Day 1 of Plumbline

Well my beautiful partner in crime, Miss Kelsey, has given a great definition of what a plumbline is so first you should check this out: http://adventuresofpicoandkelsey.blogspot.com/2011/10/plumbline.html

Day 1 was already hitting some people. Tears have already been shed, but we have hardly begun. I didn't really feel too affected by anything. We are just moving through things so fast, and I'm a kind of person who needs time to process. I'm sure my tears are on their way!

Today we talked about where our view of the world comes from. We looked a little at how family and culture and personalities play into how we come to see things. We talked about how we tend to put our identities into our roles: I am a mother. I am a daughter. I work at blah blah blah, etc. However, our roles are not our identity. (What is, I don't know yet.) We talked about knowing what God's plan is for us and we talked about what we place value in (What do you think about most during the day?)

One of best things we talked about is how you are not a victim. you have a choice. No matter what happened in your past, God can heal and you can choose Him. We talked about how we all build up walls, and how those walls eventually will cut us off from God. God will send storms to our lives to break the foundations we build on when we are not building on Him.

Tonight, our homework is to list all important authority figures in our lives. Describe any traumatic experiences you had with them. Observe reactions that occurred then that still occur when faced with storms today. Look for anything reaction or emotion that repeats and look for patterns. Authority figures are the ones who tend to hurt us the most, especially when those hurts happen early in life.

So now I'm off to do that! Please keep us all in your prayers - its going to be a rough week!

Plumbline Week

Well it is plumbline week. Honestly, I don't really know what that means. I know this week will be intense and very draining, but I'm going to try to keep everyone updated. If I don't post this week, its because my heart is drastically changing. The prayer for plumbline week is from Psalm 139:23 - "Search me, Oh God, and know my heart." The goal for the week is to completely open up to God. To let Him pull all the junk out of your heart, junk you didn't even know was there. When we talk to people who have done plumbline before the reaction is always, "Oh plumbline...ugh good luck..." Its a very stressful week - but stress always come when you are letting yourself be vulnerable. When talking with my beautiful mentor, Catherine, she got mad at people who reacted like that. She told me to be open to the changes God wants to make in me this week. It will be rough, but by Tuesday I will already be feeling such an amazing freedom. I'm slightly nervous, but more excited. It will be hard to be open to the evil stuff in me, but its going to be so amazing to get rid of it. I'm so ready for this! Please be praying for me and my school as we move through the week.

Hearing the Voice of God and Bible Reading Rules

Sorry for long absence! I'm sharing Internet with about a jillion people. Its been slow and annoying, but I'm about to make up for it!

I'm about to share with you two really awesome things I have learned this week: how to hear the voice of God and how to read the Bible. Good stuff :)

Our first book report was on a book called "Is That Really You, God?" by Loren Cunningham (the man who started YWAM). Its about how (drum roll please...) how he started YWAM. Its a pretty interesting read. Mom, remind me to get it to you :) Loren Cunningham goes through how he learned how to hear God's voice throughout his life journey and in founding YWAM. Here is what he says as he wraps up his book:

Twelve Points to Remember: Hearing the Voice of God

If you know the Lord, you have already heard His voice -- it is that inner leading that brought you to him in the first place. Jesus always checked with His Father (John 8:26-29), and so should we. Hearing the voice of the heavenly Father is a basic right of every child of God. In this book we have tried to describe a few of many ways of fine-tuning this experience. The discoveries are never just theory. They come out of our own adventures:

1. Don't make guidance complicated. It's actually hard not to hear God if you really want to please and obey Him! If you stay humble, He promises to guide you (Prov. 16:9).

Here are three simple steps that have helped us hear God's voice:

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  Submit to His lordship. Ask Him to help you silence your own thoughts and desires and the opinions of others that may be filling your mind (2 Cor. 10:5). Even though you have been given a good mind to use, right now you want to hear the thoughts of the Lord, who has the best mind (Prov. 3:5-6).



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  Resist the enemy, in case he is trying to deceive you at this moment. Use the authority that Jesus Christ has given you to silence the voice of the enemy (James 4:7; Eph. 6:10-20).



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  Expect an answer. After asking the question that is on your mind, wait for Him to answer. Expect your loving heavenly Father to speak to you. He will (John 10:27; Ps. 69:13; Exod. 33:11).

2. Allow God to speak to you in the way He chooses. Don't try to dictate to Him concerning the guidance methods you prefer. He is Lord -- you are His servant (1 Sam. 3:9). Listen with a yielded heart; there is a direct link between yieldedness and hearing. God may choose to speak to you through His Word: This could come in your daily reading, of He could guide you to a particular verse (Ps. 119:105); through an audible voice (Exod. 3:4); through dreams (Matt. 2) and visions (Isa. 6:1, Rev. 1:12-17). But probably the most common of all means is through the quiet inner voice (Isa. 30:21).

3. Confess any unforgiven sin. A clean heart is necessary if you want to hear God. (Ps. 66:18).

4. Use the Axhead Principle -- a term coined from the story in 2 Kings 6. If you seem to have lost your way, go back to the last time you knew the sharp, cutting edge of God's voice. Then obey. They key question is, Have you obeyed the last thing God told you to do?

5. Get your own leading. Gd will use others to confirm your guidance, but you should also hear from Him directly. It can be dangerous to rely on others to get the word of the Lord for you (1 Kings 13).

6. Don't talk about your guidance until God gives you permission to do so. Sometimes this happens immediately; at other times, there is a delay. The main purpose of waiting is to avoid four pitfalls of guidance: (a) pride, because God has spoken to you; (b) presumption, by speaking before you have full understanding; (c) missing God's timing and method; (d) bringing confusion to others; they, too, need prepared hearts (Luke 9:36; Eccles. 3:7; Mark 5:19).

7. Use the Wise Men Principle. Just as the Three Wise Men individually followed the star and, in doing so, were all led to the same Christ, so God will often use two or more spiritually sensitive people to confirm what He is telling you (2 Cor. 13:1).

8. Beware of counterfeits. Have you ever heard of a counterfeit dollar bill? Yes, of course. But have you ever heard of a counterfeit paper bag? No. The reason is that only things of value are worth counterfeiting. Satan has a counterfeit for everything of God that is possible for him to copy (Acts 8:9-11; Exod. 7:22). Counterfeit guidance comes, for example, through Ouija boards, seances, fortune-telling, and astrology (Lev. 20:6; 19:26; 2 Kings 21:6). The guidance of the Holy Spirit leads you closer to Jesus and into true freedom. Satan's guidance leads you away from God into bondage. One key test for true guidance: Does your leading follow the principles of the Bible? They Holy Spirit never contradicts the Word of God.

9. Opposition of man is sometimes guidance from God (Acts 21:10-14). In our own story, we recognized much later that what seemed like blockage from our denomination was, in fact, God leading us into a broader scope of ministry. The important lesson here, again, is yieldedness to the Lord (Dan. 6:6-23; Acts 4:18-21). Rebellion is never of God, but sometimes He asks you to step away from your elders in a way that is not rebellion but part of His plan. Trust that He will show your heart the difference.

10. Every follower of Jesus has a unique ministry (1 Cor. 12; 1 Pet. 4:10-11; Rom. 12; Eph. 4). The more you seek to hear God's voice in detail, the more effective you will be in your own calling. Guidance is not a game -- it is serious business where we learn what God wants us to do in ministry and how He wants us to do it. The will of God is doing and saying the right thing in the right place, with the right people, at the right time, and in the right sequence, under the right leadership, using the right method, with the right attitude of heart.

11. Practice hearing God's voice and it become easier. It's like picking up the phone and recognizing the voice of your best friend -- you know his voice because you have heard it so much. Compare young Samuel with the older man Samuel (1 Sam. 3:4-7; 8:7-10; 12:11-18).

12. Relationship is the most important reason for hearing the voice of the Lord. God is not only infinite but also personal. If you don't have communication, you don't have a personal relationship with Him. True guidance, as Darlene pointed out, is getting closer to the Guide. We grow to know the Lord better as He speaks to us, and as we listen to Him and obey, we make His heart glad (Exod. 33:11; Matt.7:24-27).

Ah, such good stuff. And I've put a lot of this into practice already. When I was asking God where He wanted me to go on my outreach, I kept trying to get my leaders to tell me where they thought God was wanting me to go. Thankfully, circumstances came up where I was forced to make the decision with just God. After I had, I read about point number 5. As soon as I had written my name under South Korea, God reconfirmed it in so many ways, including through my leaders.

The next stuff I'm going to share is really good too. Once a week, we will be doing a Bible study as a school. We are going through the book of Philippians. But last week, we just talked about how to study the Bible. Good stuff (This is just from my notebook):

Rule #1 - Rule of Purity of Life: If you are not willing to live up to what the Bible teaches, you are also unwilling to understand it correctly (John 3:19-20). If we go to the Bible with an attitude that we don't want our live styles to change, we are going to read the Bible to fit our life styles, not in a truthful way.

Rule #2 - Rule of Humility: You must have God's help as you study, but God will not help the proud. He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Yet He promises, "To this one will I look, to him who is humble, and contrite of spirit, and trembles at My Word." (Is. 66:2). So you must humbly listen to God. Unless you are willing to begin with the foundations God gives and think them through, then you will be led astray in your own folly, following after false presuppositions. Study the Bible on your knees - totally submitted to God.

Rule #3 - Rule of Prayer: As you read the Bible, the Holy Spirit wants to lead you to God's view of reality. For that to happen, God must show it to you. He is the only One who has a perfect perspective of reality. Only in God's light do we see light. One hand should be holding the Bible - One should be stretched up to God (figuratively speaking).

Rule #4 - Rule of Logic: The Bible is reasonable, because God is reasonable. One part of the Bible will not contradict another part. God is not out to confuse us. (Is 1:18-20). If you choose to spiritualize the Bible, you will misinterpret it! There is NOT hidden stuff in the Bible. The Bible is very clear. Bible stories are cool on their own. You don't need to add symbolic crap to make it more interesting. I mean Jesus calmed storms with His voice! (Luke 8:22-26). It is possible to make the Bible say whatever you want - so we need to be careful.

So that is a lot of stuff. I hope y'all find it interesting. If anyone wants to talk with me more about any of it, or has questions, my email address is bschwantz@hotmail.com.

Last night we had our first South Korea meeting! Nothing is set in stone yet though as far as what we will be doing. But when I know, you'll know :) Trent and I had our passports arrive today. Trent was so excited that he had his own passport! He started freaking out: "Look! I have my own passport! Now I can pass people when I drive!" Oh so cute :)

Awesome Trent!

So I just want to start out by saying that I have the best kid ever!!

Tonight we had a creative night where we worshiped God in creative ways. Many people sang or played instruments. Some showed art. Some danced. Some read scripture. Some shared their heart. As I have really been learning how much I need wonderful and beautiful Christian women friends in my life, I decided to write little notes to each girl in my school, and wrote down a verse for them that God picked out. At the end of the night...10:20...we were wrapping up. One of our staff, Josh, asked if anyone else would like to share. Guess who's little hand slowly went up into the air...my amazing son, Trenton's. He stood in front of 60+ adults with his good friend, J.T. for support (who sang an amazing rap piece that he had wrote himself) and Trent slowly raised his harmonica to his lips and played a short piece for God.

AND THE ROOM WENT WILD!

I have never been so proud.

J.T. isn't the only young man here who has stolen the heart of my son. I never thought that guys like the guys here even existed. Every one of them in my school has such an open heart and such kindness. Trent has latched on and everyday, they are latching on to him more too. There is a young man here named Michael, who Trent has taken a special liking to. Trent spends so much time with him (and apparently not enough time with me) that one of the leaders of this base thought Michael was Trent's dad! Thank God, Michael has a good heart full of humor and didn't let that scare him away. In fact, I think he was proud of it! J.T. and Michael are not the only men who have shown my son amazing love. Every guy in my school has been so great to Trenton. It melts my heart. I would be totally ok with Trent looking up to any of these guys. Before you continue reading this blog, I just ask that you take a moment to pray for the men in my school - pray that God continues to make them into Men of God focused on Him. I am just grateful for each of them and how they have treated Trent. I love seeing him being "one of the guys." :)

And I know I have said this alot, but again I just want to thank everyone who supported us being here!! This is just one of the hugest blessings in my life, and I'm so thankful to everyone who helped get us here. I am praying for everyone back home! God Bless :)

Double Rainbow

Today was a good day! This is what we got to see right after breakfast this morning:

DOUBLE RAINBOW

"What does this mean?"
Its going to be a good day :)
And it was! It was such a good day. We moved on to a new topic with a new speaker today: The Character of God. Larry Allen was our speaker, and he was so funny! I'll share the really good stuff with you:
*God will lead you to success. Don't let success become your God.
*Be with people just to be there for them. Make them feel special.
*Love wants to give. God has infinite love. Infinite love wants to give infinitely.

In Genesis 1:26 it talks about how man was created in the image of God. Our speaker, Larry Allen, talked about how he pictured God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit having so much love and wanting to give it away. They finally came up with an amazing idea to make something in the image of them that they could share their love with and bless: "Maybe they were so excited about it there was a huge explosion or something." get it? :) "Its not rap, but its still cool." :)

We read John 17:3 and John 10:10 and talked about how our purpose in life is to know God. Not know about him, but know him. This is why we were created.

We also talked about love. We read Matthew 22:36-39. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment he has for us is love. Mr. Larry Allen told us that a commandment is always addressing the choices you make and has nothing to do with intellect or emotions. Either you obey the command, or you don't. He also read John 14:21 where Jesus tells us that those who obey his commandments, loves him. Larry demonstrated that it is impossible to command emotions (he yelled at a girl in my class to start crying to prove his point. she laughed). Therefore, he concluded, love is not an emotion. It is a choice. I love this :) America needs to learn this.

After class I had an amazing Korean meal prepared for me :) well...not just for me obviously but everyone was very excited to have me try everything they made. And I had to use chopsticks. It was all so good! Everything was super spicy and amazing. Now I'm even more excited.

Trent and I finished our day off by spending time with our new family. It seriously just melts my heart to see how these kids just out of high school take Trent in. I especially love seeing the young men here take an interest in him. I am 100% ok with Trent looking up to these guys. I'm just falling so in love with this place and these people. We are so blessed to be here!

KOREA

Ok, so I'm now ready to share with the world that Trent and I will be going to South Korea for 2 months after Christmas!! I am very excited. Words can not describe. During our dorm devotions tonight, I annouced to everyone Trent and I were going to South Korea for our outreach. Being that over half the people in my dorm are families from South Korea, they were all very excited for us as well :) My dorm mom is going to be throwing us a dinner party tomorrow night so that they can introduce Trent and I to Korean foods. EXCITED!!

The Koreans here are going through a school right now: English as a Second Languge (ESL). I get to help them with their homework...alot. So after I helped them tonight, I asked them to teach me some Korean. I learned "good night" and "thank you" ...sort of. Its such a difficult language for me to grasp! Even when I hear them speak its hard for me to repeat right after. I made one of the women right down the pronunciations. Saying "good night" to an elder looks like am-yeng-he zu-mu-sya-yo. If I was going to say "good night" to Trent it would like like jal-ja-yo. "Thank you" to an elder looks like go-map-sm-ni-da and to a younger person go-ma-whe-yo. I'm going to try to pick up as much as I can, but my hopes are not high. It means so much to just be surrounded by them and their culture, and to have Trent surrounded by it. Everyday he plays with Korean kids. The always seem to come up with the most awesome games even though they can't understand what each other is saying. It's an amazing thing to watch.

I want to take a moment to calm your worries. South Korea is a very safe country. My leader and his wife are going to be bringing their 3 month old along for the ride as well. (Trent is very excited about this: when we were in Walmart he kept wanting to buy things for the baby to have in Korea) So calm your fears! The Lord will take care of us.

So please pray for Trent and I and our upcoming trip to South Korea. God will have to bring in money for us to go and also prepare our hearts and minds for what is to come. Also, if you are feeling led to, please pray for my DTS school. Please pray that we all continue to grow closer to God and closer as a family to each other. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

Weekend Number One

Well I have my first weekend here in Texas behind me. And it was a good weekend :) so relaxing! Friday morning, I did sign up for my outreach, and I'm feeling very good about it. And over the weekend, I did get reconfirmation that God wants Trent to go with me. When I was thinking about coming to Texas it was a lot of "well if the money comes in I'll go." I'm not even going to mess with that this time. I'm just going to accept the fact that God is telling Trent and I we will be doing this. So now, I'm once again holding my breath to see how God brings in the money.

My weekend was full of spending time with God and new friends. I've been stepping way out of my comfort zone to initiate conversations with people. I've been reading! Reading out of my Bible, reading "Redeeming Love", and reading "Is That Really You God?" So much time with God! I just can't get enough of him right now. I'm so in love with this environment! I'm so in love with my God! I wish every single person in my life could experience this. Nothing competes.

This morning I went to a local church in Tyler. Amazing. I've never been to a church that raises its hands in the air and dances around for God. Trent took communion for the first time. Some of us are thinking of getting involved with helping out the youth group there. A lady we met said the church is on the streets ministering to people 5 nights a week. They are getting ready to open a soup kitchen. I really am hoping for the chance to help out.

Now I'm back in my room preparing my mind for the week ahead. Thank you so much to everyone who has been praying for Trent and I. We can feel your prayers rain down on us. I am so thankful for being here. Thank you again to everyone who supported us.

God Bless!