cbass

Last week in Guate at AOJ

2010-07-20T00:06:00.006-05:00

I made it home safe and sound! Glad to be home with my family and friends, and sad to leave my friends in Guatemala and Honduras at the same time. After Honduras I let dad take my nice camera home with him and I took his small camera and I didnt have the cord to get the pictures off so I couldn't post! Heres a quick post of what I did the last couple days I had before I came home! These are the wonderful people I was with this week! On the left are Pastor Sam and his wife Margaret who started Arms of Jesus(AOJ) in Chimaltenago, where I was this week. It's a school in a poor town and they sponsor children to go to the school. I've stayed with the Rodenas while i've been in Guate but I havent been to AOJ yet! Jacky's parents are the directors of AOJ. Stephen is missing in the picture because he had school.

I'm hoping I can get Jacky to come visit in Dec!

While at AOJ I got to teach some english, which I might add reminded me of why i'm in nursing school and not an education major. (my students would speak southern, not english) On this day we were watching the teachers of the school play soccer! They had so much fun taking pictures with the camera. They had never taken a picture before so I had to show them how to push the big button on the top and it was a hit. I have this picture 1354957409354 times with the kids switching out places, taking turns taking the picture. It was lots of fun!

One morning I got to go with Mrs. Margaret to a community where some of the students are from. They were looking for children that were old enough to be sponsored to go to the school for the next year. We also had a couple bags of clothes that we were able to give out!

This little one was precious. I gave her a cute little outfit and she took her clothes off right then! She was so shy but so excited!

The week here was wonderful! It was a perfect way to end the summer! I cant believe I'm already home and the whole trip is over! God did some great things this summer and I'm so glad I got to experience and learn so much from this. Thank all of you who helped me get here this summer! I can't wait to tell all of you about it! I got to surprise mom for her birthday which was lots of fun :) and I'm so glad this summer isn't over! I'll be meeting up with the PRBC youth wednesday while they are at youth camp and the 27th i'll head to Birmingham for Motion Student Conference!

Oh and this was a cool rainbow I saw in guatemala :)

honduras in a nutshell

2010-07-10T10:44:00.003-05:00

what a wonderful week in honduras! we had a great time spending our time with the boys at the shelter! This is Joel, one of the youngest, he lovedddd dad!

I had fun thursday night when we got to hang out with the older boys and had fireworks! On the bus ride to the shelter they sang and broke glow sticks. It was fun!

This is Gerardo and he is adorable. Picture this little one with a deep raspy voice, thats him!

We did vbs stuff with the kids all week! They made these and played games! They had lots of fun! We also played 'a minute to win it' games at the farm thursday! That was funny! They had to put vasoline on their nose and move cotton balls from one bowl to another with their nose!

We also painted the school room! This is Ever, he helped us paint this week! I didnt get any pictures of the painted school room but i did get pictures of his nails! He painted my nails with the oil base paint and then told me all week that my nails were ugly :) He loved me though!

street ministry

2010-07-06T14:32:00.007-05:00

we started out at that little bus in the picture!

got to ministry to all of the families on the way up the mountain!

gave them rice and beans and we prayed with them!

they were very grateful. to express this: they gave richie a chicken

before we knew it, we were famous. they didnt ask for our autograph though, just our clothes.

finca grace

2010-07-06T13:55:00.003-05:00

this is the new shelter that we have been staying in! girls from the team on on the 1st floor ! boys on the team on the 2nd floor! the older boys "transition home" is on the 3rd floor! Thats where Rossel and Asael live.

Yesterday we went to the farm though! Finca Grace!

These are the 2 casitas that the boys live in! The second one wasnt finished last year when we were here but now its all nice and has boys living in it! They want to get one more casita so that all the boys can move out of the original farm house!

i love pigs.

i also like this picture of the tree.

Juan Carlos showed us his chickens!! He has 200 chickens now!! He gets about 180 eggs a day!! Its so cool to see him growing up and being independent.

When we left the farm we went to Josephs house to bring him so rice and beans and pray for them! Joseph goes to Noah's Arc Church and he is soooo full of joy! The whole time we were there he couldnt stop staying, "Oh how happy we are that you are here! May God bless you!"

This is Jose David, Joseph's 11 month old little boy! Such a beautiful face!

The team is here!

2010-07-04T14:52:00.002-05:00

Dads with me in Honduras!! The team got here yesterday and we drove them around to see the streets and Edwin. We also went to hyper pais(walmart) and the mall to eat

This is was Ham in the bus. And its ham now. I’ve missed my friend and I’m so glad he came!

Many of you have asked, “Is your dad just loving it!?” And this picture is the answer! He is carrying Nelson, the newest/youngest boy at the shelter. The other boy is Juan Miguel ! He's awesome! He's another new boy!

Jenn is having fun too! Sad that she doesn’t get to stay with us this week! Shes working with a medical team that gets here tomorrow so she got to spend yesterday and today with us!

im alive!

2010-07-01T22:29:00.002-05:00

sorry , i have been a little sick lately, and going between 3 different homes , so i havent gotten a chance to blog! basically i ate saltine crackers for the past week and i slept so you havent really missed anything! it was a virus though, its been going around and sylvia michelle got the the weekend i got home from the highlands team so, my lovely immune system had to have some.
NOW! I got to honduras this morning! Jennifer and I spent all day in lab's buying vitamins and other drugs for a few medical teams coming down and now we are counting and bagging! She had to come up with a bussiness for one of her pharmacy classes and its the coolest bussiness ever! Many medical mission teams buy their meds when they get here from pharmacys and what Jenn does is gets them from the lab so they can get them cheaper and she sorts and bags them! So we've had fun! Can't wait till dad and the team gets here Saturday! I'll update again then!

highlands in guate

2010-06-21T13:12:00.003-05:00

The week at El Meson was great!
The men worked extremely hard all week long!
Wednesday night we got to take most of the church service! Jeff played and sang Kari Jobe … IN SPAINSH! He did great! Allen and I got to speak for 20 minutes.

It was raining so they stayed behind waiting for it to stop, I was prepared :)

This is Kay Kay in the middle and Tuti on the right!

JOY! She is the precious daughter of a couple that works with the school! Joy’s dad, JJ, drove us around a lot and he also helped us out we got stuck in the next picture :)

Well, Thursday was suppose to be our relaxed morning but that didn’t exactly happen. We went up a mountain to pray for a widow which was great! And then on the way down... Juank tried to drive off the cliff! Not really, he didnt mean to! It was an accident and it was really muddy, really we probably should have walked and not even tried to get the vans up that muddy mountain but we did, and we paid for it. The men ended up being there from 10 to 2:30 and finally got lunch at 3, only 3 hours late. It was an eventful day, i'm so glad our team was filled with such great attitudes!

Friday night the children at the school had a talent show program for their fathers! It was so very cute! Hopefully I can get some videos and pictures of that but I didnt take any, i took a break from the camera this week :) luckally we had a photographer, Andrew Walker! And he took wonderful pictures! I'll put some of his pictures up soon!

So by the end of the week... the wall was looking pretty good

The church was super clean!

And I already miss this place!

El Meson

2010-06-15T14:05:00.007-05:00

El Meson is the name of the ministry and school. The Inn. The idea is that we are all inn keepers.

The house we are staying in is really nice! This is where we eat and play blitz. :)

This is the kitchen! It's amazing and so home-y. The people who started this ministry built this house and lived in it with their 4 children! They moved back to the states 3 years ago and since then it has house the teams and many visiters.

We have gotten to meet some precious children!

And we have gotten to work hard!

And get our hands dirty!

Right now the ministry is surrounded by a wooden wall which is not very secure. So we are building them a concrete wall! We dug a bunch of big holes!

Hopefully we will be able to get it finished by the end of the week!

This is Willy, Pastor Willy's son

This morning instead of working on the wall, we did a VBS type thing during each class's recess! We got to play sports with them ...

Teach them about germs!

I love watching the younger ones on the team ! They are such servants!

We made bracelets ...

And we just had lots of fun !

KK showed off her soccer skills ...

This is abigail! Everyone I know named Abigail is gorgous!

We also made our effor to stay hydrated!

The little ones colored!

This is Fatima! I went to her home to eat dinner with her family last night!

So that's today! And its not over yet!

hard work

2010-06-14T23:19:00.003-05:00

These few days have been busy ones! After a long drive yesterday we finally arrived to the sound of fire crackers(that scared many, Hunter, thought you would appreciate that). We ate dinner and listened to our hosts talk about the ministry and how it was started. There is an amazing story behind the founder and it was awesome to see how he listened to God and what God has done through his obedience!
This morning we woke up and started building a cement wall! I helped jeff dig a hole! Got a little dirty! It was fun! Everyone on the team worked really hard today! Ill get more pictures up tomorrow, here's the one that really will show you how successful the day was:

Meet Tuti. She is awesome! She works here at the school and also speaks english so shes been translating some and we practice english/spanish with each other!

Tonight for dinner we went to houses of the children who go to school here ! Here are some of the children during morning devotion! We had a really sweet family! The lady's husband is away working for 2 weeks. She said that he husband is not a christian and she prays for him everyday and we really got to encourage her to keep on praying.

I have a million more things to tell yall but not enough hours to sleep, and I choose sleep! I'll try to write more tomorrow during lunch!

from tortilla's to TGI Fridays

2010-06-12T13:04:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I learned how to make tortillas and empanadas! I didn’t say they were pretty, just that I made them! Sylvia Michelle did not like the green onions Jessica put on top of hers so she didn’t want to eat. About that time an ice cream truck drove by. While that sound elicits excitement for us, for Sylvia Michelle it was fear. They don’t really have ice cream trucks here, but in the movie Buddy the bad guys drove an ice cream truck. She looked at me with big, fearful eyes and said “Da bad guys, its da bad guys!”. So, I figured I’d help a sista out. Jessica couldn’t get her to eat, so I simply told Sylvia Michelle that if she didn’t eat it all they would come back. Well, it worked! She began to eat her food as fast as she could! And if I would have known that she would have freaked out at the sound of a car honking I probably wouldn’t have done that, but how was I suppose to know! So after she finished her plate there was a car outside honking, and she thought they were coming for her. I have to say, it was probably the funniest thing I’ve witnessed in a while! I’m horrible, I know.

Oh and yesterday I left Jessica and Jose’s house to stay with Jacky till the team gets here! We went to TGI Friday’s for dinner! It was wonderful! I think I laughed all through dinner. One of them asked about Forest Gump since I was from the south. Then like 10minutes after that conversation he asked for some more tea after waiting and waiting for the waitress to get back. As she ran off he yelled, “Run Forest Run!”

in the city

2010-06-11T12:38:00.004-05:00

haha yesterday Jose told me that when I'm in the city I can't dress like a missionary and wear the same things over and over. He told me in the villages i can, but not in the city, they expect me to dress nice everyday. What have I gotten myself into!?

These past couple days have been eventful! I’ll give you a little schedule of the important things so you can see how they do things around here:
10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
10pm- dinner
3am – bed
Yeh, I think I should have practiced staying up late cause I start yawning before dinner!
Yesterday annie went back home! I didn’t get to see her but we had a good couple hours on Wednesday afternoon! Yesterday after breakfast we went to get my cell phone, then we came home to play rummy cube before church! At church I got to see all of my friends and some of Annie’s new friends came and introduced themselves. Tonight I am going to stay with my friend Jacky until the team gets here on Sunday! I can’t wait for the team to get here! I will meet them Sunday at the airport around 12 and then we will travel about 3 hours to San Cristobal, which is in north Guatemala! The orange arrow is where we are going, alta verapaz ... and the yellowe is where I am!

Tim Tebow

2010-06-09T18:37:00.003-05:00

"So, you know Tim Tebow then?" asked the man next to me on my flight to Guatemala.
Sometimes I forget that I come from the bible belt where everyone knows about missions or what it is. The nice older man from New York sitting next to me on my flight asked me why I spend so much time in Guatemala and I told him that I do missions with my church. His response was not exactly what I was expecting at the time. But the Lord did answer my prayers, giving me favor with people and grace to not laugh at him.
"So you know Tim Tebow then?"
"Huh? Ugh, no."
"You know who that is right? He does missions so maybe you know him?"
"Well, not quite. I haven't ever been on a trip with him, but I do think he goes to Africa or something."
End of conversation. Awkward silence (and 'bless you's) the rest of the way here.

GREAT FLIGHT!
Now spending time with annie before she leaves so dont have much time to blog!!

Prison and Tents

2010-06-08T16:16:00.006-05:00

The prison in Haiti was probably my favorite part of the trip; the hardest part, but the best. One thing Sister Bonite loves to do when she has the money is to buy chicken and cook for the prisoners of Jacmel. Most of the people in Haiti only eat meat a couple times a year, the prisoners are not that fortunate. Everyday they get a mug full of corn meal. That is their breakfast lunch and dinner. They do not get their mugs washed either. Sister Bonite has been trying to get some tin bowls for them to have in their cells but hasn't gotten that yet. It cost about $250 to feed the prisoners this meal so she only gets to do it about once a month (because she feeds the children everyday). We jumped at the opportunity to go when she told us about it. She cooked each prisoner one chicken leg and they got a to-go box full of rice and beans. Those are some of the rice and beans. These people really love it when Sister Bonite comes. After she feeds them she goes to each cell and talks to them about Jesus and prays with them, many prisoners have come to know Christ through this. After she went by the cells we started singing to them. The presence of God in that place as we sang "Amazing Grace" to them was indescribable. I'll spare the details of the smells and grossness. It was sad to see how these people had to live, but wonderful to show love to them.

I did not get many pictures of the prison because we were not allowed to take the cameras inside the prison, only outside was I able to take these. There were two halls of cells. After the earthquake the prisoners who escaped either were shot or captured and put into these cells. There was about 25 men living in one cell.

Another place we got to experience was a tent city. This is where an organization has set up many tents in a certain area for refugees. There are about 6-8 families living in each tent.

The children we precious

they loved Phil and hung on to him!

this is part of a family and their side of a tent.

Now I am heading to the airport! Leaving at 7:30 am for Guatemala! Everything has gotten a whole lot better since last week, cept for the random massive holes in the ground :) The team gets in Sunday so be praying for them! And I'm praying I can remember all my spanish by then!

Haïti [Ayiti]

2010-05-28T09:52:00.014-05:00

This is Rony. He told us his name the first day we were there and we thought he said Homie. So we called him Homie all week. We discovered his real name after 3 days of being Homie, and Homie just stuck.

I cannot express how wonderfully amazing Haiti was! And I don't think I could really express what it was like in a blog, though I will do my best. I'll do one more post on Haiti before I leave for Guatemala.
First I have to tell you about our contact in Haiti. She has lived in New York for many years. She got married in NY, her husband died in NY, she went to nursing school in NY, she became a nurse in NY, and she went to Brooklyn Tab in NY. About 5 years ago God called her back to Haiti where she started Christ Love Tabernacle and Christ Love Center. The center provides clothes from the community and food for 250 children Monday - Saturday. She starts her day around 5am and ends it around 12pm. She is constantly feeding someone, giving clothes to someone, helping a sick person, and counsling people. And I forgot to mention that she is 72. Yeh, i just said that. You'd never believe it if you met her! Her name is Sister Bonite.So all week we helped her! We fed and played with the children everyday which was great! You'd never believe how much those kids can eat!! For most of them, the meal that Sis. Bonite gives them is the only meal they get. On Mondays most of those kids have not eaten since Saturday. They were so full of life and fun! We did arts and crafts with them and we also did some skits for them which was really fun! I love so much being able to make them laugh.

One day we took the youth to the beach and we got to talk to the girls about purity and living as a godly woman. That was a really wonderful time. Abigail and Lauren shared testimonies and many of the youth asked us some really tough questions. I'm so glad we had that time with them though!

and we wore Sister Bonite out!

We also helped Sis. Bonite by cleaning out her clothing room. She had boxes and boxes of clothes that people from Brooklyn Tab have sent her, so we organized them all and repacked them. We also organized her food room, which felt like it looked the same when we left. There was so much random food that the room was just over flowing. I mean, a closet thing full of tuna and a filing cabinet full of sardines. gross.
We got to walk around the town and meet people and pray for people. We also got to pray for sick people who came by to see Sister Bonite because she's a nurse. One man brought his little boy because he had bumps on his neck. The man spoke spanish so that was nice. Appparently he was from the DR and moved to Haiti with his son right before the earthquake.
Another girl we saw had a huge burn blister on her belly and Phil did a sub-Q injection. He was pretty excited about that, but it was really sad. Abigail and I held her hand. She was a brave little girl and did great.

Next post i'll tell you about the prison we went to and the tent city!! I'll also update about Guatemala! Right now my flight leaves Wednesday morning, but the Guatemala airport is currently closed due to volcano eruptions and the tropical storm, Agatha. Many people in Guatemala have been left homeless and there have been several mud slides. Be praying for me while I go down there in the middle of this and for the people of Guatemala.

Haiti? What?

2010-05-13T17:41:00.002-05:00

The week after I sent out my newsletter my plans changed a little so I want to let you all know how God has worked it all out!

The Monday after spring break I got to hear my friends share about their spring break trip to Haiti. Their pictures were amazing, their stories, their videos, the people they met. I knew that God was doing something but I had no idea. My summer plans were made. Finalized. Done. End of story. ... or maybe not so much.

I started praying, asking God if this was right, if he wanted me to go to Haiti. Then I asked when. Fall made sense. That would be a great time, people wouldn't be going that much and the need would still be there. Fall was not was not the answer I got though.

I was so confused. How could this even work out? Not possible. I'm crazy.

So God told me to sit back and wait.

Then a friend that is going to Haiti May 15th called.

She sent out support letters and had already got all the money she needed when a friend sent her a check for the exact amount of the trip. They told her that if she already had the money for the trip to let someone else go with the money.

So three months ago I felt like God wanted me to go to a place where I don't speak the language, step out of my comfort zone. Two months ago I felt like God wanted me to give him the details and not worry about last minute changes, be flexible and willing. And a month ago, Haiti was not on my radar.

Now, I leave on Saturday morning at 4:30 to go to Jacmel, Haiti to work with the children who have experienced this tragedy. Going to show the love of Jesus to this community.

I'll leave Saturday and come home May 24th. Then I have a week till I go to Guatemala! I won't be able to update the blog while I am in Haiti but there will definitely be updates when I get back! If you want to see whats going on when we're in Haiti you can follow @phillong on twitter!

So thanks to all of you who are supporting me and my trips this summer and don't forget how much I value your prayer! Hope to update you soon!

p.s.:photos by martha ellen gunn :)

adopt-a-block

2010-04-17T20:21:00.010-05:00

today we had our first ONE outreach with our college group in Auburn!

It was a wonderful wonderful day and we can't wait to do it again!

So today was Auburn's first adopt-a-block!

We went to a part of Auburn thats pretty neglected. Some groups around Auburn do stuff in the projects of Auburn but this is a part of town that just outside of the projects and is not usually ministered to.

They were so excited the other day when we told them we would be coming today.
The people we met were so sweet and so receptive!

We played with the kids for hours!

Some people from our group went to each house on the street to pray with them and get to know them and discover their needs.

We plan on going to back on the second Saturday of every month and can't wait to build relationships with this sweet community!

city adventure

2010-01-07T09:20:00.003-06:00

wow ... i wish i had pictures to show you the day we had yesterday , but sadly I was not willing to take my camera with me. we left the house yesterday around 10 because cristina wanted to go get breakfast ... needless to say, we never got breakfast.

Our day really began by going to the store to pick up something from andres , then he said he had to go to the city to pick up stuff for the store they own. cristina said that sometimes her and the kids go with him and its a lot of fun and she asked us if we wanted to go. Now , we are up for anything. And a trip to the city is nothing! So of course we said yes ... but it wasnt our normal trip to the city. This trip to the city consisted of 45 minutes on bumpy roads singing to the top of our lungs with Samuel and Ana Ester. ... oh yeh, and I forgot to mention that this was all in the BED OF THE TRUCK! ... yes, gringos , riding in the bed of a truck, all the way to the city. I'm happy for all the people who drove past us and got a good laugh cause its not something you'll see twice in your lifetime. It definitely not something we would have chosen to do, yet now something we would so do again!

Now the best part. i know, youre thinking "It gets better??" , oh it does. After we had picked up all of the stuff for their store the back of the truck was packed! Soo, on our way back to antigua all 8 of us, yes, all 8 of us sad in the front of the truck which was made for 3 people (uncomforably 3 people). Yes, Annie and I got to explain to Cristina how in alabama youll see a van of hispanic people stop somewhere and it seems like they just never stop coming out. Yeh, that was us yesterday. AND traffic was bad in the city so instead of taking us 45 minutes to get back to antigua it took us 2 hours!

It was a wonderful last day with them and we wouldnt trade it for anything!

2010-01-06T00:35:00.004-06:00

So i have to tell you a story.

Cristina tripped on the way down the volcano.

it was hilarious.

you know when something hurts usually a not so nice word comes out?

yeh, she said one.

it happened like this.

*trip*

*BAM*

*"MI ABUELA!"*

The End.

((Translation))

*trip*

*BAM*

*"MY GRANDMOTHER"*

and she made it back alive.

i'm so proud of her.

((Her grandmother is alive too))

lava!

2010-01-04T22:17:00.001-06:00

LAVA! from cbass on Vimeo.

we painted the girls room!

2010-01-03T14:18:00.004-06:00

BEFORE

AFTER

our new year

2010-01-02T11:38:00.006-06:00

so meet the castellanos ...

this is ana ester ... shes awesome ... such a wonderful helper!

this is samuel! just your typical 6 year old boy who is now an auburn fan!

this is prissy .. who was rightfully named .. shes is a little drama queen!

timmy .. timido timmy

The gifts were a HIT!

... and so were the new years hats!

new years was great! we had church at 8:30 and ate tamales and had prayer from 11:45 to midnight! first time i havent gotten to see the ball drop on tv , but i think this was way better! we got home around 3 and woke up friday around 9:30 to head to cerro de la cruz! it was beautiful! ...

oh and its a beautiful view of the city of Antigua ...

we were so glad to have some photographers with us!

and we had too much fun taking pictures!

we have new auburn fans ... and this shirt got us a few war eagles in the square !

.. heres that drama queen i told you about .. you gotta love her!

... got some glamor shots of annie ... prissy loves her

and hannah, for you ...

so happy new year yall ... From ANTIGUA!

feliz año!

2010-01-01T12:29:00.003-06:00

2009-12-29T10:19:00.007-06:00

finally have the internet!

theres too much to say to describe the past week so here are a few pictures to give you an idea !

christmas in guatemala is awesome! everybody buys a ton of fireworks and sets them all off at midnight! you would think the place was being bombed . it was great!

while we've been here we have played a lot of we have gotten to play kitchen a lot ...

and also blitz!

you can click to see it bigger ... the picture shows that annie cheats, she claims its just her good hand ((yeh right!))

we have also gotten to see many new places! we rode across the lake and up a mountain in this ! it was pretty neat!

and we have gotten to spend time with great friends!

sylvia michelle loved it ;)

haha and annie too

there are many interesting things to see in guatemala ...

(annie made me take this picture)

now this is marie, i'm an awesome photographer for capturing this but who can tell me who she looks like?

((ma ... maaa ... maaaa))

and we have taken many pictures, so there will be more to come when we get to Cristina's on Friday and have the internet!

back .. and gone :)

2009-12-14T18:07:00.004-06:00

back home for a whole week !

christmas is so wonderful

and what's even more wonderful is that ill be in guatemala for it!

yep, so get ready for posts! we leave the 24th and are super excited!

i have never been away from home during christmas time

i know when we're there we are going to miss our family a whole lot

but we can not wait to see our other family we were adopted into this summer...

SURPRISE!

2009-07-12T13:59:00.006-05:00

This past week has been surreal! Sorry I haven't gotten to post till now!

When we got to Mexico Annie and I decided to start journaling, we knew the month was going to be very interesting to say the least. Its really cool to look back at the journal entries from the week talking about how I felt about it all and it all makes sense now.

As great as it was, when we got to Mexico we just felt like it wasn't where the Lord wanted us to be. We had peace about the trip, until we got there. I know we were suppose to go, we just weren't suppose to spend that length of time there. Sunday I gave it to the Lord and basically just said, " God, if you really don't want us here you have to do something big to get us home cause its not something I can do."

Tuesday I wrote that I didn't understand why I felt like the trip was complete, like I had learned what I had needed to and we did what we were there to do, and I truly believe it was to give Ana a family at her graduation.

Wednesday I got sick again, left overs from Guatemala.

So Thursday was the day of events! Annie had a sinus infection and I was passed out from the phenergan i took the day before. She decided to go work anyway, so when she got downstairs Margarita told her that Sister Elma wanted to see her. So she went back upstairs to talk to her. Then Sister Elma asked if I was ok, she told her yes but I probably just needed to rest, and she asked about MarMar and Annie told her she wasn't doing to great but we were praying for her. And then Elma just starts to tell Annie how she got up in the middle of the night and prayed for hours because she was worried about us. She said she feels there is a time for everything and she feels like during this time we need to be home with our families, so I could see a doctor and Annie could be with her grandmother. She said, if we wanted to we could pack and she would take us to the airport right then. So Annie woke me up at 9am, we were on a plane by 10:30am and in Birmingham by 2:30pm! Amazing! I knew God wanted us home, and I knew he was going to get us home, I just didn't think it was going to be this soon and easy!

The best part was that we didn't tell our parents! Chris came and got us from the airport and we went home and surprised everybody!

Surprise! from cbass on Vimeo.

new country

2009-07-04T08:36:00.002-05:00

no way jose! WAR EAGLE! from cbass on Vimeo.

starting off in a new country today!! we had an amazing time in honduras ! we are not yet sure if we have internet yet ! we met one of the ladies from the orphanage yesterday and she was amazing!! in 20 minutes Sister Elma, the lady who started and runs the orphanage is picking us up! better go get ready but ill make sure to let yall know how it is !! twitter should stay updated!!

another great day in a land of peace

2009-07-01T22:37:00.005-05:00

still having fun!!

you know that theres nothing to worry about when we continue to take our shopping day to valley of the angels! today we shopped till we dropped, or till it was time for church! then since Zelaya is now not coming back to the country till Sunday, our curfew got pushed back ! so we got to go to church!!

marco tuleo , our bus driver, while we were talking today said that 90% of the Hondurans were against Zelaya and liked the new president ... how can this be a blow to democracy? .. and on WSFA last night, i'm pretty sure the clip of the firearms was of Iraq, not Honduras. CNN doesn't show anything they're showing here. How bout the signs of millions saying "Tell The World There Was NO Coupe!" ... its kinda scary, the world only knows what CNN wants them to know. ... We were not in as much danger as we are now, only because Obama has opened his mouth and he doesn't know anything. If we die over here, it's his fault.

Juan Carlos and Rosel were 2 of the first boys at the farm!

war eagle

2009-06-30T14:34:00.005-05:00

just one of the families that accepted Christ this morning!

this morning went like normal! we went this morning to a new area which FCM has not done street ministry with before and it went great!! Many people accepted Christ from this community and we are hoping to be able to continue working with them! It was a great morning! This afternoon we went to the farm and got to hang out in the rain with the boys!! It was a lot of fun and great quality time! Some of the team members got to paint the new casita!

there is talk right now that Zelaya is trying to come back into the country on Thursday, if he does so they say that they will arrest him. The thing i believe they are worried about is if Chavez or Ortega try to come with him to make a stand. Not knowing what will happen, we don't know what we will be doing! But so far everything has been perfect , so we have no doubts that the rest of the week will be!

i have a little friend named Jose who's growing up to be a HUGE auburn fan :) ill upload a video tonight of him saying war eagle !!

rice and beans

2009-06-28T23:50:00.006-05:00

so, we do have a curfew but that hasnt stopped us yet! we did street ministry this morning till lunch then went out to the farm to see the boys! it was a great time! one of the families we stopped by to see had a bad time last night with all of the rain. As the river of water began to pass through her house, and it carried away her blood pressure medicine , she stopped and prayed and asked God to send Stan and the north americans today. And we could have stayed home, but God had bigger plans! So we gave out bags and bags of rice and beans and clothing and it was amazing! Then we went to the farm and got to spend some time with Lupe, who makes amazing tortillas .. and i got to practice spanish with Rosel! .. but tomorrow we will be practicing english ! It was an overall GREAT day , and can't wait to see what God has for tomorrow!

i want everyone back home to know we are safe and to be praying for the people of Honduras. The media has turned around what has happened here and they are really worried about what the leaders of other countries are going to do if they support Zelaya. Yesterday was the day that he was getting the country to vote to let him remain on the ballot for re-election , and that is against the constitution, so he has been trying to change the constitution. He claims his release is an attack on democracy but really he is the one who has been attacking democracy and is leading the country toward communism. CNN states ... ""This was a brutal kidnapping of me with no justification," Zelaya said. He called the coup an attack on Honduran democracy. "There are ways to protest without arms," Zelaya said" .... yeh right!

I agree with Lori, "If Obama was breaking the law and trying to change the constitution regardless of the government and the people, would the people of America just stand by??? Would he not be impeached and removed from power? Why should the people of Honduras be condemned for trying to keep democracy? The fact that Obama agrees with Chavez should scare everyone to death! "

blackout

2009-06-28T12:24:00.003-05:00

so ... we lost power this morning !

luckily annie and i woke up at 4:45 to take showers , dont know why.

someone protesting the president shut off all power to the country this morning.

and now ... the president is in exile in Costa Rica.

so we have power now! Gracias a Dios :)

honduras

2009-06-27T20:24:00.003-05:00

first class!

4 am packing the car!

we are in honduras and chickitiwow we have internet! that means blogs ! so get excited!

tonight we prayed over Scott ... he's having pains in his chest that he has had since he hurt his back. We would really love it if all of you could be praying for him. We wouldn't have this team without him and he needs the health to lead it. But luckily we serve a God that heals, so thats what we are praying for!

Will post tomorrow !

ultimo dia

2009-06-26T18:15:00.006-05:00

so ... its the last day in guatemala.

tears. literally.

we just left andres' store. we had our last lunch with them and now we are going home to go to bed and wake up and leave. in the morning andres and cristina are picking us up without kids and taking us to the city at 4am. Our flight leaves at 7 and we should arrive in Honduras at 9:30. Right now there is a lot going on concerning getting into the country and our flights so we would really appreciate you all to be praying about that.

i have never had this hard of a time leaving people. i really will be homesick when i get home. missing these kids and cristina and andres. wow.

so cristina made a video for her friends in the states and showed it to us today and showed me how to use the movie maker and i told her that i would do that with these pictures. so ill try to upload it later . i dont know if we will be able to get on at all in Honduras right now ... but i will still write and just blog it all at the end of the week if i have to!

guatemalan adventures

2009-06-21T21:21:00.005-05:00

we got our hair did :)

the wedding!

so, we finally made it back to antigua! wednesday we were coming back but the van got lost and couldnt find us at the medical location so we had to wait till thursday .... then thursday we just decided to take them to the airport since we had church on thursday night. so we went to the airport then took a taxi to the mall and a taxi to hebron and there were many humorous adventures between those ... but then when we got to hebron they canceled church because of the fajita flu , so andres and cristina weren't coming ... so we were stuck in the city ! we ended up just calling sammy and we stayed at their house for the night! then friday he we going to take us back but by the time we were leaving traffic was horrible and he remembered that everyone and their mother drives to antigua on friday afternoons and if we went it would take forever , so we decided to stay again. ... and through all of this we had no church clothes and no clean clothes. so saturday morning , an hour before , we went and bought clothes to wear to the wedding haha. and thennnnn i called andres to tell him that we were already in the city but we were gonna ride back with them .... and they say they aren't going to the wedding anymore! haha. yess. so we spend the night again and wore the same clothes to church this morning ! finally , we get to go to antigua!! ... but not so fast, we had a flat tire. GOD DOES HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR!

Matthew 15

2009-06-18T08:18:00.007-05:00

missionary molly really got around yesterday

she's seeing patients with brian

with annie

can't really get a good blood pressure

we had fun too! we went to the lake! ill put pictures of that later!

Sorry I haven’t been able to keep yall very updated with what is going on here, but here is the basics. When the Dalraida team arrived last Thursday the Guatemalan government decided they weren’t going to allow for them to enter with meds, so the 300 lbs of medicines that they gathered before the trip sat in the airport for the entire week and the government has said that it will take about a $1,000 to get it back. Nevertheless, we saw over 1,000 patients. At the end of every clinic there was more medicine than when we got there. We had more time to spend on people and because of that hundreds were saved. God showed himself radically this week. His followers asked him, “How can we get enough bread to feed all these people? We are far away from any town.” Jesus asked, “How many loaves of bread do you have?” They answered “Seven, and a few small fish.” And Thousands were fed and satisfied. Matthew 15:33-34 NCV … God is the same today tomorrow and yesterday and we got to watch him this week, multiply meds. And it was amazing.

Yesterday was my favorite. God really sat me down and reminded me of what I’m in school for, which I always need a reminder for. I got the blessing of being able to sit with Brian as he saw patients and I got to help translate and actually interact with the patients. Watching Brian tell them that he’s going to give them medicine that’s going to make them feel better and watching their face light up and a smile appear is an amazing thing. I cannot wait to put that kind of smile on someone’s face. About the end of the 2^nd week down here I was really honestly not sure about school. I know that God wants me to study medicine in some way to help down here and I have felt strongly for the past year that PA school was the way to go. But 5 more years of school scares the mess out of me. It’s not that I don’t think I can do it, I know that I can. Its whether I can stand not being down here. I’ve seen many things in the medical field, having the opportunity to shadow many different people during high school, and even though most of this was simple medicine, it was way more exciting to watch them leave with a smile. To watch them thank us for a shot. To see hope in someone’s eyes, that wasn’t there when they walked in. That is way more exciting to me and getting to participate and watch yesterday definitely reminded me that I’m right where he wants me to be school wise and that it will be more than worth it in the end.

The last patient we had was an 80 woman who had everything imaginable wrong with her. She broke her wrist and the Guatemalan doctor she went to casted it with her thumb folded inward and now she has no muscle on the outside of her hand and she can barely move her fingers and her wrist. She has gastritis, acid reflux, and some other smaller problems. It seemed like we prescribed her about every medicine we had. By the end of the time seeing her she remembered to tell us she couldn’t see very well. Sure enough, when we cover an eye and threw our hand at her face she didn’t flinch. She was blind in one eye and the other was getting that way. We had the privilege of praying with her and telling her that we are not able to fix everything but we serve a God that can. She kept repeating over and over, “I’m afraid, I’m afraid”, and my heart melted for this woman. Here I am, scared of 5 years of only seeing the library, and this lady is scared of being blind and not being able to use her hands. It seems so silly and trivial. Right now, after yesterday, I am super excited about school. Super excited.

medical day

2009-06-16T00:20:00.007-05:00

it was early?

as many times as you come down here you always see something new.
today i watched sandy give a little boy, probably around the age of 7, a shot
and it was a shot that hurt , in the muscle, a shot that would make me cry.

he cringed a little less than what you would expect from a little boy.
then ..... then he said thank you.
he didnt cry. .. he thanked sandy for giving him a shot

me, i would have said i hate you , not thank you.
chickitiwow.

dont drink the water

2009-06-11T11:49:00.012-05:00

haha yes, she walked out into the waiting room with the iv

fajita flu protection.

when we were both sick we still went to use the internet at the cafe lol

soo...
we have asked for the Lord to show himself in big ways during our trip , but we really werent expecting these extremes. but in the past week he has provided medical care and medicine for $65 instead of the hundreds we were planning on. he gave us medical care in our city instead of having to travel to the city on the mountains which make us sick anyway. we were going to a hospital where we didnt know any of the doctors and when we got there cristinas doctor just happened to be there. in their hospital you have to use a community bathroom and the doctor offered annie a private bathroom which never happens. cristina got excited when she found out annies bed number was 5 because in numerology that means 'grace'. the hospital, ivs, and antibotics were free, we just walked out of the hospital. the kids from London that live with us laughed saying "you are such americans , getting excited over a free hospital!" . apparently here you can bargain at pharmacy's too. we got the cheapest meds for 65 dollars , and that was for 4 prescriptions together. we're both wayy better and annie has medicine to make sure it doesnt come back ! Gracias a Dios!

thank you ma my personal phone nurse, mrs. jayne insurance coordinator , mrs. judy the important wake up call, mrs. amy who got us in touch with the people we needed to get in touch with down here, Herman Alb had wonderful advice as to what we should do and we did exactly that and it was perfect , and most of all to Andrés and Cristina Castellanos who took us to the hospital and to get medicine and who have been so wonderful to us since we've been here! They are a blessing from God!

this is the Castellano Family

san lucas : dont drink the water from cbass on Vimeo.

night of sickness from cbass on Vimeo.

happy birthday cliffy

2009-06-09T17:10:00.009-05:00

Heres to Clifford Grayson Love ! Happy 22nd Birthday !!

While Cliff has a wonderful birthday we want everyone to know that we have been at home puking for the past two days because we went with a family to San Lucas and ate in the market Sunday after church... not a very good idea!

2009-06-05T11:24:00.004-05:00

yesterday we got to go with andres and cristina to the city for church! we got to ride with three children in the backseat with us and on the way back to antigua they were all passed out!! (well, so was i )) ... but after we got back we went to eat at a really cool restaurant with them , which was awesome! haha the latest we've stayed out in antigua, and i almost fell asleep in class this morning!!

our suitcases have been at the institute this week cause we couldnt get them all in the car last sunday so annie and i switched outfits from what we wore sunday and figured no one would notice, hahah not ! the first thing Ann Ester (andres and cristinas 7 year old) said to us was that we switched clothes and she thought i was annie and annie was me haha . so it was a pretty funny night cause im pretty sure there wasnt a person who didnt notice :)

2009-06-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

our new teacher :) from cbass on Vimeo.

crayola makeup from cbass on Vimeo.

the kids amazed by youcam from cbass on Vimeo.

ninos :)

2009-06-03T16:33:00.004-05:00

marianna and carlos are the kids at the new house we're at! they are amazing!! i havent been able to upload videos because we dont have internet at our house but today we spent the afternoon at the bagle barn using the wireless so we can upload some! check vimeo tonight and they should be up! ill post them tomorrow morning if you dont know how to do that! adios!

2009-06-02T13:17:00.002-05:00

It was sad to leave hebron Sunday! Gracias a Dios, there is a family here in Antigua who drives to Guatemala city for church on Thursdays and Sundays! So we get to go with them!! Not to mention they have the CUTEST kids and we get to be smushed in the back seat with them!! Theres a picture of Pricilla and Samuel above!! But this is a really sweet family who graduated from the institute a couple of years ago and I got them all to say chickadeewow! Which ive just been informed that its actually spelled chickitiwow! Soo ummm yeh oh well! But we’re in Antigua now and started classes yesterday! My teachers name is Eduardo and he’s pretty cool! He wanted me to talk in past tense so we talked about trips to Honduras and somehow ended up talking about my favorite person in the new testament and why! Im pretty excited to see what God is going to do these next couple of weeks! I was kinda worried about having a guy teacher at first , but God definitely has something up his sleeve! /// sad news, no violeta this year! We are staying in a student house right now and we are about to move to a home stay! There is a group of highschool kids here with their Spanish class for 3 weeks so they are pretty full! Right now we are living with their teachers, which is nice … if I taught high school kids I would so never go on field trips to other countries being responsible for teenagers! They are some brave souls!
but anyways!! we saw our place today where we're moving and guess what!! the dad of the house, his name is AMILCAR!! how awesome is that?!!? im super excited! they have 2 kids and the rooms are really nice! and now we'll have our own bathroom! so ill update tomorrow and let you know how it goes! we're about to be picked up and taken over there!! adios!!!

CHICKADEEWOW!

2009-05-30T23:23:00.007-05:00

i told yall i learned this new word! i LOVE it! its mexican so when people say it here they joke on them or they are joking in the first place. lots of the people at the institute are from mexico so they say it and get joked on :) but everybody says it different , so today i got everybody to say it ! watch!

the first one is daniel's chickadeewow which deserved its own video because he's hilarious!

daniel's chickadeewow from cbass on Vimeo.

CHICKADEEWOW! from cbass on Vimeo.

MY FAVORITE CHICKADEEWOWs! from cbass on Vimeo.

ending part 1 of the summer

2009-05-29T16:14:00.004-05:00

If you have food in the pantry, you wear clean clothes, have a roof over your head and a safe place to sleep, you're richer than 75% of the world.

Just so you know.

We have been truly blessed these past two weeks getting to spend our time with the people at Hebron! They are amazing ! Today was the last day of classes for this semester so that means it was the last time we got to see many of them! Ruth gets to say and work for another week ((yay for us, not for her)) but then she graduates and goes home to Cali! Others are heading to their homes in Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, and some to Cali tomorrow morning and Monday so be praying for them! ... Kat and Topo get to say all summer, being from Africa they dont get to go home till their 2 years are up! Thats tough! They have AWESOME attitudes though!

I learned a new word today , chickedeewow! ... its the coolest word ever! Im not exactly sure what it means or how it's used but i just say it anyway, its fun to say! try it!

Tomorrow we are going to the church for sports , as they say. We're just going to play volleyball and hangout for the afternoon! Then sunday after church we head to Antigua! Exciting, but we're going to miss it here! We both love the institute and Hebron a lot. We will get to come to Hebron on Sundays I do believe, so it won't be that bad! I can't wait for Abby to experience it :)

OH yeh! and Jackie made me a guatemalan cupcake today :) oh she's awesome! chickedeewow!

guatemala = laughs and embarrassing moments

2009-05-23T21:42:00.008-05:00

so today we decided to venture out and take a taxi to the mall! a wonderful experience! first when we got there we realized we didnt know how we were getting home ! :) ... most taxis tell you what time they will be back to pick you up and we took a different taxi this time soo yeh, daniel ended up coming to get us :) ... when we got our food and were walking to a table a man came by and was like 'how are you girls doing??' and we kinda were like 'uh good' and walked away .... hahaha then Nora from Hebron came up and said 'My husband said you didnt recognize him! We saw you and wanted to say hello!' hahah we were so embarrassed but it was funny ... he was at the small group we went to the other day! woops :)

when we left the mall we went to daniels friends house that was near by! jackie was there ! and we ate lunch ... again :) ... but it makes up for the many meals we have not had this week ! .. but the lady that lives there reminds me so much of christy black its not even funny! if he hair was blonde and she spoke english it would be her! swear it!

we went to church tonight for a youth thing ... its not really youth though ... its more like college ... but there are 4 couples getting married soon so they were celebrating them leaving the group! it was hillarious! we got into four groups and they told us how they met, how he asked her dad permission , and how he proposed .. and we got to act it out!! this was great cause sammie and jenny were one of these couples ! so i have videos but they are like 6 minutes long and they are hilarious but you might need to get a translator :) but the body language is funny enough to laugh at! ill try to up load them soon! it takes like an hour to upload one video cause of the internet connection!

this week in all has been more than we could ever had hoped for! we have finished studying 1 john and philippians and learned so much! and there have been many awkward and hilarious moments that we will NEVER forget!! hahahhah i forgot to tell yall that yesterday sammie was coming to pick us up and called to say he was outside but really he was about to be , he just wanted us to be there when he got there ... but there was a car there just like his so i went for the handle ...it was locked , but i definitely made the little kid in the back set wet his pants and we laughed and ran for the hotel ... it was hilarious i wish we could have gotten that one on video!

buenas noches amigos!

dos lunas from cbass on Vimeo.

guatemalan baby shower from cbass on Vimeo.

its an earthquake!

2009-05-21T08:13:00.008-05:00

sorry, we have been super busy and i wanted to work up a good post :)

so this morning we got locked inside our hotel and locked out from our beds :) we got up at 5 because sammi called and was going to be here at 6 to go to hebron and when we got out there we realized the door was locked and we couldnt get out ! we even rang the doorbell to wake her and it never phased her. haha so we waited till breakfast outside for them to unlock the door ... and she never even noticed we were locked out, she thought we just got up early!

yesterday we went to a guatemalan babyshower which was awesome! they played games and ate 'comida tipico' which is like typical guatemalan food ... these were paches ((not ponchos, aparently thats an alcoholic drink and when we told lorena that we had that she was like 'oh so you were out late partying' haha but we figured it out and corrected it!)) but heres a picture ... its like a tamale but its in a banana leaf and its like potatos and chicken inside .. so good!

annie, bathsheba, jackie, and i after the baby shower

yesterday after the shower we walked to the gym because we were riding home with Jessica and Jose and Jose was working with the childrens play that is tomorrow night so we waited for practice to finish ... walking over there annie was walking down stairs, and i wish i was a good enough writer to get across to you how hillarious this was but i know i wont do it justice, anyways, as annie walked down the stairs in the gym, in the center of everybody, all of the contents of the basket she was carrying flew into the air as she dived for the floor past 5 steps ... as all the women began to ask her in spanish if she was ok and people were running to her side she could not respond because she was laughing so hard, and i remained unable to help because i was on the ground laughing.

after our 5 hour nap this afternoon we were in our beds reading and they started to shake! yes sir! we just experienced an earthquake!! ... it was awesome!

ill have videos later!!

and ma - if you would empty your email or dad would check his we could probably get in touch :) love youuuuu

coffee. cheese. and chocolate.

2009-05-19T07:55:00.003-05:00

That’s what I ate yesterday , m&m’s cheese and coffee! and spaghetti but the others are the best . yesterday while we ate we sat there and talked to a guy living here for a couple days named Ali. Annie left me by myself for about 10 minutes , sad , but fine, so he asked me about what we were doing and I told him basically everything we were doing this summer … he thought it was awesome that we were working with orphans and street children and started telling me that he wants to adopt one day and how he has such a heart for those who have been abandoned. “all the time I see people getting rid of their car because they need money, or selling their house, but selling their kids, that’s ridiculous.” –ali. Feeling this way he had never heard of how life really is for some of them so I got to tell him what I have experienced and seen in Honduras. He has family in Honduras and I believe was really shocked to hear some of these things. We started talking about donating money to organizations and things and he says he doesn’t donate because hes had friends who worked for places like UNICEF and he knows the money doesn’t get where it’s suppose to half the time. I told him about FCM saying that we get to see where our money goes in the ministry and have opportunities to meet the children. He thought that was awesome. This whole time I never really talked about it as a mission trip, I talked about it the way he related it, as just caring. Eventually we started talking about the war and stuff … he’s brother is about to head back in Afghanistan … he said he wished the government would go fight the war and I laughed and a thought came to my head … why don’t they? When King David first didn’t go, look what happened!! … but anyways … it was a great talk , cool guy … and by the end as Annie and I began to walk up the stairs he said … “ I just want you to know that you girls have really encouraged me to go back to church. I’ve never really gone to church; mom was catholic , dad was muslim, and my aunts and cousins were Pentecostal, so I just never wanted anything to do with it. But seeing that you are doing all these cool things and actually helping and you’re doing it with your church, it makes me want to try it. Thanks.”

new people

2009-05-18T08:06:00.004-05:00

sorry mom , ill see what i can do about updating twice a day, thats pretty demanding!

yesterday we went to hebron church , awesomeness, very different than what we're use to , but different in a good way! we played vollyball after church until 7pm. yes, i have no voice and am dead tired! but its 7am and we're about to go to the seminary for our first day of courses... they call them courses not classes. interesting eh? ... anyways we met some really awesome people yesterday at the seminary , everyone there is from all over the world ! theres a really cool guy, which he is a cool guy because of his name .... Katlego ( cat-chle - ho). Hes from Botswana! Sweet! I practiced saying his name for hours .. still dont have it ... but it will!! And theres a girl name Rebecca from Honduras! And Sari from Mexico, Sari is like Sarita the icecream :) my favorite! .... and then my favorite girl ... shes awesome ... and her name ... dunn dunn dunn ... Bathsheba !!! .. we pronounce it as (bet-se-bah). so now we get to go hang out with these awesome people again! Ill try to take some pictures today and make a double update! Adios!

gotta love it :)

2009-05-16T16:48:00.006-05:00

great , wonderful day! we are now in spanishland stumbling over words to get around! its great though! when we got off the plane we were met by guatemalans in masks asking if we had swine flu ... so i coughed and acted like i was dying . not really, but i was going to. then we met victor outside and he took us to the car ... yes, thats right , a small car that carried the three of us and 6 50lb suitcases ... well 2 of those were carryons but i swear mine weighed more than my big suitcase. but anywayss... he brought us back here, to hotel dos lunas, which is in a really safe gated community which is awesome! and then lorena showed us our room. hahahhahaha. ill show a video ... i cant really explain it in words. .. its a bit tight , but awesome at the same time! now, we are about to get ready for dinner with the morales' ! exciting!

oh and tigo phone doesnt work , im guessing the guys in honduras messed it up ! we will figure that out soon !

the REAL sketch alley from cbass on Vimeo.

airports = smiles

2009-05-16T05:52:00.000-05:00

airport feelings in several single words:
heavy
sleepy
excitedness
peace
delta
homeland
security
open-minded
trust
yay
calmness
new
change

yeh so that's what we're thinking and feeling and experiencing right now and we're super excited about what's coming in the next couple weeks! anddd can you believe it cost money to us the internet here?! THIS is why I like bham better! Ill post pictures when I have internet access!
haha oh yeh and nathan came to the airport this morning and told me right after we got past security! sad lol

fajita flu here i come

2009-05-06T11:45:00.005-05:00

so, in three hours i will be taking my final final and will be finished with my first year at auburn! sure thats exciting ... but actually ... what is exciting is that that means we leave in 9 days and 19 hours for Guatemala! we will get there on saturday and go to our hotel, Hotel Dos Lunas ! which im super excited about ! its sad though, there are a few things here that i will miss. wednesday mornings have become the most refreshing part of my week. i will definitely miss them. one thing i wont miss is doctors appointments, which i have atleast 2 everyday next week. shoot me. but its all good cause ill be in cental america with the fajita flu in 10 days so thats all that matters!
lately ive been reading hosea cause im going to start reading redeeming love after my finals over today! ive read it before but this time im reading it in the message this time which is absolutely awesome. if you havent read the message's hosea , do it ! ... ive also been listening to brooke frasers song "hoseas wife", which has wonderful lyrics . google it.

whoaa.

2009-04-26T22:05:00.001-05:00

3 different countries

5 different cities

11 weeks

in 19 days

/////////////

get excited

airports = smiles

2009-04-01T12:29:00.005-05:00

i have been super busy and lots has gone on that ive wanted to blog about but then decided not to ... and then decided to .. but anyways . im planning to write this all and post within 5 minutes so i dont waste my precious study time ... annie and i were talking about flying the other day and decided that when we are in the airport for an hour waiting on our flight we are just going to blog single words to express how the airport makes us feel . i love the airport ... i happen to like 5 hour delays because the airport is comforting ... it means youre going somewhere . whether youre going away or youre going home .. either one is exciting and new. right now i would give everything to fly somewhere . its a feeling of relief , breathing time. i dont know, i just like airports. you get to meet cool people too . ... haha after annie and i talked about it i went back in my blog to when we were in the airport last summer ... man , those were some great times ... the flight attendant that said "Man i should go to church, thats where all the pretty girls are" hahah ... the other stories you can go back and read cause they only needed to be told once lol . but anyways. thats my 5 minutes of airports. i could have 5 minutes of many topics right now but all i have left is this ...

" I've also concluded that whatever God does, that's the way it's going to be, always. No addition, no subtraction. God's done it and that's it. That's so we'll quit asking questions and simply worship in holy fear. Whatever was, is. Whatever will be, is. That's how it always is with God."
Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 the message

oh yeh, sunday i ran out of gas on I85... it was hilarious . God definitely has a sense of humor. :)
and at our bible study last night YWAMers shared . it was cool.

funny guy! points upward

2009-03-07T14:20:00.013-06:00

i was pretty bummed that i had to spend such a beautiful sunny day inside the library studying for my 4 tests that i have this week but the Lord is faithful ... he sent me a few laughs. :)

So i'm listening to a podcast of Craig Groeschel from LifeChurch and an Asian guy walks by and looks at me ... then walks by again ... and then comes and starts looking through the books that are next to me ... which might i add are Curriculum Inquiry's that no one reads .. sooo Craig said something funny and I laughed and this guy responds , "You laughing at me?" ... so i said no, i was listening to a sermon , but that i was trying to study statistics and he pulls up a chair and tells me i need a break. So our conversation began by him asking me why it is that here at Auburn every girl has the same haircut. I told him i dont know i didnt really realize we have the same hair but i guess we do! He asked if i ever did anything interesting with my hair and I told him that it use to be longer but I cut if for Locks of Love and explained to him what that was ... his response was ... "Oh , you are a good person but you looked like a caveman!" haha so i laughed and he tried to apologize... fixing it by saying "caveWOMAN" . hahah i was just like, yeh i guess so! haha then he says that he likes it when girls wear piggytales. he says that in China girls always wear piggytales but here he only sees little girls wearing them. he asked me if i wore pigtales and i told him no , so he asked me to wear pigtales sometime this week. hahahha then we talked about the way girls dress here. He says that if i was walking around China people would think i was creepy. haha . He asked why girls dont ever dress up , "Do you not want boys to come talk to you?" hah and it didnt help that i am wearing my Go away worldchangers shirt! "Do you want me to go away?? Of course you dont! So why are you wearing a shirt that says that??" hahah.

the funniest parts was then i told him about Biscuet, that he was in China teaching english ... as i showed him biscuets blog he was awstruck by the girls at Biscuet's school. He saw Biscuet's picture of the ice swimmer, which i find hilarious, and his response was "What the h*ll?" ... so i told him that it sounded better if he said "What in the world?" instead...... but he still repeated himself when he saw the picture of the girl in the bucket !
It was a great study break, hilarious, and I think i'm going to dress up tomorrow for church. :)

92days till chocofrescas again!

martyred

2009-03-03T23:41:00.005-06:00

well... first off...

snow in auburn! from cbass on Vimeo.

so that's what i've been up to! i havent't posted in a while but here are my thoughts...
"And when the lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their witness. They called loudly to the Lord and said, "Holy and true Lord, how long will it be before you judge the people who belong to this world for killing us? When will you avenge our blood against these people?" Then a white robe was given to each of them. And they were told to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers and sisters -- their fellow servants of Jesus -- had been martyred."
Revelation 6:9-11 NLT&NCV

Francis Chan works with this ministry, Gospel for Asia. Sure we're thankful to live in this country because of the freedom we have but we have never known not having freedom that we dont really know to be thankful for it.

the best valentines present from the one who loves me ...

2009-02-13T14:57:00.004-06:00

Tuesday at bible study I gave up worrying about money for my summer.

I gave it to God. .... It's not mine to worry about.

I realized that not giving it up was not giving God the opportunity to show me how cool he is.

So ... I recieved a check yesterday.

Totaling everything up.... today God gave me everything I need for the summer.

God is Good.

David He No Fear

2009-02-10T22:27:00.005-06:00

so in our small group with the highlands we are studying "a man after God's own heart" .. David! ... I love David and doing this with highlands is going to be a lot of fun! We really liked how they started out the study and i think we're gonna learn a lot ! So the point of telling you this is because i want to tell you about how awesome childrens books are :) yesss, i actually checked 4 out of the library today! when i study on the 3rd floor of ralphs(the library) we usually are sitting near the childrens bible story books and one time we made the mistake of sitting next to them ..... no studying got done that night , but thats not the point lol. you really can learn a lot from those books! I think sometimes we think too much about stuff and try to analyze it so much that we miss the little things. Reading it from a childs viewpoint could actually help , we are suppose to have faith like a child so in a way i think we could learn from children in other ways too! I got this one book about David called "David He No Fear" ... the coolest book! It was written by a guy who was a teacher-missionary in Africa so he translated some stories in the bible to be something they could understand ... more like something an African Storyteller would share. How cool is that? These kids may have never heard this story, how cool is it that they get it translated into something they can actually understand!
So I want to share with you my favorite part :)

(when David was fighting Goliath)
The giant say
"Ho! Small boy done come
to say how-do."
David say,
"I come for fight!"
Giant say
"Do you
mommy know you out?"
David say
"Now I kill you"
.............
The sling leggo.
Hmmmmmm.............Bop.
The giant holler out
He hold him head
He turn
He try to walk
He fall
He roll
He twist about
He die.

haha oh and i think the funniest thing is that the last time this book was checked out was March 17 ............ 1993 !!! haha

Who was the greatest comedian in the bible?

2009-02-05T15:17:00.007-06:00

Samson! He brought the house down!

hahhaha annie and i have been having too much fun lately! tuesday started our new adventure in small groups the church of the highlands ! we are so excited! we picked this group because they were studying David and we had no idea it was going to be like a big group! Its really exciting though! We've met some really sweet people and the leaders of the small group are actually into missions and stuff so thats really cool! yay!

OH ... yesterday it was 18 degrees outside. Annie and I went to walmart and bought icecream.

.... then ate it in the parking lot :)

our plans for the summer are pretty final now and i just realized that i havent told yall about it yet :) may 16th we leave home sweet home for our second home sweet home, Guatemala! We will be at a seminary in Guatemala City for two weeks, Hebron Ministries! Their seminary is a 2 year program and they do a subject at a time so that they can bring good teachers in from all over the world. The first week we are there they will be starting the study of the Holy Spirit and Its Gifts and the preacher is from Virginia he's really cool! And then by the end of our time there we will have finished that and The Epistles of James and Jude! I can not tell you how excited i am about this part of our adventure! Oh its so exciting ! After our two weeks there we will go to Antigua again to Sevilla where we were last summer and Abby will be meeting us there! We will get to live with Violeta again for 3 weeks and eat chicken and noodles :) We will be taking 4 hours of spanish so that we can hike the volcano in the afternoons ! yayy! ok so then we leave guatemala the 27th of June and head to meet the church in Honduras for our mission trip with FCM ! I can't wait for Annie to get to come ! She's gonna love it ! Then on July the 3rd we will be on our way to Reynosa, Mexico to work with Casa MAMi , an girls orphanage kinda like the farm! We are so excited that this opportunity has come up and i can't wait to tell yall more about in in the future! We will get back to Alabama August 3rd! And school starts back August 17th!

Haha oh ! and we found out that at seminary we have to wear skirts that go past our knees everyday ! so annie and i had a lot of fun going through our closets last night at midnight trying on everything i owned haha . we've decided that we can just wear my strapless dresses as skirts :) i cant wait haha

Did you know its a sin for women to make coffee? Yep, its in the bible! It says "HeBrews"

hahahahhaha

ohhhh! forgot to say i finished CrazyLove and have decided Blue Like Jazz will be the one i start tonight! get ready for more deep posts hah.

haha for those of you who havent met my roomate, annie love.... meet here now :)

annie and i and our sense of humor :) from cbass on Vimeo.

ok im sorry ! last one i promise :)

Who was the greatest female financier in the Bible?

Pharaoh's daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a Little prophet.

hahahhaahh

just a big giving heart

2009-01-28T22:06:00.005-06:00

Biscuet is doing a "series" on giving and i've been thinking about it lately.
Go read it, it gets you thinking.

Dear Courtney Burke,
Hey love, i’m taking a break from my 24/7 studying and decided I needed to write you this. i always think about this and we talk about it when you’re not around but I feel like I need to say this ! You have this amazing gift that most people our age don’t have, serving. I know I don’t have it, and that’s why I think I notice it so much in you. I want you to know that when people talk about being a good servant and serving other people you are the first person I think about. You are so quick to lend a hand, but it’s not even that! People don’t even have to ask you to help , you’ll ask if you can. That’s a big deal and I don’t think you get told enough how much that means to people. You take care of your friends and you truly care. Most friends say they do, but what shows it? … Everything you do shows you care. For heavenssake, you just called to make sure I ate today cause i've been studying and you know I forget to eat when I study.... And if I had told you no, you would have brought me food. Thank you for that, being such a good friend that I could never doubt our friendship. In Luke 14:12 Jesus says “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." When I read this I think about you, you are doing exactly what the Lord asks of us and when people see you serving I hope you know that Christ shines out of you. You’re random acts of kindness and giving while not looking for anything in return encourage me to work harder at it. I really want you to know that you are such an awesome best friend. People can have awesome best friends that are nice and sweet and junk but I think to have a best friend with a serving heart, that’s the best of all. You make me try to be a better friend, yeh, you’re that good haha. I notice how much I don’t serve or give and how unwilling my heart is sometimes and you just encourage me to work at that. You are a wonderful girl and I wouldn’t/couldn’t ever ask for any better of a best friend. I love you.

ha you're not broke, be quiet

2009-01-26T21:30:00.005-06:00

If you ever talk to someone who has just gotten back from a mission trip to another country one thing you will for sure hear them say is that "we have so much, and they have so little". That is always the thing that strikes people. The fact that they have so little and yet have such joy and contentment. It makes us realize how lucky and rich we really are.
The thing is, we come back to the states and forget about it.
The first few months when I got back from Central America this summer for some reason this culture just annoyed me. I dont know any better words to describe it. I was annoyed, aggrivated, aggitated, ... So i prayed about it, and got over it.
For some reason these past few weeks I have been getting annoyed again. I feel like I have been back here for so long i'm getting back to the routine of this culture, and i dont want to.
I'm always listening to friends say that they don't have the money to do something or hear people say , "i'm broke!". You're broke? Really? So you're living on the side of the road with nothing to eat? .. Dont think so. ... How has "i'm broke" turned into meaning , i can afford zaxbys and rent but i can't pay to go on that trip so "i'm broke" , really?? YOURE RICH !
Yesterday I was remembering how excited I was to get my cellphone in Guatemala. Haha TIGO! ...

haha we were so excited to get those phones! you can probably compare that phone to the old school nokia you use to play snake on ! but we were so excited that we could store numbers and actually text that we were completely happy with it ! ... now, my texts dont send on time so i need a new phone. .... yeh right. I get a new phone in march but i can wait till then! If i'm worried about money for our trips this summer, why do i need to spend money on a new phone? I was planning on getting a nicer phone this time, i always get the ones that are like 99 cents after rebates and what not, so i decided this time i can spend money on it. No thanks, i've changed my mind. See! I'm getting back to this culture! I dont need a super sweet phone! If i can call people then thats awesome enough!! Anddd !! I have unlimited texting !! Whoa ! That should make me so excited! And it does! Yay for unlimited texting !
I have a friend who dropped their phone in water the other day, and bought a new phone first thing the next day. Oh the thought of a week without a cell phone.
Really though, where you are sitting right now I want you to look to the left and to the right. How bout right in front of you? See how rich you are ? Pshh , you have a computer!
To the right of me are two text books, both of which probably cost about $100 each if not more. The thought that i'm using them for education at a university, wow. And a starbucks coffee, think of the people who have never gotten to taste that deliciousness of a java chip frappachino!
To the left of me is a water, a bottle of ibuprofen, a notebook, and nutter butter bites. Just from buying whats to the left of me I have spent more money than what a majority of people in the world will make in a week's time. Think about that.
It's sad to me that we have to go to another country to realize what we have.
We're rich.

question ?

2009-01-22T00:16:00.002-06:00

is there such thing as a "lukewarm christian"?
or would that be an oxymoron?

you tell me...

SIFAT - Winter Retreat!

2009-01-20T14:26:00.012-06:00

we had our winter retreat at aumc this weekend !! it was so much fun! building relationships with these friends here was possibly the best thing ever! also, the place we went was really cool! SIFAT is awesome! Their goal being to share God' love thruogh service, education and personal involvement with a needy world; SIFAT works with leaders in other countries teaching them concrete ways to make a difference in the lives of the poor around the world. They train how to purify water, how to give vaccinations , and other important things that would help improve the living conditions and health of these villages and people. We stayed in a lodge that had all the flags of the countries inwhich they are involved with. I found it so relaxing to lay on the floor staring up at the Honduran flag. We decided this summer we are going to buy the Guatemalan and Honduran flag and put them in our living room next year :) yay.

This was on the wall at the lodge we stayed in. Ill put up a picture of it later, its on shannons camera ..

I was hungry and you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger. I was
imprisonedand you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.I
was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.I was sick
and you knelt and thanked God for your health. I was homeless andyou preached to
me the spiritual love of God. I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.
You seem so holy, so close to God,
But I am still very hungry --and lonely --and cold.

I love you when you give me cookies :)

2009-01-13T13:02:00.003-06:00

I have always thought this video was so cute! I was watching it again this week though and saw it in a whole new light!

How often is our love for God like this boys love for his mommy?

Do you love this God who is everything or do you just love everything He gives you?

Are we in love with God or just His stuff?

Watch the movie again … this time think about you being the boy and talking to God.

We love God when he gives us stuff … healing, friendships, belonging, financial security, cookies….

But what are our feelings toward God when there is death, broken friendships, discomfort, debts, green beans …

I want to be able to say yeah, I am in love with God, Abba … even when he gives me green beans.

crazylove

2009-01-11T12:31:00.007-06:00

i finished the shack thursday and now am on my next book of the semester ! ... Crazy Love by Francis Chan. My good friend Hannah gave me this book for Christmas and its wonderful !

Growing up in church I have always heard that God is Holy. We say it so much though, do we really think about what it means when we say it? Websters defines the word holy as : exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousnes. Yeh, thats right. Thats a big deal though, and we don't make it out to be. I think when we say holy we should say whoaaa afterwards. That makes more sense considering what it really means. God is Holy...whoaaaaa !!!

In Crazy Love Chan says "To say that God is holy is to say that He is set apart, distinct from us. And because of His set apart-ness, there is no way we can ever fathom all of who He is. To the Jews, saying something three times demonstrated its perfection, so to call God "Holy, Holy, Holy" is to say that He is perfectly set apart, with nothing and no one to compare Him to. That is what it means to be 'holy'"

God is Holy, Holy, Holy ...Whoaaaaa!

My question to you ...

"Isn't it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?" -Chan

... oh yes!

God is a verb.

2009-01-07T01:38:00.009-06:00

God is a verb.
-Buckminister Fuller

God is a verb. What is a verb?
Its like an action or a state of being.
What is a noun?
A person, place, or thing.
So as i'm reading this book its explaining that God is a verb. "Verbs such as confession, epenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, signing and on and on." Isn't that a sweet awesome way to see God? I never thought of it !

So here Sarayu, or the Holy Spirit, is talking saying " I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active, and moving. I am being a verb."

"Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules: something growing and alive physical reality, but if the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am', there are no verbs, and verbs are what makes the universe alive."

Yes, so ... God is a verb. That's exciting.

facebook

2009-01-03T22:58:00.009-06:00

as of wednesday jan7th do not bother searching 'courtney bass' on facebook because you will not find me ! after much prayerful thought i have decided to get rid of it for this semester ... many people have asked why and i said that there are too many to name so i would just blog it later. and now that i left my book in athens and am in an empty apartment with no guitar i decided instead of getting on facebook i could let you know why im getting rid of it. and know that im not saying you should get rid of your facebook now, facebook is awesome ! first of all, do you have any idea how much time is wasted on facebook? really, there were tons of things i had planned to do over my break but didnt get to them because every free moment i had i was on facebook. if i spent half as much time reading my bible than i did on facebook i would have felt way better about the way i spent my break. second, too much information! i really love the way bluefish tv put it ...

its the truth , no i dont put that information on there but others do and i really dont want to see all of it. and when it comes to people you dont know , it doesnt really matter if you mean to, you can just start clicking on peoples pictures and wind up seeing pictures of a million people that you dont even know and really, why are you looking at their pictures? you just wasted 30 minutes.
third, i have things i want to get done this semester. goals and desires. all will come much sooner if i eliminate facebook from the mix. i want to read more of the bible and some of the fuller library. i want to learn more of God and encounter him and worship him through everything this semester. i want to get better at the guitar, i want to learn. i want good grades. i study a lot but we will see if studying - facebook will = better grades. learning , thats the key word. and facebook does not help me with this at all. actually , God's shown me that its having the opposite affect, so i need to eliminate it.
finally, i want to point it out that i dont think everyone should delete their facebook now, i think facebook rocks and i love it, i just need to do without for some time. i just want to point out this.... how many of you that have facebook have ever said that facebook is addicting? or youve heard it tons of times? ... "its addictive" "im addicted" "its so addicting !" really??? when did the word addiction become a good word? if you heard someone say " he has an addiction" you would think drugs , alcohol, or porn or something like that. now , have you ever hear someone say they are addicted to the Bible? i want to be. and i really think that if you use the term and its not concerning something spiritual to help you grow, then its probably not the best for you. thats just my thoughts on it.
i'm getting rid of it for this semester for these reasons and because I feel like thats what God wants me to do right now. Kind of fasting from facebook. Ill get it back when summer starts so i can keep in touch with friends but i think that after this time without i will not waste so much of my time on there later. i'm excited for this little adventure. life without facebook? oh i never thought the day would come ! im going to miss it terribly, and thats exactly why i need to get rid of it ! :)

I'm God's favorite! He's got eyes only for me!

2009-01-01T17:35:00.006-06:00

"Mackenzie, you cannot produce trust
just like you cannot 'do' humility. It
either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of a
relationship in which you know you
are loved. Because you do not know
that I love you, you cannot trust me."
- Sarayu or The Holy Spirit in The Shack by William Young

So i've been reading the shack . ... annie read it at the begining of the semester and said it was good but she didnt want to ruin it so i wanted to read it but never picked it up. then before christmas break jeff was reading it and couldnt help but spoil it a little for me which just made me want to read it even more so i stole moms copy over break and ive been reading it ! now , its definitely a book you have to look at with open eyes. Young does decribe God in a very descriptive and certain way that some may think puts God in a box ... but he's not saying that God is a black woman, he's trying to say that the possiblities are endless and no one could ever convey any close decription because once you think you know, He just gets bigger!

So the quote at the begining is the quote that caught my eye. I thought I understood trust until i read this. I have never thought of it this way. Its so true though. When i think back at my moments of learning what trust was and how to trust. Its all about love.

Berlin was the one person that I have seen complete and total trust in God. She love him so much too, and she understood how much he loved her. When I refused to trust him, because he took her, it was because I didn't understand God's love for me. I didn't realize that till just now. That I wasn't able to trust God for so long, because I didn't know that he loved me so. But he does, he loves ME a whole lot :)

He's shown me a lot about his love over the past month. The day of the last encounter he threw it all on me, and I have no clue why. That morning on my way to calculus I had my ipod on How He Loves Us by Kim Walker. Man , these words are amazing !

He is jealous for me
Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of
His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are
for me
Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.
...
So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we're all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently
inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the
way
That he loves us,
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves us
Woah, how He loves

He loves me! And thats what he told me that morning. I was thinking about all of the things that had gone wrong the past few months and all the things that have changed and things friends are going through and in ever one of those instances God didn't remind me of how it stinks. He showed me how he loves me in every one of those situations. I can't really explain it that well. Thats the best I can do.

Then that afternoon after Nicole ended up back in the hospital and mom said Scottie passed away and Uncle Sammy was having having surgery, God showed up and said he loved me.

That night at encounter Matt read his little one's childrens bible to tell the Christmas Story. April picked this book for her children because of its emphasis on how God loves his children. And wow, it was perfect. First Matt read about Abraham being willing to give his son and how heart broken he was. Then he read of God giving his son, he loved his son soo much, but it was because he loved us that he gave him up.

We've heard the story many times. But this time when I read it... I thought of Stew, the last Dive , when we surrounded him, prayed for him, while he weeped thinking he might loose his son that had yet been born. Can you picture God weeping like that? Think of the pain of loosing a child? He loved ME... THAT MUCH. And that's .... it's kind of a big deal.

God loves you. Remember that!

Pocketfull of Rocks has a song that says "I'm God's favorite! He's got eyes only for me!" and they explained this at their concert. When you have kids, you can't pick favorites, you cant say I love you more than the other.... you don't have enough love to go around like that! ... but guess what ! ... God does ! God has enough love so that I can be his favorite , and you can be his favorite , and that guy in the broken down car on Bell Road .. yehh, he's Gods favorite too ! Isn't that just EXCITING !

wordle

2008-12-05T22:40:00.006-06:00

so theres this thing called wordle! its awesome!! these are my wordles and i thought it was awesome so im gonna share it with you :) this one to the right is my twitter wordle! this thing takes the words used and jubbles them up , big words are used the most! haha i love this one how noodles chicken and hair are big hah cause it was everyday. makes me miss it so!

so this one is my my testimony wordle!

how cool :) i put my testimony in the wordle and it gave me this. haha really.

so this is my blogger wordle! i put this blog in wordle and this is what i got! and i would like to point out for Mrs. Karen Dilbeck that the word COOL is not even on here!! haha ... while i was in guatemala she bet that i couldnt make a post without writing cool. ... .well i did it :)

you can click them and it will make it bigger!

http://www.wordle.net/ .. do it !

2008-11-21T12:16:00.003-06:00

i cant believe this semester is almost over! after thanksgiving we have finals then a month off for christmas! cant wait! the next couple of weeks are going to be hectic though, and most of the time will probably be spent in the library! actually, my whole semester has been spent in the library, "Ralph's". One of my favorite things that we have gotten to do this semester is take our breaks from studying at Chewacla ! The picture is of us at the waterfall a couple of weeks ago! We usually walk down the hill to the waterfall, down the rocks, and then straight up the rocks (my favorite part!) ... works perfectly with my shoes :)

peacock :)

2008-11-03T23:21:00.004-06:00

here are a few pics from halloween! we went to a party with a bunch of friends from AUMC. it was a lot of fun! saturday i went with my friend shannon to dothan and had a little incident with a horse haha. something spooked him while i was riding him back to the pasture and he took off in the other direction. he wouldnt stop and eventually threw me off and i ended up rolling through bushes and briers . i was laughing , it was hilarious.. ha, i'm paying for it now though!

after we looked for the horse for 2 hours we eventually left and went to the peanut festival! it was fun! on one ride where you sit facing the people in front of you, we were talking to them and i told the lady in front of me that i havent riden this ride in a while cause last time the person in front of me threw up and it went all over me. ... hahah and 2 minutes later she had a funny face and i asked her if she was ok, she shook her head and turned to the side and puked. the guy turned off the ride and she got off! she made sure she didnt get any on me though! i felt so bad for ever bringing it up! she was ok though, and we left and went on to the next ride! haha it was an eventful weekend!! :)

i am ...

2008-10-17T11:54:00.003-05:00

I am a part of the fellowship of the Unashamed.
I have the Holy Spirit Power.
The die has been cast.
I have stepped over the line.
The decision has been made.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I won't look back, let up, slow down,
back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed,
my present makes sense,
and my future is secure.
I am finished and done with low living,
sight walking, small planning, smooth knees,
colorless dreams, tame visions,mundane talking,
chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity,
position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity.
I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized,
praised,regarded, or rewarded.
I now live by presence, learn by faith,
love by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power.
My pace is set, my gait is fast,
my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow,
my way is rough, my companions few,
my Guide is reliable, my mission is clear.
I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred,
lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed.
I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice,
hesitate in the presence of adversity,
negotiate at the table of the enemy,
ponder at the pool of popularity,
or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won't give up, back up, let up,
or shut up until I've preached up,
prayed up, paid up, stored up,
and stayed up for the cause of Christ.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I must go until He returns,
give until I drop,
preach until all know,
and work until He comes.

And when He comes to get His own,
He will have no problem recognizing me.
My colors will be clear for ...
"I am not ashamed of the Gospel,
because it is thepower of God for
the salvation of everyone who believes.." (Romans 1:16)

BACON

2008-10-06T18:46:00.003-05:00

broken but singing, our hearts keep shining

2008-09-27T10:08:00.007-05:00

so, i want you to go read matt dean's latest post. "shine - part 2" (thurs sept 25)

... as you hold fast to the word of life..." Phil 2:16a.

so basically thurday night he showed the video thats on his blog and said how awesome it was that these people still give it all right back to God. this got to me. me and my friend shannon had just gotten finished talking about Berlin. if i hadnt had gone through Berlin's death then I dont know what i would have done this summer. It was that i was countries away, depending on blog posts, and calls from mom to find out what was going on with Matthew. And as badly as I wanted to be in Guatemala right then, I didnt want anything but to be home. I wanted to hug Toni. I couldnt do that though cause I was countries away. God prepared me for it though. He's good.

What I do want to say in this post though is how amazing Toni Burnham is. if you go to Matthew's CaringBridge you can see this for youself. No matter what happened or what difficulties came, they never once stopped praising Him. And they continue to amaze me all the time. They still update the blog with thoughts and verses and prayers. Their strength amazes me... but of course it would, its straight from the Father. Anyways, this one is for Toni. I hope when I have children one day I can be as strong as this woman.

Broken but singing

Our hearts keep shining

cómo se dice war eagle en español?

2008-09-12T23:09:00.006-05:00

so i havent posted in forever so theres no way i can update you on everything thats gone on ! ill try to capture the important parts !

one. abby and i are going to guatemala in dec. for a week. i plan on taking my new shoes and we're so hiking the volcano this time :)

two. im hoping maybe we can go to honduras the last weekend we're there ... ohh i would be in heaven if that worked out.

three. encounter was ah - mazee - ingg last night ! i wasnt gonna go cause i had a psyc test to study for but i went anyway. oh and i am so glad that i did! ... so this week we split up and had encounter at different locations. it was awesome. the group i chose to go to was the "work" group. at the begining matt shared his testimony of how he was led to the ministry , which was great. then we split up boys and girls, which suprisingly enough there were 10 girls! yehh! 10 girls who chose to take time out of their thursday night to go to a meeting for those felt led to the ministry. so we pretty much just went around the room and shared callings. it was awesome!! and such a variety! we sat there and just talked. like old friends. it was like because of this connection we have through the Lord we can talk about anything . it was great. and i think it was what every one of us needed. it started out with an "have yall experienced thiss...." and was followed by a YES! Yeh! and yehh!'s and ended ... well, when matt said we couldnt talk anymore! we're suppose to be doing this again in a couple of weeks but the Lord has really put this on my heart. I think we're probably gonna get together again soon and im going to see how they feel about making it a more common thing. theres so much more to say about that night but i think i can stop there.

four. we went looking for a futon for my bedroom at home today. they want to make it a play room. funny , isnt it?

five. i could talk all day about how i love auburn. i want you all to know that i really do love it here. ... it just doesnt compare.

six. last one. im trying to talk my dad into getting his passport. :)

what I need is love

2008-07-17T22:56:00.010-05:00

i like 50-year olds. these past few days i got to spend my time with the ladys of the church for my mom and mrs.karens birthday. it was great too cause it was at the beach :) i had a wonderful time , even if they are getting pretty old! :) every night i someone told a testimoney and tuesday night my name got picked. it was pretty cool. the first time i have gotten to share my full testimoney with the women that have watched me grow up. i was really nervous. im not perfect, and of course i hate reminding people of that. lol. God is so good though. It really took a big weight off of my shoulders. He told me I was going to have to do it before we got there so i was kinda prepared. It was really cool to watch him work this week.

Wednesday I went with CBurke to a church to talk about FCM. I told them about the farm and the shelter and some of the boys stories. Afterwards a lady came and asked us if we went around to churchs and talked , haha i told her it was our first time and she was shocked! lol Made me feel a little better cause i thought i was all over the place, but I guess God got the message he wanted to share across. It was for a vbs thing. i was speaking to the parents but the kids were in there so i couldnt really talk about drugs and killing and abuse much. which, sadly, without those words its hard to tell any of the boys stories. but by the end of the night, we were asked to share at two more churches , to their youth groups , and a few people asked for information because they want to go! ... How cool is God?

I was really hoping I could go on the medical mission trip in august but there isnt a spot on the team. Its cool with me though! Obviously, God doesnt want me to go on this one. The leader has my number and if someone ends up not being able to go then i can have their spot. So we'll just wait and see how God works that out!

Heres a video . Below is the translation. Its the song of our boys. Prepare yourself. Its not easy to read. And imagine all the boys at the shelter singing this. Thats how it was the first time i heard the song, and there wasnt a dry eye in the place.

The Boys' Song from cbass on Vimeo.

I'm hungry

i'm cold

and I need to go to sleep

Hoping there is someone who can help me

I'm shaking of cold

Dressed with the same clothes

A man comes by and gives me some coins

then he leaves

I dont need any money
I dont need any compassion
What I need is love
What I need is love.

After walking for hours
I get to this place called home
My dad is drunk
And beating my mom

And I had cry for hours

There are no more tears

So I go out screaming out loud,

What I need is LOVE

Every night im on my knees

and it comes out of my heart

"God, I'm here by myself
Thank you for giving me the opportunity

To Live."

I dont need any money

I dont need any compassion

What I need is love

What I need is love.

ulitimo dia :(

2008-06-27T11:05:00.004-05:00

pan de banano

for familys in antigua that much bread will last a week.

for us, it lasted 5 hours.

abby and her teacher

so we're leaving in the morning at 4! ugio said we didnt have to leave at three cause there shouldnt be any traffic on our way there! thats good! so we're resting this afternoon! tomorrow lori is going to pick us up at the airport and we're going straight to the shelter! we are SOO excited!! im going to try to keep updating the blog while in honduras! i dont know how often i will be able to write but i will definately do my best!!
oh yeh, on our way home from honduras mine and abbys flight got canceled lol yay . but not. cause we still have to come home! so noww we're leaving with the team in san pedro then staying the night in houston and coming home saturday.. so now were going to be in houston for 4th of july. any ideas of stuff to do in houston? not shopping! definately dont need to spend any more money! were staying in a pretty nice hotel so we might just kick it back in the pool and chill. im sure there will be fireworks somewhere.
so anyways! were getting out of school early today to get some rest! ill post sometime in honduras! probably sunday!! i miss all of yall at home and we'll be home in almost a week!!
gosh , this time have really flown by. el tiempo pasado muy rapido.

this is the pet store in antigua. thought it was cool!

pet store from cbass on Vimeo.

this is for hunter and rush.

2008-06-26T11:16:00.000-05:00

i am linsey lohan. from cbass on Vimeo.

esto es lo que ella dijo...

2008-06-25T13:12:00.002-05:00

... that means "That's what she said." :)

theses past two days have been really fun! we've had more hours in the afternoon than usual because were not having class friday afternoon. so me and abby and our teachers have been playing games in the afternoon to pass the time!! scrabble in spanish and this game where you write a name of a famous person on a piece of paper and tape it to the other persons forehead . it was so funny!! i wrote linsey lohan and i have a video of when the teacher figured out who she whats and she said " Soy Linsey Lohan? Hola! I am Linsey Lo han" haha it was hillarious. ill post it tomorrow .

i have a video of the farmacia. i just thought it was too funny for only a picture.

farmacia from cbass on Vimeo.

park. from cbass on Vimeo.

worms.

2008-06-24T08:55:00.004-05:00

enlarge this picture so you can see

annas boyfriend staring at her.

pretty picture of Sur. the volcano.
the clouds we really low and i thought it was awesome.
i forgot to post this last week :)

we got flowers for violeta.

soo. not much to update on. last night we ate cauliflower. abby had a worm in hers and stopped eating it. i ate all of mine. so i have no clue how many worms i ate. i thought it was kinda funny. :)

honduras in 4 days !

parade! from cbass on Vimeo.

chimal

2008-06-23T11:08:00.007-05:00

saturday in chimaltenango..

abby with the ninas...
isnt this wonderful!! they had little pigs!!!:)
this is luis! he goes to the church and plays guitar for them

and he helps the team with the construction stuff.

we had a blast this weekend in chimaltentango! friday brother jim and mrs. amy picked us up and we stayed in chimal till sunday! saturday we built two houses and played with kids in a village in chimaltenango! it was lots of fun!! i cant wait to see what God's going to do with their trip while theyre down here! Yesterday we went to Millie and Daniels church again. Millies father went to the states last week after we had fathers day lunch with him last Sunday. The day after he got there he had a heartattack and now is having open heart sugery today. Millie is flying to the states today to be with him during this time. I would really appreciate all of you keeping them in your prayers. They were going to the states for Millies mom to get her citizenship because they always go to the states to sing for latin churchs. They dont have any insurance and they are really worried about everything.

this is us with the view of chimal from the mission house sunday morning!

abby and the girls in the tuke tuke!

it was fun! we couldnt all fit into one so we had two

different ones but they drove beside each othe

.. till a car almost hit us lol

james and me in the tuke tuke!

some of us in antigua!

Ive really enjoyed being here for so long and i still love it but right now I really wish i could be at home. Matthews funerals today, and I so wish i could be there. Please keep Toni and her family in your prayers. I know God used this precious baby to bring many people to him and now he is with Jesus now.

I have some videos today and ill have more tomorrow.
Less than a week till Honduras!! YAY!

music in the park. from cbass on Vimeo.

chimal casas. from cbass on Vimeo.

james esta loca. ha. a. from cbass on Vimeo.

....food.

2008-06-20T11:27:00.003-05:00

You want to feel like youre here with us?
Go make you an egg.
Make it like an omelet and dont put anything in it.
...except 3 tablespoons of salt.
Then eat it.
And crunch the salt in your teeth.
Yep, thats what we eat every morning.

We havent had a meal yet without hair in it.

I dont think i can express how excited we are to go back to Daniel and Millies this weekend.
Tomorrow we might get to help them build houses in a village with them.

Yesterday we passed a man on the street begging a couple of times so I bought a meal from Pollo Campero and gave it to him. I just said Jesus loves you and he said thank you.

I know a lot of people read this , people i know and people i dont know. But i have one request of all of you. On the right there is a link to baby matthew updates. I work with this little boys mom at OB-GYN and this is an amazing family. They are in need right now of a lot of prayer for their baby boy and I would really appreciate it if yall could check out the site and pray for him.

so heres the video of the day:
mcdonalds in guatemala is whole lot faster than in the states.

mcdonalds mas rapido. from cbass on Vimeo.

for you mrs.patricia!

2008-06-19T13:04:00.004-05:00

click on it and it should work this time! dont know why it hasnt been!!

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=0285e1a0f7227e12feb4

God is great!

millie thought i was taking a picture. :) and i love daniel and maniolo in this one.

millies smile. from C Bass on Vimeo.

what day is it again?

2008-06-18T13:08:00.005-05:00

chocofrescas!! [chocolate covered strawberries :) ]

this is diego! and the puppies!

on our way home from guatecity sunday
at dinner! diego and his little cousin!
...this is at the market. fake passports.

and you wonder why we have so many illegals.

i took this picture cause i knew jerm and ham would enjoy it...

this is an advertisement for a pharmacy in the market

i would never go to a pharmacy with scrubs as the advertisement

i printed off some bible verses and a little salvation brazelete paper and my teacher and i have been going over "romans road map" and important spanish to know conserning salvation.

she always says, "interesante, interesante"

i fixed that video. this is the tuke tuke. guatemalan taxi.

thats all for the day.

videos and picturess...

2008-06-17T11:06:00.009-05:00

its fathers day in Guatemala!! Feliz Dia Papa!!

i have videos! tuke tuke and mcdonalds! the mcds is HUMONGO!! there is internet in there, thers a McCafe. and a park, and a garden, and a play place!! its awesome!! oh yeh! and they have mc patatas!!

yesterday we talked with violeta at dinner, it was really cool. it was like a normal dinner . (lol the first)

i just had a converstation with my teacher about heaven and hell. it was really awesome. she was describing heaven as where the good people go so i asked her how she thought people got to heaven and we actually had a long converstation about it. she tried to explain it to me and never said anything about a relationship or God. So i told her how I believe people get to heaven in the best spanish way i could. I told her that you had to have a relationship with God. Then she started talking about repentance and said that a person must really mean it. It was a really awesome talk and I hope to have more conversations with her like this.

mom, to answer your question, it was in spanish. :)
thats church! and they had puppies!!!!!

fin al semana , that mean weekend

2008-06-16T14:41:00.006-05:00

I hope all of yall had a wonderful weekend!!! Sounds like Pike Road was awesome Sunday and I really hate I missed it!! We went to a church in Chimaltenango with Daniel and Millie (friends of Anna’s) . We spent the night at their house Saturday and Sunday night! Daniel is the pastor and Millie helps lead worship! they had band practice saturday night at the house! it was so much fun! we got to sit around and sing with them!! .... and i got to bang on the guitar a little!! it was fun!! so sunday was great! then after church we went to guate city and ate a wonderful wonderful lunch. like oh my goodness, wynfrey buffet wonderful. it was buffet and had all the desserts you could ever imagine. we are coming home GORDO. then we went to see IRONMAN .... in spanish! lol it was awesome!! we got home really late and daniel brought us to school this morning! we are tired, but we had an awesome weekend. Oh yeh, and Saturday we went to the market before we went to Millie's and bargained and got a bunch of stuff!! oh, and we road a Guatemalan taxi called a Tuke Tuke! lol there will be a video of that later!!

Oh, HANNAH! Thanks for giving my dad a hug for me on fathers day!! You are awesomeee.

Oh, i decided on my next trip far away from home , I want to go to Israel.

Dont know what else to put. Abby and I cant wait for Honduras!! This just makes us want to go even more! I know big things are going to happen and I cant wait!!

Adios!!

yo tengo un otro video de tigo. ( i have another tigo video)

hola

2008-06-13T11:16:00.006-05:00

antes

despues

Hola mis amigos! So what do I need to tell yall?! First of all! We went horseback riding around Antigua! One hour and thirty minutes of galloping down a street of rocks!! Haha it was so much fun though! Hahah anna almost died! Annas horse stopped in the middle of the street and she couldn’t get it to move! Haha to guy taking us around had to get off his horse and get her out of the street because cars we coming after her! lol After that we went to the market! Oh yeh, we got cellphones the other day! How awesome is that! Guatemalan cellphones! lol theres a video below expressing our excitement! I don’t think I’m gonna get the guitar. I don’t know if I could get it through the airport in Guatemala city and I really don’t think im gonna feel like it! Mine and abbys flight leaves at 6:15 so we have to leave Antigua at THREE IN THE MORNING!! (and poor annas flight doesnt leave till 8:15 but she still has to wake up with us !) But its ok, we get to spend the day with the boys at the shelter all by ourselves! That will be fun!
This weekend I wont get to post because we are going to be in Chimaltenango with Annas friends from there! We are going to church with them Sunday and get back late sunday! So I wont be able to post again till Monday!! (Stinks i know!)

Im trying put some videos on here but it takes a while!!

Anyways! Adios! Te amo!

hahahah oh , and me and anna just played spanish scrabble with our teachers lol at the end anna needed an E and i had an L and gave it to her and she used her pen to make it an E and put it on the board and my teacher though it was hillarious because she thought anna was hiding the letter, she never even noticed that she wrote on it!! (word of the day is poner)

whoa

2008-06-12T13:14:00.001-05:00

so, short post. no pictures. no videos. cool story.

abby prayed for my mouth last night.
it doesnt hurt any more.
amen.

So you think you’ve had a hot shower?

2008-06-11T13:20:00.006-05:00

So I learned something very useful yesterday! In Guatemala, to get hot water, you have to turn the nob to the right, even though it will turn off, but don’t turn it all the way. lol anna started my shower yesterday and taught me how to use it. I was so happy, the mirror was foggy when I got out :]
I have videos of our walk to school and of a little girl at a store that was playing ball with us but i couldnt get the videos to upload so maybe tomorrow! sorry!!
Oh and ill have a video of the kitchen in our house. Violeta doesn’t let us take pictures in the kitchen . I don’t know why. The video is also Abby and Anna talking about their teachers!
So, yesterday I got to tell Zoila about Honduras and Finca Grace . I told her Juan Carlos and Samuels story. I told her about the ninos de la calle (street kids) .. she said that there are more street kids in Honduras and Nicaragua than there are in Guatemala. She was really surprised when I told her about most of this stuff. She said in Guatemala she likes the Christian church more than the Catholic church because she said that the Christian church helps more with the poor than the Catholic church. She said she thinks it is muy importante to help others and to show the love of Christ. She had some very interesting stuff to say . Next week I am taking my bible and she want to teach me important words for the bible. But the bible uses vosotros a lot . y no me gusta vosotros.
Interesting night, last night. I woke up in the middle of the night like 3 times. Blahh.
A girl yelled war eagle at us yesterday on the streets of Antigua.
We didn’t get to get the cellphone because it took so long for me to get my travelers checks cashed. We had to go to 3 different banks. I do not advise travelers checks next time.
I found a guitar for 47 dollars . Should I buy it? I want your feedback. I don’t know if I could get it to Honduras but I know if I got it to Honduras I could probably just leave it there with the boys. Its just a cheap one, but its something to play.
We got the transmitter for the outlet! So hopefully I can update more. We don’t have internet at the house, but we can type up the blog and put it on the internet as soon at we get to school, which is what I’m doing! So anyways! Hope you enjoy the movies!! We miss you all !! ! Te amo!!

“My heart rejoices in the Lord!
The Lord has made me strong.
Now I have an answer for my enemies;
I rejoice because you rescued me.
No one is holy like the Lord!
There is no one besides you;
there is not Rock like our God.

Stop acting so proud and haughty!
Don’t speak with such arrogance!
For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done;
He will judge your actions.
The bow of the mighty is now broken,
and those who stumbled are now strong.
Those who were well fed are now starving,
and those who were starving are now full.
The childless woman how had seven children,
and the woman with many children wastes away.
The Lord gives both death and life;
He brings some down to the grave but raises others up.
He lifts the poor from the dust
and the needy from the garbage dump.
He sets them among princes
placing them in the seats of honor.
For all the earth is the Lord’s,
and he has set the world in order.

“He will protect his faithful ones,
but the wicked will disappear in darkness.
No one will succeed by strength alone.
Those who fight against the Lord will be shattered.
He thunders against them from heaven;
the Lord judges throughout the earth.
He gives power to his king;
He increases the strength of his anointed one.”
-Hannah (1 Samuel 2)

so you think YOUVE taken a cold shower?

2008-06-10T13:15:00.006-05:00

BOB MARLEY!

Hey yall! Sorry I havent been able to update very well!! But heres a good one!!
So the flights and everything were great! We didn’t even sit in the Houston airport! We got wendys and starbucks and made it to our flight just in time!! Didn’t even run :] on the flight to Houston we meet a guy named Scott , he was pretty cool. And on the flight to G-city I met a girl named taylor that was with a mission called Operation Central America. They were going all around Guatemala and El Salvador for two weeks doing dramas and artsy stuff it was pretty cool! There was about 20 youth in there group! When we got to the Guatemala airport it was pretty interesting. Ugio met us with a sign saying COURTNEY ABBY Y ANNA A SEVILLA! Hahah we rode with him to Antigua for 45 minutes and he spoke absolutely nooo English. It was cool though!
When we got to the house Violeta met us at the door and showed us to our rooms ! we have keys and everything!! WE DO WHAT WE WANT!! Its awesome! Haha . We forgot she doesn’t cook on Sundays so we ate mac and cheese that we brought from the states . hhaha and we couldn’t get the microonda to work so we had to go to the store next door and ask if we could use theirs. You guessed it! He didn’t speak English either!! Its cool though, that’s why we’re here.
Sunday night after we went to bed I prayed over annas room. Didn’t really know why. But I guess I could feel fear coming from there. The next day I told anna and she was like cool. I wasn’t afraid and went right to sleep. And if you know anna that’s a pretty big deal cause this is the 18-year old that’s still afraid of the dark. Gods Cool!
So yesterday was our first day of class! It was great! We all LOVE our teachers ! Mine is named Zoila. She lives right outside of Antigua and rides the bus here everyday. She is Catholic. She listens to musica cristiana. And says that a relationship con dios es muy importante. Which is really cool. We talk about God a lot! Oh yeh, and we hold hands and say the blessing for every meal and we asked Violeta to join. She seemed confused the first few times but now she seems to like it. She says “Bien , Bien, Muy Bien.” When we say the blessing. She has Psalms 91 on the front door. I think she is catholic , but I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it.
Hmm. What else do I need to say. Oh yeh, the roads are made of rocks and ive only tripped twice! :]
Oh yeh, so you think you’ve taken a cold shower? Think again! My legs HURT .. like PAINN because the water is so freezing and its cold outside. My legsss… HURRT. That’s all I have to say about that.
Oh, our food. We haven’t had a meal we liked so far. I liked the tacos we had last night they were like tacquitos but she said they were tacos. Abby wasn’t crazy bout um though. When we have dinner I kind of think about what Patricia and the others said about mexico, I eat everything I don’t like cause I don’t want to offend her. :\ its all good though! We’re having a great time and haven’t come into any trouble…yet :]
OH yeH!! And we’re buying cellphones!! They cost 12 dollars!! 12 DOLLARS! Seriously! How cool!
Ummm… cant think of much more that I can inform you of right now. We are about to go to la casa to eat lunch! Ill update sometime tomorrow!

we´re here!

2008-06-09T17:10:00.003-05:00

sorry i havent been able to update!!! at our house we have outlets with two holes not three and abbys laptop has to have three!! hopefully i can update with pictures a little later :) i also have a video of the house so i can give yall a tour ! yay! soo .. thanks ham. our host home, Violeta , speaks nooooo english.. but its not that bad! we can understand most everything and its gone pretty well so far!! its raining right now and we have only gotten to walk around the town a little bit though. the school is pretty cool though!

quote of the day:

¨I think i´m going to start going to church!

Thats where all the pretty girls are!¨

-the 40 year old flight attendant

[ me and abby were reading our bibles :) ]

airport experience

2008-06-08T07:30:00.002-05:00

we are here!! ... in the airport that is!

the man sitting right behind us just flatulated .

kind of disturbing. but we will be in guatemala soon!

yay for guatemalan men! haha (for you hamilton)

OHH! We're BOARDING! ADIOS!

... 13 inches

2008-06-06T17:10:00.011-05:00

locks of love :]
haircut!

13 inches!

and noww... my hair is all gone!! but i do think waylen did a wonderful job!!! i love the new doo!

we leave in 1 day.. 14 hours .. 18 minutes .. and 34 seconds. yay!

im so excited i cant contain myself! we will be living with a lady named Violeta Leal who lives with her son in Antigua. She will be cooking and taking care of us for the next three weeks so i cant wait to meet her! abby is on her way to montgomery right now! we are all having a nice american dinner tomorrow night and then hitting the road at about 3:30am sunday! we are all so excited though!! i am taking Violeta a church cookbook and some dove chocolate :] cant wait!!

... one more week!

2008-05-29T09:56:00.004-05:00

Trying to test this blogger thing out before it gets too busy and we leave to GUATEMALA!! I wanted to have a way to update everyone on whats goin on! im not exactly sure how often i am going to write on this thing. but im gonna try to keep yall updated :]

cbass

Last week in Guate at AOJ

honduras in a nutshell

street ministry

finca grace

The team is here!

im alive!

highlands in guate

El Meson

hard work

from tortilla's to TGI Fridays

in the city

Tim Tebow

Prison and Tents

Haïti [Ayiti]

Haiti? What?

adopt-a-block

city adventure

lava!

we painted the girls room!

our new year

feliz año!

back .. and gone :)

SURPRISE!

new country

another great day in a land of peace

war eagle

rice and beans

blackout

honduras

ultimo dia

guatemalan adventures

Matthew 15

medical day

dont drink the water

happy birthday cliffy

ninos :)

CHICKADEEWOW!

ending part 1 of the summer

guatemala = laughs and embarrassing moments

its an earthquake!

coffee. cheese. and chocolate.

new people

gotta love it :)

airports = smiles

fajita flu here i come

whoaa.

airports = smiles

funny guy! *points upward*

martyred

the best valentines present from the one who loves me ...

David He No Fear

Who was the greatest comedian in the bible?

just a big giving heart

ha you're not broke, be quiet

question ?

SIFAT - Winter Retreat!

I love you when you give me cookies :)

crazylove

God is a verb.

facebook

I'm God's favorite! He's got eyes only for me!

wordle

peacock :)

i am ...

BACON

broken but singing, our hearts keep shining

cómo se dice war eagle en español?

what I need is love

ulitimo dia :(

this is for hunter and rush.

esto es lo que ella dijo...

worms.

chimal

....food.

for you mrs.patricia!

what day is it again?

videos and picturess...

fin al semana , that mean weekend

hola

funny guy! points upward