I've been reading through my blogs and I haven't given you many of the stories I experienced throughout the year, or faces of people we have met. Well, seeing as I am now at home with EXCELLENT A+ internet, and everyone else's facebook pictures at my disposal, I want to share these faces and prayer requests with you.
(1) Dominican Republic
Pray for the church of Los Montacitos. We tore it down during our month there and Francis (green shirt) just posted an update on facebook with pictures of the newly completely church building. Lord, please fill the church building that was made larger to hold more of your children and let it be a light on top of those mountains for people searching for you!
(2) Ecuador
Please pray for my host family. That the Lord would be their provider for all of their needs. That they will know an abundance of His love and generosity like they showed me while opening up their home to me for a month. (Left to Right) Christian, Me, Nicole, Gabby, Silvia, and Elqui.
(3) Peru
Pray for the people working and living in the garbage dumps, that God would open up opportunities and occupations for them to get their families out of the dumps. Also pray for these 2 girls in this picture. They were deaf and we prayed healing over their hearing. Pray that God continues to heal them.
(4) Nicaragua
This is Angela (middle)! I wrote about her deliverance from anorexia and depression during our time there. Please pray for God to continue to heal her from her past and making it clear to her daily how much she is loved!
(5) El Salvador
Lift up Carlos (green shirt; back corner of the truck); that God would continue to speak identity over Him and lead him on the path that has been laid for him. Also for Jackie and Oscar (white tank and Jesus fish shirt) that God would bless their marriage and the work they do with the church of El Salvador and with the World Race.
(6) Thailand - Phuket
For my lovely sister Autumn, bless her Lord for all the love and joy that she freely gives to those around her. Also, bless the work that she is currently doing for SHE Ministries and all the people she gets to talk to for your glory! Thank-you God for such a great sister!
(7) Kenya
Lord, I ask that you would continue to bring in the finances for the students of Shekinah Glory School in Namangalala, Kenya, and to bless the students and the staff that care for the younger children who live there.
(8) Uganda
Please pray for my darling Calca (bottom), that God would continue to heal her body of HIV and give her a full life for Him. Also praise that our paths were crossed to remind me through the quietest pray from a child, that His love for us is great.
(9) Tanzania
For Victory (left) and Dorcas (right) that God would continue to bless the work of their hands. Also, that all the joy and service they give would be blessed back into their lives, and for peace between religions in their country.
(10) Thailand - Chiang Mai
Please pray for protection over all of our lovely girls from the Abundant Love Girls' Home, to keep all these beautiful daughters out of the bars. Provide for them all they will need to continue with their educations. SueMe (left) and my friend whose Thai name I could never understand (Right)
(11) Cambodia
Pray for Tim (left) and the other members of the Children at Risk team; bless their hands that are building houses for people living in shacks, and holding children that would otherwise be ignored. Pray for the community that they are working in that walls would be broken down and hearts would be softened for what the team is doing in that area.
Thank-you for letting me share my heart and pictures of people who have impacted my life. Thank-you for partnering with me in prayer for them and for the finances that brought our paths together.
I would love to know if you have any prayer needs or requests, please feel free to email me and I would love to pray with you. megrthomas@yahoo.com
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
PART 1 : Plans for My Life
I guess, I never really thought about it much before. It was easy to see the Lord's plans when I got saved and shortly after signed up for a week long trip to Haiti. That led me an opening to go back for 6 weeks, and then that opened doors straight to going on the World Race. Now that I am home from all these adventures I started wondering what all these plans the Lord has for me are. I feel like everything has changed. I can no longer see life here as I used to. I no longer see church or people like I used to. Christianity itself has changed in my mind. It's not the laws and legal system I grew up with when if I do this and act this way and not that, I will be blessed. I don't want to get into an argument about what is right and proper but the law isn't what holds me to God anymore, is what I am trying to say. Rules of religion are not why I act the way I act, it doesn't control what I do or don't do, but try to do all things out of love and allow love of the Father to define my actions the best I can. With all this change of perspective, I sit and I wonder (as well as being asked by everyone I know) "What comes next?"
Drat, was I supposed to be planning that while I was on the race? Whoops, I missed that step of transition. This is where I thank all the wonderful people working in Adventures in Missions, Kingdom Dreams Department for holding a weeklong "re-entry training" called Searchlight. In January, my fellow World Racers and I went down to Georgia for this. It was focused on pinpointing the main things that God had put on our hearts while we were on the field and giving us both motivation and means to get on a path that would make what was on our hearts and visions of what we would love to see happen for our lives or lives that we had crossed paths with this past year possible.
For me, God had really given me a hunger for more of Him. To grow more into the woman He had created me to be. To be honest, most of the time I still feel really raw and young in my Christian walk. Actually, most of my life as a Christian has been spent in foreign countries. And I love being in foreign countries. I love learning about and being in different cultures, even when it sometimes seems so backwards to me. I loved the people we met and the simple act of sharing each other's faith. I learned about Buddhism from this one woman I met in a bar in Thailand, and in return she wanted to know what I believe so I told her. I also love languages. I have to say that trying to learn all the different languages was one of my favorite parts of my race. So if the nations is what I love, then missions must still be for me, right? Still though, I didn't go to bible school, I didn't even graduate college. So most of the time I feel inadequate to recommend myself as a missionary because I don't have any credentials except for my time on the race to say what I have to offer is worth it. How can I live to serve the nations if I can't even recommend myself?
Then I think of Paul. Blinded on the road to Damascus. What did he have to recommend him? He didn't receive any special training, just the Holy Spirit to guide him. I'm not saying I'm Paul, but I do really love how God used his life.
The conclusion I came to that week was that I wanted to join Adventures in Missions in what they are already doing around the world and in the lives of the people going on trips that they offer. I thought about how my own life had been changed since my first trip with them to Haiti in June 2010 and also some of the people around me from the testimonies I had been hearing. Not because of anything I had said or done on purpose either but just through walking in faith. I want to be a part of that. To give back to the organization that has already brought me so much farther than I could have imagined 2 years ago.
I have signed up to be an Apprentice with Adventures in Missions. This is an 8 month program of working in the office, but also receiving decipleship and leadership training. A time to pinpoint my giftings and where I will be most useful to the Kingdom. I have requested to be a part of the Encounter department, which are the adult short term mission trips we offer (18+). So this will be the office and administrative side of the Edge program I was working with while in Haiti. This position will include connecting teams with contacts and coordinating short term trips and also hopefully leading some as well. To keep this post a little shorter please feel free to email me if you would care to know more specifics about what my apprenticeship will look like.
Maybe plans for my life is a bit much for the title of this post. I am NOT a planner. So the point that I am attempting to make plans for the next 8 months of my life feels like a huge step. But in order to actually be a part of the apprenticeship I have to take a larger step. I have to surrender my finances once again completely to the Lord and His followers. It is a paid apprenticeship, but my paycheck comes from fundraising. I will be working 8 hours a day/ 5 days a week, serving and growing in intentional meetings with other people in the apprenticeship program. Learning how to serve the best we can and helping to raise up more of our generation through the trips and programs offered to see the Kingdom Come. Ultimately that's why we do the things we do. And that is what my heart is most passionate for.
So for now these are my plans, and I feel pretty confident in saying that these are the plans that He has set aside for this portion of my life. If you are interested in partnering with me in this please email me your address or just say "more info" in an email. Or you can click on the support me tab on this page.
I know the title could use some work, but now that I'm no longer on the race all my spare time isn't consumed with thinking up clever blog titles. Really when I found out all I could think was "OH MY STARS!!" Maybe it was too much time spent with my teammate Sarah Pena always saying it or too much time watching "Gone with the Wind" lately in my attempts to understand the southern mindset before moving to the south ;) either way I just couldn't believe it!
So yesterday my brother-in-law had texted me a link to our local newspaper's website to an article about my time on the World Race, and today I found my picture on the front page of the printed version at our local grocery store. I can't honestly say I didn't see it coming. After all I had talked to the reporter who wrote the article 2 weeks ago and then again earlier this week he had called to ask permission to use pictures he had seen on my facebook and told me the article would probably go out this week. What I didn't see coming was how I would feel about it. Like I said above I couldn't believe it! It's unreal! I'm so happy how Jesus has used me and what He has taught me over the past 2 years. I am happy to share my story and love telling people about the things we saw, the places we have been and the things we have learned, but I didn't want to see MY face attached to any of that work. I didn't want to take any of the credit for the places we were sent to or the things we physically or spiritually did and saw while we were on this crazy adventure.
When my friend first contacted me about having an article written I was doubtful. I asked her through our facebook messages if it would even get printed because my trip was a Christian faith-based trip. The reason I went on the trip and to the places I went was because of God. He brought in the money that needed to be raised, He picked this trip specifically for me and the people on my squad, He brought me to all these places. She said "not a problem" and passed my contact information onto the reporter. He called. Did the interview. We talked for a while about what I had learned, what my favorite parts where, the challenging parts and all that fun stuff. I was excited to share my story and expected it would get printed as one of those middle filler sections. But to my wonderful surprise it was (like I have said) a double picture on the front page!
It was a very humbling moment to see that. Leaving my grocery store with that paper in my hand was a very humbling moment for me. I didn't know what to do I sat down in my car and just cried. I just thanked God for everything, and just asked that through this article that He take the glory. Especially having it printed in my local paper that people who knew me growing up could just see His hand in my life to bring me to where I am now. Because, not many of you who just know me from the race know, but this was NOT the path I was on 2 years ago. But I would not could not imagine or want to be in a different situation right now.
I have this quote in the back of my notebook from the race from Mark 9:
"I Beleive! Help me in my Unbelief."
I love God! No seriously, I decided today that I just can't get enough of His love! It's more than I have ever felt for any person! and it's just really great to know just how much His love it that I will never be able to get enough of it, but there will always be an abundance of it! and even in my times of saying "well God is big, but the local newspaper just won't print that" He's bigger than that and He loves to show me just how wrong I am in that unbelief and I love it everytime He does!
Thank-you for joining me on this crazy adventure!
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More to come soon!
Love Y'all!!!!
P.s.- In case you aren't from Warren County, New Jersey... click here the link to the article
I am sorry to all who have been following my blog because I have not been honoring you. I said I would update and didn't. I no longer am OK with words said from my lips that I don't follow through with my actions. But to be quite honest in my time of internet silence, the silence was kind of surrounding my life, I'm not sure if that makes sense but it's how I felt. I felt like all the words I had to say were inadequate and then the more I let the silence overtake me the more I felt guilt over letting it which pushed me into more silence. It was a nasty cycle.
It has taken a while but I finally recieved amswers as to why. Why I felt so misplaced, why I felt my voice and my words were inadequate. I was wandering around the world with a faulty heart. It wasn't functioning the way it was designed to. My heart (and yours) were created love like God. But living in the world, being of the world and not alway just in it had built up many walls that were tripping this little heart of mine up. My head knew of the freedom we are given to walk in and the amazing amount of love that God has for us and that we are supposed to pour that love out to others. But there was a wall of fear that all this information couldn't pass through to get to my heart. To act out of love an not just knowledge. And I feel like that makes all the difference.
I'm speaking for myself but it is 503639836times harder for me to go out and do the things that we are asked to do when I'm functioning through knowledge and my heart is not in it. And when it gets hard like that I am acting in my own stength. Ugh no thank-you. Ministry is still good, I mean no matter what I'm struggling through God used me in the places He brought me to but it didn't need to be so dang hard.
So I want to be honest with you.
I'm afraid of:
being wrong
Giving bad advice
That I'm not good enough
That I don't have the right words to say to make my thoughts clear
What people will think of me if I speak my mind
What people are thinking of me when I remain silent
What people think of this trip, if it is just "one of those phases Megan goes through"
Going home unchanged
Walking in the changes God has made in me with boldness at home
That people wont except these changes and still hold the things of my past over me
Whew I feel alot better with those out there in cyberspace. ;)
But the truth, I realized is that we are fearfully made but we are not made to fear anyone or thing but God. No fear of man and no fear of self.
1 John 4:18 in my English Standard Version bible reads:
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."
My teammate Daniel quoted this (in a fake british accent) all the way through Africa and it took me a while until I actually got it.
Today while typing this up I looked it up in The Message translation and really like how it is worded
"My dear children, let's not just talk about love, let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves"
Fitting right?
Early in month 9 we wrote down who God says we are and I'm going to share them here because those fears I shared with you above are NOT who I am.
I am:
Megan Rose Thomas
I hear my father's voice when He speaks to me and I have been given the boldness to speak the words He asks me to.
A persuer and a leader, where He leads I will follow.
Made new, the things of my past no longer define me.
Pure in my father's eyes.
Loved so fear of man has no place on my heart.
Will I still be afraid? Yes. But it can't control me when I know the truth of God's love. Who is He telling you that you are? Truely are? Will you walk in that with me?
For our Month 10 Ministry we were told to Ask the Lord where He wanted us to serve Him in Southeast Asia. In July, I had a dream that we were back in Thailand, but in a different area. This time we were going to the north of Thailand. After much prayer into this and confirmation from my teammates we set out to find a contact to work with in that area. During this time we also found out that the men of our team would not be joining us this month. They were going to go off and do MANistry in a different location, so it was just us 4 girls. After MANY emails we found an "aunt's aunt's friend's friend" (aka a God connection) who seemed interested in letting us partner with their ministry in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They suggested a girl's home about 20 minutes outside of the city in Baan Mai Sawan.
The home was initially started by Compassion, but when the Thai government announced that schooling was free in their country (which it is not), the home was closed. By Compassion policies it cannot be in a country where the education is free, their services are needed elsewhere, even if the country is lying about it. In 2002 the home was reopened with the help of a Canadian church and the children that live there are supported through their ChildCare Plus program.
The girls' home is now home to 87, 5-18 year olds who come down from mountain villages to receive a better education. It is a Christian run home on the same grounds as the local church and was restarted by a very loving woman named Lak (which means love in Thai) and her husband the pastor, Pastor Ton. It is run by some amazing women of God as well as the brother boy's home of 80 boys run by amazing men of God.
This is a glimpse of our amazing time spent there with the girls and a little piece of my heart.
If you want more information about helping these girls stay in school click on the ChildCare Plus.
"Beautiful are the feet (or shoes) of those who bring the good news"
Yes my poor beautiful shoes have holes in them from walking everywhere but I kind of really love it!
I'm praying for a miracle to come my way. I haven't been sure if this trip is the trip for me anymore after hearing of many problems going on back home. One of which was finding out my grandma has had lung cancer for the past 2 years and is now back in the hospital for it with a melanoma in her lung they are talking about moving her to a hospice. The thought of not making it home in time to say goodbye or even if I were to be able to if she would know who I was completely broke me. And I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be still away from my family at this time.
As hard as the above thought still is for me to think of, and after 3 days of fasting and prayer and talking with friends and WR family and my new SHE family, I know that this is the place where I am supposed to be. I am supposed to go onto Africa and finish the Race that is set ahead of me.
So I am asking for your help in the miracle that would be keeping me on the field. I have a financial deadline coming up to be fully funded that lands in 5 days. I am still in need of $3000 to make this happen. So please if you are feeling like you should help you can help pray for the money to come in or even consider making a donation it would only take 60 people donating $10 a month to keep me here. What is 60 people in a world of 6,775,235,700 people
thank-you to all who read this it is already a huge support!
UPDATE as of 7/5/11-
Only $1800 remaining until I am fully funded. That's only 36 more people willing to donate $10 a month for these last 5 months of the Race.
UPDATE on 7/10/11 -
Only $1600 that I know of now left to go. The numbers will update this afternoon but internet is a bit limited here and as soon as I find them out I will update this again. Received an email this morning saying the deadline has been pushed back to the 18th, and then we will start praying about whether or not it is time to get a plane ticket home. Which isn't going to happen for this girl. God has told me He has the funds for me. Just wanted to take this time to thank all of you who have been reading and following and praying and donating. I have been completely humbled by all the donations received.
Since I wrote about the situation going on back home with my grandmother, I felt like I should share this will you guys. That after posting and talking with my parents about where I was, the night before leaving Phuket, Thailand, my mom messaged me saying that her and my dad prayed about it and decided to make a donation on my grandma's behalf so that "she can go in to Africa with me'. Destroyed. Thank-you so much mom and dad and the rest of my family too for being accepting of where God has brought me to and encouraging me in it. I really couldn't be here without you. I love you!
Also feeling extremely blessed as we were doing morning devotions the other day lead by our pastor's wife and she is saying that when you give you receive. They run about 25 churches in Eastern Africa and run a children's home/ boarding school in the small town of Namangalala outside of where they live in Kitale, Kenya. Earlier this week we prayed for provisions for the school as they were running low on food. The kids received a new load of food. After leading my devotion that night and praying for finances, they turned to me and my teammate Allie and said they had decided to donate $100 to each of us from the money we as the World Race team were giving them for provisions to stay here. I still don't really know what else to say except another huge Thank-You to them. Will be updating with the amazing month we are having here in a future blog. PROMISE I will actually update in a timely fashion this time ;)
So Sending up much praise to the Lord, my Pappa, for keeping me and my squad family safe these past 6 1/2 months and for keeping us together on the field by provided all the finances we have needed.
Luke 10 was put on my heart this morning for this blog and I am just going to share a bit that really stood out to me but really want to add an encouragement to you to go read it see what sticks out to you. I love it. It has been a constant reminder this race, and even sometimes a guideline for what we are doing.
"After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
"When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say,'Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.' " Luke 10 NIV
well that was short lived. As much as I liked it, it wasn't worth it to keep it. I was told somewhat indirectly that if I were to preach here with anykind of facial piercing, no matter how good my message was, it wouldn't be listened to because that kind of thing is not acceptable here. Also must wear a skirt if I am to stand up in front of a church. I however, broke both those rules when I preached to our youth service on the armor. Though not on purpose. I didn't know that I had to wear a skirt and by the time I went to go get changed our house was already locked up.
The main reason I guess I decided to get rid of all the piercings was that same night after services, my group went out with a local baptist church group who "hand out hot chocolate and bread to people on the streets and tell them about Jesus" it's called Pan y chocolate.
And it sounds like a great plan right?! Show God's love and tell of God's love. Well we met up with our "group"? It was a mother and her 2 daughters 13 and 15 and this one guy who spoke pretty good english. Justin and Jeremy had opted to stay in a different park and so the other 4 of us white people split up with the 4 of them. I went with the 13yr old who had already scampered off somewhere so I ran off to go find her. Well noone had told her I was coming. That I was with the group that was joining them that night. She took a moment away from her conversation to give me a glance up and down and gave me an "I'll deal with that in a moment". After that conversation was done she asked me if I knew the bible while walking on. I said I did. She pointed to my tattoos and to my lip piercing and handed me a track and tried to get me to repeat the salvation prayer *in spanish* umm ut uh "Estoy Missionara!- I'm a missionary!" "En Estads Unidos?-In the united states?" "NO AQUI!-NO HERE!" she gave me a real look of disbelief.
So I might have left her on to do her work alone and see if I knew enough spanish to strike up my own conversations. She really couldn't figure me out. I mean HOW?! is it POSSIBLE for a girl with tattoos and piercings to believe in GOD!? WHY DOES IT MATTTER!? I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall over here. Oh no wait I'm beating my head against legalism.
And these things got to me. ugh. A ministry that produces no fruit because all they do is walk up to people hand them a track repeat the printed salvation prayer. And then "count" them in. I put it in quotations because it was put that way "Well would you count that one" "NO, they didn't actually decide to make a change in their life to live for the Lord". Of the 3000 people they "count" from this program only about 15 a year show up again thats through SanSalvador and SanVicente I mean maybe 15 is a good number. It's 15 more that weren't there before but I feel like it has such a potential for so much greatness.
So no more stupid lip rings for now. The Tattoos don't come off my body sorry people but I didn't get them for you anyways. Sorry if what I said offended. If you think that kind of street evangelism works I believe that God can work in all ways, but it is not what I prefer.
So far this country has just made me very angry. Or maybe anger is such a strong feeling and I am blacking out on the past few days being sick that it's all I'm remembering right now.
I went to South and Central America and saw alot of things. GREAT things! Salvations, freedom from demons of cultural norms and personal attacks, children cared for and churches growing, but the 5 months spent here have really through the frustration and anger about it all broken my heart for all the legalism I have found here. Don't you know the freedom we have to walk in as sons and daughters of Christ!? and some/alot of our contacts do but aren't allowed to walk in it because of the judgement of others.
Why do we do this to each other? Yo no sais.
Glad for the time I have been blessed with here. Glad for another language that I can almost speak lol sometimes.. I have left alot of my heart in the places we have been and have received pieces of the hearts of people we have met. There is so much love here and it's a special Latin kind of love. They have so much of it. I have been challenged in so many ways and shown things I hadn't yet seen in the world, the church and myself, still have some unanswered questions but I think they will be with time and through all this I have been changed, hopefully for the better ;). So I am sad to say Adios to such a large portion of what this trip has been but also at the same time Glad to see where else we are going.
Kathleen Norris, a teacher who teaches parochial grade school, in seeking to expose her students to the spiritual and poetic wealth found in Hebrew Psalter, gave her class the assignment of writing their own personal psalm. One psalm in particular stood out to Kathleen. It was the psalm of a little boy entitled, "The Monster Who Was Sorry."
"He began by admitting he that hates it when his father yells at him: his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck his room, and finally the whole town. The poem concludes: 'then I sit in my messy house and say to myself I shouldn't have done all that."
How often do we feel the need to bring others into a mess with us when we get ourselves into one. To throw insults, to wreck relationships with words in our house, in our town. Or is this just me? Revisiting the "Inside Out" series South Ridge Community Church, my home church in New Jersey did a little over a year ago. It has alot to do with what has been going on here in El Salvador. Not just in my life but in the people around me and our reactions to others even in ministry.
Like I hinted at in my last blog much has happened last month.
We practiced and preformed many skits last month. One you may know a few that were made up on the spot and some that were straight up ridiculous. In some moments like while on the ground on all 4's pretended to be a sheep to fight with other sheep and then wonder off and get found to portray the lost sheep parable to school age kids it was challenging to find joy in the things that we were doing. It was hard to see what the plan God had for us in El Salvador other than to push me into frustration at almost all moments.
I had almost an entire month of this. Which was also not helped by the week long fever I had. With no cause to have a fever other than it just showed up one morning and wouldn't go away. A very unwelcome guest in an already hard month. I had to go to the doctors. Got prescribed tylenol to break the fever that I did have, cough syrup for a couch I didn't have, and some medicine for a sore throat that I didn't have either. This put me in a worse mood because I was not only sick and tired and already slightly irritated with my own mood, but also a very inconsistent month of ministry and contacts, and now I was prescribed medicine for symptoms I didn't have. And in all this got a nice prescription of feedback for the symptoms of BAD ATTITUDE that I did have.
Yesterday, one of our contacts, Juan Carlos preached on self control and anger, and between that and the feedback it pulled me out of my own pitty party mind and showed me a larger picture. It reminded me of the story I had heard about the "monster who was sorry". It's really how I felt in that moment. I'm generally quick to anger and then regretful of the things that I do and say. But I know I'm not the only one who is guilty of it.
I guess the point in writing this is to be open and honest with where I was last month. Not ideal in the least bit for who I should have been or what is expected of me, but it happened non-the-less. I guess the best way to wrap this up is to challenge you like I was challenged, next time you're feeling like i was to take a step back and look at the big picture.
Striving to be a Monster for the kingdom spreading His love through praying to see people and situations the way God sees them and no more destruction and bad attitudes so I don't have to be sorry about the things I do.
