A time that the FACT of God affects my reality ...

So I am DEATHLY afraid of heights. Ironic, I know, that I CHOSE to go on a mission trip that's FILLED with plane rides. Month 10 and I've ridden on 12 flights. That is 3 less than the countries I have at least touched down in, and the exact number of flights I've been on my ENTIRE life. I GET that more people die in car wrecks than in plane crashes BUT car wrecks are NOT THOUSANDS of MILES in the AIR at HUNDREDS of MILES per HOUR, meaning MUCH less survival rate, PLUS more people drive cars MORE often so OFCOURSE car crashes are going to be more common. I make sure to read the laminated safety procedures chart EVERY time I fly.

When I'm up in the air I feel like I can feel the pull of gravity on me and at the same time the weightless sensation that flying gives you. So I get dizzy nauseous, and the fact my over active imagination goes WILD with possible death scenarios (plane spiraling out of control, nose diving into obliteration, jet explosion encasing us in flames trapping me on board with no escape because there is very little room left on the OTHER sides rafts (that being the ONLY image where I land safely), etc.) only add an eye-watering head ache to the dizzy-swimming feeling and cause sleep to be minimal or nonexistent. The only way I have found to get past my disabling fear is with mind numbing movie watching.

Up until this past flight, I found myself petitioning God, and asking for protection against the THOUSANDS of things that go wrong on plane rides that might cause MY flight to go crashing to my death. Mind you I still believe that God can do whatever He wants to do and my praying for it doesn't mean that He'll do it, but I pray for it none-the-less just-in-case He will, AND to make me feel better (which I almost NEVER do). After I ask God for protection against the evils of dying in a plane crash, I am racked with guilt for praying to God selfishly or as if He were a pagan god, there only to give me what I want, a reassuring knowledge that I will land safely at my destination.  But who WOULD, if you could choose your own death, sign up for death by plane crash???

This past plane ride was a little different. Mind you I still prayed against all the evils that might cause my flight to crash, drunk or unconscious captain, engine explosion or failure, wings falling off, general bad luck ... BUT while I was praying for protection I was reminded that if that flight was my time to die it would be my time to die, and there was NO amount of petitioning God that'd get Him to MIRACULOUSLY save the plane. MY TIME. That is a change of perspective, proof that God is hearing and answering my prayers, mind you I am NOT praying to die and DEFFINITELY NOT in a plane crash. Some might say MORBID perspective, but I wouldn't. I'd call it truth. Isn't it my belief as a Christian that GOD has numbered my days, that I pass as vapor, grass to be tossed in the flames. I am human and I WILL die. I am NOT an ALMGHTY INVINCIBLE GOD and NOT EVERY time I call upon the LORD will He ALWAYS give me favor, if I was and I could I'd NEVER die and get ALL I want because I could. I also have NO CHOICE of how I die. Yes, I can pray for miracles, and yes, I should expect them too, but NO, I shouldn't be afraid of dying because God said that He has released me from that fear ... so why am I afraid?

I was reading a book series on my down time this last week of Swazi Dos and it reiterated that fact. That God has set a time, unbeknownst to me (yet), for me to die and a way for my death to happen, and THAT is ALL up to Him for the GLORY of Him, because as a Christian, a BELIEVER in ALL Christ is, that is what my entire life is suppose to be, for the Glory of Him. And praying for protection on any ride isn't a bad thing, NOR is prayer for a miracle while in the face of death because that is apart of the BLESSING of a loving GOD. The blessing of COMPLETE CONFIDENCE that you are LOVED entirely 100% to the FULLEST Nth DEGREE PETFECTLY by THE Creator of the UNIVERSE and can ask for such thing (Christ did too), but knowing EVEN IF deliverance ISN'T granted to you that The FAITHFUL God IS walking through it with you NO MATTER what. The blessing of a PERSPECTIVE that God IS there with you in your fear, in your pain, and is waiting for you on the other side with a life so much GREATER than this one to offer you - THAT is not a MORBID thought at all.

So as I sat on this flight, and I still prayed against dying on a plane or to die of fear before dying painfully on impact, and I still watched movies to hopefully distract me from the great height, and I still got sick from a sleep-deprived over-active-imagination- induced pulsating pain behind my eyeballs, I encountered a possibility to exercise a faith MUCH greater and more REAL than I have known on my own, that gave God a much bigger and more trust and faith than ever I thought possible to give, that He'd be there no MATTER what happened, ANOTHER prayer answered - the beginning of a REAL faith.

My prayer now is that this doesn't stay a shallow seed of an idea of a perspective BUT a seed deeply planted and firmly rooting itself BEYOND may head, past my heart and down in the depths of my soul. To grow into that beautiful LIFESTYLE of faith and love for a God that loves me so much more than my understanding. That is what I want - a constant, unconditional faith - NOT based off of emotional highs and lows,  or situational desperation BUT out of a FAITH firmly rooted and planted, growing and sustaining in depth and strength "entrenched into God's truth, into His love, into the Christ that will make His home in (my) heart" (Brian Shobert, 23 January 2011).

This is my prayer ...

"That He would grant [me], according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in [my] inner man,so that Christ may dwell in [my heart] through faith; and that [I], being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that [I] may be filled up to all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:16-19

• Sari's: check
• Internet: check
• Zoo: check
• Rock Temples: check
• Beach: check
• ATM: to do today
• Thomas' Mount: someday

You know when God wants you somewhere when He does the unexpected (to you the impossible) to keep you where you are at.

 Australia - an experience, to say the least, for some of it to say the most. There are no other words for it. There are a few things I found out about myself at the end of that month that I didn't know before. My prayer is that you keep me in your prayers that I can find away to work out these things and ways that I can deal with them or accept them.

The last three days of Australia our team hooked up with the Squad in Darwin before we headed out to Malaysia. Tuesday night. We had just spent the last few days in Australia finding out new Squad Leaders, Team Leaders and going through team changes, and I, during this entire time, was stressing over my lacking in support. It was the 10,000 dollar mark and I was further behind than I thought I was due to some miscommunication back in the States. Needless to say, I was a little on edge when anyone asked me how I was doing financially, which my caring squad-mates asked me at least once or twice a day.

That night, the squad was being blessed by Long Grass Church, the church that we were staying at as a Squad in Darwin before we left for Malaysia, with an AMAZING Holy Spirit worship service. There was singing, praying, and speaking life into each other all going on at the same time - a few moments of preaching there too in the midst of it. We basically ended up with an open mike and just spoke life like breezes of fresh air over and into everyone.

 I was sitting and singing and listening and my mind just floated from a thought of my financial situation when Ben Gange, one of the new Team Leaders (Rooted), stepped up to the open mike and spoke words of love, to mean unrealistic act of love, out over the two of us who hadn't made it to the 10,000 mark yet. He challenged the Squad to donate some of their own funds, if they were able to, to us who were lacking. My heart leapt for about ten seconds as that seemingly impossible thought of my Squad actually donating to my count. I cried at the idea of my Squad doing something like that for me, but I quickly dismissed it because I personally didn't think it would be realistic to think that 42 plus-some strangers would donate to someone like me who was so obviously immature and irresponsible that she didn't make the financial deadline and was risking to be sent home. No, I thought to myself, my Squad (who most of them aren't fully funded themselves for all I know) would NOT donate to me, at MOST they would pray over and lay hands on us. So I went from ten seconds of hope filled to a few seconds of reality.

And so they called us who are financially behind to the front. Hands were laid on us and prayers were being spoken over us. C-Deli (Chelsea Cordell), prophesied full provision over us and another person closed the session out in prayer. Then someone took it so the next level. Someone took Ben seriously. My God did something that I thought would NEVER happen, a hope, but NOT realistic, and He did it. Right in front of us who were financially behind, the gauntlet was thrown down, someone verbally second Ben's challenge to U-Squad and out of this persons own pocket made the first donation. And we stood there as we watched as U-Squad stepped up to the challenge. Person after person either declared a donation, or took out their wallets and donated right there on the spot. Some even took out there computers and electronically donated. God moved in a way I obviously thought as impossible but in my heart of hearts for a split second cried out for.

Believe it or not I have had a hard time connecting to the squad. I have for so long believed a lie from satan that I am inferior to those around me and social handicapped by laziness and self-centeredness (some would say one and the same) to forever be doomed to be immature. Sadly enough this is a lie I have just RECENTLY found out, but praise God that He showed it to me, and is constantly putting it in front of me when I need the reminder of truth.

But that night the Squad stepped out and stepped up and did battle for me. They showed me a love that goes further beyond any words can claim. They kept me and my other squad-mate in the Race and on the field because they wanted to. If the Squad wasn't united then it is now by taking claim to the prophetic speaking over us into action.

Thank you U-Squad.

 "U-Squad! UNITED. UNDIVIDED. You know we can't be stopped."

P.S.For those of you who are INTERSESTED in where I am at financially I am, with ALL things total, a little over 10,000. To show me even more of His glory, my mom and I got to talk to each other the next day and I found out that that night(for me) /day(for her) two church members would start donating to me monthly.

The FIRST WEEK in Australia:

 I cleaned debris from a cyclone that hit Northern Australia before we got there off a mini-camp. I guess is what one would call where we stayed. We performed in front of our contacts church on Sunday and prayed over that congregation and hung out with one of our teams (doing a different ministry than mine) at the service. A few interesting tidbits though, our first day we almost evacuated for the tsunami that hit and also came from the earthquake that also hit Japan, one of my team members got baptized, and it was the first time I think I was ever exposed to Holy Spirit Nights.

The SECOND WEEK in Australia:

I helped clean the contacts house, and as I cleaned the house Jesus began to confront me on some of my fears about myself and clean me out too. I also got to hang out with a GREAT group of kids from a nearby Indigenous community, and have a few AWANA flashbacks at the same time. We also did a few secretarial jobs for our contact as well. I also got to drink orange juice for the first time in three months and go to an interdenominational prayer meeting.

The THIRD WEEK in Australia:

I helped clean windows from houses at an indigenous boarding school out in the middle of an Australian National Park, and love on said kids as we camped out in the rain for our last two days. Got lost going in the first time. Actually we went the dry season route which is flooded out right now because it was rainy season, plus what road we did have was under construction and mostly washed out. So as Rachel drove the God-provided vehicle our initial contact loaned us, we were praying NOT to have a flat tire, or get stuck in a miniature ravine that was being enlarged by the rainstorm that was pouring on us out on a back-woods road. There is a funny story that goes with that but I don't want this blog to be ALL about Australia, so ask me later about God saving Courtney, Katy, and Myself from being attacked by dogs. Eventually we got in range of cell phone service to call out original contact and get different directions to the ministry site.

I posted this blog in a rush and now that I came back to actually write something I noticed that I talked more about Australia than I did about Malaysia. So now having learned from my lesson, I guess I'll update you on Malaysia. And just for a correction and I think I might hear it from my team-mate if I don't correct it: it is KATY GURLEY and NOT Courtney Gurley ... Sorry Katy.

This was my first time sleeping in an international airport. Slept next to a construction site actually, and was constant awakened by people talking and NOT the jackhammer that was going of a few feet from my head (yes there was a barrier wall between me and the jackhammer). Had a swollen eye-lid for some unknown reason, it's gone now though. Road three trains to get to the bus station, bussed over the Singapore boarder, parted at a bus stop down the street from the Twin Towers here in Malaysia with team Fruit of the Groom. Road a luxurious double-decker bus to George Town, Penang, Malaysia. I was blessed and got to sit at the front of the top of the bus and God showed me so much of His beauty through the mountainous landscapes here as we entered (no I didn't get pictures  : ( sorry Brittany). Then we taxied to our hotel that is across the street from YWAM Base Penang.

The ministry I get to do here is a diverse ministry. Unlike all the places I have been so far there is such a diverse group of people here. There are Chinese, Indian, and Malay each having their own culture and belief. There are three or four masques that I have counted so far in walking distance around where I am staying and a few Buddhist/Confucians/Taoist temples in walking distance around here as well. Some might have been Hindu temples, I am not sure. I get to minister to all of the different faiths through Kawan, meaning Friends in Malay, Christian homeless shelter on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I get to prayer walk the city on Saturday, and there is a street ministry that our contact wants us to help with that ministers to "night walkers" I think on Tuesdays. Thursday is this month's day of rest.

Also

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (New teammate)

Blog video Update 1: AUSTRALIA