Living to make HIM famous

Wanting to fast foward but i'm stuck in slow motion

2008-12-14T19:18:00.000-08:00

Wanting to fast forward but I’m stuck in slow motion…
Have you ever seen the movie Click, with Adam Sandler in it.. well if you haven’t he has this special remote that controls not only the TV and radio, but life. If he had a cold, he could fast forward until he was better. If he was fighting with his wife he would say fast forward until we are not fighting. When he was sick of his job, he would say fast forward until I get my promotion... sounds great but then he ended up missing his whole life, because one time it took him 10 years to get his next promotion, so he missed 10 years of his life. He missed a lot in those 10 years; he even ended up falling out of love with his wife and getting a divorce and not realizing it. This has a lot to do with my life right now and the season that I’m in. It’s a difficult and confusing one to say the least. I find my self reaching for the fast forward button all the time. I know what’s in the future, God has told me and shown me, I know that I will be an overseas missionary, I know that I will not only love on the poor but live among the poor.
My friends once gave me a great visually on life, its like life is a big story book, with those fun old antique looking ruffled pages, and some stick out farther than the other, so our first instinct is too look at that longer page sticking out, but if we just read that page of the story, that’s in the middle of the book, we aren’t going to get the story! We missed all the pages in-between. When you reading a book you just don’t skip 3 or 4 chapters, it won’t make sense then. And That’s my life right now, I can’t skip ahead, even if I know what’s going to come, if I don’t go through the pages in-between then it won’t make sense. If my future is Africa and overseas then I need to figure out what is in the middle of here and there.
God has been good though, he has shown me some of those pages, I have doubted why I’m working 2 jobs and not just hanging out with the homeless like it was my job. He confirmed me having the job I do, because I am seeing my coworkers either start walking with God for the first time or rededicate their lives to him!! Ah which is just incredible, Praise God! All praise goes to Him. In this I have found peace because I know God is using me here and God is here just as much as he is overseas! So often I want to fast forward, but if I would have come home from India and then got on a plane right away to Africa I would have missed this chapter and people might not be walking with the Lord today like they are. J Right now I’m stuck in slow motion, and how I wish I could say fast forward me to the overseas mission field, but what would I miss? And Who would I miss?

God, grant me the serenityto accept the things I cannot change;the courage to change the things I can;and the wisdom to know the difference

This is an emergancy

2008-12-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was a hard day for me.. because as much as i love my family, they did everything that i wouldn't do :) I think its nice that everyone gets together as family and friends and celebrates all the things they are thankful for. But i don't agree with the hundreds of dollars that are spent on food, and people intentionally over eating when there are millions of people starving to death.. hundreds in your city alone. Yesterday i had to honor my parents as they asked me to stay home and share dinner with them and the 20 other people we had at our house!.. Which was still ok because I got to pray for people :) always fun. But my heart wasn't in indulging myself with all this food my heart was to be on the streets with people who didn't even know it was Thanksgiving day, because really what i'm thankful for is that God has opened my eyes to a different World. My eyes no longer just see a thanksgiving feast and think oh yummy, i see that feast and think about the homeless who would love to have a nice warm feast like this. Sometimes its hard to have this mind set because people don't always agree with you, like yesterday my own family didn't even agree with me. But Jesus said, wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.. So everything is fine, I’m just taking the Road less Traveled :) which is exactly the road I want to be on.So yesterday as we were wrapping up all the TONS of left overs, we put some in a bag and took them over to some homeless people by my Dad’s shop. We got out of the car and they came running up to us, it was 5pm and by now they were all drunk and couldn't walk right, and they didn’t speak much English, so it was interesting. : ) but we handed them the bag and they got all excited... i got like 5 hugs and a couple of kisses from my new Mexican friends hahaha. As we were pulling out, one guy came running towards us rubbing his arms like he was cold and then pretending to put on a jacket, so we could obviously tell that he was cold and asking for a sweater. Florida is a beautiful and warm most of the time but this winter looks like its going to be a cold long winter as its already in the 40's most nights. I didn't even think about bringing lots a blankets, thankfully we had one in our car. We handed him a nice bright pink blanket, he was so happy and put it over his shoulders right away, with the biggest smile on his face! However going to sleep last night was heartbreaking. As I laid there, and I was cold.. but I had so many layers on and i had a big comfy blanket, but I was still cold. I laid there with the picture of this man in my mind, walking away from my car with a little pink blanket, and I thought about if that would keep him warm enough. The vision wouldn't stop, but it just kept playing over and over in my head, and then that vision went into other pictures, as I laid in my bed crying myself to sleep thinking I could have done more..I want to do more, I will do more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJjg1Joag_0&feature=related

40 Days of Feasting.. and i'm Never the same

2008-11-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

To put these last 40 days into one word or one sentence is literally impossible, there for I shall write you a novel. : ) The front is where I attend “church” only I don’t like calling it that, so I guess the front is where I attend worship! Its intense and God has a special anointing on that place and the leadership there. Anyways so they called us to a 40 day fast for the elections, it ending November 4th 2008 the date of the election. Starting out this fast I wanted to fast mainly food, but after almost passing out several times I decided, to still fast other things, but I mainly be feasting on God! Isn’t that fun like a fast isn’t fasting from things, its feasting on God and his word. So these last 40 days I have been so hungry for God and at the same time so full because he kept feeding me!! Ah I get excited just looking back at what he has done. I’m looking through my journal as I write this and I’ll just give you some little nuggets of what God did!

9-29-08… Monday night I was at the front were we were all crying out for India because of all the persecution and the killings of Christians. I sat there so upset because yes this affects all believers, but I have been there! I personally know some of the Christians that this is affecting and my heart broke for them. But as I’m crying God places a heavy burden on my heart and my broken heart because more broken and I’m deeply broken as God speaks to me, saying… This pain that you are feeling, this broken heart that you are feeling, is not me crying for my sons and daughters in India who are getting killed for me, because they get it, I cry for you guys, the ones who don’t get it, the Christians who aren’t willing to die for me, my heart breaks because I wonder if you would really die for your faith…. Talk about conviction!

*One night as I sat in the presences of God, I realized the Presences of God is truly unmatchable, intoxicating, an encounter I long for everyday.

9-30-08… Got kicked out of a strip club parking lot for praying!! Haha his presences it a threat to the enemy.

“JESUS”-I learned Just His name is so powerful. That name can make people feel uncomfortable with in one second! Ha like at starbucks when the person ask you what you do and you say I am the Lords servant you can see them get all uncomfortable and change the subject and all I did was say his name! I have seen people just say Jesus and the person is healed. People all over the world but you hear about it in countries like China and Middle East, and now India, Christians are being killed because they are telling people about this King and I don’t hear about any Mormons or Jehovah witnesses getting killed for their faith because there so something about our God that is a threat because just his name has power in it.

10-6-08…. It seems like this whole fast God was teaching me about what it truly means to be a Christian because I just finished the heavenly man which is an intense book of a Chinese Christian, then I saw a pastor speak from Rwanda and later I heard a speaker from Turkey speak. The Turkey man has seriously been through so much torture, they would pull off his toe nails and pull out his teeth and if he passed out they would splash water on him to wake up so he could feel the pain, and they would pull his arms and legs so they would be stretching out his body in ways it shouldn’t be! And at the end of all this, he seriously was half dead, and he would pray the Lord’s prayer, and the guards were like you are crazy! But they couldn’t believe he was still alive so they said tell me about this Jesus that you are praying too, and he got to tell them all about his savoir! Ha how cool. But at the end he was just like ok now what do you American Christians do? Do you sacrifice anything for your Lord?

10-10-08… I go and hang out with old people at this assistant living home, and there is one women in particular who I see every time, her name is Virginia. She is so cute and fun and is always laughing. But today she was sad because she said..i just realized that I’m all alone I have no family and I’m just lonely and that makes me sad. I notice she had a bible in her bag so I said- Lets look in there because that book has some good stuff about Joy in it. And so we look at verses about joy and rejoicing, but then she asked where can we find a verse about peace, because she said I want peace.. and I go Oh Girl he is all about peace! Ha so I found this verse, “now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in everyway. The Lord be with you all.” And I didn’t read it to her, I just found what page it was on and then she read it herself out loud, and as she was reading it, the presence of God feel in the thickest cloud ever! She started to breath heavy, and I’m like Virginia are you ok? Because you know shes old and stuff and she could be dying on me, and she says.. I can feel it, I can feel him giving me the peace and its taking my breath away, then tears started to stream down her face and she got noticeable chills (goose bumps whatever you call them) then she said I feel a breeze against my back like I’m floating because I have so much peace, seriously it was like God took her out of this world and into the supernatural for like five minutes! And I’m just sitting there, being memorized as I watch God physicaly touch this woman! It was crazy. Then she is so cute, she goes I use to think a piece of chocolate was the best thing ever but this is so much better! I think it was a prophetic word to me, lol!

10-14-08… a pastor shared this story. Back in the holocaust days, there was this church that sat right in front of some railroad tracks. And every Sunday at the same time the church was meeting the train would ride by with Jews inside on their way to be killed and they would see the cross on the church building and they would cry out for help. This happened every Sunday as the church was in silent prayer the train would go by and the cries were unbearable. So the church had a meeting and deiced to switch their service around and so when the train went by they would be in a time of praise and worship, and when they would start to hear the train coming they would play a little louder and they would turn up the music a little more so they could wash out the disturbing cries. Our nation is doing that today, as we sit back and watch babies be aborted, as we sit back and watch the porn industry reaching record high profits. We are in our little church turning up the music to wash out the cries of the world, the cries of the homeless the orphaned, the lost, and the unloved. How much longer will the church continue to go on with normal life, turning up the worship music, to forget about the lost in this nation and this world? Its really ironic if you think about it.

10-21-08… Pastor Phil, who God uses him to heal his sons and his daughters, anointed me and prayed that I would receive the gift of healing like he has! Sweet!

10-27-08… I truly feel the freedom I have to follow Christ! My family is still having a hard time in supporting me and the crazy dreams God has placed on my heart. But when my family and society makes comments like I won’t be able to do that, It doesn’t affect me anymore! Like I hear them but I don’t, if you get what I’m saying! Because the freedom that I have in Christ has been so real and so powerful this last month, that I have experienced freedom in him and no one can discourage me now because I am free to follow Him!

10-30-08… along with this 40 day fast, the Pro life campaign has been doing a 40 days of life, where have they been praying for the end of abortion. So at some of the planned parenthoods where they perform abortions ( not all of the planned parenthood perform abortions, but a lot of them do.) people have been standing on the grounds praying. The front took this Thursday to pray in front of this building for the whole day! I was there for only 2 hours but what God spoke to me in those 2 hours was something I needed to hear and I think all Christians need to hear. On the way to this silent protest we heard this song that has the lyrics ‘don’t walk away’ .. and I was praying I was praying that God wouldn’t walk away from his unborn babies here that he would save them and then he turned that prayer around and spoke to me, saying… Leslie you don’t walk away, now you have seen it, you have actually seen in with your own eyes a building in which they take the lives of innocent unborn babies. You are now responsible for making this aware to people, because you have seen it, now please don’t walk away.

11-1-08 …. I could speak forever about this night! But basically I was visiting a home church with me Sister Lauren, and there was a guest speaker there. And she was majorly gifted with the spiritual gift of prophesy! And we worshiped and she spoke a little but most of the night she was just prophesying and praying over people. And my sister went before me and I was like ahhh this is crazy, because everything she was saying was right on in a way they she would never know but only God would give her the knowledge of what to say and what to see. She prophesied over me and God gave her the same knowledge about me! And what she said to me was the devil is trying to kill your dreams he is trying to steal away the gifts and the dreams God has given you. And of course that is so true and close to my heart that is was like I was sitting in my fathers lap weeping and asking him to help me hold on to these dreams that he has given me, and he said he would : ) so that’s good : ) haha I love it. And then ok for the last month or so I feel like I have been able to see more, like into the supernatural, or the spiritual whatever you want to call it. I feel like God wants to show me angles and such, but I’m just not excepting it, like I can almost seem them, but if I just receive what he wants to give me then I will seem them, so this has been going on for awhile and I was thinking about it this night. And Crystal the girl that was prophesying goes… Oh girl you are a seer and God is going to start to show you things, he wants to show you vision and angles, you will start to see into the supernatural… ahh I don’t care who you are, that is straight up crazy cool right there. The next night God gave me 2 visions already to speak to people!!

11-3-08…. In YWAM I feel in love with the sound of acoustic guitar. And my favorite thing to do is worship, seriously! So I have been wanting to get a guitar so I could worship God all the time and make my own worship and I just love that guitars are all over the world, and worship really brings the presences of God. So if I’m traveling the world being a missionary I would love to know how to play guitar so I can invite the presences of God in every place I go. So ya but I am poor, and couldn’t afford, so I was just praying you know God if you want to give me a guitar I receive it! lol. Now I have a little money saved up and I could buy one if I wanted to. But the other day Lauren was talking to one of our friends about praying and she used.. oh ya Leslie is praying for a guitar as an example as to what they were talking about. The next day she showed up to my house and said God is answering your prayers because he told me to give you my guitar!!ahhh so I should stop writing about it and starting playing it, now I’m praying for the gift to supernatural be able to play it haha just kidding but seriously because I have no idea what I’m doing!

11-4-08… ELECTION DAY! The whole day the people from that front where praying the whole day the voting polls were open, so it was 7am -11pm, because it wasn’t just when the polls were open in FL but from the west coast to the east coast. And this whole fast people have been saying your just praying for the elections?! But really its so much more than that! I haven’t even prayed once that God would put one of them over the other in office. We have been praying that our nation would turn back to God that we would seek his face, that we would realize the sinful nature of this nation and repent! That night I had to work so I got to The Font at 7pm and you could tell people were warring for the nation!! Because they weren’t sitting down and saying a silent prayer we were pacing the room crying out! When God placed something on someone hearts they would go up front and pray into the microphone so we could stand in agreement with them. One time someone brought up the subject of sex trafficking that in California there is something on there ballot that is so insane! Its not a matter of weather sex trafficking will be illegal or legal it’s a matter of the cops not being able to investigate cases concerning this issue! So this was a major cry out as guys went up there and repented of their lustful desires and prayed for the men who were doing this to girls 3x younger than them. We prayed that the words on this ballot wouldn’t be confusing but they would turn into a vision of these little girls sold into this sex slave industry. Lauren got up front and prayed, because she has been to Thailand where sex industry is huge and she has seen men drag women in prostitution by their hair because they think they own them for that night, and cops just stand back and watch it happen.. its because we have become numb. So we were praying for God to make people feel the pain, make them not numb anymore, but make us aware of this horrible act. And be careful what you ask for because the whole room just cried out because we could feel the numbness breaking and we could feel Gods broken heart for these men and women!

**It’s funny how the presence of God can change a mood so quick because one minute we would be crying the next laughing and the next yelling with passion. But then God placed it on my heart to cry out for the church to wake up! And I wanted to go up in front and pray and get everyone pumped up and ask God to wake us up! But God had a different plan, he brought me to my knees with tears rolling and rolling down my face saying I’m sorry. He spoke to me saying the church is having an affair. Instead of being in love with Jesus and his presence, the church is having an affair with religion and denominations. We have lost sight of his face and the intimacy that we can find in him alone. And if we can hear the sound of rain coming and if we were made for battle then we need to wake up. We have lost sight of Him, because if we were following and seeing his holiness, his mercy, his greatness, his power. Then we wouldn’t walk past an adult book store without doing anything, we wouldn’t stand to have thousands of orphans just in my city alone that I live in. Also before I got to the front that night I was downtown where I stopped and talk to a homeless man, Vince. Vince has been homeless for 25 years and when I asked him if I could sit down and just visit with him he said no one ever just wants to sit down and visit with him. The election day I notice how many church buildings we have. I always knew we had a ton but when you have huge signs and people saying vote here you realize all the church buildings. If each church would take in and house one orphan then we wouldn’t have any more orphans that are with out a home and with out love. When God had me pray that prayer I was overwhelmed with sadness, as I myself was being convicted, I’m not just hating on the church here, I’m saying I think we have lost sight of our first love and I know that breaks his heart and in turn it breaks me to the point where I can’t get off of the floor but all I can do is just lay there and cry at my fathers feet. All I can do is lay at the foot of the cross and thank you for what he HAS DONE and in the same breath same I’m sorry for what I HAVEN’T DONE.

God has dramatically changed my walk with him in this these last 40 days, to the point where he has stolen my heart and I have told him that I never want it back. The Holy Spirit has moved in my life in ways that I have never experienced. The Holy Spirit has invaded my comfort zones so much and it’s the most exciting thing ever! Sometime I get discouraged working 2 jobs all day everyday but now that I’m walking in this new truth and asking God everyday to use me to bring him glory and asking him that everyday I have an encounter with him, everyday is an adventure! I can’t get enough of it and everyday I want more! After this month I will never be the same. God has revealed himself to me in a whole new way and I have seen him and heard from him in ways that I never had before. I love it when I see more of him and less of me in my life! Sometimes its funny and hard though because I had a day of work and I went to the bookstore to read a book because I’m too cheap to actually buy it..haha, but I’m sitting there next to this woman, and it was like I couldn’t even sit there and relax and read a Christian book because God was speaking to me about this woman next to me! Its like I’m reading this book about God but does this woman even know who he is! Ah so I have learned if I want to be alone or just relax I need to just stay home because now I can’t even go to starbucks anymore with out God asking me to talk to that person, but love it! I love every minute of it.

I have learned also that the Holy Spirit is Crazy and powerful and that when we have an encounter with Him he moves in ways that can’t be explained… I use to think it was weird to see people like fall to the ground, or speak in tongues, or shake, or cry really loud, but now I realize that person is having an encounter with the king of kings and they are having an encounter with the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead! So how can they just stand there and not be moved by him? Ya God is like my best friend and we laugh together and we are all casual but he is also the only living God who spoke life into existence and that is pretty intense, so as we are seeking his face and we see him and when you encounter Him some crazy stuff happens! Because that’s just how he works, its called taking God out of the box.

God just keeps changing my views on missions. Now my mission is to tell people about this amazing man named Jesus and lead them to have a relationship with Him. I still have a heart for the poor and unloved. I am still planning to go to Africa but am having a hard time finding an organization to go with. I found this one that is awesome, but I just don’t know if its hardcore enough for me.. and then I found the worlds largest slum in Kenya! Ahh its crazy like 1.5 million people in this one slum and like 400,000 orphans, now that’s hardcore.

I don’t know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future! “In China we have no possessions to hold us down, so there’s nothing preventing us from moving out for the Lord.” All I know is that I don’t want anything to hold me down because I want to be able to go when God tells me to go.

…….When God truly moves in our heart and in your life you cannot remain silent. There will be a fire in your bones, like Jeremiah, who said, “ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” Jeremiah 20:9 Our God is an all consuming fire….These days I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn! You can never really know the scriptures until you’re wiling to be changed by them, God has been offending my mind to get into my heart. This God, man he is a life wrecker haha he has wrecked my life to where I can and will only live for him.

Reality is not a word used in my Vocabulary

2008-09-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Something i just learned is that i believe in God.. Not reality. I Go by what God says, not reality. Because you know what, when Moses parted the red sea and him and all the Israelites walked on dry ground, reality is.. that is not possible! But God makes it possible. When Jesus would heal the blind, raise the dead and cleanse the leapers.. reality says not possible, God makes it possible. So ya that was a long time ago, but it still applies today. I go to a youth group where each month they need a thousand dollars to pay the rent, and each week somehow God provides with broke college students, and strangers.. sometime in one night, with one check they have the whole month paid for! I see healings happen that aren't suppose to be possible. I hear stories of broken fingers straighten out right in front of their eyes. I have seen God provide money for ME personally in the the craziest ways! This whole YWAM thing, Lauren and I together, he provided over $10,000! People we didn't even know, they have never seen us, they just heard what we were doing would hand us a $500 check. At church i would set my purse down and forget about it, and then get home, look inside and there would be an envelope in my purse with $200 in it. I have seen my friends of deadly illness and make it out alive. Reality is.. none of this stuff should have happened!! That is why Reality is not one of the words in my vocab, because when someone says, "Reality is...." I know that nothing is impossible for God. As Christ follower, we should want to see the impossible made possible! Because that is what HE does.

This is a passage about Faith. The reality is, God is BIGGER than reality.

Hebrews 11
By Faith 1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for.
3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
5By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
7By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he[a]considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
17By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring[b] will be reckoned."[c] 19Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
20By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
21By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.
23By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.
24By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. 25He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29By faith the people passed through the Red Sea[d] as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
30By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
31By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.[e
32And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37They were stoned[f]; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Camp <3

2008-09-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

Camp....awesome :) this camp was everything and more than i thought it would be. So all the families are poor inner city black families and i love them! The staff at camp made up a very diverse group.... There were blacks, whites, Straight people, Homosexual, Christians, Jewish people, all different kind of beautiful people! This camp was so loving and non judgmental and just so excepting of everyone, like everyone greeting each other with a kiss on the check and a hug and i was talking to a campers mom and she said i just love this camp because its a place where i come to just be myself and i love it here because there is so much love. and as i was talking to her i got really sad that like she can't get that out in the real world and then i started to think about Christians and where is the love? Jesus when he was on this earth talked to tax collect and prostitutes and talked and loved the least of them, he loved them, he didn't even say you are a tax collect or a leaper i can't talk to you So these weeks at camp i learned i am not called to judge but i am just called to love them.

The children think they are coming just for a normal summer camp where they do arts and crafts and go swimming in the lake, which they are, that is what they are at camp for. But the parents are there because they know it is a camp for HIV and they are at the camp to get help on how to tell their children that they have HIV, or sometimes the kids are taking pills 3 times a day because they have HIV but they don't even know it! My first week i has pre-teen girls and they have all been told about HIV. One girl who was HIV positive, the rest just their parents were but they were not. So since everyone knew about HIV we had a social worker come in just for like 30 min to tell them if you have any questions or concerns we can talk about it... and no one talked! and then she asked do you guys talk about this at home with your family... and they all said no!! I really think people need to talk about this more, i mean it is just crazy, its like this big elephant in the room! i think the parents need to talk to their children about it more and ask them if they have any questions.

That same week one of my campers her mom wasn't feeling well. So her mom came up to me right before lunch and said Leslie can you please make sure she stays here as i go to the Med Room because I'm not feeling good. Right away the young girl dropped her head and became really sad and wouldn't talk to anyone. So i asked her what was wrong and then she told me... I;m just worried, my mom has fainted before in the grocery store and it was really scary, i just don't want anything to happy to her. And that is when i realized that this poor 12 year old girl, she thinks that whenever her mom gets a headache she is going to die!! that is on situation that i was really able to see how HIV affects the families.
Another girl, is 12 years old, and her parents have HIV and her Grandpa and 2 uncles have died from it. So she is now bisexual because she says she doesn't want to Die of HIV and she knows that if she is with the same sex that her chances are lower of getting HIV.....

The 2nd week was totally different i had 10 yr old and none of them knew about HIV. I had 2 Girls who were positive and they didn't know why they took pills 3 times a day. So that was crazy to witness also.
This camp is an amazing place that helps these families deal with this Major issue in their lives. I pray God has me go back next year!! Because I'm already looking forward to it :)

I wish I could show you pictures of these beautiful families but because of privacy issues i am not allowed to post any pictures of the family.

Fun Facts

2008-09-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write an update... but i shall start at the beginning!
Being home at first.. was very hard. I really missed the amazing friends i had made overseas. It was also really hard being back in America after spending 3 months in a very poor country. I find myself missing my friends and the countries, Switzerland and India a lot! Now It is September and being home is becoming much easier! Thanks to God :) He is teaching me new things and putting me through new adventures each day, so i can't complain because I'm having fun :) So here is some fun stuff.....

THE HOLY SPIRIT
I have been a christian my whole life, i just did YWAM ....but no one told me about the holy spirit no one told me about the Power we have as Christ followers! Like seriously...Romans 8... the same spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the grave lives in me! it just blows my mind! And so i have been learning about that a lot, and it was just cool how it all happened because i wanted to start hanging out with non believers and love on them and tell them about Jesus but like i go to this Starbucks trying to do that and God has me read in the bible about the holy spirit, because God was telling me like I'm not ready to outreach into the community because he wanted to show me/ tell me how much the holy spirit really can use me. Like Galatians 2 :20 i know longer live but Christ lives in me... I get it now! i really do die to myself, die to my flesh, so that the holy spirit lives in me... the same spirit that raised JC from the dead is in me.. is in us! as Christ followers, that blows my mind!! Its just crazy i have been a christian my whole life but my walk with God has dramatically changed!

What to know more about the Holy Spirit? Read: Matthew 3, Luke 3, John 14:15-31, John 16, Acts 1 and 2, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 12, 2 Corinthians 12-18, Ephesians 4:30

WHY CAN'T WE BE ONE???
Like i said i have never really been told about this, and this brings me to another topic. I asked my mom why i haven't had any teachings about the Holy Spirit and she said because we were raised in the Lutheran Church and they don't focus on the HS. Also i have heard of other denominations that believe that speaking in tongues is from the devil. The thing that i don't understand is that right in the bible.. Acts 2 it says the speaking in tongues if from the HS. I have been really confused lately why Christianity has sooo soo many denominations??? And they all have different rules and they all pick and choose what they want to study and believe out of the bible... But here is the thing... It is ONE God and ONE bible.. where do ALL these denominations come from?!?!

Jesus Prays for All Believers (John 17:20-23)
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Dude right there Jesus is asking us to be one... to be united.. If the church thinks having all these different denominations is being in unity... I think the church has a twisted image of what it means to be united. You know we are always praying to Jesus for this, and for that, and for this job, or this health issue... But do we realize that Jesus has a prayer for us! that he wants us to answer! and sadly i don't think we are answering it.
I Pray one day the church can answer His prayer.

Closing Time

2008-06-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

This 6 months journey has taking to me to Switzerland, India and Back. But I’m back with a new out look on many things. I loved these last six months and God has really used them to be life changing.

Lecture Phase ( the 3months in Switzerland) was so amazing. My relationship with God was totally changed and I felt this love from God that I have never felt before. He became my best friend and the love of my life. Everyday I couldn’t wait to learn more about him and talk to him more. In lecture phase I also went through some hard times and God always showed me his love that is indescribable. I learned that God is a personal God, and although I am here on this earth to serve him, he is not interested in prisoners he is interested in a 2 way relationship, and that is something that I experienced in Switzerland that I will stay with me forever. God is never changing so he has always had this unconditional love, I just needed to open my eyes and realize it, and in the future when I go though hard times again, it isn’t like God leaves me or loves me less, it is me who changes. Looking back I remember saying that I wanted to devote this time to God, where I could get away from school, family , friends, work, and just the worries of the day and give all my attention to God. These 3 months I was really able to do that. Of course new distractions came up but my main focus was always getting to know God on this deeper level.
I had so much fun in Switzerland too! I loved being in a room with girls from New Zealand, Canada, Korea, France, and Norway. All the people that I met from this DTS are amazing and I have made friendships that will last a life time. Skiing on the Swiss alps was such a great time! I’m so thankful that I learned how to ski better, because at first I wasn’t the best, but now I truly miss it.

Outreach was an adventure; I saw and did things I could never image. India was very intense. It was very dirty, with slums and homeless people and beggars every where you go. There is also hundreds of God in India, some are even tress and cows and so there are many many temples everywhere, at least 3 on every street. So it is a nation that could use all the help it can get. My favorite place was Calcutta because that was the poorest place we stayed, and I really loved helping out at Mother Theresa’s home and spending time with Slum families. I also had so many chances to talk about my faith and my relationship with God, so something that I can tell that I really grew in is that I have become more comfortable talking about my faith and more confident when I speak weather it is in one on one with someone or in a big group. Something I also learned about myself on outreach is I love being with people that.. Well that it wouldn’t be normal for people to hang out with them. I love being with the slum people, the homeless, the physically disabled , orphans, AIDS and Leprosy victims… there is something about them that I just love and I love sitting with them and loving them. I think also because a lot of people don’t come and sit with them, they have all this love for you when you do! And its beautiful.

This whole YWAM experience was the best 6 months of my life. But for me it doesn’t stop there, this wasn’t just an experience…. It was the start of an adventure, and that adventure is following Jesus. I would love to continue to serve him in overseas missions, which is where my heart is.

I just want to say Thank you, truly thank you. Thank you to everyone who read my blogs and gave me encouragement. To everyone who support me. To everyone who supported me finically. To everyone who prayed for me. To everyone who has been involved is somewhere, thank you so much it has meant the world to me to have support!

WHATS NEXT: On August 11th I will be traveling to New York, where I will be a camp counselor at a summer camp called Camp Heartland ( http://www.campheartland.com/ ) It is a camp for children who have AIDS, and it is summer camp where they can just go and have a fun time at summer camp. The camp will be 2 weeks long.
God, for some reason.. has broken my heart with this Issue of AIDS. Especially what is happen over in Africa where 5,500 African die everyday because of AIDS, and where there are 12 millions orphans because of this disease. Also in Sub – Saharan Africa there are 300,000 million people who don’t have access to clean water. So Africa was been placed on my heart and is where I would like my next trip to be.

P.s I will continue to update this blog and share about my crazy adventures follow Jesus…. if your interested :)

Love and Be Loved.

7 day hike

2008-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Darjeeling is so beautiful; I’m loving everyday of it J First we went on a 5 days trek to hand out the supply’s I talk about in the blog before and that was a really neat experience. All the village people were so thankful for everything we were giving them. But today was not the best day because I found out that we are going to go on a 7 days trek , where we hike anywhere from 4-7 hours a day… everyday….for 7 days, and there is no ministry we are just doing it to do it. Well all the boys were excited but I was not to say the least, I said “What?! We have to hike everyday up and down hill with a big hiking backpack on our backs, for hours, for 7 days, and with no ministry! We are just doing it to see the country side??” haha so I was complaining and I just really didn’t want to do all that walking.

But oh man, this 7 day trek, was the most beautiful thing I have ever done in my life. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. Of course at times the hike up hill was very hard and I pretty much hated life… but seriously this was amazing. I will post pictures with this blog so you can see just what I’m talking about. One day we even crossed the boarder and slept in Nepal. But really on this nice long trek I just had a chance to experience God’s beauty! One day we would be a deep dense forest with big creeks and waterfalls and the next day we would be in this huge green open pastures was yaks and horse wondering around… and all of this is God’s creation and then of course we saw the mountain rage and really I was just in awe of God’s beautiful creation.

Darjeeling!

2008-05-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

Wow so when i was skiing in the Swiss Alps i thought.. Nothing could be more beautiful than this.. but now i'm in Darjeeling and we are staying in the Himalayas! It is actually the most beautiful landscape i have ever seen! Some people on my team and i have been waking up every morning at 5am to see the sunrise and go for a walk, its great :) It is also super cold here!! Yesterday i walked around town with a blanket on! and i sleep with a beany(hat) on at night it is so cold. serisouly i think i really under estimated how cold it was going to be here because i only brought one sweater and i'm frezzing.

Today we went white water rafting because it was our free day. I have never been before and it was pretty much the coolest thing i have ever done! because the river was right in the middel of the Himalayas!

For ministry... i'm so excited.... we are going on a 12 day treck (hike) in the Himalayas, right on the Nepal and Indian boarder!(which we will be able to see Mount Everest) we are going from villige to villiage to hand out food, meds, clothes, and blankets. The crazy thing is... is that some of these villiages will be unreached people groups, which means very few or no outsiders of been to that villiage before! We will be hiking about 4-5 hours everyday for 12 days, so i'm not going to lie i'm a little scared that i am going to get tired!

I'm so excited for this time here in Darjeeling becuase it is totallly different from what we have been doing... I can't wait to tell you all about How the treck goes and how God uses us in these unreached villiages :)

Calcutta!

2008-05-11T07:12:00.000-07:00

I love Calcutta! First- oh my goodness it is very very hot! and it is very humid! But at night it cools off and there is a nice brezze so that is nice. Calcutta has been my favorite part of outreach because there is so much need here. There are slums and begger everywhere in India but in Calcutta it 100 times greater than in the other place we have been. I have seen alot of things i thought i would never see.

Right outside our hostel is about 10 familes living in slums. Cammy one of my team mates and myself have been going and visiting with them everyday! I love hanging out with the poor :) It is crazy because they speak no english and we speak none of their language but we can spend hours sitting with them! They really enjoy our company and we love hanging out with them. There is a leaper, and a lot of children, some mothers and then very young soon to be mothers. (In India they get married and have babies very young) The other day they gave us Hena! it is like and India type of tatto that last a couple weeks they put it all over our hands and feet and they loved see our reactions to it! We just sit with them and share cookies and whatever we have with them. This has been one of my highlights in calcutta is hanging out with this family everyday. :)

Mother Theresa's home! Oh my goodness... I'm in love. If anyone didn't know this is what i have been looking forward to on outreach... this is where my heart is, for the poor and for the dying, for the people who normal people don't want to spend time with. I have seen some crazy things here that again i never thought i would see. Some of these people have very intense deformities and some you question how they are still alive. But at the same time it is so easy to love these people! God has really shown me things within myself that i didn't know i had.. like i knew i had a heart for these people but i thought i would be kind of scared to sit with them or even touch them or hold their hand.. but without even thinking twice about it i sit with them and hold their hand and the joy on their face is indescribale! So our job at Mother T's house is to do some laundry, make beds, and then just love on the patients, i also help feed the ones that can't feed themselves.

Calcutta has been amazing so far. For some people when they see poverty and suffering like this they question why doesn't God help these people or why doesn't he care, or does he even exist. For me God has never been so alive!! Being here i don't question where God is but where are the Christians? Because i know God has made so many people with a heart to help people, those peolpe just have to make the choice to get up and start helping!

To sum it up outreach is going great, oh and i haven't been sick for awhile! Calcutta has for sure been the highlight, i love the people in calcutta and i love the God i see here, the God who wants to help these people, he doesn't want to see them suffering but he has sent people like me and my team to help these people and if he can send 7 people and we are making a difference image all the other missionaries that he is sending! So for me there is much hope and joy here. Yes the things that i do see are very disturbing and devistating but I see hope here.

I leave calcutta on Friday for Darjeeling and then we have 3 weeks there and then it is back to switzerland.. crazy! Time is going by so fast!

Thank you all for you prayers and your encouargment!

Punjab!

2008-04-20T04:50:00.000-07:00

Wow Punjab is so much nicer than Delhi! it has less cows, less trash, less slums, less traffic, it was over all just nicer, and we got to stay in a hotel with AC, i haven't felt AC since Switzerland. We were so busy this week. We would wake up at 7 and not get back to the hotel until 12am. This week we did a lot of church services, where we do dramas, give testimony, and preach.... i have already given 3 sermons since i have been here, and i use to hate to speak in front of people! we did alot of prayer this week too... because all the churches we went too were new churches, and most of the members use to be other religions but now they are Christians.

One night i will not forget we were at this church( and when i say church it was just a 4 walled room with rugs on the ground) but there was this girl who was SO So very skinny, but then she had a huge belly. At the end of church i talked to her, and i never really found out what here problem was, some said it was a growth and another said it was cancer, ( she wasn't pregnant, it was a different kind of big belly) Anyways she was so beautiful and only17 and she was going to die. The doctors said there was no cure and besides they were poor. I just sat there holding her hand( the skinniest hand i have ever felt) with tears running down my face, i wish i could have given her something to smile about i wish i could make her life the best until she dies....but that is when i realize that i can do nothing by myself but only God can, because i had to let go of her hand and go back to the hotel, but i know God is still holding her hand.

The last day in Punjab we went to the Golden temple which was pretty cool! Then we went to the Pakistan border which was really cool!!there was so many people there! and on one side people were shouting INDIA INDIA! and then on the other.. PAKISTAN PAKISTAN! it was pretty crazy....

Up Next: One more week in Delhi, i'm actually not even sure what kind of ministry we are doing yet... Then it is off to Calcutta for 3 weeks and working in mother Teresa's home!

2 weeks in Delhi

2008-04-20T04:41:00.000-07:00

The first week of outreach was not the best... our ministry was to work in this coffee house and make relationships with the locals... only the problem was that all the students were taking exams that week so the coffee house was very very slow. And we would pass all these slums everyday and i would think why are we sitting in this nice coffee shop doing nothing when we could be helping a lot of people. So we had a team meeting because everyone felt the same way so thankfully the ministry was changed.

The second week, we taught at slum schools. The slums are so intense i know i will never get use to go in them. The schools are so fun! There are about60 kids in the smallest room and we teach them for 1 hour. We teach them some easy songs like head and shoulders and read them bible stories. So the second week was much better. But i also Got sick this week, it is not fun being sick, i think on outreach i might get sick a lot, just because of the heat and all the different food!

It is so crazy because there are so many different Gods . Walking only 2 minutes down the street we are staying on there are 4 temples! and the once a week the set up a temple right out side our house to worship their Hindu God through out the night! very loud and hard to sleep.

HOLY COW!!!

2008-03-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

Holy cow.. I'm in India... and it is pretty insane.. I have so much to share with you guys but i have limited time so i have to sum it all up..

First the plane ride here was awesome, then we got here at 3:30 am an it took us and hour to get the YWAM base we are staying at there was so much traffic and soo many peole on the streets either sleeping or walking.. and i was like ohh this is what people mean by saying India is packed with people, and it was 3 in the morning!! The driving here is a little crazy well actually a lot crazy they don't really have lines on the road and their main way of communticating it honking... oh my soo much honking! Then i was expecting Delhi to be kind of nice but the part we are in is not.. and I thought i would be more in culture shock because it is so different but i just think that because God has giving me such a heart for missions and helping these people, instead of just sitting back and taking in all the sites of the slums and being sad, i just want to get in there and help! So i'm so exicted to be here! We went to the market to buy India clothing i don't know how you call it but you should like google India traditional clothing for women.. and that is what we have to way we look so funny... it isn't that warm but that outfit makes it hot, because as women here we need to show the least amount of skin as possible

We are staying at a YWAM base and before i came i was like man i don't want to stay at a YWAM base i want to be like hardcore... well i got hardcore, how shower is a bucket of water! and for food it actually is not that bad but sometimes we have meat and i have no idea what kind of animal it is.. so i just stick to a lot of rice. :) yum but the chai tea is soo goodd!!!Oh ya so we went to the market... and that is why i said holy cow because oh my there are so SO sOO many COWS!!! everywhere!! haha it is insane... ok and i will just paint this picture for you, it is our first day in Delhi that we went to the market, and our guide is so nice she is part of the YWAM base and she said she would come to the market with us and help us find the clothes we need... well we are in this little ally and it is full of little stands ( not shops because we are going through this all y to get to the shops) So this all has a ton of stands... seriously like 100 cows! random dogs, trash, so many peolple, bikes, cars!, beggers, and holes in the wall were people live... and ok this was intense because we are all trying to take in what we are seeing and our guide is walking so fast!!! And so i'm trying to look at these holes in the wall where a whole family lives and then a car honks at me to get out of the way and then i run into a cow!! it was the craziest time of my life!

But we got the clothes! ha and we wore them for the first time today because today we went to church...we actually ran the whole church service besides worship, so it was a lot of pressure on our 2nd day of out reach, so last night we prayed and people recieved that myslef and my leader Cliare are suppose to give a testimoney... So i talked about obeying God.. it was so crazy i was nervous at all!! it was excited and i can't wait to talk more infront of people... God has given me so much strength when it comes to public speaking, i use to hate it!! and then us a girls did a dance to a song and that i was a little more nervous for but it still went good!! aww it was so exciting!

I'm really excited for our Delhi ministry because at first i was like man i just want to go to calcutta but i think it was smart to start here so we wouldn't get over whelmed.. So like 3 min away from where we live, the YWAM base owns a coffee shop and it is the cutes coffee shop ever! And the people of the Universty come here.. and so that is one of our ministries and i'm really excited because we just get to work there and inter act with the costumers and most of the speak english and i get to bake! so i'm excited!

we will also be teaching kids english!

aww my time is running out... but just know that i'm so exicted to be here and serve God! Thank you for all your prayers :)

Lecture Phase = amazingly wonderful

2008-03-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

Right now I am sitting here typing this in my room as people around me are going crazy trying to figure out what to pack for out reach! It is going to be hardcore, we are only bring like 2 shirts, and 2 pants.. but as for me, the girls have to wear special clothes in India that we are buying there like skirts that hit the floor and some scarf thing that goes around our neck... I should probably start to pack soon… but I wanted to write one last blog. This is such a weird stage right now, I can’t believe lecture phase is over… I can’t believe it has already been three months! I want to type so much about what I have learned here but sometimes it is hard to put into words, but I will try my best…

First of all experience so many cultures was amazing! I have loved living in Switzerland and it was been so amazing to share it was the coolest people. Something really awesome about doing a DTS is that everyone is in the same place, everyone is learning so much about themselves and trying to grow closer to God at the same time… so you become so close to the people you are living with! I know me personally there are a couple people here that I have truly grown so close to! And it is really hard because I’m not going on outreach with them. It is just so cool that I know that I have really good friends from all over the world! You form such a deep bound with these people because you are so open with each other and it isn’t just a surface relationship, but you cry and you laugh with these people and most of all you are seeking to know more of God together.

Coming here all by myself was kind of crazy, because none of these people would know who I am, or know my personality.. so I was like do I even really know who I am?? Because I mean as you all know I have an awesome twin sister, and we do everything together! So coming here I thought for sure I would learn a lot about my character.. and I have learned some, but I think I will learn more on outreach. Because for example like ok I guess I’m a little shy sometimes and like I’m never one to go against the flow of things or step up and take charge in a situation… but I think outreach is when I’m really going to live to my full potential. Like people here are so outgoing so they can be outgoing here and that is one of their strengths, but for me I feel like my strength or what God has created me to do is help those in need, and ya I can do that here but there is so much need in India and we will be living in it for 3 months and I really think I’m really going to find my true character in God because I really believe this is what God wants me to do.

Thank you so much for all you who kept Lauren and me in your prayers, read my blog, and even supported me finical!!! It means so much to have support form my friends and family.
To sum it all up God is seriously indescribable and I’m so in love with him!! Before DTS I loved God with my whole heart but I wasn’t in love.. when you are in love with someone you think about them all the time, when you first wake up and they are the last thought before you go to bed.. you want to tell them everything. And I know that is easy to say now because I’m in YWAM like this whole Godly atmosphere, how could you not always think about God. But being here I have grown so much deeper in my friendship with God and I know that I’m not just going to go home and forget about everything I learned here. It would be SO impossible because God has done some really crazy things in my life as I have been here that seriously I will not be able to forget even if I wanted to!!

I have found a new obsession… Following Jesus :) and it is pretty darn exciting

Ok well I better go pack now.. Oh my gosh I’m going to India!!

India Itinerary

2008-03-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

Bonjour everyone!
I leave this Tomorrow for INDIA!! Sorry I have updated sooner of what I will be doing there but we are just getting the finally things finalized… So here is what I’m going to be doing for 3 months J
Friday March 28th- Friday April 25th……. NEW DELHI
· Teaching kids English
· University Ministry… which has a population of 550,000!
· We will also be going to a lot of churches in Delhi, and we when we go there we could do anything from giving sermons or doing dances and dramas that we have learned.
· Also on one of our free days we are going to go see the Taj Mahal

Saturday April 26th- Friday May 16th…… CALCUTTA
· Mother Theresa’s Home!!
· Children’s Home
· Prostitution Ministry
· Slum Ministry

Saturday May 17th- Friday June 6th…..Darjeeling
· Evangelism to the Backpackers in the city
· Helping out with local youth groups
· Then we are going to travel up into the Himalayas and do village evangelism!! Where we are going to be roughing it for a couple weeks up in these villages… exciting! Lauren gets to do this village ministry for 2 months!

Then we travel back to Calcutta for a couple more days and then our plane leaves Wednesday June 11th. Then I will be back here in beautiful Switzerland for debriefing! Which I’m so exited for because our DTS family will be all back together again!! So ya this week we just share a lot about what we experienced on out reach. Then I will be back in Sunshine Florida June 18th.

Last Day on the Slopes

2008-03-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

I really can't believe that my time here in Switzerland is already almost over :(.. i leave for India on the 28th!! ( i will be writting a blog soon about what i'm doing in India) So last weekend was our last time on the slopes and it couldn't have been better! As you can see in the pictuers it was one beautiful day!! Look at the clouds!!!

This is Go-Eun i work with her in Hospitality everyday! We have so much fun baking together! And on the right of me is Claire she is my outreach leader!
Cammy and me!
OUT REACH TEAM! Josh(Canada), Stefan(leader-Canada), Shaddy(Egypt), Claire( Leader- California), Andy( pennsylvania) and Me!! and Cammy is taking in the pic.... my team is really cool, i'm so excited for outreach!

Some Stuff to Think About....

2008-03-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.stopthehunger.com/

www.callandresponsemovie.com

http://www.ywam4k.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea
- Why don't more people talk about this?? Maybe i'm just really uneducated but this week is the first time i have ever heard about the way North Korea lives. People that live there can't even leave ther country, and no one can go in unless they have a guide with thme 24/7.

These past 2 months God has really given me a burdn for these communist countries like Cuba and North Korea... i jsut can'e believe this could happen in our world today, i mean i'm in switzerland and i'm going to go to India in 3 weeks, and these people in North Korea don't know/ won't know anything besides living in North Korea. What is even worse is that people can't get into North Korea to preach the gosple... but actually who says you can't. Do you know taht 1/3 of the world is closed to the gospel, but who closed that 1/3?? God didn't, because it is still open to him. Because in the bible it says go into the whole world and preach the gospel, it doesn't say... only go into the parts that are politically correct... no, God wants us to still go there, because those are his sons and daughters too...so Jesus followers, we better start thinking of a way to get into North Korea.

Some Pictures

2008-02-26T11:08:00.000-08:00

Some of the girls @ starbucks! The Forest by our house, back when it snowed! Now it is hot outside!
This is Yan- This is how we sat everyday this week! it was so comfy
Brad- speaking on hearing God's voice! he was so cool! and some other DTSers
The Class room

I skied through a cloud!!!!!
Some of the group :)
The whole group!

Class time!

2008-02-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

Bonjour everyone!

Sorry I haven’t made an update in a long time, I have just felt so busy! I have been learning so much that it is even hard for me to processes all the information, so then trying to sit down and write it in a blog, takes a really long time for me to do! It is week 7 now and my brain and my heart and just my emotions are on over load… you learn all this information and then that information leads to transformation.. so it can get kind of crazy. But I love telling you all what I’m learning and what is going on so I’m going to try and update more often!

Anyways I was looking through my blogs that I have posted and I haven’t really told you about any of the lecture times! A.K.A class that I have everyday! So here are some of the speakers that we had, each speaker we have for a week. So I shall tell you who the speakers were, what they taught on, and some major points that I received from their teachings! How exciting.. are you ready to learn?!?!?!

Paul- taught on God’s Character

God is a personal God, which means he is a person… which means I need to start treating him like one. He created us to have a the enjoyment of having a personal relationship with us.. Therefore lets make it enjoyable for him! For example when it comes to mine and Lauren’s friendship, if she talked all the time and I couldn’t even get one word in, I would get really annoyed. God likes when we pray to him… but I wonder if he gets annoyed if we just pray for hours and then at the end say amen and don’t listen to anything he has to say?!?!?!
“As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Ephesians 4:1…. What is our calling? Our calling it to walk in intimate friendship with God.
“Where He leads, He will feed.” God isn’t going to call me to become a lawyer and then not provide the money for law school. He isn’t going to call me to be a missionary, where I have no salary, and then not provided the money for me to eat.

Dan Sneed- taught on identity

This was the week I wrote that blog- “Fearing God” so I defiantly learned a lot this week. I learned who I am in Christ, and what the means and what that looks like. I really searched my heart this week, and during my quite times with God he really revealed to me the passions that he has placed on my heart and how he wants me to serve Him.
Obedience= you do exactly what you are told to do, therefore we obey God. Honor= a heart issue, therefore we honor people on earth, But we obey God.
“I pray that your life will be as wonderful as it was in God’s mind when he created you.”
Dan use to work in a drug rehab. On time this 21 year old man came in named Rich. He was very brain dead because he has done sooo many drugs. He couldn’t even put his first and last name together.. that is how bad it was… so his brain was very gone. One of the workers there had an idea, they should start reading the bible to Rich everyday. Dan thought this lady wasn’t thinking straight because Rich was already way to far gone to come back to normal. But Dan said ya the volunteer students can read the bible to him because then the volunteer students will be studying the word everyday. To everyone surprise, Rich started to memorize what the volunteers were reading to him, and then he started to put his last and first name together. A year and a half after he entered this drug rehab, he left and went to Stanford University! Now he works with the US government, helping run a drug rehab program. Isn’t it crazy to think that the word of God to change someone whose brain was almost completely dead! Imagine if someone with a healthy brain read the bible everyday, or maybe just read it with expectancy that all the words are true.

Yan- taught on Evangelism

There is no one way to do evangelism and you don’t do evangelism, you live it.
“Serving a worldly king is such and honor, but why do we consider it a sacrifice to serve the heavenly king?”
This week I learned so much! Yan did a lot of exercises/games with us.. One of them was we had to share our testimony(life story of how we became a Christian) But we couldn’t use any church words/ Christian words… because if you are telling your testimony to a non Christian who has never gone to church, they are never going to know what you are talking about if you use all these fancy church words.
Another game we played- we all got in a huge circle in the room, and then Yan was going to take on a role of a person (one time he was a guy trying to hit on a girl, one time he was gay, and one time he was a really nervous guy that didn’t talk much) So then the setting was that we were all at a bus station.. And Yan was these random people, and we were ourselves. Yan was going to come up to one of us in the circle and just start talking like we were waiting for the same bus. They trick was we had to some how turn the conversation to God, but as soon as Yan lost interest in the conversation he would say Good bye. Get it? sorry its kind of confusing, but the point was…trying to talk to strangers (like people you met at the bus stop) about God with out freaking them out. It was really good to watch, because one guy in my class was picked to play and so the conversation started and then the guy invited Yan to a youth group and Yan didn’t know what a youth group was, so my classmate started to explain it, and Yan said Good bye! Ha I would have left too because if I was a non Christian and someone started explain to me a corny youth group I would be freaked out.
Then we put all we learned into practice and went into down town Lausanne. We went to make people smile and share Gods love. So we had balloon animals to give out to the little kids, and then Yan said if you have a good conversation about God that would be great, but just love on people. But obviously we had just had this whole week learning on how to evangelism, so we were all super excited/ kind of nervous to try it out!! It was really cool my team was able to talk to a couple people about God in a causal way. But other teams went into some deep conversations and a lot of people even prayed for the people they had just met!! How cool!

Brad- taught on Hearing God’s Voice

This week was insane! And really fun. I thought hearing from God would be a lot harder than it actually is. So it was exciting because God spoke to me so much this week. Well he is always speaking but this week I really opened my heart and my ears.
We did a lot of exercises this week too.. one we played in out outreach teams. So I has 7 people in my group and the game was we were all sitting at a table and one person was the picker, and everyone would close their eyes and the picker person would chose someone.. but know one knows who the chosen one is besides the picker and the person chosen. So then every takes time to listen to God and says God want do you want to tell this person today or what is a picture you want me to tell them about.. So you just talk to God about this person… but you have no idea who the person ( the one chosen) is, but that is ok God does. And then you share the information you received and at the end you find out who the chosen person was. Because when you know who the person is- for example if someone told me to get a word from God for my sister Lindsey it would be so easy, because I already know Lindsey and know her strengths and stuff. So this is a good exercise when practicing to hear God’s voice because you don’t know who are receiving information for so you can’t put your own thoughts into because you already know the person. During the game I was picked, therefore I knew I was the one that was being prayed for but everyone just knew they were praying for someone in the room. On of my friends Josh said “for some reason I get all these Christian songs that are coming to me head, and God just wants me to tell you that he loves the way you worship him.” To make sense of that during class, I have a notebook in which all I do is doddle worship songs! And one of my other friends before had said, that is really cool that I do that because it is like I’m always in a mind set of worship, and I was like sure whatever, its just something to do during lecture if I get bored!! Josh didn’t know I was the person he was praying for, and he didn’t even know that I doodled worship songs in my notebook! But here is God showing him all these Christian songs and telling him to tell this person that he enjoys their worship! I think that is pretty darn cool. And stuff like this happened everyday this week!!!! It was such an awesome week

And I have a lot more that I’m learning and that God is showing me! But this blog is getting a kind of long! So I shall update again soon!

I am going to....

2008-02-10T02:52:00.001-08:00

“The poor do not need our sympathy and our pity. The poor need our love and compassion and our help." Mother Teresa

I’M GOING TO NORTH INDIA!! ( Calcutta and New Delhi)

Funny story……..I was really nervous before they announced the locations… Because I was just sitting there talking to God saying, “Seriously God, what if two of the choices are Africa and India!?!? I don’t think I could choose between the two!!” Because I have such a desire to go to both!!!! So then it was time for them to show us the locations, they showed them in a power point presentation…South India, North India, Egypt and Sudan, and Eastern Europe… and i was like omg Calcutta! I could not believe that was one of my choices because I would love to go there because I know It is really poor and Mother Teresa lived and worked there! So I went on a walk with God and I told him- God tell me if you don’t want me to go there… because that is really where I want to go but I will go wherever you want me to go… but I could not get Calcutta out of my head!!! And I just had such a peace about it!

So I turned in my paper with the first choice North Indian and then the Second choice I said I don’t really have one but maybe South India. And after I turned in my paper I was talking to my friend Claire about out reach and she said, “I think you chose, Africa or India” and I said, “Ya I choose Ind… wait what?!?!?! Africa wasn’t a choice!!” And she was like ya Sudan and Egypt are in Africa!! Ok I so confused because I knew Sudan was in Africa! But I was so confused… why didn’t I realize that when I was praying about where to go for outreach. I wasn’t upset at all I just smiled and laughed because I’m pretty sure God did that on purpose!! Like he totally blinded me from Afirca… it is like that verse… “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of you heart.” he knows what my heart deisres and where I belong, and if I would have known Africa was a choice I would have been so confused on which one to pick!! Oh M G I just think it is funny! I Love God.

Snowball Fight!!

2008-02-05T10:21:00.000-08:00

It has been so warm here lately! It felt almost like spring... But then yesterday we woke up and there was no snow on the ground but then it started to snow and never stoped! So after work duty we decieded to play in the snow! It was so fun! It was so beautiful everything was pure white! Like a winter wonder land!

our home covered in Snow!
The Front Lawn
Debbie putting snow down my coat!
Lets attack Leslie!Fun Fun!
The hill Sledding

Fearing God

2008-02-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Bonjour!
I have been learning so much lately! The hard part is trying to find time to sit down and write a blog! So I’m sorry I don’t have a new one every week and I’m sorry that when I do I have on they are so long! Haha. And I’m sorry that when I do finally write them they are so long! Oh Lauren put up a really cool blog about what her schedule is and a ton of pictures of the base, and my schedule is pretty much the same but the base is so big it would take me forever to take pictures of every room, but they have such a good website that has so much information, and you there are actually a ton of pictures from my DTS that you can see! so the website is www.ywamlausanne.com if you want to check that out!

But I just want to quick tell you about my work duty because I love it! We have work duty, everyday from 1:30-3:30, and I am on the hospitality team/special projects. We do a lot of baking! Because each time someone has a birthday we bake them a birthday cake! (And there is around 150 people here including all the staff) Also we bake and set up for community night, which is every Thursday night. The whole base gets together ( because there isn’t just a DTS school going on here right now there are different schools all together) So we all get together and have worship, have a guest speaker and then go town to the dinning hall and have yummy snakes and it is all decorate cute. And then on Tuesday we clean the hospitality house which is where all the guest speakers stay. My River Landings Animal Clinic friends would be so proud to hear that I sweep the whole entire house, which is huge!( And I always think of you guys when I’m sweep.. J) So that is my work duty and I just love it! Because the other work duties are like housekeeping, kitchen cleaning, and other stuff, and I get to bake! I love my leader too, her name is Tanzi and she is from Alaska and she is just the cutest!

So the title of this blog is ‘Fearing God’ and I’m so excited to share with you what God has been showing me! Ok so, I need to stop saying so, anyways…….before coming here I DID NOT know what it meant to fear God. Well I thought I knew what it meant; I thought it meant to be literal scared of God. I mean when you fear something you are scared of it, and that is why I never understood when people were saying they fear God because that is just crazy because God is love. Well it is all come together this week when I found out what is meant to fear God. Fearing God means: to be more concerned with what God thinks and feels rather myself or anyone else thinks and feels, to be more impressed with God’s reactions to our actions than with other people’s reactions. What does this look like.. In Genesis God tells Abraham to take his one and only son up to a mountain and kill him as an offering! Just as Abraham was about to kill his son God said, “Don’t lay a hand on the boy! Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Genesis 22:12) Abraham was about to kill his only son because God told him too! Abraham didn’t stop to think, ‘well what will my wife think when she has seen what I have done?! ‘ AND he didn’t ask a ton of his friends, ‘Hey guys God just told me to kill my son and what do you think I should do?’ NO Abraham cared what God’s reaction would be to his actions, rather than worrying about other peoples reactions. I know this story is a little hard to apply to today because we don’t kill/ have sacrifices/ burnt offerings, but I think you get the main point.

The first week I was here one of my friends asked me if I feared God more or people. And I said people, no doubt. But I didn’t really understand my answer until we had some teaching on fearing God and until I read more about it in the bible. I was shocked to find out that my whole Christian life I have not been fearing God.

I have a really Good example for this…. Before coming here I had a passion to help the poor. But I thought everyone had that passion! Because I mean who wouldn’t want to say I want to help the poor. And I especially thought, “How cool I’m going to YWAM where everyone there is going to be just like me, these young adult who are loving God and recognize that are so many people suffering in this world.” Anyways being here you get to know everyone really fast and there is no small talk when you first meet people, it is more like what are your passions? How do you think God is going to use you? How were you raised? I was so shocked to see that God gives us so many different talents and passions! Like one girl is an amazing dancer and she wants to bring God into the Theater business. Another guy is really into technology, like films and stuff and he wants to show people that films can be a beautiful way to express God. This other guy is into the diamond industry and he wants to have a Christian jewelry store. Why do I tell you all of this?? Because I’m a really bad dancer, because I know absolutely nothing about films, and I know nothing about diamonds besides that they are pretty!

What is my talent and my passion.. to help the poor. I want to help those people who don’t have clean water to drink, but if they walk 5 miles they might get half way clean water. I want to give food to people that haven’t eaten in a week. I have such a desire to work with kids and people who have AIDS. I want to love on the millions of orphans in Africa that have AIDS or that have been orphaned because their parents have died of AIDS. I want to show them God loves! I want to tell them who Jesus is and what he has done for them.

Helping the poor isn’t just a dream of mine, but I truly believe God gave me that passion and he gave me the heart to do so. Because being here I thought everyone would think that way, but they are too busy thinking about the theater they are going to open or their diamond business, which it is totally awesome that God gave them that passion!!! But he didn’t give those kinds of passions to me. Last night the owner of the YWAM base took up an offering because he wants to purchase a workout set here on the base that everyone can use, that is really nice but it costs A LOT. As the baskets are being passed around, I’m thinking first of all, walk outside if you want exercise and also all of you guys are Christians and what about the 30 thousand children who die of starvation each day, do you know that is like six September 11ths happening every single day?!? So as the baskets went around I just sat there really confused and really realizing that I am different, because God made us all different with different passions and desires.

So what was that whole tangent about?.. was I have been fearing man, rather than fearing God. Because it when come to this subject, I have always cared what people thought of me, people have thought I was strange because I think this way, some people think I live in la la land, where i think that I can help who ever I want. People have told me I can’t. People have told me I won’t. People, people, people… see it is easy to be concerned what people think of you and be concerned about their reactions to your actions. BUT we are to fear God not man. God has given me this heart that is unique and return I have been like, “Thank you God but I’m going to have to give it back to you because people don’t accept that.” No I should be being concerned what God thinks and feels and being so excited that God has giving me these desires, not try to hide them. Ok I’m going to stop talking about this because I sound like a broken record, but that is something I have learned that has taught me so much. I use to hide my heart and my passions because I feared what people would think of me, but I don’t anymore, (I’m not saying I don’t care about your opinion or you anymore, I mean like if you tell me I can’t and God tells me I can.. I will listen to him). So I’m so excited because I learned what it means to fear God and that is something I desire to do! Because these are all words that I just typed but now I need to live it out!

OUTREACH!!

2008-01-29T04:07:00.000-08:00

we just found out the locations of the outreaches

North India- Calcutta and New Delhi

South India

Egypt- Sudan

Eastern Europe- Hungary and Romania

I will let you know ASAP where i'm going.. but if you all would like, i would love if you would pray that i would hear God's Voice clearly on where he wants me to go :)

I'm so excited!!! all these places are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God's Love For Us

2008-01-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

This is just a little simple blog.. something to think about

Today while we were singing songs worshiping... we were about to sing the next song when the worship leader stoped and said i feel like God wants us to cry out to him and just tell him why we love him... So as he softly played music each of us took turns just saying why we love him...very simple statments, like Holy Father i love you because you are a forgiving God.. we went like that for about 5min.. It was the most beautiful thing every because as i stood there hearing all the reasons why all of us love our God, it just really touched me that i get to serve this amazing person that everyone truly adores! and more than that, as we say all these reasons why we love our heavenly father, he loves us more than we could ever imagine!!!! He could go one for 10 hours saying why he loves each one of us.... I can't believe i get to serve this amazing God

Original design

2008-01-20T04:16:00.000-08:00

Let me start by saying I wasn’t sure if I was going to share with all of you what God is showing me right now, because I think a lot of people won’t understand, but I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear… so I pray that you read this post with an open heart and not be judgmental..also some stuff is hard to put into words but I will try my best.

First YWAM is not affiliated with any denomination.. they simple believe in following Jesus. One thing that we are learning to do is hear from God directly, which is a lot harder than you would think especially if you have ADD and you always have these random thoughts in your head and you are like ok… Is that you God or is that just me thinking?? Before I came here I learned that when you pray you can’t just say words but you have to have 100% faith that what you were praying would come true and God would intern be faithful. (Hopefully you get what I’m saying… I’m not saying oh I will pray for one million dollars and my wish will come true!) Being here is so crazy because we will all be in a room wit a 80 people and we will ask God to show us, for example how to witness to people on the slopes. We will all be praying and with in minutes people will say “God showed me this!” And “God told me to do this!” So remind you I have never been around anything like this before because I mean in a Baptist church you don’t see people just stand and say “God gave me a vision!” I had many negative thoughts about this… I said stuff like.. those people are just making up some crazy pictures, God didn’t really give them a vision…. And…. God didn’t just speak to you that was just your imagination.

My thought got even more negative when a group of two couples came from a church in the states that has a special focus on listening to God’s voice and also hearing from God what your original design is. What the heck is an Original design?? Well I learned that it is the desired will (plan) that God has for our lives. They get this ides of original design from the bible in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” There are also many other verses and they just believe that in this world today we get really distracted and set apart from what God really had planned for our lives.

So they did 3 days on teaching about original design which was really good and made a ton of sense and then they said that we could each get prayed for individually where they would ask God what our original design was. I didn’t sign up at first because I didn’t know how I felt about it and everyone that had got prayed for was saying things like, “Oh my goodness that was so crazy everything they said was so true!” While I was trying to decide if I should get prayed for God proved to me that he can speak through other people! (Long story and probably wouldn’t make sense through text) So I decided to get prayed over to figure out what my original design was.

I didn’t really show my personality around these people because for example I didn’t want them to know that I was shy and then them pray and be like..God is showing me that you need to stop being so shy! So see I was very skeptical about this whole deal. The people who were praying for myself was Laura and Andrew, and I like how they started because they said, “ This is a time where we ask God to show us the plan that he had for your life before the world started to get involve and corrupt the plans, but please do not take everything we say here to heart because sometimes we misinterpret what God is saying, so we very much encourage you to take all of this back to God yourself and ask he him what he means by all of it.” Ok so they are praying and like I don’t even close my eyes because seriously I couldn’t even think straight.. I was just thinking oh my goodness are these people really hearing the voice of God right now about me?!?! Then after praying and sitting in silence for a minute or two Laura asked me and if I had a desire to do missions, (even though the answer was yes, I still didn’t want to give her any ideas, if this whole thing was true I wanted it come from God and know that is wasn’t just coming from these two people sitting in front of me.) So I said I don’t know. She went on to say that she saw a picture of me reaching out and ministering among an unreached people group. This made me smile because as my mom would tell you, she thinks I should do missions in the USA, but I have told her that in the US there are churches on every corner and I want to go somewhere were people have never even the heard the words Jesus Christ before. Then they thanked God for that image and prayed for more things that he has planned for me life… They then heard that I’m a defender of the defenseless, they saw a picture of me being motivated by some injustice and me being angry about it. This is true too because as most people know, I have a passion to help people with Aids, and this passion started when in my government class we had a project in which we had to design our own country. One of the groups made a country with rules like you can drink beer when you are 12 yrs old and some other crazy laws and also all the people with aids would live on one remote island so they wouldn’t infect anyone…ya talk about injustice. They were about 8 other key points that would take me about 10 pages to explain to you!

So this was a time just to get my original deign but then Laura and Andrew saw something that was negative and that totally crushed my heart. They saw that the enemy (devil) has had a lot of impact on my life. They said that they saw the enemy making me “mousy” meaning quite like a mouse and also he was making me timid. They went on in more detail saying the Enemy has tried to weaken my confidence to even speak out what God has shown me. If you don’t already know this is true let me take a trip down memory lane… In high school I would go to weekend events/ conferences with my church woodland, like Passion 07 and Dare to Share. I don’t know exactly when it started…but I realized that I hated speaking in front of people about my faith or even about anything.. actually not hated but was terrified to speak out. After these amazing conferences that changed my way of thinking over and over again we would all share what we had learned…everyone had awesome stories about what God had shown them and when it got to me all I would do is cry because I was so scared to share if front of people. It was like I thought what God had shown me wasn’t as important or awesome as he had shown the person sitting next to me. To hear them say that God was showing/telling them this was heart breaking because it just makes me want to be totally done with this stage of my life where I’m scared to speak out about my faith! Knowing that they heard this from God was insane because obviously these people could not just make that up!

They also said God has shown us that he has giving you specific directions and we see you in a group of people and everyone is going in one direction but the Lord is showing you that the group should go in a different direction..The direction that you are going in..the right direction. Then to close they said the Lord is telling us that he is very proud of you and he wants you to press into all he has for you in the DTS. He wants you to take risks and to step out with him… and not play it safe. Holy Cow talk about exciting! The God of wonders beyond our galaxy just told them that he was proud of me and he wants me to take risk with him!! I LONG TO step out and take risks with my God!! Like I said there are still more things they said but it would make this post even longer than it already is. J But we ended and prayed that I would take this all back to God myself and seek what he means by all of it. They asked what I thought about it all and asked if I could relate to any of it and umm I said about 3 words because I was in extreme shock! And I think God was laughing because I had doubt in this whole thing and I could just see him sitting there smiling saying I told you I could do this, as I sat there with my mouth open.
Since finding out my original design I have been talking to a lot God about it and he hasn’t said, “Yes Leslie you are to be a defender of the weak!” But he has placed some things on my heart that I would like to share with you. (This blog is pretty long so you can take a break right about now if you would like, you could get some water or go to the bathroom J or as they would call it here the washroom) One… being here is hard because you want to know everyone on a really deep personal level, so it is like having 30 best friends! Which is really coold. So I ask the questions like what are some of your passions? What is your story about God and his Glory, like why are you here being YWAMER right now? What do you think you are going to do after YWAM or what do you think God has planned for your life? I think you get the point… as people answered these questions I learned that people are so different and have really different passions! One Guy is really interested in the business world and wants to bring God there, another wants to totally change the whole film industry to where films would bring God glory. This one gal has a desire for leaders, like not being a leader herself, but she really enjoys praying for them and encouraging them to keep doing what they are doing. Isn’t it crazy what God has placed on our each of our hearts, like I hate business! And I know nothing about the film industry! But these people have a passion for these subjects. Having said that it has become so clear to me how God has planed my life, or in other words, I understand the reason why I am the way I am. I don’t have a serious boyfriend who I want to get married to, I have never had an intimate relationship with a boy so I don’t know what I’m missing out on and I don’t desire to be in love with a man right now. I don’t have a passion to become anything like a doctor or an accountant which means I don’t have a desire to go to college. You might be saying wow Leslie you are one boring person and you have no idea who you are because you want to do nothing in your life! When in contrast I think I God has planned the most exciting life for me which looks like this…. Following him. He has been preparing myself for my whole life for this moment right now, where I decided that I want nothing unless it involves following and serving God.

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Ephesians 4:1

Paul Hawkens was our teacher this week and he shared with us this verse. He also shared with us that the word calling is more of a relationship word than a vocation. So when people ask me what is your calling or what do you want to do when you get older. My response is I want to walk in an intimate relationship with the Lord. “ I desire to do your will, O my God.” Psalm 40:8. Being here has already stirred up so many things that I want to do. I love Europe and the people from France that are here were telling me that is very hard to be a Christian in France, so how awesome would it be just to travel around France and all of Europe just sharing God’s Love. YWAM has many more schools that just DTS and one of them is a bible school ( I can’t think of the name right now) where you study the bible for 9 months! There is a girl who that attend that school and over dinner that is all we talked about one night. She said you go through the bible 5 times! This first time you just read it all the way through because really it is just one really long story so it helps to read it all the way through to get the whole picture. Then the other 4 times I can’t remember how they exactly do it, but it is just and intense 9 months of study the book of life! INSANE! I would love to do that. So being here has just totally gotten my exited about all the things I can do to serve God. Also it is hard not to get nervous though, like will God show me what he wants me to do after DTS, and am I worthy enough for him to use me, But I try not to have those thoughts and just completely trust in him.

I will close by saying this..our speaker Paul also taught me, when you are in love with someone you hang on to every last word they say, you think about them when you first wake up, you think about them right before you are about to fall in sleep, they make you smile when no one else, and you always notice when they come into and exit the room. Well in Psalm 13:2 it says, “You know when I sit and when I rise.” God is totally and completely in love with each on of us!! But as I asked myself if I acted like I was in love with God the answer was not yes. I have said for so long that God is the lover of my life and have sung that song that goes, Jesus I am so in love with you… but now I’m realizing what it really looks like to be in love with God and I’m not there yet but seriously I know I say the word desire a lot but being in love with God is truly what I desire, desire meaning wish, want, longing, craving, yearning, need, hunger, thirst…. I desire to be in love with God.

So I don’t know what life will be like after DTS or even what my life will look like in general but I know it will be the best life every if I’m fowling God and the will he has planned for my life. I’m not saying it is going to be easy, fun, effortless, or some glamorous adventure, but I do know it will be absolutely amazing and breath taking………………… + Peace

Exciting Weekend

2008-01-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

This is the bomb shelter that we selpt in
The Mt. that we go skiing on
I'm so glad i found somone here that has the same love for chocolate as I do! We bought 8 bars at one time :)
This is a picture of part of my room- that we really need to clean!!

Go- eun, Claire, Me, Susha taking a break from skiing

This is a picture is taken from the train that we take up to the Mt where we ski
Mt. we ski on with the scary chair lift in the background
Claire and I

Bonjour!
This week during class we sang a song in 5 different languages and then later I had someone pray for me in Spanish. Being here and hearing all the different languages has really opened my eyes…. How many people can I tell about Jesus if I can only speak English?!?! So I have a really new desire to study different languages…Also isn’t it just crazy to think that God understand every language! And there is what like a million and one!

This weekend was Insane!! The Mountain that we ski on had this 10th annual 24 hour race to raise money for charity… there were over 100 teams in the race, there were so many people! Anyways so our DTS helped volunteer at it this event Saturday and Sunday. We were all broken up in teams in which we all had different volunteering times. Saturday I skied all day…. Which I can not believe how much I am improving! Because seriously I was about to give up on skiing the first day, I fell.. umm like 100 times! Anyways so then Saturday night was so cool they had a live concert and the ski race ran right in front of the stage, which was so cool because these people go insanely fast and there was all this loud music so it was just a fun combination!! Then it came to go to sleep.. All the volunteers were staying in a bomb shelter which was a very new interesting experience. Then I had to wake up at 3:30am to do my volunteer shift... I have never been so cold! It was really neat though because I got to work at this stand where I served the skiers hot tea and to my surprise a lot of them spoke English J Therefore I got to ask them how the race was going, and if they got to sleep at all, and a lot of people asked me where I was from and such so I got to tell them why I was here! ( ya know that the whole YWAM thing J)

Sunday morning was beautiful, I had to volunteer just until 8am and then I got to see the sunrise over the mountains and it finally started to warm up. After volunteering we skied the whole day which is seriously such and awesome thing that we are able to do while we are here at DTS. Up in those mountains, is seriously the most gorgeous place to seek after Gods heart and just pray and talk to him. Today for example - The runs that we ski on are pretty long so about half way down 2 girls and myself just sat down on the side of the mountain and just prayed for a little bit. The weather was so nice today I just skied in a sweatshirt and snow pants.. and to all those people who said I would be pasty white( my family especially)… you actually get a really nice tan/burn from the sun reflecting of the snow! J It is hard not to miss home… but being here… I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now!

Class starts again Monday so I’m so excited to share with you guys all that I learn!
Oh ya and I started to read my first book assignment it is called, “Forever Ruined for the Ordinary” and I’m really excited because the first line is… Have you ever said “If only I could hear God’s Voice I would do whatever he told me to do.”
+Peace
Leslie
P.S look at Lauren’s Blog..Maui looks awesome! http://LaurenMaui.blogspot.com

Thank you

2008-01-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to say thank you so much for everyone who has left me comments!! i had no idea you could do that! so i saw that i had comments and i got all excited :) All the comments were really encouraging and i'm glad you guys enjoy reading my blog :) Sorry i will make them into paragraphs so they are easier to read!
+Peace
Leslie

Picture time!

2008-01-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

we went down town today! it was so cool :)

This is from my bedroom window also
just a little town picture

some of God's crazy huge mountains that i get to enjoy everyday :)

Picture time!!

2008-01-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

Sunrise from my bedroom window!

This was taken when we were just taking a walk :)

My Korean friend Young Bum and me...P.S i always give the peace sign and here it means like victory, like "i win" so i need to get out of the habbit of doing it because when i do it to french people they look at me all crazy

Me and all of my bags!

My roomates- Silije from Norway and Debbie from New Zeland... just taking some funny pictures

First day on the slopes!

2008-01-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

First day of up on the mountains! It was absolute beautiful! I forgot my camera so sorry I don’t have any picture but ( I will bring it next time and upload them onto this) basically it was pretty insane! We drove about 45 minutes on the most gorgeous road ever, it ran along side the mountains the whole way there and there was this lake that was so pretty that separate Switzerland from France so i could see Switzerland, France, and mountains just by looking in one direction! Then it got crazier so we we started to drive up this really huge hill, well I guess it was a mountain to the skiing place, then from there we took a train up the mountain! Once we were up in the mountains, very direction you looked you were surrounded by huge mountains, for example we were on the Swiss alps but right next to them were the France alps and so on. I pictured skiing would be like in Michigan where you ski down the hill and you are at the bottom, like where you car is parked, well this is just amazing because you have to take like a 15 minute bus ride to get out of the mountains. Sorry in know I sound all excited in my posts but seriously I can’t believe that I’m actually here where everyone is so beautiful. Well the skiing did not go so good I haven’t skied in so long and it isn’t really that easy learning on a mountain! I fell a couple times, actually I’m not going to lie a lot of times. We were skiing 9am until 4 pm so when we were done I could barely walk. People were really encouraging though and said that I would get the hang of it again soon. I walked away today with a beautiful picture of how beautiful and amazing God created this world, a couple bruises, and really cool experience. I’m really excited about tomorrow it is the first day of class. J We have a DTS staff that arrived here about a month before the other students and I did and they have been praying for our DTS and for each of us since they came here a month ago. They prayed about a theme for our school and it is Lasting Change…and our theme verse is Jeremiah 18:1-4. So today while we were skiing, on our lunch break Rosy ( our school leader) encouraged us to go some where alone and spend 30 minutes with God asking him what he wants our personal theme to be for the school. While I was praying I kept having that song stuck in my head… In your presence is where I belong, and in your presence all fear is gone… By the way people keep asking me what are my planes after YWAM- and I keep saying I don’t know yet- having said that the truth is that I don’t belong at college I don’t belong in Africa saving people with Aids I don’t belong doing things that are pleasing to me or others, but where I do belong is in his presence! So as I get nervous about what God wants me to do with my life, like where he is going to use me, I learned that I need to have peace and know that in his presence is where I belong. So right now I’m not going to think where I am physically going to be when YWAM is over but I’m going to be in his presence for these next 6 months and as he reveals his plan for me and if I listen to his will then will be in his presence doing what he has told be to do. Why would I want to go to Africa, India, America..ANYWHERE if God isn’t going to be there????? I have giving my whole life to God and have said I want to be your hands and I want to be your feet and I’ll go where you send me… but those are just words and now… I’m so excited to see what that actually looks like and I have faith in the Lord that he will show me exactly just what that looks like. J You know I am surrounded by these HUGE seriously HUGE mountains and to know that this is only one part of the world and to know that God created this WHOLE world in 6 days.. I have come to learn just how BIG my God truly is… and if he could do all of that in 6 days then how could I not have faith that he will show me how I will serve him?!?! And that right there pumps me up J
+peace – Leslie

I'm Here!!!

2008-01-06T09:08:00.000-08:00

Oh my… Well packing for this trip couldn’t have been any harder!!! To say the least packing for six months was very difficult especially when you only have 2 bags and they have to way under 50 pounds. I have a hiking back pack (thanks Dr. Bonda!) That is 47lb and I literal I almost fall over when I put it on and then when it is on I have to learn forward or else I will fall backwards! Seriously anyone would get a good laugh if they saw me trying to carry all these bags by myself! If you don’t already know … I know nobody that I will be living with, or going to school with, I will meet everyone for the first time in Switz. So when I was in the 4 airports that I traveled through, every time I saw someone with a big winter jacket and a huge carry on like me, I secretly wonder if that is my new room mate! ! Which is so funny because I was in New Jersey and North Carolina which is freezing so everyone has a big coat, and who does have a huge carry on??? Actually when I was getting my ticket in New Jersey for my plane to Switzerland, there was this girl standing behind me that said “ oh I’m going to Switzerland too!” So me being all excited and wanting to find a friend before I get there I go, “ Oh my gosh are you going to YWAM Lausanne?!?!?!” she said “uhh no.” hahaha, she probably thought I was speaking a different language when I said YWAM! So then I got on the very long plane ride but it went really fast because they gave us good food and you could watch like any movie you wanted! So then I got to the Switzerland airport to where I pick up my bags and I get one bag out of the 3 bags I came with…. To make a long story short, one of my bags got left behind in New Jersey and will be here tomorrow and I someone took my sleeping bag off of my hiking backpack ( sorry Dr. Bonda I will buy you a new one!) But I’m here and oh my it is so beautiful… I looked at this YWAM website a million times and saw all the pics of the mountains but omg it is so much more beautiful in person it is incredible!! The buildings are so cute and old looking and then the mountains are in the back ground… it is awesome!! It is so awesome all the people that I live with are from all over the world, they are 11 different countries here. Well I just want to tell you all so much but Im trying to keep this kinda shsort. But I love all my roommates and all the people I live with they are all so cool and nice!! There is a girl who is 27 and she has lived in china, New Zeeland, and a ton of other places basically she just teaches elementary school in all these different places because she loves to travel and loves to teach. Everyone is like that here, they have such amazing sotires! Oh P.S. there is a girl from Sarasota! ok well I will try to update soon but I just wanted to let you all know that i made it here safely even though I lost some things, and it is soo beautiful here, and the people are soo awesome!
+Peace
-Leslie

Two weeks

2007-12-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

This whole blog thing is new to me and just a little awkward because I’m telling you all my feelings....haha but once I get to Switzerland I will have so much to talk about that you will be telling me to stop rambling

Yesterday was my last day of school and I couldn't be more excited to be done :) Yesterday was also my last day of work and that wasn't too exciting because I love all the people I work with and I’m going to miss them a lot.

Today starts the countdown, two weeks to go until I leave.. It is crazy to me because six months ago we were talking about this whole YWAM thing and it was just and idea…plus my parents didn’t support it at first because they thought we were too young and it was too long. What I’m trying to say is that I can’t believe it is already here! Everyone keeps asking me if I’m getting nervous, and the answer is not really. I mean I’m a little nervous because of the fact that I’m going around the world and I never thought I would be doing that…let alone by myself..and trying to carry 5 bags through an airport that speaks a different language. I’m nervous about little things like that, and like will I be the youngest one there? Or will I remember how to ski? Well even if I did remember to ski I have never skied on mountains before so I guess I’m still out of luck! But little things like that sure are nerve racking, but when I look at the big picture, and the reason why I’m going there I’m so so so excited! I can’t wait to have class 5 days a week about the bible and have these awesome speakers come speak to us, and just learning more about God seriously pumps me up. And this week was the perfect example of why I want to do something like this (YWAM).. I was so busy it was my last week of school so I had so much homework here, I have family here from out of town so I’m trying to visit with them, I trying to get things ready for our grad party, basically I was so busy I even found it hard to find time to sleep. And that bothers me so much because the reason I live everyday of my life is for God and to give him Glory and when I’m so busy with stuff that doesn’t even come close to importance, God gets push to the back, like he has to wait in line. The Discipleship Training school, which is three months and spent in Switzerland, just gets me so excited for this trip. For 3 months I will be able to be in a class room with 25 other young adults and learn about what really matters! I will have no lame high school homework to do, I won’t have to stop what I’m doing and go to work.....I won’t have to try and make time for God! He will have all my attention, my full attention, which is the way it is suppose to be.