I was just taking a break from packing and got to thinking over the past year. A year ago on September 14th I dedicated a full year to missions. My year long adventure started out in the quaint town of Port Townsend in Washington. I was living on a YWAM base doing the entry level class called Discipleship Training School (DTS) with 8 other students and a number of staff. We spent three months in a classroom setting and two months in Asia... (excerpt taken from YWAM DB website)
"Come join students from around the world for three months where weekly
speakers will mentor you in knowing God personally, hearing his voice,
loving His Word, spiritual warfare, sharing your faith, relationships,
and world evangelism. Learn-apply-grow--and share. That's Jesus' way.
The final two months are spent on outreach discovering God’s heart for
the nations and applying what you've learned."
On March 2nd, much to the delight of my mother, I graduated from the class and was able to go home. But through that experience God taught me a lot about myself. Here is the testimony I wrote about what God did in me:
1)
What God did in me: During the entire
outreach, God was teaching me to trust Him in every aspect of my life. When I left to home for outreach, there were
things I had to leave undone because of time.
I didn’t know when I was moving to
application to
fast. God was asking if I trusted Him
enough to bring it all back together and take care of all the unknowns. Everyday it was a continual process of crying
out to Him and letting go of all my fears.
I had to pry my fingers off of controlling the steering wheel and allow
God to take over. The last Sunday of
outreach, February 25th, during worship I declared that I trusted
God to have control of my future and I gave Him my relationship with JP, which
I ended in April because God showed me it was the best plan He had for me. I felt such a wonderful feeling of freedom
after that and during our performance at the church I had so much fun dancing
under the new freedom I had found. It
will still be a continual process of everyday trusting God, but I know that He
is definitely big enough.
A Highlight of the trip: Anie… four feet, some
inches, but 100% pure sweetness and joy.
We would spend our minutes and hours together talking, sitting, doing homework,
play fighting, or sharing in the silence.
She is a 20 year old that has been through so much with her family, yet
she remains sweet and soft-hearted. Her
mom and dad separated when she was younger and one of her sisters when to live
with him and take care of him. After a
little while her dad got sick and died.
Her mom could not take care of 6 children on her own. Anie and one of her younger sisters came to
live at the FGA Child Care Centre. All
of her siblings have come to know Jesus, but her mom is still living in
darkness. I am so blessed by her
friendship and that God allowed us to meet each other. Being at the Centre and hanging out with the
children was definitely the biggest highlight of outreach for me.
The
FGA Child Care Centre is a facility where there are about 120 children. Some are orphans and some are children whose
families couldn’t afford school. The
people at FGA take the children in, teach them the love of God, and give them
the opportunity to get a good education and a hopeful future!
What God did through me: I have been changing
lives, history and making war in the heavenly realm from
DUN, DUN!!! WOOP WOOP!!
One Sunday, in
personal testimonies or words God gave us then close with “Redeemer.” When I was praying about what to share on,
God told me what the topic was: Love one another. Which is something that God was continually
telling the team over and over. Every
place we went, someone had a message that said, “They will know Jesus by how
you love one another.” So it was a
familiar topic to us, but to me it was kinda getting old. But God gave me a few verses (9 passages to
be exact) and things to say, I was
really nervous about speaking in front of the children and staff at the Centre,
but God came through and gave me the words to say. The leader, Solvan, was really agreeing with
what I had to say. Some, or most, of the
children don’t treat each other very nice.
They call each other names and hit each other. So even though it was a topic we as a team
had heard over and over, I was able (with God’s wonderful help) to bring it to
the people He wanted to hear it.
Four of the girlies My friend Anie Starbucks in Chengdu, China
So with that adventure closing, a new one was beginning. I spend the month of March at home readjusting the life in the States, reflecting on the trip, and unpacking only to pack again. In April I moved down to Portland, OR to start a 6 month internship at BridgeTown Ministries. I was immersed in inner city work and it was awesome!! For three months I was the leader of their outreach to children called BTown Kids. We took a big truck to a local apartment complex and hung out with the kids. We fed them lunch, played with them, painted faces, played messy games, sang songs, and gave short object lessons. It was a complete BLAST!! I was so excited when Saturday would come, even tho I didn't get to sleep in as late as I would like. It was awesome! God really touched the hearts and lives of the kids as well as the volunteers who came and helped out. My experience here was different then anything I had done before. I had to be an adult. I had responsibilities of keeping a house, paying bills on time, making sure the part that I did in BTown was done, be up and at work when it was time, and manage my time appropriately. A difficulty I ran into was I lived by myself for the better part of five months. I have always lived around people whether it was my family or people on DTS. Jesus truly had to be my best friend or else there was no one that was there. It was difficult and I failed at times, I will admit. I watched too much tv and wasted the time I should have been cleaning the house or spending time with Jesus.
I have pics of Portland, but they are on my camera and my chord is packed somewhere.
So now I am sitting at home in Bonney Lake. I have moved most of my stuff to here and mom and I will get the rest next weekend.
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