Pennsylvania.

It’s just past 10 pm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I’m looking back at the last few days in amazement. Today will be one week since our group of 6 met up and we’ve traveled through seven states already. God is so cool. I remember having a conversation with my dad shortly after graduating from high school about what my ideal job would be, and muttering something about being a “floater.” That it would be amazing to just follow God wherever he led and fill whatever roles or needs came about through that. I didn’t see myself being nailed down to anyone one particular place or thing, and my “schedule” would be one that allowed me to up and go whenever I felt that nudge from the Lord. However, at the time it didn’t seem like a “job” that existed beyond my imagination.

And now here I am, 8 years later, floating across the US with 5 dear like-hearted friends, seeking the Lord together with them daily, and gaining in wisdom and perspective beyond my comprehension. We’ve only met with a few people so far, but already my mind is bursting with new revelations of what it means to live a life of fullness in the Lord and how our lives can be used to impact this world for the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoa.

We spent today in Harrisburg, PA, about 50 minutes from where we’re staying here in Lancaster, and shared hearts and visions with some fellow YWAMers. A few members from our Kona base are there pioneering a new base and are 6 months into their first Fire and Fragrance DTS (http://fireandfragrance.com/). They are an amazing group of world changers and fueled by the desire to see God reclaim his rightful place as Lord in the hearts of people all over the world. After joining in on their morning lecture our crew went for coffee with Sammy and Jeremy, two powerhouses that are on staff in Harrisburg. In this time we gained insight into what it’s like to “pioneer” something, and how we can shape our lives around the dreams God gives us. They were a huge encouraged in the midst of being overwhelming in regard to how far the Lord has brought them, and how much wisdom they have gained in the process. Here are some nuggets of wisdom they shared with us:

1. Don’t feel the pressure of needing to get beyond what God’s shown you now. Walk out the current day commissioning from him until he reveals the bigger one.

2. Be (and remain) teachable

3. Cultivating a supernatural environment can come from positive attitudes and testimony. You need to believe that God is who he says he is and that he is fully capable of doing anything, and everything, he says he can. Then in faith step out in that.

4. Put more energy into your pursuit of God, vision of growing deeper in knowledge of him, then put energy/depth/passion into pursuing the vision he gives you.

5. It is harder to stay in love than it is to follow the rules. Fight for love and stay lovesick for him. Live a life of love for God.

6. Keep the humility in pursuing him. John 15- He is the vine and without him we can do NOTHING

There is so much more to say, and I could go on for days... but it’s getting late and we have a long day ahead of us so I’ll end it here for now... :)

New Jersey.

New Jersey has received us with a safe trip and plenty of food. We arrived a few hours later than estimated and missed the entire super bowl, but I was ok with that. When we arrived around 11 pm we were welcomed into a home bursting with life as we dodged the children excitedly running around. The house bursting with hospitality and they happily greeted us, then guided us to a table then placed plates full of food in front of us. It was like being back in the Middle East again. We were swept in with swarm of introductions and then personally escorted by one of our contacts, Ali, to the homes we’d be staying in about 20 minutes away from where we’d just had dinner. Ali lives an hour from where our team was staying and could have easily just given us the address, but we chose to take us there himself.

We three girls stayed at the home of a Puerto Rican couple, Jamie and Nancy. They were asleep by the time we arrived, but we were able to meet Jamie in the morning. We were only there for two nights, but each morning they had breakfast set out for us, and Nancy went out at 5:30 am the morning before we left to bring back bagels for our team before we hit the road. We are just being blessed by people left and right. God is so good. A small Korean church we attended the day we left Boston took an offering for us the day we left and sent us on our way with $130 in cash, the exact amount we ended up needing the next day to fix our van (turns out the sway bar wasn’t attached to the steering or something really dangerous like that. Thank you Lord for your protection :)...). The following night our new Jersey friends from the Resting Place House of Prayer (RPHOP- www.restingplacehop.com/ ) took a Love offering for us which we were able use that for housing and to bless our hosts in Pennsylvania. God is faithful and trustworthy.

One of the highlights of our time in New Jersey, besides experiencing such supernatural hospitality, was being part of RPHOP’s prayer night. It was a time of worshiping God through prayer, singing and ministering to those in need. I was able to pray for a woman who struggled with rejection and anxiety. I watched the way God brought healing and peace to her as the tears came and her countenance changed during our prayer.

The craziest part about this night was the spontaneous joining of YWAMers. One of the teams from our Kona base that is halfway through their outreach in NYC was there, in addition to two of the staff from the Harrisburg base, and two other staff from our Kona base. We had no idea any of us would be there, but God did. It was a night of bringing family together and I loved every minute of it. New Jersey has formed a new place in my heart and I hope someday I get to pass through there again.

**Our crew enjoying Starbucks with the gift cards one of Elizabeth's supporters gave us :)

Boston + Cambridge, MA.

The first leg of our Awaken U.S. trip brought us to Boston, MA. I love the Red Sox and I love this city. Three years ago I passed through for a few days before continuing my East Coast exploration and hunt for literary museums and writers homes. I toured a snow covered Fenway park, spent a good chunk of my day at Boston’s beautiful public library, and discovered the city on trains and metros. So, having been here before I knew there would be a certain sense of familiarity, especially as we headed towards Harvard University our first day, a campus I had walked through on my hunt for the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

However, it didn’t take me long to realize two HUGE differences that would set this trip to Boston apart from my last one. The first difference is community. This time I was not on my own. This time I walked the city’s streets with 5 others who, after only a few months of knowing each other, have become some of my closest friends. The second is the focus. When I came before it was a very self focused. I went where I wanted and did what was on my heart to do, using only a list of addresses and writer’s names to guide me. This time I was following the heart of God. Prayer and His Holy Spirit becoming my guides. Talk about getting a new perspective.

Our housing was a 15 minute walk from the Harvard campus at the Justice House of Prayer (http://jhopboston.com/). The group there instantly welcomed us into their home, hearts and community. For three days we lived together, ate together, laughed together and prayed together. It was a powerful testimony of the body of Christ, different members with different functions but all working together as one.

The second morning we were there we met up with Eunice Lee, a girl who had done her DTS in Kona a couple of years ago. Eunice is a junior year at Harvard and has taken it upon herself to bring a lifestyle of prayer and continual pursuit of the Lord to this place, meeting each morning to pray in a church on campus with whoever will join her. Although the group maybe small in numbers, varying from 4-10 people, I got the feeling that what they are a part of is bigger than they even realize. There is power in prayer, and as one who claims to follow Christ I began to feel the conviction of a life lacking in that area.

The day we were to leave Boston and head to New Jersey our dear van, lovingly named “Wallace the Tabernacle,” began to make sounds that even I, being ignorant in car-speak, knew were anything but normal. We decided to ask the Lord whether to stay and get it fixed, therefore cancelling the New Jersey part of our trip, or to go for it, trusting that if He wanted us to get there He’d get us there regardless of the noises coming from our van. After a few minutes we felt the go ahead and on a rainy February night we set off for the four hour drive to Jersey.

Be Thou My Vision.

With a trip like this it’s easy to feel the need to work out all the details, or to do one’s best to finalize a schedule of what it will all look like. I’ll be honest, as much as I claim to be “spontaneous” I also like a certain amount of organization. I like to know what type of clothes to bring, about how much money I will need and how many books I can squeeze in my suitcase before it outweighs me. People like to “know.” I like to “know.” But with God the thing is that you can never really “know.” All you can do is to put your trust in him fully, discern where you feel him leading, then step out in obedience and “go.” I can believe what it says in Matthew 6:25-34, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (v. 25), but it is another thing entirely to live by it.

I’m not quite there yet, I wish I could say I was. But hopefully as I study the Word more, and commit passages like that one in Matthew to heart, it will become more of a lifestyle, not just verbiage in of my Christian dialect.

I also hope this is one of the things I come away from this trip with, along with a deeper knowledge and trust in the greatness of God, and a deeper relationship with him as I encounter him in my life and through the people we come to know along the way.

We have a basic itinerary of where we plan to go, “plan” being used very loosely here, and somewhat of a time frame in mind, but ultimately these next two months are up to the Lord as we leave our schedule sensitive and open to his leading. Our vision is to take on his vision. Our “plan” to follow his plan. This is his trip more than it is any of ours, and each day that revelation becomes more real I become more excited that he’s chosen to take me along for the ride.

AWAKEN Riders

6 people from 5 different states and a purple Dodge conversion van from New Hampshire, this is my new family. Two months of travel with an estimated coverage of 4300 in the next three weeks alone, this is of our faith based adventure. The radical pursuit of the Lord in our team’s community, in our interaction with others along the way and in gaining perspective on how and where God is moving, that is our vision.

http://www.awakennations.com/

Click on the link above and check out our team blog where you can follow us and get updates about where we are and what we’re up to as we share our journey and how we are being encountered by the Father.

Come Away

It’s our first morning back together in Kona as a whole school, and there are about 70 of us squeezing together along the side of the Banyan tree cafe on campus. The base is packed out and overflowing this term and this is one of the only places available, and spacious enough to fit us. It’s just past nine in the morning, but the Hawaiian sun is already beginning to rise in all its glorious heat. A gentle breeze carries through the air around us, and the tender strums of the acoustic guitar up front float up to greet it.

“Come away with me. Come away with me. It's never too late, it's not too late. It's not too late for you... I have a plan for you. I have a plan for you. It's gonna be wild. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be full of me....”

In this moment I am swept away. My mind carries me back to China and like the trailer of a movie being played before me are all the challenges and victories, the relationships and the divine encounters God blessed us with. I am reminded not only of how good he was to us, but how he allowed, and continues to allow, us to “come away” with him. To be a part of what he is doing. We just need to open up our heart and let him in.

I am also reminded of how often we can come back from an experience overseas and feel as if we haven’t done enough, like we’ve failed or let God down, and like he’s disappointed in us. But his love is so deep and fathomless that the last thing he wants us to be is distant from him. I love the promise of the lyrics, “It’s never too late.... I have a plan for you. It’s gonna be wild. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be full of me.” I want that.


I was mesmerized by the lyrics of this song and hope it blesses you like it did me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZoOfGiqZ7Y