Ask, and you shall recieve. Recieve, and you shall not complain about it.

hey friends.
So, as many of you know, I am back in the US about to embark on my 3rd Youth Encounter ministry team. Crazy eh? I am stoked because this is truly the thing that I love to do, but coming to this point was not a straight forward process. I'm sure you have all heard the quote from the Bible "ask and you shall recieve". I don't think I realized this full extent of this however until this point.
So the fact that I am doing this again probably doesn't surprise a lot of you. By personality, I am built for this, and I have often reminisced of it and fantasized about doing it again. Despite all this however, my ending up here once again was not a result of any of these factors. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Youth Encounter office working on graphic stuff for this upcoming year's programs, and I was very suddenly moved by God. I spent a while trying to discern what it was that He was trying to tell me and I finally realized that He wanted me to do YE again. It was very shocking, and I was actually really opposed to it. I tried to push it off and forget about it with 'it has to mean something else, something more logical' reasoning. I was scared at the idea of doing team again simply because of what it meant. Being away from home, living as a full time volunteer, being away from my church community and youth group, having to reorganize finances, living in the US once again, and mostly feeling like this was an irresponsible idea all overwhelmed my thoughts and really bought me to the point where I thought it wasn't at all what God wanted for me. God however, doesn't settle for my reasoning and pursued me on this regardless of my attempts to shove it aside. After a lot of pray, advice from others, and processing, I accepted this call back to YE and now here I am again.
Its kinna weird to be back in someways. Team is a very public life with very little private time and its hard to make the transition back again from having more time to myself to not. In other ways, it feels like I am picking up exactly where I left off. I love everything about this ministry and the work that I get to do and I know that I am very gifted for this line of work. We had our first booking this past weekend and it went really well. One of the hardest things however has been letting go of what I was hoping to do this fall. It amazes me that I always want the opposite of what God hands me. During my past 2 YE teams I struggled with wanting to be back at EBC and with everyone I knew there. Last when I returned there, I missed life on the road and resented being back in school. And now? Well, excitement for what is coming has welled up in my leaving me ready to take this on, but I really struggled with not wanting to do this for a while. During my discernment process God told me this. 'Following and obeying me is really worth much if I'm going to kick and scream about it, then grumble constantly when i finally give in. He wants me to be excited for what He has in store for me, to give with a joyful heart (quote: the Bible somewhere) and be excited for this mission He has given me' Its not like God is asking me to scrub sewers for Him, He has given me a mission in an area that I am 1. gifted in 1. passionate about 3. LOVE doing. When I realized this, and let my previous hopes and idea go, I came to a great peace for what God wanted for me, and I am happy to be here now.
We hit the road for reals this saturday, and its gonna be quite the adventure ahead. I shall be on the west coast and am looking forward for what comes my way. I will try to keep you all update on my adventure and on the ministry that I am embarking on. For now, I shall enjoy a few more days in the awesome Minnesota nature up here outside the small town of Remer.
Peace friends

Last Thoughts From the Summer

Heya friends,
So I definitely fell of the blog train this summer, sorry about that. But I made you all a little something to kind of get a feel as to how my summer in the wilderness went. I hope you enjoy!