Take time to Remember

I feel I have to start out with this thought:
I am not defined by what I perceive to be holding me back.

That is booming through my head this morning. I've been doing a huge amount of soul-searching since my trip to India ended early. (I came down with a bacterial infection; which involved severe dehydration, among plenty of other symptoms, which prevented me from being able to stay and travel on the second week.) I have beat myself up for months over this. Slowly it is sinking in that I didn't will myself to get ill. But it is taking a seriously long time to not punish myself for what happened.

A portion of the result from the soul-searching, is that I know, again, I am to write. I fought long and hard with the Lord to overcome many lies from Satan about who I am. Fought to believe I am here for a reason and a purpose. And with the world the way that it is, there can be documentation of our lives. But I have to agree to cooperate with that idea.

I HATE being held back. Every cell in my body resists the injustice! LOL!!!

I am certain, I'm one of millions of people on the planet who don't want someone to restrain them. Especially when you catch glimpses, write it down, and find it years later, of who you think you might be meant to become.

Praise God for pen and paper and a keyboard and screen, and all of the other methods of recording. Take time to review and remember. We need to be confronted with promise and destiny. Things are getting darker and darker. They are...Sometimes I'm in the trenches, feeling things will never be OK. Sometimes, I'm resisting that with all of my might. But it's true. It's one of our realities.

But whatever is surrounding you now-you are not being truly held back. The Earth is the Lord's and fullness thereof. Go back over your recordings, and review. He uses the things we perceive to be our jail cell to create momentum and push us into things we could never imagine. Let Him do that. Let Him in...The older and more "mature" I get, the harder it is to be His little girl who lets Him comfort and be near. That is my deepest sorrow. Let us be ourselves and Let God of the Universe be Our God.

Look back on the bad and the good, the dreams, the promises, and review. Record your now, becaue it is setting you up for your wildest dreams. OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

India Trip: Pt. 1 Video!!

Hello Readers,

I discontinued my blog at the beginning of August until the end of the trip just to be extra careful about sensitive information for those we were to visit in India. But I have reactivated it! I'm starting to get all the pictures together and process the trip so that I can write and update about it. Yay! It was the most incredible experience of my life. I'm ridiculously grateful that I was actually in India, surrounded by the people and the culture. I respect them and their way of life so much, and it was an honor to be immersed in it.  I wouldn't trade a second.

The first thing I have ready to show off is a video I took of the Prison Staff team who go into the many prisons in and around Mumbai. They work tirelessly, and I really mean that, to help those who truly are victims. Not in the way that Americans or Western Europeaners think they are victims. But those who are truly taken advantage of and have to tools to help themselves with no one around able or willing to help them. I think that is a state very few of us could ever actually understand. I look up to this team immensely. They are victors and over-comers and know the Joy of the Lord in a way that I will never forget. I'm changed just from the joy and honor of meeting them!

So enjoy this "movie." They work hard and their play is hard too. THE PLAY IS REALLY INSPIRING TO ME!

Visa and Trip Update

This week, our team is working on getting our applicationS for our Travel Visas ready and sent to the outsourcing company.
Sunday night, I realized I needed to get it done ASAP, because I need my passport back for an August 2nd trip to Canada to see Jim's family. SO Monday was completely devoted to that :)

Please pray that we all are able to get our applications completed and approved by the Consulate of India. I got mine over-nighted Monday and have already had to troubleshoot a few problems with it.  I need my visa and passport back by August 1st. Thank you for praying!

Now for the super fun news! We have a team meeting next week, where we will learn more of what we will get to do with the ministries and people in India we are visiting. At this point, I know that we will have a picnic and spend two days with the women living and working in the red light areas! What an honor! I'm so excited to be able to have so much time with them. I have such a deep deep respect for these women and the choices they must make, the families they take care of, and the dignity with which they live! So amazed!
We also get to spend two days working with a prison ministry staff. How humbling! Imprisonment happens very unjustly often in India. And these people truly do need ministry and compassion.  And hopefully we can bring encouragement and help to those who work with the imprisoned.

In the last couple of weeks, the warfare has definitely intensified. I admit, I did not have my dukes up till getting a hit a few times (I guess I'm using wrestling metaphors).  But the Lord is our defense and He makes His way...and we get to rest in His love and His provision. The enemy does not want the light to invade darkness, he wants these people to continue to believe they are undeserving of love.

But it is our joy, to lay down our lives and time to reach those who think they are unlovable! The Lord longs for these to know of His great great love for them! He is jealous for them with all of His heart! He is jealous for us too! It is a JOY!!!
THIS IS WHY WE FIGHT! HOWEVER WE CAN!

India Update-We got the tickets!!!

Hello all!
We have everyone we need for a team. There is a couple from Georgia who will be joining the team for the first week of the trip, in Mumbai!

We are leaving Friday, August 17th in the afternoon and returning to Portland on August 31st. Our connecting flights are at Schipol Airport, in Amsterdam, and I've been there before! Exciting!

This week we need to get our visa applications completed and sent to the Indian consulate in California. Please pray that we are all able to access everything we need for a complete application. 


Our first team meeting is in two weeks, where we will all get to meet and find out more about our trip and what we'll be doing with each ministry we visit! I'm pumped for this!


Thank you thank you so much for all of your support and love!  
More info to follow <3
me


FOR THE LOVE OF INDIA!

I must believe...

Everyone once in a while my heart and my brain catch up to each other - that is always great fun and brings a whopping amount of clarity, that was simply not there before!
The way this India trip has come together, over the past several months, has blown my mind...and opened it up to see some things again that I had forgotten about.

When my heart and brain come to the same page, there is a story they can tell me. Again and again and again, their testimony compels me to believe I was made for great things!
In every day life, I think we all forget or stop being able to see how much potential life has. But here is the huge, crushing, splitting open truth:

My heart cries out, I must believe I was made for great things! I have to believe I was made to do the things I have dreamed of and greater! My own testimony convinces me, over and over again, that I/we were put together and dreamed up for our own unimaginables.  


We all have dreams. There are more to uncover. They are not owed to us. If we will choose to not just stand by, but chase them with the Lord, we will see this insane truth. We get to walk this earth with GOD, the Lord of Lords inside us, moving the ground, shaking the earth and setting things free through us. We are/BE compelled to believe WE ARE MADE FOR GREAT THINGS!!!!!!!!!

For Independence

Psalm 45:1 My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the King, my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.

Tomorrow is Independence Day. Tonight, I found a site through Pinterest called MadebySurvivors. These survivors are those who have been rescued from Red Light Districts in India. There is art and also facts and other info on their pin boards. I read and looked through most of it, and since, I cannot stop thinking about those in slavery, in 2012.
The verses I recite for the King are the treasures in my heart that He put there that I bring back to memory as often as I can. And this heart is stirred. I suddenly realize the statistics are horrible! I am so thankful I am not a slave of any-ANY kind!!!! As I am no one's but my King's and my own, I will assume that my role is to make their plights knows. Those who are kidnapped, sold, taken into slavery-we need to not forget. Pray, make mention to the Lord and to others. Remember you are free, in every sense of the word!

I encourage you to look up the above verse in different translations. It literally gets funner and funner.

The pinterest page: http://pinterest.com/madebysurvivor/ 



Sculpture in Shantiniketan, India

India Trip Update

An update for you all. I realized I had not really communicated about the trip for a while. We were needing two people for the team for a while. We have since found one person. We are still needing a second person. Monday, July 9, is the deadline to find our second person. There are quite a few interested at this point, but we are still waiting for confirmed team members. I ask that you (all) join Jim and I in praying this other person, or persons, onto the team this week.

I really feel the Lord is crafting this team in this way, slowly and intricately, for a great purpose. There are great things in store for us and for the people we are to meet this summer. So, Lord, please bring this other person and help them to know that this is an opportunity for them, comfort them and meet their needs. You are painting a portrait, telling a story, as you do with all of us. This trip is something special in your heart, and I thank you Lord that we get to be a part of your expression of Love to India. 

Once we have the rest of the team assembled, we can all move forward with getting visas and immunizations, and all of those joyous things...I have, however, already started building an Indian "wardrobe."  Here are some lovely skirts I found this past weekend! Much more needed, but this is a fun, sweet start<3

Thank you, dearly, to all have donated, emailed and joined in the excitement for this journey! What a blessing to know and love all of you. 

Here is a map of India that shows the location of the various cities/villages we will travel to.

Much love!

"Appointment in Jerusalem"

Appointment in Jerusalem is a book about Lydia Prince, written by her husband, Derek Prince. For those of you who are not familiar with either of these names, Derek Prince was a well-known minister who worked in Healings and Deliverance. Some of his family members still cary on his ministry in a form in the Carolinas.
So, this book is a man writing a woman's story. It's an amazing book! Except women and men are NOTHING alike! He writes of these extremely difficult situations she find herself in often. And...I read it thinking, "How is she not FREAKING out, losing her mind, a puddle of tears on the floor!?" Oh! Because she isn't telling the story! There are a few times, while reading, that I wondered if I was insane or not. I have dramatic emotional responses to nearly every thing I hear or see or experience. I'm very very female...I'm ok with it. It was really bizarre to not be reading that about Lydia Prince.

However, she was a woman of temendous faith! And not because anyone told her she should be.
She meets the Lord, doesn't know she's met Him, and then through a very fast series of events, discovers that she is meant to travel to the Holy Land! WILD! Anyone who thinks God isn't weird or silly, needs to read this! He really is WILD!  Now Lydia was a Danish woman. This was the early twentieth century, and really a single Danish woman in her thirties would have had no business in Jeruasalem. So what she felt the Holy Spirit directing her to do, was to leave her land, family, job, all familiarity, and go to Jerusalem. WOW!!!

Everyone around her didn't get it. Boy, do I know how that feels! God likes to have us do things that make no sense. I firmly believe that. That's why there are so many verses about not leaning on our understanding, God knows what you need and will provide, cast your cares on Him. In other words: DON'T WORRY. HAHAHAHA. That's what we people do! We do it so well, there are innumerable conditions and syndromes and a myriad of other problems created that are "discovered" every year! Bless God, He is so much better than our reasoning!

I think I will end up writing more blogs about this subject and book...as I finish it and it bubbles up in me more and more...But for now, the thing that is jumping up and down in gut is that:
Even as immature teens struggle with liking themselves, we still have to fight that fight every day! To love what we love, to love who we are...and to do this without shame or concern. Lydia searched for something missing from her life, and found Jesus. Then He gave her something to love, that maybe a single, successful Danis woman shouldn't have loved. But it gave her joy. It made her smile. It challenged and excited her to love, among other things, JERUSALEM!

There's a divine reason we love what we love, that we like thing things we like...Roll with it! Don't pretent you don't like something that you like!

on Provers 3:5...

I just felt like writing today. Just got that bug.
As for an India trip update, we still need two more people to join the team. Otherwise, any funds raised and so on would be reserved for the next opportunity to go, which would likely be this Fall. I was so focused on doing my part to raise funds and to be preparing for the trip, that I had to be reminded that we are still needing people to have a full group for the trip! SO, we are praying that the Lord would bring in the rest of the people He wants going on this August trip, and that He would meet all of their needs, whether physical or any other.

In all of this work to prepare for the trip, which has included researching culture, religions, obtaining a visa, getting immunizations and so on...I am starting to see that this is a part of something much larger that a single trip, taken by a few people.

I feel like I am almost watching a teaching movie, where God is showing how much He loves it when anyone wants to go to anyone else and show them love. I think He gets so excited not only when we say YES to going...(as in being sent out as the disciples were, or when Isaiah said in Isaiah 6, "Here I am. Send me!"), which is a huge step of faith alot of times; but He gets so excited when we are compelled to love.

As I've written before, different people are called and compelled to go different places and do different things...For me, for now, it is India. I think that when we step away from our human nature of wanting things to make sense, wanting there to be an explanation, I believe that is a favorite place of the Lord's to meet us and that that is where we get to see impossible things (for us) happen!

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding...

I believe, this is direction would lead us to the doorway of seeing miracles.

This is the week...

Hello!

Last week was a radiothon for India Partners on a local radio station. It lasted for two days. They had recorded stories from women who had come out of the sex-trade, and many more stories from children living in the safe homes, hoping their moms could be rescued too. I heard testimonies this weekend from Kaytie, who hosts teams to India and was on the radiothon. They were able to raise a lot of funds to help build more safe homes and keep children and their moms safe when the leave the red-light districts. PRAISE GOD!!!

This August, I am on a team to go to India, to these very safe homes mentioned above, and other locations. I would really love to hear from anyone who is interested in hearing more about this trip and what is being done to better the lives of the BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE IN INDIA.

This is the week I am hoping to get info/support letters out for my August trip to India.
Please message/e-mail me your addresses so I can send out the letter.

My email is dance4adonai@yahoo.com  if you would like to send me your contact info that way; or you can contact me on FB, or the email address listed on the top of this blog as well. Love to all.

http://www.indiapartners.org/

India, India, India...

Last night, Jim and I started watching an episode of River Monsters on Animal Planet. The episode was taking place in India! So, whereas I usually tune out and do something else when that show is on, I perked right up  and soaked it all in!
I'm enthralled with India. I couldn't sleep all last night because I was re-living what I saw of the streets, villages and way of life there. Beautiful. Breathtaking. Exciting. So vastly different from anything I could ever find in Western countries. India just calls to me. The people call to me. It's inexplicable, even for me, that I just want to go and be with the. Be a witness. Be a friend. Be a presence, hopefully a comfort. A light.
I don't want to bring even a hint of judgement.

I can't explain it, but these images excite me to no end! To the point of sleeplessness!

Jim reminded me of an awesome quote from Saint Francis of Assisi this morning: (paraphrase)

Preach the gospel always, and use words if you have to.

love.

just some musings...

Hello readers,
Every Monday I start out really full of faith and not at all intimidated by the coming week. By Wednesday, I'm tired. By Thursday, I'm feeling pretty beat up. Lately, my hubby and I have been feeling really drawn by the Lord. It seems there is far less allowed than maybe there once was. He doesn't want sin in our lives. I get pretty frustrated with the constant pointing out of sin in my heart...I get mad too. I get really mad and hurt and defeated. I respond exactly how I should not respond...

The other night, I felt like I needed to renounce (disagree in my heart) with the shame and guilt from past sins...I have repented A LOT! I don't shy away from it. I love it! As my mom says, "It's your get out of jail free card." But lately it has felt as though there are just no results from not wanting sin any more...So I disagreed in my mind and heart with continuing to carry around guilt from sin that I had asked Jesus to forgive me for.

I felt freedom for the first time in a while. Then the next day, I think, I just went right back to feeling guilty...Feeling like the many things that are going wrong are my fault.

But here's the thing: Jesus loves us. It's the most bizarre, irrational thing ever. I don't deserve to be loved, or even liked-AT ALL. I'm a total jerk and a mess. For real.

Jesus constantly brings my mind (thoughts, attention) back to Mary. The one who humiliated herself before the Lord, in front of a room full of men, who DID NOT GET IT! He invites me, you, anyone and everyone, to be her. She saved up a year's wages for a bottle of perfume. I asked God what the eqivilant would be from me. Then I immediately thought of just all the time and effort I put into things. That's what He would love to be devoted and "wasted" on Him.

I used to be really good (at least I thought I was) at saying "YES" to God. I am relearning. I think a lot of us are. I thought it was supposed to get easier to say yes to Him. It's been getting harder.

I don't feel this way often lately: But I know that I know that my blood vessels, hair follicles, nerve endings, nails know that God LIKES me. So I will keep moving forward...I want to see Him. That's what keeps me going when the rest of it all hurts.
more to come...

That Skin-Splitting Kind of Joy

India trip is a go!
We head out mid-August and will return in the beginning of September. 


You know that feeling when...how do I describe this...
I get this feeling inside when there is something I want, desire, need, crave-with EVERY bit of me; my heart, soul, even my blood just cries out for this something... it feels like my skin needs to split back! Like it needs to get out of the way and not dare to contain what's inside anymore! 


Going to India. Seeing these people's faces. Being in this beautiful land. A land I know God loves desperately and longs for it's people...This is the thing that makes my my whole being want to push back my skin.


This is the only way I can describe the desire I believe God's put in my heart to go to India. The need is from him. Sometimes, for reasons you can't seem to find, you have to do things in your life that you can't really put words to (at least not words that bring further clarification). This is that for me now.


More details will follow. Jim is lovely and is helping me write up a support letter/newsletter. 


look here to find out more about who I'll be going with and what they do in India. It's literally breath-taking.


www.indiapartners.org

About The Men We Love

I had an idea this morning on the way to work.  There is a lot of books and articles and teachings out there about how men are supposed to treat women. It’s amazing! Men are to pursue us, even after they have “obtained” us. They are to give us adventure, invite us into theirs, and so on…it’s truly beautiful how much more there is about this in recent days. I’m truly thankful that I live in times like this. Women are more and more being considered equal with men. As for Jim and I we approach marriage as a team work thing. I believe he is the head of the home, but we do  life TOGETHER. I don’t shut up and follow. And I don’t believe for one second that he would be happy if I did. But he also does not try to dominate or control me or our life. We respect each other. And along with love and communication growing through the years, the respect does and needs to grow as well.

But my idea was about how women can treat men. I grew up with a very very outspoken mother. This helped me become a woman who knew how to fight for what I want and love; and to not take a backseat to anyone, man or woman. But she also taught me and talked a lot about how to treat a future husband. Anyone who knows my dad, knows he loves my mom and daily, DAILY, dies for her. I have not just heard this, I have SEEN it.

I believe he lives this love toward my mom because he’s a good, honorable man, but also because of what my mom has laid down her life to bring into his.  I heard and witnessed that women have the power-and I do mean power-to make men into Kings or babies. I want to make my husband a King.

As much as men ought to pursue we women, and shower us with romance, and communication, and  numerous tokens of love; women are to build up and shower their husbands with affirmation and praise. If you ask me. Women have the ability to build their home or tear it down. I have been married almost five and a half years. What kind of house am I building? I want a strong house. A beautiful house. A fun house. A house full of adventure.

One of the biggest issues for men is strenghth. I am not an old person, but I am not a young person either. I have seen a lot in the years I’ve been on the planet. What I have witnessed in many marriages, relationships, men and families is that men are either truly strong, or try to dominate because they are too weak to lead. True strength is the ability to set someone free and not hold them back. To set someone you love up for success; that is leadership, that is authority, THAT is strength!

I feel that my father set me free when I was young. He never held me back. Any limtations I ever had or accepted were never from him. I now have a wonderful husband who sets me free every day. I don’t  think either of us started this cycle, of building each other up, encouraging each other to go after our dreams, and so on. I think it’s just something that neither of us has ever stopped.  We fight to stay strong for the other; to push each other to things that if the other were to see success, it would honestly be a little scary. He encourages me and helps me remember I have dreams and ambitions and I can’t let them lay while I live like a victim. And in return, I want him to have every single thing his heart desires! All the things that I don’t understand and that sometimes seem impossible. I just don’t care! He must have every opportunity to claim his passions. I want his real strenth every day. I want him to be him, and nothing else. I think a man’s true strength can be kind of frightening. I think my true strength is terrifying

too. God is scary and wild and super unpredictable. I want my husband to be free to be likewise.

Ladies, we need to be humble and build our husbands up. No matter what the cost to our self esteem or our time or emotions. Every little thing you have spent so much of your time day dreaming about or imagining will not come the way you want it if you do not pour out some love. The rule of marriage is not that only the man demonstrates love. They need our respect. So show respect. Demonstrate it. Publicly agree and praise.  I know it doesn’t feel as though it will be refected on you, but how could it not. Build up the man in your life and he will raise you up with him. That is how it works. That is what love does. That is what our hands, hearts and words do. The opposite is also true. And I believe that to be a very very somber warning. Don’t tear your home down to sticks. Look at the man you love, the man you chose and build into his heart, his mind, his dreams and future.  

India Pt.1

It started almost five years ago. My love for India. I just think everything about India is indescribably beautiful.

Jim and I had gone to a benefit for India Partners. We heard about people going to help women and children in Red Light districts and villages in Eastern India. Naturally we saw pictures of lovely children and many other people in India. Something in me stirred. They bring tears to my eyes. My heart is bursting with love and honor for the people in India.

I really believe the Indian people are a very important expression of the Lord's heart and love for creativity. The colors and designs and the way life is lived is desperately needed in the world. The earth is a diverse and lovely place, because of places like India.

This year I finally decided I wasn't going to wait for a dream to come true...I was going to chase it down. The hunt has begun! I applied and am on a team to go to India this year. I imagine there is much work ahead and this this will not be easy. But it will be glorious...Jesus loves them so much. The people of India are so precious to Him and I cannot wait to be among these breath taking, remarkable people!

This is a sweet token from India. Isn't it just perfect!?

God is so creative and gorgeous. He makes the Earth move and we get to move with Him.

He loves us

Skin

I knew I would do this, not add any writings...I need to shake out of it and write more. I need to write with abandon...This is something I wrote on January 18. I'm like most girls and easily jump right into the slum of believing the opposite of the truth about myself. And then Jesus comes so soft and helps me hear the Truth he is...in small doses (the only size I can handle).  Here, some more thoughts:

I opened up the bible this morning while at my desk, to the part where you calm the storm. You told them they had little faith because they thought that the storm would kill them. A sudden storm, that would pass, so scared them, they believed very quickly that they would die. You could have rebuked them, certainly far worse that what you did.

I need to see Jesus that it is you. It is you, and not me. You don’t want me to say I’m a stupid girl…or talk about myself that way.  The truth is you are with me NOW. Not later when I get my act together. You are with me right now, in my crummy office, alone with me now…and yet you are bigger than my tiny little world. Please expose anything that needs to come to light and be repented of. I don’t like this silly emotional and physical prison. It hurts. It’s a pain that I was not desinged to feel, because it is separation from you. I simply was not made to ever function in it. I was made to function in the pain of losing my self as I travel more with you, where you are and where you go.

My skin was designed to let go of my body. So I can one day move and flow and not be stuck as I am now. I was not made to stay this way. I was not made to always think and feel as I do now. It always needs to expand. So my skin has always known it would have to let go of me.  You are beauitful. You are good. The only thing I have been able to say to you for a while now is that you are beauitful. It’s only thing I can see or conceive lately.

Amos and Obadiah, reflections...

Reading Amos and Obadiah! Wow. You take very seriously the suffering of the least of these. You reserve judgement for those who take advantage of their day of disaster. You wage destruction on the tall and lofty places we build in our land/lives. They are our security and identity and you are disgusted with it. And dare I say, so jealous you would destroy us. To destroy the idol we love, destroys us, reduces us to nothing and then we can see you there all along…eyes so pure looking at us and actually seeing us. Wanting us, enough to put us in a deep pit, that you are deeper still.

 

You detest saying one thing and doing another. It is not something you can really even look at, is it?

There is grace and mercy. But not for sin that is premeditated and warned of. But this is actually one of the primary attributes that makes you as beautiful as you are. You do not suffer sin in our lives when we know better. You do not want us to put ouselves on a pedalstool and believe we are justified to sin.

 

You are glory, light, love, splendor, majesty. You are a king. We know almost nothing of what light and love are. Even though we have you, we do not see you or know you. You do not want us to turn from you, and turn to ourselves. Simply because you love us and want us. And so when we make lifestyles of denying you, your wrath is stirred. And this is a lovely thing. When the king of kings is stirred up in wrath, motivated from jealousy, we will see spectacular things in our lives and in the earth. The whole thing will turn upside down. When we put you back on the throne, things stand up right again. It just is.