Hello family!

Hello family!

I am so excited we have this blog site now! I was thinking about making a blog to make it easier to communicate:) It looks like I was beat to it!

I have so much to share! I am not even sure where to begin! God has been doing some incredible things in my life these past three weeks. I am not sure I can get it all written down in one message.

I really want to thank all of you for supporting me in various ways so I can be here. I am truly blessed to get the opportunity to spend 3 straight months getting to know my Father and then spending another 3 months sharing Him with others who don't have those same opportunities. It so far has been the best three weeks of my life. I really want to thank you guys again. Ilove all of you so much and I miss you guys an awful lot.

God has really been teaching me to let things go that are no longer my responsibility, and move my focus on...strictly...falling in love with Him. It is one incredible emotional journey thus far. I have been learning to rely on being led by His Spirit, and trusting in Him, and taking risks. I have been learning much about His incredible unfathomable love. I have always had a lot of head knowledge about His love and I always knew He had this crazy love for us, but it hasn't been until now that I have been able to truly feel and experience His love. It is just insane. I have seen Him transform so many lives in such literal ways. I have been able to see, first hand, His healing power.

Friday, we were told our outreach options and we were told to go ask the Lord, on our own, which nation He wanted us to go to. Our options were India, Nepal, Turkey and Greece, or Cambodia. For some reason I did not want to go to the Turkey and Greece option. When I first saw that on the list it was my last choice. When we were dismissed to go ask the Lord which He wanted for us, I knew immediately which one He was telling me to choose. I was not happy because of course it was the Turkey and Greece option. I had so many reasons why I did not want to choose that one. However, part of what I am learning here at YWAM is listening to God's voice, recognizing it, and taking a risk and following what we believe He is asking us to do. I am also learning to check my motives with ALL my choices. My motives for wanting to go to the other nations on the list were all wrong (and believe me I checked a thousand times to be sure). My reasoning for the other nations were sadly not glorifying to God, and were in all honesty, only for my own selfish wants. I didn't have a good reason not to choose Turkey and Greece, my only reasoning was based off of fear. God was asking me to trust Him and take a risk with Him. Honestly it is very difficult because I haven't heard very many encouraging things about Turkey. I knew ever since Jr. Year of High school that I wanted to work somehow with Muslims, but now that the opportunity has presented itself I am very fearful for many different reasons. The lies of the enemy keep popping into my mind. Things like, "You are unqualified for this kind of work. Muslims are the hardest to convert what makes you think you can make a difference?" I know God can do anything and He can use anyone. I just really request prayer from my family and friends that I will stop believing the lies and I will trust the Lord fully in this decision. I am getting more and more excited but there is still that little fear inside of me. We wont know for sure where we are going until the end of this week. So it may be that I do get to go to one of the other nations. We will just have to wait and see. I am just learning to trust Him no matter where He leads.

Life here at YWAM always stays very busy. I enjoy it quite a bit. We do a lot of reading and discussions and listen to many lectures by many wonderful speakers. My favorite part by far is worship though. We have worshiped in so many different creative ways. Ways I would have never thought of on my own. People here truly live their lives in worship to God. It is so encouraging everyday! This morning we all worshiped dancing around like little children, laughing and singing. It was such a beautiful thing to be a part of. No one is ashamed to dance around or sing or shout for Jesus here. All the time I see people stopping in the middle of their work duty to pray together or sing a worship song to Jesus. It is quite spectacular:)

I have so many stories! I wish I could share them all in this one blog! I can't wait to see you all again thanksgiving! I have lots of stories I would like to share with all of you in person:)
I hope all is going well back home, and I would like to hear back from all of you soon! Please keep me and my fellow students in your prayers!

Ilove all of you so much!

-Anna