Belize-Month 2

Wow, so much has happened this past month.  I think I left off after Week 3.  Well it is now Week 10, so I have a lot to cover.  Week 4 was about hearing the voice of God.  I was not excited because I was afraid of disappointment with God.  The letter was so precious to me, it was my only connection with God and I thought that was going to be my only connection.  Our speaker, John, had been involved with YWAM for about 40 years.  He told us that God speaks in many ways, it's mostly a still quiet voice.  But how do you know if it's God and not your consciousness.  Well for one, if it lines up with Scripture, then it's God.  If it's something negative, then it's clearly the enemy.  And most of the time, if you try to talk to God, the first thing that pops in your head is God.  Doesn't always work but sometimes it does.  It did for me when I wrote my letter.  Then John told us the story of Samuel how he kept waking up in the night hearing his name and he realized that it was God.  "If you wake up in the middle of the night, ask God if it's him calling you."  I liked this, I never thought of it before.  Then the Wednesday of that week we had a team building.  We all had partners.  My partner was Ben, one of the guy students here.  Then some of us were blindfolded, Ben was the one that ended with the blindfold.  They took us to the volleyball court. I led him.  The volleyball court was full of obstacles.  Chairs, coconuts, tables, lawn chairs, palm tree leaves, etc.  Then Ashley, the staff coordinating it, drew a line about 10 feet away from the court.  She said that the partners of the blindfolded people (which included me) had to stay behind this line.  Then I had to give Ben directions around the obstacles from one end of the court to the other.  As soon as the game started there was a lot of yelling.  Everyone was trying to direct their partners to the end.  "BEN! GET DOWN ON YOUR HANDS AND KNEES AND CRAWL UNDER THE NET!" He ended up staying on his hands and knees until the very end.  It was just easier.  Ben was the second one to finish.  Then it was my turn.  I got blindfolded and brought to the end of the court.  Then the game started.  I can't really describe what happened after that but I can try.  It felt like chaos.  I tried listening to Ben's voice. But I couldn't hear him.  Everyone was shouting so loud.  Then I heard a high pitched "SAMI! SAMI!" That was not Ben.  I decided to take a step forward.  I took a couple steps and then I heard "SAMI STOP!! SAMI LISTEN TO ME! IT'S JORDANA! LISTEN TO ME!"  That's weird.  Jordana wasn't my partner.  I listened more for Ben's voice.  I found his voice but it sounded like he wasn't talking to me.  I tuned back in to Jordana's voice.  And I followed her instructions.  I got sent back twice because I touched obstacles.  This whole time the staff people were talking to me telling me  "Stop, there's an obstacle there.  Now take two steps to the left."  And I listened to them and that was one time I got sent back.  The staff member that brought me back asked me: "Do you wanna quit?" She sounded serious.  I shook my head.  Absolutely not.  The third time I'm going through the staff is still talking to me telling me directions.  I tuned them out.  Ashley screamed in my face.  I screamed but I eventually made it through.  I was the second one to finish.  Once everyone finished the staff brought us back and asked about our frustrations.  We all agreed that it was the staff telling us the wrong directions.  "Yes, we did give you wrong directions but we also put a little bit of truth to them." This was true.  Some of the directions that Jordana gave me were the same that Zoe, our school leader, told me.  "How does this relate to hearing the voice of God?"  This game relates to it because we just have to tune into God's voice.  We have to learn to recognize his voice and know that it's his.  The enemy will tell us lies, but he will put a little bit of truth to it.  I think this has been my favorite team building so far.  It made hearing the voice of God a lot clearer.  I imagined God trying to speak above all the voices I hear. "SAMI STOP!! SAMI LISTEN TO ME! IT'S YOUR DAD!  LISTEN TO ME!"  It  was a great week.  That Friday also was my birthday.  It was a great birthday, I wasn't expecting presents but my friends put together a goodie bag for me, it was the sweetest thing and I picked out the movie for our movie night: The Princess Diaries.  Yup. Great week.

The next week has probably been one of my favorite weeks so far. Our topic: Spiritual Warfare. Our speaker, also named John, was this ex-military man that lived in Belize on the mainland and runs a camp there.  He liked to talk loud and he had a lot of cool stories about the military and...Spartans.  Sometimes he would be talking and then all of a sudden say, "SPARTANS, prepare for glory!"  The Spartans were really cool soldiers.  They were huge men that wanted to fight for their families.  He also told stories about biblical heroes. Probably the most memorable thing he taught was his perfect enemy attack.

The left hand side he has soldiers sitting there and at the bottom hand side.  The x is the ambush point, the fight sight.  He would choke his enemy out, get them on the x and then the ones that would try to escape towards the trees, there would be trip-wire where grenades and bombs would go off and have no survivors.  Then John looked at us and said "Get off the X guys.  The enemy will use anything against you: lust, drugs, lies, he will choke you out and then get you on the X."  Now every movie night, we'll point out to the main character: "GET OFF THE X!"  Every week we have to memorize a memory verse that the speaker would give us.  John laughed and gave us the verse: 1 John 4:7-19.  12 verses.  It doesn't look like much but when you look it up it's a lot to memorize in 4 days.  I didn't.  I memorized it in 6 but I loved the time I took to memorize it.  It's all about love and how important it is to love one another.  I thought it was so interesting how in 12 verses it says the world love almost 25 times and yet some churches still don't get it.  That Saturday there was also a wedding.  Two of the staff members got ready.  It was a very small wedding.  There were approximately 30 guests which included our DTS class.  We got all dressed up, took lots of pictures, and participated in the dance party.  It was awesome!

This was at the wedding. Siemona (on my right) is my roomate from Denmark.  Ursina behind me on my left is my roomate from Switzerland.  And then behind Siemona and I are Johanna from Germany and Courtney from Canada.  We all had an amazing time dancing and just being ourselves.

Week 6: Freedom

Our speaker this week was one of the base directors.  Her name is Lynn.  Lynn might be one of my favorite human beings on the planet.  She was so hilarious.  She started off with a ball and chain around her foot.  And then she started talking about the little things.  She explained how the big things are important but so are the little things.  So we had a circle of apologies, all mostly little things, but they meant something.  Our memory verse was Matthew 11:28-30.  "Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gently and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  One day, Lynn had us do Lexio Divina which is where the verse is read about 3-5 times and you meditate on it and find what stands out to you.  We laid down on mattresses with blankets.  Lynn repeated the verse over and over again.  It was hard not to fall asleep but it was good.  I felt like God was calming me.  What did I take away from this week?  Growing up I always thought God will condemn me.  I needed to be good and follow all the rules or else I am bad and he is disappointed in me.  But Lynn taught me that God will never condemn me, he will only convict me.  Lynn also had a game for us.  She gave us two characters from the Bible and split us into two teams.  My team got David.  We had to look through the Bible and timeline his life.  Meaning we had to get all the major events that happened in his life, that shaped him, find out how old he was and make a "timeline" of his life.  After we finished that, Lynn told us to then timeline our own lives.  I got a big shiny piece of paper with some sharpies and I had to timeline my life.  Doing this has probably been the hardest thing I've done here.  I didn't remember anything.  I put down the stuff that I could remember (we were supposed to put mostly the bad stuff, the stuff that made us turn away from God) and I put some good stuff in there too.  But I got very frustrated.  I didn't know what to put.

Week 7: Biblical Worldview

This week was also very awesome.  This week had a lot of knowledge.  Our speaker's name was Peter.  He is the base director in Denver, Colorado.  I don't know if any of you heard but a couple years ago there was a shooting at a YWAM base.  Peter is the director at that base.  We heard his story and it was so sad to just hear someone that knew the victims talk about that night.  The big question was "Why does God allow suffering?"  This is a very dangerous question and I don't know the full answer but I will try to answer it the best way I can with what I learned.  1. God is just. 2. Because God is just, there are things that he won't do. 3. God gave us free will.  We can do whatever we want.  People choose to do bad things.  God doesn't bomb the twin towers.  People do.  4. God has a law that HE made.  What kind of a Father would he be if he doesn't follow his own rules.  If your parents say that alcohol is not allowed in their house but then hide a bottle in their room, they're not being just.  So why does God allow suffering?  Bottom line: In order for God to take away suffering, he would have to take away our free will.  Physically, God can do anything, but morally, He lives (by his choice) within the boundaries of right and wrong.  Does God sometimes step in? I believe so.  Peter told the shooting story.  After the shooter shot his first round, he started to reload and he had his foot in the door.  This door was broken.  People have been having trouble closing and locking it.  The shooter slipped and the door closed and locked itself.  It was not supposed to do that.  The door wasn't built to lock itself, but it did.  The shooter ran away.  Peter believes that God stepped in and locked the door.  I believe him.

Week 8: Spiritual Pathways

One of my favorite speakers came this week.  I actually like all the speakers a whole lot.  But something about Jeff was different.  One thing I loved about him was he was a huge movie fan and liked to use movie clips to show God.  I love movies and I like connecting them to God.  But he had a sense of love to him to.  He spoke very sweetly.  He told us of all the spiritual pathways and the 5 dimensions of God.  His dimensions are Lover and Bridegroom, Husband, Friend, Mother, and Father.  Then he told us to write down which one we had trouble with.  I gave him my piece of paper and left.  Day 4 of that week, we had an encouragement day where we sat in different spots around the room and sat then waited for people to come encourage us.  Normally I sit there and wait for people to come encourage me so I waited. Nobody came so I figured that was God telling me to go encourage people.  He gave me the number 7.  I went and encouraged 7 people.  Sometimes I would sit down and see if anyone would come to me but nobody did.  After number 7 I sat down and then the people wouldn't stop coming.  7 people in a row came and encouraged me, one of them stood out to me.  God told me that he was infatuated with me and that he couldn't stop looking at me.  It was a weird concept for me.  God, infatuated with me?? Like what? It was an awesome encouragement time.  The next day Jeff gave us a couple of questions: 1. What thoughts of God do I carry to the world? What are my new names? 2. What compliments have I received the most from others 3. When do I feel God's pleasure? 4. What character issues is God highlighting in my life and 5: What moves me to compassion regarding the "least of these."  Most of those questions I answered: "Young Life." Obviously.  It's my passion and I feel alive with God.  But the one I had trouble with was the first one. So I didn't answer it.  As if he knew, he asked if anyone had trouble with the first one.  I raised my hand and another girl did as well.  Zoe (our school leader) took my notebook and my pen and everyone said things about me as she wrote them down.  Again, it was like it wouldn't stop.  They just couldn't stop, there was no pause. That's never happened to me.  I have a whole page of stuff that people said about me.  Some of my favorites are quirky, passionate x16 (passionate was said 16 times apparently) and I'm not afraid to be myself.  The person described as "This is who I am so deal with it."  I never noticed that about myself but it made me realize that I really was that.  What happened after that I kind of blanked out on.  Jeff started this prayer thing.  He said it was about the pieces of paper we turned in about the dimensions of God.  People were going to prayer for others. Honesty I forget why because of what happens next.  It started.  Jeff came to me first.  Me. Nobody ever picks me first.  I never thought I was special.  But Jeff came to me first.  Music was playing.  I was sitting in my chair.  My head was bowed and my arms were holding my elbows.  Jeff came to me. He put one hand on my arms and one around my neck in an embrace and he started praying.  Then he started stroking my back and he started saying how God wants me to come home.  God is proud of me.  My dad in heaven is proud of me.  He is proud of me.  He is proud of me.  He is proud of me.  Tears started welling up. NO I NEVER CRY! He prayed for me in this position for about ten minutes.  When he was done, my roommate Ursina held me as I cried.  Ashley (my small group leader) came and prayed with me.  I had no clue why I was crying but I was.  All I remember was that God is proud of me.  Next day was an opportunity that I was lucky to experience.  Our whole class was able to go to the mainland and go look at the Mayan ruins and go ziplining plus cave tubing.

Me

I'm in the middle.  Becky is the one laughing.  She found a pair of shoes in the river that fit her perfectly when she ripped her old shoes right before this.

Ursina and I.  We are 10 minutes from the border to Guatemala

The adventure day was so fun! We left at 5:00 am.  The boat driver let me and other students drive the boat.  I was able to finally see a sunrise.  It was magnificent.  It truly shows God's faithfulness.

Week 9 Rest Renew and Restore

This week we didn't have a speaker.  It was a rest week.  I won't go into very much detail because nothing much happened.  There was a lot of sleeping (I was slightly sick).  One of my favorite nights was Karaoke Night.  It was more like lip-syncing though.  Some performers were very animated.  My solo was "Lip Gloss" by Lil Mama.  It was epic.  We also had a pool party one night for dinner.  We had a team building where we had a scavenger hunt, that was super fun!  Oh and also the past 3 weeks our beach has been invaded by seaweed.  And it stinks like poop.  One Saturday, our whole base was cleaning it and it wouldn't stop.  Today it was out so far it was like an ocean of seaweed.  Anyways, God did do something in rest week.  I cried. Again.  I have no idea what's going on.  So remember the timeline?  It was recommended that I go through it with my small group leader.  Ashley and I chose Saturday which we didn't have very much planned.  So at 11:30 on Saturday we sat in a casita and we started to go over it.  I told her about my frustrations with it, how I couldn't really think of anything but I felt like God told me to go over EVERYTHING that I wrote.  My timeline didn't look like a timeline.  I just wrote all around the paper.  It wasn't in a line it was just in corners or upside down or in shapes.  I try to be as creative as possible.  I started when I was young.  Then as I got older I started to get a little uncomfortable.  All of a sudden I was remembering things.  Such as a certain time when someone cropped me out of their picture or a huge fight I was in.  Every time I remembered something I went silent and I thought about it. "How could I forget that?" This whole time I'm playing with a pointer stick that was in the room by the way.  It was very fun and I like to do stuff with my hands while I'm talking.  I skipped over one event because I did NOT want to talk about it.  But God kept telling me to.  But I wouldn't listen.  I finished with my life but there was still that one event.  Ashley didn't pressure me but she asked me if I wanted to.  I stood up.   I had to walk around. I did some stretches.  Ashley is talking to me.  I was very very uncomfortable but I had to move .  My hands were very sweaty.  I didn't want to talk about it but God was telling me to.  I sat back down.  Ashley gave me a pillow and I hugged it.  Then I asked her to read it instead of me saying it because the words literally would not come out of my mouth.  Ashley didn't say anything but I cried.  Then I stopped myself cause I don't do that.  We went through a prayer where I had to forgive.  That was hard.  Forgiving is so hard but I knew I had to do it.  And I did.  I didn't think I would mean it, but I did.  The conch blew.  It was 5:30! Ashley gave me a sheet of paper with all truths that she had been writing down.  She told me to say them out loud.  Now I start sobbing.  I haven't sobbed in awhile.  I couldn't say some of them.  I couldn't.  And again I didn't realize why I was crying but writing this I think I know why.  I have a hard time with the truth.  The good and the bad.  When something is true about me and it's good I have a hard time accepting it.  And then when it's bad, I don't want to admit it.  All these truths that Ashley told me were true but I didn't know how to accept it.  I don't know how many times I said, "I have a voice, I am heard!"  She made me say it a little louder too.  My favorite one that she put down was "God will never crop me out."

Thank you Dad for all these wonderful memories that you have given me.  Thank you for all the things I learned, all my supporters, and whoever is reading this.  Thank you for however you spoke to them and I pray that you move their hearts. Amen