Destination Paradise Week Three: The coolest most Christ-like 40 year old ever

Writing an update for this week is kind of like trying to put the ocean into a paper bag. An email, a blog update or any sort letter will fail to convey the beauty, power and overwhelming goodness this week has held for me. The speaker for this week, Jeff Pratt, flew in on Saturday and was only with us until Thursday morning. We jumped right into his teachings and things took a turn for the personal faster than I ever expected. Jeff shared with us his journey to knowing the Father heart of God, the love that God the Father offers us in the face of our blatant undeserving humanity, and led us into a time of deep reflection on what Jesus did on the cross and the healing, restoration and freedom we can experience through His love poured out. Jeff is an amazing example of a man molded into the image of Christ, passionately loving those placed in his path, breaking down the religiosity the church has caged itself in with and seeking after the rhythm of Christ in a new and intimate way. All that to say, he blessed us with his teachings in a way that I never expected, and through Jeff, God was able to bring a deep sense of love and freedom into our lives. He was able to communicate the scriptures and the love of Christ and God the Father in a way that made me fall in love with my faith all over again. This week I was able to stare in the face of my past, the scars and pains, the joy and the laughter, and experience healing and freedom in a way I know is only possible because of Jesus Christ. Again, God is so good. I am so thankful that we have had the schedule we have, week 2 being focused on spiritual warfare and week 3 on the Father heart of God. It has been intense but has truly set us up for such a unique time together. Our group has been blessed with sense of family almost from day one, which has allowed us to be open and honest with where God is leading and carrying us.

Things on the boat have been great, sweaty and hot, but great. We are all still getting use to water usage, we have run out kind of early two weeks in a row but we are getting better. I share a cabin (really small room) with two lovely ladies, Stacey and Brenda, and both of them have been sick. But thanks to my twice a day gargling with hydrogen peroxide I have managed to stay healthy, praise God! This week we anchored at another island called Rendezvous Caye, and we got to see some awesome sunsets this week which was awesome! On our sail there and back we saw dolphins which came around the boats for a while, it was pretty exciting! Sailing is great and each week we have about a 2hr lesson. This week we learned how to unfurl, set and furl the jib, basically unrolling the front sail and make it sail for us, it’s pretty fun.

This next week Chris Toney, our Director, will be speaking on worldviews, which should be great. We also got some great news today, we are sailing to Guatemala! We will be there starting next weekend and probably stay for a week or two at Lago Izabel, I can’t wait! We are all super excited and eager to go somewhere other than Placencia. The town has been great but things are shutting down for the season and very few places are still open. I hope everyone is doing well and I would love to hear from you, write soon! Blessings! With the wind…

Destination Paradise Week Two: the shermanator

Greetings from Placencia! It is Friday and again we have dropped our anchors off the quiet little beach town of Placencia, Belize. I am writting today from The Purple Space Monkey, yes you read that correctly. It's a funky little cafe that has 'free internet' with the purchase of a meal. Fridays we have dinner on our own, which is nice because we can spread out and get some alone time. This was the first real week of DTS. Our speaker, Dean Sherman, flew in from Mongolia on Tuesday and that afternoon we set sail towards South Long Coco Caye (island). It was not quite as picturesque as reandevous caye but nonetheless it was gorgeous. This week however, we were plagued by a rainstorm, yep, a tropical rainstorm and it was quite rocky the entire anchorage. My schedule was somehting like this:
6am wake-up, make coffee (this shouldn't suprise you, I quickly assumed the role as the boat coffee maker), and quiet time
7am Yoga on the deck, if the weather permits
8am worship
9am lectures begins
1pm lunch
Afternoons vary, sometimes there are more lectures, or chores, or freet time, it all depends.
Tuesdays we have a disscussion on the book 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John Maxwell
Wednesdays we have evening lectures
Thursdays are free, which is nice, there is always a ton of reading an processing to do
Fridays we sail to port somewhere which will vary also
Saturdays and Sundays will usually be free
This week the topic of the Lectures was Spiritual Warfare. I am still trying to process all that was spoken and all that I have learned but trying to convey it in an email does not seem possible. But the bottom line is that God is real, God is good but evil exists and we have a very important role to play in fighting against the personalities of evil that exist in this world. This week has made me to feel so empowered and equipped to step out into the world that is so corrupt and fight for its victims in the name of Jesus Christ. I can't wait to give people a real sustaining hope and peace all the while meeting their physical needs. Using actions of love, peace, hope, joy and compassion and words that convey the same eternal hope that every person on earth craves. It was an amazing week and this is just the begining. We have had such cool discussion about everything we have learned and again, this is only the second week. God is good, all the time He is good. Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your love for me.
Please continue to pray for safety, focus, unity with the team and support. I love you all and am so thankful to have all of you in my life and on this journey with me.
Blessings!

Destination Paradise Week One, orientation week:

This week has been full of newness. New relationships, new country, new weather and some of the most amazing new experiences I have had in a very long time. I arrived safe and sound to Belize, a little tired but nonetheless super excited to be here. I was greeted by the wonderful Destination Paradise, (DP) staff, Lynn and Chris, the directors, Andi and Maggie, two of the staff on our DTS. They took me and Torguier aka Simba, directly to the boats where we began the interesting process of orienting ourselves with the boats. I took off my sandals Tuesday morning and haven’t worn shoes since, it’s pretty amazing! We stayed on the boats in a little marina about 5 miles south of Belize City, called Cucumber Beach. The marina was kind of like a little resort village, they had a huge restaurant that catered to the cruise ships, also a beach with a huge water slide, kind of strange but the people were amazing, so friendly and welcoming. We stayed their one night and tried not to get eaten alive by the ‘noseems’ which were these seemingly invisible bugs that left stinging itch bumps all over. It was a surreal experience to arrive here, step aboard the boats where I will be living for the next three months and meet the people who I will be experiencing this all with. There are 13 students total, Simba (Norway, no one can say his name so he told us to call him Simba), Hannah and Andreas (Sweden, a wonderful married couple), Lisel (Minnesota), Beck (Canada), Stacey (Oregon), Brenda (Wisconsin), Tyler (Michigan), Tyler (Montana), Jordan (North Carolina), Jessi (Germany) and Corbin (Minnesota). We are a wonderful collect of people from all over the world, with very unique giftings and stories to tell. I have know these people for about a week and I already feel like they are all family. We live in such tight quarters and I know things will get intense, but this community centers around others, putting others first in all we do in the small and big things, this helps a ton.
Wednesday afternoon we set sail (literally) for the Spanish Islands. This was my first sail ever and I absolutely loved it and no sea sickness!! Praise God! The waters were calm and a beautiful turquoise green. Early Thursday morning we woke up and continued sailing until we reached Rendezvous Island. So, picture a deserted tropical island, look it up in the dictionary even, you will see a picture of this island we have been anchored at for the past four days. Utterly amazing. The colors of the waters are so vivid, crystal clear waters make snorkeling such a treat as well as the amazing reefs just a few yards away from my bed. Orientation week has been focused on building our team, getting to know one another and learning the contents of the student handbook. The handbook highlights the important aspects of living on boats, conserving water and energy, pumping the toilets, garbage, cooking, how we plan to live together, etc. We were tested on it Saturday morning and I am happy to say I did quite well! I have been overwhelmed by the beauty here, God’s creation is magnificent and I am so blessed to see a whole new side of it. But even more I am so impressed by the relationships and the people, all that we, collectively as a group have sacrificed to come here, all that we purpose to do, it’s amazing. I know that these months of studying and growing are going to change me in such beautiful ways, I can’t wait to see what God does.
Our schedule for the school is pretty much the same week to week. We will usually sail out of port on Sundays, find a place to anchor for the week, have school during the week days and then return to port on Friday for the weekend. So I will be able to respond to emails on the weekends which is nice. I hope everyone is doing well, I miss you guys a lot and will update you soon! Write me when you can.

My grandparents' 60th Wedding Anniversary!

Over Labor Day weekend we celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary! We met up in Mendocino, CA and enjoyed a beautiful weekend on the beach. My Nana and Papa are an incredible couple and we had a wonderful time celebrating them. One of the highlights of the weekend was when my grandmother read an old letter she had saved that my grandfather had written her parents before they were married. We also found out that they will soon be adopting a miniature Schnauzer named Freckles, he will be a great addition to our family!