Sooo....its been a while since I have done this (sorry, things got really busy). A lot has happened and a lot is about to happen. I am writing this 1 day before I leave for India! I'm in a bit of denial right now. But first things first I will try and recall all that happened 2 weeks ago.
Our speaker two weeks ago was Kristen Williams and he is the pastor at Hope Centre (the church I attend here) and he spoke on the Holy Spirit. This being two weeks ago and my notes being packed its hard to remember all of his lectures but what I got out of it was pretty sweet. The main thing that stuck out to me about His lectures was that God's presence never leaves us. He is never away or not apart of our life. This presence though is manifested in many different ways. Being here and being surrounded by people that encounter God in many different ways can be so confusing at times. Each day after his lectures we would have ministry times to just pray and seek God's manifest presence. Some people end up on the ground in tears. Some people start laughing uncontrollably. My bunk mate actually saw angels in the room and one of our leaders saw the same thing and their descriptions matched! Isn't that crazy! My personal experience with the Holy Spirit that week was more of a feeling light and, for lack of better words, being drunk in the Spirit. It was a lot of people's favourite week. I enjoyed it a lot and Kristen's teaching was so solid and I left every lecture with a desire in me to go out and do something radical for Christ, but my desire for a crazy God moment like the angels brought about confusion and comparison. Kristen spoke about how you can't control how He moves. You can't pick the way the Holy Spirit speaks and encounters you. What you can rely on is that the way He does speak and encounter is whats best for you. If we were to see the entirety of God I don't think our bodies could handle it so thank you God for not killing us with you awesomeness.
We had a cool experience on that Thursday to go to a recording studio and record a song that the ship ministry was going to produce. We left right after lectures (and they are usually left open ended so if you need to stay and pray or get prayer then you are welcome to) and we left in a hurry. One of our band members was on her face completely balling her eyes out because God was showing her the beauty of Jesus so she had to get picked up during that, thrown in a car, and then speed away to record which we were late for. I found it funny because her face was red from the carpet and she was so out of what was going on.
The next week was Mandy Hudson and she spoke on Calling and Identity. This was where I got some answers from the prior week. Her lectures again were full of amazing nuggets of wisdom but what I got most from this week was a meeting I had with her on Thursday night. She was one of those speakers that absolutely gave her all to our school. She had one on one meetings with about 30 people in 5 days! So Thursday night we chatted for a while about my life. I feel that there has always been a calling on my life to be a leader or person of influence. Mandy, through her experience, said that God usually focuses a lot on the foundation of a leader. She said that many times in mainstream Christianity, big leaders in the church fall because of a lack of character. That's where the corruption comes in. During the first week of lectures I had a really weird experience where I was just overwhelmed with God's presence and my hands and feet were tingling like crazy. Through that, I felt like God was saying that I was going to be His hands and feet and that He would use me. Since then, I never felt His presence the same way and during the Holy Spirit week I really longed to. We then began to talk about biblical characters like David and Moses who received their callings many many years before those callings came to reality. They had to wait. I felt like that was a promise during the first week and now I had to wait too as God works on my character. I love Bible verses that apply to what I'm going through: “those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31). This verse hangs in Hope Centre, last week's speaker's church. Looking big picture that week was really good for me and really encouraged me to continually put forth effort and pursue God. Yes, I can't make Him love me anymore, but it would help me love Him more and get more intimate with Him.
This week has been entirely devoted to preparing for Outreach. I am so excited to leave. Our group is second to last to leave so yesterday and today has been a bunch of goodbyes which I recently learned that I hate. But I feel prepared to go and I know that where ever I go, He will be with me and that He will not abandon me. With Him, nothing is impossible so I am excited for all the stories I will have. I will not continue my blog on outreach because I will most likely not have internet access but here is a link for our teams blog which should keep you fairly updated. http://ristio.com/anddddd-were-off/
I feel like this blog was kind of all over the place and possibly full of incorrect grammar and spelling but I have spent a lot of time with people who have English as a second language so I have an excuse! Also, its lunchtime so I'm hungry. Thank you all so much for reading this and keeping up with me. I wish I had more time and energy to hear how all of you are doing but please know that I miss you guys and am excited to see you all again. Please keep me in your prayers to just be completely submissive and obedient to God. I know that if I obey, He will provide all I need. Thanks y'all. Peace.
