Dallas,

Hey everyone! I'm back from Dallas, exhausted, but doing okay.
We worked with YWAM dallas and did a day camp with ages 2-19. I worked with ages 2-5 year olds. They were very precious children for the most part. I made a lot of little black buddies that said some of the funniest things I've ever heard. The camp was consistently very chaotic, with 100 kids on our busiest day. We taught Bible stories, did crafts, memory verses, pretty typical stuff. We took the kids swimming at a public pool, and yes, its as crazy as it sounds.

At night we did other sorts of night ministry. One night we worked with a program called ACTS. We pretty much knocked on apartment doors in an incredibly sketchy neighborhood. We gave them water and told them about the church and prayed with them. I ended up talking to a black family that was outside for a good half an hour. They were so open to the gospel and quite honest with me about how they were living their lives. (I like that about “street” people.) I prayed with them. They didn't accept Christ but I walked away knowing someday they would. It was super encouraging.

We also went and passed out water bottles at a bus station. Ive always hated this type of ministry until SOE. Now I really love it. I'm not embarrassed to walk up to a random person and ask them if they have prayer needs Hardly anyone even says no. People are so appreciative of a simple prayer and you can speak so much into people's lives.

God's been doing a lot of awesome things in me as well. And by awesome, they aren't really awesome, but actually super hard haha. But I know it will be good afterwards. Pray that I continue to go hard after what God is telling me to do.

Overall, amazing week. Exhausted. Not ready to leave, but must. I leave for Czech on Monday, and I'll update as soon as I can!

Lecture coming to an end.

Well, lecture phase is officially over and outreach starts on Saturday.
Currently I'm a bucket full of emotions.
Ofcourse I'm excited because it's outreach and its fun. But honestly I think I'm being more of a Pessimistic Patty and thinking of the stuff I'm leaving behind.
Honestly, I'm just leaving my best friend Esther behind, which is super hard. God really put her in my life for this season of YWAM and it feels like I'll never see her again, even though I will debriefing week.
Also there is stress on my shoulders that I'm trying to give God. I'm in charge of some things and have had to assume a leadership position. I realized I really do love leading things, however, there are most definitely pros and cons to it.

My heart hurts looking around my room and seeing everything packed up. This has gone by ridiculously quickly and I don't think I'm ready for it to be over.

Nonetheless, I know God knows what He is doing. Keep me in your prayers.
I'll try to update before I actually go to Czech, which is on June 28th. I'll be in Dallas from Saturday to Saturday.

Compassion makes a difference.

*Warning: Kinda long post but a very important one.*




This week's speaker was Ray Highfield. I can honestly say he is on my top five people who have inspired me in my life. I've known him for four days, but his life and testimony is an absolute image of what I would like to be.

I'm pretty sure Ray started the first AIDS help program in the states. Not like medically, but actually helping them and having a home for them. Because of this he reached out to many many homosexual people. He opened his home; Infact, his backdoor was always open and in the morning he would count heads to see how many people to make breakfast for. He started to reach out to the aids victims by visiting the aids hospital floor. He would touch them, which was quite scarce in the 80s. He prayed with them and led many to the Lord. He had one kid named Kevin come and live with him. He found out he had aids, and was planning to kill himself. His neighbor however heard from God to call him and go to his house. She stopped him from killing himself. She took him to her church but the pastor disowned him completely. She took him to another church and asked the pastor to anoint Kevin with oil. He wouldnt touch him, but threw oil at him from behind the pulpit and told him he couldnt come back. The only person who would take him in was Ray. He lived with Ray for 4 years before he died, and Kevin made a huge impact on many people through his radical salvation.
Lee, had aids and was in prison. He died while he was there. They pronounced him dead, and took him to the morgue. Before the funeral director went in there, Lee got resurrected out of nowhere. It scared the funeral director almost to death, haha. Since Lee was already "Dead", they couldnt put him back to life in records. So Ray took him in. Lee got saved, got married, and lived for 10 more years after this happened. He owned his own woodshop and was a very happy man(I saw him in a video.)
So many stories of what Ray has done.He's ministered in gay clubs where men would line up and sit at the bar, cry, give their lives to Christ, hop off the bar, and the next would do the same. Ray would go to gay couples homes, not say anything really about Christ until they asked, and they would get convicted with that alone and come to Christ and seperate. He has I cant even remember the countless and countless stories Ray told. He cried with each and every one of them. He has more compassion then anyone I've ever seen/heard about. You can just tell by looking at this eyes they way he loves people.
I got the privelege of talking to him one on one. I asked him how it was possible to love everyone no matter what they have done. He told me something along the lines of: I vision them as a child, not the adult they are now. The child who is so hurt, angry, and scared. That's who we need to minister to.
Ray's life has been very hard, especially with the loss of his son this year. These people have stolen from him, lied to him, burned walls in his house, you name it. But each time he still loves them and lets them come back. He doesn't give up on anyone no matter their past or how they act.

He brought up a point that many churches aren't ready for or to accept Homosexual/ AIDS patients. We don't know what to do with them and we reject them even if it's not blatantly. The church has done more to hurt these people then anyone else on Earth, and we're the ones called to love and preach the good news to everyone! How convicting! God said to feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, etc etc etc. That means these people too. Their "sin" isn't any bigger then ours. So many times Christians put homosexuality on this scale of the biggest sin. I've done this. But really, it's not. It's just as bad as adulterers, liars, and other addictive behaviors that are in the church. We must reach out to these hurting people.
Something i loved that Ray said a bout this is: "Don't try to clean a fish before catching them." A misconception in my head was that we had to make them be straight before they could come to know God. Ofcourse they won't do that! We have to catch them, even more importantly God has to catch them before He cleans us out. We should love and talk to them like any other sinner.

Ray challenged me to love like I've never loved before. A quote he said was," We must remove ourselves from behind stained glass to save stained lives."
We as Christians must step away from our little bubble, our little wants, our comfortable lives and fufill the calling God has placed on our lives. Because honestly if we dont... Who will?

Holy Spirit.

I'm back from a wonderful weekend at Kyle's house. My best friend Esther and I both stayed there from Friday until Monday. It was very relaxing and full of Bridezilla, Massive amounts of food, shopping, clean laundry, and swimming.

I'd like to say that I'm deeply sorry for the Feuille family and I'm praying for you very much. I should update about last week.





Walter Heindereich, a german revivalist, spoke. The first day, he walked up there and started to being his teaching. Not even ten minutes into it he looked at me and said,"It's you. You will be a prophet. People will call you the mouth of God because what you say to this generation." I froze completely and my heart dropped. That's the second time I've gotten prophesised over that I would have that gifting.
At the end of his teaching, we had a worship time. I heard God say, "I will awaken the sleeping if you raise up the dreamers."
I heard is so distinctively. People who are just dreaming when they are sleeping can't do anything. But when you're awake, with dreams, huge things can happen. God can wake up the people, get them out of sin, actually change them(since we can't). But it's our job to raise up the dreams they have, to bring to light the gifts God has purposed and intentionally given us from the beginning. Pertaining to me, I was reminded of a tactic my sister used to talk to ladies in the district in the Philippines. She would ask them what their dreams were or what they used to want to be when they were kids. It brings them back to reality and raises up questions and thoughts in their head. My job is to help these dreams, their purposes, actually happen.

Walter was an amazing man in general. He was radically saved by the Lord and instantly delivered from drugs while he was at a party. It changed his life completely. He walks entirely by the holy spirit directing Him. He heals people all the time, and sees hundreds and thousands of people saved. He has HUGE ministries. But you would never know it-He is very humble. But what you can notice is the way he carries himself. You feel the holy spirit when you are around him. A few things really amazed me when he spoke.

-He said the Bible told us to "Heal the sick" not "Pray for the sick". I never ever thought about this before. Maybe us as Christians are going about this the wrong way. Ofcourse God has mercy on people, but are we actually doing what He says to do? If the healing is for them to go and be with God because that is the ultimate healing, or if they are radically healed physically, God desires all people to be healed because He is a loving God. Walter said every healing is different and you must listen to the Holy Spirit to tell you. He told us a story about this little six year old boy who loved Jesus so much and he would just touch people and they would be healed. SIX YEARS OLD! Another small girl in Mongolia brought her grandfather up from the dead because she knew he wasn't a Christian. He came alive and instantly became a Christian, and died two years later. Normal people heal people when they have the Holy Spirit. I always thought it was these special people who were high up in the church or something. No everyone, it's us! It's apart of the great comission and what God has called all of us into!

-Church isn't supposed to be in a huge church with a set worship time, set prayer time, set sermon, blah. Church in the Bible was a meeting and people listening to what the Holy Spirit told them to do. They trusted that someone would get a word or direction. People would break out into songs, not have a worship band. He wasn't anti church or anything, but Walter made me realize we are trying to fit God into a schedule when maybe He doesnt want to be in a schedule. He just wants us to listen to Him and worship Him, and He'll let us know what's on His heart. We are the body, we are the church. We each individually have a place!

Phew. So many good things were said but I dont currently have my binder.

Another thing I want to mention is the sermon that was preached at Kyle's church. He was talking about when Mary(or Martha cant remember) anointed Jesus with that very expensive perfume. All the disciples said it was a waste because it was a years wages. But Jesus said was she was doing was beautiful. She gave what she had. The pastor said something interesting: People try and try to give things they don't have instead of what they DO have. God has given us each a unique design and wants us to give Him our gifts. God isn't expecting something huge that we don't have. I guess this stuck out to me, because many times I don't feel like I have enough to offer God. But I do! I have giftings God has given me and I just need to pour them out on Jesus's feet. That's my job and should be my heart.

Again, this week is freaking phenomenal with our new speaker. But I will update when I have all I want to say. I wish everyone could hear and experience all that I'm going through! God is doing such great things.

When death isn't always morbid.

I went home this past weekend, which was an amazing time. It was good to see my family, and wonderful to see my nephew, Micah. But it made me start to think alot.
My grandpa's funeral was harder then I anticipated. I was glad to hear about the other side of my grandpa that I never saw. But the funeral made me think about death alot. I can't imagine losing my parents or family members. If I dwell on the thought for more then a second, I start crying. Anyways, I told my mom this and she told me something Beth Moore said: "God gives us grace for the moment, but not for our vain imaginations." That stuck to me because I realized how much I think of these horrific things that could possibly happen, but wont. I don't need to worry about the future.
Lesson learned, right? Wrong.

On Monday morning, I thought it was just a Monday morning. I went to a Czech Mania(Czech republic and Romania team just seems so long.) meeting and learned more about the trafficking system over there. That made me terribly upset but I proceeded to base prayer. This woman began to speak. I had never heard of her or seen her, but shortly I found out that her husband died on the mission field. She has children and everything. I can't say many details online, but her story absolutely broke my heart. But I think what tore me up even more was the fact she was wanting to go back to the country. She wanted the people who killed her husband to become Christians and be saved. Her kids want to be missionaries there. This happened not even that long ago, but God has completely redeemed her and her children. Her drive shocked me. She was devoted and loved her husband so much but God was still above all things. She rested in the Character of God and wasn't bitter at all.
I cried for three hours about this. I was so upset. I couldn't imagine this happening to me and then it dawned on me that I'm called to missions. My heart was pounding as I realized this was a possibility for any missionary family to face. To be quite vulernable and open with the people I love who read this, I wrestled with God why He called me to be a missionary. Doubt, insecurity, and distrust in the Lord began to pour out of me. I realized that God wasn't my core in this area. I know His character, but I didn't trust that God could give me grace in that situation. I would probably leave the missionfield, not wait to get back on it.
I kept crying, and crying, and crying more. Then I got the news of a family friend, Robert, who isn't doing well. My friends and I stopped to pray for a miracle. Although I'm not best friends with him or anything, he means alot to my family. I didn't think I could cry that much more but lo and behold I cried more!

It didn't really get settled in my heart until yesterday afternoon. The School of Worship leader, Josh, spoke to us about leadership. In leadership, we have our vision of whatever we do. He explained that our vision must be consistent, even if things change. Then he went on to talk about four voices we need to listen to about our vision: Inner voice, Unhappy voice, Successful voice, and Higher voice.
He talked about our convictions and how they are the thing that roots our vision. Conviction is a firmly belief or opinion that doesnt change by emotion. Our convictions then affect our values, which affect our principles, which affect our actions. Convictions in the end produce the action. He then explained that any justice movement(which is incredibly popular these days) will not last if Jesus isn't the foundation. Jesus is the reason why we even go out there! God's heart breaks for these people so much and out of a love for Him, we do this. Whether we're tired, in good or bad situations, etc, He is always worthy.
It hit me then that no matter what happens, death or life, that God is so worthy of our love and adoration. My calling, which I need to hold alot more loosely in God's hands, is only out of first my heart for Jesus, but then my passionate love(only given by God) for women in prostitution.

phew. that took alot out of me. God is doing SO much more in me since this morning, but I'll wait until the end of the week to post about it.

Chicago.

I'm finally back from a fantastic week in Chicago. Chicago is my new favorite city in America because it's so wonderful. I love the diversity, the buildings, the fact it still has a lake and it's the city, and how the suburbs are so close.
It started out with a 16 hour van drive there. I was absolutely dreading it but it wasn't actually that bad. We stayed at the YWAM base there which was a four story apartment building type thing. I loved it and realized I would love to live in one of those things. I slept in the meeting room with 5 other girls. There was another team from Masters Commission that was staying at the base too. They were actually pretty cool when they talked to us. The guys were incredibly respectful of girls which was very nice and the whole team was a good dynamic for our team.

I learned so much this week about the passion we need to have for cities. 50% of the population lives in major cities now, and by the end of the century 90% will be there! That's almost everyone! And if Christians aren't living in the cities, how will people hear about Jesus? The other amazing thing is that God really is on the move in cities and he wants to redeem what cities are known for(Drugs, violence, etc). Diversity and unity are two of God's greatest intentions for the world and that's exactly what cities could be. Brad(YWAM leader) spoke to us about his passion for the city. He was such an inspiring person because he absolutely knew without a doubt God's heart for it. One thing he told me that stuck out was that we have to jump on God's bandwagon, not expect Him to just jump on ours. Often times we have our own idea, and instead of going with what God is ALREADY doing in the city, we make up our own thing and ask Him to bless us. I also learned that it's important that we don't just look at the strongholds when we go to cities/countries. If we look at what God's orignial intention was for the place and find redemption for those things, oftentimes the strongholds will fall through anyways. God is such a redemptive God!

The first day we walked around little Vietnam. We did religious surveys and just asked people questions about what they believed or where they came from. I was paired up with my good friend Jon. We met this black man named George, who after seeing me, decided that women from texas are more beautiful then women from California. He then also said he wanted to go to texas to get a steak. George was an interesting guy. Another part was we had to ask for 50 cents to use a pay phone(We had to call Brad, the YWAM director, so he made sure we did it.) Honestly it took a blow to my pride, which was good. It puts you in such a humble state to ask people for money. And the funny part was, no white people would give. Only black people gave to us. I realized I never give people money and that I should start. At night time we did homeless ministry. I came in contact with a very angry angry black man who then proceeded to cuss me out and call me the white devil, but that's okay. It was a learning experience that I will never forget.

On day two, we rode the city buses and talked to whoever sat next to us. It was such a fun experience! It was kind of like speed dating, but speed praying instead. Almost everyone wanted me to pray for them by the time they had to get off at their stop. I came to realize that you can minister everywhere, even if it's just on the bus. On Tuesday night we did street evangelism again but this time in the Gay/alternative district. I prayed for an Iraq man and also talked to a very gay black man. Both went well, but I shortly got lost in Chicago right after. I was with Kyle and Jordan and after walking around for a good 45 minutes( and missing debriefing) we went and ate Dunkin Donuts. Which was quite enjoyable.

On day three, we went to little India! It was so amazing-I really felt at home there. All the stores smelled like India, the clothes looked like India, I even got real Chai! I was reminded of what a beautiful country India is and how much God has in store for them. I really love the people and culture. We also went to a salon(God told us too, I promise). We talked and ministered to the ladies who were there and they did our nails. This was highly enjoyable for me and I realized how awesome and the potential God has for my ministry! On wednesday night a man named Sam Shamone came and spoke to us about Islam. I can't even describe to you all he spoke, but if you ever want to read his arguements they are very good.
www.answering-islam.org

On day four, we learned and went to At Risk communities. It's really sad how many people are in or were in these places. Pretty much they are these high rise buildings that put hundreds or thousands of people inside. Most of them are on welfare and can't get jobs or anything. But the sad part is that it's almost a generational curse. Because your parents lived there, you live there, and since you can't get a job because youre "irresponisible" you end up living there, etc. It goes on and on. Gangs also run the buildings and stairwells so mass rape and murder happens. We went to three different ones and it was just really sad. But I learned that if you want to change a communitie or people, you have to LIVE there. You can't just do programs and leave, or at least that wouldn't be as successful.
On thursday night I ate chicago pizza, went to an art show, and watched Bible man. It was great.

Friday we went to a mosque and a hindu temple. It actually didnt affect me like temples usually do but I was okay with that. It was sad though because both of the people who spoke to us used to be Christians before they went to the religion. The hindu man was a hilarous black man who seemed like would have been an amazing person(if he lived outside the temple) and the women who was a muslima, seemed so hurt and depressed. They were both heavily blinded by their own religion and contridicted themselves often. It's just sad how much we can believe in deception. On friday night we did an open air worship and prayer time in the city. It's just how it sounds, but God really showed me something. We did communion and while I was kneeling on ths sidewalk just looking up at the buildings, I realized Jesus died for each and every one of those people. It was suddenly evident the MASS amounts of people that are in the world and how Jesus loves each one. I felt like God was speaking to me saying" Lead people to the way that you found me." I found Jesus at the cross, with all my sins hanging off of me. It's my job, my calling, to lead people to the cross where Jesus showed the ultimate example of love.

That was chicago, and I miss it terribly.
I'm going home this weekend, due to the death of my grandfather. I'm really sad for my family but I'm glad I'm going home. I miss them.
Also, my room smells like fish thanks to the huge shipment of Korean food sent to my roomates. Thank you Korea.

Freedom Drama.