Abundance

The past several weeks have been a beautiful whirlwind. God has done so much that I cant even begin to share everything that I have had the absolute blessing of being a part of in Northern Tanzania. I was telling one of my friends on our team, Marissa, I needed to update. Jokingly, I said I should just write out all of Luke 9-15, Psalm 84, and Isaiah 61&62! I'm not really going to do that but if you would like a better glimpse into a small part of the last few weeks of my life, I would recommend reading-these powerful passages!

So, if I had to sum up the last few weeks up in one word, it would be this reoccurring theme: ABUNDANCE.

 Every aspect of this trip has revealed the abundance of my Father. Just as a child trusts their daddy to take care of everyone of our needs and wants (especially being a daddy's little girl), so are we to rest in the comfort that our Heavenly Father is taking care of all of our needs.

Psalm 84:11
"For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. NO GOOD THING does he withhold from those who walk uprightly."

Every prayer of expectation, God answers in ABUNDANCE.
Every relationship with our African team, God gives in ABUNDANCE.
Every financial prayer, God answers in ABUNDANCE.
Each American team that has come in, God has put together in ABUNDANCE.

We are so loved. You are so loved, and your heavenly Father desires to give you ABUNDANTLY more than you could as or imagine!

Jon came back to see us in our next village!

My sisters. So thankful to spend my entire time in Africa with these ladies!

The awesome Rainbow City team! So Blessed to serve with them!

Please keep praying! As we go into our last week of camp, and pick up a new team, there are lots of mixed emotions. My heart already aches at the thought of leaving. May our focus be on what God has for us each day! Thank you for all your prayers!

"Where is Your Faith?"

(This was written on June 7)

The other day I read a passage I have read and heard several times. However, God continues to speak in news ways and use his word differently to apply to my life at present. Luke 8: 22-25 talks about when Jesus and his disciples were in a boat and there was a great storm. Jesus was asleep and his disciples became afraid and in a panic woke Jesus up to tell him they were perishing. Jesus, with all power and authority, stands up, rebukes the storm, and tells it to be still. Jesus turned to his disciples and asked them a simple, yet humbling and daunting question: “where is your faith?”

As this week went by, I could not stop hearing that question: “where is your faith?” When the winds and waves start crashing, when I can no longer stand in the power of myself, where will my faith be? Will it be anywhere to be found? When a blind lady comes to my triage station, am I going to write “blind” on the piece of paper and continue to ask what other problems she has, or am I going to stop and explain to her that we cannot do anything to help her, but God brings healing and pray with her right there? What about the next time something else happens? Where will my faith be?

Looking out the triage window

This past week, I was able to meet a man who, when waves were crashing and winds were blowing, his faith was present, and by the grace of God, I had the humbling gift to be part of it:

Jon is in his early twenties and lives in the village of Mureru where we were serving this past week. His father is an alcoholic and beat his children so almost all of them have moved out and fallen into alcoholism themselves. Jon has stayed at home faithfully serving and farming but it has not been successful and his family and their farm is struggling. Somehow he had heard that we were in the village and he came and asked for some people to come to his house to pray over it and his family. We walked about two miles before we arrived at his house where we sat and heard about his family and the grasp that Satan had on them. We were able to lead him, his mom, and his friend in dedicating their lives to the Lord then prayed over them for a while. Jon knew that God was capable of answering prayer. That night, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and his countenance beamed the change that had taken place. 

Jesus had to look at his disciples and ask where their faith was. He’s had to look at me and ask me where my faith was, but, that night, He knew where Jon’s faith was. It was present. It was completely invested and trusting in the ability of God to move and answer prayer.

So I ask you, brother… I ask you, sister… Where is your faith? When waves crash around you and winds blow strong against you, where will your faith be? Will it be present and in Jesus or will it be nowhere to be found?

God is doing so much! He is revealing himself and new ways and showing his incredible power! He has knit this team together in such an amazing way! This team is made up of people from all over: Alaska, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, etc. but the bond of Christ has brought us together as brothers and sisters. At the same time, Satan has tried to attack in so many different ways! Please keep praying! Our God is bigger and has already overcome!

When God Uses the Broken of the Broken to Minister to the Broken of the Broken...

As I read Luke 5 this morning, three verses really stuck out to me:

1) v.11: "And when they brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him." This is one of the scariest verses in the Bible to me. It is easy to follow Jesus momentarily, but what does it really look like in MY life to leave everything and follow him... permanently?
Leaving...
-All MY dreams
-All MY hopes
-All the relationships I have made
_All the comforts around me
-All the walls I have built up
-All the petty things I have been holding onto
...I could go on and on and the real question is, am I  WiLLiNG to leave all of those things to follow Jesus? For the sake of the cross?

2) v. 17: "On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal."
Jesus, though he was God, still needed the power of the Lord to be present to heal. If the Son of God, who is fully God, is dependent on his father and his power, how much more am I to be fully dependent on the Lord and his power?... To the point that I am willing to leave everything and follow him!

3) v. 32: "I have not come to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance."
Jesus does not come to save the perfect, but the imperfect. He reached down to save ME, lost in deception and darkness to call me to repentance!

Today I had the privilege of meeting one of the most beautiful, joy-filled, Hawiian women... serving in Tanzania. Just being around her ministers to the soul. From the moment you meet her, you feel the love of Jesus and a smile is on your face the entire time as laughter resounds in the room. However, it is nothing special about her or anything that she has done... it is JESUS! As she shared bits of her story with us, it was evident how powerful the grace of God is. It is more powerful than addictions. It is more powerful than years in prison. It is more powerful than language barriers or grasps of Satan. Tracy was really in so many ways the embodiment of the scripture I read this morning: leaving everything in pursuit of Jesus, walking in the presence of the power of the Father, and that God can take "the most broken of the broken to minister to the most broken of the broken" because he has called us to repentance and made us righteous.

1 Corinthians 1:27-30 "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring nothing things that are, so that no human being might beast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

We will pick us the first team from the airport on Saturday and head straight to the bush to begin our first clinic; please pray:
-It is the end of the rainy season and has rained every day since we have been here. Please pray that the rain ceases to we can stay in our tents in the villages as planned.
-Pray for health, strength, and rest for our team. As soon as they arrive, we will head out and start preparing for our first clinic.
-Pray for those that we will be ministering to. That God will soften hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

When My Heart Fell In Love...

When I was in the sixth grade, both my mom and my dad (a pilot and a school teacher) left the country to travel to India on medical mission for the first time. We had friends who were missionaries to India, but never before had anyone from our family ventured the that part of the world. Little did we know, that single trip would drastically change our family forever.

I distinctly remember sitting at our dining room table over dinner when my parents returned and my mom looking at my brother, my sister, and I saying, "I want all three of you, sometime in your lifetime, to travel to India and serve." Looking back now, the protective, nurturing mother in her probably wishes she would have never challenged us in such a way!

Spring break of my ninth grade year, i was the final family member to take their first trek to serve short-term in India. My heart was instantly bound to the international church and a people who lived and looked nothing like me. I remember coming back to the States and longing for the next time I got to fly across the world to serve my Jesus there and fellowship with my Indian, Nepali, and Bhutanese brothers and sisters.

My first trip to Chetna Leprosy Colony

Two of my beautiful sisters I had the privilege of meeting

At Grace Children's Home

Finally, during my junior year of high school I had the privilege of traveling back to the place I had grown to love so much. India was all i really knew outside of the US and as far as I was concerned, all I really needed or wanted to ever know. Through that trip, God continued to teach me to love, be a committed follower of Him, and to take big leaps of faith in obedience to Him. Being back felt like home... and I was content with my world consisting of only the US and India...

Back at Grace Children's Home

Beautiful Sisters

A visit back to Chetna

Then... as i sat in my Wednesday night college group as a freshman in college, I heard about a trip to Tanzania that my church was going on. I thought it sounded cool but didn't think anything of it at the time. I heard about it the next Wednesday again and could not seem to get it off my mind after that. I had committed to staying in the States for the next few years as part of getting to go to University of Mobile. Let's just say, I stared to pray about breaking that commitment. I had no idea what the trip was going to be, so I prayed that God make it clear that I was to go on the trip by it being a Medical Mission Trip at the beginning of the summer.

At the end of May 2013, I boarded a plane with 44 other almost-strangers and headed to Tanzania Africa. I had no idea what to expect, no idea how God was about to change my life so drastically once again. Again, I absolutely fell in love and was forever changed.