Stepping into Battle

Hello all! So, we just finished orientation. It was so helpful. We did lots of team building activites, learned how to plant a house church, learned some of the language which is Sabowna...I just made up the spelling :) I have met so many awesome people and have daily been encouraged to be around people my age who share the same passion for the gospel to reach "all nations." I have to be some what vague in my blogs in order to adhere to safety percautions. Also, I don't have Now-Now or Word to proof all my blogs so the spelling and punctuation are awful!
Anyways, we did lots of fun things and learned many things that were hard to hear. You might need to sit down for this....I survived my first monsoon :) It is actually a funny story, it rained for 24 hours solid. The rain was very heavy and the winds were crazy. However, we heard that it was rainy season in the Philippines...we just thought it was normal and no one told us it was a monsoon because they didn't want us to freak out. Today, two days later, I found out that I survived my first monsoon and I was pretty excited :)
Now on to more serious things, we are currently in a city waiting to catch a boat to the island where I will be all summer, Siquijor. We met our translators today and they are two really sweet Philippinas. They have both participated in Philippino Nehemiah Teams before so they are professionals! Pray a special blessing on them because they took a semester off school just to be with us this summer. Anyway, it is 7:40pm on Monday here which is 6:40am on Monday your time. Also, please pray for our team. The pastor we needed to work with is not really cooperating. Tomorrow we are going to go into a villiage and talk to the Burungia caption, the eqivialant of a mayor, about serving in his village for a while. Most likely, we will be sleeping in a tent. By now, I would be grateful to get to do laundry... even in a bucket. My cloths are gross :) Our days will consist of waking up at 5am, I know dad you are so proud, bathing, quiet times, team devo, meals, and ministry time. The basic jist of what we will do is witnessing to people in the village and trying to begin Bible studies with the people. Our ultimate prayer is for salvation and that we can establish house churches in the villages we work with. So I ask that you pray for that as well. We will stay in each village for 2-3 weeks. I am really excited about being able to stay with the people for a while and disciple them. The amazing part is that most people in the Philippines are very open to the Bible and God. They have just never had anyone to teach them how to study the Word, about a direct prayer life, or about a personal relationship with the Lord. They are mainly Roman Catholic.
Lately, God has been teaching me about spiritual warefare and the realness of it. I ask that you pray for our team as we go are serivng God on this spiritual battle field. Pray that we will not get very sick adjusting to the culture. Pray that God will speak through us at ALL times! Pray for the salvation of all nations! Pray for our other teams! Pray for house churches! Continue, to pray for my family! I have been a little sick so pray for my health! Pray that we can memorize our scripture verses (we are given passages to memorize throughout the week and if we don't then we can't eat) Most of all, pray for God's will! Thank you so much! I love you all! I will send you an update in a week! Have a blessed week!

Are you prepared for battle?