The Holy Spirit is so rad

   So this weeks teaching was on the holy spirit- being FILLED with the holy spirit. I could go on for days about every little thing I learned and all the scriptures to back it up, but I won't do that. I'll just give you some stories that happened this week personally to me- my testimony if you will :)
   We practiced praying over people this week- a lot. So many times in the Bible it talks about laying hands on people, so we put that into practice. On Tuesday, our speaker Bart told us to just sit in our chairs and allow the holy spirit to come fill us. We had our "glasses" ready to be filled with Him- and I was definitely filled. Later that night, I found out that my house (at home in Tulare) sold, which means that I will not be returning to the house I have pretty much grown up in. It seriously tore me up inside and this whole past week has been really difficult, knowing I'm not going home to my home. But that night, I felt an overwhelming sense of comfort and peace flood through me. Even if it was just for half an hour, it was a great reminder that God was with me and my family through this whole process.
    Wednesday during lecture, we prayed for healing- if anyone needed healing for anything, we received prayer from other students in the DTS. I had the urge to ask for prayer for my back. It's weird, because I had never thought of my back being healed further than my surgery. But God, being the amazing healer that he is, brought relief to my back. My back was completely numb for a full day- as if I was on painkillers at the hospital still, not able to feel anything. God showed me that He isn't bound by what the doctors say- that if we ask and have FAITH that He can and will heal us, he will!
   Friday was probably one of the craziest days for me so far. Like I said, this week was really rough for me, so it was extremely difficult to find joy at all. The 2 people praying for me didn't know anything of my home situation or of what was going on with my heart, my lack of joy. But as they were praying, one girl kept repeating "joy... joy... unexplainable joy... laughter." And then it hit me: the joy of the LORD flooded through me and I started laughing and smiling uncontrollably. I literally felt like I was drunk on God. As I was laughing, these weights were being taken off my  shoulders, as if my laughter, the joy of the Lord was healing me. It was an amazing feeling that I had never experienced before. Go God.
   It seems as though every time God does something amazing in my life, Satan comes back at me with an attack, and honestly sometimes succeeds in it. Yesterday (Saturday) was extremely rough. Certain events happened that put a huge burden on me all day, and it seemed impossible to find joy again. At one point, I became so angry- more like livid- because of the events of the day. All I know is that right when that rage hit me, I got the worst migraine I have ever experienced. I had friends praying for me for about an hour, but nothing happened. One friend said that they felt that I needed to repent of some sin in my life and forgive somebody, and then they would continue praying for me. I did, and as I forgave this person in my heart for hurting me, some of the pressure left my head. I also started loving this person- like LOVING this person. I stated out loud all the things I love about her, and I had nothing but love in my heart for her. It was a very humbling experience and very cool because I felt like I was loving her like God did. My headache was still there, though. I ended up having to go into a dark room for 2 hours, trying to shake this migraine. A leader came in with me and prayed for me, and she got the same impression as my other friend: I need to forgive people who have wronged me. Suddenly, people who hurt me 6 months, a year ago even, popped up in my head and as I forgave each person, my headache kept leaving little by little. Finally, I asked that God forgive me for harboring all these feelings of resentment over this last year and as I did, my migraine was completely gone. Praise God for being our healer! I could just feel the presence of the Holy Spirit surrounding me, and I was completely at peace for the rest of the night, as if I wasn't even really here.
   Many people have told me on this DTS that God has huge things in store for me in the future- they just get this impression that God will use me in great ways. And I believe that Satan doesn't want that to happen. Every time I get attacked, I try with everything in me to see it as a blessing- Satan feels threatened by me, and by the great almighty God who is at work behind me, so he tries to rob me of my joy. I find strength in this passage in John 16:22: "Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and NO ONE will take away your joy." Not even you Satan!
   I pray that you all had a blessed Thanksgiving! Be blessed. :) Love you all. ***Oh and just a side note: I leave for Africa in less than 3 weeks. jiofdsahjvkdshguhu. That's all. 

Why Am I Here?

    Well... It's the end of week 7 which is CRAZY for me. I can't believe I've been here 7 weeks. Currently, I'm back in Herrnhut (which I'm not too happy about). We came here from Bautzen, Germany which is about 20 minutes by train from Herrnhut. We are here for the weekend, praying for our visas and just relaxing until our bus leaves to Zurich, Switzerland on Monday morning. We will be there for 4 weeks, then I'll be leaving mid-December for Africa!! Yay.
    So this past week was pretty rough for me. There have been so many changes happening back home in California and it's hard to be here and not there. So this past week, I have been questioning why I'm here. I'm cold, I miss home, I'm 18 years old, my heart isn't in Europe, and did I mention I'm freezing? Then God gently reminded me in His gentle Godly ways that I'm here because He called me here. My whole purpose in life is to glorify God and do what He has called me to do, and in Mark 16:15 Jesus tells us straight forward what we're supposed to do: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." Why am I complaining about wanting to go home, when this isn't my life to live anyways? God reminded me of some verses to help me with what I'm dealing with at the moment... "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." -Galatians 2:20, "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will always have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." -Philippians 1:20-21.
     So my question of why I'm here has a simple answer: I'm here because I have decided to follow Jesus. I'm here because I have dedicated my life to serving the One who made the universe. I'm here because God called me to this freezing continent for a reason. And I'm excited to find out that reason. My heart may still be in Guatemala, and maybe God had me come to Europe to realize how much I love Guatemala... but I'm here now. And I need to take advantage of this opportunity that I have to tell this lost continent about God and His unfailing love.

Street Ministry

Alrighty, another post. :) Friday our group went to St. Georg, the other part of the Red Light District, the part where prostitution is illegal (but it still happens) and where most of the girls are trafficked, or not there willingly. I was looking forward to going all day, because I really have a heart for the Red Light District, as you could probably tell from my last blog entry. But when we got there, we had the option of either staying, or going to minister to drug addicts at the Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) and I really felt that God was telling me to go there instead of staying. I was very confused and kind of disappointed at first, because I REALLY wanted to minister to the prostitutes and worship on the street with the rest of my DTS. But instead, I was walking back to Central Station with 4 other people (2 were from my dts... Jonah, a lovely German lad and Jade, the raddest Canadian girl person alive).

So we arrived back at Central Station and we found out that we wouldn't really be ministering to drug addicts, just whoever we felt God was leading us to talk to. I was very mad at this point. When Jade, Jonah and I prayed, I prayed something like "Well God, you sent me here and I haven't witnessed anything SUPER spectacular yet on these outreaches and I'm kinda getting impatient, so it would be LOVELY if you would give us someone to talk to." I so regretted my attitude later, after God DID do something amazing. 

After getting blown off by a crippled man who told us something very rude, I was feeling deflated and rejected. But then we walked over to these two men just hanging out drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. Jonah started by asking if we could just pray for them, and they said no. But then after talking to one of the guys with Jade for a couple minutes, we asked if we could pray for him. And he said yes. We prayed for his health, for his job, and for revelation of God's love for him. After we prayed, he had such joy in his eyes, and he asked us "Do you like orange?" We were like "uuuummmmmm... yes??" and he said "I'll be right back" and scurried away for a couple minutes and came back with orange flavored capri suns and a Mars bar for us. He said "By praying for me, you gave me energy, so I want to give you energy back." And he told Jonah later that he is so thankful for Jade and I praying for him because it showed him that we were genuinely interested in him and cared about him.

I can't even count how many times he said thank you. He was SO blessed by a simple prayer. We found out later that Jonah was talking to the other guy about God and he was taking a serious interest in Him. We also prayed for him, that he would be able to FEEL God and not just read about him on a paper we gave to him (he asked us to pray that over him). After the prayer, he said he could feel something stirring in his soul. Praise God. 

So ya, God definitely answered my prayer, even if I didn't ask Him in the nicest way possible. God seriously loves us and longs for a relationship with us and I'm realizing that more and more every day here at Youth With a Mission. Thanks for reading, and for your support for me. Love you all!

The Reeperbahn. (aka Red Light District)

This blog will be pretty short and sweet, but another one will come this weekend with more details. So if you haven't heard, I'm in Hamburg, Germany and absolutely LOVING every minute of it. We're staying in a church on the outskirts of town, just a quick train ride away from the big part of the city.
Last night, we had the opportunity to go to the Reeperbahn, or the Red Light District. ( For those of you who don't know what that is, it's where prostitutes stand on the street... Simply put.) We have been preparing this whole week for this experience, praying that God would prepare our hearts and minds and eyes for what we would experience there. And at first when we got there, a literal heaviness settled on my shoulders. I was overwhelmed my seeing an uncountable number of sex shops, pictures of naked women, and just sights I wish I had never seen. But then we started a worship jam session **(IN THE SAME SPOT WHERE THE BEATLES FIRST GOT FAMOUS!! fjkdshfjkdjkdhgfjkdh)** and the heaviness lifted from my shoulders. Go God. After some time, we went to the middle of the city and joined the other half of our group (we joined together with ywam hamburg for this outreach) and worshipped some more and prayed and prayed and continued to pray.
I really, really, really had to pee.... So as I crossed the street looking for somewhere to do my thing, I passed by a Burger King with 4 prostitutes standing outside, trying to latch onto men and lure them in. They were so beautiful, and probably around 20-24 years old. One of the girls looked at me, and so I smiled at her. And to my amazement, she smiled back. In orientation, the lady who tried preparing us for the Red Light District told us that if nothing else, smile. It might give them some hope. I'm praying and praying that that girl can be broken from her chains. That she can see herself as valuable. And that she has the revelation of God's love for her, His unconditional, amazing, free love. God is breaking my heart for what breaks his, and although it's a hard experience, I'm so thankful that He has answered that prayer of mine. I want to see these women how God sees them. So I'm continuing to pray for them constantly.
Well, tomorrow night we're going to another major part of the RLD and I'll update you more then. Lots of love. Hannah.