Week One: Mexico Mission!

The first week of Mexico has been so blessed.  We had a short term trip with us.  And what I great way to start out the mission! With a renewing of fire and love for Evangelization and the poor.  
During one of my daily prayer times I asked the Lord to give me a verse for my year of missions.  He gave me Psalm 27.   This Psalm is beautiful and speaks to me of no matter what trials come my way, each day I will live for God’s Kingdom.

The Lord is my light and my salvation—

   whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life—

   of whom shall I be afraid?

When the wicked advance against me

   to devour me,

it is my enemies and my foes

   who will stumble and fall.

Though an army besiege me,

   my heart will not fear;

though war break out against me,

   even then I will be confident.

One thing I ask from the Lord,

   this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

   all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord

   and to seek him in his temple.

For in the day of trouble

   he will keep me safe in his dwelling;

he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent

   and set me high upon a rock.

Then my head will be exalted

   above the enemies who surround me;

at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;

   I will sing and make music to the Lord.

Hear my voice when I call, Lord;

   be merciful to me and answer me.

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”

   Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Do not hide your face from me,

   do not turn your servant away in anger;

   you have been my helper.

Do not reject me or forsake me,

   God my Savior.

Though my father and mother forsake me,

   the Lord will receive me.

Teach me your way, Lord;

   lead me in a straight path

   because of my oppressors.

Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,

   for false witnesses rise up against me,

   spouting malicious accusations.

I remain confident of this:

   I will see the goodness of the Lord

   in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

   be strong and take heart

   and wait for the Lord.

Annnnnddddd...

I can now announce where I'm being sent for my first year as a single missionary!

General Cepeda Mexico! 

I am so blessed to be sent with two families and two other ladies.  The Quinn Family, the Martin Family, Megan and Madi.

Update!

It's not almost the end of Intake and what a crazy time it's been!

This Intake has been the largest Intake FMC has had yet! 

With 13 single girls, 5 guys and 4 families!

Community life has been awesome.

We had an amazing blessed time in Mexico.

And we have 41 missionaries going to 5 mission posts worldwide!

The Lord has blessed me so much. 

4

4 days left till Intake starts!
I'm so excited and nervous at the same time.  I can't wait to be blessed and challenged by the Lord. 
Intake is basically like a three month retreat, during which I will listen to talks, learn how to give talks, and study from the Bible and Church documents.  For my first year I will have a dating fast and internet (save for 2 hours on Sunday) fast.  This is so I can focus my whole self on the mission God has placed in my life.  To go to the whole world proclaiming the kingdom of God.  One of the months, November, will be spent in Mexico, in active service and proclamation.  At the end of my training, the directors, Joseph and Brooke Summers, will send me and a team of missionaries to our first mission post. 

Please keep me and my fellow missionaries in prayer.

God is Good

God is amazingly good to me! The past few weeks have been crazy.  My family has been away from the Philippines for almost three months now, we traveled from the Philippines to our home state of Oregon. There I graduated from High School and traveled back down to Big Woods.  From Big Woods I flew to Ecuador where I spent two weeks helping to lead a mission trip.  It was so amazing! My second favorite country is now Ecuador.  I fell in love with the people, and the beautiful jungle. It was so good to be back in missions serving and preaching.  I will be leading another trip in July.   

Another wonderful thing that happened was I got accepted to this years Intake! 

Every year starting in September, Family Missions Company (FMC) trains new missionaries to go out to the world.  I will be apart of that this year.  I ask for everyone to please please pray for me. That I would have an open heart and mind to be taught. And that God would just shower graces upon me and those joining me in this blessed work. Also pray that I get enough money to pay the training fees. 

I hope and pray that God shows how good he is to you this week!

Update

Today we remember the trial and death of Jesus, who came to earth to die for all of us, for those who know Him today and those who may never know Him.  That thought boggles my mind.  As a Catholic I've always known that he died for my sins, but for the past few weeks I've been reflecting on the fact that he also died for the sins of people who may never know He lived.   It was this thought, and the sadness I felt knowing that people in this world are living and dying without knowing of His mighty love and mercy, that has set a fire in my heart to continue missions apart from my family.
August of this year I'm going to turn 18, and I know there are many options for me to pursue. For about 4 years now I've wanted to get my certification to be a practicing midwife, this is something still on my heart but it doesn't seem as important now.
Many of my friends are going on to college, but that too doesn't seem as important.  What seems most important living a life, and preaching a gospel that will save souls, all with the help of Christ.
So a couple days ago I gave my application to be a full time missionary with FMC. (fmcmissions.com)
My missionary training, called Intake, starts in September.  I ask everyone to pray for me as I prepare for training.

Typhoon Days

I've been going over what happened in my mind, but I still have not come to a ''post worthy'' conclusion.  So I'll just say a little something. On Tuesday the typhoon hit us, kicked off our electricity and left us without water, but besides that we were good. Our new but good friends Kring and Ramon and their two kids came over. We played games, played the guitar and read as the wind and rain battered outside. By that night we had 21 other people in our house.  That made a total of 32 people in our four bedroom house. All I can say is I was so incredibly blessed to share our house, our beds and food with these wonderful people. 
Abi

A whole post about truth.

This might take the form of a rant of sorts so I apologize in advance.


Last night when we were at the bible study I sat there looking around asking myself,

“What am I doing here?” The truth of the matter is I shouldn’t be here; I’m the last person who should be in mission. The truth is that I don’t like being a missionary; I don’t like having to give up my school schedule to help people. I don’t like having a shower that’s just a pipe in a wall. I don’t like living without some comforts. The truth is I complain and I get disagreeable when these things happen.

The truth is I get mad at God for asking me to do things like this. The truth is some days I just want to ignore him. The truth is my life gets messed up.

A missionary should be perfect right? They should be a saint, a shining example of Jesus Christ.

That’s not me. A missionary should pray every single day and read the Bible for hours on end right? Well I don’t do that, I try, but some days I forget to pray, some days I don’t want to pray.

But the truth is also that I am here in the Philippines. And I am a missionary at this time in my life. So there must be an answer to my question.

“What am I doing here?”

Something interesting happened last night at the Bible study. The building that we go to is called the Barangay Hall, behind and around it are the houses of people who live in this Barangay, which are basically different sections of land where people live. As we are white we stick out A LOT here in the Philippines. So of course some people came out to watch us just because of that fact, but by the time the meeting started they had gone back inside their house. Soon it got dark and we started the meeting with singing. And I saw someone creep out of the house and hide behind a tree to watch us. But this person, I think it was a woman, wasn’t standing in a place where she could see us Americans very well. She could hear us though. I saw in her not a curiosity of white people, but of what we were doing here.

Who are these white people who sing?

I don’t know the full answer to the question, “Why am I here.” But I have an idea, and I have a story. The story is about my family, who according to a lot of people are crazy. We have ten children, we moved from our home, our farm, our family and our job to live with the poor in the Philippines.

They sing these white people with guitars. They dance with us, these white people. They act like fools and they don’t mind. These white people, they tell us of a man who says He loves us. These white people. They are different.

I’m going to start to tell my stories; every week at least I’m going to plan on finding a story. Not because you need to hear them, but because I need to remind myself why I’m here.

Pictures of the Philippines

Mass at the monastery

Monastery bells.

Alvarez's porch

Stairs at the Alvarez's House                                Bible Study night

Street outside the house

 

More at the monastery.

Isla Bonita

 

 

 

 

More later!

 

I post!

Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name. 



We are here in the Philippines!  It still seems kinda crazy that I'm on the other side of the world. As of yet I don't have very many pictures or stories, but those will come soon. The weather here is really nice, and the people are so friendly and excited to see us. And the food is good too. ;)

Back to Missions we Go!

Today we bought our tickets to fly to the Philippines!  Everyone is dancing with joy. God has blessed with cheap tickets, both to our home state of Oregon and to the Philippines.
It seems almost unreal, we really are flying out into missions again.   We fly to Oregon on Oct 30 and we will be there until Nov 11th.  

Please keep us in your prayers.
Abi

Community

I don't usually post many pictures so I'm trying to take and post more.  Today being the first Saturday of the month we have community work day.  So after morning prayers we get together and are given different jobs around Big Woods.  These pictures are of Mom and the little kids, the blond ones are all our kids. ;)

 

 The best way to help little people work is to turn into a game!

 Because of the storm we had we have tons of branches everywhere, the job of the kids was to pick them up and put them into piles.

It was fun to watch them, they were so cute. :D

 

 



They had to see who picked up the most the fastest.

I tried to get a picture of our house but I didn't quite get all of it. :)

Good job!

 

I hope everyone has a great day!

 

Abi

Stateside Mission

A week ago today my father, and three of my siblings, and I came back from Joplin MO. We went there to lead a work mission trip.  Six students from New York came down to help work on some projects. I wasn't very excited about going on this trip, I would have much rather stay at home with the rest of my family. But God did amazing things on that trip.  Every night I went to bed sore and aching, and every morning I woke with renewed strength. I made some wonderful friends, and watched the group turn into MISSIONARIES.  Its amazing how close people become when working selflessly side by side for the furthering of the Kingdom.   Being back on the mission field changed my heart. It's amazing how much God has to do that for us. And yet He never stops.
I'm very excited to go on more mission trips this year. :)

God Bless!
Abi

God likes little people.

This week God has really been teaching me that he loves little people, and he cares about little things in our lives.  One night our cord for our laptop stopped working, we would plug it in but it wouldn't charge. Needless to say we were all upset, the thought of having to get a new cord was in our minds. Suddenly Peter, (age 12) says, "Hey guys let's pray over the cord."  All of the little kids agreed and soon all ten of us are laying  hands on the cord.  My sister Ellie, simply asks God to heal our cord, we plug it in and it works.  All of us began to praise the Lord.  A cord is such a little thing, but God answered our prayers.
All of us have dreams of being something big, a famous novelist, a singer.  God wants us to be the best we can, but he also loves us as the little people we are.  A 16 year old, sister, daughter, and missionary. I am nobody to most of the people in the world. But I am someone in God's eyes. To him I'm His daughter, His lover, His little missionary.
I'm so thankful for God's love and mercy!

Blessings this Sunday,
Abi

St. Nicholas Day

Here are some pictures of our St. Nicholas Day (on Dec 6). The night before all 16 of us kids left out our shoes for our parents to fill with candy. In the morning we woke up to chocolate, oranges and socks. :)

Waking up in the morning!


Peeking at the shoes. :)

Little Boys.

Shoes are full of candy.

Everyone

Isaac has new socks.

Us girls in the ''Hen House''.

Lots of chocolate!

Little Girls

Everyone got fuzzy Christmas socks. :)

God Bless!

Abi

Helping the Poor in Spirit

One day when we were riding the bus down from the mountains back to Castries I saw a young girl, perhaps 18 at the oldest, walking the streets. She was a very pretty girl, with long silky black hair, and beautiful eyes, however, her clothes were typical ghetto clothes. Not really ratty, but skimpy kinda like a designer copy. She had a young baby on her hip, when we caught each other’s eyes, even for those few seconds, what I saw in her eyes tore my heart. I have never seen so much despair; she looked like she didn’t hope anymore. When we passed her I wished with all my heart that I could have got off the bus and talked to her. I don’t know why she looked that way, that might not have been what she felt like, but somehow when I saw her, I knew that’s how she felt. Days after she still haunted me, I wonder what I would have done, could I have talked to her, I’m a shy person; I don’t like talking to people. Would I have had the courage to stop her? Would I have been able to help? I would like to say I said a prayer for her, but I didn’t think about that till much later.

The poor here are different than the poor that we found in Mexico, they don’t just need food, clothes, houses, they do sometimes need that, but their needs are something much deeper. It’s spiritual. Its like that girl, she probably has a house, a boyfriend, some sort of a job, but she still had that hopeless look. Why? It’s a deep longing that they, as we all do, try to fill with what the world offers. Drugs, sex, money, power. But let’s face it; those don’t fill that hole, that longing. Only God can. Now that might sound easy, well then we just tell them about God and bang! Everything is better. Unfortunately the real world isn’t that easy, because we are a fallen humanity. What would you do if something like this happened to you? Would you be able to stop and help? Would you be able to pray for the person? I hope that God will be able to send me people like this to help.

Quick Shout out.

Tuesday we went to the beach, here are some pics of the last time. :)