My life has been changed, I am moving to Europe!!

This blog will be a place for me to record my adventures, my thoughts, the things that change me, and the ways the Lord uses me to change the world.  As some of you already know, I am moving back to Europe very soon.  I will be living in Switzerland for several months starting in September in order to complete a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) DTS (Discipleship Training School).  It's been a long and interesting path that has brought me to this point, and as I look back I certainly didn't know I was headed this way all along, but I see God's hand in it all.  God has given me an awareness for quite some time now that the decisions we make are not merely choices between this career and that career, this city or that one, etc... but the choices we make will end up shaping whether or not we know God, whether or not we believe Him and trust Him.  Over the past five years I have done my fair share of moving around, going to different schools and having different jobs and through it all I have been searching with more and more passion as time passes for what it means to follow God, to believe that He is who He claims to be until fear is erased from my heart as it should be.  

I am not going to retell every step I have taken and decision I have made for the past five years, but I will give a brief summery of what specific steps have led me to where I am today.  I moved back to Hillsboro from Seattle almost three years ago.  I was a student at Portland State University and worked at Newport Bay Restaurant as a hostess.  I loved going to school at Portland State.  I just love the city of Portland in general, the culture, the people, and yes even the weather.  Considering all of this it was not only shocking to my friends and parents when I told them I was considering leaving school, but it was shocking to myself.  This is how it happened:  I was taking the MAX to school one day (Portland's light rail train) enjoying the ride as always when I started thinking about my life and what I want to do with it.  As I reflected on and filed through my dreams and plans one by one it began to dawn on me that I had never once asked God what He wanted to do with my life.  I had always come up with a plan that seemed wise, and generally in line with the ideals and morals that God expects us to live according to, then present it to God and ask for His blessing.  This realization hit me hard, I don't really know what I believe about God's will,  but I do know that if He ever did want to do something more specific with my life than bless the dreams that I come up with on my own, I had never given Him the opportunity to show me what those things might be.  After much prayer and discussion with friends and my parents I decided that I needed to leave school for the time being, to live without a plan and agenda and ask God that whatever He wills would happen.  My parents were surprisingly supportive, telling me that though it was hard for them to see me make this decision because they wanted to protect me, they had been learning that education is not God, and although getting an education is very wise and good, it does not guarantee security, the only guarantee we have in life is the goodness of God.  They told me they were proud of me for chasing God in this way but that they were going to cut me off 100% financially after quitting school.  I agreed that this was fair and decided that I would pray for God's provision, that if He didn't bring anything my way I at least would know that I tried then I would go back to school.  After only two weeks of praying and waiting, I received a phone call.  The call was from a woman I had been working for as a house cleaner for the past several months.  She told me that her father-in-law was moving in with them and that he would require 24 hour care, therefore they would need to hire a caretaker to be with him during the day time.  The woman (Shelly) did not know that I was leaving school or looking for a job but told me that she didn't know why but she thought of me for the job and really wanted me to do it.  She suggested that I take night classes and work for them full time.  This job was such an answer to prayer, it blew me away.  I had the perfect schedule and God always provided me with enough financially, I never had to borrow money from my parents once after I began my new job.  

I don't believe that God's will for my life is to be an elderly care-taker. After wrestling with the events I just laid out for you I have come to believe that this job was God providing for me as I stepped out in faith that He would take care of me.  The point was that He is good and trustworthy.  To be completely honest I really did not enjoy my job.  Although there were many many benefits including working with a wonderful family that treated me with generosity and kindness - working with a dementia patient for a year and a half was a stretching experience to say the least.  I believe that God would not have been unhappy with me had I decided to stay at Portland State, and that He would have guided me to where He wants to use me regardless, but I also believe that because I made the decisions I did, I trust Him so much more fully today than I would have had I decided to continue down the path I was on.  I would much rather choose to endure a job that is not, shall we say, pleasant, but trust God so much more, than be comfortable and have my life pretty much on track with my plan, but have trust in God be more of an ideal to discuss than a truth to experience.  

So this brings us up to speed to where I am today - blissfully unemployed and homeless.  Okay, not really.  I finished my last week of work with Tom (the elderly man I had been caring for), and moved out of my apartment last week.  I am currently house sitting for a week before moving back in with my parents to live rent free (woohoo!) in Gig Harbor, WA for a month before leaving for Switzerland.  So, why YWAM, why a DTS, and why Switzerland?  A. YWAM or Youth With A Mission is an international missions organization that has been impacting our world for God in a beautiful and tangible way since 1960.  YWAM generally focuses on teaching and empowering youth to spread the love of God to the World, however people of all ages are heavily involved in YWAM.  To read more about what YWAM is you can visit their website at, www.ywam.org  B. A DTS or Discipleship Training School is the introductory course to do anything with YWAM.  You must complete one in order to be involved with YWAM in any way.  A DTS is generally comprised of three months of lectures on topics ranging from spiritual warcraft to the father heart of God, to specific book studies of the Bible, and then two months of outreach generally to a third world country where you partner with other Christians in the work they are doing in order to serve the nation you are in.  There are YWAM bases all over the world, therefore there are thousands of available options for places to complete a DTS.  I chose to do my DTS in Switzerland, which is the first YWAM base ever established.  Although I do not know where I'll be going on outreach I know that in the past my base has sent people to India, China, Egypt/Israel, Uganda, and Indonesia. C. I did not choose Switzerland for any particular reasons.  I simply picked a country I would like to live in and checked to see if a DTS was offered there, it turns out that the base in Switzerland is quite large and well established.  I will be living in the town of Lausanne, near Geneva in the french speaking part of Switzerland.  This is particularly exciting to me because I have a strong desire to learn french.  If you are interested at all in what my base is all about, what it looks like, or anything about it really, you can visit its website at www.ywamlausanne.com .  After completing my DTS I intend on enrolling in The University of Nations, a University run by YWAM.  I have always wanted to be a writer, and I am very impressed with the various writing programs offered by the University of Nations.  If you are interested in learning a little more about the University of Nations you can visit its website at www.uofn.edu 

All of these changes are so drastic compared to the life I have been living for the past several years here in Hillsboro, but I am so excited to see where God brings me, to trust Him so much more than I do today, and to be used by Him.  I want to be a part of God's redemptive process for our world, for His people - but honestly I am still such a slave to fear.  I have two very specific goals for my life that I have just recently nailed down: 

1. I desire to trust God so fully that fear becomes a philosophical concept to me, that it would even be ridiculous to me, because really, why should we have any fear when we believe that God is who He is?  

2. I desire to know God through a balance of being able to clearly hear and recognize His voice and leading in my life, to be able to discern when it is in fact God speaking and guiding or something else, and that I would receive God given wisdom to deal with all the situations that arise in my life.  

Please, if you feel compelled to consistently pray for me especially as I leave for my DTS, it would be so deeply appreciated.  I have come to believe in the power of prayer so much more over the past few years than I ever have before and I can't imagine leaving on this journey without people praying for me all along.  And even if I just pop into your head every now and then but you don't feel compelled to make a commitment to praying for me, that too would be appreciated.  I need prayer for wisdom to discern what information I come across either through lectures, cultures, or other people is truth, I tend to be so enthusiastic about everything, it can be hard for me to be as skeptical as I know I sometimes should be.  I need prayer for love for the other students, I would really like to treat the other students totally unselfishly, to love them in a way that I can look back on my time with them and not be ashamed of anything.  I need prayer that I would be receptive to God's voice, that anything He might want to tell me about myself, others, life, anything at all would be received and recognized.  And a massive prayer request is for finances.  I haven't got the money to go at all.  It's been a challenging time leading up to my departure, and instead of money coming in more and more unexpected expenses have been popping up out of nowhere.  But, I believe that God wants me to go and that He will provide.  Please ask Him to provide for me.  I do not want anyone to feel pressured by this blog to give me money, I don't want guilt money.  IF you feel compelled by the Holy Spirit or you just want to help send me on this mission, you can make checks out to me Katie Tilden, and send them to my parent's house at 8324 Goodman Dr NW Gig Harbor, WA 98332.  I am working on finding out if there is a way to make donations directly to YWAM on my behalf so that any donations will be tax deductible, I will update my blog as soon as I find out either way.  Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read this ridiculously long update, thank you for your prayers and support, I'll be updating soon!