Tuesday, December 21, 2010

hola from cartagena!

well i thought i would update quick. the team made it safe and sound to cartagena last evening. its so amazing here. we are staying in a small city that is apparently just a 10 minute walk from the beach. i have a bed, shower, and toilet so im feeling pretty content right about now haha. I am very excited to be spending the next 2 weeks in the city though. i`m already enjoying the culture and all that goes with it. so these next few weeks will be amazing.
so thats all for now i suppose.  sorry for the shortness of the update but internet cafe time is running out
thanks for the prayers
hasta luego!

Monday, December 13, 2010

God is good.

So it's about time i update again just because if i put it off longer that means this post will just get much longer. Lots happened this past week so i shall begin with our teaching we had this week. For this week we had some of the staff speak. These teachings were geared towards the area of missions. It was a great week of teaching and i got A LOT out of it all. I feel like it was God's way of showing me that i can really do this whole missions thing. But one day stood out in particular and that day was wednesday. That day a guy from the arvada base came up and talked to us about the Holy spirit's role in giving. Then he had us apply it in a very practical way. He dismissed us to go pray and see if God was asking us to give anything away to our fellow students and staff. God told me pretty much right away what he wanted me to give. He wanted me to give the students who still had outreach money due some money for their outreach. This was hard for me. God has been challenging in that area for some time and I felt like this was an area that i just needed to give over. After i made up my mind to finally listen to God (always a smart thing to do) i was filled with peace. It was a great feeling. So finally the time came for everyone to present our gifts to the people. It was a blessing just to be able to witness all the sacrifice and giving that went on. God showed his faithfulness and goodness to so many people that day. Even me. My one roommate blessed the socks off of me with her snowboard. This spoke volumes to me. It wasn't just a snowboard but it was God's way of showing me that he was really faithful and good. Other people gave rings that had huge sentimental value, clothes, laptops, ipods, a car, and the list goes on. I can guarantee you that there was no dry eye in the room. It was so awesome to see people give up something that meant a lot to them and then turn around and receive something just as precious. Again this just showed God's goodness. It was a powerful week and one i really won't forget.

So then came the weekend. Usually a weekend for me involves a lot of relaxing and just laying around. But this weekend we had our love feast, which is basically a christmas party. Everyone dressed up all nice and pretty. Yes that does mean i, janelle dienner, dressed up too. Hope i didn't shock you all too bad :) It was a great night despite it all tho. Each of the rooms had a little performance thing that they presented to the school. Lots of laughs needless to say. So then sunday night most of the dts went to carrabas  italian restaurant for some yummy food. It was an amazing final weekend. This past weekend was the last weekend we had to spend together as a whole school. This friday the colombian team (the team i'm in) will go down to the arvada base for the weekend. Then we leave from there on sunday for the airport. I know time flies. It's hard to believe that next week this time i will be in colombia. While its very sad to leave the other half of the school that will be going to thailand, i am very excited for outreach and all the adventures we are sure to have. I mean our trip starts off with and 18 hour adventure in the miami airport, we are lucky enough to have that lengthy of a layover their. And from the sounds of things, we might be spending christmas at the beach in Cartegena. How fun! I am sad to inform you all that i won't be able to update my blog very often while there. I'm not sure how often i will have internet access but i will do my best.

Well i've got to run now. Hope you all are enjoying the funness of the holidays that are fast approaching. I know i am. still very sad about the fact that i won't be home for christmas though mom. even though they aren't setting up a christmas tree :(
Anyway. so long. thanks for the thoughts and prayers :) i am very very very grateful for all my support i get from home. You guys rock. k bye now.

Friday, December 3, 2010

snowboarding, thanksgiving vacation, bible study

So that basically sums up my last few weeks. I apologize for the lack of posting thats been going on as of late. It's getting pretty busy around here with prepping for colombia and such.
So last week i was lucky enough to get to go home and spend thanksgiving with family. It was so nice to come home and see my much missed parents and brother and friends. Of course i had my share plus some of food. Not just over thanksgiving day but i had to stock up on some family cupboard food while i was at it. I forgot how good the food at home is. I am very glad i came home for the holidays. It would have been a long 5 months without seeing everyone if i didn't. So even though it was a short 4 day break, i filled it up with lots of catching up  with people at home. Even though i was sad to leave it was good to come back here. The people here have become like family to me. It really is amazing how close we have gotten over such a short amount of time. The only way i can explain how this happens is God. I just love the pure fellowship we share here and it only comes from all of us seeking God together.
So this weeks topic was biblical study. It was a pretty awesome week of teaching. It felt like i was back at lwa sitting in bible class again. It was so encouraging to hear all the things i had forgotten about bible study. This week showed me just how truly living and active the Bible is. No matter how much i study a passage I can ALWAYS learn something new. Its so awesome. Then to end this week it was topped off with a snowboarding trip to breckenridge. This was my second time ever snowboarding and i'm hooked already :) It's so unfortunate that it costs so much money to go boarding. I guess that means i just have to work a little harder when i get home to make up for it haha. Here are a few pics i took while on the mountain hope u enjoy
This was the beautiful sunrise that morning (yes i was up early enough to see the sunrise 5:45 to be exact)

This would be the amazing view from the top of the mountain

Me and Jeannine getting ready to head down

Me and my awesome roomie Karly :)
So  i know the pictures are few but it was a great day of boarding. No injuries so i'd say it was quite the successful day. Thats all for now. 
Just kidding. I forgot to add thatI leave in about 2 weeks for outreach by the way. Prayers are appreciated for the two teams heading out. There's lots of nerves and excitement. We are gunna have some awesome times in both countries.
Ok for real now. Goodnight all :)


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Jesus Freaks movie.

So some of you may have noticed the link i posted a few days ago on my facebook about the jesusfreaks movie. This is a documentary of a boarders dts that took place up here at eagle rock just month after the horrible shooting at the arvada base. I was able to watch the whole movie this past week and its pretty incredible. The movie takes you in depth into the students lives and you are able to see God's radical love transform the people apart of the school. I am honored to be apart of ywam denver's vision to touch my generation through this movie. The goal of the webisodes they have made is to make them go viral over the internet and just spread the word of Christ through these short videos. The heart ywam denver has for denver and this generation is contagious. They are sensing God's presence coming to this city and it so awesome to see the affects of it. God's going to start stirring up some awesome stuff through ywam denver and the jesus freaks movie and what makes this awesome is i get to be apart of it. I can't even express how grateful i am for the staff here that have awakened my passion for this generation and all the potential it has in God. It has been so awesome to see God confirm some of the things he has laid on my heart. So here is the link to the website of the Jesus freaks movie. Please check it out and spread the world. We want this to go big.

http://jesusfreaksmovie.com/

Thanks!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

My last 2 weeks

To start with, my apologies for not posting in a  while. I got a little lazy :) Well since i got that off my chest now, let me tell you all what has been going on out here in colorado.

So 2 weeks ago was holy spirit week here. It was a good week for me just to see my beliefs on the subject grow and change some. It was definitely a challenge though just because this topic is sometimes a hard one for me. But it made me go to the Bible and do some good Bible study just to make sure what i was hearing was straight truth. I was so grateful for my high school Bible teaching just because I was able to simply look at scripture and check into the background of it all. Also this week they had a day where some people came in and prophesied over us individually. That was a very encouraging experience and also unsettling in a way for me. What i mean by unsettling is it challenged me to not become satisfied with where I'm at and who I've become. They told me that God had more gifts for me to discover. They also told me to come to a place of rest and peace about my future. Which is what had been on my mind heavily that week. It was a pretty intense week for me but i definitely got a lot out of it.

Last week. Last week's topic was spiritual warfare. Yet another intense week. But i really appreciated the way our speaker presented it. He first off started by talking about community in the garden of eden and how we are called to that community. He talked about how spiritual warfare isn't some super-spiritual thing that only a few people can do but rather its for everyone and its pretty simple. It was also pretty cool to even see some of the power we have in prayer. The week before we had a time of intercession for Haiti and the hurricane that was supposed to hit them head on. Then as we watched the hurricane avoided most of the mainland and went right between the islands. Sadly Haiti didn't avoid all the wind and rain, but a majority of the country was spared. That was pretty awesome to see the power of our prayers and thousands of similar prayers from around the world. Theres something about claiming our authority in the Spirit and seeing results that can unify so many people. Also God has been working within the my dts to strengthen our community. During one our weekly talks as a group someone encouraged the group that to dig deeper into God we need to be strengthened as a community. God has really been working in our group and its so amazing to be apart of this dts.

So that bring us to this week.
This week's focus is outreach prep. So basically all week we are learning skits and dances that we will be performing in Colombia. So far I learned a skit and a dance. Pretty crazy i know, Janelle, dancing. who would've guessed. Sadly folks i don't know if video footage will be available to you all. so sad. and this week started off great with a fun game of soccer. I get to play soccer or basketball at least once a week. it doesn't get much better than that.

O and also I have been privileged enough to be listening to christmas music while it snows out up here. I even got to watch elf the other night. Christmas spirit has come early this year due to the fact i'll be missing it at home. So i figured it was ok for me to start now.

Well thats all for now. P.S 8 days till i come home!! Goodnight all :)

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Outreach in Albuquerque, New Mexico

So this past week was a crazy week. We left sunday morning for Albuquerque, NM and came back this past thursday night. It was an awesome time and God definitely did some awesome stuff while we were there. We split the whole dts into 3 groups and every evening we would either go to the local jail or the homeless shelter. Heres the day by day breakdown:


Sunday: a pretty uneventful day due to the fact that we were traveling for 9 hours in vans. It was  a pretty scenic drive though thanks to the mountains and the occasional antelope that i would spot. But we got there safe and sound without any mechanical breakdowns and such. We didn't really have any idea what kind of place we would be staying at for the next 4 nights but all we knew is we would be sleeping on the ground. However we were pleasantly surprised when we got to the church. We stayed at a huge church in the childrens area, and in this childrens area was a full blown play area thing like u find in mcdonalds but better. So as soon as we settled in of course we had our fun but sadly that was the last night we could play on it. Apparently it wasn't quite built for kids our age. Weird. But anyway the church had a very building and we were definitely fortunate enough to stay in such a nice building.


Monday: In the morning we had class and some skit practices before we went out in the afternoon. That day i was in the jail and some other people went to a halfway house for women just coming out of jail. Both ministry times were very powerful. We went to three different pods that day and ended up meeting up with the other group in a pod called God's pod. Apparently this was a pod that had a strong group of christians in it. They even played a few songs for us. It was  such an awesome experience to see these guys even though they were in some pretty hard situations, still worship God. At first when we started our little program in our first pod it was pretty unnerving. I had never done skits before not to mention in front of people. But as we got going i could see that these guys were interested in what we were doing and God opened my eyes to the need in there lives for God. So once we had finished putting on our skits and dramas we had time to talk and pray with the inmates. They were very open and honest with us which made things easy.


Tuesday: We started off the day with class time again. The topic of this week was fear of God and Donna (our dts leader's wife) was the speaker. Again it was some great teaching. After that i left with my group to go to the jail again. This was probably my favorite day in the jail. In the first pod we went to me and another girl from my dts talked to this one guy. He ended up telling us that he was in jail because he had killed a man but was hopefully going to get out soon because it was out of self defense. This man during our whole drama presentation thing was watching very intently. So when we went to talk to him he told us how we were such a blessing. We were able to pray for him and he started crying and he ended up praying to rededicate his life to Christ. It was so awesome to see God get a hold of his heart and really just touch his life. I was also able to pray with a lot of people in different pods. God gave me lots of confidence to really reach out to people.


Wednesday: This was our last day of doing our outreaches there. This day i went to a place called joy junction, this was a homeless shelter that took in families. Its a pretty awesome ministry they had set up. So when we got there we served lunch to the people there. After that we did some odd jobs. Then we did our skits and dramas for the people there and had some ministry time afterwards. Me and another girl prayed for this one mom. She told us that she hadn't felt God like this in a long time and its just what she needed. Her daughter was going through some hard stuff and so we were able to pray for her for that. It was again awesome to see God touch her situation and give her the boost she so desperately needed.

Thursday: Another travel day. Not too much happened.

So then we got back and had class friday as usual. And that brings us to today. A few of us went to a state park about a half hour from eagle rock. It was an absolutely beautiful day and the park was amazing. Its a popular spot for rock climbing. I took a few pics but they just don't do it justice.

Here are some pics of the park and of outreach--
Enjoying the slide :)

It was pretty awesome

A little vista we passed on our way to the park on Saturday

This is why rock climbers like this park. If you look close you can see them climbing

theres a climber on the far right side.

pretty mountain stream. 

It was such a beautiful place

Well thats about it now. Another week down and i've been here over a month now. Time is really flying! Hope you all have an awesome week!

relationship week

So i realize that i haven't really updated in quite a while so i'm going to start where i left off and that was right before relationship week. 

So this was last week and it was another good week of teaching. A couple from the arvada base came up to teach us this week. Sadly i missed the first day of class on tuesday due to a stomach bug. So that was a rough day and kinda boring but it did give me an opportunity to catch up on the last few chapters of the book i'm reading called radical. I even got to listen to a few lessons that my church sent me :) that was a huge blessing. But then i was back in class on wednesday which was good because i don't think i could have took another day just laying in bed. It was kinda boring. It was another good week of teaching, and i learned a lot about friendships and guy/girl relationships. They offered really positive teaching about healthy relationships which was really uplifting. I feel like too often its easy to get caught up with the bad and hard parts of relationships and then ignore all the great uplifting things that are there too. They also really allowed us to think for ourselves when it came to boundaries in relationship. They would present what the Bible said about certain issues then let us discern it from there. It almost felt like i was in bible class at school again listening to Mr. Cote teach on PMRs (potential marriage relationships) so it was nice to hear what i already knew be reinforced. 

On a separate note. i was struggling with some feelings of depression due to the phillies... they let me down big time. I was looking forward to watching the world series and bragging on the phillies the whole time but noo they lost. It was a sad day. 

So thats about it for relationship week. It was a pretty simple week but it was yet another quality growing experience. :)


Sunday, October 17, 2010

Father heart of God

Boy. what a week. The internet finally decided to work up here now so i decided now would be a good time to do some updating. This week we were able to have a speaker named Jeff Pratt come and teach on the father heart of God. He is an excellent communicator and was a walking quote book almost haha. I don't even know where to start with his teaching. I'll try to explain it the best i can. So tuesday the subject was on the passion and dream. He talked about the importance of being impassioned people as followers of Christ. Then he went over the many different faces of passion that God embodies. He is the lover/bridegroom, husband, friend, mother,  and father. Then on Wednesday he spoke on the wall of divide. He was saying that its through our hurts and wounds that we can create this wall of divide between our Creator and ourselves. It is never about God reaching to us rather its about our past hurts or sins that hold us back from truly loving God. He also talked about our times of darkness or captivity that we often find ourselves in. He defined those times of captivity as the times where God seems distant and living a christian walk seems so difficult. He talked about how when we go through those dark times that is when God is able to do some pretty challenging but life-changing things in our lives. Then came Thursday. Wow. that was a very intense day. We had a long time of ministry that day where we were able to surrender some areas that we had held onto and had created walls in our lives. Then on Friday our last day with Jeff, he gave practical ways to walk out this freedom we had experienced from tearing down those walls. I really enjoyed this week a lot and learned a bunch too. It also brought us much closer as a school. It was awesome to watch students reach out to

Then friday evening i went down with some of the people here to the arvada base to take part of a thing called kingdom night, Kingdom night is a ministry they more recently started where they do ministry in downtown denver. There was about 30 or 40 of us that went and it included people from the different schools at the arvada base. So we went down there and we could either walk around with signs that say free prayer or we could just walk around and talk with people. So me and another girl from my school started talking to this one guy who was checking out what was going on. We ended up talking to him for over an hour but got no where it seemed. He was very open to sharing what he believed and he would listen to what we had to say but yet he still didn't quite buy the whole Christianity thing. He believed that putting and name to the whoever created everything limited that being. I found myself feeling really sorry for the guy. He really thought he was living a pretty full and amazing life, but he still had such a huge part of himself missing. In some ways its always harder to minister to the ones who are well off and satisfied with life because its so hard to see there need for Christ. Its even the same for those Christians who are just as well off. They are so easily caught up in there success and having celebrating that success that they forget that with that blessing comes responsibility in the church. 


So as of now i'm still leaning toward going to columbia for my outreach. So its time to start practicing some spanish i guess :). And we leave for Albuquerque, new mexico next sunday to do some outreach there. So yeah thats about it for now. Next week's teaching topic is relationships so it should be another good week. So goodnight all! keep in touch! and GO PHILLIES!!!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

observing.

Theme of this weeks teaching: Characteristics of God. We learned about God as the creator, risk-taker, trinity, father, lover, and a few others. The teachings on the trinity were pretty mind bending and in depth. This whole week was full of information and got a bit overwhelming at some points, but thats why we have the weekend. I've pretty much spent the whole weekend at eagle rock which is nice. Currently I'm sitting by a nice cozy fire in the dinning hall. It's so nice to have some down time finally. All week we are doing something from 7:30 till 6ish. The day can get long fast. But I'm starting to learn ways to keep relaxed and make the most of my time here.

Today was definitely not an all relaxing day however. For one thing my day started at 5 in the morning. Thats right 5 AM. A bunch of us decided to do a sunrise hike to eagle rock which is a rock formation type place that overlooks eagle rock. So we started hiking up this mountain while it was still pretty dark out. So my little headlamp was pretty handy-dandy. The hike up was pretty difficult i can't lie, but the view was TOTALLY worth it. We got up to the top in time to watch the sun change the appearance of the landscape. We could even see the continental divide from where we were. Despite the cold wind and whole fear of heights thing I was able to enjoy it all. Well i was going to try and upload some pics for you all to see but its not working at the moment. So I'll try some other time.

Well thats about it for now. Enjoy your weekend!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

birthday pics (a little late i know)

so i got some pics from someone else of my birthday and figured u all would enjoy them a little :)



So yes mom they did sing to me and have  a cake for me. Don't worry :)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

First birthday away from home

Well i spent my 19th birthday away from home.. it was bittersweet. So heres how my day went:
I woke up pretty early and took a shower. Apparently i missed a pretty fun awakening from some of my roommates. They were all going to climb in my bed and wake me up so instead they all sang to me in the bathroom as i brushed my teeth :). Then after breakfast we had our first classroom time. This weeks teaching is on the different characteristics of God. We started looking through the creation story and it was pretty awesome some of the stuff everyone noticed. All through the day everyone kept saying happy birthday and it was great. I love everyone here. a lot. So then after our two teaching sessions we had our first introduction to creative presentations class. But this one was a bit different because it had more of a focus on drama stuff (its not usually like that). The reason it was that way is because we are leaving in about 3 weeks for New Mexico to do a mini outreach. We will be ministering to a correctional facility there through dramas and such. So in todays creative presentation time we did a lot of stretching stuff haha like mimeing so it was a bit of a stretch for me but i had a good time laughing at myself and everyone else. Then after that we had our work duties and mine is dinner prep. I have a feeling its going to be an absolute blast. Again I'm with some pretty fun folks :). Then tonight i played some good ole volleyball. Its going to be a fun week i can tell. Its really starting to feel like my home away from home now. I am really looking forward to see what all God is going to do with my time here. He already has shown me soo much and its only the beginning of the second week! I just hope i can take it in while i can because i know its going to go by wayy too fast. So yeah. That was my eventful day. It was a pretty amazing birthday dare i say it was one of my best. So goodnight all!

Friday, October 1, 2010

my week in review

Well. I made it through the first week! and so far no melt downs about going home. So i'd say it was a great success :). Let me just inform you all of what the rest of my week included.

The big bull elk on the golf course
Wednesday- This was the day full of hiking and elk fun. We traveled down to Estes state park which took about an hour and a half. But it was a drive through some beautiful mountain scenery. Anywhere you go here you see mountains. its great. So we started out the hike and ended up going the wrong way on a trail. We took the climbing trail instead of the nice little easy trail. The climb was pretty crazy and by the time I got word that we had to stop and turn around I was almost to the top of this mountain. So then on the way down I had my first encounter (and hopefully my only) with a cactus. I was trying to make it down on the trail without sliding so i put my hands behind me to brace myself and put my two fingers right where a cactus happened to be. This also happened about a minute after i had warned a guy to watch out for the cactuses (cacti?) on the trail. So yeah im pretty sure there are still little thorns stuck in my hand. Who knew there were so many thorns on one cactus. O and they range in size too. There were little itty bitty ones and big ones. Anyways. We finally all made it to where we were supposed to be and had a little worship service on the mountain. It was a great experience. I loved it. O and then we went and saw some elk! Apparently they really don't care about people. They just sit and chill while a huge crowd gathers around only about 50ish yards away. They act like they own the town and i think they pretty much do. We spotted a herd on a local golf course and were able to get some pretty awesome pics of them. Even got to hear them. O man they sound so awesome. So then we went over the the local ymca and had some sharing time. I was able to hear all the testimonies of the staff and students. Its pretty amazing to hear what some people have come through and to see some walk out in faith in this DTS even though some have no idea why they are here. That was pretty much Wednesday.

Thursday- We spent that this day at the base all day. We got our work assignments for the rest of the dts. Every week day we have a scheduled work time and during that work time we all have different tasks to do each day. So my work duty is dinner prep. I was pretty happy about that one cause it meant i wouldn't have to get up early or clean anything :). So we had a lot of class time that day so it was pretty uneventful till the evening. We had a pretty intense evening service. Where we were all challenged to relinquish control. God's still working that one out in me. Its a pretty difficult task i must say. So its only been about 4 days into the school and already God has been doing some pretty difficult shaking in my life. Which can only mean even greater things are to come.

Friday- So then today we went down to Boulder for the afternoon where we met up with the musicians dts that is at the arvada base and did a scavenger hunt. Pretty fun time. Got to see an interesting side of Colorado. There were lots of hippies there and a good majority i'm pretty sure were stoned. It was a beautiful town despite that though. And when we got back we had the rest of the evening free. I must say my classmates here are pretty amazing and they definitely know how to have a good time.

Weekend plans- So saturday I'm thinking i'm going to get a chance to play some soccer! I'm telling you I'm in the perfect place! One day I'm hiking and seeing elk the next I'm playing basketball and the next I'm playing soccer. Other than soccer and church on sunday its a free weekend. Which i'm kinda dreading and looking forward to at the same time. I'm most definitely looking forward to some down time but yet with down time comes thoughts of home, which i do miss. I know that sunday i'm really going to miss church and being home :(. but i'm taking it a day at a time and try not to dwell on the fact that I'm here for a while.

Well that was a lengthy post. O well. Its whats been happening in my life this past week and its been a very eventful week. So long all and i hope to hear from you soon :)

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Reporting to you live from Eagle Rock!

So in case you haven't heard I made it safe and sound. The flight went perfectly fine, well after I had to say bye to my parents that is :(. So far we've been doing a lot of group activities just to get to know everyone a little better. This week is whats called bonding week so theres going to be plenty of opportunities to get to know all these people here. Today we had went over all the guidelines then in the evening we went up to the leader, Mark's, house. He has a beautiful log cabin about a 10 minute walk from where we are staying. So that was fun we just hung out and talked. Also today i got to play some basketball with well pretty much all guys haha. It was a blast. I think i held my own among some of the over 6 foot guys. But it was pretty challenging to play in this altitude. I lose my breath just coming up the stairs. Tomorrow is going to be an awesome day. We are heading out to Estes state park, its about an hour away i think. We are going to do some hiking then worship up top the mountain. Then after that we get to go see some elk! Can't wait for that.

The transition from here to home has been pretty easy so far, which is surprising but i have no doubt that its due to all the prayers from you at home, so thanks for that :) The people here are just amazing. My roommates are awesome. Theres 4 other girls in my room with me and so far we are getting along just fine. I think these next few months are going to be pretty spectacular and i'm excited to get to know all the people in my class better.

Well thats it for now. I uploaded a few pics i took already, no worries there are more to come. THANKS again for all the prayers cuz i'm pretty sure thats what has been getting me through these first few days. I will write again soon telling you all of my mountain adventures :) so long for now

Sunday, September 26, 2010

colorado or bust

Well. Its my last night at home for a while. I can't believe how fast it came. All day today i kept thinking, hm wonder what i'll be doing tomorrow this time? still a bit of a weird thought to think that the next few months I'm going to be in a completely different world that is Colorado.

So my goodbyes really went over pretty well. They weren't as hard as i thought it would be. I feel like I have 3 families sometimes: my real family, my family cupboard family, and my church family. Yeah i feel loved a lot :) I'm not too sure what I'd do without each family to be honest. I have had such great support from my parents and brother through it all. They are amazing people and they are the ones i'm going to miss the most. The family cupboard family is just amazing too. I always know I can swing by the restaurant and be greeted with a smile and a genuine how's it going. The people I've worked with these last few years have definitely impacted my life and well the customers... I can do without most of them, the grumpy ones anyway :). Then my church family. I have recently been attending Zion church of millersville and well frankly i have know idea what i would do without them. I know they are going to support me through these next few months and it's truly an amazing feeling. I'm going to miss it like crazy but yet I wouldn't have it any other way.

So I thought that i'd explain a bit my title of my blog. It was brought up today in sunday school and mark had some pretty insight on it. Well i discovered the phrase while reading the shack last year or so and it has stuck with me ever since then. For me it has always made things simple. When i find myself striving and trying so hard to keep God happy as well as those around me happy (an impossible task mind you), I just remember that you know what, i can do nothing to gain any brownie points for God. It all comes down to accepting the love that is freely given. Through this mentality it leads to a natural outflowing of love. Its so easy to get caught up in the busy flow of life and let some of the simpler messages of the Bible go unheard. Life gets complicated and messy when we lose sight of what truly matters in this earthly life and that is belonging to the Savior. Sometimes it feels like the world is caught up with finding the perfect formula or perfect words to say in order to make things right with God, but in reality it just comes down to letting God meet you where you are at. Haha i guess that explanation got a bit lengthy o well

I guess my last few words to you all as i write this from home would be a great big thank you. If your reading this its probably because you have in some way poured time and love into my life so i thank you for it. I also want to say thanks for all the prayers this week and in the week to come. Its gunna be a hard but terribly exciting week for me. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
Well thats all for now. exactly 12 hours till i'll be taking off just fyi :)

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

outreach locations and such

Tonight I found out my two option for outreach. They are *Drum roll please* thailand or colombia!!! I'm pretty much ecstatic about both of these areas. I would love to go to a spanish speaking area and Thailand just sounds amazing. I have a cousin and aunt who would be in Thailand around the same time i am and would it would be pretty fun to meet up with them. These locations kinda seal it for me that Colorado is where I am supposed to be. As scared as I am to leave my beloved Lancaster county, I am starting to get very excited for september 27th (when i leave/arrive in colorado). It's kinda funny how you can be so excited for something yet dread it at the same time. I was never one to enjoy goodbyes or change in general so these coming months will be pretty stretching. Its pretty crazy times right now in my head- one minute I just want to stay, the next minute I'm itching to go. But don't worry even though it may sound like I'm indecisive and slightly bipolar, I think this process is normal so no need to worry for my mental health quite yet :)
As I've kind of been reflecting on life and how it's just brought me too this point in life, I can only think- God is amazing. The timing of it everything is flawless. It gives me hope for whats coming next because I know that whatever may happen, God is going to use whatever happens for His glory. God has brought some pretty incredible people into my path this past year, including a new church family, and they have all made this new step  so much easier. Even in church we are about to go through a book called radical and it talks about really becoming a person surrendered to the will of God and pretty much being radical for God. Its been such an encouragement and is really getting me excited for this change. I know this year is going to mark some pretty significant changes in life for me, and as scared as i may be sometimes, its exciting, radical stuff.
Well i could ramble on all night about this but i should sleep now if thats possible. Hope reading this doesn't get too confusing. If you have questions about anything (including my sanity) just ask :)
Goodnight and God bless.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The preparation.

So. The time has come to start my blog. In this I'm hoping to keep you all (whoever that may be) posted on what's happening in my life. As you know I am getting ready to head out to Colorado in a matter of weeks to begin my discipleship training school (DTS) with YWAM (Youth With A Mission). It's a pretty new and exciting time in my life. Its going to be a big adjustment to move away from my family, friends, and church, and I know I'm going to miss my life here terribly. But yet I have a very deep inner-peace about it all because I know this is exactly where God wants me at this point in my life.

So I suppose I should explain a bit about what exactly I'm going to be doing out in Colorado. Well. To start I am leaving on September 27th. When I get there I will meet up with about 40 other people who will be doing this DTS with me. The DTS includes about 12 weeks of what is called the lecture phase. During this time I will be learning about ministry and basically deepening my faith. Then when those 12 weeks are done I'll be leaving Eagle Rock (that the name of the base I'm staying at in Colorado) and going out of the country for 8 weeks. The 8 week period is called the outreach phase. I don't know where I'll be going yet but as soon as I know I will let  you all know. So thats what I'm going to be doing for 5 months. Its going to be life changing and very stretching for me.

So thats what lies ahead for me. Its pretty cool to see God already use this experience to advance His name. For example. At work (I'm a waitress at my parents restaurant) customers ask about what my plans are for the fall and I'm able to tell them about this experience. It's always interesting to see there reactions. Some people have no idea what I'm talking about and others offer encouragement to me.

Thats about it for now. I'll be updating again probably as the time to leave fast approaches. Its amazing how fast time flies when you have so much to get done. Well so long for now.
--Janelle