Guest post: my girl Katie from Nepal!

Hello lovelies! I am absolutely thrilled to have my good friend Katie up on the blog today for a guest post! Katie blogs over at Hope Engaged, and you can check out her wonderful page HERE! {You should go give her a visit, and tell her that I sent you!} Katie is currently living in Nepal with her husband {they are the cutest couple EVER, read their love story!} where they work at an aftercare home with girls who have been rescued out of trafficking. Katie is a dear friend of mine, and an absolutely sweetheart! her heart for God is so inspiring to me, and I am so thankful for my friendship with her! Katie, I hope one day we are able to meet in "real life," but until then, may our blogging friendship continue to be the major blessing that it already is! Take it away sista! Love you!

-Jess

Hello dear readers!
I feel so thankful to get to share on Jessica's blog today, isn't she just awesome?

I'm Katie and currently my husband and I are living in Nepal and working at an aftercare home that works with girls who have been rescued out of trafficking.
Oh wait, you might ask...where the heck is Nepal?

 don't worry...I wondered that too just about 6 months ago...
you see, Kev and I had NO idea we would be moving to this beautiful country 6 months ago.
so today, here's the story of God's epic plan for two very ordinary people....

When Kev and I got married two years ago, we knew we wanted our marriage to matter.
for our marriage to be a ministry that loved and blessed those around us.
we also knew that sometime before we had kids, we wanted to live and serve abroad.
shake things up a bit:)

we lived in Southern California and both worked full time.
since the Bible says "love thy neighbor" we decided that meant that we really needed to love, care and mostly KNOW our neighbors.
so with some courage we moved into a a low-income, immigrant neighborhood,
and in short, fell in LOVE with our neighbors!

we held Bible studies in our home, weekly meal nights, and even hosted a VBS for the kids!
but in the back of our minds, still continued to pray about moving abroad.

so...this past December we up in Northern California visiting my family,
when all of a sudden some family friends approached us and asked if we'd consider moving to Nepal.
Ummm.....what?
I had always had a place in my heart for girls who had been trafficked, but what could I really do?
Neither Kev or I were counselors and we wondered how moving to Nepal would help these girls?
We were just ordinary people.

But...it turns out that what this aftercare home really needed was some people
to help create a sustainable infrastructure for the home.
Create protocol and procedures,
write manuals,
work on the accounting and financial systems etc.

Well it just so happens that for the past 6 years I've worked at non-profits,
creating policies and procedures, writing manuals and creating structure.
And it also just so happens that for the past six years Kevin has been working in accounting and creating and maintaining financial systems for a business he's run.

so...um....well, maybe we were qualified.
Like I couldn't really BELIEVE that the exact skills they needed,
were the ones God had been equipping us in and we didn't even know how these simple skills would be able to be used for service in the kingdom of God!
wow!
jaw just dropped.

it reminded me of Jesus taking the loaves and fish
simple, ordinary food items,
and doing something extraordinary with them!
like, um, well...feeding 5 freaking thousand people.



Richard Sterns, in his book The Hole in Our Gospel says this when speaking about this parable of Jesus feeding the 5 thousand,

"Can you see the real miracle at work here? Confronted with an overwhelming problem, Jesus did not ask the disciples to do the impossible. He asked only for them to bring to Him what they had.
He then multiplied the small offering and used it do the impossible."

I think we all have something So beautiful to learn from this parable...
God can USE US, because he takes ordinary things and multiplies them!!

whatever gift, talent, skill you've been given,
no matter how ordinary,
God can take and use in the most EPIC of ways!

hello, that's pretty awesome right people?!?!?

But that means we MUST give God what we have,
extend our very lives to the Lord.
He can't use what we don't give him.

and I guarantee, absolutely, that if you hold out every gift he's given you with open arms,
 He will take you on an adventure!
Because guys, God is just wild and crazy!
He certainly has taken Kev and I on the craziest most epic adventure we could imagine!!!

much love today sweet friends! I can't wait to meet each of you, so please come over to my blog and say hello!
much love from Nepal,
Katie