Hide and Seek

I am convinced, the more I learn about and grow in my relationship with God, that there is no way Christianity is a religion made up by self-serving humans. Knowing my own heart, there is no way that I would create a religion where I have to admit help, where I don't DO anything to be saved, where I must humble myself. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't create a religion because I wouldn't see the need for one. There are far more interesting things for me to pursue. 

As it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11 ESV)

To be perfectly honest, I don't seek Him like I should. I do seek Him, but it tends to be in times when life is really good or in times of struggles, but not in times when I feel ashamed. Recently, God gave me a glimpse of just how broken, fallen, and apart from Him my heart is. Not just those "little slips" that were so easy for me to repent of, but the true state and nature of my heart. I felt overwhelming shame, physically ill and my reaction was to run from Him. I didn't want to return to His arms - I didn't deserve that. I didn't want Him to look at me because I couldn't look at me. In my head, I knew that there wasn't a place that I could go to that would allow me to hide from God, but that didn't stop me from having that desire to hide.

But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9 ESV) 

Praise God that He is one that pursues us, that His heart breaks for us, and that He desires to have a relationship with us. I am incredibly thankful that He exposed my heart for what it is and that He exposed it during Holy Week. Seeing and experiencing my heart has given Holy Week a new weight and tone.The events of Good Friday should have been reserved for me. I deserve God's wrath. I deserve to have God turn His face from me. But He doesn't, because there is One who stepped in my place, who bore the weight of the world on His shoulders. I love a God who loves me, not the cleaned up version of me but the version of me right now. And He loves me in a way that I cannot understand - a love that would move Him to sacrifice His one and only Son; a love that, when we surrender to it, completely transforms who we are and changes us so we desire and act in such a way that is totally against our human nature; and a love that completely destroys the definition of love that we have in our minds.

I pray that the people we connect with in Belgium would be able to see the kind of love that we have found, or rather, that has found us, and we can share it with them. I pray that they can have their definition of "LOVE" completely decimated and rebuilt with the definition that God uses. 

An Official Update

I decided to take a break from the more journal-styled entries and update y'all on what is going on behind the scenes.

The update on my support-raising process: $2,035 of a $3,600 support goal. Woo!! Praise God!

Officially, we have filled eight of the thirteen spots on the team. There are four more who need to finish submitting their application before they are officially accepted. We also have seven more people who have expressed an interest in the trip, but they are still going through the application process and praying about if this is where they are supposed to be. Prayers are especially needed for Jodi as she continues the planning process.

There is a basketball player who traveled with AIA on some summer projects a few years ago living in Belgium. She is playing professional basketball, engaged to a Belgian, and living very close to a city where one of our meets is. She has been praying that AIA can have a presence in her country, so the fact that we are coming back for a second year and (hopefully!) connecting with her is an answer to prayers on both sides of the Atlantic!

Finally, the really crazy one. There is a pole vault club in Leuven and Jodi has a connection to them! Their club name is Pole Vault Team Leuven and here is their website. The link is actually the google-translated version, and I'm crossing my fingers that it works. Jodi's contact is one of the athlete's dad. She communicated with him during her career as a collegiate pole vaulter. This is a huge answer to prayer because as of right now, our team is very, very pole vaulter heavy.

Thank y'all again for your prayers and support! I'm so excited to share the work God is doing in the Kingdom with y'all.