Back to Texas….

Hello dear friends!

I just want to let you all know that my team and I arrived back to Texas in the wee hours of the morning yesterday.  It was a loooong plane ride.  I am so glad to be home.

I have never liked goodbyes. I love people so much and when I have to say goodbye to someone, it feels like I was given something precious just for it to be stripped from my hands.  I hate it.  However, I have never known the true pain of a goodbye until I had to say goodbye to my friends I made in Latvia, especially an incredible girl named Dace.  All my goodbyes until this one were done with the mentality that I would eventually see them again, such as my family and my best friend back in California.  Now that I can see that there are people from home I said goodbye to that I now know I might not ever see again, at the time I gave the goodbye I was giving it with the attitude that I would someday see them again.

When I had to say goodbye to my friend in Latvia, I knew what it felt like to  say a goodbye that would last.  I truly have no idea if I will ever see her again. How are we  to say goodbyes?  How are we to cope with the heartache that follows? Is the pain I feel normal?  Or am I the only one who feels this way?

All I can say is that as hard as a goodbye is, I know for sure that I would rather go through a hard goodbye than to never have known the person in the first place.

Thank you Jesus for the precious gift of a friend.  The words of one of Michael W. Smith’s songs comes to mind where it says that in Christ there are no goodbyes.  I guess this is true.

Howdy Y’all!

Hey Everybody!

I am just starting up this web blog site…so you’ll have to bear with me as I work through what to do and what not to do.  I am going to be using this website to send out updates as I travel through Europe with my Youth With A Mission (YWAM) team.  I will also be using it to keep friends, family, and supporters updated when I return to live in Texas as a full time volunteer missionary working with the YWAM Resonate team here.

I hope you are all doing well. Actually I don’t hope you are doing well….I hope you are doing GREAT!  For those of you who I haven’t seen recently…I miss you a lot. I really do.  Well, I thought it was way past due for me to let you all know what I’ve been up to and where my near future is headed and what kind of support I’m going to need to be able to accomplish this.

Hmmm, where do I begin? I don’t even know how to express how happy and content and filled with purpose I am in this new phase of my life. I ended up going to Texas for the training phase of my missions program which is called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). I am almost through with this training part, and then we begin to put the things we’ve been learning about into action with hands on, in the field, dirty work. My team is going to five countries in Eastern Europe for our outreach program. We leave on January 5^th and will not return until March 4^th. We will fly into Austria, then jump over to Slovakia, then up to Lithuania, Latvia, and Belarus. There is an enclosed paper that my team compiled that explains our mission trip in a little more detail, so I won’t repeat it here. Also included is a page describing one aspect of our ministry in Eastern Europe…The Ka’ora Bread Project. Please read it as I am entirely excited about it and it is a big part of what we will be doing overseas. Also, we have a website <a href=”http://ywamwoodcrest.com/”>http://ywamwoodcrest.com/</a&gt; that has a lot more information about our group and this mission training program as well as a video we made that describes what the students think about the trip. It also has many other things on it that we are involved in.

I’m also learning so much more about God and about my purpose in life. I’m going to pursue mass communication through web development, like I’ve always wanted to do. Yippee! I’ve been offered an opportunity by my director to be trained in web communication and I have already helped him a little with one web development project, and I’ve been offered a few other potential opportunities as well. I also feel strongly like God wants me to join as a staff member with this YWAM team after my mission trip is over. Staying on as staff actually means I’d become a full time volunteer missionary. I would be living in Texas most of the year assisting in leading the yearly mission training programs like the one I’m currently in. As a staff, I’d also be going on the different mission trips of future training programs with future teams of new students, though the locations of these trips and the different ministries of them will vary.

All this means that I would be a full time volunteer missionary with no income. I have to come up with $200 a month for living costs, plus car insurance and gas money, basic and simple living costs like shampoo and toothpaste stuff, and although I realize a cell phone is not absolutely necessary, I do think that it is impractical and even unsafe for me to be out on my own without one (I was unable to bring the one I have been using with me to Texas). I worked some numbers and figured that I’ll need about $500 a month to fulfill these financial obligations. This number is small in comparison to what it would cost if I were to not be involved with this missions group.   This can be a smaller number though if I had “many hands to make the work light.” The more people willing to support me, the smaller the number would get for each supporter. Also, the overseas outreach trips add up to about $3,000 ish for each one, with one per year. This amount is in addition to the monthly costs needed. I’m willing and open to work any miscellaneous jobs that the Lord provides, but I am limited as to what I can do since my time and energy is committed to a full time volunteer position with this missions program.

I’m being totally open and honest about these financial needs with you right now because I’m asking you for your help and I want you to be fully aware of the entirety of my need. I cannot do this on my own…at all. I need the support of those I care about and those I know care about me.  You guys are people who I care about very much, you guys know this to be true, and I know you guys return the care. I am simply asking for you to help as you feel able to. One time gifts are more than welcome, however, I do need people who are willing to commit to consistency, even if it’s a small monthly number…..these are the people I will be depending on the most.

This is very new and different for me, definitely out of my comfort zone, since I am used to working hard and personally earning what I receive. I was told that in doing this though, I am working at a job too, but my earnings are not given on an hourly basis, but rather given by the generosity of those who want to enable me to continue in this work.

God has given me a passion and a specific purpose within this ministry in regards to the media/web communications and with a purpose in missions; with counseling and taking on a leadership position within this ministry. I have such a heart to do this that I’d be miserable with life if I was not able to fulfill it. It’s kind of hard to explain this passion very well, but I do know for sure that it is there and it is deep and strong. I know without a doubt that this is what I’m supposed to do, and I know that there will be the provision to do it. A friend of mine told me recently when I was talking about how nervous and scared I was about the financial end of this, “When God guides, He also provides,” and “When God gives a vision, He gives the provision.” I believe this in my heart, though my head sometimes tries to worry over it. I was reminded too, that God can provide in any way He sees fit, which most of the time means through another person.

I’m simply asking for your financial support so that I can accomplish that which I have a God given passion to do. I ask you to please consider what you can do to help me in pursuing this. I appreciate it so much. Please email me if you have any questions or if you would like to support me! I check my email multiple times a day, so it will not take long for me to get back to you.

The best way to give financially is in the form of a check, just make sure you attach a sticky note or something separate letting us know who it is for. Or you can donate through our website by clicking on the “Donate” button, but you would have to send an email to the campus here at <a href=”mailto:contactus@ywamwoodcrest.com”>contactus@ywamwoodcrest.com</a> to let them know who the online donation was for. I will put up a link on here for PayPal as soon as I can.You can also email me for details and specifics:

<a href=”mailto:mantha4messiah@gmail.com”>mantha4messiah@gmail.com</a>

Please let me know if you have any good ideas. I need as much help as I can get. 🙂

All of my love and blessings! (which is a lot!)

~Samantha 🙂