Update: Home

Dear friends and family,

I am home, safe and sound in America.  Finally.  Praise the Lord!!

I am sending this two days later than I anticipated since my original flight home was canceled and I had to be re-routed, involving a delay of two extra days at my original destination.  While it was disappointing and discouraging to go to the airport and not get on a plane, there were so many blessings and things I could be thankful for!  I got to spend 2 extra days with my wonderful roommates who took care of me and fed me and helped me enjoy every minute of my delay.  I am also thankful that I did not get stuck in any other European city - many of which shut down their airports over the weekend due to weather.  Sunday afternoon did bring me back to America though!  I arrived late in the afternoon and was more than overjoyed to be met with hugs by familiar faces at the airport!!  Coming home has never felt so good - and hearing the passport control officer say "welcome back to America" was like music to my ears!

Now, I am beginning the process of re-adjusting to America and finding things that are different and that I forgot about...some so far: light switches are on the inside of rooms, not outside; I can drink water out of the faucet and not pump it out of a jug; automatic flush toilets; Christmas is everywhere; temperatures in Fahrenheit scale, etc.  I am sure that there are many, many more that I will find as the days go on...

I do have a praise to share!  Last week, in my final update, I asked for prayers that I would be able to see a friend of mine, "S".  The Father answered that prayer and on Wednesday afternoon of last week I was able to spend about an hour with her.  We had a great conversation and I was able to give her a copy of the Word in her own language!  She was very excited to receive it!  Ask that the Father would reveal Truth and lead her to study for her own.

Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers over the past four months (and the many months leading up in preparation)!  I could not have done any of this without you and am so thankful for each of you!  Now that I am home, I look forward to sharing with many of you pictures and stories from the past four months!

Love,
Anna

Update: Homeward Bound on Friday

Dear friends and family,

So, yesterday officially began my first day of lasts while I am here in Central Asia...it was my last Friday here, today is my last Saturday, etc.  I cannot believe that these four months are nearly over!  What I anticipated and looked forward to for so long is nearly all behind me now!  But God is good! I have learned so much!  As I begin to think and process over all that I have learned and experienced in the past 17 weeks, I am overwhelmed!  But in a good way!  There is so much to be thankful for! Each day has had its own challenges, but I have loved every minute of being here.

I am thankful for every relationship that I have, whether it has been consistent, or one that just lasted for a few minutes in a divine appointment.

I am thankful for what I have learned about culture (even through my cultural blunders that are surely too many to count) and how many opportunities there are to talk about the Truth when talking about differences in culture.

I am thankful for the Father's work in my life.  He has taught me innumerable lessons, broken me, held me, filled me with joy and love for these people.

I have learned more about Christmas this year than any other year in my whole life - which is ironic being that I am in a country that does not celebrate Christmas.  But it is that absence that has caused me to be more aware of why I celebrate Christmas - I have to seek out the real meaning, when there is nothing tangible to remind me of the Christmas season that American culture has been swallowed up in.

This week, as I spend my final days in a city that the Father has given me a love for, would you please lift up the following:

• Clarity of thought as we spend a few days in de-briefing, a time that has been planned for us to be able to reflect back over the four months and share testimonies of what the Father has done.
• That the joy of the Father would fill me
• Travel safety on Friday - it has finally turned winter here (meaning that it is no longer 70 degrees in December) and flights get canceled more frequently due to the weather.
• The beginning stages of the adjustment back to American culture and readjusting to my own home culture after diving deep and being completely immersed in a second culture for the past four months.
• That I would be able to meet with my friend, "S".  She is a dear friend that I have been able to share with many times while living here and am asking the Father that I would be able to see her one last time this week. 

I am so thankful for you.  Thank you for walking this journey with me and joining me to lift up the work that is being done here!  I can assure you that your laboring has not been in vain!

I trust that the next e-mail I send out to you all will come from America!  I look forward to seeing many of you when I return home!

Love,  Anna

Update: Let His Name be Declared Among the Nations

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family at home!

I am so thankful for you!  I trust that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving this week this past week!  I was so blessed to celebrate an incredible Thanksgiving overseas, and not just once but twice!  On Thursday, my roommates and I celebrated Thanksgiving with our American friends and had an incredible meal and encouraging time of fellowship and worship.  On Friday, we invited several of our local friends to our house to show them how we give thanks and have an opportunity to share the love of the Father with them in the way that we served them.  It was a lot of work to do Thanksgiving two days in a row, but well worth it!  We have many praises of how the Father answered prayers that we had for each day!

It is so hard to believe that I will be home in 3 weeks!  Looking back, my time here has gone so quickly! I have been blessed with so many opportunities to learn about the culture, travel to see Biblical sites, build relationships with long-term workers who live here, but most importantly I have had many opportunities to share the Good News that gives us joy and hope for each day!  It is such a privilege and every time I have a chance to share, I am so in awe of God's goodness in my life that He has given me a story to tell that can bring hope and life to this dark world!  I am so undeserving of all that the Father has done in my life and the opportunity He has given me to live in a country that the He has given me a love for...I have so much to be thankful for today!!

So much has happened over the past three weeks since I sent an update - the days have been flying by and have barely had a minute to sit down and write a thorough update.  I have been keeping my blog updated so if you want to hear more about what my day-to-day experiences have been and answers that I have seen, check it out.  God is good!

While there is the side of me that is counting down to come home, I also, more than anything else in the world, want to finish strong.  I want to embrace every moment that I have remaining here like it is the only moment that I have to tell what is true!  Would you please ask that the Father would give me strength to run well the race that is set before me right now.  When I realize that the Father sent His Son to pay the price that should have been mine, I know that I have nothing less than all of me to lay at His feet.  To give anything less than all of me would be ungrateful for the price that was paid on my behalf!

Please ask that the Father would continue to open doors to share Truth!  I cannot wait to tell you stories of people that He has put in my path in my short time being here.

Please ask that there would be a harvest of souls in this land.  Many are eager to hear and are seeking Truth.  Ask that  the Father would send workers to share Truth in the native language for hungry hearts to hear.

I am so thankful for each of you! I thank the Lord frequently for your support and your love to me while I have been away!  I pray that the Father will continue to strengthen you as you run the race that is set before you as well.

Update: 8 Weeks

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement over the past 8 weeks that I have been living in Central Asia!  I am so thankful for each one of you and could not be here without you!  My heart is so full of what the Father is doing in my life and around me through the lessons that He is teaching me - I wish I had the time to let my heart explode into words in this e-mail to share with you everything.

There are so many things that I am thankful for:

• I am thankful for my incredible support system at home (you!) that I know lifts me up and encourages me through e-mails letting me know that you are laboring in the work that the Father is doing.
• I am thankful for the change of seasons that is bringing a refreshing crisp coolness to us.  It is a wonderful relief from the suffocating heat the met me when I arrived.  I love fall and was so happy to break out my fall sweaters to wrap up in!  The change of seasons is such a beautiful reminder of the control that our Father has over everything, even the seasons.
• I am thankful for each of my senses that allow me to be aware of my surroundings to soak in everything around me, including language, smells, sounds, voices, buildings, faces, etc.  The faces especially are etched in my mind forever...
• I am thankful for this incredible city that I am living in as it reminds me of the grace that the Father has shown me in choosing to call me His own.  In a country of 72 million people and less than 5,000 believers, it is an incredible privilege to worship here and call upon the L/rd in all things.  He hears us call to Him wherever we may find ourselves on this earth...even in the darkest places.

Before I head off to bed tonight, I want to share with you a few specifics that you can be lifting up.

• Please continue to lift up the region of Central Asia that the Father would work in the hearts of many men and women here to draw them to Himself.
• We welcomed a team today from America to join us here for a little over a week.  They will be doing literature distribution and p-walking with us over the next few days.  Please lift up the team as they are in a new culture and that the Father would give us patience as we guide them throughout the city.
• We also have two new girls arriving on Friday (October 8) who will be moving into our apartment, making the total then of five girls living in our apartment.  It is definitely going to be a transition as the three of us are all currently used to living with each other and are going to adjust to two more now.  We are excited to meet our new roommates and are asking that the Father would give us unity as the space becomes a little smaller with more people.

Thank you so much!

Keep following hard after the One who gave you Life!

Update: 6 Weeks Down, 12 to Go

Dear Friends,

I am so excited to be able to write to you today!  To share with you praises of what the Father is doing on the other side of the world!  First of all, He has graciously continued to give me joy and contentment in living and serving here for 6 weeks so far! Every moment that I have joy and look at the people all around me with love is a gift and a moment of victory!   It is a daily fight for joy, but it is so worth it - because HE is worth it!  Living in a culture where I am ignorant, naive, weak and vulnerable I am forced to choose in every moment that I take a breath to continue hard and keep my eyes on the One who breathes life into me.  In my way too frequent weak and vulnerable moments there is only one thing that I can fall back on and that is the One who brought me out of death and into life!

6 weeks...looking back, that has gone really fast!  Looking forward, there is still so much work to be done!  It already breaks my heart to think of leaving, but I am forever thankful for the season that I am able to spend here and am loving every minute of it!  There will always be work here to labor in...at times the task seems insurmountable.  In a country of 72 million people and less than 5,000 believers, the reality of the eternal destiny of the majority of the countless eyes that I look into every day is staggering.  They are so buried in tradition, have no knowledge of Truth and statistically so little chance to hear of the Message that has changed my life and the Love of the Father that has driven me to this spiritually dark place.  I love every chance I get to tell any little bit I can!

Each day we sink a little deeper into the culture that surrounds us.  Much of it I love dearly.  Some of it is frustrating.  Many weeks I look back and feel as though I have been on an emotional roller coaster experiencing multiple high and low points in within the same day.  Discouragement can be an easy retreat in those times - it is in those moments I must choose joy!  You want to stay home and question what brought you to this place - or maybe what is keeping you here.  The answer is the love of the Father.  He has poured His love out on me and the only thing I can do with it is to give it away.  So every chance we get that is what we do - we give love away.  I demonstrate love in the way that treat my team mates and the way that I genuinely say "thank you" to the boy who is selling water all day long and the way that I learn to patiently wait in long lines.  Most of the time it is the least that I can do when I don't speak their language.  And I can share love in the way that I speak to my Turkish friends who want to practice their English with us!

Speaking of our Turkish friends, thank you for lifting them up!  Last time I wrote, we were looking forward to meeting with a couple of national friends.  I am filled with joy to write to you today to share that we have spent much time with two good friends of ours on separate occasions.  They are extreme opposites from each other.  One, "B", is very modern in her thinking and holds loosely, if at all, to the traditions that shape this culture.  The other, "S", is incredibly devout - her family history is thoroughly steeped in M tradition and culture.  Right now these two girls who have opposite backgrounds and lifestyles have three things in common: they are not believers, they are in need of a relationship with the King of Kings, and they have been placed in our life through divine appointments that we certainly could have never orchestrated ourselves.  Sarah and I have been greatly encouraged in our time spent with "B" and "S" and that the Father has given us the opportunity to speak Truth into their lives.  "The Word of the Father will not return void!"  We have been humbled and amazed at the conversations we have had with them thus far and have been able to share with both of them that we are believers.  We even got to share the message of the Good News with "B" the first night we met with her through talking about holidays that we celebrate in America -  we were the very first people to tell her about Easter and then what it meant as well.  They are looking forward to hanging out with us much more this fall!  Would you ask that the Father would be praised in our friendships and that His name would be made great!  These girls are precious and I would have no greater joy that to see them worshiping around the Throne one day!

Would you please join me in asking the Father to continue what He is doing here in Central Asia?

Ask that...

• Our relationships with "B" and "S" will continue to grow and that we would have many more opportunities to share Truth.
• The Father will continue to place relationships in our lives that will strengthen us in becoming bolder in what we believe.
• That the region of Central Asia will be drawn to worshiping my King.
• That the barriers of what they believe will be stripped down and they will see the freedom that is offered to them through a relationship with the Father. 

Thank you again and again for all of your love and support!  I am thankful for each of you!

Update

Dear Friends!

Tomorrow (Sunday) I will have been here for one month!  I cannot believe it!  I have learned so much in that short time...transportation, some language, and many, many valuable lessons from the Father!

Thank you so much for lifting up Sarah and I as we have been stumbling our way around this big city!  I cannot tell you what a blessing that has been!  I know that it may have seemed like an insignificant request, but to a girl who had never taken public transportation before arriving here, it was a big deal!  We know how to get so many places (and even have our favorite places in the city) now and that encourages us to have confidence to step out and learn even more!  We are also able to stumble our way through ordering at a restaurant in Turkish which is a huge encouragement!

This past week, Sarah and I spent in another city several hours away providing child care for a team while they met together in the mornings and evenings.  While we had to learn to be creative with having only a playground and coloring books, we had a great time playing with the eleven children we were responsible for.  During the afternoons we had some free time and got the explore the area near where we were staying.  We got to eat at a beach-front restaurant, climbed around an ancient Byzantine castle, visited Ephesus and some other historical landmarks.  While it was fun to see some history and parts of this beautiful country, it was even more of a blessing to provide the workers we were with an opportunity to have a break from their kids so that they could seek the Father in direction for strategies for the work that is being done here.  While it was great to be away, we are very glad to be back in our city where things look familiar once again - yes, there are parts of living in a city of millions of people that does begin to look familiar.

My highlight of the week, and probably my time here so far, was by far Friday when my roommate and visited Ephesus.  Yes, Ephesus was great (even the second time around was still incredible), but the best part was when we were in one of the shops at the end.  We were shopping for souvenirs and gifts when we met one of the store owners.  He had some plaques in his shop that he had made himself and we took the opportunity to begin asking questions about the Christian symbols he had placed on them.  We just started asking curious questions to see if he knew what they meant and my roommate and I were able to have a lengthy conversation with our new friend sharing a small part of the hope that we have.  It was our first time to verbally share a small part of that with anyone here!  We have been asking the Father to provide opportunities for us to find ways to engage in conversation and He has faithfully shown us so many ways this week and even provided an opportunity for us to share openly about the Truth.  We are asking that the Father would continue to water the seeds that are planted because He is the One who causes the growth! 

Would you join with us in asking for the Father to place strategic relationships in our lives?

There are so many stories that I could share with you and trust that I will have an opportunity to one day when I come home.

Here are some requests to lift up:

• Sarah and I have one friend that we met in our first week here.  We have been in contact with her but unable to get together yet.  The way that the Father allowed for us to meet her was a divine appointment and unlike any other and we would love to continue that relationship if that is what the Father wills.  Please ask that we would find joy in waiting and that the Father would prepare us for how to build a friendship with her.
• That the Father would continue to open our eyes to see opportunities to share Truth and that He would give us the words and boldness to make known the mystery of the Good News!
• That the Father would provide many more opportunities like He did with our new friend at Ephesus.
• That I would continue to cling to the Father and savor the sweet time that I get to spend in His Word and in fellowship with Him!  It is a daily fight to see and savor Him as my highest Treasure, but it is so worth it!  I am so thankful for the lazy mornings I get to have sitting and reading the Word!

I am thankful for each one of you!!  I could not be here without you!  Have a blessed day!  I would love to hear from you and hear what the Father is teaching you!

Update: Merhaba

Merhaba!!

I realized that it has been several days since I sent out an update so I wanted to take a few minutes this afternoon to share with you a few highlights since I last wrote!

First, I would love to encourage each of you to take a minute to read Isa. 12 when you have a few minutes.  It has been a great encouragement to me this week.  It reminds me where my focus needs to be and who it needs to be focused on.  There are so many promises in these six verses that we can trust in our Father because He has rescued and saved us from the path that we once walked on.   I am learning that His joy is sufficient for me each and every day.  His mercies are new every morning!

Each day is a new adventure...some are easier than others but I am thankful for each one as I learn so much...whether it is through frustrations or joys.  Just after I sent the last update, my partner, Sarah, and I left to go to an orientation with six other students for a week!  It was incredibly encouraging as we sat and discussed many issues regarding our work here over the next few months.  It was so refreshing as well as each morning one of the leaders opened up and shared from the Word for about an hour and really challenged us and encouraged us with what he has learned from living on the field.  It was a really great week to build unity among us all as students and between partners.  I am so thankful for my partner, Sarah, who has been a great encouragement to me and we are able to laugh at ourselves so much...which is definitely key to survival here when everything is so unfamiliar.

We also met a couple of girls that week that we are asking the Father if He would be willing to let us go further in those relationships and get to know them better.  Please ask that the Father would continue to bring relationships into our path that we may be able to grow and have the opportunity to share Truth with them.

This week, Sarah and I are being sent into different areas of the city to familiarize ourselves with the layout and to be p-walking as we go throughout our day.  There is so much to do and see here...living with millions of people around you is a bit overwhelming at times!

Please join with me in lifting up the following requests for our time here in central asia:

• Please ask that Sarah and I would grasp and understanding of the transportation system here.  It is very challenging and frustrating at times in such a large city to not know how to get places.  Communicating is challenging but all of it is a great way for us to learn to trust!
• Please lift up relationships that we have made and will soon make that our Father would receive all the praise from each conversation that we have.
• Please lift up the people of this region of the world.  There is so much darkness around us and opportunities every minute to be light - ask that we would be bold and shine brightly, reflecting the radiant light from our Father!

Thank you all so much for your love and support! It is so encouraging to hear from you - I really do love hearing from everyone at home and how you are doing!  Please let me know how I can be lifting you up as well!

Update: Life So Far

Merhaba (hello)!

As I briefly let ya'll know the other day, I did arrive here in Central Asia safely on Thursday afternoon!  Thankfully I had no problems traveling and all my luggage arrived together!  I got to sleep a little bit on the plane so am still recovering from a little bit of jet lag.  I have gotten about 10 hours of sleep the last couple of nights so that is helping a lot!  It is extremely hot and humid here so we shower a lot and a good breeze and electric fans are currently our best friends!!

I am living on the top floor of an apartment building (8th floor) with four other girls in a very nice apartment...we even have a dishwasher and a washer/dryer (many times a luxury here)!  We have a beautiful view of the city, which spreads as far as the eye can see, from our balcony.  So far, we have been able to meet and spend a lot of time with other members from our team as they orient us with the city and public transportation and beginning to teach us some language...it is definitely a lot to take in but they are wonderful teachers!

Tomorrow, my roommate, Sarah, and I are leaving to go to another part of the city where we will spend most of next week in some orientation training with other Hands On students (just like us).  It should be a great time to get to know them and become a little more acquainted with our city.  I do not plan on having Internet access during that time, so if you don't hear from me within the next week, no worries...I will have lots to share next weekend :)

As we are getting more and more settled in and beginning orientation next week, here are some thoughts that you could lift up to the Father:

• That relationships with my teammates would continue to flourish so that we can all be an encouragement to one another in our daily work.
• Lift up the people here who follow Islam.  For about the next month, we are in the month of Ramazan where they will fast during the daylight hours.  Typically a little drummer boy comes around about 3:30AM each morning (yes, it wakes us up but we go right back to sleep) banging his drums to wake everyone up so they can stuff themselves with food before the first call to prayer at sunrise and then they fast from food and drink until sunset where they eat another huge meal called Iftar.  This is a very integral part of their belief system as it is a work that they do to find favor with Allah.  Please ask that the Father would provide opportunities for us to share the Truth with our friends here and that the blinders that are built in front of their eyes would be removed.
• Ask for relationships that I will be building this fall that the Father would speak and that I would be intentional with opportunities that He gives to me.  Also, that I would learn to cling to the word in everything that I say and do!  Ps.119:116

Thank you so much for all of your pr/y/rs!  I am so thankful for each of you and could not be here without you!  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Until all the nations hear,

Anna

Update: Today is the Day

Dear friends,

Well, it is finally here...I am leaving in just a few hours for Central Asia where I will be spending the next four months!  I cannot believe that it is actually here!  It is a very surreal feeling and I am so in awe of the grace of the Father that He has provided and orchestrated all the details of this trip!  I look forward to sharing many updates with you of how His name is made great in the nations!

I will definitely be sending out updates throughout the four months that I am there, but I also plan to keep a blog during this adventure and will post pictures and various things that I am learning.  

I am so thankful for each of you and the impact that you have had on my life!  Most importantly I cannot do this without our Father, but I also cannot do this with you and knowing that God has allowed our paths to cross, I am blessed and encouraged to know that you are lifting up the work that God has already started!  Please let me know how I can be in prayer for each of you as well!  It would be an honor to lift you up!  I will be praying that God would continue to work in you to make you more like His Son each and every day!

Please pray that God's name would be made great!!  Love you all!!

Until all the nations hear, 
Anna

Update: 22 Days Until Asia

Dear Friends & Family!

I am getting very excited as I write to you today!  It is only 22 days until I get on a plane and fly to Central Asia for the four months that the Lord is preparing me for! I know it has been quite a while since I sent out an update so I wanted to take a few minutes to bring you up to speed with where the Lord has me right now. With my summer quickly nearing to an end, it is bringing on a flood of mixed and bittersweet emotions as I prepare to step out in faith into a world of many unknowns.  I am excited to embrace the unknown and to trust God through each day.  This summer I am realizing that I am really learning trust for the first time in my life...what I have thought was trust before was nothing like what I am experiencing now.  In the past when I have prayed for direction in my life, I know that God has led me but I also had a dozen different options available to me so that one of them was bound to work out.  As soon as August 11 arrives, I will be at the end of all that I know to be normal and the end of all that I have planned...my life from there on out is an open book with pages that God has already written - I am just learning to patiently wait for Him to turn the page and reveal the "next step."  It is the scariest, and yet most comforting, place I have ever found myself in.  The Lord will make known to me the steps He wants me to take and in that there will be great joy because He is the giver of all true joy!

After graduating from college on May 15 (yay!!!), I spent a couple of days with my family and then came back for the third summer to serve in children's ministry at my home church on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  It has been a wonderful summer so far and I am continuously amazed at how the Lord has placed strategic relationships in my life to train me and walk with me and to teach me how to serve.  I could sit and write forever about all that I have learned - maybe someday, if the Lord allows, I will get to share that with you.  Every day is a new opportunity and I am thankful to have oxygen in my lungs and the ability to learn.

As I am just a few weeks away from leaving, there are a few things that are on my heart that I would like to ask you to join with me in prayer about in preparation for moving to another country and beginning to build new relationships.

• That I would have humility to learn and hold all my plans and expectations with open hands before the Lord - that I would not hold on to anything that I want or desire.  Before I leave, I need to learn from people God has placed in my life and when I arrive, I need to lower myself to learn a new culture and build relationships with precious people that God has created.
• That I would learn to feed myself spiritually.  Too often I take for granted the fact that I am constantly surrounded by believers and have access to endless resources to assist me in my spiritual growth, but God is really all I need.  I need to cling to Him and His Word.
• Pray that God would bring clarity and direction in His timing as to the "next step" that I will take - I recently commented to a friend that these next six months will most likely be the most definitive months of my life as I step out on my own and face countless adventures and make many significant decisions that will likely impact that rest of this life that God has given me.  Most of all I need to learn the discipline of going before the Lord and walking throughout the day in a constant conversation with Him.
• Please pray for the precious people that I am about to meet in Central Asia.  I cannot wait!!!!  I have literally dreamt about arriving and meeting them - I can hardly stand the anticipation that I have at moments of having to wait another 22 days to experience that beautiful moment!  But as excited as I am to meet them, I am even more excited to sit and drink chai tea and build relationships with them and share with them about the living water that they can come and drink from.

I look forward to sending many more updates in the near future of what the Lord is doing!