So today ended our last training camp of the summer. I said goodbye to Seth tonight and I won't see him for 10 days. I know this is a short trip compared to some of the other ones but it's always hard to say goodbye. His team consists of 28 including the 3 leaders, it's one of the largest teams we have sent out for our ambassador camps! It has been fun these past couple of days getting to interact with team Puerto Rico, they seem like a solid team and they all have fun in whatever they are doing. I'm excited to hear updates while they are gone and I pray that God will use them in their ministry times.
Check out this video that was made of training camp, it's fun!
Ambassador Training Camp 2009 - Registration Table
For most people, summer is a time to sit back and relax, enjoy the weather and hang out with friends. For me, summer is crazy and hectic, it means long days at AIM prepping for all the training camps and getting ready to send all of the participants out on the field.
Yesterday, our last training camp for the summer arrived and we are wrapping up our summer trips. We have college aged teams that are out right now, some have come back and some are still there for another month. We have high school teams that just left for a month and will be returning mid July and we also have two week high school trips that are getting ready to fly out on Friday morning. Seth is among one of the two week trips that are getting ready to go out and he is helping lead the Puerto Rico trip.
It is so fun to have the opportunity to take part in the training camps and be able to see the participants engage into their teams, the speakers, and most importantly their walk with Christ. You never know what these kids have gone through or are going through but to see them come to camp and lay it all down is amazing!
Here is a quote from a participant who just got back from our Kenya one month trip.
Mary Grace So today we are leaving Eburru. We are heading to Nairobi for the weekend before we fly back to America. This has been the most amazing trip I have ever taken. I have learned so much about myself and the Lord through this journey. While we were in Eburru we had our little Kenyan family, made up of our translators and people we have met in the community. The people here are filled with the joy and strength of the Lord. Everywhere we go we hear the people greeting us, saying "habari" (or "hello! how are you?) and little kids flocking to us, yelling and wanting to walk with us everywhere. This goodbye is probably the hardest one I have ever had to do, but I am such at peace knowing that the Lord is moving in Eburru and that those people are going to spread the love of Christ even after we are gone. The next couple of days is going to be all about processing the trip and spending some time with the team. See everyone soon!
Take a look at this video of our one month high school trips that we just sent out. You will get to see some of the stuff that went on at training camp.
It has been a week since I have been back from Guatemala and I want to give you all a little taste of what my trip was like!
We spent five days in the unfamiliar town of El Estor. Throughout the town we went to four different churches (a good amount of distance between them) and we did a medical clinic at each church. Mary Ellen, a surgical nurse from Georgia, accompanied us on the trip and acted as one of the doctors for the four days and Byron, a medical doctor in Guatemala, also joined us during this time. We had two differnt stations, one with Mary Ellen and the other with Bryon, we had the patients come in one at a time (or families at a time) and we asked them their symptoms and then diagnosed their problems. We then had a "pharmacy" for them to go to once they were done seeing the doctor and we handed them what the doctor prescribed. The system that we had for this worked really well and we were able to see A LOT of people!
The people in El Estor are very poor and do not have very much at all. We had people come to us with worms, people who were dehydrated, people with sore limbs or bad back pains, and people who were just in pain but kept pushing through day to day. We gave out a lot of vitamins, pain killers, and also had shampoos, conditioners, and lotions to hand out. These things are things that we have at our finger tips whenever we need them and for me it was hard to see how in need of these items they were.
During the time of the clinic there were many people waiting outside the church for a chance to see the doctors so that is where my part came in mostly. Myself, Seth, Don, and Connie spent a majority of the time with the kids that were there. Some kids were waiting to see the doctors and some kids were there because of their parents. We played games with them, watched movies with them, painted their faces, painted the girls' finger nails, handed out coloring pages, and also blew up animal balloons for them.
The first day of clinics was the day that stood out to me the most. We had just arrived and there were already so many people lined up to see us. I remember the kids getting really excited to play with us and the looks on their faces showed me that they were SO HAPPY. There were a few girls who came up to me and had asked me my name (now keep in mind they all speak Spanish and I speak VERY little spanish, just enough to understand what they were asking me) and so I would say, "Me llamo Ashley", and the rest of the day more and more kids kept asking me my name. I would continue to tell them and then whenever I wasn't out playing with them they would be right outside the window saying, "Ashley, Ashley, Ashley". My first initial thought was, oh man I told them my name and that is all they keep saying, but as the day went on I saw how much the kids needed a friend and they just wanted someone to play with them. It didn't even matter to them that I couldn't communicate with them, they just wanted to feel love. It was hard for me at the end of that day to have to say bye to all of the kids that I had met and that my heart grew close to and as they walked away they had smiles on their faces, their hand was up in the air waiving, and they were still saying my name.
This time that we had in El Estor was very profitable. I felt like we were able to help so many people while we were there and yet there are still so many more that need a helping hand. I am thankful for the people that I met and the relationships that I made while I was there. God has placed Guatemala on my heart, especially the children that I encountered and I continue to be in prayer for them every day.
I want to thank all of you who prayed for me while I was gone, the trip was a huge success!!
Friends, it has been a long time
since some of you have heard from me, I have not been good with keeping up with
my blog page and I am so sorry about that. I am going to try and get a post up
at least once a month this year.
As some of you may already know, I
am currently in Guatemala right now serving with a team from AIM. God has
provided for me in a big way leading up to this trip and He has made it very
clear to myself and Seth that this is a trip we needed to be on. Neither one of
us were in a financial state of being able to go when we were asked about
joining the team to Guatemala but God has since then made it clear to the both
of us that this is where He wants us for the next week. Someone anonymously
donated $1000 to each of us in order for us to take part in this trip and it
has blessed us SO much! It is so amazing to see how He works and I am so
thankful that I am sitting here in Guatemala being able to share this
experience.
I don't have a lot of internet
access but I want to share with you some pictures of what has been going on so
far. I will post an update of all that went on and what I did each day when I
get home. For now, take care and I appreciate all of your continued prayers for
me, you guys are great!
This past Monday I said goodbye to really close friends, new friends and a group of people who are going to make a difference in the world. That Monday finished off another week of training camp at AIM. This was such a great group of kids and the passion that they had for God was truly amazing! They lit up with joy every evening during the times of worship and you could feel the presence of God.
If you are not familiar with what training camp looks like, it is a time for the teams to come together a week before their trip and get personal and intimate with each other. During this time they give their personal time line (testimony of their life) to their team, they go through different teachings each day of things that are going to prepare them for the field, they spend time worshiping together, and they go through a number of team builders together in order to find out how they work together as a team. This is the most important time for them to get to know each other and this is also the time when the team truly units as one.
We sent out a team five different teams:
Swaziland, who will be out for 2 months
India and Kenya, who will be out for 3 months
South Africa and Nicaragua, who will be out for 9 months
I hope that you will join in prayer with me and pray for these people who are laying down their lives for Christ and for the people all around the world.
Here is a video of the week:
My favorite part of this video is that the last song is actually a song that was sung by everyone there that night, it's awesome!
I am just now settling down and getting back into the swing of things since being back from Ireland. I wanted to give you all an update of what happened during my trip and how God moved. I will start with week one when we were in Sutton, Ireland (the far east coast of Ireland).
During this week we worked with two churches and put on a Vacation Bible School program for the kids in the church and in the area. Our first VBS we started out with 4 kids and near the end we had 11 kids show up. The highlight of the first VBS for me was the 6 kids that received Christ into their lives. It was so neat to think about these young kids who were so interested in knowing how to have a relationship with Christ and they wanted to know more and strive for more. This was a day that the Lord used our team to make an impact in their lives and it is a moment that those kids will never forget.
Our second VBS was much more of a challenge for the team but God opened up doors through it. We only had 2 kids the entire time and it was tough at first because there were 12 of us to 2 kids. At times we were a little overwhelming for them but we learned how to spread ourselves during different elements of the VBS. The 2 kids that attended were brother and sister and we got to know their mom very well. They were such a sweet family and it was so fun to get to know them better. Their mom was so thankful for us being there each day and she said that the kids in Ireland love these kind of things but it is something that never happens.
Our two VBS programs were very different but God used our team in each one of them. There were definitely struggles at times but God showed us that the kids in Ireland strive for this stuff and we were able to bring it to them that week. My heart goes out to them and I pray that God will place people in Ireland that can open up more opportunities for them.
My time in Ireland is going great! The team is coming together and they are pouring out their hearts to God and we are uniting as a team! Please check out the blog that I posted on our team page http://08ir0614amb1.myadventures.org for more of an update on our ministries. Internet access is very limited for me so I am trying to keep this short and simple. Thank you so much for your prayers for me. I am feeling them each and every day. I miss all of you and I can't wait to tell you all of my stories from the trip. I will try and post once a week but I can't promise that :D
Today wraps up our training camp and we are heading off to the airport in about an hour. This week has been such a week of growth for all of the kids and it has been really cool to watch them step out in faith and let God take control. I will be updating our team blog page while we are in Ireland so you can check that out at http://08ir0614amb1.myadventures.org . I will try to update my blog as well but will have very limited internet access.
Today is the start of my last week in the office before I get ready to leave for debrief with my team. This year has flown by and I can't believe that it's almost over. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was moving into my apartment and meeting all of my roommates. It has been a journey together from day one and it will be sad to say goodbye.
This Sunday my team will leave to go to debrief and we are going to be staying at a cabin on the lake. During this time we will talk about our year and tell of the good and of the bad. We will share about our personal relationship with Christ and how it has grown. It will also be a time to just hang out with each other one last time. We will play games, go kayaking and canoeing on the lake, and just spend time with each other and enjoy each others company.
Then, next Wednesday (June 11) I will begin my leader training for my Ireland trip. What happens during this time is all of the leaders leading a trip for the ambassador kids for the June 14th trip come into Gainesville and we start our training. This is a time for us to spend in prayer for our trip and for our students that are going to be on our team. We will also get last minute preparations done for the trip and start finalizing things. This is going to be a sweet time for us to bond together as leaders, please keep us in your prayers.
On June 14th the kids arrive and we will go and pick them up from the airport. This is such an exciting time! I am really looking forward to this. I have spent a lot of time talking to my kids prior to this day and I look forward to actually meeting them. Once they arrive back here at the office our training camp begins. We will be here for 5 days doing training sessions and team builders with our team. This is a time to get to really know the team and prepare them for going to Ireland.
After training camp is done we fly out on June 19th! My team and I fly out around 8:30 at night and arrive in Dublin around 9:30am. This is a night flight which means that we will need to get our sleep. Please keep us in your prayers as many of us will be excited and won't want to sleep!
As you can see, I am really busy this whole month of June getting prepared to say goodbye to my team of interns this year and saying hello to all of my high school kids that will be coming in for our Ireland trip. As I am sad to leave my team that I have grown so close to this year I am excited to start new relationships with all of my Ireland team.
Thank you so much for your prayers for me this year during my internship. I have felt all of them so much. God has provided for me through all of you and He has opened up so many doors for me for this summer and for next year. I will update during my trip and I will let you know about all of the ministries that God is doing through us in Ireland.
This past week has been the most powerful week that I have
ever experienced in my entire life. Our God is so big and He works in
miraculous ways. He is moving through me, He is moving through my team, and
most importantly He is moving through my generation!
On Monday night our team met for our small group time and God worked through us
in various ways. We prayed, we listened, and we shared. Driver opened us up in
prayer and then we spent a good amount of time in silence with the Lord just
listening to Him and seeing what He wanted us to do with it. We then went
around and shared what we heard from God. Later that night we had an intense
time with the Lord and we were filled with the Holy Spirit. There was so much
of the Holy Spirit in the room and everyone was showing their emotions towards
the Lord in all different ways. There was some crying, there were some
laughing, and there were some who felt completely at peace. We all were filled
with the Holy Spirit but our emotions showed our excitement in different
ways.
On Wednesday night, my team and I went to Unicoi State Park
for the night because the World Racers were staying there for part of their
training. A little while after we got there they had started their debriefing
time around a huge campfire. Walking into that circle of people, you could feel
the presence of God. I stood there and I looked around me and I saw the
generation of people that were laying down thing after thing for God, it
encouraged me and it made me want to lay down all the stuff in my life for him
as well. After they were done Driver brought all of us together along with
other really awesome AIM staff and they all stood around us and one by one we
started laying down the things in our past and we gave them over to God. They
prayed over us and they helped us get rid of the junk in our lives, they helped
us give it over to God. It was powerful, prophetic, and releasing! God prayed
through me to other people, if He wasn't speaking through me I wouldn't have
been able to do it. We spent so much time praying and prophesying over one
another all night. I am so thankful to be in the generation that I am in today;
I believe that God is going to use us and He is going to change the world
through us!
This blog does not do justice compared to what my team and I
actually experienced this week. I hope and pray that every single one of you
will be able to experience what I did this week. If there is one thing I have
learned out of the past couple of days it is do not fear what God can do with your life, nothing bad can
come out of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Please keep my team and I in
your prayers as we continue to live out or lives for Christ.
Today is the start of my last week in the office before I get ready to leave for debrief with my team. This year has flown by and I can't believe that it's almost over. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was moving into my apartment and meeting all of my roommates. It has been a journey together from day one and it will be sad to say goodbye. 
