How about an update eh?!

October 25, 2011 

I went back home for my friend Dana & Casey's wedding which was super fun & I got to see my family too which was really special for me!  

This past week we were in Alberta, Canada, the next province over which is about a 14 hour drive from where we live. We went to a conference along with three other ywam schools from across Canada.  It was called the "Go Conference" to make us aware of the unreached across the world like the countries in the 10/40 window.  For more information about this conference or summaries of each day visit: http://www.ywamnexia.org/mobilizing/conferences.html

Today is day 44 since I've been here & I must say it's been awesome.  And sometimes the awesome-ness is also very difficult & filled with self confrontation.  I feel attacked many times in my sleep by bad dreams & also by my thoughts of distraction.  I feel self conscious & battle lies I've believed for years.  

I've noticed that I am afraid to ask God what He thinks or what is next.  I'm afraid of God.  Wow. Isn't that weird?! I'm afraid because I am so unclean, so ashamed of myself, of my humanity & I'm afraid to be rejected.  But this is not God's heart towards me, towards us.  He loves us.  He has good news for me.  

As you may or may not know, I love Jars of Clay & love singing God those songs.  What is absolutely incredible is that when I do set out to ask God what He thinks of me & the mess I've made or what is His heart towards me, I find that He is singing those songs back to me.  That is so touching.  I am brought to tears! Such tender love.  

Some of the things God says to me is

"I want to make you sing another love song. I want you to trust someone, me. Let me pick you up. Don't bury your head full of shame, you look like me!" 

"No one loves you like me" 

Ugh! Such good news.  So though I beat myself up, God's love reaches to the heavens & His faithfulness to the skies. (psalm 36:5)

That is a good enough update for now.  More to come, I'm sure! 

Love, Linda

For the world you love

October 1, 2011

God loves the world.  The broken. The sick. The weary.  The oppressed.  Especially the oppressed.

Every Thursday we have intercession for the world.  This week's topic was human trafficking.  I was appalled, disturbed and just really really angry at what I found.  

God is angry too.

I found out that human trafficking is going on all over the world.  It is defined as selling people for forced labor or sexual exploitation.   Most women who are prostitutes are kidnapped & forced into the industry from all parts of the world; they think they will work as a nanny or housekeeper in another country.  Many of these women come from China, Korea, Eastern Europe, places like Moldova, & Ukrainian orphanages, yes the people who run the orphanages actual arrange for the orphan girls & boys to be sold. 

The bottom line in all of this is that God cares about these people.  There are people out there that are addicted to pornography & most of those women in those videos are trafficked.  They are adding to human traffic injustice & they think that what they are doing is only affecting them.

This really pisses me off!! It makes me really angry & I believe it makes God angry.  He wants us to do something about it.  After the prayer, I was left angry & helpless.  I thought about what God wanted me to do.  And here is the first step.  I can raise your awareness about this topic.  I encourage you to take a second to pray for those oppressed & watch Timea's 8 minute video depicting her story, one of the millions of people trafficked.  http://thetruthisntsexy.ca/pages/page-2