DONE!

Hey friends.
So the blog is finally designed and ready for your posts.
Hope you like it.

Oh hey...and for your entertainment:

(Treg, one of our awesome student leaders.)

Send the link to this vid to all your friends ;)

 

 Love and high three.

Europe here we Come!!!

So felt I should share an excerpt from my blog with this lovely team. To give you a bit of insight into my journey, as well as encourage you on your own.

So picking up in the middle of talking about going to Southeastern Europe for outreach:

“I felt a whole torrent of mixed emotions. Excited. Expectant. But as I began thinking more and more about the implications of being on the Europe team, I felt a bleak wave of fear begin to grow in front of me. A huge factor being: Winter (which equals DARK and COLD). This might not seem like a huge issue, but for me winter and cold act as a direct trigger to some of the darkest moments in my life (which happen to align with the past 4 years of being back in Canada for the long cold winters). There is a huge correlation between external winter and inner darkness. I felt the terror start spreading its icy fingers into my heart. But although I am afraid the haunting darkness will threaten to come back, I am claiming Christ as victor. He won. He conquers darkness. Depression. Darkness can never snuff out the light.

Another struggle was with the size of the group. 32 of us in total. Big groups intimidate me. My entire life I have been caught in a cycle of silence. There really is nothing about me that is loud—not external or even internal (no one area of exceptional brilliance, or burning passion, or even opinion).  And that coupled with a long battle with fear, I have lived very stifled. Kept myself under careful check. So as I stared around at the many gifted people around me, full of passion and quick suggestions, I began growing anxious. I felt lost. In such a big group with so many voices all fighting to make all their opinions heard, could I learn to raise my own voice? Or would I yet again fall silent and undermine my own gifts and abilities? No. NO! I want to step up. To step out. In CONFIDENCE. Not in me. But at Christ at work within me. And maybe this is exactly the place to do that. Maybe God brought each of us to this group for a reason.

One of the things God has really been stirring in my heart as of late is the need to be generous. Not generous in all your typical “generous” ways. But rather to be generous with my LOVE. My time, my care, my heart, my ability to journey with people. To speak life.

…I stumbled across this verse the other day in Hebrews, “Be careful then brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning away from the living God. But exhort each other every day, as long as it is called “today”, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.” …Exhortation. Encouragement. Rallying alongside each other. Challenging one another to step more and more fully into who God is calling us individually to Be.

One of the words spoken over our team was that it was to be a body. Made up of different parts but acting as a whole. And how utterly crucial it will be for Each member to find and step into their unique place. Their role in the body. Because each member is essential to the functioning of the whole. And thus as a body we have a responsibility to each of the individual members, to come alongside each person encouraging them to step more and more fully into who God has called them uniquely to be. Equipping them to step up. I have an inkling that uplifting each other is going to play a large role in this group. The above Hebrews 3:12-14 verse. I ache for this outreach team to be defined by love and appreciation for each other. A body made up of a variety of distinctive pieces and passions, but that moves and functions in graceful harmony because we all have our hearts fixated on the heart of Christ.

I feel in my spirit a strange confirmation. Confirmation that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. And as much as I would love to be going to the warm tropical beaches of Thailand, I have a growing feeling that God is wanting me to walk with him along the cold dark streets of a wintery Europe. God is stirring up something big in southeastern Europe and he wants us to join Him! We, the southeastern Europe team (all 32 of us!) have a role to play!”

Looking forward to the journey. We will see where God takes us. I am SO encouraged by all you. Each one of you on this team. Looking forward to this journey! I am claiming that this is GOING to be an epic-ly awesome outreach where we are known by our fiery infectious love for our Triune God, our radiating love for each other, and the generous spirit with which we serve and make His glorious Kingdom KNOWN! 

Starting something new.

We are still working on the design for our brand neeeew, awesome blog.
So for the next days it will look like a mess here (or maybe totally boring).

Love.