Greetings from Guatemala!

HIIIIIII, I didnt actually think Id be able to update this while I was in Guatemala, but here I am! YAY.

Gonna keep this short since I shouldnt be on the computer too long.

Guatemala is beautiful. The YFC staff is amazing. The weather is beautiful. I experienced the craziest and hardest thunderstorm and torrential rainpour in my life here. Five seconds after I got out of bed this morning, my roommate saw a cockroach crawl out from my sheets (awesome). I sang on a national television program and the YFC director said that a couple million people were watching. (The channel and show also airs in the US apparently). We do about one to three concerts a day. Ive had a lot of conversations filled with a lot of awkward smiling, bad spanish, and bad english. Ive been asked for my autograph a lot which I dont like so much.

But thats only a really little picture of this so far. As for the more important stuff goes...

INTERESTING REALIZATIONS
1. I greatly enjoy interceding for the kids during the message portion of our concerts. Since I cant totally understand the Spanish message, Ive found myself praying instead. I felt like it was super important to be doing that, and Ive been praying consistently with one of my teammates Chris and sometimes other people join us. I realized a couple of days ago that I put music ministry and prayer ministry together as a result of being on woteam at UCLA. I miss that. I love that the woteam last year in particular was so genuine and sincere in wanting to pray and intercede for the fellowship. Im glad that has been able to influence me here.

(PAUSE, APPARENTLY WE ARE GOING TO A MOVIE? GOTTA GO!)

CTI Update #2!

*WARNING* This is a long post. If you want, you can only read the bolded/italicized stuff and prayer requests are at the end.

I leave for Guatemala tomorrow morning! It’s surreal to know that I’m leaving for Guatemala even though I know I’ve been in Minnesota training for this very reason. Since I was last able to update you guys, a lot of things have changed. One being team dynamics. After the first half week, our team began sharing our stories with each other and it quickly shattered my initial misconception that some of my teammates were immature and shallow because of a lack of difficult life experience. Though they were initially really loud and obnoxious, we quickly learned that their actions were out of brokenness and fear as opposed to immaturity. God really schooled me. I was trying SO hard not to be quick to judge, but it was hard. I’m thankful that God has allowed me to shift my frame of mind and thankful that my teammates have grown to be more comfortable to be themselves.

Something that CTI has been pressing me in is the concept of performance. While being on woteam, I was able to engage at a level that was conducive for my own personal worship. I could sway, clap, and dance to whatever level was appropriate and however much the spirit led me to do so. At CTI, since we are an American band coming into a foreign country and we’re expected to have a LOT of energy. They always keep saying that we need to give enough energy to feel a little bit ridiculous…and then give even more energy on top of that. This aspect of CTI Music Ministries has been the most difficult one to deal with because it doesn’t feel completely genuine to me. It is one thing to lead worship where the focus is on engaging with God but it’s a completely different thing to be concerned with how we visually look as a band and work on crafting that as much as crafting the musical aspect of being a band. I can’t say I like it yet, but I’m not opposed to trying it out. I don’t know what God might want to show me through this and how it rubs me the wrong way…

I’ll be in Guatemala City for 25 days, staying at the Youth For Christ center. The center operates as their offices, church, and the place where we will be staying. As far as I’m aware, I think most of our concerts will be within Guatemala City but they won’t be exclusive to the city. We won’t really know what we’ll be doing for sure until we meet with our YFC partners and see what their needs are. For all we know, we could only do 3 concerts in our 4 weeks there and be doing manual labor around the compound.

I’m so excited to go. It’s going to be beautiful. I hear that the weather is actually nicer than it is here in Willmar. Less heat and possibly less humidity! I know that I’m here for a reason, and that God wants to show me something about himself and myself through CTI, but I’m not exactly sure what that is yet. So far, it seems like I’m learning how to serve and love my teammates, team leaders (and eventually people in Guatemala) out of exhaustion. Normally when I’m tired, I shut down. I don’t want my ability to love and serve people be directly related to how tired I am. So we’ll see.

PRAYER REQUESTS!

1. Health—pray that we stay healthy as we travel and while we’re in Guatemala. Or pray that if we get sick, that we’ll be able to still serve, be mentally present, and be aware of God is doing in us and through us
2. Attitude—pray that our team maintains a good attitude, that we remember we’re going to serve God and serve our partners. Pray that we remember that our physical comfort doesn’t take precedence over serving.
3. PLEASE pray that I’m able to engage with God while I’m in Guatemala. Like I said earlier, I still just don’t know what I’m doing here. I think it’s hard for me to fully invest here because I’m still getting over the fact that I graduated from college and I won’t have my community to enter back into after this experience. I do think I’m here for a reason and that God knows why I’m here, but I have a feeling it won’t come about in a way that would make sense to me. I feel like I’m constantly flustered because I’m trying to figure out the rest of my life (and by that I mean the next year or two). I want to be aware of what God is doing. I would like CTI to not be a waste of time. (I know it won’t be, but I just really don’t want it to be…if that makes sense).

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for praying. I really need it a lot. I look forward to catching up in person with you all when I come back!

I'm in Minnesota!

Some things that I've learned the past two days in Minnesota:
- Dinner is called supper
- Soda is called pop
- Bag is pronounced "beg"

And...that's all I've learned so far. [Just kidding]

(Sidenote: I wrote a lot, but prayer requests are at the bottom!)

CTI has been a very interesting experience so far to say the least. It a few words, it's been tiring, really inpsiring, and frustrating. Tiring because after having woken up at 3:45am, traveling or in transit until 5pm, we had an orientation with a lot of talking, sitting in a room that was pretty warm. Needless to say we were kiiiinda sleepy. We've had 12 hour days so far. Lots of teaching. Lots of rehearsing. I've been drinking so much water that I've had to pee more often than we have breaks for haha.

It has been frustrating for a number of reasons. I knew I was going to be the oldest person on my team, but I was hoping that I would be able to get along and relate to my teammates in some capacity. With a very extroverted and loud group of late teens, I had very little energy to put into trying to be relational. Also, it's harder for me because I want to be a part of the team, and feel like I have peers, but given their age and maturity level, I'm not sure what it'll end up looking like. I'm not going into leader mode because I don't think that would be appropriate (although more comfortable). Thankfully it's getting better, as we've gotten more comfortable with each other...having been together for 48 hours instead of just 24. The team leaders and the staff are REALLY awesome. I've gotten to talk to more of them today, which was really wonderful.

And last but NOT least, CTI has been pretty inspiring. Though the team might be younger but OH LORD we are a talented group of people. The staff and team leaders have been pleasantly surprised at our progress thus far which leads me to believe that we may be doing alright. The stressing out I put myself through the two weeks leading up to CTI has paid off...having 75% of the memorization down has really helped my progress and confidence as we've been putting the songs together. Woot.

Host family!
Oh, I really love them. They are SO hospitable, and so welcoming it's ridiculous. Not only have they made us welcome in their home, they really have treated us like family. We've talked and we've felt comfortable around them. They've even had their grand kids sleepover last night (two girls, one 8 and one 4). Even now as I write this, we're all sitting in the family room, watching extreme chef, chatting it up, and playing with another grandson (he's 8 months old and adorable). So yay! Babies. I will forever be around them.

Prayer requests!
1. Energy. Between processing a lot of how I'm doing and rehearsing and trying to get to know people and feel comfortable with them, I'm constantly tired. I find myself spacing out and I'm quieter than usual. Pray that God will give me energy so that I can be present with people and for practice!

2. Patience. It's been hard with...extroverted teens. You know you're older when you get frequently frustrated with high schoolers/early college students. I want to stay open and really embrace opportunities to get to know them.

3. Health. So, I got sick at the end of the school year and even though I'm NOT sick, I've had a cough ever since. I was hacking away at summer con, and now that I'm singing and talking constantly, my throat is REALLY dry. I'm drinking a lot of water, but I seem to be coughing a lot. I don't know what to do to get rid of it. Perhaps this cough can only be driven out by prayer?
Hehe.

Props if you made it through this whole post! More updates to come (probably).

PS, random sidenote...I've only taken two pictures. One of the sunset tonight (THE SUNSETS HERE ARE BEAUTIFUL. THEY DON'T MAKE 'EM LIKE THIS IN CALIFORNIA) and the baby at my host home right now. hehehe.

Goodnight! Or good late-afternoon? I'm two hours ahead. Kbye!