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…