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!!