How, then, can they call on the name of the one they have not believed in?
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Dreams and Vision

To say that my experiences have been life-changing would be an enormous understatement. 
I would even go as far as to say that I am a completely different person because of the events of the past two years of my life.
And that's what a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus does.
For 3 months of the past two autumns, I lived in Florida, learning about Jesus and who he was and is and what that means for me and for the rest of the world. I learned what ministry really is and I have been given a passion for the things on the Lord's heart. The question is no longer how I can see my own dreams become reality, but how I can help to make God's dreams come true.
This adventure has taken me to 3 different countries to share the hope of Jesus Christ with people who don't know him.
In South Africa, my team was able to teach clean water technology - how to build a rain catchment tank - to local people there. It has since been replicated in the community.
In Mozambique, we loved the orphans. We visited and prayed for sick infants. We prayed for the church alive in the middle of a waste dump.
In Southeast Asia, we made friends and shared the gospel on university campuses and in cities. We were able to give medical supplies and audiobibles to people who were completely unreached with the gospel. People who did not even have a word for Jesus in their language. We prayed for, loved, and touched the lepers that had been cast out of society to a village far in the mountains.
I think the greatest revelation of God's love has come not when he has showed me something personally. But that he sent me. God's love is so extravagant that he sent me across oceans to reach his children. God has already paid the highest price but yet he goes to such lengths to encounter each one of us. He desires each and every one.

I am so grateful for the discipleship and the experiences that I have had with YWAM Orlando.
God has called me back again to be full-time staff for 2 years! I am so excited to be a part of what God is doing there.
YWAM Orlando is igniting, equipping and launching a movement of passionate, dedicated young people to the ends of the earth with the light of the gospel.
I myself have been sent. And now I am privileged to work in a community that is discipling young people and sending them out into the nations.
YWAM Orlando is committed to sending people to the hardest and darkest, least-reached and least-evangelized nations of the world.
Check out this video about the vision that God has given YWAM Orlando

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

It is not and has never been about me.

I so often forget that it's simply not about me.
It's about God
and his glory
and his redemption
and his purpose
and his will
and his power.
I look at what God has laid before me. His plan. Where he is leading me for the next season of my life.
I look at myself and I feel too small.
Too inexperienced, too young, too -not enough-
That's exactly what the enemy needs to keep his church, his people from walking out boldly in the call of God on their lives. And we, I, have given it to him without a thought.
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit - fruit that will last - and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. John 15:15-16
Jesus has called me a friend.
We have access to EVERYTHING he has learned from the Father.
We have access to all knowledge, all power, all strength.
Jesus chose me.
Jesus, from the very beginning - chose me and has been pursuing me.
He has never stopped pursuing me.

It is absolutely not in the character of God to send us out ill-equipped and unprepared.

We will not be perfect. But to step into the call of God is to have faith that he is capable of working through you.
I believe faith is a choice.
Faith is a conscious decision to look at what is before you, and to proclaim over your situation that God is who he says he is - that he will provide for you, watch over you, equip and help you.
Faith does not mean the absence of doubt or fear. Faith is a choice of something else. Something higher. The truth. Faith comes from a place of intimacy and relationship with Jesus.
Faith comes from remembering his faithfulness and being expectant that he will prove himself again.
And again.
And again.
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong...'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord'  -1 Cor. 1:27