Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!! It's so hard to believe that it's Christmas! This year has flown by!!!! Honestly, it just seems like yesterday I was in Hong Kong for COR just finishing up with outreaches and celebrating Christmas with all my friends there. I never would have thought that that 3 week trip would change my life so drastically. As you know, God called me back to Hong Kong for DTS 3 weeks after I got home...and my experience there is unforgettable.

Not just that, but this year has also brought an addition to our family...little Nora. And how God revealed her to me in a dream still blows my mind. A year brings change, healing, new life, and hope.

The way God works will never be something I understand. This past week and a half has been difficult. My dear friend Dean Cyboron died in a car accident in Ch!na while spending time with his family. This man meant so much to me. When I look back at my life and my walk with God, Dean definitely was a part of my growth. I don't remember any significant moment or conversation we had that totally changed me...but it was how he lived his life. He loved Jesus with all of his heart and that love God put in him poured out onto all of us kids at TEC. He was always there with encouraging words, hugs, and often times a joke or something random to say to make me laugh :) Looking back on his life has inspired me to seek even more of God in my life. I want to live my life in a way that the people around me know how much I love Jesus for what He's done in my life. I want that to be an example to the kids I work with both in school and especially at youth group.

Yes, I don't understand why something like this would happen to Dean and his family, but I do know that God is working through this accident to reach many people. I can see how people who maybe know "about" God look at this and truly see God. It's hard not to see God in this situation. How He has provided peace and healing for the rest of the family and friends.

Tonight, we had the candlelight service for Christmas Eve...well at the end we turn off all of the lights, light candles, and stand in a circle and sing. I couldn't help but think of TEC and the Agape banquet...it was so similar, and to think that Dean is there right now with Jesus at the banquet is a beautiful sight. He's there celebrating Christmas with Christ...and also praising Jesus for all He's done. God is so good!!!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!! Remember the true reason for the season...the little baby Jesus that came to be Emmanuel...God with Us. And that is so true! He is with us yesterday, today, and forever.

Update

Hello everyone! I'm seriously the worst blogger ever! haha. I don't keep updated as much as I should, I apologize. But anywho...life has been good lately.

I have some very excited news!!! My sister had her baby girl, Nora Joelle. She was born at 7:18pm on Dec. 6, my mom's birthday :) She

was 6lbs 15 oz and 20 inches long! She is so beautiful!!! It's so amazing to see the promise God gave me in my dream back in Hong Kong be fulfilled! If you don't remember, I had a dream on the Monday before I went to Ch!na that Ryleigh told me her mommy was going to have a baby. Then on Thursday I called Amber and she told me she just found out she was pregnant!!! It still gives me chills to think about it. I mean honestly, God was showing me so much at that time, and the fact that He loves me enough to share that with me is such a blessing. Plus now having little Nora here safe and healthy is so amazing as well. Everyone is doing great, and of course Ryleigh is a BIG help :)

Other than that, life is pretty much the same. I'm still working and now I'm trying to get my schedule all figured out for next semester, which is quite annoying. I just can't get into the classes I need to be in, so hopefully I can get it all figured out!

I'm now officially taking over the youth group at One80. I don't know what to do and how to do it, but I do know that this is why I'm here. I know that I'm supposed to be working with the youth, but what it looks like, ehh...that's a little foggy. I'm just trying to trust that it will all work out! I still feel like the team leadership is the direction to go, but who's on that team? I still don't know! haha. As of now there has been 2 girls showing up...and building relationship with them is so natural and I feel like it's what I'm good at. My prayer is that as we grow in relationship with each other others will see it and want to join and it will just grow from there.

That's about all I got for now...I hope to update againsoon, but it's likely it will be awhile. haha!

The Next Step

So I'm living in Lincoln again! Woo!!! I'm very excited to back here :) I'm not going to school this semester because the only classes I have left are spring semester classes, then student teaching. So, that means I have to start paying loans...yuck. But fortunately I do have a job! I'm subbing for LPS as a para, and I may be getting a job at a middle school every day from 8-3. That would be such a blessing to have a steady job, rather than bouncing from one school to the next and always being the new person. We'll see. I was hoping to substitute teach, but the process of getting the certificate is long! I don't even know if I'm halfway through it or not! It would be great to have for the experience as well as the money, but right now it's looking like it will still take awhile to get. bummer.

I'm also going to be getting some hours watching Ryan again, so I'm excited about that! He's getting so big and his hair is getting so curly!!!! I can't believe he's already in second grade! I feel so blessed to get to work with him and his family. They are great people that inspire me by their faith and perseverance through the hard times. Little Ryan has had a lot of appointments and he will be getting scheduled for brain surgery in a few months. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

I've been working with the youth group at my church, One80, which has been good. It is challenging though, but I see that as a good thing because then I must rely on God for strength. There is a full time youth pastor now, and it has been great getting to know him and to talk about vision for these youth. Plus, it makes my part with the group a lot less stressful! haha. What I'm really excited about in this next season of my life is what God is doing at One80. Elise and I spoke last Sunday about our time in DTS and what we learned. It's so encouraging to talk to people and see them inspired by what God has done in our lives, or excited to do missions as well! We have now been asked to be small group leaders, as well as possibly teaching some other small group leaders. I think about this and I'm like, whoa! ME? but it excites me so much! I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, but I know that God will tell me along the way. It will be an adventure that I know will stretch me and I pray that Jesus will touch people along the way.

So yeah...that's my life in a nutshell right now.

God bless

I'm Back!!!

Hello everyone!!! I'm finally back from outreach and home from Hong Kong. We got into Hong Kong last week, finished the DTS and had graduation. Us girls spent some time on the beach and shopping and we all watched tons of movies!!! It was great to spend time together before we all went our separate ways.

Outreach was absolutely amazing!!! God moved in such amazing ways! The team I was on saw 2 people come to Christ and the other team had about 7, I believe! We were all able to make many friends and to share Jesus in every city we were in. I truly believe God really used us to plant seeds and break the ground for more and more people. He has such great plans that are beyond what I can imagine. Even just through Spiritual Warfare, God moved a lot. He told us what to pray for and what strongholds to pray against and it prepared a way for us to meet people and talk with them. Each and every person I met was so evidently meant for us to meet. God provided understanding through language barriers, opportunities to share His name and to share how He has helped me in my life, and many other amazing things.

I wish I could explain it, but I just can't find the words. Everything that comes to my mind seems so vague and doesn't do justice to what I experienced. But if I had to sum up my time in Asia, I would have to say it truly was all about relationships: my relationship with Jesus, with my team, and with the people I met in this great nation. God taught me so much through these people as well as through the people on my team. It was hard at times, but HE is so faithful to lead me in His truth. He showed me His heart for me, for my team, and for these people. I saw how He loves them and how it breaks His heart when they don't know Him. He has such great plans for everyone and I can see how much God wants His people to live in the fullness of His love and grace.

I wish I could explain everything here, but I know that would get ridiculously long...so I will leave it at this, and I can't wait to share more with you all :) Thanks again so much for the prayers and support throughout this journey in my life.

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