My last AZ update

My next Arizona update:

May 27, 2007

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!!! WHAT A TRIP!!!!!!! I am on the airplane headed back to TN right now. Just left Phoenix. I was actually sad to leave! I have made so many friends there, and I enjoyed my time there so much. What a lot of memories I made at that place! I cant believe it!

So my last week was a lot easier than the first! For one thing, moral improved greatly. As each of us got more comfortable with preaching, and the routines got more easy, people were happier. I had an interesting second week!

I made friends with Ben, in our group. We ended up spending a lot of evening time walking and talking and praying together. It is a sweet memory for me. It is so nice when two people can talk together about what God has done for them, study the Bible together and pray together. It really builds up the faith. Scott and I had some really nice times together too as we ate food together each night at his church and drove together each night. We would often have prayer groups at his church before we parted ways. He is a good guy—he will make a great pastor. His church sure loved him!!

Kasey continued to be an “interesting” person in our group. I figured him out, and had some pretty nice time’s together going and eating out, and laughing and joshing each other around. We also did some pretty wacky things like drive in the lawn at Thunderbird Academy, make an airbag alarm go off in the rental at a drive-thru window at Taco Bell (Hahahaha! That was SOO fun! You should have seen the lady’s face!) God really worked in his life in an AMAZING way on our trip. You should have seen the change in that guy! It was pretty phenomenal. He and I have become cool friends.

Our team leader was the sweetest lady! I am going to miss her this summer. She did a great job with our oft times challenging group of people. I think she was definitely the person for our team—God is good, and He knows what He is doing. I hope that somehow she is richly rewarded for her efforts. She was such an encouragement to me.

We took a day off to go and visit the Natural Bridges---the worlds largest natural bridge. Ben, Josie and I went…. It was SO cool! The rock formations in that cave were incredible! Ben and I spent almost 2 hours rock climbing. It definitely was some of the most extreme rock climbing I have ever done! Lol At one point I had to jump about 20 feet down and have him catch me—I was pretty scared! But it was so cool! We explored a cave with bats in it, and I walked under the waterfall (and got REALLY yelled at by the rangers, but oh well!) It was pretty cool place. Kasey and Scott went to Mexico that day—guess they had a pretty interesting time. Kasey got a HUGE sombrero—it is about 3 feet across! Haha You should have seen him wearing it onto the plane today (he couldn’t pack it).

This last sabbath was just amazing. First of all, Ben had one person baptized, and Kasey had 5 people baptized and I had 1 person baptized!!!!! And Kasey’s church hosted a huge feast in his honor, and gave him quite a few nice gifts including an Aztec blanket and a Spanish/English Bible. My church gave me a beautiful alarm clock that is engraved with my name on it (It is GORGEOUS!) and they had me come up and thanked me for all that I had done there. Then the really strange part was: Scott’s church gave him $150, Kasey’s church gave him lots of $$$, Josh’s church gave him money and my church gave me $300! I nearly fell over. These people are so generous! I feel like they gave us more than we gave them. My translators wanted my email, my hotmail and yahoo messenger ID, etc. I think the kids were more sad to see me go than anything. They are all so sweet. I do think that Kasey’s church was the best church—he has been asked to host a series of mtgs for all the phoenix spanish churches! Plus they want him to come back this fall and do a youth series of meetings! WOW! He is pretty amazed by it.

God really blessed me with my sermons. Each night I got better and better, and was able to speak to the different people in my audience. The last 2 nights God really spoke through me in a way I never realized. I had a call for people to come forward the last two nights, and I had 3 more decisions for baptism. (I think I had around 12 people ask for baptism!) I cant describe what it was like to preach on the Holy Spirit, the Remnant church, and heaven the last 3 nights. I was not one bit nervous (even though on sabbath I had over 100 people there) and I was able to walk around the platform, and really get into it, and not even look at my notes for the entire hour. I am still walking around in a daze that it has all really happened. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do this—I know that God really worked overtime and worked in spite of me.

I had several interesting happenings the last week including one night I ended up with no translator, and so a guy said he could read English and translate to spanish… HA! Well, my notes only make sense to me, and he read my notes exactly as I had written them (instead of translating what I was saying) and not only that, he didn’t know half of the English/spanish conversion words and people said it was AWFUL! They hardly even knew what the topic was that night… haha It was pretty bad! Lol (The topic was the 4 horses in Revelation 12) Another night I had a guy walk in and half way through my sermon I saw him reach down and pick up (what looked like) a rifle. Now this guy came every night pretty stone drunk, looked like he never showered or combed his hair in a year type of guy. He began playing with this thing, and running his hands over it. The lights in the auditorium were dimmed so I couldn’t see for sure what he was doing with it. But at one point he picked it up and kinda pointed it at me. My first reaction was: Run Carol for dear life!!! But then I thought, I would rather die preaching than running scared, so I just stayed. At the end of the sermon this guy walked out and only then did I realize that it was his cane that was carved EXACTLY like a rifle—even the tiny details were engraved on the cane. Haha Talk about an adrenaline rush! Lol Another night the senior pastor walked in (he pastors 7 churches and only makes it to the church I was at about 2 times a year.) This guy is the best evangelist in the state and the whole area. I got pretty nervous, but when I finished this sweet pastor just showered me with compliments, saying I was the best student preacher he had ever heard, and blah blah. I am sure he was just trying to make me feel good and all, but wow! What a nice guy!

So now I am heading back…. Boo hoo! We left Ben behind, he is staying and working at summer camp there in AZ. I was kinda sad to say good bye to him—we had a lot of fun together. I bought his return ticket with my credit card before I left, so he has a way back, which is good. Once I get back it is going to a flurry of running around to get ready to leave for Oregon. I am super excited about that.

Wow! What an exciting summer, and what an incredible experience I have already had! God is SOOOO good! I cant wait to preach again! I hope I don’t have to wait all the way until next summer! Lol This has been the best thing I have ever done!

Update: I got back to TN, and my car wouldnt start cuz I guess I left an interior light on. It took campus safety 20 minutes of jump starting the car to get it going again. Talk about stressful! lol Then I stayed at Mayri's for the night. Thank you Mayri!!! You are a so sweet! Then I went over to my new apartment and paid the downpayment and first months rent ($810!!). It is such a gorgeous apartment in a GORGEOUS location so close to campus. I am really happy. But it is kinda expensive. lol

Then about 3pm I headed out of TN! I am now at Days Inn in Kentucky. I am about to hit the road again. I am having a lot of fun! lol