Tuesday, May 31, 2011
2 days until Adios!
As I pray for Guatemala and God's presence there, I am thankful for the comfort/privilege of knowing that I am a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. I am so thankful that I am able to let go of the burden of my life and service, of my inadequacies and my self-dependence, and rest on His presence working in me through the Holy Spirit.
I was feeling a little anxious and stressed this weekend. As God always does, he spoke to me specifically about these fears.... Here are the words/thoughts that God gave to me from "Thirty-One Days of Praise":
"Thank you that I can give myself up to be led by You... that I can go forth praising and at rest, letting You manage me and my day... that I can joyfully depend on You throughout the day, expecting You to guide, to enlighten, to reprove, to teach, to use, and to do in me and with me what you desire."
How nice it is to know that God is working in His children as a fact... apart from what I can see or feel. I am thankful that by obeying God and no longer carry the burden of trying to manage myself without God's wisdom and power.... thank goodness! ;)
I was feeling a little anxious and stressed this weekend. As God always does, he spoke to me specifically about these fears.... Here are the words/thoughts that God gave to me from "Thirty-One Days of Praise":
"Thank you that I can give myself up to be led by You... that I can go forth praising and at rest, letting You manage me and my day... that I can joyfully depend on You throughout the day, expecting You to guide, to enlighten, to reprove, to teach, to use, and to do in me and with me what you desire."
How nice it is to know that God is working in His children as a fact... apart from what I can see or feel. I am thankful that by obeying God and no longer carry the burden of trying to manage myself without God's wisdom and power.... thank goodness! ;)
Thursday, May 19, 2011
"Dress A Girl Around The World"
Last night I had the plessure of spending time with the women's mission team from Lakewood. This is the team that I am a part of that I will be serving with for my first week in Guatemala.
We have been brainstorming, praying, and networking for the past few months; trying to find how God wants us to serve while in Guatemala.
We came upon the Hope 4 Women International's "Dress a Girl Around the World" campaign. People from all over form clubs that sew pillow case dresses to distribute around the world. Teams and partners hand carry these dresses to countries throughout the world! To date they have delivered 23,000 dresses to 36 countries. The women who created this organization care about women... and imagined a world where every little girl owned at least one dress.
This may sound ridiculous to some people but for those of us who understand what it means to a little girl to feel beautiful (a desire placed in her heart by God) and special, it means the world.
We contacted the organization and they joyful agreed to contribute to our trip! They sent us almost 500 dresses yesterday! We spent a few hours last night stuffing the dresses; on each dress is a little pocket that comes with a baby doll!
The dolls are so adorable! (I never had pillow cases this cute)! We will distribute these to the children who live in the landfill in Guatemala City. These little girls that will receive these dresses literally have nothing.... their families feed them with scraps of food they find in the landfill. The first year I went to Guatemala and visited these children, they all had on Lakewood t-shirts. I asked one of the adults where they had gotten them (thinking that it was recently) and she informed me that they were a gift from the mission team the PREVIOUS year. These children have nothing. Maybe one or two outfits. They are covered with dirt, have unhealthy gold coverings on their cavities (which are painful and the metal makes them sick), they have nowhere to sleep... a four year old child asked me to pray for God to forgive her because she had stolen food to help feed her younger (yes, she's only 4) siblings when they couldn't find their mother for a few days.
These dresses will mean something to them.
Every time I think of these children, my first thought is the look in their eyes as they sing songs of praise joyfully and loudly. Each morning, they walk from the landfill to the preschool. Starving and tired, they do not run to the rooms for breakfast.. but start each and every morning with songs about how wonderful, loving, and great God is. These children who according to our standards, have literally nothing.
As young as four year old, babies, these children understand what it means to truly have everything when the world thinks you have nothing. These preschoolers are thankful solely on the fact that they have God, and he is more than enough.
God is more than enough.
Isaiah 55 says it all.
This is what it said to me:
-Why do you think you'll find satisfaction in money... look at celebrities, they aren't happy! There's no satisfaction in anything of this world unless it is from God... the world will leave you empty. Turn your back on the world, to to Him and surrender... your soul will delight in a a beautiful affair.
HERE is a LINK to the website for the Dress around the world campaign
http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/
I'll post pictures of the little girls who get the dresses in Guatemala!
We have been brainstorming, praying, and networking for the past few months; trying to find how God wants us to serve while in Guatemala.
We came upon the Hope 4 Women International's "Dress a Girl Around the World" campaign. People from all over form clubs that sew pillow case dresses to distribute around the world. Teams and partners hand carry these dresses to countries throughout the world! To date they have delivered 23,000 dresses to 36 countries. The women who created this organization care about women... and imagined a world where every little girl owned at least one dress.
This may sound ridiculous to some people but for those of us who understand what it means to a little girl to feel beautiful (a desire placed in her heart by God) and special, it means the world.
We contacted the organization and they joyful agreed to contribute to our trip! They sent us almost 500 dresses yesterday! We spent a few hours last night stuffing the dresses; on each dress is a little pocket that comes with a baby doll!
The dolls are so adorable! (I never had pillow cases this cute)! We will distribute these to the children who live in the landfill in Guatemala City. These little girls that will receive these dresses literally have nothing.... their families feed them with scraps of food they find in the landfill. The first year I went to Guatemala and visited these children, they all had on Lakewood t-shirts. I asked one of the adults where they had gotten them (thinking that it was recently) and she informed me that they were a gift from the mission team the PREVIOUS year. These children have nothing. Maybe one or two outfits. They are covered with dirt, have unhealthy gold coverings on their cavities (which are painful and the metal makes them sick), they have nowhere to sleep... a four year old child asked me to pray for God to forgive her because she had stolen food to help feed her younger (yes, she's only 4) siblings when they couldn't find their mother for a few days.
These dresses will mean something to them.
Every time I think of these children, my first thought is the look in their eyes as they sing songs of praise joyfully and loudly. Each morning, they walk from the landfill to the preschool. Starving and tired, they do not run to the rooms for breakfast.. but start each and every morning with songs about how wonderful, loving, and great God is. These children who according to our standards, have literally nothing.
As young as four year old, babies, these children understand what it means to truly have everything when the world thinks you have nothing. These preschoolers are thankful solely on the fact that they have God, and he is more than enough.
God is more than enough.
Isaiah 55 says it all.
This is what it said to me:
-Why do you think you'll find satisfaction in money... look at celebrities, they aren't happy! There's no satisfaction in anything of this world unless it is from God... the world will leave you empty. Turn your back on the world, to to Him and surrender... your soul will delight in a a beautiful affair.
HERE is a LINK to the website for the Dress around the world campaign
http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/
I'll post pictures of the little girls who get the dresses in Guatemala!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Financial Support
Hi!
A few people have asked how to financially support my mission trip to Guatemala this summer....
If you would like to be a part of my support team:
-Make check payable to LAKEWOOD BAPTIST CHURCH
-Mail the check to me so that I can keep record of donations:
2516 Katherine Circle
Gainesville, GA 30506
Thank you for your prayers and support!
I appreciate you!
A few people have asked how to financially support my mission trip to Guatemala this summer....
If you would like to be a part of my support team:
-Make check payable to LAKEWOOD BAPTIST CHURCH
-Mail the check to me so that I can keep record of donations:
2516 Katherine Circle
Gainesville, GA 30506
Thank you for your prayers and support!
I appreciate you!
God's Call to Guatemala
For six months, I prayed more diligently than ever before. I knew that the Holy Spirit was working in my heart and in my life and I was desperate to listen to and be obedient to his voice.
God promises that "you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart"...
This verse became a real to me in the past 6 months. I truly sought God more than ever before... I didn't seek his wisdom or his blessings... I sought HIM. Through prayer and devoting time to God, I found Him.
I joined a women's mission team from Lakewood Baptist Church that was planning a trip to Guatemala City in June. I had been on a mission trip to Guatemala with Lakewood's youth group; a trip which had transformed my life. I knew that I had to return. The women's mission team began to meet weekly to prepare for the trip and fellowship together. We studied the book "Experiencing the Spirit" by Henry & Melvin Blackaby.
This book transformed my life!
God revealed Himself to me in such a radical and obvious way. It turns out that He has always been trying to reveal Himself to me... perhaps the only thing that changed was I finally began to truly seek Him.
I prayed each day, sometimes for hours (often while on runs at the park.... great excuse to stop and breath for a few minutes... or hours!) This may not sound like an accomplishment to most people, but the fact that I could sit still for more than 30 minutes is a huge deal for those people who know me and my "hyperactive" ways. I begged God to reveal His will for my life and promised that I would be obedient. For the first time, I didn't want to have any "input" about my life but solely desired to be in God's will and to follow Him.
The women on the mission team prayed for me and allowed God to use them to speak directly to me.
The Spirit was revealing to me that God wanted me to spend the summer in Guatemala. He made it very clear to me. When I shared this with my women's team, Phyllis began to cry. Through a million crazy, linked events God had revealed to Phyllis (and other women on my team) that this was what he wanted of me as well.
I talked with a friend from church about spending the summer in service in Guatemala. I had the entire experience built up in my head! I would love to tell you the thousands of tiny ways (and big ways) that God made it evident to me that He was calling me to Guatemala. Just when I thought I had found the opportunity to spend the summer serving Him in Guatemala, that opportunity fell through.
I was heart broken to think that what I thought God had so clearly spoken to me wasn't actually going to happen.... I wondered if I had misunderstood what God said... but I knew that He was working... and I decided to put my faith in Him. Sometimes God require obedience before He assigns....
Even though the plans to stay in Guatemala had fallen through... I decided to show God that I wanted to be obedient and turned down a wonderful job opportunity for the summer (leaving me with no summer plans).
Immediately after I decided to do this... another opportunity presented itself!!! (The coolest thing is... this opportunity would have never been presented if the first Guatemala summer plans had not fallen through and the connections made through that had not been made!)
I interviewed for an internship at Iglesia Del Camino in Antigua, Guatemala and got it!
God had only given me step one: Don't take the summer job. I'm calling you to go to Guatemala.
What I thought was God's plan turned out not to be so... but He did have a plan! And because I know that God's will is ALWAYS what's best for me, I know that this second opportunity must have been what was best.
I will be spending the first week in June serving God with the AMAZING women from Lakewood Baptist Church in Guatemala City, Guatemala. There women are phenomenal and I can't wait to experience God's power with them!
After that, I will travel to Antigua where I will spend the rest of the summer interning at Iglesia Del Camino! I have 2 weeks to raise $3,800! Ah!
But... God has a plan before I have a problem! God will provide!
I would love all of your prayers and support!
God promises that "you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart"...
This verse became a real to me in the past 6 months. I truly sought God more than ever before... I didn't seek his wisdom or his blessings... I sought HIM. Through prayer and devoting time to God, I found Him.
I joined a women's mission team from Lakewood Baptist Church that was planning a trip to Guatemala City in June. I had been on a mission trip to Guatemala with Lakewood's youth group; a trip which had transformed my life. I knew that I had to return. The women's mission team began to meet weekly to prepare for the trip and fellowship together. We studied the book "Experiencing the Spirit" by Henry & Melvin Blackaby.
This book transformed my life!
God revealed Himself to me in such a radical and obvious way. It turns out that He has always been trying to reveal Himself to me... perhaps the only thing that changed was I finally began to truly seek Him.
I prayed each day, sometimes for hours (often while on runs at the park.... great excuse to stop and breath for a few minutes... or hours!) This may not sound like an accomplishment to most people, but the fact that I could sit still for more than 30 minutes is a huge deal for those people who know me and my "hyperactive" ways. I begged God to reveal His will for my life and promised that I would be obedient. For the first time, I didn't want to have any "input" about my life but solely desired to be in God's will and to follow Him.
The women on the mission team prayed for me and allowed God to use them to speak directly to me.
The Spirit was revealing to me that God wanted me to spend the summer in Guatemala. He made it very clear to me. When I shared this with my women's team, Phyllis began to cry. Through a million crazy, linked events God had revealed to Phyllis (and other women on my team) that this was what he wanted of me as well.
I talked with a friend from church about spending the summer in service in Guatemala. I had the entire experience built up in my head! I would love to tell you the thousands of tiny ways (and big ways) that God made it evident to me that He was calling me to Guatemala. Just when I thought I had found the opportunity to spend the summer serving Him in Guatemala, that opportunity fell through.
I was heart broken to think that what I thought God had so clearly spoken to me wasn't actually going to happen.... I wondered if I had misunderstood what God said... but I knew that He was working... and I decided to put my faith in Him. Sometimes God require obedience before He assigns....
Even though the plans to stay in Guatemala had fallen through... I decided to show God that I wanted to be obedient and turned down a wonderful job opportunity for the summer (leaving me with no summer plans).
Immediately after I decided to do this... another opportunity presented itself!!! (The coolest thing is... this opportunity would have never been presented if the first Guatemala summer plans had not fallen through and the connections made through that had not been made!)
I interviewed for an internship at Iglesia Del Camino in Antigua, Guatemala and got it!
God had only given me step one: Don't take the summer job. I'm calling you to go to Guatemala.
What I thought was God's plan turned out not to be so... but He did have a plan! And because I know that God's will is ALWAYS what's best for me, I know that this second opportunity must have been what was best.
I will be spending the first week in June serving God with the AMAZING women from Lakewood Baptist Church in Guatemala City, Guatemala. There women are phenomenal and I can't wait to experience God's power with them!
After that, I will travel to Antigua where I will spend the rest of the summer interning at Iglesia Del Camino! I have 2 weeks to raise $3,800! Ah!
But... God has a plan before I have a problem! God will provide!
I would love all of your prayers and support!
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