Walk With Me Fundraiser

Part of our focus for this particular DTS is on Justice issues but Human Trafficking in particular.

On Thursday, April 15, our group had the opportunity to serve at an awards fundraiser given by the organization Walk With Me. One of the other staff was heavily involved in putting together this fundraiser, along with a women named Timea. Timea Nagy is a sex trafficking victim who was trafficked into Toronto, in 1998 and started this organization.

(If you want to read more about her story you can read about it at: www.walk-with-me.org).
The purpose of the ceremony was to thank a number of people who have been really involved fighting human trafficking, going above and beyond their job descriptions.

A number of law enforcement officers, police chiefs, vice units,rcmps, detectives, all with incredible and inspiring stories of the difference a few committed people can make.
Joy Smith, who is a member of parliament was there. She is a strong advocate and voice for justice issues, currently trying to pass a bill in parliament (C268) for a minimum sentence for trafficking children.

(To see more on this: http://www.albertalawreview.com/index.php/alr/supplement/view/Bill%20C%20268%20Minimum%20Sentences%20for%20Child%20Trafficking
http://www.joysmith.ca/index.asp?ID=76&cat_ID=1)

In addition, there were a number of trafficking victims there who spoke. Jessie Fosters - a Canadian girl, trafficked into the states a couple years ago and still unable to be found - her mother was there. Her case has brought a lot of light from the media on human trafficking.

It was an amazing evening to be a part of and incredibly inspiring and hopeful as well. There is so much need and so many different ways to fight and get involved. A number of the attendees in the room, simply had opened up their houses to taking these girls in after they had been rescued. They treated these girls with the love and respect they were very much in need of.

Human Trafficking is an issue that can't be swept under the carpet anymore, here in Canada. It is an issue that we need to start spreading awareness of. To open our eyes to the fact that this isn't just an issue 'out there' but rather right here in our own areas, in our own towns! First natives have been stolen and trafficked for years but you rarely hear of it. Women from Eastern Europe and all over are being trafficked right into our strip clubs and brothels. They have been mixed in with those who 'choose' this profession but it is hard to tell the difference as they all 'look' the same and put the same fake smile on - but they have no choice, they know what will happen if they don't. Please continually keep these women and children in your prayers and spread awareness of this issue and pray that we can start protecting these victims in our Country by encouraging our Gov't to put bills in place for minimum sentencing on the Traffickers.

Life as a YWAM staffer

Well, its been quite awhile since I have had a chance to write on my blog. Life has been very busy these past 6 weeks since I arrived in Port Credit and came on staff with the JAMM DTS here. As is typical YWAM style it has been a roller coaster ride, with each week being different from the last. It's been so great to get to know the 14 students that have come from all around the world. So much to learn from the variety of cultures!

We started the beginning, getting to know each other and hearing testimonies. I have to admit, that is the one thing I hate about YWAM - your reality comes crashing down. You begin to really realize all too often how much we put on happy-go-lucky faces when we walk into Church and pretend everything is all right. I always new this in part but hearing of peoples stories on my DTS and again now amongst this group, the sadness that is in some of their pasts, the SEXUAL abuse that is in MANY of their pasts, its revolting and disgusting and especially just plain sad. We think being within the Church that we should be immune from some of this but it seems as though there is just as much, if not more of these issues within our circles. The only difference is we try to pretend it isn't true and it is not there. There truly is so much brokenness in our homes - thank-goodness though we have such a loving God who is faithful and loving and forgiving and who gives hope in life.

Another thing I have began to understand a bit more in the last while is on the topic of Spiritual Warfare. I came face to face with it a few times on my DTS, it is not fun, it is instills fear. Once a week, every Wednesday, our group heads down to Toronto for outreach. We have linked up with Project 417 out of the Salvation Army building in Regent Park area to hand out bagged lunches. After the first week of orientation, where Joe (the Director of P417) walked us around the various areas around Regent Park to orient our group to Toronto, a number of the students became rather fearful of outreach. Our second week going out, this fear came out in another effect. After finishing the sandwich runs, 2 of the 3 teams were waiting in the Tim Hortons - our meeting spot. A man walked in, walked around and straight through our group and back out the door and a few seconds later came right back in and charged at Joe and punched him right in the face. Everything was all so very sudden, Joe quickly pinning the man down and two of our guys helped holding him. A few of the students were definitely shaken up at first by the events. We even found ourselves giving of witness testimonies as to what had taken place. We discussed it later and again the next day in class, what is Spiritual Warfare and how did that relate to the evening. The man had obvious mental issues and possibly had stopped taken his meds, it seemed very much that there were issues or demons inside and when he passed through our group something just triggered. There was no connection between him or Joe, it was random... Just to note the students are doing better and our last run went really well, but it really makes you more aware. When you are in circles, learning about our Lord, Satan is going to take any and every little fear and spin into something bigger to distract us and pull us away.

I was talking with a friend who made a very good note. Often we stick our children in Christian schools so they have a good Christian upbringing and well, lets face it - we think a safer experience. BUT are we deceiving ourselves to think that wouldn't Satan be all the more in that place? He doesn't want us to learn about God and he is definitely going to do everything in his power to keep us from our Heavenly Father.

Anyhow just a thought.

Well this coming week is definitely going to be an interesting one that I can't wait for. We will be moving out of our 'cozy' apartments here in Port Credit and moving down into a Church on Parliament and Bloor area for our lesson week on "Jesus in the City", where the speaker will be using various exercises of seeing and revealing Jesus in the context of Toronto. It will be a good lead up to our main outreach as it will be interesting to see how the students react to this week. Some of the luxuries of having TV, Internet and a phone at their fingertips won't be available.

Please pray for our group in this week and that they may continually be open to all the God has to share with each one of them.

In Gods Time

So I am moving to Port Credit today. Where is that you say? It's a small town inside of the Mississauga area, right on Lake Ontario. It's cute, it's quaint and it is going to be home for the next few months.

Through a number of stories and events (feel free to ask me some time) God showed me that sometimes things don't happen the way I hope them too or in the time I hope them too. Sometimes we understand and sometimes we don't. I had a missed opportunity (due to being sick) on the outreach that was devastating for me but at the same time I was incredibly thankful my team had the chance to have the experience as apparently it was a pivotal moment on outreach. They had the opportunity to go to a brothel and to witness God's love and to witness a women giving her life over to God there. How wonderful!

Some of my fellow peers, knowing my hearts desire, shared words of encouragement that they knew God would use me still . . . Not in my time, but in his time.

Well, I never imagined that time would come so quickly but God is all powerful and all mighty and he loves us and knows our hearts desires.

While in Barbados I made connections with two people - Anderson, the director of the YWAM in Toronto and Sue, one of the staff there - who also has a heart for those trapped in Human Trafficking.

Once I was back home, I reconnected with them - first finding out about an organization that is in its grass roots to connect Ontario organizations against Human Trafficking, which I later attended a meeting and new this was something I was meant to be a part of. Secondly, I found out that they were still in need of another staff as they were about to begin another DTS school.

And that's how I am ending up in Port Credit! I will be joining their JAMM (Justice, Arts, Music, and Media) DTS as staff, alongside a great team! I'm so excited for this next step that God has put in place for me. I'm excited to be challenged (yes actually I am) in this new way, to step into a discipling leadership role and to be a part of these next students lives (all 15 of them, funny that's the same number as my DTS :) ). We are a staff of 8 and 3 of us, including myself, will be leading this group on their outreach to the Ukraine and Albania for 8 weeks come June. Of course, even more so, I am excited to once again answer Gods call on my life and to walk in footsteps of servanthood.

So that's a little update of what God is doing in my life! God is soo good.
Please continue to keep me in your prayers as well as my team and these next set of students.
Thanks for your continued support!

Porto Velho - Resseca Community

Well here is the first of a number of entries I hope to make on the various places we visited and on the many things I learned about them. One of my hopes and goals was to learn as much as I could about each place to be able to share what I have learned with you so that you may have ideas of what God is doing in South America.

In our final week in Porto Velho, our group had the opportunity, along with a few staff from the base and a few students of Missions Adventures, to go into the Amazon and live alongside the river community people of the Resseca Community. It was quite an amazing experience in that week and I don't think any of us will forget that time...along with the crazy ferry ride that took us to and from. They certainly do pack you in in hammocks on those things. The boat is shorter than I am and they stack you 3 people on top of each other. It definitely made for a fun but long ride :)

We had the opportunity to work with the children there. They are amazing and so beautiful. As well we had the opportunity to help them prepare to redo the roof on the school house. We went deeper into the Amazon jungle to help cut down these specific type of palms they would use for the roof. We split up into many groups, each going with a man from the community and would drag the many branches to our meeting spot and then it was another 30 minute hike back to the little canoe boats we took in, carrying 5-7 palms at once. In total they needed 750 palms for the roof and we actually made this goal in the two days! These were an amazing but extremely exhausting two days. We learned so much, saw into the lives of these people and worked hard and got super muddy!

Louise and his wife are the missionary couple at this community and they have been there working for the last 7 years, arriving in 2003. Over the time there has been many positive changes and advancements in this community. For one, malaria is a big issue in these places and in 2005 they tested 180 people for malaria, a staggering 160 were positive. Since then they have been able to setup a malaria lab, which the community has been a part of and they themselves have become educated in and in 2009 when they tested for malaria, they only had 15 cases the entire year.

They held a microscope school in 2009 which included 6 people. At the end they took 3 to look for jobs in the city. 4 people have previously completed this school and found jobs. This is huge for them to have a job in the city, especially in healthcare fields, as those in the river communities are known for their lack of education.

In the last 7 years they have started a Malaria lab, a Pharmacy and even have a place for a Dentist and Doctor. Currently, however, the Dentist only pulls teeth if there is a problem. Their hope is to have some one come with equipment who can actually fix and prevent as well as do fillings and put on braces. The Pharmacy is the best on the river (that starts in Columbia and approximately 150 + communities along) as it has the most medication. There is a Doctor that works in the pharmacy and every 45 days he goes down along the river to check on the people and to attend accordingly and administering medication as needed. They do still need more Doctors and Aid female nurses are definitely needed.

Catholicism is big, sometimes prohibiting their kids from coming to the Christian school they built. They try to work alongside but it doesn’t always work, but the health care has helped to reach them more. God told them to work only with little kids with alphabets even though they may be prohibited to go to church things. They now have 30 members in the church, and the pastor of the church is right from the community and this is huge. He did YWAM and has no previous schooling but studies about parasites and works in the lab as well– and all this is with almost no schooling. Gods work in all ways here.

There are approx. 50, 000 river communities in this place on 3 connecting rivers (black river, wood river and ??). The obstacles that get in the way here are the same as in the big city – prostitution, abuse, drugs, adultery.

There are usually no teachers for the pre-school age and until last June there was only one guy in the clinic. They need doctors, teachers, and economics, those to work with young kids so they don’t get into drugs, and the need for people to come and live here and help. Churches in the area don’t get involved because the communities are too small and therefore not enough to be converted.

Average children for a river community family is 9-10/family as children are gift from God but the problem is there is not enough planting space as the area becomes more built up for these large homes and then not enough food is grown. The young ones have to leave and go to the city. Girls of 16 years already are going into the city into prostitution. Also there are no stores or shopping places anywhere around. The closest one is over 2 hours away or the 9-13 hours to Porto Velho. They grow what produce they can and then have to go into the city to sell and at the same time buy all their necessities to bring back to their communities.

Louise shared two visions they have for the future. The first being they want to be able to build a water system, which would be built away from the community into the jungle, approximately a 50 min walk to higher level land, where it does not flood. They would need pipelines built that go directly to the housing so that even in flood times (which I believe can last around 5 months) there will be clean, drinking waters. They pretty much lose their clean water during the flood season and end up having no choice but to drink the same water that they use to shower in, pee in, clean with, etc. Thus the reason for the many illnesses. Thankfully though because of the pharmacy they are able to give the children medication against worms twice a year.

Another vision they have is for a school for trades and higher education. A school that would be so great that people from Porto Velho would come for training. They were given this vision 2 years ago and were told that someone would come to help start this school. Well the amazing part of this story is that it appears as though God brought Alef (one of the members of my group) to this community to fulfill this vision. Alef began talking to them as he saw a need for a school there and as he is a teacher and also had begun the process of starting a school in Africa, felt God calling him to do the same for this community. It was truly amazing to see how Alef has been used in this and how excited and amazed the community was to have hope that this vision was now able to begin that process. The goal is to have something started in 2 years time. Please pray for these people and for Alef and for all who are a part of this project. God can and does work and use anybody and everybody to put together his plans for his people.

Home Sweet FREEZING COLD Home :)

Well I officially have been home pretty much a week. Its hard to believe. Its hard to believe that 5 months have already come and past and now I have been home for a whole week.

I had to laugh that the week I chose to came home, happened to also be the only week of snow storms for Hamilton. I had heard there had been no snow and there was all this snow on the ground and it was soooo cold. When we came out of the airport I was wrapped up as much as I could be and the drive home found me wearing two sweaters, my winter coat, a wonderful scarf, my new Olympic mitts and a fleece blanket...and I was STILL cold!

On Thursday my first day back I had 3 teas and 2 hot chocolates! Now I know how some people feel when they arrive in Canada mid-winter after living in hot countries.

On the whole though, the transition went well, seeing some family and friends, attending my home church and receiving a warm welcome by many, diving into my photos to put together a small slide show (not all 8000 pictures so don't worry :) ) to be able to show at times (almost there), and already making connections with contacts I made a long the way to see what God has planned next for me.

One of the harder things the first couple of days was being cooped up inside. After having spent so long in the open out doors and even inside feeling like outside as none of the windows have screens on them, blue sky and sun every day it was hard to just see this white sky and hide out in a cold basement. I was so thankful to see the beautiful sun arrive back early this week, what a treat!!

Already I have heard the question of what's next on my plate and I had my prepared answer to give of ideas and thoughts...but already on Monday I discovered that things could change :) You just never know what God has planned up his sleeve for you as long as you wait on him to hear his voice and follow. [That's all I will share for now about that though, till I have more figured out and have felt that I am following Gods ways and not my own but I'll keep you posted as soon as I know.]

The other question I have had was how was my transitioning going, being away from all the people, seeing all the things I have seen, etc. Amazingly though I am excited to be home. After Sea to Sea last year, I had such a hard time. I never imagined how long it would take me to feel normal again...but God was also doing a huge U-turn on my life and I was making big career and life changes/choices. After my time with YWAM, I feel like God has been giving more direction of which way this new road is going and I was very excited to come home and to get started. I loved learning and meeting the many people in South America and it was definitely hard to say bye at times, but with saying bye it allows you also to come back [one day perhaps] and help in new, stronger ways.

So anyhow that's it for right now. I plan to go through my many notes and journals to tell you a little bit about each place and what I learned in those places, over the next weeks. So stay tuned :)

Oh I also do want to note as I am back home now a big THANK YOU!! to all you supporters. Thank you for your prayers and cards (though sadly many I didn't receive due to the mail system not being at its best) and for your interest and support over all. Your prayers helped me to regain health and get through the hard times and to value all the good times and to be open to seeing all the many miracles and gifts God gave to me and my team.

THANK YOU!!

Traveling Adventures

Well I've already been in Barbados for two days and have enjoyed two beautiful days of rest at the beach, which was much needed after the previous two days of traveling back 'home'.

I thought for fun I would share about the travel mania we had coming back as I have heard a few people ask questions about my crazy facebook status :)

Thursday we flew from Bolivia to Peru to Caracas. Outreach was officially over. It's amazing how time flew by at the end. We found out just a few days before departing that we had a $25 USD airport departure fee to pay. Money is always a fun topic in our group and is usually followed by many groans every time it is brought back up, something we still kind of need to work on (in our dependency of God).

Okay wait this just reminded me of an old story back in Argentina that I need to share too. Previously I had mentioned of financial woes within our group. In Argentina we were at the point that we owed, as a group, another $2000 USD. This was due to miscommunication and flight fees being much higher than quoted. We really had to come in prayer together over this, many of us too afraid to tell our supporters back home, afraid of what they might think. During our week in Argentina, our director Samuel came down for a pastoral visit which was very much needed at the time. It was exactly the boost our group needed to reconnect itself. The Sunday we came together for a serious time of prayer over our financial needs and when it was time to share what we had heard, there were very few who had anything to share. Samuel put it out point blank that it seemed there were issues within our group (which was true) that were blocking any God movement. We needed to repent of any resentments or angers against people within the group or anything that you felt might be blocking you and after awhile we would regroup and try again. This was soooo important for our group and was really needed as when we came back together and prayed again we had much more release. Many of us felt that we were being told to wait on God, that he would provide for us but he also wanted us to come together more and to keep our financial needs front and centre in our prayer time. Well, the very next morning at worship time, Celina announced that over night we had received nearly all of it and only needed $200 more!!! God is amazing. He just granted us our own personal huge miracle. I was blown away. This was such an amazing time.

Okay so now you kind of have a better idea as to why money is a fun issue in our group and why a little amount like $25/person still is an issue - though obviously it shouldn't be when God continues to show his faithfulness to us by providing large amounts. But it can be still stressful when you know there are people in the group who litterly have no money left. I myself at the time had only $22USD of the 25 but was able to get another $3 thankfully. However, that was the last of my USD on hand.

So Friday morning, four of us (Sarah, Jessica, Susanna and myself) where on the first flight, leaving Venezuela (Caracas), heading back to Barbados, as the Saturday flight had been to full to allow all of us to travel together. This became evident that once again this was God looking out for our group.

Jesus and Cesar took us through the subway to the nearest taxi airport bus and then said goodbye. I had a little bit of Boliavares left and obviously didn't need them and felt that I wanted to bless them as they had been so special to us in our time in Venezuela and so I split what I had between the two of them. Off we went to the airport. We left the base at 6am for our 9:10am flight and arrived at the airport just before 7am and headed to check-in. Everything seemed to be going well, I had a nice check-in guy who spoke English relatively okay. My bag headed off down the ramp as did Sarah's and then it hit...so there is a $15USD check-in fee....WHAT!!!??? SERIOUS??!! I'm sorry but we have NO MONEY. They didn't think we were serious but we explained we had been traveling for 2 1/2 months and were at the end of our travels and had nothing left, just a few Bolivares, a couple of USD and a little bit of Argentinian money. The gentleman helping me said he could waver the $15 fee but that there was also an airport tax that we HAD to pay as they give you a bar code that lets you through a gate and that was a lovely $162.50 Bolivares!! We thought we were going faint. We didn't know what to do. We counted up the little we had which totalled enough for 2 people for the $15 fee and that was it. Unfortunately, the second man helping us was not so keen on wavering the first fee as it ended up sounding that it would come out of their paycheck (and to be honest I can understand that but can still hope). As my bag and Sarahs bags were gone they held Susanna and Jess's as collateral until we could pay the $100 Bs we needed more at check-in. So off went Sarah and Jess to find an ATM. While they were gone God sent us an angel who overheard part of our dilemma and ever so kindly all of a sudden handed us $200 Bs! "Here at least one of you will be able to get through." I nearly started to cry there I was so moved. So Susanna and I paid the man and then went out to wait for the other two in a better spot to figure out how we could get the money still for the airport tax.
Once we reconnected we tried to see if we could pay by Debit or by Credit Card at the window but they would not accept either. They told us of Intel-cambio where we could get money from so off we ran - as time was seriously starting to tick away here, already having approached the boarding time of 8am). We arrived there and Jess tried to use her travelers checks that she had never been able to get rid of (take note, travelers checks are the dumbest idea ever, don't use them). She started to fill out the first one as they would accept them, but apparently they are extremely picky. Jess filled out the date the Canadian way: month/day/year. Well that wasn't right, its day/month/year in S. America so they wouldn't take the check. Ahhh. So she grabbed another one (each equalling $100 USD) and filled it out the correct way but again they wouldn't take it because she had used (/) in between the dates as opposed to (-)!! Are you kidding me! At this point there was some frustration within part of the group.

We then ran to ATMs again to try and get money but each of us used our cards to no success. The machines kept cancelling the transactions. We were now down to 30 min before our flight was to leave! We were going to try another bank, when I thought I would go back to that Intel-Cambio and try my Mastercard which finally was successful. Thank you Lord! However, this was not a quick process either and took 20 min of the 30 that we had!! Plus some lovely fees that you normally wouldn't put up with but really didn't have much choice at this point.

We sent Jess and Susanna off to wait in the airport tax line so we would have no wait once we got there. Finally we received the $450 Bs that we still needed and ran to meet the other two. As we were running, I was thinking wow, I am so thankful that I actually still have strength in my legs to move so quickly....We got to the window paid our fee, ran to the gate (imagine four blondes running along in a line, so funny), used the bar code to get through, put our carry-on luggage through the machine and just as we were about to wak through the security door for ourselves, that's when it hit me. OH NOOOOOO, SARAHHHHH, OH SH--! I left my bag at the money place! Up to this point I had been amazingly calm through everything, trusting that God would hold our plane for us and that in the end it would all work out fine, but at this point, this was when I crashed and my heart just sunk. I ran back to the first gate and begged to be let out trying to communicate in little Spanish and hand gestures. Jumped over the gate and booked it back to the money place, except I ran to the stair that were past the place not realizing and when I got up to the second floor where it was, in my panic I couldn't figure it out and didn't know where it was. At this point I had 5 min! Finally God turned me around and I found my bag and booked it back. Sarah had waited for me and we ran to the immigration line that we still had to go through and with our Por favour (please please) we cut right to the front of the line as had the other two done as well. When we came out and rounded the corner we saw Jess and Susanna and then recognized the security guy that happened to be running with them now, was the same guy who had given us the hard time at the check-in. He was grabbing our tickets as we ran, ripping them and handing them back to us and getting us through the door and out to the plane. They had kept our bags off the plane and had noticed we were still not there and he (and of course God) had held the plane for us and as we got to the stairs to go up they said, "Okay now we put your bags on".

We got to our seats and collapsed. We were all shaking, my hand was quivering so much and part of me just wanted to release in tears but I just let a few out and took some big breathes. I was SO thirsty from all the running, so I grabbed my water bottle and took a drink then handed it to the others as I figured they had to be thirsty as well. All of a sudden, Jess goes...hey, how did you get the liquids through security? At that point we broke out in hysterical laughter, releasing our major amount of tension and adrenaline.

God then gave Jess and I our own personal little piece. That morning as we prepared to go, right beside the base is a donut shop and as we are both Canadians we were drooling and commenting on how we couldn't wait to have a Boston cream or a Honey cruller from Tim Hortons when we got back home. Well would you believe our snack on the flight was a...DONUT!!! and it was good :) Also the flight attendant, noticing how thirst we were, gave us 3 juice boxes in the duration of the flight! So nice!!

So that is officially my second most stressful traveling experience in my life (the first was my missions trip to Hungary nearly 10 years ago, when we missed our connecting flight from Newark to Frankfurt and had to beg for them to put our group of seven on another plane). I am so thankful though to Gods faithfulness and for watching over us and for sending us that angel.

I know now that we were meant to go as a small group the day before because had we been the whole group of 17, there is no way we would have made our flight because most of us did not have the money on hand. This way we were able to get back home and were able to connect with them and let them know so they could get the money before going to the airport. Thank you Lord for watching over our group right to the end.

So now tomorrow we start our final week of the lecture phase, entitled 'debriefing and re-entry week'. Tuesday Mom and Dad arrive, I am SOO EXCITED to see them again and be able to show them around my second home and to introduce them to my family here. Friday is our graduation and I am back on the following Wednesday to see all you wonderful friends, family and supporters!!

But don't leave yet, I plan on writing a number of stories over the week that I am back. I have so much to share with you still.

Okay take care! Love!!

A Humbling Moment

I am in Argentina now. I absolutely love it here. I definitely recommend coming to this place. The people and the architecture are so beautiful. I had a great time in Brasil and am sorry I was unable to post any updates while there. I hope to tell some stories of my time there down the road but right now I want to share a few stories of my time here in Argentina as they have been such incredible moments. (We flew into Buenos Aires on January 19.)

There is this plaza (square) called Misery Plaza in english. We have gone there a number of times to worship, pray, talk and get to know some of the people there. This square is known for its name as mostly prostitutes, drug dealers, thieves, and many poor and homeless people hang out in this square. At night it is incredibly dangerous to be there as there are gangs and much fighting.

On this past Monday, we prayed about and decided to fast our lunch so that we could take our food into the plaza to hand out to various people. I split up with Dean, Jess and Daniel (YWAM staff at Argentina base who has guided us around). We walked to the near train station as often Daniel said there are homeless families living in there, however as it was early afternoon and extremely hot out they were not to be found. We walked around a touch more and saw a man and women who we gave our first two sandwiches too. Unfortunately, it was obvious they had no interest in talking or wanting us to sit down with them, so we said a short prayer in our minds and carried on.

Shortly after we came upon a women sitting alone with three large garbage bags. We stopped to ask if she would like some food and at first she said no, but then Daniel explained they were sandwiches and what was on them and she said okay. We asked her a few questions, finding out she is from Bolivia but has lived in Argentina for 30 years and that she is a Seventh Day Adventist. Then the doors were open and she began sharing with us a lot. She spoke so much and so fast that Daniel was unable to translate for us right away but you could just tell from her aura that she was not telling us a poor womens sob story but rather was sharing a part of her life with us and allowing us to see into her heart and to see another world.

We found out her name is Sophia and she has seven children but I don't think she had them all any more as Daniel mentioned her trying to keep them but not having enough money. She spoke of how they try to sell what was in their garbage bags in the market place but the mafia would make them pay a fee and the security that was suppose to keep them safe stole from them. So at the end of the day they had only made pennies and still had to feed all her children. She often went without, the shoes on her feet, she told us, she had found and were not her size but the ground is too hot to walk on barefoot. Her feet had become disfigured from being squished into them. Another team showed up and Alef had a bag full of soaps that we were able to give to her. I really felt that we should give her a pair of shoes and then Dean offered her flip flops but the women would not take them as she would feel awful and guilty to accept them as she would have nothing to wear to get home. Daniel told us there were many side street people selling flip flops, so Dean stayed with Sophia and the three of us went off on search of size 35 shoes as she allowed us to do this for her. After a short and quick search we found some flip flops that looked not too bad and bought them and headed back. When we arrived back her husband and a friend had shown up (earlier when she spoke of waiting for her husband we gave her a second sandwich and ten she said they were 3 and thankfully God has prepared us to have exactly 3 left for that moment). She happily and gratefully accepted the shoes and put them on. Thats when we saw her feet were disfigured. Sadly, as we were already late in getting back we couldn't stay long and shortly said cho and Que Dios to Bendiga (God Bless You). As we were walking away Daniel shared one last thing that she had spoken. He shared that Bolivians are treated like dirt, like a rat. In South America, Bolivians are looked down upon the most, hated even. She was so amazed to have foreigners speak with her as normally they are shooing her away and the Argentinians treat her awful. The final thing which had such an impact on me and I will never forget was that she shared that she had had a vision/dream just that night about Davids ladder and that God spoke to her that he would send her angels in that day to provide for some of her needs. She never imagined them to be foreigners. Wow, I was so incredibly humbled in that moment and wanted to cry. The emotions that went through me in that moment. I felt so incredibly blessed and so thankful to God for using me in this way. ME and my group. WOW! I could barely speak I was so blown away from hearing this. God is sooo good. You just never know how he is going to use you and then show you how he used you.

Well unfortunately I only have time to share this one story but I hope it blesses you. I have many more from our short time in Argentina that I look forward to sharing as well. We have been blessed to go to a number of orphanages, prisons (big story here), hospitals and various other places. May God bless you all and hopefully its not so long again till I am able to write next.