Amsterdam!!

Hello everyone! I only have a few minutes but we are randomly in an apple store in Amsterdam and there is internet so we are taking advantage of the opportunity. We have an 11 hour layover so we are exploring the city of Amsterdam and it is amazing!! We saw the Anne Frank house and the architecture here is so amazing! I can't believe I'm here...but I am! We leave tonight for Nairobi and will arrive there at about 7am tomorrow morning. Keep Praying for us as we travel but so far everything has gone smooth! Bwana Asifiwe (praise the lord in swahili)

On our way to Kenya!!!!!!!!!

I am leaving tomorrow at 3pm for Africa. I am so excited I cannot even explain the excitement. I won't be able to write or call...basically no communication until June 17th when we arrive back the states. We will, however, be able to update our team blog about once a week with what we are doing. The blog address is www.eliteams.blogspot.com. Read our blogs and please pray for us!! Thank you everyone for all of your prayers already and it's so good to know that we are so covered in prayer back in the states. I love you all and I can't wait to come back and tell everyone about my trip and what God did!!

Training Week

4 days until I leave for Kenya!!! I'm really excited and ready to go. Since Monday I have been at training week at Simpson for all of the missions teams. It has been a really good learning and growing experience while at the same time being very difficult and challenging. I have been pushed physically this week for the most part but that has really taught me a lot about endurance. We started out the week with a camping trip at Castle Crags. The first day we arrived we hiked up to one of the crags...it was about 3 miles uphill and then we had to go back down it. This hike was very difficult because I am not used to hiking uphill for that long and we also had to climb up rocks once we got closer to the top. By the end of the hike we were all extremely tired and hungry. Although it was difficult I really learned a lot about enduring. God was showing me that I need to endure through the struggle no matter how hard it is because eventually I will make it through. I also learned a lot about attitudes and choosing to have a good attitude even when you are extremely frustrated. If you choose to have a good attitude not only will your own experience be more positive, but also the people around you.

The next day we helped the park services carve out a trail for people to walk on. The day before I wondered out loud to my team "I wonder how they make these trails?"...and then the next day I found out firsthand...it's not easy. You actually dig the dirt out to make the path smooth and wide. It was hard work but we made it through. The rest of the week we have just bee spending time with God back at campus and doing team building activities. I have learned a lot about my team this week and we are beginning to work very well together. 

Today is our first day where we have some rest so it has been really nice to relax my muscles finally. I am really glad that the Lord has called me to this because I love learning and being pushed out of my comfort zone to accomplish big things. The Lord is so good. I just ask that you keep me and my team in your prayers as we train and then as we travel to Kenya on Monday!!

Baptism

Unleashed!

This past few months have been the most amazing months and there are a few reasons why. The first reason is that I was part of a Life Group at the Stirring. The second is that I got a new boss and new responsibilities at my job. The third is that God has been calling me out and fulfilling what he had told me about 3 years ago.

So to start...3 years ago when I turned my life back to Christ and began following Him again God gave me a promise. I was really down at the time because I was struggling with how to live my new life and let go of my past. I was in class one morning and I felt so beat down and attacked that I couldn't stand it and I pulled out my bible right there in class. I was reading the Psalms when I came across Psalm 138:8 ("The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me, Your love Oh LORD endures forever. Do not abandon the works of your hands.") I felt like at that moment the Lord was giving me this verse and telling me "Elisa, I have a purpose for your life and I am faithful and will fulfill that in you. My love is sufficient for you and will never give way." At that moment a peace came over me and I knew that the Lord was doing something in me and He did have a purpose for my life.

Later I was reading the story of Moses and while reading the story of Moses being called by God the Lord told me that I was like Moses. At that time I was making excuses to the Lord of why I couldn't do what He wanted me to do. The Lord told me that my excuses are nothing and that He was going to use me in spite of what I thought my flaws were. He told me then that I would be a leader, and I would lead people to freedom like Moses did.

Although I continued to walk with Christ I also continued to struggle with my past at points and never fully gave everything over to Him. I always made excuses of why I couldn't let the Lord use me to be a leader. I told Him that I was too shy, didn't speak well, couldn't relate to people, had no influence....and the list went on. I believed so many lies about myself that it held me back from really stepping out into the role God was calling me to. It wasn't until about 6 months ago that I was truly freed from all of the lies of my past and the excuses of not being good enough to be used. Since that point the Lord has been working so much in my life.

The past 4 months or so have been some of the most challenging and yet the most rewarding. God began calling me out as a leader and putting me in positions of leadership where I had authority and influence. I had never dreamed that I would have the positions that I did. I began to realize that there was so much more in me that I could give over to the Lord. He began to reveal to me the areas in which I needed to grow as a leader and the areas in which He wanted me to step out of my comfort zone.

That's when I got into Derrick Fleck's life group of Spiritual Formation. This group has been so incredibly amazing I can't even explain it. I have formed so many new friendships and truly feel like I have made a family. I feel so at home and encouraged with these people and I love going and meeting every Monday at 7. I have learned to open up, to step out and live out the calling God has put on my life. Derrick challenged us to really reach out and he constantly spoke destiny into our lives which was so cool. I have come away from this group with so much encouragement, faith, confidence, and love. I feel so loved by these people and I have never had people speak into my life like at this group. This has really been one of the things that has pushed me forward into the spot I am at right now. I have been so challenged and have gained so much.

I have also been pushed to step out by my new boss Elizabeth Peterson. She is an amazing lady and has been such an encouragement to me. She has really been someone that has lovingly called me out as a leader and helped me to really embrace what it means to lead. She has shown me so much love and has really helped to spark such a passion in me for my school and the commuters there. I have been so incredibly challenged by this job (which doesn't feel like a "job") to grow as a leader. I have learned how to lead and be good at it. There is so much that goes into it that I never realized until now. She has also challenged me to be the spiritual leader in the commuter program as well. I am so excited for what God is doing with Simpson and with the commuter program. It has been such a blessing to be able to help build the foundations for such an amazing program.

So....all of this led to my complete surrender of everything I have to the Lord's will and the purpose that He has for me. I am tired of holding myself back because of fear that I will not do it right. So on Sunday (Easter) I got baptized at the Stirring. I felt God calling me to do this because I finally have surrendered all to Him and am ready to give up everything for Him. I feel like something so new is beginning in my life that I have never experienced before and I wanted to show everyone that I am so in love with Jesus and am dead to my old life and fully embracing the new one! It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. I cannot fully describe how I felt that night that I got baptized. I was so overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and when I was in that tub I felt His presence like I never felt it before. In that moment that I went under and came up there was so much love and victory that I had never felt in my entire life like I did in that moment. And now I have such a sense of something so fresh and new beginning in my life, something so great that I cannot even fathom what it is.

That was confirmed tonight when Matt, Kendall, Niki, and Derrick prayed over me and anointed me. Matt spoke confidence over me and said that I will have confidence in the Lord and that nothing will hold me back any longer. Niki said that she felt that God was unleashing so much stuff that it was crazy, and Derrick said that I have authority to speak and that God was giving me something and I need to run with it. This all confirmed what the Lord has been speaking to me the last few months. He has been preparing me for something great, and it has now been unleashed in me and darkness better watch out! I am a warrior and I am not letting anything hold me back from running ahead full force with what the Lord has for me. I am so thankful for my life group and for these people who have spoke so much life into me.

I feel so ALIVE like I have never felt before. I am so excited for what the Lord is doing in me and I just want to shout it so loud! Thank you LORD!

My Two Decades of living

I have moved out of the teenage years and have officially lived for two decades....20 years old. So much has taken place in these past two decades....I have grown into an adult and I am finally becoming the woman God created me to be. I'm figuring out who I am and how God wants to use me in this world. I've been stretched and pushed beyond my boundaries and am living in the uncomfortable. I am constantly learning how to live out this life and this call and am growing day by day. I am so excited for where these next years will take me...and what God will do. My prayer is that I will never be comfortable with this life, that I will constantly long for more, but at the same time be completely satisfied with my Lord and all that He has blessed me with. I want to live for the Kingdom...I don't want to live for this world...but I want to love this world and bring the Kingdom here. I want to learn to love the least, I want to disciple, I want to create family and community, I want to serve, I want to give hope, and I want to do it for the glory of the Lord. My prayer for my life is that I will be all consumed with a fiery passion for my Beloved. I want to see His face and I want to be His hands and feet...I want to go...send me.

Daylight Savings

Oh my goodness I am sooo tired!! The loss of an hour of sleep has more of an effect than i thought...it might also have to do with the fact that I had to get up this morning at 8 (but really 7)...and I never wake up early anymore. I had to cover for a girl at the morning service for the Stirring kids. It was nice because I got to see a lot of the kids that used to go to the night service but switched to the morning...so I never see them. They remembered me too...it was great. After that I went home and took a 2 hour nap...then got up and started getting ready to go to the Stirring night service and teach the kids. I love teaching those kids...and God has really grown a passion for children in me and I really love to see them grow. I think I probably learn more from the kids than they do from me (well I hope they are learning something from me).

Then at the 7pm service Travis Osborne spoke and he was so good! I really enjoyed hearing what he had to say about the story of Jonah. The part I most connected with was when he was speaking about having God's heart for people and not making yourself better than others...but realizing that we all deserve God's grace just the same...we don't. I really want to have God's heart for everything, I want to be broken of everything that is of me and take on all that is of God. I get so tired of myself, I want to see people the way God does and have love for them like He does. It was really good. God is good.

Speaking of God...and being good...God has been answering my prayers like crazy! Even the ones I forgot I had prayed...and then He answeres them and reminds me...like "Hey remember, you prayed for this?? Duh" It's so cool, and He is continuing to grow me and push me past my boundaries into the uncomfortable...the places I never thought I'd go. It's amazing...I can't even describe it.

Oh and my mission team really needs prayer for financial provision...we didn't meet our deadline so we can't buy our plane tickets yet, which means they are going to get more expensive. It's good because we are learning to rely on God as a team and are bonding...but we need prayer. We will continue to trust though.

Also...I sold my first painting...I feel like a real artist now.