Haiti, Norway and Ice Cream

As many of you know, we have been a bit lazy about writing blogs...and guess what? The sad truth is, it will probably happen again due to the fact that we are all leaving (or have left) the country for our "week off". Kelly is in Norway with her fam and Jesse, Laura and I are heading to Haiti Wed. morning.

So, Laura and I are currently hanging out in Indy by ourselves and with our fabulous host parents, Don and Judy. Tonight Jesse, Carrie (a friend who you will all know from our Connecticut week) and Fif (my sister) will be joining us. We are all excited for our time in Haiti. We will be going back to the same mission that Laura and I went to two years ago with our college spring break trip. Please check out their website
http://www.missionofhopehaiti.org/index.html We will be helping out around the mission and also traveling to surrounding villages and orphanages to put on a VBS and love kids! We would appreciate prayer for safe travels and good health. We pray that God will use us for His kingdom. We will fill you in on everything as soon as we return.

We are pretty sure that our friend Kelly is doing one of the following (if not all at the same time): hiking fjords, eating foods native to Norway - especially Kringla and Lefsa, visiting the family farm and/or listening to her sister sing with the St. Olaf choir. We are also praying for safe travel and wonderful family fellowship!

We are excited for our "week off" and even more excited to be back in the midwest for our summer journey! We are also extremely pumped for Damen's enterance into the Latreia family!
We now leave you with this:

****Breaking News**** Each Latreia member has successfully joined the Ben and Jerry's one
pint in one sitting club!
5/11/05 Stephanie entered with Dublin Mudslide
5/16/05 Jesse entered with Chunky Monkey (and then continued to
join the 2 pint in one sitting club with Chocolate Brownie Chunk)
5/21/05 Laura entered with Chunky Monkey
5/28/05 Kelly jumped aboard with Chunky Monkey
(don't mind the cows)

Stephanie and Laura

Open table?

Last week we worked with a Christian soup kitchen in Dayton. Bill, the director, described to us the two most common ways Christian soup kitchens are run. One way is basically the same as a secular soup kitchen. Anyone can come in to eat and there are absolutely no requirements to fulfill before you get your food. The only piece that separates these soup kitchens from secular ones tends to be the signs and sayings on the walls and the beliefs of the people who run them.
The other method is a bit more complicated. Many Christian soup kitchens require people to sit through a sermon or, at the very least, a prayer before they are allowed to get their food.

As we have worked with several of both types of these soup kitchens, Bill asked us which method we found to be most effective. So I’ve been thinking about this question. I can see benefits to both… On one hand, the first type extends the grace of Jesus Christ through the open table. On the other hand, the second type ensures that people hear that it is because of the grace of Jesus Christ that they are being fed. Both have benefits but I think I’ve decided which type I would prefer to work with… But instead of me sharing my opinion (it’s a miracle, I know), I thought I’d open this blog up for comments. I’m curious to hear people’s opinions. If the ultimate goal is truly to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in hopes that people will place their faith in Him, which type of soup kitchen do you believe to be most effective?

Kelly

4,000 miles to Iowa

I have been thinking about writing a blog from my time with the team in Maine and Canada. The truth is, however, that nothing particularly struck me during those weeks as a catalyst for a great blog. We had incredible conversations about community and it was amazing to be back with Laura, Kelly and Stephanie. There is just a spark when the 4 of us are together… Last night, however, a friend of mine reminded me that I don’t need to change the world with a blog. It reminds me of a story that was shared with us while in Maine. The story said instead of trying to change the world we can make a part of it better one task at a time. I like that.
It’s amazing how many people we have had the chance to meet through Latreia and how these people we are meeting share with us. We (Latreia) talk about how it seems that folks tend to open up around missionary-types… I would do the same thing. What happens in these times of sharing is that I often find myself a little better off for having heard the story of another. People are making an impact [on me] and they might not ever know it.
A few years ago my father found what looked like a sharp-shinned hawk wrapped up in fishing line that he brought home in a rescue effort. My older brother named him “Junior.” With one leg that hung limp from the fishing line cutting off his circulation we moved him into our duck house where he could hop around on his good foot. I would catch chubs and snakes and throw them into the house to watch him - with what finesse he still possessed - hop on the living food and feast. He was awesome. On the 4th of July that year someone left the door to the duck house unlocked and Junior was gone the next day. We would never see how Junior did on his own.
A couple nights ago I was talking with a friend who has a little one on the way. Tests have come back saying that the baby may have complications. He and his wife were sitting in bed one night when she said (having not read it before) “we need to read Hebrews 11.” Hebrews 11 is about faith. It is recaps the stories of men and women who could not see the road ahead but followed anyway. It is a story about patience and trust in our Lord.
I struggle with letting go of control. We had a great team meeting in Canada about Latreia that energized each one of us. I have to admit, however, there were a couple times during the meeting that my body felt physically heavy with the load of things to do. “How will we do all of this?” Faith. We don’t always see how our sharing affects others. We don’t always get to see the end result of the little things that we do. Seeing, however, is not the only way to believing. Life can be fragile, uncertain and even a little scary but life is full of opportunities to give our worries to God. If we give up our worries we can focus a little more on the next task at hand.
Thanks, Laura
Jesse

Refueled in PEI

If PEI is any indicator of the Canadian way of life, I’d like America to adopt it. I felt like the minute we crossed onto the island we became relaxed and breathed in. There is a light-hearted spirit in the air (could it be Anne of Green Gables?) that is contagious. The mood of people there seemed to say ‘life is simple, God is good, so enjoy it.’ This atmosphere, coupled with the fact that the church put us up in a beautiful cottage in the country, provided a week of restoration for us. It wasn’t even about rest, it was about peace: a peace that gave us spiritual fuel and a peace to have confidence in Christ. And this restoration allowed us to move beyond what has become the routine of Latreia (even this crazy life can become a routine!) and into the future of Latreia… I had forgotten how important it is to be filled with Christ in order to be equipped to take the next step. We left PEI refueled, refreshed, and ready to tackle whatever God lays in our path. Our next newsletter will share some of the visions we have with you!

Kelly

Life's struggles

I would like to share with you a short story that I stumbled upon yesterday...

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared; he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.
Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly...

This message is very comforting to me right now. It reminds me that it is during these difficult times that God is forming us into who He wants us to be...we are growing and maturing into the creature God intended us to become. This is a process that cannot be rushed. Even though understanding may not be possible, God is sovereign and His timing is perfect.

Stephanie

Those gosh darn comfort zones...

This past weekend in Canada, as a team we were asked to speak about "what I have learned after stepping out of my comfort zone?" Jesse and I were the chosen two to talk to the congregation about this topic. We discussed briefly on Saturday night what we wanted to say, but decided that we weren't thinking clearly and needed to convene in the morning again. So at 6:30 a.m. we met over a cup of coffee in our cottage.

I had been consumed by this question for almost 24 hours and was up for half of the night trying to put into words what I have learned on this trip. Now mind you, I could only talk for 3 1/2 minutes on Sunday morning, so I had to speak concisely about what I have learned in almost a year’s time.

What I have learned, is that I am still learning. I have realized that I had gotten to a point in my faith where I thought that once I stepped out of my comfort zone, I was free sailing for a little bit. I didn’t have to step out again for a long time.

FALSE! Actually, the call from Christ is the complete opposite. I took a look back at the disciples and found that once they left the first comfort zone of family, job and “normal” life, Jesus continued to ask them to move out of comfort zone after comfort zone into a lifestyle of following Him.

The call is the same to us. We are continually urged by the Holy Spirit to move out of a life of the comfortable into a crazy life of somewhat uneasiness and definite adventure.

Latreia had a “team meeting” last Saturday, and we decided that we are ready to jump into the next zone. God has been laughing at us this week, kinda like He is saying “I thought you would never do this again” Incredible things happen when you trust God enough to say, I am ready to except the unknown again!

Laura

Tumbledown Mountain

For months we have had an overnight backpacking trip planned during our week in Maine. It has been a dream of ours to rough it out in the rustic mountains of Maine since before we even left on this trip. This past weekend was our great opportunity. Not heeding the warnings of virtually every Maine resident we spoke with, Stephanie, Rachel (friend from college), Jesse, and I headed to Tumbledown Mountain to see what we could climb.

The dirt road to the trailhead was full of holes and nearly impassable but Sedg (our van) was loyal and delivered us safely. We hopped out of the van with excitement in our steps and noisy chatter in the air. This mountain was ours to conquer. We headed up a break in the brush that appeared to be a path. It may not have been, we still don’t really know, but we knew we were headed upwards and this trail seemed worthy of our effort. At just over an hour into the hike we looked up and saw snow on the tops of the trees in the distance. This is what we had been warned about. Without snow shoes, the trails in Maine during the month of April tend be rather treacherous. After crossing a raging stream we marched on, ignoring the impracticality of the situation while enjoying the humor as we often found ourselves falling thigh-high deep in snow drifts. We reached the tree line of the mountain about two hours into the hike, observing the swirling clouds above our heads and feeling the temperature drop by about 20 degrees. As we climbed some large rocks to look out over a beautiful lake nestled in the mountains of Maine, we were nearly knocked over by the gale-force winds that were brewing at the top of the mountain. (Apparently when people in Maine tell you not to hike yet, they’re not just trying to keep their mountains to themselves. Point noted.) After not even reaching the true peak of the mountain we decided we had best turn back. Soaked and wet, we stopped for hot tea on the way down and then spent the rest of the afternoon lying in the woods of Maine talking over life issues for more than 3 hours. The sun finally came out as we were lying in the woods of Maine chatting instead of hiking. It was an incredible conversation about our struggles, what God is revealing to us, what we are learning, and about our dreams…one of those exchanges that you wish you could have the script to look back on and read years later because the sharing was so meaningful.

We never reached the summit of Tumbledown Mtn that day, nor did we sleep in the woods of Maine that night. We didn’t really accomplish any of the big goals we had set out with that morning, but God had other plans, more important plans for us. Instead we discussed life, climbed a tree together, and then had a picnic dinner of power bars and beef jerky on the top of our van. The perfect ending to a beautiful day. And in the process God reminded me of what life is really about…it’s not about always reaching the top: it’s about enjoying the journey of life, even when you are tumbling down.

Kelly

Montego Bay Jamaica

This past week I had the opportunity to visit an orphanage while I was in Jamaica with my family on vacation. When we got off of the boat and headed into town we were bombarded with kind offers for rides in taxis all around town. We were also greeted with “Ya Mon” and friendly faces. I felt at home right away. I loved the busyness and similarities to Haiti.

Teddy, our personal driver for the day, picked up my family (including my mom, dad, sister, aunt and grandparents) and we headed into the “real” Jamaica. We went far away from the cruise ship owned tourist shops and traps. We got to Robin’s Nest, an orphanage, and we met Michelle a great grandma-like lady who is originally from Minnesota. She showed us around her place and told us about her ministry. She told us about the joy she has found living far away from home with children who she has made her own. I had fallen…

After our tour we got to go and play with the kids. I noticed that a lot like in Haiti, these kids would rather be held than played with. In the process of an hour three children had fallen asleep in the arms of my grandparents and my mom. The children loved to be loved.

We were only able to stay for only two hours at Robin’s Nest, but in those two hours transformation happened in the hearts of my family and in me. We left and my family was already talking about what they could do for the kids at Robin’s Nest…how we could send presents at Christmas and Thanksgiving and it went on and on. It was so amazing! Shopping the rest of the day was a challenge for me, walking back on the fancy cruise ship was a challenge for me as well, but knowing that I had been changed and that my family had seen God working in the life of Michelle and 26 little orphans I was restored.
Laura