Well here we are the final blog of the whole trip. Que triste... I've actually been enjoying doing this every week. I might have to start making it a common thing...

Yeah so this week was really our last week of ministry. Tuesday and Thursday we all went to our colonias and said goodbye to all our friends that we love so dear. We got email address and regular mailing addresses so hopefully we will be able to stay in touch. Wednesday was our last day at our internships so I had to say good bye to the teachers and the kids at the school. It was really sad but I have a feeling that all will be well for them and for me. If there is one thing that kinda bugs me its that I'm not so sad over all this. Maybe its all the years that I moved around and just got use to saying my good byes and all. Or maybe this is all a God thing right now that I'm not balling my eyes out right now over all this. I don't know!! Its so confusing and yet... peaceful...

Anywho, this week to come... tomorrow our team will be leaving to go to debrief for the end of the year at South Padre Island. For the next couple of days we will be talking through the process of leaving behind all that we have known and loved this past year and getting ready to come home. I'm so excited and I can't wait! Next week though we will be packing up and leaving out of our house and heading home next Thursday, May 15th! I hope all will go well for everyone, not just me. I'm relaly excited to see what God has in store for all of us. For debrief and for the rest of this trip... even though there is only a week left...

Well... that's it!! It has been a pleasure to talk to all of you and share with you this journey that God has put me on this past year! Lots of ups and downs but God has pervailed in the end... just like He always does! Love y'all and God bless!

Jeanne ;)

Hey there everyone! Hope all is going well for everyone... things are going for now. We already started moving a few things out of our house that we live in so we won't have as much to do the next 2 weeks before we leave. This week though...

This week was our last real week of ministry in the colonias and in our internships... some what. Next week our actual last day of ministry is 8th which happens to land on the day we usually go and do our WOW times in the colonias. I know this next week is going to be hard for all of us but luckily we have already started the "debriefing" process and have started talking some of these things out so all is well... for now...

On Wednesday my group that usually goes to the school in afternoon to help the kids out with work and stuff got a little change up. April 30th (last Wednesday, was Children's day here in Mexico and usually what happens is that the kids only get a half day and then have the rest of the day off. So at 8am my group and I went to the school to hang out and have fun as these guys celebrated Children's day in their own special way: rave rooms, beauty salon, movie rooms, sports and games... we just had too much fun! And it was great to hang out with these kids and get to know them some more....

Last night was an amazing night though for us girls who had Girls' Night. What else would be better on a warm friday night in Mexico than to do home-made facials! So much fun! I actually did this flour, honey, mint and something mix that was like amazing for my face! Thanks Jenny and Tamara for coming up with it and us having so much fun! We did different kinds of masks for different kinds of things and we also put oil, honey and vanilla in our hair to help us with our dried-out and freezy hair. So awesome...

Sadly though one of our team mates, Tamara, will be leaving us tomorrow sooner than expected. We love her so much and she has been such an incredible asset to our team! She actually was my tent mate when we had to go and do our training camp week in Gainesville before we came down here in September. Its sad and a bit hard for us but we know and trust that God has called her home sooner than the rest of us for a reason... we love her and will miss her so much!!

Well that's it for now! Hope all are well and hope to hear from you soon! Later!

Jeanne ;) 

Hey everyone! Hope all is well for y'all! Well with time ticking away and this trip is coming to an end I've been really looking forward to what God has in store for me as I prepare to come home but of course as life would have it there are other things that are involved in the mix...

This past week we finished our time at the Gateway and are back in downtown Matamoros and back to visiting our families and our internships. It was so good to see all those familiar faces again... this week though was a tad bit different. Our group was able to pull together and help provide a house for a family out in one of the squatters' colonias as some people call it called Los Granjas. One of the families that is visited by our group was telling us how much her sister and her family needed a house. So of course our group pulled together and started building her a house. Unfortunately due to some not so dependable weather (that's what you get when you live near the ocean) we were unable to finish it this week. However... we believe that by Monday the house will be finished!! I just asked that you pray for our team because some of them have been sick and have not be able to help us so if you could pray for our team that would be great...

Also this week I found out that even though the year is drawing to an end there are still somethings I have not finished doing... like raising support for this trip. I also found out that the amount I was suppose to be raise isn't enough for the trip. I ask right now if you could pray that God would pour out his blessings upon this area in my life. I can't tell you how much it hinders me mentally on the mission field when I have this constant reminder in the back of my head that I still need to raise $1,200.00 for this trip. I also asked that if you feel like you would like to help me out financially even if its something like $25 or $50 that's still a huge help for me! It will be a blessing for me and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help... all you have to do is just click on the link on the left side of the page under my picture that says "Support Me!". It will lead you to another page and just follow through the steps. Thank you to all that have been supporting me through prayers and finances... you'll never know what a true blessing it was for me...

Also this week we had Thomi Wilson, Director of the Gateway, teaching us this week about the subject of Character. So many good things... really... if you want to see what we were talking about, he talked about it using a book of Bill Hybals called Who You Are When No One's Looking... really good stuff! I'll talk more about when he's done teaching it....

Well what else... Oh! One of our teammates had her parents come down. It was pretty awesome to have them around (thanks for visiting Tamara's parents!!). They helped us out alot with the house and hung around with us and got to see what we do down here. What was really awesome though was one of their last nights here with us they invited us to their hotel to swim in the pool and jacuzzi.... SWEET!!! It was really so much fun... out team got to chill and hang out and relax with Tamara's parents. It was so much fun! (BTW Laura, Foma and Jess.... WE DID IT!! WE TOOK OVER A HOTEL'S POOL!!!-inside joke... sorry-)

Well unfortunately even with all of that awesome stuff going on I realized this week just how much I was afraid about the future, the support raising and trying to return back to my life in the States. I really wish I wasn't like that but I can't deny the emotion looming inside of me. Please pray that that would cease...

Well that's it for now! Thanks for all your support and hopefully I will be talking to you soon... Later!

Jeanne ;) 

Hey everyone! Hope all is well for y'all! This past week has definately helped me in quite a few ways so without further ado...

This past week, The First Year Missionaries (FYMers) helped out at the Gateway down here in Matamoros with a youth group of 300 kids coming in from Johnson Ferry Baptist Church of Marietta, GA!! So I got to be around some southerners for a while... it felt really good. As I talked to them some I got to see that a majority of them were really excited to be down here but skeptical of what was to come. This year was the first year out of all the times they have been down here that they were going to do ATL (Ask The Lord). Yes they came down and built 20 houses in 4 days, yes they walked the colonias and met people and tried new things like Joyas and Takis. But ATL was something none of them have not only done before but never heard of. I'm pleased to say that God poured out into each and everyone of the kids that came down and were blown away with the concept of ATL and absolutely loved it! I helped not only drive them around (meeting up with the Federalis twice in one week) and lead them through construction and ATL (which were awesome!) but also got to be their Online Trip Updater. It was so cool to hear all the stories of the things that got to experience and see God just pouring out into these kids in so many different and unique ways! It was really incredible!

Also during this week I have been trying to recover to the best of my ability from my wisdom tooth being pulled. I had to take quite a bit of medication for it (Two pain killers, Tylenol and an antibiotic) so my stomach was so messed up and my jaw was killing me but otherwise all is well now!! Thank God! I just got back from the Dentist today and they said that the surgery site has healed and the nerves in my jaw should be completely healed in a month! So hopefully I won't have to go back again (although the dental assistant was pretty cute.... j/k).

And with all that going on other things have been happening in my life right now. As hard as I'm trying to go to school for some reason I feel that maybe I'm not meant to be there quite yet. A couple of job offers have presented themselves to me this fall and I'm looking into it so I really don't know what I'm going to be doing in the fall after all this is done. Its all in God's hands now and as Jeremiah said in Chapter 33 verse 3:

"Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Hope to hear from you soon! Love ya all! Later!

~Jeanne ;)

Hey everyone! Hope y'all are doing better than I'm doing right now...

Well... where to begin.. so on Monday I went to the dentist and found out that I had to get my wisdom tooth pulled. Mainly because that what you do with wisdom teeth but also I had a bad cavity in it and it was causing alot of pain to my other teeth cause it was starting to hit the nerve. Well of course I scheduled an appointment to have it pulled out on Friday. And so when I went home I told everyone and we got ready to head out to the Gateway to help out with Johnson Ferry Church coming out to see us next week. Well on Tuesday I was fine... I had medicine that the doctor gave me to take for infection, swelling and pain. On Wednesday though.... I was flat on my back! I had not been eating alot as it was because of the pain in the mouth, then my tooth was hurting, then my body started hurting because of other things that were going on (I will not get into detail about that) and then with all stuff that had happen back home with my dad and all I was seriously wacked out!! So of course this happened Thursday and Friday finally rolled around and I went and got the tooth pulled! FINALLY NO MORE PAIN.... NOT!!!! The specialist gave me 3 new more medications to take and told me to take it easy for a while. I feel like such a schlum!!! If you guys know me well enough then you know that if there is one thing that I hate, its pain... but if there is something I hate even more is when I want to help but my body won't allow me so I have to rest and  I am of no use to my friends when they need help the most. My team has been doing such an incredible job so far in getting ready for these people down here and I feel like such crap because I don't have the strength to help them when they need it the most right now... I'm sorry guys!

You know, as I've been resting and thinking about all this I keep getting reminded about when Paul was talking about making your body a slave to yourself (1 Corinthians 9:27). In that Chapter Paul is talking about running the race in order to win the prize... right now I feel like I'm in dead last! And you know what sometimes there are times when you need to push it and there are other times that you need it to rest so that you can rest and recover and will have the chance to come back later and conquer it! Hey what doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger right? As well as something else... the title of that chapter is "The Rights of An Apostle". Interesting... I thought you gave up your rights after you became an apostle... as well as a missionary... or is that just me?

Anywho... hope all is well for y'all and hope to hear from you soon! Later!

~Jeanne ;) 

Hey everyone! Hope is going well for y'all! Its been quite a wicked little week for me so let's jump right in...

Easter and all was great! We went to a church in Brownsville TX so it was nice and I got to take a nap and recoup from the week before with all the teenagers and stuff. We spent a good deal of the day pigging out and enjoying each others company and all and then we jumped back into the swing of things with our ministries. Unfortunately school was still out so I had to tag along to another ministry on Wednesday and Friday. Which was fine...

By the end of the week things were winding down and my tooth starts giving me grief. So I finally decided to go see a dentist today and see if more than likely they'll pull it. But back to last week.... our team spent Saturday morning in complete silence focusing on our team and praying for everyone on our team. It was great chance to reflect and see how blessed I am to know these people. Yesterday we went out and had team time together going to church in Brownsville, going to Starbucks (oh my gosh... amazing!!!), going to a picnic in the park, going to the zoo and then going home and celebrating my friend Jill's birthday and watch a movie! It was great...

The one thing this past weekend I didn't like learning was something God thought it necessary for me to learn... death. It started on Friday as I called home and found out my dad was going to have tests done the first of this week for his chest because he was having a hard time breathing. The doctors told him it could be a heart disease or a clot in his lungs. It really shook me up a little... then I went with some of girls to their ministry they do at the hospital here in Matamoros. It was definately an eye-opener for me. I saw people who were on the verge of death, people who had lived long lives and it was time. I saw kids who were hurt and were in for surgeries or injuries that could have killed them as well. Death is something, I realized, I don't handle well. Things seemed fine after all that and then on Sunday as I was heading to the zoo with my team I call home to tell my family what we were doing and found out my father was sent to the hospital. After I told my team what happened we prayed for him and then as we were finishing we got the news he was going to be all right! They said he had a hard time breathing on Saturday night and early Sunday morning his heart stopped all together... fortuantely he was there and after they shocked him back into the right heart beat rhythm they took a look at his heart and found a massive blood clot. 100% blockage in the arterie... they said if he wasn't there he would be dead... I'm overwhelmed to report that he's fine now. They removed the clot and put stents in the arterie. He's on blood thinners and some other medications and will head home tomorrow. Thank God Almighty... Unfortuantely though as if I didn't have enough examples and situations in my life about death I found out today that a close friend of mine is dying. He didn't say of what yet so hopefully I'll find out more and let you guys know but... right now me and God are in some heavy talks right now...

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll hear from y'all soon... later!

Jeanne ;)

Hey everyone! Hope all things are going well for y'all! This week has been an interesting week to say the least...

This week we've been at the Gateway helping out with a team of High schoolers from Alabama. It was pretty fun hearing and seeing stuff that I use to be around when I was in youth group. So I helped lead a few groups helping them lead VBSes and going with them visting people in the different communities. It was really cool to see how God used them and worked through them this week to help these people in these different communities. Unfortunately this week though as I was in the process of "documenting" all this my camera dropped and is now broken! So sad... I'm a photographer by heart so for that to happen really sadden me but its all cool. It was a bit of an old camera so at least it died doing what it loved... or was meant to do... whatever! Anywho so the group of high schoolers finished up this week yesterday having two VBSes with like 200 kids combined showing up and building two new houses for people down here so it went really good. Today however has not really been the best day for me. I got up late and because of it I'm behind on some things I needed to get done so I'm a bit frustrated right now. As I was walking around in my little "huff-n-puff" my hand got scratched by a piece of wire and got cut a bit. As I looked down and started getting a bit more upset about it a soft voice spoke to me saying, "Remember the grace and mercy He showed you so you can show others". As I sat and thought about it more and more I remembered (among other things that tomorrow is Easter) about Jesus' death and the whole reason it happened, to show us grace and mercy so that we could do the same for others, not just people who aren't christians yet but towards are our own brothers and sisters in Christ. It was such a humbling reminder... Christ spent hours up on a cross, stretching his self to his fullest exsitent so that God's grace and mercy could be accessable to us as well as the whole world.

Well got to run... gotta help wash vans and try and get laundry done before heading out to a little BBQ today! Hope to hear from y'all soon! Later!

~Jeanne ;)  

Hey there y'all! Hope all is well... doin' my blog post today from a coffee shop inside the Sunrise Mall in Brownsville, TX. A new thing but always the same...

So this week started out pretty well. Unfortunately by Monday night things changed as I got a stomach bug and threw up a majority of the night. Not cool at all y'all! So as I laid in bed all day Tuesday trying to recover I kept falling asleep and dreaming. A majority of the dreams made absolutely no sense at all but that was okay cause I just needed the rest. Ever since then though I've been eating very little and not eating much meat. Why? I don't know but I have been walking around a lot so I am getting my excerise in though. After I finally recovered I joined my group again and dove in on what they were learning this week: World Missions. Very exciting since this was an answer to a question I had asked God earlier this week. Its just sad to hear that, based on statistics, hardly any money or missions are really out there today in other countries doing the great commission work. And here I thought there were tons of us out there... WRONG!!! Less that 2% of the money raised churches Nationwide goes to missions! LESS THAN 2%!?! So where is all this money and energy at? Where else... inside the Christian circle, focusing on building bigger and better churches and other things trying to reach those that are reachable. The sad thing about all this... those reachable people a majority of Christians consider to be unreachable. Relatives, neighbors, coworkers, classmates... all reachable. The truly unreachable people are people that believe in other religions, have no religion or are half the world away in another country not being reached to. When are we, as Christians, going to stop focusing on bigger and better things and actually pull a "missionary" thing: live on the necessities and put our energy, money and support not only towards getting more missionaries out in the world but trying to reach the unreachable, teach the unteachables, love the unlovable.... maybe its time for us as Christians to step out of our mega church livin', latte sippin', buying up all the newest here and now things and actually start focusing on the original calling in our lives... Matthew 28:18-20....

"Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go  and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Sorry if this seemed mean... I can get like that when I don't feel good. Hope all is well... later!

Jeanne ;)

Hey everyone! Hope all is well for y'all! Things have been quite different down here since the last I spoke to y'all. So let me start from the beginning...

Last week we had a couple of ladies come down from Ohio to speak to us about inner healing and the prophetic life. Naturally I was skeptical to say the lest about the prophetic stuff. Inner healing I have no problem with but prophesies and all that stuff I never really focused on or worried about because naturally I thought that the time for all that had passed and that prophets really don't existed anymore. Also if you really wanted to get down to the nittie-grittie of it we as Christians could be considered prophets in a since that we speak the truth(God's word) into people's life. Man was I wrong! These women came in and showed me what for! At first they began talking about inner healing and of course I understood and felt like I did some inner healing when it came to school and everything else this fall, that I wouldn't be worried and that God would remove the strain on my heart about all this. So one day, the three ladies and I sat and talked and I told only what I need to tell them about the school stuff and all. Then as they began to pray for me they started hearing from God and speaking these things, truths, into other areas of my heart more so about my worrying about the future, especially when it comes to a husband and school. It blew me away!! I hadn't hardly breathed a word to them about my past or anything and they were talking about things that had been on my heart for a while! Such a God thing! Oh and it got better...

One of the ladies, Marilyn, started praying over me and asked me about intercessory prayer and my prophetic life. I never told hardly anyone about how in the past not only me but my sister too would have dreams or pictures in our minds about different things, not only if it pertained to ourselves but others. I said yes I've had those things before and have done intercessory prayer before for some people in my college group and church. So then she began to pray over me that God would strengthen my prophetic life and MAN HAS HE!! Ever since then God I have been talking so much more now. Its amazing!!! I love it!! He's not only talked to me about who I am to him but about my future and missions too!! SO AMAZING!!! Truly God is doing all this!

Anywho, we ended the week with the ladies taking us out to this amazing breakfast place!! SO GOOD!! And us going to a birthday party for one of the people who works out at the Gateway. It was so much fun!

Well, that's it for now! Hope to hear from ya'll soon! See ya!

Jeanne ;)