SPLICE

our SPLICE group

your prayers were answered! thank you so much! i was blessed to take part in this SPLICE training. i came away from this experience with a better understanding of what i will encounter as i prepare to move into a new culture and more importantly these weeks of training helped me to get back to having an intimate relationship with God (it took getting away from "ministry" for five weeks to realize how spiritually dry i had been over the past six months!). i am thankful for getting to experience God in some special ways during this training. praise Him!

SPLICE was a very emotionally draining three weeks. i made a lot of good friends and that is what made saying goodbye to this loving community so hard. as a community we had developed a common bond because of our shared experiences and understanding about what we were about to partake in as fellow missionaries in different parts of the world. we also witnessed how God had worked mightily in our three weeks together. here are a few of the pictures from SPLICE;

this man changed my life (robin allen, the director of SPLICE)

mike & i on top of pikes peak

a few friends from SPLICE (from right to left; fletch, ashley, candace, sarah & mike)

goodbye to my SPLICE family. it was fun. you all will be missed.

60%

a few people have asked me what percentage i am at for monthly support... well, i added it up a few days ago and i am at around 60%! more than half way there...

also, the past few days i have been working on my prayer card. here is a rough version of the one that i will be sending out to my supporters;

PILAT & moose hunting

the MTI training center

well, the first half of my training is over. PILAT has helped me to learn a lot about language and as a result i feel better equipped to take on the daunting task of learning the latvian language. (pictured below: mike, fletch & i with the director of PILAT; dwight gradin)

mike, nick and i were blessed to have the ulman family who allowed us to live with them for the past two weeks and i know we were all blown away by their hospitality. (pictured below: maici, erin, gavin & david ulman)

on friday afternoon after PILAT ended, we got the chance to drive up to fort collins for the weekend and visit with our fellow JVLV missionaries, kelly and donna hargan.

it was a nice chance to connect with them again. kelly took us out four-wheeling on his birthday and it was quite an experience! as we were driving to where we were going to go four-wheeling we had a chance encounter with a MOOSE!

it came out of the bushes and out onto the road and cut off our jeep!!! i got so excited that i felt like that annoying kid in Jurassic Park....

i could not believe my eyes, this thing was huge and it could move! we kept asking kelly to pull up next to the moose and to his better judgement he decided not to. we later realized the wisdom in this decision, because there was no roof or doors on this jeep for protection and apparently moose tend to be very aggressive animals.

on sunday morning we drove back to colorado springs and went to new life church. overall, it was a very nice relaxing weekend. on to SPLICE....

MTI

its funny because the more i talk to people about the trip, the more i realize that i have no clue what i am about to get into! and in a weird way this is very comforting to me. i can look back on the times in my life where i have felt similarly and those were the times where i have been able to see God work the mightiest.

thankfully, i will have some formal training before i make the move overseas. from july 23rd-august 24th i will be in colorado for missionary training. Mission Training International is the training organization that Josiah Venture sends each of their missionaries to and this is what my schedule will look like for the next few weeks;

• july 23rd-august 3rd- i will be enrolled in the PILAT (Program In Language Acquisition Techniques) training program. these two weeks are focused on acquiring the skills that are necessary to learn other languages.
• august 6th-24th- i will be enrolled in the SPLICE (Spiritual, Personal, Lifestyle, Interpersonal, Cultural and Endure/Enjoy) training program. this is a three week program that focuses on developing healthy missionaries.
  

if you think of me during this time, i would ask that you would pray for me. pray that God would humble me and continue to prepare me to serve Him in Latvia. also, pray that i would walk away from the training with a better understanding of who God is and a deeper love for Him. thank you for your support!

LV slideshow

this is a little slideshow i put together to show some of the pictures from my previous trips...

Jehovah Jireh

WOW. i have well over 25% of my monthly support raised! God raised over $300 in monthly support TODAY! and thats not including the $2,000 that He also raised in one time gifts TODAY! Praise the Lord.

graduation

its official.

on may 26th, at a little after 9am, i graduated from Biola University. the ceremony was a needed ending to my college career. i had been living in a limbo for the past five months feeling like i was finished with school, but without it being an official thing. and now it was. i was finished.

it was a bittersweet experience. on one hand graduation was a very happy moment because it marked a closing to an amazing period of my life, but on the other hand it was a very sad and sobering reality. this was it. no more college life. i knew that this meant the times i would see my college friends would be much fewer and farther between. in fact, i probably said goodbye to a few people for life.

i thank God for the opporunity that He gave me. i am very grateful for my time at Biola and i was blessed to be there for three and a half years. i was blessed to learn about the One True God. i was blessed to meet the people that i did. i was blessed to experience the things that i did. i was blessed to learn from some amazing people. i was blessed to figure out more of who i am. i am a different person now than i was four years ago and i am thankful for that. even though it gives me a pit in my stomach to think about it, i am thankful for graduating.

Biola does this neat thing during the first week of school where they have a dinner for all the incoming freshmen and they have you write on a notecard your hopes and dreams for the next four years. i filled out that card and sealed it in an envelope four years ago. they gave the envelopes back to us the day before graduation. i cannot remember what i wrote down and honestly im scared to open it. im afraid of falling short of what i had hoped to do over those four years. im scared that i wasted too much of my time at Biola. im scared that i squandered the gift that God gave me. im scared that whenever i do open and read what i wrote down four years ago, i will finally understand that my college career is officially over.

regardless of what i wrote on that card, college was what it was. i was blessed to experience it. i am thankful for it and (though it is a bit cheesy) i feel this famous saying shares some of my same sentiments towards the last four years;
"I asked God for strength, that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn to humbly obey. I asked for health, that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. I asked for riches, that I might be happy; I was give poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness, that I might feel the need for God. I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all, most richly blessed."
-Unknown Confederate Soldier's prayer

orientation recap

WOW. what a blessing! i recently got back from josiah venture orientation which was held in wheaton, illinois... and get this, mostly arizona people will realize what a rarity this is, IT SNOWED WHILE WE WERE THERE! the snow felt like a very brief glimpse into what the next two years of my life may look and feel like.

over the four days at wheaton i was able to put a lot of names with faces and meet some of the people who i had been corresponding with over the past months and even years. i also got to spend a lot of time with five other amazing people who are also missionaries in training (four of whom are commited to giving the same two year commitment to serve in latvia with jv!). overall, the orientation turned out to be a VERY encouraging time. after orientation i got a chance to spend time in chicago with scott and lisa runzo and the rest of latvian team. this was a very good time of learning and fellowship together. thankfully, i also got to stay a few extra days in chicago to spend time with my very good friends chad and polina little. they have continued to be a tremendous blessing to my life.

it was an amazing trip. here are a few pictures....

in the JV office

w/ chad and fletch, two of the guys i will be working with in latvia


JV MITs (missionaries in training)
from left to right: me, chad, fletch, kristin-who will be serving in slovenia, donna and kelly


in front of "the bean" in millenium park

more of the city

the little family adopted me for a few days

spiritual amnesia

its comical to me sometimes how bad my memory is. i daily forget little things like my wallet, keys, phone, etc. but rarely do i forget the really important things.... however, that is not always true when it comes to God. He continually proves Himself faithful and i constantly seem to forget that. i forget to remind myself of all the times that He has been faithful to me.

heres a little proof....

a few months ago i was going crazy trying to finish up my last semester at Biola (which was a miracle in itself).... 23 units, an internship, and a part-time job, etc.... by the grace of God i was able to finish all of that.... and i even managed to finish two semester long online courses.... in four days.... DURING FINALS WEEK!.... haha! wouldnt ever want to do that again. as all this was going on there was a fairly important decision that needed to be made. i had to decide what was next.... every senior in college's worst nightmare. i had to choose whether to find a job and a place to live in los angeles or to move back home to arizona and find a job there. over the last few weeks of school God made it clear that i should do the latter.

great. thats solved. however, that still left me with a few other unknowns....
-what would i do when i got home?
-how was living with my parents again going to work out?
-where would i work?
-when was i going to finish my Moody correspondence course?
-what was next for latvija? along with about a hundred more unanswered questions about latvija.... you get the picture.

all the while in the back of my head i was dreading moving away from Biola. i would be leaving the community of friends that God had provided for me, who had been my family for the past 3.5 years. i would also be leaving the wonderful place that Biola is. frankly, i was scared. i remember sitting up at night last semester during finals week thinking about what i should do next. i called my mom hoping that she could offer some wisdom on what i should do. somewhere during our conversation it finally hit me that my college career was coming to an end. i broke down. i cried like a baby. i cant remember the last time i had cried like that. how was i supposed to leave this place that i had grown to love so much?

well here i am on april 12th. 4 months removed from the situation....
-living with my parents has worked out wonderfully and because of it i have been able to spend a lot more time with my family, which has been amazing. this is one of the main reasons that i decided to move home.
-God has provided for me financially through three jobs.
-by the grace of God i finished my last college course (which was another miracle) and will graduate from Biola debt free! (largely in due to the generosity of my parents) and those of you who go to Biola know what a miracle that is....
-a few weeks ago i had the chance to go back to los angeles to surprise a few friends and go to a friends wedding. God has also provided a select few friends here in arizona that have managed to keep me socially sane.
-i spent the past two days here in wheaton, illinois at the josiah venture office with some incredible people. it is a three day orientation to the ministry of josiah venture. they have managed to challenge me, encourage me in numerous ways, while also calming a lot my fears about moving overseas for the next two years.

.... all that to say GOD IS GOOD. He is most certainly faithful. He is my provider in every way. i am loved by Him. i trust in Him. in fact, He is all of those things even when my life isnt running so smoothly. i think sometimes it takes hindsight to see these things.

now i just hope i can remember that.

my favorite verses

Ephesians 5:1-2
"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma."

beautiful right? yes it is.

this is what i hope to do while i am in latvia. wherever i go, i want to imitate my God. i want to walk in love. i want to love sacrificially just as Christ did.

how did He do this? He withheld nothing. He literally gave Himself up for us. His body was offered as a sacrifice for us.

sit and think about that for a second... He gave Himself up... for us! amazing.

that is what i want to be about. that is what i seek to do over the next two years (and the rest of my life). i want latvia to see Christ's sacrificial love through my body. i want them to see me walking in His love. amen.

beautiful old riga

here is a panorama shot of my home for the next two years...

jv orientation

i will be attending josiah venture orientation in chicago from april 10-13. while i am there i will also be meeting up with scott runzo (the josiah venture country leader for latvia) as well as a few other friends from my previous trips to latvia. thankfully i will also get to stay a few more days in chicago to spend time with one of my best friends (chad little) and his wife (polina) who live in chicago and are both students at moody bible institute.