Thoughts

Hello to all my wonderful readers. Are you there? Haha I am wondering how many people actually read this blog. Just curious, but I guess it doesn’t matter. My purpose in writing should be to encourage and bring people towards the Gospel not to make myself feel good when I look at the “stats” page. Haha! So now that support raising is basically over, its time to transition this blog to the fun part. The actual internship! Well, I haven’t started yet but I will officially begin this adventure on Aug. 2 at 1pm. So that is a week and a few days away. I have been home now for about 2 weeks and when I start my job it will have been three weeks. So what have I been doing in the meantime? How have I spent my time at home in this “waiting period” until real life starts. Well first of all there is a problem with considering this time a “waiting period”. I tend to live my life for the next step. “Well once I get to college I will be fufilling my purpose and living for God”, “This summer on Summer Project, I will be living my life for God and seeking His direction in everything I do”. “Once I get all of my support raised I will be able to glorify God with my life” bla bla bla…you get the idea. Well I am reading this devotional called “Her Hands” and today the chapter was called “Wise women live purposefully” She talked about what it means to honor God and live for him NOW. I don’t want to wish my life away and constantly be waiting for the next step. There are things I can do NOW to honor God and it starts with being obedient. It starts with reading God’s word and spending time with Him daily. So, that is what I am trying to do with this next week and really the rest of my life. I’m tired of living in a “waiting period” and I want to go out and live each day with purpose.

So what does that mean practically? Well, here are some things I have been thinking about. I want to take this year of living with my family seriously and really spend time actively loving them. This is a special time that I have to live life with them that I haven’t had for a while and might not have again. So I want to wake up each morning asking God to show me ways to show them that I care about them and encourage them. I also want to actively respect and honor my parents. I have a feeling that this year God is going to teach me a lot about what it means to be in submission to authority and what it means to respect those who are in authority. I am a little bit in rebellion about this but asking the Lord to powerfully change my heart.

Another way that I am trying to live purposefully is to actively seek out community. I know how important it is to surround yourself with people who are constantly pointing you to the Gospel and I also know how much it stinks to be without it. It is so great to be with people that really know you, know your strengths and weaknesses and love you in spite of those things. And who are running toward Jesus and want to take you with them. So, my goal is to love the people around me, i mean really love them, and actively seek to create a community that is honoring to God and bringing us all closer to the cross. I am thankful for some awesome people that are going to be in Dallas this year with me and I want to start praying now for our relationships to be glorifying to the Lord.

Summershine

So for the past three weeks I have been in upstate New York with Summershine! Summershine is a Christian ministry that puts on activities for families at KOA campgrounds around the US. I basically spent these last three weeks in Watkins Glen, NY working and hanging out with families, it was so fun! I learned what a “boondoggle” is and that “y’all” isn’t a word. I stayed up for 24 hours straight and ate at Cracker Barrell for the first time.

We played water balloon dogeball and jumped on a giant pillow. I learned how to use a giant trash compactor all by myself and sang Taylor Swift (lip sync haha!) in a Talent show wearing buck teeth.

I jumped off the diving board at a waterfall

and cleaned poop off the toilet (more than once). It was an amazing three weeks and I am thanking God for the time I got to spend in NY and the relationships that were made.

Orphan

Orphan

Something has been on my heart lately that I want to share with you. Since I was younger I have always had compassion for orphans or children without families. I remember when I was little watching this old Disney movie called “The Rescuers” about a little girl who lived in an orphanage and gets kidnapped by “Madame Medusa”. It always made me cry when she was sitting at the orphanage holding her bear. When I was in the 1st grade (I think) my friend and I and our moms went and did a service project at the Downtown Pregnancy Center. We collected baby clothes and other items to donate to the women who came in for counseling or other services. I have never forgotten that experience and since then I have always wanted to volunteer again at a Crisis Pregnancy Clinic. When I was in high school I read a book called Divine by Karen Kingsbury and it touched my heart and reminded me of my desire to work with “women in crisis”. The book talks about a woman who was abused and hurt but then finds the Lord and turns around and helps women who were in her same position. One of the women she helps is considering having an abortion. It excites me to think about all of the women who don’t have the resources or desire to take care of a child being able to give that little baby to a family who desperately wants it. There are over 150 million orphans around the world at this moment. And I know there are many families who want a child. And the cool thing about adoption is the beautiful picture that it shows of Jesus Christ. According to Romans 8:14 we are all adopted.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. -Romans 8:14-17

While we were homeless and empty Christ came to bring us into His family. He allowed us a relationship with His Father!

So, I don’t know exactly how all of these pieces are going to fit together for me in the future, but I do know that I want to be a part of giving hope to children without families. Global Aid Network works with orphanages in several different countries providing school supplies, food and clothing to the children there. I can’t wait to be a part of what they are doing to bring Christ to hurting people around the world.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support. I look forward to sharing more with you!

By the way, I got some great ideas for this post from JD Greear’s blog. Click Here to read it!

More about believing truth

A friend sent me this quote and I just had to post it on here. I absolutely LOVE this from JD Greear who is the Pastor at the Summit Church in Raleigh, NC.

“When someone (or Satan or my own heart) tells me I am a failure, or worthless, or sinful, I have a choice. I can believe what they say and become what they say about me, or I can believe what God says about me and believe that God says that in Christ I am a new creation. He says I am clean and forgiven. He says I have a future and a hope. He says I was chosen to be incredibly fruitful…and a world overcomer. He says goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ, and that no weapon forged against me will prosper. I BELIEVE HIM.”

I want to believe the truth of the Gospel and live it out daily. That is my journey…to believe God for who He is and live in line with that.

Believing Truth

God has been so faithful to me already on this journey of support raising. The reason that I have called this blog “A Journey of Hope” is two reasons. First, Hope is what Global Aid Network is all about and that is my prayer for the year that I will be able to bring Hope to people who are hurting. But also because this is a journey for me as well. The whole support process is a journey. I feel like my emotions are so up and down all the time and I go from believing truth about God and myself to believing lies throughout the day. But here are some things I know:

• God is good! “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His loving kindness is everlasting!” Psalm 107:1
• God is compassionate when I am down! “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” Lamentations 3:22-23
• God cares about the little things we worry about! “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” 1 Peter 5:7
• God is faithful! “If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown himself” 2 Timothy 2:13
• When I am weak He is strong! “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

The HOPE for me lies in these truths and I am going to keep on believing them! I hope this encourages you too

Break my heart for what breaks yours

Something I have been praying for recently is for God to break my heart for the hurting people of the world. That might sound weird since I am doing an internship with a humanitarian aid organization, but that’s the thing. Even though I see the need and want to do something about it my heart is calloused towards the brokenness of our world. So I figured the best place to start is the scripture. When I began to search the Bible for verses about compassion and the poor I was surprised at what I found. Scripture is filled with verses about the poor and needy. Here are just a few:

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

“He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.” Psalm 72:4

I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.” Proverbs 13:23

But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.” Psalm 9:18

“Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD ; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 29:19

Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17

But this is my favorite:

“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.” 1 Samuel 2:8

What a picture of the Gospel!! After reading through these I realized that God is a rescuer. That is exactly what He has done for me, He came to me when I was broken (“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8) and He saved me! He is the Redeemer of mankind and every time we help someone who is in need He allows us to be a part of that. We are made in His image and we reflect that part of His character! This may seem kind of obvious but it was revolutionary for me!

So my prayer is that the Lord will fill my heart with compassion for the broken people around me so that I can reflect His character and love the people that He loves.

This video is simple but it is a great reminder of who God is and what He loves.

My Heart Behind Support Raising

When I was contemplating what I wanted to do after I graduated I of course thought of Campus Crusade for Christ. I have been involved with them since my freshman year and have had some amazing opportunities through this organization. But something BIG was holding me back. I knew I didn’t want to raise support to work with them for a year. This was different than raising support for a short term mission trip like I had done twice before, this was going to be way out of my comfort zone. So I applied for several other options similar to Global Aid Network but nothing seemed to match my heart for what I wanted to do for the next year. There are so many amazing opportunities out there but the Lord kept bringing me back to interning with GAiN. So I realized that if raising support was the only thing that was holding me back from this internship then there really wasn’t anything holding me back.

Since deciding to intern with GAiN the Lord has changed my heart about support raising. I have realized that it isn’t just a means to an end, but part of what God is trying to teach me through this internship. It is like the first step in the process. Sometimes I find myself putting confidence in my own abilities to do ministry, I think that my past experiences in East Asia or Santa Cruz will carry me through. But throughout this process the Lord has taught me that He is the only one I can depend on. When I come to the end of my rope, He is there waiting for me to trust Him with my life (like I should have done in the first place!).

The verse that I am claiming throughout this whole process is this one:

Hebrews 12:1 “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.”

I want to fix my eyes on Jesus, the one who has called me and is faithful!

This next year I will be interning at the GAiN office which is located in the Hope Center in Plano. The Hope Center is home to more than 40 different ministries. The center was “designed to foster a relationship between independent Christian ministries so they can work together to share the love of Christ and better meet the needs of people.” During the majority of my internship I will be working in the office helping to mobilize the aid being sent around the world. Then I have the incredible opportunity to go on three trips with GAiN. First, I will be going to the distribution center in Pennsylvania to help pack meals and other supplies to ship out to the different places in need. Click here for a video of some people packing meals in the distribution center. Then I will get to go on two overseas mission trips to distribute the aid. I am so thankful to the Lord for this opportunity!

To work with Global Aid Network for a year I will need to raise about 18,000 dollars to cover the cost of these trips and my monthly ministry expenses. Would you like to join with me? Giving is easy, just go to the “join my team” page at the top of the screen and follow the directions!

Thanks so much for being a part of what God is doing to meet the needs of those around the world through GAiN!

Why Global Aid Network?

My sophomore year at A&M I took a class called “Social Problems” for my sociology minor. I went into the class very naive about the problems that our world faces. Over the course of the semester we studied a number of different problems such as poverty, hunger, disease, lack of clean water, and lack of education. I walked out of the final exam feeling absolutely hopeless. To know that every day almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes but not be able to do a thing about it was devastating for me. Here are a few more statistics:

• 3.14 billion people (48% of the population) in the world are living on less than $2.50 per day.
• 1.1 billion people have inadequate water.
• Close to 50% of all people in less developed countries have a health problem caused by water and sanitation defects.

Of the 1.9 billion children from the less developed world

• 1/3 of these children lack adequate shelter
• 1/5 of these children have no access to safe water
• 1/7 have no access to health services
• 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized.

These statistics are staggering and these numbers are growing daily, but there is HOPE. That is what excites me so much about Global Aid Network. Their purpose is to provide humanitarian aid to the hurting people of the world. They put a face to these statistics. Individual lives are being changed through this organization. They focus on four main initiatives: nutritious food, clean water, disaster relief, and community care. Through meeting the physical needs of these people they are given with an opportunity to share the love of Christ and provide true HOPE. I am so excited to be a part of what God is doing through Global Aid Network this next year!