Hola me amigos! ¿Como estas? Soy es muy bien. ¿....Donde esta la banio?
Okay, so maybe my españiol aint too great (or my engish come to think of it), but I am having fun mucking around with it anyways.
I am still in Ibiza, Spain at the moment. for the first day we were given a free birth because we were supposed to have one and they didnt have one and so we got this other free one for the night, which was aweome. But then we have to move out to anchorage after the first night. So that meanst that we are not attatched to land and therefore cannot come and go and we choose. Which is a pain. It also meanst that we have anchore watches....that meanst that there always has to be someone in the wheel house to make sure that we dont drift into a boat or rocks. So...that means that we have been asigned hours through the middle of the night to sit....and watch a computer screen... (radar). Today we found out that a force 4 storm is on its way to hit tonight. This isnt the greatest thing to deal with while just sitting on a boat trying to study. So we left the port and sailed all afternoon till we reached the west side of the island to the capital of Ibiza. This port isnt near as cute as Ibiza City. It is all 20-30 year-old condos, apartments, hotels and night clubs. There wasnt a birth for us here either so we are anchored in the main harbore.
The speaker this week brought mail with him!! Thank you all for the mail!! Jinny, Kristi, Julie, Rebecca (and Danielle, I know that your heart was there too), thanx for the package!!! I loved the balloons and the notes!!! You guys are soo incredibly creative!!! Thanx!!! And mom, dad, luke and helen, thank you too for the packages! I loved them. And Aaron, you too, thanx for the letter...youre so sweet! Love ya!!
We are starting to look into out reach and whats going to happen with that. So thats exciting! I am looking forward to going to the Dominican and Portugal.
Well its getting to be time for the wet treck back to the ship on the dinghy. =s yay... hhaha
I hope you are all doing well. Please keep me in your prayers and dont forget to remember me.
Love ya all!
Hey everyone.
So we had our first "real" sailing adventure/misshap on our way over to Ibiza. On our way, only a few hours into the sail, our engin konked out. Bad news. Becase out with the engin also went our power. Meaning now lights, no water, no radar, and no nothin. Thankfully the Next Wave is a sail boat so we were able to sail while we desided what was to be done. We radioed coast gaurd and they said that we could anchore off the shores of Sant Antioco (a small island off the coast of sardinia). So that was good. As we were sailing though we must have hit a current and we began to be pushed into a cliff. We started to get dangerously close and tryed everything to get out of there. We put up new sails and took some down, we even got the dingy out to try to push/pull the bow north, but it wouldnt budge. I dont think Ive prayed to hard in a loong time! Then, a few hours later, the bow simply swung north and we were on our way away from the cliffs!! God's hand was deffenently at work!! Thank you Lord!
We got to Sant Antioco for the night and set down our anchore. Man were we glad for a rest!!! Durning my anchore watch early in the morning, a fishing boat came up alongside and the fishermen stated yelling at me! I had no idea what they were saying. I went below to find one of the crew members who knew some Italian and he took it from there. Aperently we had set our anchore down on their nets and they were not happy about it at all. To make a long story short, they made a big deal of it, got coast gaurd, went away and when we were passed through the coast guard custums we brought up out anchor, cut her loose and went into the harbour.
We were in Sant Antioco for some days because we were completely out of fuel.
We left Sant Antioco on friday evening and finally set sails for Ibiza, Españia! This was the best sail that I have ever had!!! The sail was very pleasent with a hot sun and light breeze. I had the 5-8 watch so I got to watch the sunrise everymorning. A sinrise on the sea is sooo incredible because the sun is huge and round and red. And comes strait out of the sea, no nothin to hide it. Yesterday while I was sleeping in the morning the watches sighted whales and dolphns and even sea turtles. I was disapointed to have missed them. But God is so good!!! In the evening he sent us another turtle and a whole pod of dolphins who did a show for us! Jumping out of the water and swimming barrol roles! It was amazing!!!!
We got into Ibiza city, Ibiza early this morning. We are still trying to find a spot for the boat. Ibiza is a huge city! Im soooo excited to be in Spian!!!!!
Oh and for out reach we have teams now. I am on the Portugal/Dominican Republic team!!! And very excited to be going!!! There are 9 students and 3 leaders going. I am looking forward to what God is going to do durning the out reach.
I hope that you are all doing well. I have found really cheep internet here and there is even free wireless on the boat. Hopefully we will find a good place to birth. God continues to bless us and show us his beauty.
Hey Everyone!!!
Today we learned the two options for our three month mission trip. They are: Portugal\Dominican Repubic and Liverpool\Derby, England. We have one week to let our leaders know where we think we should go. I really want to go where God wants me to be. I would apreciate prayer from you guys on this. That God would show me his heart in this disision, where he'd like me to go and that I wouldnt let personal prefference get in the way. I am very excited about our out reach and lookforward to growing through this experience.
I am doing well, although am very tired and feeling overwelmed with the work load. We are leaving on Monday for Ibeza, which is about a three day sail. Please keep good sailing weather for us in your prayers too.
I miss you all very much. Stay in touch!
God bless and keep you.
So gang. here are the photos. they will make more sence if you go through them bottom up though because the computer up loaded them in the wrong order. enjoy. have fun!! cheers!
Brit jumping from the wheel house. Crazy intence. One of the other students has a photo of me doing this. 
Me....sailing to Catania, Italia.
More of the sunrise!
Below: Our scavenger hunt team!!! Ya, we totally kicked butt! This was on our Missionary Training Day...
When we were in Corinth the guys and I were hanging out and we found this dog that could only walk on three feet!! Once he got some food though he ran away on all fours....sneaky.
This is Athens!!!! Itsnt it lovely? Nice of them to clean it up for me, eh? =P 
Hey there everybody!!!!
Sorry for the long delay once again due to the internet situation. It is very fusterating.
We have been really busy since my last post. We sailed from Marsala about 7 hours south to Sciacca (pronounced shack-ah). There we spend about a week. It is a beautiful city built on a hill (as are most of the coastal citys to our disapointment of having to climb them everytime we want to get to town. The week went well. Our teacher flew in from England and she taught this week on The Holy Spirit. It was a very draining week for all of us emotionally and mently and I learned more about the Holy Spirit then I thought that I ever would. I think its going to take us a while to recover from the week simply because of all the spiritual awareness (for lack of a better term) that we went though. Marian, from Scottland (one of the students), had her birthday with us on Friday and we surprized her with a gailie (not sure how you spell it, but basically means a scottish party thing). We pracised up on a lot of scottish dances before hand and at night we went to the key side (the dock) and had a dance party!!! Soooo much fun! Soon after we went on to learn country line dancing, salsa, and swing dances! It didnt take long before we had about 15 cars all watching us on the key side (italians are very courious people). That was a great night. On saturday we had half the day off. I desided to do some adventuring on my own because the week was really weighing on me and I just wanted me time. It was great! I hiked up to the top of the town and found a castle! and a hourse too!! And then I went a bit further and found the saturday open air markado that seems to be very common here in itally. Its a very neat place where they sell everything from underwear, to blenders, to fruit, to anything you can think of and its all really cheap too. Then I went back down a bit to the park where I scetchedc for a while. It was a really nice day and I felt so old traveling around by my self. haha In the evening we set sail for Sardinia!!! Sardinia is the big island in the center of the Mediterranean Sea. See the map. And Sicily (where we were before) is the island that the "boot" is kicking. We left saturday evening and arrived on monday morning (today). Sunday was an amazing sail day. Well actually it wanst because there was barely any wind at all, and the little wind that was there we were beating into. But it was sooo sunny and hot!! We had a man overboard drill and then we stopped the boat and desided to go for a swim!!! This was sooo much fun!! I jumped off the wheel house into the ocean (which isnt as easy as it looks) and tried to avoid the mysterious jelly fish. =S I then spent the rest of the day simply evjoying the sun and consiquently getting a lovely sun burn. Bexi, one of the crew saw a large sea turtle during the sail, but I missed it cause it dived. But its still neat to think about all the sea life that is around. We arrived in Cagliarli, (south) Sardinia today. Seems to be a bit more posh a port than we are used to and we are so far enjoying it a lot!! Our next teacher is coming today (actually one of the staff's parents) and we are all looking forward to mail!! hopefully!
So hopefully that catches you guys up to date a bit with what Ive been up to. I will try my best to have internet and to up load some photos. Take care!!!!
Local out reach today!!!
Today is the end of the second lecture week! Our classes have been going very well and everyone is enjoying them. Today we had local out reach. This time what we did was we desided to bless the port that we are birthed at. So a large group of us picked up trash! Thismay not seem like such a big deal, but it sure is in Europe. Because no one cares about putting rubbish in the rubbish bin (rubbish: a british word for garbage) so there is nastiness everywhere! It was funny though because the Italians were really courious as to what we were doing. This one man stopped and kept asking me, "Por kay?" He wantd to know why we were doing this, he couldnt wrap his head around why we would do this, "People will only dump rubbish here again tomorrow." So the Italians think that we are insane. Made me think about when I was little and asking my mom, "But why do I have to clean my room? It will only be dirty again tomorrow." Its funny how cultures see things differently. We were able to pray for a few people while we did this (one group was looking for people to pray for and another group was scrubbing boats for the fishermen), one man wanted to know how much it would cost him for us to pray for him...such a forine thought. Tomorrow we are going to a local church. They are picking us up, taking us to church and then having a BBQ for us. They are very excited about us coming and want us to reach out to their youth. We are leaving this port again tomorrow evening because there isnt room for us here. I will up date you in a few days because I will once again be without internet access.
Take care and God bless you all.
P.S. A few people have asked me if I want prayer for anything. I would love prayer!! Some things to pray for me would be that I would have an open mind to the lectures, that I would be able to have pacience (living on a crowded boat, its hard tofind space for one's self), and that I would be able to learn more about God, and about myself through this trip. Prayer for my family and friends would also be great! And internet is also something to pray for. Thank you all for your support (both prayerfully and financially). God is working here!
I'm sorry for not up dating this since Catania! I feel horrid about it and its really anoying because I haven't been able to find internet since then. Well, not much.
We sailed from Catania north (and west) to Trapani, Sicily. The sail was amazing!! I have fallen completely in love with the sailing life on this past sail. Instead of crawling around the ship hopeing that I wouldnt throw up and just trying to get through the watch I could actually enjoy the motion ofthe ship, watch movies, eat food!! and didnt feel sea sick in the slightest. The sail was a really amazing experience for me. That night I experienced the imenceness of God's amazing creation. It was deep black night but the stars were oh so bright! I havent see stars so bright (othe than Mexico) and it took my breath away just how many you can see on a boat! Also the coast lines here are lined with cities and towns and it adds to the beautiful sight. On top of all this there was phosphoresance!! The wake of the ship sparkled and glowed in the night, but the best part about this was that there were jelly fish!!! The jelly fish glowed very brightly in the phosphoresance and you could see them float by in the wake! I stood up on the bow (right next to the bow sprit)! so much fun, going up....and the plunging into the dark sea! then up again!! wow....God is sure an amazingly creative guy!
We aarived in Trapani two days later. It was a richer town and it strruck us right away how incredibly clean it was. We had a day off that day and got to walk around the city a bit. I tried to find internet but all that I found was really expencive (hence the no up dates). That afternoonmost of us went across town to a beach (a real beach, we were all excited!) and went SWIMMING!!! Oh, it was sooo lovely!!! The sea as cool still but the weatherwas so hot we didnt care! An italian kid saw us in the water (as did many italians who stood watching and shaking their heads) and promptly stripped down to his underwear and hopped in with us. haha Oh italians! Lol Anyways, it was a lovely end to a lovely afternoon.
Trapani was nice, I didnt do too much because of homework and classes. I got your package, Jinny and the girl's study group!!! Thank you for the card and the puzzel! I was not expecting mail and I was soo excited to get it!! (thats a hint for all you people sitting at home wondering what to do right now). haha Mail that you guys send goes to the england YWAM base in Harpenden and every week a teacher comes to teach us from there an they bring the mail!! ...Which we all look forward to.
I have been taks loads of photos and planned to up load them today (using the internete caffe-which isnt an easy task) but found out that this place wont let me dothat... so I was really bummed about that, but Ill try again when we get to Sardinia.
Yesterday we were told to move from the port in Trapani because they didnt have rom for us any more. So we wnet to a city called Marsala (just a three hour sail from Trapani). That is where I am now. It is a smaller city with basically nothing to do (the only places open after 8 are the bars and that narrows down the virsitility a bit). Today we had the afternoon off and me and Chellana desided tosee if we could find anything that would be open during siesta. We actually found that the archaeological site\museum was open! We wnet in and spent a while in there butr nothing was in english and that takes away alot from the enjoyment of museums. This city used to be a Roman city and there was so many roman artifacts! Tons of statues and potery and even an old warship that sunk off the coasts.
So Im sorry for not staying in contact more than I have. The internet here is stillmore expensive than id like, but Ill try to update you guys more often.
I am thinking of you all and missing you (especially when the internet access is crappy like this).
Take care!!!