GOLD DUST. ON ME. FOR REAL.

Remember my second week here when we watched a video and then after a man in our class had gold dust on him? Well since then, a few other people have had gold dust on them as well. Ever since that night (5 weeks ago) I have been praying for it, and tonight, I got it :)

One thing that I struggle with is believing that God is faithful. This is part of a journal entry that I wrote tonight. "God, give me faith. I pray but I expect nothing, thinking you aren't going to show up. They say you are faithful, and I need to see it." I also had been praying about His promises, and how I was having a hard time believing that He was going to truly keep His promise that He will show up. Then I read this in my Bible. 2nd Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Woah. I didn't even look for that verse, it just showed up. So after this, I put on some music on my ipod to soak in Jesus for a while. I was happy one moment, then heartbroken the next. I was just all over. After an hour or so, I go back to my room. As I am brushing my teeth, I look in the mirror, and I see GOLD DUST on my chest. Yeah. I freaked out, almost choked, then showed my roommates and then my one on one, Erica. Erica has had it before, so I went to her to make sure it was real and not some random stuff on me. Here is why we think it is real.

-When ever I prayed for the dust, i look to my hands and arms first. I never expected it to be somewhere else, and God is always keeping us on our toes, so He put it on my neck/chest.
-It wasn't there when I left, but it was there when I came back to my room
-It is only where I had my hands, which was over my heart, when I was praying
-It is no where else on my body. It would be really difficult to brush up against something glittery and ONLY have it on my chest and no where else, not even my clothes.

SHOOT. so I made a quick little video to show what it is :) I will try and get it up soon. I am so grateful that God gave me this! It is a physical sign that He hears me and cares for me specifically! I didn't feel anything special, but faith is not supposed to be a feeling. I am still processing that this has happened to me, since whenever I prayed for it, I had almost no faith that it would happen to me. I would think that I wasn't special enough for it to happen, because I am not as "spirit filled" as a lot of other people here. I am so glad that God loves me. He loves me so much He sprinkled GOLD on me! My brain can't even handle it. Thank you, Jesus.

GLORY

At 1 pm today, there were 5 names on the board with a number next to each one. This number represented the amount of money that these people needed to go on outreach. The total was around 7,000 dollars. And they needed it by 3 pm. Today. Starting at 1:00, we gathered as a class to worship and pray for those who needed money. By 2:30, all of it was in. Words can't even describe what happened. Jesus. Glory. He poured out money on those who needed it. The air felt electric. People were dancing, jumping, and singing praises. So contagious. The Holy Spirit was there, jumping and dancing with us, you could just feel it.

Then this song came on that struck a chord in my heart. The Anthem by Jake Hamilton.

"He's calling waking up child
its your turn to shine
you were born for such a time as this

I am royalty, I have destiny
I have been set free
I'm gonna shape history

I'm gonna change the world"

This is what God wants us to do. It has been prophesied here at YWAM, at IHOP, and at a conference in Minnesota (there are just the ones that I know of) that our generation is going to rise up and bring the word and hope of Christ all over the world. And satan knows it. One of our speakers thinks that is why abortion became legal in the 70's. He was trying to wipe out our generation before we were even BORN. China is now on the rise for Christianity. 10,000 people become a christian A DAY there. At the same time, abortion rises in china. 27 MILLION abortions happen in china just in ONE YEAR. Coincidence? I don't think so. Jesus is on the move, and satan is trying to stop it. That is where we come in. God could have placed me in any womb that could have been aborted, but instead he gave me to my wonderful mother and father who love me and raised me. Now it is my job, as well is the generation, to not forget that. We were born to do something. We were born to share GOD'S LOVE with the world. We born as changers, freedom fighters, leaders. Satan is going to try, but he can't stop us. This is our time. Get ready world, because Love is about to be knocking on your door.

Satan is like a flying cockroach

My title basically sums it up. Through the fast this week I learned a lot about my self and some struggles that I had with my faith that I didn't realize I had until this week. The fasting last week went really well. Monday and tuesday was all real hunger ( i just drank water and juice, but the juice REALLY helped). Wednesday and Thursday were harder because it was all mental hunger. I swear I thought about Portillo's chocolate cake for 2 hours straight Thursday night. Friday was the best day, no hunger at all until it was time to break the fast ooo OOO! (FASTING TIP- never break a 5 day fast with cookies and cheetos. You will regret it.)

There were a lot of things I realized this week that I struggle with, like lies from Satan. Which I know I have mention before but they were all very REAL this week. And one lie that I believed was that Satan is the exact opposite of God, but he still had as much power. In my head, I knew that God won over satan but I always felt that satan had as much power as God. That is something I learned is so NOT true this week. The speaker this week, John Leech (who was very good) said something that really got me. It went something like that "Since Christ died for us and lives in us, his power now lives in us. Since satan is under His feet, he is under our feet too." Like, wow. I never thought of myself has bigger than satan. I am TIIIIIIINY compared to God, so how much smaller can satan be? I'll tell you. A cockroach. Which are annoying as heck, especially when they fly around like they do here. Seriously, lets compare. Satan and cockroaches are both ugly. They are both small but mentally they do a a lot of damage if we let them. They both fly around and try to attack you and freak you out. BUT they are both taken out so easily. Just like killing a cockroach with a flip flop, we can squish satan's attempts at attack us. We don't need to actually conquer him because Jesus did that for us at the cross, but we still need to stomp on his attempts to draw us further from God.

As our class as a whole gets stronger in Christ, the attacks form Satan get stronger too. Here is a quick little story. On thursday, there was a lot of spiritual warfare going on in people in our class. Just attacks from satan, like tearing relationships down or on their families back home. One of my roommates, Gaby, lost her passport and couldn't find it and she needed it for outreach. So (this is gonna sound silly) the 5 of us roommates got together and we prayed for God to show us where the passport was. 2 of us got the word drawer and 1 of us got the word pens. So we went straight to the draw where she kept her sharpie pens and BOOM there it was even though she looked through it yesterday! Glory.

Earlier this week, when I was going through a hard time, several people came up to me and prayed for me or gave me Bible verses. And they were all dead on about what I was feeling. A girl prayed for me about a week ago and EVERYTHING she said had run through my mind at one point that night. All the doubts and fears I had that I hadn't told anyone, she prayed about. This is the sort of proof that I have been waiting for that God is REALLY there and not so distant. When I was struggling with doubts of Him even being there, He sent 4 people to me with verses or prayers that were so accurate and then helped me and my roommates find a passport!

This has been an intense week. I am still learning how to overcome lies and live in truth. This whole experience has gone way part my expectations. There are a few things that you can be praying for, if you would like :)
-That our class keeps growing stronger in Christ and with each other
-That my Haiti team bonds and grows strong together

Thank you so much for all of you who are praying for me! Know that you all have a very special place in my heart and I too am praying for you :)

Fasting...again

So here's there deal. Remember how I had that one "sad revelation" a few weeks ago, when I realized that when I feel separated, that God feels separated? Well not to be a Negative Nelly, I am still not feeling that close to God. Which is a bummer. I love Him and I know He is there and it all makes sense that He love us because if He didn't, He wouldn't create us but something is still not clicking. Now I am ready for a revelation of His love. So in light of this, I have decided to do a 5 day fast. Not a media fast, but a food fast. Only water and juice. No food. Yeah.

Today was the first day of it and so far, not too bad. I have been drinking TONS of water so that helps. When I am supposed to be eating, I am reading the bible/praying/soaking/journaling instead. I am also reading through the book of Daniel while I am fasting. There are a few other kids in my class who are fasting for the same reasons, so I know that I am not alone in this.

Ok now for some fun stuff!
After a failed attempt to catch an EARLY morning bus on saturday, we ended up renting 2 cars and 10 of us went around the island. It is AMAZING. We first went to this huge beach which was still on this side of the island, then drove to the other side. Its kinda weird but seeing the ocean looks completely different on the other side. You couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the sky began. So we drove down to the ocean and stopped where there were huge lava rocks to walk out on. Feeling the ocean mist and sunshine all at once is an experience I'll never forget. Then it was time for some waterfalls. As we were walking along the path to get to the waterfall, we stopped and went inside this HUUUUUGE banyan tree with the roots growing form top to bottom. Weird, I know. Walking down into the middle of it was like walking from day to night. It was cool and dark and a whole different world in there. Then the waterfall. Awesome. We would just stand and watch once patch of water from the top slowly yet speedily fall and scatter all the way to the bottom. Gorgeous.

The best part of the night though was on the way home. It was about 12:30 AM, and we are all pretty much sleep talking by this point, being so tired. We were driving through the countryside (basically, a LOT of rocks) when we pulled over to look at the stars. BILLIONS OF THEM. I have never seen the night sky like this before. It almost looked gray, there was so much light. You could actually see an arm of the Milky Way. I have never seen that before. Even in the midst of my rocky times, God still surprises me with a gift like that :)

"We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." ROMANS 5:3-5

Divine Revelation

SInce I have been at Kona, I have heard this prayer many times. "Lord, give them a divine revelation." What does this mean, you ask? It means that we would experience God in a way that we never had before so that we can understand Him just a little bit more. I have prayed this prayer for myself many times as well, and I have now, I believe, had my first Divine Revelation.

As you have seen throughout my blog, I have doubts. Last week, however, they seemed to completely take over. After that worship session last monday, I felt so distant from God that I didn't know what else to do. So I did a media fast, and it went pretty well. I did the fast so that I could experience God so that I would no longer have doubts about Him and His love anymore. I know it seems silly that I struggle with that, especially being a Christian at YWAM, but it has been a burden for a long time on my heart, but it is finally being lifted. Our speaker last week was a man named Aaron Walsh, and he helped start the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in New Zealand. Yeah, that's right, he flew form New Zealand just to talk to our DTS. Apparently, he only speaks at 1 a year and he turned down 39 other opportunities to speak this month so that he could come and talk to us. And man am I glad he did. He is an amazing guy who walk very close to God. All week, he was prepping us for Friday, because it was just oging to be a day of impartation when he would pray and prophecy over us.

So Friday rolled around and I was pumped. All I could think was "Yes, FINALLY I can experience God and I will know with out a doubt that He is real and cares for me." It was an insane day. As he prayed over people, they would just fall over. God would tell him what people were feeling and some of their fears and Aaron would say what they were to the class and then demand that satan stop telling those lies to that person. Then it was finally my turn. He looked straight at me (even though I didn't have my hand raised) and started praying over me that the bonds of self-hatred would be gone and that I would experience God's love. After a few minutes, I fell back. It was the weirdest thing. I felt a pressure on me, but it wasn't filled with love. Instead, it was horrible sadness and separation from God. As I lay on the ground with people praying over me, all I could think was "God, where are you? WHy can't I feel you when all these people can? Don't you love me?" I was a mess the rest of the day. My One on one, Erica, and I had a 2 hour talk where we started to work things out. At this point, i was still feeling separated from God. Erica prayed that I would experience Him and that I would not have expectations. I should just let him have his way.

Later, as I was praying about why God was letting me feel this way, the revelation hit. WHen I prayed to experience God, I just assumed it was going to be a happy experience. That I would be filled with love and joy so that I would have no doubt. God, however, had different plans. He didn't let me experience His joy, but He did let me experience His pain, which I clearly was not expecting. He started showing me all the times that I told Him how much I hated the way He made me, that I didn't trust He was there, that I didn't love Him because of what was going on in my life. He wasn't showing me these times in my life to me accusing, however. He was showing me this so that I knew when I hurt, He hurt. When I felt separated, He felt separated. What I feel, He feels a billion times more. He let me experience that terrible pain and sadness and separation earlier, because that is how He feels when I reject HIm. That is how he feels about the people all over the WORLD who choose to serve themselves over HIm.

I am so blessed that God let me experience that side of Him. Now I know its not true that He doesn't care about me. It is one thing to hear it from someone else, but it is completely different when you actually hear it straight from God. Since this Divine Revelation on friday night, my relation ship with Jesus has been so much better. I know He is listening to what I say to HIm and that He holds me in His hands, where he holds the stars. He also blessed me with an amazing family who loves me and listens to me as I explain these crazy stories and who fast with me.

Thank you for all who prayed for me this week! I love you all!