The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Hello everybody!

This is a little bit of a more in depth update about what I've been doing in Thailand... 

Our first week here felt like a month...we have been SO busy! We played a show at the biggest mall in Chiang Rai, which went pretty well and they seemed to like us because we will be playing in a slot after the new years countdown...which is cool!! Although, it isn't as big of a deal as I make it sound because the crowd was averaged sized and mostly drunk.

We've been teaching a lot of English at one of the high schools and an elementary school here. It's been a great time to do this due to the fact that it's almost Christmas and therefore we have been talking a lot about why we celebrate Christmas...it's been an awesome way to interweave Jesus into our English teaching.

At the elementary school we played some games including duck duck goose and freeze tag. This class ended in a bunch of little girls playing with my hair and asking me why I wasn't married. I just laughed in reply. 

Another night we went to the Wednesday night market at the university and our band performed a show outside which went extremely well and we had the opportunity to talk to a lot of the  students and invite them to the upcoming "connect night" at At Peace, which is the place we are doing our ministry out of. 

We also performed one of our dramas and dances at a Campus Crusade event which was cool in spite of some technical difficulties and hot wax being all over the stage from some girls dancing with candles...apparently it's a Thai dance.

On Friday night was the connect night where we performed another concert as our band, played games, served coffee and just connected with people. It went extremely well and was another great opportunity to share about Jesus and invite people to an exchange camp that At Peace was holding this weekend. 

Saturday and Sunday was when the camp happened, and we did dances, dramas, and told bits of our testimonies. By the end of the camp 7 or more people had accepted Jesus into their lives. This was extremely encouraging and so exciting, and now a lot of those people are connected with At Peace as a way to continue growing in their faith. 

As many of you know this is usually a rough time of year for me. I am happy to say that I can feel God actively at work changing my heart. Not only has he freed me from depression, but he has freed me from the need to be using different types of things in order to feel happy or numb during this time. 

I can say with confidence that the joy of the Lord is my strength, there is no other way to describe the way that I am feeling right now as opposed to how I've felt in the past.

Instead of spending my days in bed, or crying, or drinking or searching for love in all the wrong places, I feel as though I have a purpose, I look forward to the day and the ones ahead of me with excitement and new meaning. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q-yM4QCIek

I encourage you to listen to this song, it is so true. 

We are all searching for something. We all feel a longing to be loved and happy, and we try to fill this void with anything and everything...but honestly, what good does it do? 

The fact of the matter is that true joy begins in your heart, and when Jesus is living there, that's where it stays. Not that life is ever completely easy, but knowing that he wants to help take the weight off your shoulders and replace it with joy sure makes the burden a lot lighter. 

That's what I've been learning. 

love you all

xox

Matthew 11:28-29

"Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls"

ps: this is a video that one of the guys on my team made about a day in the life of disco kris and the foxtrappers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCm6sRMrNLY&feature=youtu.be

Here we are!

Hello everyone! You will be pleased (I hope) to know that I am now safe and sound in Chang Mai, Thailand! 

I am so turned upside down when it comes to dates and times, so though I would like to give you an accurate description of the itinerary since we got here, all I can really say is that we arrived after 32 hours of travelling in Bangkok, Thailand on Wednesday night (I think...) To be honest, I just had to look at my computer clock to realize that it was Monday. Jetlag is a beautiful thing. 

Anyways. Thailand. 

Upon arrival in Bangkok, we all went to bed. Travelling is exhausting, even though all you do is sit. The next day we set out to explore and have our Thailand orientation. During this training I learned how to properly use a squatty-potty (it's exactly what it sounds like for those who don't know...I used one for the first time today in case you wondered. it was a success) and other fun facts about Thai culture. For example! 

a. feet are the most offensive part of the body. if I were to flash the bottom of my foot to a Thai person it would be considered extremely rude

b. the head is the most important part of the body. if I were to touch a Thai person's head, also rude.

 

After a fun filled day of shopping and exploring, our next day involved tours of the Buddhist temples. They had massive Buddah statues and the walls, floors, and ceilings were all designed in such ornate ways. It was beautiful, but I also felt a lingering feeling of sadness as we observed this way of life and continued to pray in our heads for these people. 

As we were walking from one temple to the next my flip-flop decided that it would be a good idea to break, and so I had to walk around Bangkok sans shoes for awhile. This was disconcerting to me, as stray dogs seem to run the show around here and I was deeply afraid that I was going to step in a pile of who knows what. Luckily, we walked through a market and solved my shoe problem. 

The food here is delicious, in case you were wondering. I have been eating gratuitous amounts of rice, chicken, and smoothies in all sorts of different forms. 

After a 15 hour ride on a night bus with a shrieking baby and all sorts of lovely Thai music and minimal sleep, we arrived in Chang Mai at approximately 6am. Our lodging here, may I just add... is sooo wonderful! I am incredibly blessed here with delicious food, a great place to rest my head, and FABULOUS people everywhere. 

I am so excited to see what God has planned for me and my team while we are here. After all the travelling and chaos it was easy to forget why we were here and feel a little discouraged and out of sorts. 

Tonight however we had a worship/prayer time as a team and I feel so refreshed. God has brought each one of us here for a reason and I am so excited to watch his plans unravel before me. 

Feel free to email me or contact me while I am here, as I have access to the internet. I will do my very best to reply, but honestly I just love hearing from you all. It's incredibly encouraging to me to know that people are reading what I'm writing and interested to know about what God is doing in, around, and through me.

I will continue to do my best to keep you all up to date on the goings on of my trip. 

All my love!

xox

Oh, the places I'm going!!!

Hey everybody!

This is  my last update before I am headed to Chiang Rai, Thailand. We will be leaving in 4 hours from the base to begin this adventure.

Words can't express how weird it is that my room is completely clean and packed up. It feels like I just got here yesterday, but here I am leaving for outreach with people I feel like I've known my whole life.

It is so surreal to me that in 24 hours I will be on the other side of the world preparing to put into practice all of the things God has been working in me over the last 3 months.

Thank you so much to all of you, my friends and family, the people reading this... who have supported me over the last little while. It means so much to me that you are so supportive of what I am doing and the things that God is doing in me. Your encouragement has truly been a huge blessing.

If anyone is reading this blog and doesn't know how to contact me, my email address is disco_kris@hotmail.com. If you have any questions or comments about my life, I would love to talk to you. I will do my best to reply to any emails :)

SPEAKING of disco kris...

Our outreach team has a group of very talented musicians on it. We have formed a band and will be doing a TON of music during this outreach. I am ecstatic. The name of our band is "Disco Kris and The Foxtrappers"

...this was not my idea. But a special thanks goes out to my big sister for the creation of that beautiful email address that will soon be SO inspiring to many.

Some other aspects of our outreach ministries include:
prison ministry
orphanages/children
university (we will be talking to people at the university and also working in a smoothie shop)
teaching english

I know a lot of you have been curious about my outreach and what I will be up to so I thought I would let you know a little bit more about it.

If you feel so inclined, your prayers would be very appreciated for me and my team. We are so excited but nonetheless there will be challenges as there are with any outreach and any team.

Also, I am seriously contemplating coming back on staff here at the school. This means I will need to have x-amount of money per month in order to remain here on staff to cover my living expenses, future outreaches, and things of that nature. If you have ever had the desire to support a missionary, may I put myself out there as a prime candidate?

Something I've really been thinking about lately is how people often say "YWAM/missions trips are such a spiritual high! When people come back home more often than not, all they do is crash and burn"

This is not how it should be, or how I want my life to be. Not that I don't believe people can be effective outside of YWAM, but as for myself, I so desire for this to be a lifestyle. I love that my dreams are so within reach, to go out into the world and spread the love of Jesus to it! I love that people treat your dreams like a reality and anything is a possibility, because God can do ANYTHING!

I am so excited for all of the things that God is doing within me, and for the direction he is finally pointing me in.

Thank you so much for your love, thoughts, prayers, support. Thank you for everything.

All my love.

xox

"Hey, Baptize my Mind"

Greetings loved ones! Do I ever have news for you! Our God is so GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't even know what the name of this week was, I usually like to let you know, but what I do know is that this week rocked me and changed me and my life will NEVER be the same!

This is a long one, but I do encourage you to read the whole thing...


This week began with our speaker calling out the girls who felt like they still didn't completely understand God's love, who went to bed overanalyzing their day and feeling self conscious about everything.  Though I have been learning to accept His love, and truly connecting my head and heart, I felt like this applied to me and so I went up for prayer, along with a good half of the girls on my DTS.

While I was up there I felt like I was trying so desperately to feel God and to let something break inside of me but I just couldn't for some reason, so I left Monday's lecture feeling completely frustrated with myself and God.

On Tuesday morning John (our speaker) talked about being an evangelist, and we went outside on the base and worshipped. When we went back inside he called up the people who felt they were called to be evangelists to be anointed and prayed over. I felt as though this was me. Someone had recently told me that God had placed an anointing on not only my singing voice, but also my speaking voice. He told me that when I speak, people truly do listen and hear what I have to say and it gets to the heart of the matter. 

So I went up for prayer. Once again as we were standing there in a long line all being anointed as evangelists, I felt the need for something to break inside of me. Tears kept creeping to my eyes and then pushing themselves back down. I didn't quite know how to let myself let go. I was standing there as everyone around me was weeping and letting God work in them, falling down as the Holy Spirit was so heavy on them and I kept praying in my head "God please don't give up on me, don't give up on me, I'm so ready to break"

 I prayed this over and over again and then one of our female leaders came up behind me and just placed her hands on my back and I started to cry. Her husband then kneeled in front of me and began to tell me "Kristen, you are NOT a failure, God is SO proud of you. You have a mother's heart, and God is going to use you to bring healing to women around you and to comfort other women."  This was so encouraging to hear. They kept speaking words of encouragement to me, and then another leader came up to me and said

"I feel like someone took you to get tested for something mentally awhile back and totally placed this label on you that made you feel stupid. That was SO wrong. That is NOT you. You are not stupid. You have so much to offer and you are incredibly intelligent. What was that?! That was so not right!!"  (this is a paraphrase, obviously haha)

At this statement, I fell to my knees and broke down before God. This was exactly the truth that I had been needing to hear for a very long time, and the beginning of monumental healing that took place over the next few days.

During our Wednesday morning lecture John had us write down the names of all of the people we felt had hurt us and we had unforgiveness towards because of all of the hurt. He then told us that there was a bonfire prepared and we were going to go throw those names and those hurts into the fire. He also said that there were some of us that needed to go up to our rooms and get certain things to throw into the fire, because they were holding us back in one way or another and we needed freedom from that.

So, I promised to be transparent from the beginning of my blog and I suppose I will continue the trend.

I went up to my room and gathered all of the scandalous lingerie of the past threw it in a bag. I felt really dumb because I had to grab it from the laundry basket, but then I realized "God is cleaning out my dirty laundry for me!"

I went down to the fire and was standing there, and then felt like God wanted me to go up to my room and put more things in the bag. So I went begrudgingly back up to my room, and then realized he wanted me to take some of the very clothes that I was wearing and throw them in the bag as well.

I gathered some more items, including some bitter songs that I had written and threw it all in the bag and then ran back to the fire. I threw all of the stuff in, including the names and then got up and declared that I would no longer be held  back by what people thought of me or use my body to get love and affection, and the next guy that loved me was going to love me for me! I felt like I was freed up from years of striving to be loved for what I look like or what I do, and also truly done once and for all with the dirty sins of the past.

People were getting so much freedom from doing this. Several girls threw away their makeup because they felt God wanted them to just feel beautiful in him and not cover anything up. Another cut off approximately a foot of hair and threw it in the fire for the same reason. One guy went upstairs and grabbed his laptop, threw it in the fire, and declared that he was no longer going to be held back by lust or pornography. God was bringing SO MUCH FREEDOM!!!

The next day in lecture our speaker went up and said he didn't quite know what the Lord wanted to do so we were going to wait and hear from him. I felt strongly like we were supposed to pray for healing and so I threw that suggestion out.

A ton of people went up to the front of the room to be prayed for, and I didn't feel that I needed anything. Over the last few weeks I had been struggling with the fact that I was on medication for depression and didn't want to be. I had wanted God to heal me so badly but he wasn't doing it when I wanted him to. Finally I came to accept that God was going to use me whether I was on medication for it or he healed me, either way there was going to be glory brought to him.

I was sitting there just watching everyone, and then my best DTS friend Rachel said "Kristen! Get up here! This is for you too!"

I went and stood with everyone else and was praying in my head "Jesus, if you're going to heal my mind, I need you to make it extremely obvious because I'm way too scared to go off my medication without a huge sign that this is real"

John came over and prayed for me and my stomach kind of started to ache and I felt some stabbing pains in my head and I thought to myself "God is going to heal me today."

Then in my mind I saw a picture of wheels turning, and it was kind of like I saw that things were going to be realigned. Then people continued to come over and pray for me, and I began to feel light headed and weak in the knees. I felt breath on my neck and I thought someone was blowing on me, and I opened my eyes and looked around but no one was, and I realized then that the Holy Spirit was all over me.

Doubt began to creep into my mind and I thought to myself "I just want to get wrecked by God today. But it probably won't happen to me. It always happens to everyone else, but not to me." As soon as that thought entered my mind, John abolished those doubts by saying "Some of you feel left out, like God isn't going to do things for you like he does for everybody else. But he is, this is for YOU."

After this the thoughts that continued to flow through my mind were along the lines of:

"Baptize my mind" (over and over)\
"God, I want you transform my mind, renew it. It's yours."

I suddenly felt nauseous and light headed and like a heat wave went over my body and I collapsed backwards into the arms of the person behind me weeping. Someone placed a pillow beneath my head and covered me with a blanket and with my eyes closed I felt myself heaving forward and sobbing, almost dry heaving. I felt God healing me, and John came over and said "Get out, whatever this ailment is, get out!" Then he asked me "Do you want this to be gone?" to which I responded "Yes!"  He got me to repeat after him "I don't want this anymore, in the name of Jesus get out!" (honestly, I'm paraphrasing again, I can't remember exactly what was said) Then he told me that I had authority over this and I fell back onto the pillow exhausted, lightheaded, and with the realization that the Lord had just healed me of depression!

You guys, whoever is reading this, God has never been more real to me than he is now. I have never felt the Holy Spirit like I have felt him this week. I am so full to overflowing with joy and I truly feel so free from everything. Granted, I am exhausted and a little overwhelmed, but I can take rest in the fact that our God, the creator of the universe, cares about ME and my well being, and truly has his hand on my life and has nothing but the best in store for me.

I realize this is a lot of information, so I think I will stop here and perhaps update again in a couple of days.

Side note, I am leaving for Thailand in 4 FREAKING DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything is the best.

 Your prayers, love, support and patience with me are all so appreciated.

xox