September 17, 2010

Today was desert day, which wasn’t in the desert. We took our bag lunches and found some place to be quiet with God somewhere on the Big Woods property. I saw the exact spot from afar where I was going to sit. Once I got to the spot, about three horses were standing where I wanted to sit. I’ve always been afraid of large animals, especially horses, because they have minds of their own and can hurt you if they so please. I wasn’t so afraid today. I was able to reach out and pet one of them. I feel as though God is healing me of some of the fears that I once had. So… back to desert day. I was sitting out in a field under a tree reading my bible and praying and this dragonfly wouldn’t leave me alone. It kept on landing on my bible or my journal, or my leg. I finally looked closely at it and realized it had a broken wing. It was still flying with its broken wing. I felt like God was telling me that I too can fly, even if I have broken wings. I can soar for Him with all of my imperfections! It was an awesome reminder that I’m not perfect, I need Jesus, and with Him I can move mountains!!!

September 20, 2010

Today was the first official day of Intake. I woke up early for my run, had my personal prayer time, and got ready for breakfast. After breakfast we had morning- prayer together. Once we finished prayer we had talk after talk after talk about different things. One of the talks was out of the Vatican II documents and all of it sounded like Greek to me. I was so overwhelmed, and this is only the first day! I was thinking in my head, “I’m not going be able to make it through these next months, because it’s the first real day and I’m already so confused!” That was exactly what Satan wanted me to think. I talked everything over with Mrs. Genie and she said that it was an unusual day. Did I mention that I got my first assignment that day too! Read out of the Catechism and give a report on what I read. Oh man….. I have to talk in front of everyone???!! Life as a missionary is already presenting challenges, but I know that with God I can over come them!

September 21, 2010

God always gives us exactly what we need. For those who don’t know, I’m very hard on my self with just about everything in my life. This morning I slept past my alarm, and therefore didn’t go for a jog. Last night before I went to bed, I didn’t read the material that I should have. Those two things along with a few other thoughts made me feel like a failure when I woke up this morning as well as really frustrated with myself. When I got to my spot where I have my personal prayer time, I poured out all of my frustrations to God. After I was finished praying and pouring my heart out to Him, I looked up and there was a rainbow. This was unusual because it was 7:30 in the morning. It was a nice little blessing to remind me that God was with me there on that porch swing. Thank you God for the little ways you speak so personally to me!

September 24, 2010

Today I had to give my testimony on why I am a missionary. By giving this talk, I also had to give some background for the story to make sense. Well about an hour before I was going to talk, I became so nervous. When you think about, most people get nervous before having to speak in front of people, so shouldn’t that be comforting? Well it wasn’t. I decided to go into the chapel to pray for a little while. I asked the Holy Spirit for peace and for the words I said to be His words and not my own. I really spent time preparing for my testimony and wrote everything out. When I started speaking in front of the group I was reading off of my paper and then I felt the Holy Spirit moving. I didn’t need the words on my paper any more, He was giving me the word to say. My story went well and I had the most incredible high after that! It made me realize that God is going to throw many things in my path for me to do, and they are going to stretch me, but I have to do them. Being a missionary means that I’m going to constantly be stretched and do things that are going to be uncomfortable, but God is going to use them to bring Himself glory! Praise be Jesus Christ!

So, this morning I woke up knowing that today was the day that I started on the newest journey God has me on. Today is the day I move to Big Woods, to start my mission career……

The last few months have been filled with lots of work, lots of family time, and lots of preparation for my new journey! About three weeks before I came to Louisiana I was so worried about how I was going to pay for the first part of Intake, which was $1000. I knew God was going to provide, I just didn’t know where the money was going to come from. I decided to have a garage sale and my mom’s friends and sister donated things to it. The sale was a success and I made $391. My old roommate Heather paid me $250 for all of my furniture that she and her husband have been using and it is now theirs. So that puts the total earned money towards Intake at $641, close to my goal of $1000, but not quite there. I had no idea where the rest of the money was going to come from and about a week before Intake started I heard from Sarah Kate (a worker at Family Missions Company) that I had $325 left in my account from a trip I took to Mexico this summer. Yahoo!!! The new total is now at $966. Now I’m really almost there! When I arrived in Louisiana, one of my stops was my Aunt Cindy’s house. When I got there, she slipped a check into my purse for $50. You can do the math, but I reached the goal for Intake! God is so good. He always provides exactly what we need.

On another note, today isn’t just the start of Intake, it was also the birth of two very special babies! Baby Liam and baby Eli were born today!!!!

So, some of you are probably wondering about the name of my blog. While I was in Mexico this summer on a two week mission trip with Family Missions Company, I felt God calling me to missions. I didn't know what that meant, so I spent some time in prayer. I went ahead and told God that I would go where ever he wanted me to go and do what he wanted me to do. On our trip in Mexico, we had a day called desert day, which is where we went out into the desert with only our bibles and journals and had quiet prayer time with God. While in the desert I told God if he wanted me to go to Intake 2010, he had to make it rain in the desert. Well it started raining. I then told him it wasn't raining hard enough. When we got back to the mission house, it rained so hard, it flooded inside of the house and then hailed! I feel like the hail was the exclamation point on God saying, "Sarah you are going to Intake 2010!" So this is where the name of the blog began and actually my journey on missions began that day in Mexico