I went to Wal-mart today to pick up a few things. There's a Subway in the back, and I hadn't had lunch yet, so I went back there to get me some eats. There was only one guy working - a black guy, who clearly had facial features from another country. He confirmed this by asking me what kind of cheese I wanted with the thickest African-based French accent I've heard in a while (such a beautiful sound). I asked him where he was from, he said "west 'Ofreeca' ", with a bit of hesitancy. My exclamation brightened his face a bit, and we just started talking while he was making stuff.

His name is Tiane (TIA-nee), and he moved here a while ago to go to school. He's gotten his accounting degree and is going back to school, once he gets the money.

When I asked him why he came to America, he explained that there is just more opportunity here, and that by working at Subway part time, he makes 3 times more than the monthly wages of a farmer who works 14hr days in his village. He said the last job he had before he moved here was in an orphanage down the road from his house. I told him that that's what I want to GO do;move to Africa and live in an orphanage. When I said this, his face lit up, and he said "YOU? you want to go, and stay?", and a huge smile burst onto his face. He said "Many American don't know how good it is to be in this country. Some people act like it is nothing. But it is so much."

How true this is.

I didn't get a chance to ask him about his family (which I fully plan to go back and do) or a hundred other questions bouncing around in my head, because he had other customers, but he wished me a good day, as did I to him, and I left.

Tiane is just one more example of how different every person's walk is. He left where I want to be, and came to the very town in which I've lived, and would like to leave (most of the time :]).

And who knows if my conversation with him inspired or encouraged him, but I know it encouraged me. No matter that he came from there to here (he still traveled the same distance as my aspirations would take me, just in the opposite direction), he is achieving his dreams.

And he started on the wages of an orphanage worker in a poverty-stricken village. How amazing.

Never think you can't do something.

Never think you don't have enough.

And never keep your story to yourself. You may just touch and inspire someone with it.

Be thankful for the opportunity around you.

And if your calling takes you away from where you are, embrace that.

And know that what you're striving for is possible.

Take heart in the midst of your challenges today.

I found this post earlier on Gabi's Blog.


And it was (yes, you guessed it :]) an inspiration.

Enjoy.

And visit her blog and see how she's changing the world.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don’t go to Africa, by Joan Smith

by Gabi

[this made me smile deeply and so I thought I’d share it as it contains important pieces of the culture and heart of my home-land.]

So don’t go to Africa…

- if you’ve already determined that people are poor because they are lazy.

- if you aren’t moved to do something when you see abject poverty, people who are sick and have no health care providers at all, schools with no resources, school-aged children too far from public education and too poor for private education.

- if you can’t tolerate no schedule, standing around waiting, daily detours for cell phones, food for others, banking and people who have so little asking for more than you have to give.

- if you’re not flexible with your time, your thinking, your attitudes and your prejudices.

- if you can’t see beyond the poverty and lack or resources and see the love, caring, compassion and humanity in life here.

- if your wardrobe can’t tolerate red clay stuck to your shoes and clay dust clinging to everything else.

- if you don’t want to be awakened by a rooster at 3:30 and 4:15 and 6:05.

- if you can’t accept heartfelt gratitude for the smallest gesture of help.

- if you can’t say no.

When I began searching for colleges towards the end of high school, I never really found anywhere I felt peace about. That's normal, I suppose, for a soon-to-be graduate, but nothing my prospects had to offer ever really captured me. Still, I felt as if I should go somewhere because, after all, it's what people do, right?

But nonetheless, I took a year off to gather myself and figure out where God wanted me. When it came time to start applying the next year, I still couldn't do it. My intellect said do it, my logic said I better, or I'd never succeed, people said I should, based on the little looks they'd give me when I told them I still didn't know where I wanted to go.

But you know, I've been blessed with something that many recent and not-so-recent graduates don't have: a vision of what I want to do, who I want to be, and what I'm striving for.

That being said, there are a few places I would give anything to go to. Schools, yes, though not academic.

My heart is for the lost. For the hurting. My heart is for giving people hope. I've always significantly admired Bill Johnson (Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, CA) and have entertained the thought of applying to the school they have there to learn more about/be strengthened in the ways of ministry as it pertains to the supernatural. It's something we'll all be dealing with more and more as the days continue, whether we realize it or not.


I'm a photographer. It's something I've had a passion for for a long time, but in the past few years, I've realized it's part of my calling too. I can't say why I love it so much, except that it was a God-instilled thing, and I'm not sure how He'll use it just yet, but I want to "learn my craft", if you will. What's more, I feel a peace about this place in particular. Earlier this year, I had a chance to become acquainted with the director at RMSP in MT - a great woman, indeed. Though God didn't provide a way for me to go this year, I hope it's in the future. Till then, I'll continue documenting life as it comes anyway :)


Since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I've loved Africa. It's another calling on my life that I just can't - and never want to - ignore. My brothers call me 'a hippie' and say I'm a walking spokesperson for an African flea market (I think - think - that's a bit of overkill :]). If you know me the slightest bit, you know my passion for most of the countries on this continent, though there're a couple in particular that make my heart swell and go into a spiritual frenzy.
Even if you've never heard of The Harvest Missions school, I'm sure you've heard the name "Heidi Baker". I love her. I don't know her, and I love her. I admire her. I fancy the idea of proceeding her. And I can't think of a place - maybe even including the other schools - that I'd rather be, than under her and her staff's missions teaching in Pemba, Mozambique. Two months of hardcore supernatural/love/ministry schooling on all things missions. All things Africa. Her ministry spreads as far as Asia, but the school, and her heart - like mine - is for Africa. I could die happy.


Who knows how many of these I'm meant to attend. God will provide according to the will He has for me. He will also provide according to the desires of my heart that line up with His will.

And one of the (spiritually) great/(physically) not-so=great things about pursuing any of these paths/schools.. I have to trust Him.

I don't have the money for them.

I will be great distances away from family & friends - my support system.

They are things that will significantly challenge me and, thus, alter my life. Am I ready for them? Can I do them?

But He needs people who trust Him.

People, again, look at me like I'm crazy most of the time, but if God has given you a dream, trust that He's got a reason for it. Trust Him to provide for it. Trust that He's with you when you venture out and do it.

Show people how fun it is to have crazy dreams.

Go be unconventional.

I wrote a blog a few days ago and saved it on my computer so I could mull it over a little before I posted it. I wrote it while I was frustrated and emotional, so I wanted to make sure it was speaking the right things. I’m not gonna post it. I think a lot of it was issues manifesting themselves incorrectly.

But I will use some stuff from it, because what I was talking about was truth, it was just said in the wrong way. So Anyways….

God has been doing so many new things in me and teaching me things I didn’t expect to learn yet. It’s great stuff, but I’m being fought a lot too. Like I said in a previous post, when the devil sees you coming into something that God has for you, he’s going to fight you as hard as he can. I talked to a friend lastnight who was discouraged about the awesome things God is doing in her life, because satan had gotten to her head. And it excited me, because that means the devil is fighting her over something… meaning she’s doing something right! How awesome.

One thing He’s been teaching me is the art of trusting even though there’s lack of knowledge in us.

Your head may not understand, but your heart was MADE to trust God, and, though it’s an extremely conflicting thing – to have your head and you heart warring with emotions – it’s so cool, because, when you experience a peace inside your heart that your mind, reason, logic, etc. don’t understand, it means you’re experiencing God. You’re experience a glimpse of what you were made for. We may not even realize it – it took me a long time to be able to sense it myself – but when we experience things that make our head go ‘tilt’, our spirits rejoice, because, thank God, we’re stepping into a type of communion with God that is so out of this world [no pun intended :)], it’s beyond this natural realm we see!

Anyway again…

He’s been bringing me back to Jeremiah 13 over and over again, when He tells Jeremiah to go buy a belt and wrap it around his waist and don’t let it touch water…

What would it be like if God asked you to buy a pair of shorts, put ‘em on and don’t get ‘em wet…without telling you why? Would you be willing to do it?

God goes through many different steps of telling Jeremiah what to do with the belt, and only telling him ONE step at a time. So after God has already told him 1. buy a belt. 2. don’t let a touch water. 3. go to the river. And 4. bury it in a rock crevice. verse 6 says “many days later, God spoke to him…”

How’d you feel if God told you to do these things that seemed crazy to you, and then was silent ‘…for many days’ before He told you why He had you do these things?

#1 – God didn’t forget about Jeremiah, though He was silent.

Sometimes in life, we have to trust God hasn’t dropped the ball with us, and just wait for instruction.

#2 - the timing of all this was crucial to what happened next…

God told Jeremiah to go get the belt from the rock crevice, so he did. When he found it, it was “ruined and completely useless”.

Sometimes, we have to sit and wait, because, whether God is allowing time for your shorts to get ruined, or something else to fall into place, He needs patience from us.

I’m a go-getter. I don’t like patience.

Or I guess I don’t like situations that require patience.

I don’t like waiting.

I don’t like not knowing.

I’m a mess.

But Romans 8:25 says “If we look forward to something, we must wait patiently AND confidently” … In your patience, be confident that God will come through for you.

So, after all this.. after God told him to buy a belt, then don’t let it touch water, then go bury it, then sit there with no explanation for who knows how long, then go dig it up again…. Verse 8 says “Then the word of God came to me”… and God told him why He asked these things of Jeremiah and what would happen.


Sometimes I complain when things don’t happen on my time table in life. I feel I’m following God, I want what He wants for me, and I’m [theoretically :)] willing to do whatever it is. But it’s the time aspect that always gets me. Thing don’t come fast enough. I always want to be on the frontline of things, but sometimes we have things to learn first. Sometimes, we think we’re ready, but we’re not just yet.
God knows that, if I knew steps 5 and 6, 1-4 would get left in the dust, and I’d get down the road and realize I missed something somewhere. Maybe Jeremiah was like this too, because there ARE stories, like in Jeremiah 29:5-7, when He gives the priests and prophets from the exiles step-by-step instructions for their lives up front.
Do this, do that, be this and go here and you will prosper. Awesome, but I would be dangerous with such things. He knows that. And maybe you wouldn’t be. I just know I would be.

When I had to leave Africa last year, my heart broke, and I couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t give me a peace about just STAYING there, though I had been invited to do so. I was angry when God told me I wasn’t meant to go to school just yet… Hearing the weight of the world’s words on you that ‘you have to get an education, it’s the only thing that will sustain you in the long run…’ and then having God say ‘not yet’…it’s hard, not to mention such things as financial provision for the future. How is ‘not yet’ supposed to pay the bills, right?

But God knows. He knows what you need. He knows what’s coming and He CARES about it.

After all, the reason for my anger and my nervousness concerning provision was because there’s something about God’s character that I’m not trusting. Something about His goodness that I’m not believing. I don’t feel like He knows what is best, and when He speaks to me and says go buy a pair of shorts and bury them and doesn’t tell me why first, I look at Him and keep walking because I don’t trust that He will bring something out of it.


I never mean to preach at anyone. It’s not my aim at all. I’m just sharing life… sharing the things I’ve learned in hopes that they’ll help someone else.

So if there’s anyone else dealing with similar things, know you’re not alone.

And if you’re dealing with the opposite – if you feel like you’ve been handed too much and you don’t know if you can take it – God will never give you something you can’t handle. You hear the phrase “I know He’ll never give me something I can’t handle, I just wish He didn’t trust me so much”… that’s true, I suppose, and kinda funny, but in reality, if He’s giving you something you don’t feel like you can handle, it’s because He wants you to take it to Him and ask for help. He says ‘in OUR weakness, HE is strong”.

Let Him help you.

Have hope today.

"The heart is capable of responding to things the mind can't yet perceive." - Bill Johnson.

Two things God is continually pressing on my heart lately are: the art of intimacy with Him and the importance of endurance in the spirit.

I'm surely coming to love the former.

I'm, thus far, not loving the latter.

God has been testing my discernment in the spiritual realm. In dreams, by waking me up in the middle of the night and speaking to me, by giving me tasks that i do NOT love to do. A relentless learning process.
The other day, I was complaining to God about how I'm tired spiritually; how I don't know just how much I can take. He didn't bring a verse to mind about how in our weakness, He is strong, or how I should cast my burdens on Him, He just said 'you're spiritually fat'. To this, Jessie replied "say WHAT!?", to which He explained how I need to build my spiritual endurance. He didn't mean it harshly, it's just the truth. I'm beginning to see that, when it comes to the things that, in the end, are the only things that matter, I'm spiritually shallow. Yes, this is something that you can learn to do more and nurture, but it's also something that's in you already. You start off with a spirit, but it does not start of strong. It's something you have to build. I hope I'm the latter.

This, of course, doesn't mean that He won't help you, or that you can't go to Him with problems. He, after all, is the Teacher you're learning from. In fact, learning new things will require you to 'cast your burdens' on Him. But to do so, you have to trust Him (don't know about you, but I don't like confiding in people I don't know and trust), and in order to trust Him you have to know Him.
In the verse that says "be still and know that I am God"...the Hebrew word here for "know" means "to experience". "'be still and experience Me'" is what He's saying.

Maybe I'm confusing everybody, but what I'm saying is, in order to persevere in gaining spiritual endurance,

> you WILL have to cast your burdens on Him

> meaning, you have to trust Him

> you have to know [experience] Him

> and to experience the true character of someone, you have to have some level of intimacy with them.

I don't mean to babble. And maybe I'm not dead on with all this. It's just what's in my heart...

The whole experience of learning intimacy with God has been a great adventure. It's been awkward and tiring and weird and fascinating and beautiful. I've been amazed thus far though at how strange it's been to experience intimacy with God, when really, it's what we were made for. To look at someone on the street and follow them with your eyes and, in turn, your emotions and desires, is quite normal to most. Your flesh is not weirded out by lust. And I'm at the front of that line. But the moment the One who created Love - who is Love itself - steps in and begins to show you what true longing feels like, it's awkward.
How so very wrong.

ANYWAY...

In the midst of all this learning and 'alone time' with God, my heart has begun to sense just how important my purpose, and for that matter, each and every person's purpose under the heavens, really is. I feel as if the course of my life is going to be ridiculously not normal, if we can define such a thing.

In essence, I'm coming to realize even more how important intimacy with God is for the sake of our spiritual endurance in these walks that we're meant to walk.
Everyone in America isn't meant to move to a village in Africa or see demons and such, but I believe that no matter what you're meant for, if satan sees you accomplishing the work you were attended by God to do - or even if he sees you begin to discover that purpose in the least - he'll fight you just as hard as he fights the international missionary, the worldwide pastor, etc.

You have a physical job to do, yes. And God has instilled desires for it in your heart somewhere, just like He's instilled a dire love for photography in mine, but these jobs are not our spirits' objective. I'm not meant to simply take a bunch of pictures I can't take to our next life with me. I'm meant to spiritually fight in the ways He's meant for me to. Being a photographer is a delicious icing.

Let's find intimacy and let's use it to find endurance. Satan isn't going to like it.


love to all.

a dream realized

I never make resolutions.

..But something I've been wanting to do for a while is start a blog. 2009 was the most amazing year of my life. Being that I'm only 19, this may not say much. Let me explain.

on January 19th, 2009, I had just gotten back into town from visiting friends in the upstate. I had traveled there with two of my very good friends and my younger brother, Josh. It hadn't been the past of holidays and the new year wasn't looking to promising, to say the least. But when I got home from this fun, refreshing, relaxing weekend, I couldn't figure out why I was still so melancholy and simply... discouraged with life. So I went to a coffee shop to sit and think a bit. I called one of the friends I had been traveling with earlier that day. I basically told her I was tired of trying to do this life. It wasn't working out and God had obviously forgotten about me and the purpose my heart was still vying for. I told her I felt like I was standing in a stadium and everyone around me was screaming and cheering at something, but I couldn't find the cause of the excitement. That was how my life...until that night.

After probably an hour or so of sitting in the coffee shop's courtyard and crying on the phone to my friend, I left for home. I was only about 15 miles from my house, which left me little time to think and pray and very little time to compose myself before I faced the members of my family. And I didn't much care for that. I live close to the beach, so I turned off onto the south causeway of the island and began talking out loud to God. Before I knew it, I was traveling at about 15mph, curled over my steering wheel, weeping. I began to cry louder and even scream, "God, I just want you here! I just want you beside me!". I wanted the world, time, life to stop and to just be able to sit with Jesus and hear his voice. And for the first time in my life, I felt the true sorrow God feels. He showed me that night what it feels like to be separated from us. Separated because of our distrust, our busy lives, our thinking we can do all this on our own. I began to cry even harder. At that point, I knew I didn't deserve one ounce of His guidance, Grace, vision, or sympathy. And all I could say was, "I just want you here. I'm sorry, I just want you here with me. forever." That moment changed everything...

Suddenly, I felt Him. He was there. He could've been sitting in my passenger's seat, for the feeling of closeness I had at that moment. I, in awe, drove slowly down the winding marshy road at no more than 10mph, My tears subsiding, resulting in total silence inside my car. Peace flowed over me like I had never felt before and I literally began to audibly sigh over and over. It was all I could do.
From that moment, I probably drove around for another hour before heading home. I just talked to God, and the beast part was, I could hear Him talk back. He cared. My heart was filled with so much Joy at the realization. We talked about the past, about things I've hurt over, about the future and my direction, about Him and about me and our relationship. It was perfect.

Since that cold, cloudy night in January, God has been ever present in my life. And you know why? because I've learned that I have to let Him be.
After that night, I realized I'd been following Him as it suited me, and not as He wills. When you turn your complete heart over to God, He will accept it and do great things with you. This past year has not been easy. It's been the hardest, most painful year of my life. But I'm alive inside. Things have been dealt with. Relationships reconciled, hurts forgiven. And all because I've opened up and let Him put me through His fire. He told me once that I needed to lower the shields around my heart and let Him fashion His own, because, in my blocking out the pain of others, I was blocking out Him, the only one to could make it better. And in doing so, my eyes have been opened. I've never felt more love, more hope than I do this day.

One of the dreams He placed in my heart a long time ago was a passion for Africa. When I was younger, I had no answer as to why I had such an interest in the countries there, but I loved reading about them, loved seeing specials on television about them, and as I grew older, I wanted to go there. I wanted to see the people and their cultures. When I was about 16, God began to brew a desire in my heart for missions, and as I've grown in Him, my heart for Africa has grown as well. In November '09 I finally got the chance to go visit the continent I had dreamed of for so many years. My church Has supported missionaries my the names of Ronnie and Janet Vehorn in South Africa for over 20 years. Their story alone is life altering, and I'll definitely tell it sometime. Ronnie had come to speak at our church in June of '09 while he and Mrs. Janet were in the states. And I fell in love, immediately, with what they were doing to help this country and these people. I went to the back of the church after the service was over and, not knowing this man from Adam, began to weep as I tried to explain how I wanted to do this same thing with my life. He grabbed my hands and told me that I needed to come on the missions trip the church was taking in Nov. and we needed to get to know each other, because one day, I would be continuing his work. I was so inspired. I went home and told my mom I was going to Africa at the end of the year. She looked at me for about 5 seconds and said "Ok then. You'll need a passport..."

The trip was everything I had imagined and more. I confess I think of it every day. The Vehorns' farm, the people, the children... I want to go back. And I want to stay.

But, in all this, God is weaving my life according to His plan. And I will do my best to never take it out of His hands ever again. My uncle told me recently that, for some people, God puts you on a path from a young age and your path is a straight shot to your purpose. And then sometimes, you will wind here and there and to this country and that, and minister here and then go pursue this and love that person or be on that mountain top. He told me that, if he knows anything about me, he is quite sure I don't have a straight path, but that God is with me nonetheless. And He will guide the twists and turns He has set before me with great ease. I believe him.

I don't know how many people will read this blog I am starting now, but I hope that I touch someone with it. This journey, when pursued with God, is unlike anything else. His word says that He has fashioned for our lives plans to prosper, plans to give you a hope and a future [Jer 29:11], but we have to follow Him to find this hope and these amazing plans.