5:00am, January 15th... A solid 90 minutes of sleep, a (very) rushed final packing, and roll call/passport check (and double check), and we were on our way to the Indy airport. The adventure begins!

After cruising over the ice floes of the North Pole...

...the frozen wastelands of Russia...

...with a brief stop in Tokyo...

...we arrived in Taipei at at 9:47pm, on January 16th. Someone tell me where those twelve unaccounted hours of my life are now located?

First pic in Taiwan! I'm so glad to be world-travelin' with this chica... We are thirteen-hour-long-flight survivors together. #immediatebond


And, since 8 hours of sleep to 76 hours of awake is a terrible ratio, settling into our rooms at the Presbyterian Bible Seminary in Hsinchu, Taiwan was just a beautiful thing.

Pretty inviting, eh? My little home away from home for this week... cozy stuff :)


The peace of Jesus has just reigned in all the chaos and uncertainty of a new place, with new people, speaking a new language... thanks for the prayers, y'all - He's heard 'em!



Zai jian,

~bethie

Armed with two books, my favorite blanket, a bar of chocolate, and Jon Thurlow's new CD on my iPod, I'm ready to hit the Indy airport in 4 hours... destination: Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China - 29 hours later.

This trip will be life-changing. I just know it. No one can walk away from seeing God's hand at work and needing to rely on Him all-day-every-day, and not be a changed person... I am SO flipping excited and so ridiculously nervous all at the same time - pray for us, y'all!

Pray for unity, for health, for so much LOVE and joy to just pour out through our words and actions...pray for open eyes and hearts to receive truth...pray for solid faith and belief in the power our God wants to make real in our daily lives, so that we expect it, and can praise Him for it. Pray that each one of us will be able to keep our focus off ourselves and on Jesus and the people around us... golly, He's so ready to USE us, pray that we'll let Him!!



"The Lord of hosts has sworn: as I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." {isaiah24:14}


HIS purpose, HIS will, HIS plans for my future...that's what stands. He has sworn it. Soo, I'm pretty sure we can bank on it. #andpeacefloodsthesoul



~bethie

Quotable Quotes:

--------- Kisses from Katie (by Katie Davis) ---------

"I believe there is one truly courageous thing we can do with our lives: to love unconditionally. Absolutely, with all of ourselves, so much that it hurts and then more."

"He gives ONLY good things...in Him, even sorrow is joy."

"God was showing me His heart & His Word in new ways - I was living through the children I was serving. Armed with a new sense of who He is and who I was as His servant, I continued trying to give myself away in every circumstance. Most days, that didn't include anything other people would find impressive, it simply meant being faithful to the people and responsibilities God has given me."

This girl inspires me to the maxx - check it out! * kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com *

She literally gave up her whole "normal" world to follow the tug on her heart from her Savior...she left the easy, the comfortable, the expected, and chose to do something completely NOT easy, uncomfortable, and unexpected. Only, from it came the irrepressible joy that comes solely from being entirely surrendered to God's will, and she thrives more than she ever would have in wealthy, first-world America. That's the thing about Jesus - carried out in His strength and for His glory, the hard things inevitably end up being the most beautiful. Let's do those hard things, y'all!

Let's also listen to some Bebo Norman. K? K.

All my soul needs
Is all Your love to cover me,
So all the world will see
That I am nothing without You


Nothing without You.


~bethie

{TwoThousandTwelve} 

The year God let me taste true contentment in His will for me. 

I excel at over-analyzing and (attempting to) micro-manage my life. Really, I do. If I could go pro, I'd have a medal. Sometimes, I chalk it up to helpin' God out! You know, just givin' Him a hand in case he, uh, forgot what He and I were workin' on. Other times, I'd realize the fears behind the excessive mental assessing and the exhausting meticulous activity, and try to assume a general apathetic outlook on everything. But one morning in June, in the thick of it all, God just hit me with a revelation that [immediately] flooded my soul with peace, trust, and freedom. Reading through an account of the temple-cleansing showdown, God was like, "yeah, so what's going on in My temple that's in you? What's all this clutter takin' up My space, girl?" He said, "you know, hate to break it to you buuut, anything that takes up space that belongs to Me is an idol." And I know that, right? But all the sudden I'm like, whoa, so if anxiety and worry and stress and fear are in there, they gotta go! If holding onto someone or something is important enough that I am {at.all.} panicked about whether or not it's firmly in my grasp, then it's time to completely let it go...and I think it's safe to say that hanging onto it, in that frame of mind, would be operating against God's path for me - He is not a God of confusion, but a God of order and of peace. I don't want anything that isn't coming from the hand of my Savior. And so that day, by His grace, I gave up controlling every outcome in my life. Huh. Sounds so super easy. Would someone pleease tell me why I never did this before??

"All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, "You must do this. I can't." ~C.S.Lewis

God, in His faithfulness, granted several other such Days of Revelation over the last twelve months. When priorities are in order, when Jesus is first and the perspective considers eternity, literally every single thing falls into place - and there is overwhelming contentment. This year was a year of complete freedom in Jesus, and because of that, I could truly live it. Ahh, thanks, Father :)

{TwoThousandThirteen}

I have no idea what God will do...but because I know He is working and never slumbers, and I know He knows intimately my needs and desires, and I know He is aware of each individual desperate for a touch of His hand through a willing vessel, every day will be an adventure. Each dawn will be a new chance to live out and share His love; and the more love I give out, the more I (not-so) mysteriously have to give... #abeautifulmysteryindeed

"He maketh all things new..."

Happy New Year :)

~bethie

It's the simple things.

~ Sleepin' 10 hours straight in my own bed...
~ Not feeling rushed at.all. during my time with Jesus in the morning - we can just chat it up!
~ Watching (forever)old Disney classics liike The Cat from Outer Space & still bein' able to quote half the movie. #thatslegitimate
~ Reading books just cuz I wanna. Y'all ever read Endurance? About Sir Ernest Shackleton? Uh-mazing.
~ Getting the yearly first-one-to-pelt-someone-with-a-snowball award...trust me, folks - it's prestigious.
~ Purchasing an entire season of 24 for $9. Yes, please.
~ Playing trains with the nephew and making the same (requested) sound effects 82 times.

(This lil guy's a keeper!)


















I don't think God ever meant daily life to be an uncertain, am-I-doing-what-I'm-supposed-to-be-doing experience. He's instilled in us passions and desires that drive us to the next step, that motivate us to dig out and determine where and how we would be used best for the Kingdom, but how this pans out in our day-to-day lives may be very different from what we'd picture... But you know what I think God is picturing? I think He's picturing us thinkin' about pleasing and loving Him more than anyone else...and I think He pictures us being driven by that love and desire to please Him in the way we talk to and treat the people He puts in our lives - encouraging other believers to love and good works and being completely unashamed with unbelievers as we act as His child and messenger of the gospel. And then, as we focus more on what we're being instead of what we're doing, He is faithful to open the doors and pave the way to fulfill our desires (which will, coincidentally, be HIS desires), and we'll be blown away by what He does through us. There will be no regrets at the end of a day lived sharing the love of Jesus!

"The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." {1timothy1:5}

Simple things...


~bethie

Last week, the fam hit up the beach for Thanksgiving!

(I'm slightly addicted to Instagram these days...but I would like to say that this photo remains completely unedited! And also, I'm much obliged to that seagull for flying across the sky with such perfect timing in such a picturesque manner.)

I love the ocean. Every time I'm around it, I gain a whole new respect for the Creator... maybe it's because they seem similar in some ways. One cannot help but be in awe when beholding either... Both have a power that remains contained, but is utterly unstoppable once unleashed. Yet this same sometimes unpredictable, always uncontrollable power source displays indescribable beauty. The ocean has depths man cannot visit...so the greatness of the Father is unsearchable (psalms145:3). Our marvelous God makes marvelous things :)

I super wanted to see the sunrise at least once while I was there! The morning after Thanksgiving, the seas were a bit stormy...and the day after that was also cloudy. Is it weird to say that I was maybe (just a little) annoyed that God didn't give me sunshine from 6-7am when the rest of the day was cloudless? Anyway, weird or not, I was... The last morning, I was debating or not whether it was worth it to try again (morning people, no judging from you please...), and Jesus was just like, how badly do you want this? How much effort are you willing to put into beholding beauty and being blessed? So I got up...and it was so. gorgeous.

How often have I missed out on a good thing from my Father just because I gave up waiting for it? Ah, the waiting takes effort and patience and complete trust... but I think that the moment we're about to give up, the moment our strength becomes weakness so HIS strength is perfected in us, that's the moment the beauty's unveiled. Hold fast!

On another note...

...I will do this someday. I will be terrified. But I will do it.

Soo, the beach was amazing, my family's amazing, break is amazing...God is amazing.

:)


~bethie

Today is a comfy-sweatshirt, no-makeup, Christmas-music, packing-for-home kind of day... in a word, theBESTkindofdayever!

I can't believe this semester has come and gone already... God has shown Himself to be SO strong. Since July, there have been conferences, board meetings, camping trips, 5k races, and banquets... I've tripped to West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, San Francisco, Illinois, North Carolina, and St. Louis to hang out with the most amazing people on this earth. I've learned even more acutely that approval from GOD is all that matters (2timothy2:15), that He cares vastly more about how much I fear Him than how strong I can prove myself to be (psalm147:10&11), and that all I need to overcome the world is solid belief in Jesus Christ (1john5:5) - man, show me what it means to really believe, Father!

I've also come to realize how important it is to make sure that genuine love trumps hasty judgment... I mean, we hear that all the time, right? Judge not, lest ye be judged...all that jazz. But how often do I still make negative assumptions about somebody without even knowing them...without taking the time to be like, hey, so what's hard about your life? What's happened that's molded you into the person you are? What drives you to talk, act, and respond the way you do? We're all who we are because of the events and relationships we've encountered in our lives - and God has been sovereign over ALL these things, the good and the seemingly not-so-good, so as we constantly release control to Him, we are confident that all is working for our benefit - but we filter the outlook of our lives based on what we've experienced so far... I guess I've thought about this more especially in the Life Centers as I meet complete strangers and notice my tendency to straight-up assess their situation with a single glance and think about how they could have avoided being there if they'd just made a different choice and how much righteousness I need to shove into their lives in the counseling room, and then I sit down and actually start talking to them, and that mentality is shattered every. single. time. Everyone has a story that's much, much more than meets the eye...believers AND non-believers. Be careful how you interact with those God has placed in your path, because there will be repercussions, good or bad - I've seen people inspired to good works through the unhindered love of another, and I've talked with others who have entirely written off God's existence because of a single comment made by a careless individual... Sure, hard things need to be boldly said sometimes to someone living clearly outside of God's will, but I have to remember that the words I say to people and the way I treat them does echo into eternity and since I'm a child of God, I can share the truth with the love He's poured into me to further His Kingdom, or I can proudly withhold it and try to impress people with how "good" I am...which is the exact opposite of my purpose here in living out the gospel. I'm no better than anyone else; I'm just washed in His blood...forgiven in His mercy.

I always think of that look that Jesus gave Peter after he denied Him the third time (luke22:61); even then, I bet it wasn't an I-told-you-so, you-failed-me kind of look, but a look that tenderly said, 'yes, you realize now that your human efforts aren't enough, don't you...but don't worry, I will love you always, and I will work miracles through you still...' And He did! Peter changed lives through the power of God in him! Even though he denied Jesus three times on the day he should have been standing the most strongly with Him, he was still a usable vessel in supernatural, mindblowing ways. There's no way I can assume that someone is useless for the Kingdom, regardless of their present state...God has crazy amazing purposes and plans that I cannot even fathom, and my words and actions can make a difference in how they respond to Jesus today. True Love trumped the ultimate judgment on the cross...and that's the message that needs to be seen in my life every day...

Aand here's where we cue God's grace.

Thankfully, He freely gives it. :)

Here's to break and seeing some of my favorite people on the flip side of a fourteen hour drive tomorrow! God is so good.


~bethie