May 22, 2012

Hello to my dear friends and family, 

There is so much I want to share with all of you. I want to share where God has taken me, what He has spoken to me, and where He is leading me. First off, I want to thank all of you for your prayers and financial support for my journey to Cambodia and Thailand. It has been an incredible life changing experience to say the least. I really have been transformed by the understanding of God's love and who He is. I can say with confidence I have fallen in love with Him for the first time and I really have you all to thank. Without your support I would have never been able to experience such a wonderful opportunity. Having the privilege of spreading God's love to people across the world is a wonderfully blessed opportunity. Thank you all again. I really will never be able to express my gratitude for the amount of support poured out by all of you. I can just say that the prayers I felt while I was overseas were overwhelming. I could feel them so strongly especially when I was having a rough day. I could always feel that I was being supported and lifted up in prayers from my loved ones back home. I just returned to Colorado Springs after visiting home in Arizona for a month. I was incredibly blessed going back home. I realized being back how much love and support I truly had, and I will say it was quite overwhelming for me. I have so much love and appreciation for all of you back home. God has blessed me beyond measure with wonderful family and friends. I cannot stress the amount of importance it is for me to have that kind of support while you are overseas. There are times that it gets extremely difficult. If I didn't have you guys out there backing me up I know my road would be significantly harder. 

My DTS experience showed me so much. God taught me a lot, but one of the most powerful things He taught me was what it truly means to be free in Christ. What it means to be a new creation. What it means to be bold and what it is like to risk with God. Like I said, I am completely in love with Christ. I have become engaged to Him, and I am going to spend the rest of my life-time preparing for my wedding day with Him. I want as many people to be a part of this wedding as possible, and I cannot stop talking about it, and proclaiming the beauty and greatness of the Groom and King! I know, I sound like a hopeless romantic, but that is because I am, and I am unashamed of that! Just like any bride to be, all I can talk about, think about, dream about, is my wedding day! I want to make myself as beautiful as I can for that day, so I am preparing myself to meet my King and spend eternity with Him!

While I was in Cambodia, God spoke to me about His crazy specific love for these people. He poured prayers into my heart, and allowed me for a brief time to feel the kind of love He has for them. My dear friends, please pray for the people of Cambodia. They feel as though they are a forgotten people. As I prayed for them I got this extreme sense of loneliness abandonment, and hopelessness. The people of Cambodia are doing whatever they can to get noticed. They are trying to copy other countries around them. They so desperately want to be like America. They hate their skin color. All over the place I would see signs for skin whitening cream! The lighter you are, the more beautiful you are. It made me sick to see this everywhere. They don't see their beauty in our God that created them. The main religion there is Buddhism but they don't even know much about their own religion. They are just trying to find something to bring them peace after what happened in their devastating history of the Khmer Rouge. If you guys don't know the history of Cambodia, I urge you to read about it yourself so you know how to pray for these poor people. They are trying to rebuild their lives. To move on from their gruesome past. There is a whole generation missing from that nation. It is horrible to see. I was able to meet one survivor. He was actually our host, and the stories he had to tell were just incredible and horrible. He was able to escape into Thailand, and he was saved in a refugee camp made up of YWAMers. He was saved and was able to come to America with his wife. He had a great living in America. He started his own business and became quite wealthy. One day he felt like the Lord was telling him to sell everything and move back to Cambodia. The place where he suffered the most. He was obedient and sold everything and moved back. He started a school and a church. In Cambodia the children have to pay in order to go to school. There is no public schooling system. He told the kids, they could go to school for free if they just go to church. His ministry has been incredibly blessed because of his obedience to the Lord. Many children have been saved at that school, and they are learning English to be able to gain a better education. Praise the Lord. Please pray for Pastor Keat and his school New Hope School. Pray God continues to provide for them teachers, and students, and supplies. 

I bet you are all wondering what is next for me. God has called me into full-time ministry. I know that without a doubt. It has been confirmed to me over and over again. My next step is working at Eagle Lake Camp this summer in Colorado. It was an incredible God-given opportunity. I found out about the job the last day they were accepting applications. I applied right away and found out they already had too many girl applicants. On top of that I was younger than what they wanted to hire. At the time I applied, I was still 18 and they only hire people 19 or older. However, they called me in for an interview and right after they told my sister Kelsey, (who works in a separate division of the company), that they would be stupid for not hiring me. They said they could see I had a crazy heart for discipleship and that is what they really needed. Praise Jesus!!!! The timing is just perfect too because the job is only for the summer. I am applying to go to South Africa in the fall to continue my YYAM training in missions. The school there will teach me how to bring awareness of issues around the world through my photography! Praise the Lord! It is everything I love. I am still waiting to hear back if I got into that school or not but that is what I am applying to do next after this summer. With this school in South Africa I would be there for 3 months training and afterwards I would have the opportunity to do an internship. I would live as a fulltime missionary in whatever place I feel like the Lord is calling me. That internship has to be a minimum of 3 months if not longer. So please pray for clarity and direction for me if that is the path God has for me. If not pray that this door is closed and God leads me to my next step. 

Knowing that God has called me to full-time ministry, I will need to begin to develop a financial support system that is based off of monthly donors from friends and family. I would ask each of you to prayerfully consider financially supporting me on a monthly basis. With my schedule as a missionary being as erratic as it is going to be, it will be difficult for me to sustain any kind of full-time job. Which is why it is so important for me to develop a stable financial support system. I do not ask this of you lightly. I understand the difficulties many are having with the economy being the way it is now. I pray that whatever decision you come to comes from a prayerful discussion with the Lord. May He bless you all tenfold for the support you have already given me! 

May God keep you and sustain you. :) 

Love, Anna