves, while Nicole and Quinn pretended to know what they were doing! We traveled along the coast by bus to Giant’s Causeway, which is a huge area of hexagonal stones of different heights that extend out of the water. We also visited a rope bridge that moved a little too much for Quinn and Jenna’s comfort, but we all made it safely across- both times! We caught the train back to Belfast for a few days where we traveled around the city with friends and took a sweet tour of the city on a double decker bus.

On Saturday, we got a three hour car ride down to Mullingar (in the Republic), but not before resting up by sleeping in until 1 pm- it was amazing. Nicole had never had fish’n’chips, so we stopped for dinner at a place that we were sure would make her fall in love. However, the fish was more like an eggo waffle with its squareness and it slapped us on the chin when we tried to take a bite. We recovered in time to meet the Mullingar team of 18, most of whom were from the North and not the Republic. The pastor of Mullingar Presbyterian, Steven, was joined by his sisters, Cathryn and Susan, in the running of the camp. It was hard to shift back into camp mode after the break, but everyone was great and we soon were joking around and laughing. Unlike Faughanvale, we did two Holiday Bible Clubs each day, one at 10:30 and the second at 2, so we were constantly running about. We had around 65 kids at the morning session and 40 in the afternoon, but the afternoon bunch seemed just as energetic, or maybe crazy, as the morning. The church was VERY small and we had to move into an army tent outside for certain activities. This also resulted in us staying with families of the congregation and community. Jenna and Nicole stayed with the Wilsons and their two sons and Kiel and Quinn stayed with the three other guys at the house of a man named Cyril who arrived home at 3 am and always left the lights and tv on. Our theme for the week was Champions, and Steven used his guitar skills to write a song to the tune of ‘Don’t Stop Me’ by Queen? The camp was very different from Faughanvale, but was just as great. We were exhausted, but were blessed by the kids and the great team members who kept us sane, or at least laughing. We had to leave Mullingar early and miss the last two days of events to head to our next camp, Lowe Memorial, in Belfast. We have more to write, but are going to wait a day or seven so that you will have something to look forward to and we will be able to say that we have posted more.

To everyone who makes it this far, we thank you for loving us and being excited about what God is doing through and in each of us. Please keep us in your prayers and we’ll write again soon-hopefully.

Jenna, Nicole, Kiel, Squinn (or Squid or Squinn)

Ethiopia....Party Time, Excellent!

Joey with a bunch of kids at Mekelle Youth Center

Annalise and Danny at the blind school

Us in Aksum in front of one of the giant obelisks

Workin' the Beyonce T-shirts

First we want to apologize for not updating you all for a couple weeks, we have been extremely busy. The missionaries we are partnering with here left to go back to the States earlier this week. On top of our daily routine at Mekelle Youth Center we are going to Operation Rescue to teach orphans English, act out Bible stories and sing a lot of "Father Abraham" for them. We tell you, it's one of the most freeing feelings to dance ridiculously in front of 50 students while they stare at you like you're ooh-id (Tigrinya for crazy). We take turns in partners going to the blind school in the area on Friday mornings. We love going and hanging out with the kids, we might go a couple times a week when our commitment at Operation Rescue ends. We are getting a little tired and have a hard time staying up past 9pm, as we are working 6 days a week. However we were able to take a bit of a vacation last weekend (though it gave us no time to rest.)

This past weekend we hired a "party" bus (we nicknamed it that) to drive us up to Aksum. It took us about 6 and a half hours on the bus to get there on the Adigrat Road. Although it looks close on a map the terrain was very extreme so there were lots of switchbacks and turns and at least 2 different mountain ranges on the road. Luckily we only saw one car on it's side and our drivers understood that we wanted to make it back to Mekelle so they didn't drive "too" fast. The scenery was gorgeous and the drive was entertaining as we passed livestock, many people walking, and police checkpoints.

Aksum is a city in northern Ethiopia (we could see Eritrea at one point....awesome) that is the center of the old Aksumite empire. We saw the obelisk field there that was constructed sometime in the 4th century AD. The obelisks (called stelaes by the locals) are tomb markers, carved out of a single block of stone, the largest one being 33 meters, and 250 tons. We saw the reconstruction being done on one that the Italians took during their occupation here and only recently returned to the Ethiopians. We also saw the St. Mary church compound. This is the location where over 250 Ethiopian kings were crowned and the Arc of the Covenant is said to be kept. It is believed that the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon had a son who went to Jerusalem and brought the Arc to Ethiopia. We also saw a toucan there…absolutely awesomely fantastic.

On the way back we were booking it so the drive only took 5 and a half hours. Joey, Matt, Mikayla, and the Irish guys each took turns driving the bus for a few minutes, all while Annalise mentally yelled at the people who said they would teach her how to drive stick but still have yet to do it. Don't worry though, there weren't many cars on the road… although when Mikayla was driving she had to stop abruptly about 100 yards away from a random police checkpoint. The driver jumped back in his seat and thankfully as we began our approach they just waved us right on through.

Our daily schedule involves us getting to the youth center at 8:30 or sometimes earlier if we feel like eating at the café for breakfast. At 9 am we begin sports and English with kids younger than 12 years old. At noon, we have a break for lunch. On Monday and Wednesday we go to teach Operation Rescue during lunch. We're back at MYC at 3pm (or 4 pm on Operation Rescue days) the time in the afternoon is full of bingo, sports tournaments and English for the older kids (age 12+). We usually wrap up the day around 6pm and then get some dinner. We normally get about 9 hours of sleep, and then the day starts over again.

The guys bought four chickens 2 weeks ago and had a chicken dinner. They almost had too much fun killing them and eating them. Next on their list is the goat. They bought the goat yesterday (Saturday) and named it "Bret" after the guy from "Flight of the Conchords." They are planning on having a block party Ethiopian style towards the end of the trip with all the friends we have made. Until then the goat is eating lots of grass and keeping the girls up at night (their house has more grass).

The girls are hating the boys and thinking about throwing the goat out of the gate door in the middle of the night. Otherwise they're enjoying there time here especially their bible study on Wednesday nights with the women missionaries here, there is so much wisdom when you mix generations together. Last Thursday, they went to lunch at one of the high school age girl's house. They ate delicious food, played with her 4 year old brother, and watched music videos on Arabian MTV which made them feel a little like they were at home. On Wednesday night they ended up outside a brothel where a little 8 year old HIV positive girl named Yordanos lives with her older sister. She is being placed in a new home soon thankfully. We ask prayer from all of you that her placement will work out for her (as she refused profusely the first time and that's why the girls and a missionary ended up taking her back to her sister at the brothel on Wednesday night).

We are loving our time here and it is going by so fast. We could use prayer for good health, Mikayla is getting over her sickness and Joey has been fighting a soar throat and fever the past week. We also would like prayer for opportunities to share the gospel with people we have built relationships with for the past 4 weeks. We also need wisdom in where and how to spend our time, so we wont be spread too thin, but at the same time we are doing what we can, and being as useful as possible.

Chow for now!
Team Beyonce
Annalise, Joey, Matt, and Mikayla (which is a boys name here…hilarious)

Living la Vida Locust

La jungla, polol, chitzen itza, yaxuna, ticul, fiestas, just a quick list of all the places and things we saw this last week...AWESOME! (english word of the week). The bugs and storms have been bigger and better than ever, we (and 13 others) got a bug shower in the back of a sweet pickup truck, as well as playing with locust, praying mantises, furry and deadly catterpillars,stick bugs, gigantic poison-filled jumping spiders, scorpions, and giant ranas (toads...poisonous ones of course). We also made it through tropical strom Dolly which dumped gallons of rain periodically for the last few days.
The week started out with a true American battle royal on the hardwood (a cement sketchy puddle ridden b-ball court in the central plaza). Anna, Josh, Stu, and the shortest worst Mexican baskeball player ever took on a well oiled Mexican team...aka four other terrible Mexican players. The game got intense and tempers flared as we battled for every point of the first to 25 by ones game. Team USA fell behind somehow 15-9 due to some sloppy play, fortunatly we were able to dig deep relying on our superior knoledge and team play, making an epic comeback worthy of a denzel washington sports movie. Nicole provided moral support from the bench...aka she evangalized...aka flirted with the local policia....that is all she does...ever...for real....word.
Our next major adventure was a family trip to the lagoon and cenote where they used to live. After a hour long pickup ride through the dense jungle we arrived at the end of the road, aka the place where the truck couldn´t pass and we had to hike, we knew we were in over our heads when all the others carried machetes and we were packing a rifle. We got to the cenote after a quick bushwacking, the locals didn´t want to swim due to traditional legends. We jumped from 25ish feet into some sweet cool water, but we were a little aprehensive after hearing about the snakes that frequent the water too.
Last weekend we took a quick trip to Yaxuna, a town of 150 people where we helped to build a rock wall between the local presbyterian church and their neighbors. The houses we stayed in there were made of sticks and mud with tin roofs...it was legit and surprisingly not too many bugs. We got up Saturday morning at 5:15 in order to walk to a closeby ruin where we watched the sunrise over the Yucatan, there are next to no hills in the area so we could see for miles. There was another small cenote in the village that we got to swim in, it was more than a little sketchy because it was way below ground and the trees and undergrowth blocked out almost all the light that was left in the sky, during our walk to the cenote a storm came dumping rain, we had to run to find shelter in the water from the lighthing...good idea? After some more work on the wall which was more like doing a jigsaw puzzle with rocks and cement we got in the van and headed out to Chitezen Itza, one of the biggest and most famous Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. Going to a tourist destination was a little bit of a culture shock to us, soo many people speaking english and buying souveniers...not like the little villages we have grown accoustomed to. the ruins were beautiful and full of mysteries, we wandered around the ruins for almost 3 hours before getting some pizza and shaved ice for lunch...a little slice of home was nice.
We are now back to work as usual, VBS classes have been great, lots of kids with lots of energy(today we lead them in a sweet chant of GO HUSKIES!!!!) they loved it even though they didn´t really know what they were chanting about. English classes contiune to be amusing, teaching them important phrases as well as random slang like ¨awesome¨, ¨the bomb¨, and ¨i want to play with your hair¨...it was a request from anna and nicoles mexi-dad. we have also been teaching them about the finer food of the US...aka cake. None of the people here had ever heared about making a cake, they were blown away by the fact that we can make a cake from a box in a half hour, we have already made two, thursday we are going to make a huge spaggetti dinner with marble cake for dessert.
It is crazy to think that we are almost halfway done with our time here, we only have five more days in Chapab before we head off to Merida and then to Machcanu. Our spirits are still high for the most part, everyone is deffintly missing aspects of summer in seattle and everything that that entails...seafair, golden garden and such as well as missing the tour de france and knowing that we will miss the majority of the olympics. we can deffinitly need prayer for energy and good attitudes as we change homes as well as direction for where we can be most usefull and open ears and hearts to see where and how God is leading and teaching us. until next time.
-ojala en cristo
anna, nicole, stu, and josh

Loose motions in India

Teamindia has had an eventful week. Marykate started having stomach pains last Sunday evening. The whole week she was tormented by fever and loose motions (that’s what they call diarrhea here) and by Wednesday she was admitted to the Hospital. After some tests the doctors divined that she was suffering from Typhoid fever. An Indian hospital is an experience unto itself and Marykate ended up spending two nights there. Images conjured by the word Hospital for those of you in the U.S. probably do not do justice to a Hospital in India. Words like sterile, white, and private could not be applied to Marykate’s experience. A nurse would come in randomly, give her some pills to take, or give her a shot in the butt, or take some blood, in all instances leaving without any explanation. But by the grace of God the team’s prayers were answered and she completely recovered after only two nights.

Unfortunately for her though she missed a great day on Friday. We had the opportunity to take two of the classes from the school to a day camp. The camp had a ropes course, trampolines, a zip-line, great food, and a loving staff. The staff was great with the kids and gave them enough activities and guidance that we were able to play a bunch too. We found the camp so rewarding and exciting for the way that we were able to encourage and challenge the kids to face their fears and rise over obstacles on their own. One of the kids, Bharath, at the start of the day wouldn’t even go near the ropes course, but after much coaxing we convinced him to just sit on the platform, then convinced him to stand on the platform, then before we knew it he was going across and he made it across on his own. To see the triumph and the joy in his eyes was moving. We also had a unique opportunity to build relationships with some of the older kids in the school, children that are less severely disabled.
Despite all the fun and fellowship Kevin succumbed to stomach pain as well. This led to fever and our old friend loose motions. Roderick was instated as Kevin’s temporary nurse and tended to his every whim until he to was admitted, kicking and screaming, to the hospital. But Kevin’s hospital experience was markedly different from Marykate’s. Due to a lack of available space in the ward where Marykate had been admitted just days before, Kevin was placed in the “Special” ward. “Special” in this case meant individual rooms with a private bathroom, air conditioning, and a television. Roderick stayed the night with him. It was an adorable sleep-over, and despite the IV in Kevin’s hand they still had one hell of a pillow fight (just kidding). But Kevin got out today and now everyone is healthy (knock on wood). As of today we have one more month and although it has gone by very quickly it still seems as though we have another lifetime before we can begin to think about coming home. We miss and care for you all deeply, keep us in your prayers. Congrats Nolan and KatieJo!

Footsteps of Paul

Hello from Turkey,

Our week studying Mexico with the kids ended on Friday with a fun Mexican Fiesta. Our craft throughout the week was putting together 3 paper mache piñatas which went over very well during our Fiesta. We also played some pin the tail on the donkey and enjoyed some Mexican food… or as close to Mexican food as we were able to recreate here in Turkey. Overall we all had a lot of fun and we are continuing to be encouraged by the kids’ enthusiasm.

Saturday night we got the opportunity to experience a traditional Turkish Bath (Hamam). It was quite interesting and memorable to be scrubbed down by complete strangers. It ended with a soap massage and we all felt squeaky clean.

The next morning we left Antalya and headed for Ephesus. Along the way we stopped in Denizli which houses ruins from the ancient city of Laodicea. We got to walk around in recently excavated market place and even saw a 2,000 year old stadium that would have held Chariot races. After that we stayed the night in Pammukale, a town famous for its natural hot springs. On Monday it was on to Ephesus. First we visited the Church of St. John and saw his tomb. The church was built up around his tomb centuries after his death. Seeing the city ruins of Ephesus brought to life Paul’s journeys, many of which included a stop in Ephesus. We were able to stand in the amphitheater that hosted the famous riots against Paul and his teachings. (Acts 19:23-41) After this weekend we all have a deeper understanding and appreciation of this land (Turkey) and its importance in early Christian History.

We are all exhausted from our 7 hour bus ride home to Antalya but are looking forward to being back with the kids tomorrow. We hope all is well at home, we hear the weather is just gorgeous! Keep us in your prayers,

Team Turkey