Jesus, Outreach and Me

Hello my beautiful people! It has been a while so I have a lot to update and catch you up with, which means it's going to be a longer post. I'll start with what happened in Indonesia and Malaysia.


OUTREACH:

As most of you know, I went to Malaysia and Indonesia with a team of seven students and a co-leader. About a week before departing to Indonesia I remember sitting in the office with Rachel (my co-leader) as we were trying to figure out how she was going to get $1,000 in seven days to be able to come. I honestly was preparing as if I was leading the team alone because I didn't know where her money would come from. I would pray and be in panic as I tried to figure out how I would lead a team when I struggle to take care of myself at times. But God would just respond and say, "Relax man, I have this." As the week went on I realized that God actually did have this; Rachel got all of her money in no time. After this, we were sitting pretty. We had all the money we needed and I was getting really excited that this thing we put so much prayer and time into was actually becoming real! But, two days before we were going to leave, I found out that the accountant made a mistake so I owed $900... I went straight to my room and started praying, questioning if I was actually supposed to go... Otherwise why would this have happened and how would I get this money? Keep in mind we already had our plane tickets but I couldn't leave the base until I had everything paid off. In the midst of this all, God spoke very clearly to me and explained basically that it was my choice. I could either stay on base and He would teach me what true intimacy with Him would look like, or I could go and He would show me what it means to be a true leader. For some reason I felt I was supposed to fight for it. So I posted to Facebook and in less than one day I got all the money I needed and next thing I knew I was on my way to Indo.

When I got there the air was dirty, there were dogs running around, and motor bikes everywhere. We took a 10 hour bus ride to Living Waters Orphanage where there currently are over 500 orphans. We did a lot of service projects like cleaning and helping move things. Also we had the opportunity to run the Sunday church service where I was able to give a testimony and small encouragement about not letting society tell you what your future will look like. Through our time there, our team learned a lot about the importance of vulnerability and that our team wouldn't be able to be a family until we actually got real with one another. After about six days we left on another 10 hour bus ride to Pontianak and when we got there we quickly realized the difference in culture. We were greeted by some breakfast... And then a second breakfast an hour later... Then lunch three hours later. And in Asian culture it's very rude not to eat everything that's given to you so we learned to push ourselves spiritually and physically. In Pontianak we taught a lot of dance classes and blessed them with photography for their base. After a few days there, we left the base and went to some villages that took a day's travel to get to. The villages that we went to had never had foreign visitors, so we were the first white people they had ever seen! When we came driving in, it was pretty evident by their reactions. People were following us on motorbikes and staring at us. It was about 6 p.m. when we arrived and as soon as we got there we were told by our contacts that we would be giving a sermon and testimonies in one hour. But first they said we needed to shower then go and have tea and then dinner. So Rachel and I looked at each other like who's going to give the sermon, where do we shower and how's all of this going to happen in an hour? One of our students felt that they were supposed to give the sermon and another a testimony so off we went to take our first bucket showers, but not without a struggle. Originally they were going to take us to the river, but they were slaughtering a pig there so instead we went into a really dark hut with two tubs. David (the only other guy on the team) went to the one where there was a fish in the tub that you grab water from and I went to another one where the water wouldn't shut off as my shirt fell in the toilet.. As this whole process was going down, David shouted to me, "Does yours have a door?" And I said, "Yeah, why?" He replied, "Mine doesn't and they're all watching me shower." Needless to say, we had quite the experience but the night went on to go really well, no regrets. Over the next few days we did a lot of house visits where we went to the houses of people who attend the church and prayed for whatever they wanted us to. Also we taught dance and English classes for the children which they loved! During one of the house visits there was a man who said he couldn't go to church because of his foot. We looked at it and there was huge cyst that looked really gross. We prayed for healing but nothing happened right away so we went on to the next houses. The next day, our last night, we were doing a church service and I saw him in the crowd. At the end people came up and thanked us and the guy came up and said that his foot was completely healed! He said that normally those cysts take two months to go away! The coolest part is the fact that he actually went up and shared, not because anybody asked him to, but because he felt compelled to since he got touched by God! SO GOOD!

We moved to another village and it was about a 20 minute drive. The first night we had another church service and afterwards, the woman who was running the service asked if we could pray for the sick and the old people. We were like yeah for sure, we love to pray, that's like all we do! So we started praying. I prayed for this old guy and man was he old... So I prayed that he wouldn't die right there and that he would be blessed. As I was praying, I looked over at a girl named Lacey who was on my team who was praying for the girl who was leading the service. This lady was on the ground in the Spirit...

This is probably a good time to tell you that these churches don't believe in the Holy Spirit and it's actually really dangerous to talk about it because of the churches they belong to.


So this lady was on the ground for about 10 minutes crying when the pastor came over and was telling her to get up because they had never seen this before. But she couldn't get up... Finally she got up, went to the podium, and started preaching. She said, "I have cancer and when this girl prayed for me I felt a hand come in and take the cancer out and it was so painful. But then I felt this warm soothing hand come and I just felt loved." And she started preaching to them and everyone in the audience started weeping. Our team was sitting there looking at each other like what the heck just happened... It was a great way to start our week with this village and we continued to see God's hand moving every time we stepped out. During an English class, as our translator preached the Gospel and sang, all of a sudden all of the children started crying and singing to Jesus and it didn't just go for 10 minutes but for over an hour these kids cried out to God. There are some more crazy stories from this village but if you want to hear more just ask and I'd love to tell you!

Our next stop was Kuching, Malaysia where we stayed for three weeks hanging with the youth and building relationships. What I saw in these youths, and how much they wanted God, pushed me so much to actually cry out to God and not ever become complacent. All they did was call out to God and want more of Him. We had the opportunity to go and help out at a youth conference where we got to pray for them after the service. I saw a swollen ankle and a back healed and many of the youths touched by God. It was such an amazing time and they were all so hospitable; they would often take us out to lunch and show us new places.

We took a 10 hour bus ride to Mukah which actually took more like 12 because our bus lost a tire... So that was interesting. During that time I found out that my whole team wants to get married and how many kids they want... Anyway, in Mukah we did a lot with the youth as well. Two of those girls had a sickness. One was a dancer and she couldn't dance anymore and the other had a problem with her mouth. God healed them both but also spoke to them really clearly and as we asked how they were, both of them couldn't talk but just started crying. Finally they told us and we were all blown away by God. A lot of our time in Malaysia was teaching prople how to hear the voice of God because they all love God but don't know how to walk with Him. So it was an amazing time and we saw God move SO MUCH.


That's a really rough overview of what happened. If I tried to explain everything that happened it would take a lot of time and you wouldn't have time to read it.




PERSONAL GROWTH:

During Malaysia and Indonesia and even up until now, God has been doing things in my life that is honestly really hard to explain but I'm going to do my best and be real.


A lot of Indonesia was learning what true fear of the Lord is and why it's so important. A huge prayer of mine was that I would hear God's voice so clearly and as I would hear Him, I would have to step out in that. And through that I would hear words like "tell the pastor of this random village that God's going to give her a sink" and "tell the other pastor that God's going to give him a grill." Now as I said these things the first pastor said that she has been praying for a sink so I knew clearly that was God. So she got a sink. But the second pastor would ignore me; I knew that's what God was saying so even though he ignored me, I didn't get discouraged. I still walked out and said whatever I felt God was saying. When our team wasn't being vulnerable with one another, God showed me what to say, how to say it, and when to say it and our team had a lot of breakthrough. I learned that it's absolutely nothing that I do... All I do is say yes and God does the rest. When I went to Malaysia honestly my relationship with God was not a fun time. I would struggle to get up and spend time with Him in the mornings, and the hardest part is that I know God doesn't want me to come if I don't want to. It's not like He NEEDS me to come and spend time with Him. So it was a war in my mind over the future and decisions I had to make about my relationships back at base and I just couldn't hear anything. Finally one day in the Kuching house I was spending time with Him and He spoke so clearly about what I'm supposed to do with our relationship. He didn't answer one thing about the 12 questions I had but instead He spoke about what I needed to hear in that exact moment. He told me about how I pick up on other peoples' revelations of Him and then base my relationship with Him off of their revelations. I constantly cry out that I want my own relationship with Him, one that's not like anyone else's, but as soon as I hear something that sounds good about God or how someone else lives their life with Him, I add it to how I should live mine. So He told me to go back to the things I knew He has spoken to me and I found out that there were only 3 things... I truly only knew 3 things that God has spoken to me that is our own. Basically God invited me to a place to restart; not to do-over everything, but to begin in a new spot where the very thing I desired would happen. Intimacy is what He promised would happen if I walk by only what He tells me to believe. So I sat there with what felt like nothing but so much hope of what He's going to do in the future. That's when He started speaking about all of the questions I had and how what He wanted me to do would lead to intimacy with Him and although it's the harder and more awkward choice, I won't leave empty-handed. Now today, this very second, I'm living out those choices and man is it difficult. Each morning I'm faced with a new struggle and awkward position but the amount I know God now doesn't even compare to what it was before. When I look back I honestly wonder if I even knew God, because He has now revealed so much and done so much in me that I'm not the same person. God is changing and forming me into who I was created to be slowly but surely and He's not missing anything. My worship now is real, my prayers now are real, my relationship with Him is actually real. It's not anyone's but my own. He's calling me to learn guitar and to sing, He's calling me to start working out and so much more that I can't say yet. But if I've learned anything, it's that God's not boring when we step out. If we stay within the boundaries of society He is boring because we were never meant to live there.

He also taught me what it means to step out in my authority of victory. I saw so many healings because I realized that Christ already won that for us. If they're not healed yet then we keep fighting. Two of our girls were REALLY sick. We were in the middle of the jungle and one had a temperature of 102 and the other girl hadn't ate anything in a week because whenever she did she threw it up. So I sat there thinking "what the heck are we going to do." We took one to the hospital and the doctors said that they didn't know what to do so when we got back to Kuching we had to bring her to the hospital but that's all they could do to help. We weren't going to be in Kuching for another two days, plus a 10 hour bus ride... So our team got in a circle and we put them in the middle and prayed. We decided we weren't going to move until they were healed or we had to go. Keep in mind we were supposed to be doing ministry soon so they all thought we were crazy. But they started coming over and praying and next thing we knew Madison got healed and didn't have a fever anymore and Sydney started eating food and kept it down. We as Christians have so much authority but we rarely choose to access it. God's showing me how crazy this generation is going to be for Him. He's releasing things over us at such a young age. But we have to choose it! And also be willing to learn what it looks like to steward it. Let our cries to God be such a loud YES. Yes to what He says, yes to what He's doing, and yes to letting Him love us! Cheesy but yet sooo true. The only way we will ever be at a place of knowing God is by letting Him first know us and that's where I'm at. It's messy too, because I have a lot of pride, but praise God that He's bigger than all of it.

So my school ended this week, what a season of life this has been... I have met some of the most amazing people and I'm excited to see what they do in this life. Be praying for them that God will have His way and they will stay yielded to Him.

Lastly, thank you so much to everyone who donated and made this journey possible. I would have never had the opportunities I had unless I had your support, especially with the finances so last-second. Everything that happened through our team happened because of your support. You play a bigger role in my life than you will ever know and if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask! I just want to give a little shout out to my parents for their support above all else. Through this journey it has been so hard to be away and they don't always understand it but yet they are supportive through it all! PLEASE pray for them because they deserve to be blessed immensely for all they do. Love you Rob and Trac.

That is all! Thanks for reading and I'll be home in June!! CANT WAIT!