Comfort-Ability

Today marked the halfway point of our journal that our good friends gave us back in Athens.  They were so sweet and they gave us a little journal to write in and they wrote some messages throughout.  So as write everyday about what we did and what the Lord is doing, we get to see little notes of encouragement from our friends back home, which means SO much!  As yesterday was a hard day, I even just decided to read them all!!!! haha 

Us getting ready to had out Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches to people on the street

In the past week or so, we went west to San Ignacio and had a very interesting time! We met with Pastor Simpson and we drove around the city!  It was crazy, all the roads are very narrow and all the roads are at like a 90 degree incline!  So as we were driving around we were either going up a mountain or doing down a mountain.  

Laurens Valentines Day card to me:)

On Valentines day, we stayed with this lady who was in the middle of a difficult situation and her husband was not living with her.  It is so crazy how the Lord plans very specific things for his children!  So as we were in San Ignacio we were able to stay with this incredible lady!  She was really sweet to us letting us stay in her house, were we did not even know her, but she took us out to show us the town and then she bought us supper!  We taught her how to play the game Farkle, and we laughed all night long!  We also really had to laugh that night because one of our little themes for the trip is a little "bow" that we have on the dash of the car.  It is so crazy because that night as we were going to sleep we looked over to our left and we saw a little bow above the closed!  What! That is crazy and like a little wink from the Lord for that moment!

The BOW....do you see it?

Alba who we stayed with for Valentines day...she is such a happy woman!

We then left and headed over to Spanish Lookout which is a Mennonite community.  We drove around until finally we came across a little bookstore, where we were able to meet an elder of one of the churches in the community.  We invited him to the conference and then we headed over to Belize City.  We stayed in Belize City for a few days and went to the park and played some worship music and ran into a man named Dallas.  As we played music, he sat and listened to us.  He was homeless and only had one shoe on.  As we sat there we were discerning that there was some spirit over Dallas and so as we worshiped we tried our best to claim His name.  Dallas listened as we dedicated every song to him.  As we left we really felt weird.  It is hard to describe but it is funny as you are in a place, or around certain people...how much that can affect you.  

I call it combover in the park

Dallas

The following day we went to church in the morning, and then looked at a house in Belize City...ok this is where it gets really good!  We looked at this specific apartment that was for rent, and as we did it was kind of expensive but it was close to the city and it was in a safe neighborhood and I started to think that that was going to be the best we were going to be able to find.

my sunglasses broke:(

We soon left Belize City to head back to Belmopan, to soon go to Punta Gorda but felt like the Lord was telling us to stay in Belmopan that night and go to the Nazarene Church with Pastor Maganya (who we LOVE).  

 Favorite Quote of Pastor Maganya at church last night: "I dont like that much Risky Business"

We ended up staying the night and as we woke up Lauren and I talked for like a good 2 hours!  The night before we had watched a movie we had bought called the Human Experiment.  It was really great and gave us a different look, and revelation about things.  We realized that the "fog" we had felt we were living in, the past couple days as we were in the city was because of something specific...this is where the revelation comes in: 

Lauren and I realizing that Comfort is not good!

I desire to live without distraction...why have comforts?  I dont want to be comfortable, it will only make me stagnant.  I want to be moving.  I want to see, I want to hear, I want to do...this comes from intimacy with the Lord.  This comes from asking and seeing what I should see with His eyes.  Living "without" allows me to spend time with people who live without.  It is about positioning ourselves.  For example, in the movie we watched last night, it was these two brothers who decided that they wanted to experience and associate with the homeless, so in order to do that they became homeless in New York City.  The slept the way the homeless people did, they had to beg like the homeless people do, etc.  And the conversations they were able to have, the experiences they were able to have, came from being at a place where they could associate because they did not live with "comfort-ability"  past the people they were loving.  Because these guys were living homeless and ministering to the homeless, they were humbled in a way to feel worthy to talk to the homeless.  

It truly is about positioning ourselves...it is about positioning myself so I am not above the people I have a heart to love.  So I realize this day, at our half way point (halfway in our journal and halfway to the conference date) my heart has become so cushioned with the comforts of this word.  

So as you look at the little diagram I drew, there are certain walls we put up around our hearts.  This makes it so our mind cant not get to our heart to control it.  Our heart can not be our decision maker.  I need to take away the cushions to allow my mind to control my heart to live out of a humble place.  WE CAN BE OUR OWN WORST SPIRITUAL WARFARE.  

Jeremiah 17:9  "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" NIV

Proverbs 28:26  "He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe." NIV

Romans 12:2  "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." NIV

So what we did was then wrote down a list of all of our luxuries/COMFORTS.  As you can see we have a pretty big list, some we are living without and some we have.  But the conclusion was we felt closer to the Lord when we had less of the things on the list because there were less distractions and more dependency on the Lord.  It is truly about positioning ourselves.

SO.....then we decided to go to the post office to look for rooms for rent.  We called a ton of places, like 15!  We decided that a place for us to position ourselves more to be in the Lords presence was to live in Belmopan instead of Belize City.  At the end of the calling session, we had a couple maybes but nothing incredible.  So then I got a call from a lady that we had called the day before and she gave us a number for a lady that owned this house.  We called the landlady and she was like...come over now!  She seemed awesome...felt very peaceful talking to her on the phone.  So we bolted over there to take a look at as she came out of the house literally across the street she showed us two houses that were next to each other.  The first house she showed us was a little smaller, it was furnished and it was perfect!!!!! Then she told us she was going to reduce the rent so that the total for the month would be in our budget!  What????? Really????? Ok, we did nothing...nothing at all to get to the place we were at right now.  We were at an amazing house!  And at the end of the day, we really need a place to stay for the remainder of our stay.  We have been living one night here, one night there and for us to continue to do ministry here after this conference, we needed to have more of a steady life.  In order to be effective, we need to stay stationary somewhere! haha  So this lady showed us one more apartment that she had, but we just came back to the very first place we looked at.  After deciding, and acknowledging what the Lord had done and how this was the perfect place the the Lord had completely blessed us with....we PRAYED AND THANKED THE LORD!!!!!!  And it was so awesome, because we were in a humble place to see truly what the Lord had done!  It is so about position!  Seriously, a couple days ago, we may have not see this all and acknowledged the Lords had all over this the way we were able to today.  So we called her to tell her we wanted to move in next week....AND SHE SAYS "I talked to my husband and we just love what you are doing and we decided to take some more off the rent."  Are you SERIOUS?  Come on, thank you LORD!!!! You are truly the provider of all!  Oh I almost forgot, there are SCREENS on the windows:)

Our adorable HOUSE!

So now we sit here all giddy, and met an incredible girl who is our new friend!  We invited her over to the house next week!!!! And then there are some other guys (one who I knew for a couple years now) and they want to come over to cook for everyone.  Lord this is your house, do what you will in Your house!  We are excited for just all the things the Lord has in store, because He provided this house for a reason!  Thank you Lord

I pray that this was encouraging to you, for I feel so humbled to be here, I feel so humbled to be able to live this day.  And I am excited for tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support!  As you pray...WE FEEL IT!

Be The Change!!!! 1 Month to Raise $5000

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As many of you know I am in Belize for 6 months, and Lauren is here for 2 1/2 months and one of the things the Lord laid on my heart was to hold a Leadership Conference in Belize and bringing leadership from all over the country together!

We are holding a Leadership Conf erence for Pastors and Leaders, from all different denominations, from ALL OVER Belize March 15-17! This past month we have been living out of our car (that we drove to Belize) and inviting pastors from all around the country.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!
To support one church leader to go it cost $25 for 3 days!
There is a direct support link at the bottom of the campaign flyer.

interns.sagefundraisingonline.com/tatib

It is tax deductible! And you can do it all online!
This is also a direct giving page for me personally, so if you are giving to support the CONFERENCE, make sure to put "CONFERENCE" in the memo box.

Also please help support these leaders go to this conference by uploading this campaign to your Facebook pages and helping us get other people to support!

If you would like to know about what the Lord is doing in Belize our blogs are:

Tati: http://walkingbyfaithbz.blogspot.com/
Lauren: http://www.ljinbelize.blogspot.com/

Thank you so much for your help!!!!!
Love, Tati and Lauren

One Step at a Time

Today was absolutely incredible!  We stayed with Pastor Maganya at his church last night in Belmopan.  As we left the cafe we were at last night we saw a pastor that we were going to meet with today.  We walked over to say hi to him, and he ended up inviting us to just meet with him then.  So as we were talking, he seem very excited about the conference and wanted ask us what "media coverage" we had.  What! Really? Ummm... "none." haha so he continued to give us the contact information for some radio stations, as well as television station.

Meeting with Pastor Norman

So great meeting right....So then today we met with Pastor Maganya.  As we started meeting we were able to hear some stories that I have never heard about.  We were able to hear more about his heart for the Lord, more about how he came to know the Lord.  It was such and encouragement to us as well of humility and commitment.  We also heard stories of some really intense spiritual situations that really encouraged me and strengthened me.  Testimonies of the Lord and victories are always so great.  So back to the story of the next crazy thing that happened....so right before we were about to meet with Pastor, I look outside as see a truck that says "My Refuge Radio."  Ok...so that was literally on the list of people we were supposed to call today.  And we were like, what is going on...and the guy we were supposed to call today comes out of Pastor's office and introduces himself to us and we tell him about the conference.  This could not be for real!

New Station!

Then as we finish talking to Pastor Maganya, we go to talk to Chris and Amber White about Count Me In details...and Pastor calls us back and says that we need to come RIGHT NOW! We get in the car and find out that the guy from the TV station wants to meet with us RIGHT NOW! So we drive over there and talk to him about the Conference and he wants to give us air time before the conference to be on a "Good Morning Show," where we can talk about the conference for like 30 minutes and people can call in to ask us questions.  And that is not even all, they want to do advertisements for us 2 weeks before the conference.  Ok, this is seriously crazy and completely unexpected.  It is so crazy how the Lord is so aware of what is going on and has a plan and a way for every thing to fit together beyond anything that we can ever imagine.

Pastor Maganya meeting with us

I continue to learn so much about myself every day and every minute.  I am learning more how to be more focused on what He is doing, and trying to die to my plans that I want to make.  Lauren and I are going to start studied Revelation together and I am really excited about that!  We are here in this world, a world that is so much bigger than ourselves but it is so easy to feel like it is small.  But when I realize that the big picture of it all (which is easier to see while reading through Revelation) is bigger than what is right in front of me....it brings such peace and excitement!  What are we doing tomorrow....we dont know but the Lord knows and that is all that is important.

He Works it all together for His perfect will

Alright, I got myself exactly 28 minutes to try to write something to yall before this little cafe we are sitting in closes!

The place that we were staying at the past few days did not have internet, so that was the reason for the lack:(  The past few days we have been staying with a pastor named Mark and his wife here in Hattieville.  It was such a blessing and we are were able to spend time with also his wife and 2 children!  Lets just say the little one, he has some dance moves like no one has ever seen!

The Somerville Boys

Pastor Floyd and Mark helping us with Count Me In

We went around visiting pastors some more, inviting them to the conference and was able to meet up with some people we did not know at all as well.  When we got to church Sunday night, we had like a dance RAVE for Jesus in that church.  It was seriously about 100 degrees, and we were dancing like there was no tomorrow, literally!  It was so refreshing, and we were so thankful to have that time to be refreshed with the Lord!  In the past couple days we also we able to scope out a place to have Count Me In Camp! We were so excited!!!!!  We visited a couple places that did not work out at all and we got to the point were I was starting to get a little worried.  We know that there are a TON of kids that would come and we were just needing a place to have it.  As we were meeting with one more pastor, the Lord just really encouraged us and there was just hope and peace that fell over our spirits.  So, as I have been trying my best to make the Lord my first thought in everything, to lean on Him and realize that I am nothing without Him, there is nothing good without Him....we just prayed and asked the Lord to just bless the steps we were taking and to guide us and prepare the way to where we were suppose to go.  Then it happened...we arrived at the grounds that was perfect!  It was a boarding school....where kids can sleep!  They had like 28 acres!!!! They had facilities to hold 200 people comfortably!!!! WHAT!  God you know exactly what is best, and what is better than even we can imagine.

Hatieville Church Service

Visiting the Nursing Home with the Lady who Kisses Jesus who lives under her bed

So today we met with some more pastors and also just drove up to some churches too.  We went to an Anglican church and was able to meet with someone that we have never met before and she invited us into her church to talk for like an hour.  The Lord is so good and as the Lord continues to do a work to prepare for Count Me In Camp and the Leadership Conference...the Lord also is doing such a work in us as well.  The Lord continues to answer Lauren and my prayer....Lord let us die to our flesh and make us one who is more like you, one who is living out of your will alone.  It is funny how when we have this prayer....how we can go with it and actually die to ourselves, or we can continue with our lives.  It has really been for us...there is no other option but to die to ourselves.  There is no where else for us to go, no where for us to run.  I feel as though the Lord is completely changing us both into new people, and for that I am so thankful.

Alright, well i just have a couple minutes to leave, but tomorrow, there will be more...and pictures as well!!!!

I really miss you all and thank you so much for your prayers!!!!!!!