Tapestry

I cannot even imagine feeling more connected to a group of people moreso than I do right now. Today I met my fellow interns for Uganda... and let me just say that it had been inspiring to be sure.

To start off with, I never even had to tell anyone that I am a hugger. I was met at the door with one and more waited inside. :D This absolutely made my day. I have had the awesome opportunity to listen to stories of life and ask questions, time to observe, time to hear the hearts of our leaders, and time to make s'mores. What an incredible night!

Beyond and slightly deeper than all of that, tonight has been a night of connections. We are all a tapestry woven together by a loving Weaver's grand design. And how well tonight represents that! People here know people that I grew up with, people that I have done ministry with, people whom I have never met but have heard their names several times at work. Friends of friends connect the world and it will give you goose bumps to realize just how small of a world it is in light of such an unfathomable Creator. At least, it does me. I can look out the window of an airplane and watch people grow tinier and tinier with each passing second, and it stirs a feeling of insignificance within me. Beautiful (no sarcasm added). "He must become greater; I must become less." And this week has been such a wonderful reminder of that. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows the future. He knew I would need a fast before my toughest week at work in a long time (spiritually, emotionally, physically). He knew that the leadership of Sozo would repeat words back to me that I tell the girls daily, and that because I say them, I can understand and appreciate the full value of them. My God is faithful. He sees and HOLDS everything, and yet wants to know me intimately. God is wonderful. And God will do even greater things than these. I love You, Abba. Thank You for being You. Please help me bless others as You have blessed.

Kaley Ann

Uganda!!

Hey guys. Happy Chinese New Year! Xin Nian Kuai Le!!

Lord willing, I'm off on a new adventure this summer! I've been selected to intern with Sozo International for 8 weeks in Uganda!! I'm so excited to meet the children in the Sozo homes, the families in the community, and the incredible staff that shine His light to all who encounter them! One other group of people that I will have the awesome opportuity to meet this coming weekend (Feb 7-9th) is the group of other interns joining me on this adventure! Yay for new friends!! :)

I have had a longing to go to Africa for a few years now, and it is hard to believe it's happening so soon! Most days it still feels surreal. I have witnessed over and over in the past 3 years since I moved to Toccoa just how often Dad ties everything together in our lives to glorify His name. I don't expect this trip to be any different. I know that working at Little Caesar's and at Shepherd's Hill Academy has taught me several lessons that I will carry with me on each step of this journey.

I'm sure this post is going to be a bit of everywhere, but please bear with me.

The "snowpocolypse" in the South ovet the past few days has served to drive home some scripture that Dad keeps taking me to. Romans 8:4 essentially says that we are called to fulfill the law as Christians. When I do, I am walking by the Spirit. When I obey the speed limit (like everyone had been forced to over the past several days due to icey conditions), then I am fulfilling the law. I am walking by the Spirit. Therefore, I am at peace when I see a cop - especially if the roads are dangerous because I know that he/she is there to help. I am not stressed. My mind can be set on things of the Spirit (love, joy, peace) instead of the things of the flesh (anxiety and fear). And others see that. Whether it be my girls understanding that I am stressed during work or people in walmart seeing me smile even when lines are long. Will we have to deal with stress in this life? Yes, of course. We cannot control every circumstance. But there are some that we can. Why would I choose to make myself more tense when there is no reason to?

The idea behind fundraising stresses me out. I will need about $5000 to make this intetship happen. Our culture screams at us to be independent! Take care of everything ourselves! Many times in my past, the church has told me that I shouldn't do something if I don't have the money to. However, someone very wise once told me that there are people here in my backyard that long to go on missions themselves, but for one reason or another they cannot. So their response is to support missions. If I do not offer people the option of coming on this journey with me, then I am depriving those very people of a blessing. So this is me asking or offering instead of stressing. If you would like to donate to my journey and walk it with me, there are a couple of options. The first is to send money or a check made payable to Sozo Children to 399 Jordan Rd., Toccoa, Ga 30577. The second is through Sozo's website (www.sozochildren.org/interns) where I will have an individual donation page set up by tomorrow.

I also need a core group of people praying for me this summer. If you would like to be a part of that please let me know.

So today I choose. I choose to leave for places early so there is no temptation to speed. I choose to go the back way so there is no temptation to stop and buy coffee. I choose to trust that Abba will provide funding and prayers for my internship. And I choose to smile. A lot. Have an incredible day guys. Love y'all.

Stones

What do you think of when someone says the word "prostitute"? To be perfectly honest, I grew up in a small town, and it was a word that was avoided - in my life, in my school, in my home. We were far from what Americans would consider rich, but we were always well provided for. I knew people existed who were homeless, people who felt that they had to go to extremes to survive sometimes, but I never thought about it. It was always one of those "not here, not people I know" things.

Last night a memory emerged though, as a friend picked out a song from my childhood to play on his ipod. Reba McIntyre's Fancy. I never knew why I liked it as a child, but I was singing its lyrics long, long before I ever had a clue what they meant. When I heard it last night, though, the power of what it meant fell like stones in my stomach.

About a year ago, God awakened me to a passion for people on the streets, for women who feel like they are not worth anything more, for people who are trifficked. Last night, He gave me proof that the verses that I have grown up knowing are so much more than real. He showed me that before I ever even knew what a real relationship with Him was, He was creating in me a passion and a love for the people He was calling me to.

We are called to love all people. God is calling all of His creation back to Himself, and He has a purpose for each of us. How can anyone imagine differently?

"My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:15-16

"And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:27-28

"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." - John F. Kennedy

"Enough"... what does this word mean?

Tonight I looked back at 3 years ago while I was in China, and I discovered a word study done on the words "total trust." From my friends I received responses such as absolute, without fail, committed to the care of another; and then there were the responses that I can't forget. "Opening yourself to be vulnerable and believing that only good can come of it." "Trust is walking off of a cliff knowing that one of two things will happen: 1)you'll sprout wings and fly, or 2)there will be a trampoline at the bottom of the cliff waiting to catch you."

In a time and place where I could do absolutely nothing else, I learned what it meant to fully rely on and have TOTAL TRUST in my Savior. Now, I find myself at college again, and stressed as the semester draws to a close. Stressed with work, stressed with school, stressed over the fact that there is NEVER enough time to spend with my friends or with God. sigh.

And tonight all God has said, in every email or blog I have read, is "enough." Hiding in the shadow of my wings is enough. So what does this word mean? A few different places I stumbled upon in looking it up in the Bible is Joel 2 (v.19) and Haggai 1 (v.6). Reading the two of these in context caught my attention. In Joel, the Lord tells His people to return to Him, and when they do, he pours out "grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully." In Haggai, the people are searching for any other way to be filled other than in God Himself, and God "called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands." The same exact things that He pours out in Joel, He withholds in Haggai.

Grain makes bread, right? And wine in the Old Testament is the choice drink for celebration? In the New Testament, Jesus Himself becomes these. If we choose to turn to Him, He IS our bread, our wine, ENOUGH to satisfy us fully.

Have you ever sat at a wedding and watched the bride and groom walk down the aisle and all you knew was that the whole moment was beautiful? It was filling? It just seemed right? Do we make time to have those moments with Jesus. There is so much He wants to tell us. How often do we let Him be ENOUGH??

"How priceless is Your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light."- Psalm 36:7-9

Unconditional

Something that I've grappled with over the past month or so is what our/my identity is. I'm in the dorms at TFC, and around mostly younger girls. I therefore tend to do things very similar to them. For as long as I can remember I associated my identity with the things I did, and the people I was around. Over the past couple of years though, that has bounced around so much as I assimilated myself to fit into the setting around me. I think part of this stems from the idea I received growing up that a "good Christian" did certain things and did not do certain things. There was such a HUGE emphasis on this. Well, as I've bounced literally all over the place in what role I am in for the month or year, I've learned that the only basic truth, the only thing that deserves the label of identity, is the fact that I am a child of Christ. God calls us to do different things at different stages in our lives to relate to other people, or sometimes just to glorify Himself. King David was so caught up in worship that he danced naked before the Lord. That did not make him crazy, and it didn't make him more child-like. It was simply an action of pure obedience and reverence.

This identity, as stated in Ephesians 3, says we are "fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." That is who we ARE.

And in similar form, I've heard so many different takes on the love of Christ, and the forgiveness of sin, that it literally left me hurting for a while in confusion. As a child of Christ, I am love UNCONDITIONALLY. That means that no matter what I do, God is not going to love me more or less because of it. His love is NOT dependent upon our actions. This has been such a hard concept for me to grasp. God is not going to love me more because I do something for Him, and He isn't going to love me less because I do not obey Him. His love STAYS THE SAME! He might get frustrated or hurt with me or He might even be proud of me for listening to Him, but unlike human love, those feelings do not change the amount He loves me! John 13:1 says "...[Jesus] having loved His own who were (ARE) in the world, He loved them to the end." This in the Greek could also be "...His beloved, in the world, He loved them to the uttermost." If He loved us to the uttermost when He was fully man, when one of those He loved that much was about to betray Him in the worst possible way, and another was about to disown Him (THREE TIMES!), how much more can He love us now that He has been glorified and is with the Father! NOTHING anyone can do or say can change that amount of love.

What do I do with this, God?

Friday nights. Atlanta Outreach. Making friends, hanging out with anyone we can find. (All while being safe of course.) Well, this Friday night I had a moment that I almost shut down. I was overwhelmed. There is a building.. well, two actually that are thought to be more than just buildings. And not in a good way.

I didn't know what to feel for those inside. For those of you who know me well and are reading this, you know that I pick up on others' emotions super easily. Well, there were probably twenty million things going through my mind at that point, the least of which definitely NOT being the scenes from Redeeming Love. Of course, we didn't actually go in, or see anything at all really, but I felt it. I could feel the insane mix of emotions around me. I didn't know what to do with it. I said as much to God, all night, all the next morning.

It took me until the next afternoon, yesterday afternoon, to come to grips with the fact that Dad may be calling me to minister to them somehow. To slow down, to accept the burden He's given me, that He KNOWS I can bear (because He made me!), and to start really doing something. For now, that something might be prayer, hardcore, fighting for these girls in the spiritual realm. And I'm okay with that. And I'm ok if or when He says there's more, more to do, more ways to fight, what ever He hands me. I'll do it.

Sharing in the load

For those of you following this, I apologize for being so lax in posting. I've now been in Toccoa, Georgia for two weeks. That's a bit crazy to me in and of itself. It seems in some ways that I arrived just yesterday, but more often that I've been here and known some of these people and places my entire life. It's amazing to say the least. And I thank Jesus every day for bringing me here.
I have learned so much already! My classes all point me toward more of Jesus. For someone who grew up in a community that is afraid to go deep with Jesus, that's a HUGE deal. We pray before every class. We worship together at least 3 days of the week. We have small groups that will soon become much more like family than just friends.
Even with all of this, with the history of Christ, the story of the Bible, the hope and love for missions being presented to us in every class, it is easy to get bogged down. It's still school. It's still classes, still homework, still deadlines and tests. I know that seems crazy, but I've learned this past week that REGARDLESS of where you are in the world, if you're heart is not on worshiping and loving Jesus, then even learning about Him and His life can become almost more of a chore. It can easily become an idol. Jesus HAS to be my PRIMARY EVERYTHING.
So if you're stressed and trying to figure out how you're going to fit everything into your day, just remember to put Jesus at the top of your to-do list. In doing so, you will find joy in what you do, freedom from the stress and physical results of stress (headaches and such), and you're much more likely to get it all done, because there will be two of you working to knock out that list.
"Many hands make light work." Let Jesus be one of those additional sets of hands. He wants to. That I can promise. Psalm 68:19 says "Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden,The God who is our salvation."