Can you ever imagine.................................................

Ideally i would love to be speaking this to you so that you can close your eyes and imagine what you would be feeling and experiencing when i tell you this....................................

Can you imagine being pulled over by the Police one day and being asked for your paperwork, your licence, and you don't have it right so for us we would have a couple of weeks to take this to the Police Station, well not in the states. So they arrest you, put you in a cell, you don't get the chance to call home or anything, you don't have anything on you and you are then taken into a bus and you are driven to the Border of Mexico, Tijuana. This country is new to you, you have been brought up in the states all your life, you don't speak the language, know the culture and you have no phone, no identification, no money on you nothing and you are dropped the other side of the border where life is so very different to what you can imagine.

Maybe you can see the states through the border fence but you are a million years away from home, family, mum, dad, sons, daughters, husband, wife....................

The Border , San Diego is through the fence

Unlike home there is no homeless shelters, no food banks, no day center, no benefit help, just the concrete floor to sleep on and about 500 other men and women who have had the same experience who are looking for survival. Who are keeping a low profile so they don't get taken into the trafficking trade for sex or drugs.

Can you imagine this??!!

Zona Norte

Can you imagine not talking to family, not knowing when or if you will see your kids, spouse, parents, brothers, sisters again.....................

I cant imagine this, i cant imagine sleeping at night on the streets being scared, will you be jumped, mugged, robbed, raped, attacked.

This is miles from what you have been living in your house, working your job and maybe one day you ran a red light or were speeding................................

This is what i was asked to Imagine this morning and God really touched my heart, i felt His heart breaking for the people down in Zona Norte, Tijuana. Where hope seems non existent, happiness seems to be lost and real love is rare.

 Old lady works to get money as people wait in the Border Line!

Well this is where we are called too and this is where God longs us to be, this is where my heart longs to be, to love the way God loved us and to bring hope and family to these precious people who made a mistake, haven't we all done that one time or another...........

"The spirit of the lord God is upon me because he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim freedom to the captives..... Isaiah 61 v 1-2

Falling face down................................ The Epic Journey..............

Falling face down because there is no other words to say what is happening in my heart!! In these last few weeks i have been studying the first 4 books of the Old testament. Maybe your thinking " oh that's going to be so boring I will not read any more but please don't go, stay and just read"

I was so like this when it comes to the Old testament and in fact just reading to be honest i would read a page of a book and think that was good going, well done Paula and walk off and do something else more fun!!

Well no chance of that in Bible school, but i love it!!!! We have been reading about Moses and the Israelite and their epic journey into the wilderness, in search of the Promised Land that God had prepared for them whilst learning and discovering How God loved them, what He is like and so much more!!

I have been seeing How Moses lead this whole group of crazy (and that putting it politely) people over miles and miles of desert. He said to God he couldn't do it and yeah in his own strength no he defiantly couldn't!! But that is the cool part we get to see how God provides food for them, water, safety, He provides laws, which bring protection, value, love and respect into peoples lives and families. We get to see how God pursues us, even when we walk away and turn our back and think we can do life without Him (Which i have done many times) We get to see all of this but God is still there tapping us on the shoulder or in our hearts saying " hey come be with me i love you, i will look out for you, i will provide for your every need"

Thank you beautiful people for supporting me!!

And yeah you know what i am learning every day how i need and want God in my life, He longs for me to be sharing his plans for the future of this world with me!! I am just me, not a high up person but he longs for this with each one of us, it doesn't matter who you are, where you have come from or anything else He wants your heart and will pursue you!!

I have seen God's provision this week in my finances, i needed just over $500, i had no idea where it would come from, but God put it on people's hearts to support me in this journey and to believe in the vision God has given me.
My heart is overwhelmed by the love He has for us and how He cares about the details of our life!! I thank you all so much for being with me, I am so grateful to you all and love to you all!!!!
I am still on this journey of faith and trusting God for everything, so please continue praying for me to learn, be safe in God and in Finances!!

A day in life of Me the CSBS student...........................

Welcome to my day...........................................
 " Oh really alarm seriously 6:30am already, ok time to start the day, I find the beginning is always hardest part of all!! So anyway you don't need to know about me showering, getting dressed, doing hair and make-up, that's standard!!

Cleaning time!!

So 8am in the classroom, I clean and make sure it is all nice free from ants and random crumbs from snakes that keep us going through lecture!!!

Class time!!

8:30am we have a base meeting, sharing, worship, praying and learning different things!! I like this time as we are all together in the morning.


Then we get coffee, because this is so the key to surviving in school ha ah ah I love it!! This is the first school I really love and wanna be here so that is so good!!! Oh and we have a new pet sheep as apart of the class!!

We make a chat for each chapter!!

Family lunch time, time to relax have fun, eat and the best is when its Mexican for sure!!

Then we have homework............... this takes most afternoon and most of the evening, so that's my life right now but I love learning and growing so much in what God has said and his plan for us!!

Some of my school friends!!

So I will be in this school for 9 months and i know it will be the best education i will ever get, I really love it and I know this is where is should be right now, I know this is my training time and after this i will be with the people in community. I am in need of support in prayer for discipline and financial support, I have some supporters who have helped me get this far and i am so happy and grateful that they are behind what God has spoken to me, but this isn't just my life this is a life i am living for God and you are all in this with me so please continue to partner with me I really value it!!


For each  quarter I need $2,180 (£1,343) This covers my food, utilities, accommodation, tuition, Internet and transport. So for this quarter I still need £350, If you feel like you would like to donate of support me monthly, please email me or leave a message here or you can look on www.ywamsandiegobaja.org and you can make a donation, just make sure that you say it is for me and place my name: Paula O'Sullivan.

Thank you for your prayers, love, friendship and support, it is amazing to do this with you all!!!

We always have a beautiful sunset each night!!! 

Being natuarally Supernatural....................

What I am  learning so much about is that I am here to love the way Jesus loves.................

If we look in the gospels at how Jesus was he would just be so freakin normal he was a man living in the normal world he walked in the streets he sat with people he talked with them, he ate and slept. He had his friends, he shared his life and loved in a very natural way to Him. He would have people walk up to him, because the Presence of God was so strong in him it drew people to him, they could see  difference in the way he loved, cared, had time for people and wasn't just busy and concerned with his own life.

He had nothing about "oh i need to do my shopping don't stop me", "i don't have time i need to get this done today". No he was available, he was willing, he wanted to be with people because he knew that was what his father wanted. He longed to be with people, he longed for them to know God and walk in his presence everyday.

So when i was on outreach there were times that i was frustrated and thought oh we are not doing much, but God has been showing me that He will work through the people that are available to him, that those who are longing after his presence are going to see the supernatural things happen when you are being natural in loving the way Jesus asks and walking in His presence daily.

This is something i am trying to learn and trying to live in as i long to see people knowing Jesus and knowing His love for them.

I know God is showing me that this is so not about me, its not about what i do and or the works and services that i do its about my character being in him and allowing Him to work through me and out of me and me laying down my wants and letting God be the first in my life!!

Love is the greatest aim, allow it to be what we long for and what we focus our hearts on in Jesus!!

 

Here are some treasures............................

 I want to introduce you to my friend, her name is Carol, she is like 8 years old, she lives in Brasil and our friendship started off with her staring at me, so i smile, she just stares and makes a funny face sticks her tongue out and walks away haa ha ha. I knew this would be fun!! Anyway after some days we become friends and i start to see her heart and her longing for love and friendship!! We became good friends and hung out lots, she would run up for hugs and play hide and seek with me and her younger sister!! One day we were waiting to leave for somewhere but ended up waiting 2 hours so i had the guitar and was playing songs and singing on the steps, anyway Carol comes and sits with me, i was singing in English so she didn't understand but she just stayed there and listened, so i started to make up songs about her and how Jesus sees her and how she is precious to Him and how beautiful she is to Him. She sat and looked at me the whole time so i carried on and on singing truth over her, when i finished she put her head on my arm, hugged my arm, looked me in the eyes smiled and walked off with a peace in her eyes, i knew Jesus had spoken to her heart through the songs. Jesus is bigger than any words or language, its just about His love that has no bounds!!

This day we went to an old peoples home, this was the first time the home had ever let any christian people in to visit. We took in flowers for the ladies, and sang to them, however after we had sang our one song to this little precious lady, I couldn't leave she held my hand and kept asking me to stay with her, i didn't want to leave either.

So I called Pepe over so we could play and sing more songs to her, we sang for a long time, but Jesus was with us, His peace was there and a real calmness came over the little lady, we prayed for her and loved her. I love that we had this chance to be here and share Jesus with these precious men and women. We can do our part and Jesus just does the rest.

So one morning we went out to the streets to pray and do whatever Jesus asked of us, so i was with 4 others we stopped in the road and prayed "Jesus just show us who you want to talk to", as soon as we said this we turned around and this little lady was standing right in front of us looking at us, so i said hi!!

This was the beginning of a fun journey we had no idea about But Jesus did!! She asked us to her house to pray, we said yeah ok, but first she lead us to a hairdressers in the street, we went in met the man and got to pray for him and his business, then she lead us to her sisters family house there were about 10 people there we got to sing, and pray for all of them, then we finally got to her house.

Ohhh something i forgot to tell you is she has a huge tumor on her shoulder. Anyway we met her mum and her nieces and her brother. Now her brother doesn't talk to anyone and especially not Christians, he is heavily into Macumba which is witchcraft that is practiced a lot in Brasil. So we sang with them and prayed for the family and shared why were there, all this time the brother is out the back of the house, well she asks us to go out an pray for him, it felt a bit awkward, but we went and spoke to him just normal things and we were laughing, we asked to pray for him and he said ok i suppose, so we did and then left.

Anyway the next day i was sitting in the church hall we were staying in with Pepe, Ami and Elaine who lived there. Martha the lady walks up and asks to talk so we all start to talk she is saying things about her past and we start to talk truth to her and pray for her heart, as this is happening i turn to Pepe and say am i going crazy or is the tumor getting smaller, He replied yes its is. This was done in English and she doesn't know any English, at that time she said to Elaine that she feels movement in her shoulder!!! I was freakin out ha aha ha Jesus was just healing her as truth was being spoke to her and she was praying for brokeness to leave her heart!! Anyway a few days later Pepe saw her in the street and she was on the way back from the Dr's and the Dr's said that it has miraculously got smaller!! Praise God he is working and was just doing His things and we get to watch!!

Oh and one more amazing part was 2 more days later she came back to the church to see us and she said that her brother has become a christian and isn't going to be part of the witchcraft anymore and that he is changed!! I know Jesus did some much in just us meeting this one precious lady in the road and doing what the Holy Spirit lead us to do. I love God's journey is so full of fun and adventure!!!

These are just some of the amazing people i had the privileged of meeting in Brasil, i will share more in another blog!!

Hidden Beauty...............

Living in the edge of the favelas in Rio De Janiro is an incredible experience, the structure and the community is so amazing I absolutely love it and really enjoy being here!!

You may think that is far from Beautiful as it is very different for us from home but I think it is so nice, however when you get past the concrete boxes and telegraph poles that are decorated heavily with wires and streamers which represent a drug pick up, there is such a beauty and hidden talent that is so exciting and busting of freshness.

These are the people that should be known for their talents of singing, dancing and loving well. They are so beautiful on the outside and amazingly beautiful on the inside too.

There is a real humbleness to the peoples characters and a real genuine friendliness, wait more than a friendliness, you feel like you are accepted and belong within minutes of arriving and we have never even met these people before but straight away you are taken into the families!!

People open their mouths to sing and a tear come to my eye and my heart is full of happiness as such a precious voice fills the streets that are full of kids playing, teens chillin and people just mingling.

This is what life should be like, we have so much to learn about relationship and loving well, we are being blessed daily by being here. We have been working with the children in this area and playing with them, loving them and showing them a hope in their future.

Even though there is such beauty that is here, there is also the other side of the community, which is ridden with drugs, mainly crack and witchcraft and heavy spirits. We are coming against this and bring the light, its so ironic how there is such darkness and such light in the same place but this light needs to be here as it will soon drown out the darkness!! 

Human Trafficking and the Sex Trade..................................

In School and our research for Outreach, it has become obvious to us that we will come into contact with those who are selling sex and of many of those adults and children will have been involved in being trafficked at some point or will be in danger of being trafficked.

As you know that we work in our red light district in Zona Norte Tijuana, this is a place where there is much trafficking in and out of the states and the rest of south America. This is trafficking people for selling Sex, Slave labour, and organ trafficking. In one club in Tijuana that we walk past we have been told that a couple sold their baby for $5,000 for organs! This is something that we cannot get our heads round and seem so far away from anything like this but actually its happening around us all.

I have been looking into the history of the Favelas in Rio De Janiro in Brazil, last year 3,000 people were trafficked for Sex. This is a huge number and this is only that recorded number there would have been many more that have gone under the raider!! Looking at where Brazilians are trafficked to is many countries in Europe including the United Kingdom!!

The Favelas came about in the early 1920's and it is where Military would live when they were home from the war, then later when the cities got larger, the government wanted the economy to grow therefore they pushed the poor people in each city out to the suburbs and there for the Favelas arose. This is like a cardboard city built up on the hills. There is a strong spirit of oppression and worthlessness, as they have been cast out of the city.

Many children from the age of 6 years old will come down from the Favelas and enter the tourist areas each night to work a 10 hour shift, looking for clients, many clients are tourists. They will be doing this to get whatever money they can and they will sell their bodies for £3.00 a time, this is what we would pay for a Starbucks coffee!!

God has been speaking to myself, Pepe and our Students about "Brazil looks a beautiful country on the outside and it is, but also God made the inside beautiful too, but there has been so much corruption that it has been so damaged and twisted,  it is in these times that He wants to restore and build up His beauty in this country from the inside out again!"

This is what we feel that we will be a part of, whilst we are there in Rio De Janiro, that we will go and speak truth, value and beauty into the people that we meet, that we will show them the love God has for them is pure and not the "love" that is shown to them by Man. God has been showing us this so much and we are all excited that we get to be a part of this too!!