Join the Journey

I am on a journey. I don’t know the route I’ll be taking. But there are two things that I DO know. One, I desperately need my Redeemer God who promises over and over through His Word to NEVER leave me. And two, by His design, I need all of you to journey with me through the next three years to pray for me, to encourage me to press on, to share with me what God is teaching you, and most importantly to worship our God together. Worship is the ultimate purpose of missions. It is celebrating who He is and what He has done by proclaiming him with our lives and our words to all nations.

Let me first give you a broad timeline; then I will tell you the most current step. God has blessed me with the privilege of studying at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) for the past 2 years. I am enrolled in a program nicknamed “2+2” implying that students will study on campus in Wake Forest, NC for two years, then serve with the International Mission Board (IMB) for two years. I eloquently stretched that two years on campus into three. My on campus studies will be completed in May 2013. Then I will train for two month with the IMB and deploy by October 2013. I will serve overseas as an IMB missionary for 20 months, then return home and graduate from SEBTS.

So I’m sure most of you are asking, “Where are you going?”

As you join me on this journey, you really aren’t behind at all. And as you ask that question you step LIVE into the life of Katie Kasey because that is the key question right now. In two weeks, September 21 & 22, I will be going to Richmond, VA to a Job Expo with the IMB to see available jobs, to hear from missionary representatives from every region in the world, and for further interviews. (I completed the initial application, initial interview in February this year, and was invited to this Expo.) At the end of the 2nd day, each applicant is required to give top the job preferences. This will be a great weekend, but the decision making can be very overwhelming. And you know me, I am characteristically indecisive. I way to often stress simply over ordering from a menu! Yet I have less than 48 hours to “decide” where I’m going to spend the next two years of my life! My prayer is that I will be clearly led by the Spirit, who is the peace and wisdom of God, and not by emotions.

So I ask you to join me here. In a way the journey is just beginning, but then it’s really been going on far longer than I even realized. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” In that same chapter, God told Jeremiah up front that it was going to be hard, but He promised to be with him and to deliver him. Every day, God is preparing me and chiseling away at my pride and selfishness. He is teaching me the basics again and again, patiently allowing those truths to sink deeply into my heart. My daddy (who is also my pastor) said this past Sunday at church that our walks with Christ are personal but they are not meant to be private. Won’t you join me in God’s great work of making His name great to all people in all nations? Let it start with me!

This is What Obedience Feels Like

June 21st-
Let's rejoice together! We left tabacundo this morning. It is so difficult to even put into words the incredible works of the Lord which we are so unbelievable priviledge to be apart of! We worked in Tupigachi faithfully, boasting in our weaknesses all the while, for 4 weeks. Now we leave there today knowing that God's work was completed for this time in our lives! His Spirit is in that place! Last night we showed the Jesus film in the community center in El Centro (where we work in the schools 2 days a week). We invited all the children and their families through the school and through backpack/door-to-door evangelism. We were blown away by the results last night... 138 people came!!! It was like a gift that was specially picked out by God to give to us as a going away present. Cristina's (who we've been studying with for the month) two younger sisters came! Carmen (who we have also been studying in her home for a month) came and brought her whole family AND sought out us and Kelly to talk to about desiring to study more, specifically this Sunday when the priest in coming into her community to do classes with the people. It was so rewarding to see the people come which we have worked with for a month yet had not really seeing much fruit from, until last night. I also saw men and women walking up last night that I had never even seen before. Kelly said...Girls, those are the parents of all your kids from school! I wish I could thoroughly convey my excitement and awe which I experienced. After the movie, during which we prayed our hearts out for the people, I stood outside looking up that the thousands of stars and then around at the school, catholic church, and park, in this community which 28 days before I was so scared even walking into for the first time. I just reflected on the work which the Lord had done here. He told us to ask for the nations...and the nations HE WILL GIVE!!! Some days it seemed like working with the children was making no impact in the big spectrum of the community but last night God blew my mind with HIS GREATNESS!!! Yesterday we drove through the community of El Centro and could NOT find a house or a person we had not evangelized and invited to the film. What an incredible feeling to know that-FOR NOW, for this trip- we have done what we came here to do and that the work of the Lord is complete! Last night I stood there thinking...THIS IS WHAT OBEDIENCE FEELS LIKE!!!! And let me tell you IT IS WORTH IT ALL!!! It is worth those first days of feeling scared and inadequate! It's worth week 2 of feeling on a high with what the Lord has done yet being faced with spiritual warfare. It's worth week 3 of being faithful with the children who love on you from the minute you arrive at their school and sometimes wonder if anything is happening below the surface, spiritually in their lives. What I experienced last night was SOOO rewarding!!! It is worth is all! Again I repeat, This is what obedience feels like. Let me tell you, my brothers & sisters in Christ, YOU MUST EXPERIENCE THIS OBEDIENCE!!!! I will forever be changed!!!
Let me not fail to mention that we also showed the Jesus movie in Santa Monica the night before at the school and we had 110 people show up!!! There are only 90 families in this mountainous community where the houses are very far apart from one another. The people would have had to walk a long ways on that cold, dark night to come see the film. Several families wanted to study the Bible on a regular basis. One man in particular, named Nelson (not yet a believer), God is working in Greatly! After the film in Santa Monica, one lady said that she wanted to continue to study the Bible. Nelson spoke up and said Come over to my house and study with my family!!! FHC (first house church) of SANTA MONICA!!! Praise the Lord! There is a similar story in El Centro following the film with a man named Paul. He is a believer with a wife and 3 little boys (one of which has fluid on his brain and has to have surgery- Pray for this son). Pray for Nelson & Paul as they rise up as spiritual leaders for their families and for their communities!
Now we are in Quito for 2 days. We have been reunited with the other 3 Summer M Girls! It has been a wonderful day! We leave Monday morning for the jungle where we will do ministry all next week. Thank you so much for being a part of this mission with me. It is not over yet! We are just moving to the next chapter! Praise God that I am not the same person going into this chapter as I was the first one! Keep up the prayers!!!

A Changed Heart Ready to Obey

I just realized that I have not updated you all since Sunday! So let me try to select the highlights and give you the readers digest version...

God has done a great work in my life in the last week. He has transitioned me FROM merely surviving and feeling as if I am floating through this trip in a cloud watching what God is doing rather than actually experiencing it and soaking it all in TO experiencing the work that God is doing here and growing in my walk with Him each day. Sunday night, I told the Lord that I was done praying survival prayers and would not on being praying for growth! The past 4 days have been drastically different. Praise the Lord!

Praise- Monday we had a great day at the school in Santa Monica. The children really seemed to GET IT! Today, while Rick and the Jessicas (two journeyman) were out visiting us and going with us to do our work and take pictures for the website of some of us working in some of our regular places, we saw some the the children from that school and today- 4 days later- they were repeating the story! We got them into a group and they could completely retell the Bible story!!!! So encouraging! They also said they had told their families like we had told them!

Keep praying- We were unable to meet with Cristina yet this week to study the Bible. However we do have plans to meet with her on Sunday morning at 11am (12pm NC time).

New opportunity- Tomorrow (Friday @ 2pm - 3pm NC time) we will be evangelizing/talking to kids in the park here in Tabacundo with the local baptist church. After an hour & half or so we will invite all the kids to come down the street to the church for a Bible Story Movie that the church is going to show! This is the product of us talking to the pastor after church sunday night. He is very thankful that the missionaries want to join in the with local church to do the Lords work rather than just come in and do our own thing. Pray that the church will catch the fire of the desire to see their town come to know Christ and continue the work on their own. Also opportunities have opened up in our home with our host family. The father, Papi Luis, has been a believer for 1 year and has a huge heart that is broken with the desire to see his sons, brothers, sisters, and parents come to know the Lord as well. His consuming desire, more than any I´ve ever seen is to KNOW the scriptures well enough to teach it and explain it to his Catholic, lost family. God supplied ABUNDANTLY the spanish words on Monday after dinner for us to help him with some questions. PRAISE GOD! I experienced just want many of your promised before I left, that even in spanish God would give me the words to say. HE DID! I could not even believe what was coming out of my mouth! An Acts 2 experience for sure! Something I will NEVER forget! Please pray for Papi Luis as he studies and for courage to share the truth with his family even if he does not have all the answers! And also for us to be used in his life to help him grow and be examples to him. Also pray for Carlito, their 19yr old son who is not a believer and for our influence on his life.

Today after visiting with Rick and the Jessicas, I feel as though God is about to require more of me! With them today we walked around and talked to and witnessed to everyone we saw, or Rick did. I WANT TO...NEED to do that! Both now and when I return home. I want that to be the uncontrollable desire of my heart. I want to pray to fight off the evil ones holds in their lives and hold nothing back! So please pray for me as I try to finish the race (at least this last 16days in this area) here running much stronger than I have been up to this point. Pray for me as I try to read my Bible in Spanish daily, study the message of the gospel in Spanish, and study the difficult subjects such as praying to the virgin Mary and idolatry! This task once again seems overwhelming...HUGE! But as we have seen thus far, God is able to do far more than we could ever ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20,21)!

The days are busy here now pray for endurance and an extra dose of provision for opportunities! I know that we will leave here with much more work to be done but I want to be confident that I have done ALL that God has set before me, not letting a single opportunity slip by!

Hear the words of this song that has so spoken to my heart on Sunday night as God built a monument in my spiritual walk with Him...

I need you like a hurricane,
thunder-crashing, wind & rain
to tear my walls down
I am only yours now.

I need you like burning flame.
wild-fire untamed
to burn these walls down
I´m only YOURS now!

If destruction is what I need. I´ll receive it from Thee!

Though the first week was so hard here, I would not trade it! Praise God for what He taught me and for what he is currently teaching me...

I know I said this would be the readers digest version but really...It´s Katie! Is that actually possible?!?! So before I close let me share with you what God is currently teaching me...If you want to sign off now...that's all the updates for now! Keep praying....

Obedience is difficult. Sometimes obedience means suffering. I look for a life of comfort and ease but that is not the obedience that God has called us to as believers. Hebrews 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience through his sufferings. Jesus cried out in a loud voice and tears to be saved from death. He WAS heard but still he was obedient and thus he suffered. So does that mean that it is God´s will for us to suffer? If that's what it takes for us to obediently fulfill His will. To me, to be lonely and away from my family is suffering. I struggle with what God is going to call me to do after graduation. Then I go back to the responce of a friend when asked what would he do with a christian studies degree. He confidently responded, "I´m going to be obedient." And in that I will also find my hope and peace! Pray for me to delight myself solely in the Lord so that as promised in Psalm 37:4 my desires will become whatever His desires are for my life. Whatever he calls me to, I want to be obedient, even if that means suffering. For we can find our hope in knowing that even my whole life is small in comparison to eternity which God has prepared for us and invited us to share it! Please pray that this will become the solid foundational beliefs of my heart so that I can come through with obedience WHATEVER He calls me to do!

Okay, if someone could talk the ears off of a group from 5000 miles away it would be me! Thank you all for your love and support. I am indescribably gratefully for you all going through this journey with me!