Praises in Heaven

Good news!!!

Andreea, one of the gals that was in my room at camp accepted Christ the last day of the camp. I think that was one of the most sweetest moments in my lifetime! Pastor Raul provided a time for students to respond to the Lord and Andreea did! I was in the room at the time praying for the students and out of the corner of my eye, I watched her approach Pastor Raul and he spent time praying for her and then Cornelia, the student leader from our small group, came along side of her to pray and encourage her...what a blessing to have witnessed a life given over to the Lord!

Afterwards, I met up with Andreea outside and gave her a HUGE hug and told her that I was so excited for her and that she made a great decision. She looked at me after our hug and said "thank you" and "I'm so glad to have met you." That was such a great blessing for me to hear her say that especially since all week we relied on non verbal communication to "speak" to one another.

I'm excited to report that Andreea is a facebook friend now, so I have a way of continuing to encourage her through social networking (sometimes technology really can be a great thing)!

Home Safe from Romania

Friends,

I know it's be a little since I've blogged. Time has flown by since arriving back in the states. We arrived safely at O'Hare on August 9 from Romania around 8 p.m. We were exhausted from our trip overseas, but encouraged by seeing God work in the hearts of the students and in our own hearts during the week.

Camp was much different than I had anticipated...the language barrier was larger than we had expected, so conversing with the students was fairly difficult. We relied much on non verbal communication during the week and at the end of the week, it was clear that our non verbal communication reached the hearts of many...what a blessing to see the fruit of that!

I know the one thing that I learned most at camp was FLEXIBILITY! I don't think I've ever had to be more flexible with anything in my entire life! We hit many obstacles which we knew Satan placed in our path, so often, we were brought to our knees in prayer to combat his schemes.

The Lord has placed many challenges ahead of me after this trip and I know it will be difficult to adjust to those challenges, but I am so thankful for a God who stretches me out of my comfort zone and leads me to ways to live radically for His glory!

Hope to blog again soon and thank you for all your prayers and support while our team served in Romania. I hope to post pictures and things in the future (that is if I can figure out how to...being a new blogger has its downfalls).

Blessed in Romania

Hello from Romania!
Absolutely LOVE it here and the people and the land is beautiful! I am enjoying time with my host family...they are such giving and compassionate people! I can't say enough great things about being here. We're leaving for camp tomorrow morning (Monday) and have about a 2 hour drive to camp which is much better than the flight and drive to Arad (it took a little over 24 hours to arrive here and of course, delays and missed flights were a part of the fun)!
We've been able to tour the city of Arad and enjoy the culture. The food is fabulous and is in some fierce competition with the food I enjoyed in Israel (which says a lot about how wonderful it is here). We worshipped at the Harvest church here twice now and it was beautiful to worship the Lord in another language and partner with other brothers and sisters in Christ and yet know we are one body and one church!
Please continue to pray for us as we minister to the high schoolers. It's my understanding that there will be over 100 high school students and a third of them are not believers. The theme for the week is the story of God and I have been partnered with Cornelia for small groups and a different Cornelia will be the student leader with us to help with the translation from Romanian to English. One of the gals with us comes from a very poor background and is very shy, so please pray for us as we do our best to be Christ to her and provide her with a sense of unconditional love and security (she doesn't have running water or electricity at her home). It's also imperative that the girls in our group trust us to be able to allow them to share in group with us, so please pray that their hearts will be soft and ready to hear the Lord speaking.
VERY excited about the opportunity ahead, but also fearful of not being bold enough in my faith...please pray that the enemy doesn't silence me when the Lord is tugging my heart to say or do something for someone. Please pray that I am a woman of action in my faith.
hope to blog again at camp, but if I don't, I will do all I can to blog more about the changed lives at camp...I know mine will be one for sure...God is doing quite a bit of construction on me!

Romania...Here I Come!

WOW...in less than 24 hours I board a plane and head to Romania!

Today has been a day of making "last minute" purchases and trying to pack this evening proved to be quite the task. I'm near completion with the packing process and praying that the bag doesn't exceed the 50 lb limit.

Emotions right now are mixed. I'm mostly tired, but also excited about what's going to happen and what kind of relationships will be built from this. I mean, how awesome is it that I have the opportunity to go half way across the world to experience another culture and meet others who worship our Lord together!!! What a sweet experience the Lord has provided. :) A small taste of heaven...

I doubt I'll be able to blog while in Romania but my intention is to keep up with the blogging when I return. In the meantime though, please continue to pray daily for us as we minister to these high school students. Pray for us to be bold witnesses for Christ and love on them so Christ is clearly seen through our example.

Thank you and blessings!

Chow for now...

What am I doing?

Never before in my life have I ever been as discontent as I am now. I know that sounds pretty pessimistic, but it really isn't. Allow me to explain.

As many of you reading this blog know, I went on an amazing adventure last November to the Holy Land and really have been forever changed by my experiences there. You can't come back from Israel the same as when you left...I'm convinced it's not possible. If you have the chance to go...DO IT!! Yeah, it might be expensive, but it will be worth it and I know that if the Lord allows the opportunity to go again, I sure will!

After coming back and reflecting on my trip and really processing messages currently preached at Harvest, the Lord opened my eyes to see that I've gained a lot of knowledge about the Lord and what His word says, but I'm failing miserably at living it out! I want my faith to be active...not just something stored in my head!!! I know that He's made me for something more than where I am at right now. He's stirring in my heart many things which are even hard for me to explain in a blog and at some point, I hope to be able to get it out in writing to you.

As much as I don't know what's ahead for me, I'm excited about where God is taking me. He's teaching me to trust Him with all I am. He's showing me that He is stronger. He's showing me that He's enough. He's allowing me to understand Him better. How I love how he continues to reveal himself to me through life circumstances and His word. Couldn't be more thankful for this time right now where I stand firm and WAIT upon the Lord. I know that He's calling me to be still and move at His command. What a great place to be...resting in His care and provision for my life.

This isn't unpacked nearly as much as I hoped I would, but I hope you'll stay tuned to see what He continues to have in store for me.

Romania Missions

Hmmm...you know, I just realized after my last posting that some new comers might not even know what the team and I are doing when we go to Romania!

Allow me to explain...
there are 10 people from Harvest Bible Chapel that are headed to Arad, Romania for 9 days to bring the Good News of Jesus to approximately 100 high schoolers! A typical day will be as follows...

7 a.m. Leaders meeting and breakfast
9:15-12:15 p.m. Stations
Stations this year are: ESL, Discussion, Games and Arts & Crafts/Cooking
12:30 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. Large group game!
3 p.m. Free time
5:30 p.m. Dinner and leaders meeting
7 p.m. Group gathering game (think icebreaker)
7:30-9 p.m. Pastor Raul preaches, worship time
9 p.m. small group discussion time

We've got some pretty sweet stuff planned...I mean how cool is it that we're having them make Chicago style hot dogs in Romania???!!!! We're also introducing them to the game Curses...I'll definitely have to blog about that when I return....

Hope this provides a good overview of what's happening...I'm bummed out because I will likely not have access to a computer to blog when I'm there, but hope to still provide blogs when I return!

Prayers for Romania

Many of you have asked for prayers for Romania. I can't believe I leave in less than a week!

Here are some prayer requests and thank you in advance for going before the throne on our team's behalf...

1. Prayer for team unity.
2. Prayer for safe travel.
3. Prayer for good rest.
4. Prayer for the students hearts to be soft, ripe and ready to hear and respond to the Lord.
5. Prayer for resting in His strength.
6. The weather will be VERY hot in Romania (I heard it was over 100 degrees there last week), so please pray that even in our times of being hot and tired, we can continue to speak with words of grace and our actions would be pleasing and honoring to one another and to the Lord.
7. Prayer that we adjust well to the time change (Romania is 8 hours ahead of us).
8. Prayer that we will be bold in our faith and that we're sensitive and obedience to the Lord's calling in our lives.
9. Prayer for flexibility...without a doubt, there will be times that things don't go "as planned".
10. Prayer that when conflict arises, we slow to anger and quick to be gracious and that we surrender and confront the conflict through prayer and follow biblical principles to communicate through the conflict.
11. Prayer that as Americans we are sensitive to the cultural differences we will experience.
12. Prayer that language will not be a barrier in relating to one another.
13. Prayer that God will receive all the glory for all that is done in Romania!
14. Prayer that we are humble!
15. Prayer that we don't walk into this missions trip with expectations of how things are going to be rather just allowing the Lord to work in and through us as He wills.
16. Prayer that we (American missions team) will build strong relationships with the Romanian leaders that we will be working alongside of.
17. Prayer against any spiritual attacks from Satan.
18. Prayer that our communication will be clear and effective.
19. Prayer for Pastor Raul as he prepares the messages that the Lord has placed on his hear to share.
20. Prayer that we have wisdom and discernment as we serve in Romania.

I'm certain that this list could go on and if more come to mind, I will most definitely post them.

Thank you for being the prayer warriors for this trip and for those of you who have financially supported this trip...you have been such a great blessing!

More to come...