10/27/2018 0 Comments Updates and Fundraising!Placement Update:
I have been approved to work half in have with possibly two different medical ministries as well as also maybe working with a street ministry group during my time in Ethiopia, but we are still looking for someone to "adopt" me for the summer (aka have a place to crash). The contact in Ethiopia says that she is hoping for full placement approval for me with all matters figured out in the next couple weeks. So prayers for finding someone I can stay with would be gratefully appreciated. Fundraising Update: In the meantime, even without 100% confirmed placement, I am going to officially start fundraising! I am having a couple hangups with the apparel fundraiser and the coffee fundraiser as well as donations directly to SIM cannot talk place until after 100% confirmed placement. But I am going to start my official fundraising now. So with that in mind, I would ask you to pray about how you could contribute to this mission trip. First I would ask for your continued support through prayer. Nothing has happened throughout the process of preparing for this trip without prayer, and it shouldn't be any other way. So please continue to pray for this process. Second, please pray about how God may lead you to support this trip financially. I have been very blessed to have an amazing group of Godly people throughout my journey in missions that have been sensitive to the call of God. Your love, prayers, and financial support are what have allowed me to go to various parts of the world and teach the Gospel and bring healing to the lost. So please pray as to what God might call you to do. Any and all donations are appreciated. Right now the best way to send financial donations is through either Paypal (I will insert the link at the end of this post) or through the mail. If you would like to have my address to send a donation please email me. Right now that is all of the updates I have. I am continuing to bathe this trip in prayer and I will continue to let you all know about updates as they happen! Thank you!
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10/1/2018 0 Comments Forgetting His FaithfulnessI have a confession... I love to be in control. I don't just admit that I have a tendency to be a control freak, but that I actively love it. I love planning out every part of my day and all of my goals and dreams, and not surprisingly, this part of me pours out into my missions sometimes.
One of my goals for having this platform is to not only inform my supporters about missions, but also to be 100% transparent in order for people to understand that I am just an ordinary person that God is using, and that God can use them too. So with that in mind, I have a bigger confession. I am guilty (many times over) of forgetting God's faithfulness. Recently I went on a women's retreat with my church. During our individual reflection time, I couldn't help but question my internship this summer. It has seemed like things have taken so long and that things just aren't falling into place like I thought they would. Maybe this was God telling me that this isn't the right trip. Maybe my own agenda is coming before God's and I just thought that God was telling me to go on this trip this summer, but instead, He is saving it for another time. With all of these things I was basically saying, "maybe God isn't faithful... maybe He won't come through on this one..." I will be the first to say that this is not the first time that I have forgotten God's faithfulness. So many times in my life I have doubted if God will pull through, and guess what, He always does. So in the middle of all of my doubts and fears at this women's retreat, I just decided to let go. I decided to stop worrying about what might happen and trust that God is in control and that things will happen on His timing, not mine. Today is Monday. I have been awaiting an email from my SIM internship contact regarding even the ability to go to Ethiopia and serve in any capacity this summer, let alone the previous problem of not having doctors present within the time frame that I will be there. I opened my email to discover a message from my contact. I have to be honest, I was excited by this email. But within reading the first couple sentences, I knew that things had turned around. The previous issue about not having doctors present and not being able to serve in any type of medical capacity changed to have multiple medical/healthcare opportunities as well as a possible street ministry opportunity. The idea of having a hybrid internship, serving in two parts of Ethiopia and not just one, also came up and is a definite possibility. After reading this email I was so happy. I was so relieved. But the words that the Holy Spirit gave me slapped me in the face. "Don't you trust me? Don't you know that I am faithful? When have I ever not come through for you?" I realized in that moment that my own worries had clouded my mind and my heart to remembering the faithfulness of God. Or maybe I just wanted to be in control and not have to trust that God would be faithful, but that I could make it all work out. How quick we are to forget that the God we serve is faithful and will always come through. When God puts a desire in your heart, He will fulfill that desire. When God starts a work in you, He will complete that work. When God calls you to go or to do, He will be with you every step of the way. We serve a faithful God, but we have to remember and trust His faithfulness. |