It's been too long!

I am sorry for the recent radio silence :)


Wow. There is so much I could say, but I don't want to write a book... :)


My little sister is married and has moved to Arkansas. Please be praying for her and her new life, and that God continues to pursue her heart. :)


I have been learning so much about working with people lately. I know that God put me here very specifically and with people who are very different that I am. And sometimes that is really difficult. 
But the best way that I've learned to handle it is to pray a lot, laugh a lot, and bite my tongue a lot. :) AND, most importantly, to remember that I am also difficult to work with sometimes. So remembering to have grace for people and doing my best to be loving. :)


A few fun things on the schedule:
- i just got back from a sleepover with my small group girls! We had so much fun :)


- I will be headed to Detroit on Wednesday for The Call 11/11/11! It's a fasting and praying event for the United States.


- Thanksgiving Love Feast is two weekends away. :) It's the base's version of Thanksgiving, as a YWAM family.


-I'll be going home for Christmas!!! :) I'm really looking forward to hanging out with my family. I miss them a lot...


That's just a quick update... sorry for such a long time between posts!


Love!


Justine

Blessings :)

Okay, so I love my job! :) I have my own desk, I get to tell people about not only Youth With A Mission, but Jesus! I get to read the Bible to start off work, and have a weekly corporate worship time with my coworkers. I live with a bunch of really awesome women who love God and care about everyone around them. It's so refreshing! I really do enjoy office work, which is what I am doing primarily right now. I work for the Alaso department, and we have a lot of awesome events coming up: a mini sst (camp) for catholic kids in October, possibly traveling up to MI for The Call in November...mobile teams are scheduled to head out in january, and we'll maybe be partnering with the Discipleship Training School's stateside outreach in january...we'll have a large-scale catholic sst in march...
All of that to say, I have a lot of logistical work to do :) but i love it! God has really blessed me and surrounded me with friends :)

Much love!
Justine

"All things work together for good for those who love Him..."

This has been proven to me over and over again since I've been home! I've seen God provide so much! He led me to a nice, reasonably-priced car that I'm planning to buy (provided everything continues to go well), since I need transportation down to Texas, and something to get around in while i'm down there. I just felt this nudge to ask someone i was on the phone with if they knew of anyone selling a car... turns out, their son was selling his ford taurus! So awesome...
One of the requirements for coming back on staff in the department i want to work in is that we have a smartphone. I was able to purchase an iPhone at half the price that it would normally be, and i'll be saving $40/month on the plan because my parents decided to let me stay under their plan if I paid for my stuff.
I was in desperate need of a suitcase; mine was in bad shape.. so I put a thing on facebook and had two people contact me about suitcases that they didn't need anymore! :)
A family friend handed me $100 cash in church this morning and said she just wanted to help me. She is so sweet!
Basically, I have asked, and I have received. I have been so blessed by God and by the people who have responded!
I am believing that God will continue to provide for me, as I still need at least $200/month pledged support. Please pray about partnering with me in this way to accomplish God's purposes through my life! :)Thanks so much for reading!
Much love!!

Justine

I'm Home!! :)

Michigan is so beautiful! I almost forgot...
It's so good to be home with my family again :) We got a new dog... her name is Kallie, and she's really clumsy and cute and hyper. Jaxon isn't a fan...
I got to spend the last two days traveling with my good friends, Nate and Lauren and their new baby! He is so dang cute.
Now that I'm home... the work begins!
I would really like to join staff in Texas, so I'm going to be spending the next month at home figuring out if that's possible :) Please pray that God will make it very clear to me if this is what he wants me to do, and that I will trust him to provide. because he always does! :)

Love you all!!

Justine

oh, my life...

So I do this thing where I plan my life. And I think that God just laughs at me most of the time. Probably he's just wondering if I'm ever going to learn that when I make plans, he has other plans.

This time, I'm not really sure yet. I have been planning on returning to college this fall, but right now I'm just not sure that is where God is calling me to go.

I'm still praying about it, but I think that maybe God is leading me to join staff here with YWAM. I'm still praying about it, because it's a *huge* step. I would have to raise at least $650 of monthly support. Honestly, that scares the crap out of me. But if that's what God is telling me to do, I should probably do it. :)

So... I'm praying. If you would pray too, I would appreciate it! :)

Love!

Justine

Back from Houston!

Houston was awesome! I always love doing ministry there... this past group of kids were really great, and it was awesome to see God working in their lives while they were here.

As you may have seen on facebook, Joel and I are no longer dating. We both decided that it was the most loving and wise thing to seek God separately, because we're not sure if our future plans necessarily line up anymore. But we are still really good friends, and we are both at peace about it. :)

i'll post pictures of outreach later... :)

Don't worry, I'm still alive! :)

I survived two weeks of SST! It was so awesome and crazy and draining and.... just really good. I absolutely loved the group of kids that we got to work with, and I had a blast teaching the Clincher drama as well.

We spent one week here in Texas, where the students had classes three times a day, ministry prep time, intercession, worship, obstacle course time, and lake time. The schedule was packed! We were up at 7am and in bed by 11pm. crazy, crazy, crazy. :)

Then we packed into 15-passenger vans and headed up to Chicago. 20 hours later, we moved all of our stuff into the church we would call home for the next 7 days. :) The ministry in Chicago was focused around praying and interceeding, so we were really able to interact one-on-one with the people there. We were able to offer prayer to people walking past in the business district, write/draw encouraging messages and scripture on the sidewalk in parksa and pick up trash, pray for people on the public transportation systems, hand out hotdogs in a park, play soccer with Napali immigrants, and learn about Islam and Krishna consciousness (to better understand the people we were ministering to, and why they are drawn to other religions). It was a really great experience!
The craziest thing about Chicago was that I was in charge of food for the week. I planned meals, purchased the food, prepared it, cleaned it up, etc. I also had to teach a bunch of teenagers how to cook and clean... harder than it sounds, i promise :)

and yes. i survived :)

This week we have some time off... a few maintanence projects in the village. Next week is prep week, and the week after that, we start all over again with classes. Our outreach this time will be to Houston, which I am *so* looking forward to!!!

Thanks for reading! keep in touch!

Justine

Me and Meganne getting antsy waiting for the train... :)