Long time coming, but an update!!!

I apologize to my supporting community for not letting you all know how things in YWAM are going! I hope to catch you up to a certain degree now!

Well it has been so full on all the time and I feel like I am always forgetting something or putting something on the back burner in order to get some sleep, but I have also never been happier! Living in this community is the BESTTTTT! Waking up to so many people reading their Bibles and spending time with God and getting to have conversations with so many different people on things from a immature joke that gets into  giggle mood to talking about things I never thought I would ever tell another human being but getting set free from those things through community! Sometime I say I hate community like when people just let dishes pile up or when there is literally no place to be alone, but at the same time I care for these people on a level that I didn't know could happen with so many people! The staff here mean so much to me and show Christ and display what it means to walk in the opposite spirit and to set aside your own preferances, but will they remember me? They see a new batch of 30 ish kids every three months, and I wonder if I will be lost in some sort of sea of faces in a year. But I love these guys and I hope that one day I can display the same amount of love that they do everyday through their everyday life!

So now I am pretty much done with the lecture phase of my DTS, we have about a week and a half left, and I often feel like the things we learn are so simple in principle and I feel like I am dumb for not realizing it before! For example everything can be answered with pray about it but my first reaction when something is troubling me is not to ask God for the answer or a direction towards the answer. I fret an fuss about what this option entails and what will happen if I choose this plan for my future. Well for me I have learned that God may not tell me the long term goal but he will guide my steps leading up to the place I am worrying about! What the speakers have said that sticks with me is to follow the peace if I don't feel like I got a clear answer about what to do next. I like to think that I rely on God all the time now for all the action I take in my life, but all the time I notice myself weighing options of what I could do after DTS without really consulting God about it, I mean if its a good thing then God will be behind it right?!?!?

Hmmmm what else should I tell you guys, this is the issue with not doing updates often!!!!!! Hah =)

I love Gods people!!!! This will sounds crummy of me but I am just being honest. When I got here I kind of felt like I was doing the world a favor. I was going to the crappiest most messed up areas where other people don't want to go, and your welcome human kind! I also felt like I was doing God a solid. I wanted to help people but not because God loves them and desires a relationship with them but because we need people to clean up the messes to make the world a more sparkly place. So when you think about doing missions with such a pride as this you seriously limit God. I didn't really want to be relational with the people we will encounter or act like Christ fully, I hoped to just do the right thing then they would like to follow Jesus. We pray for different nations or causes twice a week here and I remember one our first times of intercession was over the middle east and after that time of praying for that land and for Gods will to be done there I felt like I should have devoted my whole life to sharing Gods love with the people of that region. If you had asked me what region of the world I felt least connected with before coming here I would have said the middle east! Knowing how God loves me so much and how his heart breaks each time I choose something unrighteous has revealed to me how badly he feel about the people who aren't even in relationship with him and deny him with their life! God wants everyone in the whole earth to live in the joy, peace, and eternity that comes with a life following Jesus.

So to sum it up I love God, and I want to show my love for him with every single thing I do each day. Shoot do I hope I can accomplish that one day, but for now I an just turning away from my old habits. I actually really want to make a quick video of some more details later. It is boring to read long posts, and I think it will be fun! I am posting this statement so I need to be accountable with it ;)

OH YEAH I nearly forgot to mention what I will be doing very soon! I leave to go to Eastern Europe either late December or the first week of January. So really really soon! We will be in Amsterdam for a week, Latvia for 6 weeks, and Moldova for 2 weeks doing many ministries but focusing on sex trafficking! PUMPED. JACKED. But I am still fundraising for it. I need $4500 and by donating monetarily you will be mobilizing the body of Christ to go and spread Gods love and mending hearts while my team and I are out there. If you are unable to go out and do international missions you can partner with those missionaries to enable them to release Gods will through them. But as I said earlier I treasure prayer above all else, and I truly believe that does so much in the heavenly realm. I appreciate whatever it is you are able to do!

You can donate here !!!! (peron/project= Jessice de Lange outreach)

This a video my team made, see who we are!

Woe Is Me, Kind Of

Last Thursday started at 5:30 in prayer and quiet time with God. I actually woke up earlier than I needed to because we are so busy during the day mornings are the only time I have to just be alone with God and not alone with God and 10 other people being alone with God. Seriously I need time away from the hoards of people that live here right now. Quick side note we have our larger than normal DTS of 21, the other DTS of 16, a DTS from Townsville of 9, and 2 DTS teams from Wollongong, and a DTS from Sydney and I don't actually know how many people that is, it's just insane when there is a line of 5 people waiting for a shower. We don't have the space in the house for all of them so we have a gypsy camp in the back yard of YWAMers!

many mas tents!

Anyways back to the point! After prayer/worship it was time to get ready and have breakfast then house cleaning at 8. Then we had lectures with Steve Ahern, who is the director of YWAM Australia, and he is quite the speaker. I had a hard time with his teaching because he makes you do your own thinking instead of just spoon feeding info that we all write down and go "ok that sounds nice!" It has been so growing and I am glad he did what he did because it will begin this habit of going beyond a sermon to understand what they are saying for myself. 

A weird thing about Australia is that they have morning tea and afternoon tea so we break from lectures around 11 and 4:30 for a cuppa and bread. So much bread, seriously. We have lunch at 1 then I have "free time" until 3:45. It isn't really free time because there is always so much to do! We have journals and workbook assignments every week plus a book a month to read and email updates, and Facebook updates, and pictures, and trying to get a blog done, and if I'm lucky skyping. So everyone who ever told me about YWAM seriously misrepresented the experience when they told me about it! They never told me that I would never have time to myself or time to just sit and not worry about the 10 other things I should be doing!

But, again, I digress. So we have work duties from 3:45 to 5 and I have been working on cleaning in the YWAM warehouse that they have been doing construction on for their new offices and for their youth ministry. This has included cleaning and incredibly moldy fridge, sanding plaster, painting, and cleaning dusty furniture. After my shift is done we head back to base for dinner then on this particular night I headed back to the warehouse for some more work! We had a big event celebrating 20 years of YWAM Newcastle and they were holding it in the warehouse so we pushed and pushed to get it done before then. Then when I was sufficiently dirty  from the cleaning I left at 11 pm and rolled into my bed same clothes no showering or anything. I just slept in my filth. 

I have never had such a physically and spiritually exhausting day in my whole life, from intense teaching to hard labor for the whole evening I was done. But I have never ever felt more fulfilled, joyous, and stoked about God in my whole life. I have been fighting the idea of being in missions because it is just such an exhausting task. But I am seeing how much I love that. I didn't think I would but I love working in the warehouse knowing that building will bring people to Jesus, especially the youth who feel so lost like I once did. I love hating the lecturer at the beginning of the week because he questioned my theology but having so much respect for him at the end for forcing me to open my mind knowing there was no expectation for me to just believe what he was telling me. I love waking up before the sun to meet with my Father to refocus on Him and not my tired body or mind. I hope I get to be exhausted all my life if it means I feel so full of God like I do now. I hope I learn to listen to God more.

I am beginning to remove the constraints I set on God that mess with how I hear him. Like the ones where I said "no don't tell me anything about living away from my friends or family" or something like "don't tell me that I need to be OK with wherever God sends me." If I say don't speak in those areas he won't and guess what, I have been so frustrated about why God won't give me clarity about my calling and my future. Hmmmmmmm. Why is it so easy to just not understand how that works? Am I waiting for God to get so frustrated with me not fulfilling His plan that he speaks through a burning bush? I don't want to be running from my calling for 40 years as Moses did. I am scared but I want to change things. I want to see masses of people come to know Jesus, I want to improve the quality of living for a whole group of people, I want to do this for the glory of God and not for my own happiness. 

Thanks God for giving my these dreams. Thank you all for helping get me here because I don't think I will EVER be able to explain this process or what it means to me.

Beginning in Australia

Good golly that was a lot of flying, just about 24 hrs total. It has been a day since arriving is Australia and I thought I had recovered, then my exhaustion hit me like a wall. It in fact doesn't take me 24 hrs to overcome jet lag, dang it! So this post will have lots of pictures and loads of details. So it might be boring if your not too interested in airport stories.

So I left home on Friday the 21st and guess when I packed for my 6 month journey, that morning. I seriously discourage ever trying to pack for such a trip the day of. I left what I consider 2 very important things, running shoes and my webcam. My stinkin webcam that I am supposed to be using to talk to everyone at home with. Arggggggg. So dumb. Not only that but I put more stress on me and my parents than was necessary because I was over the weight limit and had to take random stuff out of my suitcase. So I took things I thought I could do without, and I figured sheets were one of those because I can buy them when I get there. Today as I am sorting through my bags out I notice I took the fitted sheet out but not the loose one. Again so dumb. The one that is pretty useless without a bottom. So seriously, pack at least 24 hrs before hand. Or else you have to deal with the consequences. And this was before I even left.

Then I was hit by the realization that I was leaving for 6 months at the beginning of security, literally. When it was my last minute to see my parents for 6 months missing the big holidays and everything. It was weird.

I guess I did't let myself think about actually leaving, saying goodbye, or being here because what if I didn't go?! Then I had gotten my hopes up for nothing, and I had already done that to myself. I realized I was travelling internationally by myself for 20 hrs, to go to a country I've never been to, to people I have never met. That is a new kind of fear. I just prayed that God would give me some sort of peace or something, and texted people to pray for me. So thank you. I let myself get emotional on my flight to LAX, when I was seeing the last of the place that means so much to me. This is a picture of my last view of CO, the place that occupies my heart.

So the rest of traveling actually wasn't that bad to my surprise. The seat next to me was empty on the flight to Australia so there was space to stretch out, and I started reading an incredible book! "Kisses for Katie" has been so transformative to my heart already, seriously read it!

Alright I think this is close to the end now.

When I got to Brisbane, after a good amount of grief from my flight arriving in late, my cousin, her husband, and my 5 yr old second cousin were waiting for me. So heartwarming. Being with them has been everything I had hoped for and more! They have opened up their home, and could not have been more gracious and welcoming. If this is what it is like to be with family, shoot did I miss out growing up. It is so great we have talked about the next time we see each other before I have even left!!! I think Gods blessings on my life are so large that I am having a hard time truly appreciating it. What a great issue to be having. I want to write more about Australia and all the new things I am encountering already, but I am afraid this is already lengthy and boring. So here are some pictures!!!!

Eating American favorites before I leave!

Some of the birds I see in the backyard. Seriously

The view from behind their house....

I took a walk and this guy had built a cave, so cool!

Beautiful!

Their sign says give way, instead of yield

There is a platypus on the storm drain... I don't understand

A sign for Wallabies, lies!!! I still have not seen any!

This flower smelt like pot, or something in this vicinity did haha

To My Friends

I leave for Australia in 2 days.

I am overwhelmed by sadness. I never thought this would be the way I would feel so close to leaving. I had imagined being elated, anxious, and nervous. But never sad.

The reason for my dejected mood? I LOVE what I am leaving behind, and I don't truly know what I am going to instead. For the first time in my life I love everything in my life. I have the best friends and community, a job that I enjoy going to, and not looking for God to change my life situation. I feel comfortable here.

There is a little quote from our pastor Matt Morgan that I always remember, "when you are comfortable you should feel uncomfortable." Uncomfortable in the way that finding that good enough place doesn't promote growth in Christ. Great theory for sure, and I never thought I would ever find issue in that at least not until I got a lot older. But as I prepare to leave in 55.5 hrs I hate that idea. I get overwhelmed thinking about seeing these people for the last time for half a year. If any of my friends read this, understand I may not cry tomorrow night because I just don't cry, but know I feel so much pain over leaving you. I have grown close to people who I never thought I would, and enjoy a job that I definitely never thought I would! I mean it's clothing retail in Boulder!!! But my time with you ladies there is so lighthearted and loving I do not want to leave you. I don't do mushy stuff too well, but I love you guys.

Dang it how weird can Gods timing seem at times. As long as I can remember I always was desperate for something to change, and right now I feel none of that urgency. Maybe it's  because I have been surrounded by your(my friends) love all the time with leaving so soon. But I'm sorry to keep dragging on about this, but I don't want to be out of your life for so long. I will keep in touch with you and I ask that you are intentional about keeping in touch with me. I know it is harder to remember because you are still in normal life, but I need you!

So I know I will be happy once I am in Australia, and I see why even with missing you guys so much why this is so right. I need that community behind me to feel ok living so abandoned for God.

I WILL keep you guys updated. See you tomorrow night.

I love you all so much

~Jessica

Mission Trip Selfishness

So I begin writing at 1:19 AM, and I just might hate myself in the morning for that decision. But I really feel like I want to share this little story of how I am completely selfish about my mission trip right now. So buckle up because there might just be a bit too much honesty in this post for you, and I hope you have grace for me in that.

There is a FB page for all the people hoping to do the DTS I am planning on doing and lately there has been an influx of posts. Why? Because now is the time that God pulls through in huge crazy ways of provision, just not for me, and therein lies my bitterness.

Now let me just begin with saying I do not hold negative feelings to any of those recipients, just to God for not sharing with me. I really know that is not the case, I know God isn't forsaking me but come on you can see how I feel that way, right?

If people can go and do this program with skewed intentions, or ignoring sin, or leaving negative relationships behind why can't I go?!?!?! Again I absolutely do not think it is bad to go and do this program with any of those things in your life, God glorifies everything, and I may try and seem like I don't have those things in my life but of course I do. But here is where I get my argument: this summer has been one of big changes in my personal life, working to understand more of my negative relationships to better them, seeing big sin in my life and changing it, and taking huge leaps of faith and knowing God will catch me. None of this is because I am self motivated to better my self, nope God has been standing in front of me tapping his foot in frustration after asking me to work on these things for so long. Trust me I honestly understand my issue in this, I feel entitled and a prideful of all the "stuff" I feel like I have to go through so I get a prize right?

Any ways I am 8 days away from leaving, since it is actually Thursday now, and I am $3,000 away from paying my lecture phase fees. God I need you. I need to know what the heck I am doing right now. If I felt 100% called to this DTS, and it doesn't work out what else am I getting wrong in my life? I felt this was my next step and I don't want to be doubtful, but I feel dumb keeping a hope for so much money to come through in such a short time. Please redeem me, I want your comfort, I want to do your will. I feel lost, because right now I am planning on getting on that plane next Friday with or without $3,000. I hope that is the right thing to do, I hope I do not muck this up. God all I want to do is go and grow closer to you. To have that incredible high that you feel after a church retreat, all the time. I want my life to exude your joy. I desire nothing more than to live to love you and your people.

So God please break my heart for what breaks yours. I am letting this time become about me again, and I want to feel the urgency that you feel. I want to cry just talking about the people who do not yet know your love. I want that to happen in Australia, haha. If it's not meant to happen there I hope you surround me with your love and comfort because I just might implode.

Mission trip selfishness:  a time where you expect God to provide great miracles so you can go and explore yourself in a cool place 

PLEASE REDEEM ME

So Here's The Story

Hey guys. So, funny story.  You know how I tried to go and do a YWAM Discipleship training school last year? Well, some crazy stuff happened and it ended up that I couldn’t go. But, it has turned out to be one heck of a blessing. Why is that? Well here is the story! (Stick with me here, I think it’ll be good =D)

God slapped me upside the head with his intense dislike of my sin and disobedience. I mean seriously, He gave me a few good whacks! One of these areas of disobedience was my YWAM calling. True fact, God has put this program on my heart for about 4 years now, give or take, but I let the awesomeness of that program morph into selfish ambition. Instead of thirsting to know more of God’s character and becoming closer to my Father, I saw the whole trip as an opportunity for self-fulfillment and discovery. I could be around fun young people, see new things, and have some God on the side. Oops, big mistake. God might as well have smited me where I stood, and it would’ve been easier than what was to come. God took away my fun time, and left me in Colorado where I felt like I was becoming stagnant and passionless. But I was wrong again; little did I know, the time following would be more devoid of those characteristics than my life has ever been! God has been preparing my heart big time for what is to come during the months of October through March.

The DTS I am doing is called a Compassion DTS. We will be learning and serving people in truly hard circumstances like the orphaned, those in human trafficking, and those in poverty. Heavy issues. And before I enter in to that, He has commanded me to acknowledge my sin and offer it up to Him to transform. Ugh so hard, especially because I feel like it’s been one tidal wave after another! But I understand why so much growth must be done now, before I go out. I need to learn how to understand my emotions in a healthy way. I am absolutely a typical girl when it comes to emotions! They are crazy! But I also know it is a part of what God has gifted me with. I just feel for people, and want to love them and show them that it’s just a taste of how much God loves them. So a lot of the time, that can become a negative thing instead of something that glorifies God. I let negative emotions keep me down, and I have a very hard time processing them in a healthy way…I begin to feel like I’m in quicksand! Or maybe a “glass box of emotion…” right?! So I know all this personal struggle is so I can better prepare myself to totally pour into other people.

                I know this specific program is where God wanted me all along because he blessed me with some pretty clear vision. Huge blessing right!  The vision he has showed me, and this is how I understand it at least, is doing this DTS to prepare my heart for the rest of my life. To ignite that fire within me, to learn how to live abandoned for God, and understand more of what he is commanding me to do. The rest of my life will surround such compassion issues. I see that happening by working through a non-profit organization, making way and preparing missionaries doing the behind the scenes, as well as doing mission in some context myself. That is why I know this program is just the beginning of the road for me. I am not going to do this 6 month program just to live crazy for God, but to begin to understand what the world hurts for and hone in on what I am truly passionate about! I want to see where God wants me to help and work towards that.

                So yup, I’m plugging away on the issues God has confronted me with, and sometimes I find joy in that because I am crazy STOKED to live out what God has called me to. But it’s hard. Sin isn’t easier for me, nor am I trying to become sinless because that won’t happen. Instead I want to learn how to “struggle well,” (thanks Matt Morgan for that quote), and grow to have a softened heart to the people around me. So thanks a bunch for sticking through this with me, for not being angry at me for not updating even though I should have, and for taking the time to read my post. Updates to come. I’ll keep you posted, I promise =)