Falling in love with my best friend

Lecture Phase has come to an end.  It's just too crazy.  I have spent 12 weeks here in Belize.  It is so unreal.  And I have learned a lot.  A lot of healing was done for me.  I have realized how much I was hurt and a bunch of lies were told to me that I didn't even know.  I just believed them.  I believed that I was a pain to be around. I believed that no one was proud of me.  I believed that I was selfish and uncaring.  I believed that I needed to be fixed.  I believed that I was a bitch and unlovable.  I believed that I was disgusting.  Why? Because they were told to me, some by my Enemy and some by people.  I don't say this to have a pity party but because I have to.  I blamed myself for all of these lies and I didn't acknowledge the hurt inside of me and that Satan was just getting a hold on me.  In week 3, Barbara asked me to forgive those that hurt me and I did and God told me that he loved every bit about me.  In week 8, Jeff embraced me and told me how proud God was of me.  And then when I did my spiritual timeline, Ashley wrote down all the truths that I needed to hear.  I am worth listening to.  I have a voice.  God will never crop me out.  I am noticed.  I am a daughter of the King.  There's about 20 more.

Week 10 - Holy Spirit
Our speaker this week was the lovely Ally who works at the base.  I love this woman of God to death.  If there's one thing that I've noticed about her is that she is overflowing with the Holy Spirit.  She just goes with wherever he takes her.  One of the prominent things I remember is talking about the Fruits of the Spirit.  We had an activity of having fruit at a bunch of tables and each table was labeled one of the fruits (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).  We then prayed over which fruit we felt like we needed to work on.  Eating the fruit was just for fun. ;)  We did another activity where we laid out on the dock.  I laid there and felt the wind thanking God for it.  The past two days there was no wind and the mosquitoes would come out when there was no wind.  So I like it when there is a lot of wind here.  Ally was asking us to describe the wind.  I don't remember anything what people said but Ally said at the end that the wind is something that we don't normally notice but when it's not there, we notice that it's not there.  Kinda like the Holy Spirit.  So now every time I feel the wind, I think that the Holy Spirit is with me and when the wind is not there, he's still with me.

Week 11 Pinky promises
This week our speaker, Tiffany.  If there was any word to describe Tiffany it would be colorful.  One of the first things she said to me was: "Would you like a cookie?"  I loved her.  And then the first thing she said in lectures was "I love you guys."  She sounded like she genuinely meant it.  She's been praying for us for a while.  She told us lots of stories that I loved a lot.  She had my attention the whole time.  The reason why the week was called Pinky was because each letter represented 5 promises that God gave her.  P: Precious to me are your thoughts O God.  How vast is the sum of them.  If I were to count them they would be more than the grains of sand.  Psalms 139: 17-18 I: Immeasureably more than we can ask for or imagine is your power at work inside of me.  Ephesians 3:20  N: Never will I leave you Never will I forsake you. Hebrews 13:5 K: Kingdom of heaven is not of this earth John 18:36. Y: You are the light of the world Matthew 5:14.  Another thing about Tiffany. She loves pink. Everything was pink.  Balloons, sweater, water bottle, mustaches, etc.

One more thing about this week.  Remember how of the staff, Becky found some shoes that fit her perfectly?  Well they were red and she was freaking out because they were red and she said to me "You will find out why in Tiffany's week. They represent Jesus."  The next couple weeks I kept pondering, "How do red shoes represent Jesus?" I thought about it a lot and I couldn't figure it out.  So Tiffany came and she talked about a dream where she was lacking red shoes.  She didn't know what it meant.  But it dawned on her.  Then she showed on her PowerPoint a picture of Jesus' feet...nailed on a cross.   They were soaked in blood.

Sorry for the goriness.  Jesus wore red shoes first.  I got Jesus bumps.  Then something stirred inside of me.  Tiffany showed us a clip of "Passion of the Christ." It was the scene where they nailed him on the cross.  This was hard for me to watch, but I saw Jesus' face and his face was totally messed up.  But I saw love on his face.  Then all of a sudden I got butterflies in my stomach.  As Jesus struggled to get on the cross, I thought: What motivates him??  And then I knew.  I motivated him.  You motivated him.  He was thinking: "Think of Sami, think of Sami." And all of everyone's names.  We were motivating him.  He knew that this was the only way he could be with us.  I got butterflies again.  I fell in love.  I was in love.  I got this image of me in a wedding dress and Jesus was holding me.  Our foreheads were touching.  Now I was getting major butterflies.  I'm in love with this guy.  And THAT'S how I fell in love with my best friend.  I can't really explain the feeling, but that's the best I can explain it.  I hope that you can experience it.

Tomorrow, I leave for Jamaica.  Please pray for my fear against the bugs and disunity.  Our team needs to be unified and it's so easy to be disunified.  Thank you all!!! I love you!!!

Our Outreach team