Thursday, April 21, 2011

I have a secret... Dreams really do come true!

Tonight, I learned some very cool information. I will inform you of this information at the end of this blog, but DON'T skip ahead! The journey is so important and I don't want you to miss out!

When I began this YWAM journey, I knew there was an outreach portion, but I didn't really know, or, honestly, really CARE where I would go. I just wanted to GO! The last time I was out of the country, I was in Israel (which was AWESOME!). But that was nearly 4 years ago, and so I had THE bug.

You know, the itch. The TRAVEL itch.

I had been dying to scratch that itch, but the closest I got to somewhat satisfying that were a couple visits to my favorite little town in Colorado.

The whole time that we have been here, our staff had constantly been asking us, the students. where in the WORLD we wanted to go. My answer was always "I don't really care, I just want to go." But apparently that wasn't going to cut it for them. So my second answer was "If I had to choose I would choose either South Africa or the Philippines" and all of the leaders would nod their heads and smile, because they couldn't even tell us what the options were. (And don't you know we were all DYING to know what our options were!) We, the students, constantly rolled our eyes (or maybe that was just me?) when I would get asked that question!

So we have been here 2 weeks as of tomorrow and had no clues until this past Monday what our options were. Our options were:

East Asia
Philippines (Remember this is one that I had said originally when asked 'the' question)
Cambodia
Mozambique
Japan&Thailand
South Africa (Also one of my answers to 'the' question)

We have been practicing hearing God, so Monday afternoon we were sent out for about 45 minutes to pray, research, and make phone calls if we so desired.

Let's back track a few days, to last Wednesday night. I had a dream that night that I went to South Africa on my outreach with a particular person on the staff. I wrote it in my journal, and kept it to myself. That Thursday afternoon we, as a school, as PhotogenX, gathered in the prayer room, and prayed. When we went into the room we weren't really sure what to expect, turns out we were praying for Child Headed Homes in, you guessed it, South Africa.

To me this was very much a confirmation of the place I believed I was supposed to go, but I had no clue if it was even an option!

Fast forward back to Monday. When they sent us out in order to pray. I KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW KNEW DEEEEEEEEEEEPPP down in my gut that South Africa was SUPPOSED to be number one on my list. They had asked us to give the our top two options, and maybe even a third. My list looked like this:

South Africa
Mozambique
Japan & Thailand

After I put my scrap paper that currently held all my hopes and dreams for 3 of this next 6 months, I had no fear. No anxiety. I KNEW (as much as I could) that I would go to South Africa.

Tonight (Wednesday April 20, 2011) we played a miniature version of The Amazing Race. All along the way we were connecting the dots. At one point we all squealed (YES, EVEN THE GUY!) when we realized what was happening! We RAN all across campus, slowly adding members to our team.

We ended of at a dessert soirée where we were introduced to our teams. And our leader!

My team consists of
Leader: Jonathan Zerkle (USA)
Teammates:
Jane Lee (Korea)
Kat Stahl (Germany)
Clark Grigg (USA)
Kristina Lentz (Iceland)
Katie Abrahamson (USA)
Emily-Cosette Divito (USA)
Evelyn Sauder (Switzerland)
and ME!!! (USA)

(I Think I got the nations right, correct me if I'm wrong teammates!)

Soon I will give you guys links to follow each of our blogs!

I am honored, stoked, beyond excited to tell you all that I am going to
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South Africa!


4 comments:

Ywam Journey said...

This outreach is going to rock are world but just remember to not look to fare in advance since we still have a lot to learn before we leave. I have to also remind my self of that since my heart is in africa

minda312 said...

Jillllly!!!!!

I love this blog post. For many reasons- but #1 being because you wrote it :-)

And #2 being because HE. KNOWS. OUR HEART.

Love you lady. Sooooo excited to follow your journey via blog! ;-)

Laura G said...

This blessed me SOOO much! I am sooo thankful for His faithfulness and that he knows the desires of YOUR, JILLIAN's heart. So awesome!

genwhirl said...

Jilly, Jilly, Jilly....HOW AWESOME IS GOD?!?!?!?!?!