My Brownbag this week :)

Hello,

Well, last time I made mention of some of the things that are changing in my life and I think one of the girls that has influenced me and brought change to my life is there with you or somewhere near Lubbock. My dear sister, friend and teammate Neysia. She is heading to Scotland here in a little while and I just wanted you to know that I love her and miss her very much, and if you see her please enjoy her smile, I miss it.
We are in our new apartment now and it seems like we are liking it alright!

This past weekend we went on a mini retreat to a national park two hours away, called Tsitsikamma. It was a fun time for refreshing after the move, a time for loving on my teammates and sharing together the wonderful creation of God. The scenery was beautiful, the power of the waves hitting the rocks was breathtaking... we saw a couple of whales and went to these caves full of bats. Hiking to the caves was a little experience... I, being the girl I am, didn't think about packing shoes for hiking or any closed toe shoes for that matter. So, when everyone decided to hike I had to borrow some shoes from on of my teammates. Lindsey let me borrow these tennis shoes that were probably three sizes too big and on top of that they velcrowed together instead of having shoe laces. We started the hike and I was fine even though my feet were sliding forward the whole time. We got to a point were we had to climb through these rocks and in one of my steps I had to lift my leg pretty high which made my foot not stable in my big shoes and that caused my other leg to slide back... all of the sudden I was doing the splits, while Diana and I cracked up laughing and Tyler had a worried look on his face. Oh, good times... we made it to the caves and it was all worth it... until I realized we had to walk all the way back. haha.
It was a good trip. Now we are back in real life and I guess everything is going back to normal... whatever "normal" means. :)

Love you guys... until next time!

Shout-outs:

Sommer: Remember being my camper in Grass Valley and we slept in that huge tent in the backyard of Tony's parents house? Those were fun times! ... by the way, Tony: you have an awesome backyard... and an amazing family.

Nathaniel: You are in my prayers all the time buddy. I miss you.

Ivankita: I saw all the pictures of you cooking some Indian food... everyone should at least try Ivanka's cooking once in their life time, she is amazing I have to say.

Pat: the other day we remembered the time in Mexico when you were laughing so hard that you couldn't help Sarah up when she broke the bus seat! ha ha.

Brandon and Katie: Even though you were not there physically for us there last year I still remember loving when you guys wrote brownbags. Thank you for that.

God Bless,

So that you may be strengthened...

     As most of you know, we have had a series of events that have shaken us a bit, the break-in to our house and three cars outside our house, that have put questions in my mind. 

Many times I wonder why God allows some things to happen in my life, I am sure many of us do at some point question the "plan" or "motive" for the events in our lives. Lately,  I have been thinking about what has happened here in Africa in these past two months, I don't have answers. But I came across this passage that has helped me some, to see what God wants from us: 

                 "I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power 

                 through his Spirit in your inner being , so that Christ may dwell in your hearts

                 through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may 

                 have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how WIDE and LONG and 

                 HIGH and DEEP is the love of Christ. "

                                                                                           Ephesians 3:16-19

I want for God to dwell in my heart, I want to have the power and faith to grasp that love that He has for me. 

We have been scared, and still are... there have been sleepless nights and times when we don't want to be in that house. I have been sleeping in one bed with Neysia and the night before last was the first night we decided to sleep in our own beds... we made it through the night and were very proud of ourselves. There is a process of healing that we are going through and I ask you to specially pray for Tara, it is going to be harder for her. 

We are planning on moving out of our house, it is going to be a little hard to do because we have to break the contract or wait for someone else to rent the house, so please keep that in your prayers as well. 

...satan is trying to break us, we are a threat to him. But we are not going to let him. 

I am praying to be strengthened by this... so I can grasp how wide and long and high and deep is that LOVE He has for ME.