December 1st.

Today is December 1st which marks many things other than just a Thursday.

Today is the first day in many where work hasn't gone by drudgingly slow.

Today was perfect weather to throw on leggings, a jacket, and feel like autumn walking to my car.

Today I finished another chapter in a book. And a really good one at that. 

Today means that tomorrow is Friday, and the next is Saturday. 

Today means that next month...Caroline and I will be in UGANDA!

I was just trying to build up to that last one there :)

I can find endless joy in today because I woke up remembering the cross. I woke up with a psalm on my heart that screamed "let morning bring me word of your unfailing love" and that's exactly what it did. 

So many days I wake up in darkness. I just don't let any light stream through my curtains beause I feel like I cannot hear God, when it's really only me who tried to quiet Him. So I spend the day forgetting, and I close my curtains, and my coffee doesn't taste as good. I make my way to my car and Kim Walker blares through the speakers and I know that if I was standing up at that moment that I would have fallen on my face right then and there. I know that just one whisper of "Abba" and my heart stops and I feel so good and so bad at the same time because my Daddy is everywhere and I'm happy about every part of that, but then I'm so sad that I ever forgot.

But the Lord made today, and He made yesterday. Tomorrow comes in 20 minutes and if I live till then I will wake up and let the morning remind me of His unfailing love again, and I will put my trust in Him, and He will show me the way that I should go, and He will lift up my beaten down weary soul because amidst all of the messes that I make...He loves me all over. And I don't know why, but I know that He sent His son...His only son...His beloved son...for me. And for you. We wonder why we mess up and we plunge ourselves at the feet of our Father and while He even knows that we will mess up tomorrow He loves us through it. Knowing that we will sin and hurt Him more...He holds us just a little tighter because of it; just a little closer.

I will never quite understand the why's of why Caroline and I are called to be His hands and to be His feet in this way...but there's no place that I'd rather be than at the feet of my Daddy who loves me more than words could describe. More than the sun and the moon and any of your favorite things combined.

December 1st, and all I want to do is never run away from Him again.

A trust like Daniel.

"When Daniel learned the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before."

We all know Daniel's story. He get's thrown in the lion's den, and God protects him from harm. But this was the first time I had really grapsed the enormity of the situation and how much Daniel had to completely and utterly surrender to God's will, and just trust Him. Not just regular trust to get through the day or to do good on a test...but trust that the Lord would PROTECT him from the lion's. King Darius said to Daniel

"May your God whom you serve continually rescue you."

...and that about did everything to break me down. Daniel trusted that his God WOULD rescue him. And if that mean physically protect him from getting ripped apart, or rescue him from this imperfect world and send him home to his Maker...Daniel trusted.

"No wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God."

Literally speechless.

"He rescues and He saves; He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth."

I want to trust like Daniel did. I want to be thrown into the lion's den and completely trust that my Father is holding me. That my King is so sovereign that any obstacle thrown my way will be overcome by His hands. That when I'm struggling to cover my lease; He's got it. That when Caroline and I are praying for financial support; God will provide the money. That whatever becomes too much for us; we remember the cross. We remember our Father. And we surrender all of our fears, and our inadequacies, and trust Him all the way to Uganda-and long after that.

So much has happened since I posted last. Letter's have been sent, research had been made, support has come in, and grace has overflowed even MORE. We're in the process of getting our plane tickets-something that will just confirm our journey. I got a phone call today saying I got someone to sublease my apartment, and everything seems to be falling in place with His perfect plan. I am literally in awe as I see the blessings overflow RIGHT AFTER I chose to trust Him more. And I can't even fathom what will happen after complete surrender. It's something that I am praying for every day to obtain. Full and utter TRUST.

Along with these blessings comes an opportunity for me to write down how much of a blessing my sister in Christ is. I got to spend the weekend with her and I have never been filled with so much joy in a long time. God provided me with healing, understanding, and pure jubilance totally and completely through my sweet sweet friend, Caroline. I have come to realize that she is more than a friend to me. She is my sister and my own flesh. I know that the Lord put her in my life for a very specific reason; even more than just a companion for Africa. I know that our Father placed her in my life to show me how much He cares for me and loves me because His loves just bounces off of Care and I can't seem to think anything less than "Wow...my Father adores me" when she's around. The love she has for others, for the LORD, and somehow she has even more left over love for messy old me. Even when I don't deserve it, or I fall short, or I keep her up at night-she loves me. And to expirience that kind of unconditional love reminds me of the Lord's every single time. Reminds me that I feel this much love from and for a human being...and that's not even an ounce of what the Lord feels for us. And being able to share God's love and mercies with Care is so special and I am so blessed to have such a friendship that is so centered on our King. There is no one like her, really.

I pray every day for so much. But today I pray for a trust like Daniel.

Let the blind lead the way.

These days are hard. These days not spent in Africa are grueling and my heart just isn't here. No matter how many posts I write, no matter how many times I outline the words don't live in the future, it still doesn't seem to be enough. But then reality slaps me in the face, and then my Father straightens my slump, and then the simple words of Ecclesiastes ring in my head and I am healed for this moment. His faithfulness is enough, and man...He fills me up. He really does.

I once met a blind man who has seen more of the world than anyone else I've ever met. I was in Fort Worth, TX serving at this awesome ministry for the inner city homeless called beautiful feet when I met him. Our conversation wasn't long, but it was long enough to understand. After I gave him his dinner, he touched the side of my face with the back of his dirty hands and said bless you and I knew he meant it. Talking to this man was so freeing because it was like all the barriers of judgement were gone. It didn't matter if you were white, or black, or crippled, or dirty...and it didn't matter because this man only saw your soul. Even if your soul was so disheveled like mine was or you had been through alot like I had, he could understand that. And this man who couldn't see could understand that because this man had the eyes of God. What a blessing it would be, to be able to look past everything in the world and just see someone's heart. Just talk to someone and let nothing on the surface matter. After all...the only part of you that will be left in heaven is your soul. And that's the only part of you that really matters, anyway.

To be blind, but to be able to see the entire world. This is a man I will never forget.

Running in Circles

"I'm so forgetful, but you always remind me. You're the only one who brings me peace."

I am so forgetful. I'll wake up irritated. Or sleepy. Or hungry. Hungry for more than just food and thirsty for more than just water. I expect this need to be fulfilled so I sleep more...I eat more...and I try, and try, and try to stop running in circles so I can drink up His love. This strange yet beautifully sufficient love that I don't deserve.

Sometimes we are all too forgetful. Things go wrong, people fail us (people will always fail us), we put our trust in the wrong things, we stub our toe (literally this morning), and we forget. And it takes things so small like the palm of someone's hand to remind us of His love. I'll be walking to my car and feel this pull and I'm no longer irritated. I'm no longer hungry. I'm no longer thirsty. And I know He's holding me because everything become's more bearable, and I stop running in circles. I stop running away from Him at all. And we just sit together, and that's enough for the whole entire world. I just wish I wouldn't forget.  I wrote Hebrew all up and down my arms and legs and that is a reminder. Africa is a reminder. My friends are a reminder. My family is a reminder. Caroline is a reminder. He is the only one who brings us peace, and He is the only one who is enough.

Capture this moment, and the next, and the next, and the next. Because if we sit waiting for tomorrow, then see ya to, today. Today is so beautiful because today we are breathing. Africa is in 4 months and I'm so anxious to just, be there. But I know that this time, in this moment, may be just be where I'm growing the most.

I am sorry for running in circles.

Let me be weak, so You may be strong.

First of all, I am just real bad at writing blogs... hopefully over time it'll get better. But bear with me as I try to accumulate all my feelings/emotions/worries/joys/praises/and requests into one blog post.... Here it goes.

As all of you probably have noticed, KELSEY AND I ARE GOING TO UGANDA! It is literally all I think about, pray about, and talk about. Which I have found is not good. Yes, it is great to be thinking about each next step and to be praying that the Lord would prepare my heart instead of me thinking I can do that on my own, but it has already been hard for me to be present HERE at Baylor. Trying to focus on school, being intentional with friends, and activities I'm involved in when Africa is 24/7 on my mind, is a little tricky. But the Lord has been providing some incredible moments where I can stop, evaluate and see His goodness working even in Waco! He is so faithful.

Let me just try to some what summarize how STINKIN AWESOME KELSEY VERRILL IS!! I literally would not be where I am now without her consistent encouragement, vibrant personality, and unconditional care, not just for the surface level of me, but for my HEART. She is an incredible woman of God that has already grown in her faith exponentially after realizing our hearts were both already in Africa. Her loving, generous spirit is contagious and she is such a light in the lives around her. I LOVE being crazy and spastic with Kelsey, but one of the things I love most about her is how she is still so incredibly intentional with her relationships and doesn't let anything get in the way of hearing someone's heart and how the Lord is working through them. I can definitely say that from the beginning, when this whole thing started, she was the one that was absolutely 100% into it the whole way. I had my doubts, secretly thinking in my mind that it really wouldn't happen. But anytime after talking to Kelsey, those thoughts left my mind that the Lord reaffirmed me through her that Jinja is where we are supposed to be and He will get us there. It has been such a humbling experience realizing that WE CAN NOT PLAN THIS and that if we take this trip into our own hands, it absolutely can not happen. Without Kelsey, I would have done that. I would have thought that I need to figure all this stuff out on my own, I would have stressed myself out and then talked myself out of going. But the Lord kept speaking to me through Kelsey as we talk about how undeserving each of us are to go, yet HE PICKED US! Just as he chose Saul, a man who killed Christians (a whole lot of them), to become Paul, one of the greatest men (besides Jesus) that ever lived and who carried out Christianity and helped make it what it is today. Just like Saul, we are SO undeserving, yet He chose us. He called us. He wants us to GO! "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Romans 9:17. Kels and I literally can not plan this on our own. We have had nothing to do with it so far, it has solely been God moving and taking hold of His own plan. For in our WEAKNESS, He is GREATEST. "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in WEAKNESS.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. This is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

As days pass and Kelsey and I realize more and more of the things that need to get done, I ask that you will pray with us! Pray for trust in the Father and security in that trust. We both know deep down that He will provide (He has provided everything thus far) but the world and our own minds send us lies and make us believe otherwise sometimes. Pray that the hearts of our friends and family will be softened as we continue to tell those that mean most to us that we are leaving our comfortable American lives to follow God's calling for us. The world may hate us and wonder what on earth we are doing, but we just need to trust God and His plan, for it is perfect and unwavering.

Real quick as I close, lately, the word GRACE has been every pressing on my heart and "My grace is enough" is ringing in my ears. I LONG to understand fully what God's grace looks like, but I am starting to realize that I am no where near understanding. For we cannot truly understand the measure and depth of His grace until we KNOW God at a deep and personal level. And until we understand grace, we cannot deeply understand the HOPE that comes from knowing Christ. Needless to say, I am learning A LOT lately. Another blog explaining more to come :)

Compassion.

Ima Nouri was a 35 year old mother of a very sick child in Iraq. A child that was very unlikely to live, and a child that if he were to live, would live crippled. Her message to the American women was 

Ask them to please try to help us protect them and take care of them. I want them to feel what I am feeling.

Compassion in the words of Michael Nagler means:

"literally suffering with others, feeling what they are feeling. Of course it hurts, but isn't it better to    suffer with others and expand, than to wall off our humanity from them and die within?"

WOAH. Is there something we might be missing here?

In the same way, Jesus calls us to "take up our cross and follow Him" but all too often we don't. We don't because we're scared, we don't because we think we're alone, we don't because it's uncomfortable, and we don't because sometimes...it's just way too darn painful. And God calls us to this compassion. To "carry each other's burdens" and to throw off everything...all the cares of the world, all the hurt, all the abandonment, and even all the sin in our lives-and FOLLOW HIM! So this scary whisper that's slowly turning to a yell for Caroline and I to go to Uganda...that is all the Lord. And day by day as I pray and grow God is just teaching me how important it is to love others. And how that's all he really calls us to do, anyway.

We cannot end the war, eradicate poverty, and make anyone's suffering go away. But we can love them fully and entirely with every ounce of our soul. And that is how people see Him. That is how I first saw Him...and when I strayed from Him...that's how I found Him again. And all safe and snuggled up in my Daddy's arms is really the only place for me to go. Except for Africa...going there, too :)

Man, my God is good. And man...am I undeserving.

Joy in the midst of chaos.

Caroline recieved an e-mail from Ekisa on Sunday that she was accepted! Talk about the best birthday present a girl could ask for. So, as of now, she is going to Africa...and I am praying and hoping (selfishly) that I will get one soon! As we prepare for our journey and live the most prayerfully I think we both ever have-God continues to just show up more than ever. More than we deserve.

I guess we haven't quite introduced ourselves yet and so before I jump in the water, you should know who you're dealing with :)

Caroline Pierce is one of the most kind-hearted people you will ever meet in your life. She is literally just a bundle of joy and you can't help but see this outrageous love for God when you look at her. She is a Junior at Baylor University in Waco, TX, is a nutrition and african studies major (Care correct me if I totes butchered that) and has a love for God that's rare and beautiful to come by (dang, how blessed am I to be her friend, I mean come on). She was actually my boss this summer while we both worked at a camp in Durango, CO called Camp Kivu (www.campkivu.com). We both worked in the kitchen, me for part of the summer, and her for the entire summer. And it was HARD. I tell you it is not easy as it sounds! She worked her butt off and never complained. Now that is what I call a steward. I have so much to learn from her and so excited that God is going to give me that opportunity over the 5 months we'll be wedged together!

My name is Kelsey Verrill. I go to Oklahoma City Comunity College and am a Theatre Major. I am crazy, and scatter-brained, disorganized, ADD, and annoying at times. But Caroline can somehow tolerate me...and God has decided to use crazy insignificant me in ways that I could have never fathomed.

Our story is hard to just type out without me going nuts. I get really passionate about it whenever I tell anyone so pardon me if this, too, seems really messy...I'm not too good with words.

One day at camp Caroline and I got to talking. I remember it clearly because she was sitting in her hammock and I was sitting on the very top of the stars right next to her. I asked her how her night was and it was all she could do from crying as she eagerly told me that she had one of the best conversations with a friend (who also worked at camp with us) about Africa. It kind of stopped me in my tracks. I, too, had this deep-rooted passion to go to Africa but I never had talked about it with anyone but God and to my family a little bit. So I listened for a while while Care talked and bursted at the seams about this passion to go. That night I went back to my cabin and cried. I had put my own passion back in a filing cabinet because I was scared. And there Caroline was opening it back up, without even knowing. I sat up for hours that night, not being able to get any rest because God was just yelling at me "Kels...go...I'm telling you...it's time" and that was scary. What did He mean "go"? I'm about to start another year of school, just signed a year long aparment lease, nothing about this is good timing. So I got home from camp, nothing about this calling had been silenced...and so I knew. I knew that my timing was selfish and the Lord's was perfect. So I contacted a friend who lived in Jinja with her parents who worked at 'children of grace' and told her of this passion. She gave me names of organizations and ministries, and I dove in. A couple days later I was with Caroline before she left for Waco. She approached me in the midst of several friends saying "I have SO much to tell you!" and I responded by saying the same.
"What's yours about?!" I said, clearly I'm impatient and couldn't wait the few short hours it would be until we'd be able to have this conversation without all the noise. Then she said
"Africa!"...and I almost lost it.
"MINE TOO!" is what I basically just spit out.
"Where in Africa?" Caroline said...
"Uganda..."...and if it wasn't enough
"ME TOO!" and the tears were rolling.

We figured out that we had both been talking to the same family, and both felt called second semester. I literally had never expirienced something like I did that day and I knew that this was going to be God's will, and I don't think I would be where I am right now, without God giving me precious Caroline to be by my side, to calm my nerves, and to remind me of God's faithfulness.

I was blessed to be able to spend this past weekend with Caroline. It was her birthday, so I drove the 4 and a half short hours to Waco. On Saturday we went to this park in Waco (that's HUGE) and everything about the next 2 hours was perfect. We sat on a log, in the river, under a tree. I brought my laptop and played worship music, burned some nag that fit perfectly into a nook in the log, and we had our quiet time. After a while of just sitting with God, we shared what He has spoken to us, what we read, and I could just cry at how gracious the Lord is...and how He continues to show up-even though we don't even deserve the reminder. These past couple weeks have been chaotic, and I know the weeks to come will be even more crazy...but through it all, the Lord has given me joy unspeakable...and I can't wait to struggle and to grow in Africa...and to even remember that I am doing that now. And that He is working in me now. And this time right now is so sacred, because He is preparing our hearts, softening our families, and providing so much grace that I can barely catch my breath!