being home

So my return to Winnipeg has been a little crazy, and now that my "adjustment time" is coming to an end, its back to the real world (I start work next week.) I figure I should write this all down before I get too busy. My first weekend in town was spent a little out of town actually, at the Niverville Fair! It was a great to see all my little peoples smiling faces again and get to spend the day with some of my favorite families. Though I'm not one for rides myself, I do love the ferris wheel, watching everyone do crazy things and of course taking pictures.

I was also very excited to meet Joels new little cousin Azalea who was born right before I got home. She is absolutely beautiful and has two amazing brothers to look out for her :)

My wonderfully talented sister has been practising all of the things shes been learning at hair styling school on me. Which is why I am now somewhat blonde and have a new little stud in the top of my ear. I will also be her before and after model for her total makeover competition in July which I am super excited for (I havn't got my haircut since september, its getting kind of weird.)

Other than all of that I have just been trying to enjoy my time off. Get to all of my favorite restaurants that I've been missing, see peoples new places, see everyone, go through the mountain of photos I've taken over the past 5 months, and get my tummy issues diagnosed (it still might be a parasite, I'll keep you posted.) Last night Joel & I finally went to the BDI the best ice cream place in Winnipeg which happens to be in walking distance of my house. Despite the mosquitoes it was a beautiful night.

As for whats next in my life, as I said I start work next week. I'm back at the sbux and could not be happier, I love to be busy. My church is moving buildings, so I have a new neighbourhood to explore. This summer looks like its going to be a pretty great one. Thats all for now.

-Julie

look ma i made it

So I made it. To Costa Rica and back with very little damage done and a LOT of progress made. It was and generally still is very weird to be home. But before I get into that, lets just got over my last week in CR. I had an oh so sweet "team day" with the Haiti Outreach 10 plus a few very lucky friends who came along to Volcan Poas! It was a much needed after a difficult and challenging outreach to Saint Marc and Port Au Prince Haiti. Costa Rica is beyond beautiful and we had amazing weather, food and company.

After our lovely Sunday at the volcano we had a crazy week ahead of us. The other outreach teams were on their way back to the base (aka the place formerly known as home), and I was excited to catch up with people and hear all about their crazy adventures in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico City. We only had a few days until graduation and everyone heading home so we all went about making the most of that last week. We all got a chance to present about our different locations on family night and it was really cool to see peoples pictures and hear their testimonies of their time away. Grad seemed to come to quickly on Thursday night, but everyone looked amazing and we had a great meal together with "awards" lots of hugs and picture taking. I couldn't believe that my DTS was over.

I feel like in a lot of ways I'm still processing; the lectures, Haiti and the culture shock of being home. But I do know for sure that it was exactly where I was supposed to be for those 5 months of my life. I met so many amazing people, and learned so much. I can't wait for this upcoming year of school and change. Again I feel like I'm standing on the edge of something huge and I'm about to dive into it. But its a very good thing. Thats all for now...

-Julie

A little preview of Haiti

I just wanted to put up a few pictures to help the blog I posted while in Haiti come alive a little bit. I hope these help to get you all intruiged to hear my stories when I come home.

the base in St. Marc

living in the refugee camp

little Emanuel

baptism in Balage

demolishing a church in Port au Prince

my team at the base in St. Marc

See you all soon,

-Julie

Haiti Update

So I'm finally updating you all on my outreach in Haiti!

After touching down into Haiti almost 3 weeks ago we all knew it was going to be a crazy new experience in this nation that is like no other. The customs at the airport is in a converted hanger, it was chaotic and hot and everyone was speaking creole. A weird welcome, but we were all excited for whats to come!

The first week in St.Marc we worked a lot at the base, helping with different projects. We were living in tents in a field on the base property, getting to know Haitian culture, and just how things work around here. During our first week my team was having a hard time being all together, as people kept getting really sick. Once they were better another person would be sick; Ingrid, Regi, Jenelle... one after another (it was so weird). After our orientation for new teams we were all pumped on the vision that this base has for the nation of Haiti. There is so much opportunity for teams here to work with people living in poverty (victims of the earthquake or not). God has huge plans for Haiti and its exciting to see the Haitian people rise up and take ownership of their true identity. Needless to say we were waiting for what we would be doing the next week with a ton of anticipation. We got assigned to go out to a refugee camp called Timonette, and live there for the week along with a team from Switzerland.

Our first week in Timonette was full of hard work for the team, working on a "Homes of Hope" house in a nearby town called Bellaguay. I instantly fell in love with the kids in the camp. There are about 23 tents with families from Port au Prince who have been displaced because of the earthquake. Out of around 120 people there are about 50 kids. Most of the kids don't go to school and are really bored during the day so we would hang out and play with them, and take pictures (they all love having their picture taken). Sadly I didn't make it past Wednesday morning, I got really sick and had to be brought back to the base. Rayme came back with me and played nurse, thank God for all the relief nurses staying here at the base! I got medicine right away and was back to normal by the weekend.

Our second week in Timonette we were working with the DTS from Panama. It was great to go back knowing some people already, the kids were happy to see us return and we had more of a plan of projects we wanted to complete during the week. As a team we constructed a "tippy tap" for each tent to encourage good hygiene, set up a garbage/ compost program, had an amazing womens ministry where pretty much every woman in the camp came out, had a couples teaching, had numerous kids programs, took family photos for the people, put up signs with scriptures on them around camp, had 2 amazing church services and had a big community dinner were everyone in the community got a brand new bowl with chicken & pasta. It was so cute to see the happy little faces munching on their chicken! In Bellaguay this past week we finished the "Homes of Hope" house, put on a kids program, had a mini clinic AND had an amazing time participating in a 24 hour prayer and worship "burn" that the Kona team was a part of. We felt like for our 2 hours of prayer to go to Bellaguay, a town living in a lot of poverty, that needs a lot of prayer. It was an incredible time as we began to pray for the people of the town, which lead to some serious preaching, new Christians and a river baptism! It was so incredible to see God move so strongly in a place that has been over run with voodoo and an incredible spiritual heavyness.

Anyways so we are back at the base in St.Marc today but we are leaving tomorrow to Port au Prince to do ministry there until Saturday when we fly back to Costa Rica. Its been a crazy ride here in Haiti and I am excited to see what happens in Port au Prince!

Lots of Love from Haiti!

For more info about the "24 hour burn" check out my friend Jasens blog:
http://jasenchung.squarespace.com/blog/2010/5/20/24-hour-burns-really-do-light-places-on-fire.html

HAITI!

So I'm leaving for Haiti in the morning! Very very excited!
My team will be staying at the YWAM base in St. Marc from May 4th- May 29th.
I'm not sure how it will be there for internet access so consider this my last update for a while. Please be praying for protection and provision for my team. As well as unity for my team! We will be staying in tents on the base, its really hot about 35 degrees, and it is the rainy season so its going to be a bit cozy. But yeah I have to go do my last minute packing and planning.
Talk to you all soon,
Lots of Love from Costa Rica!

Outreach Update

So since the last time I’ve updated I’ve finished classes, finished NIKO camp, had a week of outreach in Puerto Viejo and a week in Guanacaste! Needless to say a lot has been happening and I have had very little internet sorry about the lack of updates. Classes finished up with the teaching on Destiny by Design, which talked a lot about spiritual gifts and Gods plans for our lives. It was a great week full of anticipation, packing, A MILLION QUESTIONS, and it was odd because for half the week our staff was already at NIKO preparing for us. We went out on Good Friday night to get ice cream at McDonalds as kind of a “last hurrah”/ “yay were done classes” and it was a great night together in San Jose.

Our NIKO camp was really awesome, I learned a lot and the base in Talamanca (close to the CR Panama boarder) is such a beautiful place. They day before NIKO started we all went and played in the river and had a delicious dinner. I can’t say anything else really about the camp itself because the only reason it works is because of the surprises and I signed something saying I wouldn’t spill the beans, so you’ll just have to trust me.

Talamanca!

After our week or so in Talamanca we spent a week doing ministry all together in Puerto Viejo! Its on the Caribbean side fairly close to Panama and is a very touristy beach town. A lot of people there spoke English which made doing ministry a lot easier for those of us who only speak spanglish (me!). We were staying in this great Pentecostal church and had a lot of evening services with great worship times. I even got to share my testimony at the Monday night youth service, which was a little stressful, but such a great experience. We worked a little bit with a skateboarding ministry that is in the town called the Concrete Jungle, we also did basketball and soccer ministry during the week. We would play sports with who ever talk and get to know people, pause the game for a drama and continue playing, it was a really great time. Later in the week we had a free bike wash (bikes are the super common transportation) and a concert in front of a Christian Coffee Shop called Caribeans (Care-ibeans). The community was really great we were so blessed by the church we stayed in and a man named Orlando who is involved with the Baptist church in town, we cooked us lunch one day and dinner another night it was so special to have fresh fish that had been caught that day! Our time in Puerto Viejo was coming to a close and we were all sad to leave our home one minute away from the ocean, but excited to go back to San Jose to see everyone and get our mail!

Welcome to Puerto Viejo

the church we stayed in

soccer ministry

Being back at the base in San Jose was good but a little weird, being on outreach but back in your regular bed is an odd combination. The new DTS (Extreme Adventure/ Backpackers) was arriving and we had the welcome dinner for them on Saturday night, we all got dressed up and enjoyed good food, and a Costa Rican band was playing music and we danced.

back at the base

This past week I have been staying at the YWAM Base in Guanacaste Costa Rica, which is in a rural area with lots of cows, scorpions, iguanas and intense heat. Our main focus there was to help the base with their vision of seeing a Bible be placed in every home in the province of Guanacaste. So we split up into teams and went door-to-door talking, praying and Bible-giving! It was such a great experience; people were so nice to us and practically took us in in some cases, with cold drinks and mangos galore. By the end of the week we had handed out over 400 Bibles to the community. While in Guanacaste we were also involved in some really fun soccer games with people from different towns close to the base. It was cool because we even had JUCUM Costa Rica jerseys to wear and it was fun to be a team with the other DTS girls. I was of course goalie (having to tap into my grade 9 soccer playing skills) and we didn't even get kicked by the Costa Ricans like I thought we would! haha

on our way to the Guanacaste base

part of the "Big-Blue" Bible crew

My birthday was really amazing! We got in the car bright and early and drove to an english speaking church by the beach (about an hour and a half away). I got to sing on the worship team with Melissa and Dave (Johan on drums) and it was really special to be a part of an english speaking service! We also did a drama and then got to sit back and enjoy the service. After church we went to the pastors beach house, had lunch, brownie and ice cream and went swimming in the ocean! It was such a great birthday, that one is going to be hard to top!

note the b-day pin!

But I think thats all for now, and I'm finally caught up on filling you all in on my life! I will be staying at the base for around a week, and will update again before leaving for Haiti!

Lots of love from Costa Rica

Outreach on the brain

So when I last updated I was barely un-packed from our amazing week of outreach in Diriamba Nicaragua. Since then we have been doing a lot of reflection, preparing for our upcoming outreach/ NIKO camp and attending an amazing week of classes.

Thinking back on my time in Nicaragua it seems so crazy. Crossing the Costa Rica/ Nicaragua boarder is like stepping (yes we walked across the boarder with all of our packs) into a completely different world. Nicaragua is an amazing country, starting with a really unique landscape, a massive lake with two volcanoes in it as well as a lake that has sharks in it, yes sharks very cool. The people in Nicaragua are very open and friendly. The neighbourhood Barrio Berlin that we were in was just getting a stone road (bricks) put in over the dirt. There were all kinds of houses from sheet metal and scrap wood to fairly modern brick constructions, right next to each other. This is the neighbourhood the church and JUCUM base are located in. The people here were absolutely amazing, the kids were always hanging out with and attending every class or program we put on. The church there is a huge light to the community, and it was really great to see how involved and open the community was with the church.

As for our up coming outreach, my DTS will be leaving out base here in San Jose on Saturday April 3^rd. We are going to be going to Talamanca, close to the boarder of CR and Panama for our NIKO Camp. NIKO is a hardcore camp in the jungle for 5 days and 4 nights, which begins on the Monday. They don’t tell us a whole lot about it, its ment to be a time of testing and I am SO EXCITED! After NIKO we will all be doing 3 weeks of outreach in different areas of Costa Rica, then the Central America & Haiti team will be going back to Nicaragua for 1 week (yay!), and then I along with the Haiti team will be leaving to Haiti around May 7^th. Somewhere in there before Nicaragua and Haiti we will be stopping by the base for a few days, so if you still want to send me mail please do! :)

So that brings us to classes this week; we had the option of going to the Heredia Base and having a teaching from water for life or staying at our base and joining with the Children at Risk school and having a teaching on human trafficking. I chose to stay here and learn about human trafficking, it’s something that is a huge global problem but is rarely talked about. There are more people in slavery right now in the world than at any other point in history.

check this video out if possible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPoauYYhI5E

It was a really eye opening week and we are all fired up to go out and do something. It’s a good thing we only have one more week of classes left because I think we are all getting restless and ready to go out. I have so much anticipation and excitement for these next few weeks!

That’s all for now, lots of love from Costa Rica