<< ( Fundraising Update: As of calculations today, I have over $9,000!!! WOO! Adventures In Missions graciously let me attend Training Camp without the necessary $9,000, and they are graciously giving me a new deadline of August 28th to get the $10,500. But this is a hard deadline, meaning it must be met or I cannot go. ) >>
This fundraising journey has been one of the hardest things. Like ever. One of the things I’ve had to realize more is that God doesn’t need me for Him to get work done, that I don’t have to do it all, and its not up to me. He’s come through in ways I never expected and people I didn’t expect it to come from, and while none of my plans seemed to work and I was disappointed, slowly but surely my total has gone up. I was thinking that no one saw me or my need by the responses I felt I was getting. He doesn’t have to let me know what’s going on. Then I hear stories of those who are fighting for me, supporting me, giving to me, and working so hard to get me there, and I am so blessed by those willing to feel in those moments to give what they have. If I could I would tell you them. (Like plain out donations from people I would least expect, and anonymous donations that literally just show up in my account. And my squad who have donated to me to get me past this deadline rather than just fundraise for themselves! That’s love y’all! WE ARE FAMILY!) But God is providing, not always in those enormous miracles we see in movies, but even the somewhat seemingly small ways are miracles. I just need to seem them as huger than they are!
Throughout all this I’ve realized how much of a stubborn, angry, jealous person I am, and man am I humbled by it all and ashamed. I had no idea I was so messed up. I thought I was better than that. And I’ve certainly been humbled by the amount of work that really goes into all this. And I love how I’ve been able to see everything from a different better perspective now since training camp! I AM different since training camp. I AM healing, and those answers I’ve longed for, I see them answered different than I expected. I see reasons in every season. And one word keeps coming to mind, and that word is hope. Hope has so much more meaning in my life than I realized. In Lamentations 3 after beginning with describing all the horrible things, (which I feel the whole chapter basically describes my wrestles with the devil the past year) there I read statements of hope, and it encourages me:
“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust- there may yet be hope.“
(verses 21-29)
Purpose. Hope. Waiting. I have had to do a lot of waiting during this journey, and it is not fun. But it is important, and a testing tool. And it is purposeful. Waiting is in itself a season, to be embraced.
“We have this hope as an anchor for our souls”
And, my life song, that has encouraged me since 7th grade says:
“There is HOPE for me yet
Because God won’t forget
All the plans He’s made for me
I have to wait and see
He’s not finished with me yet.”
– Brandon Heath, “Wait and See”
How does that not give you hope? You’re still alive, He’s not finished with you yet!
So I think I’ll be sticking to the word hope for now.
And drumroll…
Meet Team Dauntless!!! Whoop Whoop!!!
Left to right: Kaitlyn Schaeffer, Anna Blank, Katie Wolfsohn, Jordan Hickerson, Me, Bailey Hicks, and Kaela Kreis! Check ’em out and get to know ’em!
Hold up though, have we got a story for you: We did not want to be a team at first. Well, I guess I can only speak for half of us when I say that, or maybe even just only me. I for sure didn’t want this team. I was angry, I didn’t understand, I was overwhelmed and upset, because I couldn’t see it working out. I was put into the perfect team a few days before so to be in this team formation totally threw me off as to “What exactly did I do wrong to get here?” We were totally tense, tears were shed, opinions stated, and the leaders told us that they saw potential in us as a team and had us chat together as a team for 30 min. Not that we didn’t love each other in the squad, just in the team formation it didn’t seem perfect.
But Jesus knew what He was doing, and we tried our best to have good attitudes about it. On the day we were allowed to leave camp for the afternoon, we were prayed over, we went out to eat and were quiet, but then…giggles, jokes, and awesomeness. And we decided that this was good, this would work, and we were a team. And as a declaration of hope over us, we dubbed ourselves as Team Dauntless. It turned out to be a good day.
I so look forward to living life with these lovely amazing fantastic and beautiful girls and getting to know them and taking on challenges that face us as we travel around the world. We got this ladies!
Prayer Requests
- Preparation of hearts. Preparation of souls. You can only be prepared so much for your life being changed. So how about fear? Pray for our fears.
- The people we will minister to and work with.
- Pray for Team Dauntless! Pray for our future work and that we’ll work together and make plans well.
- Pray for our last minute fundraising. While our last official deadline isn’t until October 31st with our total of $12,491 (most are almost fully funded), our Launch deadline was August 21st of $10,500. I know for myself my deadline has been extended until August 28th, but I have even more right now then my blog says, so I’m doing good I think. But prayers appreciated.
- JUST PRAY FOR US
