Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 7/14/2011
I recently got a new job working as a Civil Engineer. Today I spent some time with the Lord and just sat in amazement. I felt Him tell me to "tell them how much I love you". So here's my attempt:
I have a daddy who loves me more than I could ever imagine. In my new job- I measure things. I spend all night up on a scissors lift measuring welding and joists and such in roof systems. I thought about that today as I was with the Lord, measuring. We measure everything nowadays. We measure things with rulers. We measure things with ultrasonic technology. We measure things with money. We measure things with time, speed, distance. There's some things that we just can't put a measurement on. For example, I can't put a measurement on how much I love my family. I love them to the point that my heart hurts when I can't be with them. I can't put a measurement on how much I love that little boy Julio, to the point where I still think about him constantly and its been 2 months since I've seen his beautiful smile. I can't put a measurement on time spent with these people.
Its never really taken a whole lot to make me happy to be honest. I'm usually a pretty content person who doesn't need very much stuff. It makes me happy to go to a ball game with friends, or sit and play cribbage for 5 hours while watching a movie and eating applesauce out of the jar with Brit, or sit on my moms bed eating ice cream having late night chats, or watching a girl in the car next to me pluck her chin hairs as she is at a stop light. As long as I'm with my people, I'm alright. I've never really needed a whole lot of stuff. I love the fact that I just moved into a new place and all of my belongings fit into the closet of my bedroom.
People are value to me. And spending time with them is value to me.
I now have a job where I spend two weeks at a time in a hotel. This has been an incredible struggle for me for a few reasons. I don't get to spend time with people. Ouch. This one stinks. And two, just a few months ago I was living in a mud hut, and now I'm living in a hotel room the size of Texas. I know this sounds silly, but I hate having a hotel room this fancy. I feel uncomfortable living in "luxury", because to me...its not luxury at all. Luxury to me is living simple. Luxury to me is waking up every morning and getting a little glimpse of how much my Father loves me. How much God loves me. How much he provides for me and is there for me when I have no strength left.
This song has been on repeat for me lately. It says that God knew exactly what He was getting into when He called your name and when He chose you and He still wants you. He still calls your name, calls you to be His. He's not shocked by our weaknesses and our sin and our brokeness. He loves.
There's no ruler big enough to measure God's love.
God has provided me with a job in engineering...at exactly the time I needed it. He has provided me a way to get out of debt...hopefully. He has provided me with a place to live. He has provided me with two of the best roomates that I could possibly ask for. He has provided me with a family that never needs plans, they just need each other. God is doing big things in my life, in my families lives, in the lives of His people all around the world.
I'm hoping with all my heart that love will always be what guides my life and my direction.
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 5/10/2011
Just thought I would send you a picture of my next destination. The day has finally come, and I couldn't be more excited. See you in a few days!!
:)
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 4/27/2011
Guatemala-
Man there is so much going on here!! It's our last country, so it has been sooo hard to keep my head here and not focused on coming home in a few weeks. I'm so excited to come home and see everyone. This homestretch is tough.
However, once again...I like it here. There's a lot of darkness here and some interesting things have happened here spiritually. One of our ministries this month is working at an orphanage that was shut down about a year and a half ago. It was shut down because of corruption but two of the women are still there helping with the kids because the kids had no place else to go. So now there are several kids still living there...with 0 funding from the government. Three of the children have disabilities. One of which (my baby boy) is Julio. He is 14 years old and absolutely precious. I have joked a lot on the Race about wanting to take a kid home with me at multiple points along this journey. BUT seriously, Julio needs a home and he needs one fast. He does have a disability (cerebral palsy maybe?), I'm not 100% sure. When we arrive there, we find Julio in the back room in the dark, tied to his wheelchair with his wrists tied to the wheels and the wheelchair tied to the window. He literally can not go anywhere. So naturally when we get there, we untie him and play!! He can not communicate verbally, or non verbally as of right now, because there is nobody to work with him. HOWEVER, I've been with him several times now and he is so smart. I know that he could communicate in a heart beat if he just had someone to work with him. From the first time we saw him until now, we have seen a huge transformation in him. I love to walk with him and play ball with him even when I come out scratched and bitten. He is smart enough to feed himself when I give him food and smart enough to tell the difference between a chunk of sandwich and chunk of banana that I've given him, just by touch. He then throws the chunk of banana as far as he can. He's also got a sense of humor. After spending time with him, you can figure out what really gets him laughing. I had him laughing so hard yesterday that he was falling out of his wheelchair. Precious.
we took the kids to the pool!! Julio did so good!
I could talk about Julio for hours, I am slightly obsessed with him and I want to take him home. Here's why. The government shut it down a year and a half ago, however the kids still live there. At the end of the month (in just a few days) they are coming and putting a padlock on the door so the kids can't live there anymore. I have no idea what is going to happen to these kids. I don't know where they will go or how they will survive. Please join with me in prayer for God to provide these precious kids with a family who is nothing but love. If I could take him home I would, but I know that I can't take care of him on my own. Well, I could try, but eventually I'm going to have to get a job to pay for things. Spending time with Julio has made me even more thankful for growing up with my Aunt Leslie my whole life. Simply amazing people.
We have wonderful contacts here, Paul and Hilda, please be praying for them as well. They are amazing and have been so supportive with our passion for this orphanage and these kids. If you have any ideas about what would help short term or long term, shoot them this way. I'm not sure what will happen on the 30th, I guess I have to be patient until then.
I love you all, and I can not wait to see you in a couple of weeks!!
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 4/14/2011
Why is it that the last night of ministry is always one of the best. We did Pan y Chocolate one more time last night before leaving for Guatemala today. We started at the prison. I wanted to cry I was so happy. Last week I talked to one guy for quite awhile. I couldn't understand a whole lot of what he was saying in Spanish, but I had him fooled into thinking that I did and so he just kept on talking. I kept on nodding and saying little Spanish sentences when I could. I stayed engaged in conversation for awhile and in the end I told him to read Ephesians 6 before he went to bed because it's one of my favorites. He promised me that he would.
I got there tonight and talked to a guy handcuffed outside of the cell drunk. I finished praying with him and meandered over to talk to mi amigos from last week. One guy in the cell spoke English and translated for me after I handed out bread to all of them.
I asked my "translator" to ask my friend from last week if he read Ephesians 6. He said that he kept his promise to me, he studied those verses and preached on them for me! I had a really cool conversation with them about Eph. 6. He thanked me a lot for coming and talking with him and sharing with him. We talked like we'd been friends for years. I told him it wasn't me, it was God. He said that he was extremely thankful for God putting me in his path and asked if I had more verses for him. He already had his bible in hand waiting for me to come. I gave him some more of my favorite verses that I've been studying all Race and he made me another promise. He is so young and so sweet and I pray that he continues to follow Christ after jail. God has big plans for that boy.
I know that the people are in prison for a reason, some for murder, some for drugs and what not. HOWEVER, I loved them. They were so sweet. Some of them even gave me bracelets. If you know me at all...you know a quick way to my heart...make bracelets!!
These jails and prisons were not like ones in the States that's for sure. The first one I went to was basically one big cage outside. It was divided in half by a wall. One side men, one side women. There were only 5 women in when I went so we were blessed to be able to have really solid conversations with them. I even argued with my translator a little bit trying to get him to tell them what I wanted him to tell them. We disagreed a little bit!! haha. The men's cell, was jam packed with arms and legs dangling outside of the bars. Security was high, only a few of us were allowed in and we had to take off watches and necklaces and anything in our pockets. There were sooooo many men in there and I have no idea how they all sleep in that little space. I thought we had some tight living conditions...yikes. The second place we visited had 4 cells. One for the girls and then had a little tiny bit more division for the men. I'm assuming for gang purposes...but that is just my assumption. This place also had one main cell for the men where they were jam packed. When we would serve them bread, I swear they just kept coming, I had no idea where they were coming from, the walls?
After the prison last night, we went to the streets to hang out with our homeless friends. Sometimes when you drive up to the street you can already smell the alcohol. We had a CRAZY conversation with a few of the guys. They were new to this street, we hadn't seen them before. One of them spoke some English and kept trying to get us to speak to him in Spanish anyway. He told us that he was there that night to check out the spirits. He'd been told by some of the others that every night they see three ghosts. One girl and one woman who sit across the street and watch them. They are the good ones they said, they aren't scared of those two. The night before one guy threw rocks at them to see if they were real. They weren't. Then there is the third one that comes every night at the same time. He is dressed all in black and last night the new guy got up to punch him and he had no head. That's the bad one that they are scared of. So we got to have some long conversations with them about all of this and we got to pray over them. One imparticular. He chose me to pray over them because he concluded that I spoke the best Spanish out of the three of us...how he concluded that I have no idea. I prayed, and I prayed boldly over them and the street. When I finished, Edgar asked what happened and he had his hand over his heart. He started crying. I started crying with him and as I held his hand and sat face to face with him, I began telling him that He was experiencing how much God loves him. As I kept talking to him about Jesus, he begged me to stop talking. I didn't. Last night, Edgar felt God.
Praise the Lord. Amen.
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 4/13/2011
Ministry in El Salvador has definitely kept us busy. We said our goodbyes today and headed off to our last country, but here is a recap of what we did last month for ministry.
Pan y Chocolate (bread and chocolate)- This is a ministry where we bring bread and either soup or hot chocolate around to several locations late at night. We go to a place where homeless elderly live in a place that was filled with gangs not too long ago, prison visits (I fell in love with them), to the hospital where homeless people are sleeping outside, and to another street with homeless people that are usually drunk or on some other substances.
prison ministry- this one gets its own blog. Its coming. Be patient.
We also worked with some schools. We would go there and do a skit and give a testimony or two and teach and what not. We got to get creative in thinking of skits and games!! Love it.
Genesis kids- The church takes in kids that have nothing and gives them clothes and food and education. We would get to go and do skits and play games and what not. One evening we walked
them home to see their homes. They have next to nothing and I've realized
that that has become normal for me now to see those homes.
Church is going on every day here. We would go often and tell testimonies and meet all of our ministry partners. We also would go evangelize with them.
We went to San Miguel for a few days- evangelism, kids program,
sunday school, youth service, lots of pinata's.
During our free time we have been: volcano climbing, beach bumming in a
fishing village, surfing in waves that were out to kill us, getting
eaten by mosquito's (158 mosquito bites at once).
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 4/12/2011
Meet my family in El Salvador. My
parents here are Alberto and Mariella. Alberto is like one really big
kid. I call him “trickster” because he is always playing pranks
on us. He's a lot of fun and has a huge heart for serving us and for
missions. Mariella is our mom. She is such a sweetheart. When we went
to the beach to surf, I returned with 158 mosquito bites mostly on my
legs and feet. It looked like I had the chicken pox all over again.
On the race, we learn about not having “borrowed offenses”.
Meaning if someone did something to someone else- I really don't have
a right to be mad at said person or to judge said person because of
that thing he/she did not do to me. Well, I made an exception for
Mariella. She definitely had a borrowed offense for me. She was not
happy with the beach and the mosquito's that they did that to me.
Haha. She cooked me up a concoction with lime and spread it all over
my dirty legs and feet. Then she gave me the rinse cycle. Then she
creamed me. She takes care of all of us as if we were her own kids.
All 12 of us, which brings her total to 16 kids. I have 3 brothers
and 1 sister here. They are quite the rambunctious group, there
pretty awesome. We also have a dog, A-taco.
We have stayed really busy here. We
have many different types of ministry throughout the days serving
with a few different churches and Pastors and schools. I was also put
on a new team this month so on my free time I have been having lots
of conversations to try to get to know my teammates on a deeper
level. They have all been together for 4 months now, so needless to
say I had some catching up to do. With that, came a big challenge for
me this month. I got burnt out. I tend to go go go until I can't go
anymore. I finally reached a point where I couldn't go anymore, and
it was for the benefit of EVERYONE if I took time to refuel with the
Lord. I was burnt out, but in such a beautiful way. It brought me to
a place where THE ONLY thing I wanted/needed to do was spend a good
chunk of time with my Papa. I needed to be filled back up so I could
pour back out. As hard as it is to run on empty- it brings you to
such a beautiful place with the Lord. My challenge is to figure out a
way to be alone with God when there is no way for me to be alone. It
has been a challenge all year, but this month was noise central.
There are 18 of us living in a 3 ½ bedroom house. They built a wall
in the garage and put air mattresses down for us and have turned
other places in the house into bedrooms for us. With kids running
around, the 12 of us running around, a dog, two tv's always on and a
stereo blasting Spanish goodness all the time- its hard to find peace
and not want to pull your hair out sometimes. Once again though, I've
been refilled by Him and He has shown me yet another little tiny
piece of great and how beautiful His love is.
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 3/18/2011
I'm sorry I haven't blogged in
awhile...again. I think I have been less motivated for a few reasons.
1) When things happen now its more of just my life...perfectly normal
World Race stuff, instead of when the same things happened to me
before I thought, “oh man this would be a good blog”. And 2) I've
been painting all month with Kige so there hasn't been a whole lot to
blog about. Nothing crazy or out of the ordinary happened to me this
month. I absolutely love Nicaragua. I know you are probably sick of
hearing me say that about almost every country I've been to. But I
really do love it here. The people here have been wonderful. This has
been one of the nicest places I've stayed all race. Our hotel, yes
hotel, basically has a little miniature rain forest in it with
parrots and ducks and such. My ministry this month, like I said was
painting with Kige. She is an incredible artist and was finally able
to strut her stuff this month by painting 3 walls and two canvases
both 9ft X 9ft. That's big. I had the privilege to be her personal
assistant and teach her how to get paint all over her face.
We were blessed with two amazing
contacts this month, Glenn and Lynne. They have their hands dipped in
a lot of different ministries here in Nicaragua and have a huge huge
heart for this place. We also got the privilege to work with The Real
Life girls, Bonnie Pastor Manuel and our amazing translator Carlos
who taught me the song In The Shadow that will forever be stuck in
my head.
Things were going great. Our team had
worked through a lot of things, namely Kige and I. We went from not
speaking a month ago and her wanting to literally kill me every time
I opened my mouth or became visible to her (her words not mine) to
almost inseparable. Our team was doing pretty good but definitely
were still working out some challenges. We found out a few nights ago
that team Love Upstream will be no longer. My team is getting
completely split up and each of us will be on a different team for
the last 2 months. Turns out, all but one of us is going to a team
where we have never had any of our new teammates as a teammate
before. That being said, we all have a new season and new challenges
ahead of us for next few months. I am really bummed that I will not
get to be with Love Upstream for our last two months and finish what
we started, however I know that God has it all figured out. I know
that more growth will come out of it and I will be happy wherever God
takes me. Although I now have more goodbyes to say tomorrow than I
anticipated, some solid friendships came out of this team and I'm
extremely thankful and blessed to have gotten to spend so much time
with them.
We leave tomorrow, Saturday, for El
Salvador by bus. New team, new location, new beginnings, new
challenges, new joys.
Less than 2 months people. Less than 2
months til I get to see your beautiful faces. I CAN'T WAIT!!!
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 3/1/2011
So I was deep in the jungle for 12 days
among all of the critters, big and small. Surely God had me out there
for more reasons than just to conquer my fear of spiders.
Ministry for my team in the
jungle...well it wasn't really there when it comes to what we thought
it would look like. We were supposed to build two bridges, that
didn't happen, we were supposed to do farming in the morning,
awfully hard when its down pouring for the first 5 days, and teach
English in the afternoon, awfully hard when the kids stop coming
after day 2 and are afraid of us. My team and I weren't the
healthiest team going into the jungle, and I think that God finally
said ENOUGH!! YOU AREN'T DOING MINISTRY TO OTHERS UNTIL YOU GET YOUR
ACT TOGETHER WITH EACH OTHER!
I had been wanting to do
computer/internet fasts with my team so we wouldn't be so distracted
since Cambodia. I always felt alone in doing it because I was the
only one really convicted of it. Its not that they thought it was a
bad idea or anything, they just didn't feel like it was a huge
distraction. Most of you know that I haven't blogged an oober amount
on this trip. Its mostly because I've been trying really hard to not
get distracted by the internet or my computer. I know that God has so
much more for me than me spending time on Facebook and Sporcle and
watching Modern Family and Community and what not. I'm not saying
that I don't do those things or won't do them when I get home, I just
know that that's not why I'm here. So up until the jungle I've been
frustrated with trying to not use my computer a whole lot but then
being really bored when everyone else is on theirs.
God has a heck of a sense of humor. We
got sent into the jungle. Without our computers. Without internet.
Without electricity for most of the time. No distractions. We
couldn't even use ministry as a distraction. So ministry for us
turned into just being. Just being a team. Just being a group of
Christians living in the middle of the jungle while the naked
children stared at us from the window.
So what did I learn? If you read my
last blog, you read about our journey into the jungle and us trekking
through miles and miles of mud. Mud so thick that a tractor couldn't
get through it. Needless to say, I felt like I forgot how to walk and
was learning all over again. I was slipping and sliding and had lost
my normal rhythm of my steps. This is what ministry felt like all
month in the jungle. It felt like I had lost my rhythm to talk to
strangers, to build relationships, to learn their culture, to love
them like crazy, to have it hurt when I had to leave. Nothing about
these 12 days in the jungle felt like the ministries I'd been doing
all Race. Turns out I'd started going through the motions when it
came to ministry on this trip. Being asked to get up and preach in 5
minutes...became normal, being told that you had to teach English
with no preparations or no knowledge of how much they already
knew...became normal, being told to pray for healing or salvation or
prosperity or safety over a stranger...normal. Now I was in a place
where it felt like I had never walked before. It felt like I had
never done ministry before. I had to learn how to walk again. I had
to learn what “ministry” really means again. There is nothing
about “ministry” that is just going through the motions.
Ministry is life. Its not my bible
study on Thursday nights. Its not our worship session on Tuesday. Its
not going to the orphanage in the morning. Its not going house to
house or hut to hut or preaching. My ministry is my life. Every
aspect of my life. Its listening to the beat of my Father's heart
every step of the way. Its the person I talk to at McDonalds, its the
child I see playing in the street that needs a hug and to be told
that he's loved, its the lady that sells fruit on the side of the
street that I pass every day knowing that she's known. Its every
aspect every day. Its living more like Jesus. Its giving up your time
that isn't yours in the first place. God gave you that time. Its
choosing into where and when God has you.
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Posted in General Posts by Ashley Rose on 2/15/2011
Wow. Let me tell you about a time I got sent into the jungle. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur safe and sound and in less than 24 hours of being in the big city Peter and Carol, our lovely hosts, called my team down for a meeting. They said that they had prayed about it and decided to send the other team into the jungle, but since the decision was made several signs have come up to prove that God had other plans in mind. They gave us two hours to eat dinner, re-pack our packs, scramble to find internet to send our parents a "hey guys I love you and won't be communicating with you for a few weeks so don't worry" email. Basically we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off for 2 hours. I am now able to use that phrase properly as I now know exactly what that looks like...thank you Kenya. So 2 hours later, off we go with Pastor Tony into the Malaysian Jungle.
Alex and I rode with Santana, who was so nice he gave us fish extract crackers and dry chicken ramen snacks. Yum. Little did we know we'd be wishing for those later on. We have no idea where the rest of our team is but we have dropped off all of our stuff and been summoned back into the truck by Santana. Its now around 11pm...? We don't know where he's taking us. All ended well that night...turns out Santana was just hungry at 11pm.
The next day we are back on the road for the jungle. We must fix the wagon for the tractor to get all off our stuff to village #3. We load, we unload, we get stuck, we get unstuck. Santana pulls off to the side of the road and tells Alex and I to go down to the river and wash up. Ha. That sounds easy enough. Well I ripped my pants on the barbed wire fence but eventually made it to the river to wash up in what I hope was a STORM water pipe...not another type of pipe. Did I tell you its rainy season yet??
Ok so we don't make it past village #2 that night, because the tractor can't get through the muddy road. So we stayed with the kids who played in the rain/mud/climbed the trees like monkeys, and slept in a bamboo house. Then the next morning we try again. So we load up the tractor and our plan is to get about half way in the tractor where it will most likely get stuck again and then we'll walk until the tractor gets through and can pick us up again. Sounds brilliant. Until about 200 yards into the trip, when the tractor broke.
So there began our journey of walking 12 km by ourselves to find the next village...without our big packs...and without our food. Somewhere around km 3, I took my shoes off and went barefoot the rest of the way because the shoes were not helping my situation in the mud thats so bad a tractor can't get through it. Around km 8, we get passed by our tractor driver on a motorbike...wait what?? If he's here, then who's with all of our stuff. Crap. So Kyle and I head back towards the tractor where we finally find it stuck in the mud with two strange men waiting with all of our stuff. Joy. Along the way, I ate it in the mud and now my leg is muddy muddy and bloody. After much digging and pushing and bailing from the tipping slipping tractor, we were back on our hike into village #3.
OOFTA WE FINALLY MADE IT TO THE VILLAGE!!!!
Stay tuned for more blogging on the jungle and for pictures of our muddy messes of ourselves.
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