Death, Burial, and Ressurection

Another week has passed. Every week seems to be going by faster and faster. I can't even keep up! This week we had Ron & Judy Smith come and teach us on the Biblical Foundations. As you may know, I grew up in a Christian home, so I didn't expect to learn much through this week, but boy was I wrong, as I usually am when I say that. They taught on so many subjects, but one that has completely stood out to me was the one on reading your bible more.
I always say, oh yeah I need to read my bible more, but I never got such passion for it until they talked about it this week. They had 2 ladies from the SBS (School of Biblical Studies) staff come in and talk to us about their experiences on this subject, and they inspired me so much to dig into the word. In our DTS we are going through the whole New Testament, but now one of the other girls who is going to Thailand with me, Natasha, and I have started reading the bible out loud to each other. We started in Luke, and we both take turns reading. So I read through the whole thing, now it's her turn to read it to me, and we are going to do this with all the books of the bible, beginning with the New Testament.  Ron & Judy also talked a lot on sin. One thing that really stood out to me was how it is not by our sin that we are kept out of heaven, but by our unbelief that Jesus took on our sins in His death and not believing in Him. This blew my mind this week. Even though that is something so simple, God has been giving me so many revelations through it, and it's AWESOME. I can't wait to be able to dig into Gods word on my own, and also next year doing SBS for 9 months. God is really starting to show me His plan, and I am so excited for it. He is SO GOOD.
This week we also had angel-mortal week, where we drew names of somebody and we were to give them gifts/letters/something encouraging throughout the week, and we had $5 total to spend all week. It was awesome because I love giving gifts and being encouraging so it was super fun! Also, my angel knew me pretty well... gave me a card with a cat joke, a disposable camera to take pictures.. I mean, come on. She is amazing! :) We got to find out who our angels were on Thursday night, and it was super fun. Mine was one of the girls, her name is Rebecca and she is from Michigan.
This week we get to go to Seattle for mini outreach, and I am super excited. :) Go back to my home state of Washington! God is going to amazing things there, and I can't wait to minister to people on the street. If you could keep us all in your prayers for this week, that would be awesome!
That is all I have this week. God is doing amazing things here, and I can't believe we leave for OUTREACH in just under 2 months! So crazy. :) Thailand, HERE I COME.

Experiencing Injustice

So, I wasn't going to do a blog this week, but Friday night we experienced something so emotional, but good. 

It was the first time that they have ever done it here. It was called "Experiencing Injustice" and what it is was us going around to 5 different interactive stations where they showed us some of the injustices of the world. It was so powerful and intense, something I will never forget. 

We got into different groups, and went out. The first station that I came to was about Sex Trafficking. We came up to a storage unit and our group leader knocked on the door. The door flings open and its 2 women, both part of our staff, and this man. It was insane to see and realize that things like that ARE real. It made me so angry.

The second station we went to was about Child Soldiers. We went into the prayer room and this guy was in there and he said that we can't worship loud, but we should sing amazing grace. So part of my heart knew something was going to happen, and I was already shaking, and found myself thinking twice about singing. Which is CRAZY to me because knowing it was not real, but still being afraid to sing made me really think about if I was actually put in that situation. So we started singing and a truck pulls up and these guys start knocking on the door and window and the one guy in the room leading this whole thing told us to get out and just RUN and don't stop. So we get out and the guys out there yelled us to get in the back of this truck and started screaming at us telling us that we no longer have a family, and that they are our mother and father now so we mid as well just forget about everyone else. At this point, everyone is just crying their eyes out, myself included. We were taken up in this truck up a little ways and told to get out and run to the side. I ended up tripping on a rock and falling on my knee. I got up and then we ran and had to get on our knees as they pointed guns at us and were screaming things. They put masks on our faces, and then took one of our guys in the group and were going to have him shoot the gun (with blanks... not real). It was SO powerful, one of the most powerful ones. All that was going through my mind was if this was real, and I did fall, I would have been shot and killed right then and there. 

The third station we went to was about Unclean Drinking Water. We went up to this table and one of the ladies was talking about this girl who went and got us water, and it's rude to not accept it and drink it so we had to drink it, and if we couldn't, one of our friends had to finish it for us, but we could NOT dump it out by any means. So I take one sip, and about puke. It was so gross. I just started crying. I can't believe it. It breaks my heart so bad.

The fourth station we went to was about Organ Trafficking. We went into the kitchen and there was a girl on the table and covered in fake blood. Then there was this other guy dressed in a surgeon outfit and asked us if we wanted to buy an organ and told us all these facts about it and stuff like that.  (I can't remember every detail, I was kinda a mess). So then we all refused to buy, obviously. And this other guy that was in the skit bought it, and the guy said, "someone always buys it, they always do." And we walked out. It was so powerful and crazy!!!

The fifth station we went to was about Child Labor. We went to what was a cocoa factory, and there was 2 girls in there working and being completely abused. One of the girls wasn't going "fast enough" and the one in charge of them dragged her away while the other throws herself at the window screaming for us to help her. It was so emotional, and my heart was so in there and I just wanted to run and grab her, even though I knew it was an act.

So then after we finished all the stations, we went back into our lecture hall and had 45 minutes or so to process what we just went through and worship. It was so intense. I ended up re-injuring my knee and scraping it up a bit, but I really do not care. It is such a reminder to me that these things are real, and it was so powerful. My heart has changed so much, and I don't think I can ever just go back to "normal" life. I want to do something. God has placed a few dreams/visions on my heart, and I want to do these. I will share more on them when I can. But, I thought I would update you all on what happened to us. It was emotional, but so good at the same time. It changed a lot of our hearts, and I do not believe we will be the same. At the same time, I know I can not change the whole world, but right now, where I am at, I can pray for these injustices, and make a difference that way. So my challenge is for you all to do the same. PRAY for these people. They are REAL people dealing with this stuff, and it is NOT OKAY. 

Dancing with Jesus

It's SATURDAY. Part of me wants to say, finally. And then the other part of me says, wow, it's already another Saturday. Time seems to be flying by here. I am absolutely loving it out here. It has definitely been a challenging time in my life, that is for sure. God has been working in a lot of areas in my life, and it's crazy. Every week we have different speakers on different topics, and this week was Relationships. Not only boy/girl relationships, but everything. We talked about being co-dependent on relationships. This kinda hit close to me because I have found myself more running to people for help than to God. I have been challenged a lot by God to step out of this and completely run to Him, and it has not been easy.

I have wrestled more with God this week than I have in my life. Every week we have to do journals and process through lectures, our quiet time, and basically everything that happened that week. I wrote more in my journal this week than I have, but I really think God is going to do amazing things with that. 

Last night (Friday), we had a worship night down in our lecture hall. It was the BEST worship I have ever felt. God really broke some chains off of me, and it was amazing. Ever since I got here, I have had my whole concept of knowing Gods love taken from me, and I know it was God. He wanted me to rework through some stuff, and see His love in a whole new way than I did before, and let me tell you, it's amazing. I was just on the floor reading the bible and God just spoke so clearly to me in these 3 pictures. I can't really share them right now, but it's awesome. So after that I got up and just started singing and for the last while during worship I have just pictured myself dancing with Jesus. As I got up, I felt the urge to just dance, but one of the really good dance ladies was in there, and I felt uncomfortable in dancing because I really have never taken any lessons or anything. So I did little hand gestures, and just as I started doing this, Taryn comes over to me and says that God had been telling her to tell me to dance for a while, and she almost wasn't going to tell me because she didn't think it was right. That made me almost want to cry. After she prayed over me, I just felt this presence just take over my body and I had no control of it. I just started dancing, and I would say it was DEFINITELY with Jesus. Guys, HE IS SO GOOD.

I definitely felt his love for me in that moment, and I couldn't even handle it. Also, this week I hurt my knee while I was sleeping somehow. A lot of us here in our DTS have been super attacked with leg injuries, so I know this was a complete attack. It was okay, but did have a lot of pain. So I wore my brace for a couple days, and then ended up tripping and falling on it on Wednesday night, and it just made it worse. On Friday this girl Hannah prayed over it, and after worship that night, it was COMPLETELY healed. The Spirit is moving so hard here, and it's amazing! I can't say it enough, but GOD IS SO GOOD. :) 

I also got to prepare and teach my VERY first teaching to the kids at the local elementary school this week. They have an after school program called CLUB 3:16 and through the Childrens Ministry track, I got the option to teach, and I took it! I had 2 days to prepare, and I was so nervous, but God worked in that, and it was awesome! I taught on Abraham, and the topic was on "How to Allow God to Change You" which is funny because that has been a struggle for me lately. But it did go really really well. All the praise to Him! :)

I am not sure if any of this makes sense, or if it was just a bunch of little things on my mind spilled out, but I hope you enjoyed it... I will update again on next Saturday. Just know, God is moving, and I am feeling more and more of Him every day! 

Walking Barefoot

First off, sorry I haven't updated in a while! It is crazy busy over here with everything, and this is the first time I could sit down and just write.

Second. IT IS AWESOME HERE. Day by day, I grow more in love with this place, and these people. I feel like I have known them my whole life, and that I can just trust and rely on them so much for encouragement and pointing me to Jesus! It's amazing the community God placed here at this time and season for each of us. I am in a small group with 4 other girls, and our leader Katie! These ladies are so amazing, and we have grown so much closer together, even though it's only been 2 weeks! We also have these journals that we are required to  do every week and turn in Monday morning and it has been such a good thing for me. It gives me time to sit down and reflect on what God has taught me during the week. 

This week we had the privilege of hearing from Mike Phillips on Hearing Gods Voice. I went into the week not really expecting to get much out of it because I felt like I was "pretty good" at hearing God. It's amazing what you can learn when you open your heart to hear what God will say. A lot of what Mike talked about was things I didn't even realize about myself and how those things sometimes prohibit me from hearing God well. Not only that, but he definitely brought up things that showed me why I act certain ways in certain situations, not even necessarily in a bad or sinful way, but just overall. He talked a lot on the Holy Spirit and how we all have the Holy Spirit inside of us, and it hit me pretty hard to hear some of the stuff he said, but in a really good way. God is changing me inside and out, and I really can not wait to tell you guys more! For now, I feel like this is all God wants me to say, but just know that being here has and is shaping me, and it is so good. Thank you so much for all your support!!!

So, as many of you are probably aware, my best friends are here with me too, and many of you also know the injury Taryn got 2 weeks ago, the day before we were supposed to move into our dorm. If you don't, you can head over to her blog and read the story, but I can just say that it was honestly one of scariest (not THE scariest) things I have had to deal with. She is SO strong though, and God has been healing her so much! So last night (Friday night) one of our friends Hannah got this sense that she was supposed to pray healing over Taryn and her foot (which many people have done). So a group of us sat in one of the rooms and Hannah prayed over her foot. Right as she prayed, we started seeing swelling going down, not dramatically but little by little. And so we continued to pray and worship, and I got the passage of James 5:13-18. Which is all about healing, and confessing your sins to each other. So we talk for a little bit, and just worship God for who He is, and what He has done for us. And then felt like we needed to obviously include God in this whole thing, so we sat there and just asked God, what do you want us to do?  God has been really showing me that He loves to speak to me through visions and dreams, and so he gave me a vision of a sort of blanket or towel over Taryns foot, so I was like okay Lord, so I tell everyone and we find this gray towel to put over her foot, but it didn't seem right, it seemed too big and not the right color and such, sounds dumb, but I felt like we needed it to be exact to my vision. So one of our friends Rut said she had a smaller towel, and I asked her what color it was, and she said white. At this point I freak out, and lay on the bed just PRAISING Jesus because the towel I had in my mind was white. WHOA. So, we end up searching for it for a few minutes and find it under Taryn. One of the other girls, Maddie, had a vision of it being a hot towel, so we got the towel wet and hot, and placed it over Taryns foot. So we sit back down and ask God, what do you want us to do now? The word oil popped into my head. So I say, alright Lord, I will tell them. So I say, "Well, I think we need oil for something." Maddies eyes LIGHT up and she's like, that's crazy because I found this oil in my bed the other day that I have no idea where it came from. So we grab the oil and then ask God, okay God what do you want us to do now? Rut speaks up and says, well in that passage you just read, the oldest used the oil. Also Maddie said that she had a vision of someone rubbing Taryns foot. So we decide that I was the oldest in the room and it was my job to rub Taryns foot with oil. As many of you know, I hate feet and have such a hard time with that, but I was like, alright God, it's all up to you to use this, and I know you will. So I rub her foot with oil, and we place the hot rag on top of her foot. By this time, it's 11, which is quiet hours, so we can't sing anymore, but we can still pray. So we turn on worship music on a laptop, and just sit in prayer in the dark over Taryns foot. After a half hour of doing this, we were like, okay God, what next? We all got the sense that we were just supposed to wait. I end up getting a time of 12, and then Maddie speaks up and says that the verse she just read in the bible was talking about morning time, and healing. So technically 12 is morning, so we sit in silence, and just worship and pray to God for healing. As it reached 11:59, Taryn had spoken up saying that she wanted to play one of the first worship songs she sang at Bellingham CTK, and so we do. I was like, we really don't have time for this... it's almost 12. I heard God speak very clearly to me, "What's 5 more minutes? Wait until 12:05." Okay God, but this song is shorter than that. What do you know... Right at 12:05 the song ends. So we ask God again, who is to take the rag off? The youngest. Which is Rut, who just turned 18 this week. Some say its revenge for her saying it was supposed to me rubbing the feet... but oh well. ;) Haha. So, Rut takes off the towel, and you can SEE that Taryns swelling has gone down SO much from before we started praying, and when she woke up this morning most of the bruising was gone. We are just PRAISING Jesus for his HEALING power! It is SO amazing and ALL the GLORY TO HIM! AH. HE is SO GOOD. Also, as we were coming down the mountain when Taryn initially got hurt, I got the time of 2 hours. So I immediately thought, oh 2 hours and she will be completely healed. Of course we all know that didn't happen. I just sort of forgot about the whole 2 hour thing, and moved on. UNTIL, last night, I realized we had prayed over Taryn for healing for 2 HOURS, and it happened. It is not 100% better that we know of, but God is definitely moving in her foot, and healing her. And to add the whole "2" thing, it had been exactly 2 weeks from when the injury occurred. AH, JESUS!!! What the heck. So good. Also, right before we even did this, we had gone out evangelizing in Kalispell, about 30 minutes from where we are, and it was awesome too, but when we were on our way back in the van, Taryn had a canker sore in her mouth, and our friend Maddie put her hand on Taryns lip, prayed, and it was COMPLETELY gone. So that was the first step in this whole healing thing, and it was AWESOME. God is so good!!! 

Basically, we all really didn't have much experience in healing, or any of it, but I really have been learning through things that God sometimes calls us to go barefoot, and go into the unknown and just see what He will do. Some of the things I said, I felt so stupid, but God uses even what we think is stupid, and not relevant. He will call us out of our comfort zone to see what we will do, and if we trust Him. He called and convicted me to touch Taryns foot, which was BEYOND what I ever thought I would do. 

Everyone in the room that night has a different story of how God spoke to them, and little prophecies and visions they were given, and I could write PAGES upon PAGES of what happened, but God did WORK in that room, in hearts, and physically. It is amazing what God can do with an open heart, and open mind. I LOVE IT! He is SO GOOD you guys. 

I will keep you updated what is happening with Taryns foot, but everyone that was there that day, seeing her foot, knew it was broken on the mountain, and God has been healing it so rapidly, beyond our expectations. So basically, what I encourage you guys to do, is not limit God. I know this is just an update on things going on here, but God can do things like this where you are at too, not just on a YWAM base. Press into Him! I love and miss you guys, and will update next Saturday. <3 nbsp="" p="">