You Haven't Seen Anything Yet

As I was writing this blog, I stumbled across this moment of worship with Steffany Gretzinger. It perfectly captures what God has been teaching my heart this past month through all of these miraculous things he's been doing. My suggestion is to take a listen while you are reading, you won't regret it. Click Here

Pulling Off A Surprise

A week ago I got to level up in the surprise category and pull of an international one with my sister Mackenzie, who was in Orlando with my family celebrating her 22nd birthday.

Although, I hoped/wished/prayed that Kenzie would be completely excited, go crazy, scream with the happiness of seeing me for the first time in a year. In my heart of hearts I knew that it would in fact go something like this...

Click here for Kenzie's reaction video

Because James is her beloved brother. Sometimes, more beloved than her sisters.

It really was an incredible time to be with my family! Every morning Kenzie would be awake long before the rest of my family and due to my body feeling like it should be later it would be ready to wake up around 7:30 a.m. So we would sit out on the balcony, with this as our view (thank you God for Florida) and talk about life for about an hour.

Just to clue you into how big of a deal this was, it's been awhile since I can remember being able to have such a "normal" conversation with Kenzer. Due to her number of seizures, or the amount of medication she was on, her aggressive/obsessive behavior, or just sleeping all the time, she didn't always want to have a conversation with you and if she did she wasn't always able to really track with you. So to have her sit down with me and just casually bring up the things going on in her life, her best friend Krystal, her boyfriend Conner; was so sweet. But then to have her also just ask me about what is going on with me; for her to ask me about Ireland, about when we are going to start popping out babies for her, and how James was doing, was miraculous. Those were moments that in the past 12 years haven't been all too frequent and because of that those are some conversations I have a feeling I will be treasuring for a long long time.

Mini Pulse Epicness

At the same time as all of this was happening in the U.S., my incredible husband was back here in Ireland with our youth about to go to our fall event called Mini Pulse. Mini Pulse is hosted by the Assemblies of God Ireland and is open to youth groups all over. Our youth group had been attending it for the past few years, and loved it! This year it was to be hosted at one of Dublin's night clubs due to the large amount of kids they were expecting, which they ended up having over 400!!! Shout out to Daniel Malone and AJ O'Neill and all of the other awesome youth pastors who made this happen for youth across Ireland! This year was especially exciting for our youth group because of how much it has grown and changed since last year. Last year at Mini Pulse we brought around 19 teens from our youth group. This year we brought 25 teens and 6 college age interns we are raising up to lead and serve in youth and other ministries in the church. Over half of the kids attending this year we're new to our youth group or had never been to Mini Pulse with us.

Everybody had such a fun time this year, you could definitely tell the shift it made in friendships when I saw them the next Friday after the event. Most importantly, it provided an opportunity for them to choose Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and receive prayer, and over half of our youth group did go up to either receive prayer or make that decision during this event. This Friday at G-Force we will be taking time for our youth to share what God did in them specifically during Mini Pulse and we are incredibly excited to hear all the stories.

(Photos courtesy of Rebekah Long)

James and I say this to each other all the time but we absolutely LOVE getting to serve and be a part of reaching the youth here in Enniscorthy. It's kind of secretly (but not such a secret) our favorite ministry! The kids that God has placed in our youth group this year are just hungry for more of God and more of real community. It's an honor to get to be a part of raising and equipping this next generation in Ireland.

Answered Prayer

In my last blog post I asked you to specifically be praying for salvation to happen in our youth group. I just want to say to all of you who partnered with us in that, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts! There are more being added into the Kingdom here in Ireland because of your prayers!!! I also, have to thank everyone who cared, prayed into, GAVE money for my plane ticket so I could go see MacKenzie during this missionary stint. Thank you! Thank you for caring about James and I in every way, through every situation, in every circumstance. We are surrounded by the best of the best!

Party Time

I have to end by showing you our Holly-Ween Party (it was a Hollywood themed Halloween party) for our youth group and our Family Fun Night! Both couldn't have happened with the legend that is Paul Murphy. For those of you who have come over with Beltway or to visit James and me, you may have had the honor of meeting this man and his wonderful family. I had a vision of what I wanted these two parties to be; a vision way beyond what I could make happen on my own. Paul totally came through and made my vision a reality, part of which looked like him standing in the rain, at night, trying to start a fire so our youth could roast marshmallows over it. He pulled it off with a smile on his face and even figured out how to position it so they could stand inside the church and roast them. I just have to give credit where credit is due!

(Photo courtesy of Alive Church)