What's Up

As I sit here writing this after a relaxing day here in El Salvador, I still can't believe that at this time tomorrow I will be back at my parent's house in Minnesota. This comes with both excitment and sadness...it's for sure a yay and yuck duck situation. I am so excited to see my family and friends, especially my nieces an my nephew, but at the same time I don't want to leave ES, I truly feel that I am finally feeling really at home here. I love that I have the opportunity to share Christ with the children up in Guayabo. The children in Guayabo are becoming like my little brothers and sisters and I just love them so much and pray that they would come to know the Lord.

I will be back in the States from Nov. 5th to Nov. 15th. I will be spending most of my time up in MN with my family but I am also planning a trip down to Ames to see my friends there. I do have to say that God totally provided and blessed when I went to purchase my plane ticket for this trip, normally the prices for flights from ES to MN are usually the same but the day that I went to buy my plane ticket, the ticket was almost $200 dollars cheaper than normal! PTL. The biggest thing that I will be making sure I get done while I am in the States is get everything that I need for my background check all settled and good to go, so prayers would be appreciated.

Things up at the communtiy center are going great! We finally were able to go back up to the center this past week, thank you for your prayers...it finally stopped raining and November marks the beginning of summer for them so we most likely won't have any more mega rain storms. I know I have said this before but I love what I do I love that I get to love and serve these children. I've been working a lot with the children in helping tutor them in Math. I actually kind of find it funny how God has used that subject because in school that was my least favorite subject but it has been a true blessing. This past week I had the opportunity to go and visit some of the homes of a couple of the children at the center.. It is for sure a reality check and reminds you of how blessed I am with all that the Lord has given me.

Here are some pictures from the past week! I am heading to bed here because I'm getting up early tomorrow because we are having a evanglistic concert tomorrow at church, it is going to be awesome!!! Thank you so much for your prayers and support and I can't wait to see some of you soon!

Prayer and Glorifying God

Hey All,

First of all I am asking all of you to be praying for El Salvador, it has been raining pretty much non-stop since last Tuesday here and at times the rain has been very intense. The land here can not handle all this rain and a state of emergency has been declared for El Salvador, because in many parts of the country there is tremendous flooding and there have been many land/mudslides, people are being evacuated from their homes and all the rain makes many road impassable. So please pray not only for the people but also that the rain would stop soon. Especially pray for El Guayabo, as many of the people there do not have well built houses and it rains into their houses as well we have heard from our friends up there that part of the way up the volcano to Guayabo is impassable because of all the trees that have fallen and near the entrance to the community center is blocked because there was a mini mudslide that has blocked the way. We have not been able to go up to Guayabo since last Tuesday, because with all this rain and of course the impassable roads. So please be praying and pray that the people of El Salvador would turn to the Lord and the even through the midst of this crisis in the lives of these people that they would seek His face and come to know him.

Yesterday, I was completely humbled in the aspect of what it looks like to glorify God in the midist of intense adversity. This month the theme/series that we are talking about is glorifying God. This has been such a freshing series but also a very convicting one. I also have to admit that although I can pretty much understand everything since I got here, I am finally to not only just understand the messages, they are actually getting through to me (I don't know if that is the right word) but this past Sunday, I actually wasn't just listening and translating to understand what the message said, but God really spoke through the message.. I think that the first two months that I have been so focused on understanding that even though I knew the words that were being said I didn't focus on the actual message. I praise God that I have finally been able to acutally listen and understand the message. We are all to give glory to God in all circumstances and through this we are a light unto the world because that is something that sets us apart from the world that in the midst of adversity we can still praise and glorify God. I was humbled and amazed by a few of my brothers and sisters here in the church, yesterday. As I mentioned many people have been evacuated from their homes and there were a few from our church who were evacuated and they didn't have much time to get out of their homes and try and find somewhere to stay. Yet, through this adversity they still were giving God glory and thanking them that they still had clothing and they still had their family and that they had brothers and sisters in the church who welcomed them into their home even though they didn't have much room. It was a great reminder and it reminded me that through all things we have something to give God glory for because God has saved us and everyday He blesses us more and more even when we don't recongize it as a blessing. I'm just so thankful that our God is all powerful and in control of all things! To Him be the glory!!

Eres Todopoderoso

Eres Todopoderoso, means you are all powerful. That for sure defines our awesome God. He is always in control of all things so matter what may happen. I was really reminded of this the past couple of weeks, especially in regards to my visa situation. I have to admit I was a bit stressed out about it because I didn't know how it would all work out if I had to leave ES, because we are in the middle of starting up some big things with the Center, but as always, God not only had it all under control, he had an awesome plan. :) So I found out that I will have to return to the States and get my fingerprints done for my background check in order to apply for residency( don't know the exact dates yet but it will most likely be between Nov. 5th and Nov. 15 and I will be back for a week to 10 days). The cool thing about this whole thing was that not only will I get to see my family and friends that I miss, but as I was talking with Victor( who's family I am living with and who is the pastor of Iglesia Gran Commision) said that he is try to make it work so that he can visit Stonebrook (my home church in Ames) in the beginning of November and we would be able to talk about what what we are doing at the center, so that would just be really cool, if it works out but either way I am really excited to see my family especially my nieces and nephew as well as my best friend Sarah! So I will update as to when I will be back in the States, I will in Minnesota for most of the time staying at my parents house, but I will make it down to Ames for a day or two, hopefully. Thanks to all of you who prayed about my visa situation and continue to pray for my ministry here! I'm so thankful for your prayers.


Eres Todopoderoso is also the title of one of my favorite songs in Spanish, so here it is because I love music.

Prayer Request

Hey All!

I hope all of you are doing well! I have a quick prayer request. As you may or may not know, when I came to El Salvador, on August 16th, I entered the country on a 90 day tourist visa. The plan was to apply for temporary residency once my fingerprints and my background check were processed by the FBI and got all the apostille on it, because I need the background check with an apostille in order to apply for my residency. My mom was going to just send me the completed background check once it got processed and everything since I was already set to leave before I was going to get the document back. However, this all has not gone to plan :( and I now have a slight problem, the FBI send all the stuff back to my mom and said that my fingerprints that I had taken were not good enough and had to be redone and they could only be redone in the US, so here lies my problem is my tourist visa is up on Nov. 16th and I have to be able to get permission to stay in the country longer otherwise I am breaking the law (which would not be a good thing).So here is what my options are...I was directed to information about getting a visa extension and I have contacted the immigration services here in El Salvador about seeing if they would extend my visa until Aug when I was planning on going back to the US next, however, it's not looking very likely that they will give me an extension for that long. So right now it is looking like I will be heading back to the States the first week of November to get all my fingerprints and such redone and such. So if you guys could be praying about this situation,mainly because a lot is just unknown right now and it can be stressful at times. I just SO thankful that God is in control, so in the end everything will work out!!

Thanks so much for your prayers!!