News!!

Well, something that I have been praying a lot about lately is when to go back to the states for a visit.. And I believe this summer is the right time! There isn't going to be a DTS this year, so I will have a little more free time and will be able to stay longer.
Right now I am looking at flying out of Chiang Mai on the 4th of July, and staying until the 18th of September. This is all just plans right now though.. I have not booked my flights yet. I am still waiting for some funds to come through. In the meantime someone (my mamma) has graciously lent me what I need to buy the tickets. I am planning on purchasing them tomorrow, but tickets have been going fast and the prices have been skyrocketing! So right now it is all in God's hands. Lucky for me I only have until tomorrow to wait. I am very excited!! I am really looking forward to seeing you guys again and getting to catch up.
If you would like me to come visit your church please let me know! So far I am planning on attending Summit Christian Fellowship, Shoestring Valley Community Church, Toledo First Baptist, and Westside Baptist Church. If there are any others you think I should visit please tell me! I really want to catch up with as many people as possible.

Another thing that has just recently happened is, I have decided to move back to CM this coming Tuesday. I will leave Korat Tuesday morning and arrive sometime in the afternoon on Wednesday. Please be praying for me! I will be driving, and my car has been having some issues lately. I am going to bring it in for a "check-up" tomorrow afternoon and hopefully if there is anything wrong still they will get it taken care of!

Please also be praying for my health.. My eyes have recently started hurting. It has gotten so bad lately that I have been getting very intense headaches and it makes it difficult to do almost anything. Sometimes even just moving my eyes to look at something hurts. I went to the doctor today, but he just asked me a few questions and then started prescribing medications. Typical of the doctors I have experienced so far while being here... So I will go see a doctor in Bangkok this weekend. Please pray for safe travels and that it will not be to expensive. I cannot afford multiple doctor visits on top of everything else.

Please also pray for the students at Global Connections Centre. Pray that they will have open hearts for relationships as well as for the Gospel. I have gotten close to one student in particular. I am not sure why, but we just sort of connected. And God really put her on my heart from the beginning. I am very sad to be leaving her when I move. But I know that God will either somehow keep me in her life as a witness to her or He will bring someone else. And I know that as long as she continues to take classes at GCC she will continue to be exposed to God's love and also to wonderful people of Christ.

I hope that you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

Blessings,

Annie

Who's in control...?

Thank you all so much for your prayers! It has been pretty incredible what has been happening these last few weeks.
I am someone who really likes to be in control. Actually typically, I feel like if I'm not in control of at least one thing my whole life is falling apart!! Not really of course.. But that is how I feel. Well... These last few weeks have been pretty rough on me because of that. So many unscheduled and completely "out of the blue" things happened that I didn't know which way was up and which was down. For real. I feel like these past days I have been a blind person trying to feel my way around a war zone safely.
I think it mostly started when the tires on my car blew. That was one of the first times that I felt completely lost and helpless. I had no idea what to do. And ever since then one thing after another has been happening, (having health issues, my bank account almost running out, forgetting my car keys at the car shop, ect... ) that made me feel like I was just getting further and further into the "war zone."
I started trying to find something that I could take control of and finally gain something back. But the more I reached for that, the worse things got.
Yesterday, my boss asked me to prepare the devotional for the Monday morning staff meeting. My first thoughts were "No way!! This is going to turn out awful! Whyyyyyyy??" Or something along those lines... But of course what I said was " Yeah, sure! :) " (Or once again, something along those lines.) Well I was planning on putting it off until the night before. But this morning I woke up early and there was nothing to do on facebook, so I decided to start thinking about it. Instantly the words 'Trust in the Lord' popped into my head. "What the heck? Okay Lord.. Maybe I'll look up some verses on trust to share and that'll be good enough. Okay?" Nope! While looking up verses on trust online, I came across 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10. Basically it says trust in the Lord. When you trust in Him your weakness will be turned into strength. Whoa. That was sort of exactly what I needed to hear.. But as if that wasn't enough, when I went to turn on my music to try and block out those thoughts that started telling me I had been wrong to push God out of control, the song He Said by Group1Crew came on. Basically it's about trusting God to take care of you. And how He won't give you more then you can handle.
One more thing telling me that He is in control.. Not me. Ughhh. Okay God. I admit it. I can't do it on my own. I can't be in control of everything. It's just to much for me! I can't handle it all. I need your strength....
And basically, after I admitted that I need His strength, I felt better! Not completely better. There is still alot of stuff going on in my life and the lives of the people I care about. But I felt I huge burden lift off of me.
So I just want to thank you all so much for your prayers! Please keep praying...