He is all I need

Our trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti was incredible. God really opened my eyes to see the ugliness of my own heart. I saw selfishness and lack of dependence upon the Lord rise up in me and come to surface.
Do I really believe that Jesus is enough? That He is all I need?
As I thought about how in less than a year I'll be moving overseas to LIVE for at least a couple of years, I really saw how much I need the Lord to prepare my heart. I want my life to be for His Kingdom's cause.

In the DR we went to a couple of schools and shared the Gospel with the students. We also got to do some house-to-house evangelism and hold a Bible study in a Dominican-Haitian village.

In Haiti we were encouraged and convicted by our time in worship with the believers there. We woke at 4 a.m. each morning to the sound of worship music. In the few days we were there, we cleaned up a school to prepare for the students' first day, shared the Gospel with a voodoo witch, saw some lost people come to know the Lord as their Savior, showed the Jesus film, shared our testimonies at a Sunday church service under a mango tree, and got to tour and see all of the devastation that still exists from the earthquake in January 2010.

What a blessed trip!

For His Name's Sake

"Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; 

and deliver us, and provide atonement for our sins, for Your name's sake!" 

Psalm 79:9

Cooking a Guatemalan recipe I learned this summer :) 

Reuniting with old friends 

10 buggies worth of household items and
food for newly arriving refugees 

Downtown Nashville 

Burmese salad dish and their staple food...grapes. Yum. 

Chicken noodle soup Burmese style 

Fellowship with friends..new and old, Burmese and American 

Praise the Lord for the friends He places in our lives.
Pray for these new friends, some of which are lost. 

Many of you received a support letter from me about a year ago explaining Trek-X and all that it entails. I shared my financial and prayer needs and how the Lord was leading me to this journey with Him. O how the Lord has molded me and shaped me since then! We are about one month into my second year at Trek-X. (Meaning after this year in Nashville, I’ll be going overseas for TWO YEARS! It’s still very unreal to me.) Last year, we met every morning to read the Word, pray together, and memorize scripture. Through this I really came to know and love the power and life that the Word of God holds. As believers, we NEED it. (Matthew 4:4) We also met a couple of afternoons a week to learn about theology, world religions, servant leadership, etc. Then we invested in local ministry opportunities around Nashville. We met with Burmese refugees, adopted a Burmese family, and began forming a Christian campus club at Overton High School. The Lord really opened my eyes to the world around me. In the middle of all of this, I also completed my first year of online college! This summer, I was able to lead a few mission trips in Guatemala. As I encountered both physical and spiritual poverty, I learned to rely on the Lord in a whole new way. 

As this second year of Trek-X begins, my mind is completely overwhelmed with all of the changes about to take 

place in my life. I will graduate from Mississippi State in May and I’ll be making all of the preparations to move to another country in August. As of right now, we aren’t sure where we will be spending our 2 years of advanced training, but we will know sometime this fall! Anyways, I am writing not only to update you, but to ask you to join me in prayer. Some specific prayer requests are: 

• For me to push forward in my schoolwork as I am growing weary and can’t wait to be done! I want to glorify the Lord in ALL that I do…even school. (Colossians 3:23-24) 
• For me to really invest in the relationships the Lord has given me in Nashville, such as our Burmese friends, the students at Overton, friends at church, neighbors at our apartment complex, etc. I hope to display the love of Christ to them. (1 Corinthians 13) 
• For unity among all of us Trek-Xers. There are 11 of us now and I ask that you pray that we would be one body with the goal of proclaiming Christ. 
• For wisdom and discernment as we pray and decide the country in which we will serve. 
• For the Lord’s continued faithfulness in providing for me financially. 

Also, a special prayer request: We leave tomorrow morning for the Dominican Republic and Haiti for a week!! 

Please pray for us September 27-October 4. Pray for the Lord to go before us and prepare the hearts of those we will encounter. Pray for hearts to awaken to the Truth this week. Pray for God's will. And pray for safety. Thank you all so much. 

Here we go again..

Well, we've been in Nashville for a little over a week now. It is good to be back here. All of the new students have moved in and we are beginning to get to know each other. We have 11 students this year! 6 guys, 3 girls, and a married couple. This is a huge adjustment from the first year of just us 3. It's also a huge blessing and an answered prayer. We are thankful to have more community. We've spent this first week getting settled in, starting school, and looking for part-time jobs. We officially begin the new year tomorrow. I can't wait. This year we will be going through Romans, memorizing 100 more verses, studying more theology, and taking part in local ministry. I pray that we will resemble the early church as much as possible in all that we do.

As I think about this next year of my life, I am completely overtaken with anticipation, excitement, fear, inadequacy, joy, and about a million other emotions. I am clinging to verses like Philippians 4:6-7 which says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," and Proverbs 3:5-6 which says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths." Psalm 46:10 has also brought great peace to me. It says, "Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth!" I do not know why the Lord has chosen to use me. I am weak. I am broken. I am full of pride. I am selfish. I am scared of what's ahead of me. I want things to go my way..on my time. BUT I know I have to cling to the Word. I have to cling to the cross. All of my righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). But when the Father sees me, He sees the work of His Son. I don't have to be strong; His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12;9-10). My sins have been made clean and I am a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). I don't have to fear because I know He determines my steps (Proverbs 16:9). I am trying daily to rest in His great love. I don't know why He chooses to use me, but I'm thankful He does. So this year, my last year in the states for a while, my last year of college, this crazy year, will be a year that can only be done through His strength. Please pray for me and for Trek-X as a whole as this year begins. I'm so excited to see what the Lord has in store! 

I'll try to keep you all updated about what's going on. 

Moving In 

Josh and I after our first event with all the new Trek-Xers...white water rafting! 

One of our first meals- stir fy and black beans (a specialty I picked up in Guatemala this sumer :) 

Sweet Provision

I'm a little behind on writing about our last week in Guatemala. I've been resting and enjoying time at home with my family, while still trying to let everything that I learned this summer sink in.

We led 4 different groups our last week: Faith Baptist from Memphis, East Brent Baptist from Pensacola, and 2 smaller groups from Oklahoma. It's a blessing to get to meet believers from all over and serve with them. We didn't go back to Santa Louisa this week, but split up into 2 different sites. Half of the group went to the village of Heirba Buena to build a retaining wall at a school and minister to the children. The other half of us partnered with an organization called Loving Arms.  We did work in several villages in the town of Parramos. In the course of the week we helped build a retaining wall to protect their homes and crops from floods, helped till land and plant squash that would be a source of income for impoverished families, built stoves so families won't have to cook over hazardous open fires, painted a school classroom while we ministered to the students there, delivered food to families who are sponsored through Loving Arms, held a dental clinic, built a house for a widowed man and his children, and had opportunities to do Bible schools and minister to children at a couple of schools. Though we weren't able to build relationships like we did in Santa Louisa, it was clear that it was God's will for us to be in Parramos.

Some of the team members were led to sponsor some of the children we loved on. Those kids will now have the opportunity to go to school and will be fed 2 meals a day. I was blessed to watch a couple really see how the American Dream of having more and better stuff just really doesn't line up with what God is doing around the world. They decided to give up things like NetFlix and thousands of dollars on Christmas gifts to care for a little girl in Guatemala. They did this for the sake of the Gospel.

I watched a lady humbly come to our team and though she was embarrassed, she was sensitive to the Spirit telling her to come to us, and she asked for help for her village. Last year, a hurricane wiped out their living- their corn crop. They had received a little help since last year, but just not enough to care for them all. So she asked us to pray for them. Some of our team members took up an offering among themselves which payed for about 300 pounds of corn for the village of Parrojas to plant. A humble woman's prayer was answered.

This same lady and some of the other village ladies also fed us a farewell lunch. They wanted to bless us for the work we had been done in their village. Blessed is just what we were. They fed us the food that probably would have fed them for a few weeks. Soup, chicken, corn, whiskeel, potatoes, squash, and tortillas. It was such a bitter sweet moment as we were humbled and honored that they chose to give us this meal but knowing how limited their resources are, we didn't want to take their food. However, we prayed over it (that our bellies would not be harmed by anything in the food) and that God would richly bless them in abundance for giving out of the little they have.

Before we left, we were able to have a farewell with some of our friends from the church. They have touched my heart in a way I will not soon forget. The loved us and they taught us and they grew in the Lord with us. I was blessed to see their faithfulness. Even though we are gone now and I don't know when I will be in Guatemala again, I praise God that I can still pray for them and the work they are doing in their country. I thank my God every time I think of them (Philippians 1).

Lunch at the church 

Meter long pizza 

Coffee plant

Skit of Jesus calming the storm

Pepper squash! 

Dental clinic 

Dedicating the new classroom to the kids 

The new house our team built

The 'house' he lived in before 

Mobilizing Students staff with Loving Arms staff 

Sunrise the morning we left Guatemala

Overall, the last days in Guatemala were amazing. We were tired and we were beginning to miss family and friends, but o how we felt the JOY of obeying the command of Jesus to care for the least of these.

Thank you all for your prayers this summer. Dios te bendiga