Kayla: 6 days until outreach!

Hello Family and Friends!

I can't believe it's already December. This DTS is going by way too fast. I love it here. I am having an awesome time and wish it was longer. This base really has become like a second home to me.
Outreach is rapidly approaching (we leave in 6 days!) and I am reminded all the time of how blessed I have been by all of you and your giving. Thank you again! As outreach approaches, please continue to pray for the funds to come in for some of my other team members as well as safety for us all as we travel and spread God's love.
Speaking of outreach, we are not going to Haiti as was initially planned. As far as I know no one there really had room for a team as large as ours, and it really seemed like God closed that door. I have peace about this change and I truly believe that God closed that door to us. So, we are not going to Haiti. But, we are still going to Mexico City and the Dominican Republic!

Last week (11/29-12/3) was outreach preparation week. We began it with a house build on Monday and Tuesday. Throughout the DTS in groups of two or three we have been able to join with visiting teams to help them build, but this past Mon/Tues we got to build a house as a whole DTS. I really love building homes with homes of hope.
The family we built for is a single Mom and her three daughters. The mom divorced the childrens' father many years ago because he was a drug addict. The mom and three daughters live in a place called Maneadero. On the hill they live on there is no running water, no electricity and they live on a dirt road. Their home was built from scraps of wood. As I remember it only had one window which was on the door. I had the opportunity to go into the old "house" as the mother was preparing tortillas for us (yum). There were gaps in the wood where you could see light from the outside. They had two double or queen size beds and a few bookshelves/dressers. It was pretty crazy. They were living there.
Anyway, we built them a new house with no gaps in the walls, two rooms, three windows and a strong door. The mother worked alongside us on the house and made lunch for us on Sunday with help from her mother. When we gave them the keys to the new house the mother receiving the home cried. She was so thankful. And it was awesome to see the look of surprise and joy on her face when she walked into her house for the first time. It was super cool too because we gave her a new stove and just earlier that day she had been telling one of my friends about how bad her current stove was.
The rest of the week was spent learning dramas for outreach. Originally I hadn't wanted to do dramas on outreach, but as time has gone on and now that we've learned them, I'm pretty excited about preforming them. They are really good dramas.

This past week was on Spiritual Disciplines. Our speaker was Jeff Pratt. It was a great week. Jeff is an awesome and engaging speaker who uses lots of stories and movie clips to make his point. He had some awesome things to say. My favorite part of the week though was Thursday. On Thursday we went out to this beautiful place right on the ocean with lots of room and places to be alone. For four hours we got to hang out there, just us and God. Alone time with the one who created all the beauty of nature. Alone time with the one who sent his beloved Son to die for my sins. Alone time with the one who calls me the crown of creation. How lucky am I to be called His child!
I found some absolutely beautiful places to hang out, and it was really just an awesome time to hang out with God and admire His wonderful creation. When I am in a beautiful place, like where we went that day, I am reminded of just how amazing and awesome my God really is. My time with God on Thursday was very nice. I loved hanging out with my Father and would love to have another day like that.

Lecture phase has been awesome so far, and I am looking forward to this coming week as well. Our topic is Spiritual Warfare and it should be a great one to end the lecture phase and send us out. I'm not really sure when I will be able to blog next but I will try to get some updates out while I am on outreach. I am so thrilled that I have been able to do this DTS and am so excited for outreach. I know God is going to be with us wherever we go, and I can't wait to see what he has in store.

Dios te Bendiga,

Kayla