Where Did The Time Go???

This past week, Joe Jordan was our predicador, or preacher, for camp and it was a blessing because he is American and speaking Spanish.  What does that mean? That means he speaks slower and clearer than others would!  I was able to listen and comprehend what he was saying and he definitely brought the word! He took the campers through topics about salvation, our savior, and even his return.  I loved being able to see these people narrow in to what he was saying and it resulted in the testimonies on Saturday morning of individual rooms standing up and sharing how God changed their lives this week.  I love listening to them and some are so real with it! They flat out say I received Christ into my life because I knew with my sins, that I couldn’t get anywhere!  Awesome week!

            On Monday, I felt really tired, but had to remember that we were almost halfway done! Two weeks of camp left, then Cordoba, Chile, and Pichi! Speaking of this trip, we leave February 10^th to Cordoba, which is a province in Central Argentina for a few days and will pick up some other WOL people to travel on the 12^th to Santiago, Chile!  We will be helping out the Word of Life Chile for a week or so, which will be awesome! Getting to serve in another country and also see some of our friends from school that went home for the summer! AND WE CAN STILL SPEAK SPANISH! I am really at the point where I will do anything to learn this language! It’s frustrating, to be quite honest, a lot of the time, because I feel like I should understand more than I do.  The Lord is teaching me a lot of patience because I NEED IT!

            Tuesday, in my quiet time, I tried out a new place on campus. I thought it would be quiet and it was for a while.  As soon as I got into it and was spending some great time with the Lord, trucks started driving by, birds were freaking out, etc.  Satan really didn’t like that, obviously!  Later that day, one of my friends who had a trilingual bible and I started looking at some of my favorite verses in Portuguese and Spanish as well.  Anyway, so I started to drift to the Spanish side and happened to go look up Jeremiah 29:11.  Most of you know what that verse is, but then I read the Spanish side and it read (translating) “For I know that plans I have for you very well….” How awesome is that! It just adds a whole other dimension to the verse! CRAZY! I love that the verses are same concepts but in both languages, but in Spanish, and english sometimes, somehow seems to be a little more touching.

            I have been struggling with my allergies here this summer, unfortunately, and its partially because there is no air condition in our rooms and only inside the cafeteria during meal times.  There is no steady heat temp here so the constant “getting nicer outside” to “getting really hot” doesn’t help at all! One morning, I was so backed up in my sinuses, sneezing constantly, eyes itching like no other, I was about to just throw the towel in.  I was about to do my devotions and decided to try to concentrate to see what God had for me that day.  Even though it had NOTHING to do with my allergies, the Word just comforted me, even though I couldn’t read two sentences without blowing my nose!  The thought came to me that it was up to me to let Satan have my morning or to start out my day with the Lord in His word and kick Satan to the curb.  Let me tell you, my morning and my day was great! J

            Looking back on high school, I tell myself so many things like “I wish I would remember this! I wish I had paid more attention here! I wish I would have actually cared about Spanish!”  That wall hit me this week.  We started a lot of heavy duty grammar in Spanish and I just remember saying “I remember learning this is English and hating it! Now I have to learn it in Spanish!!!” Well, just means I have to work that much harder!

            Fast forward to this week, Thursday morning, my friend Abbi and I sang….IN SPANISH! It was AWESOME! I have so much fun! Definitely not something easy to do! Although, the Lord was right there with us! Can’t wait to do it again! There were over 700 spanish speaking people, and here Abbi and I, two gringas. Thank you Jesus!

            ALRIGHT! So I have some news here.  This is blogger reader classified information until more details squared away but……..through the Lord leading me to look around at some schools in Florida for this coming fall, I applied to Clearwater Christian College before I came back to Argy, through a lot of prayer and continued prayer even after it was sent in just to make sure.  As of this week, I was officially accepted! SO if you would be praying WITH me to have the Lord’s provision, that would be GREAT! OJO! This is blogger classified information! ;)

Prayer Requests:

1)   MY ALLERGIES- such a distraction and spiritual warfare!

2)   Last week of camp for the PBBers before our adventure!

3)   Pray for the opportunities that I have (like working at an orphanage over my break before school starts)

4)   CAMPERS! CAMPERS! CAMPERS! J

5)   Health!

6)   The Lord’s for me after Argentina

I choose Him.

Wow! This week! I need to start writing specific points down as they happen because I always think I won’t forget all the little things and then I end up forgetting them all! I can’t believe I made it through another week! Thank you Jesus! Even though this camp is for nonbelievers to come and find Christ, He works in all of our hearts as well! So let me take you back to what He did in MY heart this week!

            I had been reading into 1 Kings, which is where the Word of Life Quiet time books are going through in this moment in time, and I was starting to get a little discouraged because it was a lot of historical facts about Soloman’s temple, meaning it wasn’t a convicting passage like I was hoping for.  The next day, I get to chapter 8 where God basically says “do not do anything because whatever you do on your own, is going to fail.”  Intrigued and so I was encouraged for the day! Later on, I met with my counselor Lyndee and we had been praying about something to study for a week together.  I had read the book Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers but never read through and studied the book in the bible, Hosea (or Oseas, in Spanish).  So that became our study of the week.  I look at it, perfect, two chapters a day, ready and really excited for my quiet time the next day!  Now, we had prayed that even though our lives were not very relevant to this book of the bible, that God would still show us something to help us grow closer to Him.  Let me tell you something, the first two chapters were exactly what I needed to hear and be prepped with for that day!  They talked about God being in control no matter what and how we should continue to follow His will, even though it may not make any sense.  Still, that He is in COMPLETE control!  I have been back in Argentina for 2 weeks now, feels like forever almost, and of course I am missing home.  Some of you don’t know but I am praying about switching schools after July, somewhere else versus Liberty.  With stress from this situation, being reminded of God being in control of every situation was the most comforting thing that I could read for this time of my life! Sometimes my days here are crazy and most of the time it’s just because my flesh wants to make it seem like it’s the end of the world.  I just have to keep lifting my head, heart and eyes, up to Him for comfort and for encouragement.  Thank you Lord for Your Word and for Your love that saves me from sin and death!

Hello! We are so blessed to have a way to SEE and READ His EXACT WORDS! They don’t change! They are written down! They were inspired by Him! We have a beautiful way of meeting with Him because of Christ’s death and the tearing of the vail.  We can walk into His presence and be renewed everyday through His word and through His listening heart.

One of my favorite parts of Chapter 2 was verse 7, talking about how Gomer will always revert back to Hosea, because she knows he is better.  In our life perspective, that is us and choosing sin!  WE WILL ALWAYS BE DISSATISFIED WITH ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF GOD’S WILL!  I don’t want to outside of His will!  I want to enjoy this life He gave me to live, but for Him!  I choose Him.

The Lord has done amazing things this week, like numerous salvations in the 629 campers that were all here! Today they leave and tomorrow we get a fresh batch of hungry hearts! I am so excited to see what the 3^rd week brings! Please keep them in mind because the equipo (working team) like the students, volunteers and missionaries that are putting all of this together each week, are growing tired! Pray for energy and for extra love to give to the campers!

Prayer Requests:

1)   MY SPANISH- it’s crunch time!

2)   Campers-leaving back to their homes, and the new ones coming in!

3)   Patience, in my own life.

4)   Energy and rest for equipante.

5)   Ashley Hiers in Africa (missionary)

6)   For the Lords will in my life after Argentina.

7)   My allergies, unfortunately still a daily struggle.

***OJO! Please send me prayer requests! J I want to hear from you! My e-mail is sirkmaggie@yahoo.com if you do not have a Facebook or are not friends with me! I don’t care if I don’t even know you, I would still love to be in prayer!

Oh Here We Go Again.

   So I'm here again in Argentina! It's crazy to think that December is passed already! I enjoyed my time  immensely for all who were wondering!  I knew coming back that things were going to be different, seeing how it is summertime here and we are putting on summer camp for 6 weeks.  Just in the first week, God has worked incredibly on just this campus.  I can't imagine what He is doing right now with those campers that are home talking with their families about what they did and what God has done in their lives!
   To start off, I arrived on Thursday and hit the ground running! I was already working on Friday, cutting letters, painting things for the stage set up, and just trying to get used to being back again! Sunday night, we had un fogón (bonfire) for the students and volunteers of camp.  It was to start our summer camp season and the best part was when we got little logs to throw in at the end to just surrender all in these next few months or so.  To surrender sleep.  To surrender energy.  To surrender food choice.  To surrender space and comfortability.  To surrender time.  Most importantly, to surrender your heart for all the wonderful things that God was going to be doing in all of our lives and all that challenges that we can't endure without Him! That night I went to sleep with no expectation of what was going to happen the next day and not to be prideful in any way but that was one of the best decisions I have ever made!
   Monday came along and campers started to arrive and the campus was getting pretty full.  We had the opening ceremony at night and it was a joy to see all of the weekend work that Vestuario (where I work) had put in that finally paid off and looked awesome!  Being in the behind the scenes crew is actually really cool!  Anyway, that night was the night the Andreas, our director, was going to start of with the bang and preach the gospel....23 salvations that night! The Lord did NOT waste any time!  Monday night was a great way to start off the week!
   Over the week, Mufa Pufa (super fun game time), the pool, testimonies, and all, you could just feel God moving in and through this campus and it was awesome!
   Last night, we had the closing ceremony and rooms (that were on mini teams) stood up together and would one person would share something that happened that week.  Camper after camper stood up saying that they received Christ as their savior and what was so crazy about it was that they wouldn't just say "Oh I became a Christian"...they would say "I received Christ into my life and I knew that I needed Him because of sin and I can't live without Him."  There were also a lot of people who said that they thought they were Christians before and realized that they weren't really living a true Christian life devoted to Him, so they changed.  How incredible is that?! This was the first week!? There are 6 more of these!  I can't wait to see what's going to happen!
   PBB (my program) will be missing the last week of camp because we are heading down south to Pichi Traful, which is a cabin hotel owned by Word of Life, which is in the Andes Mountains and has beautiful lakes and such!  It doesn't look like I am going to be getting much rest until then! After those two weeks, we are possibly crossing the border of where I will reveal later and after I have more details as to what we are doing!  After our vacation, I am hoping to translate for some missions groups that come down here so if you know any group that is coming down here to work, LET ME KNOW!
   The Lord has truly shown Himself this week as a fast mover and its a blessing to see Him do so!



Prayer Requests:
    1) Not that this is a priority, but please pray for good night sleeps because we do not have the    blessing of air conditioning, only a fan, and it cuts off some sleeping time.
    2) That I would be able to keep my studies up for I still have spanish class all summer.
    3) For the Lord to reveal His plan for me really clearly for after I am finished here in July.
    4) For God to work in the campers lives and to keep us safe here because there are a lot of people coming from a lot of different places.  They need Jesus and they are in the best place to connect with Him!
    5) Ashley Hiers who is continuing the Lord's calling of mission work over in Africa.  She is such an inspiration in my life just by being where she is at.
    6)MY SPANISH! I want to translate for trips my end of March!


Please let me know of any prayer requests that you would want any help with!