Neener's Travel Blog

Thursday, February 27, 2014 Well, it has been insanely hectic lately! Alright, last week's lectures were about the Fear of The Lord.  Which is so much less complicated and scary than we make it out to be.  But I think much more serious and important than it has come to be in our lives.  Fear of The Lord is not about being terrified of him - how can we be afraid of our loving Father and Savior?  How can we have relationship with someone that scares us?  It's about being in awe of him and having deep reverence for our King.  God is truly amazing and we should be awe of his power every second of the day!  Fear of The Lord is about giving him control of all areas of our life.  ALL areas.  Every single one.  Even that one little part that we would really like to just take care of ourselves.  He's the Creator and King of the universe, I'm pretty sure he can handle my life. So, I've been working on total surrender.  I've been wo...

Sunday, February 16, 2014 "This is an easy week," they said.  "A very straightforward topic," they said. But this is DTS.  Nothing is ever that easy or straightforward. I will admit, this week was easier than some of our others have been.  Less emotional perhaps.  But, wow, was it ever a lot to think about.  It brought up a lot and I'll be turning these ideas over for months. This week was World Issues week.  We had three topics in three days: refugees, orphans and women.  We heard about refugees on our first day. Did you know: There are 15.4 million refugees worldwide.  When you include internally displaced people, that number grows to 45.2 million. 80% of the world's refugees are hosted by developing nations. (I was in the group that presented a report on refugees at the end of the week, so after our class on Monday and researching on Thursday, I am basically an expert.) The needs of refugees are what you expect - shelter, food, ...

Monday, February 10, 2014 My previous post was a short story I wrote based on my first couple weeks here - the journey I went through with God in that time, and some pictures he gave to me during an intense time of forgiveness and breakthrough. And now, for the announcement of our outreach locations!! We will be spending the first two weeks of outreach in BATTAMBANG, CAMBODIA.  Then we will be coming back for a week to SOMEWHERE IN THAILAND that is close to our current location.  Then we will be splitting into our Music DTS and Children at Risk DTS groups.  For four weeks, Music will go to Kolkata, and CAR will be going to DARJEELING, INDIA (think northern India, up in the mountains!).  Then, all together again, we will go to SOMEWHERE IN MALAYSIA.  We are so excited to be traveling to so many different places! This has been a pretty intense week.  With a topic like Intercession and Spiritual Warfare, though, I guess that's to be expected.  (Ok...

She peeled her face off the concrete alleyway, bits of gravel embedded into her cheek.  She blinked her gritty eyes and squinted into the pale light of early morning, trying to bring the world into focus.  Beginning to sit up, a wave of nausea roiled in her stomach, making her collapse back onto her face.  A headache like an ax cleaving through her skull pounded in her temples.  Taking a slow, deep breath, she pushed herself up to her knees; the alleyway whirled around her from the effects of the previous nights orgy.  Come to think of it, she had no clue how she had ended up out here.  But that wasn't a first. Then, all of a sudden, it was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it.  She leaned over and puked her guts out, retching until there was nothing left.  She didn't notice that her backpack was beside her until she had quite sufficiently covered it in vomit.  Perfect.  It probably wasn't disgusting enough already; it ...

Sunday, February 2, 2014 God asks that we be wholeheartedly devoted to him.  Such devotion comes with a price though - obedience to his word.  However, a relationship with God is like marriage.  There is a price that comes with marriage - commitment to one person for eternity, not straying, not sinning against that person.  But is that really even a cost, when you get to spend the rest of your life with the person you love?  Those are just things you automatically want to do, and the reward so outweighs the "cost". This past week was very intense.  All I've been able to say about DTS so far is that it is good, but hard.  Very hard, but very good.  Nothing easy, no real breaks.  Just constant intensity.  Our topic this past week was Repentance and Forgiveness.  We spent the week discussing how God desires a personal relationship with him and what is required from us for that to happen is whole-hearted devotion.  Sin gets in ...