“The Doctrine of justification by faith�"a biblical truth, and a blessed relief from
sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort�"has in our time fallen into evil company
and been interpreted by many in such a manner as actually to bar men from the
knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has
been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a
jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Academic ego. Christ may
be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver.
This man is “saved,” but he is neither hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact, he is
specifically taught to be satisfied and is encouraged to be content with little. God is
a person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feel, loves,
desires, and suffers as any other person may. The continuous and unembarrassed
interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man
is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion. The relationship between God
and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is known to the
individual and it is conscious: it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness
and work there unknown to the soul.’”

We must realize that the mundane Christian lives we lead need no longer be that
way. In John 15, Jesus says that He no longer calls us servant, but instead calls us
friend. He knows every thought you think and everything about you, but he longs
for you to open up to him and share your heart and deepest desires and thoughts
with Him. He wants to get to know you as a friend. We are also his bride and He is
our Father.
I was listening to a song the other day that caused me to examine my relationship
with the father:

Does not a son know his father’s heart?
Does not a bride, know her husband’s eyes?
Don’t best friends tell each other secrets?

The thought of the things I keep from God was very sobering in that moment. I have
been seeking intimacy with the Father but have been missing something. I want
to be able to love Him better and love Him more. I want to actively respond to His
pursuit of my heart.

We have been “rescued by love’s hands. Forged by fire, not cheaply made. This love
he has for you cannot be slain!”

The second half of our ministry in Moldova was great. We were able to keep in
touch with our contact from the first half of the month and heard of several of our
prayer requests being fulfilled by God. God always provides for the work He wants
to get done. It was such a blessing to hear of His provision to the church in Leova.

Our ministry the final two weeks was in a village in the southern tip of Moldova.
Our village was very small�"around 250 people�"and it seemed as if we had gone
back in time. To get milk, you found a cow. If you needed a certain type of vegetable,
you bought it from the neighbor that grew it or traded it for whatever you grew.

We spent a lot of our time just getting to know the people and most of that time was
over meals in their homes. They were extremely precious people and would barely
let us work to serve them. We had a chance to help them work on their church
building that is still very much in process of being built and some days we picked
peaches in the fields with the rest of the villagers.

The villagers that hosted us were members of the small church that we lived in.
The married women in the village always covered their heads in church and none
of them wore make-up or earrings and the men and women sat on opposite sides
of the room during the service, which is common in almost all Eastern European
evangelical churches. It was great to see the people of this church practicing their
traditions but not being held back by them. They didn’t judge us for not being as
traditional in our way of worship but accepted the different ways and forms of
worship. They truly loved and served one another in the church and also depended
on one another. These people had such an honor and respect for the Lord and
worshipped Him so beautifully. During almost each prayer of thanksgiving before
the meals, someone would be brought to tears in thanksgiving for what a great God
they had.

These people didn’t have much financially but they gave their very best to God and
to us. They gave us the best beds, pillows, and blankets from their homes for us to
use.

The pastor of their church had disappeared a few months ago with money that
had been donated for the church building and a man in the church had taken on
the role of pastoring the church. Not only did he serve the church every Sunday
while feeling very inadequate, but he went the extra mile of giving all of his profits
from his peach farm and sunflower farm to help complete more of church building.

This church was a great picture of a community of believers coming together and
realizing the importance of a covenant community. It was a great blessing to be a
part of this community for a few weeks. I want to thank you all who have made my
ministry possible this year!

My team and I are now in at town outside of Kiev, Ukraine at our final ministry site
for the eleven months. We are living at a camp that hosts several groups of youth
and children throughout the year. Our ministry this month has been focused a lot
on praying for the community that surrounds the camp, for the ministry itself, and
for the orphans of Ukraine and this week we are serving a church that is hosting
a Christian camp here by doing maintenance-type work (washing dishes, laundry,
cleaning bathrooms, etc.).

Over the past week and a half, we have had a lot of time to process all that we have
learned and experienced on the race an have tried to prepare mentally for the next
step of our lives.

Over the past 335 days I have lived with the same people, worked with same people,
and done life with the same people 24 hours a day and in two weeks I won’t be
around them anymore. We will all be hundreds to thousands of miles away, each
doing our own thing. We will all move on to something greater and will all hopefully
experience God in new ways and continue to give out all that He has given us over
the past year.

The world race has absolutely been the best decision I have ever made and the
greatest time of my life. I have been around the world with some of the most
awesome people I know but I am ready to head back to America for the next thing.
I am currently praying about attending a ministry school in California and have no
idea how I will pay for it if I get accepted. I am certain that God has called me to
consider this school as my next step and I will find out very soon how this will all
play out. I know that He is in control so I am just waiting. I ask that you would please
pray for me to have discernment and wisdom and to be led by the Spirit as I take the
next step.

Also, I would love to give back to all those who have been praying for me
over the past year. If you have specific prayer requests please email me at:
haleyaustinsmith@gmail.com.
I will be praying for you all and cannot wait to see how God moves in each of your
lives. I pray that each of you are blessed abundantly today! You all mean so much to
me and I praise God for each of you.

Today wraps up our ministry here in Leova, Moldova. We had a great month working with a local pastor at a small church here. Our ministry in the mornings was street evangelism and in the afternoons we were involved in a children sports ministry. Our time here was awesome and we were able to share truth with people who had never heard the true gospel being preached.  We spent several hours each day interceding for the city and the local christians and our time was most definitely fruitful. We were able to see the pastor's dream come true with an awesome opportunity to reach the youth of the city through a job opportunity leading Physical Education in the schools here. We had a chance to pray with people of the church about their dreams and encourage them which was truly a blessing.

You are probably wondering where the heck Moldova is and what happens here… so here is a little background info:

economic situation.

Moldova is a country in Eastern Europe located between Romania and Ukraine.. It is the poorest country in Europe. It is very normal for a family to live off 40 to 60 USD a month. Majorities of Moldovans immigrate out of the country for work because the unemployment rate here is so high. Emigration is a mass phenomenon in Moldova and has a huge impact on the country's economy. Over the past ten years Moldova has lost over 50%of its population. It is estimated that 600,000 to one million Moldovan citizens (almost 25% of the population) are working abroad, most illegally.  

sex trafficking.

A large portion of the illegal workers are the result of sex trafficking. Every day it is estimated that 3-5 individuals are trafficked from Moldova to other countries. The majority of women and girls that are trafficked come from rural areas. Over 10 percent are under 18 years old, some as young as 12 years old. Girls out of the ninth grade (the required level of completion) when coming from abusive, alcoholic, or unattended homes, as well as orphans, will look for jobs and they will most likely end up being trafficked. Sometimes families are paid money in advance through schemes and their daughters are expected to earn the advance and pay back the family's debts.

culture / religion (essentially one thing).

Culture in Moldova stems from the Orthodox Church. Religion in Moldova is very similar to the rest of Europe. 93% of the population belongs to the national church of the country, which is the Orthodox Church. 2% of the population is protestant and the majority of the people outside the Protestant church consider Christians to be part of a sect or cult. The evangelical church here is only around ten years long and an evangelical perspective of the gospel just isn’t accepted.

government.

Moldova is one of only three countries with democratically elected communist leaders.

Unclouded Sky. notes from a sermon by Bill Johnson

We must make our own history with God. Gifts are free. Maturity is a process. We grow in the secret places with God. We grow when problems come up and we seek him for the answers. We grow when we go before God, face to face with his word. We must stay there until he talks us.  Nothing in the world can replace the time you have alone with him.

If you make history with God, he’ll make history through you.

Sometimes we meet with the Lord and he speaks in the moment�"and when He speaks sometimes it might be months before the word comes to pass, but it gives you an anchor in the storm.

In 1 Kings 18, Elijah was in a drought and he waited, bowed down, in a posture of prayer before the Lord until The Lord sent him a cloud no bigger than the size of a man’s hand.

We must be looking for a cloud of rain in the impossible.  Something must be born in you so deeply that you become possessed with a vision. You become possessed with a sense of destiny and purpose and promise of the Lord where something begins to ache in you for something that seems so impossible and yet you know that in God it is possible. It is vital that we have things like that in our life that we pray into. 

Everyone is called to take possession of a promise from the Lord. We must find a cloudless sky and pray. Find some realm where there seems to be no hope and position yourself and fight, take the posture to contend.  It is important that you refine your focus to the thing that ignites you, the think that wakes you up at night, that thing that stirs your passions unlike anything else. Find a cause that you have a passion for. Don’t devote yourself to something that doesn’t make your blood boil. God is doing something in this world and wants you to be a part of it. Find your cloudless sky and go before the Lord and travail�"it’s got to be something significant. Don’t spend your life on trite things. Take something that is earth shaking. Find something in prayer to contend for.

Elijah was praying and sent his servant up six times. The servant kept looking at the landscape telling Elijah there was no sign of rain and on the seventh time, his servant said, well there is a cloud, but its about the size of a man’s hand; however, that is all Elijah needed.

When you are leaning into something and undivided in your focus, you don’t need a heavy manifestation to impress you.  When you are possessed by a promise of what is possible that takes you back before the Lord on a regular basis, it pulls at greatness, and significance. You don’t feel great at all in that moment, you don’t feel significant at all. You are on your knees, with your head in between your knees and you are crying out before the Lord, but you are contending because you know you are carrying divine purpose. It’s like the king himself has sent you on a mission and there is something about that moment when we are before the Lord and we contend for that which is impossible. When your heart is anticipating, leaning into what you know will bring breakthrough, a cloud the size of a man’s hand is all you need.

Find your reason for living by adopting a cloudless sky. Find something you will have to fight to bring about, something that you know that when the breakthrough for that area comes it will affect cities and nations of the world.  Everybody gets to make their own history and everybody has the potential of finding encouragement from the smallest cloud once the heart is set on taking possession of the impossible.

I hope you took some encouragement from this! This message has motivated me to fight for more of God. Have you sown into God lately? are you willing to fight for his presence?

You can change the world with God.

Focus on your potential to be a world changer.

If your dream are possible without God, they aren't large enough..