Realizations and Retellings

Close friendships can be made in less than three days. 

Sharing burdens and telling your story helps in the grieving process.

The mind is stronger than my emotions and fears.  

Sometimes I just need a hug. 

The sweetness of holding hands while praying is underrated.

Sometimes there is more than one right way to do things.  

Always have something ready to share that will encourage others. 

Not having a plan is sometimes the best plan. It allows God to set the agenda. 

When helping others see their value and worth, you get shown your own. 

You don’t always have to know. You just have to be ready. 

Sometimes not asking questions is the best way to get answers. 

Never say never and never accept defeat. 

There is beauty in the unplanned parts of life. 

Don’t let others steal your joy by their negativity. 

Being woken up by the sun shinning through the windows, chirping birds, noisy roosters, and a puppy playing with a can outside is the best alarm. 

The best way to get your mind off of yourself is to do something for someone else. 

Do something spontaneous.You might just end up really enjoying it. 

Do something unexpected. It makes others laugh. 

We all want to be pursued. I want to be pursued. 

Just because someone is quiet doesn’t mean they want to be left alone. 

Making others feel needed makes them feel loved.

I don’t have to do it all. 

Month 2 has been full of last minute throw-together-lessons and if you know anything about me I hate being unprepared. Especially if I have to speak in front of lots of people. Well the Lord knows I’ve asked Him to get me out of my comfort zone and grow me in boldness and confidence and boy has He. At least five times this week I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to speak and instead of dreading it and being nervous the whole time I was talking I actually enjoyed it and the words just came to me in the moment. After one such instance, I sat back down, and was in shock of what I had just done. That’s not to say I now 100% of the time walk in complete boldness and confidence but I have made great progress and I’m so thankful for the growth I’ve seen in my life. It’s fun to see God changing me. Change happens in baby steps and I’m thankful for the process and patience the Lord is leading me through to change me.

This past week we were able to share in about 10 schools. In some schools we only shared to about 40 students in a small classroom and in other schools there were 700-1,000 students in a huge hall that we performed in. This week alone we probably shared to between 3,000-6,000 (I know that’s a wide range. I’m really bad at estimating).Over a hundred students made a confession of faith! In the 15-30 minutes we are allotted at each school, we do a skit, a testimony and an invitation to accept Christ. We have two skits that we perform. The ‘Everything Skit’ (look it up on Youtube) shows the perfect relationship between God and his child before the relationship gets broken by the multiple distractions that take her further and further from Him. The first distraction is a boyfriend, then greed (this is my part when I come out waving dollar bills in her face and teasing her with it), she gets pulled into drugs and alcohol next, vanity overtakes her in pulling at her clothes and showing her how to make herself skinnier, finally satan comes and shows her a knife and how to cut herself, then he gives her a gun and tells her to kill herself. The high point of the skit is when she throws down the gun and tries to get back to God but we all throw her back and beat her until God steps in and takes the beating for her and throws us to the ground. The first school we performed it at was an all girls school of about 800 girls and they really got in to it. They were silent during the part we were beating her up and pushing her down and keeping her from God. But when God stepped in and knocked us down, they went wild. Our second skit is similar in content. The narrator talks about us all having problems and one by one we share our problems. One person is addicted to pornography, one is a hypocrite, there’s a drunk and alcoholic, there’s the “good church girl” who is secretly living in sin, the raped girl with a bad guy, and a pregnant girl who has already had several abortions and tried to take the life of the baby she is currently carrying. My role in this skit is the girl who has it all. A cute boyfriend, money, a nice car, a big house, fancy clothes. But I am not satisfied, there is a void in me and I want more from life than just things, I want God. I’m no actress by any means but each performance I get better and more convincing and I enjoy the reaction of silence and audible hurt when I switch from being all bubbly and happy about my “perfect life” to slowing down, pausing, and admitting that I wasn’t really happy and was searching for more. Our schedule Monday-Friday was a school in the morning, come back to the Youth Center to debrief, play some basketball, dance, eat lunch and then get ready for another school in the afternoon. Wednesday night we had a Bible study, Thursday we went to a comedy show to support one of the youth we do ministry with, Friday night we attended a youth rally at a church, Saturday morning we taught at a girls after school program, Saturday afternoon there was a ‘concert’ we attended, Sunday morning we taught a lesson at a girls boarding school and that afternoon we went to a poetry smash competition to support one of the youth from Youth For Christ who was participating. It was a very busy week now that I look back. 

The highlight of the week was Saturday morning. It was our second time to teach about 40 girls  who struggle with self worth, value, and self image. Last week we did a lesson on Queen Esther and painted the picture in their minds that they are all princesses. We imaged we had crowns and dresses, jewels, glass slippers. We went around and had each of them describe what princess dress they were wearing. What it looked like, what it felt like, if it was pink or red, if it had diamonds on it, sparkles, bows. To continue with that theme, this week we had three princess stations. One was making bracelets, the second was making a crown, and in the third station they wrote a letter to themselves of positive declarations about themselves. I was in charge of this station and my heart was broken and filled at the same time as I walked around the table reading each girls declarations. 

I am beautiful.

I am confident.

Jesus loves me. 

I am important. 

I have both my parents.  

I am a child of God. 

I have food to eat. 

You are braver than you believe. 

I am talented. 

I am a royal princess.

I am not afraid of anything. 

I am remarkable. 

I am a shinning star. I bring light wherever I go. 

I love painting. 

I am thankful because I am alive.

I love myself.

I am a smart girl. 

I love myself because God took His time to create me. 

These are girls between the ages of 6 and 13. They preach truth to themselves. They know who they are. They taught me no matter life’s circumstances there are things about myself no one can take away from me or change. They taught me how to declare truths over myself. They reminded me I am a princess of the King of Kings. We ended our time with them with a group picture in which they DRESSED UP! They did their hair, their makeup, and put their best dresses and highest heels on. As they walked back into the room they each got to do a cat walk down the aisle where the paparazzi of five iPhones awaited them. 

Sunday morning at the girls boarding school the lesson we did was on Peter walking on the water to Jesus. After the lesson I shared two of the most recent difficult times in my life to give testimony to God’s faithfulness in the storms of life. I shared about my Mexico incident and the passing of my grandma to about 100 girls. It was difficult being vulnerable with a large group of girls I didn’t know, but within my team I’ve seen how God has used our vulnerability with one another to bring us closer together. I wanted the girls I was sharing with to see how even though I live in, in their minds, the ‘magical, perfect land of the United States’, there is still sin there, and we still go through hard things and life isn’t always perfect and pretty. The suffering may look different in its expressions in each country but the pain is just the same. After I shared, one of the girls approached me and spent the next 45 minutes crying and pouring out her story. She’s fourteen. She wants to be a gynecologist or a chef. She has a beautiful voice. She’s been through more than anyone should ever have to go though in a lifetime. She has no family support. She has no one to talk to. She carries so many burdens. She’s still grieving the loss of her grandfather who passed away over ten years ago. What could I say? I hadn’t been through anything she was going through. As she talked the words ‘enough’ and ‘strong’ kept coming to my mind. I shared those words with her which I believe were what the Lord was wanting to tell her. I prayed with her. I encouraged her to never accept defeat and allow the Lord to use her in her family’s lives to be the light. I pray Sunday was the beginning of a new chapter in her life. Please keep A*** in your prayers. 

My takeaways from this week:

– God wants to use my story and vulnerability to touch the hearts of others and start them on a journey of restoration. 

– Hold hands with someone every time anyone is praying. Just do it. Once you start you can’t stop doing it. You’ll see. My team has started doing this and it is powerful. 

– Just relax. 

– Get to know people. Ask them questions. Listen to them. 

– Large amounts of time is not required to make friendships. The fastest way to get to know someone and get close to them is by being yourself around them. 

We have a little over a week left here in Zim, and my team and I are already dreading having to leave. We’ve grown so close to the people here that it will be like leaving behind our family when we head on to Zambia. Pray God would continue to use us to reach the lost this week as we go into a few more schools, do street evangelism and hold a movie night in which we are praying for several youth from the schools to come to get connected with the Youth For Christ program (which is really more like a family than a program). Continue praying for health, protection and growth in my relationships with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Pray for continued growth in boldness and confidence and wisdom to lead my team well. I am a testimony of God answering so many of your prayers. They go with me every day, into each school, out every word I say and through every action I perform. 

*Check my Facebook for more pictures. Pictures are very slow to upload to my blog.