a new adventure!

What a year this has been.

With your help financially, emotionally, and spiritually, I was able to follow God’s call to Kona, Hawaii to be a student in Youth With a Mission’s Discipleship Training School.

The time spent in Hawaii and months later in Cambodia, changed my life.

God’s presence was so tangible and He spoke so clearly to me in that time. I was called out of comfort to live a life radically for Jesus. His love and grace has touched my heart in tremendous ways, and through faith I saw it radically transform peoples lives as I traveled.

I know Jesus as my Savior, my comforter, an incredible provider, and as my deepest friend.

Through worship sessions, hours spent in prayer, intentional discipleship, close knit friendships, hundreds of healings and salvations, and incredible lectures in class, I know that this is the life that God is calling me into.

I am overjoyed to tell you that I have been invited to staff YWAM this September. My heart is so full of life & joy to be able to have this opportunity. Through much prayer and confirmation, I have decided to accept that invitation and run with YWAM for the next two years.

This journey will be absolutely beautiful. It will be full of life, love, growth, long plane rides, challenges, friendships, visas, stamps on my passport, financial provision, music, and laughter.

The next nine months of my life will be spent in intentional leadership training, preparing my heart and mind to lead students further into their relationship with Christ & walk into the fullness of their destiny. Come September I will be spending forty days in Washington DC, leading, and managing 24 hour worship in a tent behind the White House leading up to the election. After those forty days, I will be traveling back to Hawaii to continue growing as a family in leadership and in the Word, working in the community, and on the YWAM base. After Leadership Track is finished, I will then staff the Fire & Fragrance Discipleship Training School from the months of January through June, where I will lead a team to another country to do missions.

Knowing what’s ahead, I am overjoyed to be laying my life down to be doing missions work for the Kingdom. With this commitment comes a lot of sacrifice, but so much life and an abundant amount of fruit.

None of this would be made possible without the love and support of my community. So firstly, I want to thank you for all of the love, encouragement, and support you have already given me. If you feel lead to continue walking with me through this journey God has given me, there are many ways to do so.

Firstly, I am living a volunteer lifestyle. I will be living day to day by the support of people who feel like God is leading them to financially support me. While staffing YWAM, I need to raise $600 a month for rent, food, health insurance, and other living expenses. If you feel like God is putting this on your heart, please let me know! Even If you spare your money on a meal once a month, a coffee a week, or feel lead to be a monthly supporter at any cost, it would be GREATLY appreciated & help tremendously. But most of all, I want to ask you to partner with me in prayer, for hearts to be radically encountered by the love of God, and for this world to be transformed through his grace and mercy.

All donations, letters, questions, and support of any form can be sent to my address at:

Ariel Frey

2641 Albert Dr.

East Grand Rapids, MI

49506

If you would like to donate online, my paypal email is:
ariel.jenae@gmail.com

Once again, I am so extremely thankful and full of joy to be sharing this journey with you and can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve already done for me.

I am truly blessed.

living close to You

Stir up our hearts, O LORD, that our trust in YOU would speak of YOUR SON. Grant us, YOUR people, the wisdom to see YOUR purposes today and the openness to hear YOUR will, that we may witness to CHRIST’s coming and so prepare HIS way; through JESUS CHRIST our LORD, who lives and reigns with YOU and the HOLY SPIRIT, one GOD, now and forever.

Amen

this prayer rings so true, the words are exact for the desires in my heart towards my time in Advent & also my journey towards YWAM.

there's selflessness that comes with this, humility, an act of surrendering your life over to be open to the call of our Father. a willingness to be the hands and the feet of our God here on Earth.

for He is coming and we were created to live for Him.

this holiday season has been the first time where i've really understood what it's supposed to be about. what being thankful looks and really feels like. what Advent means & how it should be reflected. 

it's not about the crunch time to find perfect gifts, how much money is in my bank account, what date everyone is coming into town, or all the times of parties and dinners and shows. & although i already know that's not what the Holiday season is about, it's what seems to be the consistency of the conversations and actions leading up to the arrival of Christmas day. we have this eagerness and anxiousness during Christmas season. we want to finish finals and have a breath of fresh air, we want to get home and spend time with our families, but this isn't the right anticipation in our hearts.

there's stillness, bountiful amounts of joy and excitement, tender moments that are alive with beauty that could only come from our Father and a deep understanding of what God is doing in the weeks leading up to Christmas. do we experience this everyday? or do we experience stress?

we need to slow down

to quiet our hearts & minds and sit with the Lord

to ask for wisdom to see His purpose in today 

to prepare the way for the Lord for HE HAS COME, HE IS HERE, AND HE IS COMING.

what could be a better time to live this out than now?

it's so evident how shackled i was, even weeks ago!, with doubts and fears of my future. I was not still. i was not meditating on Him. my mind was racing through every possible option of what could happen in the future, believing that I needed to have everything figured out and I could do that all on my own. I was not trusting.

BUT GOD HAS RELEASED ME. there has been a transformation in my life (isn't it amazing how He keeps renewing & restoring!?) i am listening. i am surrendering my doubts, my fears, my desires, my life, over to Him and my mind is refreshed! i am ALIVE and only breathing in excitement. 

He has been making all things possible for me, from giving peace & acceptance to my friends and family, to delivering incredible amounts of income overnight. i am going. & i give SO much of my thanks to all of you who read & are moved by what God is doing, He is showing tangible pieces of his love through your donations and kind words. He gives so much encouragement through them & it's so evident how supported I really am. thank you. from the bottom of my heart. for reading, for giving, for praying, for loving.

He gives and He gives and He gives and He gives.

living close to You

we shall see Your hand

Your purpose

Your will through all things.

-St. Ignatius

may we all continue to live close to Him

to be fully present in the work He is doing right now

to be open & willing to hear Him

to let Him use our hands & feet for His Kingdom

to be a strong warrior 

& to forever give glory and praise to Him

for a daily piece of meditation this Advent season, check out Beautiful Advent & soak up the good Word of God. He is coming.

stillness

i have a choice. 

everyday i am confronted with a decision. either to fall into worry & disbelief that the journey ahead of me will happen, or to trust, wholeheartedly, that God can do all things. that He can provide. that He can make YWAM happen.

& i have to remind myself this. daily. 

it's as if my mind tries to destruct all of this strength I have. as soon as I get up on my two feet, right as things are clear & i finally understand and believe, my mind finds every possible excuse, lie, or worry to replace all of the goodness and trust that was just planted.

but God is an intimate & all knowing God. this is when He does really beautiful things that just make me laugh at how silly my thoughts and actions are sometimes.

it's seems only right that i am experiencing these emotions right now, it's as if God has this witty little sense of humor reminding me that this is the time of Advent.

I need to still my heart.

stillness

do you know this word? have you experienced this in your heart?

there have been pure moments in the past few weeks where this tangible peace, this overwhelming sense of stillness has come over my heart. just a little reminder to quiet the thoughts in my head. to fully trust Him.

"remember, there are two things which are more utterly incompatible then even oil and water, and these two are trust and worry...when a believer really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about the thing which he has trusted. & when he worries, it is plain proof that he does not trust." Hannah Whitall Smith

"Jesus has come, Jesus is here, Jesus is coming"
i believe this.

I need to live my life acting like I believe this.

watching for Him.

living for Him.

being radically obedient for Him.

He has called me to go forth. to be a disciple to the Nations.

once struggling with a burden, my dearest friend Frances said this to me: "in that moment, when you choose other than to follow Christ in that decision, you are saying that He is not enough."

when i give in to worry, when i give in to fears and lies and deceptions, I am saying that my Maker is not enough. The one who made me. the one who sacrificed His whole life for me. so that i, a worthless sinner, could live. 

I need to make the choice.

to fully trust in Him.

i'm 1/3 of the way there financially. God provided an immense amount of money to me within a matter or two days last week to get me to this point. i'm 1/3 of the way there.

i can do this.

we can do this.

i will trust him.

i will quiet my mind.

i will still my heart.

i will be like Phillip & radically obey Him.

i will follow Him.

take heart

"isn't it a great thing to feel the indwelling of the Holy Spirit permeate your entire being? and then follow his guidance into the unknown?

it is a ball of fright, passion & humility.
it is something that will impact the rest of your existence here.
don't forget about the journey it took to get to this point. Don't forget about the actual experience, the sentences you'll be living will end in a chapter. And don't forget to continue to let the Holy Spirit guide you as you heed his call -- even after this chapter is complete, you still have a whole story to live."

may the Holy Spirit guide your thoughts and actions. may you fully trust in the one who made you. may you relinquish all control to experience the freedom that openly awaits you. may you find joy and peace. may you die to yourself so that you may bring true life.

all things are possible through Him who dwells in me.

take heart, oh child.