deep breath

Hi all,

Guys, Its hard to put into words what God has done through me while being in Indonesia. He kinda striped me down bare and really made me evaluate myself. And let me just tell you that is not fun. God really made me realize how much of my past that I was still holding onto. God showed me how I thought about myself and that brought me to tears, but then he showed me how he looks at me and then I was weeping. He delights in me and rejoices over me with singing! (Zeph 3:17) God also showed me what it was like to live in close quarters with 13 sweaty, hilarious, God loving people and how we can become family in such a short amount of time. My team was the best. We loved each other which made loving others in the Indonesian community SO much easier. As a team we pushed each other towards God. We prayed for one another. We made fun of each other. . . you always need to make fun of your family. . . I mean look at us. Why wouldn't we make fun of each other?

But I knew my team was ALWAYS there when I needed prayer or when I just needed to talk to someone. Team Indo is the best (I'm not biased or anything). #JesusThanksAMillion 

But we do clean up well don't worry.....

Some other things I learned in Indonesia is to be bold. Being bold really wasn't in the vocabulary of Lauren before coming to YWAM. Being bold means I have to do something I didn't want to do or wasn't comfortable with. The bold Lauren didn't come out until the end of our outreach. I mean I tried this rice stick thing and that was pretty bold for me... because being bold with food was a CHALLENGE for me. But I also was becoming more bold in myself. Finally understanding somewhat of who I am and not allowing others to tell me who I am because frankly it doesn't matter. God has shown me who I am and who's to tell me that I'm not beautiful..??  Another thing I learned in Indonesia is that I LOVE worshipping God. I really love to just sing to him all day. I also learned that sometimes you have no other choice but to show Jesus by your actions. I just learned that I never want to stop talking about Jesus because he's the best. 

Wow just reflecting on my outreach I just see how much God has changed me. Those two months will always be so special to me. There was so much I learned about the world, myself and especially God. God was my rock during outreach. I needed him more then ever because there were days I just wanted to quit and go home, but God aways helped me get out of that mindset and continue with outreach. He's great. REALLY great. And I really learned its about a relationship with God. Its not about following rules and all that. Its about talking to him, being in relationship with him. He just wants to talk to me and you! How cool is that? He chases after you, but its your choice to be in relationship with him. Trust me when I say this...being in relationship with God has transformed me. And its all because I made the choice to be in relationship with God. Indonesia changed my perspective on lots of things, but God transformed me and is continuing to transform me. Man do I miss those two months in Indonesia, but it was a season. Now I just need to take a deep breath and continue in reality. 

Reality really stinks sometimes. Coming back into reality from the last five months has been so difficult emotionally. The amazing things I experienced is so hard to explain to those at home whom have no idea what the heck I've just been through. The reality is...the last five months was a season for me. Just a season. God had me in Mexico and then in Indonesia for the length of time I was there. No more and no less time. Giving my last hugs and sarcastic jokes to my friends that were leaving to go home from YWAM was when reality hit me like a truck. But you know, sometimes being smacked in the face with reality can be good. In that moment I realized that I will be going home, too! Going home to see my family and friends. Reality is...God now has me home and I need to be okay with that and still strive everyday to be the changed Lauren. Being home had been hard at times and exciting. It was hard coming home to a handful of friends and not a great Christian community. But I kept remembering what God had been whispering to me all throughout Indonesia when times got tough which was, "Lauren, do you trust me." Now its time for me to take a deep breath and trust God that I'm home for a reason and or maybe a season. 

Ps. God has opened up an opportunity for me to serve for two years in Port YWAM Kona in July. Right now I'm in the process of praying and getting confirmation from the Lord that this is what He wants me to do. If you guys wouldn't mind praying with me about this that would be AWESOME! Also the story behind this is pretty awesome. You should ask me sometime... 

Thanks for reading,

Lauren 

 

The Dump

Hi,

Things have been really crazy around here! We're having amazing lectures and growing closer as a DTS. Last week were learned about telling Bible stories by memory and we learned the stories by saying them over and over again, but really investing emotions into the stories. It was so awesome. I memorized three Bible stories all because I was practicing telling them with so much enthusiasm like I was actually there watching the story happen. It was SO cool.

Wednesday of last week we had local outreach to a place called the dump and or the city of the lost people. This place was the most eye opening local outreach I've had so far. These families are living out of houses made up of trash or anything they can find. It honestly looked like a dump. While we were driving to the there I thought that I could handle it and that I would be okay, but I was wrong. When we arrived kids were jumping on the car and they were so excited for us to come. I felt so welcomed. The kids ran up to you right away and just wanted to play. We gathered as a team and split into two teams to walk around the dump, meet people and hand them water and a granola bar. Our group had two kids who followed us around the dump the whole time and just hung out with us. Lupita was the little nine year old girl who was following us. She ended up giving her bracelet to my friend Mic. Mic was so excited and so happy but she felt bad because she had nothing to give to Lupita. I realized I was wearing a friendship bracelet Mic and I had and I felt like God wanted me to give that to her. It was such a special moment. I wanted Lupita to know that we will forever be friends and that  I will never forget the beautiful, sweet and loving young girl she is. It felt amazing to do that and be able to pray for the people that we were meeting at the dump. But I was also struggling with talking to strangers when we were there. It's hard for me to go up to a random stranger and try to start a conversation. I just get afraid that it'll be awkward and I won't know what to say, but I talked to a women at the dump and it went really well. I just said a little prayer before I talked to her that God will guide the conversation and he did. I learned that this women was reading the Bible and taking a nice relaxing day off work. What I realized when I was talking to her was that she's human and I don't need to be afraid of talking to strangers. I just need to love like Jesus loves. That changed my perspective on approaching strangers. I just need to love them and allow God to speak through me. The women was the last women we talked to before we has to head back to the vans to play with the kids. Right beside our vans was a building where a lot of the kids were so we went in there and colored with the kids. Lupita and I colored together and I used the little Spanish I know to get to know her. I felt such a strong connection to her. Before my team left she gave me this...

"I love you Lauren." That really played with my emotions. I just wanted to take her home with me and take care of her. I started to cry as we walked out of the building. As a team we had time to debrief and the entire time I was crying because I wanted to do more and I didn't want to leave Lupita. While were were talking, Lupita found me and gave me the biggest hug ever. She kept looking up at me to see if I was still crying and she would give me the biggest smile ever. I truly love this little girl. 

I don't want you to feel sad for this city of the lost people. I want you to love them and pray for them. This isn't a city of lost people these are God's people. They're loved, important, worthy, beautiful, creative and much more. They're not lost. God has adopted them into his family. They're a city of forgiven, loved and important people. It was hard leaving, but I know my God is right there with them. Thank you God for never leaving this place. 

Life on the other side

Hi all,

I just want to talk to you guys about our local outreach this week. This week our leaders had an original plan of where we were going to go for outreach, but the plans fell through. It was our job (as a team) to pray and see if God spoke to any of us on where we were supposed to go for local outreach. A lot of us got an image of the border. Some got pictures of sandwiches, or playing with kids or just evangelizing at the border. I happened to get a picture of bananas. Of course I didn't want to say that because I was thinking, what would bananas have to do with the border? I whispered to my friend Rachael what I got and she decided to say it out loud. I was embarrassed so I justified it by saying, "Its stupid and I have no idea what it means." We prayed again to ask God if the border is where we were supposed to go. Almost everyone got conformation and we started to plan what we were going to do at the border. Our leaders sent two guys to see if we could get sandwiches from the kitchen and others to get chalk, nails polish, etc.. I for one was still doubting that bananas had anything to do with our local outreach. The two guys who were sent to the kitchen to get sandwiches came back with bags of sandwiches and said that there is a crate full of bananas that would could take to the border...I WAS SHOCKED. Everyone looked at me and I just knew what everyone was thinking and it was something like Lauren have more faith. God is actually talking to you! That was a wakeup call. And I started to get really excited about going on our local outreach to the border.

This was my first time going to the border and it was eye opening....

To many Mexicans whats behind this border means the American dream. It means a new beginning and a life that they've been dreaming of for a long time. What broke my heart was that many would do whatever it took to get over this border and make their lives "better." What's behind this border may be more opportunity, more "freedom," and more life but the reality is America is lost too. Yes, Mexico does not have the same opportunities as the United States, but I can tell you one thing Mexico has shown me something America doesn't have much of and thats love. The way a Mexican family can make you apart of theirs in minutes is amazing. The potential here is incredible and my prayer for Mexicans is that they realize how much potential is here. I really pray that Mexicans see how blessed they are and how much they really do have in this country. This is Gods country and He loves Mexico so much. What I also love about Mexico is that when a few of us were walking by the border we asked some people if they'd like prayer and they said yes with no hesitation. They were so excited to get prayer! That's something you don't see often in America. I am thankful for where I come from and I do love my country, but my eyes have been opened to another country. And I love this country of Mexico so much, too. Mexico has made me realize how blessed I've been and the little things that I take for granted. One big thing is being on the American side of the border. I never really thought of the Mexicans on this side of the border, but now that I have my heart wants to show Mexicans that they can make a difference here. Man, my eyes have been opened so wide. I'm thankful God didn't make it possible for me to go to the YWAM in Australia because I don't think I would have had the some opportunities as I have in Mexico. God has shaken me and humbled me. I'm so thankful for that.

If you ever have the opportunity to come to Mexico, do it. It'll open your eyes. It will change you. Let God humble you, its worth it. 

Talk to you soon, 

Lauren  

Fear of the Lord

Hi all,

This week has been a BIG week! I found out that I'll be going to Indonesia for outreach!! How exciting!

I get to experience Indonesia with this amazing team and I can't wait to see how we all grow in unity together and in Christ. 

I also have made pretty amazing friends here. I'll introduce some of them...

First off is an amazing group of God loving, food loving and adventure taking women that I've grown to love to deeply...

I also get to laugh and enjoy life with these ladies....

Seriously....I've never loved life so much...

I also fell in love with a crab I found at the beach and I live by the motto it didn't happen unless you got a picture...so I thought I would share my enjoyment of finding a crab with all of you. Yes, its dead. I'm not that crazy! 

Now that you've seen what I've been up to and met a few of my friends I can start going into a serious mode. Okay, listos (ready)? This week during lecture we talked about the fear of the Lord. Before coming here I thought the fear of the Lord was that I actually had to be afraid of God and that I should be scared of Him. I was wrong. I shouldn't be afraid of God I should be running after Him wanting to know more and more about him. This weeks teaching was great, but I'm going to be honest...I still don't fully understand the fear of the Lord. Yes, I learned a deeper meaning of fearing the Lord, but it hasn't fully clicked with me yet. I've been praying that God reveals something to me that really speaks out to me about fearing the Lord. One thing I did learn about fearing the Lord is that when you do fear him you gain peace and comfort (Acts 9:31), wisdom (Proverbs 9:1), truth (Psalm 86:11) and protection (Psalm 115:11). Now all of that seems great to me. I want God to bring me peace, wisdom and protection. I'm just trying to figure out what fearing the Lord really means to me. Its a process. Another thing that happened in lecture this week was our speaker said she just felt from the Lord that there were a lot of people in our DTS who felt like they weren't good enough. She told us to stand up if we felt that way and we were all to pray and if staff felt like they needed to tell us something that they should. I stood up because I still struggle with my worth and thinking I'm not good enough. Even though I know God loves me and I'm His masterpiece I still struggle with it. But I stood up and my one-on-one came and prayed for me and she spoke words of encouragement and it was awesome. It was really an emotional yet amazing time. That is such a hard thing to do sometimes....To stand up and show people that you don't think you're worth it. I think if someone asked me in high school to stand up if I didn't think I was good enough I would've and I would have felt differently than I did when it happened this week. When I stood up this week and looked around at all the people there that loved me something changed inside of me. I was looking at my new family and I knew in my heart that to them and to God I was good enough. In high school I would not have felt that way. I'm so thankful that God has continually been speaking to me how much He loves me and how much he adores me. He's changing me and I'm loving this confident, God loving Lauren I'm learning to become. 

Thanks for reading,

Lauren 

Hurdles

Hi all,

Hurdles are difficult...yes I'm talking about Track and Field hurdles. I remember trying to do hurdles in high school on the track during gym class. I got myself all pumped up and my heart was beating out of my chest. My face was sweaty and I just started to run towards the hurdle. I was feeling good. I was thinking the whole time (while I was running) that I was Adrian Wilson who cleared a 66 inch hurdle durning football practice. Then reality struck me as I stood centimeters from the hurdle that I couldn't even clear a 39 inch hurdle. I wasn't strong enough. I didn't have confidence to keep going and just try to clear the hurdle. The hurdle just stopped me in my tracks. When this happened I remember just laughing with my friends and moved on. But yesterday that hurdle was something emotional, something stirring inside of me. That hurdle was a bunch of doubt...I'll give you some context. Yesterday we went to downtown Tijuana to go on a prayer walk and give people water bottles. I was SO pumped about it. I was thinking all week long how great I'll be at this and how excited I was. I was still excited yesterday, but my emotions totally flipped once we got out of the van in Tijuana. I was experiencing a culture shock and an overwhelming sense of sadness. I couldn't compare any city in America to Tijuana. It was totally a change for me. As we started walking I just couldn't stop looking around and soaking it all in. The poverty, homelessness and amount of people I saw was unbelievably sad. But I continued on. We split into teams and started on our way. Our group first gave water bottles to three men and we prayed for them. I didn't talk. We then went to give water to two elderly men, once again I didn't talk. I just felt like I couldn't. We continued on. Every time a member of my group started talking to someone I just felt more and more doubt. Doubt that I couldn't be a missionary. I just kept thinking if I can't talk to strangers about Christ, how could I ever be a missionary? Durning the whole prayer walk that was engraved into my head that I couldn't do it. I just kept thinking, what am I going to do now? I want to be a missionary, but I can't do it. I just started to think God didn't have a plan for me anymore. I was stopped by a hurdle. But this time I didn't just laugh it off and move on. I cried. I just felt 2 feet tall and the hurdle of doubt was 6 feet tall. There was no way I could get over that hurdle. Well, thats what I thought for a good portion of the day. But then I remember that the devil will try and stop anyone who tries to spread the word of God. Satan will fill your mind with lies like, "Lauren you cant do this. You aren't strong enough. No one wants to talk to you." Thats so wrong!! With God I'm strong, I'm wise and I'm confident. With God I can be a missionary! I can jumped over that hurdle of doubt and never look back. I can tackle it. The roles will be reversed, satan will feel like 2 feet tall and because my God is so big I'll feel like I'm 6 feet tall. Satan can't jump over me. He can't! Once I got home from Tijuana I looked over my notes that I took from yesterdays lecture and that day we had been talking about hurdles that keep us from hearing God's voice and guess what the first hurdle was....doubt. Ugh, I couldn't hear God encouraging me during the prayer walk to keep going and to tell more and more people about Him because I was full of so much doubt. I allowed the enemy to fill my mind. Don't do that! I'm saying this to myself and you! Satan is a liar and he wants to steals things from you. You can tackle a 66 inch hurdle with God. Choose God.

"Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

Also! I wanted to tell you all how amazing our speaker is this week! Jen is amazing! She is such a women of God and I stinking LOVE it. The topic this week is Recognizing God's Voice. This is something that confused me as a Christian, but I'm really starting to understand it. Yes, I still have many questions, but Jen made hearing from God so real to me. Ah, I'm so giddy about it! And I can't wait to keep learning about my Creator and sharing it all with you guys!

Talk to you all soon,
Lauren

I had a Revelation

Hi all,

I'm loving YWAM so much. I think I've met my people here....

Honestly, I've never felt more comfortable with friends before until I came to YWAM. All the ladies and gentlemen I've met in my DTS have shown me what real friendships can look like. They have also shown me what a friendship is like when you're all pursing God together. It changes a friendship. I've never been so vulnerable with people before until I met these awesome people. And I feel like I've known my new friends for years and its only been like 2 week. They're family now. 

I also get the pleasure of enjoying the beach and all the awesome things Mexico has to offer. Like Mexican blankets. I mean come on people Mexican blanket are so colorful and awesome.

We also get the pleasure to have AMAZING speakers every week. This week we are talking about the Father Heart of God. Our speaker is crazy good. I can really connect with his way of teaching. He loves to tell us about real life stuff. Like situations he's been through or his friends have been through and he bring it all back to the Father Heart of God. I just can connect with how passionate he is. Anyway, I've been having trouble in  lecture feeling like God wasn't speaking to me. Last week I just felt like God really wasn't speaking a revelation to me but holy moly He did speak a revelation to me today. One part of todays lecture our speaker talked about two things that satan takes away from us the first being our identity and the second being our relationship with God. I wrote that down in my notebook and continued to listen to the speaker. I didn't really process what I had written down until I sat down with my one-on-one. My one-on-one (Sky) asked me what had stood out to my during lecture today and I immediately thought about the two things that satan takes away from us, our identity and our relationship with God. I started talking to Sky and processed that for such a long time I was letting satan rule my life. I allowed satan to take my identity away and I allowed satan to distort how I viewed myself. I have struggled with self esteem since elementary school. Since than I allowed satan to tell me who I am and how beautiful I was. I allowed satan to tell me who I am and I allowed him to rule over my self esteem. As I was saying this to Sky I was also processing all the times I allowed satan to tell me who I was, I was processing how much of my life I've wasted on trying to convince myself that I wasn't beautiful or I wasn't worth it because satan took away my identity. I also allowed satan to take away my relationship with Christ. I always thought there was a God, but when I would really try to think about God I always felt doubt. I always allowed myself to believe what the devil was saying about God rather than trying to combat the devil. Sometimes the devil can be so convincing. I've experienced that for a big chunk of my life. Today, though, I felt God finally grip me and say,"Lauren, you see, you allowed the devil to take Me and your identity away from you. Change. Start new, you're a new creation." What a stinking revelation. After I realized that I'm not going to allow satan to dictate who I am anymore I felt such a relief. Like I can finally start to build my confidence IN CHRIST. I feel new. I also feel like its finally time for me to be baptized because I'm ready for God to take a hold of my life and change me for the better. I'm so thankful for YWAM and that I had the opportunity to finally have a revelation in Christ. THIS IS AWESOME!!

Also just soak in how cute the DTS team is...can't wait to amazing things with these people! 

Talk to you all soon, 

Lauren 

Finally here

Hi guys,

I'm finally here in Mexico and I can't even begin to explain to you how much I love YWAM so far! The campus is absolutely beautiful.

 Pretty cool right and the view from our room is breathtaking....

See...its breathtaking. Honestly every morning so far I've woken up and walked to our door that looks out over the ocean and I get so giddy! It has always been a dream of mine to live at the ocean and here I am! I'm so blessed.

Anyway, the travel here was so tiring. My mom, Kari Damon and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to catch my flight out of Philly at 7:50. We got to the airport and I'm pretty sure my mom parked about 5 miles away from my terminal. I needed the exercise anyway. I was so excited that the day I've been waiting for finally came! It was so surreal. I also felt like such an adult because I was flying ALL BY MYSELF. Which was a big step for me. I had a layover in Houston and than I was on my way to San Diego to get picked up by someone from YWAM. San Diego is beautiful. From the plane it just looked amazing. It's not as green as Pennsylvania. It's not even close, actually. But it was something new and I LOVED it. When I got off my flight I met Ross from YWAM and instantly felt super comfortable and excited I wasn't nervous, at least not yet. Ross and I went met up with Kari and Mandi who also work for YWAM and they were great! We waited for a few more students to get off their flights and than we were off to Mexico. I think my first friend here was Issac. He was just so sarcastic and funny and we instantly became best friends or at least that's what he said. After a short ride through San Diego and across the border we were finally in Mexico! Honestly, you could tell right away that you crossed the boarder. It was sad. Kind of a culture shock. After about 20 minutes of driving we arrived to our new home. 

That night I got to meet a lot of the girls that I would be rooming with and it was great! But once I got onto campus I started to get nervous. All the excitement shifted into nervousness.  I was afraid no one was going to like me or I wouldn't make any friends. As I was talking to a few of the other girls I realized I wasn't the only one feeling this way. One of the YWAM staff members, Kayla, told us evil will try and tell you lies. Evil will make you feel this way because evil doesn't want you to be here. Satan doesn't want you to become close with God and he will put lies into your head. Which is crazy true and later that night I was reading my devotion and the Bible verse in my devo said, "Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail." 

Luke 22:31-32  

While I was reading that I just had one of those moments of complete and utter shock. Like YES God, you've got my back and you want me here! And that is just the beginning of the things I've seen God do in these past couple days. But you'll just have to stay tuned for more. I can't wait to keep updating you all on what I'm doing here at YWAM and what I'm learning. Thank you everyone for praying for me. You're great.

Talk to you soon,

Lauren