Round Two...

As many of you know, I'm currently on my way to Atlanta. Which means I have officially finished my first year in Life Action, and FCC. Now I'm getting ready to do both ministries all over again! 

Atlanta is where I started after graduation last year. I can't wait to get back to see all my FCC Tigers! This is going to be a great summer filled with awesome things God has in store for all our camps!

If you're not sure of what I'm talking about I'm heavily involved in two ministries. 

The first ministry I just finished with is called Life Action. I serve as a teacher for four year olds through first grade teaching them biblical principals and truth from God's Word during a period of up to two weeks per church. We travel for nine months around the United States (and sometimes Canada) to different churches seeking revival. 

Thank you so much everyone who has supported me with your prayers and generous donations that have literally kept me going this past year. As a missionary in the US I am required to raise support so that I can continue doing what I know God has called me to. This year, headquarters for Life Action has announced that we need to raise, $3,500 for training camp (three weeks in Michigan) and then anything else we will need to pay for on the road during the nine months that we stay in the homes and in churches we minister to (I.E. shampoo, toothpaste, makeup, etc.).

If you would like to support me you can go to, Life Action's website here and click on my name in the staff member section. 

My parent's asked me how would I sum up my first year in Life Action. I told them it was humbling. God broke down the pride that was in my life. Not only in my daily life but the pride I had in very important relationships and God sewed them back together through forgiveness like I've never seen before. I'm humbled and grateful for all my experiences. There is no place I would have rather been this past year, and nowhere else I want to be next year, than doing what God has called me to do. To serve, and to teach children. 

In the other ministry Fellowship of Christian Cheerleaders I work the summers as a staff instructor. We hold Christian cheerleading camps for teams to come learn clean and professional material for the sport they love. As well as being able to freely express they're love for Jesus, and worship together every night after a long day of camp. Often times as an instructor you will counsel many teams, and it's amazing to see what God does through these campers in just a matter of days. I can't wait to see all the campers, some old and some new. Please join me in prayer as I prepare for the summer, that God will be with me, my co-workers, the campers and coaches as well! 

Round two here I come!

Single or Married... Something to Think About

I don’t know about you, but lately I have had a large number of friends or family members, either in the process of preparing their summer wedding, engaged, or beginning a new fruitful and promising relationship. While I’m trying not to become bitter or jealous. Struggling with the fact that I don’t even have someone to talk to that might eventually lead to some of those things.

My sister married at eighteen, and has been married for almost five years now. My best friend married at eighteen when I was home for Christmas break. After Christmas break at least seven couples I know, if not more, are now currently engaged. It would be really easy for me to be jealous, or sad, about feeling lonely every now and then. However, when I start to think a little more about all the couples, God softens my heart. I’m glad God has given them someone to love, and that they are getting ready for this big step in their lives.

I would then proceed to pray about my future spouse. “God please send me someone who loves You more than me, a man after Your own heart, and someone who desires to do Your will." There is nothing wrong with praying for your future spouse. I think it’s a great thing to do and I encourage it. However, at one point not only was I praying about my husband’s characteristics, but I was more concerned with his other “qualitites.” Things like, how tall he is, or the color of his hair. I back myself up with the Word, God says he knows the desires of my heart (Psalm 37:4), and that He cares about the little things in my life (Matthew 7:9-11).

That being said, I was watching a movie with one of my favorite actors in it…

Ryan Gosling

I think he’s a very attractive man and I love the movies I’ve seen him in.

As I was watching, Crazy Stupid Love, Ryan Gosling was playing the romantic yet masculine role. Then I started to really wish I had a man like that in my life. A masculine, romantic, good-looking, funny guy. Then I said to myself, “God, would You send me someone like that?” Again, I know God knows the desires of my heart, and that He cares. So why not pray about it while I can? As far as I know I haven’t met “Mr. Right” yet.

So I pray for a good looking guy. Why not?

Then I was watching, Captain America, and Chris Evans had just gone from short and scrawny, to extremely handsome and muscular.

“God, you know, you could just send me Captain America. That would be okay too.”

At this point I’ve prayed for a God to send me someone who’s good looking, romantic, masculine, funny, or just your regular super hero. You’d think the list might stop there, but it doesn't. Because that would be amazing enough. Right?

But God made me special. And by special, I mean idealistic. A big word for, "I wish my life was like the movies, and that nothing would ever go wrong." Also I’m a girl so there’s not much more to explain.

Nevertheless, I love watching movies. It’s a big hobby in my family.

Not long after that, I was watching, Safe Haven, with Josh Duhamel.

He plays a really sweet guy, that’s just completely taken back by Julianne Hough's character. As soon as he see’s her, she immediately intrigues him. He wants to know more about her. Then he wants to be around her all the time.

 You get the idea.

I went from praying about my husband’s  important qualities of loving God and being a man after God’s own heart, to only praying that God would send me a fictional character that I watch in movies. But not just once… All the time. Every movie I saw I began to wish so badly it was my life, that my heart ached with pain. This continued for a while and my idealistic mindset grew more idealistic. (If that’s even possible)

Then a few weeks ago I was sitting in team meeting. We had a guest, Mark Bearden, who was telling us about prayer. In the middle of Mark’s message, I remembered a conversation I had with a friend of mine back home. I was struggling with something entirely different about friends and school and she said to me,

“Marina, life isn’t a movie!”

Life, isn’t a movie, and I can’t keep waiting for mine to turn out like one.

I can watch all the movies in the world, with the most romantic men in it. But in reality they’re just acting. Only God is perfect, and only God can possess all I need. My time with my husband is going to be so short compared to how much time I’ll spend with Jesus in heaven.

So essentially, I can have what I’ve prayed for. Someone to love me, and be perfect at all those things all the time. And that person is God.

 I wish and pray for perfection in a human, but God is the only one with constant never ending perfection.

San Antonio River Walk

(This picture made me think of Phoenix. I miss my city)

Last weekend Trysta and I went out to the San Antonio River Walk with our host family. It was a lot of fun! We ate at the Rainforest Cafe, which is still one of my favorite places to go. When I'm eighty I will probably still want to go there. Trysta had never been, and she loved it! After dinner we went on a little boat ride on the river, and we got to see more of the area. Then our host family took us to Tower of the Americas! That was a really cool experience. At the top it spins and in an hour it makes a full rotation around. 

Yesterday we finished the summit here in New Braunfels, Texas! So today we had to tear down and pack everything we brought with us to the church. Our next location is Powell, Tennessee. Which means, its going to take three travel days to get there. We leave early Wednesday morning! I'll be posting and tweeting about it the whole time if you would like to keep up with the Life Action Blue team and see what our travel days are like...

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Longboards, Ice Cream, and God's Grace...

This is my friend Trysta. She enjoys longboarding and ice cream. 

Trysta travels with me on the blue team as a singer. 

I took these pictures, at our last summit in Porter, Texas. We're actually rooming together this summit, so you might see more of her later. 

So far, this summit has been going really well! It started off not so great when Trysta got sick with a twenty-four hour bug the second day we arrived here. Then a couple days later I got the bug, with a 101. something fever. I'm now just trying to get my voice back to normal. Sometimes throughout the day I have literally sounded like a man. I'm not proud.

Not to mention I had a lesson last night, and well you can imagine how that sounded. There is nothing like having no voice and then trying to be louder so that people can hear you. No seriously, there's nothing. No noise came out of my mouth. Then a co-worker of mine gave me a water bottle, that helped a lot. As well as prayers. I knew it was going to be hard to teach that way, but I prayed for grace and knew that God knew the outcome of the lesson. So even though at the end of my application,   I felt like I was ending one of the worst lessons I had taught all year, as soon as i finished and prayed two of my co-workers ran up to me to tell me that, that was the best I had taught that lesson all year, and that I should lose my voice more often. God is so good! I still don't even feel like it went that well but I have continually been encouraged from people about how well it did go. 

So I'm praising God, who works through his children and uses them when they don't feel useful. 

"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

Romans 8:28

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Important Announcement

A while ago I told everyone to keep checking in on the blog because I had something important to announce. I’ve had to wait to hear back from some people but after much prayer and thought I am excited to announce that I will be traveling for another year in Life Action! I will continue to be a children’s minister for four year olds through first grade. I am at a lot of peace knowing that God wants me to stay and am excited for another year! I’m asking that you would pray for me, as I now have to start raising support to travel for another year.

Life Action is a support based ministry and requires the team members who travel to also raise support. Last year I had to raise $3,000 in order to travel. Any extra expenses we need, i.e. shampoo, toothpaste, etc. we need to buy on our own. However, if we raise more than the first needed amount ($3,000) we can get a stipend once a month to help pay for those other needed things (shampoo, toothpaste, etc.). The stipend is a certain amount of any extra money we’ve raised. I am asking that you would please pray and ask God if He wants you to help me. If you do not believe He is, or cannot at this time please pray that God would help provide what I need for next year. If you would like to send support then you can email me at marinaconrad94@yahoo.com and I will give you the information you need to donate.

Thank you for your time, prayers, and support!
As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
Romans 10:15

As of Late...

I don't know why but I love a good tree. The sun was setting and I couldn't help but get a couple shots of what I saw. I took these while I was in Mississippi. I've been back with my team for a few days now and my time at home went by faster than I hoped for. While I was home my dad blessed me with a new camera lens that I can't wait to use!

I'm currently in a church near Houston, Texas! I haven't been here since the summer and it's good to be back. I think what I like the most about Texas is that it's the furthest west we go. Meaning this is the closest to home I'll get. We started the summit on Sunday morning and since then we've averaged about nineteen kids every service. It's a smaller group but they're pretty rowdy. Last night's lesson was grace. The story is about a boy named Christian who is adopted by the captain of a ship. Christian becomes part of the captains crew and throughout the story he endures several times where he needs grace. Christian has to call out for help from his dad when he needs grace and his adopted father always comes to rescue him. 

Christian's story is an example to us that God is our adopted father, and whenever we need help God will give us grace and come to the rescue when we call on him. "Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I." Isaiah 58:9 

We also teach them the definition of grace.

Grace: The strength and the desire to obey.

Complete with hand motions.

My favorite part about last night was when the lesson was over and we were doing a craft you could hear all the kids talking about how much they loved the story. I even heard one kid tell a helper who had just come in every detail he could remember with great excitement. 

Well, that's just a little something about where I am and what God's doing. 

Quote of the night from a little boy;

"Do you know why birds poop white so much?"

"Why?"

"Because they eat so many marshmallows!"

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Collierville, Tennessee

This is Eddie.

He's my host family's dog. It started to snow on Saturday and he was freaking out a little bit. I was actually also startled by it, seeing snow falling from the sky is such a rare occurrence for me in general but having it in March was quite the rarity. For the rest of the day my roommate and I spent it with our host sisters. We had so much fun just getting to know them, thrift shopping, drinking coffee, basically cruising all around Memphis. It makes me sad that it's almost time to go.

Today was the end of the summit and on Tuesday morning I'll be flying back home to Phoenix for a few days. My team's band is leading worship for a conference next weekend and they don't need any children ministers, so I'm free to go home for a few days. I"m looking forward to being home for a little bit, I miss my bed... and my family. However, I am also going to miss my host family. They've been so much fun to be around and a huge blessing to stay with.

Another blessing this summit was how God brought more children than we've had in any church, as many as over seventy kids on a Sunday morning. At the beginning of the summit we had a little girl named Sarah who was so incredibly shy she wouldn't even come into the room. Tonight Sarah's mom had tears in her eyes as she explained to us that on their drive to church she was talking to Sarah about having a relationship with Jesus. Sarah told her mom that she understood the gospel and was ready to accept Him as her Lord and Savior. Sarah and her mom went into the hall and prayed together and when she came back in as teacher's we rejoiced because we had a new sister in Christ.

So glad to have taught Sarah and many other wonderful children like her these past few weeks.

Here's just a few other things I've been up to while I've been in Collierville, Tennessee.

I went to lunch with some friends. Every summit the four of us go to lunch together. We're the only new girls on the team so we usually try to do something at each summit. We tried a local restaurant, and that's always an adventurous choice because you never really know what you're getting into.

I've also been editing a lot. Here's some fun shots of a shoot I did on Valentines day for two very fun couples.

I still have a lot of packing to do considering I take practically everything I own with me in two suitcases pack and unpack it all every two and a half weeks. I'm becoming a pro at packing though. Once again thanks for reading The Not-So-Secret-Life I greatly appreciate it!

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