Reaching the world

MISSIONS AND OUTREACH ARE AWESOME!

Ever since I can remember, I have loved foreign cultures and feeling useful. Starting with my small childhood obsession with anime, my love for cultures in other countries, not only Japan (but especially them) has evolved to a love for others and how God has designed them. From Japanese cartoons I developed an interest in other popular media like music and movies, which lead to curiosity about food and languages. Then I wanted to learn more about different government styles and traditions. Eventually my inquisitiveness branched out to countries besides Japan and the United States. Now I dream about traveling through Europe and Asia, living off of the land, and showing God’s love to everyone I meet. He has created man in His image not only in body, but also in spirit and soul. I just love how so many different beautiful ideas have come from one common Creator. When I was young I felt as if I had no value or ability. God showed me how He can shine in my weaknesses so that I can boast in Him through my short-comings. Because of the love Christ has for me and I have for Him, I want to share Him with others to give them opportunity for more abundant and fulfilling lives. After I realized how much He loves me I set out to tell others about this love through word and action.

God gives me the opportunity to help Him by serving others all over the world, here in America and overseas. Last year in Twenty-Four Seven I had the incredible opportunity to go on my first out-of-the-country mission trip to Peru. My team saw the Holy Spirit move in ways we had not before; from helping a church plant invite new members in their community to watching foreigners worship in their native tongue, the Twenty-Four Seven Peru team witnessed God. I will never forget all of the cool experiences and fun serving memories of that trip.

Also, last summer I began interning in Reach at Bayside where I go to school. Since then I have learned so much about a true heart for missions and outreach, gotten more serving opportunities, learned about building ministries, and much more. God has truly blessed me with the chance to serving under the Reach staff, Brandon and Pastor Guy – what incredible men of faith they are! Under their leadership and guidance, I continue to move forward toward my future international ministry and grow in my relationship with God.

Communication is key, especially with family

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

Not only do I love my earthly family, but also my spiritual family and the relationships that I make within the church. On Sunday night, My Twenty-Four Seven family, Anaiah, had a wing night at a cadre’s house just to hang out. There was a bonfire, amazing wings and great conversation. However, in the midst of this social gathering, my beloved oldest sister called me. Michelle, my oldest sister, lives on Guam with her husband and has a much more social personality than myself. Because she and I had not talked in a while, we spend the next about two or three hours talking about everything going on lately in our lives. I’m not a big fan of talking on the phone, but I love her and appreciated the time spent with her, listening to her and gleaning from her wisdom.

(This is my precious-baby-child Holly with my parents and Michelle when she surprise visited me this summer.)

From those hours of talking, God taught me about the importance of regular communication and the value of communicating with family. Communication is key in relationships. In order to build healthy relationships, people need to invest time to talk and share stories or ideas. When I don’t take time weekly to message or call my sisters and parents, I can tell that I am not prioritizing them or growing closer to them. God talks so much about family in the Bible, that He clearly wants us to place high value on our families. I really do love Anne, Michelle, and my parents. However, sometimes it’s just hard for me to find time to call them and catch up; it’s at these times that I realize I try to justify this wrong and make excuses to not show honor and love to my family by communicating with them. At least every weekend, I try to call my parents. However, I definitely know I should be better about talking with my sisters. Going forward, because God has convicted me, I will honor my whole family in heaven and on earth by obeying God and honoring my sisters and parents through communication.

The importance of rest

Balance seems to be a big thing with me lately, balancing fun and work especially. Many things contribute to me being task oriented, but I have a really hard time making time to rest. I get bored or restless when I try to take breaks. Usually I leave breaks more stressed than refreshed because my mind wanders towards my infinite “to-do” list instead of just shutting off. When a first-year girl on my team asked me about when I have Sabbaths, the Holy Spirit really convicted me. Also, when talking with Alex later about my work ethic/habits I felt the prodding of God, again, telling me to make time to consistently rest.

In fact this week God forced me to rest and I almost despised the blessing. Before work on Monday I felt nauseous, but left two hours early after getting sick in the kitchen; I ended up missing two days of school recovering from the night of pain and illness that followed. I’ve been experiencing conflicting feelings about my job at Chick-fil-A, because I know I need money, but at the same time I have been walking in disobedience to Him by neglecting my physical health and relationships. Because of that negligence and other reasons, I actually turned in my two-week notice the previous week. My gracious boss sent me the nicest e-mail saying I didn’t have to work my two weeks if I didn’t want to, because he had understanding about my schedule. However, I thought I should just as a courtesy to him. God didn’t seem to agree on Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday God MADE me lie down in “green pastures,” (Psalm 23:2) and instead of praising Him for the period of rest and healing as a break, I thought I was wasting valuable school time. Even though I know I should keep the Sabbath holy and worship Him through all that I do, God also wants us to be intimate with Him and lean on Him. His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). Instead of trying to find time to do everything myself and becoming obsessed with the works that won’t save me (but should only testify of my love and desire for obedience), God wants me to prioritize my time to make sure I do spend quality time with Him. From now on I want to manage my time better to allow for rest time and time with God.

Bride of Christ before men

I AM SO BLESSED!

Last week I mentioned how my boyfriend, a third-year in Twenty-Four Seven, shared a passage of Scripture with me during a trip. This man is seriously so great. Through our relationship, God has taught me so much about humility, leadership, balance, and my relationship with Him.

Since the beginning of our courtship, Alex has been showing me how to trust God and allow him to lead by following the Holy Spirit. I tend to have a dominating personality at times, especially when in a relationship with such a non-aggressive man, but I have learned to step back and humble myself by allowing him to lead me.

Also, there are often times when I think about wanting to spend time with Alex and know him better, but it reminds me of how I am the bride of Christ and should desire to grow my relationship with Him. Alex always encourages me to seek God more and lean on Him.

Faith like a mustard seed

For the past couple of weeks, faith has really been heavy on my mind and I really have no idea why. During the trip Twenty-Four Seven had a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend, Alex, came to me after a worship night with a word from God. He showed me Matthew 17:14-21, which talks about Jesus's disciples and their lack of faith to cast demons out of a boy. This passage made no sense to me until the latter half of the trip where the ladies of Twenty-Four Seven had an awesome opportunity to grow closer to God and to each other. Slowly but surely God has been revealing to me the meaning of faith and how the Matthew passage applied to me. I'm still not sure of the entire meaning, and after going through my hermenteutics course I am excited about looking into the deeper meaning. This morning during team prayer, I also found Hebrews 11:1-12:3, which is almost exactly what Tanner prayed over me without me even mentioning it to him. Hopefully God continues to show me His truth.

The second year

Twenty- Four Seven as a second year cadre,

is a totally different experience from my first year. I am blown away by how much God blesses me by allowing to lead and mentor a great group of first years, especially the girls.

This Weekend we returned from our first trip of the year; going through it again from a different perspective made me realize that trip is my favorite one from the whole year. No one really knows each other, but we all pull together and lift each other up. Watching how all of the first years pushed themselves and carried their teammates through common struggles was such an incredible experience. I was reminded of how God carries us in our hard times, but He's given us people in our lives to support us as well. Last week was a great way to start off the year, and I loved being on the other side of the experience to help plan and lead.

As a second-year cadre, I have a lot more responsibilities. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I began training before the year started for first-years. I knew this year would be hard, but learning how to balance everything and prioritize has been a huge lesson for me so far. Planning events, being in charge of everyday events, and mentoring and leading first years is going to give me so much valuable experience to use for the rest of my life.

Another beginning

FIRST OF ALL, 

I want to apologize for my very poor discipline to blog over the summer. God provided me with so many opportunities to serve and glorify Him during my time away from Twenty-Four Seven School of Ministry, and I didn't share any of them with you. I could easily write several posts discussing everything that happened; this was probably the best summer I've ever had. Rather than dwelling on the past, however, I look forward to the future of this year and the years to come.

(This is my new team at Siesta Beach for Orientation Weekend)

Finally, my second year in Twenty-Four Seven has come around! Honestly, coming into training I realized that I had no idea what I had gotten myself into; as usual, Twenty-Four Seven has been a bit rough, but totally worth it. After a week of intense physical and mental preparation, second years, third years, and staff put on orientation weekend. The new first years are finally here!

(I made this sheet of information for my team members)

After a lot of deliberation, prayer, and several meetings, myself and three other cadre (Noah who was on my team last year, Chris, and Tanner our third year) decided on the name Anaiah. Finding team name ideas was way harder than we anticipated, but God answered! Then shortly before Orientation day, each cadre learned the first year members of their teams. God has blessed me with the best possible team (other than Eklektos from last year); each member is so incredible and has great potential. I am so excited to see everything God uses us for this year and how He grows each of us!