Great is His Faithfulness!

As the old hymn says:

"Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness! 
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"

It's so true! God continually, and faithfully pardons our sins, gives us peace, provides for our every need, and it's because of HIM that "blessings all ours, with then thousand beside!"

I praise God because He has faithfully provided, not only for my trip, but for my education, and my up-bringing. But more valuable than all of this, more than any physical or material gift he could give us, is the gift of Salvation. This gift not only gives us eternal security with Him, but it frees us from the bondage of our sin. Christ's blood, that was shed on the cross, cleans us from all impurities and because of His sacrifice, our debt is payed. 

For this alone, He deserves our unending praises! 

One Month!

Exactly one month from today I leave for Naron, Spain! It's been great seeing how God has put this whole thing together! I've had the privilege of talking to the two other young ladies that are joining me for my three months this summer. We are all very excited about this trip and would appreciate your prayers.
A couple things that have come to mind to pray for:

1. Safety in travels
2. That He would teach us
3. That we would grow closer to Him
4. That this might show us more of what we should do later on.

I also wanted to thank you all for your prayers. God has been so good to surround me with friends and family who have prayed for me and continue to do so. He has also been so faithful, and I praise Him for providing all that I have needed up to this point, and I will continue to praise Him as I watch Him bringing in the rest of the funds.
Again, Thank you everyone
Christina.

World Travel

T-Minus 134 Days

Hmm... It's been a long time since I've caught you all up on Fleming activities, but I sure most of you know what's going on through facebook, my mom's blog http://www.aroundthetable.flemings.in.
- In June, while I was on my great expedition through Europe, my brother Samuel started dating a wonderful girl, Laurie Wilson.
- I started college in September. (BTW I'm studying Intercultural Studies at Emmaus Bible College)
- In October Samuel and Laurie got engaged















- In November I got my first nephew Kenneth James Fleming!

- And on Saturday they got married! No biggie, really. But Rosana and I both got to be brides maids in the wedding.

- Mean while 2 and a half weeks ago, Rosana also got engaged to Stephan Unger. They plan on getting married in the fall.

-And of course my parents (especially my dad) continue to travel world wide. He won't rest until he plants ECS in every country of the world!
MY FAMILY IS MULTIPLYING LIKE RABBITS! Well ok... not quite... but we're growing.

So, since the Spring Semester has started, I have applied for my second OM missions trip... and got ACCEPTED! Instead of this one being a 2 week long trip, it's a 10 week long internship in Spain. It starts in 134 days (hense the title). There I will be working with a young local church, dealing with administration, as well as out reach to the Roma (gypsies) people, street evangelism, I'm sure plenty of child programs, and hikes. So far there are two of us on the team, and I'm praying that more apply. I am so excited to see what God will do and how He will work in my life there!
Pray with me, that this will a life changing experience (in a good way), that there will be more applicants for the ministry, that we will seek God's will before, during and after the internship, and lastly, that I will produce seeds and fruit, just like a sunflower.

Thanks all for keeping up with my sparatic blogging.

Sunflower Seeds? Why the Change?

Ok, so you may, or may not have noticed the change in the title of my blog, but I am currently bringing it to your attention.

Reasons: 
1. Time to Tell Tales was always a temporary title.
2. It had nothing to do with anything except that I would tell a story sometimes.
3. Sunflower Seeds seems more appropriate for my life.

Somewhere in Slovakia or Austria

Sunflowers always look happy. But more than just their beauty, they produce many seeds, and those seeds then produce more sunflowers that then produce more seeds and so on. I want to be like a sunflower. I believe that it radiates God's beauty, and glory, and that because of that, it produces more seeds. It's a pretty simple desire, but it's mine. 

Eastern Europe has miles and miles of sunflower fields.

Did I tell you?

Did I tell you about my first impression of Bulgaria?

At 1 AM we leave Thessalonika on the bus for Burgas, Bulgaria. We immediately fall asleep... or at least we try. At 4 AM I wake up out of discomfort and can't fall back asleep till about 5:30. Unfortunately at 6 AM we arrive in Sofia, the country's capital. There they announce... something. Yeah, like I speak Bulgarian. So everyone gets off and I figured, hey I don't need anything, I'll just take advantage of the bus not moving and try and sleep some more. As soon as I shut my eyes the driver comes back, wakes me up, and begins to yell at me in Bulgarian. Again, I don't speak Bulgarian. But I figure he want's me off for some reason so with my back pack at my feet, I stand up and don't bother taking it with me. After all we still have 5 hours to go, and I'm still half asleep. My backpack only has my computer, and all my books for the summer no big. So I'm off the bus on the sidewalk waiting for my parents to show up from the restroom. My dad walks right by me just in time to see the bus driver hop in the bus and pull away. In a frantic, and not knowing I was off the bus, dad calls out to the driver looking for me. I call out to him and he sees that I'm off the bus. He then asks about our bags, and some how the driver says that he will be back by eight. 

So all we have to do is wait, right? Well, not exactly. You see dad was supposed to be able to pick up our tickets from Sofia to Burgas at that bus station but for one reason or another they don't have them and we have to buy new ones. Now we're not sure if we have tickets for the same bus. The "ticket lady" tries in her best English to assure us that we will be on the exact same bus, and our luggage will be on it. But we're still not sure that she understood us, and at the same time there's nothing we can do about it.

Everything I had for 9 weeks. Really not a lot.

During all of this, I kept wondering what we would do if we lost all our stuff. My computer would be lost, all my clothes that I brought would be gone, and all I had with me was my iPod and my camera, and the few things in my purse. Of course once you  begin to think of all of this you worry.
 "How am I going to survive with out my luggage? The three of us probably have 100's of dollars worth of stuff! What's going to happen to it." 

Well first of all, worrying is a sin. Secondly, God is in control. Thirdly, I value my stuff WAY too much. We would have eventually been able to replace most of it. But it hit me while we were sitting and waiting for the bus that Christ is more valuable than all of this. This song came to mind:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace. 

I would have survived with out my stuff. Luckily the bus came with our stuff on it, but even if it hadn't we would have been ok because God is with us. He is the one that we should be looking to. We shouldn't have to worry about our stuff because He should be everything to us.
Granted, it's going to take a lot more for me to be 100% satisfied with Him, but I'm on my way. 
What about you?

Transform Albania 2012: Pt 2

Hey everybody!
First off I wanted to thank you all for your prayers this past week. The kids programs went really well, as did the house visits and the ladies' meetings.

Back row (left to right): Emily, Keitra, Karina, Laura, Tina, Alexandra, Muriel, Joyce
Front row: Fosca, Carrie, Essi, me.

In case you didn't know, our Transform Albania team was a group of 12 women from 7 different countries, and our ages ranged from over 60 to 18 (me being the youngest). It was a great group to be a part of, with strong unity.


The theme for the week was "Loving the Unloved". The Roma people are a heavily discriminated people group. Many of them have turned to Islam and have started going to the Mosque because they get money there. This creates a pretty strong opposition. Due to their poverty levels the parents don't always understand the importance of education and they would rather have their kids on the streets begging than in school learning. 50% of the adults don't know how to read, but their kids are learning to read more and more. Another part of the Roma culture is the need for marriage. They have arranged marriages and more often than not, the girl will be engaged by the age of 15 and married only a few years later. A lot of the time if the daughter is not engaged by the age of 19, it means there is something wrong with her.

I know what you're thinking, no it wasn't always that chaotic.

But as for our week with the Roma people, our group saw the God working in awesome ways. Every morning from 10:00-12 we went to the Emmanuel Centre where different programs are held. In the morning we worked with kids and about 15 children would show up. We had a time of singing, a Bible story, a memory verse, a science lesson about butterflies (led by me), and craft time. If we had time at the end we would go out for games. 

Each day the story talked about God's love for His children. The kids learned about His power and His love for them and at the end of the week Carrie (one of the team members) gave them the clear gospel after telling the story of Saul (Paul). We also taught them "Who is the King of the Jungle?" in English, and they performed it on our Cultural Night on Sunday. 


We also had them memorize this: 
Jeremiah 31:3 Which says: "The Lord appeared to him from far away. 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.'"
The only catch was that we had to memorize it in Albanian too. It's harder than you think, and if you think it's hard you're getting the picture. 

Anyway, I pray that this would stick in their mind and sink in their hearts until they truely find God's love.


After singing, the story, and the Bible verse I would come up and start talking about the 4 stages of the butterfly. It was a simple 2 minute science lesson for them.
Stage one: The Egg. The eggs are laid on leaves in groups of about 20 or 30 in hopes that one of them survives. some of the eggs can be as small as the tip of a pin.
Stage two: The Larva/Caterpillar. When the egg hatches out comes a caterpillar. The caterpillar begins eating the leaf that it's on. then it eats another, and another, and so on. As it grows it has to shed it's skin and can do it up to 5 times!. 

Me in my cocoon.

Stage three: The Cocoon. When the caterpillar is ready, it will begin to built itself a comfortable home that it can live in for up to 7 weeks. While in there it begins to transform into a butterfly.

Breaking out of my cocoon.

Stage four: The Butterfly. After several weeks, the insect is ready to break out. It is no longer an ugly caterpillar, rather it is a beautiful butterfly.

Showing off my wings =).

I went through one stage each day. On the last day, I reviewed each stage, then went on to tie it in as a Biblical illustration of the heart before and after Christ transforms us. Then they got the joy of decorating butterfly masks to represent the transformed life. 

Just like the butterfly transforms into something beautiful, so do we when Christ works in our hearts.

Our team also had the privilege of visiting homes. There we simply talked to the Roma people and shared our testimonies. One home we visited was a strong Muslim home, though they really didn't know what they believed. Because 12 people couldn't fit in one home we broke up in 4 groups and visited different homes 3 nights in a row. One night 2 groups were able to bring a 13 year old boy to Christ and (in a different home) and lady also accepted Christ. It was amazing to see these faces shining when we came back home and talked about our evening. 

On the last three nights of the week we also held a ladies' meeting. For that, we also broke up into 3 different groups and set out a program. My group decided to tell a small story about an African village,  do a skit on the Samaritan woman at the well, then our team leader told her testimony, and I had the privilege of tying it all together and sharing the Gospel. Although we did not see any one come to Christ that night, the Holy Spirit's work was evident because the next night 3 of the 7 women that showed up dedicated their lives to Him! 

A few of the women at our meeting.

Lastly, (sorry this is so long) we had a Cultural Night on Sunday. That night each of us on the Transform team shared a little bit about our country and it's culture to not only the kids or the women but the whole family was invited. Some of us taught a dance, others held competitions, one had a quiz, and some simply had a power point on their country. 

Keitra (Bahamas) getting ready to teach a dance.

Watermelon eating competition (America).

Joyce (UK) and two hyper boys

Alexandra (Austria) with some typical Austrian candy.

 It was a fun night, and the pastor of the church there then gave a clear, short gospel message. We also had a surprise guest from South Africa who was on the Transform Kosovo team sing for us. After the program they went out and tried some typical food and candy from our countries and they were also given a plate of some Albanian dish for their super. The night turned out to be a pretty good one, and the week was well spent. 

Me with one of my favorites =).

Essi (Finland) with one of the boys.

Me with two beautiful girls <3

Thank you all so much for your prayers for the week. I know God heard you. Please don't stop praying for them, they need God just as much as we do, and He is their only hope for satisfaction in life.

In Christ,

Christina