9th & 10th weeks

These last 2 weeks have been... crazy. I'm wishing I would've kept up with the weekly post thing, because now I have soo much to write. So, prepare for a long post... :)

My last post left off in the middle of a week, and the rest of that week was pretty uneventful. Uneventful, that is, until Saturday. Saturday was the start of a Marriage of the Arts DTS, which an art focused DTS with a bunch of different tracks (dance, video, photography, fine art, etc) so creative people from all over the world come and are trained more in their art, while at the same time going through a normal DTS. Pretty cool. Anyways, over 100 students are in this DTS, and the base decided to start off the first day in a pretty crazy way, and they wanted the Justice DTS students included. So, after the opening ceremony, they announced that we were going to be living like refugees for the next __ days. We knew of this a few days before and had helped with tent preparations, so it wasn't a complete shock for us. So, 4 people were assigned to each tent and given a package with the tent supplies (some wood sticks, strings, and the 'tent' which was more like a piece of plastic tarp) we had a few minutes to run inside and get warm clothes, sleeping bags... just the basics. It was too dark to set up the tent that night, so we ended up just laying on the plastic and sleeping under the stars. Thankfully it was beautiful out and I surprisingly slept well. The next day began the real camp, and we were confined to a field and guards (staff) were put in place. We did a few things throughout the day but for the most part it was hot, boring, and hard to grasp the fact that thousands of people live like this but much much worse, and for way longer periods of time. The staff would have educational times each day where they would enlighten us more about the refugee situation and relate our experiences and our day to that. We had to share food bowls, no silver ware, water from a hose that kept breaking, showers were buckets and the list goes on. To make a long story shorter, we were supposed to be in this camp until Friday, with more of a story line being added (some of us would get 'malaria', some would get released, food shortage, kidnappings, etc) but Sunday night it started raining and storming pretty badly, so we had to go inside the castle and sleep. It was supposed to rain basically the rest of the week, so the leadership decided, because of health concerns and the fact we were all too exhausted to pay attention in lecture, to stop it. So yeah... that was that :)

Monday night we were back in our beds and back to somewhat of a normal life. That week we had this sweet speaker named Caroline, who spoke about the roots in our lives and how roots, good or bad, affect our lives. For example, it could be a root of unforgiveness that has went deep into your heart, or a false belief you let into your life that you maybe didn't notice or didn't see as a big deal, yet it has, over time, allowed you to root into something other than God's complete truth. It's hard to really explain, but she was really amazing and gave a lot of practical tips for dealing with roots and just having a strong relationship with God. She also showed us how important it is to really meditate on God's word, and that that is the way to really see God's truth and root into it.

While it was a good week of teaching, for some reason it was a really hard week for me. Almost every week of lecture has been hard for me, but it was like something snapped this week and everything I've been dealing with came down in a much heavier way than before. It was bizarre, confusing, and just... hard. It started with a prayer time where, if you were struggling with stuff going on back home, like personal stuff in your life apart from DTS, the group would pray for you. I went up with the people that said they were struggling, and I didn't think we would have to elaborate on that. However, everyone said their reasons so I did too (in a very basic way) and it was like once I said out loud to 25 people things that are hurting me so badly on the inside, something snapped in me and I was thrust into a whole new level of pain. I spent the next few days completely miserable, I could barely even talk to the people around me, or be around people for that matter. I had no idea how to act, cause as soon as I thought I was fine, I'd be back to crying again. Things started to get better Sunday, and I think it's because I'm finally grasping the fact that God is all I have, and He doesn't want me to be miserable; He wants to heal. I've realized that throughout my life, whenever I go through hard times, I just turn reclusive, faking to others that I'm fine, and either avoiding God or faking to Him as well. He knows me like no one else does, so it's pretty ridiculous to not be real with Him, but I would just get so consumed with my own hurt I didn't care about much else. I know that with all that has been going on in the last few months, things that make my heart feel so broken, He is just showing me how trustworthy is and how He longs to be my comforter. Since I've had that little revelation Sunday, I've found myself numerous times crying out to Him in my head 'I can't do this, but You can... restore me'. I've been reading the Psalms cause it's feeling like I'm living them out, the back and forth, happy then crying desperately out to God. I'm still very much in the healing process, and since Sunday I've still had times feeling heartbroken and awful, but it's been amazing to really seek God through the pain. I know I probably make it sound like I'm completely miserable here, and yeah, I'm hurting, but I've also experienced how pure joy can feel in the midst of so much pain. I've had so much fun and there has been so much laughter, but it feels different than usual. It's like when you're dealing with a lot of pain, the joy and laughter has this different quality to it that makes it so pure and healing. It's hard to explain, but it's been really amazing to experience. So, don't worry, I'm not miserable all the time ;)

This week we've had combined lectures with the MOTA DTS, and instead of having a speaker and a topic, we just heard really amazing outreach stories from being on staff at the base. They've made me so excited for outreach. However, the stories only lasted till Wednesday morning, and after lunch they threw another curveball at us. So, barely a week after the refugee camp experience, they tell us that they have split everybody up into groups of 5 and that we are being sent out on a 'Faith Walk' - start walking in faith and see how God provides, see how you can serve and bless people. We were given 1 euro each, and we could choose what to pack, but most people brought little more than the clothes they were wearing and a sleeping bag (and some people didn't even bring that!) We could go... basically anywhere we could get to, but for the most part just around Germany, and we had to be back by Saturday. That's it. So, my group started walking with Dresden in mind. Hitch hiking is pretty big here, and it's considered pretty safe, so we figured we'd give it a try. 2 hours later, we were in Dresden. We didn't wait more than 10 minutes between each ride we got (we had 3 total) We were shocked we got there so quickly, and had no idea really what to do after that. We wandered around, praying and also just enjoying the beautiful scenery around us. It would me so long to really get into details of what those next 48 hours consisted of, and this post is already suuperr long, so I'll just be pretty basic and you can ask me about it if you wanna know more :) Thankfully someone had brought a loaf of bread and others had a few small food items, so we were fine food-wise the first day. We ended up getting a place to stay in a very random way. We talked to someone on the street, who called a friend who knew of someone that knew something. (Yeah, like I said, it was random, hah) So we stayed with some hippy-ish, new age kind of people, and had some cool conversations just getting to know them and them hearing what we're about. They were really friendly, welcoming people. The next night we stayed at the airport, the guards must have thought we were travelers with an early flight or something, cause we were sure we'd get kicked out otherwise. We mostly just prayed a lot in our heads, while walking miles and miles around the city. We met some really interesting people and people were surprised with what we were doing, but they thought it was pretty cool. Hitch hiking back was not as easy as getting there was, but after sitting on the side of the road for hours and hours, we finally got a ride. Our group had to split up to fit, but both groups ended up getting a ride from outside of Dresden all the way until Herrnhut, unlike the first time where we had to get 3 different rides. It was weird cause right before we got picked up, I was getting really discouraged. I had been praying throughout the whole day, and I just started thinking about verses in the bible that say if you ask in faith it'll happen. I was wondering what really asking in faith means, so I prayed again, this time really believing that if God wanted us to get a ride, that we would get one, and that it'd be within the next 5 minutes. So, after waiting hours and hours, the guys pulls over maybe 2 minutes after I prayed that. I certainly don't think I can ask something ridiculous "God, I really believe 1 million dollars are gonna fall from the sky right now, please do that." and God will do it, but it was just a cool thing that it happened so quickly after I prayed with more faith. I also think that an overlying theme of our trip was that God just wanted to bless us, and also that sometimes we need more help than we think. It was really humbling to be around people that, in my 'Christian' mindset, might need more help than me, yet they were the ones helping us. Interesting.

There is so much more to say, but my fingers are exhausted. I am so appreciative of the support and prayers I'm getting from back home. It has been incredible to see how many people have prayed or thought of me, and it has been a big encouragement to me during all of this, so thank you all so much :)