A Day That I Will Always Remember

This past Saturday, I had the privlege of getting the day off work. I was able to go with my dad to Hunnington Beach to do some evangelism. My dad was leading the Ambassador's Academy for the past couple of days. Ambassador's Academy is an intensive training course on how to be more effective in evangelizing. It was so awesome to see ladies go up and open-air preach. One girl, Hollie, 20 years old, open-air preached for the first time. It was such an encouragement to me I almost decided to jump on the box and preach too. But fear came over me and I didn't. :(



It was also cool to meet Trish. She and I were together for most of the day. I would listen to her as she would talk to people about Christ. At the end of the day I didn't want to leave her. She would be flying back to Texas the next morning. She gave me a challenge though. She had seen that I was nervous talking to people. She said "Michelle, I want you to by next Saturday have a one-to-one conversation with someone. I want you to email me on Saturday to tell me if you did it or not." I accepted the challenge and we shook hands on it.



Since being there at Hunnington Beach for one day of the Academy I have never been the same. I feel on fire for Christ and I can't wait to tell Trish that I accomplished the challenge that she gave me. Please be praying for me that I do complete the challenge she gave me. I have a challenge for you "Who will you share the gospel this week with?"

A Wonderful Time at Way of the Master

Wow! All I can say is wow. What a neat experience today was. For those of you that don't know, my dad, works for Way of the Master.

Yesterday,since I had the day off I went with him to help him out and spend the day with him. I never knew how much I was going to learn and experience while I was down there.

When we first came in we met a missionary from Nepal which was really neat. I never fully realized until that meeting how blessed we are in this country. This man was missionary from Nepal finishing up his Masters of Theology in the U.S. and then going back to his home country to preach the gospel. Now you might ask how are we blessed compared to people who live in Nepal. Just wait until I tell you more of the story and you will see why.

Harka was a missionary in Nepal, leading a ministry called Jesus Ministries International and led an underground church in Nepal. This means that the church is hiding from the government and the other religious sects in Nepal, which are Buddhism and Hinduism. They literally just celebrated their first Christmas as an official government holiday this past year. Christians in Nepal if they are caught preaching the gospel can be sent to jail for 6 years with the maximum being lifelong depending on the circumstances. He told us you have to be really careful as to who you allow in the church because some people might be spies. The Christians have only been in Nepal for about 17 years which I found fascinating as well. This man has gone to jail at least once and has been persecuted for his faith.

As I think about this I wonder why it is that so many Christians have a hard time sharing their faith including me when we have it so easy compared to the other people around the world like Harka who I just met yesterday. We have no idea what it means to be persecuted for our faith. All we face is man's arrogance and possible arguments. We should be stepping out more in our faith to share the gospel. We don't really have a need to feel intimidated for we have really nothing to fear. It is like the bible verse that says "What can mere man do to me?" Absolutely nothing. Now that doesn't mean you have to open-air preach, or have a one-to-one conversation if that is a little uncomfortable still for you to do. Just handing out a simple gospel tract to someone can make a huge difference. You are planting a seed. If you keep working on it you will eventually find the strength to actually start a conversation. Once you do you will probably feel more joy than you can possibly imagine and I think it will become easier for you. I am still working on this myself. I am working on strengthening my courage to talk to others about Christ in a one-to-one conversation. This is my next step. All I need to remember is that God will always be right by my side no matter what I may face.

Chad Fell Down

A couple of days ago I decided to start my own blog. I was thinking I could use this blog to keep some of you informed as to what I am doing these days and also put up possibly some short stories I have written. Well once I had decided to make a blog I had to think of a name. I wanted it to be something sophisticated and smart but I also wanted the name to be something that would immediately tell people that this was my blog and no one else. Maybe a name that was unique. So I asked the rest of my family during dinner if they could help me think of any titles.

The first suggestion from my mom was Michelle's Blog of Whatever. To those of you that do know me I like to use the word whatever quite a bit. Just like my mother and grandmother. :) I wrote that one down as an idea and we kept thinking. Well we decided to talk about things that interested me and try to incorporate that into the title. A few of them being Peanuts, different movies, books, etc...

Another name that my sister Marissa thought of was Darla's Dilemmas. For those of you don't know who Darla is she is the little girl in the movie Finding Nemo with the braces that Nemo is going to become her pet before he luckily escapes. My sisters when I first had gotten braces which I now have off gave me a nickname of Darla. Well that idea didn't stand a chance with me and I immediately shot the idea down.

Well next we thought about one of my favorite movies That Thing You Do. If you haven't seen this movie you'll love it. That is the only commercial for today. Just to warn you there is an instance of blasphemy. : ( After thinking about the movie my entire family and I out of nowhere started quoting lines from the movie to think of some more ideas.

"Got any three's. Looks like Lenny's goin' fishing."

"You mean actually make a record? A record record, record?"

Then came the funniest line of them all. Nothing made us laugh harder.

"Uh, guys. Chad fell down."

I can just see the scene running through my head right now. I still giggle every time I think about it. Well after that was over, we kept thinking about different movies that I liked. Another movie that I absolutely love is A Walk to Remember. It such a sweet romantic movie and the book is even better. I would definitely recommend this movie too. This one I am happy to say doesn't have any blasphemy in it. : )

Well it was between the two. Which one would it be? Michelle's Blog of Whatever or Michelle's Walk to Remember. Although Michelle's Blog of Whatever was unique and it did sort of fit me it was just a little too silly. So that was how I chose "Michelle's Walk to Remember" for the name of my blog. An online journal of my walk through life. Now to finish this post, I decided for those of you that haven't seen the scene where Chad falls down in That Thing You Do, I will put up a video clip of this scene I like so much. It's a short one and I hope you all have fun watching it. : )

Hello Everyone

Wow! I can't believe that I actually have my own blog now. I hope you all enjoy it.