Shake it Baby

Well yesterday at about 6 in the morning I was lying in bed alseep until I was woken up by my bed shaking. In my half-asleep state I thought "Boy that is some strong wind." When the shaking didn't stop immediately I thought," Who in the world would go to all the trouble to shake my bed to wake me up?" --not brillant thoughts-- and then I realized it was an earthquake. I've never felt an earthquake before. I like firsts. Not really scary, when you're asleep. But nothing really scares me when I'm half asleep.

ANTS

So I'm getting used to several things here is Samoa. However there are a few little rascals I can't seem to appreciate.
I woke up at 5am and found a little trail of ants heading into my pillow case. Not a pleasant way to wake up. I had to get up to make breakfast anyway, only to find that the oatmeal meant for breakfast was crawling with hundreds of microscopic ants. The old bag the new bag...both filled with ants. We had a little more protien in our oatmeal that morning.
When I went back help with lunch I found ants in the sugar bucket. So I pulled up a chair and a spoon and went hunting until I gave up and someone else went hunting.
For dinner we were making meat balls and needed eggs of course so someone didn't find the eggs I set out and a couple of them happened to be cracked so there were ants all over those too.
It was a long-up hill-battle kind of day.

Story Time!

I remember hearing this story from the YWAM base director when I was here the first time. I thought you'd like to hear it too.

THE LORD HEARS PRAYERS AND DELIVER THOSE WHO TRUST IN HIM. Here is A great story to encourage you, told by a young man who was also a victim of the Tsunami Samoa.

When the earthquake happened, his grandmother immediately got up and start singing a popular hymn in Samoan. This hymn has 5 verses. The first verse goes like this : "When the sea of this life becomes rough, and we fail because we get discouraged and lack faith, but think of all the blessings God has blessed us with, we would only be amazed..." The family saw the wave while this old woman still sings all 5 verses of the hymn, and the family started to worry. The grandma's sister and her husband ran for their lives at the site of the great wave before the grandmother finished praying. The grandchildren kept bugging grandma saying, "nana the wave the wave" but grandma did not care. She finished all 5 verses of the hymn, and after that she prayed. By then the wave was getting closer and closer but she kept praying commiting everyone of her family to the Lord naming them one by one. When she finished praying with the AMEN, this young man got up grab her and the children by the arms, rush them into the car, close all the windows and when he was about to open the door to drive away, the wave hit him and washed him up to the hills. As he was hanging there by a tree on the hill, he was wondering what had become of grandma and the children. He thought he lost them, when all of a sudden, he saw the car floating and riding the wave and grandma and the children were sticking their heads into the top of the car where there was space for them to breath some air. The car floated onto a tree where the front was leaning and the tail rested on dry ground. The young man ran over, quickly opened the car and water spilled out while grandma and all the children were all safe without any injury. The sad thing though was that the grandma's sister who ran before the prayer was finsihed was killed by the wave and her husband was fighting for his life in the hospital.The young man said in his testimony that never in his life did he really believe in the power of prayer and faith but now, he knows that God hears prayer and will never be the same again.

Things I'll Miss

The longer I stay here the more I realize what I'll miss:

The changing seasons. There is always something to look forward to with the changing seasons. I like the change. There are amazing things about each one. Winter: scarves, snow, and coziness. Spring: flowers, skirts, and thunderstorms. Summer: pie, road trips, and fishing. Fall: colors, pumpkin pie, and crunchy leaves. 

Driving. I love to drive. It is beautiful here! Just the other day the trees were covered in frost and sparkling, the sky was blue, and the ground was white. It was like a fairy tale. You just don't get that everywhere. 

Coffee and sweets. I've been able to have coffee or something sweet anytime I want. That's been nice and it's probably good that I'm getting away from it.  

My own room. You might say it's the only child talking but it is so nice to have a space that is just yours. I like to sharing, you can have/borrow anything you want. The only child in me still likes my own space though. 

and of course...

The people who know me well. Do you have any idea how comforting it is to be around people who know what you mean even when you don't make sense? Keep those people, they're the keepers. 

That's my list so far. I know that there will be more but most times for me I realize what I miss when I don't have it anymore. Not when it's right in front of me. Them's the breaks.

I'm Leaving Again

As most of you already know, this July I went to Australia to dive head first into missions. I took a six-month course called a Discipleship Training School through Youth With A Mission (YWAM). YWAM has been around for 50 years and is in more than 150 countries. It is an international volunteer movement of Christians from many backgrounds, cultures and Christian traditions, dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world. Simply enough, their goal is to know God and make Him known. In my Discipleship Training School we had heard about the devastating tsunami that had hit the main island of Western Samoa on September 29th and we were able to go and join the YWAM in Samoa by the middle of October. Our team was able to bring life and joy to the YWAM base, which had been exhausted by their efforts to help with the aftermath of the tsunami. I enjoyed working with my hands and helping so practically, I also loved working with the kids and giving them every opportunity to feel like their life was getting back to normal. I was invited to come and work at the base long-term as a staff member. After being home for a while I know, without a doubt, that I’m supposed to be in long-term and full-time missions and Samoa is the place for me now. I’ll be committing to one year at the base, I’ve bought my plane ticket and I’ll be heading back on February 23^rd.

 

What I loved most about Samoa is the family atmosphere. I was treated like family from the very beginning and now I have more brothers and sisters than I dreamed possible. The Samoans exceed all expectations in the area of hospitality. I am passionate about hospitality and expect to work in this area during my time. I’m excited to learn from them in that way. I also expect to help coordinate the English speaking teams that come to the base to help. I’d be helping with all of this in addition to the small assignments given that go along with general running and managing of the ministries on the base.

 

Samoa has so many needs I can’t wait to get my hands on. The great thing about YWAM is you can pretty much start any ministry and they’ll support you in what God is moving you towards. Here is a sample of the things the Lord has placed on my heart already. I’d love you to pray into these areas as well.

• There is a Mormon temple on almost every corner that there is a Christian church. Sadly, this is a big influence in their idea of white people.

• Violence is an issue on the island that I know God wants to change in their hearts. 

•While working with the kids I was able to connect the easiest with adolescent girls, that might have been the biggest surprise to me. I’m not sure that they are taught to dream, I would love to invest in them and try to encourage and bring about their passions.

•The rebuilding phase of the tsunami is already underway and I long to help rebuild their faith as well as working alongside them to rebuild their homes. The idea of committing to something I was able to be the beginning of is a complete blessing.

 

Now as I mentioned before only volunteers work for YWAM, so in order to stay there and do what God has placed on my heart I need to raise support. If you would like to join me in what God has planned to do in Samoa I’d be eternally grateful. So many of you have already invested in me and I’m always humbled by your generosity. The Lord has never let me down. He always provides and I know He always will. I’ve set my budget at about $800 USD a month. (I have a car I’m trying to sell, however, until it sells I will have that loan to pay.) I wanted to be upfront about where the money is going, so here is the breakdown:

$250 Staff fees (rent and groceries)

$210 School loans

$  15 Transportation

$  20 Toiletries and other necessities

$  20 Internet and communication

$100 Insurance

$  40 Compassion Child

$  10 Laundry

$  15 Entertainment

($140) Car Loan

If you would like to support me financially, you could make a check out to me and send it to my parents address and they’ll put it in my account. You could make a check out to YWAM Samoa and mail it to the base in Apia. You could pay online here on this blog too, by clicking the donate button, if you want.

Thank you for being so interested in my life that you want to read this blog. I'll do my best to update when I can. I really should apologize for not being better with communicating. It's not because I don't love all of you, it's because communicating isn't a strength of mine. 

I'm looking forward to what God is going to do in Samoa and I'm glad He's letting us be a part of it. It's humbling that he wants to use me there. I can't thank you enough for wanting to be involved. Even though I'm in a different country, I still want to know about your lives. Please keep me updated.  

 Here are some important addresses for you:

 My permanent address is:   3359 W Sagamont St., Springfield, MO 65807

 The YWAM address is: YWAM Samoa, P.O. Box 435,  Falelauniu, Apia, Samoa

love,

Emily