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!!