PERU!

As many of you may know, I am currently pursuing an Educational Ministry degree at Seattle Pacific University. As a part of my degree, I am required to complete an internship that has to do with what I would like to do long term. I have spent a lot of time praying over what exactly God would have my internship be. Many of the people in this major usually do a church internship during the school year. However, I really felt God calling me to look for an overseas trip, since that is where He has called my heart. And He is faithful to provide. Through a series of opening and closing doors, God opened a possibility to travel to Peru this summer with Youth Missions International. So I prayed about it, and talked with my parents about it, and we bought tickets a couple weeks ago!! So needless to say, I am traveling to Peru this summer. From YMI's perspective, this is a two month college mission trip. From SPU's perspective, this is a two month internship. So it works out great! I am so amazed at how God continues to work things out in ways that I never could have guessed or orchestrated on my own.

So that being said, I will be leaving for Lima, Peru on July 21st and returning on September 17th (with a training before and a debriefing afterwards). I will be living with the YMI Peru directors, Julio and Rosario Serrano while I'm there. As far as I know at this moment, my primary "job" down there will be teaching English at both a local church and the local High School, as well as just helping Julio and Rosario in any way that I can and participating in the youth program at the church. 

I am extremely excited for this trip. I have been praying for an opportunity like this for a long while, and I am so amazed at how God has opened the doors for this. I am excited to see what He is going to do in my life, as well as what He is going to do while I'm down there period. 

I think that prayer is the single biggest need that I have for this trip. While I am extremely excited, I'm beginning to get a little nervous. I will be traveling by myself, so prayer for safety would be wonderful. Also, since I am a semi-spoiled college student and I only live 40 miles from home, I haven't ever spent two months away from my family and so if I'm going to be honest, that scares me a little bit too. However, I do think that the biggest fear I have is that I will allow my own desires or expectations to basically "block out" or influence what God has planned for this trip, and that thought scares me really bad. The only expectation I am trying to have for this trip is that God will do great things in both my life and the lives of the people in Peru that I will be with. However, I do know myself and I sometimes get caught up in what I want to do. So prayer that I would just submit all ideas, expectations, hopes, desires to God and allow Him to do what He will with this trip, and that I will rely on Him fully. That would be wonderful, thank you! I know that God works through our insecurities and our fears and our weaknesses, so I trust that He will work through these and be glorified even more knowing that where I am weak, He is strong. 

I will be posting updates from time to time about my preparations for this trip as well as using this blog as my form of communication during my time in Peru. Thank you so much for all of your prayers, I am unbelievably blessed with them.

Hasta pronto,

Taylor