enough.

Jesus is enough.
He is enough to satisfy my hunger.
He is enough to satisfy my thirst.
He loves me.
He LOVES me.
He is pursuing my heart with reckless abandon
and i want to be fully abandoned to Him & what He is doing in my heart.

be in prayer for Greece, the people we will come in contact with there, and that everything will come together for our outreach.

here is a photo of all the lovely ladies on Team Greece
(this was after "the Hunger Games" and our battles with flour, water, and mud...haha).
i promise we're going to get a decent photo soon. :)
(i'm in the bright blue headband).


photo courtesy of Madalyn.

stories from room 89 {periplaneta americana}

tick-tick-ticktick tick-tick.

the noise had been going on for a few minutes before i finally decided to find out what it was.

i turned around and saw it sitting on a wal-mart bag.

we had been warned about these creatures,

and knew it was only a matter of time before we had one in our room.

oh yes.

there he was in all his nasty cockroach-y glory.

he was quite hideous.

we stared each other down.

i called my roommate, Bethany, over.

she grabbed something to capture him with.

he nearly crawled on her, but her high-pitched yelp scared him.

she threw the box over him and he was captured before he could disappear under Chelsea's bed.

we took him outside and tossed him over the railing.

the end.

team ????????

hey y'all!
so i'm super excited to announce where my 3 month outreach with YWAM will be.
it's amazing that we found out so soon.
i was expecting to find out in 2 weeks,
but we found out yesterday!
ahh, i'm so excited that i don't think i can wait another 11 weeks until outreach...

i think i'm just going to keep blabbering.
i want to keep you in suspense as long as possible. :D

it started on friday.
we were ready for lunch.
after sitting in lectures for the whole morning, i was ready to go eat some yummy food.
the leaders told us to sit tight and not leave yet.
they started playing a video.
a few minutes into the video, everyone started to realize that it was the outreach locations.
i thought it was a joke.
it wasn't.

throughout the video, the names of the places came up on the screen,
and when the video was over, i was so pumped up.
our leader, Jonathan, told us that we had 15 minutes to pray and ask God where we were to go.
we had to pick two places.
1st choice and 2nd choice.
we were not allowed to talk to anyone or call home and ask our parents.
i went off by myself and asked God where i was supposed to go.
i texted my mom and told her to pray for me.
God gave me a verse in Romans, and i instantly knew what my first choice was.

i don't think i've ever had the desire to go to this country,
and it was probably last on my list of "possible outreach countries",
but i felt that God wanted me there for a reason.
i'm not sure of that reason yet, but i believe that He has everything in His hands.

after handing in my paper with my #1 and #2 choices, i called my mom.
i didn't want to tell anyone back home what my choice was until i knew where i was going.

so.
yesterday at 5:45pm, we went to the soccer field.
we were playing in the "76th Annual Hunger Games."
(hahaha, not really! it was just the leader's way of announcing our outreach teams and locations).
it was a lot of fun.
they called out 8 districts (because of the 8 outreach locations...duh. i don't know why i didn't see it before), then they called out who was to go to which district.

we lined up in our teams and were getting ready for "the Hunger Games"
when Jonathan said there had been a change in plans.
he announced that the people "in our districts", were in fact our outreach teams.

by then we were all dying to know our locations.
he started calling them out.
when he got to my team, i waited in suspense to find out where i was going.
when he said the country, i wanted to shout with joy and do a dance.
i knew God wanted me on that team.

well, are you dying to know where i'll be going for three months???

okay, fineeee.
i'll tell you. :)

i'm going to this continent.

wait, you want to know what COUNTRY???
ohh, my bad. :P

i'm going to this country (the one highlighted in dark green).

you geography freaks (and i mean that in the best possible way) probably know what country this is, but for the rest of you, just sit tight. i'll tell you in a few minutes. :)

it's a land of beautiful people and places.

it's a land of ancient ruins and mythology.

ladies and gentlemen, i am going to the country of...

GREECE!

me and 7 other photogenX ladies (plus our two leaders, Campbell and Jillian) will be "pioneering" YWAM into Greece.

there are currently no YWAM bases in Greece, so we hope to start something there.

i'm SO stoked! :)

^"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek."

Romans 1:16

download and overload.

i sit in my dorm room
soaking up the precious alone time.
listening to pandora radio
and editing photos from our trip to the pier this afternoon.
applying aloe vera to my sunburn
and thinking about everything that has happened this week.

this week.
it has been exhausting,
challenging,
fun,
amazing,
and pretty much every other adjective you can think of.

i heard God speaking into my life and i'm learning to be still and listen.
He downloaded, and i'm on overload.
i'm looking forward to "chilling" tomorrow afternoon.

my mother (hi Mom!!!) requested that i blog again.
i realize that it's been a week, but i have had very little down time.
we didn't have any classes today, and i hardly knew what to do with myself.
but here are some new photos (for those of you who aren't on Facebook with me). :)

we went to the beach last saturday.
it was breath-taking.
so beautiful.

haha, i adored this guy's board.
don't judge! :)



you know you're in hawaii when they do a hula dance at church on sunday morning.

this is the hallway where my dorm room is.
the first door is my room. room 89! :)

me and one of my roommates, Cammie.
we unintentionally matched on wednesday, in our green-and-white-striped tank tops.

this was on easter sunday. :)
i love the real leis.

me...

i love geckos!!!!

i held this little guy. (the chameleon, not the kid...haha).
it was so amazing!

Molly held him too. :D

this is Christine. she's pretty amazing. :)

Kona sunset!

the lovely Kendra...
today she left us to follow God's calling on her life.

and a random adorable couple at the beach...

Kona coffee, anyone?

it's one lovely island.

"the only thing that really qualifies anyone for anything is whether or not they love Jesus."

i was listening to a speaker today at orientation, and that sentence jumped out at me.
i'm not worthy of Jesus' love, but He loves me anyway.
i don't feel qualified to be one that Jesus uses,
but because i'm willing to be used, He will use me.
because i love Him, He can use me.

we worshipped in the prayer room this morning.
it was so amazing.
i feel certain that i'm supposed to be here.
i can't explain it, but i know.

here are a few photos to show you what i'm seeing. :)

these are the flags of the nations. it's beautiful, eh?

i'm absolutely loving the palm trees.
i had never seen one in real life before yesterday, so getting to touch them and take photos of them is super cool. :)

for part of orientation, they had a group called Island Breeze (or something like that) perform a traditional Haka dance. it was quite interesting. (it  reminded me of the one time my sisters and i watched a rugby game, and they started out with the Haka).

the view from my dorm. the ocean is behind the trees... :)

some more photos from the plaza of the nations.


this campus is beautiful.
the PhotogenX leaders are amazing.
the people are nice.

someone told us all that we're crazy.
we left our homes and families and flew to a rock in the middle of nowhere
because God called us.
i think he's right, i am crazy.
crazy about Jesus! :)
i'm so excited to see what God is going to do in the next 3 months here in Kona.
i'll try to keep y'all updated as much as i can! :)
~Valerie

Aloha!

well, i made it.
i'm here in hawaii.
so far it's been amazing.
of course, i've only been here for about 6 hours, and part of that time was spent sleeping so....haha. :)

i woke up about an hour ago, thinking my 6:00am alarm was about to go off, but when i checked my phone it said 2:00. (my body thinks it's 8:00am, but it's actually 2:00am).
so i figured i'd get in some prayer time and update y'all.
nothing like blogging at 2:00 in the morning! hahaha...

i can't wait to get this started and meet all the people that i've been talking to through Facebook.
i already know that it's going to be so much fun.
i know that i'm supposed to be here.
i'm praying that i can get a little bit more sleep before i have to get up and ready...it's gonna be a huge day!

hawaii, here i come!

well, tomorrow is the day.
i'm going to be spending 16+ hours traveling to get to hawaii.
i'd appreciate your prayers.
i'll try to keep y'all updated as i travel. :)
i am so excited for this!
nervous? yes.
so excited that i probably won't sleep much tonight? YES.

let's do this.

(ps. my mother reminded me that i am NOT flying alone, Jesus is going with me. :))

no second thoughts.

i'm fighting fear with God's word
and the Holy Spirit.
and i will make it.

no second thoughts.
no cold feet.
i'm going.
because i feel in my heart that it's what i'm supposed to do.

however, i'm nervous about flying alone.
i would much appreciate your prayers for the next few days.
thank you. :)

4 days until Kona!