"The winter has past and the springtime has come."
"Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands & a pure heart."
What does it look like to live a lifestyle of ministry, of pouring out your heart to the broken and the needing, to walk hand and hand with Jesus wherever the Holy Spirit may lead, and not get burned out? As Christians, this is a huge question, and a necessary one to figure out because we are called to live this type of lifestyle. Whether you are called to the "mission field", to the marketplace, to be a stay at home mom or dad, or whatever you want to categorize it as... We are all called to live a life worthy of the gospel. I believe we can find all the answers in the Word, by revelation through the Holy Spirit, and then by acting it out.
I've been in the lovely state of California for a total for 18 days now, and let me just say: it's been amazing. Yes, California is amazing... but living in community with an incredible family, spending every morning with my team before the Lord, playing with children, setting up ministry nights, hanging out with the homeless, hearing the unheard and touching the shunned... I could do this for the rest of my life. As Kellye and I headed in to this outreach, we really felt it was on the Lords heart to create a lifestyle of ministry, something our team could continue even when their DTS was finished. Little did I know, it was something I needed to learn, maybe even more. The Lord has opened up a place in my heart I didn't know existed, and I'm finding out that the closer I get to Him, the more it's not actually my heart, but it's His heart inside of me, and when I rely on HIS strength and not my own, I can do anything.
For the past 2 1/2 weeks we have been blessed in more ways than I could tell you. We received so many words about us having favor on this outreach, and that word has already been fulfilled time and time again. One day before we left, we lost all of our housing for LA & found out that we only had $150.00 for transportation for 7 weeks. Leading a team of 5 girls, that's just not okay, haha. Well of course the Lord was faithful and 20 minutes before boarding the plane, we received 7 weeks of housing with Dave Gibbons (Pastor of Newsong - Irvine) & his family, and was provided with transportation. That was just the beginning of it. Because we lost housing & moving from LA to Irvine, all of the contacts also changed. Well of course the Lord came through again and all of our contacts were provided here in Irvine. There have been healings, salvations, breakthroughs, and the list goes on and on. OH! And the house cooks Gluten-Free so that's always another blessing :). When we trust in the Lord, when we put our hope in Him, we will NOT be disappointed!! Because He is not a God who disappoints, but gives good gives to His children. I am so happy to be His daughter :).
I want to share a little bit of the ministries we are working with this way you have a little bit of an idea of what happens on a day to day basis!
In the mornings we spend 2 hours before the feet of Jesus, worshiping, praying, and then figuring out what the day will look like. On Tuesdays through Fridays we go to a place called Bishop Mannor. It's a community of 1/2 Hispanic & 1/2 Cambodian that is run by gangs, but they have an after school program run by an amazing lady, Norma. So we go in from 1030am-1pm and do crafts with the kids, play with them in the pool, have a 500 water balloon fight, teach them bible studies, and really whatever we want to do. Norma has given us free reign to do whatever we want to do, and it's a blast!! The kids range from ages 4-15 and are so hungry for friendship & truth.Depending on the days we do different things. On Thursday afternoons & Saturday mornings we spend about 3 hours downtown Santa Ana which is about 15 minutes North of Irvine. There is a community of about 300 homeless men & women who live around the library. We have an amazing time going there. We are working with an incredible friend of Dave's, Maribel. She has an incredible story of the Lord redeeming her heart & life and we feel so privileged to be partnering up with her. When we go we pray for people, build relationships, hand out watermelon & water, and really just try to love of them the best we can. Because in the end all we have to offer is the love of Jesus. We have met some incredible people on these days.
As soon as we arrived, we were invited to come along side of Newsong and help with any area we were willing to. So to start off we joined their Sunday morning prayer team. This has been an incredible time of growing our faith, seeing salvations & healings while praying for people, and just stirring our hunger for more. Along with that we are also a part of helping launch a new ministry there called "Soak". For those of you from River Life Fellowship, it is kind of like "God Encounter". It has been so awesome helping the worship leader of Newsong, Neah, set up this night. Our first one was this past Friday and we have already began to see healings and the restoration of hearts. The Lord just continues to pour out His grace & faithfulness. We have also done a lot of Treasure Hunts in the malls around here, been able to pray with the owner of a major hotel in Irvine & pray for the hotel and it's future. The Lord has provided so many opportunities for us to invest in relationships and build up the church and connect different people, which was our whole heart for this outreach. We are so excited to see all that the Lord does because if He has already done so much in just 2 1/2 weeks, what else does He have in store for us these next 5 weeks we have left in Irvine!?
Thank you all so much for your prayers and partnering with us. We have already been transformed and the Lord is continuing to do such a great work, not just externally but also internally in each one of us. He is faithful and worthy of ALL our praise!!
If you would like to read more about what He is doing, please follow our Team Blog by clicking here: Call2All - LA/NY. I'll leave you with a couple more pictures from some fun things we've been able to do :)
The first picture is of all of us girls after our first night of Soak with Neah (the one in the middle in the pink). Then the second picture is of Kellye (my co-leader) & I on the 4th of July hanging out while watching the fireworks in the 3rd picture.
The 4th picture is our whole amazing team right after church at Newsong for the 2nd time! (from left to right: Erin, Rami, Kellye, Me, Rosey, Nali, & Jamie)
I love these girls so much!! I could not have asked for a more incredible and full of fire set of women.
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