It Seemed Like All the Way to Tomorrow and Over It to the Days Beyond

So, once again I am super behind on updating my blog. Things have been super busy and now I am leaving for El Salvador tomorrow morning. I can't believe it. This summer has gone by so fast. These past few weeks have been filled with so much growth. Three weeks ago we had Jim Anderson come in to speak for the week and it was amazing. He talked about the roles of men and women in the church, purity and the daughter's heart. The week ended with an amazing prayer time with a lot of breakthrough in the room. He wrote a book called Unmasked. I highly suggest reading it. The following week we talked about the culture of honor and God's heart for the nations. I learned that honor is about asking for God's perspective on a person or nation. When we look at people we should see how God originally designed them and not the bad things about them. Same goes with the nations. Then this past week we talked about freedom in community. This week was super powerful for me. I learned what it looks like to operate on teams without pride, entitlements and passivity. It all goes back to honoring people above yourself. One line that stuck with me is that "God will offend your mind to expose your heart". Through emotional offenses Jesus will show you what to deal with. For me that is mind-blowing because God has been working on my heart a lot in those areas.
So now it is the night before international outreach and I can't believe that its that time already. Classes are over and now it is time to put what I learned to work. I can't wait to see what God is going to do on this trip. Our first flight is at 6 am in the morning so that means I need to get up 4 hours early.....eeek. We land in good ol' Dallas where we will have a layover until our flight at 4ish and we should be in San Salvador, El Salvador around 7 pm. We will be staying in a nice hotel which is such a blessing because there will be AC and San Salvador is freaking hot. The first week will be working with some churches and praying with some people there. We will be doing various outreaches such as visiting hospitals and feeding children. We will also be doing street evangelism which should be pretty awesome. I have always had a heart for the Latino community and I am so excited to be back in a spanish speaking country again. Please keep our team in your prayers. San Salvador isn't one of the safest cities in the world and is overrun with a lot of gang violence. Though I am not too worried because we have God with us and what else do you need when you have the Lord. We will be in El Salvador for two and a half weeks and then we fly back the 19th of August. I'm expecting God to show up in some crazy ways when we are there and I can't wait to tell you all about it. For now, Goodnight.

Where there's Life there's Hope

These past few weeks have been so awesome and amazing, I have not even been able to find time to blog about it. My apologizes friends. Two weeks ago we had Gary Weins from IHOP come and teach in our class for a week. It was mind blowing. Gary Weins has so much wisdom and knowledge of the Bible. The Word really started to come alive to me during this week. The first few days he spoke about why we pray. Many people see prayer as a "christian duty" but it is so much more than that. Prayer is fellowship with the Lord. The Lord desires to communicate with us and show us who we are. The greatest calling in our life is for us to love him like the 1st Commandment says. God wants chosen lovers who are choosing to love Him. Something so simple as loving the Lord carries so much power when we actually engage with the Lord. So cool. We also talked about the book of Revelation. I never understood it much before but Gary's teaching was super solid on it. Really opened my eyes to the meaning behind the book. It was a really inspiring week.
This summer has been a lot of laying down things for the Lord. God is breaking me out of my comfort zone and teaching me to live outside the influence of fear. God has especially been doing that in the area of local outreach and evangelism. This past week we talked about power evangelism. One quote from Francis Chan that stuck out in my mind this week says, "Simon says, 'Pat your head,' we pat our heads. Jesus says, 'Go therefore and make disciples,' and we memorize that verse." Jesus' model for missions has not changed. It is the same today.You can not convey the gospel without preaching it. So many things get in the way of people actually doing that. For me it's been pride and fear but God has been constantly breaking that down this summer. I know what I am called to do and I carry the testimony of what God has done in my life. We all have powerful stories. The stories are never ending. Each day is a new testimony of what God is doing in my life.
I want to live the kingdom lifestyle that we read about in our Bibles. God has been revealing so much to me about what that means in just one month. I know he is not finished. There is so much hope in living a life for Jesus. I never want to serve anyone else but the Lord. Everything else is meaningless. I want to grow into who God made me to be. God has gifted me in so many things that I hadn't even realized. I want to use all those gifts for his glory. I ain't playing now. This is for real.