Second Salvation Story!

So after much thought and much telling of the other salvation story, I have come to realize that if I tried to write what happened, it would take up a lot of space and probably not be the most coherant.But what I do want to say is that God is so good and He is so faithful! I got to see two people come to know Jesus in a really dark place. We went out onto 6th Street in Austin, TX to share the Gospel. 6th street is lined with bars and during the time we were there, there was a huge music fesitval. Tthe street was closed down to cars and there were people everywhere. The power of the Holy Spirit was in me and I got to share the Gospel with a girl in the midst of persecution and she recieved the free gift of salvation! Praise to God! And then immediatly after, I got to witness another girl come to know Jesus! If anyone wants to hear the detials of the stories, please feel free to contact me or email me and I would love to share more with you!
God is present and He is working!
Glory be to Him!

No Sacrafice

I will continue on shraing the awesome salvation stories from my spring break, but right now I just want to share the lyrics from one of my favorite worship songs. It's called No Sacrafice by Jason Upton. The words are simple yet profound.

To you I give my life, not just the parts I want to
To you I sacrifice these dreams that I hold on to

Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is stronger than mine
This is no sacrifice
Here's my life

To you I give the gifts
Your love has given me
How can I hoard the treasures that you've designed for free?

Because
Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is staronger than mine
This is no sacrifice
Here's my life

To you I give my future
As long as it may last
To you I give my present
To you I give my past


Because
Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is stronger than mine
Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is stronger than mine
This is no sacrifice
Here's my life

Lord Jesus, my life is Your Life! I lay down every selfish thing I want for my life at Your feet. I lay down any of my hurt and brokeness and run toward Your arms. I cast my dreams aside and take up Your cross, for that is what You did for me This is no sacrafice, Here's my life.

Salvation Stories!! The First Story

As I mentioned in the previos post, I just got back from a mission trip in Waco and saw God move in incredible ways. I learned so much on the trip and had about 25 pages worth of notes in my journal. Even though I would love to share what I learned, I feel like it is more important to share the fruit of the trip as an encouragement to all who read. The Lord absolutly blessed me with getting to see nine people give their lives to Jesus!! IT was so incredible and gave complete glory to God as it could not have been done without Him!

The First Story: The afternoons of our trip were spent going out and sharing the Gospel in many different ways. The first few days we spent going door-to-door in a specific area of town the Antioch Community Church Waco felt like the Lord had highlighted for them to reach out to. One afternoon, I was going door to door with a women named Liz who was part of the Antioch Training Night School. She also works as an after school teacher. We came to a neighborhood and Liz made the comment, "This looks like a neighborhood that a lot of my students would live at. How cool would it be if we ran into some of my students and could share the Gospel with them?" And sure enough, as soon as we stepped out of the car, we saw a group of girls all playing in their yard and they were ALL Liz's students. We went over to the house. The girls were seven sisters from the ages of five to twelve and thier mom was outside too! How perfect. All the girls immediatly recognized Liz and started calling out her name. The mom came over with a smile and asked what we were doing in the neighborhood. We said that we were out telling people about Jesus and asked if we could share Jesus with her and her daughters! She said we could! (The family was Catholic and therefore heard about Jesus but really didn't know His story.) We shared the Gospel with the girls by having them act out the Bridge illustration. We did it twice so all the girls could get a chance to act it out. We asked them question to make sure they really understood the Gospel. We then asked them to raise thier hand if they wanted to accept Jesus in to thier heart! All seven of them raised thier hands! Praise the Lord!!! They repeated the prayer after us and then we spent time listening to God! We asked them if they heard from God and one girl raised her hand and said that God told her He loves her! It was beautiful. I then took the girls to play tag while Liz talked to the mom and shared the Gospel with her! They are going to start coming to Antioch and Liz is going to be able to disciple the girls and start a childrens lifegroup. The lifegroup is going to be at the girls' house and the mom wants to invite thier freinds and parents. The Lord really planted a seed thier! It was so awesome to see Him work through children and we have complete trust in the Lord that He is going to continue to work in thier hearts! God is sooo good!

Cooler stories to come!

I'm Back!

I'm back from my spring break mission trip to Waco, Texas and I am still in AWE!!! God moved mountains in my own life, in the lives of my team members, and in the lives of the people of Waco (and Austin.) I'm truly humbled and blessed to be part of God's work here on earth and I can't wait to tell you all about it. The short of it is the Lord really freed me from some things that I had been holding on to. I also got some incredible teachings that will help me grow immensely in my relationship with Jesus! AND I got to witness NINE people come to know the Lord! PRAISE TO GOD! (I will go into details of the salvation stories soon, they are pretty crazy!) So, I am still trying to process things from this week and then there will be many posts to come! Please be praying that what was learned and done on the trip does not stop there, but that we continue to do God's work here in our city and campus and that we continue to be bold in the midst of persecution to share the Gospel!

Healings!

So last night, while walking to CRU, my big toe hit a giant root. I was wearing not very practical shoes and my foot slipped out. I immediately saw part of my toenail separate from my toe and blood started gushing out. My toenail started turning black. My nail also had a line form on it where the separation occurred. It was so painful that I couldn't even walk on it. I have had this injury happen before and I ended up having to be on crutches for a few days and resulted in a lost toenail. As some of you may know, I am training for a marathon on April 11th. I'm already struggling on my training and I didn't know how much this injury would set me back even more. Well, once I had settled down, I asked the group I was praying with that night to pray healing for my toe. They all immediately laid hands on foot and started praying. Caroline specifically started to pray that when I woke up the next morning, my toe would be completely healed. I thanked them for the prayers but my toe did not look any better and was still throbbing. My friend drove me back to my dorm building because I couldn't walk. I went to bed that night having to take Advil to relieve the pain. Then, this morning, I woke up and I felt NO PAIN!!! I carefully got out of bed and stood on that foot. I was able to put full pressure on my toe without it even hurting. What's even better, there was absolutely no discoloration and the tare line was no longer there! Except for a little bit of dry blood, my toe was completely fine. It looked exactly the same as my other toe. The Lord heard our prayer and healed my toe!

I truly believe that God is an all powerful God and can do all things. In the bible, we see incredible acts and healings done, yet for some reason, we don't always think they can happen in today's time. But God is the same NOW as He was then! HE is the ultimate healer! One of His names is Jehovah-Rapha: I am the Lord who heals.

"O Lord my God, I cried out to You for help and you restored my health." (Psalm 30:2)

"He was wounded and crushed for our sins....He was whipped and we were healed!" (Isa. 53:5)

"Their prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make them well...Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." (Jas. 5:15,16)

God has an incredible plan for our life and wants us to bring Glory to Him! This means that every time that we have an injury or sickness, we will not always be healed for it may not be in God's plan. But He does want to bless us and we should still pray to Him for healing. When He does heal, I hope that all the Glory goes to Him and people come to know Him through His wonders.

Dinner with Missionaries

Friday night, Lauren and I went over to the Cadells' house. They are a family that just moved to Oklahoma after spending 10 years in China as missionaries. They are here in Oklahoma only for a little while helping with the training school at Heart of God Ministries. It was a wonderful night. It was so nice to have a home cooked meal with a family that has great hospitality. It was amazing to hear about the life of long term missionaries and how they are just ordinary people who are just trying to be obedient to a loving God. They were so down to earth and humble, yet, I could truly see thier passion for God and for the people of China. They were dinfinitly an encouragemnet and really made me think about what the life of a missionary really looks like. They want to go back to China in a year, but for now, they said that Lauren and I could come over to play with thier beautiful adopted daughter from China, to discuss the ways the Lord is working in our lives, or to just raid their fridge when we get tired of the cafeteria. :)

Beyond Boldness!

When I was in Albania doing mission work last summer, the Lord gave me Jeremiah 1:4-10 to read everyday before I went out to share Jesus' Love! This passage says:

"Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the Nations.'
Then I said, 'Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak for I am only a youth.'
But the Lord said to me,
'Do not say I am only a youth;
for to all whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,declares the Lord.'
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,
'Behold, I have put words in your mouth.
See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."

I have a fear of sharing the Gospel. I think that people will think I am "too Christian" or that they will be offended or laugh at me or think that I am "only a youth." So, God, in His infinite wisdom, has been reminding me of that passage and how I need to be bold in sharing His love and His Gospel. I need to trust in Him that He will work in the people I am sharing with. I just need to be obedient to His word, be like His disciples, and share how Jesus loves and died for all of us! I also need to understand that it is not of my own doing that people come to know the Lord when I share with them, but all of God's doing. He just uses me, a sinner, to spread His kingdom. I need to go beyond boldness, to a state of humility and brokenness so that I am completely relying on the Lord to give me words to say to people. I need the Holy Spirit to work in me to continue to following God's call of missions.

"After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God BOLDLY." Acts 4:31