Update on the Baby Shower

Something else pretty exciting also ocurred the first night of the brigade. I got a phone call from the girl we did the baby shower for. The babies were born, and we were the first people she called!! A healthy little boy and girl. I was seriously so touched though. She had literally just given birth and called us!

Ministry Stories

The young couple
One of the first days of the brigade, I received a young couple in counseling. Now, there are times when I am in counseling and I say what I think needs to be heard, but it is not like every time I go in, I feel like God is speaking through me. That was not the case here. We started talking about their marriage and they were really getting what I said. Then, according to what I was hearing from the both of them, I started to go a little deeper with the husband. We started talking about his childhood and he just lost it. He lived a TERRIBLE life of abuse, violence, even slavery. I challenged him to forgive the people who hurt him out loud. He couldn´t, but I could tell he really wanted to. So I encouraged the wife to take the kids and to give him the space where he could get alone to do that. They left. Hours later, I saw him walk by. He looked like a different man. Seriously. He saw me from afar and I gave him a questioning ¨thumbs up¨sign (communicating, "Did you do it?"). He nodded and smiled and kept walking. Later that night, he went to the evangelistic campaign and went forward to receive the Lord. It was awesome!

Pictures from the Brigade

Outreach Update Armenia

We survived the first week of outreach! (Applause...)
Ok, we got here and instantly feel in love with everyone. Seriously. You would have thought that we knew these people our whole lives. However, the pastor (woman) came up to me and started to tell me everything she had in mind. I fell unconscious half way through...it was an onslaught of activities to go at the same rate she was talking...a JILLION miles a minute. All I got out of it was that I wasn..t going to sleep for a week! (I love the pastor, btw)
So, we did more activities than what was healthy for the team, but it turned out SO GOOD!!! God has really put on my heart what it means to really be like Jesus. I mean, I can have all the information in the world, preach, lead Bible studies, be a missionary, but do I really look like Jesus? Do we as a church look like Jesus? I would venture to say that we don..t in many areas. That I don..t. Jesus was know for accepting people and for serving. For living outside of the structure. He was known for love.
With this fresh in my mind, Trinity and I started talking to some woman in the park. This girl was 21 years old, had a four yr old girl, a 2 yr old, and was pregnant with twins. We were getting along really well. They were super sweet. And I asked her if they did baby showers here. She said that they did. She said they did one last week, and confided that they had spent a large amount of money for them to through this party and only one person came and gave her some shampoo for the baby. She was just trouble and told me, "We don..t even have any clothes to receive the children in." So I asked her all excited, "Can we give you a baby shower?!!!" She was embarassed, but excited. So we did. My team, along with the church, gave this girl a baby shower. It was so special!!!!! Seriously. With no intentions, no strings attached, we just got to express love and acceptance to her and help her in her need. And God totally used it. She went to two services this week and started a relationship with the Lord. She asked me a bunch of questions and we got her a Bible that we all signed. It was so awesome.
I wish I had more time to tell all the stories from this week. There were just very permanent things that happened. Fruit that lasts. I will try to post some pictures soon. I don..t have a camera anymore, so I have to wait and borrow them from the girls on the team.
Please keep praying for us!

Hello...?

Did Desteni die? No, no she didn't. Here I am, Folks! I figured that my birthday was enough news to last a couple of months!!

We have now wrapped up the lecture phase of this school. These students have been incredible. They are YOUNG. I am taking two girls who just turned 16, and two 17 yr olds (I think). But they are amazing. They have been self motivated, teachable, passionate. It has been such a pleasure working with them!

The highlight of the lecture phase was definitely Missions Week. Now, we do this every semester, but this time was different. Normally, we assigned different continents to the staff and students and they are in charge of decorating a part of the house and doing a presentation during the week so that we can all intercede together. But in the past couple of semesters, it had really turned into presentations of countries and less prayer. So we made a lot of changes.

This year, we really wanted the students to EXPERIENCE the culture, so that by the time we got to intercession, they would be more IDENTIFIED with what the people were living. We also had the students pray and have God put a country on their hearts, so students were assigned according to the places God had given them. We all dressed according the the given country every day, we practiced their customs, we lived under the same bondage that they do (I'll explain more with the pictures below).

And God showed up. We talked to the base director in a Middle Eastern base to share his testimony with us to start the week, then to end the week with a challenge via skype :) From the beginning, we felt like God was calling us to TAKE ACTION and not to just intercede. And the closing night...wow...I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

The director shared with us about God's desire for unreached people in closed countries. He challenged the idea of praying and praying and waiting for God to hit us with a lightning bolt to go into these countries. He told about what God is doing where he is working and the vision he had. I was ready to start packing to go work with him.

Next, it just so happened that a team from Denver was here and had a girl from Nepal. This was one of the countries that God had REALLY put on some of the girls' hearts. So she shared and again, it was exactly what God was trying to tell us. We had everyone who felt like God was calling them get up and we prayed over them. It was so profound. It is one of those things that you can't put into words. We were all GIDDY afterwards. Even into the next day. A holy giddiness. Two of our girls received calls to Nepal. So clearly. One of those transcendental moments in life for them.

And it was so amazing for me because my heart has always been to see Latinos going into these closed nations. So I got to pray over them, sending them, next to Jhonny and Enith who have the same passion. I felt full.

This is Maria Elena and Carolina (l to r). Maria was one of the girls called to Nepal. She is also going on outreach with me!

On the day the Muslim countries presented, we prayed five times a day, facing East. We prayed to God though. We thought that would be a better idea. You know.
There we are praying over those that were called on the last night.
Paola (right) was crying so hard I though we were going to have to throw her in the pool. God rocked her world that night, calling her to Nepal. There she is standing with the guest from Nepal.

Jhonny and I after a satisfying week of intercession. (Note- I had been crying, too. Don't worry. I haven't given up on make-up).

Another big thing that happened was that Trinity was baptised, and I got to help! It was such a huge priviledge. It was beautiful and MEANINGFUL. You can see a video of it if you would like on youtube under trinitypratt. There are three parts. The first video is in Spanish, so if you don't speak spanish, it might not be exciting for you. But the second video is in English.

Next Monday Trinity and I will be headed out Armenia (Coffee Land, Colombia) for two months leading an outreach team. "Where is Rachel??," you might be asking yourself. Rachel is going to the States for a couple of months to get training for the ministry that they are founding here, Life Alternatives. AAANNNDDD, God just opened the doors for us to rent the house NEXT DOOR. This is huge. So we took a leap of faith and rented it, believing this was from God and we are waiting to see how he will come through with the finances. We definitely don't have the funds as of yet to pay for it! We all believe though that God has blessed this, so it should be exciting to see how He will manifest His faithfulness!!

Oh Happy Day

Inner Healing

This week Rachel and I were asked to help teach the class on Inner Healing to the DTS students. We were both pretty pumped.

Until I started to get ready for it. As I prayed, I really felt God leading me to "expose myself" and share from a really vulnerable place. The topic I was to be sharing...Rejection. Ouch. Turns out that I know a little about that topic. Then I got words from many of you that confirmed what God was telling me. So I went for it.

Let me tell you, you can come to terms with a lot of things in your life. But when you have to say them OUT LOUD...IN PUBLIC, that is just something totally different. I was crying before I even started class. I stood up and saw one of my friends from across the room and mouth to her, "I don't think I can do this." So she prayed and I cried some more. It turned out really good though.

Through that and the other classes, God has totally been working in the students' hearts. Last night, we had an awesome time of ministering. The students were broken. A few of them were actually weeping (most were crying). God gave us words. It was beautiful.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

Des

PS- It is my birthday tomorrow. Feel free to shower me with attention ;)

Christmas at Home

So, my time at home has been breathtaking. I couldn't have planned a more blessed or meaningful time. God went OUT OF HIS WAY to provide me with opportunities that I never thought I would have. I got to see so many significant people. Let me explain through the pictures... My BROTHER!!! Many of you have heard me talk about my brother (Sonia's best friend who is just a part of our family). Well, I hadn't met him yet officially. So he surprised us and spent Christmas with our family. Those are "nice to meet you" flowers. So sweet! I love him.
I called my childhood best friend to get together and it turns out that our other best friend was in town from Idaho, so we had a whole high school reunion pretty much. There is one pretty pregnant Anne, Shawna (whom I hadn't seen in YEARS), Stephanie, and Joy (my best friend since first grade).
This was a special moment taken between me and a bag of Christmas blend Starbucks.
Ok. So the day after I got back to the States, my family and I went up to a cabin in Sedona. It was great. Snow on the ground. This was a picture Seriah and I took in front.
I got to fly out to Michigan TO FINALLY MEET MY FAMILY on my mom's side. AMAZING. This is my sister and I with our grandpa. I can't even put words to how significant this trip was to me. It was like finding a piece of me that had been missing for years.
Here I am with my aunt Maria and my precious cousin Amanda.
This was my sister and I in front of Stephanie's memorial tree. My aunt Sonia on the right lost her daughter (my cousin) to cancer this year after a 2.5 year battle. This was our first Christmas without her.

Here are my other precious little cousins. Amanda, Savanna, and Faith. They are stinkin cute.

I will also be leaving on Thursday to visit my old base in Mexico. So I will get to see my old friends.

It has all been so rich. I will never forget this Christmas. God was on a mission to surprise me, delight me, and bless me in every way imaginable. Thank you, Lord.