And If Our God Is For Us........

For those who do not know, I am currently in the process of raising $8,400 for a one year internship in Garden Valley, Texas called the Honor Academy.  Raising the money for this internship has probably been one of hardest things I have ever done, but God has taught me so much from it.  He has taught me to be generous in mygiving.  He has also taught me how important it is to not worry and trust in Him (Luke 12: 22-25).  When I first decided I was going to the Honor Academy I stressed myself out completely over the finances.  But as time went on, and I stressed myself out, I watched God provide in the most amazing ways.  Now, my attitude towards these much needed funds is calm and security in God, and He has surely been faithful!  I work at a small restaurant, and a few weeks back,  my kindergarted teacher came in to eat.  It had been years since I saw her.  It was really nice to see her, she asked what I was doing these days and I couldn't help but tell her about the Honor Academy.  I don't even remember saying much about money for the internship, maybe just that I was fundraising for it if that.  Yesterday when I got to work there was an envelope for me from her and her church.  Inside was $100!! God is so faithful and if HE is for us WHO can be against us?

Remembering Where You Came From

Hebrews 10: 32
Remember those early days after you had recieved the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.
 

Calendar Fundraiser

I truly believe 2013 wil be the most exciting and challenging year of my life!  I have sensed the call of God to serve a 12 month internship at the "Honor Academy" in Garden Valley, Texas (www.honoracademy.com) .  During this internship, I will be serving with the largest youth minstry in the country, Teen Mania Ministries.  Through my internship, I will have the opportunity to make and impact on my generation as well as strengthen my relationship with the Lord.
The cost for thie life-changing internship will be almost $9,000.  I have been working very hard to save and raise the funds necessary.  I am currently working two jobs to save money for my internship but I will need the help of supporters in order to make all of this happen.  Would you consider supporting me as I commit a year of my life to impact my generation?
I am raising support using a concept called "the calendar fundraiser."  This idea is simple yet has the capability of helping me raise much needed funds.  There are a maximum of 31 days in  a month.  I am praying for 31 people who will commit to take one of these 31 days a month for nine months.  The person who takes Day 1 would commit to supporting me wiht $1 per month.  Whoever took day 5 would support me at the level of $5 per month for nine months, beginning in January of 2013.  You don't have to give a rediculous amount of money to take part in this fundraiser!  The largest amount given per month will be $31 and the smallest amount would be $1.
If you would like to partner with me as I passionately pursue the Lord please let me know by contacting me at my email: cassort55@gmail.com.  Thank you so much for your consideration!

Jotta A Agnus Dei ♫ Hallelujah ♪ ♫

This is amazing! I could not believe it when I saw/heard it. This young boy is eleven years old and he is standing in front of cameras on Brazilians Got Talent to worship his Lord and Savior. I wish I would have had that kind of boldness when I was his age.

Praying for the Lost

I work at a restaurant that is across the street from a courthouse. Almost every day that I work, I see prisoners going in and out of that building. Today, for some reason it really captured my attention. I asked a co-worker that I was with, "does it ever creep you out to see all the prisoners over there?" She responded, "no I just laugh at them becuase their losers.Suddenly I was filled with compassion for these prisoners. The world sees them as "losers" but God sees them as lost sheep. I decided that everytime I saw prisoners walking in or out of the courthouse, I was going to pray for them. I need your prayer support in this. If this story just happens to cross your mind during the day, pray for these lost people. Pray that they would repent of the wrong that they have done, and also pray that they would see that Jesus washed away their sins and by repenting they can start fresh in the eyes of the Lord. You could even pray for revival to happen in the prisons, nothing is too much for our God!

What Does it Take to Be Relentless?

As I posted before, my church is doing a study from the book Relentless written by John Bevere.  I have been learning so much from this study and I truly feel like my mind in being renewed to understand what the Grace of God truly is.  By the time this study is over I believe that I will have learned how to live my life with a RELENTLESS spirit.
Today, I was shown what a relentless attitude is truly like.  I have been having problems with the car that I bough recently.  The day I bought it, it had to be towed back to the dealer.  I picked the car up yesterday thinking that it was "fixed."  I drove it to my sisters house and when I went attempted to leave at 12:00 a.m. it wouldn't start!  What!?!?!  I couldn't believe what was happening.  That was the second time now that I had gotten the car and it broke down the same day.  My sister let me stay the night and the next morning I woke up all grumbly and down.  She tried her best to make me smile or laugh, or even just talk, but I refused to be the good company she wanted. 
Now my sister, she is one of the most determined people I know.  She has always gone so far out of her way to help me with projects or problems.  She sat down with grumpy ol me and began to rattle off different things that we could do.  She offered to give me rides places, offered to let me borrow her car, she started listing off people that we could possibly call to come look at the car, she listed ways to sell it if I didn't want to keep it anymore.  That girl went nuts with ideas!  Finally she came with the simple idea of, lets try to jump start it.  I told her no.  My dad was going to be coming by soon to look at the car so I just wanted to wait until he go there to do anything.  She insisted and without asking me got her boyfriends jumper cables and headed outside.  Her boyfriend was willing to help us out and we eventually got the car started.  Why?  Because my sister had a relentless attitude that we were going to get the problem solved.
What's the lesson here and how does it concern me and you?  In this situation, my attitude was to give up and wait for someone else to fix the problem (that someone else being my dad).  However, my sisters attitude was "there's a problem, and I am going to do everything in my power to fix it."  As I am learning in the book Relentless, grace is God's empowerment. My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak (2 Corinthians 12:9 TEV).  We have the empowerment of God in us. If we all were to look at situations the way my sister did today and have the attitude of I will do everything in my power (God's empowerment by grace) to fix this then what can't we do?   

Bibles for Zambia!!

While I was in Zambia, I had the privelage of ministering to a group of 22 teenagers.  It was such a wonderful experience to be able to pour out Gods love to those kids.  At the end of the week, I asked the kids how many of them had a Bible at home.  Only two of the raised their hands.  Before I left them that day, I promised them that I would send each of them a Bible.  I took this project on not know how I would make it happen.  I don't have the money to buy them nice Bibles, though I would like to.  I am inviting you to partner with me on this project.  I looked around and found four old Bibles that I had which I will be donating to these kids.  If you have an unused Bible at your house, please consider donating it to the kids in Zambia.  If you are interseted in helping me in this, please shoot me an email.  Thank you for your help and support!

I Won't Relent!

Today has probably been one of the most emotional days of my life. This morning I woke up and declared in the name of Jesus that I was going to overcome anything the enemy threw at me today. I started off my day at a car dealer. I just sold my truck and was looking for a low priced car with good gas mileage to replace it. After looking through the dealer for a while, I began to get a little discouraged because we wern't finding anything decent in my price range. As we were getting ready to call it quits and leave, a red KIA Rio caught my eye. We inquired about the details of the car and found out that it was something I could afford, it would get about 35 miles per gallon, and it had low mileage. I started to thank God for sending something that seemed to perfect. My dad and I took it for a test drive and we both agreed that it would be a good car for me. I left the dealer with a new/used car and was so excited and happy about the deal we had just made.
Not even five hours later, I got in the car to drive it a few blocks away to the store, and the transmission went out!! WHAT!! I had just bought the car that day and it messes up on me. I called my dad with heat in my voice and exclaimed what was happenning with the car. I went to my church (where I had been all day since getting the car) and stomped past people to drop something off and rudely barked that I would be back I had to take the stupid car back to the dealer. I cried to my mentor about how every time things start to look good for me, something happens to make things worse. The attitude I had towards the people that I love was horrible. I got back in the car only to make it one block over before I couldn't move. We ended up having to tow the car to the dealer and they won't even look at it until Monday. I have no idea what will happen I don't know if they will give me my money back or try to fix it.
So, what is my point in all of this? While I cried and became frustrated, my mentor (Tara Cherry) began to tell me that I had nothing to fear because God was going to take care of me. The enemy is using everything that he can to try and bring me down, but as long as I remain Relentless and seek God with all of my heart and soul, I WILL prosper. I want to tell you that there is nothing that God cannot handle. Things may look terrible for you right now. This is just one day out of the insane week that I have had and lets be honest, from today it looks pretty bad. But at the end of the day I have joy in my heart because I am still going after God with everything that I have. I know my breakthrough is coming. I trust and beleive that God wants to bless my life, and He wants to bless yours too! Keep a relentless spirit for the Lord and He will bring you out of that place that you are in.
I say this out of faith right now. Keep an eye on this page. God is going to provide for me and you better believe that I will be putting it on here as a praise report!

Running With God

For the past few years I have been constantly complaining about how out of shape I have let myself become. I used to be able to do sprints for long periods of time, weight lift like a beast and run long distance on a regular basis. Now I find myself struggling to do exercises with ten pound weights, and have to drag myself across the finish line to run even two miles.
However, lately I have been extremely motivated to get out and run (with the help and accountability of a friend. Thanks Tara!). When I first began exercising, the thought of running any more than one mile seemed impossible. The first time I went out to try this running thing out, I ended up making it  1.5 miles. How was this possible? I hadn't ran more than a mile in over two years! The next time I went for a run I made it two miles. Two miles may not seem very impressive to most people, but for me that was like running a marathon. What's my secret? I take a running partner with me, my Heavenly Father!
When I go for a jog, I never focus on how long it's going to take or how much I think I can do. I simply listen to my worship music and run with God. I sing, I raise my hands, I clap, sometimes I even dance. I have no idea what it is about my running time, but for some reason I am able to encounter God in awesome ways while I run. I feel His strength and endurance pushing me farther and farther every single time I exercise. Tonight, for example, I was running and singing some Jesus Culture just pouring my heart out in worship. I reached my usual two mile mark, but I didn't want to stop, I wanted to spend more time running with the Lord. I pushed and pushed and tonight I ran 3 miles, more than I've ran in over four years!
If you have a hobby or something that you enjoy doing for the glory of God, feel free to share. I would love to hear about it!

Let the Fun Begin!

Today I began the grueling process of getting a yard sale together. I am planning to have a big yard sale some time next month in order to raise some funds for my Honor Academy tuition. If you would be willing, please keep me the yard sale in your prayers. I'm praying that this one will be as big of a success as my last yard sale. When raising funds to go to Zambia this summer I was able to raise almost $1000 in my yard sale.
I am also working on another fundraise called the pringles can fundraiser. It's a simple fundraiser that anyone can afford to participate in. All it involves is a pringles can, and some spare change. Set a pringles can in your house and for a month, or maybe longer, fill it with your spare change. A full can could value up to $50. I would love to get at least ten of these cans out to rasie $500 for my internship. If you would be willing to participate in this fundraiser, please let me know either throught this post or email (cassort55@gmail.com).

Your Love Never Fails -Chris Quilala / Jesus Culture

This song has really been ministering to my heart! When things don't seem like they are falling into place, just remember His love never fails.

Honor My Parents?

In todays world I see so often that kids, especially teenagers are disrespectful towards their parents. I see it out of kids of all ages. My two year old nephew often disrespects his mom by telling her no (a typical toddler word). Elementary kids stomp their feet and throw temper tantrums out of disobedience. Teenagers yell and scream at their parents. I can't imagine telling my parents to shut up, but I've seen it happen with other kids all the time. This doesn't go to say that I am a perfect child, I'm far from it. But over the past couple of months God has really been working with me to give repsect to my parents.
I started this reading plan where I will be reading through the Bible in 90 days, and today I was reading in the book of Exodus. In chapter 20 it refers to the ten commandments, listing them all out. As many of us know, the fifth commandment is to honor your father and your mother, but God adds a promise on with that commandment. God promised this, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."  I continued to read into chapter 21. I came to a section entitled in my Bible as Personal Injuries. In this section it lists punishments that must be suffered in the event that someone kills or injures another person. In verse 17, it says "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death." Wow! When I read that I wondered, what does it mean to curse someone? According to the dictionary to curse someone means to express a wish that misfortune would fall upon someone. Is that honoring your parents? NO! I was amazed at how serious this issue was treated in the Old Testament.
 I found it very interesting that this particular example was put under person injuries. I know you have heard the saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." The truth is, words can be one of the most painful things int he world. Being cursed at, or yelled at, or belittled hurts worst than many physical pains. The Bible even talks about the power of the tongue Our words have the capability to make a huge impact and it can either be a positive or a negative impact. That, I think, is why this example was put under personal injuries, because words can emotionally injure a person.
This is not a light subject. Honoring our parents is a serious thing. I can gurantee you that you will see a change in your life by honoring your parents. I am still in the process of learning how to fully respect my parents, it's a process that takes time, but it's worth it. The best part is, you don't have to do it alone. God is here to help you! He wants to see you succeed in this, he wants to see that relationship with your mom or dad or maybe even both be mended together. Your Heavenly Father loves you and wants things between you and your earthly parents to be right.

The Love of Africa

I would like to share with you my journal entry from tonight.

...I was on my way home after putting in about 7 hours at church today and I just started praying over different people and things. I was just talking to God. I started praying for divine appointments and I can't rememver how but it led to me wishing I would have told Josslyn Kenner that I love her at Reality last night. Reality is the youth event we do every Wednesday night. When she was leaving, she said bye to me and I heard in my head to tell her I loved her, but before it could register I had already said the plain word bye and she was gone. I got to thinking about that while I was praying today and I wondered why I don't tell these kids at Reality how much I love them. In Africa we would tell kids all the time that we loved them, we'd also tell them God loves them. Why don't I say it now? I got to thinking about it. In Naynja, the Zambian language, the phrases "I Love you" and God Loves you" were about all I knew how to say. I barely knew any phrases or words other than those two. That's when it clicked, that's all God want from us. He wants us to share our love and His love like it's all we know how to do. It was so easy to share the love of God with the children in Africa because it was the only thing we knew how to do in their culture. We were created to love, the Bible says in Mark 12:30-31
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is like this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
Those were the words of Jesus, we are to do two things with our lives. Love the Lord our God, and love those around us. It's what we were made for! I need to get in a mindset of Africa where the only way I know how to communicate to people around me is through acts of love and kindness. I may be back in America, but I am still in a foreign land. I do not belong to this world, my eyes are set on things above.

Meet Kennedy. I had the honor of having this young man of God in my group when we did a week long camp with the orphans in Zambia. Kennedy is a double orphan and is battling sickness, yet he has faith that would put many American "Christians" to shame. There are so many kids in Zambia, like Kennedy, who have a deep passion for the gospel and for Jesus Christ. There was one night in particular where God showed His power and how he can use anyone of any age to bring Him glory. We had several of our missionaries who had gotten seriously sick, we had been praying over them for a while and we started to hear singing and crying coming from the other side of the orphanage. We were so touched by what we thought the cries were. We thought the "mamma's" (the women who take care of the children in the orphanage) had been praying for us. After our sick had been healed through both our prayers and theirs, we went to join the mamma's in praising the Lord. When we got over to them, we suddenly realized, it wasn't just the mamma's it was the children too. There were kids five years old on their face crying out to God. We were all so moved by the passion that the children have for the Lord.

What is Normal?

Tonight I was at home watching the olympics with my mom and sister when a television commercial came up. It was a sneak peek at a new show that was coming soon called "The New Normal." I recognized from the picture an actor that I had found to be funny in past films so I watched the trailer. I soon found myself disgusted by the story line of the show.
Two men are in a relationship together and want to have a child, they find this woman who is willing to conceive a child for them and they develop a family of their own.
The title of this show reflects exactly where American society is heading. The New Normal. What does that mean? In our society it is becoming normal and acceptable to have families like this. Two dad's. This is becoming the norm of America. It has become so normal that people are willing to make a show about it and consider it comedy! Is it so normal that we can laugh about it?

Hakka of China

At the end of my trip, we stayed in Texas for a day to debreif. While we were there, we were shown different unreached and least reached people groups. An unreached or least reached people group is a group of people among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group. We had the opportunity to commit to praying for one of these people groups for the next year. I would like to introduce you to the Hakka people of China. This is a least reached people group where their main religion is considered non-religion. Pray that these people will be reached and that God's word will spread through this nation. There is a complete Bible in this language so praise God for that! If you want more information on the Hakka, there is a link at the bottom of this post.
http://www.joshuaproject.net/people-profile.php?peo3=12054&rog3=CH

                                                         Picture taken by Chelsea Koelzer
This is Holly. During our trip she tore a muscle in her foot, the doctors said she would have to be in a cast for at least 6 months before it would fully heal. Holly had no choice but to sit around the camp sight while the rest of us went out to do our ministry. She sat in constant pain and torture all day every day. One day, we had several sick people and our project director felt that we needed to pray for them. We prayed for about an hour over the sick and by the time we were done, most of them were sitting up feeling much better. After that, our project director told us to pray over Holly. We prayed our hearts out, we prayed as hard as we knew how. Holly had the faith to be healed and we had the faith to heal her. When we eventually finished, she had no pain! She had had constant pain in her ankle before that. The rest of the day she walked without her crutches everywhere she went making coments like "this cast is in my way I want it off." It was either the very next day or the day after and she demanded that the cast be cut off; So we cut it off with a pocket knife. Here she stands in vicotry, fully healed by God's miraculous power.

God broke my heart for the children of Zambia, especially this little girl. Her name is Monde. God showed me through this precious girl how important and powerful His love is. God wants us, as believers, to show His love to everyone. I poured out every bit of love that I could to this girl every time I saw her. And when it was time to say goodbye, my eyes were opened to how important that love was to her. I held Monde as she lay in my lap sobbing, but God had a better plan for both of us. We didn't part ways forever with only that painful memory of goodbye burning in our minds. I was blessed to see her again before I left Zambia, and was blessed to continue to pour out God's love to her.

These are the 22 kids that I was priveleged to minister to at the camp.

Mocha Bwange!

I returned yesterday from my trip to Zambia, Africa. God moved in incredible ways there! A girl from our team hurt her ankle to the point that it was in a cast. We were able to pray over her and she was healed completely! The next day we cut the cast off with a pocket knife. We prayed sight into a mans blind eye and he was healed. A grandma was having trouble seeing and we prayed for her sight to be restored. By God's grace it was! A couple of people on my team prayed over a child with AIDS and they were healed. God touched the people of Zambia

On top of all the miraculous healings, we had hundreds of kids dedicate their lives to Christ. We ran a week long camp and taught the gospel to over three hundred orphans. We poured out God's love to them all week long and at the end of the week, most of the children accepted Jesus into their hearts.

I arrived at Honor Academy campus in Texas today to begin training for my mission trip to Zambia! It feels so real now. I am so humbled that God has called me to do such an incredible thing. If we surrender ourselves to the Lord, there are no boundaries as to what he can call us to do. I never dreamed that I could ever be used for something like this, yet here I am. God is more than able to do above and beyond anything that I could think.

Once again God has shown me the life that I used to live. I got together with a very good friend from highschool for the first time in about a year. I had been so excited to meet up with this particular friend for a long time. When we got together, it was an awkward outing for me. The two of us had changed in two different \ly drastic ways. All my friend wanted to talk about was his partying life, a life that used to be interesting to me. I thank God for breaking the chains that I was bound in. I praise Him that I am a new person, that I am not what I once was. I also thank God that he has shown me what He delivered me from.

God is so good and faithful! Today, for my mission trip fundraising, I had a donation table at my Dad's church. I was blessed with $290 in donations and I am praying that more will come from the congregation. On top of that, God answered my prayer in another much needed financial area. I had been praying that today I would receive at least one monthly pledge for my Honor Academy internship. One woman whose grandaughter attended Honor Academy came and told me that she wanted to support me with a monthly pledge! How great is our God!!

Today I had an interesting conversation with an old friend of mine from high school. I had always thought that I had lived a good life until recently I realized that I was living a fairly "normal" life. God changed my life and today I got a look at what my life used to be. I talked to this friend and we got into the subject of partying. I told him I never really was the type to go to parties. His response to my comment took me entirely by surprise. He told me that he always thought I was a partier!
After he said that, I sat in shock. I always thought I was a good little Christian girl. Obviously I wasn't living as an example for the Lord.
I think we all have been through times when we were not producing the fruit of the spirit (love,joy,peace,patience,kindness,goodness,faithfulness,gentleness, and self-control). I challenge you, as well as myself,  to pray over these fruits. That they would grow abundantely in your life and be visible to those who you associate with.