His name is God and He is Faithful.

This week in lectures we are learning about Lordship. Our speaker's name is Mark Parker and at the beginning of the week I was skeptical and throughout the entire first day I had a horrible attitude about this week, not realizing that even in those moments the things Mark was saying was sticking with me and hitting me harder than a lot of the other teachings i have had so far. And I have had a LOT and have learned a LOT!!! Now slowly coming into the end of the week I am seeing how much God has been speaking to me just this week, I am seeing where He has been speaking to me in the last few weeks, I am being challenged in many different ways to trust Him FULLY, AND I am starting to have some of biggest questions and prayers answered! How about an example for each? Sure why not!!! But first things first. The reason why I am updating my blog AGAIN within the same week is not by my choice but by my obedience to God. I really felt earlier this afternoon and again in small groups tonight that God wanted me to give y'all and even more recent update on everything just from this week since in this one week alone SO much of my life has changed...and I know that before the end of the week, a ton MORE is going to change. So, if two blogs in one week is too much...sorry. Anyway! So God has been speaking to me a lot this week...me writing this blog right now is a physical response from me to something God has been speaking. So that is example one. Example two: God has been speaking to me in the last few weeks. SUCH AS!!!! A while back I got a tug on my heart to write and encouraging note to a very specific person, however i don't know this particular person very well and I am almost certain this person use to think I did not like them. So for me it was awkward to feel the need to write them a note and I was uncomfortable with it, so i ignored the "feeling" and just "put it off" until later. (Meaning I never wanted to do it.) Well since then this person has been growing a lot and they are becoming a strong leader a little everyday and they are starting to trust God more and that encourages me and inspires me just by watching them so my "feeling" to write them a note kept getting stronger. Then today in lectures, i couldn't deny it anymore. I was just sitting in class, listening intently, when all of a sudden I had a HUGE thump in my heart telling me to write this person that note of encouragement right in that moment. I realized and recognized and accepted at that point that it had been God telling me to do it all along and I was just being a scared, prideful, arrogant jerk beforehand pretending it wasn't coming from the Holy Spirit. So, I finally wrote the note, gave it to them and afterwards I felt a huge feeling of relaxation come over me. Shocker I know...listening to God and obeying?? How is THAT relaxing?! <-- That is a joke obviously...anyway I get frustrated when I know God has been speaking to me and I push it aside out of fear for long periods of time. The THIRD example: Trusting Him FULLY!!! This one for some reason has been my ultimate struggle for this entire DTS so far and I am SO done with it. There is NO reason why I shouldn't be trusting Him. He has done NOTHING to deserve my doubt. And even though I need $4000 within the next week, I am done doubting God because He is faithful, He has called me to this DTS AND to Malaysia and He WILL provide the funds for me before January 15th. I don't know how or where it will come from but I know I will receive it because He is faithful and He IS our provider. Fourth example is about Him answering my questions and prayers. Long story short, He has answered MANY MANY MANY prayers but the one I am thinking of specifically is very personal and I don't want to give every detail but I will tell you that it has to do with the fact that He is starting to clearly reveal to me some of the reasons why He has me here in Australia and not home in Arizona for this period of time. And I am very grateful for it and relieved to know the purposes. SO! As of right now I am in a place of complete vulnerability and I am surrendering myself and everyone and everything I have completely to God and giving Him all my trust. And this is something I need to do ALWAYS...not just in my times of need. God is good and He is SO faithful and He deserves ALL of our trust ALL of the time. What is the point of worrying about the things around you you can't change? And even if you COULD change them, why would you want that burden???!!!??!! God is our provider and He takes care of us and the ones we love and it is a BLESSING that we don't need to worry about anything BECAUSE GOD IS GOOD AND HE IS FAITHFUL! I hope you all find my blogs somewhat interesting and maybe helpful in some ways. I love writing them but even more so I love sharing my heart with everyone and being able to share the things I am learning with everyone. I hope to continue doing so...even after my DTS is over. Thank you all for your prayers. I ask that you continue to pray and please pray specifically for the $4000 to be given within the next week. God can do anything. Just pray in faith and trust. Thank you all! I love you all and I miss all you Arizonans!!! <3

With love and blessings, Christianna!

Happy New Years anyone? :)

Hello friends! It has been quite some time! I am seeing this as a bad pattern. I take too long to update but sometimes, I just have no other choice. Life is CRAZY busy! First things first, HAPPY NEW YEARS TO EVERYONE! I cannot even believe it is officially 2014! This is going to be one amazing year! God has a LOT in store and I am excited to see what all that is!!! Last week I was able to spend the week in Airlie Beach (sounds just like it is spelled)!!! We went there for one of our local outreaches and all I can say is God did some amazing things. He broke people's hearts for what breaks His. He broke down the pride of a LOT of us. He reminded us all how blessed our lives really are. He saved lives. He performed miracles...Yeah. God did AMAZING things. And He continues to do so!!! Just in case you were unaware, God is a lot of things and one thing He is that He constantly is reminding me of is Faithful and Provider. I am need of around $4000 within the next month. And the DAY before I left for Airlie Beach, God provided me with $450 out of no where. It was so insane and all I could do was praise Him, worship Him and thank Him. Material things in this world hold no value in comparison to almighty glory of our God and that is something that has truly taken me FAR too long to realize and understand. And it is also something that I will never 100% understand no matter how hard I try. Our God is mysterious and He is so intricate. But all at the same time, He is intimate. And so the fact that people can go about their everyday lives content with the little knowledge they have of God baffles me. Why is our world so apathetic?! How can you possible learn something new and interesting about God and just stop there?? There is and ALWAYS will be something new and even better to learn about God and yet we spend our days instead trying to learn the new and "interesting" things on our temporary and materialistic items we own such as iPhones. That is sad. God is worthy of SO much more than that. And I am sorry that it has taken me so many years to have this realization. I hope it didn't take any of you that long. Anyway, I will end that rant now and move on. As a whole, my life here in Australia is amazing. I love it here and it is safe to say that it is going to be hard for me to leave here when the time comes. Nevertheless, for now I am soaking up every second of this crazy adventure!!! My family is going through some hard times right now and I often get frustrated that I cannot be there to help anyone but one thing that God has been pressing on me a LOT lately is the fact that no matter where I am, even if I were there, there is absolutely NOTHING I can do. Only God can take care of my family but even more so than that, He already IS taking care of them. And I have no right to try and hold onto and control the things which I have no power over. Yes, I wish I could help. But THANK GOD I don't have the power to do so because if I did, i would be far to stressed out. I am so blessed that I have a God that I can just go to and give my problems to and He will take care of them. AND i can be assured that the results will be for His ultimate glory. There truly is no better way to live life. I am praying for His provision to continue with my family and with my final finances and while I get worried sometimes, I know He is going to provide. As outreach gets closer and I am really looking forward to keeping you all more updated on everything that is going on. I hope you are all doing well and I won't wait too long for my next blog. I promise!!!

With lots of love and many blessings, Christianna :)

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!