Hold On.

This week, my family relived the day that my aunt was senselessly taken from this world a year ago. I still remember that call, almost to exact verbatim. There I was, in Louisville, for my week-long internship training and I was going to on a plane to Bosnia in less than 3 days. My world froze. The thing I remember feeling the most was helplessness to comfort the ones I love the most in their despair...

Here we are, one year later. Still broken, but still fighting to not let the evil of this world triumph. This year has grown me more than any before. I wasn't very close with my aunt, but I certainly loved her and the ones she loved most. I've felt more emotions than I knew I had the capability of feeling. I've learned to love better and fiercer. I've also learned about the Father and His love for us... finite, angry, messy, prideful, and imperfect humans.

When tragedies happen, why are people so quick to blame God? For the longest time even before my aunt was murder, I was haunted by the question, "Why do horrible things happen to good people?" and "Why would God allow such a thing to happen?" The answer is simple: This world is a cold, evil, and vile place that is "not under" God's authority. This world is Satan's playground and his forces are at work to cause any destruction he can.

Some may look at that answer and think that it is a cop out. However, this is clearly displayed through Jesus' temptation in Luke 4. How did Satan gain His power over the world? People fell to temptation. God is holy, which means "set apart." God cannot have a part in anything unholy. God did not want or allow Michelle to be cruelly murder. God does not desire for us to feel pain, depression, or anger. So, He did something about it and that is what allows me to celebrate Michelle a year later with hope for the future.

God redeemed us and defeated death.... HALLELUJAH! The chains are broken and we are free. Christ went to the cross with the sorrow of a mother that lost her child, with the evil of a dictator that slaughters half of a races population, with the cruelty of the man who took my aunt's life and with every conceivable evil in this world. And you know what that means? He ANNIHILATED it. It is defeated and has no power over those who love Him. He is the rock on which we can stand even through the darkest, most severe storms that this world can throw at us.

In closing, the simple words of an Of Monsters and Men song come to mind when thinking of this past year and wear my family is now:
The rocking of his house
Had me holding on,
But I knew that I was safe
From there on out.
-From Finner by Of Monsters and Men
As Tony Campolo said in one of our school's chapels this year, "It may be Friday, but Sunday is coming!" In other words, we may not see any good in the situation that we are facing in the present, but God has already beat evil. Hope is here, now, and forever. Amen.

God is Sovereign

Bosnia:
A place of beauty.
A place that reminds me to pray for my Muslim brothers and sisters daily.
A place that changed my heart in a BIG way.
A place I will be spending 6 months of 2013 in.

In the end of May/ beginning of June, I plan to leave America to spend 6 months in Bosnia as an internship for my ESL degree. What's crazy about that last sentence is that just 6 months ago, I never thought that I would be saying that. Last summer, I was able to spend an amazing summer there and now that I look back on it, my life was changed. However, while I was actually doing my internship, the only way that I can describe how I felt is to say that I thought I had been dropped on Mars. I was in a place with people that held completely different values and beliefs than other people I had worked with before. The language was much harder for me to pick up than any other one that I had learned before. Finally, I was in a place where I didn't feel my gifts from the Spirit were being used and that feeling alone made me mad, sad, and selfish. Don't get me wrong... I loved the time I had been spending there, but I couldn't help but feel misplaced.

So, why do I desire to go back? Easy. God changed my heart. That may not sound like such an easy process but believe me... it was the easiest transformation I've gone through. I do not have knowledge as to why that is, all I know is that God met me in a very desperate moment. It happened in a time of fasting and prayer on the Muslim calendar near the end of my trip. Our team had committed to fasting for the remainder of the time that we had in Bosnia (10 days) and use the time to grow in discipline and prayer. I had spoken to many people about what I had been feeling all summer and I came to the conclusion to stop whining and start praying. So, I did.

I am constantly amazed by the dimensionless capacity of God's grace. Even when I am nothing but a whiny and pathetic girl, God brings me out of that and sets me back on track. Praying for a heart for Bosnia was one of the strangest experiences I've had. I had never had a prayer answered so quickly and I wasn't sure how to handle the change. Though it was strange, the experience opened my eyes to the power of God and how He grants us the desires of our hearts in His will.

Where am I now? Preparation. The biggest part of preparation, besides praying for God to pave paths for me once I am there, is support raising. As of now, I still have $7763 to raise. For the doubting and human side of me, that number makes my stomach hurt. But for the part of me that holds a lot of faith in the providence of God.

I am so excited for what God has in store for the 6 months that I will be in Bosnia. I will be teaching English while I am there. I ask that you will please pray for God to raise up supporters so that I will be able to go.

Ordering, Sarajevo, and Weddings!

To say that I'm feeling a bit more chipper than a few days ago would be a serious understatement! The past four days have been amazing and I am really thankful for all of the experiences I am getting to have during my time here in Bosnia. I'm left feeling selfish and somewhat embarrassed. My entire view on missions has changed in such a short period of time, and I think that the revelations were really wearing me out. The places I have the most ministry experience are all very charismatic and open to spiritual subjects. So, I just had to put it in my mind that Bosnia is WAY different than anywhere I have ever visited and just sit back and learn from they way that they live.

Something that doesn't seem too exciting but was a big deal to me was ordering a meal at a restaurant all by myself. First, I was given a list of take-out orders and my team sent me and another intern (who also does not speak Bosnian) over to the restaurant down the hill from our house. When we got there, I ordered the first thing on the list but the waitress asked for the paper (clearly I was struggling haha). BUT the big victory came that night when we went out for dinner downtown. Beth and Will (some of the members of the missionary family we are working with) helped me practice how to order the meal I wanted. When it came time, I said what I wanted to eat and drink... and he understood me :D It was an awesome feeling even if it was just a simple food order.

Yesterday, my team got to go spend some time in Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo. What an awesome city! There is so much history here that affected us all. One of the coolest things for me as a history nerd was walking across the bridge where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Our team also got to go into a few museums: One about the history of Sarajevo, one about the influence of the Ottoman Empire on the country, and one about the Siege of Sarajevo. The Siege museum was hard to walk through at times. It's hard to believe that such a brutal war went on, and I never learned about it at all growing up. I guess it did happen when I was just a baby but it's strange to me that we didn't learn about it in school. Anyway, it was an amazing day and I learned a lot about the country that I'm living in for the next 5 weeks.

Today was the most fun I've had here so far. Our team was invited to a wedding by one of the families we will be working with this summer. First, we ate... a lot. So much. So much that I thought I was going to bust! Then, we ate cake (you had to pay 10 km per person) and drank coffee. After all of the food stuff was out of the way, we danced!!! It was so much fun, but we were all really bad at it. The first time we tried, the group that we were dancing with broke up and went into another group... I guess we were embarrassingly bad. We kept trying and we actually got the hang of it! I danced in a group where I was the only one who spoke English. I felt pretty nervous at first but the little girl standing next to me keep telling me (in what little Bosnian I know) that I was doing "good" and sometimes she even said "super!" She was a precious little girl with a club foot that was dancing her heart out. At the end of the dance, she patted my arm and smiled. I loved EVERYTHING about today!

Sorry, I know this is a very long post but so many great things have happened in the past few days and I really wanted to share it all! I hope all is well wherever you are and thanks for reading :)

Focus, Fokus, Konsantre.

"I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering."
Steven Wright

Though this quote doesn't describe my state of mind 100% accurately, it does simply convey my constant struggle to "be here" all of the time. I get so frustrated with myself when I can't focus on a single task without my mind wandering home. I think I get so frustrated with myself because I didn't struggle with this at all last summer during my time in Haiti. I know that circumstances are different, and I left the country on different terms than I did last year, but I still cannot rap my head around my absentmindedness.

One difference I see is not having time to just "be" with God. Living in a house with 5 other people and having tasks throughout the day doesn't leave much alone time. I find myself building up frustrations and prayers and not giving myself time to sit, be silent, and listen. I've never really had this feeling before, and it is not clear to me how important my "still time" is to me. That's how I refuel. It doesn't matter if I read, pray, sit and stare at a wall, or (my favorite) sing... the point is that I need it. I don't even think I've really had a chance to mourn the things that are happening in my world at home. My heart is heavy and I've been looking for healing in all the wrong places.

I don't write this post to say that I am miserable here, it's quite the opposite actually. I love where I'm at, who I'm working with, and who I am serving. This has been a stretching experience so far, and I really look forward to the rest of the summer. I have laughed a lot, and have loved a lot. I have learned so many new things about myself, my team, and what it is like to live in this country. I've also learned more about God's kingdom and what it will be like when it comes. God has BIG things going in this country and I am humbled by the fact that He let me be a part of this plan for the summer.

However, I do ask for prayer. I pray (and I hope you will to) that God will redirect my thoughts. I NEED to focus on what He has for me here. I pray that I will begin to trust that He will take care of my family while I'm away, and that He will bring justice to the entire situation. I pray that I will find time to just be quiet, and listen for direction from God. Lastly, I pray for opportunities here with the women of the villages we visit. I pray that they feel open with us, and feel comfortable with us. 

More Harm Than Good?

This week, my team took part in CHE training (Community Health Evangelism). CHE is a program that trains missionaries to not create dependency in the community they are working in, but instead boost development, which is sustainable even when the missionaries leave. It is apparently a very effective and well known training program in the mission community, and I am fortunate to be able to take it here in Bosnia. The first few days of training were pretty straight forward, and seemingly elementary, but I stuck with it with a good attitude and I actually gained reality that the work I had done in the past may have been harmful. Everyone likes to think that they go on short term trips and save the world. They think that by giving out food and hygiene bags, they are helping the people in need. Actually, it's basically only helping yourself, and hurting the people you are trying to help. Short term aid creates dependency. By continually entering into someones community and handing out resources, you causing the locals mindset to change and not in a good way. Their mindset changes to one that makes them wait for the materials to be given to them instead of them going out to find ways to get the resources themselves.

This made me think. What are the projects I have taken part of before and how have they hurt the communities I've worked in? Then it hit me... many of the projects I've been a part has been humanitarian aid. So, does this mean that I am so monster that destroys the people I go to serve? I don't think so. But, if I had the knowledge that I do now and continued to create dependency, then I would become a monster. All the things my teams in the past have set out to do were great things... they were just not carried out in an effective manner.

I know that God gives me grace and that He can fill in the cracks that I left in the people that I have worked with so far in my life. I am very thankful that I was able to go through this training in order to see where I have short-comings in my work and how I can fix them in the future. God desires for us to take care of the poor, weak, and vulnerable but there are many ways to love them without causing them to depend on us for all of their needs. I look forward to applying the CHE training to my future mission work.

Other than that, everything is well in Bosnia and I am loving my time here. Please pray for opportunities to fellowship with the Muslims here and pray that our time will feel 100% healthy very soon! I love you all and I am looking forward to "celebrating" my birthday tomorrow!  

Training, Heart Break, Traveling, and First Few Days….

Training was nothing less than brutal (but really). It was 6 ½ days of 15 hours of lectures, classes, language acquisition, games, mall evangelism (which I was not a fan of), and outdoor training (which I was a big fan of). To add to the stress of training, I found out that my aunt, Michelle, had been murder at her workplace and they still do not know who killed her. Needless to say, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. I still am. It’s hard to find a second to stop and just talk to God about it. I was extremely thankful that I got to spend some time with my family when they came out and took me to dinner. We just sat around the table and laughed, talked about of memories of Michelle, and talked about this amazing opportunity I have here in Eastern Europe. Please continue to pray for Danny, Carly, and Madeline because they are the ones who carry the most grief from Michelle’s death.



Traveling can be summed up in one word: Obama. President decided to fly into Chicago for a fundraising at the exact same time we were supposed to be speeding down Louisville’s runway heading toward Chicago. We were grounded… and eventually missed our connecting flight from Chicago to Munich. So, we made the most out of our 24 hour layover by getting a room and exploring Chicago a little bit. We made our flight to Munich that evening and had a (semi) smooth ride. Munich’s airport is a little scary, quiet, and well… white. But we made our final flight to our work place right on time. When we finally made it there, the missionaries we will be working with were waiting on us there!



Eastern Europe is: beautiful, green, caffeinated (I have never had this much coffee in my entire life), and welcoming. Every house that we have visited us so far has had a meal waiting for us and coffee to follow. It is amazing how hospitable these people are and how interested they are in why we are there. The thing that has been the hardest to adjust to is taking off your shoes before you go into every house because in America and every other country I’ve visited, people wear shoes into the house. It’s not that foreign of a concept, because I was never allowed to wear shoes in my house growing up but at school I never take my shoes off until I get in my bed (sometimes I don’t even then). Also, the call to prayer from the Mosque right down the hill from us has been hard to grow numb to, but I hope I don’t. I want to commit to pray for the Muslims here every time that I hear it. Other than that, the food is AMAZING, and so are our living arrangements. I love the team that I traveled here with. We laugh all of the time… seriously. This is a hard field to work in (growth wise) but I am excited to see when, how, and where God moves.

Sending love to you all and I hope all is well in America. Like I said before, please pray for Danny Mockbee and his daughters, Carly and Madeline. Their heartbreak is more than I can imagine and I pray that God will give them peace throughout these rough times.

Passion for the Deceived

Let me just begin by saying that this has been the most incredible 5 weeks of my life. I have loved as Jesus called me to, I have learned from the Haitian people and the missionaries here, and I have taught the Haitians some things too.

One of the best things about my job is working with the security and the translators. They have become some of my best friends in the world and I am blessed to have been given the chance to invest in their lives. Most of them are incredible Christ followers, but some also struggle with the strong that Voodoo has in this country. They claim that their is good Voodoo and bad Voodoo and that they are okay because they only participate in the good Voodoo. I found this out in my most recent visit to Ansoleufor. We walked up to the room where they worship a little girl's lost doll, and our security guard started praying quite passionately to the doll. Maybe he was screaming that it was evil and that it had no power, but I sensed some desperation from the man which makes me think that he actually thought this doll could solve his problems. Obviously, I think praying to anyone besides our God, the Almighty is not good. Anyway, they are all awesome and I hope and pray that the ones who are still misguided will see the light and know that Christ is the one sacrifice that we need.

Next I just wanted to apologize that I haven't been writing much. Honestly, there is not a lot of time to breathe around here, let alone blog. But here are some of the things I have been involved with since the last time I wrote:

*I stayed out in Beauchamp for 5 days with two amazing crews! The first couple days were spent working with Eastside from Milford, Ohio. They are AMAZING! They welcomed me into their team and I loved seeing their passion for doing God's work ooze out of them. My last 3 days we spent working with the Southland crew from Lexington, Kentucky. I loved their focus on prayer and how much of an encouragement they were to each other. Both teams worked at the orphanage everyday that weather permitted us to go, and they all did a wonderful job and the kiddies LOVED them so much!
 *I have taken many trips to Tortuga Island in quite a short time! I love it over there because the kids are well-behaved and they are even more chill then on the mainland (and I didn't think Caribbean time could get any relaxed). Plus, it's the pirate capital of the Caribbean....arghhh.
*Ansofleuor is my favorite day trip that we take. It is so dark their because it is the Voodoo capital of the world. Everytime we go, we hike up to the monument where a huge cross once stood. The cross was struck by lightning, broke, and then a doll "fell from the sky." Well, like I said before, they worship this doll. This is such a huge prayer opportunity. These people are blind to the truth that Jesus is the only sacrfice we need and that we should have no other God's besides the awesome one that we serve. I don't think a lot of the groups take this trip seriously enough. We get to walk inside of the temple and stare their "god" in the face and declare that God has supreme power and ask him to fill that place so that there is no room for Voodoo. But I am continually heart broken by the team's lack of passion for fighting Voodoo. We can feed all of the people we want here, but if Voodoo isn't stopped, they will die eternally. We need to start realizing that people are going to Hell everyday and that Jesus gave us the authority to go out and reach all people groups, tongues, and nations. Sorry for my preaching... I am just really passionate about praying against Voodoo, and taking groups there to open up Americans eyes to religion outside of Sunday school.

Anyway, Haiti has definitely made me more open to evangelism and praying with the people I encounter on a regular basis. I love this place.

Please pray for the deceived and that the deceiver would be cast out of this place. Please pray for my fellow interns and all of the staff as we prepare to take in another big group tomorrow. Lastly, please pray for the American's who are coming to Haiti tomorrow. Some have been here before and some are new and about to get the biggest culture shock of their lives. Pray for their hearts and that their eyes would be open to the reality of a strong enemy.

Thanks! I love you all!