A quick recap...

Not all who wander are lost... ~J.R.R. Tolkien

So I realize that I am very far behind in my blog, and new things just keep on happening! So right now I am going to do a quick recap, chronologically backwards...

June 18, 2009 (aka right now) Packing to return to Mexico -TOMORROW!!! (we'll come back to that ;-) )

June 14, 2009 Sara's Baby Shower- It was so great to have all of the family together to celebrate Sara's pregnancy and expecting her first baby, and It's A Girl!!! I'm SO EXCITED to be an AUNT!!!

June 6-12, 2009 Disney Cruise - my wonderful and talented cousin is making our (and every other little girls') dream come true as a Disney Princess on a Disney cruise ship! I drove down to florida with Rob and Maura (2 friends from IWU) and took a 4 day FREE cruise with Beth to the bahamas. it was AMAZING! she is fantastic, i cried as she came out as snow white and cinderella, *sigh* so many plays in her basement and in front of my christmas tree, and now this is her life!

May 2009 At home I spent a lot of time this month at home with my family, babysitting my cousins, or hanging at my best friend Lily's house.

Easter (April) 2009 North Carolina visiting Sara It was so fun to go see my sister! Mom and I drove down, then spent a week at her house. we shopped for baby furniture and other baby items mostly. I can't believe the next time I go to her house there will be a little baby in it too!!

End of March 2009 YWAM Veracruz I spent 2 weeks helping out at a new YWAM base that is starting out in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. The base has a connection with a local church there, and some of my friends asked me to come down and help run a Vacation Bible School for the kids at the church. They didnt have sunday school or anything for the kids, so we had a great time singing songs, playing games, and teaching bible stories with the kids there.

March 2 2009 Home from Mexico- Coming back to the US after being gone for 6 months was hard, maybe that's why I only stayed home for about two weeks before I left again...

End of February 2009 Carnaval and YWAM Mazatlan After my DTS finished, I spent 2 weeks in Mazatlan, a city on the western coast of Mexico. There I spent some time relaxing after an intense 5 months, and also serving at the YWAM base there. I was there during a time called Carnaval, its kinda like the Mexican version of Mardi gras - parades, floats, costumes, large amounts of food and even larger amounts of alcohol. During all the craziness, the YWAMers run a free beauty salon and cafe, with the intention of getting people off the streets and into a calmer, safer atmosphere. I really enjoyed my time in mazatlan, hopefully I'll be able to go back again next year.

February 13, 2009 DTS Graduation I was so sad having to say goodbye to all of the good friends I made during my DTS. I know that I will see some of them again back in Mexico soon, but my closest friends just happen to be from Germany and Japan... :-( I was sad to leave Ensenada, but know that I will be back soon enough this summer.

February 6, 2009 Back from Outreach After 2 months away, my team finally came back to Ensenada! Oh, how we missed being so close to the beach! During the week before graduation, we spent lots of time "debriefing" with our staff, talking about going home, and our plans for the future. During this week is when the YWAM base director in Ensenada asked me to come on staff for the next DTS, and I was very honored. But I felt like Tijuana was where I was supposed to go, so I spoke with the DTS staff there and they are ready to have me come back this summer to work on staff with them.

February 1-5, 2009 Ministry in Huitzitzilingo, Mexico This was our last location for our outreach, and by this time, everyone was pretty exhausted. however, this is the place that i was looking forward to the most for all of outreach. It was this tiny village up in the mountains surrounding Mexico city, a 4.5 hour windy drive to be exact. Some of the women from a local church cooked meals for us, I even got to learn how to make tortillas. They also speak an indigenous language there called Nahuatl. For example, "Nhu tuka Susie, Catiqui mu tuka?" is "my name is susie. what is your name?" I absolutely loved being there, and trying to learn some of this new language from spanish speakers, no english, hahaha One of my main jobs there was teaching an english class. now, we were the only white people there so even though we only invited a few kids (day one there were about 30), word spread quickly that we were offering free english classes and on the last day that week we had almost 100 kids! plus parents listening in :) This was by far my favorite week of outreach, even though I was exhausted at the end of each day, I knew that I had given my all, and then some, for the ministry that we were doing.

January 26-31 2009 Ministry in Mexico City This was one of the hardest ministries that I have ever done. We spent most of our time on the streets of Mexico city with the prosititutes and drug addicts. I think most of them couldnt really have cared less what we were trying to do, so that made the ministry extra hard. We handed out sandwiches to the druggies living on the streets, and flowers to the prositutes working the streets. We talked with them about the love of God and how nothing they could ever do would make God love them less. Some had never heard it said to them that God loved them, some had given up on God all together, but its my hope that during the time that we spent with them, they were able to see Jesus through us.

"No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another God lives in us and His love is made complete in us" 1 John 4:12

Well that catches you up on the wayward journeys of Susie Walter. Tomorrow I leave for Mexico, I'm going to work at the YWAM Tijuana base full time. More info to come..