Gods workings in Arizona

Well, the saga continues! I am not starting preaching until Sunday night cuz my pastor is just finishing a series of meetings today--and he had 21 baptisms today! But he said (through his daughter who is my translator) that he has over 40 people who are interested in baptism! I am really nervous about my series--I feel that there is a lot at stake at this church. The Lord needs to speak there, not me. I just need to be His messenger.

The devil continues to be very furious. He knows how to work too! He has caused so much conflict among our group, and last night I guess there was a big fight among some of the guys of our group late last night in the mens dorm. This caused everyone to be discouraged and down. Man, the devil is clever! If he cant stop us from getting here, he is going to try to keep us from wanting to preach! But, wow, God is incredible! I have seen Him working behind the scenes to encourage, bring people to the meetings, and work to reach people.

Scott Cronin had around 19 people come to his meeting last night, but for sabbath sermon he had around 30-40! An answer to prayer! We have seen the devil attack one of the girls computer and make it not work, but when she prayed over it, ta da! It worked! Pretty amazing!
This is being quite unlike any trip I have ever taken! I wonder what will happen tomorrow at my church when I get there to preach?! Pray for me everyone! It is so hard not knowing a word those spanish people are speaking. It would be really cool if I knew just 5 words of spanish! lol But I know that God is in control, and He is going to do some amazing things!

Arizona blog

Wow! What a crazy day to get here to AZ!

To start off with, I had to move out of my apartment by 5am on Tuesday morning to be ready to get on the shuttle going to Atlanta (which left at 5:30am from Hackman parking lot.) By mid afternoon Monday I had NO idea how I was going to get done. All of my friends I tried to call were either busy or didn’t answer their phone. My main problem was a 100 pound box I had to carry up that steep flight of stairs outside my apartment. After trying to call about 15 different people, I had to (inch by inch!) carry it up the stairs myself. And that was not the only heavy box I had to carry up those stairs! I had a total over 10 boxes (all of them over 30 pounds) to carry up those stairs. In the evening, Mayri came over to my apartment (THANK YOU Mayri! You are an angel!) I would have never lived if she hadn’t come and helped me! I got the last box out of the house and the last suitcase up the stairs at 4:55am on Tuesday—five minutes before I was to leave for Hackman parking lot!!!! I did a lot of praying that night—around 3 am I really didn’t think I was going to get moved out on time!

But that wasn’t even the beginning of my interesting trip! We got to Atlanta to find out that our flight was cancelled. So the 6 of us had to wait almost 12 hours in the Atlanta airport before we finally left at 7:30pm!! An airplane NEVER looked SO good! We got here to Phoenix only to find out that we needed to rent rental cars (we were told we would have church members transporting us to where we needed to go) and not only that, but that we weren’t going to the Mariott Hotel, but Thunderbird Academy! Well, driving in Phoenix when I hadn’t had any sleep for almost 3 days was quite the adventure, and it was quite the adventure when we got here to the Academy only to find out that they didn’t know that all 8 of us were coming (we joined the other 2 team members here in phoenix) when we arrived at the Academy at 11pm! (Or 2am EST… which is what our bodies that the time was!) Hmmm, more adjusting! I wonder what will happen next!

Arizona Day 3

So I have been here a total of 2 days now. WOWO!!! What a 2 days! SOOO many unexpected things going on! I think the devil is so mad that he would do anything to shut us up or harm us—anything to keep us from preaching. I found out that half of the churches didn’t even know we were coming. My pastor only speaks Spanish, so I couldn’t understand him, (but I finally met my translator, a cute 17 yr old girl, and that made my life a lot easier!), and my church is almost 75 min drive away from here!

Not only that, we are having a lot of moral problems here in the team. We had one team member run off with one of the rented cars and threaten to leave, and another team member refuse to talk for a morning (cuz he was made at another team member) and all sorts of craziness. Our team leader has never lead a team before and got super stressed out and yelled at another team member today, and last I saw, 2 team members were headed into downtown Phoenix tonight because they wanted to get away from here and all the conflict that is going on.

I have been learning how important adaptability is, and calmness. When everything is falling apart around me, and everyone is so stressed out and running around blaming everyone else for stuff, I have found that it is SO important for me to double my time with the Word and my prayer time. My one desire is that others (including my fellow team members) not see me, but Jesus in me. I am nothing, but Jesus is EVERYTHING. How I pray that I may be one with Him, and that I abide continually in Him—and never separate myself from the True Source of love, and peace and joy. I pray that I may be filled with His holiness that I have something to give to others. I need to be continually filled with His love, so that I can share it with others.

Ok it is 3am, gotta hit the bed! Had to stay up late to try to combine two hour long sermons into one 35 minute sermon!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone, I am here to announce that I am done with finals and I am still alive!!!!!! Whew! What a relief to have all those tests over with! And to think, no tests, or quizzes, or hundreds of pages of reading until end of August! Yipppeee!!! Of course I am sure I will be super busy this summer, but it is sure nice to be done with school for a bit.

My chemistry final was the hardest test I have ever had in my life! I dont know when I have been so nervous about a test! I will know how I did later on this afternoon. I know that I didnt know all the answers to all the questions, so that kinda worries me.

I will write more laterz after my nap. ;)

...

Oh so very tired! That is all I have to say! Even with over 25 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, I am still ultra tired!
Good thing we have sabbath!

So I feel like writing instead of studying tonight.....

Lately God has allowed me to get a glimpse of the sinfullness of my own life. I have seen myself in a totally new light. I have so often thought of myself as basically a pretty good little christian girl. I think the Lord has been really shaking me up lately as I have realized how far I have to go and I have gained a glimpse of the plans He has for me.
I have realized my lack of total abandonment for God. Am I will to serve God regardless of the cost? Am I will to give everything, even if it costs me my grades, career, my dreams and hopes to God and be willing to be totally used for Him? What if it means going to a little village way out in the jungles, away from my friends and family? What if it means never getting married and having kids? What if it means going to dangerous places? Am I still willing to commit 100% to God?
I have seen a glimpse of how selfish I am--only thinking of what will make me happy and how I want my plans to work out. I have limited God to my silly man made box. Do I trust God enough to allow Him to do whatever He needs to in my life?

Am I willing to give up everything to be used by God? Am I willing to sacrifice everything so that others may know God? Am I willing to undergo harrassment, teasing, loss of friends just for the cause of God? Am I willing to be considered radical for Him?

Thoughts from the kids mtgs at North River

I was reading the last 5 chapters of John this morning. I was again just amazed and humbled at how much God loves us. God loves us as much as He loves His Son. Not only this, but He bids us to love each other like He has loved us. I wondered, is it even possible to love others as much as Christ loves us?

I have been helping out with the children's meetings at North River this weekend, and I have been pretty much grief stricken with how little these kids know about love. I have grown up in a home where my parents would die for me if need be. They have given their entire lives to raising Sharon and me and giving us everything we possibly would ever need (and more!). But here are children who have to fight to survive, who cant read or write, who have no hope for a college education and a prosperous future. How sad!! I have been trying to figure out what I could do for these kids. I am only one person. Like Brian Glass was saying last night, as we drove back to the church from dropping the kids off, we couldnt do children meetings like this with just 5 people. It takes a whole army of college students to manage these kids. Think what would happen if the entire college became involved in reaching out to kids like this!

Anyway, just some food for thought for me. I feel like I am doing so little to reach out to others--the field is ripe for harvest, but there are oh so few laborers who have a single minded mission to reach the unreached. Yah yah, I put in around 4 -5 hrs a night into these evangelistic mtgs, and I put in over 40 hrs (at least) into the Health Expo, and blah blah and people say to me "how do you do everything and keep up your 4.0 GPA?" My only response is, I do so little! There is so much more to be done! I bet Jesus is just amazed at our laodiceanness.