Lovesick

So.. this past week has been incredible. One of the co-founders and original worship leaders of IHOP KC (International House of Prayer in Kansas City) was our speaker. His name is Chris Dupre and he is incredible!

He started the week with his unbelievable testimony that blew my mind. It really brought to my attention how much the Lord cares about every little detail in our life. I would love to go in to detail, but 1. I feel like it's kind of personal for me to re-tell and 2. it's really long. But basically God showed Chris in a VERY specific and personal way just how much He truly loved him. All of the girls were crying, and some of the guys too lol

One of my favorite things he said was "ministry isn't what you do, it's who you are. If you yourself are not ministry, then when you stop doing ministry you are back to being the Lord of your own life." --- chew on that for a while...

So, we've been seeing some crazy incredible stuff happening lately. Last Monday we had ministry night with Ivan Roman. Crazy on fire for God. Anyways, so we're all just worshipping and praying and then Ivan started feeling Gods heart for healing. So he started calling people out based on words of knowledge. This lady had sciatic nerve problem in her hip area, and one of her legs was WAY shorter than the other one, which was inflicting a lot of the pain. So we all gathered around her and were praying for healing and literally right in front of our eyes her leg grew out to the length of the other one! It was insane! And then this lady who was 50% deaf in her right ear and constantly heard ringing out of it was completely healed too! and the most emotional one for me was this girl Sarah. She has cerebral palsy and is in a motorized wheelchair. She rolled up to the front and was right by me, so we all started laying hands on her and praying for her. While we were praying, God just downloaded in me His heart for her and I instantly started bawling. Like, uncontrollable. It was nuts. But we're all hardcore praying over her and this guy Sammie was like, "Sarah, it's time to stand up." - So she unbuckled her belt fro the chair, and reached for my hand for support. Sarah stood up, on her own. She usually can't stand for more than a few seconds on her own, and she stood for 10. Then she told us to let go, and she wanted to walk to me. So I stood there with my arms out watching her walk to me! She would take a few shaky steps and reach my arms to rest. and then do it again. She walked around without her chair for over 20 minutes! It was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. God's work at hand. and we are fully confident that God is going to complete her healing! (Phil 1:6 - "and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion"). It's going to happen. But yeah, it was pretty much beyond amazing. Praise Jesus!

Also, a super common theme the past 3 weeks in general has been how much the Lord loves you. It sounds like such a simple, basic concept.. but there is SO much depth to it. It's really hard to fully comprehend, but until you understand His love for you, you cannot truly love. He is SO madly enthralled with me, and He wants me to know that! It's insane. I was beating myself up this week because I felt like everyone else was "hearing God's voice" or having radical experiences with Him and I wasn't. And then just yesterday when I was at lunch with a dear friend God intensely downloaded His reasoning for not just so easily "appearing" when I wanted Him to. We were talking about everything and bleh and bam. God spoke. He said to me, "Madison.. you are so used to being able to go after something and obtain it relatively easy" (which makes sense because I'm a very determined person) "and you're trying to do that with Me. Stop and simply rest. Let me pursue your heart and I'll show you true romance." AHHH Jesus is so FREAKING cool! How amazing is that? The Lord and Savior of the Universe told me He wants to pursue MY heart and show me true romance! Love.

Sooooooo yes, sorry I haven't updated in a long time. I'll try to get better at that but I'm always really busy. =/ Love you all dearly

Link to my facebook album of my glory weekend at Kua Bay!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034717&id=1447920125

(Put that in the address bar!)

Madison

Outreach!

I wanted to explain how I came to the point of going on outreach in the country that I'm going to. So, here it is:

The options:

1 team to Northern China near the border of North Korea

1 team to Guam/New Zealand

1 team to East Coast America

2 teams to northern Afghanistan

2 teams to Europe

1 team to Haiti (added after the earthquake)

When I first got here I instantly connected with one of the leaders, Lizzy. It was totally a spiritual connection. After hanging out with her for less than a week, I just knew that I would be going on outreach with her. I couldn't figure out why God would give me such a connection with someone if I wasn't going to be walking with them for a long time. Lizzy is also from London, which was perfect because I have always had such a desire to go to Europe. and lo and behold, there are two teams going to Europe! I then found out that she was leading with Levi, this guy that I also had a weird spiritual connection with. So I was pumped and totally convinced that they were leading a Europe team. God was SO good!

The day that they introduced which leaders were leading which teams, I was so excited! Until I realized that Lizzy and Levi were standing up for the team going to the East Coast of America. My heart literally plummeted through the floor. So I prayed and prayed about it... the leaders for Europe teams were ABSOLUTELY incredible as well, so I just figured it was my flesh just wanting to go somewhere with Lizzy. God wants to give us the desires of our heart, and I have desired to go to Europe for atleast 4 years. So when we wrote down our options I put the two Europe teams as 1 and 2 and put America as 3 just so I wasn't "shutting doors" on God. pff.. I'm retarded.

So later that afternoon, right after our 2 hour prayer and worship set this super prophetic guy was like, "Hey Madison, God gave me a word for you during worship.. It could be really wrong, but I just felt like God was saying that when you wrote down your outreach options you put your first choices down because that was what your flesh desired, but you felt like you heard a whisper from God but just put that as your last option." and I was like .... ughhhh.. So I talked to my leader about it and she said I should take another night to pray about it. When I went back to my room and started praying, I just knew it was God. There is no way I could go to Europe after God gave me a second chance to listen to His voice. It was so hard to let go of my dream of going to Europe. Specially since I was replacing it with the last place in the world I wanted to go. But I had such peace that God IS going to take me to Europe, just not right now. So I changed it, and put America as 1.

Today we were all revealed our outreach groups, and boy is God good. My team is incredible. INCREDIBLE. Not only are my leaders Lizzy, Levi, and Sam, but one of my roommates Lauren is in my team. Two other girls that I absolutely adore as well! and the guys are all so solid. It's going to be AMAZING!! I'm so so so excited. We'll be on the east coast, New York, Pennsylvania, Jersey area. All the details are yet to be sorted out. But we know God is going to be moving so thick through this country as we pray and intercede for revival and revelation of His love. It's going to be so good. I know this is completely God calling me to this nation and I can't wait to see everything He is going to do. God has a heart for the revival of America just as much as he does Africa, Europe, and China!

So yes, East Coast America here I come! =)

Week 1: Check!

Wow.. week 1 was amazing, and I can only imagine what this next week is going to bring. Luckily we had a recap on Friday, so now I atleast have some sort of idea on how to summarize last week!

Monday was a day of destroying our old foundation so that we can start over on the foundation of Christ. Kind of breaking our old patterns of religion that have kept us trapped. It was really good. Tuesday was what I had written about previously, the day of surrender. It was just realizing our need for surrender, because intimacy without surrender is not intimacy at all. Also we talked about how we need to be completely leaning in to our Lord so that when he turns left, we turn left. In the light of what we are inheriting, we are not really surrendering anything! Wednesday was really talking about how we are the sheep who need to rest in our dependency of the Lord, the shepherd. And resting in the season we are in and also just resting in the arms of Jesus. Thursday was talking about having a disciplined intimacy. Really learning how to posture our lives to where we will walk with Him every day. Learning how to get out of the "microwave mindset". Intimacy with God is a long term thing, and it takes time. Just like building an earthly relationship.

So yeah.. that's kind of a recap of our first week. This week we have an INCREDIBLE speaker. His name is Ivan Roman and he is awesome! I'm so excited, it's going to be so so good.

This weekend my friends and I all hitch hiked to an awesome beach! It is SOOO beautiful. Here's a picture.

Beautiful, right? We could see whales out in the water spouting and breeching and flipping their tails up! It was so awesome!

We find out outreach locations tomorrow or Wednesday. God is so good and I can't wait to meet my small group! I'll let you know.

Madison

A day of surrender

Man... day 2 and they are NOT wasting time. One of our leaders, Andy Byrd is speaking this week. And boy is it absolutely incredible. He is such an unbelievable man of God who is SO anointed.

I wanted to type all about what we've been learning, but I don't even know how to regurgitate everything that has been poured into me over the last 2 days.. Just alot about surrendering everything to the Lord. and how intimacy without surrender is not intimacy at all.. At the end of class we were all worshipping and just declaring things that we were surrendering.. our plans, our personal desires, our comfort, our parents' ideas of success.. everything. It's alot harder to actually do than to say.. It's more of a thing of saying "Okay God, I surrender everything today. Now help me to continue to live it out tomorrow." And sometimes we feel that we are surrendering SO much and that we're giving up SO much.. but when you look at the amount we gain when we surrender everything it makes the surrender so sweet.. Ah glory Lord.

He also spoke today on just resting in the Lord. We're like little hyper-active 3 year olds. Our father adores us so much and just wants us to chill out and rest in His arms.. One of the greatest postures of revelation is rest. We need to feel grace and comfort to lie back into His arms. That would be such a place a restoration.

This is so jambled and all over the place.. It's so hard to express all the work God is doing on my heart. But I wanted to share atleast something

First few days

Wow... I can't believe I am actually here! It seems so unreal, I still don't think I've processed it all. They had a wonderful welcoming ceremony last night, local style with a lua'u and everything! It was amazing! I have never seen anything like it! Everyone here is so welcoming.. it's very much appreciated.

I have 5 beautiful roommates: MingJu, Grace, Holly, Gracie, and Lauren. Holly, Lauren, Grace, and I are all in Fire and Fragrance, and MingJu and Gracie are in Arts and Entertainment. They're all lovely though. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful girls in my room!

Today was our first Saturday, which we have off! A huge group of fire and fragrance kids all went to the beach! We walked all the way down to Coconut Grove, and then got on a trolly that took us to this black sand beach. It was awesome! One of the guys with us is a local and his friend gave him a snorkel set so we all shared and got to snorkel around because there were tons of rocks and reefs on the bottom! I saw some of the most beautiful fish and even a sea urchin! It had legit pink, orange, and yellow spikes! Luckily I didn't step on it, because then someone would have had to pee on my foot. Awk. =)

Tonight our school is getting together to get to know everyone and sort of share testimonies and such. I'm really excited, but a little nervous. It's weird that no one here really knows anything about me or my past...

I miss everyone back home so much.. I can't thank you enough for all of your prayers. This is going to be such a trying time, but SO worth it.

Love you all

Madison

Goodbyes

Goodbyes suck. That's about all there is to it...

I never imagined how hard it would be to say goodbye to everyone. Quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever done... At this point it's a little fuzzy what I was thinking when I thought leaving for 6 months was a good idea. I know once I get there it will be amazing. I know I'll have the time of my life and grow SO incredibly much. I just wish I didn't have to leave my friends and family behind... I've been praying for God to give me comfort, so hopefully He'll do just that.

I'm about to head to the airport, on icy roads, in anticipation of 19 hours of traveling on a mere 2 hours of sleep. (If you can call it sleep?) So if you're looking for a prayer request, please pray for safety in traveling and my health. My body tends to get really mad at me when I don't sleep alot.

Goodbye friends, I'll miss everyone so much!

Madison