Preparation Prayers!

Hello everyone!

I am writing this from my fellow co-leader's apartment in LA as we take a short time to be with the Lord & update our supporters on how our planning has been. Yesterday, today and tomorrow we are doing our major planning sessions and nailing down a lot of little details for our trip. I am so incredibly excited to go back but I can't help but feel overwhelmed sometimes with all the details we have to figure out. With me being the Operation Project Director my main focus is the finances, which primarily is support raising. This is definitely a stress producing task to take on but the Lord gives me strength each day to fulfill my duties. I am so blessed to be a child of God and to have a relationship with a Father who provides, guides, and fully satisfies all my needs.

You all have financially supported me and I can not describe how thankful I am for that. You all have taken steps of faith and followed the Lord's will in assisting me in my work for the kingdom. From the bottom of my heart I thank you all so much. During these final weeks of preparation, lots of prayer is needed. So another way I want to ask you to partner with me on this journey is through prayer. I am going to need some major prayer warriors before and during my trip. This blog will be a way that I can update you on specific needs for prayer. Prayer is such a powerful thing and it would truly bless our team if our trip was covered with blessings and petitions lifted to God.

Right now there are some things you can be praying for:

• That our leadership team would be fully rooted in the Lord and that God would guide our every step according to His will. In every detail, whether major or minor, pray that it would be what the Lord wants and not what our human nature wants. Pray that you would instill within the leadership team a peace that calms all anger, nervousness, and anxiety. Pray that we would take our leadership seriously and know that we are God's workmanship and that we want to surrender everything to Him.
• Pray for the few students that have not fully finished support raising. There are a few students on our team that have been immensely struggling with finishing their support. They can use all the prayer that they can get. (Also, if you would like to support them, please just let me know - any amount would help!) Pray for them to not give up, to lean fully upon the Lord and to take active steps in raising support.
• Pray for all of our team as the nerves and lies from Satan start to filter into our thoughts. As the project date gets closer, Satan tends to fill our minds with insecurity, fear, and anxiety. Pray that our team would know that the Lord we serve has power over Satan and that the Lord instills within us courage, peace, and security. We have a powerful God and pray that we don't forget that as the departing date comes closer.

There are many more prayer requests but those are the three most crucial in this time. I appreciate your active support in my missions trip and I am truly thankful to have supporters along my side to help and encourage me.

I leave for briefing on July 9th and I leave for Australia on July 13th. The day is getting closer to when I arrive back in that Aussieland and I can't wait! Ah, I love my God, He is so great and wonderful in giving me this opportunity. Thank you again (:

Cheers!

God's blessings!

"God can work, if you give him a chance." 

               Throughout this support raising process, the Lord has been teaching me a very valuable lesson: Don't limit God. What I have noticed is that I limit God daily, not just in this support raising situation. Day to day there are instances that I don't let God take full control in, there are areas of my life that I try to run myself and there are actions that I could take that I don't let the Lord guide me in. In this circumstance I'm referring to support raising. 
              Now if you didn't know; support raising is the scariest, most vulnerable and faith-testing experience that I have ever experienced. Through this time around, I have been challenged to give out more support letters before, to personally ask more friends, to ask my home church and home-away-from-home church, and to make phone calls. All of these test my in drastic ways, but God has definitely worked in each and every one. 
             My support raising goal is still very far away, however the Lord has given me little victories that make all of these struggles worth while. That's the crazy thing with support raising. Right when you feel like you have no hope, there is no way you are going to raise this much money - the Lord provides! And he doesn't do it in a way you would expect. He chooses the way you LEAST expected. The Lord is funny that way (: 
             I am seeing his blessings pour in and I am so thankful to serve a God who cares and loves me. With my church at home supporting me and my church at school supporting me, he is reminding me about the loving family community that he has immensely blessed me with. By seeing friends come alongside me on this journey, I am able to clearly see God working through them in amazing ways. With seeing my family willing to give and support me and grown me closer to them and to the Lord as a whole family. Seeing support trickle in here and there gives me the motivation to keep going and to not limit God because he can work in MIGHTY ways... if I give him a chance. So I am going to give him a chance to work in my life!
            The next practical step for me in phone calls. This is definitely not my strong point and it is the most nerve-wracking experience I have been through all of support raising. 
            Please be in prayer for the couple weeks as I continue to search for support. As one of my teammates said it "I know Lord you have that $5,200 sitting somewhere, I just have to take the steps of faith in order for you to provide it." I know He will provide, but not without effort from me as well. Please be in prayer for my fellow students; some have very little support and are in desperate need of prayer. Please be in prayer for the next weeks of planning as we start intensive planning as a leadership team! 

In a month & a half --- I'll be in Australia. 

Ah, crazy!