hey everybody,
this is my new blog page for information about the brand new adventure God is taking me on to west virginia.
as God's story is very long, so is the part of it that chronicles my journey logan (not relatively, of course). God has been working in my life to prepare me for this step in my life basically since my life began on this earth. but, that story would be very long (not relatively, of course) and most likely send some of you to sleep early tonight. so i won't start at the beginning.
the summer after my junior year in high school, my youth group went on a missions trip to west hamlin, west virginia through an organization called YouthWorks!. my first summer of college (2005), i found out that one of my friends from that very same youth group was applying for a summer staff position with YouthWorks! and told me i should to. I didn't have anything to do that summer and wanted to do something more fruitful than flipping burgers somewhere, so i did. i come to find out that summer from the girl who interviewed me, and later just so happened to be my area director (read: boss), that if the recruiting department didn't pray over the applications, i probably would not have been hired (read: i was not an ideal candidate). that summer i got placed in chattanooga, tennessee. The next two summers i was placed in logan. i would have never heard of the place had i not been hired the first summer, which was not of my own merit.
after this last summer (2007), i was really struggling hard with what to do after school, and spending two summers in logan had opened my eyes to a lot of the hurt and need going on in the community. i had been toying with the idea of maybe moving there... maybe...
then one day, alissa and i were wandering around nashville handing out lunches to some homeless people and we came upon this guy in a wheel chair (glen) who was with a friend (tc). we had two left so we offered them to them. they were happy to oblige. we were making small talk when glen said to us something along the lines of, "You guys are with God, huh? I can tell." well this caught our attention. we sat with him and his friend and listened as he told us stories of his life and how he relies on God everyday to take care of him. we sat and listened for quite a while, and after maybe half an hour glen turned to me and said, "God just gave me a message for you." i must admit that i was skeptical and a little amused; i wanted to hear what he had to say. he handed me his Bible and told me to open to mark chapter 11, verses 23 and 24, and to read it aloud. i did. and as i did, my attitude changed, because i knew that God was speaking to me. it says,

"Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours."

i knew right away that God wanted me in logan, as it was the desire of my heart to serve his people there. i'm not saying this means if you ask for a purple pony for christmas and really believe in your heart that you'll get it, then you'll find one with a bow on it eating your tree on christmas morning. that's stupid. God can do anything. If the desires of His heart are the desires of your heart, he can manifest your most outrageous dream about fulfilling those desires into reality.
God still speaks today. God still wants to use you in part of His marvelous story. our stories are His story.
i had been praying that God would send someone to take care of His people in logan. He finally showed me i had been praying for myself.

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