i'm just getting started...

it's funny how a place so foreign can become so familiar to you.
through these past 6 weeks here, i've fallen deeply in love with Cambodia.  it's a new home.
the view, the language, the songs, the dancing, the food, and the people.
oh, especially the people. 
some of them have become my dear friends. i've gotten to know the depths of their hearts, i've seen them grow, and i'm continuing to see them grow. heck, this place has harvested a lot of growth in myself as well. i finally know what it's like to have Jesus be first in my heart. a song that has built a home in my heart says this:

Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross

there is such sweetness in understanding His love. it's like honey that lingers on your tongue. it wipes away all that doesn't matter, all silliness or foolishness of the past and shows you the clear path you've been looking for all along. Jesus is my one and only. He really is the only thing that matters, and as i draw closer to His heart, all other cares fall aside.
what a sweet place to be taught these things. it truly is the cry of my heart for everyone to experience this kind of love and intimacy. from the people i work with in the Cafe here, to the students i teach English to in the afternoons.
forever & ever Cambodia will be in my heart.

unfortunately, the time is winding down & we are beginning to wrap up the lessons and ministries we have been pouring into for the past two months. in only a few weeks, we will be saying goodbye and heading back to Kona. with some pit stops in (hopefully) Thailand & South Korea, we'll be saying hello to our old DTS family & graduating June 8th! a few too many hello and goodbye's for me in a matter of a few weeks...with a lot less clothes to come home with & barely any money, i'll hopefully be back in the states within that next week. 


speaking of finances, if you'd like to help be a part of the process of getting me back home, that would be absolutely grand. right now, i'm a couple hundred bucks short for a plane ticket, but i know the Lord will provide! know that any amount would help, whether that be $5, $25, or $100. just hit the donate button on the right hand side of this post & it will go straight into my paypal account!


i'm so amazed at where God has brought me. every person and every place has been so instrumental in this journey & i'm so excited to feel like i'm just getting started. the world is in my hands! i am so ready to follow God anywhere He leads me...especially with what i think is next, but that's another blog post to write ;-)

can't wait to see your faces & hear your voices! thank you all for your continuous love, support, and prayers. 
every ounce of my love to you guys from Battambang, Cambodia.

anticipation

i am currently listening to Amos Lee & Whitney Houston at the same time. thank you boys downstairs for your desire to "dance with somebody." here's to living in community.

we said goodbye to our first team heading out for their outreach today. they're starting their long voyage for South Africa. it was so bizarre to see them leave, a little piece of my heart went with them, but that's family. the fun thing to think about is that little pieces of our hearts are all over the world with one another! mines in grand rapids, chicago, nepal, honolulu, africa, germany, turkey, china, amsterdam & the east coast. it's amazing to have this culture, this family, this worldview of unconditional love for one another. to see it lived out. God has totally shifted my heart into understanding what true family is & YWAM's culture truly shows the beauty of what it is.

that there is a culture of honor & respect for everyone

the desire to call each other higher & see one another thrive in the original design God created for us

the way each person lays their life down for one another, the servant heart, living in surrenderance 

the generosity in community, nothing is ours so everything is shared

the true love we have for each others hearts.

God has cultivated a new mindset of what family looks like. of what community is, a new heart that is understanding how to love in a whole new way. 

our team totally runs with this. 

we want to live in

honor

respect

unity

laying down our entitlements

humility

trust

communication

having un-offendable hearts

living in joyful repentance

focusing on the positive

and we leave in two days!

we will be leaving kona around 6AM flying to honolulu with a 4 hour layover there, an 11 hour flight to Seoul, Korea with a 3 hour layover, and then a 6 hour flight to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia & a bus ride all the way to Battambang! so we will be traveling for 25hours+bus ride. here we go!


please keep our team in your prayers!


can't wait to be there.


if you guys want to keep in contact, i will only have internet once/twice a week, so email me at: ariel.jenae@gmail.com 
i would love to hear from all of you!


off to pack...
xxxxx!

wildhearted love

okay, i'll admit it, i've been really bad at keeping up with my blog. but i guess that's pretty obvious, my last real post was last month. people told me it would be hard to do before i left & i didn't really believe them, but man, it is. i'm so sorry. 
whenever i have free time i just want to soak it up with reading, talking with friends both here & at home, or getting all the rest i can, so blogging has kind of hit the back burner. i'll try and kick it up a notch. i do have some competition anyways. if you guys don't read Gretchen Baldwin's blog already, you should. she's a dear friend i met at SpringHill Camps in the summer of '10. currently she's in Cameroon, Africa doing some form of God given political artistic wonders or something. check out her words here: gretchbaby.wordpress.com plus, she's a babe.


//


it's funny waking up to Koreans singing worship in the morning. you should try it sometime. not only does it make me giggle, it makes me so happy.
they sing to Jesus unlike anyone i've ever heard. they have such a freedom, such a joy & delight, and so much hope in every word. they praise Him because He's worthy, not because they feel like it. praise Him for such wonderful people. praise Him for them being my alarm. praise Him for the unity He's going to bring to their nation.


i also just need to thank the Lord for the overwhelming income of mail over these past three weeks. i can honestly say that i've gone maybe 5 days without a letter or a package the past 21 days. PRAISE HIM! He must have told you all that mail is one of my favorite things on this earth...
& i can say that i'm probably set on skirts for the next 5 years. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Cambodia here i come!!!
each one of you has shown me so much love over these past few weeks, just an abundance of it & i honestly don't know how to receive it all. on my birthday i seriously sat out on my porch and cried the most overwhelmingly-happy tears i've ever cried.
what beautiful people you are. thank you thank you thank you. (it was one of the best birthdays i've had, ps. 21 is going to be a very good year, i just know it.)


//


so just to let you guys know i'm not dead, i'm here & i'm learning so much.
every day is a new revelation. a new side of the unfathomable love God has for us.
that wildhearted love. 


it's opened so many things to me.
who He is
how He loves me
who I am
who He calls us to be
how to be a laid down lover
how to live in a culture of people who delight in brokenness. 
to live in joyful repentance. 
to hunger to live in humility, to want to have a starving heart, and to be addicted to loving each other radically.


because it's all about the Kingdom.
because who you are is the culture of Jesus, not what you do. 
it's all about your heart.
it's all about the Kingdom of the heart.


//


He's preparing me.
i can't wait to go to Cambodia.
I can't wait to go back to Chicago.
I can't wait to go back home.
to go wherever He leads me.


//


ps--prayer requests! this Friday is our DTS's last deadline for our finances. our team is really relying on radical acts of generosity in this time & know whole heartedly that God will provide the finances to send all of us as a team to Cambodia. please pray for this provision to come through! some people really have exhausted their options & are relying on miracles to come through. if you feel God moving in your heart to donate to our team, just click the donate button & it will go straight to them! please know that even the smallest amounts help!


pps--please be praying for health across the base! the enemy is really trying to counteract all of the goodness and fruit that is being bore here by making people incredible sick. we know that Jesus bore our sickness on the cross & we don't want our bodies to relent! please fight against sickness with us!

<< team cambodia!




















xoxoxoxox

the vision

So this guy comes up to me and says,

"What's the vision? What's the big idea?"

I open my mouth and words come out like this...

The vision?

The vision is JESUS: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army.

And they are FREE from materialism -they laugh at 9-5 little prisons.

They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations, they need no passport.

People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.

They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.

It makes children laugh and adults angry.

It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.

It scorns the good and strains for the best.

It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.

It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.

This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.

A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great..

"Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don't need fame from names.

Instead they grin quietly upwards

and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground,

the whisper of history in the making,

foundations shaking,

revolutionaries dreaming once again.

Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing...

This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed -young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.

The tattoo on their back boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.

Winners.

Martyrs. Who can stop them?

Can hormones hold them back?

Can failure succeed?

Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking,with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting. Watching: 24 - 7 - 365.

Whatever it takes they will give:

Breaking the rules,

shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide,

laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,

laughing at labels, fasting essentials.

The advertisers cannot mold them.

Hollywood cannot hold them.

Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.

On the outside?

They hardly care!

They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate, but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?

They would lay down their very lives,

swap seats with the man on death row,

guilty as hell: a throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears,

with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings.

They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.

Don't you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdos!

Summon the losers and the freaks.

Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes!

They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow,

Mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven

and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be.

It will come to pass;

it will come easily;

it will come soon.

How do I know?

Because this is the longing of creation itself,

the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is His today.

My distant hope is His 3-D.

And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great "Amen!" from countless angels,

from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself.

And He is the original dreamer,

the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

having things you don't need

i admit it, i kind of have an obsession with long skirts. the good thing about this is that Cambodia only allows me to wear long skirts, because it's disrespectful to show your knees. the bad thing about this is that i only packed one long skirt & the weather will be in the 90-100's, extremely humid, and monsooning the whole time i'll be there.

so i thought i'd write a little something on a few things that i'm in need of.

firstly, long skirts.

my friends, [especially you wonderful thrifters over there in chicago], if you come across any skirt that is below the knee & feel the urge to send it my way, please do!

these skirts are good examples, and very lovely.

another need clothing wise are tshirts/dresses that cover the shoulder. i should have thought more when i was packing, but once again, i only packed about 2 tshirts, and i only have 1 dress that covers my shoulders [but i still have to wear leggings because of my knees]! linen pants, or capris would be wonderful too. ha, i'm going to be sweating like crazy. so once again, if you find lightweight tshirts or tshirt-dresses in your closet or in a store, please send them!

these are just nice, shoulder covering dresses that i adore.

so if you are out & about thrifting, shopping, cleaning out your closet, or have that bag that's been  waiting to go to Goodwill, remember me! ; ) lightweight, linen, cotton, shoulder and knee covering clothes are my new favorite things [& would make great birthday presents]!

thirdly, please continue praying for us all on our journeys here. for myself individually, that i would continue to pursue Jesus with an undivided heart & a fire in my soul, for my team as we unite as a family and prepare to go to Cambodia, for safety, for financial miracles to happen with everyone here, for revival to come to the nations, and for Gods love to be spread like wildfire and welcomed with open arms.

here's my address:

Ariel Frey

Fire & Fragrance DTS #429

75-5851 Kuakini Highway

Kailua-Kona, HI 96740

[i'll post more soon about all of the revelations & teachings i've been experiencing & listening to. there's been so much! i'm exhausted, but it's been so good. be patient with me :D]


can't wait for my birthday! only 12 more days...

heaven on earth

i heard angels singing tonight.

glimpse

my sweet love, Zilah

some chickens

my dream life

our aquaphonic farm

a nice hike up to the coffee plantation to see some beans.

the first buds of the coffee tree

my first time eating lychee [it tastes like a grape]

a lovely view to wake up to. i sure ain't in the midwest anymore.

paradise.

my lovely Michelle.

the day of sea turtles.