Needing Much prayers!

So I have begun my sophomore year, and I am excited! As part of my first semester I have decided to take an elective class with the Lord's leading to go on a mission trip.
In November I will be going on a short term trip to Azerbaijan. It is an elective class here at school, so I will be getting credit for it. It is also the same country I may be going to for the 16 month internship. So I am excited!
We will be doing a variety of different things:

• Helping in an orphanage for Handicapped children
• Working with youth of the area
• Teaching English or helping the Interns with their class lesson plans
• Partnering with the local church in Sunday School
• Visiting local Tea Shops to encourage deep relationships the interns have
• Praying for the city and nation at the House of Prayer

This trip will cost around $2,300, and our first deadline is September 30th where $1200 is needed. So please pray that that comes in soon!! Only about 2 weeks away! So if you feel led to donate please send me a message and I will let you know how. But most importantly I ask that you support me in pray as that is extremely important!

If you would like more information please email me at notmylifebutgods10@gmail.com
Thank you!
~Andria

Nobody said life was going to be easy...........

So I am really bad about keeping this updated, mainly because I just don't know how to put things into words half the time. But here ya go, maybe my random rambling will update you all effectively..........

Life lately has been challenging to say the least. The Lord has me on a path I would never have imagined I would be on, something I would never wish upon others. It is hard and it hurts but I know there is so much growth to come on the other side of this. There have been so so many days when I all I wanted to do was give up but then I Lord gives me just the amount of strength I need to keep going. Relying on the Lord is truly the only thing that will keep us going even amidst the hardest trials of life.
Overall this summer has been good, I work 8 hours a day in a few different jobs here on campus. makes for long weeks but keeps me busy. I am for sure looking forward to starting back up with classes in the fall!
Well I guess that is a mini update on me, there really is not much I can say at this point, but prayers are appreciated!!

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

³ he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

⁴ Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, ^a]">[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Walking The Path The Lord Has Me On

Sometimes I find myself wondering why I keep fighting so hard.......why I keep fighting so hard to just be hated by so many.........and then I find myself just wanting to give up.........and then I finally find myself snap back into reality! And I say to myself, you are doing what the Lord has told you to do! Then in that moment I go okay Lord then you have to give me undeniable strength to keep going! And you know what He is oh so faithful in doing so! I can not even begin to tell you how many times I came to a place where I was just done, and then I hear the Lord saying are you going to let me help you now? I end up in this place where I try to do everything on my own, and honestly where is that going to get any of us in life! The Lord is standing right next to us just waiting for us to lean on Him to lean on His strength alone. There are absolutely no trials in this life that we have to face on our own!
So needless to say life has been really challenging lately! I am coming into a season that involves a whole lot of sacrifice, sacrifices I never would have imagined I would have to make. Some of the hardest decisions in my life, and a time of really having to lean on the Lord. Resting in Him knowing this is what He is calling me to do. If only that was as easy as it sounds! I find myself in many panic moments, going what in the world am I doing I am crazy, and then the Lord says very quietly no you are just following the path I have set before you. Then I take a deep breathe and go okay I can do this, Lord help me!
So all this to say the Lord is so faithful!! And absolutely amazing, He is in absolute control!

Cross Walk: Seeing God's Faithfulness

On Saturday April 10th we were instructed to be out at the flag pole on campus at 5am. We were told we were going on a cross walk, going to be dropped off at least 2 hours from campus, with no money, no food, no phones, and no watches. Basically just water and our bibles. So we got into the van and were told to put our blindfolds on, and off we went with a six foot cross in the van with us. On my team was Luke, Hannah, Julia, and Nicole. We sat in the car in silence waiting to be dropped off in anticipation of what this weekend was going to be like. We had to be back to campus by Sunday night at 8pm or we had to call to get a ride back. Finally we were dropped off in the middle of no where by a lake, at what we think was 7:30am on Saturday. All we could do at this point was rely on the Lord to get us back to campus and provide for us everything we needed. SO we prayed about which direction to start going and headed out left.......

Then we headed out North on 71, in hopes of finding a bathroom. Eventually we saw a sign that said New London-Spicer, so we now at least new a generalized area of where we were and we knew we were still in Minnesota. After about 2 or so hours of walking we came across a gas station and used the bathroom. We found out there that we were more west of the school, so we found out we were heading in the wrong direction. We shared the gospel with the attendant at the gas station, but he was very closed to it. So we went outside to gather ourselves and pray about what to do next. We all felt very sure that we had to back track the 2 hours we just walked and head south on 71 to hopefully get to a road that would take us east. So we headed down the road. We walked for a little while and saw some guys in clean up crew on the side of the road and shared the gospel with them, they were receptive but they had to get back to work. So after walking for about an hour or more we decided to sit down and take a break on the side of the road.

As we were sitting there a car pulled up, and we were kind of shocked. We were like are they really stopping to talk to us! We started talking with Nikki and told her what we were doing and she offered to take us back to her house and make us some lunch. (On a side note, before the trip Suzanne, our mentor, asked us to write out some expectations we have for the weekend. Things we want to see the Lord provide, and we could think outside of the box. Like asking for specific food, or to see someone healed.) While we were in Nikki's car on the way to her house she asked us if we would be okay with Hamburgers for lunch (hamburgers one of the things I had asked God to provide for us on the trip, and I was just talking about it before we got picked up). We all laughed and gladly excepted the food! Julia had wanted to be able to pet a cat, and there was a cat at their house. At this point it was around 12, so we had been walking since 7:30 that morning. Nikki and her wonderful family fed us an amazing lunch and not only that put packed us up for some food for the road for later! And they gave us a map so we now knew exactly where we were. We had been dropped off just over a 100 miles from campus! Nikki then offered to drive us to highway 12 in Wilmar the road we were going to have to follow basically all the way back to campus. We were so much blessed by this family!

So now that we knew we were heading in the right direction we headed out, the next town Kandiyohi was about 6 miles away. That length took us a while to walk, we were getting pretty tired at this point, but we kept pushing and persevering! Once we finally made it to Kandiyohi we had to use the bathroom but the only gas station there was closed so we were just kinda trying to figure out our next step. When someone stopped and gave us 20 dollars, and then they left we were very blessed by that! Then we continued down the road probably about a half hour. When another car stopped to ask us what we were doing, they were Vickie and Gerry. They offered to take us the next 20 miles, as well as stop at a gas station so we could use the bathroom and they also bought us whatever we wanted in snacks and drinks! And then gave us some money for the rest of our journey. We were so blessed by them and what they did for us! They dropped us off just outside of Litchfield, we were making some serious progress by this point! We thanked Jackie and Gerry ad headed out again.By this point in the trip we were absolutely blown away by the Lord's faithfulness and how he had been providing everything we needed as we went, we were not hungry and he was giving us the strength we needed to keep going. Although by this point we were getting exhausted, but it was only like 4 in the evening and we still had 4 hours of traveling time. So we kept going, Julia had said a little earlier that she wanted dairy queen, and the first building we came across in Litchfield was a dairy queen. So we sat down for a bit and had some ice cream with the money we had been given! We didn't sit long, and we were up and going again. As we were walking down the street a couple stopped us, Jeremiah and Natalie, to ask us what we were doing. We told them and they offered to take us the next 20 miles but they were on their motorcycle so they said they would drive to their house and get their truck if we wanted to walk up to the gas station and meet them there. So we gladly accepted that offer and headed off. As we were walking though a car that had given us 20 dollars earlier in the day stopped back and told us she now had more room in her car, and asked if she could give us a ride. We told her that we had just gotten one but that she could drive us to the gas station. So she did and in the process we shared the gospel with her, because we found out she was not a Christian. She seemed very open and receptive. Then we waited at the gas station for the other couple. And they pulled up and we headed out in the back of their pick up (which was something Nicole wanted on the trip). They took us to just outside Dassel, we were so thankful for the ride and the great conversations we had on the way!

So we headed out for the next town, which as far as we could tell was Cokato. Which was 6 miles away, and again we were still exhausted and it was about a little after 5pm at this point. We had till 8 to find somewhere to stay. After walking for about a half hour, I really really had to go to the bathroom. But there was nothing in sight, I prayed for a porter potty! But there was nothing so I finally gave in and went to the bathroom up over some train tracks. And off we went again, we were getting even more exhausted by this point. But we kept going on the Lord's strength alone! We came across a school just outside of Cokato, and saw some porter potty's I just laughed, God answered my prayer but just a little later than I had wanted! lol! We kept going and finally made it into Cokato. At this point it was after 7pm and we were running out of time. We had to find a place to stay. As we were walking a man, Steve, came up to us on his bicycle. Asked us what we were doing and we told him. He then offered for us to stay at his house, and not only that but we had to go to church with them in the morning and not only that we had to finish his sermon in the morning. He was a pastor, and the funny thing was that it was on all of our expectations to be able to stay with a family and to be able to go to church in the morning. And Luke's expectation was to be able to preach at a church on Sunday. So right there the Lord had come through on a lot of levels! We were so blessed! So that night we stayed with Steve, his wife Toni and their son Jon. They were absolutely amazing and gave us more than we could have asked for! Luke preached at 2 services on evangelism. He did a fantastic job! But it came to a point where we had to get back on the road again. We were all sad about leaving because we had had a great time with that family! But they offered to drive us the next 20 miles. SO off went at about 1:30 in the afternoon on Sunday, knowing at this point that we are probably about half way back to campus. So Jon dropped us off 20 miles away, and we parted ways.

As we were getting out of the car when Jon dropped us off, a car pulled up behind us and asked if we needed a ride. We were all very shocked like wait how did yo know that we were barely out of the other car. It turned out that Mark had been at church that morning, and decided to come and find us to give us a ride 20 miles. We were so blessed and gladly accepted the offer! Mark took us to Minnetonka. At this point we were pretty much figuring we were less than 20 miles away from campus. So we started walking through Minnetonka, we probably walked a good 5 miles. Before someone stopped us and asked us what we were doing. He ended up giving is some popcorn and a banana and kept going. But we then say him again a little ways up and this time he offered us a ride. Peter then drove us the rest of the way back to campus, just before 4pm!
We walked a total of 25 or more miles throughout the weekend, and were blessed with rides the rest of the way. It was so amazing to see how the Lord came through on so many levels for us on this trip. I know I learned a lot on this trip that I will never forget! The Lord's strength is truly the only thing we need to rely on, and we need to completely trust in him to provide. Even when we have nothing, he will come through! I know I will definitely be applying that to my financial situation as the next school year comes up, he will provide what is needed when it is needed! The Lord is faithful every second of the day, there is no doubt about it!! This cross walk changed me in a lot of ways! It was challenging on a lot of levels, but oh so very worth it!
Thank you so much to all of you who helped us along our journey! You all taught us more than you could ever know! We were blessed by you all so much!!
~Andria

An Adventure Called Spring Break

This past week was our Spring Break here at college, and a few of us decided to go to Canada to visit a friend. We were all extremely excited! Our friend is attending a school of Ministry and while there we went to a few of her classes with her. An amazing school!
So we headed out Friday afternoon..........our plan was to drive through the night to get there. At about midnight though we got in a car accident. We were driving and our tires must have hit an ice patch because we started slipping while attempting to pass a semi. We ended up slamming the front passenger part of the car into the semi and then somehow bouncing back and slamming the back passenger part of the car into the semi. And then we began spinning and ended up going backwards into the ditch on the side of the road. One of the girls in the car screamed Jesus extremely loud, and we pretty much instantly stopped! It was so awesome, part of me wishes I could have seen what was going on in the spiritual realm at that point I can just picture a huge angel putting his hand out and stopping our car! Another awesome thing was before we got in the accident, one of the girls was sleeping but while she was sleeping she kept hearing seat belt but she kept ignoring it. But she finally woke up enough to put it on and not 5 minutes later we got in the accident. If that is not the Lord's protection over us that night I don't know what is! There is no way we should have come out of that accident as good as we did, the Lord protected us! We all had no injuries really. The car was rather damaged on the outside, still ran perfectly fine! Just was a little cold to drive with a few broken windows but we got going several hours later!
Then we rented a car and headed to Canada! I learned so much from the Lord this past week I am still processing it all! One of the huge things I learned is to realize that the Lord's presence is always with us all we have to do is recognize Him. We spend so much time striving to encounter the Lord, basically seeking out our own will. Where all the Lord is looking for us to do is press in to Him, lean on Him and let His will be done. Once we learn to just lean on Him there is no way we can deny His presence! He longs to meet with us, He is just waiting for us to acknowledge Him! Another thing I learned is how to let the Holy Spirit lead, it is pretty cool when you are talking about something and it is something the Lord really wants you to know, you can feel His presence rest on you. And if you stay on that topic, it just clicks in your spirit where as if you were to keep going you would not remember or understand as much. It is amazing how much more you are able to learn and understand when you all the Lord to guide what you talk about.
The enemy is out kill, steal, and destroy! That ticks me off like no other! All he wants is to hold us back from what the Lord has called us to! It frustrates me how much he can grab a hold of people, he does it to me all the time. But we have to realize the authority the Lord has given us, we have the authority to tell the enemy to go and leave us alone! But grasping a hold of the fact that we do have that authority given to us by the Lord can be hard to remember. That is one thing I am learning to step out in, the authority I have been given to fight the enemy. That also involves making our mind take the back seat, because the enemy loves to grab a hold of our thoughts and take control but if we are being led by the spirit and not our mind he no place to grab a hold of.
Yea that is a bunch of random things that has been on my heart lately......
It amazes me how much the Lord truly cares! How great His unfailing love truly is! Nothing can change any of that! His hand of protection is always over us, His angels are with is every moment protecting us! That is an amazing thought in itself! The Lord is faithful!!!!!!!!!!!

Why Fear?

"Why fear?" is a question I have been asking myself lately. It is a very logical question, why should I fear anything when God is on my side, the creator of the universe! And yet so many of us have spent most of our lives fighting some form of fear..........
Fear is defined as being afraid or feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation or event. Anxiety is something that has a huge grip on so many lives, it is very real and crippling so many people. I know I struggle with anxiety on many occasions. And I found myself asking the Lord the other night why I am so stuck in this fear and anxiety..........and I felt Him saying that it is because I keep choosing to try and control everything, because I won't release control of my life to Him. Which boils down to I lack full trust in Him..........and of course if I am not going to put my trust in Him then yea there is going to be anxiety and a whole lot of fear because I am afraid of what is going to happen next. Because I have not entrusted that situation to God.
So of course I knew all this before and many many people have told me before...........but there is just something about the Lord very clearly telling you, is when it just seems to click! At this point I don't know what the next step is.............but I will trust in the Lord to show me..........He is faithful!
There is my little random thought of the day!
"Why Fear!"

Isaiah 41:10

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

The Roller Coaster Called Life.......

I feel like I am on a roller coaster right now in my life...........And I am partially okay with that. Yea it is difficult at times but God is doing what He needs to do in my life at just the right moments. There are many many areas that the Lord is working on right now in me, oh so many! He brings one area to the light and says okay deal with it, and I am all like I don't want to! But eventually I come around and I work through it with the Lord by His strength only! I guess you would call that the top of the hill on a roller coaster.........then I kinda coast for a while letting what He just did in me root down deep........and then He takes me up yet another hill!
Sometimes it is overwhelming, but I remember one thing I asked of the Lord coming into BCOM was that He would rip everything out that was not of Him. He is definitely holding me to that prayer, which I am okay with, sure there are days where I am like.......please just stop I can't take it anymore. And then I remind myself or depending on my mindset someone else reminds me.....The Lord will never give you what you can not handle..........sometimes I go okay yea that's right, other times it takes me a while to fully grasp it again. But it is so very true He will never give me anything I can not handle, so even when things seem impossible He is right next to me just waiting for me to rely on Him to keep going.
At this point I see myself heading up yet another hill, after just coming down from one. But this is definitely a point in my life where the Lord is taking a lot out of me, and it hurts but I am okay with it! The Lord is faithful!! And I am seeing the true FREEDOM getting extremely close, so close! There is still so much to do, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of this tunnel. I do not believe I will ever get off of this roller coaster though, There will always be areas to work on I will never be perfect, I will always need at points in my life to go up the hill again......but at some point the hills will become less frequent..... 8)

Restoration!!!

God is so amazing!!! He just continues to shock me every day! He is restoring me in so many ways it is crazy! It hurts but man is it going to be beneficial in the end. He is bringing me to a point of freedom from so many things that held me back. I am learning to hear His voice, which was always something I struggled with. I could just never figure out how to hear Him. But once I started getting all these things out of my life that were just huge walls that had I had built up, it was crazy how much clarity I got and how much easier it is to hear Him now!
The love that God has for each and every one of us is absolutely amazing and yet so hard to grasp a hold of sometimes. We are children of God and He is an amazing Father, his love never fails! That is a realization I am coming to more and more, and it just blows my mind! He cares so much for us!
Even when things get to a point where it seems impossible to keep going He is right there holding us up, He never leaves us!!!
Wow this is just a bunch of random things.............sorry!!! yep I guess I am done down......8)

God is Faithful!!!

As a lot of people know I have had a lot of health issues for a long time, I have struggled with ulcers and IBS stomach issues for a long time. And it was coming to a point where I could not eat a lot of food, I could not eat anything basically. Everything was making me sick. I also I had recently sprained my knee so I was in a huge knee brace that totally immobilized my knee. My knee and my stomach had been killing me! This is a testimony of how the Lord healed me, all the glory goes to Him!!! He is faithful! I hope this shows how there are so many root issues that we all harbor deep in our hearts that God does not desire us to hold on to, it can cause a lot of others issues in our lives. Over all the Lord is our strength our provider and our healer! He is faithful! So here is an outline of how the Lord met me this past weekend!
Several students had been planning a trip down to IHOP for a couple weeks. And a few kept asking me if I wanted to go too. And I just kept saying no, I don't want to go. I was saying that up to the last day. When Friday morning came along my mentor got an email from the Dean of Women saying that she suggested I go down to IHOP with the other students. This was oh like 4 hours before they were leaving and we had class and what not. I kept saying no I refuse to go, but I took a minute to pray about it and I felt strongly that the Lord was telling me to go. So I got over myself and said fine I will go 8) Yes I am subborn! lol! (oh on a side note I was preparing to work through alot of unforgiveness issues that I had, because it was becoming very obvious that those unforgiveness issues were contributing to my health issues, so we had made a plan for me to spend Saturday in the prayer room here on campus to work through forgiveness) So anyways I headed down to IHOP we had no clue where we were going to stay, which is obviously pretty common with trips down to IHOP 8) We found out about 3 hours into the drive that we had gotten one of the IHOP apartments to stay in! The whole way down I just kept getting this feeling I could not put my finger on. But we got down there at like 8:30 and went to the FSM building for the last part of the Awakening service. And they were praying for healings of the stomach and what not, so I was like eh why not and went up. Only I started feeling sicker when I was getting prayed for and I just felt God saying no you have root/heart issues to deal with first. So I was like okay God I will spend all day tomorrow if necessary in the prayer room working through forgiveness. As soon as I said that I could just feel the Devil attacking me, man he hated it when I said that. It was a strange feeling!!!
But thats what I did I got up early Saturday morning and just went in with as open of a heart as I could, and for the first time I just felt myself able to actually forgive a lot of people from my past. And I began to pray for them with love, I have not been able to basically ever do that! It was like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders!!! Then the first thing that popped into my head was are you going to heal me now God? But then I was like wait a minute, no, I lay that desire at your feet Lord. All i want is to encounter you and if it is in your will to heal me tonight then okay. But I just want to know you more and feel your presence! Then I had my prophecy appointment, which the outline of that was that: I have a servants heart, that God sees how much I pour into everyone else and how much I put them first, That I have a huge capacity within me to hold more of the Lord, that I am going to be in leadership in different aspects, that I am adventurous and the 4 walls of the church can not hold me and that is a good thing. That is about it there is more but I just have not had time to listen to the recording again. 8) Then I headed over to the awakening service cause it was 6 by that point. By this point I was pretty happy! but I was also in a lot of pain with my knee, rather annoyed with the knee brace I had to wear. And I had not had a chance to take my pills for my stomach that morning so my stomach was killing me. But I was just happy to have the release from the unforgiveness! And all I wanted to do was encounter the Lord!! So they started praying to receive the holy spirit and to just encounter the Lord more. So most of us went up front, and I got prayed over a ton of times. It was crazy! I was so much more open this time, the Lord just kept filling me up! Almost everyone that prayed over me was like give her more Lord, more!! It was great I could feel God there!!!
Then at one point I was sitting on the floor at the front by a few people from BCOM and they were calling people who wanted to get baptized. And two students from my cell group went over to get baptized and my mentor was with them, I wanted to go over and be with them not to get baptized but to just be with them, cause I was happy for them! But I just felt the Lord saying no you need to stay here. So I did..........and someone prayed over my knee just kind of randomly. And it just felt like the constant pain went away, but I didn't really think much of it. But then one of the mentors looked at my leg and said Hey take that off and she started undoing my knee brace, and she told me to get up. I was like okay but I don't know. So I did and I was shocked it didn't hurt at all!!! I started walking around and everyone looked at me surprised. Then I was thank you God for healing my knee but I really want my stomach healed. And someone else asked what was wrong with my stomach and I told her and then she prayed for me and the constant stomach ache just went away and I was like okay but is this the whole deal and I just felt this huge amount of peace, like the Lord saying your healed from this!!! I was so excited and so shocked!!! Wes Hall had not even prayed for healings yet! it was crazy!!!! Then I went over to watch them get baptized, but then Wes started asking if anyone had been healed to come up by the stage, and everyone just started screaming at me to go, I was torn cause I still wanted to watch them, but I went and then that is when I ended up on stage. 8) Then I gave my testimony at the Sunday morning service also.
I can eat things I have not been able to eat in like 10 to 15 years. I was telling a few people how I was afraid to eat oranges still and one of the girls was there and she just whips her head around and was like what did you say?!! She told me she had been dreaming about someone having to eat oranges for like 2 weeks now, and God just kept telling her to pay attention to conversations, and to tell that person to not fear the oranges, they are healed. So she was like eat the oranges!! Then she was like I finally feel at peace cause I guess that had been bothering her. That also helped to get rid of some doubts that were creeping up in my mind because of the stupid devil!! It is insane how totally different I feel, I have a huge amount of restored energy! The Lord is faithful!!!! I am still coming to grasp with what happened and fighting the attacks from the enemy, but man I can not even begin to explain the feelings I have. This has nothing to do with me, it was all God and I hope to use this testimony to further His kingdom and for nothing else. He provided for me in a way I could never imagine!
~Andria