The World Race - Amanda Thompson

Break my heart for what breaks yours....

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Break my heart for what breaks yours

Nobody likes me. I'm so stupid. I'm a failure. I'm a loser. Everybody else is so talented, and I have absolutely nothing to offer anybody. I don't even understand why I have friends. I have to be perfect and funny or else my friends will see how boring I am. I'm ugly and I'll never find anybody who will love me. I don't even believe that God really loves me because I'm such a horrible sinner.

How many girls have never thought any of these thoughts? How often do women think poorly of themselves? Often we tend to think that when bad things happen it is somehow our fault. I know that for a long time I was trapped in a prison of worthlessness, shame, and self-condemnation. Because I dealt with it for so long, I see it in other girls easily.

Throughout the 9 months that I have been on the World Race, God has systematically been breaking down the walls and strongholds that I have built and allowed to be built inside of my mind. I have had a series of encounters with God that have rocked my world like an earthquake. Many of my walls have been reduced to rubble. The last encounter was a couple weeks ago in Nelspruit, South Africa. I left feeling completely rocked. It was spoken over me that my ministry was going to be women for the next three months and that every time I prayed to break worthlessness off of someone else, I would learn more about how to break it off of me.

I have NEVER considered girls or women to be my type of ministry. I have always had a heart for teenagers - so I was really doubtful when it was spoken that my ministry would be women.

The second week we were here, we stayed in a city called Shah Alam . We stayed with some Christian college students. They are AMAZING. This country is primarily Muslim, but Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism are also practiced. The college campus is only 2% Christian. These young people face persecution in a way that I have never had to face. Their faith amazes me. Our purpose was to evangelize the campus and also to disciple and encourage the college students we were living with.

I was not totally shocked when God specifically put one of the students on my heart. I loved her immediately and I knew that was not only my love, but the love of Christ coming through me. She is spunky. She is so funny. When she laughs, she loses control of her upper body and hangs on to the nearest person for balance. She reaches out and hits people when she is frustrated and doesn't know what to say.....not REALLY hit...just a little smack. She also enjoys hitting me when we are just joking around. She is completely gorgeous and her passion for the Lord is inspiring. She (along with another girl) prayed for my sore knees and healed them. She sings beautifully. Everybody loves her. When I see her on the college campus, she is always surrounded by friends. She is sarcastic and likes to poke fun at people....ahhh....she speaks my love language :) The more I talked with her, the more I felt burdened for her (not in a bad way, but in the sense that I needed to pray for her). When I spoke with her, I could just hear in her answers all the same lies that I believed for so long in my life. She doesn't believe anything good about herself and I know personally how deep that goes and how hard it is to break. My heart just aches for her. I want so badly for her to break free from those lies while she is still young. I do NOT want her to be 30 like me when she finally breaks out of that prison.

I don't know if I have ever been burdened like this for someone that I don't really know. But after the last real conversation I had with her, I couldn't go to sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about how I might be able to help her....things I could say....I kept thinking about how I should pray and what Bible verses I could give her. I knew she was hearing my words with her ears but they weren't getting through to her heart. I was desperate to find a way to reach her. Sometime in the middle of this LONG night of drifting in and out of sleep but constantly thinking, I heard God tell me to fast. I remembered that some strongholds need fasting to be broken and so I decided to fast the next day.

I woke up the next day and found out that we were going to a Chinese New Year celebration. I contemplated just starting my fast the next day, but decided that I heard from God and I was going to be obedient. I fasted that day and God told me to keep going. I had no clue when I was going to stop. I prayed a LOT and God directed me to fast until the day we moved on to our next ministry which turned out to be 5 days. I have NEVER fasted food before and I thought it was going to be horrible but it wasn't. I have never heard God's voice so clearly. It made me want to fast all the time.

I was fasting for this girl, but I had no idea how powerful that was. I didn't even really know if it was going to "work". I was just trying to listen to God. What God taught me is that the fight in the spiritual doesn't always have results we can see in the natural, but being obedient in a spiritual battle is NEVER fruitless. When God asks us to do something, he has his good plan in mind. It might seem silly or insignificant, but God's world doesn't work like our world does. It isn't about immediate results.

When we left Shah Alam, I knew I wouldn't be able to see or hear from her for at least a week. I let her know that I would be praying for her and then spent a week in the jungle.

The very next time I could talk to her she told me that she was coming back to God and that she had missed him. I know that feeling. Even when we think we don't deserve His love - He gives it freely. The joy I felt for her was overwhelming. I nearly cried in the middle of Starbucks. I didn't know how God got a hold of her, but it blessed me beyond belief to hear that. God taught me so much through this amazing woman of God and I just can't tell you enough how much I love her. I am so thankful that God pursues his children and never gives up on them!!

God is amazing. He works in ways that I cannot comprehend.

I pray that he continues to break my heart for what breaks his.

I pray that I continue to be obedient even when I have no idea what I am doing.

P.S. I am still in need of about $1100 to be fully funded. Please pray about helping me with this and give as the Spirit leads you.

......Ramblings of a Ragamuffin....

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Ramblings of a Ragamuffin

I've been thinking a lot lately about the fundamental truths of Christianity and I think that for most of my life, I've missed them. Why is it that sometimes the simplest truths are the hardest to understand? I chose the picture above because that is how Jesus wants us to come to him. This adorable little girl doesn't have half the knowledge I do. She hasn't done anything in her life to EARN the love of God...but if you look at her face you can see it. She loves and allows herself to be loved. She allows herself to be led. Her plans are not more important. And let me tell you what, she is NOT afraid to dance for Jesus :)

God doesn't want me to live my plans and then ask him to lead me in my plans. He wants me to GIVE MY LIFE as a SACRIFICE (Romans 12:1). He wants me to surrender my plans and ask him, "What do you want from me today?", or "How can I serve you best today?". So often in my life, I want to keep myself in this box of things I think I'm good at and ask God to show up there. I don't want him to make me uncomfortable.

This entire trip has been about obedience for me. Obedience is uncomfortable. God will very rarely use me to do something I'm already comfortable with and good at. Not because he enjoys torturing me, but because HE wants the glory. His strength is made PERFECT in my weakness. Why is that so hard to internalize? Even when I don't know what I am doing, if I am acting in OBEDIENCE, God will show up and take over my shortcomings. He is the God of the impossible. What is impossible with man is possible with God. He can do infinitely more than we can ask or even think to ask.

Jesus had to die. He had to die to pay for MY SIN. So why do I always try to earn my salvation? Why do I feel more important when I do something "big" for God? Why do I feel so insignificant when I fail? Why do I think that God is smiling on me when I do "good" things and frowning on me when I do "bad" things? NOTHING can separate me from His love. NOTHING!! Nothing I do or say or act or perform. He knows my heart. He knows the crap buried down deep and he LOVES ME ANYWAY!!! When God looks down at me, He looks down with LOVE. The punishment for the sin I committed has already been paid for. That frees God to LOVE me and have a RELATIONSHIP with me. I am justified, righteous, and redeemed. And it wasn't because I earned it. The only thing I did was put Jesus number 1 in my life...and that is all I needed to do. I strive for obedience because it pleases my Daddy, but if I'm disobedient - he will love me the same.

I'm not writing anything here that any Christian doesn't know in their head. I'm writing what many of us don't believe in our hearts. We get so proud of ourselves because we are following God's will or because we prayed for someone, or God showed up in my ministry big time. But God is only using us a tools to point to HIM. It has nothing to do with us. He doesn't love us more when we do good and less when we do bad.

I say that many Christians don't believe it in their hearts because we certainly don't act like a group that has the confidence that Daddy loves them anyway. We are so afraid of making other people angry or for doing the wrong thing. WE CAN'T MESS UP THE WILL OF GOD. Romans 8:28...ALL things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to HIS purpose. We make things so complicated. Jesus was very clear on what we should do. Number 1: Love God with everything you've got. Number 2: Love your neighbor as yourself. If we are doing those things, we are acting in the will of God.

Today I walked by a poor beggar on the street. She had a bandage on her leg and a cup where she was collecting money. God whispered to me, "Look Amanda, there is my child. I love her. Go and pray for her". I was afraid of messing it up. I don't like how I sound when I pray out loud and I am always hesitant to do it. I didn't have an interpreter and I didn't know how to ask her if I could pray for her. I kept walking. And I immediately started beating myself up for it. Why didn't I just pray for the woman? One of my friends stopped and gave her some money. Why couldn't I think to do that? She is obviously more spiritual than I am. I'm unworthy.

See how easy it is to forget that God loves me anyway? It isn't God that condemns...it is US. There is therefore now NO condemnation in Christ. God does NOT condemn us...we condemn ourselves and put it on God. Yes, God wanted me to pray for his daughter. No, I didn't do it. I was disobedient and I will suffer the consequences, but God doesn't love me any less because I was disobedient.

Paul says that we are saved by GRACE through FAITH. We have to have FAITH to believe that God is always handing out his grace. Jesus says that the Kingdom is near to those who are the "worst sinners" because they are usually so ready to accept that grace. Us "good" Christians are not so good at accepting that grace. We think we have to earn it. If I really had the faith to believe that I am justified, righteous, redeemed and empowered...what could I do for the Kingdom?? Would I really still be so afraid to "mess up"? My problem is that I don't' see myself how God sees me., and therefore I cripple myself. Faith is an ACTIVE response to God's calling. I can't act very quickly at all when I'm crippled.

My relationship with God is a choice. I think any relationship is a choice. I think that every day you have to choose to love the other person. Love is patient and kind. It is not self seeking...you know all those things in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is a choice and we have to make it every day. Every day I have to choose to follow Jesus. Every day I have to show Him how much I love him by my actions. James says that faith without deeds is dead. My deeds SHOW my love and my faith. It goes back to living my life as a SACRIFICE. In John 15, Jesus talks about laying down your life for your friends. I don't think he means literally dying, but laying down your LIFE...all of the I in your life. I think I need this...I want to...I...I...I.... When I can do that, then I will be loving my neighbor as myself - which is what Jesus commands us to do.

We were never promised in the Bible that we get to live an easy life. The early Church suffered. Many Christians today suffer. But Jesus says that the Spirit will give us the things to say. When we mourn, we will be comforted. Jesus is close to the broken-hearted. I personally don't want to do anything in my life that I can do on my own. I want to live BIG because I want to believe the promise that God will help me in my weakness. I believe he will help me MORE in my weakness because then any fruit will be attributed to HIM and not me. I want to be led by the Holy Spirit in all that I do. I want to be uncomfortable. I want to have the confidence in my authority as a Christ follower. I want to point people to HIM...I want to be a conduit of LOVE. I don't ever want to get stuck in the prison of "me" ever again!!!!

My challenge to you is this: Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you today. Ask him to show you what He is doing and tell him you want to be a part of it. Then, have the confidence to go and do what he leads you to do. Don't have any expectations and just focus on obedience. Find verses on God's love and reflect on them. My favorite right now is Ephesians 3: 16-19...but find your own favorite :)

Faith

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What is faith?

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

What in the world does THAT mean? I have been wrestling with the idea of FAITH for a while now. I guess it started in Romania, but it has increasingly been on my mind the longer we stay in Africa.

I have thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. God has put situations in my path to teach me more about faith. I just want to share some of my thoughts here.

When I started thinking about faith, I went straight to Hebrews 11, the so-called Hall of Faith. As I read through it again, I noticed something. Each and every one of those GREAT examples of faith were ACTING on their belief. I can say that I have faith all day long, but am I SHOWING it? I know that God has been impressing on me the importance of obedience. Obedience is action - acting on the prompting of God. And obedience shows faith because faith is shown through ACTIONS! That concept blows my mind a little.

Faith is believing that God will be your protector and defender. Faith is stepping into the unknown believing that God will protect you. Faith involves believing without expectation or believing in spite of expectations not being met. Faith is the belief that God loves me and cares about even the small things. I can say that I believe all of those things, but if I really do believe them, then my actions will show it.

That brings me back to obedience. There are so many times that I tell God, "NO". I tell him to find someone else who is more qualified. Often, I want to SEE or somehow know in advance that I am going to be successful. But faith is assurance about things we cannot see. CANNOT SEE!!

God often uses circumstances to teach me lessons. The following is the story that taught me about faith:

When we were still in Mozambique, a fellow racer was suffering from skin infections. She had multiple bug bites that were infected. She also had exema that was acting up. On top of that, one morning she came to me and showed me her pinky finger, which had swelled to twice its normal size. She had no idea what was wrong.

As she was showing me her finger, God told me VERY clearly, "Amanda, pray for her because I want to heal her". Now, I do NOT see myself as someone who is capable of praying healing over someone. I told God to find someone else. He kept gently reminding me that he wanted ME to do it. I kept putting it out of my mind.

A few days later (yes, I really argued for a few days), God told me AGAIN to go pray healing over her because he wanted to heal her. I had an opportunity right then and there but I was really nervous and I still wasn't sure God was really telling me to do what I thought he was telling me to do. That opportunity slipped away. I decided to make a deal with God. I told him that if he created another opportunity that day that I would do it. We happened to be at the beach at that particular moment, and another opportunity never presented itself, so I thought I was off the hook. Ha Ha Ha.

I had a few errands to run in Vilankulos that day so I hustled off to get stuff done. I went downtown to Miracles shop where I picked up my awesome Africa pants and my awesome new Africa purse. I was really excited. Then a friend and I went to meet up with some other people at the pizza place.

I end up at the pizza place for lunch and the person is there that God told me to heal. As soon as I saw her, God again told me to go pray healing over her. I quickly reminded him of our deal and sat down. We all sat around and talked about random things while we watched the tide come in. God kept tugging at my heart and I kept putting it off. Pretty much every single time I looked at her, God laid it on my heart to pray for her. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I got up to go to the bathroom.

When I came out of the bathroom, I just walked down to the wall near the water. I sat down on it and began to pray. God is so patient. He told me again to pray for her and I whined, "I don't know what to pray". God then responded to me, "Amanda, where is your faith"? I thought that was an excellent question. I sighed and then told God that I had no clue what I was doing but that I would do it if he really wanted me to. When I opened my eyes, what do you think I saw?? I saw the person I was supposed to pray for just sitting on the beach below me. She was all by herself. I rolled my eyes upward and said, "really?" under my breath. He answered, "REALLY!! Now GO!!" So begrudgingly I jumped off the wall to join her on the sand.

I stood right where I landed for a good minute or so. My heart was pounding. I wondered why I was so nervous. After I finally gathered the courage, I walked to where she was sitting and plopped myself down on the sand next to her. I opened my mouth and the word, "Sooooo" came out of my mouth. Then she stuck her hand in my face. She said God talked to her as well and she knew why I was there. I figured at that point that God was really serious and I knew I had to pray. I didn't know why I was so nervous, but I really was.

I told her I had no clue what I was doing, but I was going to pray anyway. So I prayed for her finger. Then she prayed over herself and while she was praying, God told me that I needed to pray again for her. So I told her and then I prayed for her again. Then I told her that I thought she was supposed to go rinse her finger in the salt water. She didn't skip a beat. She marched down to the water and put her hands right in. Then she turns around and points at me to come join her by the water. I get up and run down there. I thought God miraculously healed her finger. He didn't, but he told her that she needed to rinse her whole body because he wanted to heal everything. She tells me that she thinks I'm supposed to get in the water with her and pray over her again. At this point, I'm over arguing with God, so I walk out with her and then pray for her again. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but nothing happened. I went to the bathroom again and when I came out my hands were tingling. I told her that my hands were tingling and so she told me to pray for her again. I did. Again nothing happened.

I couldn't understand it. I KNEW that God told me he wanted to heal her. I KNEW he told me to pray for her. So why didn't he heal her? I started looking in the Bible for healing stories. I noticed that many times when Jesus healed - it was in response to the faith of the person asking for healing. I know she had faith but I wondered about mine.

For days - God would prompt me to pray for her and I would go pray healing over her. Her finger actually got worse. I began to wonder if she should start taking medicine or something. She said she was losing feeling in the finger. She refused to take anything. She knew she was getting her healing. I wondered why God chose ME for this. I read the story in Luke 11 that teaches about persistance in prayer. God was telling me to just keep praying. My persistence and obedience was showing my faithfulness. I flipped to Luke 17 and found the part that says that if we are found faithful in the little things, we can be trusted with the big things. This pinky finger seemed like a small thing, but to God it wasn't. He wanted me to be persistent, obedient, and faithful. I was doing my best - I just didn't understand why things were getting worse.

One day I was praying about the situation and God showed me in a flash that EVERY TIME I prayed for her, I first said that I had no clue what I was doing, but I was going to pray anyway. He showed me that I was looking for a formula. He was right - I thought that I had to have the perfect words to pray. God told me that he just wanted to pray the words he put on my heart. Again he asked me, "Amanda, where is your faith?" I wondered why he chose me. My spoken words are sometimes so awkward - especially when I don't know what I am doing.

There was no reprieve, however. God kept prompting me to pray for her. I began just praying in the Spirit with some words in it somewhere. When I felt like i had words, I used them. My prayers were really short and awkward most of the time. God led me to the book of James. The prayers of the righteous avail much. He did hear my prayers and he wanted to heal her. But the focus had to be on HIM and not my words. I also had to believe that he wanted to heal her, but not only that, I had to believe that he really wanted to use ME to heal her.

Once I started praying from my heart, God really started moving. Within a day and a half, her finger had gone back to normal. She was healed.

Wow.

I learned a lot about faith from this experience. I learned to have faith that God really does want to use ME - yes ME - to do amazing things for his Kingdom. He wants to use me, but he wants to use me to bring glory to HIM and not me. I can't make it about myself. It doesn't matter whether I know what I'm doing or whether I have the right words. It just matters that I do what he asks me to do.

This experience taught me so much about prayer as well. I have become much more confident in my prayers. I have seen the incredible power of prayer and I am hooked. I had a feeling that this situation was put in front of me to teach me a lesson that would spill over to other people. I was correct. My next blog will tell the tale of my ministry day on Christmas Eve, 2009.

Not your typical Christmas Eve

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Today was quite possibly the most exciting Christmas Eve I've ever had. I'm still trying to process everything that happened today, but I want to share it while it is still fresh in my brain.

We got to the ministry site an hour late. It seems like the more we try to be on time, the later we are. There was SO MUCH traffic today. It was insane. Lilongwe is a big city and it is Christmas Eve. We still should have thought more in advance. By the time we got to Area 36 it was time for lunch. We ate and then split up into small groups to go minister.

Background: For the past two days we have been going to the same village. We have just been walking around and spreading the Gospel. Our purpose is to plant a church so we share the Gospel with them, pray with whoever wants to receive Jesus, and encourage them to attend this church. The first day we were there, Leigh and I prayed for a LOT of people. It seemed like wherever we went, people just came out of nowhere to hear what we had to say. We preached the Gospel and a lot of people got saved. We walked down the road a bit and found some people sitting on their doorstep. We stopped to talk to them. As we finished, I felt like we should pray for this woman who was REALLY pregnant. It was confirmed in Leigh, who had been feeling the same thing. The woman said she was actually waiting for us to finish to ask us to pray for her baby. So we prayed for her pregnancy and we just prayed for God to fill her with joy and for him to encourage her. When we left, we found some ladies cooking lunch and sat to talk with them. We ended up spending a lot of time with these ladies. Two of them told us that they had big problems at home. Evidently their husbands drink a lot and beat them. Neither one of their husbands were saved. they asked us for prayer. We prayed over them for a long time.

Ok - back to today.

Leigh and I wanted to go visit these ladies we had prayed for earlier in the week. We really wanted to do a follow-up with them. So we set out with our translator. It didn't take long for us to find a group of people just hanging out. Our translator talked to them for a minute and then turned to us and said, "They are ready to hear a word from God now". Ok, great. I closed my eyes and asked God if he wanted me to speak. I felt like I should give my testimony. Many of them were drunk and/or drinking and I decided to tell them about how I ended up giving my life to Jesus. My testimony turned into a Gospel message and I started talking about things like purpose, relationship with God, and salvation. I don't even fully remember what I said because God was just using my mouth to say what he wanted. At the end we asked if people needed prayer and a bunch of them did. I prayed over a woman with malaria. By the time I left she was grinning and laughing with her friends. She said she felt much better. Praise God.

We were still on a mission to visit the ladies we prayed with the first day, so we kept walking toward the general area they lived in. As we were chatting with someone Leigh recongnized that she prayed over that first day, a man named Moses approached me. He had a friend with him. Moses got right down to business. He said that he was an alcoholic and that he wanted help. I couldn't believe it. I didn't do anything - he just sought me out. He somehow knew we were Christians and that we wanted to help. I prayed over him and God just kept giving me words for him. I felt so strongly that God had a calling on his life. I then told him that I felt like he had no purpose in his life. He then admitted to me that he had tried to commit suicide three times. I talked to him about the purpose of life as a Christian and challenged him to try to find his purpose in being salt and light for the Kingdom. Then his friend asked if we would pray for him as well. So we prayed for him. As we were praying, I had a vision of chains falling off of him. I told him what I saw. I told him that I believed that he had been set free of alcoholism. Then he told me about how he was on his way to another bar but now all he wanted to do was go home to sleep. As far as a know, that is exactly what he did. I didn't see him any more that day.

We continued on and found a couple of the ladies that we prayed for the first day. I could immediately see a change in the pregnant woman. She was grinning from ear to ear. Her whole demeanor had changed. She was FULL of joy. It was amazing to see. She said she had been feeling so much better since we prayed for her. Praise God.

Leigh and I continued on to the house where we prayed for the abused women. We got there and one of the women just looked completely different. She had a huge smile on her face. Her clothes were a little bit neater and so was her hair. She was really happy to see us. We asked her about how she had been doing since we prayed with her and she told us that there was SO MUCH more love in her house. She said that the day before her husband was actually looking for us because he wanted to receive Jesus. I don't think I'll ever stop being surprised when I see God answer prayers like that. It was so amazing.

We were having a service at 2:00 and it was past 2, so we had to go. Once we got to the service, Jared was preaching. He gave a shot message and asked for people to come up for prayer if they needed it. By this time, I was just full of faith. I have seen God move through my words and through my prayers so much this week and it has built my faith more each time. God has given me words and visions for people in ways that he never has before. So when it was time to pray for people, I was ready to go. I prayed over a few people for various problems. The more I pray for people, the easier it gets. God is teaching me how to pray and it is amazing. Then I get to Chris. I asked her (through a translator) what she wanted prayer for and she said that she wanted a husband. What happened next blew my mind.

I put my hand on her shoulder and begin to pray for her. I get three sentences into my prayer and she just falls out. I was shocked. That's never happened before when I pray for people. I sure didn't know what to do so I just started praying in the Spirit over her. I was even more shocked when she started barking. I took my hands off her, stood back and continued to pray. Then she started freaking out. She was flailing her arms about and screaming. A couple guys were trying to hold her down, but eventually she just ran off. She ran off screaming and waving her arms around. Kids came from every direction to follow her and laugh at her. I was still trying to figure out what was going on when I heard Amy say, "She's fixin to get delivered. When they manifest like that, they are real close to being delivered". So four of us go off to find this lady.

We find her sitting on the floor of a small shack. She was shaking and obviously scared. Amy and Jared started talking to her in real soothing tones and calmed her down immediately. They prayed with her for a long time and went through the process of delivering her from the spirits that were in her. I have never witnessed anything like that before in my life. I had no clue what to do, so the entire time I just sat there and prayed in the spirit. She literally threw up those demons. I knew she was getting her freedom. Immediately after they were finished, she just LOOKED different. You could literally SEE a difference. It was amazing.

The whole time Amy and Jared were praying deliverance over this woman, my hands were tingling. My left hand in particular. My left hand happened to be the closest to her body so I just put my hand on her and prayed in the Spirit. The tingling never went a way. The last time I felt tingling in my hand was when I was supposed to pray for someone and I mentioned it to Amy. She told me that it was the anointing and that I should pray healing over this woman who had just been delivered. I didn't think I had anything to lose so I laid my hand on her and finished the prayer I started earlier. I don't have any idea what I prayed because God was giving me the words. When I finished praying for her, my hand stopped tingling. Wow.

I think that God is bringing me to another level. Twice, I've had people prophecy over me that I'm going to do miracles. I think that before God can use me the way he wants to, he has to teach me how to be used. He used the story in my previous blog to teach me that I actually AM capable of doing great things for him. He showed me that if I proved faithful in the small things, that he would show up.

I think that because I showed myself faithful in the smaller thing, he is now trusting me with bigger things. Maybe it isn't has hard as I think it is. Maybe all I have to do is be obedient and have faith that God can and WILL use me to do great things for HIS Kingdom.

Street Ministry in Vilankulos

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is one of my favorite days of ministry on the Race sofar:

We were going to the center of the city, near the basketball courts, to show the Passion of the Christ to whoever would come to watch it. The movie was going to start at 7pm. We were dropped off early in the day to walk around the city to invite people. This ended up being one of my favorite days of ministry in Mozambique.

6 of us were dropped off in the middle of the city to begin our mission of inviting people to see the film. We decided that we could cover more ground if we split up into groups. We only had one translator so two of the groups ventured off without one. Somehow, I got the honor of splitting off with Tiffany.

We decided on a direction to start walking and shortly thereafter came across some people sitting on a bench. They spoke a little English and we tried to invite them to see the movie. I was stretching my brain to find alternate words to describe movie because they didn't know that word. I ended up drawing a 7 in the air in an attempt to communicate that it started at 7pm. In the end, they said they would go. I don't know if they knew what they were saying or not.

We decided that our mission would be to go to this pizza place we frequented. It was a pizza restaurant right on the beach. We had been there so often; we thought it would be a great idea to go invite the workers. It was pretty far away so we started in that direction.

As we continued, I heard whistling from off to my right. Usually, I ignore that sort of thing, but I turned my head. There were about 4 teenage boys sitting on a wall waving at us. We both decided to go over to talk with them. They knew more English than the people in our previous encounter. Finally, I figured out that they use the word film instead of movie. The conversation turned to God. Tiffany was asking them about what they believed. One guy, named Malacish (just spelled that phonetically) who had been really quiet, said that he didn't really have a deep understanding of Jesus and he wanted one. Tiffany didn't miss a beat and spilled out the Gospel message to him - really short and to the point. She didn't use fancy words - she just let the Gospel speak for itself. She asked him if he wanted to pray to receive Jesus and he said yes. She prayed for him right there and then told him that the angels in heaven were celebrating. He had a huge smile on his face. Until then, I had this idea that I had to have some sort of prepared message in order to share the Gospel with people. I learned that day that I really just need to talk about what Jesus did for us and that message in itself is powerful.

So we continue down the road toward the pizza place and we continued stopping to chat with random people. We were doing our best to invite people. We stopped at some little roadside shops and I ended up talking to a guy who was selling airtime. Our conversation got interrupted at one point because he had a customer. Tiffany was talking with a woman in another shop. Right about then, I turned around and saw Benny. He had on a big straw hat and a HUGE smile. He shook my hand and spoke really good English. I told him about the film and asked him if he wanted to come. He said yes. I was so excited. We made some small talk for a minute and then Tiffany came and joined the conversation. He was just going to drop something off somewhere, so we invited him to join us and he offered to help us translate. Pretty soon he was stopping people himself to invite them to the film.

So the three of us ended up at the pizza place about 20 minutes later. We found the owner sitting inside reading a book. We asked him if he wanted to come to the movie, but he had to oversee some construction that night so he couldn't go. I noticed that the book he was reading had Arabic writing on it. I thought it might be a Qur'an, so I asked him what he was reading. Turns out that he was trying to read the whole Qur'an in 27 days.

We sat down at the table with him and he asked us if we were Christians. We said that we were. Then we proceeded to just discuss our religions. He explained what Islam teaches about Jesus (Isa) and Tiffany explained how Christians view Jesus. He talked to us about how he doesn't believe that God (Allah) speaks to him, and so Tiffany talked about how we believe that we have a personal relationship with God and that we can talk to him and that he speaks to us as well. He talked about how he believes he goes to Paradise and we talked about how we get to heaven. It was not a debate, but a discussion presenting the differing views. Several times, he was visibly rocked. He would say, "Wow, that's really different". I really feel like he was getting his first clear view of the Gospel. The conversation ended with him agreeing to pray for one week to ask God what the truth was and he also said that he was going to try to find a Bible.

We were running late, so the three of us said goodbye, and headed back towards the center of town to get ready for the film. On the way back, I saw Antonio, a little boy that I had met a few days prior. He had a huge smile on his face and he came running to me. Benny asked him if he wanted to come to the movie, and he said that he wanted to, so he started walking with us. A few minutes later, I found a teenage boy trying to sell some movies by the side of the road. He said he wanted to come see the movie, so he also began walking with us. He was about the age of my students at home, so I really had a good time walking and talking with him. He asked if Antonio was my son. Ha ha. He told me that we looked like we were the same color. (this was a very very FALSE statement) He was just trying to make conversation. His English was good enough that I could talk to him and so we chatted the whole way back to town. He told me about school and about his church. I asked him what he knew about Jesus. He told me that you have to sing and dance for Jesus. He also told me that you have to give money to Jesus. I asked him if that was all he knew. He assured me that this was all he had learned about Jesus. I asked him again if he was coming to the film, and he told me he would be there. I challenged him to watch it to maybe learn something new about Jesus. He said he would come find me after the movie to tell me what he had learned. I never did see him again, but I certainly hope that challenge rings in his ears.

Once we finally got everything set up for the film, we were supposed to find a place to sit around the people watching the film and pray. We have all seen the film, and we don't need to see it again. We all broke off into pairs. Benny had essentially joined us in ministry that day, so he became a Racer for that night. He was my prayer partner. We sat and prayed before the film started. I kept thinking about how amazing it was that we ran into him that day. When we pray for divine appointments, God really sets them up. Some things will always amaze me. A few minutes into the movie, Benny tells me that he has never seen this version. He was watching the Passion of the Christ for the first time. There were several times in the movie where he grabbed my hand and asked me to pray strength for him. He was visibly shaken by the movie.

Later in the evening, I asked him how he liked the film and he said he said that it made him feel bad inside. He had never seen anything like it. We talked about it for a while. I told him that whenever I see that movie, it gives me such a fresh perspective on what Jesus did for me. He said it was the best and worst movie he'd ever seen. I think I felt that way the first time I saw it as well.

There were a lot of people that accepted Jesus that night. We also prayed healing for people who needed it after the film ended. One guy was healed of chest pain. I wasn't sure what would happen that day. I know that the city of Vilankulos is HUNGRY for the Gospel. There are so many stories that we have from that city of people coming to Christ. This was one of the greatest days of the Race for me. It is always amazing to see what God does with our faithfulness, availability, and obedience.

Thanksgiving in Mozambique!

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In Vilankulos, Mozambique, we started every day with worship and a devotional. Thanksgiving morning Hannah led the devotional. She started by having us go around and tell something that we were thankful for. It reminded me of sitting around the table at Thanksgiving with the family. I loved it that she did that. Her topic was prayer. She has been learning a lot about prayer and she was sharing what God had been teaching her. I remember learning a lot about different ways to pray from listening to her. I love it when we get to teach each other things.

Our contact, Jaco, didn't know that it was Thanksgiving for us that day. Once he found out, he decided to give us the day off and the cook team for the day prepared an AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner for us. They made two different kinds of meat. I think one of them was turkey. We had sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, and pretty much whatever we could eat. We even had apple crumble for desert. It was a meal to remember! We spent the day relaxing. I didn't even realize how much I needed to relax. We spent the day swimming in the lake and just hanging out with each other.

At the end of our devotional that morning, Jaco issued a challenge for us. He challenged us to only pray prayers of THANKSGIVING for the next week. We have so much to be thankful for. So often when we pray, we end up just asking God to help us with our problems or to do something for us. We forgot all about what he has done for us. So we were challenged to not ask God for anything, but to thank him for all things for the next week. I had no idea how challenging that would be.

Shortly after Jaco issued his challenge, God started moving within our group. We decided that we were going to pray all night long. The purpose was to prepare for ministry that month. After dinner we divided up the whole night and people took an hour at a time to sit in the church to pray. (The church was a hut near the top of the property). As soon as I walked into the room, I could just FEEL the presence of God in that room. AJ was playing the guitar and a couple people were sitting around praying. I didn't want to leave. I stayed in that room for hours. I have never prayed for such an extended period of time in my life. I didn't realize how challenging it was going to be to ONLY pray prayers of thanksgiving. I kept trying to ask God for something. It was an incredible night and I believe that by praying all night long, we really opened doors for God to move in incredible ways.

God really wanted us to learn how to praise him through every circumstance because a LOT happened the week we committed to pray only prayers of thanksgiving. First Maria, Jaco's wife, got malaria. Then Jaco got malaria. The first thing I wanted to do was ask God to heal them, but instead we praised him. We thanked Him for healing them. We thanked Him for teaching us more about praising Him in every circumstance. A couple days later we found out that one of our squadmates was going home. God REALLY wanted us to learn how to thank him and praise him!

God taught me a lot in Mozambique about prayer. Thanksgiving was just the beginning. If you want to challenge yourself, try praying ONLY prayers of thanksgiving. There is MUCH more that we can praise God for than what we do. My prayer life has been changed drastically since that week. It was challenging, but the results were amazing.

The Prison

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

There was a LOT of ministry to do in Vilankulos. Every morning we would break up into groups and head off to the different ministries that were available. This particular morning, I wasn't feeling called to anything specifically. They needed 8 people to go to the prison and I felt my hand go up. I didn't even know I wanted to go.

We got to the prison and I was shocked that it was a prison. It was a tiny concrete building. The windows were just cut out of the concrete and they had some bars through them. The security wasn't nearly as tight as I'd imagined a prison would have. There were a couple guards that sat around the gate and there were a few inside, but that was pretty much it.

We waited outside for about 10 or 15 minutes before they let us in. We prayed together and thanked God for the amazing things he was going to do through us. Finally the guards motioned for us to go in and so the 8 of us went into the prison. As we walked through the gate there was a central area that held the firewood and the big pots they used for cooking. There were about 4 big rooms that surrounded the central area. The guards led us into one big room on the left hand side. We walked into the room and every single prisoner was sitting on the floor in this room. It was HOT in there. The windows were not big enough to get a breeze going. As you can imagine, there was a big of a smell happening in that room. For a hot minute, I was wondering why I decided that the prison would be a good idea. I was stuck in a hot sweaty room with about 130 prisoners. I closed my eyes and asked God to help me check my attitude. I opened them again and I looked at the faces of the men and women in this room. They were READY to hear what we had to say.

Our contact, Jaco spoke first. This was a brand new ministry for him and we were privileged to help him get it off the ground. I've never seen such attentiveness. These men and women were HUNGRY for the Gospel. Jaco spoke to them about the love of God and then he opened it up for us to talk. We didn't have much time left and he wanted someone to share if God had placed something on our hearts. I had some ideas, but I wasn't sure I was supposed to speak. Nobody else volunteered so I said I would do it. I paced back and forth for a little bit and Jessica stood up and said, "I have something to say". I sighed a huge sigh of relief and sat down to hear what she had to say. She spoke about Paul. She talked about the crimes he committed and how God used him even though he was a murderer. She talked to them about how they can find freedom in Christ. It was an AMAZING message.

At the end, Jaco asked if anybody wanted to receive Jesus as their savior. At this request, most of the hands in the room went up. So then he asked everyone to stand up if they wanted to pray to receive Jesus. Ya'll, EVERY single person in that room stood up. They didn't just stand up, though - they JUMPED up. They were so eager. It was pretty much one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed.

Many of the prisoners were asking for Bibles and Jaco said he would try to get them some if he could. Two days later, he approached me and told me that he had just received a donation large enough to get Bibles for every single one of those prisoners. It never ceases to amaze me to see how God provides exactly when we need Him to.

Remar Center

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Remar Center

I really wasn't sure what to expect when we finally got to the Remar Center in Manzini. Remar is a Christian rehabilitation center. It is supposed to be for drug addicts and people getting back on their feet. Evidently Swaziland doesn't have a huge need for that type of ministry and somehow the Remar Center became a place for people to drop off kids. This place now has 122 orphans living there.

The couple who runs the place does the best they can with what they have. They have some help, but definitely not enough for 122 kids. They are constantly looking to have the physical needs of the children met, which takes a lot of money. They spend a lot of time trying to make ends meet. They get donations of clothes from Spain that they sell in their garage. They make pretty good money doing this. They also sell detergents to raise money.

Meanwhile there are all these kids running around. The ages range from a few months old to 22 years old. The teenagers end up carrying a lot of the work load as far as washing and cooking. The responsibility to take care of the small ones also falls on them. They were constantly busy.

They don't have enough money to pay for all of the kids to go to school, so they hired some teachers and made a school on-site. The teachers have VERY few resources and the situation for them is very difficult. They aren't trained properly....they aren't certified teachers....just people looking for a job. Don't get me wrong, all of these teachers had an amazing heart for the kids, they just didn't always know what to do. Many times they had one student book that they were using to teach a whole class. They do the best they can with what they have, but they just don't have much. And on top of that, they had kids of all ages in their classrooms. If a kid doesn't pass the exams, they don't go to the next grade and there were 8 year olds in 1st grade. 13 year olds in 3rd grade.

The school only goes up to 5th grade. The teenagers that are past 5th grade can't go to school. They just do chores. That is all they have to look forward to. They can't go out and get a job. They can't go to school to try to better their lives. These girls are just filled with such hopelessness.

The teenagers take care of the young ones. But the ones in the middle are just left to fend for themselves. The teenagers terrorize them. (We spent most of our time at the girls house because the boys lived so far away) They are all extremely competitive for any sort of attention.

There was so much need in this place that we were never bored. There were always kids around looking for love. The couple who runs Remar Center just doesn't have the time or emotional resources to really pour into these kids. They ate up every single bit of love and attention we were willing to pour out.

We struggled to make a difference. We didn't want to just come in and love on some kids and then go home. We wanted to HELP them help themselves. We worked with the teachers. We talked with and encouraged the leaders. We held small groups with the girls. We talked to them about how BEAUTIFUL they are and taught them the importance of encouragement. The men played soccer. LOTS of soccer. One man on our team played soccer in college, so he ran drills with them and really tried to teach them some skills. We played games with them. We read to them. A couple of people on our team are good at landscaping and gardening and they taught some kids how to garden and take care of the gardens around the center.

All we could do was show up and show Jesus. When we left I wasn't sure what I did. I felt like I did nothing. I was wrong. I came and I loved. In my next blog, I'm going to tell you about a girl that I really connected with.

Love is all you need!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Nontsetselelo

This girl took to me immediately. She is 10. She is BEAUTIFUL. She was so shy when she came to say hello. She giggled every single time she talked to me. She said I reminded her of a previous world racer named Stephanie. She didn't say much but seemed to like just sitting with me. She ran and got some books and I read her a book.

The next day she gives me a letter. She handed it to me in a red envelope sealed with gum. In the letter she told me that I was her best friend. I melted. Then she told me that now I must write her a letter. haha.

I sat with her for hours. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn't. She wants to be a teacher. She told me that living at the Remar center was really good for her. She said it was much better than being at home. I know that often children will run away from orphanages because they want to go back to their families. She told me that she had watched her mother kill her father. She said it with absolutely no emotion. She just stated fact. The leaders had no idea if this was true or not because none of them had ever sat down and talked to her. No wonder this child thinks that I'm her best friend.

She would approach me with her face buried in someone else or in her arms to hand me a letter. She wrote me a few of them. They are now stuck in the pages of my journal. In them she told me how much she loved me and how much she missed me when I was gone. She wrote bible verses for me. She told me I was her best friend.

I knew something was up one day when she walked up to me in a very shy way. She was holding a black plastic bag sealed with a sticker. Another girl grabbed it from her and threw it towards me. Nontsetselelo nearly died of embarrassment. She doubled over and buried her face in her hands. She refused to look at me. I opened the bag and in it was a skirt, a letter, a broken purple hair tie, and three hair clips. The skirt was hers but didn't fit her so she gave it to me. I later gave it back to someone in charge, but that was seriously the sweetest moment.

It struck me that this little girl probably hadn't had someone come and love on her at all lately. The leaders had no clue what was going on in her life. I wondered who she talked to when she felt lonely. I wondered who she talked to about anything. The girls didn't view themselves as sisters, but as competition. There aren't enough adults. Often she would just sit with me. I didn't know what to talk to her about so I would tell her Bible stories.

We were just sitting together one day and I looked down at her and said, "You are beautiful, you know that?". She looked at me like I was crazy. I repeated it. She laughed and buried her face in her hands. It occurred to me that she might have never heard that before.

Sometimes I feel like when I go to do ministry, I'm not sure what I am doing. I am not sure that I am accomplishing anything. What I realize is that accomplishing something is not always checking something off the list. It isn't always finishing a task. Sometimes it is just sitting with a 10 year old and perhaps being the first person to ever tell her that she is beautiful. I don't know if I finished what I was supposed to do that day, but I know I loved. Isn't that the point of it all?

My wedding day and a red carpet appearance

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This past month has been amazing!!

We started out the month in Istanbul, Turkey. We stayed in Sultanahmet, which was AMAZING!! We were a two minute walk away from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. For those that don't know, Istanbul used to be called Constantinople and was the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire....later to be called the Byzantine Empire. Anyway, Constantine, the Roman emperor who finally adopted Christianity and ended the persecution of Christians, built this church in Constantinople...which was rebuilt by Justinian later. It burned down and was rebuilt several times, but the Hagia Sophia dates back that far. It was eventually turned into a mosque. It is HUGE!!! So right across the street, in the 1700's, the Muslims built the Blue Mosque...which is GORGEOUS!! They wanted to rival the beautiful Christian building. Needless to say, I was in historical geek HEAVEN!!

We got to spend 10 days in Turkey and I LOVED every single minute of it. The people were AMAZING. Well, excpet the dirty men that were constantly making comments. One the plus side, I did get a few marriage proposals. :) Working it Turkey was just the most awesome experience. The people were so HUNGRY for the Gospel. The best afternoon I had was an afternoon I spent on the campus of Istanbul University talking with some students. We really just hung out for a few hours and talked about a little bit of everything. I was able to create some really amazing relationships with them that I am trying to keep up with.

We also went to a village for about 5 days to do some ethnography research. Our task was to interview Gypsies and gather information about them. The eventual purpose is to evangelize to them, but more information about them was needed in order to reach them the best way possible. So one day we go out with a translator to visit some Gypsies that we just randomnly found. We end up going to a few houses and getting some information and then we end up at the Gypsy leader's living room. His wife serves us tea and he turns on the TV and plugs in a DVD. Through our translator, we find out that this particular group of Gypsies had been on Turkey's Got Talent and they wanted to show us the video. Then the brought out their instruments and we got to try playing them. They gave me a copy of their video to show my students when I go back to the US. They called themselves the Tarzan Group.

The next evening, we find ourselves at a Gypsy wedding. We knew neither the bride nor the groom, but we were the guests of honor. They sat us right up front so we could see everything. The wedding took place in a parking lot. There was a red carpet in the middle of a circle of women and children sitting in chairs. The bride, groom, and wedding party were all dancing on the red carpet. The men were standing around the edges and watching. There was a sort of platform where they had BIG speakers with LOUD music playing. We were given seats RIGHT next to the red carpet. It was awesome. The couple invited us to dance with them and Gypsy dancing is a lot harder than it looks...let me tell you what!!

The next day, we went to visit some women who were spending the week preparing food for winter. We sat and talked with them in their basement while they rolled dough and cooked us some food. As in every single country I have been to so far, they asked me why I was so old and still single. I told them that God just hadn't given me my husband yet. They informed me that I better hurry up because when I turn 40 I am going to expire. Then, they offered their sons to me in marriage. Ha ha ha. It was hilarious. My teammates still joke with me about that.

My experience in Turkey was just plain amazing. I loved the people and I loved the culture. The people were so open to talking with us. They were so excited when we showed interest in them. There is so much possibility there!! What is sad to me is that Paul did work in Turkey and it was the center of the growing Christian world. Now there is a really really small number of Christians in the country. People are ostracized from their community and families if they convert. When I talked with the students, they weren't even devout in their faith, but they practiced because it was part of the culture. To turn away from it woudl be going against their culture. We were told that if we did nothing else in Turkey, that we should just walk down the streets praising God because the liklihood that someone had praised God where we were standing at any point was really low.

We have been in Israel for a few weeks now. We have been teaching English to Sudanese refugees that came from Darfur. That was probably the most amazing thing for me so far. Some of them have come to accept Christ, but many of them practice Islam. The first week we were here, we worked with them every night. I got so excited because all these teenagers came. They were so eager to learn and they were so nice. I just had the best time teaching them. They were the easiest students that I have ever taught. Last week I stayed with a Bedouin family and helped them with an after-school program and also helped them edit some documents in English.

God has been teaching me SO MUCH!!! I can't even begin to know where to start. This past week, God has been teaching me about the POWER we have in the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8...but you will recieve POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Eph 3:20.... Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty POWER at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 2 Timothy 1:7.....For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of POWER, love, and self-discipline. Through the Holy Spirit, God has given us POWER. Wow. So often I just get caught up and frozen in my own head. But I have been given a spirit of POWER. Power to do what?? Power to accomplish the will of God...to accomplish what he has called us to do. This power that is at work (present tense) in us will accomplish MORE than we might ask or imagine...MORE than we can imagine. What does it look like to live in a spirit of POWER? Well...I don't think it looks like holding back or running away from challenges. I think it looks like running forwards with boldness and courage and in the confidence that comes from walking the the authority that we all have as followers of Christ. I forget that God will not lead me where I cannot go. I might choose not to go, but he won't call me to do something that I can't handle. I'm so damn sick of doubting myself. If God sees my abilities and calls me up and asks me to do things...then who the heck am I to doubt what my Heavenly Father sees in me??? In the past two months, God keeps bringing me back to two words...OBEDIENCE and SACRIFICE.

Oh Life!!!!

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Romania part two

Update!!!

This past month has brought so many changes, it is unreal.

In July, the decision was made that I would lead Agape8 for the month. My team leader was going to the states for a wedding and wanted to leave me in charge. Inwardly I groaned because I knew God was catching up to me. When I felt Him call me to leadership, I turned around and ran in the opposite direction as fast as I could. I knew that so much of ME had to die because a person just can't lead from the position I was in. I was struggling with so much CRAP and I wasn't being challenged to get rid of it. I KNEW that being in leadership was going to force me to deal with those things. I knew God was calling me to leadership, so I decided to STOP running and just accept it.

During that month in Targu Mures, I grew more than I have in a year, I think. It was crazy. I finally pushed through some walls that I needed to push through and did stuff I never thought I could do. It was the beginning of a transformation. Towards the end of the month, I found out that I would be the new leader of the team. I can't tell you how surprised I was at this decision. I never expected it. But I know that, FINALLY, I'm not running from God and I am learning more and more everyday to just be OBEDIENT!! Even though sometimes I feel like the least qualified person in the world, I know that I can do ALL things through Christ. He doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. So in this new season, I'm FULLY leaning on God because I KNOW I can't do this alone. I am trusting Him and continually learning to just be obedient and to follow Him with my whole heart. Everything else will fall into place.

We spent the majority of this month together as a squad in Bucharest. We stayed at a place called Casa Shalom. It was really an interesting ministry experience. We did some children's ministry and some evengelism. I am learning more and more how FUN street evangelism can be. Anyway, during this month there were a LOT Of changes on our squad. One team was completely taken apart and added to the other existing teams. Leadership on many teams has changed as people step up into squad leading positions. Team Agape8 lost a member that was called to Nicaragua and we got a new member. In the process, it was decided that we should think of a new team name for the brand new team that we have become.

We sat in a room for three hours and sought God about the name and direction of our new team. We all took a sheet of paper and asked God what our new team name should be. Then, we wrote down what we heard Him say. After about 10 minutes of listening and writing, we shared what we heard God say. Pretty much all of us had heard something about light. The word illuminate jumped out at us. One member ot something about the moon. The moon reflects the light of the SUN (son). A few of us got scripture in Ephesians 5 that talks about living in the light.

After much discussion, we decided that our new team name would be Illumoonations. We will bring light to the nations we go to as we reflect the light of the son.

Sooooo....let me introduce you to team ILLUMOONATIONS!!!

Amy Christian

Jared Christian

Becky Haverkos
Dan Haverkos
Patricia Stratton
Leigh Leckman
Scott Sexton

Amanda Thompson

For the next month and a half, I will not be able to use the World Race website so I am going to just generally announce our current plans for that time. Tomorrow morning we are leaving on a massively long train ride to Istanbul, Turkey. We will spend 10 days there. From Istanbul, we will go to Israel for the remainder of the month. These are both closed countries and I will not be writing any blogs during the time I am there. I will keep communication with a few people in the states who can distribute information, but I will not be posting any blogs from the Middle East.

I have two requests...
1. PRAY PRAY PRAY for me, my team, and my squad. PRAY!! Cover us in prayer!!
2. This is the ONLY time I will ask this because Amanda loves her some comments, but PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS BLOG!!!

Birthday/Support Blog

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sooooooo my BIRTHDAY is coming up. On September 9th I will be...dun dun dun....30!!!!!!

I am SO HAPPY that the I-Squad is together in Romania this month!! I will get to spend my 30th birthday among the greatest people I can imagine spending it with...outside of my people at home, of course :) How cool is it that I get to turn 30 on the World Race???

Anyway, my support account is currently at $11,865 which means that I only need $1935 to be fully funded.

This has been the most amazing experience of my life. If you would like to be a part of my ministry and to help me reach my goal of $13,800 OR if you really love me and want to give me a birthday present... Please consider a donation.

Thank you!! Thank you for reading my blogs, giving comments, and for all of your wonderful support!!!!

Old ladies and corn!!

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have found that I really love teaching. I mean, I used to do it professionally...one would think that I would enjoy it. But I have found that I LOVE it. I love teaching God's word and I love watching people react to it. It is just amazing.

On the 25th, I taught a Bible study for women. The pastor we have been working did a lot of advertising. He even made up fliers for me to pass out. He was so excited about me doing this Bible study. I was worried that nobody would show up. This was a legitimate concern because at church a few days earlier nobody showed up to church. I spent the hour before it started praying for women to show up...and for a translator to show up!! The last time I did a Bible study, it ended up being mostly for teenage girls. Well, women started showing up, alright. God answered my prayers! haha. Most of these women were older women. They came in and sat down. They were looking at me with really staunch faces and just waiting for something to start. They weren't even talking to each other. I was really not expecting older women. I started to question my lesson. But I decided that if I kept thinking, I would only get more nervous, so I just started.

About one minute in, I noticed women making faces at me when I started talking about how God sees them. I mean, they were literally looking at me like I was crazy. I realized that they needed to hear what I had to say just as much as anybody else. I pushed forward. At the end, I opened it up for discussion, and some women actually answered questions. I was totally floored when they started cracking smiles and interacting with us. You just don't understand how cold they seemed when they walked in. They ended up singing us songs. We sang them some songs. There was a massive amount of hugging and even some awesome prayer time afterwards. It was amazingly cool to see God working that day.

I have just been realizing in the past few weeks God's love for me. It is incredible. I'm on this mission trip to show God's love to other people. I have found that when I try, sometimes I get so blocked up. I find myself afraid, or unable to find the words to speak. I get really self-conscious. I have learned to step out more and more this month. God has been teaching me SO MUCH about obedience and trust. I get afraid and blocked up because I don't trust God. I show that I don't trust God by not being obedient. But he always tells me to do things that are so difficult!! haha. I am learning to trust God.

One day I was getting upset about something and I decided to go for a walk through the cornfields. Well, really what I was doing was pacing back and forth and praying and thrashing around on the road through the cornfields. As my relationship with God has grown, my vision has become so much more clear. I was just feeling really crappy and as I was walking, I was identifying the attack of the enemy and rebuking him and his lies. I was continually pacing back and forth. I couldn't stand still. Everything inside of me wanted to just move and run and walk and just NOT be still.

Then, I hear God's voice as clear as day, "Amanda, stand still". So I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then i opened them and looked around. the breeze was blowing gently. The corn stalks were rustling in the breeze. My feet were dirty and dusty from stomping around on the dirt road. I felt the awesome rays of sun beaming down on my skin. I saw birds flying in the sky and the sky was filled with puffy white clouds. I forgot about my own emotional issues. I closed my eyes again. "Amanda, I will NEVER leave you! You are RIGHT where you are supposed to be". He told me to stop doubting and to just BELIEVE. He told me about how much he LOVES me and how I can't do anything to change that. He just kept talking to me. It was the first time I felt like he called me by NAME! He usually addresses me as child. But he called me by my name! Later he showed me the corn stalks and reminded me that they don't do anything but grow. They grow where they are planted. He provides everything for them and they just grow. He told me, "Grow where you are planted!".

So my goal is to continue to just grow where I am planted!!

Obedience

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I don't even know where to begin. I will try not to be random, but there is so much to write about!!

My computer broke about a week ago. Boo!! I have learned that it really is a cool toy, but it really isn't necessary. I really was attached to that thing. Now, I'm being forced to live outside of it and it is actually a big challenge. I don't have music to listen to whenever I want to. I don't have the ability to watch movies anymore. I don't have the luxary to type out my blogs and edit them a thousand times before I actually post them. I miss that luxary, but I think my blogs will be just as good. :)

This month I have learned to step out and be more bold in talking about Jesus with people. Our ministry involves a lot of street evangelism. We walk the streets and try to talk to people. It has taken a while, but I have learned that I will not acutally explode if I approach someone, invite them to church, and ask if they need prayer for anything. In fact, I might actually have a conversation with someone. Last week, Amy and I found a girl that spoke English and we were able to pray with her and encourage her a little. It was an amazing experience. It is just awesome to talk to people, hear God's love for them, and be able to share SOME of that with them. Even if all I do is give them a hug or offer prayer...they heard SOMETHING. I am learning that ministry cannot always be measured by the amount of things accomplished in a day. Sometimes it might not seem to us that we accomplished anything, but with God - ALL things are possible!!

As God is stretching me this month, I am constantly stepping out in faith. You know what? The more I do it, the less scary it is. I have found that if I think too much, then I'll talk myself right out of things. However, if I do it rather quickly, then I am obedient and it is amazing!! So I have had this aversion to speaking publicly on this mission trip. I have been asked to give my testimony and flat out refused. That happened in month 2. Well, I have given my testimony three times this month AND I gave a sermon yesterday. A teenager we met in the city was coming to church on Saturday and I wanted to give this awesome sermon. I prayed and asked God what he wanted me to talk about. He told me - LOVE. I said, "Ok, but can you give me something a little bit more exciting to talk about?" But he told me to talk about love. And so I put together an awesome message on love. Then, the pastor was having trouble translating, so I cut a bunch of it out. When I was up there talking, it felt totally awkward. I thought it was a flop.

Five minutes ago the teenage boy that came to the service was sitting next to me in the mall here - talking with me about my message. We were just having a conversation about how hard it can be to accept God's love for us and how hard it is to pray sometimes. He is interested. I am amazed. God is so good!! Even though I thought that my message was a flop...it did NOT fall on deaf ears. All I can say is WOW!! I'm so glad I listened instead of trying to write some fancy message about something I thought was cool.

God has been talking to me a lot this month about vulnerability. He has been asking me to share my heart with people more and more. Well, they asked me to give a testimony in church, but I was unwilling to really share my heart, so I put something together about how God called me to the World Race. To me, it was a total cop out. I get to give my testimony but I don't have to really share anything that will make me vulnerable. Well, God convicted me about that and I shared pretty much my whole testimony with the racers in my house a few days later. It was almost impossibly hard for me to do that, but after I did, I felt so much lighter! And sharing wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be, so I have found myself doing it more and more.

I gave that same testimony in church this morning. I thought it was no big deal because it was my "easy" testimony. I was surprised about the reaction I recieved. A couple of girls came up to me and were asking me questions about the decisions I made and how I made them. They said they were facing situations where they also had to take leaps of faith. I was able to talk with them and encourage them after church this morning. Wow again!!

I thought that leaving my stuff and surrendering my job and my life to the World Race was the hard part. I knew God was calling me to surrender, but I didn't realize how much. He is not just asking me to surrender my stuff, but he is asking me to surrender my LIFE!! I think I am starting to understand what that means. He wants me to be available to do what He calls me to do. I have to be listening to His voice and I have to just be willing. Sometimes it feels like we aren't accomplishing much at all while we are here. I think, however, that I am learning a LOT about how to be faithful and obedient. I think that as I get better at it, God will trust me with more and more.

Targu Mures, Romania

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This has been the most challenging month for me so far. Let me just fill you in...

We are in a city called Targu Mures in Romania. This is a primarily Hungarian community within Romania. Almost no-one speaks Romanian. Most of the people that live here are either Hungarian or Gypsy. The Hungarian language is one of the most difficult languages to learn. I can see why. You have to say things with just the right accent to make any sense. My accent is evidently horrible because nobody understands me. Often, I find myself saying things in Spanish with the hopes that maybe they will understand THAT.

The pastor we are working with is an amazing man of God with a really clear vision for his church and a really huge passion for the people in this community. He is an amazing prayer warrior and he is teaching us new things every day. Our ministry has been slightly frustrating in that we don't have very much direction. We are continuing to learn how to seek God's direction for our day and to find ways to show Him in the little things that we do.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we basically go into Targu Mures and ask God what He wants us to do. We go to a park or we try to talk to people on the street. We just try to strike up conversations with people and invite them to church. It has proven very difficult because the people here are very closed off to foreigners. When we smile and wave, they look at us with as much disgust as possible as they contine walking along. I have had to resort to things like climbing trees and just being totally silly to attract any sort of attention. The language isn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be. A LOT of people here know English. The Pastor said that the people are so closed off as a result of Communism. He says that they stopped trusting people and became very hard hearted. He says that it takes a LOT to break through to them. I can tell you from experience that it takes a LOT of energy to have a conversation because they never really talk back. They simply answer your questions and stare at you.

Wednesdays we get to go into the villages surrounding the city and do some ministry there. We do childrens ministry, which we all love. We pretty much get to play games and tell stories. The pastor translates for us and the kids really seem to love it that we are there. This Wednesday, we get to go play soccer with the boys in the Hungarian village, and that makes me very happy. We also go to a Gypsy village and that was a LOT of fun. The Gypsies are a LOT more open than the Hungarians were and they were VERY excited that we were there. We played with them for a LONG time and then told a story about David and Goliath. They ate it all up!

I am currently learning SO MUCH about how to listen to God's voice. Being in a leadership position has totally humbled me and taught me SO MUCH. I am learning so much about trust, obedience, and love. He has been calling me again and again to vulnerability...which is SO hard for me. God keeps telling me over and over and over again to step up...to be bold and courageous...to be the mighty warrior He has called me to be. I am learning that finding my identity in Christ isn't so much about me running forwards and DOING things, as much as it is about me listening to God's voice and being obedient. He is continually keeping me on the edge of myself and I am continually having to jump off in huge leaps of faith. But every single time I jump off, HE is there... He is constantly talking to me, and I am constantly arguing with God and telling Him why I just can't do what He is asking me to do. Through my experiences this month, I am learning to be confident in myself and the fact that I heard something from God...and that when I act in that confidence, it will be the exact thing I needed to do and I will have the strength to do it. It requires incredible amounts of faith and my faith has grown incredibly lately. I am learning that as long as I am faithful, available, and teachable...God can use me to do anything. That is what I want!!

Reflections on life in Central America

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I spent the last two months in Central America. I saw plenty of pain and poverty. I saw people with literally nothing love God with more passion than people at home with more than double the amount of stuff they had. I saw people serving God by serving us. There are few experiences more humbling than being served by someone who has so little.

I began to think about possessions. I began to think about all of my stuff that I left. I remember getting ready to leave for the World Race. I was so concerned with my stuff. I was so worried about what I was going to do with all of my stuff. I ended up giving away and selling a LOT of my possessions. It was really a scary experience for me.

I was initially confused that people with so little can be so happy. I mean, we think of poor people as being miserable. Well, in Central America, I saw poor people that were genuinely happy. They were happy just praising God. They were full of faith and love. I would watch these people in church praising God with more zeal than us and my heart would just smile. I was totally reminded of Matthew 6 where Jesus talks about how we shouldn't worry about getting clothes or food because God would provide. I always used to think of that referring to stuff. I always thought that God would provide good stuff to Christians that followed Him. But I think what it really means is that God will provide what we need, which is Him. We have basic needs, and they will be met. But there is a huge difference in what we NEED and what we want. We don't need stuff. Stuff isn't important. We need God and a good, solid relationship with God and that is ALL we need. Stuff comes and goes. In the long run, stuff won't get you anywhere. But our relationship with God brings us LIFE!! Jesus said we can't serve two masters. We can't love money (or stuff) and love Jesus. If we are so obsessed with getting and keeping stuff, how much are we really in love with Jesus?

When we flew through Boston, I began to really think about Americans. We are on this mission trip to reach the lost and to show the love of Christ. As I was sitting in the airport and going to Target and just running errands in America, I started thinking about us in the U.S. The U.S. is really more of a mission field than were I just was. The people that I was surrounded by for the past two months were all really strong Christians and I had no problem striking up God conversations with them. The thought of doing that in the states, however....was really scary. I watched a woman in Target arguing with a stock clerk about the price of a bottle of aspirin. It was higher than she expected. I thought about how insignificant that argument was. I also thought about how many times I was on the side of the stock clerk in that argument. It made me feel embarrassed to be American. Someone cut me in line when I was getting food at the airport. I looked around and there were so many people that were in such a big hurry. I started to feel really annoyed at Americans.

I began to think about how I identify myself. I am a citizen of the United States. I am also a citizen of Heaven. Which one do I primarily identify myself as? I think I mostly identify myself as an American. I used to teach American history and I had so much pride as an American. I knew more about American history than I did about the Bible. When I was in the states, I was watching TV and looking at billboards and just observing all the advertisement. There is so much advertisement because everybody wants stuff. We are so concerned with getting and keeping our stuff. I have lived the American way. You have to pick yourself up by your bootstraps...don't let anybody see you suffer...pull yourself out of every tough situation with hard work...keep your pride in tact....don't compromise - just win. Americans love masks and false happiness. They don't like people to really know what is going on in their lives unless it is good and happy.

I started to wonder about how I act. I wonder how often I act like a citizen of Heaven. As a citizen of Heaven, I'm called to love above all else. I'm not supposed to live as a citizen of this world because I am not of this world. On this trip I have learned a LOT about love and what really loving people looks like. I have learned that it doesn't always involve liking people. On the World Race, they teach us to live in real community. Real community doesn't involve hiding from people but living a life that is fully exposed. That is HARD. I think it is so hard because I have lived as a citizen of America and not as a citizen of Heaven. I've always hidden my true thoughts and true feelings about everything. I have always been searching for my identity. I didn't know to identify myself as a citizen of Heaven.

True citizens of Heaven are secure in their identity...in their identity as sons and daughters of the living God. We are complete, whole, forgiven, chosen, royalty, justified, made righteous. We are mighty warriors. We are on the winning side. We have power and authority. We have been given the keys to the Kingdom.

I can't even imagine how powerful the body of Christ could be if we all PRIMARILY identified ourselves as citizens of Heaven!! If we stopped identifying ourselves as teachers or bankers or athletes or losers or winners or however we all identify ourselves, I can't even imagine how powerful we all could be!!

I think about this in terms of myself and my own walk... When I left for the World Race, I left everything that I used to identify myself with... my job, my friends, my country, my family - everything.

I struggled big time as soon as I left because I felt like I didn't have an identity. I am currently learning to find my identity in Christ. I am learning to identify myself FIRST as a citizen of Heaven. It is a process, let me tell you. As a missionary on this trip, people constantly look to me to represent Christ and I often fail and fall short. When I fall short, I automatically look at the situation as an American...how can I DO better? How hard can I work to make myself better at this?? How could I have prepared better? The thing I am realizing is that I can't do better. I can only continue to realize who I already am and learn how to walk in that confidence. It is so hard to remember the simple facts that I am loved, free from condemnation, accepted, complete, a daughter of the King. It is hard to remember those things, it is often hard to believe those things, and it is even harder to operate in those things.

How can a person learn to walk in their identity in Christ? It is SO HARD. I think it involves knowing what God's word says about you and then completely internalizing that. It means realizing that I belong to Christ along with ALL of my stuff. I am not in control of anything. I had the hardest time coming on this trip because I didn't want to give up MY stuff, MY life, MY rights, MY job... I didn't want to trade my agenda for God's agenda. I'm still having trouble. Right now I'm totally learning to die to myself. It sucks, but it is amazing at the same time!!

It is hard for me to live the life that God is calling me to live because I am so blocked up with walls that I have created and masks I like to hide behind. I don't like to let people see the transformation in me. But letting people in is what lets people see God in me. And letting people see God in me is what encourages them and helps them take steps forward.

God is continually teaching me about who he wants me to be and how he wants me to show Jesus to the world. It is an incredibly humbling experience. I find more and more that my rights, stuff...everything really...doesn't matter nearly as much as God and His plan for my life. I am learning to lose myself in order to find myself.

I love Nicaragua!!

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a brief overview of what we have done in Nicaragua this month. I LOVED this ministry!!! I am really sad to leave!! I hope to write more specific stories later!!

We are currently staying in a Hostel called Casa Mateo. It is owned by an amazing missionary couple that I absolutely think the world of. Glenn and Lynn own a piece of property out in Diriamba called La Quinta. La Quinta is a children's home, but it also serves as a sort of community center for the youth and children in the surrounding barrios. Our team had the pleasure of staying out at La Quinta this past week or so. It was a humbling experience.

There are a handful of kids that live at La Quinta because of bad home conditions. At La Quinta, they get tons of instruction and support in the Word. They are surrounded by adults that love them and are committed to bringing them up as strong men and women of God. They have an opportunity to take an English class, sewing class, and they have plenty of devotional time. Additionally, there is a church on campus at La Quinta where there are services nearly throughout the week.

They are currently trying to raise up youth to serve as leaders at La Quinta. There are a handful of teenagers that show up every day, along with the teens that live there, to hang out and to help with the kids. These teenagers have captured my heart. They come from the same devastating poverty that is prevalent in the barrios surrounding Jinotepe and Diriamba. These teenagers have the fire of God in them. They have amazing servant's hearts and they amaze me daily. They get up at 4am every morning to pray. They pray for their country, their city, their home, and each other. They work hard serving their community and each other all day long and are still fired up for bible study or church or whatever in the evenings.

Throughout the course of this month, I have had many opportunities to talk to the teenagers that live here. They have all had really rough lives. They are staying at La Quinta because their home lives are just horrible. When I hear their stories, I am reminded that whatever God does in us, he intends to do through us. They take what they have been through, and they use it to help other kids at church and also out in the barrios. Twice a week they go out into a barrio called Dolores. Monday they have a children's service and Sunday is a youth service. I just sit and watch them work, and I am amazed. The patience and the love they show is absolutely inspiring.

I have been able to use my talents to help out at La Quinta this month, and it has been exciting. I have been able to help the teenagers build up a youth group program. They go into Delores on Sundays after church to do a Bible study with the teens there. They are trying to build up interest to build a youth group. They play games with the kids and work real hard to build relationships and then they do a Bible study called Project Filipe with them. It has been a total blessing to be able to help them with that.

My favorite part of ministry here has been doing Bible studies with the girls. A few nights ago, I was able to conduct a Bible study on self-esteem with the girls. It was AMAZING!! Those girls were so intent on learning what I was teaching. They were answering questions and asking questions and making comments and participating in discussion in a way that makes my teachers heart just light up!! After I was finished presenting the information, we had amazing discussion and the Holy Spirit just showed up. Those girls starting giving testimonies and talking about things they had never shared with a group before. There was healing happening that night. Those girls have been through some horrible stuff, and it broke my heart to hear their stories. Hearing those stories also made me admire them even more for the work they do in their communities.

Leaving Nicaragua will be difficult for me. I have created some amazing relationships with some truly amazing people. However, at the same time, I am truly excited to see what God is going to do next!!!

Sunday in Nicaragua

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This past Sunday we went to church with Pastor Manuel. He is currently starting a church in a local barrio. We drove out to a piece of land. Pastor Manuel walked through the barrio with a bullhorn, gathering children as he went. He then conducted a children's service. It was amazing to be a part of.

The King of Heaven

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I just started writing last night and this is what came out....I have never written like this before...just wanted to share :)

The King of Heaven

The King of Heaven beckons me

I tell Him that I'm not ready

My Daddy loves me anyway

He says

Love conquers all

Love covers all

I run because of doubt and shame

He touches me and calls my name

This choice will bind you up inside

You must tear down your walls of pride

He says

Child, you are loved

He says

Child you are free

He says

Child, you are perfect in my sight

The King of Heaven beckons me

I want to follow recklessly

He says

Leave your burdens at my feet

Cast all your cares upon me

Your prayers are heard

I beckon you

FOLLOW ME

Like Peter I step out in faith

I've left my nets; I hear His call

I know that He won't let me fall

His love

COVERS ALL

Covers all my sin and shame

Covers all my secret pain

Covers all I do and say

Covers all

The King of Heaven beckons me

I run to follow recklessly

I'm free of all that burdens me

THE KING OF LOVE HAS SET ME FREE

I show through my humility

I walk in grace

I know my place

THE KING OF LOVE HAS CHOSEN ME

The KING OF LOVE HAS CALLED ON ME

To walk in His authority

To be a princess and a bride

To love

To praise

To worship and adore him

To be a mighty warrior

To be his hands and feet

To be righteous

To be holy

What God is teaching me in Antigua - part 1

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have been in this incredible struggle for weeks now. I jumped off the edge of a cliff and felt like I landed in an alternate universe. My life has changed so dramatically that I have felt completely lost. I have been struggling to find my purpose on this trip and to find my place on my team. I have struggled with thoughts that I'm a crazy fool for even coming on this trip.

So many people have spoken into my life recently. It is interesting to me that these people all seem to say similar things. People keep praying for my walls to come down, to rebuke fear, to walk in confidence and boldness, and to listen for the voice of God and be obedient. Over and over, people pray that I see how beautiful I am and that I am a princess and a mighty warrior. I have heard several times that I am going to do amazing things on this trip and that I am going to break down barriers and reach people that no-one else can reach. God keeps telling me that I am wise and that I am strong and others keep confirming this. Whoa...Talk about pressure!!!! (Evidently this is a good pressure)

My initial reaction to all of this is to laugh. Who me? Doesn't God know who he is talking about? He certainly can't be talking about me. It is so hard for me to put aside my own view of myself and trade it for God's view of me. I think that as I begin to learn to do that, then I will follow the path that he is putting before me. I feel like I'm kind of wandering around lost and that I keep stumbling on the path, but I never really stay on it for long. It is difficult for me to receive those incredibly encouraging words and to believe them.

So I spent some time today just digging into the Word. I read the book of Esther.

Esther 4:14

"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"

Esther was placed in her high position for a specific purpose. It was not revealed to her right away. She had to wait. And then when that purpose was revealed to her, she had a VERY difficult decision to make. I feel like God is making me wait and it has been frustrating me. But I have come to realize that I DO have a purpose and there IS a path for me to walk. It just isn't time yet. And when the time comes, it still won't be easy. God is always going to stretch my faith...I might as well get used to it :)

I think that God is using this time of waiting and patience to develop my character and my heart. When I look at Esther, I see that she rose up because she was obedient, strong in faith, and strong in character. I keep seeing myself doing things and I want to put those things into motion. However, God keeps directing me to be quiet and patient. He keeps directing my focus back on me and my heart. He keeps reminding me that he wants my obedience above all. Nothing is possible without obedience. Right now I'm going through a refiner's fire...it is necessary to go through it before I am put into place. There are too many walls that need to come down first.

What God is teaching me in Antigua - part 2

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I went to a special needs hospital here in Antigua. It was one of the most difficult things that I have ever done.

I am not a person that naturally feels comfortable around the special needs people. I just don't know what to do with them. I feel really uncomfortable. I struggled for a long time when we got there. I didn't know what to do or where to go or who to help. I walked into one room that had older children in there. These poor kids were just lying there in their cribs that looked more like cages...they were just lying there in their own poop and pee. I am pretty sure that is how they spend their days. I was supposed to help feed them, but I just stood there trying not to cry. I had to walk out of the room and collect myself. I prayed that God would direct me and show me where I could be useful.

Then I just kind of wandered into another room. The kids were a bit younger and a nurse just sort of handed me a bowl of food and asked me if I wanted to feed Melvin. I looked toward Melvin and nodded somewhat sheepishly. I was intimidated. Melvin has the face of an older teenager, but his body had just totally wasted away. He could barely eat the food I was attempting to feed him. I was really nervous and I was really uneasy. Well, as I began to feed him, the rest of the world just faded away. I saw a beautiful child of God lying there in that tiny bed. As soon as I began to actually enjoy what I was doing, Melvin looked up at me and smiled. My heart melted. It was a very sweet experience. When I was done, I was feeling much better and ready to love on some children.

I moved on and found Diego. I just felt like he was the one. Diego just wanted to laugh, and I happen to be an expert at making children laugh. And so I just stood next to his crib and acted goofy and crazy while Diego just laughed and laughed and laughed. He was beautiful. His laugh was beautiful. When he laughed, my heart filled with joy. If you had a video on me, you would see a big ol' fool, but Diego was loving it and so I just acted a fool. My teammate, Becky, told me that I had been there for about an hour. It felt like 10 minutes to me. I was not ready to go. I think that Diego will always have a little piece of my heart with him.

I learned something yesterday in that experience. I was really uncomfortable, but I stopped operating in my head and started operating in my heart and the barriers just fell away. I think that my mind makes my walls seem like they are these huge structures made of cinder blocks and cement, laced with barbed wire, and strengthened with rebar. I walk to them and then I just stop. But as soon as I seek God and push them, they just crumble and fall. They are made of nothing but imaginations and lies from the enemy. They won't stand because God is mightier than any barrier that stands in my way. I think that some barriers might be harder to push through. But they will all come tumbling down as I forge ahead into them. I feel like God keeps telling me that once I start operating out of my heart...once I stop thinking about everything and just praying and then acting out of my heart and acting out of faith...then all the strongholds I have built for myself will fall.

I got a vision in my head today of me kicking and punching and pushing and walls falling. All I have to say to that is AMEN!! When I am really ready to do that, I know that with God's power behind me...they will fall just like I see them falling in my head.

Pray for Honduras

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Right now there is some major political unrest in Honduras. Basically, the president is trying to change the constitution so he can stay in power longer than he is supposed to. A military coup followed and the president was exiled from the country. The UN and most other countries in the Americas oppose this decision.

Problem for us: The borders are currently closed and we have to travel through Honduras to get to Nicaragua - our next destination. We are currently safe in the amazing city of Antigua. We will be staying here until they figure out how to get us to Nicaragua safely. The October squad that has only 2 months left on their race is going to meet us here and we are going to have an awesome debrief!! I can't wait!!!

Another problem: Josiah and Ryan need to get home through Honduras. Josiah and Ryan are two amazing men of God that we met in Puerto Barrios. They are missionaries that came to Central America with backpacks and NOTHING ELSE...they have been walking through Central America with no money - living on total faith!! They have been hanging out with us while they have been in Guatemala. They entered Central America through Honduras and their return ticket is from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The situation in Honduras could shape up to be especially dangerous and they might have a really hard time making it home.

Prayer Requests:

Safe travels for ALL of us to our destinations.

For God to open doors for Josiah and Ryan to get back to the US at the end of the summer!!

Random facts about life in Puerto Barrios

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Some random facts about living in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala...

1. Crossing the street is like playing a real live game of Frogger...except you only get one life.

2. You can't flush toilet paper!! It took me a LONG time to get used to this fact...and now it feels like normal.

3. Traffic laws are more like suggestions that maybe people follow but maybe not.

4. Horns are evidently used as some sort of complicated communication system I have yet to figure out. They honk CONSTANTLY!!!

5. McDonald's in a foreign country is like a first-class restaurant. I mean...they didn't even let me dump my own tray in the garbage can and someone opened the door for me as I left. I have NEVER seen a cleaner McDonald's...even the LIGHT FIXTURES were clean...and don't even get me started on the food!!!

6. Time moves a LOT slower.... Being "on time" is relative

7. Come at 10 to play with the kids really means...come prepared with a lesson, songs, and games!!

8. I have NO IDEA what is going on in the world anywhere....but we found out immediately when Michael Jackson died!!

9. When the weather is HOT with like 100% humidity, it is preferable to shower at NIGHT....I have given up morning showers!!! I have also accepted cold showers as gifts from GOD!!

10. Ice cream is from God Himself!! I have NEVER eaten so much dang ice cream, and it has never tasted so good!

11. Baby wipes are little miracle workers... the stuff they can clean amazes me daily!!

12. Right around bed time, the roosters start crowing and the dogs start barking and fighting. They sleep ALL day and make noise ALL night...you can't close the windows or you will DIE of heat exhaustion...so you just wake up every couple hours or so...

13. Evidently there is plenty to celebrate at 4:30am....enough to scare the crap out of a whole house of people by lighting the largest amount of firecrackers I've ever heard. Apparently this is not an unusual thing...

14. It is defiantly not easy for 16 people to share one bathroom. I don't think I have ever actually PREFERRED a public restroom...but I certainly do this month!!!

Gretchen Kiehlbaugh is my hero!!!

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Ok, Jesus is actually my number one hero!!! Gretchen also isn't my first World Race hero, but she challenged me to write a blog and well.....challenge accepted!!

Top 10 reasons Gretchen is my hero!!

10. She eats nutella in bed!

9. She sings random praise songs whenever they come into her head.

8. She really didn't shake the bed - it was an EARTHQUAKE!!!

7. She thinks that everything is "tender".

6. She makes fun of fat kids at the soccer field!

5. She made a grown Guatamalan man cry in a soccer game - she's a BEAST!! (in a good way, of course)

4. She teaches special ed. kids.

3. She left her life to come follow Jesus with the I-squad!!

2. She makes everyone laugh.

1. She is an amazing woman of God with a huge heart that can't help but ooze Jesus on everyone she meets!

Puerto Barrios - Part 1

Tue, 9 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We have been in Puerto Barrios for about three days now.

WOW...all I can say is that it is VERY HOT!!!! It feels like a South Florida summer without air conditioning. I actually think that it is hotter than in South Florida. It has been a LONG time since I have sweat this much, I'll tell you that!!!

I have definitely had plenty of opportunities to practice my Spanish. The kids just LOVE talking to us and it just makes me want to understand them. I'm actually surprised at how much Spanish I actually understand. I have found that I understand a lot more than I can speak.

We went to church on Sunday, and it was really amazing!! The pastor is an amazing man of God. The church is in this REALLY tiny building....it looks like they built it in a storefront. We sat in plastic chairs and tried to sing along to the worship songs in Spanish. The best part about the service was that the people were SO OPEN to us. They came up and welcomed us all, and tried to talk to us. The pastor talked about giving your worries to God. He was speaking to US!! He was trying to comfort US!! He said stuff like he knows how hard it is to be away from home, but God brought us here for a purpose, and we should give our worries to Him! I mean, that was amazing to me! (There was a translator, in case you were wondering).

We started working on Monday with a family that goes to the church. Some missionaries came through a while ago and built them a house, but they didn't get to finish it. So we are going to the house every day and trying to finish it. We built a fence on Monday and today the guys installed a gutter to collect rainwater. I haven't been doing much in the way of hard labor, which is rare for me. I find myself more often in the role of making connections with the people. It is frustrating, though, because they don't speak English and my Spanish STINKS!!

Last night, we went to play soccer with some of the men from the church. I had SO MUCH FUN!! Of course, I haven't played in like 10 years and I am severely out of shape. I can't remember the last time I played so hard!!

At church on Sunday, I made a connection with a little girl named Julissa (I have no idea if I spelled that correctly). She came up to me and just hugged on me. We couldn't really understand each other, but she was just lovin on me. It was so dang cute. She is 10. Well, she was at the soccer game last night and evidently she was pointing me out to some of my friends on the sidelines and telling them about how she thinks I'm pretty and telling them how old I was. She just recapped the whole conversation we had on Sunday. I just thought that was so precious. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in completing a task that I forget the reason I'm here... I'm here for people like Julissa!!! J

Today I went to the house with the thought that I was going to do some construction, but I just ended up talking to the family...or at least attempting to. Somehow, even though I can't always understand or make myself understood, I can always make them laugh!!

Panajachel, Guatamala

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

After tons of travel, I finally made it to Panajachel, Guatamala. I am getting some good Spanish practice!! Panajachel is this really cute mountain town. There is a BEAUTIFUL lake nearby called Lake Atitlan. The whole are is just GORGEOUS!! It has rained EVERY AFTERNOON so far!! But this is an awesome place to kick off the World Race.

I have been instructed to write a blog and I really have NO IDEA what to write about!!! So I'm just going to write about something that God just started to walk me through.

When I came to here, I was just plain STUCK!! To be perfectly honest, I am totally having an identity crisis. I am Ms. Thompson, the 7^th grade Social Studies teacher. I am Amanda the sister, Amanda the best friend, Ms. Amanda the youth leader, Amanda the missionary, Amanda the daughter, granddaughter, niece, friend, etc.... I am the Amanda that everyone is watching. That is what I thought. HOWEVER...all of those Amandas are at home. The only Amanda that is here is the one that God wants to mold. I have been here feeling totally lost and alone. I am finding myself totally awkward and unsettled. What am I supposed to do with myself now? What role am I supposed to fill now? Who is going to be my friend? Who can I turn to? Who can I trust? The weight of this was CRUSHING ME!!

So we had us some "church" tonight and the Holy Spirit done showed up!

Tonight, I found some freedom from that crushing weight. I have been struggling all my life to perform well. I hate it when I am not good at something. Cynicism and skepticism and judgment have clouded my thoughts for a long time, but ESPECIALLY since I have been here. I have been feeling all of this pressure to fill some sort of role...to complete some sort of task...to be something or somebody specific. I have been struggling to find my niche...to FIT!! Well, tonight that was identified to me as an orphan spirit...and those who felt it were asked to come for prayer. I did.

These words were prayed over me (as closely as I remember)

He delights in you
He LOVES you

He thinks that you are beautiful

]You are his daughter

You are his princess

He wants you to leave your self-created identity (teacher) and follow him.

Ha ha...I cried. I didn't break in half, but I cried. Wow. Why is it so hard for me to believe that I don't have to DO ANYTHING to receive His love? Why is that so difficult? Why is it so hard to believe that I am beautiful? Because I haven't created my identity in HIM!! I continue to create it for myself or to allow others to create my identity for me!

In the coming year of my journey, I hope to discover who God wants me to be. I hope to fill the role that HE intended me to fill. Somebody asked me the other day what my goal was for this trip. I said that my goal was to let God strip me down and make me raw...to be totally and completely UNDONE!! This is just the first step in that process!!!

Thank you for all the love and support that has brought me here.....

In a couple days, team Agape8 and team N.E.O.N. will be headed to Puerto Barrios on the Caribbean coast. We are supposed to be doing construction and painting work along with evangelism and some teaching. I am super excited about getting my hands dirty and starting with some ministry!!

Trading Death for Life

Mon, 4 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

John 12: 23-26

Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My father will honor the one who serves me".

Dead. Dead in identity. Dead to my calling. Dead.

My new friend, Allison, whom I respect tremendously, recently described me this way in her blog. When I first read it, I was totally taken back. I would NEVER have used those words to describe myself. However, the more I think about it, the more true those words seem.

Jesus was talking about his own death in John 12:23-26, but God spoke this to me in reference to what has been happening inside of me for the past 3 weeks or so. I was dead in my identity and in my calling. I was walking around in this life that I made for myself. My view of myself was jacked up to say the least. I have been going through this metamorphosis lately. God is busting down walls and growing me in ways that I never thought possible. God wants me to die to myself so that I can come back to life!!

There were two turning points for me at training camp that watered my seed:

#1- I had this moment one night around a campfire. I learned what God has gifted me with and that I had been using it incorrectly. I prayed with an awesome warrior and she helped me turn a corner to find a type of freedom that I've never known before. Really, it was amazing.

#2- God told me how he sees me, and I accepted it for the first time in my life. I was walking through the woods and I asked God, as I was instructed to do, how he sees me. I don't know what I was expecting, but what I heard BLEW MY MIND!! The first thing he told me was that I was amazing. Then he said BEAUTIFUL, strong, wise, caring, compassionate, and loving. The last three I knew. But the others just blew me away. I would NEVER have thought of myself as amazing. I definitely never saw myself as beautiful. I actually saw myself as the opposite of strong and wise. I argued with God for a while after he told me those things. But He persisted. Then, words spoken over us earlier in the day kept ringing in my ears. I kept hearing, "You are a princess" "You are a daughter of the KING" and stuff like that. Finally, I just began to accept it. I can't tell you the joy that came from beginning to come in line with God's view of me!

I think those are the things that cracked the safe inside my heart. My seed was hidden in a safe; locked up for all eternity. Ever since I have returned from camp, God has been busting down the walls of my safe and my seed has started to grow. I feel the "dead" parts of me coming to life slowly. This whole analogy of a plant growing is awesome because that is exactly how I feel. I am growing slowly. I can't stop it and I am constantly changing, but it isn't sudden or too fast.

The seed has to die when it is buried. It has to die so that it can begin to grow. When I went to training camp, I was kind of dead. I didn't realize who I was in Christ. I didn't fully understand my gifts or my calling, nor did I believe that even had them. I was dead to what God saw in me and what he wanted from me. But now, I've been planted in the ground and I am coming to life! God spoke to my heart and told me that I am coming to life in order to produce many seeds!!

Mighty Warrior??

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I LOVE the story about Gideon in Judges 6 and 7. It is one of my favorite stories. I LOVE how God tells Gideon that he is a mighty warrior and Gideon starts to tell God all about his faults. That is such a human response. God tells us something amazing and reveals his awesome plan for us and we begin to tell the Almighty God that he is wrong about us. Don't we all do that? I know I do!!

I was reading this story again the other night. When I read the words mighty warrior, I got stuck on them. I felt God telling me that I am a mighty warrior. Really? I automatically began to scoff. God is telling me that I am a mighty warrior? Me? Does he know who he is talking about? The answer is YES! I've come to realize that God knows more about me than I will EVER know about myself. He can see what I am capable of much better than I can.

I identify with Gideon. Gideon couldn't believe that God would actually be calling him to do something great, and so he asks God to do these little tasks to prove it. I have done the same thing. I have prayed in frightened tears asking God to show me if he really wants me to go on this mission trip. Just as God patiently responded to Gideon, He also patiently responded to me. EVERY single time I have fallen into doubt, God has reassured me in some way. He continually amazes me with his patience and provision.

What I love is that once God proves himself to Gideon, Gideon just steps right up and becomes a leader. Gideon just walks in his natural gift that God knew he had before Gideon knew. He gets this huge army together to go fight the enemy God told him to fight. But then God strips down Gideon's army to only 300 men. These 300 men were up against countless numbers. 300 against COUNTLESS NUMBERS...and the Israelites WON! I believe that God made the army weak so that God could show himself STRONG!!

God reduced Gideon's army so that there would be no doubt that the victory was only possible through God. I feel like God is doing exactly that in me right now. I have built up all of these walls and strongholds in order to defend myself against life. God is in the process of taking down the ones I built myself and replacing them with His. It is totally awesome and totally horrible at the same time. I totally believe, however, that this is a necessary part of the process of preparing me for the World Race. I am learning to stop compensating for my weaknesses and to just allow Jesus to shine through them. Just like Paul said, Christ's power is made PERFECT in our weakness!! That has been a very difficult concept for me to grasp in my life. It is ok not to be ok. God can use me anyway. That is AMAZING to me.

God said to Gideon, "Go in the strength you have". Gideon eventually did, and God used him in a mighty way. I often forget the even if I feel like my strength isn't enough, God is more than enough. God just wants me to go in the strength I have. I might not feel like I have much strength, but I don't need my own strength. Where I fall short, God will show up!! Man...that's good stuff!!!

2 Corinthians 12: 9

⁹But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Spiritual Truth from Yoda!?!

Thu, 9 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Try not.

Do, or do not.

There is no try.

Often I'd like to think that my God just looks at me through love colored glasses, and smiles at all of my antics. In fact, I BELIEVE that he does look at me like that. My view of my Abba Father has transformed into this view of a loving, encouraging father who wants me to make those first baby steps. He delights in my successes, and wants to comfort me in my failures.

It is cute to see a baby learn to walk. They are just so wobbly and adorable. However, it is not quite so adorable to see a 10 year old wobble and fall all the time; it is actually quite sad. As babies learn to walk and become more confident with every step, so Christians also need to learn to walk! I have been guilty of keeping myself in toddler faith. At some point it is time to start walking in confidence and stop cushioning myself for the fall. To put it simply- I'm either walking, or I am not.

I have been thinking this over for a a few days now. I don't like it, but it is true. I am either producing fruit, or I am not. I am changing a life, or I am not. I am planting a seed, or I am not. I am doing something great for the Kingdom, or I am not.

I'm not normally an abosolutes type of person, but I really think that Jesus could agree with Yoda! He told us that if we were lukewarm, we would be SPIT OUT OF HIS MOUTH!! To me, being lukewarm is kind of like trying. We are either hot or cold. We are either doing something for Him, or we are not. This is kind of a mind-blowing truth for me right about now. I always pride myself on "trying". The truth is - you can't TRY to get saved. You either accept Jesus, or you don't. It really is that simple. You get no points for "trying" to pray with someone. You either do it, or you don't. This stinks for me because I often get caught up in FEAR and then pat myself on the back for "trying". I figure that I'll do better next time and I excuse myself for the failure.

Try not.

Do, or do not.

There is no try.

This makes me think about faith. There are undoubtedly different levels of faith. However, when it comes to a specific action - we either have faith for it, or we don't. Jesus said that if we have faith, we could tell a mountain to move and it will move. Just think about that for a second. Our faith can MOVE MOUNTAINS!! Peter walked on water....because he had FAITH! What?? Is it really that powerful? The answer is YES!! I believe that great acts of faith produce great fruits for the Kingdom.

When I pray, I often "hope" that God will move because of my prayers. Many times I have faith for small things, but not for big things. When I pray for something - I either have faith that God will move, or I don't.

On the World Race, I assume there will be MANY forks in the road. I will be faced with many choices. The easy, comfortable side probably won't produce much fruit. The difficult side that will bust me out of my comfort zone will most likely require great faith and possibly produce great fruit. Do, or do not. There is a choice. When I was at training camp, I told myself and God that I ALWAYS wanted to choose Him.

Jesus said that he is the vine and we are the branches. We have to be connected to Him to produce fruit. We can live and be green for a little while after being cut off, but will never produce lasting fruit. I'm either connected, or I'm not. I'm either bearing fruit, or I'm not. I'm either loving people, or I am not. I'm either showing Jesus, or I am not.

That being said - Jesus loves me NO MATTER WHAT! He delights in me. He laughs with me. He cries with me. He LOVES ME!! I can do nothing to earn His love; therefore I can do nothing to lose His love. This fact brings SO MUCH FREEDOM for me! I don't have to worry about doing the wrong thing. I either do, or do not. He LOVES it when I do. But he loves me anyway when I do not.

Paul says that at some point we have to put away childish things. It is time to grow up in my faith. It is time to stop "trying" to walk, and to just start walking in faith and confidence. The fact that my amazing God loves me no matter what I do gives me the confidence to step out in faith. I am tired of living with baby faith!!

I want to remember this when I am out on the field. I want to think - well, I can either do something for God right now, or I can just be a friendly traveller. I want to think - either I have faith that this person will be healed, or I don't.

Training camp was such an amazing experience for me. I can either leave it at that, or I can practice what I've learned. I'm finding that my faith really is quite young and I am finding myself eager and desperate to grow. Our culture thrives on destroying absolutes. But in our faith, there HAS to be absolutes. Jesus IS the only way. The absolute that just HIT me in the face was that I can't "try" to do work for Jesus. When I go out there on the field, I will either produce fruit for the Kingdom, or I will not. Well, I want to produce!!

37 things I Learned at Training Camp

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Things I've learned at training camp:

1. I love all of these people!!!!!! Racers, Alumni, Staff, Community Life - EVERYONE!!!! These are the most amazing God chasers I have ever met!!!

2. If I close my eyes and put in my IPOD, I can be alone no matter where I am!!

3. God has given ME the keys to the Kingdom!!!

4. God has been telling me all week that I am BEAUTIFUL!!!! Oh and I am!!

5. My past does not define me!!

6. Spoken words have amazing power to build up.

7. Spoken words have amazing power to hurt and tear down.

8. Surrender is the most beautiful thing that I can ever hope to fully achieve.

9. I LOVE hot showers, and I will take one EVERY day possible for the rest of my life. I do not, however feel as strongly about a cold shower.

10. I really will eat anything....I actually ate chocolate rice with dried anchovies and some milk on top. YUM YUM

11. God has called me to go on this mission trip and I am going to make a difference!

12. I have potential inside of me to do AMAZING things for God on this trip.

13. I have the gift of intercession and I am learning what that means.

14. What God thinks about me is way more powerful than what I think about myself!

15. When the Holy Spirit falls on me, I am a drunken, laughing fool and I LOVE IT!!!

16. I have this growing passion for orphans. I almost feel burdened.... I think that is part of the intercession thing...

17. I was not broken at training camp like I figured I would be, but I was SET FREE!!! I have been praying for a way to walk out what God has given me, and during this training camp, God has provided that for me!!

18. If you don't grieve something, then it won't go away.

19. I can look at someone I don't know and love them instantly.

20. I AM A DAUGHTER OF THE KING!!!!!!

21. I AM A PRINCESS!!!!

22. I am not powerful because of who I am or what I can do, but I am powerful because of Christ in me!

23. I AM FREE!!

24. My daddy, God, loves me more than I can ever imagine.

25. Attitude is everything.

26. I really can give up control of my life to God and I don't have to stress about it. God is SOOOOO good and I can trust Him!

27. Thought - Foothold - Stronghold.

28. Real community is the hardest and most rewarding thing I can ever hope to be a part of.

29. Confession really does bring freedom!

30. Letting things fester destroys you and your heart. It can also completely destroy community and it makes relationships fall apart.

31. It is ok not to be ok.

32. I am responsible for my own spiritual growth.

33. I thought I knew what the Holy Spirit was about....I WAS WRONG!!

34. It is ok to be who God created me to be. He actually prefers that I do exactly that!

35. I want to always choose God!!

36. Every single thing that I have done this week has taught me a TON about my amazing God...even if the activity really PISSED me off!!

37. I am a unique creation with unique gifts and God is going to use me this year to do some AMAZING, MIND BLOWING things for Him and His Kingdom!! Woo Hoo!!