David

While we were in Russia our team was presented with the option of adopting an ex-prostitute, her daughter and her niece and nephew for a period of time. This is the story of David.
David was 5 and he was the oldest, Abina is his sister and she is 2 and Angelina is their cousin and she is 1.5. The situation is actually a little different than what I was told, so I will line it all out and hopefully it makes sense...the whole situation is rather messy. Angelina's mother (Oleya) was a prostitute, but David and Abina's mom is still a prostitute. Oleya and her sister do not have a good relationship. There is some abuse that goes on and Oleya is forced to watch David and Abina on a regular basis while her sister goes and "works". Sometimes it will be for days in another city and other times it is just for a little while. Oleya has never really been taught how to raise children because she and her sister are orphans, so sometimes she leaves the kids all by themselves to work or run errands. She has no money because she is not employed and cannot be because in Russia in order to work you need papers that say you are a citizen and you also have to have ownership/attachment to a building. Why I am not really sure, but because she is an orphan she doesn't have the necessary papers to work.
Oleya has become friends with the base leader's wife Sarah, and they have been working with her and trying to help her get papers and set up a new life out of prostitution. Since they know the situation and they have been wanting to help Oleya out, when David and Abina's mom left to prostitute in another city, they decided to bring in Oleya and the kids to help them out for about 10 days. The team's part was to help take care of the kids and Oleya and to help them with food. I have such a soft heart and couldn't say no to the situation, so Ben (my co-leader--who is more soft than I am) and I decided that we were more than willing to absorb costs into the team and take them in.


Russia is known for the lack of ability to plan for the future. So we talked about a date while and then all of the sudden we were asked to go get the kids and Oleya and bring them home(not anywhere near the day we thought we were going to). Because there were eleven on the team we decided it would be better if only a few people went to get the kids and just two people meet them at the door so that they were not overwhelmed with a new environment and a large number of people greeting them. Two of my girls wanted to do it, so Miranda went with to get the kids and Mica was the one to meet them at the door. It was really a cool thing, but it made me realize just how hard it is to adopt a child, especially one that you don't speak the same language. David adjusted really well to staying with us. He was surrounded by people who were playing with him, loving on him and showing him what a family is supposed to look like. He is such the little man...very helpful and very smart! Abina was sooooo shy. She hated all the new people and did not really like any one on the team but Ben and Miranda only because Miranda was the one to take care of her during the day. I tried to make friends one day, but her and Oleya are really close. Oleya is not her mom, but she is with Abina all the time for the most part and she was also sick the entire time she was with us. I got myself into a pickle with Abina when one morning I was helping watch the kids and Oleya needed some time to be alone. There was a playroom in the house and so we took all the kids into the playroom and Abina started screaming for Oleya. I would not let her down and out the door and she screamed even louder and got herself all worked up. From that moment on she avoided me like the plague and screamed every time I came around. It was really sad to watch her because (although the child has an iron will) she was sooooo sick and had a fever and aches and was in a new place and just did not do well with us at all. Angelina was pretty good, but she stayed close to her mother as she possibly could. David and I got along well though until the day before he left.

David is an amazing little boy. He lives with his father some of the time, who actually has another family, so he lives a pretty "normal" life with his father, step mother and other siblings, but when he came to us he had just come back to his mom for a while. He is one of the happiest boys who is so content just doing his own thing, but he is reallly loving and loves to play with people. We had a coffee house a couple of days after they came and he mingled with all the people who came and was a little part of our team. He also loved Ben and being part of the "boys." We arranged a place for him in the guys side of the house next to Ben so that he would not fall off the bed and because a rule in Russia is that a child can never be alone with just one adult. There was no room for him in Oleya's room, so they did some arranging and he stayed with "the men." Our day off was just a few days later and I was planning to go iceskating with some of the Russians and part of the team at IKEA, so I decided to take David with since Abina was sick and Oleya stayed with her daughter most of the time. I thought it would be a fun adventure :) We had to walk to the bus station which is about a 25min walk with long strides, so David did his best to keep up with the team, but he and I were dragging behind. We got on the bus and he had a blast with a balloon he had found in his pocket. I blew it up for him and we got plenty of dirty looks from the other Russians on the bus because in public you are stoic, and I let this child have a balloon and bounce it around on the bus :) When we got to IKEA we had lunch. I don't know if he had ever been to a mall before, but the mall we were in was massive. Not as big as FlatIrons, but for a developing country it was huge. There was a food court so we decided to eat first. (oh I forgot to tell you...he doesn't speak any english and I have by this point only learned a few key words and phrases) So we head up to the counter and I ask him what he wants to eat. He tells me "gamborger" which I assume means hamburger. I was looking to see all the options and all of the sudden I am pushed up to the counter of something equivalent to KFC and David is telling me he wants a hambuger. I was so embarrassed, and I was only guessing at what he was saying, so as I am being propelled forward by this upset five year old to the counter of chicken I am forced to ask for a hamburger in a language i don't speak. The lady at the counter I think understood where I was coming from, so she pointed to McDonalds next door. David and I walked over and the people there were really understanding as well. She pulled out a menu and David pointed to the things he wanted. Finally happy we left the counter to find a seat in the food court. Aunt Connie you had two boys, so you know that when they are distracted it is really hard for them to eat the food in front of them, and I was trying to be a good mom and make sure he ate his apples and hamburger before he got the toy so he wouldn't be so distracted. That worked for a little while, but then I gave up and we got the toy out.
After finishing lunch and figuring out how to work the toy we spent some time at the ice skating rink in the mall. It was really cool to teach David to skate and sooooo much fun for me because I hadn't been in a while. I used to want to be an ice skater so i thought it was really cool that I was ice skating in the same country where Ekaterina Gordeeva and Oksana Bieul learned and became world champions :) (ah the dreams of a little girl) Ben, my co-leader, took David when he got tired and I was able to skate for a little longer, but when i came back David has this huge grin on his face as he is holding a 20oz Pepsi bottle and a giant lollipop and has the soda mustache and sticky all over his face. I like being the aunt because I can do that and then give the kid back, but this one was in my care for the rest of the day...I was NOT happy. We went on an adventure through the mall to shop for the other guys I was with and poor David was dragged along until we found the remote control car section. You know the kiosks with the really cool remote control planes and cars that you can play with. Thinking that shopping for jeans with the guys was going to be really boring we stopped and looked at the cars for a little while and David started chattering again. I caught a few words here and there and tried my best to answer, which was the biggest mistake I could have ever made. He thought I was agreeing to buy him a remote control car and when I would not let him purchase one he was cute to pout in about 2 seconds. One of the guys that was shopping with us was Russian and was able to explain a little bit to David what was going on....he didn't speak English, so I didn't know what was going on, but it doesn't take much to read a child who has been denied something he thought he was going to receive. My heart was so for him as these English speakers were taking care of him and couldn't understand him and he couldn't communicate and at 5 having to deal with no one understanding. He went into a pout for the rest of the day, even after doughnuts from Ikea. The hour bus ride back I was getting evil stares until Ben made him angry and then he came and cuddled with me until we got home. I thought things were ok once we got back home, but as we were having a meeting, David came and crawled up in Ben's lap and flipped me off! I could not believe it....and as I told him that was not ok, he burst into tears. I thought I had compassion and then I met David and God broke my heart all over again. I also learned that adoption is not the easy route......YIKES! Our team headed out to a village two days later and as we said good-bye knowing that the kids were going home the day we were leaving, David asked if we were coming back. We told him we were leaving and the only question he wanted to know was who he was going to sleep with when he went home.

Revolution

Two days ago I began reading a book called Irresistable Revolution by Shane Clayborne. For those of you who have read the book you will know what I am talking about when I say it shakes the foundation the church has come to rest on, the reality I have come to rest on. In the book it talks about how as Christians we complicate the reading of the Bible because if we read it and understood it we would then be responsible to live it out. Since I struggle with reading my Bible, not because I can't read, but because I excuse my problem with "I don't have time" or the thought that it is going to take too much effort and time to read what is there, this hit home.
Christ is a walking contradiction to the flesh and if you read the word being a Christ follower becomes a death to everything that is comfortable and a challenge to not live in complacency and apathy. For example, a friend of mine was instructed by God to do a program that is two years long, involves traveling and not many visits home, and an extremely busy schedule. Sounds fantastic, right, and yet she has a man at home, one that she loves very much and he loves her very much. During this two year period he will not be able to travel with her or come and visit, but God is asking for her time and effort. How do you give up the one you love and are going to marry for two years in order to fulfill what God has asked you to do? Marriage is not wrong and I know God will bless her if she chooses to stay at home, but He is asking death to her dream of marriage, for the time being, and to move from a place of comfort and home to live a life dedicated to Him. Would I be willing?
Following in that trend, this morning we had a time of prayer with our class. The leaders have produced a booklet called "Voice for the Voiceless" which is a 30 day prayer book with justice issues from all over the world and today we prayed for child trafficking. This is an excerpt from the prayer book

"Her family needed food and Prema's father had few other options. She was the eldest daughter, beautiful, and at eleven years old, more useful to the family away in the city of Mumbai. One less mouth to feed. One less body to clothe. Prema's mother, with tears in her eyes, promised they would see her again. Promised they would buy her back with the money Prema made every month--money her new guardian would send to the family. A promise made to Prema two and a half years ago.
In the city, Prema is not chained to a desk or forced to hunch over menial work for hours each day like thousands of other children throughout the developing world. Prema dances at a pole, bats her eyelashes at adults who have come from all over the world to watch her. She spreads her legs and moves her body to music, the way the other girls showed her. Girls kidnapped from their homes when they were younger or sold by their parents to the brothel. As Prema waits to return to her family, other promises are kept. Her guardian makes good on the promise he made to her parents that she would be well looked after. Men, some older than her father, foreigners with unusual accents, take great delight in watching her dance on the stage. Then they pay to suffocate her under their heavy bodies. The guardian fulfills his promise that Prema would not be denied an education. He, along with his clients, tutor her in a while new language with it's own, intricate vocabulary. Along with the other girls in the brothel, Prema has learned to once-foreign words: HIV, unwanted pregnancy, rape.
Prema dances at her pole, learning a new language. Day after day she tries to remember the sound of her mother's voice, and wait to see if her parents will make good on their promise."



And my heart cries out. Am I being the Revolution the world needs? Or am I comfortably sitting in my church pew seeing the world and allowing it to be far removed from my life and my circumstances and who I am and what I do?
God, that I would be the Revolution the world is looking for and so desperately needs!
"Give me your eyes for just one second give me your eyes so I can see, everything that I keep missing give me your love for humanity. Give me your arms for the broken hearted, ones that are far beyond my reach. Give me your heart for the one's forgotten. Give me your eyes so I can see." --Brandon Heath

God and Goggles

After three years in YWAM, working mostly with DTS, and having the same basic topics covered....me, in my little mind, thought that I would no longer have revelation about the topics we cover in class. WRONG!

Monday was the beginning of the topic "Nature and Character of God" and the challenge of discovering the way we view God before we began getting into learning about His character and nature. Everyone has a lens we view things through. This lens is shaped by our experiences, our failures,our successes, the pain of life, what we know about people and the way that they have treated us. Because of these experiences we view or shape God, the Bible and ourselves through these "goggles" of experiential knowledge.

For example today in worship we were singing "Blessed Be Your Name" and the list goes on in when we should be blessing the name of the Lord and then the chorus kicks in and the words are "you give and take away, but my heart will choose to say blessed be your name" The worship leader took the chorus and highlighted the fact that some people were unsatisfied with the agreement that God both gives and takes away, and alhtough I grit my teeth and spit out the words, my heart today was choosing to say something unChristian in response to Him both giving and taking away.

Normal has not been an easy route for me and being on campus without being a part of one specific thing has been extremely difficult. I don't deal with being left behind well and there are memories--all good--everywhere that remind me of people that I love and have grown close with over a period of months and who are just absent from my life. Vulnerability is not easy for me and although there has been soooooo much healing over the past few years loving and leaving has never been easy. I have been going through the stages of grief and Monday I guess was the stage of anger and just feeling abandoned by not only people but God as well. These were my feelings.

Sitting in class and having the realization flow over me that during worship I had/have been viewing God through the goggles of hurt and abandonment made me realize that I don't have it together and there are still lies I view God through. I was then challenged by these two statemnents
1.) Have I made God too small, too insignificant and not enough because of my experiencing the pain of love and loss?
2.) Am I trying to redefine God to fit into my image of who I think He is/should be or am I redefining myself into His image?

Honest truth?
I have much room to grow and more truth to learn about a God I want to walk in the image of. I know there are places where I have placed characteristics on God based on my experiences and although I have tried not to, those glasses somehow seem to be pushed back up on my nose.

What googles are you viewing God through and are you going to let Him take them off and reveal the true God?

Normalcy?

Since coming back from Russia I have been working in an office on campus. This office is very important because we process all the incoming and current staff and answer many questions about life on campus and other important things that people may ask. But I have been wondering if I want to be here in this place. The last six months was run at an extremely busy pace with no hopes of slowing down (which although makes me somewhat tired, I love) and the pace that I am working at now is I guess what people would call "normal". Last week that was hard for me because with nothing to keep my mind off things and I was really missing my team, but this week things have somewhat managed to fall into a much slower routine...like I get 8 hours of sleep and even though I am awake at 6:45am (all on my own...for those who know me well that is an almost impossible feat) I still have like two hours where i don't have any obligations and can spend time with myself.

Anyway...today I was walking down the very large hill that takes me to the bottom of the campus where I work and I realized that I had nothing super to think about and nothing pressing to do. The revelation was somewhat shocking as that meant for the moment I was truly carefree. Do I like this pace? No! Do I want to be normal? A part of me does, but there is this other part of me that thrives on having a day bursting at the seams with things to accomplish and life to do. The question is can I do normal and still fulfill the desire for adventure and challenge?

Russian Breakfast

Today I was eating cornflakes. Now the significance is just a memory for me, but i thought I would share it anyway.

While in Russia we made our own meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were prepared by me and the team. None of us were really huge breakfast eaters nor were we morning people, except for my co-leader Ben, so many times although it was freezing outside we decided to have cereal and milk for breakfast. Fast easy prep and really easy cleanup :)

Anyway....we had the luxury of the choice of milk and cereal which was a huge blessing, but things always look a little different in a foreign country. Morning #2 of our stay in Russia and we needed milk to go with our cereal. (By the way mom...they don't have healthy cereal in Russia! It is all sweetened and kid-like. I LOVE IT!) Again a preface-our team does not speak Russian and the alphabet is soooo much different than the American alphabet so it is really difficult to figure out what you are getting at the grocery store.

Out we go to the store to get our milk and the assumption is....if it is in a quart container it is milk....that is the way things are done in America. So we buy two quarts of "milk" to bring back and eat with our cereal. I go to shake the container and there is a heavy slosh to the milk, so I decided to open it and smell to make sure it is not rotten. Upon opening the container and peering in, I see a more solid but still liquid form of milk....not rotten just a form of yogurt with a bitter bitter smell.

Russians LOVE yogurt. They also like it on their cereal, but it is often times plain and bitter and very very watery. Needless to say we did not eat our cornflakes with milk that morning nor did we eat them with yogurt.

Not wanting to waste the gallon of "stuff" we bought, after about a week and some convincing from my Russian friends I tried it on my cornflakes. Not too bad, but let's just say I much prefer milk on my cornflakes :)

Bits and Pieces

So I have discovered that when I actually take the time to write things down I much prefer them on paper, but God is encouraging me to take this opportunity provided and share with everyone on the web. I am a perfectionist however, and that most often times throws me for a loop. Me being perfectionistic...if it doesn't get done the exact way and in the timing I want it the thing I am to do most often doesn't get done. All this said...I am working on memoirs from my trip and have been putting them on paper, but I will work to get them here as well. Some will be long and some will be short. That being said there should be some here. Thank you to all who follow me and who take the time to read this when I actually decide to write. May you all be blessed.

One month in

This is the team that is going with me on outreach. We are headed to Turkey and Russia for three months. I know I was supposed to be going to Colombia, but God apparently had other plans :)





Hey everyone....I really need a computer. The nearest one is literally seventy-six stairs away and down a couple of blocks! Oh well......

So this is one month in. We started our fifth week today, and WOW....I can't believe all that has been happening. Ok...so all of our students are amazing! I am blessed an honored that they are loving Jesus and sinking into His love and all He has for them during this time. It is not of course without flaws, but round two has been a light burden compared to last time. We did have to send one student home last week which was really rough, but God is good and hopefully she will be back to do DTS in the spring after some counseling. I am going to give you a run down of life over the past few weeks.

Week 1: our speaker was Andy Byrd and the love of God (which most of you heard about, and if you didn't please contact me, I would love to share his wisdom and challenges)

Week 2: our speaker was a lady named Gwen who taught destiny by design and how God has placed in us desires to accomplish the work He has set before us, and those things are not stuff that we hate or necessarily make money at, but passions He has put in us since childhood. Amazing. I am not really sure what my destiny is, but there are several things that I played as a child, so I am looking forward to the things I am going to do in my life that I thought were my weird quirks, but are really things God wants me to do. The same goes for every one of you.....so think hard about what you played as a child and what you have always wanted to do. God is going to fulfill that destiny He has placed in you.

Week 3: we did this thing called coporate week. For the first two days of class we met as Compassion DTS and me and some of the other staff members taught on hearing God's voice and purity. I hate when people speak stuff over me, but apparently I am a good communicator/teacher. I don't want to be a teacher, so people need to stop telling me I am a good one! Then a man named Dave Gibbons came in and said some revolutionary things about living life. He talked about pain and how our authority comes from where we have experienced healing from pain. He also talked about who our neighbor was and that those are the people that are completely different from us. God told us to love our neighbor and it doesn't mean those who are like you, but ones that come into your life...like it or not. Dave also talked about sucess as the world sees it and sucess as God sees it. Sucess in mans eyes is usually up and to the right, as we grow older, we have more wisdom, more training, higher paying job, ect......but Jesus started at the top and moved His way all to the bottom and then it became a journey not of making it back to the top and doing it perfectly. (if that needs more explaination just let me know...it made sense in my head) He also talked about how healing is a process it is not a sprint....sometimes it takes awhile to be healed. And there were so many more good points, but this post is already long enough.

Week 4: we had a teaching on "the Kingdom" and worldviews, so we went over all the different worldviews and then what Christians should be living out. In the new testament gospels the thing Jesus talks about the most is the Kingdom (117 times in the gospels). So we talked about what it was not....the church. And how we have torn out the pages of forgiveness and going to heaven and left the rest of the book out. The church has not come with a message of life, but a message of how to get to heaven and we have neglected the lifestyle teaching that Jesus preached so much about! Think about it......I had to.

Good news. All my outreach fees are paid for this first installment and my staff fees are completely covered for this month as well! Praise God. We had a day to just pray and give and our class needed to raise a little over $20,000 to pay the first outreach payment and within thirty minutes of students reaching into their pocket books, all of that money was covered! Including mine, plus extra! GOD IS GOOD!

He Loves Us Oh How He Loves Us

I have been in Hawaii for three weeks now and I am finally adjusted to the time difference. Wow...five hours really makes a difference :)

In the last three weeks we have been training as staff in how to do small groups and one-on-ones and what it is to be a disciple and how to do discipleship. And I have loved every minute of it. The challenge of not being a staff/student, but fellow disciples bringing people along side of us and the challenge of living it out before we can ask our students to do the same thing.

Well, the training has come to an end and the students arrived on Thursday! We have 12 guys and 38 girls. The men are very lucky :) And no....none of them have caught my fancy for those of you who are excited to see me married....(you know who you are). Friday was a super busy day because we headed into orientation, and although as staff we have been orientated, we were required to sit in on the sessions all morning. In the afternoon we took pictures for what we call our encouragement wall where people can place notes for others or whatever God puts on their hearts for other students, as well as a class photo. I will try to get that published here soon. The staff did their introductions and then we headed to the Hawaiian gathering.

It is a tradition in the islands that the people who come would bring gifts from home to share with the Hawaiian people, so our students brought all kinds of things from Russia, China, Canada, Norway, Idaho, ect. and there was a gift exchange and a blessing from the Hawaiian people on the visitors. Did you know that Hawaii is broken down into three parts and they mean 1.)breath, 2.)water 3.)the one true living God (I don't remember how it was broken down, but that is what Hawaii means). Once we were finished, there was a big feast, and then a party of the nations. There are 42 nations represented here at the Kona base this quarter and they paraded their flags and then we had an awesome time of worship. WOW!

Saturday we took everyone to this beach called Hapuna, where the water is amazingly blue. This year the tide was really high, so I didn't even get in, but the students played football and volleyball and ate the usual hamburgers and hot dogs.

Today was our first day of class and it was awesome to see what God is already doing. Last night I was in the prayer room with my doubts and my simple prayer was "God wreck me! Everything I know about you and about myself....wreck it all and let me fall more in love with you!" And that is exactly what He is in the process of doing, not only with me but with our students. In class today, the speaker had a word specifically for me, which was awesome. Then at the end when he was talking about relationship, we had a time of prayer and half our students stood up to tell God that they wanted to be ok knowing that God does not base His love for us on what we do and what we accomplish and what we gain, but He loves us out of a love that only He can have for us.

One of the things the speaker talked about was our works mentality. And because I come from a church background as well as most of our students, we try to be good Christians by reading our bible, being involved in meetings and teachings, working in Sunday school, going to revival, all of these things being good, but God does not base His love on those things. Here is the question the speaker posed to us and I am going to leave you with:

If you never saved another person, never went to another meeting, never did another "thing" for God in your life, DO YOU KNOW THAT HE WILL STILL LOVE YOU?

Hello Hawaii

So after waiting three long months, I have finally arrived. Yep....I have stepped on to the beautiful beaches of the island most people are envious of. I however as my plane was flying over the island was thinking...."oh boy....I already have island fever!" Not so much faith, but that was my thought. I arrived on Wednesday and things have not stopped since then. Our students arrive in two weeks and staff training is in full force, but it is soooooooo good to be back :) Thursday morning we had worship and some teaching about what it is to be a discipler and the privledge that it is to be called to this ministry (not that I have ever taken this call lightly, but it hit me that this is not my right as a christian, it is my privledge to show others how to serve Him, and bring them up in the ways of God) and also the question of who am I. I have sometimes asked that question and have come at it from a David perspective of humility in saying to God...you know me and how I was put together and you also know my history and yet you choose me...who am I that I should have this favor. But more often than not I come at it from the Moses perspective of not really knowing who God is and the calling I have on my life and telling God that He has the wrong person. WHO ARE YOU?

Today was a little less active, but we spent the day with Dawn and Pieter (my bosses) and in a time of prayer for eachother and in fellowship with one another. It was an awesome time where the Lord was speaking directly to each one of us through a woman named Amy. God has some really cool things planned for my life and I can't wait.....difficulties? Of course, but by the choices I will make, there will be joy, healing and success!

I will write again once the students have arrived, but I just wanted to let you all know that things are going well and the time has come.

Much love!

Youth Camp

This is the link for the youth camp video, but it took the new post I had and put it in archives, so after you view this video please scroll down until you see the archives and look at the july section and check out the Updates :) one. This is the fun one, the other one is the informative one. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!



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Updates :)

Hey all!

Well, the time is fast approaching to my departure to Hawaii. I just bought a round trip plane ticket from Springfield for about $900 including some changes and fees, but it is awesome to be able to fly from Springfield and not leave at 6am! (most of you know that I HATE early morning!) That was a definitely leap of faith, especially since finances are not here at the moment. I do know that God will provide, but it makes me nervous at how down to the wire He sometimes has me wait to make sure that I am actually still trusting in Him.

Enough money talk! This summer there were three camps that I had planned to staff. The first one was in Chicago working to teach inner city kids how to hip hop. (yeah, yeah, laugh it all out....I know right...a white little city girl teaching inner city kids how to dance) Mostly I was just an extra hand, and although I am not a fantastic dancer I was able to learn some new moves and help the kids along :) Not only did I get to learn some new steps, but God showed up in a way I have never seen Him work in a five day camp. It was amazing to see how open these kids were to who God is and what He had to say to them. We worked with five to eighteen year olds and had them split into groups. I danced with the older crew and had a younger small group....but what was so awesome was that one of my small group girls had a vision of one of the older girls in her room. I had her draw the vision that God gave her and then showed it to the older girl and it was the older girls room to perfect detail! How cool is God that He would use a nine year old to show a fifteen year old that He is thinking of them! There was another girl who learned about comparrison and how when she compared herself and found herself not as good as some of the other people, that she was telling God He had made her not enough. It was awesome to see her confidence grow in just that week as she stopped caring what she couldn't do and started doing what God asked to the best of her ability!

Camp number two was Harvest Assembly youth camp (that is my church here in Bolivar). I am sad to say that our youth is really struggling and Satan is using that to tear the youth apart. Despite that frustration and the drama that tends to bring.....we had one youth rededicate his life to the Lord (which was a huge blessing to me because I have been praying for him for a long time). God also showed up every night starting the first night when the illustration was everyone nailing their sins to the cross and allowing God to break the chains so that we can arise and shine to the world around us. Here is the link to the camp video (which my brother Matthew is one of the main stars)

Camp number three Kids Camp. I had one evening to recover from youth camp before we left on the bus to go to kids camp. I happened to pick up some disease from youth camp and was sick for most of the week, but I am so glad God works despite. It was a challenge especially when we found out that we were getting another seventeen girls from another church and we were solely responsible, however, God does not give us anything we cannot handle and we were blessed with some amazing nine through thirteen year olds. Also....just from our group, there were four salvations/rededications and one little girl who spoke in tongues for the first time.

This summer has been a busy one and next week I leave to go on vacation to California with one of the families from my church. They have asked me to go a driver/nanny and are paying for all of my food and lodging in exchange. I am so excited!!!!!!!!

Oh....and one very important thing.....my niece has arrived! Miley Michelle came into the world July 3rd 2009 at 12:53pm weighing 7lbs even and 20in long. She is already much bigger, but she is beautiful!

I will have an update soon as the time draws closer for my plane to take off, but until then.....if I could get everyone praying for the following:

Our youth group to overcome circumstances and stick together through the storms
Finances to pay for Hawaii
An easy transition from home to a new place
Safe travels
God would continue to shake and change me and that I would allow Him to do that.

Thanks everyone. I love you all. Blessings!

Summer Plans

Hey All!

I am so excited to write this! I am going to give you a little bit of a background on the story, so stick with me and hopefully we can be excited together.

I have been home now from a tour with YWAM Denver since February, looking for a job and trying to figure out the next step. I have been toying with several ideas, but in April, one Sunday night in church, God put in my spirit that I was supposed to go back to Hawaii. I had no idea how to go about doing that so I assumed I should go back for a school. I had a friend visit and she told me to seriously think about the school of counseling to make sure that was what God wanted, and although I wasn't totally satisfied with it, I decided to do some applying. I got a free $100 from Kona to apply, so I thought that would suffice. Needless to say that was not the case. Last week I went to Colorado to visit and my friends Nathan and Sharae got married (it was my priviledge to be a bridesmaid) and Nathan's Aunt and Uncle came to the wedding. Well, his Aunt and Uncle just happen to be the couple (Dawn and Pieter) in charge of the Compassion DTS that I staffed in 2007. They asked me if I would considering coming back this fall 2009 and staffing again as they lead this new school, as well as pray about leading a team to Colombia for an outreach.

I had been asking God to have someone come and ask me to participate in ministry for a couple of months because I was stuck and not really sure where God wanted me, and also one of my options was to go back to Colombia and serve there. When Dawn asked me to consider staffing, I was blown away! I have prayed about it this last week and have a peace about going and staffing with them this next quarter, as well as a determination to finish my one year committment to the Hawaii base. PRAISE THE LORD!

Now here is the hard part. I have not had a steady job in the last four months and with the calandar filling up the summer, I will not have the opportunity to work. God has provided in sooooo many ways, but not enough to support myself in Hawaii for the next year. I know that you all have been supporting me with prayer and love and even monetarily in the last two years and for all of you I am grateful beyond words. Would you however, pray with me again that I would get the needed support and maybe consider in what way God could use you in achieving that goal?

I don't know all the details, but it will be about $1500 a month for me to live in Kona and work with the students and the school.

Again, thank you guys for your past prayers and support and the prayers that carry me through my days. Love you all!