I have a leave date!

So I got an email today with a leave date! 

I will leave board a plane bound for Chicago at 10:00am on October 4, 2009.

From there I will board a Lufthansa flight from Chicago at 3:25 pm and will arrive to Frankfurt at 6:55 am.

From Frankfurt I will board another Lufthansa at 8:35am and will arrive in Bologna at 9:55am. 

Yeah for 24 hours of travel to get to Bo!

Looking forward to sharing with y'all real soon with more details!

God Bless,

Crystal

I am gonna go to Bologna...

So, I just got off the phone with leadership.  I am going to go to Bologna.  However, I still need to get to 100% before I can board the plane.  Keep praying, and keep sharing.  To give go to my giving page.

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers,

Crystal

Simply Amazed...

As I get ready to write, the only thing I am doing is singing, "Well I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see. Because this broken road, prepares Your will for me!" Don't know when the last time I heard the song, but on my drive home the song just overtook my brain.


I just got home from my usual Thursday night bible study, and while that part was normal the rest of the day has not been. My stomach is turning in such a way that I feel like I should be on a roller coaster. My mind is screaming that it can't grasp the new information that is coming in. My lungs are gasping for air, as my breathe has been taken away.

So now you have to be wondering what is causing all the emotions...

Today 12% of my support came in, 22.82% this week. This puts me at 87.18%. God is moving that mountain that I have been praying for Him to move. Can I just say that I am simply amazed! PRAISE GOD from whom all blessings flow!

YEAH GOD!!!

I have till tomorrow to get the rest of my support in...Here is my current need...

Total need: $6,648.62

Total in monthly support needed: $554.05

This is so doable.

That's 6 people at $100.00 per month

or

11 people at $50.00 per month.

Can you see the light? I can. If you have supported, thank you so much for bringing me this far! If you are just reading this blog and haven't decided about giving, please consider praying about it right now! God is seeking His lost children in Italy, and I can't wait to serve Him there and be a part of how He is moving. Would you consider making an investment in eternity by joining my team in reaching out for the Italian students?
I am anxiously waiting for tomorrow...Walking by faith, waiting on God to reveal His will for me.

Crystal

34 hours left...

Just a quick post to let you all know where I am.  The most up to date information is that I am at 80.5%.  Keep praying as I know that I am.

Trusting God,

Crystal

The Eye of the Storm

I was just reading my Bible tonight and having some quiet time and reflecting on everything that has transpired in the past 2 days. I was telling God how overwhelmed that I have been feeling, knowing that I need 100% by Friday. Heck, I think I have been more stressed in the past 48 hours than I have been at any other time in the support raising process and that's saying something. My days have included keeping busy, cooking, cleaning, and eating. All of which are stress relievers for me.

However, not much has had an impact at relieving my stress. I prayed a lot on Monday after I got the news but hadn't felt a whole lot like talking to God since. The first time had been mostly heaps and sobs over what the task was at hand and how overwhelmed I felt. Isn't it remarkable that even though God had just brought in 9% in a day that I still doubted his power? Much the same way the disciples wanted to know where food was going to come from for the 4,000 when they had just been with Jesus when he fed 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish. (Matt 15:29-39 and Matt 14:13-21) God provides. However, even those who are there to see what God can do and how it is nothing for him, doubt.

This overwhelming feeling has been washing up on me much like the huge rainstorms we have had in Fort Worth these past few days. I would swear the winds and rains of God's power and provision have been threatening to blow me away. My heart and head both feel like they are ticking time bombs. Tonight though, I got home from dinner with Tonja and babysitting and just felt like taking my worries to God. So I prayed.

Matthew 16: 30-34

"O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
I was praying to Him and reflecting on His word and His promises to provide for us and calm washed over me. It was if I was in the eye of the storm. I could see blue skies above to tell me that it would be okay. That even though only a small amount had sprinkled in today, His hand was busy at work. I know that soon the breeze will begin to pick up again, and so will the rain. I know that I will probably feel overwhelmed again soon, but I know whose words I will listen to, and it won't be mine, but the words of a God big enough to provide for all of us.

Matthew 7: 7-8

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

Crystal

P.S. Can you tell I was reading Matthew today?

NEWS..North, East, West, South...

So my compass is still spinning and has yet to land on a true North. After again talking to leadership as it is Monday, we are still thinking Bologna. HOWEVER, I only have till Friday, September 25 to raise the remainder of my support. Kelly my teammate will be landing in Bologna then. Annet will arrive tomorrow. My teammates and Jesse and Tricia will be getting an apartment for next year and we will need to know if will be a 2 bedroom or a 3 bedroom. So, my charge in the mean time is to raise the other 26% that I need with only 4 days left. If you know anyone who would be interested in giving please pass on their information to me and I will contact them, or even pique their curiosity by sharing my blog. :) Also, just as important is that you help me in prayer. Just keep praying, just keep praying....




Plan B in the mean time would mean that I would not go to Bologna, but maybe elsewhere. Leadership and I will also be praying this week on what that will look like. So still no answers here. In the world of me, this means not only do I not know when the compass will point North, but I don't know what East, West , and South are. I feel totally lost. Maybe I will feel less overwhelmed tomorrow, after more prayer and quite time, I will feel better. Although, no matter the direction that God sends me I am willing to follow.



In Him,

Crystal

Just an Update...

Last Wednesday, I talked with the people in charge of whether or not I go to Bologna, and when I go. We discussed where I was with support, and what that meant as far as plans for going to Italy and when. She still felt like, after praying and talking with the Italian leadership, that I was still supposed to go. They are not giving up on me yet, even though my deadline for support passed on the 16th. With 63% in it was still overwhelming to think about what still needed to come in and how God was going to do that. So based on all current information, we made the decision to keep going and to talk on Monday, tomorrow. Let's just say it has been a looong week as the days passed by and nothing came in.


Plan B's just start flowing through my finite mind that can't fathom an infinite GOD. I wonder, is He just going to take a year? Do I need to get a job in the meantime? Am I doing what He wants me to do? Do I need to pack now? Do I need to get an apartment, motel, or extend my lease at my apartment for a little extra time? Am I going at all? Is He going to send me elsewhere? Is this all just one big test, "will you follow where I lead you?" It is so hard for me to just sit back and say that I have no idea where Monday's conversation is going to leave me. It is so hard for me not to try and plan something, anything, just so I can have a plan.

I know right now more than ever I need to lean and trust on God. After all, I left my job in May trusting He would get me to Italy to serve. I left my job, without doubting that God was going to provide every cent of a $51,889 support goal that I had no idea how even a penny would make it in. I have said, "here I am use me "so much this summer, that I am afraid of the task at hand getting bigger. I can trust in the ALL POWERFUL, SUPREME GOD of the UNIVERSE can't I? I know I can and that any time God's plans for my life, and my plans for my life compete, I lose. God wins every time! Not because He is mean or He wants me to do things I don't want to do, but because He loves me and dreams bigger for me than I can dream. He wins because He makes my plans look like just a speck of sand in a sand castle. I love when God plans for me! Yet here I stand, wanting to at least know one step ahead of now. Humm...

Today, God showed me just a little glimpse of the power He has. Today between church, the prayer party, and a few generous conversations with friends, God helped bring in 9% of my support in a 24 hour period. Just a hint, I have only had 1 week in which God had provided that abundantly. I knew that when God would start to move I would feel overwhelmed by His provision and power. It actually makes me feel in awe to serve a God who overwhelms me. If I could for one second say, "Wow, this God, I know Him so well, there is nothing about Him I don't understand...," that’s a God I don't want to serve. I like how God has me in this place where I know His power has no bounds, and yet He doesn't show me completely, because I think I would burst in the first few moments. Heck, I am overwhelmed at the little speck of power He has shown.

So as of right now with my new support I am at 73.6% of my support in. I roughly need 23 supporters at $50 a month for 12 months or 11.5 supporters at $100 per month. I know this is within in God's provision. So, prayer partners and support partners keep praying that God complete my support team. Others reading this blog prayerfully consider giving and reaching out to college students at the University of Bologna so that they might know the Powerful God I serve.
Love in HIM,

Crystal

Struggling with discouragement

Before I leave for Italy, I have the task of raising my support for the year. As of right now I am at about 60% and I am scared and discouraged at how 40% and right at $20,000 is going to come in before my September 16th deadline. Yes 7 days away. I truly do feel called to serve the Lord and to help reach people for Christ, but I have to admit my faith is a little shaken. I was praying to the Lord today asking Him what I should do, that I didn't feel motivated to keep picking up the phone and that I felt discouraged by all the messages I was leaving when people didn't answer the phone. I was reminded of the $400.00 that came in yesterday and the three gifts that came in on Sunday.


Every time I question or wonder if God is planning on providing the support, more money and support comes in. God really is good. I should not doubt. He also shows in his word that we can't escape his will. He has supremacy in everything. Colossians1: 18 I know that I should hold fast to this but lately that has been extremely hard. The deadline keeps ticking closer and I wonder when God is going to move this mountain. I don't doubt that HE CAN or that HE WILL. Funny right?!? Funny that I can trust that he WILL move the mountain but also not trust in his timing. I was then driving home, a way that I don't travel often, and I ran across a church bulletin..."Have plenty of time, time is on my side. Nothing but Eternity. - God" Fitting right?


I know God bought me this far, after all in the beginning I thought I wasn't even qualified to go, and now I am certain that it is because of God I am here. I also know that he won't leave me. I just need patience and encouragement.


"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. “Joshua 1:9