the glory continues

Well Italy is glorious... i am so blessed to be here. Continue your prayers and your praises because they all help keep me strong over here!!!

    THere has been so much to process here daily that i find myself getting lost. There are times that i feel like i am training for the army but i know it is technically for an army, God's army and that is the best kind to be apart of for sure. It's rough at times here, like for example on Tuesday we hiked up to a place called Villa Nova ... beautiful name right??? Yeah well a 9 mile hike up there in the heat of the day doesn't make it seem beautiful... i had to really humble myself to get over who i am and just remember that i couldn't do it on my own... but though his strength i can conquer anything, even Villa Nova. So... once we got to the top i felt like rocky... KING OF THE WORLD!!! Ha!!! God has a way of bringing us back down... and that's exactly what he did. My leader told me that he had hidden one of our teammates and they couldn't use their arms or legs ... he gave us too sticks and a rope and said... "make a stretcher and carry them back down." I thought to myself... ya right, he has to be kidding... i can't carry them back down the mountain in the heat of the day without food or water... he must be outside his mind!!! Well... you can guess how the story goes... he wasn't, and off we went. We took turns carrying our teammate tim down the mountain and it was tough. It seemed impossible and i wanted to cry at times... i take that back... i did cry. I was pushed to my max... stretched to be a member of God's team and not my own, in the sense that i kept a positive attitude. YOu all know me, and you know that i encourage and am very peppy... this was not the case ha ha. We made it down the mountain... after a few injuries and frustrations and running to get food for me because i was so low that i couldn't move ha ha... oh such good times. We beat the other team and won the competition. It felt great... but most importantly to me, i kept my heart on GOd, i focused on him and when i got frustrated i communicated my frustration in LOVE... in God's love and that was the best feeling of accomplishment ever. 

    Wednesday came around and i figured we would have the day off and the night to rest... NOPE, we had lectures all day... learning about how to be a team player and i was so interested i didn't even notice that i was dead tired, i find it interesting that God provides you with energy you didn't know you had ... it's such a blessing. So wednesday night at about 11 we were told that we weren't allowed to sleep, we had to stay up and pray for what was happening the next day and our leader said "see you at 6am... have a great night in prayer, pray for tomorrow." I thought... how can i pray for something i don't know genius!!! I hope you feel my frustration!!! I NEED SLEEP TO FUNCTION!!! Well 6am rolls around... it's thursday now... even though it doesn't feel like it because i didn't sleep... that's neither here nor there... let's continue. All day we competed... we played rock paper scisors, we ran up mountains, we played soccer, we played volleyball, handball, netball, armwrestling, 3 leg races, how many laps can u run in 20 minutes, football, crab soccer, and many more. As you can see... some of the games were funny games, but imagine playing rock paper scisors when u haven't eaten or slept... you feel like you can't control your hands and i felt like i was 5 years old. VERY FRUSTRATING. but just for the record... i dominated that game. If your wondering what the point in all this HELL DAY was... let me tell you a story to explain it. 

     Jesus stayed up all night praying to God and then the next day took up his cross and died for our sins... he was beaten and tormented that day , and he never spoke up for himself, he knew what he had to do. He was treated unjustly and he let it go because he knew it wasn't about him it was about us. Likewise it reminded me that it isn't about me... it's about Him... i play for him, i cheer for him, i live for him. Everything i do i need to remember that and glorify him. I was so happy to have that understanding. We went to complete our final task of the night... Hike up to villa nova again and hike back done... SUPER! it's 8pm now and we will be home at like 10... UGH!!! We were about half way up there and one of my team mates, Gabe from singapore, passed out from dehydration. I don't know if any of you know anything about italian culture but they don't care about anyone but themselves here, so when gabe passed out i thought we were done for , no one would stop and help a group of 14 americans hiking up a hill at dark... would they? They did. I used my italian ... the best i could... and we flagged down a truck with a huge bed on the back, i told him we needed an ambulance and we had to get back home, he understood and took us down the mountain and called the ambulance. We all came back and prayed for Gabe... it was the scariest thing ever. You see... the people here are very much my brothers and sisters now... we are a family, so seeing my brother get taken away on a stretcher (much like i have seen Zac taken away before...) it crushed me. 

    The good news is our prayers were answered and Gabe is back with us today feeling better. God really does answer prayers. 

   Being here has stretched me... confused me... changed me.... but most importantly it's broken me. Broken me in a way so that God can remold me into the person for him that i need to be. I am so blessed to be here and i thank him for that every day. I hope you all are taking pleasure in reading about my training for an army... God's army, because being here is the best experience of my life. I can't wait to come home and show you all what i have learned and start loving each one of you just the way God intended it... through him. I can't wait to come home and remember that anything i do ... i do for him, and that's my form of worship. God bless!!!!