Support

Updated- dec. 27/09

Alright, so the one thing that I need but the hardest thing to ask for.

I'm just going to lay it all out with what I am in need of, awkward or not I need to take the step of faith that their are going to be people who are willing to be apart of this with me.

Financial (most awkward out of the way first)

Flight: My mom has allowed me to put my flight on her visa and then work it off either as soon as I can or when I get back from school, which is the biggest blessing

Tuition: I am going to be able to now pay my tuition in full. (anything leftover will go towards my flight)

Outreach: I am fully depending on God for this. Right now I have about $1300, from some family and friends - thank you =) I will probably need around 3 thousand, so almost half!

Encouragement

I must say that taking missions seriously and moving forward in this call on my life has actually been very hard. Which actually make sense because I am going against what the world wants and storming the gates of hell, so I sure hope there would be some persecution because that means that we are doing our job as a solider of the Kingdom of God. Honestly what I truly need is to know that all you guys believe in what I'm doing and what God is worth, and even just the simplicity of knowing that God is good and that there is always a light in the darkness and the hardest times. I am definitely someone who needs affirmation a lot when things are hard or even when there are good because it puts things into focus again. So a huge way that you can support me is being involved in what I'm doing and letting me know how you feel about it all. Verses, words, or anything you feel God is putting on your heart to share.

Prayer

This is kind of a big one. Yes, I would love to be remembered in your daily prayers, but also I would like to challenge you to step out from how you're use to asking God for his hand in our lives, and truly pray with out a single doubt in your minds, in away that opens the door for God to do more then what he already does everyday. It is His spirit that makes all things happen, so even by me asking Him to get me to Australia (across the world and having no money) is allowing Him to show me that if He actually wants me to get somewhere then HE is the one that can make it happen. Of course I could have worked 5 jobs and made all the money myself and not needed God or any of your help, but thats not the point of all this. God can be so much more powerful if we allow him to and the main way to do that is to pray with unfailing faith and watch him move in the ways he is longing too. So I ask you to allow God to be BIG and to ask him to do works beyond our imagination. Lets give him the space to move.

I will keep this as updated as I can and make sure that those who want to be in this with me are fully caught up all that is going on. Thank you so much and please pray into what God may be asking you to give and how your gifts can benefit me. At the least I would love you to be aware of what God is doing, its going to be epic :)

Email me if you have any questions: Kelseyskene@hotmail.com

Australia....

It has almost been a year since God brought up the idea/plan for me to go to Australia for the school Biblical Core Course(BCC) with YWAM. To be honest I still don't know why or what is waiting for me in Australia but I have a feeling that it is going to be huge.

I knew that I wanted to do a BCC after I was done my DTS but my plan was to do it in Honolulu Hawaii not really on the other side of the world. I don't think I would actually be able to tell you how many times God has brought up and affirmed me going to Australia. Along with that I have never had less say in where I was going, I can 100% say that I had nothing to do with choosing Australia.

Attending this school in January is (for me) a step in the direction of taking missions seriously, I wouldn't being spending and stressing about all this money and time to go across the world if I didn't truly believe that it is where God has called me to go. I have truly hit the walls and told God that I was done with all of this, I didn't want to keep going because it was to hard pushing towards something that I didn't even know if it was going to happen or not. A few weekends I sat in my room procrastinating journaling for as long as I could, but when I finally sat down with God and was honest with what was going on, things changed. To quote my journal from that night "I don't think Australia is going to work, I just don't see or understand how it could." and also " Please Lord can tomorrow be a new beginning." Now to point out two things about those quotes, is that I honestly felt like I had no reason to believe that i was going to get there and why I was bothering even trying and with the last quote I found it was odd when I looked back the next day "tomorrow" and realized that I don't usually ask for a change with the detail of timing (having it be fixed by the next day) anyways I wrote this all on a saturday.

Sunday, got stuck downtown on my way to church and had to get my sister to come get me, then finally got to church and have never felt so called out in a sermon. Like I have been to sermons where they have touched and moved me but never have I been to one when God was like "Okay Kelsey listen up this ones for you, other people will be moved but I have done this for you right now." It was amazing! Honestly so cool, then had this epic conversation at my sisters house about living the lives of Christ and what that looks like (it actually started about helping the homeless and all the grace and patience that is needed-random? yes I know) but it was a really cool conversations and actually opened my eyes to seeing my sister as someone who is walking a very similar path or at least has a similar thought process as I do. Anyways get home and started talking to Shauna about how I was still so unsure if I was suppose to go to Australia, just because I felt like I had no direction. A few minutes later (no joke) I get a weird phone call.... no big deal it was only my school leader telling me that I was officially accepted into The School of Biblical Studies - Bible Core Course! So cool how God works with timing! Honestly the timing of that could NOT have been more perfect.

Moments like those are what I have been holding on during this time of waiting and trust. I have never trusted God with something so huge before. The one thought that I continue to go back too, is when a speaker once said "dream God dreams" reach for something that you know you cant reach on your own so that you HAVE to lean on God to fulfill it. Over and over again God keeps saying "this is MY plan not yours! Let me do the hard work and get all the little details put together, because you could work your butt off but you wont come close to having what you need.... you need Me." It is the hardest thing to remember in this time, but I think I'm getting a little better - you live and you learn right?

So right now I have my passport and about a quarter of the money that I need... the only way I'm going to get to Australia is by Gods grace, and that is no joke.

real life

I was looking forward to this years fall and beginning of winter because to me it was going to be all about Gods and I relationship and simply getting prepared for YWAM and the Biblical Core Course that I am going to. Lets just say it did not turn out that way.

September I was so excited to start back at work and get my life back on track. Right away I knew things were going to be different then what I thought, I wasn't getting many shifts and my two really good friends weren't around as much. I pushed forward trying to stay focused, then one of those amazing guys who is completely wrong for you but you cant stop yourself for falling for him walked into my life, now that was distracting a good chunk of that month until he left and I thought it would all go away... yeah that doesn't happen in the real world!

October was along the lines of feeling really good about life and God, then to wanting to give up and live just in the world with worldly things (many ups and downs). I started to focus on work at just loving the people there. My friend Shannon and I started to build this amazing relationship with two homeless brothers (twins) at The House and it was truly so cool to see that if you just give people some hope so much can happen. They are alcoholics but were doing so good at staying sober for about 3 almost 4 weeks, within that time we just found out simply who they were, life stories, hopes and dreams, normal human stuff :) Sometimes if feels like good things will only last for so long, last week it all fell apart. I know we should have known that something could happen with them starting to drink again its just really hard when you dont see it coming because so much had changed and they had moved forward so much. That was definitely difficult to see because it was like losing two friends.

November (the two weeks its been) has been very very very hard. It has felt like everything has caught up with me and that I had lost my grip on who God was which lead to not knowing who I was. Honestly I keep catching myself believe the lie that God will give up or call it quits on me because I keep messing up and getting distracted by the world. The biggest thing that i learned in Cambodia is that I don't have to work for Gods love, there is nothing I can do to make him love me more or love me less because to him love is love. That is something I often forget because the lie of having working for peoples to love is thrown at me a lot.

When all of this was going on I started to think maybe I shouldn't go to Australia because do I really deserve too? The more I thought about not making it there the more terrified I got, honestly I'm so head of heals in love with God and fighting for his Kingdom - so much so that I'm getting Kingdom (in Hebrew) tattooed on my right wrist to hold me accountable and for my dedication for fighting for the one thing that is going to last forever. The thought of not going after missions or training for missions (right now meaning YWAM) scares the crap out of me because I don't think I would be able to pick something else to do with my life - Gods it, he is the only plan.

It took a bit of a breakdown at work one morning (my poor boss) and then sitting down with a costumer I don't usually sit down with and hearing her say that "God doesn't quit, we want to be he never will" to realize that I am still in the battle, thats never going to change.

The House

After Outreach me and my friend Eirin were walking to the market and she asked me what I wanted to do once I got home. Honestly I did not want to even think of going home but once I did God gave me this whole vision of where i was going to work, I didn't know that at the time. A coffee shop but not a fast pace Starbucks kind, a low key, wear your clothes, live music on some days, and sweet people. It had to give me the support and encouragement of Christ but not in a cheesy forceful way. A place were I could meet really solid Christians who would turn in to life long friends. I though of this wonderful place but had no idea where to find it in Calgary.

Talking to my Cousin one day (as usual) she told me to check out this cafe called The House and the moment I did I knew it was perfect, I applied right away in February then waited. I knew this was the job that I needed but they just weren't getting back to me so I applied for other jobs, ones that I should have got but some weird reason didn't get... wonder who that could have been! Long story short I got the job at The House in May.

I don't even know where to start in telling you how much this place has changed me. First of all the people and friendships that have come from it are amazing, knowing that I have already made life long friends and people that will support my and have my back for a verrrry long time to come!

I think to see the fruit from all the ministry that is done there is really fulfilling because you can honestly see God move in peoples lives in ways that I could NEVER imagine. People that the world has given up on and turned its back on, broken people and kids who just need a little bit of love and someone to actually care. The cool part is that you actually get attached to these people you feel Gods heart for them, its not a feel sorry for them but a love that only God could arise in you. As if this is the God i get to serve! Amazes me every time.

Every time I go to work I love it even more because God is so big, SO alive, and doing something different every second! I love being apart of something so powerful, a place where I can have deep talks with kids who are searching for someone or something just to love them - amazing. It just shows that God is so much bigger then we allow him to be most of the time, we think that we can only meet him and hang out with him at church or at home because work and money is our own thing and doesn't have anything to do with God. That is not true at all, don't we realize that we are fighting for his Kingdom every second that we are alive, with every breath that we take, every moment is his. It is going to be HIS Kingdom that stands and the end! Don't you want to do everything in your humanly power to make that happen sooner then later? I do, and that is what I'm going to give my life too, not saying that i have it all together because I sure don't but that should never mean stop trying.

The House has really shown me that God does not forget about his children and that the amount of grace and mercy he has is enough to bring me to my knees. Life is what you make we have a choice everyday, God will never give up.

www.thehousecoffee.ca

The deeper the roots.....

I'm not sure with where or how to start describing the three months that God gave me when I got home. To be honest I was a bit of a mess and really didn't want to be where I was, I had no idea what God was doing and it scared the crap out of me. A word was given to me right before I left Hawaii and it was "Intimacy and Identity in Christ" I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

God took over my life in a completely different way. It was so good in the beginning, spending everyday all day with God! truly just hanging out with him, reading, journaling, worship, sitting, cleaning, it didn't matter God was so present. Then it got harder and harder as I started looking around and realizing that I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to make a difference with being home, a light within my family and friends but I felt like I was failing. I did not feel strong enough for what God had put me in.

I knew God was good and that he had this amazing plan but still everyday I ended up feeling like I was just a wast of space... sounds dramatic I know but I was so lost and SO lonely. There would be days where my cousin Kayla (a huge part of my life) would have to call me at certain times in the morning so that I would actually get up and not sleep until 3 in the afternoon and just through away another day. I saw no point to what I was doing, all I wanted was to be back in Hawaii with people who actually cared and were there to support me. I honestly don't know how I got through the three months.

My friend John and I stated to study the book of Job because we were both in hard places in our lives. God rocked my world with this, he started showing me a whole new out look on life and that he does care and he has not and will not abandoned me, which I had found myself starting to believe. I can't count how many times I called Kayla telling her that i was done with all of this, that I didnt want to have live in this pain anymore! I was done with God and I was going to live my life for myself because God doesn't care, he left me just like everyone else has. After a good while of me crying Kayla would listen, pause, then repeat a few things that I had said and would ask me if I still agreed with it, obviously I didnt. God showed up each time reminding me of that call he has put on my life and the love he has for his daughter. I slowly started to see that God wanted to spend time with me, intimate time with me so that I could find my identity through him and him alone.

Not saying that after I figured this out it was all rainbows and puppies. No, when we choose to give it all up for God it is hard and testing... the path less traveled, but so worth it. I learned so much about God, myself, what our relationship could be, how powerful his Kingdom truly is, and who I could be in this world with him as my center! Thats just the beginning of it, and it took every second that I spent with him, yes most of that time being spent sitting on a chair journaling and listening to worship for hours on end. There is not a check list to follow when it comes to being intimate with God and finding out who you can be through that. God calls all of us to a time of rest, its funny that something so simply becomes so hard and seen as an act of laziness, yet God longs for it. A song by Jason Upton has a line that says "You are the God and I am the man" how many of us forget that on a daly bases, I still forget today. It sucks but it just means that we have to work that much harder at having him as our center, as our everything. He is the only one that matters, the only one that is going to last "God will never compromise his Kingdom for our kingdom. So it doesn't matter if your a full out sinner in the world or if you call yourself a Christian, if your building your own kingdom instead of being intimate with Jesus...if your building your own kingdom IT. WILL. FAIL." - Jason Upton 'Kiss His Son'.

I think that we forget how badly God wants to spend time with us, that he is truly our best friend, our father, our creator, our everything and that he just wants us to see that he does care. We need to be still, rest in his presence. Of course that is going to look different for everyone, but we need to find it with him because it is always a matter of HIS timing not our own! I truly think that learning and seeing that it is his timing in my life in which I need to depend on, is why I got those three months. No amount of money or work experience could ever match the time and energy God spent pouring himself into my life so that I could fight in his army. The Kingdom Of God, it is what we are meant to be apart of. Its not about rules and duties, its about the mass amount of love that God has for his children and that he is doing everything that he can to get this world back to the way it was meant to be - His Kingdom! It all comes down to that and how we choose to live it out. He has already made is choice, from the very beginning it has always been about us, the ball is in our court and I say lets freaking GO!

DTS Part two

So coming home (back to Hawaii) after so much truth and change was spoken into my life, was a bit intimidating. I was nervous to see what God had in store for me when I got back, and also knowing that it was going to be the last time for a very long time to see all my amazing friends.

As you can imagine the excitement of seeing all the other teams and hearing all the stories from outreach. I don't think I had more then 4 hours of sleep a night the last week I was there.

One of the days I decided that I needed some quiet time with God so I went off to the local starbucks:) As I was sitting there talking with God and trying to go over everything that had happened the past 5 months of my life and for the first time actually realizing that it was over and I had to go home- the place where all the problems and temptations were. Before outreach my plan was to only be home for 2 months and then come back to hawaii for the School of Biblical Studies, but God had changed that to me going home for a year and then attending the same school but in Australia. The thought of having to face everything at home and live strongly for God in a place where people really don't care scared the crap out of me. I kept asking God why he was doing this. Why I couldn't just be in Hawaii where people supported me and where I could learn so much more about him. I didn't understand what was going on.

Just then God reminded me about something he told me on outreach; because I was so focused on pleasing God and basing his love off of my actions I had built a strong foundation of i guess you could say work ethic and such but the problem was that I had no real deep roots to base everything off of. So pretty much if I ran in to a situation that really tested my faith slash relationship with God my foundation would be easily cracked because it wasn't supported. I had skipped the part of digging deep with God and and really planting those roots.

So after God reminded me of this I went to the washroom (no joke right after). I had been to this washroom plenty of times as we came to this starbucks often but I never noticed the panting on the wall before until that moment, it said "The deeper the roots, the higher the reach" AS IF!!!! I had a little freak out of how obvious God can be some times. That phrase got me through the hardest times of my life when I got home and helped me see that God had a plan for me going home. It was perfect and completely described why I was going home and helped me be okay with what I was about to walk into.

Needless to say when I left and had to say good-bye to all these amazing people who at that time knew me the best out of anyone, they were with me durning the most life changing time and I wasn't going to see some of them ever again. Heart breaking, I have never cried that hard or been that upset saying good bye to people before, truly the worst night ever.

Its a weird feeling when you know your about to step into a situation, like going home but having know idea what will happen. Going to a place where you should feel 100% at ease because you have spent all your time there but then being scared out of your mind because you don't know how to act. Going home should have been easy but I had changed so much and no one at home really knew how much, so it was time to live out.

I was scared.

Cambodia Month 2

Finally after all our time off our ministry started! Every morning from 8:30 till 10:30 nine of us when to an aids orphanage about 20 minutes away, the other 4 when and taught English at a church to younger kids. Afternoons we had a few hours off and then 4 us girls taught English at the same church while the boys helped with the building of it (it was only about half done) and the other 4 girls went and worked with prostitutes at a christian organization called "Daughters"

By far the orphanage was my favorite ministry. The first time we went a little girl who I though was about 6 to 8 months old but later found out she was 1 year old. She was so little and felt so breakable in my arms. It took a little bit for her to warm up to me compared to all the other children that ran and were all over you in a second. I would come every morning and for a good few days I would find her sitting by herself either playing or just sitting there crying, no sounds just tears streaming down her face. Everyday I saw these beautiful children being attacked by this disgusting killing disease and all I was able to do was hold them. We all know that there are children dying out there everyday every second but it is completely different when you fall in love with them and know that you can save them. I have never left the power of Gods heart that much before, at times it was truly like he was sitting right there crying for his children and it's because he was.

Ministry was going really good and the team was definitely getting stronger, but some reason I was going through something completely different. Joanna (my amazing leader) took me aside one day for a one on one talk. I broke down within minutes of us talking but I didnt know why I was having such a hard time with everything. As we talked we started to see where some of this "emotion" was coming from so she gave me two tasks to do. 1) Make an effort to hang out and talk with my team members because we were a family and there wasnt any point for me to hind within myself and try do this on my own. 2) Write down everything that I believe about myself good or bad and then find out all the lies that I believe example: not ever being good enough. Honestly I did not want to this, and part of that is because I knew that God wanted to start breaking me and molding me which can be a scary process to start when you know it is going to be painful. Long story shot I worked on number one but ignored number two!

For the last 10 days of outreach we went to a village about an hour out of the main city called Kampong Cham, where most people had not seen white people before. When we got there we had a team meeting where it seemed like everyone was in a really good place and ready for God to move in this place. That wasn't the case for me at all, I couldn't even feel God around even when i went to my bible I wasn't I able to make sense of anything. I could feel myself starting to break and there was nothing I could do about it. Our ministry during this time was teaching english which turned in to teaching the bible, and going to smaller other villages doing skits or praying for people/families. Things started looking a bit better and I was allowing myself to see God in the situation, I was loving the chance to teach the bible and see that my kids were actually learning about God and his amazing stories. After about a week of teaching I went to class to teach and was really hoping for some kind of break through with the kids, I felt really good about what God wanted me to talk about. I'm not sure what happened but the kids were hyper not listening and in the end told me that they didn't want to hear about any of this God stuff anymore. I broke, my first thought was as if I failed at teaching about the one thing I am the most passionate for. I sat in the dark staring out wanting God to do something but having no idea what to do, finally I allowed God to show me this great snowball of lies that I have believed my whole life.

Starting at the age of four when my father passed away I had felt abandoned. The hardest part about being so young when he died was that by the time everyone else had grieved and moved on I was just starting to understand what happened and that I didn't have a dad anymore. It was hard to find the father and daughter love/relationship that I longed for because it wasn't in the places I was looking in. This left me now feeling even more abandoned and rejected, even though I didn't understand it. Being the youngest its 100% normal to get picked on and I love my family to death, but when I was little it didn't matter what the joke was because if I was part of it or the butt of if it I would get upset. A way to look at it is to imagine and open cut that should be healed but isn't, and then having people poking at it not realizing that it hurts way more then the even know. The saying "oh stop feeling sorry for yourself" was said a lot because it did look like I was just throwing a fit, when I was actually just looking for some kind of sympathy. This lie of being weak and not good enough only got worse as the years went by. Boys liking me but then getting bored and leaving, never really being anyones best friend or being a number one person in some ones life. I remember a point in my life I think it was Jr High where I said to myself "being myself isn't good enough so everything depends on my actions" and to be honestly I still struggle with that today. I judged myself in everything that I did and if something didn't work out I would see that as a direct reflection on myself.

Obviously this affected my relationship with God because I keep telling myself that I had to do a good job at this (missions) or he is going to leave or reject me like everyone else has, which is the biggest bold face lie ever! Because I was judging myself every step of the way in Cambodia I was also judging my team which is a huge reason why I had so many problems with them. I thought I had to be perfect for God to keep loving me and that he gave me this task and if it messed it up it would be over. We all know that its not at all God to leave us abandoned and I knew that and believed but deep down I was so scared that he was going to leave or give up on me.

Hearing the truth and seeing the ugly lie doesn't always change everything right away. Even though it has been many months since that night I struggle with that same lie today. Being molded by God to become more like Christ is a painful walk but we have to try and remember that it is actually incredible that God is actually taking the time to help us become the children he intended us to be.

Hebrews 12:1-13

"¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

⁴In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

⁶because the Lord disciplines those he loves,

and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

⁷Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? ⁸If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.⁹Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! ¹⁰Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

¹²Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ¹³"Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."

Cambodia Month 1

After three months of go, go, go, learn, learn, learn I was more then ready to get on over to Cambodia where I would be spending two months with 12 others who were on my team. It sucked saying bye to my amazing friends who were going to other countries but I know that if I stayed one more day and learned more more thing I might explode:)

We started our outreach in the old capital named Siem Reap, we had planned to stay there for two weeks teaching english. there were plenty of classes needing to be taught and kids to be played with, so we started with dividing up everything up between everyone. In the end I got pre-school every morning at 7:30 till 10:30 teaching them their ABC's, and two older class teaching more the basics of conversations and such. Now that might not seem like a lot and it really isn't but maybe it was more to do with being across the world with a team I didn't overly feel comfortable with (I'll explain that soon). Everything seemed okay, I was able to have lots of quite times with God and read some amazing books on our off time. At times it felt like I was spending more time alone which didn't seem to bother me at first till I started to realize that everyone seemed to have found a buddy and with the uneven amount of students on our time i felt like i had missed the boat. Of course this was a bit upsetting but I told myself to just move on and focus on God. The thing is, I was judging myself on what I was doing never thinking it was good enough which lead me to judging the ones on my team. I didn't realize this until my amazing leader Joanna saw what was going on.

The first month of outreach was very hard in the way of hiding away by myself and kind of feeling sorry for myself... not the right thing to do:) Christmas was good and hard all at the same time, I was starting to see that it wasn't me against the team and yes some people were closer then others but that doesn't mean that I'm a sucky person. We had the week off at Christmas but we did two Christmas shows where we were teaching and they were amazing, I think it was the first night when around 70 people came to know Christ!!

We moved back to the Capital Phnom Penh right after Christmas where the plan was we were going to start working at a aids orphanage right away. When we got there we found out that the people in charge of ministry thought it would be better if we waited till the new year to start which meant another week off! (might sound nice but we had already had lots of time off) This was really hard for me and I got very frustrated with waiting, not realizing what God was doing and that we as a team needed this time. The leaders were able to have long one on ones with everyone on the team with the time off and we were able to have meetings and really figure out what was going on and actually solve some of the problems. Also at this time God was starting to remind me of my desire of going to an SBS (school of biblical studies) that I had already been planning to attend in april in Hawaii, but it wasn't Hawaii that he was putting on my heart. Needless to say lots was going on in this time that we were all annoyed to have... oh God;)

My leader took me aside and when we were talking she challenged me to write down everything i believed about myself good and bad, the point to this was that as I told her what I was struggling with it was obvious that I was seeing all that I did as not good enough for God and that I needed to do more. I didn't understand this because i thought we were suppose to work hard at pleasing God but I didn't see that my heart was not working as a servant but to be accepted by God, so it was more like I was working for him on my own strength when we NEED to be walking with him on his strength. Anyways I didn't do what she asked me because I think I was scared of what I was going to have to deal with.

DTS Part one

So I'm really not even sure how to begin with explaining the first three months of DTS (all you who have done a DTS knows what I mean) but I will do my best.

Walking onto my base in Honolulu Hawaii I had no idea what I was getting myself into but I knew that something had to happen because I had nothing left. God saw this and used it to the fullest. It has never been that hard for me to make friends or at least fit in with a big group, but the first few days of DTS were really hard, I cant pin point what it was all I know is that God pulled me aside to have some alone time with me and prepare me a little bit for what was about to happen.

I was coming into all of this from a very dark and broken place (as I have mentioned before) So after a few days of struggling to see that I actually had know idea who I was and that I did need God in my life, we had the first of many 'Base Worship' this was one of the powerful/life changing nights of my life. God at that very moment toke a hold of my life and broke through all the walls I had tried to build against him. He made sure I knew and heard him loud and clear that he loved me enough to dye so that he could forgive me and take away all my sin. It may sound corny but that is the reason he died, we sang a song "lead me to the cross" which hit me hard;

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross

You were as I
Tempted and trialed
You are
The word became flesh
Bore my sin and death
Now you're risen

It was that night where I truly broke and laid all I had at his feet and allowed him to "ruin me from the ordinary". A side note to that night was that it wasnt like I was the only one who was broken but it was truly my whole school (36 students) all at similar points in our walk which was very powerful.

From that night on it was truly a non-stop crazy intense ride with Christ! We would have a different speaker every week who would speak on a different topic each week such as; old and new testament, hearing the voice of God, discipline and evangelism, kingdom of God(favorite week), healthy relationships, intimacy with God, intercession and spiritual authority, the Holy Spirit, character of God, servant hood, discipleship, and world religions! 7 years of church in 3 months!!!

Of course it was very overwhelming but the amazing thing with YWAM is that you are surrounded with a support system of people who truly care and want to help you grow and deal with the past and what God is trying to do in you. The fellowship that is offered is exactly what is need when going through such spiritual growth, and the openness to how big God is and how much he is able to do and that he is more then a big eye in the sky but he is my father, best friend, lover, and saviour!

God had (and still has) a hold of my life and put it upside down and shook everything that didn't come from him and that didn't belong out of it. I have never been through so many ups and downs, breakdown and pure joy but then i have never felt such love and so close to someone who loves me way more then I even understand. He has changed my life. I am not saying that I'm perfect and totally get everything now that I have done a DTS, no that is not what I am saying! I'm saying that he has shown me a new way to life, and I was open to hearing what my calling was and he was right there to tell me.... GO!

A little YWAM side-note

So my mom has always told us kids that she would support us finically to do a year of Bible Collage. Both Shauna and Jennette (my sisters) did a year and after visiting them a few times I thought I had my mind up to go pick one of the ones they had gone too. Anyways when the time came for me to start thinking of where I wanted to go I remembered Jennette looking into a bunch of schools across seas and I have know idea why (obviously God) but the fist school that came to mind was YWAM, and when I asked myself where I wanted to go and instantly Hawaii came to mind. When I actually got around to looking it up online the fist base that came up was Honolulu (which is odd because Kona is the "mother base" of all bases) anyways I looked into a few others but God wanted me in Honolulu Hawaii =)

YWAM (Youth with a Mission) is a school that is fully focused on encouraging youth to hear the voice of God and discover their calling from him, missions or not. It is a missions school so most of what is taught around the mind frame of "The Great Commission".

Loren Cunningham (founder of YWAM) had a vision that is the base of what YWAM is; waves of young people reaching all shore lines across the world, sharing the world and love of God!

There has been many mixed reactions with YWAM because each base is different and it is truly the hardest life changing experience that some people go through spiritually and emotionally. Its definitely not a place where you go to sit around gaining knowledge thats just going to sit beside you as you go through life. Its a place that allows God to grab your world, turn it upside down and shake everything out that he doesn't want there!

The motto the unites YWAM and the people serving in it is "Know God and Make God Known" its pretty simple, but then again most things that God asks for are simple we just have an awesome way of over complicating them.

I cant say enough good things about them because my life has never been the same since, and I am SO grateful for this environment that offers a mind frame and life style with no limitations on God because our God as NO LIMITS!

In the beginning...

God brought me in to the world and blessed me with a loving Christian family! Mom, Dad, and three siblings! It definitely makes a difference to be in a family with Jesus at the center of it - an amazing difference. With how amazing everything started off there was a tragedy that would change things forever. Losing my dad at the age 4 was the hardest thing that life has thrown at me, and has been a huge factor in who I have grown in to being.

Growing up in a loving Christian home is amazing and I do wish that more people had the chance to experience it. With that said even though i had God all around me all the time, there was always a block when it came to our own relationship becoming deeper and more intimate. The truth is, is that I blamed God for taking my dad away so soon in my life and not giving me the chance to know him or get over him. It felt like I did everything I could do on my own to morn and move on with my life, with out breaking down every time I heard the word 'father' or anything close to that. But every time I was left even more hurt and feeling more alone then when I started, so I gave up on that one and told myself to suck it up and be strong.

I had pretty strong morals growing up and did always love Jesus. I can confidently say that I was different then most kids my age because of God and the light was in me, as my mom would always say "People can see you are special and they might not know its God but you are allowing God to leave a mark in their lives". I saw the evidence of this with the passing years and the small comments people would say. But if I am being honest by the time I turned 18 being called "nice" or "cute" just wasn't enough, I decided to live my life for my own desire. Instant satisfaction that the world offers is how i wanted to live my life till I left for my DTS in Hawaii and would getting annoyed at the thought of giving up all the "fun stuff" I was doing and the "friends" I would lose. It is still hard for me to remember how dark and lonely I was, I hurt almost everyone that was close to me because I truly thought I was better then them and that they didn't actually care about me at all. I started believing everything that satan was telling me and i didn't realize till later that he was handing me the bricks to build a wall against God and block his say in my life, and I willing joined. I'm not blaming my past on anyone because it was a choice that I made to live for myself and not care about the ones trying to love me.

My cousin kept telling me for a good month to get a journal and start trying to write what was going on in my mind. I started to see that I had to make a change in my life but I would still get mad at the mere thought of giving up partying everything like that but i knew deep at the back of my heart it had to be done. I remember sitting on my bed a few weeks before I had to leave and for the first time seeing the hole I dug myself into and not wanting anyones help to get out. I was starting to see the aftermath of the choices I had made, I knew I need something to change but I did not believe that anything big enough would happen to change all that needed to be fixed.

What God did next I will never forget and be forever thankful

Lets Go

Knowing what to say and trying to use the right words can be the biggest struggle when trying to share are part of who you are. I'm pretty sure that everyone can relate to that, but with this i am trusting that God is going to use the words I write and the stores I have to share to do big things, because truthfully they are all his to begin with!

So basically my thoughts on even having a blog is that i know God has so much planned for my little life and is going to do so many things that are simply beyond me. I want there to be a place where the people who want to join me on this crazy ride can be apart of it every step of the way - the good and the bad! It's kind of cool to be sitting here and have NO idea what is going to come of this and all the things God is going to do, kind of exciting right?

Well i guess thats all for now, lets go and see what happens :)