Hi Everyone!  I am so excited to leave for Thailand tomorrow!!!!  My team and I leave at 8pm tomorrow night and I can't wait.

I'm am super excited to announce that everyone in my school is paid off for outreach!!!! We had an amazing time as a school, the night before Thanksgiving, for Night of Giving. We took time to listen to God and bless each other, with gifts such as money for outreach, clothing, candy and such.  I was really blessed by a couple of my friends and it really touched me how they were willing to sacrifice and show me love by listening to God.  

Thanksgiving Day was so special. My family surprised me by coming to visit for a few hours.  I was so happy to see them! We had a huge Thanksgiving Dinner as a community and everyone dressed up for it. It was a lot of fun, just hanging out as a giant family and eating delicious food! We watched Elf afterwards because most of the base will be on outreach for Christmas.

Packing up our house has been an adventure in its self!  It's much better now, but this week the house has looked as if a tornado has gone through.  We put everything we aren't taking on outreach in storage and everyone is packing and unpacking all over the place.

Everyone is super excited to go and we are all enjoying our last evening together.

Here is just a glimpse of what YWAM LA looks like, living as a community.  We have a blast growing together and learning the love of God.
http://vimeo.com/113308226

~Jordyne

My Heart is Full!

 I'm so thankful for all the support and prayers I have received during my time here at YWAM LA.  I have been so blessed and have received enough financial support for both the lecture phase and outreach! 

There are a few members of my team who are still in need of financial support.  If you had planned on partnering with me, and would like to support a member of my team, I know it would be a blessing to them.   Our goal is to have everyone's outreach funds in by this Friday, November 21.  

Keila Pereira and Ruby Armour (online giving or check with a note attached) are my two team members who are working on reaching full support this week.  Please pray with me they will reach it. 

It is hard to believe we leave in 18 days!!!!!!!!  We are flying to Thailand on December 4th and I'll be traveling to Cambodia around January 20th.   We will fly home on February 27 and I will be returning to my home on March 8th.  

My outreach team is hopes to make a Facebook page so we can continue to give our friends and family updates.  We will only have wifi once a week so someone on my team will update it when we can.  I'll get more information as we decided how we will do it! 

This weekend I had the opportunity to be "homeless" for a night.  There is a homeless shelter on Skid Row called Midnight Mission and they put on an event called Night Without Shelter.  Most of my school went and we were outside next to a train track.  We brought sleeping bags and wore our warmest clothes; but it was freezing!  I can't even imagine what it's like to sleep outside without the comfort we had.  They fed us both dinner and breakfast because Midnight Mission feeds people three meals a day all year round.  We all tried to sleep on the concrete on top of cardboard boxes and it was hard to sleep. I didn't sleep at all.  Most of us are still recovering from the cold and are trying to get over being sick.  Each of us got an "identity of someone who is homeless" to show the different people who have become homeless. 

I was a 31 yr. old female that had schizophrenia and a mental illness because of chronic substance abuse. Many of the "people" had a mental illness or had come out of the foster care system with nowhere to go.  Some were war veterans with college degrees and were unable to get a job. It was sad to see that many of the people were children and many of these people need help.  It was an eye-opening experience and I can't imagine the challenges many people without a home face daily.  We only got a glimpse to what their living conditions are.  We had warm clothes, food, water and port-a-potty’s.  We never had to think about if or when we were going to get food.  We had each other and most people are out all alone. I'm so glad that I had this chance and I would do it again to continue to raise awareness.  

If you live in the So Cal area and missed this news story or aren't local, you can click the link below to see the news story and some of my team interviewed.  Midnight Mission was featured on Saturday night on both Fox 11 Los Angeles and ABC 7 Los Angeles.  The link for Fox11 is below.

http://www.ktvu.com/story/27398531/young-people-live-homeless-for-a-night-to-raise-awareness--

Our school is also working on a huge project!!  It has kept me busy this past month.

It's called the Justice 180 project and we are using it to bring awareness to people about human trafficking.  We are setting up event tents and each section will be set up to look like four trafficking situations.  We will show people a LA strip club, a child brothel in Cambodia, a girl working on the streets of LA, and a bar in Thailand.  They are set up very realistic and are hard to see because they look so real.  We will have people walk through each traffick situation and share with them statistics and information about trafficking both locally and globally. While that is happening, we will transform each scene and do a "180".  We will make each scene into a radical change and have the same actors to show a positive outcome. I have been working on the strip club and it will be turned into a bakery.  The girl working on the streets will be working in coffee shop after the change.  Thai bar will be turned into a beauty salon and jewelry store and the child brothel will be turned in to a princess themed room in a restoration home. We have been working on this project for three weeks now and it has been so amazing to see it come from an idea into a completed project!!!!

If anyone is interested in coming, it’s on Thursday, November 20 at
Chapel of the Hills
11120 Oro Vista Ave, Sunland-Tujunga, CA 91040
 It's at 7:00 pm. I'm unsure of how long it will go on for but I'd imagine it would be done before 9:30pm.

As we go into next week and Thanksgiving, I want you to know I am deeply thankful for your love and support this year.  Thank you for praying, please continue to pray!

 

~Jordyne 

It has been a month since I have started a DTS (Discipleship Training School) with YWAM (Youth With A Mission).
 I am so appreciative of all the support received in the past couple months as I prepared to leave and through my first month at school.

I'm so excited to share with you, my team and I will be serving in Thailand and Cambodia on outreach. I will be traveling to Thailand first (tentative leave date is December 6, 2014) and then we will be traveling to Cambodia, sometime later, by bus.  I'm unsure of how long I will be in each country but it is thought that we will be in Cambodia for a longer period of time.  I will return at the end of February and then we will have a time of debriefing with the other teams from my school. While on outreach, I will be working with YWAM bases in the areas we will be in.  I will be serving with my team reaching out to young girls.  We will be educating girls about trafficking, reaching out to girls who are being trafficked and working with girls who have been rescued from trafficking.

We will also be doing prayer walks on the streets where the girls work.  

So many of you have committed to pray for me while I am away,  I have really felt impacted by your prayers. Last week our team had the opportunity to go out on the streets of LA on Friday night and I was a little nervous.  As we went out, I felt complete peace.  I got to briefly talk with two girls, give them a gift bag and share with them they are loved and prayed for.  The gift bags are filled with nail polish, nail files, lip gloss, candy, and a handwritten note telling them that they are loved. 

There weren't very many girls out and our team was able to pass out four bags.  All of our teams are so thankful for your partnership in prayer. No one was scared or nervous and I believe it was because of everyone's prayers.  Thank you!

I am so thankful for the financial support I have received for my lecture phase.  Through much support, the balance for the lecture phase was met.

Team Thaibodia Ten!
(Top) Hannah, Naomi (Leader), Keila, Jess,
Jordyne, Ruby, Laura (Leader)
(Bottom) Chelsea, Kendel, Claire

The cost of the outreach phase is looking to be around $4,100 per person and in the next week, we need to have our first $1,200 raised to book our plane tickets. 

I would love prayer for myself and my team as we prepare to leave, and that each of us will meet the balance needed.

If you would like to partner with me during the outreach phase, please see information below on how to send in your support through financial partnership. 

Again, I covet all the love and prayers.  They are carrying me through everyday.

  

~Jordyne

My address is:

Jordyne Castaneda (JDTS)

11141 Osborne St.

Lake View Terrace, CA 91342

Checks made out to YWAM LA. 

Please do not put my name on the check.  Please indicate on a piece of paper included with the check that you would like  to allocate the funds to my account.

I have almost  been here for month!!!! That's so crazy!

I did my first full day of fasting and prayer on Thursday.  It was an amazing time, spending it as a community, praying about future events that are being planned for the upcoming summer.  They are hoping to reintroduce a High School program for next summer called Mission Adventures.  It sounds like an amazing program and hopefully they will be able to do it!

Friday was our first outreach.  We had classes in the mornings but our afternoon was spent resting as we were going out in the late evening or early morning.  I was on a team of 4 other girls and we were they prayer team. We had 4 students going out on the streets while we prayed.  We were out from 10pm- 3am, and it went by super quick!!!! By the time we got back, the other team (3am-6am) was just going out and they had 9 students praying and 10 students going on the outreach.  It was a very powerful time.

We went to the beach and had baptisms on Saturday! That was so much fun!!! We went to Malibu and had a blast! Our shuttle broke down on the way home and we had to wait until we could be picked up again.  Outreach Prep (be prepared for anything to happen at any given moment)!!!!

Yesterday, everyone was trying to finish homework and we all rested.  It was a nice calm day.

Today we started our new topic on Relationships.  The training leader on the base is our Speaker and his name is Conrad.  He is a very good speaker, as he keeps us focused to the topic, yet is fun.

This is my small group!!!
Emily(leader), Me, Melany (leader), Hannah, Ruby, and Rachel

 I miss everyone like crazy!
~Jordyne

My Outreach Location!!!!!

I'm am super excited to announce my outreach location!!!!!

I"M GOING TO THAILAND AND CAMBODIA!!!!!

We did a scavenger hunt to find the pieces of our outreach locations.  We had no idea what we were doing at the time but as we were piecing it together at the end, it sort of just clicked in our brains what we were doing. There are three teams from my school, two teams are going to Thailand and Cambodia (will stay separate teams, probably reaching different locations) and one team is going to Mexico and Costa Rica!

I'm super excited and can't wait to start our outreach team meetings tomorrow night. I have 7 other girls (Kendal, Chelsea, Claire, Ruby, Keila, Hannah, Jess and I) on my team and two awesome team leaders (Laura and Naomi).

  We are going to have a day of fasting on Thursday and will have our first night of outreach on Friday!!!!!

Thank you for your love and support! 

~Jordyne

Set A Fire - Jesus Culture w/ Lyrics

I really like this song and we've been doing it for base worship.  Just thought I'd share!!!!





Hi Everyone!

It has been so crazy!  Last Friday we got trained by one of the organizations we will be working with for street outreach.  I, personally won't be working with them because I'm not 21 yet, but my school leaders really value their rules and so we all went through the training as a school.  They were very informative and they shared some of their experiences.  We also spent time researching different companies that would be willing to donate items for the gift bags we give to the girls we meet out on the streets.  So far we haven't had any luck, but we'd appreciate prayer that doors will be opened!  We have a new speaker this week.  Her name is Hannah Eastwood and she is from the YWAM base in Montana.  Our topic for the week is "Hearing the Voice of God".  Hopefully at the end of this week, we will learn what our options for outreach are!  Then we get to use what we learned this week to hear where God will lead all of my school! The Fall DTS is joining us in lecture this week and it's been so fun to hang out with them as well as my own school! We are reading our first book! It's called Making Jesus Lord  and it's by Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM.  His stories are wonderful, how God's used him through good times and bad!



It's so much fun to get to share with everyone my experiences and I plan to write again this week!



~Jordyne

Week Two Already?!

Wow, is it week 2 already?! It’s going by so quickly.  I love that we have started to get used to our schedule now.  Each day, we have a connect time as a school and we go over a devotion that our staff has chosen for us that day.  We've read from two daily devotionals, “Jesus Calling” and “Upmost for his Highest”.  They are super encouraging and God just seems to speak through each day.  Our theme this week is “The Character and Nature of God” and our speaker, Steve Fry has been amazing so far.  He has been talking about how everything God is and does is LOVE! God is just amazing. We share these lecture times with the 2 other schools that going on right now.  There is a Calling All Skaters (for skateboarders) DTS and the Fall DTS right now.  Last night we also had a speaker, who focused more on the justice issue.  Her name is Roe and she started a ministry to help those exploited in South Korea learn English.  Her ministry is not running right now but she is now working for YWAM in Kona, Hawaii. 

 I also have a work duty on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.  There are 4 other girls, and together we make up the special projects team!  We are the ones that get anything that needs to be done on the base, like yesterday we cleaned the base’s playground.  In the future we will be the marketing team for the special events in the next coming year. 

There was a song I really wanted to post that we do during worship, but our shared wifi is overwhelmed right now!  I'll try posting it on my next entry but if you want to look it up, it's called Set a Fire. 

Well that’s all I have today! I love your support and your prayers!

~Jordyne

Just a side note,

I am searching for a large backpacking backpack for the outreach part of my journey! If you have one that you’d like to sell me or let me borrow, or know of someone who does, please let me know!!!!! There are some girls on my team as well that are looking for one so if you have extra as well please let me know!!!!

If you have one, please email me at mad4mangoes1@gmail.com or message me on Facebook!

Hi Everyone!

Thank you for your support through reading my blog! I just wanted to take the time to share the reasoning behind my blog name.

I love to crochet! Like, I REALLY like to crochet! I love to crochet so much that I even brought crocheting supplies with me! I decided to take this talent and use it to fund raise my YWAM trip.
I decided to make a Facebook page and an Instagram account to help put the word out there, and so people would have someplace to see my projects and contact me.  It took a lot of thinking to find a name that was unique and easy to remember, while still trying to simply say what I was doing.  I liked Off The Hook because it simply shared that my projects are completed on hooks.  Hahaha.
As for the 3:28, I was looking up Bible verses about what God thought about slavery and came across Galatians 3:28 and choose it as my theme verse.
It says
"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

This experience has been amazing so far and it's only been the first week! Everyone is getting to know one another better.  The last couple days have been really relaxed.  We had a Community Night with the whole base and all the schools and staff ( there are 4 schools going on right now including Justice).  It was amazing to see all the nations worship together! We found out that 28 different nations are represented here!!!!!!! Its AMAZING!!!!!!!! Friday was really relaxed too. We got to make gift bags for the girls who are out on the street that we will get to talk to when we go out on outreach. And today we got to use LA's public buses (as a school) to go to a mall in Glendale.  Our staff feel that it is really important that we do some fun things every week.  We need to have time to to be joyful as a school and just have fun!!!!!

Tomorrow we will have the opportunity to go to different churches in the area.  I'm attending Open Bible Church.  I'm pretty excited to try a new church with new people!

I really appreciate all your support and your prayers! I hope to blog once or twice a week at the least!

Good Night! Love you all!
~Jordyne

Getting settled for our first Human Trafficking Documentry

Praying over the frist of many outreach gift bags. 

My first week at YWAM has been amazing.  It’s gone by so fast and it’s only Wednesday! I’ve gotten to meet so many new people.  There are 6 girls total in my room and 22 girls in my house.  I know so many girls but it been really great to get to live and connect with these girls! We have 7 rooms in the house, two bathrooms with two showers each, a large living room, and a nice mini kitchen to share.  It’s really hot though. With so many people and a broken swamp cooler, it’s really warm! It has been around 99 degrees and it even has gotten to 118! It’s crazy!

As for my classes, they haven’t really started yet.  They are giving us the week to get used to living on the base and get used to the crazy schedule.  We’ve had lots of “family” time were we have played games to get to know each other and team building games to help us to work together.  We had our first lecture today.  It was a video sermon by Louie Gegilio and it was titled “How Great is Our God”.  He talked about how there are so many stars that are even larger than the sun and that God made them and even if earth was the size of a golf ball they would be huge! Then he talked about how even our bodies are a crazy proof that God is so mighty and powerful, thinking up the little details, like to proteins that make up our 75 trillion cells and that every three seconds 50,000 die and are instantly replaced! How amazing is our God that he even thought to come up with such a complex system inside us that we didn’t even know of!

On a sad note, one of the girls is deciding to return to home in Canada tonight.  She is one of my roommates and I’m really sad to see her go.  Her name is Mikayla so if you think of her, just please pray for her! I’m praying that she realizes that God brought her here for a reason and that she was meant to be here.  After she goes home, she will have a week to decide if she wants to come back, so if you don’t mind praying that she makes the decision that she feels God is telling her to make.  We all have felt like we don’t want her to go home and regret not being here.   

In case you feel lead to pray for my team, here is the list of their names. It’s been really cool to get to know everyone in the house and learn where they are from.  Its been really interesting to see the differences in even the other English speaking countries like Ireland and England!

Ariel - Canada

Katherine- Canada

Luisa- Germany

Rachel- California

Kendra - California

Ruby- New Jersey

Keila- Brazil

Lily- Kentucky

Jenny- Flordia

Claire- Northern Ireland

Jess- England

Jade- Australia

Chelsea- Illinois

Hannah N. - Minnesota

Hannah M. - England

Karoline- Norway

Anna –Georgia

Kirsty- Northern Ireland

Raquel- California

Kendal- Washington

Mikayla (She is leaving back to Canada) :'(

Ida and Noah (a married couple)- Sweden

Phillirie (a single mom with her 4 yr. old son Elijah)- California

Phillip – England

Skyler – Missouri

Isn't it just awesome that we have come from all over, yet we all have the same passion to learn and teach about Jesus and take a stand against Human Trafficking!

I really appreciate your prayers and I can’t wait to share all my experiences with you all. 

If you want to send me letters or pictures, I’d be really happy! We have lots of personal wall space and I’d love to put some pictures up! 

Jordyne Castaneda

YWAM LA JDTS 2014

11141 Osborne St.

Lake View Terrace, CA 91342

~Jordyne