The rain stopped! Thank you Jesus! All of our stuff is
finally drying out; though I’m sure my shoes are forever ruined. L
I’m doing a New Year’s celebration blog. I’m beginning this
entry December 31, 2012 – and it’s slowly been getting crazier and crazier as
the day drags on. There was a wet t-shirt contest this afternoon – for 16-18
year olds. They’re just babies! Drunken girls ended up completely topless on
stage, stripping down for attention. You could hear the cheers from miles away.
Is that even legal? Not that anything going on here is legal – nearly every kid
here is underage, there are drugs everywhere, and it’s really eye-opening. I
was never involved in the party scene in high school, so I was never exposed to
the stuff that goes on here. And I swear, if I hear the f bomb one more time,
I’m gonna smack some kids upside the head with a bible. In a totally loving way
of course. I’m actually so sick of the word. I hear it about 25 times a minute.
And they have this chant they do every 5 minutes “Let’s get rowdy, let’s get
f*****g rowdy…” and you’d think that they would get sick of it and find a new
chant, but nope.
In the meantime, our entire team has been feeling pretty
sick. Dave was out last night with a fever and vomiting, we’re all getting cold
symptoms with achiness, drainage, and we’re all incredibly tired. I feel dead.
It’s probably mostly due to the intense climate change, but I think it’s
totally a spiritual thing. We got to have some incredible conversations last
night and Satan is feeling totally threatened. I spent all afternoon in my
sleeping bag, unable to breathe properly and I have the most intense headache
I’ve had in a really long time. I took some pills, but now I’m just tired
again.
During dinner, instead of eating, I sat in my tent and began
praying. I felt so defeated for so many different reasons – I was believing so
many lies that I was a failure to my team, a failure in the ministry I am doing
here, and that I was weak. I sat in the tent and cried and prayed and sang and
asked God a lot of questions and cried some more and opened my bible. First, I
read Psalm 23 and then God took me to Psalm 42 and I began to feel so much
better. He answers so many questions, and in case you were wondering, you
should know that prayer ACTUALLY WORKS. Sometimes, I forget that God is
faithful and that talking to Him is for my benefit. Though I still felt sick, I
went to devos with a more refreshed spirit and some crazy things happened.
Darius, a kid we’ve been talking to recently decided to join us to see what we
did. And as we were worshipping, his drunk friends got curious and came over in
the middle of our singing and asked him “What the f**k are you doing man?” and
he said “These guys are cool, I’m singing, come sing with us!” and they did.
And before I could blink my eyes, we were surrounded by enthusiastic, extremely
tone-deaf drunk kids. They were all reading the song sheets and singing along;
some were dancing and clapping, others playing the drum we had. One girl popped
in and said “I know this song! I used to sing it when I went to church!” and
drunk kids began gathering around and watching. I couldn’t help but laugh. It
was so funny. Imagine being surrounded by tons of drunk kids dancing and
singing worship songs. And though I know it wasn’t genuine worship, it was just
some kids trying something they would never do sober and having fun, it was so
funny. I think it was kind of a slap in Satan’s face, like he brought them here
to do bad things unconsciously, but instead; they began the most innocent and pure
kind of singing and dancing. God is so funny.
Then I was on karaoke. That was a nightmare. If you’ve ever
volunteered to help with karaoke with around 900 drunk teenagers, you’ll know
exactly what I mean. It was nice to get finished with it. And then I got
prophesied over by this prophet guy that came to encourage us. It definitely
worked. I spent the last moments of 2012 and first moments of 2013 with God
alone in my tent, drowning out the ruckus outside with some worship music and
prayer and it was so incredible. Then I went outside. And all hell was breaking
loose. There were so many fights; people were running around like chicken with
their heads cut off. I saw girls getting into it, yanking hair, scratching,
screaming and hitting the ground hard. It made me wonder if the moms that paid
for them to come here and had knowingly dropped them off, if they had seen
their daughters getting dragged around in the gravel, would they have let them
come? These crazy girls destroyed our tents! People crashed right into them
without reserve. We girls weren’t allowed to leave the OJ tent. And then New
Year’s celebrations continued until well into the morning, people screaming and
partying until dawn.
I am happy for the New Year – it sure is weird to not
experience it in the company of home friends and there was no countdown, no
sleepovers or fun games. It is odd, indeed to think that we’re in 2013, and I’m
in it before anyone back home – 2012 was an incredible year. Filled with
amazing highs and terrible lows, I can certainly categorize it as the most roller-coaster
year of my entire life. But I think it goes to show that God is so good – He’s
turned my world upside down and made me someone incredibly and so perfectly
whole in Him. I’m going to miss 2012, it was a year of change, but I think it
marked me leaving behind a lot of stuff. I won’t ever forget them, I’m looking forward into
the years that God is laying out in front of me. I have so much peace about following
His plan for me, and the unknown is so exciting. It’s been an adventure, and I am
so thrilled to continue it.
