Africa

I can't believe I am going to be on my way to Africa in less than 24 hours. God's provision for this trip already has blown my mind! I can't wait to get back and share what God does while I'm there! I'm planning on blogging the days like I did for Cambodia. Please be praying for me while I am gone (May 29th-June 7th). Pray for energy, safety and health for me. Pray for effectiveness, sensitivity and flexibility for my team. Pray for the people of Uganda to come to know Christ on a new level because of the way that we tell them about Him through our words and actions.

And now, on a less serious note, I am going to copy what my best friend did when she went to Africa for the first time and leave you with this:

Abundant life

The thing I have been learning for the past week, is that when Jesus promised me abundant life (John 10:10), He meant it!

Last weekend I got to see my "sisters" from high school in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. It was a weekend full of coffee, music, and encouragement. We caught up, laughed til we cried, jammed til we were too tired, and encouraged one another. It was the best! I love them more than anything! Anyways, we went to an amazing worship service in Austin at The Stone. The sermon was on prayer, and if you read my last blog, God definitely planned it that I would hear that message.

(You can listen to the sermon HERE!)

After I heard that sermon, I was very challenged and inspired. Monday morning started off with some intense prayer with my best friend Taylor. I came back to the room, and checked my phone. I had tons of messages of people who had donated to my trip. That week, I went from being $1,130 away from my goal to being fully funded. God is faithful! When He calls, He also provides!

So, now that you are caught up and I am officially going to Uganda, I have another call to prayer and action for you from one of my friends, Steven.

He writes:

Dealing with Doubts (Numbers 13-14):

God did some pretty amazing things to bring his chosen people to the Promised Land (so called because, well, He promised them that He'd give it to them). He used the horrific betrayal of Joseph at the hands of his brothers to eventually save all of Israel and a hefty portion of Egypt. When his people were enslaved, he not only set them free but humbled one of the most powerful empires in the ancient world in the process. He then led those people through some of the harshest terrain on Earth, providing for their needs with water from rocks and bread that appeared in the dew. And yet...

Moses and the tribes of Israel stopped outside of the Promised Land and sent a contingent of spies to scope it out. After over a month, the spies returned and told everyone how incredible their inheritance was. And that there was no way they could obtain it. The people are too big and too many, there's no way we can have what was promised to us by the All Powerful Creator of the Universe.

What?

I've been afraid to admit this until recently, but I did the same thing. China is my Promised Land and God wants to send me, but I didn't think there was any way $4,000 was going to happen in a month. That number is too big!

We have a saying in Royal Servants: "Faith is believing that God is able to do what He said He would do." When you think about it, that shouldn't be hard at all. No more indecisive diction: I'm going to China. The only people who saw the Promised Land and were allowed to enter after Israel's complete lack of faith were the two spies who said "God told us this would be ours and I believe Him."

I'm going to China. Will you help me?

Steven is returning to China this summer to do some work that the Lord has so obviously called Him to do! He will be teaching English and sharing about Jesus over there! Please consider donating to His trip! Be a part of what God is doing in China.

More info HERE!

Donate HERE! (Just select Steven Jones in the drop down box)

Trust falls

Have you ever done a trust fall before? Because they make me feel about the same way that fundraising for missions does... You know the person standing behind you is going to catch you. They are waiting for you to fall so that they can catch you. Yet, somehow, it still takes a surge of willpower to overcome the fear of falling back blindly into their arms.

Today, I found out I have $1,130 to go on my fundraising for Uganda, and while that number is smaller than the $3,500 that I originally set out to raise, so is the number of days left to raise it. 13 short days. That is less than two weeks.

So, here I am arms crossed, falling back; I have to trust God to catch me on this one. Who new this trip would be such a faith building exercise even before I got on the plane...

HERE! is my blog about what I will be doing in Uganda.

If you feel led to contribute and be a part of what God is doing in Uganda, please send a check addressed to World Water Project with my name in the memo line to:

World Water Project
107 Westfield Drive
Knoxville, TN 37919

OR donate online (3% processing fee) HERE! but please put my name in the dedication box so it goes towards my trip. Thanks for being a part! Look for updates and more info HERE!

But more than anything, please continue to pray for this trip!

HOW we go (or stay, for that matter)

So, I don't normally just write a sentence or two and then post a hyperlink to another blog that I think is awesome, but I am today. This guy puts it way better than I ever could. I encourage you to read this blog posting:

HERE.

As a bonus, there is a really awesome beard in this blog. (Sorry, I'm a dork!)

West, Texas

Today at 7:50PM a fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploded.

A dozen people are dead.
Hundreds of people are seriously injured.
At least 5 first responder volunteer fire fighters are dead.
One first responder police officer is dead.
More than 40 homes were flattened.

This is just the beginning of the statistics that I am seeing on the news right now.

My heart is broken.

I was in West, Texas last night. I ate dinner there.

Stuff like this really makes you appreciate today. We are not promised tomorrow. Life is short, you never know when your last day is gonna be. Makes you ask the hard questions...

How are you using the time that you have? If today was your last day, would you be ready?

Pray for West, Texas.

The greatest calling

The Rolling Stones really knew what they were talking about when they said, "I can't get no satisfaction, 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try..." I feel like in America, that is the definition of life. We are never, EVER satisfied in life! We always need the next big thing, whether it be some cool technological advancement, job promotion, or relationship -- we never have enough where we are. Lately this has been my life.

But I'll get back to that in a minute.

I am not in school right now. I don't have a career, or even a full time job. I have no idea what I am doing next semester. I feel like my life has no direction and like I am disappointing my family; I have been given so many opportunities and I am not producing the expected results with my life. All of this has given me a lot of shame to carry around lately. I have been feeling stuck. It's not that I'm not trying, I'm applying to every school and hospital in DFW, just without success.

God, why aren't You helping me move forward? Are You holding me back? Why are you making me wait? What doors have I forgotten to knock on? What even is the point of my life?

So I started grasping, trying to fix myself. Maybe if I just quit my life and go be a missionary... Maybe if I join the Air Force... Maybe if I...

So much self reliance. So little direction. So much uncertainty. So little trust. So much impatience. So little hope. So much worry.

What is worry? Well, I had that answered for me very well last night by Chelsea Seaton at a Pink Impact conference at Gateway church -- I'm so glad I took notes! So here are her thoughts on worry:

1. Worry is not fear. Fear is something that will happen, worry is something that might happen. Worry is full of "What if..."

2. Worry is deceptive. Worry makes us feel like we are in control, or like we are the ones who have to fix it. We need to trust the Lord and give Him our worries!

3. Worry is worship. When you spend all of your time worrying "What if...," that is ascribing greater worth to the thing you are worrying about than you give to God.

Matthew 6:24-33

‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.'

Worry is saying God will not provide. Worry is saying, God whatever You have for me isn't good enough; whatever You have for me is not satisfying.

So, while I was at this conference, there was a ton of worship. I love worship. Music is totally my heart language. But, I just couldn't get into it last night. The band was great. The setting was beautiful. The lights were flashy. I sat down during the worship set and just prayed for the Lord to help me worship Him and just focus on Him. I started thinking about my worship experiences in Cambodia, easily the best of my life. The band wasn't always perfectly on key. There wasn't any fancy lighting or technology. There was nothing to attract you to it. Nothing, except Jesus.

(I promise I am going to get back to my original story! Stick with me!)

It got me thinking, the American church just isn't as easily satisfied. We want Jesus, plus flashy lights and great sound. (Disclaimer: I'm not trying to hate on having a great band, and I think that those are great tools to draw new people into a worship setting. I am just noting that having a great band isn't what allows us to worship Jesus.) How many of the people at the conference would have had their hands raised in worship at the worship service I experienced in Cambodia? Are we really satisfied with just Jesus, or do we need Jesus plus something else?

In the middle of that thought process, the Lord spoke to me: Jenn, that is what your life is saying to Me. You are spending so much time worrying about what direction your life is going in, or what giant calling you are going to get to live out, that you are missing the greatest calling. I made you to glorify Me; that is your purpose. 

It makes me think of Anna, who is a New Testament prophetess that most people probably either haven't heard of or don't remember. You can find her in Luke 2:36-38.

"And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem."

For the vast majority of her life, Anna fasted and prayed night and day in the temple. That was her life. That was her calling. She spent her life, not in the mission field turning millions of people to the Lord nor working at some important job. She spent her life glorifying God, and she was satisfied in that. She had, like all believers now have, the greatest calling of all -- giving glory to God.

The Lord spoke to me: Your life is not about being a missionary, or having a great job or college degree (although those are all good things); your life is about Me and My glory.

Am I satisfied in that? Am I satisfied to have Jesus and nothing else? I heard a quote on the radio last summer, "To have God and everything is no more than to have God an nothing." Do I believe that? I have spent so much time reflecting on Christ's promise of abundant and full life in John 10:10. Do I really believe that the life He has to offer me is more satisfying than what I have to offer myself?

Do you?

Uganda

So, if you know me, you most likely know that I am going to Uganda in a little over a month. I know that I started this blog for my Cambodia trip, but I want to just share how I was called to go on this trip and the whole process up to this point.

Basically, since I got back from Cambodia in November, God started putting a burden on my heart for Uganda. Now, I had heard about Kony, but that is literally all I know about this country at this point in my life. I didn't know anyone in Uganda. I didn't know any organizations serving Uganda. I seriously knew nothing about this country. Yet, for some reason, several times when I was praying or alone in my truck I could almost audibly hear the word "Uganda!" being spoken to me. I knew it was the Lord!

"God, what does that mean? What do you want me to do? God bless Uganda, I guess?" These are some of the things I said to God for about two months whenever this would happen. In January, I talked to a friend who reminded me of another friend, Emily, that had gone to Uganda the summer before.

Later that day, I Facebook messaged Emily asking for some specific things to pray about for Uganda. Two days later, she emailed me back inviting me to go on a trip she is leading!

The trip is with an amazing company called TivaWater. TivaWater is a water filter company that is partially for profit, partially nonprofit and fully for Jesus Christ! In Uganda, people die every day because of parasites and bacteria from drinking unsafe water; they developed an incredible filter that purifies any water into water that is pure and safe for people to drink. If that isn't amazing enough, the filters last up to ten years with little to no maintenance. They sell them to big cities, like Kampala, that can afford them and they donate them to small villages that cannot afford them. Seriously incredible. I love this organization. They do a lot of other stuff with the community, like schools for example, and look for any opportunity to share the love of Christ with the people of Uganda.

MORE INFO ON TIVAWATER HERE

So needless to say, I got pretty darn excited when I got Emily's email and I scheduled a dinner meeting with her a couple days later to learn more about the trip. On this trip, we will be doing a lot of different things, but the primary thing we will do is to distribute the water filters and meet the people of Uganda. We will use the water filters, or meeting one of their legitimate physical needs, in order to build relationships with the people so that we can tell them about the Living Water. I think about John 4:14; Jesus promises:

"But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."

That is the water that I want to give them! Having pure drinking water is definitely important, and God has called us to take care of the poor, but even more important is the Living Water that we are going to share with them!

So, that is why I am going in a very tiny nutshell. If you want anymore information, I am posting updates on my Facebook group page: HERE. If you would like to give, you can do so online: HERE (just put my name in the dedication box), or you can send a check to World Water Project (107 Westfield Drive, Knoxville, TN 37919) made out to World Water Project with my name in the memo line. I have to raise a total of $3500 by May 13th and I am already more than halfway there! I just have $1500 to go now. Please pray about this chance to get involved in bringing water (both physical and spiritual) to the people of Uganda with me! Also, please pray for my trip in general! We will be gone May 28th-June 9th!