The Amazing Race!!!

The Amazing Race has started here in Krakow, Poland!  They have split the Latvian team into two groups.  If any of you have watched the "real" amazing race on television you have some idea of how it works.  Someone hands you a sheet with a clue and you are to race to the next clue given only by asking those around you, who may or may not speak English!  Needless to say this entails miles and miles of walking!! Day one of the race team one entered the last destination at the hostel at 10pm and the second at 10:30pm. We are the 2nd team and took 13th yesterday out of fifteen teams....didn't do so well lol but we haven't lost hope!  Today we ended our journey at Josiah Ventures brand new H2O center here in Skoczow, Poland. It is a center built to train interns like myself as well as giving those in need a place to sleep, kind of like a hotel!  Our last challenge for the day, before we could curl up in a nice warm bed, was to eat blood sausage and sour kraut.  For those of you who have no idea what blood sausage is.....Google it!  Sour kraut is my least favorite food And on top of blood sausage it made for an extremely great gag reflex!  We are now ranking 10th and are slowly stepping up the list!! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue our journey into Czech republic! Tomorrow makes for the last day of the amazing race and will give us our final placement!!

This Journey

is right around the corner!!  The closer it gets to going overseas the more anxious I become!! I'm excited, scared, along with every other emotion you can think of!  Support has me extremely stressed out and I know that money will ALWAYS be an issue in life.  I am learning to trust God fully! Granted its easier said than done lol.  I have seen amazing support come in from people I have never even met before!  Right now I need roughly $6,000 raised by May 15th.  They would prefer by May 1st, but the 15th is the final date.  My fiancé Stephen is also struggling raising support and has roughly $4,000 left to raise.  We have sent out another wave of support letters this last week and are sending out another wave this week.  We grabbed the church directory and are sending out letters to those from our church body.  Some we know, but most we do not.  We are trusting that God will lay on their hearts the willingness/eagerness to, in some way support us.   If you would like to support us please write the checks out to Josiah Venture and in the memo line write our account #'s to be sure you can write it off in taxes.  Here is the info to send support to:

Josiah Venture
P.O. Box 4317
Wheaton, IL 60189-4317

Stephen Knoll
Account #: 67205

Ashley Portnell
Account #: 67202

Thank you everyone for all the prayers and support that we have received so far!! We are so grateful!!

An impatient lifestyle....

It's crazy how some things in your life can bring you to your knees more than once in your lifetime.  I thought I had dealt with my past and moved on, but now I stand in front of a man who wants to spend the rest of his life with me, and now I find myself face down-truly dealing with my past.  For the first time in my life I am able to understand why those around me taught me to wait until I was married to give away something so precious.  For the first time, I stand disappointed, facing the consequences of my actions.  Why? Because for the first time, he is the only one that matters.  It doesn't matter what everyone else has to say about me, just him, and now more than ever I cry out to the only one who knows my pain--Jesus.  Constantly, I find myself begging for Christs forgiveness, knowing I have His forgiveness.  I beg because I'm not sure I have completely forgiven myself yet-I'm learning.  As I learn I pray for patience in my own life and the life of those around me.  Patience--I have found I must learn through the trials of this life.  I want too many things, too much information in my life on my owm time and forget that God's timing is perfect.  Like so many of us I try to get ahead of the game and often find myself more frustrated than I was from the start.  At this time in my life I'm learning to step back and let God lead.  Although its easier said than done.  God never gives us more than we can handle and right now my life is at its peak...so I am learning to be patient and trust the only one who can save me! 

I Stand Amazed!!

I am amazed at the work God continues to do in my life.  So often I forget to be thankful for the little things in life and find my self scrambling under the stress of everything in between.  Regardless of all the stress God ALWAYS manages to show up on top!!  Right now Latvia support has hit a stand still, and in doing so God is showing me how important it is to be patient.  In my moments of doubt I have found myself weak at the knees begging my Maker for security.  God has clearly given me an open door to follow Him through and I have/am continuing to follow His steps in this next journey of my life.  God has opened my eyes to be thankful for my job, even when things don't go my way.  Without it I wouldn't be able to pay bills on top of putting money aside for Latvia!  He is opening my eyes to those around me praying for me, and encouraging me in my walk with Him!  My support for Latvia hasn't moved much but I will NOT be discouraged!  I now have $7,967 left to raise!!  I will continue sending out support letters and am thinking of having a "strictly donation" garage sale! If you guys have any suggestions please let me know!! I am open for everything! 

On a brighter note!! I am engaged!! Stephen Knoll proposed to me on March 4th!!  I said YES!  I am truly blessed to have such a loving man of God in my life!  His heart to do/be the best he can be in everything has been a huge inspiration in my life.  Without his encouragement and support for my decision to pursue Latvia my stress level would be ten times more.  God placed him in my life at just the right time!  I can't 

wait to spend the rest of my life with him.  

God's unfailing.....

I never imagined my life looking like this.  Being a missionary was not in my job description!  Yet here I am preparing myself for a 7 month journey to Latvia, Europe!!  The song I am playing/singing above (rough I know) is a song that has spoke directly to my heart through my recent struggles.  I became so wrapped up in how/what I needed to prepare for Latvia that I forgot about the One reason I even had the opportunity to join Josiah Venture--Jesus. He sparked a fire in my heart for Latvia and he isn't stopping until every heart knows His name!  

I have sent out roughly 50 support letters in the past two weeks and already have been greatly blessed with financial support!!  I have a ton more to send out and would greatly appreciate it if you could spread what I am doing to friends and family at church and at home. 

 As most of you know I have to raise $13,257 by May 1st, 2012 before I can go to Latvia.  So far the church has offered to support $1300. A very good family friend has graciously offered to support me every two weeks up until I leave which is roughly $3900!!  I have also been given $100 from another great friend!  I am so grateful to have people in my life who are helping me expand God's kingdom!! I cant do it without you all!  Please continue to pray for me as I trust that God will help me raise $8,057 by May 1st.  

And there it was....

My blessing in disguise.   As I tried to pick myself back up I realized that these things in my life lead me nowhere close to happiness.  I woke up everyday dreading every hour, hoping it would end seconds after it began.  What was the point anyways…I worked to pay my bills, I paid my bills to keep myself alive, but yet I found no purpose to any of it.  Well somewhere down the road my roommate decided she would be the one to move out and I came home to an empty room, no roommate, and her friend that had been living with us for months.  She left him with no place to go, no job to pay for bills, and me to continue providing him shelter.  Not gonna lie he and I got through a lot together.  In the end he tried real hard to do his part in helping me.  It's lonely coming home to an empty room where someone you use to call a friend use to occupy.  Hurts even more coming home to a completely empty house and a letter on the table saying your roommate was in jail.  At the time I felt like it was me against the world and I was completely and utterly alone.  Being alone gave me so much time to think, to talk things out with myself.  I never thought I would find the blessing out of all the madness in my life.  I sat in my apartment thinking about everything that had happened in my life.  Disgusted, angry, confused, I fell to my knees and sobbed.  I begged for God to take his child back, to allow me to be his daughter again.  I knew I screwed up and I understood now why the things I did hurt so bad.  It was then that the weight of what I had done was lifted off of my shoulders.  It was then that I felt peace.  It was then that I felt love--true love.  An unconditional love from a man who loved me for who I was, regardless of the things I had done in the past.  It brings such joy to my heart knowing that there is a man who forgives me for the pain I put him through.  Day in and day out I break his heart and he weeps for me.  The sin in my life, in this world, He takes on for me.  His name; Jesus Christ.  It is because of Him that I was given a second chance at life!  Out of all the people in the world he remembered me and to this day I choose to remember Him.  My daily life is still hard, things are not by any means easy, but I can say that God's unconditional love helps me find purpose in this life.  I know now that without Christ I am empty and the void in my heart is never filled.  My biggest fear is that there isn't enough time left to tell the world that there's no time left.    

Miles Away...

     I fought to keep myself together.  Every part of my body, my soul, ached for this nightmare to end.  It didn't.  Instead, I found myself standing at the top of a spiral staircase, dreading the fall to the bottom.  
     Soon after, I found an apartment with a coworker of mine.  Her and I became extremely close.  We told each other everything about anything without hesitation.  Life was great.  The parties we threw consisted of lots of alcohol and lots of boys. Every girls dream right?  So I drank, got drunk, threw up, blacked out a few times, only to feel good about myself for those 2 hours that my mind was complete mush.  When I woke up the next day I still felt empty, hurt, not good enough for anyone.  What if I truly wasn't good enough?  What if I didn't give him all that he asked for?  I lived a long while believing that I needed to "put out" more, believing that sex was the only thing that guys found of worth in me .  I tried so hard to fill that emptiness, that void, that never ceased with a drink, with drugs, with sex.  I didn't want to feel my pain, didn't want to feel or think about anything!  But the drinking,drugs,sex continued, because in those moments of inebriation I could be someone else.  I could be that someone who was good enough.   
     Not far into my lease one of my coworkers asked me out on a date, well multiple actually, before I finally said yes.  He was/is an amazing guy, the only guy in that period of my life who wanted me for me and not what I would give him.  He was the first guy I opened up my heart to about my past relationship that left me broken and untrustworthy.  We dated for three weeks, and then he spit out those three very words I told him I wanted nothing to do with.  I love you.  At that point in my life that was simply to much!  I just got out of a relationship with a guy who told me those very words for two years!! I wasn't going to let myself fall into that death trap again.  (Plus three weeks? was that really enough time to decide you love somebody?).    
      Six months into my lease, my roommate informed me that we were going to have another roommate.  For awhile that was fine.  Soon neither one of them were paying for groceries,utilities, and eventually rent.  I was left to feed and shelter three people working two jobs at minimum wage.  When I confronted my roommate for help with money she made it crystal clear that I was NOT her mother and that she knew darn well how to handle her finances.  Well that lead to an even bigger mess.  Her sister threatened to kill me, my things were destroyed,pawned, and God only knows what else, and my reputation at work  was shattered.  Everything I had entrusted my roommate to keep to herself she let everyone know about.        
I begged and begged for her to let me break the lease, but the answer I got was: "I will put you through hell before I let you break the lease.  We are in this for the long haul."  Well she succeeded in making my life miserable. So much so I was terrified to go home.  I stayed out until crazy hours in the morning just to be sure my roommates would be in bed when I got home.    
     I constantly asked myself (or maybe it was God) what I ever did to deserve any of what had happened to me.  Was I really that bad of a person that I deserved that life?  I might as well have died.  I was a walking zombie.  I had no energy left to care about anything or anyone.  I was simply following the staircase, preparing myself for the next problem to take place in my life.