Last month our whole squad was living together in Romania. Our ministry host talked about the spiritual warfare in the region we were living in at our orientation, but I just brushed it off, not thinking too much of it. About a week into ministry, a handful of my squad-mates were sick, another handful had been having terrible nightmares, and almost everyone was feeling this heavy darkness. We came together to pray...

Have you ever heard of the fourth wise man? You're probably sitting there thinking, "uhh Emily, you need to go back and re-read the story because there are definitely only THREE wise men..." Yes, yes, in the story in Matthew there are indeed only three wise men. BUT, today I was reading through a study of the book of Mark and it referenced a story that was written in 1895 by a man named Henry Van Dyke Jr. that I had ...

I was doing some gardening for ministry with one of my squad leaders the other day and we were just chatting about life. Then, he suddenly stopped tilling and said, "We're doing it, Em!" We realized that if Jesus came back to earth at this very moment and descended into the garden, we’d being doing exactly what He called us to do. HOW EXCITING IS THAT? So God didn’t exactly write in the Bible that it is my purpose...

This month I have been part of a small group that got the chance to do street evangelism in a nearby city called Craiova. I wanted to write about my experience to give y'all an idea of where I started and where I am now...here we goooo   My Previous Experiences With Street Evangelism We called them "the napkin people." My freshman year these people who worked at a local church would patrol the dining halls a...

Food has been on my mind a lot lately. On the race, I have realized that food is a big comfort for me. At home, it is so easy for me to hop in my car and drive to get whatever I am craving (which is most likely Chick-fil-A) whenever I am hungry. However, on the race I rarely get to decide what I eat, when I eat, and how much I eat. *pictures at end of blog*   I’ve been thinking a lot about fullness. These past ...

Psychiatric Hospital On my last full day in Ukraine, my team drove to visit a psychiatric orphanage. My visit there was unlike anything I've experienced in my life, and something I'm still processing. This orphanage takes care of people with special needs ranging from 6 to 52 years old. You can't really call them kids, so I'll call them patients (even that word is problematic, but I'll get to that later).    ...

Ever since I left for the World Race my mind has been a jumble of mess. I am constantly checking on everyone else in the room, wondering if I'm doing enough for Jesus, worrying if I'm doing anything wrong, trying to soak up every second I have here before these next 11 months fly by...I want to share a poem/song/thing that my good pal Savanna showed me:    If you're happy and you know it, overthink.  If you'...

WE ARE IN UKRAINE!!  After spending 14 hours in one airport, 13 hours on 2 different flights, and almost 5 hours taking buses in between, we finally arrived at our ministry location last Thursday!  Travel is hard on the brain and harder on the body. You never know what day it is. Or what time it is. Or if I should take a nap right now because I'm really tired but it's the middle of the day at our next stop so m...

WOW. Stop what you're doing and go read the book Everybody, Always by Bob Goff. I haven't finished it, but it's already amazing! I started reading it on my way to Atlanta where we have Launch (Launch is the 5 days of training we have before we fly out to our first country!!). I had just left my favorite grey sweatshirt and the great state of Texas and all of my friends behind for a whole year, and Bob freaking Goff s...

The Enneagram Test If you've never heard of the enneagram test, it is similar to Myers Briggs. You take a test and it tells you what number you are between 1 and 9, and each number is a different personality type. You can find free versions of the test on google, but I personally don't think they are very accurate. The way I figured out my number was listening to an episode that the Liturgist Podcast posted about ...