Round Two: More Information

If you know me or follow my blog, you've probably caught on that I'm leading a mission trip this summer for college-aged pupils (ages 18-22).  If you've been keeping up, you also know that I did not know where I would be going this summer.  Well, guess what.

I found out where I am going this summer.

Do you want to know?

Okay, I'll tell you.

I am going to....

KENYA!

Wanna know some things about Kenya?

This is a map of Kenya.  It's in Africa on the East coast on the Indian Ocean.

Kenya is bordered by Uganda (where I went on a mission trip fall 2011), Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan.

This is what their flag looks like:

Bantu Swahili and English are the two official languages of Kenya.

Kenya gained full independence on December 12, 1963.

Nairobi is the capitol of Kenya.

During the trip I will be walking alongside the participants on my team, encouraging them on the way, and also doing logistical things like making sure the team is where they need to be, keeping a budget, etc.  The ministries offered to us in Kenya can be anything like hospital ministry (including but not excluded to praying, assisting nurses, volunteering in the kitchen), hanging out and befriending the locals, or volunteering in children's homes.

The trip will cost me $1500.  If you are interested in supporting me in these ministries over the summer, you can email me at kiersten.smith@hotmail.com

or

click here, enter "The Passport" in the program box, and enter "Kiersten Smith" in the participant box

or

mail a check with "Kiersten Smith- The Passport" in the memo line to this address:

Adventures In Missions
P.O. Box 534470
Atlanta, GA 30353-4470 

Keep reading my blog to stay updated on what I'll be doing this summer and what's going on in my life right now!

The Box

 Consider the box.

Think about it's edges, limitations, corners.

Boxes are dreadful things.

Whether it be physical or metaphorical, they are difficult to work with.

Lift with your legs, not your back!  How many times has a heavy cardboard moving box pulled a muscle?

So many times we are told to "think outside the box," meaning break out of traditional thinking, straining our brains and causing endless hours of stress trying to be original.

See?

Pesky.

Difficult.

Dreadful.

If boxes have edges, corners, and limitations, then God certainly does not fit inside a box.  I have been telling myself and others not to put God in a box for a while now.  It is one of my favorite things to tell people, because God has no limits.  There is nothing God can't do.  How could our omniscient, omnipotent God fit into a box?

I have been trying so hard to not put limits on God.  I have tried to keep all the doors, windows, and pathways in my life open to how God moves by not planning anything anymore.  I had decided that making plans causes me to get stuck in a single tunnel-like mindset.  So I decided to stop planning.  No planning = no limiting God.  Fool proof.

"But what if God wants you to plan," a dear friend asked me.

Crap.

You mean God might want me to plan?  You mean by trying not to limit God I have limited Him?  You mean that because our God is omnipotent He can make plans happen if He tells me to make them?
Crap.I guess I put God so far outside the box that I accidentally captured Him inside another.

PS I am leading a mission trip this summer with Adventures in Missions.  It costs me $1500 for two months out of the country (I will know which country I am going to soon).  If you are interested in supporting me, you can email me at kiersten.smith@hotmail.com or go here.  Be sure to select "The Passport" and to put "Kiersten Smith" in the participant name box.

Stop Being Lazy

Stop being lazy.

God shook me awake to the reality of how I have been treating my time since being back from Uganda.

I have been viewing this semester at school as a transition time.

I have been looking forward to the future so much that I have been absent in the present.

I have been asking God to show up, wondering where He was.

This entire time He was asking me to move.  To do something.  Anything.  To give Him an opening to show up and do wonderful things.

I've gotten bored because my days blend together and I perform the same monotonous tasks each week.

I have asked for adventure, but haven't even looked out the window to find it.

I have wanted God to do all the work.

You can lead Kiersten to water, but until she decides to stop looking past the horizon, she becomes stuck in the same spot.

In my looking forward to the future I have been lazy in the present.

But now, after God shook me a bit, I have resolved to stop being lazy.  I will work to put myself far enough out of my comfort zone that I lose myself and act solely as God asks me to.  I will stop thinking that this time at home is for me to wait on God to do something.  I will create windows in my conversations for the Lord to come through, giving Him the opportunities He needs.

PS I am leading a mission trip this summer with Adventures in Missions.  It costs me $1500 for two months out of the country (I will know which country I am going to soon).  If you are interested in supporting me, you can email me at kiersten.smith@hotmail.com or go here.  Be sure to select "The Passport" and to put "Kiersten Smith" in the participant name box.

Curious Coincidence

First of all, happy Easter weekend!  It is finished!  In my opinion, this is a wonderfully appropriate song to celebrate and praise God with.  It's another one of my favorites.  You can listen to it while you read my blog.  :)

As many of you know, I am currently enrolled as a student at a local community college.  Because of my full time status I spend entirely too many hours in class.  Luckily, to avoid a terribly monotonous semester, God has placed next to me a woman with whom I am all too similar.  We are both hilariously funny (I'll prove it to you; ask me to tell you a joke), we both drive Avalons, and we are both crazily in love with Jesus.

But that is not where the similarities end.

One Wednesday, weeks ago, we both were having a rough day.  No, that's an understatement; We were having a painfully awful week, our faith being tested.  While we were both struggling, neither had any idea the other was also having a tough week.  One night toward the end of that miserable string of days, while communicating about an upcoming class project, we started talking about life.

We inquired about each other's majors, plans, aspirations, etc.
This conversation we had was 100% planned by God.
Absolutely on purpose.

Without meaning to, and without careful consideration of the words we were saying, we were able to speak truth into each others' lives about the difficulties we face, and to have faith in God through it all.  It was exactly what I needed to hear.  It was a big hug from God, only in person form and word form, and not to my physical self, but to my heart.

It astonishes me that God would take such a coincidence- a woman sitting next to me in class who is also having a bad day- and use it to comfort my soul.

But then again, I don't really believe in coincidence...



PS I am leading a college-aged mission trip with Adventures in Missions this summer.  The trip costs $1500 and lasts two months.  If you are interested in supporting me, you can either do it here (make sure to select "Passport" and put Kiersten Smith in the name box), mail a check to 
Adventures In Missions
P.O. Box 534470
Atlanta, GA 30353-4470 
With my name in the memo line
Or email me at kiersten.smith@hotmail.com to find out more info.

It's All for My Good

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

Romans 8:28

"You make all things work together for my good." -Your Love Never Fails by Jesus Culture Feat. Chris Quilala

God has been using this verse and this song the last two and a half weeks to reassure me that He has everything under control, and that whatever obstacles I face, I will come out better for the glory of God than when I was introduced to it.

God is in the process of transforming me with this idea.
I am being forced to look at my heart to see if I trust God enough to believe this.
I am having to decide if I believe this enough to live it.


I was once told "There are new depths to walk into.  Depths of God, who He is, His spirit.  But the deeper you go, the less you can take with you, surrendering everything."


I feel God is asking me to follow Him into these new depths, and He is asking me to surrender my expectations.  Expectations of what I think I need to do, of what I think my relationship with God needs to look like, of what I think my future needs to hold.  He is asking me to believe that He will make all things work together for my good, to believe that He will see me through to the end, and to believe that I can throw my back-up plans out the window.


This is absolutely terrifying.  But I have decided I believe that God makes all things work together for my good.  I have decided I believe it enough to start living it.


This is a new chapter in my life.  I don't know what it looks like yet, but I am excited to see where God takes me.