chin chillin' before santa

hello beautiful (or handsome, whichever you prefer) people! how are you? it feels like forever since i last wrote to you. i'm sorry that i'm not writing more more often- that's the great thing about taking long road trips. anyway, last week i was gone for a week in a small town called chinchilla. it's a small country town and it reminded me alot of home. we stayed and slept in the christian outreach center/church there which was not too bad i might add. we had very good air conditioning, which is rare in these parts. there we had lectures on evangelism and our speaker was kevin stickle, director of the byron bay ywam base. very cool guy. in the mornings we would have lectures and then the rest of the day was devoted to the community. we were split up into two groups with one doing a kids camp and the other doing community work. i was in kids camp and did the acting part of it. from 2-4:30 we had camp and the kids got to choose to do dance, acting, sports, or music. it was abit hard at first since we didn't really know what to do with the age group that we had so we played games that involved you acting something out. finally mid-week we came up with a game that had them draw a random picture and then we'd combine the pictures, make a story line and story out of it and then act it out. needless to say it was so much fun. we also were a part of the town christmas concert and we had a worship/prayer night that week too.

the first day we left was my first day after my fast, and man was it hard. i had a cookie and a brownie that morning and then we left for chinchilla. the rest of the day i felt sick and so wierd. i felt dirty, like the food i was eating made me dirty so i had to be sick in order to "clean" myself. the fruits and veggies are water based and it really did clean out my body. i had so much more energy and i was able tp stay awake more. but the day after we got to chinchilla i slept for a couple hours during the day since i felt so sick and tired. but thankfully i;ve gotten better. my fast was successful since it showed me that God is always there and He's never moved. it's me that's moved and when i found my way back He was there watching and waiting for me, like the father of the prodigal son. He never far away; we just have to reach out and make the effort to get to Him.

one night that week 3 other girls and i went out into the dark night and with an ipod and ipod speakers we had our own worship time. it was kind of scary at first since in the distant horizon there was this spectacular show of lightning flashing in the sky and clouds. but we stayed out and sang and worshipped. as i was singing i noticed these 3 strands of misty clouds in the sky above me but i didn't think anything of it. probably 15 minutes later i looked up and my breath was taken away and i was in such awe and wonder. what i saw was this huge misty cloud/blob that was a red and pink color. then, all the way on the right side, was this white, illuminated circle. without a doubt i knew that it was God. His power was significant in the silent lightning yet His grace was there above me while the girls and i were singing. i was moved to tears standing there and trying to explain it later to a friend i started to cry because it was so powerful. this was what i had asked for: i wanted to get closer to God and in those 2 weeks i got closer to God than what i could have ever imagined. like before, God is there, and when we open up our hearts to Him He comes down and meets with us.

this past week was christmas and needless to say it was so different not spending it with my family. monday night we had a base christmas feast. my leader's parents came (they're missionaries in taiwan) and his mom made alot of food for us. the sweet potatoes were the best!!! i usually don't like sweet potatoes, but these were so bomb (the way my friends put it) with the brown sugar and pecans. we had christmas music playing and for the first time it felt like christmas. we had lectures monday-wednesday and our speaker was heather marchberger and she spoke on intercession. her stories were so amazing and they really spoke to me in such a way that by the end of the lectures i had a new outlook on indonesia and i was excited to go rather than scared :)

christmas eve was spend making european breakfast and dinner along with eating TONS of sweets. i think i ate just sugar that day. christmas day was the same and we watched a couple movies. it was fun though :)

as i close i do have 2 prayer requests:
1) on monday i finally went to the doctor's and had my blood taken to get tested. i haven't gotten the results back yet but hopefully soon. i had a calmness and peace about it, but that night i was starting to feel a bit panicky, like last year, but i refused to go back to that time when i didn't trust God. pray that all goes well. ("sing me a love song" by barlowgirl is EXACTLY what i'm feeling so you can listen to it ).
2) this one is one for a friend. that day where we had the tabernacle re-enactment a friend of mine, for her gift/give up sacrifice, gave God her pills. she takes them twice a day daily for anxiety and depression and i know it was soo very hard for her to do that. yet God showed me that He was so overjoyed of what she did. it was like the pills were a hinderance in their relationship. He could get close, but those pills kept Him from getting closer. i told her that and she was so encouraged. well, last week she dropped the bomb on me that that night of the re-enactment she had flushed all her pills down the toilet and she hadn't taken any since then. for someone who had taken those pills for almost 4 years that was very extreme for me. a leader who was with us has experience with people getting over drug addictions and she had warned my friend of some of the withdrawl symptoms that she could experience. she hadn't had very many of them yet, yet they all hit her hard the next day. her body just shut down with the withdrawl symptoms kicking in hard and it was hard seeing her this way. she's not going back to the pills yet i know it's a daily struggle for her. please pray for her as she tries to get over the symptoms. pray for strength and faith like she's never had before. she's going to need all she can get since the enemy's going to hit her hard.

i hit the road again on monday and i'll try to write more soon!!!