Have you ever found yourself facedown in your bible praying and pouring your heart out to the Lord? Sometimes I wonder what exactly comes out of my mouth in those moments. Seriously. I start praying about one thing and then my heart takes over and all these other things pour out. Then there was that one time in Peru where the Lord placed something on my heart during prayer, in the wee hours of the morning, that still has me scratching my head. It is something that I don’t feel that I am ready for. Then again, if left in my hands, I might not ever be ready for it.
Yesterday afternoon I was all alone in the church while one of my teammates was napping upstairs. I started off playing some worship music while I set the chairs up for service that night. I finished setting up the chairs and went and sat in front of the alter with my wide array of items. I had my bible, my journal, my iPod, my team phone, and my laptop blasting the worship music. I laid in front of the alter that is covered in a multicolor shag rug. I was blending into the church carpet with my burgundy skirt.
I laid there still. I was soaking up the music and resting in His presence. It didn’t take long before my ninety to nothing mind started to kick in. I sat up and started flipping through different scriptures and before I knew it I was laying facedown with my head in my bible. I was pouring my heart out and pleading to the Lord about all kinds of things and people.
One of the things that I was praying about was meeting my final deadline for this mission trip. I know I was asking for a lot seeing that I was $3,000.00 away from my final deadline. However, I knew that the Lord had called me here and if He wanted me to stay He would make it happen.
While I was in the church praying, most of my other team mates were at the mall getting wifi. My team mate Anne had been sharing my blog with her contacts to help me with my funding so she decided to check my funding status while she was getting internet yesterday. When they returned she asked me how far away I said I was from meeting my goal. I told her $3,000.00. She looked at me confused and asked how sure I was because according to my updated funding in my blog I was $300.00 over. Not going to lie, my first thought was “oh it must be an error.” I had checked my funding a few days prior and received a couple notable donations but nothing to put me over my goal.
I have full faith in the Lord and I know He answers prayers but He blew me away, again. I read a quote yesterday during my prayer time that reinforced that the Lord wanted me here.
“The world isn’t being won because we’re not doing it. It’s our fault. Nowhere on earth is the gospel as plentiful as it is in the United States. You don’t a call—you’ve already had one. If you stay [in America] you better be able to say to God, “you called me to stay home.” If you don’t have a definite call to stay here, you are called.”
The Lord hasn’t called me to live this season of my life in the comfort of everything that I have in the states. He has called me into the nations. He has called me to be a witness. He has called me to be a Light.
I also was reading in John 1:6-7, “there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.” The Lord called John to be a witness. The Lord challenged me reading that to put my name in the place of John’s name. I read it as “there was a woman sent from God, whose name was Crystal. This woman came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through her might believe.” I challenged my team with this statement also. I challenged them to remember the very reason why we are all here.
With all that being said….I AM FULLY FUNDED. The Lord wrote the check to keep me here. The Lord wrote the check because of His call on my life. Thank you all so much for helping me along the way. Thank you all for the donations and for the prayers, and thank YOU very much to the anonymous person who donated the large sum of money. Please keep praying for this team and for wisdom as I lead them.
The team is heading to Thailand July 2nd. We will be located in Pattaya working with Light for Asia. We will be teaching the word to kids from the slums, spending time at a special needs home for older women, and handing out bibles to tourist. Even more exciting, one of our contacts is from Georgia and the other is from Texas. Yep, I get a month to be surrounded by southerners. It’s a win!
