Week 14!

This past week was our first week of Speaking Blitz! It was an incredible week. Definitely had it's ups and downs. We started on Sunday and traveled through Friday. Today (Sat.) was our first day off. Some days are longer than others. We have traveled to schools for chapel services and we have spoken at youth groups on Wednesday night or Sunday school. It's been so cool to go through this time with my team. We have done a lot of traveling. I hope to, by the end, have a map of all the places we have visited.
I've had some great conversations with some genuinely interested girls. I'm excited to catch up with them and see where they are at. We have been so busy though I haven't had time to connect.
Today was great to sleep in and get lots done. Super productive day.
This last week wasn't all just travel and speaking. We had some fun times as well.

We visited Como Zoo. I haven't been to a zoo in years. It was so fun but it was a little sad too. The animals looked really depressed. Not all, but most. Still neat to see the different animals.

We also, during a spur of the moment drive by, we had the opportunity to visit a nearby Cambodian Buddhist Temple. So neat and I felt transported back in time to Nepal. I only got two pictures. Not sure why so few. But the Guardian lion I photographed was the same kind of guardian lion I saw in Nepal.






The picture on the left is from the Cambodian Temple in MN. The one on the right is from Nepal. So similar! Kind of.





This week we also talked more about our fast approaching trip to Honduras! Got some more information and realized there are a few more things I will need to have with me, especially depending on what team I am put on. We will be splitting up into two teams for one week (the middle chunk of the trip). One team will be staying at The Farm. The Farm is a place in the middle of beautiful country. It's a missions base. They are always taking in teams and housing them. They have bunk beds and such. I believe we will be working with Mercy International?
The second team will be heading up into the mountains. It's a steep 3-4 hour hike. They will primarily be focusing on construction, a vbs and small groups. This will be the more physically challenging. Maybe.
I should find out at the end of this next week which of the two teams I will be on. The two will come  back together and head out to the coast of Honduras and spend several days there for debriefing. (and we will have 4-5 days at the beginning together). I'm getting really excited for Honduras! And the weather may be a whole lot nicer than I firs thought! Then again, I've only ever traveled down south during the summer, never this early in the year :)

Thank you so much for your prayers!

For a few days I had an impromptu roommate. Chelsea, one of the girls in my small group, was banished from her house until the Flu subsided from several members of her host family. We were more than happy to let her stay with us! We had a ton of fun! We made several videos which I will post to the bottom. We just were silly and enjoyed each other's company. We went shopping and got ice cream, even in the freezing temperatures!

How could I forget????

So I realized today as I was going through and deleting pictures off of my computer that I had totally forgotten to share with you (and Facebook too!) my pics from Dec. 12, 2014 when we went to Operation Christmas Child. 

My job was the first in the line. I took the shoe boxes out of this big box and opened them and checked for money. A lot of times, donors put their checks for shipping and extra donations in the boxes. And any extra money is not allowed to be sent overseas. It could prove to be a danger for the child if they are seen with cash.

The boxes then move down the line where they are checked. If scanty, we add more filling things (small toys and such). Then it is taped up and packed up!

I loved seeing all the packed boxes and how awesomely people packed them! It definitely changes my perspective on how I pack future boxes. Seeing the fully packed plastic boxes compared to the scantily packed paper boxes. 

Seeing the difference, and not to cast judgement or anything, but it broke my heart. And I know, some boxes are packed by kids. But adults need to recheck the boxes and add things. These kids in other countries deserve more than some of those boxes I saw. 

It was just a real good reality/heart check. 

Like this box down here, "Put your hand on mine and together we can pray to Jesus!" 

That was just too cute! 

If you are going to fill a box, do it right. It's so much more fulfilling! 

Week 13!

 Hey all! Hope you all are well and staying warm this beginning of January! This week back at Kairos has been AMAZING. It is so amazing that I have to split it up into two posts. The life changing post will come after this boring weekly update ;) haha

I flew in on Saturday the 3rd. My flight was good. No bags were lost and I wasn't lost either. That is always a plus. And I sat next to a cute guy so I'm not complaining. haha... I spent the rest of the day unpacking and reading "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" by Jim Cymbala. Talk about impact full! That book has ignited my prayer life tremendously. I highly encourage you to read it, or re-read it!
On Sunday we went shopping. I finally bought my water bottles I would need for my mission trips. Nalgenes are #1 !!! I'm so excited to finally own nalgenes again and I added cool stickers to them because that is what you do when you work with Reign Ministries. 

Then my good friend who I went to Nepal with in 2011, Stephanie drove up an hour and a half to visit with me for a couple hours. I haven't seen her since 2011 and actually, she is the first person from my Nepal team that I have seen face to face (outside of skype). It was so good to catch up with her! We promised not to wait another 3 1/2 years. 
 
 We have had some beautiful sunrises lately. I finally captured the beautiful colors!




Weather has been crazy last couple days. Thursday we got to leave school early because it had snowed all day (not a whole bunch though) and the roads were bad. We pretty much drove 20 mph all the way to my house. Took about an hour. 
During small group on Thursday, Chelsea made me a playdoh baby. I named him Enrique, my adopted Guatemalan baby. 
Good times in small group. (We like to do things while we have deep discussions. So we color or play with playdoh.)

 We also helped out the mailing department and stuffed letters!

And I'm down to only needing $414 left for Kairos!
WOOHOO!
God is soo good!

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers!
On Sunday we begin speaking blitz. Please keep my entire team in your prayers as we travel around Minnesota for a couple weeks and that God would open doors for us to speak into the lives of students and young adults. That they would respond to the tugging of God in their hearts. That our testimonies would impact their lives and we would have the opportunity to speak one on one with those who have questions. That these students would have courage to speak with us and ask us questions.

We leave for Honduras Feb. 4th!

Honduras Packing List!

Hey! We fly out for Honduras February 4th! I'm getting so excited!

But it's coming up quick! I need to start working on packing which means assessing what I have and what I will need. Thankfully, my list of what I will need to get is short.
I will need your help to get these things. 

Work gloves (I should have some somewhere but I can't recall where they would be if I did bring them so it is possible I may need to get another pair, or see if my mom can find them and send them. haha)
Water proof watch (I had bought one during the summer, used it a few times and it died so I'll need to get another one.)
Pancho/rain jacket
Work/Hiking boots
Frisbee (sounds trivial but it works great for holding our paper plates or even being an easy plate/bowl. It's a neat Royal Servant hack haha)

Thankfully, I have everything else! I might have to buy some longer socks depending on what the boots are like. The boots and rain jacket are my biggest needs. I am not sure what the costs will be like. It just depends on where I go. Hopefully I can go with someone to an REI sale and get a good pair for a discounted price. But I'll need some financial help with them and the rest of what I will need. These will also come in handy in future trips so it will be more than a one-trip use!

If you can donate something, even a little, it will help!
Thank you!

Here is my address (I'll need the $ sent to me directly since it is for supplies, it is outside the actual cost for Kairos)

Beka Kopenski
245 Walker Ave. N.
Wayzata, MN 55391

I will need any gifts by January 24th, that week before we leave with be prep for Honduras (so packing will officially begin then). 

Christmas and New Years!

I was able to fly home for two weeks. It was a great time spent with family and friends. I'm so thankful and blessed to have been able to go home. Here is my Christmas break update!!!

Love our Christmas tree every year. It's always so pretty!

Sam and Dad reading in Luke and Isaiah. We went to Christmas morning service at church. 

James loves his new legos! He is so cute playing with his toys! His playing as grown up. He even makes the little people talk! lol

I got a new camera! Super excited! My last one (the grey one) was getting very close to death. The purple one will serve me well on mission trips!

I basically took over and made Christmas dinner. Felt good to cook for my family again!

James got sick with the flu while I was home. Poor baby. He looked so miserable and fell asleep really early one night.

Found some Fair trade organic chocolate on sale for only $2 at Kroger. Made my heart so happy. (Fair trade was one of the topics during our week on ethics). And I bought a Christmas Pickle. It's an old German tradition. You put the pickle ornament on the tree Christmas Eve and in the morning, the kids search the tree and the first to find it gets a special present. I'm excited to use this as my Christmas tradition in the future!

This is my new total! (Actual it is down to $424 but I'm being lazy and not taking a new picture and replacing this.) I'm being lazy because I've been working on the last three blog posts for like 3 weeks now. So ready to be caught up. haha!

James gave me the best New Years Kiss <3 Love that kiddo! (funny story, one of my classmates saw this picture and didn't realize at first that it was James and was shocked that I was posting a picture of me kissing my boyfriend. (He thought it was weird because I wouldn't be one to post something like that in the first place.) I laughed because I'd have to have a boyfriend first...HAHAHA...The memories made at Kairos = priceless. 

Hope you all had a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year. And I do apologize for this being so late. 
But at least I got it done in time for what lies ahead!

Oh and I returned home to MN and so far, it's been the coldest so far this winter. I mean, it's below zero. Tomorrow is supposed to be wind chill -35 below. *GULP* 

Week 10! (With a snippet from 9!)

Before I dive into week 10, our last week before break, I want to talk to you about last week. We took a spiritual gifts test and finally got to see our results last week. I was super excited about it. We had a lot of fun seeing where everybody was in their giftings compared to the rest of the class. It was funny, I'm nearly opposite of my small group girls. We only came close a couple times. lol
Anyway, I thought I'd share my results with you! It was cool to learn more about myself. There are 7 gifts.
1. Serve is 92%
2.Give is 75%
3.Mercy is 55%.
Those were my top three. The others are (Exhort 50%, Admin 44%, Perceive 39% and Teach is 7%.

In a nut shell, my primary gifts are serving and giving. Mercy, which is like showing compassion, is my top "observed" gift. The top two are my significant gifts. My gifts of perceiving and teaching are my insignificant gifts. They are there just used less than the others. I hope this made a little sense. It was really cool to identify these gifts in my life and how I use them.
This test also gave a list of "Local church ministries matched to your gift-aptitude" and "Secular vocations matched to your gift-aptitude". These were very amusing to read. BUT my church ministry top two make total sense that they are there. My top two church ministries that match my gifts are working in the Nursery. Which if you know anything about me, it is that I LOVE working with babies. And my third top one was a small group leader which I love but haven't had much experience. I am so looking forward to this summer and having an opportunity to lead my own small group!
Oh yeah, and my secular vocations top three were Florist, Accounting and Accounts Payable Clerk....amusing to say the least. haha.

For week 10, we spent our class time learning about ethics. It was a hard week. Our world views expanded drastically. We spent time talking about fair trade, sex trafficking, taking care of the environment. It was a painfully needed week.
Internship was fun. We replaced the wrappers on water bottles with "Melted Snow" labels for the church's Frozen themed Sunday. I was out of town so I missed the frozen service! Boo! lol

And actually, going back to the Nursery work from my gifts. As soon as I get my internship dates, I will be put on the schedule to work more often in the Nursery. Lately, I just go in and see if they need help. I'm super excited to spend more time there. I love the babies. Just fills my heart with so much joy when I spend a morning with them.

At the end of the week we had a Christmas party for our class. It was a blast. My host family graciously let us use the room above the garage for the party. We decorated it with lights and wrapping paper. Looked fantastic! We played White Elephant and catered Olive Garden soups, salad and bread sticks! Yum! Not to mention the fantastic layout of goodies we had! And lots leftover! I packed a lot and brought it home with me to GA! haha! We had a lot of fun, playing question games and Uno.
I only got two pics from the night. My selfie was hilarious because the process of taking a selfie with a tablet and trying to get all the Christmas pins was frustrating. But my sweater was amazing! I got it from Goodwill for $4 and it's my favorite thing ever. P

robably a bit out of style but so comfy and warm! I'm happy and I don't care. haha
And in the other pic, notice the blankets wrapped around Casey and the two huddling in the corner for warmth. It was a little cold upstairs. haha

It was a pretty busy week. Non stop action ALL week.

Weeks 8 and 9!

December 1-12
It's been a crazy busy two weeks. So I'm sorry for missing last week's updates! So  I will combine last week and this week together.
Last week in class we had a video series on Passions by Floyd McClung. Wow, they were amazing! I've never been taught on the importance of passions before. Floyd said, "Passions determine decisions and risks. They effect goals. They determine how you will respond to problems and conflicts. They effect priorities and how we use resources we have. They determine how you relate to others." It was a convicting week because for the first time ever I had to ask myself, "What are my passions?" and though I am still figuring them out, I have begun to realize some of my core passions. It's been exciting.
So many people out there sit at home and wait for signs from God to be called. I know my mentality has been guilty of this constantly. Sometimes I catch myself just wanting to sit down and wait silently for a sign from God when what I have come to learn is that God wants us to just go! God will nudge us in the right direction but He wants us to be at least moving.
People sit around and say, "Oh, I'll go somewhere if God calls me." I've heard that and probably said that so many times. What an ignorant thing to say! Because, in truth, if you are a Christ follower, YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED. We were all called to fulfill the great commission it just looks different for each of us. You don't have to be a missionary to the jungles of Asian countries to do this. We can fulfill this in our country. In our states. In our neighborhoods, workplaces and schools.
I know my thoughts are jumping around a bit. It's hard to look at all my notes (Floyd said some amazing things) and I'm horrible at passing on what I have learned. I wish this could give you all a glimpse of the powerful teachings I have been receiving here at Kairos.
I don't want to be a normal Christian. I want to be a dangerous Christian. I don't want to be idle (unless God has called me to a time of rest). I want my heart to be on fire for God. I want passions aligned with the perfect heart of God.
Before I move on to the more fun aspects of my last couple weeks, let me leave you with this quote from Floyd. "The Devil will be happy to confirm your disobedience if you hard your heart to the direction God would have you go." Always be wary, friends!

Tuesday morning, before class, we have worship times. A few weeks ago, Emma and I had the opportunity to lead worship. We wanted our focus to be on corporate prayer. We have 3 mason jars set up in class now. Two are for prayers and one is for answered prayers. We had everyone write their prayer requests on one side of a Popsicle stick and place them in the jars. Then, throughout the week the goal is to have people pick a handful up, take them home and pray over them. Then, the next day or whenever ready, replace the sticks with different sticks.

At my internship at Woodridge has been good. On a wednesday nights we have been making tie blankets for all the interns. It got to be my turn and this is my blanket! I love it! There is a personal reasoning behind the circles but I can't explain it very well. haha


I'm going to end this post short, mostly because it is super long and what I want to talk about next will be probably long to. SO, for now, this is it! I will try and blog more later!!

Love and appreciate you all!




Love this! I need to print this out :)

PRAYER OF A MARTYRED ZIMBABWE PASTOR

WRITTEN BY JOSEPH

I’m part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made- I’m a disciple of his. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I’m finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean in his presence, walk by patience, am uplifted by prayer, and I labor with power. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions are few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the enemy, pander at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won’t give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till he comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till he stops me. And, when he comes for his own, he will have no problem recognizing me. . . my banner will be clear!