With a $1,000 donation on its way, I will be 110 dollars shy from being fully funded!
I have no words to describe the blessings I have received through donations.
When I applied for The World Race I believed God would provide the means necessary for the experience but I was not expecting to be fully funded by March! The final deadline of when I must have the $15,500 in my account is not until December 2013! I also did not expect the Lord to prepare me so much spiritually. Beginning in the fall of 2012, right around the time I applied for the World Race, my relationship with Jesus began to intensify. I have been a follower of Jesus since 2005 and continued to be humbled and overjoyed with his love for me.
This past week I was on a spring break trip with the Penn State Navigators. We drove down to Birmingham, Alabama and stayed for one week. We worked with an organization called United Cerebral Palsy (UCP). UCP helps people with a variety of disabilities, from cerebral palsy to autism and has a day care center for children with and without disabilities. If you have ever worked with a person with special needs you have probably seen joy and gratitude like never before. One specific task our group was given was to help train participants for the Special Olympics. This was a highlight of the week for me. I was able to encourage these participants and see them fill with so much pride and sense of accomplishment as they crossed the finish line. I desired the simple joy that was so easily experienced by the participants. Sometimes I think we complicate life to much, all it should come back to is love which covers a multitude of mistakes and hardships.
Another huge part of the trip was being surrounded by an amazing group of Penn State students who came on the trip to serve God and grow closer to him. With 120 people working with the same goal in mind, it was easy to see God at work and be blessed. The most remarkable story is about my friend Jiggy, who decided to come on the trip even though she knew only a handful of people. Jiggy is brand new to Christianity and had tons of questions, I mean tons. After every conversation she had with me or another person on the trip, her questions about God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, the Bible, Christianity, sin, prayer, religion, and so on… were answered within the next 24 hours by somebody else. By the end of the week when her questions continued to be answered by seemingly random people (aka God ordained answers) she just started laughing and said “God you are very funny.” I have never witnessed God pursuing and guiding somebody so clearly in my life. Through the display of Gods power in clarifying Jiggy’s questions and concerns, I was able to accept and embrace that God is pursuing me just as he is pursuing my good friend.
I am satisfied in every way through Jesus; I want everyone to be able to experience Him. I used be ashamed to call myself a Christian. I feared that I would be associated with the West Burro Baptist Church or be labeled an ignorant religious and illogical person. God began to dissolve those fears as I began sharing my faith with my non-Christian friends.
Last fall I became convicted of the double life I seemed to be living. I claimed to be a Jesus follower and claimed that He was the most important thing in my life, yet I hardly talked about him. It was almost like my relationship with God was another part of my life, not my whole life. As I began to feel unsettled with my weak faith and selfish attitude, God challenged me to begin sharing my faith. The week before classes started last fall I decided to share a detailed description of how I came to accept Jesus as my savior with 25 of my classmates who I had known for the last year. It was a terrifying experience but was so rewarding. I look back to that day often as encouragement. Nobody wanted to kill me after I shared, nobody thought less of me; they simply saw a part of me (a big part) that I had been hiding before. When I shared my story it led to an amazing God centered relationship with my friend Jiggy, who I mentioned earlier. Jiggy had recently started having an interest in God a few months previously and my story encouraged her to share how God changed her life that summer. Not only did I gain confidence in my identity through Christ, my story was used to encourage a friend to accept and share her story.
Since that time of sharing I have embraced the love Jesus has for me. I embrace the life changing encounter I had in 2005 that forever changed my life. I cannot imagine my life without Jesus. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, only God can change hearts. I am trying to share the truth about the miracle of having my heavy heart transformed. There once was an emptiness inside me that led to countless lonely days and hopelessness. I now have abundant hope in Jesus who died as a sacrifice and was raised to life, defeating death, in order that I may be connected with God.
If I do not speak of the wonderful things God has done in my life, I am doing a disservice to the death of Jesus. Thank you all who have donated. Your love and support for me leads me to my knees in thanksgiving to the Lord. May you be blessed with eyes that are opened to the love waiting for you in the name of Jesus.
There is still a great need for donations amoung my team members. If you would still like to donate please consider donating towards one of my teammates accounts.
