Rachel's Painting

Our lives, our world, even our morality, sometimes fade into greyscale... And I can't help but think that maybe we were meant to revel in a full spectrum of color. Redemption, Hope, Grace, Beauty, Truth, and Light spill earthward, and I pray they will find welcoming space on my blank pages.

WHAT I WILL DO

Spiritual: I want to grow more faithful everyday with God. Find payer and direction by God in everything I do. Seek purity and truth for everyday ahead. To never underestimate the willingness of God’s grace and direction he want to share with me. I want God to show me more vision for what he laid on my heart, to STOP human trafficking. I pray guidance for the awareness walk that I am organizing for Seattle. I say that thousands will join me in this! I want to pray everyday for my mom, dad and sister that they find Jesus, and walk with Him. That I can be witness to them, that their life be fulfilled and that they seek God for their purpose and to live that out. To never stop praying for my wife, that she is out there in the world, that she is safe and healthy. That one day I can be there for her to help her live out what God put on her heart.

Personal:
Short Term: Continue my love of photography; get better and better, never expect nothing less then professional work. Setup an art studio in my place; spend more time in the creative world. Take dance lessons. Travel to five new countries this year. Continue my education with a huge passion of mine health and nutrition. Grow closer with my sister, be an influence on her! Get inspired more, achieve more, give more, cook more, love more, read more and expect more out of this short but so purposeful live. Never give in, but always keep giving out!

Long Term: Sail the world. Spend time in at least three hundred countries. Restore a sixteenth century chateau in France. Own and run a beautiful vineyard in South America. Own a racetrack with my dad in Europe and restore a nineteen sixty-one three fifty six bathtub Porsche with him. Along with many others, stop child trafficking and slavery in my lifetime. Never stop making new friends around the world. With all this and I am sure so much more to come, I would like to find my love along the way.

Business:
Short Term: I am in the process of starting a privet investment fund. By May I will have it started. By the end of two thousand nine I want to have the portfolio grow past the one million dollar mark. I am head the manufacturing division for Do The Extraordinary a street-athletic clothing company, Diesel meats Nike, if you will. I want to see this company launch this fall and grow to a multi-million dollar company within the first year.

Long Term: To have passive income in all my business. To have it set on autopilot. To have everything I do and my energy spent not making money, but rather, spending it on fulfilling the needs God’s people.

Daily confessions: feel/ see/ speak

Here is an outline of my confessions. Each of these thoughts bring up floodgates of feelings and connection. This is what my 2008-2009 is hovering over……I want to land soon.

Me, internal/interpersonal:
To Trust
To live every moment in real and peaceful confidence
To take real risks
To do something once a day that scares me.
To discover how I am made to function.
I will be financially settled, enough to support others.
Spiritual growth is my main goal
To see others though the correct filter, eyes of Christ
To decipherer the emotions of interaction, seeing the spirit and not the issue
To be free
Outward not inward
To put the kingdom of God above all else:
Above my own ambitions
Above my self
Above my progress
Above my accomplishments
Above my pride
Above my past knowledge
Above my favorite things
To be in charge of my atmosphere, where ever I am.
To understand my authority
To let my passions overtake me

Me, tangible/professional:
I will pick an idea to place my efforts into
I will live in a foreign city
I will design and own a clothing company
I will sail around the world
I will create and own a hostel/hotel
I will adopt
I will speak French
I will make a piece of furniture
I will Travel to every country
I will be a pilot
I will be an artist

For the Heralds...

1. God redeems the mistakes of my yesterdays.
2. I have all I need to flourish in my today.
3. Jesus walks with me into my tomorrows.
4. The Holy Spirit guides what I ingest.
5. God's adequacy is larger than my inadequacy.
6. Christ leads me from Glory to Glory, from Grace to Grace, from Truth to Truth.
7. I am deeply, inextricably Loved.
8. I have a purpose, a hope, and a future.
9. I love my life.
10. I am not home yet.

Confess Jonell

· I am a business woman of God
· I see my business launching- all facets in God's order
· I see my goals being worked on to completion
· I am equipped to build what God has in store for me.
· I communicate in an organized manner
· I am a visionary
· I am debt free
· I give to my church
· My Godly husband patiently and calmly waiting

Burning Bush Experience

It was not long after I received Christ as my Lord and Savior that my experience happened. I was attending a birthday party for a friend of mine and we had gathered around him to pray. When we finished praying for him, someone said we need to pray for Joe also. I was told while being prayed for that I would be in dark places of prisons, where only I would be able to bring light into dark. I would set captives free. At that time, I had no clue what that meant. I wanted to be ministry, but not that type!
So, three years later I am finally ready to do what the Lord asked of me. :)
I started attending Prison ministry thinking this is what the Lord wanted me to do. I found fulfillment from this, but it was not what the Lord had in mind. On my way home from a ministry session, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, I want you to go into the prison son and reach the people that do not know me. I said Lord I am doing what you asked of me. I thought prison ministry is what you wanted. The Lord replied and said, there are people that do not know me and need me inside the prison where I can not get to. You have to get to them for me son. I was like how? He said I want you to become an officer and work for me inside the prison. I replied with if you can get me in God, I will do what you ask of me. Thinking in my fleshly self, there is no way they are gonna hire a tattooed guy like me!
Well.... God is a VERY BIG GOD! and......
I am currently working as a Correctional Officer at Monroe Prison.
I would like to mention that it was prophesied numerous times that I was to do this. I just did not understand it would be literally!

The only scripture that the Lord had laid on my heart and its my life verse! Its what drives me to keep going when I don't want to!
Hebrews 13:3
Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.

God has put the entire prison in my hand right now! I am a soldier for Christ, and I will not be afraid. He has equipped me to do the work of the ministry. I am given the body armor of Christ, that I put on each morning before entering into the facility. I am there to deliver and set free the captives. The Lord is my strength!

Trust

Trust

I can’t remember the specific date, but I believe it was in May or June of 2008, just about 1 month after I became saved, when God was pressing the idea on me of brining the Renew training team closer together. We called ourselves a team, but it felt like there was so much division and selfishness. We all enjoyed working with eachother, but we would only help eachother out when it would benefit us. I was part of the management team and we would have weekly meetings on all aspects of the business. This is where I felt the biggest challenge was. It was myself, the general manager, and the two owners. I felt so much negativity in those meetings and there was a lack of trust. I simply didn’t trust anyone, even though I loved the guys and enjoyed working with them. This lack of trust had been building up for several months and I would pray about it on my way to work and on my way home because I felt so much un-easyness about it. God spoke to me to lead a team meeting on Trust. About this time, I was required by management to lead 1 meeting per month with all staff and management. This was God giving me the opportunity to lead.

So I prayed about it and I bought a great book on trust and read it for several days before the meeting to help me get some ideas on what to talk about and some exercises to do during the meeting. I didn’t have much confidence and wasn’t comfortable up in front of people and the whole time I felt like I was jumping around, my ideas were scattered, and it was choppy. One of the owners had to jump in a few times to help me get through the meeting. It was an okay meeting and I got some constructive feedback by one of the owner after the meeting. From this, I felt God was very proud of me, even though I didn’t feel so good about it, because no one else had talked about this issue with the team before.

I continued to pray about it for the next few weeks because I knew I wasn’t finished talking about it and I didn’t get the message that God wanted me to get acrossed. Finally, it was time for me to lead again and this time I was even more prepared. I asked God to be with me and give me confidence to speak and be bold. I won’t go into all the details but basically I had confidence, the meeting went smooth, everyone was involved, and it got the team thinking about how they can become a better teammate. Trust takes time and it requires humility and vulnerability. Jesus demonstrated humility to it’s finest. If someone wants to lead a group, that leader has to demonstrate humility and vulnerability. I gave the team examples of my vulnerabilities because I wanted them to know that I needed them to help me as a teammate and to break down any barriers that we may have. After the meeting, I got called into the office by the owners, again, and this time their reaction is not what I had expected. I got hugs and hand shakes and was told that that was the best meeting they’ve had in years. I thought wow! I knew God was with me and he gave me the confidence to get up in front of the group and deliver that message of Trust.

After that, the team just seemed to bond together and we were stonger. That was the last time I gave a meeting on Trust, but it shouldn’t have been the last. Trust is a process and is ongoing, but we eliminated the weekly meetings and turned them into monthly meetings. I knew God wasn’t finished with me on giving that message, but I let other circumstances get in the way.
When I left Renew for my current job, it was a very difficult decision because I felt in one sense that God wanted me to stay to finish what I started, but this job was everything that I had been praying for.

2. What scriptures has God given to you pertaining to this vision or idea?
1 Timothy 4:12-16
“12 Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers In word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. 13 Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. 14 Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laing on of the hands of the eldership. 15 Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress amy be evident to all. 16 Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.”


3. What has God put in your hand to do right now?
God has given me this new job to speak and empower students. I feel blessed to have a great job and I get to inspire students to go onto higher education. I feel that He wants me to be an example to the students. Not sure how long the Lord will have me doing this, but I feel he has me here because he is preparing me for the the next step. Maybe it has to deal with youth or maybe he wants me to get back into Education????