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Hi friends! I hope you all are having a wonderful 2015 so far! It's been a little while since we have shared an update so I thought I'd take advantage of a free morning to get it done! Thank you to everyone who prays for us & gives to us financially to make these endeavors possible. None of this would be possible without you! 

Shaun was in China two weeks ago visiting our Calling All Skaters DTS team on outreach over there. He was doing what we call a "Pastoral Visit" - checking on the health of the team and the leaders, ensuring that our ministry partners over there are doing well, and joining the team in the ministry they are doing. He had an amazing time and has reported that the team is doing incredibly well. Here are a few videos he put together while he was over there! 

Last weekend we drove down to Ensenada, Mexico to participate in a Beauty Arise Fashion Show our Beauty Arise team produced there. YWAM Ensenada hosted the event as an outreach to their city & over 200 people attended! The models were women chosen from the community, young teens from the local safe house that our Beauty Arise team invests in weekly were seated front-row as the "guests of honor," & I was the featured speaker - sharing on the love of God & the value He has placed in each of us. Lizbeth Espinoza & Beauty Arise: Unfading Beauty YWAM-Ensenada directed & produced the whole thing! God was so faithful - taking care of every detail && we felt privileged to have been a part of the evening! Since the event multiple Mexican newspapers have posted articles about it. Here is a link to one:  http://ed.el-mexicano.com.mx/impreso/Ensenada/012815/28-01-2015_ENS_01E.pdf

Shaun just returned to California yesterday from a week-long pastoral visit to our Calling All Skaters team in Chile. The crew is doing great & he is excited to be home! Check out @callingallskatersofficial on Instagram to follow the work they are doing down there.

Next Wednesday I'll be leaving to serve another Models For Christ outreach to Fashion Week in New York City! Models For Christ ministry produces Fashion Week Outreaches, and provides support, encouragement, and community globally to fashion industry professionals through outreach and discipleship to reflect the light and love of Jesus Christ within popular culture.This will be fifth year helping to serve these outreaches and I am full of anticipation for what God wants to do in and through our team there. Please pray for us! 

On February 21st we will find out if our baby is a boy or a girl! 
We'll be having a gender reveal party to find out alongside our friends and to celebrate together just before leaving for Spain. We are TOO excited! We could actually find out the gender at our appointment next week but we are both party people so we think the waiting will be worth it -
even though we both SO want to know now!! The baby is due July 4th. 

Lastly we will be leaving for Barcelona on February 26th to launch the first ever Calling All Skaters DTS there. We have a team of people coming with us to help lead and staff the bilingual school. Since we will be delivering our babe in California we will only be there for the first 3 months of the project but we feel grateful to have such a solid crew to lead the students for the remaining 3 months. We return from Spain on June 3rd. 

That is all for now!
As always if you feel compelled to give financially to our ministry you can do so through the "Support" link at the top of this page! Click "Donate" and fill out the form accordingly!
 We are still hoping to raise roughly $350 towards my outreach to NYC.
You are a huge encouragement to us both and it's a joy to do life with you!  
All our love, Shaun & Jess 

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Thank you!

September is nearing its end and October is just around the corner. Unfortunately southern California missed that memo though and we have been melting over here with temperatures hitting over 100 degrees for most of the week! Thanks be to the God who created iced coffee and sandals, we are all coping quite well and counting down the days until we stop sweating long enough to put on a light cardigan and scarf. When that glorious moment happens you will definitely know about it because a shameless selfie will be in order and I’ll be counting on you to celebrate with us!

Thank you so much to all of you who were praying for us and cheering us on in New York City last week! We had an amazing outreach with Models For Christ and Beauty Arise and though I won’t be posting details on my blog about it I do plan to send a private email update about the week. If you would like to be on the list of happy folks receiving my message then please let me know by leaving a comment or by emailing beautyarise@ywamla.org!

I am going to be sharing a fresh blog post here soon, so I will wrap this one up now but just want you to know that I am grateful for you and hope you are doing well! If you haven’t followed @beautyarise on instagram don’t miss out. Our friend and newest Beauty Arise staff member Grace Penhale (@mydarlinglight) is now heading up our IG game and you can count on it being worth your double taps. She is a hero. 

Love you guys! 

Fashion Week LA. A story.

            The lights were dimmed and the music bumping. Models were lined up backstage waiting for their cue to start walking. It was day 5 of fashion week and the final show was about to begin. Our expectations were high for God to move in these last few hours… but my brain felt fried from all that I coordinated backstage, and my body was exhausted from our twelve-hour shifts.

This was my third season dressing the models at Fashion Week in Los Angeles, and miraculously I had been promoted to “Dressing Team Supervisor”- which meant I worked closely with the backstage director to ensure that every model was dressed perfectly before hitting the runway. By God’s grace, my assistant- Anna Bishop, and I were able to fulfill the responsibilities of this role with excellence, despite having literally NO training at all.

As the last show was about to begin, I started to fear that my fatigue would hinder me from opportunities where God may have wanted to use me in. So I prayed, “Jesus, please don’t let me miss what You are doing. Please use me tonight. Help me to see how I can be a blessing to these people.”

Minutes after praying, I glanced up onto the dark stage at the lineup of girls and noticed that one of the models appeared ill.  I quickly went to her and offered my help. Very weak and barely able to ask for water, she collapsed into my arms, if I had been any later she would have fallen down the stairs. I called for help and within moments we had a team of YWAMers tending to her needs. One girl fanned her, another brought water, another offered juice, one had turkey and bread, another wiped her perspiration, one knelt to pray with her and finally one fixed her lipstick.

She recovered quickly.

Before she went onto the runway I shared with her about the prayer I had prayed right before I caught her. She said, “You know… it’s so crazy. Because I am a Christian too and just before you came over I had prayed, ‘Lord strengthen me because something is really wrong.’… Then you caught me, and all of your friends came to take care of me.”

I was blown away. Not only was she the answer to my prayer... but I was the answer to hers...

“Wow… God really loves His daughters.”

“Yeah,” she paused to think about it, “He really does.”

Praying with one of the models backstage Friday night.
"Those who look to Him are radiant..."

Shane and Christina Nearman.

 One of the most powerful gifts I have been given in my relationship with Jesus has been the strong friendships He has given me along the way. Friendships like these are nurturing and safe, they leave room for weaknesses and also continually call out the strengths in one another.

This week I will be saying goodbye to two precious friends 

that have been vital in shaping me over the course of the last three years.

Shane and Christina Nearman.

 They are the international directors of Models For Christ. They've been married 18 years. 

They passionately love Jesus, and compassionately love people. 

We met at Peet's Coffee three years ago, and despite all of my shortcomings they have still gone out of their way to encourage my life and call out my gifts. These are people who, appearance-wise, 

are outwardly flawless, and yet they aren't at all phased by outward appearances... 

they, like God, 

"...look not to the outward appearance, but looks to the inward heart" (1 Samuel 16:7)

That's what they have done with me from the start. When I have been nervous or unsure- they have spoken words of hope and truth, they have breathed life into me and released me into things that I didn't even know I was capable of. 

By faith they have given up everything, moved to crazy places, trusted Jesus for miraculous things (that looked foolish to the eyes of people- but fit perfectly with the stories we read in the Bible), they have loved extravagantly, served without recognition, and been strong examples to us all of what it looks like to live out what Jesus said in Matthew 16:25~

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, 
but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 

I pray that as I grow, I become more like Shane and Christina Nearman.
Which means to become more like Christ.
I am so grateful for them in my life.
I wouldn't be who I am today without them.

I love you Shane and Christina! 
 Thank you for everything you do!
You really are changing the world!