it's coming!

.get ready for some serious documentation of summer....lots in store for the next few months.

I've got to remember this

It is absolutely amazing to me how I simply cannot keep up on this blog. I find it so difficult because I loose track of what
I have already shared on facebook or through personal emails and when it comes to the blog, I just feel like I am repeating myself. There are so many different avenues of communication and keeping up on others lives...but that being said, I want to try again to reunite with this blogspot. So, here I am welcoming myself back to my blog.

Where have I been?

Well, catching up with the last entry, I am still in Turner Valley Canada. The 5 month Discipleship Training School is coming to an end as the school has just returned from a 2 month outreach. I was a part of a team of 4 who went to Thailand for 6 weeks. Following Thailand, we came back to Canada to catch up with the other half of the school who spent 6 weeks in Canada for outreach. We came together as 1 team and ministered in a place called Ft. McMurray. When I tell my Canadian friends that we went to Ft. McMurray for 2 weeks they usually respond with something like..."WHY? Blah"....After being there for 2 weeks, I now understand their abrupt responses. Ft. McMurray is a mining town and one in which people from all over come to for work. It is also one of the most populated towns when it comes to homeless people. In short, Ft. McMurray broke my heart and showed me a piece of God's heart for the broken. I feel that I could write forever about outreach, and hopefully I can add some little stories here and their as I reminisce about these past 8 weeks.

Now what?

This week we are having a week of debriefing in which the students will learn more about how to transition into their home,schools,friends and family...and some, how to pursue their heart for missions. After the week of debriefing, the staff will go on a 'Debriefing Retreat' where we will process the last 5 months of the school...and hang out with each other...I am really looking forward to this....yes please. When I get back from the retreat, I will then go back to the YWAM base in Montana where I will continue to work in the DTS (Discipleship Training School) Department. I then will start preparing for the Fall DTS in Montana, as I will be leading that school.


Okay, thats it for now...More to come soon. I mainly just feel much better about making contact with this blog. :)

Thailand!!

Hey Everyone! Well, here we are, in Chaing Mai Thailand! We arrived here around something ridiculous like 2:00 AM Sunday night (Thai time). The team is doing well...and had their first Thailand outrageous amounts of people in once space, experience last night...(The Sunday Market for those of you who know Chaing Mai)

We are staying in a beautiful guest house for about a week here in Chaing Mai and we will be doing alot of intercession for the ministry here as well as hanging out with the local people here in our neighborhood and preparing English teachings for our time later in Napajat. After our week in Chaing Mai, we will go to a place called Mai Ai and there we will be separating and living with different families and basically just do what they do (work with them in the fields, cook with them, hang out with their family etc...) After Mai Ai, we will then go to a place called Pai and will be there for a week and a half. Pai is where we will be doing alot of Christmas programs and evangelism--from my understanding, Pai is kind of a hippie town soo hopefully that calls for a guitar, and me sitting on a curb singing Christmas carols ridiculously loud...and THEN after Pai we will go to a village called Napajat and teach English in the primary school there! So this is roughly the schedule for the next month and a half...the team is adapting so so well and it has been really fun showing them some of my favorite Thai things and converting them to love "more abstract" things...

Something that I personally am learning about is intimacy with Jesus. I've been thinking and wondering lately just how intimate Jesus was with the Father...just how clearly he heard His voice...how dependent he was on God and how absolutely important it was to do just as the Father did....I want to understand and experience more of this intimacy right now in Thailand.

VISION

These white keys just seem to get darker and darker...used and abused for assignments, letters, songs, lectures, notes, pages of nonsense, lines of brilliance and phrases of naivety…only this time….nothing quite seems to fit the occasion of monotone clicking except one thing, one idea, one word: Vision.



At one point, it felt as though my life was just myself, holding a hose and aiming it towards the ocean. Now, aside from creating pockets of brackish water and completely terrifying every little minnow and hermit crab…for some time, I have seen the term “vision” like this…and if the vision is not great enough, doesn’t have enough man power, then it is like holding a garden hose and aiming it at the ocean. But MAN…it is SO NOT. Because what IS vision anyway? Of course there is the dictionary def. which is….. “The act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be” but beyond this….My heart has SO been stirred with the question “What does it mean to have vision or to be visionary or to get vision? The only conclusion that I come to is that there is absolutely no harm in dreaming big. In DTS Equip this question came up many times : “If you had unlimited resources and nothing holding you back, what would you do?” This question often times left me sitting in my chair just dreaming and dreaming and dreaming…and what that led to was anticipation and an very real awareness of the power and presence of God.



We gotta dream big guys…Some of us may be the garden hose holders and or perhaps some of us are the bottle throwers…Those who write the vision down and put it in a bottle, aim it towards the ocean as we cross our fingers and pray that it arrives safely in someone else’s hands. So the question stands: Do you believe that the vision you have is too small, to undoable…or are you in a place that you are praying for more vision…or perhaps simply ANYTHING that resembles vision…or do you have the vision and feel like you are incapable…wherever you find yourself…. wherever I find myself, we MUST cling to the truth: There is no vision too small and no dream to large to overwhelm or un-impress the heart of God.

Oh, Canada

Well, here I am. Laying on my bed with the window open…I can hear the wind as it makes friends with the trees, and the river that is rushing wildly through the rocks. I look out the window and it is as if I have laid a blanket beneath the stars….This is home…for now. I arrived in Turner Valley, Alberta Saturday morning and God has met me here….as soon as I got here it was almost as if God was saying “I’ve been waiting for you”. It has not been the easiest thing in the world preparing for this fall DTS, but it HAS indeed been both humbling and faith building. I have really enjoyed this process/newness of leading a school. (I hope I can say that when the school ACTUALLY starts…haha)
Today I probably had too much fun…messing with the budget, seeing what we can take out in order to add more in (sounds ironic and brain exploding…but fun nonetheless.) I have never been one for math or anything that resembles numbers for that matter…but I am finding now, that being a “visionary” I need to get good with numbers so that stuff can happen. (And THAT was probably the most ineloquent thing I’ve said thus far…High School English class, you have failed me)



Ultimately, things are coming together. I have most of the speakers lined up and the schedule is starting to resemble a phrase I have become best friends with… “U of N Curriculum” oh yes people, this is a glorious straight edge that I come back to quite often…not “like a dog returns to its vomit” but more like “Like Anna returns to the coffee”.



So, here it stands: 3 and a half weeks to prepare for the school, 3 and a half weeks to prepare the way of the Lord, 3 and a half weeks to set the class room, 3 and a half weeks to set up the table for Jesus to come and dine with us…I am both excited and nervous. Come Lord.

Here’s a song that I’ve had on repeat lately: “With Everything” by Hillsong.

"I'm with you"

Well, one week from today I will be venturing off to Turner Valley Canada to re-pioneer/lead the DTS. This week has been an incredible week of preparation and also an incredible week of questions and silences. Today I was praying and felt the Lord speak so clearly to me this: "Anna, we are in this together". This word is one that will carry me for years and years as this feels like the beginning stages of "pioneer life". I feel like God is handing this opportunity to me, and saying "What you are feeling is what it will feel like in the future, BUT.....I'm with you"



Today I have cried, laughed, sat uncomfortably silent, filled dull spaces in my day with worship music blasting, almost fell out of a hammock, talked to good friends on the phone, listened while my dad living in NC encouraged me, baked cookies, forgot about cookies baking and went for a walk (oops), emailed potential speakers, cried some more, cleaned the kitchen, read a paragraph in a book, went to the store, cried in front of some of my favorite people in the world, talked with a friend about big dreams while laying on the 15 year old carpet in my house, took a nap, cried some more and then..in the midst of other random activity, heard the Lord speak...."Anna, we are in this together, I'm with you". It is amazing to me how so much emotion can happen in one day...It makes me sit back and think "oh...my gosh, I didn't know this was possible...and the more cynical side of me is thinking...is that what it is like to be in a relationship?! haha...." But seriously...if God is not in this, I don't want it...but heres the beautiful part..HE IS IN THIS! I am getting more and more excited for this adventure with Him---with an absolute AMAZING staff (6 staff) and 5 students that I am thrilled to meet....This DTS is going to run!! Every day I hear in the back of my mind, or probably actually in my heart..the words that Jeremy West said all throughout DTS Equip: "You are a disciple first, always". THIS is why this school can happen with 6 staff and 5 students...because we are all learners, we are all disciples and we are all HIS.
A verse that I have been meditating on for quite some time is this:

John 5:19- Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

What is on His Heart

This week has been pretty busy as I am continuing to put together the curriculum for the DTS....
I have been so very challenged lately through a friend's example to really ask God "God, what is on your heart for this school...for this hole in schedule, for this week that needs a speaker, for this hour, for this teaching...." It all sounds pretty simple..praying. But for some reason this time I can feel it...I feel God's grace as He is teaching me how to set up a school, I feel his patience when I ask Him the same question over and over again....and I am learning to simply sit before him and wait. Intimacy...a new level of intimacy is rising and I'm not sure that my heart can keep up with it.

I bought the new Hillsong CD and there is a song that has been on repeat for an hour now and the lyrics are simply this:

"The same power that conquered the grave, lives in me, lives in me, Your love that rescued the earth lives in me"