Following after You

Okay...I want people to know what is going on in my life and why I am going back to Boston, so I will attempt to explain where I feel God is taking me.

Life the past several months has been crazy. It has been amazing...but crazy. My story, however, starts even before I left for my Discipleship Training School(DTS) with Youth With A Mission(YWAM) Boston 7 months ago. You see...Jesus has always had a hold on my life. Ever since I was younger, I have wanted to listen to Him and do what He said. My heart wanted to please God, because I knew that He was good. I knew that no matter what happened, He was the one who would take care of me. I knew that I would be safe in His hands and that He would love me even more than anyone I knew ever could. I knew this, because He showed me time and again, and because I had seen Him do it with other people. So growing up, my heart ached to be with and follow this God.

It was in the few years before I left for Boston that God really started working in my heart. He always was working, but it was in this time that I wholeheartedly allowed Him to do whatever He wanted with me. There is a scripture that says something like..today, if you hear His voice, do not turn away. This scripture stuck with me and played a big part in all of my decisions. Whenever I would feel a tug on my heart to go be alone with God, I would remember this and I would pull myself away and just go sit with God. It was in those moments that He began to speak to me. I had a deeper longing and an intense hunger to be with Him always, and I wanted the things in my life to be right so that He could be with me. I didn't want to have junk in my heart that kept me from being with God, so I prayed time and again for Him to change me, and I did all that I could to stay open to that change.

As it turned out, God started to show me things about Himself and what He was doing. He not only spoke to me, but He brought other people into my life that I could learn from and that encouraged me along the way. Just as a young child loves to watch their mother or father work, so am I. I have longed to see what God is doing in this earth and where He is taking us.

The year before I even knew about the DTS, I did a lot of praying and fasting. I wanted God's heart to be my heart, and I wanted to care about the things He cared about. I realized that all of this time He was preparing me and opening my heart to new things. And this is when He threw YWAM Boston into my life and told me to go on the DTS. Needless to say...I did :) And like I said before, it was amazing...but I will talk about that experience another time.

Now that I have returned from Boston and even before I left, I have been praying about where God wants to take me next. I still want to know where He is moving and what He is doing. Well, God spoke to me and told me to return to YWAM Boston to work as a full-time missionary. Do I love the work that YWAM Boston does? Absolutely. I love telling people about Jesus and helping people to really get their lives right with God. I love watching people's hearts change right in front of me. I love the community that is there, and I love the city of Boston. But even more than all of that, I love what God is doing. I am excited to work with YWAM, but I am more excited to see what God does while I am up there. I believe He has called me there for a reason that goes beyond YWAM. I believe God is doing something in this earth, and I want to be a part of it.

Now I know that this does not make sense. I am 21 and I have not finished college yet, and this does not make sense to a lot of people. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense to me. But...what I do in life has never really made a lot of sense to me anyway :) A lot of times, God tells me to do things and I don't always know why, but I try to do them anyway, because...I know that He is good and that He loves me. In fact, that is precisely the reason I went on DTS. Most of the people there said that they were looking for a DTS and God pointed them to this one, but that wasn't the case for me. I was looking for God's heart and He threw this in my lap. Almost literally. Then, He told me to go. Very clearly. And so I went. Did I understand why? Nope...but I knew that is what He wanted and so it became what I wanted.

So...here is where I am now. I am on my way back to Boston. There are things, however, that I still need before I can leave. As a full-time missionary, I will need a lot of prayer support. I would love to have a core group of people that would commit to praying for me. And I would also love to keep in close contact with those people so they can know how to specifically pray for me. My desire is to stay as connected with people as possible. I do not want this to be a thing where I go off and do something and then come home and talk about it. I want people to be actively involved in what God is doing in Boston. But beyond prayer support, there is also financial support needed. As a missionary, I will need to raise about $1000 a month. Everyone in YWAM raises their own support, so this $1000 will go to pay for things like rent, bus passes for transportation since I do not own a car, food, taxes, mailing supplies, and other things that life requires such as shampoo and toothpaste :)

I would ask that you prayerfully consider both of these things, and ask God what, if anything, He would have you do.
If you would like to support me monthly, either by praying or financially, you can email me at kmartini88@yahoo.com with support written in the subject line, so I know who you are :) I would love to get in touch with you also and find out what is going on in your life.
Well...that is all for now. May God bless you as you go about your day, and may you feel His love in a way you never have before. Remember, He longs to be with and take care of you.