Love from a father from the Father

I just went through a really rough past couple of days, don't worry I got out alive and better than before ;).  I felt tired, burned out, confused, out of place, worried, sad & lonely.  I called my dad, my earthly dad.  It felt so good.  I was brought back to being a little girl...  I didn't have to hide anything or have it all together.  It didn't matter that my voice was cracking as tears began to fall on my knees as I was bent over... I was in the lap of one who loves me so much (or it felt like it atleast).  Someone who will always approve of me and delight in me.  I was with the one man whose been there with me since birth... He knows my ups, He knows my downs and he knows my in-betweens.  I was myself; broken and needing a touch.  His words of wisdom, love, comfort & encouragement began to come through the phone... From Connecticut to Irvine California, straight to my heart.  It was renewing & strengthening.  It gave me hope & healed my heart.  I felt my daddy and I became years closer within 30 minutes... And it wasn't by striving - it was by letting go, by getting low & receiving love as I poured out all I had.

All this from a man, born into sin but redeemed by the Grace of God.  CHOSEN to be my dad, and me chosen to be HIS daughter.  Both being trusted with each others hearts.  It was beautiful.  It was a picture of my heavenly Father.  If my earthly dad can love me even an ounce of what I know he does, HOW MUCH MORE! my heavenly Father... who is perfect, who created love... who is the whole definition of love and perfection, wholeness and holiness...


"My God is greater.  My God is stronger.  God you are higher than any other!"
"And if our God is for us, then who can ever stop us?  And if our God is with us, then who can stand against?"

Oh the beauty of the reality of my Father.  I am loved, protected & heard.
I am comforted, lifted up & preferred.
I am delighted in.
My Father is proud of me.
I am a kings daughter...
Accepted - Anointed - Authorized.

Who is this King of Glory that He would love me?  In my sin he loves me... so much that He gave His son, to die a painful, bloody, nasty death so no longer would a veil seperate us but so it could be torn by the King Himself so His bride could be face to face with her maker.
There is no greater love than this.


"If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who seek him."  - Matthew 7:11

"If God is for us, who can be against us?" - Romans 8:31

Hello from California!

"Seek first the Kingdom and all these things shall be added unto you."
"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.

LA & NY Here We Come!!!

Wow.  Has it really already been 3 months since I started this journey?  I honestly cannot believe it.  In ways it seems like it just started last week, in other ways it feel like I've been doing this forever.  Regardless of what it feels most like, I wouldn't trade a second of it for anything.  I've learned so much, I've grown so much and been set free in so many different ways and depths and it's only just begun really!

I am sitting on my couch right now in my room with so many emotions running through me... 2 of my roommates and fellow staffers have already left, one to Kenya & the other to the Philippines.  Brazil has already been invaded with a team as well... In just a few 4 days I will be leaving as well.

                                                 My Co-Leader & I, Kellye Vetter 

On Wednesday I will be landing in Los Angeles leading a team of 5 amazing woman (Rosemary, Jamie, Rami, Erin, & Nali) with my co-leader Kellye Vetter.  in L.A. we will be going to universities, setting up Open Mic Nights at cafe's, street evangelism, working with orphans and prostitutes, hanging out and worshiping in parks, loving on the homeless and the wealthy all with a heart to love those who have never seen true love, to bring a heart of Kingdom Family into a dry & thirsty land, to set the captives free, heal the sick & raise the dead... We want to live the abundant life we have been given through grace by Jesus Christ everywhere we go... to set ourselves on fire with the love of Christ and allow the world to watch us burn.  After 7 weeks of that, we will transition and fly to New York!!  Our heart is the same for this place, although it will look a little different.  We are partnering up with Models of Christ and working at the Fall Fashion Week.  Some of us will be back stage dressing models, others of us will be interning with photographers and bloggers and also getting into the shows. During this week we will be hosting a burn & partnering up with 3 other YWAM teams to set the tone of the love of the Father to flood through this week.  We will be in NY a total for 4 weeks.  Then we head home!!

That's the outline, but doesn't even scratch the surface of what Jesus will do.  We are expectant to see crazy crazy things happen and aren't afraid to pray faith filled prayers of craziness.  We love Jesus and want to live like it and see other people transformed by it.  It's that's simple and that amazing.  We are so stoked! I am so stoked!!

Please partner with us in prayer if you want to!  America is a hard place, hungry and thirsty for truth, and we fully believe we are entering into these major lands at a perfect time when the people are ripe for Jesus and we cannot wait to see what it looks like.  Thank you all for your prayers thus far!
Please continue following this blog as we travel and I will also post another link soon for our Team Blog that will be updated weekly.

I love you all and miss you a lot!!!

The Whole Team Taken @ Love Feast

 [From Left to Right: Rami, Jamie, Rosemary, Me, Kellye, Erin, Nali]

Straight from the Journal

Saturday afternoon. 3pm. Dried. Sandy. Just returned from Samples at Costco & the beach.  Surrounded by hungry daughters and sons - craving to be loved & accepted, wanting so badly to know Truth, and some of them don't even know it - and we are all in it together.  The waves crash... I look at a few of the girls through my aviators and we talk about life... I sit there, I look - my eyes begin to water behind the lens and my heart begins to feel broken & satisfied.  I know how they feel! I know the aches & pain & questions & insecurities & wonders & hopes & joys & losses ... And I know the freedom and restoration, healing & victories that are coming! "This is what I was made to do" I thought to myself sitting there.  Love God . Love people.  Jesus Knew, God has it figured out.  As all three of them were communing, living community out, fellow-shipping in the fullness, they knew our most fulfilled thing in life would be to Love God and to Love People.
In my opinion, one of the best things to do is to listen to hearts.  Because not only do you get to see the reality of a person, not only do you get to see another side of God... But in those moments, however long or short, that daughter, or that son, is trusting you & in that they are allowing themselves to become vulnerable, making room, believing in and hoping for Truth to come, Healing to become a reality and love to saturate there lives because they know it's possible and everything within them desires to keep hoping it'll come their way.

The beauty about this season for me is that I can watch it all, I can be the hands and feet of Jesus!  I can sit there, eyes and ears and heart open and be what they need and usher them to the feet of Jesus, and war for their freedom.
 My heart is so alive.  I am so happy.  The Lord is showing me so much as I just allow Him to use me without me having my own "opinions" getting in the way - because I realize they just get in the way, and I don't really care about my opinions at the end of the day - I just want the fullness of Jesus.  I could not have dreamed to be anywhere else.  He knows what He's doing and I am so glad that I can trust Him.  No matter what it looks like, He is trustworthy, He is true, He is truth.

Doing out of Resting

Date: April 1st, 2011
Time: 1:08pm
Weather: 82 Degrees Fahrenheit
Mood: Happy/Expectant/Content/Relaxed/Smilie

Well... After about 15 hours of working on the Call2All Syllabus for this 2011 April DTS, I feel good.  I love putting my hard work into something and being happy with the result.  They still need to be printed and organized, but I really love hard work and knowing I am being productive.

For quite a while, I feel like my heart went into this "rest" mode, in a not good way.  Rest is good, do not get me wrong.  Rest is such a beautiful thing in Jesus, but I took it out of context just a little bit in that I had began to think, without even realizing it, "I don't need to do anything.  I am only called to Rest."  Yes, we are called to rest in Jesus... but out of that everything else flows.  I was selfishly resting in a weird place and not allowing the fullness of that to come through my every day life.  Since doing this syllabus, the Lord has really shown my heart a lot about resting in Him.  That it's a continual state.  It's not just laying down, it's not checking out, it's not isolating yourself.  It's being in a continual state of resting in His presence, of having clean hands and a pure heart so that I may ascend the hill of the Lord, it's positioning my heart to receive His love and allowing Him to pour out of me.  It's living intimately, in every situation, every circumstance, every hour & second of the day, with Jesus.
I never realized it, until this week, but I love to do things.  I love to be productively busy.  I love knowing what my task is, and doing it with all of my heart.  I think this is a new gift that Abba has given me.  He is pulling me into His fullness in such a beautiful way.
Andy Byrd, leader of Fire & Fragrance here on campus, said something that really rooted in my heart last week in our DTS Staff Training.  It basically went like this:  The reason we have such trouble "balancing" things in our life, is because it's not Biblical.  But what is Biblical is the Fullness of God.  It has been brewing in my spirit and really has begun to shift my mind.  I search & search for a balance in my life.  But the Lord doesn't want to give me a balance, He wants to pour out His fullness into my life.  And I feel like I've been learning that in very practical ways, in ways that have taught me to be grounded in the Word, to be set upon Truth, to dwell on the goodness of Jesus instead of focusing on the negatives that life can sometimes throw at me.

So what does it mean to Rest?  I'd love to hear your guys' opinion.  If you have one, or even just want to process what it means on here... Please feel free to do so.  Because I believe this is very key and foundational in our relationship with Jesus.  I believe there is something that He wants to pull out of His treasure box and give to us if we would just sit at His feet and allow Him to do whatever He wants to do in whatever way He wants to do it, in the exact time He has planned.


Other than that... I miss you guys, I miss home a lot but the beauty of the Lord in this season is ridiculous and pretty much unexplainable.  I hope you are all blessed and encouraged and filled with life.  Jesus delights in every single one of you, more than you could ever dream.  Allow Him to love you today.  And allow it to pour out.