Christ

Hi everyone!

If we’re not friends on Facebook and you didn’t hear – I was fully funded for my outreach!!! Thank you again to everyone who helped make this possible. I am beyond grateful. God is such a faithful provider and your generosity showed me this. THANK YOU!!

I am writing to you from Ireland!

I am absolutely loving it here.

We have jumped straight into it and started plugging into churches, homeless ministries, doing projects to help different christian ministries with the renovation of their buildings and, street evangelism.

There are so many homeless people in this city, at almost every corner there is a homeless person sitting and begging but we are finding that they are super open to talking – they’re just lonely. We talked to a guy that opened up about having depression and just feeling totally hopeless. We got to tell him that there is a God who loves him and we got to pray for him! It was so awesome. His name is Kevin – send up quick prayer for his salvation!

Praying for people on the streets in Dublin

We also get to help out at this amazing homeless ministry called Lighthouse.

It is such a blessed ministry and sees so much fruit – it is so cool we get the opportunity to serve there. I got to hang out with a homeless couple, Dan and Jenny for about an hour and a half. They opened up to me that they were both heroin addicts and I just got to sit and listen and chat with them. It was so amazing. They told me that at all the other food shelters they’ve been to, they always felt judged and like no one valued them or even wanted to talk to them. They said that at Lighthouse they always feel loved and valued – so in other words, they can see Jesus in us! I so believe that God is moving in their lives and I am excited to get to know them more.

PLEASE pray for them as Jenny is starting Teen Challenge, a Christian rehabilitation center and Dan is going to a different treatment center in about a week. Pray for the power of God to move in their lives and that they would be healed from all addiction and more importantly, know that God loves them and has a plan for them.

Feeding the homeless , and looking fab in a hair net.

It is seriously such a blessing to be here. I have found it pretty stretching as a leader but I feel the Lord guiding me all throughout the day, which is such a beautiful thing. I have never done something so challenging and rewarding. I feel so close to Him and it gives me strength and courage as a leader when things get hectic. God is teaching me to have grace with my students as they are still learning and growing so much and this is a whole new thing for them.

My prayer is that God’s word would be so engraved on my heart that I would live and love out of a place of truly understanding the way God lives and loves.

I just want to be the woman that God wants me to be and in every stretching moment, I feel refinement happening – taking steps closer to understanding what it means to be a woman of peace and love. Praise God for the strength that truly only comes from Him. He is way too good.

PRAYER POINTS:

– Pray for unity in my team – that we would show Christ by the way we love one another.

– Pray for me – for wisdom, humility and the Lord’s guidance. I want to lead like Jesus would.

– Pray that we would see tremendous fruit in the relationships we are building.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my updates – it means so much to me.

Please let me know how I can be praying for you.

God bless!

Jasmine

Sometimes in life we are blessed with a truly extraordinary friendship – I have been blessed in this way with my friend called Bin. Actually she is the brains behind this blog. She is the one who puts it all together and makes it look so great. For 17 years we have been the closest of friends. We now call ourselves sisters and our families think of each other as family.

Together over 17 years we have journeyed the good: The birth of seven children (my last child and her six), miraculous healing, marriage reconciliation, wonderful New Years together, fantastic holidays and just great fun. We have also journeyed the bad: Marriage separation, mental illness, wayward teenagers, and Mark’s cancer, long term illness and death. We have laughed a ridiculous amount, cried together and prayed and sought God together. They have been 17 very blessed years!

At the beginning of this year Bin found out she was pregnant with her sixth child, and in May we found out that after five handsome sons Bin and her husband Bring (his nickname) were expecting a daughter. I remember her ringing me and telling me and Jasmine when we were parked at a shopping mall, and we just sat in the car and cried with happiness at the blessing our dear adopted family was receiving. How exciting – a little girl!

Very early on the 22 September Bring & Bin welcomed their little girl into the world. With great excitement we raced to the hospital. They named her Sadie, which means Princess – so incredibly appropriate for the youngest and only girl but also because this little girl is a daughter of the King of Kings!

For ten weeks we all enjoyed getting to know this little bundle of joy, and then in the blink of an eye it all changed. After what was supposed to be a routine doctor’s check, Bin and Bring headed to the hospital and within days they were told their precious baby was very, very sick with a serious heart condition.

Thirteen days later on the 14th of December at just about 12 weeks old, Sadie left us for her eternal home prepared for her by Jesus as he promised in the Bible in John 14:3.

Tragedy has struck my dear precious friends. I cannot take their grief and pain. Grief and pain that I am all too familiar with, but this is a baby – it seems so senseless.

But senseless it is not in our loving Heavenly Father’s eyes because Sadie had to be born to live forever. You see, Sadie has always been in God’s mind. In Jeremiah 1:5 it says

God knew all about Sadie… God knew Sadie… God had holy plans for Sadie. But none of that would have mattered if Sadie had just remained a thought. Conception brings life and the minute Sadie was conceived God’s thought was given life! Our Sadie had to be born in order to live forever with Jesus.

And it is the same for Jesus. He had to be born so that we could live forever.

Over 2,000 years ago God came in the form of a human baby to make a way for all of humanity to be able to live forever. Through Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection ALL of us are given a way to live forever in heaven with our holy and loving heavenly Father.

Sadie has been taken from us. She is out of our vision. But Sadie is not lost – she is home. She is now a citizen of heaven, which is where we all will be one day if we have accepted the truth of Jesus. One day we will be with her and we will understand the joy that although she was here for such a short time, she had to be born to live forever.

Death is tragic but it is only tragic for those left here grieving our loved one. But for Sadie, for Mark, for all the others who have died knowing Jesus, death was their welcome home!

Sadie had to be born to live forever!

AND JESUS HAD TO BE BORN SO THAT WE COULD ALL LIVE FOREVER.

This Christmas CELEBRATE!!!

Celebrate Jesus’s birth for the truth that it truly is – OUR WAY HOME!!!