28 October, 2012

Everything Gets Better with Age

"And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
Luke 1:45

What a wonderful story I have to share! Or rather, a wonderful week.

To start off, this week has been my Birthday Week. That right there automatically makes it good right? 19. That is how old I am today. Sunday. The beginning of my last year of a teenager....eh. Whatever. I'm not that dramatic about ages. I don't think I ever will be...I look forward to getting older. They say, "Everything gets better with age." I believe that to be true. With wine. With cheese. With relationships. With life. With love. Yes. Love should get better with age. Love and life.


"And we all, with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18


Mondays are always hard days. I mean, they've got to be hard days for anybody. Our Mondays happen to start 1 hour earlier and go a few hours longer in the evening. We do get an hour of free time in the afternoon though.
This Monday we went to Life Center for 1 hour of work duties before class, like every Monday, and the custodial staff at the church surprised us with DONUTS!




Yup. There is my donut. Tell me it doesn't look delicious. It totally does. Let us not deny truth. 
That is one good looking donut. ;-)

So right off the bat, Monday started great! Our teacher for Monday and Tuesday was one of the base staff here named Jeremy Curry. He is legit. A man with a fiery heart. You can feel it when he speaks. He is one of those guys with a slightly Lou Engle-ish voice that would totally love to just pray all day. He reminds me of Brian. Only instead of wanting to pray for America's public schools and California all the time, Jeremy's heart is the nations. He taught on Song of Solomon in relation to the Bridal Paradigm of God and the nations. It was quite stirring. Tuesday he even dove deeper into God's heart for the nations. How 86% of the world has no relation to any type of Christian and America has become so over-exposed to Christianity, it is rejected. 


"Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; He is to be reverently feared and worshiped above all [so-called] gods."
Psalm 96:3-4

Monday night we had Ministry Night again. This week wonderful! Again we all broke out dancing and laughing. We also took time aside to pray for whatever nation we were going to for outreach. 
Here is a little clip taken as the dancing began (sorry it is so dark):



Also this week was interesting week of miracles. As the final amount of our school tuition ($2,900 total) and our outreach deposit was due ($1,000) on Thursday, everyone was sending out as many support letters, emails, text messages, phone calls, facebook updates, twitter updates, instagram updates, and any other way to contact people seeing if anyone could sponsor even $10 towards what God has called them to.  
Monday morning I still owed about $2,050. I then was sent $100 in the mail and another $200 in donations. My total was brought down to $1,751. Tuesday I was surprised with a $500 deposit into my bank account. I only needed $1,251. That evening I received an email that someone had donated $1,255. MORE than enough to cover the rest of my school fees! 


After PayPal fees, I still needed $33. Wednesday morning came around and I went downstairs.
"Did you check your mailbox yet?" One of the boys asked me.
"No. Why? Should I?"
"A few of us found envelopes with money in ours. You should go check!"
Another girl and I ran over to our mailboxes and sure enough...


I found $25.00. I was still in so much shock from the previous night and then to wake up to $25 more? It was like Christmas to pay off school. Everyone was bumping into provision miracles.
Wednesday morning at the beginning of class we updated our Finances board showing how much everyone still needed. I still needed $8.00.

So we broke up into pairs to pray over each other and when I went back to my seat, I found a crumpled $10 bill stuffed into one of my purse pockets. 

Yup. Jesus had come through. And He used many people to do it, that He could bless them even more in return for their generosity.



"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all contentment in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we had Dan Baumann as our speaker. If you haven't heard of him, you NEED to check him out. This man is so hilarious, so entertaining, and he so knows what it means to be a friend of the Lord. He's a quirky guy with a lot of INSANE stories. I'll share a little bit of his story here...
Dan has been with YWAM for 25 years. Dude is a legend. About 15 years ago, he gets imprisoned in Iran for 9 weeks with 2 death sentences against him because he is a Christian and they think he is an American spy. ****SPOILER ALERT**** He gets out alive.****   
He told us a bunch of stories of how God miraculously led him to Afghanistan, Taiwan, China, and eventually  fulfilling a promise that he would go to Ashkabad over the course of 9 years. You should check out his teachings on the website. (Dan's haven't been posted yet, but hopefully soon they should be up.)  
You can also check out his book,  Imprisoned in Iran, or his other book on discipleship, A Beautiful Way. Dan is definitely an amazing person with amazing stories; I encourage you all to check him out!

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Thursdays work duties were fun because.....
I got to see the absolute cutest toilet in the whole entire world.
It was in the church toddler room.

It is so teeny tiny!!! I HAD to take a picture with it.

Friday night we had a birthday for our base leader, Jeremy Bardwell. His birthday is the day after mine and his wife wanted to throw him a party here. It was a lot of fun because most of the people here chipped in to get him a Nord keyboard as one of his dreams is composing music like Inception. It was a lot of fun to see him open the gift - he was in shock.

This is a bunch of us before the party squeezing the majority of girls in our DTS on the couch. :-)

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Saturday morning the South Africa Team met downstairs for breakfast to see how everyone's week went. We made pancakes and then realized we had no syrup. I don't recommend eating dry pancakes. They may  make you gag.



This also happened to be our very first Team Picture. But we are a good looking bunch :-). Afterwards we went to the second floor common room for worship (and you can see I took a picture while we were eating). It was fun because we had never done worship before together, so it was nice to see how well it flowed and it is only going to get better as we prepare for our journey to South Africa.



After the worship set, 5 of us went out to Red Robin as lunch celebration of my birthday one day early. It was fun celebrating with the family I had acquired and it is hard to believe that we have only/already been together 1 month!

Saturday night was a lot of fun too! One of the guys here is in a band called October Wedding, which is sort of like Mumford & Sons style with blatantly obvious lyrics about Jesus. So if you like Mumford & Sons and you like Jesus (or not) you will DEFINITELY like October Wedding. So anyway, October Wedding was playing at a benefit with Caitlin Jane for Compassion Water, a non-prof whose mission is to bring clean drinking water to high poverty countries. 



So his wife took me and another South African Team member to go support him and we had an awesome time!!




I was able to speak to Caitlin later as well upon learning that not only is she a firm supporter of Compassion, but also a woman who walks firm in standing for LIFE. (Check out her song "Unborn" on iTunes.) 



It was definitely a wonderful way to spend a Saturday night. :-)

Today has been equally as wonderful and eventful! This morning began with church....



....enjoying fall (and the possibility of hurricane-related storms)....



....and then I went to lunch at this new place that literally just opened up called Tomato Pie Cafe. I highly recommend it if anyone is interested in going!









I had the Pesto Chicken Panini (above).




And a chocolate brownie with a layer of peanut butter dessert spread topped with a layer of chocolate ganache and crushed peanuts (right).








Afterwards we went to a thrift store and I picked up a few things for the ever changing weather of Harrisburg. Then we came home and I sort of relaxed for a little bit until...




One of my roommates came into the room asking if I could help get stuff from her car since "it was beginning to rain" (we are expecting to be hit by the storms from Hurricane Sandy). So I go downstairs with her and most of the lights are off (I assume everyone was in other parts of the house) and all of the sudden the lights come up and everyone shouts, "SURPRISE!!!!" It was definitely surprising. Apparently, the house had planned this all behind my back. They also made me a cake (above). Yellow cake. Chocolate frosting. You can watch the video below and see how it happened. :-)



All in all it could definitely be said that this has been another wonderful birthday as my last year of being a teenager begins. I am so freaking excited. God has some crazy things in store that I currently have no idea about...and we are gonna see it all unfold together :-D I can't wait!!!!

Oh...before I go, I have one more thing I want to share with you!



ONE VOICE PRAYER IS HOSTING OUR FIRST EVER CONFERENCE! 
Campus Ablaze will be held January 4, 5, and 6, 2013, at Houses of Light Church (19408 Londelius St. Northridge, CA 91324). 
You know why you should really go? Because JESUS is going to be there. Holy Spirit is going to be there! Creator God of the Universe is going to be there! I don't know about you, but I want to be where He is. 
And on top of that (as if you really need another reason but Jesus), there are going to be amazing men and women of God there wanting to impart anointing and knowledge of how to be a missionary on your school campus at any grade level.
And if you did need another reason, the speaker line--up is Sean Smith, Pastor Netz Gomez, Brian Barcelona, Chris Scoz, Marcela Garcia, and Pastor Philip Muela. They are all going to be amazing and I can testify that each speaker individually is going to drop some major gear. I honestly cannot even pick a favorite from that list. Each one of them has changed and impacted my life in a different way. Each one is special. I love every one of them (especially Marcela and Philip and Chris and Pastor Netz and Brian and Sean). I know you will too. They are legit.
Double Portion, Houses of Light, Kenny Peavey, and more are going to be leading worship which will totally be amazing because they are all anointed! AHHHH I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS!!!!

Anyway, check it out! Invite your friends, you churches, your youth groups, your moms, your grandmas, your cousins, your sisters, your brothers, your dogs....Well, maybe not the last one. But you get the point. GET TO THE CONFERENCE. YOU WILL PROBABLY REGRET IT IF YOU DON'T. But don't worry...no condemnation. ;-)


Okay, I probably should go for real though. I only have like...a quarter of my homework done.
Alright, well, I love you all!
Thank you to everyone for making this week wonderful and my birthday so special!


Xoxo,
Cheryl


"And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
Luke 1:45




P.S. I found this picture with one of my absolute favorite scriptures on it...I recently have discovered (a nonprofit?) Good Woman Project. I haven't checked all their stuff, but so far these women seem pretty classy. I like class.


P.P.S.

If the videos I added don't work, don't be alarmed. I had trouble inserting them so I will keep working to figure it out and fix it!

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