Ministry on ministry on ministry... a quick update

I have no idea how these last 6 months have passed so fast.  It's been a whirlwind of craziness with no time to process.  When I've tried to give people a quick update on my life many get very confused about where I was/am/will be and when and what I'm doing.  Well, here's the summary: I spent the month of May at home, the month of June in Thailand serving with the Feed My Lambs Foundation, the month of July in Central America living with a pastor and his family and serving their church, I had a week of recuperation and preparation back at home, and then, somehow, I found myself heading back here to Judson University a week early for Resident Assistant training, moving into the freshman girls dorm of Ohio Hall, and then going to classes and assuming my RA duties.  For my practicum class this year I am, along with another Judson Christian Ministries student, running a ministry to under-resourced children living in an apartment complex 10 minutes from campus.  Every Thursday night we have a time of worship, teaching from the Bible, small groups, snacks, homework help, and reading and math practice.  For another class, I am creating a hypothetical ministry.  This includes writing a theology, philosophy, staff recruitment and training plans, creating programs and events, and putting together a year-long calendar, to name just a few.  To put it another way I went from ministry abroad to living in ministry, creating ministry, learning about ministry, and running a ministry.  On top of all this I'm trying to have friends and do well in all my classes.  Now that it's getting down to finals, I feel like it's all pressing in on me, and it's a bit overwhelming.  Prayers for all these ministries I have been so blessed to be a part of and for school in general would be wonderful (good grades would be nice).  I hope to get some blogging done over Christmas break so I can share some more specific and awesome God stories from all these ministries!  I am tired, a bit anxious, overwhelmed, and feel like I'm going a little insane, BUT I am also growing, learning, being stretched, seeing God in new ways, discovering things about myself, and being so incredibly and undeservedly blessed by all I am involved in.  I realize that this is a very unique time in my life, and, despite the difficulties, I am enjoying everything I'm doing and thankful for every crazy part of it!

I also want to thank everyone again who supported me over the summer, has kept up with my updates, has encouraged me, and has remembered me in their prayers.  This means the world to me, and, God knows, without you all in my life, none of what I'm doing would be possible.  So, thank you for being part of every ministry, every life change, every time of growth, every miracle, ... Thank you for being the hands, feet, and words of the Lord for me.

God bless!

"I thank my God every time I remember you.  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" -Philippians 1:3-4

Sierra Leone: Lesson #1 PRAYER IS POWERFUL!

My team minus Dr. Dave

A little over a month and my team of 12 Judson University students and 1 professor will be flying to Sierra Leone!!!  One thing I've learned about short term missions trips from my past experience and that's being confirmed for this trip is the importance of the before and after trip as well as the trip itself!  Already this semester God has blown me away by how he's working in my team.  Here is a recent crazy awesome God story from our team:

Friday, January 18th, my Sierra Leone team had our first meeting of the semester.  During this meeting our professors informed us that we only had $7,000 raised for our trip and that the only way we would be able to go on this trip this spring break was if we raised $10,000 in a week.  We talked about waiting to go to Sierra Leone until Christmas break 2013 or even Spring 2014.  We discussed using the money to go somewhere locally as well.  One of my team mates, who is from the Ukraine then stood up and started talking about how he had been having trouble getting his Visa to go to Sierra Leone.  He had been very discouraged and almost ready to quit the class, but that afternoon had received a call from the embassy in Sierra Leone and was encouraged to continue to pursue this trip.  Another friend stood up and shared how she had really wanted to go to Brazil instead, but since the decision was made for Sierra Leone the Lord had given her a heart for the people there.  I also felt very much that God had led us to go to Sierra Leone and already connected our hearts with the hearts of the people in Sierra Leone. Others stood up and shared the same kinds of encouragement.  So, we prayed and asked God to provide for us $10,000 by the next Friday at 5pm.  Instead of leaving that meeting discouraged, I left with excitement and anticipation and with faith that God would come through.  We attempted various special fundraisers throughout the week, but none of them were very successful.  We called, texted, and facebooked friends to ask them to pray and possibly donate.  On Thursday we found out we had a total of $15,000 in our account meaning that to get what we needed to be able to go we needed $2,000 more by the next day.  I got a text message from our team leader on Friday, January 25th, at around 1pm that our total for the day was $17,500!!!  God provided BEYOND what we HAD to have to make it possible to go on this trip in just ONE WEEK!!  It's incredible!  We all took that as a word from God telling us that Sierra Leone was definitely His plan for our team.  Since then planning has been kicked up a notch and we're going crazy getting Visas worked out, fundraising more, planning, and praying, among other things as we prepare!  It's so good to have that reminder that what we are doing is in God's will.  He is the one who made this trip possible and He has been so faithful in every aspect of our planning!

Please continue to pray for my team as we plan this trip!  We are learning as we go!  Thank you SO MUCH to all those who have supported me in anyway!  You are a blessing!  God is faithful, He hears our prayers, and He answers them.

Blessings!
-Miranda

Urbana: Prayer Room

 All week I had been keeping myself busy at the Urbana Student Missions Conference by making sure I attended every seminar I possibly could, trying to get through the exhibit hall, worried that I was going to miss an exhibit I should have visited, and looking through the book store to see if there were any MUST haves.  In a way I had been putting off going to the prayer rooms they offered.  There was so much else that I had to get done!  I couldn't miss anything!  But, the whole conference long in the back of my mind I knew I should spend a little time there.  Maybe a half hour before dinner or something.  The last full day of Urbana I finally made my way to the ministry prayer room.  It was pretty neat!  They had booths set up with guidance questions, verses, and activities to help think and pray through confession, forgiveness, identity, fear, and things like that.  I spent some time walking around and looking at what was there.

Finally I sat down against the wall and tried to clear my mind.  I felt that God was speaking to me, so I got out my notebook at started to compose a letter to myself from God containing what I believe he was speaking to me during that time.  This is what I heard the Lord saying, and I hope He uses this to speak to you as well:

"My Dear Child, 
Find peace in me, come to me
relax and find joy in me.  
Stop trying to fill the "empty space"
with busy, meaningless work.
COME TO ME.  Come and give
me your burdens,  I WANT
to be with you, but sometimes
you consistently avoid me.
Stop trying to put conditions on me like "if He would 
just speak clearly I'll be content."
You'll always be in a struggle and you'll always
want more, but instead of getting anxious enjoy
my presence, lose yourself
in me.  Lose yourself and
focus on me.  Only then will you see yourself through
my eyes only then will you be filled with truth and
 freed from fear.  Come.  Enjoy.  Have peace.  I enjoy you,
and I long for you to enjoy me.  I love you,
Daddy"

A lot of this probably doesn't make sense, and this is definitely not the Bible.  This is just my humble human effort to put into words what I believe God was speaking, but I hope you can see God's truths in this personal letter and that you can make it your own.  God ENJOYS you!  He loves you and longs for time with you!  He wants you to just BE with Him.  After writing this, God led me to read the story of Jesus' visit to Mary and Martha found in Luke 10:38-42.  In this passage, Martha opens her home to Jesus but then gets "distracted by all the preparations that had to be made."  While she's rushing around trying to make everything perfect to please Jesus, Martha's sister Mary is just sitting at Jesus' feet soaking up His words.  Martha gets upset that Mary isn't helping her so she goes to Jesus and says "Lord don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!"  I can identify with Martha.  So many times I can get caught up in all the preparations.  I get distracted by all the things I have to get done.  I need to serve here and go there and make sure I do the right thing in this situation and say that to this person.  Serve, serve, serve, work, work, work as if I could earn the approval of God or somehow make myself presentable to Him or pleasing to Him.  Don't get me wrong, serving is awesome!  We're called to serve God and others as Christians, but we do this out of our love for God and amazement at His love for us, not because it will get us anything or earn us anything in return.  Jesus responds to Martha in verses 41-42, "'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'"  What Jesus says about Martha is the same for me.  I get so worried and upset about so many things, but the only thing that is needed is Jesus.  Maybe you can relate.  After reading this, I felt God saying this to me: Are you going to busy yourself with preparations while I wait, or will you come and listen and enjoy me?  Your "good deeds" won't make you valuable. I DO."  It's up to you.  Don't miss out on spending time with God!  He's calling you, He enjoys you, and He loves you.  Spend some time with Him not asking Him for anything, not worrying about anything, not getting upset over anything, but just enjoy being in His presence!

Urbana 2012: Summary

  For those of you who don't know, Urbana Student Missions Conference is one of the worlds largest missions conferences!  It is a 5 day conference that is held every three years.  Students from all over the globe come to worship together, pray together, learn together, eat together, buy books, and connect with 250+ missions agencies, seminaries, organizations, and ministries!  I had the incredible opportunity to attend this conference with 3 other students from my school!
  Each day of Urbana started with Bible study in our hotel.  We would look over a passage of scripture and come up with observations and questions to share in a small group of people around us and then with the the whole group.  This was a great time to really look carefully at scripture and to hear the different things different people saw in the stories and teaching us Jesus.  Everyone had a different take on the scripture or different background knowledge that made it very interesting and helped me to see things in the passage I had never seen before!
   Each morning, after Bible study, and night, to end the day, we had sessions in the dome that consisted of worship in MANY different languages, testimonies from students on how missions had changed their lives, testimonies from people who have worked in missions, dramas, dancing, and a message.  One night we got to pack 32,000 medical kits to send to caregivers in Swaziland!  Hundreds of people gave their lives to Christ and rededicated their lives to Christ and thousands committed to sharing the gospel with their unreached friends, doing short term missions, and even doing long-term missions!  It was super exciting!  Our last session in the dome was to ring in the New Year!  We danced and worshipped together and rang in the New year with a Hindi song "Yeshu Tera Naam" finishing off our time together by going crazy to "I Am Free."
   During the day we got to pick different seminar teachings to attend.  There were SO MANY it was so hard to choose!  I went to seminars on women in missions, building community for at-risk children and youth, contemplative activism, living in the slums, ending extreme poverty, human trafficking, and multicultural worship!  I took lots of notes and received a lot of useful information!  Between and after seminars we had a little time to go to the book store of "apostolic proportions," where they had great deals on books of every topic imaginable!  There was also an exhibit hall full of 250+ booths representing missions agencies, ministries, seminaries, organizations, and things like that!  I spend time talking with people at these booths and getting information on ministries I could potentially work with!  It was overwhelming, but exciting!  At Urbana they also had several different prayers rooms.  They had a worship room, ministry prayer room, and missional prayer room.
   Needless to say, we had hardly any free time and were overwhelmed with information, but it was all wonderful!  I may post later about some specific things I learned as I go through my notes, books, and pamphlets trying to process the loads of information I received.  Overall, this experience was encouraging, as I joined together with thousands of people on fire for God and His mission in the world, informational, as I sat through teachings and seminaries and had conversations with people, and very inspirational!