These Adventures with God

Well, the last time I blabbed I was about to do my silent retreat so I suppose I will update you on what God has been doing since then :) 

I went into my silent retreat (SR) without knowing what to expect. I feel like last november (2011) God really did some big work in my life. There was a lot of transformation that happened for me then. So though I am not being arrogant in thinking I have nothing left to work on , I do believe that those really "BIG" things God had already helped me move past didnt need to be dealt with. I felt like I went into the SR without holding onto anything or being heavily burdened by anything. When people asked me how the retreat went, I tell them it was like "weeding my heart garden". Now as ridiculous as that sounds I felt like that is what happened. I was just hanging out with God. We were getting to know each other better. I was becoming more familiar with his voice as I quieted myself to hear him speak. As we hung out he would bring things up for me, nothing huge, just little things that I had not moved past yet. Perhaps someone I had not totally forgiven or perhaps people that I love that I was not trusting him to take care of. As God brought things up, we would work through them and then we would keep hanging out. It was almost like a filtration time, no, a purification time. Like God was purifying my relationship with him, getting rid of even the most minuet things that were diluting our relationship. It was such a refreshing time. To be honest the first 18 hours I slept pretty much solid. I was so exhausted and I felt like God was just saying "first take a rest, then we will work together". I also came to peace with some things on the retreat. I was really scared about where I would go (Berlin vs Thailand) and who the leaders of our teams would be. I was really struggling with giving that all to God. Eventually I felt like he gave me this phrase, "I am a missionary". At first I didnt understand but then he promoted my spirit with some questions. "Where are you right now? Are you serving them? When you go home for the holidays, do you love me and witness to me then? In Berlin, will you follow me there? And yes, in Thailand, will you love me and serve in my name there?" to all these questions I battled and struggled and thought, yes, yes I (if nothing else) strive to do this wherever I go. So God gave me that phrase for myself. I. am. a. missionary. In Abbotsford, I would be one in Berlin, and I would be one in Thailand. When it came to the leadership I was even more stressed.. God just kept telling me "Becca, you are going to learn to follow, are you ready to follow?" and though it wasnt easy at first I eventually came to terms with it, I was even excited. I thought, even if I am on a team with a leader I struggle with and we end up in Berlin, I will still have joy, I will still have my God. might seem petty, but it was hard for me to give it up and reach this point. WELL as you all know, 2 days later the teams were announced. They wrote our names on a flip chart and covered them , gathered us all together, then once we were all there they uncovered the chart and we moved directly into worship. It was shocking. I was so stunned, not only had God put all 8 of us on one team together, he was sending us all to Thailand and he put me as the leader! I was all , "what God?!" I did not know what to think, but then the thought came back to me "Becca, are you ready to follow?" and I realized that when I got that phrase on the SR Jesus was asking me if I was ready to follow him. Its pretty nuts and I still feel unequipped but I know that God is going to do some big things and that in my inadequacy he will work and that nothing I could ever say or do would have any merit without him anyways. crazy. 

The next big event that happened was this wonderful little (BIG) event called Amazing Trek. Now if you know the show amazing race then you know what this looks like sort of the only difference is, the leaders and interns designed amazing trek to pretty much break you in every way possible. yeah. fun lol. The race started off with a posting the day before. The note said that the race was going to happen and it would be beginning any time between 4 and 7am, yes am. It would go till 3 pm. We would not know when they were coming thus we would have to be ready and down there at 4am, if we wanted to eat breakfast then 330. Marley and I had this great idea to be hard core and sleep on the couches so that we could just sleep in our cloths and then here the interns when they walked in, we didnt think about the fact that the other 6 wouldnt be there with us and that they would  be down at 330. needless to say we hardly slept. When the interns finally arrived at 5am our adrenaline kicked in, and the race started off with a bang. Our team of 4 made about a 5 min lead right off the bat. This was the ONLY lead we had the entire day. This first challenge we were given a gps and and some corrdinants. We had to run about 6 km to get to these corrdinants then find a bandana . It was raining. what a suprise lol. We found our first bandana no problem then we continued to our second corrdinants for our second bandana. We could not find this thing anywhere. It was raining and dark, we were cold and literally searching on our hands and knees in a chunk of forest. For TWO AND A HALF hours we searched! we were so frustrated. finally our leaders told us to move on. We later found out that the bandana had gone missing and we searched for so long for nothing. When we finally got back to the Mark Centre at 9 after finishing that challenge and going for our second one we were greeted by a "missionary breakfast" this might have been the hardest challenge for me the entire day. We had to eat some of the worst things I have ever seen or smelt in my life. that is not an exaggeration. Some things included balut- a cooked half developed baby duck still in its egg. A "fruit" that looked like chicken, smelled like rotting flesh, and tasted like it smelled. Salted, pickled papaya - one little piece and all your taste buds would close and you would gag at the strong salt/rotting taste. There was much more but those were just a few. We did many more challenges throughout the day, walking I think probably over 70km throughout that day in the rain. One of another difficult challenges was when we were given a license plate of a vehicle and told it was anywhere in the mall parking lot and we had to find it. It could have been anywhere and we had to check every vehicle. We searched the parking lots and the car parks all twice and we still didnt find it. After another 2.5 hours of searching we finally called a leader and they gave us a hint. When we finally found the car we realized there had been a mix up and they had accidentally given us the wrong licence plate number. We were searching the WHOLE time with the wrong number. We were pissed lol. So far that day we had accidentally been given the short end of the stick twice in pretty big ways. Anyways I just wanted to give you all an idea of what this day looked like. It was physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting. 

Everything in this race was designed to go against us there was a point to it though and I think it is a point that our team learned. One was that the race was supposed to bring out the worst in us, we had to learn to be patient with each other, be encouraging, wait for each other, hold each other together as a team and lead as a group. Another was that in an extreme way our leaders were trying to prep us for the mission field. Really making us aware that sometimes we have to relinquish our rights for something to be fair, relinquish our rights to being able to explain ourselves or to make sense of certain situations. We had to let go of our individual needs and take up those of the team. We would have to relinquish our schedules and our "plans." Though this was unreal in its ability to break each one of us down to our lowest our team really did have fun with it, as in we would just go into a fit of laughter any time we were overly exhausted or so angry we wanted to cry BUT, we were stretched, there is no doubt about that and I suppose that lesson is invaluable. At one point I Marley and I were in hysterics of some sort and I looked over at her and said "yeah I would totally do amazing race" about 5 min later were were doing another challenge and we both came to the conclusion that if anyone ever forced us to be in the amazing race we would probably bowl them down. Then the joke became, "yeah, I could totally do this again-- said no one ever!!" which is really the truth lol. 

needless to say things have been crazy. I am learning about team. God is showing me how important quality time with him is. God is also teaching me about spiritual gifts. Its actually pretty cool to be growing in some of the giftings God has placed me in :) I dont know why but I used to think that I wouldnt get or didnt have a spiritual gift. I didnt know that God gave everyone gifts and it was just a matter of learning them. Well, God sure is teaching me. The more familiar I come to his voice the more I realize he is speaking to me all day long. Throughout every moment. Something cool God has been teaching me to do is to be bold in words he gives me for other people. As I pray for people God has been giving me words or pictures for them sometimes. The more I am attuned to Christ's spirit I am realizing that God has given me some ability to be able to bless people in this!! there is no greater joy then relaying the words God gives a person to them!!!

God is so good and I am so aware of that in this place!! thank you for your support and your prayers. I would ask for continued prayer especially in finances still. To be perfectly honest I still need at least 7000 dollars of support and I only have about 4 weeks for this to come in. I know God is going to provide, I know he is has called me here and so I know he wont leave me hanging. I have not been stressed about this but I am asking, in boldness, for your support as you feel led, even in sharing my mission and goal with people you may come into contact with.  I am also asking for prayer in this newfound leadership role. Just that I would be able to lead this team of 8 with confidence in the Lord, always having a listening ear to whatever God is relaying to me. 

I love you all and I am so grateful that people like you love me enough to even come here to this site and read my rantings and my experiences. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I love you all!! GOD BLESS!! 

Gods reminder

Well if there is anything I am sure of its that God is good! More than good! It is just so good to be here with no agenda but to grow and learn. What a blessing my Father brought me too :) 

Well I am aware that last time I blogged I didnt give much information as to what my schedule and life so far in Trek has actually looked like, so I'll give ya a snap shot now! A typical day is breakfast at 730 and then life journaling at 8. For life journaling we were put into groups and directed to pick some scripture and work through it. This has been such a rich time for me every morning to meet with my two lovely group girls and sit by the fire and discuss how Gods word is speaking to us and how we can apply it to our lives. We are working through the book of Galatians. We spend 15 min reading and picking a verse from our section that really stood out to us, then we compare it with different translations. We then spend 15 min journaling and looking first at factual observations then life applications. After that we spend 30 min discussing and praying over the scriptures and the rest of our day. We then usually have 2 more sessions before lunch. This week is all about "hearing Gods voice" and about the different ways and places that God communicates to us. Its been such a new and beautiful topic for me. I am astounded at how much God speaks and how often before I have missed it. Through the help of the Spirit I am learning to hear and obey what God tells me. Then we have lunch, for an hour after lunch every day we have a scripture memorization time. I am trying to memorize the whole book of Ephesians by the end of Trek. So far its been so good! The idea of writing Gods precious words to us on my heart is so appealing to me and I get so excited about it, that we even have the freedom to do this! Its so good! The rest of the afternoon we usually have another session then some free time. After dinner we will sometimes have group time, sometimes free time, sometimes reading time, and sometimes a planned activity. Each week we each have a different chore as well so chores are thrown in there sometime too :) By the end of it all we are kept pretty busy with just the right balance between it all and sufficient free time. 

Today was a little difficult for me, I felt like I was wrestling with God today about some things and it was kind of exhausting to be honest ha. I woke up refreshed for the first time since coming to the Mark Centre (I have had some trouble sleeping) but from there I just felt unrest all through my devotions, right through till the about 2 when we had a lovely and incredibly wise woman named Sandy came speak to us. Now being me (who wears my emotions on my sleeve) All day I had been a bit teary eyed and maybe a little withdrawn. I was in this attitude , of grumpy/upset unrest-fulness sitting on my phone in the common room. I heard someone come in but I didnt bother to look up or introduce myself as I normally would have with new speakers/session leaders. I just kept scrolling through my facebook news feed on my phone. I looked up for a sec and noticed this lady (Sandy) was trying to post a paper up on the paper board, she couldnt get it posted so I stood up to help. As I did so she looked at me, and you have to know, I'd never spoken to or met this woman before, she said "you're Becca right?"  and I said "yes? have we met?" and she simply said "no, but this morning God gave me a word for you so I wrote it out on this paper, you can read it and tell me if it fits. If it doesnt then leave it, if it fits then God wants you to hear it" and handed me a letter with my name on top. I was dumbfounded. I had just come in from a walk and was asking God while I was walking to help me sort through my frustrations. I was bringing my struggles to him and I felt like we were almost wrestling in our interaction. I wasnt submitting to his will. Anyways I took the letter and read it and I was hit with both a deep conviction and freedom. Part of the letter spoke to something I have struggled with a whole lot lately, my pride. Gods reminder to me was that everything should be done out of who he is, and not out of my needs. It was such a powerful and real moment for me. That God spoke directly to me on something that I was struggling with so much, through this woman who I had never seen or met before in my life. 

Our God cares so much and is so active and real. The Holy Spirit is waiting with such anticipation for us to let him reign in our lives, and when we do, he delights in astounding us with his presence and with his tangibility. I hope and encourage every one of you, whoever that might be, to give reign to the Holy Spirit in your life today. You will not regret it. There is something incredibly powerful in letting God run your life completely. 

Blessings! 
~ Me (Becca!)

PS: If you are praying for me here are some specifics that I would be delighted to have prayer for

- I am memorizing scripture right now, just that I would have the mind to retain and really grasp what I am memorizing. 
- I still have a significant amount of support financially to raise in a fairly small time frame. Just that I would continue to trust in Gods provision and guidance in that. 
-I am entering into 48 hours of silence on the 17th (tomorrow). Just that I would be really attentive to understand what God is communicating to me. 
- and lastly that I wouldnt be to homesick. You all know I love my family and being away from them is at times extremely difficult. Just that I would allow God to fill that space in my heart and that I would have the capacity to love from a distance. 

Thank you!!!! 

Abundantly more!

Well, here I am. 

ha I wrote that line and sat staring at it for about 10 minutes because I honestly for once am speechless, I do not know where to begin. I guess Ill start with my first day of TREK, last Sunday. 

Erin helped me move in. We moved into the Mark Centre which is a retreat centre based on the Gospel of Mark, a truly beautiful book. Each room here at the retreat centre is named after an event or moment in the book of Mark. My room name is "Expectancy" and it is based on the story of a woman who pushed through the crowd just so she could touch the robe of Jesus, having faith that if she could just touch the robe of Christ she would be healed. This woman had faith and an expectancy in Jesus. Its a very cool story and I am excited to be living in a room with this type of meaning because thats exactly how I am coming into trek, Im expecting God to blow my mind, I am expecting him to be hear living and active because thats what I have experienced thus far in my life, a God who shows up. Bill used to say "expect a miracle" so its just really cool for me to be in this room :) All that to say, the very first day I showed up, Erin helped me move in then she left and I went downstairs to the common room to hangout with my fellow "trekies" there was actually no one there yet but one of the 3 interns (3 wonderful people who help run this program) We were just sitting and talking, not even about anything special or anything but I just had this shiver down my back and I got goose bumps and I just felt God tell me that this was exactly where he has called me to be. I have never been more sure of where my heavenly Father has brought me and it feels so good to be able to, though I fail often, walk in the will of my Lord, it is bringing me to a place of abundance.

A lot has happened this week, we have been to a lot of sessions, we have heard from a lot of people and God has been working a lot. Through everything I have just been completely overwhelmed with how good and how faithful our God is. I cant describe it because there are literally no words to express how abundant our beautiful Lord has been to me!! Its overwhelming in the most wonderful way imaginable! This week every person on trek shared a part of their story. I got to share a bit about the way God has been working in my life too. When each person was done we were quiet for a bit of time just waiting to see if God would put something on anyones heart for the person who had just shared. After I shared one of the lovely girls thats here too gave me a verse which coincidentally  (or not so coincidentally) was one that I felt God put on my heart already this summer. Its Ephesians 3:14-21 and it says this:

"When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or imagine.Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen."

These verses have just come to such fulfilment begining this summer and then since then. I feel like finally God is living in my heart and though I fail all the time I am trying to give him free reign in my life. I feel like my roots are finally in the right source and are finally grounded. I feel like, though it is just one grain of an entire beach of sand, I have finally begun to understand the love of my Father!! and because of all of this I am experiencing such fullness in my life!! Whether plans fall through or work. Whether things go my way or not. Through disappointment, joy, heart ache, confusion, and more, through it all I feel like I have "abundantly more than I could ever have asked or imagined" My God is so big and he has conquered so much for me, all I can do is lay my life at the foot of the cross and ask and pray that he would use me in whatever ways he needs. In whatever ways it might look like I want to beat to the heart of Jesus and as I strive to do this I experience abundatly more than I could have ever hoped for! We serve an amazing God! 

All I am

Here we go. In approximately 3 days I will be moving into the Mark’s Centre and beginning my 6 month journey of TREK. I wish I could say that this only brings me excitement and anticipation but to be perfectly honest, in this moment right now, it mostly scares me. Some days I wish I never left home because the fact that I left now means that my heart is divided between two beautiful places that I love almost equally, and every time that I come home to Lethbridge I feel this way. Being away from my family is the most difficult thing for me, I used to think it would get easier over time but mostly my heart just grows fonder thus the distance just gets harder. This sounds pessimistic but I am actually so excited too. I legit cant wait, I am so excited to be open to whatever God wants from me this next while especially, I know he is going to teach me more than I could ever imagine and despite how difficult it might be I know that God is going to blow my mind and when I come out of this, I will have infinitely more than I could have asked or imagined going in. But right now in this moment its just kinda hard to grasp. I wont see my beautiful little nieces or nephew for at least 6 months., maybe more. One of my best friends is having a baby in March and I wont be here. I dunno I guess its just hard to sacrifice some things. Yet even now as I think this is hard… its really not. I would give up anything if God asked me to, I really would, because nothing in my life is worth anything unless my God grants it. All I wanna do is follow my Lord, and he brought me here!! To this beautiful place and gave me this beautiful opportunity! And I am SO excited to see how he will move. It overwhelms me, the way that God has already provided, in the way that he has given me a new measure of trust in areas where I would have struggled to give up so much more before , even in the new people he has brought into my life. My God never ceases to amaze me. So as I sit here, in my old room in my parents house, in the last bit of home I will have for a very long time, I wait in anticipation, loosening my hold on my God has asked me to give to him for now, and trusting that no matter what happens, no matter what I feel like Im giving up that is irreplaceable, no matter how my heart hurts, this is his will, and nothing would be more painful to me than not following Gods call on my life. That is something that I cannot and will not compromise because I already know that I cannot function without the guidance of my loving and beautiful Savior. Its 2013! This year holds so much and I expect nothing short of miracles in my life this year because  my God is good and amazing and I KNOW he has got this under control. So I’m giving all I am, everything I hope and dream. Everything that scares me or hurts me. All the crap and all the good and I pray that God would use me, or break me, or do whatever he wishes in my life for his glory. All I am is all I have and I want to give all I have for my Lord.  Come at me 2013!!