“What do you have for me, God?” This simple question, asked with an open and humble heart, is a question that has radically changed my walk with God in the last ten days. I just got home from Training Camp where I spent ten days with my phone turned off, sleeping in a tent (if I was lucky), taking ice cold bucket showers (I would be happy to explain if you don’t know what these are), getting to know the 54 people that I will serve alongside in the next year, eating foods from cultures all over the world (including crickets), learning how to radically serve and love the nations and immerse myself in the lives of the people I am going to meet, and how to ask God in every minute of every day what HE has for ME. Some would say that I have “survived” training camp, but I would call this much more than just surviving.
The scary thing about asking God what He has for me is that He will answer and, more often than not, His answer is not the one I was looking for. Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or imagine.” The work God wants to do in and through me and each of you is far more ABUNDANT and UNIMAGINABLE than what we are even capable of thinking. This is beautiful and freeing because your life no longer is trapped by the capabilities of yourself, but instead, left in the hands of a Heavenly Father who loves you deeply! Through learning how to be silent with God and how to listen to the quiet truth of the Holy Spirit, I learned three miraculous things these past 10 days that I plan to take to the nations in the next 11 months.
1. Forgiveness is freedom and I have the power to forgive others through the power that Christ has given me! When your soul holds onto unforgiveness you are weak to the actions and words of others, but when you allow Christ to work through you, you are free to accept and give away forgiveness and this is a sweet, sweet victory!
2. Grace will always find me before condemnation. Grace does not keep record of my wrongs. Grace never changes its value for me. Grace restores and forgives me without a price. Grace can only be found through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
3. Family is a free gift! I have gained 54 brothers and sisters who I love dearly and who have the same passions to see the world know the perfect love of Jesus and that is what it’s all about!
I want to thank all of you have supported me thus far so that I could experience the goodness God had for me at training camp and, in just 2 short months, experience the world and share the love of Jesus! Here are pictures of my squad and the team of girls that I will be serving, loving, and learning alongside of! Each one of them is gifted in special ways and I want to ask you to please pray for their hearts, their fundraising, and for unity and love with one another as we spend a year being stretched out of our comfort zones so that people may know just how much God loves them!
*** I am also only $1,000 away from my December deadline! I will be doing a few more fundraisers over the next couple of months, but I pray and invite you to consider partnering with me financially so I can make this deadline and head out in January!
All Glory be to Christ,
Sara
