Leaving Russia

Leaving Russia today! The past four weeks have been an amazing experience, cold, yes, but so rewarding and full of blessings! We have had the privilege of partnering with YWAM Moscow in feeding the homeless, cleaning a bomb shelter (used to store supplies for their ministries), evangelize on the streets, lead multiple Russian church services (which I had the honor of leading worship for), and covering the city with prayer. God is doing amazing things in this country and I can't wait to see the ministry grow and the Kingdom expand here.

Our next stop...Latvia! We leave for a 15hr train ride in a few hours-can't believe outreach is halfway over!

I have been praying the past few days and talking with God about the next month, asking what He has in store and He asked me to give up Social Media and most communication through technology. He is asking me to simply, spend more time with Him. It has been difficult to regularly have quiet time, read my bible, and spend time in worship because we are so busy, but when I get the chance I check out Instagram or Facebook. Not that these things are bad, because really I do enjoy my time on their, it's just that God is asking me to spend time with Him. So, the next 37 days I will not be on the internet and my communication will be small. I will be updating my blog and checking in with my family regularly but that's about it. I'm so excited to learn more and spend time with my Savior. 

Thank you so much to everyone who has been praying for me and keeping up with me. Please keep praying for our time in Latvia. My team and I are so excited to see what the Lord has in store.

I will be posting very soon about some of the stories from Russia-I can't wait to share!

Outreach has begun!

Outreach has begun! The first week our ministry began and instead of it being in Russia it started where I had been living for 3 months, Australia. My team, minus one of my leaders, left for Wollongong (about 5 hours by train from Newcastle) and stayed at the YWAM base there. We didn't necessarily have much ministry set up for us there so we prayed and asked God what He wanted us to do! 

The street that the Wollongong base is on is known for it's bad reputation of prostitution and being a bad area to live, so we did some prayer walks, it was amazing! We walked up and down these streets fighting over them, over the girls, the pimps, those addicted to alcohol, the store owners, and over a psychic store. As boring as that may sound, to "just pray" it was something that got me even more excited to be apart of the Kingdom of God. We also went to the Beach and talked to people as well prayed over some and we were able to bless the Wollongong base with words of encouragement. 

After those 4 days our second leader joined us and we went to Bondi Beach which is in Sydney, and stayed with one of our quarters outreach teams who was doing ministry there before hey left for Mexico. During our two day stay we took part in street and mall evangelism. 

While doing street evangelism I met a guy named Mario. Mario was from what I could tell homeless and a little bit confused. The leader from the Mexico team had actually told me earlier that day to look out for this guy and if I saw him to talk to him. He began our time wanting no part in the conversation and after one of my team members prayed he immediately began talking to us. He told us his name was "Anywhere" and that he was from Italy and Switzerland. As the conversation went on he opened up and he told us his real name, Mario. I could tell this guy longed for people not to think he is crazy just cause of how he looks, that he needed someone to just listen and want to get to know the real him, he simply needed to know that someone cared about Him. The two other girls and I got to pray for Mario and give him the New Testament, he was so excited and immediately began to read it as we left. 

During mall evangelism my friend Paige and had the opportunity to talk to another guy carrying a guitar, a musician from Ireland. I started by asking him if he knew where a guitar store was and from there we talked for an hour. He told  us about his music dreams and accomplishments so far, and as his face lit up at all we were talking about, he even took his guitar out and showed me his insane talent as well as let me play a little! Paige and I asked to pray for him at the end and he opens up about his struggle with alcohol and we got to tell him the beauty of Jesus what He does for us and what music does for us in broken times. He was so happy to talk and pray with us that he gave us all his info and a CD with his songs recorded on it. It was an amazing time I got to share with one of my teammates, I got to use my gift to talk to someone about Jesus and Paige got to use her story as a testimony to this guy!

After Australia, we were off to Russia! We made it safely and now as I type this I watch the snow fall on the already white covered ground getting ready to fight for this country. I'm excited to see what He is going to teach me in my time here and how He will use me to impact eternity.

I ask you to join me in prayer. To be completely honest, I don't like the cold at all, would much rather be in a hot place sweating, but this is where The Lord has called me to go, so He has something to show me here and I want to be fully attentive and excited to see it. Pray for my team, that we grow closer in unity and that we constantly listen to what The Lord wants us to do during our time here. 

Love you all, I'm thankful every day more and more for your support.

More updates about Russia to come!

Heading Out!

It has been quite the crazy preparation for outreach these past few weeks. We had some visa stuff to sort out, plans change, and lots of fundraising-but I can honestly say, the Lord has taught me so much.

My attitude began as a little annoyed when the plans changed and as they changed a little more…my attitude did as well.
On New Years eve 3 of the 5 outreach teams left to begin their adventures in other parts of the world. My team (Russia/Latvia), the Mexico team and two team members from the Argentina/Brazil outreach have stayed in Newcastle pushing for the rest of our finances. At first it was weird because the house felt so empty and then without confronting it at first I was allowing bitterness to creep in.
"Why was everyone else on outreach except my team?!" I kept asking the Lord. Until last night I was frustrated, I didn't have any desire to stay here and all I wanted to do was leave. God spoke through my leaders a few verses in 1 Thessalonians 5, much to do with honoring and supporting them as well as rejoicing in everything with my team mates…slap in the face, but a good one. After this session I spent time with Jesus and repented, I asked Him for a change in heart...and He gave me one! And today was awesome! I got to see the need of my teams finances drop from $7,000 to $3,500! God is so good. My dad was able to speak some life into me as well- "The Holy Spirit isn't waiting for me or my team in Russia, He is with me now, today. So, what will I do with the Holy Spirit today?" I needed a heart change, and I'm so thankful my Father is so patient with me and continues to work with my despite my attitude and faults.

So what's next? Tomorrow I am leaving for Wollongong, Australia. There, we will be on a YWAM base serving on the beach and doing street evangelism. We will be doing outreach there until January 10th, the day we pick up our visas and fly out to Russia.

My entire team is leaving tomorrow except for one of my leaders who will be here until the rest of the finances come in. Between her an my other leader they are in need of $3,500. If you feel led to support please go to the YWAM Newcastle website and click on donations where you can send money to the Russia/Latvia team!

Thank you to all who have supported myself and my team in prayer and finances. You have been such a big part of bringing us to where we are now and where we are going.

Blessings to all of you!

More week to week revelations from lecture phase to come and updates!

Week 5: Relationships

This week was one that really challenged me. I know when we think of the topic relationships the first thing we think about is romantic relationships, and yes that is a type of relationships but not the only one. Something so simple that changed my view is a quote by a YWAM author, Dean Sherman “Every problem in the world is a problem of relationship.” So think about this, every problem ever, is a problem of relationship. It started out with Adam and Eve desiring something different than a perfect relationship with the Father. Problems now, world hunger? Relationship problem. Poverty? Relationship problem. Dysfunctional family? Relationship problem. Disease? Relationship problem. When we sin we chose to disregard out relationship with the Lord, which results in so many problems. I think it’s fair to say we struggle with having good and perfect relationships. So, how do we start fixing these problems? Start with your heart. Have you ever just so happened to talk about that one person you just can’t “stand” to be around to your friend? Your family? Your spouse? Come one let’s admit it, I’m guilty. It’s called gossiping and it’s one of the easiest traps to fall under, and boy does Satan use it for destruction. How many times, like a disease, do we attack something that is good and call it bad? Gossip is an autoimmune disease, which not only kills our relationships, but it impacts the image of God. Think about it, when we talk about others in bad way as Christians how does that reflect who our Savior is to others? Terribly, right? Guys I struggle with this so much, seriously so much conviction. Not only do I struggle with the urge to talk bad about others, but also I struggle with judgmental thoughts in my mind about others. My judging, just in my head, eats away the reality of goodness in others. We have to start looking at our hearts and see how It has an effect not only on the body of Christ but on the solutions we seem to not the able to find for the world.  SO here you go, I can tell you the solution, lets start changing our hearts and attitudes and start mending relationships in the name of Jesus.

Something else I learned…I have got to get on forgiving. I didn’t realize how much unforgiveness was taking a hold not only on those relationships but my relationship with the Lord. Personally my heart is to see freedom in peoples lives, no matter where they are in their walk. I really started to get challenged toward the end of this week with this topic. How am I suppose to expect God to put freedom in someone’s life and break chains that they have if I can’t forgive them for things they’ve done to hurt me? I can’t. And lots of times He wont. If I want to see and intercede for freedom in those peoples lives, I need to forgive them. Plain and simple, “Crap, I need to get on that” is what I was thinking.  Forgiveness is tough, does it mean you have to trust that person again, no not at all, actually many times we shouldn’t unless we feel God is telling us to. Instead it’s looking at people through Jesus’ eyes, Eyes of grace, mercy, love, and the ultimate forgiveness.

So, my challenge from this week-What would the world look like if I started looking at my heart and began taking the ugliness of judgment out and started to forgive those that have wounded me? I would see transformation.

Week 4: Fear of The Lord

Going into this week I was a little confused on what we would be learning about. I soon found out that it was simply having a relationship with the Lord that is in constant awe of Him and reverence of who He is and to hate sin as God hates sin (Proverbs 8:13). This lecture week we continued to talk a lot about the character of God and many questions were asked to help understand more about who the Lord we serve is and why we serve Him.

Some questions and great revelations:

-You will never fear and obey God fully if you don’t think He’s worthy of your love.

-Will you be loyal to His character?

-If God is perfect why does He need us to worship Him? –He’s generous.

-We can use our free will and chose not to sin.

-Jesus isn’t a superhero. I often times think of Jesus as some super being that can fly, go through walls, read minds, or become invisible whenever He wants-but I am so wrong! That’s not who Jesus is. He was fully God but became fully man for us. He left the throne and came down as man, but He relied so much on His Father that his reality was supernatural, as ours should be too. The moment He would have brought His own God power He couldn’t have gone to the cross because it would have made Him unlike our natural form and would have made it so He couldn’t relate to us. Doesn’t that just bring clarity to how AMAZING Jesus is and reveal how much He really does love us? HE LEFT HEAVEN TO DIE FOR US! To be the sacrifice, to stand in the gap because we couldn’t do it ourselves! My Jesus is worthy of all praise, He’s not a superhero, He is my hero!