the thoughts of a missionary.

I guess that I was warned.

I guess that He told me, that He told me that it wouldn’t be easy.

As I sit here and begin to think on the what if’s. If I’m being completely honest within myself, I am struggling. If I’m going to be honest with you, my life would have been “good” if I stayed in college, it would have been fun, it would have been exciting, and I would have been surrounded by people who I could live life with continually for 4 years, who would love me and challenge me and above all, love Jesus with me.

It wouldn’t though, have been full, it wouldn’t have been to the fullness of what God has for me, or for the people that He is sending me to. It would have been “good” but not full. Not His highest and best.

But that doesn’t mean that it still isn’t hard at times, that it still isn’t hard…

Selfishly I want to be with my friends, selfishly I want to be here in Texas with my family. And the longer that I go for, the longer amounts of time that I leave, it just gets harder. Tonight as I began to accept more and more of what Jesus has for me, the more I wept asking Him to take it away. Because it’s hard. Because I want to be surrounded in community, because we were created to be in communion with one another, and in all these transition periods, I have never felt more alone. A thing that may not be spoken about from missionaries very often (because we want to give this idea that it’s all good and that we are so Holy that we can endure anything… hahaha we’re funny) is that we get lonely. That we need support and calls of encouragement to keep on doing what Jesus has called us to do, because we get tired. We get worn out. It’s not easy to always be the pursuer and wait on others to build you up in the body of Christ, because honestly, that area lacks in our life. We can’t always just dig deep into a place knowing we are soon to be uprooted yet again. So those encouragements become so beautiful and refreshing when they happen. I mean as people we can be pretty consumed in our own lives, I know that I can be guilty of that. But what I think and have seen so much in what I do, and others as well. We all are guilty of follow through. That it’s easy to forget about people when they aren’t in front of you. Just as I am sent out, it’s still hard to accept that I may not always get to be surrounded by people at my side.

That’s a hard reality.

A reality that I am struggling with on this journey of life with Jesus. He has to become my home, otherwise I will never be satisfied. As exciting and crazy as this may be, its still hard. That is the only word that I can come to terms with. Difficult.

Luke 9:23, “And He was saying to them ALL, if anyone wished to come after Me, he ust deny himself, and take up his cross DAILY and follow Me.

Wait what?!

Yeah, He is Lord. And if we want Him, that means we take all our comforts, all of what we think that we deserve, that are our rights and people, ALL of us…pick it up, lay it at His feet and say that, “Abba, your ways are HIGHER than mine!”

Now, that’s a fun one to read when I want to quit, when I think I have rights to these things all the time.

and these things, remind my why i really love what i am called to do. Jesus is worth it and so are His people!

teaching Ethiopian kids songs about Jesus' love

happy graduation DTS girls!!

meet chels, she makes me giggle.

meet justine, we always want pastries and pumpkin things.

serving food to the homeless boys in Ethiopia

my team to Israel and Ethiopia :)

crazy face.

Dugit coffee shop. free coffee in Israel! 

baptizing Marissa in Israel!!

sweet girl from the orphanage, Betty

CALIFORNIA team we met in Israel. we did some serious demolition...

playing ninja with the Israeli and Jewish people on the streets

meet my noodle, lea, she is from Switzerland and taught me swiss german!!

meet Julie, from Austria, her hair is red and she says jokes

And still I will say, He is better than my discomforts.

consider this joy!

So yes, support raising is more than I bargained for. I won't lie, this is probably one of the hardest things that I have ever done. It's time consuming, it's hard to hear Jesus when it concerns money (other than He has called me to Pismo and so I KNOW however He wants, He will provide) and its just difficult to lay aside the worries of what people will think or act or do or say when it comes to just bluntly asking for money to support this new lifestyle that Jesus has called me to. Now, its funny because this is actually a way, that I feel will hit some people to hopefully give, not to just me, but more importantly see the significance of the partnerships between the missions (which are the branches) and the givers (which are the root). Because if you really look at how missions work, some are called to stay, some are called to go, but we are ALL called! So for me, I am called to move away from my home. To move to a state I have never lived in, where I know a limited amount of people and where I have to be a plane ride away from all that is familiar.
Just as a little side note, if you aren't sure what I am doing, or why I am asking for support... in January I went to a Discipleship Training School in California. This is an organization that thrives on community and whose mission is to know God and to make Him known. I had the freedom to search my heart, discover more of who I am in Christ and what He has created me to be, and to gain more of a heart of compassion and love for the world around me, and to be able to serve people all over the world. It was 3 months of in-class lectures with a new teacher from all over the world each week. We hit subjects like Father Heart of God and Hearing God’s Voice, and SO many more! Then after the in-class training, we were sent out! My team went to Israel and Ethiopia, each for one month. If you ever have the chance, both places are phenomenal!

Well as I was on this journey, God began to really speak more and more to my heart about discipleship. I have always loves talking to people and helping them in the best way that I can, and that basically describes discipleship. So as the school went on, I just knew I was home. I knew that Pismo would become my new home to help and join in on what God is doing to raise His disciples. So all to say that in September I am moving to California! So I am asking for a longer-term partnership. But like we all know, it has to become a partnership. I will be living off of faith based support starting in September (which means that I can't have a job and I rely on God's goodness and monthly givers to support me), and I can't move there until I have the 'x' amount of support needed to live and do missions in California. So, continuing...

I grew up always thinking that it was such a sacrifice to give, that it was going to leave me empty, with less than, when really, i'm learning that it is one of the best things that I could ever do. To show the love for people who love Jesus and those who don't. To begin to move in the direction that God intended us to move. Like the church in Acts. We wonder why it worked so well, and how we have gotten so far away from God's perspective on church and missions, and us...

I want to be completely honest. 

Have we, have I, really asked for God's perspective and His heart on my money, on what God wants to do with what I "have?" Have we asked God about each thing in our life and what He thinks about it?

Cause if I had really done that, I would be giving a lot more of time, money, and prayers...

It's a call to sacrifice on both sides. To lay aside what we really think and to humble ourselves under His authority and what He thinks. To give up a few luxuries and send that money to where it will pour and plant seeds for the Kingdom. I know, we say, "but God, we don't have to extra money to give to missions..." Guess what, God isn't asking for our excess, He is asking for our core.

I know, and am beginning to realize that I have to move away from my ENTIRE family, friends, and people that support me. I am giving up seeing my sisters grow up, and my parents growing and changing Deep Ellum with their church. I have to leave my mentor, I am being called to give up family birthdays and graduations and lake get aways. I won't get to be there physically to be a role model to my sisters. I will be limited in my physical presence in general.

So in a sense, yeah, it's hard to give "our" money to missions, but I am sacrificing the same way that you will have to. We have this view that we are just giving and not getting to see the fruit, but that's the beautiful thing about a partnership. You are sending me out, you are my root, so I can go and be the branches. You can begin to tell these stories I experience as your own.

I've been reading and praying and seeking Jesus on, "ok God, what does a partnership really look like? What's my part, and honestly what does that mean?"

So Philippians has been a book I've been studying in. And one of the comments made about it, that I hadn't ever really thought of was, before it was a book, it was a personal letter from Paul, a missionary, back to his church that was supporting him. 

Philippians 1:3-11 says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

The partnership begins with a relationship. When I read this, I can just see the dependency that they have on one another, between Paul and the church, which this means, that it is also hugely based on communication. And through this partnership, comes prayer. And the cool thing about prayer is that it goes 2 ways. I would love to pray for you, as well as you pray for me. Like I said in one of my blogs before, prayer has not always been something that I enjoy, or has always been easy for me, but the more that I learn about prayer, it becomes NECESSARY. Which makes my heart burn for His promises through prayer. This mission that Jesus has called me to is DEPENDENT on prayer. As the saints, we must pray the Kingdom here, that His glory would be all this world seeks. He moves. 

Now for the tougher part to swallow, partnership is a two-way. Yes, I am called to my part, as well as the people who are partnered with me. It won't always be easy, but God says, "am I not worth it? That I came that you may have eternal life. To know Me and to make Me known." (John 16). So that means, it is no longer just my responsibility for communication. This is NOT a ticket for laziness for me, but it means that in friendships, it's not just one always communicating with the other. I see partnership in the same way. I love you so I love to reach out to you and know about your life, as I hope it goes the other way as well. It reminds me that you are behind me, supporting me and joining in with what Jesus is doing worldwide! How cool?! You get to be worldwide too!

It means that I am not just out there on my own, but I have a support system, people that love Jesus and love me. It’s allowing both of us to see the potential Jesus has for us, and influencing and encouraging one another to seek that potential.

My heart, the reason that I give and the reason that I keep saying yes to Jesus in all these crazy things and places He is taking me, is because above all, I want to see His name glorified! I want to see His Kingdom, His people advance in the knowledge and understanding of Jesus. I want to see lives changed through the power of the body and through His word. So no matter what I say or do, it’s Jesus, it’s the Holy Spirit that will move you, and it’s the Holy Spirit that is going to speak to your heart. I put my confidence and my assurance in Jesus, not in the flesh. So whether I have a little or a lot, I will seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. (Philippians 3).

I desire to see more of His children answering to the call that He hasn’t and will never let them go.

I am asking you to come with me. As I continue to seek and learn and grow and move in His Holy Spirit, in the glory of Him, I want to go as a body. I want to see Jesus’ perfect will for the body of Christ to be touched. I want to see Jesus move in you as He moves in all of us.

Can we, at the end, look back and say, “Jesus I gave all that I could, I gave with what little or much that I had. I gave so that they may know You. The ONLY thing that matters.” Instead of saying maybe in a few years when I have more money or more stability, then I can really give. But what about now?! Why not look now, having eternity as the forefront in our minds. Cause we can say, I count it all as loss compared to knowing You.

Ask Him. Ask Him. God where does my treasure lie?

This challenges me, even as I write, even though I know that I will be living off of your support, I am still in the same place…called to give.

He is asking me the same things.

So I challenge you like I am challenging myself. Wrestle with it, struggle with it, pray about it, talk about it. Ask Him to reveal things to you through His goodness.

Because He is worth it, His love makes it worth it ALL!

Let us join with all the angels singing, “Holy! Holy! Holy!”


What are we fighting against? And what is holding us back?


So let us pray together, pray that I can continue to walk in this humbly and surrender to HIS will. That I don't stop just because it seems like I have an answer. And I will pray for you that God speaks to your heart and that you go in obedience to that. I want to pray that He will continue to speak to you about what He has for you, because He is always seeking you and pursuing you. I will pray for me and you for more and more of a revelation of His son, Jesus Christ. Please let me know if there is a specific way I can be praying for you as well.
Please let me know if you are interested in meeting one on one to talk more about life and Jesus! I am here in Dallas for the next 3 months, open to starting to build new relationships and keep the old as well :)

…"so let this love be like a fire, let our life be like a flame, fill our souls with YOUR desire, let our passion bring YOU fame…”

Hailey "Lemmy" Mullins.

Dear best friend,

I'm not quite sure if you know just how much I love you, I mean, I know you know, but I just wanted to remind you. You have and always will be a blessing from Jesus. From all the things that I have learned from you, been challenged by you, and moved by you, in how you recklessly give it all to Jesus, I am amazed. I know that being apart (6 MONTHS AND COUNTING!) does not always make sense, but I know that you are the girl that will always be "in that relationship...." hahaha sorry Kyle.
I just wanted to tell you that each time I talk to you, I am overwhelmed by how much you give. and you give. and then you give more. You have shown me what it means to be a servant. You have shown me how important each opportunity is, and that no matter where we are, we should always be loving people, and asking Jesus how we can bless someone else.
Hey, p.s. you are selfless.
I can think of all the times that we have taken time away from Kyle's precious phone time with you just to sing about poop on the carpet, or have valley girl kinds of accents and attitudes when we don't want to complain. Accents always make it better?
Hey, p.s. you are beautifully made, and there is no flaw in you. For He has clothed you with righteousness.
And wait, were we supposed to turn there? Because I think that once again, we are lost.
lalalala I could go on forever, I mean let's be honest, we have a tendency to never stop talking.
And I love you, and I am praying for you. I know that this is short, but you are astounding! I can't wait to put you in these arms and sit in a field and talk about our past 6 months til we fall over.
I thank Jesus for you, because He never fails. He is never NOT good! He always has and will teach you and grow you and build you into more and more of the women that He has so faithfully brought you to now. You are good, you are SO good! And I am honored to call you my friend.
p.s. as I am writing this, I am listening to Kari Jobe in honor of you!
I can't wait to see where Jesus takes you and how He uses you to move this nation to more of His heart, His heart of compassion, and to His heart of grace.

This song by Cory Asbury, reminds me of you, this is how Jesus sees you, that you are so dependent on Him that you wait...

We wait for You, we wait for You
We wait for You; walk in the room

Here we are, standing in Your presence
Here we are, standing in Your presence
Shekinah glory come down, Shekinah glory come down

Release the fullness of Your Spirit
Shekinah glory come, Shekinah glory come

You move and we want more, You speak and we want more
You move and we want more; we want the fullness

We want more, we want more, we want more, we want more
We want more, we want more, more of Your Spirit

You are beautiful and I love you.
Psalm 16.

Now, keep doing work to set the captives free!!
I am so proud of you.

-Auds :)

Dallas House of Prayer

Well let’s just say that I found my “home” for the next 3 months. Since I have been home, and away from the YWAM culture, I have continued to seek and see the significance of worship and intercession. Funny story, but for the past year I have not really seen the significance at ALL of prayer, if I’m being completely honest. Just ask my mentor Alisa about before YWAM how I felt about that. All when I was younger I was known as old faithful or the prayer munchkin. I prayed about everything, and I believed what I prayed. But when I started high school I began to feel like my prayers were empty, that God wasn’t really listening. So naturally, I just kinda stopped praying. I still spent time with Jesus, but it was mostly me talking and complaining at Jesus. Now we know that prayer is a conversation between us and Jesus. It’s all about a relationship, so when we pray, and how often we pray, is really showing how much we really want to talk with Jesus. How much we really want to know His heart, like we want to know our father, or our best friends, or the one who saved us from the world. Prayer is huge part of a relationship, cause what if we just studied our best friend and never actually wanted to talk to them? We just wanted to be able to show off just how much we knew. Just how much we could spill about our best friend. Or what if we just sat and talked and complained to our best friend but never took time to listen to them. How much does Jesus really know about us from our mouths, or how much do we really know about Him from Him just speaking to us in those times that we go off and just seek to hear His voice…

So since I have been home, like I said, I have just been transformed in the revelation of prayer and the significance and the discipline and the FUN of prayer. YWAM has helped usher me into the wrecking of intercession. In the past few years it has been spoken over me that I will begin to understand and love intercession and really have a heart that will move to compassion like Jesus’ heart. But until YWAM I had never really had the opportunity or even really known what the word intercession meant. So I came home and started looking for prayer houses in Dallas, which is a little harder and frustrating than I thought. Not many prayer houses around this place. But I began to ask Jesus to just open my eyes to see where He is working and what He is doing and how I can be apart of that. It’s always so much better when I ask Him to show me where He already is.

I find one, about 20 minutes away from my house. It was not the most appealing website or the clearest to understand, but I knew that there was something that was drawing me to it. I bookmarked it and just prayed that night for God to really show me where He wanted me. I pulled up my computer the next morning and it still intrigued me, so that night I looked up their set times for worship mixed with intercession (prayer) and after dinner, headed towards this new and uncharted waters. I love doing things like that! I love just going and having no fear, its so much more fun that way.

I pull up to this place and on the outside there is a huge sign that says “Dallas House of Prayer,” there was SO much excitement to just be near to where His heart was. I could feel Him moving even from outside the doors. It was powerful to walk up to a place and you are already blown away by Him. The whole car ride there, which by the way, if you want some good one on one Jesus time? Hop in your car and just sing and sing and sing at the top of your lungs, I guarantee you will encounter the joy of the Lord! And maybe even much more than that. Since I have loved just talking and asking for more of His heart, I cry at the most random times. Seriously. Like yesterday I was driving to get my haircut and I saw a whole building dedicated to divorce. I lost it. I was bawling and just crying out to Jesus for the Holy Spirit to just encounter people in that place and building and it just jumpstarted this urgency to pray for divorces. It’s hard at times, because I am so much more aware of the need to pray and sometimes I’m lazy, but I wouldn’t ask for it any other way. I love knowing how He is feeling and what He wants for areas.

Ok tangent over. So I pull up and I step in the door and it’s a coffee shop. Hello divine appointment, Jesus likes to give me fun things like prayer and coffee in the same building J Off to the side is the door to the prayer room and I walk in and this girl is up there playing and just singing to Jesus with such passion, so I instantly feel welcomed and not like a stranger in the prayer room, where I don’t know anyone, but that I can come as apart of the body of Christ, as a daughter of the Most High. Then within 2 minutes they start interceding for the Messianic Jews, and the Jewish people, and just all of Israel really. My heart leaps! I just was there and I knew how to pray specifically for these people, the ones that we met and the ones that we didn’t! And God just started laying these things on my heart and so I got bold and went up to the front to pray. It was something about the atmosphere that made me feel like I walked into a room full of people I had known, that weren’t strangers. Guess when the Holy Spirit is there He can really make us feel like family. So the longer I am there, I just feel so at peace, so at home. I knew and I am continuing to know that Jesus loves people so much that they are worth it. They are worth us giving 2 hours to intercede for their souls…because hell is reality.

Reality is that He is waiting for us to pounce on His bandwagon and bring Heaven to earth. He is waiting on the saints to move. That’s how much He loves us, that He waits until our hearts are moved to compassion to move. He cares SO much about how we are, where our hearts are at that He waits.

He waits.

He wants us so much to be involved that He is patient with us to learn and to grow and to HUNGER to see Him move. To be desperate for His Holy Spirit to shoe up where people are.

Why? I can’t fathom that God is asking me to help Him move the mountains, when He is perfectly capable of doing that on His own. Yet He loves me, He loves us so much that He is willing to lay down His power, to see change in our hearts first. He is willing to hold back until we pray and desperately seek for those things to come, for those things to happen. Now if you ask me, that is power. That shows us so much of the character of God.

He is good.

I wish I had more words for Him, my heart is so full. He has filled all who come hungry. He has pursued even when I say no, to His face.

He is.

He is.

He is…

So as I am flying on my way home from California, not only am I an emotional wreck, but i'm stuck in this place of realization that this season of my life is over, while not really sure what to expect for the next. It was about 4 am and I had to wake up some of my best friends to say bye...which by the way, waking up and the first thing you do is cry realizing you have NO idea when you will get to see these girls again is a miserable way to start the day.

Back to the plane, well I slept through my entire first one hour flight, but when I got onto the second flight, I began to realize that the past 5 months were not just some missions thing that is now over, it was not just some thing I went and did to change people's lives, and pour into them all that Jesus had poured into me, but it was much more...so much more.

It is a lifestyle.

Do I really get that? That when God throws me back out on my own, that I am the one who has to take initiative, to still be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is saying, praying and still asking God to use me, even on my way home.

It doesn't just end when we set foot on that plane, but really that is where it begins.

I could hear God saying, "So what have you learned? And how bold are you willing to be without your team, without anyone else seeing? I'm not done with you yet, I'm still gonna use you, wherever you are, whatever you do, I love you and I love these people too much to let you slip away."

So as I sit there, I put in my ipod and begin to listen to a sermon about giving recklessly. It talks about how the early church in Acts never had any members lacking. Why? Because they had the mindset that its not ours, that when we give and we give, we also receive and receive. Cool concept, huh? Yeah, I thought so too. That even though we feel like when we give, we are loosing somehow, that somehow now we have less than, when in reality we have SO much more than!

Well I was having all these realizations and revelations of just how faithful Jesus is, so I take out my ipod to kinda just sit and be still and quiet (which AM flights are perfect for this) and listen. Just listen to Jesus, who gave more than I need, who never has lacked anything.

Then the man sitting right next to me, which throughout the entire flight also took over half of my seat as well, which made for an interesting 3 hours...not the point, but he just started talking. And honestly if you asked me how it even happened, I couldn't tell you, all the sudden I was just going on and on about what I had just done for the past 5 months.

So we start talking and this man was hungry, hungry for something, something that I felt like the Holy Spirit asked me, "How bold are you gonna be?" So I did, I just started talking all about how generous Jesus is and how abundant His love is and how that carried me through YWAM, and literally mid-sentence, BAM I got stopped. He just butted right. He was like, I actually feel like Jesus has been telling that I need to give more to my church.

Unload session began.

He told me all about his past and how he had made all these mistakes, I'll spare the details because I kinda feel awkward telling his personal life. But all to say that he has has been going to this cowboy church (only in the south) and i'm not even really sure what that means, maybe they all take their horses instead of cars. So like 5 years ago or so, he felt the same tug on his heart that he needed to give more to his church and so since he breeds horses he bred this really beautiful horse that was worth a lot of money (he gave me more details, but honestly I didn't understand that lingo) so he went to his pastor and told him that he wanted to hold a raffle to raise money for the church, but wanted to stay anonymous. Well if you know much about small towns, that doesn't really work, so his pastor began to tell everyone who it was and he seemed just really hurt by that.

So as time went on he had raised thousands of dollars for the church and when they drew for the raffle, they drew his name.

The first words out of his mouth were, "God is so faithful."

It's true, God is so SO faithful! So he felt just that God was asking him, are you willing? Are you willing to give your best for me? And when he gave the most prized possession he had, he got it right back.

Funny how I had just listened to a sermon on giving, and here this man is saying that he feels like God is telling him to give more back to the church since he hadn't really given since the raffle. He said that I was confirmation for a few things that he felt he needed to do.

He had seen one of his best friends from years ago, who had betrayed him in one of his divorces, in the San Fran airport, and his friend came up to him and tried to just simply say hello. He said to me, "I was a complete jerk. I think I need to apologize." So he told me that he really didn't even remember why he was bitter, or what he did. Over and over through our conversation, he was telling me, "you know, after this flight, i'm gonna go apologize to him."

He allowed me to speak into him about the situation, and it's funny how even though I had no intention of talking to anyone on this flight, God said otherwise.

Throughout the rest of the flight we talked about other broken relationships and how he needed to love his kids no matter what. I had mentioned the prodigal son, and I asked him if that happened to him, after all his kids did, and money they used him for, could he still love them? Could he still welcome them back with open arms?

As soon as the plane landed, he emailed his kids, who he hasn't talked to in over 5 years, that he still loves them no matter what.

He challenged me even as the Spirit led me to challenge him.

God's never done using us. That man now has mended relationships, and a mended heart all because Jesus is never done with him, He will never stop pursuing him.

While I was waiting to pick up my bags with my parents, I was telling them this story. Then I was walking out the door, and he yelled from behind me, "Audrey I did it! I said sorry!"

My heart melted. He just showed Jesus to his best friend. He let go of the bitterness that had been residing in him for years.

He let go of himself, because in that plane ride, he realized that people are more important than the bitterness we hold.

God is never done. God is always working, always moving. And for some reason He chose a little girl from Texas to start that. Glory to HIS name!

He pursues me, even when I chose to close off the world in a plane ride.

Seek first HIS Kingdom! forever and ever AMEN!