From WordPress to The World Race

Hey, followers and friends!

For now, my one and only blog is going to be jesseischens.theworldrace.org.

I would encourage you to click the link on the right side of the page, check it out, and sign up for email updates so you can stay up-to-date with all of the latest as I begin this process of preparation and fundraising and step out onto the field in September 2012.

If you would like to, I would also love any amount of support and prayers you can give. I appreciate all of you and am so grateful for you!

May God richly bless you in this next year and a half of life. See ya on the flipside 🙂

Well hello there, life change!

Wow! Who would’ve thought I’d be writing this blog a year ago? So crazy to think how your life can change so much in 1 year! Talk about wild!

I’m really excited, and just a little bit nervous and scared, to announce something to you. Quite a few of you know what I’m going to say, and quite a few of you don’t. But it probably won’t surprise you. You see…I’m about to embark on a crazy adventure called The World Race. It’s not the Amazing Race (it’s better!), not even really a race, but it is a trip around the world…11 countries in 11 months! Can you say WOWZA???

I first discovered this on July 7 (see, I even remember the date!?!?!) and was hooked from that very moment until this very day. Now it’ll be with me for a lifetime. It’s for 21-35 year olds…and its an 11-month long mission trip. See the world, experience all sorts of different people, cultures and places…learn how each missionary and missions organization does things differently, get stretched out of my comfort zone, strengthen my faith, get loads and loads of Holy Spirit goodness…and that’s just scratching the surface of all that’s in store. How do I know?

Well…there are these little things called World Race blogs that I’ve read every day since July 7. I know, I’m a little crazy at times. But I told you I was hooked, and I can’t get enough! You see, every World Racer has a blog. They get to tell the world about their experiences, their struggles, what they’re doing, where they are, their adventures, how they’re growing and changing, etc. So naturally I will get to do this soon, too (here’s a link to my very own World Race blog :)). But I’ve been reading these blogs for months now, and they’re crazy awesome. Real, down-to-earth, human experiences. Super encouraging. So anyway. I would highly encourage you to read some of these in your spare time.

But yes. I just received word that I was accepted. I applied on Dec 2, had my interview Dec 8, and found out Dec 15 that I’m in. That’s lightning fast! It’s been a whirlwind–and I’m really, honestly not 100% sure how I feel about everything yet. It’s a strange mixture of nervousness and excitedness (I think I just made up a word :-P). There’s a lot of other awesome God-stuff to tell you about, but in short, I’ve known for a while that this is something He wants me to do. There’s so much goodness in store, and I know it won’t be easy–it means leaving family and friends for 11 months, it means probably painful life-change and a lot of constant adjustments, it means being uncomfortable and tired all the time. But it also means stepping out and growing into who God wants me to be. This is something, a stepping stone, that I’ve been looking for for some time now…waiting for, wondering about, wishing for. But never for sure knowing what it would look like. The World Race is going to be a launching pad for me into full-time missions. My heart knows this. God has revealed some things to me and confirmed them in quite a few very obvious ways lately…and I know this is just the beginning.

It’s going to mean a lot of changes, and it’s going to mean I don’t get to see all of you wonderful people for a while, but I know you’ll be okay, and I’ll be okay, too. God’s on our side, who can be against us?! Big things are in store for all of us!

So, just briefly, I’ll let you in on what I know so far.

• I’ll leave in September 2012.
• I have to raise $15,500.
• I’ll be going to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam/Laos, Tanzania, Mozambique, Swaziland, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Moldova, Romania, and Ireland. (check out more details of my route here)

This was all part of why I decided to go. I was in love with the World Race, or more so, the idea of it. I love to travel…want to see the world…love missions…love God…perfect, right? Well…I just wasn’t for sure yet. So, I prayed one of these prayers. “God, if you want me to go on the World Race, you know the countries I want to go to, so I’ll know that I’m supposed to go when I see them all on the same route.” Haha! I should’ve been more prepared. When the September routes were announced, I remember taking a deep breath before I read the email, because I had a hunch that God just might be calling me to one in September (but I didn’t tell anyone this, because I wasn’t sure). So…I opened the email. And started laughing. Because voila…there it was. My route. Totally meant for me. I should’ve known. God, you’re funny!

So then I hemmed and hawed and prayed and thought and prayed some more about it all…anxious because I’d need to quit my job, but knowing this is exactly perfect for me with where I’m at right now. The opportunities are endless. And God kept after me, whispering to me to “just do it.” I finally had to forget all the wondering and the emotions and just simply “do it.” Stop wondering about what I know now or don’t know and just go for it. So I did. And now I’m here. Writing this blog, a little overwhelmed, a tad excited and sad and a puddle of random emotions…but relieved at the same time to be able to step out of my comfortable Minnesota bubble and do what I’ve been dreaming about doing for a long time now. Travel the world for missions and write about it.

I know and trust that God will show His face to me through this. That He will open me up to a world that is broken and in need of healing, but also a world that is ultimately HIS. Created for His glory and His purpose. I just want to shine His love.

So that’s the scoop, friends and fam! I can hardly believe it! The journey has just begun. There’s lots more to come, and I will keep you posted on the new life adventures of Jess. Love you all!

I’ll be sending out support letters soon…but for now, if you would like to begin supporting me, either go to my World Race blog and click the “Support Me” link, or click on the image below for details on how to support me. THANK YOU! 🙂

Excitement is building

I’m so happy to have my excitement back! I’ve been going through a period of an emotion lull…where I know I should react this way or that to whatever is happening around me…so I give people the responses I know I’m supposed to give, but I just didn’t feel anything.

I’m sure we all go through this to some extent, but it’s very frustrating when there just seems to be no end to it! (Then God shows up in ways that can only be from Him, and all of a sudden it’s like BAM…you’re awake again…you’re actually feeling things again. Only He can do that!) I’m sure I sound crazy, but oh well!

God’s doing some things in my life—big things—that I’ve been dreaming about for a while. I can’t talk about it yet because it’s too soon…sorry…but bear with me ☺ Through all the ups and downs of normal, everyday life lately, despite full-to-the-brim emotions or none at all…I’ve had to keep reminding myself of what God has promised multiple times. That He will never leave me or forsake me, no matter what. (Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:8).

Our God is a good God. He has life-giving, cup-overflowing plans for us.

Psalm 23 is amazing…I’ve found myself repeating it day after day. Because it’s truth. God is always with me. He’s always with you. He loves you so deeply that He would lead you beside the freshest, cleanest, purest streams of living water for you to drink; He guides us in paths of righteousness for the glory of His name; He blesses us in front of our enemies; He anoints us, He cleanses us, He loves us. Wow—we are blessed!

Psalm 23
[A psalm of David.]

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

It’s just so exciting, and encouraging, and I hope this encourages you today to be strong in the Lord, be courageous, do not lose heart, because He is with you and will never leave you.

Changing things a bit

I just changed up the look of my blog to something with a tiny bit more depth and personality. Hopefully I’ll be able to personalize it more as I spend more time on here, but it’s good for right now. I like the parchment paper look, like you could reach out and grab it right off of the screen.

Now I have a question for you. It seems random but just go with me on this. This blog has been full of random, and it’s yet to be seen if I’ll be able to keep up with it the way I’d like to. Oh well…but it’s how life is for me at the moment 🙂

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

For me, the answer has always been Thailand. The place where my heart is, even though I’ve only set foot in the country for no more than 3 days. There’s something about it that grabs me, that keeps me thinking of it day after day after day. The people, the experiences, the yearning to go back and the desire to reach this sweet nation with the love of Jesus.

Perhaps your place is also a place of the heart, or very simply someplace you long to see and experience, a place where you have family and friends, a vacation spot, a place with a specific need that’s within your skill set, etc.

But what is it? Maybe my question is more along the lines of, Where is your heart calling you? I think deep down inside of each of us is a longing for more. We all have a hole in the depths of our being that is only filled with the forgiveness and love of Jesus, who died on the cross for us, taking away our sins, and then rose again from the dead so we can live in heaven with Him forever. Once that hole is filled, you find peace. Contentment that can only be found in Jesus. But there comes a time when He will remove that contentment and fill you with restlessness…a yearning for more of Him, a desire to move mountains for Him, to shine the love of Christ to others, but you’re not sure exactly what that means or how to get there. And slowly, ever so slowly (He’s really good at helping me build up my patience, haha!) He’ll start to reveal what His plan is for you, but only so far as the next step. He may give you a brief glimpse farther into the future, but it stays hazy until He’s prepared you and prompts you to move toward that.

It’s an interesting, scary, exciting, wondering place to be. It’s weird. The sensation of knowing God is calling you to bigger, to more than yourself, to something only He can do through you and that you can’t ever imagine doing on your own, but only with Him working in you and through you–it’s crazy and goes against every human instinct. The instinct to be safe and secure. To prosper in this world. To make money, have a close-knit community of friends, a nice house and nice car. To fit in and not draw attention to yourself by being “too” different. When you follow Jesus, He begins to push you out of the world and into His. He loves us so much that He wants more than anything to use us for His glory. Whoa. Think about that. God is SO big. He made the universe and the millions of galaxies with just a few words. Yet He loves us. And wants to be with us and wants us to be His hands and feet. Just wow.

So where is He taking your heart? What has He placed in your heart that burns within you? That little flickering flame of an idea or dream that is too big to even put into words. For me, it’s just an image, compiled of a bunch of different dreams and ideas and places and people, that I can’t even begin to put into words yet. But maybe it’s good to try. Write it down, tell it to God, speak the desires of your heart to Him. You might not feel that He hears you, but He does.

“Blow through the caverns of my soul”

Wow. There is something about these lyrics that leaves me breathless, wanting more and more and more of the Holy Spirit. Just had to share this song by Jeremy Riddle with you, because it has been soaking into me like crazy these past couple days, and I can’t get enough of it!

Awaken my soul, come awake
To hunger, to seek, to thirst
Awaken first love, come awake
And do as You did at first
Spirit of the Living God come fall afresh on me
Come wake me from my sleep
Blow through the caverns of my soul
Pour in me to overflow, to overflow
Spirit come and fill this place
Let Your glory now invade
Spirit come and fill this place
Let Your glory now invade

All Things Missions

Where to begin? There’s so much to write about. First things first–I am VERY excited for THIS this weekend–the Desiring God conference!!! This is an annual event put on by Pastor John Piper, and as far as I can tell or know about it, it is phenomenal (I’ve never attended before now…so I’ll let you know how it goes :)). This year’s theme is “Finish the Mission.” So naturally me, my rockstar parents, and awesome lil bro are in attendance. Did I say I was excited yet? Well…I am.

There’s a lot of back-story with this. Perhaps the best way to start is to simply tell you that I have a HUGE heart for missions, if you hadn’t already figured that out. What I mean by that is for as long as I can remember, I’ve always just simply wanted to shine God’s love to the whole world. And I’m a huge helper. Helping is actually one of my spiritual gifts and I love to do it, to get behind people and help them lift off into something greater. And I love to write–but now we’re getting off topic. *rewind* Let’s try this again :-P.

One of my hugest life desires is to show others God’s love. Whether that is simply holding a child and loving on them, or serving in some capacity, that’s how I see it. Just loving. And that has segued into hard-core missions heart syndrome. I will try and post more about that later, so you get to know me a little better.

Over the past year, my parents re-received the call to missions that they’ve had and known of for the past 25 years. They’ve spent all of those years raising me and my siblings, which is definitely a missions call in itself. They have always known they had a call to missions. They thought that that would be what they did once they were married. But then kids happened, and they knew they were called for that season to raise Godly kids. I am so thankful for my parents, they are no less than absolutely amazing. So…back to re-receiving their call.

Let’s just say some hard things happened, and God really got a hold of my family in an awesome, incredible, real and tangible way. It’s been unbelievably awesome and I can’t even begin to tell you how blessed I am to be a part of this family. Anyway. This all brought about an idea for a lifegroup (what my church calls small groups/Bible studies). My good friend Hillary was talking to my mom one day at church, and they just happened to brainstorm an idea for a missions lifegroup, right there in the church lobby. At first Hillary’s husband Bob thought it was a silly idea, “who would want to come to a missions lifegroup?” he asked…but very soon afterward God told him that it really was a good idea…and my dad was also all for it, so the 4 of them set off to start it. Since then, over the past year, it’s been so far beyond amazing that I can’t even put it into words and do it justice. I told my dad about a month ago that “I wish I could just put this lifegroup into a box and package up all of the goodness so others would understand how incredible and lifechanging and inspiring it is and want to come.” That pretty much sums it up.

We’ve been going through quite a few awesome books. (The Missionary Call, Spiritual Warfare & Missions, etc) and we’ve been having real-life missionaries come and speak to us and tell us about their experiences. The Holy Spirit is so present and real that it blows me away every time. Every time the lifegroup meets, there is always crying involved because the Holy Spirit is there. It is AWESOME. Things have moved along and more people have joined the group, and long story short, we now have the missions lifegroup at 2 of our church campuses (can you say sa-weet!) and we have split it up into 2 different groups, as well. We found that we were trying to do too much with the group, that we couldn’t read an awesome book and have a discussion about it AND have missionaries come and speak at the same time, because it ALWAYS ended up with the missionaries talking the whole time, which is absolutely incredible and life-changing.

So we now have 2 groups going over the books, and 1 open to the entire church to come hear our missionaries speak and give them a platform to share more deeply their ministry, their passion, their heart for the world, and give our church the chance to know more about them (more than you normally find out in a 5-spot).

So anyway, all that to say that it is completely normal and probably almost expected that we would attend this conference this weekend 😛 I am really excited for it. I am excited for our missions lifegroups. I am soooo pumped to see what God is going to do in us and in our church. Missions is already a huge part of our DNA, but I know it’s about to become an even bigger part of it.

So there. I’ve blabbed on for 772 words and counting. That’s a lot for a blog. I apologize. I think I like this topic just a little bit. 🙂 Would you keep us in your prayers? There’s a missions movement going on here, and it is SO exciting!

And while you’re at it, check out the conference and take a look at these awesome speakers! Also…another thing I can’t get enough of: World Race blogs. If you don’t know about the World Race…better check it out ASAP. It’ll rock your world.

More later. Peace!

I know this isn’t conventional…

…and it’s probably blogging taboo, but I posted a “song,” if you will, on my other blog that I wrote a couple months ago and just am curious what you think about it. It’s a cry to awaken passion. To BE the Lord’s hands and feet. To follow Him wherever He leads. I don’t know. I just felt I should post it. So I wanted to share it with you.

You can check it out here:
http://thatgirlwithredhair.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-is-love.html