October 17, 2011
Thank you to everyone who made time to see me when I came home in August. It made me feel really loved. The Lord is so Good! I can not even begin to tell you how God has broken into my finances….but I will try. So last month I told you that the Lord gave me 2 jobs! He is so kind. I had just started working with the CEC on the nightwatch and after only about a month of volunteering there, the lady in charge asked me if I would be interested in some more responsibility and told me about a job opening that had just come available. She is over all the nightwatch CEC and then under her she has 2 nightly coordinators who take turns different nights of the week and go in 30 minutes earlier and unlock the classroom doors. Then you have to go between shifts and make sure the teachers got there and if they didn’t show up, you have to go find replacements. Then at the end of the night, you close it all down a nd make sure all the doors get locked, etc. You are also a lead teacher in the classrooms. So there’s 10 hours of classroom teaching and then 6 hours of admin, like making copies and such. So I told her I would pray about it and then she said and oh yeah you would get paid. So I didn’t have to pray long. Basically I am now getting paid to do exactly the same thing I was doing as a volunteer. It’s not quite enough to cover my monthly expenses, but it certainly helps a bunch. Then the other job is I started tutoring with a company and right now I have a client that 1 do 4 hours a week and it works great for my schedule right now because I can do it between class and the prayer room. It doesn’t get any better than that!
I started my 2nd year of FSM a few days after I got back to Kansas City. Thanks for your prayers!! About a week after I sent out my newsletter, I received news that my church back home was going to pay for another semester of FSM!!! Such a blessing! Classes have started and this year is already way more intense than last. Last year was more like heart classes and I didn’t even feel like I was in school. This year, I am definitely aware that I am in a Bible college. We have a class called Biblical Hermeneutics (which is basically just a fancy word for Bible study) and then we have Old Testament Survey, which basically the teacher walks us through the whole Old Testament. I was super overwhelmed for probably the first 2 weeks when classes started, but now that I’ve had some time to sit down and figure my schedule out better, I am doing better because I have set times for homework which helps me to be productive. The classes aren’t necessarily hard, but they are super time consuming and there is a lot more work outside of class so I will have to work much harder this semester than last. Also, tutoring takes a large portion of my time. I do it 6:30-8:30 twice a week so I just have a lot less free time than I did last year.
And here again I see the Lord’s perfect leadership in my life. You know how I said last month I didn’t understand why God wouldn’t let me work all summer and why I had so much free time? Well I quickly figured out it’s because He knew what this semester was going to be like. He was so kind to give me several months where I had a bunch of free time to just relax and read whatever I wanted. There’s not much time for that right now. Any free time that I have is basically taken up with homework. I am even having to spend some of my prayer room time working on homework. This is not my favorite part but He is definitely giving me grace for this season.
IHOP just celebrated its 12th anniversary of 24/7 worship and intercession. It’s so funny to think that I was here during the 10th anniversary when I was in FITN. It was cool to hear the stories of how it started and the different things that God has spoken to Mike over the years leading up to it. It helps to constantly be reminded of why I chose to do what I do. A couple weeks ago leadership told us that they are going to do a 21 day fast and encouraged as many of us as wanted to also join. As much as I don’t really like to fast, I get really excited when corporate fasts are called because to me that says that God is up to something and I just want to be wherever God is moving. So please pray for grace for me. The fast is September 29- October 19 and I have just done really poorly fasting lately so I will need all the help I can get.
This part is really exciting. I have some God stories to share! Over the summer my roommate did a speech fast, which means she chose not to speak for a set time period each week. This sparked my curiosity and so I wanted to see what the Bible says about talking/speech. God is actually very clear about what He feels about meaningless chatter and idle speech. I will leave it to you to do your own Bible study. Anyway, one day over the summer I was volunteering at the Fascinate conference which is the high school aged one. I was in the shuttle line waiting for the shuttle and there was a conversation going on behind me about stevia and artificial sweeteners and how one was so much better than another. I remember thinking to myself, what is the point of this conversation? Anyway when I got on the bus I was just talking to God and asking Him about the spirit of prophecy and telling Him that I wanted my heart to be on fire and I wanted Him to use me to speak truth to people’s hearts and I was wondering if keeping my mouth closed instead of joining the others in conversation or starting a conversation with someone next to me would actually make a difference. I asked but I didn’t hear Him talk back. I chose to just keep quiet and not join the conversation. When I got to the convention center, I went to my assigned seat and put my stuff down. There was a lady usher who was sitting in the chair behind me and I smiled and said hi. She started a conversation with me and I found out that she was just visiting from California and had been at IHOP a couple of weeks and was going to be for about a month just to kind of get refreshed and spend some time talking to God and seeking Him for her next season of life. I am my father’s daughter so I am usually pretty early to everything so there was actually about an hour before the conference session started. As we were talking, I really felt like I was supposed to pray for her so I asked her if I could. At first she said no, she was very picky about who she let pray for her. So we continued to chat for a little while and then she told me if I still wanted to pray then I could. So I sat down next to her and I began to pray for her. I had only been praying for a couple of minutes when all of a sudden, she just starts sobbing. I had no idea if what I was praying was good or not, but usually tears mean you are hearing the Lord. So I continued to pray for her until the conference started and then I walked back to my seat and she continued to sit there. A little while into worship, she got up and came and gave me a big hug with tears still in her eyes and she thanked me for praying for her. She said as I was praying, she felt like the Lord just came and took a huge vacuum cleaner and sucked all of the junk out of her. She felt like a new person. I couldn’t help but laugh at the Lord’s timing. He didn’t even wait. As soon as I got off the bus and walked into that place He chose to use me, because I had chosen to keep my mouth closed and talk to Him. He put fire on my words, because I chose to keep my mouth shut.
Here’s another cool God story! A couple of months back I had told one of my supporters that I was a little short of support and asked if she would pray for the Lord to meet my needs. I didn’t think anything of it and then the next month when she sent me my support check, it had an added amount and it was the amount I had told her I was short. I thought oh that’s so sweet, she had some extra money that month and knew I had a need. So I decided to send her a thank you card and I asked the Lord for a verse for her to encourage her and then I mailed off the card. Well about a week later I got an email from her and she said that I needed to thank her husband for the extra support. She told me she never tells him that kind of stuff and she did not share my need. Then one day he came to her and said I think we need to send your girl at IHOP some extra money this month. So she said ok just let me know how much to write the check for and he was the one that came up with the amount! Isn’t that awesome? He doesn’t even know me, except through his wife, and he had no idea of what I needed and the Lord spoke to him my exact amount. Plus on top of that, she said that the word I got from the Lord was like dead on and encouraged me that I absolutely hear from God. When I read the email it encouraged my heart so much!
