Good ol' H.S.

Rosemary is probably my favorite teacher. She uses the excuses that she is from Irish heritage so her story telling really isn't her fault. It's in her blood. It's also an anointing! She taught our class on the Holy Spirit this week.

I always pictured the HS as a lighter version of the mist from The Ten Commandments. But that's not true. The HS is a person, with feelings and emotions. I was going to write more about the HS but I am having trouble deciphering my notes. So it is going to be saved for another time. I think I'll talk a bit more about what is going on with me personally.

Recently God's been doing A LOT of ripping out and refining. It's been a slow process. It's still on going, but I am excited to see the changes He is doing in me. I have always had this mental block, especially when it comes to spiritual things. My mind just shuts off. I will go to say some thing strong and moving and all that fills my mind is the plot to the newest episode of HIMYM.  Actually, i think a large part of the growth has been cutting out my shows. I love television and story telling. So i can spend hours on my lap top with my knitting needles watching or listening to Bones and Booth solve the latest mystery or fly all over the world with the stewardesses from Pan Am. ( i LOVE pretty much anything about the 60's).  God can speak through that, but He gets a lot more done when i co-operate too! wow, that was a bit of a rabbit trail.

Any way recently I have had a couple opportunities to practice speaking what God has place on my heart. AND IT IS INCREDIBLE! I know there is much more to come and I can't WAIT!

In other news I spoke to one of my leaders the other day about staying on as staff! I will be starting a two year commitment in April . The Lord has some exciting things in store for London in the next year and I am very very blessed to be here for all the excitement!

Prayer requests

-Finances! I am two months behind on paying for my room and board.
-Planning! The leaders are heading into a lot of unknown territory with
the Olympics . please be praying for no stress and good time management
-Housing! the base is growing with each school, Praise God but we are
starting to out growing where we are at the moment.

as always if you would like to participate with me in all the amazing things God is doing here you can donate here http://www.ywamlondonnottinghill.com/dts.php and just put my name in the memo or you can click the button to the side or you can drop an envelope in the box at Faith Christian Community and put ywam london in the memo!  Thank you so much

again if you have any questions for me or would just like to let me know what God is doing in your life please please email me or facebook me. I really really reallly would love to hear from you!

Love you! marisa

There are no ques in heaven

When my sister and I were little, we used to dance in our living room ALL the time.  Mom would DJ with our favorite Donut Man and Psalty the singing Psalm book songs and Dad would video tape us. Watching one of these dance sessions years later I watched Jana and myself at about 4 or 5 dancing and then , me, suddenly shoving Jana violently out of frame. 


God brought this time mind during our soaking time tonight at the base.

soaking 

v. soak·ing

To immerse in the knowledge of how much the creator of the universe loves you.

to allow God to permeate your being.

often through worship music and other forms of artistic expression such as; singing,drawing, dancing etc.

God never stops paying attention to us. I don't have to push any one out of the way to see him. We don't have to fight for an audience with Him. We don't have to wait in line patiently to ask him questions or talk about our day. We don't have to walk down never ending yellow brick roads to find him. He is at our disposal day and night , every moment of the day. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!? 

Thank you again for all your support. This week has been a struggle doing a wild tango with the cross. Brokeness is so good yet so challenging. Please contact me if you have question about what I am doing or even if you just want to chat. I would LOVE to catch up with you! 

Prayer Request:

That the new students would be a unified team.

That hearts would be open and willing to the changes God has in store.

That finances for everyone, especially those from hard financial backgrounds , would come when needed

That VISA applications would go smoothly

Your support, no matter what it is ,means the world to me! Thank you !

BLS WEEK 1

Yesterday I had the privilege of walking around London and helping show it to the DTS students. We walked from Oxford street to trafalgar square to the Thames to parliament to Westminster and then finished off with buckingham palace . There were 8 students with us and we had quite a good time waltzing about London. Here are a couple pictures of me on a bridge over the river.

Every other Wednesday me and another guy Mats ( from Belgium) volunteer at the salvation army In our area. We make food with donations from Sainsbury's and serve some of the homeless/needy people in the area. It's pretty fun. we've met some really interesting people to say the least. We have also met some people who are very passionate about helping people. We met a polish lady that is helping people, with addiction problems, from other countries get connected again with their families and even rehab centers in their home countries. She isn't a Christian but has this passion to help people. She is literally on call 24 7. But she is doing it all in her own strength . How long is she going to be able to last with out that "recharge" we get from Jesus? How long are we able to go if we do things out of our own strength ? I have this amazing opportunity to help prepare London to receive the world next summer. But if I try to do everything in my own strength I am going to burn out fast. Eevn depending on him for for little things like buyin shampoo. If I get caught up In a "how am I going to make this happen" mentality I'm not letting Him do what he is best at. Which is taking care of me. Making sure my batteries are charged (that I dot smell) so I can show His love to people who don't know how to see it yet.

The Start of a New Season

Two of the new DTS students arrive today!! As the staff has prepared, us BLS students have a had a few classes on servant leadership and discipleship , painted, made welcome cards, and help tidy up the base. I love the smell of fresh paint. It just smells so clean! One of the things we did last night was organize the donations. Every other week Sainsbury's (a large english grocery store, considered to be quite posh) gets rid of large quantities of perfectly good food that a couple of our guys go and pick up. I realized last night that I hadn't shared with you how we got a good chunk of our food. So here you go! I am going to try and make this blog about day to day life here and the things God is teaching me in class. Probably more of what God's been teaching me than anything. Here are a couple of pictures of the donations. enjoy.

ps if you have questions about what i am doing or you just want to skype or something i would LOVE to here from you! i am very much in a bubble and would love to talk to someone that i don't see every single day! skype name is "marisa.annie" love you!

To England and Beyond!

        I believe the last very short update i sent you two months ago was from Germany. Since that was so long ago I am going to do a brief recap on what sticks out to me about that time. 

       Our teams time in Germany was very special. We were able to see God do some amazing things in the hearts and lives of the young people of ICZ (the church we worked with) The first night we participated with the youth group there were 3 people coming. After that for the rest of our time in Germany our team prayed and fasted for an awakening in the young people of the area. Two weeks later, at the last youth group night we helped with , there were about 12 people. That night one of the guys came to our leader, Mats, and said "I don't understand you people. How can you have this much fun without being drunk?!" The biggest thing I think we were able to do in Germany was encouraging ICZ.  

    Espana! Well , almost. I really need to tell you about the traveling we did to get there. It's HILARIOUS. We left the church in Germany at about 10am to get to the airport to make our 12:30 flight. The plane was late so it ended up being a 2 o'clock flight. We had to fly Majorca switch planes and then go to Barcelona. In Majorca they held the plane for us so we were greeted by lovely (sarcasm) people that had been sitting at the gate for over an hour waiting for us. When i remember it i always remember there being applause , but that is probably just my imagination.  In Barcelona we waited patiently for our luggage but it was no where to be found. Fortunately one of our team leaders, Angelica, is originally from Chile and she handled all the communicating with the airport people. We were told that it would be arriving in two hours.  None us had eaten anything except maybe the odd ,deck of cards size , cheese sandwiches they gave us on the plane 5 hours ago. Well maybe it wasn't 5 hours…like 3. We went and found the only place that sold food in our terminal which was RIDICULOUSLY expensive.  We asked a custodian if there was any where else and he told us there was a secret cafeteria down the hall and up some stairs. There was ! and it was completely empty. It was mostly for staff that worked at the airport but there weren't any signs that said we couldn't order there so we did! we all got bacon cheese burgers fries and a coke for less than half the price at the other place. It was quiet and cool and we were so thankful . Then we went back to the luggage pick up. We waited excitedly for the first glimpse of our luggage. Some of the team decided it would be fun to play the game " lets try and embarrass Marisa at how stereo typically American we can be" . I hate that game. (side note i have yet to get my picture taken with a red telephone booth because i refuse to be that tourist person) ( i will probably break down at some point)  anywhooo the luggage didn't come with that plane and we were informed that it would not be arriving until at least the next day. At this point we had missed our bus that would have taken us the three hours to Burgos the town we were going to be working in. At the bus depot we sat on the floor sleeping, reading and talking for 4 hours until the next bus with enough seats on it for all of us was departing. Lets just say you really truly get to see people's true character in situations like that.  I found it highly entertaining. I  have a video of some of this time that i will be posting as soon as i can.   It's amazing.

    The first thing i have to say is church we stayed at in Burgos was painted lime green and hot pink. try sleeping in that room.  anny away. The DTS had previously been split in to two different teams. The Sweden team was supposed to arrive a few hours after we did but because of all our little adventures we arrive a few hours after them. I think both teams were a bit apprehensive/excited to see the other team. we had all gotten so close with our teams. But God is good and after the first afternoon of swapping stories and sharing pictures we were together again. The "youth group " at this church were mostly 18-28 year olds. My favorite experience was the evangelism we did in the park mon-fri. At first was was taking pictures making sure the girls on our team weren't being to harassed by the older gentlemen that seemed to live in the park . But the second week i tried my hand at face painting. Oh my goodness!! that was so much fun. God did a lot in my life in spain. I started to see some things in my life that i am not very proud And I saw somethings that were good but could still be better. When we got back London We heard from our beautiful contact and sister there, Vanesa, that since we had left they have started going out and doing evangelism in the park and in different areas of Burgos! It's so encouraging to see change in people even in just a short time. 

  

    Here comes my favorite! Bones. Bones is that camp run by the arts team that is lead by the Sister and Brother-in-Law (Johana and Chris) of my DTS leaders (Jose Luis and Gaby). The camp is a week of painting, costume making, foam cutting, spray paint inhaling,(my nostrils were green for a week, seriously) and miracles. The end of the camp is during the Notting HIll Carnival. The largest street party in all of Europe. We do performances on the street, talk to people , and just share different ways of worshipping the creator of the universe and the Love HE has for them. IT ROCKS.

I have something called cal canear navicular coalition.(this fits i promise) The long and short is there is a bone growing were its not supposed to be and it hurts like the dickens! Now i am able to keep the pain at tolerable place by taking anti-inflammatory medicine like Aleve or Ibuprofen . In Germany i decided to stop taking it. I didn't know why that thought occurred to me until i talked to God about it couple days later. I have learned a lot about depending on God since being here. When i am in a crappy mood and really don't want to do something i have to look to him for an attitude change or when it came to finances I am completely at His mercy and he takes care of me. Well this is another one of the areas he asked to me to give up control on. It sounds crazy ,yes, but when the Lord says to do something its probably i good idea to do what he says. We've all read Jonah and I REALLY don't want to end up in a the belly of a fish or whatever the equivalent to my situation would be. So WOW rabbit trail….Bones, I had stopped taking aleve and my feet were killing me for about 5 and half weeks. I had pushed myself and had continued to push myself until one day i couldn't really walk. My wonderful encourager, Gaby, told me to go home and rest for 24 hours. At first i was a bit upset but after thinking about it i went glad to be alone for a while. I woke up the next morning and my feet didn't hurt at all. Not even a twinge. I literally can not remember the last time my feet didn't hurt. 3,4,5,6, days went by NO PAIN. I FELT LIKE A SUPERHERO!! I told myself don't get excited it could be just for Bones so you can run around and take pictures. Its just for now. I haven't had any pain since! 33 days i believe. God is so GOOD! 

 So there you have it. Here i am after a three week break getting ready to start my Basic Leadership Training tomorrow and then from there conquer the world with my mad photo/video skills. Okaaaay maybe not conquer but definitely influence the world. The cool thing about that is that you really don't have to do that much to influence the world it can be smiling at people as they walk by you as you get your mail or helping someone get there groceries to their car. It doesn't take a lot. My need for this upcoming season is $4000. that means if each one of my facebook (475) friends gave me $8.42 then i would be set for this round. How awesome is that?! Thank you to everyone that kept to their word and continued to support me monthly . Your faithfulness in prayer and words of encouragement are so wonderful! thank you so much. I love you!