basically..

i did not get my visa to england.
God directs the steps of the righteous.
He's much bigger than my plans!

so now it looks like:

i'm going to europe in two and a half weeks.
i am staying for at least 2 months.
i am going to visit as many missionary friends as possible.
it's my desire to be a blessing.

and so, most beloved europe of my heart..

the countdown has begun.

fellowship.

"the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that i should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. 

He awakens me morning by morning; He awakens my ear to hear as the learned." -isaiah 50:4

just want to put it out there that i've had a week full of incredible conversations with friends.
who says i'm alone on the prairie? i've got ten millions of sisters and brothers. and some of them even have phones.
i'll update tomorrow hopefully.
meanwhile.. walk in the Spirit. love the Lord. know Him. life gets crazy awesome when you do.
xo,a.

in short.

hey there, Miss MIA here.
sooo i have a ton of things i want to blog about, which may or may not all happen:
-retreat worship
-teen camp worship and counseling
-montana family vacation
-God redirecting my steps immensely!
-the new plan for fall ministry

but for now i need you guys to pray! [if anyone still checks this place, that is!]
i'm driving 7 hours down to SE Iowa today to visit a friend and help put on a worship seminar tomorrow evening [wednesday] for a small baptist church! i get 35 minutes to share from the Word about having the right heart in worship and giving a Biblical foundation.

PLEASE PRAY that i am led by the Spirit! i am not totally prepared yet, but the Lord has put some things on my heart. i trust that He will finish the work He's begun with this! please pray that i am a blessing and a living example of Jesus' love. please pray that God will give me His words to speak, and that i wouldn't be ashamed or discouraged from saying them.

and praise the Lord that He is giving me opportunities to GO and SEND ME to be a light and an encouragement! He is so good!
thank you for your prayers and look forward to hearing great things that the Lord has done- whether we see it soon or not until we get to heaven. pray that lasting fruit is brought forth from planting these seeds and watering. God will provide the growth.

xx! annie.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

[-Galatians 5:18,25, Romans 8:14]

He leadeth me! O blessed thought! 

O words with heavenly comfort fraught!

Whate'er I do, where-e'er I be,

Still 'tis God's hand leadeth me.

Sometimes 'mid scenes of deepest gloom,

Sometimes where Eden's bowers bloom,

By waters still, o'er troubled sea,

Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me!

Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine,

Nor ever murmur nor repine,

Content, whatever lot I see,

Since 'tis my God that leadeth me!

And when my task on earth is done,

When by Thy grace the victory's won,

E'en death's cold wave I will not flee,

Since God through Jordan leadeth me.

He leadeth me, He leadeth me,

By His own hand He leadeth me,

His faithful follower I would be,

For by His hand He leadeth me.

God is redirecting my path which once seemed fairly clear to my eyes.

I know not where He's leading, but I do know that I am His.
And when I cannot see from His perspective, I trust that indeed He leadeth me.

For we walk by faith and not by sight.

story of my life.

so yeah, it's been busy. i keep saying that. here are my reasons:

the first half of fourth of july weekend was spent up north with relatives; the rest was spent cleaning up trees from a huge storm that swept through our area. we have one big tree down and it's still kind of on our deck, sort of like an arbor, you know?

i've been working.

my nephews had a sleepover at our house. f-u-n for 3 days straight!

making jam.

riding bikes.

thinking about music.

reading about amy carmichael.

enjoying the new bon iver.

talking to friends in finland. germany. ireland. you know. good places like that. nbd. 

there must have been other things..?

i've also been getting ready for a busy couple of weeks:

living education retreat, speaking and leading worship

teen camp, being a cabin leader and worship leader

and one of my friends passed away this week. she was 27 and her name was jessica. she was one of the most fun people i ever knew. i'm gonna miss her. i'll be doing some music at her memorial service. please pray for her family.

and i've been applying for my visa. you can pray for that too! everything but a few papers are ready. we'll see what the Lord has in store..

ps i really went on a weekend trip with that little blue suitcase as my luggage! ha! it's time to try defying gravity..

the parable of the strawberries.

once there was a little stone house in a little city on a big prairie. in that house lived a family. the mother and daughter of the family loved to make nice things to eat. the rest of the family liked to eat nice things, you see. one very nice thing they enjoyed was homemade strawberry jam.

every summer the mother and the daughter would go strawberry picking at a nice little berry farm up the road. even when the daughter was gone, the mother would pick berries. always they would make lots of jars of delicious jam. one time the father even helped!

then one summer came when so many things happened that the garden hardly got planted in time... but it did get planted. eyes searched the prairie landscape for a glimpse of the berry farm sign upon every trip up and down the road. finally, it appeared. it was the friday before the fourth of july. it was morning time and the family was off to see the relatives. plans were made to pick berries very soon.

that afternoon, a tremendous storm swept across the prairie, and pulled up trees by the roots, and broke down groves, and tore roofs and doors off barns, and collapsed huge tin bins, and brought down power lines and light poles, and blew away signs. and it brought hail.

the days went by, the hundreds of trees were gradually sawed up and hauled away. and no time for berry picking. finally the mother called the berry farm, to find that every last strawberry had been destroyed by the hail. only a few precious raspberries remained.

so they didn't know what to do. they needed jam for the winter, but there was no other nearby place. so they prayed.

and God took care of them.

later that week, they found strawberries on sale for a fraction of the normal price. they spent $9. they made 33 jars of jam.

and they all enjoyed strawberry jam quite happily and thankfully.

because God took care of them.

it was just one more story to add to their collection of how faithful their God truly was; it helped them to trust Him even more.

the end.

here's the deal.

it's monday. i love monday, because on typical weeks it means two glorious things: no work, and movie night monday!

i have a bunch of new clothing from the thrift store. this morning i put on a new [actually new!] mustard yellow cardigan and looked down at my blue trousers and thought "oh, hello ikea employee." nevertheless i have persevered and received zero negative comments on this combination. it helps me think of sweden too, which always brings pleasant thoughts to mind!

i also have a really fun little vintage yellow sundress [that was a lot of adjectives] to alter and wear. tres chic.

my toms are ripping. i'm going to stitch them up. some day..

i've been gone, gone, gone most of the time lately. my dear sweet little grandma passed away 3 weeks ago. we miss her. she's in the best place ever now. we've painted and cleaned and packed up her house and now it is for sale. it was a lot of work [my mother and i did most of it, with some help from a few relatives], and it was incredible how much storage space my grandma had filled up with all sorts of fun things, but it was good. i now know how to pack up a house. next time i'm charging no less than five grand. this one i did for free.

the aforementioned project has also given me a profound determination to clean out my closets. again. my bookshelf also needs a makeover. you can't see the original books for all the new books in front of them. i do admire technology, but books are necessities of life! i got to take home a few of my grandma's old [like 1941] piano books, and played through a couple of them today. they're wonderful.

can you believe it's summer tomorrow? i can't comprehend it. the past two months have flown by so fast and i'm afraid the rest of the summer will be gone in another blink. it was the longest winter i can remember, and then the crummiest spring [i picked up "crummy" from my 84-year-old great aunt. it's in the dictionary, i checked] of all time. now summer's finally here but it's raining! and we're not home on the nice days! oh Lord, please enable us to enjoy the summer without getting mad at the days we haven't spent outside in it! glad we got our garden in [finally] last week. my peas and onions and tomatoes and squash are all growing so nicely.

i should head out for a bike ride soon. it looks inclement. but generally, if the wind isn't like riding against a brick wall, i ride like 10 miles a night. i've thoroughly encompassed our town [inside and out]. i wish there were more bike paths here. gravel roads just don't do much for me.

unsurprisingly, although i've just arrived home once again from a few more days away, i've got the urge to go elsewhere! currently the itch is leaning towards northern minnesota, where we'll be in a couple weeks! also super excited for our family vacation this summer. mountains!! germany is still of course always in my heart. and so often in the past month i've longed to go to prague again. oh europe, you're just so great. of course there is the rest of the world as well, but i just can't exhaust europe enough! and america, america, you're pretty great too. i'd like to see more of you as well.

also, why doesn't the middle of this vast country have more passenger trains? our train tracks are used to haul genetically modified corn to plants which produce either high fructose corn syrup or ethanol, or have been turned into bike paths [the better of the two options, i guess]. i'd totally ride a train to the city for the day.

liiiiife you're passing me by so fast! there's so much i want to do and so many places i want to go but i'm stuck in the daily routines and requirements of life. "so teach us to number our days that we may present to You a heart of wisdom."

PS. i saw Herman the German. there are particular friends who will be extremely excited to know that fact.

the sun has gone to bed and so should i.

kind of a bad photobooth shot, but i'm pretty excited to curl up under my grandma's crazy quilt [quilted by my great-grandma] with a good old-fashioned book. after an afternoon of dramatic downpours [and some gratifying thrift store finds], i had a lovely bike ride around the outskirts of town this evening as the sun set and turned the sky the most beautiful shades of purple. fresh air does the soul a world of good! sleep sweet.

amplified.

Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], 

so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent,

Work out [cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete] your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling 

[self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, 

timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ],

[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you 

[energizing and creating in you the power and desire], 

both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining [against God] 

and questioning and doubting [among yourselves],

That you may show yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, 

children of God without blemish [faultless, unrebukable] 

in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation [spiritually perverted and perverse], 

among whom you are seen as bright lights [stars or beacons shining out clearly] in the [dark] world,

Holding out [to it] and offering [to all men] the Word of Life.

Philippians 2:12-16a.

oh yeah..

i have a blog.