What has 2019 Looked like?

Katie
Dec 7, 2019
4 min read

Hey friends and family! 2019 has been an eventful year! It was good to reconnect with many of you when I was home for Christmas last year. After missing two years, it was really healing for me to be home for the holidays with my family.

Working with YWAM: Since January I have been staff with YWAM Bridges of Life in the south of France. During the first few months here, I did a variety of jobs on base which included: managing the kitchen, managing hospitality, and managing the volunteers that came. I was also the personal assistant to the base leader for a bit and was put on a leadership team for a few months. Honestly it was really difficult but I was thankful for the opportunity to step into leadership; I learned and grew so much! The base leader here is really good at championing young people and creating a safe place for us to step out in leadership and learn from when things worked and when they didn't.

During these months we had multiple people come to the base, learn about the love of the Father, and become baptized in the river! We have also been seeing more favor with the people in town than we have ever seen before! The base was invited to participate in several town and church events. At Easter we put on several performances for the town as well. It has been so beautiful to see the hand of God at work here!

Midwifery: In February I had the amazing opportunity to deliver a baby boy here in France! A couple on staff here at the base decided they wanted a home birth and the midwife they hired asked if I wanted to do the delivery and so I did! It was such a blessing and I was able to learn so much from the midwife that was there!

In March I headed back to the YWAM base in Togo, Africa for a month. While there I was volunteering at the clinic where I treated malaria, did wound care, did some healthcare education with some young girls, and much more! I also got to deliver another baby boy while I was there!

Nursing: During those months, I was also writing all the healthcare lessons and creating a workbook for the students of the Compassion DTS which started in September! There is no way I could have done that alone, all the credit for those lessons goes to God! I felt a little like Noah and the ark: I knew God asked me to do this but had no idea how to do it. He truly guided me every time I sat down to write! I have also been putting my practical skills to work giving vaccinations to the students who need them.

Compassion DTS: I will write more later about the Compassion DTS but so far the 3 month lecture phase is going great! On December 8, two amazing staff and myself are taking the students on their 3 month outreach in Guatemala! While there we will be sharing the love of The Father while educating communities, churches, villages, schools, and much more on: basic primary healthcare, clean water, and traffic proofing (raising awareness for human trafficking and how to avoid being trafficked).

Hearts desires: I love how God will give us the desires of our hearts. It may not always look like what we expect and is not always in our timing, but He sees every desire. For years I have wanted to get the chance to plan a wedding and learn to make fancy cakes. This summer I was given the amazing opportunity to co-plan a wedding and make the cake for it! Since then, I have made cakes for several other events, it is a challenge but I enjoy it so much!

The older I get the more I desire to have a place of my own, somewhere to call home; a place I can invite people to. When I first got here I felt God say that I wasn’t supposed find an apartment in town. So I obeyed, even though it wasn’t what I wanted, and continued to live on base with different roommates every few months. It was really difficult at first…life hadn’t gone the way I planned. But looking back I am so glad that God had other plans for me! It has been really healing to live with all these different amazing women and to have them around me. They brought me so much joy and were there for me when I needed prayer. However, for the last part of this year, God blessed me with the chance to sub rent a home in town (5 minute walk from base) from a couple who had to go home for a few months. So I moved in to a beautiful apartment, fully furnished, at a very affordable price! It was such a huge blessing for me to be “on my own” for a little bit and my relationship with God deepened in so many ways. I am so glad that I listened to God on this and didn’t just go find my own apartment when I first got here…I would have missed out on so many blessings and paid a lot more! Don’t be discouraged if God has you in a season of waiting for things you desire J His plan is so much better!