Hello!!! 

God provided enough funds for us to start on our journey back to MN, so we set out early yesterday morning (Saturday). We crossed the border with the bus without any problems whatsoever-PRAISE GOD!!! 

Our plan VS God's plan...

Well, our plan was to drive To St. George, UT and sleep in the bus and then continue on to Denver, CO to stop to check out the School of Worship at the YWAM base.  After arriving in Utah and feeling the 40 degree weather; we got a hotel. We checked the weather for CO and found out chain laws had just gone into effect. So. No Colorado. 


Over breakfast, we told the girls "We are almost out of gas money, we are not going through CO anymore, and we are wondering what exactly God wants us to do since we were checking out the base in CO thinking that was where we were headed after MN." Alyssa leaned back and said "Ah. I love the missionary life." Haha. The six of us prayed together and I kid you not, less than five minutes later we got a call that the Mexico missions group from our church was giving us the rest of the funds that we needed to get home. God is good. And that is an understatement.

So! We are still in Utah, (almost to the WY border) getting some much needed rest after a stressful day of driving a bus in bad weather. Jake flawlessly maneuvered us through a very bad snow storm while I thanked God that I have such an amazing husband.

We will be in MN on Wednesday and we have no idea what God is calling us to next. He is TRULY giving us one step at a time. We recognize this is insane and not normal, but it is the life He has called us too :) The name "Faith Journey" fits our ministry quite well I think-haha.

Our family is LOVING the snow...absolutely loving it. (Thank you God) 

We look forward to seeing you and catching up!









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Hello! We are SO happy to be back!  We had a safe journey-praise God!!  We have had quite a bit of sickness, but that is getting better now too :)  We have a different apartment than the one we had before we left for outreach.  It's quite a bit bigger-so great to have space after living in VERY cramped quarters with 20 something people.  We again have amazing amenities.  A toilet-with a seat AND it flushes, a shower-including water-hot water!  Jake and I have our own room, and both bedrooms have doors AND glass in the windows.  We ALL have mattresses, we have a working fridge AND microwave. Really-it is so great!!


We are graduating on Thursday, Feb. 18th, and we are planning on heading for MN early Friday or Saturday morning.  We are not going to rush back because we are a little sick of driving and we do not want to arrive in MN exhausted and sick, so we are planning to be in MN by Tuesday.  Just a heads up-when we first arrive, we are going to need some time with family, but we are really excited to see the rest of you as well :)


We are planning on being in MN for sure until the end of March, and most likely longer-yeah!  As we have been praying, we feel God telling us that we are entering some time of refreshing-which is SO needed. There is a possibility that we will not leave MN until May.


We are in need of $1400 for gas, food, and lodging.  God has provided for every need thus far, and we know He can get us home too.  If you are able to help us out financially, we would be so blessed and appreciative. Financial support for our trip home can be sent to Jake's parents; their address is on our "Support" page. Please do not send it to us here in Ensenada because there is a good chance we will not get it in time.


Thank you so very much for all of your prayers and for the financial support we have received.  Words cannot explain how humbling it is to lead this kind of a lifestyle, but also what an incredible show of the faithfulness of God through our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are sincerely grateful. Thank you.
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Our trip is going well-we are on day 2. These 2 days have been relatively short-only 7-8 hours. We are at a hotel in Coatzacoalcos, Chiapas right now, getting ready to watch the Super Bowl. We will be staying at a YWAM base in Pachuca tomrrow night. 
Our plans may be taking a slight detour:) We are still looking at Rachael doing the School of Worship and feel that that is next. However, Jake may be doing a secondary school as well, and we may be starting those schools a little later than planned and in a different location. We still think future training is in store for us at the Ensenada base, but we may be stopping off at a different YWAM base, first.  Just a heads up:) We will let you know as we know. We will be spending a lot of time in prayer over these next couple weeks. We'd appreciate your prayers as well for specifics in this next step. A little bit more of a resting time in MN would be so wonderful between schools-we are really excited that this appears to be what God has for us.
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Helloooo!!! 01/30/2010
 
Hello all! Sorry for such a delay in posting, and even this one will be short. All we have had available for the last 3-4 weeks are internet cafes-which cost and some are not in walking distance.

HUGE news! Our outreach phase is paid off!!! Praise God!!!!

We are currently in Cozumel for 10 days-6 to go from today! We were in Cancun for a 3 day break-rough huh?!?!? :) We were in unairconditioned housing and not on the beach, but it was still amazing. The water is just as blue as the pics!

The ministry time has been really good. A lot of what we are doing is coming alongside different local churches in each area that we stay. We encourage them and do ministry with them. That way there is follow-up. We have done open-air ministry as well, but the local pastors have organized it. I think it is a great way to do short-term missions! Jake has preached and shared, and it has been very well received. I have done more staying back with the kids. The times of the services just do not go well for children. I have shifted my focus on outreach to more just reaching out to my team and family. I do a some of the cooking, planning meals, and shoping (for the 25 of us), clean-up, homeschool...etc. It was difficult to shift gears at first, but it is going well.

We have been living in all kinds of conditions. Jungle living with wild Howler monkey in close proximity and water only occasionally to an unfinished house with no glass in the HUGE windows and 40 degree nights, a small closet wiht a 2 burner campstove to cook on for all of us to an island. Here we live in a small cute 2 bedroom home (with 25 of us in it during the day). It is quite hot and we are all tired and ready for some space, but we are determined to finish strong.

The team unity has actually been really strong which is wonderful. Please pray for safe travels and an impacting next 6 days of ministry. We will have a 7 day journey back, a week of debrief, and then our journey to MN begins! We will be in MN-part time at Jake¨s parents and part time at mine. We will only be in the states for 4 weeks and it will go fast! We are driving back to Ensenada the end of March. We aren¨t sure exactly what our lives will be like when we return except for the fact that I am doing a secondary school with YWAM. It is the School of Worship and I have been accepted. Jake will be doing staff work and helping with the kids. The lecture phase of this school is the same as DTS-12 weeks. The outreach phase is optional, and we think we are opting out for that. I will then be focusing on the next schoolyear for the girls and there is some leadership training that Jake is looking into doing in Ensenada. More details to follow...

Please pray for our health, for safe travels, and for finances to come in so we can come home and continue to pay our bills.

God Bless! Hope to be able to write again soon!!
Pics will come when we have internet again-besides the cafes.
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Hey All! I only have a sec-but I wanted to let you know our travels are going well. We were in Pachuca Sunday night, and we arrived in Coatzacoala last night. We are heading out any minute for somewhere in Chiapas. The drive isn't quite as consistently intense as the last one-but still adventurous. Thanks for the prayers! Someone backed into one of our vans and took off. They backed right into where Grace was sitting, but she wasn't hurt. It just dented the outside a bit. Thank you Father!!! I don't know if we will have internet in Chiapas, so it may be awhile before I update again. Just pray for lots of open doors, safety, and health during our ministry time in Chiapas.
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Hello All! 


We have had a great time here in Guadalajara :) For New Year's our team did a 3.5 hour hike up a mountain and slept there overnight. We did intercession over the city and the base here. Our family and the other family stayed back on base since the excursion was a bit extreme for our children. We had a great time of rest and relaxation. Tim and Ruth (the other couple) took us out to Burger King and Starbucks!! Funny thing though, the only place we knew there were such places was at the airport...so to the airport we went :) It was close by and very convenient. We went to the home of that family of a staff person here. It was so fun! They grilled out and we fellowshipped. We then returned to the base, got our kids to bed, and watched a movie. Happy New Year!!!


On New Year's Day, we served the base here and did some projects/cleaning. Then today we went into town to the marketplace. It was raining all day (very strange for the dry season!), but we really felt like God wanted us to go anyway-so we did. Our team walked and prayed over the city and the ministry dreams the Guadalajara base has there and the things already going on. We'd like to share one VERY cool thing that shows short term teams still have an impact. Our leader (Giezi), felt he was to walk down this one block. He saw a man sitting on a bench that looked familiar. Yeah right. The guy was heavy into marijuana. Giezi sat on the bench and made a bit of small talk. The man answered and then glanced back and said "Giezi?!?!?"! Giezi had met this man on the street in Costa Rica awhile back while doing a different outreach. He told the man that God sent him here to tell him that God loves him and that God is waiting for him. The guy's eyes filled with tears. A seed was planted in Costa Rica and it was watered in Guadalajara. God is amazing, so amazing.


We had an AMAZING time of worship here at the base tonight, and we spent time in prayer over the staff. It was such a blessing.


We head out to Chiapas tomorrow at 9 a.m. We will be stopping in Pachuca for the night after a 10-12 hour drive. We will arrive in Chiapas on Tuesday. Please pray for safe travel and for the health of our team.


I will update as soon as we have internet again.


Thank you for taking the time read our blog and embarking on this journey with us in Spirit.


Love,
The Christensen's




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We had a very relaxed Christmas-it was really nice. We hung out as a family and had a nice meal and in the evening, we watched "Elf" and exchanged gifts. On Saturday, we went to a boy's home (orphanage) and played soccer, did some dramas, and some VBS type things. This home is for boys ages 11-18. It is VERY well set up and you can see that the boys are being loved on as well as cared for. They are in the process of building a facility for boys ages 18-25; somewhere for them to go once they have to leave the orphanage. Here, they learn to live on their own and work. In the orphanage they begin the skills training. This other home is to further educate and train so that when they leave, they will survive on their own. Our team assisted with that building project today (Monday). Yesterday, we went to a small church in a village and helped with the children's ministry and spent the afternoon with the kids and the pastors. This time in Guadalajara has been a bit more laid back than what lies ahead of us. It is kind of like we are ramping up for ministry. We are really excited. 


On a financial note...we left Ensenada with literally zero money. We came a point where we arrived at a Wal-mart with the team and had some legitimate needs. We have committed to God not to use credit and were really not sure what to do. Jake was needed as one of the drivers to get to Walmart, and we didn't want to draw attention to the fact that we had no money. As we were walking towards Walmart, we prayed together, wondering how on earth God was going to provide for us without mail or cell phones. One of our team members received a call from a man after we all walked into Wal-mart. This man and his local church had been praying for our team and specifically our family. He felt led to give us 1,000 pesos (which is about $80 and a two week salary). Praise God!! God can provide even without mail AND while you are walking through a store!! :) A bit more on this note...the next day, we received notice of a bill that stated our payments were too small and if we didn't pay it in full within 10 days, it was going to collections. We "showed" God our bill and laid it before Him. Today, a couple spoke to us and said God had laid on their hearts to give us $700!! This is enough to cover this bill and some others-PTL AGAIN! AND...the previously  mentioned team member received another call today from the same man and was told we were to receive another 1,000 pesos from the sale of some tamales and an offering taken up by the church. We are so blessed and so humbled. God really is taking care of us. When someone gives you their two week salary, it make us want to be oh so careful to be good stewards of the finances we have received. God is literally providing for us through the body of Christ all over the world, and it is a humbling and blessed experience. We are learning to give in a whole new way too. We think of the Israelites, when God provided for them, but told them to only take enough for one day.  To us, we feel that means that we can't hoard any extra funds we receive. We are not to worry about tomorrow-God has that covered. If our day's needs are met-that is His provision, the rest is open to where God leads and directs. Living like this helps us to keep the phrase "It's all God's" at the forefront of our minds. I just wanted to share these amazing stories of God's faithfulness and provision. Please feel free to email or post your prayer requests. We would love to be praying for you specifically as well!


Bless you! :)
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Well, we made it to Guadalajara!! After a 14 hour drive, we arrived in Hermosillo on Monday night. Long drive, but it went great. No major mishaps and the kids did VERY well. I am so proud. The team stayed at a church, but our family got to stay in a family's home. We were so blessed. After another 14 hour drive,we arrive in Mazatlan on Tuesday night. We again were blessed with being able to stay in a family's home. The hospitality is outstanding. They told us they were our family now and any time we come through, we must stay there and that is our home too. I love the Mexican people. 


Today, the drive was only 6 hours. So we had breakfast, some worship and prayer, and got to have a bit of a later start. We have now arrived at a YWAM base in Chapala, a city just outside of Guadalajara. We got here in the dark, but it looks AMAZING! We will get pics and post them as soon as we can. We will be settling here for about 10 days. We get to have Christmas Eve and Day kind of off. It is really nice to just relax a bit after 12 weeks of school and 3 days of intense driving/traveling. 


The drive...let's just say if any of you are praying for safe travel-THANK YOU. And please keep it up! If one of the 20+ close calls we had today had happened in MN, we would have been talking about it. We have lots of angels. Driving through the mountains and seeing cars on the mountain side-a bit scary.


There is an awesome prayer room here and some really amazing places to get away with God. We are really excited to see what ministry God has for us here. This base has been up and running for about 15 years. The Chapala area is where a lot of Americans and Canadians retire and settle. There are very few churches around and people are quite hard and cynical towards the gospel. The base here works at a "grass roots" level. Building relationship, letting the people ask the questions, then Bible studies in homes-growing to churches, and then churches are planted. It is a long process in this area. The people here have people knocking on their door frequently telling them which God to believe in. There are 6 solid churches now established and going independently of YWAM. As a team, we are here to lay a few more bricks in the big picture-add a few more pieces to the puzzle. We are really excited!


We'll keep you posted pretty regularly in the next ten days since the internet is great here :)


Merry Christmas!!!



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Hello! Our team got in enough support to leave on outreach. Our family is still in need of $2500, but the amount the team received is enough to go, and we are going to trust God for the rest. We are seeing more and more that our website title "Journey of Faith" is aptly named. Maybe we should have named it "Abundance Flows" LOL This really is amazing. It's exhausting and a bit stressful at times, but when we keep our eyes on Christ, everything shifts back into perspective. 


Please pray for health. We had the stomach flu go through our home this week, I had dermatitis with a staph infection all over my face (SOOO pretty), I also have been dealing with migraines, severe heartburn, and then I got a stomach infection. Thank the Lord that antibiotics are cheap here! All the stuff I needed only cost apprx. $20!! With the help of our community team we got packed and the apt. is clean!! Praise God for brothers and sisters in Christ!!


We leave at 6:00am tomorrow (Monday) and head to Hermosillo for our first night. It is about a 14-15 hour drive. We will then drive to Guadalajara. We will be there Thursday and spend Christmas there.


I don't know when we will have internet, but I will try to keep this updated more frequently while we are on outreach.


I posted some new pics-be sure to check them out!



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Wow! It's been an intense and wonderful nine weeks. It's hard to believe we only have about three weeks left of our lecture phase!! We learned our dramas this past week for our outreach. It was a lot of fun! Alyssa did some beat-boxing for a talent show and did an AMAZING job!!  :) We took the girls downtown a couple of weeks ago, and Grace and Bekkah got their hair all done in braids...pics to be posted soon :) Sierra hasn't seemed to miss a beat. She loves our home here! Bekkah has been doing better emotionally-praise God! School is going well for all of them. Sierra is doing kindergarten alongside of Grace and absolutely loves it. Grace and Sierra are also enjoying learning Spanish. Jake and I got excused from our own Spanish classes to spend that time with the girls and work with them. A little more family time was needed. We also have adjusted our schedules in some other areas to accommodate additional family time. That has been a good change. We are all learning how to work out our new lives :)


Outreach!! After much waiting for other bases to get back to our team, our outreach is finally planned. Our DTS team is split into two teams because we are a larger team. Our team is focusing on Mexico, and we are team of about 25 including staff. We are going to Guadalajara for 10 days of ministry, and then we are headed to Chiapas. We are not sure how long we are there...probably about half the time that we have left after driving time and our time in Guadalajara. The other half of our time will be spent in Cozumel-a little island off of Cancun. We will be doing ministry in orphanages, with families, street ministry, and assisting the local churches in their ministries. We'll be doing drama, children's ministry, sports ministry, and worship. We will be gone a total of eight weeks. The girls will be mostly off school during this time; they have about 2-3 days of school per week since our weeks will be pretty intense. We are very excited to see what God has in store for all of us!


Details...Our cost for our family of six is $7000. This is for insurance, transportation, housing, meals, and supplies for 2 months. We need the money within two weeks. God is faithful and we believe He provides for His dreams over our lives. We do need you to pray about stepping out in faith with us and supporting us financially. We covet your prayers as we venture out on this next step in this ministry.  Please see our "support" page for details on how to support us financially. Money towards outreach IS tax deductible!!


A little glimpse of the future...we graduate from our DTS on February 18th, 2010. After that, we plan on returning to MN for a month to visit family and share what we have been learning and our vision for the future. We then plan on returning to Ensenada as staff and signing a two-year commitment here. God has called us to missions internationally and we feel this is our season of training. This base allows staff to do secondary schools and we plan on pursuing that. I have applied for the School of Worship which begins in April. The focus of this particular secondary school is on injustice and more specifically, trafficked women. This hits home as it is where God has been working on my heart over the last couple of years. For now, Jake's focus as staff would be maintenance-fixing things that need fixing, serving people, and taking care of the girls while I am doing the school of worship. We really feel that these steps are the next ones for us and that Ensenada is home for now, but we would still appreciate your prayers as we continue to seek God's guidance for our future.


Prayer requests...health, finances (we have two monthly supporters right now and zero money for outreach), for wisdom as we consider what to do for the girls next year for school, for safety during outreach (I will be posting again before we leave), for money to come in for our outstanding bills back home. This I realize seems unfair. We all have bills and it is difficult to ask for support to pay them. God has called us on the mission field at this time in our lives and has commanded us to obey and He will provide in the realm of finances. We have prayed and prayed about this and God has consistently shown us to press on and that we are where we are supposed to be. We are to do the possible and leave the impossible to Him.  We know that He is faithful!!
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