"What the heck is Brook doing in Georgia?"

"What the heck is Brook doing in Georgia?”

                                                  My life isn’t really “normal”,

 that’s part of what I love about it.  I live as a woman deeply in love with my Creator, King and Savior. I live in full abandonment to all that this fallen world has to offer. I live as a servant to the Kingdom of the living God. I live fully dependent on the Lord for my every need. Jesus literally pays for my groceries, gas, and every other living expense. I live in a house with girls from Washington D.C., Boston, Texas and Georgia, whom I met the night I moved in.  I call myself a “Kingdom Gypsy”  because that’s what I am. I’m a Kingdom kid, wild and free, and I go wherever my Father tells me to go.  

I’m a full time missionary, currently stationed in Gainesville, Georgia. 

This is where papa has called me for this season. I can feel it in every inch of my soul that this is where I’m meant to be right now. I am in a discipleship program called “Center for Global Action” one of many branches of Adventures in Missions.

So what exactly does my life here look like? Lemme tell you about a typical day in the life of Brook Gelinas.

6:25am: My alarm clock starts buzzing, pulling me out of my peaceful sleep.

6:45ish: I actually start to open my groggy eyes, roll outta bed, shuffle my feet into the kitchen, and switch the coffee pot on. 

8:50am I get to the office of Adventures in Missions. 

Monday mornings start with all staff worship.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (And wednesday afternoons) start with working in my department of Short Term missions.  We send out thousands of participants onto the mission field every year! I can be found doing anything from marketing, to making phone calls, building relationships with past and future participants, with lots of stuff in-between. 

Wednesdays begin with classes: “Calling class”, a class dedicated to teaching us how to decipher the calling the Lord has on each of our lives. Then “Dangerous Jesus” class, a class teaching on the radical way Jesus calls His disciples to live. Both classes are amazing, life altering and challenging, I soak in every minute of them.

1:30pm I head to “Worship Track”. 

Track time is a little hard to explain, because it’s kinda lead by the Holy Spirit, and everyday is a new adventure. At any given moment, track time may consist of: Learning what a life of worship looks like, studying the book “The Supernatural ways of Royalty” and diving into what it means to be sons and daughters of the King of Kings. Deep theological discussions about the bible, God himself, and any other given things in life really. Times of prayer, worship, journaling and listening prayer. Talks from my track leaders, as well as talks from a variety of guest speaks from  around the “adventures community”. We have also recently begun doing more outreaches to our community of Gainesville, including worshiping and spreading the love and freedom of Jesus at “the Square” (it’s our downtown), and this week we begin a mentoring program with local kindergardeners! 

5:30-45pm I get home, cook some dinner and spend time with Jesus, and then time with my roommates. 

11:00pm-ish My eyes get droopy and I give in to sweet, sweet sleep.

Along with my daily routine, I am also in the process of learning to play guitar (yay!) and lots of crazy awesome community events! 

I hope this gives you some insight on what the heck I’m doing living down south! :)

Below, you can enjoy this awesome slideshow of my life in photos!

Throw back Thursday! Swaziland March 1st 2014

March 1st, 2014

Hello friends!

It's March already?! Total craziness. It's so strange. Life here is so slow paced, yet my time here is flying by! Before I know it I'll be boarding a plane, headed back to the states. I try to savor every moment I have here. Treating it like the precious gift that it is.

First off, I am so beyond thankful for Jesus. For his relentless pursuit of me. For his never ending, unfailing love. That he choses to use me. Me?! Because he certainly doesn't need to...his glory is proclaimed in the stars every night, in the surrounding mountains. Yet, he choses to put the dream of Africa in a young girls heart at the age of eleven years old. Giving her this unspeakable passion for his precious orphans there. Then he brings me here. I will be forever grateful.

On Monday this past week, the day was an amazing adventure from the moment I woke up. We all packed onto the bus and took the three hour drive into South Africa. We spent the better half of the day at one of the most incredible beaches I've ever been to in my life. St. Lucia, South Africa. It was like a dream. Never mind all the warnings of hippos, sharks, and crocodiles. I was getting in those huge waves of the Indian Ocean!

 It was beyond amazing. I was laughing so extremely hard from the pure joy of it all. Jesus made me feel like I was a little girl, splashing around in the waves with him...I'm pretty sure heaven will have a place like that there. I prayed that it will anyways. "To him who is able to do more than we could ever ask of imagine" and "He stores up good for those who love him" were two Bible verses that were on my mind all day long. Because that's exactly how I felt about that day. It was better than everything I ever could have imagined.

On Tuesday we started ministry back up here in Nsoko. Aka, the middle of no where, literally the bush of Africa. It felt like we had come home. :) My ministry team of myself and three others, were told to wake up especially early, and to be ready to go out into the fields to help harvest. Harvest what, we had no idea... Early Tuesday morning came and gone, and no one had arrived to pick us up...three hours later we found out that the harvesting had already been completed, and that they didn't need us anymore. Welcome to Africa. :)

Skipping ahead to Friday, it was such an extraordinary great day. From the moment I woke up. The sun was shining, as it does every morning beginning at around 4am, and I just got to spend some amazing time with Jesus, before most of the rest of the house was awake. I even had a cup of coffee, and washed my hair! What more could a girl ask for?!

Later that morning we headed out to a care point that was new for us. The kids were all preschool aged, so we got to spend lots of time just hanging out and being with them. Loving on them, praying over them. But then, this adorable beyond words little girl, about one year old caught my attention. She was young. Really young. Usually if there are babies around that young they belong to the gogo's. But after some researching I found out that she wasn't a daughter of a Gogo, but instead came with one of the other kids there. But the oldest kid there that morning couldn't have been over the age of six...a lot of these children walk miles and miles to get to these care points. For what may be their only meal that day. At two year olds?

She was so dirty. Dried and crusty snot was all under her nose, and lots of other unknown dirty spots splashed across her face. She had so much dirt layered on her tiny hands. She wore nothing more than a raggedy tee shirt, that wouldn't be fit enough for a baby doll back in the states. I took out my water bottle and washed her face, then her hands. She had so much dirt on them, that it was like her hands were completely covered in red clay mud. I cleaned out her nails, best I could, and fixed some braids in the hair. 

But what do you do after that? I still have no idea who cares for her, who makes sure that she gets fed, and bathed, and protected...who will hold her when she crys, or any of the number of other things a one year old baby girl needs...But God knows, and he loves that baby girl. He has a good plan for her life. So I pour out prayers for her. Wouldn't you please join me? Because the truth is, her story isn't all that different from a multitude of others that I see and hear about every. Single. Day here... After holding her for awhile her eyes starting getting droopy, so I rocked her to sleep. Because today, God had provided me to love her, to care for her, to snuggle her tight for a while while she slept...

We are currently back in our routine of visiting three care points, three times of going out to spend time visiting gogo's, and three work projects per week. But don't for a second think that anything is remotely the same old, same old. Everyday is a new adventure, and anything can happen. It's different every time we go on a home visit, every time we go to a care point, and pretty much every work project. Add in the excitement of chickens in our kitchen, almost being caught directly in a stampede of donkeys (thanks Garrett), or the consistent interruptions of little Timbaleaka, aka "no pants Nancy".

Life here gets a little crazy sometimes. Like worshiping out under the vast blanket of Swazi stars, up on the containers in our back yard. (now that I think about it, just getting up on the containers is a little crazy in of itself). Or playing night kick ball, with nothing but the light of our headlamps. Watching Snele, our ministry partner,  get out of the vehicle and making the cows get off of the road (you don't wanna know his method). Then, you can just go outside and watch Garrett chase some goats...I feel like there are so many more crazy things that happen all around me, all the time, but honestly, I've just come to accept them as my new everyday life.

I am so blessed. Thank for again for all of your prayers. I wouldn't be where I am without them. God is good. I love you all!

Love your Swazi girl, Brookie.

P.s. Happy, happy, happy birthday to the two best men in my life. My daddy, and my little brother. Have some ice cream for me! I love you both! :)

Romanced in Pennsylvania

Romanced in Pennsylvania.

This past weekend, Jesus opened up the floodgates of heaven {again} and lavished me with His goodness. Romanced me with wine, community, music and bonfires, and used a friend to sing life changing prophetic words over me.

{Performing on Saturday morning}

The worship track was invited to come up to Pennsylvania and spend the weekend at Spring Gate Winery, in the capital city of Harrisburg. We had no idea what to expect. Honestly, I didn’t even really know what my purpose was in going. I was just excited to be going on a trip. The adventure girl in me had been longing for a excursion!

{Performing on Sunday afternoon}

We were taken care of in every little way possible. In a time in my life where I have never been so dependent on the Lord for my every need financially  He took this weekend to crazy lavish His love on me, in such practical ways. By providing everything from money to go buy coffee, {he knows how to love me well} to my food, to the amazing time spent in community and worship.

{Harrisburg PA}

One of the things that stands out to me the most about this weekend was our first night there. We stayed in this awesome old, white farm house. What was suppose to be a time of rehearsal, turned into an epic time of worship. There was so much freedom in the room. The Holy Spirit was there in such a heavy and special way. I was overwhelmed with peace and joy. Then my friend Logan said that we were supposed to sing over each other. 

{The winery}

So one by one we began to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit and what he was telling us to sing. 

Then it was time for someone to sing over me.  

“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing."  Zephaniah 3:17

I remember reading this verse some time ago, and I stared thinking. 

“Lord, I wanna hear you sing over me”. 

 It was such a simple, child like faith prayer. But I really, truly wanted to hear it!  

I was just sitting there in that old farm house with little girl anticipation. I knew that this was an answer to my prayer!

Austin started to sing, and I was blown away. Here’s a little something that was sung.

You were born to be wild.

I created you that way.

Keep chasing after me.

Run to me.

You’re gonna run faster then you ever dreamed possible.

Stop doubting.

Don't ever doubt.

I love you.

The Lord is so crazy faithful, it keeps blowing my mind! He’s such a good daddy! He gives us good, awesome, great unseachable things! Better things then I could have ever dreamed up for myself. Better things then I could ever desire on my own. And He loves doing it! Craziness. 

He’s a good, good father. 

Rest in that. 

{Official Band pic}

  

Dream bigger, Beloved.

Dream bigger, Beloved.

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” – James Allen

Dream: An idea or vision that is created in your imagination.

We tend to under spiritualize our dreams and imaginations. Do you not know that God is the very one who gave us this extravagant gift! He places kingdom dreams inside of us, and entrusts us to carry them out. He puts His dreams and desires in our hearts. Do you realize how insane this is?! Jesus told us that we are His body. We are His body here on earth. It is through us that he accomplishes His glorious will! It is into you that the Father desires to infuse His dreams. 

 “Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27

Dreaming is such a beautiful and terrifying thing to do. To combine your thoughts, desires and deepest longings, all twisted up into this mental photograph of what your life could be. What you could accomplish. Where you could go. But there is always something staring right back into our faces when we allow our hearts to be free to dream.

F E A R

We're afraid. Afraid we’ll fail, afraid our dreams might not come true. Afraid to step out out of tightly knitting comfort zones. We look at our life, who we are, at our lack of money and resources, and we stand frozen in fear. It’s risky. We’re filled with so much doubt. But fear is a filthy liar! Fear holds us back from accomplishing the very things the Father created for us to do! 

People tell us to dream smaller. Be realistic, safe.  “Go to college, get married and settle down with a job that will make you enough money to be finically stable.” That’s how our society tells us to live our lives. I’m not saying that these are bad things. But what if He created us for more then this status quo??? 

The entire bible is filled with story after story of people dreaming big dreams. Dreams that were so far beyond themselves, God would have to come through in order for them to happen. The entire New Testament is filled with page after page of Christ’s followers living crazy, radical, and adventurous lives! So what happened to the church, that we settled into such comfortable, easy, predicable life’s? When did we stop dreaming? We did we start settling? 

Last week, the teacher of our “Dangerous Jesus” class, packed all thirty plus of us CGA students into a small closed room and told us to sit down. In his hand he held a full water bottle, with the cap on. While talking to us, he used exaggerated hand motions, swinging the filled water bottle all around. He said that the water in the bottle represented the Holy Spirit inside of us. But we put limitations on Him, because we live our lives “with the cap on”. 

Then he opened the water bottle, and the whole atmosphere of the room changed. Suddenly he held in his hands a lot of power. 

It clicked inside of me, and I gained an even deeper freedom to dream big. Jesus is living inside of me! He has given me the Holy Spirit! I hold the Kingdom of God within me! I am a daughter of the King of Kings! This gives me every right to dream big, crazy, radical and insane dreams! Sometimes I just sit with Jesus and we dream together. I think I dream pretty big. But I just feel His joyful laugher wash over me, as he tells me “Dream bigger, beloved! …  Bigger! … Bigger still!”

So, I challenge you too, child of the most high God, 

Dream bigger.

Photo credit: Three Nails Photography.