“Until the Whole World Hears”

It has been a couple of weeks since I have blogged, but I have come to terms that this is how life is going to be for the next 12 months. I promise I will try to get better at fitting blogging into this crazy life of mine. J I am more than happy to walk this road God is leading us down. Becoming a missionary and joining a church planting team is an enormous commitment, but I couldn’t be more thankful. We have to make the most of everyday from sun up till sun down. The days of relaxation are going to have to be over for the next 12 months to give this our all. I have recently changed my ringtone (lol) to a song that really inspires me. It is on Casting Crowns’ new album and really touches me. It is actually the title of their new album and my blog it is called “Until the Whole World Hears”. Here is the chorus just to show you why it inspires me during this time.

ready yourselves
ready yourselves
Let us shine the light of Jesus in the darkest night
ready yourselves
ready yourselves
May the powers of darkness tremble as our praises rise
Until the whole world hears Lord we are calling out
Lifting up Your name for all to hear the sound
Like voices in the wilderness we're crying out
as the day draws near
we'll sing until the whole world hears

I am currently taking an Old Testament class in college, and it has been an amazing blessing. During this time when life is turned upside down and you are preparing to leave everyone and everything you know, it is a comforting feeling to be reminded of the sacrifices God has made for us. It makes what we feel like is a major life change seems ill in comparison to what God has sacrificed for us. I sit in class each week with 20 other students and a facilitator. I get to hear their thoughts, beliefs and hear about their relationship with the Lord if they have one, and see their eyes light up when they learn things that they did not know about our savior. I thought this is just a taste of what we will experience in an area where God is not often spoken of. To go to an area where people are not sure what to believe in and walking around with an agonizing emptiness inside, it will be amazing to see the changes in their lives when they accept Christ. Once we realize it is not about us it is about him it is an amazing feeling.

If you have been keeping up with our blog you already know that we are working in so many areas of our lives that our heads are spinning. We are meeting with ministry partners, learning French, constantly seeking God and praying, cleaning out clutter, selling unneeded items, meeting with a financial counselor, plus everyday normal life. Our biggest plan for the coming weeks is to get our house on the market by next weekend. We have been advised from our financial counselor to try the for sale by owner thing for a couple of months. If that doesn’t work then we will seek the help of a realtor. Please pray for us as there is so much to do to have the house ready.

Thinking of leaving my family is one of the hardest things I will do in my life. I have amazing Grandparents, Parents, and siblings who I will leave behind. I also have amazing in laws, nieces, and nephews who we will leave as well. This is a sacrifice we are willing to make. We have families who love us so much and we are so thankful, and we are lucky enough to have families who love the Lord so I know they will understand why we have to do this. When God is calling you to something it would be easier to look the other way and go on about your normal life, but answering that call is the right thing to do as Christ followers. My main goal is to love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength and be obedient to him. I ask you to pray for our families during this time. I pray that God will give them understanding. I know they will be a constant support in our lives no matter where we are at. To our Mothers we will be home once per year and you can come visit whenever you like. J We love you all.

I was reading a team members blog and it was talking about how we started this process 7 months ago. I cannot believe how these months have flown by. I cannot believe that I have had the blessing of visiting this country to help make plans for the coming year. It is scary and exciting all rolled into one. Even though I got to spend a week there I still cannot imagine what all God has in store for when we get there. We are trusting God through it all. Please join with us in praying for the missionaries serving in Belgium now and for the people of Belgium, please pray for us along with our teammates as we work harder than ever before to answer the call.

Matthew 28:18-20 (New International Version)

¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in^[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Life In the Fast Lane!!!

Hello Everyone,
Sorry it has once again been a while, but our life has been in the fast lane since I have returned from Belgium. Bryan was out on the road with Casting Crowns, and I have been swamped trying to catch up at work, help my mom move, and I am still working toward my degree. We had a family reunion last weekend which was lots of fun and Bryan is on the road with Jacobs Road this weekend.

In the midst of normal everyday life we are constantly praying, preparing, and having weekly small group meetings with Team Belgium. I have recently started a new devotional book by Beth Moore called Voices of the Faithful, and I am loving it. It is so inspirational and starts my day off right with some words of encouragement, scripture, and prayer. It is written by 300 IMB missionaries who are currently working in the field. Since we are all called to be missionaries I would recommend it to anyone even if your mission field is not overseas. In the evenings I have been reading a book called Sister Freaks by Rebecca St.James which is about women who risked it all for God. I guess you can tell what is on my mind. The truth is I am taking the advice we received from the missionaries while we were in Belgium. One thing we heard from all of the missionaries was to know how to feed yourself, and I don’t mean food I mean spiritually. When you are in an area where Christians are literally nonexistent it can be easy to get knocked down. By keeping ourselves in the word and uplifted we will be focused and ready for the constant challenges we will be facing daily. Sometimes it can be hard in the US to stay immersed in the word, but in the US we have our church(LifePoint), Christian friends, Christian radio, and tons of Christian organizations to be a part of. We have resources and support all around us. When we are an ocean away from everyone and everything we know I want be as ready as I can be so that nothing will distract me from the work I will be there (Belgium) to do. My husband constantly says you are what you eat and he is referring to spirituality as well. It really does make sense if you know how to feed yourself then you maintain a strong relationship with our Father. When I feel closest to God no other feeling can compare. I am so blessed to have grown up in an area where I can join with others and worship our Perfect God. I can’t wait to get to Belgium to share the good news. I can’t wait to start a church where hopefully everyone will feel free to worship and get involved and build that personal relationship with God and eachother that I know so many are longing for and just do not have the resources or the knowledge on how to start it.

I also want to thank ALL of our ministry partners. Without you this would not be happening. So thank you, thank you, and thank you! If you are or are not joining us in this ministry please know when we move to Belgium our door will always be open. You will always be welcome to come and visit and get your hands dirty with some of the mission work we will be doing there. The financial support is huge, but if Belgium is tugging at your heart you are welcome to get on the ground once we get there and help out. I also want to say a special thanks to our friends Keith and Kerri who gave us Rosetta Stone French Version, a book on Belgium, and a heating blanket that will work overseas. Since Kerri just moved back from Luxemburg she is an amazing resource. We have so many friends that are stepping up to help in many ways so just know how much we appreciate you.

As we continue to prepare we are looking at apartments online to figure out budgets, getting our house on the market, paying off debt, getting prepared spiritually, raising support, learning French, and much more. I ask that you pray for us and the rest of our team during this intense time. It is very exciting and we are trusting God to get us there. We have an amazing Team that God has put in place. Everyone brings something different to the table, and including children we have 19 people going and one more college student who will be joining us a few months after we get there for a total of 20. I am so happy to be going with such an awesome group of adults and children.

Please remember that even though so many view Belgium and Europe as a country with everything it is one of the hardest mission fields out there. There aren't as many physical needs to be met in Belgium as in some countries, but the spritual need there is endless! We have been told this by many. People are so closed off from one another that they are a tough country to get through to. Please pray for God to start working and preparing their hearts now. Please pray for the missionaries who are currently serving in Belgium. We thank all of you for your support!

Blog #100: I want to Change - by Russ and Tori Taff

This song/prayer is perfect for the 100th blog! It is from Russ Taff's 1983 Walls of Glass album.

Lord, You know my past
How the many things of life have molded me
The years have brought so many things from examples I have seen
Some good, some bad -- they're all a part of me
So I see my selfish motives and my inconsistencies
And block upon block, the wall was built complete
Lord, please come and break the wall down
And show this captive heart how to be free

(Chorus)
I want to be like You
I want to change
And not be trapped in the paths my life has set for me
I want to be like You
Please help me change
Into what I was meant to be
Until all I can clearly see
Is the loving reflection of You in me

Teach me to forgive
Letting go of hurts I hide behind
Replacing all the things in me that I've buried deep inside
Till Your healing love brings all of them to light
Let my life be an example of what true life can be
When it's given like a gift to those who need
Please come and take control, Lord,
Of this yielding, willing soul and live through me

(Chorus)

This album is on iTunes. I suggest you get it if you like or miss soulful worship music. Man we gotta get churches doing this stuff again. Church soul is my favorite! These lyrics are great for prayer and reflection too. I downloaded this album a few weeks ago. I wish I was playing in church back then. We gotta bring it back. Who's comin' with me?

Peace

Why Belgium?

In the country of Belgium 90 percent of Belgians claim Catholicism, but almost none regularly attend any kind of religious service. In fact, less than 1 percent of the people in Belgium are practicing Christians. LESS THAN 1%. The Muslim faith is the fastest growing faith in Europe. If you have watched the news recently you probably have seen European politicians begging America to not go down the same roads they did. They see us making the same mistakes. In a trip Bryan made to England and Greece in 2005, he noticed very different fashion styles. Over the next 2 years those styles crept in to pop culture in America. What happens in Europe does not stay in Europe. It eventually gets shipped to America. This goes for fashion, politics, and religion. This post-Christian society needs to hear of God’s love so that cultural and religious exports to America are once again biblically based.

Brussels, Belgium is the heart of the European Union. People are constantly coming and going in Brussels. We NEED to reach these people to help turn Europe around. They need to understand what a personal relationship with a real God looks like.This mission cannot be accomplished alone by us and the four other families that are being sent. It will take a host of families stateside to make this possible. If you feel like God is tugging at you to join in this ministry please contact us. Several friends have joined already and we thank you guys so much! We will keep you all regularly updated.

We had our second small group meeting yesterday and I cannot fully express how excited I am about the team God has assembled for us to work with during this mission. It is truly a group of Christ followers driven to make God famous in Europe.

I want to ask all of you reading this to pray for us in the coming weeks. I and 6 other Team members will be flying to Brussels, Belgium later this month. Please pray for God to guide our steps while we are there and please pray that the Belgian people will have open hearts and minds. This is mainly a vision trip to scout out possible areas to plant the church, meet with and possibly witness to some college students, look at potential places for us to live, and plan plan plan.

When we first started feeling like God was calling us to the country of Belgium I could not wrap my brain around it all. With everyday that passes the urge to get over there and start working for Him is more overwhelming. I now know why God is assembling this team he is making it clear to us the need for Christianity in all of Europe. This is something we are very passionate about! If you have any questions please feel free to ask. We have had about a million questions ourselves since starting this process in early May. If we cannot answer them we will get the answer. I am attaching a video that shows part of the importance of having a presence and sharing God's word to a lost country. They deserve to feel the love a church family can provide, and we are stepping up to the plate. Please take a few minutes and watch the video. It blew my mind.

Au revior.

Cassi Wolski

Leaving Las Vegas

We are now at the airport heading back to Nashville. This was a great trip. Many students made decisions for baptism and also becoming Christians. One thing that struck me was what the kids in Vegas have to deal with growing up. They are definitely under attack. Again, please pray for these students specifically.

Peace
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

All you need is love

John 13:34-35
34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

So all we have to do is love? That can't be right. This implies that we don't have to have a degree in theology. It suggests that we don't need to host a small group at our house. We don't have to be in a certain class system. The bible is full of rules and regulations right?

While it is true that the bible has many rules, laws, regulations, suggestions, etc. the way we can let other people know we follow Christ is by our love for each other. Simple. To the point.

So if you do not love others as Christ loved you can you be a Christian? I think this passage suggests that you cannot. Jesus talked about trees and vines and the fruit they bear. It is easy to see that an orange tree will not produce olives. So if you were "grafted" in to the body of God, the vine, you would produce love. If you are not producing love you either need to be pruned or completely removed and thrown away. I hope some pruning is all I need.

Show your love to someone today. It is the only way for people to know that you are different, that you used to be a rugular person and now you are a Christian.

God is a cyclops, but at least it is a blue eye :-)

I am sure that many of you have seen this picture. People would like you to believe this is 'the' eye of God. Check it out on any of the sites like here on Snopes and you can see it is a real photo of a real place in the universe with a slight bit of color doctoring.

A buddy of mine from church, Micah, used a passage in our devotional yesterday. It was 2 Chronicles 16:9. I am going to include verse 8 and 9 here.

"8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”

God's eyes are constantly looking for looking over His creation for those that have committed their heart to Him. To those people He will give "strong support". Well, I don't know about you, but I need strong support. What are you taking on that you could use some strong support on. Check your heart.

In the passage above the Ethiopians and Libyans had armies that were too large to beat. They were delivered over to Asa and defeated because of God's strong support.

I dare say you have nothing in your life that is impossible with God's help. Nothing.

Body Wanted

I have been reading Mere Christianity for some time now. Let's just say I have been distracted and now I am determined to finish it. I find that I like the way C. S. Lewis puts the thoughts together. For those who don't know, he started out as an atheist and over time realized that God could not be explained away. He argues that there is proof there is a God.

So that is a VERY brief background, and it really does not do any justice to the man. I want to get to what I read last night. Let me put 2 paragraphs here exactly as they appear. Also realize that you do not have the benefit of the context since you are not currently reading it, but trust me this all makes sense.

"When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others -- not because he has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred -- like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens."

He goes on to suggest that the only real adequate instrument for learning about God is the entire Christian community. So we need to be a community and a body of believers. We need that fellowship and camaraderie to help to reveal God in and through each other. We need to go be the church where there is no church. That made perfect sense to me last night. Wow. People everywhere are deffinitely seeing things through a dirty lens.

Rediscovering the Arts

There are some of us that have an artistic mind. Being in and around music, theatre, motion pictures, paint, sculptures and the like are where our brains are in their natural state. The synapses? Sure they fire more but they seem to fire in a beautiful order. It gives me the feeling of being home. I am at rest. I am at peace with myself and the world. Without art I would be a shell filled with a great abyss of nothing. Only God himself could keep me from literal insanity if I did not have the arts.

Music and art is not what I like. It is what I am. I guess I have always known that but it has never been more prominent than now.

Take Me Back Andrae

I was listening to an old Andrae Crouch song a few days ago. My parents used to play his records all the time. Please read the lyrics to this song. Andrae was and is one of the best Gospel writers of modern time. My prayer is that YOU make this the desire of your heart if there is ANY distance between you and God. I know I can always be closer. Literally stop what you are doing and pray these words. It will change your day.

Take Me Back

(Chorus)
Take me back, take me back dear Lord
To the place where I first received you.
Take me back, take me back dear Lord where I first believed.

(Verse)
I feel that I'm so far from you Lord
But still I hear you calling me
Those simple things that I once knew,
The memories are drawing me.
I must confess, Lord I've been blessed
But yet my soul's not satisfied.
Renew my faith, restore my joy
And dry my weeping eyes.

(Bridge)
I tried so hard
To make it all alone
I need your help
Just to make it home.

Andrae's website is found at http://www.andraecrouch.com/.

Bored-Again Christians...we are everywhere

If you are like me, you like positive music. You love hearing great music. You wonder if you are the only one out there that wishes there was more "arty" faith-based music. The reality is that Christian radio just can't survive that way.

I guess one great way to overcome the safe sound is to have bands made up of Christians get a secular deal, market themselves as a secular band and make sure their songs have a positive message. Plenty of bands have done this. Mute Math, POD, Collective Soul, and plenty of bands that I am just now getting to know thanks to a new podcast I just found. I was about the 11,001st person to find it though.

Check out the Bored-Again Christian site and subsequent podcast. I DO listen to Christian radio but sometimes I want to take a chance. This will help you find that music you are looking for.

Peace

He IS my favorite artist

My favorite artist out there right now is Martin Sexton. He has a cult following of a few hundred thousand in America. He used to be a signed artist on Capitol Records. He was not getting much radio play and found that he was selling most of his albums at his concerts as opposed to in music stores and such. He parted ways with Capitol and started his own label. His thought process was that he sells more records than his label, why cut them in on it? They were not getting him radio play. Why pay them?

I heard an interview with him on NPR about 5 years ago and he said that he was clearing about $500k a year traveling independently and selling his own records. Now the rocker in me says it is way better to sell 2 million records and have sold out concerts to 50,000 fans, but is that more profitable?

Signed artist? Think about this. You give up much of your artistic license. You pay someone else for distribution. You actually give them ownership in your project. If you hit it big you make more than $500k per year. Most people do not hit it big and spend their time being broke. I dare say though that most people reading this blog have not heard Martin Sexton much at all if ever. He does not need to be a commercial or radio success to make a great living. Now with the integration of the internet distribution is even less important than it used to be.

So if you want to be big and important in the music industry go with a label. If you just want to make music for art's sake and make a living you might want to think about staying independent. It is just very hard for labels to be everything to artists. Too many cut backs and such to be as effective as they once were.

Wow, I started this post to tell you about my ALL TIME FAVORITE ARTIST and ended up on a soap box. That was unintentional. Yes, I do play for a signed artist/band and they do treat us exceptionally well. I am just trying to dispel the "pie-in-the-sky" ideas that we all have when we start looking for that deal.

PLEASE check out Martin Sexton!

Peace