so very close!

Hello friends and family,

I'm writing to update you on my progress in getting to Cambodia. I am much closer than I was last time I updated (which was way too long ago.) Just in the last couple months things have begun to look much better budget wise.

I'm still in need of around $630 in monthly support in order to be cleared to leave the country. That number is shrinking every day, but I still need wonderful people such as yourself to be willing to commit to a monthly pledge number. Please pray about joining me as a partner. If you are willing to commit or to make a one-time donation (those are still always welcome!) please click the link on the side of my blog. I'm so thankful to those who already do support me and who are waiting and praying patiently with me for the day I will be able to get on that plane and head to Southeast Asia! I'm am really hoping and praying to be able to leave by November of this year. Hannah and Ethan are waiting on "Aunt Jennifer" to come and homeschool them, (as well as play G.I.Joes...well that's Ethan's request anyway.)

God has been doing great things in my life in the waiting period. It would take a whole book to tell you all the things He has quietly (and not so quietly) been doing in my heart, my life, my friends' lives...The past couple of months have been a transition time. I've said goodbye to several really good friends who have moved on the the next stages of their lives (i.e. college.) My church family also said goodbye to a dear loved one, Mrs. Beth Pettit, who went to be with Jesus the first week of August.

I've been making new friends, and forging better relationships with old ones. I'm really thankful for the body of Christ. They never cease to amaze me.

My sister and I have recently been sort of unofficially making Passion City Church our second church home. If you're in the Atlanta area, check it out: www.passioncitychurch.com. Great things are happening there...or rather, God is doing great things there! (As He is throughout His body, but PCC has proved to be a place where He is very welcome and lifted high.)

I also recently read a fantastic book called Little Princes by Conor Grennan. It truly impacted my life in a profound way. If you get the chance, definitely read it! You won't be able to put it down.

I hope you are all doing well, and that God is blessing you richly and abundantly in ways that speak personally to your heart.

Love,
Jennifer

Anguish

Day walker.

I remember a place we drove through on my trip to Ghana when I was in college. We were coming back from a night service and we passed through a village where they didn't have electricity yet. It was pitch black and most of the villagers had already gone inside their houses. A few people still walked around in the dark, because their eyes were used to it, I suppose. The darkness gave me this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I feared the people walking around, they seemed cold, distant, and up to no good. I realized that I had never seen a place without any lights whatsoever, and I didn't like the feeling. I breathed a sigh of relief when we rolled through to the next town that had electricity.



The next night we drove to another village to do ministry. We began to set up our portable stage and we walked around inviting people to come out. Some of the men in the village were intimidating. They stared at us "obronis" (white people) as we traipsed through their dusty streets. Right before we started the service, it began to rain. When it rains in Ghana, it most definitely pours. The red dirt roads quickly turned to pure mud and our vans were stuck. The wheels spun furiously as the driver tried to drive out. The rest of our team had found a dry spot under a small wooden shelter that stood in the middle of the village. Children from all over piled under with us. We led them in songs until our voices cracked. It began to get dark, and I realized that this was another village without electricity. We stood there in the pitch black, playing with the kids, trying to conserve our flashlights for a more opportune time. When the rains finally stopped, Dr. White decided that we should all try to push the vans out of the mud. We all pushed and slid and slopped until we became red mud monsters. Many of the men from the village (probably the same ones who had intimidated me earlier in the evening) came out of their homes and helped us push. We were all laughing and screaming...Obronis and Ghanaians alike. We succeeded in getting the vans out and as we drove back to Pastor Sammy's house, I felt a warmth in my heart as I saw how darkness can be so deceiving. There is no where I can go, not even a pitch black village in the middle of nowhere, that God is not there, that Love is not there. People are just people after all.



Fast forward to the fall of that year. I was driving back to TFC one night after spending a weekend at home. There isn't much light on the highways late at night as you get closer to Toccoa. I missed my turn and ended up in a tiny little community called Rabun Gap. I turned around and headed back to try and find my road, but I couldn't find it because it was so dark. The gas station that I usually used as my landmark of where to turn was closed and blended into the night. I think I took a wrong turn and ended up on another unfamiliar highway. I was already not thrilled with my time in Toccoa and this was just the last straw to my already emotional state. I think this night was probably the lowest of my low point. I felt completely and utterly lonely and abandoned. Tears streaming down my eyes, I turned around yet again. Much to my dismay, I saw red and blue lights in my rearview mirror. I didn't think I was speeding. Why would this cop be pulling me over? As I stopped my car, the police officer walked up to my window. "Good evening ma'am. You look kind of lost, can I help you?" I guess he had seen me drive past several times slowly trying to look for my turn. I told him where I was headed. It turned out that his mother worked at TFC, so he knew exactly how to get me there by a back way. I thanked him and headed back to the college. My little basement dorm room never looked so welcoming.



I have had some close contact with another kind of darkness lately, the kind you don't necessarily see, but feel. The kind that carries a fear far deeper than a night light or flashlight can combat. But God has faithfully carried me to the front lines and fought tirelessly for me and the ones I love. He continues to fight in His beautiful, all-powerful, perfectly wise ways and I just have to stand back in awe at my Warrior and His intricate perfection.

"A day walker, I love walkin' in the sunlight

I look dirty but I been cleaned on the inside...

We are Children of the Light,

Royal rulers of the day.

Saints, no prisoners of the night,

Trust and Love will lead the way,

We are free..."

Joy

This is a new blog...mostly thanks to a wonderful, encouraging lady named Marisa, who told me the other day in the bathroom at church that we needed to keep each other accountable on the blog updating ;-)

One of my spiritual mentors is a janitor. I often have to wait after work for my ride to show up, and sometimes I feel the inclination to do something out of the ordinary routine of sitting on the rock wall waiting. Almost every time I have decided to stray from routine I run into my custodian friend, and every time he has some words of wisdom for me that apply exactly to what I have been going through.

Today was one of those days. I walked down to the lower building and sat down on one of the benches to read the Bible. Not trying to sound super spiritual here, I just needed to read it. It guides my way. When I have big mountains to face in my life, I've learned the hard way where to go. My mentor came up to clean the doors and peeked out to ask what I was reading. I told him, and then he asked me about my Cambodia fundraising. I told him that it was still coming slowly but surely, but that as usual, I still felt a peace about it.

-On a side note, I have been realizing lately, that God has never spoken to me in dreams or visions about Cambodia. I had an intense time of God speaking to me lately in a prayer session, and He spoke to me about every other thing in my life that I needed to know about right now EXCEPT for Cambodia. However, everything He told me, I just knew that it was to prepare me for leaving. It was a given. I guess this is because Cambodia is the one thing in my life that I haven't doubted. I have this unexplainable peace that when it's my time to go, I'll go. I've already said yes, and I just have to wait.

Back to the story...he started telling me some really great God wisdom about God's timing, and Moses, and the Promised Land. All very applicable to my situation.

But then he started talking about David. I don't even remember how the conversation shifted, but it did. He said that David was called a man after God's own heart, but he failed...several times, and pretty messily. He said though, that if you read Psalm 51, which he wrote when during his repentence, it says, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation..." not just his salvation, but the joy of his salvation. He said that David never lost his salvation, he still pursued God, but he strayed away and lost his intimacy with God. He had to ask God to restore the joy that he felt when he first knew him.

I was dumbfounded at how this absolutely and totally spoke to something that had been on my mind. It speaks volumes to a problem a friend of mine has been facing lately. He messed up, big time, and he's in the process of repentence. He told me that he knows he needs to do it, he even desires to do it...he has always desired to live for God, but he's struggling because he doesn't feel God. He still feels dry. He has nothing to fuel and propel him and keep him going forward. Yet. When my mentor was talking about David it dawned on me, that my friend needs to be restored to the joy of his salvation. I am praying that God will do so, in His perfect timing. My mentor said that He believes David had an even deeper relationship with God after he fell and repented. I pray that also for my friend. I pray that the richness of his restored joy will spill over to the rest of us who have become complacent and taken it for granted.

So I say to you...you never know who God will speak to you through. This particular mentor of mine has been very misjudged by a lot of people who haven't taken the time to really talk to him and find out what's going on in his life. Never underestimate, and never judge a book by it's cover.

“I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” –Matthew 26:13
I was reading the story of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume today, and the impact of verse 13 struck me in a whole new way. What she was doing seemed completely ridiculous to every one else there. She was looked down upon because she was a woman, and some say that the fact that she owned this jar of perfume pointed to prostitution being her trade. It seems to me that for her to be so grateful to Jesus that she would do something crazy, something that would cause a lot of people to laugh at her and scorn her… He must have had a radical impact in her life.

He tends to do that.

In John 11 it says that this woman, who anointed Jesus, was Mary, sister of Martha -the girl that we celebrate for sitting at the feet of Jesus. That story is another instance of Mary doing something that seems ridiculous and impractical to onlookers.

But Jesus said…

…that wherever in the world His story, God’s story, the most important story of all time was told, for the rest of earth’s history, what Mary did would also be told. What she did meant so much to Jesus, that He wanted her memory to live on for as long as His gospel is preached.

And it has.

In fact, I’m writing to you about her right now. You’re reading about her and her beautiful act of worship wherever you may be right now. Maybe it’s Newnan, Georgia. Maybe it’s Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Maybe it’s Jordan or Laos or Kentucky or Florida.

That’s pretty amazing.

So I challenge you…to stop doing things the way you think they should be done…the way you think other people think they should be done. Stop worrying about how you come across to others. Stop glancing around to make sure people are not going to think you are ridiculous. Stop worrying about the time your wasting and the other things you “should be doing.”

“Waste” time listening at His feet.
“Waste” money to wash His feet.

“Waste” your life on Him.

Writer's Block

It's not that I don't want to write for you all. I desperately do. The last few weeks I've just been experiencing that strange phenomenon we call writer's block. With me, writer's block is always a spiritual thing. When I'm feeling the desert, my ability to express my feelings with words shuts off. That's what I've been feeling. Don't get me wrong, I have experienced some incredible God encounters the last few weeks...He always knows when we need a drink from the canteen to refresh us and keep us from growing weary, but for the most part, those have been very private, intimate encounters, and sporadic. I have felt like God has been playing Hide and Seek with me. I'm desperate to find Him, and I know one day soon I'll see His radiant face again, but for now, I just thirst, and wait for Him to speak. Whenever I go through those writer's block times, I tend to have this insane desire to write, and get my feelings out, I just can't find the words or initiative to do it. I usually turn to writing poems during those times. Basically, because I don't have to worry too much about grammar, or making my sentences make sense, or anything like that.

On the practical front...the women's ministry at my church has decided to make me one of their missions projects this year! They have a $5000 pledge to the LIFE offering projects for the GA district, but anything they raise over that amount is going to help me in my quest to get to Cambodia. I'm both humbled and honored that they would come behind me in such a tangible way. I have no doubt that the women of my church will go well above and beyond $5000, so this is very good news! I can't wait to see how God is going to work through this.

Let the little ones come

I work in the kindergarten class of the After School program at my church's school. Recently, one of the boys, we'll call him Felix, came into the room very distraught about the fact that he thought he was getting a note sent home from his teacher. He said that he had called another little boy in his class "stupid-face" earlier in the day. Felix is a very well behaved kid, and hates to get in trouble. He's very easily worried and has a lot of anxiety. I always say that he's a 40 yr. old man in a 5 yr. old body. He was in tears because of the supposed note home, and couldn't even finish his lunch. I said to him,

"Felix...do you need a hug?"

He said, with lots of dramatic flair, "No, I think I'm just going to pray."

I said, "I think that's a great idea Felix. Would you like me to pray with you?"

He said, "Uh yes. I think so."

So he sat down at the table, folded his hands, closed his eyes, and proceeded with a very expressive prayer...

"PLEASE GOD...Don't let me get a note home, please, please, please don't let me get a note home. Don't let my mom hate me. Don't let me have a note and don't let her be mad at me. PLEASE GOD don't let me get in trouble for the note. PLEASE don't let me get a note home..."

That went on for about 5 minutes. He finally said, "Amen." I said, "Amen." also, and he came and sat down beside me, still in tears. I said,

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know, I'm just still worried. I'm really worried about the note."

I said, "I think it's all going to turn out just fine. I don't think your mom will be too mad because you never get in trouble. It's going to be ok. You want to know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you prayed, and I know that God heard it and He's going to take care of it."

"Oh...ok."

The next day, I asked Felix how everything went and he said,

"Oh everything went fine. I didn't get a note home."

He ran off to play with the other kids with a big smile on his face.

I can't help but wonder how often I'm just like Felix when I pray. I say, "Please, please, pleeeeease God..." and I worry and stress, when God has already put His plan into motion and the next day... everything has worked out just fine.

Last night it snowed, but it didn't stick on the roads so we still had school today. There was snow on the playgrounds and it was melting and making mud. Some of the girls came up to me and asked if we were going outside today. I said,

"No, not today. It's too muddy because of all that snow."

Most of the girls took that answer and walked away, but one little girl stayed and said, "But can't we go outside? It's not that muddy."

I said, "Yes it is, go look out the window at the playground."

She ran over to look out the window and came back to me and said,

"It's not muddy! Can we go outside?"

I said, "No, I already told you we weren't going outside."

She said, "But I really wanna go outside!"

I said, "Talk to God about it."

She nodded her head and ran over to the window and closed her eyes for a couple of seconds. She ran back over to me and said, in a sheepish voice,

"He said no."

:)

"My God's not dead,
He's surely alive!
And He's living on the inside,
Roaring like a lion!"

("Like A Lion" by David Crowder Band)

Growing up in a charismatic/pentecostal home all my life I heard a lot about spiritual warfare. It was always kind of this vague sort of thing, that people in my church did when they got really loud and intensely prayed and laid hands on people. I remember being a little bit afraid of, and embarrassed by the thought of it when I was a kid.

When I was older, and began going on missions trips I had several encounters with strong spiritual power and quickly learned that it wasn't just this "spiritual idea"...but that there were definitely other forces out there, battling against us and attempting to battle against God. Still, it was something that I regulated to the mission field.

Lately though, God has been teaching me about the war that is going on everyday. I'm learning how to fight...but it's not about being loud and praying as hard as I can. Infact, it's more about letting Him do the fighting. It's a little bit difficult to put into words, but I'm going to attempt to write about a few things He's been teaching me.

In the past few months my sister and I have remarked at how often God has reminded us of Romans 8. Specifically verse 31, which says, "If God is for us? Who can be against us?" and verses 26-27 and 34 which say that the Holy Spirit and Jesus are our intercessors. I try to remind myself that even if I don't know what to pray for myself or for others, or if I can't focus, or I haven't given myself time to pray, the God of the universe is praying.

I was afraid of everything growing up. Roller coasters, E.T., infectious diseases, clowns, you name it. As I got older, those tangible fears dissipated, but I traded them for inner fears. Worry, insecurity, timidity. One time in college I was praying with some friends and this guy prayed over me that I was a lioness, and that I would speak into darkness and the darkness would flee. At the time, I was like, "Are you crazy? Do you even know me? I'm no lioness."

I have begun to see lately though, that I can have that courage, like a lion. You can too. It's strange though, because it can only happen by doing something the world would say was completely absurd...something that goes against every war strategy ever thought of since the beginning of time...

surrender.

Not to the enemy, but to the power of our Lord. I'm learning more and more that spiritual warfare isn't about a lot of fervor and intensity. It's about a quiet, calm, steady, faith. We get to cross our arms and watch as our mighty Defender goes before (and behind and all around us!) and every evil foe and force has to bow in agony.

I really think though, that He does let us help some...He has given us a powerful weapon to fight with...But it is definitely not one that a soldier would normally think of carrying into such an intense battle. Our glorious weapon that God has entrusted us with is,

Love.

His love. Pure and bright, strong and penetrating. It has the ability to flow to the farthest reaches of this earth and dispel the darkness and we have the weighty privilege of carrying it there.

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds."

-2 Corinthians 10:3

The greatest of these.

One day last week I woke up in the morning with the song "Boasting" by Lecrae and Anthony Evans running through my head. The lyrics say,


"If this life has anything to gain at all

I count it lost if I can't hear you, feel you,

'cause I need you. Can't walk this earth alone.

I recognize I'm not my own, so before I fall

I need to hear you, feel you, as I live to make my boast in you alone."


I also distinctly heard two phrases in my head: "Love does not boast" and "Love is not self-seeking."

I recognized this from the "Love Passage" in 1 Corinthians 13. Most of us are pretty familiar with it. I decided to read it again though, and this time I looked at the whole chapter (...with completely new eyes...God seems to be doing that for me a lot lately. I feel like a little kid learning in Sunday School again.)


In the beginning of chapter 13 Paul says,

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, I gain nothing."


He then goes on to talk about the "greater gifts." That phrase used to confuse me. I thought, "Are some gifts more important than others? Which ones are the greater ones?" I realized though, that what he was really saying that he was about to introduce us to the greatest gifts. He goes into a description of what love is, that makes each one of us want to crawl under the table. There has to be at least one phrase in the "Love Passage" that makes each one of us uncomfortable. There's just no way for a human to live up to all of this criteria!


Patient...AND kind...AND not envious...AND not boasting, OR proud...It doesn't dishonor, or provoke, it's not self-seeking, and it keeps absolutely no record of wrongs. It ALWAYS protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. It never fails.

That's a lot to live up to. Especially since we are told that love is the greatest commandment for us.

But love is a gift.

It's the first fruit of the Spirit, and its something that we have to allow the Spirit to fill our lives with. We can never love like this on our own.


After Paul goes through his ode to Love, he says,

"But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears... For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

This is the part that I felt like a Sunday School girl in. It suddenly dawned on me that the reason Paul says all this, the reason he tells us that Love is the "greater gift" is because it's the only one we will carry into eternity. Prophecy, and tongues, and words of knowledge, and discernment, and all these things are wonderful -they're gifts from God, but they are only partial and they are only temporary. When we go into eternity we won't need them anymore. We'll commune with God every second of every moment (if there are even moments in heaven) so we won't need "words" from Him. We will know as we are fully known, so we won't need knowledge as a gift.


But we will be loving. We'll be loving God with our whole beings, completely wrapped in the fullness of His love for all of forever. We will also be loving one another. We'll be able to love and fellowship with each other without any of the hang- ups, insecurities, or limitations that there are on our relationships here on earth.


Now about the last line...

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

I'm a youth leader at my church. Last night, for the second time this month, the youth pastor, Pastor Alan, talked about a specific passage of scripture that had been tossing and turning around in my heart all the week before. It's so cool when God does those kinds of things...little " coincidences" that you know aren't. He was talking about love, and he read from 1 Corinthians 13. We were having what PA calls a "REALtalk," where he starts a topic and passes the microphone around the room and the students get to share what's on their heart regarding that topic. One of the questions he asked, was "what's the difference between loving God with your heart, your soul, and your mind?"


We established that the heart is the seat of our emotions, and loving God with all your heart is loving Him with your emotions...which we tend to frown on, but really it's an important part of our relationship with Him. He created us as emotional beings.


When it came to the soul part, I was stumped. I had never really thought about what was different about loving God with your soul as opposed to your heart. Someone said that it involves living with an eternal perspective. Which I totally agree with. I thought about the last part of 1 Corinthians 13...faith, hope, and love.



Faith and hope are both expressions of us loving God with our souls. They transcend our emotions and our minds. Infact, they are almost completely contrary to everything our feelings and our rational minds tell us. They are how we live for eternity. And love...well we've already established that love is the only gift we can take into eternity. I believe that Paul was telling us that faith, hope, and love are the greater gifts, but...



The greatest of these is Love.

I had a dream the other night about a friend of mine. He and I and some other people were in a classroom. Different people had been asked to speak about certain subjects, and my friend had been asked to teach about prayer. I could tell he was really excited about being asked to speak, but also nervous. He didn't know if he was the right person to do the job, because he was the youngest person there, as well as the newest believer.

When his time came, he jumped up from his seat and ran to the front. He asked us to open our Bibles to a certain passage and although I can't remember what that passage was, I know it was something really poetic and beautiful. I want to say it was either in Isaiah or Psalms. I suddenly realized that my friend wasn't going to read the passage... instead he started singing it. Now my friend isn't necessarily a singer in real life, but in my dream he was singing these words from God in the most beautiful, clear, pure tenor. It sounded like the perfect singing voice for his real life speaking voice. My heart was so full of joy as he was singing it. I realized that the reason he chose to sing a Bible verse was because it was so important to him, the message ran so deep for him, that he didn't know how to adequately express it otherwise.

Another one of my friends was sitting next to me, and when the song was done, he leaned over to me and said, "Well we didn't learn anything about prayer from that." (This is not to say anything about that person, because he's a wonderful man of God, and he would never say anything like that in real life, he was just used to make a point in my dream.) I leaned over to him and said, "Sshhh don't say that!" Because I knew that we had learned an incredibly important thing about prayer.

I was thinking about my dream yesterday, and as I was thinking about why my friend sang the scripture, I realized that the song that was playing on my ipod playlist at that moment was a song by Charlie Hall called "King of Heaven". The chorus says this:

We’ll sing the gospel to the poor,
We’ll go to comfort those who mourn,
You’ll put together what’s been torn,
King of Heaven.
We’ll sing the news of all Your grace,
We’ll help the broken-hearted praise,
You’ll put Your glory on display,
King of Heaven.

It's based on Isaiah 61...

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

I had been reading that chapter of Isaiah that very morning. THEN this morning in Sunday school, my teacher, Miss Tina, had us read it! The more I think about it, the more I believe that was the chapter my friend was singing from in my dream, although I can't be positive. I guess it doesn't really matter. What matters is the connections God made between it all in my heart. If you knew my friend you would know how significant it is. He has had and is still having first hand experience with being the broken heart that is being binded up by Jesus. I know that God is in the process of turning his broken heartedness into a testimony of how great His saving power is. And after his time of healing is over, he will sing that good news to the poor and broken-hearted. It's just about the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. It also challenged me to passionately sing the good news with all the power and freedom and love that it carries wherever I go on this earth.