Awesome week

Once again, another week down here in Puerto Rico. It was a great week. God is continuing to teach us a lot along with watching Him move through us in the Puerto Rican community. On Monday we went to do community service at the high school. We were suppose to paint rooms however the school didn't have the paint yet, so a small group walked across the street to the University to do a prayer walk while the rest of us played basketball and volleyball at the school. It was quite funny watching everyone play volleyball. I remember one time I had the perfect set up to hit the ball up and over my head...yeah, I swung a little to late and the ball just ended up bouncing off my head. Bible training was very interesting on Tuesday because we took a break from our normal study of Genesis and bible studying methods to talk about how we got the bible that we have now and dismissing several of the myths of how it came out like how the council of nicea didn't make the bible. It was very interesting learning about how we got the biblical canon. Wednesday was excursion day and we were suppose to go to the beach but it was raining so we ended up going to the mall and doing a video scavenger hunt. It must have been funny to see a bunch of Americans running around the Puerto Rican mall doing stupid stuff like saluting people walking out of Old Navy and doing leap frogs by the elevator. It was great. Thursday continued our evangelism training and outreach at the University which is always interesting. Had a long conversation with a two different guys which was encouraging. We had the outreach social that evening by the soccer fields and had an awesome time playing with folks on project along with UPR students playing ultimate Frisbee. I had a blast just fellowshipping with folks. Friday wrapped up our week with community service again. Painting in the Puerto Rican heat is a little more taxing than expected, but it was definitely rewarding getting to serve the school. That afternoon was filled with one-on-ones with folks and this interesting game called man ball. Man ball is a game played at the pool where you have to get the ball in the goal area and hold it on the side for at least two seconds. The only other rules is no punching and if you're holding the person underwater and they tap you, you gotta let go. So, it can get very intense at times. Finally hit the rack early. It's definitely been an awesome week so far and God has been showing all of us so much stuff.

God is doing some awesome things in PR

Wow, the amazingness of our God just leaves me speechless sometimes. It's amazing to see what God is doing here in Puerto Rico. From challenging me in my faith by asking the tough questions, to watching people witness at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and developing relationships to seeing everyone having fun and growing as a community, it's been awesome.
     This past week we did our first two community service projects at the school, one on Monday and the other on Friday. From cleaning up the leaves to painting classrooms, it's been great to see everyone serving the school. I wasn't in a great mood Friday morning, but God really worked on my heart about it by the end of community service. It's going to be great to see how God continues to use us to show His love to the school.
     Tuesday and Thursday were our first two days doing Evangelism at UPR. It was a little nerve racking, but  God quickly took away that fear as I started to talk to a guy named David. He's studying some sort of science at UPR and definitely agreed with me about how logically, it seems impossible for everything to happen by chance (using the same argument that other scientist use for evolution which was really encouraging), but still wrestled with certain stuff. We had a great conversation and he agreed to meet up later on while we're still here in PR. God's really placed him on my heart to continue to develop a relationship with Him and just to be a light to him. The second day we were there, it was just amazing to walk around and see all the conversations PRP was having with the students and the encouraging stories we had later on. It was just awesome to see God doing some amazing things on campus here. It's also interesting (in a good way) to see how open people are here in PR. They don't mind having a conversation about things, looking at both sides even if they don't agree with you. Just the willingness to be open and talk about God. That has been awesome to me. Evangelism training at UPR has really placed a burden on my heart for Puerto Rico and especially the students there. We're barely half way through the trip and I already want to go back next year. It's just so amazing
    Wednesday we went up to the rain forest in the mountains and hiked up a river to a spot where there is a rope swing and just slightly farther up is a place to jump off a cliff and where a natural water slide is (pictures to come when I get them from people who had the water proof camera). It was fun being out there and just experiencing God's awesome creation. On the walk up, Diego and I decided to try and go up all the mini water falls and rapids instead of the easy course which was pretty fun. It was a great time.
    God is doing some amazing things here, even today, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Keep praying for everyone on this trip that we will continue to be used by God and that His kingdom would continue to advance.

Weekends in Puerto Rico

Give a bunch of college students some free time and interesting things happen. Give a bunch of Campus Outreach students free time in Puerto Rico, then you go coning. Coning is a difficult art. It requires the ability not to laugh in a hilarious situation, to step completely outside of your comfort zone and to look like a complete idiot, and yet everyone gets a kick out of it. Coning is when you go through the drive thru, normally a McDonalds and order a single ice cream cone. When you drive up to the window to get your ice cream, you grab the ice cream instead of the cone, and drive off. Well after having dinner with one of the local families from the church, our van got the bright idea to do that. So Saturday night, we went coning. Our fearless van driver Joel was the one that performed the hilarious act. We ordered the ice cream cone, everyone was trying not to laugh as we approached the window. The sweet Puerto Rican lady at the window held out the cone and Joel takes his finger, scoops out some and tries it right there. The lady was shocked. Joel tries another little scoop then offers some to the lady as we're dying in the back. Finally Joel attempts to grab the ice cream but the cone falls off unto the ground and we drive up. It was probably one of the funniest moments so far on Project and boy did we have a great time doing it.
Now on a different note, while on Project during the weekend, we get a descent amount of free time, especially Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. One of the big things that we like to do on Project during the free time, is to have one-on-ones with different folks to get to know each other better, hear their testimonies, encourage them at Project and to pray. Over the course of the past week and a half, I've become really close to DK. Well, Sunday lunch before church, him and I went to Subway to have another one-on-one. It was great getting to catch up with him and just talk. It was definitely the most interesting one-on-one I've had yet because in the middle of us eating, all of a sudden in the middle of Condado, there was a gay pride/gay rights parade. It was definitely unusual. But it was great talking with DK again and then getting to head over to La Travesia for church.
Saturday night before our lovely Coning extravaganza, several of the D-groups went and had dinner with a local family from La Travesia.  It was great getting to see Puerto Rican life. Even though it was a missionary family that grew up in PA, they've lived in Puerto Rico for around 7 years now. It was great having Puerto Rican Lasagna which has platanes instead of noodles. Of course, then we went coning haha.
One of the biggest things God has been showing me and that has been awesome is the community that we have here on Project. Growing close to folks, especially our D-groups, hanging out with people that come from different backgrounds, going to lunch and talking about life, struggles, relationship with God. It's pretty awesome how strong community in the body of Christ is especially with such a diverse group of folks we have here.

What a week it's been so far

God has done some amazing things here in Puerto Rico and it's barely Thursday. Monday was our first full day of training where we had word training and evangelism training. The last part of evangelism training was where we went out onto the streets of Condado and did a survey with random folks and shared our testimonies if the opportunity came. It was definitely nerve racking talking to people I didn't know. It was a huge learning experience though. I got a chance to hang out and talk with Travis which was definitely a huge encouragement. He's helped me a ton here in Puerto Rico and has been an awesome brother in Christ/D-group leader. I also got to meet up with DK for a one-on-one which was great.
That evening, I attempted to cook Chicken Alfredo which, state side, I've cooked plenty of times before. However, apparently, the stove doesn't like to boil water easily so it was a test of my patience trying to finish the noodles as group dates were fast approaching. We finally finished it, and then went to go get the girls for our group date. We took them out to get ice cream then over to the Conrad to enjoy sitting on the water as we talked and I quietly played guitar. The rain made it interesting so we were running around trying to stay dry while laughing all the time. We finally got to a dry spot and finished up by asking questions that the girls wrote down on note cards. It was an awesome experience.
     Tuesday we went Cuveo del Indio which is an awesome rock formation on the coast. A lot of the folks ended up jumping off a 40 foot clift into the ocean which was pretty awesome to watch. It had some amazing views and we ate lunch there. After lunch we headed over to a cave system which was awesome and came out on the hole in the side of a mountain with an amazing view (I'll post a pic at the bottom). It was an awesome day. We had our first rally that night and the worship was truly amazing hearing all of us singing praises to an amazing God.
     Yesterday was our first community service project. We were split up between La Travesia's pastors house, Jack's house and the church office. I was with Ronny, the pastor. It was great getting to fix up the kid's bikes, pressure wash the side walk and play with the kids. Hanging with the kids was pretty cool but was definitely patience testing, especially when the two girls were playing with all the tools while I worked on the bikes. They were awesome though, always laughing and smiling. When we got back, I had an awesome conversation with Alex and it was amazing to see how after only knowing folks for not even a week it was easy to start to open up with folks. Sharing our testimonies and how God's been working in our lives the past couple of years.  Of course hanging at the pool afterwards with the guys was fun. We went and had our other rally for the week last night. God spoke to me in ways that I can't even begin to describe last night, and afterwards talked to DK and Phil about it (Phil is staff that gave the talk), and was able to talk about stuff that I never had in 19 years. I talked to Travis about it afterwards. It was amazing to see how in only a week, God has changed my heart, showed me things in my life and allowed me to have some amazing friends in just a week of being in San Juan. It was truly a blessing. These next three weeks are going to be some of the most amazing weeks of my life. God is going to do some awesome things in Puerto Rico and it's going to be a blessing having some awesome folks like Travis, DK and Alex along side me as we continue to be a light and serve the community of Puerto Rico.

The view from the inside of the cave

Cuevo Del Indio

Group date

The praise and worship practice for rally

Travis and I at the cave opening

Puerto Rico Orientation is finally done

Orientation officially ended yesterday. It was an awesome first few days from playing music, to orientation sessions to getting to know folks on Project. Yesterday we got to just hang out and relax and planned for group date. Each week on project each of the male D-groups have to ask a female D-group on a group date. It's a Campus Outreach tradition on project for the guys to get to know the girls better. We planned out our elaborate plan to ask our girls group out. Then we headed off to La Travesia. It's the church we go to on Project. Our D-group helped with set up and began our group date asking out plan. What we did was took pictures of the girls when they weren't looking while holding up a note. The first note was asking them on group date and each of the following 5 were clues for them to figure out who it was. We texted the pictures to Peter who texted it to them (a friend of mine involved with Campus Outreach) back home so they couldn't look up our numbers in the Project phone list. They figured it out finally after the 4 picture. It was fun and they thought it was cute. Now back to La Travesia. It's a local Puerto Rican church that Campus Outreach goes to each summer. The fun part is, the entire service is in Spanish. I picked up the prayers here and there. The songs were easy cause I knew the English versions. They gave us a script for the sermon in English so we would be able to understand it. Ronny, the pastor is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and is now the past of La Travesia. After church, we all went out and had mofongo, some Puerto Rican dish, which was pretty interested. Finally we came back, hung out and went to bed. It was a great way to end Orientation.

First Full day in PR!!

Wow, talk about a day. I'm telling you, San Juan is a beautiful place. I love Puerto Rico.
We woke up and went to Waikiki to have breakfast and begin Orientation training. We talked about policies and played different games like two truths and a lie. We also got to here from some of the folks Campus Outreach partners with here in PR to learn about the Puerto Rican culture. Hung out and ate lunch there before everyone headed back to La Rada (the place we are staying in) to get ready for Walmart. The girls and guys each had their respective meetings to discuss gender specific stuff for Puerto Rico. Then our interesting day in Puerto Rico's Walmart. We all went around in our D groups to get food for the week to cook on our own. We were all running around having a great time. One of the highlights was the escalator which you could take your buggy on. It was pretty sweet.
I'm telling you though, hands down the best part of the day was playing music in the girls room upstairs. Travis and I walked up the Dallas' and Malarie's room to play Dallas' guitar. We started cranking out the worship music, learning new songs and having people join us along the way. Pretty soon we had a vast majority of the project students up in the room just singing the praises of an awesome God. It was amazing worshiping God with that guitar in my hands as Travis and Gloria lead the singing combined with the voices of 20 other folks. Eventually we had to move because they could here it on the first floor so we headed over to one of the parks by the bridge and just continued to play out in the moonlight. It really was just awesome. We wrapped up with an interesting question game by the bridge before finally heading back to La Rada to hit the rack. Definitely was a great first day in Puerto Rico.

Finally in Puerto Rico

It's hard to believe I'm finally in Puerto Rico. Woke up this morning, met everyone at JU this morning to travel to the airport. It was nice getting to see folks that I haven't seen since conference and meet some new folks for the first time. We all piled into a good ole fashioned school bus and hit the road for Jax International. Just on the bus ride alone we were all laughing and having an awesome time.
It was interesting going through my first commercial flight. From passing through airport security to all of us trying to find some last minute food before hoping on the plane, laughing at Alex being a goober it was fun. Of course getting to experience a jet take off instead of the good ole Cessna 172. Our take off role was faster than my C-172's cruising speed. It was pretty interesting.
After a good 3 and a half hour flight, we finally land in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Man, is this an awesome place. It took some getting use to seeing all the signs in Spanish with English at the bottom in smaller letters. It's beautiful here on the island. We hung out at buffalo wings for a while at the airport and ate as we waited for the vans to get here. Finally they arrived and took us to the place we are staying at. It's a quaint little room that the five of us, Stanley, Travis, Will, Phil and myself at staying in at project. Stanley, Travis and I make our D group for project (Travis is our D group leader) and we went over to Chili's for dinner. We shared our testimonies and back grounds to start to get to know each other better. Phil came about half way through and joined it. It was pretty amazing here the guy's backgrounds. Walking back, Travis and I went to the park and caught up from Christmas conference and had a great talk. It was definitely a blessing. I'm super excited to see how God is going to do some awesome things in our lives here at Puerto Rico Project 2013.

Well, here we go

I can't believe the trip is finally upon us. At 1141 tomorrow morning we'll be flying out of Jax International to San Juan. It's really starting to sink in now that I'm back in Jacksonville. It's taking a lot of preparation on both the student side and the staff side to finally make Puerto Rico Project 2013 happen. It's definitely going to be an awesome trip.
Raising support for the trip really opened my eyes to the generosity of people and the sovereignty of an almighty God. It was amazing seeing people willing to give without a second thought to see God's kingdom move in Puerto Rico this summer. I'm truly thankfully to everyone that supported my financially with the trip, but also to everyone who is praying for us while we are down there. Y'all are truly amazing. Even on a personal level, raising support was an eye opener. I was really nervous at the beginning of April when we did support training and Joe was helping me write my letters. $2250 was a big number and I honestly was nervous asking people to support me. Boy did God blow my mind as support started coming in. We have an awesome and all powerful God that will move mountains for His children to further spread the Kingdom. It also taught me to really trust God when I wasn't sure if I was going to raise it in time. These past several weeks leading up to PRP was a test of my faith, but also a blessing.
I know we're all excited to finally make it to PR tomorrow. I'm super pumped for the trip and I know God is going to do some amazing things there. Continue to pray for me and everyone else going on the trip that we would above all, surrender to God each and everyday and be used by Him while in Puerto Rico. Next time I post, I will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico!! Until then,
Voy a hablar con usted más tarde mi familia en Cristo

Last full week at home

It's my last full week before going to Puerto Rico. I know I get more and more excited each day to finally get to PR and it's hard to believe that it's almost here. It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in the Hyatt in downtown Jacksonville at Christmas Conference hearing Barry and Alan talk about Puerto Rico for the first time. It's going to be amazing to see how God is going to work in PR. Starting to get everything in for support for the project. Raising support has definitely taught me a lot about trusting in God and I'm still learning more and more each day just from support alone. It's been a challenge, out of my comfort zone, but it isn't over yet. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I know God is going to get me there. I've already started to make friends with some of the other folks going to Puerto Rico, and it's awesome seeing people fired up to serve God.
I'm spending my last full week at home finishing up support, hanging out with friends and just seeking God's face in prayer about the PRP. It's going to be an awesome trip and I'm thankfully for everyone supporting me, financially, through prayer and through encouragement.

The Countdown begins

With only two and a half weeks left, everyone is getting excited for the Puerto Rico Project 2013. The staff has been talking about it since Christmas Conference but it's hard to believe that it is almost here. Seeing finals week is over for everyone at JU and Embry-Riddle, all we can think about is finally getting to PR. Raising support is in full swing and though it can be nerve racking at times, God is with us each step of the way and will make way for us to get to PR. It's definitely gonna be an exciting trip.

The blog for my trip

Hey folks, I'll be keeping everyone up to date on everything happening in Puerto Rico this summer here on this blog along with Twitter and Facebook. From pictures to how God is working in the Puerto Rico community and the lives of everyone going, it'll be posted here. I appreciate all the prayers and support and feel free to message me or email me if you have any questions. Thanks and may God bless