Lizzy's Footprints

It's a word many use, but can it be overused?  I don't believe it can be.  I am blessed.  In countless breathtaking ways.  Overwhelmed by the beauty in the lows of life.  Yes, the lows of life are what really get me.  The tears that fill my eyes are not to express being sad, they are the way my body and mind rejoice over giving my all.  My all isn't just my mind but letting my life be consumed by the uncontrollable radical will of the Lord. Looking back at all my yesterday's I can tell you they were challenging.  Most days have moments of frustration, anxiety, depression, and feeling lonely.  Honestly, I am weak and I struggle with a lot.  Let me tell you something that may be surprising... My favorite part about myself is my moments filled with tears.   Now I never thought I would be saying that.  You see my tears used to fill me with fear.  What if people think I'm weak?  Why can't I get my life unde...

Y’all I’m still alive!  Be praying y’all!  There has been so much to process and I’ll update y’all eventually just need time to embrace this! Thank you for being dedicated to updates.  I love you all! ~Lizzy

Day Two: March 19, 2018 Long cramped bus rides, extreme bonding, and gorgeous scenery filled out the day.  Today we went to the New Hope Academy in La Vega .  It is breathtaking to hear how God has worked a nd provided.  He has truly transformed the ministry with their new “mansion on a hill.”  The Dominican is a beautiful and blossoming place where a load of people lives and are experiencing God on the move.  Luke 10:2 “ He told them,  “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. ” The biggest lesson I learned today was to trust the wind and the waves.  This isn’t just me striving to be poetic.  The reckless beauty and dignified strengths of the wind and waves have become a simple to me of how the Lord works and moved in mighty and po werful ways.  We do not serve a God of mindless movements but one of intentional and radical relati...

Day One: March 18, 2018 “Praise be God” a phrase heard over and over again throughout our day.  I can’t get over how beautifully God works within these missionaries.  Through going to church and experiencing each of the ministries I continually see God’s hand here in the Dominican Republic.  Today we went to church, which was in Spanish.  I adore getting to worship in forgiven languages.  Spanish is such an amazing language and I am continually growing such a desire to learn it.  The food here is fantastic!  They have been feeding us wonderfully.  We got to do a ministry tour today and go around to all the different ministries that they work with but all where we will continue to work throughout the week.  Including church plants, Life House, Mercy Home, and the Palms School.  I cannot express enough how beautifully God is working here in this place!  ~Lizzy

Thank you for your prayers as we traveled.  Our team has arrived safely.  We are very tired but expectant for all that the Lord has planned.  Tomorrow we are learning about all the different ministries we will be working with and for throughout the week.  We will also be attending church at a local church plant.  Today I have learned that I don’t know Spanish at all.  It will be a very interesting week putting my little bit of Spanish to use.  Overall, I am tired but looking forward to all that God has planned for this week.  It’s been extremely fascinating to see how God has placed us each so perfectly on this team.  ~Lizzy 

WOW!  In three days I'll be in the Dominican Republic.  That is amazing to me.  I've been expectantly preparing for this trip for months now but the fact that it is right around the corner is hitting me in waves of nervousness.  My passion to serve in the realm for human-trafficking is coming to life.  It is amazing me that I will be there so soon.   God has been preparing my heart.  I can't begin to express how amazed I am by how our Lord works and moves.  Last weekend God opened the door for me to go to The Garden Conference in Atlanta Georga.  There God worked on preparing me personally not only for the Dominican but also for this adventure in life I've been blessed with.  Blessed, its a word we use often in hashtags in this day and age but it also describes how I felt as I embraced knowlegde and worshiped this past weekend.  I am overwhelmd iwth a sence of blessing as I think upon how beautiful it is t...

I am broken.  I seek control of the unknowns.  I strive to be perfect.  I try to wrestle the world's issues like they rest on my shoulders.  I find ways to blame myself for everything that goes even slightly wrong.  I wake up feeling unworthy.  I feel as if I won't measure up, I'm not strong enough. As I've entered this new challenging adventure many doubts have consumed my thoughts.  All of my course work is challenging.  The longer I think about it the heavier it all rests in my mind and the faster time passes by.  My success in these classes determines my future.  I've realized something, I'm destined to fail because I will never be capable to conquer any small part of this world. The crazy thing about fully trusting Christ is that the longer your trust Him the more you realize how incapable you are to fulfill the tasks.  You realize that your desire to be in control is painfully strong.  Then you doubt.  Think...

Dear Andrew and David,      How do I even begin?  Y'all have driven me insane my whole life!  To be fair, I've done some of the trouble making too.  I can't believe we've come to this point.  Growing up I always envisioned myself at college, but I never saw this part coming.  This is the bitter sweet goodbye, that shakes my soul.  I can't comprehend how life will be without yall constantly being around.  I blame the difficulty of saying goodbye on mom and dad.  I mean they made us live in an RV!?!  Even when they were frustrated or discouraged by our fighting and disagreements, they were raising best friends, their three goofy monkeys. Andrew, I couldn't be more proud of the man you've become, and I know that God has greatness on your path ahead.  I can't believe you are already at NC State already moved in.  They don't even know how lucky they are to have you.  I couldn't miss you more.  We've ...

Hello, my lovely devoted blog readers!  I've been focusing on my photography these past few weeks.  I am excited to share it with you all.  So I published  secarroll.com  my photography website.  I hope that you all enjoy it.  I will be writing more soon! Have a grand week!  I look forward to posting later this week.

     Today, the next 24 hours are an adventure for me.  I have no idea what they hold, I could guess who I may see but that isn’t even known for sure.  Today could be a day I’ll remember forever or simply another building piece to the process of life.  What if the past repeats itself today?  What if today changes the path of tomorrow? There are very few of us living in our current set of 24 hours.  We either dwell in the past or try to control our future.  We lose sight of the fact that all we can do is live. Life is all about the journey and the process not about the destination or the plan.  The events in life that challenge us and break us down are meant to form us into our future selves.  However, we use them as weapons against ourselves.  They come back to haunt us, to break us over and over, then ultimately we never change we just become more broken.  I make mistakes daily, I am a walking mess, but it is es...

Love is the most complicated thing.  It's a concept I'll constantly be trying to wrap my head around.  It is the reason behind everything.  We celebrate Easter and good Friday, knowing the reason why Jesus died on the cross and saved us from our sin is that He loves us deeper than can be fathomed.  In 1 John 4:19, we discover that we love because Christ first loved us.  The hardest thing to do is love but to love is also the easiest thing to do. Recently I've discovered some amazing things about love.    Distance makes the heart grow fonder.  Whether the distance is physical, spiritual, or both spending time away from the ones you love in some strange way only makes you love them more.    To let go and let God, is a pure kind of love.  When you are able to do hard things for the ones you care about you experience a new depth to love.    A broken heart is a blessing.  In order to have a broken ...

For many years I have felt like God has been playing this big joke on me.  He created me very people oriented and then placed all my people hundreds of miles away.  I've struggled with but also thrived in my long distance relationships.  I've had relationships that have formed entirely over long distance and relationships that simply continued to be long distance after meeting at a camp or on a mission trip.  In the beginning, these friendships taught me the importance of being a prayer warrior, and how prayer can bring people closer to one another even miles apart.  To this day the long distance relationships that support my life are the best gifts God has ever given to me.  As I started to complain to God about my relationships all being long distance, He gracefully reminded me that everything He does is done for a reason. Distance is physical, not spiritual.   Distance builds spiritual strength.  I've come to reali...

I walked into God's presence today.... I heard the ground praise.   I saw the plant trust. I watched as the dust served. The water showed me how to thirst. The wind taught me how to breathe. My eyes saw His grand beauty  My ears heard the earth praise  My nose smelt the wonder of God My mouth fails to express the glory He deserves My hands felt the detail in His creation This week the earth taught me how to worship.  In all that nature does it praised God.   I got lost in my wilderness.  While I'm not like the Israelites and I haven't been wondering in a literal wilderness, I found myself wondering through life.  Just like the Israelites I was paying attention to all I didn't have and not the blessings that were constantly being poured on to me by Christ.  Instead of being in awe that God was giving them manna daily and providing water through rocks, they spent there time looking for the things that weren't th...

"What is love?"  This question circulated my thirteen-year-old mind, and for years I've tried to understand love long enough to write a post about it.  The question circulates the world around us in songs and movies.  Often all of us say "I love you" to family and friends without even thinking about what we are saying.  We also say that we love food or love sports.  The overuse of this four letter word has filled its meaning with confusion.  What is love?  If we do not know what love is, then how are we to love? No matter who or what we are loving, love gets messy.  Love is passionate and often all-consuming.  Love is both the basis of good and evil.  We use the word love when other words just don't quite fit the bill for the levels of emotion we are feeling. Our first problem in understanding love is realizing that there is only one word in our language for love.  You could use like or adore, but they aren't the...

The day has come.... the world will finally have me in the realm of "adults."  I've never felt more like a child.  It has been in the days and months leading up to my adulthood that I have been most reliant on my parents for support and discipline.  I've also been more reliant on my heavenly father than I have ever been.  I've made my biggest mistakes and lived missing people 24/7.  As my age tells me, I am an adult, and I've never wanted to be more like a child. I've done a lot of stupid things over the years, I've made tons of mistakes.  As I have gotten, older my mistakes have lost the innocence factor that they once had.  Most of the time I even give myself a bop on the head for making stupid mistakes.  Recall when you were young, and you made a mistake but you know it was in the most adorable way possible.  Then your parents had this mental battle going of reacting to your adorability and punishing you.  I miss bein...

Here is a short update.... Today was our sleep in morning!  I got to lead morning devotions which were very nice.  We had a guest for breakfast which was nice.  He told us about different things from the community and his own personal story.  Then we did the leadership webinar and our team split up into groups.  Each group secretly completed a challenge and my group actually won!  It was a good bonding experience.  Then we all went to jump off the bridge.  After lunch, we went on our way into another Haitian community.  I have absolutely loved doing bible and food distribution! Now it is evening free time/ dinner prep.  Some people are playing cards, some are playing magic and overall the house it very loud. I love you all so much and can't wait to tell you all every detail and story!

I can not believe that it is already Thursday.  We spent our whole day in Blackwood today.  Many of us taught ESL, played with the children, and did food/bible distribution.  Personally, I was on the food/bible distribution team.  I can't even put words to how amazing it was to get to talk to the adults and truly experience the culture.  Even though there was a major language barrier with some of the Haitians, overall it was amazing to talk to each of them.  Praying for them and asking them how we could pray for them personally brought such sweet smiles to their faces.  One of the ladies towards the end even jumped for joy at receiving a bible in Creole.  Walking through praying over individuals and handing them food brought so much peace to my soul.  My heart broke for all of their different situations but getting the opportunity to listen to them share their personal struggles and prayer request is what strengthened...

Here are some photo from the week thus far: Mama D and I at glass window bridge We were pretty excited to spend a day traveling.  Airport group photo We're just an exciting group in general  Eating lunch as we fixed a flat tire Getting on the very small plane heading to Eleuthera  Glass Window Bridge Glass Windo bridge rock climbing Evening free time craziness Ferry ride to Eleuthera  Ice cream night Me, Anna, Mama D, & Savanah Plane from FL to Nassau 

Sadly it was storming this morning and we didn't end up going over to Blackwood for our morning session to teach ESL.   Instead half of us work on donations distribution and the group I was a part of prepared our skit for Saturday's youth group.  It was a productive morning even though it wasn't what we originally planned.  We had quite a lot of free time at lunch to explore the island.  Walking along a sand bar out into the ocean.  We took the 3:00pm ferry to Eleuthera.  Our afternoon was full of playing with the children.  The weather cleared up and the afternoon was absolutely beautiful.  All of the children ran over to us.  Hugging us and instantly starting to play games.  I got to play volleyball against six of the Haitian girls.  Let's just say I lost... majorly.  However, it was extremely fun to play with them.  After the intense volleyball game, one of the younger girls grabs me by the hand takes me up ont...

A day full of adventure from the very beginning.  We went out to Northern Eleuthera explored and experienced the culture.  We also did a lot of directing and planning sessions to prepare us for our first day in Blackwood tomorrow. After our 9:00 ferry from Spanish Wells to Eleuthera we ran into our first adventure.  Our cars that we rented had not arrived so we bonded as a group on the dock and got to meet some islanders as we waited.  The day's adventures continued with the arrival of all the sketchy cars.  Our first stop was the glass window bridge.  After that stop on of our tires popped and went flat.  We climbed rocks and went to Queen's bath.  Then we took an adventure to the grocery store.  It was like a big warehouse and nothing was very organized.  It surprised me that they advertised thanksgiving sales and the huge price difference.  After the store, we got VERY lost trying to find the Blue Hole. ...