week two- The father heart of God

So last week was kool. we had a speaker for the whole week. his name was Jack Kody and he came with his friend skip (who played a mean harmonica and wrote ace songs). the topic was the father heart of God and honestly i wasn't looking forward to it at all. i've never really God this topic and havn't ever agreed with previous teaching i've heard about it. however i was plesantly suprised...he said that we need to understand that God wants relationship...he is not a big guy in the sky but someone who want to see how are day has gone etc. it was refreshing to have someone say that it doesn't matter what mood we are in when we come to god but it is the mere fact that we are talking to him that matters. he went on to explain different aspects of a father and how that relates to God. a very kool week.
we also managed to find the matrix and watched it one week so that the only guy in our goup now understands what it means to be the one!
our first exercise class was on thursday and it was soo funny...we went to the beach and played football and it ended up that me and coray got chucked in the sea by sojerd. all great fun... i made an awsome goaly i would like to add! ahha.
at the weekend i was in the kitchen which ment waking up at 5:45 and preparing american pancakes on sunday we went to church and then had the rest of the day. a group of us walked up to starbucks and then back just intime for the most beautiful sunset ever! and i mean ever... i have never seen one like it; we stopped at the beach and just marveled at the colours and the creation before us.
so as this blog is a little late i will tell you about the begining of this week at well.
the topic is team building....sounds fun but it is exhausting and has been a hard week. Our speaker has been Tim Pratt (yes yes being British i was the only one who laughed at his name); he is an awsome guy who is so easy to relate to...heeps of respect for him.
so the bases of a team is trust....yes trust...the thing that is soo hard. so we all had to talk about a hard situation in our lives ...it was a time with alot of tears and opening up. everyone has different backgrounds and has gone though some very different things. we have also done some great team games. yesterday we did a personality test to help understand who has what position in the team. i came out as a peaceful person haha rather than the organised one or the loud one haha...no suprise there. it been really interesting week and am really starting to understand how people react underpressure and how to best cope ( each game put pressure on the team to react and for people to take lead and communicate). Everyone is pretty tired but doing well.

so lastly today we had to do our local ministry (last week we painted a ladies house). this week we were told to go in 2 teams and pray about what God wanted us to do. everyone Got words or pictures but none of them seemed to link. so we were sent off with some money and just told to pray and see what we should do with it. so my group (Jessie, coray and me) were just walking towards this stadium as this is the word jessie got; and along the road we passed these kidz in this yard. they were really poor and cute so we stopped and said hello but then carried on walking. this road was soo dusty and had all these dogs going crazy barking...at the end of the road coray stopped us and said "guys do you realised some had a picture of this dusty road with all these dogs"
we were like..hm yeah..ok." so we turned around and there were these three dogs not far away barking. to turned back around and prayed "god show us what we should do down this road" decided to just walk back up at down as we turned back around, the dogs were gone...no where to be seen. not round a corner or in a yard...no where. so we walked up and down praying and came to the house with the kidz again. we decided to use the money to buy them some basic food shopping. the shop turned out to be next to the staduim (we recone that was like a direction from god otherwise we would have gone into town center) we got food and gave it to the family. we said it was a gift from God and not from us and they invited us in as we showed them what we had got. we then went of our merry way feeling really excited. the family seemed touched and the little kidz kept waving at us after soo cute.

so it is totally food time now so i need to go.
hope you enjoyed the ramble its kinda long again. thank you for all your comments and messages i've loved hearing from you all.
next week the topic is relationships which is usually an intense topic and we have been warned our speaker is a no nonsense guy and not to get offended with how direct he is.
lots of love to everyone
God Bless
xxx

I'm Here!

ok so my first week is over. the flight out here was sooooo long, there were almost a few hiccups but they were thankfully avoided. e.g. i was told my luggage would go straight to san diago however that was not the case. thankfully a security guard looked at my visa and commented on me traveling light once we sussed out i had been missinformed i went back to find my luggage. when i got to Las Vagus i had a 6 hour wait which was the longest wait of my life!!! gah sooo boring and i couldn't find a computer so i just tried to stay awake by playing sudoku.
I was picked up by a fellow english gal, which was ace especially when she said her husband was at the base watching top gear. i finally got to bed at 2 am.

The schedule has been pretty hectic...everyday we are up at ten to seven to have a morning quiet time then breakfast and then lectures untill lunch.
we have had a different speaker each day this week which has been really interesting. one talk of intersession (prayer) i was really challenge by this one point: he was saying when we pray for people are we just asking God for what we think they need...really we should be asking God what we should be praying for them. listen and then pray. we may be praying for someone to become a christian when really at that moment in time they need someone to talk to, or are in a financial situation ( i hope that makes sense i'm not so good at explaining). another talk was on spiritual gifts... we are all going to by a book which gives a quizz on your own spiritual gifts and then breaks down what each gift is. i am looking forward to starting that book.
the rest of the day is pretty booked up as well.
ooo on our first night they hired a spanish Mariachi band to come to the base and they played and sang to us that was ace.

Every friday we go into the Red Light District of Ensenada and serve soup to homeless, drug addicts and other people. I had my first experiance of that yesterday which was kool. its really nerve racking as i don't speak spanish and i have forgotton the little i learnt. It actually wasn't that bad. i just stayed behind the soup bowl all night and just said "soup" and "your welcome, God bless". It is a really exciting ministry and one of the girls who spoke fluent spanish was talking to this drug addict and by the end of the night he took the names of a church and a rehab center. Please be praying because i am really struggeling with the spanish and a couple of the girls already speak near to fluent spanish so its really frustrating as i wanna be out there talking to people but i can't...not yet.

Today we had the day off and got to go to a torist place...la Bufa Dora.... its basically a point on the coast where there is a blow whole. sadly the tide was out so it didn't blow as high as normal but we climbed a cliff and looked out on the amazin view. i have just got back from one of the girls from the base's flat. she invited us all round to watch a film which was really cool.
Sorry this is very long i will try to wrap it up soon.

My Classmates are ace! There are only seven of us; this was a shock as we all expected around 15 but lots of people dropped out for individual reasons. here are six girls and one guy. haha
all the girls live in one dorm. 4 are American , 1 Canadian and 1 from the Netherlands. The only guy..Sjored...is also from the Netherlands...we all call him "The One" or "Keanu". we are all very different so the first few days was weird but we have all bonded very quickly and i think we will become a little family very quickly. Some of the girls are already calling me Roo which makes me feel at home and reminds me of you mum every time. (miss you and dad lots)

i am missing home and everybody heeps especially as no one is quite into the same music as me however a english guy arrived on the base today and we totally listen to the same stuff....turns out we were both at the Red Hot chilli pepper gig at hyde park with James Brown supporting and he also went to Muse at Wembley stadium on the Saturday night. He has bought the DVD of the Muse gig so we are going to watch it some time....have to say being able to chat about bands really made my night haha.

looking forward to hearing from you all would love to know what your up to. a few of the girls have bought their laptops so when they are not using them i am aloud to come on the internet woop woop. looks like i should be able to do a blog once a weekish.
my full timetable kicks in next week, as do my spanish lessons and community work.
its all very excited miss being able to ring and say what i'm up to.

love you all heeps

God bless
Ruth xxx

sorry its so long hope you enjoyed

A few days before I leave

Right i have never done a blog before and don't know if this will work.
I am leaving in two days and things have been pretty manic. As a few of you know I have had food poisoning/nora virus....not sure which one; this has caused me to be violently ill and now I am feeling better I have woken up to find both my parents indisposed with the same affliction.
Please be praying for a safe travel I am a bit nervous about the flying out on my own; also I am due to be collecting all my currency the on my last day in England and cannot afford for anything bad to happen. haha Hughes last min timing as ever.

hopefully this will work

Happy New year

will try post somethin when I am out there

God Bless
Ruth x