It is finished and His promise was kept.

     When God called Abraham out of his homeland, do you think Abraham had a clue what was going to happen? Absolutely not! The whole road wasn't easy either, and God knew that He was going to mold and shape him into something beautiful and all the things along the way were for His glory.  But one of the most important things was that God made a promise, and always did, no matter how many times Abraham failed, messed up, didn't like God, etc, God was ALWAYS faithful and never abandoned him.  I held onto this story in my journey through Argentina.  I even have a sticker of the Argentine flag in Genesis 12 so that every time I got frustrated and wondered why God brought me there, I would go back and see that flag to remind me that God made me a promise.  And you know what? He fulfilled it! He gave it to me! I am back home, I can speak spanish fairly well, I am closer to Him than I ever have before, and that and so much more is what God promised me to get to July 10th.  What an awesome god our God is :)  If you think that God leaves you, if you ever have a doubt for where He has you, think about what kind of distance you are away from God first before you start blaming Him for your life circumstances.  I am so blessed to have been part of this experience and I can't even provide enough words to do so, so this blog may not be extremely long!  I want to thank the Lord first of all for carrying me through and keeping His word in entirety! I want to thank my parents for supporting me through love, prayer, finance, and just setting that good example before hand to help me make the decision to go!  I want to thank my sisters for praying for me and just being there for whenever I needed to talk!  I want to thank my boyfriend for sticking with me throughout our first year of dating and growing with me through prayer and conversation, because we are closer than we have ever been and we both know that this is how God wanted our first year to be, and we are content with that!  I want to thank the church body for first: PK and youth group for taking me to Argentina all the way back in April 2012 and second: the church body for support through prayer and finance because I could definitely feel that from Gods hand! I want to thank Lucas Fernandez Paz (head of bilingual program) for being our shepherd throughout the whole experience and taking care of all of us as our temporary father!  And the list goes on but people like all the people who were my roommates throughout the time, my friends that I learned so much from, even the people who challenged me to get along well, THANK YOU! Because of this, I am who I am now! Highs AND lows! They were all part of God's plan and who am I to argue with that?  Even though some of you may not see the fruit of your work now, the Lord will reveal it to us all one day, and we will all be like "ohhhhhhhh! OKay!" haha

          I honestly couldn't have asked for a better year!  Never in my life would I have thought of Argentina!  You've probably heard this before but if I were told before last April that I was going to go to Argentina for a year, learn spanish, and be changed forever......I would have been like um no way. haha But you know what, that's why God doesn't tell us things before hand and makes us wait for His timing for things! A lot of the times, we would try to avoid them! Even when we find out what He wants, we try to avoid it anyway!  I am excited though to see what He has next!

     As this blog is called, "A Year/Life of Surrender", it is not just this year now that I have finished that was in need of surrender for what God was going to do, but now its my whole life! Whatever He has next, I need to surrender whatever my story is, for His!  As hard as it may seem, its the best and what I plan on doing!  I am already getting things ready to work with the spanish ministry at my home church, found out a few spanish churches close to my college, speaking spanish with whoever I can, and continuing this journey, because its not over till He calls me home and I plan on living it for Him POR SIEMPRE (forever)!  Thank you to all who have been continual in reading this blog! I love that you have kept in tune and your prayers have reached me! If you could continue praying for me and what adventures He has next and that I would remain to have the same spirit of surrender and readiness! 

Love you all and it is now finished.

     -Maggie :)