Well hello everyone!! Just wanted to come in and update everyone on what goin on here in Kansas City, MO! Well this past week has been awesome getting to spend time with the kids and Scott (Founder of Fusion) came in to town! We were really excited...it felt like we were all his kids and we were excited for Dad to come home! but he was here for Counter Surveillance training. On Friday we ran are usual 2 miles, then came home got ready for survival training and we did that till about noon and thats where I got Poison Ivy for the 2nd time since I've been here! Then Scott came into to town with his friend who was a security officer for Sudan. We had a little training that night mostly just talking about it and how to know if people are following you and what you should do if they are. Saturday morning we woke up went to Campus met with everyone and there Scott tells us what were gonna be doing all day. So it starts with going downtown to the Plaza. We are working as a cohort and each of us have 4 clothes pins one on each arm and 2 on your back pockets. We also had a bright pink peice of engineer tape tied to are arms. We pull into the parking garage and the exercise starts at 1:00pm. As soon as we get out of the car we are not in a different country and we have no idea who is after us or on to us or is following us. We are now in the game. So we step out me and Mara were the front look outs while Alison, Becca, and Rebekah are the back. We see 2 guys coming towards us with tags on and we say "Chubby Bunny" which is our code word if were on to somebody to get them to leave us alone. we cant run or fight them off. But the first 2 guys we saw were supposed to be Government officials. Which means what ever they say we do. So we say out code word then he says were government officials and the code word wont work on them so he takes one of my safety pens then we quickly turn and start walking fast, we go into stores around every corner trying to lose them. Eventually we lost them we had what were supposed to be criminals coming up to us. We noticed tons of people following us and we had to lose them. We would get messages through the day and we couldnt be followed into where we met with chuch leaders or we couldnt have our pictures taken. If we did the church leader would die. So we would have to very quietly walk into meat with them we just sat down by them we couldnt look at them or make anyone think we were talking. So we would get our information and move on. The info would lead to other church leaders without directly saying it so if we were bugged they wouldnt have the all the info. So we then see 2 government officials coming after us we start walking the other way really fast and we go into Barnes in Nobles and we go upto the 4th floor and hide...but they already saw us so we are hiding behind a shelf on the ground and this guy sees us and is like what the heck are u doing! So we tell him and then he helps us by going down and looking for the Government people. He didnt see them so we left, but when we went out there were 2 more and they followed us into a parking garage we couldnt get away from them there was no where to go so most of us got are clothes pens stollen. We had to watch everyone everywhere! It was super fun but really exhausting and frustrating! My cohort got one of the church leaders killed because a criminal had followed us to her and took our picture sitting next to her. Later on that day we went out and shared the gospel but couldnt get our pictures taken doing it. So we had to keep looking around and always be aware who had a camera and was around us. At the end of the exercise we were sooo exhausted!! We said goodbye to Scott and will see him for our next crazy training!! He also told us that from now on we always have to be on the lookout because hes gonna have random people follow us from time to time. So when ever were driving some where we always have to know whos behind us and for how long. When were out somewhere see if anyone is following us. Its gonna be crazy! Anyways so that was Counter Surveillance training. On a different note I have found 2 Swahilis bibles and possily some Kirundi bibles thanks to the help of my mom! Im so excited for these awesome kids to have them. Hopefully I can give Bahati and Nehimanas parents one 2. Yesterday after church I got to take them out for lunch...Being on the budget that I am we went to Sonic. They loved it and I bought them Sundays afterwards and they had never seen Cherrys! They though it was candy and put the whole thing in there mouth! I was like noo you dont eat the stems! haha There so awesome. They told me too that they dont wont me going to Africa because its very dangerous and there scared for me to go there. It made me sad to think about the things they must have seen while they were there. Im really excited I get to go home in a week!! yay!! Next Saturday Ill be with my family in Memphis! I miss them soo much and cant wait to be with them and share things with everyone in person! I cant even write about the things I have learned and all that I have experienced! Its been incredible and I know the most intense trainings we havnt even done yet! I cant wait for Fall break and for the the other trainings and for going over seas....but im really gonna miss the CBC kids! Please continue to pray for the kids there and for that community. Also pray for all of us at Fusion that the Lord will continue to give us the strength that we need and we will become the people he wants us to be! I love being apart of what God is doing here and so honored that he is using me for the lost people that he so dearly loves and they dont even know it! Anyways Im gonna head up to CBC and hang out with my favorite kids in the whole world!! Thanks everyone again for your prayers and please continue to pray! Not just for me but for all of us who are going to the Nations and all of us who are going through this program. I hope everyone haves a great day! Also let me know if theres any prayer request I can keep in mind!

Love you all!!

God Bless!

I Love CBC!!

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is doing well back home! Im doing great...gotten a little more used to this schedule we have here. I wanted to thank everyone that made the cards for me! I was sooo excited!! The day I received them I actually woke up sick that morning and wasnt having a good day and when I got home that night I was soo happy to see the letters and read them all. I read them all at least 10 times! :) You guys are awesome!! Well im still learning my Arabic which im doing quite well at if I do say so myself. Were learning to write it and jease louise! that stuff is crazy!! Im also helping lead worship Sunday mornings with singing. I love CBC (Central Baptist Church) I love the kids and the community there. Its so awesome to see how God has all these people from diffrent countries all coming to this one little church. Ive gotten really close to some of the kids and find myself at CBC everynight hanging out with them. Its about a 45 minute drive so im deff stuggling with gas! But its soo worth it for these awesome kids! theres 6 kids we always see. Nehimana,Irradacunda,Desi,Joseph,Bahati and Antoine. There all from Burundi which is a country in Africa between Tanzania and Rawanda. They speak Swahili and Kirundi. a couple of them speak some English but we will go up to there houses and we usually go play soccer...They love that game and there incredible at it! Sometimes American kids from around there will come play with us and they usually get frustrated and quit because they cant keep up with our CBC kids. They have so much fun though and I love seeing how excited they are when we come up there. Its always hard to leave them though. One thing thats so awesome about these kids is they havnt been Americanized. They are so sweet and dont care what people think about them or how they look or trying to be cool. There just them and I love it! You can see such a huge diffrence when American kids come around. They American kids will be yelling and screaming for the ball and get really angry when they miss when the other kids will just always be smiling! I dont know how Im gonna be able to leave CBC...but I gotta trust God and where ever he leads me next year I will follow. But Its gonna be hard if I have to leave these kids! :( I ask that you will also pray for me to find some bibles in Swahili and Kirundi...I've looked everywhere and cant seem to find any! So pray that I cant find some that will be affordable as well. So survival training has been awesome! Last Friday it was poring down rain and Sir Charles said we had to go out make shelter,start a fire,catch a frog for food, and make are own spears. In the rain! It was soo much fun though and we had to catch water to have something to drink we were in the woods for about 7 hours that day. I think thats why we all got sick we were freezing by the end of the day. This past Friday we had to go in the woods and make out own traps to catch animals. It was pretty crazy! We had one called the dead fall and we could of caught a bear with that thing it was awesome! then we had to catch crickets put them on a string tie them to a stick and go fishing. We caught 3 fish too! Well anyways I should go study my Arabic and I have to write 2 1 paged papers on lime disease and Westnile Virus for survival training. But I hope everyone is doing well!! Thanks for your prayers I love you guys!!!
God Bless!

CRAZY SCHEDULE!!

Hey everyone!! I just want to start off with thank you for your prayers and please continue them now more then ever. These past couple weeks have been insanely rediculous! Monday: We have PT (physical training) at 6:00am then We study and get alot of hours in at our ministry site which is CBC (Central Baptist Chruch) in downtowm Kansas City. We have to get in 20 hours a week.Its a church full of diffrent cultures. So Mondays we go to the neighborhoods and pray and evangelize. Tueday:we get up have to be on campus @8:10 so we have to leave by 7:00am. we then have Arabic class right after Arabic we have Chapel, right after that we have lunch, then another PT. after that we change into our civilian clothes and go to ministry site and evangelize, then we have ESL (English as a second language) They offer it at CBC since most people that go there dont even speak english so I help teach ESL classes. then we get done at about 8:30 then have a 45 minute drive back to campus. We dont eat dinner till about 9:20. then study and get to bed! Wednesday: PT in the morning then Chapel then we have Church planting class then lunch then PT then minstry site, then church, then home. Thursday: Arabic class right after is World view class, Lunch right after is Ministry site, grocery shopping, bible study, then study for classes. Friday: PT in the morning which is running for miles on Fridays then we have survival training till about 5:00. So basically these are just a few days. Notice that I say right after and when I say that I truly mean right after. We have no down time or anything. By the end of each day I always feel like im getting sick. Its so hard right now because we go and go and go and we dont have a say in anything we do. Sometimes we dont even get to eat because we have no time. In some cases this harder then ground school. So please continue to pray for me and that the Lord will give me the strength and endurance I need to do the best I can here. Theres not anything that will make me quit so that will never be an option but...it is hard. On a brighter note now I do love Arabic! I even got to use some at are ministry site wich has a place called little Sudan which is a community of people from Sudan! Its so incredible how the Lord has worked things out for us here. We get to minister to these people and it feels like were in Sudan when were at this community. I love the people and I love TRYING to talk to them! :) I also am very excited about my other classes! Survival training is awesome. Last Friday we had to go into the woods chop down a tree and make a walking stick, 4 pencil sized sticks and 2 stick the size of your arm. So after falling in thorns and running in poison Ivy which then resulted into spending hours pulling thorns out of my hands and being put on steroids because my Poison Ivy got so bad! So after all that! we had strip the bark off are walking sticks using are Knife we received in First Aid. We took the 4 pencil sticks and made a trap to catch rabbits and small animals then took the 2 arm lengthed sticks and a made spears on both ends them tied them to together with string you can make out of stripping bark and had a 4 sided spear! it was awesome! he would set cones out and we had to throw the spear to see if we could hit it incase that cone was a animal and that was all we had to eat. So I had an awesome time out there! It was very productive and felt like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away" afterwards! I was pretty proud of myself...as would you have been if you saw the awesome things I made! Well anyways I need to go practise Arabic and study my bible verses for tomorrow! I love you guys though and miss everyone! Thank you for your prayers and please dont forget me!! Let me know is theres any prayer requests that anyone has that I can pray for! Thanks again for your most needed prayers!
God Bless!!

Hey everybody!! So im about finished with week 3. We finished our First Aid training today. I was very proud of my self because I did well on all the tests we had. We also got to sew up a pig yesterday and amputate its foot. It was awesome!! But then again pretty disgusting! but I did well with all the stitching. So last time I wrote on here I told you the following day would be the hardest....so let me tell you about that day. It was called Exodus the end of ground school (wich is the physically hardest 2 weeks) so we start off going up to the boys house in are uniforms, then we are blind folded and put in the back of a pick up truck. Scott was riding with us and all the sudden he starts yelling to someone "Sir! this is private property! YOU NEED TO LEAVE" then we here some more yelling and then Scott says"Sir put your weapon away SIR!" then they throw fire crackers at us the whole time im thinking well since were still blind folded this has got to be an act but then again Scott was very convinsing. So when they through the fire crackers at us Scott starts yelling at us to jump off the truck and take are blind folds off. He says for us to run in the woods as fast as we can! so we start bookin it through the woods while there still throwing fire crackers at us there coming from everywhere they must have had a million people in those woods throwing them at us! Ok..Well a million is a exageration but at least 15! So then we get to this creek and they scream to us to get in and get down and to move. So in are boots and uniforms and back packs we all get in and have to army crawl about a mile in this creek! It sucked! they were still throwing fire crackers at us and these thing would be landing on us and it really made your adrenaline kick in because it really felt like the reall thing. Then they were throwing gas bombs at us where if you went in the gas you couldnt see or breathe! So we would have to go under when the gas bombs where thrown at us. then we get to the end and were all exhausted already everyones elbows are cut up from arm crawling and are legs are soo tired! but we hop out then have to lay down and cover are heads while there still throwing these things at us and there also shooting airsoft guns at us which by the way really hurts when your wet and there right next to you shooting! But anyways so then the shooting and fire crackers and the gas bombs all stop we get up and start making are way back to the guys house. and that was challenge 1! then we had to go into the woods and chop down a tree then chop the tree in half then we had to carry this thing the rest of the night. So after we chop the tree down we then go to a bridge where we are told where about to repell off of it. But instead of being roped to a tree or a very sturdy object we had to tie are self to eachother. So I got second and tie a knot around the guys with me and I quickly repell off the bridge. We had a time limit. after we all came down he had to walk through the creek into this huge mud mountain called the Guatemalan Mud Slide and we had to climb up it. That was pretty hard but we all did it. Oh and by the way Im just with the Sudan team going through all this. which is all 4 girls and 3 of the guys. So then we see we have to climb a rope ladder up this tree where there is a rope about 20 feet up going across to another tree. We had to walk on the rope and hold on to the rope above you while the whole time the thing is shaking and wobbling. Im not gonna lie to you my hands were starting to sweat when I saw that thing! I really didnt want to do it. So then it gets my turn and Russ comes and says were out of time go to the field! and im like PRAISE THE LORD!! so then we hike on up to the field where we had to carry 2 girls above are shoulders like a board for about half a mile. then they would yell to us "FALL IN" which means where ever you are what ever your doing run as fast as you can to the person who calls fall in. So they would call it then someone on the other side of the field would call it as soon as we got there someone on the other side of the field would call it and again and again and im worn out!! then we have the cross ceremony where they advocates wash are feet and we get a medal cross for completeing ground school. But I have to say through the whole Exodus my favorite part was when I or someone else felt like they couldnt go on anymore someone in the group would start saying bible verses or start praying for courage and strength for us. it was so awesome to see how everyone is so close already and cares about eachother and no one would let anyone here quit! This week has been all first aid training and we still have PT everyother day which im kinds glad I feel we worked so hard these last 2 weeks I didnt want to go back to know physical activities but thats not what im thinking when im doing PT like today for example we get up at 6 and im saying all kinds of stupid thing pretty my delirious from lack of sleep. and we had to run a while and do lunges all the way up a hill and had to hold on to this beam while someone held are feet and we had to do dips. Then of course theres are normal 100 pushups and flutter kicks and all that fun stuff. But right now I have free time and the guys are cookin us dinner tonight so im excited...and kinda worried about that. But we will see how the guys do. This next week we start Arabic and Survival training. I cant wait to show sir Charles that I know how to fight off a bear! haha :) anyways love you guys and miss everyone!!!! Cant wait to see everybody when I come back in October for a week! Keep me in your prayers and your all in mine!!
God Bless!!

WOW!!! soo let me just start with...this has been the craziest 2 weeks of my life! Im sorry I havent posted but we dont have internet! I had to walk to a library. So where do I start to catch you up?!...Well lets see... The first day I arrived we went to bed at about 11:00, then was awaken abruptly at 4:00am with pots and pans, then there was alot of yelling and screaming to get ready I was kinds of out of it and didnt know what was going on. They pulled me out of bed and made me do push-ups for taking so long then we had march outside with whatever we had on at that point. Then the boys arrived ther were woken up by fireworks in there room! We had to learn marching formations first and once we got that down we did a rediculous amount of physical activities people were throwing up, dieing of thirst, or couldnt walk anymore. It was crazy! we were running, sprinting, lifting rocks as weights, flutter kicks, atleast 100 push-ups, a whole lot of sit ups, and jogging with really heavy rocks. After about 2 hours of that we got to eat 2 peices of bread and a apple for breakfast. At this point im thinking oh no! What have I gotten into! we got to shower up then had to meet at this lake and tie a rope in the air and hang upside down and pull our self across without falling in. We all had rope burns and horrible bruises from it. We then went to campus and ate sardeens with the scales and eyes still on them and condensed milk for lunch. doesnt that sound delicious! I dont really remeber the rest because it feels like a year ago. we get up so early and go to bes so late. every day we do the same physical training as we did on the first day...but everyday gets a little harder. We've been rock climbing, walked in underground sewer tunnels that were darker then I though anything could ever be. We werent aloud to use a flash light or evern talk we just had to feel the walls to get around. Then Scott started saying how what were doing is sharing the gospel so other may hear and live. He said if they dont know christ they will be in this forever darkness. To experience the darkness we were in close your eyes then cover them with you hands. Imagine that for 2 hours and could stop walking or couldnt talk. It was soo awesome though! We have also gone to campus at the seminary and helped people out. One thing about Fusion is you never stop going inless your sleeping for the few hours we get everynight! We also have guard duty which means we sit in the woods and watch for people to steal are flag. If they get it we get smoked! but thats 2 hours thats taken from the 4 hours we had to sleep. We also are working witha church thats all immigrants from the countrie we will be going to. None of them speak very well english and its soo awesome to be there because we go though these horrible hard things but when im at that church I realize these are the people im doing it for. They wouldnt be at that church, saved if it wasnt for missions and that makes everything we do worth it!! Seeing there love for God and we all pray togethet in diffrent languages and I dont have to know what there saying, I feel what there saying in how passionate they are. It really motivates you to see how God transformed these lives and uses us to do so! How awesome!! Lets see what else do I have to tell?...well we have been camping in the woods this past week and eaten road kill for meals! wever had to start are own fires and use the grass as a bathroom! my feet have been killing me because we dont sit down inless were sleeping. Thats it! Thats the only time! Sometime I feel like I cant make another step but the Lord is always there pulling me through! Last night we were all exahausted and they said "How about we watch a movie tonight!" We were soo excited! But of course theres a catch to it!! we get into Fondas apartment (Fusion founders assistant and organizes everything we do) so we get in and its 96 degrees!! were like whats going on! Then they set up a video camera, told us to get pen and paper and said that we have 4 movies to watch and we have to take notes and if we fall asleep we will get smoked! So at this point were realzing that we wont be done with these movies till 2:30am then have guard duty till 6:00am do basically we wont sleep tonight..and let me remind you we couldnt hold are heads up even at this point!! So they leave us in there and put on these 1960 sci fi movies! the most boring movies you could think of! Everyone was falling asleep across the floor! it was horrible!! but luckily after they said we didnt have guard duty and we could sleep at Fondas so we all passed out! this morning we had PT for a really long time and had to carry these 500 pound logs on are shoulders and thrown them, and do bench presses with them! It was horrible! but well Im about to go do another PT...Thanks everyone for there prayers!! I love you guys and miss everyone!!! Continue to pray for me tomorrow is supposed to be the hardest day yet!! God Bless!!

Fusion 08

Beginning August 10th...I will be leaving for Kansas City, Missouri for a IMB sponsored program called Fusion. Fusion is a 9 month program starting with the first 4 months of training. Training will include intense physical training...such as hiking, sky diving, rock climbing, running, rope courses. It will also include some class room work at the Midwestern Baptist seminary. My classes will be a foreign language where I'll be learning ARABIC!! Pray for me in that class! That's gonna be crazy! I'll also be learning things like First-Aid and how to survive in the wilderness in diffrent terrains. I'm gonna be learning alot of discipline...more then I ever would want to! But then again I know I should. I'll be home for Fall Break in October and for Thanksgiving and Christmas. After my Christmas break I will then journey on to Darfur, Africa with a team of about 4 members from the Fusion program. There I will be working at a refugee camp for 5 months. I ask you to please pray for me as well as Darfur Africa where genocide is taking place. Thank you all!