I'm HERE!

I'm IN Switzerland! It's so surreal! It's beautiful! I love my teammates already.. It's amazing how much we've all already gotten to know each other. It's only the beginning of the 3rd day and I'm already ridiculously excited for what is to come!

God has blessed my tremendously. I am so happy to be here!

Thank you so much for prayers! Please continue to pray for support for my outreach phase!

:D:D

To live is Christ.

I'm so excited, I might barf!

Today is my last day of work! Holyyyyy Smokes. I leave in 12 days! I paid my school fees. Now it's all just minor prep. before I leave!

Thanks Sooo much to everyone who has helped me out. Either financially or through prayer, or both! Like I said, I paid my school fees. So the first half of the money that I needed has come in. I still need another $3000, for the outreach phase of my trip. Luckily I don't need that for another 2 months or so. Your continued prayer and support is MUCH MUCH appreciated, as this is something that I am worried about!

Pray for my mental and physical health! Thank you! :)

Here's something I was thinking about today:

It's not only important/ AMAZING that Jesus died for our sins. But it is, I feel, also very important that He humbled himself and became flesh, so that He could LIVE for us. Jesus is our only pure example of how we should live our lives. God created us in His image. When original sin came about we lost our example of how we should live our lives. So, when Jesus came to earth, He not only came to die for our sins, so that we are eternally forgiven, but He came to live on earth as a man and show us how to truly reflect God, as men, to the rest of His onlooking-fallen creation.

Isn't that incredible?!

Love!

Love. Love. Love.

Well, I am no longer counting down to my departure day in months. We’re down to the days. 18 days to be exact. I am unexplainably excited and at the same time I am scared out of my mind!

I recently heard Mission defined as: “Reflecting God to an onlooking world.”

What does this entail? We have to show people, believers and non-believers alike the love of God, through our own love for them. Every second of our lives we should be living out the Gospel. You never know who is watching and you never know who’s life you could change forever, just by reflecting the love of God.

We are the glory of God. He created us in His image. We cannot forget this; He created us to love as He loves. God created us to be in relationship, in community; In the likeness of the Trinity.. Always in community. Loving and watching out for each other.

We have all forgotten the importance of love. Everything else spins outwardly from this. When we truly love as God loves, everything follows. On rare occasions when I briefly put this into practice I have experienced true joy; Unexplainable joy. God created us to love.

Philippians 1:9-10

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ,"

Love: Love the world with all your heart.

1 Peter 4:8
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

How do we put this into practice? Don’t ask me. I’m not even close to finding out how. No matter how much you talk about it, it’s hard to actually love everyone, all the time. Especially people who are mean, rude, annoying, prideful, etc. the list goes on. Guess what, love those people MORE!

All I know is that instead of praying for God to make you love people, or to help you love people, pray that God would show you how to love people. We’ve all heard it before “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” I feel like this applies.

One of my constant struggles is that I feel inadequate. I see good and bad parts in me. I see qualities that I know reflect God. But more often than not, those qualities are over-shadowed by the bad qualities. It scares me. I see anger. I trampled down my anger that I formerly couldn’t control, but I still feel the anger deep down. I lust. My eyes want what they shouldn’t. It’s hard for me to love people that I think I am better than. Even though the truth is: I’m no better than anyone. I’m probably worse. My mind is constantly going where it shouldn’t. My thoughts are constantly at war with my heart.

Compare the good or redeeming qualities (for those english majors) and the bad with two fighting dogs. One dog being the glorious qualities, the ones that we would consider a reflection of God. The other dog is all of the dark, sickening traits that are the result of satan’s whispered lies. Which dog wins? How could one answer that question? My best answer is one that I didn’t come up with. The dog who wins, the dog who triumphs is the dog you feed the most..

*Please pray that God would show me how to love people. That love would bubble up out of my heart. To quote Mewithoutyou: “A glass can only spill what it contains”. Pray that my heart would be overfilled with love, that it would spill out onto/ into everyone I meet, everyone I see, all of my friends, my family. Pray that all goes well with my preparations. With only 18 days to go, I am getting pretty nervous about all of my planning. Pray that all of the support comes in. I still need about $2000 dollars. I believe it will come in. Pray for my fellow teammates. Pray for community within our group. Pray for safety.

Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

P.S... I'm feeding the good dog Kibbles n' Bits with Beggin Strips.. ;)

Thank you. :)