A glimpse of His love for me.

Every time I enter into His presence I begin to catch a tiny glimpse of His love for me. He has been doing so many things in my life over the last three weeks.
This week is Holy Spirit week. Our speaker is Maria Daughtry and she is an amazing and gifted woman of God. So on monday morning I was sick with the flu and I was like "No Im not gonna let the devil bring me down during this week cuz I know God has something really special for me this week". So i was sitting there in worship and lecture on monday morning just feeling so sick so I went to lay down in my bed for about 20 minutes and I felt something telling me I should go back out into the lecture hall even though everything in my body was saying "NO DONT MOVE"! So I went against my physical self and decided to go back out there and about 5 minutes after I sat down Maria said she had some prophetic words for some people. She said that she knows to pray for someone because either their face will be illuminated or they will stand out ALOT. So in my head im thinking "she's never gonna pick me out of the 40 people that are sitting here right now". So i close my eyes and I just begin to pray and all of a sudden I hear foot steps walking towards me... and then I open my eyes and there she is in front of me telling me she had a word for me and wanted to pray for me. So I was like "YES God is listening to me and has not forgotten about me ha"! So I went up there and I cant really remember what she said but I just remember her saying alot about healing and restoration plus many other really good things that I cant remember(I wish i did). and she also said I would be filled with songs once again which was really cool because when I was younger I used to write songs and poems and spend hours journaling and writing these songs and I also remember singing myself to sleeep with worship songs when i was younger. So everything she said was right on.
So that night we had a "soft opening" to the Holy Spirit and God showed up in such an amazing powerful way. People were manifesting, falling to the ground, prophesing, groaning, weeping and wailing and I could just sense His deep presence in that room. All the meanwhile I was just standing there crying out to God just soaking everything in with nothing happening to me. I was like "Why God Why"? Well God told me its not about emotionalism. Everybody reacts to the Holy Spirit in different ways. Well I still left that night feeling discouraged not knowing whether I was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Well last night the same thing happens again. God shows up in an amazing and powerful way and again i feel like im just standing there worshipping once again and am begging Him to fill me up yet I am feeling like nothing big is happening to me. So then they told us we could come up for prayer if we wanted more of Jesus (and of course I do) so I ran up to the front. Well Im up there begging and crying out to God, telling Him to do what He wants with me, saying Yes and Im willing for Him to have His way in my life, and still nothing big happens. As I was standing there I began to feel like God was telling me that its not going to happen tonight and right now He is preparing my heart for what is going to happen and when it will happen. God told me He was teaching me perseverance and to be persistent. So the whole rest of the night I kept asking and asking knowing it wouldnt happen that night but excited for when it would happen. I was then filled with such a peace and excitement for what is going to come.
Also I was told Maria has another word for me that she got last night but cant tell me yet because its not the right timing, so now i have that to look forward to! Soaking in the presence of God was so refreshing last night and I feel like thats what He needed me to do is to be persistent and persevere while soaking in His presence.
One more thing, I got a word from our speaker last week that I was going to be filled with the gift of prophesy. well this week I have been stepping out of my comfort zone and have been getting words from God for people I dont even know and I have been learning to trust in Him that these words are from God and not from myself! So thats been really exciting and cool!
Anyways, God has been teaching me so many things and wiping out so many false things I have thought about Him. My perception of Him has changed since I got here in so many wonderful ways. I realize that He doesn't hold my past against me, that He has truely forgiven me and that God is all for me and not against me. He is overwhelming me with His true love and forgivness that He is pouring down on me. I have begun to feel so much freedom and healing as I begin to understand the true character of God because even though i did a lot of really stupid things in my past, He doesnt care! And I realize that the last few years He has been pursuing me and longing for me to run to Him but I kep pulling back because I felt like i wasn't worthy enough becuase of things going on in my life at that time. I dont have to think that anymore because God has given me a new revelation of His love for me and it screams out FREEDOM!
Anyways, thats just a little update of whats been going on since sunday! Sorry its so long!
love you all!
God Bless,
Maryssa

A sense of belonging.

me and samara on girls day at baby beach in Paia!

i LOVE this girl!

ALOHA!

I have been in Hawaii for a little over 2 weeks and God has been doing so many amazing things in my life! He has blessed me with really great relationships. I feel like this is where I belong so I have been praying about applying and joining staff here in Maui once my DTS is done. My outreach leader and I went out for coffee on Wednesday night and I was telling her about my feeling like this is where i belong and i feel like I have purpose and leadership here, so she suggested i really begin praying about joining staff after my DTS! I am excited to hear what God says! If you feel like praying for me, please pray for direction and guidance after DTS and that I will be able to hear the voice of God leading me unto the right path.
God has been stirring up such a passion in my heart for the nations and even for the people here on the island of Maui. We spent an hour on Thursday morning interceding and praying for the Island and People of Maui and our individual outreach locations. God has been showing me that I really need to begin to pray for open doors and opportunities to reach out to the people here in Maui and to be ready in and out of season. This last week God has been answering my prayers and blessing me and giving me opportunities to talk to strangers and tell them why Im here! I have been blessed with so much boldness and have been able to walk up to random strangers in Paia and strike up conversation with them. I have been able to tell so many people about YWAM and what our mission is and talk about how we are going to tell people about Jesus. I just pray that God will use these conversations and strike up a hunger and wonder in these people's hearts even if I walk away without being able to lead them to Christ. And I also pray that this hunger and wonder will cause these people to seek God out until they find Him.
Another thing God has been showing me is how to pray and the importance of prayer and fasting and everything that I have been missing over the years. For a long time, my prayers would consist of selfish things and I basically forgot what and who actually needs prayer. This week my heart has felt broken as I have begun to realize that there are families back at home in desperate need of healing, comfort, miracles and restoration, Also God has been showing me that I really need to begin to pray hard for abortion to and other huge world matters.He has just been filling up my heart with the desire to pray and fast about so many things right now that it has become so overwhelming.
In 2 weeks we will be flying to the big island of Hawaii to Kona to spend one week at the University of Nations! All of the ywam Hawaii bases will be coming so there will be over 800 students! It will be a powerful week and I am so excited!
Some more good and exciting news is that our whole entire base is going to Bangkok Thailand at the end of march for one week!!!!!! I am so excited to go to Thailand since lately within the last year I have had a huge heart for this country.
I am totally excited for my outreach in Indonesia in April! I have such a heart for the children of Indonesia since these children are this country's future generation. I feel that way about the children of any country.
Please join in prayer with me for outreach finances. I still need most of my finances which is around 3000 dollars (first half due on feb.7), so please pray that God will provide! God works in mysterious ways and that is definetly something i've been learning lately.
Hello to my wonderful family back at home, I am so blessed and thankful to have such a loving and supportive family! I miss and love you all so much!
Mahalo!

Im going to Borneo!

ALoha from Hawaii!



Laundry day!


Beach Day!

Me and Rebecca

Beach Day in Kihei!

Grocery shopping at safeway (sooooo expenisve ha)

anna (on my outreach team), angela and me.




Outreach Locations:)))

1. Borneo

2. Nepal/Bangledesh

3. ch!na

GUESS WHAT??? Im going to Borneo Indonesia for my outreach! I am so excited and feel so strongly about this country and have heard awesome stories about Borneo from previous outreach trips! Please pray for my awesome team that I will be going with, pray for unity and pray that God will prepare us starting right now. Pray that our hearts will be open to the voice of God and that God will use all us in tremendous ways!

Also pray for the Ch!na team and the Nepal/Bangledesh teams!

I also ask that you please pray and conisder supporting me for finances for outreach. I still need about 3000 dollars which is due in february. I know God will provide otherwise He wouldn't have brought me this far! So please please please pray that God will make a way.

Everything else has been going great here, it is so great to be around so many people who are passionately in love with Jesus and continue on growing closer to Him each and everyday. We are all also growing closer together since this is our family for the next 6 months!

God Bless,

Maryssa

Opening Night!

some of the girls and I on the base before Opening Night.

me, shawna and lauren

Ashley, Calla, Shawna, Lauren and Me.

Ashley, Me and Angela on Opening Night of DTS.

Week One:Lecture

On Wednesday morning life on the base was so much better than what i had experienced sunday-tuesday night during exodus.
We started off the morning with this amazing powerful speaker and his name is Andy byrd. He's just one of those guys where the light of God just radiates off him as he speaks.
I dont even know where to begin describing about what he was talking about so I will just write down what is on my heart. (bear with me and forgive me if its not making sense)!

God is ready to hand us radical abandonment as long as we are ready to hang on to it.
I wanna leave with saying "the one thing I desire is that i can gaze upon the beauty of Jesus".
I dont wanna live my life focusing on lesser lovers and beauty's. Our hunger will lead us to the beauty of Jesus.
so many of us (me) are constantly dealing with leftover baggage, shame and guilt of our past which causes us to think that we dont measure up to what God has for us. We continue to go in cycles of beating ourselves up for a couple days after we sin until we can no longer beat ourselves up anymore. Then at that point we decided its finally okay and time to confess and repent because we beat ourselves up so much, but then we do the same sin again and go through that same cycle of beating ourselves up and repentance again. Its because we have not yet had a revelation of Gods love for us that we continue to go through this cycle of shame, guilt and condemnation. If we only knew the true beauty of Jesus then we wouldnt get into any of these sins.
Revelation of falleness is crucial to understanding the grace of God, We have all failed Jesus, but we can't dwell on that. God is bigger than our falleness and there is nothing that can qaulify us for unforgiveness.
God wants to use our failures, guilt, and condemnation to give us deeper revelations. We all carry around an incredible amount of guilt and wake up daily thinking we dont measure up to God. We keep falling into the same patterns of daily sin life. but failure of the past and present is what will bring us into a deeper revelation of Gods love for us.
This story in the bible amazes me. John 8:1-3.
it is about the woman caught in adultery. the accusers bring her to Jesus and say "what should we do with this woman"? (the summarized version).
but Jesus says "if anyone of you is without sin let him be the first to throw a stone at her".
all the accusers left and it was only the woman and Jesus left.
This is what Jesus said to the woman "Go and live a life without sin , Neither do I condemn you".
WOW! This woman was caught in the actual act of adultery which would cause her by law to be stoned to death but Jesus just let her walk away and told her to sin no more!
Only when we truely see Jesus as our lover is when we see the damage of our adultery.
Own up to adultery so that Jesus can take it.
Im almost finished (sorry if this is choppy)
Intimacy without surrender is adultery. Its time to come to the point of total surrender. What can compare to the beauty of christ? everything we have is nothing. Surrendering is not about what we are giving up but is actually about what we are gaining.
Today we stand at the point of surrender, only if we have the understanding of a true revelation of who we are surrendering to. Sacrifice is about what we are gaining.
If the world encountered christians who had true intimacy with Jesus, than the world would come running to Jesus. Lets all be sold out for Jesus everywhere!
The purpose of life is to glorify and enjoy Him forever.
Psalms 45 1, 10-11: God is incredibly enthralled with our beauty. He desires his people.
Song of Songs 4:9: You have ravished my heart with one glance of your eye.
God is sitting and waiting for one glance with you and when he does get that one glance He is enthralled with our beauty. What happens when we lock eyes with our savior, if we begin starring at Him? He is just sitting alone day after day and waiting for that one glance.

This is just a tiny bit of what we have been learning so far in DTS. Like i said, God is just begining to give me more understanding of who he is and it has only just begun!

Exodus

annnnd the story begins... and what a story it is.

so it all began saturday night when we were told that bright and early at 5am on sunday morning we would be leaving on an "exodus".. we were only allowed to bring the following things. (this includes what we were already wearing).

1 tshirt.

1 sweatshirt.

2 pairs of underwear.

1 pair of shorts/pants.

1 sleeping bag.

backpack.

bible.

notebook.

camera.



and thats it. wait. no toothbrush, no showers, no pillow? yah thats right.

so sunday morning comes and we get ready to go on this exodus. oh and did i tell you we didnt even know where we were going or for how long it would be?

so we get into groups of 5 and begin the morning by doing a camera scavenger hunt around Paia and Kahului. yeah that was fun at least. after the scavenger hunt we had to hitch into kahului and then into Iao Valley (which was beautiful). when we finally got a ride in the back of a pickup truck the rain started pouring and we got soaked, (it was fun though).

so then we all get into the vans once all the teams met up in Iao Valley and we get driven into the middle of nowhere. we were gonna be camping out about 100 yards away from the beautiful ocean (still we dont know how long). were sleeping on the ground under the stars with just a sleeping bag. we ate ramen noodles for lunch and dinner everynight, and for breakfast we had plain dry oats. oh and did i mention that we had to use the same styrofoam bowl and chopsticks for each meal? (yes now i know how to use chopsticks!)

oh annnd for the toilets we dug a hole in the ground and thats what we used for three days. No showers, no deoderant, no toothpaste,the same clothes we had for three days, nothing for three days! it was disgusting, dirty and uncomfortable.

yeah. so on tuesday we were stil there and they told us to pack up so we could go to our next destination. I was like "wow" my birthday just isnt going very well today. im stuck in the middle of nowhere, i dont know when im going home, i just wanna talk to my family, take a shower, eat some normal food, and just get outta here cuz its alreay been so long.

Well we thought that we were going somewhere else to camp out. it turns out that we were taken to this church where we were met with all of the YWAM staff where they were cheering for us. We were like "what"???

it turns out they had prepared this amazing candlelit feast for all of us. we couldnt believe it.

we were being all ecstatic and jumping up and down because it was finally the end of exodus! Ive never seen anyone filled with so much joy as I did that night.

so as we are eating, the staff begins to tell us how they are here to serve us and how Jesus washed the disciples feet, now they were all going to wash our feet.

so after dinner all of the DTS staff served us by washing our feet. it was a very amazing and humbling experience. then we had an amazing time of worship.

Already God is begining to open my eyes and give me a little bit of understanding of His love for me. I am so excited about what God has already done and what he will do in the next six months!

Aloha from hawaii!

riding in the back of a pickup!


hookipia beach

hookipia beach!

Me and Melissa in Paia!

eating coconut meat (it wasnt good)

drinking coconut milk for the first time!

me, emily, angela and kristina on baldwin beach in maui!

finally made it to hawaii!

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Tonight is opening night where there will be worship, introduction of the staff members and other "stuff". Next week we will find out the outreach locations!

Today we spent the day hitchiking our way to the beach! It was a beautiful hot and sunny day! (sorry to all of you who are in dreary snowy weather:-(.

Finally in Maui and lovin it!

I made it to maui last night and it is absolutely beautiful here!
Saying goodbye to my family was extremely hard yesterday, i cried my eyes out in the airport. but thankfully God must have known it was going to be hard so he put four different people for me to meet and talk to yesterday throught the planes and the airports! It really helped matters!
The people are great, the beauty is breathtaking and the worship this morning was refreshing.
Today a couple other girls and I spent the day hitching into town, going to the beach and seeing the amazingly high waves, and looked around at all the shops. Paia is a very touristy and beautiful town! Everthing about it is beautiful! It was a beautiful sunny and verrrrry hott day today, but i loved every bit of it!
Unfortunately for some reason im not able to upload pictures right now,, buut as soon as i can get on here next time i will upload pics to show you the beauty of maui!
Im so excited for everything that is coming up, I have so many mixed emotions right now as i am adjusting to everything new. I am very glad I am here though, i know God is going to do amazing things!
I will post pics and update as soon as i can!