My new adventure

Dear family, friends, and church family,

As most of you know, I have been believing in faith that I would be going to the International House of Prayer (or IHOP) in January, but I hadn't heard back from them of my acceptance or denial.

Well, on December 16th 2010, I was ACCEPTED into the Fire in the Night internship at IHOP.

Here's a little exerpt from the IHOP.org page to give you more of an idea of what I'll be doing:
"Fire in the Night is a residential internship program that is joined to the NightWatch, our faithful musicians and intercessors who joyously embrace the most challenging part of the twenty-four-hour prayer schedule. They stand their watch on the wall of intercession between the hours of midnight and 6:00am. This internship is for young adults between the ages of eighteen and thirty.

For too long, the night has been known for being filled with spiritual darkness. We believe that the night belongs to the Lord. While most people are sleeping and while many deeds of darkness are defrauding lost souls, Fire in the Night stands in stark contrast, crying out in prayer for justice and revival to break in on the earth, and is involved in outreaches and ministering to others in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The program consists of two separate three-month tracks. Track I is an introduction to the foundational teachings of a believer. Track II continues with the same themes but with deeper studies and ministry experience.
"

and a video so you can hear directly from Mike Bickle, the founder, and past interns from this program about what I'll be doing :)


So now, here's the reason that I feel led to participate in this internship for a season of my life.
While I was at the Honor Academy, during one of the fasting retreats that we did, we focused on trying to pull our mission statements for our lives together using different reservoirs of our lives. Mine came out to be: "I will serve as a light to the world by my example of poisitive living due to the gaining of a new life in Christ. I will act as a fulltime intercessor and use my talents and gifts to artistically influence today's culture. God will frequently pour out new revelations and insights as I seek to reveal the truth that is the heart of God.
This is important because about a week and a half after we completed our fasting LTE, I was introduced to IHOP. When I found their site, I wanted to learn more about them, so I checked out there mission statement, and guess what? Their mission statement was like 90% the same as mine!!!!
So I started praying about what I needed to do after the Honor Academy year finished up, and God kept throwing IHOP out there. I was dead set on doing another long term internship, but there was only one that they had that was longer than 3 months (or so I thought), and that was the Onething internship. I was super set on going to that one, but nothing was falling together as I felt it should so I stepped back and prayed about it, and God directed me toward Fire in the Night. It also CAN be a 6 month internship. It has 2 tracks of 3 months. PERFECT! :)

I applied and got accepted and now, it's only 3 weeks away. AND I need some help to get there :)
It's going to cost me $4,200 in total, but only the first $2,200 is due when I get there. Three months later is when I'll need the remaining $2,000 (but they said it's a good idea to start fundraising for that track as soon as possible as well). With my schedule the way it is, it makes it hard to do fundraisers like I would like to. So this is one of the only ways that I will be able to utilize fundraising to get where I need to be.

This IS going to be a missions focused internship, we will be focusing on doing works of justice in the Kansas City community as well as being in the prayer room and having classes. I WILL NOT be making money while I am there, so I am asking the Church (being the entire body of believers), or anybody who would like to, to consider supporting me. I will be posting information on how you can donate on the sidebars as well as at the end of this blog post. I will need all of my money (for first track) turned in ($2,200) by January 12th which is the first day of the internship.

if you have any questions at all, feel free to email me at kyleclark2009@hotmail.com
Thank You SO SO SO MUCH!!! :)
Be Blessed

Here is the donation information:
Credit or Debit over the phone:
Call Business Office at 816-763-0200 x2201.
Tell them you want to donate to Kyle Clark in the Fire in the Night program starting on January 12th 2011.
they should guide you the rest of the way

India Journal Time :)

The way this is going to work, is I'm going to post all of the entries in my journal with the date that it was written (So look at the ones from July 10th - August 5th, cool?) And you'll get to see what's going on inside my head each day that I'm on the mission field :)


HERE WE GO :)

PS, it might take a little while to get the whole month's entries up, so bare with me :)

7/30/2010

Last ministry day.

Today was our last day of ministry. It's strange to thnk that in a couple of days, we'll be back in the US. These beautiful, brown, smiling, head-bobblin' faces will be missed SO much!!!!!!

These people have stolen my heart and I cannot get it back no matter how hard I try.
Today's ministry was kinda strange, but definitely a good wrap up for the trip. We were chased away from our sight by anti-christian persecution again.
As we were beginning our last prayer session, pastor V was confronted by one of the elders of the village, and we were threatened with our well-being. So pastor V rounded us up and we all left, after taking a minute to get tea and cookies, though, of course! :) haha. O India. God has a lot of work to do in that village, but I KNOW that He is faithful to complete the good work that He started!!! :)

7-29-2010

Wooded Village.

This was the STRANGEST day that we have had yet. Our site was in the only bare outcropping from trees in a mountain wooded village. Its inhabitancts were split into a christian part of town, and a hindu part of town. In this village, one of the guys in my MAG, Hunter, had a defining moment of the trip. He watched a woman run to the front of the group when the net was thrown, fall to her knees and weep as she began receiving prayer. That was one of the most awesome parts of this entire ministry.

7-28-2010

Childrens' Center.

End of ministry is coming soon =(. This whole trip has been kind of surreal. We're making an eternal impact and it's so awesome! Today, we went to the Mission Voice Childrens' Center. This place was a lot of fun, and the kids were amazing. We prayed for a deaf old man, but unfortunately, we realized he was too drunk to communicate with us, but we noticed that he started responding to us when we talked to him. I am believing and standing in faith that he was healed 100% even if he couldn't confirm that haha. :)

7/26/2010

Today was a free day. We got to run around Tamil Nadu and see a lot of beautiful places. God did so many beautiful things in India. The forests of palm trees, amazingly beautiful rivers, the people... :).

We were also privileged enough to be able to visit pastor v's village. We got to walk through the house that pastor V's mother was raised from the dead in, and meet some of the people that Pastor V got to live life with.
We also took a trip to a waterfall, and walked across the 2nd largest bridge in Asia. :) haha.
I can definitely check that one off of my bucket list now ;)

7/27/2010

Construction day.
I am so glad that there was only one of these, haha. We demolished a brick building and had to carry the remains of their soggy red-dirt bricks across the street, and dump them into another huge pile. It was long, hard work in the hot Indian sun, but I know that it was an incredible blessing to them! So it was all worth it.

7-25-2010

The ministry today was great as well!!!
We went to a church with Priscilla, and Leo, and did a program for them which was followed by an amazing Holy spirit filled talk from Priscilla! It was awesome to see all fo the & be able to help out and encourage our Indian brothers and sisters!

7-24-2010

Tonight was awesome, yet sad as well. It started off as a surprise trip to the pastors' church. There we had a thanksgiving service in which they pretty much gave us dinner & a ginger blob that was soaked in oil and wrapped in newspaper haha. O indian food. It was good none-the-less, though :).

Ministry was a little bit rushed. Everything was a little bit behind schedule, but God worked through us none-the-less. We had a small group of people, mostly children that gatherd outside of the church to watch the program. We put on this program in the middle of the street. The people that we meet are all so awesome. I'm going to miss all of them so much! Tonight was pretty great :), but it was also really sad, because it was our last night with Gletseal as our translator.

7-22-2010

Tonight, ministry was pretty great. There were TONS of kids and an opportunity for an altar call. I'm not sure of the number of salvations, but I DO know that a lame person got up and walked for the first time in their life. There was also a boy there that I definitely connected with. I don't remember his name, but I will never forget his face, or situation.

He was not able to speak properly because when he was at a Hindu temple, as an act of worship, people were throwing a coconut around, and proceeded until it broke.
Well, this guy went in to the temple, and ate a piece of the coconut. As he did this, something went wrong. He got a piece of coconut stuck in his throat & it wouldn't come out. Finally after a while of struggling, it came out, but not without the casualty of his voice. Now, he can make sounds, but he's not able to make any words.

I prayed for him several times, but I couldn't tell any difference, but I know God does work in them even after we leave. He will remain in my prayers...

7-21-2010

Ministry just keeps getting more and more intense. As we arrived at the ministry site, the spiritual atmosphere felt INCREDIBLY heavy. The area that we weree sent to was an area known for persecuting Christians. As a result of this, we were not allowed to give the net, however we were allowed to pray for people. So we went out & started praying for people as we usually did.

Soon, as I was interceding with Vivian for an older woman, another old lady walked over to me, hit me on the arm, held up her hands, and in tamil said, "Pray."

I started looking around for a translator, and a boy named Veejay showed up. He spoke enough English to translate a little bit for me. The old woman said that her eyes & her legs needed prayer. As soon as I got done praying, the old woman bent over & touched her toes. I was thinking, "ok... what's going on?" So I asked Veejay, "What is she doing? What's happening?"

He then responded in his Indian accent (complete with headbobble, mind you), "Her back has become as rubber!!!"

I started laughing and asked what that meant. He told me that she couldn't do that before. Her back was stuck straight, and she hadn't been able to bend over like that in years. We then started praising the Lord.

As we got ready to go, Emily started to experience some spiritual attacks which took the form of excruciating pain in her stomach. We prayed for Emily until it gave up, but as soon as we stopped, it started attacking Briana. So we continued praying, I don't think we even stopped until we got back to Oshi.

7-20-2010

(7-19 was a free day)

All day today, I could feel God stirring something awesome up for our ministry tonight. We waited around all day for our briefing on the area we were going to. FInally, the info came...

We would be going to an untouchable village that had NEVER heard the gospel before.

My heart perked up, this is an UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUP!
The pastor told us that they were called 'untouchable', because in Hinduism, everyone believes that there is a "Brahma(measure of god)" inside of everyone. This is where the caste system gets it's different classes. The untouchable cast didn't have any Brahma, and thus wasn't clean to those with Brahma. So these people didn't even really have any hope until their next life, which we know they'll never get to.

The untouchables are some of the most dear people to my heart so far on this trip. NOBODY has ever shown interest inthem Nobody has ever bothered with them. They are also stuck under the oppression of the Hindu gods. What a hopeless situation!
I love the kids here. There were two little boys that stole my heart. I only wish that I could remember Indian names...they're so complicated! haha.

These people were SO open to us & our messag, which made everything to do with ministry that much easier. When the time for the Net came near, hands shot up! My heart was jumping! I prayed for two guys to receive Christ, and a woman with a heart condition for healing, a little hirl and a deaf woman.

In the middle of the prayer for the deaf woman, Kass, our TL got everybody rounded up & in the vans as fast as she and Jared, our other TL could. It was a 'don't ask questions' moment. As soon as everybody was back on the bus safely, we heard the news. There was a group that does 'social work' and keeps an ear out for christian groups & activity. There was a mob assembling as we were there, and they were quickly approaching.

As we were driving back to our base, I got a real sense of what it is to have a part in the persecution that the church here faces daily. We asked the pastor what would have happened if we hadn't gotten tipped off, and he said, "I as the pastor would have been killed, the men in the group would have been beaten, if not murdered, and the woman would have been severely beaten as well."
Wow. My heart is continually breaking over these people!!!!

7-18-2010

CRAZY ministry today!
We went to a small city, and as we were walking through the city, I kept seeing images of Ganesh, the half elephant, half human god. I just felt such a heaviness throughout the entire city. Walking through the village, I smelled incense burning everywhere. Incense is usually one of my favorite smells, but just knowing that it was a sacrifice made it burn my lungs, and made me sick.
Everytime I see an idol or anything resembling an idol, it hurts my spirit. Seeing these things brings a new meaning to feeling the heart of God.

I felt like our ministry was set up for just another nominal night of ministry because the majority of our audience was children, and the rest were already Christians from the area.BUT during ministry time, there was so much that happened: A mute child spoke his first word, Jesus, a blind woman saw, a deaf person was healed and... We cast demons out of a woman.

A woman brought her sister into the courtyard and said, "We need prayer for our sister."
Here, it's important to note that the one woman was christian, thus referring to 'our sister' as the body of christ's sister (which happened to be her own sister). Because of this, we thought that they had another sister that wasn't there, so we proceeded to ask what was wrong with her, not knowing that the woman she had brought was the one we needed to pray for.
We asked the one sister what she needed prayer for, and she said that they thought she had a demon because she would disappear in the middle of the night, and when they awoke in the morning, someone would be dead.
So we started to pray, and Selvi, the woman that was brought, started manifesting demons.
The girls of the team circled her and started praying, and the battle was on. I took a place on the outside of the women, since it's not ok for men to touch women, even for prayer, in this culture. As we started praying, Selvi started convulsing and flailing, so the girls had to start holding her so no one got hurt. As we prayed, the demons would shriek & yell & try to get away.

After about an hour of praying fervently, being tossed back and forth by the attempts of the possessed woman to escape, losing my voice, and being directed by the Spirit of God, God finally set His daughter free. I feel as if there was at least 3 different demons in this woman. After it came to Selvi's point of deliverance, we lead Selvi into the church, where she fell to her knees at the altar & began praying to the One True God, Jesus Christ. Slowly, Selvi's hands folded & she said "Jesus". That's when we knew it was over.

I'm just SO in awe of the dramatic change that we saw in Selvi. Even her eyes brightened up after she was delivered and accepted the Lord.Her bindi was gone as well. The oppression of Hinduism was off of her life.

After talking to the Pastor afterwards, He said that this woman had been possessed for 3 years. He also said that the Hindu community said that if Selvi was delivered by the Christians, that they would start going to church & listening about Jesus. Guess what? She was delivered by the Almighty!!!!

God is so good & I am 100% in awe of what He can do!!!!

7-17-2010

Today we had our first REAL ministry site.
We went to an area called the Umbai district. This is an area with over 300,000 people who are primarily Hindu. Many have never even heard of the gospel. I wish that I could speak Tamil. I just feel like if I had someone who could translate everything I needed, or if we had the ability to just speak tamil miraculously, that this ministry would be that much more effective. I talked to a young Hindu man tonight. He understood what we were saying about the One True God, but couldn't get past the ways of his country. "One God is America, many gods is India. That's way it is." is all he would say. It broke my heart, but I know that the seeds are planted. My prayers are with him.

We did ministry in the middle of the street in this village. This was our stage. We did our program & everybody seemed pretty entertained. As soon as the net happened though, spiritual warfare started up. All of the men started chattering, and the seamstress's shop next to us started blaring Hindu music, and cars drove through the middle of the crowd, all distracting those we were ministering to, but despite the devil's attempts, the Holy Spirit still claimed souls AND performed a healing of an old woman's eye sight. God is so faithful!!!

India Journal - 7-15 & 16

Training all day, and recuperation from jet lag. It's sucha strange thing. I'm not 100% sure what to do about it, but oh well :).

We've been preparing for our VBS all day. IT's a lot different than I was expecting it to be, but it works out. Our ministry time is also a lot different than it was in Panama. All of our ministry happens in the afternoon/evening. So mornings are free. My system is also finally adjusting to all of the food that we're eating here. AND no matter WHAT I do, I cannot get away from the bugbites!

We went to our first 2 ministry sites today. They were a great first run. We went to two different schools. I LOVE Indian children!!! They are probably some of the cutest kids I've ever met. We visited a couple of private schools & did our program. (program consists of a couple skits, song, bible story, and altar call) FOr some reason, I just couldn't shake a feeling of oppression in these areas though. This made it a little bit harder to break into a proper mindset for ministry, but I know that whatever's going on with me CANNOT interfere with the winning of sourls & the furthering of the kingdom. The gospel isn't comfortable, and when you look at these people... these beautiful, fearfully, and wonderfully made cultural people, and see them the way that God sees them, you begin to realize that your comfort doesn't matter. It's the LAST thing that I'm worried about

India Journal - 7-14

India.

My first few minutes in Asia.

Just being here, I can feel a completely different spiritual atmosphere. The darkness feels kinda like an emptiness. I feel a strong presence in the emptiness though. It's definitely a palpable feeling of something, but of what exactly? I'm not sure, but I do know that I feel the presence of God so much stronger here than I feel it in the US. I guess it's just easier to see the light in the midst of darkness, ya?

My heart is just so burdened for these people. My heart is heavy. I feel like I can't do anything but pray for this peopl, for this land and for the principalities to be broken.

I just still cannot believe that I'm here. I've ALWAYS wanted to come here, and now that it's finally here, it feels surreal.


9:34 PM

Got to campus & met the other team. God has been good to them so far. I can see it in their faces. I can't wait to see how God uses US on this trip too. The kids at the deaf school that we are staying at are adorable. I've heard a lot of the kids have cut their Hindu bracelets off after hearing the gospel, and the other team has told us stories of going into Hindu villages that have NEVER heard the gospel before. I can't wait to hear and see what God has in store for us. AND I still cannot believe that I'm FINALLY in India...Just wanted to re-iterate that :)

7-12 & 13

These days were spend on the plane, and we lost one across the international date line, so no journaling here :)

India Journal - 7-10

The past couple of days have been crazy & great all together. God has been doing so many great things already. First, rain on arrival day which is especially awesome thanks to Zechariah 10:1, "Ask the Lord for rain in the spring, for He makes the storm clouds. And He will send showers of rain so every field becomes a lush pasture." and what do you do with lush pastures? HARVEST!!!! How's that for a Rhema word? :)
THEN, one of the groups that I have been taking care of got $73 dollars more than what they needed in, when just one week ago, they were looking at the possibility of cancelling because they still needed $10,000! God is so good, and I know that my life is about to change forever.

*In the Houston airport*

Sitting doing my quiet time before we board our plane to Dubai, I'm looking out the window & praying. I just looked down, and on the ground right outside of the window, guess what number I see? 777. Right there, on the tarmac. God's number. and there's three of them in a row! That means completion!!! God is TOTALLY in this trip, and He's totally anointed us to be here!!! I honestly can't tell you how blessed I feel to be a part of this right now. As I see these Indian people (travelers back to dubai) all around me, my heart is already filled with love. I don't even know these people, but I love them all the same.

It's almost time... =D

This is probably one of the last Pre-India blogs that I'm going to be doing. My schedule for the next few days is going to be crazy & as training starts for me on the 8th & the trip actually leaves for India on the 12th. Needless to say, it might be pretty difficult to get to a computer very often within the next few days.
Here's a glimpse of my schedule:

Tuesday: Last day as an encouragement rep for GE Groups. Wrap things up with all of the Youth Pastors I've been helping out & pass the rest on.
Wednesday: Work Registration for Team Leaders. Meet a few of the people that I've been working with over the phone for the past year =D
Thursday: Missionary Advisor arrival day. Work Registration & start some of my own training :D
Friday: Get to know my fellow MA's and do some leadership training.
Saturday: MISSIONARIES ARRIVE :D!!!!!!!
SUNDAY-Monday = group training & team building
Tuesday - Leave for INDIA!!!!!!!!


The way that the blogging situation is going to work while I'm in India, is I'm going to be journaling everyday from the 10th of July - 5th of August. After I get home, I will post each days journal entry on the blog with the date set to the corresponding day. SO - you can kinda get a sense of what's going on while I'm in India & get a little bit of the experience too :).

Your prayers are definitely appreciated for the entirety of my trip & I can't wait to tell you guys all stories about it when I get back!!!!

Be Blessed!!!!

7-23-2010

Today was definitely refreshing. We went to a christian village. It was AMAXING to be around such a HUGE group of Indian Christians! While we were there, an older woman walked over to me so I could pray for her. I called Yareth & Emily over to lay hands on her. She had problems with her vision, so we prayed. Her vision was low, as Gletseal described.
We all prayed for her & eavh time her vision improved. It was amazing to see too. When we first started praying for her, her eyes were cloudy and white with cataracts, but as we continued to pray, God restored her vision and the cloudy white color disappeared from her pupils!!!

God just keeps teaching me so much about faith. As I'm writing, God is convicting me saying, "You have faith for their healings, why not for your won?" I'm still working on that...

Someday, I'll never have to wear glasses or contacts again... I know it! :)

Finally...

It's finally here.


The day that the Global Expeditions call center has been working for all year.

Through the burn-out, exaustion, stress, and all of the other struggles we've faced with no proof that what we were doing has been for any benefit, we pushed on...knowing that it would all be worth it in the end...


The end is finally here.


TRIP GROUP 1
MISSIONARY ARRIVAL DAY!!!!!!!!


On Monday, the missionaries are FINALLY ARRIVING!!!!!! Team Leaders came yesterday, and Missionary Advisors came today!!!! Missionary arrival day is almost here.

We have fought for these kids and groups to get here ALL YEAR LONG!
First, we fought to get them applied.
App 4 pages of 4, Application fee, parent authorization, pastor reccomendations, pending, COMPLETE!!!
Over and over. 4,000+ times.

App 4/4, app fee, parent auth, pastor rec...Silly GE Rep! error, wait 24 hours, pending...complete!!!!


1st call, 2nd call, group deposit, 50% deadline, ticketing..., Travel Release forms, Background Checks, Passports, 100% deadline ARRIVAL DAY!!!!!!

Day after day, this is what it looked like.

From Early September - mid june.

This is what my life looked like.

"It's a great day at Global Expeditions, this is Kyle, how can I help you?"
"Hi, this is Kyle from Global Expeditions, do you have a minute to talk?"

Millions of times I've spoken these words. After hours and hours of talking on the phones, endless notes, benchmarks, trip codes, trip letter dates.

I've spoken to many varieties of parents: angry parents, excited parents, nervous parents, parents who are afraid to let go for a week, parents who won't even consider letting their children go on a trip even though they're 20, parents who didn't care, parent's who didn't speak english or spanish but randomly spoke romanian, parents who pretended not to speak english, parents who are worried about the conflict in Mx even though we're nowhere near where the travel advisories are in effect, and finally more often than not parents who are actually cooperative .:)

I've spoken to many varieties of students too: Students who are super talkative & won't let you get a word in edgewise, students who ONLY reply in one word answers, students who are afraid to let go, students who are afraid, students who are adventurous, students that will only go if their friend goes, students who get jobs and drop from the trip, students who procrastinate in applying for a passport, students who are fake, students who love the Lord, students who are complacent, students that cannot wait to get on the mission field, and students whose lives have been changed by the trip they took last summer...

And more than any of these, I've talked to some awesome youth pastors that fight through the influences of the world because they want to see the love of Christ come about in the students that they mentor. These people are amazing, and after spending hours and hours on the phone with them, fighting in prayer for them, and through all of the worry about not making deadlines, and financial miracles happening, hearing the awe in the voice of what the Lord is doing is all worth it. I can't wait to talk to them about their trips after they get back and see what the Lord has done in the lives of their students AND adult sponsors.

All of the work is worth it.

Everything that we've done this year is FINALLY coming to fruition.

"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." Galations 6:9

:)

Mountain LTE

Hello Everybody!

Over the past couple of days, I have just recently returned from a trip up to Estes Park, CO with a group of interns for what we call our "Mountain LTE". It was a great experience & I had a lot of fun climbing a mountain with my core and our cousin core's sister core (Haha, don't worry about it, it's a long story).
ANYWAYS...
After a terribly long 20+ hour ride, getting lost in Kansas, and several breakdowns of our buses, we FINALLY made it to Estes Park 7 hours behind schedule. No worries though, it didn't effect any of our time in Estes Park. On Saturday, we had a free day just to roam about and browse through the shops. It was awesome because my family came up to hang out for the day with us! It was great to see them, and to spend the day with them.
On Sunday, our day started at 4 AM. We drove to the Rocky mountain national park & started our trek to the top of Hallet's(sp?) peak. Over snow and rock we ascended to the peak little by little, pushing to make it to each of the checkpoints. Our endurance was tested in many ways, but we prevailed and made it all the way to the top of the mountain. Pictures will be posted :).
After a brief respite at the top of the mountain, we descended with smiles on our faces and accomplishment in our hearts. We found that it's A LOT harder to walk down in the snow than it is to walk up a mountain in the snow, so as a result we more kinda tumbled, slid and skidded down the mountain. It was all tons of fun though. It reminded me how happy I am that I'm from Colorado, and get to be around mountains like this all of the time. No offense to Tx, or anything, but it's just too darn flat for my taste, and hot & humid for that matter. :)


Also, there will be A LOT more to come in the next couple of months, as I now have a LOT more time due to the end of classes. I'll definitely be posting things about my preparation to go to India as it draws closer too!

Be Blessed & I'll talk to y'all later :)

India Financial Update

Thank you to everyone who has donated to my mission trip so far!!!! After my spaghetti dinner, and a few other things for fundraising, my grand total right now stands at $2,400 for my trip to India!!!!
That's 16 Days on the mission field that have been sponsored!!!!!

I'm already a little over half way there!!!!

I'll keep you all updated :)

Short update and fun news

Hey y'all!!!!! :)

I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be coming home for a break on Saturday!!!! I'll be in town from the 10th til the 25th.

And I'm working on my next blog too. It should hopefully be ready really soon. it's about the world awareness LTE :)

Be Blessed :)

World Awareness: experiencing a taste of the persecuted church

Living at Teen Mania gives a wide range of unique experiences because it is like it's own little self-sufficient community a lot of the time. Because we can be so far from the rest of the world, we are able to mix things up for weekends at a time and experience role-plays of situations. This is something that can only be done in such an environment.
This past weekend, I was given a unique opportunity to experience one of these experiences. This was a perspective changing LTE which was created to let us experience on a minor scale what the global church experiences in the way of persecution on a minor scale. We spent a weekend (from thursday night til saturday afternoon)living out this crazy alternate reality.

The set-up:
As the internship was finishing up a movie on Thursday night(Hotel Rwanda), we were interrupted by an ambush of "government facilitators" led by their president. They invaded our campus because they thought that christianity was full of hypocrites and people that were careless of others & only loved themselves. The government wanted to try to reform us.

The play-out:
As soon as Mr. Hasz, the director of the Honor Academy was captured by the government, we all took off and ran to our refugee camp, at this point it was around 2AM. Suddenly, it felt as if we were in the middle of some alternate reality. We had to search around in the woods for some fire wood to build camp fires for our family cores. If we needed to retrieve anything from the dorms, we had to organize runs to get the stuff so we could orchestrate how not to get caught. If we got hungry, we had several different food drop times at different locations that were all being monitored by the government as ambush points. These couple of days were definitely great perspective changing days. One of the most exciting points of this LTE, was when the government decided to ambush our refugee camp. We received some intel telling us that they were coming about 3 minutes before it happened, so we had enough time to grab our water bottles and run. As soon as the government vehicles started showing up, it was like an incredible stampeed of people just running for their lives through the fields of the back 400 acres of campus. At first, we all tried to stay together and establish a new kind of refugee camp, but before long, we realized that this would have to change. My family core knew that this was the time to split off from the group. As we split, a few other people decided to join us as well. So here we are, in the middle of the woods, crouched low so no one from the government would find us, just listening. Listening to the sounds of people getting arrested all around us. Listening to the sound of the distant work camp. Listening for any movement so that we could take off if it happened to be the government. After about 45 minutes, a few of us decided to take off and split off from the group, so the left, leaving the majority of my family core. After a short time, we decided it was time for us to get going too, when all of a sudden someone decked out in camo came walking out of the woods toward us, letting us know that there's been a safe place set up for us, all we have to do is get there. As we were walking, trying not to be heard amongst the crackling leaves, our group got split up as an ambush started happening. My part of the group dropped & waited until the ambush was over since we hadn't been seen, then we booked it back deep into the woods in an effort to stay safe and unseen. This provoked a huge sweep of the area by the government, which luckily for us, stopped right below the ridge that we were looking down on them from.

The movies:
To help give the situation a new perspective and provoke some empathy within us, we were all called back out of the woods at certain times to watch movies that dealt with persecution and things along those lines. Just a couple of the movies we watched were: Hotel Rwanda, The Invisible Children documentary, and others. These definitely helped us build more of a reality of what people go through daily all over the world.

In conclusion:
This has probably been one of my favorite LTE's yet. It was a huge perspective changer, and allowed us to really experience (on a minor and more safe scale) a little bit of what it would be like to be in this situation 24/7. Even though it was only from Thursday night - Saturday, the sense of time definitely blurred & made it hard to keep the time straight. I know that I probably wouldn't have the same empathy and desire to keep the persecuted church covered in prayer as I do now, had I not experienced this weekend. The biggest take away points were probably definitely learning how to have the joy of the Lord in all situations, even in persecution. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, learning how to have the LOVE of the Lord, even in the midst of persecution. In all reality, the reason that these people were overtaking us in the first place, was because they were all hurt by the christian population in general, and we, in an effort to change their minds, had to minister to them in the midst of our persecution. After all, look at Paul. Before he was Paul, when he was Saul, he persecuted and killed christians. Now we have the majority of the New Testament as his letters encouraging the churches.

What kind of impact are we making on the hearts of those around us daily? Are we real with them and showing the love and the joy of the Lord in ALL situations?

UPG

This past weekend, we had an awesome opportunity to take part in something that was a complete perspective changing opportunity The Unreached People Group LTE. This LTE (Life Transforming Event)was a simulation of global missions to unreached people groups. The campus was split into two different jobs, missionaries and tribal people. The tribes were spread all throughout the back 400 acres of the campus and had to develop their own language, do research on the tribe which they were assigned and role play as the tribe would for the entire 30+ hour LTE. The missionaries had to 'catch their flight', 'go through customs', make sure that the hostile 'government' didn't find any Bibles or Christian contraband, and minister to their tribe while constantly being harassed by the government who just wanted to keep the tribes' traditional beliefs intact. It was an interesting challenge for both sides of the spectrum, and definitely a pretty sweet experience altogether.

The role that I played in this LTE was that of a tribal person. I was the tribe leader of the Bhil tribe. The Bhil is an unreached people group native to India that has Hindu beliefs, especially in the goddess Shiva, and they are involved in ancestor worship & consequently, reincarnation. I was over a tribe of 10 other people, and we role played as if we were really the tribe. The missionaries had to find us, get accepted, and then minister to us to try to get us saved.

The whole LTE overall was great. I absolutely loved it, but on Saturday it dropped to ice cold temperatures and high winds and rain, so we had to end early. Because the weather made us end so much earlier than expected, the results weren't as positive as we would have wanted, but I still learned so much!

Biggest Lesson: Whenever I think of missions, I ALWAYS come at it from the perspective of the missionary. I mean, since we are Christians, and we are the ones with the good news... why not? right? WELL, This LTE gave me the opportunity to come at it from the opposite side of things. I got to think of missions as a native to the country of India would. I had to role play in my beliefs and really ask myself Why would I (HYPOTHETICALLY) believe in hinduism,reincarnation etc.etc., and What is holding me to this belief. Talking with my missionaries, I had to really dig deep and have the mindset of Bhil tribesman, and answer as if I were really one.
I think that this LTE was extremely beneficial because it allowed me to get into the mindset of a hindu person. Coincidentally, I'm going to India this summer! SO I believe that God completely set this up for me so that my heart would grow even BIGGER for the hindu/indian people.

Coming soon - a blog about the LTE that's happening this weekend. World Awareness. Be in prayer for all interns and that they would prepare their hearts as this LTE is about the persecuted church around the world. It's gonna be great! :)

Boise, ID Acquire the Fire

Hey y'all,

So, I just got back from the Boise, ID Acquire the Fire event. It was an awesome time, paired with a not so awesome 30+ hour bus ride, but it was definitely worth it. I got to represent Global Expeditions while we were at the event and talk to people about summer mission trips.

Basically, what my week last week looked like: We left Tuesday at 5PM, drove from Tx to Boise, and arrived in Boise at 12AM Thursday morning, slept in the bus til 7AM, then set up stuff until 6, went to our host homes, went back to the venue at 8 Friday morning, set up more, opened doors and worked registration from 4 til 8, and then worked the booth a little bit then, got back to our host home at approx 11, got back to venue at 6:45, and worked the event til 9, then finished packing up by 12AM, and took off back to Tx midnight on sunday. We then drove and arrived back today at 11AM.

Despite the hectic schedule that Acquire the Fire entails for interns, God definitely does tons through our efforts and shows the fruits of our labors in every single thing that happens. One of my favorite things that happened this weekend was something that was an incredible divine appointment, it happened like this:

We woke up at 7AM on Thursday and decided to get breakfast before we started setting up for the day, so we took the bus to the nearest McDonalds. While we were standing in line, a little girl and her mother came over to us and asked us if we were performing at the Morrison Center this weekend. We explained to them that we were setting up for ATF, and gave them the times for the event. They came to buy tickets friday evening, and attended the rest of the weekend. We were pretty excited that God was going to be presented to them, but we had no idea how much of an impact this event would have on this woman and her daughters. Friday night is the night which the drama takes place, and if you've ever been to an ATF, you know how intense the dramas can be. This drama is no exception, it touches on subjects such as teen pregnancy, abortion, pride, losing children, and forgiveness, just to name a few. After the drama, we saw the woman walking out of the theater with her family, and she was crying A LOT. Jessica and I walked over to see what was going on & if we could pray about anything for her. She told us that the drama touched her life in an amazing way because 15 years ago (in a month) was the birthday of her first daughter who miscarriaged. She said that she had never realized it, but she had never dealt with the emotions or dealt with forgiveness within this situation. God had shown her how to use this forgiveness in her life during this event, and had broken her even more with His love than she's ever been broken before.

There are hundreds of stories like this that occur every weekend thanks to the ATF Ministry Team and the support crew of interns that travel out with them. I'm so blessed to be a part of an organization that acts as a missionary organization in every opportunity that it gets.

So that was one of the biggest things that happened to me this weekend. :)
I'm trying to blog more frequently, so keep an eye out :)

Fasting LTE

So, at Teen Mania, we have these things called LTE's, or Life Transforming Events. This past weekend, from Thursday until Sunday at 8AM, we fasted & from Thursday night at 10PM until 8 AM sunday, we also took a vow of silence. The fasting LTE's are some of my favorite events that we have here. We had one in the fall, and just finished our spring one today.

I went into the first fasting LTE expectant that all of the things that we'd been told to focus on would be revealed to us. Which they were, but I left it feeling kind of like I had been deprived of the larger issues of learning more about the different characteristics of God. SO, this fasting LTE, I went into it praying about a few different things, but mainly focusing on spending time with God as my top priority as opposed to focusing so hard on hearing my life mission statement or something like that.

One of the things that I was praying about was what I should do after my undergrad HA year. I had the options of staying as a CA (core advisor) or school of worship GI (graduate intern), or coming back to Salida and starting college & moving on from there. So I prayed about it, and neither of those options are where I'm heading next. I WILL be back in Salida for a little while after the internship, but God has now laid it on my heart to be an intercessory missionary at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO. I will also be developing my skills as a worship leader more for this as well. More development of that to come at a later date... If you want to check it out, the URL is http://www.ihop.org .
I also prayed about where God wanted me to go on a mission trip this summer. There were three countries that were on my heart until the fasting LTE. These countries were Uganda, Haiti, and India. I went to the massive wall map in the Global Expeditions building, and prayed. I asked God to show me which country he had for me to minister to this year, and He led me to India. So, I will be gathering some information shortly, and letting everybody at home know what is going on with India this summer.

But anyways.... The main point of this blog. What did God show me during the fasting LTE?

Well, earlier in the year, I was told that God was going to give me revelation of the end-times bride/bridegroom paradigm of Christianity. I wasn't sure when to expect it, so when it came, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had always though of God as more of a father type figure, but as I came to realize that weekend, God has so many more aspects than just that one. After all, we do consider Him to be the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but I had never thought of Him as God the bridegroom. It's like a completely different aspect of the love that God has for us. It also takes on new meaning if you read through some of the historic Jewish wedding traditions as well. The correlations between these traditions and the end-times prophecies in Revelations are amazing, and definitely something that I'm looking forward to pursuing more and more in the future.

So that was pretty much just an awesome weekend, and if you haven't done anything like that before, I definitely encourage it. Fasting is definitely something that I will do for the rest of my life now, and it is something that has taken on a particularly interesting role in my life with the 'church as the bride' paradigm.

If you want to hear more, or have questions, then definitely leave a comment, or feel free to facebook me or email me.

Have a blessed day!!!

HA

HONOR ACADEMY

The Honor Academy is a place that I have come to absolutely love with all of my heart. God has grown me so much, and I completely love what the ministry does and how we affect people all around the world and around the nation.
The first part of my life at the Honor Academy was a very training intensive time where we pretty much did a ‘world detox’. We limited our access to the outside world all week and took extra doses of God every other hour or so. The only way that I can describe this place is as a spiritual green house. Because of our constant 24/7 immersion in God, we experience incredible growth in every area of our lives. God has blessed me in so many ways and has revealed gifts that I never knew that I had until now AND he’s taught me how to use them for his glory.
All of the classes and leadership that I have, have been incredibly beneficial to me, and one of my most favorite parts of this ministry is my ministry placement (job). For the first semester, I worked as a promotional representative that called youth leaders about taking their groups on missions trips. I made an average of about 76 calls a day + or -. Now I’ve been switched over to be what they call an ‘encouragement representative’, and basically what I do is … well, everything after the application, so I’m doing tons of paperwork, helping out the youth pastors with getting all of their students applied, dealing with money issues & finances for the teams, and so on. It’s great and I love the fact that I am able to help get so many people on the missions field so that they can have such a paradigm shifting experience that they will never see the world the same way… at least that’s how my mission trip effected me, so I can only pray that God will deliver that to all of my missionaries, and I know He’s faithful .My MP team is called dependant, and our verse is John 15:5. God has used this to grow me so much this year. I constantly have to remind myself about relying fully on God and letting myself and my desires go 100%. Everybody at my workplace has definitely had an impact on my life because we are all so incredibly different & we all have something different to bring to the table, but God brought us all together because we all had a hidden passion to get people out on the mission field, and through that, we have become united and through the power of Jesus, we have become strong.

One of the big parts of the HA is the part that becomes like your family for the year. These structures are called your Core. A core consists of a Core Advisor, and anywhere from 6-18 guys. They have a core name and a core verse and core values & things like that. My core name was Untamed, & my first CA’s (Core Advisor) name was Chase,he left after Christmas break due to personal decisions. Our core verse was Hebrews 11: 33-40 & the whole idea of the core was just to live ‘untamed’ and do what we believe to be right in the light of eternity due to the beliefs that we receive by becoming followers of Jesus Christ. I’ll write another reflection blog dedicated to that. Now, due to some changes that occurred, my brothers & I are in a new core called Brotherhood. My new CA's name is Chris Johnson, and I'm super stoked to get to know him & the other guys so much more throughout our remainging 7 months here. In addition to our core, we also have a sister core (or two in our case) which have the same composition as our cores, and together we make a family core. So now, instead of only having one sister like I usually do at home, I am now one of 20-30 people haha.

Some of the most unique things that have grown me in so many ways are called LTE’s (Life Transforming Events). These events are just that, Life transforming. Some of the ones that we have experienced so far are ESOAL (youtube it), the Fasting LTE, and the Men’s LTE. These have had a lot of influence in the way we are molded and shaped. ESOAL especially was something that wrecked my life, body and spirit. All I can really say about this one is that it is exactly what it stands for, an Emotionally Stretching Oppurtunity of A Lifetime. Pretty much the whole idea of it though, is to die to yourself and be able to find joy in all situations. Another one that was definitely life-altering was the fasting LTE. We fasted from Thursday morning all the way ‘til Sunday morning, we also took a vow of silence from 10PM Thursday until we broke fast at 8 on Sunday morning. During this time, we just prayed and worshipped for the whole weekend. God revealed so much about my life and the path that I’m meant to take during that time. We also had a worship leader from the International House of Prayer share some teachings with us. His name was Blaise Forret (Spelling? It sounds like Blaze foray).

In conclusion, from everything that I’ve listed above (which is just a small taste of what we really do on a daily basis) there is an incredible amount of growth and development in so many different ways. It’s a great blessing & I’m so excited to embark on a new experience for 2010. It’s still the same internship, but everything has been switched up again, AND I’ve joined the School of Worship program as well so that I can develop my musical skill and worship leader ability as well as my normal leadership ability. This is definitely going to be a huge step for me in developing the future that God has set aside for me to be a part of. His plans are coming to fruition in so many different and amazing ways that I never would have thought of in a million years.

Panama

As you may remember, the very first step in my voyage away from home as I was graduating from High School was my mission trip to Panama with Global Expeditions, which many of you probably remember receiving a letter from me about requesting your support financially. I was extremely blessed in just about every way possible concerning my trip. I’ll give you a little bit of a summary of what we did while we were there, and then I’ll elaborate on some of the most impacting things that happened to me while we were there.

During my trip to Panama, I was put into a team of 24 students under the direction of two of the best team leaders IN THE WORLD as far as I’m concerned. Their names were Waikiki and Ana. Within this group of 24 students, I served as a ‘Missionary Advisor’ and was in charge of two awesome men of God named Martin and Colton. Our team also decided on a name for ourselves during one of our first meetings as a team, this name was “Team Contact”. We chose the name based on our desire to be able to make contact with the natives in a positive way and also make an amazing impact on their lives regarding the subject of Jesus Christ.

As Team Contact, we traveled to Panama to begin making an impact in these peoples’ lives. This unreached people group that we had our hearts and our prayers set on reaching was a tribe of people called the Kuna Indians. While the children of the areas stole our hearts, God broke our hearts for the Kuna people during all of the preparations we had made, but what God had in store for them, and us, was completely above and beyond anything that we could ever imagine.

We had the privilege of going to two extremely different environments of Panama, but despite the differences there were also many cultural and traditional obstacles that we would have to overcome as we fought for the souls of these people.

The first village trip that we took was to our island of Soledad Mandinga.
After a grueling boat ride that lasted for HOURS on the choppy waters in the Caribbean off of the east coast of Panama, we arrived upon an extremely small island. As our motor boats drew near to the cement dock, we all readied ourselves to start making our first impressions on the natives and began praying over everything that we would be doing over the next week. We hadn’t even been on the island for five minutes when we got our first assignment. Waikiki had talked to our translator & come upon some information that said that the Kuna people on the island were in the middle of a project in which their main objective was to haul sand from one side of the island to the opposite end in buckets to make their volleyball court more comfortable and fun to play on. After a couple hours of moving all of this sand in the grueling Central American summer heat, we finally got a chance to rest & get to know the natives a little bit. This place was an amazingly beautiful island in the middle of the ocean off of the east coast of panama, but the primitive conditions made it more brutal than a trip to the beach haha. We quickly learned how to take ‘bucket showers’ and use a ‘squatty’ when we needed to use the bathroom. Unfortunately the presence of the squatty made it impossible for us to swim in the ocean, if you know what I mean.

One of the biggest things that God worked on me the most towards the end of our first village trip and through the rest of the whole trip to Panama was the use of Idols that the Kuna people still worked with. For me, at first it was difficult to understand the whole concept of idol worship, especially in terms of modern times. They used the idols to guard them from the demons that the gods would send to attack them in various ways . They would also perform interesting pagan healing techniques and stuff that for us would be difficult to understand. I really struggled with this in particular, just because I didn’t understand why they would still cling to their old traditions even though they had seen the glory and magnificence of our God during the time that we were there. God worked on me a lot though, consequently leading me to start casting away idols that were present in my life. He gave me an understanding that just because I hadn’t had any carved images that I worshipped, I still had some of my same old idols that would take up all of my time and my focus, and that I needed to get rid of those. God definitely weeded those out of my life when I was in Panama and when I entered the Honor Academy.

Intro

So, by the recommendation of my friend Tyler, I've decided to start blogging a journal about everything that's happening in my life, so that everybody back home, or around the world as it may turn out since so many of my friends seem to be all over the place anymore. So here it goes. :)