Hello everyone! Well I am in my last full week in Wales and have less than 2 weeks before I hop a plane back to the United States. Next Tuesday, December 15th, we will be getting a train to London to meet back up with everyone serving in Western Europe to have debriefing. We’ll head back to the States December 18th, and I’ll fly from London to Chicago and then to Atlanta where I’ll land around 9 pm eastern time. I must say I am majorly looking forward to driving a car again, and I will be completely fine if I don’t ride a bus for quite some time HAHA. I will also be looking forward to real sweet tea, Americanized Chinese food, and some sunshine LOL:) I’m trying to focus on these things instead of how much I’m going to miss it here. I didn’t ever think I would get used to not having a dryer to dry my clothes, or fretting over which of the fifty ba-zillion types of rubbish bins for all the different types of trash to throw mine away in, or to the constant rain. But sure enough it became 2nd nature to air dry my clothes, I finally know which rubbish bin is which, and while I still wish there was more sun here I no longer get angry when it rains for days on end HAHA:D But seriously I am not looking forward to leaving this amazing place or these even more amazing people.
Carrie and I began our teaching of the Christmas Story in the schools. The kids LOVE our elf outfits. It’s always great to see all the different reactions as we walk through the schools. No worries there will be pictures HAHA. Our first performance was by far the one that went the best so far. It was also one of the schools that I go and read in every Monday so I knew a lot of the kids and staff. After we were the done, the teacher told us she wanted us to come back and teach the Easter lesson (even though we won’t be here) and invited us to the class’s Christmas performance. This teacher seriously terrified me when I first began reading with her class. She has a rather low voice and isn’t the smiley type. So for this reaction to come from her is amazing HAHA. It was funny seeing the different reactions of the different schools. There’s a part in our elf bit where Carrie messes up my elf ear (which of course is a big no no for an elf haha). Well the first school pointed and laughed and said it looked like a pig ear while the second school, which was the equivalent of our private schools, suggested all the ways they could help fix my ear HAHA. Going into the schools has been such a blessing. And sharing the Christmas story with them has been a great way to sort of culminate everything for me.
We are literally having Christmas parties left and right. You know how right before you leave somewhere all of a sudden everyone wants to say good bye and get together. Well that is what is going on this week for us. We have had 3 so far and have 2 more to go HAHA:)
Please pray that in this last week God would give me the physical, emotional, and spiritual strength to get through everything. These 4 months have definitely had their ups and downs, and the Lord has taught me so much. I don’t think I’ll really know how much I’ve learned until I get out of this context, but I’m excited to see what areas God has really stretched and strengthened me in. Looking back on it, I know I was exactly where God wanted me doing exactly what God wanted me to do for this semester. There were times I wasn’t completely sure of that, but I know now for sure that I was. I hope to finish this last full week strong not wishing my time away or focusing too long on the good byes. I am so glad God gave me this opportunity! Okey doke time for the British word of the day- - pudding- - here pudding doesn’t just refer to the jiggly creamy stuff we eat but dessert in general. The first time I went over to someone’s house for dinner they said it was time for pudding, and I was really confused when they brought our cake HAHA:D Have an amazing week everyone!!

Hiya Everyone! Hope this blog finds everyone doing well! I can’t believe it’s already December, or that I only have about 2 weeks left. I have some serious mixed feelings about leaving haha. If you had asked me about 2 weeks ago if I was ready to go home I would have immediately said yes and asked if you could get me the soonest plane ticket. However now every time I think about leaving Wales, I get misty eyed. How can I leave these amazing people God has surrounded me with these great 4 months of my life? We head to London for debriefing with everyone that served with Hands On in Western Europe December 15th and then fly home December 18th. I’m not especially looking forward to debriefing in London seeing that as soon as I leave Wales I’m just going to want to go home. But it will good!
So this past week was Thanksgiving, and we definitely had a memorable week. The Sunday before Thanksgiving a couple in the church we attend had all of us Americans over for a Thanksgiving Feast. The food was amazing, the couple was adorable, and did I say the food was amazing:) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual day because we have teaching all day on Thursdays, but I was able to skype with my family which was great. Saturday all the American girls got together to cook a Thanksgiving feast for all the Brit students. There were 23 people there in all, and all the recipes we were using had only ever been used by our mothers, and on top of all this the spices and such aren’t the same over here. So many things could have gone wrong. But God blessed and we had plenty of food to the point that everyone went home with leftovers, and the food was amazing despite the different spices and being the first time we all had cooked the stuff. That day will probably be one of my sweetest memories of my time here!
This week Carrie and I are going into the schools to teach the Christmas lesson. We will have almost an hour with our equivalent of 2nd graders to teach them the TRUE meaning of Christmas. This is an amazing opportunity to share Jesus with these kids. I’m really excited to see what God is going to do! Please pray for us as we do this though that one it wouldn’t be about us but it would be about God and that He would allow us to clearly present Him to these kids. Also that He would be working right now in these kids’ hearts opening their eyes to the truth found in Him. We’re going to teach the lesson by dressing up as elves named Jingle and Jangle, I know isn’t it great, and we’re on the search for this Ultimate Gift, being baby Jesus, that we’ve heard about with our Guidebook, the Bible. Our performances are on Thursday December 3rd, Friday December 4th, Monday December 7th, Tuesday December 8th, twice on Wednesday December 9th, and Monday December 14th. If you all could especially lift Carrie and I up on those days, that would be wonderful. Our last performance is on the day before we leave for London, so we’ll be pretty busy to say the least.
I am also working on getting a children’s Christmas play together with Esther for the church we attend. We’re performing December 13th which will be my last Sunday here. The basis of the play is that the kids are getting ready for their big Christmas performance. As they’re in their last practice they are singing through the song Lord I Lift Your Name on High and one really annoying kid keeps stopping the song and asking well what does it mean Jesus came from Heaven to Earth to Show the Way or How could a Baby Show the Way? And through the child’s questions the story of Jesus and salvation is revealed. I’m really excited about the play and whatever the outcome the kids will always be cute:)
Please pray that the Lord would sustain me in these last few weeks, and I would find my strength in Him. Thank you so much for those of you that have been praying for me! Your prayers are felt on a daily basis. The Lord has kept the whole entire team from getting injured as well as keeping me from getting sick which I am the type of person that always gets hit with at least one serious cold each semester. But the Lord has kept me well through your prayers so thanks! Ok the British word of the day is guillotine which is not just a place people get their heads chopped off at! It is also what they call their chopping board! Have a great week everyone:)

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated my blog, and I will go ahead and apologize of the length of this blog! Kudos to you if you read it all:)Loads of stuff has happened since my last update, but I will do my best to sum up the interesting parts HAHA:) I was able to visit Bath England which is where some of the old Roman baths are. It was an absolutely beautiful city and full of history. Some of us also went on a trip to Edinburgh Scotland for a couple of days. We had some truly Scottish weather with lots of rain and wind, but we still had a great time seeing the sights. We had one day of sunshine on which we were able to get out of the city and do some hiking. It was tons of fun, and the land was absolutely gorgeous.
The Lord has definitely taught me tons since my last blog as well. There have been days where I have been utterly exhausted, completely overwhelmed, and felt totally incapable of doing what is expected of me. However God has had to get me to those places in order for His glory to shine brighter through me. I have been reading in the book of Judges lately where God calls Gideon to save the Israelites. It really hit me when I was reading chapter 7 in Judges and God tells Gideon that he has too many Israelites fighting. God goes on to tell Gideon that if this many Israelites go into battle they will think they have won the battle on their own. So the Lord dwindles Gideon’s army of 32,000 men down to only 300 men. It would seem impossible for 300 men to defeat their enemies and in fact it would have been if the Lord hadn’t been on their side. The Lord has had to do the same thing with me. He has had to get me to a place of knowing I cannot do things on my own, but only with the Lord by my side can these things get done. It reminds me of the hymn that says “Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me, thine all in all”.
I have not had the opportunity to run into Lydia the girl I met as I was trying to escape from the park that one day again. However I know our one encounter was not for nothing, and she is on my daily prayer list that God would sow people in her life that lead her to the Lord. God has also allowed me several different great conversations with others during my time here. Most of them were in unexpected moments, but it seems that’s the way the Lord usually does it HAHA:) One of the unexpected interesting conversations I had was on a Wednesday afternoon as some of my teammates and I were doing our weekly surveys in neighborhoods. This task was not that daunting at first, but after the weather turning horribly cold and wet, people slamming doors in our faces, and overall not good responses, Wednesday afternoons were not exactly my favorite moments of my week. Well I had knocked on a door, and an older lady yelled at me through the window asking what I wanted. I told her about the survey and after no response I was just going to go to the next house. Of course as I knock on the next door, the lady comes out yelling something and I think to myself awesome I’m about to get chewed out by this older woman. So I put on a happy face real fast and once again ask if she would take my survey and surprisingly she said yes. So I ask her the first question which is “What do you enjoy about living in this community” and she responds that she doesn’t remember because 2 years ago she fell in the bath and now has a horrible memory. I was confused but thought maybe she could answer the next question so I asked her the next question and sure enough her answer was she fell in the bath 2 years ago and can’t remember anything. At this point I give up on getting a survey from this lady but think hey I am getting amazing opportunities to talk to people that open their door to me to take a survey that I wouldn’t normally have so I begin a normal conversation with her asking her how her day was going. A lot of the people that open their doors to us are elderly people that are really lonely and just want someone to talk and listen to them. Pretty soon after talking with her I discovered she was a Christian and the funniest part was she was trying to witness to me. I had the opportunity to tell her I was from the States and in fact was already a Christian and was over here doing a missions internship. I asked her if I could pray for her before I left and we had a great time praying together and praising the great God that we serve. This lady who I thought was about to rebuke me for knocking on her door turned out to be a lady that I praised God with!
I have had some hilarious stuff happen since my last blog as well…I know imagine that:) I must say I’m pretty sick of buses. I will be totally fine if I never had to ride on them again. But the aisles on the buses are not very big which is not a totally huge problem, but when the bus starts moving and you have bags in your hands, things can get interesting real fast. Well one day I was getting on the bus and as it started to go I was grabbing for a pole to hold onto only to accidentally hit a fellow on his forehead and to top it all off as I turned around to tell him sorry I completely sideswiped another guy’s face with my backpack!! I didn’t say sorry to that guy; I just scurried to my seat before I could do anyone else any harm. To say that least as I got off that bus everyone gave me plenty of room HAHA:)
The house that I am living in with 4 of my other girl teammates is pretty much in a ghetto area of town. It’s great because we can interact with kids we work with in our programs we do, but well it is still the ghetto haha:) Halloween is a lot different over here. It is seen as a lot more evil and most Christians don’t celebrate it at all in any fashion. Also kids go around egging everything and everyone in sight. Yup our house got egged:) Also they have a day called Guy Fox (Not sure of the spelling of that, but that’s how it sounds) that celebrates a day where the Brits captured a terrorist named Guy Fox that was trying to blow up Parliament. How do they celebrate you may ask? Well of course by shooting fireworks. Literally fireworks were going off everywhere! There are no laws about where fireworks can be shot off here, so imagine what our lovely abode in the ghetto was like on that night. I felt like I was in a war zone. The lovely kids in the neighborhood will also shoot the fireworks off at passer bys. So everyone in our house had to make a run for it from the bus stop to our house. But hey it was quite a memory maker.
Thanksgiving is this week which is sad to be away from family and friends at this time of year, but we will be celebrating it in our own fashion. A couple from the church we attend had us over Sunday after church for a Thanksgiving feast. You could have rolled us all out of there by the time we were done. Then this coming Saturday the Americans are making a Thanksgiving feast for all the British students. It should be interesting seeing as the dishes we are planning on making have only ever been made by our moms HAHA as well as the cooking spices and such are way different over here. Whatever the outcome it will definitely be a memorable Thanksgiving!
I have about 3 weeks left which is absolutely insane! I can’t believe it has gone as fast as it has and that I’ll be going home so soon. Half of me is jumping for joy to go back home to everyone, and the other half of me doesn’t know how I could leave this place or the amazing people I have just spent the last 4 months of my life with. As the end draws near, the pressure is on to get everything done. I am feeling a bit overcommitted and spread a little thin at the moment which for anyone reading this that knows me very well knows I have a habit of doing this. But on top of my normal fairly full week I have added two more projects. One is alongside one of the Brit students named Esther. We have the task of writing a Christmas play for the kid’s groups at the church we attend, practicing it with them, and performing it December 13th. And just in case I hadn’t overdone it yet I am also going to go into about 6 different elementary schools and teach the Christmas lesson alongside another one of my teammates Carrie. We’ll be teaching the lesson to our equivalent of 2nd graders, and we will have about an hour to do so. All of these are amazing opportunities, but definitely only the Lord can help us get it done. Please pray for me in this last month that I won’t be so focused on the excitement of going home that I wish my time away here. Also please pray for all the different tasks I am doing to be done well and lead to the glory of God and furthering of His kingdom. This has been an amazing opportunity to spend this time in Wales. God is definitely starting something special in the hearts of the people here, and it has been exciting to be a part of it. But the opportunity is not over, and I hope the Lord enables me to have the perseverance to finish strong. Okay so since I have updated this thing in forever I totally owe you more than just one British word so here we go. A plaster is a band aid, a rubber is an eraser, wellies are rain boots, someone’s fringe is their bangs, and a jumper is a heavy sweater. Have great week everyone.

Hiya everyone:) Hope your week has gone well! I feel like most of my blogs are telling about my schedules or what I have been up to. So I decided to make this blog about what God has been teaching me and allowing me to see. Numero Uno- We serve a sovereign God. On Tuesday I went to one of the many beautiful parks here in Cardiff. It was an absolutely gorgeous day which was a blessing in itself here haha, but I was sitting on a bench reading a book and just praising the Lord. As I gathered my belongings to head home before it got dark, I realize that the gate door is shut. I thought surely they wouldn’t lock people in this park, but sure enough the door was bolted shut every way possible and there was no getting out that way. Also the park is surrounded by a very tall cement wall that was too high for me to climb over, but I thought to myself surely it has a gap somewhere for me to get out……it did not. By this time my legs are getting quite tired, and I am thinking to myself “God I was just being still before you and praising you and now you allow me to get trapped in this park”. But God had a purpose in this, and He was just about to lead me to this purpose when I walked across a bridge and found a gate that my short self could actually climb over. After I throw my bag onto the other side and am mid climb over this gate, a girl asks if there is another way to get out. I pointed to the way I was going and we walked for quite some time together until we came to our bus stops. The girl’s name was Lydia, and she was new to the Cardiff area because she was just starting university here. We had a great encouraging talk and I invited her to my supervisor Marc’s house on Monday nights where we have a get together for university students. I never said that I was a Christian or that the get together is a Bible study, but she somehow figured out those things in my talking and stated that while she wasn’t particularly religious herself she enjoyed talking about religious subjects. As I jumped on my bus, and she jumped on hers I thanked God for His sovereignty. If he wants to allow me to get locked in parks and climb over gates in order to bring me to the people He has for me to talk to so be it. I really pray that I have the chance to see Lydia again and so much of me wishes I had gotten her number or set up a time for us to go grab coffee together but none of that came to my mind at the time. So we’ll see what God has in store, and whatever that is will be great:) Numero Dos- We serve a God that faithfully provides what we need when we need it. Culture shock was really getting to me about two weeks ago and while I was doing my best to hold it all back it was bound to come out sometime. Well I was walking by myself to the church one day listening to my I pod and enjoying the scenery when all of the sudden it hit me that I had not gotten a hug since the one my mom gave me in the Atlanta airport over a month ago. It only took that one thought for all the culture shock I’d been holding back to flood in over me. But seeing as I was on my way to one of my ministries at the church I just had to put on a big smile and act like nothing was going on. I continued to hold it back that whole week which does no good until that weekend I gave it over to God. The very same day I prayed about and gave it over to the Lord I got a hug from one of the ladies in the church that had us over. She had no clue that that hug was what I needed more than anything at that moment, but God faithfully provides whether in big ways like opportunities to spend a semester in Wales or small ways like a sincere hug. God is teaching me so much here, but those are two snapshots of how He has revealed Himself to me in the last couple of weeks:) The British word of the day is Posh which is a word you would use to describe something quite fancy or really cool it would be posh! Please pray that God would allow to really invest in those around me while I’m here and also please pray for Lydia. I would love to be able to see her again but if I’m not able to I pray that she is able to see the truth found in the Lord during her time here at university. Have an awesome week everyone:)

Well friends and family, I am going to attempt to fit 3 weeks into this one blog. We’ll see how it goes haha;) We started our regular schedules for the most part 2 weeks so life has been full of interesting adventures and surprises. On Sunday nights I work with Scout Hut which is pretty much a ministry for the unchurched kids that live around Glenwood Church. The purpose of this ministry is to build relationships with these kids and give them an alternative activity. One must remember though that these are not church kids, and so they aren’t going to act like church kids. It was a bit overwhelming at first. We were praying before everything started and all of the sudden the kids start banging on the trailer for us to let them in. After all the noise they were making, I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to come through the door but we let them in at 6. It was all a blur when everything started because they all ran in and there was one kid that had crutches that was purposefully sticking them in everyone’s hot chocolate they had and then wiping it on people, there was one kid that kept turning up the boom box in the building until it wouldn’t go any louder, and before I knew it the kid that had previously been on crutches was now on top of my chair without the crutches dancing (evidently he stole someone else’s crutches HAHA). The overwhelming feeling soon went away though, and I wound up playing foosball with two girls named Chloe and Lauren. We talked most of the night, and I really hope they continue to come. Monday mornings are staff meetings. Then Monday afternoons I go into the elementary schools with Aly the children’s worker at Glenwood to help kids with reading. I absolutely love it, and it’s awesome to see kids progressing in their reading skills:) As you know most American schools are against mixing with churches, and Europeans schools are even worse. So helping the kids read is a great foot in the door here because we are meeting a need and getting a chance to interact with the kids. Monday nights I will be joining a Bible Study for university students. University just started back here so I have not been able to go yet, but I look forward to building relationships there. Tuesday mornings two other American girls, Carrie and Jenifer, and then myself have kids work training led by Aly and the other Glenwood kids worker Lynda. We have a book we’re going through together and then Lynda and Aly will train us throughout our time here. On Tuesday afternoons I help with Friendship which is a group of older people literally aging from 50-95. They get together and sing hymns, share prayer requests, and have a short lesson. I get there early to set the chairs and microphone up…me and technical stuff don’t really get along so that’s always interesting haha;) I was so blessed last week at Friendship though because I had sat beside one of the older ladies named Joy at church the past Sunday and talked with her for a bit. Well Joy not only remembered my name at Friendship, but she had homemade blackberry and apple jam for me! Wednesdays I work on something called The Gate Project. I described The Gate in my last blog as a center for all the different arts. Well Garrett, Pamela, and I have been assigned to figure out the dynamics of the surrounding community and find out how The Gate can best serve the community. So we are working on getting a survey together and mapping out the community. It is the thing that I am most excited about because it’s an awesome opportunity but also most nervous about because it’s a great responsibility in a small amount of time. Thursday our whole entire trainee team which is 18 of us come together and have a time of worship together, interview different staff members to find out what God has done in their life, and teach a lesson. Thursday nights I participate in a ministry called GNR8 (Just in case you’re like me and didn’t get it the first time- that says Generate). Pretty much it’s a discipleship program for I believe 9-11 year olds. Lynda has the kids that want to go deeper into the Word over to her house on Thursday nights, and they have dessert and then split up into small groups for discipleship. Friday mornings I have general service at Glenwood Church. I pretty much assist the financial person named Cian. I do all the fun exciting tasks of filing financial papers, entering bills into the computer, shredding papers, mailing things, and delivering things to the bank. Friday evenings I have Kidz Klub which is actually at Glenwood Church’s church plant of Bethania. It’s also pirate themed haha no worries this time I remembered to say YAR not ARGH! These kids do not come from well off families, and so our main thing is to make sure they know they have a safe place to come to on Friday nights where they can feel loved by us and more importantly by the Lord. Phew well that is a what my normal weeks will look like…however I’m realizing there aren’t too many “normal” weeks when you’re in ministry HAHA! The British word of the week is “Guttered” which you can use when you’re exhausted, mortified, or just out of sorts simply say “I am absolutely guttered” and sound British for the day haha;) Please pray for energy for the rest of our time here and that our team would have the same passion that we left the states with. Also please pray that we would be able to build relationships with those around us day to day. Thanks for reading all of this if you made it to end HAHA and all your support!

Hiya Everyone! Hiya is the greeting they use here in the UK. I haven’t been able to say it yet without laughing though, but I’m hoping it’ll be natural before I leave haha:) This past week was absolutely amazing but extremely exhausting so I’ll do my best to just hit the high points. Sunday September 6th was a very full day. When we got up to the church that morning the 9 British students we are serving along side of this semester were there, and it was complete mayhem trying to introduce everyone and remembering people’s names. After the church service, the church put on a big lunch for all of us trainees as we are called. During this semester each of us have been assigned a mentor so this lunch was set up for us to meet our mentors and get to know the staff we will be working with. My mentor’s name is Anne. She seems extremely nice and has a real heart for missions so I am definitely looking forward to getting to know her more. Monday was full of mixing us and the British students together so we could get to know one another and build relationships:)Tuesday was started off by a scavenger hunt in the middle of Cardiff City Center. Even though my team barely came in 2nd it was still lots of fun running through the streets of Cardiff and getting to know people better on the team:) That afternoon we did general service at Glenwood Baptist Church (The church I am serving and attending this semester) which is where we generally do any type of service they ask us to do. That night we went over to the British students’ house to hang out, and they introduced us to their desserts of custard and chelsea buns. Fortunately the food isn’t TOO weird here, but almost everything they give you could use a good round of salt on it so it has flavor haha:)Wednesday was exhausting. It was started by grocery shopping. Just in case you thought grocery shopping and public bus transportation mix well together; they don’t LOL! After an adventurous morning lugging all the groceries back to the flat, Carrie and I headed up to Glenwood to set up for Wrigglerz which is a kids club for 4-7 year olds. It has a pirate theme so we played pirate games, sang pirate songs, ate pirate snacks, and of course dressed up as pirates haha:) It was great fun! By the way, British pirates do NOT say ARGH. I found this out when I started saying Argh, and everybody looked at me funny. British pirates evidently say YAR! Who knew:) Thursdays the whole entire team which is now 18 of us come together for a day of teaching and training. As the semester progresses, us trainees will take turns leading worship and a lesson to start Thursdays off. However this Thursday our leaders simply gave us a bit of a model for how things go. Friday was my favorite day yet. After a week of always being surrounded by people and getting all kinds of schedules, we had a day of just prayer and praise to God. We all went to The Gate which is an art center that Glenwood has taken over. It is actually an old Presbyterian church that people redid as a place for the arts. There are actual art galleries, dance studios, a café, and an auditorium for plays and shows. The people that redid The Gate into an art studio were ready to move on to something else so Glenwood came along and took The Gate over. It is a really neat place though. So on Friday my other supervisor Emma set up prayer stations all throughout the auditorium at The Gate for us to pray about specific things. It was absolutely wonderful to be still before God and both speak but more importantly listen to Him. We had surprisingly amazing weather all this week. So whoever is praying for us to have good weather keep it up it’s working haha:) But seriously thanks so much for the prayers and encouragement that you all send my way. They are very much felt and evident in each of my days here! We got our schedules this past Friday so please pray that as we begin our actual ministries here that things would easily fall into place and relationships would be opened for mentorship and discipleship. I am so excited to see what God has in store, and I am already feeling like time is flying by! On September 18th I will have been gone for a month which seems so crazy. Well have a great rest of the week, and the British word of the week is a hole in the wall which is an ATM here.

I have been in Wales for close to two weeks now. It seemed that as soon as I got used to the people and places in London, it was time to go. However before everyone serving in the Hands On program in Western Europe left London two weeks ago, we had a commissioning service. It was a great time of prayer, encouragement, and challenges, but the song we sang before we all departed really put my heart and mind in the right place. The chorus said “We must go, live to feed the hungry, stand beside the broken, we must go, stepping forward, Lord keep us from just singing, we must go.” Our time in this world isn’t about being comfy and making friends although God blesses us with those throughout different points in our life, but it is all about furthering the Father’s kingdom and bringing Him glory. It was a wonderful note to end on. Sunday August 23rd my team and I took a train to Cardiff Wales our place of service. I am serving with 8 other people. There are the two guys Garret and Chris and then the seven girls Carrie, Audra, Lindley, Jesslyn, Pamela, Jenifer, and myself. The two guys and Jenifer and Pamela are staying in host homes for the four months. Myself and the other 4 girls are staying in an apartment or a flat as they call it here. It is owned by a man in the church we are attending in Wales that recently got married and is now on the mission field in Burkina Faso with his newlywed. Our dishwasher in our flat is our two hands. Our washer only has symbols on it no words so we really have no clue how it works. Sometimes we can’t get it to start, sometimes it runs for hours, and sometimes it won’t let us open it HAHA. We have no dryer and with the constant rain here it is not much help to hang your clothes on the line outside LOL! Oh and our door is quite temperamental; it only unlocks after 5 minutes of jiggling it all over the place haha. The only thing one can do is laugh about all that:) Our modes of transportation here are our two feet and the bus system. I won’t lie it is hard being at the mercy of public transportation, and it is also no fun walking in the rain. A positive thing I can say about it though is I am so worn out at the end of the day from walking that I have no problem going to sleep HAHA! The weather has not been totally dreadful yet. We have some sunny days and some cold rainy days, but our supervisor Marc Verlander said the sunny days are not going to be around much longer. The problem is that it is so windy here that you look outside the window one minute and it is sunny but in the next minute a storm cloud has moved in and it’s raining. There was one day I decided not to bring my rain jacket with me because it looked so sunny and bright; let’s just say I won’t make that mistake again haha. My supervisor like I said is Marc Verlander and he has an amazing wife Charity and three adorable daughters all under the age of five Carys, Bailey, and Addison. Marc is a great leader and his family is great. Both this week and last week have been fairly laid back. Half the day we’ll do orientation and training stuff, and the other half we’ll have to ourselves. The church we’ll be attending and serving with is Glenwood Baptist Church. Everyone there is so excited to have us and absolutely amazing. We will also be working alongside a group of British students that will be coming in on Saturday. These two weeks have allowed our team to get fairly acclimated to the area and figure out the bus system. It has given us a great chance to see the beautiful sites of Cardiff. They have beautiful castles, bodies of water, and parks. It is an absolutely gorgeous country. This country has a very rich history including revivals that have broken out here over the years. Our prayer is that God would reign out another revival in this place and awaken the people’s hearts to Him. Next week is when the real work will begin, and everything will be a whirlwind from then on out. I am not fully aware of what all I will be doing at this point, but I do know one of the areas I will be working with is the children’s ministry. Please pray for the team’s health as the days are getting wetter and colder. Also culture shock is really hitting now that we have been away for three weeks. The Welsh word of the week is trolley which is their word for a grocery cart:) Have an amazing week everyone!

Hey Everyone! Sorry this is my first blog since leaving the States, but I haven’t had the amount of internet access that I thought I would have. This past week was orientation in London with everyone that was serving with Hands On in Western Europe this semester, and if I had to sum it up in one word it would be INTENSE haha:) Travel to the UK was absolutely wonderful. Thank everyone for your prayers; they were definitely evident in that I made all my flights, had no problems in customs, and got all of my luggage. As soon as we got off the plane Tuesday in London life became hectic. I thought Americans were too consumed by time, but the UK is crazy well at least London. The slow Americans have to stay on the left side of sidewalks and escalators so we don’t get in people’s way HAHA! My supervisors told me to make sure I was in shape to walk a lot, but they left out the detail that I would be walking miles… yes MILES with my luggage. As I am heavily perspiring after riding the tube which is an underground train/subway system and trying to avoid dog poop as I drag my bags down the sidewalk, it suddenly hits me that I am rolling my bags down the walkways of London and everything automatically seems better:) We literally put our bags down in the church we had orientation at this past week and went site seeing. Just in case you missed it that means no shower time HAHA let’s just say we fit in perfectly with the Europeans around us that do not practice showering and deodorizing as often as we do LOL:) We did everything from seeing Big Ben and Buckingham to riding Double Decker Buses and eating fish and chips that day. The rest of the week had a very full schedule for orientation so I will just hit the high points. The highlight of Wednesday’s orientation was splitting up in groups and going prayer walking throughout different parts of London. Wednesday was also my 21st birthday so that night when we all went out to eat the supervisors surprised me by buying me the most amazing sundae and everyone singing me happy birthday:) The highlight of Thursday’s orientation was the World Religion Tour where we went to a Hindu Temple, Sikh Temple, and Muslim Mosque. I had visited some of these before in the states, but it was exciting seeing some of the differences and learning more about these beliefs. It was quite interesting that the Hindu Temple was at one time a Baptist Church until it closed its doors in the 80’s and reopened in the 90’s as a Hindu Temple. It was also interesting that across from the Sikh Temple that was open all the time for prayer and offerings was a Christian Church that had barred walls and a schedule of when one could come. The church in the UK seems to be dying, but the Lord is still at work. After our tour we came back to the church we had orientation at and had some sessions primarily on the gospel and our testimony. One of the activities we did was lighting different size matches and sharing the gospel with someone before the match went out…of course I got the little bitty match so I’m scrambling to get the basis of the gospel out before I burn my finger LOL. The highlight of Friday’s orientation was Friday night actually going to the place I had prayer walked on Wednesday and engaging the people around me coming out of pubs and clubs with the gospel. No worries other group members were in the same area when I did this HAHA! I talked with several different people but had 3 significant conversations. The first was actually with two Muslim men. While they were very sure that Jesus was merely one of many prophets and I was very sure that Jesus was the very Son of God, they encouraged me being out there on a Friday night sharing about the Lord. They surprised me by their encouragement and openness to talking. The second significant conversation was with Sol a guy from Brazil that unfortunately spoke Portuguese very well but not much English. Never in my life have I wanted to be able to speak Portuguese so badly HAHA. We talked for quite some time and he believed in a Creator God and Jesus being his son but he never got the need of a relationship with the Creator God and what Jesus had done for him. However God was definitely doing a work in his heart. The last significant conversation I had was with a guy named Neil. He was passing out flyers for a club, and I traded one of my tracks for a flyer when he noticed my American accent and he stopped to talk. Neil stated that he was a Christian but wasn’t where he should be right now in his walk with the Lord. I told him that I would be praying for him, and he all of the sudden lit up because he stated that he had never had anyone that cared enough to pray for him. He then said that a girl like me didn’t need a flyer like the one he gave me haha so he took it back and kept walking. There are times when the UK seems closed to the gospel but really the fields are plentiful and the workers are few. The Lord is definitely at work in this place. Please pray for my team and I this week as we settle into Cardiff Wales our place of service for this 4 months that we would acclimate well and have a real passion for the people also please join me in prayer for the people that I talked with Friday night that they would come to know the truth and commit their lives to Christ. The British Buzz Word of the Week is BIRO pronounced BY-ROW which means PEN here:) Have a great week friends! Next time it shouldn’t be this long I promise HAHA:)

Well I am about 1 week away from jumping on a plane to head to the UK. A lot of events led up to this moment, and now that it is here it feels so surreal. My freshmen year at Boyce College I found out about a program called Hands On where college age students could intern with the International Mission Board for a semester. As soon as I heard about the opportunity, the Lord laid it upon my heart that this is what He had for me. Then my sophomore year I started the process of writing essays and trying to be approved by the IMB, but I got stuck on the question of where I wanted to serve. One of my absolute best friends Carrie was also going to do Hands On at the same time I was. We wanted to serve alongside one another but only if it was God’s will. So we made a plan to pray about it, look over all the different job opportunities, make a list of the top 10 places we wanted to serve in, and then reconvene to see what each other had put. Well I prayed about it, made my list, and then met up with Carrie. We actually had a lot of the same job opportunities, but she had one job opportunity that caught my eye in Wales. When I was praying about where God wanted me for this opportunity, I did not even click on the job opportunities in Europe because I never thought God would put me there. However God likes to lead us in the direction that we’re not even looking in. The more Carrie and I talked and prayed about it, the more the Lord made it obvious that He wanted both Carrie and I in Wales for this 5 months of our lives. We were both approved by the IMB and will be joining 9 other college students on August 18th in London. We will be in London till around August 27th for orientation with all the other students serving with Hands On in Western Europe this semester, and then our team will ride a train to Cardiff Wales where we will be stationed. It has all been such a whirlwind, and it is crazy that it is actually time to go seeing as I’ve talked about it for so long. However, the Lord is sovereign and has really given me a peace about everything. I am going to try to do a weekly update on here with new prayer requests and of course a European phrase or word of the week haha. Love you guys; ya’ll are absolutely amazing:)