To Whom Shall We Go?

What a beautiful thing, I believe, it is to be so wrecked by the love of Jesus, that even if we wanted with all of our hearts to run and abandon ship, we couldn't. Even if we tried we would have nowhere to go. To be so messed up by the love of God that our old friends wouldn't take us back for lack of comprehension over how to handle the radical change that has happened so fast... That even if we tried to return to the old parties, the old crowds, the old hangouts we couldn't do it. They wouldn't accept us and we would forever be stuck knowing, "There is something better than this."

But I find that too often we get comfortable not being able to fit in our old lives... We celebrate it. Many psychologists will say that humans have this built-in longing to be accepted. Mike Bickle (IHOP-KC)and Deborah Hiebert further this in The Seven Longings of the Human Heart in saying humans have been given a longing to be enjoyed by God. In knowing that He takes pleasure in each of personally we find acceptance. "That's fine if my old friends don't accept me... My new friends who love Jesus too do!" But what do you do when your new friends have hurt you to the point where you want to go back? ("Oh, no! That doesn't happen in the church! The church is too perfect to hurt itself!") Wrong. The church is human too. Therefore, as a byproduct of being human, mistakes are made. The church doesn't always accept the way Jesus does, unfortunately. Praise Him for grace. We are all learning.

But in all seriousness, what do you do when you come to a point where you would absolutely quit everything...quit your ministry...quit your relationships...even quit on Jesus? The only thing that is holding you back is the fact that your head knows you would never find as much joy anywhere else! Your head knows this has to be something that will pass! Your head knows that you will make it through this - you just have to endure. All it takes is time because while your head knows it, your heart doesn't. Your heart struggles with dragging day by day by day. Your heart is longing for everything to end, but your head keeps you going.

So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God.

John 6:67-70 (ESV)

Let's spend a moment on the disciples. The crazy thing about these fellas and the way they followed Jesus is that they really didn't know what they were getting themselves into. I mean, they did eventually. But not while Jesus was with them. If you look in the Bible when Jesus speaks about His death and resurrection, Luke 18:34 says, "But they [the disciples] understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said." So think about this: these men left the jobs they were born into (aka The Family Business), risk total rejection by their people to follow a man who says, "Drink my blood! Eat my flesh!" Offends the religious but loves them all the more... This man who claims to be the Son of God and the Son of Man... They give up absolutely everything to follow this man who A) is who He says He is, or B) is an absolute nutter. And yet beyond the persecution, something inside of them says, "Hey... This guy is the real deal. He's done these crazy miracles. We've seen some pretty weird stuff." And they stick with Him! What loyalty that takes...to not know...to not understand...and yet still you remain faithful.

And then Jesus says, "Drink my blood! Eat my flesh!" and the Bible says, "After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him." I can imagine this was a defining moment for the disciples. Were they going to follow everyone, even the church kids, or were they going to follow Jesus?

That's sort of how it works with God, isn't it?
You don't always know what to do or what to say...you don't always understand what did or did not happen...it doesn't always make sense why...and yet somehow you still follow His voice because you know in the end He has a way better grasp on the Truth than you do. I guess that would be because He is Truth. He is the ultimate definition. The definition of what is good and what is pure. What is just and what is righteous. What is merciful and what is compassion. The definition of patience, grace, and endurance. He is love. And when everyone else likes to pick and choose things, you have to realize that He has the words of eternal life and He is the Holy One of God.

The funny thing is that there are some things, like this, we would never know or come to realize or face in our lives if we had never been hurt in the first place. We would never come to realize how much the Lord has truly done in our lives until we want to turn back, but to whom would we go?

You hear the phrase "beauty from pain" so often, but I truly believe this is it. The beauty in brokenness.
The beauty in really coming to a place of, "Wow. Jesus, You really are the only One who will never fail me. You really are the only One I could ever put all of my trust in. You really are the only One who will never leave me, never forsake me, who won't give up on me, even when I want to give up on you."

"You are still faithful even though I am faithless." 

If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 

if we endure, we will also reign with him; 

if we deny him, he also will deny us; 

if we are faithless, he remains faithful

--- for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 2:11-13 (ESV)

Burn

Last week was so much fun...and I hardly have any pictures. But that is okay. God is still good.

As in my previous post, I wrote about Love Feast and all the glory that was. What I didn't tell you was
A) I learned how to make kimbap (a Korean Roll) and B) What the boys did.

So, I have a friend here who is going on outreach with me. She is Korean. And she's a fireball when she prays. Gosh. I love her. Anyway, so before Love Feast (like an hour before) she decided that she was too hungry to wait to go to Tomato Pie so she decided to make kimbap, which is NOT sushi even though it looks like it. It is just a roll. Apparently because it is a roll does not mean it is sushi.

So my lovely friend here sauteed spinach and carrots, cooked rice, fried egg, and toasted seaweed to make this delicious roll without a bamboo roller thing which is apparently how sushi rolls look nice when they are rolled. Then we dipped it Soy Sauce and if we weren't going to Tomato Pie, I would have eaten a whole roll myself. When I go home, I am going to try and make it myself...only maybe without the egg.

After Love Feast, everyone was so full of energy and excitement (having spent most of the day getting all dressed up) and we all just wanted to stay awake together. We came home and a bunch of the girls had a little dance party in the living room (which I heard turned into ballet stretches instead). I quickly lost dance party enthusiasm so I went upstairs to read and then ended up knocking out for a couple hours. I woke back up and I don't remember what I was doing and then one by one my roommates traipsed back into the bedroom the later it got until the last one came in at midnight.

We all stayed awake tossing and turning and for some reason I could not go to sleep. One of my roommates got in the shower and I decided to go downstairs to get a glass of water.

I open the door and I see this:

"What is that?" might you ask?

This, my friends, is a

Balloon Door.

Yes, that is right. The boys took the leftover balloons from the Harvest Party and some LIFE tape to make a balloon door that blocked the entrance way. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. So what did we do to get them back? We took the balloon door downstairs and had another boy stick it on their doorway...and maybe some other things later too....but I can't share that yet. :-) 

But what gets me isn't the balloon door. No. I do not understand how the heck they taped it to our bedroom within minutes after my last roommate came up to the room (after midnight) while we were all awake and quietly reading or something. How did we not hear them?? I don't know.... Well played, boys. Well played.

Among other shenanigans, we had our Orange County crew up here for the week. Do you remember Brian Brennt from Convergence weekend? Well, the O.C. crew lives with him. A lot of people back home know Sammy (from Manteca - heeeey!), Jack, and maybe Chase. 

So the first couple days, Sammy, Jack and Chase traded off speaking on different things. Sammy went through breaking off entitlements with us, Chase taught on original design (asking the Lord His original design for someone and speaking it out to them), and Jack shared on things the Lord has taught him. 

 So these dudes are like YWAM/F&F/Circuit Rider legends. Like...everyone knows them. Straight up. Everyone. So it was totally a family week having them with us and hang out with us and do ministry night with us. Sammy also shared some stories with us, one of which involved going to Sprouts to get green smoothie gear (heeey!) and then getting a word of knowledge for the cashier who ends up freaking out that he knows about her life. Then him and some of the missionaries he lives with kept buying things so they could talk to her while she was checking them out. She gets saved. On their way to the car they get a word for the guy who gets the shopping carts from the parking lot and he gets saved! All in one trip to the grocery store! 

The harvest is ready! The harvest is now!

But for real, these dudes are legit.

Crazy evangelists.

On Wednesday, I came home to a wonderful surprise from my mother! She sent the 333 House a delicious Merry Christmas box of Petit Fours from Swiss Colony! Everyone went crazy for them!

There was lemon cake, raspberry chocolate, vanilla, mint chocolate, an orange-y one, and a chocolate one with white creme frosting! Oh...for those of you who don't know what Petit Fours are, they are like little, tiny 3 layered cakes with frosting in the middle. Mmmmmm!

And then when we returned from delivering photos from the Harvest Party during Community Outreach, we found our house to be ready for Christmas!

Also on Wednesday, Danny Silk from Bethel Church in Redding, CA was here talking a little bit about his new book, Powerful and Free.

(sorry the lighting is bad)

Then he spent the rest of the time talking about dreams (not when your asleep) for the future and how important it is to dream things. It was really good. He had an altar call with some BSSM students with him so they could put into practice things they had been learning at school.

oh, hey. this is the room where we found out we were going to Africa.

On Friday, October Wedding had another fundraiser for Nepal and this time they made about $1,800!! I was so happy for them!

Daddy Jesus got that ca$h money flow....We live in the Blingdom Kingdom.

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Also on Friday, our Base Director Jeremy had a Base meeting where he told us that he has never in his 9 years at YWAM see a DTS need so much money so close to the deadline (about a week past the financial due date). Friday afternoon we needed about $60,000. The elders of the Base got together and spent a lot of time praying and asking God what should be done. The week before, Jeremy had heard the Lord say, "They need to go. They will go." With such struggle financially, they were asking God if this is something we really needed to contend for. He said yes.
The decision was to hold a 60 hour Burn at the 333 House in our prayer room. Everyone signed up for shifts. The school staff, the base staff, the students..everyone. Each outreach team took a Night Watch set and everyone else signed up for at least one extra set as well. We gave it everything we had. Even that night we began to see breakthrough. I myself got a message saying i was being given $1,000.

A long with the Burn, everyone in the community agreed to fast something, whether that meant food, social media, whatever it was. Friday night, South Africa had the 12a-2a night watch set. Saturday night, we had the 4a-6a and I also had signed up for the 6a-8a set.

...the wine I have,

the world didn't give it,

and the world can't take it away...

Sunday night, we kicked off the last 12 hours of the Burn by the entire community gathering in our living room at 8pm. We worshiped for a few hours and then - BOOM - the joy of the Lord broke out and about half us were drunk in the Spirit for around 40 minutes. Just laughing and laughing and praying and laughing and laughing and laughing and praying and laughing. We ended the set and moved it back into the prayer room and the Breakthrough Breakfast would be held at 8am. After Jeremy announced it, he said, "And I don't think cooking breakfast is a woman's job! Men, how about we get up early and cook for all the ladies?" And they did :-) We woke up Monday morning to scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with cheese, fried eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, plain pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and fruit. It felt like Christmas morning. We ended the last moments of the Burn singing, "I will not allow sleep to my eyes until I have made a resting place for You..." We prayed. We ate. It was glorious. Then we were released to get ready for class and then we went to class.

It was so wonderful hearing the worship blazing in the prayer room all night. I remember waking up at 3:03 and hearing voices singing, "Holy. Holy. Lord God Almighty" from the prayer room. I sang it in my head as I rolled over and fell back asleep, smiling. I am telling you, when you sleep in the Prez, people notice because I had a bunch of people telling me I looked refreshed like I swept well...and wood floors are not comfy.

There's never been a time when 

You've ever failed me

There's never been a time when 

You've let me down

How amazing this weekend was! In those 60 hours of blazing, about $30,000 came in to our base for outreaches. God is not a man who does things half way, either. That Monday and Tuesday about $10,000 came in (making our total $40,000). One of our girls from the Ireland team felt the Lord told her not to go and the leaders felt it too. A boy from the Nepal team also found that the timing was wrong as well. Their outreaches together came out to just under $10,000. Our new total was just over $50,000. Wednesday afternoon we found out that late Tuesday night an anonymous donor gave the base $10,000.

We had reached the $50,000 goal and I know more money is coming in for the last bit needed.

 He is faithful to the end. He will finish what He starts and this He has indeed started.

Monday as our finances were due (again), Daddy Jesus was releasing that ca$h money flow because someone left $18 on my pillow that brought my total down to $1,100.

And even at this moment I am writing it still owing that $1,100 and I know that by the time you read this, I will be in South Africa. Wow.

He is faithful to the end. 

He's faithful to my heart....  

Xoxo,
Cheryl

Love Feast

You are cordially invited 

to Love Feast held by 

Youth With a Mission's 

Fire and Fragrance for the 

Discipleship Training School of 

September 2012-March 2013.

Date: 2 December 2012

Time: 4:30 p.m.

Place: Tomato Pie Cafe

Dress: A.F.A.P. 

(as formal as possible)

______________________________________________________________________________

I don't have a lot to write about this post, but I do want to share a little about Love Feast and mostly share the pictures with you all. :-)

About a week ago, the staff threw a Love Feast for the DTS as a way of celebrating before we all leave to go off on outreach. Love Feast is a tradition that began in Kona and all the students dress in their most formal attire and have a nice dinner together to commemorate the fun times during lecture phase before we part ways onto outreach.

Ours was held at my favorite place, Tomato Pie, (after hours) and it was so much fun! We walked down the carpet, got our pictures taken upon entrance. We chose seats anywhere in the cafe; there was a photo booth (courtesy of our very own Josh Harmsworth) and an apetizer bar (with warm pita bread, hummus, roasted peppers, olives, artichoke hearts), large glass bottles of water (remember?), lemonade with a hint of basil, iced tea, and it was so much fun!

For dinner we had the famous Tomato Pie with salad and an herb scone. There was a dessert bar with everything from mint chocolate cake, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate coated peanut butter cookies, red velvet cake, coffee flavored flan, and many more.

Tomato Pie is still my favorite place. Classy. :-)

There was also a time for speech giving and students went up and shared how much their lives have changed since being in DTS. Some students shared silly stories and memories while being here in DTS. Afterward, Jeremy Bardwell and his wife Natalie went up and as our Base Directors they encouraged us and it was all good fun!

Here are some pictures.... I hope you enjoy :-)

walking down the carpet

We had little name cards with a message of encouragement from our One-on-Ones

Tomato Pie

Mint Chocolate Cake

One of the girls took a picture of us "to look at when [she] goes to sleep at night."
Kisses good night!

"I HAVE to take this picture of you!!"

I met this lovely lady on Twitter, believe it or not! She was stalking me ;-)
Follow her: @ivelyss !!! --- She's a crack up.

Mustaches. Because who wouldn't?

Roomies :-)

After this night, the dress and the shoes were both given to me!
How sweet!! I love you, girls!!! Thank you!!!

Goodbye, American Soil

So, I am pleased to tell you that tomorrow morning at 9AM, I will be on my way to New York where I will board a flight, first to Switzerland and then to South Africa.

I am so freaking excited.

I won't have internet access for the next 2 weeks as we will be visiting the villages in the bush of Transkei and even upon the return to Capetown, internet access will be extremely limited. I am not sure how often or much I will be able to update my blog, but when we return to the States, there shall definitely be an update of pictures!!

Also, for those who have my cell phone number, PLEASE, I beg you to NOT text me or call me. If you need me, please send me an email ( cherylann.rehn@gmail.com ) or send me a Facebook message. Not only am I not paying for international service, but I am also going to be about 10 hours ahead of California time.

I am still in shock that this is about to happen. We are the first outreach team to go out. The Nepal team leaves on the 16th and Ireland team leaves the 17th. We are missing our last 2 days of class. It will be worth it.

We are packing up our bedrooms, as our house will now be open to Circuit Riders, who are moving in while we are gone. Six weeks feels like a long time, but I know too that it will fly by. I have already been in Harrisburg for 12 weeks.

Part of me feels like it all went by too fast. I wish I could stay longer in the community. Alas, we must do what we were commissioned to do and the time has come.

I have scheduled a few posts to publish over the next 2 or so weeks, so be on the look out...I wrote them a few days ago.

I love you all very much! Please keep us in your prayers!

Until next time!

Xoxo,
Cheryl

Harvest Party, Thanksgiving, and SNOW!

To the One who sits upon the throne

To the One who made my heart His home

Be blessing and honor, glory and power forever

As I promised a few posts ago, here is the video of Andy Byrd and Sean Feucht being ordained... Enjoy :-)

So the week of Thanksgiving began with work duties and Life Center, bright and early Monday morning... We spent the morning Christmas decorating the church and it was so much fun! We started with regular work duties (Bathrooms!...Sheila Shine!) and then afterwards we made Poinsettia table centerpieces. The guys put fake Christmas trees everywhere and we "fluffed" them. Some of us also put out fake snow and we had Christmas music playing throughout the entire church -- lots of fun!

Tuesday morning we woke up to find little notes of thanksgiving left in our mailboxes.

(Mine is on my Freedom Manual in this picture)

Everyone had been looking forward to Tuesday because we decided to throw a Harvest Party for Allison Hill (our neighborhood). We had spent the last couple weeks promoting it during Community Outreach.

Prep...Floating bag of balloons

We were having free food (salad, chili, rice, cornbread, pie, ice cream, hot chocolate, lemonade), balloon animals, face painting, and family portraits taken for us to deliver to them in the following weeks. It was so wonderful! We had over 300 people turn out from the neighborhood! We had all hands on deck (students and staff) and Life Center volunteers...There were over 50 of us hosting it. We strung Christmas lights up on the trees and kids were playing soccer on one end of the yard. It was lovely having everyone we had been meeting in the community come over and just be able to love on the community and show them that we really are here to care about them.

Right after the party finished, I began my journey to Vermont with on of my outreach leaders, B., and another staff member, R.

The total drive was about 9 hours, so we arrived in Vermont and my friend's house at about 5AM the next morning. Her younger brother had waited up for us and as we came into the house the rest of her family woke up and came downstairs to welcome us. It was so funny and their house was so cute. It was like a little storybook house - definitely not like California homes...unless, maybe, the closest thing I can think of is Sonora but more England-y.
After arriving, we ate and then fell asleep for what felt like a long time. We made Wednesday a lazy day.

Thursday was Thanksgiving (obviously) and one of my roommates texted me with a picture of a newspaper article of which I was extremely thankful for (to say the least)!!!

We had an early Thanksgiving dinner because my friend's mom had to work that evening, but then we went to her home church and had another dinner. (Does it count as dinner if you don't eat a full plate?)
Anyway, it was delicious. I was glad I got to be in a home with a family on Thanksgiving. :-)

Friday we went to downtown Burlington, VT. to see the Christmas tree lighting.

I have to say: DOWNTOWN WAS THE CUTEST THING EVER! It seriously looked like a painting. It was too adorable. Too adorable.

There was a random man in the middle of the way that was playing a didgeridoo with puppets and a stuffed raven on his shoulder... He was a fascinating man.

Then we went to the COOLEST pizza restaurant, Pizzeria Verita..They cooked their pizzas for 90 seconds in a 900 degree stone, wood oven (made with stone...wood fire).

Looks good, huh? It was good.They had a lot of interesting pizzas and they even make some of their own cheese. They had pizza with spicy honey drizzle and salmon and dried cherries...(The honey drizzle was actually good. I didn't try the salmon and we didn't order the dried cherries).
The manager came and let us go into where they actually make the pizzas and take a picture of the stove.

We were very nervous standing this close to 900 degree fire.

The best part is their infamous Nutella pizza, which is so popular they actually have to import this:

Pretty. Freaking. Amazing. Yes? Yes. I really don't even know how much Nutella this is, but as you can see, it is written in German or something. It is definitely larger than the ones we sell here in America.

Afterwards we went to the Vermont House of Prayer (I think that is what it is called. It is definitely a House of Prayer) and we spent about an hour or so there until they closed for the evening.

The House of Prayer is right below a cupcake shop and they had cupcakes out on the welcoming table....super cute cupcakes. Gourmet style.

It reminded me of a cupcake bakery in Madera that I went to in July that had a French Toast and Bacon cupcake...interesting stuff. Anyway, it was a yummy little cupcake.

After that we still had an hour to kill before we were going to go to the movies, so we went to this adorable little tea shop, Dobra Tea. We ordered cinnamon rooibos tea and some sort of pear rooibos...Yummy, yummy...We got to at this little corner table on these little bean baggish chairs.

We ended up not going to the movies because we were tired from the tea. We walked back through the mall (ended up tasting all the teas in Teavana) and then finally went home where we ate (again) and streamed White Christmas from Netflix. My friend had never seen Netflix and, well, honestly, if it wasn't for White Christmas, I probably never would have remember Vermont was a state or ever desired to go there. So all week I was praying that it would snow for me in Vermont because, well,

"Vermont must be beautiful this time of the year? All that snow!"

Saturday morning I awoke to a lovely little thing, I believe they call it, a flurry.....

We also went to visit some of my friend's friends and I saw the movie Elf for the first time (which wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be). Zooey Deschanel is in it and I absolutely love her. So I was excited. She is so adorable. Ah! Hahaha
We went back to my friend's house and her family and I decorated the Christmas tree and they even had a little early Christmas (which was so sweet!!) and the Christmas tree looked beautiful!

(This picture is a little blurry)

(This picture is really edited)

Sunday morning we went to her home church and she went up and shared a bit about what God has been doing in her life since she became a full time missionary with YWAM and what the Lord did in Mozambique in May and the Circuit Riders schools over summer. She also shared about how we were going to South Africa (again) this December and it was so cute to see how they support her in what God has called her to do, even if it means she's not another number in the room or a body in the seat.

We drove back to Harrisburg, PA Sunday afternoon/evening/night with great anticipation...

THERE WAS A FORECAST OF SNOW THAT WEEK!

Now, being from California, we don't really get snow. I had never seen snow falling from the sky or a blanket of snow covering the ground. The most snow I had seen was a small little chunk on the mountains on the way driving down to the beach once when I was camping. This was what I was waiting for.

So Tuesday morning I woke up early and I ran over to the window and peaked out -- the ground just looked mushy and gross. I thought I missed the snow, so slightly bummed, I went and took a shower. I got out and I tried to look out the foggy bathroom window, hoping to see snow! But the window was too foggy so I couldn't see. I walked out of the bathroom and all of my roommates were still asleep. I ran over to the window again and

THE GROUND WAS WHITE! I was barely able to contain my excitement. I wanted to scream. Not sure if they would appreciate waking up to that, I said, "You guys!! Wake up!!! It's snowing!!!!" They all hopped out of bed and I ran downstairs.

A bunch of people were eating breakfast and I walked in and and ran to the dining room windows (which are larger than my bedroom) and I told them how excited I was, I had been praying for snow all week, and I'd never seen it before. Our base leader, Jeremy, stopped and said, "You've never seen snow before??"
"Not really...It doesn't snow in California where I live."
"Let's go outside!! This is a monumental moment!!" He opened the dining room door and I ran outside.

Then the Alaskan boy here threw a snowball at me. Right in the arm. And I loved it.

We went to Life Center and had class and at break there was even more snow!!

Finally at lunch I went and took more pictures....Snow is so beautiful!!!!!!

It looks like a Christmas card!!!

It has started melting a little bit :-(

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

The week before last we had Tom Osterhus teaching us on what it means to have a Biblical Worldview.

Tom is from YWAM Maui and his class was teaching us how beliefs and our view is the world is shaped. He also talked about how important it is that if we are going to claim to be Christians our worldview (in politics and such) should also be Christ-like, otherwise we are just talk and no walk.

He talked about how important it is that we know our Bible and stay grounded in God's character and nature; we cannot live our lives just off of experiences we have with the Holy Spirit (although those are amazing), we also need to have the Biblical background to support us and keep us grounded.

Tom also came over Monday night for an extra class (our classes ran way over time, plus we squeezed in a few evening classes as well) where he gave us a test to sort of get an idea of where our Biblical Worldview lies.

This was about 20 questions long and it gave statements that you Strongly Agree, Tend to Agree, Neutral, Tend to Disagree, or Strongly Disagree with. The test resulted in your worldview being Biblical Theism, Moderate Christian, Secular Humanism, or Socialist. Mine ended up being Socialist. Thank you, America, for all your public school systems have taught me. About 9 of us were Socialists and 9 of us were Secular Humanists/borderline Socialists.

Tom also explained Eastern religions from their point of view as well as the Humanistic perspective on things. He showed us how different nations were suffering because of their worldviews and broke down how your worldview really shapes your decisions and your nation.
America, for instance, is still living off the fruit the last couple Bible-believing generations had planted. Because our nation is making choices that are so anti-Biblical the coming generations are suffering and the economy is only going to get worse as an effect. We are making different choices and expecting the same or better results that are only going to fail us.
He gave us examples with Congo and Haiti and the Netherlands, too much for me to share. He talked about how Japan's economy was able to thrive the way it did Pre-WWII (or maybe WWI....probably WWII) and how he used strict Biblical economics and how this man, William Vories, moved to Japan because he wanted to be a missionary and used business as a way to do it. His Biblical economics caused his business to thrive and the Japanese recognized it worked and wanted to use it. One major ethic he taught was that he would not do business with anyone that was financially corrupt. This caused the Japanese to start being honest with their business dealings and Vories continued to disciple them in Biblical economics (unfortunately not in other areas as well).

Everyone getting settled for Tom's class in the living room

It was very interesting, what Tom had to say. He gave us tons of book recommendations and I definitely wish I had more time to learn from him.

Oh! And his Hawaiian wife also had him bring us some Hawaiian candy :-)

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
The entire week I had been praying that God would send me a letter from a stranger with money. And one day I got a letter. From a stranger. But there wasn't any money.

It was from a stranger I had met the weekend at convergence who was one of the people on my community outreach team. How kind!

That Friday, October Wedding had a Team Nepal fundraising gig at the opening night of a coffee shop.

We had a great time and they made $8.59 from donations!! (haha...don't worry. They made significantly more at their next fundraising concert.)



Completely irrelevant, I want to share something with you!

YWAM Harrisburg, Burn 24-7, and Life Center are hosting a 3 week summer intensive worship school called Hillside Intensive! Hillside Intensive is a worship school to train prophetic musicians with the vision of seeing them raised up and releasing a sound that gathers the lost and births revival in cities!

Definitely something I recommend trying out! If you come, you get to live in the 333 House (whoo!!!) and not to mention you get to learn from amazing people like Will Reagan & United Pursuit, Sean Feucht, Rick Pino, Bryan and Katie Torwalt, and so many more!! One of my roommates did it and it changed her life -- I am definitely going to be trying to come back to Harrisburg for this!

Alright, well, I must get going... I will definitely try and get a few more posts written and out before I leave to South Africa on Thursday! I can't believe it! I am so excited!!!!

I love you all!

Xoxo,
Cheryl

P.S.
I still need about $550....if you are interested in sponsoring, or know someone who would be interested, please email me at cherylann.rehn@gmail.com