How you can help

If you have read my previous blog, you know where I am headed in the very near future. If you would like to help* me get there, please send your donation to :

Operation Mobilization

PO Box 444

Tyrone, GA

30290-0444

..Or, donate to my account online at :

omusa.org

You need to include my account number as well if you are writing a check. Please contact me for this information at:

empT_meofme@yahoo.com

To give you an idea of what I need to cover my expenses, I have to collect about $2300. $700 of that needs to be in my account by the end of December. Aside from that amount, I will need to purchase tickets. It seems like a lot, but I have a God that works under impossible circumstances, and turns them to reality!

*note: i am accepting prayer by the truckload as well !

Thank you for your support. prayer changes lives.

"I'll Say Yes, Lord, I'll Say Yes"

I have stepped out and made the decision to go to Moldova. Many, many thanks to those who have already offered support. I will need lots of prayer.

At this point, I know there is no way that I can come up with the funds I need in less than 2 months. It's a humanly impossible feat. The good news is, I have a Father, who is a King. I am His daughter. When He opens a door, no man can shut it, and when He closes one, it cannot be opened. He is the owner of all the cattle on a thousand hills. He is my Provider. He will provide. If He chooses to use some of your cattle as part of that providing, then to you I am sincerely grateful. He will provide for you too. Just imagine what an impact you can have from your very own home. You can reach children and people of another language and culture, by supporting someone whom God is sending on your behalf!

I don't have it all together, and frankly, there is a lot that I don't know or understand about this trip. What I do know is that I will be leaving for Moldova at some point in February. I will be there 3 months, at the end of which time, I plan to return home. I will be ministering in some fashion in poor villages to people that I may have met before on my last trip to this area in May 2009. I'm sure there will be many opportunities for children's ministry. I will be partnering with OM(Operation Mobilisation) Moldova and joining a team that is ministering already in Moldova.

More details will follow soon, as I find out more information.

Thank you for holding me up in prayer.

Please remember in prayer the people I will come in contact with while over there.

Pray for scheduling of flights, and safe travel.

Pray that the Lord does in me all that He desires on this trip.

Ask God to keep teaching me trust. This is a huge step for me to make, but I know my God is with me. He says in Psalm 139, that He will be with me, and guide me even in the uttermost parts of the sea. He says He will be with me wherever I go. I am leaning hard on Him for this one. He is so strong.

even there

It is one of my favorite psalms that has partially inspired this note.

Pslam 139:10 says "Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me." As a note in my margin by this verse, I have written, "where is YOUR 'even there'?"

Let me explain a little.

I am in the middle of a big decision again regarding overseas missions. I felt that I could relax for a bit after this summer since I was a part of two short term trips. I was ready to be home for a while. Can you really relax when God has a call on your life? I think I have come to the conclusion that I can't. It didn't take long before I began to feel that itching to be gone again, and to be a part of what God is doing overseas. So I inquired about a longer trip, because I had found that 2 weeks really was too short.

To make a long story short, I have plans to go back to Moldova in the early part of 2010. These plans are still sketchy, and I am doing a lot of praying about them, because, unlike my other trips, I will not be traveling with a team. I have never ventured out into something like this before, so I am a little apprehensive. I know God is for me, and if He has opened this door, no man can shut it-not even me.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I need a lot of prayer, and real fast prayer. I have to make decisions very soon....almost like yesterday, and I just need assurance from the Lord.

Please join me in prayer about this opportunity, and if God puts it on your heart to help me financially, I would be most grateful as well. I don't know the details of what this trip will cost, but I know I have a Father who owns all the cattle on a thousand hills.

So..my 'even there' at this point, is not necessarily Moldova, but right now. This time of being unsure, and, yes, a little fearful of the unknown. This is the place where I need God to meet me, and reassure me of His presence.

Thank you for your love and support!

He Gives and Takes Away

This morning my grandpa Ed Phillips passed away following a bad stroke, and brain damage, as well as a very irregular pulse that could not be corrected. He was 86 years old.

31 years ago on October 19, Grandpa died in the hospital-his heart stopped for 17 minutes, and was even pushed to another room as dead. He has lived through many close calls over the years. We are grateful to the Lord that he has been with us for this long.

He left behind one sister, one half brother, 10 grown children, and many grandchildren and great grandchildren. He was loved dearly, and will be greatly missed.

My family had the privilege of spending a couple weeks at a time with Grandpa on a couple different occasions in the past 2 years when he traveled up here via the train from Missouri, the last being in June of this year.

Arrangements for the funeral are being prepared, and the family will gather in their hometown of St. Louis, MO to remember Grandpa.

missions update

Friends and Family,

I'm just getting started at this-it's all a little new to me-but I hope that this page can help some of you to get better informed about what's going on with me in regards to missions.

Saturday night, I was able to set up visuals and share here at the camp about the two trips God enabled me to be a part of this year through OM(Operation Mobilization).

In May, Moldova(E. Europe) was the destination of the small 7 man team I was a part of. Come August, joining another larger team, of 16 team members, I was off to Namibia(S.West Africa). Both of these missions trips were short term, only about 2 weeks in length. The main thrust of each mission was to come alongside local churches and missionaries and strengthen them in their work in these foreign countries. OM does not seek to travel to an overseas country to take charge, but to be a helping hand. So with this in mind, as a team, we brought help to these places through children's programs, youth ministry, women's Bible studies, singing, testifying, sharing the Word in church services, strengthening believers, and praying with the nationals. Often we simply reached out with the love of God through practical means.

In Moldova, this may have been experienced through helping an elderly woman hand-wash her clothes, or lend a hand with paperwork at the mission house in Chisinau. In Namibia, teaching sign language to a school teacher, sharing food, or picking up trash along the roadside. With each little act of kindness, the Lord was instilling in us as a team, life lessons we will not too easily forget.

I began to learn, and still am yet learning, that often God does His most life-changing work when we least expect it. Who would think that giving a hug to a child, or sitting quietly next to an elderly person, listening to their story retold through a translator, or any number of small seemingly insignificant things could ever make an impact on someone's life?

We often look for the HUGE things, such as being able to lead someone in prayer as they make a decision to trust Christ, that will make an impact on a life. But, what does Jesus see as important? Jesus took time to hold little children, and to listen to Nicodemus in the middle of the night. He touched the leper, and sat and ate with sinners. I know God has continued to teach me that perceiving things through His eyes is so much more beneficial than trying to discern through the natural eye, or with the limited intellect we call our own. Again and again He speaks to me to 'see with the Spirit's eyes; understand with the mind of Christ'-

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in

Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be made equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above all names, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow,

of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. 2:5-11