68,289.62 Kenyan Schilling!

Praise God!

We raised enough to send a solid $900 to Eva in two portions... That works out to be 68,289.62 Kenyan Schilling. I was advised to send the money in two portions to make sure that I don't get flagged unnecessarily for sending money to Africa. Everything went smoothly when I sent the money and she is able to receive the money now. (Praise the Lord for his continued provision that we did not run into obstacles!)

I sent the first portion to Eva today and messaged her with details of how she could receive it. When she read my message she was blown away. This is her response when I told her the good news:

"Praise be to God! When I saw this message, tears of joy were rolling down. dear, thank u for praying & sharing with other friends about me. your encouragement & concern too has been a blessing. I appreciate all at large for their contribution. Well, will update u when I receive. tks." - Eva -

We will be sending the second portion on Thursday. :)

Again I just want to echo with a HUGE THANK YOU for all your prayers and support - God has used you to touch Eva's life and bless her. Blessings to you. xo

God's faithfulness! - Eva Update

God provides! God provides! God provides!

Trust Him.

Just Trust.

Wow, I'm incredibly blown away by how God has provided for Eva... this is the first update I am giving of the amount that people have pledged or given and it is already up to $700 for Eva's surgery!!! That is incredible, fantastic, amazing!

Just a week or two ago, I sat down for coffee with a friend and asked him if I could share with a certain group of people we like to call "DRIMERS". Eva herself is a DRIMER and I just wanted to share her story with the DRIME family so that we could pray for the need of a fellow sister in Christ. At that point the amount that was raised for Eva was around $300. (Not to mention the blessings I felt leading up to that $300. Each person informing me that this was the amount that was placed on their heart to give)

Last night, when I was able to share her story with them, I was able to inform them that we have raised $620 towards that goal.

Coming in I expected that people wouldn't be giving today because, first of all, who carries cash these days? I know I don't! Secondly, they had no idea I was coming to share this with them. And thirdly, I know the cost of being a student is high, so there often isn't left over for extra things like this.

However, I'm reminded again and again and again that it doesn't matter what we have, who we are or what way we are expected to act. God can use us despite any limitations we put on ourselves. And he used his people tonight.

God's heart was in that room, and I could see it in people's eyes as I shared - they were touched deeply by this need and this story.

And I was touched too. From the moment one girl bravely decided to raise her hand and say, "Can we give right now?," others joined with her and still others shared their hearts to give.

To be honest, I'm very much a planner and I usually prepare what I'm going to say, but tonight I didn't. I basically said, "God, you've got this," and I shared from my heart.

I'm blown away by God's provision... I truly, truly am!

You can see the updated amount on the thermometer - we are so close! God will provide. I know He will.

***Housekeeping Note*** I will be sending whatever amount of money comes in for Eva to her at the end of November. (And I know that will be the exact amount she needs) Therefore, if you are sending me anything for her by mail, please post-mark the envelope no later than Monday, November 24th, 2014 so it will reach me in time. Or if you are giving it to me in person, please make sure I have that by Friday, November 28th, 2014.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ANYONE WHO HAS ALREADY GIVEN!

 May God Bless you as you come alongside Eva in her journey.

Prayer that can move mountains

This is Eva’s story…

Greetings, my friends; I trust you are keeping well. I would love to hear how you are doing and catch up with you. Right now, however, I have something pressing on my heart that I would like to share with you.

Eva (left) and I in Tanzania, Africa 2013

I met a wonderful and amazing sister in Christ named Eva. This girl has faith that moves mountains; her strength and reliance on God is just incredible. When I met Eva, she had a certain stomach problem that she had been dealing with for about two years prior, but you could never tell because she has such joy in her heart. Despite the pain she is in on a daily basis, she continues to praise the Lord with her whole heart, in every moment, and never complains. By today, she's been dealing with this stomach problem for almost four years. That is a long time to be in pain that is treatable.

There is a surgery that, Lord willing, will make her feel better. Unfortunately, the surgery costs $1,000, which is more than she can afford. She is in the process of raising funds, and though it is difficult in Africa, she has already raised a quarter of her goal. Praise the Lord for his provision already! That's only $750 more dollars to go to help her feel healthy and normal again! If we give this to God, it is PEANUTS; it's really nothing!

Eva and Janna preforming "In the Light",
a DRIME drama

I empathize so much with her because of what I went through before I went to the naturopath. Some days, I was in so much pain that I felt like I wanted to rip my intestines out of my body. Thankfully, I had the resources to get better. However, I know the energy that it takes out of you; the unfunctionality of it all. It just really tugs at my heartstrings because I've been there.

As soon as she told me she was not doing well and was trying to raise money for the surgery, my heart connected with her. I instinctively wanted to come up with some sort of fundraiser, but as much as I love to create those sort of things, I realized it would not be fast enough. That takes time and effort and the faster she is able to have the surgery the quicker she will not be in pain and feel better, feel what normal feels like.

It’s HONESTLY INCREDIBLE to feel NORMAL when you are used to feeling in pain all the time!!!

I know you don't know my friend Eva, but if you feel a nudge in your heart at all, please don't ignore it; please give. Even if you can't give – please pray. Prayer is powerful and it moves mountains. We all need to believe that God can make Eva feel well again, one way or another. It doesn't matter how much you have to offer – I believe together as a body of Christ, God will bless whatever amount comes in, and multiply it in ways that are so unexpected.

She doesn't know that I'm reaching out to you. She knows I want to give because I so relate to her story. Unfortunately, I can’t give the rest; though I wish I could. Instead, my prayer is that God would provide to the penny the amount she needs, and that she will be able to book a surgery very soon! I pray that she will be blessed by your prayers and your gifts. Even though she doesn't know you personally, I hope she will feel the compassion and love you have for her, in her heart, all the way in Kenya.

Please only give cash donations, if you would like to write a cheque, you can make it payable to “Samantha Pasielski” and I will be sending any gifts received for Eva through Western Union. Please note there will be no tax receipts available for this gift, however, all donations will be handled in a professional way. To follow our progression towards the $750 goal for Eva, feel free to go to www.samanthainthailand.blogspot.com for the most up to date information. See the sidebar to the right.

Eva, Evelyn, Samantha 2013

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read this letter. Thank you for keeping Eva’s story on your heart and praying for her. May your prayers make an eternal difference in Eva’s life and the lives she connects with in her community. Thanks for coming alongside a sister in need. Your prayers and gifts are very much appreciated; we are extremely grateful for your part in Eva’s journey.

27 lbs down...

I'm not a writer... Or really even a blogger... unless I'm in a foreign country on an amazing journey that God blesses me with. But even though I haven't blogged in years, I wanted to lay my heart out on the table this week and share with you what I've been going through in the last few months...

For about 3 years I have wondered about allergies or intolerances to certain foods but I have not been super serious about listening to my body and looking into what it's telling me. When I came back from my first missions trip to Thailand in 2010, I felt like I had developed an intolerance to lactose or dairy. At first, I tried to avoid it but eventually I was always feeling crappy and dairy tasted delicious and avoiding it didn't make me feel better, so I would just eat it anyways.

I decided to get serious about my health in June 2013 when I was in daily pain after eating, which made me want to “rip out my intestines”. I felt like wishing I could remove my intestines was probably not a healthy thing so I made a naturopath appointment. Apparently, the naturopath I went to was very popular (because he's so good) because I had to wait 3 months to get into see him. So I did what I could while I waited for my September 10th appointment (that I booked in June) and made an educated guess... I guessed that I should stay away from dairy and gluten. Seemed like the most obvious allergies that people have nowadays. After noticing a pattern of intestine pain, I later added eggs to this list. It helped a bit to stay away from these things but not fully.

Prior to my first naturopath appointment, my hairdresser had noticed me loosing excess amounts of hair and wanted me to get checked out for a thyroid problem. I found out that I do not have a thyroid problem but was diagnosed with an iron deficiency which explains why I'm tired all the time. I started taking iron supplements and eating more foods that naturally contain iron.

Finally, the awaited day had come, September 10th, 2013. I went to see the naturopath and he looked at my blood under a microscope. Within about 5 mins of Dr. Ewing meeting me for the first time he proceeded to tell me that I was “really sick,” and I agreed! But I thought it was crazy that he could tell from just looking at my blood. He then continued to tell me a number of things that explained why I was feeling so sick.  I discovered I had 3 parasites, 2 of which were dirty water parasites and one of which was a malaria parasite (lucky me). He also told me I have inflamed intestines (lightbulb moment– that's why I wanted to rip my intestines out!) something called “leaky gut syndrome,” my liver is not working properly (the parasites live there), I am allergic to wheat and that I can’t eat sugar anymore.

Wait, wait, wait... let's back up. I can't eat SUGAR anymore? Like ANY sugar? Like even some fruits have too much sugar? Pasta has sugar? Whole wheat bread has sugar? Potatoes? Dried Fruit? Cooked Carrots? White Rice? SERIOUSLY?!?!?! ....Oy.

Yes all those things have sugar and the naturopath put it this way: Sugar = Pain. Eat sugar, feel pain. Don't eat sugar, don't feel pain. Plain and simple. But for a self-proclaimed sugar-aholic giving up "the sweet stuff" is not that easy of a feat.

However, I hated feeling the pain of wanting to rip my intestines out of my body so I thought, I'm going to do this! What could it hurt? (anymore than it already did) But let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. When I stopped eating things with sugar, I literally had sugar-WITHDRAWAL. I felt like I was detoxing from the sugar and even though I realize it is not alcohol or drug withdrawal…it felt BRUTAL! With that and my new found iron deficiency, it hit me hard and I found myself going through the motions just to try to make it through each day. The only way I can describe how I felt was “un-functionally exhausted”. There were many many days I would force myself to go to work but I wasn't fully present. I was thankful to have routine work and not many system changes during my sugar withdrawal period because I honestly couldn't handle trying to grasp a change at that point. I was so thankful to have a co-worker who understood what I was going through, just because I told her. She knew that sometimes I just couldn't answer the phone; that required too much thinking. Or sometimes I just couldn’t talk, I needed to focus on my work because I was barely functioning. Sometimes I needed to talk and complain that I was exhausted or in a certain kind of pain. She could see the change in me and understood if sometimes I just couldn't function at 100% or even 10%. She understands that I'm constantly sick and it's not a sickness people see which I’ve realized is the hardest type of sickness to help people understand. It's not a cold or a flu that will go away in a couple days or a week. It's a sickness in my organs and insides that goes to the core of my being and affects everything, both mentally and physically. And I've realized, I couldn’t make people understand that I couldn't just call in sick for work whenever I feel sick because if I came in to work only when I was feeling healthy; I would have missed months of work instead of a few days. I'm also thankful that there is someone at work who has similar eating requirements and we are both going through this at the same time. It helps make me feel less horrible that I am being a “picky eater” at things like work lunches when I have to request certain foods like brown rice instead of white. I just want to be normal but at least we can be abnormal (eating-wise) together.

Separate from my health issues, I had also been struggling with my weight on both an emotional and physical level (sometimes using food for comfort or stress-relief). I desired to be in shape and loose a few pounds, but I was never motivated to follow through with the hard work that entails. However, learning to feed my body properly was the start to being able to get healthy in more ways than one. In trying to look at the positive side of all of these health issues, I lost a bunch of weight easily, because I literally couldn't have any "crappy food" anymore. It wasn't a choice. Well it was, a choice to be in pain or free of pain and I was hoping that my choices would allow me to be free of pain.

On top of this I had previously injured my knee (sprained turned into tendinitis) and had been working on healing it for the past 6 months, which meant working out at the gym regularly to make sure I completed the daily strengthening exercises for my knee that my chiropractor had given me. I was motivated to go to the gym because I knew I wouldn't have the motivation to do my strengthening exercises at home and I needed to do those to dance (so my knee would be strong enough to swing dance again)! It was definitely hard that these things happened at the same time because I felt like I was stripped away of everything I held so dear: sugar, aka. comfort food and dancing. Honestly take away anything else, dairy, gluten, wheat, eggs, fine fine fine – but don't take away my sugar! And my whole being, heart and soul, misses dancing. However, there is something valuable in the fact that they happened together because it motivated me to go to the gym to get my knee better and along with the changes in my eating habits put me on track to living a healthier life altogether.

My sickness combined with not being able to eat very many types of food, (which aren't healthy for me anyways) working out and strengthening my injured knee... is taking me on the road to becoming healthy and healed (its a long road) the bonus is, I am loosing weight. I just want to be clear this was not the ultimate intent but rather just a product of trying to heal my intestines and feel healthy again and I knew being at a healthy weight would give my body a better chance to fully heal. So, when I discovered this bonus, I set goals for myself in my weight-loss journey. And my first goal was, lose 20 lbs, and when I did I would give myself a non-food reward of a photoshoot. So I reached my goal and by the time I was actually able to book my photoshoot on November 11th, 2013, I had lost a total of 27 lbs (since June!)

Weight is a hard issue to discuss and alot of times people unmeaningly impose their own weight insecurities on others. I'm proud of where I'm at in my journey but I know even in myself something so small can be hurtful even if  it is said unintentionally. Weight is such a sensitive subject and everyone is at a different stage of their weight journey whether they are consciously aware of it or not. I urge you to be cautious when you talk with anyone about weight in any capacity. Though this is something I still struggle with; I promise to try to be open rather than defensive when talking about this subject because I am by no means an expert in this, but rather a student learning and gaining insight in the process of the journey of my life.

Please don’t go to a foreign country in hopes of getting bitten by a mosquito carrying a parasite so you can take the same weight-loss journey I have. I promise you it's not a fun journey. Rather, go because God has called you to go and make an impact in that country or culture. Or go because you want to experience a different culture and the beautiful people that live in it.

Now that all of that's been said, when you ask me how I am and I respond with “good question” or "okay". Just know that being “okay” is actually a huge feat for me. In truth, it's such a day by day even moment by moment process that I am unable to accurately evaluate how I am feeling fast enough to come up with a genuine response right away. And if I respond with a “good” that's either a good sign or I just don't have time to go into details about how I actually am. Please don't ask me if I'm feeling better just yet (that's like the worst question right now) because I won't be feeling better for a while. I know this is a long journey and I'm prepared for that.

Truthfully, if you asked me a few weeks ago I would have said, I'm starting to begin to feel normal again and I almost had a grasp on what I can and can't eat. I wasn't there yet but I could feel my body getting better, my energy rising and I was feeling closer to normal than I have in awhile. Unfortunately, that changed again this past week and I'm not sure why. But I started getting dizzy spells from time to time especially when I stood up after sitting. A week ago Thursday, I also felt “unfunctionally exhausted” again (which I have pinned as my key way of describing how I feel) and I literally did not know how I was going to make it through Friday to rest on Saturday. So thankful for the prayer and support of my small group, I know that's the only reason I was functioning normally on Friday. Prayer is an amazing thing.

So as I continue this journey, know that, I don't know the answers or how long this will take. But please give me grace and support as I face this... I'm doing the best I can to appear normal and be there for people too. I have so many desires in my heart that I can't fully follow through with right now, like coffee dates with friends to catch up on life or full out fast song swing dancing (like to Footloose... I die everytime I'm sitting through that song! So if Footloose is playing and you see me sitting by myself, come over and rock out with me to that song; it would mean the world to me) and many more things that I wish I could do. But I do know I need to be responsible because I'm the only one who understands my body and when I need to rest, I know I need to listen to what my body is telling me, which sometimes I'm prone to ignore.

Today as you read this I have reached my second goal of 30 lbs lost. My mom and I will be going to Victoria to visit my adopted Oma as my non-food reward for reaching this goal, and I'm so looking forward to doing that in the New Year!

Life overseas...

Just wanted to give you a glimpse into my six month DRIME Thailand Base Plant and my life overseas...

Here's a short video...

Thankful and Blessed for my experience!

A big welcome at the Vancouver Airport - from DRIME and Family <3

It’s been two weeks since I returned home from Thailand. I can’t believe that it’s going by so fast and 7 more days until Christmas! I just wanted to say a HUGE THANK YOU for all of your support along the way. I appreciate it so much! This experience, this Base Plant has been a life-changing experience. I have grown so much over the past 6 months and though it was hard to grow and be refined by the fire and purified (and I’m by no means “there” yet)… overall it was an incredible and fulfilling experience that I wouldn’t change for the world. I learned more about myself, I was challenged and stretched, I experienced a flood (which I feel so blessed to have gotten to experience and just really have a heart for what my friends are going through and still serving with their whole hearts), I learned more about God and how He provides and how no matter what your circumstances you need to give thanks because God knows what He is doing... He has you there for a reason! Khorb Khun Pra Jaow! (Praise the Lord/Thank you God) I learned a lot of things and I am still processing more of them... One thing I know is that I miss my Thai family and treasure them with all my heart! I'm so thankful and blessed to have gotten to know this culture and this family of brothers and sisters that live across the world from me now. They are wonderfully amazing and inspiring and oh so special to me! 

This is a picture of a mirror to represent that YOU are important to me... Who do you see in this mirror? THAT is who I am thankful for! Khorb Khun Pra Jaow Sumrop Khun!

Thank you for being part of my journey… supporting me, encouraging me along the way, following my blog, my updates, my pictures… ANYTHING you have done along the way has meant the world to me and I just want YOU to know what a vital part of this ministry and this experience YOU are. Thank you for letting God use you! When you listen to what He’s calling you to do…He WILL use you in BIG ways! Khorb khun mak ka!

Just an update on the flood situation: The waters have gone down and the electricity is back. Praise be to the Lord! They can drive with big trucks through the Mueng Ake area. Now the staff are focusing on cleaning, restoration, and planning the Christmas Evangelism Service on Dec 25^th. Please keep them in your prayers as this will be a big job for them. It amazes me that we were JUST there and saw SO MUCH water with our OWN eyes and now it’s gone! God is so good!

Please also continue to pray for our leaders as they have the job of recruiting and starting up the team still once the cleaning/restoration is done and they can go back to regular ministry.

Khorb Khun Mak ka for your prayers!

My Fabulous Leaders (who I miss dearly) in the shirts we made for them! 

They say "iMake.... Jesus Inescapable. DRIME Thailand"

From left to right: Kong, Janna, Por, Samantha, Kung

Leaving on a jet plane...

Super super quick update!

We are packing today! We are leaving for the airport tomorrow night! I can't believe that it has been six months already. I have grown so attached to this country and the people here. I will definitely miss them and I will update you more when I am home because right now I have lots of packing to do!

See you soon!