So Maybe I'm Crazy

I've come to the conclusion that I'm okay with being called crazy. Or even being thought of as crazy. 

I could so easily drop it all. I could go to University and then maybe end up with a "stable" job somewhere. And believe me, the thought has come to my mind.

But then I think about Him. I think about His promises to me. I think about all He's done so that I could live out the destiny He designed just for me. Then suddenly I can no longer see my life any other way than how it is right now, and where it's going.

I begin to realize, it just doesn't matter to me anymore, the life that the world expects of me. The life that would categorize me as "normal". 

(I will be adding my photo's in here to "grip" you)

And the best part is that as soon as I said yes to Him, so many wonderful things have happened.

Because of my yes, I've been to Hawaii, The UK, France and Amsterdam, all in less than a year. 

Because of my yes, I have met such an amazing community of people from all across the globe that I hardly believe I have the pleasure of knowing. 

Because of my yes, the Lord has given me uncontainable joy in all circumstances. Even the crappy one's. 

Especially the crappy ones.

I was reading the story in Mark 14 recently about the woman with the alabaster jar. Just to refresh all of us, this woman basically dumped a bunch of expensive perfume, which was pretty much everything she had, on Jesus' feet and the disciples got all mad. Typical.

Then it dawned on me: I'm the woman with the alabaster jar. I mean, not literally, but dude, I've poured out a lot. My time, my energy, my money. Lots. All for Him. And though the world calls it wasteful, He calls it beautiful.

All He had to say to me was, "Hey, I got something in store for you. Give up your job, sell your clothes (true story), and move to Hawaii (As paradisal as that last part sounds, you gotta know me. I don't even like heat or the beach)". And like that, I was sold. Without even having the clarity of what He had in store. All I knew was that I wanted to be a part of His story.

Then Jesus was all like:

"She has done a beautiful thing to Me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can have them any time you want. But you will not always have Me." (Mark 14:6-7)

And as much as I have poured out to Him, I still desire to pour out even more. Every last drop of obedience. 

Who knows, the Lord could so easily call me back to college. Back to a job. But I think He really enjoy's having me here in this place of total dependency on Him, because it causes me to have no other option but to lean into Him. To spend extra time thinking about Him and what He does. To focus on how big He is.

I heard someone say: "it's far safer to be out on the water with Jesus than to be in the boat without Him".

And how true that is.

But the point of all this isn't that there's only one right lifestyle, and missions is that way. Not at all. The point is that His way is the right way, and that's what ever He decides for our lives to be. Wherever He's called us, that's where we should be heading. Not sacrifice, but obedience. That's what He desires. Whether it's being called to love on gypsies in Romania, or to love on students at your university.

So, I've let go of any "plan B" that I might have had coming into this. I've burned every bridge that would help me to fall back into stability. Because it's so much more rewarding to know I'm living for eternity and not putting my hope into this earth, which will eventually fade away with everything else.

 

He is the only thing that remains. He is the one whom I choose to live for daily. He's all I've got left.

I would truly do anything, if at the end of this life I could hear God say "Well done, my good and faithful servant".

Even if that labels me as "crazy" for the rest of this life. 

He's so worth it. So incredibly worth it.

Summer Ministry Plans

Hello my friends! Summer draws near, as well as the end of the quarter. Can someone please call up father time and tell him to slow down a bit?


Unless he looks like this guy. He's someone I wouldn't want to upset.

Well (judging you can all wipe that horrific image out of your mind), it's hard to believe I've already been through two quarters of the Leadership Track so far. The year is half-way over!

I have been praying and asking the Lord about my next step and what to do this summer. I felt it was important to steward my gifting's and figure out how the heck I was to use them!

So without further ado, it is my privilege to tell you all my jumbled summer plans!

I have joined in staffing a ministry called "Infusion Youth Camp" for the summer! Which is great because I love youth and I love camps. I'm not really sure how I feel about "infusion", but science is pretty cool I suppose....  (that's a joke guys).

So, if I haven't lost you yet with creepy pictures and bad jokes, this youth camp will take place in Kona, LA and Virginia Beach. However I will not be staffing LA because I plan on going to Circuit Riders in Pennsylvania!

Here's more information about Infusion Youth Camp!: http://www.uofnkona.edu/training/infusion

Here's more info about Circuit Riders Pennsylvania: http://thecircuitrider.com/school-of-the-circuit-rider/lancaster/

It's crazy exciting to be a part of this youth ministry because it gives me the opportunity to apply what I've been learning in leadership and getting to pour out all the love that's been poured into me these past few months.

The funds are somewhat discouraging considering I will be needing to raise $2,000 for plane tickets and ground fees. But I know that's pocket change for the Lord. Not even pocket change. It's mere dimes and nickels. No wait, pennies! (no one likes keeping pennies anyway so I'm sure the Lord is happy to give away 200,000 of them).

I would love if you anyone reading this could please partner in praying for me in this journey as well as all the young men and women that I get to serve. I desire to go into this with humility and servant leadership and cannot do that without God's grace.

If you are interested in partnering with me financially on my missions endeavors, I would be more than grateful for that as well!

I have a missons account set up here at YWAM that offers a tax deduction (can someone say BONUS?!!). You can find my missions account and donate online here!: http://www.uofnkona.edu/support/missionaries/5919

For more info or answers to questions, please contact me via email: myoungstrom@yahoo.com

Also, if you want to keep updated on everything I'm doing, please comment with your email address, OR email me with your email address and I'll add you on my monthly newsletter list!

Thanks so much for taking the the time to read this, I hope you're all having an amazing start to your summer, and I pray you'll go the whole season without experiencing this:

I'm going for cheap laughs now I guess. Sorry guys.

Amsterdam Recap

Faith. Intimacy. Love.

That's how I would describe my time in Amsterdam.

There's really no way that you to plan for these things, can you? These appointed journey's that you trek on by simple obedience.

You begin it and you automatically assume that you need to be constantly doing something ministry wise. Evangelizing in the Red Light District, worshiping in the Dam Square, helping at a soup kitchen, etc..

But then we recognized our task at hand: to pray over the city of Amsterdam.

Now people would probably call us crazy, why would we fly all the way to the other side of the world simply to pray in a little prayer tower each day?

Maybe we do seem crazy by a worldly standard, but I kid you not, from this place of intimacy with Jesus (praying, worshiping and partnering with Him in secret), we were presented with opportunities to meet with the base leaders as well as other YWAM leaders working with some amazing ministries in Amsterdam.

Our first meeting was with a beautiful woman named Carolyn Ros. She invited the whole team over to her cozy apartment to have tea and desserts. She began telling us her testimony. It was hardly five minutes in and already every heart was drawn in and invested into the tales that came from this woman's mouth. It was astounding. After she finished, there were hardly any dry faces left in the room due to tears. "Beautiful" is the best way to sum up her story. The Lord used her so intricately according to His purpose. And the love she had for Jesus as well as the love that He had for her was absolutely undeniable. Lucky for you, she wrote a whole book about it and it's selling on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Dreams-Fulfilled-Promises-Carolyn/dp/1576584577/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365103334&sr=8-1&keywords=broken+dreams%2C+fulfilled+promises

Carolyn's table of assorted goodies. Photo by Sarah Gehman.

All of us left feeling the deep love of the Father, as well as total encouragement for the "tough times".

The next opportunity presented to us was meeting with the leaders of "The Tabernacle", a prayer house located within the Red-Light District. Since this prayer house has started, women have walked out of their windows and away from the life of prostitution forever. A specific testimony includes a sex show house that was right down the road from the house of prayer. A man who worked there came up to the leaders of The Tabernacle one day asking if they had been doing a lot of prayer lately. They responded yes and the man said: "Thought so. We're getting shut down". The building is now being used as a sandwich shop. Prayer works, friends. It really works. And it makes sense, doesn't it? Ephesians 6:12 states: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, and against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms". Since this is the case, our greatest weapon is prayer.

So what did we do after hearing this?

We prayed.

(Photo by Ekkerhart Hoenen)

And Prayed. 

(Photo by Lizzie Stien) 

And prayed. 

(Photo by Sarah Gehman)

And prayed some more.

(Photo by Mocha Brown)

We prayed till it came to the point that we just decided to do it for 24 hours straight one weekend. That's right. A prayer and worship burn over the city of Amsterdam. We thought of everything possible to pray for.

The Red Light District.
The people of Amsterdam.
Hope for the city.
Life for the city.
Encouragement for the city,
you name it!

After it was over with, none of us doubted that everything we had prayed had actually shifted something. We all knew that what we prayed for was not only heard, but it was also going to be answered.

The next meeting was with a ministry called "The Lighthouse". A more hands-on approach to the Red Light District where woman actually go up to the windows and try to talk with the girls. Whether it be serving them tea or serving them soup, they are becoming more and more successful with just being there and talking with the woman. The beautiful thing is that it's all about relationship and just hanging out with the women. They need that. We all do. Women need other women to talk with. Whether it's about what they're going through emotionally, or something as mundane as their hair. That's how we were made! This simple gesture of relationship building gives the women more normalcy than they've experienced in years. From this, they've seen woman dedicate their lives to Jesus, come out of prostitution and brought into jobs at cafes. The point is that it works. It takes time, patience and grace, but it works. God uses the simple to confound the wise.

Our last meetings were with the leaders of the YWAM Amsterdam base, Reinier and Rianne. They shared with us their heart for the city and how God brought them so specifically to this location. What really blew me away most about this power couple was not just their obedience, but their pure heart posture of joy. Though they had expected God to take them to a bunch of different nations, He ended up calling them both back to their hometown, inviting them to be His light for the city. Instead of complaining and wishing they were some place else, they accepted the invitation and have diligently served it.

Amsterdam is one of those things that I will most likely not see all the fruit from until I enter eternity. That's living by faith though. "Being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see". And I'm so at rest in that. I'm so at peace knowing that God knows even if I don't know.

But God being as kind as He is, allowed me to see some of His goodness in the land of the living. One day while in Amsterdam we all helped out with an Organization called "Serve The City". A lot of us split up to do various serving within the city of Amsterdam. I went with a group of three others to help paint an office space in an Autism Center. The journey there was perhaps a story in itself, one which will need to be saved for another time, but when we finally got there it was about two hours later than when we were supposed to show up. We were just in time to meet with a lovely woman named Peggy whom was in charge. She bought us all lunch and talked to us for a good while about faith. After we finished painting, we all wanted to pray a blessing over her. Once we said amen, tears rolled down her face. "I have lost a lot of family members in the past few years and it has been really rough. So, this was much needed. Thank you.". Simple as that, Jesus encountered her through a group of four, goofy, twenty-somethings. Not even by the help we gave her by painting the office spaces, but by a prayer. Funny how He works. I love it.

Here are some more photo's of my time in Amsterdam.

 At the Corrie Ten Boom museum; Jews were hidden in this wall during WWII.

 "Jesus is Victorious"

 Stitched by Corrie Ten Boom herself!

Thank you to all who supported me financially or by prayer! It means the world to me that you all care that much. Your investments were so important and I'm just in awe of how much love I have received. Blessings and peace be with you.

Amsterdam

And so continues my journey in missions. My expectancy was that the Lord was going to keep me on this rock in the middle of the ocean for the next year.

Turns out He is bringing me back into the nations. Back into Europe to be specific!

On March 13th, me and the group that I have been running with will be taking a short term outreach over to Amsterdam to meet with some key leaders who would like us to stratagize and pray over ministry opportunities for the Discipleship Training School outreach team that will be coming in on March 28th!

Many of you may be aware that prostitution is legal over in Amsterdam. A lot of the prostitutes are actually trafficked out of other countries and sold for sex trade. This can include girls of all ages. It is  obviously a huge injustice and must end.

                                                      Red Light District in Amsterdam


The time that we are there so happens to be right before the Queen of Holland abdicates her throne to her son, Prince Willem-Alexander on April 30th. It is said that Prince Willem wishes to shut down the Red Light Districts in Amsterdam and making prostitution illegal. In doing so, this will make sex trafficking much more difficult for Johns and Pimps.

My prayer is that there would be a way to stratagize a Safe House in the making for these women who have been prostituted, so that they might not fall back into the lifestyle illegally. Though these women are fed up with everything they have been through, there are still those who know nothing else but this lifestyle, and might lazily go back into the business. It's not that they want to, but that they're mind has been washed of everything else that they knew before prostitution. If there could be a Safe House planted for these girls with broken and wounded spirits, there could be a better chance of complete life change and a new way of living.

Amsterdam is being called back to the Father's heart. There is hope for this city that is stronger than ever before. I fully believe I am called to strike through this city with love and prayer. The distress that Amsterdam is currently in will indeed be broken. A new identity is rising for this place.

If you would like to sow into this ministry by partnering with me financially, please contact me at myoungstrom@yahoo.com.

 Or by simply going here to donate:

 http://uofnkona.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=652&MN=5919

If you cannot financially partner, I would really love if you could please pray for me as this journey continues! Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed already!

Beauty Observed

I don't think anyone can deny that we all desire to be loved by something beautiful.

When we see beauty of any sort, our automatic response is wanting to love it, but more so, for the beauty to love us back.

And I believe that is how we were all designed.

I keep picturing a beautiful field in the northern part of America. One with the greenest grass and the bluest sky. In this scene I see a single oak tree. This is my definition of beauty.

I naturally feel a drawing and love for this place in a whole. The thought doesn't even cross my mind that it really doesn't have the capacity to love back. It is, after all, just a scene, isn't it?

How about another scenario. When we listen to a beautiful love song our mind likes to go to the thought of that love song being specifically for us. As if the musician wrote it about you.

(For me, this would be any song by M. Ward)

We love being loved by beautiful things, people, places, songs, etc.

What we miss so many times is that we actually are loved by Something beautiful. All of us.

In fact, the very Creator of beauty Himself is who we're loved by.

If God is everything, then maybe the beautiful scene of the tree in the field actually does love us in return.

An interesting notion, sure, but what if God loves us so much that He brings us to these Tree-Field type of scenes in order that He might declare His love for us?

And in bringing us to these scenes, its like God Almighty Himself is speaking through the tree saying "I love you so deeply that I made this beauty possible for you to gaze upon".

I like to think God made all of us with different perceptions of beauty that specifically please our eyes uniquely. But then I think again and realize, if we find God beautiful, don't we all have the same perception of beauty?

All in all, that's really God in that field-scene-beauty that we're looking at.

That's God in the beautiful sunsets we see over the ocean.

It's Him who we see in the gorgeous mountains of Seattle.

The wonderful part is that the most beautiful Being that always was, loves us so abundantly that He's made us become apart of His beauty by calling us His own.

Because the fact is that God is constantly singing love songs to us. And each one is calling us Home.

How Everyone Relates to George Bailey

So things aren't going our way, what do we do?

I'd like to say I move on from it. I'd like to say it doesn't effect me. I'd like to say I automatically see it as something that is going to challenge me and help me to grow. 

But in all honesty, I dwell on it, let it get to me, and see it as the end of the world. 

I'm working on it. 

Why is self-pity such a commonality in the human race today? 

It's like we let the world so easily push our buttons. We hold way too high of a regard for the things happening around us and become desperate, self-pitied, souls. Like we're a living song off of an Adele album. 

Self-pity is actually a form of selfishness.

I think we can all agree we've had George Bailey moments before. Those moments where the only problems in the world appear to be our problems. We become closed minded to other peoples feelings and focus on ourselves

I think I'll call this, "The Me Generation"

"How will this get better for me?"

"When will something cool happen to me?"

Sometimes I think we get in this mindset that the world truly does revolve around us.

Being selfish is just so darn easy.

It seems like such an impossible thing to overcome. And I've come to realize that the only way to overcome it is to, well, overcome it. 

Because as easy as it is to be selfish, it's also really easy to actually look at yourself as a selfish person and become disgusted to the point where if you don't share your chocolate with someone, you feel like greedy scum. 

So what if we go above and beyond chocolate? What if when we start pitying ourselves, we captivate those thoughts and feelings and go help someone else, who we know is also having a George Bailey kind of day?

I genuinely believe that when we stop and realize that other people are going through crap too, we can get over ourselves. Like, really die to ourselves.

And how freeing that would be! To know we are actually capable of putting others above ourselves. 

Once we've conquered this I have no doubt we'll be able to run around full of joy and happiness, declaring that it really is a wonderful life.

Daily Bread and Daily Coffee

I've been thinking a lot lately about the next year of my life and how the heck I'm going to pull it off. My support is developing, but it's getting to be crunch time and I'm feeling fear, worry and doubt slowly creeping in. Ya know, the normal missionary life.

Yesterday morning as I poured my cup of coffee these feelings started creeping in pretty darn heavy. "how will I pay rent?" "how will I buy necessities?" "how will I get by?!" just then the pot had run out, but it had poured just enough in my cup. Just enough. The perfection of it had astounded me. God had given me an answer through coffee. Coffee! He knows me so well.

Okay, so maybe I will have months that I am technically "surviving" more than I am "living". But something about that excites me. If I'm getting by on "just enough"then, well, that's enough.

Today the pot of coffee had a little less than yesterday, but it was still enough. Enough to get me by. Enough to satisfy.  (all of this is rhyming unintentionally, please forgive me).

I suppose you should know that the key of this whole post is daily bread. You know, "Give us today our daily bread".

We're not just talking food here.

We're talking rent, new tooth brushes, and shampoo!

Our needs and not our wants.
Our necessities and not our desires.

Though, don't get me wrong. I totally believe in all that God giving you the desires of you heart stuff. But there's a difference when we get needy and ungrateful for what we actually do have. Living excessively seems a little sad and pitiful when its looked at it this way.

Yeah, I'm going to be okay. We all are.