I can't Belize it!

For those of you who haven't kept up with me, I am here in Mexico for three months of discipleship training, followed by a two month missions outreach. I didn’t know where the outreach portion of the DTS would be before I came but I just found out last Sunday!

As a back side to the story, we knew there were two choices… either to go to Belize or stay in Mexico. To help us determine which outreach we felt called to, the leaders of each team chose a color. The students didn't know which color correlated to the outreach destination and would have to rely fully on which color God asked us to pick. Anyway, this is my experience in choosing......

 A few days before the colors were revealed, I had been praying that God would direct me to the right outreach location. I hadn’t been praying for a color, but immediately the color green popped in my mind. I was like "OK, cool. Maybe this is from God but then maybe I am just being a little too imaginative." I prayed a little more, and then fell asleep. The next day I couldn't remember which color I had thought of.  So I started praying again and the color green popped in my mind again. I remembered that was the color that came to mind the day before. I was pretty cautious about it because I thought I might be making it up and just trying to have a color picked out. Keep in mind, they hadn’t revealed the colors to us yet. Anyway, the next day at dinner, I was talking with friends when all of a sudden I hear, "David, what is your favorite color?” “Definitely green!"  I wasn't even listening to their conversation and yet, I heard that comment crystal clear. The word green came to mind, over and over again. I tried to think it was a coincidence and not get my hopes up.  Later, we were worshiping together before finding out the two color choices and I was really trying to pursue God’s presence rather than an answer. The color green kept coming to mind but I just tried to shove it away. I looked up near the end and one of the girls had on a green skirt and it seemed to shine neon. I was really thinking my color was green at this point. Nick, the Director of our school, started praying before he revealed the colors and I got really nervous. I was unsure if green was the color and if it wasn't, how would I know which color to pick. As I began to panic, I looked down and guess what color my Bible is? Green! I just had to laugh and whispered, "God, if there is not a green color up there on that white board when they turn it around, I am going to be super confused!"  Low and behold when they revealed what was written on the white board, there was the color green. I knew without thinking any further, that was the one I needed to pick! God made it so obvious!

You can imagine my excitement when they turned the board around!
 Green!

I could write story after story about the amazing ways God is speaking not only to me, but to the school as a whole. I know this was a short blog and I am about a week late, so I will try to update you with more soon!

So much to say, so little time to write it.

I am sitting on an old couch in my classroom. There are several people jamming on some instruments, writing book reports, or just chatting. I am finally sitting down with the few minutes I have this morning to process everything that has been going on!

The beginning of last week was extremely stressful for me. It started out knowing that I had to write a song for this weekend. Yep, I had to write a song. It was really hard, because almost everyone here plays piano and there are only two keyboards on base. I struggled to find time where I could get on the piano and get creative. I definitely felt (and still do) intimidated by all the amazing musicians here. There are some incredible songwriters/performers in this DTS and I was struggling to let go of my pride and just play what I had wrote. It ended up that instead of playing on Thursday, I was in the half of students that are playing today. I am so glad because I am a little more prepared to perform. Still a little nervous but I will let you all know how it goes!

Saturday, we went to Segundas. It is a whole bunch of second hand clothing shops with super good deals.
Our group stopped for a popsicle break!

 This past Friday night, I had the opportunity to go on a prayer walk in the red light district. The group of us started out with prayer on the roof that God would direct and protect us. Several students stayed behind to worship and intercede for us. The rest of us split into three groups and headed out. We walked around the block as we felt the Holy Spirit Lead. Walking past these bars and clubs with prostitutes standing outside broke my heart. Some of the buildings were guarded with security and had such a dark feeling about them. Several times my group felt the need to stop and pray over a building. We would pray for healing, for peace, that God would break down the walls, anything that He put on our heart. It was such a different experience to pray with your eyes open looking at strip club street taking in all of this sin. I felt like a soldier in the middle of a battle field. We did this for a little under an hour before heading back to the vans. While we were waiting for the last group we began to sing Our God is Greater as a declaration over the city. On our drive back we continued to sing praises over that area.  All the teams met again on the roof and told everyone what had happened within our groups. The worst street dead ends onto a tourist street and the one team felt the need to pray for a wall of angles to protect the innocent people walking past. The second team said they we praying over a specific building when this pimp ran up to them and started to yell. He began to curse and scream at them to leave. “You need to go… NOW!!! You are not welcome here! Go away! What are you going to do… start a church?” Over and over again the man ran around the circle yelling curses yet he never physically touched the group. As they began to walk away, the man followed. The team crossed a street and looked back. There stood this guy with a blank expression on his face, mouth hanging open. Excitement washed over the group as we realized that he had hit the wall of angles! God confirmed that evening that in the future a church would be planted on that street. So many things happened that I could fill a book with details. I hope that I have another opportunity to go again.

Surfing is harder than it looks like! Try, try again.

Yesterday, I tried surfing for the first time! I tried so many times, but I could never stand up completely and wiped out more times than I care to admit! I really want to try again so I can say that I’ve surfed in Mexico. Right now, I have basically just floated on a surf board. Haha… oh well, everything takes practice. :)