my ramblings

God. "Yes, Nikki?" Why am I writing this? "Because I asked you to" Simple enough. "Truth"

"Trust. Tell 'em about trust" Trust is something new for me. Ok, not really, but my relationship with you and trust it just goes deeper. "I'm taking you to new levels of intimacy" Yea. And I'm flippin out about 'em. "Notice how unconcerned I am" That's pretty nice. "People need to know that they can hear my voice and trust it" And my writing is going to help change that? "Most definitely. It's really simple. I talk, you listen. You talk, I listen. It changes things" Like what kind of things? "Like happy things"

This is me, not trekking with you. "I delight in you, so I change things for you so you'll be happy" Seems pretty one-sided. "It isn't. It goes back to the basics of trust. You trust me, I change things for you. It's really simple, really easy. Really simple, really easy. Really simple, really easy. Always"

"What have I told you before?" That if it's complicated, it's not from you. "How 'bout that!" It's like you set me up for success. "Indeed. I do"

another random adventure

Nepal. I kept getting confused about where it was. Not to mention the fact that we were so close to China, and by close, I mean we saw the red line that if crossed would lead us into Tibet. How long did it take me to realize Tibet was China? Too long. What if I just write and don't really edit? Could be fun. And random.

I learned that God stays exceptionally close to me. He's also so much fun. I got to trek the freaking Himalayas with some of my closest friends, share really awkward cultural moments together, see Jesus come face to face with His creation. Namely, me.

I love going overseas, I love traveling, I love being in new cultures, but so many times in sharing Jesus with people I get stuff in return. Or every time. I go to Haiti to help with a housing project, and I walk away with deep friendship with God, where He stays up watching movies with me, reading with me, talking with me.

He's hilarious.

One day in Nepal, we're in town sharing Jesus with people. We get in this funny situation where we are in conversation with these people 2 stories up (we're on ground level). They come down, a rain storm starts, so they invite us up til the storm passes. We share Jesus with them, and our translator (a believer) gets in a huge discussion with them, which was great but complicated, because he would pause to explain what he was saying, and then they'd all jump back into asking questions, leaving us somewhat listening as he led them to Christ.

While this is going on, Twilight is playing in the background, full English version. My first thought was "Oh man, look away, don't watch that!" And I heard God say, "Why? Can't I put it on for your enjoyment?" I mean, crap. I was offended.

My thoughts went something like "Uh.....Um. Uhh. Yea. I guess you can. I can enjoy this? Is this wrong? What's happening?" I felt like my mind was like Morse Code, just bouncing everywhere piecing together yet again the fact that God's not religious.

I'd been so boxed up in what I felt like God expected of me, that I missed just enjoying things. Nothing like being slapped in the face with something fun to re-awaken that. That's what's so fun about Him. Everything!!!

In sharing God with people, He always brings deep revelations for me. I go to share with someone, and I always get another insight into how much He cares for me. Personally. Or into how much He knows me, loves being around me, and sharing experiences with me. Like He wants to hang out with me, do things I love to do, and then share with people about this fun God. Haha! God is fun. Really fun. Did you know that?

World Mandate

Every year, Antioch Community Church puts on this annual missions conference called World Mandate. You get great speakers, fun worship, incredible testimonies, I mean, God just moves. So what was it about this years conference that I had to blog about it? Well, Norman had this thing called snow. And not just any snow, record breaking snow!

OK, I do have to admit that people from Oklahoma really like to freak out about weather. Like they truly enjoy sitting around, watching the weather channel, and freaking out about it. Naturally, the weekend we left for this conference a state of emergency was declared.

Just watch as my wonderful car mates and I were driving southbound I-35. The windshield wipers froze, but there wasn't any place to turn off and shake them off, which meant that someone had to climb through the sun roof and change them.

HOLD UP!!

So, I'm trying to upload this enlightening video, and this lovely window comes up:

I click on the "Upload Terms and Conditions" and this comes up:


And I've tried this on 3 separate occasions, spanning quite a few months with the same response. What does this tell me? I may not be uploading that video after all. Does anyone else find this SUPER BIZARRE and SHADY?!

Stitches

Proverbs 12:18 Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Can I just pause and emphasize the power of words? Here goes:

I was at work, doing the usual, mixing up some waffle cone batter with a machine grade blender that looks like this. It's at least a foot long. So, as I'm mixing the batter in a container a little less than half the size of the blender (Yes. I know. Bad idea), I turn it on low, turn around behind me, and scoop some more powder into the mix. I did this a couple of times til I heard my co-worker gasp, "Oh my gosh!"

Naturally I spin around thinking, "Oh crap, the batter! Watch out for the blades!"

Too late. It got me.

Aside from the pain in my finger, I noticed red stuff on the floor and all over my hand. Praise the name of Jesus that I was working with someone who is competent on handling this red stuff, because I am not!

Aside from almost passing out due to blood loss, praying the Holy Spirit to stop the bleeding, my sister came to the rescue, and a whopping 12 stitches later: my finger's fine!


Back to the power of words: I was wondering why this happened. I went through these declarations by Steve Backlund in the morning, one of which says:

Any adversity, attack, accidents and tragedies that were headed my way are diverted right now in Jesus' name (Psalm 91).

I was like, "What's the deal? I mean, I declared that, and believed that, so...." About that time, I got a text from another co-worker that I worked with the day before. It said something like, "Weird how yesterday we were joking around about cutting our fingers."

Wow. I forgot about that. We totally opened a curse on ourselves. What I then realized is as followed:
1. The co-worker that saved my life switched shifts with someone else that day. That other co-worker cannot handle red stuff.
2. The bleeding stopped.
3. My sister answered her phone on the first call. That never EVER happens.
4. My finger's still attached. No tendons, bone, or anything got damaged. Aside from it being deep, it was fine.

ihop

Over the past couple of month, random people started giving me words saying they say me ministering to people in Africa. My reaction: "God, I have no problem going to Africa, but I need to hear from You." Well, I did.

I was at this place called ihop. No, not the international house of pancakes, the international house of prayer! The end of every December, they have this conference called onething. My sister and I went last year and got totally ripped over the book of Revelation. Naturally, we followed it up with another trip to it this year with a handful of our friends (that made it a lot more fun, as noted by the traveling puppet show below).

One night Loren Cunningham, the director of ywam was speaking about Nigeria. Somewhere in the midst of him talking, I made the connection that he was talking about Africa. I think my response was something like, "Huh, Africa again. Bizarre." God then screamed at me in the spirit, "GO!" I mean, aside from the audible voice of God, you can't get much more clear than that.

So, next stop: Africa.

Lifegroup Leader

Don't you love titles? They just give away what I'm writing about. So on to polar bears and penguins:

Yup, me and two other cool people are leading a lifegroup (<- click). What this means: I really have no idea. I figure that's for the best as it leaves more room for Jesus, right?

P.S. There are also a bunch of random words throughout my blog that you can click on...many of which do not appear that way until you mouse over them.

Dallas Outreach

As part of our Equip discipleship school, there are two outreaches that our class goes on. One is to a church plant in the United States, and the second one is to a church plant overseas. This past weekend, we went on our outreach in the United States, to a church called Mercy Place in Dallas. We arrived Friday at 7pm and left that Sunday at 2pm.

Just about everyone in our class saw a first hand healing. I know factually of at least 7 salvations that happened, but I'm also quite confident there were more. You see, we didn't have time to allow everyone to share how Jesus moved that weekend because there were so many stories! Majority of our time was spent treasure hunting and prayer walking, but we also had lunch with patients at a near by mental institution, where the following happened:

A couple of people in our class were talking with one gentleman. He explained to them how he was schizophrenic, always hearing multiple voices. When asked by one guy on our team if the voices were saying anything now, he said, "Yes, they're telling me to run away from you guys." The guy in our class asked this gentleman if he could pray for him, which he responded, "I'd rather you didn't." Our guy was determined, however, and went to one of our class directors asking what to do. Our director told the guy to tell the gentleman with schizophrenia that he was going to pray for him, and to do it. So he did.

As soon as he started praying, tears started flowing from the gentleman. When he finished, he asked the gentleman if anything happened. The gentleman replied, "As soon as you started praying, all of the voices stopped, and one loud voice said, 'Be at peace'." The gentleman was then so overcome with emotion that he ran into his room, locking the door behind him.

Oh, and we also saw someone's leg grow at the Sunday service, healing their scoliosis.

What a weekend!