Greetings from Asia!

This is the first time i have sat down at a computer and not my phone so i figured i would send out a decent update! i miss all of you and am very thankful for all your support!

we have just completed our fourth week here which means that we are officially half way through our time in our first country and a third of the way done with our total outreach time. our time here has been great! the first week we participated in the national conference here. it was an easy start to outreach and we got to meet a lot of the people we were going to work with in the following weeks.

the second location we went to was in the same city but up in the mountains; there we did a kids camp in the morning then door to door in the afternoon usually followed by an open air. we did some major hiking that week!!! it was very cool for us because the number of people that we had come each day doubled in size. their holy week with the Hindu religion was the same week that we were there. the day before their most holy day (like our Christmas) we had over 180 people come out and listen to what we had to say! it was very exciting and fun for us; we got to share the Gospel with people who had never heard it before.

the next week we went and worked with a church planting team in another city/village area. they are currently helping start, train, and work with 9 churches/fellowships. we again did a lot of hiking. we also did our longest hike yet; it was five hours from the base of a mtn, up and around to the very top of another mtn. they said it would take us ten hours to do but we did it in five. it was probably one of the hardest physical things i have ever done before; the hike wasn't like any i have ever done before. it seemed like we were walking up 90 degree angles at some points although it probably was only 35. still that's a very steep hill to be walking up. once there we stayed for two nights and helped run a childrens program. we also played volleyball with the locals!

we hiked down two days later and continued to go to closer villages and fellowships to do kids programs and house fellowships. on our day off we were able to go by to a nearby waterfall and ended up showering there. it was def an experience since it was a public place and we showered with all our clothes on. but it was beautiful and fun and the cold water was very refreshing in the humidity and heat that we were in.

from there we traveled by a VERY bumpy long twelve hour night bus to our next location to a city near the border here we are working with another ywam team and helping them in their ministries. i was privileged enough to get to preach to a youth group with kids ages 17-25 during their church service. tomorrow we leave for a village about five hours away to work with them for about three days. we will come back here then head to the capital to finish off our last two weeks.

it has been such an amazing adventure. i have been pushed in so many ways. i dealt with sickness for about two weeks and had to learn to take care of myself. here the food is different which i expected but i have learned that i am almost totally lactose intolerant; that has been hard because some of my favorite things to eat involve milk but i'm learning i'd rather not be in pain for the rest of the day then the joy of having milk in my coffee.

the food here in wonderful though; i've liked almost everything i've tried and love to eat rice at most meals. they know how to cook vegetables so well here. soooo good!

the people have been amazing; i'm constantly surprised how nice the people are. even if they don't accept what we have to say they invite us in, make us coffee or freshly squeezed lemonade and listen intently to what we have to say. i think i mentioned but i had a 60 year old women offer to carry us down the mtn on her back so we wouldn't fall anymore. it's amazing. when people come to my door at home i usually don't answer; here the people invite you in and try to feed you everything that they own.

our teams and the translators have been amazing as well. i hate leaving each place; we have bonded with them so well. our last night after being with the first team they threw us a party and it turned into a very random but very fun dance party. at our second place we were fed the best home made food i've had since leaving home. they went out of their way to make food that didn't have meat in it the few times we had it for our vegetarian on our team. if we were sick or unwell they made sure we slept; one family even gave up their bed and their room to part of our team and they slept on the floor in the kitchen. they literally bend over backwards for us.

it has shown me a lot of how i need to be and how different our worlds are. i love home. without a doubt i love home but i realize that we are very distant from each other in the states. i am shocked everytime we just walk into someones yard and they invite us to sit down and rest; hospitality is the word for this country. i love it.

i will be coming back to this country without a doubt. the fist ministry spot has a part of my heart. i loved the team we were with and the village and the people; i cried leaving them and i'll be back again one day to visit.

our team is doing well. we rely on God for strength a lot; I don't think i could have made it on the five hour hike without Him. there was a point were we were in what we called the desert because it was so hot and we were clinging to the side of the mtn for an ounce of shade and literally all i could do was sing a worship song to get me through. and it did. you would think that a team of ten girls would have an abundance of problems but we have been working very well with one another. of course it gets hard and its tiring but we always seem to push through to encourage one another to keep going to the end.

it's been an awesome experience so far and i have loved almost every single moment.

i'm sorry that there is no capital letters here and spelling may be tragically wrong. but the internet cafe i'm at is a little older and not everything on the keyboard works probably.

continue to pray for strength for me and my team. email if you can. thank you so much for all your support. i will post pictures when i get back to australia; some are on facebook; if you are my FB friend you can see them! i love you and miss you all! blessings, tina!

Update via Mia

Hey, this is Mia, Tina's Mom.  She sent this on Saturday; internet access is extremely limited, I only hear from her every 10 days or so.  Anyway, enjoy...

Hi! I'm writing this in bed at a hotel but I probably won't be able to send it til tomorrow morning. This past week has been so crazy and so good! 

 

We were in the mountains looking at the tall,  tall mountains everyday.  In the morning we ran a kids camp and in the afternoon we did door to door and did open air. The mountains that we were in are near a major city but some people have never been out of the mountains. There were a  (lot of?) smaller villages all around and we hiked to a lot of them. Most knew the name Jesus but had never heard the gospel before so it was really cool to be the first ones to share with people. 

 

We did door to door which is actually hill to hill here. There was a long walk/treck to get there and we did it in traditional wear. In some villages we then took these little paths from house to house inviting them to open air events or sitting and talking with them. I'm telling you right now you will never meet a nicer person then these people. 

 

Most would bend over backwards to help you and invite you in. And even if they didn't want to hear what you have to say they would still smile and were so thankful we were there. One lady in her sixties even followed us and offered to carry us down the mountain because we kept slipping. And she was serious. If we would have fallen she would have swooped us up and taken us on her back to our base. 

 

Total fun part is that they live to dance here. Love is a understatement. They want you to dance like them then teach them to dance American. First off I didn't really know what American dance looks like and what I do wasn't appropriate for kids. So I taught them the chicken dance. And now they all know it and live it! 

 

We worked with a training center here and even though they were small in number I was blessed in so many ways by them. There was one family and their two kids were amazing and they had so much life to them. Their little girl had the biggest most compassionate heart I've ever seen. Even thinking about how we had to say goodbye today is making me cry. This team was amazing. One is starting a resort in the mtns that will be a trekkers retreat/missionaries get away. It's employing locals in an economy with huge unemployment. 

 

Then one lady was making our traditional outfits for us that we had to wear and the money that she made from them would go to pay her school fees for the school she is about to take. 

 

And then our translators. To say they were a blessing is an understatement. One works with the base and the other two didn't. But all were amazing. I worked with one closely doing the kids ministry and door to door. He had such a passion for reaching out to his village and making sure everyone knew. He doesn't want his people to be bound by lies. He would always take us on door to door for longer then the time planned for. On the first day when we hardly knew him we ended up at his house during door to door and he made is freshly squeezed lemon aid. To say our jaws were dropped is an understatement. But we soon realized that this is the way of the people. Going out of their way to make sure you are okay. 

 

Walking here isn't like walking at home. Roads aren't paved and paths are narrow steep and muddy. He would always show us where to walk so we wouldn't get hurt and if he heard our feet slip he immediately turned around to see if we were okay. Our other translator was the same way! They all wanted to get the news out and so we went and we found the kindest people I've ever met. 

 

I could have stayed on top of that mtn. I could have married a local and never come home. I cried leaving them and I'll be back again one day. My heart aches for these people and being with the ministries here as well would be totally amazing! I contemplated chaining myself to the building and the team thought about saying we got lost in the mtns for the rest of our time because in no way did we want to leave. 

 

Life changing doesn't even begin to describe this past week.