your grace is enough.

this past week has been filled with some sweet memories i'll always hold dear to my heart. from listening to convicting sermons, to sharing our testimonies with some of our girls, to some quality pool time with my teammates, to learning how to cook two of my favorite thai dishes (pat thai and guy pat met mamoung), to dancing at the street market...again, to witnessing the most joyous day as i watched people get baptized on sunday, to celebrating one of our team memeber, courtney's birthday, to staying up late with sweet friends and talking about how the Lord is working in our hearts, to being incredibly encouraged by my teammates, to feeling God's presence and His divine plan for His children here, i'm feeling so grateful for the Lord's inexpressible blessings in Khon Kaen.

                                   this night began with karaoke and ended with one of the most
                                amazing talks i've had so far with these sweet girls. i'm so thankful
                                                                   for this night.

                              this picture is for you dad...proof that i try to cook every chance i get :)

                                   these girls are absolutely incredible. they researched and cooked
                                      my favorite dishes for the first time so i can learn to make it
                                                                 when i go back home.

                                           at the street market with some of my favorite girls.

                                abby and i are officially part of this dance crew. we've started a
                                  tradition of dancing with them at one of the biggest markets
                                  every saturday. we've only done it twice but i have a feeling
                                         this will continue for the next few weeks we're here.

                                          

sunday morning was such a beautiful picture of God's faithfulness and amazing grace. after teaching the missionary kids at sunday school with taylor, i was able to witness one of the sweetest times. this is my ministry partner, Aw's father. after faithfully praying for her father over the past few years, he came to know Christ as his Lord and Savior and was baptized this past sunday. Jesus is apparent in his life through the exceeding joy that never seems to escape his face. i thank God so much for him and Aw.

                   one of our friends, Arm, along with about ten others got baptized. Praise the Lord."...he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us  through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit..." Titus 3:5. 

                             discipleship group and my ministry group, plus some girls abby and i
                                   met at the schools. it's seriously so encouraging to be around these
                                                                     amazing women.

                                princess belle helping abby and i with courtney's birthday cake.

                                   courtney aka birthday girl. so thankful you were born court.

                             continuing the birthday celebration with a little bowling with the team.
                             i honestly couldn't have asked for a better team. i love these people with all
                                                                          my heart.

i'm incredibly thankful for this past week. it has been one of the hardest weeks for me but the Lord has used my brokenness to show me the beauty of His grace. listening to tim keller's sermon on self-forgetfullness last tuesday, the Lord was able to use that talk and the days afterwards to convict me of my pride and selfishness. he showed me the depth of my heart and was definitely breaking me by revealing to me sin in my life i wasn't even aware of. i found myself feeling unworthy and beating myself up for how easily i fall for the things of this world. it was hard to look past my sin and not to feel so hopeless and inadequate in light of all my sin. however, through this conviction the Lord started reminding me of the Cross and how because of His grace, He has set me free from all my sin. learning to gaze at the Cross daily in the midst of all my sin, His grace became that much sweeter and His love that much greater. so i'm learning to be strong in the grace found in Jesus and learning to approach this throne of grace with confidence.

"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..." 
   Ephesians 2:4-8


thank you so much for your faithfulness in prayer for our team. we feel your prayers and are so incredibly blessed with all our supporters. please continue to pray for the relationships we've formed so far and that the Lord would use us in any way to make His name known to those around us.

thank you to my wonderful team. you guys challenge me, encourage me, inspire me in more ways than you know. i praise Jesus for bringing each of you in my life.

and lastly, thank you dad for being one of the biggest blessings in my life. you have always encouraged me by pouring the word of God in my life and always telling me that Jesus is all i'll ever need in this life. thank you for teaching me this lesson ever since i was a little girl. you're a wonderful man of God and seriously one of the best people i know. i'm sorry i couldn't be there to go on a daddy-daughter date for father's day. but know that i was praising Jesus for you the whole day...and always. i love you so much dad. happy belated father's day!

-milc