Hello all,
I am in Gilroy right now visiting my wonderful friends and family! I cant believe its July already. This year has flown by so fast, maybe that has something to do with being overseas for two of those months but just as well it’s already been two years last month that I committed to YWAM. I know most of you know but I will be signing up for another two year commitment. I will be sending each one of my lovely supporters a nice letter so be looking for that in the mail (:
I bet most of you want to hear about my time over seas and how staffing this DTS went….lets just say God really grew me and I have learned so much.
One huge thing that I am so proud to share is that I really came to realized that God is my beloved and even if I fail or mess up He is never going to love me any less and I only grow in the hard times. Before I started DTS ( not trying to sound pompous) I was always good at what I did and I did my “jobs” well: AWANA, In N Out Burger,Mission Adventures and so on, but always learning new things. Going into DTS was a lot harder; you help disciple students and point them in Gods direction. But when things get hard, and you have 19 students that aren't all at the same stages of growth, you might blame yourself or even think that you failed at times… Well, I know this is simple, but Jesus will always love you and He is there holding you up. And where some things that I wasn’t always good at may have crushed me before, but I really accepted that doing a good job isn't where my value is- it's in Jesus. Now that I have realized that, even when something isn't always perfect, I know that I have to put my value in Jesus and not always being perfect, because I will fail, but Jesus won't let that crush who I am. :)
Wow…. now that I shared just a snip-it of what I learned, I’ll share with you what our team did in Turkey and Italy!
We left for Istanbul, Turkey in the beginning of April. Half the team stayed in Altintepe and half in Kadikoy, which is about a 45 minutes drive in a blue bus. We did a lot of things separate from each other (our two groups) that just worked out better for transportation costs. Our team was staying in an apartment that our local missionary's there supplied for us. In Turkey, the people are very quiet, and most of them are Muslim, so about seven times a day the ‘call to prayer’ would go off. In every neighborhood throughout Turkey there were Mosques that played the‘call to prayer’ and it would last about five minutes or so. So we had to be extra quiet in the apartment we stayed at, and even on the streets and buses when the ‘ call to prayer’ would sound. We did a lot of English teachings,random park ministry and visited the gypsies, café and university ministry's where we met a lot of people and built wonderful friendships with people working there and studying. But most of our time was spent doing a city prayer walk over all of Istanbul!!! We really wanted to walk all through Istanbul proclaiming Jesus' city back, and we did! It took us about 3 weeks , 8 hours a day sometimes, but man was it worth it. We ended on one of the Island mountains and worshiped and sang for Jesus, which was amazing because you can't mention God, Jesus or anything like that. We also got the opportunity on Easter to climb that same hill and help pass out tracks and Bibles in Turkish. You can only do this once a year, and that day is very huge for all Turkish people. So many Turks come from all over to go to the island and pray to the gods and get luck for things. They take thread and walk up the hill and how far you go before it runs out is how much luck they get. We were so blessed to be a part of this special time that only happens once a year and the missionary's there plan for all year long. We handed out so many Bibles and some people were able to talk to the local missionary's there and ask questions about Jesus and such. It was a wonderful month in Turkey and God did some amazing things there.
*Going up the hill to handout tracks and there’s so much thread everywhere.
Rome and Milan, Italy!
Here are some FUN pictures. Colliseum, Gelato, Travi of love fountain and the lie telling mouth!…Just some famous things of Roma that I wanted to share first!
Roma was amazing, so many beautiful, artistic buildings and statues. I could have stayed there for the whole month. (: Everywhere we went was beautiful, so I felt like a tourist, but we did a lot of prayer mapping, walking around all of Rome and writing down what the certain areas were about and what churches we saw and things like that. We also Prayer walked and did a lot of piazza ministries, and the guys got to do stuff with the refugees. The piazza ministries were my favorite. They are all so beautiful and I made a lot of friendships with the guys selling things. One man that my group and I made friends with makes necklaces from peoples names out of wire. At our last day he made me one (: I love it! We had pizza every day for lunch and our team took turns cooking different kinds of pasta for dinner.
*At the piazza where we did our ministry at.
* My cowboy and necklace friend !
MILAN!!!! We actually stayed in this little town next to Milan.
We took a train to Milan and only half the team went and the other half went to Aquaveva. We slept in a tent outside behind the church and was greeted with the friendliest bunch of Italians ever! People from the church took us to their homes to take showers and they cooked for us. It was amazing- REAL Italian food! A team from Australia and a crazy bunch of Brazilians were there to help with this 5 day event. We started out with 24 hour prayer and fast. We took teams out and prayed for the whole town, walking up and down each street praying all hours of the night for each home. Then the next day we started knocking on doors, inviting them to the concerts and events that night that we were having at different piazzas and at the church. It was an amazing 5 day event! They really know how to celebrate 30 years at that church!!!! That was only the first five days there... the rest of the time we took trips into Milan and prayer walked and talked to people in the Piazzas. We also spent a lot of time getting to know the youth of the church. We were the first team that really connected with them, and when it was time to leave, it really was hard for all of us to say good bye! I wouldn’t mind sleeping on folding lawn chairs or going days without a shower again just to visit and reconnect with all our Italian friends some day! It was a wonderful blessing to be welcomed by the church, and because of our stay, they are looking into hosting more YWAMer's there in the future, and investing in a better place for the teams to take showers and sleep, but I didn’t mind so much!!! (:
after a long day (:
We returned to the US at the beginning on June and spent another month on outreach here in San Francisco. We stayed at the Hunter's Point House and had different ministries throughout the city. We really made a lot of friendships through our ‘park ministries, and got to try out new ways to connect better with the different types of people living in the city! The students graduated last Thursday and even though it was sad to say our goodbyes, I really am excited to see what they do next. For the students, DTS isn't the end, but just a stepping stone- the beginning of what God wants them to do. It was my first Discipleship Training School that I helped to lead, and I really learned a lot myself. God is so good. Right before I left for my outreach, Laura (my YWAM roommate) and I moved into our own apartment in the Tenderloin area, just a couple of blocks from the base, and I am looking forward to setting up and spending some time there during my time off before beginning my ministry again!
Thank you for helping me be a part of discipling these young men and woman who are choosing to go out and follow what God has in store for them. It really was an amazing 6 months and God did AWESOME stuff. Of course I couldn’t write all of what happened while we were overseas, so if you have questions or want to hear more, I will have a little more free time for a couple of weeks, as we have a few ‘staff recovery’ weeks. (: Funny!!!
Okay have a wonderful summer, and if you are ever in San Francisco, please give me a call, I'd love to see you and show you around the base and introduce you to some of the wonderful people I work with and serve!
Love, Carrianne
