This update is directly from my journal...and entry from 10-6-09.

Papa I am so overwhelmed right now. That you would trust me in this venture of Your's. I feel so inadequate and at the end of myself. I know You are made strong in my weakness and I praise You for that. But Papa, even in my weakness, please give me strength. We went to a village last night and were asked to do a service. My thoughts raced and all I could think was "who am I... how can I give them anything, I have nothing that they need." And yet, I know watching the faces of the 29 people there that it wasn't about what I could or couldn't do, it was about me allowing You to flow through me. The saw Your love for them through us. Despite messing up the verses of the song or forgetting small details in the stories. Despite me not being able to eat much of the food....they saw Your love for them, which is the reason we came. Papa I am humbled by You and I feel such love from You. I know You have wrapped me in Your arms and You're holding me. I know you wrapped Your arms around the woman who hosted us last night. All that was done by the villagers last night was out of a deep hunger for more of You. Despite the risk they were putting themselves in, they wanted more of You, they wanted to know the word You had for them on this night. They meet 4 times per week after a full day in the fields. It wasn't a duty or a drudgery, they deeply yearn for You, for Your presence and to hear Your oice. Increase my hunger Papa.

We've Arrived

We arrived to our first location after 45 hours of travel. We had a 12 hour layover in the airport which was beautiful and had comfy lounge chairs that we were able to nap in.

We arrived very late so went to bed and only slept a few hours. We were able to have a western breakfast the first morning which was a nice way to ease into being here. We had typical breakfast the next morning.

In the afternoon we began language lessons. Our YWAM friends have been so helpful and patient as we butcher the language. We had an additional language lesson the next morning and a real live exercise when we went to lunch and ordered. The people who work in the restaurants are very patient and understanding. They seem to think it quite funny when we make attempts. I was worried about finding stuff to eat here since I don't like this type of food, but I have been pleasantly surprised and l love the food.

This morning, Sunday here, we attended a fellowship with other believers. We were a little surprised at the openness but excited to spend time with these new friends. Our team shared stories, songs, and a skit. I was even asked to share my story about my bad choice at my old job and the thing God asked me to do this summer with my boss. It went really well and I am in constant awe about all that He is doing here.

We are excited to be going tomorrow to visit new locations and share some stories we've learned. We will be gone for a few days to the smaller areas and then spend a day teaching English. Then, back here for a day to get ready for a ten day trek to new locations.

Keep us in your hearts as we know great things will continue. Love to all. It will probably be a couple of weeks before we can be back to an internet location.

Outreach

So it's been a long time since I posted...the last 6 weeks has been incredibly busy. God has done amazing things in my life and I am forever changed. We have learned about the Fear of God, wanting to have His heart more than anything and hating sin in the same way He does. I've learned what it is to truly walk in intimate fellowship with my Heavenly Father. I've learned that humility is being willing to be known for who I really am and that if I truly love others, I will walk in humility. I've learned that love is wanting the highest good for God, for others, and for myself. All of these things have changed me and I can say that while it has been tough in so many ways, I wouldn't have missed this for anything. I am ruined for the ordinary in every way imaginable. I can't imagine how I ever settled for living a mediocre life. I want nothing more than to live in this intimate relationship with my Papa, my Husband, my God.

We have started our outreach today. We traveled to Abilene, Texas this morning, moved into the church where we'll be staying for the next ten days, had a brief orientation,an amazing mexican nacho dinner, and then some of us went to a county prison for ministry. The girls ministered in the women's section while some of the guys ministered in the guy's section. God touched the women's hearts through the songs we sang and the testimonies that were shared. It definitely wasn't about us or any abilities we might have had...it was truly Him flowing through each of us. We were also able to minister one on one with the ladies and pray for them. And all of this was done by the students as our two staff members were not cleared to enter the prison, which they didn't know until just a couple of hours before we went to minister. What a way to start outreach!!! It was great and I can't wait to see all that God has in store for these opportunities.

I will try to post a few more times before we leave for foreign outreaches to Mexico, Brazil, or the Asian country I will be traveling to on Sept. 29th.

Weeks 4 & 5 Update

Once again, my intentions to keep this blog up to date have slipped…suddenly two more weeks have gone by with no post. Time just moves so quickly here and there is always something more to do or explore. I spent the last two weekends back in Wylie trying to get the final stuff moved out of the house so the renters could move in this weekend. Kelsey and my parents were both great helps in this and actually did most of the final work.

Here at school, things have been busy and intense. Week 4 had Angie Paris sharing many aspects, but focusing on our thought life at the beginning of the week, followed by Dean Sherman teaching on Spiritual Warfare for the second half of the week. I was especially excited about Dean Sherman’s teachings because he boiled it all down to the absolute truths of God’s word and explained how to engage in Spiritual Warfare with just two steps….Repentance and Faith. We took a brief time to do some warfare late in the week and it amazed me how easy it was to break bondage of some beliefs I had been holding onto, using these simple steps. I was reminded that we(I) make Christianity so complicated and God really is probably just amused by our feeble attempts to make it so complicated. I’m sure he’s just smiling, shaking his head and saying, “oh sweet children, it really is a lot easier than you make it.”

The fifth week of classes just ended with the teachings this week on the Plumbline. This is really about living in the balance of knowing God’s salvation and freedom from the hurts of the past. A couple of key take-aways for me included realizing that instead of praying to God, “help me to trust you”, I should be praying “help me to understand how trustworthy You are.” Trusting God has been a key place God has been working on in me and this revealed an incredible truth for me. God has already given me all that I need to have to trust Him, but my “eyes” have been blinded to understanding just how trustworthy He really is. I will tell you that by the end of the week I’ve definitely gotten such a better understanding of exactly how trustworthy He is. Not sure I’m at the deepest level of understanding, but have such a sense of peace in knowing that He is trust. The other really key take-away was a realization that in order to have complete freedom there must be complete forgiveness. We often think we’ve forgiven someone and yet continue to hold onto hurt. Then, when we are trying to run, there is no way to run with complete abandon because the weight of the unforgiveness makes us run with a limp or we run out of energy and can’t complete the course God has for us. Not that it’s easy, but complete forgiveness is the only way to achieve complete freedom with God.
On Thursday and Friday this week we had a time of ministry and it was overwhelming to see how God worked in the lives of each of us. People were set free from so much stuff of the past, hurts, deceptions, deliverances, and even new life in Christ. For myself, the complete forgiveness of those who hurt me in the past, including myself…and with that came complete freedom to rest in God and to fully trust Him with my entire being.

I keep thinking that at some point I will come to the end of all this deep level processing that God has, but have finally realized that the end of that will only come when I have finished the course that God has set and I join Jesus in heaven. And that is ok, I’m good with that, because I want all that God has prepared for me and want to be completely who He has designed me to be.

There is so much more to tell, but this has already gotten so long. I do want to say a huge thank you for all of you who continue to pray for me and for my classmates. I realize how important that prayer covering is and has been already to all of our growth and freedom. You guys are soooo much a part of all that God is doing here and thank you seems so inadequate. But know that your faithfulness has such a huge part in God’s kingdom being expanded. I love you all!

Watch for my next post about outreach….

Highlights!

Ok, so it's been a while and if I try to catch you up to everything that God has been doing, this blog post will turn into a novel. So, will try to hit the highlights!

We have just entered week three of the twelve weeks of school here at the base.

Week 1 was a variety of topics, intros, quiet times, info about the base and the heart behing the ministries, and our identity in God. We ended the week working at a fourth of July event at Fatherheart (the ministry for unwed mothers) which is a fundraiser for the ministry. We got to enjoy barbecue and fireworks as well.

Week 2 was an amazing week about the Fatherheart of God. Our speaker was Claude Bonjour, a man who grew up in Switzerland, from a French background, who lives at a YWAM base in Wisconsin. He has been in YWAM 30 years and has this amazing gift of bringing God's Fatherheart for His children everywhere he goes. Claude exuded God's love and tenderness towards us. At the end of the week we had a time of ministry and I was blown away by God's gift of peace and security that He flooded me with as my Papa. I truly entered the throne room, sat on Papa's lap and rested in His peace and safety. Words cannot do justice to what God has done in my heart.

On Saturday we had a school get together with swimming and fellowship and amazing food the staff had prepared for us. It was a great time to get to know one another better, away from the classroom.

This week we are hearing from Larry Allen, one of the staff on base here who is responsible for all of the schools here. This man has an amazing gift for knowing verses by memory....blew me away.

And then we've started one-on-one and small group sessions as well. I have an amazing leader for those, named Sandy. God definitely knew what He was doing when He put us together. I won't be getting away with anything with her!

I love to get mail, email, facebook comments, whatever, so shoot me a line when you get a chance! Miss you all!

YWAM first days

Ok, so arrived on Sunday, found my bed, made it and then immediately went to Walmart because of course I realized I forgot something. Yea for Walmart! Then went to family night and was given no directions at all (love that...NOT) and then they called each of the schools up on stage to introduce ourselves. I went up and I was the only person up there over 20 (or so it seemed) and I was standing there in front of about 500 people wondering how I could gracefully get off the stage without falling on my face because I thought I had gone up for the wrong thing. Nope, I was where I was supposed to be and I don’t look that much older than them…hahaha. Family night was kind of cool because they introduced all the students from the schools that were starting and then they did a graduation ceremony for the School of the Bible that was ending. It was a cool celebration. When Family night ended again very little direction, just where to show up and what time for the first class the next day. Monday started with staff and student introductions and a little more information about how things work.

And today, Tuesday, we started in on the first teachings. Today was about Quiet Time, importance and some ideas of how to do it, and hearing the voice of God. Then we had a half hour to go practice. I had already done my quiet time in the morning and really wondered if I would get anything else. Was pleasantly surprised by God and all that He wanted to say to me. Thanks Tricia for talking to me about Esther again recently, because that is the passage that came to mind this morning, all of Esther 4. “For such a time as this.” was the key verse. I guess I hadn’t realized or made the connection that had Esther not intervened and all the Jews been killed during the time, God’s plan to send a Messiah could not have happened. I was struck by Esther’s obedience, that she had a choice to make and by her “little” act of obedience the salvation of the world was able to proceed. And then I thought about how God calls me to do something and I may never understand or know the significance of what seems a “small” act and the eternal impact that could result from the one small “yes”. So, I continue to press in and say “yes” to God’s directions.

Crossroads DTS Video

Crossroads DTS

For the past several years, God has been speaking to me a verse from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” I have come to understand that God wants me to not only understand who He is, but to become more like Him in my character and in the way I live my life.

In July 2008, my job with the City of Wylie ended. I was at a crossroads of faith in my life, would I trust God with everything about my life? During the months after that, I was able to spend a significant portion of time seeking God and asking Him to show me who He is and who I am as His daughter. He showed me that I had been believing a lie my entire life, that I was a mistake and He never should have made me. He healed me of the hurt surrounding this and showed me how beautiful and precious I am to Him. God also worked incredibly in my life to show me areas where I wasn’t trusting Him, where I wasn’t fully committed to being like Him. I was fearful that God wouldn’t provide enough money to cover the bills, that He wouldn’t take care of my kids and their futures, and even that I didn’t have faith that He had a purpose and plan for my life. I realized that these were areas of my life, that if I would begin to have faith that He desired the best for me, I would see amazing transformation not only for myself, but for others who God would bring me into contact with. I began to live the things I knew were truths even when I didn’t feel it or know if He would really come through. And God met me and came through in every instance.

During that time, I began to realize that God was leading me to attend a Crossroads Discipleship Training School (CDTS) with Youth With a Mission (YWAM). This entails setting aside five months of my life “to know God and make Him known.” At the end of June, I will begin the program by spending three months at the YWAM base in Tyler, Texas, in deep pursuit of God, followed by two months of outreach and service in another setting or country. While pursuing God’s heart about this program, I was able to visit the YWAM base in Tyler and was shocked and amazed at God’s heart for me. The setting of the base is so incredibly beautiful, and the ministries they are involved with speak right to the heart of who God has designed me to be. They are involved in ministries with youth, summer camps, with unwed mothers, and with foster care and adoption, to name a few. While at the base my heart melted and I was overwhelmed with how God had put the “whole package” of YWAM Tyler together, it seemed, just for me.

So you may be asking questions about what happens after the five months. Does this mean I’ll become a full-time missionary? Will I come back home and serve in the local community? At this point I don’t know what God has planned after CDTS. But I am trusting God to lead my steps along the path that He has planned. And I will be continually seeking Him for that direction. I trust that He has great plans for me, “plans for a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

God calls each of us to help expand His kingdom. There are many ways to do that and not everyone is called to “Go” to the same place or in the same way God has said to me. God calls some to till up the ground, others to plant the seeds, and still others to water the seeds, while He provides the increase. Each of us has a part in expanding God’s kingdom and a part in “going.” I can’t do this on my own or without your partnership, support and encouragement.

If you would consider supporting me in prayer, that would be the most important thing to do. I know God will provide the finances, using people like yourself, so if you are able to financially support this journey, please send a check payable to Youth With A Mission, PO Box 3000, Garden Valley, TX 75771. For tax purposes, please do not include my name on the check, instead include a note referencing my name and CDTS June 2009. The cost of the program is approximately $6300 which includes everything (the school and the outreach portion) except personal expenditures. More than half of that is due no later than June 28, 2009, so your prayerful consideration is greatly appreciated.

I have put together a video that will show you even more about this journey God has had me on and is calling me to. It can be viewed at the following links in either high def or regular mode: In High Definition, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDV19Jy29QA or
in normal mode, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDV19Jy29QA&hd=1. You can also access these videos from my facebook page.

If you have any questions or would like more detailed information, please email or call me.

On His Journey,
Tori Hindman