I grew so much this week!
"Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his face always." | 1 Chronicles 16: 11
I have so many awesome updates for you!
TRULY PAID OFF | After the insanity of last week which you can read about here, the Lord and the incredible community around me provided for my Discipleship Training School (DTS) (Lecture-Phase) fees IN FULL! You guys $2400 came through in less than 24 hours. If you prayed or donated, thank you so much! It is a miracle!
MY FAITH GROWS | My faith grew so much from that experience because after the high of hearing an anonymous donor paid off my fees and then the low of that being incorrect, I sunk into the pits of despair. But the Lord said “Don’t you dare take your eyes off me” and He pulled me out of my depression and showed me the difference between relying on my own understanding versus on Him. Lord, help me to remember to always trust you and praise you even in the storm!
HEART OF INTEGRITY | I experienced a beautiful softening of my heart right at the end when almost all of the funds were raised. See after I realized the mistake and my sudden lack, I tried to go back on a pledge I had made to donate $200 to a friend and fellow schoolmate. I let fear of myself not having enough cause me to step out of integrity but then God reminded me He made no mistake when he told me to give to her. I needed to have faith He would still provide enough for me in the end. So He changed my heart and my mind. I told her I would still give what I promised to her and then shortly after enough money came in to cover me fully and my promise to her! God is so good!
FAMILY MATTERS | Another amazing thing is that I’ve been praying to God to heal my family and bring us closer. And before the funds were fully raised, my mom gave me the idea to ask my dad. We rarely talk but when I sent him a video message telling him how excited I was about doing my DTS, he was on board to support me! Beyond that he told me that prays for the world and for the people he loves every day, including me. He reminded me that “God loves us all like crazy all the time.” I’ve never heard him talk like that, so that was really cool.
SURRENDERING TO JESUS | The last amazing thing I want to tell you is that last night I surrendered my life to Jesus! Why? Because He is worthy and He is true but also because He will do a better job in handling all my affairs than I ever could. So I laid it down at the cross and I made a commitment to seek His guidance in all things. I also committed to reading my Bible and praying daily. The biggest commitment I made, since Jesus brought me to Youth With A Mission and provided so generously for me to receive this training, I will dedicate the next year of my life (at least) to missionary service! And I am so excited about it!
MY OUTREACH LOCATION | I haven’t even revealed this on my Instagram (@alyssanicoleroman) yet, but I know my outreach location for the outreach-phase of my DTS. It’s usually a different country from where you did your lecture-phase but our base in Mazatlan has a strong value for serving our immediate community and Mexico as a nation. So that’s what I will be doing! We are traveling south to Oaxaca and Chiapas to serve and build relationships with the unreached (people who haven’t heard the gospel) indigenous communities there. The founder of YWAM shared a vision right before his death of the gospel being translated into every language of the world. The project is called Oral Mother Tongue or OMT. I met someone who’s already had a chance to work with OMT and he gave me some very important advice, never put the project before the people. We are not there to win hearts for Jesus by force, but by being Christ-like and sharing love and light with all of God’s children.
Thank you for reading and witnessing these changes in me!
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Love you,
Alyssa
