Take My Life

It was such a joy for Jaron and I to select the Scripture and hymns to be read and sung at our wedding.  The final hymn that we sung, once we exchanged vows, as our minds were looking to our future together as husband and wife, was Take My Life, And Let It Be... our prayer for our lives together.

Take My Life, And Let It Be

Words:  Frances R. Havergal (1836-1879)

Music:  Henri A. C. Malan (1787-1864); harm. Lowell Mason (1792-1872), Public Domain

  O, Lord, I pray today, that this would be true in our lives.

Lucky I'm in love with my best friend

No Reason to Pretend

We come around

A circle meets

At last I feel I'm closer to beginning

A gentle word

A quiet heart

A soul that stirs another one to start

You'll never know dear how much you breathe

Strength and courage into me

And as the day comes closer to an end

I find no reason to pretend

When morning comes

You'll doubtless be

Awake without a worry I can see

You open up

Clearness comes

A look divides the clouds I see the sun

You'll never know dear how much you breathe

Strength and courage into me

And as the day comes closer to the end

I find no reason to pretend

By Aaron Sprinkle

I just love these lyrics.

We love because He first loved us - Six weeks in Haiti

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.  But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.  (1 John 3:16-18)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:7-11) 

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because he is so also are we in this world.
(1 John 4:15-17)

Prayers as I leave for Haiti

I'm about to leave the country to spend 6 weeks in Haiti!!!!  My game-plan is: I board a flight to Miami, FL in less than 6 hours to meet my teammates and start planning, praying, and casting vision for our time together in Haiti.  We'll fly together to Haiti with 45 students & staff. I'll be in-country June 22-July 11 with Team 2, then I'll return to Miami, FL to debrief with my team while simultaneously meeting my new team (Team 3, comprised of 65 students & staff) who I will return to Haiti with July 13-August 1.

Let's vote how out-of-my-comfort-zone (can't do this in my own strength) this trip is.
1) I've never been out of the country for this long before
2) I've never been to a third world country before
3) I only know one other person going on the trip with me
4) I've never lived in a tent on a roof before
These & soooo many other reasons are why I'm pumped to trust God in HUGE ways and why I'm posting prayer requests to ask for your partnership in prayer!

Please join me in praying... 

Team 1 is returning from Haiti tomorrow morning, and we will overlap during debriefing/briefing in Miami, FL for about 36 hours. Pray that we can gain wisdom and insight from the little time we spend with them. Pray that we will faithfully continue what Team 1 has started in so-much as their work glorified the Lord, and pray that we will correct and avoid any faithlessness or sin that tainted their work. Also, thank God that 45 students & staff have gone before us, serving the Lord and preparing the way for us!

Pray for Team 2 to come-together as one body and one family. We are comprised of 10 staff and 35 students from college campuses all around the country. Almost no one has met prior to this trip, so pray that our unity will be instant and strong. Pray against lies, isolation and loneliness as we spend three weeks in Haiti together.

Join me in my urgent prayers for wisdom within our team members, and especially for our team leaders. We do not have all the answers and plans formulated. We are going to serve, to rebuild the nation of Haiti with the Haitians. Pray that God will give us wisdom in assessing problems, pain and needs so that we can correctly seek progress and solutions. Pray that He will grant us wisdom in how/where to spend our days. Pray that we will seek God's direction and truth. Pray that we will be humble enough to admit every day that our worldly wisdom will not suffice in helping the nation of Haiti -- we are in desperate need of God's wisdom.

And for me personally, please pray that I will abide in Christ, walking in step with the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit. Pray that God will instantly convict me of walking in my flesh and empower me to walk in His Spirit.  Pray that God will be glorified through me; that He will get all the glory. Pray that I will not make this trip about me, but that every moment of it will be about loving God and loving others. Lastly, pray that I will encounter God in a powerful and transformational way.

Up-to-date prayer requests, stories, pictures, and videos from our team will be posted on the Hope for Haiti blog.

Enjoy following-us and thank you for your prayers.

Forgotten God by Francis Chan

Forgotten God
Reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit

Francis Chan's books, Crazy Love and Forgotten God, are both powerfully convicting books due to Chan's ability to understand, reveal, and rebuke his readers for their sin - even their sin towards reading his books!  Reading develops knowledge and understanding of truth.  And as Scripture tells us, if we know what we should do, but do not do it, that is sin.  Therefore, as readers we must actively apply the truth we learn, or else we will find ourselves in sin (all the while, boasting in our wisdom).  Through reading Chan's words I have been personally convicted that I often respond to a book by saying “what a good message, sooo convicting….” yet, I won't APPLY those “good messages” and therefore my life is only changed by a fraction of what I read, despite the teaching of faithful pastors and authors. Chan demands more from his readers, and I'm thankful for that.

Chan's book, Forgotten God, did not only teach me about the Holy Spirit, but how the Holy Spirit affects (or rather, should affect) my life.  His aim is to reveal WHY we want the Holy Spirit in our lives. We may have our own purposes for desiring the Spirit’s presence and power in our lives, but so does God and His desires have everything to do with the church’s growth and God’s glory. We are meant to follow, not be followed-by, the Holy Spirit. Chan asks, “Did God lead you to where you are? ...If you say you are called to be in the place you are, a few questions need to be considered…” The Spirit may lead you anywhere, to a different city, to a different state, to a different country, to stay where you are and spend your time in very different ways than you are now, He could lead you toward actions like in 2 Samuel 6, where David danced before the Lord “with all his might” (v 14). Others were shamed by his undignified display of worship to God, yet David said that he didn’t care and that he would become even more undignified for the sake of the Lord. All he cared about was worshiping his God. Chan reminds you that the Holy Spirit is about getting more of worshiping God, not about answers, power, miracles, or self-glorification. His book makes you worship God – love the Holy Spirit – and evaluate what it looks like to follow Him today, tomorrow, and the next day.

I was surprisingly refreshed by Forgotten God, and only wish I had read it sooner!

I know the God I follow is bigger than disaster

Praying for Haiti every day.



I'll be on my way there in 24 days...