My Grace is in Place.

My grace is in place.
Comforting words for this season of my life. Just now am I starting to feel like things are getting back to normal in my life. Which surprisingly, I have come to strongly dislike!
Before Africa I couldn't imagine a single thing changing in my daily schedule. I loved every part of what I did and couldn't get enough. Still do, just trying to adjust to it.
I can't seem to find my place. I know what to do and where to go, but doing, going and checking it off the list is not enough. Which is basically how I've been operating these past 2 weeks.
I've realized how dependent I've become on my job, church ministry and friends/family through this change. And I know that God used Africa to flip it around for me. I see that now.
The feeling of disconnection between these 3 important things in my life has caused me to depend fully on God. And in many prayers, begging Him to keep moving me from glory to glory.
At our youth prayer this last Wednesday, God spoke into my life through Pastor Tim. He said, "Your grace is in place." So I thank God for grace. I thank God that I can grow to resemble Him and that even though sin is always present, through His blood nothing stands in my way. I'm thankful, yet again, that He has chosen me to be the one He moves from glory to glory, and place to place-- literally. I know I won't be in one place permanently in this season of my life. He is going to take me places. And He will give me grace everyday to live through the day. He will place His grace in the area and situation to abound and take control, so that I feel and know His presence is present.
I am reconnected to someone I never would have thought to be disconnected from, Jesus.
I'm watching out for my dependency to fall on Him and not on His blessings (job, ministry, family/friends). I've learned that God takes away certain blessings and brings in the new. I won't always have the spiritual support in a good work environment, I won't always have the same ministry experience, and even though I will always hold close my friends and family at heart, they won't always satisfy my needs and my wants. But my Jesus satisfies. And He is the same everyday, ready to pour more into my life and to move where I move and feel what I feel. In Him is where I find my place.

Deeper Love.

Deep love! That's what I have seen of God here. On October 1st, just before my trip, I asked God what He wanted to speak to me about this next season of my life. And I wrote down in my journal what I heard.
"My love is deeper."
That's it! When I wrote that I remember thinking it was very odd for God to say something like that about my upcoming trip. I thought I already knew what His love looked like.
Boy was I wrong!
As I was journaling my thoughts tonight, I found myself in adoration of Him. And when I looked back at what I wrote on Oct. 1st I found, "My love is deeper".
I have experienced His deep love, and I don't even know if this is the deepest!
But it's crazy! It's crazy that I can't see God physically but I know that He is wrapping His arms around every single one of these abandoned, hurt, sick, poor, and tired kids. I see His love for this side of the world and it is so different from what I experience everyday at home.
I am personally experiencing His love and goodness through every step I take in the slum. Even though there is so much brokenness surrounding me, He brings healing through me! Through all of us that ask to be His hands and feet.
One prayer of mine, since I've been serving in ministry, was that God would show me how He uses me to bring His healing, joy, peace, love and everything else to His people. And I have seen and felt it here! Nothing is a coincidence. God brings certain people and situations in this moment of your life to benefit whatever He has planned next for you! That's what I've seen God do from the moment I told Him that "I am yours God. Send me and use me wherever the need is." From that point in my life He has planned everything specifically for this day. And now He is using this time to prepare me for more! Wow, what a busy God.
Another thing that I'm learning is that God has been pruning me here. Meaning, trimming me and shaping me.
John 15:1-2: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."
I feel like God has blessed me greatly and every blessing is His for me to enjoy. So what I'm realizing is.. when He knows it's time to "prune" me, in other words, take something away, He is doing it for my own good. He wants me to be more fruitful. What good would it be for me if I refused to be shaped by Him? It's a hard thing to allow God to do because it means we need to be open to be changed and to go places and talk to people we don't want to. Or are afraid to. But our Father knows what's best for us, so when He is changing your circumstance or surrounding, let Him be God! We won't see any results until we allow His hand to transform us.
I've found it to be a rewarding process. God is noticing the fruit in my life and He is responding by growing me more in Him. Oh He is SO good!

Reflection.

I have caught myself reflecting on God's hand in my life lately. I love looking back and seeing how He connected all the dots to lead me to this place in my life. He has been so good and so faithful to me and those around me. Everyday He reveals something different about Himself that makes me love Him even more.

Prior to leaving to Africa for missions, something I was experiencing and kept hearing from God was that I was living a spiritually comfortable life. And that's not what God wants. We all have a different calling in life, I know that mine is to serve in ministry. And at that time I knew God wanted more from me and will always want more. As His people, comfort is no option. Especially when it comes to serving God. Of course, this is easier said than done. 

Arriving in Africa, immediately I began to feel the spiritual difference from my life at home and here. I felt like I couldn't connect with God as easily as I could at home. And because I was homesick and adjusting to the new surroundings I didn't even want to try to understand God. I was mad that He called me to this place and left me. That's how I felt-- alone. I felt like God couldn't understand what I was going through, even though my prayer for the last 3 months was, "God walk before me, I know you are already there preparing the ground for me."

Looking back, I see how easily I gave in to my emotions and fear and how passive I was of God's comforting words, "I am with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).

The first week was the worst for me. On top of being homesick, tired, and adjusting to the new culture I started to see and hear things I never expected. Brokenness, extreme poverty, abandoned children, injured homeless people, etc. Seeing that was the hardest thing. I couldn't understand this new side of God. 

As I was thinking about all this He revealed this to me: God is sovereign in every situation, in every church, in every home, in every part of the world. He is sovereign. No matter what the circumstance-- He is the same God today as He was yesterday. This side of God's heart is so different for me. It's a whole new level of experience-- understanding His love for these people, who mostly are unaware of His sovereignty and movement. That's why He sent me here. To be a part of His movement and His plan for Africa. 

I am learning a lot of what it means to be committed to God. And how far I have to be stretched to understand God's will and love for me. I'm so thankful He put up with me when I wanted to give everything up. I'm thankful when that one night I couldn't take it anymore and kept telling Him that I was sorry I couldn't do what He has called me to do and wanted to go home. I gave up, but He picked me back up and helped me carry the burden. 

This is so worth it. To be called to fulfill His will and to be used by Him. To see how far He keeps bringing me each day. I am so so SO thankful for all of His blessings in my life. Glory to my God who is so good to me!

I love this song by Rita Springer, it's helping me understand God more through these simple lyrics.

Thankful.

It has been a very slow yet the fastest 2 weeks of my life here in Africa!
I am enjoying it more and more each day and am finding that it will be a little bit hard to go home.
I am in love with the kids here. Today we taught at Gifted Hands, a school that EAC partners with, and I was privileged to teach the kindergartners the song "Jesus Loves Me".
The kids at Gifted Hands are very different from the other kids we do ministry with. All of the students at Gifted Hands are from the slum. I guess that's what makes them so distinct. They are much happier even though they come from a very rough background. As soon as I walked in through the metal door to the school ground a swarm of kids ran at me and literally attached themselves to me. Some took me by the hand, some held on to my purse, and of course there are always those girls who are fascinated with hair. Yes, they even clung to my hair! They are all adorable and seek only one thing: love. They want to be loved. They expect me to remember all of their names for next time. I don't know how that will go lol.
I am so thankful to God for this experience. It was really hard in the beginning, but each day gets better and better.
Yesterday I wrote in my journal a reminder that I kept hearing before this trip: You can't change Africa,  Africa will change you.
I'm finding that to be more true every day. Africa really has changed me. It is SO different from America. I will probably be saying this for the rest of my life, I never expected what I have seen, heard, and felt. It is at times unbearable and other times very exciting. I'm glad to be a part of God's plan for Kenya. He loves these people and is waiting for them to realize that.
I'm thankful that He didn't give up on me when I wanted to give up on His purpose.
I'm thankful that at the time that He chose me, He knew how I would react, and still chose me!
I'm thankful that He is good in every season.
I'm thankful that even though I feel powerless, He is able to pour His power into me.
I'm thankful that there is no one like our God.
No one else can satisfy me like He can. No one but God alone will ever know and feel every experience and struggle I've had to come through to realize what He is up to.
I'm thankful that He understands.
So thankful.

Zeek

How in the world did I think this was going to be easy?!

It is SO HARD. So heartbreaking.
I never really expected this. My heart is breaking for the people around me who, just down the street, live in shacks and mud houses. How most of them are unable to retrieve clean water for themselves and their children. How their little mud home is smaller than my room! How they have to work so hard all day to earn enough money to live in the slum. Which yes, they have bills to pay in a mud house! How insane is that? I would never pay the government jack if I lived in such conditions!

But these people inspire me. They are so grateful.
Today we were invited to Zeek's home. Zeek is the night guard for our house here. As I sat in this man's tiny home and listened to him talk about his dreams for his life and his family, my heart broke. Aside from guarding our house at night, Zeek runs a small business of repairing shoes on the side of the streets of Kibera. He makes just enough money to pay off his monthly bills, school bills for his four children, and buy some food for his family. Zeek wishes to become a bus driver in Nairobi. But that requires going to school and paying more money as well as giving up a job to make room for school. Zeek mentioned how thankful he is to God that he is still alive and able to support and care for his family. He says that without God's strength to live, his stay-at-home wife, four children, and ill mother, would not survive on their own.

I have met Zeek and many other believers from the slum who are more grateful than I would ever be in their position. It is seriously unbelievable what people have to live through in the slum. I never imagined it to be this tragic.

This is a general African food called Chapati. Very hard to get used to but probably the best African food I've tried so far.

Africa, finally!

Africa... huge culture shock.

But I love it. Everything is so different here, it is an adventure with every step I take.

Today was my first full day here. And I have learned so much already. The locals and the other girls here for missions (Ashley and Heather) are so welcoming and made me feel at home right away!

So where to begin...

This morning was a surprise. The neighbor's rooster woke me up at around 4am. And wouldn't shut up. Quite an experience. Hopefully, I will become immune to his crow soon.

Today we went to the Getathuru Rehabilitation Center for young street boys. Such an experience! This week I get to sit back and observe how everything is done around here.

Of course, this is not like America at all. The classroom the kids sit in is so uncomfortable and dirty. Broken windows, chipped walls, spider webs, wooden desks and chairs. Very different. Makes me really appreciate what I had when I was in school. 

But the boys are all so sweet! They definitely have big dreams and believe that God really loves them. Most of these boys are in the rehab center because they ran away from home, were found on the street, got kicked out of their homes, or disobeyed the law. They just want to be loved and it is so good to tell them that Jesus loves them and to let them know that we love and care for them as well.

After the morning lesson, which today was on first aid, we went and got some ice cream for lunch. After that we had about an hour to relax before going back to the rehab center to teach English to the boys. I fell asleep under a tree in the field. Welcome to Africa! Haha.

After English lessons were over (around 3pm) we went home. The transportation system here is nuts! I'm still in shock. Basically, I risk my life every time I get into a matatu (which is like a 15 passenger seat van) or a city bus. There are no speed limits here but there are speed bumps! How funny is that? No stop signs. No stoplights. And everybody jaywalks. Oh, and no lanes! And if there is a faint looking lane on the road, it's ignored. People drive fast here! I figured that whoever honks their car horn first gets the right of way. On the way to the rehab center today, I got to sit up next to the driver in the matatu. He almost ran over a man. It was scary.

On the bus ride home, some young looking dude hit on me! And when I was paying for the ride, the man that was collecting the money looked at me and said, "Oh you rich huh!" (In a thick accent). 

When I walk amongst the African people I hear the word 'mzungu' a lot, which means white. A lot of them know the missionaries here already so today when they saw me for the first time they said, "Oh look, another mzungu has come". Lol. It's definitely a little weird being the only white person sometimes. This whole day, I have only seen 2 other white people. And it brought great comfort to know that I'm not the only one haha.

Life here is so different. Definitely not what I expected. I live just a minute's walk from one of the largest slums in Africa-- Kibera. Today we went into the marketplace part of Kibera. People everywhere. Kids running around. Lot's of food being cooked and sold. Stray dogs. And chickens. As you go deeper into the slum (which I will experience tomorrow) it gets more crowded because of all the mud shacks being so close together. They tell me it's going to be an experience of a lifetime tomorrow. So I'm excited and a bit nervous.

Africa is beautiful. Kenyan people are very caring. The children love white people. And adults have much respect for white people. It has already changed me so much in just one day! 

I miss you all, my friends and family in America :)

Mungu awabariki! (God bless you!)

Afraid of Africa?

I've been asked this question over and over again. And am still being asked.
Am i afraid? No. I think i'm way too excited to panic.

I do wonder why I'm not afraid though. I'm the type of person who would usually be very nervous for such a trip and to be going alone to Africa! That's a huge deal.

I keep asking God why I don't feel even a bit of fear. He answers by fully assuring me that this is His will and if i follow in His plans i am promised His provision and protection.

I refer to Psalm 37 as the Psalm of my life (as cheesy as that sounds!). But it really is the story of my life. No matter what situation I am in, when i open up to this passage, God reveals the answer.

Tonight, I ask God again. Why am I not the least bit worried? And the answer I get: Psalm 37:33.

"The Lord will not leave him in his hand..."

In other words, my God will not take away his protection over my life. No matter what happens, I will be in the will of God. And will always know that my trust is in Him for He has already gone before me. If this is from Him then I am for Him. All for Him. Whatever He wills for my life, let it be done.

19 MORE DAYS!

1 John 1:5-10

1 John 1:5-10: True Devotion with the Father

1:6: If we claim we have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

We often claim that we are saved and through our salvation we have a relationship with Jesus Christ. What we don’t sometimes understand is what a relationship with Jesus really looks like.

It is a relationship that resembles the fellowship between the Father and His Son.

That is what our relationship must reflect. One of the many reasons God sent His Son to us is for Believer’s to see the relationship He has with His son and imitate it.

But we are blind to this part of our mission. We know so much about Jesus but little of our relation to Him. We know that He was obedient to His Father (Hebrews 10:7). We know that He listened to the Father’s voice (John 12:49). We know that He gave glory to the Father (Matt. 6:9-10, 12:50). We know that He honored the Father’s commands (John14:31).

We look at everything Jesus is and has done but rarely do we stop to look at the relationship between the Father and His beloved Son. The perfect example that the Lord sets for us daily! JESUS models the most pure and perfect relationship. Not only for our earthly bonds with each other, but most importantly for our spiritual bond with our Father.

Most of us don’t even know what an honest and sincere relationship resembles because we don’t personally seek the face of Jesus. A Believer’s mission is to fulfill the Great Commission given by Christ.

How do you fulfill a goal? You have to do certain things, take specific steps, to accomplish the overall purpose.

For example, your goal is to lose 10 pounds in 1 month. What must you do to reach your goal? You don’t just write it down and wait for it to happen. You begin to work out, you start eating healthy, you take longer walks, etc. The same way in a Christian’s life. We have a mission: Matthew 28:19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So then, what must we do to achieve our mission? We start exercising spiritually. Start working out (your faith), start eating healthy (spiritual daily food: the Word), take longer walks (spend more time with the Lord).

In this, there is no room for darkness! So if we do not do this and claim to have a relationship with Christ, we are liars (1 John 1:6)! But if we do try, everyday, to live up to the truth, we have true fellowship with Him and are ensured that even though we may slip and sin at times the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7)!

This passage stretches on the act of claiming. We are claiming either to have fellowship with our Lord or not. We are claiming to be without sin or choosing to confess our sin.

Claim the truth that is found in no one else but Jesus. Take a hold of Him and claim Him. Declare your life to be all about Him.

The most convicting part of this passage is if we claim to be in fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, the Bible clearly states that we are making Him out to be a liar (1 John 1:10). If we are still walking in darkness, we do not understand the will and even the mission of our Lord. His Word has no place in our lives (1:10). And how could it? What would it be used for if it is completely useless in our life?

Unfortunately, we don’t even have the option of keeping the Word around for when we’re ready to surrender to God. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away” (Job 1:21).

He will take it away from us because there is no use for His word in our hearts, in our lives, for we are liars in claiming a relationship with Him by continuing to walk in darkness. When we claim fellowship with Him, let’s claim it with confidence (Philippians 1:6) and readiness to be in a devoted relationship with God as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Africa

I AM GOING TO AFRICA!

The Lord has been faithful and is paving the path for me. I am overjoyed to finally fulfill one of dreams.
I will be going to Nairobi, Kenya in November for one month to do mission work. Specifically, participating in outreach programs to orphans and helping out in any projects that are currently taking place. I am so privileged to do this for the glory of Jesus! I am excited to be even more encouraged, stretched and challenged as I live and serve among the people of Kenya in the context of their culture and their country. God is up to so many awesome things in my life! I am more than glad that I am choosing His will for my life and not my own.

I am in the process of raising money for this trip. If you would like to donate, click on the donate button on top left of  the page. All of your proceeds will go toward my mission trip for Africa. Please prayerfully consider if you feel like it's what the Lord is calling you to do. Thank you so much! God bless.

Worship Signals by Tim Hawkins

This is the funniest thing i've ever seen lol!

2:20 a.m.

I am so consumed with the presence of God right now... it's 2:20 a.m. After a long day of being hurt and confused as to why He isn't helping me... He answers me. At 2:20 a.m.! You know God doesn't have timing when He's keeping you up at night answering your prayers. He is so good.

This is such a testimony for me because the Lord has been bringing me through it up to this day. Two weeks ago, I was asked to lead worship for Friday, the 20th, at our youth service. I was so excited, and I knew that I had to prepare extra hard this whole month. That ment more praying, fasting, and just seeking Jesus and his word. And i also knew, the second that i agreed, i knew that it was going to be the hardest battle to fight. I got so busy. Busy with working in ministry and making goals for the new year that i didn't have time to just stand still and worship Him. I was always in a rush to go. To go to a meeting, to go to practice, to go to work, whatever it was.. I had to go! Not once did i stop to just dwell in the presence of the Lord. I kept reminding myself- "tonight when i get home, i'm gonna just sit, seek, and find Jesus." Never happened. I felt satan use lies, excuses and restlessness to stop me from entering His presence.

Today was the meltdown. I just cried to God. I was so frustrated and angry. So tired and hungry for Him at the same time. All I could ask was why He appointed me for this worship part of the service if He knew i would be such a mess. It was a miserable end to my cry. I was even more angry. Why would God use me to lead others when i myself needed it the most, and definitely was in no position to lead? By the end of the day i started hoping that service would get cancelled.

That night i came home.. Through facebook, i found and listened to a podcast of Kari Jobe preaching on worship. 2:20 a.m. Wow. Everything that i was asking God, everything that i was complaining about, everything that i was worried about... He answered. And it was so powerful. He said He honors my truth! So when i was complaining to Him why He chose me and why he let me be this way, He honored me. He honored my truth! He didn't leave me to figure it out on my own, He listened to me. He honored me. My words. My feelings. It was the most calm, the most sweetest presence i've ever felt.

I'm so glad that my Father brings me peace. That He calms my every storm. That He ends my every pain. That he fills my dry spirit. And revives my burnt out heart. He is so faithful. And I'm so honored to be called His.