The question is "Why?"

Hello everyone! I realize that the longer I am here in Australia, the less and less I write because of the millions of things I am doing constantly while being here. I have a super busy schedule so i apologize if anyone gets annoyed with how long I wait in between posts to update. But in all honesty, I update more than most anyone else in my DTS :) SUCCESS! The last few weeks have been very interesting for me. I would like to say that I have been through a whole lot but in all honesty the only thing that has been on my heart and mind for the last few weeks is the question "why on earth am I here?" I know my reasoning for wanting to come here in the beginning but ever since being here I have come to realize that God actually had different plans for me but I just didn't know what those plans were yet. So while I am learning a TON of new things and God is giving many revelations about my life and my past and my future, I still have been so confused as to why God has me doing this DTS in Brisbane Australia. I keep asking things like "why am I here? What is my purpose? Why do I have times when Your voice is clear, God? Why do I go through silent periods like now? Why is my family going through stuff when I can't be there? Why am I sad? Why do I feel like I am not growing? Why is communication so hard? Why do You have me across the world? Why did I come with no money? How do i get the money I need? Will You get me to Malaysia? Why Australia now? Why, why, why, why, why...?" And it drives me CRAZY! And in these moments and in my doubts I have realized that I tend to hide them deep inside me so that no one knows i am struggling or so no one worries about me. I hide it so I can focus on making sure everyone else around me is okay...and while I know helping others is not a bad thing, holding everything that is hurting me inside IS a bad thing... I have not been trusting God 100% with my circumstances and I know that and I confess and repent of that. But that doesn't make it any easier. I don't like going through struggles because I don't want to be weak. I want to be strong for myself so I can be strong with others...but I am learning that being strong and bottling everything up inside are not the same thing and that is a hard process to work through. And because I allow myself to hold onto everything I then wind up breaking down completely on nights like tonight when out of no where God decides to answer my ultimate overall question of "why am I here?" Before I tell you what my revelation has been I would like to say sorry to everyone who reads my blogs. I definitely try to be as honest as I can with everyone on my blog but I also definitely try to not share all my struggles and while I don't think it is necessary to always give details of my struggles, I would like you to know that I won't try to hide that I have struggles anymore and I am going to try and NOT bottle things up inside. SO NOW! My revelation? Why am I here? Tonight God told me through another person that this DTS is not so I can become a better person or a stronger Christian. It is not so I can gain a lot of Christian knowledge. I am here on DTS because God wants to show me His heart and He wants to literally show me His love He has for me. I am His daughter and even when I feel like I don't need to be helped because I am the strong one and people around me need love, comfort, and protection more, God still sees me. He sees my real heart, me real fears, my tears, my pains, my hurts, my triumphs, my laughs, my joys, and my victories and He LOVES me! I AM a warrior for God and I want to be an even stronger warrior for God, but first and foremost, I am God's child. His beloved princess and I am here in Australia away from everyone I love and hold most dear so that there is NOTHING standing in between me and God's love and His heart for me. I hope you don't mind my openness. I felt lead to share this with my readers. Please keep me in your prayers and if you have encouragements, I would be honored to read them. I love you all so much and really appreciate everyone's love and support. Thank you for reading! Many blessings, Christianna.

Roller Coaster!!!!

I have been through SO much since my last blog update and I am sorry I have not updated for so long. It has been a roller coaster of activities and emotions! So I apologize if this blog turns out to be annoyingly long! Let's start with last week! Last week my MAD DTS school went to Bryon Beach which is about 2 hours away from where we live and we took part in the Red Frogs organization. The job of the Red Frogs is to go out everyday and night for 1 to 3 weeks to help out and take care of the schoolies. Schoolies, for those that don't know, are the youth in Australia that have just graduated and they all go out for a week together and just party. Every night. Getting drunk pretty much every single night. So, my school went and took part in Red Frogs and we spent the week taking care of these crazy drunk kids. It was such a crazy experience! For the week we all stayed and slept on a church floor in one room together and our schedule was as follows: Breakfast was at 8 and we had to be packed up every day and ready to go at 9am to go do pancake runs. For the pancake runs, schoolies would call in and request for red frogs to come to their apartments or hotels and make them pancakes for breakfast after their long night of partying. So after pancake runs we would then go have lunch with the rest of the 110 Red Frogs. After that we would have a few hours of free time and then we would go to dinner with the other Red Frogs at 5:30. Then we would have community meeting and then at 7:30pm all the different Red Frog teams would set out to start evangelizing and taking care of schoolies until 12:00am. That was our schedule for the whole week and it was EXHAUSTING! But God did amazing things! Aside form taking drunk, throwing up kids home and aside from taking kids to the hospital and having kids try and get you to drink, and aside from feeling violated numerous times, it was an amazing time because God was moving and He was protecting those kids SO MUCH! I was even able to pray with one girl one night about locating her lost phone and ID on the beach in the pitch black and 3 hours later she came running back up to me saying God answered my prayer because she had found it!!! The more the week went on, the more pumped up I got! I just wanted to serve these kids in Jesus' name and it was SO worth it!!! If you are ever given a chance to take part in something like Red Frogs, do it. You will never be the same after you have because God will show you SOOO much. So we came back to Mitchelton on Saturday and we had a relaxing weekend. Then this week began and out lecture topic for this week was Worship. I have been looking forward to this topic since I got here because I desperately want my life to be a life of worship and I want to know how to do it properly and in the most loving way to God. My entire view of what worship is has totally changed and God is revealing so much to me!!! Then on top of THAT, beginning at 7:00pm last night (Wednesday)we began a 24 hour day of worship. And ever since then we have had non-stop music and worship playing in our media centre!! It has been such a beautiful adventure. I stayed up and just worshiped God until 3:30am and then headed off to bed and when I woke up this morning I began worship immediately again and am still going! And the best part is, even though this 24 hours specifically has music playing non-stop, I am learning and truly experiencing the fact that worship is a lifestyle and you don't need to be surrounded by Christian music in order to be in constant worship. I want my life to really be all about worshiping God and that is what I will strive for all the time. Our 24 hours of "worship night" will end at 7:00pm tonight, but the real worship will actually never end. God is so good and SO worth praising constantly! And just to finish this update with an AMAZING praise report...I still need to pay my last tuition payment as well as over $2000 for my outreach payment and I have none of that money. Well, right before I went to lunch today I checked my mail box and found not only a beautiful letter from my big sissy that made me weep, but I found an envelope in my box with just my name on it with $300 inside. I don't know who it is from but it was just a gift and I am FREAKING out! God IS provider and He continues to blow my mind every day! I could not thank Him enough for this blessing! It's not everything I need but it is a big chunk. Have faith everyone. No matter what you are going through, God WILL provide for you. Thank you all SOOO much for your prayers and support! I love you all and can't wait to update you again! with many blessings,

Christianna!

The Wait is OVER!

I HAVE SOME BIG NEWS! The big news that all of you have been waiting for!!! AND THE BIG NEWS I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR! After a week of a lot of prayer and confirmation with God my friends Shannon, Eliza, Lizan, Austin, our leader Paige, and myself will be leaving in February for our outreach missions trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And where is THAT?!?! ....................... KUCHING MALAYSIA!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOO! I am SO excited for this outreach and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for this trip! The outreach is going to be around $2000 and I still need support and help to raise those funds but I am so excited because I know God will provide those funds for me in His perfect timing. Thank you all SOO much for your prayers and support! Please continue to do both! And pray that God will now start preparing my heart and my team's heart for this mission's trip. He has big things in store and we all just want to make God proud. I AM EXCITED!!! Many Blessings, Christianna White

Sickness and Prayers

Well! I am sure most of you have heard about the VERY strange happenings of the last 48 hours here at the YWAM base in Brisbane Australia! Beginning at around 2:00am on Sunday morning, more than half of the people on the base got sick. Really sick. Everyone was up periodically throughout the night throwing up non-stop. I first noticed it at 3:00am when I woke up to my bunk buddy puking in a bucket underneath me and then a girl in the bed right next to me got up right after that and ran to the bathroom to do the same. I got up to see if I could help them but there was nothing I could do. Then pretty soon, I was hearing girls running to the bathroom quite frequently and hearing them puke. Then not long after all this happened, I started hearing all the guys from downstairs doing the same thing. By the following morning around 60 of our 70ish people on base were super sick. At the time I was part of the group that was NOT sick thankfully. So I, along with a few others, left the base for the day to get out of that environment while everyone was trying to recover. Unfortunately I began to get sick while I was in South Bank with a friend of mine. But my sickness didn't very hard until I got back that evening at around 4. By then however I was in horrible pain and it felt like someone was stabbing my stomach and back repeatedly. I have never felt anything like it. Thankfully I never threw up but I couldn't move without being horrible pain. That lasted for most of the night. Once Monday rolled around (today) almost everyone was totally healed by the grace of God. I too was feeling so much better! I was no longer in pain. After our lectures today I started getting sick to my stomach though so once classes were over at 12:30ish i just went to my room and I slept until around 5:00pm. I felt MUCH better after waking up and am still doing good! God has helped everyone on base to recover now and now it's just a matter of gaining all our strength back which is happening pretty smoothly. I just wanted to update all of you on everything that has been happening because I know some people have been wanting details and have been worried. But because of everyone's prayers and God's healing power, everyone is doing much better and everyone is almost completely back to normal. And everyone is getting healthy at just the right time too because at the end of this week we will be saying goodbye to students from one of the other schools on base because they are graduating. This is the School for Acting on the Screen. We have come close to many of these students and one of them particularly has been a huge blessing in my life so I am very excited to see them graduate having done such an amazing job at their school. I am of course sad to see them leave too however. Also within this week we all find out where we are going for outreach! So by this weekend I will be able to do another blog update telling everyone where I am going! And aside from my 3 projects due this week, on the 15th I am supposed to turn my next payment to the school which currently can't happen because I do not have the money. So please pray for provision in that area and pray for a miracle. God has me here for a reason and I know He will provide but prayers and support are ALWAYS welcome! Thank you all so much for always supporting me and loving me. You have blessed my life incredibly! I am so grateful for all of you! Hope the update has helped calm some friends and family down. I look forward to my next update! Blessings -Christianna White

A week of Fasting

I have learned an incredible amount of new things this last week and I am SO excited to be able to share it with all of you! Last weekend on Saturday I really felt like God was leading me to fast from the internet and from WiFi on my computer and phone all together. I really thought God was wanting me to spend a lot of time with Him this specifically and more than normal. Which is something I should have been doing all along and hadn't been doing! So I agreed to the fast and this whole last week I haven't been online. And I am ashamed to admit that it was really difficult for me because I definitely get on the internet a lot so not doing that was a challenge! However, I have learned a LOT and God has shown me amazing things! The first thing that got me excited about what the week was going to hold was when we went into lectures on Monday and I found out that the week's theme was Hearing the Voice of God. It couldn't have been more appropriate! So throughout the week I have been talking to God a lot and listening and for the first time in my life, I am realizing when God is actually talking to me. And I am recognizing His voice!!! My mind has been blown by this! Just one story to express what this week has looked like took place on Friday(yesterday). During our lecture hours on Friday we spent the time processing everything we learned from our speaker throughout the week. So I was writing several different letters processing a few different questions. The gist of what my letters said was that I know I hear God's voice but my whole life I have convinced myself that it isn't Him. It took me a long time to accept that the reason I never gave God the credit for talking to me is because I have never felt worthy enough to be someone who He desires to talk to. The Lord has helped me come out of this lie this week and it is such a freeing feeling. However, in this processing time God also directed me to a verse in Revelation that talked about how when we are willing to open the door of our hearts God will patiently wait and come in when we ask Him to. So I wrote this verse out in my letters. Then when we went back inside after the processing time our leader Kale told us we were going to be doing an activity. So everyone in the room took a folded piece of paper out of a cup and it had a person's name on the paper. We were not allowed to look at the name yet though because first we had to spend time in prayer asking God what it was He wanted us to say to the person whose name was on the paper we were holding. So everyone took time and wrote down what they were inspired to write. Then right when we thought we were going to open the papers and see whose name we had, Kale told us to switch papers with the person to our right and THEN open the paper. Then who ever you had on your paper, that is the person you were to give your letter to. Anyway, long story short, the person who drew my name found me and asked if she could read what she had written to me out loud. So we went and sat in the corner of the room together and she read to me the words she got from God and everything in the letter was direct responses and answers to EVERYTHING I had just been writing during our processing time!!! Word after word God was talking to me through this other person and I was just weeping. God is so amazing guys and He is so faithful! When it comes to knowing God's voice one thing I have learned this week is that it isn't about literally "hearing" God's voice. It is all about getting closer to God and spending more time with Him. The closer you get, the more you will hear Him AND understand Him. I have been blown away this week and God is STILL showing me new things. I really just want to encourage everyone back home to always take time and just spend time with God. It's never disappointing!He WANTS to spend time talking with us now it's our turn to WANT to spend real time with Him too. So! In the midst of learning all of this, I am happy to announce that I think I know where I will going on my outreach but I will not be making it public to anyone until next week sometime. So, right now I just ask for your prayers and for a lot of clarity on the subject because I want to make sure that the place I choose to go on outreach is the place God wants me to do the most good. Thank you all so much for your support. Please continue to support me and pray for me. You are all so encouraging to me and have helped me so much. I am so grateful!

Many blessing, Christianna!

Testimony Dance!

I have found it so encouraging how my last blog update has been used to bless so many people in this last week. In all honesty, it was completely unexpected! I guess the times when you don't have a lot to say are the times God uses to say exactly what people needed to hear. For this update there a just a few things I wanted to share. The first thing was a statement that my lecturer said in class today. We call him Topi Papa because his last name is too hard to pronounce as well as he is teaching us about the Father heart of God this week so calling him "Topi Papa" is fitting. Anyway! One thing he said to today that really stood out to me was "When we (believers) don't get scared, the enemy gets scared." This stood out to me because recently my heart has been desiring to become a really strong warrior for Christ but the thing that holds me back more than anything else is doubt and fear. So! When times are rough or seem like everything is falling apart, don't get scared. Have faith in God's timing and know that the more you trust God, the more nervous the enemy gets! WOO! The Second thing I wanted to share with you was something that REALLY encouraged me. Last Tuesday we were given our first dance assignment as most of you know. That assignment was to take part of our testimony and choreograph it into a three minute dance. Well! Today, we performed those dances for the first time. And let me start off by saying, I am in SUCH a talented class of people. The dances were incredible and everyone's stories were amazingly told! But what was so encouraging to me was the feedback and suggestions my classmates gave me after my dance. Everyone who gave feedback all told me that throughout my dance, they could see my passion for acting and a lot of them encouraged me by telling me they see my gift I have in that area. That BLEW my mind!!! The fact that I am not even doing acting right now and yet people still see my love and heart for it makes me feel so much more confident in the fact that acting is ultimately where God wants me after this DTS is over. And I am just so excited to see what that is going to look like when that time comes! HOWEVER! On top of being encouraged in the fact that people can see my love and passion for acting, they also challenged me to make sure I don't use my "acting abilities" as a crutch when it comes to dancing. They encouraged me to take a step forward and have faith in my dancing skills in this time as well and to develop those skills in a way I haven't ever done before as well! So while I was still always use acting to help tell all my stories, I am excited to learn how to make that a controlled decision; not just a crutch when I "don't know what dance move to use"! So yeah! It was a super good day! And finally, for my family. Tonight we had a worship night and long story short, I got up and told my whole M.A.D. school about the situation at hand and everyone came together and touched me as a representative for the family and everyone out loud just cried to God praising Him and thanking Him and asking Him for healing in every aspect of everything going on. It was so powerful and I just want you all to know that that praying isn't stopping and God is going to do an AMAZING miracle through this situation! I love everyone! Thank you guys for reading, praying, and supporting me. I am finally loving it here and for the first time, this week I have comfortably been able to say i'm not ready to come home yet AND that right now, these people are my family. God is blessing me through the good and the bad and your prayers have a LOT to do with it! So thank you! With Love, Christianna!

God is Good

In all honesty, I don't have really anything to update you all on. I just kind of wanted to take a moment to tell you about a small story and little lesson a good friend of mine helped me realize today. Today started off roughly because of difficult news I found out from back home. While I was skyping my mom and dad back home, a friend of mine kind of overheard and just saw that something was going on so he asked me about it. After sharing it with him he took the time to pray over my family and I and then he promptly gave a book and took me to a specific chapter that literally talked about the exact situation I had just shared with him. I carried the book around with me all day and never really had enough time to read it. I wound up having a good day despite some of the hard emotions I was having but during lunch this friend of mine still just hugged me pretty much until the tears started to actually happen. He didn't even say anything but the sentiment of how much he cared impacted me a lot. Anyway! Later this evening I was sitting outside the cafe here on base waiting for it to open and decided to read that chapter my friend gave me. The chapter was amazing and it encouraged me so much. After reading it I immediately sent the info about it to my mother to read when my friend (his name is Kane btw) walked up right then. So I told him I finally read it and I thanked him for it because of how encouraging it was. And while I thought that would be the end of the conversation, it wasn't. He kept talking to me and then I started asking questions... Little side-note and background info, he is an actor and has been in the industry and his perspective on acting and everything he has experienced since he got saved has been such an inspiration to me since the first day I met him. And he knows i want to be an actress. Back to the story. So while we are talking about all the stuff that my family has gone through and is now going through I was telling him how hard it is for me to bring it God because I have never gotten answers from Him about the reasons for why hard things keep happening. And I was telling him about how the most difficult thing for me about being here in Australia so far is not being able to be at home for my family. Especially when things like this happen. I am so grateful for my friend because he immediately brought truth into my life that no one has ever made clear to me before. And it made sense! He told me that Christian's so often get caught up in the "there's a reason for everything" and they neglect the fact that God didn't make these things happen. He allows them to happen and He then takes the hard things that end up happening and He turns them into good things eventually. Why? Because God is Good. And the fact of the matter is, I need to let go of my family and I need to allow myself to fully and truly trust that God IS taking care of my family. And He is and always will do a MUCH better job then I could ever even attempt to do. After all this I was feeling very emotional because I knew Kane was right and it was hard to accept but I was always grateful for his honesty and his encouraging words but I was trying to hold in my tears. And that brings me to the other lesson I learned tonight. Actors cannot allow their emotions to control them. In order to be successful, we have to accept our emotions and allow ourselves to vulnerable because they are the most believable actions an actor could do. And allowing yourself to cry, or be angry, or be happy, or be sad is also the best way we as humans can cope. So long as in the end we give everything back to God. So tonight I have learned, there isn't a "reason" for everything, but in the end it will be good because God is good; God is the one who takes care of my family, not me; As an actor, I have to allow myself to have emotions even in the times I don't want them. SO! That is my story. I am so grateful for God's love and provision and I am so grateful for the people He keeps placing in my life. I feel like I have a new older brother who i can easily go to when I need encouragement. So! The truth of the day?! GOD IS GOOD!

Well! My first week of MAD YWAM is almost over and already I am completely consumed with homework and assignments! It is crazy! It is amazing but LOTS of work. I always knew I would be grateful to Trinity and all the ridiculous amount of work they gave us in High School! It comes in handy now! I am very happy to say that life has just been looking up! God is really helping me to keep my focus on my time here in Australia rather than always thinking about home which sounds like it is harsh that I am excited about this, but it is actually a really good thing! Why?! Because I have been able to just stay focused on my personal relationship with God and that has been such a blessing and it will just continue to be life changing! I am so happy and excited to be able to say that! Today we were given our first assignment in dance and it is going to be hard. We have to take a small part of our testimony and turn it into a three minute choreographed dance. And we have one week to perfect it. It is a lot of work but I am SO excited to do it! I know that with God's help, inspiration, and guidance everyone's dances are going to be beautiful! It has been such a blessing to be able to use dancing freely as a type of worship. I love it! Anyway! Thank you everyone for always praying for me and thank you for supporting me! I should find out within the next month where my outreach will be! I am excited to share those results with all of you! But I also ask that you keep praying about supporting me because $$ is always a factor in the life of missionaries who literally live off of support. So if you would like to support or donate to me, go to one of my first blog posts and go to the bottom of the page and click the donate button in order to send money to my PayPal account. Thank you all so much again for your prayers. I continue to ask for them!! I love and miss you all! With love and Blessings, Christianna!!!

Testimonies

Hello Everyone! Thank you all for your prayers. The amount of emotions I have been feeling this week have been off the wall!!! They have been everywhere! I have had hard core lows and also hard core highs! Ultimately God has just been working on my heart non-stop and today I was incredibly encouraged because we spent the whole day sharing and listening to our testimonies. It was incredible! It was draining for sure because of all the emotions these stories bring out in the people sharing and in us who are listening. But God's provision in everyone's life is just beautiful! And I have really seen how blessed I am with my home life and my friends who surround me. You are all amazing and I am so fortunate with the life I have been given. So thank you to everyone who has been a part of making it so blessed. Anyway! In other news, I have found out that we do not have a system at my base where you can donate to me directly through the school. SO! If you would like to do so, you will have to do it through my PalPal which you will be able to do through any of my blog posts soon. The donate button will be on the bottom of the page and you can choose how much you would like to donate. Or, if you would like to write a check, you can just send that check to 3196 Willow Creek Rd. PMB 251, prescott Az, 86301 and my mother will put it directly into my bank account. Email me if non of these are the way you would like to donate and we can figure something out together! I have to turn in my next payment of about $2500 on November 15th. And honestly, I have NO idea how that payment is going to happen. That one or the final one of $2000 due two weeks later. Hearing some stories today, I know that God does and will provide the money! And honestly, i am just excited to see how He does that! There is never a boring part of living a dedicated life to God! He is truly just FULL of surprises! And I am slowly learning that it is best to try to enjoy those surprises. Even the difficult and unpleasant ones because in the end, it will always be for the best. Because His plan IS the best. And the journey getting there will be worth the struggles. For now I just ask for lots of prayers and for support. On top of my payments, I DO have to live which means I have to buy things too. It is unfortunate and SO hard only being able to wait and see if the money is there one day in your account and not being able to go work for it and KNOW it is there. God always provides and He always will, but it is HARD! Let's be honest. Not working in order to support yourself is not an easy thing. But it is humbling. So praise Jesus! Anyway! Thank you all again for reading my posts and having patience with my hard core mood swings lately and thank you SOOO much for praying for me! They ARE working and it is beautiful to be a part of! I miss everyone and pray for you all the be blessed! With Thanks, Christianna

Day 1: Prayers

Today was our official first day at MAD. It was Orientation all day. Just a LOT of listening. It was good and there was a lot of information to take in. Basically at this moment in time, I truly am excited to see where this journey is going to and I am excited to see how God is going to work in my life and in the lives of people around. Right now however, I ma feeling very lonely. I have been talking to tons of people and getting on a friendly basis with everyone, but there isn't any one person or two persons who I am connecting with and it is really bringing me down. I'd like to say that it is because i ma young. But EVERYONE here is young and I am definitely not the youngest so that's not an excuse. So far I DO seem to be the only who has never been away from home before so I am sure that is part of it. In fact I know it is. I am terribly homesick. Right now I just want to ask all of you to life me up in your prayers. I have never felt lonely before so I don't really know how to handle it. But I am doing my best. It is also very difficult dealing with the time difference from home. It's such a struggle to find time to talk to everyone there AND socialize with everyone here. And then, my final complaint for this "cheerful" blog, I am also officially stressing over money. I don't have any money and I need to turn in about $2500 by November 15th and another $2000 two weeks after that. PLUS I still need to be paying for my laundry and personal items. Basically to sum up my feelings right now, I am stressed, poor, and lonely and I need help. Help that I KNOW can only come from God but help that will come through prayers and support as well. (which are all gifts from God). I am sorry my posts haven't been the most uplifting and cheerful but I figured everyone would want me to be honest in my blog about how I am doing so that is what I am going to do. Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far and thank you for your prayers. I miss everyone. A lot. I will be praying for all of you too! Many blessings, Christianna

Thank You!

My last update was definitely a downer! There is no denying that! However, I am so happy and thankful for all the support and prayers I have received since then! And because of all your encouragement and with a few more days to actually get to know the area I am in, I am feeling a LOT better about everything! The day after I last posted, I went to my YWAM base where I got to meet majority of all my leaders and got a tour of the base. It was absolutely amazing. The people were so wonderful and loving and it was great meeting other people who also have come from the States. There are people there from Tuscon, California, Indiana, Kansas, and Colorado too! It was such a blessing to meet them and to hear their stories. But the best part was hearing about how much the LOVE it here in Australia. I know I am going to love it here as well but I also know my homesickness isn't going anywhere. But that will be the beauty of my growing relationship with the Lord while I am here. I know He is going to help me through all of this. So! YAY! I am getting excited and anxious to finally start my schooling! However, one thing I am not looking forward to is of course having to pay for my living. And YES, i DO know this is how it works in the adult life! Haha but I also know, it is FAR cheaper in America. Let's just say in the last 5 days, I have learned to REALLY appreciate my home and my country despite all our problems. :) Right now I just continue to ask for prayers and for support as this journey truly begins! Also keep praying for my father's health! He is doing a LOT better today but please pray it stays this way. He deserves to have an amazing visit too! Thank you all so much! The next time I update my blog, I will be moved in a ready to start my schooling at YWAM! Praise the Lord! I love you all and really appreciate you guys! You're all in my prayers as well!! AND remember! If you want to stay in personal contact with me either facebook message me or email me at chrissy.white1994@gmail.com

BLESSINGS! Christianna

I am here!

  So I arrived in Brisbane with my father safely on the 10th of October (yesterday) and basically this is going to be Christianna Honest Hour, it was the worst traveling experience of my life. My father wound up with a throbbing, horrible earache (which he still gets every now and then) and then, every stop I was slowly being cut off from the ones I love because I no longer have cell phone service AND the wifi keeps getting less and less. So, I have no way to talk to anyone. Once we finally got the Brisbane airport, we then spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how to get to our hotel. Eventually we figured it out! I was excited to get to the hotel because when we booked the room, they advertised for their free wifi....their free wifi that they get from the park across the street. The wifi that doesn't even work when you're directly IN the park. SO! Unless I am directly hooked up to the wifi cord in the hotel's computer section, I can't talk to anyone. And that has been the most lonely experience.
  I am beyond grateful to have my father here but lets be honest, the two of us together and alone has always been somewhat of a lost puppy situation. Anyway, once I was finally able to get in contact with my mom, she was able to ease up my horrible feelings a bit. After seeing that I had clearly been sobbing the entire trip, she told me not to feel stuck. If I absolutely need to come home, I can.
  I am in a hard place right now because while I feel a LOT better after getting good rest and experiencing a little more of Australia, I am still sickeningly homesick and so far, i can't shake it.
  Today I am going to go to the YWAM base and check it out which I have a feeling is going to help me out bunches! But for now, I really just ask for your prayers, your encouragement and for clarity for me. I want to stay and go through this once in a lifetime experience, but I also don't want to come home to the people I love more than anything. I need clarity. I need prayers.
  We always knew I was dramatic person... but the last 3 days, you should feel lucky you haven't had to deal with me ;D
  I love you all and I hope my next blog can be more chipper! Thank you for your support and prayers! I look forward to seeing the reason for why God put me through such heartache right now.
  THANK YOU!

with love,
Christianna <3

The "Trap" was a success!

I warned you there would be an update soon so here it is!!! But fair warning, if you are not in the mood or you don't have time to read a long story then you should probably exit from the page now! I would like to share with you all the full story of "The Mouse Trap" and the whole process we went on to make it happen! So here you go! Last school year (senior year) in the winter, I applied to YWAM's MAD DTS in Brisbane Australia in the hopes that I would be accepted and able to prepare for a long, difficult, and fun journey! I remember the very day I read the email that told me I had been accepted! I was in the gymnasium working on my senior thesis. When I read it, I burst into tears and I ran and interrupted my mothers class so that I could tell her the news! :) It was amazing! After finding out I got accepted however, there came the time when I needed to begin preparing to leave financially. I had no idea how I was going to raise the money to go. I didn't have a job, I didn't have time to get a job, and I never have any money as it is! SO! Fundraisers were my best option. So i did a few yard sales and made decent amount from those. But it was shortly after this that my mother and I came up with a brilliant idea. With my passion for acting and with my mother's directorial and artistic skills, putting on a play seemed like a fun way to earn a little cash to help with my YWAM payments. For a couple weeks or so we went back and forth over the logistics of how it would work. What play would we do, where would we have it, who would be in it, when would we do it, could we even make it happen? Long process short...my mom came to me one day and said "I know which play we are going to do!!! I have always wanted to do this play and it would be different and so much fun! We are going to do Agatha Christie's 'A Mouse Trap!'" My first thought was "no" because I wanted to do a musical originally but then my mother had me read the book that the play was based off of; "Three blind Mice by Agatha Christie". After reading the book and reading the twist ending, i wanted to do this play! I knew it would be so fun! So we bought the rights to play and the journey began! First thing was first. We needed a cast. Thankfully it was a small cast. Only 8 players were needed and my mother and I decided we wanted to had pick our actors based on the talented people we already knew. So at the end of the school year while my mother was getting permission from Mr. Maestri and the Church to use the trinity stage a gym, and while she was booking the dates for out play in the school and church office, I was out asking my wonderfully talented friends if they would be willing to do a play with me to help me raise money for Australia. Claire Eliason (Mrs.Boyle) and Sarah Blount (Miss Casewell) were not only willing but they were excited to be a part of it! And anxious! Garrett Smith (Mr.Paravacini)hesitated only for a moment and then consented to helping "only because it's for you". Michael Zavala (Christopher Wren) was not sure at first but he said he would do it because he really wanted to help me out in some way. Then I had to ask someone whom I KNEW had the talent but who had never acted before and it didn't seem like he ever would. I asked Micah Jimison (Sergeant Trotter) if he would be in a play to help me raise money. And surprisingly enough, he immediately said yes. Carlos Chavez (Giles Ralston) didn't think twice about it. He has always been sweet to me and he would always do anything for me. Then we had one other person who was going to play Major Metcalf, but once summer started they wound up leaving town and could no longer be in the production. So, we turned to a man who has always been gifted in acting and who has always been one of my biggest inspirations to do my acting; My father. And so it was that Dan White became Majot Metcalf. When rehearsals first began in the summer we had no where to practice so we decided to practice at the PV Library on their outside stage. Not only would we be able to set up a few "props" to lay out the stage set up, but doing it outside made it so that we absolutely HAD to project because one thing we knew we were not going to use for this play were microphones. So for a couple of weeks we would rehearse outside in the evenings at the library, but it became very apparent that this was not going to work any longer because not only was it becoming monsoon season, but the mosquitoes were eating us alive every night. It was awful! We had no idea where to go when Sarah Blount told us that her parents said we would be able to use their downstairs in their house whenever we needed it for rehearsals. They were so gracious and helpful to us. All of us are still extremely grateful! So out rehearsals were held in the Blounts basement from then on. This play was extremely difficult to memorize because there was NOTHING but dialogue non-stop. We needed a prompter to help us as we began to go off script so we asked Zach Jimison if he would come prompt for us whenever we needed "lines". However, pretty quickly, Zach's job was no longer prompter. He quickly became the understudy for just about everyone. Whenever someone had to miss a rehearsal, Zach stepped in and became them. The people he wound up playing the most wese Paravacini and Wren because both of them were very busy over the summer and couldn't always make it. So Zach became the understudy and eventually became Christopher Wren for out second showing because he deserved to actually be in the play after all the work he put into helping us. However, then we were STILL in need of a prompter. So we asked Olivia Chavez if she would be willing to help us. And she did! And we would never have learned our lines if it was not for her help. Practices and lines all started to get easier and started to run smoother. But then, school started back up again and our rehearsal times needed to change to match all the actor's schedules. Eventually we got into our new routine but it was never really the same from then on. We always to decide on our "next practice" after every rehearsal. It was difficult. We needed more rehearsals especially since the play was creeping up very quickly. Then, the weekend before the play was upon us and it was finally time to build the sets. So we gathered all the props we could and we built the sets in one weekend. Then, the week of the play was here. This was the most difficult week of my life because when we booked the gym for our play, the only days we were able to have the gym were that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We didn't really have much time to rehearse on our actual stage with our actual sets. So we had one rehearsal before getting on our stage one last time at Sarah's house on Wednesday. And during this rehearsal, my mother's car got totaled by someone. It was a hit and run accident. We couldn't drive our car home and we were down to one car with a house of three drivers all who had things that needed to be done that week. So Thursday morning I my dad took my mom and I to Trinity so he my mom could go to work and so he could go to work. And while I was at Trinity I would be painting our sets that had to go up that night after we set the stage up after school. Then we found out cross country had a practice run after school so we were going to lose 2 of our 8 cast members so we had to set the stage up the last 2 periods of the day so they could help. Once the stage was up we put the walls of our "Monskwell Manor Guest House" up. All of this took the entire night though so we lost a day of rehearsing to setting up the stage. The next day was dress rehearsal and we planned to run through the play once, get dressed and ready, and then have the dress rehearsal that way we could have two rehearsals before the play and so that Michael and Zach would each be able to rehearse their parts as Christopher before they had to perform. Our first rehearsal was not able to happen however, because Trinity's High School volleyball team needed to have a practice before their big game Monday and Cross Country had to have a practice before their meet the next morning. So While Cross Country practiced, the volleyball team took half of the gym for their practice. Thankfully everyone was able to get done what they needed to have done. But we still needed a rehearsal before our production the next day. So we had dress rehearsal. And this rehearsal was the very first time any of us had used costumes, had used the set, or had used all props. It was difficult. Not only that, but through this rehearsal Michael and Zach had to take turns being on stage after every scene. That way they could both have a feel for acting on the stage. Dress rehearsal was rough. We panicked and forgot lots of lines but it was overall, we knew we would be fine the next day! So then, it was Saturday! The day of the play! That morning at 4:00am both Micah and Garrett had to go to PHX early and run for their cross country meet so they could be back for the play by 12:30pm. Praise the Lord though! They both did amazing! Garrett got 4th place and Micah got 6th! As a team they got 2nd! Trinity sports teams are amazing!!! So Micah and Garrett got to the school, everyone got dressed and ready for the first performance and at 12:30 we did The Mouse Trap for the first time with everyone in their right places. It went so well! And it was a blast! After all the chaos of not having rehearsals on the stage, the play was amazing! Then! afterwards we all got lunch and then prepared for our second performance that night at 6:30! And THAT performance was even better!!! No one messed up or forgot lines and it was incredible!!! God was with us through the entire play! When we first had the idea to do a play, I didn't expect it to pay for much of my YWAM payment. I thought if I was lucky I would make about $800. Which in and of itself would have been a tremendous help!!! But because of my incredible support group through acquaintances, Trinity, friends, and family...because of my God and how amazing He is, because of His provision and love for me!!! Because of all of YOU who helped me with with play, who donated, who acted, who bought tickets, who talked about it....because of YOU, I wad blessed with $2,424! I raised enough to pay for all my training in Australia and the only payment I have left to pay is my outreach payment!!!! I cannot even believe how incredible my God is and how much He has provided for me! I am blown away at how much support and love i have from people. I truly have the most amazing people in my life and I couldn't thank you all enough for everything you have done to help me! Yes, i still have more to pay for and yes, only with God's help will I receive it but for now, I am just overwhelmingly blessed by you. Thank you for your help! My departure is only 29 days away and I cannot wait to share with you all the journey. Please keep me in your prayers and email me anytime with anything! Always stay updated on my blog and friend me on FaceBook. I love you all so much! I will post play pictures soon! With many many blessings, (Mollie Ralston) Christianna Marie White <3

Random Post :D

Hello Everyone! In all honesty, I really don't have anything new to tell you all about or any new updates other than the fact that I am working on getting my student visa. I really just wanted to take a minute to thank all of you who have supported me so far and who have been keeping me in your prayers! In the last week God has really shown an abundant about of love and He has blessed me in numerous ways that I am so thankful for! One way in which he has blessed me has truly been through all of you who have taken the time to talk to me and ask me about my new adventure which is creeping up and is now only 48 days away! The questions you all ask and the amount of moral support and encouragement is what keeps me going. It helps get me more and more excited and now I am ready to just get out there and experience God in a way I have never done before! As of right now I truly just want to ask all of you to continue to pray for me! Specifically please pray for my visa process. It is really confusing and it is nerve wracking! I ask for your prayers in that I get the visa on time and am actually able to enter Australia! And again, keep in mind that "The Mouse Trap", my fundraiser play is just 2 weeks away! Tickets are $20 and there are two performances on the day of September 7th! One at 12:30pm and one at 6:30pm in the Trinity Christian School gymnasium! Come and enjoy a night of mystery, murder, and a very twist ending! But keep in mind, when you leave the performance, you CANNOT tell anyone who the killer was! It is top secret for the rest of the world who has never seen it before ;D Thank you all again for your help and prayers! I love you all! With love, Christianna White P.S. I have heard that some people have tried to email me in the past, however, I have not received any messages. My email is chrissy.white1994@gmail.com. I hope your messages start coming through! If you think I am not receiving your messages just call my cell phone (928-420-4820) or FaceBook message me and I will figure it out! Thank you!

Donation Information

If you would like to donate, please just press the button. You will then be directed to another page where you can submit the amount you would like to donate. Thank you again for your continued prayers and support. Christianna

The Mouse Trap Play!

"'The Mouse Trap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 25,000th performance taking place on 18 November 2012. It is the longest running show (of any type) of the modern era. The play is also known for its twist ending, which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre"' We are putting on this play at Trinity Christian School as a benefit fundraiser to help send me (Christianna) to my Music, Art, and Dance (MAD) Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Brisbane Australia. All the ticket proceeds and donations will go directly into my YWAM account to help me pay for the school as well as our outreach. In YWAM we are taught how to live off of support from people all around us to help us best learn to trust in the ultimate provisions of God. God's provision is amazing and I have no doubt in my mind that He will continue to provide for me through this production and in my every day life as I share my mission with people around me. Please come support me by buying tickets to see this play. Tickets are $20. However, having been in this position myself, I realize some people cannot afford this. That is why we have set up a system for those who want to help and donate but cannot make it to the production. If you are out of town or know someone out of town who would like to donate to the mission God has for me, then you can purchase however many tickets you would like and we will take those tickets you bought but can't use and give them to someone who wants to come see the play but cannot afford it. There will be two production for this day. One Matinee and one evening show. If you want to buy a ticket or know someone who does, just message me through facebook or send me an email at chrissy.white1994@gmail.com. Thank you all so much for your support and please keep me in your daily prayers. I appreciate it all so much! Blessings, Christianna White

Tickets!!!

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping me in your prayers and for those who have been supporting me! I have some exciting news!!!! As of today my ticket to Brisbane Australia has officially been purchased! I leave from the Phoenix airport on October 8th and will arrive in Brisbane on October 10th! The fact that this journey is only 2 months away and the fact that I now officially have my ticket to get there is completely surreal to me. I am so beyond excited as well as nervous. I cannot even fathom the kinds of adventures God and I will experience together on this journey. I am going to miss everyone very much but no worries, I will have ways of keeping in touch with everyone properly. Also, everyone can send me letters. The mailing address is on the back of my support card which I will be happy to send to you if you want one. Just email me your mailing address if you would indeed like one of my support cards. Please continue to keep me in your prayers. Also, we have now figured out how to add the option of supporting me financially through my blog. Just go to the bottom and click "donate" and you have the option to donate as much as you feel lead to do. Thank you all SO much! The journey has only just begun!!! :D -Christianna Marie

Rapunzel

Hello Everyone!!! I have been asked recently to play Rapunzel for a little princess's birthday party. I have played Rapunzel (from Tangled) before and it is something I absolutely love to do for little girls. My mother is hand making my costume and I would love to be able to do this for other young girls if they so desire for a party or special event. I love doing this job very much and I don't want to charge anyone for this service. If you want to donate money for this job, all proceeds will be going in to my savings for YWAM otherwise it is just a fun part I love to play. If you know anyone or would like to contact me about being Rapunzel for an event, you can email me for details. Thank you to everyone who is praying for me as I prepare for my new journey! It is such a blessing to me! Many blessings to you, Christianna

God's Provision

GOD IS CRAZY! If you didn't already know this, I pray you get to experience something like I did so that you can learn this fact for yourself! Today is June 14th and something amazing happened to me on the 11th and 12th that I want to share with you! On the 11th of this last week, I was preparing to officially mail in my letter of acceptance and my first payment to YWAM, however due to the need of funds earlier in the week, I came up short and couldn't pay y first payment. I called my mom and she told me to take $80 out my dad's cash which is something I did not want to do. It made me feel guilty and pretty much like a failure because I couldn't afford my first payment. I told her I didn't want to take the money, but she had me do it anyway. So I did. I took the money to the bank and I got everything settled and ready to turn in to YWAM (which I did). I still was uneasy about having to take my dad's money though when I get a text from my friend Meghan. She told me she needed to meet up with me pronto because she had been holding a card for me from Graduation for a while and she wanted me to have it finally. So we met up and she gave me the card. Once she had left I opened the card and found $100!!! Not only was I now able to pay my dad back in full, but I was able to give him $20 extra as well! It felt amazing and I couldn't believe I had just witnessed God's provision for me like that! Little did I know, He wasn't done though. The next day, my sister, Anna, came over and told me she had something she needed to give me back at her house. We went to her house and she hands me this envelope and told me someone told her to make sure I got this but to also make sure they didn't tell me who they were. So I open the envelope and inside was almost exactly $900! Not only was I now able to pay my first YWAM payment, but now my second payment is almost half way paid for too!!!! America likes us to believe that money is probably the single most important thing you need in life to be happy, but God has truly shown me this week that faith in Him and His provision makes your far more joyful and a whole lot less stressed! The cost for my DTS is around $5000 before I start paying for the outreach too. That is more money than I have ever seen in my life and yet I have been shown that for God, that is nothing. If it is in His will, I will get to Australia for YWAM and there is nothing I need to worry about! Praise the Lord for His provision! I hope you all are encouraged by this story and this part of my journey! I pray for all of you and I ask that you continue to pray for me! Thank you all so much! God bless! :)

Exciting Update!

Hey everyone! As you all know I have now been accepted into YWAM's MAD DTS in Brisbane Australia. My training starts October 15th! I have some exciting news! As of today I am officially turning in my letter of acceptance as well as my first payment to the school so that they can now add me to their list of students for the upcoming DTS! I'M OFFICIAL! WOO! Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far and has been keeping me in your prayers! The journey has only just begun and it is already a thrill ride! My second payment now has to be in September 25th and I need a little less than $2000 for that payment! So please continue to keep me in your prayers! Thank you all! -Christianna Marie P.S. if you would like me to send you one of my support cards, email me your mailing address and I will send it asap! chrissy.white1994@gmail.com

Mission Statement: Just the Beginning

Ever since my 8th grade year at Trinity Christian School, God made it very clear to me what His calling for my life is going to be. I was blessed to learn early on that having a strong passion and love for something is not often times for null. God has given me that strong passion and love for the performing arts and He has made it clear that my calling is acting. Ever since this knowledge became clear to me, naturally I wanted to look into and figure out why God has called me to this. Although His reasons are many, the one thing that I have discovered is that it is necessary that I learn the best ways in which to witness to everyone around me through the performing arts. The Lord has lead me in the direction of applying to the Music, Art, and Dance (M.A.D.) Discipleship Training School (D.T.S.) with Youth With a Mission (Y.W.A.M.) in Brisbane Australia and have now been accepted, in order to begin my journey on how to best learn to witness to those around me in my everyday life and in the arts. It is going to be a long and difficult journey but I know with all of my heart that it will be worth it. Because my M.A.D. D.T.S. is a training school, I am obligated to raise my own support. In view of this I am asking you to pray that the necessary funds will come and that I am able to keep focused on my new mission and journey. I hope all of you will continue to check my blog for updates on what the Lord is doing for me in my life and I hope my updates will be as big of a blessing to you as your prayers and support are for me. Thank you all so much! With Blessings and Love -Christianna Marie "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." Matthew 28:19