Beautiful readers! It is such a joy to be able to have a place to share with you what the Lord is doing in & through my life. I hope that as you look around, read some, and enjoy the pictures, you are filled with hope, encouragement, love & inspiration. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at oceansroar@gmail.com. Here is a little bit of what the Lord has done in the past 2 years and also what is happening next for me & this crazy journey He has me on :)
In April 2010 I decided to do my DTS (discipleship training school) in Kona, Hawaii with YWAM (Youth With A Mission). The focus of the DTS was photography. For 3 months we dived into hearing the voice of God, learning about His love, getting wrecked by revelation & anointing, and learning how to evangelize in any situation. The next three months a group of 20 of us traveled to India to poured out every part of ourselves, and more, into many lives, communities, mothers, fathers, & children. We were able to use our gifting of photography to show people how beautiful they were, not only in our eyes but in the Fathers eyes.
After I finished my DTS, the Lord lead me back to Kona in February 2011. This time I was not the student, but rather on staff with a department inside of YWAM, Call2All. Their heart is to reach every single person with the gospel. It covers all spheres of society & focuses on unreached people groups. I spent 2 months getting ready for the school, which would start in April. At the beginning of this journey I had no idea all that the Lord would do. Everything He did was above and beyond my hearts desires, and the exciting part is He is not done! From April to June we again, poured our lives out into these students lives. We were all captivated, as a family, by true Love Himself. We went deep fast in our relationships & seized every moment together. In the beginning of July I lead a team of incredible, firey women to California. Few of us had ever evangelized in the US before, and we loved it! The Lord showed me so much about boldness & fearlessness and surrounded our team with such incredible people who encouraged us & pushed us on. We were able to hang out each with a gang communities, go into the richest parts & the poorest parts of the cities, we helped pioneer ministry nights within churches, & loved on any one we could. At the beginning of September we all headed back to Kona to join with our whole DTS family again & to volunteer our whole school to the campus as they prepared for a conference.
So here I am again finishing one page of the story & walking into another. It has been an incredible 2 years seeing the Lord do the impossible and go deeper into my heart than I knew possible. At the end of each season, I always catch myself reminiscing about how incredible He is, how faithful He is, & how through it all He loves me more than I could ever fathom. He truly is a good good God!
Ever since I was little, I was a planner. I loved knowing what was going to happen next & plan how I could prepare myself in every aspect for what was in store. I believe part of this is a gift and blessing from the Lord on how He made me... but I also believe that it can be taken too far. I leaned too much into my own understanding of things & trusted too much in "plans" which natural made it so I wasn't trusting enough in God and who He was. Over the past few years, the Lord has been breaking me of this. Everytime I would plan something, and even in good intention, somehow it would not work out. He is so gracious though to always have something else for us, which is better than we could ever imagine or plan ourselves. And that's where this next season is going for me... I am walking into the unknown, without a strategic step-by-step plan of what I will be doing... but I have never felt so at peace and so alive and so expectant for the spirit to do what He does best! I am learning to bend but not break, to be blown by the spirit while being grounded at the same time. And with each season He takes me higher with Him, and brings me lower in myself, giving me freedom, revelation, restoration & love. I have no reason to doubt His goodness or to loose hope or trust in Him.
I have been home for about 6 months total now. When I came home, I wasn't planning on staying but the Lord was planning on it. I felt called to stay to deepen relationships, to stay focused out of a community, and really I was just expected to see what the Lord was going to do. In this time of being home, I can see the Lords hand all over it and realize that He was strengthening my heart and deepening my roots. In the bottom of my heart I had a fear that I would use an organization or community as a crutch, and I believe the Lord pulled me home for a season to show me that He is my strength & song, and the reason I live and love Him, not anything else. And He has done a great job at that. I am truly thankful that I've been able to be home and really spend time with my family, my friends, my church, and to deepen my heart in the word of God and see Him move in awesome ways.
Just shy of a week ago, the Lord started to allow some things in my life to be built up, and some of them were being torn down. I was in a state of confusion, and cried out to the Lord for clarity. In this moment I was asked a question by my dad, "Lizzie, if you could do anything, if money wasn't a hindrance, and if peoples opinions didn't matter, what would you do?" Immediately, my heart answered "go back to Hawaii". I then listened to a sermon by my pastor about going with your heart, and how when your heart is rooted in grace, the Lord blesses what you decide to do. In that moment I felt commissioned by the Father to really go after the dreams in my heart. And one of those dreams is to be in Hawaii, living in community, being poured into by mothers & fathers of the faith, and then in turn pouring that into those around me, and loving on the Father every moment of it. I feel fulfilled in this place and that I am walking in the calling & destiny the Lord has for me. And who wouldn't want that ;) ?
I plan on leaving at the end of March (just a little over 2 weeks), and I will be on staff with Fire & Fragrance. I will be joining some of my best friends in the Leadership Track they run on campus. Some of this will include: Prayer room staff, ministry into the town of Kona, serving the campus in needed areas, staffing DTS, staffing schools and leading outreaches, participating with another pioneer community, teaching in schools, and ministry trips. The point of this track is to raise up a generation sold out for the Lord, living a lifestyle of honor and respect, worship and intimacy with the Lord. It will be an intense season of seeking the Lord for the present and the future and investing in relationships as well as training and preparing for all the Lord has for my life!! I am extremely excited and expectant of what the Lord will be doing during this season & cannot wait to see it all unfold.
If you would like to know how you can invest in this time & what the Lord is doing, please head over to How You Can Be A Part.
God bless you!
In April 2010 I decided to do my DTS (discipleship training school) in Kona, Hawaii with YWAM (Youth With A Mission). The focus of the DTS was photography. For 3 months we dived into hearing the voice of God, learning about His love, getting wrecked by revelation & anointing, and learning how to evangelize in any situation. The next three months a group of 20 of us traveled to India to poured out every part of ourselves, and more, into many lives, communities, mothers, fathers, & children. We were able to use our gifting of photography to show people how beautiful they were, not only in our eyes but in the Fathers eyes.
After I finished my DTS, the Lord lead me back to Kona in February 2011. This time I was not the student, but rather on staff with a department inside of YWAM, Call2All. Their heart is to reach every single person with the gospel. It covers all spheres of society & focuses on unreached people groups. I spent 2 months getting ready for the school, which would start in April. At the beginning of this journey I had no idea all that the Lord would do. Everything He did was above and beyond my hearts desires, and the exciting part is He is not done! From April to June we again, poured our lives out into these students lives. We were all captivated, as a family, by true Love Himself. We went deep fast in our relationships & seized every moment together. In the beginning of July I lead a team of incredible, firey women to California. Few of us had ever evangelized in the US before, and we loved it! The Lord showed me so much about boldness & fearlessness and surrounded our team with such incredible people who encouraged us & pushed us on. We were able to hang out each with a gang communities, go into the richest parts & the poorest parts of the cities, we helped pioneer ministry nights within churches, & loved on any one we could. At the beginning of September we all headed back to Kona to join with our whole DTS family again & to volunteer our whole school to the campus as they prepared for a conference.
So here I am again finishing one page of the story & walking into another. It has been an incredible 2 years seeing the Lord do the impossible and go deeper into my heart than I knew possible. At the end of each season, I always catch myself reminiscing about how incredible He is, how faithful He is, & how through it all He loves me more than I could ever fathom. He truly is a good good God!
And A New Chapter Begins...
Ever since I was little, I was a planner. I loved knowing what was going to happen next & plan how I could prepare myself in every aspect for what was in store. I believe part of this is a gift and blessing from the Lord on how He made me... but I also believe that it can be taken too far. I leaned too much into my own understanding of things & trusted too much in "plans" which natural made it so I wasn't trusting enough in God and who He was. Over the past few years, the Lord has been breaking me of this. Everytime I would plan something, and even in good intention, somehow it would not work out. He is so gracious though to always have something else for us, which is better than we could ever imagine or plan ourselves. And that's where this next season is going for me... I am walking into the unknown, without a strategic step-by-step plan of what I will be doing... but I have never felt so at peace and so alive and so expectant for the spirit to do what He does best! I am learning to bend but not break, to be blown by the spirit while being grounded at the same time. And with each season He takes me higher with Him, and brings me lower in myself, giving me freedom, revelation, restoration & love. I have no reason to doubt His goodness or to loose hope or trust in Him.
I have been home for about 6 months total now. When I came home, I wasn't planning on staying but the Lord was planning on it. I felt called to stay to deepen relationships, to stay focused out of a community, and really I was just expected to see what the Lord was going to do. In this time of being home, I can see the Lords hand all over it and realize that He was strengthening my heart and deepening my roots. In the bottom of my heart I had a fear that I would use an organization or community as a crutch, and I believe the Lord pulled me home for a season to show me that He is my strength & song, and the reason I live and love Him, not anything else. And He has done a great job at that. I am truly thankful that I've been able to be home and really spend time with my family, my friends, my church, and to deepen my heart in the word of God and see Him move in awesome ways.
Just shy of a week ago, the Lord started to allow some things in my life to be built up, and some of them were being torn down. I was in a state of confusion, and cried out to the Lord for clarity. In this moment I was asked a question by my dad, "Lizzie, if you could do anything, if money wasn't a hindrance, and if peoples opinions didn't matter, what would you do?" Immediately, my heart answered "go back to Hawaii". I then listened to a sermon by my pastor about going with your heart, and how when your heart is rooted in grace, the Lord blesses what you decide to do. In that moment I felt commissioned by the Father to really go after the dreams in my heart. And one of those dreams is to be in Hawaii, living in community, being poured into by mothers & fathers of the faith, and then in turn pouring that into those around me, and loving on the Father every moment of it. I feel fulfilled in this place and that I am walking in the calling & destiny the Lord has for me. And who wouldn't want that ;) ?
I plan on leaving at the end of March (just a little over 2 weeks), and I will be on staff with Fire & Fragrance. I will be joining some of my best friends in the Leadership Track they run on campus. Some of this will include: Prayer room staff, ministry into the town of Kona, serving the campus in needed areas, staffing DTS, staffing schools and leading outreaches, participating with another pioneer community, teaching in schools, and ministry trips. The point of this track is to raise up a generation sold out for the Lord, living a lifestyle of honor and respect, worship and intimacy with the Lord. It will be an intense season of seeking the Lord for the present and the future and investing in relationships as well as training and preparing for all the Lord has for my life!! I am extremely excited and expectant of what the Lord will be doing during this season & cannot wait to see it all unfold.
If you would like to know how you can invest in this time & what the Lord is doing, please head over to How You Can Be A Part.
God bless you!
