A New Adventure

That's right! God will be taking me on a new adventure this June. This time, to Ojojona, Honduras. This will be my 2nd time in Honduras, the 1st being a brief visit during our honeymoon. Here is what I know about Ojojona:

It was founded in 1579 by Spanish miners. Ojojona is one of twelve villages that make up the Department of Francisco Morazan, and is about an hour south of the Capitol of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. It is situated in a small plateau in one of the hills of Cerro de Hule, at the base of the Payaguagre mountain. The population is around 10,729.

This was such a "random" opportunity that fell into my lap. My friend and discipler, Nancy, was asked to come teach at a two day Pastor's Conference (with 100+ pastors) in Ojojona. She will be teaching Freedom in Christ principles on restoration (I believe). It turned out that there will be a week long mission trip taking place in the same village before the conference, so she was asked to come along and make a week of it. The invitation to join in was then passed down to me...and the rest was history. We will be accompanying an organization called BMDMI (Baptist Medical and Dental Mission International) who will be offering medical, dental, veterinary services, along with kid's sports camps and daily evangelism.

In just a month and a half, God has already handled all the details from finances, flights, passports, etc...and I could not be more excited. If you read this, would you please partner with me in prayer for the week we are there?

Pray for:
Boldness and fearlessness
Against anxiety and worry
Opportunities to heal others physically, emotionally and spiritually
Opportunity to love, serve and form relationships with others
Protection from the enemy

An Overdue Update on Life

Hi friends and long time blog followers! As you can see this blog has been stagnant for the past couple of years. Life has been a whirlwind since getting married, and now I am a full time working wife, with a husband, a house and 2 adorable doggies! I would love to introduce you to my family blog: http://sarahfrick.blogspot.com where you can keep up to date with family life's fun and festivities.

This blog will remain as I plan to continue on with my ministry and missions in the future. So keep keep checking in here, but please join us on our family's adventures.

With love and gratitude,

Sarah F.

Ending My Internship

The semester has now come to an end, but my life feels like it is moving at an insane speed. I couldn't have asked for a more amazing year. I learned so much, and was stretched an equal amount (that sounds so cliche doesn't it?) If you receive my prayer letters, you know that God has been moving on our campus, lives of near 20 students have been changed for all eternity, and I have made relationships with people that I will never forget. This year had so many accomplishments, as well as failures. Our team suffered severe grief and loss, but because of Christ, we had joy and peace to cling to. We closed out this semester by saying goodbye to the Peltons, who will be leaving NMSU's staff, and hello to the Robinsons, who will be joining. It has just been a year of transitioning. I have also transitioned from a girlfriend to a fiance, which is pretty stinkin cool! :)

So what's next on my agenda? Well, besides planning a wedding, I am preparing for my final Summer Project with Cru, in Kake, Alaska. More to come on that though. :)

Missional Communities

This semester our main focus for our students as well as the interns is on missional communities, meaning, finding a group of people on campus that we are somewhat involved in or interested in them, and then intentionally hang out with them. If you are wondering what the purpose of this is, well than I will tell you. At NMSU there are 19,000 students, roughly, and about 400 of those are Christians that are involved in some type of fellowship (church or college ministry). Each year each college ministry (RUF, AFC, Cru, BSU, etc...all of them) fight over those 400 people...which is only 2% of our college population. We really want to reach out, get to know, and do life with that 98%. So by immersing ourselves in the community that is already going on around us, gaining their trust and then being intentional with them by starting up a Bible Study or a weekly forum to talk about spiritual things, we will reach that 98%.

It is a little unprecedented, and a little unscripted since we haven't really done this before, but we are excited and fully faithful that this is where God is calling us. So we have students who are going to be missional in the: drama and theatre department, graphic design department, fraternity and sorority, the Stonewall Coalition (Queer and Straight Alliance), international students, and the CA/RA departments in the dorms. We are giving the missional community leaders a little bit of spending money each month that they can use to spend time with people within their community, to plan a get together, etc... We are so excited to see how God is going to move! Could you please keep our students in your prayers?

DCC 2011-Going "All In"

From December 27-January 5th I was up in Denver, Colorado with 40 students from NMSU, and about 1500 students from other Universities! We all had one mission, to see God move in our hearts and help prepare us to "go all in" for the plans He has for us. Our students were encouraged, challenged and absolutely flourished during this time. Each day there were a myriad of speakers covering different topics, preparing our students for the following semester. There definitely were some highlights of the Denver Christmas Conference as well...and those were Outreaches.

Our students had a chance to spark up Spiritual conversations with their friends, family or acquaintances over social media (facebook). They also had the opportunity to go out on the 16th street mall and serve/minister/bless the large homeless population. Finally, on New Years Eve, 1500 students went out into the 16th and "Tebowed" ( a reference to a position Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, makes after a touchdown) for 7 whole minutes. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of attention from everyone around them. The students, after rising and walking around like normal, were able to start spiritual conversations with random strangers about Tebow's faith in God and by asking them how they felt about it. At the end of the night, it was reported that 15 people came to Christ. How awesome is God!?! The students then spent the next few hours singing in the New Year by worshipping the Lord. 

Now that we are back at school, you can see the effects that the conference had on the students and just how much God is working in their lives. Please continue to pray for our students' grow and maturity in their faith, and pray for the students who came who are not yet believers in Christ...that He would continue to draw them closer to Him.

Just Plain Sick

My apologies for not posting sooner, but I have been sick. I have tried to stay at work for as long as I could, and just tough it out, but I woke up last Wednesday down for the count. I have been sick now for 10 days! I started back to work three days ago, still sniffling and coughing...but my personality will not let me just rest for that long without going crazy. Anyways, enough about me. 


Here is what is going on with our students and our ministry. Honestly, there have been ups and downs. I'm not going to use this blog to paint a picture that is all rosy, because it's not. We are in ministry, which means we are dealing with people, and people are messy, sinful and flawed (including myself). 


So first with the lows. It is very near the end of the semester, which means students start to "coast".  They coast on everything else in life because they are tired, because it is almost Thanksgiving break and then Christmas break and the end of the semester. All that is left to do is finals and then they are done. So why is this frustrating? Because they kind of give up spiritually, or maybe it just drops much lower on their priority totem pole. Our student leaders just aren't pursuing new students at Cru or even non-believers like they were before. Also, last week it seemed like we had hit a wall, when NONE, not one student signed up to do that weekends service project. That was devastating to me! But, God is good... :)


Now for the Highs! This week, we started promoting a service project that will take place the first weekend of December. We only needed three guys and six signed up. Praise the Lord! Our students have become very good at community. We have a constant 50 or more students coming every week to Revolve, and the great thing is, it's not the same 50 every week. The students that attend vary, which is refreshing because the last thing we want is a Christian clique. It is also huge to see new students coming. That means Jesus is ministering to more people than the week before. Also, this last week, Nations (the Native American group within Cru) saw two more of their students come to the Lord. That is a total of five students just within Nations that have given their lives to Christ. We have had Mayra and Dillon accept Jesus as well, so that is seven! We are very excited and expectant to see what God has in store for Dillon's roommate who has been attending Cru and other outside activities. 


All in all, it has been a great semester. God has done more than we could have ever imagined, and now there is so much more I want to pursue and see happen in the Spring! Thank you all so much for reading this, for praying for us, and for your support! God is good all the time, and all the time God is good!

Goodbye Jude

If any of you have been following Mandy Pelton's blog about their son, Jude's, fight for life, you would know that he passed away. Jude met Jesus on October 22nd. It has been a tear-jerking journey, but now as we morn and grieve with the Peltons as they miss their baby boy, we rejoice that all this are made new. We know that Jude is no longer suffering, and that his body has been redeemed. There is no more precious a thought but to think of Jude with a perfectly healthy body, able to move freely, to cry and to laugh. I know we all look forward to the day where we can see Jude in heaven.


God has been holding Mandy, Brandon and their 5 year old son Caleb, close to his heart and He has been encouraging them every step of the way. It is bittersweet to have the Peltons back to Las Cruces, because although I am overjoyed to have them physically here, to work along side and do community together; it is at the same time heartbreaking to know they are here and not in Albuquerque because Jude is gone. God is a God of wisdom, love and justice. He did not allow Jude's life to be as it was by accident; but He orchestrated it, and planned out how to use it for his glory and blessings to his children. So many people's lives have been touched and even changed by Jude's story, and we are all excited to see what God will bring from all of this. 


Please continue to pray for Mandy, Brandon and Caleb Pelton, and follow along their blog for updates!

Worship Through Service

I am very excited to announce that October has kicked off the Service aspect of Cru. All of the staff members, including myself, have a huge place in our heart for bringing the Kingdom of God to others by preaching the Gospel, living the Gospel out in our everyday life, and service. As an organization, we have done a decent job of the first two, but have been lacking in the latter. It just so turns out that the latter is something I am passionate about, and so I was given the responsibility to set us in to motion.

Our vision is to find ways and places that the students involved in Cru can physically serve NMSU and also the entire Las Cruces community. We are searching out local ministries, such as The Gospel Rescue Mission, El Calldido Soup Kitchen, Los Pelligrinos Orphanage, La Casa Battered Women's Shelter, etc...for ways we can partner with them in the good job they are already doing. We also are asking churches to give us projects that they may need help in, or introducing us to people in their congregation who need help so that we can provide aid in any way. Our heart is to not just write checks or donate money, but to get our hands dirty. So far we have found a few needs, and have had a blast!

*Just to give an idea of what has been done so far:
*We have had students help two couples from different churches move into new homes.
*Cru bought pairs of shoes for the Soles 4 Souls shoe drive, which buys pairs of shoes for local elementary students whose parents can't afford to buy them new ones.
*Students helped out a local church's Harvest Festival
*A huge number of students came together to prepare and set up things for Jude Matthew Pelton's service
*We baked 20 dozen chocolate chip cookies for Kairos Prison Ministry


This is just the beginning. My greatest desire is that this would not be something that the students do every once in a while, when asked, but that they would develop a heart of service. Serving is something that should come naturally to us when we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and it is something that we should do out of obedience, because it was asked of all of us. Serving, just like sharing the Gospel, is something that God commanded of us (like the Great Commission). I am hoping and praying that the Spirit transforms all of our hearts, and that we would become so sensitive to the need around us. That we would not hesitate to help, give, love, forgive and serve any and everyone around us if needed.

Matthew 25:35-40: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

The "New" Birthday

If you have been following my blog, or have read my newsletter, you will be familiar with my friend, Mayra. I have some amazing news to share!

For her birthday, we (20 students and myself) took Mayra to White Sands National Monument-it was her first time there!

God's hands were all over the that day. We grilled burgers, played games, ate cake, and just had a wonderful time. At the end of our day, Mayra asked everyone to come over into a group. It was there that she shared with everyone how great Cru has been, and how she had never experienced such a loving community as she had with us. Then she said that she wanted to make this decision with everyone there, and she prayed to accept Jesus. We circled around her, laid hands on her and each one of us prayed for her, her relationship with the Lord, and her journey as she walks with HIM.

It was the most amazing thing I have been apart of since being overseas. God just keeps overwhelming me with his Faithfulness, Provisions, and Sense of Humor. So Mayra's eternal birthday now falls on her earthy birthday. :)

Joy, So Much Joy!

I just have two quick praises to share.

We have a Freshman girl, named Breanna. She is wonderful. She recently decided to rededicate her life to the Christ and to start living fully for Him. It was a tear-filled and humbling experience for her, but she couldn't be more excited to see what God does in her life and through her faith in Jesus.

We also have a Freshman guy, named Dillon. He, two nights ago, accepted Christ for the first time. He has had a group of our guys coming along side him, encouraging him and praying for him as we begins his journey in faith.

Please keep them in your prayers.

The Reason For God

We spent four weeks discussing the "Reason for God" and why He does certain things. We watched a video series done by Dr. Timothy Keller, where he proposed certain topics with a panel of non-believers. His panel was full of unbelieving business men and women, and they had very good questions.

The questions we discussed were:
1. How Can God Be Full of Love and Wrath at the Same Time? How Can God Send Good People to Hell?
2.  Why is the Church Responsible for So Much Injustice? Why Are Christians Such Hypocrites?
3. How Can You Say There is Only One Way to God? What About Other Religions?
4. Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?


After each talk we would have the students turn around and discuss with each other certain questions proposed during the panel. These were very hard topics that, lets be honest, most of us would not want to have to sit down and discuss. But God was so good, and we received so much good feedback. 


This all led up to our own University Q&A time, with our own panel of scholars. Our panel consisted of a High School Biology teacher, a leader of the Presbyterian college ministry, and a pastor of a local church (and philosopher). We asked students and professors all over campus if they had questions about God and Christianity, the week before, as well as allowed the audience to text their questions in during the Q&A time. I believer 80+ students came that night, and there were a lot of really good questions asked. It was a really great learning experience for me as a leader, to see what works and what didn't work, in case we do something similar in the future. I think a lot of theological, philosophical, even scientific students got their questions answered in a way they could relate to and understand. I think the only thing we could have improved on, was to have someone who could have answered in a more "everyday" kind of language, and that would have explained some big topics easier. But I guess that is where the Holy Spirit steps in and gives us the ears to hear and the wisdom to understand matters that relate to God. 


God has been so good this year and we keep hoping and praying for more!

High Country Adventure

Each year Cru takes our students on a Fall Retreat. This year we had the opportunity to partner with UNM's Cru, and come together as one large group. It was wonderful! We met at the Glorieta Retreat Center, just North of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I believe we had about 30 students from NMSU and UNM had 25 or so (because NMSU is better.) ;) As our keynote speaker we had a gentleman from the Missouri staff team fly in, and he did just an amazing job. His name was Justin, and he spoke on the importance of good Godly community, and how that is only achieved by genuine, vulnerable accountability. We were there Friday until Sunday, and during that weekend, Justin challenged the students with some difficult discussions. After each talk, the students would break up into groups and answer a set of questions. Doing a specific discussion (which was separated by gender) the students were asked to be vulnerable with each other, and to share their life story, the good and the ugly. You could just see the transformation in the students hearts as they started to understand their peers better. By catching a glimpse of their background, the facades came off, and there was nothing left to hide. I joked to a friend that "when all of the girls start crying, you know God is doing something." Seriously though, there is nothing more true or necessary in a Christian community than vulnerability. Without it, people will just play their parts, and do the status quo.

The worship team we pieced together out of our NMSU students did an awesome job, even in the higher altitude! During our time at HCA, we were able to have a men's/women's time. Holly Hoppe, one of our staff women, taught on the intimacy we were created to have with God. She shared that the only place we will find our satisfaction, self-worth, or identity has to be in God, otherwise we will be disappointed every time. It seems like an obvious statement, but this is something that women young and old battle all of their lives. Whether it is our accomplishments, popularity, money, men, intellect, ability, love from a parent, friend or companion, outward appearance, etc...we always try to put our worth in tangible things...but they always fail us. Even being a staff person, I could feel the Spirit moving in my own heart, along with the students. We are never to old or to wise to be convicted by the Lord of something else He needs to refine.

This weekend getaway was tremendously influential on our students, and such a refreshing blessing on us staff. We have been running at such a high speed to keep up with the semester and accomplish all we can within our limits, and it was so needed to just sit back and spend time with Jesus. He and the Spirit are the ones who accomplish anything good in this ministry, we are just the vessels...and it is so wonderful to be reminded of that. HCA was a success, thank you for your prayers.

Learning Can Be Tough

We are now a month into school and a month into my experience of being on staff with Cru. I will be the first person to admit that this is harder than I thought it would be. 

This is my first experience raising support in such a personal, hands on way. It is such a good challenge for me to learn how to be attentive to my supporters and to find ways to show them my appreciation.

Our staff team has wonderful men and women, working full time to spread the Gospel and reach the students on our campus. This year, God has allowed for us to be spread very thin. By thin I mean, I am the only female staff on campus. Holly Hoppe is getting ready to give birth to her and Vince's 3rd baby. Mandy and Brandon gave birth to their 2nd son Jude a 3 weeks ago, and you can pray for him and read about his incredible story at Mandy's blog.

So instead of our usual 3 full time women and 3 full time male staff members; there is Vince Hoppe, a male intern and myself. It is a blessing to have so little ability, because it give the Holy Spirit so much room to move! :)

We have such huge hopes and dreams for the students at NMSU, and the impact Jesus could make with enough momentum. There is so much I want to see happen, so much that God has laid on my heart. 

->We want to see Cru serving the campus and in turn, our campus serving the Las Cruces community. 
->We want us to live out the Gospel by bringing Kingdom to others like in Matthew 25. 

->Injustice issues way heavily on the hearts of our students and we desire to raise awareness amongst   the other on campus. 

->Living missional lifestyles by doing life and creating friendships with students on campus, different then ourselves. 

There is so much to do, so few people and so little time. The work is great, and the workers are few...but our numbers are growing and God is faithful!

When Seeds Fall On Good Soil

I am so joyful right now, I cannot even fully explain how stoked I am to share this with you!

I have a friend, named Mayra, who I used to work with before I came on staff with Cru. She is my age (mid 20's) and like myself, received her Bachelors Degree at NMSU. Mayra hopes to one day return to NMSU and get her Master's Degree. She is very bright and so sweet; I would dare say that she is the nicest girl I have ever met. In getting to know her, I have come to appreciate her heart even more. While Mayra has attended Catholic and Christian churches before, in Mexico, she is not a believer. We have had wonderful conversations about faith, but that was all they were, casual conversations...until a month ago.

About a month ago, I randomly asked Mayra if she wanted to go to church with me and she said yes. So to church we went, and afterwards she shared that she really liked it. To my surprise she came with me the next week, and the week after. :) Once school had started, I invited Mayra to come to campus Thursday night, to see our Revolve Meeting... so she could see what I do, and why I quit my job. :)  She came to Revolve and was met by many young women so excited to meet her acquaintance. Mayra loved Cru!

Needless to say, the Holy Spirit is so amazing, and has been drawing Mayra to himself all this time. I had NO idea! Last week God completely rocked me. We were eating Greek food after Revolve with a huge group of students, when Mayra turns to me and asks the following questions:
"How do you become a Christian?"
"How do you know when you are saved?"
"If I come to Cru just to get to know God better, and could care less if anyone else was there...is that God calling me?" :)

I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor, and smiled, and prayed silently that God would help me share the Gospel clearly. She listened, took it all in, and said she would think about it more when she reads her new Bible (the one that some Cru girls bought for her earlier that day). I cannot wait to share with you in a couple of days when Mayra excepts the Lord and steps foot into the Kingdom of God. Praise God, for He is so GOOD!

We do not love only those that we know, but we love those whom, to most, are unknown

To bring Kingdom to those who have never experienced the Lord makes my heart rejoice, and I was able to do exactly that!
Three ladies from Cru, who have all just returned from a summer mission trip, had their first opportunity to serve the community tonight. This opportunity did not just reach Las Cruces, but all the way down to Juarez, Mexico!
We were lucky enough to come along side a ministry called "Souls", and help them make sandwiches for their Friday night Outreach. Souls Ministry go down to the Red Light District in Juarez, Mexico to reach out to the prostitues, the homeless and the drug addicts. They pray for these people, share the Gospel with them, give them food and just love on them.
While we were not able to go down to Mexico and be at the front lines, it was such a blessing to us to be able to help in whatever way was needed.


*Please keep the men and women traveling to Mexico in your prayers, pray for protection and anointing on them. 
*Please also pray for the Holy Spirit to be working in the hearts of those they will speak to, so that they may be freed from the bondage Satan has over them and be saved by Jesus' grace.

If you would like more information about this ministry, you can find them at: Souls Ministry

And We're Off!

School has officially begun, which means meetings, meetings, mettings for us staff. It is really looks like it is going to be a great year. We already have a lot of really cool things planned out, now we just have to get the students on board and get the ball rolling.


  Fresh  
Two of our student leaders, Missy and Lance, are heading up a freshman movement, called "Fresh".  Just from one day of tabling we gained 200 freshman contacts interested in knowing more about Christ. Our goal is to get all of them to come to Cru and connect with our freshman students. This past Monday, Fresh had their first get together, it was a free pizza party. The turn out was great, I believe a little more than 20 students showed up. Missy reports that they had great conversations with the students and lots of friendships were established.


  Revolve  
Last Thursday was our first Revolve, which is our weekly meeting in Corbett Center. For being the first day back to school, the turn out of students was awesome. We had about 40 students show up. Vince gave a talk about what Godly community looks like vs. broken community, and our need for Jesus to restore community. It was so good, and connected so well with everyone! Robert Frick (my lovely boyfriend) was the stand-in for music. The music was entertaining in the beginning to draw students in, and the meeting concluded with a time of amazing worship. There is nothing more glorifying and powerful to me than a sea of students singing out to their God. The night had God's fingerprints all over it. The Christians students got to connect with God and non-believing students and visitors seemed captivated. My only prayer is that people would break free of their comfort zones. You could see and feel the crowd wanting to stand up, lift their hands and sing out...but they held back, and stayed seated. How much more could the Spirit move if we just let go of our fears and worshipped Jesus with no reservations? That's my hope.

Lastly, we are getting our Bible studies set up and establishing student leaders to lead small groups and missional groups all over campus. We want to see our students loving and doing life with every student around them, especially those completely different from themselves. We look forward to see the growth of our students through discipleship, quite times, evangelism and everyday life.

Live By Faith-Expect Resistance

Spiritual Warfare: definition-is the Christian concept that the Devil and demons attempt to thwart Good and the will of God. Some believe this "warfare" to be manifested in multiple ways, including by demonic possession, demonic harassment, by attacks on a person's thoughts, relationships, or life with God.

Not only do I believe and agree with this definition, 

but this past month and a half I have experienced it, full on.

Let me explain briefly. 

I have 3 months to cultivate a team of ministry partners who will partner with me financially and prayerfully so I can be hired by Cru to work on campus with them for this next year. 

This entails spending May 1st-August 1st networking, meeting with people, calling people, gaining referrals so that I can reach my goal. 

Which roughly looks like having $3000 monthly and some one time support as well. 

Longstory short, Satan has done whatever he can to trip me up in this process. I just wanted to share how ridiculous this journey has been, not to gain pity but more to rub it in Satan's face and glorify the Lord because He has been and will always be bigger than petty attacks.

May-Upon returning home from training, my medicine which I've been taking for 4 years stops working. I have epilepsy, and a very uncommon type. I never have seizures, but do to a birth defect I was born with, the same birth defect that caused me to have 3 craniofacial/plastic surgeries, the inactive neurons in my brain started to misfire. I have taken a low dosage of medication for a long time, but in May I started to have horrible side effects-I got extremely depressed, anxiety, lost my train of thought, lost my short term memory, couldn't articulate thoughts randomly, couldn't control some of the things I said and everything made me cry.


So I changed medications, which worked well for a week, and then I had a severe allergic reaction. My mouth burst out in canker sores, my lymphnodes in my neck swelled, my whole face swelled, my lips were so swollen I couldn't close my mouth and I had vertigo. It was lovely. I ended up having to take time off work...and I could not talk to people, meet with them, go on appointments...basically there was no way to raise support.  My month of May=Gone.


June-To top off my face looking like a blimp, my doctors were not convinced that these symptoms were due to my new medication so I had to continue the meds until I saw signs of a deadly rash known as "Stevens-Johnson Syndrome". If you google it, you will cringe. The second Saturday in June, I woke up with the rash, that spread across my body in a few hours...and finally they were convinced to let me stop this medication. So we started a new one, yay! 


I could now start support raising. I have my entire computer backed up on my external hardrive, just to be safe. To keep all of my 100+ contacts together, with their addresses, phone numbers, calendar dates, support status, etc...I had to download a database. So I did, saved it to my desktop, along with the contact list that I had on my external hardrive. I thought that putting my contacts on my desktop would be so much easier than carrying my external everywhere. :) Oh irony. As soon as getting all of my contacts loaded  and scheduling appointments, my hardrive on my laptop DIES. Literally, just stops! I quickly took it to my computer guy to look at. He did everything he could, and nothing. I was left with absolutely nothing. No database, no contacts, literally nothing. So for the next two weeks, I contacted the people I had in my phone and made due, waiting for my new laptop to arrive. On a whim, I had my hardrive looked at again, and it received the same diagnosis...dead. But I left it over the weekend, and just prayed for God's help in this. I didn't know what to do. I lost two weeks of work. But GOD IS SO GOOD. I received a call late Sunday evening from the computer guy explaining that my hardrive for some reason just turned on, randomly, and he had just enough time to save one folder...the one with all of my contacts!!! God was so gracious in that but my June=Gone.


July-I will fill you in on my next post. But know this, God is bigger, greater, and more capable of everything I expected him to be. Satan has spiritual warfare up his sleeve, but Jesus is the ALMIGHTY...no one can beat that.

Acceptance, unexpected and delighting.

If you read my previous posts you will remember that I said I was looking for a place to serve, a need that God could use me to fill. Well, it seems that He did.

I was asked to intern as a staff member with Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ). Which is funny, because I had been involved in Cru for 6 years (from my senior year of high school-a year after my college graduation). It is an amazing Non-Profit Christian Organization on University campuses all around the world. Out of all the places I thought God would call me, I was not expecting it to be here...but I was excited none the less. 

The process for joining staff is not very simple. You have to fill out a very extensive and personal application, have about 5 references with different criteria for each, and then you wait. You wait for someone in our region to look over my application and speak to my references, and once they okay that they will call. So after a few months of waiting, I got a call telling me I was accepted to intern, but I was not yet placed at a campus. So then I had to go through a grueling weekend of non-stop training and was finally placed at NMSU. But it is not over just yet. Now I have been given from May 1st-August 1st (roughly) to start raising support so that I can report and be officially hired. 

So, here I am, about to return home and start support raising. It is a huge amount, a huge goal, and a lot of trust in the Lord in his provisions. I will keep you updated on how it all goes. But for now, things are looking good.

Good News!

I have a  job! A great job in fact! It is such a blessing.


So, first the background story. I have been in desperate need for a job, so I can, well...survive, while I figure out my next step in life. I had been looking on the internet and around town, and nothing really popped out at me. My biggest fear was ending up at a job where I had to say "Do you want fries with that?" jk. ;) 


Anyways, my mom was at the local hospital dropping off some papers (she is in advertising), and a gal at the front desk asked her if she knew anyone who needed a job and gave her the details. Long story short, in a week I had a job working for a psychiatrist. The top psychiatrist in town! 


I am considered office staff, but I basically play the role of an MA, suicide counselor, prescription decision maker, appointment maker, etc... It is so fun, plus I have gotten to learn so much about different drugs, mental health, counseling and just the human mind in general. It is interesting how much the brain and our belief systems/spirituality coincide. Everyday I meet people who I can encourage and always have a name to go home and pray for.  To top it off, I have amazing staff that I work with. :) Thank you Lord.

Starting A New

Now that I am back to doing life in the states, it seems a little hard at times to get my bearings. Sometimes it feels like the last 6 month were a dream, and then I wake up. I am in the same place, but I feel different. What do I do with that? Well I guess that is the question that I'm waiting for God to answer.

So here is what I do know:

• I am supposed to serve, wherever the need, if that is where God intends for me to go. Whether it is cleaning poop or joining an organization...whether I'm in the background, or in front. I'm ready.
• I'm not going to continue to live in my mother's house unless I have to. Not because it is bad, but I'm ready to be fully independent. 
• I need a job :)
• I will be grateful for what I have, always be willing to give it away, and not want for material things. Continue to watch and learn how to be selfless with my most "prized possessions".
• I will not fall stagnant, or at least not stay there. 
• I will not lose sight of the God that I caught a glimpse of.
• I will try to run along side the active God I serve, no matter how difficult that trail is. 
• I will not go to church, and do my Christian duties, but I will find a way to open eyes about the Kingdom of God and do what I can to bring that Kingdom to the here and now, for those who have not yet experienced it.
• Learning is just as vital, if not more than teaching. 
• Listening is always better than speaking. 
• Brokenness and humility are the easiest ways to combat pride.
• I will sustain relationships with my family and friends, and those who reside far away, I will make it a priority to have community in any way shape or form.