Becoming Comfortable In The Uncomfortable

“At the very moment I called out to you, you answered me! You strengthened me deep within my soul and breathed fresh courage into me.” Psalm 138:3

It has been a very eventful and life changing month since moving to YWAM Kansas City. I am thankful that God saw it fit to surround me with an entire community of people who are willing to follow Jesus anywhere and are intentional with listening to His voice for themselves and for others. This place is saturated with prayer and worship daily. As we are being trained to take the gospel to the nations, we are also being discipled and stepping into our identity as sons and daughters of the One who rules and reigns.

Each day here is a little different at YWAM. We either start our day in class with time in the bible, worship, or intercession (or sometimes all three) before jumping into a lecture on a new topic. This time together ranges anywhere from 2-4 hours. Some of the topics we’ve covered so far are Kingdom Living, Identity and Performance, Running Together As Family, The Secret Place, Lifestyle of a Messenger, Preaching the Gospel, Hearing God’s Voice, 7 Categories of Prayer, Biblical Worldview, Friendship With God, and we just finished up Freedom Week. I am incredibly grateful for the many different men and women who have been willing to impart the wisdom they have gained over the years into each of us. We also have an assigned work-duty for about 3 hours Monday-Friday. This is just one little way we can serve our peers and faculty here at YWAM. My work duty is in the kitchen. Here I get to have lots of fun as I help clean after our lunch and prepare some of the dinners and snacks for the students.

We have many events and activities throughout the week that keep us united around Jesus Christ. My DTS does a local outreach partnering with Minding the Gap, this is a favorite of mine. Every Tuesday, after completing our work duties, we drive to Compass Elementary School and spend time mentoring the students who are in the afterschool ‘180 Club’. Compass Elementary School is a public school with students ranging anywhere from Kindergarten-5th grade. Every child at the school qualifies for free lunches and many of them have grown up in rough circumstances without any knowledge of Jesus. Despite this, they always greet us with a smile and many run up to hug us. The motto of 180 Club is “At 180 Club I learn how God loves me, how I can love God, and how I can love others”. Every student learns this motto, they memorize John 3:16, they are given a snack, they hear bible stories and are given activities that help them engage with the bible, they have the gospel presented to them, they worship together, and at the very end we break into small groups where they can ask any questions or share anything on their heart. Many times in these small groups the students decide to give their lives to Jesus! There are reports from the school faculty that these students are actually praying together and sharing about Jesus during school. God is working in the schools and I believe this next generation will be reached! Jesus loves these children!

We recently found out that our outreach will be in the Philippines, we leave on March 27th and return May 25th. Ministry opportunities will include going to prisons, feeding the community, engaging in schools, visiting a floating village, tribal ministry, teen pregnancy centers, preaching to the masses, coming alongside local churches, ministering at the YWAM Philippines campus, and ministering to students returning from basketball camp. The Philippines just recently opened back up after being closed very tightly for almost three years due to their very strict covid lockdown. We are continuously praying that God would give us His heart for the Philippines and His guidance in choosing how to prioritize the different ministry opportunities available.

Throughout my time here I have been stretched several times but God has always proven that in my weaknesses He is strong and that even if I’m afraid, as I step out in obedience, He is faithful to carry me. I felt led by the Lord when initially signing up for YWAM to choose 1:11 as my focus (1:11 is a missional worship and intercession team branched out of the International House of Prayer that carry a Malachi 1:11 vision: Every nation will know the great name of God and will worship him both day and night.) I knew nothing at all what this would look like but thought that since I have absolutely no musical experience outside of the shower, I could just join in more on the intercession side of this ministry and maybe learn an instrument. Once again, the thoughts of God are much bigger than my own. 1:11 does not allow you to sit on the sidelines for very long. Yes I have learned a little bit of the keyboard, but I have also learned about how God loves the voice of every person and how many scriptures there are commanding believers to sing praises to Him. I have been mic’d and have sung scriptures and prayers in front of my class. I have also been pushed a little bit outside of my comfort zone by making myself vulnerable to share my testimony as well as the 5-point gospel to my peers in anywhere from 2-5 minutes, always doing this with a different scenario in mind (A couple of examples of this are: sharing your testimony to 500 students at a school in the Philippines, sharing the gospel to a girl in a coffee shop, sharing the gospel as your plane is crashing). While we are usually put on the spot and feel the pressure, I am thankful that my campus is training us to be effective messengers of the gospel wherever we go and in such a way that we can communicate it with even a limited amount of time. Last Saturday my school held an 8-hour prayer burn from 4:00 pm-12:00 am. We each were given a slot of an hour and within that time we were to worship Jesus and intercede around the topic and scripture we had chosen prior to our time there. My roommate, Jelaina led us into a sweet time of worship and by the grace of God I was able to lead our class into a time of intercession over Gen Z. This was the very first time I was able to engage in anything quite like this and because of that I was a little nervous, yet this prayer burn has been my favorite time with my class overall. I believe we touched Heaven and I look forward to many more nights of intercession alongside my friends.

During Freedom week God moved in each and every student in ways that I am still trying to wrap my mind around. For me personally, He really dug up quite a lot of the lies I have harbored in my heart about myself and as He revealed them, I took the opportunity to throw them out. The biggest area in my life that I am confident that the Lord has freed me from while here is fear. I’m not talking about the feeling of fear when my palms get sweaty and my stomach turns a little, but I’m referring to the action of walking in fear, or maybe more so finding myself debilitated and paralyzed by it. Upon my arrival here, the staff had been telling me that as they prayed for me they kept getting the word “courage”. Yet, I felt like I was anything but courageous. Little did I know that this word is actually why God brought me here. God was calling me to courage before anything else. For so long I have known that I am called to missions. I am called to speak the name of Jesus in the lives of people and over regions, but for far too long I have accepted the lie that it’s better if I keep my mouth closed. God has not called anyone to be nice, passive, or agreeable. He gives us a voice so that we can use it. He gives us authority and the power of life and death are in the tongue. If I truly believe that God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, then why have I treated myself as an exception? I’ll be honest, it has been difficult stepping out into some of this. I find myself uncomfortable daily but as I step out into what I’m afraid of, God becomes so close that I no longer fear anything but Him. Fear is broken off when we do what we’re afraid of. This is why during freedom week when I needed to break off fear of man, standing on a chair and yelling what I was repenting from and shouting out loud what I was replacing these lies with proved to be very successful. This is why when I feel like I should hide in the back and be quiet, He gives me a mic to pray or sing into.

All that to say, I believe that God is not simply only calling me to begin to walk in courage, but I believe He is calling the entire church to courage. More now than ever the church is being called to be courageous. To be the light of the world and a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. Maybe you need to jump and scream on chairs or maybe you need to sing your heart out in front of people who know way more about singing than you do. Maybe you need to share your testimony with somebody. Maybe you need to move across the country. Maybe you need to change careers. Maybe you just need to break off your fear of heights and go skydiving. God calls us to hard things, but He promises that He’s with us through all of them. May we become uncomfortable finding comfort in anything other than Jesus. May we embrace being uncomfortable because we know when we step out in faith that God will either change us or someone around us. Our God is a mighty fortress and a firm foundation, He will not allow you to be moved unless you’re being moved closer to Him. Call out to Him in your fear. Let Him breathe fresh courage into you.

Prayer Requests:

The faculty and students of Compass Elementary School
The students, staff, and school leaders of my DTS (health, provision, continued freedom)
Mary Gin and Jeremy Palattao- I have never met this couple but we have been praying over them as a school. They left in December to move to the Philippines as full time missionaries and tragically have lost their two month old little girl, Clementine.
Our hearts would be prepared and positioned to serve those in the Philippines and that the process in getting our visas would run smoothly
Boldness over us all as we share the gospel here in Kansas City

Sincerely,

Jessica Lawrence

Just some friends at lunch :)
(me, Nathan, Cornelia, Anna, Jelaina)

Lydia, me, and Cornelia riding in the backseat on our way to church! Lydia is from Washington and Cornelia is from Norway!

Beautiful times of worship at the International House of Prayer

First night of Thursday Night Gathering!

My school made me the sweetest birthday card and I’ll honestly probably keep it forever.

We have the most beautiful sunrise views when walking to class!

My first Sunday visiting Life Mission Church. I love this place!

Jesus walked in this anointing and we can too!

Some heartbreaking stats and prayer points. This is why we need courage! This is why we need to go into all the world and preach the gospel!

Some of the kiddos from Compass Elementary I get to spend time with :)

Sometimes I like to just go into the Sunnyside lobby and watch the sunset because it’s so pretty!

A couple of weeks ago my mom and grandpa got to drop in and we had so much fun together!

The Sunnyside building is where I get to live!

We’ve been getting to take the time to take apart scriptures and find cross references all throughout the bible for them.

We love Kansas City!
(Cornelia, Anna, me, Lydia)

On our way to local outreach!
(from front to back, left to right: Hannah, Zack, me, PJ, Nathan, Jelaina, Zach, Anna, Lydia)

Family time at our school leaders’ (Nick and Eunjee) house on Friday nights!

Sincerely,

Jessica Lawrence

Becoming Comfortable In The Uncomfortable

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