Hello from Vancouver!

So it's finally begun! I am currently sitting in an airport in Vancouver waiting for my next connecting flight, and by this time tomorrow I will be in Micronesia!

It's completely surreal and a little overwhelming that it's finally here, and I still have so many worries, doubts and fears. I'm trying to remember why I signed up for this in the first place... Why I willingly decided to leave everyone and everything I love behind and why I decided to fly across the world over the next two days. It's hard to remember sometimes; our minds cling so tightly to certain memories but so easily forget others, they become foggy as time passes, like something from a dream. I'm straining my mind to remember the night, the night I felt called.
And then it comes to me...

I had been crying, wailing really...wondering why I was created, wondering what my purpose is here, begging God to tell me His will for life. He answered through scripture and told me to go and bring His love to people who needed it, to people who hadn't experienced it yet.
A few weeks later Iris Ministries seemed to plop into my lap and I knew without a doubt I was supposed to go because going was EXACTLY what I didn't want to do. The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was go to Micronesia...but I could feel that nagging in my gut, and I knew this was what God wanted.

Sitting in this airport right now I am so thankful I made the right choice and didn't let my selfish desires get in the way. I have worries, I have fears, I have doubts... I have no idea what awaits me on this strange small island noone has ever heard of, and I also have no idea what awaits me when I get home...but as I think back to the night God told me to go, and as I think back to the smiling faces of the people I love I know one thing:

I am supposed to go and I am supposed to love, because someone came and gave up everything to love me. 
Not only that, but now I want to.

<3

P.S. Isn't it the worst when you realize you were sleeping on the plane with your mouth open and drooling? Well it's way worse when you realize you were also babbling and yelling in your sleep! true story.

I May Have Just Pooped My Pants

SIX DAYS AND COUNTING!!

And thus I have officially pooped my pants.
I mean I havn't checked yet but I can definitley feel something squishy in there. haha just kidding.
Or am I?

I have NO IDEA what to expect out there! And since I'm the girl who makes checklists just for fun this isn't exactly my comfort zone. I have no idea what the people will be like, if my shoes will give me blisters, if my hair will frizz up like my finger is in an electrical socket, if I'll be able to love well, if I will be eaten by a shark...that's if the cockaroaches don't get me first.
Gulp.

So many exciting ifs, so many new adventures to experience!
I can't wait!

PICTURES! Hey!

The BEST thing about the praries? (For non canadians - I'm talking about Manitoba.)

Those prarie skies! Here ares some pics I took out at Lake Brereton the other weekend!

Well not the first one, the first ones just my face.

Good thing I pointed that out to you huh?

Right? Right?
I think I'm falling a little bit in love with Canada.

They Eat WHAT In Micronesia??

Raw fish.

That's right you heard me.
R A W   F I S H.

I hate fish of the cooked varitey...but raw? That's just fishy if you ask me!
haha. Oh dear.

Also, I read someone's post about a 3 inch cockroach that was flying at her face.


3 inch bugs
&
raw fish.

God has a sense of humor people.
What have I got myself into?


8 days and counting!

Confession

I have a confession.

Sometimes I doubt God,
I doubt that He excists. I doubt that He is Good.
I doubt that He loves me. I doubt the cross, and that it was enough.
Sometimes I am FULL of rage and anger,
especially towards God...
mostly because I feel like He hasn't delivered.

Yesterday I was so mad at God I told Him He was an asshole and I hated Him; I didn't want salvation anymore, He could take it back (I feel sick knowing I thought those things). I'm a thrower when I'm really crazy mad and so I imagined myself throwing things at God. For some reason what I had in my hands were tomatoes. I let the first one fly, and in that throw I put the force of my dissapointment, of my pain, hurt, anger, all of it. I watched it go, then watched as it splattered onto Jesus, hanging on the cross...I looked around. I was standing in the crowd of people screaming "CRUCIFY HIM!" The same ones who earlier had yelled, "HOSANNA! HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST!"

See they had worshipped a God of their desires. When they thought Jesus was restoring Jeruselum to power and prestige and he'd crush Roman rule they rejoiced and followed Him; they were willing to worship THAT king. But when they realized He spoke of a different Kingdom, and wasn't coming to deliver what they wanted they became a murderous mob and were willing to take the LIFE of this man because of it.
And so was I.

We all felt entitled to better, to more.
One thing I've learned is that entitlement is a dangerous feeling to have...

When I realized what I had become, and what I was doing I wept. I wept and dropped my tomatoes onto the ground, the red splattering over my shoes. I looked at Jesus on the cross, broken, bleeding, skin ripped from his body...and wept.
But the anger remained.

And then I covered my face with my hands and sank to my knees still weeping. I suddenly felt hands on me pulling my hands away from my face. I looked up, and the cross was empty!
And I heard Jesus say it, proclaim it.
"The cross is empty Yasemee. The cross is empty."

I knew that should give me peace, but it didn't. My entitlement, my anger had hardened my heart. And that scared me. I begged God to melt my heart, to bring me back to Him, to help me love Him again.

He did that today in ways I didn't expect.
But I learned that I never want to worship a fake Jesus, or hate the real one because He doesn't deliver exactly what I wanted. I want to love Him for who He is.
He is hard to follow, He is hard to understand, He is not happiness and rainbows all the time, His sayings are hard, He is not safe....but oh, He is SO Good!.
Who else can be all these things and be them so perfectly that they give life? Even his discipline is reason to rejoice!
I only know of one man like that. And I intend to follow him because He is just that:
He is everything, all in one.
The cross is empty.
The price was paid.

This morning I was listening to itunes, I didn't want to hear anything about God because I was still so angry with him...but my computer suddenly cut off and skipped to this spoken word.

The Lost Sheep by Nick Vitellaro

And The Countdown Begins!

10 DAYS UNTIL I LEAVE FOR MICRONESIA!!!
(it'll be 9 days in about 27 minutes!)

I can't believe it is really happening.
I am really going on an adventure! And I'm so excited! I can't wait! To meet new people, see new lands, experience a totally different way of life, bring Christ to people? It's everything I never knew I always wanted!!
The only thing missing is an Indiana Jones hat and whip...hey, I'm working on it.

I'm also incredibly sad.
For some reason this trip feels like a goodbye and I guess in some ways it is.

It's goodbye to the me I am now, because I know I will be radically changed.
It's goodbye to my current diet, because I will be forced to eat fish...ones I may even have speared myself! :/
It's goodbye to my fears, because I'm facing them.
It's goodbye to my family, whom I love dearly.
And it's goodbye to my friends, the people who have become family...the people who bring me closer to God...the people who feel like home.

How blessed am I to have so many wonderful things and people to say goodbye to?!

Lately I've been looking forward to every season of my life.
I'm looking forward to Micronesia, I'm looking forward to coming home, I'm looking forward to university & apartment hunting, I'm looking forward to ministry, and marriage, and kids, and friends, and old age. ALL of it. :)

I used to think it was a sin to want to enjoy life. It made me feel like I didn't love God.
But I am happy to be alive, you only live once and I want to do it right...
right in the arms of my saviour, huge smile on my face, hair blowing in the wind, with my trusty whip at my side, and my hat in my hands...ready for this adventure...
this one crazy and wild adventure called life.

Good ol' Indi.

The Ugly Little Duckling

A few posts back I talked about the undercurrent of guilt in my life. Turned out guilt wasn't the root, guilt a branch on the rotten tree but the root was expectation.
The belief that I had to EARN love because noone loved me and noone ever would; I had to work for it, and do anything/everything it took to get that love. That created expectations, which are exhausting to live under. And God showed me that I have no idea who I actually am.

I'm trying to strip off the expectations now.
Slowly peel back their rotten layers...
I'm not sure what I'll find underneath and I'm afraid...but you know what? It kind of feels like an adventure. And I feel like Micronesia is a BIG part of that. Maybe when I'm giving my love away, instead of trying to win it from others, I'll learn a few things about God and about myself...the me I really am when I'm not pretending.

A few weeks ago I went on a run. (I'm trying to get into running, right now I'm averaging once every 3 weeks haha.) But while I was running God spoke to me pretty powerfully.

I was exhausted and decided to take a breather down by the river. I walked by a small bench down towards the bank. And there I saw a little duck.
He was a baby, the age that ducks are when they first leave their little duck families. Just like me.
He was alone. Blue and purple feathers were sticking out of his random tufts.
He would swim back and forth along the bank, and then tentativley and slowly creep onto the bank before getting scared and jumping back into the water. I watched with a smile on my face and God said to me,

"That's you. All new, and excited, and passionate and fiery. I love your passion and your fire, it makes me smile and laugh. I love you. You are swimming on a big river, but guilt is not the undercurrent of your life...I am. And the same river that leads you to the bank, and the same river that gives you food and water, and the same river that leads you to your destiny...will one day lead you home, to me..into my arms.
Swim and fly, little duckling. I love you."

So God is leading me, He is leading me deeper into Himself and deeper into me. I am learning & I am meeting myself for what may be the very first time.
I am new. I am excited. I am passionate. I am fiery.
I like it.

And like the little ugly duckling, my feet are too big for my body, and my feathers are just poking through tufts...but my Jesus loves me, and flows beneath me and all around me.
And He is guiding me home.

I Remember You

My heart is fragile...full of insecurities and doubts. Doubts about myself.
I'm afraid that no one will like me, that no one will love me.
I've been trying to be somebody for everybody my whole life, even with Jesus.
And I got tired, and I ran away from Him in my heart.

But tonight, I remembered.
I remembered what it felt like when I fell in love.
It felt like rain, soul drenching rain..the kind that leaves your chest heaving.
And I remembered what it felt like to take His hand because it felt like the wind, when it whispers through the trees.
And I remembered the sound of his voice, because it felt like the waters that rushed over my feet and in between my painted toes, the coolness making my breath catch, making me come fully alive.

Tonight I painted him a picture, wrote him a poem. It was my heart made into words, each beat became a syllable redefined and written, forming slow words. They weren't right or perfect...just my heart, pen to paper.
And I remembered.

I remembered because as I held my breath waiting for the sting of rejection, waiting for the echo of the words "try harder" I felt a calloused hand against my cheek.
I opened my eyes, and there were His, filled with tears as He pulled me close.
It was a tight embrace. We clung to eachother and wept...and I remembered.
Slowly we began to dance, to move as the stars sang their heavenly song above us. As the trees whispered the chorus, and the mountains hummed along.

I remembered His love for me.
He does love me.

Broken.
Ugly.
Sinful.
Liar.
Insecure.
Selfish.
Self obsessed.
Conceated.
Traitor.
Cheater.
Whore.
Unworthy.

These are the things that I name myself.
But I look into His eyes, and I see the truth.
He loves me.
And in that, because of that...I am none of these things, I am everything more.
I am

Beautiful.
Redeemed.
Loved.
Worthy.
Pure.
Righteous.
Funny.
Joyful.
Loyal.
Passionate.
Naked.


I remember.
I AM my beloved's...and He is mine.