it was such an honor meeting this woman and seeing all God has done in her life and accomplished! Unfortunately when she does her Sex+Money screenings in Las Vegas, we will be on our international outreaches.. She is such a genuine down to earth person-thank you Morgan for answering all my many questions!
it was so awesome to meet you and i can't wait until one day when we cross paths again!
this is one of the few songs God gave me before doing this DTS. I first heard it a few weeks before coming to the Abolitionist DTS in Las Vegas-during one of the manty times i had considered not coming. I remember how faithful God is and how much prayer has the impact to change things & situation. We hold spiritual authority because God died for us, and he made us conquerers. I am writing this blog as a sign of mainly prayer support.
I once heard one of my really smart YWAM leaders say to me (while i was venting about finances) "I would rather have 100 people be praying for me, and have no financial supporters at all-than to have ALL financial supporters and no prayer support."
Being part of YWAM means you have to raise your own support-which is never easy.
This is a blog asking for prayer & spiritual supporters, reply in a comment underneath this blog or send me a personal e-mail saying "i read your blog and i want to support you spiritually
through prayer" for those of you who would like to further support me financially, i can e-mail you further on how to do so.
My outreach to Thailand is in 7 weeks. as for finances: our base has legal reasons with their accountant and days that certain amounts of money has to be in. If you would like to know the details of what i have to raise and by which dates, please send me a personal e-mail and i will give you further information about that.. the total amount that i have to raise for my DTS is $3,500.00 USD. I also require to raise my own finances ($650) for the few weeks i will be spending in the states after my DTS to live off of, which includes my flight back to Canada.
I know that my God is 'Jehovah Jireh,' he is the same God today as the one who sent manna from the sky (literally) and quail in a desolate desert for the israelites where there was nothing else for miles. I believe that the Lord will be my provider during this season-just like he was the weeks and even days before coming here to Las Vegas.
Please pray that God would start to prepare my heart mentally & emotionally for all of the things i will see in Thailand during my two month Outreach. (From Mid-November until Mid-January 2012.) In Bangkok we will primarily be working with sex-workers (prostitutes) in the Red Light District, as well as ministering to the johns (the people who purchase the sex.) We will also be doing regular types of evangelism in the slums doing various skits & intercession. Many YWAMer's have seen alot of success doing this type of ministry because the people like to stop and watch things like skits/people openly singing and doing worship in the streets.
In Chiang Mai, we will mainly be working in a restoration home (safe house) with rescued trafficking victims. This type of ministry will be focused on building relationships with the women and teaching them about God. We will be in each city for 3-4 weeks each, and we are trying to make this outreach as spirit led/unplanned as possible. We want to go where God wants us to be, and this trip to be about him and his work, not ours.
In a jotnote-here is the things you can pray for:
-Finances
-that the seeds planted during outreaches, would bear their fruit.
-team unity
-against any kind of spiritual warfare
-that God would prepare our hearts for the things we are about to see.
Thank you so much for your support!
God bless you guys!
{dancing around before going to pray for people at last nights local outreach}
The past two weeks we have had speakers 'Jerry Praetzel' (Plubline/Forgiveness & Repentence Week) & Brenda Lewis (Identity Week) here! i will talk about both of these in just a little bit, but first i want to talk about a little more pressing issue which was our local outreach from last week (as well as last night)
OUTREACHES
Last week we switched things up a little bit from doing our normal outreach at the strip and went to a place called 'First Friday.' This is an event that takes place on the first friday of every month where alot of locals go to (as opposed to tourists, like the strip) artists come here to showcase their talent and work. Hope and myself had the opportunity of talking to a very broken man and he ended up giving his life to the Lord that night!
This man was sitting on the ground next to a man playing his guitar with bells on his feet i knew we had to go to him, Hope was a little freaked out but something in me knew we had to go talk to him. I told him we were there to talk to him and tell him what God had done in our lives and that was it-he had just instantly started pouring out his life. He asked us to pray for him if God would give him a girlfriend (he really emphasized on that point)
His story was that he and his high school girlfriend had came to Vegas, to get a better life. He decided he wanted to become a lawyer at Yale (and he was very smart) he had the ability to read really big paragraphs and understand all of what he was reading. He wanted the ability to financially provide for his girlfriend. He was on and off alot about his story so it was really hard to understand. During that time he was going to Harvard, his girlfiriend started becoming a stripper and eventually she went into prostituition and would get him to drive her to these places of meeting up with the johns/fighting people at bars for her. He would try to tell her to stop but she would not (during this time we did not tell him we were doing a human trafficking missions with YWAM-but clearly God wanted us to talk to this man for that reason) There are many psychological reasons to trafficking and it isnt easy to just tell a girl 'stop doing this'
Over the years he dropped out of college and gained $150,000.00 in debt from going to Yale. He told me he didnt like being a lawyer, and he didnt really know what to do for a job. He seemed to be cringing and having alot of stomach pains in his body. He said because he had a really 'sexually active' lifestyle he couldnt get out alot and he was generally fearful person/wasnt as corageous like his friends were. He mentioned at the beginning when we told him that we were missionaries that 'I think the bible is an important book, me and my friend watch a tv show about the bible where they read a bible verse and explain it a few times each week because i think its a really important book to know'
I explained to him 'prayer is JUST talking to God, its saying: "Jesus i need your help with this right now... please him me" nothing complicated and its important.' This man's name was Andy and had ALOT of stuff over him. Please be praying for this man ALOT! For God's protection and grace over him (and favour for a good job!)
Our local outreach last night was at Freemont Street! the atmosphere at that place between the daytime and during the night is literlally that-black and white. Most people doing evangelism would have looked at the street and slowly backed off and walked away but not us-i was SO excited! God protects from the front and behind and satan has no authority over us.
I will share two stories from this night. As i was holding the sign up at this point i had one man who i saw from a distance look right at me and walk up to me, so i set the sign down (if you set the sign down on the floor you can be charged for solicitiong & be fined $200 in Las Vegas, so we had to set it on our feet and have the sign NOT touch the ground on the floor at all.) The man walked up to me and i said 'Hi sir, is there anything i can pray for you for?'
and he simply said 'no... my life is just a little off-track right now. i want prayer but i just need to get my life on track.' I wanted to stop him, i tried saying to him "are you sure i cant pray for you??" but he kept on walking."
Part of me is extremely mad at myself. I know that feeling of feeling totally undeserving of God's love, seeing the look of sadness on that man's face along with the bag of alcohol he was carrying and feeling unworthy. Should i have said "god will take you as you are, and there is nothing you have to change about yourself." Should i have started crying right then and there-because i certainly felt like it. I pray that God's peace will be with that men and will comfort him, and that other people will come in his life to keep planting those seeds.
The other person i actually approached, i was by myself (Cathy came up later on) and said "So, what do you think of those people offering free prayer?" He said to me 'I used to go to prayer/God, and for a period in my life I didn't, nd now i didn't. I think what you guys are doing is really important because alot of people grow up not being loved by their mothers like i was-God is so important and you could be changing lives tonight because you are doing this." He wouldn't let us pray for him, but he was really encouraging to myself (i think the incident with the man i mentioned above happened right after this-funny how God works.) It was overall a reall good night, people who normally weren't open to God came and got prayer. i had some people joke around and walk by and say 'Hey, im feeling sick you should pray for me' I don't know if they felt too embarrassed to stop or if it was a joke to them. But i still said 'Ok, i will' and i prayed for them right as i they walked away. Most everyday people just don't understand the concept that Some Christians arent 'religious' and they actually genuinely care about them and how they are doing :).
DTS LIFE....
These past few weeks i've gotten alot of my chest, and now it is just a process of learning more of who God really is in my life and trusting him more. One thing God has been really faithful in is providing in weird ways..
Financially i need my outreach plane ticket within 3 weeks, and my dad & karen were believing for the finances to come in when my dad told me 'I felt like God was telling me to give you that money for your plane ticket from the inheritance we just got from Grandma' (which i didnt even know about)
I needed an addition on my helath insurance while i was in the states because i only paid for enough until November, and someone who has been sponsoring me offered to sponsor me for that above what she normally has been giving me.
I posted on my facebook page 'does anybody know anywhere you can get an affordable hikers backpack?'
and my friend's husband happened to be selling his [he only used it for his DTS once] and it was in really good condition for 100$ (hikers backpack's are normally around $150.
Prayer Requests:
-Finances
-i have $4000.00 to raise for my DTS/Outreach by 12 weeks from now (November 18)
please prayerfully consider financially contributing if you are able, and spread the word. If all of my facebook friends were to donate within there means of what they were able-even just 10$ each! I would be able to go to Thailand! without financial support i will not be able to go on outreach
-for God to provide the money for me to have a flight back to Canada..
-Health
-many people in my base have been getting sick lately, please pray against this!
-as well a married couple (two of our leaders) just found out they were expecting! please pray for the health of the baby in the next few months, as well as when they go on outreach!
-Vulnerability & unity
-that God would keep moving & doing his 'heart surgery' on us, and keep us vulnerable and open to what he wants to do in our lives.
I love you all-i know i didnt mention the speakers too much because what we did on outreach was what was most pressing on my heart-but they were awesome. I did learn something! Plumbline focused on how we need to focus on God as the centre of our lives otherwise we will swing to wide spectrums of sin/pride in life which arent good... we have to stick to God being our plubline [god being our truth/the plumbline] and having a life of constantly in forgiviness and not letting Stant have a foothold on us!
Brenda talked about how our identites/our careers/our pasts-dont define US! wordly things dont-the only thing worth defining ourself as is 'I'm a child of god!' We listened to a sermon called '10 Sheckels & a Shirt' by Paris Riedhead. Are we letting God just be the 'sprinkle' on our lives or are we actually obeying him and fully serving him?
VERY convicting and SO GOOD! I highly recommend that every single church lets their congregation hear this message. It was done in the 60's and one of his only sermons ever taped and still extremely relevant today. I can get my hands on it for you if you would like :)
i know that this update was long but thank you so much for taking the time to read it!
"Before God could bring me to this place He has broken me a thousand times. I have wept, I have groaned, I have travailed many a night until God broke me. It seems to me that until God has mowed you down you never can have this longsuffering for others. We can never have the gifts of healing and the working of miracles in operation only as we stand in the divine power that God gives us and we stand believing God, and having done all we still stand believing." -Smith Wigglesworth
You can feel free to read this if you want, but from now on my blogs will be just me 'ranting.' Blogs are about people truely saying what they want to say and i haven't been honest or doing that-so if you dont want to read my word vomit then you are in no way obligated ;)
{i apologize for my bad gramar in advance}
This is blogpost about nothing really unparticular. I am saving what each week is about/speaker notes for my newsletters... So, What has been on my mind? What is REALLY going on in this big empty head of Chelsea's?
Alot of you who knew me before knew me as the person who was really hard to read. I was an expert at controlling my emotions and even if i had come out of a really hard circumstance, i wasn't gonna let it show on my face. i was stubborn and i was a fighter. I have learned that when you hide certain memories from your past and when you want to hide one emotion in your life, you simply cant burry them all. God created us to have ALL of our emotions out in the open-we were not created to control our emotions. Because of that when you start to deal with things, every single emotion that has been burried will come out. It's a messy process.I tend to not deal with things, and that has been something God has been working on me ALOT these past few weeks...
Forgiveness & healing.... they are terrible and they are incredible at the same time. We aren't always perfect people no matter how wrong of the things they have done to us. I am so happy and thankful for every single one of my amazing DTS students & staff here.... most importantly-I'm thankful for Jesus!
I've heard stories from some people how they go to DTS and they don't feel like they connect with anybody, and they feel uncomfortable/awkward the whole time. I admit that i felt like for the first little bit that i was here. Fast forwqard a bit, if i never had these awesome brothers & sisters and christ and was dealing with all this on my own-this DTS would have been without a doubt been miserable for me & i'd have probably wanted to go back home by now atleast 8 times. God has brought several stuff on my heart and said 'you need to deal with this and forgive these people' some of them stupid little things, some of them things i thought i had forgiven the people from when i truely hadn't (ouch.)
a saying i had never heard before i came hear was 'DTS means Die To Self' it truely does.
Learning to trust God on finances is byfar the hardest thing i have ever done in my life. The first week i was here $400 came anonymously in the mail (whoever sent that money and whether you are reading this blog or not, words simply cannot describe how thankful i am for you.) It gave me the confirmation of 'i AM where i am supposed to be at this point in time, God is going to provide!'
speaking of money -thats a whole nother blogpost.
I currently don't know alot about which types of ministries we will be doing in Bangkok so I can't announce them. However, in the city of Chiang Mai we will be working in a safehouse calle 'Abba House' which works with rescued human trafficking victims and sharing the gospel and fellowshipping with them. We will be in each city for 3-4 weeks each before heading back to Vegas.
Once i know more-i will post about my outreach/exactly what we're gonna be doing and exactly how much i need to raise. right now i am not sure yet but it is roughly $4,000.00 that i have to raise still.
But i just wanted to say thank you to those of you who have financially supported me so far, and those of you who are praying for me back home. God is wrecking me apart, but it is certainly for the better and i am becoming so much closer with him. It's difficult and many things that were part of my life that werent from him and needed to be cut out-had to and they were very hard processes but God is bigger than that and he's a source of comfort.
ps-i have written some of you back home postcards/letters to some of you guys!
i just havent gotten around to actually getting stamps and mailing them out yet! *oops*
Love you guys alot & i miss you!
Love & Blessings
-Chelsea
