Too Young for the World Race? You Don't Have to Wait!

KINGDOM

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 9/9/2009

KINGDOM from Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on Vimeo.

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Brasov Dance Off

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 9/5/2009

Bring it Sister, but really all of this is just because we love you a whole whole lot!

See you in Romania

Bring it BRASOV!!! from Patrice Deaton on Vimeo.

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Happy Birthday MOM and DAD

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 9/4/2009

Happy Birthday from Romania!

I love you both deeply!

love,

-gretchen

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad from Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on Vimeo.

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Gretchen Writes A Blog!

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 6/17/2009

So here it is. I know many of you have been asking when I would actually write another blog! I am just going to start sharing from things I have written in my journal. I hope in some way they connect with you. I apologize ahead of time if mind becomes a bit scattered through it all. Thank you for reading.

I asked myself what it looked like to usher in the kingdom. Here is where is took me.

It looks like a ragamuffin. A broken down, dirty, clothed in rags, joyful, laughing, filled with the Spirit, poor, a mischievous smile dancing at the corners of her mouth Woman of God who has found her place in the Kingdom. She is beginning to see how the Kingdom of God and it's people truly have become her home.

I struggle to share my heart in this kind of form. People just keep telling me to "write Gretchen, just write. Something will come out" Although this is like pulling teeth for me I'm just going to go for it. I really don't have anything to loose.

I was reading in my devotional the other day (Reflections for Ragamuffins by Brennan Manning) this:

When God introduces creative tension into our lives by calling us to break camp, abandon the security and comfort of the status quo, and embark in perilous freedom on a new exodus, our insecurity and procrastination may focus only on the darker

implications of the challenge.

This just hit home for me because I knew what God was calling me out of last year when I left for the race only to find that my real challenge would be when I returned home from the race. The depth of honest truth of who I had become and who I used to be that I attempted to walk in once I returned home was both incredibly painful but filled with a deep joy that I'm not sure I could express in these pages.

God began refining my character and pruning my branches as soon as I accepted the challenge of leaving my comfort zone for a year. He had introduced the creative tension into my life. I left with a knowledge of who I thought I was but also with a definition of who I had decided I was because of how others had defined me. Who was I really in the Kingdom of God? How did Papa Bear truly see me? He saw me as accepted, loved, redeemed, a Daughter of the King, a Princess in the Kingdom, a mighty warrior, a character for His Kingdom. I didn't allow these truths to sink into my spirit until I had finally allowed Christ to define who I was. He helped define my character in Him through my community, through my brothers and sisters who would not let me run from truth, freedom and grace.

I posed this question to myself earlier. What does it look like to usher in the Kingdom?

Through this process of the last year and a half ushering in the Kingdom looks like calling a generation out of their mundane lives, calling them to step out of the status quo, calling them to Truth in who they are, helping them realize they're all characters in the Kingdom. To help usher them into a Journey where they will embark in perilous freedom on a new exodus.

When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out

from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.

Joshua 3:3-4

I have been called out again into this wild adventure. This time to help co-lead the June Squad into the depths of Kingdom Living.

To the June Squad:
Number One: I LOVE YOU
Number Two: You are "My People" welcome to the Family!
Number Three: My prayer for you this year. I pray you would allow God to reveal his character in you this year. Allow HIM to define you. I pray BOLDNESS and TRUTH over you as you walk this year out and I pray you will allow your brothers and sisters to see who you are becoming. May your Freedom make others Free. Break down the Walls!

I LOVE YOU I-SQUAD
(this blog is for you)

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The Dancing Queens for Patrice's Mom's Bday

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 10/13/2008

Mama, this can go out to you to for a happy belated b-day! :) I love you! One of our more random moments on the race! Dancing in pants that can only be found in our beloved India!

Patrice Mom's B-day from Rachel Hunt on Vimeo.

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I Am Out of Control

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 9/28/2008

My teammate Sarah just posted a blog about the experience that Rubie, Myself and Sarah witnessed yesterday at the beach. �I just keep asking "Why?"

It is either really early in the morning or really late at night, I can't sleep, thoughts of people life and death keep running through my head. My mind is racing with thoughts of how I have no control over anything whatsoever. It seems this year we have been put in some tight situations where death is staring you down and it's in those moments you realize there is a God and you have no control. The fact that I am taking a breath into my lungs at this moment is a gift.

Today we saw a guy being pulled from the ocean lifeless with no movement just dead. As they drug him from the water they carelessly twisted his body around and drug him on the sand. His eyes where rolled back in his head. They flipped him over and some white foam came out of his mouth. The lifeguards didn't even do CPR. They carried him really fast and shoved him in the back of van or something.

I remember watching his friends as they realized their friend was gone. Nothing but terror on their faces. In a moment life was over for some young guy...

Life is short and no matter how tightly we pack our schedule we have absolutely no control over anything. God is in control and we can't change the past or the future but what we have is the now. Right here right now. Jesus said don't think of tomorrow because tomorrow has enough worries of it's own. If we could truly live each day in "the moment" we would be truly alive. We often times live to much hating ourselves for the past or hoping for a better future. But what about now?

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Called to the Middle

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 8/29/2008

I HAVE BEEN CALLED TO THE MIDDLE!

Not until recently have I understood what that place means in the Kingdom.

I grew up as a middle child with two sisters. My oldest sister has been blessed with an incredible intellect and my younger sister has a heart like Mother Theresa. I always wondered growing up how to find my place between the two. Where did I fit in? Who would notice me? It felt like the world was always after me. Everything was my fault. Why can't you people see how you are treating me?

Satan had begun his attack on my identity!

He knows that if he can keep me from understanding who I am in Christ, he can keep me from experiencing the maturity and freedom which is my inheritance as a CHILD OF GOD! Neil Anderson (Victory Over the Darkness)

I grew up believing his lies. I was not good enough. No one would notice me. I don't have anything to offer. Why do you even try they are just going to reject you.

Here, I am going to give you some walls. Use them to protect yourself, guard your heart from Christ and the world and you will be safe. No one can break them down. After all you are in the middle and no one really notices you anyways so just stay put.

I have lived in this prison too damn long! I have allowed the devil to control my identity for far to long. I have stolen the key and I AM GETTING OUT!!!!!

Honestly I did not know what to expect coming on this trip. I know I expected to see God move but not within the depths of my OWN prison.

God is there to give you what you need, but you have to be ready for what you might get.

What I have received is hard to even put into words.

As this year has passed the Father has begun to break pieces of who I WAS off and plant seeds in the worst parts of who I am.

"If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad." (Passion and Purity)

The seeds have begun to show life and the pieces are re-shaping themselves into a new identity in Christ. This girl is learning she is a daughter to the KING, a princess in the Kingdom! I AM ROYALTY!

My calling into the middle has been a painful process but I am learning that is has SIGNIFICANCE. Never before was I in a place to understand or to accept the calling.

I Am ready PAPA!

I was sitting at dinner last week talking with a very wise woman about the struggles I have been going through lately and how the Lord is teaching me through them. But I was still pretty confused about this ability I have to always end up in the middle of things. I mean even really silly things, like sitting in the middle of the table at dinner between everyone. I described to her about my past and growing up and even on this trip how I have managed to find myself between two of my most favorite people, Kim and Patrice.

I was ready for some wisdom on the subject and someone else's perspective.

What she shared with me CLICKED, it finally made sense! I am in a place now, outside of the prison where I can receive it. I am called into the middle to bind the sides together and make one. You see, my sisters in Christ Kim and Patrice are incredibly gifted Women of God. Patrice could get a herd of elephants to follow her and Kim has been gifted with incredible depths of wisdom. The Lord has placed me between these two amazing women as they lead and teach the flock to bind the sides together and love on his children.

I am a Shepherd called to the middle to LOVE, to PROTECT, to ENCOURAGE,
and to have MERCY on his children.

p.s. As I was writing this I felt the Lord speak to me about encouraging all those other souls out there that feel like they have been called to the middle. We are not stuck there!

Be an encouragement Gretchen to all those other souls I have called to the middle. You are beginning to understand the importance of this place in my Kingdom. You are needed to help bring it all together. To LOVE on those who you know need love, to have MERCY on those who don't deserve it. Love on my children. You didn't see this as a child/teenager because you were not ready to Listen. Now, you have the key and I am helping you open the door. THE KINGDOM IS WAITING!

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The Ramblings of a Wanderer

Posted in General Articles by Gretchen Kiehlbaugh on 8/29/2008

This is a random journal entry that I read recently that I thought I would share about my journey this far:

The Lord has brought me through some tough stuff about myself that before I left on this trip was very well hidden by my other self. The self that liked to hide from who she truly is. A Daughter of a really great Papa Bear. Not a tough girl who try's to hide herself behind a gruff sarcastic exterior to keep herself from how she truly feels. I have found that throughout my journey this far I am girly and I have heard on more than one occasion on this trip that People think that about me. It really just makes me laugh. :) haha! It just sounds strange to say about myself because for so long I have fought against it.

I just really love people to. My heart breaks for them when I see them hurting. I just want to sit down and cry for them. It's really a great freedom to feel like who you were meant to be.

I've been learning a lot about my defensiveness and how the majority of my life I've been operating out of rejection. Which in most cases causes an emotional response which then leads to me defending something and most of the time it's not worth defending! EVER!

I am still trying to sort out why I have such a sense of rejection in my life. I go back to my childhood to high school to college and I can't put my finger on where it came from. I know in high school i struggled with not having my own identity because everyone always called me "Kasi's Little Sister" But I mean really! Why didn't I just own my identity. I never made it my own. It was to easy to place blame and feel rejected to be accepted by people's pity. And really maybe this sense of rejection comes from no one having sympathy for me because I always cried about not being me and having my own identity. Really I think they were doing me a favor. I was being a baby!!!!!!!! WOW I have never even processed this before I just lived in it. Maybe this is really the core of it. People were trying to help me claim it! I just wanted to keep wallowing in my own crap! This is incredible and so so so incredibly stupid! I mean really!

I have also started trying to be alot more careful with my words. I know i can have vomit of the mouth sometimes and i've really tried to start taking ownership of my words because most of the time they just get me into trouble.

It's been beautiful! I am learning to be who he has created me to be and that is a girl who doesn't have a tough shell, who doesn't hide behind a wall. But a girl who is broken into a million different pieces, who is so far at the end of herself she can't do anymore but rely on her father to carry her. I am a precious, broken little girl who wants nothing more than to sit at her daddy's feet and learn who she is and who HE has created her to be!
My broken offering!

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