As most of you know last month I drove to North Carolina to attend the Center for Intercultural Training (CIT). There I was privileged to participate with 3 other singles, 15 married couples and their children in an amazing cross-cultural training course designed to prepare us for what we will encounter on the field. The topics ranged from cross-cultural stress, culture shock and contextualization to spiritual warfare, the centrality of the gospel, and the five dysfunctions of teams. There was a ton of homework and classroom time, which made me feel like I was in school again, but we also got to do some great team building exercises and even a couple of cross-cultural exercises in which we got to role play and be outdoors.
All in all, while the training was excellent and very needed, it was the community that truly made the experience. Each of the facilitators has years of experience living and working as overseas missionaries and many of the participants were missionary kids that grew up cross-culturally. I learned so much from the missionaries that I will forever carry with me, and made many friendships that I already treasure dearly. I also was blessed to live with three other AIM missionaries for the month, all of whom are on a team together bound for Cambodia. I really enjoyed being able to share with them my pictures of Cambodia from the Race and my love for the people there. Please keep them in your prayers as they are almost %80 funded and should be leaving for the field in the next few months.
So now I am back in Kansas City until August 12th when I leave for Alaska to join my sister’s ministry for a while until her wedding September 14th! In the meantime I am helping my mother clean houses again and hoping to meet with several people about the possibility of supporting me. After Alaska I am being given the opportunity to possibly speak at two churches down south so I would appreciate if you could keep those in your prayers! I am also being given the opportunity to share with a youth group here in KC which I am very excited about as I have a passion for reaching the next generation.
Financially I am still at around %15 funded monthly and still in need of all of the start-up fees. I also have been invited to come back to CIT to take the Second Language Acquisition class, which AIM encourages, that begins in mid October. I would need an additional $1100 to make that trip, but it has been said to put missionaries several months ahead in their language learning and I would very much like to attend if possible. If I attended that, it would push back my leaving date, but I have already given that to the Lord. It’s all in His timing, if He wants me to wait a few months longer then I will obey. Either way, I am still hoping to be on the field by January at the latest, but it’s in the Lord’s hands.
And now, I have a praise. When I left CIT I experienced a rather severe depression for three days that I couldn’t shake. No matter how much I seemed to pray or speak the truth out loud to myself, it didn’t change and my head was filling with lies that were threatening to overtake me. However, a couple of hours after I hit my worst, the fear and despair lifted abruptly and I knew someone was praying for me. So I want to thank everyone who is praying for me so much, including the woman I found was praying for me at that specific moment. Your prayers are doing so much and God is using them for His glory, so praise the Lord, and thank you! Below I have listed some ways you can be praying specifically in the next week.
Prayer requests:
– That the Lord would raise up teammates to join me in Italy
– For peace of mind and a renewal of energy and His joy
– That the Lord would raise up more churches and individuals who would like to support me in this ministry financially (and on that note that He would blow me out of the water with His abundant provision =))
– That the Lord would pave the way for me to go to the Second Language Acquisition class at CIT in Oct.
(pics – Top: Team building exercise. Second: Cambodian team – Jordan, Sarah, and Matt. Third: Team building exercise. Fourth: CIT Summer 2013 (photo by Abbie Warren). Bottom: With Karen, one of our wonderful facilitators.)
