THC ... etc

So The Holiness Challenge kind of died for a while. I am planning on finishing it eventually because I would like to take it and make a discipleship packet out of it for when I'm discipling women. Right now I'm kind of focused on other things, like getting ready for our 10-day outreach to Radom, Poland. I have been practicing a lot of Polish worship and also just worship in general. Today I was working on playing while standing up (because I usually practice while sitting down)... just preparing for whatever worship opportunities should come my way. I am also working on several submissions for the "Time Machine" contest they are holding on cavasthreads.com. So far I have entered one 80's themed shirt based on the Rubik's Cube. It says, "Salvation isn't this complicated." Right now I am sketching out cartoons of the wizard of oz... I am going to make a shirt based on a ride called "fantasy land" where there is a picture of a monkey evolving into a flying monkey and the characters are going to be on the ride. There are a few more I'm working on, but we'll see how they turn out. The contest is you have to make a shirt inspired by art of the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, or 80's. I don't know if I'll do one from every decade, but so far I know I will cover three of them. The more I practice, the better things are going (on the guitar and in shirt design). None of my shirts won for this round, so I'll just have to keep on trying. My fingers hurt :) Hope all is well with you! God bless.

Subotica, Serbia

Well, I can add another country to the list of places I've been, and Serbia was pure AMAZING. There was a lot of stuff that happened that just had the fingerprints of God all over.

First: Travis was planning to go by himself, since it was going to cost more than we had for all four of us to go (since the girls take up a whole seat in the car and gas is super expensive!). In fact, we had called the Saving Grace accountant extraordinaire, Jack, and he told us our updated balance, already a day late from when we were supposed to say for sure or not whether we were going, and it wasn't enough. The next day he emailed and said he processed a check for $200, the EXACT amount we need to be able to go. So we called Lisa to see if we could still go, and she said YES! She was also excited that we could go... hehehe.

Second: The green paper for Lynn's car was supposed to come on Thursday (we were leaving on Friday) because you can't go into the country of Serbia with a green paper from your insurance, and it didn't come. So we were trying to figure out who would have to stay back, and it made sense for one of the families with kids to have the wife stay back with the kids, so we were just going back and forth, but Lynn's paper came right before prayer groups on Friday! So the whole Missions Training group, plus some extra helpers were able to go.

We set off on our trip and made pretty good time (we did get a bit lost trying to find a gas station in Kiethsiehtosieureng... no that's not the real name of the city, the real name of the city is Kiskunfelegyhaza, which I can actually pronounce slowly... lol). But that leads to point three:
We got through the boarder extremely quickly considering we had passports from 8 different countries, including Australia and South Korea!

Our time was amazing. The huge blessing for me was to meet a woman named Katerina who told me about her teenage daughter, Ramona, who suffered from Viral Meningitis who was paralyzed and could not speak, but had regular consciousness with no way to express herself. She was an amazing woman I met through, you can guess I'm sure, her interest in Katienne. Kati is a serious conversation starter because of her puffy cheeks and giant blue eyes.

The fourth AMAZING thing: About a week ago I looked at my hair, and my horrible split ends, and thought, well I don't have money for a haircut, and I have no where to go to get my hair cut... so, oh well. I didn't think to even pray for a solution about my hair, I mean, it's just hair. That's the attitude I tried to have about it. Then when we went to the women's ministry even they had planned for the women of the church they were doing massages, manicures, pedicures, facials, and the pastor's wife was giving hair cuts! My friend Dani (short for Daniella) told me I should go for it, and after I watched a lot of the Serbian women getting their hair cut, I went to ask because there was no line and she seemed like no one else was waiting. Well I guess there was a line and she said she would cut my hair after the person that was next, and I said, oh don't worry about it. I didn't want to get in the way of the women in the fellowship being blessed. So I went and started doing something else. So about half an hour later she came up to me and insisted that I come and get my hair cut. She did such an amazing job, and she was so sweet, and I told her I hadn't had my hair cut since I moved to Europe. Lol, she could tell because she said my ends were looking pretty damaged. Well, not only did she give me the most awesome haircut in my life, later on I found out that she is the sister of a wonderful sister in the Lord that is from Serbia whom I served with in Poland the first time I went there, Ildi! I didn't get to tell her that I knew her sister though, because Pam (our wonderful leader in MTP) didn't tell me that until the night was almost over. I did tell her husband the next day though (a snowboarding pastor that Travis hit it off with instantly. My friend Lynn said it was hilarious to hear them talking in their "dude" language! LOL) All that to say, God cares about my hair, which blows my mind!

He continues to blow my mind... seriously. And the body in Subotica is amazing! I hope we get to go back there some day!

THC W6: There will be an answer

I really wanted to post a private entry from my journal from last October about what God has been doing in my life through prayer, and this is definitely an incident that sticks out in my mind. I hope it blesses you.

"I was listening to the service on Thursday night on the computer because we have not taken Ksena into childcare yet because of her potty training. Arpi was teaching. It was so thoughtful, yet simple. It was an amazing message about John 9 and the “blind man,” as everyone called him since they did not know his name. I just listened to “When the Rain Comes” by Third Day, which is particularly appropriate today because it is raining outside. After the service they had worship and prayer and said they were going to pray for healing for people and anoint them with oil. Since I was not there, I prostrated myself on the floor, a practice I find more and more necessary, and began to pray. As I was praying, I was in pain, crying out to the Lord, crying. One of my tears ran from my eye to my forehead and I thought that God must be anointing me Himself with my tears. All the time my pain growing greater, I kept my position, even though many types of spiritual warfare were directed at me. Not only was I in pain, but I realized that the door to our room was unlocked, and there were people outside talking and I did not recognize their voices. I heard a voice telling me that it was someone coming to hurt my family, but I knew it was not the voice of the Lord, and I refused to leave the position I was in. After about 20 minutes of this intense battle within myself, begging for my faith not to be small, I finally prayed, “God, heal me NOW if it is Your will.” And at that time I felt a touch on my gallbladder that sent a tingling feeling throughout my body. The pain was gone. Since then I have had no more pain in my gallbladder, but have been experiencing pain in my liver, stomach, and kidneys. I decided to stop eating sugar products to see if that helped, and it did. I feel that my body is functioning as if I had no gallbladder. Travis said that maybe God simply shut my gallbladder off. I believe it. Now I must be careful about what I eat so my body does not store extra fats that my gallbladder is not processing. I think that will help with the pain in my other organs. Although I still have pain, it is much more manageable. Praise the Lord of Hosts, that hears and answers our prayers. Amen."