God's Story In Me

"Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow." -Jesus Paid It All

Today we were able to attend one of three different churches. I was fortunate enough to attend the church I went to when I was here last summer. This church is in a township near Cape Town and is run by a group of people that invested many kids in our FCA camp last summer. I was able to see some of the girls and boys that were in my huddle last year and two of the guys that helped us lead. I was so excited when I learned a few days ago that we were going to this church. It's a very small (inside what used to be a garage), sweet church. One thing that I really like about this church is that they give the kids a lot of authority. Two of my campers from last year help lead the worship, one boy is the "emcee" of the services and keeps track of the schedule. They also get up and dance in the middle of the aisle. I love that. They form a line and the "leader" provides the dance move for everyone else to copy. Most of the congregation joins in, even the really young kids who have more rhythm than most American adults. It's amazing to see people from around the world praising Jesus and the ways they choose to do it. I would love to be able to dance during church back home and have it be a normal thing. After they did a few songs, it was our team's turn to share. Charles and I volunteered yesterday to share our testimonies during the service. I went first and got nervous when it was about two minutes before I had to get up in front of everyone. I thought I'd share the written down version with you, so below is God's story in my life:

I was raised in Christian homes, went to church every Sunday, and Christian schools until college. When I was 6 years old I understood that because of my sin I was separated from God. I knew I was a sinner. Jesus came and died for my sin, and because of His resurrection I now had a chance for salvation. I decided then that I wanted to accept God's love and mercy and that was the day I became a Christian. 

Throughout elementary, middle, and high school I lived a good life. I never got in trouble, I did well in school, I listened during church, and was learning about God. And although I was a Christian I was still missing out on this personal, daily relationship with the Lord. I continued to try to be good apart from Christ. 

Because of my lack of dependence on God I began struggling with issues with body image and began trying to find my identity in guys. In February of 2011 I heard about this FCA trip missions trip. I can't explain it to you other than saying it was a God thing, but as soon as I heard the words "South Africa" I knew I would be on this trip. Absolutely no reservations of any kind. It took me traveling to a different country, on a different continent, being completely stripped of everyday distractions for me to actually listen to the things GOd had been telling me for months. That first week I was in South Africa we focused on the passage in John 15 that talks about the Vine and the Branches and how He will prune away things that will keep us from bearing fruit. "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." (John 15:1-2) I finally realized how important this is and began watching willfully as He started pruning things in my own life. Up until this point I had secured my salvation in Christ, but this was when my heart was actually transformed and I desired to be a true follower of Christ. 

Over this past year I have learned so much and have grown in so many ways because I want Him, I want that close relationship. It's still a process though. I'm still letting Him prune things from my life that will allow me to look more like Him. John 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me."

Thanks for listening/reading. I would love to share more with anyone that wants to know about the amazing things God has done and shown me throughout my life. He has blessed me in so many ways and I am so incredibly thankful that I can call myself a daughter of the King.

I hope your day is brighter now than before, if anything you've just read has inspired or encouraged you thank the Lord; for it is His Spirit that flows through my body, my heart, and through my fingertips as I wrote this. Bless you.

Just One Hour

"My chains are gone, I've been set free. My God, My Savior has ransomed me. And like a flood His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace." -Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) by Chris Tomlin

Yesterday after our sessions we were able to do some exploring. We went to a vineyard in Stellenbosch and a beach in Somerset West. After that we went to the mall in Somerset West and were given four hours to walk around, eat, or do whatever we wanted. My little group went to this restaurant in the mall called Spur's. It was so much fun just to relax and be away from the Island for a little while. After a very long dinner we went to Mugg & Bean for dessert...finally!! After eating double our weight we headed back home for an amazing night of worship. 

We sang at least eight different songs and stopped in between some of them to read a few passages that dealt with these themes: adoration (Psalm 8), confession (Psalm 32), and our response back to God(1 Peter 1:3-9). It was amazing. I could feel the Holy Spirit's presence in the room. I became so overwhelmed by some of the truths and desires I was singing (i.e. Nothing compares to Your embrace/consume me from the inside out). After all of the songs We heard the passage about when Jesus prays in Gethsemane before He's crucified:

"Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray.' He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.' Going a little farther, he fell with His face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.' Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. 'Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?' he asked Peter. 'Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He went away a second time and prayed, 'My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.' When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, 'Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!'" Matthew 26:36-46

We were split up into four teams and given two different times throughout the night that we would have to wake up and come together and pray. Jesus' disciples couldn't even stay awake for an hour to pray while Jesus did, so we were going to dedicate an hour that night (two rounds of 30 minutes each) to just pray. So that means that we would have four hours, from midnight to 4am, of people constantly praying. I was on Team Three with Brant, Ethan, Clark, Mary Morgan, Calyn, and Mary Carr. A lot of people wrote down specific prayer requests and put them on tiny sheets of paper in the middle of the room. Our times were at 12:55-1:30 and 2:55-3:30. For the first five minutes of every session we would join with the group that was praying before us, then we would divide the prayer requests up among us and pray for each thing individually out loud. 

Team Three!

It was so awesome to see what's really on some people's hearts here. Some notes remained anonymous, but most had a name attached so we could pray for that person specifically. It was so worth only getting about an hour of sleep, and just to experience praying to God at all hours during the night. We were abruptly woken up at 4:30 to start our day. We had no idea what the rest of the day would look like. These groups we thought were just prayer groups turned into our teams during the entire process of what happened today. The trust bank is definitely open with all the members of Team Three.

I hope your day is brighter now than before, if anything you've just read has inspired or encouraged you thank the Lord; for it is His Spirit that flows through my body, my heart, and through my fingertips as I wrote this. Bless you.

Descend Into Greatness

"And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest. I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way" -How He Loves Us by David Crowder

Tuesday all of our lessons were on how to be a good leader. Casper went over Revelation 4:7 "The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle." We went over what these four faces represent. The Lion represents authority/influence, the Man represents service, the Eagle represents idealism, and the Calf represents realism. Today we actually had Cassie Carstens go into more detail about how to be a good leader no matter which "living creature" you are. But last night the main focus was that leadership equals service. Constantly Jesus shows us that to be a good leader we have to lower ourselves. Humility is so important, but it has to be done with the right heart. We talked a lot about the "head of the table" mentality.

"When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, 'Give place to this man,' and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher.' Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 14:8-11

We have to die to ourselves every day and put away our pride so we can serve others. But the trick is not to put yourself in a lowly position so that someone will recognize how humble you are. You should serve others in the hopes that no one will ever give you recognition or praise for what you're doing. Greatness is not a measure of self-will but self-abandonment.
"Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Won't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty." Luke 17:7-10
After we went over all of these things, Fouad talked about what it truly means to be a humble servant. He talked about what Jesus did when He washed His disciples feet in John 13. He is the King of the Universe and He got down on His hands and knees, took off their dirty shoes, and washed their dirt covered feet. To show us what that looks like each of the leaders took turns washing each others feet and then our small group leaders washed all of our feet. I began crying at the start of this when I saw Fouad bend down to wash his wife's feet. It wasn't until Karen was kneeling before me, taking my boots and socks off telling me "Peace be with you, God loves you" that I truly understood what this action means. I immediately became so overwhelmed by the beauty of this act that I started sobbing in my hands. I couldn't watch half the time she was washing my feet. I felt so unworthy of this and of everything that Christ has done for me. This was probably the time when I fully and truly understood what the Gospel and Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection actually means!! It is so powerful and beautiful and wonderful and I have just realized that I am so unworthy of anything, especially God's love! I am so thankful to serve a God that truly cares about me as an individual so much and I can't wait to tell others about the great things He did and is doing in, for, and through me. It's such a blessing and a wonder to me. That night was amazing.

I hope your day is brighter now than before, if anything you've just read has inspired or encouraged you thank the Lord; for it is His Spirit that flows through my body, my heart, and through my fingertips as I wrote this. Bless you.

We Made It!

"You're the God of this city, You're the King of these people, You're the Lord of this nation, You are." -God of This City by Chris Tomlin
Ahh! We're finally in Africa!! These past few days have been an absolute whirlwind. We arrived in Cape Town last Thursday afternoon. As soon as we got picked up we never stopped moving. It took us a few hours to get to Stellenbosch due to the traffic and when we got to the Island we had to pack up a tiny bag and get in cars again to head north to Wellington. There we had a mini retreat weekend to kick this trip off. We stayed in this house that was up on a mountain. The view was absolutely beautiful. Friday was full of silly get-to-know-you games and team building exercises. That day was the first time I had ever seen rain in South Africa. Even though we got wet which made the activities harder and us colder, it was a blessing though because they have needed rain a lot lately.

Team Love: (top) myself, Sam, XJ, Paige, Zach
(bottom) Jennifer, Elizabeth, Mary Morgan

My favorite part of the day was when our whole group was split into three teams. Some of us we're given disabilities that we had to work with throughout the different challenges. The members of Team Utando (which I'm not sure if that's how it's spelled in Xhosa but that's how it sounds. It means Love or Awesome Dragon) were as follows: Sam (blind), Mary Morgan (blind), Zach, Jennifer (team leader), myself (mute), Paige (invalid), and XJ & Elizabeth switched halfway being mute. We had to get through different stations that had puzzles that tested our minds. It made us really stop and think because we had to consider most of all Paige, who couldn't touch the ground. Every team received pieces to a puzzle that ended up all fitting into one giant one. The message on it read "If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together". This was a great way to start this trip off because it really made us learn to trust each other quickly and work towards becoming a team rather than just a group. This would be a major theme over this weekend as we learned the important differences in groups and teams. That night Fouad started his first talk from the book of James. He is an amazing man of God, with an incredible wife, Karen (my wonderful small group leader!), and the Holy Spirit truly speaks through him.

Mary Morgan overlooking
the river valley

The best part of Saturday was when we took a break in between our lessons and went on a run as a team. We ran down to an undisclosed location and were amazed at where we ended up. We climbed this huge rock and sat on top of it. The view was absolutely breathtaking. It hovered over this valley that had a river a few hundred feet below. We sat up there for a while separately, silently, and just observed God's beautiful creation. After a while a few of us got together and sang a few worship songs to praise our amazing Father. We can't even begin to comprehend how great He truly is, this is only a small glimpse at what He can do. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands" Psalm 19:1.

Today was absolutely my favorite day so far. We woke up really early and after quiet time and breakfast listened to our first lesson given by Quinn. Since our focus the past two days was on the value of Proclaiming the Gospel, our task was to break off in groups and create a drama that clearly displayed the six focuses needed when sharing the gospel (creation, sin, judgement, cross, resurrection, response). After lunch and indoor fitness activities, we got to go on our first outreach! We went back into Kayamandi to work with the same ministry we did last year called Kuyasa. Kuyasa is located in the middle of Kayamandi and offers lunch, tutoring, computer lessons, and lessons on the Lord and His love to children from the township. We helped serve the kids, most of them ages 10 and under, lunch. The head of the kitchen, a very sweet woman named Big Mama, makes the kids sing (or shout) a few songs about Jesus including the cutest blessing you've ever heard. Once the rain stopped we were able to play with them for a little over an hour. Some kids played soccer the whole time with our team. I was with a group that did silly songs and dances the whole time. We sang Boom Chicka Boom, the Banana Song, Pharaoh Pharaoh, and what felt like 100 more. Even though I had a serious voice crack towards the end of our time there it was so rewarding to act like a little kid with them. One of the main things we were supposed to do when going into Kayamandi today was not to look at all these children don't have, but just notice how even though they have little they're still filled with joy. It made me look at my own life and wonder why even though God has blessed me greatly I become discontent with what I have. 1 Timothy 6:6-8 says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we have brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." I'm used to so many luxuries that sometimes I forget that all I need is God's love, and sometimes I feel like that's all that I have.
After all of this we had an amazing and eye opening (for me at least) experience back at the Island, but that's for the next post!  

I hope your day is brighter now than before, if anything you've just read has inspired or encouraged you thank the Lord; for it is His Spirit that flows through my body, my heart, and through my fingertips as I wrote this. Bless you.

Myself, Kellie, Elizabeth, Clark, Jennifer, & Rencia with some of the kids in Kayamandi.

Right Where I Belong

"Nothing's going to hold me back...I'm alive to live for You." -Holding Nothing Back by Tim Hughes

Saying goodbye to Drew with my two
sisters Bri (middle) & Gracie (right)

I can't believe tomorrow is my last full day before I leave for Africa. I've barely started packing and feel like I have a million things to do in 24 hours. I've already started saying some of my goodbyes to some friends and family. One of the hardest goodbyes I had to make was to my boyfriend, Drew. I'm already a pretty emotional person, but when I realized that this was the last time I was going to see him for the next six and a half weeks I was a basket case. I know he loves me because he said he still thought I was pretty when I was ugly crying; I mean nose dripping, can't catch my breath, body shaking crying. As the minutes turned into an hour and a half he finally left. When he did though, I wasn't sad anymore. I had fully expected to be wallowing all night, but I had and still have this amazing peace within me. I know that I'm supposed to be in Africa; that's exactly where the Lord wants me. The quote at the beginning of this post is from a song that played yesterday during the service at Journey Church. As I was singing these words I further realized that this is part of God's purpose for me. He has given me this amazing opportunity to spend six beautiful weeks in Africa learning how to bring people closer to him through the medium of sports. I get to fellowship with other Christians that are my age and develop relationships with young African girls and boys. Of course I'm still going to miss Drew, my sisters, parents, friends, etc. but I'm not sad. I'm incredibly optimistic because I know this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. My dad shared some insight with me today. He read Acts 1:1 which says, "The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach," He told me that Theophilus was a wealthy man that provided Luke with the funds he needed to go out into the land and talk/learn about Jesus. I am a modern day disciple, he said. I want to provide all of those that helped support me, my own Theophilus's, with updates about the things the Lord is doing in my life and in Africa. My biggest prayer is that I am a blessing to every one that I meet. I want to grow closer than I ever have been to the Lord. He has been so incredibly good to me and I am so grateful that He wants in South Africa this summer.
Thank you Lord for giving me peace about this trip that has been on my heart and mind since last August. Thank you for giving me loved ones that have been so supportive emotionally, financially, and most importantly spiritually. I can't wait to see all of the amazing things You are going to do this summer and how they carry out into my life when I return to the States. You are amazing.

I hope your day is brighter now than before, if anything you've just read has inspired or encouraged you thank the Lord; for it is His Spirit that flows through my body, my heart, and through my fingertips as I wrote this. Bless you.

Limbo

"Have a little talk with Jesus, tell Him all about your troubles. He will hear you cry, He'll answer by and by" -Secret Place by Kevin Davidson

Right now is a big transition time. I just finished my sophomore year of college and am waiting patiently for the next three weeks to leave for South Africa. I spent two weeks of my summer last year in Cape Town and have graciously given up 6 weeks this year to serve with FCA. It's basically going to be last year's trip, but amplified about 10 times. There are going to be around 20 more interns this year, which just means the family we'll create is going to be bigger. There are so many things I need to do in preparation for this trip as well as getting ready to be gone for half of the summer. Organizing is something I've always felt I've been strong at, but it's challenged by my biggest enemy, Time. I leave in 19 days. I want to spend as much time with my family as I can, which is hard since I'm constantly having to go back and forth. It makes me appreciate my time with them since I don't get to see both of my parents everyday like some of you, but it's also tough because I'm trying to divide my time as evenly as I can. I also am wanting to see some of my friends that don't go to school with me and are home now for the summer too. Most I haven't seen in months. And I also have the most wonderful boyfriend (which is something I didn't have to consider when I signed up for this trip) who is also competing with all of these other people for my time. I don't want anyone to get left out. It's just one of those things, like many in life, that I have to give up to the Lord and pray that He will give everyone in my life that loves me so dearly an understanding heart and help them realize that I'm doing the best I can.
Now that I've talked about all of the who's I need to get to before my departure, let's go to the what's. I still need to pack...and unpack. My car is still full of my things from college. I need to clean all of that stuff out as well as sift through all of the things I own because I know I don't use everything. I really want to do a clean sweep of my possessions (mostly closet items) and give them away because I know someone else could appreciate those things more than I have been. I need to clean up this mess before I make a new one. Once I do all of that I think I'll be able to start collecting things to take to South Africa. For almost two months my entire life will be in two suitcases. Since I went last year, I have a good sense of what I need to bring and the things I can definitely leave behind. I'm slightly overwhelmed, but in a good way. All of the things I'm worrying about are blessings! God has been so good to me and I have no idea why because I'm such a sinner! The Lord is good and I also want to take this time to thank all of those who sacrificed financially to support me this summer. And thank you to all of those who have been praying for me and our team; I speak for all of us when I say that we are forever grateful.

I hope your day is brighter now than before, if anything you've just read has inspired or encouraged you thank the Lord; for it is His Spirit that flows through my body, my heart, and through my fingertips as I wrote this. Bless you.