Why Do I Do This?

Why do I spend holidays away from family and friends?
Why do I give up spending time with the ones I love?
I have a job but I pay to do it and literally rely on the support of others to live on. 
I am called to Go. I am called to share the love of God and His desire to be reconciled to His kids. 
He is worthy. He is worth every single penny, minute away from family and friends, tear, laughter, long bus ride. He is worth sleeping on mats on the floor in third world countries. He is worth every single good moment, bad moment, tough moment. He is worth it all. 

Why do I do what I do? Because I have a stirring in my heart to see ALL people to know the love of the Father. I want ALL people to know how Jesus paid the price. I want ALL people to know how the Holy Spirit is with us always and is our comforter, helper, friend and will never leave us. 

I was challenged by one of our speakers who spoke on revival. He talked about who we are created to be, what we are supposed to do and the context. 

• Matthew 19:28-30- Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brother or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first.
• This is who we are called to be

• Matthew 24:14- And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
• This is what we are called to do

• Isaiah 60:1-3- Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.  See darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
• This is the context, even though the world is getting darker, our lights will shine even brighter.

Why do I do what I do? Because I am called to go. My heart is not satisfied just sitting still. I love serving people. I love sharing the love of God with people. I love seeing people grow in their love and knowledge of who God truly is. He is a good Father, who loves us so much and sent Jesus to pay the price so we could be in relationship with Him. He also sent the Holy Spirit, to be with us. God with us, God in us. We aren't alone in this world. He has given us all authority. He has called us to share. He wants us to share Jesus with whoever we meet! 

John Piper says "So, you have three possibilities in world missions. You can be a goer, a sender, or disobedient. The Bible does not assume that everyone goes. But it does assume that the ones who do not go care about the goers and support goers and pray for goers and hold the rope of the goers" 

• Being a goer doesn't meant that you have to do what I am doing and go out into the nations, it could so don't rule it out, but I think it just means that you step out in faith. You step out to make a difference. You stand up and speak and preach about Jesus. You don't care about what people thing of you or what people will do to you because God will take care of you and who are you trying to please, God or man?

So why do I do what I do? Because He is worth everything, He is worth my life, He is worth my all. He is worth everything and I will say that until the day I die, then I'll see Him face to face and continue to say it. You are worth it. You were worth it. You are worthy of it all.

Who told you, you weren't beautiful?

Who told you, you weren't beautiful?
I hear the Father ask me this.
Who told you, you weren't beautiful?

Years of being picked on flash through my mind. Years of being the tallest or the biggest girl. Years of being called big foot, the jolly green giant, or other names that have long been forgotten but their scars are still there. My mind flashes back to statements of, "You would be more attractive if you could just lose a few pounds. or you would have a boyfriend if you were skinnier." I think about the time in college when I lost weight because of stress, when I lost weight because of circumstances around me, when I had an eating disorder.  My mind also floats back to about 2 months ago when I sat in a doctors office and the woman in front of me tells me I'm obese. Words hurt. Words have so much power.

I answer back to my Father and say the world, friends, and family. People that I love and people I barely even know.

He says to me: You are so beautiful my daughter. See yourself with my eyes. You are so beautiful. Your smile is beautiful. Your eyes light up when you laugh. You are so beautiful. Listen to my voice. Listen to what I tell you and believe it. Believe that you are loved and you are worthy of love. I am enthralled with your beauty. Listen to my voice. Listen to my sweet whisper of love.

This is a glimpse into a conversation I had with God this past week. This is something I am dealing with right now with the need to be beautiful, with feeling beautiful, and being confident in that beauty. Being confident in who God made me, the emotional, beautiful mess of a person that He loves so deeply. I have committed to read Psalm 139 every single morning and throughout the day. I have committed to begin reading it to myself while I look in a mirror. I want to see myself the way Papa sees me. I want to see myself the way the Father sees me.

I want people to know that words have so much power. I had been winning this battle of beauty for a good 6 months until I went to the doctors and those words of her telling me I'm obese just cut deep. I don't even know how or why but they did. And I didn't feel beautiful. I honestly felt like a fat, ugly bump on a log, not worth a second glance. The words stung. Words have power. We need to speak life over ourselves but also over each other. We need to be careful with what we say, even when we are joking around. You don't know what other people have battled with, or are battling. We need to speak words of life and love over each other.

So will you make a stand with me and speak words of love. Speak words of life. Speak words of beauty.

And know that you are beautiful and so madly loved by a King who gave up everything for you.

Returning Home

I left home to head home. That's what I felt when I was leaving New Zealand in March. I felt as if I was leaving home to go home. And now as I prepare to return to New Zealand, I feel the same thing. I'm leaving home to go home. 

I love New Zealand so much and my heart is in that nation. I am returning to New Zealand to staff with YWAM and to be a staffer for the Justice DTS, school that I just finished in March. I felt God beginning to place this in my heart and in my mind last November when I was in the lecture phase of my DTS. I felt God showing me that my gifts would be used well in an environment like YWAM. I would get to pour into people and love on them. I would get to spend time just walking with people on their walks with Jesus. I would be able to lead people to other nations and just share the love of God with people! My heart's cry for last few years has been to love God and love people. That continues to be my hearts cry. 

I am so excited about this next chapter of life and this journey that papa is taking me on. He has continuously confirmed over and over again that He will provide and that He is so good. He continues to reveal His heart in many ways. I cannot wait to dive even deeper into relationship with the Father and see what He has in store for me. I am excited about the people that I am going to be staffing with. I'm exciting about meeting the new students and becoming friends with them. Am I sad about leaving Chicago and all my loved ones here? Of course I am. The verse that I continuously turn towards in this time is Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

It doesn't mean that I hate my family because I don't, I do love my family. But the love I have for my family will look like hate in comparison to my love for Jesus. I will live for Jesus in wholehearted abandon. I give up my life daily and take whatever God has in store for me that day. God will not leave me or forsake me. He won't take me to a foreign land and abandon me there. He is always with me. He is a good father who gives good gifts to His kids. I am going to the nations to tell more of His kids about His love for them. That all He wants is a relationship with them and that He wants them to be reconciled through that. 

I will be blogging my journey, what God is teaching me, what I am learning, what I am doing and just everyday life. I'm excited to continue on this journey in New Zealand and where ever else God calls me in the next two years. As for right now I will enjoy my time at home with family and friends, working at camp and just being here. I will head home to New Zealand on August 22 after spending 2 days with friends in LA. So walk with me on this journey and come home with me. 

Waiting

Waiting.
Patiently I am waiting.
Not so patiently I am waiting. Waiting to hear back.
Waiting on the Lord.
Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Waiting isn't a bad place to be. It can be hard and stressful and full of anxiety.
BUT it can also be a time of just resting in the father's love, knowing whatever the outcome, it's what He wants and in His timing and not my own.

Waiting.
Have you heard yet? When will you hear? You haven't heard anything?!
These are things that I've been hearing recently. I'm waiting to hear back from my base, to see if I get to return to the land that I have fallen in love with and pour into students and to just learn more about my Poppa and being His daughter. It's hard some days, who am I kidding, it's hard most days but I know that it will happen in the right timing. Not my own, but in God's timing. I am learning patience. I am learning to be at peace.

If I get accepted, I will be so excited to be going back to a land that I love and to be with people that I adore. If I don't, I know God has better things in store for me. That I will be right where I am supposed to be. I don't serve a small God. I serve a BIG God. A God who answers prayers, who preforms miracles! A God who takes care of the little things and the big things! My God is not a puny God, He is a mighty God. My God provides. He is a good father. He just wants to lavish on gifts and love onto His children. He just wants to spend time with His kids. That's all that He is looking for, a relationship with you. He wants all of us, mind, body, and soul.

And sometimes He makes us wait. So until Poppa shows what's next, I will continue to wait.

Will you wait with me?

Whanau

Whanau means family in Maori. I have experienced family so much since arriving in New Zealand but even more since arriving here in Mangere, Auckland. I am staying at Te Ao Marama, which is a YWAM base here. Last Monday we had a Powhiri here at the base. This is a ceremony where the people of the land (base) welcome the visitors and they become one tribe/family. It is such a beautiful Maori tradition. I was so blessed by it. Men make speeches about who they are, why they are here and what God is calling us together for. It is a beautiful ceremony about the acceptance into a family. Rahiri explained parts of the ceremony as also being symbols of our relationship with God. At the beginning, there are warriors from the home tribe that come out to challenge the visitors, to see what their intentions are, for good or for bad. The put down a symbol of peace and step back and then the vistors send a warrior to pick up the symbol of peace. It's all about our decision to pick up the challenge from God, to pick up the peace from Him. We are people from all walks of life, and from all over the world but God has made us a family and I have so experienced that sense of family here. I have grown to absolutely love my whanau here at Te Ao Marama. I have gotten such a vivid picture as to what the church is supposed to be and what it's supposed to look like. Someone from the base experienced the death of a loved one and then one of our team members has lost her grandpa in the past week, to see the  support from the people here, to see the love and concern from people you barely know. We (my team) were able to be there for Ron when his mom passed away, and now they stand with us in the grieving of this grandpa. It doesn't matter who we are, where we come from, what we sound like or look like, we are the church, we are the body, we are the bride. We need to put aside small differences and focus on what it means to be the body! We are to be there for each other whenever something happens, rejoice when others rejoice, mourn with those in mourning. These people, this whanau, I will never forget them. I also don't think this will be my last time here with these people.

I have fallen in love with the Maori and Pacific culture. I have fallen in love with these people. I have fallen in love with what the church is supposed to look like and be. I have fallen more in love with my God and what He is calling us to be.

God of Justice

No fear of man.

We shouldn't fear man. We shouldn't be afraid of what man can do to us. God is on our side. We shouldn't be afraid of evil spirits or demons because they tremble at the God that lives inside of us. The church is the most dangerous force for good in this entire world. We are filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has given us so much power and authority. God has given authority to overcome all the power of the enemy. (Luke 10:19) There is POWER in the name of Jesus. Jesus tells us we are going to do greater things then Him in this world. (John 14:12)

This past week here at YWAM we talked about Missions and Justice. We read through the book of Acts the first few days and my mind was blown by what these men and women of faith did...but the thing that really got me is that I can do that too! It wasn't that it was power and authority given just to them but ALL believers! We all have the power to be used by God to do miracles. God will use us to heal people, to speak to people, to save people, and even bring people back from death. God will and can use us to do miracles like having the blind see, the mute speak, the deaf hear and lame walk! I want to be use by God to do those kind of things. I want to heal people in Jesus' name! I want to be used in whatever way God wants to use me. 

We also talked about Justice and how God is both a God of righteousness/love/caring but also a God of Justice and He is mad that 27 MILLION of women and children get hurt on a daily basis in a $42 billion industry. Those statistics are so messed up. $42 billion every year goes into hurting women and children. Soon sex trafficking will bypass drugs as the number one crime in the world. Our speaker, Daniel Walker- author of God in a Brothel, told us of this picture he has of God. There is the picture of Jesus welcoming all children to Him but there is also the picture of Jesus in front of women and children saying No, you will not hurt them. They are mine, they are precious and they are loved. They are not a commodity. You will not use them any more! 

Jesus came to set the captives free. He came to rescue the oppressed and hurting. 

 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. -Luke 4:16-21

That was Jesus' mission to set people free, to bring Justice to this world. The church must come together and form the body, the bride of Christ. We shouldn't be separated because of small issues, we are the bride of Christ. We are the church and we are the most dangerous force for good because we are filled with the Holy Spirit. We don't have to be afraid of what we do/where we go/who we meet because Greater is He that is in Me, that is in us then he/what is in the world. OUR GOD IS SO MUCH BIGGER!!! The enemy has no authority, has no power if we take  it back. The Holy Spirit is the invader of the darkest places. God is there. God is there. God is here. God is everywhere and He will be with us no matter where we go, including into those dark and scary places to free those who have been enslaved. God is there. God is with us. We have God within us. We have all of the Holy Spirit.

I also just read the book "Sex and Money: A Global Search for Human Worth" and these are a few of the quotes that really hit me as I was reading the stories and seeing the pictures of women, children and men affected by all of this.

"Why are we, lovers of justice, not flying across nations and oceans to be with you? Do those men value you more, because they are willing to spend their time and money? Shouldn't we have more of a passion to pursue you?"

"Chains of poverty, fear, and lack of education bind them to their shacks. In the same moment, I realize that there are people from my country who are bound to their three-bedroom, two- and a half bath homes. Cords like passivity, apprehension, and lack of awareness keep them from addressing the visible symptoms of a hurting world."

 "The power of change resides not with a nation's chief executive but in the resolve of ordinary people to act in ordinary ways."

"Many small people, who in many small places, do many small things, can alter the fate of the world."

I pray that we be dangerous, that we walk in the light of God. That we aren't afraid to go to the dark places to shine the light. I pray that even if we stay in our home country that we aren't comfortable. That we are uncomfortable and do all that we can from where we are to fight injustice. Sex trafficking is in every part of the world. In every city, including my hometown of Chicago where 60-70,000 women are trafficked every year. I pray that we don't turn the other cheek but we stand up and raise our voice for the voiceless. That we come together as the body, as the church to fight this. Criminals can work across international borders, why can't we? I pray that bride of Christ comes together to end sex trafficking and that we would go boldly to proclaim the truth and to bring the light to the dark places because if our God is for us, then who or what can stand against us?

Freedom

So I guess I didn't totally realize everything that I was getting myself into when I signed up to do YWAM. I am getting totally and completely wrecked for Jesus. I am at the end of the 3rd week and I am already feeling like a completely different person.  The first week we talked a lot about the basics, intercession, hearing God's voice, YWAM, and the basics of Christianity. I was reminded so much that God loves me. He loves me and wants to talk to me and talk to others through me. He wants to use me to change the world. We also shared our testimonies, and it got very real very fast.  It was amazing to see all the similarities so many of us had with each other. Our leaders keep talking about how it's amazing how open and vulnerable we have gotten with each other so quickly. There is just some hunger in us that makes us want more in this life, more on fire for God.

Two weeks ago we talked about the attributes and characteristics of God. I was reminded of how unworthy we are of God's love and affection but He calls us worthy. He deems us worthy, He sent His son to die on a cross for us. We also ended the last day of class forgiving people, in our past for things they had done to us and hurt us. I forgave people that made me lose trust in friends and have made me put up walls with people.

Last week. It's hard to put into words what has happened this past week. I have been so broken and so torn up BUT it has also brought so much freedom and so much life into me! Hurts and things that happened so long ago were brought up and I was able to finally release it all to Jesus. We talked about intimacy with Jesus and it's just incredibly beautiful. I don't even know how to describe what happened. It is such a beautiful thing. Thursday the guys did the Haka for us, their sisters in Christ. They were making a declaration that they are waging a war against the world and the standards of "beauty" that have been pushed into our society, into our being. They were standing up for us and saying that we are beautiful and we are worth fighting for. The Haka is what Maori warriors do before going into battle and it is used to intimidate the enemy. It is used to show power. Something happened as they circled around all of us girls and declared that  they were going to fight this battle for us and with us. That they are going to wage war against the war in so many girls mind about self-hatred and body image. A lot of us felt that there was something different and that something shifted in that room and that enemy fled from that place.

Spiritual Warfare is very real and I'm beginning to realize this more and more. We don't see it in the states/North America. We have become so complacent. We don't believe that demons are around or that people can be demon possessed but they can and will and do. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it is not around. The devil does not want us to be here and really getting into the word and finding out who we are in Christ. The devil is scared of this group that I am with because we are so on fire for Jesus. We want to see the world changed and we want to see Jesus' name be spread throughout all of the world, and we want to see Justice spread throughout the whole world.