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