faithfulness, fish eggs, and fundraising

So sorry I haven't posted in about a month. School has been absolutely hectic! I am so ready for this semester to be over! Anyways, I just wanted to catch yall up a little bit with what has been going on with me and preparation for the trip.

It has been incredibly awesome to see God's faithfulness through answered prayers. A couple weeks after I found out my assignment for this summer, I realized that I had no love or compassion for the people I would be among this summer. I began to pray to God that he would break my heart for these people and give me compassion for them. Literally the next day he answered my prayers. God is so good! While at a weekly prayer time, a book called Operation World was placed on the floor in front of us. Something inside me was curious so I picked it up. If you have never heard of Operation World, it is a prayer guide to every country in the world. It is incredibly awesome. It even had specific information on the district I would be in this summer. As I read through the data and prayer requests, my heart broke. There is no other way to explain it. I felt like I was being called to share with these people the hope and grace and love that is only found in Christ Jesus. My heart was broken. Beautifully broken. In case some of you were wondering what I read, I will share with you some of the information about the area I will be serving in this summer.

• The population is 99,556,918.
• Christians make up 0.1% of the population. That's less than one hundred thousand people out of 99 million people!
• This area is the country's poorest state and has the second highest population density. It has been used with words like deprivation and misery.
• This area ranks highest on every index related to corruption.
• Deep poverty, widespread illiteracy, lack of resources in local languages, and strong spiritual opposition and persecution of religious minorities are major hindrances to evangelism.
• It is one of the least-evangelized mega-populations in the world.

Please spend some time this week praying for the people who my team and I will come in contact with this summer. I just included in the list the things that broke my heart. Don't get me wrong, God is definitely at work in this area. The number of those coming to Christ is increasing and has nearly doubled! Missionaries in the area are also reporting a more openness to speak about Christ and the gospel. God is moving and will continue to move in the hearts of these people as we travel there this summer and after we leave.

God has been a faithful provider throughout the past few months. I have to raise $3050 for my trip and while donations seemed to be coming in slow at first, after praying about it, God provided me with over half of my total so far! This is where I would like to take a second to thank everyone who has helped in any way with the fundraising. Thank you to everyone who has made donations and bought shirts. I wouldn't get this opportunity without you! I pray that God blesses you through your faithfulness in giving towards my trip. But don't forget that I am not at my goal yet. I still need to raise over $1000 so please continue considering supporting me financially.

One aspect of my trip preparation that I have struggled with is trying to prepare myself for the culture shock, specifically the food. I am going to a region of the world that has a culture vastly different than American culture. While my parents have done a great job at making sure I experience different cultures through food, we have never been to a restaurant of this country. I have had several opportunities to eat the food of the country where I am going and every time, I haven't been able to eat more than a couple bites. The food is flavorful, with flavors I am not used to, and can be very spicy. While I am confident that I am either going to like the food when I get there or else I am not going to eat much and then get so hungry that I will eat whatever is put infront of me, I just wish I could like the food now. Its frustrating to be able to eat raw fish and fish eggs but not be able to eat the rice they eat in this area.

While I have had several moments of the "I am not going to South Asia. I am not going for 8 weeks" thought to myself, I am excited for this trip more days than I don't want to go. My experience so far has been that the days I don't want to go are days when I am not firmly planted on my faith and I can feel Satan attacking me. Please pray throughout the next 40 days that my heart would be guarded against Satan's lies and that I would be excited to serve the Lord by serving others in South Asia. Six weeks left in America!

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people." Ephesians 6:18

What's with this wild goose?

Chasing the wild goose. That may seem like a strange name. Frankly, it is for a blog but the meaning runs much deeper. Over the summer I did a bible study called "Wild Goose Chase". It explored what it meant to truly chase after the Holy Spirit (aka the wild goose). The book explains that Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit "An Geadh-Glas" which means wild goose. Like a wild goose, the Holy Spirit cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger and an air of unpredictability surround Him. These are some of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit that I have come to know the past year.

The first step I took in my pursuit of the Holy Spirit was to completely surrender myself to him. I accepted Christ and was baptized in 2007 but still hung onto most areas of my life. I was reluctant to let Jesus into my life, especially the areas that I felt like I had under control. It wasn't until last fall that I realized that I was living my own will instead of God's. I wasn't going off the deep end, so to say, but I definitely wasn't consulting God on how I should be living and what I should be doing. So I surrendered. I let Jesus into the areas of life where I had been shutting him out and began to pray and seek God's will in all that I do.

It's not always easy to do. One time that I didn't seek God's will before I jumped into action was last summer. I wanted to go on a mission trip but knew I had to take summer school. So being the obedient slave to school I sometimes am, I took summer school. All summer long! I watched my friends and family be sent around the world to share the love of Christ while I sat in a classroom for 6 hours a day. Don't get me wrong, a classroom can also be a mission field, but I felt the most regret I have ever felt in my life. I felt God tugging on my heart and telling me that there's more to life than doing well in school and making sure I graduate in 4 years. After talking with my dad about it, he encouraged me to take my next summer off from school and engineering and do whatever I wanted, so that's exactly what I am doing.

I wanted to do whatever God wanted me to do this summer. For once in my life, I wanted to know that I was doing something because it was God's will and not my own. When the position list for summer missionaries was posted in October, I had a list made of all the trip descriptions without prices, places, or durations. I knew these would be things that would distract me from God's will. I went through the list and picked a top ten and then narrowed it down to a top 3 at which point I looked up the places, durations, and prices. My first choice was all summer to South Asia and my second choice was all summer in Round Rock. I immediately thought "Oh no God! You must have misunderstood me. I wanted to go to South America or Africa or Europe. Certainly not South Asia. That's too far away and too different. And certainly not Round Rock because that would be like spending the summer at home." I began to look over the position list and see if I overlooked where God really wanted me to spend the summer. No luck. There wasn't a single trip I was really interested in that was where I initially wanted to go to this summer.

South Asia. That means I can't even read their language and pretend like I can understand. Their culture is so different than ours. Most of those places smell really bad. I will stick out like a sore thumb. All of these are thoughts I had in the pursuing weeks and months. I had asked several people to pray about this trip. I really wanted to do the project, but I just didn't want to do it in South Asia. It's amazing to see how God answers prayers. In the days that followed, God gave me peace about South Asia and made me excited to get to experience a new culture and way of life. God is so faithful!

So here's the part where I almost lost track of the wild goose. As part of the process, all potential missionaries had to go to this event called Discovery Weekend. The best way to describe it is that its a disciple now for college students. We were split into groups and stayed at host homes. Throughout the weekend we explored the gifts God had given us and what ways we could use those gifts this summer. All was fine and dandy. I felt like God had equipped me for this trip. Right before I had my interview, I read a packet that had more detailed information on my trip. "This is very hot city (110 to 115 F and above) and AC will not be available." this was the first thing that caught my eye. "Places to stay will be pretty dirty and may not have hot water although a hot water bucket can sometimes be provided. There will probably be no AC. Power typically is only on 2 hours a day." Boom. Everywhere. All over that packet. More and more reasons not to go. I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and doubting everything I had done up to this point.

This is where I need to take a break and give you some insight on what I thought I would be doing on this trip. I knew that this was a water project in South Asia and that I would be helping people get access to clean water. I thought that I would be staying in a hotel and commuting to the villages. I expected AC and a bed and certainly not 110 degree heat. I thought there was no hotter place than Texas in summer, but apparently there is! I knew that God was going to stretch me this summer. I mean South Asia is a big stretch in itself. Certainly God wasn't planning on stretching me even more! But that's exactly what he is planning on doing. In that moment, God showed me that comfort was an idol in my life. How could I turn away from what I knew God was calling me to do because it sounds uncomfortable? Living life on this earth isn't supposed to be comfortable. God also reminded me that safety is not a right, it is a blessing. I knew that I had to go to South Asia, even if that meant possible putting myself in danger.

So the way the rest of Discovery Weekend worked was that we were able to preference trips that we wanted to go on but our small group leaders would ultimately be the ones who determined where we would go. On my preference card I put only one preference: South Asia. I knew that if it wasn't where God intended me to be this summer than I would be appointed to place where he wanted me to serve. 5 days after Discovery Weekend ended, I got my appointment email. After a long week of 4 tests, I was overwhelmed when I saw where I would be serving this summer. I didn't know what else to do but cry. It said South Asia. In that moment, I was overjoyed but scared. I still am overjoyed but scared.

While it is still not clear to me every aspect of what I will be doing this summer, I know that I will be doing God's will in South Asia. The wild goose chase is taking me halfway around the world to a country and culture vastly different than my own. This goose chase is mysterious, unpredictable, and potentially a bit dangerous (sorry dad), but worth everything I am. I am excited to see how God will use me this summer and how he will move in the hearts of the villagers.

As I continue to chase the wild goose in South Asia, I ask that you:

• pray for spiritual and physical preparation
• pray against distractions and fears
• pray that I find my joy in Christ alone through this entire journey

"I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth." Psalm 108:3-5