Thankfulness...

Being that Thanksgiving just passed, and my devotional has been talking about giving thanks for the last 7 days or so, I figured I´d write about thankfulness.

I´ll start with some great quotes or Bible verses from my devotional. This devotional has been great for me, it has applied to what I´m experiencing here and it is one thing I´m thankful for right now.

            -Remember that JOY is not dependent on your circumstances.

-Be willing to follow wherever I lead you. Follow me wholeheartedly, with glad anticipation quickening your pace

- Instead of regretting or resenting the way things are, thank ME in all circumstances.

- Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:17

-You need to look beyond the flux of circumstances and discover Me gazing lovingly back at you.

-Complaining to others is another matter all together. It opens the door to deadly sins such as self-pity and rage! Bring your grumbles to me.

-Live fully in the present depending on Me each moment!

-Trust Me enough to let things happen with out striving to predict or control them.

-A life of praise and thankfulness becomes a life filled with miracles. Instead of trying to be in control, you focus on Me and what I am doing.

-When your mind is occupied with thanking me, you have no time for worrying or complaining.

All of these quotes have hit home for me. I have been struggling with all of these things and I love that God has so clearly shown me he is there and with me through all of this through the words in my devotional.  

Other things I am thankful for:

-My AMAZING team here in Paraguay. They are such a blessing and I am so glad to have this experience with them. I don’t know if I could do this with out them. They are all great in their own different ways, I love them!

- My wonderful family back home praying for me and thinking of me.

-My friends and church back home thinking of me and praying for me.

-I´m so thankful for my mom. She listens to everything I say, hears it all and gives me the strength to power through when things are hard. I appreciate that she stays strong for me and pushes me to change my attitude towards the positive. I appreciate her more than she knows.

- The long bus ride to work to listen to my music and just have some time to think. I sometimes don´t want to get off because I´m caught up in my thoughts.

- My family here. Even though it´s been hard, and adjustment. We have our good times. And I´m thankful for the freedom they are giving me to have experiences her with them or with others around me. I really have it good here.

- I´m thankful for one student in my class who every morning runs to me and gives me a big hug and says, ¨hola profe Cotty (Katie)¨. It makes me feel so good. And at times when I´m at work feeling like I´m not doing anything or helping, I can think of those kids that I get to be with and have grown to love already.

-This one is a bit superficial but I´m seriously VERY thankful for it; the air conditioner in my room. With this I am able to sleep some at night (I just don’t sleep well anymore in general) but with out the AC I´m not sure I´d sleep much at all. I thank God every morning and every night for this.

-The Klassen family. They are our directors here and they have welcomed me into their family like their own daughter. I am at their house 3 afternoons a week. I especially am thankful for Edulia, the mom. She is so sweet and so patient with my Spanish and is always making sure I´m doing ok. I love her.

-My new friend Bianca. She is great and we have a lot of fun together. I love when you meet a person and it feels like you´ve already been friends for years. :)

-I´m also thankful that I have been able to see all the things I take advantage of at home, just the simple ordinary things to us, that they don’t have here. For example; cold water and ice, free water and refills at restaurants, my car, AC everywhere you go, speaking the Native language fluently, people not staring  you down because of your hair color or skin color, family and friends that know you and love you unconditionally. There are many others but I am thankful in general for the things and people I have at home.

Being here so far has shown me how to appreciate my family back home and not take advantage of them because they ARE my family and will always love me. I have learned to appreciate every positive thing and try and hold onto those, even though I don’t always do that, I´m trying. To just be thankful in general. I tend to think I´m the only one going through something difficult or challenging, and that is not true. God is trying to show me the good in every situation and that it is MY choice to think that way. He has provided me with everything that I need. God is my focus! This is my continual prayer, that I can remember and do this at all times.  

Here is my list of things I feel God is working on with me:

-Trust

-Thankfulness

-Complaining and comfort

-Being in the moment now, not focusing on the future

I would love your prayers in all of these things and I thank you for all of your prayers so far. Talk to you soon, wishing you all happy shopping and whatever else you are doing in this Christmas season.

P.S. Enjoy the cool weather and actual Christmas feeling for us down here in South America. A bit hard when its 105 degrees out and really humid. But hey, I´m getting a pretty good tan! :)

Going good...

So there isn´t really much to update you all on but everything is going great here. I am enjoying my job and making new friends. My spanish is getting better, still is not great but so much better. I´ve been able to have a few deep conversations and been able to get to know people better as well. That is really nice and has made a big difference in my experience here. I´m very glad for this. It was kind of hard at first because I couldn´t hardly communicate with anyone but now it´s going good, slow and steady:) I can´t wait until I can really really talk to them!:)

I have been teaching a lot of English and have been asked multiple times to teach other people, which is ok, but I would like to learn Spanish a little better before I start teaching English to a lot of people. So we´ll see how that goes, hopefully I can teach more people after a few months when my Spanish improves. Also, at my work, they asked me to be the lead teacher in a few months when the teacher now goes on maternity leave. That´s a bit scary but I think I´ll be able to do it since I´ll have about 3 more months to practice my Spanish.

My group is going to cook a Thanksgiving meal for all of our families and our leaders, about 38 people! We are going to take the day after Thanksgiving off from work and spend all day cooking together. It will be the first test to see if we can all work together in harmony! No, it should be great and we are really excited. We are sad we won´t be home with our families but we are going to bring a little bit of home here to help us celebrate! Can´t believe its only a week away! So excited! Hope all of you are well and I will try and update again soon! Ask me any questions, anytime! Chau!!!!

Quick Update

Life is picking up down here in South America...I´m really starting to enjoy myself. My job is great and I love the kids and my co-workers. I still wish it was a little longer of a day but it´s great. My official job is being in the four year old classroom helping the other teacher. Then for thirty minutes every day I go to another class and teach the students English. Usually it´s one or two words because they are all very young. Then on Wednesday´s in the afternoon I teach English to about 20 students that are from 6 years old to 15 years old for an hour. It´s interesting but it went a lot better than I thought it would. I am also teaching English to my boss one day a week. She is really great and I come to her house every day for my Siesta because there is nowhere else to go and my house is too far away. I´ve grown to love her family and they help me with my Spanish some too. Her husband is the pastor at the church right next to my work and he is the person that arranged all of our jobs and houses here in Paraguay! Anyway, I should go but just wanted to give you all a brief update! Talk to you soon!

Things are starting to pick up a bit...

Hello everyone, hope this message finds you all well. Things are going pretty well here in Paraguay. We have been lucky enough to have a few days of cool rainy weather, it has been amazing! For all of you it is turning into fall, and those of you not in PHX it is cooling down and the leaves are changing and whatnot...here, not so much. It is getting hotter, except for these few days, and it will just continue to increase. I´ve been told it gets up to like 115 degrees F! I can handle that becuase its like home, but there´s humidity here! But I will live and God is definitely showing me that. I don´t need to be totally comfortable to be happy.

My work has picked up a bit, I am now reading with students in the first grade class that struggle with reading, I´ve been able to use some of my teaching background so that has been fun. I am also helping in a classroom with 4 year olds. After that I read with two of the 2nd graders. Also, on Fridays I teach English to the 2nd grade students. I love the kids and I love their excitment and enthusiasm. I have been able to communicate a tiny bit better with the teachers, and getting to know them a little better, which has been great. They are really wonderful people. I also have been able to learn some stuff about the children. Most of them come from troubled homes and backgrounds, where their parents are not around and don´t provide a positive influence for their kids. This is what we try to accomplish at the school. They are all great in their own ways and I can´t wait until I understand everything they are saying to me. LOL! They talk very fast and high so I especially struggle to understand the kids. They call me Tia Katie (Cotty is how it sounds), or Profe Katie...its adorable! That means aunt Katie or teacher Katie for those of you who might not know. I am also going to start teaching English at the church right next door to the school two afternoons a week...a little nerve racking since I still can´t speak Spanish but we´ll see how it goes!

I can´t express in just a few short words how much God is already working within me. A friend of mine gave me a devotional before I left and every day I read it I am so amazed and in awe of God and how directly the Bible verses and messages apply to my life right now. I am taking it one day at a time and listening to what God has to say to me. I may not know the exact reason I´m here and might feel like going home at times but God has a plan and I want to be able to fulfill that for him.

Hope you all have a great weekend, I will try to write again soon.

P.S. Sorry if there are spelling errors, I am using a computer thats set to Spanish only and so when I click spell check it says all my words are wrong. :) And for those of you who know me well, I can´t spell!

Paraguay thus far...

To start, sorry I haven´t made a blog post since Argentina, we had better internet access there so it was a lot easier to write. I have internet here in Paraguay but it charges my host family per minute so I am trying to use it as little as possible. I do have internet on my phone which is great, but writing a blog on a tiny phone is somewhat of a challenge:)

So, we arrived here in Asuncion, Paraguay after a long 22 hour bus ride on the most comfortable bus I´ve ever been on, and I´m not joking, we pretty much had a bed on there, it was wonderful! But the ride was ok and I was filled with nerves and anxious to see what Paraguay would be like. We arrived around 4:30 p.m.and hadn´t eaten anything since 10:00p.m. the night before so the pastor and his assistant that picked us up took us to Burger King, good ol´American food to start out our time in Paraguay! :) We then went to our host families for the night. I was the first to be dropped of and I was not ready to leave my group yet. But I had to go anyway. I met my family, the Neufeld´s, the dad is Alvin, the mom is Renata, and there are 3 kids, Samuel (13), Tonia (11), and Marcos (8). Hopefully I can put up pictures soon so you can see them. They are a very nice family that has taken me in with such short notice. I share a room with Tonia. The first night I unpacked my things and tried to get settled in. As most of you know, I am easily homesick and I was definitely homesick that first night and I am still struggling with it but I´m taking it each day at a time and trying to work through it. The last few days I have been able to get closer to my family here which has helped a lot. Oh and the dad speaks English and the mom a little as well, which is great for me to be able to communicate but doesn´t really help my Spanish much.

The first 4 days were spent touring the city with our lovely tour guide, Dario, not sure he enjoyed that but he is Alfred´s assistant so he kinda had to. It was fun though to get to see the city and also become familiar with the buses. I take 1 bus to work every morning and 2 home...that is a change for sure. I´m not used to public transpirtion but its doable. Not terrible just not the best of times. :)

So you are probably wondering about my work. Well to be honest its a bit slow right now but I´m hoping it will pick up. I am working at the daycare-school! There hope is to have me teach English when my Spanish gets better so we will see about that. Hopefully sometime soon I will be able to get more involved. This week we pretty much just painted some Hop-Scotch things for the kids, hung out with the kids, and did any misc work they needed us to. Here there is a 2-3 hr break in the middle of the day so that has been interesting. Myride is about 40min each way so there is no point in going home and then coming back so we have been trying to figure something else out to do. When I say ¨we¨ I mean Riley and I. He works there as well, its nice to have someone from my group with me. Cara, another group member, was there with us this week as well because her job doesnt start until Monday.

My Spanish is still pretty rough, we had classes this week but they are different than what I expected, like most things about this trip...lol! But hopefully they will become useful or I might seek out some private lessons so that I can improve quicker.

Hope this gives everyone a bit of an idea of what is happening here and I hope to have more exciting things to tell you in the near future. Please continue to pray for my homesickness...sadly it has not gone away yet. As well as my ability to addapt to the heat...haha...its hot here and no AC. My Spanish could use some prayers as well. Thank you so much, talk to you soon!

last day in Argentina...

Today we leave Argentina and head to Paraguay on a bus for 18 hours. It is kind of a bitter-sweet moment because we are all excited to get to Paraguay and meet our new families and learn what we will be doing for the next 10 months but we are also sad to leave the people we have made connections with here. They have been so great accepting us into their community and families and we are very appreciative of all they've done for us. Sadly, I am not able to communicate my appreciation to them because my Spanish is TERRIBLE! I hope it starts getting better when we get to Paraguay.

When we get to Paraguay on Tuesday at around noon we should be greeted by some people from the church there and then after that, we have no idea what we are going to do. That has seemed to be the theme for this whole journey so far. I think flexibility and just going with whatever happens is something God is really trying to work on with me. (Like going bowling at 3:30 in the a.m. when I'm sick, not a big deal, just go with it :) ) I tend to like a schedule and stick to it and that is not the case here for sure. It has been something I've kind of struggled with this week, and the language barrier doesn't help, but I think if I have the right attitude it will get easier to adjust to! God has a plan and I just have to let him fulfill that plan. :)

I'm nervous to get to our new home because I have been lucky enough to live with one of my teammates, Cara, who is really great and it has been so good to have her here with me. She has been basically translating everything for me and has been able to communicate what I want to say to our family here and I won't have her in Paraguay so I won't be able to communicate very well when we first get there. It's scary! But, I know it will all work out some how. Keep me in your prayers for the language barrier as well as loneliness, it is a strong possibility that will set in once I get to my house by myself. Thanks for all your support and prayers! Miss you all!

Travels to South America...

The last few days have been an adventure for sure. It all started when we left Chicago last Thursday. We flew to Miami and officially left the U.S. at around 10:00pm or so, it was pretty hard b/c it was the last time I was going to be able to just call my family and say hello. So after a few tearful phone calls we got on the very uncomfortable plane ride to La Paz, Bolivia. I didn't sleep much on that 7 hour flight but I lived:) We then sat in the plane in La Paz for an hour or so and flew to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We had no problems when we got there which was surprising b/c we didn't even think we'd be able to get our bags with out issues from the customs people. We were then greeted by our leaders (Isaac's) family. They were so happy to see us and we felt the same. They took us to see the city and out to lunch. It was really cool to see the city we were supposed to be in and eat some of their food. We only knew these people for 3 hours or so and we attached to them really quickly, they are great, it was hard to say goodbye but we got on the plane to head to Argentina!

When we arrived in Argentina we were greeted by the pastor of the church, his son, and another church member. They took us to see the church and the neighborhood and the boys got all settled in and then Cara and I went to the house we are staying at. We are staying at the Pastors house. We quickly had to adjust to the difference in lifestyles here because they don't eat dinner until around 10:00 or 11:00 so that's what we did. We were pretty exhausted but managed to stay awake and get to know our new family a little better. Cara is great at Spanish and has basically been my translator, it's nice! But I am not doing so well with the Spanish, its coming though, I can understand people more than I can actually speak to people.

Our time here so far has been going to the church a lot, singing in the worship team during service and just getting to know the people. They are wonderful, so loving and accepting. One thing I really love about them is how they worship the Lord. The service we went to was four ours long and started at 6:00pm. Even though I didn't understand the language at all I could still feel the Holy Spirit present, it was amazing. I also love that the people don't care at all how they look when they worship. They shout, cry, jump, dance, stand still, anything, and its wonderful. Their love for God is so obvious and it just makes me really happy and makes me want to show God how much I love him and not worry about what other people think around me.

There seems like there is so much more to share but that's all I can write for now. Hope everyone is doing well, I'll try and update more often.

Katie

Last and final change...

Well this has been a crazy week of trying to figure out our plans for this next year! I think they finally came up with a permanent placement for us! YAY! So we leave the U.S. tomorrow afternoon, fly into Bolivia, stay there a couple hours, fly to Argentina, stay there for a week to get our Visa to go to Paraguay as our final stop! This is where we will live and work for the next 10 months! It's crazy but I'm just glad they have found a permanent place for us. The volunteer opportunities sound interesting. We have no idea what we'll be doing but God has a plan for us! I'm excited and nervous to see what it is! Prayers are still greatly appreciated and I will try and update you all as soon as I can after we get to Argentina on Friday. Thanks for your support!
~Katie

Change of plans....

I've only been away from home for less than two weeks and God is already working on making me flexible and showing me how to adapt to new things and rely on him! We are no longer going to Bolivia...they won't let us in at all! Unless some miracle happens! So the plan is to go to Argentina for the first month in hopes that they will have enough for us to do there to stay for the whole year. If we cant stay then we will go to Paraguay for the rest of the time. I'm just trying to remind myself that God has a plan in all of this craziness and it's all going to work out according to what he has set for us. Thanks for your prayers!
~Katie

Prayers please....

So the last few days have been full of deep thought, inward thinking, and just getting to know ourselves and our teams. It has been really great and very interesting to learn all of these things about myself. I've enjoyed it. We've also been able to go around Chicago and see some of the cool sights they have here.  It has been really great.

My team is in need of some prayer. We are not able to enter Bolivia at this time because our Visa's are no longer valid and they are sending MCC people that are there already home. We are unsure of details but it is possible that we will have to go to another country first and then reapply for our visas in that country. I will let you know as best as I can what is going on with this process. Please pray for us as we wait to hear our future for this next year, they will be much appreciated! Sorry this one is so short, talk to you as soon as I can!

Thanks,
Katie

Chicago...full days...

Orientation started on Sunday...it's been ok so far! We had some trouble getting everyone in on time on Sunday so I just hung out here at Jesus People USA for a while with a couple of the other participants in RJ. We have had very busy days from then on from 8am-8pm of orientation meetings. I'm ok with that though because it's kept me pretty busy and kept me from thinking about home and missing home. Which I miss a lot but I'm also very excited too. My emotions are a bit of a roller-coaster these last few days. I go from completely excited to go and can't wait to get there and dive in and then totally terrified and missing home immensely. I am nervous about a lot of things but I know this is where God wants me to be and I have to keep reminding myself of that. God is the reason I'm going!

Just a little bit about where we are living right now in Chicago. We are staying at Jesus People USA. It is a community made up of about 500 people that took over an old hotel and turned all of the rooms into apartments. The community lives off each other and the businesses they run. They have a roofing company, a skate shop/ coffee shop, and some other small businesses. They also run a couple homeless shelters in the area. So all the proceeds from those businesses goes to the housing, food, and life of the people in the community. They eat every meal together and live in 2 buildings all together. It's pretty neat and interesting to see how this community works and lives together. I think it would be a little difficult at times but they seem to make it work well. We are staying in a small flat in between the two buildings. There are 3 floors and we are on the bottom. The flat has 4 bedrooms with bunks that they made 3 bunks high! 3 bathrooms and some living spaces. Its nice an cosy with all 14 of us sharing that space. It actually reminds me of college quite a bit! :)


So our Bolivian team seems like it's going to be pretty great! There are 3 guys (Riley, Andrew, and Tim) and 2 girls ( Cara and me).  We've already been able to connect quite a bit and have had some good laughs with each other already, it's going to be a lot of fun with them! :) We also were able to meet our leader's (Isaac's) Bolivian mom and uncle over Skype! That was really cool, and she told us our jobs! I think it's ok that we know because they were the ones wanting to tell us. So my job is going to be working in the After School program with one of my team members (Andrew). I hear this is a great job, the people that had it last year loved it. I don't know any details yet about what I'll be doing exactly but I will let you all know as soon as I do.

I am one of two members in my group that didn't bring a computer so it looks like getting on here to tell you all what I'm up to might be a little more difficult but I will still do my best. I will just have to go to Internet cafes or borrow someone's computer. It'll all work out great though, I'm sure. Talk to you soon hopefully! :)
~Katie

Leaving home...

Today I leave what I know as my home. I'm leaving the people I love the most to have the experience of a life time and to do what I feel God has called me to do. This is a day of long, sad goodbye's and I'm trying to stay positive and remind myself that this is going to be amazing, even though I will miss my family and friends. I will be stopping in Goshen, IN for a day and a half and then head up to Chicago for 10 days of orientation. I take off for Bolivia on September 9th and it's going to be great I'm sure. Thank you for following me on this Journey, I hope to have some exciting stories to tell you soon! Goodbye Arizona, you will be missed!