Throw Back Thursday - video gem: "We Lift Our Hands"

Booth family vacations are never dull. This video took place in 2009, probably some where in Canada, on the way to our grandparents cottage. We seem to make our family road trips even that much more enjoyable with music videos.

This song "We Lift Our Hands" by Kirk Franklin, was one of the many gems on a CD mix a family friend made for our mom.

Recent STINT Partnership highlights

Italy

One of my new STINT partners, Alicia, is serving overseas in Italy. She and her team recently hosted a Short Film Night, where they and their students invited new friends to watch and discuss film.

"I think of the coolest parts was witnessing my student share her faith in Italian with her group! Italian to Italian - the language barrier was not there and she stepped out in boldness, sharing parts about God's presence in her life." - Alicia


Central Asia

 

Another team in Central Asia, had a Spring Break team come join them for a week of ministry. One pair of girls went out and showed the short film, ' Dying Roads' - a modern version of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here is what the STINTer reported:

  

"The girls [we shared with] immediately said they didn't think that this story could happen here in their city because of the religious people. Then five minutes later, the girls left to go pray and then came back. (I've never had students do that before). Then we got into a conversation about what they think about Christianity and what we think about Islam. They all want to get together again to talk about it. It made away for us to talk about deep things." - Erin

Puerto Rico

The STINT team in Puerto Rico is a pioneering team. Because they are the first team in this country, they are even more willing to try new things to reach the campuses they work on.

This month, with a visiting Spring Break team of students from the States, they lead the digital strategy using short films in initiative evangelism. We had them use specifically the short film La Busqueda - (which demonstrates the parable of the Prodigal son). This means, they went on campus and using the Jesus Film Media app on their phone, approached people and asked if they would watch it and share their opinion.

"Blake and I had two students really connect with the film. They were so mad when the daughter didn't get off the bus and return to the father. After thinking through why she migh not get off, the student was like "OHHH". A light bulb went off and he realized that is what he has been doing to God. He realized he doesn't feel like he can go back to Him because of all the stuff he's done. Blake and I got to share the Gospel with him and his friend. Although they made no clear decision, it was an awesome conversation that we wouldn't have had if we didn't have the film." - Alyse

Please pray for the individuals on the other end of these conversations! God is always up to something...  

Oh my wordies

Never would I have guessed writing would be such a consistent and basically daily part of my job. Praise the Lord for spell check.

Monthly prayer letter updates, multiple weekly blog posts - for both work and personal, and crafting professional sounding emails.... I'm thinking it would be wise to take up some sort of email notification of a "word of the day", to add colorful and meaningful words to my vocabulary....

Some times, I feel I exhaust my writing creativity on more work-related tasks, so when it come to my personal blog, it can be neglected or sparatic or minimal. So for the few of you out there who actually read my blog, I'm sorry and will work harder at writing more substance and more often!

Post 200

True confessions, I haven't posted in a while. (But anyone could really see that if they are a frequent reader of my posts).

Sometimes, I feel my attempt at creative word-flow quickly deplete. And after thinking about it a bit, (as some of you may or may not know this,) but I actually write/manage another blog for work as well.

So, I'm at a point of figuring out where I want to "take this" personal blog. Personal memoirs (but not too personal - if you wanna get to know me, lets go grab some coffee :) ), DIY craft ideas and successes/fails (I wish I had time for things like that...), ministry stories (which often also get posted on my work blog), trip/picture story posts (which will probably happen because I want to be more selective in what pictures I post to social medias) or random thoughts....

So many possibilities! So many angles! Why limit one? Maybe because I need a little structure to feel like I'm doing something well... and that people are actually reading... and enjoying what they read... and coming back for more... and, okay I think that's it.

The day I walked to Mexico

Early in January, I decided to go to Mexico. Now, it was only a day trip, but I figured while staying in San Diego for a few days over the weekend, I might as well check off visiting a new country, right?

We, my STINT teammate Chelsea, her friend Kristin (who's from South Africa) and I, drove down to the border, parked the car and walked to Mexico. Entering their country was a breeze! Basically, around 11:00 am, we walked past three soldiers with guns, and continued on our way to Tijuana.

We sorta knew where we were going... sort of. I had Googled "Tijuana" before we left the house, to familiarize myself with landmarks. As we were walking to the city center, we met a middle aged Mexican mom, her daughters and grandbaby. They kindly let us walk with us through the "sketchy" part of town.

We explored the city, checking out souvenir shops (often being called out to as "Charlies Angels"), people watching and eventually had some authentic tacos at a hole in the wall restaurant.

We had been told to head back to the border by 3:00 pm so we could get across the border before it got dark. I was sort of skeptical that we would actually have to wait that long...we waited for 3 hours and cross the border right at dusk. In the mean time, we enjoyed people watching, trying local foods like churros and swapping stories of traveling. 


Probably my first and last time walking to Mexico...Though we had to wait so long, I still had a fun time with these gals. I love exploring new cities!