So as I was in Nicaragua and retrospective as I often am on mission trips, I realized something really cool. 3 years prior over my Spring Break I had prayed to receive Christ. So often I'm reminded of how far I've come since that day. How I went from this lost, broken, little girl to becoming a woman of God. Haha, I'm still very much becoming… there are still lots of mistakes and a lot of questions and a lot of awkward moments.
I'm humbled and amazed and soooooooooo….thankful. I'm still so very young in my faith and I have so much to learn. And I remember when I didn't know if I would stick with it, if I wanted to follow Christ for the right reasons and besides I had no idea what the heck I was doing… But God was with me and like He said, hasn't left me. Thank you Jesus.
"Me viste a mi cuando nadie me veó. Me amaste a mi cuando nadie me amó.
Me diste nombre…yo soy tu niña, la niña de tus ojos porque me amaste a mi…Te amo más que a mi vida"
(You saw me when no one saw me. You loved me when no one loved me. You gave me a name…I am Your child, the apple of your eye because You loved me…I love You more than my life)
P.s. I will try to get around to posting about my last two trips soon. I have a lot of school work to catch up on so be patient :)
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Full Attention
This is just a song that Jeremy Riddle sings that I LOVE and I've been singing and praying for the last few weeks so I thought I'd share...
FULL ATTENTION
May Your voice be louder
May Your voice be clearer
Than all the others
Than all the others
May Your face be dearer
May Your words be sweeter
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life
Please keep my eyes
Fixed on You
Please root my heart
So deep in You
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
That I may bear fruit
May Your presence be truer
May Your presence be nearer
Than all the others
Than all the others
May Your light burn brighter
May Your love move deeper
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life
FULL ATTENTION
May Your voice be louder
May Your voice be clearer
Than all the others
Than all the others
May Your face be dearer
May Your words be sweeter
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life
Please keep my eyes
Fixed on You
Please root my heart
So deep in You
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding
That I may bear fruit
May Your presence be truer
May Your presence be nearer
Than all the others
Than all the others
May Your light burn brighter
May Your love move deeper
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life
Monday, February 8, 2010
Here we go again...
So I leave for the Dominican Republic in 6 days. Once again there is the gumbo of thoughts and emotions going on in my head. I'm excited, overwhelmed, anxious, expecting, grateful, unsure, confident…Did you follow all of those? Cause I never can…
I think I feel this way because I never know what to expect for a trip. There are always so many details and things going on at home before I leave that I rarely have time to even wrap my brain around what will go on during the trip. Which usually is a good thing because it gives God a chance to mold the experience and the lessons on a fresh canvas without having to muck through everything I thought it would be.
With all the trips lately there have been a lot of questions from everyone around me. Why do I go on all these trips? Why don't I settle in one area? How do I afford all of the trips? Not gonna lie I wasn't a fan of the questions at first. Not that I haven't thought about them because I think about them and pray about them almost constantly but it's so hard to put into words sometimes but I'll try.
As far as why and finances I'll answer with a verse which sum up MY answers to these questions.
"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Isaiah 55: 2
I don't think "mission hopping" as I heard it described lately is always a bad thing. I don't know if or when I will go full time, that is up to God. And I don't know which people group. That is also up to God. A lump of clay is molded first then given it's place and it's purpose…I'm still very much being molded. I'm learning which groups I have a heart for, how I approach ministry, and what my spiritual gifts are and how I can use them to most glorify God. Each trip I grow a little more, I discern a little more and I get to see another part of God's kingdom. Would I love to know what people I'm called to and settle and really build into a community? Of course. But God hasn't called me there yet and until then I am excited to embrace where God IS calling me.
I think I feel this way because I never know what to expect for a trip. There are always so many details and things going on at home before I leave that I rarely have time to even wrap my brain around what will go on during the trip. Which usually is a good thing because it gives God a chance to mold the experience and the lessons on a fresh canvas without having to muck through everything I thought it would be.
With all the trips lately there have been a lot of questions from everyone around me. Why do I go on all these trips? Why don't I settle in one area? How do I afford all of the trips? Not gonna lie I wasn't a fan of the questions at first. Not that I haven't thought about them because I think about them and pray about them almost constantly but it's so hard to put into words sometimes but I'll try.
As far as why and finances I'll answer with a verse which sum up MY answers to these questions.
"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Isaiah 55: 2
I don't think "mission hopping" as I heard it described lately is always a bad thing. I don't know if or when I will go full time, that is up to God. And I don't know which people group. That is also up to God. A lump of clay is molded first then given it's place and it's purpose…I'm still very much being molded. I'm learning which groups I have a heart for, how I approach ministry, and what my spiritual gifts are and how I can use them to most glorify God. Each trip I grow a little more, I discern a little more and I get to see another part of God's kingdom. Would I love to know what people I'm called to and settle and really build into a community? Of course. But God hasn't called me there yet and until then I am excited to embrace where God IS calling me.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Panama Update 3: The Whole Earth is Filled with Your Glory Lord...
This is a video that was put together by our Panama trip leader. It's awesome and it gives some highlights of the ministry that went on in the other villages as well as the one I was in. Haha, and you get to see me singing but feel free to fast forward through that part ;)
http://gallery.me.com/crittertruax#100125
I'm officially going to Nicaragua as of this morning so I'm excited about that! And I can't believe that I leave for the Dominican next weekend! Crazy!!! Where does time go???
http://gallery.me.com/crittertruax#100125
I'm officially going to Nicaragua as of this morning so I'm excited about that! And I can't believe that I leave for the Dominican next weekend! Crazy!!! Where does time go???
Monday, January 25, 2010
Panama Update 2
As I was walking the halls of the hospital today I was trying to narrow down which story I wanted to tell tonight...Not an easy task let me tell you, but I finally figured out which one it would be!
***So New Year's Eve was by FAR my favorite day of our days in the village of Montelirio. We were throwing a New Year's Eve party for the village complete with pinatas, games, and serving dinner for the village. Well there had been some initial mix up on what time the party started and so my little group got to go out to all the huts in the village and inform the that we were starting at 4 and not noon...we had lots of other planning and organizing for the party so we were ONLY going to tell them the time change and praying at the huts my group had visited the day before. WRONG. God had much bigger plans for that day, including 11 people accepting Christ on our little stroll that day :) One of the houses that stuck out to me was one we had been to before and shared the evangecube with but not to the 3 girls who were there that day. After chatting with them for a little bit we asked if they had accepted Jesus as their Savior and they said no, but they wanted to! Great! We asked if anyone had shared the cube with them or if they had heard about salvation. They said no one had talked to them but they had been coming to the meetings in the evenings and had been learning about God and Jesus. Apparently that was enough for them :) We spent another hour with them sharing the Gospel and making sure they knew why they needed a savior and the whole time Moises was sharing you could just tell that they got it! It was soooooo cool. In this village and culture if their were men around then the women would repeat the prayer silently and the men would pray out loud with us. However with these three women there were no men around and when they prayed all three of them prayed with such strength and desire...not gonna lie, I teared up a little :) ***
Moises, one of our local contacts, sharing the Evangecube (a picture cube that has images that go along with the gospel) with the women in the story above :)
***So New Year's Eve was by FAR my favorite day of our days in the village of Montelirio. We were throwing a New Year's Eve party for the village complete with pinatas, games, and serving dinner for the village. Well there had been some initial mix up on what time the party started and so my little group got to go out to all the huts in the village and inform the that we were starting at 4 and not noon...we had lots of other planning and organizing for the party so we were ONLY going to tell them the time change and praying at the huts my group had visited the day before. WRONG. God had much bigger plans for that day, including 11 people accepting Christ on our little stroll that day :) One of the houses that stuck out to me was one we had been to before and shared the evangecube with but not to the 3 girls who were there that day. After chatting with them for a little bit we asked if they had accepted Jesus as their Savior and they said no, but they wanted to! Great! We asked if anyone had shared the cube with them or if they had heard about salvation. They said no one had talked to them but they had been coming to the meetings in the evenings and had been learning about God and Jesus. Apparently that was enough for them :) We spent another hour with them sharing the Gospel and making sure they knew why they needed a savior and the whole time Moises was sharing you could just tell that they got it! It was soooooo cool. In this village and culture if their were men around then the women would repeat the prayer silently and the men would pray out loud with us. However with these three women there were no men around and when they prayed all three of them prayed with such strength and desire...not gonna lie, I teared up a little :) ***
Moises, one of our local contacts, sharing the Evangecube (a picture cube that has images that go along with the gospel) with the women in the story above :)
Friday, January 22, 2010
Panama Update 1: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways," declares the Lord
Hi everyone!!!
I just wanted to report back after the Panama trip. It was amazing!!! One of the main rules of missions it to be flexible and to surrender your expectations to God because God is sure to do things His own way. I tried to go into the trip with very little expectations mainly because besides the fact that we would be in villages sharing the Gospel I had very little idea what was going to be going on. There are sooooo many stories that I can’t possibly imagine telling them all on here but know that God was moving in these people long before we got there and I pray that He continues to move in them and grow in them long after we have gone. I’ll share a few of my favorite stories over the next few days. Here’s the first one:
***Each day we would go around to the different huts in the village to share the Gospel, pray with people, and just talk to them and learn about their lives. On our first day out we went to the hut of one women who seemed completely uninterested in us, in what we were saying, or even us being there. The whole time we were talking to us she barely made eye contact and an uninterested “Uh huh” was pretty much the only response we could get out of her. She did allow us to share the Gospel with her and then told us that she wasn’t feeling well and allowed us to pray for her. We went on our way and I didn’t think too much about her the rest of the day…As we were heading back to the school where we had pitched our tent myself and my English to Spanish translator got separated from our native language translator, Amelio. Once he returned to the school he shared with us what had taken him so long. As he was walking back he was walking past this ladies hut and heard her calling out to him. She wanted to accept Christ and so he prayed with her!!!***
Sometimes the words don’t come out right. Sometimes it feels as if you did everything wrong and well you hope that you do better next time because you are sure that there is no way God can use what just happen. Sometimes you discount people by their initial reaction to you or even to the Gospel. But this is just one of the stories of God teaching me that I can’t even begin to imagine how He is working in someone’s heart even if it’s not evident to the people around them. Isaiah 55 says, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Such a sweet promise!!!
I just wanted to report back after the Panama trip. It was amazing!!! One of the main rules of missions it to be flexible and to surrender your expectations to God because God is sure to do things His own way. I tried to go into the trip with very little expectations mainly because besides the fact that we would be in villages sharing the Gospel I had very little idea what was going to be going on. There are sooooo many stories that I can’t possibly imagine telling them all on here but know that God was moving in these people long before we got there and I pray that He continues to move in them and grow in them long after we have gone. I’ll share a few of my favorite stories over the next few days. Here’s the first one:
***Each day we would go around to the different huts in the village to share the Gospel, pray with people, and just talk to them and learn about their lives. On our first day out we went to the hut of one women who seemed completely uninterested in us, in what we were saying, or even us being there. The whole time we were talking to us she barely made eye contact and an uninterested “Uh huh” was pretty much the only response we could get out of her. She did allow us to share the Gospel with her and then told us that she wasn’t feeling well and allowed us to pray for her. We went on our way and I didn’t think too much about her the rest of the day…As we were heading back to the school where we had pitched our tent myself and my English to Spanish translator got separated from our native language translator, Amelio. Once he returned to the school he shared with us what had taken him so long. As he was walking back he was walking past this ladies hut and heard her calling out to him. She wanted to accept Christ and so he prayed with her!!!***
Sometimes the words don’t come out right. Sometimes it feels as if you did everything wrong and well you hope that you do better next time because you are sure that there is no way God can use what just happen. Sometimes you discount people by their initial reaction to you or even to the Gospel. But this is just one of the stories of God teaching me that I can’t even begin to imagine how He is working in someone’s heart even if it’s not evident to the people around them. Isaiah 55 says, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Such a sweet promise!!!
I'm Baaaaaaack
Welcome back to blog amazingness. I know, you've all probably missed getting to hear all about my adventures and random happenings around the world. Well, fear not! The blog is back to stay for the rest of the semester. When I'm not traveling I'll continue to update with what God is teaching me, where He is leading me, and maybe share what some of my friends are up to!
So once again, welcome back or welcome for the first time to the craziness that is my life and my mission. Hope you enjoy!!!
So once again, welcome back or welcome for the first time to the craziness that is my life and my mission. Hope you enjoy!!!
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