Belize Part 5- And So the Journey Begins...

God is good!!! I have a new goal: to memorize that passage from Ephesians 3 that I posted yesterday. That verse is becoming my theme for this trip. He IS able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or even imagine!!! To GOD be the glory forever and ever!!!

After going to the church to pay for my trip yesterday I found out that I have even more money for my trip than I thought; and so now I not only have what I need for my trip but I also have enough to bless someone else as well! I am so overwhelmed by all that God has been doing here!! As I was leaving the church, I got in my car and it started to rain. After weeks of triple digit weather with no rain, it was amazing! I was reminded of the story about the farmers who prayed for rain but only one of them actually went out to his field to prepare for it. I felt like when I signed on for this trip without worrying about the money, I was preparing my field and now I am receiving the rain! I drove the whole way home with my window rolled down, in awe of all God has done for me! I am so unworthy!!! Yet He still chose me!

God is working in mighty ways, folks! I know He is going to work mightily on this trip and I can't wait to experience it!

I probably won't have time to post tomorrow, so this is my last post before I get back! If you think of it this week, please be praying for our team and that God would prepare the way for us to share His love in Belize. When I get back, I'll post daily updates about our trip and fill you in on all the things we experienced. If you haven't already, you can sign up to receive updates by email under the "followers" section where it says "follow by email". I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement! I'll see you all in a little more than a week! Hasta luego!

Belize Part 4- God Provides!

It was almost exactly 4 weeks ago that I signed up for this trip and began trying to raise the money. In those 4 weeks I have seen God work in amazing ways! I began raising money by telling everybody I needed babysitting jobs and Mary Kay orders to raise money for my trip to Belize. I got a few babysitting jobs in the first couple of weeks and a couple MK orders and my grandma also donated some money for my trip. 2 weeks into it and I had a little more than 1/7 of what I needed for my trip. One afternoon right around that time, I was starting to feel a little discouraged. I talked to my mom about it and she reminded me that God is "seldom early and never late" and that if I trusted Him to provide, then He would-but in HIS timing, not mine. A few minutes later I went to my room and I picked up one of my old purses that I hadn't cleaned out yet (I'm really bad about that...) looking for something random-I don't even remember what it was. Looking through that purse I found a little envelope with $84 marked "Belize Fund". It was money that I had started saving up in the spring when I thought I was going on the first summer trip. I truly believe that God led me to that money right when I needed it!

A week or so later, a sweet lady that I know from bible study classes that my family attends ordered some Mary Kay and wanted to meet up to give me the money. I met her and she paid me for the Mary Kay and then told me that she was going on a mission trip and had raised more money than she needed and wanted to donate to my trip as well! Her donation was an wonderful blessing! Once again, God had shown up and provided right when I needed it!

Several other people have since donated money for my trip and it was all out of the blue-things that I could only look at and say "God provides!" Then, about 3 days ago, I was counting up my money and saw that I only had $45 more that I needed to raise for my trip to be completely funded!!! I posted on facebook that I was almost to my goal. Less than 10 minutes after posting to fb, a very sweet lady that I call "Mama Peeps" (long story...) called me and said  that she and her husband saw my fb post and wanted to help me finish out what I needed. She asked me how much I needed and I told her. She said she would send it to me, and I hung up the phone thanking God!!!

A few hours later after work, I came home and checked my facebook. There was a message from my "Mama Peeps". This is what it said: "ok...so you know...We saved up "x" amount of cash to pay for [my daughter's] wedding...after everything was said and done and everyone was paid for, there was $45 left in the money envelope. Just happened to go look after you gave me what you needed. So we are sending you that cash. Isn't God pretty good!!!!! Yep, I think so!!!" I read this message, and I was literally speechless. I had tears in my eyes, I was so in awe of what God had done - for me!!! I still am!

That same day (before this message), I was super excited about having all the money, but then I started thinking about all of the extra money I would need (Belize charges an exit tax of $40, and there are 2 meals that we have to pay for on our own, and I would love to get some souveneirs for some of my friends and family though that's not a must!). But I caught myself thinking this and told myself that I needed to continue trusting God. That's when I got home and checked my facebook and saw that message. In addition to that message, I also had a Mary Kay order, someone who wanted to donate money, AND a card that had come in the mail with another donation in it. God is good, my friends!!!

And THAT is why I am excited for this trip!! I can see in the way that God has provided that He has big plans for this trip, and I can't wait to be a part of them!



P.S. At last count, I had almost $200 more than I needed for the trip!!! Praise God!! Soli Deo Gloria!! I'm reminded of this passage from Ephesians 3:
"¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
 ²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

Amen.

Belize Part 3- Listen and Obey

After that experience that I shared yesterday, I dismissed the trips to Belize, knowing I wasn't going to be able to go. I began my summer classes and tried to put Belize out of my mind. A few weeks ago, I had gone up to the church camp for an evening and in the middle of chapel, my youth pastor came up to me and asked if I might want to change my mind about going for the second trip this summer-something I had never really considered. I had found out that I only had to take summer classes for the first summer session, which left that week in August open. I told him I would pray about it and let him know.

I spent that entire weekend praying about it and the next week I still didn't really feel a clear answer. The day before I had to tell Tim whether or not I could go, I spent 3 hours in my room, praying, fasting and reading my Bible. (I'm pretty sure that's longest period of time I've ever spent just praying!) All the things I came across in my Bible pointed to the phrase "follow me". I prayed and told God I was willing to follow, just show me where! I'm learning that God often wants us to follow without knowing where we're going-which is a really hard concept for me! I like to have everything planned out. But after praying some more and talking to both of my parents I really felt like God was allowing me to go.

As I was praying that day I began to realize some of the things that I shared the first day...how selfish I had been before on my trip. And the more I continued praying and examining myself and my motives I realized that my motives really are right this time: I want to go to be able to do what I could have done last time if I had been paying attention to God. I want to be able to reach people! I want the opportunity to share my faith-as much as that idea intimidates me! I really think that's why God is allowing me to go now, when He was telling me no before - because if I had gone in the beginning of July, it would have been with the wrong motives and God wouldn't have been able to accomplish the things through me that He can now if I keep my eyes on Him.

So, even though I had no money for this trip, I took a step of faith, trusting that God would provide the money and texted my youth pastor and told him I would go. Throughout this whole decision making process I never really considered the money when I prayed about it-I knew that if God wanted me to go, He would provide the funds for it. And He did!!! In miraculous ways!



**I would like to add a blogger's note here: I would never want anyone to look at this story I'm sharing and see anything that I've done - God gets ALL the glory!!!!

Belize Part 2- Trip Two, Take One!

As our church began planning several mission trips for this year, I decided that I wanted to go back to Belize. I had an amazing trip last time and though I did go with the wrong motive, I still learned a lot and I'm glad I went. So this spring I picked the trip I wanted to go on (the trip that went July 2-9th of this year) based on some other things I wanted to do this summer. I began babysitting to raise money for that trip and I collected some, but not a whole lot.

Then one Sunday at lunch my mom said something that stopped me in my tracks. She told me and my brother that it was great that we wanted to go back to Belize but she asked us if we had prayed about it to make sure it was God's will and not just ours. I realized that I really hadn't prayed about it, so from that point on anytime I thought about the trip, I would pray and ask God if He wanted me to go or not.

Over the next couple of weeks as I continued my plans for the trip, things kept falling through. Babysitting jobs didn't work out, I wasn't able to do some of the fundraising stuff with the church and then one day in April I got my answer. I was at school, about to meet with my advisor, when the trip came to my mind. It was kind of a random thing that popped into my head, but I stopped and just prayed about it, asking God that if he didn't want me to go, to make that clear to me. I met with my advisor and because of a really complicated chain of events (it's a long, very frustrating story) I found out I was going to have to take summer classes which were going to overlap with my trip to Belize. I left campus really upset, but I knew I had my answer. I continued to pray about it, but I knew I was supposed to stay here that week.

That next Sunday there was a meeting about the trip giving out some more info to the people who were going. I told my youth pastor that I couldn't go, and I didn't attend the meeting. That was one of the hardest things that I've ever done, because I really wanted to go on that trip! I knew I was doing what God was asking by staying, but it was still really hard!!

But, even though it was really hard and I was really disappointed by it all, I have seen Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11 played out in major ways! God still had a plan-I just had to be ready and willing to follow!

Belize Part 1- Last Summer

As some of you may (or may not) know, last summer I went on a mission trip to Belize. It was my first mission trip out of country, and I was super excited about it! (If you're interested in hearing more about that trip you can go to our blog to read some more about what we experienced.) The more I prepared for that trip the more excited I got! It was my first time out of country, only my second mission trip and it was a super neat experience!

Now, as I reflect on that trip, I'm finally beginning to realize how selfish I really was. The whole reason I went on that trip was because I wanted to go to another country and to experience another culture. And I did just that. But I didn't do it for the people, I did it for me. I never really shared my testimony with anyone on that trip - not that I didn't have the opportunity. But since nobody asked me point blank about it, I didn't go out of my way to tell them about God - even though that was the whole purpose of the trip!

God has really been working on my heart this summer and I see now that my motive for going last year was not pure - it was completely selfish. And that came into play again this past spring as I began to plan for a return trip to Belize....(more on that tomorrow.)

The Countdown Begins!

I leave for Belize in just 5 more days!!!!! For those of you who may be interested, I'm going to spend the next several days leading up to my trip telling you why I'm so excited for this trip and how God has been working to get me here! While I'm in Belize, I'll keep journal entries each day that I will post one day at a time when I get back, so you can hear all about my trip. You can follow my blog by email to keep updated. I'm looking forward to sharing with you all how God is working in my life!!