I Refuse

Today was a wonderful day.

I was supposed to go to the Lower 9th again to Pastor Gerald's church, which I was really looking forward to. But I had to remember one of TouchGlobal's main rules: Be flexible. ;) God had something else planned.

I had the privilege of escorting my host little brother and sister to the store to purchase lots of little toys, coloring books, hair accessories, washcloths, etc. for little Haitian boys and girls.

See, Kara and Caleb thought (all on their own), that they really wanted to bless these children and love on them. They showed initiative in using their own money, and even are going to print out flyers to hand out to their AWANA class to see if they will join in and help as well! WOW. The Christ-like leadership and compassion at their age just blew me away.... what incredible examples!!

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. - 1 Timothy 4:12


How appropriate this was, too, as the sermon we heard in church this last Sunday was about being responsible as Christians; about being the change we want to see happen, so to speak. What a tangible example right before me! 

Kara, Caleb (His torso, anyways) and their packages being divvied up!

The boy gifts ;) More things still to be added.

How appropriate that this song was playing while we were working. :) 

Love these kids and so thankful for the short time I get to be in their lives.... I am more blessed for it. Glad that God asked me to be flexible and change my plans today!!

P.S. I leave for Haiti in 5 days! My flight leaves Monday morning at 6 am! :) YAY!! I am so excited that I get to be the one to hand out these packages we made today to the orphans and schoolchildren in Haiti!! :) 

Beignets and Cafe au lait

This last Friday I had the privilege of going to the French Quarter of New Orleans with my friend Jen, who is TouchGlobal staff. What an interesting place!! Music everywhere, so many shops selling food I never knew existed.... like alligator meat on a stick?!? Yeah. They have that. That's a thing, apparently... Haha but SO much fun. Ate some gumbo (my first time eating it!), and it was SO good. Very different from food up north, but still yummy! Visited the famous outdoor Cafe Du Monde and ordered cafe au lait (yum!!) and BEIGNETS (YUMMIER!!!!!) and, WOW, are they good!! Powdered sugar EVERYWHERE, lemme tell ya.... it covers the floor all around each and every table! 

(Had to use a picture form the internet..... forgot my camera that day =/ )

It was such a fun day!! The river was beautiful, and got to see the famous riverboat, the Natchez, too. It played obnoxiously loud, carousel-esque music.... but it was pretty! The only thing I didn't like about the French Quarter, that I saw, were all the drunk people wandering around (I saw several!) at 3:00 in the afternoon!! Crazy. But, what an interesting, enjoyable and highly educational experience! ;)

Both teams are here now in New Orleans to serve with TouchGlobal for the week. What a privilege to be able to meet them tonight and pray with them as they prepare to serve! I could hear in their voices and words their desire to honor the Lord. This week will be a treat! Please continue to pray that fatigue and headaches will not defeat or discourage me this week, as I am having to get up around 5:30 each morning. ;) Please also pray that I am able to get out of my introverted comfort zone and really talk to and get to know the team members and am able to encourage them! I need the Lord to be able to do any of that. 

God bless you guys. :)

Prayer Request

I realized that I have been telling people that they can get prayer requests on my blog- and I haven't even really had a prayer request yet.... Well HERE'S one:

As many of you may already know, I have chronic headaches and fatigue. Meaning, at any given time if you ask me if my head hurts or if I could take a nap, I will almost always say yes. Lately it's been worse, and I'm a bit nervous because I'm going to be getting even LESS sleep in Haiti.... I also am dealing with other health problems. So, I would be ever-so-greatful if you could please be praying for my overall health. Please pray that I won't be discouraged or have feelings of despair the days I feel like I can't keep my eyes open or my head is aching badly. Please pray that the joy of the Lord will be my strength. Please pray for healing.

Things are going pretty well here otherwise, getting ready for my first teams to come starting this Saturday night!! :) Now I will get to be trained for the stuff I'll be doing in Haiti: hosting, facilitating and leading teams that come down to serve each week. I'll be the hospitality! Which means starting Monday morning I'm busy from 6 am til 8 at night.... hopefully it'll go well!! I'm very excited. :)

Inspiring verse of the week:

Ephesians 1:4-7

⁴ Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. ⁵ God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. ⁶So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. ⁷ He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.

The Lower 9th Ward

Yesterday I had the opportunity to cross the GIANT, 23.83 mile-long Causeway over Lake Pontchartrain (which, is AWESOME, lemme tell ya) to downtown New Orleans for the first time in daylight and see a couple of the inner-city ministries that EFCA TouchGlobal partners with. What a privilege!! And how exciting!

The first place we went to was a new church in the Lower 9th Ward, a section of the city made into a corner by a canal and the Mississippi River. During the Hurricane Katrina flooding, this was the area of the city where people were forced onto their roofs and were waving at helicopters for help. We entered a large neighborhood filled with small houses. About every fifth house was boarded up and looking neglected: abandoned after the floods of Hurricane Katrina and the levees breaking. As we turned our last corner before reaching our destination I saw a whole city block full of gravestones.... but they weren't actually gravestones. They were cinder blocks from what used to be foundations of houses. Houses that no longer exist because of the flooding that happened five years ago. Little did I know that not far from that barren, haunting block full of abandoned cornerstones that I got to see were about eight more.

Right across from this "graveyard" was the new church plant, lead by Pastor Gerald. What a dear man. :)  He is so excited about reaching his neighborhood for Jesus Christ, and is eager to start up an after-school program for local kids! These kids that he's wanting to reach, he says, have no one to look up to and just wander around... he wants the church to be a refuge for those kids. The program will offer computers, internet connection, reading programs and tutoring. I could see the passion an excitement in the pastor's eyes! It was so contagious. The little room where church is held each Sunday was empty at the time I visited it, but it felt full of hope and life: a place where broken people meet with Jesus. :) With a few more repairs and necessary utilities, this after-school program for local kids will be up and running! How inspiring, energizing and exciting to see the Church in action.

The next place we visited sat not far from the high, twisting highway ramps where people lived on for weeks during Hurricane Katrina: I'm sure you must remember seeing the media footage. An EFCA church called Castle Rock is taking what used to be a school and was ruined by the flooding and making it into a church and ministry building called The Porch. Teams from Minnesota were there at the time, painting, drywalling and cleaning to revamp damaged or dysfunctional rooms. There are several Sunday school rooms, a large sanctuary which will be used for church and also local plays and concerts, a coffee house and a recording studio which the community will be able to use for free. Awesome, huh?? Also very exciting to see new ministries and churches being built before my eyes and to hear the passion and excitement of the individuals directly a part of it. The Holy Spirit's presence and the love of Christ were there in those places, let me tell you!!

Seeing these churches and ministries carrying the name and love of Christ, being planted in the midst of a place that still looks like a war zone filled with people who need hope, is one of the most thrilling, exciting things I have experienced... It feels so ALIVE. It's awakening a passion in me that I'm not even entirely sure I know what to do with yet... but something is definitely stirring inside me that I can't ignore. I can't wait to visit the city again!! I'm starting to see the world through different eyes. Exciting stuff. :)

Meanwhile, I am doing cleaning/organizing-type things around TouchGlobal's ministry building every day to help out the staff, and enjoying it! I love to feel helpful. It's a good thing I like sweeping floors!! Also, it's not so bad having to do that kind of stuff when it's 75 degrees and sunny out and you get to have Chik-fil-A for lunch... which was what today was like. ;) Love it here!! God is good and I know His presence with me. It's all so exciting!!!

TTFN! Ta ta for now!! :)

Luke 12:48-

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

Nola

I'm here in Southern Louisiana! Just across the lake (the BIG lake) from downtown New Orleans, that was impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Gustav and a host of other setbacks. 

It's a beautiful place: lots of water, warm, green, friendly, did I mention WARM; full of blooming flowers, palm trees and places that specialize in boiled crayfish, sweet tea and fried chicken. ;) Here, 50 degrees is cold and Mardi Gras is a bigger deal than the 4th of July.... yet there are still thousands of displaced people from the hurricane five years ago. Looking forward to seeing downtown New Orleans for the first time tomorrow and meeting some people working at Urban Impact and doing my first bit of shadowing at TouchGlobal's office and warehouse.

I am staying with the Lewis family: what awesome people. The minute I walked into their house on Wednesday night I felt welcomed and at home. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis are so kind and easy to talk to and their kids are SO much fun! They are so good-hearted, extremely friendly and down-to-earth. Love playing legos with the nine year old son, have great car conversations in the Buick on the way to friends', and tonight I have a movie night/cookie bake planned with the 11 year old daughter. :) 

Thursday and Friday were full of meetings, from 8 am 'til 5:30 on Thursday and 3:30 on Friday: my first taste of ministry. More like a MOUTH FULL of ministry!! So much to take in, people to meet, concepts, strategies and terms to learn. Most of the content had to do with team health and self evaluation and ministry assessment..... so to be honest I tuned out for some of it ;) It was good to meet all of the people though. There are several staff members that are my age and enjoy hanging out with, as are the older adults! They are so great. :)

There definitely have been ups and downs the last few days, but God is SO faithful and powerful... I so sense His presence with me. On Thursday and Friday I battled extreme fatigue. I wanted to get to know people more but it was very difficult to when all I could think about was sleep and trying to keep my eyes open. I had a bit of a breakdown mid-day Friday and then I realized I should pray. After some tears and prayer, God reminded me that I can do all things through Him who gives me strength and His joy is my strength. I was still tired but felt DETERMINED to persevere. I found out that right at that time my mother and a dear friend had been praying for me. :) Cool. That night, though I wasn't completely "un-tired", I had the best night of fellowship and building of relationships and friendships at my first Mardi Gras parade! And to think, I almost let that attack keep me from going.... God is so good to me. He's making it clear that, though I'm not entirely sure what's ahead, I am exactly where He wants me. And, boy, am I excited for where He will continue to lead me!! What an adventure.

I'll finish off with this passage we focused on the first day of meetings, and is really impacting me:

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Typed from 30,000 feet!

Well, I have said all the hard goodbyes and watched Wisconsin grow small and fade behind me.... Now on an airplane taking me to New Orleans for my training! Had a beautiful and fun last few days with family and dear friends and now a morning filled with laughter, tears, Scripture-reading and airports. :)
God is so beautiful.... He has given me such grace and peace in saying bye to everything familiar to me and taking a leap of faith onto this plane that is flying me to new places and adventures... God is SO good!!
It's amazing to look out my tiny, round plane window and see a blanket of snowy clouds beneath me, full of swirls and ripples, looking as if one could walk and run and jump on them. It is so peaceful here. I can sit, pray and anticipate the events ahead!
Soon I will land. Tonight I meet lots of new people, including the Lewis family, who I will be staying with for three weeks. Tomorrow and Friday I will be in meeting from morning 'til night- literally. I look forward to absorbing the team's knowledge and building relationships with them!

God is good all the time. His grace is sufficient. His power is made perfect in my weakness. :)

More updates soon!

He hems me in, behind and before.

Five more days.
Five more days of sleeping in my own bed at night.
Five more days of being able to hug my family members any time I want.
Five more days of being able to hang out with my friends.
Five more days of attending Calvary Community Church on Saturday nights.
Sure, t's only three months I'm gone so call me a baby, but still: that's the longest I've ever been away from home by FAR. I'm going to a place where I know no one. A state I've never been to, then a third-world country. A language I've never heard. It's a little scary.
BUT God.
I have to remind myself... rather, God reminds me: I am NOT going alone. And GOD knows these people, this state, country, language. He knows what tasks He has for me; He's planned them in advance! His grace is sufficient, and He is more than enough.... He is the one who sustains me, and the only person I can completely trust with all of me. HE goes with me. And HE has called me to go. He hems me in behind and before; He goes before me like a consuming fire. He gives me joy and strength and any and every good thing.
So I go. And I trust that His Words are true, and I pray that I will hold onto them and to Him. And I trust that He who calls me is faithful, and He Himself will do it.
His grace is sufficient.

Joshua 1:9 - "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Philippians 4:4,5 - "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near."