Feelin' the Love!

The weeks are going by insanely fast...
I leave for YWAM in just over 3 weeks...
23 days left in the United States...
for so long this felt so unreal, so far away, so unfathomable...

Let me tell you, it's starting to hit, and it's hitting hard and fast. At all three church services today, my friend Nic(leaving in 3 days for YWAM in Columbia) and I were commissioned by an amazing community that we are incredibly blessed to be loved and supported by. Personally, I have experienced amazing growth and change through different ministries and friendships at Vintage Faith Church. What an honor to stand in front of this community that I admire and adore, and to just be loved by them, as they prayed us out to begin our personal journeys with YWAM. [[Want to personally thank Mark Toback and Kristin Jensen for your kind and sincere words and prayers, and everyone that laid hands on us in support and love!]].

Getting commissioned!

Hoping all of you had a very Merry Christmas, and wishing you all a blessed New Year. I couldn't be more lucky to have such an amazing journey awaiting me to kick off 2013. Thank you so much for your love, your prayers, your financial support, for following this blog, and just for being a part of my life. God has blessed me more than I ever could've imagined entering into 2012, and I cannot even imagine what 2013 will be like!

Ugly Sweater VFC College Group Christmas Party

All-Serving VFC Christmas Party with my wonderful
beautiful roommate!

My best guy friend ever at the All Serving VFC Christmas
Party!

Christmas themed Photo Booth!!

Tahoe with B and James!

If you know anything about the two of us, you know
how embarassingly perfect matching PJs are...
[Christmas Eve Present]

My Coworkers: Just had my last day at WFM CAP!

There's a handful of people that I'm really gonna miss..
but because I spend almost every minute of everyday
with this girl, doing life together, living together,
being totally silly, and pathetically co-dependent... my
heart might just break in half when it's time for this goodbye!

Happy New Year!
Love and Blessings,
K

It's getting close!!!

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what will you wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life...Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own?"

-Matthew 6:25-34

God is continually making it so clear that YWAM is where He wants me. Every time I worry, doubt, or get sad about missing people, God steps in and shows me that it's exactly what He has for me. What could be more perfect than knowing you are going exactly where God is leading? Such comfort in that thought. Of course, I am nervous, scared, anxious, excited, sad, happy, stoked, in disbelief....etc etc

I am feeling so many different things that it is completely confusing. But God has got this, and so more than anything I am expectantly excited because I know He is going to rock my world through this experience. And right now, He is rocking it through all of you, and all of your generous support. I have had donations come in from such an array of different people. I feel so surrounded and saturated in love from every community I've ever been apart of. From coworkers, to best friends, to the church, to high school friends, to family, to people I have never met in my life... I have been fully loved.

With six weeks left in the United States(wow that's crazy), I am in a state of preparation, anxiousness, and an intention to just spend time with all of the people that I love. I am in the final stretch of fundraising, and excited to see God move through that area of my life in the next six weeks. Thank you again for choosing to step beside me in this journey, it always has, and always will mean so much to me.

Just want to leave you with a cool story of how God specifically encouraged me this past week.
I was starting to get really nervous about the flight/traveling portion of this journey. My experience traveling abroad is almost non-existent(I've flown to Mexico once...), and I just started to be worried and anxious about missing flights, or misplacing my passport, or being alone in an airport confused etc... Nervous to the point where there were nights I couldn't sleep because of it.. There is a girl, Amber, from Vacaville(2 hours north of here) also participating in this DTS. However, the flight I was on had since increased in price and when I talked to her last week she was still about $1000 dollars short of being able to purchase her airfare. I was really bummed because I really felt like I could use a travel buddy in order to feel more secure about all of this. Sunday night when my roommate and I were praying before bed, I randomly asked God to do something cool and specific this week, not having anything in mind. Monday morning I get a text from my friend Amber to let me know some stuff fell into place and she got her ticket and IS ON MY FLIGHT! How awesome is that!!!

On top of that...wednesday morning, another girl facebooked me to let me know that she was on my flight from LAX to Brisbane! God totally eased my worry and answered my prayers. After a few weeks of worry, stress, and just not completely being stoked about YWAM, I found myself once again totally completely stoked, excited, encouraged and ready to go. It's so cool how God guides, encourages and meets are needs. And to think how cool this preparation experience has been...it's like how freaking amazing is the ACTUAL experience going to be. yep yep yep, I'm pumped!

It's getting real. It's getting close.
Me(and a handful of other college students) were prayed out by our college group this past tuesday.
Piece by piece it's hitting hard.
Hey Kayla, it's almost time to go!
God Bless!

Nine Weeks...and turkey talk!

That's right...just nine more weeks till I am outta' here!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving(and my 23rd birthday) and I have so much to be thankful for!

First of all, THANK YOU! To everyone who has joined me on this journey, through finances, through prayer and through encouragement - I am so blessed!!!!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here's a few pictures of some of the many things I'm thankful for...

My beautiful, loving and so super supportive family!

By such perfect imperfection I met this girl, and it changed my life. Amazing roommate. Amazing friend. One of coolest friendships I've ever had. If there's such thing as too much fun...we're having it!

This amazing, unique friend, her honesty                    This freaking kid. My brother. My
and her confessions!                                                        whole life. You are my little hero.

My first friend at VFC! Been through a                       Whole Foods Market Capitola. 

lot with this guy, and he has fully                                 True Community. True love. I love 

supported me from the start!                                          fish.

You thought I'd leave this out? I am so thankful I'm a GIANTS fan!

Vintage Kids! Love spending my sunday mornings with toddlers. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

When Months Turn to Weeks

We have reached the ten week countdown!

As always, I am blown away by your support. Last week I was able to purchase my flights. Everything is coming together, and the reality of this adventure is sinking in. Thank you so much for your support in this mission, both in prayer and financially. God has used so many of you to encourage me, and I know I am so blessed to be surrounded by such love.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." -2 Corinthians 12:9

Some of the girls at the retreat!!!

This past weekend, the VFC (Vintage Faith Church) college group spent the weekend in Tahoe for our fall retreat. Initially I wasn't planning on attending this retreat because I am in the business of funding this YWAM retreat. You can imagine my reaction when I received an email from one of the retreat organizers informing me that someone had offered to pay for me to attend. (I don't know who you are, obviously, but thank you so much. Getting that email brought tears to my eyes). I attended and it was absolutely amazing. Getting out of town, leaving behind homework, phone, computer etc. and getting to hang out and talk with people I don't normally spend much time with, was awesome. Before the retreat I was struggling with some insecurities, but through a conversation and prayer with one of my friends Bianca N( seriously the sweetest, funniest, most talented and entertaining people i know) God totally spoke to me. I realized that I was putting to much of my identity and cares in what the world expects to me, and was overwhelmed with peace in knowing that God has made each of us uniquely perfect just the way we are. Even our weaknesses have purpose in God's eyes. On top of being reminded God's comfort and truth- THIS RETREAT WAS FLIPPIN FUN! Ice soccer, sledding, losing control of cars, long walks, beautiful snow, car rides, THE TALENT SHOW, meals together, snowball fights.... etc etc etc... All that just to say I am so blessed to belong to such an amazing college ministry, one that is full of love, acceptance and fun, and undoubtedly is being insanely blessed and grown by the Lord in this past year.

What a beautiful place! I wanted to know how cold the water was...

Still can't believe I leave in ten weeks. There is so much here that I am going to miss- but I am so excited for what God has in store for me!

Please continue to pray for finances. The support so far has been so amazing and more than I could've imagined- but I still have a ways to go, so if you think about it, pray for me:)

Also, if you are interested in donating and have any questions- just let me know! and REMEMBER every dollar matters :-)


Love and Blessings,
K

3 months; VFC shout out!

92 days.
Less than three months till go time!
Thank you for all of your prayers and financial support so far.
Please continue to lift me and my fellow students up in prayer, that God would prepare us for this next season of life, bless our friendships, and that we would all be able to raise enough funds to go.
My visa was recently approved&I will be purchasing flights hopefully very soon!

Time is starting to fly.
The day of departure is quickly approaching.
I am scared, excited, and sad to say goodbye to all the wonderful people that I am surrounded by here, but so stoked for what God has in store for me in Australia.

My journey in the last year has been incredibly blessed and I know God has been working hard on me all along. Last October I started going to college group at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz. I had been away from the church for a few years and recently suffered the loss of a close friend and roommate in a tragic car accident. I felt lost, sad, and just wanted things to make sense again. One of my high school youth group leaders(shout out to erica) dared me to go to church at Vintage, I did, and the rest is history :)

The community at VFC has been incredible. I quickly got plugged in at the College group and was almost immediately surrounded in love and fun. Lots of fun. Being a part of, and watching that community grow this past year has been amazing. God has blessed the ministry and friendships within it so much. Tuesday nights are a highlight of my week and I am so lucky to have so many wonderful friends. I have been met with acceptance and love since day one and now when I am at Vintage, I feel completely at home. It's seriously the best feeling! On top of getting plugged in, I've met people who have become some of my best friends and I am so blessed to get to do life with them! Seriously, I am having trouble even articulating right now, because I"m just blown away at how perfectly God has made things come together in my life.  My words can't really describe what this community is like or really how much it means to me, but to everyone in it, thank you so much for loving me:) All of you are so amazing and I'm so glad to have you in my life!

Also at Vintage, Vintagekids. Talk about weekly highlights. Sunday mornings I am totally blessed to be able to spend the morning leading toddler sunday school classes. I LOVE IT! Those little guys and girls are adorable and they bring so much light to my life every single week. It's crazy to think that I won't see them for 5 months- because they will all be significantly bigger when I come back(and probably in preschool class-ahh!) So to Dawn and Amy, and all of the volunteers in the Children's MInistry, thank you for all you do and for letting me be a part of it!

Anyways, those are just some tidbits.
So blessed.
So thankful.
Praise God.


K

Less than four months...

117 days.
Overwhelmed by encouragement.
Encouraged by support.
Supported by love.
Loved by you.


Thank you everyone who has taken the time to send me money, to pray for me, and to encourage me. This journey technically has not even begun, but already I have seen God move, and I have experienced community in so many places. Family, friends, family friends, teammates, players, coworkers, classmates, the church...everywhere I turn I have been met with full support, love, and encouragement. I am utterly overwhelmed. Words cannot describe what a blessing it is to experience the community that all of you have given me, so thank you.

I am convinced that my time in Australia(and wherever else the Lord leads) is going to change my life, and I am thankful to all of you for helping to make it possible. I hope that you will continue to walk with me in this journey(follow this blog!) as I experienced all that God has planned for me. He has radically changed not only what my life looks like, but the very person that I am, and all in great ways. He has blessed me with the most amazing friends, and now is leading me on this incredible adventure, and there's no where else I'd rather go than where He is leading. Thank you for helping me get there.

As YWAM continues to get closer I will be updating this blog more and more often...and if you feel led to pray, or would like to pray for me in specific ways, I will certainly be letting you know how through this blog, because I will be the first to admit, I'm scared, I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed, and that I still  have a lot of money to raise! But on the bigger and better side, I am excited(stoked), happy, thankful and fully aware that this is an absolute once in a lifetime type of opportunity and undoubtedly a huge blessing.

Again, thank you so much for all of your support.
If you have any questions about donating, this mission or just want to say hello, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Love and Blessings,
K

Prayer Requests:
For fundraising, for the visa application process(which is right around the corner), for flight booking(also right around the corner), for quality time with family and friends, for school, for work, and just that God would be preparing me(and the other 27[so far] students) for everything He has in store. Praise God for all He has already done, what He will do, and for all of you and the community you provide for me.

Help send me to YWAM!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I have created this blog so that those of you interested in following my journey through YWAM will be able to do so through this. I am so excited(and nervous too) to be moving to Australia in January to participate in such an amazing ministry. I can't wait to share with all of you what it is like, and am so appreciative that you are a part of this journey with me.

To make it easier, on the right side of the blog you can enter your email address in the "follow by email" space provided, so that you will be notified by email every time I update this blog.

If you are interested in making donations you can do so on this page using the paypal button. Other options for donation are to either mail a check made out to me, Kayla Barker, at my home address: 2515 Begonia Pl. 

Santa Cruz, CA

95062

FOR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS PLEASE MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO VINTAGE FAITH CHURCH(PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE MY NAME ON THIS CHECK, instead include the form included in my support letter AND MAIL THE CHECK TO:

Vintage Faith Church

350 Mission Street

Santa Cruz, CA

95060

Thank you so much for all of your support. Prayers during this time of preparation for both me and the other students in my program would be very appreciated. 

Love and Blessings.

K