His fingerprints

Can you see God's fingerprints on specific events in your life that led to specific events that led to specific events? if you be still and reflect on what's happened in your life over the past year or so, i bet you'd be able to see some of His fingerprints. tonight i was hit by an awareness to God's fingerprints in my life over the past year in a specific area.

i'll try to keep this relatively short and non-ramblish. :)

last fall, God really laid something on my heart during a "missions emphasis" week at school that i never forgot. He opened my eyes to how much of the world does not even know about this amazing, loving Creator who desires to deeply for them to know Him. i'm not good at speaking in front of people. i'm not all that great with little kids. i wanted to be used by God to reach people, but didn't know how. but He gave me a vision that week of how i could mix my love for multimedia with missions. i suddenly had this realization that i could go along with mission teams and document the trips on video, putting together multimedia to bring back to the States to raise awareness of what is going on in the world, in hope of spurring others into action. i had never really wanted to do much with overseas missions, but suddenly i had this desire to go. i just didn't know when or where, but i started praying about it and i was open to it.

then right after thanksgiving, i get a phone call from andy, asking if i'd like to intern with the youth ministry down here in the Keys. i would be doing video work for the ministry, which was something i enjoy doing. so i jumped at the opportunity, but was a little discouraged that i wasn't going to be going on any mission trips anytime soon now.

so i get down here, and within the first week or 2, a friend down here showed me her friend's blog on myspace. this girl lives in the dominican republic, and ministry is her life down there. her blog broke my heart. the poverty, the sickness, the need for Jesus down in the DR. i wanted desperately to go down there, to help in some way, and to also document what's going on down there to bring awareness to the States. but i had no clue how i would be able to get down there and so i didn't think i'd be going down there anytime soon.

however, shortly after that day, i was asked if i would like to go with a group down to this exact place in the DR for a week this summer...wow. how could i say no? i was already seeing God's hand in all of this.

so i sign up, i pay my deposit. i have money in my bank account to cover a good portion of the trip, if i wasn't able to raise the money. then an unexpected financial situation came up and i found myself down to about...$20 to my name (yes, that would be including both of my savings and checking accounts). i still had tons of money to raise to go to the DR and i had no income. talk about discouraging. i didn't know what God was trying to tell me, but i wasn't ready to give up on this trip to the DR just yet.

i showed up at every carwash, yardsale, bake sale, and spaghetti dinner fundraiser that i could. i was able to go home to MI for a week and work all week for my dad's company. i get a phone call this week from lisa (she's heading up the trip) and find out i only have $110 left to pay for the trip, and i hang up, so excited because i had that much (not a whole lot more) in my bank account from working for my dad. so i run and tell my sister the great news, and she tells me even BETTER news! someone had donated money toward me, sadie, and andy's trips and it was enough to cover my $110 i had left!! praise the Lord!!!!

so i am leaving next thursday, july 27th, for the DR and i am so incredibly stoked! tonight, after looking back and seeing all of God's fingerprints on this trip, i can't help but be stoked because i know this is what God has planned out for me.

on another note of excitement: this ministry that we're going down to work with, part of their ministry is building concrete homes for Haitian refugees to get them out of the dumps and shacks (if they're even considered shacks). it only costs $3,000 to build one of these homes for a family. today a man donated $3,000 for us to take down to have a home built!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how awesome is that?!?!

i, for one, am truly stoked by God this week.

keep it real.
~jen~