Nathan Goode

Well, as many of you know, I am engaged! I would like to take some time out and share with you the story of the wonderful guy that I'm going to marry. :)

I met Nathan April 23 of 2012, while doing an oureach here in Mexico. We became friends and discovered more and more how similar of hearts we have for the Lord and for life.

On September 25th we officialy began "courting" after FINALLY revealing our feelings for each other that we'd been keeping secret. ;)

Then on March 26th, he got down on one knee, and proposed to me on the same field we had our first dance. :)

I am so thankful to the Lord for bringing me a man with the same heart as mine to serve and love him with everything that we are. To go wherever he calls us, and lay our lives down for the sake of our king.

This is the beginning of a very great adventure with our father!

The adventure continues! But, now there are two. :)

Love

I heard it said that I could speak in the tongues of men and angels, but that I would just be noise if I didn't have love...

I heard it said that I could have the gift of Prophecy, seeing things nobody else sees, understanding deep spiritual things and knowing all there is to know, but that if I didn't have love, it meant nothing. 

I heard it said that I could have the greatest faith of anyone, even great enough to move a mountain from it's place and throw it into the sea, or to raise the dead, and heal the sick, but if I didn't have love... It would be for nothing. 

I heard it said that I could give everything I own to the poor, but that if I didn't have love, I gain nothing. 

I heard it said that I could be martyred for my faith, give my body to the flames, but if I didn't have love, it was all for nothing.

I am guessing, that love is more important. 

Love is being patient. Patient with those around you, not lashing out, not reacting to situations with anxiety, but calmness. 

Love doesn't want or envy what isn't theirs.

Love doesn't know pride, or think too highly of oneself. 

Love doesn't behave rudely, or unkind. In every situation, even stressful situation, even when people are getting under our skin, it is kind and doesn't lash out or speak unkindly. 

Love is not selfish, nor does it seek it's own. Love thinks of others before itself, and gives wholeheartedly. 

Love is not easily angered or provoked, doesn't lose it's temper. 

Love thinks the best of people, and doesn't judge.

Love doesn't think the worst, but rejoices in the truth.

Love can bear all things, and believes all things, and hopes all things, and endures everything. 

Love does not fail.

But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

This same person said this:

 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

And so I now will put away childish things, and learn the most excellent way... A love that my savior walked in. Those other things are amazing things to see and to do, but I see how clearly I have missed the point if I forget love.

I see how damaging it would be if I walked in the greatness of those other things, but forgot the foundation of love... 

Love must be my foundation.

Faithfullness

Our father in heaven is so faithful. He spoke something to me, I chose to obey, and he came through... Just like he loves to do. In four days I raised 1,890.00 for outreach! There is only 410.00 left!!!

Daddy in heaven constantly surprised me and awes me at his faithfullness when we simply obey him.

I want to take this moment and thank all of you for your obedience to what he put on your heart to support me. It is a beautiful eb and flo in the kingdom, when all his children listen and obey his voice, and we get to see the beauty that is the body of Christ.

You are every bit a part of this adventure as I am, and receive every bit as much of the reward. Thank you for taking my hand!! Thank you for obedience to father God!


I feel his pleasure in us. :)

Leadership

As many of you know,  I have been asked, along with my good friend Luis,  to lead the 14 of our DTS students on outreach in April and May to Costa Rica, and Jamaica.

As I have been praying and asking God to give me the wisdom I need and his heart on how to lead the students, he has been teaching and showing me so much.

I worked out the budget for the trip, and it was really way too high for a lot of them. The price was about 3,700.00 per student. We met with the leaders and we brainstormed on what we could do to get that price to come down. Just so you have some background on how it works with these schools, all of us staff are full-time non paid missionaries, we raise our own support for the cost of living and working here. As staff of DTS, we are committed to the whole 5 months of the school, and the leaders pray about who to have lead the outreach phase. Because of this, and the fact that it's not really a choice, the price of the staff leading the outreach is split among the students.

As we looked over the budget, there weren't any places we could make cuts. One of the leaders felt while praying that God would give Luis and I the answer to what we were to do with this, even if that meant changing location. As I prayed about it, I knew exactly what God was asking me to do, and to be honest, I was fighting in my flesh with it a bit. God was asking me to relieve the students of my costs, by raising the total amount of the outreach for my cost. Being that I already live by faith, it was a difficult thing to know he was asking me to step that up once again, and to get in the same line with my students and believe in faith alongside of them for the money we need.

As I was praying, I felt like Jesus was speaking to me about how he lead. He was God, but humbled himself and lived among us, served us, and ultimately laid his life down for us. He was asking me if I would do the same for my students, and get in line alongside of them, lead by example, and be the first to step out on the water. That is how my father wants me to lead.

As I brought this to my co-leader, he felt that God was asking him to have my back in this, and so he has decided to do the exact same thing. This brings the total cost down,  so that each of us need to raise $2,300.00


So I am writing this because I need you to prayerfully consider walking with me in this, getting into line with my students and I to step out on the water and believe that every penny of this will be raised in time! We need to buy plane tickets yesterday, we only have four weeks left before we leave for two months, and plane tickets are the biggest thing we need to buy right now. The cost of plane tickets are 1,400.00 as it stands right now.

That amount might scare some people, but there is power when many people come together, all that would take is 23 of my friends giving $100.00. Or if God is pressing on your heart to give more than that, please do! I am asking you to take my hand in this, and be a part of the amazing things that God wants to do in my life, my students' lives, and in Costa Rica and Jamaica, in the lives of those precious people in those countries.


When you give, you also share in our reward!!

God bless you :)

"Stay connected to me"

God has revolutionized my relationship with him in only one short year. Things that I had thought I would never find freedom from, I have forgotten what it even felt like to be in the bondage of. Fear melts away more and more each day, and I feel as though I could face anything that comes.

I was talking to a student that I disciple the other day, when God was able to use what he has taught me in this last year, to put together something for her she wasn't able to connect before. And as I was speaking to her, I realized... What God has taught me this year, is a truth so deep it needs to be shared.

So here I go...


I have always taken my questions to God. Which job should I take, which guys should I date, where should I live as a missionary, should I marry him, should I go here, should I do that, blah blah blah.
I have always been terrified of the silence that often ensued in my questioning... Did this God care to answer me? Did he care what I did and what I chose? I was always mocked with a short sentence I would feel him say to me over and over again, and it was never the answer to my question.
It usually went something like this, "I love you, abide in me", "Stay connected to me", "stay focused on me", "Rest in me, Charissa"

I mean... talk about disappointing. Here I am on the verge of the biggest decision in my life, and he doesn't even answer my question... Or did he?

For some reason, last year I decided to stop fighting against his gentle whispers of intimacy, and go with it. To trust him no matter what it cost me, and to simply do as he asked me to when I came to him.
I began to put my questions on the back burner, and follow his answers.

What happened turned my world upside down.


It was as if I began to walk toward the sun, and all the fear, worry, anxiety, sin, bitterness, frustration, and even my endless sea of questions, began to melt away. How true it is.... that before his face, questions die away.


It was as if my problems and worries... Even those things that seemed to be important decisions and questions, became so utterly small and insignificant. It was as if my questions died away in the presence of my king.

As I did this more and more, a funny thing began to happen... I began to intuitively know the answers to the questions I had been asking. "Yes, I should go here. No, I shouldn't date that guy, Yes, I should move my life in this direction" Things became very clear without a striving to hear an answer from a God who lived somewhere up in the sky, but rather from within, I felt him answer my questions with a surety I never thought I'd have.

Our father doesn't live outside of us, he has chosen to live inside! And when we draw near to him and stay connected to him... It's almost as if he directs me all day long in the way that I should go.
There is a peace that I live in, a Joy I have found that I had never known existed, and nobody ever talked about.

We go to God to ask these questions because we are trying to control our world, so that we can be happy and have Joy. If we get his answer for our questions, we believe they will make us happiest, cause he will give us the best answer... The only problem with that, is our Joy and Happiness never came from the world anyway...

You see, he was answering a question I didn't even know I was asking... When I was asking him for direction, it was to remain in his will, to make the best decision, SO THAT I could have peace, Joy, and Happiness. My question was really, "How can I have peace, Joy, and Happiness"

And he answered. "stay connected to me," "I love you, abide in me," "rest in me, my love."

Oh, we are such blind children sometimes...


Our Joy cannot come from this world, or our circumstances... We will NOT have peace in this world... Trials come our way ALL the time. I think of the people in the countries that are being tortured for their faith and are imprisoned for it... And yet, they have a peace, Joy, and Happiness that few people in the western world have ever experienced! Why? Because they know the secret...

The secret is... HE is where our Joy comes from. And when we are remaining in him, connected to him, abiding in him, it wouldn't matter WHAT came our way... it couldn't take our peace, it couldn't take our joy.

Jesus promised we would have troubles in this world, and he invited us to remain connected to him so that we would overcome the world, and experience true life.


I hope that you can see what I now see.

my crazy life!

Hello from Mexico! The last couple months have been so busy! But, it has been amazing to walk alongside of the 15 students that we are discipling and to see the Lord reveal to them so many truths. These students are learning what it means to follow Jesus, and what his heart is for them and for this world.  I have been asked to lead the 15 of them, along with one other staff member, on outreach to Costa Rica and Jamaica in just 5 weeks!! I am really blessed to be trusted and given this huge responsiblity and blessing of taking the Kingdom of God to other countries, and seeing the Lord work through the students! The Lord has been teaching me so much about abiding in him in the last few months. It can be so tiring to work in this school. God has shown me the importance of relying on him for my strength, and spending time with him in order to have something to give. I've grown a lot in the last few months, and I am learning to trust and lean on father God in ways I haven't had to before. I know that outreach will challenge me even more in that area as I lead in a way I have not had to lead before.  God is trusting me with more, and it requires more time with him and more of his strength! I will write more about that in the next blog, I want to explain it more! But, this is just a small update to show you what has been going on, and some pictures for you to see!      This is my small group. Amazing girls! From left to right we have a Norwegian, Canadian, Danish,             and Australian girl! Lots of beautiful faces :)                            This is us on the first day of the first house we built together as a group.                                           They are very precious :)  Painting the inside of the house!                                                                                    Starting on the roof! What a beautiful day it was :)                                            The inside of the kitchen!! All done :)                                              We got to take the family shopping and spoil them :)

Once again

I posted about love recently, and I feel that it's all that God is showing me recently. So I am posting about it again, in hopes to encourage and open our eyes once again to the most vital thing that we will undertand in our life.

Love is a commitment to do what is best for the person you are loving. Jesus said that even sinners "love" those that "love" them. But as Christians, we are called to love those who are not loving toward us!

Love is not an emotional feeling. Love is actions, a choice, decisions you make to put another above yourself. To do what is in the best interest of the other person. To think what you would want if you were that person! So many people think they'll fallen in love, but what they've done is fallen into an attraction. Love is something so much more beautiful and deep... It is the choice to always put another person above yourself. How many of us do that? Truly?

So, once again:

LOVE

I have been thinking about this topic and trying to understand it most of my life. What is love? What does it feel like? What does it look like?

I'm still young, but I feel that life has taught me rather quickly through many trials and painful experiences just what this is supposed to look like. What true love is and what the world has tried to pass off as a sad excuse for the word.

I often quote a couple sayings that I've picked up along my journey, that really have shaped what I believe love is. One of them says, "you can like a person because of who they are, but you love a person because of who YOU are."

Love is a position, an action, a decision. You become love and are therefore able to love another. The bible says love is patient, kind, good, doesn't envy or boast, isn't proud or rude or self-seeking....
Love isn't self-seeking.... It always perseveres.

Not many of these traits of love are seen in this world today, not even in the church. We've lost the vision of what it means to love a person. we often "fall out of love" in this culture, and divorce is just as common in the church now as it is out of the church. We don't even understand marriage, we expect our partner to fulfill the deep needs in us for love, instead of going into it with the understanding that we are called to serve and lovethem. So for so many of us, our love is selfish. We want the easy way, the emotions that make it easy to treat someone the way that we are called to treat them. We find it easy to love those who are loving toward us, but do we step it up when they are NOT loving toward us and love them still the same? Treat them kindly when they haven't treated us that way? Refused to give up on them?

The only way to understand love is to look at the one who IS love, Jesus Christ.  It's really heartbreaking to me to know that if we have so much trouble truly loving the ones that should be easiest to love, how would we do with our enemies? Jesus loved those and forgave those who were murdering him.

Love truly is a position, an attitude that we become. We learn to love, and i think that the only person we can learn to love from is the one who is love.

I've been reading this book called "tortured for Christ". It's a book written by the founder of an organization that brings awareness of the persecuted church... This man spent 14 years being tortured in a communist prison in Romania for Jesus. The stories he tells are incredible and horrifying... And so very real for a very large part of the body of Christ. Though, as I have read this book I see something that we western world Christians cannot fathom... They learn to love those who are torturing them. The stories that he tells of how they were able to love those and serve those who killed their own family members or tortured them, are so very inspiring to me.

Love is more than we have made it to be. And this world is in desperate need for the true love that we are called to become.

But the deepest revelation I have had about love is not in the understanding what it is, but in understanding where we go to get it, become it, and live it. 

There is only one source for our need of love, and that is God. If you would have told me that a year ago I would have laughed. I did not believe that and struggled with understanding how an unseen God could fill the gaping hole in my soul and that deep need for love.

It was not until I really understood that no person would ever satisfy my soul, that I began to pursue my father in heaven for that need... And to my astonishment, was satisfied.  And it has freed me to love those around me without needing back from them. It has freed me to actually love.

More and more everyday I understand what the looks like and become more of what my father created me to be. Not taking but giving to others, thinking about how I can serve and love them instead of how I can get my need for love met. Every day I grow in this, and it's only going to get better.


SO this is my encouragement: Get to know the God who is love, get your need for that love met in him.
Because we are called to serve and give to those around us, and the only way we can do that is if we are being filled by the one who can give us what we need to pour out.


I pray he gives you this revelation so that you may understand this beautiful truth.