Greetings from Engeltal Valley!

I'm just writing a quick update while I have a few minutes. Right now I am sitting on a bed in a house called Ahava in a valley called Engeltal in Arkansas. Ahava means love in Hebrew and Engeltal means valley of angels in German. What a beautiful place!

I am here to help prepare for and attend the Endtime Handmaidens and Servants school of ministry and I have been having a great time so far! I've met some very precious people, most of whom have been on the mission field for a very long time...some probably even longer than I've been alive! Oh the stories they can tell! It's amazing to hear what God has done all over the world!

Tomorrow I am told that our little team is going with our leader's friend to explore an Indian cave on his property not far from here...if we have the opportunity to get away for a while. We'll see. That would be a really cool little field trip before the rest of our team (and the other 100 or so people) arrives tomorrow evening. Tomorrow night
we begin our week-long intensive school on Revival.

Seriously my friends, I ask myself all the time HOW in the world I ended up living this crazy, blessed life. All I know is God has lead me here and is leading me to some other really awesome places in the near future.

Hope all is well with you! Blessings from the house of love in the valley of angels :)

That's what's up :)

Hey friends,
It's been a little while, so I thought I would write a quick update to let you know what's up. We have been learning a lot these past few weeks. Yes, we always learn a lot, but I don't always mention it. We have been hearing a lot about bitterness and what it can do to a person lately. I always find it interesting that I can be sitting in church hearing something one day from one person and then hear about the same thing on the radio, through an email, or just about anywhere else from someone else. God works like that a lot!

So anyway, we've been learning about how bitterness takes root in people and then all sorts of terrible things come as a result. The fruit that bitterness puts out can be bad relational fruit, such as being just plain mean to people, it can be bad mental fruit, such as never thinking you are good enough for anything, or it can be bad physical fruit. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:15, "See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled" (ESV) Too often we allow bitterness to take root in our lives and then that causes trouble for us and causes us to become defiled. To be defiled means to be tainted, polluted, or unclean. There is healing and cleansing for this, but in my opinion it is better to resist allowing bitterness to defile us in the first place. Just some food for thought.

There are many things coming up for me in the near future. I am going to Jasper, Arkansas in September for a school focused on Revival. This is about a week long and by the end I will have earned 12 college credit hours (4 college level classes). I, unfortunately, will be missing my friend Jessica's wedding to be at this school. I hate missing it because I know the wedding will be awesome! I definitely wish her and Matthew all the best!

In October I will be traveling back into Obregon, Sonora, Mexico and the surrounding areas. We will be ministering all the way down and back as well. Please pray for our team! At the end of December into the beginning of January I plan to be a part of a prayer journey all over Israel. I would love to discuss the details of that with you in person if you would like to know more about what I will be doing there. Right now the plans are still being finalized. Please pray for me because I feel that God wants me to go on this trip, but it will cost around $3500, which I do not have. I am praying about how to raise the money I need for all of these trips.

There is always a lot happening here and I hope that you enjoy reading about some of it. Feel free to leave me a comment or email/facebook me to let me know how you're doing and what is happening in your world!

Hey there :)

Hi everyone! I'm just getting on here to say hello and touch base with you guys. Things here are still pretty busy. One of my friends from work quit and so I have been picking up a lot of extra hours for the past couple of weeks. That works out great as far as acquiring money goes, but it does cause some issues in that I have been needed for some important tasks at the church, so my schedule has been to work 15+ hours per day almost every day this past week between the two places. Friends, I'm a little tired ;)
Soon enough they will hire another person to take her place and I will be back to my normal hours at work, so I am considering it a blessing to be able to make a little extra money for a while. We have a lot of things coming up very soon and, unfortunately, money will be a bit of an issue.
In September I will be attending a week-long school in Arkansas and will actually be in Arkansas working for a few days before to help the school prepare for the week of students. It's a strong possibility that I will be heading into Mexico in October(ish). At the end of December I would really like to be a part of a team going into Israel as well.
I am not one that ever enjoys asking for help, but I would like to ask you all to be praying for me that I will be able to do these things that I believe God is calling me to do. I need God to provide in some very big ways in order to do these things. Please pray and believe with me for the time and the finances to accomplish everything that God has set forth for me to accomplish.
Thank you!

Wowowow!

Hey there friends! Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything on here. Life has been nuts the past couple months. Our church moved to an AWESOME new building that has a ton more space and space to potentially grow into as well. We moved in on June 1st (I was actually at a crazy-awesome wedding that day watching my lovely cousin Ashley marry her best friend Taylor. I love them!!!) and spent the next two weeks unpacking, cleaning, painting, sanding, re-cleaning, rearranging, re-cleaning again, and preparing. We had a big conference here in June (the 19th-22nd...seriously, we did a lot in that first 2 1/2 weeks!) and learned a little over 2 semesters worth of stuff in 4 days time. Honestly, the information was amazing and we are all still trying to unpack it all and discern what it means and how we can utilize this information in our everyday lives.
Since the conference we have been trying to finish with the unpacking/arranging of things here at the church and doing what we do. My friend Daniel and I went out on the street the other night for evangelism. We didn't have a lot of conversations on that trip, but we saw some interesting things, did some heavy praying, and made a contact with someone I already knew but hadn't seen for a while. It was a good night.
God has blessed me lately with several great days. I've gotten to visit people, relax a little, have some fun, and spend time in His presence. Last night we got to have a service with some people who are part of the persecuted church in another country. If you see me in person, feel free to ask me to show you pictures. It was a great night!
There are a lot of things coming up soon, could you please be in prayer for me? There is a week long schooling in Arkansas that I may be doing in September, several missions trips (including Mexico and Israel) coming up perhaps by the end of this year, and the everyday juggle of work, mission/ministry work, and living life that happens. All of this is very costly and it's a struggle to get by sometimes, so saving money toward these things is tough. God is a great provider, though, and I know that when He sends me somewhere, He will provide...even when it's right here in Lawrence.
I hope to see or hear from you all soon! I'd love to hear what is happening in your corner of the world as well! Thanks for reading!

In my absence...

Sorry for the long absence friends...I've been busy! Things are crazy busy around here between the church and my family. Haha, one has been busy and the other has been crazy!! (JUST KIDDING!)

No for real, things have been very busy and keeping up has been difficult. I decided to take a minute tonight to just say hello and chat a little. I don't always know what to say in a blog entry. It's not as though things don't happen in my life all the time, but you don't always want or need to hear about it, and sometimes it's just not all that interesting.

I have had some experiences lately. For one, I lost my dear friend Tommy Baker in May. Tommy had been battling cancer for 2 1/2 years and he went home to be with Jesus on May 10th. I definitely learned after going through the deaths of my two dads how important it is not to grieve as one who has no hope, like it says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13. So though I, and so many others, grieve that he has gone home, I have the hope that I will get to see him again one day.

May was a super emotional month. On Mother's Day my little sister, Sierra Montana Hernandez, graduated from high school. What a special time we had celebrating with her and her boyfriend and his family! His family is such a blessing and we are so very grateful to them for everything that they have done and continue to do for Sierra! At the party for her and Adam we got to see my little brother for the first time in nearly 5 years. Even now every time I think about it I start to cry because the emotions are so overwhelming! God did a great work that day and the six of us being together for the first time since my dad's funeral was a very healing experience for us all. It would have been amazing if our two older brothers would have been able to join us as well so that all of my dad's children would have been together for the first time ever...but that day will come (hopefully soon!). It was so great to see Philip and to get to know him a little better as the awesome young man that he is becoming rather than the awesome little boy he was before my dad died. The why's of why we haven't seen him in so long is a story not worth the telling...but I hope he realizes just how much we truly love and miss him. I'm sure we'll get to see a whole lot more of him from now on.

There have been a lot of ups and downs in the past few weeks and, frankly, I'm pretty worn out emotionally from it all. Some things hurt a lot and some things were awesome and encouraging and life-giving. I'm still pretty overwhelmed with emotions a lot of times and I'm sure people wonder what is wrong with me. Nothing is necessarily wrong...I'm just sorting it all out :)

Hope you are all doing well, my friends. Be blessed!

For those who are hurting...(I know that's a lot of us)

Ok, I'm going to give a disclaimer right here at the very beginning of this post. Ready for it? Here it is: This post might not make you feel all warm and fuzzy...at least not until the end. But it's what is on my mind and heart tonight and so if it feels heavy, it is. It's weighing on me and I need to express my thoughts in hopes of alleviating that weight. If you are not in a position to handle it, it's ok! I give you complete permission to stop reading right now and find something that will be happier all the way through.

For those that are still reading...I want to talk about a terrible subject. Death. Yep, I said it. It is one of the worst parts of life for me. Do I fear death? Nope. And I don't mean to sound morbid or anything, but it sounds pretty good to me when I think of death for me being the passing from this world full of it to a heaven with my Jesus where there is no more death! But as far as I know I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, so no worries, ok?

Why on earth is death on my mind tonight? Well...I can give you a lot of reasons. First, I found out tonight that a neighbor (in Wellsville) that I have known my WHOLE life passed away this past week. His funeral was yesterday, but as far as I know none of our neighbors knew that he had passed. I don't know about the past few years, but as far as I knew before that he had never accepted Christ. Lord, I sure hope he did! Rest in peace Jerry.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. That's what it says in Psalm 116:15.  I have read that verse so many times, but it never jumped out at me until last year, about this time, when my first pastor (Otis) died. I had mentioned his passing on facebook and someone posted that. Oddly enough, I really did find that to be comforting. Anything that is precious to the Lord obviously holds a lot of value and so it's comforting to know that God cares THAT much. But I hate death. Death means being separated from someone or something that you love (relatively speaking of course). Can I just be brutally honest? I have a dear friend that I love very much who is facing death right now. If God chooses not to intervene, he will be gone in a very short time. Frankly, I don't like that. I'm not God and I know He knows best...but death leaves behind so much hurt in its wake. I've experienced too many times the kind of hurt his family will have to endure if this occurs. I don't wish that on ANYONE! But precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. And also in Matthew 5:4 it says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." You know, in addition to the intense pain that I have endured because of death I have also experienced the comfort of God. There's nothing like it! It truly is a blessing to be comforted by the Creator of the universe. The process just hurts a lot. Bittersweet...but hopefully more sweet than bitter.

Death comes in a lot of areas too...not just the loss of life. Death can happen in someone's spirit. This means they lose part of who they are and the life seems to go out of them even while they are still living and functioning. This kind of death, though reversible, is still death. Death can come in the form of a life-changing event, such as moving away from people you love and places with which you are familiar. It's as though you are experiencing death (sometimes, not always) because those things will no longer be a part of your life. Death often comes in relationships. Divorce is a type of death. Estrangement from family is a type of death. Ending of friendships is a type of death.

All of these things hurt tremendously. Most of the time (in the case of relationships), once it's all said and done there is nothing you can do about it. For those left in the world of the living, life just keeps going on and on. The world doesn't stop to let you process what just happened. Everyone around you keeps living their life like normal-because their lives ARE normal-and your life will never be the same. Sound familiar? Yeah, me too. Been there, done that...sometimes it's an on-going thing. Ugh.

So what are we to do? I mean, this is a pretty weighty post. It is not my intention to bring you down, my friend. So let me tell us both some things that are very uplifting. First of all, there's hope. When we lose a loved one who loves God and lives for Him and WE live for Him, we will see them again. Though the separation is hard, it is, indeed, temporary. For all other types of death, here are some thoughts that may bring hope. For those of us who mourn, we are blessed because God comforts us. We are then expected to comfort others with the kind of comfort we have been given. Getting our minds off of ourselves is a really good tool to moving beyond our grief. Just remember, grief MUST be spent. It's natural, just don't hang onto it for an inordinate amount of time.

Next, I want to remind us both, friend, that John 12:24 says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Now, you may be wondering what a grain of wheat has to do with the price of tea in China...but hear me out. I've been learning (yeah, I've been in a process, and then another process, and then another process...oy vey!) about this concept. Perhaps, just maybe, if we look at these things as that grain of wheat and we can't do anything about it falling to the earth and dying, we may as well have some hope that it WILL produce fruit at the end of our process. Now that fruit could be a revitalization of what once was, only healthier and more productive, or it could just be that something new and more productive will spring up. Whatever the case, just do your best to place your hope in God's awesome farming skills. See what He brings to life out of the death fertilizer that you are experiencing.

One final note: In every type of death, there is the reality of pain for those left behind. I will never forget when my cousin died quite unexpectedly a few years back, my other cousin, Jared, wrote a song that he sang at the funeral. The song summed it all up so well. The lyrics simply said this: Oh God, it hurts so bad just to love anyone down here. Wait, that's right, You know so well. One thorny crown, three nails, and a spear. One thorny crown, three nails, and a spear.

God knows our suffering and our pain. He has experienced it all before. He knows what we need and how we need to be comforted. Let's let Him work on that one. Let's all try to take the advice that Paul offers in Philippians 4:6. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Love and peace to you all.

Thoughts for the day:

Today I was trying to decide what to write, but felt like I should maybe write SOMETHING. The problem often times, as in the case of today, is that I have so many thoughts running through my head and I don't know which one would be good to write about. Today I'm a little tired of that dilemma, so I decided I'd write several thoughts. So here goes. Good luck my friends. Hopefully something I have to say will be interesting to you.


First...the picture is of me with Crystal. I honestly don't know how she puts up with me! Poor girl had to listen to me rant twice this morning. Bless her God! She's great and I'm glad she can handle me or sharing this office would be pretty difficult!

The next thought of the day is "Man, I really love you God!" Seriously. God has been so incredibly awesome to me...and if I started telling you all the things He does in my life it would take forever. I was listening to a song earlier and the lyrics from the bridge say "You are my deepest longing and so I see You everywhere. It's You I'm chasing after. I am captivated by who You are and how You move. I'll follow You forever..." Yep...I feel like that! I'm chasing after Him more and more all the time. So awesome. Here's the song:

 

I'm thinking about my awesome grandparents today. Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Bonnie Rhoades are so awesome. They have blessed me my whole life and recently did something that I can't even begin to describe how amazing it was. They have always only spoken words of blessing and love over me and I'm so incredibly grateful for them. Always have been, always will be.

My next thought: Man alive these birds are so loud today!!! We have mommy and daddy finches in our office that had one baby from their first batch (who is named Timothy and he's sitting in a cage pretty much next to me) who LOVES to talk/sing to us and is singing along with the music playing from my computer. Cute...but SO loud, lol. Mommy and Daddy birds have another set of babies (pretty sure it's four, though I'm beginning to wonder...) in their cage and they're all pretty loud too!

I keep thinking back to a conversation that I had with a guy at work the other day. He started asking me what I thought about the Bible...do I think that the WHOLE Bible was actually what God meant to say. I mean, people have changed it to suit what they want, right? Well, in asking this question he went on SEVERAL different tracks trying to explain his point. So...I answered each track separately in order to answer his first question. I won't get into the whole conversation, but my bottom line was something like this: "Well, let's go back to your original question...yes, I believe that God wrote the whole Bible. That's what He meant. If you compare today's main translations with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are the oldest scriptures they have found, they're pretty dead on accurate. The problem is that there are things in the Bible that are hard for us to take because we don't want to follow those parts. We can't pick and choose scriptures. 2 Timothy 3:16 says "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness." This means that if we believe one part of the Bible, we have to believe the WHOLE Bible. This always brings up the question about cannonization of the Bible. It was a panel of theologians that got together and decided what would and would not be in the Bible. Several things didn't make it in, such as the book of Enoch, but it wasn't just one guy writing down a bunch of things, it was several authors over a 1500 year period of time and then a panel of guys that decided what would be in the actual book. Frankly, if our God is big enough to create the universe, He is big enough to keep the writings accurate and cause what He wants to be put into His word and what He doesn't want in there, right?" Yeah, it pretty much sounded like that. And it pretty much satisfied what he was asking, though I'm pretty sure it (and the rest of the discussion that came with it) didn't exactly make him happy. It's ok. Truth is truth and he needed to hear it and he is always very willing to hear what I have to say, even when it doesn't agree with him so well. 

Are you bored with my thoughts yet? Hope not. I have so many more...not going to share all of them, no worries there. Hmm...I'm a little sad and frustrated today. I'll be fine...but you know, if I'm being honest I would have to say that friendships are really difficult sometimes. Sometimes you don't have the kind of time you want/need to have in order to continue cultivating a good friendship with someone. That gets hard. Other times something happens and your relationship snaps and you just have no idea why. That's pretty hard too. Well, all I can do is keep moving forward and trust that God will take care of the rest...because I don't have the strength, ability, or energy to fix it myself.

Oh, ok, I'll end with a little story. I was talking to Crystal this morning and I had been telling her all about some things that have irritated or frustrated me this weekend (she was gone all weekend). She left to use the restroom and I started thinking "Man, I have been so whiny and gripy all morning. I need to stop that! God, please set a guard over my mouth. I know that's a scripture, I should look it up today!" Then I decided to do my Bible reading, so I opened to the Psalms that I am scheduled to read today (141-145) and I started reading...then I started laughing really hard. Right there in Psalm 141:3 it says "Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord;  keep watch over the door of my lips" Yes, Lord. Point taken. So I repented and then I put that scripture as my status on facebook and added that this includes anything I might type/text today as well! God's pretty funny sometimes. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed the little glimpse into my thought patterns. Have a great day and feel free to share YOUR thoughts with me as well!