Preparation

 Recently I realized, with a mounting feeling of something like panic, that it is almost a month until I go to Ethiopia.  Yikes! Time is flying. Lucky for me, I had an interesting experience last team week which helped me to prepare a little for my time in Ethiopia.
 Last weekend, my team - which also happened to be my outreach team - went to a Confirmation camp in the foothills of Norway where we invested in the youth and talked to them about the Ten Commandments. I have to say that I have not seen so many stars as I did during the nights at the camp in a long time. Nor have I experienced so much cold in a while, since the prison is surprisingly warm. But these things did not exactly prepare me for Ethiopia; rather, it was the place where we, the girls at least, stayed.

The little house looking shack on the left side of the picture is where I and about ten other girls stayed for two nights. It was actually used to store grain about one hundred years ago and we were the first people to be housed in it for over a year. Our room was coated with cobwebs and an even better surprise met us in the mattresses of the bunk beds: mouse poop. Needless to say that in a room shared by five girls panic quickly arose, which died down as we began to take our eyes off of our predicament and thank God for the opportunity to speak into the lives of the young people around us. 
 As I am writing this, I realize that the story sounds a little cheesy. However, I hope that when I encounter things that are less than comfortable in Ethiopia that I can remember the response of placing my eyes on God instead of the mouse poo.     

To Scotland and Back: Mini-outreach

 What can I say about mini-outreach? I have no previous mini-outreach experience with YWAM with which to compare the one in Scotland with, but I have the feeling that it was unique in many ways. For starters, my team consisted of only three people including myself. I went to Scotland with Ragnhild who is Norwegian and Katherina who is German, both of whom are my DTS staff.


Katherina, me, and Ragnhild

 Another unique part of the outreach is the focus. If there was a theme to what we did in Scotland, it would have to be prayer. We, my team and our host family, spent a lot of time praying with people from the church that we were working with in Scotland and with a few other people who God put in our path.
 For the entire time in Scotland, my "team" and I were working with a small church called the Lighthouse Church which is located in the small costal town of Troon that few people have heard of. I think that the most that we did with in church itself was going there on Sundays and helping with their prayer rooms on Wednesdays. However, we did spend a lot of time connecting with people in the church. While the Lighthouse Church may be small, the people are fantastic. We also stayed with an amazing family from the church who not only opened their home to us, but also gave up their time to take us places and ministered alongside of us.



Andrew and Sadie: our wonderful hosts

 

The Lighthouse Church



Inside the Lighthouse Church



Part of Troon where the church is. Incedentily, the church sits in the center of Troon's roughest neighborhood.



Troon's harbor

 While the church that we came to work with is located in Troon, our host family lived about forty minutes away in the town, which looks and feels more like a city, of Paisley located near Glasgow. Paisley is a town rich in history which has fallen under hard times. I think that in a way Paisley represents Scotland in that it is a beautiful country with a rich history that has fallen under a lot of oppression and seen many hard times. We met many people in Scotland who were in need of hope in their lives. 


Paisley Abbey



Paisley Town Center

 Somewhere in the history of YWAM, the DTS staff figured out that it is good to have a day off to rest during outreaches and for our day off, we went to Stirling Castle and the city of Glasgow. Thanks to our amazing host family, we were also able to see a bit of the Scottish countryside as well during another day. 


Stirling Castle



 


From the battlements



Loch Lomon

 I want to end by sharing one incident of how God placed people in our paths while in Scotland. On one of the first days that we spent in Scotland, we had a time of prayer with our host family. This time of prayer was a bit more than a quick, half hour session and after a while I began to get distracted, thinking how nice it would be to take a walk (yes, I know that it must be a terrible shock to hear that a DTS student gets distracted). As I was thinking about how I could get outside, a strange thought came into my mind that if I were to go on a walk, I would meet a woman on crutches. This is not a normal thought for me, so I told myself to stop trying to think of excuses to go outside and to go back to praying. Not long after this, Andrew asked if we would like to go walking on top of a nearby hill. Hallelujah! My silent prayers had been answered. The hill turned out to be a frozen cow pasture with an amazing view of Paisley and Glasgow. About half-way through the walk, Katherina and I noticed that there was a woman ahead of us walking her dog. I couldn't believe it at first, but as we got closer the woman was unmistakably using crutches. As we approached the woman, debating if we should pray for her or not, the woman actually started a conversation with us and allowed us to pray for her. Nothing visibly happened at that moment, but we could tell that God had met her with His love. Now all that I see is people with crutches.



the hill