I can’t believe that it’s already been 5 months since I’ve moved to Korea and started a new chapter in my life. It’s crazy how fast time flies by… These past 5 months have been the hardest, loneliest, challenging, rewarding, and best 5 months of my life thus far. On the outside it may not seem like much—I spend most of my days at home with my mom & workout for a couple of hours at the gym in my apartment. Some days I’ll go out shopping with my mom, and on Fridays and Sundays I spend time at New Philly. Even though I haven’t been doing much, God has been doing SO much—there has been crazy breakthrough for me and I’m starting to see it overflow into my family as well.

When I came to Korea I faced a lot of doubt, fear, and uncertainty about what my purpose was and what I was going to do. I felt a little lost because I left my friends and the life I built back in Virginia, and I was kind of overwhelmed of having to start from the bottom again. Even though I left a lot of things behind in Virginia, I brought all the struggles, bondage, and deceptions of the enemy along with me.

I’ve been overweight for the majority of my life, and starting from a young age (around 10/11) I started to struggle with my self-image and my self-worth. It got really bad starting in middle school where I began to fall into depression because of how much I hated the way I looked, and I felt I had no value or worth because I didn’t fit the standard of beauty that the world held. Sometimes friends would joke around about it, but I would try not to pay attention. I would meet people and they would say things such as “Oh, you have pretty features,” which I took to mean that individually I might have nice features, but they don’t look good put together on my face. Other comments I received frequently were “I bet you would be really pretty if you lost weight,” or “You know more people would like you if you lost weight/were prettier.” Through these comments I let the enemy deceive me into thinking my value as a person was in the way I looked, and I let that lie control the way I lived for so long.

When I moved to Korea I made a vow to myself to get healthier. I started to eat a lot healthier and exercised more. What started as a good thing quickly spiraled downward into something that consumed my life. I became obsessed with what I ate, how much I worked-out, and ultimately how much I weighed. I would weigh myself multiple times a day, and when I gained only 0.2lbs, it would destroy me and I let it dictate how my day would go. I let the weight that I saw on the scale and the image I saw in the mirror determine who I was and what my value was.

Even though I’ve gotten prayer for this by many people so many times, and I’ve had countless people affirm me in this area, I was still living under the deception. It wasn’t until this past weekend at the New Philly retreat that it was finally broken off FOR GOOD. One of the guest speakers, Pastor Sunhee Robinson, preached a powerful message on Saturday morning, and one of the things that she said that really spoke to me was when she said “The grace for the old level has run out.” The theme of the retreat was “Display of His Splendor,” based off of Isaiah 60, and it was about how God is shifting us into a new dispensation / level so that we could truly be the display of His splendor. When Pastor Sunhee said that the grace has run out, I felt like God saying that in order for me to get to this new level I need to stop falling under the deceptions and the bondage that God has already freed me from. God wants to propel me to something higher, but because I’m still battling the low-level demons that I’ve already had victory over, I was stuck at the old level.

After receiving prayer at an altar call, I felt a lot of peace and joy, and I realized that my battle with my self-image is over FOREVER. The freedom / victory God gave me is eternal, and it can’t be taken away. No matter how much the enemy tries to lie or deceive me, I’ve finally learned that I can’t move by what I see in the natural—I move by the sound of God’s voice and at His word. I choose to walk in the Spirit, so even when my circumstances or my emotions are saying something completely opposite, I will choose to believe in what God says. If the God, the definer and definition of beauty calls me beautiful, worthy, and loved, who am I to go against that word?

It’s only been 5 months, but it has been a crazy journey thus far. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do in the second half of the Year of Increase, and for the next few years I’m in Korea. I feel so blessed that God brought me to Korea and to New Philly. I am so blessed that God is good, faithful, full of love, and has given me full access to freedom through His Spirit.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

-2 Corinthians 2:17

I’ve been working on this one paper for my International Organization & Law class (which is due tomorrow) for the last 4 days, when I should have started on it a long time ago. Honestly, this has been one of the hardest papers I’ve ever written. Usually when I write papers for my classes, my professors always give us exactly what they’re looking for, and all I need to do is find the information about the question they’re asking. But for the first time, I had to pick my own topic, do my own research, and decide what I think is important and relevant.

I hated this paper at first (and I still kind of dislike it because it’s taking me forever), but looking at it now, it’s making me actually learn about something as I’m doing research to be able to write it. I figured that if I had to spend a lot of time working on this paper and doing research for it, I might as well do something that I find interesting so I picked the topic of: The Effects of Globalization on Child Labor.

Globalization isn’t all that interesting to me, but the issue / crisis of child labor has always been something I was slightly curious and interested in, and I can honestly say that I’ve learned so much in the last few days about this topic. One of the things I need to do for my paper is write / discuss a case study of child labor in a specific country or region, and I just happened to pick Africa as one of the countries.

Did you know that…

• Africa has the highest proportion of working children (in comparison to other regions such as Asia & Latin America / Caribbean)?
• 65 million children in Africa (or 1 in every 4 children) are child laborers?
• while rates of child labor are decreasing in the Asia-Pacific, Latin American & Caribbean regions, it’s actually increasing in Africa?
• sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 47% of the world’s out-of-school children?
• in sub-Saharan Africa over 7,000 people die due to AIDS everyday?
• around 200,000 children in western Africa are traded / trafficked every year?
• over 40% of the child soldier problem is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa?

Truthfully, I didn’t know any of these things before working on this paper. And I’m not writing all this down to make people feel bad for not knowing it, or trying to get people to want to change the world or anything like that. But I think that learning these things and having my eyes opened to them has given me even greater conviction to go to Africa for missions.

God has placed Africa on my heart so that I may love on His children. I know that I personally can’t do anything to help these children without the power and love of Christ. And I’ve realized that I need to pray for them as well—the only thing I really can do is to pray for them and love on them.

I feel kind of dorky for dedicating a tumblr post to writing about school & my paper that I have to write, but I think this shows me that God can and will use anything to speak to us and show us the desires of His heart. Even though I might not get to work with any children who fall under this category when I go to Africa, God is still calling me to love on them and to cover them in prayer.

The last few weeks have been such an encouragement lately. I’ve definitely had my struggles spiritually, but God continues to reveal that is He is so much greater than anything else.

One thing I feel grateful for is that I feel like God has really been encouraging me with the missions trip that I’m planning for this upcoming winter break. There were a lot of times that I doubted myself and felt stressed about picking a location & whatnot. Even after I had picked the destination to Africa, I would still doubt if that was TRULY where God wanted to send a team, and I was kind of getting worried about it. I was actually thinking / worrying about this as I was on the bus on the way to campus for class, but I tried not to concentrate too much on it so I just looked out the window and happened to glance at the clouds. The first shape I saw was a heart, and I thought it was cute & encouraging because I was also struggling a little with being able to accept God’s love, so I felt more at ease. It was kind of windy that day, so the clouds were moving & changing shapes, so as I continued to look at this heart shaped cloud, it started to change into a shape of Africa. I was completely awestruck at this, and I didn’t even know what to think. I wanted to cry, laugh, and smile at the same time. I feel like this just showed me even more that this is where He wants to send a team, and also it was just encouraging and reassuring that God took His time out to show me this to help erase all doubt and to continue to trust in Him.

Sometimes I feel like it’s so hard to completely give all of my trust because I can’t visibly see Him, or tangibly touch Him, but it’s little moments like these that make me forget all the doubts and insecurities. This great, almighty, and powerful God LOVES ME and is always fighting for me. He always surrounds us with encouragements from Him, but sometimes we miss it because we’re not paying attention or being open to the Spirit. There are so many encouraging Sisters & Brothers out there, but God is the greatest encourager of all.

I can’t believe it’s already April! This semester has gone by SO fast; soon enough it’ll be finals then SUMMER!

But I’m pretty stressed out. I only have a semester left after this, and I have no idea how I’m going to get a job. I’ve been applying to internships, but haven’t gotten any. :( What am I doing with my life? Sometimes I feel like I chose the wrong major…what if I can’t get a job? What am I supposed to do after I graduate?

It sucks having to be stressed about all these things, so I just need to stand firm & trust in the Lord that He will provide me with whatever I need. Easier said than done, but hopefully I’ll be able to just lay everything before Him & follow wherever He leads.

But….I would still like an internship…..

So for spring break this year, I spent my time in D.C. helping out with the ministry, Little Lights. I didn’t really know what to expect during my time there, but I wasn’t expecting to come back home with as many blessings as I did, but of course God ALWAYS seems to go above & beyond any expectations I could ever have.

Honestly, before this trip I didn’t really have a huge heart for the inner-city kids. But after this week God really broke me and showed me the love He has for these kids, and I feel like my heart has changed as well.

This spring break was tiring due to the lack of sleep. I would be lucky if I got around 5 hours of sleep at night, and even though there were moments where I thought it would be impossible to make it through the rest of the day, I just had to rely on God & His strength to keep me going.

I learned a lot this last week, but I don’t think it would have been as much of a good experience if it was not only for the staff there, but also most importantly the team that I worked with. I was worried a little at first since there would be two different fellowships serving, but I got MADDD blessed by both groups. I feel like God really allowed us to be united & serve together, & its kinda weird how much I already miss everyone. But to everyone from the CCF & GCF Little Lights team, it was such an honor to serve with all of you, and I was blessed in so many ways. I hope that no matter what you all do, you will all live for the glory of God & continued to be blessed. I miss you guys! <3