Broken Road

Hello everyone! My name’s Mariah Steenerson… I know, I know you were expecting a blog post by my talented friend Gianna. Sorry!

A few weeks ago I got a call from Gianna to do a guest post on her blog about something BIG that’s about to happen in my life. January 15, 2012 I will be leaving this small town of Minnesota for Townsville, Australia to do a program called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). I could give you a long complex definition of what this program is but I’ll keep it basic. YWAM is an opportunity for anyone (generally 18-25 years of age) at any place in the world to come together to be taught and teach the gospel everywhere and anywhere, to make disciples of all nations. The idea of a program such as this was originated by a man named Loren Cunningham while he was on a missions trip. It came as a vision of waves crashing onto the sand of beaches. Then, the waves turned into young people that not only were covering beaches but all the nations.

Fifty one years later and this small program that started out as just a vision is now located in 1,000 locations in over 180 countries! The waves of young people envisioned by Loren are completely evident today. I think of this and I am totally blown back at how amazing our God can work. No words can describe.

So what will a small town girl like me be doing in a big continent like Australia? For 3 months I will be going through a Discipleship Training School where I will learn more about who God is and who he made me to be. This is just like a regular school in many ways. I have a set schedule for each day of the week, tests and homework—you got it, and no sadly I don’t get to sleep in every day of the week. 

Then the next three months are filled with outreaches. Usually a YWAM Discipleship Training school will have one outreach to somewhere around the world, but my specific school will be doing two outreaches. The places I might be are: Thailand, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, or New Zealand.

It sounds as though when I arrive in Townsville I will have two weeks to pray about the two places God wants me to be. If you would be willing to pray for me and this two week period of hard decision making that would be great! I don’t want to pick a certain place just because it would be a cool place to visit; I want to go wherever God wants me.

Along with these two main phases of my trip; I will be doing a two week camping trip in the outback, visiting Billabong, involved with different ministries in Australia, and hanging out with some cool Aussies.

From reading this you may think I’ve had my mind made up about this for awhile now, but truth is it’s only been a few months. This past year has been one long broken road. I could go on and on about how difficult it was, but the main point is I was broken and defeated and through it God made me stronger. He used every difficulty, every problem to get me where I am today and for that I am very thankful. 

Don’t be afraid to get broken. In fact, you should desire to be broken; desire to be so defeated that your only option is to surrender to the one true God, because it’s when we’re broken that we are closest to God and can be used most effectively by Him. Do not fear brokenness.

For those of you that are young and are still trying to figure out college and a major, I have some simple advice for you. Instead of crying your eyes out every night like I did. Trust in the almighty God! Jer. 29:11 says He has a plan for you. Sometimes we are called to wait and be patient, but take heart God has made many promises in His book, promises that should be taken as truth so much as to thank God for them even before they become evident in your life. None of those promises say I will lead you up to the time you graduate high school and then I will leave you to make all of the decisions. No. God will be there EVERY step of the way IF you give your life to Him.

Below are some verses that have helped me through this past year.

Thank you, Gianna for allowing me to have a guest post on your blog. I am thankful to have such an encouraging and loving friend! I thank God for you daily. Keep on glorifying God with your blog posts; he has definitely given you a gift. 

 

If you’d like to check out my blog go to 

http://heart-of-a-sojourner.blogspot.com

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Blessed.

mariah

Introducing Mariah

I went on a trip once. I went with four others to a small town called Ponemah. I still remember the swirling mosaic of emotions that surrounded that trip. Fear. I was afraid of what I would find. Going into this, I had no idea of what the children we were working with would be like. There was no way of knowing who was helping us with the VBS or what they would be like. We had no clue how God was going to work in us and through us, and that thought was intimidating. Security. I was aware that I was going with an Almighty, all-loving Father at my side. Also, I went with the knowledge that our church was supporting our team in prayer every day that we were gone. I knew that I was a part of the body of Christ, and they weren't about to let me fall. 
Anticipation. I was eager to see what my amazing Father was going to do and how.

Now I'm home. Now it is my turn to watch as a special friend reaches out and experiences life "as a fingertip". She'll be living by the financial support of the church, and living by our prayer support. And I know that she is experiencing all of these emotions and more as she prepares to go.That is why my next blog post will be a guest post by Mariah. I've asked her to share the story of her heart with you as she prepares to go to Australia.

There is a special bond that grows when friends share faith in common. There is little more beautiful than to sit and listen to somebody close to you revealing how our Savior has been working in their heart and life. There is little more beautiful than when a friend becomes transparent and allows the precious light of Jesus to shine through each angle of their lives.

Mariah, you have given me a gift and I am grateful that I can support you by giving you a post on my blog.

What kind of plan is this?

Ponemah was shocking.


I craned to see past Tiffany, our driver, as we pulled in to the small town of Ponemah. Where was the church? We stopped at a house with a sign on the side that said "Wah-Bun Chapel." I mentally crumpled the image of VBS in a church basement and reconstructed one of a garage with folding chairs. Ok I thought, I guess this can work.

The first day was a wreck. Images, actions and words came barreling at me and left me breathless, wondering belatedly how I should respond. Mainly it was the children. They were sweet and lovable, hard and concealing, bright a cheery, moody and unresponsive almost at the same time. They wouldn't sit still during the singing or the lesson. They didn't understand the structured game, or the questions we asked them as follow-up. After two hours of seemingly pointless words, we ended up playing with the kids outside on the lawn, waiting until it was time to go home. Half-an-hour later, we climbed into the van sweaty from giving shoulder rides in the sun and playing Duck Duck Goose.

After dinner I found a quiet corner and curled up with my Bible for some contemplation. I finally released tears of frustration. After all we had said and done, none of the children could remember the theme verse or point out which piece of Spiritual armor we'd discussed. Discouragement piled on my shoulders and I trembled as I asked God, "What difference will we even make? This is pointless!"

Aching shoulders interrupted my thoughts, begging for muscle rub. I reflected on our last half hour in Ponemah that day. I must have given Jack 3 shoulder rides, and he'd asked for more. My name tag had been swiped to embellish a collection one girl began on her shirt. I'd been poked as "It" so many times I almost tingled. It was exhausting. But the kids loved it. The same smiles that disappeared when we sat down beamed when they tagged me. 4-year-olds smiled at me with big eyes when I handed them a glass of water.

"Is that it, God?" I wondered: holy light bulbs illuminated fleshly cobwebs. Then there was a plan! My perspective rotated 180 degrees as I realized our VBS simply took us to Ponemah. Our love for the children touched their hearts. Strategies formed in my mind - more shoulder rides for Evan. My name tag to Chalise. More tag with Katherine.

Tuesday afternoon, before VBS even began, I was attacked by a child with brown eyes and a larger marker. "How do you spell your name?" She demanded. She wrote carefully, saying each letter out loud. In seconds, my name tag was applied to her shirt. With concealed delight, she ripped her own name tag off and planted her flag on my shoulder. "There." She sounded satisfied. Joy thrilled in my heart and I thanked God for allowing me to join Him in his work.

Mark 10:41 "I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward."
 

This was our team joined with the Grand Forks team. Our team includes me (right in front of fella with green shirt) Jorde, (guy in the middle) Danae (left end of the front row) Christa (right end of the second row) and Tiffany (far left).

Phandie gathers the children around her the first day after the game to ask them questions - whether they're enjoying the first day, and if they got the point of the game etc.

Tiffany and Taylor. Jack is on Taylor's shoulders.

From left: Hailey(?), Me, Kaitlyn, Jacob (on shoulders) Jorde, Shaylee, Caleb (on shoulders) and Nahid. 

 Corey takes on Katherine in an arm wrestle. She won...!

Gwen participated in the game that correlated with the Beld of Truth: we wrote out lies from the Devil and put bubble wrap around them. When the children discovered and understood the refuting verse we'd placed underneath, they could stomp out the lies. Gwen did this with Tiffany and Tiffany was able to bless her with love.

Laura let Caleb and Kaitlyn play with her guitar. She had such a fun and loving spirit! 

Barb - proprieter of Wah-Bun chapel, told us casually that there were bears at the dump as we were leaving on Friday afternoon. Tiffany gaped and said "Tell us how to get there!" We saw three bears and they were all as skinny as the one in the photo above. It was awesome! 

Kaitlyn and I got to be friends that week. She was the sweetest little child! I pray I never forget this experience, and that I always remember the lessons I learned. Father, keep the fire burning in me for these children and chilren everywhere!

Grow

I know that it's been forever and a day since I've blogged. You'll have to find it in your hearts to forgive me. I had too much on my heart and on my mind and in my life to put into words. The last week of June, I and four others from our church went on a missions trip to Ponemah in the Red Lake Reservation.

At the end of this trip, Tiffany asked us to prepare answers for people who we knew would be asking us about our time at Mokahum and Ponemah, and she told us to just take the one aspect of the week that impacted us the most deeply and to talk about that. However, I just can't get away from the fact that there were two things that really stood out to me, so you get to hear about both of them.

The first is that on this trip, I really gained a strong sense of the unity of the church and really being the body of Christ. It's a concept I've read about before, and I've heard sermons on it, and heard songs about it, but it hasn't really resonated with me before this trip. I first felt this on Sunday the 26th, when we were commissioned. As I felt hands on my shoulders and as Pastor Bruce prayed, I realized that all of us were coming before God together, as one, and seeking His protection, His guidance, and His hand to be on our team. But the Spirit was there, and there was unity. I realized that our team was not leaving church for a week and coming back with a news report of how another church grew, but that we as a church, as the body of Christ, were reaching out to a broken people who were not in the family, and our team was truly priviledged to be the fingertips.

That knowledge was both amazing and comforting to me. We going to serve aware of the people we would be serving and also aware the supporting prayers from the rest of the Spiritual family. When we got to Mokahum, we met the team from Grand Forks. Hearing them talk about their church and the leadership there and the people praying for them took everything I'd just learned about unity and magnified it 100-fold. I realized something that I hadn't had time to even think about before, that our church wasn't alone! There was a church in Grand Forks that was reaching out by our side - a church that we could serve with, work with, worship with and fellowship with and pray with! My concept of family grew by lightyears. Throughout the week, our whole team, I think, felt a strong connection to the Grand Forks team. By the time we'd known them almost three days, it felt as though we'd known them for years because of the Spiritual oneness that was so present. The experience was completely beyond anything I'd ever imagined before and it brings to mind Philipians 1:27 "Whatever happens, conducet yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of
Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absensce, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the Faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you." And also Philipians 2: 2 "Then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose." That was Mokahum all the way.

The second thing that was really impressed on my heart was the power of the the need for prayer. This lesson also started, I think, with our commissioning. The fact that we were all gathered together to pray, really made a strong impression on me. Afterwards also, so many people came up to me and us and just encouraged us by letting us know they would be praying for us and all of your prayers have been a huge blessing. At Mokahum and Ponemah, our team and the Grand Forks team were praying together all the time. We prayed in the vehicles on the way to Ponemah for the kids that we would be seeing that day, we prayed when we ate together for the afternoons ahead of us, or behind us, we prayed in the evenings before we went out sharing the Gospel, and even as we walked around sharing with different people. And whenever we sat down together to talk, we would open and close in prayer, and all this prayer really was powerful.

The day that I really learned this though was at Ponemah on Friday. We had just begun the last afternoon of VBS and we were opening with some singing. I was standing at the back of the room, almost squirming. I could feel that there was a strong oppression in the room. I felt almost smothered and I couldn't sing at all. I wanted to go grab our team and take them outside and tell them all to pray, but they were all busy keeping a child in line, or holding somebody on their laps, so I just started praying by myself. I just begged God to put his hand of protection over the building and over the hearts and minds of everybody present, both the leaders and the kids, and I kept praying that over and over until it was time to move on to our next activity.

It wasn't until about 3 that afternoon, when we were ready to do our skit, that there was peace - and then it was so peaceful that it was exciting! We were enthused, the kids were actually quiet and listened, and we could all feel the freedom from the earlier oppression and the joy that came with that. The rest of the day was clearly Spirit-filled and beautiful. But Ponemah that day had been a true battle ground. It was challenging because when we started, there was such oppression that the natural response was despair - it was discouraging and intimidating. But if you read past the "official" armor of God, Ephesians 6:18 says "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests."  And also James 5:16-18 "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." God listens to our prayer, and our prayer carries weight with him. Prayer is powerful.