@God

I was just thinking this morning how similar Twitter and your relationship to God is. Yes, this may sound a little odd, but when your high on endorphins (Morning Exercise Routine) you get all kinds of crazy thoughts and ideas.

Now for all you who are unaware of this genius social networking tool caller Twitter I will educate you. (www.twitter.com You can find me as @missionsnoga.) Twitter is like if texting and blogging had a child. You answer one basic question "What Are You Doing?". You only have 140 spaces to use so you keep it short and sweet. You simply post what you are doing at the moment or any random thoughts you are having. Now, your friends can look and see what you have been up to. They can reply to this if they want to, but they don't have too. Thus the beauty of the whole deal. So, lets get down to the comparing. I originally found myself thinking about how you talk to God throughout the day. Most of us don't just come to Him once a day and pour out everything. We "tweet" throughout the day as things happen or come to mind. Maybe "Thank you Father for the beautiful day." or "Please help me get my work done.". You just throw those things out there and know God gets them. He says He is interested in every minute detail of your life. You don't always expect a response, you just know He cares enough to be interested in every part of your life. Now another part of Twitter is where you "follow" someone. This allows you to see their "tweets" and know what they are doing. So, if someone follows you, they will see what you are doing. God "follows" everyone. He wants to know every detail of your life even if you don't follow Him. If you choose to follow God you will get His "tweets" and you will know what he is up to. If you know what He is up to you will be able to join in. Now, just because you "follow" Him doesn't mean you will choose to join in what He is doing. You are not forced to "reply" to Him. On to "reply"s. Sometimes a "tweet" needs a "reply". Like if you ask a question. This shows that you have read the "tweet" and are responsive. You may "tweet" God about something that needs a "reply" or vice versa. If you want someone to get your message for sure you "tweet" them a "direct" message. This message only goes to them. No one else can see it. Sometimes God wants us to do something. He doesn't just toss out the message that He is working over here if you want to join. He wants you to be "direct"ly involved. He wants to be sure you know what He is thinking. We so often think that we have to stop and close our eyes to speak to God. He is there reading all our "tweets". On the other hand, are we taking time to read His "tweets"? Are we looking for those small messages He leaves for us everywhere? Are we receptive to the "direct" messages? Do we notice when He "reply"s to us? Do we "reply" to Him? Have you elected to "follow" Him or is He just "following" you?

Pucusana, Peru

These are the emails sent to my missions prayer team while I was in Pucusana, Peru from October 17 to the 26th 2008. Sunday October 19, Morning Hola de Peru, Sorry I didn't write sooner. I was so tired last night I completely forgot. I left Dallas at 12:10 am Friday. I arrived in Lima via Atlanta at 11:09 PM. I had no problems at any of the airports, except that they took the bug spray I brought for Tabitha. (Tabitha is a friend from church that moved to Ecuador in September. She was able to join us on this trip.)

Part of the OM team.

Once I arrived in Lima I met the group in the airport. We went through customs and then met up with the Peru team (Operation Mobilization) We got on a bus and drove about an hour south to San Bartolo. We checked into our hotel and split up rooms. I am sharing a room with Tabitha and Vanessa. Vanessa is with OM. We didn't get to bed until after 2 am and we had to meet at 7:45 for breakfast. After breakfat we loaded up on a bus with our medical supplies and drove to Pucusana where the church is located.

View from the hostal.

Pucusana

The church is one room. I would approximate to be 15x30. Its a nice building compared to the surrounding ones. It has wooden walls and some kind of wood paper laminate roof and a concrete floor. There is electricity. On the left side of the church there is an area with walls but no roof. This area is dirt. It has two rooms at the front built out of wooden pallets. One of these is the restroom. The toilet actually flushes!, but there is no seat. We spent most of the day yesterday setting up the clinic and counting out bags of vitamins and Tylenol. Around 2 we had lunch. We ate at a one room building about a block away. They served us baked chicken, potatoes, broccoli, white rice and mixed veggies. It was all very good except I didn't have any chicken. After lunch we went back to the church. Around 3:30 we started seeing patients. At 5 our bus arrived so we finished up and left. We saw 35 patients. Please pray for the health of the group. Dr. Moore had a migrane Friday night and Saturday morning. He was able to join us right before lunch. Another team member had a migrane headache last night, I don't know how he is this morning. It has been a wonderful trip so far. I am sure it can only get better. By the way, I forgot to mention I can see the ocean from my room. We are about 5 blocks from the ocean! Its so beautiful. I will do my best to keep you updated every night. Hasta Luego, Heather Sunday October 19, Night Hola de Peru, Wow! What a great day! We met at 8 to get breakfast. We walked about 3 blocks to a restaurant. We had rolls and eggs. Yum! After breakfast we loaded up one the bus and went to the church. We had a church service there. Meilo (OM) preached, we sang a few songs and shared about our trip so far. It was so amazing to look around and see the mountains and shanty houses and hear about how God is moving in peoples lives. When church was over we went straight to seeing patients. We burned a wart off of a childs head today. She was about 8. We wrapped her up in a jacket, someone held her feet and someone held her hair back. The Dr numbed it with lidocane then used a cauterizing tool to burn the wart off a little at a time. She never whined, she was so good!

We saw 98 patients today and had 24 salvations! God is so wonderful! I got to go down to the ocean today after we came back to the hotel. I was mistaken earlier, we are only 1 block from the ocean! It is so beautiful and refreshing. Being surrounded by the mountains and the ocean is breathtaking. We had a great dinner of roast chicken, french fries and salad. Then we met to debreif. So many great stories about how God uses the things we have but didn't think we would need and how God has prepared us for this trip all our lives. I am so blessed to be a part of this group and this trip.

Hasta Luego, Heather Monday October 20 Hola de Peru, Not a lot to report today. Wait, I take that back. We had 2 earthquakes last night. I slept through both of them, but I heard they shook the beds. We went to breakfast as usual this morning, then loaded up on the bus to go to the church. We made friends with the local police yesterday. We gave them seeing glasses and sunglasses and now they love us. They spent hours at the clinic today talking and taking pictures with us. They even brought us some fresh bread. Saturday while we were setting up the clinic someone came and got me and said they were talking to a lady about a dog that had come to her house. The dog was already pregnant when it came to her house a month ago. She said the dog had a discharge and that she had trouble breathing and only ate a small amount at a time. While we were talking one of her children brought the dog. She was huge! I did an exam and found nothing to be wrong except she had a small prolapse. I told her that was the reason for the discharge and she had trouble eating and breathing because she was so big. I didn't feel like I did much, because even if something had been wrong I couldn't do anything about it. It did make the woman feel better though. This morning she came to the church and told me the dog had 12 puppies! Again, I didn't really do anything, but it was kind of neat. The rest of the day was pretty much the same. We saw 162 patients, don't know how many salvations. Lots of people wanting to see the eye doctor. Lots of children coloring and playing with balloon animals. Lots of people going in every direction. Very noisy and tiresome. Yet awesome at the same time. Seeing the relief on peoples faces when they get help for their physical needs and seeing the joy of spiritual healing. I forgot to mention, the government doctors in all of Peru are on strike. You have to have money, pay for care or have an emergency to be seen.

Lunch was the exact same again! We had chicken for dinner again, but it was like a chicken cutlet, so it wasn't so bad. Please continue to pray for our health and safety. Please also pray for renewal, as a lot of people do the same thing over and over again each day. Pray that needs will be met with our limited resources. Pray for souls that are lost and that in everything God will get all the glory. Hasta Luego, Heather Tuesday October 21 Hola de Peru, I can't believe we have already had 4 days of clinic! When you arrive you feel like you have unlimited time here. Then suddenly your time is over. Wednesday and Thursday are our last days for clinic. We will be leaving Friday afternoon to go to Lima. The Atlanta team is flying out at midnight Friday. The Texas team will spend Friday night and Saturday in Lima, then we fly out Saturday at midnight. It was heavy overcast today and much cooler than the other days have been. It never rains here, but it misted this morning and this evening. Everything is brown here. I think its what Mars looks like. Big mountains that look like a truck just dumped a pile of dirt. The tide has been very noisy. We can hear it very well in our room. I am finally catching up on my sleep. I wasn't tired at all today except a few yawns before lunch. Three people were sick last night and today with vomiting and diarrhea. Please pray for their recovery and that no one else will be sick. We don't know if its the food or the sick children we are treating. The clinic went amazingly well today for being 4 people short. One of the OM translators had to go to work in Lima. We saw 122 patients today. I again don't know how many salvations. There was a woman today about 40 years old who couldn't even see her own hands. Hadn't been able to for about the past 20 years. The eye doctor Brian was able to give her glasses so she could see. Wow!

Tabitha & "Vanna" Screening people for the eye doctor.

Lunch was better today, unfortunately dinner was exactly the same as lunch. Rice is getting hard to eat. We all pray for hamburgers or pizza. Please remember us if you eat any of these items. I hope things are going well at home. I have not heard any news since I left. I did hear its getting rather cold at night. The people here, mainly the women and children are subjected to a lot of physical abuse. The stories would break your heart. We have one family with two little girls. Their father beats them when he drinks and they try to go home with us every day. You want to take them all home! You don't feel sorry for how they live, because its all they know. They are not starving. The children get to go to school. But no one should ever have to live with abuse. They can't run to the local womens shelter because there is not one. Again, its heartbreaking. It is so awesome to be part of a team that can bring these precious people a lasting hope. It makes our problems so trivial.

Pucasana

Typical Peruvian woman.

Pray for open hearts, especially for the local officers. They are mostly unreceptive. Pray also for lives to be changed and healing to happen in the people of Peru and the American group. Hasta Manana, Heather Wednesday October 22 Hola de Peru, I don't even know where to start today, so I'll let that start me off. Oh, the picture. This is a picture from my post in the pharmacy(This photo didn't make it in the blog.). These people are waiting to see the doctor or get their prescriptions filled. With that said, I just started thinking you probably don't know what I do here. After someone sees the doctor they bring their prescription to the pharmacy where it is filled. My job is to make labels for all those little bags telling them how to take their meds in Spanish. Average each person getting 1-4 prescriptions and well, you do the math. The pharmacy is the most fun place to be. We have a lot of fun every chance we get. Between deciphering doctor wrighting and spilling pills we usually work pretty hard.

Today was ordinary as far as the clinic goes. It was so cold! I don't know what the temperature was but it was cold. Overcast, misty, windy and just plain cold! Aside from all of that we had a line of people when we got there today and we managed to see approximately 137 patients. I saw 3 patients of my own. Someone wanted me to see their sick puppy, then two other people wanted me to see their dogs too. The puppy was sick, the other two were fine.

Lined up to see the doctor.

That's about all I have to say for today. We ate the same things for breakfast, lunch and dinner again. One person from yesterday is still sick. The rest were better this morning, just tired. Now there is a whole new group of sick people. Please continue to pray for health, especially before the long plane ride home. Tomorrow is our last day of clinic. We will be leaving San Bartolo Friday around 10am for Lima. Please pray for us tomorrow as it will be hard to leave these people. So many amazing things have happened this week. One extra special long term prayer request is for the father of the family I told you about I think yesterday. One of our team members has a military history and now works for homeland security. He sat down their father today and told him abusing his family was not being a man. Being a man was protecting and providing for his family. The man said he had become a Christian many years ago but had since taken the easy path and started drinking. He said he wanted to be a good father. He wanted to read the bible to his kids every night but that he had trouble seeing to read. We got him some glasses. Please pray for a real change in this mans life. That he will be able to be a father that his children run to and not away from. Hasta Manana, Heather Thursday October 23 Hola de Peru, Well, here we are at the end of our journey. It has been so very wonderful! I will not soon forget the people here. What a group of precious people. So thankful for us and so helpful. We had a final count of 124 salvations, 874 patients seen, 177 eye patients seen and approximately 300 eye glasses given out. Praise the Lord!

Ok, I just remembered a funny story. Someone bought a toilet seat for the womens room at the church. We all signed it and left messages on it. The following is a list of the things I remember. 1. Happy Crappy 2. In Peru its nice to doo. 3. Poo Poo Sana 4. If you sprinkle when you tinkle be a sweetie wipe the seatie. 5. May God move in your hearts too. Toilet seats are a luxury in Peru.

Saying Goodbyes

Most everyone is completely recovered. Still some lingering tiredness. I am so blessed to be a part of this group. They are so hard working! Even some when they were sick and had no business working. I just want to close this week by challenging everyone who has received this email to go on a mission trip. It will truly change your life. I know it has mine! Thank you Lord for allowing me to be part of your work! Hasta La Vista, Heather We got up early the next day and left for Lima. We took a long bus ride to a chinese resturant. We had lunch there then got back on the bus to go to a market to do some shopping. It was a great time, aside from the bus fumes. After shopping we went to a tourist shopping area on the coast. It was beauiful! We left there and took he Atlanta group to their luggage. From there we parted ways. They went to the airport and we went to check in for the night at a hotel. Now, you may remember some slight complaining from the emails about the food. First of all everything we ate was good. The first time. I still have trouble eating chicken and rice to this day (3 months later). So, after we checked in we walked to the most amaizing place ever, Chili's! A burger and fries later and everything was OK. It was so weird. You walk in and it looks exactly like a Chili's in the states. The menu was a little different though, a little Spanish mixed in. We got up the next morning and went to Mielo and Annie's house. We spent the day there just resting and visiting until time to go to the Airport. Mielo and Annie are so amaizing! They do such a reat job of showing the people there how much Jesus loves them. They have a church congregation there, but the people don't believe they should support them. They use the tithe money for the church only. All of Mielo and Annie's support comes from individuals and churches through OM. It was hard to say goodbye. I can't wait to see my wondrful Peru friends again. There are 3 maybe 4 Peru missions this year. I encourage anyone interested to go. Here is the information http://www.om.org/.

Group Photo

(This is where we had breakfast everyday.)

Beautiful house in front of our hotel.

Purple Sea Urchin

Entrepreneurs. They set up shop in front of the church.

Flowers in San Bartolo.

Surfers

House in San Bartolo.

Tampico, Mexico July 5-12 2007

This is an account of my mission trip to Tampico, Mexico. I'm only like 6 months late writing it, but better late than never right? This is an account from my memory as the emails I sent while there all mysteriously disappeared. We (A group from the church I attend, Boyd Baptist Church) left in two 15 seat passenger vans early Saturday July 5 for Tampico, Mexico. Just in case you didn't read the Iquitos, Peru blog or just didn't make the connection, this is 4 days after arriving home from the Iquitos trip. Also on this journey is Tabitha Moore ( http://tabithastruths.blogspot.com/) whom was also on the Iquitos trip. We spent a sizable amount of time planning for this trip. 2 days in a van takes careful planning to prevent hysteria. A mixture of movies, music and food did the trick, though there were some "iffy" moments. We spent the first night at a church in McAllen, Texas. We got up early the next morning and crossed the border into Reynosa, Mexico. This was a quite uneventful experience having already dealt with customs in Peru. We and all our belongings crossed safely and successfully into Mexico. Now, for those of you who have yet to travel through Mexico there are a few things you need to know. First, bathrooms are not free. People standing at the door with their hand out want money. Now, this is not really that bad. It only costs about 3 pesos (30 cents) and for the most part meant that your bathroom experience would be clean, have toilet paper and soap. Second, pay close attention to the traffic signs! If you are not travelling with a local or at least with someone who speaks the language, don't just agree with the officer. He may be trying to take your license, or worse. Third, don't take pictures of the Fedaralies! This will result in a severe talking to, or worse. Fourth, when choosing lodging a hotel is a good place, a motel can be rented by the hour. I will expand more on this soon. For the most part the trip there was good. Only a few minor hitches. Lots of stops to switch drivers and stretch and a few to sample roadside cuisine. We arrived at El Peridiso hotel/motel in the late afternoon on Sunday. We split up our rooms and unloaded the vans. We soon noticed something strange. Each room had a parking space between it and the next room. Convenient! Wait, the parking spaces on one side of the hotel/motel have curtains? This we later found out was the motel side. This side can be rented out by the hour. Now your catching on, the curtain is for privacy! If you don't want someone to know you are at the motel you probably shouldn't be there.

Well, all that aside, our rooms were nice. We did have a lizard lovingly named Petey. It seems if you name the critters in your room they are less frightening, more like pets. Petey liked to screech late at night to let you know he was still there, otherwise he mostly liked to remain anonymous. We got settled in then loaded back up to go to the church we would be working at for the next 4 days. When we got there we were welcomed by some of the ladies of the church who so graciously made us dinner. From now on know that they cooked all of our meals and that they consisted of beans, eggs and tortillas. Now, this was not a bad thing. The tortillas were made fresh about 4 blocks down from the church. They were awesome! The eggs would be scrambled, sometimes with meat and sometimes without. They were always very tasty. The black beans were always kind of mashed/re fried. Also extremely tasty! I have never eaten such simple food over and over without getting tired of it, but I enjoyed every bit of it. Most meals had some kind of wonderful homemade salsa in a range from mild to FIRE! Wahoo! Bring on the fire! After dinner we went to the next building and had a worship service. It is so amazing to go to a foreign country and watch people worship our God! He is the same here, there and everywhere. These people worship in a building the size of our youth room, but they poured out praise as much (probably more) than the biggest richest church in America. Brother Lyn preached and Brother Sammy Garcia (from a Spanish church in Denison, Texas) translated. We left that night physically exhausted but spiritually revived.

The next morning and the next 4 days basically consisted of the same routine with only minor variances. We began each morning with a meeting to pray and talk about the day. Then we loaded up on the van and headed to the church. When we arrived we sat down to breakfast. After breakfast we split up and went to work. Part of us did construction on the parsonage and the other part held VBS for the local children. I will tell in more detail about the two projects after I finish telling the daily routine. Around noon we all came back together to enjoy lunch and relax. VBS was only until noon so after lunch they would return back to the hotel to prepare for the next days lessons. There was a pastors conference after lunch held by Lyn and Sammy. The construction crew went back to constructing after lunch. Around 5 everyone left at the church would load up to go to the hotel to change and get the VBS workers. After a very brief break we would all load up again to go back to the church for dinner and the nightly revival service. After service we would return to the hotel, but not before a stop at a neighboring gas station for snacks. We didn't arrive back at the hotel until around 9. Then it was time for shower and bed!

I will tell you quickly about VBS, because i did not participate in it i don't have a lot to tell. They had a lot of kids show up! During breaks I waked around and checked out what they were doing. They had crafts, music and games. The workers had just as much fun as the children. I know a lot of lives were changed through that ministry.

Now I will tell you about the construction side of the trip. When we arrived we found a concrete block shell for the parsonage. No floor, windows, roof, doors, water or electricity. While we were there we and some hired local workers and volunteers came together to pour the floor, install the windows, run electricity and out on the roof. I personally mostly participated in pouring the floor. There were three giant piles when we arrived, rock, washed sand and bags of cement. Now this is not like when we do concrete projects at home. There is no cement truck backing up to pour out the fresh mixed up concrete. Nor do you just open up bags of "Redi Mix" and add water. You shovel 6 wheelbarrows full of rock into a circle. Then you shovel 6 wheelbarrows full of washed sand in the middle of that. Then you open 1 1/2 to 2 bags of cement and mix it with the sand. Finally you draw water out of a bucket and pour on the pile until there is enough. Now for the really hard part. Take your shovel and begin mixing kind of like a batter. Work slowly from the outside in. If you go too fast all the water will run out. Now, after tedious mixing shovel it back into the wheelbarrows for transportation. Now, I truly enjoyed every minute of this, but I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my life!

The pastor and his family were so wonderful and gracious. They insisted on moving in their furniture before we left so we could see the fruits of our labor. Even though it wasn't all finished! They had been living with another family in a very cramped space. This was such a blessing to them it made me feel guilty for the nice home I have. We could truly all do with a lot less than what we have.

I made friends with a precious little black and white cat. She was so skinny and poor we all felt so sorry for her. I went to the market one day and bought her some food. Her belly got so fat! She finally started to purr when she was held. I thought about sneaking her home in my suitcase, but knew it was too risky.

The last day we where there we went to the beach. It was OK, I'm glad we went, but it was not as amazing as I had hoped. The water was real choppy and muddy. I did have some great pineapple and coconut there. It was a great place to shop. You were surrounded by merchants with all kinds of merchandise. We had been to the tourist market before the beach, but the beach was much better. And yes, Wal-Mart is everywhere!

I know there were many lives changed that week. Both the locals and us. This has helped to push our church in a more missions minded direction. There are already two more trips to Tampico planned for this year. My hope is that different people will attend and be able to experience what we experienced.

The following are some miscellaneous photos.

These people are "squatting" hoping to acquire this land for themselves.

The local trash drop off.

A vine growing on the fence of the church.

Sign on the fence telling of the VBS and revival.

Bush at the hotel.

This is one of my favorites. I would like to see this a little more in the states. This is a trash can cover at the hotel!