awakened.

one quarter is finished, i am changed and i am different.
the base is empty of changed young hearts going to the nations! i can't say that it wasn't hard for me to watch them go, that i wish i was one of the lucky ones going as well. Mostly, i miss their contagious joy and vibrant faith.

I have noticed & realized much more than ever, how much God grows you when you are in a community type setting. You begin to learn stuff you may never have learnt in your life before because you've never been put in those situations before. YWAM & Adaptability go hand in hand. 

I have waited awhile to blog about what i am going to share, (i also have not had the time) but i wanted to share of an amazing encounter i had with the Lord roughly two weeks ago.

It was Wednesday and we never had anything planned (Wednesday is usually when a speaker will come in and teach, then we do a local outreach in the afternoon). I had spent a couple weeks at that point running on empty. When you are in a environment where you are constantly in a 'prayer/worship mode' it can be very difficult to let the Lord reach you outside the 1-3pm time period. And even then, it is reserved.

This particular Weds, a DTS on campus decided to do a 13 hour 'burn'.
The last little while God has been meeting me in weird ways (read about it here). It's amazing how as people we can go to God and allow ourselves to become burnt out and empty again in a moment. That was precisely how i was feeling. I was mad at myself for allowing my heart to hit the empty gauge yet again.


During the 13 hour burn, each DTS group took one hour to commit to pray for their nation. The day began at 8:00am and went until 9:30pm. For me i had planned to go for 3 hours of those, that's what I felt the Lord saying and i wanted to prove to myself that I could actually do it. God ended up meeting me in massive ways.

I am a perfectionist with a crappy attitude. sometimes, a really really really crappy attitude. I am hard on myself, i don't allow myself to rest, i can't do things on my own strength. I will be the first to tell you (out of experience, giving up a dream that i desperately loved) that it is NOT worth it.

I still fall short, i still freak out, i still hit exhaustion.... But there comes a point where i want more than that. I don't want days to come where i allow myself to get so stressed out that i am in tears and hate everyone & everything.

Most times i don't understand why God moves, but i'm beginning to learn that he just DOES. God began to pour into me in a way that i didn't know was possible..... simply by sitting in his prescence all day. There is a chorus we sing here sometimes that goes like this.... "In your prescence there is fullness of joy"


When prayer/worship & missions meet it is beautiful. I'm fortunate to live in an environment where that happens and it is real. Jesus doesnt care about just the act of intercession happening on the earth...... He cares more about reaching his children. He loves me no more, no less than if i would have gotten an education, pursued photography further, had a perfect life...... He loves me the same whether I am poor or rich, He DOESN'T care that i try to hard 90% of the time, that i deal with fear & massive doubt, that i deal with self confidence...... He loves me because he made me.


These steps i have taken in Kona have not been easy, it has been a very difficult few months here. Sometimes you have to run through concrete bricks in order to get to the center of God's heart. That run, that final push is worth it.  God prepared me for this. His ways are not our ways.....

When we place our hearts in the center of God's hands.... while its hurting, while it feels like we are being stripped away of everything, while we feel vulnerable in the ugliest ways possible before him, days when we believe we do not deserve to be loved and like we cannot do anything right... Our hearts are in the safest place possible. Our God takes care of what he makes.





When we allow ourselves to worship without fear: we allow ourselves to encounter the person who made our heart and who knows how to take care of it. Renewal & change are just a cry away..... let it out. I promise you that the life you are craving to have with God is attainable, it's worth making sacrifices for, and it's worth fighting for.

I promise, because i've been there.
God is so much bigger than our fears of what others think of us.

Blog Archives #2

This time last year. {vegas}

Last Night we had an outreach on Freemont Street!
We normally go to Freemont Street quite a bit on the weekends to go to a coffee shop there called 'The Beat' and to spend our free time. The atmosphere there between night and day is quite different, it's something you have to be there to see there and believe. As we started walking up and hearing the music I started getting really excited-the Enemy was NOT going to stomp us down!

Here was what we did....





We did what we would normally do-except we made it really public and we let people who wanted God come to us. I started off with my partner Arielle, and after awhile [i was holding the sign for a little bit] i went off and did evangelism by myself.]  Since there where many of us around the same area, we were able to do that and we were watching out for eachother. Here is some of what went down last night.

I tried the tatic on two people of walking up to them 'so, what do you think of those crazy people offering free prayer over there? what are your thoughts on God' one young women (who looked to be about 17 and had her younger brother with her) said "oh, i really don't like it-i don't know what i really think about God..." She was very leniant towards prayer. She then mentioned that she had been in a car accident a few weeks ago and was still having alot of pain in her shoulder; i asked her if she wouldn't mind if i prayed for the pain in her shoulder to be relieved and she didnt.
























{I dont remember what happened that night, or if that woman got healed.
God has already preparing me then for right now. :) }

blog archives #1

today and tomorrow, i will be posting a couple 'old blog' drafts that i found.
this one was from may i think.






"won't you let this be a sacrifice, let me dedicate my life to worship you."

brain running faster than the speed of life, feeling like i could run straight into the wall and nobody would see it. but Jesus does and tells me to rest? this is something that constantly baffles me...

As humans... we never think that we have pride. even when we're doing things the right way, our ego manages to creep in and destroy us. We pray and we pray and then.... when God answers that prayer outside of our timing, ego and pride kicks in. Fear kicks in. Trusting in God means trusting in his timing too-then why do we run, why do we fear? This was something that happened after first coming back and into Vegas my debrief week.... I have said many times that I trust God, and i do. I trust him to provide, i trust him with my health, to see people saved, and EVERYTHING.... those are words i don't take back.


But when fear creeps in, i've found that our instant reaction is to hit the ground running and say 'i didn't mean that actually....' and run away from what we know is best from us. Fear has a way of making us think with 'practical' earthly he said/she said thinking that is deceitful. It makes us comfort our weaknesses and pain and live in them, fear refuses to let us confront our pains and weaknesses and live free....


Sometimes, when God asks us to do something it isn't our instant reaction to say 'yes God! i'm excited!' We hit the ground running, we become fearful and we don't always understand what he is doing. What the world tells us is that God is 'big and scary' and he doesn't want whats best for us.... because the world likes being comfortable, and obviously a God that wants you to grow most in situations of uncomfort


Quite often we put our practical thinking above Gods sovereignty and his truth....


When God first asked me to go to Kona..... I wasn't interested.

learning to trust god? check
learning to be wreckless for him? check
worshipping without fear of man? check

Lately God has walked into my life in new ways, and he has radically been changing me. God's grace and radical love has begun to pour into every part of me. In a word.... it is hard, it is startling, it is confusing, and it is beautiful. Many times in my life I cried out with God asking him to reveal himself. He never answered those prayers then, but he is answering them now. I learnt through the dessert phases on my life things that I may never have realized from simple wisdom from the Holy Spirit.



Today has been a day of rest. Much needed rest.
Although God has taught me alot, I haven't taken alot of time to ponder and cherish what he is doing. For the first time in my life I am learning to live a wreckless life for God. I have no idea what is going to happen after this season here in Hawaii-but God has given me tremendous peace about it all.... This season is turning out to be exactly what I asked and prayed for a really long time.


God has begun to teach & show me how sweet his presence is. "Do you recognize this place? It's the place you were made. The place where your father made you." Everytime i enter into the prescence of God i cant help but think of that quote. When we worship, it can be awkward, it can be scary and fear can rush in like a flood until you let your walls break down. Then it is beautiful.

We become like children again. We encounter the prescence of God. We become abandoned to the world's standard of mediocry and death. We become abandoned to God.






Think of a popcorn maker:
 there is a long pause as the machine heats up. you heavily anticipate for the popcorn (fruit) but you have to wait for the machine to get hot.
A few kernels pop because they have come in contact with the heat.
A few kernels pop but if you were to unplug the machine then.... you would not have nearly enough popcorn for a snack, only a few morsels. There is some fruit (popcorn) but not enough.

If you wait long enough.... All of a sudden.... All the Kernels have exploded. but eventually they all turn into something wonderful!

In life, some things take longer than others to develop.









"even if you have no plans to become better.... he (God) will still love you because that is his nature.
what will change is our ability to receive his (God's) love"The Inheritance by Jonathan David Helser
God is putting me in situations i have literally prayed and asked for for years, and they are now coming to fruition. This monday night God encountered me in a very different way that he normally does.

He began to show me a place of closeness & intimacy with his heart. I sat there and i asked God "what is this emotion???? What is this place."

he simply responded "it's joy"






Shortly after that I sang to God out of that place. Feeling full spiritually but still longer for more for the first time in a very long time. Then.... out of nowhere the room where a bunch of wreckless worshippers were silent. I was still singing.

The worship leader stopped singing. The room was quiet. Except for me.... Then I opened my eyes and noticed he was looking at me. "Excuse me? Will you sing over us?"

I cowered. I thought it was a joke, but no. This guy was dead serious. I cowered and slowly got up to the stage. A microphone was handed to me-everyone was staring at me and i began to laugh. God then began to speak to my heart and ask me "will you actually go for it??"


every fear i used to have about worship simply was not present. although i was nervous, fear began to vanish. although this moment only lasted less than 8 minutes it felt much longer. i cannot tell you what i sang because i don't even remember.

by the end of that night i had never been SO glad to stop singing, but i had never been so glad to encounter so much freedom and joy. it came from my inner voice, the place i never used to have words for being released.




the love of god damages fear.

-Chelsea

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