WOW! How do I describe all the events that have happened in these past four days? Let me start off with saying- although I have only known my lovely teammates for 4 days- i feel like I’ve known them for years! They are all strong beautiful women of God who are truly my sisters! I could write a whole blog about how individually unique and amazing each girl is but i’m going to focus this blog on our first night in Atlanta-
When we arrived at the airport instead of going straight to the AIM campus we took the marta (rail) to downtown Atlanta and we stayed in the Safe House, a homeless shelter, for the night. We had an evening program filled with powerful worship and encouragement, and then we were presented with a challenge: to go into the streets of downtown Atlanta at night and talk to people about Christ…I was thinking- what an incredible opportunity, but Lord- I’m not right for this– I’m not prepared!! Our group prayed together for words, visions, and numbers that would lead us to people God wanted us to talk to. As I was praying I immediately got this image of an African American woman with red somewhere on her clothing. As we were walking through downtown, Calie and I first talked to this kind man- Dan who had a stroke and as a result had to use a cain. He told us about his family and Calie and I had the opportunity to tell Dan our testimonies and to pray for healing. After we said bye to Dan we kept on walking and this image of this woman with a beautiful smile kept on popping up in my head. Our group walked past a bus stop and I saw this woman sitting there and I heard God say: GO! I wish I could say I immediately walked over to her and started talking, but Christ used Calie again to motivate me to go talk to her. Her name was Diane and she was originally from New York. We talked to her about Christ and she pretty much said in a matter of words- I just don’t want to commit because getting too involved in things gets messy. After we encouraged her to visit the Safe House, told her we loved her, and left- I had a thought:
Diane’s attitude is so similar to many Christians today- I don’t want to make the full commitment, I don’t want to give things up. This week at training camp God has been teaching me some things about surrender- He wants everything: your ugliness, your beauty, your mistakes, your insecurities, your victories, your goals- EVERYTHING! And He promises us that He is faithful- that He won’t look at our brokenness and run but He’ll embrace us. And most importantly He’ll bless us with amazing things in place of where the burdens were.
God has done some crazy things in my life already at training camp- pushing me farther out of my comfort zones then I’ve ever experienced!
In 9 hours we’ll begin the travel process to Bolivia!!!
Thanks for all your prayers- love you all!
