List of supplies needed in Honduras

Hi friends and family,
So I had mentioned in my last blog post that I am bringing a second suitcase of items just for the day care and school in Honduras. Below are the things that they need:

3-6 year old boys clothes
6 years and up boys and girls clothes
kids shoes
balloons
kids cough syrup
gummy vitamins
coloring books
markers
play-dough
pencils
colored pens
notebooks

Also diapers and formula are needed, but it would be easier for me to buy them there than pack them in my suitcase. So if you would rather give me money to buy specifically those things, or any of the other things on the list, I would be happy to do so. Whatever you can give me, they will use, even if it isn't on the list.

I have about 2 months before I leave so I will start collecting any of the items starting now. Feel free to contact me by email at abronsink@gmail.com, Facebook, phone or in person.

Blessings,
Amy

Living in the Moment

I have no idea what the future is going to bring and neither do you. Living in the moment does not mean being irresponsible, to me it means living every day to the fullest and listening to where God wants to take you. I have been taking time listening to what my passions are and God has been opening up some pretty sweet doors. I am excited to tell you that I am going to Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Guatemala City, Guatemala on October 1- November 9.

Youth with a Mission really opened me up to what God can do in my life. Ever since being home I have this craving to find people to talk to about God. I want them to know how much He LOVES them, more than we can comprehend. Our every day lives should be mission oriented whether we are driving the car, answering the phone at work, getting groceries...God's there! For a couple years now I have wanted to visit my cousin Jenny, who lives in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I will be there for about a month. She works at a day care called, Casa De Luz, and I have been wanting to go down there and help serve her and the people there. This day care reaches out to the needy families of Tegucigalpa and takes care of their children. I am going to be taking a second suitcase with me with items for the day care and the kids/adults. I would love if you could help me out with some of those items, in my next blog post I will let you know what they need.

After Honduras I will be taking a bus to Guatemala City to meet up with Gary and Rachel (friends from Kuyper College) who work with an organization called At Risk no More. Which reaches out to kids in the city and lets them know that they have value and have a community of people behind them that support them. However, At Risk No More they only speak Spanish, so Rachel is also going to connect me up with other mission organizations around there that speak English to help out at. After about a week or so, I will fly home from there.

I know very little Spanish, so that is soon to change. I want to be able to connect with the people from Honduras and Guatemala in their language. Also, just so I am clear, I am not going to Honduras and Guatemala to travel, that is obviously a plus, but I am there to love and serve God's people. Currently, I feel like God is leading me to serve in other countries. I realize the United States also is in need of people to share the gospel, but for the time being I feel like I am supposed to connect with cultures in other countries. I don't know how long this will last, but I am going to enjoy every minute of it by living in the moment! One of my new favorite verses is Micah 6:8 which states that we are to "Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with your God". I want to share Justice, Mercy and Humility with people wherever I end up. God loves us so much, and I figure, why not give up some of the important/secure things in my life and serve Him where the doors are opening up in my life. I want my mission in life for people to not see what I do, but give God the glory for what I am doing in their lives.

Blessings until the next time!
Amy 

Step by step

Hi all,
I have been home for about 2 months now. Its crazy, I can't believe how fast time has gone. Sorry, for such a long period of not writing. I have been slowly transitioning back into work. I currently work a day a week at Starlite in the office, which has been going very well. I am currently looking into part-time jobs because I still want to keep working at Starlite. After all, they are my family!

While I have been home, it has been a huge blessing to really think about what to do next and see if God is leading me anywhere. I am still dealing with the health problems I had in New Zealand and Morocco. I just finished a time of 3 weeks really praying for healing and what I am to do next. Currently, I am waiting to hear back from the doctor of what I have and what I should do. Until, I start to feel better, there will be no more traveling. Which is just fine, because I have plenty of opportunities here to grow in my faith, and build relationships with people. It just isn't quite the same as in another country.

I am extremely grateful for your support and prayers while I was gone and coming back home. It would take a lot of time to upload all the pictures into my blog, but I did make a couple of videos of pictures from New Zealand & Morocco. Just click on the word 'New Zealand' or 'Morocco' to watch the clip. I will do a better job of keeping you all updated with what I am doing. Especially, those of you who are not on Facebook.

God Bless,
Amy

Amazing Arrival

Hello all!
I am back home soon than expected because of a sinus infection that just kept getting worse and never got better. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon to figure out what is going on. My time in Morocco was amazing. The people I was with I was constantly blessed with prayer when I was sick and I learned a lot from them. How I got home was a bit of a miracle that it all worked out. I was flying from Germany to Los Angeles and then I was supposed to fly to New Zealand from LA. However, about 3 hours from landing in LA the pressure in my head was too much and I couldn't fathom getting on a 14 hour flight. So I decided I really need to pray about it and I kept getting the idea in my head that I should be going home instead of New Zealand. So then I talked about it with my leader, Kent, and he also decided that was probably for the best. Luckily we had a 9 hour layover before my group needed to catch their flight to New Zealand for me to figure out what I needed to do. One of my school leader, Gabe's, uncle and mom picked us up in LA to hang out with us and take us around town. We were able to go to a Starbucks with internet to try and get a hold of my school leader, Nicki, back on base to get permission. So we went back to the airport after that and found a ticket for me the next day (Saturday) from LA to Chicago. Thankfully I was able to get a reasonable ticket price because it was last minute. One of the amazing parts of all this was that I needed to get a hold of my parents for them to pick me up in Chicago. They were traveling all day Friday home from their vacation in the Dominican Republic and they had just made it through customs in Atlanta when my dad turned on his phone and I called. I was able to stay with Gabe's uncle and their family for Friday night and he brought me to the airport early Saturday morning and by 4 in the afternoon I was reunited with my family.

So that is what has happened recently. My time in Morocco was amazing. I constantly felt God with me when I was worried or stressed. The team of people I was with in Morocco (Kent, Chris, Nate, Abby & Kathryn) are some of the most wonderful people I have met. It is hard currently being back home when I know that they are all in New Zealand finishing the school. I am finishing my debrief time here in Michigan instead of New Zealand. I am hoping to have some pictures from Morocco up in the next month. I would have them sooner but my team took my flash drive to New Zealand to put all the team pictures on it and then they will send it back to me. Currently, I am getting to a doctor and taking it day by day before I try and figure out what I am supposed to do next. God will reveal it to me when it is supposed to happen. In the meantime I would love to catch up with a lot of you because it has been about 4 an a half months! Thank you for your prayers while I was in Morocco.

God Bless,
Amy

Leaving on a jet plane!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year everyone!

I leave tomorrow (Sunday) for Morocco for 2 months! I am really excited about the plans God has for me there. Everyone on my team got there outreach funds in, so that is a huge praise! Each team-member and our leader ,Kent, has become my family in one way or another. The word (Whanau) in the picture above means "Family" in Maori.  The last couple of weeks during lecture phase I have learned a lot about the Holy Spirit and gifts the Holy Spirit gives to us. I want to take the gift of giving that I have to Morocco and share it with the people there. The first couple weeks we will be in a boy's home (orphanage) and then the rest of the time we will be talking with backpackers and other travellers about God and Jesus. It is a bit scary going to an all Muslim country and being conscious of their cultural habits. I trust that God will keep us safe in all situations and we can share the love He has for us, to them. Thank you for all your prayers and support over the last 2 and a half months and the continual 2 months. Here are some prayer requests we need during outreach:
-We would continue to have unity within our team and be able to communicate any worries with each other
-Safety over our travel time
-Protection from any sickness or health problems
-The people in Morocco would be open to us talking with them & we would be aware of their culture and respect that.

May you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with friends and family.

~Amy

Renewal

Hi all!
I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends! Unfortunately, New Zealand does not celebrate Thanksgiving so I had a big bowl of cereal to remind myself of home :) This past week was crazy. I confirmed my baptism as child by being submerged in the Ashley Gorge. I had this whole new since of renewal when they pulled me up. I am starting over and I am ready to go wherever and whenever God wants me to. Don't get me wrong, I definitely believe that my baptism as a child was real, but I wanted to make a conscious decision for myself so I confirmed what had happened when I was a baby.

This week was also a sense of renewal in the fact that I learned how much stress has been apart of my life. As some of you know about 2 and a half years ago when I was in college I was dealing with a lot of stomach issues and when I got tested they said I had to eliminate gluten and dairy from my diet. So I did that and felt a little better but I haven't ever felt completely healed. At the beginning of this week my stomach/intestines hurt so bad that I knew something was wrong and I had to see a doctor cause food shouldn't cause this much pain. The doctor said that stress was the problem and that was what caused all my stomach issues in the first place I just never treated it correctly. I will always have stomach problems unless I get healed, which I believe can happen, but he said that stress is the root of it. So now I am being aware of how stressed I am and trying to eat smaller meals to help digest the food and to exercise more to relieve any stress. I trust that God has a plan for why all of this has happened and that I can help someone else who deals with the same problems.

I leave for my outreach on December 20 and we will spend 3 days or so in Spain and then go to Morocco from there. There are 5 students (Chris, Nate, Abby, Kathryn, and myself) and our leader (Kent) going. We have become like family and we are going to end up getting a lot closer in the 2 months that we will be there. I am hoping to still be able to send updates from Morocco to let you know what all we are doing there. So far I know for a couple weeks in the beginning we will be working at a boys home, which would be like an orphanage. We will spend 3 or 4 hours there for a couple weeks trying to communicate to them the love of Jesus we have by acting things out, music, art and whatever other creative ways we can think of. They speak Arabic, so I pray that if anything else we can just hang out with them and share our love with them.

I want to continue to thank you for supporting me in this experience and ask that you would continue to pray for me. Specifically, that I can learn how to handle my stress while getting ready to go on outreach and during outreach; that I wouldn't cause myself anymore sickness.

Faith Weekend

So this weekend starting Thursday at 2 and ending Sunday at 3, I did something called a "faith weekend". Basically it means depending on God to provide for the whole weekend. Each team was made of 3 people. I had Chris (who is from Texas and on my Morocco outreach team) and Marianne (who is from Norway and going to India for her outreach). Each person got 10 dollars for the whole weekend. We couldn't take any other money with us or food besides the lunch we had packed and we had to find our own housing accommodations. So the van from YWAM we were in had dropped us off west of Oxford but our original idea was to go south, so we actually ended up hitching a ride (which is much safer here in NZ than in the states) back into Oxford and we walked about 2.5 hrs to get close to a highway because no one was picking us up. Finally someone did that had seen us an hour ago and brought us to the highway and then from there we got another ride to Arthur's Pass which was west. So I think God wanted us to go west. We spent the night in a really cold chapel and woke up early the next morning and started our way to the west coast. We got a couple rides without too much of a wait in between. One of them was a huge RV with an older couple and they gave us tea and cookies. From there we ended up in a town called Hokitika. We stayed in a hostel for 2 nights for free in return for a couple hours of work on Saturday and he bought us lunch!

This morning (Sunday) we got a ride out of Hokitika to Arthur's Pass and then got a ride from Arthur's Pass back to Oxford by a really nice old couple that bought us lunch. We did survive on the 30 dollars for food and actually had some left over to give to people as they would give us a ride and we gave some to Jon (the hostel owner). It just meant a weekend of chips and lunch meat, peanut butter, rice cakes, ramen noodles and bananas. God definitely provided this weekend and there were times when I thought I was going to have a complete breakdown because no one was picking us up or because we weren't sure where we were going to sleep. I can go more into detail of the events of the weekend but I just wanted to let you know that I made it home safe and I am thankful that I have money and food so I don't have to live like that everyday. Thanks to those of you who prayed for Chris, Marianne and I.

~Amy