About 4 weeks ago was when everyone left besides the 12 of us on the Christmas crew. 

I'm gonna be honest, it felt really weird at first when everyone departed. The campsite was suddenly very quiet and it seemed like a big piece of us just broke off. Not to mention, it rained the whole week, so most of us stayed inside our cabins. But I believe it was a blessing in disguise, to force us to rest (which was MUCH needed). 

Every morning, we got together to do Bible study and check-in with each other, but the rest of the day consisted of walking to town, sleeping, working on schoolwork, and talking. 

There was one night when I had a conversation with Jamo about values. We talked about how your values can influence your behavior and how your top values are often the ones you think about the most. That got me thinking about what my top values are. As a Christian, I immediately thought pursuing Jesus, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he hasn't truly been my top value. I have been putting other values above him and have been thinking of other things more than him. 

One of the things that I catch myself thinking about way too often is my appearance and my body image. It tends to fill up my headspace a lot, making me think thoughts like "I'm not beautiful" or "I need to lose weight" or "I should eat less." I've noticed that I think about this more than Jesus and I don't want it to be that way. I want to remove these untrue lies that creep their way into my mind, but also be intentional about replacing it with Jesus because then those thoughts will have no place to come back into. 

So recently, that has been something I've been working on: surrendering those lies about myself to Jesus and giving them up. Putting them far, far away from me and turning to the Lord for the truth that he says about me. 

Surrender has been a big theme for me recently as well. What does it mean to surrender to the Lord? 

Surrendering to him means denying yourself and taking up your cross daily to follow Jesus (Luke 9:23). Surrendering means resisting the devil and submitting yourself to God (James 4:7). Surrendering means putting off your old self that is corrupt with deceitfulness and putting on your new self that is created in the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24). Surrender means choosing God's will over your own (Matthew 26:39). 

At first, I hated the idea of surrendering everything to God. I didn't want to lose control over my life. I didn't want to let go of some of the bad habits I had picked up that gave me immediate, temporary comfort instead of leaning on the Lord to give me long-lasting comfort. And honestly, I would rather give all of that control to him to take care of. Because I for sure can't do it all on my own.

Also, when you surrender all the yucky, gross parts of you to the Lord to remove from your life, God transforms you with a new heart and new desires aligning with his desires. 

Ezekiel 36:26-27 says "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules." 

I wanted to surrender everything to the Lord and give him my everything. Even though I have been a Christian for almost my entire life, I knew I hadn't fully given Jesus everything. But I wanted to when I thought of my values, and that night, I knelt before my bed and cried to God, surrendering all of the evil in me to him. 

However, I've also learned that surrendering to the Lord isn't a one day thing. It's an ongoing process that will last until the day I die. Everyday, it's a battle, but when I surrender it all to the Lord and show him that I am putting him first in my life and living solely, fully for him, the battle is already won. I can rest knowing that he's taken care of it all and will always lead me in the right direction of where he wants me to go. 

After a quiet week with lots of rain, our parents came to visit and spend time with us for PVT (parent vision trip) week. Gonna be honest, this also felt very weird. I had been away from my parents for such a long time that the thought of them coming across the world to see me again seemed like my worlds were clashing. They were coming into the new season of my life I had been living, with my new family, new routine, and new changed part of me. I liked the new me and the new way of life I had, so in a way, I was a little nervous for them to come. For some reason, I thought their coming would put me right back into my old ways and old thinking, like I would be suddenly transported back in time to the person I was before I came on the trip. And I did not want that. 

Of course, that wasn't true, but things were still different. Them coming showed me how I had grown. My dad told me I had become more patient and calm. I seemed lighter and not so serious all the time. I loved hearing that because that was one of the things I had been wanting to grow in. It's funny because at the time, I couldn't see how I had grown. However, once my parents came and a little bit of my home in Wisconsin was shown to me again, it was so obvious the progression God had made in me. 

After PVT, the 12 of us went to a villa where we stayed for a week. It was a great time to rest after PVT since it was a pretty busy couple of days and also to re-charge before we started traveling to other parts of Italy! 

It's been so cool to witness our group bonding more and more each day. Since we only spent a week at the villa, we committed to being intentional about how we spent our time and being in community with each other. Throughout the week, we watched Harry Potter together, went in the hot tub and ocean, walked on the beach, played games like real life among us, and had long conversations. We also made a big thanksgiving and biblical dinner (only eating foods mentioned in the Bible). I'm so grateful for this community that we have formed and how close we have grown to each other just in that past week. 

We had one day of ministry while we were there. Emmie organized it (thanks Emmie!) and it was to hang out with Africans! I never would have expected that that's what we would be doing, but I was very curious and excited! 

We met up with a man named Leo who led us to a room with a kitchen, where African food would be prepared, and a hanging out area with tables, chairs, and clothes for us to organize to donate to those who need them. Right away when we arrived, we got to work sorting the clothing into men's and women's piles and putting them in bags. Once we were done, we hung out and talked while we waited for the African food to be done. The two dishes they prepared were fu fu, a pounded starchy root vegetable such as cassava, and egusi, which is a hearty stew with vegetables and meat. As we ate, we got to know one another and compared the differences between our cultures. 

Then, the 7 African men shared about their homes in Nigeria and Niger. They opened up about the warfare that is currently happening. They fled their homes only 6 months ago and made their way across the Sahara desert, taking 2 weeks, forcing them to survive off of VERY little water. They also crossed the Mediterranean Sea, taking 3 days, to make it to Italy. Hearing their stories was shocking to me, especially since I never hear stories such as these on the news. And for those brutal, saddening stories to come from people with first-hand experiences on what they have seen and been through was a whole other level. It also made me realize that no matter where you are in the world, you will experience hardship of some sort, whether it's fighting to survive physically, like in Nigeria and Niger, or mentally, more commonly in the United States. 

They were also incredibly encouraging. Their bravery and courage to come from their country to Italy and leave their families and everything they know for a better life is inspiring to me. It just shows how they know God has more for them than the violence they are going through and how they followed the call to leave, even when they were scared. One of the men encouraged all of us through his words by saying that God has a plan for us and will continue to reveal it to each one of us over time. We just have to be patient and keep on following him. I teared up a little bit hearing that since I still don't know what God wants me to do in the future. It was the perfect reminder. 

After the week at the villa, we went to Milan for a day to explore and then traveled to another place in northern Italy to stay. God is continuing to guide us on where we are meant to go and what we're supposed to do. Even though it's a little nerve-racking following God completely faithfully and obediently, it's also exciting how God has been showing us little by little the next steps we're meant to take!

God has been showing us very clearly our next steps through this thing we do called listening prayer where we spend time in silence with the Lord and ask him what he wants. Where he wants to lead us, what he wants us to do, etc. There have been multiple occasions now where as a group, we do listening prayer and ask God these questions. The first time we did it in our group of 12 was when we were praying about where to stay after our time at the villa. We asked God “Where do you want us to go in this next season and what do you have in store for us?” The turnout and crossover of our answers surprised me and reminded me of how God is guiding us, whether we see it or not. Three people got images or words of water and three people got them for snow. Someone received the message of staying in the north of Italy first, then going to the south second. And we all felt peace about the next steps and encouragement for what was to come. Someone even got the name Caterina, which is the name of multiple locations in Italy, both in the north and south. I thought of the name Isaac, but didn’t think of much else besides that.

As time passes and we keep following God’s call, we continue to do listening prayer. The more we do it, the more direction we get. The second time we did it, I saw more information about Isaac. I envisioned him wearing a long, beige trenchcoat and a red plaid hat that covers your ears. I felt like he was in northern Italy, close to the Dolomites (which is where I have felt like God was leading me long before we left for Italy) and that he was near a cheese market. I know, it sounds crazy, but it is what I saw and felt and I trust in the Lord and the messages he gives me. I’m continuing to pray for him and when I’m supposed to go near the Dolomites, specifically near the Bolzano area, so I can go and see what God has planned for me there. 

I also felt a strong urge to go to Venice. It was interesting because the other 3 girls that I was doing listening prayer with didn’t feel an urge to go, but only I did. I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but I followed through with that feeling and went anyway, despite the unknowingness. 6 other people went with me and before we got there, we prayed that the Lord would lead us where he wanted us to go there and would reveal to us opportunities to share his love. 

One of my biggest prayers recently has been that God would make me keep my eyes fixed on him entirely over EVERYTHING else in my life. That I wouldn’t think about myself all the time, but that I would notice others and truly SEE them and love them like Christ does. As we walked throughout Venice, that’s what I made sure to do and continued praying and asking the Lord to just show me what to do. 

My friend Alyssa pointed out a church and said we should go in. To be honest, I didn't quite feel like going inside the church, but I went in anyway. We were making our way to the exit when I saw an old woman sitting by herself. She had a bandage over her nose and was holding a crutch. I kept walking, but kept feeling a tug to go back and pray for her. It wasn't until I was fully outside of the church that I decided to run back in. Ethan and I prayed over her and her husband while they prayed a prayer that many Catholics pray. It was SO cool because it was almost like we were doing a waterfall prayer unintentionally since we all were praying at the same time. 

There were other opportunities too that God gave me to show his love when we wandered such as taking a picture of a couple and our group buying food and giving money to a lady asking for it. I love how God clearly guided me to go to Venice even though I didn’t know what his plans were, but ended up using it for his good. 

Then, most recently, we prayed about if we should stay where we are currently in the north or if we should go down south like we had originally planned. Almost all of us felt like we should stay. And then the other day, the group prayed about how long we should stay in the north and 5 people got the 27th. So that is what we will be doing! 

As a group, we have been longing to do some sort of ministry. This entire month, we haven’t had any concrete, planned ministry and it's been a lot of rest and growing in our own personal journeys. It’s been nice to get this much rest in preparation for the spring in Mexico (which will for sure be a very busy season), but most of us now are itching to do something. We have been poured into enough and filled up enough now that we want to pour out our love and produce fruit, just like God sent us here to do. 

Thankfully, we found out a couple of days ago that Seth (the founder of World Race) got in contact with some people he knows in northern Italy that we can do ministry with! Today, we just had a meeting with them about what their ministry looks like and how it would work with us and what role we would have. From what it sounds like, teenagers would be coming over to where we are staying and they would bring food and we would all hang out together. We would talk about our walks with God, the ways he has been working in our lives, and what brought us to come on this trip. Even though we will only be doing this ministry from what it sounds like one or two times, I still can’t wait to start actively participating in public ministry again in coming together and talking about Jesus! 

Pray requests would be over the safety and health of our team, against spiritual warfare, growth and peace within all of us, and a continuing fellowship built together. Pray that we will ALL be on fire for the Lord and that God would continue to teach us new lessons each and every day. Pray for direction as we go about Italy and for rest that we will be energized to be ministers of Christ wherever we go. Thank you for reading this post! I love you all! 

God bless, Hailey