Passion Conference!

               Wow it has been a crazy past couple of weeks I don't even know where to start. Okay, well I went to Passion Conference in Atlanta the 1st through the 4th of January and man was that a great way to start off the year. I was able to go with a few of my wonderful pledge sisters, but while there got to reunite with a lot of my friends from home which made it a great few days. I learned so much at passion and I wish that I could share every point with you all but that would take quit a long time.
               The first thing I really felt the Lord was telling me over and over again throughout the week was that I am supposed to work with orphans. I am not sure where or when or for how long, but I know that the Lord has called me to invest my life into working with orphans, which makes me extremely excited for the future. I also just gained a peace about going to Honduras and just felt like the Lord was saying trust me fully to raise every penny and do not doubt that I can for a second. That was so comforting just getting an overwhelming peace that the Lord has this covered, it is a lot of money to raise and it is hard to remember that I am not in control of this, but the God of the Universe is, which brings me to the second thing I learned at passion. The first night Louie Giglio spoke about Ezekiel 37:1-14. Ezekiel 37:1-10 has a heading called The Valley of Dry Bones, which I am sure so of you have heard of this story, but basically what is happening is that the Lord has taken the prophet Ezekiel down to a valley that was full of dry bones and then the Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy over the dry bones and so Ezekiel begins to prophesy over the dry bones and the bones begin to come together and then flesh begins to appear on the bones and bodies are formed and then the Lord says to Ezekiel "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." And then it goes on to say the bodies now lived. I explain all of that so that you can get Louie's point of the talk. Louie wanted us to remember that the Lord can do immeasurably more than we could think or even ask, and we need to believe that with all of our hearts. God is the God of immeasurably more so why not just believe and trust that He will do more good for us than we could think of or ask Him for. The last morning of passion Louie finished wrapped up everything by talking again on Ezekiel 37 and he made so many good points that have stuck with me as I have moved back into school mode. Louie mentioned Isaiah 61:1-2 which says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn." The reason he shared that verse was to say that we are all missionaries and ambassadors for the Lord no matter where we are, and that we should not go anywhere unless the Lord has anointed us so that the power and spirit of the Lord goes with us. He summed everything up by saying that the main message is that we were dead and now are alive forevermore, and that that is our identity. And that our witness to the world is the healing of our wounds and when we show people that God has healed our scars and worship God we give God his breath back. When people ask how passion was I usually respond by saying the best way I can describe it is just imagine 60,000+ 18-25 year olds all praising the Lord together.
                 I have officially started back school which has been nice to be on a structured schedule again and I really enjoy all of the classes I am taking. I am taking two languages: Spanish and Japanese which have both been really fun so far! Please pray that I will continue to spend time with the Lord daily that I won't use school and friends as an excuse of being too busy to be in the word, but that I would instead seek to spend more and more time with the Lord each day. Also please continue to pray that my financial support will come in and that I will put all of my trust in the Lord to bring the money in. Thanks for all of your support!