mind soul spirit of rebecca sloan blanton

what do i want to do?

haha yeah, christina faith, i loved your idea so much that i took it…here’s Sloans, version, post wesley and post brazil..

i want to be healed physically. 

i want to be healed of all religious spiritual strongholds.

i want to have so much faith in all that i don’t understand, that i dont rationalize. 

i want to be a person of true humility. 

i want to know with all my heart and soul what exactly my identity in Christ means. 

i want to tear down a lot of strongholds.

i want to be so assured of myself that i can share the Gospel without holding back. 

i want to shift atmospheres in my prayers. 

i want to learn to really fight for things like never before in prayer. 

i want to see prayers, miracles, answered. 

i want to let go and not hold back. 

i want to experience truly seeing God provide for my financial needs, physical needs, and it blowing my parents away that they see they don’t have to step in and give me haircut type money all the time. 

i want to mud bog my four wheel drive xterra and take it over a mountain pass in Colorado.

i want to eat at all the waffle houses in athens.

i want to kayak the broad river.

i want to swim in the middle of the herty fountain in the middle of the night in a swimsuit, underwater.

i want to drive to alaska. 

i want to visit 169 countries. 

i want to see boulder, colorado come to 100% salvation.

i want to make disciples.

i want to be able to do anything for the lord without fearing what man thinks. 

i want to learn to tithe well. 

i want to read the entire bible…soon. maybe in a year. if i can do a photo a day proj and a blog a day proj..then surely i can read the bible.

i want to maybe run a second marathon?

i want to do something in this nature: work at a ski resort, hike the entire Appalachian Trail, work at a summer resort in the mountains…

i want to learn to snowboard.

i want to experience Colorado powder.

i want to be fluent in Spanish.

i want to marry a worshipper, a musician.

i want to see some breakthroughs in my family. lots.

i want to see testimonies of Jesus occur among the least-reached group in Athens: the townies. next 12 months.

i want to follow James 1:27 in the specific way that God has for me. that’s easy to find in Athens, but how specifically does that line up for me?

i want to be a go-to person for my friends. a shoulder to cry on.

i want to be in people’s weddings…in His way and His timing…

i want to have a Canon Mark II camera.

i want to freelance for National Geographic. photography.

i want to be whacked out by the Father’s Love that it changes my being.

i want to be a person of character who is living by Phil. 2. 

i want to write a ton of books…

i want to have a really good living situation for the rest of my life…starting in August and then going to wherever and whenever.

i want to be covered spiritually by spiritual parents in this next year.

i want to be people’s “favorites”. 

i want to have a light countenance. 

i want to cast out demons.

i want to raise the dead.

i want to operate fully in the prophetic.

i want to dream His dreams every night.

i want to see in the Spirit. 

i want my laughter to come out more often than just when i’m praying.

i want people to understand my sense of humor. my sense of humor is most often found in my photos…

i want to see revival come to the American church.

i want to work for a missions organization.

i want to not move abroad, but stay abroad for a short-term (longer than six weeks). 

i want to lead people through the process of inner healing…

i want to stay strong no matter what the world, the flesh, or the enemy throws at me, no matter when. 

i want breakthrough in intimacy with the Lord.

housing.

i’m still looking for a place to live for 2012-13. it’s tough. it’s tricky. in 2007 and 2008, i jumped on things and signed a lease right away. i jumped on it and roomed with someone my freshman year that i shouldn’t have lived with. i desired to do the russell hall freshman college summer experience, but then this girl asked me to live with her, someone that i graduated from HS with, and i couldn’t pass down someone asking me at the time. dumb idea. it was a tough situation. instead i should have done dawg house and lived in russell…the best freshman dorm on campus. instead, i had a hard experience with an unbeliever. I’m an ENFP, and I’m 95% positive she’s got to be a ISTJ. her idea of social life was meet up w/ friends literally once, twice a semester. watch CNN and play minesweeper on the dell back in those days. sleep till 2 pm on the weekends, and never get involved in anything or meet people. and taco bell. i am pretty much polar opposite of all those things, save i do like to sleep in. she was also negative, i’m positive. she was very left-wing, and casual and didn’t do anything active. i was opposite. we had a good share of heated arguments, verbally. of long, awkward silence and ignorance periods, up to weeks at a time. i like to run away from things. there were times i’d cry and cry and call home for hours and hours and complain. and go to the neighbor’s and complain and try to get away. and vent to my freshley small group. i followed that girl around places, and after a few months she told me she didn’t like my personality. that was rough to hear. the hallmates told me that too. note: not putting down people opposite of me. this was literally how i felt, speaking from the perspective of my freshman mind. with where i was at at the time. no, opposites are a fun mystery…but sometimes they just don’t get along. 

then my second year, my parents made me live on campus. i was on the waiting list for East Campus Village, and got a spot with a random wesley person that i had never met. it was up and down. there were never really any arguments. but there were random hangouts, mostly at first. and then we just turned apathetic and never talked for long periods of time, never communicated. even to this day, because of all these periods, it’s been hard for me to learn to communicate with roommates. 

my third year, a friend from the hall freshman year, a good friend, asked me to live with her. not a believer as well. i jumped on this opportunity in january and didn’t look back after signing the lease. we planned so much for our apartment ahead of time. communicated a lot. lots of hype that busted. it started out well. but then it went downhill. poor communication as well. we both changed a lot that year. she spent all her time with her boyfriend. i began to get really involved with wesley stuff. but, it was a situation that at least we left being on good, peaceful terms with. unfortunately we did have a couple of religious debates and i did have a couple of times w/ trouble with controlling my temper, which is a generational issue in my family that from these times i’ve learned to overcome gradually over the years. 

then the next year, i jumped on it yet again and moved in with three acquaintances. one of them turned into a friend and we are still on good terms today, just moved on to different places. but she was never there- in nursing school and engaged, so busy all the time. one of them and i became friends, but it was ruined on a fall break roadtrip to georgia-florida. and the other and i were never friends. lots of drama i probably shouldn’t write about on here. but involved a lot of flesh. selfishness on all ends. anger. arguements. gossip. slander. unforgiveness. cussing. lack of servanthood. lack of honor. lots of tension which left a silent house that fell apart, and no one there for enjoyment. lots of third and fifth wheeling. (not a bad thing, but in this situation, it became very difficult at times especially with the place i was in at the time, being the lone roommate with three roommates all in relationships they are now married to). it was during this year that i had a difficult friendship situation, which ended in the middle of the year, and had started in the middle of the year before. the combination of all this was too much for me at the time. i definitely grew a lot that year, followed by that summer in colorado. 

i used to send out all these messages to all my female facebook friends, looking for a place to live. later i found out that method was terrible. and time consuming. i also used to send embarrassing, rude messages to listservs. definitely not a way to attract you to live with someone.

eventually, god worked that situation out, which i blogged about on its own blog a few weeks ago. i found a great house and got along pretty well with all my roommates 2009-10. a mixed house with lots of interesting things, but it was fun. not a place of community for me, but a nice house and a level of stability i hadn’t experienced. 

then, two years ago, i decided i wanted to move to pineview and be neighbors with all my friends that lived in pineview. i found that two friends of separate friend neighbors in pineview were looking for housing in athens, so they signed a lease with me, as well as another neighbor’s friend. intimately this was probably the best situation i have ever had, in that i got to live here again this year. one of the girls got married, and i miss her being my roommate. she leads worship at one of the local churches. still last year there were times where my roommates felt distance from me, much because of all my past wounds of living situations bottling up and making me such a distance roommate. last summer, a girl i know subleased from my roommate that got married, and she and i and one of my current roommates were in the house. it may have been my favorite living situation ever. why can’t that stuff happen more often? three is a great number. 

then this year, my two roomies from last year that i wasn’t as close with and two random people have all lived with me. their friends that moved in. now it’s basically four girls that all have a lot in common with each other living together, and me and my post-college lifestyle with a different set of interests and a different personality altogether. its an interesting combination and not exactly the best, but because of all i’ve been through, i’ve at least learned to keep the peace. still, i struggle with distance and sketching off. and all my neighbor friends from last year moved out and away. i enjoyed having them around last year, but sometimes it wasn’t all it was pepped up to be. we went about busy lives and had to be intentional with each other. (granted, i was busier last year than i was this year). in some ways, i enjoyed not being neighbors with them this year. in some cases, my neighbors and i had to learn to keep good boundaries in our relationships. 

and now looking to next year, here’s the thing: 1.) some people have an old view of me, it seems. i’m not the person that sent those emails three years ago. 2.) some people are moving away from athens. 3.) some people are not moving, or decided way too early on for me. 4.) my roommates and i grew tired of pineview and felt we should split ways. all four of them are moving in somewhere else together (some of them are also best friends with each other). when they found out i still dont have a place to live, it made them upset. 5.) no one has approached me about living with them. 6.) nothing that stands out in an amazing way has come along. 7.) all of my friends not in any of above have told me that living together would not work out for our friendship in all likelihood, and i have to say i kind of disagree. at some point, in my own belief, one has to give in and realize that true community, true relationship means going through the yucky stuff together to get to the ultimate reward. that’s what jesus and his disciples did. good relationships have to get messy to be even better and more refined. 8.) i’m really excited about one of my good friends moving in with a couple of amazing wesley friends and don’t feel jealous of that situation. i love them so much that i am just excited for them and support what God is doing there. 

and looking ahead to long term, i want to learn to live well now and not keep getting pushed around from place to place all these years. i really need provision. i really need a miracle. i really need God to step up and do something huge now, in this amount of time. there isn’t room for my stuff in my parents’ house, actually. i would rather couch surf with my friends than live with people that i don’t know well moving in…it seems more biblical. anyway, i feel like i’m laying it all on the line now. i have nothing to lose and all to gain. 

just read another annoying post (at least which i find annoying…i’m human). which brings me to think… around christian circles, especially ones i’ve been a part of, there seems to be a lot of talk on social media circles like twitter, and some people get all this praise and glory. and others dont. i have a friend who says the people who arent talked about as much or as well known here in athens are the biggest surprises, secrets, and blessings. i’d say that girl is one of them as well. i’m beginning to think that might be true…

i found this typed in my computer from christmas break…

it’s funny how i’ve changed over the course of a semester and even since brazil in how i would approach God. i haven’t even blogged yet about what shifted in me in brazil, but i think i’d take out half of this stuff. i also realize now that believing so much in the power of prayer and praying so much in october, november and december probably really brought forth the year of breakthrough that most of 2012 has been. 

I just pray for my friendships, that they would grow deeper and stronger through the end of 2011 and into 2012 and onward. I feel like there is redemption needed and resurrection ongoing and an incomplete work coming to completion. I really believe God is going to do something big with them. I just pray that my peeps in Athens and such would just truly enjoy each other’s company. That even when I’m not with _____ right now that it would somehow be redeemed in the near future. That I would get to stand alongside multiple people one day as a bridesmaid and sister. That not having biological sisters would be made up for somehow in the spiritual realm. That you would bring those sisterly relationships into my life and if they are already in my life, that you would strengthen and purify them mutually. That there would be mutual friendship. I pray that spring 2012 would be a great season in friendships and just more of what you’re doing. I feel like 2011 has been so good because it has had so much good fruit. And I feel like that can continue. Even though my Christmas break looks really different than last year’s. I want next semester to be sweet, productive, and good. Not boring or overwhelming. I pray that I would first and foremost grow deeper with you and truly see consistent, steady breakthrough. To carry with me wherever I am. Athens, the 229, Colorado, Brazil, etc. I am confident that I am seeking God’s will for my life, and I want others to be assured in that.

I pray that you will send provision and finances for Jamaica, the spring semester, and brazil. I’m thankful for the way you have provided for me so far this year, and for the new car. If you want a zero mileage car to open up somewhere, I pray that that would happen somehow. That it would be a ministry car. And if not for that I speak blessing over the current option.

I pray that I would be able to abide in your Love, Fatherly love even now when I feel like there isn’t anything else that I can latch onto. When I feel like I’m constantly being watched and judged. When I’m not understood. I like to have big perspective and realize that so many people around me have been around their family a lot and not others.  I’m not all alone in this. There are people I wouldn’t want to be around and I’m glad that I at least am around people who carry themselves with class, poise, manners, and health-consciousness. And like some other people i know are camped at home for the break as well.

I just ask for a new grace to pray and intercede. A bigger one. That I would stay the course, continue truly contending and abiding. That there would be big breakthrough in intimacy this semester and in being still and knowing you are God. In waiting upon you and listening and resting in You no matter what’s going on in or around me. That I would truly run to you. Even here in the 229.

I don’t want any condemnation. I want to walk in the victory. I want clarity for the future.  

I don’t want my family or anything to hinder me from your kingdom purposes. I want to advance forward and go deep. I want to intern next year, and I pray that you will  open that door. I pray that you will soften anything in clay to be open to that and I pray that you will refine him as well as he leads our ministry of Wesley. It’s hard being in full time ministry and not really getting a break from ministering during the “Break”. I really need a day to myself before January 2^nd and I pray that you will make that happen with peace and protection. I feel like it’s so important to really focus on taking care of ourselves before we can look out for others, that it just overflows. I am thankful for books a million, but I just pray you will open up new secret places for people in Valdosta to go to.

I pray you will soften my brother’s heart and that he would be wrecked by and for you. I pray that you will strengthen and unify our brazil and Jamaica teams even now. That the meetings in the spring would rock and truly be filled with your glory and unity and peace and refreshment, and I pray that you will prepare the hearts of people we work with.

 I ask for a spirit of wisdom, understanding, revelation, new fruit, a revelation of your Love, Presence and Grace in my own life. I am thankful for ____. She tells me over and over to walk in grace towards my family. So thankful for Athens and for Wesley. For the vibrant intellectual community where we are challenged to become who we want to be and to think for ourselves. I pray that the spring semester would be a whole new level of your glory and that I would walk in your vision for it throughout the duration of the semester. That it would be super personal for me and that I would see breakthrough in the areas of outreach and evangelism. And that I would grow strongly in my identity and truly live out of a right belief about who I am. 

Do You Always Read My Blogs on Your Dashboard? I never receive feedback anymore…ever.

Comment below. 

I’ve been having really pleasant dreams lately. Last night I dreamt I was back in Brasil with the entire Wesley staff from this year. A certain guy on staff somehow had a dad who pastored a church where God was moving out in the country somewhere. We went to visit the church, a few of us, and God blew the place up. Joy. I remember community being tight in the dream and summer weather but for some reason it was right before Christmas and one of my friends not on staff and I out of the blue got in the car, had some extra money, and roadtripped with people from a house church in Atlanta to snowboard high and fly style up north and that it was super epic.

I remember finishing up the dream to the tune of a really awesome new song that I’ve heard being played at the awakening and Cherokee.

I’m excited for my friends. Launching into so many things!

yeah, one of my friends wrote something very similar to this a month ago. I thought it was a great idea, so I took suit and am posting it, also as a launching into summer type of thing!! 

In no particular order, so I ABC’ed it:

Angela Sackett- she is working I think her third summer now at Strong Rock, a camp in North Georgia! Doing what she loves. Then, she prepares to hopefully teach abroad in Peru! SO STOKED for her passion for Latin American culture and kids! 

Angela- thanks for being one of my biggest prayer warriors and for being so reliable in my times of need. For laughing, challenging me to laugh for the littlest and silliest things. Thanks for all those 2 am’s my last year of college in your apartment. For being such a faithful friend. 

Anna Day- she is starting up grad school for counseling right now at Richmont in ATL after a year of working for Classic City Community Church! She’s also waiting tables at Brett’s Casual American in Athens- I may be equally excited for her for that opportunity.

Anna- thanks so much for telling me the darn honest truth and challenging me, kicking my butt with a perspective that no one else will give me. Thanks for creating boundaries in such an incredible, honoring, loving way. Thanks for seeing life the way no one else will see it. Thanks for your surprise quirkiness. Thanks for including me in your friends.

Austin Howard- she is doing a summer beach project in Myrtle Beach, discipling college students and doing ministry and outreach! 

Austin- thanks for the Friday nights and lonely Saturdays where no one else is around, so all I have to do is walk down the street and sit in your living room. And I can just be. And ramble about everything and what frustrates us. Thanks for sharing passion with me. Reminding me THERE IS NO LIMIT. For dreaming with me and adventuring. 

Cissie Callaway- she is, after three years of working at that same ole restaurant Bretts (which I actually have YET to even step into!?) and trusting the Lord like no one else I know she is a step closer to her dream- so she’s part of this summer’s Harvest School of Missions in Mozambique!!!!!! Whoa. The Lord straight up called me to intercede for her ALL summer long, as well as the other two girls from Athens in the program. 

Cissie- thanks for accepting and appreciating me! I just realized we really haven’t had a real conversation in a while- so we will change that when you get back! I LOVE how you listen and are no-frills- just get down to the real deep stuff fast and there are no limits on Jesus for you! 

Emily Suber- she is starting grad school at UGA and working two jobs and pouring into and receiving from the incredible Awakening community and girls’ house. 

Emily- thanks for seeing me in the best light that very few other people appreciate me in. Thanks for valuing me so highly as a person and a friend. Thanks for your unconditional love and acceptance. For your spontaneity. And for Colorado in summer 2011. 

Jessica Longino- I wrote a blog post about you in April! I’m so thankful the Lord seems to have chosen you to share summer in Athens with me while all these peeps and more go off to all these crazy places for this summer season! And I’m stoked that you and Anna finally got to meet and work together at Bretts! And you are launching into things— in His timing, His way! Or maybe just a little each day! but just because I am writing less about you and more on others here now doesn’t mean anything- I’m SO THANKFUL FOR YOU and this God-willed new friendship that just seems right in the most amazing way.

Josey Butler- I’m so thankful for our friendship this year interning at Wesley! I hope to see you some in Athens this summer! You’re the best and so empathetic and there for me! You’re an amazing, powerful woman of God! 

Keri McCrary- The Lord is launching you in Savannah in your awesome law internship to impact people there and enjoy His creativity and beauty in your awesome way for the summer in that crazy town! I know you’ll live it big! I’m excited we’ll both be in Athens next year! 

Thanks that I can just talk to you about so many little life things and it’s the best conversation ever. We don’t have to be super Christianese, we can enjoy and talk about all the little details of life and find the joy, glory, beauty, rawness in it! Yet, you’re SUPER encouraging and sassy and hilarious! I’ve enjoyed cookie ministry with you! For more, refer to my Hill Street post from April. Thanks for reading ALL of my blogs and staying up with me! 

Maddy- move back to Athens. Where art thou? I’m so excited the Lord is launching you to have authority in the dry places! I wish we had gotten to know each other more before you left! 

Megan Settlemyer- Due to our obvious kinda big age gap that sometimes creates gaps in our friendship, thanks for being the nearest thing to my little sister. Thanks for being my biggest prayer warrior. Thanks that you are a runner and you can exchange running and exercise wisdom and experiences from a Christlike standpoint. Thanks for being able to talk openly with me about purity, men, and terms that are too awkward to use in a normal conversation. Thanks for texting me every single day to see how I’m doing, yet in that three-week weird gap we didn’t even talk in March, the Lord told you every single thing that had happened to me and that is happening to me in this next year before you even heard an ounce of it from me. Thanks for sharing so much of your life with me, even if we only got to hang out once every two months for three-hour long conversations :) during your two years of nursing school. Thanks for never, ever being annoyed that I send you six-part text messages so often, and for out-texting me so many times. :) Thanks for calling out my identity in Christ. Thanks for your hunger for the Word. Thanks for the listener that you are with the awesome feedback that you have. Thanks for your positivity and empathy and joy. You might be the most passionate, no-frills, purity-seeking Christian I know. Thanks that you date the hottest, strongest, most encouraging brother who is going to be drafted into the MLB!! Thanks for valuing my friendship so dearly and including me so, so much in your life, such as your family graduation party…thanks for believing in me when I don’t believe in myself. I’m so thankful for Onething 2009, CO/NM 2009, that crazy fall semester 2009 and all those treasure hunts, house church gatherings etc, SB 2K10 at Bethel, summers in Athens 2010 and 2011, and staying at your apartment before my lease started in Pineview. 

Congratulations on finally graduating- you’re no longer the little freshman I befriended in the dining hall and over our summer letters at camps out West! And I’m excited that you’re in Athens most of this summer and next year, and that you’re living with Jasmine and Sarah. I’m excited that we’ll be more a part of each other’s lives physically than we were the last two years. You’re going to bring revival to the hospitals and to Ecuador and on all your medical mission trips. Because you will pray for anyone and everyone and meet their every little need. You make America a better place. I hope you can catch up on all that God is doing in the house churches in Athens that you missed while in nursing school! 

Melissa Howell- thanks for being super physically affectionate with me in the most non-awkward way. One of my love languages that people don’t know about… and that I’m too scared to give most of the time for fear of rejection. You’re so good at being touchy feely in the the most motherly way. Thanks for your ten-minute long, comforting hugs. Thanks for our enthusiastic, stinking ridiculously fun conversations that bring me a lot of joy. 

You’re getting married in August! I can’t wait! God’s launching you to make Camp Glisson a better place this summer, and to mother kids in the classroom next year!!! 

Molly Kennedy- I know we haven’t talked but like three or four times in the last year, but thanks for being one of the most encouraging, challenging, and inspiring people I’ve ever known! I can’t WAIT to see God take you to release healing and wisdom and truth and comfort and inspiration and joy into so many women’s hearts all over this country and world. I can’t wait to read your books one day. I can’t wait to see where He takes you. I know it’s big. I love that you repp Wesley at Bethel Redding all of this time!!! You’re great at the act of being a friend! 

Still so thankful that I shared my Bethel Redding SB 2010 experience with the last three people mentioned above! 

Mallory Ingram- I wrote about you the other day in Brazil, so yeahhh…you’re going to be famous one day. You’re going to write books and shake what it means to be a missionary in the highest marketplaces of America. You’re taking the Gospel to unreached people groups through your prayers and financial support of your friends who are physically moving to the 10-40 window one day. 

Thanks for telling me all of the things I will never hear from anyone that stretch me to become more Christlike in ways I wouldn’t have done yet otherwise. Thanks for listening. Thanks for all those football games in college because none of my other friends would go watch them. Thanks for taking my pictures and talking theology with me. Thanks for being there for me so much through the years. 

Melody Botha- I’m so thankful for our two trips to South America together, back-to-back! Thanks for being my friend! For funness and that we have so many similarities on all those personality tests and that we basically kind of want to do eeringly similar things with our lives! Yo Grady kid reppin’! 

Payton McCarty- I wrote a couple blog posts about you already- I don’t know where to begin! Thank you for bringing out me into my passionate, carefree, joyful, hyper, dancy, nonsense, open, raw, blue state. Thanks for helping me get out of my shell and dress up for crazy events. Thanks for knowing me so well, I’ll never forget all of our wonderful memories finishing out college with you in 2009 and 2010. I’m so glad we interned together for two years. I don’t know where God takes us next but I feel that you’ll still be there. 

More importantly at this time, I’m excited for your summer. I’m excited you will finally get to your dream- the mission field, after such a hard year running the dance ministry. I’m excited you get to follow people and not be in Athens. I’m excited for you to explore the 10-40 window and go to Rahab’s Rope. I’m excited for the testimonies and encouragement and passion you’ll bring back. I’m excited for the way you remind me of God’s faithfulness. I know you’re going to create some ridiculous community with those Wesley kids. I’m excited for all the crazy things that will happen to you and that when you come back, you will have left your heart in the 10-40 window and have to go back to retrieve it but sleep there every night for good. 

Zakiya Mims- Thank you so much for being one of those few people that values me and celebrates me like no one else. Thanks for reminding me people can be encouraged by me. Thanks for your maturity and passion and awesomeness in the Lord that you bring. You’re absolutely hilarious. There’s no one like you. Thanks for making me get out of my shell. 

Whoaa!!! Africa! I’m SO excited for your summer also at Harvest School of Missions in Mozambique. For bringing Athens there and bringing that stuff back. I’m clearly a huge, called part of your intercession team from that what-to-bring-list you got. 

Autumn, Rebekah, Sarah W., roommates, former roommates, and so many Awakening, Forever Fun Fun, and Cherokee House people…So glad y’all are in Athens for the summer!!! I am excited to hang out and get to know y’all better or to just touch base and be there in this unique summer community!

Roxanne, Christina, Kelly…miss you in Athens!!! I hope the Lord blesses and keeps you in your adventures in Spain, the UK, South Africa, Costa Rica, and Atlanta! 

Robin, Kayla, the other Sloan, Chelsea, Callie, Callie, Daniel-Mark, Arielle, Jessica N., Casey, Ray, Jennifer, and Katy- I miss working and living and hanging out with you all. You guys are awesome and I miss Summer Staff 2009, as well as the 2010 adventures and the 2011 hop. I value your friendships fo sho! I hope we can continue to be in touch and support in the years to come. 

Francesca, Anna Beth, and the Peru 2K11 team…thanks for allowing me to be my true, crazy, artistic, wild self with you guys! I love you guys so much and am so thankful for you! I miss seeing you more often. You guys rock. 

Sophie and Erica and Craig and Ashley L. and Tyler G and more….a hole left in my heart that I didn’t get to intern with yall my second year!

Athens Family- see your post from last month!

Awakening- I write about you a lot, but thank you and shoutout to Sarah McTier for being so passionate and there and breaking off Valdosta religious paradigms!

Study Abroad group summer 2007- I love and miss you guys.

the UMC.

brazil has helped to redeem my view of the united methodist church. 

sure, i went to wesley for all those years, and it’s a united methodist campus ministry. but i have always known wesley wasn’t your typical united methodist ministry. i still remember the tone of holly avera’s words to random folks at bethel redding more than two years ago when she would tell them where our group hailed from. “it’s not your typical methodist church.”

i remember my freshman year. the people i grew up with at a united methodist church went to wesley and were freaked out by the loud noise, the movement, the “weirdness,” and the people walking around barefoot in worship. i went to crossroads a lot that year, because it was more sane and fratty. 

at some point halfway through college i realized i had grown up in a really dry, dead church. 600 people fill the pews at each 11 a.m. service, but everyone is middle class or upper-middle class, white, many people are older, dressed up, stiff. hymnbooks. unexciting, winded sermons. a choir really focused on performance at times. routine, get in and get out. 

youth groups…people went because their parents made them. sing songs off a projector screen. old skool contemporary. at the annual summer camp week with the kids from the valdosta housing projects, the main focus of the week was not the kids, but throwing dynamites into the girls’ cabin, playing all sorts of creative pranks involving gross stuff and wars, and the girls sitting around nude in the cabin giving massages and putting on tan lotion. 

so yeah, i grew up in this church with the people who did all of the above. i grew up with these people, many from preschool or early elementary school onward. to this day, almost all of them are not living for the lord. they are all about medical school, a great job in buckhead, a nice house, beer, etc. a few are, but i am not sure where exactly they are in that walk. radical? not sure. i’m thankful that my older two twin cousins survived all of this and do live for the lord today, though we’ve had a falling out as far as the spiritual gifts go. 

much of these people were a big part of the cause of the rejection i felt growing up.

anyway, i felt like i only had a fraction of the gospel preached to me growing up, and that songs and church were supposed to be boring. God was Santa Claus, and prayers always had to go something like this: “God help me be this, help me be that, yada yada, be with so and so, etc.”

i was always told that pentecostal was weird. people raising their arms. i had heard vaguely about casting out stuff and speaking in tongues, but i had no idea what prophecy was, or that people could get healed. i thought miracles were a freak of nature that happened once in a world because our god does random things good sometimes. i remember going to a charismatic church service a couple times out in the “county” outside of the valdosta city limits with an ex-boyfriend. it’s funny that we went to church stuff together, but were like many other teen couples, as far as unhealthy physical boundaries go. 

(fun fact. i think everyone thinks i was always single during my years at wesley. that statement is false.)

my parents are still very involved in our local UMC back in valdosta. i’m technically still a member, and i have received a lot of support money for mission trips from that UMC and a little for interning. i have always felt some frustration, anger towards the UMC and don’t like visiting it when i go home. i’d rather go listen to my cousin-in-law from macon preach at a local contemporary southern baptist church. 

anyway, on to brazil. so i’m closing out my years at wesley with this awesome mission trip with a united methodist evangelist. rick bonfim. he talked about john wesley and the history and spectrum of the united methodist church a ton during our time in brazil. 

i learned that the uga wesley foundation and rick bonfim and the mom from tennessee from the umc in livingston are all at the heart of what john wesley desired for the methodist church to be. tongues, healing, signs and wonders, revival, casting out demons, free worship, prophecy, dreams, visions, a crazy prayer ministry. john wesley was crazy. he died to himself and allowed god to change history through him. he laid down his life for christ. 

rick bonfim travels america and the world, evangelizing at various UMC’s to wake up sleepy congregations. so, this is what we did in brazil. brazil is home to a huge revival and i believe it’s the first country in the world that will come to 100% salvation. at least major country. however, there are some UMC’s there that are asleep, so we went to those. 

so, details on what happened to be saved for later- but, i saw that theologically, none of those things are forbidden for the united methodist church. they are desired. fittingly, our last church in brazil was on the 274th anniversary of john wesley getting whacked and baptisted in the holy spirit. and, three days before pentecost sunday. 

we want the UMC to be wakened up. we want all the UMC’s in the USA to be freely worshipping God, praying in tongues, giving words to the church, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. john wesley wants it, but the enemy knows it and he has crippled the american UMC to sexual immorality, homosexuality, dry religious worship, long-winded sermons, a prayerless culture, self-focused annual church ski trips, snobbery, stiffness, and pranks on the girls’ cabin. 

thus, i cleanse and declare no bitterness towards my denominational roots in the name of jesus. still working out some healing, but i desire to see revival come to the UMC. at this point, i don’t feel called to stay in the UMC long-term, but i still have a redeemed view of it, not just within the context of a campus ministry. 

the UMC is a sleeping giant. so much $$ within the american UMC could go to change the world and turn it upside down.

now- Riverstone Wesleyan Fellowship- that’s a whole different story. 

…………………

a friend and i were talking last night. i realized something. she and i have both been getting more integrated with the awakening the last few months. i realized that when i’m around awakening peeps, i feel a lot more peace than when i’m around most wesley people. it’s super tangible. i think that’s God saying something. she feels the same way. this does not count my wesley friends from college. this counts all relationships and people i’ve met since interning.

yesterday at lunch, i realized for the very first time in a conversation that that church group of people is together at this time for a reason- a large sum of them will be sent out to crazy places, and this is the time here and now to learn to build family so that we can create it wherever we go- colorado, an american city, or the other side of the world.

many of my wesley friends have already left wesley. that’s a very real statement. And, for me, i spell T-R-A-N-S-I-T-I-O-N.