It’s such a blessing…

Well, I just arrived “home” from camp. I’m worn out and looking forward to a couple days of rest before leaving town again. GA camp was incredible this week! Don’t ask which one I liked better…they are too different to compare. However, I can say that I saw God move in amazing ways during both weeks in the hearts and lives of the girls there.

The last post I made was an urgent prayer request about a girl in my group (if you haven’t read it yet, please skip down and read that first before reading this post any further). You know how, sometimes, you can tell by a person’s countenance whether or not they have the joy of Christ? It was such a blessing to be given the opportunity to talk with this girl and help her figure out what was really Truth. I could see God working on her all week. Today, at the end of our worship service, they gave a time for the girls to go to the front to pray with the leaders or to make a public decision if they wanted. This girl that I mentioned got up from her seat and walked to the front. She prayed with the Acteen director and talked with her for a few minutes, then returned to her seat. After the service, she came up to me and gave me a huge hug. The director and I spoke with her and gave her more Scriptures to look at to give her support and assurance of her faith. My friends…we have a new sister in Christ! I can’t thank you enough for your prayers! They were definitely felt and answered. Along with her, another girl…one from my room…also accepted Christ this morning! That’s another sister in Christ! God is at work in many other hearts as well…with possible calls to ministry…calls to be bold young women of God who burn with the passion of Christ. Keep these girls in your prayers! I think we’ve all seen the powerful effects that prayer can have. Keep our new sisters in your prayers as they begin their walks with Christ. Pray for their families and friends as they return home. Pray that these girls will become bold in their witness as they grow in their faith. Isn’t God incredible?!?!?!

Along with seeing decisions made and hearts changed, God blessed me with new friends this week….both older and younger. I thank God for each of those!

With it being the end of a camp week, I’m exhausted and running on fumes. Please pray that God will refuel me quickly so I can be ready to go again. This Saturday evening is our Deaf Fellowship at church. Sunday morning I fly out to St. Louis for the Southern Baptist Conference for the Deaf. I’m really excited, but again, it’s another busy week. I really don’t get time to recuperate until the 19th. I’m trusting that God will fill me up with enough energy to get through each day. Pray for safe travel as we fly and go from place to place in St. Louis. Also, pray for the Czech team that’s leaving from here within the next week…they’ll be teaching English.

That’s really all I have for right now. This week was incredible and God has blown my mind once again! I cannot say thank you enough for your prayers and support! My experience this week is proof that prayer is so powerful…God wants us to pour out our hearts to him and lift each other up. Please continue praying, not just for my mission here, but for other missionaries around the world and for each other. Thanks so much : )

Important Prayer Request!

So I’m currently at my 2nd week of GA camp. I’m working with the Acteen group again, but teaching GA Bible study time. It’s been a great week so far and we still have another full day. The prayer request is for a girl in my Acteen group that I stay with. She’s a very sweet girl and has been a joy to get to know this week. She’s from a Jehovah’s Witness background, but somehow made it here to this camp. I have no doubt that the reason for that being so she can hear the Truth about our amazing God and His love for us. She’s really confused right now on what to believe. The first day, the quiet time and Bible study talked about finding our hope. She couldn’t answer the questions asked in the quiet time…it really confused her. I tried to help talk her through it a bit, but we ran out of time due to a busy schedule. Last night in our group devotion time (we’re reading through the story of Joseph…amazing!!!), we opened the floor for questions…if anyone had questions about anything (within reason), they could ask it. The room got really quiet and then we hear a tiny voice say, “This whole Jesus thing and him dying…I don’t get it.” She was confused because of the two beliefs she had heard as to whether or not Jesus really died on a cross and why He did it. We shared some Scripture with her to answer her question and really began praying double time for her. Today, I did quiet time with her. We talked through her quiet time questions in her booklet about finding our faith. We didn’t finish her questions because I found an open door to share my story and more about why Jesus died. She was very responsive to it. I asked if she had any more questions…she said no…but I made it clear that she can come to me whenever. Please be in deep prayer for her and for me. Pray that God will become very real to her and that the Truth will drown out any lies that she’s been told. Pray that, above all else, seeds are planted. She’s very obviously searching and is so close…pray that God continues to draw her closer to Himself. Pray that God will give me the words to say and help me recognize those divine appointments He has set up for me. Thanks for your prayers!!! 

We are Hungry

Lately, I’ve been really stressed about camp this week and my insane schedule. I had the opportunity to go to a college worship service tonight with a good friend of mine. Those 2 hours were amazing! It was no mistake or coincidence that I was there…God knew just what I needed and when I needed it. This is one of the songs that we sang tonight that really impacted me.

“Lord I want more of You
Living Water rain down on me
Lord I need more of You
LIving breath of Life come fill me up

We are Hungry, we are hungry
we are hungry for more of You
we are thirsty, O Jesus,
We are thirsty for more of You

Lord, I want more of You
Holy Spirit rain down on me
Lord, I need more of You
Living Breath Of Life, come fill me up

We lift our holy hands up
we want to touch You
we lift our voices higher and higher
and higher to You”

–Jeff Deyo

This song hit me harder than anything else in that service. It made me really ask myself, “Am I really hungry for God?” “Am I seeking Him with all that I am?” In facing a potentially crazy week of camp, this has become my prayer and one that I will hold on to for a long time. “Living Breath of Life come and fill me up.” There’s no way I can possibly handle this week of camp on my own…it would fall to pieces. Tonight, God reassured me that He’s already there…He’s in the cabins, the dining hall, the worship center…He’s there. He also reminded me that I need Him to make it through the week…He’s my strength, my joy, my energy…which is an extremely vital part of camp for a leader : ) He is filling and will continue to fill me up as each new day comes. As I have claimed this prayer tonight for myself, I hope and pray that it will be contagious. Pray that the girls attending camp will be instilled with a hunger and thirst for knowing God more…that they will desperately seek Him and His will.

Prep Time for the 2nd Week of GA camp…

Ok, so I got an email a couple of days ago from the GA camp director asking if I could teach GA Bible study time. I would be staying with the Acteen, but teaching the GA’s. I said sure…not a problem. Last night, I get an email from the director again saying that she needs me to not only teach the GA girls…I need to sleep in a cabin with them, lead the cabin group, teach Bible study, and lead the devotion time before bedtime. Needless to say, I freaked out. I fussed about it for a while in my mind last night before going to sleep. I didn’t want to be thrown into something that major on such short notice. God changed my attitude during the night. I’m feeling better about leading and I told her that I’d take a cabin. I won’t be alone with the girls…I’ll have an assistant leader which is a great thing. I just recently got the Bible study material so from now through the weekend, I’ll be studying up on the lessons and learning the rules of the GA world since I learned the world of Acteens last time. I’m not sure how many girls I’ll have in my cabin and I’m not sure what all I’ll be in charge of. God is really really really teaching me to be completely fluid and go with the flow since I’m not a last minute planner with things like this. Pray for me as I prepare to teach and lead these girls next week. Pray for my assistant…whoever that will be…that we’ll be able to function as a team and be there for these girls. And most importantly, pray for the girls that are coming. I saw what a difference God can make during this camp in the lives of girls the last time I was there…it was incredible! Pray that God will blow our minds again. : ) So yeah, pray…pray…pray…pray some more…oh, and did I mention…PRAY!!! : ) I’ll keep you posted on what happens! : ) Thanks for your prayers!

Rested and Recharged…

Well, I have gotten a good week of rest after my week at GA camp. Camp was incredible, but I didn’t bounce back near as fast as I thought I would : ) Monday night I had dinner with the interpreter I live with, a hard-of-hearing man and a deaf-blind woman from church. It was an interesting meal to say the least. I can communicate really well with the HH man, but talking to the woman was quite different. She doesn’t know sign language and can only see maybe 4 feet in front of her (if that much). She talks to us, but we have to write in a notebook for her to really understand what we’re saying. Trying to sign to him and keep her involved in the conversation by writing was a full-time job during that meal. It was a great visit with both them!

When I arrived at church on Wednesday night, we were running a little late. My ride was parking the car so there was no one there to interpret the songs at the beginning of the service. The pastor asked me if I could interpret until his wife arrived. I, hesitantly, went up to the front to sign. It went well until we got to “Be Thou My Vision”…if I had the sign language hymnal out with me, I would have been fine…but since we were late, I didn’t have time to get it. Needless to say, that song was a bit rocky. Any song with “thou” in the title has the potential to make interpreters nervous. : ) The Deaf were very patient, except one, but he just likes to give people a hard time. I survived and I think they knew what was going on so I guess it was an ok night.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go over and visit with another deaf-blind lady from church. Her sister lives close by, but other than that, I don’t think that she gets a lot of visitors. She has Usher’s Syndrome, meaning she was born deaf and as she gets older her tunnel vision gets progressively worse until she’s completely blind. Anyway, I went over around 10-ish and she had made a cinnamon crumb cake for breakfast and served it with strawberry yogert tart-type things. She was very excited about showing me her house and telling me about the blankets she’s been making. We had a great visit! I was there about 3 1/2 hours just talking with her and building a relationship with her. The Deaf minister at the church sent a laptop with me in case we needed it to ease the flow of communication, but we totally didn’t need it. God took care of that wall. There were times when she used signs I didn’t know and I used ones she didn’t know…by the way, she’s really just learning sign…she knows a little bit, but not much…but when we encountered unknown signs we spelled them and worked our way through it. It was an incredible visit! I had a lot of fun and I hope she did too! Keep her in your prayers!

Tonight I’m going to a Missions Tea where we’ll be praying over a team from MBC going to Prague soon. I’m really excited because I’ve never been to one of these before. As I get prayer requests for this team, I’ll pass them on!

This weekend we have a BBQ scheduled for the Deaf group. We’re going to meet up, eat, play cards, etc. Should be lots of fun! I’ll write about that later!

Thanks so much for your prayers!!!!! : )

Week 1 of GA Camp…

Not all of my ministry opportunities are with the Deaf this summer…I have been given a chance to work 2 weeks of GA (Girls in Action) and Acteen Camp. This was new territory for me considering I’ve never been to GA camp before. I just got back “home” from camp and have some amazing stuff to share.

The overall theme for the week was “Finding My Place.” The girls talked all week about various women in the Bible that God used despite their circumstances. The group of Acteens that I helped lead studied the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors during our group devotion time. We talked a lot about God’s perfect timing and how He works all things together for the good…even when we don’t see it right away.

Out of about 40 girls, 10 prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior! How cool is that?! On top of that, there were 2 Acteens (middle/high school) who shared that they felt God calling them to missions…one to Deaf ministry and the other to possibly South America. Please keep these young ladies in your prayers as they start their brand new journeys with Christ and as the older 2 begin to really seek out where God is leading them. I’ve talked to the girl feeling led to work with the Deaf…she can introduce herself right now and that’s about it. One thing that we talked about during our worship times was the relationship Paul had with Timothy. Paul was Timothy’s mentor, teacher, encourager….we were challenged to find those people in our lives in which we can serve as a “Paul” to a “Timothy”  and those who could serve as our “Paul.” When God called this girl to Deaf missions, He showed me that she’s my Timothy…at least for a season. I’m going to be working with her a little bit this summer to help her learn some basic signs and begin to find her place within the Deaf world. She has such a sweet spirit…please keep me in your prayers as I help her get her feet on the ground and pray for her as she begins to learn a whole new culture.

We had an incredible missionary family there with us this week…they were in on furlough from East Asia…they have 3 adorable children. The whole family just radiates Christ’s love and joy! They were such an inspiration and encouragement to me and many others there. Please pray for them as they spend about 7 more weeks on furlough before returning to the mission field. Pray that when they return, God will have opened more hearts to hearing the Gospel.

I will be working another week of camp July 7th-11th. Please begin praying now that the Holy Spirit  will begin stirring in the hearts of the girls who will be attending camp that week. Pray for all the women who will be serving as leaders, too.

Thanks so much for your prayers! I’ll keep you posted on things happening here! : )

Deaf Worship Experience…

This evening was my first Deaf worship experience here…it was AWESOME!!!!! I arrived a little after 4 pm to help get stuff set up for dinner and to practice with the signing choir. The bulk of the choir is made up of Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing individuals, but any hearing people who want to join are welcome. Phyllis (the Deaf minister) leads the choir from the middle of the sanctuary and we follow her as she signs to the music. Tonight we did “I Will Give You All My Worship” and “Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)”…both really cool songs. I have a video that I’ll email out of the signing choir. I tried to upload it on here, but I can’t get it to work. Next month, they are going to video the entire service for me so I can bring home a copy.

Also during the service, a Deaf man who just recently accepted Christ signed ”Cry Out to Jesus” (with Phyllis guiding him) and it was so powerful…he’s very expressive. It was just one of those “wow” moments. He was baptized at the end of the service…pray for him as he is beginning his new life in Christ. 

They asked me to share a little bit about how I ended up in Michigan for the summer and what all I’d be doing while I’m here. After that, I got to sign “Everything to Me” by Avalon. The Deaf were so encouraging after the service. They were very curious as to why I would bother coming all the way up here to spend time with them, why I wanted to work with the Deaf community, and about anything else they could talk out of me. They were all very friendly and I met so many new people…some drive up to an hour or hour and a half to come to this worship service once a month. I know I’ll remember most of their faces…names, however, are a different story. Pray for me as I continue building relationships here within the Deaf community.

Funny Story: So I arrive at church and there’s another girl there, about my age, and we started talking. She’s hearing…an interpreting major at a local school…we hit it off really well. We started having all these people come up to us and tell us that we looked a lot alike. By the end of the night we were really messing with people’s minds…we had on similar shirts, we have the same length dark hair, same build…it was crazy. The Deaf people kept saying we were twins. They stood us next to each other in the signing choir just so people could see how much we looked alike. We’ve decided to play off of this for next month. We’re going to coordinate our clothing and hairstyles and we’re going to work on a piece to do for worship…maybe something playing off a mirror-image type thing. Anyway, I thought it was really funny and to see the people’s faces was just hilarious. It was really messing with their program.  : )

God is really at work in the Deaf community here…you could totally feel His presence during the worship service and could see it in the people’s faces as we had a great time of fellowship. Pray for the Deaf community, in general, that they will see God and come to know Him. Pray for the Christian Deaf community, that they will have a fire in their hearts to reach the lost. Pray for the leaders of the Deaf ministry at the church…ministry can sometimes be stressful…pray that God provides the leaders with a peace and assurance that He’s sovereign in all situations. Pray for them as they go ahead and begin planning for Deaf upcoming Deaf socials and next month’s Deaf service.

On Monday, I leave with a group from church to go to GA (Girls in Action) camp about 3 hours north of here. I think there are about 10-12 girls going with the church and that many (or more) adults going to help as leaders. While I’m there, I’m co-teaching a mission track time where we’ll have the girls for 1 hour…we’ll teach them about our assigned missionary and their ministry…we’ll teach them basic sign language as well as signart to “Set the World on Fire” by Britt Nicole. When I’m not teaching mission track time, I’ll be helping wherever they need me…I may also be working with the Acteens a little bit. Be in prayer for the girls at the camp as well as the leadership. The girls will be learning about finding their place in the world. I know that Bible study times will include the story of Mary Magdalene and Hannah with a couple of others. Be praying for a powerful week of camp where God will touch the life of each young lady there.

Thanks so much for your prayers! They are definitely felt! I will update again when I get back from GA camp! : )