I'm going to Kenya!!!

Hey there,

I wanted to share with you some things that I’ve been learning since I’ve been in school at Bethel and tell you about an exciting adventure I’m going on soon. My time here has certainly been transforming!!

I’ve learned a lot about living a life of faith in the last few months!! Sometimes what we expect God to do is what will happen. So if we don’t expect much, we’re probably not going to get very much. If we want to see God do big things in our lives we have to step out and take risks. If we don’t believe that God can do a miracle, most likely a miracle isn’t going to happen. However, I’m not saying that this is always the case. I believe that sometimes God wants to surprise us and give us something that we weren’t expecting, but when we look at the miracles in the bible, a lot of times it was FAITH that caused the miracle.

So, all of the students at Bethel had to apply for a mission trip. I was planning to apply for the cheapest trips for financial reasons. But then I heard a message about taking risks in our faith. If we don’t set our goals high and ask God for big things, we’re never going to attain big things. So, I applied for all of the mission trips that made my heart leap and those were expensive trips! Well a couple of weeks ago I found out that I was accepted to go to Kenya!!! I was excited and nervous all at the same time. The trip looked amazing but I knew I was going to have to come up with a lot of money!!

The reason why this trip was so attractive to me is that it is working with displaced, broken people. Firstly, we will minister to and with an organization called Global Children’s Movement. We will team up with CHILDREN and go to hospitals, businesses, police stations and the streets to pray for people and partner with God to heal, save and deliver. Can you imagine how exciting that will be to partner with the children of Kenya??!! Secondly, we will fly to Northern Kenya to minister in a multi-national refugee camp and also to the remote and mostly unreached Turkana tribe. These people are known as “the despised people” in Kenya. I love getting to speak to people about their identity and who they are as a child of God. What a better place to do that than to a people who desperately need to know that they are valued.

I would love for you to partner with me in making a difference in Kenya. I can keep you updated on how you can pray for me and my team starting now until we get back. I can also send you updates of my trip. If you want to give financially, there is information below on how you can do that. I have payments due in January and February and the trip is during the last two weeks of March. Please let me know how you want to support me so that I can send you e-mails of the latest happenings.

My journey starts now as I seek God in this trip. I’m taking a risk and expecting supernatural provision so please pray that my faith will grow during this time and my realization of how much my heavenly father loves me will grow even deeper.

Thank you for already supporting and partnering with me in so many areas of my life.

Love,

Sunneye

p.s. Financial gifts may be made online at ibssm.org. This gift is tax-deductible and you will receive a statement at the end of the year for your tax records. If you wish your gift to be anonymous, please check the anonymous box. This will allow you to receive an end of year statement, but will not allow the student to see your name. This gift is non-refundable, and if for any reason a team member or team does not go, the money will support another mission trip sponsored by Bethel Church. (If online payment is not an option, donations can be mailed to Bethel Church Attn: Bethel International 933 College View Dr. Redding, CA 96003.)

The start of my second year at Bethel!!!

Second year as been so different from first year!! Now that I've been here about a month, I finally feel like I have my feet on the ground and my head has stopped spinning. It's been quite a wild ride coming back to school, getting used to sitting for four hours every day, trying to figure out how to make some money part-time, establishing where I want my ministry to be, figuring out who I want to build closer relationships with....and the list goes on and on.
Just to give you an idea of what my schedule looks like....
I sometimes get up at 5:00 a.m. and work for 4 hours online as an English test rater. (I only do that about twice a week)
I'm in class from 12:30-5:30. On Thursdays during class time, we all go out to various parts of the city to do outreach. I'm a part of the children's ministry in a specific region. We have a mini-church service for the kids in a park!!
I'm also part of a International Transformation group that meets every week during class. This is for people who are interested in what is traditionally knows as "missions". It's fun to be in a room full of people who burn for reaching the nations like I do!!
When I'm not in school, I'm hanging out with people, having people over, hiking, and doing other various side jobs that make a little bit more money.
Yea, it's pretty darn busy!! The nice thing is that I have my mornings off for the most part and I'm able to use that time to rest and spend time with God before my busy day starts.
Well I could go on and on but I know some of you don't want that many details. I do want to give you some highlights of what I've been learning. If you have some time, please look over these. They are such precious nuggets that I'm sure could change your life!!
I hope to write again soon.

If you have something that's worth eating, people will get hungry for it.
"Drive" wherever you see "green lights". Don't live waiting on God unless God has told you to.
People call cautiousness wise, but you're not going to move many mountains if you're always cautious.
Focus on how much money you want to GIVE, not on how much you want to make.
We need to discover WHOSE we are before we can find out WHO we are.
What do I have already that God wants to supersize.
Stress if caused by living how you think you should be living. Peace is being who you are.
It's dangerous to feel like you've become an expert in something. What you know keeps you from what you need to know.
The greater the destination, the greater the gestation.
Vision is what gives pain a purpose.
Your strength overemphasized is your greatest weakness.
You have as much influence in someone's life as they have value for you.
Hang out with people who have the gift that you want more of.
Wherever you have a scar, you have authority in that area.
Don't put pressure on yourself to overcome all of your weaknesses. Just enjoy Jesus.
When we feel like God's presence comes and goes, it's not that he withdraws. It's just that he changes the way he manifests. He doesn't want us to live on our feelings and always having to feel him. He might want us to seek him in a different way.
We all live in bubbles. The bubble is made up of limits, boundaries, fears, perceptions, protection, opinions, false identity, lies, expectations, what I have the faith for.
What we expect will find us.
How do we get out of that bubble? We have a choice to change.
Sometimes we're in a season where breakthrough isn't going to come unless we stop working for it.
Even when things don't work out, we have to be anchored in the goodness of God.
If we're pursuing something really big, we'll probably fail the first time. If we always succeed our goal isn't big enough.
How to figure out what your destiny is: Find out what is beautiful to you and what aspect of the glory of God you carry. God made your heart beat for something and he has a plan for carrying that out.
We all have dreams starting when we were a child. Sometimes lack of love or things that happen to us stop us from pursuing our dreams.
Everything is solved in God's presence.
You can be sure of where you want to end up but be unsure of the process that it takes to get there.

My Trip to Nicaragua!!!

I had an awesome time of bringing God’s love and power to the people of Nicaragua. I saw some miraculous healings, people touched by the Holy Spirit, and I got to experience the Holy Spirit even deeper in my own life. We equipped some of the local believers to also move in the same power and love that we do by holding conferences during the day at local churches. We taught on hearing God’s voice, having the joy of the Lord, our identity as sons and daughters of God, and practical tips for praying for healing. It was great to see them catching the vision for touching their nation. My favorite part was spending time with the children. We got to spend some time at a really poor village where most of the kids are orphaned. A church goes there every Sunday to do a service for the kids and feed them. We went along with them and I got to speak to the children about their identity in Christ. At the end I had them close their eyes and picture Jesus. Then they asked Jesus what He thought of them. I asked them to share what they heard. Many of the kids had great answers. I also asked them to share what their dreams were. I told them that God wants their dreams too come true and to dream big. Afterwards, we prayed for the kids. One boy was deaf and mute and after praying for him, he started to hear and speak. A baby had a hernia in his belly button. We prayed for about 15 minutes and the hernia went back inside leaving the flap of skin!!

In the evenings, we partnered with the local churches to put on street crusades. We saw several miracles and salvations. We’d always have a time of ministry at the end where people could come forward for prayer. On the first night, a guy with a broken hand that had metal screws came forward. He could not close his right hand all the way, and he said he could not extend his hand to get his change from the bus. We prayed and he could close his hand almost all the way. Then on the last night of the crusade, Emily asked anyone to stand who needed healing. The same guy stood and the pain left in his hands. He came up and testified, but said he still had limited range of motion. We prayed for him again and he got full range of motion! Another lady came up with stomach pain. We prayed two times commanding the pain to leave. Most of the pain left but not all of it. A guy on our team asked the Holy Spirit what to do again. He heard that there was something that had happened in her past as a child that had hurt her and she needed to forgive someone. She didn’t want to say what it was. The interpreter led her through forgiveness, and the pain left!! The most amazing miracle that I saw at the crusade was with a lady that had had a stroke. When she came up for prayer, you could tell she was in a lot of pain and she was also deaf and mute. We prayed and her back pain left and her hearing came back. Her brother came over, and we had her say something. She could talk, and her brother was so surprised. Her whole face was full of joy as tears streamed down her face. Seeing her raise her hands in thanksgiving to God brought tears to my eyes!! We also had people come forward if they wanted to receive Christ. On one of the nights, a young man with raggedy clothes came out of nowhere right up to the front. One of the worship leaders led the ragged young man to Jesus, both in tears. There were lots of other healings that happened. We were all praying for different people so I only have the stories of what I saw happen. All of us left that night with such a high. There’s nothing like seeing the hand of God touch people like that.

Another highlight for me was getting to empower the kids that I came across. I really wanted them to see who they are in Christ at a young age. As much as possible when I was praying for someone, I’d gather the kids around me to help me pray. When I’d pray for the kids, I’d tell them that they can also lay their hands on people and see them get healed. When all of the adults were doing a “listening to God” exercise, I encouraged a young girl that she could also participate. I told her the word from God that I felt like I was getting for her and then she told me what she saw for me. It was an awesome experience seeing her grasp the idea that God was speaking to her.
Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support. I’m so grateful that I got to have this experience in Nicaragua and I couldn’t have done it without all of your support!!!