Angel Army…

I want to tell you an amazing story about a girl named Daniella…let me start from the beginning…

Through our team last month, along with many other AMAZING things that God did, our team was able to start a teen youth group program at the church and bring in 20+ teens ages 15-20. We put on 4 scheduled parties (bonfires and tea/coffee dessert nights) at the church which were amazing…these were youth that didn’t go to church, wouldn’t step foot in a church, teens when we invited them to come in were drunk on a school night, kids that didn’t understand what a Christian was other than someone who could not possibly be normal. God broke down so many things in these kids…along with the parties they came over almost every single day, we played soccer, basketball, lots of uno, listened to music…normal things, and once the trust was set God opened many more doors.

So at the first party a girl named Daniella walked in…our translator Peter said “it was strange the moment she walked in she saw you Emily and wanted to talk to you so she waited but you didn’t see her and you were talking to someone else”…then later that night was the first time I spotted her, and as soon as I made eye contact, smiled, and waved her over to sit by me. The conversation was easy, we talked about all sorts of things, girly things, past relationships, and life…we had a great time talking about girly things like different kinds of mascaras because our translator Peter had to also then talk about girly things J We were in fits of laughter over this!!

She asked about my ring which has Isaiah 61 written on it…I thought well this is a perfect lead in to talk about my faith, but at the mention of the bible and God her eyes and body language completely changed and she told me, “If you talk about God you will put a wall up between me and you” …I quickly sensed her shutting down so I changed the subject and we spent the rest of the night laughing more and talking about everything…anything but God or faith. At the end of the night she said, “I can’t remember ever laughing this much while talking to someone.” PS-to all readers of the last blog…guess what she wore around her neck? A gold dolphin necklace…divine appointment YES YES!

So we hung out again a couple times talking and bonding, showing each other pictures of friends and family and talking about life…one of these nights she walked literally through the pouring down rain to come and meet up, completely soaked by the time she got to the church.

I was praying all the while for God to open doors…God put it on my heart to write her a letter…when I put the pen down I said God let these be your words…and as I did he wrote about how meeting her was a huge blessing in my life, that I was sent to tell her about how much God loves her, that she was accepted, loved, special, and welcome just as she was. As I wrote my jaw dropped and I thought ah God is this going to go over well? As Peter the translator spoke these words he said he too was afraid to translate them considering the last time we spoke about God everything in her changed.

But God knew just what he was doing…Halfway through the letter tears poured out of her eyes. God opened doors to share the gospel with her, all about God’s intense love for her, my testimony, and many stories about when I was her age…all the while she just cried. Nothing of that night was anything of me, with the things that came out of my mouth my jaw was dropping, watching her I was in awe…I was only a vessel that God used that night to send one 18 year old girl from Moldova God’s love from one girl from America.

My girl teammates were in the room right next door praying hardcore as this was all going on…wow this gives me chills as I write it…so as they were praying my friend who has a very special gift from God all of a sudden jumped up and popped her head in the room I was in, I just smiled big at her, and as she looked around the room she looked back at me with a huge smile too. I came to find out later while they were praying she saw the brightest light, and felt the house shake and thought ‘wow no way,’ jumped up and ran into the room we were in, and sure enough she said there were angels everywhere, stacked in the room shoulder to shoulder shinning with the brightest light, and all looking at Daniella. I have tears in my eyes as I write this because I didn’t see the angels myself that night but I felt their presence more than anything.

Her heart broke and everything about this girl changed that night. I found out later once we were friends her and her friends had actually come that first night to make fun of these crazy Americans that said they were Christians…they thought we would probably be crazy and very un-normal people. She went from someone who wouldn’t dare enter a church (we talked a lot about this and the rejection she felt her whole life from the church) to someone who when I wasn’t around Peter heard her sticking up for Christians and telling her friends they aren’t these crazy people we have always thought they were.

Of course there are more details to this story but I can’t get them all out in a blog J Overall between Daniella, the teen youth group, doing tons of home visits pouring into people, teaching English to college students, running a children’s program each day, lots of preaching and sharing of testimonies…and so much more, this was a very busy busy month with little to no downtime, and whenever there was there were kids at our door hungry for love and time.

I am headed to Malawi, Africa on Saturday and will arrive there on Tuesday! We will be doing all sorts of things, one really cool thing will be crusades we will do 3-4 days out of each week where we will pack a small bag of things and head out to small villages to share with them and love on them, some who maybe have never heard of God’s love or very little. I wanted to let you all know I am heading into Africa for 3 months and probably won’t have much internet to respond to your emails…but I am really excited about this because our team is really praying right now about internet time and use, and I am feeling led away from it at this time…time to abandon more and walk farther away from comforting things.

I love you all so much! Yes everyone, I made it safely to Romania from Moldova! Here I am with my WHOLE family, my squad, who I LOVE LOVE LOVE and we will be together the next two days until Africa on sat! And guess what?! My layover for 8-9 hours ish is in Greece! So we are going to head out and see some cool things before jumping on the plane to Africa!

FUNNY THINGS FROM LAST MONTH: Since we lived in Transnistria, we called it Narnia, it was not a real country, we had a puppy all month named Stephanie that we may have smuggled across the border, she was a stray and the church took her in…we met the Vice President of this non country who wanted us to go into every school and talk about drugs, sex, and alcohol and why not to do them, she acted like she loved us, next time she saw us at the school festival we went to she acted as if she barely knew us…awkward turtle…I think we killed 4 mice while living in the church, one Alison smashed in her sleep, one ran between my feet in the shower, awesome…what was once not normal has now become extremely normal, I love it. Every part of this journey, hard, crazy, insane, jaw dropping, joyful, tearful, incredible, amazing…I love it, every part, every piece, wouldn’t trade or change anything.