And breathhh...

       Biology book.    Coffee.     Biology book.    Coffee.   Math book.    Coffee.    Math book.     Cram.

BIOLOGY TEST.    MATH TEST.

This has pretty much been my life this past week, throw in some meals and frantic journaling and that about sums it up. I have never had to study this much before, not even during finals! But what I'm studying I find fascinating. For example, water is a universal solvent, meaning that it can pretty much dissolve anything right? EXCEPT it can't dissolve our cells! One tiny detail that allows mankind to live, how great is our God? 

So I have an interesting topic for you guys-on friday nights I attend this young adult fellowship called The Net of which I am so grateful for, I know that God has brought me there for a significant reason. Well, this past friday we watched a video that connected Hitler and the Holocaust to abortion and it made me really take a step back and re-evaluate my actions and what I am doing to show the value of human life. Its called 180 Movie, and its around 30 minutes long. If you have the time please watch it, here is the link http://www.180movie.com/ I hope it encourages and challenges you like it did for me!




For the next few days the "prayer country of the day" is Nigeria and I am blown away by some of the facts regarding this country. 
Did you know that some of the worlds largest prayer meetings have been there?  
I had no idea! I also didn't know that half the population claims to be Christian. How amazing! To the left is a prayer cast for Nigeria, please lift up this country in your prayers. For more information here is a link you can follow: http://www.operationworld.org/country/nigr/owtext.html

Prayer for Mozambique

Please join me in prayer for the country of Mozambique! If you have a moment watch this video as well, powerful words of prayer are being lifted up for this country:

Prayer Cast for Mozambique

How Are You Spending Labor Day?

I love Labor Day. School has only been in session for two weeks and we already get a break, how exciting! Unfortunately my labor day isn't as eventful as usual, it is my first away from home, and I am spending it by catching up on homework, errands and laundry. Later I will meet some friends at the beach, so that will be the highlight.
This morning in my bible reading the verses came from Job 1-5, and I just want to summarize what meant the most to me. First of all, the story of Job fascinates me, really. I mean have you met anyone like him? Anyone who lost literally EVERYTHING and right away, without hesitation begins to worship God?

Job 1:20-21, "Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said '...The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.'" 

This is the perfect example of someone who trusts God with their entire life, it is so easy to trust God when everything is going great, but what about when everything goes wrong? I was also just reading along when I came across this verse from

Job 5:8-9, "But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause-Who does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number." 

A few things struck me in these verses:

1. "...without number." The works of God do not have a limit. He can being mercy and healing even if we fall into the same sin over and over. God's work is still possible. It could also seem to be an impossible task, that is still possible with God. I am reminded of how finite my mind is, and how often times I place God in a box and don't give Him free reign to do the miracles and marvelous things that He can do! That is where the first part of this verse comes in:

2. "...I would seek God, and to God I commit my cause..." I think it is so important if we want to see miracles done that we seek and commit to God. Why should we expect great things if we don't offer God the least of us? And how can we know God is working if we don't know God?

So those are my revelations of the day, well up until the time I wrote this post. The country to pray for today is Mongolia. I am following a website called Operation World, they have a calendar to follow for the entire world that covers all the countries. It includes information on the country of the day as well as prayer points. To follow the calendar, here is the link- http://www.operationworld.org/prayer-calendar. The prayer information for Mongolia is listed below:

"Mongolia’s traditional religions, Lamaistic Buddhism and shamanism, have experienced resurgence since independence. Buddhism numerically dominates, but most do not understand it well. Deeper in the Mongolian psyche are beliefs in shamanism, traditional ethnic superstitions and even occult practices. Increasing numbers of Mongolians, especially younger ones, are consulting shamans for help with health, finance and relationship issues. Pray that Mongolians might find complete liberation and have transformed lives through following the Lord Jesus Christ."

I'm Back!

Hello faithful followers! As many of you know, I was gone for a while with YWAM but have been home for quite some time now (I'm going to school for mission nursing at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi). For some reason, I stopped blogging. I have no clue why because truthfully, I love it! Nonetheless I decided to start it back up again, and will be in the process of creating a new design/look with new content soon. Please bear with me through this process. I am starting a new journey in my relationship with Christ-I read the book Radical by David Platt (a great and challenging read, I strongly suggest it!) and at the end we are supposed to take our relationship with God to a whole new level and that is just what I am going to do! It consists of reading through the whole bible in a year and praying for the entire world in a year among other things. Yes, it will be challenging but I am reminded of the verse in Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" So this blog will most likely be based off that idea. Please join me for this journey! I will post daily bible reads and countries to pray for every day along with other random things and I am just so excited to see how God uses this experience! I love serving a great and mighty King. Please stay tuned for more!

Just the Beginning

Grief is strong here in Germany, my time here ended a few nights ago and one by one my fellow students are leaving, going back to their home country (I leave next thursday). I am extremely grateful for my experience in the Mobile DTS 2011. Nothing and no one can take this away from me! I have been on an incredible journey, discovering all new aspects of God and my life has been changed from the inside out! My identity is solid in Christ, my hope and joy comes from Him and in time of sufferings, He will never leave me. Looking back to the Grace I was before, and looking at the Grace I am now, I am in awe of the power of Christ, only He can bring deep change. I've discovered that it just takes saying "yes" to God and He will take you places and levels beyond what you can imagine.

Thursday night was our graduation and it was one of the most bittersweet moments I have ever experienced. Feelings of excitement, sadness, satisfaction and joy rushed over me, I didn't quite know what to do with them! The night started with a yummy meal of burritos (not realll burritos, but they were close) and ended with delicious icecream. In between there was a time of worship, leader speeches and passing out of the certificates. I don't think our school has experienced such a powerful worship time. I felt like God was saying Isaiah 41:10 to us- 

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

There comes a certain level of fear knowing it is the end and we are going home but the cool thing is that DTS may be done, but God isn't done with us. He has so much more planned! Being fearful will stunt the growth we have all encountered. 

On another encouraging note, one of our leaders charged us with a verse from Matthew 5:16-

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

This is just the beginning, my new life starts when I get home. How will I use the light that is in me??

Two weeks left!

I am back in YWAM Herrnhut, with two weeks to go and 24 weeks behind me. God is faithful. I haven’t updated in a while but that doesn’t mean nothing has happened, these last two weeks have been crazy! Buxtehude was a week spent investing time in the community; we worked with troubled kids in the park, spoke in a few church youth groups and did some practical service work. For the weekend we had a special chance to live at the Royal Ranger outpost and personally, I don’t really know what being a “Royal Ranger” means...I just went along with everyone else. But it was a fun weekend! We chopped down trees all day saturday and spoke at a local church where I met a set of triplets! And just like my brothers and I, they were two boys and a girl, the girl the youngest. I was stoked! It was my first time meeting an older set of triplets. All in all the week was good, we weren’t too busy and we had a lot of time to get to know each other. That was important because the outreach teams were split, so we were paired with people we didn’t know too well. 

On sunday I packed up my stuff and left for Prague! My dad arrived that afternoon and we spent the week together there. It was a very special week. I got to share my experiences with him and he got to update me on my family and what is going on at home. We toured around Prague and also did some prayer/devotion time together. I was also able to see my friend Anetka who I met on a mission trip a few years ago. It’s always a blessing to see her! My dad left friday morning so I spent the day with some friends who did their faith week in Prague, on saturday we started the way back to the castle and hitchhiked along the way. It was so much fun! I have never done that before and I had my suitcase with me, but God provided and we got picked up by a bright orange hippy van and then later picked up by a teeny tiny car that we crammed into. It was quite the experience. I don’t recommend hitchhiking in America, but I’m glad I was able to experience it. 

We arrived at the castle to total chaos. My school is here (40 people) the MOTA school is here (130 people) and the January DTS is here (20 people) plus all the staff members (100 people). The first meal altogether was very overwhelming. But it is nice to see the people again, and it will be fun to attend their graduation on thursday. 

My school has lecture this week and next week is sort of a “prep” week for going home. I am really trying to finish strong and see what God has planned for the rest of the time here. After all, a lot can happen in just two weeks.

Buxtehude, was?

It has been almost three months since I have been in Germany but now I am back! As we were driving from Holland to the border I noticed the exit on the highway said "ausfahrt" and I realized it was german which brought me to a conclusion, I had to be in Germany! My excitement lasted only a minute though. Germany is not one of my favorite places but I am happy to have started my journey with YWAM here. There are four more weeks and I know they are going to be jam packed! For this week I am in a town called Buxtehude, near the Hamburg area. My team and I (nine people) will be here for the week participating in different forms of evangelism such as speaking in churches, working with the Royal Rangers and visiting our friends in Hamburg! The rest of the school is spread throughout Germany each team working with different ministries, so this is a powerful week for Germany! Next monday we will begin our faith walk week- which means pray, hear from God and go. I pray it will be a week that stretches and grows me. After that week we will spend two weeks in Herrnhut and then it's off to home! Wow. I don't want to think about that yet.

This past week in Holland I stayed in Heerde, an adorable town with bikes and flowers everywhere! I stayed with an awesome host family who had two dogs and a cat. Just in case you were wondering. We did all kinds of ministry while there, hanging out with the youth (one night we had a dance party!), church ministry, small group programs, working in homeless and mental shelters, children programs and chilling in towers interceding for the town. Tuesday night we got together with another group from our school for a "dutch night!" We played traditional dutch games, ate yummy dutch food and enjoyed each other's wonderful company! I really enjoyed being in a different part of Holland, Amsterdam is it's own place and you can't truly get the "dutch experience" there. For example, because I was in different houses I noticed that all the mirrors are mounted so high because of how tall the dutch people are. Short little Grace had trouble seeing in them! I also noticed the dutch consume more coffee than other europeans (except italians) and I love it! It is a way of living, to just relax and enjoy deeper relationships. Maybe I can bring that back to America with me, anybody down? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my update, though I have noticed they are becoming more like "updates" than what I am experiencing/feeling. Sorry about that! Time is flying by and we are becoming so busy! But thank you for your prayers, I appreciate them so much! I will be be back soon!