Ask for it. And in this case, don't be careful.

I honestly do not remember what I wrote in my last post, but since then life has been challenging, stretching, and draining. And the Lord has moved beautifully through out to prove time and time again that He is restoring. 

Since I've gotten here I have built an incredible dependence on the Lord and trust in Him, and it's been scary and rattling at times but only because I'm a doubter and, as I believe He would say, of little faith; but it's changing.

It's all changing. My plans for how I was going to grow and what I was going to learn are different than I could have ever guessed ahead of time. What I am doing and how I'm spending my days, were never apart of my "san diego plan". The people that I've fallen in love with, empathized with, and had compassion on, had never fit my criteria for that until now. My idea's of what my future looked like have transformed and I am certain will continue to. The way I live and interact with my brother's in Christ looks completely different, because for the first time I don't want to be a person of the Lord, I want to be a woman of the Lord. 

The lessons I have learned from the Lord are basics, that I think we all as people pursuing the Lord and growing in faith learn repeatedly, but they are none the less powerful and moving. When I came out to San Diego I had a plan drawn up that I was going to get a job, have fun, share my faith some with my co-workers, send a lot of time in the word and in prayer, and be a leader. No where in that plan was joining Fireseeds (the full time movement launching team) and  no where in that plan was learning not to always be the leader. No where in my plan did I leave room for what the Lord could do and has done. But the thing about our Father is that He knows what His children need and His plan has been so much more fulfilling than mine ever had the promise of being. 

I am now apart of the Fireseeds team, which means very little to those of you back home. Basically Fireseeds is a team of about 20 of us students who have chosen to give up getting jobs in the community in order to take on the full time job of outreaching on the college campuses around the San Diego area in hopes of starting movements there that will continue on after we have gone home gaining momentum and igniting a love for Christ on their campuses. What this means is that Monday-Friday I go to Mesa Community College Campus with 4 other "Fireseeds". This last week was our first week. We spent it getting to know the campus, prayer walking around and doing surveys with students who we approached and sharing our faith when the opportunity was given to us. We basically scoped the place out, so that this week (today) we could lead the rest of the students as they joined us on campus. So today those students who were assigned to come to campus once a week on mondays came with us and we all went out and started spiritual conversations with students on campus and invited them to the Bible Study we had on campus today at 1:45. We probably had about 30-40 conversations today and had 5-10 students express interest in either coming to our Bible Study every week or Friday Night Live service. Tomorrow will basically look the same. I wish I could write all about the beautiful details of the day and how much the Lord has blessed us on this campus but it would turn into such a lengthy story...so i'll refrain, but know that Lord is moving at Mesa and it is going to be amazing and you will hear more about it. 

I kind of want to go back to before I even started Fireseeds though and let you in on the process that has happened with in me to let all of this happen. As I said earlier, this was not a part of my plan. I had completely ruled this out actually, because I believed that I needed to make a certain amount of money for the summer, $500 bare minimum, to cover myself for the semester coming up and more than that if I wanted to live comfortably at all, and when I first heard about the team it was going to be an unpaid position. Also I wasn't big on the idea of going out and sharing my faith EVERY day, I came here to be stretched but in my mind that was just pushing it. Well I had been thinking more and more before I came out here about how even if I only made $500 this summer I could be fine for the next semester as a way of prepping myself incase I didn't get a job immediately. Then at one of our first group meetings our leaders started talking about the team and announced that they had moved some funds around and would be able to give whoever applied for the team $500 for serving on it this summer. I immediately felt drawn to it, it was NO coincidence what I had been thinking about the couple of weeks prior to being there about my wages and financial needs, but at the same time I was still having my reserves. If I were to join fireseeds I wouldn't be able to be on another ministry team out here that I was feeling very drawn towards... I could not decide where the Lord wanted me and it got to a point where I could convince myself to do or not do it. So I asked the Lord for a tangible sign as to whether I should or should not. 15 min before the application was due I was having anxiety and decided I needed to call my mom, when I got my phone out I saw that I had actually missed a call from her like 1 min prior...I definitely needed to call her, so I did. I was fully expecting her to tell me that I needed to get a job and could not afford not to,this is how I knew the response she gave me was a sure sign that I was suppose to be on Fireseeds. With out hesitation my mother told me that if it had been laid on my heart I needed to apply, that I should apply to be on the team. Whether my mom knew it or not, the Lord used her to answer my prayer for guidance. Amazing, and my first lesson in if you ask of the Lord and trust that He will provide, He will. 

And with that one alteration to "the plan" all my plans were gone, and I am so very grateful. Every lesson that has happened has been in some way linked to the decision to join Fireseeds. I have been humbled in multiple way during the process and have had the Lord push me in subtle ways, other than the obvious, that have made all the difference to my heart and relationship with Him. 

During our women's times we are going over what it means to be a women of the Lord; what it looks like, feels like, and what characteristics define one. Proverbs 31 is an obvious go to for such a study, but more than that our leader Holly is taking us through the Bible and showing us women in it that displayed these things or in Eve's case how they did not. The creation story and the fall of man have never had such depth and meaning as they do now, at least for me. I realized how similar I am to Eve. I would embellish but I'm running out of time to write on here...yikes! 

Okay so there's so much more to this story! Trust. But I have to get ready for our evening activities and what not...So i'll have to get back to it later! 

-Rae