Die To Self- the adventure!

Ok. So I will catch you all up on what has happened since i last posted.. which was Wednesday night.

Catherine & Kendra are here.. they are from Ohio, and are amazing and so much fun! Today more people should be coming, Ryan & Tim from Saskatchewan, and Penny from South Africa. Wohoo!

Yesterday, Rachel, a staffer from England, gave us the official tour, and I took lots of pictures. You can pray though, because iphoto is not working at the moment, so they are all stuck on my camera. For breakfast we had this amazing rolls, they are fried a little, and hard boiled eggs (which I abstained from). For lunch we had potatoes (YUM!), Posho, it's that mystery white stuff, which is actually corn ground up into a flour and mixed with water. Then it hardens into something that is not very fun to eat.. but there isn't much choice. There was also cabbage, which I tried, and was not a huge fan of, and eggplant soup, which I will try next time. For dinner we had sweet potatoes, not too bad, with g-nut sauce (which is like peanut soup). That was acutally amazing. Then we went to discovery center and watched the news. which was al-jazeera! That was a little unnerving at first! But actually it wasn't freaky terrorist news.. it was based out of somewhere and the news anchor had a cool accent. Then we came back and chilled in our room. Oh, yes, and yesterday afternoon we all took long, glorious naps.
Finally we all went to bed.. and none of us slept very well. But it was all for a good reason...

so.. i have not been feeling very at home here.. things are just so different. and I just didn't feel like I belonged. So last night I had a wrestling match with God. I told Him I had given up everything to come here; family, friends, work, ministry, and the stupid things like cell phones, washing machienes, and my own bed to sleep in. But here's the thing.. I had given up all of that. but I was not... how to explain.. everything was still all about me. i was tired, I was hungry. I missed my friends. blah blah blah. Jesus, just lovingly and tenderly showed me, that that was not the right attitude I needed. "DTS does not stand for Discipleship Training School,"a very wise YWAMing big sister once told me, "it stands for Die To Self." Which is exactly what I needed to learn. So, none of us were sleeping well, and I awoke around 5:45 to hear singing and praying coming from the common room across the courtyard. So after some deliberation. I got up and joined them. And oh how amazing it was! The presence of the Lord was there very strongly. So we all prayed and sang... and prayed and sang. Some of the staff shared words that they had received which was exactly what I needed to hear. I know this description does not do the morning justice.. but you will just have to imagine it. Then we went and got water, and headed back to our room. How amazing is God! Finally, I am at rest here. All is His, and in His hands.

Breakfast was rolls and eggs again. I had an egg.. it wasn't too bad.. not amazing either, but hey, protein is important! Then we spent an hour or so washing chairs for our classroom. We had sticks and we de-spiderized the bottoms of them.. spiders like to lay eggs, who knew? ha ha. So we took sticks and got all the eggs and spiders and gunk out and then washed them. we had the help of Mattie, an adorable 6 year old boy, who enjoyed getting spiders for us, though we got a fair share ourselves.

I am noticing that I am becoming more and more brave as time goes on. So far I have eaten lots of new foods: Posho, cabbage, hard boiled eggs, sweet potatoes. g-nut sauce.. etc. Squatty potties are no big deal. we have lizards that like to chill in our bathroom.. and they are cool. I spent the morning killing spiders with a stick! Etc. And it's only been like two full days of being here on base! Crazy!

The days go slow here.. we get up early and go to bed late.. but they are wonderful. I am so excited to start school soon. I think we start on Monday!

Thank you all for your prayers and emails.. they bless me so much!!

So in short. I am loving it here, finally feeling like I am actually on DTS and part of the base. I am resting in the joy and hope of my amazingly faithful God who cares most about the condition of my heart! Dit