..... But He is Good

The past few weeks my mind has been wandering back to Turkey. It was almost exactly two years ago that I boarded a plane in Calgary Alberta headed for Turkey. I had no idea what to expect. None of us on my team did. We went with the intent of putting into practice all that we had learned in the past three months during the lecture phase of our YWAM discipleship training school and seeing the Kingdom of God come in a foreign country. Our purpose was to be Christ in this predominately Muslim nation. We didn't know how we were going to do this, and even more so, we had no idea what God was going to do in us.

A Journey Like No Other

I am a traveler. I feel the most content when I am moving around from place to place, always  busy, always something new. I begin to feel restless if I'm in one place for too long and the restlessness, if not dealt with, will turn into an urgency, a driving need to do somthing different, to explore new streets and alley ways. A desperate desire to meet new people and hear new stories.

The One Thing

Tuesday afternoon I was informed by my school leaders that I need to have the remainder of my fees for lecture phase in by Friday. I still need $1700 and was praying about what God wanted me to do. Tuesday night I felt led to fast until Friday evening.

Since then I have been spending a lot of time in the prayer room. I have been soaking myself in the Word and really seeking God's heart for me during this time. Yesterday during my dinner-time prayer, God told me to read Song of Solomon. As I was reading that God gave a wonderful revelation of what His heart is for me in this.

Why You Should Support Me (or any other missionary/missionary-in-training)

These past few days I've been thinking about what I'm doing and how much it takes to make this possible for me. I was also thinking about missions in general, the great financial cost involved, and the tremendous lack of support. As I was thinking about these things, I began to think that maybe the biggest reason why people like myself (when I say that I am meaning anyone who is involved in missions in such a capacity that they CANNOT work a paid job to provide for their EVERYDAY needs and expenses) lack financial support is simply because there is a lack of information.

I am not writing this note to ask you for money. I am simply writing this to inform you of what I am doing, what the GLOBAL need is (not financially, but spiritually) and how you can make a difference.

Week One

Today was the final day of week one lectures! This week has been seriously intense. I knew that one of the big reasons God was leading me to DTS was so that He could really work healing in my life. I expected things to get pretty intense emotionally but definitely did not expect it get so intense so quickly. I was expecting that the first couple weeks would be an easing into time, but no! God hit me hard with a bunch of things that needed dealt with and exposed several things from past where God wants to bring healing. It was difficult. It was painful. But it was so very good.

I still have a lot that I need to process and know that this was only the first step in the healing process. I am excited and nervous all at the same time about this. Walking through the healing process is a scary thing. I know that it's good, but it also sucks quite a bit! It's not easy to dig down deep into emotions that have burried for 19 years. It's even harder to look at the source of those emotions.

The human mind and heart is a very beautiful, yet very scary place to be. It's easy for me to walk around and convince myself that I am fine when, if I am honest with myself, I know that I am far from. The thing that scares the most about this process is not feeling the pain or reliving the experiences that caused the pain, it's discovering who I am underneath all the pain. I was sharing with one of the guys in the School of Biblical studies about some of the things I'm working through and had a very profound realization. I am terrified of finding out who I really am. I have gone so long trying to be what I think other people want and covering up myself that I have no idea who I am underneath it all and I am scared that once I strip all that away, I won't like the person I discover.

I, like everyone else who has ever walked this earth (aside from Jesus, of course) have some gross, dark places inside my heart. Those places scare me. I am so scared to look into those places and see the ugliness that is me in my sin. I don't want to go there. I'm scared that if I do, it will seep out between the cracks and may take over me. I know that this is all just fear and I know that God is bigger than that and I'm his creation and I've surrendered him and blah blah blah. I know all this. But the fear is still there. It's a scary place to be when you're looking deep asking God to open you up and heal you and run across these dark places. It is absolutely terrifying but I won't allow the fear to stop me or control me.

I will look into the dark places of my soul and will allow God to shine His light. I will go where there is darkness and sin and yuckiness and allow Christ's healing power to come into those places and transform me. I will allow God to take me into the dark places of my heart so that I can then go into the dark places in the world and bring light and healing.

He is faithful and will not leave me alone in this. He will be faithful and He will make a way. Of this I am sure.