We made it home Feb 15th, to South Dakota safe and sound, sleepy but so thrilled at the success of the week in St Croix. Its hard to believe we were welcomed by an 80 degree difference in weather! But we miss St Croix! We miss Brian, Jacki, Dexter and Emery Crandall and all our other friends there! 🙁 We love you guys!!!!
(The only thing i don’t miss is the mosquitoes, hard to believe it but one of the little boogers came home with us as I have been bitten 5 more times since we got here. )
Well I’ll back up a bit to share about the last few days in St Croix:
I (Bethany) was able to go on a dinner date with all the ladies of the YWAM Missons base the end of Day 4, it was really delicious- we had spinach and artichoke chicken over rice- I’ve got to learn how to make it for Jeff. The company and conversation was lovely- so sweet of them to invite me to their birthday celebration! We hung out afterward for desserts at one of the lady’s apartment.
Day 5 of lectures went well. We started it off with a final prayer meeting with them- and we invited the leaders to sing and play (they did amazing) and then the girl students were really bold and sang as Jeff played. I was so proud of how good they did and how they all just stepped out there. I taught on what Biblical Meditation was, then showed them a way to do it. Then Jeff taught on having a vision for Revival, and Fasting. He told them stories about biblical revivals as well as past revivals (Azusa Street, Welsh Revival, 1st and 2nd Great Awakenings, Business Men’s prayer meeting that turned into a revival…) They were stirred to believe in faith for God to move in our country. We went over on our time limit and couldn’t finish quick enough, so the leaders let us take an hour of their “small group time” in the afternoon to finish up with questions on fasting and then spend some time to pray for the boy students. The students were so hungry for the Lord and we were able to help them stoke some of the fire with prayer and worship! It was worth all our time and energy just to see 5 young adults come into a deeper understanding of truth.
Jeff says the favorite thing he taught was Day 1- Revelation of Intercession. It wasn’t just convincing them on prayer but he really drove home the power of intercession and the reason why believers pray. Genesis 1 God spoke, that’s intercession! My favorite topic that I taught on was David’s Tabernacle and Psalm 27:4, how David was driven to find a dwelling place for the Lord on the earth, and intimacy and desire urged him to do it. He then set up the Ark of the Covenant, NOT BEHIND A VEIL (like in the day of Moses) but set singers and musicians around the raw presence of God to sing and to play, night and day. Amazing!
Overall the lecture topics and the way we arranged the teachings was the best so far (from the previous two years). We talked with the directors, and they (after they asked us to move there) said they will keep asking us back, so we are going to go next year Lord willing!
Here’s the sad news: we didn’t get to go to the beach at all. We were sad but it just didn’t work out with the lecture times and Moravia’s afternoon nap times. We had a ton of pool time but never got to let Moravia feel the sand between her toes. Maybe next year:)
Friday night we went out to ice cream with the directors of the Missions Base again. They are hilarious and so much fun! On Saturday we slept in a little bit then swam early to get our last little bit of Vitamin D in! We had lunch with some friends (ate at Chicken Shack, our favorite place on the island!) and then packed up before we headed to the airport around 2:30pm. The cool thing was we had the same flight as some other visitors who were visiting the base when we were, so we connected with them and got to talk with them in the airport. We flew to Miami, FL then arrived in Dallas TX around midnight. We booked a hotel earlier because we had a 10 hour layover that night in Dallas, it was called “the Element”, and it was the COOLEST hotel we have ever stayed in!!!!!!!! On Valentine’s Day too how fitting. So modern and nice, and the continental breakfast was the bomb! We only wished we could have stayed longer to enjoy it more. Jeff might post the video he took of the breakfast bar. The last flight home was uneventful, everyone of us slept. We arrived into South Dakota at noon, to a brisk 4 degrees.
We want to thank you for your prayers for this trip, we had a blast and loved ministering on the island of St Croix. We hope you enjoy the pictures!
