Guess who is going to be back in Canada in a mere fourteen days? That's right; me. It is crazy to me that I will be home in such a short time and that I have not been there for what seems like forever. I am definitely looking forward to putting my feet on home soil once more! 

These past few weeks have been full of fun and friends and fellowship. There has also been time to debrief, reflect, process, learn and relearn, understand, and experience things of the past as well as brand new things. Coming back to Germany after Africa has been such a blessing and I truly adore being in this lovely world here in Herrnhut.

The first week back consisted of resting and debriefing our outreach, and just ending the whole thing in prayer and giving it back to God. We also had the opportunity as a school to put together a magazine, to show what we have been doing in the past half year. All of us were incredibly busy writing stories and gathering pictures to get that together. I was on the editing team, so there were many late nights editing countless stories. With much help from a lot of the staff here at the base, we completed it. There are thousands of copies being printed, and I will be sure to bring as many as I can fit into my bags home!

When the first weekend we had back in Germany came, a few of my friends and I decided we wanted to go on a faith walk. In other words, we wanted to walk right out of our comfort zones to wherever God led us and see him provide and come through for us. We left early Saturday morning with what we felt we needed to bring: four people, three Bibles, some art supplies, a camera, and one guitar. No food and no water, and no money. We began to walk, just praying and trusting that God would bring us where we needed to go. So many things happened in the next 30 hours of my life where I was challenged to the core and where God taught me so many things. We got rides to different towns from strangers who we did our best to bless with encouragement of the Good News, and in turn we were blessed with 30 euros from one really kind man and his son. We played music in a tunnel while it was raining and were able to make enough money to buy a hot chocolate for a stranger at Starbucks. We ended up falling asleep in the mall but were kicked out by security. We walked for endless hours in the rain, desperately seeking guidance from God. Those hours were so exhausting; all of us were ready to give up. We were wet and hungry and wanted to sleep in our beds at home in Herrnhut. Yet we were an hours drive from home, and our only choice was to lean more on God to truly provide for us. We ate some of the best tasting bread I have ever had out of a garbage can, and we were able to stay warm and dry overnight by sleeping in a public bathroom. 
It all sounds incredibly crazy, as if I am a crazy person, right? If you told me you did all of this, that is what I would think. But I learned things that I could not have learned in any other situation, and I saw with my own eyes my God personally provide for me and answer my specific prayers. I finally came to understand that everything comes out of true love for God, when you are focused on his goodness and just want to praise and worship him. If you want to know more about this crazy, challenging, crucial adventure, please ask me! 


The second week of being back was filled with a lot of doing art, in preparation for our report back/exhibition evening that we hosted last night. We still had lectures every day, filled with teaching to inspire us to continue to seek God and do more with what he has blessed us with. For my last weekend in Herrnhut, some friends that I have made in Germany came to visit me and we were able to spend a lot of time together. It was a really awesome last weekend :) 


During this last week we are just spending time in lectures talking about going back home and what that will look like and how to best share our experience. Our report back night went really well; we were able to set up a gallery to show our photographs and art work as a school and a few of us were able to share a couple testimonies of the amazing work that God did with us on outreach. Now that night is over, we are all doing our best to take full advantage of our little time left here with each other. Graduation is this Thursday, and then goodbyes will need to be said. I am not looking forward to that part at all; prayers for strength are appreciated. 


After graduation, I will depart for Holland to spend some time with my mom who will be flying out to meet me, then, as I said, I will be home soon! 
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! I look forward to seeing you all very shortly. May God continue to bless each of you in your daily walks with him. :) 


Love always, 
Fina

Hello to all :)

There seems to be so many words to say...

First comes first, outreach is over. My three months spent in Africa is finished. This in and of itself seems so crazy to think about. There is so much on my mind. I am attempting to process all that God has done in these past three months, and also in the past six months of my life. My heart is excited for what the last twenty days in Germany will hold, and I am thinking ahead to how I am supposed to say goodbye to my friends that I have come to deeply love and cherish in YWAM. Then after that I will hopefully be able to spend some solid quality time with my mom as she comes to take a long-deserved vacation in Holland. After that, finally, I will be heading home! Yet time is so short and I have such little time at home before I head off to school in Alberta. It feels like I will only be able to say hello then time for goodbyes will come again. I am getting ahead of myself though. Back to what God has on hand for me now!

Since I wrote last, I was heading back to Ethiopia. We flew from Nairobi, Kenya, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It all went well and it was so good to rejoin with the rest of the team that stayed in Ethiopia the entire time. The last few weeks of outreach were spent solely in Ethiopia with the whole team together again. We had started together in Ethiopia and it was a good finish to end together in Ethiopia. The Kenya/Uganda team had the opportunity to join in on the ministries that the Ethiopia team had started. Much of my focus was on the Jaja community, which is a small and unknown section of Addis Ababa where the majority of those who live there are HIV+. I would go down into the village, which was about a ten minute walk from the house we were living in, and would hang out with the kids there, playing football, duck duck goose, singing, and even just sitting with them. A lot of these kids should have been in school but because of no money for fees and no food for nutrition, many of them stayed home. I would also get to know the women there and they would kindly invite me into their home and would offer me coffee. In the past few weeks I have drank more coffee than I ever would have liked to and am quite enjoying not having to drink any coffee. Anyways, those last three weeks went by in a flash. I became really connected with the Jaja people and it was a wonderful experience. Saying goodbye to the women there and also to all the kids was incredibly difficult. That was the part of the outreach I had never considered and there were many tears shed. Yet I know that even though I am gone, Jesus is still taking care of them and my prayer is that my life showed them something that makes them know Jesus’ great love for them.

In the last few days of outreach, my team and I headed a few hours out of Addis Ababa and went to a lake, just to have some time to relax and reflect before we went back to Germany. Those couple days were awesome and very relaxing. The lake we were at is the only swimmable one in Ethiopia, so I took advantage of that and swam. If I closed my eyes and imagined really hard, I almost felt like I was back home swimming in a lake in Canada. But then I would open my eyes and see palm trees and I would remember where I am; oh how I look forward to being back in Canada!

After those days at the lake, we drove back to Addis, and it was the last night to be in Africa. At 11 in the morning the next day, on Saturday, we boarded a plane bound for Frankfurt, Germany, and in the late afternoon we safely arrived there. We then took the train from Frankfurt to where our base is located, and finally got there at 3 in the morning on Sunday. So I have only been in Germany for about two days. That is crazy to think about. Everything here in Germany is already back to normal: I have eaten yogurt again for breakfast, I was able to play the piano, I have a bed to sleep in a hot shower to take, and I am even back to my work duty of cleaning the stairs every day. It is gorgeous here and so green; I love it! I relish the luxury of being able to walk by myself and to enjoy the nature.

You’re probably wondering if I am culture-shocking or what I am feeling now that I am in Germany after 3 months in Africa, and to be honest, I am wondering the same thing. I don’t think that whole fact has quite hit me yet, some parts of my day feel like a dream. I am thankful for my time in Africa and I am so glad to be back. I will spend only 20 days here at my YWAM base in Herrnhut and I pray to God that I will not waste a single moment of these days. I am very much looking forward to going back home, because while Germany is amazing, it is not quite Canada. I pray you are all well, and I will be seeing you soon!

Love always,

Fina

Everything always seems to change. People change, plans change, the world changes. I know that life back in Canada will be different when I come home, because things have changed. Even life in Germany will be different, because it has changed too. It will be summertime, and I will see leaves on the trees that I have only known to be bare. The last time I saw Canada, there was snow on the ground! More than just physical changes will be noticed, for I have found that people change more often and in deeper ways than the seasons. I have changed as well. It is just crazy to think of how much everything around us changes so much. 

Yet there is one thing that always stays constant, and I am so thankful for the consistency and faithfulness that this thing is. Though it is not a thing, but a person as well as a God. He is a best friend and a father, and all that we need. God is unchanging and everlasting. Even in the times that I abandon him, he never abandons me. In these past days, I have allowed myself to drift and to fade and to walk away from my commitment to God, without even realizing it. When I finally understand my faults and turn back to God, he does not shut the door in my face as I deserve, but always welcomes me back into his loving arms. We serve an amazing God, eh? 

There's my Canadian language coming out. :) Everytime I do something that is not regular or just anything really, my friends always say something about me being Canadian. It is funny actually, and it is just normal for Americans (which make up the bulk of my team) to be making fun of Canadians, and vice versa. It is all out of love though, don't worry; I am also not failing to represent my country in a positive way. 

I know I told you in my last post that I would be going on a five day travel to get back to Ethiopia from Uganda, but things have changed. Of course, for things always change, as we know. When my team and I got to Nairobi, Kenya, we planned on staying a day or two to rest and get our visas for Ethiopia from the embassy here. One must have a visa for every foreign country that one enters, so in every new country my team has had to get visas. Anyways, back to the point. We went to go get our visas, but once at the embassy, we learned that you cannot get a visa to Ethiopia from Kenya unless you are a resident of Kenya, which we are not. You cannot get visas at the border in Ethiopia, because for some reason Ethiopia likes to do everything different. This complicated things, for we were now unable to get visas, meaning we could not get into our destination country. Then we learned that we can get visas, if we fly into Addis Ababa. So long story short, my team and I are flying into Ethiopia tomorrow. 

So since we have not been traveling by road to Ethiopia, we have had a bit less than a week here in Nairobi. We have spent much of the last week resting and recuperating, for most of us have been quite sick with either a parasite, e. coli, or giardia, none of which are any fun. The timing of this visa complication and questions of mode of travel were definitely orchestrated by God though, because if we did not have these days to heal, the continued travel would have been excruciating. Thanks be to him who always has the best for us! For a few days, when some were feeling well, we went to an orphanage started by the family that is hosting us, which was a lot of fun. And tomorrow we fly and will meet the rest of our team for the last three weeks of outreach. 

There has been much changing of plans, yet everything is working out. God obviously blocked our way to travel by road, for reasons unknown to us, but we trust in him. He came through and provided a way for us to still get to Ethiopia. The flights were extremely expensive, which is the reason we did not originally plan on flying, because going by road was cheaper. Still, we know that God is our provider and continue to do our best to trust in him. 

Here I leave you, with the newest updates that I know. Things are always changing though, and I am sure more things will change within the last few weeks here in Africa. 
A huge thank you to my family and friends back home who sent me a video of love and support, that served as a reminder that some things will still be the same when I come home. I know that I am missed and and have always been loved, that will never change, and this means so much to me. Another huge thank you to my church family at Rehoboth CRC for your prayers and support, and specifically to the Sunday school class that took the time to pray for me in bless me in a way that touched my heart deeply. 


I continue to keep home in my prayers and I hope you all know I am very much looking forward to being there again, soon! 
God bless :) 


Love always, 
Fina

Hey all!

I was asked by a friend a question about my ministry work here, and I realize that I haven’t really told you all what kind of ministry I have been involved in. I apologize for that, but here is just a small tidbit of some of the work I have been helping with for the past few weeks.

This entire week in Gulu has been full of different ministry including: working with and getting to know girls from ages 8 to 14 who have been affected by the war and sex trafficking and who are now orphans or unable to live at home, helping people move, painting a house, organizing offices and necklaces, these necklaces are made by ten women who I have also gotten to know over the week who are from the Congo and have been affected by war in horrible ways and now make these necklaces to make money to support their families and livelihood. There is an organization here called the ZionProject, that started the Imani Woman, which is the women who make the necklaces (mentioned above) and who are also the ones that started the girl’s home (also mentioned above).

Every new place that I go has been completely different ministry opportunities, which has been really awesome! For example, in Kampala I worked solely with a school there helping the teachers with the kids and the lunch ladies with breakfast and lunches, and in Eldoret, Kenya it was a lot of preaching and teaching and encouragement to the church there. It’s all been really different, but really good because I am able to get a taste of what I really enjoy and what I found challenging and how I can grow in each new area I encounter.

So that’s a quick run through of ministry life here. Always different, yet always the same: always serving God. This is my purpose, and I am honoured to have so many ways to fulfill that.

Tomorrow my team and I head back to Ethiopia, which will probably be about five solid days of travel. We will go to Jinka, a town in the south and stay for about two weeks. I will hopefully be able to update you again once I am back in Ethiopia.

Until then, take care. Thank you again for your prayers, for I would not be able to be sustained while here without the help of God which comes through the support you give me. :)

Love always,

Fina

Hey all :)

I am now in another country: Uganda! We arrived in Gulu just yesterday, and the days before I was in Kampala. The travel from Kampala to Gulu was only five hours, and we were able to rest for the latter half of the day. This morning we went to church and two of us shared a testimony and a preaching. The rest of the week will be full of ministry with women who used to be part of the sex industry here, as well as their children. In Kampala we were doing full-time children ministry at schools, just hanging out with the kids and helping prepare their meals and help out their teachers.

These past few weeks have been so full of God’s blessings and I am so happy to be here! This is quite a short blog entry but I just wanted to update everyone with where I am and what I am doing. I most likely won’t have access to the internet for a few weeks, but be assured that God is always taking good care of my team and I. Thank you so much for your prayers and support, for I would not be able to be here and helping so many people without the help of our Lord Jesus Christ and without you. So thanks be to God and I thank him for all of you.

Take care.

Love always,

Fina

Hello again!

I am back so soon; I know it is rare for me to post on my blog and now I have posted twice in two days! I figured that since I have access to the internet now, I might as well take advantage of that blessing and bless you all with great news! During this past week, I mentioned that my team and I along with a few members of the church we are working with, have been visiting homes here in the city we are living in. On Friday, as we were visiting the last houses, we had the opportunity to pray over a woman who knew who Jesus was but did not yet believe. After our prayers, she confessed with her mouth that Jesus is Lord and accepted him into her heart as her Saviour! Praise God for another child being added to his kingdom! It is truly so astounding and honouring to be God’s vessels that carry his message of salvation and hope! We also had the chance to pray for this woman’s mother, who is elderly and quite sick, and who was also deaf. I say was, because she was, as in the past she used to be deaf. But by God’s incredible healing power, she was healed and is now able to hear again! Another huge praise to God! I am just in awe of how wonderful and powerful the God that I serve is and that he wants to use me and I am an open vessel to showing his great mercy and endless love. His goodness is poured into my life every single day.

I wanted to share these two praises with you so that you may also be encouraged and be assured that good things are happening. I again want to thank you for your prayers and if there is anything I can pray for any of you reading this, please let me know!

Tomorrow I head to Uganda with the three others of my Kenyan team and we will reach Kampala tomorrow night sometime. I am sad to leave Kenya, for in this place and with these people here, I have never received such hospitality and kindness in my entire life. The host family that we stayed with and the church we worked with were so awesome and accommodating and lovely and just everything great! We have made solid friendships here, even after only one week, and it will be tough to say goodbye to the people here. Yet God has called us to different things, and I pray that I will be able to return to Kenya and visit my new friends again.

I do not know when the next time that I will have internet, but know that God is working here and that he is doing awesome things with me and my team, and it is such an adventure! :)

Love always,

Fina

 Pwana asifiwe! In Swahili that means “Praise the Lord!” This is a usual greeting for Christians in Kenya; they say "Praise the Lord!" and you answer with "Amen." I have really been enjoying the fellowship that I am able to have with the local Christians here. I have also been learning some Swahili which has been quite entertaining. 

This entire week has been full of fellowship and learning Swahili and God’s hand has most definitely been blessing my team and I here. I have been doing a lot of preaching and teaching this past week as well, which has been a great learning experience for me as I have realized that I do not know the Word of God as well as I should. This insight has spurred me on to want to read more of the Word. It has encouraged me also to not only read it, but learn to apply it in more ways in my life so that my preaching will not fall down useless because it has no power, but rather so that I am able to preach with power of testimony. I want to be able to preach about things in my faith that I am practicing in my life. As the saying goes: First do, then teach. 

The other day, while spending time with local missionaries here, one of them told me that I was meant to be a Kenyan, and that made me laugh. I am proud of being Canadian, and wouldn't trade my country for any other; I find it funny that others want me to be part of their own country. That statement is quite an honour and I am so privileged to be here and hear those kinds of things. 

Tomorrow is our last full day here and we are definitely going out with a bang. In the morning before church we were invited to speak at a college fellowship group. Then we will have church where all four of us will share, and then after lunch we have the opportunity to speak with the youth of the area for a couple hours. Finally, we will lead the revival service tomorrow evening. It will be a day full of preaching and teaching as well as learning and growing, and I look forward to it! I know that by the end of tomorrow I will be exhausted, but it is for good purposes and always for the glory of God. 

It is crazy to think that I am six weeks into outreach and still have six weeks. I feel as if I have been in Africa for much longer, and I miss home a lot. Yet I know that God still has so much in store for me! I have so much to look forward to in the future: the rest of outreach and what God will teach me and being able to bless more of His children, my time in Germany at the Castle in Herrnhut, which feels like my home away from home, and then heading home to reunite with my awesome family and friends and spending time in the beautiful country of Canada, and then on to new adventures in another area of that lovely country where I will be going to school and learning even more! It is so much! I am incredibly blessed and am so thankful. 

Thank you for sharing in my joys and for being a part of the process, for I pray that even as you read this you are open to being blessed and to learning something new about the great and glorious and good God that we serve! 

I will be in touch when I can. Prayers for continued safety and health, and for constant focus on Jesus Christ and his grace and love are so appreciated! 

May the Lord our Father bless you and keep you. :) 

Love always,

Fina

Jambo! 

Hello from Kenya :) I am in Nairobi right now, and have been in Kenya for the past five days. The travel here from Addis was exhausting, but thanks to God my team and I made it here safely in four long days of travelling.


During this past week, my team and I had the opportunity to travel south for four hours, near the border of Tanzania, and visit with a Masai tribe. We worked in the school for two days and it was amazing. It was definitely a God-filled time where we were able to sing songs and play games with all the children there and we taught them many Bible stories and told them more of the love that Jesus has for them. There is much to tell about this time, but unfortunately the battery on my laptop is dying so I do not have much time. It was an awesome experience; the people of this tribe had never seen any white people before so that was definitely really interesting and cool for them as well as me. 

Tomorrow I will be travelling to a town in western Kenya with three others on my team. We will stay there for one week working with ministries and churches there, and then will head to Uganda. The other part of my team will leave for Uganda tomorrow and will be there for the week I am staying in Kenya. Once we rejoin each other, we will have two weeks together again in Uganda and then will begin the long and tiring travel back to Ethiopia. 

I really appreciate all of your prayers and thoughts. They mean so much for they truly do make a difference. I was feeling quite sick last week, but I am definitely much better. God is always taking good care of me and this trip to Africa has already been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Thank you again for your support; I pray that all of you reading this may continue to be blessed and to be a blessing as well. 

I will update you again once I have more battery life and more time. 
Take care. :) 

Love always, 
Fina

It's like walking into the past. 

This is what a fellow volunteer said to me as we were working side by side at a feeding center called HOPE Enterprise in the middle of Addis Ababa. The words seemed to fade and fell from my ears, but as the day went on, I kept thinking of how much truth is in that sentence. 
Being in Ethiopia is amazing and such a blessing from God, but sometimes it is hard to see such a great degree of poverty and the wretched circumstances that some people live in. 

Yet God is good. All the time. Every morning I wake up I do my best to remind myself of this and to ask Him to help me share that goodness and His love with everyone that I see and meet throughout the day. My team and I have been in Ethiopia for almost three weeks and time feels like it is flying by. We have breakfast at 730 every morning, then worship and devotions, and then from about 9 to 530 or so we spend doing ministry throughout Addis Ababa. At 6 we have dinner together as a team and then have a team meeting at 8, and then we all generally head to bed soon after. I am getting enough sleep and eating well enough here, there shouldn't be any worries about that. A lot of our team has gotten sick over the past weeks, but all are on the up and up and are feeling much better. I have not gotten sick yet, and I pray that I am able to say that at the end of outreach. Continued prayers for health and safety would be appreciated.  

There are many opportunities for ministry here in Addis, such as prayer walking and street ministry, where we go to different areas of the city in groups of three or four and pray and do our best to follow God's leading. We have met a lot of really awesome people and have been able to encourage and be encouraged. Another ministry we are involved in is called HOPE Enterprise, which I mentioned above, where we go for a couple hours to help serve enjera (which is the classic Ethiopian food) to about 700 homeless people that come through every day. We have had a lot of chances to get involved which a lot of the churches and youth groups here, which has been awesome. There are different ministries that we are continuing to contact and are hopefully going to be able to work with throughout the rest of the stay in Addis. 

An update on my team and what is going down for the remaining nine weeks that I am in Africa: well, to put it simply, I am heading to Kenya and Uganda! Our team of 14 students and 3 leaders are splitting up for about 5 weeks. One leader will stay in Addis with 6 of the students and continue with the ministries here and keep on discovering what God has for us here, and the other two leaders are taking the rest of the students to Uganda! I am part of that team and am incredibly excited for that! We will be travelling down to Kenya and then making our way to Uganda to spend two weeks Kampala, the capital city, and then one week in Gulu, a city in the northern part of Uganda. It will take a week of travel there and then also another week back, which will be interesting and exhausting and awesome and educational all at once. My team will be leaving on May 4, which is this Friday, and I am so excited!  A little bit scared, but mainly just stoked to be able to travel more and keep on chasing after God's heart for the people in these nations! 

After our travels, our team will hopefully and God willing reunite all as one big team again in a city in the south of Ethiopia called Jinka, where we will stay for about 3 weeks. After that we will only have about a week left for outreach and will make our way back up to Addis Ababa to fly back to Germany. These are our plans and they are not fully concrete, but God willing he will make them happen. I am so looking forward to the upcoming adventures still to be had in Addis, then in Kenya and Uganda and then also in Jinka! 

So although being here in Africa feels like I am living in the past at times because of the lack of many things that the "Western world" has attained, I know that I am walking into the future with every new day that I am blessed with. And this future is full of hope because I know that God will be walking with me. So I keep walking and my goal is to continue walking for the rest of my life into the future that God has planned for me. 

Prayers to live every day to the fullest so that my future can continue to be the best it can be would be great, and just to keep lifting up my team and I so that we are continually encouraged and able to keep sharing the Word of God. My prayers go out to all of you back home; again, rest assured that you are missed. I know that I will be home before I know it and will find myself missing Africa, yet I do look forward to being home once again. 
I will do my best to update you as much as possible, but what with travelling and uncertainty of access to internet I am unsure of how often that will be. May God continue to bless each of you in your daily walks with Him. 

Love always, 
Fina

Greetings from Africa! :) 

So here I am. Sitting in an internet cafe in the middle of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. How crazy that I am here in Africa. Everything here is going so well, for God is good!

My journey began on April 7, taking a van from the Castle in Herrnhut to Lobau, a train from Lobau to Dresden, another train from Dresden to Frankfurt, then flying out of Frankfurt, Germany all the way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We arrived here Sunday morning, all very tired. My first African experience wasn't such a good one.. I went outside of the airport to get some fresh air and as I was going back inside, a man in a military uniform stopped me. He began to get frustrated and then decided to kick me out of the airport; I was not allowed to go back inside. I told him my bags and my friends were just inside, but he began to yell at me and would not let me inside. One of my outreach leaders, Corey, came over at the perfect time and tried to help me out, but the man was obviously angry, so Corey went outside with me. We went over to the visitors entrance and were graciously allowed back in after going through security once again. Thanks be to God for Corey for helping me out and for allowing us back into the airport. I learned my lesson to always stick with the group and just wait patiently for fresh air. It was not the best start to my time in Ethiopia, but God is good and he is gracious and everything else has been going really well! 

The weather has been great! It has rained a few times, and it has not been nearly as hot as I expected, which is nice. The food is also quite good and the place we are staying is also much nicer than I was prepared for. My team and I are quite blessed with all that we have here! 

During the last few days we have been spending time doing prayer walks, homeless ministry, working with YWAM Ethiopia and also working with a project that our YWAM Herrnhut base started. Our team is getting along well. One of us is quite sick, but hopefully he is on the mend. And one of our leaders is still on his way; he is just working out some finances. One girl on our team went home, back to Hong Kong, on Saturday instead of joining us in Ethiopia, because her father is very sick and she felt it was best to be with her family at this time. We are keeping these three in our prayers and are just continuing to do our best to follow God's leading in all that we do. Our mission here is simply to love God and love people. Prayers for a constant increase in that love and for deeper hearts for the people of Ethiopia would be amazing. 

Know that I am keeping you all in my prayers and I hope all is well back home. I miss home, but being here is so good for me; it truly is a dream come true. Sometimes it is difficult being here for there are tough things to see and to be surrounded by, but I know that God is good and I am doing my best to share his goodness and his love with those around me. It is hard to express what exactly I am feeling whilst being in the midst of Africa, but when I can put to words what I am feeling in my heart and soul I will hopefully be able to let you know. I will have very little access to the internet during outreach, which is for the best, but I will try to update you here as much as possible. 

Take care and God bless. I will hopefully be in touch sometime within the next three months! :)

Love always, 
Fina

Hello all :) 

I just realized that I have not blogged in a few weeks, and so much has happened since then. Last week and the week before we had David Gava speaking to us about the Holy Spirit and evangelism. With the help of the Spirit, those two weeks were vital in strengthening the unity within our team and for turning our group into a team that, when we are connected with God, will be able to represent our Lord and Saviour in the best way as we journey across African soil. I learned a lot from David Gava, but I think that the thing that stood out to me most came not from his words in lecture, but rather from his actions. He is a man whom is extremely sensitive to the Spirit and His leading, and I saw that first hand as he taught our class for two weeks. His example of this led me to a deeper desire to want that in my own life. To walk in obedience at all times, to live with a fear of the Lord inside of me that guides me through everything: this is what I want for my life. Every speaker has been telling me that this does not happen overnight, it is a journey. So therefore I am happy to say it is a journey that I have started and already I am seeing more and more the goodness and faithfulness of God.

David also taught us that we need to be ready in all seasons and at all times to speak about the message of the kingdom and to spread the love of God. As an exercise to prepare us all for outreach, each of us on my DTS had to prepare a ten-minute sermon on the kingdom of God, using Matthew 13 as our main reference. It was incredible to see that each of us spoke on different aspects of the kingdom and how it all applies to our lives. I encourage you all to read into Matthew 13 and look at the parables that Jesus told that describe the kingdom of God, for this is what our mission is: to spread the kingdom. We are serving the King, and we must be able to know and understand what exactly that means and how to go about doing that.

During our last week of lecture, our speaker Dan Baumann, has been teaching me and our whole team so much. He is incredibly funny and had so many awesome stories. His goal for this week was for all of us to fall more in love with Jesus by the end of the week. Through his stories I have laughed so much and learned more about what it means to walk in a relationship with God. God loves us so much, he is good, and he is always for us, and I see evidence of that in Dan’s life as well as my own. It is exciting and such a wonderful feeling to begin to really experience and enjoy the love of God.

By the end of today, lecture phase will be over and our team will be leaving for Ethiopia tomorrow. How crazy that I have been here for twelve weeks already! Having Dan as our speaker was the perfect way to end lecture phase and such a significant teaching to have fresh in our minds as we head into outreach phase. I am looking forward to what God has in store for our team! We will be taking the train to Frankfurt, then flying directly from there to Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. We will stay in Addis for a week or so and then head down to a city in the south of Ethiopia called Jinka, where we will work for about a month. From there, some of us, depending on God’s leading, will most likely be heading into northern Kenya and Uganda, and possibly South Sudan. The rest will probably stay in Ethiopia. It is all up to God and what he is calling us to in those weeks. This is all so exciting for me, because Africa is my dream and it is actually happening. The actuality of this reality has not quite struck me yet, but I know that once I am on the plane and definitely once I have stepped foot onto African land my heart will begin to beat so fast. My prayer is that my heart will beat alongside the people of Ethiopia and eastern Africa. I desire to have such a heart for these people so that I can show them the love that God has for them. Something huge that I learned from Dan this week is that the Christian life isn’t about being exactly right and making the best decisions all the time, it is about leaning more into the character of God and just falling more in love with him. Hearing from God and making decisions is difficult and frustrating sometimes, but that does not mean we give up and stop communicating with God. We should always be asking God for guidance, and yet we cannot just be stagnant and do nothing when we are unsure of where God is guiding us. We still must do something. The main will of God for our lives is to love God and love people; therefore we always have something that we are able to do. If we desire to follow God’s will, we will obey that major commandment and love. Love is an action; it is something that we choose to do. Love responds.  

My prayer is that you are continually able to be in awe of Jesus and the love that he has for you, and from that loving God and loving others will come so simply to you, that all you can do is respond. I ask you for prayers for my team and myself, for safety and health and protection from all kinds of danger, both physical and spiritual. Prayers for focus and unity within our team as well as just always going to God first and having him as the center of everything on this outreach and in our lives. Prayers for encouragement and just a joy and peace that can come only from Him so that we will be able to constantly be able to share the love of God with all that meet.

Thank you so much for your support; it does not go unappreciated nor without significance. I will be back in Germany in twelve weeks, at the beginning of July. I will do my best to update you as much as I can while in Africa, but internet will be rare so do not expect too much. Thank you again for sharing in my journey with me. May God bless you in whatever you are doing; my love goes out to you.

Take care. And remember, God loves you. :)

Love always,

Fina

Hey!

So it’s been a week since I have been back and Germany, and what a good week too! The sun has been shining every day, the grass is becoming a gorgeous green, the trees are budding and the flowers are growing; it is so beautiful. The Castle has been so full of life as well this past week with three different schools living and studying here at the moment. The September MOTA just graduated this past Thursday, so a lot of them are actually leaving and on their way home. There is also a MOBILE DTS school that travelled all over Europe and is now spending their last two weeks here in Herrnhut; they will be graduating this coming Thursday. Then our school, the January MOTA, recently returned from mini-outreach and will be on our way to Ethiopia in two weeks! Everything here is so busy and exciting and happy and alive. It is so good to experience God’s goodness on so many levels, including learning lessons from mini-outreach, all throughout worship and lecture this week, the people that I have met and have gotten to know, and even through the weather.

I learned some major things through mini-outreach, and encountered many challenges, but overall I found it to be a really good two weeks. The last weekend our team spent in a town called Česky Tešin, which is on the very Eastern side, right on the border to Poland. We helped out with a missons conference there and spent some quality time with the youth and young people of the local church there. it was a really blessed ending to our two weeks spend in the Czech Republic. On our drive home on Sunday we stopped in a Polish city called Wroclaw, which was an incredibly beautiful place. It is not too well known of a city, and that is a shame, because it’s architecture, culture and leisure is comparable to a lot of popular cities.
Something that really struck me during those two weeks was that the way I react to situations is different than the way other people react. I need to learn to be more flexible, not in the sense of dealing with a schedule or lack thereof, but instead being more flexible with people around me and how they are reacting and going through things.

So our mini-outreach is over, and the entire week after that is gone already as well. The time to go to Africa is approaching quickly, and my excitement is growing! I am of course scared of some things that I will face there, and the twelve weeks spent there will not be without its challenges, but I know that God is willing and able to take care of me and my whole team. These last few weeks of lecture are really crucial in our preparation for what God has in store for us in Ethiopia, and I think that we are finally really getting to know each other on deeper levels within the team and are really doing our best to dedicate our hearts to God so that we are able to serve him to the best of our ability.

Our speaker for this past week was very intense and very thought-provoking. His name is David Guava and he is a really spirited man. He has encouraged me a lot with his teachings on the Holy Spirit and he is speaking again next week so I am looking forward to what he has to say about evangelism.

I will be sure to post again what is going on within the next few weeks. Prayers for preparation of my heart as well as the hearts in my whole team would be really appreciated. And also, prayers for financial needs as well would be great; I want to thank those who have supported me again for helping me pay for this amazing trip. I would not be able to be here with such freedom if I was not supported so much by the people back home (aka: you!), so thank you so much. I say that from the bottom of my heart.

I pray you are all well and that the weather where you are has been a beautiful blessing for you too! May God continue to bless you and may you be open to what he has for you each and every day.

Love always,

Fina

Hey all! This is just a quick update to let you know how I am doing! Being in the Czech Republic for the past week and a half has been great! I have seen a lot, heard a lot, learned a lot, and grown a lot. I am tired, but that is only because I am  up way too late. But tomorrow we are driving for about six hours, so maybe I will catch a nap in the van. 


Last Sunday, my minioutreach team and I left Herrnhut and drove a few hours to the Western side of Czech Republic, where we spent five days in a town called Chomotov. While we were there, we stayed at a church and just hung out with a bunch of youth from that church community as well as youth who didn't go to church. We went to a zoopark, learned how to make beads out of glass, did a lot of sightseeeing, played some games, and just hung out with each other. In the evenings we had group discussion times where our team prepared something to share, such as testimonies, stories from the Bible, songs, etc. and then we spent time in discussion with people that came from the community. We were all challenged in different ways, and God was always there with us. Many people were touched by him in that week and it was amazing to see the impact that God can have through people who are striving to serve him. 
The time came for us to leave and head on to Prague, so we said our goodbyes to our new friends, then drove to Prague, the capital of Czech Republic, on Friday morning. We spent an entire week there, helping out with a missions conference, going to church and spending time enjoying the city, doing prayer walks, encouraging the believers here in Prague, going to English clubs and hanging out with Czech students and speaking English and sharing God with them. It has been a really good week! 
The week in Prague is already over, and tomorrow, on Friday, we head to a town on the Eastern end of Czech Republic, our final destination. We will be hopefully be spending time with the youth group from the church there and then on Saturday we will be helping out with another missions conference. Then Sunday will be here so soon and we will make our way back to Germany by going through Poland. 

This outreach has been really good for me. It taught me things only hands-on experience could, and it prepared me for big outreach coming up in ways I did not even realize I needed preparation for. But God is constantly working in my heart to make me more like him, and as I work alongside of him, I pray that I can be the best influence as I can to all those around me. 

So this has been brief, but I am tired. I need to get some sleep; rest assured that I will probably write more about this minioutreach soon enough! 
I hope all is well back home. I miss it deeply, but I am truly enjoying being in Europe. 

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts and support; they are very much appreciated. Take care. :)
Love always,
Fina

P.S. This is a shout-out to my father (I sincerely hope he does read this): Happy 50-something birthday on March 17! :) Haha I miss ya Pa; hope you have a great day and are enjoying your time off work! 

Hello family and friends!

Before I share about this past week, I want to fast forward to Friday and what happened on that day. We, as a school, were in our lecture room, anxiously waiting for our leaders to share with us the location of our outreach. We had been anticipating this information all week long; it was a suspenseful time. The leaders of our school did not tell us straight up where we would be going; instead they sent us on a journey so that we could find our destination. We were put into pairs and given instructions to walk to different spots on the base and pray about different things, such as the nation we were going to and the people we would meet and the people who would be on our team. As my partner and friend, Pia, and I were walking through the forest we prayed earnestly to God about all these things. Eventually we came to the rest of the group, where they were already waiting and had the knowledge I desperately wanted to know in their minds. I heard the words “Welcome to Team Ethiopia” and I literally jumped for joy. I was so excited to learn that we would be going to Ethiopia for our outreach, and that we would be going together as one group! God has been so faithful to me in this and I feel honoured that he is giving us the opportunity to travel to Africa do be able to share his love. I am seriously so excited! But first, before I run away with my excitement, I need to remember to focus on the now and to not let myself be distracted by anything; I must keep my eyes fixed upon God. So tomorrow I leave for the Czech Republic for two weeks for mini-outreach and am excited for this trip. I find myself being more anxious about this two week outreach in the neighbouring country rather than our twelve week outreach in the heat of Eastern Africa. Once the three different outreach teams get back from our separate locations, we have three more weeks of lecture phase in Germany and then will be on our way to outreach phase already! We leave April 7^th and will return June 30^th. Then we have a few more weeks in Germany and the graduation date for our DTS is on July 20^th. Wow! SO much happening! So much excitement and experience and expansion of myself. It is all wonderful and I am so thankful to God for placing me here and for all he has done and will do; he is so good to his children.

Anyways, on that good note and with much more excitement in my heart than last time I wrote, I will tell you about my week. I am less exhausted, which is nice; I was able to sleep in today and that was definitely nice! We had Rogerio, a man from Brazil who is completely dedicated to God and to this base here in Germany, as our speaker this week. He spoke on spiritual warfare, and I am again astounded by how much I can learn from one person. Rogerio taught me a lot about more than just spiritual warfare, and he is an incredible encouragement and inspiration to me. I wish I could tell you all that I have learned but then you would have to read for days. I will try to just give you a few main points that really stuck out to me:

The biggest defense to the attacks of the devil is to be fully obedient to God in all that we do. We must not be ignorant of how the devil works, or else he will be able to fool us with less effort. We have to know that spiritual warfare is real and that it is on-going, but we have the victor of this war on our side, so as long as we stay connected to him, we will be alright.

God is always for us and has what is best for us. God values us not because of what we do, but because of who we are. When our identity is in him, we are connected to him. When we are connected to him, we can have a relationship with him. When we have a relationship with God, we are able to know what he is saying and be obedient to him and therefore stand strong against the ploys of the devil. I am learning more and more about who I am in God, and it is so exciting and lovely to learn of how he knows me. God is also challenging me to learn more of who he is. For how can I have an identity in someone I don’t even know? I need and want to learn to trust that God is who he says he is, just like Moses did. With that, comes spending more time with him in prayer and silence. Reading his Word is crucial as well, for the Bible is his words to us. The well of Scripture within me is very dry, so I have been trying to fill it by reading the Bible more and more. This past week, I along with my Bible reading group, memorized all of James 1. It was a good challenge, yet memorization comes easily to me, so I was able to conquer it with enough work. For a bigger challenge, I may push myself to memorize the whole book of James. I will let you know how that goes. There is so much within James that we can learn from, and I know this applies to whole Bible. There is so much to know, and I feel a thirst within me to know it all. As I continue to push myself to spend more time with God and his Word, I pray the for the same hunger within each of you.

There is so much more that I have learned (and more I want to share with you!). At this point, while I know I have learned so much, I realize that I still have so far to go and so much more to learn. But this is not scary nor discouraging, instead I am looking forward to all that God will teach me on this DTS and throughout the rest of my days that he blesses me with.

Prayers to keep myself from being distracted so that I do not miss out on what God has for me and prayers for focus and discipline are needed. I need to also just take one outreach at a time; I need to concentrate on what God has planned for me in Czech Republic, and then once I am back I can set my mind to Ethiopia. Please also pray for the people that my team as well as the rest of my school will meet in the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, and Germany. Prayers also for preparation of our hearts for mini-outreach and big outreach are appreciated!

If there is anything I can pray for any of you, please do not hesitate to let me know.

I miss home dearly, but I am loving being here. I am unsure of any consistent internet that I might have for the next two weeks, so I do not know if I will be able to update you while I am in the Czech Republic, but I will be sure to let you know of all my adventures with my team and with God when I get back to the Castle in Germany!

Take care, and may God bless.

Love always,

Fina

Exhaustion settles in, further and further deep inside of my soul. Yet excitement is rising and fighting to be a contender within my inner battle. I am always exhausted, it seems. I have given myself time to sleep this week more so than last week, yet I still feel so tired. But this week was good! Aside from the fatigue, everything seems to be going well.

We had Cory Stroud, one of the base leaders here in Herrnhut, come in and speak for us. She taught me a lot and also challenged me to think more about what kind of foundation I am standing upon. Throughout the week, Cory taught us about our foundations and our beliefs by using the image of a tree. The soil is the environmental worldview that we have, or how we grew up and were raised. This is something we cannot change. The roots of the tree represent our beliefs, and this is something that is completely up to us. From that, the trunk is next and that represents our values. Next are the branches which are our principles and decisions. The fruit of the tree that we produce is shown by our actions, behaviours, and practices. The seeds from this fruit are what we pass on to others. Looking at my background, and my values, and my seeds, and everything in between helped me realize what kind of fruit I am producing and also that everything in the tree is dependent on everything else. For example, my values will affect my actions. My soil affects my roots. My seeds are affected by my decisions. Everything is interdependent and this is such a crucial point to understand.

At the end of the week, Cory challenged us with the question of “What kind of fruit do I want to produce?” Once we determine that answer, we can sort of go backwards through the tree and decide what needs to be changed and how in order to produce that specific fruit. She also asked us “What kind of actions do I no longer want to see in my life?” and how to go about making those changes as well. These are huge questions for me to consider, because I am only just beginning to actually comprehend that I have the power to make the change in my own life.

These past few weeks, I have been doing so much thinking and am constantly processing all that I have learned. This is possibly one of the main reasons as to why I am so tired all the time; I am always trying to think and learn and grow. This is a good thing though, so I am hoping that because I am so tired that maybe I am making progress in my processing and in my growth. I realized the other days that as a result of the burdens of my past and the fears of my future, I have given myself no strength for today. My prayer is that I can really learn to trust God with my future as well as my past so that I can begin to truly focus on each day that he blesses me with.

And with that, I am going to completely change the topic and tell you about why I will be in a different country next week! We have learned the locations of our mini-outreaches and the entire Winter MOTA school will be in three different countries this time next week. Five students and four staff will make their way to the Ukraine to work in an orphanage there and possibly do some street ministry. Another five students along with three staff will be travelling through the Czech Republic, working at an English camp for one week on the Western side of Czech Republic, then helping out at a missions conference in Prague for another week, and then helping at another conference for a weekend on the Eastern side. The remaining five students with three of the staff will be staying in Germany, but heading to the Southern area to help out with the Fall MOTA tour and also doing some ministry there. 

I will be part of the Czech Republic team! This is quite exciting, because I will be able to travel through the Czech Republic and also have experience with several different kinds of ministries. The team that I am with will be a lot of fun and I know it will be a really good time. I originally wanted to go to the Ukraine and work in the orphanage there, because I absolutely adore children, yet God had another plan for me. Over the past few days he has been encouraging me to trust him in his choice and has been revealing the reasons for why he chose for me to go to the Czech Republic instead of Ukraine. Again and again I am seeing the goodness and faithfulness of God; the great love that he has for me continues to astound me every day. I know that each of these outreach teams are hand-picked by God. I pray that we do all we can in each location for his glory alone and always rely on him and trust in him. Prayers for travelling mercies and health, as well as rest and focus and strength and encouragement for every team would be greatly appreciated. I am looking forward to what God has in store for each of these teams. In three weeks you will definitely be hearing from me about my time in the Czech Republic!  

So with these new challenges and these new updates, the excitement within me is growing. My hope and prayers for each of you is that you may find rest as well as excitement in your daily lives. Something that I heard in church today reminded me that is not solely what you believe, but what you are excited about and what you emphasize. May you remember that God loves you and may that love spark an excitement that grows within your soul so deeply and strongly that you can no longer contain it. May God continue to bless you in all that you do. 

Hoping all is well;

Love always,

Fina

Hello:) 

There is always so much to say, yet I never feel as if I can communicate it in the best way. These blogs that we have to write every week force me to connect my thoughts to words, which is helpful. The only problem is the lack of motivation that I feel when it comes to getting things done. Recently I have been feeling quite exhausted, and the fact that I don’t sleep very much does not help. With the tiredness comes zero motivation, and I am working on trying to sleep more so that I can be healthier and also get more done.

I was taught many new things in this past week. Through our speaker, Fiona, I learned more about sin and what exactly sin is and what it means. I learned more about the Gospel and how my idea of what the Gospel is seemed to be inexplicable. Each of the students in our school also had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with Fiona and she helped me realize many things. We talked about the issues I have in my life and she helped me get to the root reasons behind my struggles. This was very crucial for me; it was hard to accept, yet it is a million times more difficult to actually look deeply at these reasons and try to begin bringing change.

Back to what I learned about sin this past week: there are a few main things that really stuck out to me. One was that there is sin and then there is sins. It looks like a very small difference, yet it shows a big difference. SIN is the root, or the inherited disposition; it is our sinful nature. SINS are the fruit, the concept of whether we walk in the flesh or in the Spirit. Sin is not wrong-doing, it is wrong-being. When we sin, we are outside of and apart from God. When we sin, we are not walking in the Spirit, but rather the flesh. We are feeding our sinful nature and not living the abundant life that the Spirit can offer. We are able to control the SINS in our life by living by the Spirit, which will then result in good and beneficial fruit.

We also touched on what the Gospel is this week as well. When Fiona asked us what the Gospel was to us, I thought about it and seemed unable to answer. I did not know what to say; did I really not know what the Gospel is? The Gospel is, after all, the exact thing that I believed in, yet I was unable to communicate what I believed. My idea of the Gospel was so complex I could not even explain it to myself. If I were encountered with a situation where I met someone who had never heard the Gospel before and I was able to share it, I realized I would not have a clue what to say. This is where what Fiona shared was so significant to me. The way that she described the Gospel made what I believe so much clearer and also allowed me to truly communicate in a simple, yet personal way of what the Gospel was to anyone who did not know. So here it is: God loves. Sin separates. Jesus saves. You decide. That’s it; so easy yet so not. Take it as you will, and you decide.

Again, this is only a small fraction of all that I have learned in just another week of DTS. It has been so amazing to be here and be in this community and have the opportunity to learn and do everything I am learning and doing. It is a struggle, but one that I am able to conquer and come through as a better person only with the help of my Father and Saviour.

Some less heavy topics, yet interesting things happening here in Herrnhut: I got a henna tattoo on my hand. My friend Raquel, from Costa Rica, designed it and I love it! This past weekend, we has a sudden spike in population here at the Castle, because the entire Fall MOTA returned from their outreach. There are now another 100 students and another 20 or so staff. You can imagine how it feels going from having the Castle all to yourself with only 15 students in your school to abruptly having to adjust to another 100 people walking and eating and talking and being all around you. It is quite overwhelming. But I do enjoy meeting new people so it is also exciting! I am looking forward to getting to know them more. I have challenged myself to remember all of their names, so wish me luck with that! Other than that, I do not think anything else is new. Our school will be getting more information about what our mini-outreach will look like later this week, so I will keep you updated on that. For those of you who do not know what mini-outreach is, it is just a two-week period in the middle of March where we go on a mini-outreach (hence the name) and get a small taste of what our regular outreach will look like.

I hope Canada is still doing well and that all of those that I love are also doing well! I miss my home; please take care of it for me! Remember that you are all loved by me and by God! I love updates on what is going on in your lives, so just shoot me an email (finamurphy18@gmail.com) and I will definitely be in touch when I can!

Love always,

Fina

Dearest friends and family,

Much has happened since I wrote last. The lack of updates is of no one’s fault but my own; I apologize. We are already on our fifth week of DTS; I have been here for just over a month. That is so crazy! Some days it feels as if I have been here for years and known these awesome people that I am meeting for my whole life, but other days it feels as if time is flying by too fast. I find myself thinking of six months from now where my emotions are sure to be conflicted as a result of looking forward to going home and seeing those I left behind, but I fear I will also dread having to leave my new friends behind. Alas, this time will come but I shall do my best not to think of it just yet, but rather soak in every moment of the present.

Last week was “story week” where staff from the base came into our class to share stories that testified to the goodness of God and how amazing the plans he has for each of us really are. Throughout the whole week I was really inspired and encouraged through the people that shared and through the experiences they went through. We also learned more about Pick A Pocket, which is an arts ministry founded by people here at this YWAM base. This ministry is such an exciting and admirable venture; it uses art to share the stories of less fortunate people and to also raise awareness and support of these people. It provides a bridge between missionaries working in lands that seem far off and those back at home who are able to support them. The last speaker of the week, his name is Uli, shared more about how his experiences shaped his relationship with God. He talked about qualities and characters that he has acquired over the years from God that show his godliness and faithfulness to God. It was a really challenging but helpful talk and I really appreciated it. All of the stories shared were so inspiring and I am glad I was able to have the opportunity to listen to these stories and to be able to hear how God has shown us his goodness over and over again.

This week our speaker’s name is Fiona and she lives in South Africa. We have only had one day so far with her, but she is an incredibly intelligent and engaging and entertaining speaker. I am really looking forward to learning from her all week and to seeing how we can grow both individually in our walks with God and also as a community of believers.

Onto non-school related matters! I went to Prague this weekend! It was so amazing; Prague is such a beautiful city with lots of rich heritage and history. I had a fantastic time and am so thankful for the blessing I have to be able to travel and to get a glimpse of this wonderful world.

I find myself getting so caught up in keeping up with school and all that entitles as well as staying in touch with those I love back home and with building relationships here, that I tend to neglect God throughout the day. I know that I am here with Christians and am learning about God and being involved in everything that relates to God, but I am realizing that that is not enough. I need to specifically still set time aside out of my day to spend time with my Creator and Father, so that is something that I am challenging myself with this week.

Although I am quite busy, everything here is going well! I had a good weekend and have a solid-looking week ahead of me, and every day God shows me new mercies and shares with me in new ways his love that he has for me; I am so blessed.

My prayer that for everyone that reads this may be able to seek God and find him when you seek him with your whole heart. He is longing for you to come to him and he desires to have a relationship with you. He is always waiting for you. I pray that you may be encouraged and inspired in your daily lives and that you may also be able to see the blessings that God has given you and has in store for you.

God bless. :) I will be in touch!

Love always,

Fina

p.s. If you wish to see pictures from my trip, check out the album that I posted on facebook! Enjoy:)

Last week we had Pete Thompson, a long-time YWAMer now living in South Africa, as our speaker. I learned a lot from him about God the Father and Jesus the Son and how they correlate with each other. We also discussed barriers to bonding that we have when it comes to getting to know our Heavenly Father. One of the questions we have to answer is “What is something you learned about God the Father? Is this something you are struggling with or excited about?” Something that I learned is that I there is an enormous wall in front of me that I need to deal with until I am able to know God in a deeper way. This will be a long process, and will be something I will struggle with no doubt, but I know that in the end I will be better for it. It is hard, especially starting the process of dealing with the barrier in my heart, but I know that the people here will help me whenever I ask and that God is always by my side no matter what.

On a completely different note, I went to the Czech Republic for the first time on Friday! Josh and Ruth (the leaders of our school) were taking Pete and his daughter Jojo out for dinner to the Czech Republic, and there were a couple extra seats, so a few students got to tag along! Herrnhut is only about half an hour from the border, so it was an easy trip. We also drove through Poland on the way, so I was in three countries in one day! It was quite exciting! Plus the food we ate at the Czech restaurant was really good; the night out was definitely a highlight for me.

The weekends here are so quiet and empty, so I am glad the week has started up again! This week is Story Week, where people from around the base come in and tell us stories about God’s goodness. We are also focusing on the arts ministry here, called PickaPocket. The people who are part of it are able to use their arts to raise support and awareness for long-term missionaries, and it is also a means to fight against extreme poverty. Once I know more about it, I will be sure to tell you about it!

I hope all is well back home; know that you are missed and that you are in my prayers.

Love always,

Fina

Hello again:)

More than one blog post in one night, lucky you! I finally had a free night to take some time to write down my thoughts and to update my blog once again. Thank you for taking the time to invest in learning about what I am learning; I appreciate your support. Please note that there is more than one page to this blog. If you look above this, directly below the large blue box, there are three sections (Life and Learning in Germany, Studying the Word of God, and Education as an Artist). Each of these sections, when clicked upon, brings you to a new page where there are more specific blog posts. So read on, my friends; thank you for sharing in my life.

This week, I have been struggling with what God wants from me. Sacrifice. Trust. And there are several struggles that go along with that such as how to really know what he wants, how to start being better, how to go about pursuing his will for my life, how? How? How? I realize that in my blog posts I write a lot about how I am struggling. This is because I am struggling a lot here, but it is in such a good way. I am growing so so much.

Yet I just want to be clear that struggles are not the only thing taking place during this experience. I want to share with you the blessings I have already encountered by being here. Great friends, time set aside for God, lectures, food, fellowship, leadership, sleep, art time, etc. There is no other place in the world that has a schedule like this, where we are able to set aside two and half hours for worshipping God every Friday morning. We spend hours in prayer and learning how to listen to God. We have a legitimate class where we read books of the Bible. There are fifteen students in this school from all over the world, and twelve staff members who are from all over the world again. It is incredible, actually only made possible by God himself that we are all here, living and learning together. I am so blessed to be here. I am so blessed to get along with my roommates and build solid friendships with them. I am so blessed to be able to have the opportunities to get to know each and every person here and be able to become good friends with all of them.  I am so blessed to have such inspirational leaders for my DTS, who come alongside us in our struggles and help us through that. I am so blessed. I keep thinking of new things, such as the beautiful nature that I am surrounded by here, that I am safe here, that I have healthy food here. And ultimately, I am blessed because my God, who is so great and majestic and powerful, takes care of me and loves me and takes time to talk to me every day.

Through the struggles and through the blessings, I keep asking questions. I keep doing my best to pursue more of God and push myself farther. I am growing; my roots are wrapping more tightly around the foundation of Jesus Christ upon which I stand and my branches are reaching higher and are getting closer to having a real relationship with my Lord and Saviour.

Love always,
Fina

Black, white, or grey?

The realization that I am so incredibly ignorant of everything around me hit me today like a huge dumping of water. It is like I all of a sudden was told to breathe but I could not, for I almost drowned in the depth of my ignorance.

In our Bible reading group, after reading Acts and also Ephesians and Matthew, we discussed our thoughts and questions about each book. We really delved into conversation and some really interesting ideas and concepts and questions arise, and it’s awesome to be able to share and discuss in an intellectual and involved group setting. Yet I never knew how much I did not know. I barely know anything about any other religions, or worldviews, or science. And these are all helpful and crucial to know when it comes to sharing my own faith. So in these past few days I have been asking myself why I do not know much of anything? Do not get me wrong, I am educated, and I know many things, especially considering I am only eighteen years old, but really, what do I know? And of what I do know, how much of it will really help me? How do I go about learning more about everything going on in the world? Where do I even start?

Then I realized another appalling fact. I am not only unaware and uninformed when it comes to other faiths and other worldly values, but I am so ignorant inside of my own faith. How much of the Word of God do I really know? I can barely quote John 3:16, the most well-known Bible verse. My limited knowledge of the Bible is so unhelpful. The fact that I hardly know about the Scriptures does nothing to support what I believe for myself. And it’s not even that I don’t really know the Bible well enough, but I also hold no stance on the theological front of Christianity. When my Bible reading group was discussing our questions, so many different theological beliefs and views came up, and I had hardly heard of any of them. More questions came to my head, and my heart. Why do I believe what I believe if I do not even know what I believe? How come I do not know anything about my own faith? What has led me to this ignorance? How can I steer away from that and begin to learn more?  

I also learned that there is a balance in everything. There is a balance of understanding when it comes to God being so awesome and so great and yet so personal. There is balance between the “just right” amount of theology with the perfect amount of faith and trust in our Saviour. There is balance when it comes to mixing black and white to get the right shade of grey. In everything, there is balance. It takes work to achieve the right mixture and solution for every different situation.

So I have many questions in my mind. There are many new things that I am realizing and learning and working towards. It is an exhausting but exhilarating process all at the same time. As I grow in each new experience, I am doing my best to always turn to Jesus and talk to him about all that is going on. I keep asking him what to do and what is right and what he wants for my life, but I am also realizing that nothing with Him is ever really just pure black or pure white. Jesus was the exact example of grey, of balance, of knowing what to say and when and how. He lived within the shades of grey; he had the perfect answers to every question. So as I search for the answers to all my questions in him and I strive to live like him every day, I am pursuing the concept of grey and what the “black and white” matters of this world have to do with that.

Love always,
Fina