26 years old with 31 kids.

January 2010 Sunny Coast DTS

i literally feel like i blinked and seven weeks of my life passed by. a lot of life was lived in those seven weeks, but it's crazy to think that i haven't even had enough free time to sit down and update you all on what's been happening. it's true, but crazy, nonetheless. 

i definitely didn't anticipate being as busy as i am, but, despite the sometimes 17 hour days, i truly cannot complain. leading this school has been physically and emotionally exhausting, scary, painful, humbling, and totally & completely fulfilling. i've never felt such purpose in my life. i am genuinely excited to get out of bed each morning and find myself hating the weekends and longing for the weekdays. as pathetic as that may sound, it's true. i've discovered that if you live your life doing something that doesn't give you that "pit in your stomach" feeling on sunday ev

enings when you think of what's to come the next morning...well...then you're doing something right. i hope my life is always filled with sunday evenings that don't bring a dread of monday morning.

we are currently in week 6 of the january 2010 discipleship training school here on the sunshine coast. it has been nothing short of completely incredible, and i am SO excited to share my stories with you. since my posts are generally painfully long to begin with, this one will probably be the mother of all posts since i haven't written in so long. i genuinely hope you take the time to read all of this, even if it's in more than one sitting, because God has been doing SO much in my life and the lives of the students, and i really want to share these st

ories with you. i'm sorry for not writing sooner, but when you have the choice between updating your blog or having a 3 hour prayer session on the beach with a student who desperately needs to be set free and experience God's forgiveness and grace...well...that one's simple...

Jenna...

one completely exciting aspect of my life right now is having my dear friend, jenna, as a student on the school i'm leading!! it is an incredible story of how God restores relationships, actually. jenna and i went to junior high and high school together. and it was NOT pretty. we were pretty close to downright HATING each other during our last couple of years in high school. serious, serious, SERIOUS enemies. mostly fights over boys. you know...normal high school girl stuff, but, either way, it was nasty.

while i was here as a student on my DTS, God really placed jenna on my heart and spoke to me about how she really needs to do a DTS! i decided to email her and tell her that. in the year and a half since then, God has truly restored our relationship and she is now nothing less than a sister to me. we 

began meeting every tuesday night during my last trip home. one of those nights as we were sitting across from each other in a booth at our "usual" restaurant, we began talking about DTS and i, once again, shared my DTS experience with her. tears streamed down her face as her heart broke and longed for intimacy with God and the chance to grow in Him. from that night on, it was definitely a struggle, but she overcame emotional and financial roadblocks to get to australia. i picked her up at the airport and so heavily felt God's presence as i saw her standing there with tears coming down her face - we were both overcome with emotion as we saw how God not only restored our relationship, but He brought us, once enemies, to australia to share in this experience together. how amazing is that!? 

one of my favorite memories, so far, is 

one morning we spent in prayer for a mutual ex-boyfriend of ours. a boy that we once fought each other over, we were now joining together to help fight a spiritual battle for him. God is so good. 

please keep jenna in your prayers as she continues this experience. it's emotionally overwhelming and God is working so much in her heart. it is a blessing that we have each other here - we've used each other's shoulders to cry on more than once. she's such an angel to me.

jenna and i in australia...

Staff Training: December 30-January 10

i had a really blessed christmas here on the sunshine coast. it didn't feel a bit like christmas since it was nearly 90 degrees and i spent the afternoon on a beach, but it was a wonderful celebration. three friends of mine here on base were also orphaned, so we went to a midnight christmas service, spent the day on the beach, ate an AMAZING christmas dinner, had a small gift exchange, and watched TONS of christmas movies. we went to the video store and rented seven...yes, 7...christmas movies. and i'm pretty sure we watched them all. seeing snow on the television helped me feel at least a little bit at home. 

five days after christmas, staff training began for the january discipleship training school. we began by getting to know each other - we are 11 people from four different countries. we spent the afternoon of new year's eve hanging and grilling out on a boat on the beautiful noosa river. we rang in the new year with a fireworks show on the beach - they weren't the most impressive fireworks i've ever seen, but i just felt so blessed and excited to start 2010 with my toes in the sand on a beautiful beach overlooking the pacific ocean with the staff team for the january DTS. not a bad way to start off a new year! 

the training included long but fruitful days, preparing us for the next five months of discipling and assessing the students. it also gave me the opportunity to share my heart with the staff, which gave us a chance to really unite and share one heart for the DTS. i'd spent nearly nine months praying for the school and seeking God's heart for it. in doing that, i've known that i want to run this school with humility. if something isn't being done right or isn't as effective as it could be, then i want to be at a place where i can admit that and change it. i don't want to do things "just to do them." i want everything we do in this school, from lectures to small groups to weekly evangelism, to be impactful. 

i've never felt so scared and ill-equipped for something in my life! leading a DTS has been the most frightening thing i've ever done, but it's in that place of feeling scared and incapable that i am strengthened. because, the truth is, i'm NOT capable of doing this on my own. and i'm forced to completely surrender to God and allow Him to do this work through me. the majority of the last two weeks of december was spent on my knees, crying out to God for guidance and strength. i've never spent so much time with my face in the floor, the carpet soaking up my tears as i just completely surrendered. over and over and over again...

in praying for this DTS, i really felt God say that the theme of the school is freedom. freedom through grace. so, as a staff team, we chose a school verse for this DTS:

2 Corinthians 3:17 - "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

i think we must have heard something right, because freedom has definitely been the focus during these first five weeks of the school. by the end of staff training, the eleven of us were prepared to begin this journey with the 31 incoming students, but i don't think any of us were truly ready for all that God had in store...

January 2010 DTS Staff

Isaac (Florida)

Bryan (Canada)

Daniel (Wales)

Jay (Texas)

Tiffany (Florida)

Fleur (France)

Ben (North Dakota)

Heidi (Oregon)

Reba (Canada)

Callie (Florida)

Week One: Orientation 

even the word "orientation" is boring. the first week of DTS is typically just that...a relatively mundane intro to YWAM, the sunshine coast, and the DTS program. unfortunately, there's no great way to get around it; it's just one of those things that has to be done. 

on the first day of the school, i had the opportunity to share my heart for the school with the 31 students. i spoke for nearly an hour, pouring out my story, my desires, and my hope for their lives. i opened up a prayer time afterwards, giving each student a chance to come to the front to receive prayer from a staff member. right after i gave them the opportunity, i ran out of the room for about 30 seconds. when i went back in, nearly every student was out of their seat - receiving prayer from a staff member or praying for each other. i was overcome with emotion when i saw everything i had been praying for and anticipating for nearly ten months in action - the students had arrived and were going for it right away. i had many awesome conversations, prayer times, and shared tears with many of the students that day. it had begun...

one thing that is done on orientation week is testimonies - shared by both students and staff. it's a cool, though time consuming, way to hear people's stories and get to know them on a deeper level. this january school has a total of 42 people (31 students and 11 staff), so sharing testimonies would be no small task. many testimonies go on for 15-20 minutes at a time, so the staff team decided that instead of sharing testimonies, we would instead have everyone share "how you got to Oz." this would keep it focused to what God did to bring you to do a DTS...in australia...on the sunshine coast. 

we shared "how'd you get to oz" stories on wednesday and were done in no time. but, by the second person that shared their quick story, i knew that it wasn't being done right. i knew that we were missing something. i knew that this wasn't how i wanted to begin the school. 

so, on thursday morning, i stood up, scared out of my mind, in front of all 41 students and staff, admitting that we didn't do it right and, in living out my heart for the school, i needed to change it. i felt that we we had been unfair in caring more about how much time 42 testimonies would take than hearing everyone's story. i hated that i put the schedule ahead of hearing each student share what God has done in their life. i hated how we unfairly limited them to share only how they got to australia. because, really, i don't care how they got to australia. i care what God has done in their life. and if that story takes 3 hours for one person to tell, then i want to sit there for 3 hours and hear every word they have to share. 

and so, the mic was open. we had a lot to cover that day, but i had no peace about how we shared "testimonies," so i wanted to give everyone a chance to really share their story with us. i didn't want to continue with the school without at least giving them an option to really open up. and i felt like it was vital in setting the tone of the school that we had this time.  

so, i sat down and waited for someone to respond. and that was one of the scariest moments in my life. i felt like i had been obedient to what God had spoken to me, but there was no guarantee that it would be received, so if nobody responded and went up to the mic, then i'd be the idiot that would have to go up there and say, "okay...we'll just move on with our agenda."

i decided that putting my pride on the line was worth it to me. so i waited. it was the fourth day of the DTS and i was sitting in a room with 41 other people from all over the world that had just met...and i was praying that it was God that had directed me to do this and not myself. 

what seemed like an eternity was actually less than 60 seconds. because then...they stood up. one by one. they went to the front of the room. they shared their stories. they shared how God had worked in their lives. they repented. they cried. they screamed. they prayed. they opened up. they spoke. 

for four hours. they spoke. 

and suddenly, the room that had been filled with 42 strangers turned into a Spirit-filled room full of souls hungry for God.  we had guys on their knees, overcome with tears of pain and frustration - wanting to find and experience and know God. we laid hands on each other ... some of us still learning each other's names, but the guys and girls alike had tears streaming down their faces as they prayed out for someone that, in an instant, went from being a near-stranger to being a beloved brother or sister in Christ. students and staff were going to the front confessing weaknesses, repenting for sins, admitting their fears, speaking out their doubts, sharing their life stories and getting on their knees and weeping as they humbled themselves in front of us. i have never, in my life, experienced something so powerful. i have never seen such breakthrough so early on in a school. i have never seen such openness. i have never had such bold confirmation that i had heard God in throwing out our agenda for the day to just be real and broken and honest with each other. we had students set free from doubt, unbelief, past sins, eating disorders, shame and guilt. 2 Corinthians 3:17 came to life in a very real way for us that morning. where the Spirit of the Lord is, there really is nothing but sweet, sweet freedom. 

another big event of the week was forming our outreach teams! our two month outreach spans from the end of march until the end of may. i will be co-leading a team with jay, who lead my outreach team to jakarta and lead the school that i staffed last january. he's one of my greatest friends and has spoken into my life and helped me grow spiritually in so many ways. we'll be taking a team of 7 students to Bangladesh and India (Calcutta and Darjeeling). i'm SO EXCITED!!! it's going to be incredibly difficult, both physically and spiritually, but we have an amazing team and i'm seriously excited to get there. 

we're also sending out four other teams to:

India & Nepal

China

Bali & the Philippines

Thailand & Cambodia

please keep the teams in your prayers as we begin planning for outreach - communicating with contacts and arranging ministry opportunities.  

Week Two: Father Heart of God

the first week of lectures was on the father heart of God. we had a florida native who is now a full-time missionary in thailand come in to speak on this topic. he has an amazing testimony to share about how he divorced and then, two years later, remarried his wife. they are now in full-time ministry together. we had an incredible week of learning about and experiencing God's heart for us, His children. 

since i have so many responsibilities as the school leader, i only have one "one-on-one," which is a student that i meet with weekly to disciple throughout the school. my one-on-one's name is mallory. i've never really known another mallory, and i'm glad i didn't go my entire life missing out on this one. mal is a beautiful, fun-loving californian who reminds me of myself in SO many ways, not including the name. she's loud and free-spirited and if she's in the room...you'll know it. we hit it off INSTANTLY and i'm so thankful that i get to meet with her on a regular basis and have the honor of really speaking into her life. she's such a blessing to me. 

my one-on-one meetings with mal, which must be at least one hour weekly, are a full-day event. we spend hours together - laughing, exploring australia, sharing our thoughts and feelings, asking questions and processing this experience. life is brighter with mallory in it (as you know). 

this week on the father heart of God was a really transformational week for mallory, and it was incredible to watch God touch her heart throughout the week. mal experienced God's grace and forgiveness and was able to let go of so much pain from her past that she had been carrying with her for years. seeing her obtain freedom through Christ's love and grace was a moment that i will never forget. i held her as, through painful tears, she released forgiveness on herself and people that have hurt her, and i can honestly say that i felt the weight of her past being lifted from her as she did it. mallory was not the same person when she left that night as she was when she arrived. she was renewed and freed. and she hasn't been the same since.

in addition to our lectures each morning, we have a night of local evangelism every monday, night lectures every wednesday, and small groups every thursday evening. on this school, i decided to have a book that each small group studies together. the guys are going through 'Wild at Heart,' by john eldredge and the girls are reading 'Captivating,' by john and stasi eldredge. 'captivating' is an incredible book to go through with other girls and we're learning SO much through the reading. i'm co-leading a small group with four students in it and love getting to spend time with them each week. 

Week Three: Hearing God's Voice

week three. we feel like we've known each other for years by now. we started the week off with a morning of sharing from a couple of people that were students on the january 2009 school that i staffed. they did an incredible job and really challenged the students to be surrendering themselves to God and His plan for their life. one student felt convicted that he has been placing too much value on what's in his bank account. that morning, he decided to give away $13,000 to our ywam base and ministries in the area. he had been saving up his money for so long but had placed too much worth on it and needed to surrender it to God. he's about 20 years old. i was blown away by his conviction and obedience to do something so huge in that moment. he knew he heard God and he listened. that was so challenging to me, personally, as i sat and listened to his story and prayed with him through it. it definitely wasn't an easy decision for him, but how blessed he will be for his obedience! 

tuesday was australia day, and we cancelled lectures in order to have a day of celebration and intercessory prayer for the country. one thing the students really prayed into was rainfall for the area. queensland often suffers from droughts and is on regular water restrictions. we prayed for rain on australia day and february 2010 has now had the most rainfall in the first ten days than any month in YEARS. how awesome is that!?

our lectures on 'hearing God's voice' began on wednesday, led by boris schaber, who heads up the skate ministry on our base and can only be described as...very german. he's honest. he's to the point. and he's got one powerful testimony of countless incredibly clear ways that God has spoken to him throughout his life. entertaining and educational. one of my favorite combinations.

God became very real in our lives in many ways this week. one morning, boris gave each of us an object - something random in the room (cell phone, notebook, Bible, world map, water bottle, etc.) and we were to ask God to speak to us through that object. some heard nothing, some heard really meaningful things, some heard something but were unaware of the meaning...

one of the guys on staff was given a world map to pray into. when he did, he heard God say a name of one of the students, followed by a short but direct line for her to obey. he then was directed to a small island that isn't on most maps which none of us had even noticed before. when the staffer went to tell the student what he heard and show her the island, he had no idea how hard it would hit her. the name of the island is her boyfriend's name. God had given her INCREDIBLY clear direction for this relationship, and he did it using one of the staff members that had no idea she was even in a relationship, let alone what the name of the boy was. that'll teach us to stop putting God in a box...He can speak and guide us in the most unexpected ways through the most unexpected people. 

after our night lecture, i drove one of the students home that i knew had been having a hard time. i wanted a chance to connect with her and see how she was doing. we sat outside of her house for about thirty minutes as she cried tears of pain and frustration - questioning why she was here and what God had in store for her. she was struggling to hear Him and feel His presence. she was, in short, having massive doubts in her faith. after a while, i felt like this wasn't just going to be a normal cry session, but there was something more that God had planned for her that night. so i started driving. 

i drove her down to the beach and we stood just feet away from the shore. the next 3 hours were some of the most powerful hours i've experienced. 

i told her to get it all out. all of her frustrations and fears and doubts...just yell them out. scream. cry. be angry. be honest. be upset. be REAL. 

and she was. she was crying so hard that she was nearly choking as she began confessing sins, repenting, expressing frustrations, speaking out her fears, and kicking and screaming and punching nothing to get out her anger. when it came down to it, i felt like the root of the "wall" that was put up which kept her from fully experiencing or hearing God was a lack of forgiveness...of herself. she had forgiven others and knew that God forgave her, but she wasn't allowing forgiveness over herself for wrongs committed in her past. and so, i told her she needed to speak it out. she needed to express that she knew God had forgiven her, but to release forgiveness over herself. 

she asked if she could do it in her first language, norwegian. so she did...

we were standing on the beach, at this point. i was just holding her as she cried and spoke to God in her language. and then began something that i had never seen before. i could literally FEEL the figurative chains being broken off of her. she began shaking and she fell to her knees as she cried harder and spoke faster. i fell to my knees with her and prayed for her so intensely that i began praying in tongues. she was physically shaking and crying as she was on her knees with her head in my lap. i started praying louder and after about 45 minutes or an hour of this, she started calming down. her breathing started getting more controlled and she stopped speaking and the tears slowed and she just laid there with her head on my lap as we're both kneeled in the sand, still trying to piece together what just happened. i stroked her beautiful, long blonde hair and prayed for peace over her as she just laid in the sand, nearly lifeless. i actually checked to see if she was breathing a couple of times because she was so still. about a half hour later, she sat up. she said she didn't want to ever move because she had never felt more at peace before in her life. praise God! she had been set free! free from sins, from shame, guilt and unforgiveness. free from the doubt and unbelief that the enemy had placed in her. those chains had been broken on that beach and i KNOW that i physically felt it. it is definitely one of the single-most incredible experiences of my entire life and i felt honored to be there with her, praying her through it. 

Week Four: Evangelism

on sunday afternoon, all 42 of us piled into the vans and headed three and a half hours south to the ywam base in a little surf town called byron bay. our lectures on evangelism took place in byron this week. their base has a great local evangelism program, and i thought it'd be fun for the school to get away together, see some other parts of australia, and get involved in the evangelism taking place in byron bay. by this point, you're probably not surprised to read that, once again, we were not prepared for what was in store for us...

we had lectures each morning and local evangelism alternating between every afternoon and every evening. on tuesday, we had the evening off in order to have our weekly small group meetings. however, during the day i began feeling that there was something else that needed to be done that evening. i have started to recognize a pattern --- when God is speaking to me and really wants to do something in the school and have us scrap our agenda to just be moved by the Holy Spirit, i get this dizzy, weak feeling like i'm going to throw up and pass out simultaneously. i guess that's my cue. God has something He wants to do. 

SO, i obeyed my weak-in-the-knees feeling and gathered the group together that evening. i told them what i felt God was speaking to me, but that if nobody responded, we would just split up into our small groups and go on with our usual schedule. 

i began speaking to them about being aware of their actions concerning whether or not they may be making their brother or sister stumble. each person comes from a different background and culture and when our lives are all meshed together, it becomes clear that we all have different convictions about things like drinking, language we use, and movies we watch. this was something that God laid heavily on my heart and i'm so happy we, as a group, had a chance to discuss these issues because it allowed us each to open up about our struggles and temptations. we were able to pray for a student that really felt like she was struggling in the areas of drinking and smoking. after we prayed, she expressed that she really wanted to pray for one of the other students, jocelyn, who has scoliosis and suffers from immense back pain. 

we all gathered around jocelyn and prayed for physical healing over her. when we were finished, one of the staff guys said that he wanted her to sit in a chair and have us continue praying...he believed that God wanted to heal her in that moment. jocelyn sat down and stretched her legs out. her left leg was noticeably shorter than her right leg and those few inches was causing a lot of the pain that she has been suffering from for years. we all gathered around jocelyn as she sat in the chair with the staff guy holding her feet up as her legs were stretched out. we prayed for a few minutes before someone yelled, "keep praying, you guys...her leg is growing!" we began praying louder and faster as God touched jocelyn's body right in front of us. she started crying harder and harder as she physically felt her leg grow. as i opened my eyes, i saw that both of her legs were completely even. her left leg had grown inches right there in front of all of us. she was healed. 

i don't believe there was a dry eye in the room after that. as jocelyn's leg grew, each one of us had our faith grow, as well. we all stood there with wide, tear-filled eyes as we processed what had just happened. as i looked around the room, i was completely overwhelmed with God's power. i was completely overwhelmed by His presence. and as i looked at the students - some of them weeping on their knees, a row of guys with their arms around each other and tears flowing down their faces, girls with their arms outstretched in complete praise, i was overcome with emotion. i was overcome with the realness of God. i was overcome with the incredible work that He was doing in this school. this night, originally dedicated to small group meetings, turned into a prayer session that was over 4 hours long. we kept the chair that jocelyn had sat in in the middle of the room. it was only empty for seconds at a time as students and staff alike sat in it to receive prayer. we prayed for many physical healings that night - stomach problems and hair loss and my ear condition. but we also prayed for spiritual and inner healing, as well - unbelief, doubt, hardened hearts and apathy. at one point, one of the students felt like we needed to pray for healing over one of our girls on staff...but she felt like we all needed to lay a hand on her at once. we were literally in a pile over her as we all got a hand over her to pray for healing from a physical condition she's battled with. now THAT'S unity. 

the lectures on evangelism this week were awesome, but the real lessons learned were through actually getting out there and evangelizing in the community. we spent a couple of nights in the town of byron bay. one night we each carried around a piece of cardboard on it with a simple message on it, such as "got hope?", "what's your story?" or "the Truth will set you free." these cardboard signs served as a way to start conversations with people. this one night, in the small town of byron bay - a surfer town most known for the massive amount of backpackers that travel through to surf, there were about 50 of us walking around with cardboard signs. we had amazing conversations with many people that night, and we had some not-so-amazing moments of being yelled at, but, through all of that, we were able to grow in our faith and thicken our skin a bit. 

one afternoon, we drove about an hour to visit the town of nimbin, which is the drug capital of australia. i have never seen anything like it before. it is obvious that they love their marijuana in nimbin. there is a museum which is pretty much solely dedicated to fighting for the legalization of marijuana. the town reeks of it. it takes not more than 2 minutes after entering nimbin to be offered "marijuana cookies." there are pictures and paintings of marijuana leaves everywhere. nimbin is, quite clearly, the drug capital of australia. 

we set up a sound system in a park located in the middle of nimbin. several of the staff and students played worship music and we had a bbq, which was an awesome way to gather the locals together and just spend time with them. they were really open to talking about faith and God, and even though we were only there for a matter of hours, we were able to just bring some light to what was a VERY dark town. 

later in the week, we did something similar in the downtown area of byron bay. setting up the sound system, we played worship music and had an open mic time of sharing testimonies. one of the students collected money, which allowed us to buy nearly 30 pizzas. it was about 10pm and we had a crowd gather quite quickly as we handed out pizzas and shared our testimonies. it's one of my favorite memories, when i think back on it. i stepped away from everything for a couple of moments and just observed. and what i saw was amazing. 31 students that have only been here for just over 3 weeks each in their own conversations with complete strangers. they were sharing their testimony, they were sharing the Gospel, they were praying for people. in that moment, i was reminded of the complete transformation that God is currently doing in their lives. most of them had never even shared their testimony when they arrived in australia 3 weeks earlier. and now they were not only doing that, but they were going deeper. they were approaching strangers, fighting a spiritual battle bigger than themselves. they were defending their faith, they were sharing God's love, they were praying for total strangers to become a part of their eternal family. and their prayers were heard. some of the students did lead people to Christ that night. praise God!

something else they learned through our local evangelism was the reality of spiritual warfare. many of the students felt a spiritual heaviness in these towns we were evangelizing in. some of them had conversations with people that they felt some truly demonic forces from. it was a heavy week, and after our night of pizza and music in the park, we went back to have a debrief/prayer session before going to bed. we didn't get done until just after midnight, but felt like we couldn't go to sleep until we had a time of prayer for all we had just experienced - both good and bad. we prayed until 3:30am. thanking God for all of the incredible things He did through us, praying for protection and peace for those that really felt the intensity of the spiritual battle and even laying things at the altar - fears and footholds that the enemy had in our lives. we were seriously, seriously, seriously exhausted and we all knew it. but, despite that, students kept going to the front of the room, laying things at the altar, sharing stories from the night, and receiving prayer. we all slept for about three hours that night. and i wouldn't have had it any other way. 

Week Five: Fear of the Lord

glen vines, a pastor on the sunshine coast, spoke on the fear of the Lord this week, which proved to be a challenging and interesting week for the students. unfortunately, i wasn't able to sit in on lectures for the majority of the week because of the busyness of outreach planning, applying for visas, and preparing for staff meetings. 

monday was a hard day for me as i was feeling really attacked by a spirit of doubt and failure. i felt like everything was falling apart at the seams, and i'm not sure why. this feeling has overcome me a couple of times throughout the school. it makes me feel like i'm incapable of leadership and that the DTS is just completely ineffective. it's a sickening feeling and pretty much overwhelms me with massive amounts of tears. it's in these moments that i'm forced to drop everything, take a step back, rebuke those lies and re-surrender the school to God. it's in those moments that i stop everything i'm doing, forget my agenda and just spend time with God. i also am blessed to receive a LOT of prayer during those times and that always helps!

i cannot believe how much i love these students. i am met with new challenges and frustrations every day, but the heart that God has given me for these 31 students is so special. i have found that i may never be able to be a mom, because i have gotten a glimpse of how completely agonizing parenthood can be. sometimes i really do feel like i have 31 kids...people that i love, pray for, worry for, want the best for, and root for. people that i stay up at night being concerned over, people that make my heart hurt when they're in pain, people that i want nothing but the best for. i have gotten this small taste of motherhood and OH MY GOSH. brand new respect for my mom. for all moms, actually. this is painful. and agonizing. and hard. and emotional. and so beautifully fulfilling...

we are currently in week six, which is prayer week. this consists of 24 hour prayer from monday through friday. please be praying for strength, as well as for continued breakthroughs for students and staff alike!

okay, so if you made it to this point, let me know because i want to personally congratulate you. thank you. thank you for taking the time to read about my experiences and forgiving me for taking two months to fill you in on them. 

my life here has been anything but easy. i've been stretched and broken. i've felt alone and incapable. i've been overcome by fear. i've been completely, completely, completely humbled. i've spent nights on my knees in tears. i've had to pull over my car onto the side of the road because i was crying so hard - tears of frustration and fear and pain. i've learned that leadership is the most difficult position in the entire world. i've had to apologize in front of all the students and staff. more than once. i've learned more than i ever imagined i could. about myself and about God and about leadership and about life. 

and i've been encouraged. i've been approached by students that thank me for my work. several times. i've been prayed for...daily. i've been lifted up with supportive words and actions by the students and the staff and the people at this ywam base. i've been overwhelmed by how encouraging and loving all of the people here are. how they go out of their way to give me words of encouragement, to pray for me, to give me a hug or a loving note. i've been blown away by how the students have stepped out and spoken truth into my life, prayed for me and encouraged me. i am so, so, so beyond blessed. so blessed. 

i'm sorry i haven't had more time to keep in touch. i miss you all. i miss my family. i miss jude and brody. i miss having more time to converse with you or email you, but know that you are all in my thoughts so very often. i love you guys and am so thankful for your prayerful and financial support which allows me to be here and be involved in this work. i don't take that for granted and am so blessed by each of you. 

promise i'll be better about updating this. 

no. i promise i'll try to be better about updating this. 

so much love. xx