: just your average grain of salt :

     This seems to be a pretty common question in job interviews. Understandably employers want people who are driven to work hard, but before you're able to show them your work ethic, you have to convince them to give you a shot by telling them how you motivate yourself.      I feel like a pretty good worker. I'm always striving to do better at whatever it is I do. But when I was first asked the question, "what motivates you?" it was actually tough for me to answer...I didn't really know!  I've been thinking about that question a lot lately for some reason. What keeps me going?      I think one reason is that I was raised with the mentality that if you want something you have to work for it. "You don't get nothin' that you don't earn." I don't want anything handed to me in life. I want to earn it.There's nothing like the feeling of seeing the fruits of your labor and watching all your effort pay off!   ...

     It's been about 6 months since I moved back to America from Cyprus. When I first got home, I had really weird dreams. For a while, I thought it was a reverse culture-shock thing, but I still have them several months later. Sometimes in my dreams, all the constellations are upside down again, like they looked in Cyprus in May. That is  the biggest thing that made me feel far away from my country...it was more than being in a different climate, surrounded by different languages; looking at the night sky made me feel like I was in a totally different world!      If I'm honest most days I don't think about my time on that island a lot. I keep myself busy enough to not think back too much, but remember enough to [hopefully] keep in mind the lessons I learned. But if I ever have enough time available to let my mind wander, the memories start pouring in! And then I just miss it all so much. How close I felt to God, the community, the people w...

     That is the question I ask myself almost everyday. YWAM life is not a normal life they say and it's so true! Every day in Cyprus is just crazy, andevery time I get a second to stop and reflect on the day I wonder, "Am I really doing this?"      A few weeks ago I went on a killer hike to the top of a mountain and we just happened to find a beautiful old castle from the 10th century. It was so cool!       Last weekend we had a day off and I got to explore some sea caves and then went parasailing for the first time, so that was pretty neat.      Each week I get to participate in a prison ministry where I get to visit with a sweet girl who's only in prison because she was smuggled into the country, and now can't prove who she is. The rest of her story is too heartbreaking and sensitive to share, but I got to pray with her, and was just blown away by the hope the Lord keeps giving her through a s...

     Sorry it's taken me so long to post an update! Our flight went really well but after landing in Larnaca, Cyprus it took me about a week to get over jet lag! As soon as I felt like a normal human again, I felt right at home here! I was warned so much about culture shock, but it hasn't really been a hard adjustment.  So far the only things I miss about America are: water pressure for showers, being able to flush toilet paper, and good coffee.       I love being here, but it hasn't exactly been what I was expecting it would be. I had it in my head that we were going to be working daily in the refugee camp, but that hasn't been the case! Because of some riots that have been going on, only the men have been allowed to go in. And it doesn't help that the majority of the locals aren't thrilled about the people who are refugees here.      We've been encouraged to not to mention to locals that we're here with YWAM...

     ...days until I leave for Cyprus! We're leaving next Tuesday morning, and prayers for a safe flight are very welcome!! The lecture phase of DTS has flown by! I apologize for not keeping this blog very updated, but I'm going to try now to sum up the last 3 months! Each week we had a new speaker who taught on topics like the Character and Nature of God, Studying the Bible, Hearing God's Voice, Relationships, Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and Biblical Worldview to name a few!          It's been an overload of great information! It's been a challenge to try to retain it all, and even more challenging to try to figure out how to practically apply it all in my everyday life! This may sound silly, but I think the biggest thing I've learned is that I have so much more to learn! Which is overwhelming in a good way! God is so huge and intricate and it's so exciting to get to spend life getting to know Him better!     ...

     At the beginning of the Discipleship Training School, we 14 students knew that we'd be splitting into 2 teams for our Outreach, one to Greece and one to Cyprus. But we had no idea which teams we'd be on! For the past 5 weeks we've all been anxious to find out where we're going, and finally, after a lot of prayer, the staff made the reveal!      They hung a large piece of cardboard on the wall with balloons attached to it for us to try to pop with darts. Each balloon contained a sticky note with a students name and what team they'd be on. It was lots of fun, and while there were a couple close calls, no one got hit with a dart. (haha)           Anyway, I am officially going to Cyprus! Our departure date is yet to be determined, but it will be around Easter. I am so stoked for this opportunity, and my team is pretty much the coolest!! (No offense, team Greece!)      Two more months and then I'...

     Thursday night my team of 5 people got to go to the Boise airport to meet our "adopted" refugee family! Ours is a single, Christian, Pakistani mother and her 3 kids. I can't share too much detail about them for privacy reasons, so I'll be changing their names when I mention them on this blog! David is 18, Annie is 17, and Josiah is 10. They're all fluent in English which was really helpful to us, because their mom doesn't speak much English yet.      After introducing ourselves at the airport and chatting with  them for a while, their case manager from World Relief took them to a hotel for the night. Then yesterday afternoon my team got to take them all to Winco. The mom seemed pretty overwhelmed by the grocery store, but the kids were awesome translators for us!      It was so fun getting to know them, and I can't wait to spend more time with them! The first thing the mom asked us when we picked them up to go sh...

     Greetings! I don't have anything super exciting to report, but I felt like I should post something since I'm going to try to update this at least semi-regularly!      Our lectures so far have all been great, but this week was particularly good! Our speaker for the week was Mike Knott, a preacher from Minnesota, and he spoke on studying the Word of God. So basically, teaching us how to learn!      It was really refreshing for me because since I was raised in the church and grew up being homeschooled with a faith-based curriculum, I think I'm guilty of taking the Bible for granted. Being around it so much makes it easy for me to simply view it as another textbook! So this week I've been gaining a new appreciation for Scripture and it's value, and in turn, that has me more excited to go and share it!          In other news, we're all going to get to "adopt" a refugee family through a partne...

     Today I met a refugee family for the first time! 4 of us took a care package to their house, and the only thing we knew about them was that they came to Boise from Sudan. After we arrived at their house, they invited us in and pretty much the only other thing we learned about them was that they didn't speak much English which, of course, is to be expected.       The language barrier made it almost impossible for even basic communication, but we told them our names and eventually we figured out the name of the single mother and the names and ages of her 3 children.       We'd try to say something, like, "Your home is very nice, thank you for inviting us in!" And they'd just smile and laugh, trying to say something back, but of course we couldn't understand either so we just nodded and started laughing too.      They were so friendly and the mother made tea for us to drink as we sat in the living room...

          Well, I'm all moved in to The Duplex in Boise! It's a little cramped, but my 6 roommates are all the sweetest! In this first week we've had a lecture on worship, as well as a 4 hour training session about people who are refugees and wanting to come into the U.S.      We learned about all the requirements they must meet and got an overview of the vetting process each person has to go through. We learned some ways to help them adjust to our culture, while being respectful of their own and also being aware of those suffering from PTSD.           Overall, this being the first week, everything was pretty relaxed and in between times of worship, prayer and studying the Bible, we got to spend a lot of time getting to know each other through playing board games, cooking together, and today we had a photo scavenger hunt in downtown Boise which was pretty great! I felt like a tourist i...