Have Faith & You Will See the Miracles of God

God’s glory is His invisible character, made visible. (Romans 1:20)

So this week was awesome. We had Don Stephens come speak to us about the Kingdom of God and our Worldview. We also talked a lot about how we can see God’s glory in everyday life.

This week, my favorite part was learning about how we can see God’s glory in any and everything. We can hear it through music, see it in a sunset, in how the leaves change color, or how a baby smiles and giggles. Don talked to us about how everything matters. Everything from mowing the grass to reading the Bible, God wants to be apart of them all with us. There is no disconnect between the natural world and the spiritual world…God’s presence is everywhere.

Iron Bell

This Friday was also really amazing. I went to the Iron Bell with some of my friends here (Allie, Matt, Josh, Cassidy, Samantha, Kevin). The worship was amazing and the presence of God was undeniable that night. After the worship and message on hearing the voice of God and bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, they opened up the room for prayer. They had one area specifically for emotional prayer, one area for miscellaneous prayer, and one area for healing. My friend Allie wanted prayer while we were there for her pain. So we went down front and Matt was on the healing prayer team so he and I both prayed for her. After praying for her, her pain was 80% gone. But we were believing for full healing! So Matt and I prayed for her again and when we were done, all of her pain was gone! Jesus completely healed her and it definitely increased my faith. It was such an act of faith to pray for healing and expect it, but when the healing happens it was even more amazing and faith building-my first thought was actually…”Well, hot dang!” (She even had Holy laughter the rest of the night…it was something amazing!) Then we saw that another one of our friends needed prayer for his knees. So Matt, Allie, and I along with two other prayer team members prayed around him and for complete healing of his knees. We also prayed over him to take hold of his sonship in God, that God has purposefully adopted him as a son! And after we finished praying for him, the prayer team leader asked how his pain was…and he said he was pain free! That the pain he had for years was completely gone! It was truly amazing to experience and be apart of one healing, much less 2! God is so good and faithful.

Beautiful Waste

We have the ability to bring infinite joy or infinite sorrow to the heart of God.

This week at the YWAM SE Conference was amazing! I felt the presence of God so profoundly and personally. We spent the week in Talladega, AL with YWAMers from all over the Southeast. It was such a blessing being surrounded by people from different bases! The worship, led by Bryce Anderson, was filled with new and familiar songs and lots of jumping! I have never experienced such freedom in a worship service before; the atmosphere there was so freeing and joyful. I felt like I could truly worship God without any judgement or concern.

Aiden, Kayla, Sophia & I on our way to Talladega!

Jim Stier, the speaker this week, talked all about the Kingdom of God and having God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. We learned that unless we experience the throne room for ourselves, how are we supposed to bring heaven to earth?! This is why we need to spend time with the Lord, seeking His face and His heart, getting closer to Him. The Kingdom on earth is not a physical establishment, rather it’s Jesus. We aren’t trying to just obey rules and follow laws, we are obeying Jesus and aiming to be more Christ-like and live a more God centered life. We should be looking for a personal relationship with Him. When we live like that, when we live in the Word, we become the Word and, therefore, we can live in the Kingdom.

Quiet time by the lake

Jim also talked about how we are a delight to God! The deepest truth about us is not that we’re sinners. The deepest truth about us is that we are made in His image! We are a part of God’s family. If we spend time with Him and seek His face so that we can truly comprehend the affection He has for us, then we will constantly experience His delight in us. God has also made Himself vulnerable to us! We have the ability to bring Him joy or sorrow. Our love means so much to Him and we can love Him back by serving His needs and the desires of His heart. My job is to make God’s dreams come true.

This week, though tiring and eventful, was such a blessing. I couldn’t ask for a better base or friends to have experienced it with! My worship life is forever changed by the freedom I experienced there and the revelation that I will not let anyone’s opinions of me dictate how I worship MY JESUS!

I can’t believe that in just 12 days it will be Thanksgiving!! And it’s also less than a month until I will be HOME for Christmas 🙂 DTS is flying by, but I know the Lord still has so much to show and teach me while I’m here.

Don’t Let Someone’s Idea About You Become Your Reality

This week we got to hear from our very own Amy Ford! She shared with us her story of redemption and how great God’s redeeming love is. It was such a powerful testimony of how God’s love defeats all; His love wins all. I learned more about my identity in Christ and how when we forget our identity our potential becomes frozen. If we forget our identity in Christ, we will live lower than what was won for us on the cross. Our false identities come from society, music, and even things people have told you about yourself…but thats not where we should find our source of identity. We are not defined by what we have done, buy by what Jesus has done for us and we are made righteous because of that! After learning about our identity, we got to spend time (as individuals) with two staff members praying about what God’s original design for us is. I learned that my original design is that I am compassionate, I create safety and beauty, that I’m trustworthy and faithful, and that God has a plan for me in a huge ministry!

We also learned about strongholds in our lives. Strongholds start with our thoughts, influence our decisions, become permanent actions, replace our value, turn into a lifestyle…then we’re left in bondage. Even small sins are us agreeing with Satan. Those small sins and agreements with Satan allow him to come into your heart and mind, and that’s where he gets access to build strongholds. Strongholds can look like: fear, shame, anxiety, pride, rejection, etc. I learned though, that we shouldn’t focus on the strongholds; rather, we should focus on Jesus and deal with the strongholds as they come up, then turn our focus back to Jesus again.

Andy came and talked to us the last few days of the week about giving up our rights, but maintaining our responsibility. Some of the rights we have to give up are: our future, attention, sleep, justice, ministry, style, music, talents. etc. We talked about how that doesn’t seem fair…but then if we wanted life to be fair–fair would equal hell. Therefore, we need to look at everything as grace because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We also talked about obeying and honoring our parents as well as being faithful with little so God will trust us with more!

NOW THE FUN STUFF!!

Monday we had Love Feast! We got to get all dressed up and eat a nice dinner and just spend quality time together. Then Thursday we had local ministry. We got to talk to some students at the Jimmy John’s beside the school and get to know them better. Jay was also our very own DJ at Bethel St. Paul!

Love Feast with Marin and Marina

Jay, our amazing DJ at Local Ministry

Emelie makin some mean hashbrowns 😉

Our brunch prep team! It was early…

Worship is always the best part of the week 🙂

Newsletters, Ultimate Frisbee, and Jesus…Oh My!

God is sovereign, He is always good. But do we understand that ourselves?

This week was filled with sending out 102 newsletters, various activities on base, and some amazing teachings. Our DTS was so blessed to have Donna MacGowan as our guest speaker. She came to talk to us about the nature and character of God.

102 newsletters, ready to be sent around the USA!

I spent last weekend and the first few days of the week writing and preparing my very first newsletter!! It includes what I have been up to here at YWAM Louisville and a little about what is coming up next.

Bethel Saint Paul church where we do local ministry!

Local ministry: Prayer walks around the church and school!

The students at Trinity Catholic School were on Fall Break this week, so our local ministry team did some brainstorming and went on prayer walks. Our team talked with Pastor Jeremy about ideas for the after school program and what we can do to reach the students. Then we broke into teams: Abby, Jay, April, and Kelly & Drew, Jesse, Marina, and me! Abby’s team went and prayed around the school and sidewalks and our team went to the Jimmy John’s across the street (where a lot of the students go after school) and prayed for the conversations there and open hearts of the students for when we come back this Thursday!

Ultimate Frisbee brings us all together 🙂

Ultimate frisbee is such a wonderful way to get out of the house and just enjoy being active. We play every Sunday at 5pm and both guys and girls (students and staff) come together to play! It also helps us all relax and have a little fun before the week starts again.

Creative worship ❤ Marin’s beautiful artwork!

This week, Donna spoke to us about the nature and character of God. I learned so much about the different and vast characteristics of God. This week, God has definitely highlighted His sovereignty to me this week. God has supreme and ultimate power, but He gives us authority! We talked about ‘why we pray’ and how God calls us to partner with Him. I learned a lot about praying for the desires of God’s heart and His desire for the people of the world. God calls us to intercede, to enforce authority through prayer. Throughout this week, I have also been really challenged to understand more about how God is good and He doesn’t cause bad things to happen to us. We realized how the enemy may attack or we that we have made a decision that has consequences. I also had my eyes opened to the fact that God tests us to make us stronger; whereas, the enemy tempts us to make us weak. It has been quite a revelation throughout the week, and one that I am sure will continue as I get to know God better and build a deeper relationship with Him.

I’d love to hear from you!

Summer Brown

YWAM

P.O. Box 22185

Louisville, KY 40252

God’s Chisel

God chisels away the sin.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life <3

So…I have finally committed to YWAM Louisville this fall! It’s been a year in the making, but I am stepping out and listening to God’s call on my life and I’m very excited to see where He takes me.

YWAM, or Youth With A Mission, is an international organization that consists of people both young, old, and in between going out to fulfill the Great Commission. “…Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) One of the schools YWAM offers, and the one that I will be attending, is called Discipleship Training School (DTS). This school is approximately 6 months long. During the first 3 months, which are lecture based, I will be learning about things such as: The Character of God, How to Share Your Faith, Hearing the Voice of God, and so much more. We will also be spending time doing local outreach, small groups, worship, and various other activities. We will get a break for Christmas to come home to see our families, but in January the overseas adventure begins. The last months of DTS will be spent in overseas missions where we will share the gospel with people who may have never heard it before!

Through this entire process of digesting my experience in Nica and then making this life altering decision now, I cannot help but be in awe of how truly amazing God is. A little back story into my YWAM decision…

Last year in Nicaragua, I got to work with Libby who is on YWAM staff in Louisville. She was very understanding of ‘me’ without even knowing me a week. As the two weeks in Nica came to a conclusion, Libby talked to me more and more about YWAM and what kind of experience it was and told me to make sure I paid close attention to Andy Landers when he came to speak for us one night. The night Andy spoke about YWAM, I could just feel the butterflies in my stomach, that yearning in my soul that I knew that was where I belonged. That night I was so conflicted with what I should do about my future because I had just started a new job and I was about to start my junior year of college as well. Libby sat and talked with me for a long time about the hard decision I would have to make and how it would change my life forever. She gave me a book to read too, “Is That Really You, God?” which now I know why. Once I returned home, I was still wanting to go to YWAM but in flooded the excuses: school, work, friends, family, etc. So I continued on with life as it used to be.

Fast forward a year. Same Nica trip, different me. This year I got to connect with a few more YWAM staff members…Josh, Molly, and Becca. Molly is my age so it was really easy to talk to her and ask questions. Josh and Becca were great to talk to as well. Becca has been doing missions for a long time, and Josh too, so they both understood how missions can change a persons life forever and how YWAM can be the perfect outlet to learn more about God and sharing the gospel to people all over the world…not just in Nicaragua. They both talked to me about my options and really encouraged me to just listen to God talking to me and let Him lead me. The night Andy was going to speak, Josh gave me some pamphlets and information about DTS to look at on the plane ride home; however, the moment Andy opened his mouth to tell everyone about his story and YWAM I knew this could be the night. At one point, he asked us to just sit still and quiet and listen for what God was saying to us. He asked us to just say ‘yes’ to God and whatever He was telling us or asking of us that we would just say ‘yes’…no matter what. The whole time I am sitting and just simply listening, I hear “Go…Just go” and I knew. I felt the same butterfly feeling and same fire in my soul that I could not ignore. That was it. Whatever it was going to take, that was it. I had said ‘yes’ to Him before he told me anything and it was going to happen.

So here I am…35 days until I leave for Louisville and I couldn’t be more excited. God has just provided so much for me and I cannot be more thankful that He never fails us. God has provided my tuition for DTS and an amazing office to work at that is supportive of my decision to follow this call.

More to come soon about YWAM and some other updates. If you want to know more about YWAM, you can visit ywamlouisville.org and go to the DTS tab at the top!

God Bless xox

Nicaragua 2013

*1501 patients in 6 days.

That’s only one of the amazing things we accomplished all because of God’s great grace and power! Nicaragua 2013 was a year I will never forget and a precedent for many more years to come.

Lets start from the beginning though, shall we?

Playa el Coco

My mom, brother, and I went down to Nica a few days early to visit with our friend Edgard. He was able to show us old Managua, a crater lake, a Sandinista memorial, the gorgeous city of Granada (15th century city), a lake tour around Lake Nicaragua (where we got to see monkey island!) and enjoy some coffee from a couple different coffee shops. Day two, we met up with Pastor Jeff’s team (he leads the whole mission in Nica for these two weeks). We all went to Playa el Coco to spend the day on the beach, enjoying the sunshine & amazing food. We got to play in the Pacific Ocean and search for beautiful seashells an even see a ton of hermit crabs! Day Three was arrival day. My mom, Noah, and I loaded up in the hotel van that took us back to to airport to wait for the rest of our group. We waited at the airport, where we ran into our friend April and Gaby who waited with us while the rest of the 30+ team members went through customs. After everyone made it through, (with ALL their belongings!) we loaded up the chicken bus and headed for El Raizon. Back at El Raizon, we unpacked, got settled into our rooms and prepared for dinner.

Crater Lake

Noah and kitten at a coffee shop

monkeys on the island

Day Four was a busy day but a peaceful one. We started the morning off with worship and conversation, talking about the upcoming week ahead of us. We also got to participate in a foot washing, preparing our hearts to be servants to the Lord and the people of Nicaragua. It is always such a humbling experience. After our morning time together, we spent the rest of the afternoons with our teams, learning names, talents, wants, reasons for coming, etc. There were four teams: medical (I’m on this team), construction, drama, and children’s ministry (these last two also make up the Bible distribution team). Construction went straight to work, drama/children’ ministry started practicing dramas and puppet shows, and medical started sorting and counting meds!

Day Five…FREE DAY! Free day was so much fun. We split into two groups, and I ended up in the early group. We first went to Mombacho Volcano/Coffee plantation and got to zip-line through the plantation. It was such an exciting experience again (even after doing it last year!). After zip-lining, we went to Masaya Market where we got to do some local shopping and bartering. I love the market, it means I can find new bracelets to add to my collection. I even found a beautiful oil painting to put in my room. By the time we left Masaya Market, it was time for dinner back at El Raizon.

Masaya Market

Zip-Line crew

MEDICAL TEAM: Day Six-Day Eleven Ministry days!!! These are the days where miracles happen, lives change forever, and you go home with a piece of your heart forever in the beautiful country of Nicaragua. Every day, the medical team set up clinic in rural towns about an hour outside of Masaya. These towns were down dirt roads, past homes that looked like tin boxes, down roads lined with rice fields, and so much more. These towns were beautiful, and the people even more so. Clinics were set up with 3 American Nurses/LPN’s/PA’s etc seeing patients as well as two Nicaraguan doctors, who are so amazing to work with. The providers saw patients, treated illnesses and symptoms, and prayed for people. After people saw the providers, they were sent to our pharmacy line. The pharmacy consisted of two long fold up tables lined with team members filling the medication requests of the providers. Patients then had their medications explained to them by either April or Rose (who are both American but who are also fluent in Spanish…oh yea!). Patients with need for glasses then came to see me and Enrique and were fitted with the reading glasses that best fit their need. The most amazing part about our team though, was our prayer team! That part of our team was filled with God-loving people who were so faithful and believing in miracles that it really moved me and changed my view on all the things God can do right in front of my eyes. We had many healing those 6 days, physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. The prayer team poured so hard out into the people of Nicaragua and it was such a blessing to see how God worked in and through them and the amazing miracles that He performed.

Prayer warriors!

Glasses

Beautiful prayer

Over those 6 days of clinics, we had 64 salvations and countless healings. God also proved us with the ability to see 1501 people in that time. But sadly, every amazing short term mission comes to a close. Day Eleven was our last night together. We shared worship (as we did every night before lights out), laughter, testimonies, hugs, tears, and smiles. The people I met there will forever be in my heart, on my mind, and one day we will all be together again. I cannot thank God enough for this experience and for the people from our Go team and especially from Nicaragua. They are the most beautiful and loving people I have ever encountered in my life and my heart will forever lie deep in that beautiful country.

What beautiful children 🙂

Dios le bendiga!

Summer Alease

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