So, keeping a blog was not as successful as I hoped it would be. My last blog was in July, it is currently January. Sorry about that. However, recently I felt compelled to start blogging again. So I suppose I will just catch you up from where I last left off.

Since July 17, 2009. During my last month and half in Nicaragua I continued to help teams that came in. We had another week long high school trip and two world race teams came through in August. I loved having the world race teams at the base. It was so refreshing to watch them minister to others. They were in their last month so they were pros, I enjoyed watching and being able to participate in their ministry, compared to the others where I would show them how things were done. I also went to Panama with my dear friend Heather for a week.

Ok, this is the part that I think I was led to blog about, finishing out my time in Nicaragua and coming home. Leaving Nicaragua was really hard for me. Situations had come up that I was just not ready to handle, and came home really broken. However, if I was ready and prepared for everything that God had to throw at me, how good would His teaching really be? I think God was sifting though me and bringing up areas I still had fault and areas I need to work and grow in. Needless to say, coming home was RRrrough. I was home for 3 weeks before I left again to go to college in Seattle. The first semester at school was also rough. I felt very alone, isolated and confused. The feeling that I dealt the most with was an overwhelming loss of purpose. What was I doing? I was JUST going to school, how does that help anyone but myself? Where do I go from here?

The good news is, through prayer, conversations, realizations and work, I have started to come out of that funk and am excited to continue on to where God is leading me. Nicaragua was a HUGE growing experience. I can literally say the first year of my faith was spending focusing solely on God and discovering what it truly meant to be a "Christian" and living that forward every day. That whole experience made an impact on my life and I feel blessed that I could experience that. Thanks everyone for helping me get to that point and pushing me to grow.

So where does that put me now?

Currently, I am attending Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. I am a nursing major and Spanish minor. Back in October, I started my first paying job since May of 2008. I work at a day care. Its fun, I play with kids all day.

As I go back and think about Nicaragua I still can hardly believe that that year actually happened. My 21^st birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I think back to my last birthday. My 20^th birthday which was spent at an all day pastoral conference, entirely in Spanish. The party was held in a transformed barn, on a dirt floor, with ice cream, surrounded by people that I love and cherish. I was on the losing part of an eating contest and got threatened with eggs the entire day. The year before that, my 19^th birthday, was spent sick, in a dorm room, not really knowing what true community was. Oh, how the years have flown by.

I do not know where God is calling me from here, and am unsure of what my next step will be. I would ask that you would pray for a few things in my life:

1. 1. Friends and community- here at SPU, since my first semester was spent sulking, I missed out on the opportunity to start developing a new community. I ask that you pray for a community for me. Both a church community and a community here at school. I still feel very lonely at times, but I am hopeful as a few new wonderful people have recently entered my life.

2. 2. A renewed since of purpose

3. 3. An outreach. I feel that I have returned to a place where I can start reaching out to people again. It took a while, but rest and rejuvenation has taken place. Additionally, I am searching for purpose for this summer. I feel that God is calling me to do something. One of the factors that contributed to this was my realization of my upcoming lack of home. This summer, I cannot afford to stay where I am here on campus. However, I cannot return home, not because my parents wouldn't love to have be back, but because there is no jobs there for me. I sense that God is calling me to a new place, a new chapter, so your prayers to find that place would be awesome.

So where does that leave us?

I am continuing to read the word and search for truth, I have a new sense of vigor and hurriedness. I eat more rice, beans and tortillas than any normal college student should, and I am finally learning that no matter where I am, God is there with me, He is the beauty in every thing that surrounds me.

I will try to continue to blog more frequently, and post any developments or interesting stories.

Thanks for your prayers. Let us all pray for the rejuvenation of God in this world.

Upwards and onwards (my Step-dad always ends emails like that)

Annie