Olongapo, Philippines.

This is a picture of my team on New Years. We were in Baguio City, Philippines. This is at a park (Burnham Park) near the house we stayed in. It was exciting. There were tons of fireworks! :) There are sooo many more pictures to come!

We are currently in Olongapo, Philippines. This is where I spent my Birthday! I will never forget my birthday here. The girls we are disciplining came singing beautiful songs outside our window at 6:30. They brought me a cake and flowers, and one of the girls, Beth gave me a manicure. It was so sweet, I loved that they made a big deal out of it. I think each girl told me a hundred times that day "happy birthday Monday". They call me Monday- even wrote it like that on the card.

Ministry has been so amazing. It is incredible to hear these girls stories and how God has transformed there life. They were prostitutes, trapped in this industry, thinking the only way they would be able to financially provide for themselves would be to work in bars at night and sell themselves to foreign men. God has used Vergie (our contact here) to bring light and hope to so many girls. The YWAM here provides a places for the girls to come and live and go through a disciplining program. Most have small babies living here with them. There is are volunteers that watch the kids during the day while the mothers are at school. It brings me so much joy to see how these babies no longer have to grow up living in the upstairs of a bar, they get to be raised up knowing there is hope and a future in knowing Jesus.

We've gotten the opportunity to talk to some girls that are still in the bars at night. We invited the to lunch on Sunday to continue getting to know them and to tell them about JESUS, and about YWAM and invite them to come. Please pray that God will move in there hearts tomorrow!!! Two girls in particular that I've been getting to know is Merivie- she's 6 months pregnant and Arelene- she's 19 and what they would call a "charity girl" meaning the foreign men are willing to dish out a whole lot more cash for her.... They are both coming tomorrow :)

Sam felt he was supposed to start "Project Hannah" and he's going to spent the summer going to churches back home and raising awareness of prostitution and how they can help support the girls that decide to do this discipleship program and help them get on their feet. It's called project Hannah because there was a girl that we've met named Hannah and she has recently made the decision to come give it a try. yay! she starts Monday.

FACT: There are 375,000 women and girls in the sex trade in the Philippines, mostly between the ages of 15 and 20, though some are as young as 11. PRAY.

I leave this morning!!

I'm so excited, I can't believe the time is finally here! We are heading out in about an hour. Please Please keep praying for my team as we start our traveling. Pray that we would be safe and healthy, but also for wisdom and discernment in our ministry. Pray that the people we come in contact will be open to the truth of the word of God, and that it would lock deep into their hearts and their eternity would be changed! I will update on here as I come to Internet cafes but I don't know how often that be. Thank you again for your support, God is going to do great things over the next couple of months and I'm so privileged to be a part of it! Man, God is good!

Mandy

my brain hurts!

I am aware that I haven’t been great about keeping up with my blog, and for that I apologize. Every time I sit down to do it, I don’t even know where to begin. Spending all day everyday reading the Bible, praying, and worshipping is crazy intense. Most of the time my brain hurts! Tonight I truly began to understand the quote, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” So much of the Bible is impossible for our human minds to wrap around. The mysteries and wonders of God blow my mind (in a good way). But it can also be overwhelming. I could spend years just researching some of the debatable topics and trying to figure out exactly what I believe about them and why. God has to remind me, as for tonight, just go back to the basics.

He wants me to glorify him with my life. He wants me to know him, and make him known. He wants me to experience the fullness of his love, and live in obedience to his word. As I seek to know God more and more all these things are becoming my desires as well.

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

It rained pretty much all weekend, so unfortunately I didn't get to go to the beach. But, it was nice to catch up on some sleep and relax and watch movies. Here's a picture I took on my way to McDonalds. Hawaii's nickname: the rainbow state is so appropriate, I see rainbows all the time.

Today during our team time we learned a hula dance, and some skits we are going to take on outreach. One was to the song lead me to the cross, it's powerful. I love it.

Okay, that's all I have for now. Thanks for reading my blog!

hello blog.

I'm just relaxing in startbuck enjoying my night off with Jeanette and Signe. This week has been intense, but so wonderful. Our speakers are Vincent and Lisa from the YWAM- Maui base. The topic is living with "new hearts." We are looking at the sin or other weak areas in our lives and finding the source of those issues so that we can truly be free of them. Yesterday we dealt specifically with wounds from the past and how to go about truly forgiving the people or situations that you got them from.



As I sit here eating Jeanette's norwegian chocolate, drinking coffee, and enjoying the air conditioner, I realize how at home I feel here. The short little walk over to starbucks and the other other shops (grocery, mcdonalds, laundry mat, ect.) has started to feel so natural to me. I love the Honolulu base and living in community. I love at each meal I get to sit and talk with someone different. I love our humble shekinah house, it's crazy but wonderful living with 25 other girls. Here is a picture of my house.

Now don't get me wrong I miss my real home everyday. I miss my family and my bryce, but it's nice to realize everyone here has become my family for the next couple of months.

Team Philippines/ Thailand

So I want to start by informing you, I DID write in my blog the other day and I lost internet before I could post it. It’s been hard to motivate myself to write again since that happened!

I can’t believe I’ve been in Hawaii for almost a month now. It’s nice to have our daily routine down. Time has FLOWN by! Our day is packed with quiet times, worship, intersession, lectures, work duties, community outreach, team times, small group, and of course eating and socializing. It's wonderful, but by Friday I’m worn out and ready to spend the weekend at the beach.

I feel so blessed for my outreach team! They are all awesome! Here is a picture of us! (Left to Right: Mandy, Kimberly (leader), Grace, Chris, Lukas, Sarah, Sam (leader), Yela, Celeste, and Caleb). This was from our team time last week. We went to Pali Lookout and it poured. Our leaders have been talking to our contacts in the Philippines and Thailand, and they are working out the details of our trip. I will keep you informed as I find out.

As of right now, we will be going to the Philippines for the first month, then going to Thailand for the remaining time.

Last night we met our speakers for this week, they seem really great and I'm so excited for this week of lectures!

Thailand!

All week we were extremely anxious for Friday! It was the big day we would find out our outreach locations! In the morning session, they wrote the 4 choices on the board. The only information we received were the names of the places. Then, we had some time to go and pray, and ask God where we should go. We were not supposed to talk to any of the other students, just hear from God. Initial, I began to feel very overwhelmed. This was a big decision to make. I started to pray, but my emotions were getting in the way of hearing anything. I went and found my good friend Tatum to pray with me. (She’s staff so it was okay to talk to her about it). She began to pray with me, and within minutes I knew where I was supposed to go. I didn’t get the word Thailand, I didn’t get a picture of the country or anything like that, I just got excited about it. I got excited, and a peace that I could only get from God. The 4 places are:

1. Nepal and India
2. Thailand and Philippines
3. Samoa and Fiji
4. Vanuatu

I wrote my name and Thailand on a sheet of paper and turned it in. For the next 30 minutes I wait while everyone else finished up. It was a long 30 minutes! Then, everyone came back together and we found out our teams! As they call my team up to the front, I got more and more excited! I love love my leaders and everyone on my team! All the teams ended up having around the same number of people on them, it was so cool to see how the Lord worked that out, and knew the teams before we picked them!

So Friday was cool, then Saturday I went surfing!!! The first Saturday of every month one of the churches here does free surfing lessons and a barbecue! So, of course I signed up to go! The guy that was helping me is a professional surf instructor, but he was volunteering that day because he’s a member of the church. He asked me, have you ever surf? No. snowboarded? No. skateboarded? No. haha Well okay! He was such a good instructor, He told me exactly when to start paddling and would give me the initial push onto the wave. Then he would yell, “stand up!” I got up on the first try!!! It was so cool. I went 3 or 4 more times, riding the waves all the way to shore. Then it was someone else’s turn. I couldn’t have gone much longer anyway; it was such a workout paddle out against the waves!!! My arms are so sore today.

Thanks for staying involved in my life, please continue to pray and check my blog!

Testimony Night

Today was officially the first day of lecture phase. It was a busy day. We had worship and intercession this morning, and this evening we gave our testimonies (in front of everyone). Fortunately, I still had an hour or so to hang out at the beach this afternoon. I had a nice nap in the sand.

The testimonies were very cool. I loved hearing everyone's different backgrounds and how we ended up here together in Hawaii. I'm so excited to grow in the Lord with my new friends.

Friday's the big day! We find out where we are going for outreach and our teams. Our outreach teams have a huge role in our experience here. So please start praying that God reveals where I should go, and that he melds together the perfect team for me to go with. I'm very nervous to find who is on my team, and my leaders.

I'm still trying to get used to the time difference. I've been going to bed super early.