real missionary training.

this last weekend was an intense one. i keep using that word to describe this DTS experience, but it's the most accurate word i can think of. friday afternoon the fifteen of us students and three staff left for the Cumiai Comunidad of the Neji people. they are an indigenous tribe who are displaced from their homes and now live in whatever they can put together in this area about an hour away from Tecate. part of the purpose of this trip, besides ministering to the people and doing construction work, was to practice leadership. we were split into three groups and each day one of the groups would be leading and making the decisions. we all did pretty well, but i definitely think we need more practice with the whole teamwork leadership thing. we were camping out the whole weekend, however, there was an outhouse we could use (PTL!). it was horribly freezing at night though. the second night i think i slept a total of about an hour. but other than that it was a pretty great weekend. we spent friday night having worship and sharing a message with the people there. i helped out with the children's ministry. the kids were so precious. it was getting really cold so i had children all over me trying to use my body heat to keep warm. it was special, and they still enjoyed themselves. later we had a bonfire, which was a good time of getting to know each other even better and sing some more.

saturday was our big work day. we collected the sand, rocks, and crete to mix together and pour for the foundation of one house. it was a lot of work, but it was good. the floor turned out great. we ended up having another bonfire that night too because it was so cold. this time though we played a game where each girl picks one of the guys and then the guys have to go one at a time and formally ask out whichever girl he thinks picked him. she's supposed to lead him on, and then if she did pick him accept (giving the boys a point), and if she didn't, turn him down (giving the girls a point.  then you reverse roles. it was HILARIOUS! really, these mexicanos are nuts!

following that was a sleepless night, of which i got up extra early to go hang with the guys that kept guard overnight (from animals and such, which there were a lot of) and help out with making breakfast. then we had more worship and i gave the sunday message.

(oh, btw i led musical worship for the first time ever on friday morning. even though it was just my class and the staff, i was really nervous, because i'm not known to be a very good singer. but it felt good to lead. i'm probably going to be doing more of that in the future.)

after breakfast we had to wait for some people to get supplies, and while the rest of us cleaned around our campground, one of the Neji men came over with his horses and we got to do some horseback riding which was a wonderfully random morning activity. shortly thereafter we went to go start the foundation on another house, but on the way to walk over there (after about five steps) i hardcore wiped-out and twisted my ankle. i'm pretty sure it isn't anything serious, but it still hurts, and so i was out for the rest of the work day resting my foot. later in the afternoon we packed up and headed back to Tecate for dinner and showers and more packing. we were all very in desperate need of some limpiar.

now tomorrow morning we're leaving once again for Tijuana. we're going to be there for a whole week this time, so it'll be good to spend some time getting to know the people at that base better. i'm just glad we don't have to sleep on the freezing ground again.

ZUMBA!

so i just finished with my mandatory exercise time. which is probably good because i wish i would work out, but i can never get up the motivation to actually do it. i've gone running in the morning with a couple of the guys here too but they're really hard core so i dunno if that'll keep up. what i do now is that extreme workout video in spanish. it's fun because it's like dancing. (yay!) but my whole body hurts now between working out, working construction, other random things, and sunburn. yes, i got some good burning on saturday even though i wore tons of sunscreen the whole day. some of it's really bad, but i'm hoping most of it actually turns into a tan which would be new for my skin.

this week has been fun so far. we had Robert McAlpine come to speak. he and his wife are at the tijuana base, but their from canada. he was very cool. we had some good talks. and he's going to be working with my good friend susie this fall so it was exciting that we both knew her. and actually susie's boyfriend was around most of the weekend as well. he too works at the tijuana base, and he led the construction for homes of hope this weekend. it was good to get to know him.

we turned in our first book report today. apparently, compared to the rest of my DTS, i'm an overachiever. it was decided that this is because i'm a gringa. i wrote way more than we needed to, and in formal APA paper format. i also read the entire book in like two days 'cause i got mine later than everyone else (since i signed up late and needed it in english not spanish) and some of the other students were still finishing it last night. it makes me feel better about myself that my usual procrastination is actually ahead of the game here. plus we have memory verses to do each week. (I got 100% on last weeks!) And I've been memorizing the verses in english AND spanish. impressive, right?

speaking of speaking spanish, i'm struggling! i know it's only my third week, but i'm no good. i can't roll my r's at all! we haven't even made it all the way through the alphabet in my class yet though, and i'll be here for a few more months, but i want to speak it now! i'm picking it up little by little though.

i have to head over to the base soon. we live in a house that's about two blocks away from the base, so it's nice that we're close, but we have our own space to hang out and relax. we eat most of our meals and have class over there though. it's SO hot though! i'm not going to make it through this summer with the heat. it's just intense 'cause it was such a drastic weather change. as of last week we were still shivering and layering up sweatshirts. now shorts and a tank are too much! well, it's not quite that bad, but it's hot.

i'm going to play a quick little game that i learned from my friend bethanne called what i miss, what i don't miss:

what i miss: good ice cream, having a closet, and air-conditioning

what i don't miss: television, white people, and speed limits

addy:

i said i would put my address up on here for anyone who might want to mail me something. this action is greatly appreciated. also, if you know you want to donate money toward our outreach you can send checks made out to "YWAM Tecate" (and you can write my name in the memo line if you want) to this address:

YWAM Tecate Spring DTS

Samantha Pierz

100 W. 35th Street, Suite C

National City, CA 91950 USA

(this is not my physical address, but where we pick up our mail from 'cause mexican mail is way too slow.)

begin week three...

These first two weeks of my discipleship Training School (DTS) have begun well, with some great speakers. On Monday, Sean and Janet Lambert came to talk to us about the history of the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) campuses throughout the San Diego/Baja area. They were ideal for this topic, because they started the first base in San Diego and have expanded the reach of YWAM from Ensenada to Tijuana and now Tecate, where I am doing my DTS. It was encouraging to hear their original hopes for this area to produce missionaries to reach throughout the world with the love of Jesus Christ, because that is why I am here. I am proud to be a part of the legacy they have started.

The next speaker was Brett Curtis who is part of the leadership for YWAM in San Diego/Baja. He shared with us his thoughts on sin, preventing sin, overcoming temptation and seeing sin as God sees it. This was especially powerful because Brett felt like our class really needed to here about this topic even though it was not planed. And we were all very interested. One part of his lecture that I was particularly interested in was the fact that there is always a way out of sin. Before we fall completely into a habit or lifestyle of sin, there are multiple points where we can stop and turn to God. This is something that is often overlooked or forgotten, but can save someone from future sin and bring him or her closer to God. I also think it is important for us to see sin as the repulsive thing God sees it as, because that is what it really is. I ask God constantly to break my heart to the things that break His.

Brett continued to speak to us the following few days about intercession, which is basically praying on behalf of someone else, but is something I know to be amazingly powerful. We have been interceding for Tecate, asking God to move in this city and reclaim each person here as a member of His kingdom. We also had Mitch Carlson talk to us about cultural sensitivity, specifically between American and Mexican cultures, because those are the two cultures that we have living in community together for our DTS (even though we only have two Americans in our DTS and thirteen Mexicans). On Friday, Kody Spang came to talk to us about the love of God, which is such an amazing thing to discuss, because God IS love! I pray that every person can learn the peace and joy that comes from knowing that God loves you. That knowledge is what keeps me going from day to day. That first weekend, we went out in groups in one of the neighborhoods here to tell people about the Homes of Hope ministry we have and to pray for them. My group found out about a seven-year-old girl there who was very sick with cancer. We ended up finding her home, and spoke with her brother. He told us that she was in a hospital in Tijuana because her anemia from the leukemia was getting worse. We prayed for her and her family through that hard time, and thanked God that she was able to get some treatment.

We just finished up week two, which started out with Tim Kemp coming to speak. He is in charge of all the YWAM schools in Ensenada. He spoke about a few things, but what I really came out with was the reassertion of what it means to live like Christ. We need to live every moment and say every word as Christ would. This is so vital, because if we do not do this, we are misrepresenting Christ, and we are not doing what He calls us to do. Stephanie and Omar Murillo, also staff from Ensenada, came for two days to speak to us about forgiveness and restoration. Forgiveness is a very important topic for all Christians because we are meant to forgive each other and the forgiveness we receive from God is our salvation and allows us to be restored. Our class even took some time in small groups to go through everyone in our lives and pray for God to reveal if we need to forgive any of those people or ask them for forgiveness. This was very emotional, some of the students here have had very traumatic events happen in their lives and have not been able to forgive the people who hurt them. We finished up the week with Mitch Carlson coming back to discuss quiet time with us. Quiet time is something I do all the time, but I set aside special time in the morning to meditate on scripture and sit in stillness and listen to God. My quiet time is usually a time of worship to God for who He is, thankfulness for what He is doing in my life, and waiting upon Him to give me specific direction or answers to prayers. Since I’ve been here in DTS it’s been a lot of praise for the peace and happiness I have been blessed with, and waiting for God to speak to me about what specifically He wants me to do in missions.

This week we also spent a lot of time preparing for Thursday when we put together a “Night of Missions” at the YWAM center in Tijuana. It turned out well, with worship, a speaker, displays and a drama. We presented seven countries to focus on in prayer and their need for missions. I represented Fiji with Dina, my new sister (not to replace my other sister named Dine, but just a Mexican version of her). Then on Saturday I got to go with a few other students from our class to build a house with Homes of Hope along with a group of teenagers here doing a Mission Adventure program. It felt so good to be doing construction work again. I really miss ASP. But I'm so glad I got to help build a house for that family in the name of God, even though it was hard work. They had a bunch of adorable little kids, and a baby that I managed to find lots of breaks in my work to go play with. I love that it is totally culturally acceptable here to just pick up someone else’s baby here and hold it or play with it, because I love me some babies!

Today we’re going to do some evangelism and try and raise some money for our outreach in a few months. This is something I need your help with. We need to raise $3,000 per person, and most of the students here don’t have that kind of money and do not have support like I do to raise that money. So I need your help in praying that we can raise the funds for us to be able to all go on outreach, and pray and ask God if He wants you do donate money to our outreach. If you are willing to financially support my team or me please email me at spierz@iwu.edu and let me know. I will be sending out some letters in the coming weeks to ask for support, but it’s a lot of money to raise. And about our outreach, we were originally supposed to go to India for our outreach, but God has changed that plan. I’m honestly really sad I don’t get to go to India yet, but instead we’re going to Guatemala, including one month in San Miguel Chicaj, which is where I just went over spring break with a group from DRL at Wesleyan! This is so amazing because I almost didn’t go on that trip, and God has placed San Miguel Chicaj on my heart and I’ve been praying for them and now I get to go back!

what's going on...

Hola!

So hopefully I’ve told you this first bit, or at maybe you just heard about my recent movement from a friend, or at the very least you read about it on someone else's facebook. If it is either of the latter, I sincerely apologize, but hopefully after this explanation of why I have a blog will help you forgive my lack of communication.

I’ve been praying for the last six years about following God in his plan for me to be a missionary. This has been a very frustrating journey, because I’ve known God wants me to do long term missions ever since He told me when I was in high school. Since then I have followed Him to nursing school, ASP, short term missions including South Africa last summer, and even flight school (that's right, if you haven't heard I’m getting my pilot's license!). In each of these ventures as well as my everyday life God has been preparing me to be a missionary. It’s been amazing! However, the last few months have left me frustrated and disappointed that God wasn't putting me to better use. I have not been taking any classes at school this spring semester because I have to retake a class that I took in the fall next fall, and then finish up two other classes next spring. This was a devastating situation for my morale because it didn't seem fair. But I know now that God had a much larger design for my little life.

This situation has caused me to make some crazy seeming decisions. For example about a month ago, I decided to join the group from the Christian fellowship on my campus (DRL) that I am a leader in on their trip to Guatemala. Five days later I was on my way there. Many people didn't even realize I went until after I got back. But it was a life changing experience. The biggest impact the trip had on my life was reaffirming the feeling I had that God was sending me somewhere soon. I came back not knowing where (though irony would have it that a certain missionary there told me to be careful what I prayed for when I mentioned that I would love to go to India) or when. Right after I got back from San Miguel Chicaj, I lost a really promising job opportunity because the woman that I would be working for passed away. Though this was obviously very sad, I was angry that I was out of the one thing that might make me feel like I wasn't totally wasting my time. I basically spent the following week alone with God trying to figure out what was going to happen. Then my friend's Tiffany and Josh gave me tickets to a Chris Tomlin concert that weekend to attend with my best friend, Leah Huffman. It was an amazing concert, and sort of just broke me down. I spent almost the entire next day searching online for opportunities to continue the mission training God was slowly having me go through. I looked at returning to either of the places I went last summer. Either back to Sarah Fox Children's Convalescent Hospital in Cape Town, or the Lighthouse Children's Shelter in Rustenburg, South Africa. I also looked into Watoto, a mission in Uganda that I was interested in volunteering with or at least donating money to.

After searching all of these and more possibilities I kept ending up back at a list of discipleship training schools (DTS) through the organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM). This is the group I went to Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama with in the past. When I first heard about the DTS program four years ago, I decided I wanted to do one has soon as I had the six months to spare, assuming that would be after graduation. Then when I ended up not in school this semester, it seemed perfect, except that I had to pay rent and decided to take the “safer” route of working instead. Obviously, this was not working out very well for me. I kept hoping that I would find a DTS at one of the YWAM bases that would end before school started again in the fall, but none of the dates fit in. I went to bed angry and lost and praying that God would just send me out already.

The next morning I awoke to an email in response to one I had sent to a YWAM base over a month before asking for clarification about dates. The registrar for the YWAM San Diego/Baja base apologized saying that my email went to her junk folder, and that if I was still interested in the DTS that would start the next week that I should call her. A few hours later she let me know that the program would indeed end in time for me to get back to school. As we prayed over the phone my heart was decided, but I gave myself twenty-four hours to pray about the decision. On Tuesday, with two days until I left for a previously planned trip to New York with Leah to see our friend Sebastian from Munich, I excitedly started trying to figure out how I could just up and leave my life, and move down to Tecate, Mexico that Sunday.

At this point if you’re shaking your head and thinking about how crazy I am, I don’t blame you. That is basically the response I’ve gotten from everyone. It’s true though that when you unquestioningly follow God’s call, it looks a little crazy to other people. But I knew God knew what He was doing, even if what He was doing was sending me to a place where I didn’t speak the language, where I’d have to spend the money I hadn’t been making, where there were increasing numbers of murders due to drug wars, and where I’d have to be in less than a week.

After a lot of goodbyes, a heartwarming surprise send-off party, a special weekend in New York and a lot of traveling, I’m now enjoying the YWAM base in Tecate, Mexico. I’m really overwhelmed at how intense this whole deal has been, as well as the language barrier going on here. Though it’s not going to be a barrier much longer. That’s right, I’m learning Spanish! Haha! Right now I’m just struggling, but it’s kinda fun! I’m also overwhelmed at the fact that I am so different from the rest of my team. This is the first DTS staffed completely by Mexicans, and the students are even all Mexican except for me and one other girl. It’s strange being the only person with blonde hair and blue eyes. Not to mention the fact that I’m taller than, I’m pretty sure everyone else here. It’s so great though! I’m already making friends. I can tell we’re really going to be a family here. Everyone is so kind and loving. And I’m already growing in my faith as well.

This discipleship training school is basically working as direct training for me to become a missionary. We’re spending the next three months here in Mexico, and then we’re hoping to do two months of outreach in India as well. This I am SO excited for, however, we cannot go if we do not raise enough support. We are raising this support as a group, and we will have a specific goal soon, but I want to through out the request that you start praying now about whether you are willing to support us as missionaries on our outreach in India. If you do not feel led to donate financially, I ask that you pray for all of us down here. We’ve only been here for one day, but it is so amazing what God is already doing and what He has planned.