:::Little Tidbits

Here are little sayings and quotes I've gathered from just going back over my notes from the past 2 months... these are the things that stuck out most to me during my lectures::

- F.E.A.R - False Evidence Appearing Real
- Don't base stuff off emotions, base it on TRUTH.
- "If you wanna be a giant-killer, hang around giant-killers."
- Psalms 34:8 "Taste and see that God is good for YOURSELF."
- Be hungry and teachable... being teachable is out of humility.
- Do the little things in excellence - Luke 16:10.
- Get a glimpse of God's grace and go after Him with everything!
- Be GROUNDED in the word of God, be GROUNDED in truth.
- A lot of times we try to shape the Bible into what we want it to be, rather than let it shape us.
- Be 100% dependent upon hearing the voice of God.
- He is a personal God, ENGAGE in Him!
- Seek FIRST the Kingdom!
- Discipline yourself for the purpose of Godliness.
- I have NOTHING outside the grace of God.
- How long do you prepare your body for getting ready for church, compared to preparing your heart to get ready for church?
- A Disciple of Christ allows God to change their way of thinking.
- Repentence is a way of life, as is humility.
- The Enemy tries to get you to be prideful because humility helps you overcome sins like lust, etc.
- Wherever there are massive/little amounts of evil, there is spiritual warfare!
- To DELIGHT in persecutions is to be humble, to desire humility, and desire to be like Christ.
- If it's God's will, it's God's bill.
- Humility is the willingness to be known for who you REALLY are.
- You have only one life to live, and only what is done for Christ will last.
- Love God, make Him known.
- God doesn't promise you an emotional rollercoaster of a relationship in the Bible. He's under no obligation to make you feel good. He's only under the obligation of His promises. That's the cost of discipleship. It's Spiritual Maturity. You read your Bible and obey because you are willing to follow Him.
- You can do anything God calls you to do because He'll give you the grace to do it.
- What do you REALLY believe?
- The issue isn't my feelings, the issue is my faith.
- Make your Bible your best friend.
- Cultivate your relationship and desire for the Lord.
- The Gospel is about how your life influences others rather than how its all about me.
- Heart of the Gospel Message: Come back home to what you were SUPPOSED to be!
- You read the Bible not as a handbook, but you read the Bible to get to KNOW THE AUTHOR!
- Humanity was never designed to have its heart broken; we were designed for Eden.
- Get out of the past and future and live the RIGHT NOW!
- Pray Desperately.
- Live with PASSION.
- Holiness is tested within relationships with other people, not in a hermit on the hill.
- We're spending so much time cleaning out our lives while people are dying in poverty.
- Light IMMEDIATELY stops the darkness.
- Connect the dots: The way I live has an impact on whats going on in the world!
- Pain and brokenness is the fruit of a fallen world.
- Our view of the Kingdom shouldn't be to just survive and exist.
- How often do I sit in judgment on God? (eg: "God, how can You be a good God when THIS bad thing happened in my life?")
- START at the place of, "God is good." When we start there, we filter our pain through that truth rather than filter God through our pain.
- God DOES justice, but He IS love!
- If Jesus IS who He said He is, nothing will ever be the same again. The way we spend money, spend our time, EVERYTHING. Who do you say that He is?

::: Pix Pix Pix

- Sunrise on the North Shore...



- My Roomie, Kelsey from Canada, and I loving Kona and the ocean on the Big Island!



- My two beautiful, FAVORITE roommates... (L) Kelsey from Canada, and (R) Malene (pronounced "Malayna") from Norway!! I LOVE THESE GIRLS!!!! Having these girls as my roommates is one of the BEST blessings I've received since I've been here in my DTS! They're amazing:)



- My friend Grace and I, making dinner for the whole base, about 75 people!! Grillin' it up:)



-At the airport in Kona... SO happy but SO sad because being here in front of this tatue made me think of my family!! Mom and Dad, remember all the pics we took in front of these hula statues?? Totally thought of you this whole time, Ha I miss you guys:)


- Me holding my favorite baby boy, Johnathan!! This was a friday night for the fall festival of a church I go to... it was so fun! He's precious:)


Kelsey, me, and Judith from Switzerland, all enjoying a lagoon in Kona!

OHANA NIGHT!!!
An "Awards" type night they held for my DTS, everybody dressed up and looked really really nice. It was a crazy fun silly time! :)



- My Kyrgyzstan team all dressed up and looking good for ohana night! :)


- My friend Katie Mac, from Canada, and I dressed up:)


- beautiful DTS girls!! :)



-- Me and Katie Miller, my female leader who's leading me to Kyrgyzstan, SHE'S FROM COLORADO SPRINGS TOO!!! :) I love her she's my favorite staff girl, she's amazing.

- Me at my favorite beach, Bellows beach!! :)

CAMPING TRIP!!!
North Shore of Hawaii... Waimea Bay and Pipeline!! :)

- Getting Baptized at North Shore!! :) By Katie, my Kyrgyzstan leader, and Chris Johnson, my base director who's AMAZING!

Me loving Pipeline... the surfing mecca of the world! :) Amazing!

- The Mill at Pipeline! :)


- My WHOLE DTS, after people got baptized!!! SO awesome:)

- Some girls trying to set up tents... haha I love these people:)

:::Catch Up

Gosh I haven't posted in forever. Partly because I've been learning so much that I don't even know where to start... and partly because I've been borderline distracted. ANYWAYS.

Here it is... the update:)
The past few weeks have been INcredible. We've had some of the MOST AMAZING speakers I've ever heard in my life.
A man named Andy Byrd came and spoke on Prayer and Intercession - ahhh... so epic.
Amy Sollars, a prophet from Alaska, came and spoke on the Holy Spirit the week after him - and my life is basically changed forever from it.

Wade Belt, a previous Honolulu DTS student and Staffer came and spoke on the Character Traits of God - also amazing. He's an awesome, adventurous guy!

And finally this past week, we've had a speaker named Art Collins from California speaking on Servanthood - so far its been amazing and I've definitely learned a lot about what Jesus thinks about a servant and what it means for the "last to be first," etc.

Right now tho, I'm gonna focus on two speakers... Andy Byrd and Amy Sollars.

*sigh*.... where to begin.

Well. Let me begin by saying that Andy and Amy are SO passionately in love with God and SO COMPLETELY led by the Holy Spirit. Andy is this crazy young red-headed 27 year old guy from Alaska that came and did his DTS in Maui several years ago, and now serves on leadership at the Kona base and speaks to several DTS's across the world and is SO passionate to see our generation rise up and take our place as deliverers!!! (Ahh.... such a long, drawn out idea that I'll explain to you one day when I get home)

Now for Amy Sollars. Ahhh... honestly this lady is intense and crazy and SO amazing. She's has an AMAZING testimony, growing up in the woods of Alaska and learning how to shoot and skin a bear by the time she was 9. She's a 28 year old passionate woman who grew up being very sensitive to the spiritual life. She was blessed with the gift of Prophesy... like to the max... and was even kicked out of churches and things because of how strong her gift is and because she was kind of immature with it at first... I mean she was literally able to prophesy over people and pastors and students and everything.

Its actually pretty hilarious to hear her stories... like one time when she was serving as a Youth Pastor, she went away for a week on a trip and while she was gone she had a dream about one of her students in her youth group. In her dream she saw the student at a party and drinking and messing around... so when she came back she asked him about it and she was right on!!! Stuff like this happened all the time to her... like before she knew how to properly use her gifts and things, she would go and prophesy over her high school friends stuff like "You see that girl over there? She likes you. And tomorrow, she's going to come up to you and talk to you after lunch. And you two will probably start dating in a couple months." Lo and behold... everything she said came true and they ended up dating a few months later!! I'm telling you, this lady was extreme to the max right ON with so much stuff... especially stuff in the lives on the students in my own DTS. Even in my life. Crazy stuff.

So ya. Amy and Andy both serve together on the Kona leadership team... they're both very good friends, both red-heads, both from Alaska. Both amazing in love with the King of Kings... its so inspirational.

Andy came and brought his family with him... his beautiful blonde petite wife named Holly, and two PRECIOUS kids - Asher (3) and Hadassah (1) - that I absolutely fell in LOVE with. Hadassah especially.... I couldn't let her go she was so so cute!!

Me and Amy Sollars!! :)

Andy Byrd and his little boy, Asher. Like father, like son! :)

Me, Hadassah, and Asher. Love these kids... ahh they're precious!

So ya. Love these people:)

Anyways. Been learning a lot. Been falling deeper and deeper in love with the King of Kings. Been learning so much about who I am in Christ and what it means to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit... a real, intimate, friendship/relationship which is what God is longing to have with us more than anything.
Its funny when you think about it... well actually probably more sad than funny... that the Holy Spirit is the least talked about thing in church today. Its sad because if you think about it, its the part of the trinity that we have WITH US today. God is the God of the Old Testament... Jesus was the main God of the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit is the "God" of today! Don't get me wrong... I know they are all one in the same. I know they're not separate, but it does talk about in the Bible where each one is today. God the Father is in Heaven, Jesus the Son is at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit is like the wind and lives among us and inside of us. The Holy Spirit is the POWER God... Jesus needed the Holy Spirit and the power that comes from Him to be raised from the dead, and its with the Holy Spirit that Jesus said we will do marvelous things and works greater than what Jesus Himself did... which is crazy to think about.

The Holy Spirit is the God of today... the one that lives inside of us. The same power that conquered the grave lives inside of us and is what leads us and guides us everyday!! I LOVE that! But the thing is that the Spirit freaks churches out and so its not talked about hardly at all. Which is so sad. The spirit is the POWER, it should be everything to us and we get scared of it and try to avoid it as much as possible. That kills me!


Amy came and talked a lot about the nine spiritual gifts taught in 1 Corinthians... she described a little bit of what they are and how to live them and obtain them. It says in the Bible to "Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts..." and I really think thats part of what it means to walk in the fullness of the Spirit. To walk in the fullness of the Spiritual gifts. That is, to walk in the power!! We have the power to heal, we have the power to prophesy, to speak in tongues, all of it! All it takes is for us to ask and receive and walk in out in Faith. I'm trying to do that more and more.
I think its easy to get discouraged, especially when it comes to the gift of Healing. Its so discouraging to pray for healing for someone and see them NOT get healed... ahh that used to kill me. But here's the thing. Andy and Amy explained that its really not about US, its about bringing glory to God's name. All He asks us to do is to obey and walk it out in faith. You might pray for 100 sick people before you see even ONE of them get healed... but the thing is that you DO it. You're strength in Him grows and your faith GROWS the more and more you walk in this.

*************

Every Friday Night we go out to downtown Waikiki and Hotel Street to evangelize. It's an awesome experience, and of course at first all of us students were really nervous to just approach random people and try to tell them about Jesus. I was SO nervous! But, after you break the ice and after you've had an experience talking to the first person, its really, really not as nerve-wracking. So the Friday after Andy Byrd came and spoke, students went again to downtown Waikiki... and watched God MOVE in powerful ways!!

So its Friday Night. The students are SO pumped after hearing Andy preach that week on intercession and a little bit about the power of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts... so they're ready to go.
They head down to this place in Waikiki called the "International Market Place," which is just a bunch of little markets and stores with little necklaces and touristy gifts all put together. In this marketplace, there is a psychic sitting there in her little booth and then another lady with taro cards. There are about three students that go and position themselves around the Psychics booth, and start praying against the dark spirits of power and start praying for
God's light to shine and for her to have no connection with the spirits that are giving her her power and psychic abilities. These three students start praying over her boothe, and sure enough, the psychic comes out a few minutes later.
Psychic: "What are you doing here?"
Nervous DTS Students: "Uhhh, just chilling here."
Psychic: "Are you with them?" (points to the taro card lady behind her.)
DTS Student: "No... just us."
The Psychic glares at them, nods, and walks back in her booth. The students see her reach for her phone and make a phone call. She called the cops on them!!! So sure enough, a cop comes up to them and starts talking to them.
Cop: "What are you doing here?"
Michael, a DTS student: "Just hanging out."
Cop: "Well I think you're doing more than that. The psychic lady called and said you are intervening with her work and you need to stop praying."
Michael: "Actually sir, according to the first amendment, I have a right to pray here."
Cop: "No sir, because right now you're actually loitering. You can only be here for 15 minutes and after that you must leave."
HA!!!!!!!!
The psychic couldn't finish her job and wasn't getting a clear reading because of the Holy Spirit power that was on the students as they were praying... that she had to call the cops and get them kicked out of the Marketplace!!! That's power right there!!! :)

Story #2: This staff guy named Duke came and was teamed up with another girl in our school named Autumn, and they were walking up and down the waikiki strip. They saw this man in a wheelchair that was cruising the strip with his wife, so they went up and started talking to him. They said they were Christians and part of an organization called Youth With A MIssion and asked if they could pray for him, and he totally welcomed the idea. So they prayed for healing for his legs and for complete restoration of his body, and after they were done praying.... nothing really happened. Nothing that was super obvious or phsyically noticeable, but the man and his wife thanked Duke and Autumn and were really grateful. Duke and Autumn asked if there was anything else they could pray for, and the man leaned in and said "What was that? I'm sorry, I have trouble hearing. I have completely lost hearing in my left ear." So Duke and Autumn of course offer to pray for healing in his hear, and he of course accepts it again. So they lay hands on his ear and start praying, and once they finished, Autumn asked the man if she could speak into the ear. She did... and mans face lit up!!! He was so excited because HE COULD HEAR NOW!!!!!!! :) :)

AMAZING!!!!
THAT'S the kind of God we serve. He LOVES the people He created, HE longs for us to walk in line with what He originally designed us for... the Garden of Eden. To live in paradise. We were never intended to have our hearts broken, we were never intended to experience divorce, hatred, sadness, war, any of that. But God is so good, and Jesus humbled Himself completely and came down to restore the relationship between a sinful man and a perfect God!!!
Then Jesus died on the cross to conquer Sin and Death, rose again on the third day, and left us here as His number one plan to spread the good news of Salvation and abundant life to every person. He didn't leave us powerless tho... He gave us His Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, that is our ultimate comforter, strength, power, our EVERYTHING. We need to learn as the church to walk in an intimate relationship with Him and be lead completely by Him daily.
Anyways... THATS what I've been learning lately.

It might be a little confusing because, basically... I've been learning so much that its hard for me to even begin somewhere in one specific spot. I'm gonna try to copy some of my notes into a blog and try to make more sense of this topic... and not leave you in so much confusion. lol.

God is GOOD. He's a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those people who trust in Him. He is TRUTH. He will never leave us or forsake us. He works ALL things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He is ROCK. He is close to the broken-hearted. He is JEALOUS for my heart and my attention. His thoughts towards me are more than the sum of every grain of sand and every star in the sky. He is everlasting. He is outside of time. He knit me together in my mothers womb and knows the number of hair on my head. He's the God that created our freakishly Huge universe.... and by Him, for Him, through Him, and in Him, is EVERYTHING held together.
He's the KING of Love... and if everything in my life was taken away and I still had Him, that would be enough.
He's worthy of my life.
He died for me, so I live for Him. Its that simple.

:::Lessons learned from the Prisoner in Iran

Ahhh.... where to start.
Honestly, my heart is about to explode!!!
God is SO GOOOOD.
I've been here at Kona, the YWAM base on the Big Island Hawaii'. Its freakin amazing.
The campus is HUGE... it has about 5 individual Discipleship Training Schools with about 50 students in each... and about 20 staff for each school.... along with a separate School of Biblical Studies, and another Korean Discipleship training school for Koreans!!!
Needless to say... every meeting time, about 400+ ppl get together to listen to the lecture and worship God.
Ahhhh.... the size of this place hits so close to home being that I go to a HUGE church in Colorado Springs. I've been missing those large gathering!! Its definitely refreshing to be in this place of Kona and have an extreme contrast from the life I've been living in Honolulu for the past 4 weeks, with only 37 students and about 13 staff. Very small. :)

BUT. Honestly, I'm SO glad I chose to go to Honolulu instead of Kona. While I do like the size, this place can't even compare bond and relationships you can build in the small, humble, mini Honolulu base. There are way too many people here in Kona, its literally like a University, and its virtually impossible to get to know everybody, so I love the smallness of the Honolulu base and how close all of the students and staff at my school have gotten.

And by close, I mean CLOSE!! For only having lived with each other for about 4 weeks, we're all so tight and real with each other and everybody is so hungry for the Lord and just deepening our desires to get to know Him!! The students here each are SO anointed in their different ways and we're constantly laying hands on each other and praying for healing for head aches, sore knees, broken backs, stomach aches, and even oversized pimples.... all which have been healed by the way. :) (Praise Jesus!)

We're all seeking God and intimacy with Him and desiring more and more of Him and developing an unsatisfying hunger and increased chasing after Him. Growing closer with the Lord as He invades our lives and refines our character bit by bit. Growing closer to each other and learning to trust each other and push each other closer to the King of Kings.

It was cute, when we got to Kona and saw the HUGE size of the base, the reaction of about half of the students was opposite than what you'd expect. Instead of seeing the finer facilities, the A.C., the huge split level apartment style rooms that we would've had, most of the students were like "Aw we don't wanna be here, we wanna go back to honolulu!!" (IN a joking way of course, but in a sense serious because that smallness and closeness to everybody has become home to us!!)

And in response to those complaints, one of our leaders named Chris Solima said to us, "Guys, just think of this as a little family vacation." :) Ha I loved that. God is so blessing the relationships here in our Honolulu DTS and thriving so much in this place and in our hearts. He's bonding our hearts with one another as brothers and sisters in Jesus and we are all LOVING it!!! :)

Anyways, even tho God is uniting my own Honolulu school together in the midst of this time and new surroundings of the Kona base, I'm still definitely loving it here.
God has OPENED MY EYES to more revelation of Him here than I've realized in a long, long time. This past week at Kona especially has been a very enlightening week for me.

Our speaker since Day 1 is a guy named Dan Baumann. He has an AMAZING testimony, and has a PASSION for the Lord that HE LIVES OUT DAILY... and that completely blows my mind!!

He joined YWAM and did his DTS back when he was 18, and now he's 44, so those years in between he has really grown close to the Lord and become so KEEN to hearing His voice!



The Lord told him to go to Afghanistan and work in a hospital there, so after living there for about a year or two, the Lord told Him to go to Iran for a little bit right before Christmas in December to kind of feel the country out and see if he could establish any connections for future visits into the country to share the Gospel with the Iranian people. After several weeks of wrestling God with the idea, and several instances where God's command was clearly reinforced, Dan went with a friend of his and they both planned a two-week trip to go into Iran and establish connections. At the end of their trip, when they're trying to cross the border OUT of Iran, the Iranian police took Dan's passport and when he was finally able to go to another city in Iran to retrieve it, they kept it and began to accuse Dan of being a spy from the United States and beat him and held him in a room until he "told them the truth of why he was in Iran."



He told them He was a Christian and that the only monetary support came from churches and that he was there only to spread the good news of the Gospel, and the Iranian police didn't believe him so they threw both him and his friend in prison.... for 9 weeks.



He wrote a book about his story and testimony called "Imprisoned in Iran," and he shared a bit about his story with us this past week during our lecture times with him. Basically, it was a very, very rough time for him. He went in and out of times of deep depression, at one point even planning out ways to kill himself. He would get called out of his tiny cell every day to get beaten and tortured until he "gave them the right information about him being a spy." But his experience in his time of prison ultimately just deepened his trust for God and deepened his faith in God.

The thing I liked about Dan Baumann is that he was REAL. He didn't try to pretend that this journey of trusting God and surrendering everything to Him and listening to His voice was an easy one... but the picture that he painted for us really helped me.



So many times, especially since I've been here in this DTS, I've had dreams of what I wanted to do for God and all these plans about going into missions, and questions like "God is THIS what I'm supposed to do? Or is it this? How do I know your will for my life? How do I know I'm not called to Thailand? Do you want me to sell everything and go into the missions field? Or is that just my own voice trying to play God?" ALLLLLLL these things and MORE have been going through my mind... soooo much stress huh? It's crazy really.

And whats even crazier is that I let these thoughts stress me out when, in reality, I have NO POWER over them!! I worry about the future all the time which is ridiculous because I KNOW the Man who holds my future in the palms of His hands, and I KNOW His Character!

I can trust that He LOVES me with a love that lasts through anything and everything, and with a love that will NEVER leave me.

I KNOW He has a plan for prosper me and give me a future and HOPE.
I KNOW He died on the Cross to set me free and wants me to walk in that freedom!!
I KNOW that all things work together for good for the people who love Him!!
I KNOW that there is NO truth apart from Him, and He is the Way, Truth, and Life!
I KNOW that He longs to give us life more abundantly!

So KNOWING all these things, Dan Baumann said that he feels like Gods just saying, "Take these dreams I've given you, hold them in your heart, and watch what I do with it." :)



Ahh, amazing! I don't have to work out the timing or the place or how this is going to fit in with this area of my life or what I should do now or what I should stop doing, I know I can just Go and TRUST and seek intimacy with Him above everything else!!

I believe that's what He's longing for more than anything else in our lives. I believe He's longing to be SO very intimate with us. For us to keep it simple and just ABIDE in Him... that is, know Him! Know His heart! Be close enough to hear His voice and constantly dwell in His presence and seek Him out in every area of our lives:) I love it.

Dan said that everything we do for God is out of our overflow of intimacy with Him. So before we should start seeking to bear fruit in our lives... like, "God make me more patient. Help me love that person. Give me peace. Give me self-control in this area...." and before we focus so so much on bearing the fruit... Jesus has made it simple. He says simply to abide in Him. Seek intimacy with Him first! Above everything else!! The fruit will come naturally as you spend more and more time in His presence:)

SO SIMPLE!!!!! Rest in it. God is good. Nothing less than Good. Rest in that!

::Fellowship of the Unashamed...

A teenage boy wrote this and was martyred shortly after for his faith.

“I am a part of the fellowship of the Unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit Power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slowdown, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by presence, learn by faith, love by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power.

My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my Guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, back up, let up, or shut up until I've preached up, prayedup, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I must go until He returns, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes.

And when He comes to get His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My colors will be clear for "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.." (Romans 1:16)

:::The Original Design...

My heart breaks when I think about how many days I've lived my life for myself. I've twisted everything around me into something that always results in being about me... and that fact alone disgusts me.

We had a speaker this week named Tre Sheppard, who's a member of the band called One Hundred Hours in the UK. He lives in Northern Ireland and came to speak to my DTS for 3 days about the Kingdom of God... and a lot of what he's had to say has really shaken me up.

He started by stating that the Gospel message isn't ABOUT ME. It's not about MY LIFE. Its more about how my life should influence others.
The Heart of the Gospel Message is this: "Come back to your original design."

God's original design for us was the Garden of Eden.... that is purity, no shame, literally walking, talking, and communing with God. Sexuality without shame. Unity with God. Paradise:)
You were never DESIGNED to have your heart broken.
You were never DESIGNED to experience things like hatred, divorce, rape, etc.

Do you realize that? Those things weren't part of God's original design!!
People know it too.
Even people with evil hearts and desires, who don't know the living God, they know and can TELL that something in the world is broken.
It's written across the earth. Pain, brokenness, depression, lust, hatred, war, murder. There must be more than this...

And that is what the story of Jesus is all about - to taste paradise, and be RESTORED to what we were originally DESIGNED FOR!!
Humanity was designed for Eden.

...
that's huge.

Thats why marriage is such a sacred thing. Think about it... it's an original covenant. Marriage is a celebration of the original design!! That's something that God intended from the beginning. That's amazing.

So. God's plan obviously changed as it needed to contrast with the Fall of Man. He needed to restore His Kingdom!!!

Gameplan: Jesus:)

Jesus stated over and over to the people that they needed to "Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at Hand!!"

Bam. Jesus came, defeated sin on the Cross, rose again on the third day, and made His permanent Kingdom in US. That's AMAZING!!

The Kingdom is in US!! Think about how amazing that is!! We are the hands and feet of God... WE are the Kingdom!

This is the sad part tho. We are the Kingdom of God... YOU are His plan to reach the world. Just about everything that God does, and every way He moves, is through His people! (That's us.)

Here's the problem.
Satan knows that we are God's plan. We are here to advance the Kingdom that can't be shaken and that is living inside of us... we are God's plan.
So what does satan do? He keeps us from it.
Instead, he consumes our minds and hearts to twist the Gospel and make it about US.
We change the living word, sharper than a double-edged sword, that can peirce the mind and soul... change THAT into a simple handbook that we occaisionally read and use for our information on how to be a better God-person.
We spend our lives trying to become "the best Christian we can," to get our lives "back on track."
Our prayers are filled with cries to God to STOP our lustful thinking, to increase our self-image and confidence, to BRING us a perfect future spouse, to help us overcome our porn addiction, etc. etc. etc...

We turn the Gospel message to a focus on us instead. INSTEAD, of lifting up prayers for the millions of people who die from HIV/AIDS. The millions of women and children who are kidnapped and sold into Sex Trafficking - modern day slavery. The millions of children that are given no chance of life and aborted day after day - modern day genocide.

Instead of moving and acting and advancing and LIVING within the power thats inside of us, the KINGDOM that's inside of us, we spend all our lives trying to be better people and trying to clean up our lives.

Don't get me wrong, I think that's so so important. You're not going to live passionately for the Lord if your heart isn't right and if you're living in this sick double life. But the thing is, we make that our sole focus. We are consumed with it. It almost becomes an extremely selfish thing... like, I pray for God to come take away the pride in my life because I want to be known as a humble person.

When, in fact, if I would spend my time and MONEY and efforts into becoming obsessed with an injustice in the world; praying against it, researching it, getting involved to help it, that alone would CHANGE my perspective into a much more Kingdomly one, where there wouldn't possibly be room for me to be prideful anyways.
Does that make sense?

I dunno if it does or not. I dunno. All I know is this speaks huge to me.
Just about all my prayers up until now have been somewhat selfish... God, help my parents stop fighting (because I want to be known as a girl who has it all together with an amazing family and everything), God, help me get rid of my pride (because I want to be KNOWN as a humble person), God, help me be a woman who chases after your heart (becaues I want to attract a man that chases after your heart as well), God, please bless me with this, and this, etc. etc etc.

I ask all of this from Him, with such an "expecting" heart, yet I continue to live my life the way I wanna live it. Selfishly. Absolutely no sign of me taking up my Cross, and definitely no sign of me dying to myself, to my desires, to my dreams, to my hopes and little girlish wishes.

I don't know. I don't want to live for myself anymore. I want to be consumed with God, and with that be consumed with what He is consumed with. I want to dream what He dreams. I want to love what/who HE loves. I want to move how HE moves. I want all of Him to be fully alive in me... because His Kingdom is in me anyways.

I read Ephesians 4 this past week and it hit home:

"Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires; and be renewed in the Spirit of your minds, and put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and Holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with His neighbor, for we are all members of one another." (4:22-25)

Dang that's perfect. Do you see?
Guys, thats another thing I'm learning since I've been here. I'm realizing more and more just how GOOD the Bible is. There's so much truth in this book, so much LIFE. It literally is alive, and is constantly hitting my heart and changing and moving me and changing the way I want to be and the way I think.
SO much truth in one book... its unbelievable. I want to make it my best friend!!

ALSO---------------------------
Another idea that Tre spoke about.
He said that we all carry fhe Light of Christ in us... but sometimes we really don't realize JUST how brought that light in us is. Why?? Because we're trying to shine OUR light in places where other lights are already shining... *translation*.... we are surrounding ourselves with Church, Youth Group, Christian this, Christian that, etc. Getting BLENDED into the light around us. You know what I mean?

I'm SO guilty of that. I'm so guilty of thinking its a "Christian vs. the bad world" type of situation... ya know... us against them. I have that mindset and THAT heart set... yet, I'm still praying "God use me, God use me. God, let my light so shine before men that they may see my goodworks and glorify YOU!!"
Wanna see your light shine BRIGHTLY??
Go to the darkest places in the world. And it will shine.

Cool idea huh? I never had thought about that before. Amazing. (I can expand further and further on this idea... but for the sake of your absolute boredom and my sleepy eyes... I won't. Just know that this idea is freakin amazing.)

Anyways.
Wrapping this little guy up.
That's kind of what God's been doing in my heart... just a SMALL peice. The past 3 weeks have been huge... so much breaking down of my old life and learning patterns of the new life that I want to live.
- Learning a lot about myself and who I am... which is really good.
- Learning to love my neighbor... even if they take too long in the shower! Ha! Community living has definitely been a learning experience in itself.
- Learning to be away from somebody I'm in love with... learning to communicate effectively and try my hardest to show that person just how much I really, really love them. (Counting down the days til I see him again! Right now... we're at 134... ha. How cheesy! *smile*)
- Learning to be SPIRITUALLY DISCIPLINED... to be intentional in my walk with Christ. To have disciplined "Quiet Times" and really pursue His heart and learn more about who He is.
- Developing a PASSION for the world and to see Jesus really move in it and reach out to a humanity that is broken, depressed, hurting... and restore it to the original design. The Echo of Eden. :)

Lets just say that I'm freakin in love with Jesus for laying down His life for me and for the world and saving me and calling me back to the original design... unity with God. Walking with God. Talking with God. Because He loves us. Oh... how He loves us. :)

Praise Jesus!!!

:::And my Outreach country is.... :)

Got it yet...? :) Haha...

KYRGYZSTAN!!!!!!!

:)

We will first be living in the capital of K-Stan, a city called Bishkek. It's in the northern part of the country.

Some quick facts about Kyrgyzstan (thanks to google)::::

- Major Religion is Sunni Muslim

- The Country is about the size of Minnesota

- The "Tien Shan" Mountain Range dominates the country. (Translated as "Heavenly Mountains" in Chinese!)

- Part of Soviet Union until Aug. 31st, 1991, now recognized as their country's independence day.

- Surrounded by Kazakstan to the North, China and Tajikistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the east.

- It is among the poorest of the former Soviet Union Republics

- Kyrgyzstan is a secular state, altho Islam has a strong and growing influence in politics.

So yes. Here are some little facts that I've found out after about a half an hour of googling. I'm SO excited. As soon as they put the options up on the board for us to choose, I felt drawn for this one for some reason. We will be moving there from the beginning of December to the beginning of February.

There are about 10 DTS students on my team, a couple from Switzerland, a guy from Korea, a guy in the US Army, a couple girls from Canada, a kid from Alaska, a guy from Maryland, and a girl from Houston!! Our leaders names are Brandon (21 from Ohio) and Katie Miller (20-something from... Colorado Springs!!!) :)

Our leaders are really different from each other; Brandon is very loud and theatrical, probably one of the funniest guys I've ever met, while Katie is more quiet and gentle, but I'm really excited for how each leader will contribute differently to the team.

We will be staying with these long-term missionaries that are involved with YWAM and that have already been living out there, I think their names are Jeff and Gabrielle? And we will be assisting their ministries for the two and a half months that we're there.

I'm SO excited.

I feel SO at peace about going to this place and am so excited to see how God is going to move and prepare my heart and the heart of my teammates in these upcoming months before we fly out!!

Please pray for the safety of my team and for God to really bring many opportunities to share His gospel with the Kyrgyz people. Feel free to google/lookup any info of the country and send it to me if you like!! I'm so excited to research it and learn more about it before we move there.

I'll keep you all updated for sure... and in the meantime Im just excited for God to move in my heart more and more, drawing me closer and closer to Him.

"Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation..." - Mark 16:15