Life Since La Barra

I like to think I keep you all well informed of what is going on while I'm on a mission trip but then I go back to the states and the update emails slow to a screeching halt. I want to inform you all of what I have been up to the last month of my life. We will see if you can keep up with me...sometimes I can't keep up with myself!!

A few days after returning from La Barra I hopped back into a car with my parents and this time drove North East from Austin instead of South. We drove to visit my brother and his wife, Ryan and Sarah, who live in Kentucky. Ryan is attending Southern Seminary while Sarah works at a school. I of course loved being back in Kentucky where the fun and the fellowship is overflowing. Ryan and Dad built a new deck on the back of Aaron and Kari Plevon's house who live just above Ryan and Sarah. They did a fine job if you ask me! (L to R: Dad, Ryan, Mom)



Then I returned to Austin for a few days and fellowshipped with my family in Christ at Dayspring Fellowship where I attend church. I have really enjoyed getting to know those at Dayspring and sitting under solid and edifying and challenging teaching.

Then I hopped a plane to Kansas City to visit my friends Shane and Laurel and their baby girl Hallie who went with us to La Barra last fall. I hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving so it was a sweet reunion. Hallie Lou hadn't grown too much and was still her cute little self! We hiked a few trails and saw a really HUGE tree!!





What I enjoyed the most about my trip to Kansas City was getting to know some of the families at Faith Community Church, where Shane and Laurel attend. The fellowship was amazingly sweet and extremely encouraging. I also had the privilege and the joy of eating lunch Sunday afternoon with the whole Spencer family (not enough time to describe how amazing the Spencer family of 10 and one on the way is), Shane and Laurel, another couple in their church interested in missions, and Frank and Marie Drown. You may not know who Frank and Marie Drown are so let me explain. Do you remember when five men by the names of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Roger Yoderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming were martyred in Ecuador 'at the end of spears' made by Auca (now called Waodani)? At this time Frank and Marie were missionaries in another area of Ecuador and had worked with Roger and Nate was their pilot. When Frank was told there were five men down in Auca territory he was asked to organize the search and rescue party. He went and helped pull the bodies of these men, his very own friends, out of the river and bury them on the beach. He performed their funeral service using scripture from memory because of the severe storm falling upon them. He and Marie continued as missionaries there in Ecuador, and my favorite part...had five babies in Ecuador. We had the joy and privilege of sitting around a dinner table with them and learn from seasoned missionaries who had seen some of the worst of times and best of times. It was a blessing to see their faces still beaming with joy at the age of 86, still going strong in serving the Lord. What a testimony of how full a life is in Christ ALL THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES!! Well, needless to say this whet our appetite to hop the next plane to South America and locate an unreached tribe and begin the great task of learning the language and the culture all for the purpose of one day communicating to them the glorious and beautiful gospel of Christ that brings hope to sinners because there is a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ! Then we snapped back to reality and realize we have some preparing to do...



I was back in Austin only two days. I was thinking of my good friend Julie Mustard who will be serving with a camp for a month this summer in Ecuador and a month in Canada with Mission Fuge. I thought...maybe I could go visit her while she is in Ecuador just so I can get a taste of South America. No sooner had I been thinking of calling her did she call me! I answered the phone with an exuberant pouring forth of speech telling her all that I told you in the previous paragraph. She then told me that a girl on her staff dropped out and she needed a replacement...long story short, I'm going to Ecuador and Canada this summer to work with Mission Fuge as a Bible Study leader. I'm so excited about this! Twice when I was in the youth group I went to Mission Fuge and was changed in many ways by my time spent at M-Fuge. In fact, the first time I heard the name Jim Elliot was at M-Fuge in Tennessee. That was the name of our small group! Things have come full circle! I will be in Ecuador for the month of June and Canada for the month of July. I will share more on that later...

I then spent some more time in Austin before setting out to Eldorado. My sister was in desperate need of my help with three boys and Chronic Lyme Disease and the Exodus of Mormon children from the compound just a few miles from their house.



Now, I want you to know that every day of my life isn't perfect and without it's struggles and problems as it may come across in my updates. I want to give you the high points but I want you to know also that the last week and a half of my life has got to be one of the hardest weeks I've had in a long time when it comes to Spiritual warfare and killing sin. But God is faithful and full of strength and grace and we cannot be failed when we draw our strength from the well of His power and grace. He will never run dry! He is a spring of eternally flowing strength and grace for whatever we face. This all may sound cheesy but seriously...when we are the weakest we have ever felt and at the point of throwing our hands up in surrender and just can't pull ourselves up to walk in what we know we need to walk in...He is there to call upon and His power is made perfect in weakness and His grace is sufficient for you in your weakness. I experienced this again this last week and a half more than I ever have before and I love Him that He is our Savior and our Strength. I love Him because without Him we would still be dead in our sins and without hope in the world. But He is rich in mercy and abounding in loving-kindness. The kind of loving-kindness that gives up your only Son for the redemption of sinful mankind, to bring them out of the kingdom of darkness into the very Kingdom of God as His children! I could go on...instead...read Ephesians 1 and 2 and just rejoice in the gospel and don't let Satan steal your joy....EVER!!

So, now I am back in Los Fresnos and we are planning on setting out at 5 in the morning for La Barra. Maybe you know the scoop by now with La Barra, maybe not...here are the prayer points:

*TEAM UNITY – caps lock doesn't stress how important it is for the team to be united...please pray fervently for this even though it is just a week long. Think John 17 when you pray this as well as John 13:35.
*The gospel to go forth and permeate the village!
*This trip we were told by the leaders of the village we were not allowed to do the dental clinics. Medicine isn't as much of a need anymore in the village because they have access to a medical clinic in town. So, this may open up more time to visit the families of La Barra that we know that want us to visit with them and share with them more of the word of God. Pray for conversations to be filled with the gospel and the word of God!!
*For the believers: Eva, Inocenta, Briseda, and Eugenia (and for their husband's salvation; Briseda is single)
*For my spiritual disciplines: prayer, reading the word, scripture memory, etc. I have felt your prayers so many times in this area of my life over the last few months and I thank you soooo much for your prayers for me on this!

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support thus far in my missionary journey that has taken me all over the place. I pray one day soon I will be with a team among an unreached tribe somewhere in South America or Papua New Guinea. Who knows where God will send me. I just pray, and ask you to join me in prayer, that God would raise up a team of close knit people with like minds in taking the gospel to an unreached people group, preferrably tribal (according to my desires), and that we would be launched to that nation with the name of Jesus! Please join with me in praying towards this end. After this summer I am going to continue my search of a way to gain more medical experience until the time comes to go to the field. Pray God directs my steps in that as well and that He provides the perfect scenario for me to gain medical experience that will be applicable in the area I will go to on the mission field. Thank you again, my extended team, for all your prayers and support. I love you so much and see you as a part of my team when I go to places like La Barra. Many of your faces come to mind as I thank the Lord for the opportunity to go to the nations because I couldn't go without your prayers and financial support. Thank you for being obedient to the Lord in supporting what He is doing all over the world by prayer and finances in drawing His people to Himself as he sends missionaries to carry His name to the lost and dying. Thank you.