The beauty of it all

I apologize that I have not posted an update or blog post lately! Life has been a little crazy lately. I want to thank everyone who came out last Sunday for the benefit concert!!! It was incredible and overwhelming to have so many of the people that have been there for me since the beginning in one room, hanging out and listening to good music. For those of you who were unable to attend, you were missed! Love you all and I am so unbelievably blessed that you have chosen to be a part of my journey.

As far as fundraising goes I was able to raise about $450!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! For your financial support and prayers.

 My grand total right now is $2,481 and I need $4,798. 

I have about $2,317 left to raise and I am hoping to leave by approximately January 26th. 

I believe that if it is God's will for me to raise this money and send me to Kenya that He will provide. Although it is hard for me to say this, well type, I must be honest that I have been wrapped in confusion lately. Being a faithful Christian in such a broken and lost world is something that I have struggled with for a long time. I think that it is safe to say that everyone has struggled with this to some extent. Recently, I have struggled with trusting in God and trusting that His timing is beyond perfect. Now I have only lived 19 short years, but I can easily say that this past one has been the hardest. I feel as though I have been under spiritual attack. My confusion comes into play when I question whether it is actually a spiritual attack from Satan or God is telling me that now is not my time to go to Kenya. Satan only tells lies that are almost true, and many times I have been a fallen victim to these lies. All I can do is pray, pray, pray and pray some more.

The beauty of it all: Despite this mess and confusion, through the power of God I have been able to find a peculiar sense of peace that I can’t fully explain. Through these past few weeks He has planted a seed of joy in the deep, dark cavity of my heart that has allowed me to feel suffocated by His love and grace during this time. I have felt more blessed over this past year than I have felt ever. Where ever I am and where ever I go, He is there. I am learning to tackle life one day at a time.

I wish I had the words to express how thankful I am for those of you that have been there for me over the past few weeks and for those of you who have stuck by me through all the past year of craziness. I would not be who I am today if it were not for those of you that love me, encourage me and support me. My eyes fill with tears when I think about how much you all mean to me.

I love you all and hope you have an awesome weekend. You deserve it.

thoughts that breathe, words that burn.

You should all go check out my friend, Tess's blog, as she begins to share with us her beautifully crafted poetry!

thoughts that breathe, words that burn.: If beauty is God's handwriting,
then who's the aut...: If beauty is God's handwriting, then who's the author of ugly? Who's the creator of disaster and destruction and pain? I mean don't get m...

Love God Love People

It has certainly been a while since I have had the time to give you guys a full update of what is going on in my crazy world!

I returned from New York City late on Sunday night and went straight to my new home in the North Side and woke up Monday morning and started my classes at CCAC.

Since I was in 8^th grade I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. Throughout my high school years I started thinking about what I would like to do for the rest of my life and being a teacher was always in my top 3 choices and it was always something that I kept going back to. As well as teaching I’ve always felt a strong calling to the mission field, but I was never really sure about how these two pieces of my life would fit together. I have been reading this book lately called Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. It is about how she moves to Uganda after she graduates high school to become a teacher. She says a lot of things in her book that really hit home for me. She said what I need to hear and helps me realize how I can piece my dreams together as a missionary and an educator.

Lack of education is one of the greatest burdens and is a direct cause of the vicious cycle of poverty. Obviously the key to eternal life is Jesus, but the key to a better life here and now is education. If children learn how to read and write, to add and subtract and to multiply, if they learn about science and social studies and everything else a school offers they will have the opportunity to become productive citizens and move their nation forward. I yearn to be in the center of God’s will and to do what I was created to do. I want to be a factor in transformation of a community, I want to love like Jesus and be able to give the opportunity for a child to build a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and also become a productive member of their society.

In the book, Kisses from Katie, she compares working in a third world country to emptying the ocean with a rain dropper, and then just when you have about half a cup full it rains again. I’m not going to go out and try to eliminate poverty, eradicate diseases and put a stop to people abandoning babies, I’m just going to go out and follow God’s number one commandment: love God and love people.

Although I am disappointed I do not get to go to Kenya until January I know that right now this is the spot on the map where God has asked me to do the things I do. So I am going to pour out my heart for the children in the community I am in right now by tutoring at the After School Place at Allegheny Center Alliance Church and with His gracious help I will build relationships, care for these children and show them the love of Jesus Christ.

KENYA!

I have a HUGE praise! As many of you know, I applied to be a volunteer through World Gospel Mission (same organization the Bemm family works through) and I have been anxiously waiting to hear back from them. Well, today as I was riding up the Duquesne Incline I received an e-mail that congratulated me on being accepted!!!!!! This is an amazing blessing and I am so thankful God has made this provision for me.

Along with the e-mail came a budget that World Gospel Mission has provided for me. The budget is not finalized yet, but we are now looking at a ball park of $7,000. This is a lot more than I was expecting. Along with that cost, earlier today I added to more classes to my course schedule causing my school fees to go up $500. I know in my heart that if I trust in Him God will provide, but I know that it is going to be very hard for me to not worry about funds and put my full trust in God. There will be another support letter going around soon, so look for one in your mailbox!

If you would like to support me, all donations are tax deductible!

Please send me a message with your e-mail address if you would like to donate and I will e-mail you a form you can fill out and send to World Gospel Mission.

Thank you all again for all your support! I wouldn’t be able to do it without you guys. 

My number one prayer request right now is for the children who will be in the After School Program, I know that this job will not always be the easiest, but God has me there for a reason. Pray for the children and their education, they relationships they build (most of them come from very broken homes) and pray that God would open their hearts and their minds as the workers begin to teach them not only about the importance of education but also the love of Jesus.

Guest Blogger: Hayley Morgan :)

This past week was mine and Hayley's third time to the Dominican Republic. Each trip has been unique in it's own way and each one has taught us something that we will carry with us. Here is what spoke to Hayley over the past week:

What is love?  According to Dictionary.com, love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person, usually a child, family member or friend.  But what is REAL love?  The kind of love God wants us to have with one another?  In the Bible it says to “Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment.  And the second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 37-39).  So to truly love a person with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, you must FIRST love God.  True love is not possible on this earth without the love of Jesus.  Without God, love is earthly, temporary and insincere.  Earthly love is a set up for failure.  Adultery, premarital pregnancies and divorces are all results of earthly love.  God’s love is heavenly and perfect because God is love.  Heavenly love is ever-lasting and unstoppable.  “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.  Love never fails.” (1 Cor. 13:7-8).  This is TRUE love.  Jesus lives in the heart of every Christian, so we can all love like Jesus! 

I used to think that loving like Jesus was impossible, but this past week in the Dominican Republic I have learned there are many different ways to love people;  holding a child, saying ‘HOLA!’  to a stranger, praying for someone in pain, smiling at an old cross man and understanding that every person you meet is fighting a battle to be the best they can be. (When you meet someone you must understand that you are only seeing part of them and you may never know what is going on in their heart or what they have been through in their life.)  Loving someone the way God wants you to love them is seeing the good in a person, no matter how bad they may seem.  God created every person in his image, but a lot of the time these people get lost and lose their righteousness.  Seeing the good in every person and putting them before yourself is how you can show love like Jesus.  But the hardest part about loving everybody is loving the people who have wronged you.   It’s easy to hate a person that once made fun of you for being chubby or hate a girlfriend that dumped you harshly, but it takes true character to forgive and love those who hurt you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:32-36).

God has put us on this earth to serve Him and spread His love.  We can do this by simply giving an encouraging smile to the apprehensive woman passing us on the sidewalk.  Love isn’t supposed to be a forced and complicated thing, loving others should be as natural as breathing.  My favorite song, Just Because by Scott Phillips, sums it up perfectly; “I can search the world and find all kinds of love, but love that is real is love just because.”

Graduation post.

The past day of crazy traveling chaos has left us sitting at the Pittsburgh airport for about 5 hours. After a crazy weekend of graduating, working, and packing this is the first time I have had time to let the fact that I am a high school graduate actually sink in. Despite the time I have had to think about this it is something that I still don’t think my mind can really comprehend.

I feel like I have spent the past four years of my life just waiting to get out of high school and now that it’s time to leave I don’t want to go. I graduated on Friday and while everyone was excited and cheering I was still very unsure about how I felt about the whole thing. High school has taught me a lot of different things that have prepared me for the next chapter of my life, but there is something that has had an immense impact on my life.

All my life I always felt like everyone was always leaving me. Some moved away, some moved on and some went to be with the Lord. Through all of this I used to always get angry and upset and question why people were always leaving me or why relationships had to come to an end. It was not until the end of this year that I had a better understanding of all this. With the help of a friend I was able to acknowledge the fact that sometimes God only puts people in your life for a season, and once they have served their purpose and our need is met we must understand that their work is done and it is time for them to move on. Many times these people are sent into your life in order to guide you, teach you and help you through a time of difficulty and usually they bring you great joy. That joy is a real feeling, but it is only for a season.

I believe that is why I was so scared to leave high school, because for the past four years God has put some incredible people in my life and I know for a fact that I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for those people. I know I will eventually lose touch with teachers who have meant the most to me and friends who have imprinted my heart. And even friends who I would continue to stay in contact with I know that we would have a different relationship after we went our separate ways. Despite how depressing I am making this sound I also realize that it is because of the people that have shaped my life, who I am and my future.

So I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being a part of these past four years of my life and I cannot wait to share the next chapter with you as well. I’ve learned that whether or not a person is in your life for a season or a lifetime, your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.

(P.S. Keep me, my sister Caylyn and my good friends Hayley and Alyssa in your prayers as we travel to the Dominican Republic this week!)

My first road block

When I began this journey I knew there would be challenges I would face and roadblocks that would discourage me. I believe I have hit my first road block.  After a week with a miserable headache, terrible chest and abdominal pains and a fever on and off daily my mom took me to the emergency room. We weren’t really sure what was wrong but we didn’t think it would be anything too serious. I had some blood work done but they couldn’t seem to directly pinpoint what was wrong. They admitted me into the hospital that way they could do further testing. Over my time there they took over 40 tubes of blood!! Needless to say, my fear of needles was forcefully decreased.

We found out Monday morning that a blood test had come back positive for Infectious Mononucleosis or more commonly known as Mono. I assumed they would monitor my symptoms for a little longer and discharge me Tuesday. Well, Tuesday turned into Wednesday which eventually turned in Friday. My symptoms and pain continued to get worse and the doctors told my mom that they had never seen a case as a severe as mine, they had only read about it in text books. Fortunately, I am home now recovering and feeling much better than I was this time last week. My spleen was so swollen that there was a possibility it could spontaneously rupture while I was just laying in bed. That is one of the main reasons they kept me in the hospital so long. Due to the mono I missed over a week of school and my last three softball games. Now I am left trying to figure out what God is trying to teach me or show me through all of this.  I am so blessed with the people that God has placed in my life and all the love and support I received over the past week or so.  My family and friends are the reason I made it through this past week.  Unfortunately, this is not the end of this road block.

In June, 3 days after graduation, I have plans to return to the Dominican Republic with my little sister and two of my friends.  I have a sonogram in one month that will check and see if the size of my spleen has decreased. Normally someone’s spleen with mono would only stay enlarged for a week or two, but the doctors expect mine to be swollen longer. Basically the size of my spleen determines if I am allowed to go to the Dominican Republic. I realize that this is a very real possibility, but I also know in my heart that if I am supposed to go back to the Dominican Republic God will make it happen.

Please pray for a quick recovery and the ability to participate in all the end of the year events. I missed a lot of school already and will probably not return until the end of this week depending on how I am feeling. I am scared of all the make-up work I am going to be faced with. I want to ask you to pray for God to allow me to go to the Dominican Republic, but instead I am going to ask you to pray for me to accept whatever plan God has for me. There is a possibility that this could affect my departure date for Kenya, but that is still to be determined. Thanks for all your prayer and support! I am really starting to get excited for the next season of my life and I think mono is just a little road block in the grand scheme of things.

“God will let you bend, but he will never let you break.”

A light in a dark place

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

After returning from the Dominican Republic my close friends and I felt led to start a Bible study in which we could continue to grow in our faith together and learn more about whom Jesus is and what God has in store for our lives. This past Saturday we started a book called, The Lies Young Women Believe. We are not too far into the book yet, but my eyes have already been opened to the evil seeds and lies Satan has planted in my life in order to throw me off the path of righteousness.

By definition, a lie is a false statement with deliberate intent to deceive. A lie is an impostor of the truth and uneasily detected because they are so well camouflaged by the deceiver. In Genesis, Satan targeted Eve with his lies. He wanted for her to turn her back on God, to reject His truth and to believe his carefully crafted lies, and she did. Unfortunately, those happen to be Satan’s exact intentions for each and every person who is striving towards the abundant life.

My sophomore year of high school, there was a boy in my grade who believed those lies to the full extent to which the deceiver intended. Unfortunately, he took his own life. This left his close friends, my class and my school in shambles. Two years later, most of us thought the terror was over, only to wake up one morning to another suicide in our community. As well as this suicide, there have also been many attempted suicides recently by children as young as 13. Thirteen years old. Current statistics say that suicide the third leading cause of death for those aged 15 to 24.

I come to you with a heavy heart and request for prayer. For the teenagers who did not give themselves a chance to see what a beautiful life God had for them, who submitted to Satan’s lies and felt so hopeless they saw death as the only option. My heart breaks over and over again for the victims, and their families and friends and loved ones. As much as my heart breaks, I know that God’s breaks even more.

Back to Bible study on Saturday, we talked about the recent suicides in our community and prayed for peace and restoration for those around us that are suffering. Please join us in praying for the students, families, teachers and members of the Pine-Richland community in your prayers, as suicide seems to be spreading like a contagious disease. Pray for the deceived that God will overcome the lies and burdens they are carrying and His light will shine and they will be encompassed by His unfathomable love. Pray for the teachers who interact and connect with students every day, give them courage to reach out to the students. Pray for administration as they deal with the aftermath of these horrific events. Pray for the parents, brothers and sisters, and friends and the people who are suffering from the loss of a loved one to such a tragic death.

I pray that God uses my friends and I to be the light in a dark place. I believe in hope. I believe in coming together to support those around us who are suffering under the weight of Satan lies. I pray for the strength and courage to live a righteous life as I walk the halls of my high school.

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." Ephesians 5:8

Give me your eyes for just one second; Domican Republic 2012!

Let me start off by thanking you all for your prayers, this trip left us awe-struck and definitely changed our hearts for the better.


I could write about this trip forever, and I believe I can speak for everyone when I say we all had a life changing experience. I wish I could tell you about every moment of everyday. The moments we spent together in worship, the moments we spent crying, laughing, and falling in love. Falling in love with the Dominican Republic, the people, the children, the language and most importantly falling in love with Jesus. If you read the last blog post, you know a little bit about what we did from day to day. Each day we visited a different village, and there is one village specifically I would like to tell you about—
Village 50.

First, I want you to imagine you are standing in your kitchen. What do you see? A sink, an oven, a dishwasher, a table, etc. Now open up your refrigerator- milk, juice, soda, lunch meat, pizza, etc. Now imagine walking into your kitchen and feeling dirt and rocks under the thin soles of your shoes. From inside the door way you extend your leg and touch the opposing wall with your foot. To your left you see a table made of rotten wood and covered in soot. There is a place for a fire in the corner on the dirt ground and if you’re lucky a broken knife or machete and a single pot used to cook your food. You inhale the scent of stale fire and rotting wood mixed with the leftover scent of cooked chicken. The only light shining in is the light that sneaks through the cracks of the wall and when it rains it is those same cracks that drown your fire and drench your only set of clothes. When you exit you turn and look around at what appears as though it should be an animal stall. The outside walls are made of used up, old, rusting tin. This is the kitchen you cook breakfast, lunch and dinner in every single day.

Village 50 was the last village we visited on our trip. All week we had been warned by what we were going to see in this village, but there is nothing that could be said that could prepare one’s eyes or heart for what they were going to see and experience. Because a medical team had been there the previous week, only VBS stayed to do activities with the children and the medical team moved onto another village where we would meet up with them later on in the day.

One of our VBS activities was a sack race. There wasn’t much open space so we had the children line up on one end of the road and a couple of us stood about 30 feet away. They were directed to hop towards us, give us a high five and then return to the line and give the next person a turn. The children were all smiles, even if they fell down, they just got right back up and kept on hopping. Next thing I know the adults and parents are and stumbling towards me in the sacks. I have NEVER seen an adult have so much fun in my whole life. I think they may have even enjoyed it more than the children did. I was surrounded by sunshine and the smiles and laughter of complete strangers and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much joy around me. They have nothing except the clothes on their back, their families, and few worldly possessions. Yet, they were filled with such joy and happiness. What is it that keeps us from experiencing this joy?

Our visit to village 50 was heart-wrenching, joyful, heavy, sobering, priceless, fulfilling and it was reality.

I wish I could’ve captured and held on to every single moment of that week, the good and the bad. I’m so grateful that I was given the opportunity to share this staggering, amazing, inspiring experience with 5 of my best friends. It has almost been a week since we’ve returned to the bipolar, arctic tundra known as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I can tell you that this past week was definitely not one of the easiest weeks, but we found comfort in knowing that we didn’t have to face it alone. I believe God brought each of us to the Dominican Republic for a specific reason and had something marvelous planned for each of us.

The life I’ve been living, decisions I’ve been making and the person I have been lately is nowhere near what God has intended for me. That is something I have known deep down all along, I just haven’t had the courage to make a change. Over the past two weeks I have learned that I cannot change myself, the battle is every day, and God does have a plan for me I just need to give him permission to take control of my heart, mind and soul

Saved once, surrender everyday.

You will never be truly set free until you let go of your guilt. We can’t be free if we are hiding our trash from God. He truly becomes the Lord of your life when you say, “Jesus, I give it all up.” And we pick up our cross and follow him.

Through this trip I have seen God work on my heart, and I have seen him work around me and through me. I cannot begin to express how blessed I am with people He has put in my life and the experiences He has given me. As I continue to press towards the abundant life I pray that I will be given the strength to have a heart like Jesus. Isn’t that how we are called to live, like Jesus? Thank you so much for being a part of my journey!

Much love,
Hannah

(On a side note, I have plans to return to the Dominican Republic for TWO weeks with my little sister this summer. So please pray for us as those plans begin to fall together.)

**If you would like to see more of what God is doing in the Dominican Republic, please check out the Heinrich's blog as they fulfill God's call to serve His people in Hato Mayor!
http://dominicanmgmandtheheinrichfamily.blogspot.com

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 2012 :)

After a VERY long week of studying and midterm testing, me and 5 of my very close friends leave for a mission trip to the Dominican Republic on Saturday! I cannot even begin to explain to you how excited I am for sunshine and 80+ degree weather :)

Last year, I went on the same mission trip with two of my friends, Kathryn and Hayley. Seeing as I have been on this trip before I have a a very good idea of what to expect and what I am going to see. Although, there are 3 girls who will experience their first mission trip over the next week. Please pray that God will prepare all of our hearts as we enter an area that has been violently stricken by poverty and disaster. Many of the people we will encounter will have severe health problems, extremely poor living conditions, little to no family and no knowledge of our Savior and what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Among the villages we will visit there will be many Haitians as well as Dominicans. After the hurricane hit Haiti in 2010, many Haitians did not have a place to go, so many immigrated to the Dominican Republic to escape the terror and political unrest that Haiti had been experiencing.

[Kathryn, Hayley and I getting our hair braided by girls from a near by village

on our trip that we took in 2011!]

Sunday Jan. 29th, will be our first full day in the Dominican Republic and we will use that as a day to recover from jet lag, rest and prepare for the week ahead. For the rest of the week, we will spend a majority of each day in a different village. The medical teams will set up a doctor's office along with a pharmacy, dental station and a vision station. Seeing as we have no experience in vision, health or dental care our main focus will be to entertain children and help out with VBS activities. Throughout the week we will attend different churches around town. We have the opportunity to spend Friday, our last full day, at a near by public pool hanging out with the team, salsa dancing and having a blast.

[Above is a church we attended on our last trip. This church in particular had an impact on my heart. It didn't matter to these people that the church had no windows and was unfinished. What mattered was that they had a place to worship and spend time in fellowship with one another. Nothing else mattered. This would never be something that you would see in the U.S. But perhaps it should be. Many times we worry incredibly too much about the outward appearance and we never really look inside to see what is really there. Many of us are even afraid to look that deep inside in fear of what we might find.]

We will fly into Santo Domingo and drive about 3-4 hours to the little town of Hato Mayor. By the time we finally get to the complex where we are staying it will be about 11 pm Saturday night. We will be staying in a gated and locked missionary compound. If you are looking for more information on the group we are traveling with check out the website below:

http://www.meetinggodinmissions.com/

If you are looking for a way to support us, prayer is ALWAYS welcome and VERY much appreciated. Please pray for: preparation of our hearts and minds, guidance for doctors, dentists, and ophthalmologists, safety and health, communication with Dominicans/Haitians and that God will give us the words and tools necessary to touch the hearts of the people we come into contact with. Also pray for the hearts of the team members, that they too will be impacted by what they see and experience. Pray for a positive and incredible experience for all, and that we leave with a new and improved mindset than we came with. I cannot thank you enough for your prayers and support.

I will not be blogging while I'm in the Dominican Republic, but I will most definitely give you an update on how the trip went and post pictures when I return.

-Hannah

"Shine your light and let the whole world see."