Is this all really mundane??

I think God is in the small stuff sometimes more than the big stuff. I have always thought I needed to be doing really BIG things, or saying BIG prayers for God to show up in powerful ways. What if God is in the small stuff and we fail to see or hear Him because we are looking for the next big thing??

Well, many of you know that I felt led by the Lord to move to Coleman, TX, or Big Country as many like to call it. As God was showing me this big next move, I had images in my head of youth flocking to me to hear the Good News, and the whole town falling down in repentance, real dramatic like. (haha) I have now lived here for nearly six months and neither of those things have happened. But I will tell you the things that have happened that have been far more beneficial.

I am building friendships with teenage girls who have never heard that Jesus truly wants a relationship with them and even longs to hear them call His name. This has not been an easy task at times..My sister and I get to lead a purity group for teenage girls. These girls are learning about the love of God!!

There are days when I feel like, "What the heck am I doing? God?? Are You in this???" And that is when He sends a teen my way to talk. There are days when I feel the enemy weighing in on me, and I know, God is in THIS!!!

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with Graves Disease(Auto-immune hyperthyroidism) and struggled a great deal, but was able to go into remission. Well, about a month ago, I came out of remission. Both times I have had this disease rear it's ugly head have been very trying times for me. From head to toe, my body feels rampant. I can hardly focus, let alone really pray. At times it hurts to even stand, and I cry at the drop of a hat! (Of course, I am a cryer anyways.)

So, as we are just beginning to really minister to these girls, this disease comes back with a vengeance, and suddenly I forget all about ministering and suddenly my mind is set on fixing this problem. There have been days where all I did was cry and say "GOD! HELP!" There were days when it felt like I was just talking to the ceiling and really wasn't getting anywhere, and struggled to even believe at all. But God finally spoke to me! Not with a loud bang, but in the small things.. He said" I love you.. I do not expect you to be strong, perfect, happy, healthy or even okay... I just love you.. Can you accept that?" Honestly, it was and still is hard for me to just accept that God loves me and really does not expect anything in return.

Not only has He been showing me that, but also that all of this sickness is an attack because satan is very angry at us for being here. Coleman, TX is a very dark place. There are a lot of churches and "christians," but when it comes down to it, there is a battle in the heavenlies for this place. Sexual, verbal and physical abuse run rampant here. Mostly girls are affected by this. God is showing us that He has opened a door and satan hates us for it. Not only have I been sick and doubting, but every other person who ministers to the YOUTH are struggling as well. God is moving! PLEASE PRAY FOR US!!! Pray for this town!

1 Corinthians 16:9

for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

Today, I remembered a time when God set me free...

 

 

As we continued on with our month, daily we were given opportunities like this one; to share who Jesus Christ is. How precious is this life that He has given to us. Every single time He asks us to step out and talk about who HE IS, is one more opportunity to be FREE. This is just one more day that God set me free.

Well folks!

It's been a fun ride! We are about 4 weeks away from coming home and I can't believe that this is almost over! None of this would have been possible without all of you supporting me every step of the way. I have been blessed to see and do things that I never would have thought possible. I have learned about the heart of God and seen that it's all about Him. So, thank you. Whether we are sending people out or going out, we are serving God. Continue to do whatever God puts on your heart.

So, here is my financial update. As of right now, I still need about $1600 to be fully funded. This is amazing and far beyond what I ever thought possible in raising funds for this. I will be home in 4 weeks and pray that all of my support will be covered when this is over. I have about 50 people subscribed to this blog and if each person put $32 towards this, I would be fully funded. I know times are tight, so please only do this if you feel the Lord tugging on your heart, but I thought I would pose yet another opportunity to all of you for this.

Again, thank you all so much! I love you, I can't wait to see all of you and just talk to you. I will see you all soon. I have no idea what I am doing at the end of all this, but I do know that God will direct every step I take. God bless you!

Dear Sylvia,

I will waste my life if it means....

I get to answer a 5 year old New Zealand girl when she asks me, "Is God really real? Where does He live?"

 

Love on the least of these in the Philippines

 

 

Go sledding down Philippino hills on an old banana leaf

 

Bathe in the rivers of the Malaysian jungle

 

  Teach English to the jungle kids in Malaysia

Do laundry for lepers in Thailand

 

Share hope with prostitutes in Thailand

 

Hold beautiful orphans in Kenya

 

Let her know she is loved

 

Eat four lunches in one day in the bush of Tanzania

 

Ride on an African bus for 21 hours and not sleep a wink!

 

Tell a group of Ugandan orphans that they are loved

 

 

Get adopted into families

 

See God's beauty in the beaches of Zanzibar

 

 

Be blessed with a beautiful family

 

Hang out with high school kids in Ukraine

 

 

  Use toilets like this!!

 

Eat delicious baklava in Macedonia

 

  

What does a man gain if he has the whole world but loses his own soul?

What does a man gain if he loses everything to find himself?

The kingdom of God is here, now.

I will waste my life

I'll be tested and tried

With no regrets inside of me

Just to find I'm at Your feet

Just let me find I'm at Your feet

I'll leave my Father's house and..

I'll leave my Mother

I'll leave all I have known and..

I'll have no other

For I am in love with You

and there is no cost

I am in love with You

There is no loss

I am in love with You

I wanna take Your Name

I am in love with You

I wanna cling to You, Jesus

Just let me cling to You, Jesus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does it mean to be persecuted for Christ?

1 Peter 4:13-14

But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part, He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.

Well, let me tell you a little bit of what this means to me right now. This month in Ukraine, one of the many things we have been blessed to do is go into the high schools here are visit students and share our stories from the year. We have made a presentation of countries we have visited and told stories about people who have touched us and things we have seen that have changed us.

The minister of schools apparently got the head of security involved who used to be part of the KGB. For those of you who don't know who the KGB were, you should look them up. So the head of security was involved and there was talk of us being deported. So far, there is really nothing that can be done but just to keep us out of the schools. We would be sad to be deported, but we were blessed to be counted worthy to be persecuted for Christ. Even if it was in the smallest way, may the Lord be glorified through us! We plan to still do some other things in the area while we are here and we hope to have clearance to go back into schools before the month is over, but there is no guarantee, so we will just do the next thing that is set before us.

 

Like I mentioned before, we just love our contacts, Olga and Maxim! I couldn't have asked for a better family to stay with this month. They are young and fun to be around. We laugh a lot with them and can see their true desire to love the Lord. They are very honest and humble people. Every night, we all eat dinner together with their family and just talk about life and testimonies of the year and what God has done in the past 8 or 9 months.

Most nights, Maxim shares a verse and what the Lord is putting on his heart. One night, he shared a verse out of James 2 which talks about living out our faith and not just using words to show the love of Christ, but actually using our actions to love people and share Jesus with them. He shared that our lives need to be a testimony and through just loving and serving people, we would show them who Jesus is. He let us know that the next day, we would be plastering the disinfection ward of the hospital and here in Ukraine people are more open to you when you show them you love them.

 

They said they wanted us to come back again, so we went for a second time hoping to finish up the plastering we had started but they needed help filling in a ditch with dirt, so we shoveled dirt instead. We leveled out the ditch outside to make it easier for rain water to drain out. So far, this has been a great month! It's been a blessing just to be able to serve where ever we are needed and to love in that way. It feels good to not use so many words since we talked so much in Africa. We were ready to take a break from words and just live it out.

This month we are in a little coal mining town in Ukraine. I don't know the name because all the signs are in Russian and I can't pronounce it no matter how hard I try. We have been blessed with a wonderful family to stay with. Once again, we have seen hospitality and been treated like royalty.

Before coming to Eastern Europe, we were warned by past racers that going from a culture in Africa where everyone smiles, waves and even talks to you in public to a culture where many people are still stuck in the communist mindset could be tough. So, I came to Ukraine expecting to see cold, blank stares from people on the streets; I expected to have contacts who didn't have joy.

Well, as usual I didn't get what I expected. It is true that people on the streets are not the nicest on the surface, but when you sit down with them and have a conversation (with the small amount of English they know), they are wonderful people. We are about 10 miles from the Russian border and if you know anything about American history with Russia, you may know that they do not like us very much. We are learning to love even if people choose not to reciprocate. Thankfully, we haven't had too much of a problem with people loving us in return once they know us a little.

One thing I am trying to work on is laughing out loud in public. They see it as rude and apparently, I have a big problem with doing it too much.. Hehe.. On top of that, they think if you are just walking down the street and you smile and say hi to them, they think you're a little crazy. Well, for those of you who know how friendly Texas is, this has been hard for me not to do. I'm just used to waving and smiling at people, but here, they just give me a dirty look and keep walking for the most part. They probably think I'm the crazy girl who can't hold herself together. Oh that's okay.. They're probably right!

We have asked how ending the USSR has impacted Ukraine and were told that there was no immediate change, but more a change that came gradually. One thing they did mention is that because communism ended, the economy was effected for the worse. Many people around where we stay would probably prefer things to go back to the way they used to be. It sounds like they saw it working better that way. The elderly were taken care of and people could find jobs much easier. That answer surprised me since what we hear in America about it all makes it sound so bad.

Overall, I really like Ukraine. Our contacts, Maxim and Olga are wonderful. They have been married for 15 years and are still very much in love. Maxim is the chief doctor at the hospital and Olga is a teacher. They have 4 kids and the entire family can play many instruments. They all play piano and their son, Eagor is learning to play the saxophone. It's funny to listen to him at night when he practices. He blows so hard into it that every note comes out like he is running a marathon! It's pretty hilarious. I used to play sax in middle school which was a long time ago. Maxim found out and asked me to play at church on Sunday. Haha! I tried to practice and I can't even play Mary had a little lamb without messing it up. So, We'll see how this goes..

Oh Africa....

I just realized the other day that I haven't experienced hunger pains in almost 3 months now(Yes Mom and Dad, I am eating well!) . Ha! I am definitely not complaining at all. We have been so blessed to be here. These people are different than any people group I have ever encountered. You could visit them for a week, and suddenly they have a picture of you on their wall, they talk about you to all their friends, any gift you give them will definitely be shown to everyone they know and if you ever came back, they would let you stay in their home as long as you wanted. This is a family.

I have seen hospitality at it's finest. I have been taught how to serve and be served. Greetings are a big deal, so if you don't shake someone's hand they will ask why. They love to laugh and crack jokes with you. For example, today our contact went around the room saying something "funny" about each of us. He told Alycia she was strong because she came to ministry even though she is sick, he said Miranda was his little princess and that I look like an elder and that Miranda should sit on my lap. Ha! We got a big kick out of it. He continued to go on and on and even started saying I should carry her on my back. I was red at that point. Things like this happen everyday. I am constantly finding myself laughing.

We wake up every morning and eat breakfast at 7:30, which by the way, if you don't eat what they serve you it is VERY offensive. So we eat that meal, then we go to ministry which is a different place everyday and they feed us breakfast again! Breakfast means eggs, peanuts, pineapple and bananas with tea. The second breakfast is usually around 11am. Then we go onto ministry which consists of 4 hour church services (NOT even kidding!) where they ask at least one of us to speak a sermon and at least one to give a testimony. That ends around 4 and we have lunch or lupper which is lunch and supper combined. You would think if it's lunch and supper there would be no supper after, but that's not the case at all. We get back around 6pm and then have tea time at 7pm and the real supper at 7:30. Basically, I am constantly stuffed full of food and tea! Ha! It's awesome!

When they say Africans take their time, they weren't kidding! Many days, they tell us we will be leaving at "approximately" 9am. It turns into 10:30am before we go anywhere. In Uganda, they say they measure the time in handfuls. The other day one of the pastors we visited said we would be eating lunch at "2-3-4 pm" Basically, it's within a 3 hour range and we should just expect it to be around 4. We ate lunch at 5pm that day. =)

So folks, the moral to this is.. TIA---This Is Africa!

It is so dramatically different from American culture that I have often times had a love/hate relationship with this place because I have felt like I am constantly being pushed well out of my comfort zone by the way things are done. I finally snapped last month. I got so tired of being called "Muzungu"(White person) every where we went. Being as white as I am, I stick out like a sore thumb. I just wanted to paint myself black a few times just so I could blend in. I went to God about how frustrated I was and asked Him to help me first get over myself and second to love these people and this culture the way He does. Now I am used to being a "Muzungu," and I forget that people are even staring anymore these days. You just learn to go with it and smile along the way. What's the point in getting frustrated?

The truth is, I will miss this place. Africa has treated us well. We have been blessed and this place is blessed. The Lord loves these people and their way of life. I will probably be back again.

Two weeks from now, we will be moving onto a new continent which means new people, ways of life and a new season of ministry and growth! Just 3 months from being back in America and I can't even believe it's been this long since I have seen my beloved friends and family! I miss all of you dearly by the way! I wouldn't be here if it weren't for all of you supporting me every step of the way, so I am so grateful to have all of you in my life!

I can't believe month 8 is already almost over! What a month too! We have been going non-stop, but it makes for some awesome stories of what God is doing here in Uganda.

Where to start... This month, a lot of our ministry has been to the Anglican Church. So we have been traveling from church to church, visiting homes and parishes and encouraging the believers of the area. Many times we have no idea what is expected of us, so we just wait to get to the ministry for the day and they let us know right then and there what they would like. Many times, we show up and they want a sermon and at least one testimony. Many times, we just let the Spirit lead and we preach whatever is on our hearts at the time. It's been a major growing experience for all of us since public speaking is not really something any of us enjoy. The other day, I prepared to speak in front of a church, which I didn't think would be a large group and it turned out to be over 300 people. Talk about scary! But the Lord got me through it. I am noticing that the more we step out and just walk in faith and trust the Spirit to lead, the less fear we have. It's starting to just be natural, which is so weird!

So, the other day our contact told us that we would be going to meet some people with Compassion International. For those who don't know what that is, they are an organization that helps get children sponsored who have no family income. Many of the children are orphans and mostly from Africa. Our team split up for the day. Half went to one site and the other half (Emily and myself) went to another site. We went with the idea that we were just going to meet the Compassion staff and hang out with them. We got there and had the usual second breakfast with tea and were told we would have fellowship after, still thinking it would be with the staff. Next thing we know, they are walking us into a church full of kids, they walk us straight the front and sit us on stage and hand us the program for the day. The program states that we will be leading the first teaching session to the kids, having lunch and then leading the second session. The first session would be starting the next 5 minutes and they wanted at least an hour of teaching or whatever else we had up our sleeve. At this point, I just laughed. We hadn't prepared anything, but I guess lack of preparation leaves room for the Lord because He still moved. We had an amazing day with the kids, got to share the love of Christ with them, and were blessed in return.

And many of the days this month have been the same way. We show up without a clue of what is about to happen and God just shows up!