YWAM Maui and Beyond... Living to Bring him Glory Everyday!

When the NEED seems overwhelming.....

2009-07-05T05:39:00.003-10:00

Hi loves,
I just wanted to give you all a little update on what life has been like here in Cambodia and share a little nugget of what the Lord is teaching me :)

I have loved my time here so far, I am ministering with an organization who helps women out of near by brothels who are victims of human trafficking. The first half of the day I have been assisting this beautiful radical for Jesus girl named Hellen from England who is teaching the girls how to make Jewelry, and the then in the afternoon for about 3-4 hours I am in the prayer room interceding for the ministries prayer requests, and sex slavery in a whole.

This time has truly blessed me spending so much time praying and realizing the importance and weight it carries in our everyday life as a Christian. I love the founder of this organizations heart, because she truly understands the need for prayers, and although she is very busy with the 70 girls working at this place who have come out of the brothels, she will spend hours a day praying for the girls and the city, because it is so foundational for what they are doing; evading the enemies territory, and setting the captives free.

The time in the prayer room has been so sweet, and God has already answered two Huge prayer requests in only a few days! Praise the Lord, he is faithful!

Aside from my time at that ministry, sometimes it can be difficult to hear about the injustices that take place in this country (one being 10,000 CHILDREN are trafficked from Cambodia to other countries a year) and stopping at a red light and kids jumping in our taxi trying to steal our fruit that we just bought because they are starving, having 2 women within 2 minutes ask us to buy milk for their dying children they were holding that have just awful deformities and sicknesses, and watching 5 year olds try to sell you books, flutes or whatever they can to make 50 cents and knowing that is all they know and that they never get to go to school or just be a kid, to watch a mother sleeping on the side of the road with her little baby, while her other little 5 year old girl begs in the street and looking at this little girl knowing the evil in this world, that in a moment she could be snatched up and taken to a brothel. It is hard to walk around and know that there are many brothels with as young as 4 year old children, most of whom are sold by their own parents, it is hard to see the hurt of this country that they endured a horrific genocide (Khmer Rouge) only 30 years ago, in which many people you meet have had multiple family members killed. It's hard to go to the market and they will sell me something that only makes them a 10 cent profit because they believe it will bring them good luck, and if I go away without buying something they have fear that it will be bad luck. It's hard to see a nation that is so hurting, and has so many injustices, and that many don't know the hope that is found through Christ. They don't know his life that he gives.

And I found myself overwhelmed with the NEED here in Cambodia. The need for people to know who Jesus is, for food, shelter, purity, restoration, freedom for all who are oppressed and in captivity, and the list goes on.

The need is very overwhelming, so I asked God to teach me something about that.

And I immediately thought of Jesus, and I said,"Wow Jesus weren't you overwhelmed with the need, so many people saw that you could do miraculous signs and heal their sick, and crowds upon crowds rushed to see you, even busted through a ceiling to lower a guy into the house you were in to heal him, so Jesus how can I not be so overwhelmed with the need."

And the many verses that described Jesus' life here on earth came to me that he says, "I did not come to do my will, but to do the will of my father" and God just spoke to me that Jesus was never overwhelmed because every time the crowds surrounded him he was so attentive to hearing the voice of his father telling him what to do, he was not responding out of the need, but out of compassion from the father heart of God.

And the Lord showed me that I have given up my life to follow him, and so I too want to be like Jesus and when I have 6 little kids tugging on my shirt trying to sell me something, or even begging, the biggest need is to know the will of my father and what he wants me to do.

I really am realizing the weighty importance of truly being led by the Holy Spirit, and that I can't just react out of the need, but to listen to his voice.

Because I would be broke in less than a day if I gave money to every kid I saw begging or selling things. And then I remember what people have said before that:

We are called to love all of God's people. And that love manifests itself in different ways, sometimes is physical healings, giving food, praying for someone, giving financially, or even taking a little girls hand that is begging in the gutter of a street and look her in the eyes and tell her that she is beautiful, and so many other ways.

It is beautiful to know that God is a never ending well of love, and many people would look at this country and say where is God and if he is love why would he let this happen? Well today I spent a good amount of time crying because I heard the voice of the Lord say ,"Why would YOU let this happen?" (you -meaning almost everyone).

I believe in God's power to change a country in a day I really do, but where are the intercessor's to stand in the gap and wage war in the heavenlys to see that happen, where are the lives laid down to pursue a Holy King and watch his heaven come to earth, where are the people who care more about God's heart for his children more than their own welfare, where are the people who will hate injustice as God does and will pursue Holiness.

God is looking for those people.... I want to be one of them... what about you?

YOU SEE DRY BONES, BUT I SEE AN ARMY!

2009-06-23T15:03:00.005-10:00

Many people when they look at the sex Industry they see dry bones, they see a hopeless situation, they see a problem that cannot be solved, they see an issue that is too big for anyone to even try to help. I’m finding fuel is only being added to the fire within me when Foreign men at the bars when I tell them why I’m there say to me laughing,” Well I don’t think your going to stop it, but good luck.” They don’t understand that while they look down these streets of bars and see dry bones, that I look down the same streets and I see an Army.

The reference of scripture I am referring to is Ezekiel 37:1-14 which the put under this in white;

"1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."
4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath [a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

11 Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.' "

There is stil hope for these women, they are not past redemption, they are not too far gone. In fact I talked to a woman yesterday from America who was sexually abused by her father for years when she was young and after hearing her heart for these women here who she came to minister to I said,” Wow I am encouraged by your strength to come down here..” and she finished my sentence and said,” and face the thing that tried to destroy me.”

She told me that when you are sexually abused you feel like everything has been taken from you, your dignity, your innocence, your identity, your self worth, you feel like there is nothing left to be taken from you that has not already been taken, because really what else is there that is yours that hasn’t been taken. You feel dirty, and ashamed.

And I think it's because of those things I’ve heard that’s why I see an army. Because the Bible says where Sin abounds his grace abounds even more, and those who are forgiven much, love much. Well when I look at these women and think about the children in the brothels I do not see right now, I see brokenness, I see people who have experienced hell on earth, that feel empty, that feel like they’ve been stripped of everything that was their own, they are prisoners.

So when they hear of this man named Jesus who doesn’t want to take anything from them, but only wants to give them love and grace, and when they see that he can set them free and they can be filled to the fullness in him, that all of their wounds and brokenness that he heals them and binds up those broken hearts, when they see and experience his Redemptive power and begin to understand the identity that is found in him, and the new life that is nothing like your past.

The extreme opposite of coming from that unbearable darkness of being a victim of sex slavery, and then entering into the Glorious light and freedom that is found in Christ is unfathomable and powerfull when these women come into that light.

So when I walk by the red light ditricts filled with women prostituting themselves, and when I walk past the brothels in Cambodia with 7 and under year old children, it is a valley of dry bones, but the Lord tells me to Prophesy life over them, to not just look in the eyes of darkness and believe that they are never going to be free. But to Cling to the truth of the father who says that he sets the captives free. To remember the power of his love to deliever, and restore people.

My prayer is that when people look at the sex industry and see dry bones that they wouldn’t stay there, but they would hear the voice of the sovereign Lord saying that they are an Army. So lets stand together and prophesy life over these women, men, and children, and watch his love cause revial in the sex industry, and lets watch his power shut down brothels, and his redemption turning these women from Darkness into his Marvelous light!

Men who Engage in Sex Tourism: YOU ARE WORTH MORE!

2009-06-16T19:54:00.002-10:00

It is very common to see many men around the ages of 50-70 years old hand in hand with a 20 something year old Thai Girl here in Pattaya. Before coming here I thought the men just buy women for sex. However I am learning very quickly that it is much more than that. God is showing me his heart for his sons who are engaging in Sex tourism and come here for that reason. I can see that they are very lonely, as I hear stories about these men buying the girls from the bars and take them back to their hotel rooms, and do not have sex but only talk to the girls because they want some company, I see this same thing when I go to the beach and it is full of old white men and young Thai girls, I see this in fancy restaurants, at the mall, at the grocery store, everywhere there are lost, broken, lonely men trying to find happiness in buying friendship and/ or sex from these women.

I was walking a long the beach the other day looking at these couples who hardly know each other but pretending to be the best of friends, and I couldn't help but feel that their whole "relationship" is based on lies. The guys want friendship, love, companionship, pleasure, and sex. But the girls don't really want the guys they want security in the money they get from them. Many girls see foreign men as a way out of the bar "if only he would fall in love with me, he would rescue me from the bar," so its not even that many of them are looking for love, but for a way out.

I asked for Gods heart and he showed me this vision: It was an old man walking up to a Thai girl at the bar and he said to her," 200 Baht" (offering her that amount to go and have sex, of whatever he wants to do) and she looked him in the eye and said," YOU ARE WORTH FAR MORE THAN THAT."

And God spoke to me that it's this idea that these men are selling themselves short. Not because these women are not "hot" enough for them. Or they are paying too much for their "company". I mean that they deserve more than a sexually immoral act of lust with a perfect stranger. They deserve more than a day at the beach with a hired "friend with benefits."

They are selling themselves short to think that what they are doing can truly bring them joy. They are selling themselves short to think that they do not deserve more than that.

Sure they might have pleasure for a day or two, but that is only consistent on how much money they have to buy a certain amount of girls. But I know that God desires more for them, he desires them to know his AGAPE LOVE his pure, divine, perfect love that surpasses knowledge, he desires that they would have joy in the midst of ALL circumstances, he desires that they would have companionship with him.

God has SOOOO much more joy, love, peace, life, and happiness to offer these men, more than they will EVER find in Partying in Pattaya Thailand. And the thing is God's joy and his life and life Abundantly is free :) Tourists, you can take it back to your country, you don't have to leave it here in Pattaya!

Men who engage in sex tourism, I want to tell you that you are worth far more, please don't sell yourself short. God desires to give you life and life abundantly. Would you see that you were created to be sons of the living God. And would you come to know the value that is within you, and would you start to see that same value in his daughters down at the bar. Thank you, and God Bless you!

Bondage

2009-06-11T15:27:00.002-10:00

Hello from Thailand :) I heart you all! I couldn't be happier to be back in the land of smiles. Upon arriving I was told many things that I've tried to not get discouraged about. I was told that I can't really share the full Goespel with the Thai people because I don't understand the culture and things in the Bhuddism religion, that I can only go so far in talking to a Thai person, before I need another Thai person to explain the Gospel. I was told that I might not be able to even speak to the women at the bar most of the time because many do not speak english, and I won't always have a translator, I was told that Thai people take a long time to come to Christ. The main one that really stuck out to me though is when I said the women in the bars are in "sex Slavery" and someone told me no they aren't, they are very much free. And so I asked the Thai staff at the Tamar Center about the girls who work at the bar and if they are under pimps or how this works, because I've read a lot about sex slavery and what someone else told me does not match what I thought was going on here. She said that some women who work in the bars are trafficked, and have pimps, and answer to them, and are definently not free. Apparently years ago the majority of the bars were like this, but the government stepped in to make more like it is today. However the majority of the women come from the northern part of Thailand from extreme poverty, and no one is forcing them to stay, however there are so many cultural aspects to this that many don't know, one huge one being that in the Bhuddist culure the children support their parents financially, so there is a HUGE amount of preasure on these women to provide, and since there are not many jobs they turn to the bars, because there is always work there. It was just hard hearing all of this in the first day I arrived, I guess because I believe almost the opposite of everything I was told, and satan was really trying to attack me, and tell me these women aren't really in bondage if they can leave at any time. And I knew that was a lie, so I asked the Lord what he thought, and he spoke to me,

"Lauren if people do anything other than what I created them to do, they are in bondage, enslaved to something."

For instence, if a man in struggling with looking at porn, he is in bondage to lust. And so maybe the majority of these women don't go home to a pimp and are chained up at night so that they can't leave, but that doesn't mean they aren't in Bondage! They are in a TON of bondage, some including, believing satans lies, that their only hope to leave the bar is that a forienger will fall in love with them and marry them. They are in bondage to provide financially for their families, they are in bondage of still doing a job they don't want to do, but feel that they have to. They are in bondage to greed, because they are offered to come and work for the Tamar center (the ministry I am staying with) but they choose to stay in the bars because they can make more money. They are in bondage to sexually transmitted diseases. They are in bondage because they don't see they are far more valuable than the 200 Baht it costs to buy them for an hour or so. They are in bondage because they don't know the freedom, and life in Christ.

So I don't listen to people when foriengers or anyone else tries to convince me they are free.. I will be the first to say that there is NOTHING that comes close to freedom for those women, and I know that God Wants to set the Captives free! Wheather its hear in Thailand, or people in bondage anywhere to lust, greded, envy, adultery, or anything that goes against what you were created to do. Wow the list could go on and on.

I want to love people to life, I want them to know the freedom that ONLY comes through the father, and I want to be used by him while I am here in Thailand, to set his daughters free. Please continue to pray for that. Thank you! And continue to pray for Cornilia :)

AHHH FREEEEEEEDOM :) PRAISE GOD!

2009-06-06T23:04:00.004-10:00

I stand in Awe of My God. I have the best dad in the whole world! His love surpasses knowledge. Where my sin abounds his grace abounds even more. I could go on forever...

Today I witnessed two miracles.

The first is that God would choose me for such a time as this, to be used for such a beautiful task of bringing his children home to him, and the insane thing that happen today. I once heard someone describe life here on earth as Gods Story and we are merly characters in it, and that God's story WILL be written with or without you. I find this to be true when I here testimonies of Muslim Middle Easterns who have never heard the Gospel comming to know Jesus by seeing him in visions and dreams and completing putting their faith in him without anyone ever telling them about him. I find myself often thanking the Lord that I can be a character in his story. God doesn't have to use me to bring him Glory, but the fact that he does and chooses to use me brings me such joy and I feel honored to do so :)

The second Miracle: AHHHH!! Today I preached at Cornilia's church on how we are rich in God. I've been praying for this day that I would not come with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of Gods power. The Lords presence was so sweet and thick in that church that I only got half way through my sermon before breaking out in tears overwhelmed with Gods love. As I was preaching from Revelations 3:16-18. I was saying that it doesn't work to be luke warm about the Lord, you can't store up earthly treasures and heavenly ones at the same time (earthly treasures- meaning valuing possessions, boyfriends, girlfriends or any other relationship above that of our relationship with Christ.) Vrs. 17 says," You say,'I am rich; I have aquirred wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are poor, you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked." I said to imagine you are standing in front of God on judgement day and you say," Look God at my handsome husband, or beautiful wife, look I have such a nice house and motorbike, I am SOOO RICH!" And then he looks you in the Eyes and says," You think you are rich, but you are poor." He says," You just wasted your life trying to make yourself rich in everything except me. When all along I have been waiting for you to come to me, so that I can give you true riches that will last forever." I asked them to pray, to get on their faces if they have to and ask the Lord if there is anything in their life that is keeping them from being rich in Christ, and repent, and ask the Lord to rip it out of their lives and turn to him so that they can have true riches. I looked into a building full of people weeping, being broken and freed by the Holy Spirit. I myself got on my face and truly realized that there is no other way we can be rich besides in him. Cornilia might be one of the richest women in Indonesia, but right now she is poor, I was on my face intercedding for her, and all the people, I didn't go lay my hands on Cornilia and pray for her, I was believing int he Power of the Holy Spirit to set her free from her merly seeking his heart.

When we got back to her house Cornilia said," Lauren before you and Paulus came I felt empty and lonely, but God spoke to me today at church and he showed me why I felt like this, and it was like I was standing naked in front of him, with all my sin exposed, and I do not want this life anymore. I want to change my life, I want to shut down the brothel , I want to give my heart fully to Jesus, I want to put him first and live for him, I realized that today, and now I have such peace and Joy and I am SO HAPPY, I am SO happy, I am SO HAPPY, Thank You Lauren and Paulus, thank you for praying for me, for loving me, for sharing with me about God, I praise God he brought you guys to me, so that you could help me see him, and know him. I am so greatful, I am so happy, I am so happy now!"

THAT IS THE GOD I SERVE :) HE IS FAITHFUL! HE IS RICH IN LOVE AND MERCY. HE SETS THE CAPTIVES FREE!! AHHHHHH THATS MY DAD :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) PRAISE AND GLORY TO HIM FOREVER AND EVER!!!!!

I can't stop smiling thinking about Gods love, that AHHH he would bring me here and set up this crazy divine appointment to minister to Cornilia, that his heart was to show her how much he loves her, and through that she wanted to change and set the women in prostitution free in her home. AHHHHHH JESUS!!! I LOVE YOU :) I LOVE YOUR HEART FOR YOUR CHILDREN! AHHH!!

Get this, not only is she shutting down the brothel, but with the money she had made she is going to send the women in prostitution that were living there to learn how to cut hair, and she is going to turn the basement where they once had lots of couches for men to drink and party before having sex, into a hair salon, and she is going to stop selling alocohol, and sell other food instead. Her heart is to share with the women at her house how much the Lord loves them too.

WOW honestly that is the power of the Holy Spirit to change her heart SO dirastically within the 2 weeks that I've known her. She has COMPLETELY done a 180 and myself nor Paulus take any of the credit for that, we can't stop Praising the Lord for his faithfulness! :) :) :)

I thank you also my brothers and sisters for standing with us in prayer for Cornilia!! AHH they've made the difference. Please do not stop praying for her, as she will face much persecution for her choice on shutting down the brothel and for her faith as she also lives in a village where there are few Christians, and mostly Muslims, please continue to pray that she would be rooted and grounded in his word, able to stand up against any temptation to go back to making "easy money" by prostituting. Pray that she continues to grow in the love of Christ and she will be used powerfully to reach the people of her village. Pray that her plan for opening a salon will go well, and for the women who were working in prostitution that they would know the love of Christ, pray purity over them, healing from sexually transmitted diseases, and strength for this time of transition.

Thank you God for you love, and your faithfulness :) I stand in Awe of you

OH IT'S ON SUNDAY!

2009-06-03T18:27:00.003-10:00

I wake up every morning and honestly just feel blessed to be here. I love God and how he truly does grant us the desires of our hearts, he knew my heart was to come here to love people in S.E. Asia and share about him, and I am blessed that he has providing AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL people in my life to support me financially, through encourgament, and through prayers. Honestly you guys mean so much to me, and I appreciate all your support more than you know :)

I want to update you on a few things. I am also so blessed by this family I am staying with, they are so pure in heart and God is teaching me a lot throught them. Paulus is aweomse, he told me that since they have a lot to do for the children during the day, sometimes he doesn't have time to have a time for just him and Jesus to spend time, and so he prayed and told God," God please make time so that I can fellowship with you." So listen to this, God wakes him up like clockwork at 1am in the morning, and he makes tea, and goes on the balcony to pray for 2 hours until 3am. No alarm clock, no dragging him out of bed, he was so joyful when God started doing this, because he enjoys his fellowship, and is so happy that its not interupted, and just time alone with him (except when I wake up to go to the bathroom, and he scares me so bad, haha b/c I forget he is out side.)

Anywho I told you this because he told me this morning, " Lauren God told me when I prayed last night that you are a farmer, that last time you came to Asia you saw the grain and you planted the crops, but this time it is harvest time, and your first fruits of your labor will be Cornilia." I started crying (well I've been doing that a lot here haha) but I was crying because I was so overwhelmed with Gods love, and the honor it is to be used by him. And his love that he knows me heart, because that is it, it is to Love him and to call his children home. I could think of no greater joy or privledge in my life but to be used by the living God to share about his love an grace and to see his children turn from their sin and run into his arms.

I was asked by the pastor of the church Cornillia goes to to preach there Sunday. And after church I think Paulus, Cornillia, and I are going to meet for one last time, because I am leaving Monday morning to go to Kuching.

I asked the Lord what to preach on and he said to teach what it means to be rich in him. I haven't written or even really started but I think I am going to talk about we are rich because of our identity in Christ, his love for us, and lastly we are rich when we store up our treasures in heaven and don't try to hoard things here on earth.

I would ask you brothers and sisters to continue to pray and stand with me, to pray into the word that God gave Paulus, to speak life into it that Cornillia would turn back to him, and set the captives free. I know by seeing her yesterday and talking a little bit when her and the pastors came to ask me to preach that she hasn't been praying, and taking this seriously, that we truly need an act of God to change her mind. The Love of Christ to break through into her heart. At the end of my sermon I'm going to ask everyone to take as long as they need to get on their knees and pray and ask the Lord if there is anything in their life that is holding them back from beiong rich in him, and having life and life abudantly, and please pray with me that the Holy Spirit would fall so heavy ont these people and that they would strip away those things that are hindering them. Pray that Cornillias eyes would be opened to why she can't be rich in him, and pray that the Holy Spirit would come in his truth and power, and set her free. My tittle says "Oh it's on Sunday" becuase I am believing God for HUGE things, I'm believeing God can and will change peoples hearts, and esp. Cornilia that through God speaking to her, she would leave her life of earthly riches and sin, and would turn to be rich in her heavnly father, and that through her changing the women she keeps in her house that are prostituting themselves., that they would be set free as well, and know how much they are loved and vaulued. Brothers and sisters will you please stand with me? Thank you :) I love you!

Update on Cornilia!

2009-05-28T23:00:00.004-10:00

Hi loves, ok first of all let me apologize for the bad spelling this key board is very hard to type on. Oh and If you don't know what I'm taling about int this Blog read "Set the Captives free" oh and please read the one about the Orphanage :)

Ok so the day we were going to visit Cornilia the Lord woke me up at 3am and told me that when we get there we need to fist pray and cast out some demons and evil spirits from her, because they aren't letting her make this decession. And I konw that sounds weird to some of you, but its Def. in the Bible that ppl were demon possesed, and Jesus and his followers cast out many of them. Its not talked about a lot today though in church, I think it was Dammon Thompson that said sacrastically that apparently," people stopped being demon possesed when Mega Churches started."

ANYwho we got there and it was just Paulus, Cornilia and myself and Paulus and I prayed for her, and during it, I asked God what he wanted to say to his daughter, and he said for me to tell her that," when you were little maybe you didn't feel good enough, but God wants to tell you that you've always been good enough, that your his daughter and he loves his daughter so much." and I fought back with God in my head and said that doesn't really have anything to do with her letting the women in prostitution go, and her shutting down the brothel, but God said to say it, so I did. And right when Paulus finished translating it, she Broke, and starting Balling, and for the next hour and a half proceeded to tell us all about her childhood and the way her parents treated her, and that she has so much anger and bitterness towards them, we were able to minister to her about forgiveness, and although she opened her heart finaly, she is very stubborn and she is the sweetest person ever and so giving and loving, but she has this heart of stone, and every time we went there its like she made so light of everything we were saying, and so I know God broke in when she started crying and opened some of her heart, and although she said she felt like right now she doesn't want to forgive her parents, I know Holy Spirit is going to work on her heart. The Lord also told me that because we she grew up she was very poor, and he said that Now she is trying to create an opposite life from her Childhood, by having all these nice things, and its not bad to have nice things, but the Lord says that because the root of why you wanted this life is anger and bitterness from your parents that your life is not fruitfull and joyful, also becuse of how you acheieved this life (by holding women in sex slavery). This took so much time to talk about and I was curious to hear her decession, but on the way over there I was praying and felt like she hasn't been praying or taking this seroiusly, and sure enough when we asked if the Lord spoke to her all she said was ,"not yet." Paulus really encouraged her to pray and press in because we all feel like there is a grace right now for her to make this decession and we are here for her 100 percent, but were only comming back to visit once more (b/c its so far away and expensive, and we felt like since she knows I'm here until June 8th she thinks she can just wait it out and we'll just keep comming back) but yeah, so please continue to Pray for Cornilia, we aren't sure when were going to meet up again, but please pray the weight of this would hit her, and she would choose life, and freedom, and that she would almost have like a quickening to choose this, and that we wouldn't even have to meet her to talk, but before we do she would call Paulus and tell her she has choosen to shut down the brothel. Thanks so much for your prayers!

In other news;
I uploaded the wrond picture, haha but its supposed to show you that the past 2 days, we've been working hard to knock down all 3 of the walls down stairs to re-build a room for the 5 new Orphans comming in June, were still praying in Support (if You'd like to know more about the Orphanage, plz read previous blog)

After a hard day of work, or just any time of the day. the best way to spend 10 cents is to buy Mango Juice in a bag, its Def. from the Lord :)
AHHH I love these kids, they are AmAzInG :) and insanely Halarious!

Orphanage in Indonesia!

2009-05-27T15:35:00.009-10:00

So can I just take a minute to brag on how good God is, and what he is doing in Indonesia, and the Amazing Sons and daughters he has here. As many of you know I'm here in Indo to help my friend Paulus and Riyanie with their Orphanage. But I didn't know much about what they actually do until I got here, but I'd love to share with you.

They have had the desire to start an Orphanage for 7 years! But they never felt released to start it because of finances, and other things the Lord spoke. But over a year ago God spoke to them in Crazy visions to start it, and go on faith that God would provide everything. When Paulus emailed me this winter and all he said was "Please pray we don't have money for Food." It spoke to me so much that he never asked for money, only for prayer because he trusts God SO much to provide all their needs.

I was woken up the first morning at 5am by the children singing praises to Jesus, they wake up every morning to read the Bible, pray, and sing praises before they go to school. The Children are SO SO SO BEAUTIFUL they are so loving, and they don't have hardly any toys and when I brought some for them all they could do was share with the neighbors and give their brand new toys to other kids who don't have any to play with. They help around the house sweeping, and cooking, and they are always singing to God :) its so beautiful! They also have a meeting every nigth at 7-8pm where they have a Bible study and sing. And the night I came, during this time they called it "Thanksgiving night" and all they did was Praise God that he answered their prayers that one day I would come to Indo, and also Praising him that I made it there safetly. These children are loved by the Lord and the Kause family with such a selfless love. Paulus told me that here most people since its so poor they always think about if they had money they would buy a motor bike, or bigger house, he said ," But all we can think of is Gods heart for the Orphans and taking more in if we had the money."

Heres the thing though. Like I said they have 7 children right now, and 5 more comming in June. But the Orphanage is not finished, and there is no room or bed for the 5 Orphans who are comming! And they have no money to finish it! The Amazing thing about this Orphanage is that they have a vision to be self sustaining, they built a fish farming pond, and have a dream to make a garden too, so that they can support themselves and maybe even sell some at the market. But they can't do this unless they are all finished with everything. The Orphanage is built to house 50 kids or more, and Paulus knows a lot more children that they could help but they can't because they don't have enough money for food to feed them without having the building done to house them, and without the garden and fish farming pond to provide food.

I've been so blessed by being able to sow into this ministry, Paulus showed me around the Orphanage and said," We almost stopped building here, but then you and your friends sent money and look at what you bought." And honestly it is so beautiful because I don't just see wood, I see children being loved, having food, maybe not having a boilogical living father, but comming to a place where they can know their heavenly father, and be loved by Paulus and Riayanie.

So we need help, we need God to provide so that we can finish everything before June, and be able to finish so that more orphans can come to live there. If you want to give we would appriate it SO much! I know my support letter said Paulus only neede 2,000 more dollars, but we sat down last night and figured out that to finish everything will be $3,000. And while I am here I want to help with as much physical labor as possible because by doing that we save money on workers, and so yesterday we worked hard ALL day to finish the fish pond, and it can holy 2,000 fish, but now we just need ,money for the fish. And Tommorow we are going to start making the room for the next 5 children comming, and then my goal is to make the garden too. Its so expensive to pay so many people to work, and Paulus cannot do it by himself. I'll explain more in the pictures.

If you want to give please send check payable to me to my house (the info is on my letter I sent everyone, and if you need that info please Email me at LaurenLynn08@hotmail.com The check is made out to me because I usually wire transfer the money to Paulus' bank account, and my mom will put the checks in my account and transfer it here!

Please consider helping us, even if you give up a starbucks and give $5 that helps to much because that is 50,000 Rupiahs, and with that we could either pay a worker for part of the day, buy 5 fish, buy vedgtables for the chidlren for one day. Any amount will help tremendously!! Thanks So much for standing with us in Prayer, and support as we rush to finish this for the children by the time I leave in June. :) Love you guys! (and please read the blog before this one)

All the children and I being silly. They are wearing the new clothes that many of you donated, and loved them very much and wanted to say THANK YOU :)
This is the boys room right now. Paulus saw bunk beds for the first time in the YWAM Thailand base, and thought they were the coolest things ever and wanted to make for the chidlren
Its hard to see with the lighting, but this is where we would plan the garden
Paulus and I working hard on what I call the "fish pond". The Indonesian workers were laughing and making jokes saying ," Paulus you brought a construction worker all the way from America" haha
Tommorrow we are going to knock down this wall, and rebuild it, so tha we can make a good room for the new children comming in June.
This is the new building (the Orphanage) one side of it anyways, there is a lot to do still with making the walls and the floors
The right side of this building is the house where they saty right now, and the left side is the new part of the building for the Orphans built to house over 50 kids!

Thanks again for your support!! Oh please read the blog before this one! Its CraZy what God is doing!Love you all! God Bless!

LORD PLZ SET THE CAPTIVE FREE!

2009-05-27T15:20:00.002-10:00

All I can say is the Lord Def. had bigger plans than I did comming to Indonesia.
Paulus met me at the border of Malaysia and Indo, and while we were waiting for immigration, he told me that we might stop at his friends house Cornillia on the way home to pray and talk with her. He told me that she called him today and insisted that we come pray for her because she is sick. Then Paulus procedded to tell me that she has a huge house that she built so that she can have women prostitute themselves in it. I guess she used to prostitute herself, and she saw how much money she could make, so then she bought this huge house and found women to do the same, and now basically she is a brothel owner and a pimp to many women who stay there. I broke down crying at the immigration counter, because it was so heavy on me the God wants to set the captives free. So we went to her house. And it seriously is the nicest and largest house I've seen in Indonesia, and what happends is she also sells alchohol, so the men come at night and even during the day to drink and have sex. Cornillia is beautiful, and she knows God she acutally did a DTs which really break my heart. And I could write for hours on all the things we said to her. But basically Holy Spirit came in his Power and Love and we were able to speak truth to her. OOOHH when we got there I asked how she is sick, and she said its not Physical but its in her mind she feels sick and has bad thoughts! And I am like NUHH UHH!!! JESUS!! I was like OK look you feel like this because your inviting Evil into your house, and God wants to show you how much he loves you by setting you free from this but he will do this WHEN you set the women free that you have here thats the way its going to go down (thats what God told me to say). Because she will never have freedom, while she is keeping women in bondage! A few things she is scared of is loosing her nice house and possesions, and also she thinks that maybe if she had a husband then she would stop this bussiness, and O had lots to say bout both of those thing haha.. but basically what it came down to, is I said Look God is telling you that you need to make a choice, you can't have only one foot in and one foot out any more! You need to choose to stop what your doing and allow God to heal you! And she said that is too hard of a decession to make at this moment because she said once she makes a decession she never wants to go back to the previous one, and I said that is Awesome! and She said she needs a few days tp pray, and so we have given her three days and have been waring and praying for her ever since, and we will go back today, in a few hours actually, so PLEASE pray that she chooses freedom! AHH this is so heavy, I really need you guys to pray with me! What hurts my heart the most is that right before you go down the stairs into the brothel ther are two HUGE pictures of Jesus, and uhh also I saw first hand the Government complacency with the sex trade, because while we were talking to her 3 customers came for sex. 2 out of the 3 were police men. Please pray, and thank you so much for standning with me in this, I will update you as soon as possible! Love you all!

Off to a bumpy start, but still Smiling :)

2009-05-22T17:23:00.002-10:00

Hi Loves,
I finally made it to Kuching Malaysia. Things didn't go as smooth as planned. a few of those include, my plane being delayed over 2 hours, therefore causing my to SPRINT through Hong Kong airport with a mask over my mouth for the swine Flu they wanted everyone to wear one (thats very hot to run with one of those things on lol just to let you know). Praise the Lord I just made my connection flight, but since it was such a close call when I got to Kuching my bag did not make it. Then the person who was picking me up was over an hour late and I didn't even know what she looked like so I was a little stressed.. But its all good she found me :) And then we just found out that I can't get my Indonesia Visa for 2 more days because they aren't open on the weekends, so my trip there was delayed.. and then last night at their house they said they have mmisquito and rat problems, and I didn't have any bug net, andOh my some people know how affraid of Rats I am, so I was rebuking fear for a while before I got a good night sleep. ALL that to say I am Still Thankful :) I am very thankful that the Lord has everything under control and that he called me to be here. I am having SO much fun, in the airport I got to share the Gospel with a Ch!nese man, and also on the airplane a women who had NEVER heard Anything bout Jesus before! AHH its fun to talk about how Good the Lord is, and I am excited for the many more people he has divine appoitments for me to share who he is with them :) I just love Asians and God's heart for these countries, I'm excited to learn from them, I'm reading a book about how this women moved into the slums just to learn about the Kingdom of God from the poor. I know God wants to teach me so much this summer, I want to and am excited to learn. I want to know how to Love him better, and how to love his people :) So Until Monday I will remain in Kuching, then head out Monday to Indonesia! I'll have internet in Indo, so I'll updat this soon! (sorry its bad spelling though, this key board is difficult). Oh fun little nugget for the day, here in Kuching you can get a hamburger bun with a scoop of Icecream in it. lol I asked why, and they said Ice cream is too lite, so they need to add rice, or bread so that it can actually fill you up.. I thought that was a fun little nugget :) ok Love you guys! Thanks for your prayers!

Returning to S.E. Asia this summer!

2009-05-17T18:00:00.003-10:00

It's hard to imagine that around a year after I fell in love with Jesus, and because of that I loved his people in S.E. Asia that I would be returning there yet again :)

This Summer I have the privledge and honor to love Gods people in Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia, and I'd like to share with you a little about my trip. Some of you might have recieved this letter, but I'm putting it up here just in case :)

Hi Beautifuls,

Since you are loved ones to me and an important part of my life I would like to update you on the excitng summer comming up, and ask you for your prayer and support as I enter onto the overseas mission field this summer to advance his kingdom :)At the end of May I will be traveling back to the beautiful island of Borneo, and will be meeting up with my Indonesian translator (Paulus) from the two months we were there with YWAM in 2008. From the time we left, Paulus has been faithful to Gods call for him to start the only known Orphanage on that island of Indonesia (which is one of the poorest islands of the 17,000 Indonesian Islands). Paulus has a deep love for the 8 orphans in his home right now, and has a vision to house up to 50 in the orphanage he is building. The goal is to finish the orphanage by June when he is expecting 10 more children. However due to finances Paulus is unable to finish the orphanage without peoples support. I’ve been blessed to sow into his ministry because God has shown me that Paulus is the Church in Indonesia, to these orphans, to this Muslim nation, he is an amazing brother in Christ trying to be obedient to the Lord and showing love to whoever comes in contact with him. I will be heading to Indonesia for 2 and a half weeks to help build and finish the orphanage (praying for finances to be able to do so), prepare it for the children to move in, love and hang out with the children, encourage and love Paulus and his wife and maybe help them learn some more English, and spend time loving Jesus and learning more of his mysteries in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

On the 9th of June I will travel to Thailand where I plan to spend the next 5 weeks. (one and a half in Cambodia as well) God has shown me his heart for women in prostitution and has called me to love them, bring freedom physically and spiritually, healing and restoration that only comes through the power of the Holy Spirit and being God’s hands and feet to these women. The Lord has given me vision for this trip to travel around Thailand and link arms with brothers and sisters in Christ and their ministries reaching out to those in sex slavery. He has shown me that I can come and first of all learn from their beautiful hearts and the vision God has given them to reach these women, men, and children. I also want to come and serve these ministries in any way I can. And Lastly I believe I am supposed to come along side of them this summer and minister to the sons and daughters of God in Thailand. I believe through doing these things the Lord has told me, he will release his freedom, people will come to know him, and his love will be shown to that many more Thais living in oppression. I also believe God wants to show me more of his heart for this country and lead me more into partnering with the fathers heart in prayer for this country even when I come back home. Along with bar ministry, I will also be ministering to people in the slums, prisons, as well as possibly some orphanages in Thailand.I would love for you guys to stand in agreement with me on this trip that Gods kingdom would come and the captives will be set free.

I would very much appreciate your prayer support during this time.I am also trusting God for another $1,000 to cover the rest of my traveling expenses. And since our God can do exceedingly more than all we can ask or Imagine, I am trusting that God will not only provide the $1,000 for my expenses, but he will also provide the $2,000 Paulus needs to finish his orphanage.If you would like to support me financially (even if it is for Paulus, I will/ always wire transfer money through my bank account) Please E~mail me for more information. Thank you so much again, and I look forward what God has planned for this trip, and I am blessed by knowing that you will be praying for me : )May God Bless you,~Lauren

In a Nut Shell- May 20th - June 9th= Borneo Indonesia helping Paulus with Orphanage and loving OrphansJune 9th- July 14th= Traveling Thailand ministering to Women in Prostitution, people in slums, and prisons.Financial needs- $1,000 for the rest of my traveling expenses. $2,000 to help finish Paulus’ Orphanage.

Trip to Thailand Cancelled

2008-12-03T15:22:00.002-10:00

Hi loves,
As many of you may have already heard my trip to Thailand from December 4th- 22nd has been cancelled. This is due to the political crises that has been going on in Bangkok, Thailand for months. There is an anti-government group called the PAD (Peoples alliance for Democracy) and last Tues (November 25th) 5,000 of them came and sieged the airport in Bangkok, forcing it to close down. They did this because for months they have been protesting asking for the Prime Minister to resign, because they think he is corrupt ( I'm confused about the details as to why they think this) but they started out having peaceful protests among the anti and pro Govt. Well then some turned into riots, and many were injured and a few died. However the airport protest was by far the biggest/ boldest thing they have done! Since the 3 billion dollar Bangkok Airport is the only international airport in Thailand, closing it down has stopped the largest money making industry for Thailand, which is their tourism, and it also stranded around 350,000 tourists trying to leave Thailand. The Thai people have lost millions of dollars from having this airport closed, and many have cancelled their trips to Thailand for upcoming dates, due to the un-rest. Finally after a week of no inbound or outbound flights, the Govt. called a court hearing yesterday (Dec 2nd) in which they kicked the Prime Minister out of office, and banded him from politics for 5 years. They said they had no other choice considering they did not want to use force to get the protesters out of the airport because they knew it would turn bloody, as the main leader of the PAD (anti- govt.) said," We will fight till death for this." Since the govt. gave them what they wanted by dismissing the prime minister, the 5,000 protesters left the airport yesterday. However because of the extreme damage this protest has caused the airports flight schedule, the Bangkok airport in which I was supposed to be flying into said it would not be returning to regular flight schedules until December 15th. Since that is more than half of my trip cancelled, and my contacts that live in Thailand advised me to just reschedule as its not a good time to come with the unknown of what can happen each day with the political turmoil. So long story short, I will not be leaving for Thailand tomorrow, I cancelled my plane ticket and will be staying here in FL.

This all sounds like a bummer, but on the contrary, I am still very happy, and have such peace about what happened! Because I know that the Lord is still in control, and that he has a perfect time for me to go to Thailand, and I will be praying for when that is. But as all of this has happened, the Lord has taught me SO much, in which I am So thankful for, and I want to share a few little nuggets of what he showed me.

Whether the airport opened up or not before I was suppose to go, my parents had some un-ease about letting me go there right now. And when talking it over with an awesome friend who is living for the Lord, he encouraged me that I need to honor my parents in their decision. And not just honor them in this decision, but to live a lifestyle of honor, not only to my parents, but to all of those people who are in authority over me, and submit to them. Which I'll admit is a struggle for me, especially when I feel the Lord has put something so strongly on my heart.

But I love what the Bible says about this in Hebrews 13:17, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. "

And I think a lot of time when we hear the word submission we think its a bad thing, and even get an attitude thinking that we know better about how to handle situations in our life, better they than do, or we think we can better decide what the next step in our life, rather than submit it to God. And my question is where did we get this from? Where did our society loose the high priority of what it means to honor your parents and those in authority and submit to them? Where did I loose that concept?

I can honestly say we didn't get that from Jesus. When I read the Bible I am in Awe of how beautiful submission really is. Jesus lived his life in such humbleness and submission to the Father that being GOD himself came to earth and said,"I am not here to do my will, but the will of him who sent me." He says that he doesn't even speak on his accord but ONLY what the father tells him to say. There's so many verses that talks about Jesus submitting to the Father, but one really good one that sums it up is John 14:31" But the world must learn that I love the father, and that I do exactly what my father has commanded me." Ahh that's so awesome, and Beautiful, and man when I realized how I had yes submitted my life to God, but hadn't submitted to my parents, I just repented and asked forgiveness from the Lord, because that's not how he has called us to live.

I've been asking for more of the Lords heart for Thailand, and these women in prostitution, and wow the Lord has been faithful to reveal how his heart is longing for these women to be set free from the bondage their in, but to also know him, and the love he has from them. And God really spoke to me, that," ok Lauren now you know a bit of my heart for Thailand and the change I want to see there, but what are you going to do about it?" Because if I just focus on the lie, and the darkness that this country is in, and the horrible treatment these women receive then pondering on that lie is all its going to be. But I can't do that, I can't know the fathers heart and not do anything about it. I need to speak and pray life over Thailand, PURITY, HOLINESS, Revival, Agape love to be shown over there, Peace, and anything else the Lord shows me. Because I've learned that its SOOOO important that when he lays something on your heart PRAY into to it!! Fast, pray, get on your face and ask for Mercy! Because although I can't physically go to Thailand right now, I have faith that the Lord is hearing my prayers and is moving in Thailand because his promises are true and his word says ," If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." And It also says that," the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective." So God just really taught me to be obedient to keep praying for Thailand and the things he's shown me, because he is looking for someone to stand in the gap and pray for the things that break his heart, he says,"I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none." There's no point in singing the lyrics of the song Hosanna, "Break my heart for what breaks yours." if we don't Act upon what he breaks our hearts for! As for me, I don't want to be caught sleeping when he's asked me to pray!

Patience, and persistence is another thing the Lord taught me. Because although I would love to not just visit Thailand right now, but I'd love to move there, I know there's a time of preparation before that, and even though my trip got cancelled I need to keep praying about Thailand, and reading books about women in prostitution,and how I can better minister to them, Studying his word, I need to research Buddhism and be able to tell them how Christianity differs from that, and be able to explain why it is the truth. B/c I personally think that it would be very arrogant to go over there and tell people what they believe is wrong, but not be able to tell them why. So although I've already been doing these things, as I await on the Lords perfect timing to go back to Thailand I will keep praying for the country and whatever the Lord leads regarding it, and while preparing asking him how he can most effectively use me there.

There is a lot more, but I also just wanted to write on here and say thank you for all your prayer support!! I really appreciate it!! And for all those who financially supported me, I am So grateful as well, and I will be making a separate bank account, and putting all the donated money into it, and won't touch it, until the Lord gives me the dates to re-schedule my trip, and will use it for my next trip to Thailand! Thanks again you guys for all the support you've shown me for YWAM and for this trip, I am truly blessed to have the friends and family that I do! God Bless, and I'll keep you all updated on here :)

Be Intolerant!

2008-11-29T17:07:00.002-10:00

As I have been preparing to go to Thailand to minister to the women in prostitution, I’ve been reading this book with straight up facts, statistics, and research about prostituted, abused, and trafficked women. It’s breaking my heart to read how these women have been physiologically, physically, and emotionally abused, and broken. So lately I’ve been wondering where the world gets the idea that prostitution is a victimless crime? And furthermore, where does the world get that sexual immorality is fun and has no consequences physically, or spiritually?

Well there are a lot of different reasons I believe, but one that sticks out to me recently that I want to share my heart about. Which is, what we fill our minds with watching T.V.Last night I turned off the movie my family was watching, and noticed that Grey’s Anatomy was on T.V.

Since I have not watched T.V. in almost a year, and I will admit that I used to be OBSESSED with Grey’s, I figured I’d watch it for 5 minutes to see what the world is communicating to people through this show these days. I was repulsed by this scene-Christina had to get stitches, a ‘hot’ army guy she has never met before comes in stitches her up, they flirt in the meantime. After he is done, he walks over to the closed door of the hospital room, closes the blinds walks over to Christina and w/ out a word lunges at her, and they start making out passionately for a good 10 seconds, then they pull away and Christina says, “ I don’t even know you.” And the hot army guy goes,” That’s ok,” Smiles as her, turns and re-opens the blinds and walks through the door. So what I learned from Grey’s is you don’t have to know a person to engage sexually with them. And the thought that burned in my mind after watching that is women in prostitution who are used for their body night after night, with multiply men a night. And I could just picture a man starting to engage sexually with a woman and her crying out on the inside and even verbally ,” YOU DON”T EVEN KNOW ME!” and the man says,” that’s ok, I don’t have to. That’s not what I’m interested in.” Which makes sense that people could think its hot, sexy, and even romantic to start making out with a person you don’t know, I mean cause it was SO hot on Grey’s anatomy, why wouldn’t it be different in real life right?

In this book I’m reading it says that many men engage in prostitution mostly because they have a misconception of what it really is, thanks to the media and myths about rape and prostitution that make peoples attitudes to consider sexual violence as normal.

Again where are we getting these lies, that devalue a pure relationship, that say sexual immorality, and lust is ok? Where does it begin?

Apparently at a very young age-I recently took my little Sister (w/ the big bro big sis program, not Leslie haha) to see High School Musical 3, and although many would proclaim for it to be a “cute movie” I sat there in utter disgust, and wondering why on the earth Vanessa Hudgens wore the shortest dresses and high heals everyday to school to dance around, to the point where you could see her underwear when she would dance. And why did Zac Efron have to change and take off his shirt in the middle of one of his songs, other than for girls to lust over his body? I mean seriously isn’t this movie for little kids? I’m confused is that what kids are after these days? Do they really want to see Vanessa’s long legs because she wears short dresses, and are 10 year old girls going to see Zac efrons body? Well I know my 12 year old little sister wasn’t going there to see that. So my question is why would we start putting that junk into movies that kids are susceptible to think that it’s ok to reveal your body, and intentionally where less clothes to get boys, or girls attention? Or even when they get older and watch Grey’s Anatomy, Sex and the City, Nip tuck etc. that shows its fun to chase after men, its ok to lust after their bodies, and its perfectly normal to engage in sexual immoral relationships with someone you don’t even know, don’t worry there’s no consequences.

These are only 2 examples of things on T.V. and on movies, I could go on forever, but my whole reason is to say why are we filling our minds with this junk? And letting our little sisters and brothers, friends, and family indulge in shows that degrade women and men and call is sexual humor? You might say well Lauren it’s a good show, it only has a few sexual lines/scenes, only a few crude phrases, and a couple swear words a show. My response is no it’s still Crap! And my example is cheesy and I heard it in YWAM, but imagine if your mom just made you homemade brownies, and puts them right in front of you fresh out of the oven, and they smell so good and your so hungry, and right before your about to reach for one she says,” Just to let you know these brownies are baked with chocolate chips, fudge, peanut butter chips, Oh and I mixed in a little dog poop with it! But don’t worry its only like 1%, everything else is very good, dig in!” Would you still eat the 1% dog crap brownies? In the same way would you really take your time to watch a show or movie that might only have 1% of crap in it. Although its only one percent, it reminds me of 1 Corinthians 5:1,”Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?” So what do we do? Verse 7 says,” Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast…” Christians the rest of the verse says,” as you already are.” You’ve been made a new by Jesus therefore, don’t try to bring the old junk into your new life, don’t bring the crap into your brownies, and one way to be intolerant of what you watch, esp. in front of other people as it could cause a brother to stumble, or even yourself.

Christ followers, or not I challenge you to think about what Your watching on T.V. these days and how it edifies and builds up yourself, and other people?

As for me-“ I will set before my eyes no vile thing: The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me.” –Psalms 101:3

Love you all!

Returning to Thailand in a month! :)

2008-11-09T04:35:00.006-10:00

Dear Friends and Family,
I’m excited to tell you about my upcoming mission trip to Thailand :) The Lord is leading me back to Thailand for my second time to minister to the women in prostitution. I am going December 4th through the 22nd to the city of Pattaya to one of the biggest red light districts in Thailand. Out of the 70,000 people who live in Pattya 20,000 girls and women are involved in prostitution. Although its registered population is only 70,000 people, Pattaya has as many as 2 million tourist visitors each year, in which it is estimated 70% of male tourists engage in prostitution.

The women in prostitution sell themselves for around 500 Baht ($8 USD) a night. These women are in prostitution for many different reasons, some include them being trafficked from another country, forced to sell their bodies to pay back a debt to the person who trafficked them. Most women are from impoverish parts of Thailand, and either by their choice or their parents, move to the cities and enter prostitution to provide money for their families back home. A few women we met believed a foreign man would come and fall in love with her, and rescue her from prostitution and they’ll return to his country. An alarming amount of women have been abused in their past making them more vulnerable to further exploitation.

My heart is to not only see these women set free from the bondage of a job they do not want to be in, but to more importantly tell them about the freedom that is only found in our savior Jesus Christ.

I will be working with organization YWAM, which I recently went to Thailand, Borneo, and Maui with. In Pattaya the ministry they have to reach the women in prostitution is called the Tamar Center. They go down to the bars, and build relationships with the girls, and invite them back to free English class. In the classes they offer them a way out of prostitution by providing jobs for them in baking, card and jewelry making, and hairdressing. At the same time they receive Bible teaching and counseling. They are being prepared to return to Thai society in a way that reaffirms their dignity and self- worth. (please see http://www.ywamthai.org/ for more info)

I would like to ask you to please pray for God to really use me to reach these women on this trip, because I cannot do it on my own strength, I need him to lead me and to show me how to show these women his love, who he is, and what he has done for them. Please also pray for the women, and men who are involved in prostitution.

If God is leading you to help me in the financial aspect of this trip, it would also be greatly appreciated as it will be around $2,000 ($1, 600 for airfare alone) As I have been working, doing fundraisers, and telling you all about my trip I am trusting that the Lord will provide everything I need financially.
Thank You very much, and may God Bless you,
Love in Christ,
~Lauren

Please email me at LaurenLynn08@hotmail.com if you would like to financially supoport me, so I can give you more info. Also please don't hesitate to ask any more questions. And I would love to invite you guys to continue to check out my blog as I will be updating it while in Thailand, and when I get back as well. Love you all! God Bless!

Camp!

2008-09-09T08:15:00.005-10:00

I went to Camp for a week about an hour and a half north of New York City, and I absoultely LOVED it! This camp is for families affected by HIV and AIDS, for the kids its a regular summer camp (in fact most of them don't even know that either they, or one of their family memebers has HIV or AIDS) and for the parents/gaurdians that come its a time for them to learn more about how to live better with this illness, and they have counselors, and social workers who help them, and even sometimes at camp, the campers are disclosed to (meaning they are told about the status of HIV or AIDS in them or their family) I learned a lot about people living with this illness and just how people keep it so hidden, and how these parents are trying to give their children the best life possible, but sometimes they think the best way is to keep it a secret that they are dying or even that their child is dying and they live with that burden, and its heartbreaking to see but man these people are just SO beautiful!

This Camp was not a Christian camp it was actually a very diverse place where many people are gay, there are many different religions, races, and lifestyles. And I Loved it! I loved it because these people were seriously SO beautiful, loving and excepting of everyone, and God taught me a lot through that.

He taught me that I need to stop looking at people who are without a personal relationship with him, to stop looking at those people and immediately think, "ok you need Jesus."

And its really sad that I even got to that point in my life, because yes in essence it is true that people without Jesus don't know the life and life abundantly that he gives, they don't have eternal life through him, and yes they do need Jesus to have that. But its sad that immediately after meeting someone who isn't living for Christ, I was thinking, "ok you need to change,"and that is judging them.

And the Lord just spoke to me that," Lauren this is Not how I veiw people who don't know me, I wouldn't say, Hi ok you need to change! No I persue them with my love and I am calling you to do the same!"

In fact Jesus was a perfect example of that while he walked the earth, he hung out with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the "sinners", the people who persecuted them, the sick, and he just loved on them, he would go to their houses when no one else would. And when he saw these people, when he saw crowds of people who did not know him the Bible says that, " He had COMPASSION on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:36)

And the Lord just showed me that yeah even though my heart breaks for the lost, I wasn't loving them the way Jesus does, because if I would've been, then I would love them unconditinally right when I met them, and would make no judgements on their lives.

The Holy spirit convicted and showed me that to be like Christ, to actually see change in peoples lives I would need to repent and stop judging people, and instead have COMPASSION on them, look at them through Gods Eyes, look at how Christ treated the lost, and persue them with Christs Love, because his love is perfect, and beautiful :)

And We love because he first loved us!

So may I love the lost like Jesus does, and always have compassion towards them and through this may they see Christ in me and may they know this love that surpasses all knowledge, that the Lord has for them!
Beautiful camp grounds (I would put up more pics but do to privacy I can't put any up with the families)

We Love camp! You get to dress up in costumes all week!

Testimony from YWAM

2008-08-13T14:12:00.003-10:00

My sisters husband Tyler said before we left that YWAM will change your life( or well God will in YWAM) and that you won’t be the same person. Well even after lecture phase I was like well I learned a lot and feel I know the Lord more and Love him more, but I still feel like the same person. And I think it was true because lecture phase changed how I thought but outreach has changed how I live. And its totally nothing I did, or to my capability to change but all the honor and Glory goes to God and to the Holy Spirit who has been so faithful to reveal more and more of Gods character to me each day that gives me such a burning passion and desire to serve and bring Glory back to him!
Back in Maui on Good Friday which was the Friday before outreach, I broke down and was like God I’m tired of living for myself, I don’t want to do it anymore, I want to live only for you God! But I still saw things I had to give up in this world to do that as a sacrifice! Like the Saturday after Good Friday night when I said God I’m only going to live for you! Well I had planned to go surfing, but I felt convicted and I was like well that’s for me, and my pleasure and joy, and since God I’m only living for you, I will sacrifice my fun to learn more about you. So I stayed home and read my Bible thinking I was doing the “right” or “good” thing, but I kept thinking about man I wished I could’ve gone surfing, but then I was like OK Lauren Focus, you Sacrificed that to serve God!
I’m Thankful that God brought me to that point in my life, because I know I never want to go back there. To the point where I see giving up worldly pleasures and things is a SACRIFICE to my joy to serve God. OH my how that perspective has changed! You guys I am the HAPPIEST person right now because I don’t Live for myself anymore! And I LOVE IT!! And the thing that has changed from my perspective in Maui to now is that I DON’T see that as a sacrifice! There is this song by Mysty Edwards called,” I will waste my life” and the beginning of the song talks about how she will waste her life here on earth to live for Jesus and not for herself and part if the chorus says, “ I am in love with you, there is no cost , I am in Love with you there is no lost..” You see now I see that wasting my life here on the earth for the Lord, to live for him, and not for me, AHHHH there is NO LOSS, NO COST to me! I WANT TO! I want to live to glorify his name! That is my passion, my joy, my purpose! I used to think that sacrificing my joy to glorify God was how I was suppose to live, but now I see that its actually my joy to live for God alone! And not myself, it is NO sacrifice! John Piper says it so good in one of his books, he says, “ Gods purpose for my life was that I have a passion for Gods glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion!” OH WOW how much joy there is in serving God and him alone! I cannot even express! Of course I am fallen and try to be selfish and look at myself sometimes, but the Holy spirit convicts me and Lord always brings me back to him. And OH how THANKFUL I am for that because I CANNOT STAND getting to the end of my day and say,” I’ve wasted it, I didn’t talk to and try to get to know the ONE person I want to get to know more, my lover my best friend!" And neglect to give him the praise and Glory he deserves, because I was too busy looking at myself.” May it never be! 2nd Corinthians 5:15 says,” And he died for all , that those who live may NO LONGER live for THEMSELVES but for HIM who died for them and was raised again!”

God spoke to me a lot about not living for myself throughout YWAM especially outreach, and I want to share with you something God spoke to me in my quiet time while I was in Thailand and then write what I wrote in my prayer journal to God about it.

After I read John 6:25-59( AH supper good! If you don't know it you should read it! It also might help you understand better what is next)
To sum it up in Laurens Words (which totally doesn't do it justice, so you should read Gods word, but just to give you a picture if you can't read it right now)
Jesus is talking to the Jews and he's saying, " Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures eternal life" and the Jews ask him what works must they do to do the works God requires, and Jesus all you have to do is believe in me! And their like Oh yeah?! What miraculous sign are you going to do to show us your for real? And Jesus is like no you guys you don't understand ," I am the Bread of life he who comes to me will never go hungry, he who believes in me will never be thirsty...... I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me" and their like DUDE how can you say you came down from heaven?! We KNOW your parents!! Their Mary and Joseph! Then Jesus says," Here is the bread that comes down from Heaven which a man may eat and not die....This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." And the Jews were like What? How can we eat your flesh?!

I wrote to God,
" God, as I'm reading John 6 when Jesus is talking about how he is the bread of life to the Jews. And I CAN'T get over how Jesus you RIGHT IN FRONT of them! And ALL they want to do is to see miraculous signs to know if your for real, and how you could be someone who came down from heaven if they know your parents are Mary and Joseph??

The whole time I'm like AHHH!!

OPEN YOUR EYES!! The SOURCE of LIFE is standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!

He's the bread of life like he is saying, he is the savior and he is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!
And your asking QUESTIONS and wanting him to do stuff for you?!?
But WOW its JESUS!
God I think this is how I act sometimes and I want to say sorry.

A lot of times I pray and ask you to do HUGE things in my life or others, almost like miraculous signs. And other times I doubt you and ask questions.

But AHHHH JESUS YOUR RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!

WHY am I not So focused on you, instead of myself!
And on what you can do for me, but more on merly who you are!

God you ARE my Redeemer, my Best friend, my Lover!! And Sometimes I get SOO caught up in myself, that I don't open my eyes and see Christ standing right in front of me!
Telling me how he loves me so much, that he has saved me, how he is the bread of life, and how he wants to use me to further his kingdom!

Lord I want to say Thank You! Thank You Jesus for being the bread of life and I want to Praise you all the days of my life for this!!

As I was meditating on this later, and just who God is, he gave me this picture,
And it was me praying, and while I was praying I was looking at myself and praying selfish prayers for my needs like God please take away my fear of the rats because I don't want to loose sleep anymore, God please tell me what I'm suppose to do after YWAM because I don't like not knowing.. And then when I finally took my eyes off my self and looked up, I saw Jesus! And he was standing there with his arm stretched out to me, with the streets of Thailand behind him, and he was saying," Are you ready Lauren? Take my hand, Lets go reach these people TOGETHER!" And God just showed me that when I stop looking at myself ,and MY heart and when I look up I see Jesus and I see what is on GODS heart, I see how much he loves me, and wants to use me to tell others about him.
But with that I remember something Tim our last speaker said in Thailand, he said, " Our Passion should not be to WORK for Jesus, our goal should not be missions, but our passion should be to fall in Love with Jesus and out of an OVERFLOW of that Love there comes the joy of fulfilling the Great commission"

And it hit me that its So important for us to be in love with God, and to truly want to reflect him, because YOU might be the ONLY BIBLE someone EVER gets to read!

SO, " Preach the Gospel at ALL times, use words IF Necessary!"

But again it all starts with if were willing to stop looking at ourselves, and look up at Jesus and say I WILL WASTE my Life for you! AHH you guys I’m done living for myself! PRAISE GOD! He really has shown me my purpose in life. To bring him Glory! That’s what were Created for! And OH I’m SOOO Thankful for that because there’s nothing I’d rather do!

How God used our team in BORNEO! :O)

2008-07-06T08:43:00.032-10:00

INDONESIA

Indonesia is an absoulutely GORGEOUS country! The people of this country are so Amazing they are SO hospititable and loving! The way God has created different cultures and the different ways people live, I think is such a beautiful thing, and it was a privledge to be able to live in this country for 2 months and just love on these people and tell them about Christ!

For the first 10 days we were in Pontianak at the YWAM base. There we met the team of 6 YWAM staff on base that would be part of our team for the whole time in Indo. We also worked with an orphanage that is affiliated with YWAM and taught them one of our dramas, so they can reach out to others. We also had a lot of team time to intercede for our upcoming time in the villages, and we prepared more dramas and sermons for ministry.

THE VILLAGES- We left the YWAM base and headed out for 50 straight days in the villages, where God prepared a path for us to minister to these beautiful people. Indonesia is one of the largest Muslim nations, I believe its around 88% Muslim. On the island of Borneo in Indo in the cities people were majority Muslims, they have mosques on every corner, and maybe a couple churches. Well once you go out in the villages its the complete opposite. All the villages are majority Christian villages, in fact I only saw churches in the villages and no mosques, but sometimes when we were talking to the chief of the village he would tell us there were maybe just a couple Muslim families, but the rest were Christian.

Although the people in the villages all call themselves Christians, a lot of them believe in and participate in Animism. Animism is the belief that a soul or spirit lives in every object, such as plants, animals, rocks, mountains, rivers, stars, etc. Which people fear and worship, such as the spirit of the crops so that they will have a plentiful harvest. Christians in the villages also turn to witch doctors for healing, instead of taking their prayers to the ultimate and Only healer the Lord! It is also hard for most of the villages to read Gods word, and to have good discipleship because most people can't read and in at least one village I was aware of (there are probably more) no one has ever made a Bible in their dialect (Indonesians speak Bahasa but there are hundreds of dialects within that language)

Our ministry included 48 church services, over 50 children services, around 100 house visits, sports ministry in 25 villages in 50 days. Ministry differed from day to day, but I'll explain all of these in a little detail

Church services- Almost every night we put on a church service at their one church the village had. One of our team members from the Indo base lead our worship time in Bahasa. Then it was up to us to pray about and decide who the Lord was leading to preach/do testimony. So almost every service we would sing a song, do a drama, and someone would preach (all with translation from our AMAZING translators Dimas and Paulus) and sometimes we would have testimonies. I had the privilege to preach 4 times and share my testimony 3 times. It truly was an open door from the Lord that we had been interceding about even before we started outreach, because God is like here is an amazing opportunity/open door that I have given you to preach my word to the whole village! So it never got boring like some people might think it would, because we did so many, like on Saturday and Sundays we would have 3 services running around 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours long each within 24 hours. But it such a joy, just to know that this was such a blessing to have answered prayers from God to use our team to share his word.

House visits- These were my favorite! What we would do is the pastors would lead the way to houses he had told we were going to come talk and pray with them. And the reason I liked it so much was because it was So personable. We would usually ask them what job they did (answer- Rubber or rice farmer) how long they lived in this village( answer- their whole lives) But what was SO fun and so cool was we would all just pray ok God what is on your heart for this house and how can you use me to encourage them. And the Lord was SO faithful to show us what his heart was for these people, and would give us questions to ask them, like how is your relationship going with God, are you struggling with anything? Wheres one area you want to work in your relationship. Thats just a few questions, but they would open up and answer our questions and the Lord would give us words for them to just encourage them. A few examples are a lot of people would measure their walk with the Lord depending on if they go to church or not, which obviously church is very important but we got to really encourage them that its about a relationship and falling more in Love with Jesus. That happen a lot, I'll tell you about another village that we had never heard of anything like it before. We did 12 house visits in one day (well my team did, but we split into 3 teams and all of them did around 12), and at almost all of the houses we went to the owners of the house would tell us about these horrible vivid nightmares they would have every night of being murdered. And meeting back with the other teams they said quite a few of their houses had to same dreams. And it was very evident that the enemy was attacking this village with fear. A lot of them would tell us how scared they are to die. And it was God AHhhhh just taught be SO much about this subject of fear. Lol remember the rat incident?!?(if not read my blog from march titled "rats"! Well God taught me SOOO much about living in fear and how I shouldn't because I can't fear and trust him at the same time. I learned a lot about how he has such an amazing plan for my life and will that I want his will to be done and not mine, and I find rest in that. Also I really understand now what it meant when Paul said, " For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."( Phil 1:21) And yeah he taught me a lot more things on fear, and now I understand why the Lord had brought me through that rat experience because I has such a huge fear and it consumed me (not just of rats, but I started to fear everything ,even death just like these people) and the Lord would speak to me in the house visits and just give me the words to encourage these people and be like hey I know how your feeling I've been there but this is what God showed me and this is who he is to me, and he wants to be that for you too. And Oh there were SO many different stories about different circumstances these people were going through and how the Lord gave us words to encourage them, sometimes one of us would encourage the people and then afterwards like 3 or 4 of us would be like Oh my word I got the same exact word for that person! And another quick story- A man in the very first village we went to, we didn't have plans to go to his house, but we heard of a Very sick man who had Tuberculosis and we asked if the pastor of the village would take us to his house so we can pray for him. We got there and I was in shock to see a man laying on the floor (AKA his bed) in the hottest little wooden shack with a stomach the size of a 9 month pregnant women. He told us he almost died twice already, and the doctor was very confused how he was still living. He also told us he was not a Christian, but wanted to be, and with tears running down his face excepted Christ not knowing if he would take his last breath that very night, we just knew the Lord had such a good plan for that man, even if that didn't mean getting healed after we laid hands on him and prayed for him, but HE IS GOING TO BE WITH THE LORD FOR ETERNITY when he dies, and the Lord had a plan that he would be saved thats why he didn't let him die those 2 times. SO AH yeah God moved in mighty ways through house visits! All the Praise and Honor goes to him!!

Childrens Ministry- This was basically a children's service that we put on also. Every Sunday we would have one before the main church service started which would be around 7 am usually for an hour. We would sing songs, do a little fun interactive message with them, and play games. We did more randomly at different villages because they wanted to have them everyday. The kids here are SOO cute and will actually follow you around EVERYWHERE. We would wake up and they'd be waiting for us outside the house for us to come play with them.

Sports Ministry- SO fun! We would just play volleyball or soccer with the people in the village, and OH my word they are SO good at both sports its insane!

Living Conditions- I LOVED EVERYTHING about the living conditions I wouldn't have traded anything! We used Squatties potties every day to go to the bathroom, which were in the house, or outside in a little porta-pottie looking thing. We showered (AKA Mundi) in the River at least 2 times a day, sometimes 3 or more though, the Indonesians always Mundi because its so hot all the time. We also washed our clothes in the rivers and sometimes dishes. We drank boiled river water or collected rain water everyday. We slept in bug nets on the floors with our little mats (which was actually comfy after the first week). We stayed in either the pastors house or the church, which were all made out of wood and had no Air conditioning or fans, not even electricity during the day, only at night for a few hours by generators. We were extremely blessed with the cooks we had, but it was a ton of carbs! Which Rice was at EVERY single meal! And the Indos would look at you weird if you didn't eat rice! But some villages were just so sweet and hospitable that they wouldn't let our cooks cook for us, and thats when we would have pig fat with hair still on it, and rice. Because Pork is the most expensive thing they have and they wanted to give us their best, and they value the fat and juice from that more than the meat. So it was really sweet of them, but def. hard to eat. But other than that i enjoyed the food. Theres SO much more stuff I could write, but I'd love to tell any of you more about Indonesia anytime and what the Lord did through our team there!

Our whole Borneo team!

Hanging out with some cute cute kids from the school nearby the YWAM Base in Indo
Our dryer
My Bug net Buddie Little Becks!! I Love her!!
Our rice hats that a village gave us when they welcomed us into their village Mundi! (AKA Shower) Time in the rivers! Those are our Mundi sarongs which all the women in Indo wear to bathe
Mel, Anna, and myself on one of our hikes to the next village
This is what a house looks like in the villages. They live in SUCH a beautiful place! Thanks God!
Straddling the EQUATOR!! hehe

MALAYSIA

We were only in Malaysia less than a week total, we have some amazing contacts that let us stay at their house and rest for a few days after Indo, and before we left Brunei. We were able though to attend and encourage a youth group and also preform one of our dramas for a church service on Sunday. It was a ton of fun/ very different being back in a city! Where they had a hot shower, running water, traffic lights, a regular toilet, and ICE CREAM!! yum! We went to the orangutan sanctuary and also just spent a lot of time debriefing.

This is the biggest one! He is INSANELY huge!
Aw a little babe right above us in the trees!
He's so cute!
2 girls from the church we went to they were so sweet they took us out to try all different kinds of Malaysian food! So good!

We were in the city of Kuching which means Cat, so I had to take a picture with the cats down town lol

Brunei!

Oh how I LOVE Brunei!! It was SOOO much fun!! First of all Brunei is a very wealthy country and westernized! Its an Islamic ruled government and its a quiet little country where its majority Muslim and alcohol is illegal and so is smoking in public, so theres no night life, hardly any crime. They have a Sultan that lives in a 1, 018 room palace, which everyone loves the Sultan. But the thing is, its illegal to evangelize esp. to Muslims because if a Muslim converts to Christianity they have been thrown into prison, and yeah its a very complicated government (well to me anyways) But there is only 1 legal church in Brunei, and it took them 5 years to be able to make it legal (that's what i was told anyways, sorry if my facts are off) so any other churches are illegal. But yeah so it was very different to be in a country where we couldn't openly go talk to anyone about why we were there and what we believed. The worst thing is we would've got kicked out of the country, but it we had to be careful more for our contacts. Which Were AMAZING!! We went there to encourage people and they Ah just encouraged us SO much with our walks with the Lord. They are So beautiful, giving, and Loving! We had SO much fun just hanging out with them all the time and it was fun also to hang out with kids our age who Love the Lord and are serving him like across the world. It was such an encouraging and amazing 9 days I just Love how God not only used our team, but used the people of Brunei to help us grow too!

These domes on this mosque are made out of gold!
Mel and I next to the sign by the entrance of the Sultans palace
We went into this mosque and prayed, which we were only allowed to be in for 10 minutes and had to stay on a carpet and had to wear balck robes because we weren't Muslim.

I LOVE ALL of these people!!

Traveling home!

Ahh its moving! haha
Personal T.V.s for our 12 hours of flying! China Airlines is Amazing!
Mel and I having a dance party listening to the same song, while everyone is sleeping lol

In conclusion to outreach! It was AMAZING! The Lord worked through our team in such HUGE ways and also taught me so much of himself in the mean time, where I just fell more in love with him! My team was AMAZING they were so beautiful in the Lord and constanly looking to him and he was soo faithfull to use us because of that! I give the Lord all the Honor and praise for how he has used me in on outreach. I am still planning on writting my testimony on here soon of YWAM!

PUJI TUHAN!

2008-06-05T18:30:00.002-10:00

Puji Tuhan translates to PRAISE GOD!! And Man that is sooo true for the last 2 months! All the Praise, Glory, and Honor goes to God for how he has used me and my team in Indonesia. We traveled to 25 different villages, did 48 church services, over 50 children church services or ministry, around 100 house visits, and a lot of sport ministry in the past 50 days, WOW its been busy at times but just knowing how much the Lord has used us to speak into these peoples lives by giving us words to preach on and things to say in house visits, and also just it has been AN AMAZING time of growing in Intamacy with the Lord and my Love for him and wanting to bring him Glory in every aspect of my life, this has just motivated me and changed the way I live my life SOO drastically, because my hearts desire is that people would look at my life and see Christ, that they would want to ask the reason for this hope, this joy this faith that I have in me for God, and OH wow How now I am ready to tell anybody about my God! About the one and only God who IS LOVE, who is SO faithfull and who just wants to know you more and he will reveal soo much of himself to you, if you earnestly seek after him. And this time in Indonesia I have spent my time seeking him, and the things he has shown me have caused me to fall SO much more in Love with him, and with an overflow from that I want to serve him, by pouring into these people. And yeah it had been an AMazing time in Indonesia and I have SOO much to talk about , which I plan to later, but I don't have a lot of time right now, but I just wanted to let everyone know, that I am doing SO good, my team is seriuously such a Blessing!! I LOVE every single one of them! They have kept their focus on Jesus this whole time and are such beautifull servants of the Lord and I am just truly Thankful for them and espeacially my leaders, they desrves a speacial thanks for everything they do! All of us were so sad to leave Indonesia, and our YWAM indo team that were with us for the last 60 days, but we are SOO excited to see how the Lord wants to use us now in these next few days in Malaysia and then Brunei. Its really crazy being here in Malaysia, they have Regular toilets! ICE!! Yeah you never realize how much ice makes a difference until its not an option lol, I had a Hot shower with running water last night, which is SO different from showering in the river for the past two months, and I didn't sleep in a bug net last night, and we had CEREAL this morning!! OMW we had ZERO dairy things in Indo, so yeah its definantly really different being back in a city and out of the villages, but I was SO thankfull for both. The way different cultures live in differnt countries is So beautifull, the Lord has created us all different and finds such value in all of us that its just such a privledge to meet people here in different countries and show them Gods love and also see how much they love the Lord too, and how they have blesses us, wow the Indonesians Chritainas or not are probally the sweetest most hospitable people I've Ever met! I will miss Indo, but the people we've came in contact with and just the contry in general I will never forget and will be in my prayers. And I want to Thank you all of all of your prayers for Leslie and I, Thank the Lord he really has protected us and used us and its been a great outreach so far! Please continue to pray for this last strech of our outreach, dates changed a but, we are now leaving the 9th for Brunei and will be there a week, but please pray for open doors for ministry because we don't have that much planned because our contacts haven't really emailed us back, but yeah we know the Lord has a plan, it will just be cool to see what that is :O) And please pray for Lil Les she is heading back to Switzerland soon, just for a safe trip, and her debriefing with her school would go smoothly and good, and that her team would just really press into these last few days in India and ask whats on Gods heart, how does he want to use them even though its only a few days! Yeah Sorry I didn't get to write that much, but I will DEF write a detialed blog about outreach as soon as I can, but it might not be until I get back to Maui, or even FL, so yeah just know that everything is going great, the Lord is SO GOOD!! I want to encourage everyone who is reading this to really seek his face, and ask him to reveal himself to you so that you may," grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Eph 3:18-19) Because you guys he is SO faithfull to show you that Love! Thanks God!! :O)

I'm in INDONESIA!!

2008-04-08T22:26:00.002-10:00

Hey! So I know I said I wouldn't be able to write a blog for a long time and my mom would be updating this.. Well I just wanted to let you all know that, that won't be happening.. Because the plans for how much I can communicate with my family has just changed.. Orginally we thought that we were going to be going to the villages for a few weeks at a time, then back to the YWAM base (which is in a city and there is internet) we thought this because this is what past teams have done. But just a few hours ago I learned that our team won't be leaving until either the 14th or 15th (so in a few days) for the villages, but WILL NOT be returning to the YWAM base at all. Meaning I will not have access to the internet for at least 50 or so days while I'm in the jungle visiting the different villages, The soonest I will be able to get on the internet after this week is June 6th once we get to Brunei. I don't have much time but I just wanted to tell you all that incase you were wondering why I haven't talked to you, or my mom hasn't updated my blog at all, its because yeah I won't be able to talk to anyone... I got to go, but Thanks for your prayer and I will talk to you guys in June!!!
P.S.- I'M SOO EXCITED TO BE HERE!!

Leaving for Borneo Tommorow....

2008-04-05T21:48:00.002-10:00

AHHH I can't believe that Outreach is offically starting tommorow, the Lord had used our team SO much in Thailand, and has given me his heart for this country and his people and I know he will do the same in Borneo, and that makes me SOOOO EXCITED!!!!! I can't wait for these next few months, the Lord has really spoken to me being here in Thailand, and given me the right perspective for Borneo and I know that whatever I do the Lord will use me, even if I don't see any fruit right away I know that I planted that seed and OH I could tell you how the second round went at the red light district.... Well only Maryssa, Melissa and I ended up going, and it was very different from the first time, we talked to two women who their hearts were very hard and didn't wanted to hear anything about Christianity, they were just laughin at us and rolling their eyes, they were very in love with Buddha, so we just showed them love and asked questions about their life and bought them drinks, and yeah then we went to another bar and the bar tender was this very sweet women and she gave us free cokes(which is very strange b/c all of these bars are SO expensive to even sit at ) so we talked to a few different people I talked to a guy who lives in Nepal and was there for bussiness, and he is a Hindu but "not a hardcore Hindu" was his exact words, so we shared the gospel with him,and he listened but was like Oh thats cool, kind of thing, but we got to talk to him a lot about God we spent an hour there talkin to him, but when we were about to leave, we thought it would be a good idea to tip the women bartender who gave us our free drinks, well we did and she was SO thankful, because they really need the money, and the guy we were talking to said something like, " See this is what I like about you, you preach the gospel and tell me about Jesus and you say you show his love, and you tip someone when she gave you something for free, I really like that about Christians, about you, yes I really like that." I think it spoke so much to him that we were actually living out what we were telling him, that we came to Thailand to share the gospel and love on these people, and for some reason even though it wasn't that big of a deal to us, he saw us tip that women as like wow they walk out what they say, and yeah so it really encouraged me that yeah you could sit there and tell them about Jesus and they don't really think anything about it, but if they see it in your life, what volume it speaks to people.. Just a little thing like tipping, when you get something for free. So I think thats going to be SO important on outreach and even comming back home, I heard this qoute, " Go share the gospel, use words if necessary." What we say, should reflect how we live, and if it doesn't then we might want to be careful what we say, because we could cause someone to get a false or misconseption about what were trying to tell them. For example since I told that man how I try to live a life worthly for what Christ has done for me and to bring him glory, and then I started doing shots and drinkig, or using harsh language, or gossiping about someone, or talking bad about them, do you think this man would have gotten the right perspective of what trying to live for Jesus looks like? So yeah the Lord just really spoke to me through that, and also even though we didn't see much fruit going back to the red light district the second time, I came back just as thankful and just as excited that the Lord used me, and my friends, we shared the gospel and loved on these people and thats what were called to do!! Mother Theresa says, " Were called to be faithfull, not successful." and we were faithfull to what God had called us to do, and I know that God will grow those seeds that we planted by sharing Christ with them!

Anywho I just found out a few hours ago that apparently the internet in Indo (when we get a chance to use it) is going to be VERY slow, they said it takes like 5-10 minutes to open each page and you bring a book with you to the computer while you wait, SO I will only be sending emails to my family on those times that I can get on the internet and then my mom (or somone in my fam) will be updating my blog while I'm in Indo!! So I will talk to you all later and because I'm leaving for Borneo at 6 am tommorow!! AHHH!! So I Love you guys! and thanks for all your comments and prayers, and please continue to lift Leslie and I up in your prayer and my family while were gone! Thanks I'll talk to you in a few months!! God Bless you!! :O)

Pictures from Thailand

2008-04-04T18:31:00.010-10:00

Hi guys! So this is very frusterating, every time I go to an internet cafe the computers are different, some won't let me put pictures on at all, but this one won't let me flip or rotate my photos, so I only uploaded some random ones that were already horizontal (unfortunly the ones I Really wanted to put on here are all the ones that won't rotate, so this will do for now :O)

Adorable kids from the house visits in the slunms

Oh just an elephant walking down the street

This was our first free day here, and apparently for $10 you can watch a movie with a blanket, pillow, in a recliner, and popcorn, and a pop, it was pretty much amazing!
This is the nicest movie theater I've ever seen in my life, it was in a 7 story mall!

The MASSIVE reclining Buddha, at one of the temple tours

JJ market!!

I got to feed an elephant for 30 cents!!

The next night we saw the same one, hes so cute!

This is Kae the women in prostitution, that Melissa and I got to talk to (the one I wrote about in my previous blog)

I will try to write on here one more time before I leave for Indo, But I just wanted to say HI!! and leave you some pictures! THanks for your prayers! And make sure to check out Lil Leslies blog SHES IN INDIA!! :O)

Red light District and Slum ministry

2008-04-03T01:05:00.002-10:00

Last night we had the privledge to be able to go down to Pat Pong and talk to the women in prostitution down in the red light district. We went early around 6:30- 7:30, because around then there aren't a lot of people and the girls are just getting ready for the night, maybe sitting at the bar putting on their make up and hanging out. It was this alley way of just bars and strip clubs on both sides, and all the girls from our DTS went and we split of into groups of two. Little Melissa and I went together and before we even started walking we stopped and prayed that God would open a door for us to be able to talk to someone, that he would highlight where we were suppose to go and who we are suppose to talk to. So we started walking a ways and this tiny women in like this tiny top/bra and jeans caught both our eye, and we both started walking towards her (which is cool, b/c we didn't even discuss it, so it was funny how God highlighted the same person for us to talk to ) and we had no idea if she even spoke english, but we went up to her, and she did speak pretty good english, and we sat down and bought her a coke and started off with some small talk asking if she likes working at the bar, and she said. "um its ok, not really, it just make good money" (but the sad thing is she told us she made 500 baht a night, which is only $15 dollars in America for her to sell her body for sex) yeah so then we asked her if she was Buddhist and she said yes that she goes to the temples, and we asked if she had heard anything about who Jesus is? And she said," um yes, I see the DaVinci Code Movie" And I was like OH um yeah can we tell you about who Jesus REALLY is?! And she said yes that shes very curious to learn about him. So we talked to her for about an hour about who Jesus is and how much he Values her, and loves her, and AHH The Holy Spirit just spoke through Melissa and I, it just flowed so smoothly and we were able to tell her SO much about who God is, and how he has saved her and he wants to have a relationship with her, and he will NEVER leave or foresake you. And she had a few questions and we answered them, and we asked what she thought about Jesus and she said, " Yes I believe what you say, I like what you say, because yes I am looking for something, and I like how you say when I accept Jesus as my savior he will come into my heart and I will never be alone again." (This is SO cool that she understands that is who Jesus is, because there are a few different reasons why women start prosituting themelves out, and one is that they are in such hope that a forienger will come to the bar, fall in love with them and rescue them from the bar and be able to provide a good life for them. My friend Shawna talked to a women that showed her a picture of a man she slept with and told her that he was comming back for her, that he loved her!) And she told us that she really wanted to learn more about Jesus and so we told her that she should buy a Bible and we wrote that down and told her a good book to start off with is John because thats all about who Jesus is and what we've been telling her about all night. And she was SO HAPPY and just smiling and saying that she wants to go to church too and learn more, but she doesn't know where one is, or anyone that goes, so we got her phone number and our translator is going to call her and invite her to go to church with her, b/c she goes to church arond that area. And it was very cool, b/c at the end she asked if Melissa or I had a soviner to give to her so that she could remember us, and we searched our bag but couldn't find anything so Melissa thought it'd be cool to give her a peice of paper with a few Bible Verses on it, so we wrote down like John 3:16 and explained to her that she always needs to remember this because thats why he gave his only son because he Loves her SO much, and a few other verses. And she was very hppy with it and she said ," So I read this everymorning and think about God all day!!!!" and were like YEAH YEAH!! and told her to learn more about him just read the Bible and then we asked if we could pray for her, and she looked around and shes like,"right here?" and we explained that you can talk to God ANYWHERE hes ALWAYS there for you, and with you! She thanked us, and we left, and prayed for her after we left that bar and yeah again God is SO big and I've been Thanking him SOO much for using me to reach these people and afterwards Melissa and I talked and we wish we could've stayed longer to talk to her, and to more people but it starts getting bad, like a lot of people start comming there staring from 8 on, and its SO sad like we saw some very i don't know the word but the women in prostitution and men were going at it like right there at the bar and then you'd walk past a strip club and the men would show you this menu of what women could do to you.... A MENU?!?! These are Gods children! Not a buffet!! Like it was Very hard to see, but it didn't make me angry at the men because these men are just as lost as the women and they need our love and prayers just as much, and my heart broke for these women, but it just made me want to go tell more of them about Jesus. Anyways sorry what I was saying is that Melissa and I decided that we Really want to come back there again! So we are going to go on Saturday night, which we don't have anything planned because its our free day, and yeah I'm really excited to go back, and our translator Pook said she'd go with us, but it a good amount of the girls my friends talked to at the bars could speak english, because they want to be able to talk to guys and make more money, but anyways so Please just keep these women in your prayers like Kae(sry thats her name who Mel and I talked to ) like she said, she is looking for someting, these women are looking for fulfillment from men, from money, from Buddha, but their not going to find it in ANY of that, it only comes through Jesus, so pray that they will here the truth, because it will set them free and they'll never be hungry for anything else, because Jesus promises that he is the bread of life he who comes to him will never go hungry (John 6:35) And please pray for open doors as Melissa, Pook, and even some of my other friends who want to go back saturday night that he would give us the opportunity to share the Gospel and his love to these women.

The Slums- Today my team went to this little community which you would consider "the slums" it was a tiny community that only has 110 familys living in it and was started 16 years ago, and it was Very poor, and really dirty, and yeah not good living conditions. But the people were SO welcoming!! We did 2 house visits, then did a prayer walk around the whole community. But both house visits were older women, and the first women talked SO much about how tired and stressed she is because she wants to give her kids and grand kids that live with her a good education, and just provide for them, but its very hard b/c she sells used clothing at the market and this year is very bad b/c the economy is bad and no one has money to buy the clothes, so she worries sometimes so much she doesn't sleep,and I just told her what an amazing mother an grandmom she is that she cares so much about them and wnats to provide for them and she started crying and saying thank you and yeah that she is so worried about it beause she doesn't want them to live in this community any more, not like she has, she wants better for them, and we told her about Jesus that he says," Come to me all who are weary and I will give them rest." and just a lot about giving your burdens to Jesus and trusting in him that he will provide and that he would comfort her and he doesn't want her to worry but just give it all to God in prayer and trust in his plan, and soo much more stuff. But besides that we talked about what she believes and she said that she was raised Buddhist and has believed that for her whole life, but she also believes God is very good and she prays a lot to God and he answers her prayers and so we told her just about how God is the only God and that he says to have no other god, or idols, that he is the only way, the only truth and only life, and we just challenged her that since she already beleives in God to only believe in him, and then we prayed for her, and she started crying and asked when we were comming back because she said, " its SO nice that we cared enough to talk me, and come to my house, I feel so loved!" and then we went to the second womens house and we didn't get to talk to her that much but she basically beileved the same thing bout God and Buddha that their both good, and we talked more to her about her family and when we were leaving she started crying too :( and asked when we were comming back. And then after we did a prayer walk we were waiting for our truck to pick us up and this man came out and started talking to us, pulled all the chairs he could find so we could sit. gave us bannanas and he said he wanted us, or the next team of YWAMers to come back to visit them, and we prayed for him and the community.. and AH it was such an AMAZING Day, God really used us to reach these women and that man with his love, but what they really need prayer for is that they do believe that you can love God and Buddha, Pook says that is pretty common (which is a stepp up from not knowing God at all ) but it wont save them, pray that they would come to know the ONE true God, the ONLY way to life, and they all struggle with finances and health problems.. yeah they just really need our prayers!

Yeah today during the house visits it really made me excited for Borneo, b/c that is going to be our biggest ministry, or the ministry we spend the most time during the day doing. Which really an amazing opportunity and privledge to be able to do!

Yesterday was the offical last day of lecture and OMW lecture phase was insanely amazing and I learned and have grown so much with the Lord. But being ere in Thailand God has been teaching me some incredible things just in my quiet times and through this culture and being here. I know he will radically move in my life on this outreach and I can't wait!

OMW I'm just loving it here, I'm loving how God is showing me his heart for this nation, and for the lost in general, and how he's like," come on Lauren lets reach these people together!" He has used me and our team so much being here, and I know he will continue too! THANKS GOD!! :O)

OMW GOD IS SO BIG!!

2008-04-01T21:52:00.004-10:00

So God had used our team SO much since we've been in Thailand!! Here are a few ministry things we've done since we've been here!

Temple Tour- We visited 4 HUGE Buddhist temples the other day, and it was very sad, and difficult to see them bow down to plastic! To a false God that doesn't lead to LIFE, LOVE, or anything True, and theres so much I could write about this but I saw a five year old boy bowing down to Buddha, and a 10 year old boy who had his head shaven and a orange robe on being trained how to be a monk, and it absolutely broke my heart because these kids have grown up in this country and this family that their parents tell them this lie (but the sadder thing is they think its the truth) they were born into this country where its almost all Buddhist and they don't know anything else, and it made me think of back home, and how God blessed me and my sisters SO much being able to be raised by parents who told us about the Only WAY the ONLY TRUTH AND THE ONLY LIFE IS JESUS CHRIST!! and WOW I'm just SO Thankful for that, but then again it breaks my heart to think about back home where there are churches on almost every corner, people are raised in Christian homes but just choose not to believe, and they have the PRIVLEDGE to go to church, but they disregaurd it and its like AHHH you guys thats The TRUTH, and how blessed our we to be able to hear about this truth. I think it would hit you too, to be here and these kids only see Buddha as the truth, they don't know any different! But ahh sorry I could go on and on, but yeah when we walked around the temples we just prayed throughout them, and I know God hears our prayer and is moving in this country!

Picking up Trash- Out of our 3 outreach team 1 went down to the slums of Bankok and got to minister and love on the people there. But Borneo team picked up trash along this wall by the university across the street, and it was SO crazy how many people stopped and looked at us, like WHY on earth would they do that? A lot of people smiled at us, honked at us, and one guy gave a a free drink for picking up trash by his stand. Well one women stopped riding her bike, and spoke pretty broken english, but asked,"why would you do that?" and I told her that we wanted to reach out to the community and show them Gods love, and she was looked at me weird and rode away (I think she understood what I said, but she didn't understand why I would do this for God.. who is God? But she rode away to quickly for me to tell her) But then this police man asked us why we were doing this and Maryssa was my trash buddie, so she answered him, kind of like what I said, and he asked what organization we were with, and we told him YWAM and he told us, "Thank you soo much for doing this, for what you our doing for my country!" and after he left Maryssa and I just prayed that God would just stir in their hearts tonight and just they'd be SO curious to know this God that we would pick up trash for to show his love, and that this police officer would go on the YWAM website and see what we're all about! It may not seem so big to some people, but I know th God I serve and I know he can use something small like us picking up trash to reach people with the Gospel and that excits me!! :O)

DJB college ministry- The YWAM base is right next to this huge university, so they have a ministry called DJB and they serve free dinner and worship and share the gospel on Tuesday nights, well our job was to walk around the campus and invite people to DJB that night. Well its kind of hard when you don't speak Thai, so e asked a few people is they spoke English and they said no, but then we came accross this just adorable girl who only spoke a few words in english and we got out our basic Thai phrases sheet and tried to talk to her a little but it wasn't very productive so we mostly just laughed at each other. But then we found our translator for our Borneo team, her name is Pook (well nick name) and she is on staff here at the base, and everyone had to leave to take a shower for DJB night and I was like well I'll stay and talk to her, with Pook translating. Her name is Soi and shes 26 and is a history major at the university, she is just the cutest thing, And we started talking and she told me how her parents are Buddhist, but they've given her the choice to believe what ever she wants, so shes open to Christianity and other religions. She has been to a catholic church, but she also has gone to some Muslim things, and Buddhist temples, and she just thinks that if your a good person you'll go to heaven, but she likes to party and go to the bars. So I asked her if she knew anything about Jesus or Christianity? And shes like," YES YES like valnetines day, and Christmas!" Thats the perspective she had, and I don't even really know what she ment by that, but I asked her is I could share who Jesus was with her, and she got all excited and was like YES!! So it was very cool because I would tell Pook what to translate and she would, but since Pook is a Christian also she would add things also, then she would translate back what Soi said, and while we were sharing the gospel I was praying so hard inbetween the times of translation like ," Holy spirit speak through me, speak through Pook, give us the words to say to speak to Soi. Soften her heart, and open it to you... God your SOO big I know you can speak to her in such a way through us that'd she would come to know you!" And after we shared the gospel she had a lot of questions like she felt neglected by her parents and that they didn't love her, and we shared how God is our father, he is a father to the fatherless and how much he loves her, and a lot of other questions and so much good stuff we got to explain to her Gods character, I wish I had time to tell it all.. One of the last ones was," If I pray to God do I have to face a certain direction like North, South, East, or west?" and i was like Oh No you can pray grocery shopping and I explained to her that being a Christian isn't about saying a perfect prayer or living a perfect life, because we can't its about knowing that we are a sinner and we have fallen short, but theres a savoir and his name is Jesus and he has given us life and wants a relationship with us, and once you know this Love, and this life, in response to that you live your life to bring honor to what Christ has done for you. (This was very hard for her to undersatnd b/c in Buddhism its all about being perfect and trying to be perfect) and after this I asked her if she'd like to recieve Jesus as her savior and he is the only way to life (not muslim, not buddhist.. not etc..) and would you like to have a personal relationsihp with him? and SHE SAID YES!! And we prayed with her and SHE GAVE HER LIFE TO CHRIST!! AHH it was the most beautiful thing ever!! She has life now!!! SHE is SAVED!! AHH the reason I say God is SO big is because he used Me and Pook to talk to her, it wasn't anything we could've done to convince her, it was God speaking through us, and being used by him to further his kingdom, and thats what its all about, thats what I've been saying is God use me to reach these people!! And HE DID, but NOT to me, BUT TO HIM BE THE GLORY AND HONOR!! I am merely a servant, and I know that each time I tell someone about Christ it might not be the time they give their life to him, but I know How big God is and I know that if I plant that seed, then he will grow it in his perfect timming!! So to wrap it up I'm SOOOO EXCITED for SOI, for her new life with Christ she now has! Its really cool because Pook is going to take her to her hurch and mentor her, and she gave me her address so I can write her letters and her email, and even a gift because she was so thankful for us and AH I just love her, I'm So glad God gave me the opportunity to talk to her, he is SO faithful, because before I stopped to talk to her in the University I was praying for open doors to share with some one about Christ! GOD IS SOO BIG!!!

This is Soi!! She knows the Lord!! AW !!!! :O) :O) :O) :O)

I'm in THAILAND!!!

2008-03-29T01:55:00.008-10:00

Hi Everyone!! I made it to Thailand and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!! We got off the plane and it was 84 degrees out (@1:30am) and our speaker told us that April is the hottest month and it will be 95 degrees and 95% humidity, so yeah its a little warm. the base is right here in the city of Bangkok and I'm able to write on this because I'm at an internet cafe that its only like 30 cents an hour (everything is insanely cheap here) But I'm running out of time, but I'll be able to write on this again before I leave but I just wanted to tell everyone that I'm here safetly, leave you with some pictures and just ask for your prayers, 94% of these people are Buddist and 1% Christain, its breaks my heart seeing them worship these idols, but please pray for our team that we can bring light to this darkness, and any other Christian in this country that they'd have boldness to speak out and tell these people about the One and ONLY true God!

Traveling, haha thats the seafood i was talking about, and Aydan with the green teas icecream that everyone gave to him, b/c he like it.

This is called a ok I forget i think a touk touk or something but I rode in one today!!

I ATE A GRASSHOPER!! It wasn't that bad, but it was part of our scavenger hunt!

Traveling!

2008-03-27T00:07:00.003-10:00

Hey guys I'm in Taipei, Taiwan!!!!The Lord has keeping our team safe for over half of the jounrey! We have only 10 hours left to our 30 hours of travel time! We woke up at 3am WED morning in Maui, flew to Honolulu, then from there left at 9am and flew for 9 hours to Tokyo,Japan (7 and1/2 of which I slept, thanks to some sleeping pills and ear plugs:O) ten somehow it turned into Thursday, and then we flew from Japan to Taiwan where we are having a 5 hour lay over then taking our last plane ride of 4-5 hours to Bangkok Thailand!!! Where we will arrive at 1:30 friday morning, wont get to the Thailand base until 3:00am and will have to be up and ready to go by 7:00 am, yeah this time difference is already messing me up, but with the Lords grace I will stay awake for all the things they have planned for us this next week!! AHH the journey has been so good so far, I've never been on this big of a plane in my life, PA i wanted to call you and tell you how crazy it was, there were stairs b/c it was stories!! and 2 rows of 3 seats on each side and one row of 4 in the middle. Thankfully I got to sit by my Borneo team the whole way, it was a lot of fun, I slept a lot, then we ate some crazy food, I don't suggest the seafood platter (unless you like squid and octopus haha ) OH then we hear them saying,"would you like some ice cream?" like 3 rows behind us and were like score ice cream!! Well it was green tea icecream.. again not a fan, so we had some fun times taking pictures with that and the squid. But the best part of the journey was my quiet tim I had with the Lord, as I was writting in my prayer journal about outreach he really spoke to me about praying with faith that he will answer my prayers (my friend who just got back from Thailand encouraged me with this too :O) But the Lord has really given me a hunger for his word, because it does taste so sweet (as the Bible says) and when I was thinking about this some verses came to my mind, one being that "man cannot live on bread alone" and that applys to me praying for more of a hunger for his word, because I can't live off of bread, off of what this world has for me, it doesn't lead to life, only Jesus does. And nor do I want too, I want to live off the word alone! And with that the second scripture that came to me was Matthew 7:7 ,"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open for you." Yeah guys I just really want to encourage you, that when you pray, pray with faih that the Lord will hear you prayer and remember this verse, sometimes God might answer it differently than what we would've thought, maybe not right away, maybe you'll have some hard times first, but I praise God that his will is done and not mine, because his thoughts are higher than mine, his love is stronger than mine, and i know he is faithfull to his word, and his word says ask and you will be given to, so what are you going to ask for, to further his kingdom?

P.S.- sry i dunno if that made sense, im trying to write fast, b/c there are people who want to get on here, but it makes sense to me and God :) So hey Mommy dearest I'm wearing that passport holder thing and I have my passport in there right now, SO don't worry!!!I've been very careful with it and my boarding passes! I will hopefully get to write on this once when I'm in Thailand!! Thanks for your prayers for my travels and please remember lil Les is leaving Friday for INDIA!! AWW I'm so excited for her!! Ok Well Love You all, I'll update this everytime I can!!

Time to leave for outreach!!

2008-03-23T16:42:00.004-10:00

Tonight I am packing away my laptop and cell phone for 3 months, so I wanted to write one more blog before I leave! I'm packed and all ready to go! Surprisingly I have a lot of extra room in my outreach backpack and its pretty light!(probably because I'm only bringing like 3 shirts, 2 shorts, and a skirt and 2 nice shirts :O) Its been kind of crazy around here with 18 girls trying to pack all at once in the same room, you can't even see the floor, its kind of stressful but its starting to seem real that were leaving. I got to make my last few phone calls to me friends and family last night and today(if your like Oh she didn't call me, I'm sorry I've been really busy packing and its hard to talk to a lot of people with the time difference), because I wont be able to call anyone till I get back till Maui. Anytime I will have Internet access I am going to try and write a blog, to update every one, but even then it might only be a few times as Internet access is limited in the jungle :) But I wanted to really say THANK YOU for everyone who has been so encouraging, I love reading your comments on my blog, and for all your prayers! Leslie and I would appreciate it if you'd continue to keep us in your prayers throughout these next few months of outreach, and also that God would comfort my family while were gone and not able to talk to them.
I'm really excited and honored that the Lord has called me to Borneo and I'm ready to go there and show Gods love and share the gospel with these people! I know it'll be hard at some points, but when they gave us a calendar of the dates and where were going during outreach, the last day of outreach was written "Did you Love?" and that's the question for our whole outreach! And when I come back I want to be able to SHOUT IT OUT LOUD that Yes I Loved on these people like crazy and be able say that I died to myself EVERY day I was in these countries and gave my all to show them the God I serve, by the way I live my life, and who I told them Christ is! I'm the Lords servant and I know he'll use me not only in these next 3 months, but the rest of my life, and there is no place I'd rather be then doing his work! So God Bless you all and I LOVE YOU!

I'll miss you Maui, see you in a few months!

Rats

2008-03-19T09:08:00.002-10:00

So to give you guys a little background about whats been happening this week, I sleep on the top bunk (the 3rd one) Which is 10-12 feet in the air, and around the whole room is a shelf thing that is right by my head that runs around the whole room, which is actually where there are florescent lights, but we don't turn them on, so Rebbecca(my bunk mate) and me use that as a shelf and put our junk up there, like our notebooks, books, our computer stuff like that. Well last Monday night at mid night I swear I heard some sort of creature run by my head in that shelf, and i got really scared and talked to my friend Melissa about it, and shes like,"oh yeah its a rat, didn't you know? Chelsea has heard and seen it before, but its not a big deal." Well it kind of is for me when its right next to my head, so I threw my bed over the side of the bunk and slept on the ground. Well the next night my friend on staff just told me to put dryer sheets up there, that they don't like the smell and wont come near them, so I put a Ton of them and wasn't that scared for some reason. So I slept good Tuesday night and didn't have a problem. WELL Wednesday night came around and its midnight and I was the Only one awake sitting at the foot of my bed which is where Rebbecca head is at, and I'm on my computer, and I hear a noise behind me and I look and because of my computer light can see A RAT jump from that shelf and land on MY PILLOW! I SCREAMED bloody murder and jumped onto Rebbecca, seriously like jumped on to her hugging her, and didn't stop screaming, well she woke up and screamed a little herself and then tryed to SHHh me and ask why i was screaminfg, well for some reason I just start balling, and by this time EVERYONE is awake and the lights are on, and i tell everyone that theres a rat on my bed right now, and they help me get down from my bunk, and I just am standing there for a good solid 5 minutes just crying and people are rubbing my back saying," Its ok, you can sleep in my bed tonight" just being totally sweet to me, well then Tiny Melissa Mitchell gets the downy fabric softener spray and a water bottle and climbs up to my bunk like convinced she is going to kill the rat, and the mood just shifts and we all start busting out laughing and can't stop, we all started replaying what happen, and Ashley told me that she thought I was getting murdered because of how I screamed! Ikept apologizing for waking everyone up and screaming, but they kept thanking me because they said it was the funniest thing ever. And we were just laughing so hard and being so loud that one of the staff came in and calmed us down and told us to go to sleep, and we'll set rat traps in the morning. Well my lovely friend Shawna offered me to sleep in her bed with her till we leave from Thailand, which is incredibly nice of her. So as I was sleeping with her at 3:30 am she jumps jump and starts patting around our feet and saying that theres something on the bed, and then lays back down to go to sleep, and I'm like Ok what in the world so I ask her "Shawna why did you just do that, did you hear something?" and she said," No I felt something." So thats when I got really scared and moved into the lecture hall where I per ceded to stay awake the rest of the night. Then I tried sleeping in Shawn as bed the next night and the rat trap went off @ midnight (These rats come out at the same time every night apparently) and it was so loud we all got up and took pictures and were like "YAY its dead, its over!" and were all happy. Well I remember that rats travel in packs (I mean haven't you seen Ratatouille? ha) so I get really scared again because now theres no rat trap up there and his friends might come looking for him. So somehow I managed to get 3 hours of sleep that night. Well this past week I've been struggling with maybe getting 3 hours of sleep a night, two nights ago I didn't sleep at all, and I don't have time to take naps during the day. So anyone that knows me at all knows how much I sleep, how much I NEED sleep to function (ask my high school teachers how much i used to sleep in class) Well this constant fear of these rats was just eating away at me (I don't know why, I've never been scared of them before) and I started fearing the dark, because I knew I would have to go to sleep and I just got SOO scared thinking about the night to come. The whole week I would have these emo moments where I would just cry because I didn't want to deal with this situation anymore, I've never been scared of going to sleep, I enjoy sleep, so what the heck is wrong with me. I'm just being really transparent with you guys right now so that you guys can understand. So if you read my last blog about leaving Maui, how I'm not ready to leave yet, I love it here, and I love lecture phase. Well since this whole no sleep rat situation all I've been doing is counting the days till we leave and its just put a damper on my last weeks here. Well last night I hit my breaking point it was 10 pm and I've been sleeping in different places every night trying to find a place where I can get some sleep, so Calla comes and asks me where I'm going to sleep tonight and I just loose it and just say like," I'm sick of this, this fear is just ruining me and I don't know why, I'm not like this, I don't get scared like this, I just want to leave this house and go to Thailand, only because of these rats and nothing else, and I cant do this anymore, I can't not sleep, its killing me, I cant focus during the days and I live with such a fear at night and it wont go away." And I'm just balling and she just asks, "Lauren do you pray before you go to bed?" and I'm like yeah duh I pray that the rats don't come near me! And we talk some more and she prays for me and I calm down and I go outside for some air, and I'm just thinking the whole time about this situation how I've handled it, like do I pray about it? Then it hit me, how I would pray about it for 2 minutes each night maybe , but then focus on the rat and noises I would hear and my fear for hours and I realized by doing that, I was trying to control this situation, I was putting more faith into me hearing the rat and being able to know where it is, rather than giving it to God and knowing that he would protect me. I was letting this fear take over all of my thought, I was even justifying not having a quiet time in the morning like I usually do, because thats when I would try to get a few minutes of sleep (when everyone was up, and the lights were on I'd feel safe to sleep in the room) So after I had this revelation of ok God is bigger than this rat and I can and should turn to him first, rather than lean on my own ability to try and solve this problem, I looked up comfort in the subject guide in the back of my Bible and I looked up the one that said "comfort when afraid". It was Isaiah 41:10-14. Verse 10 really stuck out to me," So do not fear for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand," and the end of verse 13,"do not fear; I will help you!" These verses just brought me such peace and rest just thinking about the character of God, he doesn't want me to fear he wants me to know that he is here for me to run to he wants to comfort me and hold me in his hands and give me strength, he will always be there to help me when I am scared, and I'm So Thankful for that. I'm So thankful that I serve such a loving and compassionate God, who doesn't want to see his children scared of anything or carry any burdens, but just want us to be free from any junk in our lives that were focused on. So last night I slept amazing and had such peace and now I'm not scared of when it starts getting dark anymore!! :O) YAY I can sleep in peace because God is my comfort! This is exciting to have this revelation because there are snakes and lots of bugs in Borneo, but I can't live in fear while I'm there, please pray that I would continue to seek God in any of the fears I have!

FYI- We have caught 3 Huge rats since last Monday, 3 traps have went off but no rats were in them, a rat keeps eating the peanut butter off of one of the traps every night, but it doesn't go off, oh and to top it off a rat ran from our bathroom, into our closet yesterday morning! So yeah I had good reasons for being sacred, but hey also don't let my little rat story affect any bodies decision to come to YWAM Maui, because its the best base ever and I highly recommend it :O)

OUTREACH IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!!

2008-03-12T22:40:00.004-10:00

OH MY WORD its seriously crazy to think that we are leaving for Thailand in only 2 weeks!! AH I feel like I've only been in Maui for a couple weeks! Time has flown, but I've loved every minute of it, I feel like theres so much more to learn and I really wish there were more weeks in lecture phase! But then again I can't wait for outreach!! So I have specific dates for you guys to let you know where I'll be for the next 3 months and what we'll be doing there (as much as I know... which isn't a whole lot)

March 26th- Leave for Thailand with whole DTS (well minus the 12 Surfers that are going to Fiji)

In Thailand we will be there for 10 days in the big city of Bangkok, finishing out our last week of lecture phase, and going through culture shock all together Yay fun! We will be doing buddist temple walks where will be able to pray over them, maybe going in them and pray, and then at least onenight the girls are planning to go to the red light district to the bars to talk to the prostitues (Wow hearing the testimoies of the fall school DTS who did this for a month was really a sad thing to hear about the brokeness of these women, and how some have such a hard time even understanding Jesus' unconditional Love for them.. I'm really excited to be able to have the opportunity to share with these women about Gods love!

April 7th- All the teams split up and my team leaves Thailnad and arrives in Huching, Malaysia

April 8th- We leave for Pontianak, Indonesia

Where I believe the YWAM Indonesia base is located. YWAM Indo has this strategic plan of how we can reach the whole island of Borneo with the gospel, so they will have where we are going and what we will be doing planned out (but as I've heard a lot of plans can change). They will have a small team that will travel with us, they will be our translators, and they are so important, we all are going to have to work as one team.

We just got our passports back today with a 60 day Visa, so thats how long we will be in Borneo. During that time all I really know is that we will be in the middle of the jungle going to different villages where we will be doing house visits (going from house to house for hours at a time, where we get to love on them and share the gospel. I've heard such amazing things about the Indonesians that they are SO welcoming! They give you all this food and they even value you so much if a women is pregnant they might ask you to name their child- No lie Kyles team name 3 kids while they were there.) So thats really cool because they are so open and welcoming to what we want to share with them! We will also have ministry time 6 days a week in the community, where we will do skits, dramas, childrens ministry, we will be able to give sermons or messages that we've prepared for them (we do one each week on the content from the lecture of that week) Thats all I really know, sorry its kind of vague but thats all the information I know.

But some prayer request for this time would be:

Team unity, not only with our Maui Borneo team, but with what will be our new Borneo team with all of the YWAM indo people joining us. Yeah this is huge because we want to be untied so that we could really pour out our love on these people and that it wouldn't affect our ministry ( So far though you guys we have had no problems, our team seriously loves each other, its such a blessing! Were kind of known around here to always be hanging out with each other and everyone says how cool it is that were so unified, so yeah praise God and please just pray that this continues on our outreach phase)

The people of Borneo- This is a large Muslim country, and past teams have told us about how in the villages people believe in witch doctors, and animism , so please pray for spiritual warfare because some places its going to be really hard to see how satan has such a stronghold on these peoples lives, and yeah that our team would even withstand attacks from the enemy. Pray for open doors and softened hearts for these people that they'd be hungry to hear about who Christ is.
Safety- Our team takes a few bus rides I know one is 10 hours at least, but yeah even hiking through the villages, that the Lord would just protect us from any harm. Its been amazing living on Maui where there are no snakes, but there are posionous snakess in Borneo, and just please pray for protection from any diseases, and sicknesses.

June 5th- Leave Indo, take bus to Kuching, Malaysia

The 6th will be a day of rest!
The 7th we will have worship and intercession for Brunei

June 8th- Leave for Brunei

We will be staying in a large city in Brunei, which I've heard is almost like comming back into the United States, they have pizza hut and regular stores which I hear is very nice after being in the jungle for 2 months. But more importantly the ministry we are doing there will be a lot of church ministry and encouraging the Christians there. Most of the churches are under ground because Christians are perscetued there. The country is mostly made up of Islam and Hinduism. Some prayer points:

Protection for our contacts and other Christian citizens of Brunei. If we get caught sharing the gospel that worst that could happend is that we would get deported, but it could be a lot worse for actual citizens who are helping us do this, so please pray for their protection.

That we would be able to build good realtionships with the people, so that we can share the gospel and disciple people. I'm really excited to go here because a lot of people speak english, unlike Borneo where we will have to have a translator with us to talk to everyone.

This is towards the end of outreach and some might be anxiuos to go back to Maui, but just pray that we would really take advantage of every moment were there, and that we would remember our purpose and that God would just give us his heart for these people.

June 16th- Leave for Hutching Malaysia

Here we will be debriefing on the 17th- the 19th and we have to be here because this is where the airport is

June 20th- Leave Malaysia Start our journey back home to Maui!

June 21st- Partay in Taipei Taiwan

Ok so were not going to really party, but we are going to stay the night there and have a little bit of fun while its our last night over seas.

June 22- Arrive back in MAUI! :O)

June 27th- Graduation

June 29th- I leave at 8 something at night to come back to Florida! Its an overnight flgiht so I won't actually be back till the 30th.

July 12th- Lil Lindz GETS MARRIED!!!( I know that doesn't have anything to do with YWAM but I'm excited for her!!)

Thanks for keeping my team in your prayers and you can also pray for my friends going to other countries :O)

Little Melissa and myself during our "Artsy Ohanna" we had people play guitar, sing, read poems, sing random funny songs, and just had coffee and desserts, it was a lot of fun!

I can't believe they are going to let these crazy cats into Borneo!

Pictures from Bamboo Forest

2008-03-06T17:57:00.019-10:00

Last Sunday a group of us went after church to the Bamboo forest, and I wanted to show you some pictures :O) It was a lot of fun!
This is a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree, isn't it so cool? Everytime you peel off the bark it turns a different color.

There was like 15-20 of these trees across the street from the Bamboo forest. There are cows, because they were actually on someones property fenced in.

Me Hiking through the Bamboo! Soo Crazy! Tts huge and some spots were dark like this one because theres sooo many trees, but when the wind blows them, they sound like the wind chimes people buy, its really cool!

We had to swim this to get to the way back of the forrest to get to the huge waterfall, It was freezing because its all fresh water!

We had to jump from rock to rock, for a long to get to the back

This is one of first little waterfalls you see

The second mid-size waterfall, you have to hike around it to get to the big one

This is the end of the Bamboo forest the "big" waterfall!! ITs SO huge and amazing! You probally cant see that much water comming down it because it hasn't really rained in a while, but the last time I was there it had more water because it'd been raining. But yeah it runs from the very top and you can jump off it unlike that other ones, but you can see a few of my friends on the bottom left of the waterfall and you can just see how big it is!

Getting the right perspective

2008-02-28T17:22:00.002-10:00

Yesterday was such an AMAZING day!! There's a ton of reasons why, but the main thing God really prepared me for outreach! During Outreach prep as a school we learned about how we can all do Children's ministry, and we thought of games and action songs like father Abraham, it was fun. Then we split up into our outreach teams and have "track times" where someone who has gone to the country your going to comes and tells you about their experience, might show us pictures, maybe give helpful suggestions, and encouragement, or lead intercession for the country, it looks different depending on who it is. Well this guy Isaac who used to be on staff came and talked about how he had lead two teams to Borneo, this last one was just this past summer, and it was funny because he only knew he was going to be talking to us ten minutes before hand, so he had nothing planned but the Lord just used him to speak to us, and I just wanted to tell you some things he said that I thought were really cool. Team unity is something he really stressed because if were not unified it can effect so much and primarily our ministry and how effective we can be. We need to support and serve our leaders and to just remember that they are leaders because that is where God put them right now and respect and honor that. And always be thinking how I'm not going to be perfect myself, I'm going to make mistakes, so in that just showing that same grace towards others in those situations where they might make mistakes. And if someone is failing in an area I don't need to pick up the slack, I need to encourage them and serve them, and ask if theres anything I can help with. This is all such good stuff, but the thing that really hit me is how we have to enter into Indo with the right perspective... We shouldn't be going in there with the mind set that I'm going to need a lot of paper to write down all of the people we lead to Christ, or all the Crazy cool miracles we witnessed, but rather enter Indonesia humbling our self down to a servant knowing that we were called there to be the hands, feet, and hugs of Jesus. Shane Claiborne says," Beyond the miracles, what has lasting significance is love. We can do all sorts of miracles, but if we have not love, it is nothing." God using our team for miracles, healings, and seeing numerous salivations would be indescribable, but if I don't see the fruits right away when I share the gospel with them, I'm not going to get discouraged, I'm going to keep Loving on these people like CrAzY and serving them any way I can. Mother T says, "Were not called to be successful, were called to be faithful." and walking out in obedience of what the Lord is telling you to do, the situation doesn't always end how we would've like it to, but I have Such faith in the Lord that through our obedience he is going to use that for good and it'll bring him glory! Living a life of obedience and service is what we are called to, its about getting over myself, dying to myself, and following Jesus by Loving others and Serving others. Isaac ended ," Outreach Starts NOW! ......(it actually started the moment you accepted Christ)"

Kona!

2008-02-16T17:38:00.018-10:00

Hey hey hey!! So I just got back from a week at the base in Kona! Kona is on the Big island in Hawaii, and it was about a 26 minuite plane ride to get there. It was REALLY different then our base, they has about 700 people living on their base, and it reminded me of a college campus, or summer camp. They have quite a few schools running there, they had 4 different DTS schools alone ex)Mega Cities DTS- Pursing God's heart for people of the world's largest cities. This week was called "The gathering" and not only our DTS here on Maui came, but Honolulu's and Hola Hola's. Alltogether we had around 400 students sitting in lecture, all different ages, and races, it was so cool, like my roomates were from Sri Lanka, Denmark, Korea, and from the U.S.
The Island Breeze leadership team lead our lectures, most of them were all Hawaiian, and Samoian, and they started every day by inviting the Holy Sprit into this place, asking him to teach and speak to us, and they did this by doing different dances, 'and skits, and yelling in Hawaiin (Sorry I know theres a name to descibe this that starts w/ a "P" but I can't think of it. ) Anyways this kind of weirded me out at first, but its part of their culture, and this brings me to what we learned about.... The first day we learned about "protocall" which is like welcoming the Holy Spirit, and the second day we came in there thinking we were just going to sit through another lecture ( and they thought they were going to do what they had planned) But the Holy Spirit just led us into a Completely unplanned, un-rehersed amazing time. I think it started by them talking about how we might think its kinda weird of different how they welcome the Holy Spirit, but thats just how they do that in their culture, then we talked about how sometimes as missionaries we don't respect the culture that we go into to preach the gospel, and we need to be sensitive to that. Its like we go into other countries like we know all the right stuff, and that we are going to give to them, and that they don't have anything to give to us. Then I think Penny said he just felt like some of us are holding on to some bitterness, or hatred towards other nations for what they have done to your culture, or country, and we need to repent. So people just start going up on stage (Just picture this again 400 people, SOOO many different ethnicities, and all ages) People said stuff like they want to ask forgivness for the pride that they have had thinking they knew everything going into another nation. A Japanese man got up there and appologized on behalf of his country to what happend at Pearl Harbor. Another guy appologized to the Hawaiin's because he is a contractor and he was very greedy and money hungry, and he sent his men there to build on their land. The cutuest older Philapino man got up there and told us that he did not like YWAM when they came to his country, because he felt like they were trying to change their ways into the Western ways, but now he feels and can see that people can be both Philipino and Christians(like you can still retian your culture and be a Christian) Someone from our base had been in the army and went to Iraq, and he confessed that he used to hate Muslims and Arabs because he watched 4 of his friends get blown up from a car bomb, but today he finally forgives them (Thats huge! He's such an awesome guy though forreal) It was really cool though because Penny says we need to respond to our brothers and sisters. (ex-The guy who appologized to the Americans for Pearl Harbor, an American got up there and said we forgive you and also repented to God for their hatred they had, had for what they had done and asked that guy for forgiveness as well) A girl from the Navaho Nation came up and said an amazing statement she said, " I don't want to see people as different colors, races, and nations anymore, but I want to see them as one person through Gods eyes." It really hit me, why would I think its weird that the Island Breeze people welcomed the Holy Spirit in a different way than I do, just because of different cultures. We need to start to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us stop seeing people as different colors, and nations, but start seeing them as one person through Gods Eyes, and ask to help you see the value and love he has for them, and the beauty he sees in how different cultures worship and live for him. By the end of the week, I was looking forward to how the Island Breeze team was going to welcome the Holy Spirit, because yeah it was different, but God delights in it SO much, its SO beautiful to him to see all different countries, and nations around the world with different languages all worshiping the one and Only living God! AHH what is cooler?! The forgiveness thing is Huge though too, God created each person in his own image, he Loves everyone the same, they are so valuable to him, so by us holding on to biterness, or hatred towards someone, or a country we are not seeing them as God sees them, and thats Not how God intended it to be. He doesn't want us to carry those burdens of unforgiveness, we've been set free! Ahh this is only the second day, there is Soo much more, but what was cool about this week is they completed droped their plans that they had prepared, and just followed what God was leading them to talk about.
Sorry again for not writting a lot on here, of if you e~mail me and it takes me a while to email you back, I've just been So busy, but its been Amazing! I'm Loving every moment of it! :O)

Heres some pictures from Kona, and the past few weeks!

About a dozen of our guys, from our base slept in hammocks in this tree all week in Kona, which was like anywhere from 10-20 feet high..

Theres A TON of Lava rocks on Kona

Aww Island Breeze doing protocall(Welcoming the Holy Spirit)

We had an 80's dance and movie the night before we left for Kona! IIt was So much fun. This is Leah she is the girl leader for the China team. Her boyfriend Kyle is actually my guy leader for Borneo!

All the girls... looking good.... ;0)

The guys..haha

This is my bunk- mate Rebecca, Shes not on my outreach team, but I'm really excited for her, she's really cool!

My Borneo Girls!! <3> We have an Ohana dinner once a month where we have just a nice dinner, and hang out and eat a nice meal with the whole base. This is a picture of Team Borneo!!Starting on the left is Aydan (Cook Islands) Ben (Pennsylvania) Kyle (He's my leader and is from Montana) Joel (Canada) Then the girls satrting on the left is Lisa (Canada) Melissa (Canada) Anna(Missouri) Marysaa (Minnesota) Calla( shes my leader and if from Michigan!!Yay baby!) Becky(England) and Me . Awww I just love this team!!

Oh that hot girl on the left is Miss Calla Davidson, my outreach leader, she is pretty much halarious and amazing!

Some more possible outreach locations :O)

2008-01-31T22:40:00.000-10:00

So something random before I tell you about outreach. On Tuesday we were driving into town and theres all these mountains in the distance, well we take a second to look at one called Mount Haleakala, its about 10,000ft(so I hear) and you can see it snowing on the top of it!! How Crazy is that?! It was SO cool you could just see this big white cloud over the peek and the whole tip of the mountain was white(compared to the rest of lushious green plants and trees, it was very cool), well they told me that it hasn't snowed on that mountain in years and it only does say once every five years, so it was really cool because when we got into town all people were talking about was did you see the snow? Yeah it snows in Hawaii, I thought that was kinda crazy.

Also real quick.. this week is Holy Spirit/ Hearing the Voice of God week! And Wow its INsanely awesome!! I'm learning a lot!! Maybe if I have time this weekend I can write some things that I've learned, but sense we are learning how to hear Gods voice, the whole base is doing a media fast next week mon-fri (which mean lil les I'm sry were going to have to re-schedule our skype date! You guys I talked to Leslie last night for the first time in I think it was 24 days, Aww I Love her she is doing So good and Loves it there, I'm so happy for her:o) Yeah but I'm really excited to take this time to really press in to hearing God voice!

Which brings me to the main point of this blog.. So today during our growth group our leaders announced that we are only able to get a 2 month visa for Indonesia, which means we will have to go somewhere else for 2 1/2 weeks other than Indo. So if you guys check out this picture you can probally guess where we might spend those 2 and 1/2 weeks. The countries Malaysia and Brunei are the two possible places!!

Our leaders told us that they could have just made a decission about which one we were going to and how long, but this is our outreach and were a team and they want us to take it to God and try to hear from him on which one, or if both countries how long will we spend in each one. We all have to come to a conclusion next week thursday, so this is an awesome time to do this media fast and to just hear his voice and his direction for our team. We'd love it if you guys could keep our team in your prayers :O) Thank You and Love you all!!

Around the Base and Schedule

2008-01-25T22:12:00.000-10:00

Hi kittens! I just wanted to show you where I've been living the past few weeks and what I've been up too :O)
Comming up our drive way with our huge front lawn (that you can't really see)

This is just a cute little place to go to have a quiet time or hang out, it is off to the right of the lawn, hidden by some trees.

Our huge pool

Our pretty big deck, and pool, we usually sit out here to eat every meal, unless its raining.

This is One of our bathrooms its the bigger one, the first two curtins are showers and the last one is a toliet and behind me is another toilet. Yeah so with the other bathroom we have 2 showers, 2 sinks, and 4 toilets, for 18 girls (students) plus all of the staff girls... Its kinda Crazy, but some how it works

Ha, this is an example of one of our dressers/storage units for 18 girsl to share! (Sorry I don't know if I explained the 18 girls thing before, but all of the DTS student girls share one room!)

One side of our room, you can see that there isn't enough dressers, so some people use their suitcasses.

This is the other side (I kind of forgot the middle bunks and their dressers) But yeah there are 6 triple bunk beds, and the top right one is mine, its like 10 feet in the air, and kind of difficult to get down in the dark sometimes :OP

The left side of this buliding is the office, and the right is the kitchen where they make all the meals for the base. Behind this house which you can't see is one of the boys house.

Another one of the boys house, to the right is the main house.

This is our cat! Les you would love her! Her name is Vivien, or Viv, shes not allowed in the house or anything(even though sometimes you'll see her sprint in while were having lecture), but shes always around. Shes a pretty cool cat.

We use this as a multi purpose room. Right now your seeing the meal time set up, then we usually take our food out on the deck. Then those chairs you see stacked, we bring those out and face them towards the white board, where our speaker stands up there, and uses the board for lectures.

This is the other side of the "lecture hall" this is where we hang out at night with everyone too.

This is the house kitchen, which the staff in the hospitality department bake all their good stuff, and where were allowed to keep our personal food, and where they keep the food for the weekends. Oh and those are the two house computers. Behind that wall thing is a girl staff/mission builder rooms which I didn't get pictures of (this house is crazy how it can fit so many beds and people, b/c then to the right is the door to go outside, but to the right of that is another girls staff room)

The other side of the kitchen. But to the right is the lecture hall, but behind it to the right is this hidden staff room that you can only get to, by going outside (yeah confusing I know, but like I said its a kinda crazy house, but its really cool!) Theres more rooms and things that I didn't take pictures of, but heres a basic idea.

I also wanted to show you guys what I've been up to. So heres my weekly schedule:

*Everyday breakfast is at 7:00 am*

Monday-

7:45 am- Leave for worhsip @ North shore( we go there sometimes so that we can sing loud, b/c our neighboors have called the cops on them a few times)

8:00am- Worhsip

9:30am- Staff Cahpel Talks

10:00am- Lectures/journals due (Lectures are AMAZING! We fly in a new speaker each week from all over the world, on different subjects, like next week is on the Holy spirit)

12:30- Lunch

1:30pm- Work duties ( There are 3 different areas to work in 1)Hospitality-You bake, clean, and make cards, 2) Kitchen- You prep, cook, and clean up after all the meals 3) Matinence- this is mostly guys, they wash the cars, cut the grass etc.. I'm in kitchen though which is fun and easy!

5:00pm- Dinner

6:00pm House meeting/cleaning (all the girls meet and tell about how our living in a community is going, and if we need to work on things, and then we clean, b/c we have inspection tue. morning)

7:00pm- Lecture

Lecture ends at 9:00, or 9:30

Tuesday-

8:00am- Base Intersecession (this is awesome time of prayer, where we just pray for different things, maybe Maui, the different towns in it, unity as a base, our outreach locations.. and SO much more stuff!)

9:00 am- Quiet time (where we can just go hang out with God)

10:00am- Lecture

12:30pm- Lunch

1:30 pm- Community Outreach (This is a chance for us to serve the people in our community, and show Gods love, and we also serve on Sundays at different local churches)

5:00 pm-Dinner

7:00pm- Growth Group ( I LOVE Growth Group, its just a time to be able to hang out, and get to know our out reach team, we have them twice a week, and one of those the girls and guys split up to get to know one another and the leaders)

Wed-

8:00am- Mission moment( Usually a guest will come and talk about an outreach he went on with YWAM and their experieneces)

9:00 am- Quiet time

10:00 am- Lecture

12:30- Lunch

1:30- Outreach prep (We meet with our outreach team and prepare for Indo)

5:00- Din din

The rest of the evening is free, but this is a time they do town runs to do laundary, since we don't have any machines on base.

Thurs-

8:00- Base Intersecession

9:00am- Quiet Time

10:00am- Growth Group

12:30pm- Lunch

1:30- Work Duties (Kitchen)

5:00- Dinner

7:00pm- Lecture

Friday-

8:00- Base worship

9:30- Lecture

11:30am- Processing ( this is a time where we just love on our speaker for the week, and build them uo, and let them know how much we appreciated them for comming, praying for them. Then they'll ask us a few questions that went along with the weeks topic, and we will journal and then share them with someone next to us, and then pray for each other. Its really cool!)

12:30pm- Lunch

The rest of the day is free!

Sat and Sunday- Food boxes for breakfast and Lunch is in the house, and dinner is at 5:00, and they are free! Except Sunday morning we go to church. The church I go to we leave at 7:45am and don't get back till 1:00pm ( they break for food in the middle of the service, its funny)We are serving during the service with the children of or other stuff.

On Top of all of this, we have to turn in a 6 page weekly journal assingment to our outreach staff leaders. Here are what the six pages are on..

1) Lecture content- Baiscally what we learned and we have to answer 6 questions on dif. stuff

2) Teaching Outline- We have to take one of the main ponit from lecutre and create a teaching out line that we could teach to someone on outreach, assuming that they know little or nothing about the topic.

3) Bible study- We have to read an assinged book of the Bible each week, then due 3 different sections A-Observation B- Interpretation C- Application

4) Reading Report- We are assinged a different book basically every two or three weeks, so we have to read a lot then write down what we learned and how we can apply it to our daily lives.

5)Meditation/Memory Verse- We are given verse each week that we have to memorize and just take time to mediatate on and write down what we learn from it (Les the first one is Gal 2:20 ;o)

6) Personal Response- This page is for us to wrtie or draw about anything that happend this past week, it could be a poem, a picture, a letter to God/prayer, anything in responce to what we learned!

So yeah you guys can see our crazy busy schedule! Every one always kind of laughed when I said I was going to Maui, like I was going to be at the beach all day. And yeah I'm so blessed that I am able to have some time to go and see this beautiful place that God has created, but thats not why I came here. I came here to seek after God with all my heart and thats whatI'm doing, and that is what this base is all about- encouraging and helping you grow in your walk with Christ, so as a result you'll look more like him and more people will come to know him through that! You guys I'm just thrilled to be here, with nothing to focus on but God!

They think they're funny...

2008-01-24T22:19:00.000-10:00

So the DTS staff always likes to leave us in suspense, surprise, and just be mysterious for some reason.. I don't know why, they just think its funny I guess. So this morning after intersession, Todd tells everyone beside the DTS students to leave. Then he tells us to move forward and squish the chairs together and remember exactly where we are sitting. Then someone takes a picture to see where our exact seats were. Then they tell us to all leave the room for 3 minutes and when we return we have to MAKE SURE we sit in the same seats (at this point we are like what in the world is going on?) Well we come out and sit down in the same seats, and Todd asks a few people to switch seats, and finally explains that some of us will be going to Thailand before we head out to our main outreach location. He said they only selected a few that they've been observing and feel like will make an "all-star" team, and while we were gone for those few minutes they put something on the bottom of our chairs, and if we had something on the bottom of our chairs, then we were on the all-star team to go to Thailand. He said before we look, we all have to promise to keep a poker face and not say anything until we all looked and then he'll ask everyone that is on that team to raise their hands and that's how we will display the team. Ok I'm just going to be honest my heart was pounding, I was like praying that God would just allow me to be on this team, because I actually REALLY have a heart for Thailand and all of the prostitutes, human trafficking, and sex industry that is going on there right now, and actually I was really hoping that it was one of our outreach options. So yeah I'm really nervous and I'm already thinking about how bummed I'm going to be if I'm not on this team. Todd stresses poker faces once we find out, and tells us to look. I look under my seat and there is a pink post it note!! I smiled SOO big with my face still down, I was SOO Happy. Then I composed myself sat up and Todd says ok, now everyone raise their hands that is on this team, and I raised my hand, only to look around to see that EVERYONE had their hands raised!! WERE ALL GOING TO THAILAND!! Its only for a week, but still I can't wait!! They thought it was so funny how they went about telling us. It was funny......afterwards. But yeah so for outreach phase I'm going to Thailand, then Borneo, Indonesia! :O)

OUT REACH!

2008-01-21T14:35:00.000-10:00

I'M GOING TO BORNEO INDONESIA!! YAY!!! I'M SOOO EXCITED!! So I'll let you guys know how this became where I'm going. When they put up the three locations I didn't really feel anything toward one of them intially. My hethrough Nepal to these villages where people have never even heard of the name Jesus before. I thought like art was really for Thailand, but since that wasn't an option, I just prayed and asked where God wanted me to go. Well then I remembered listening to a podcast from GNN about a missionary who trek oh that would be awesome to go there.. Maybe I'm remembering this for a reason, so I prayed about it but I wasn't really sure if God wanted me to go there, or if it was just me, that I thought it would be awesome to go there. So I wrote down that I'm pretty sure I should go to Nepal, but let me know what the staff comes up with when they pray over it. But I felt pretty good about Nepal, so I was just hoping that they wouldn't come up to me and ask me to switch, b/c I have problems sometimes about second guessing big decisions. Well sure enough they came to me and said that as a whole DTS staff team they prayed over it and really felt I should go to Borneo. And I was like Ok why did they have to do this to me?! I'm going to drive myself crazy thinking about it and questioning which one is the right one, and plus Indo was the LAST place I wanted to go out of the three options. Well I just gave it to God because I was like God I can't make this decision and I don't want to! I asked him what his heart was for Indo, and what did he want to see happend there, and then I asked him the same things for Nepal, and as I got a list of each, then I said and Lord where do you want me to go? And it wasn't like he yelled out BORNEO!! But as I took the whole day to pray about it, he really gave me a peace and a heart for the people in Indo, and he softend my heart so that I could see that the only reasons I didn't want to go there in the first place were selfish reasons, and since I've been here its SOO evident that its NOT about me!! Its about how God can use me! So I just wanted to Thank all of you for praying that God would speak clearly to me, b/c he did and I know that Borneo is where I'm suppose to go! And Oh I just Love my team that I'm going with!! I'll put a picture of them up here later! My best friend that I have here right now is Shawna and shes going to Nepal/Bangladesh!! Which I'm SOO excited for her, and just everyone here that just is being obedient to where God called them to go! But its cool that Shawna lives in the same town as I do, so we can continue to be friends, and tell each other about these amazing outreaches we had!! But WOW I"M GOING TO INDONESIA!!

Random stuff

2008-01-20T22:37:00.000-10:00

Some things I wanted to tell you all is Thank You SO much for all your prayers for everything (recently my outreach location) I will post where I am going ASAP! Thank you all for your financal support, because with out you guys I wouln't be able to be here, I know Les and I are just so greatful. God has provided more than all we can ask or imagine for our YWAM journey and so far its been amazing, so Thank You all for being a part of it!

I forgot to tell you all that my second bag did come the next day after the first one did, so that was nice!

My dear friend Shawna decided to make me a facebook against my will, so yeah if you guys have facebook, ask me to be your friend (I don't know how to work it yet)

I Love and miss you all!!

P.S. I FIND OUT MY OUTREACH TEAM TOMORROW :O)

A deeper Revelation of Gods Love!

2008-01-20T20:32:00.000-10:00

Our first speaker was a guy name Andy Byrd, he is such an Amazing man of God! He came into the lecture hall, and told us that we weren't going to start the DTS like all the other ones. Usually you just kind of ease into the deep stuff, but Maui gives all the speakers pictures of us, and they pray for us for weeks before they come, and Andy felt like God was telling him that our school was ready, we are hungry to know God more, and were ready to go deep, so he just dove in and God gave Andy an awesome word for us. So these are some notes and just a little bit of what I learned the first few days of lecture :O)

Andy talked about when Jesus was betrayed, and he was facing a death sentence and his best friends, the people he spent the most time with betrayed him. The time Jesus needed his best friends the most, they were no where to be found, and Peter even denied that he knew him. What about the heart of Jesus as he watched his best friends abandon him, or even the disciples, they must have felt such a sense of failure and shame. Judas felt it so much so that he committed suicide, and after really thinking about it, I'm surprised more them didn't especially Peter.

But then Jesus comes back after he rose and whats going on in the disciples minds, like do they even want to see him? Aren't they ashamed? Because the disciples gave up after Jesus was arrested they went back to fishing, the very thing Jesus pulled them away from. He called them to be fishers of men, not fishermen. So many of you may know the story of how the disciples are on the boat and they aren't catching anything, and Jesus is on the shore and tells them to throw their net on the right side of the boat, so they did and they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. John finally realized who was on shore and told everyone that,"It is the Lord." And when Peter heard that he jumped over board and swam to shore, as the others followed in the boat. Then Jesus said to them,"Come and have breakfast."

Going back over that, the disciples going back to the very thing that Jesus called them out of, which was basically like spitting in his face. They were caught in the midst of their comprimise, and what does Jesus do? HE BLESSES THEM!! HE cooks them Breakfast!! Peter jumped out of the boat because he had such a revelation of Gods love, even while he was caught in adultery. Peter experienced Gods love more at his lowest moment, than he ever did walking in righteousness.

So what was the difference between the Jesus that spent all the time with them healing the sick, and casting out demons, and the Jesus on the beach who cooked them Breakfast??! NOTHING! The only difference is that they failed, and in light of their failure they had a deeper revelation of Gods love, in light of failure they saw a stronger consistence of his love, and it was because of their failure why we know about Jesus today. Because Jesus made a way, but we still needed people to tell about it. So what would happen if we allowed our human weaknesses, and our failures to show the breakfast cooking Jesus. Because when we think back to our lowest low, and our highest high, we see that the love of Christ is still the same!

For me when I had my lowest low, I didn't have a revelation of Gods love, because I still didn't know who he was at that time ( so maybe our story isn't like the disciples where they had this revelation in the midst of their adultery) But now when I look back on my life, and at that lowest moment and I see how God continued to bless me, and that he loved me the same in the midst of me basically spitting in his face, as he does now. WOW! I can't even fathom this love!! I fell like I've only hit the tip of the iceberg of Gods love and I'm already blown away and forever changed! We sing this song here, and it Says,"Who is this God, that consumes me with his love." Man you guys I'm so captivated by this God, that is jealous for me, this God who says,"You have ravished my heart with one glance of your eye."(SOS 4:9) Gods heart skips a beat when we just look at him!! He is soooo in love with us that one look from us and he gets so excited. So what would happen if we stared at him? If truly lived our lives for him. Because we can say we want to be intimate with God and even say we have intimacy, but if we don't surrender, then thats cheap intimacy! Think about it, from a husband and wife perspective, what if they are intimate but the husband doesn't surrender himself to his wife? He'll most likely cheat on her.. commit adultery. And you guys thats what I can see now from my past is that I was wanting and being intimate with God at Saturday night church, or wed night, but I didn't surrender to him, and I was committing adultery on him with the world, and storing up treasure here on earth and not in heaven. And now that I look at that I realize how horribly I treated God, because only when we start to see Jesus as a Lover, can we see and feel the pain our adultery had caused. So I want to live my life in true intimacy and surrender with God!

Outreach Locations!!

2008-01-16T21:06:00.001-10:00

Earlier today they announced our outreach locations that we have they are...

Nepal/Bangladesh

Borneo, Indonesia

We have to decide by tomorrow morning, and then the staff is going to pray over our decissions. Right now none of those countries immediately stuck out, but I am just praying that I would hear Gods voice and that he would lead me to where I am suppose to go. So if you guys could please just pray that he would speak clearly to all of us, and I'll let you know the final teams. Thank You!!

Exodus!

2008-01-16T15:58:00.000-10:00

After the opening night they told us that we would be leaving the next morning at 6am to go on Exodus. We were told we are only allowed to take (INCLUDING the outfit you have on) One shirt, one sweatshirt, 2 pairs of underwear, one pair of pants, one pair of shorts, one pair of shoes, one headband/hat, glasses or contacts, and a sleeping bag. Yeah so thats no pillow, no D.O. for your B.O. umm no toothbrush. Yeah it ended up being 3 days long! And it was on this different side of the island then we live, and it was FREEZING!!! The wind was soo intense and cold. We stayed at this Beautiful spot that was just this cliff over looking the ocean. For Bfast we ate plain watery oatmeal...mmmmm, and every other meal was Chicken flavor Ramon (except one meal was mac and cheese). This was a time that we could all just get to know each other, in all our smelliness, and nastiness. We played a lot of name games, and other games to get to know each other. Then we all gave our testimonies, and Wow you guys I can't tell you how much I feel blessed to be here with all of these AMAZING people who are all striving to know God more. They are pursuing him ,even though maybe they are having a hard time right now, or in the past, like God is their passion right now. And I can't tell you how awesome and so crazy it has been to have only known these people for less than a week and already feel so close to them, and already have them constantly encouraging everyone in their walks. Its truly a beautiful environment to live in.

They didn't tell us the third day that we were going home, they said that we were packing up everything, and heading over to the other side of the island to another campsite, but first we had to stop at this church that we stored some food at and we'll eat dinner there and be on our way. Well even though everyone was having a lot of fun, I think we were all just kinda wishing we could go home because we were SOOO dirty from this game(I'll explain in one of the pics). So we got to the church and when we opened the doors all of the staff that didn't go on Exodus and the mission builders were standing there welcoming us, clapping, and cheering for us as we came in. They had prepared this insanely good feast for us and wow soo much good food!! The church was decorated so nice, and it was good to have a good meal, and be out of the cold. The base director got up there and explained that this was the end of exodus and this was actually called,"Love Feast." And he read this scripture from John 13 about when Jesus washed his disciples feet. He then told us that the DTS staff would be washing our feet. He explained they wanted to do this, to show everyone how they are here to serve us, and they are here to help us grow and whatever we need they are always here to help. Then the person who washed our feet had this letter for each of us, and we read it as they washed our feet, and it was just encouraging and just reminding me that God wants to reveal himself more to me.. He is Jealous for me!!! Then she prayed for me, and even remember thing that I had said in my testimony and prayed for that. And you guys it made me just realize how much I want to wash others feet, like how much I want to humble myself to a servant.. I want to become nothing to myself, but everything for God... I want God to use me to serve others and in that show them God, and tell them about his Amazing love!!

Shawna and I, just being ourselves at opening night (with our real lovely smelling leis)
Eating some coconuts and passion fruit, in between Ramon meals

The Iao(pronounced E-Oww) Valley. This picture doesn't even come close to capturing the gigantic, insanely beautiful valley.

The famous Ramon... (Which wasn't bad.. I had it for the first time out here)

Where the girls slept.. Yeah it didn't really protect us from rain/wind, or bugs.

This is the view from our campsite...

Some of the girls after the drip, drip, drop.. So basically its like duck, duck, goose. Only you play with a pitcher of water, and you drip some water on someones head when its like "duck" and then pour the whole pitcher on their head for like "goose." It got a little messy because we were playing it on a dirt patch and once people got dropped on, they got mad and put all this dirt in the pitcher to make it like pure mud when they dropped it on peoples head.

Yeah so meet my Biff buddy Brandon. I was the second person to get "dropped" on and me being really competitive ran as fast as I could and tripped and FACE PLANTED it, and seriously ate dirt in front of Everyone! It was hilarious, and everyone was laughing at me sooo hard, but it hurt. So anyways 10 minutes later Brandon was running really fast like I was and just fell flat on his face also. He said on his way down he was thinking that he shouldn't have laughed so hard at me and this is how I must have felt. It was so much fun even though we were shivering and freezing. So anyways this was Brandon and my re-inaction of what we looked like when we fell.

By the way Leslie's page is one of my links, and you should check it out! She cracks me up with her chocolate, but I know shes growing and learning a lot and has some amazing pics of Switzerland!

First Free day!

2008-01-11T21:58:00.000-10:00

Today was Amazing! Since it was the second day that people were arriving, we had the whole day off to just explore. So I just wanted to tell you about my day, and show you some picture :O) It started off at 7 am we had break fast, then we had base worship, and it was amazing, we just sang for like 45 minutes and they said some anouncements. Then I had a quiet time out by the pool, it is sooo nice to go outside and just spend time with God just looking at his insanely beautiful creation! By this time it was around 11am and everyone had gotten a ride into the town of Paia, which is where like a few shops are and by the beach, its like a 5-10 minute drive away. The few people of the girls that were still here was Shawna, Ana, and myself, so we walked to the main highway (which is funny because it is a two lane road) Then we got to the highway and we hitched a ride! Yeah kind of weird like all three of us holding out our thumbs, like I never thought I would hitch hike, but its insane how many people you see doing it here, and how normal, and so cool it is. We were only waiting like 2 minutes before this guy stopped and picked us up.

This is a picture from our first time hitch hiking, he had a mini cooper! Yeah not to bad a car for the first time! He was so awesome though he was older and from Spain, and has lived here like 20 years and was just telling us about the island as we were driving. Everytime we go into Paia we pass these pineapple feilds which are Crazy! When we were on our way to the house from the airport Calla said," Yeah don't steal a pineapple you'll get fined." So apparently people must do it a lot, haha.

Once our friend in the mini coop dropped us off, we went to the beach right away, and there was a lot of people there just hanging out and surfing and you can see the mountains in the background, and up by the parking lot there was these basketball courts and it reminded me of the movie Blush Crush, where just like local people came to hang out, so it was really cool to see.

This was at the same place as above, only you can kind of see how big the waves are, and a guy surfing.

This is a horrible picture of the shops and stuff in town, but its the only one I had. Maybe I will get a better one later. But we just went to lunch, it was really good, but everything is pretty expensive where ever you go.

Someones car, haha we just thought it looked cool.

Anna has a friend that lives here and she was so nice and picked us up and took us to a few different places. This is called "Baby beach" or at least thats what people call it, because the waves are so intense every where else, except right here, and that little peice of grass looking thing to the right helps catch the wave so it doesn't come in so hard toward the shore. But anyways it is called Baby beach because since its so calm, all the moms and families bring their babies there.

I t was really sunny but this is myself obviously, then Shawna she is from Bradenton too! And then is Anna she is from Springfield Missouri. They are both such fun girls!

Baby Beach. Don't sit on that red rock it staines! Shawna discovered that after she walked on it barefoot and sat down on it :oP

Isn't this like insanely gorgeous?! Leslie doesn't believe that I'm the one that take these pictures, that I'm actually seeing this, she thinks I got them from google or something, but I could say the same thing about her! But no this is... well it has a name but its something Hawaiian and hard to pronounce, and remeber, but anyways this is one of the most popular surf spots on the island! I don't know what size waves these are(They are huge though!), but we are going to go to this place called," Jaws" and there are 60 foot waves!!! I'm really excited to see that.

This is the same place above, but yeah the winter time has the best waves, and this was cool just to see all these surfers, and I guess a lot of wind surfers come there too.

This guy was in the parking lot by this beach above, he was chopping the coconuts so that you could drink the milk, then once you were done drinking that he would chop it open so that you could eat "the meat" of it. Anyways we bought one from him, and we said we felt so touristy, but Annas friend Mary-Ann said it was ok, that we're allowed to be, this was only our first full day in Maui.

Ha I look weird drinking the coconut milk.. It was nasty....

Here we are all trying the meat of the coconut, that was not very good either, but yeah starting on the left thats Maryssa (Minnesota) Shawna, myself, and Anna, Christina, and Angela (they are good friends who live like in this town I've never heard of but its an hour north of West Palm Beach, FL)

We ended our day with dinner, I ate a hot dog for the first time in like 3 years (My friends at Sonic would be proud of me..oh I miss the J-squad!, and my sisters would be proud also!) But anyways it was an amazing day and all the girls are sooooo incrediable, and just getting to know them better is so much fun! You can tell they all are so in Love with God and just want to learn more about him!

Oh to end the evening at 8:00 the airline called!! They found ONE of my bags!! Thank the Lord it was the one with my clothes!! So I was able to just take a shower and someone found me a spare tooth brush and Oh My Word I fell so much better!! However my, or should I say Tylers Hiking backpack is still floating arounfd out there, they have no idea where it is.... so yeah thats fun... But anyways tomorrow is another free day until 4pm we are eating dinner, and around 5-6ish we have our opening night!! Which I'm SOO pumped for!! I mean I loved exploring and seeing Maui today, and I will keep doing that on the weekends! But I'm really excited for the school to start! Which once it does, I don't think I will be able to update this as much as I have.. But I love you all and miss seeing everyone!!

I'm in Maui!

2008-01-10T19:08:00.000-10:00

So I made it here Safely, Thank the Lord. However I think its weird that Leslie lost one of her bags, because they actually lost BOTH of my bags, and they have no idea where they are at. They think it is because I had such a long lay over in Vegas(7 and 1/2 hrs) that they left them there. Its me and two other girls and a few guys here for our school so far. A lot more people are coming tonight though. And the staff and everyone is SOO nice and seems like such cool people, my two room mates right now are both 20 and one is from Missouri, and the other from the Cook Islands! And one of the guys here is from Canada. It was really funny though because two staff girls pick myself and Anna up, and two other boys. Well one of the boys name was Ezariah and he was wearing black nail polish, black clothes, and a Bunch of eye make-up. And so we are all talking in the van on the way to the base, and we were just asking him like why he came, and he basically said like his parents made him, and he said he only brought one back pack because he doesn't like to own a lot of possessions because he feels there are more important things like spiritual gifts, like friendship, then he read us a poem and it went some thing like,"drip drop the water falls..." I don't know something weird and I started laughing because it was just soo strange b/c he was so serious. So I asked him if he wrote a lot and hes like,"Yeah I'm actually writing a book about the western civilization, mostly American, I don't know that's just where my heart is.." Anyways I'm not gonna lie, I was freaked out, but then we finally got to the base and Calla(Staff) was showing us around and then she showed us the boys room, and there "Ezariah" introduced himself as who he really was which is Shawn a staff member and that it was all a joke, they like to pull pranks on people right when they get here, and wow it was hilarious because we were all like really relieved. But Oh My word it is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL HERE! I was kind of bummed out when Les was talking about going skiing on the Swiss Alps and being able to see the French Alps from her window, b/c I thought that Maui might look a lot like FL, and even though I haven't got to see a lot of it, its soooo pretty, and not like FL AT ALL!! I will show you some picture from the plane and the one with the sun setting is right from outside my window. I would write more but I'm about to pass out, its only 8:40 here, but almost 1am in FL, and my night in Vegas I didn't get much sleep because apparently they like to test the fire alarms and emergency sirens at 3am while no one is there, except crazy me trying to sleep half on a wheel chair and half on a regular chair..

Maui Tomorrow???

2008-01-08T16:06:00.000-10:00

I really wanted the title of this blog to be I'M GOING TO MAUI TOMORROW! But instead it has question marks. This is because today I was just reading and listening to a podcast about James 4:13-17 and it was talking about how we boast about today or tomorrow and the things we are going to do, the things that we have "planned" out for our life. But the thing is, how arrogant is that, that we would plan our days out, assuming that we will have tomorrow. Because ultimately God is in control, not us... not our plans. James says but instead of thinking your in control and you decide what is to come tomorrow you ought to say,"If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." And so that made me think about YWAM, because we've been planning on it a long time as I'm sure you all know and are probably sick of hearing about it ;oP And I believe that God called Leslie and I to go to YWAM, so this is what we've been planning on for so long, and I can't explain how excited I am to go. But I only want to go if its Gods will. I want to completely surrender myself to God, and say," I'll go where you send me, I'll do anything you want me to do." And that means that I can't say that, and then try to make up plans that I think I should do, or what I want to do, but just be obedient to what God has called me to. So as of right now.. 9:40pm Jan. 8th '08, my plans are to get on a plane to go to Maui tomorrow, but if God has something else planned for me, then Awesome I'll do whatever he wants me to do.