time to go!

goodbye for a week friends!

we are off to Mexico as of 6am tomorrow morning!

keep us in your prayers, that God will just hold us in His hands.

so excited to see all that He is going to do!

if you want to follow our trip - you can go to www.prayingpelicanmissions.org, go to "trip journals" and look for Edinbrook Church.

more to be written next saturday - ish...:)

bye!

taking some time to rest in Him

just 3 more days...:)

i took a few days off of work this week, leading up to the trip...just taking time to rest, refocus.

so i drove up to menomonie, wi to both take some time to see a friend and also to get away and take some time with God.

so i went to the lake, found this great spot on a dock on the water and just laid down for awhile...the breeze was great, the sun was out, and i just loved the sound of the water.

i spent about 2 hours with God and it was desperately needed!

loved it...its been way too long since ive just sat and listened.

but today i had the chance to do just that.

and God was there...:) just giving me the peace and rest i so desperately needed. i cannot even describe how much i LOVE just sitting in His presence...love.

i also love to journal...well write down what i pray - mostly because my mind wanders WAY too much if i dont. so i wrote and i talked with Him and just rested for the first time in i dont even know how long.

life just got to the point where i was so focused on just getting things done - that i didnt even think about what i was doing when it was happening...as long as it got done.

and that is never good...to just have a to-do list for God - but thats totally how i get when i dont take time with Him every day.

He wants us to enjoy our ministry, to just love His work.

and i do! so i hate when i lose focus on that, when i dont take time to just let Him fill me up with Him and lead me. He was just telling me to slow down, to stop and realize what is happening, what He is doing right now in my life. to take time to get excited. He told me not to do anything more, think anything more until i was ready to be excited for what is coming.

how great is it to have God? to remind us to just stop and breathe and take time...? to make sure that we are experiencing what He has??? its like we just go, and He's like whoa - wait a minute...i want you to see this, i want you to feel this...this is me. I did this for you and I dont want you to miss it. how cool is that? it makes me just want to drink it all in, to just look for Him in everything, to learn more about the heart and character of a God who cares that much for every one of His children. amazing. i pray that we can ALL just remember to see Him in everything we do, to see through His eyes...not just rush through.

anyways - so i ended my time on the lake with a chapter from Nehemiah that the wind had blown open while i was sitting there and i was just LOVING it.

so i encourage you - go to Nehemiah 6, and just be in awe of what happens when God's children listen to His voice and ONLY His voice...powerful.

ok, hope your day is going well!

keep us in your prayers!

and come join us tomorrow night for a time of battling our enemy through worship!!!

love it

hope

today at Edinbrook we heard about HOPE.
ive been battling lately with not focusing on the rational and the "world's ideas and opinions" but focusing on God...on the eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18. v.18 says "we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
Tom Gildow preached on that passage last week...and something he talked about was how if we are looking at the temporary, if thats where we find our hope - in what we see...then when it ends - and it will, because God says its temporary - that's it for us.
but if we are focused on eternity, on what is unseen...when the temporary ends its just an affliction. it wont crush us, because it doesnt make or break us! in fact...when we are focused on eternity - and the temporary things around us end...it can even energize us to keep going and find out what we are supposed to be doing instead.
so why pour all our energy into the things that will end? why not look to eternity and be constantly renewed by God's spirit???

this morning he talked about hope...and how hope is a waiting period. we cant hope for something we already have. and why do we have to constantly go through a waiting period? because in the circumstances of waiting we become who we are called to be.
our calling is to constantly be becoming more and more like Christ...and all satan has to do is get us to believe the lie that we have already ruined His plan, and its over for us and there is no hope anymore...

but its not true!
Phillipians 1:6 has our hope...He who has begun a good work in us will bring it to completion... if we just fight. if we just wait. if we just HOPE that what He says He will do - He will do.

All satan has to do is STOP OUR BECOMING. to TAKE OUR HOPE.
the moment we take our life into our own hands and out of God's - we walk right into satan's plan for our lives.

so we need to just keep hoping!
no matter what, even when the evidence doesnt support it, even when the world says no, even when there are no facts or rationale behind what we are hoping for...nothing is impossible for Him. nothing. and while we hope, while we wait...He will strengthen us. He will form us. He will prepare us and continue to help us become more and more like Him every day...

so dont listen to the Lie, embrace the waiting, and just keep hoping...

the last month of this trip process has been this...hoping that we heard the calling right, hoping that we are not crazy, hoping that we'll have the right ppl...and trying to ignore the enemy who wants to take our hope. and i think its safe to say there wasnt a lot of rational evidence to back us up...but our HOPE was in God. in His calling, in His faithfulness.

this has been a waiting period...and God has strengthened...God has stretched, God has broken us and built us back up...and coming out on the other side of just one of satan's many attempts brings a joy like only God can give. knowing that God is shaping us, knowing He is strengthening our foundations, knowing that He is in charge...its a beautiful thing and it brings a whole new meaning to James 1:2-4 "count it all joy, my brothers, for you know that when your faith is tested it produces steadfastness......"

AMEN! thank you God that you want to form us and grow us into who you created us to be!

if you had the option...

so last week Tom Gildow talked about getting revelations from God...and how we can spend weeks trying to figure something out, trying to think of something, etc...and then all of a sudden God will show up in a big way and in a matter of seconds...it all just makes sense. and you are just amazed at what He is showing you...

just a few moments in the presence of God can teach you, show you, and impact you more than weeks of thinking and trying on our own power. its crazy stuff. thats God.

anyways...so this morning in our sunday school class the Loft Bill Roland was talking about the Bible and what is the Bible? and He asked a question, a question ive heard before but for whatever reason, i thought about it differently this morning. here is the question...

"if you had the option to have God around just sometimes...would you do it?"

and i just thought about it and my first reaction was "well no, because i would feel bad if i did that..." and then i realized that i would bring Him everywhere because if i didnt i would feel guilty...that was my initial reaction.
but should that be the motivation? real quickly after that thought came into my mind, i also thought - well too, because i love Him, i want Him around all the time...but why wasnt that my first thought?

i felt God speaking to me this this morning...i need to strive to be in a place where if God wasnt a part of my everyday life, that i would miss Him. that life wouldnt just be harder and more challenging, but where i love Him so much that just a small amount of time outside of His presence causes me to miss Him and long for Him.

i should push away that question with an "of course i wouldnt take that option" - not because i feel guilted into it...but because i want Him there, next to me all the time. because i LOVE Him.

and it sounds so crazy to talk that way about someone that is not a physical person standing right in front of you that everyone can see...but He is so present and so close and so personal - that its possible to love Him that much, and feel Him that closely, and know Him that intimately...

amazing, right???

i pray that we can strive for that, pray for that, work for it and fight for it and just never stop - even when it gets tiring or hard.
that we can allow Him to be a part of every part of us...and just love that He is there.

1 more week...

ONE MORE WEEK! crazy? unbelievably so...haha

it has just snuck up on us SO fast. but i am getting more and more excited as we get closer...so excited!

wednesday night, sarah and i met up with Luke Erickson and Diana Swensson at church and spent a couple hours recording The Project: HOSEA scripts - in spanish! yay! so we have that and we will be able to use it and do the project down in mexico if we end up needing it. so crazy that its finally coming together.

so praise God that they were willing to not only translate the scripts but then to come and read/record them. they did an awesome job and it sounds great.

so THANK YOU to them!

And on Thursday we spent time running through the whole show (project), still needs some work - its been awhile since we've done it, but itll get there. :)

we also had some big group time, just going over plans for when we get there and the "business" details of things.

so crazy that we leave in a week! its been a long process but it is finally here. God has led us here, fought the crazy spiritual battle, and somehow - by His grace...here we are. i am just loving this practically tangible example of Gods faithfulness, of His comfort, of His protection, and His sovereignty. so great to have something you know you can look back on when things get crazy again - and we know they will...- and just KNOW that it was God. and its something satan can never take away.

and next Thursday we are having half of our normal meeting, but then at 830 we are fighting some spiritual warfare, baby!

we are going to have an hour of worship time, using all different kinds of worship, using the weapon God's given us to fight.

whether it be art or dance or poetry or prayer or singing, its a battle. :)

its a time to get the missions teams together, getting our focus back on God and stomping satan out of it before we leave.

so come and join us in the gym at Edinbrook Church and join us in the presence of God, worshipping together as a body, fighting the fight together.

and total side note - (probably mostly for girls, haha, but maybe guys too) there is an author that i am loving, her books are GREAT and just filled with scripture and just really great stories of God working in people's lives, all fiction, but she's a MN author. and i bring it up because just this week i was re-reading one of the books and just realizing how important it is to just follow Gods call and trust that He knows best - even when it doesnt make sense at all.

Keep us in your prayers as we get final details in place this week!

and join us on Thursday!