The Hill of Crosses...

This past weekend I took two of my girls on a trip to Lithuania to see The Hill of Crosses!!! It was such a great trip and absolutely amazing to see the hill full of crosses put there by thousands and thousands of people!!!
This trip was just a special trip for the girls because I will not be able to be around as much as I would like to during the summer due to the crazy schedule of camps and out reaches and all the teams coming and going, so this was their special weekend… and did we have a good time!
We left in the evening on Friday and chilled in a town close to the crosses and when shopping and ate dinner, then drove to a beach town, and then back to the town by the hill of crosses, found a good piece of land to park the car, slept for a few hours, then up and ready to go see the crosses!!! It was really hot! But beautiful!
Then we drove around Lithuania a little bit more just for fun! Here are a few pictures of that trip.


To see more pictures click here

Where have I been!

It has been a while since I have been able to update you on the happenings around here. And for that I am sorry.
I left you as I was on my way to Sweden for a lovely reminiscing time with Susan. And that it was! The weather was great and the people were even better. One of our friends from our year also came to visit at the same time from Germany. Sweden is so beautiful around this time of year and we definitely took in as much as we could!

Here are a few pictures:


After the plane ride Me:TRYING to look cool Sooz:lookin cute!


A wonderful Fika with Wally and Donna Life time Friends

Hot! don't you think?


Had a little problems with our camp fire!!! hahah!!!
Click here for more pictures of my trip to Sweden

Summer has hit!
Yesterday was 32 degrees (around 85 Degrees Fahrenheit) with about 90 percent humidity!!! Haaaa breathe deep! ;D

But more than the weather I am realizing how much time I will NOT have in the next few months. I have missed my monthly update for may… the first time I have not been able to update since I have come to Latvia. My commitment is to not make that a habit, I promise! I am sorry to anyone who has been waiting for it.

We have been spending a lot of time working on scheduling and preparing material for all the aspects of the summer in the past few weeks. It has been a lot of work, but also gets me very excited to “get the party started”, so to speak! (I know I am a retard!)
But truly I am so stoked about the camps, the Interns, the American high school teams, and of course the Latvian teens that will be involved this summer!!! This is such a sweet way to live life! Let me tell you!

Personally and spiritually it has been quite bumpy if I am honest. I have had some really amazing breakthroughs and some really amazing time with my Jesus in the past few weeks, but there have also been some pretty low times also. I have been struggling through an area of my spiritual life that need a major transformation.

UnBeLiEf
These are the thoughts that go through my head daily:

“God is not really good”
“God is not able”
“God will not answer”
“God will not come through on this one”
“It can happen for others, but not for me”

I know that Jesus is with me, but I don’t believe it.
I know that Jesus loves me, but I don’t believe it.
I know that Jesus is my protector, but I don’t believe that he will.
I know that Jesus is my provider, but I don’t believe he will, or if he does it will be in a way I don’t want!

I am realizing the major pain it causes me and those around me, and especially my Jesus when I live only in the knowledge of Him and not in the full belief of who he says he is and what he says he will do!
I find myself wanting to delete this as I write it because I am sitting here in Latvia as a missionary telling you that I don’t believe in God! How can that be?
But I do believe that if anyone really stepped back and looked at life and life with God all could agree with me that IT IS A FIGHT TO BELIEVE GOD!

So I am taking steps to push myself to experience him in whom he says he is. That is that hard part though, and very scary for me at time, and definitely lonely at times. But even as I write this there have been break throughs and experiences with Him that bring so much joy to my heart I cannot stop smiling as I write this!

So that is a little about me.

About the next three months… I would love to promise consistent updates, but I cannot as I already see me time running away from me. But I do promise to try my best to keep you as involved as possible with the ministry this summer through this blog.
In a few days I will be posting a schedule and some things about the summer you can be praying for.

Please e-mail me anytime if you want to know more, or just leave a comment as my dear friend Danielle did on the last post, reminding me that people actually do read this!
;) Thanks D.
Thanks for taking the time!
Thank you for your love and support!

gone for a week...

Biggest apologies for not writing sooner.

The conference was amazing and Jesus met me there in a way that I can only begin to explain because words will not give any credit to the experience I had with him there.
All I can say is that it is a beautiful thing that God does not quit on the transforming process in all of us!
“He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it!”
Amen? AMEN!

So my best friend from Canada arrived a few days ago and will be here with me for the whole summer, which is more than a blessing. I have longed for a friend to share some of this stuff face to face with and the Lord is GOOD, and has met that longing!
I met Susan in Sweden a few year back at Bible School, and since then we have had the blessing of having a friendship that is like no other. There is just something very beautiful about complete transparency and that is what we have!

That being said I am leaving today for Sweden for 5 days with Susan. This is just a time for us to go back to where God had touched both of us in huge ways and just reminisce of the “Holsby Dayz”.

So I will be back in Latvia on Saturday evening and then it gets CrAzY busy!!!! So I am blessed to have this time, (the calm before the storm) to just be still before the Lord and be filled with more of him.

Thanks for checking in. I hope to update as soon as I get back on Saturday.

Miss you all dearly!

I made it to Czech!

I am now at the conference in Czech Republic. This is our annual family conference for JV. It is beautiful here!!! I will post pictures next entry.

This conference has been great so far, just reflecting on life and transformation is effecting me deeply and realizing the power of Christ to transform me in ways that I never thought possible!!! This is probably not new for most of you and honestly for me it is not either, yet it is touching me in a brand new way!!! Jesus is like that I think!!!
But way cool!!!

I will update again soon (I hope)

In Poland...

I am in Poland, chillin at Susan Ellis’ flat. Later tonight we will meet us with a group of single missionaries from JV -Josiah Venture (my mission organization). We will spend the first 24 hours of the Spring conference together at H2O, at camp ground just purchased by the Poland team for there ministry here in Poland! It is a great camp ground and is amazing for the youth ministry that will be done there… but it needs some work, and so along with getting crazy and hanging out with the “cool people” of JV… we will spend some time working on the grounds.

I think it will be a good time for sure!


I have only been in Poland for two days now and the Lord has hit my heart with so many things that I cannot even try to explain them all in words. You know those times when the Lord speaks to you, to you inner being, to the core of who you are, and you understand in the depths of your heart what he is communicating to you, yet to try and translate that holy word in human words just sounds so empty and nothing compared to what you have just experienced? Well this is one of those times! I have been intimately connected with my Jesus these few days, and I have so many wild and I dare to say, scandalize thoughts of what the Lord has planned for Latvia and the world, and how he has chosen someone as messed up as me to be used to accomplish a little piece of it, humbles me, excites me, and makes me fall in love with him intensely!

Being with Susan, a single female missionary here in Poland for the past 10 years has been more than a blessing. To see her in the middle of ministry and in the middle of living out life and love with her Jesus has touched me and encouraged me in a way I never thought possible. She is such a model of what I could only hope to be in the future of my ministry with my Jesus! She is undeniably Full of Christ and the joy of serving him!
We have talked about so many things that have just encouraged me and helped me regain a focus that is so easily stolen by the trails of life and living in a culture not your own.

All I can say is that so far through my time with Susan and especially my time with My Jesus thus far has opened the eyes of my heart to a clearer and brighter eye to the perspective of God!

We see so little, we think so small, our focus gets so narrow, it is only when the Lord allows us to experience the mystery of Him that we are able to start seeing through His eyes, His heart and His perspective!
I am filled with wonder as I look out into the world and unknown seeing with eyes and heart through Him!
How exciting it is to be a follower of Christ!

Here are some pictures of the view from Susan's apartment: