Blessings for 2013!

Blessings to you in 2013! I spent most of New Year’s Day in the kitchen, melding together the traditional dishes of black-eyed peas and cornbread and recalling so many blessings from 2012. I also added a dish to the New Year’s Day menu, black-eyed pea fritters (called Akara or Accara in Africa) with red pepper sauce, as I looked forward to a new set of blessings, challenges, and adventures for 2013. Since January 2012, God has called us to many destinations and carried us through dozens of trials:

• DiscipleshipTraining School in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
• Serving beautiful people in Cambodia and Northern Thailand.
• Healing our youngest daughter, Justine, from e.Coli which she contracted after drinking dirty water in Cambodia.
• Serving students and leaders of the School of Frontier Media as cook in Chiang Mai.
• Sharing the Gospel with hundreds of people during YWAM’s monumental Olympic outreach in Harpenden and London, England.
• Serving the people on the Hopi Indian reservation and YWAM Tribal Winds base in Flagstaff, Arizona.
• Reuniting our family in Oklahoma as my husband and I work to repair our broken relationship.
• Visiting our supporters and supporting churches during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We are blessed to witness so much love and so many open arms.

These are the major highlights of the year and the events propelling us to taste and see what God has in store for us next. I have spent much of Christmas break studying the Bible and asking God what is on His heart for us in 2013. Just recently, He began to answer me very clearly, and I’m excited to share with you His plans for us:

• Continuing our YWAM ministries in Oklahoma by working with various bases, including Tribal Winds, Create International Thailand, and Emerge in Colorado Springs.
• Speaking to youth about Discipleship Training School, realizing their Spiritual gifts and putting them to use wherever they are. To book a night or all-day Saturday event, please e-mail me at okiepress@yahoo.com.
• Teaching at the DiscipleshipTraining School during the week of relationships at YWAM Tribal Winds. I hope to teach more at other Discipleship Training Schools and will continue to pray for God to open those doors.
• Scheduling and hosting screenings of “The Pink Room,” a film highlighting the hope offered through Agape International Missions to sex trafficking victims in Cambodia. These screenings will help raise awareness as well as financial support for this beautiful and life-giving ministry.
• Campaigning through YWAM Emerge Impact, Colorado Springs, to raise support for sending water filters to Cambodians. Since Justine’s illness, our hearts have been focused on how we, as a family, can work together to provide cleaner water for the country and the people we fell in love with last year. My girls already started raising money for this campaign by shelling pecans and      selling them during Christmas break. Our official campaign will begin at the end of January. I will write with more details as I learn them. We will have an opportunity to return to Cambodia to distribute the water filters in person and share the message of Jesus’ love simultaneously.
• Enrolling in YWAM’s School of Biblical Studies online. This school has been on my heart since I heard of it. Normally, the school lasts nine months at various locations throughout the world. I have prayed for God to make a way for me to take it and had almost given up hope, considering my current location and circumstances. I could never leave my family for nine months, and I did not feel God calling us to move for this purpose. A few weeks ago, God led me to YWAM’s online SBS, which allows me to take the school at home, at a slower pace, while continuing to serve my family and begin the ministries listed above. God always provides. I will need to seek sponsors to get me through this school, which is broken into 17 modules. Each module costs between (approximately) $50 and $150, depending on course credits. If you are interested in sponsoring a module or the entire course (app. $1,797), please visit our Sponsor Us page or send me an e-mail at okiepress@yahoo.com. You can read more about the SBS and its purpose at http://info.ywamelearning.com/esbs/

I want to thank each of our supporters and supporting churches for your work last year and your continued ministry into 2013. Your support has helped fulfill Jesus’ commandment of The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20: “‘Go thereforeand make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.” (NKJV) All our love in Christ, bless you always. Korina, Joseph, Jaynee, Justine