When telling us about his journey from South Africa to America to serving with Wycliffe in Panama, Keith Forster repeatedly said, “This is the God we serve.” How else do you explain an airline providing Keith a ticket when there was no money to buy one as he was trying to get to Columbia for his first summer assignment with Wycliffe? Or what about a whole jungle village of Kuna people in Panama kicking the Forsters out one day to welcoming them with open arms and promising to provide housing for their family the next? And there would be no other explanation for the son of a Kuna village chief deciding to anger his family to assist Keith in the translation of Scripture and pastor a Kuna church.
Hearing Keith and Wilma Forster’s story last week in Panama has confirmed in me the truth that we serve a God who specializes in the impossible. I’m reminded of a plaque I saw hanging in the home of Ralph and Marilynn Toliver, missionaries in Peru: The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. Wilma and Keith would be the first to tell you that God called them both very specifically to the ministry of Bible translation. And though there were days when it seemed that God had called them to something impossible, by his grace, he always provided just what they needed to continue.
I heard story after story the past two weeks, both in Panama and Peru, which give true validity to the statement, “This is the God we serve.” And by leaning on that truth, Keith, Wilma, and countless others, have had the opportunity to affect lives for eternity by being a part of translating Scripture into the heart languages of minority people groups all across the world.
This truly is, the God we serve.
One week down in Peru. Now I'm in Panama and have 5 more days here before hitting American soil again. I'm tired, but it's good.
Peru was gorgeous. We have NOTHING like the Andes in the US - at least in my opinion. Seriously - we drove over a 16,000 foot pass. 16,000 FEET! There isn't even anything that high in the continental US, I don't believe. Gorgeous.
On Thursday, we drove out of Huanuco to see some of the more remote villages. I have NEVER been on roads this bad. It was CRAZY and I might have a bump or two on my head from the times I hit it on the side or top of the truck. . Here is a taste of our trip to the Quechua villages (check out that road!):
Over all, Peru was a GREAT trip. Then, I headed straight to Panama yesterday. Got in last night, and this morning I was able to hang out with one of my all time fav MDB teachers - Uncle Dave (Carter)!! In Panama! How fun. He was a great tour guide, too.
In just a few hours, we will head out to pick up the NEXT Moody Radio team joining us. Tomorrow, we are hitting the ground running for round two of these trips with Moody Radio folks. Hoping this trip is as successful as the last! I'm confident it will be.
I am thankful to work with some really great and talented people, and ultimately for an organization that continues to blow my mind. I had a few teary moments in Peru, I'll be honest. It's hard not to when you hear the stories that I am blessed to hear. Hoping for the same in Panama and that God continues to teach me more about his heart for the nations.
Four amazing girls and I went to Savannah for the long weekend and it was a blast. Full of laughter (lots, if you can imagine), honest conversation, music, eating, shopping, etc...
And I really wanted to take the time to write a nice long post about it, telling fun stories, sharing pictures, etc. BUT you see, my friend Kristi has already done that here. And so, in light of the fact that I would say a lot of the same things, I am just going to point you there. Please go read it if you are interested in what we did in Savannah because she lined out a GREAT rundown of all our activities. And she included a few pictures.
The one story she didn't tell that is totally worth telling is this:
We went to Jazz'd, a live jazz and tapas bar in downtown historic district, on Saturday night. Just before leaving, we went to the bathroom, and as we were waiting by the door for everyone to get done, a RATHER intoxicated lady comes up to us and says, "Can I just be drunk and obnoxious for a minute?" To which, of course we responded YES. What could be more entertaining than a drunk lady in the bathroom??
She proceeds to ask us, "Am I chopped liver?" Um... no? We weren't quite sure where she was going with it all. Then we find out (more than we wanted, I might add) that she is trying to make it happen with a man at the bar, but she brought her friend with her who happens to be hot and have a large chest (she didn't use such censored language). Well, her friend was stealing the show, even though she knew that this lady wanted to snag the hot guy at the bar. As a side note, she described him as a surfer type, which was totally NOT what he was when we saw him later. So, she's angry at her friend for stealing her thunder, asking us if she should just have left her friend at home, asking us why this guy might be paying more attention to her friend than her, etc. Our favorite part was when she told us that situations like this are what "keep her at home on Saturday nights, making love to her dog...not really...but seriously (please remember, this was all out of the mouth of a drunk lady, as inappropriate as it may seem)." So we try to give her some pretty solid advice for a drunk person, mostly telling her that she is beautiful and that if this guy wants to choose someone else over her, than maybe he's not worth it. Yes, that is the 100% girl-type of response, but all we had. And before she left, the 5 of us, with a completely drunk stranger, enjoyed a large group hug in the bathroom before she went back out to face the guy and her friend. Gooooood times.
Anyways, it was one of our favorite encounters of the weekend, besides, of course, getting the lowdown on the Mark Zuckerburg, of Facebook fame, from his Harvard professor. That was fun too.
So, now... go read Kristi's write-up of the weekend.
Well, after my relaxing day on Friday, we were up and on our way to San Diego on Saturday. It wasn't a great day for weather, but we had fun just the same. We spent some time in La Jolla (pictured above), Old Town, Balboa Park (joined by Jenny and Justin - in the picture below - my friends from House Church that recently moved to CA), the mall, and then had a nice dinner in the Gaslamp district. Every restaurant was over-run with SD Charger fans, and it was, in fact, a great game that went to overtime and caused some raucous fans to be on the streets afterwards.
Sunday was so great. Church at Rock Harbor, Kimberly's old church, which was great. Then on to Balboa Island where we borrowed her friends' beach cruiser bikes and had a GRAND time biking all around Balboa Island, and the peninsula. We ended up biking all the way to Huntington Beach, which is, for the record, a pretty long ride on a beach cruiser. The weather could not have been more perfect, and the scenery was, of course, beautiful. I did enjoy a Balboa bar, a la Christy Miller, before leaving the island after 2+ hours of biking and relaxing. Then, last night, we had sushi for dinner at Mosun in Laguna with Jason. Best. Sushi. Ever. And I don't even love sushi! Wish there was somewhere like that in Orlando! 
Today has been good too. After another beach-side run this morning (Orlando is seriously lacking the scenic running trails), we went on a hike near Dana Point/Laguna Niguel. The scenery was amazing - beach on one side, snow covered mountains on the other. Tonight, we'll enjoy Happy Hour at Fisherman's restaurant out on the San Clemente pier and then, we will head to LAX to make our way back to Orlando. 
It has been a great trip full of friends, laughter, celebrating the New Year, football, parades, good food, Jesus time, reading, exercise, fun activity, relaxing, shopping, etc. I have had time to process over the past year and look forward to the coming year of 2009. I am not quite ready to go home, but alas, we must live normal lives, I guess. Next time I blog, I'll be back in Orlando...home to things, work, family and friends that I love, but not quite the city that wish... can we transplant San Diego or Chicago or NYC or Boston or something right into Orlando, please?
Happy New Year from sunny (well, not so much today...) Californ-I-A. My roommate Kimberly and I decided a while back to take a nice trip to California to ring in the new year, and of course, to take in the Rose Parade and bowl game. So, needless to say, yesterday was a great day. But, before I get ahead of myself, let me go back to the beginning of our adventure.
It started with Crystal taking us to the airport (by the way, if you are reading this Crys, you need to blog from TX) and having to say goodbye to her for good as she is moving to TX before we return from our trip. Sad. But, we actually got to see her again since Kimberly forgot her phone at home and Crystal had to go back to get it and then back to the airport. Perks of living near the airport! So, our trip was off to a great start. 
When we arrived in Los Angeles, the friend picking us up from the airport couldn't get there for about 2 hours later. So, we decided to go in search of a coffee shop, which was actually closed once we walked all the way there. But, the perks of being picked up late? A star siting. And not just ANY star. Meredith, from The Office. And so, we saw her while walking to the closed coffee shop, but were too shocked to do anything about it. Then, we found her again in baggage claim, waiting for her bags, so we stalked her (and her family?) for a bit until they were leaving and we rushed for a picture. She was in a rush, but very nice and gracious enough to take a picture with her adoring fans. We withheld all questions about her flask or her near rehap experience with Michael Scott...Then, I thought I saw a man being suspicious, so Kimberly went to check it out but after walking towards him (assuming him to be stealing something and that she was about to stop him), she saw the dog he had let out of his bag to pee around the corner...just out of our line of sight. But, at this point, she had gone too far towards him and was too close not to say anything, so she awkwardly asked him, "Is that your dog?" Yeah, she got a weird look for that OBVIOUS question and I laughed. A LOT.
Now for Wednesday. We got up (after a very late night at the airport) and went to Pasedena to the Rose Palace, one of the locations where they build the floats for the Rose Parade. We got there just after 12, not knowing that they stopped selling tickets at 12. The viewing area was open until 1 though, so along with a few others, we protested them not selling us any tickets and somehow ended up going through without paying a dime. Awesome. And, it was cool to see a few of the floats up close! Traffic was crazy and kept us from doing much else besides heading home in time for the New Years' Eve party that Kimberly was hosting with lots of her Cali friends. That was a good time, but after watching the ball drop in NYC and realizing we still had 3 hrs to go until California's midnight, we went to bed to prepare for our early and long New Years' day activities. 5 am came early, but it was worth it.
New Years' day was spent in Pasedena. We started by going to the Rose Parade (one of our favorite floats is pictured to the left), where we had a great viewing location with our new friends Adriene, Pam, and family. Pam had been out on Colorado Blvd since 5am...on the 31st. That's over 24 hours waiting on this parade. And, she has been doing that for 30 years! WOW! We got there at about 7am, found a great coffee shop, and meandered our way down the street until we found a place we could watch with no obstructions. It was such a great experience - I've ALWAYS wanted to go to the Rose Parade! Then, we walked (for what seemed like hours) to the game site, and enjoyed "tailgating", which for us really just consisted of a picnic lunch and lots of people watching. People were throwing drinks and food at us left and right though, since most outside drinks are not allowed in the game, and of course, people had way too much. 
The game was great. We sat near some fun people... some USC fans and then the Penn State fans that I wanted to take duck tape to their mouths for the first half of the game, but ended up being OK once their team was clearly beyond a come back. And to those of you wondering, no I have not forsaken the Gators, but I did have to make the day fun by cheering on a team with Kimberly. It was for her that I chose USC and not Penn State, and as she said... I can be a hottie fan without being a USC fan. Go Mark Sanchez.
After the game, we met up with Nicole (see the contrasting picture to the left) for dinner at Fred's. It was so good to see her, even though I just saw her in Orlando. But, she is always a joy to be around, and it was fun to see her in her new home area... and to visit Scoopers, or Squeeze'ems, or whatever that place was called. Squeeze and Scoop maybe? I don't know - I could never get it right. This morning has so far been a relaxing day full of sleeping in, running on the beach (yeah!), eating a late breakfast, and sitting by the fire reading my Bible and journaling. I've decided that it would be my dream world to be able to have days like this muuuuch more often. But, I'll just enjoy them while I can since that dream world doesn't exist. It has been crazy to make sense of yesterday's weather - bright, sunshiney, 80 degrees at the game - and today - overcast and cold enough for a fire. Weird, but it is a great day to be lazy before another full day tomorrow with a day trip to San Diego. Can't WAIT! Now off to more relaxing, and perhaps an afternoon beachside hike. I love California.
I feel like I constantly have ideas for blog topics, but never get around to writing them. Oops.
I am finally home for a little while. Until October 17, to be exact. That may not seem that far away, but when you've traveled as much as I did this summer, over a month at home with no travel is a nice break. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE traveling, but it makes friendships, community, church involvement, etc. a little hard. I am sure I'll get bitten by the travel bug again very soon, but for now, it is nice to have some consistency in my life. Still...Labor day weekend was a great time. Lauren and I (high school and current BFF) went to Chicago, my second visit of the summer. Amazing weather, amazing friend time, amazing city...well, you get the picture. Speaking of picture...wanna see one?? I thought so.
This past weekend was good. Spent some time with my family since my sister, bro-in-law, and the kids were in town. Natalie and Nathan are pretty much the cutest kids EVER and so freakin' funny. Nathan and I baked a cake together Saturday night. He's three and, actually pretty good in the kitchen. Funniest moment was when Nathan wouldn't stop talking to Natalie when they were supposed to be going to sleep. Brad went in to scare them into staying in bed and being quiet, and then at 11:30, when Nathan was still babbling, Elizabeth and I went in there only to find that Nathan had pooped. In the trash can. He was too scared to leave the room after Brad talked to them about staying in bed, so his alternative was to poop in the trash can. It is always so hard to keep a straight face when kids are in trouble for doing something that was "bad" but also realllllly funny. Good thing I'm just an aunt and not the mom.
Saturday, I started the day with a mock triathlon workout of shorter distances, since my tri is next weekend. I wanted to know what it is going to feel like to do all three events in a row. My cousins did their tri this past weekend, and so I enjoyed being able to read about their experience in preparation for mine.
After the workout, I headed to the beach with some great friends in order to help Mancel and Jaclyn get engaged. We had to do the set up and then had to blend into the beach-going crowd and take pictures during the actual proposal. After shocking Jaclyn with our presence, we all had fun just hanging at the beach. I'm so excited for them!! CONGRATS!
