After two scrumptious cups of coffee after six p.m. I've gotten somethings accomplished. It’s now
1:20 a.m. and my homework is completed! I still have my creative journal to
update, but after a book report, writing a song, and editing two of my writing
masterpieces…I am calling it quits! Since I am wired on caffeine I can’t
exactly rest, so for now, I will check off my to-do list a little more. I’ve
been meaning to bring you an update for quite sometime now.
Life these days hasn’t slowed down at all for me. I’m not
meaning to glorify business by any means, but even when learning about Jesus, I
still have to take time to pencil in some time for me. So here is my me time,
time spent to record God’s goodness and to tell you about what He’s been doing
in my day to day.
The common theme in lectures has been prophecy. Although our
teachers have had very different topics, each week the Holy spirit continues to
direct us down the road of the importance of prophecy, simply hearing from the
Lord and speaking it out! Telling of the age to come, and of Jesus' deserving His reward for suffering.
To be honest I’m new to all of this, but I love it! I’m a
deep conversation girl. I love hearing what is on the hearts of dear friends,
and even more so, I love hearing what is in the depths of my Father’s heart.
On DTS I was awakened to the reality that I am God’s
daughter and I hear his voice! Wow! Ever since then, I’ve built upon my prayer
life to practice hearing from Him so that I truly know His voice.
Time after time, the most popular way (and is not limited to) that He speaks, is
through a whisper, or that still small voice. He loves when we take time out of
a hectic day to steady our hearts, focus our eyes on His, and to listen.
Although He isn’t annoyed by our questions, actually He
loves them, He still enjoys when we just listen. I have been shown this week
how there is something special about seeking what He wants to say without my
thoughts immediately going to my God- do list of wants. For example, the profit
Samuel. His response to hearing God’s voice was, ‘Speak, for your servant is
listening’.
Our school of seven students and three staff have been
thirsty for the deep things of His heart. We’ve learned simple obedience of
allowing Him to provide our daily bread. One thing that we have heard clearly
pertains to our outreach.
Originally, our school leaders felt that Malaysia would be
our location for outreach. The more we gathered for outreach prep, the more a
few of us started to sense that something wasn’t settling about this trip.
We decided to Fast together. From experience, this is always
a good idea! It gets the attention of the Lord and shows seriousness and
maturity in wanting to be lead by Him alone. In doing so, He sure enough spoke
to us. He spoke to me personally about each of us being planted in New Zealand
before. He went on to say that He brought each of us back here. The reason for
Him doing this wasn’t for us to be uprooted and planted elsewhere, but for our
small trees to grow into large and mature trees. He pointed out that we have
been soaking in His presence near His living water during lecture phase and
that He has been maturing us to bear fruit in New Zealand!!
What a word! The rest of my team came into agreement and
we’ve been talking with the Lord about what His vision is for our outreach here
in New Zealand.
Another common theme during lectures has been dreaming. If
we are to do greater things than Jesus did, we simply have to stop limiting God
to what we’ve seen and always known and start dreaming with Him to do the
impossible.
I’ll let you in out what our team has been dreaming since
day one! We’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a two-month long faith
journey Matthew 16 style. Meaning that we depend on God for just about
everything. Where we literally don’t plan out our entire schedule and we ask
Him what city, and what task for each day. We lay down our comforts and securities
and trust Him for physical daily bread and spiritual daily bread!
Well, this NZ outreach has offered just that! A blank canvas
to go after our dreams! We are very practically living this out financially
thus far! We have only $5,500 out of the $22,000 estimated budget for our outreach.
Although that number is about the cost of a really nice car, it doesn’t scare
us. Each of us have seen God provide close to $10,000 dollars for us in this
year alone, so we know He is not limited.
Even more so, we are believing for exceeding abundance and
look forward to giving to other outreach teams that are short of finances as
they have began their outreach already. With that said, I invite and welcome
any type of partnership that God moves you to. We welcome creative gifts in the
form of cash money, flyer miles, gas cards, grocery gift cards, and any other way you feel to contribute...and most of
all, prayer; and lots of it.
As we step into this we are most excited about fulfilling
the dream and vision of one of my fellow students, Hannah. She is a kiwi (New
Zealander) who is burning with the vision of busking (playing music on the
streets) and bringing the glory of God through worship. She wants to see her
country revived and hearts awakened to His perfect love. She wants to see the
opposite spirit of teen suicide and depression demolished in this nation. She
wants to see hearts overwhelmed by the love of a Father who purposes them with
the Hope of a Savior!
Her vision has been adopted by each of us as we long for
this dream to come true. Could it be that God does powerful things as we have
been gifted and equipped with musical ability, hungry hearts, and life-changing
testimony of Jesus? Could it be that we will see hundreds or thousands of names
written in the lambs book of life because we are willing to say yes and to go
as He leads? I believe that as much as we will dream and dare to ask God to
meet us, He will do so! His heart longs for His children more than we long for
them to know Him. Jesus longs for the reward of His sacrifice, and it’s our
mandate to tell the poor in Spirit about Him. He is behind us fully and our
confidence is in Him alone!
We are excited as we step out on this amazing ride of
hearing His voice and doing as He speaks. If that means singing in the streets
for eight hours a day, then yes! If that means telling the simple gospel to
university students in between classes, then Yes! If that means serving
churches with worship, then yes! If that means gardening for a lady to enjoy
God’s beauty through nature, then yes!
We are willing and He is able!
May God’s blessing be upon you!
Than you for walking this journey with me in partnership!
