What NOT to do in DC

So DC is filled with countless museums, parks, all forms of history, art and all sorts of cool stuff. But of course my most memorable experiences thus far have had little to do with any of those. So instead of the DC must sees and dos, I thought I would provided you with a list of what not to do. Of course these are all from the wisdom of my personal experience…



1. Do not pack 3 suitcases if you are traveling by yourself. Why? Because you have 2 arms.
2. Do not book your SuperShuttle from the airport for the wrong day. You get to wait an extra hour and pay for it twice.
3. Do not walk 2 miles uphill with your groceries. No matter how fit you are, this is just obnoxious.
4. Do not use the word "fun" w/o careful discretion especially when doing HIV counseling
5. Do not take the metro with people who walk faster than you/ are more aggressive than you. You will end up standing on the wrong side of the metro door.
6. Do not rely on other people to know where you are going even if you are traveling in a group. See #5.
7. Do not walk on a bridge, in the rain, when there are cars. You will get covered with water.
8. Do not show up to work soaking wet. See #7
9. Do not plan air travel w/o knowing how far the trip is to the airport. You will miss your flight.
10. Do not forget your metro card.
11. Do not try to take the bus w/o correct change because they don't give change.
12. Do not forget to brush your teeth after every meal if you have braces (or in general). Things will get stuck in them and ruin conversations with cute guys.
13. Do not get proposed to by a random guy at Au Bon Pain whose pick up line is "You look like you like to eat"
14. Do not get proposed to by one of your patients

And my personal favorite:
15. Do NOT pass out in the elevator at work during your first week. Cause that my friends is just a fail.

I hope this list will help steer you away from my mistakes and will make any future trips to DC that much more enjoyable :)

***Miles: 52.5!!!***

WoRdS

You never realize how important words are till you don't have them...

While I've been in DC I've been going to National Community Church and right now they are in a series called Words. I hadn't really though much about the concept until yesterday.



Yesterday was my first time at Bible study in spanish. I got an email on Tuesday that we would be going over the first 4 chapters of proverbs for our first meeting. Not bad right? Well, 4 chapters can seem like an epic novel when you're reading it in your second language. But I got through it and was even able to learn and hear God speak to me through my rusty spanish.

Then came Bible study. There were so many things the Lord had shown me and that I wanted to share and engage with the group. But there was a lack of words. Not knowing one word can wreck a sentance, shake confidence and interrupt a train of thought. But one word can also be powerful and can encourage and uplift and strenghten.

I'll have to be more careful about the words I choose from now on...

****Miles: 29.5!!!!!!****

Walking to Paris...

So over the last few months I've been working on support raising for my mission trip to Burkina Faso. And as it gets closer we are starting to figure out things like plane tickets (exciting!). Well, we have a layover in Paris on our way home and some of the team is extending the layover to check out Paris for the day since the tix was the same price either way. I wanted to go SO bad. But I felt it was too much of a financial burden so I said no, prayed that God would close the door and didn't think about it. Weeeeeell, the door wasn't closed... and one last time I had the chance to stay. Ok, ok. I could pass once, but not twice! I will only have to pay for my hotel (which I'm splitting with someone else) and food. Though I was still stuck with the question of where the funds would come from...

So, this is where the walking comes in... I was working on my budget and my biggest expense is taking the metro (especially to work) and I was spending $20-30/week!!! So I mapped out the route, strapped on my tennis shoes and water bottle and hit the pavement. It's a 3 mile walk each way, not too bad. Today was the first day I did it and of course it was HOT and uphill the majority of the way but I felt very accomplished when I reached my door stop. So 3 miles and $2.60 saved so far and I am so excited!

Step by step, walking with Jesus and walking the streets of DC :)

****Since writing this post on Friday I have walked 15 miles!!! I'll keep track and post my miles each week :) *****

Torpe goes to Washington!!!

First off, people actually read this!!? What!?!

Ok now that I'm over my shock I suppose I will update you all on my time in "The District". I can't believe it's been 3 weeks already!!! I live in an apartment with 3 other BU students and I have mastered the metro/ walking around the city. Me and busses are still a fail... I've loved exploring and getting involved.

But I've been keeping pretty busy. I haven't gotten to see a lot of the sites yet but here is what I have seen/done:
-The White House
-The Zoo
-I went on a walking tour of all of the embassies of countries I have been to or am going too soon
-Arlington cemetary
-Iwogima

Man that's not a lot huh?? I gotta get more on top of it! Luckily a lot of the museums and such are free here and free is my favorite price :)

I'll try to be better about posting from here on out.

Burkina Faso

You're a Pharmacist...so what????

"5, 10, 15, 20….countin by 5's and makin big money!" Hehe, I've sung this line many times in the last few weeks as I've learned the ins and outs of retail pharmacy on this rotation. Many people see this as the pharmacists only job. And let me tell you that can be really frustrating to those of us who have dedicated 6-8 years to school to have people only think we count by 5's and stick on labels. But I'll get off my soapbox on that one…

So what does a pharmacist do in the mission field exactly??? And I mean are we even necessary? How hard is it to read a name and count pills??? Sigh… Yes. To all my friends who are or one day aspire to be pharmacists, we are important and we do have a place in the mission field. Actually our place usually sits sadly unoccupied as someone else struggles to fill our place. Imagine a combination of a retail pharmacist (the chaos, the counting and checking, and did I mention the chaos!?!), a clinical pharmacist as you're often called on to dose, recommend, etc and an artist being that creativity is a must as working with a limited formulary and substitutions are a given especially by your last clinic day.

Now I'm by no means an expert missionary pharmacist. On the contrary, I am actually very much a baby. But I love it :) I love that in the middle of the chaos I can talk to a patient and not only give them their medication but pray with them. Instead of hoping that a young mother doesn't get mad when I explain that I can't give her medicine for her baby's cough, I offer to pray for the baby (and the mother's sanity cause sick babies are no fun!). In the mission field I feel like the perfect combination of pharmacist and soldier as God calls us to be for Christ. Is that weird??? Hehe, probably.

3 years and counting...

So as I was in Nicaragua and retrospective as I often am on mission trips, I realized something really cool. 3 years prior over my Spring Break I had prayed to receive Christ. So often I'm reminded of how far I've come since that day. How I went from this lost, broken, little girl to becoming a woman of God. Haha, I'm still very much becoming… there are still lots of mistakes and a lot of questions and a lot of awkward moments.

I'm humbled and amazed and soooooooooo….thankful. I'm still so very young in my faith and I have so much to learn. And I remember when I didn't know if I would stick with it, if I wanted to follow Christ for the right reasons and besides I had no idea what the heck I was doing… But God was with me and like He said, hasn't left me. Thank you Jesus.

"Me viste a mi cuando nadie me veó. Me amaste a mi cuando nadie me amó.
Me diste nombre…yo soy tu niña, la niña de tus ojos porque me amaste a mi…Te amo más que a mi vida"
(You saw me when no one saw me. You loved me when no one loved me. You gave me a name…I am Your child, the apple of your eye because You loved me…I love You more than my life)

P.s. I will try to get around to posting about my last two trips soon. I have a lot of school work to catch up on so be patient :)

Full Attention

This is just a song that Jeremy Riddle sings that I LOVE and I've been singing and praying for the last few weeks so I thought I'd share...

FULL ATTENTION

May Your voice be louder
May Your voice be clearer
Than all the others
Than all the others

May Your face be dearer
May Your words be sweeter
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life

Please keep my eyes
Fixed on You
Please root my heart
So deep in You
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
That I may bear fruit

May Your presence be truer
May Your presence be nearer
Than all the others
Than all the others

May Your light burn brighter
May Your love move deeper
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life

Here we go again...

So I leave for the Dominican Republic in 6 days. Once again there is the gumbo of thoughts and emotions going on in my head. I'm excited, overwhelmed, anxious, expecting, grateful, unsure, confident…Did you follow all of those? Cause I never can…

I think I feel this way because I never know what to expect for a trip. There are always so many details and things going on at home before I leave that I rarely have time to even wrap my brain around what will go on during the trip. Which usually is a good thing because it gives God a chance to mold the experience and the lessons on a fresh canvas without having to muck through everything I thought it would be.

With all the trips lately there have been a lot of questions from everyone around me. Why do I go on all these trips? Why don't I settle in one area? How do I afford all of the trips? Not gonna lie I wasn't a fan of the questions at first. Not that I haven't thought about them because I think about them and pray about them almost constantly but it's so hard to put into words sometimes but I'll try.

As far as why and finances I'll answer with a verse which sum up MY answers to these questions.
"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Isaiah 55: 2

I don't think "mission hopping" as I heard it described lately is always a bad thing. I don't know if or when I will go full time, that is up to God. And I don't know which people group. That is also up to God. A lump of clay is molded first then given it's place and it's purpose…I'm still very much being molded. I'm learning which groups I have a heart for, how I approach ministry, and what my spiritual gifts are and how I can use them to most glorify God. Each trip I grow a little more, I discern a little more and I get to see another part of God's kingdom. Would I love to know what people I'm called to and settle and really build into a community? Of course. But God hasn't called me there yet and until then I am excited to embrace where God IS calling me.

Panama Update 3: The Whole Earth is Filled with Your Glory Lord...

This is a video that was put together by our Panama trip leader. It's awesome and it gives some highlights of the ministry that went on in the other villages as well as the one I was in. Haha, and you get to see me singing but feel free to fast forward through that part ;)

http://gallery.me.com/crittertruax#100125

I'm officially going to Nicaragua as of this morning so I'm excited about that! And I can't believe that I leave for the Dominican next weekend! Crazy!!! Where does time go???

Panama Update 2

As I was walking the halls of the hospital today I was trying to narrow down which story I wanted to tell tonight...Not an easy task let me tell you, but I finally figured out which one it would be!


***So New Year's Eve was by FAR my favorite day of our days in the village of Montelirio. We were throwing a New Year's Eve party for the village complete with pinatas, games, and serving dinner for the village. Well there had been some initial mix up on what time the party started and so my little group got to go out to all the huts in the village and inform the that we were starting at 4 and not noon...we had lots of other planning and organizing for the party so we were ONLY going to tell them the time change and praying at the huts my group had visited the day before. WRONG. God had much bigger plans for that day, including 11 people accepting Christ on our little stroll that day :) One of the houses that stuck out to me was one we had been to before and shared the evangecube with but not to the 3 girls who were there that day. After chatting with them for a little bit we asked if they had accepted Jesus as their Savior and they said no, but they wanted to! Great! We asked if anyone had shared the cube with them or if they had heard about salvation. They said no one had talked to them but they had been coming to the meetings in the evenings and had been learning about God and Jesus. Apparently that was enough for them :) We spent another hour with them sharing the Gospel and making sure they knew why they needed a savior and the whole time Moises was sharing you could just tell that they got it! It was soooooo cool. In this village and culture if their were men around then the women would repeat the prayer silently and the men would pray out loud with us. However with these three women there were no men around and when they prayed all three of them prayed with such strength and desire...not gonna lie, I teared up a little :) ***





Moises, one of our local contacts, sharing the Evangecube (a picture cube that has images that go along with the gospel) with the women in the story above :)

Panama Update 1: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways," declares the Lord

Hi everyone!!!

I just wanted to report back after the Panama trip. It was amazing!!! One of the main rules of missions it to be flexible and to surrender your expectations to God because God is sure to do things His own way. I tried to go into the trip with very little expectations mainly because besides the fact that we would be in villages sharing the Gospel I had very little idea what was going to be going on. There are sooooo many stories that I can’t possibly imagine telling them all on here but know that God was moving in these people long before we got there and I pray that He continues to move in them and grow in them long after we have gone. I’ll share a few of my favorite stories over the next few days. Here’s the first one:

***Each day we would go around to the different huts in the village to share the Gospel, pray with people, and just talk to them and learn about their lives. On our first day out we went to the hut of one women who seemed completely uninterested in us, in what we were saying, or even us being there. The whole time we were talking to us she barely made eye contact and an uninterested “Uh huh” was pretty much the only response we could get out of her. She did allow us to share the Gospel with her and then told us that she wasn’t feeling well and allowed us to pray for her. We went on our way and I didn’t think too much about her the rest of the day…As we were heading back to the school where we had pitched our tent myself and my English to Spanish translator got separated from our native language translator, Amelio. Once he returned to the school he shared with us what had taken him so long. As he was walking back he was walking past this ladies hut and heard her calling out to him. She wanted to accept Christ and so he prayed with her!!!***

Sometimes the words don’t come out right. Sometimes it feels as if you did everything wrong and well you hope that you do better next time because you are sure that there is no way God can use what just happen. Sometimes you discount people by their initial reaction to you or even to the Gospel. But this is just one of the stories of God teaching me that I can’t even begin to imagine how He is working in someone’s heart even if it’s not evident to the people around them. Isaiah 55 says, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Such a sweet promise!!!

I'm Baaaaaaack

Welcome back to blog amazingness. I know, you've all probably missed getting to hear all about my adventures and random happenings around the world. Well, fear not! The blog is back to stay for the rest of the semester. When I'm not traveling I'll continue to update with what God is teaching me, where He is leading me, and maybe share what some of my friends are up to!

So once again, welcome back or welcome for the first time to the craziness that is my life and my mission. Hope you enjoy!!!