Quicky Update

So I'm pretty sure Holly Austin and my mom are the only people that read this blog, but just for you two I will keep updating!!! :-)

This has been a pretty great week.  My group of students were a lot of fun and the leaders were pretty great too...I mean you can always find negatives in people, but why focus on them?  I was so relieved the first night to have students mature in their faith and that believed the Word of God was true and fact!!  I ended up just hugging them all at the very beginning of our prayer tour after they prayed for the first time. 

[Side note to my ravenclaw folks if you read this...You are still my favorite college group, they are just now my favorite high school group]

Any who, this week has been a struggle not so much with my group but more so with my own personal stuff.  I've been extremely tired all week and monday night I started feeling a little sick, so I've been battling a cold and stocking my body with a lot of Vitamin C.  I've had to rely on God a lot to just keep me in good spirits because I really did want to make the best out of this trip for the students, but I was just worn.

I also became aware today that this is starting to become "just a job", which I don't want it to be.  I passed a homeless guy and said hey and stuff, but I could tell he actually wanted to talk and instead I just kept walking.  NOT okay!  So just pray that God is continuously refreshing my heart for this job.

I bought a book last weekend called Permission to Speak Freely by Anne something or another and it's really been challenging me.  She asks the question, "What is the one thing you feel you can't say in the church?" I think I have a lot that I would be afraid to say in some of the churches I've attended.  She confesses about her porn addiction and sex addiction and just lack of faith at times, it was very interesting.  Am I bold enough to step out and tell what I have and still struggle with and allow people to know how much God is working for me?  Do I dare hold back His power because I'm ashamed of who I am and have been?  Yes, I'm very ashamed and very afraid to admit some things.  I can honestly say that I have only one person that may know all that I've struggled with, and it's not a Christian. 

Please continue praying for me as God works out some stuff in my life, as I make decisions about my future and that He guides those decisions.  Pray for the people of San Fran and Oakland, that my groups and myself will be broken for them and be willing to pour all of ourselves out to them.  Pray for health for the hosts here as this bug continues through us.  And Praise the Lord for SUNSHINE!!!

I did it for you

We play this song on our prayer tour for the students and I think it's really cool because it describes what it's like to be living in some of these neighborhoods we are working in. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sus4T4CV-E

"You know what goes well with hot chocolate?

Some Chris Brown."

"Why you living in Oakland girl?
Cause I Cat Daddy when I Dougie!!"

Let me just tell you all how fantastic my living situation is here. I have 4 roommates and we all co-host when groups come. These women are amazing and all unique. It's been so fun to hear all of their stories and see how God has molded each of us for this time in our lives. The most fascinating part of this living situation is that we are all Christians, yet we don't agree on all things. So this has given us room for discussion in our beliefs. Everyone is pretty open and most nights bring about discussion of the Bible or God. It's interesting to hear the perspectives we all have and challenging as well. What do I believe and why? I've been dubbed a "conservative" Christian by a few people here so far, but my beliefs come solely from the Bible.

It's a neat concept too, in that we share so much of our lives with one another.  We openly discuss past experiences and reflect upon them with one another.  Last night three of us went to In-N-Out Burger and spent the time there discussing if we had "mommy" or "daddy" issues (of which I have both, haha) and how those effect our lives and how we've dealt with them.  It's just a great environment in which to process with one another openly in a way that I've never experienced before.  I don't feel like I have to be guarded with these girls, but that I can bring everything to the table.

We spend nights laughing about our groups, Cat Daddying, watching the Office, sharing book reviews, and praying for one another.  Such an interesting life style that I would never have pictured myself a part of, and once again God shocks me with His wonders.  

"There will be false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you"

- 2 Peter 2:1-2

Let me tell you how fired up I am with an anger from the Lord right now! It is an anger and a sadness all wrapped into one. An anger because His name is being blasphemed and a sadness because young minds are being taught lies disguised as the truth. Oh how I want to scream at these people, "MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE!!!!"

I'll set up the situation before I continue on. My group for the week claims to be Presbyterian, which I would interpret as Christian...I think we all would. They have been informing me, however, that they accept all people and all religions. They view the Bible as a good reference to how to live a good life, but out dated for the 21st century. And my heart is just ripping apart as they tell me these things!!!

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away." -Matt. 24:35

"All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work." - 2 Timothy 3:16

I don't understand how you can claim a belief in Christ and not believe the very words He preached. My heart is broken.

"There is one body and on Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling; one Lord, one faith , one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." - Ephesians 4:4-6

"Jesus told him, 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'" -John 14:6

"Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life and few find it." - Matt. 7:13-14

Lord if I knew how to cry out to you in a way appropriate enough to tell of the heart wrenching anger I have, teach me to do so! I'm bearing this hurt to you all because I need your prayer tremendously this week. Never have I felt so enraged in the name of the Lord. They claim Christ but don't follow Him and it's like taking His name and trampling it. Saying, "I want your protect Christ, but F you if you try to direct me and guide me." I want to tell them that they are teaching lies, that if Christ were here today He would tell them to get away from Him and stop claiming His name. My heart is full of sadness for my Lord, my Love!!!

It's so easily misinterpreted that God has this set of rules to hold us back, but His rules are meant to keep us from evil. He has such magnificent plans for us and we tell Him that we know better when we don't follow these rules.

If you know me, you know that I will love you, whoever you are. No matter what you believe, what color you are, how much money you have, I will love you as much as I can. That is my call from Christ and I am trying my hardest to follow His example. But Christ was "conservative" (as this group calls me), He says that He is the ONLY way, the ONLY truth! I can not accept other religions and beliefs as true, the way is narrow, Christ is truth. My God is big enough not to need ANYTHING from me, He allows me to serve Him and to be in His presence.

Please pray that I continue to have conversations with this group, the students and the leaders. That they see something different in this so-called conservative Christian. Please pray that their minds would realize that Christ far better intentions for our world than we can imagine. Please pray for Satan and his demons to be tossed away from this group, they are oppressive and I can feel their presence constantly. I love you all and know that I can trust you in this request.

You Are My Sunshine

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone that is keeping up with me, praying for me and encouraging me. I love you all and am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends in my life! Just to let everyone know, I do have some access to skype now. So text me if you want to talk and my name is mwish05. I can't promise that it will happen bc most nights are pretty packed and it's 12 East Coast time before I even get done. But again, I love you all and am sooo blessed!!! Thank you thank you thank you times a million for believing in me and supporting me in this journey God is taking me on.

What is poverty?

This week I've been challenged by God in my view of poverty. First because I've caught myself thinking that those living on the street NEED me, how selfish and prideful of myself. Since when has anyone not been able to survive without me, God gives me the privilege to meet these people and to serve them. At the same time we had a group here that was mainly non-Christians and my heart was very hard towards them. They came on this trip to serve and complained the whole time about the work they had to do, went against our rules, and were just kinda rude. How dare they!! But when did God make a distinction and say not to love these people? They don't claim to be believers, so why do I hold them to the same standard I hold my group? And are they any less poor than those living on the streets, because both demographics are heading to Hell at the same speed, and both are already spending their lives in bondage to Satan. So what's the difference?

I asked my group this question last night during debriefing because it has been on my heart for the last day or so. What are some characteristics that we define for the poor (once we take away their lack of money and possibly lack of knowing Christ)? We see loss of self worth, lack of self confidence, isolation, hurt, desire for love, etc. Now if we apply money to that, do we not have a large population of America? Girls who think they are only worth what they can give to a guy physically. Men who believe they have to be the best at everything or they are nothing. The world is teaching our people to turn to drugs and alcohol to drown out the pain, to turn to sex to feel loved, but all this does is put the feelings on hold until the high is gone and everything comes rushing back in along with regret. Who are we supposed to reach out to? Is it just the poor? What is poor????

"As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along." - Galatians 2:6-10

God put this verse on my heart last night as I was thinking through all of this. He will send some to the rich and some to the poor, neither of which is better than any other. Who are you called to serve with the love of Christ?

Sometimes I Thank God for Unanswered Prayers

*Disclaimer: If you are one of those people who is going to flip out b/c I said "unanswered" prayers, calm down. I realize God sometimes just answers with no or later, I'm fully aware that He does always hear our prayers and answer them in His own way.*

Today is March 17th, St. Patrick's Day! A not so notable day in my life until two years ago when the boy I loved at the time broke up with me. But I would like to take this time and just praise God for answering "no" to all the times I prayed that He would let this guy realize we were meant for each other. I want to thank God for taking MY dreams of marrying this guy, becoming a physical therapist, spending life in America and occasionally overseas, spending my life desiring nothing more than to please my husband and raise children, and just completely dashing them and throwing them out of line. I'm not saying that any of those are bad dreams, but God has given me a new dream, His dream. I want nothing more than to serve Him as best as I can. If that allows me to marry, I will more than happily; if it allows children, I will take them more than willingly; and if it includes neither, I won't waste my life mad at God for not letting me live a "fulfilled" life.

"I want you to be without concerns. An unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord - how he may please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the things of the world - how he may please his wife - and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But a married woman is concerned with many things of the world - how she may please her husband. Now I am saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but because of what is proper, and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction." - 1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Two years ago, I was such a different person than I am now. But I thank God that He was willing to spend time to change me into the woman He desires for me to be. I'm still a work in progress, fo sho fo sho, but God is teaching me everyday what it means to love Him and His people and not to waste that time on thinking about marriage and seeking fulfillment from a man. God is enough for me.

I thought we encouraged recycling!

Today has been a fantastic day. I did have to wake up a little before seven and get breakfast set up for all the groups, but my group didn't actually leave until 9. We went to St. Vincent de Paul's dining room where we served lunch. They are finally opening up and cutting jokes and getting my sarcasm which is nice. When we got there we weren't really sure what we were doing and it was a little awkward, but then it went great. There was a group from Japan there and my group loved getting to interact with them. I got to run around to the different stations my people were at and so I was able to see what all was going on. I also met a few of the normal volunteers there and they are fun people who were more than willing to chat with me (and we all know I love to talk and make new friends!) Then when we ate, everyone sat with someone that was being fed (this is pretty much a soup kitchen.) I sat with a lady and two guys. The lady was telling me she was from the area and then the guys chimed in for some reason. I told them I went to Clemson and one of them started to tell me he knew a guy from S.C when he was in prison. Then I asked him why he was in prison and he said robbery, but then told me that recently he'd been put into prison for recycling. It was kinda a silly thing. See, the homeless will often go through the trash here to collect things that can be recycled and they will take these things and get money for them, very small amounts of money, but still at least they are trying to do something. Well anywho, apparently he was going through the trash at an apartment building or something and the owner called the cops. It was private property, but instead of just giving him a trespassing ticket, the cop gave him a ticket for theft and he had to go to the county jail for 6 months (i think is what he said). How silly? The he recently got a ticket for taking recycling out of the blue recycling containers, which he probably won't end up paying. Haha, I was amused that he was given tickets for taking care of the ecosystem.

Then I sent my team out on a mission to use $10 to meet the need of someone in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood (hippy street) and I met with one of my directors. Found an excellent chai latte on my way back to meet them and made a new cafe friend! Always good. Then we went to Alamo square and got some pictures with the Full House houses. Good day all together.

Flexibility - a learned virtue

Groups typically come in on Sunday nights, therefore we had the first part of Sunday free for church(check out the previous blog) and laundry and starbucks hot chocolate of course. Then we had a little party for one of our girl's birthday, then it was briefing time. We learned about our groups - mine is from a Bible school in colorado- and received our schedules for the week. We barely had 10 minutes to prepare with our partners for the week (mine is Becky, a beautiful, wonderful, laid back woman of Christ) then the groups were arriving. Ah!! Our group was 30 minutes late and only had one vehicle with room for the 12 of them and no one else. Now, they were planning on getting a vehicle the next morning, but the first night is very important because we do something called a prayer tour of the city. It's what we've been practicing the most all week. (PS thank you Caleb Presson for letting me read the whole thing to you!!)

We aren't legally allowed to drive anyone in these groups around, so we had to take a separate car and just have them follow us. Then after dinner we did our prayer tour and it was a little awkward because I had to call them and they plugged their phone into their car so they heard me through the speakers. One important part of the prayer tour is seeing the students faces as they process stuff b/c otherwise it feels very much like there is a lot of empty time in it. The bonus of having them in the other car was that my partner kinda knew the route of the tour and I wasn't as stressed about giving directions as we drove around. The down side, I wasn't really giving her directions and we missed a turn. Haha! But we realized it and got ourselves around and they didn't even know we had messed up. Well done.

So God is already teaching me what it means to be flexible with the groups and realize that not everything is going to fit into the cookie cutter idea of what we had for it here. We have a schedule, but things change constantly and not everyone is going to have the same experience. But now I have to go brief them on our next activity and deliver food to some people with AIDS/HIV. The love of God is all through the streets of San Fran, I'll tell you more about how wonderful He is in a bit.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Just some REGENERATING thoughts

Sunday was a half relaxed and half crazy thought, but I'm going to start with some fun stuff we learned during church. We went to this place called ReGeneration, I was thinking it was going to be one of those mega-church kinda things, but it was actually in a small Koren church building and the Koreans have their service after us. So anywho, the preacher was focusing on the story of the man with "Legion" living in him.

He started to talk about how we often tell people that once they become Christians, everything gets easier and it's just not true. When you accept Christ into your life, you've chosen your stance in a spiritual war where the enemy is very real. My thoughts on this, I completely agree. Everything doesn't necessarily get better, Christ just changes our values and priorities so that our joy comes from a different source than before - Christ.

Another thing he pointed out, that pertains more to the story, was that Jesus truly values us. He would rather save this one man than keep alive a whole herd of sheep that could have been used for food. He loved this man so much that He took a boat to reach JUST him. That was the only ministering Jesus did in Gerasenes when He went that time. Healed the man, then left.

The last thing that he talked about that stuck out to me was how Jesus agreed to the request of the demons(sent them into the pigs) and to those who opposed Him (left when asked to). However, when the one person that believed in Him asked for something (to follow Him), He refused the request. The preacher used Mark 3:35- "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother" - saying that Jesus knew the previously demonized man was a brother because he was willing to listen to what Jesus told him to do. I think we can take this a step further in that, sometimes our heart wants one thing, but Christ knows that He can trust us to do what is required and to spread His word.

And that was all, then we walked home. :-)

Mmmk lady...calm down

After we partook in the Meet a Need deal, we decided to grab a quick bite in the neighborhood, always down for some Mexican. Now the funny thing is, it took us about an hour to find people to serve to complete our task for the day, then all of a sudden people start popping up everywhere. First this lady tells us she is hungry, so we offer to buy her lunch, but instead she asks us to buy her some bread and juice at a little market when we get done. We then say, well come on with us and you can just pick out what you want. This was a learning experience...she went into the market and started picking out meat, juice, crackers, tampons, and thermaflu. She would ask, can I get this, and trying to be generous I just kept saying, oh yea that's fine, get what you want. The total...$32!!! Ahh!! But we were going to split the costs between 3 of us, so I was like whatever. We buy the stuff, pray for the lady, she walks us to the restaurant and we part ways. Well then, as we are about to order, she walks in the restaurant and asks us for money so she can get a BART ticket. I'm like, WHAT?, we just spent flipping 32 bucks on you lady (this is all mental). We ask her why and how much she needs, eight dollars, so we all give her a little change and apologize that we can't give her more. After that we decided that as a group we would offer people only $10 to spend if we did that again, otherwise we'd be broke in a hot minute.
Then we went to visit Chinatown since it was our day off. We met a lady, or man, I'm not really sure. He was Chinese and spoke gibberish, and we offered him/her a chewy bar but she/he refused it so we offered him/her an orange and she/he asked us to peel it for him/her. So we sat down and one of the girls peel the orange for this person.
Then we met another guy asking for money and offered him the chewy bar, but he said he only had one tooth so he couldn't eat it, but his friend took the offer and we apologized, but the first guy said it was okay and told us he needed to get himself some dental work.
Then we met another guy and offered him a granola bar, which he graciously took. Then another guy asked us for a down payment on a hamburger, which was too funny not to donate a little change to, and we shared a quick giggle with him.
I also bought 48 postcards for $6. Overall, it was a successful day and God really showed me how far simple ministry can go. I often try to think how I can do something BIG to serve a large amount of people but I become overwhelmed by it and end up doing nothing. Today, I got to be a part of serving over twelve people!! Sometimes we just need to look at the small pictures.

Oh the little things

Today was the first day that we had on our own, but we still had a task that had to be fulfilled. We were supposed to go to the Mission District - mainly Hispanic- and with $10 meet the need of someone there but try to do something other than buy food. So we went and walked down the street of our boundaries to get a feel. Met a random guy who kept trying to speak Spanish to us - which is when I realized my Indonesian had overridden my little bit of Spanish. Then we finally found this group of seven guys and decided to talk to them. We split up a little and found out through conversation that the guys needed some socks and water (Mind you we talked to them for about 5 minutes before even getting to the topic of needs). So we told the guys to stay where they were (though apparently the corner they were on is "their" corner) so we walked a few blocks and found a dollar store. We were able to buy 8 pairs of socks, 3 reusable water bottles and 2 boxes of chewy bars for $9.63. SCORE!! So we took them to the guys and talked to them for a while long. The most beautiful thing happened in the midst of all of this. One guy was passed completely out and our friend Carlos went over to him, took his shoes and socks off, put on the new pair of socks and then put his shoes back on for him. It was just such a generous thing that I probably never would have thought to do and he did it without a thought. Sometimes we try to think that we are the only ones that have anything to offer, then things like this happen and I'm reminded that these people have so much to teach me about community and love.

Oh what up San Fran

One of the activities we have students do while they are in S.F is something called a city tour. You get $2 per person and a map with boundaries that you have to stay within, and your goal as a group is to find out facts about the homeless in the community and to buy a meal for your group and someone else. So the journey began...
We live in Oakland, across the bridge from S.F. So to start our directors gave us enough money to take the BART system across the Bay and to have our $2 each. Our first stop once in the Tenderloin area (one of those areas you don't go into unless you're looking for trouble) was to go out of it for a second and visit the Public Library. It was HUGE, I'm talking maybe 5 stories but with just so much space and so much going on. Then we visited City Hall, to my surprise, I was informed that often throughout the week a judge will stand on the steps inside city hall and people will just walk up and get married. We watched as one couple got married and the next walked up for their turn. Pretty odd, I thought.
Well then we started venturing into the actual Tenderloin and I was so amazed by how many homeless people I saw. I've never been to a city where I've seen sooo many homeless people on the streets during the street and they are very obviously homeless people. But I also noticed how they all hung out and seemed to know each other and that the streets were their community, which was a neat concept. So we walked to the mall and inside the mall, in the middle of this bad part of town, were Dolche stores and BCBG stores. How is it possible that I went from seeing a homeless man sitting on a corner to walking in the door of a mall with so much wealth? I'll come back to this...
So we met a man named David who lives in the SRO's, he was very upfront when we asked to get his opinion on the neighborhood and told us that he had a low IQ and wasn't sure he could help us. But he was fantastic, and very helpful. He gave us names and directions to places we could stay, eat for cheap and even places that would help us find jobs.
We then continued our search for very cheap food and ran into Janis and Rootsman. They were a very kind couple. Once again, more than willing to talk with us and tell us their opinions of the neighborhood as well as where to find necessities. We told them we were looking for pizza and would love for them to join us for a slice. They were happy to join us and Janis lead us to the place while Rootsman mingled his way behind us, greeting lots of friends as we passed along. We order a 12" sausage pizza (because Janis was insistant on sausage) and sat downstairs to wait for it to get ready. Janis told us all about her life, how she met Rootsman, where she was staying, etc. She even started calling us "her girls". But when Rootsman brought the pizza down, Janis apparently thought he was eyeing our girl Kelly and she all of a sudden slapped him. This became tense for all of us, it was embarrassing, we weren't sure if she was going to slap Kelly too, Rootsman looked so angry and humiliated. So we just kept telling her how much we were enjoying our time with her and asking her again to tell us how to get to the places she'd told us about. It turned into the two of them screaming they were going to beat each other and such across the restaurant and then all of us leaving. Janis did apologize and we were able to leave on good terms with her ( I should have included that both admitted to drinking a bit before we met them).
Anywho, so that was a very dramatic end to our day. But when we were debriefing about it, our assistanct director Tara was telling us, well you've been embarrassed before too and it didn't have to do with associating with homeless people. We are going to be embarrassed during life, it's just part of it, but atleast we were doing something meaningful while this embarrassment happened. Hopefully we will get to see Janis and Rootsman again during our time here.

I love you all very much and thank you for being willing to read this with your free time. Please continue to pray for me and the people I'll be interacting with.

Look Me in the Eyes at Least (Part 2)

"Eyes" by a homeless man from Chicago

Look me in the eyes at least,
When you pass me by on the street,
Whether or not you answer my plea for money:
My eyes are the poorest of me -
Require only your two cents when we meet -
And are more in dire need of these than your feet.
My poor eyes! How they have spent the rent
Trying to buy a pleasant remembrance
To throw up on my mind's screen when I finally tire
Of going ungreeted, unseen.
I tell you what I want - what I feel
When you shuffle by behind your paper
Trying to be discreet, sweating slightly
Under your suit collar and looking down,
Always down, as if I were your sin...
Be absolved of the guilt trip! Look at me!
Made me a mint! Shower me with riches!
Give me a long look, and drown me in it!
Dignity outlasts dollars.

Last night we went on a prayer tour of San Francisco and it was a lot to take in. First, I have to say that San Fran is not a pretty place at all. The archtect is lacking to what I'm compared to in Charlotte, Chicago and even NYC and the parks are scarce to non-existant. Not to say that there are not places in S.F that have a pretty view, but I only really saw one that I was even slightly impressed by, so I was a little shocked because all the pictures I've ever seen make it look so nice. This was something else that surprised me, though we went through "nice" parts of town, even those did not seem all that nice and maybe we stuck more to the lower income parts and I've just yet to see the really nice parts of S.F. But as we were driving along, our guide informed us that part of what we were driving through was once the "red light district" of S.F, which 1) I didn't know anywhere but Amsterdam had those, and 2)it broke my heart to see what was still there as part of it. We drove by one street that had HUGE light up signs, similar to what you might see in Vegas, for strip clubs. It tore my heart apart, if there is anything that breaks me, it is a woman not realizing that she is worth more than the value a man gives her.
We also drove through Chinatown, where I learned that there are actually sweat factories going on within there. The Chinese people there will hire imigrants for cheap labor and long hours. Ironic I think.
We passes a school with a park right beside it and were informed that often the students of the school had to walk 5 blocks for recess because the park beside them was often locked up due to needles being scattered about.
We saw so many people hanging out on the streets because the streets are basically their living rooms. They live in Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing, which is a 10 X 10 room and therefore don't generally want to spend much time there.

Even through all this, God is working. There were several ministries that we passed that had buildings in the roughest neighborhoods. They are serving on the frontlines, unafraid of the dangers around them. They are reaching out and giving people a place to turn instead of to drinking and drugs, they are providing clothing, places to eat, even housing. The darkness can keep the light away.

As you pray for me, here are also some of the things we were asked to pray for on this tour:
-Those seeking comfort in drugs, alcohol, sex and illegal activities
-The families of teen runaways and the teens sleeping on the street tonight
-The safety of the prostitutes who will be working on these streets tonight
-Those seeking to fill their lives with wealth and material things, rather than letting God fill their hearts
-The men who frequent adult theatres - most of them have wives and children at home, and many of them are held captive by sexual addictions - pray that they will be released from this bondage.
-The women who work in these establishments - that they would realize that they are precious in the eyes of their Creator, and that they are worth more than this
-For the ministries working alongside each other in this city.


Well that's all from day one and there is a lot more for me to write, but I'm exhausted and I think this is a lot to take in, so I'll try and write more sometime tomorrow! Love you all and thank you for your prayers!!!!!!!

Flowers in My Hair (Part 1)

Okay, since it's nine at night here but I still feel like it's midnight, I'm going to try to keep these posts pretty short. So my trip to the San Fran Bay area was quite an adventure. When I arrived at the airport, the check-in lady informed me that my luggage was 12 lbs over the limit. Luckily, I have the most fantastic sister, who turned around and came back to the airport so I could throw exactly 12 lbs worth of stuff into her car and my bookbag (which then because ridiculous to carry). But then I was solid and headed into the airport for round two and passed the test!!! Oh and p.s if you aren't trying to get patted down by TSA, I suggest flying out of Charlotte because I didn't see anyone having that problem.
My layover in Minneapolis was about an hour late and then my plane was an hour late landing in S.F, so I was two hours late here. But then I had to take the subway (a.k.a BART) to get where I was going, about an hour on the subway. Then had to lug my 50 lb suitcase and my 5 billion lb bookbag up about 100 stairs bc the escalators were broken!!! No worries though, that is how God keeps up my muscle tone. At this point a white car pulled up to pick me up and we stood in the street for a few minutes because the car we are using is a rental and we couldn't figure out how to open up the trunk. Then I was in the car, safe and sound with two of my supervisors and another girl that is going to be hosting!! All together, I'd say a successful trip. I even made a friend on my second flight and we played angry birds on his iphone together. God is good.