Lurking Shadows of Caravans of Camels

Psalm 139:7-10

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from you presence?

If I go up to the heavens you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there you will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast."

As the realiy of climbing aboard a huge aircraft bound for Egypt sinks in, there is something deep with in me that stirs. I feel my heart being softened for a people I do not know. Even amoungst all the uncertainties of a new culture with mountains of sand, and lurking shadows of caravans of camels, God is spoeaking to me and assuring me. In one of my mentoring sessions this week I was challanged to pray honest prayers, out loud, submitting what's on my heart in a very raw and transparent way. Being open and honest with my uncertainties has allowed me to release them to my Heavenly Father, and has made room for God to fill me with his assuring words. Even though these thoughts still surface in my mind sometimes, I know God has heard my prayer, and I know he is with me to the far side of the sea.

2 Corinthians 3:17&18

" Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with even increasing glory which comes form the Lord, who is the Spirit."

I know God is with me, and because I have his Holy Spirit with in me I have freedom, because it is promised in his word.

We have one week to go and I'm hoping and praying God is going to challange my team, but also prepare us and equip us for this this life times experience that is approaching at full speed.

(Eating Sushi at a Japanese Restaraunt)

New Tools in my Tool Belt

( Mennonite Jazz Committee playing at the Mark Center where we served Chai Tea and their famous Hazelnut Cake)

Our training phase has now somewhat shifted gears from personal spirituality to team life. With everything that I have learned so far it is nice to switch tracks. We have had some sessions on entering a foriegn culture, and dealing with culture shock. They have been very informing, especially first hand from a missionary with lots of experience in that area.
We did have one session though that was still more individually based that was posponed to this week. Easther Corbet came to share on phrophecy. She is a very down to earth gentle person, and you could really see that she was here to serve with this tool God had given her. Prophecy is hearing from God and learning how to commuicate that by the holy spirit. The holy spirit functions in community and when someone has a prophetic word we have to discern as to how we can communicate it in a way to build up, or a way to serve the community. Sometimes that means holding on to it if the timing isn't right. Another point that Easther stressed was realizing that the holy spirit gives us significance, not gifts. Gifts are God with in us. After the first session Easther and her partner Wendy prophesied a few words over a couple of us. Wendy spoke some words to me, and said she saw a deep pool of water, and that God sees the deep well of hunger for him in me and he recognizes that. This was very encouraging. I do long for a deeper more intimate relationship with my heavenly Father, and I know he will fill my well. A thougth that has come to my mind though is maybe this well just has to get deep enough before water will spring forth from the bottom to fill it. We also met with Easther as a team so she could pray for us. Our prayer time with her was very good. She prayed for God to give us a heart for Egypt, for the guys in our group to be examples of men of God, and she also prophesied that I would be working with oppressed women in Eygpt. This was neat because in week three Cheryl Plett prophesied the same thing over me. This just makes me really excited to see what God has for us as a team in Egypt. God is also unifying our team. This last weekend we did an "amazing race" and our team found out that we do work really well with each other even in frusterating situations, and we were encouraged by that. I'm hoping to post some pictures and go a little more into detail about the race a little later once I have some pictures loaded on my computer. Over all though God is still doing Amazing things here, and this next week as we move into a time of 24/7 prayer I'm excited to see how he will work and teach.

(Valentine's Day all the girls recieved pink roses from the guys on our teams)

Prayer Requests

Continual building of unity on the Egypt team

That any fears would be taken away about going into a foreign culture

For God to go ahead of us into Egypt and prepare the hearts of people

Preparing to go to Egypt and making sure we remember necessities

Support to come in for other team members

A sensitivity to the muslim culture

Courage to dive into the the culture and way of life

Crystal Waters, and Dusty Soup Mix

Week five was a pretty low key week, which was definitly needed. All the free time allowed me to debrief the topic of last week, spiritual authority, a little more. God has taken me from a place of being confused and frusterated, to a place where I have found refuge in him and have been able to find peace. This week we had two speakers. The first was Steve Lightle, a man of many great stories. He spoke on evangelism, and intersessive prayer. Sam, was the second speaker. He spoke on vision, prayer, and obedience. Sam is the missionary that my team is going to be working with in Egypt. He's a short little man with lots of spunk and energy. He's on fire for the Lord and is excited for our team to come out to Egypt. We still don't know alot of details, but we will be working with kids, and youth. Probably doing some Sunday school stuff. We also may go to an orphanage, which I think he said was the largest in the Middle East, with over a thousand kids. My team is really excited for the kids ministry, because all of us have a passion for kids. Sam also talked to our team about some differences in the culture in Egypt, like the types of clothes that are acceptable. As a woman there I need to be pretty much covered from neck, to wrist, to ankle, and with loose fitting clothes. Another thing is to not ever putting your bible on the floor. I guess it is viewed as very disrespectful. Not engaging in a conversation about politics, and just general knowledge about what the culture is like. It was exciting to hear, but again gave me a few nervous butterfly's in my stomach. We are going to be staying in Cairo, Egypt. It is a massive city with about 7 million people, but that information is from 1998. I wasn't able to find anything more current. So I imagine it has grown considerably since then. We are also planning to leave on March 7th. Which is less than 3 weeks.

Well I'll leave you with some pictures from this week. Some are of us hiking at cascade falls, and the others are from the Gleaners. An organization which makes dried vegitable soup and sends it all over the world to starving people. It was a fun time.

Hey this is for all my friends out in Saskatchewan! I thought you might just appreciate this picture of me taken in January. Yes I am wearing shorts, yup shorts! Oh yeah Salton by the way it's plus 11 here, just in case you wanted to know. Did I mention it's PLUS 11!

Enjoy your cold weather!

Support!!

I just wanted to let you all know that I have officially raised all my support! I got my update yesterday and was excited to see the rest of the Money came in.

Thanks to all who supported me financially, I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for you!

Thanks to all my prayer supporters. I wouldn't be surviving this intense training with out you!

( Pictures: Buskers from Seattle)

Culturing

I am officially half done training! It seems like I've been here so much longer than a month, but at the same time I cannot believe how fast it's flown by. It's February already!This past week was quite full again even though our schedule didn't show it, our minds felt it. We had a number of sessions on Spiritual Authority this week with Keith Marten, a California dude. Praying with the Authority of Christ and working with all kinds of people that have come from cults and various backgrounds, Keith pretty much plunked 20 years of his experience and knowledge in our laps. It was somewhat overwhelming. During the sessions I struggled with getting my mind past the vastness of the Spiritual realm and its overwhelming power. I am a daughter of Christ and for this very reason he has invested his power and authority in me. It's learning when and how to use this power that boggled my mind. The one conclusion I've come to is that it is only when I am totally dependent on God, relying on him to guide my every step, that I can use this power to help further his kingdom. It is only when God uses his power through me that it will be useful, and right. God has slowly been revealing to me a sensitivity to the Spirit, and the value in this. The spiritual realm is a secret world, that men of this world do not see, but when one has even a little insight as to what is happening in that world how much farther ahead does that put us in furthering Gods Kingdom. This is a subject that is not talked about alot, and there is alot of skeptiscism about it. This has been a subject that has scared me. I am only human, and sometimes I feel like this power is just to much for me to handle. But I keep having to go back to his word (psalm 71) and finding rest in knowing that Christ is fighting this battle for me, and I just have to be willing to listen and obey him. This week has stretched my thinking on these things, and really challanged me and I am still trying to process and discern what God wants me to take from all this.

This weekend we went to seattle, we explored a Public Market Place where a number of artists displayed there work selling everything from flavoured honeys, to paintings, to fish, to flowers you name it. It was a very cultured place. Fresh and Creative are two words that come to mind when I think of the market. I really enjoyed walking around all afternoon just browsing, enjoying the music of buskers and the smells of many arts. It was a good time!