My Life is Changed!

I have a major personal testimony and two minor ones to share in this update!

God Woke Me Up, Literally 

Around 2:30 this morning I awoke drenched in sweat and began having a vision that I was toiling, carrying someone else’s burdens. God explained to me, “That’s what someone on your team is experiencing,” and I immediately thought of Madelynn, who told us the night before about a friend who would be having a c-section at 5:00pm our time, and Madelynn wanted to intercede for that friend in prayer during the operation. When I began to think about Madelynn toiling on her own, the vision shifted to Madelynn and I slowly carrying the burden together. “That’s beautiful imagery; thanks, God,” I thought to myself as I tried to go back to sleep. But God told me that she was shouldering someone else’s burden in that very moment, and she’s not supposed to do it alone.

I crawled out of bed and pulled on some clothes. In the living room, Madelynn was praying with her Bible open. I didn’t know she would still be awake, but I wasn’t surprised. I told her why I came out to join her (as best as I could explain in my sleepy state). She then told me her friend’s operation got bumped up and was already underway, so we prayed together. I prayed that her friends’ baby would live into the significance of his name. I had no idea what his name would be, but Madelynn told me afterward that his name had already been chosen, and it did hold great significance! Maybe you’ll have to subscribe to her blog too to get more of that story!

tl;dr God woke me up to pray with a teammate who was interceding late into the night. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

Witnessing to a Hobbit

After an improvized change of plans due the closure of the museum we drove to, one cool place we had the opportunity to visit was a man’s home/inn-in-progress designed after the architecture of the Shire from Lord of the Rings. We paid a small fee to tour Emil’s attraction, the unfinished inn structurally connected to his underground home. It’s built inside and out to resemble Bilbo’s residence, Bag End. Emil was a fun guy and was clearly living a very different lifestyle than the missionaries surrounding me. We had fun talking and joking with him. He offered Jacob and I tuica, romania’s famous plum brandy. We accepted the offer, which I think didn’t please our host. Emil was then feeling comfortable and connected with us to the point that when Madelynn asked Emil if she could pray for him before we left, he immediately responded “Yes.” She and I prayed with Emil. As I stood with them, I had a clear vision of a short American woman in her 60s visiting Emil’s finished hobbit hole and enthusiastically explaining to a him all the parallels between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the Gospel. When the prayer ended, Emil began to share unsolicited vulnerability about his life and divorce with us seemingly because he simply knew that we cared about him and could be trusted. Now we can only trust and hope that the vision was prophetic and that Emil will one day embrace Christ’s liberating love. Maybe our unplanned visit with Emil was to God’s plan for us to plant seeds for this purpose. 

tl;dr Make meaningful relationships with people who you happen to share some of this life with, and plant good seeds in their life. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:6-7.

My Deliverance from Depression

Our team was put in charge of Performing a rather emotionally heavy dance drama for a big event on a national holiday. The day before the event, we drove into Craiova together, and I started to feel an emotional and mental weight assail me the moment we crossed into the city limits. Throughout that day, I experienced uncharacteristic doubts and insecurities. I was questioning my friendships here as well as stressing about responsibilities that I normally just confront without hesitation. During that day, our ministry host and his wife each separately told me Craiova is a city with a lot of spiritual darkness, and the enemy is most likely to try attacking team leaders like me. Did I mention it was also November 30, the day of St. Andrew’s Feast, the day of the year Romanian witches (and there’s surprisingly many) cast spells late into the night? 

When I met with my team that day, I told them about the spiritual oppression I was feeling, and they all prayed over me and we anointed one another. What we expected to be a 20-minute team time turned into two hours, and at some point in that time it clicked with me; I knew exactly what weakness the enemy was trying to exploit. Since my early teenage years I had struggled with depression. God had delivered me from it in 2018; that year I realized my depression was a liar. It had always told me I’m not loved, and at times I believed that lie and let it cause me harm. In February 2018 I was going through a really difficult time, including the prolonged and agonizing death of my marriage, but I invited so many people into my suffering. Many of them were transformationally supportive. I came to internalize that I truthfully am loved even when I don’t feel like I am. I was delivered from the spirit of depression! But I did not fully accept my freedom.

Fast forward to training camp for the World Race. One night while laying in my tent, I had a vision (not a dream; I was awake). In the vision my younger self was acting like his leg was stuck between porch rails, but it was evident there was enough space for the leg to come out easily. That revealed to me that something from my early teenage years had me trapped, but only because I was allowing it to trap me–as if using it as an excuse–even though freedom was right there. The night of St. Andrew’s feast, nearly three months after the vision, I finally realized what it was, specifically, that was holding me back in the vision: even though I had already been freed from my depression, I had still been living in agreement with my heavy heart, something I thought of as a part of my identity. So, after our team time, I told my roommate I would soon need to do a confession for deliverance (but it was late that particular night, and time for bed).

The next day, after our big event, everyone on the squad in Craiova gathered together in a church to decompress the spiritual heaviness of the day. While my squadmates were praying together, I entered into contemplative prayer, abiding in God and praying with Him. During that time, He was giving me words of wisdom for several members of the squad, including Sophie (more on that soon), and in each case I asked the Lord if I should get up and tell them what was said through the Spirit. He answered, “Not now. Abide in me.” And so I did. Then he gave me words for Dezarae, and she was sitting next to me. I was permitted to share them, but I think more than the words were for her, they were to get the conversation started for what happened next.

Very shortly after I spoke to Dezarae, she returned the volley, praying Isaiah chapter 61 over me. The verses well reflected what I needed right in that moment (and Dez would not have known this; she isn’t on the team I shared with). “Freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” She prayed for deliverance over me, and when she finished I stood up and resolved, “Ok, let’s go. Let’s do it now. Deliverance.” The Spirit told me to bring Sophie, so I asked her to come pray for me. She followed us to the back corner where I knelt down as the two women prayed over me. First I prayed Thanksgiving for the deliverance I had received in 2018, then I prayed confession of many ways in which I had let depression harm me and others during my teenage years (I was confessing to some dark stuff). Finally, I asked forgiveness for not having fully accepted the deliverance God had given me, praying my gift of feeling emotions deeply could be used to connect with and uplift others rather than to inspire self-pity. At this point I was sobbing, body shaking, voice trembling. I ended the prayer by coming out of submission to my heavy heart with the words, “God, I don’t want it anymore!” Within one breath my body completely stopped trembling, I didn’t feel anymore need to cry, and my voice normalized. I could then, in clear speech, share God’s words for Sophie, which He had given me earlier. The immediacy of my freedom was both visible and audible, not to mention powerfully experiential.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

What am I spending on?

For financial accountability to donors who contributed personal spending money, and so you can all delight with me in things I’m enjoying in the field, here’s everything I’ve paid for with donated personal money since my last update (and some of these expenses were offset by thriftiness with my meal allowance):

• 75 RON, or $16.29: entrance to Emil’s Hobbit hole, the Clay Castle of Faeries, and Povestea Calendarului (“the story of the calender”), a place with an attraction for each month (additional cost of the October haunted house included here)
• 30 RON, or $6.52: admission to Fagaraş Fortress/museum
• 8.69 RON, or $1.89: conditioner for my suffering hair in this cold, dry weather
• 24 RON, or $5.21: second-hand sweater and scarf
• 253 RON, or $55: transport to Therme, Europe’s largest spa, and access to all 3 levels

Literally everything else (lodging, airfare, local transport, 3 meals a day, professional mentorship, etc.) is covered by the donations you all made. Thank you so much! And special thanks to those who are continuing to give even after my funding was complete! You make it possible for me to have cool adventures!!

What do you want to hear?

Questions and comments are always appreciated, and they help me know people are following along and praying for me. If there is anything you want to know, please ask so I have the opportunity to share more!

The entirety of this blog and its contents were written and published without any AI assistance.