Media Fast

I have been feeling distant from God. And it sucks. It really sucks especially since I am surrounded by people who have a heart for Jesus and are totally consumed by His love.I feel like He is revealing His love to everyone but me. I am just going through a dry spell. In reality though, I asked for it. I asked that God would take my focus off of whatever was distracting me from fully seeking Him. I think He is testing me to see if I truly do trust in Him. Let me explain a little bit more.

So on Monday nights, our school teams up with another school for ministry/worship night. For the first half of worship last night, I could feel God's presence. I felt warm and tingly and all I could think about was God. I didn't feel close to Him, but He was definitely in the room. Now would be a good time to tell you that I have felt distant from God for a while, so I was excited to feel His presence. The whole time I was feeling God I was praying "Jesus, become more real to me. I want you to be all that I need. I want to experience what all these people are feeling." And then it was like a total 180. I completely shut off. I didn't feel God anymore. I could not focus. I felt numb, no emotion. I didn't understand. Why was God pulling away from me, especially since I had just started to feel Him? Then I was angry. I was angry becuse God was still showing Himself to everyone but me... or so I thought. Turns out a lot of other girls felt that way here. Faith is not a feeling, but a knowledge, which is really hard for me to wrap my head around. I want a feeling. I want it as proof that God loves me. But it is not up to me when God decides to show Himself, and I am slowly learning what this truly means.

I feel myself pulling away from God and I don't feel Him coming after me. But today, our speaker said that when something like this happens there are 3 things we need to do. Pray, fast, and read the Word. So that is what I am going to do.

Fasting comes in many forms, not just food. For me, I have decided to do an internet fast.p. If I gave up food, I would just be super crabby and no one would want to be my friend anymore and I would focus more on my stomach than on God. But giving up the internet is going to be something just as hard as giving up food. We don't realize how much of our time is spent on it until it is gone. Whenever I have a "craving" to go on the internet, I am going to whip out my Bible and start reading the first thing I open to. I know these next 5 days are going to be tough for me, but I am confident that God will reveal Himself to me in a whole new way. I have never done any sort of fast, so we'll see how this goes. I'll write again on Monday to share what God has done in my heart :)

My heart beats for Haiti

Its official... I am going to Haiti!! HOLLA WHAT?!
2 days ago, on Wednesday, we got our choices. They were China, India, South America, Haiti, Oman, Azerbaijan, and Thailand to Cambodia. When I first saw these, I had absolutely NO idea where I would go. And we had to let the leaders know our first choice THAT NIGHT. I felt no special attraction of one country over the others. My first thought was actually South America or Azerbaijan (just because it sounds cool). As I got more and more frustrated that I couldn't hear God's voice about it, I started to text my brother, Zack. He gave me an excellent bible verse and told me to go outside to pray about it, so I did. And God spoke to me. Here is how the conversation went down.

"Are you ready to give up the showering, makeup, hair product, to serve?" um...yes.
"Are you ready to do hard work for 3 months?" um...yes
Immediately He said "Then go to Haiti".
Now I open my eyes and looked around. Had i really just heard God or was that me? So I write it down to give to the leaders that night thinking if it was God, he would send me there. If it was just my own voice, then I would end up going to my second choice, South America. Well, apparently Haiti is where God wants me :)

There are 8 people on my team and 2 leaders, so 10 total. 7 girls, 3 guys. A little lopsided, but thats alright. We are already bonding :) We are not sure yet what we will be doing exactly or where exactly we will be going but most likely we will be living in tents :) I don't think I have ever been more excited to live in a tent, not that I have ever had the opportunity to before. Some ideas of what we might be doing there are working with orphans and working in prisons. No matter what we do, I know God is going to show up. He planed this group and this trip and it is going to be AWEEEESOOOOME!!!!

Thanks again for all the prayers about guidance! Love you all!

Gold dust! Miracles! Whaaa?!?

I’m sorry if this doesn’t makes sense…my brain is kinda flipping out right now…

Are you ready for some crazy stories?!?!? I still can’t believe it!!! Ok so tonight is Monday and we were supposed to found out our out reach choices but instead something insane happened. So we stared by watching a movie/documentary about miracles and faith and stuff like that. But it was all stuff that I had never seen before, very supernatural. It started with a church service in which some pretty amazing things happened. People were falling over at the presence of the Spirit. Black fillings in teeth were turned to gold. A preacher suddenly had gold dust all over him as he was speaking. Manna appeared inside a bible and much, much more. Then the movie moved on to people being healed. People who were deaf could now hear. People who were mute could now talk. People with chronic pain now moved freely. And even though all this is happening and I saw it all on the screen, I was still very skeptic. My thoughts were this exactly. “I won’t believe until I see it in real life.” Well, God took that literally.

After the movie, we were getting ready to talk about out reach when a man in our class starts to cry. We look over at him and he is COVERED IN FREAKING GOLD DUST. Over his hands, arms, shirt, pants, everywhere was little flecks of gold! His wife sitting next to him had it on her skirt too. There are about 60 eyewitnesses, mind you, so this could not be made up. After we all saw it, our leader, Andrew, felt like we should pray for those who need healing. So 2 guys who needed healing went up to the front of the room. One was a guy leader who need his shoulder healed and the other had scoliosis and constant lower back pain. As we prayed for them, I started praying hard core. “God, this is exactly what I asked for. Show me it is REAL.” And He sure did. The one with the painful shoulder could twirl his arm all the way around and the other one with the back pain was running and jumping and singing praises to God because the pain was completely gone!

WAIT! There is even more! After that a lot more people raised their hands for healing. As I sat next to Lauren, who raised her hand, she told us that her legs were different lengths and that she had horrible knee pain. She stuck her legs straight out and sure enough, the right leg was shorter than the other. A leader, Kat, come over and held them and told us to start praying because they WERE going to be fixed. As we all focused and prayed, we watched her legs. This is the craziest thing I have ever seen. HER RIGHT LEG ACTUALLY GREW. I could NOT believe it. I literally saw a leg grow right before my eyes to perfectly match the other one. Then we moved to the knees and prayed and prayed and prayed for the pain to be gone. By the time we were done, she was running and jumping and kneeling because her knees were 100% healed! INSAAAAAANE!!!! SO much more has happened but this were the ones I saw first hand.

Now, lets all remember that I am human. The human part of me could not believe it. Literally. I was thinking, “this is somehow a trick, this can’t be real, bones just don’t grow because you pray about it. “ But I am so wrong. Who am I to say what God can and can not do? Even if I still felt disconnected for some reason as I saw all this happen, doesn’t make it any less real. We as humans have to CHOOSE to believe that this is real. We have to CHOOSE to trust that God can do crazy things like make bones grow or straighten a spine or sprinkle gold dust on someone.

So what is your choice? Are you ready to choose to believe in a God who is good and shatters the boxes that we put Him in? Are you ready to choice to live for a God who loves us and heals us and blesses us even though we disobey and don’t always honor him? No matter what we have EVER done or will EVER do, he will loves us forever. Lets choose Him, guys. It is totally worth it.

God isn't just creepy, he is CRAZY

Hey folks, remember a few blogs ago when I said GOd was creepy in a good way? Well he is also crazy in a good way. Lets rewind a little to the beginning of the week...

Ok so Monday was the first day of classes here on campus for my DTS. Our school's leader's (Andrew York) brother, Philip York, was our first speaker and the topic was learning to hear God's voice. It was a VERY good lesson to learn. I learned things about myself and my own faith that I didn't know before. I learned how to hear God's voice and what to do with it. It is so crazy that if our heart and mind are in the right place our Heavenly Father will speak straight to us! On Monday we are going to find out our outreach places and apply what we learned. I know that I am easily influenced by the people around me so I hope that you all respect my decision to not tell anyone what the choices are until I figure out where I am supposed to go. I want this decision to be straight from God and not from the people around me. You are all wise and wonderful and I can't wait to tell you where I am going!!

So now we get down to the crazy part about God. This is probably going to be a long blog and going into deep stuff so now is your chance to stop reading if you want to. Ok, lets continue! Monday night worship. Boy oh boy. That night was not a whole campus worship, just our school and another school (Fire and Fragrance, Phase 2). Before I get into it, you need to know the things that I struggle with the most. The first thing is beauty, inside and out. I find it extremely hard to find my self beautiful and I am constantly putting myself down and comparing myself to others. The other thing is doubt. Every time I start to feel God, there is a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that it isn't real. Now I know that is a lie from Satan. He knows doubt is an area of weakness for me and he feeds off of it. OK, back to worship time. So there I am, standing up but I am not really feeling it. The leaders are walking around and praying over the students and one woman, Chantal, comes up to me and starts to pray for me. She prayed that I would know that God loves me and He finds me beautiful and that he made no mistake when he made me the way he did. Of course by this time I was crying like a baby. When she was done praying with me, another leader, Sarah Jo, comes up to me and also starts to pray. She prayed that I would now that God thinks I am precious and that he WANTS me to keep asking those hard questions because he is going to answer me and by asking those hard questions, it brings up closer together. (Creepy because with the doubt I have I am CONSTANTLY asking God hard questions and i never feel like i am getting an answer). Basically, God showed up when I least expected it. It was feeling hurt and confused and angry and He totally used other people to show his love to me.

Ready for another crazy story? OK, so today is friday and it was our last lecture with Phil. But before phil spoke, we have a guest speaker for just like 15 minutes. His name is Bob Hartley and he is a prophet, which I had no idea are still around today. after he talked fora few minutes, he started to pro! and it was nuts! He started calling out people and telling them very specific things that they were going to do or something about them. And there is no way he could be faking this. One girl got here really late, like yesterday and she just decided to come this week so her name isn't anywhere here. And he just said "Rachel from North Carolina!" and then started speaking to her! he did this like 10 times! I had ever seen anything like it before.

I also had an amazing prayer time today with 2 leaders, Kat ad Haley, and my roommate Gaby. It was just really cool to coem together and pray for like an hour. Then I had my 1 on 1 (like a mentor session) with Erica, one of the leaders and that was good as well! Tomorrow I start my work duty. Its a long day (8 hours) of kitchen duty but it is only every other weekend so its really nice. Hopefully we will still get some beach time in :) That is all for now! Thanks again to all of you who have been praying for me and my school!

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" Phillippians 3:8

sea turtles, waves, and cocoa buns

First off, i just need to tell you all that I am only writing this blog because Miles Bocianski told me to, and no other reason. Just kidding. I just got off my first Skype session with my bro, dad, Miles, and Courtney. I miss them all and others so much :) But my time here has been so amazing so far. I can not believe how much God has provided and how he is already showing himself to me.

My DTS has been renamed to Awaken. The leaders felt that this DTS is going to be a part of our lives when the Holy Spirit is Awakened in us and that He has so much in mind for us. And I can already feel it. Not gonna lie, I have been feeling very distant from God lately. Even though I am here, I still worry and doubt which is just stupid but I can't help it. But last night I finally felt the Spirit starting to wake in me. He's not up and running yet, but He got a little nudge. Someone asked me yesterday what I wanted to do with my life and I said just get married and have kids but I really do like working with youth, especially middle school/high school girls, so maybe something with youth groups. Then at Worship time, someone who I met only once came over and said they wanted to pray for me. And as they were praying she started to pray for the teenagers that I would one day work with and thank you for my heart for them. She had NO idea that that is what I wanted to do with my life someday. Crazy? I think so.

Lets talk about worship for a second. I grew up Lutheran. Now, we all know that at a Lutheran church during worship, there are a few hand raisers but that is the extent of physically letting go and worshiping. That isn't the case here at YWAM. Last night, at campus wide worship, i witnessed some very expressive forms of worship, all very cool to see. My favorite was dancing. To be honest, I thought it was kinda weird that dance was used as a form of worship here-like people were just showing off that they are good dancers or something. But when I saw it for the first time last night, i could not have been proven more wrong. It was one of the most sincere and beautiful acts of worship that I have every seen. The Holy Spirit was shining through and the movement was so smooth and joyous that it could not have come from anything except the Lord.

Today was a big day, for many reasons. It was the first time I swam in the Pacific ocean wooo hooo! It was gorgeous and so much fun. And the best part was, we saw sea turtles!!!! They were Huge, like 3 feet. I have never seen any except in zoos. It was amazing. And another reason today was such a big day was because....drum roll.....my sister got engaged!!!! wooo hooo!!! Congrats to them :)( and to me since I am the maid of honor-holla!)

Prayer time! Here is what you folks can be praying for
-That I totally let go of everything and Trust God
-That my DTS people all get along-so far so good!

Thank you so much to you all! I miss you and love and can't wait to see you all again some day!

I'M HERE!!!!

Oh my osh kosh b'gosh, I cannot beleive that I am finally here!!! Travel went well yesterday, no snafoos at all. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone but once I was through security I was totally fine and could not wait to get htere. After 11 hours of flying time, we all safetly arrived at the Kona airport. When we all got off the plane, I realized that there were about 15 other YWAMers there and we immediatley started to connect to each other. Once we got to the base, we registered and got setteled in to our dorms. I have 4 roommates, 2 from South Korea and 2 from California. They are all super sweet girls :) After we all met we went to dinner. We eat outside here and the weather was wonderful. After dinner, a group of about 10 of us walked down to the beach-about a 10 minutes walk. We stayed until sunset and it was gorgeous. It was awesome getting to meet people from all over the world. THere are students from 35 countires on campus right now. THis morning, after breafast, we had a welcoming ceremony/orientaion. THe people of the Island welcomed us and we gave them gifts to say thank you for hosting us while we are here. This was followed by an amazing first worship. You could totally feel the presnce of God around you. My dorm is right across form the 24/7 prayer room, so we can hear people singing on and off through out the day. I am so excited for the real journey to start on Monday, when classes begin. Thank you to all who have been praying for me. They are totally working :) I miss you all so much yet I am excited to see what God is going to do with all your support. Aloha!

God is creepy

Ok, so let me explain the "God is Creepy." I mean this in a good way. I first heard it from my dear friend Emily, and it just stuck. God can be pretty creepy-like when he shows up in your life when you least expect it. Or you randomly come across a Bible verse that you have never seen before and yet totally fits what is going on in your life. Or you are having a conversation with someone about your fears and then the next day you read an awesome quote from a christian author that is basically about your fears. Here is my example for why God was creepy in my life today. Emily gave me the daily devo book "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young and, just for kicks and giggles, I flipped to July 8th (the day I leave for YWAM) to see what it says---and it was creepy. "When you seek my face, put aside thoughts of everything else. I am above all, as well as in all...open wide your heart and ming to receive more and more of me. When your joy in me meets my joy in you, there are fireworks of heavenly ecstasy." Basically, for the last 3 months, I have been praying that God opens my heart to what He has to teach me at YWAM, and that I not fear the changes He has for me. And then I read that it is just creepy. Gotta love it.

So basically, these last few days I have been a big ball of emotions. Although I haven't cried yet, I am sure I will be a weepy mess for the next few days. I can't even think about saying goodbye to my family without having a mini panic attack. One thing that keeps me going is prayer. The praying that I do and the praying that I know people are doing on my behalf. It is so encouraging knowing that I have a whole slew of people praying for me and my fellow YWAMers while I am preparing and when I go. It seriously calms my heart. I could not have asked for more supportive friends and family members, and I am so thankful for them.

God has once again been crazy by providing almost all the money that I need. I received a very large check this week from a good friend (you know who you are-and you are awesome!!!) and it has helped a TON. I can not express the gratitude that I have for all of you who have supported me. You are all flipping awesome and you are totally helping others hear about the Lord! I only need roughly 1,000 more in the long run. I will know for sure how much when I find out where my outreach will be. Thank you all again so much for being apart of my life and for supporting me and my endeavor! The next time you hear from me, I will be reporting from Hawaii :)

Please pray for
-an open heart
-safe travel
-no fear

"For I am convinced that neither death not life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any power, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:8-9