Getting you (and me) up to speed....

First, I wanna say yesterday marked 1 full year since I left Mozambique and I have to say that some days it seems like a blink and more and more days now, it seems like a whole other lifetime.  But as I look back over this year at where I've been and who I was when I first arrived back to where God's brought me and who I am now....I see God's hand all over it.  His provisions, His blessings, sweet moments and people He's brought into my life, such restoration, and just deeper relationship with Him.  And most days, I feel like I have no clue where He's leading me....nothing new here I guess, but I have immense peace in that.  As I can't remember a time He told me to trust Him and follow Him or made promises that He didn't fulfill....and so even though I expected to only be home for 6 months, which turned into 1 yr and I know will be more (at least Jan as I've mentioned previously)....I cannot wait to see what's next.  And I know it will be good.

Second, I can't believe it's been 4 months since I last updated....hmmm...time has a way of escaping me.  For those of you who don't get my (less than monthly at the moment) updates, you're out of the loop a bit and I'll try to catch you up in about 30 seconds or less.  Here goes.....

Winter was cold.  Very cold.  I hate winter.  And somehow I managed to fly south for the last 4 winters and my body was NOT happy with me this year.  Alas, winter has come and gone and I'm now excited summer and the heat is back!  I finished my second semester at UAB (in March) and first semester at UNC (end of April) and I'm still convinced my professors have simply quit reading my papers....I'm not sure why they still keep giving me A's.  Though I will not complain.  I applied for a scholarship through UAB's Global Outreach center to attend a 14 day World Hunger and Malnutrition training program at SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology) in Lineville, AL and got it!  I had one week off at the beginning of May and then all 4 of my classes (UNC and UAB combined) started right back up again.  Ah school.  So I just got back (Saturday) from those 2 weeks of learning insanely wonderful skills like solar cooking, drying leaves to make leaf powder, how to build (and use) fuel efficient cook stoves, urban gardening, and the list goes on.  All the while working on school work after 12 hr long days.  I might be crazy (though that's not really new to many of you).  While there I met some incredible people, had some really amazing conversations and prayer time and spent the day today praying through a bunch of things I feel like God has just started revealing to me over the past month or so (but possibly and more likely, longer since I'm pretty stubborn and hard headed).  I would LOVE to share (and you know I will) but only after I gain a bit more insight and clarity from God and see a bit more direction....but I have to admit, I'm kinda excited about what this next chapter might hold for me (I'll finish up both graduate certificate programs the first week in August-Praise the LORD!).

Join me in praying for a peace as I sit and wait on God to reveal my next step in serving Him, to let Him open doors, to fully trust in something I think might not look anything like I had planned (though that's not really new to me either), for discernment as I pray through options and start conversations with organizations I believe He's leading me to start exploring, and for the strength to simply say YES in the places I feel Him urging me to say yes in even when it makes absolutely no logical sense to me at all!  I am so blessed to have each of you in my life and love that ya'll give me such grace when I go silent for whole months at a time!  You know how much your prayers and emails and words mean to me!  Keep them coming and I hope to be able to share more with you in the coming weeks to months as God reveals more!  So that was probably an African version of 30 seconds....forgive me.  How bout some (I mean lots) pics from the last 2 weeks and all I learned at SIFAT.

Yeah....we ate bugs.  Apparently, they are nutritious.  And tasty??

We built a solar dryer to dry leaves on.....

 Then we learned how to pick, clean, and dry the leaves....

process them and make leaf cookies (which are suprisingly yummy)

 and then we started on the pasta....

which was amazing.

 I helped make a garden in a swimming pool

yup...we used cans under that blanket....

I think there is still red clay under my nails from that....

and before I left on Sat...we had beans sprouting which is pretty amazing since I physically touched those seeds before they went into the ground...me and my black thumb.  I don't give them another wk of life.  Sad.

 We also used tires.....

and gutters.

Next we made solar cookers.

 I know what you're thinking...no way that cardboard and tinfoil is going to cook anything....

Same thing I thought....so the next day we tried rice and chicken.....

 and after 3 hrs.....

Yeah-It was delicious.  ;) 

We mixed up clay to make bricks

There may have been a clay fight.....

But in the end we built a stove...a fuel efficient stove that WORKED.  

and it was virtually smokeless.

And then our Guatamalan cook showed us how to make Tortillas by hand

 And I made a slightly less perfect version.....we cooked it on our stoves 

and it still tasted just as yummy!

It was such a blessing to be with these men and women for 14 days, share life and talks and coffee (lots of coffee) and talk missions while learning some incredible life changing, community building skills!  I can't wait to use them....just as soon as God tells me how and when!