A promise

I promise to tell you more about my trip like the ministry the kids were involved in and to tell you more about the kids in general but today I am just in love with this psalm and simply must share it.


Psalm 146
I will exalt you, my God the kind; 
I will praise your name for ever and ever
Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.


Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your
wonderful works.
They will tell of the power of your awesome works, 
and I will proclaim your great deeds. 
They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your 
righteousness


The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is good to all; 
he has compassion on all he has made.
All you ave made will praise you, 
O Lord;
 and your saints will extol you.
They will tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might, 
so that all men may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 
and your dominion endures through all generations.


The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.
The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. 
The Lord is near to all who call on him to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise his holy name 
for ever and ever.


Today I feel God wrap me up in his arms and this is what I hear him whispering to me. I don't always understand my life, but Jesus is always good, the Lord is always faithful and so I must trust. Not only must I trust I must rejoice because I am loved by the king of kings and there is nothing better than to be romanced by Him.

My attempt to show my heart...

I had no idea what was coming

Five years ago God broke my heart.

Five years ago God took me to Swaziland and introduced me to a world where little babies die, where children are sold for sex, where young boys are set on fire because their step fathers don't like them, a place where children are destined to die before they have lived.

Oh Swaziland thank you for breaking my heart

Five years ago, I determined that I would never forget those faces or those stories. So I gave myself over to the Lord I said whatever you want, whatever you need, I am yours because the only way that these atrocities end is when the world bows down and worships God together.

Why do I go? Why do I rejoice in my parasites? Why am I willing to go again someday? Because these things don't just happen in Swaziland, they don't just happen in Africa, they happen all around the world. I want my generation to wake up and realize what is happening all around us. I want them to fight for those who think there is no hope, those who are broken and know it and those who are broken and don't know it. I want them to rise up and realize that as Christians they are called to join the battle raging all around us. That not only they are called, that God is equipping them to rise up if only they would wake up and start listening to his instruction on how to join this battle.

Awakening to hearing the Lords voice and learning their battle cry

I want to my generation to wake up to the joy that comes from living radically for the Lord. This does not mean they have to travel around the world, but I want them to open their eyes and see the hurting all around us. I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to start fighting against the injustice that surrounds us, I want us to reach our physical arms out and hold those who are hurting. I want us to get out of our comfortable lives, to start getting dirty, to be unafraid of being ugly. I want freedom.

A sign of Freedom...

This is why I went to Kenya the first and second time, this is also why I would go to Kenya again, its why I would go anywhere God sends me. When I go out as a leader with Adventures in Missions I have gotten to impart some of what God has given me, I get call out the greatness that God has for my students, I get to watch as God opens their eyes to what is going on in the world both the good and the bad.

This is my heart.

Free

Still Free

(Just as a little disclaimer non of these photo's are mine and they are stolen from other peoples camera's)

Jet lag

Jet lag...

It's a challenge this time, usually I bounce back to quickly. Maybe its because I have such mixed feelings about being home. Its nice to be back in the land of universal health care, a comfortable bed, a kitten to snuggle with. Its nice to be home where I can do laundry, have clothes that have never been to foreign lands, its also nice to be around people who know that when I come home I can be emotional which causes me to be crazy because I both desire to be with people and to be alone.

However being home for me isn't the easiest place, its a place with a lot of memories both good and bad, both sometimes haunt me and don't always comfort me. This time returning home is even harder because many of my good friends have moved away to far away places and to new lives. I am also returning home longing to go see my great grandparents, to tell them of the wonders that God has done, to hear their words of praise to the Lord and to receive their love and prayers for whatever comes next in life. This is something that I long for being home, its hard because this time they are both gone, they are with the Lord and I miss them.

This time of coming is hard, but I kind of think its supposed to be hard so that I don't forget how much I need Jesus. That I need to cling ever more to our relationship.

So when you think of me in the coming weeks whisper a prayer for me, that I would go deeper in my romance with the Lord.

My great Grandparents

There's no place I'd rather be...

Movie NIght

There is a song that we sang a lot with our team and one of the lines of the song is "there is no place I'd rather be, than here in your love", this is a huge statement. This is a line that I was stuck on for most of my trip, while lying in the hospital I was asked, is there any other place you would rather be and surprisingly I was able to answer with 100% sincerity that no, there was no place I would rather be. I didn't want to be at home, or even not sick in an African hospital because even in those moments of terribleness, or those times I was terrified, or to sick to stand on my own I knew that I was in those moments fully in God's love and in his plan. I knew that it was no accident that I was sick, it wasn't a surprise, that it wouldn't ruin everything that God had a purpose and I just needed to rejoice and pray that God would bless me enough to show me some of the fruit of my obedience.

Quick break from ministry

There was a game we played a lot on this trip its called the thankfulness game, basically at times we were frustrated, angry, sad, hungry, and even sometimes when we were happy someone would decide it was time to play the thankfulness game. During this game usually the person who decides people have to play it shout out a number that everyone has to reach, for example 10 then everyone has to say 10 things they are thankful for. I'll be honest and tell you that in the early days of Kenya even I struggled greatly in this game getting 10 things I was thankful for. But as time progressed God changed my attitude and I started to delight over playing the thankful game myself and listening to my students play it, I loved to here everyone worshiping God with their words of thankfulness.

Finally I finally thankful for being 22 almost 23 years old. My age is something that I have always struggled with, when I was younger I wanted to be older and be an adult. Now I spend every birthday upset because I feel like my life is too quickly slipping away, that every year I never accomplish enough. Just recently I have truly begun to be thankful that I am who I am, when I look back at my 18 &19 year old self there is no way I would EVER want to go back and relive those years. They were confusing and hard because I desperately wanted to know who I was but at the same time I was terrified of who that person I was. I was worried that I would have a calling that was bigger than I thought I could handle, I was terrified that I was unlovable. These fears caused me to not trust anyone, to never let anyone one in, I was terribly insecure and to be honest fairly miserable but I didn't know it. I can still see God in that time and what He was doing in me and I am thankful but I am even more thankful that I constantly changing and getting away from that scared little girl that I was then. Praise the Lord. So possibly for the first time in my life I am thankful for who God has made me to be in this moment. I am thankful to be ever growing older because I pray that I am also growing wiser and I hope that I am ever growing closer to my Abba

My warrior co-leaders, you would never believe that things we walked through together this month and I am so grateful to have been blessed with them.

Messy

I am a mess, but its a beautiful thing. I still have the African dirt under my nails, I still have strange and mysterious illnesses, I constantly go back and forth about whether I am happy to be back in Georgia. I repeatedly find myself getting frustrated, angry, joyful, weepy, and excited about God. I am just a wreck. This trip wrecked me.

Jeremy, me and Jess at a random waterfall

This trip was hard, every single one of our participants felt it. As a leader team Jess, Jeremy felt it, the darkness that our team was battling was intense,  most days (if things had gone according to plan) our ministry schedule was also supposed to be gruelling. This was how things looked without counting in the month of multiple illnesses the constantly seemed to be plaguing our team.
It would be easy for me to look back and cry because things were hard, or to feel discouraged because all my kids didn't come back loving Africa. It would be so easy for me to go home and think that this trip was a failure. But instead I honestly feel like celebrating because one, we made it back, two I can't help but feel excited for the future. There is no reason that we should have had the month that we just had without reason, we were being prepared by God and Satan wanted to stop the good work that God was doing on our team.
I am eagerly awaiting the coming weeks and months to see the fruit that I know will be born out of what happened this month.
Not only were we tested and we made it out, I saw miracles happen in everyone of the participants on my team, I heard the voice of the Lord constantly whispering to me of His love for me, I got to live in Africa. again.


Finally I truly got to learn again that even with everything that happened there is no place I would rather be than in God's love. So if he said go relive this month I would do it without a second thought, so now I wait on his next instructions. I know that they will be good, no matter how challenging and scary I may first think them to be. God is good, all the time.

as many people as we could get on the bed... it was good times

some of the team sitting outside our house

July 7, Grateful

This is a post that I wrote on July 7th, sorry I have been unable to post blogs until now...

Well we are in Kenya…it is even more beautiful than I remembered it to be. God truly outdid himself when he created this country. I love walking down the red dirt paths while being surrounded by the lush green tree’s surrounding me. To see all those beautiful shinning faces around me both American and African alike, I love the smells, and the way my heart breaks continually for all unfairness around me. I just love my life, thank you Lord.

Often I will be asked what I do as a leader, well I have the best job. This trip I get to disciple fourteen students in the Lord, I get to teach them about all the joys and heartache there is in the world. I also get to travel to Kenya Africa a place of dreams for so many, I get to hold broken hurting children, I get to give them hugs and pray for them, I get to make them laugh. Strangely even better than my being able to hold those beautiful African children is watching my students love those children. Watching their hearts break is one of the greatest gifts the Lord has ever given me, because I know that their lives are forever being changed. They will never be able to walk away and forget those little hands, or runny noses, those swollen bellies and big smiles.  I believe the Lord will use to push them and shape them into world changers, that can and will make a difference. How is this my life. How am I so blessed. Thank you Jesus