so, i feel so awful for her, but what can I do. so i'm just standing there hugging her, feeling completely unprepared to deal with this situation... and then am like God you just have to take control of this. We get her calmed down and she comes in and asks for some water. Her friends had gotten her all loaded on a bottle of wine (she is a tiny girl!). so she walks into our living room and we sit there and have a really good conversation about God and who he is and how he loves her. She tells us how glad she is that we are there because no one listen to her and she just really loves this boy. She also tells us how she is wanting to love this boy. I start to tell her how God loves her so much and how he loves her more than she even loves this boy. she looks me dead in the eye and says "i think i want to go out with God... do you go out with God? i want to go out with God" i was like "yeah all you have to do is tell him what you are feeling and ask him out" she is like " i want to go out with God"

so i ask her if i can pray for her and what she wants to pray about. she says she wants to pray that she gets over lee and that they can talk and for us to be successful because we are nice people. we spend sometime praying for her and asking for healing and for God to just really show up in her life... then this girl prays for us! it was sooo amazing and wonderful and satisfying! God is so awesome!! 

then this girl promptly asks to go outside so she can be sick and I got the honor of holding back this girls hair while she was sick out our front door! it was an awesome night! then we walked this girl home and chatted with her parents briefly and headed home! we spent some more time praying for her when we got home and now i am just sooo excited! God things are going to start happening in this girls life and i am sooo excited!! 

good times!

Anyways but the more i went to this Bar N Bus the more i fell in love with the kids and really have just started getting this huge heart for loving on them. So many of these kids just come from really hard home lives. Most of them are 14 years old and they are smoking everything from fags to pot to cocaine, getting drunk on the weekend is the norm, and violence is a common form of entertainment. we are really into the whole relationship building side of showing Christ love and most the time it is really hard. I find myself constantly wanting to just shake God into them. They are all so bored of the normal Godless lives they are living, but at the same time they still haven't started seeking after God either. so there is this intense battle that goes on every thursday night!

the last couple of thursdays have been sooo hard. every thursday we have had to close down early due to the kids starting fights. it is soo hard to leave them or make them leave when that all starts because i feel that those are the times that we really should be engaging with them, getting to know what they are dealing with, and being willing to listen to them. 

so this thursday when i went to the bus there was a rumor that some girl was coming from this other town and was going to knife one of the girls that had been in a fight last week. So the police were out and we were all warned to stay near the bus. It actually was one of the best nights we have had in a while. We were able to have some really good conversations with the kids. i've also learned that i am a task person. i got to work behind the bar at the bus and i just love that. I think its because in my mind i need to have a job that i can start and finish... a defined purpose... and being behind the bar i get that. its also too, why i struggle so much with the building relationships with the kids because you don't meet someone, build trust, get them to open up, and help them learn how to transform their lives for christ all in one night! Its a process! but even being behind this bar, with this defined sense of purpose i learned how important it is to step away from that and build into the relationship side as well. the kids were all happy to chat and help and laugh with me while i was at the bar because of all the times i stood out in the freezing cold, or rain, or snow and chatted with them. ahhh how it all works together!

so tonight a couple girls here (twins to be exact) are having a big ol' happy 21st birthday party... so i am very stoked to get to go and chill out at that. my spring break starts in a week and there is the possibility that i might be traveling to amsterdam over that time to visit a christian mission hostel that is set up there in the red light district. i actually am really looking forward to that... if it happens and if it doesn't, then thats ok too. I'm learning that life is full of door and options to live and we are allowed and even encouraged to try and push open as many doors as possible, but that we need to trust God to allow the doors we are pushing on to open or stay closed. I have been disappointed a few times when i pushed really hard on a few doors and got nothing only to slightly lean against another and have it fly wide open. God does things so much different then i would!!! ha ha

so i will fill you in on weather amsterdam happens or not. well i broke my bed the other day when one of my room mates and i jumped on it too hard, so i had to find a new bed and today i think is the day that i shall do the great swap! ahh how nice is it going to feel to sleep in a fixed and comfy bed?? very well i think! so i should get cracking! love to you all... PEACE!

so today being my study day i actually am having a really hard time convincing myself that i should spend any amount of this day doing anything related to work! but i am sure i will buckle down in a moment and realize the importance of a study day!

i had a really fabulous weekend, hanging out with my friends and just having a laugh. we've started prayer walking the town on Friday nights and we have set up a prayer space in our garage. so far it has gone very well. loads of the kids from town have stopped by asking questions about what does it mean to pray, letting us pray for them, and asking hard questions about what the bibles is about and why it is important. I love the those nights because the kids are just in their element, so i think they feel way more comfortable to ask questions and explore. we also are challenging ourselves to be more intentional and really do what we keep saying we are doing (pray!). it is hard because i don't always naturally think "can i pray for you?" but i do pray for most of these kids during the week and the power of prayer is amazing!

i also am in love with this week because it is three of my friends birthdays here we we have party stuff planned for like the whole week. Last night we went to the pub for two of the girls birthdays and just has such a laugh. there was about 12 of us and we just over took this part of the pub and were laughing and singing and telling jokes and stories... it was beautiful! ha ha it also was st Patrick's day so there was another group of girls in the pub, i think celebrating that, and they were hilarious! they were drinking way to much and kept getting up and doing these dances... a few from our group kept teasing to do play rock, paper, scissors and the looser would have to join these girls... but right in the moment of having to actually play we would chicken out because the cost of playing would be quite high! it was really fun!

well i best be off! love and peace!

tina