Testimony?

Hmm it's a Friday afternoon and I guess I should blog!

These past few weeks have better pretty good to me, but I feel like school is getting closer and closer. Right now most of my life worries have been solved and now the biggest worry I have is replacing my lost retainers and finding my iPod. But those are easy to solve. :)

I think I'll write my Summer testimony here.

So it starts off before Cambodia. Before Cambodia, I don't really remember much of who I was but I was a pretty confused girl. I think I was happy, but the point of my summer was Cambodia and then post Cambodia - try to have as much fun as possible. I've learned the thing about summers are, you can't have really high expectations, or you'll be really disappointed in the hours of doing nothing.

Well anyways, there you have it. The month after school ended, I just played around. Then when Korea and Cambodia time hit I guess I got serious? Visiting Korea was just visiting Korea to me. I got to see relatives and I was repeatedly reminded about how horrible my korean was and how I needed to learn. Then I went to Cambodia. The night before Cambodia, some personal family issues happened and to be honest my heart was angry at God. I thought, how could He allow this to happen the day before Cambodia. Why does He want my thoughts to be full of rage and hate towards something the day before a mission trip. But i'm usually good at hiding my true feelings so i didn't show it.
I realized at how stupid i was at blaming God and felt pretty guilty.
then on the mission trip, the first hour of getting off the plane the humidity shocked me because i thought i was ready for the climate since i went to belize. but no no no, this was totally uncomfortable and i just wanted to strip off all my clothes.
well we got to the hotel and settled down. the next day we met some of the sunday school teachers and some of the kids. after a while the kids started chasing me around and it reminded me a lot of mexico and how on the first day the kids there started chasing me too. i wonder at what age will i not be able to do that...haha

Anyways, that night, we got our team assignements and then our evangelizing partners - i got both the Grace's so i was kind of relieved. first of all because they are more mature and older and second of all because i wanted to be really good friends with them.
the next morning we got ready for evangelizing and i was kinda worried but kinda cocky about it too because i had both grace's and i had memorized some verses of the bible in the bus. that day though, i didn't say even one word and even now just thinking about it makes me feel so ashamed. but it's because i didn't fully rely on God to speak. the next day i prayed and i asked God to just make me a vessel for Him. i wanted Him to just make my mouth move, not even tell me the words, but just make them spray out of my mouth. so that happened, and with the help of the Grace's and Sienglai translating he got saved. And i think that's when i truly saw God using us, using little me for His will. and i got really happy after that.

at the first village, we did the evangelizing, and then went to eat lunch prepared by the jipsahneems and then went back to do children's ministry. the first village is where i met spider boy. but anyways, the Cambodia team was split into 2 and i was the only one in the games committee on my team. i kind of paniced because i was actually relying on the other 2 - christy and inho whenever i ran out of game ideas or needed someone to talk things over with. so the first day was discouraging because some of the kids weren't having fun and i just felt really bad because i couldn't bring about the best games or the best organization. to be honest, i didn't know what i was doing half the time. but things got better as the days progressed because i slowly began to rely on God more and more throughout the trip.
evangelizing got better as well as my faith grew more confident.
so spider boy. what can i say? i don't know his real name, i don't know what his voice sounds like, i don't even know his age. but i guess we just grew attached. i mean we had follow ups the 2nd week of the trip, and he just darted out of a market stall and started holding my hand. so i guess the connection wasn't just me thinking he was really really cute kid. and then when we left after haircutting the 2nd week, i cried 4 times in one day because i realized that i would prolly never see him again and i've never cried that much because i was leaving someone. Thinking about it now, i see that God had a sense of humor. before cambodia, i would always say i only like mexican kids. now i like all kids.

and during the mission trip, i pretty much ingrained into my head "all for glorying God" so now whenever i do things, i always think that so that's pretty niffty.

anyways, my sister and i left about 2 days earlier but we were supposed to leave 3 days earlier. we pulled a ken and missed our flight by one day. i kinda prayed for God to let us stay longer. :)
so we stayed, and then God let us go the day we thought we were supposed to go. we flew from siem reap to phnom pehn and then from phnom pehn to seoul. but the siep reap to phnom pehn flight - we were the ONLY people on the flight. how crazy is that.

after arriving back from cambodia to korea things kinda went fast. the whole day i was in korea after cambodia i just kept looking at a clock and picturing what the team was doing at that moment. then we flew back to america. things kinda got depressing for me first of all because i couldn't really talk to anyone about cambodia and second of all because i had to start my intership at church.

the first couple of weeks in america were rough. i dont think i've ever felt so low and lost in my life. i was unmovitated to do anything and was discouraged by the world and people around me. i changed my major to business during this time because i knew that God wanted me to change my major. i was angry at God because i expected Him to just speak to me directly and tell me what to do with my life. i expected that after Cambodia, His presence would just come to me. but after much prayer and talking to some people i realized, who am i to tell God to talk to me. what right do i have to do that. and i also realized that the youth needed a revival and i was being greedy with my feelings. i needed to put 110% into the youth.

so the youth internship even now it's kind of hectic, i will have to admit. it's hard to draw a line between friendship and intern because i like friends but i try to be serious. most of them are hard to quiet down but i think i've finally earned their respect through the mission trip we went to - Red Springs.

the red springs mission trip, i thought i was just gonna be the chaperone. i was like "psh, this is just to red springs, this is not even a mission trip but a camp for kids". i was planning on just watching the youth grow in God and encourage their faith, i didn't expect God to encourage me as well. well there were different ministries you could sign up for and i chose evangelizing. i was really excited about this because i wanted to see if i had it in me to evangelize in america. the first day we got there, my name wasn't even on the list of groups so instead of evangelizing i was placed in visiting nursing homes - the last ministry i wanted to do. i was kind of upset at this but in the end, it's all about glorifying God and again i was depending too much on me instead of God.
during the trip, i think God gave me a lot of wisdom. it taught me to be a leader and to be responsible. this is where i think the kids finally started respecting me.
the last day we were at red springs, we were just praising. then all of a sudden in my head i hear "you need to change your major to teaching". i would think nothing of it, but you dont really think of that kinda things when you're praising. so i knew it was the Holy spirit telling me. and the group infront of me had matching shirts that said "Expect Greater Things with the number 25" so i looked up john 2:5 and it said "Do whatever he tells you to do" or something like that. so i was really convicted by that.

coming home from red springs, i had worries about changing my major. i thought it would be really hard but today i looked up classes to reregister thinking there would be no more seats left. but many of the classes i needed had the 1 or 2 seats i needed for history education requirements.

that's it
sorry it goes from okay grammer to no grammer
and it's kinda long
and wishy washy in subjects.
and ends abruptly.

Summer

I think i'm bi-polar.

one minute i'm happy, the next i'm sad, the next i'm energetic, etc.

maybe it's because of all these thoughts jumbled in my head.

so while in Cambodia, the thought of coming home to start the youth internship was kind of a downer for me and i didn't really think much of it. and then when i got home, the first week, i kind of just took it as a job and as a small little thing that i shouldn't fret over too much, because teaching bible study a couple of days out of my week seemed pretty easy enough.
then vbs came, and you know, i saw the youth and i was kind of discouraged. most of them just talked and wanted to spend the whole time chatting. at that moment, i knew that this would be a hard summer. then the day before the last day of vbs, God gave me a passion for the youth. i really yearn for the youth to become leaders for Christ, with not just the mindset of having fun at church, but truly wanting to glorify God.

but, already it's been tough. 2 wednesday bible study's have passed and i feel like such a let down to God and the kids. i pray for God to use me and give me the wisdom to teach what He wants the youth to know, but it's not happening. it's pretty hurtful when you're trying to teach, and everyone's talking not because i get hurt from the lack of attention, but the lack of respect. i know i'm not the best role model and i am a goofball so why should i have their respect, but i just want the youth to be serious about God. and i know God will take care of my words, but i'm still worried that the wrong words will just shoot out of my mouth. how in the world do you get respect? by saving a baby in a burning house? i guess that's more of the heroics.


and another thing is, i donno what kind of emotion i should have. what right do i have to be sad, when i have sucha blessed life. i think i need to find out who i am, but isn't that some kind of pre-teen dilemma.