Make My Heart Like Yours

There is a little less than a month till Intake starts. I'll admit I'm nervous. I'm an introvert and I'm afraid I'll shy away from my fellow missionaries-in-training. I'm nervous about being the youngest girl, I'm afraid I will just try to ''keep quite and keep out of the way".  In the midst of my worrying God has been showing me that it will all be okay.

Psalm 55:22
Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

What I need to work on now, and for the rest of my life, is to make my heart like His. People are not my favorite.  They are noisy, talking all the time, they have different ideas than I do, sometimes even a small group of friends intimidate me. Me, is my space, and I don't want a ton of people tramping in it. Dwelling on this I've asked God why He's called me to be a missionary.

Ezekiel 36:26

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

 

I, by myself, can not be a missionary. By myself I will fail. I will see people and freeze, not knowing what to say or what to do. Only with God can I work to be strong enough.  He can nudge me towards a group of people.  Only with God can I be the crazy person who smiles at everyone, even stopping to talk to people on the street. 

This change can only happen if I give my heart to God and ask Him to make it like His.   

 
 

God is Good

God is amazingly good to me! The past few weeks have been crazy.  My family has been away from the Philippines for almost three months now, we traveled from the Philippines to our home state of Oregon. There I graduated from High School and traveled back down to Big Woods.  From Big Woods I flew to Ecuador where I spent two weeks helping to lead a mission trip.  It was so amazing! My second favorite country is now Ecuador.  I fell in love with the people, and the beautiful jungle. It was so good to be back in missions serving and preaching.  I will be leading another trip in July.   

Another wonderful thing that happened was I got accepted to this years Intake! 

Every year starting in September, Family Missions Company (FMC) trains new missionaries to go out to the world.  I will be apart of that this year.  I ask for everyone to please please pray for me. That I would have an open heart and mind to be taught. And that God would just shower graces upon me and those joining me in this blessed work. Also pray that I get enough money to pay the training fees. 

I hope and pray that God shows how good he is to you this week!

Update

Today we remember the trial and death of Jesus, who came to earth to die for all of us, for those who know Him today and those who may never know Him.  That thought boggles my mind.  As a Catholic I've always known that he died for my sins, but for the past few weeks I've been reflecting on the fact that he also died for the sins of people who may never know He lived.   It was this thought, and the sadness I felt knowing that people in this world are living and dying without knowing of His mighty love and mercy, that has set a fire in my heart to continue missions apart from my family.
August of this year I'm going to turn 18, and I know there are many options for me to pursue. For about 4 years now I've wanted to get my certification to be a practicing midwife, this is something still on my heart but it doesn't seem as important now.
Many of my friends are going on to college, but that too doesn't seem as important.  What seems most important living a life, and preaching a gospel that will save souls, all with the help of Christ.
So a couple days ago I gave my application to be a full time missionary with FMC. (fmcmissions.com)
My missionary training, called Intake, starts in September.  I ask everyone to pray for me as I prepare for training.

A whole post about truth.

This might take the form of a rant of sorts so I apologize in advance.


Last night when we were at the bible study I sat there looking around asking myself,

“What am I doing here?” The truth of the matter is I shouldn’t be here; I’m the last person who should be in mission. The truth is that I don’t like being a missionary; I don’t like having to give up my school schedule to help people. I don’t like having a shower that’s just a pipe in a wall. I don’t like living without some comforts. The truth is I complain and I get disagreeable when these things happen.

The truth is I get mad at God for asking me to do things like this. The truth is some days I just want to ignore him. The truth is my life gets messed up.

A missionary should be perfect right? They should be a saint, a shining example of Jesus Christ.

That’s not me. A missionary should pray every single day and read the Bible for hours on end right? Well I don’t do that, I try, but some days I forget to pray, some days I don’t want to pray.

But the truth is also that I am here in the Philippines. And I am a missionary at this time in my life. So there must be an answer to my question.

“What am I doing here?”

Something interesting happened last night at the Bible study. The building that we go to is called the Barangay Hall, behind and around it are the houses of people who live in this Barangay, which are basically different sections of land where people live. As we are white we stick out A LOT here in the Philippines. So of course some people came out to watch us just because of that fact, but by the time the meeting started they had gone back inside their house. Soon it got dark and we started the meeting with singing. And I saw someone creep out of the house and hide behind a tree to watch us. But this person, I think it was a woman, wasn’t standing in a place where she could see us Americans very well. She could hear us though. I saw in her not a curiosity of white people, but of what we were doing here.

Who are these white people who sing?

I don’t know the full answer to the question, “Why am I here.” But I have an idea, and I have a story. The story is about my family, who according to a lot of people are crazy. We have ten children, we moved from our home, our farm, our family and our job to live with the poor in the Philippines.

They sing these white people with guitars. They dance with us, these white people. They act like fools and they don’t mind. These white people, they tell us of a man who says He loves us. These white people. They are different.

I’m going to start to tell my stories; every week at least I’m going to plan on finding a story. Not because you need to hear them, but because I need to remind myself why I’m here.

Birthday Pics

For my 17th birthday I let my mom plan my party. And I'm glad she did!  My grandma sent me a beautiful white glass tea set and my mother invited all the missionary ladies over for a tea party.

We had such a fun time sitting and drinking tea and talking about everything under the sun. 

My two best friends came from town also.

The tea was so good! I was missing my chai tea.

The tea table looked so pretty. :) 

 See? Cute huh. ;) 

 We had an abundance of food, I probably ate too much. ;) 

It was the best birthday ever! 

Thanks to my lovely mom and sisters who helped set everything up! 

Abi

Birthdays!

This week I celebrated my 17th birthday.  I had a wonderful day with friends and family.  The day after my birthday (the 10th) is my sister Rebecca's birthday.  She turned 4.  :)  I'll be posting again with some pictures. 

Let the insanity begin!

This week starts work week, which is when all the staff for Faith Camp get together to make Faith Camp happen.  We paint murals, get the games ready, and the coordinates get the plan for the next week all shiny. :D Please pray for me, and for all on staff this week that we would prepare our hearts to be the leaders God's want.

God Bless!

Me

Who I want to be:

Daughter of god. 

Servant of the Poor

Midwife

Sister

Helper

Friend

Daughter to my parents 

Lover

Guide 

I've been thinking about this a lot,  as you can tell from the posts lately. And I was thinking about how often I fail in my duties, how often I fail to be all I want to be, and God has called me to be.   I want this list to be written on my heart, something that I wake up in the morning in my mind, and something that I go to sleep remembering how I succeeded and failed and how I will do better the next day. 

Never forget who you are and who God as made you. He has wonderful plans in store for those who follow him. 

Remember Who made you, and who loves you. 

Blessings to you all my wonderful followers. 

This

This is what I want to be:

A Meaning

Today I read this lovely post, and decided to do one like it.  My name is Abigail, but its rare that I actually call myself that, usually I go by "Abi".  But my name has a lovely meaning:
"Father's Joy"    The meaning of my name is special to me because I take it not only am I a joy to my father on earth, I am also a joy to my Father in heaven.  To please both fathers is something I have to and want to strive for each and ever day.

Myself

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"  Mary Oliver


Today I found this quote and I loved it. It makes me think so many things, words and thoughts and idea I wish I could write down and share.  But they don't make sense right now, which brings me to this quote: 


"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still." 

~Thoreau


Beautiful aren't they?   Let us all ponder them...




P.S the background for the text keeps doing that to me, and I don't understand how to fix it. It's driving me cray. Sorry about it. :P