CAMBODIA!!!! the details on the trip

                                        SECTION OF PHNOM PENH

                                                    ANGKOR WAT

                                                   SIEM REAP

KAMPONG CHAM

   So today we got more details on what we will be doing in Cambodia so i thought I would share them with everybody. But first I want to give a brief history of the hardship the country has gone through. In 1975 there was a huge genocide that took place in Cambodia because they decided they wanted it to be a strictly agrictultural society. They started to kill off anyone who had an education, this included doctors, lawyers, and anyone who had gone to school. They killed anyone who wore glasses because that was a sign of  being smarter and they killed people who played tenis because they thought if you were smart enough to learn and play that smart you had an education. The genocide lasted four years killing about 1.7 millioin people which averaged out to be 20% of the population. Now the affects have begun to show in more ways than one. Sense all the educated were killed they have had a hard time getting back on their feet. The healthcare is not well established and there are no real people to lead and take initiative in starting new programs. Even worse, however, is the sense of hopelesness. They have been taught that life has no value. They figure beating children is ok because their life doesnt mean anything. The country is extremely poor so bigger families have resorted to selling their daugthers into sex trafficking in order to support their other children. In most cases the oldest daughter will even offer to be taken in order for her family to survive, because she has been told her life has no value. They just started putting up laws where sex trafficking is banned but a country does not change over night. Sex trafficking is still a huge problem in this small country. This country is in distraught and I will be there but if you all could take just a little bit of time to pray for the cambodian people I believe that can make a difference. In Proverbs it tells us to pray for the needy or those who cant. It is our job to lift up their problems for the Lord. A little prayer from each person can go a long way. :)
  So now what I will be doing. We are going to be spending time in three major cities of cambodia. We will start out in Siem Reap where we will visit Angkor Wat, spend time in orphanages, and teach english to the kids along with leading Bible studies. We will then go to Kampang Cham where we will be visiting different villages. Then we will go to the capital Phnom Penh where we will be working with victims of the sex trafficking, and ministries for street children. I do not know if that is the order of the cities but that is the basic plan.
  The lifestyle there is going to be crazy different. I will be taking bucket showers but we may get to stay on a YWAM base in at least one of the cities. It has not been confirmed yet though. The money is 1 american dollar is 4000 cambodian reils. They speak the language, Khmar, which I am starting to learn little by little. I am soo excited and can't wait. THank you so much for the prayers and I will keep everyone updated on what is going on. Love and Miss you all!!!

would Jesus fail a math test????

This week has been a thought provoking week. Before going any farther I would like to announce, for those of you who dont know, I will be spending three months starting in December in CAMBODIA!!! I could not be more excited. I will be working in orphanages and working with young children. When I get more details I will be sure to let everyone know. There are 11 of us going and the people in my group are absolutely amazing. I can't wait I will be there over Christmas and I wont be back in hawaii until around March 11th. It is going to be so amazing.
So this week one issue that made me think more than anything was the humanity of Christ. Christ lived as man on earth but what was the "balance" of being the all-knowing God and being human. When thinking about this I remember the story of when he was lost from his parents and he was found preaching to the pharisees at age 12. It makes you think he did not lead a very normal human life. However, the Bible is clear on the fact that he did live as a human. He was born to parents that loved him, he had aunts and uncles,he had good friends!! But where did being God fade into being naturally human? Some questions that the speaker brought up were, "In school if he had a math test do you think he would answer all right or get some wrong? He is all knowing so did he know all the answers?" My personal answer to this is i think that he would get them all right BUT NOT BECAUSE he buste out his God powers but beacuse he knew the right thing was to study and gain his knowledge so he did. It does tend to make you think about other things however if he was naturally human then he did have the same temptations so did he ever have a crush on a girl?? i bet he did, he just had to control it! THese are questions i have never even thought of and i am still doing research to see if i can decifer for myself where the divide was!
 GOd is doing great things here, this week has been a little tougher only because the high of being here is gone. It is hard to stay alert and force yourself to wake up. I am missing home a little but i believe it is only because being here is soo drastically different. But i love it. GOd is definitely talking to me about the rest of my life and i can already see tha my plan is changing. That is one of the hardest things, i had an idea of how what i was going to do when i get back, i realized i have to give my life 100 percent to God and trust that his plan is better. YOu know what? It is. The direction he is leading me in now is amazing and i have found a new passion that i cant even describe how excited i am about it. Next week we are talking about the fear of the Lord which is sure to be interesting.
We have been going to this absolutely amazing beach that looks like you are swimming in a computer screen. My roomates are sooo wonderful i love having like 7 sisters here. The weather is super hot and we have spent many nights get bugs out of our room. I never thought that the high light of my week would be wal mart and mccdonalds!! But that is what it has come to hahahhaa. I do love hawaiian life though it is definitely nice. It is still wierd to say that I LIVE IN HAWAII. GOD IS SOOOO GOOD.

long but it is pretty cool stuff that is going on!!!!

I really wish that I had the time and the energy to tell you all what has been going on the last couple of weeks. I also wish I had constant internet in order to update my blog more often. I will start by describing our days and then tell you what we have been learning about over the last couple of weeks. The Lord has come in like a huge tornado in my life and is turning everything around I don’t even know how to take it or what to do!! My head is spinning all sorts of ways but I love it. I have never been so close to Him before and it makes me feel wonderful!!

The days have been jam packed we wake up and breakfast is at 6:30 and only lasts thirty minutes, therefore, I do not normally end up going to breakfast! After breakfast we do one of four things; worship, intercession, diving into God’s word, of a mixture of all of these. From 9-12 we have our lecture. Each week we have a different speaker talking about a different subject. Last week we learned worldviews and about the kingdom of God, and this week we are talking about hearing God’s voice. I know it sounds like constant church but it is actually really interesting. It is teaching me so much without the religious part Christianity shining through. That is awesome. From 12-1 we have lunch then from 1-2:30 we go back for workshop, which normally is application of what we learned in lecture.  We then all go to our rooms and change for work duty, this is basically our daily chores we all are assigned different parts of campus and for two hours we work on our chores. Mine including cleaning classrooms and walkways of all leaves and laundry rooms. It is hard but I love the people I work with so they make It fun. Right when work duty ends we have dinner from 5-6:30. Normally we have something from 6-8 on most days that is worship, then on Wednesdays it is community outreach. During this I do something called a treasure hunt, and this is when you pray for God to show you someone or something who needs help and then in you go into downtown Kona and just start praying for them. It is really fulfilling and rewarding. So my days are jammed packed.

Before I go into what I am going to talk a little about intercession.  I love intercession it is my favorite part of the week. Intercession is when you pick a topic of hardship and you pray for God to intercede in whatever injustice is going on. Yesterday we had an intercession for sex trafficking in America. Today we had an intercession for the injustice toward Muslim women.  Both of these topics are so bad. So many of us try to block out the problems in this world, we focus on ourselves and not the issues at hand. What is going on in Islamic countries is tragic and my heart breaks for these young girls who are forced into marriages with old men and who are stoned because they got raped. If they get raped they are told it is because they seduced the men. Sex trafficking in America is another huge problem. The biggest thing that I remember is THESE ISSUES ARE NOT HOPELESS. As hopeless as these people may feel there is always hope in God. They do not know him though so we need to step in and pray that God helps what is going on. God wants us to pray for these people. Proverbs 31:8-9 says “SPEAK UP FOR THOSE WHO CAN NOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES, FOR THE RIGHTS OF ALL WHO ARE DESTITUTE. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”  God tells us to intercede. Not just to pray for ourselves. It is one of the most powerful times of the week. God does amazing things when you are praying for others.

The first week we learned more about worldviews, God’s glory, and also the Kingdom.  Our speaker really knew what he was talking about and he made some really good points. It was really cool to learn how some of the other people in the world think and how it is contradictory to the way Christianity is. He also talked about the Glory of God.  He talked about how Glory  of God is reflected in everything. From a pretty sunset to music everything reflects the Glory of God. It is really sad how we all get so busy and we never have time to stop and really enjoy the Glory of God.  A good illustration of this is:    

GOD CREATES MAN                                      MANS CREATIVITY REFLECTS GODS GLORY

MAN DISCOVERS GOD’S WORLD                          MAN IMMITATES GOD   

Therefore everything we do reflects the glory of God. This is so good to remember because I most of the time we all do get caught up in work or school and all we have to do in order to bask in God’s glory is slow down and look around us.

                This week we started out by talking about hearing from God. They went around and asked about if and how we have ever heard from God. They got to me and I explained that I have never like clearly heard God talking to me that I could remember. There are people here that hear from him so clearly and that is awesome but I have never really had an experience like that, or at least not that I could remember. The next day we talked about quiet time and how important it is to REST in God. I heard this and did not comprehend the real meaning of resting in God. I have never just sat in God’s glory before and let him hold me. So we each got thirty minutes to have a quiet time with God. I went into with the mentality of “forget resting in God I am going to hear something from him clearly in the next thirty minutes” so I put on worship music and sat with my Bible.  For some reason I felt that God had put the book of Hebrews on my mind…..i was like “ok God I have never looked at this book and I don’t know why you want me to read Hebrews I have never even looked at that book before!! But whatever I will read it…so I opened my Bible and was like ok where am I going to start so I just looked down and decided that I would start at whatever line I first saw. Sure enough I looked down and the line I saw said; “Today when you hear my voice do not harden your heart in rebellion as you have in the past.” I was like no that line IS NOT for me that is dumb so I kept reading sure enough five verses down I ran across it again; “Today when you hear my voice do not harden your heart in rebellion as you have done in the past,” At this point I was so done I was like no this is not for me Lord give me something else, so I decided to turn the page and start over. So I turn the page and start reading and sure enough right there it says; “TODAY WHEN YOU HEAR MY VOICE DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEART IN REBELLION AS YOU HAVE DONE IN THE PAST.” I can’t believe it I HEARD FROM GOD not only that he has wanted to talk to me but I just have been blocking out his voice. THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO TALK TO ME!!!!! How amazing is that the most remarkable creative smartest person wants to talk to ME. The thought of him never ceases to amaze me. So then yesterday we had the most amazing speaker and he talked about how we all need to let go of whatever is holding onto us and just focus on God. He had  us all just stand around the room and worship God and stand in his glory and the staff came around and prayed for us. We all worshiped in our own way and for the first time I dropped to my knees and I RESTED IN GOD.  It was amazing my mind was only on him. I can’t believe how incredibly amazing he is.

                I know this is long and there is so much more I can’t even begin to talk about but otherwise Hawaii is beautiful  and my roomies are great!! I have never before enjoyed cold showers but everyone I take is cold because it is so hot here. I am getting used to the cockroaches that visit us at night who knew they could fly!! We were all super shocked when a lizard lying on one girls belly woke her up this morning but the bugs you get used to. I am not enjoying the food but I will get over that at least I have something to eat!! The chores are fun with the people I work with and I am just so blessed to be where I am in life right now.  I will try to be more regular with this ….. MUAH

soo much to take in!!!!

OK ,.... SO INTERNET DOESNT WORK HERE SO SORRY ITS TAKEN ME SO LONG TO UPDATE~~~~

SO WE ARE SOO BUSY HERE WE WAKE UP AT 6 EAT BREAKFAST DO WORSHIP HAVE LECTURE FOREVER THREE HOURS EAT LUNCH DO WORK DUTY THEN DINNER AT FIVE THEN CLASS TILL NINE!!! SO I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND THE LATE UPDATES!!!!!

It is so cool being here but it is super super challenging!! I have never done anything this hard and it is only a week. The speaker is like being in chapel for three hours only a ton better than tri city because they dont only tell us the good in the world but also the bad. They tell us what we need to hear not what Christians want to hear. It is insane. God is still doing amazing things and i wish i had the time and battery life to go into all of it. I miss home but met someone from san diego today so that helps me not be as homesick!!! i love it. MY roomates are amazing and i have decided i want to go to tenesee or alabama hahai want to be from the south hahhaha their accents are amazing. THe people in my group are all here for a reason and to hear some stories show the glory and grace of GOd. They all come from different places and backgrounds.....God is so good. THe theme of our school this season is grace....i feel like that talks to me so much. THe Lord is doing amazing things and i will share it all with you guys next time i get on but yes i am doing well and yes i am having fun and yes i love it here ..... XOXOXOXOXO

diving into GODS word

HAPUNA BEACH



          So today we went to one of the top ten beaches!! Hapuna beach it was beautiful!! THen we went to downtown kona which is so much fun. I know I am going to love this place. However i know that is all we did today so there is so much to write about so i spent my own time in Gods word and here are a few verses that stand out to me!!! I LOVE THESE!!!

                     PSALMS 37:2-4

for like the grass they will soon wither,
       like green plants they will soon die away.

 ³ Trust in the LORD and do good;
       dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
 ⁴ Delight yourself in the LORD
       and he will give you the desires of your heart

it is so amazing that God can tell us straight up .... no joke .... like we trust him and he WILL take care of us!!! IT MAY BE HARD, but just the thought that all we have to do is trust him, that is it, and we will be ok and live forever is crazy. What an amazing awe inspiring God we have!!

PSALMS 40:4-5
      Blessed is the man
       who makes the LORD his trust,
       who does not look to the proud,
       to those who turn aside to false gods. ^[a]
 5 Many, O LORD my God,
       are the wonders you have done.
       The things you planned for us
       no one can recount to you;
       were I to speak and tell of them,
       they would be too many to declare.
LORD JESUS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LAYING IT OUT CLEARLY FOR US!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR GRACE AND GIVING US THE CHANCE TO TRUST YOU EVEN IF WE HAVE MESSED UP AND STRAYED, OH GOD, YOUR LOVE IS AMAZING AND OVERWHELMING. JUST TO KNOW THAT THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR US LORD IS SPRED SO DEEP AND THE FACT THAT YOU TRULY WILL LOOK OUT FOR US AND PROTECT US AND COUNTINOUSLY PICK US UP WHEN WE FALL IS SO GREAT! LORD THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME AND EVERYONE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRUST YOU. I KNOW THAT I AM NOT WORTHY AND THAT I HAVE SINNED FATHER BUT THAT IS THE AMAZING THING ABOUT YOUR GRACE. YOU WENT THROUGH TORTURE SO THAT I CAN BE FREED OF MY SIN LORD, THE PAIN YOU WENT THROUGH IS UNIMAGINEABLE AND I LOVE YOU GOD. THANK YOU FOR GIVING US YOUR WORD TO TELL US HOW TO LIVE AND TO LET US KNOW THAT EVEN IF WE STRAY YOU WILL STILL LOVE US. LORD THANK YOU I LOVE YOU GOD. HELP ME OVER THE NEXT SIX MONTHS TO LAY ALL TRUST IN YOU AND TO LEAN ON YOU AND YOU ALONE. HELP ME BLOCK MY MIND OF ALL DISTRACTIONS AND DO NOT WHAT I WANT GOD BUT WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO. I KNOW THIS IS GOING TO BE HARD I KNOW I AM GOING TO BE TEMPTED TO FALL INTO THE THINGS OF THE WORLD BUT I PRAY THAT YOU KEEP ME FOCUSED ON THE GOAL GOD. LORD HELP ME AND EVERYONE STAY FOCUSED ON YOU AS WE GO THROUGH THIS LIFE IN OUR TEMPORARY SURROUNDINGS LORD KNOWING THAT SOMEDAY WE WILL BE WITH YOU FATHER. THANK YOU -------- AMEN



Getting It ....... FINALLY

PICTURE I TOOK AT SUNSET GOD IS WITH US ALL THE TIME

    Today was super super tough....at first!!! I cant believe how tough it was because we were so busy how could we possibly have had time to think about our families and friends. The day started out super early!! Our whole room was up and moving by 5:30. We all got dressed and walked out to great the beautiful morning to eat breakfast. Still not hungry i ate barely anything next thing we did was walk to the main circle where there is a flag from every counrty represented this quarter and were escorted back to "ohana" circle where we had amazing worship and a traditional hawaiian welcome service. We then had some down time before lunch and that is when it started. I was questioning everything, why i had even come!!! I did not feel like i fit in at all, i missed everyone at home, i was stressing about what i needed to do school wise in order to catch up with college. I panicked!! I was focusing on EVERYTHING other than what i was supposed to be focusing on, this great experience that God put right in front of me. I was thinking about myself and not giving everything up to the Lord.

          After my mini break down with my dad. we went to our first DTS Comapassion lesson where we met the staff, it was really cool and the staff is absolutely the most amazing group of people i have ever met and the other students are great. Before we left the school leader gave this whole talk on how we need to give God all our insecurities and let him lead the way. She talked about how some of us have our plan in our head, we are going to go on outreach then go home, go to school, get our degree, and move on. She then reminded us that we were all called here by God and even though we have a plan she asked us all to stay open minded and not close our eyes to what God may have in store for us. This may be sticking to our own plans, or going on a few more missions trips then finishing school, and some may even become full on missionaries, but any way you want to look at it we all need to stay open to what God wants. It was amazing, I have gone to a christian school for 12 years and have gone to hundreds of church services and chapels and I have never paid as close attention as i did today! God had me tuned in, I EVEN LEFT MY CELL IN MY ROOM!!!! That is when i realized what i had been waiting for. I had been telling everyone i was coming here and when they asked why i would not have a response for them. I would stumble and not be able to have a clear answer, well i get it now! God wants to use me, he wants to bring me closer to him, and that makes me excited just to think about it. He is tired of me doing things on my time line and wants me to think more about him and his plan for me and less about me and my plan for me.  I think God takes what we want and incorporates it into our life plan most of the time, but i had gotten to the point where i was only thinking about what i wante. I WANT to work in hotels, I WANT to move to LA. This is the time in my life where i get to say GOD IS LEADING ME, and that is the most amazing thing i could get out of today!!! I want him to lead me, i want him to take me and show me where i am supposed to be in life. Everything i do will be for him!! He may lead me back to school right away or he might use me to keep helping young children at risk, either way i will rejoice in him and know that he is God!!!

                 I konw this is alot i just really felt the need to share!!! i am so amazed at how people from all over the world come together and share in his love and grace!! It is so great. I love all the people here and am starting to realize what i am doing. It is hard to hand your whole life plan over to God. It is hard to trust him and to lean on him 100 percent but if we dont, how will we know that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing! Life is amazing i know i will get homesick again but today was a good start on me getting more comfertable here. GOD IS SO GOOD and while I miss everyone Getting to spend time focusing on my Lord and Savior is more than i can ask for. I will try to do daily updates even if they are short!! THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS!!!! HE IS SOOO GOOD~~~~~