Here I Raise My Ebenezer

 "Ebenezer" is a Hebrew word and is literally translated as "Stone of Help." I just love to think about God and all his faithfulness. I often think about the story of Samuel and the Israelites fighting the Philistines. Once they turned away from their other gods and cried out the Lord, he saved them. "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” (1 Samuel 4:12)

Every day I hear the ocean waves crashing on the shoreline, the waves are so constant, we all know they will not stop crashing onto shore until the world ends. This is like our Heavenly Father. He is so constant. When he says he will do something, he will do it. I am here in Mexico imagining putting up my own Ebenezer. "Thus far the Lord has helped me." And he will continue to help me, as he calls me to himself. My favorite verse right now is 2 Timothy 2:13, "if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself." Faithful is who God is, the very essence of himself, if were to stop being faithful, he would cease to exist because he is faithful. 

Now that I am staff here at YWAM San Diego/Baja, the reality of missionary life is setting in. I am so blessed and excited to do more of God's work here in Mexico! But it is also scary! Being in Mexico means learning Spanish. Being in YWAM means monthly staff fees. Being a missionary means hard and thankless work. But as Paul writes right before verse 13, "Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us;" We are so blessed to serve the Lord in any way he has called us. 
So, what is your Ebenezer? How far has God brought you? How far are you letting him take you? 

*Note: As you all now know, I am officially staff here. Yay! This means I now have monthly staff fees, this includes housing fees, food, transportation, ministry etc. Can I ask you, my precious readers and friends to prayerfully consider supporting me monthly? If you would like to financially support me monthly or give a one time gift you can make a tax deductible check to YWAM San Diego/Baja and send it to the address below:

YWAM San Diego/Baja c/o Ellie Swenson

100 W. 35th St. Ste. R

National City, CA 91950

OR, you can make a donation through YWAM San Diego/Baja's website, www.ywamsandiegobaja.org and click on DONATIONS AND PAYMENTS on the homepage. Then click on STAFF SUPPORT. 

Thank you all for reading! I have over 600 page views which is super awesome. If you have any questions or would like to contact me, my email is: eswen91@gmail.com. 

Subiendo/Climbing

I have a story. 

I am in my bed, minding my own business and I feel the Holy Spirit prompting me, compelling me, calling me to climb this mountain. I think to myself, "I am not good at climbing, I am not conditioned, I don't really like to work that hard, it is a huge mountain, there is no way I can get to the top." But God gives me this undying passion for this mountain. My desire to scale this mountain becomes so strong I MUST conquer it. So I begin to climb. At first it's okay, I am not hard on myself to get to the top fast. I take my time. It is even a little fun. But soon, the higher I get the more I realize I have to go. The higher I get the more I see that the top is still so far away. I am trudging, tired, frustrated. I cry out in frustration. I stop. I kick the dirt. I can't do it. There are others on the mountain too. Some are sprinting past me, I feel like a loser. There are some behind me too. Everyone is cheering me on, helping me, encouraging me. It's not the people, it's me. I am my own problem on this mountain. I look back down. I have come far. I can see other people at the base of the mountain. They are happy. I could go back down and join them. But I know there is a fiesta at the top of the mountain. There is blessing at the top, opportunities I wouldn't have if I stayed at the bottom. Now that I am getting higher, God asks me to lead some people around the mountain. I feel under-qualified. What if I get these people lost? What if I stumble and fall and they laugh at me? What if I am too tired to lead these people? My desire to lead people is strong, I have always dreamed of leading others, but I feel so weak. But God reminds me of his words in Isaiah 40: 

 "Do you not know?

    Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

    and his understanding no one can fathom.

 He gives strength to the weary

    and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

    and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

    they will run and not grow weary,

    they will walk and not be faint."

This isn't a real story but it is a great picture of my life. When I was 17 I knew I was called to learn Spanish and be in Latino ministries. I just knew it. God gave me a huge undying passion for the Latino culture. The Spanish language is my mountain. My strongest desire is to learn it, to proclaim Jesus' love in the heart language of the people around me here in Tijuana. I feel so weak. Some days I feel like I am sprinting, my head and my mouth are working together. Some days I am trudging and I even give up. But God is my everlasting God, he doesn't give up. He has called me to this language and he alone is the one who gives me victory! He has called me to lead people, to lead children, through him all things are possible. I have given my 5 loves and 2 fish and he has multiplied it. Yes, the more I learn, the more I realize there is to know. Fluency is a thing in my future, something I have to look forward to. So for now, I am strolling along, taking in the splendor of this language, learning new things each day. But I can't wait for the fiesta at the top, I hear there are great tacos. 

Nana of the Year

So I have announcement to make, I have officially become staff here at YWAM San Diego/Baja. I am here in Tijuana for two years. I just praise God for all that he has given me. It has been a dream to be able to do ministry here in Tijuana. God has given me such a heart for this city and the immense need here. I keep thinking of the verse in Ephesians 3:20, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Praise God from Whom all blessings flow! 

I have written about the ministry we do in Zona Norte called Zone Kids. I have been given charge of the younger children's program. I am so ecstatic about this as I love children, and I have an extreme heart for the area, so this is a big deal for me! God for sure has a plan for this time here.

Part of the Zone Kids ministry is a mom's Bible study where the moms come and have a Bible study and fellowship during the kids program. One lady who has been coming to the Bible study is named Mercedes. She brings her grandchildren. She has one granddaughter named Stephanie who is one year old. I just love Stephanie and through that, I have really gotten to know Mercedes. She takes care of her three grandchildren because her daughter is addicted to drugs and is very unstable. I can see in Mercedes that this effects her greatly. She is always telling me about her daughter Jaquiline, and how she is so unstable, that she is in and out of house, doing drugs, having boyfriends etc. Mercedes is very open in the Bible study about her struggles and I know she is so open to learning more about God and prayer, and trusting in her Heavenly Father. Mercedes is really trying to trust that God has a plan but I can tell she is discouraged. She is a wonderful grandmother, Stephanie is very attached to her. I love it. God has a plan for her life, more than she can ask or imagine. I want her to know this in her heart not just her head. 

• Please pray for Jacqueline that she will get the necessary help that she needs so that she can be the mother and daughter that she needs to be. 
• Please pray for Mercedes that she can really know who God is and trust in his plan for her family. 
• A praise that God has really answered my prayer in being able to lead the kids program in the park! 
• And finally can you please pray for me and my Spanish? I am discouraged and I feel like it is impossible for me to learn.

I just love Stephanie! I think this was the first time she had ever seen bubbles 

and she was making such a funny laugh! 

Homelessness

Here are two women's stories from the Bible study that we do at La Roca church in Zona Norte. One of the first women I met when I came was named Sandra. ( I mentioned her in my blog post called In the Zone and I wrote the wrong name, I called her Carla so I am sorry for that.) Anyway, Sandra is so sweet and I feel like we have a good connection. She always gives me a huge hug when we arrive. She is a woman so on fire for God. She loves worship,  she loves to read her Bible and she loves to talk about what God has done in her life. Here is a little background on Sandra. 
Before YWAM San Diego/Baja began to work regularly with La Roca, they would go out to the parks and the ravine on the boarder and minister to the people there. One of our staff, Blanca, would meet with Sandra who was living in the park. Sandra was usually drunk and rarely wanted prayer, she was quite rude in all honesty. But after she came to La Roca, the Lord changed her heart. Now she is so on fire! La Roca does ministry in the dump here in Tijuana. Sandra was saying how excited she was to go along so she could share what Jesus has done in her life! This was so cool to see. We are seeing fruit from the ministry! She said she doesn't know a lot about the Bible but she can share what Jesus has done in her life. It is so exciting to see what God is doing in the life of Sandra. It is so encouraging to see fruit. 
Here is the story of Veronica, she is a new face at our Bible study last Monday. She is a tiny petite lady. I had seen Veronica at the women's Bible study La Roca also does on Wednesday mornings. She is about 7 months pregnant. After the Bible study I told her it was really nice to meet her and asked her how she was feeling. She began to tell me about how she didn't want to be pregnant. She tried to get an abortion and then tried to commit suicide. If it weren't for her brother she would have killed herself along with her unborn baby. She went on to tell me that her other children are in foster care and she can visit them sometimes. Her husband used to beat her and her children so she ran away but the government took her kids away from her because she was doing drugs. Now she is living on the streets. She was crying through a lot of her story. She says she wants to be a good mom, she has stopped doing drugs and smoking now that she is pregnant. She doesn't know how she is going to raise the baby if she doesn't have a home. The government will most likely take her baby away from her because she doesn't have a home. 
These two women both come from the streets. I am touched by their stories. I know God has a plan fro Sandra and Veronica and I am so blessed to be in their lives! 
Prayer Requests: 

• A praise for what God has done and is doing in Sandra's life. That she would continually be discipled as she seeks the Lord! 
• God would restore Sandra and her children as they have a strained relationship.  
• God would provide for Veronica and her baby a safe place to live. 
• For health for her and her baby. 
• Veronica needs a lot of restoration in her life, that the Holy Spirit would be working. She said she feels like God wants her to forgive her husband but she said it's so hard because of all that he has done to her and her children.   

Welcome to Tijuana/Bienvenidos a Tijuana

"Zona Norte is an official neighborhood as well as a red light district located in Tijuana, Mexico. It is the largest red-light district in North America known for its brothels, street prostitution, and illicit drug sales. Due to its proximity to San Diego, California, it is frequented by US citizens as well as locals. The district is also known La Coahuila for the name of the primary avenue that runs through it." (excerpt taken from Wikipedia)

Last Saturday we went prayer walking through Zona Norte. (for those of you who do not know what prayer walking is, it is basically walking and praying through an area.) Now, we prayer walk at Zone Kids which is when we go out into the Zona Norte neighborhood and gather kids to come to the program and basically just pray for people and the community. So I was pretty sure this is what we were in for, going to Zona Norte walking around praying and talking with prostitutes or whoever else we might find. We gathered at the prayer house here on base, worshiped, and prayed that we would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and loaded up the van around 9 or 9:30 pm. We were off. Before we left, they went over the guidelines, rules on safety etc. for the night. They even said if you get overwhelmed we could leave. I remember thinking, "Who would get overwhelmed?" 

When we got there I realized we weren't going to the neighborhood at all, we were going downtown. I hadn't been to downtown Tijuana yet so it was super exciting. It kind of looked like a mini Las Vegas only way more cheesy. Lots of clubs and really loud music everywhere. It was exhilarating. After we got out of the downtown to more of the side streets we began to run into more women on the streets. I was super intimidated. A homeless person or a kid is so much easier to talk to on the street, but these women were "working" and I felt like I was bothering them, a lot of times they were cold too, you could tell they didn't want to talk. We had to be careful anyways because they could get in trouble for talking instead of working. 

As we went along, my friend Paula and I were just talking and walking when a lady grabbed her arm, and said "I remember you!" I assumed the lady did remember Paula because she had been going on prayer walks in the area before. Paula smiled and asked the lady how she was (she spoke English, praise God! I had prayed I would find someone who spoke English!) The lady very nonchalantly said "Well, this morning I got beat up." "Oh no! Are you okay? How did this happen?" "A customer picked me up last night and was high on drugs and he beat me up." She pointed to her jaw, shoulder and chest, "I am sore all through here, good thing there are no bruises." She went on to say how scared she was because she was at a different hotel than she normally works, she said she screamed for help but no one heard her. She pointed to the hotel that was behind her, "I normally work here. That way if something goes wrong I can call for help and I know people will hear me." Paula asked if we could pray for her, "Oh please! I have a son." she said. We prayed for her, all through our prayers she was so excited. "Please keep praying for me! Please keep going!" I was almost laughing! Not at her, but laughing with joy because of her enthusiasm. I really believe God appointed that meeting with her. After we walked away Paula said she had never met that woman and she didn't know why the lady said that she remembered her. I believe it was nothing less than the work of the Holy Spirit. 

The night wasn't over yet though. We made our way through the final strip of the downtown area. I think it was the main strip because there were prostitutes lined up both sides of the block. I immediately felt my spirit change. It was super heavy in that place, I felt like my head was going to explode. I was just praying and praying and praying, Satan had a huge hold on this block especially. There were so many women, maybe like 50 or more just on the block. 

As a girl probably about the age of these women we saw a lot was going through my head. The main thing I thought of was, self image. Most girls I know struggle with self esteem in one way or another. Imagine if your very job depended on how you looked, how you presented yourself? Nothing about who you are on the inside. Those very things are the things we as women worry and stress about. And I only stress about those things on a minimal level, what if my job depended on it? I would be in severe depression. Not to mention the competition. I would find myself thinking, "why her? why did that guy take her and not me?" Just the endless cycle of unworthiness, and not to mention if you do get a client, it's a lose-lose situation. You are either deemed unworthy or your sense of worth is taken from you. 

We continued to walk and got to the corner that was heading back to the parking lot. I was trying really hard to just pray and not completely lose it when a girl came up from behind us and began to sort of flirt with one of the guys in our group. We quickly started a conversation with her. Her name was Tatiana and she was 19. I could tell on her face that she thought it was so weird for a bunch of us girls to suddenly be talking to her, I kind of felt weird too but it was worth it. She was clearly working however, and while we were talking she would pull guys off the sidewalk and flirt with them. It was terrible. Out of the corner of my eye I could see old bald men fawning over some very young looking girls. It was kind of awkward for us to be standing there while Tatiana talked to the man so we stepped away. I looked at my friend and couldn't hold it in. My friend Tania began to pray for me as the tears rolled down my face. I closed my eyes because behind us another girl was leading an old man into a car. It was so overwhelming, I didn't want to leave but I was not expecting to be taken over by so much emotion. When Tania finished praying for me, Tatiana was gone with the old man, and I felt like my heart broke. 

I only felt these emotions on a small human-size level. How must God feel when he sees his beautiful daughters taken advantage of day in and day out? Some of them only get paid 60 or 70 pesos even half hour or hour which is like 5 or 6 dollars. If our hearts are breaking over this, how much more is our Heavenly Father's heart breaking? 

• Please pray for Tatiana, that she would know how much God loves her. I am really praying I can find her again. 
• Please pray for Gabriela, the woman who stopped Paula and I. Pray for her son too. A lot of kids get bullied in school when their mom's have this job. 
• Pray for safety for all these women. It is a very dangerous job they have, violence is a daily threat for them. 
• Pray for Tijuana! There needs to be a breakthrough. Satan shouldn't be allowed to have such a strong hold on this place, he doesn't have power here anymore. 

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Yesterday was probably one of my top days here in Tijuana. As I wrote in the post before this one, YWAM here in Tijuana has a ministry called Homes of Hope where building teams come to our base and build a home in two days for a needy family in the surrounding communities. It's an awesome ministry! I think of the verse in James 2 that says "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." Providing these people with a home is a great way to open the door for relationship. So yesterday we had a big community fiesta in a colonia called Castillo and invited many of the families we had built a house for to come. It was such a great time. We painted the women's nails, we had hot dogs, there was music, a bouncy house, and pastor came and shared with the people, at the end we gave out donations of clothes, shoes, blankets, even some lamps and things for the home. Our prayer is that those people were blessed and that they know who Jesus is! God be glorified! 
Finally! I have some pictures to show! Hope you enjoy them! 

Beautiful sunset! Can't get enough of it. 

Heading out to Castillo for the community party.
I am blessed to be able to work with such a great group of people here in YWAM!! 

Ready for some fun in Castillo! 

Introductions. 

5 month old sweet Milagros (Miracles). 

Painting nails.

Doing some art work. He was such a cutie. 

More nail painting. 

Adriana got a new teddy bear. 

New toys for everyone! 

And new hats! 

View from up above. 

Feels Like a Different World

The first time I took a trip up the rocky hill I was surprised. Tijuana is very Americanized, with the beautiful ocean view, there are many all inclusive, fancy shmancy resorts and really nice ocean view houses. So, I was surprised at what I found at the top, not so far away from the resorts. 
We took an exit off the main highway that goes right along the Pacific, and we went up, up, up. The road became gravel and we bounced along the side of a hill (for those of you who have been in Bolivia, this was like a mini Bolivian road, it made me nostalgic). Soon we came across shanty houses with skinny dogs laying on the door step. I can't say much surprises me anymore, I have seen many many towns like these, but I was surprised to find a community like this so close to the States. These communities above Tijuana are called the colonias. It is a bunch of little communities clustered together in a ramshackle way. One community is called Garanjas, another, Antorcha, and there is Antorcha 2, and so on. 
As you can imagine, the poverty is ever present, it is like a third world country up there. Anything you can picture in a poverty stricken Mexican town was there, dusty roads, patched up houses, graffiti, kids, dogs, you name it. 
YWAM has wonderful ministries with these communities, we build homes for the neediest of the families, and we have a children's program on Thursdays that I happily attend. Right now, YWAM is working in community development with these communities and getting a feel for what the needs are that we can meet as a ministry. 
The other day I got to go on a trip up to the colonias and we were going to do house visits, gathering information on the families and the community but most importantly establishing relationships with the people. We work a lot in Antorcha so we went there. 
The first house we visited was a girl named Abi. Her mom wasn't home but she knew one of the people with me through the kids program so she invited us in. She was about 15 or 16, maybe 17 I couldn't tell. She had four little siblings. She watches her siblings while her parents work. The older kids go to school but they have a one year old sister that Abi watches all day. She said she can't go to school because there is no one to watch her baby sister. While she talked, I wondered what she really thought? She knows she is supposed to go to school and be educated, she has dreams, she said she would like to work in an orphanage (yay!) she isn't from some far off jungle village she is lives half an hour from States, she grew up in Nevada. But what does she think now? What do her parents think? People in Mexico have to work really really hard to make a living and you don't ever get paid vacation. I imagine her parents work really hard to have money and keep their home. But what about Abi? What are her parents working so hard for if she is going to stay at home? I have been wondering a lot about this. Abi's situation is extremely common in the colonias. Life is difficult and everything revolves around surviving and making a living, I feel the idea of having "dreams" for your life are too much of a luxury. How do we relate with these families when they are so occupied with survival? Where do we begin? Obedience and open ears to what the Lord has to say is a good start right? "It is the work of God through us that counts, not what we do for him." -Oswald Chambers