Where He leads I will follow.

Over the past few weeks Africa has been strongly on my heart, which many would say could be or is a calling. God willing, I want to go back. Wow, did I just say that? Yep, part of my heart is in Africa. 2 months ago, if I was asked if I wanted to go back, the answer was "um, I don't want to put God in a box, but please don't call me back Lord," and now my response is "Lord, I'm ready, send me." God is so crazy amazing! So with this being said, pray for the guidance of my feet and for me to follow what the Lord has in store.

These lyrics are on my mind a lot lately:

Nothing can separate

Even if I ran away

Your love never fails

I know I still make mistakes

But You have new mercies for me everyday

Your love never fails

You stay the same through the ages

Your love never changes

There may be pain in the night but joy comes in the morning

And when the oceans rage

I don't have to be afraid

Because I know that You love me

Your love never fails

The wind is strong and the water's deep

But I'm not alone here in these open seas

Cause Your love never fails

The chasm is far too wide

I never thought I'd reach the other side

But Your love never fails

You make all things work together for my good

So thankful for the amazing God I get to serve everyday. 

Love, Em

You, Lord, will always treat me with kidness. Your love never fails. You have made us what we are. Don't give up on us now! 

Psalm 138:8 

Wow...

First off, I am so sorry that I have totally slacked on writing this blog! The past few months have been crazy, awesome! Upon returning from Africa, I was overwhelmed with the love and compassion of all of those whom cared to know about what God did in Africa. Thank you so much for that! A few short weeks after returning home, I started college. EHHKKKKK. For those of you who have not heard, I have changed my major. I am still attending IPFW but I am now pursuing a degree in Elementary Education with a Dual License in Special Education. Who would have thought that I would go to school to become a teacher? The Lord has totally put me at ease with this decision and I am so excited where He leads me!

So far school has gone really well. I love it. September was a crazy month, here and gone already. The second weekend in September, my best friend, Leslee, and I made a road trip to Richmond, Virginia to visit my best friend from my Africa trip, Mary Melissa. We spent 3 short days there where we got to reconnect. It was so amazing to meet up with her again. While we were there we did the Color Run. The Color Run is "the happiest 5k on the planet." LITERALLY. It was such a amazing time. Here are a few of the pictures from our incredible weekend!

Such a good reunion! Love these girls. Leslee and I came back to the one and only BLUFFTON STREET FAIR! A week of junk food, rides, and hanging out with friends. Then my parents hit the road for Hilton Head Island, where I got to spend another week with Leslee! Wooooo. We spent the week with some amazing, Godly guys, Daniel and Drew. God is so good.

God Bless you all!
Love, Em

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us."

Ephesians 2:8-10

June 28, 2012 - Eburru, Kenya : Night #2

Breakfast: ooji, pineapple, and toast
Lunch: PB&J with left overs from supper
Supper: Taco sloppy joes and potatoes

So meals were pretty good. Gag down the breakfast (: Ooji is African porridge, basically really watered down oatmeal. NASTY.

Breakfast.

Supper.

Everything was good other than breakfast. So after breakfast we headed down to Camp Brethern Christian School. OH.MY.GOSH, broke my heart. So many children so excited to see us (: Every child who walked by wanted to touch our hands. SO precious. We got to sing songs, teach a lesson, and play games. The best day ever. My heart instantly melted for these kids. Throughout the day the Lord has revealed a verse about humility. I have had a hard time adjusting to the "community" idea. Community is our leaders nice was of saying you have no rights and anything you brought can be wore or used by anyone. Not to mention the food we brought had to be given to the leaders to give us at appropriate times. Any-African <---- you like that? (: The verse the Lord put on my heart is Philippians 2:1-4:

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, 

if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any 

tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-

minded, have the same love, being one in the Spirit and of one mind.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility

value others about yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each

of you to the interests of the others." 

WOW,WOW,WOW. We serve one A-MAZING God. Though the war is raging on we are the Lord's warriors.

Love Em

C O U R A G E O U S 

June 28, 2012- Day 2: Eburru, Kenya

Sorry for the late post, the past few weeks have been a little hectic to say the least (:

TIA. Do you know what that means? I didn't either until yesterday. This Is Africa. That is for sure. When someone says TIA it usually means things are about to change. When we left for Eburru we were informed that we would not be staying in our nice huts for long. We were going to be moving to another village. None of the team knows when it will be but I'm sure it won't be long. Another TIA moment, when you wear the same outfit for the 3rd day in a row. THIS IS AFRICA (: Our first night we learned quickly that it is not just chilly, IT IS FREEZING. When I say freezing I mean like 35-40 degrees at night. I am just glad I have somewhat warm clothes. My hut was asleep by 10:30pm which was nice to get some rest after all our traveling. We were woke up around 7 by our lovely rooster. SARCASM. But he/she constantly makes noise. Right now I'm sitting on the floor of our hut trying to stay warm at 8 in the morning. Here is my attire: a tank-top, t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt, hoodie, leggings, 2 pairs of socks, and my skirt all cuddled up in my sleeping-bag. (: FINALLY WARM. I have a feeling that we are all going to have runny noses. Well we will see how today goes (: Thank you Lord for blessing us with warm clothes and sleeping bags.

Love, Em

Philippians 2:11 - "Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

June 27th, 2012 - Eburru, Kenya

On the 26th at 8:30 pm (Kenya time) we finally landed in Nairobi, Kenya. Customs, visas, package, etc... never ending stress (: But somewhat good stress. Who knew that Kenya could be so sketchy. We were obviously warned about the "scary" stuff. If asked what we were doing, we were students touring Kenya. Always carry your back-pack on the front of you, don't speak loudly, and don't say the "M" word. A.K.A- missionary. Was I part of something illegal? POSSIBLY (: So we landed and we headed to get our visas. Finger-prints, photo taken, and passport scanned then we finally made it to the luggage claim. They sent 2 students with a leader to find our host, Pastor Steve. We then were taken to the matatu, a fourteen passenger, public form of transportation.

Since it was dark when we arrived in Nairobi and it is dangerous to travel at night, we stayed at the YMCA in Nairobi. What a blessing from the Lord, we had our own beds, running hot water, and toilets. (: Yes, I realize that I am very excited over something so very minuscule to Americans, but it was a BIG deal (:

We woke up and were served breakfast: toast, eggs, and fruit. DELICIOUS, seriously. At 9 we left for Eburru. At 9:30 we stopped to exchange money. $1=81 shillings. Then we continued on our journey to Eburru. We stopped 2 hours later to get our food at the grocery store. This is were I experienced my first squatty potty. (sorry no picture for the fancy, flushing squatty (= ) While we were waiting on our leaders, we made peanut butter sandwiches out of finger-knives. YUM --> at least the Lord blessed us with food. 2 more hours on the road & we will finally make it to our "home". SO BEAUTIFUL. Thank you Lord for everything.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." - Mark 12:30

"Home" in Indiana . . .

So before I say anything about this amazing life-changing experience, I want to apologize for not being able to blog while in Africa. We had 2 communication days which consisted of 20 minutes each time of super sketchy African internet (: needless to say, the whole 20 minutes all I did was talk to my mom, which was much needed. So to catch you up on everything, and when I say everything I don't really mean everything because there is no way I could express everything in a blog post, I am going to take a few days, or a lot of days, to write enteries from my journal that I wrote in everyday. I feel that this would be the easiest way, along with pictures, for my supporters, YOU, to see what I experienced. So here goes what God did in my month long adventure for Him.

Plane Ride - Atlanta to Amsterdam: 10:24pm & 4 hours to go -- 06-25-12

Well 8 hours on a plane I would not describe as fun but I would say eye-opening. Last night at worship, Jordan, a worship leader, came up to me and said "Ever since you got here God has constantly been telling me that you are bold and pure. The Lord loves you no matter what." Simply amazing. She also told me that my love for the Lord radiates from me. Such an encouragement to hear the Lord's truth. So as I sit on a plane, a Delta plane to be exact, I observe a woman. This woman does not speak English and is confused and lost because she can't understand. ---> WHAT A REMINDER - sometimes we can't always understand the Lord. But then, a man who knew her language translated to her. Sometimes, when we can't hear the Lord clearly He puts translators like Kelly, Ashley, and Jordan in our lives to translate to us. Isn't the God we serve A-MAZING. I sure think so :) 3 hours and 50 minutes until we reach Amsterdam. I can't believe the Lord has brought me this far already. Tomorrow I will be setting food on foreign ground. God is so good! Love you Lord.

<3 Em

"You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water." Psalm 63:1

Blog entry #1: Training Camp- June 23rd, 2012

I don't know anyone crazy enough to go 3 days without a shower or changing their clothes, sitting on a port-a-pot and realizing that you haven't actually washed your hands with soap and water in a sink also in 3 days, or even washing dishes in a bucket of water. WAIT, I lied, I do know someone, ME.

So now you know how the past 3 days have been (: Those things alone have completely challenged me. BUT, my whole heart has already been changed. Those things I listed are only the beginning. I am about to bored a plane for 24 hours to only be fortunate enough to shower maybe once a week, and that maybe is a big maybe. (: Friday the 21st I arrived at training camp with my parents in toe. A short hour later, we said our goodbyes and my parents put me into the hands of complete strangers along with the hands of the Lord (: I was so excited after shedding many tears, I couldn't wait to see what the Lord was going to do. I had in my mind that nothing was really going to happen until I actually got to Kenya on Tuesday, YES TOMORROW, eeeek (: But of course the Lord had something else in mind, duh Emma. So Saturday I woke up and after breakfast the leaders led us on a surrender hike. We each got a log, and yes it was heavy, butwe wrote things that we wanted to surrender to the Lord. We carried this log through the woods thus showing us that our burdens and sins are heavy. At the end we got to surrender those things by throwing the log into a fire pit. It felt awesome knowing those lies were gone. Later that night at worship we got time to ask God to speak to us. I didn't hear anything so I asked Ashley, one of our leaders, to pray for me. She spoke such truth to me about how the Lord loves me no matter what has happened. So I sat back down and asked the Lord to speak to me and this time He did. He showed me a picture of myself running FREELY. So at first I was like, I totally am just dreaming that but then Kelly, another leader who didn't know even my name, came up to me and said YOU ARE FREE. Because my Father is so forgiving. I am completely free of the past and I don't have to worry about that because the bondage is gone (: God is so good! Please continue to pray that the Lord would constantly remind me of this(:
Love you all (:

<3Em