Recieving a New Name

Week two and week three...come and gone...quickly. On my previous post I ended on a rather unsure note (sums up the first week perfectly), which is how i remained until the next Tuesday night rolled around. Every Tuesday night our DTS does intercession together as a group. Intercession was a new concept to me up until I arrived here (http://www.allaboutprayer.org/intercessory-prayer.htm) . So, I'll try and sum up what happened very briefly--->that night God LITERALLY spoke directly to me through our leader, Steve, and another sweet friend of mine, Eva. God basically outed me and a lie I had believed about myself my entire life, which until it had a name on it I never would have said that this was the "name" that I labeled myself with. After that was a tearful night full of revelation, and REPENTENCE! FINALLY free from the sin that had been weighing me down for months! I have never experienced God the way I did that night, never felt his longing for me so strongly... He reached down to me and pulled me back to Him. What an amazing Lord we serve... what a LOVING, RELATIONAL King we serve!
On Wednesday we found out which ministry we would be serving in for the next 5 months! Me and two other girls in the DTS are in it as well along with our leader Katie, Women's Ministry. We get to pioneer a ministry that reaches out to women on the street of the Tenderloin. As of now we are starting out by having a free coffee/snack and prayer night on Wednesday's to start builiding relationships with the women. By the end, when we have ones that are continually coming, we want to do a makeover night, give them pedicures, do their hair/makeup/clothes and take them out to a nice dinner. We all know that at the heart of every women is the desire to feel beautiful and loved... this is just one way to bless them. Along with that ministry we also will walk on Broadway where all the strip clubs are and get to know some bouncers, and the girls who work there while they are outside on their breaks... there have been incredible stories of redemeption there! The third thing that we will be involved in is research for Human Trafficking. I can't begin to describe my heart for this part of the ministry. Most of the human trafficking done here in SF is young asian women JAILED as sex slaves in so called "massage parlors". A block up from the street we live on there are three of these places.. three. It is heart breaking to know that they are right underneath us (they are all in basements with no windows) and there is nothing we can do to save them, I want to knock down doors and save these poor young girls who have been bought and sold into this booming, underground industry. So much corruption surrounds it. I could go on and on about this... I will post another informational blog about Human Trafficking at a later date as to not make this a novel! Anyways so me and the girls will be researching and tracking massage parlors, trying to get three strikes against them so we can report them to the health department and get them shut down and/or fined (still not even close to justice). We are also brainstorming ideas on how to get awareness raised for all the trafficking done within the U.S., done right under our noses! I believe that God will absolutely bring Justice and use me and all the people involved as His vessels, instilling ideas in our heads on how to begin to shut this industry down. I am so incredibly excited to see the ways God will show us His divine power and supremacy, He is continually showing all of us here the different aspects of His character and I am getting to know Him in ways I never thought possible. My Dallas and College Station bubble has been completely burst, and I PRAISE JESUS for that. It is impossible for me to ever be the same again and it has only been 3 weeks.
Today we were woken up at 5:45 am and kicked out on the street for "homeless plunge". We had to go out in what we slept in, couldn't bring a wallet, bag, phone, NOTHING.. just the clothes on our back. We split into 3 groups and ate at soup kitchens for breakfast and lunch, took naps in the street (i got kicked by a security guard while napping!), and slept on park benches in Nob Hill. It was quite an experience, and such a small smallll taste of what the people that actually live out there go through.
It is so hard for me to be able to write everything that goes on here so PLEASE read our schools blog http://www.sanfranciscodts.blogspot.com/ as well! I know I have much to learn and I'm sure that there are areas of my heart that I need to surrendur to Jesus, I'm just waiting for Him to show me. I want to live a life that is completely for Jesus and to make Him my first Husband, my first Romancer, and seek Him above all else. It will take me some work and some pushing and shoving to get there since I tend to think I know what's best for my own life (which is completely false) but I am sure that when i really and fully allow Him to, Jesus will reign over every part of me. We will see what it takes for me to get there! Sorry this was so long and thank you to all of you who read it all!

“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”- Martin Luther King, Jr

Mindy