THANK YOU!

A HUGE THANK YOU to all my amazing friends and family out there who sent me money for my trip to Chile! My outreach total of 3,500 has officially been payed for! GOD IS SO GOOD!!! I got the last check in today to cover my trip and got some extra money to use while actually in Chile as well! I feel so extremely blessed to have you all sending me money and praying over me! God has been doing AWESOME things and I cant wait to see what else He has in store for me! I cant express my thanks to y'all!!! :) Keep continuing to lift me in your prayers as well for my trip to Chile and for my future plans after YWAM! Also along with all my fellow YWAMers who still need the funds for their trips. I am trusting in God to take care of me and I know he will! :) Hope all well! Love and Miss you ALL! 4 more weeks till Im home for 10 days for Christmas!!!!

Why Hello!

Halloween with roomie Haley :)

SHOPPING @ the Mall of Georgia <3

Playing football in front of the house :)

Why helloooooo everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog! Life has been crazy busy, yet crazy awesome out here in Atlanta Georgia!! I have never been so happy and so close to God in my entire life! He really is doing amazing things in my life! Since I got here in GA I have been able to get to know sooo many people! All of my amazing roommates are amazing. We all get along so awesome! Who knew that 11 girls living in one room and sharing one bathroom would be so intense yet awesome! we are VERY close! haha! I love my YWAM Family, we all have bonded so close, and are making memories we will never forget. YWAM has been so awesome. Every week we have different speakers come to our base and teach on different topics. Topics from Hearing the voice of God, to the character of God. I get so much out of every week and love it. I feel so blessed to be able to get away from "real life"for a bit and just completely spend my entire time with God. Its going to be quite a change to go back into the "real life" once I am done with YWAM. Yet, I am SO looking forward to my future after YWAM and all that God has in store for me! :) This past week our team went down to Orlando Florida to celebrate YWAMs 50th Anniversary! Tons of other bases from the Southeast came down and we camped in tents for a week. All I have to say is I LOVE MY BED! Hahaha! I do not like camping. I was challenged by some friends to see if I could go all week without a shower and... I DID! hahaha When I got back to the base and showered I felt like a new person! If you know me well enough, that was pretty impressive I went all week! Im never doing that again! Hahaha! It was such a great week though! Around 600 ywamers all together under one roof worshipping God and just letting God take over. It was AWESOME! I love when tons of people come together and worship, its so powerful and amazing. It made me feel like I was attending a mini version of our "Forward" conference my family & the Lau's attend during the summers with my church Free Chapel here in Georgia. This past week was a little taste of what our outreach to Chile will be like. I am very excited! Except for the fact that I MIGHT have to go without a shower for that long again... Oh well :) As Mrs. Lau always says were "making memories" :D We finally know what team everyone is going on for outreach and all of us are very excited! We are sad were being split up although we cant wait. We only have 5 weeks left here in GA then we all go home for Christmas then were out to Chile! it seems so far away yet, RIGHT around the corner! I know God is going to do amazing things on outreach for me. Thank you all SO much who have already sent me money! You are such a blessing! Thank you, thank you, thank you thank you!!! :) I cant say it enough! :) Continue praying for me that God will continue to keep bringing in the rest of the funds. I know he will provide! He always does! I hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving season in Arizona! Its FREZZING here in Georgia and is in the 30's and 40's and its WONDERFUL! It really feels like "fall" for once in my life! Leaves are falling and changing colors! Something I've never seen before haha! I hope it is getting cold out there for y'all and the heat is finally going away! 

Finally A Georgia Peach!

Hey Ya'll ;) After a 3 day road trip with my wonderful mom across the country I finally made it to Georgia! Im officially a Georgia Peach! The road trip over here was quite exciting! The first 2 days of driving were a bit scary. Me and my mom took turns driving through POURING rain! Rain we never get in Arizona! It was scary, and at some points passing by the huge semi trucks we couldn't even see the road! We definitely were praying hardcore God would bring the sun out and no more rain! (Even though I secretly didn't want the rain to go away because I love it so much)  On Friday though the sun came out in the afternoon just in time for us to tour Graceland in Memphis Tennessee and that was very cool! On Saturday morning we drove to the YWAM base and I met a few of my roommates, met the leaders, and set up my room.  The house I am staying in is SOOOO BEAUTIFUL! Its pretty much a typical huge Georgia house and the neighborhood it is in is surrounded by even more huge, beautiful Georgia houses! I will be sharing a room with 11 other girls. The room is HUGE and we all have plenty of space, but I will have to get used to "community" living. I am so excited! Its like a my mini college experience but better! After me and my mom set up my "room" we headed out and had lunch with one of my roommates Haley Boyer and her mother at none other than my favorite..Chik Fil A :) They seriously have one on every corner. Its AWESOME to say the least ;) They also have 2 huge wonderful malls near the base which is also awesome, but for my dads sake- only for window shopping of course, no spending real money ;) tehee! Also I am in Bulldog heaven! EVERYONE has SO much school spirit here! Walmart had SO much Georgia Bulldog gear it was crazy! Arizona walmarts have NO ASU stuff compared to GA! The South really is DIFFERENT than the west coast! Its CRAZY! I love it! Me and my car with my Georgia "G" on the back will fit in perfectly here. I even bought some Georgia Bulldog silly bandz! Gotta represent the college I always wanted to go to! Hahaha :D This morning, Sunday morning, (Its pouring, yet again, and I love it) we went to our favorite church, Free Chapel! Pastor Jentezen wasn't there this morning but another guest speaker, Philip Cameron spoke and he was simply amazing. I am starting to feel so at home. Everything has been going perfect so far and I can really feel that God has me here for a reason and its going to be alright and it is part of his will for me. My classes start Monday (tomorrow) and its all an orientation week. So I will be finding out more information as the week goes on. I don't have much of an internet connection at the base, so I will try and blog as much as I can during free time when I can drive up to a Wi-fi place and watch Glee & Greys Anatomy too ;) Thank you Jesus I have an iphone and can still txt and facebook you all though :) I love and miss you all so much already! 


xoxo
<3 Jessica

Less Than A Week

I havent blogged in awhile so I figured I would tonight :) I have less than a week till I start my journey out to GA! I am so ready to go! I have pretty much have everything I need all ready to go! All I need left is a suitcase, which might be important;) lol and of course do last minute laundry, then pack it all up in my car and head out! I feel like I have been waiting for this trip forever, although its only been 2 months! It has FLOWN by! I have been able to hang out with all my friends so much these past few weeks and have got so much support from all my friends and family. Thank you guys so much. I will miss you all so incredibly much! As of right now the internet is down at the base so I will have my phone to contact you all through txting, calls and facebook but skype will have to be put on hold until the internet is up working again. Or if I go to a starbucks with free wi-fi :) I have already had to say a few goodbyes which were hard, but I know that the hardest goodbyes are yet to come. :( I am having a little goodbye party tomorrow (thursday sept 16th) at Jumpstreet! So if you want feel free to come! Ok well I am off to go spend some time with my wonderful mother <3 I will try and keep everyone updated as soon as possible. <3 you all!


Jeremiah 29:11
<3 Jessica

ACCEPTED!

I have officially been accepted to the YWAM Atlanta Fall DTS!!!!! ahhhhh!!! yessssss!! I am so excited!!! Thank you for all your prayers and words of encouragement! It really helped! You are all so awesome! Its funny how I found out actually. It was Yesterday (sunday) night. I decided to go back to my old church DSC and hear my mom sing at the ladies "chick night" since I hadnt heard her sing in awhile. I begged Rachel to drive me so I wouldn't waste my gas (hehe) and she got in the not greatest mood since she realized I was using her and she had homework to get back to. We got to church put our smiles on and surprised our mom. She was very happy :) Then we get to our seats and started arguing and fighting over something so stupid. The fight ended with "I cant WAIT to leave and get out here" typical sister fight. The theme that night for chick night just happened to be "Sisters" too. How ironic huh? So worship started and I was so not in the mood to be there anymore. I just wanted to go home. I was there supporting my mom though, and was going to stay. My mind was so not in a worship mode at the moment so I sat down and felt the urge to check my emails on my phone. Sure enough YWAM Atlanta sent me a message! I opened and read Congrats! You've been accepted to YWAM Atlanta Fall DTS! Oh man. I started crying hysterically right in the middle worship. I turned to my sister showed her my phone and she instantly started crying as well. We ran out into the lobby hugging and crying our eyes out! We immediately started apologizing to each other for earlier and now instead of "I cant wait to leave" it was "I don't wanna leave!" Haha oh life! So yes it was quite the emotional night if I do say so! I was so extremely happy though and so was my entire family! I am so excited! I have already met one of my roomates Haley Boyer, over Facebook. We have been talking all day and I already feel like were going to be great friends! She mentioned my blog in her blog so I got to give her a shout-out in my blog too of course :) http://haleybrynnboyer.blogspot.com/ :) Im so excited for what God has in store for me! I just want these next 4 weeks to fly by! Yet I want to spend time with all my friends and family as much as possible before I leave! If you're reading this, call me! I wanna hang out with you before I leave ;) Again thank you everyone for your prayers and support, its just the beginning! Love you all!


<3
Jessica

Patience

My application has been filled out, References have been sent in, and medical forms, done. Now, it's a waiting game. YWAM says the application process takes about 2 weeks before I will know if I am officially "in" and I CANNOT wait!!! God is really teaching me to be patient right now and trust in him, and boy is it hard! Im dying to know! I am praying I get in! I am SO looking forward to this new adventure coming up! Its SO wonderful to have my entire family supporting me, and helping me to stay positive by saying, "how could you NOT get in?" I must say I have the best family in the entire world. I love them all very much! :) It would be awful if I didn't get in, but no negative thinking here, only positive :) Keep praying along with me that I find out if I have gotten in ASAP :) There's so much to do once I find out, and I only have one month left in AZ if I do! :)

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

<3 Jessica

The Driving Game

Last night was quite the eventful night. Its nights like these I will miss a lot when I'm gone. Me and Meghan went to go hang out with Steve and Sean. We had no idea what to do. Ideas came up like going to Jump Street, Laser tag, TPing people, watching a movie, board games, and the list goes on. We didn't know what to do. The boys kept wanting to do "the driving game"...  and it didn't quite get our interest at first but when we figured we had nothing else to do and nothing was open at 10:30 on a Tuesday night, we said whatever lets do it! Little did we know where we would end up. The driving game is really pointless. You get in the car and you drive to wherever the car pretty much takes you. Sean explains it like this "you turn right, then left, then right, and see where you end up!" Haha So we get onto the freeway going north on the 101 we come up to the 60 and decide to go east since we never really go out east on the 60 for anything. We thought maybe we should wonder the halls of a hospital, or of a hotel. We didn't know where we were going still or what to do. We Passed Signal Butte road and a few exits later saw a sign for Canyon Lake. Ding, ding, ding we had a destination! The boys told us it was a surprise where they decided to take us but we kinda guessed... what else is out that way? By now it was 11:15 pm and were driving to Canyon Lake. Probably one of the scariest drives of my life! Sean was an excellent diver though! Even with my high pitched gasps around every sharp turn! Props to Sean! It was pitch black! We couldn't see anything that wasn't in front of us. Finally after a million sharp scary turns, Meghan feeling car sick, and listening to 2 of Seans rap CDs over and over we made it! It was just around midnight. None of us had service on our phones so we were praying nothing happened to us! We didn't go all the way down to the dock but just right above it to a look out spot, but clearly we couldn't look out or see anything lol! We got out, took pictures and enjoyed looking up at the millions of stars everywhere. Its amazing how much different it is when you get away from the city lights, and noise. We all couldn't help but think that this is such an amazing spot to just get away and spend some time talking to the Lord. So peaceful and quiet. (at night at least) We sat on Seans hood and chatted about life. Talking about our amazing outfits for Leah's party on Saturday (a circus theme) and what this next year held for us. 1 or 2 cars had come by that night and we didnt pay much attention to them, but when a certain car came by blasting Taylor Swift and driving really slow we got curious. He (yes, HE was totally listening to Taylor Swift) quickly turned around parked on the side of the road, turned on his brights, got out and picked up a rattle snake! Its rattle started rattling like crazy! SCARY! we were walking around the ground earlier,  what if we ran into one!?!?  How did this guy even spot that snake on he side of the road!? What was he doing at 12:30 at night at this lake anyway? (I guess we have no room to talk.. lol) We all went over to check it out and see if this guy was crazy or something. He had a professional camera and snake carrying stick grabber thing. (sorry I don't know the correct word haha) we found out he is a park ranger at night and collects these snakes, draws blood, tags them, and then releases them and does studies on them. Crazy. While we were talking to him some people from the lake drove by and wanted to see if everything was ok. (Again, why were these people at the lake at 12:30 at night!?) They then realized we were checking out the snake. They get out of the car and one of the guys asks to touch it......... really? Its still rattling and freaking out, about to attack someone and he wants to touch it?! He must of been drunk. Or plain stupid. So he grabs the guys professional snake grabber stick and starts poking at it! the snake freaks out and starts like running away or...slithering away further onto the road and it was going fast! The crazy guy kept going after it with stick and poking at it too. Now at this point me, Steve, Sean, and Meghan are like WELL ITS TIME TO GO! We run back to Seans car, Me and Meghan freaking out thinking another snake was nearby about to attack us. So we get in and drive back home! Whew! I don't know why that ranger guy even let that crazy guy use his stick to touch the snake! Or if that guy ever got to really "touch" the snake. CRAZY! It ended up being a really fun night! One I will always remember :) Little did we know where we would end up earlier that night all because of a simple "Driving Game."


<3
Jessica

Sore.

Whew am I sore! I can barely move my legs today. I just have to think though..its so worth it! Keep working out, breaking down my muscles then building them back up, and in no time I will be back into my regular shape. Then when I work out it, it will get to a point where it wont hurt as bad anymore! Yay! haha  I think when I go to Georgia I am going to be in the same situation yet not with my muscles but with my Spiritual life. I think God is going to stretch me in ways I have never been stretched before. Like when we have outreach days, I will have to be going up to people I don't know and praying for them and talking to them about Jesus. Otherwise known as stepping out of my box. Im not saying I have never done anything like this before because I have been on previous missions trips and I have talked to people about my faith before, but I dont think I have really done anything before like what Im going to be doing with YWAM and Im excited about it! Im going to be stretching my spiritual walk with the Lord and its going to be uncomfortable or "sore" the first few times I stepped out of my box or "get back into the gym" and Ive got to keep on stretching my "muscles" or spiritual walk with the Lord in order for me to be comfortable with it and be in perfect shape for my spiritual walk  :)


<3
Jessica

8/9/10 11:12 pm

Ok so I lied its not 11:12 its 9:30...but I am way too tired to stay up that late and I just thought it would be sweet cuz of the cool date today :P Im a nerd, I know :) lol Anyways today was a good, busy, and tiring day. Woke up this morning at 5:30 with the same thought on my mind that has been there for awhile. I love my bed. How am I going to live without it in Georgia!? Will my roommates snore? Do I still snore even tho my tonsils are out!? How early am I going to have to get up every morning? I will be living away from home for the first time ever! Will I be ok without my mom? lol My mind never stops thinking about Georgia and all the new exciting, yet kinda scary changes coming my way. Its funny how God works sometimes though, example: this morning driving to work. As some of you know I dislike K-love and Air One very much. Recently though Air One has been growing on me. Finally some good NEW up beat fun christian songs are out. Its about time! YAY! So since the radio and commercials get old and I only have a 3 minute commute to work I play Air One now. No commercials and good uplifting songs to start my day out right, why not!?  So while I was driving to work they were talking about fear and overcoming it. Funny because Pastor Maiden talked about that yesterday at church too! So I looked up some verses on Fear and this one stands out and I have decided its my theme verse for the week:

Duetermony 31:8 "It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."

Ahhhh so refreshing! God WILL be with me through everything! HE wont leave me OR forsake me! I already feel better haha! Im going to not worry about anything these next few weeks and just enjoy being in this awful heat and cast all my fears to God about being away from home for 6 months and know everything is going to be ok :)

Ive enjoyed talking, txting, and FB messaging a bunch of you guys today about my upcoming adventure! Everyone is so excited for me and it helps a ton! Thank you everyone for your wonderful support! Its greatly appreciated! :) Feel free to comment below too! I will reply! I love you all! <3 Ok well Im off to bed. Went back to the gym today for the first time in about a month, no thanks to my tonsils being removed and vacations keeping me away. Im DEAD tired, and I wont be able to move tomorrow haha! Nightttt

<3
Jessica

My First Blog!

Hey! Soooo this is my first blog..I have never "blogged" before but I figured now would be a good time to start since in a month and a half I most likely will be leaving to go to Atlanta Georgia! So all of my friends/family can stay connected with me through this and keep me in your prayers through this exciting new season of my life! I have applied to go to Atlanta GA to be a part of Youth With a Mission (YWAM) its an organization where I go live in GA with several other young adults and we go to a Discipleship Training School! It is a 5-6 month innovative training course that challenges us young people to step up and go to new lengths in the world that we are living in and realize that God has so much in store for each one of us! Once we have completed the School we will be going on a 8-12 week missions trip! So now its a waiting game to see if I have been accepted into the program! I am praying if its God will I will be accepted because if you know me well enough, you know my heart belongs in Georgia! I am a southern belle at heart! I would be able to attend my favorite church on Sunday mornings Free Chapel with Pastor Jentezn Franklin, which is a HUGE bonus. I am so excited about what God has in store for me! So I will be blogging my life for the next few months and keeping you all updated on what has been happening with my journey from Phoenix to Georgia :)