Twin Falls, Idaho has been a wonderful surprise. I have spent 8 months here. Wow. God has worked mightly through the folks here in Idaho. When my recruiter first brought up the assignment in Twin Falls, I believe my first words were 'what the heck is in Twin Falls, ID?!' but God brought me to Lighthouse Church and to a wonderful group of girls who would become some of my closest friends. Its amazing how He does that. None of us knew each other well before I came and now are all scattering across the world within 4 months with such wonderful memories. I love meeting people I can visit in great places. One person brought up the idea of the disciples 'I wonder if that's how the disciples felt, Jesus brought them together for a short time then scattered them for His glory' which got me thinking on God's incredible timing and sovereignty when we are looking at Him like He's crazy. It's funny, it seems like He knows what He's doing. Who knew?! Lol!
I was blessed to be able to go to Costa Rica in August with a church in Denver (Roots Vineyard, check it out if you live in Denver) This trip was really challenging, encouraging, enlightening, and all those great things. I was challenged spiritually to be be thinking of the things of God more throughout my day. Its so easy to become routine and allow my mind to wander the entire day. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to 'Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ' and for one who struggles a bit with A.D.D. this is a challenge. Oh how I loved to be in that state of depending on Christ, seeing Him work in so many ways, focusing so much of my attention on Him. And yes, I should be doing that here in America but it seems so much easier here to depend myself, my money, hospitals, anything else but God. When I came back to my 'normal life' I realized how empty I felt, how quick I got back into the routine of things. I think from that I realized how bad of a Christian that makes me and how much I want to go back 'overseas' and get away from the easy American life so I can be in a place where I'm having to depend on God.
My favorite stories from Costa Rica are:
-the man with a stroke who we saw incredible improvement and healing in, in only a few days. After much prayer and a cane and education this man went from being quite bed bound to walking over 20 feet. Did we see him healed? No, be we saw a process of miraculous healing and a pretty major improvement within just a few days. The best part was the change in his eyes. When we walked in his eyes were down, looking very depressed. As we laid hands on him, we watched the light come back in his eyes and a GI-normous smile on his face as he felt the hope of Christ.
-healing of a migraine of a woman in church
- a man coming back to the intern who worked at the church who said 'you prayed for me last year to get off the streets and I've been off the streets since. Can you pray for my brother too? I want him to be healed too'
- a group of young men 14-23 so on fire for Christ, giving up their old (bad) ways and habits for following Jesus and just seeing the Holy Spirit working in their lives.
- one of our team members who had horrible acid reflux who was eating tums like candy become pretty miraculously healed and eating chips with spicy salsa by the end of the trip with no problems what so ever.
The trip in my mind was far from what I imagined but definitely a blessing. And hopefully a place I get to go back to in December.
The last update I have is I am in the middle of the application process for the World Race (theworldrace.org) through Adventures in Missions which is a journey to 11 countries in 11 months to serve "the least of these" while amongst real and raw community of people. So watch for further posts from that adventure.
Thanks for following!!
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