back to the past...

ok, this post is from July 29th, but I will post a couple more recent ones.

In Christ alone, I place my trust, and find my glory in the power of the Cross. In every victory let it be said of me, my source of strength, my source of hope is Christ alone.
The last few months have been a bit of a struggle for me. After going to Haiti in January, I have felt my love & passion for the lost grow in leaps and bounds!! I have felt a pull towards being a missionary since I went to Haiti in 2008. So after I got back from this year’s trip, I decided I was going to do something about preparing myself. I talked to Jan Thompson who lives in Gonaives, Haiti with her three children. They went to a DTS in Wisconsin. She suggested that I look into it and if I did I should go to the one in Wisconsin, Tyler, TX or Orlando, FL.
I looked into a couple of different things; probably not as many as I maybe should have though. I found a couple of other programs that sound really cool and life-changing as well after I decided to do the Discipleship Training School (DTS) through Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Orlando, FL this fall. It’s a 5 month program from September 24 – March 12. I get a Christmas break from December 18-31. Then I will be going on a 2 month outreach overseas to India, Dominican Republic, or somewhere equally as amazing, I’m sure!! I really hope we go to INDIA!!!! After I found out that’s where the outreach might be, a lot of India themed things came up in my life. Like watching Slum Dog Millionaire (love it!!!), reading Amy Carmichael’s biography, reading Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan, a couple other things happened but I can’t remember them right now. I’ll look on FB and find out what they were. After finding out at Easter that Chris & Christin are having a baby in November, I kind of had some doubts about the DTS. It’s the first nephew (just found that out a couple of weeks ago. Adam Lucas is his name) and it’s going to be SUPER hard to be gone for all of the getting ready for that. Sometimes it’s hard just being 2 hours away in Topeka!! I can’t imagine what it will be like being about 22 hrs away in Orlando!!! I won’t be able to be here for the birth, but I’ll get to see him at Christmas.
I was feeling pretty confident and peaceful about my decision to go to Florida. My parents went to Colorado for their anniversary. While there, they visited Aunt Kathy. They went to her church called Church For All Nations. They had a presentation about an internship they have there called Discover Internship. It’s a 10 month program with a 2 week missions trip to Guatemala. I was definitely more excited about India or Dominican Republic than Guatemala. Mom told me a little bit about it. Kathy told me a little about it. My mom wanted me to check it out when we talked on Thursday the 23rd. So we went to the World Cup and I looked online and liked what I saw so I requested more information. Literally like 2 minutes after I requested more info about it, Stephanie called me. She talked to me for about 15 minutes, she told me a ton of information, which I couldn’t remember a lot of, but I remember liking what I heard. I really wanted to know more about it, so Stephanie said she’d send me a dvd about it. I was really hoping to get it before going to Holton on Saturday for the weekend. It didn’t come before we left. I was stressing about it kind of a lot. They both sound like amazing opportunities!!!! There are different things about each of them that I really like. If I went to Discover, I’d be able to live with Kathy rent free, I’d be able to have a job, I’d be able to come home when Adam is born and for Christmas, costs $4,000; the DTS costs somewhere around $6,000. I’ve REALLY been stressing out about it. I’ve prayed about it a lot. I get really excited whenever I talk about either of them I’d tell someone about one and get really excited about it, then I’d talk about the other one and get all excited about that one!
I was talking to Nikki and some other people yesterday. I think that with the DTS I’d be more isolated and be forced to rely on God more for everything I need. Nikki was saying that I could make myself more isolated by deciding not to use my phone or the internet or whatever, but I know myself and I know I wouldn’t keep that self-imposed isolation. There are some really cool things about Discover, but I don’t have my paper with me at the moment. All this to say, Florida, here I come!!!!!!!!!!!