Outreach!!!

I can't believe it's time to go on outreach! It doesn't seem like it's been 3 months since I left Nebraska to come back to Hong Kong! God has done so many amazing things in my life since January. I don't even know how to explain it, but He has revealed so much of His love to me and how much He just wants to spend time with me. I still can't get over how much I've grown. When I look at myself, it doesn't seem like it, but then I think back on the experience I've had the past 3 months and I can see how God has worked in me. He has revealed so much to me and has healed areas of my life that I didn't know were broken. I thought that I had already dealt with things, but I still wasn't healed. He has done these things and I'm so amazed! I love how I've gotten so much more confident in what God is saying to me. I CAN hear His voice!!! And that is an amazing thing in itself!!! God has showed me some pictures and dreams recently that have been such a blessing to me and my life. They have been little gifts for me, and I'm in such awe of how much my Jesus loves me!!!! Wow!

Now we leave Hong Kong and have the opportunity to go out and share the love He has poured out on us. I'm looking forward to what He is going to show me and teach me. We leave on Wednesday and spend 2 weeks with the other team, then we split and go our separate ways in the nation we are going to. I'm going to ask that you don't comment about where we are going for security purposes.

Please continue to pray for us as we go out into this amazing nation (if you have any questions, please ask my family, they know :) Please pray for team unity, divine appointments, safety and security while traveling and for God to move in amazing ways in this nation through us. Thanks so much for all the prayer and support thus far! I love you all so much!!!! God bless

TeamWork

Hi everyone! Happy Easter!!!! I hope you have had a blessed time celebrating the amazing salvation we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. What a great holiday :)

This week we had team building. We took a personality profile test and it was so interesting to learn everyone’s personality styles, strengths, and weaknesses. It really helped me to understand everyone on my team better. We also worked on conflict resolution and reconciliation. This is so important to learn and it has really equipped me to be ready to face conflicts. I learned that it really isn’t a bad thing to have conflict, but it does need to be handled in the proper way. Not by fleeing or fighting, but by calming approaching the person out of respect. I am the type of person who likes to avoid conflict, but I recognize that I need to face the problem before it gets too big for me to handle.

God has really worked in my heart about my attitudes towards some people throughout the week. There were a couple people that I just clashed with and found very frustrating, but God has opened my eyes to how they were made in His eyes and I feel like I understand them better too because of the teachings.

After a whole week of team building exercises and lessons, we finally found out our teams for outreach. I will be on Jessi and Mari’s team. My team members are Josh, Sandra, Grace, Christa, Lauren, and Elise. We will be with Richelle and Kelley’s team: Chris, Christine, Le, Miriam, Katie, Stephen, Sephora and Rachel, for the first two weeks of outreach, then we will split and go our own ways for the rest of outreach. I’m very excited about my team and to see what God has in store for us in these next 2 months. I can’t believe that it’s almost time to leave!!! Just 1 ½ weeks…it has gone so fast.

On Wednesday we had a Love Feast, which is a special meal prepared for our team by the staff. They decorated the worship room and we all dressed up nice for the meal. We were able to share highlights from the lecture phase and to just celebrate our time together before we leave for outreach.

Thanks again for all of the prayers. Please continue to pray for our outreach preparations and also for YWAM’s 50 year celebration that will be next week. We will be busy preparing for both of these things and it could get pretty crazy around here! I will update you all one last time next weekend before we leave! Love you all!!!

The Great Loss

Our week this week was learning about the history and culture of the country we are going to on outreach. Since it is a security issue, I'm going to ask that you don't comment about the country. Thanks so much!!!

Like I said, we studied the history and culture and it has made me very excited to head out to outreach!!! We leave in a few weeks! It's so crazy that it's coming up so fast, but it will be an amazing experience.

You may be wondering about my title...well, we had a class on Friday about pirating music and movies. Harold taught about how there is a base rule about copyrighted information and that sharing CD's or songs through a USB is downright illegal and such. I hadn't really considered it much in the past, and I kind of thought it was stupid because no one gets in trouble and well, I never illegally downloaded off the internet, I just shared it with my friends. At the beginning of DTS I had heard about this lesson and God convicted me of my music. I had prayed about it and decided, yeah well I will delete some of it. So I did, but I left a lot of it. Then a few weeks ago, it came up again, and I was like, "ok God, I get it...I will do it" But I still didn't walk in obedience to Him. During the lesson, our staff admitted that they have done it too and that it was a hard process to work through, but in order to live in righteousness, it was something we had to take to God. And James 4:17 says "Anyone who knows what good he ought to do, and still doesn't do it, sins" That got to me, and I realized that yeah, I probably wouldn't get in trouble with the law and it doesn't really seem that big, but for me to go deeper with God I needed to do this. So finally I deleted all my illegal music. My itunes library went from about 2,500 songs to 539 songs. Ouch. It was very hard, but at the same time, very freeing. I am choosing to walk in obedience and following God's heart and I can't do that when I know I am disobeying Him.

I'm not saying this all to condemn you who share music and all that...It's totally between you and God. I completely understand how you may think it's not a big deal, and that's cool. It's just something I knew I needed to do since God has been telling me this for about 3 months. haha

Today me and my fellow students put together a ninja video :) One of our team members isn't going on outreach with us and he is really into martial arts, so we decided to make a funny video to tell him that we will miss him. I know, I know....we're dorks! But it's so fun!!!! haha Crazy stuff like this is always great bonding time :)

Hope all is well back home. Please continue to pray for us as we begin to prepare for outreach. We have a few people who haven't gotten all of their money for outreach yet, and will need their fees paid to be able to go with us, so if you could pray for them too. We have a team building week next week and we will find out how the teams are split for outreach. It will be bittersweet. It will be exciting to see who all we get to spend the next two months with, but also that means for two months we won't get to see the rest of the team. We have all made such great relationships that it's hard to split. I will probably have a couple more posts, but once we leave I won't be online. Thanks for all the prayers and support!!! God bless

There's So Much More

So this week we had speaker, John Hay. He spoke on World Views and religions. We learned about Christianity, Animism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. It is very interesting to look at these different religions from a Biblical standpoint. The people of these religions are all seeking Truth, and Satan has a great time twisting their views on what truth really is.

Not much else is new. This week I was a little homesick. I was just missing my family and my friends and all I wanted to do was just sit outside, under the stars and talk the night away. I mean, I'm not ready to go home just yet, but I do know that when June comes around I will be ready to come home and see what's next for me.

It's so hard to believe that we only have 2 more weeks of class left! Then we leave for outreach!!! I'm getting excited to use everything we have learned this far to advance God's Kingdom here on earth. Please be praying for our final weeks of class and for preparations for outreach. Thanks so much! God bless!!!

His Love is So Deep

How much deeper can I go? How much farther can God take me? Once again God's love has been poured out upon me. The more I encounter Him, the more I feel connected, and the more I want to go deeper and deeper. This week we had Jimmy Stewart come and speak on the Father's love for us. When I first started the week, I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I grew up in an amazing Christian household with parents that loved me and guided me in the way of Christ. I didn't think that this would be a huge thing for me, but on Friday something happened. God, the Father, came and spoke with me. We talked back and forth. I waited on Him and He spoke. I answered and He replied once again. It was amazing. He spoke such sweet things to me. He held me and called me His daughter. He told me He delights in me and thinks I'm absolutely beautiful. And He told me that all He wants is to just be with me. I don't have to do certain things and strive to be "righteous." If I just dwell in Him, it will happen. It's so amazing that God loves me, loves us, so much that it doesn't matter what we say or what we do, He just wants us to delight in His presence. And believe me, it is the most comforting thing.

Throughout the week God just kept telling me to come like a child, like His child. He wants to hear everything that is on my heart, good or bad. He wants to rejoice with me and help me. When He told me that, I thought of my niece, Ryleigh. I had gotten a video of her and she was telling me what she would do that weekend. She was so excited to just tell me everything! And God wants us to be like that. To be so excited to tell Him everything. He also told me that He just wants to hold me tenderly and softly. The picture of my niece Joslynn resting in Tyler and Amber's hands came to my mind. So tiny, but so loved. That's what I imagine it being like in God's hands. Resting so peacefully in His hands and that His hands just embrace me with so much love. That no matter what, good or bad, He will hold me forever in His hands.

I miss you and I'm praying for you all back home. Love you and God bless

Sharing the Love

Hello! We had a great week this week learning about evangelism with Nancy Vallese, one of our base directors. She has so many inspiring stories about her outreaches she has been involved in. It really made me excited for outreach and for evangelizing to people!!! We had an outreach on Thursday at Star Ferry Pier. We did the dance “Sometimes” and a drama called “The Chair.” We were planning on doing it twice, but we had some issues come up with another lady working in the area. Obviously there was some spiritual warfare going on! We did just one performance and talked to lots of people and there were 4 salvations that night! Sandra, from Germany, and I were ministry partners and we were able to talk to and pray for 2 different girls. One of the girls, Phyllis, was wearing blue, which we had gotten in intercession. She went to church, but didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. She wasn’t too interested in learning more either, but she was ok with us praying for her. The other girl, Phoebe, didn’t know anything about Jesus, and she didn’t seem like she wanted to talk, so we prayed for her and gave her a tract. She read it pretty intently for about 5-10 minutes after we had walked away. Please pray God continues to reveal Himself to these girls.

Yesterday, Christine from the Philippines, and Rachel and Lauren from England, and I went to a beach and went swimming. It wasn’t super hot, but it was nice and relaxing to get away from the village for awhile. Then we met up with the other girls from the base at The Vine Church for the One-Eighty young adults’ church service. It was a great service, and they ended up praying for us for an outreach we did after church.

We went down to Wan Chai. In this area there are a few blocks that have several strip clubs and bars. It kind of reminds me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. We took roses and carnations and gave them to the girls that work in these clubs. Katie from Canada and Arianna (staff) from California and I went around together. We met 4 girls sitting outside of a club and gave them flowers. They were very talkative and we were able to pray for them. Then we were able to talk to 4 other girls from a couple of different clubs, but the opportunity didn’t come to pray for them because of the madams. Almost all of the girls that work in this area are from the Philippines. They come here to work because there aren’t places for them to find jobs back home. They often come for about 6 months and leave husbands, boyfriends, or even their own children to raise money. It’s so sad that this is one for the only means for them to earn money. Please just pray for all of the girls we all talked to last night. Pray that they can see that they are special and valuable in God’s eyes and that He has good plans for them.

Thanks so much for everything! This week we have Jimmy Stewart from the States. He will be talking on the Father Heart of God, so it will be an emotional week again. Pray for open hearts for God to move. Thanks again! Love you and miss you all!!!

Freedom

This week has been a very freeing and emotional week. We had speaker Ken Bluemel and he spoke on freedom from personal strongholds. I honestly had no idea what to expect going into this week. I had heard the word ‘stronghold’ thrown around here and there, but I never really understood it completely. God can be a stronghold in our lives. When we are weak, we find strength in Christ. Strongholds can also be personal or even demonic holds on our lives. These can come from sins or traumatic events that occur in our lives. This week God brought up trust. In my life there have been situations where someone I trusted a lot has let me down or disappointed me. I subconsciously connected trusting people to trusting God, and that since this person had let me down, then God would too. Which is a HUGE lie! I really processed a lot of things and learned how to bring down strongholds layer by layer until I get to the root.

Once again God poured out His love on me this week. He kept just telling me how much He loves me and how all He wants is for me to receive His love. It’s hard to grasp that all of God’s love is for me and all of His love is for you. That no matter what happens He accepts me. The hardest part that I have faced has been making it a heart connection. Moving it from my head to my heart. It’s so easy to say, God loves me, but to believe and receive it can be so difficult. We had a time of prayer during one of our lectures and God continued to speak of His love to us, and at one point in time Ken came and prayed over me. God was just saying through Ken, “Receive My love, receive it.” That was a very touching moment and I finally made that full connection.

This weekend is the end of Chinese New Year celebrations, and our village, Shui Tau Tsuen, has been very busy. It is the oldest village in Hong Kong and there are many temples, so around 1000 people have been celebrating around the temples. There have been lion dances, concerts, and a lot of food. It’s really cool to learn about this culture and be immersed in it.

Thanks again for all of the prayers! This week we are learning about Evangelism and we will be doing an outreach on Thursday. The outreach will be similar to Christmas Outreach, and I will actually be involved in the dance “Sometimes” that I was in at COR. It will be lots of fun! Love you!