Happy 21st! :)

So today marks my 21st year of life :D as well as Sam's19th year of life! Sam is a fellow teammate of mine and so last night (Saturday) we had a mini-pre birthday party :D Complete with pizza and cake (and coffe!) and candles and a movie! It was so much fun and we decided on watching Bourne Identity and then when it finished.. around 11:30.. we decided to watch the second movie.. Bourne Supremacy haha annddd we made popcorn! haha it was lots of fun and then today we had tons of leftover cake and tonight we plan on watching the third movie in the series as well as maybe playing some games..and eat more cake of course :) its just one big birthday weekend haha. Thanks so much to everyone for making it special! This morning I got to open up a birthday letter from home and had a sweet birthday surprise message from Eric this morning as well :) thanks so much everyone!

My Neighbors :)

Misael

I asked him what brings him joy. He responded, ..My name is Misael, I am 11 and what makes me
happy is playing ball...

Yesterday we went to Cracolândia.. "crack land" as they call it here.. its an area with lots of drug abuse and a large slum.. the slum is full of families in shanty type homes as seen in the pictures. The very first picture is the start of a riot that we passed.. someone had set fire to a pile of tires and tons of police were swarming around. Our intention in going to the slum was to meet and talk with the families and see a church service they hold there. That day it was pouring down rain though :( and we were unable to do much other than stand beneath the little bit of roof and attempt to stay dry :( hopefully we can go back again this coming week, and I can give a more detailed up date of our time.

Born into Brothels

yesterday I was inspired, my heart was broken for the brothel children of India, and I was blessed by the brave woman and photographer who took on such an incredible project. This movie is INCREDIBLE, and we had the privledge of whatching it in photo class. I beg and plead with you to check it out. Born into Brothels is a documentary about this photographer who spent time living in a brothel in Calcutta, India and working to teach the children photography. The children are so beautiful and smart and the responses to the question the videographer asks them are so profound, they understand so much at their young age about life. And they capture beautiful things through their innocent photography. Please take a look at this documentary and you will forever be changed by these children :) As the movie started my eyes already started to fill with tears and I felt the pain and sadness that I had felt for those in the sex industry in the Philiipines. This movie though takes such a different approach, focusing on the children. So please please please rent it, netflix it,  ..just watch it :)

(www.kids-with-camera.org)

God speaks

So I promised I would tell you more about our prayer time the other day, so here goes! :) We prayed about a variety of things such as asking God what he wants for us personally, and for the group and then we also prayed about which 3 things we want our track to focus on. The track that went last year wished they had figured out a focus earlier on because now they are in Kona trying to assemble all their experiences and stories and photos without a clear focus. We all split us and prayed about it and listened to see what the Lord had to say. When we all came back we shared what things were put on our hearts, and we expected to all have different answers and passions and what not but it was the opposite! everyone had the same three answers! some people said street kids/orphans.. a few said homelessness and the root of that issue and others said restoring worth into women/working with sex trafficking. But everyone that shared, shared 1 or 2 of those same issues! When I was praying three words popped into my head. First was loneliness (which I believe links to homelessness) second was beauty and worth (which links to the women/sex trafficking) and the third was silence, and I saw this picture of a kid in the street all alone and I just got this burden for people who through circumstance have become silent, they have been pushed aside and no one has given the time to listen (and I think that relates to the street kids/orphans) So yeah it was awesome to come back together and see how the things I received when praying linked up with what everyone else prayed for and what not. This got us really excited just to see the direction God is leading us.. we are still trying to find some sort of ministry to get involved with that we can go back to every week. The way the track is run is because you have schooling and courses the ministry part is sort of left up to you to find and pursue, so I definitely want to try and get plugged in some where. Whats cool about all the traveling we will be doing as well though is you really learn what "every day" ministry looks like. Because we will be busy studying and not always have time to go out and work in the slums ect you have to rely on finding those small day to day things to serve people with. You learn to really live out what it means to be like Jesus and walk in love and humility and with a serving heart no matter where you go and what you come in contact with. All that being said haha I am really excited for what is ahead for our group :)

H2.Ohh

So you may have read in the news about the flooding in Australia and the Philippines AND Brazil.. seems to be a lot of that happening right now. Well, we as well had some flooding in our room :) Its been raining pretty hard every night and now two nights in a row our roof has leaked.. last night it leaked really bad starting at 3 in the morning.. the night before we were able to catch it before going to bed. Its brought quite the excitment and scrammble as we tried to quickly find pots to catch the streams. 5 pots were being used at one point. Here are some photos to document said event. :)