Hello Again!

Hello everyone,

I don't even know who all is even going to read this as I have not been on my blog in a long time. However, that does not mean that amazing things haven't been happening in my life and here at OCU. In fact God has been doing so many incredible things and the Holy Spirit has been revealing more and more of himself here, that I haven't even had time to keep this updated! I hope to start updating again to let you all know the amazing things that have happened here at OCU (people have been healed, saved, set free... just to name a few)and also to let you know of what God is calling me to do in my life this next semester and these next couple of years. Over spring break, I will be one of the leaders taking the college ministry at Antioch on a mission trip to San Deigo (more details of that to come) and this summer I will be going with small team of about ten young adults from my church to Nepal to hike through the lower Himalayas and bring the good news to the unreached there (and definitely more details about how that all came about!)
Till then, I hope everyone is doing well and that God is giving you peace, joy, and comfort!
Remember that you are LOVED!

In Christ,

Courtney


My roommates, Tess and Lauren, and I at Christmas time!

Wordle from God

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"Anyway"

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and some true enemies;
succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend your life building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, others may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough;
Give the world your best anyway.
For you see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway."

Handwritten reflection found on the wall of Mother Teresa's room.

Twitterpated

I have a confession. After coming back from Japan, I had become too comfortable and too lazy. I had all this free time and yet I was not spending any of it with my Beloved. I could feel the distance growing between the Lord and myself and I was disgusted by it. I tried making excuses that it was normal to have this happen after such a growing time in Japan, but excuses weren't going to change my situation. I knew that I needed, wanted, and craved time with the Lord and to actually do it, I would need some accountability. I asked someone close to me to hold me accountable and make sure that I got up in the morning and have a date with Jesus! That first quiet time was amazing and I questioned why I ever stopped having this time. After about a week and a half of not specifically spending time with the Lord, I want to share with you what the Lord told me in that first time with Him!
I woke up that morning and immediately heard God tell me, "Read Hosea." Knowing what Hosea was about, I already knew what God was going to tell me. I was excited!
For those of you not familiar with the book of Hosea, the first three chapters are about the man, Hosea. God tells him to marry and unconditionally love a prostitute and to have children with her. Hosea does just this. Gomer, the prostitute, marries Hosea but continues to seek love and passion from other men. She turns her back on Hosea. But, Hosea still loves her and in the end redeems her!

Hosea 3:1 says, "And the Lord said to me, 'Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loved the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins."

These last two weeks, I have sought love and pleasure from other things mainly food, my computer, and the T.V. But even in this time of turning my back on God, He still loved me! He still pursued me, and He still called me His beloved! During the quiet time, I was put in awe by His love!

I want to love God the way He loves me! After, reading through Hosea, I opened up the book I am currently ready by Jamie Zumwalt called Simple Obsession: Enjoying the Tender Heart of God. The chapter I was on was called Head over Feet and not surprisingly, the chapter talked about Hosea and being passionately in love with God. (Don't you love it when God brings up the same themes when you are not expecting it?) The book talked about the word "Twitterpated" from the movie Bambi. The author defined it as being passionately in love with another person to the point that only they exist. That person becomes our simple obsession. I do not want to be like Gomer and seek love from other things (although I know I always will becuase I am a sinner.)
I yearn to be twitterpated with God because He is twitterpated with me!

Hosea 2:19, 20 "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord."

Courtney

The Last Days

As promised, here is a post about the last few days I had in Japan.
These days almost seem surreal and went by really fast. It still has not hit me that I had to say goodbye to all my friends in Japan and that I am back in America.
That final Friday was our last day on the Gaidai campus. We had a farewell picnic and many of our friends from the campus came including the two new believers from the night before. Two girls who work full time with Campus Crusade in Japan came too. We spent the time hanging out, taking pictures, and really just sharing our hearts with these people before we left. Our new sisters and the CRU staff exchanged information and made plans to start a Bible study together, PRAISE THE LORD! The students then had to go back to class and that was the last of our outreach.
That night was our women's dinner for our team, but we invited many of our Japanese friends as well as CRU staff to come. It was a great night but sad at the same time. We all exchanged gifts for each other and said our final goodbyes. The month went by so fast and I could hardly believe that it was time for goodbye.
The following day, we cleaned our apartments and locked up for the final time. We weren't leaving back to the states until Monday, but we were leaving Tokyo and heading to small town called Atame that is near the sea for a two day relax before leaving Japan. It was really fun and a great time for our team to bond.
Monday, we left Atame and took a three hour train ride to the airport with all our luggage (what an experience) and then took the 11 hour plane ride back to L.A. The trip was over. We spent a few days in L.A doing debrief which was designed for us to process all that we had done, encourage each other, and get readjusted back into America. Then it was time to say goodbye to the team which was pretty sad as we had all grown close in the five weeks we spent together. Before I knew it, I was heading to Alaska.
The good news; The Lord is good and faithful! He is always with me and His plan does not cease, so I look forward to what is ahead of me and rejoice in the fact the He has control of everything!

In Christ,

Courtney

Pictures!


Prayer Hug with my team!


Sharing my testimony at the Outreach


Farewell Picnic at Gaidai!


Doing the Lifehouse Everything Skit at our outreach


Our team at Disney Sea on one of our days off!


Sweating at the Train Station after hours of travel with our luggage!



Chillin on my futon in my room.


My team the Last Night of Debrief!

Home in Alaska!

It has been over week since my last post and a lot has happened. I was not able to update due to having no Internet access. I want to first let you all know that I am now home in Alaska! I have not been home in the summer for over two years and it is wonderful. I forgot how beautiful Alaska is in the summer!
I also wanted to thank all of you for all of your support and prayers in getting me to Japan and while I was in Japan. I will give you a post in few days about all that happened in the last three days in Japan and all that happened at debrief. God did incredible things in that short amount of time and I am in awe of His limitless power. I will also put up many pictures of the trip but you can also check my facebook page for a many more!
There is one thing that I want to share with you that has been on my heart. Even though I am home from Japan, I am not home from the mission field. I often get caught up in thinking that I have to go somewhere different from where I live to be a missionary, but that is not the case. True, there are unreached people groups that have never heard the Gospel and as Christians, we need to be going to those that need to hear, but there are also people who have not heard the Gospel in my own hometown or who's hearts were closed when they heard it the first time. I need to be looking at the places around me and ask the Lord to highlight people who I need to share with. I then need to share with them, just like I did in Japan, by trusting the Lord that He will move in the hearts of the those I am talking to.
So, my adventure is not over and will never be over! Therefore, I ask for your continued prayers as I go on to the next journey of my life and continue to share the Greatest news ever told. I will continue to update you (hopefully weekly) on all the amazing, crazy, and beautiful things God is doing in my life.
I also ask that you pray for my two best friends, Lauren and Caroline. Lauren has been in Ivory Coast, Africa, sharing the Gospel and is there for another two weeks.
Caroline just got back from sharing the Gospel in East Asia and, like me, is adjusting to life back in America and has a desire to share the Gospel here as well.

I want to leave you with Colossians 3:1-4

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Till His kingdom comes,

Courtney

Two New Sisters!!!!

Glory to God in the Highest! Emmanuel!

Last night's outreach was incredible! God truly worked through our weakness and inefficiencies! His will was done and He was glorified! Our outreach was called the American Farewell Party since we are leaving on Monday. Many new students came to the outreach. We started the outreach by having some of our team members share what they will miss most about Japan. We then performed our Lifehouse Everything skit and it brought some students to tears. After that, I got up in front of everyone and shared my testimony, and my friend, Yukiko, translated. I was pretty nervous and my voice was still not fully back, but the Lord spoke through me and got the message that I wanted to share across. The main message was about the ultimate, never ending, unconditional love from Jesus Christ that can not be experienced from another human being. I talked about how even in my sin, shame, and guilt, God loves me. No matter what I have done in the past, where I am at now, or what I will do in the future, God loves me. I then told all the students that they too can experience this incredible love. I ended with sharing 1 John4:16 "So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
After my testimony, my roommate, Casey, came up and played the guitar and sang a song. Then the Japanese staff surprised us by singing us a song to say thanks and gave us all gifts. It was very moving and quite sad.
We then proceeded to break up in small groups to talk about the skit and my testimony and use this time to share the Gospel.I was in a group with my team member, Katherine Anne, Yukiko (the staff member who translated for me) and two girls names Yumi and Shiori from the Gai Dai campus. Katherine Anne had met Yumi for the first time on Tuesday when they got "randomly" paired up to play badminton together. Katherine Anne invited her to our party and she brought her friend, Shiori, who we had never met before.
While talking to the girls, I really felt the presence of the Holy spirit and I knew they would both decide to come to know Jesus that night. During my testimony, Katherine Anne also heard God tell her to be ready to pray the prayer with someone tonight. After having a long spiritual conversation with both of them, the time came to share the Gospel. Yukiko asked me to go through the Knowing God Personally booklet and that she would translate when needed. The Lord really spoke through me and at the end I asked them if they understood everything. They not only told me they understood it but that they also believed it and WANTED IT!!! They were able to tell the Gospel back to us and clearly had a good understanding of it. Yumi also told us that she saw how I had an English bible and Yukiko had a Japanese bible and how that showed her how God is for ALL PEOPLE! WOW! That blew my mind! They wanted to pray the prayer right theew to accept Jesus in their hearts. So Katherine Anne, Yukiko, and I prayed with them. We then did follow up and rejoiced with them for being our new sisters!!! They were so joyful! The Lord truly blessed me with allowing me to be a harvester in these two girls' lives.
Today, we had our final picnic on the Gai Dai campus and both Yumi and Shiori showed up. Both had already started reading the bible as soon as they had returned to their homes after the party. Yukiko and another staff member, Fumi, came to out picnic to specifically become closer friends with these two girls since Katherine Anne and I are leaving. Yumi and Shiori asked for Yukiko's and Fumi's contact information and were excited to start a Bible Study with them! PRAISE THE LORD!
Tonight we are having one last dinner at our apartments and we have invited many of our Japanese friends to come, so please be praying that in these last hours of ministry that God be glorified and we continue to pour out love and be bold!

Thanks for all of your prayers! They truly are Powerful!

Till His kingdom comes,

Courtney

Pictures of the Outreach coming soon! I was just so excited to share this story that I couldn't wait for pics!