June 24^th I embarked on an amazing journey with 8 of my dear friends and 2 beautiful children!  Ronda, Jacob, Ariel, and Hailey will be joining me in approximately 12 days, 12 hours, 27 minutes, and 25 seconds…not that I’m counting!

We have met some of the most amazing people in the last 5 days and have hit the ground running as usual.  After arriving in Sao Paulo, Brazil, we were picked up by our new Portuguese friend Ruben who handed us a sheet of paper with some useful Portuguese phrases like, “We’re hungry for food,” and, “We need to stop for the bathroom,” and my favorite, “We need to stop and puke.”  We all laughed together at the choice of phrases to welcome us to the beautiful nation of Brazil…and hoped we didn’t need to use all of them. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is a letter from one of our staff, Vanessa Vawer.  She wrote this letter to her family while on outreach last year in Afghanistan.  Vanessa is a student from the DTS last April who came back to work with Ronda and I this year.  She has become such a dear friend of ours and a part of our family.  She is an amazing discipler of young people and has an incredible heart for the Lord.  This August Vanessa is moving to Ireland for 2 years to plant a Christian community there and spread the Gospel to that beautiful part of the world!

I love being here.  I know there is danger and I knew coming here I was risking my life, but you can’t understand until you have been somewhere like this place. My eyes see beyond people dying everywhere from starvation or children playing with burning trash in the sewers filled with feces.  My eyes see beneath how the women are treated, held down, disregarded as humans. The complete and utter devastation that Kabul is in from the war is just like I used to be…broken in pieces unable to put it all back together without being fragile and vulnerable to the next explosion that will cause the crumbling of life.  This place has been destroyed and doesn’t seem livable, yet millions live here because it is all they know.  All they know is war and destruction.  It is normal everyday day to work out of a building that has a roof half-fallen in and covered in bullet holes. Read the rest of this entry »

A wise man once said to me “discipleship is like parenting…sometimes your kids throw up on you, you have to be ready to clean em’ up and keep going.”

So far, in my experience as a parent (to my 3 beautiful children) there are some things that are very consistent…

1. Someone spills something daily.
2. My kids whine when they are tired.
3. They like things that are not good for them, like sugar and video games.
4. My kids surprise me with how smart they are!  And how kind they are to others!  And how much they really do love Jesus!
5. Big brothers like to torment little sisters.
6. Little sisters like to torment big brothers.
7. Even amongst the drama of tormenting each other…my kids love one another deeply.
8. Parenting is more work than I thought.
9. Parenting is way better than I thought.
10. Every night I go to bed exhausted…but every night I thank Jesus that I have the most amazing life. Read the rest of this entry »