My Testimony Part II: "A Day in the Life"

Chelsea Chaisson
Jun 11, 2018
45 min read

My last blog was written two months ago while I was still states side, it was my Testimony Part I: titled, "A story of God’s faithfulness”. Read this blog only after you do your homework and read Part I.

Seriously, go and read it.

Now to continue…

After graduating high school I put a few names of colleges in a hat and desperately prayed, “God, rig this thing, and show me where to go.” I pulled out a name, “Pacific Life Bible College”. “No God.” I put the name back in the hat and swirled around all of my College choices in the hat. I pulled out another piece of paper, again, same place. “Pac Life”. Same response. “No, how many times did I write Pacific Life?” I tried one more time. Still again, “Pacific Life Bible College”. When I chose it then for the third time in a row, I was determined to ask my heart and God about this. Just then, so clearly I heard these revelations: “Lead your Heart, don’t follow your heart” and “Don’t go or not go to a place because of someone.” My heart was so set on not going to Pacific Life… I wondered if this was because this was the exact place God wanted me to go to. I was wrestling with the idea of attending college in Louisiana where I had friends there waiting for me to join them.

I’m intrigued with the unknown, unexpected, the adventure, so what did I choose…or better yet, what path had God laid out before me to choose?

A few weeks before high school graduation, I unfortunately, totaled my car and was equally fired from my part time job. With this incident, my brother encouraged me to pick up the guitar and make the most of my new found time freedom. In order to cope with a loss of a car, a job, and the little “freedom” I enjoyed that the car had brought me, I practiced E minor over and over again. Thus the beginning of my guitar playing/ learning endeavors.

Not only did the car wreck usher in a new musical past time but I also decided to decide to go to Pacific Life (PLBC for short). Here was a piece of my logic, “I can’t road trip now to California to attend the sister school of PLBC, Life Pacific Bible College (which I was really gunning for) nor can I pack up my life in my own car to move into any dorms in my home state, no, I needed to do a new thing, I didn’t want to be chumming rides off of friends. I needed to go to a place where I didn’t need a vehicle, after all Vancouver has solid transit I reasoned. The other piece of my logic was that God actually needed to show Himself to me on this one. So I was ready to risk my College career on an encounter.

I was always aware of God’s hand of direction on my life, I always felt like He was pushing me, or should I say, ushering…no, no, He was pushing but I needed the push, and so with this push, I needed His peace. So only after first going to Vancouver Island at a Native American Camp to be a Counselor for the summer before the Fall Semester of 2011 did I finally commit to PLBC. I went to this camp for a month to seek out adventure in missions while simultaneously, I went to scope out Canada/ British Columbia first before attending PLBC in the same province.

Little did I know that God had more in store for me at this camp than I would have ever imagined. He wrecked me for my people, the First Nations people, while at the same time He taught me to do life in a community in a culture and nation similar and yet very different to the one I had grown up in. He also taught me to fight for unity with family as I staffed this camp with my sister (Caitlin, this remains one of my sweetest memories with you, here I learned how to trust you and gained so much respect for you my perma-best-friend). I also learned while staffing at the camp that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Also, in giving of my time at this camp, I learned that I needed God in order to “pour out” or really have anything of value to give to those I’m surrounded by. I learned about myself working at the camp that God had been hand crafting me specifically to do life on the mission’s field. I loved expressing my love for kids, sports, Jesus, music, the outdoors, the ocean, island life, and spontaneity at this camp. My joy ever increased though the mission was difficult and the schedule, a grind, but the children, teens, staff, and month wrecked my life for love in the best way possible. At this camp I fell in love with the people because somehow God has hand crafted me to be able to relate to this people group, the First Nations people, and the nation of Canada. More on this camp later as I actually continued to staff there for three more summers.

While on debrief from this camp I toured my soon to be new campus home, and immediately upon entering the campus, peace completely engulfed my spirit and demeanor. Not only that, while debriefing from camp, my sister and I joined some fellow staff to lead worship at various youth groups and churches in the same city of my soon to be campus home. This fact is truly key…as you will notice, God thematically brings me to places twice over. Keep this thought in mind as I continue to share not only stories from Bible College days but also from my current season here in Cambodia.

Now as I write this from a Cambodian café in 2018, I can see another common theme with how God speaks to me…He releases His peace over me when He wants me to go, stay, speak up, sing, what have you. I’ve come to learn that God is a God of peace, or shalom: where nothing is missing or broken. The enemy on the other hand, which I don’t even want to waste space in this blog about, brings chaos, like a bee hive fully shaken and stirred, a rowdy mess. So if you are about to make a big decision, and you aren’t sure which direction to take because your thoughts are literally swarming… WAIT, “peace be still”, and know that God is God. Whatever the decision may be, ask God to send His peace…and trust that He is way BIGGER than you, and is the author and finisher of your faith. He is actually running this thing. Not that we don’t have free will to make decisions, but He is Sovereign. Let me say that again, God is Sovereign, look up Matthew 6* and calm down. The pressure is off when it comes to life with the Lord. We can’t screw up His plan for our life. He is too good and too loving. If you are walking where He leads, holding His hand every step of the way, remaining close to His heart, you will be led by those still waters, to those life giving places with Him there cheering you on and giving you the courage and confidence you need to step out in faith.

If He really wanted me to go to a College in Louisiana after graduating high school, I would have. But no, the choices set before me were really a set up…a set up to seek out the carrot in front of my carriage (I feel like my life relates well to a horse or a dog…more on this later). Heck, I literally feel like God is always setting me up. What do I expect, He is a really exciting God and He knows that if I knew everything or felt like my plans were falling into place, I’d quickly become bored, lose interest, or feel like I had to keep everything in perfect control. God is a trustworthy setter-upper and has an actually amazing plan in place for my life, and yours as well, so let’s all just let God’s peace speak louder than our stirring hearts.

I took the leap, left Louisiana during a hurricane actually (maybe it was a tropical storm), and began my first semester of College in Canada. Those two years were a ride. I lived life as a musician, wrote songs, cried at the sight of snow, and truly grew in my independence with God. I learned to do life with Him in College though I didn’t yet rely on hearing His voice much or often, I continued to seek the encounter. I’m not opposed to encounter, and as you can hear, God used encounters to direct my life, but as I have grown with the Lord, I wish I would have done more day to day communicating with God rather than asking for something really big every so often to take place in order to get me to move on to the course He set before me…it would have been less messy this way and more relational.

While attending college, my peers and I were visiting various churches, the same churches the Lord had previously led me to lead worship at after my summer camp counseling time. These moments were bitter sweet. I had been to these places before with my camp staff and literal family, and so I recognized familiar faces. This time in Canada and at these churches, God was teaching me to boldly be my own person…He wanted us to have our own relationship. He wanted me to know that He had given me a voice and He wanted me to step out in those various gifting’s He had given me. Especially in high school, even while hosting and event planning the Battle of the Bands in my hometown, I would have never dared to share with others that I was a singer. I look back and can see that God built my confidence in this season and drew out my love songs to Himself. I wasn’t a perfect Christian during Bible College. I actually fell into some pretty ridiculous forms of familiar yet hidden sin...

If you did your homework, you’d know that previously, in high school I had begun my 9th grade year mold-able, and ready to conform to the patterns of the world. Then I boldly became publicly passionate about God. Yet, my hearts motives were not pure most of the time. I had a VERY judgmental attitude towards peers who were “sinning”, while I too wasn’t living such a pure and holy life consecutively. In College, it was as if God had uprooted me from my upbringing and coverings, to show me who I truly was at the core, the good, the bad, and the ugly. He wanted to show me those boulders that had tripped me up before were actually who I had become while growing up but not who I was meant to be.

The boulders were lust, pride, envy, jealousy, arrogance, distrust, disobedience, rebellion, among other things. My second year of Bible College, while God was training my fingers in piano, my brain in music theory, my ear in sight singing, He was also working on my heart, despite the fact that I actually stopped reading the Bible while in Bible College. Regardless, here are some highlights from my second year of College in particular: I wrote and recorded a song (check it out on YouTube “Thief”, behind the song =being gang-stalked and God stepping in, true story), I learned intensively about apologetics and other world religions, I experienced deep friendship and love for the many different expressions of the Church body at large as well as for the nations, and I began using my 8 years of dance training to express myself in worship to God. Also, I took the most life changing course: Freedom Session. This was a course designed for 6 months to a year but for my class was compiled into three months only. We took extensive inventories of where our hearts actually were at with the Holy Spirit’s help. We exposed darkness in our own lives to let the light in. We replaced those lies we believed with truth. This course was actually only the beginning. Little did I know that the Lord would actually use all of this new found freedom and clean slate to revisit those very same areas in my life post-graduation to truly test and refine me.

Piano was my go-to instrument to create and release thoughts and emotions bottled up inside up until College when I was then studying piano officially. Then I began picking up the guitar more and really “escaping” with God with those strings. Simultaneously, because I was studying the Bible, I put that book down during leisure times to pick up studying French a bit. After all, after my France immersion trip then the Mexico missions trip, I still needed to “make up” for my behavior in France and return someday as a pure and spotless lamb to bring that nation to the Lord…I hope you hear a few themes here…for many years my Christianity even in Bible College was performance based, it was about what I could do for God or it was about achieving some goal of redeeming my “evil” years with good works. While writing this in Cambodia, I can totally hear traces of a Buddhist/Karma/works based mindset in some of the patterns I had fallen into in my walk with God. Thankfully, with Freedom Session God was ready to uproot this way of thinking and begin to take me on a deeper journey of freedom.

Freedom session taught me to be vulnerable with my past and that God was not into wasting space. He had allowed me to walk into the prodigal son arena when I was just 14 for the sake of free will and to relate to most of the world. He had also allowed me to be a legalistic Christian when I was 17 for the sake of grace and to relate to the other half of the world. He allowed me to experience the extremes of life, the binging of sin with the binging of Christian works and ethics. Why? I believe He utilized it to actually bring me closer to His heart. Because I had exhausted the pendulum from saint to sinner, with Freedom Session, I believe I was finally ready to start living more of a lifestyle with Him as my source for freedom, life, and light as my ways of living were not practical nor sustainable. I had to be brought low, expose the thought patterns, the bitterness, the pain from my past in order to heal stronger and with a true compassion for others who similarly lived life as a lost child groping around for some sort of quick fix.

Freedom session taught me there would be no quick fix at a hard left or hard right that could bring me the day to day peace I desired to live in. No. Jesus only brought the peace and when I took inventory in the mirror of who I had in my own effort tried to become, only there had I recognized my deep, deep need for him. This person I had become throughout my teenage and early young adult years, whether in the church or in the world, still desired to please man, still had struggles with the fear of man, still binged on life, still turned into the arms of people for safety, security, worth, value, direction, guidance, etc. This person I was, had a life built on sand but God is in the business of building lives on the rock. To do this, He exposed my insides and replaced my shame with a grateful and worshipful heart. I began corporately and privately, consecutively worshipping God in my second year of Bible College. Not only was I helping lead chapel worship times, but I desired to attend more corporate worship “events” in Vancouver. I craved it. Not because of the music, or the ambience, or the community, but because in this space of worshipping God, I became made low, to lift Him high, and then in turn, was brought up. Lies were exposed in times of worship. God’s voice of direction was heard during times of worship. However, I can see how God truly began wetting my appetite for more of Him day to day, not just at these scheduled “events”.

Like working out and eating healthy, it is more beneficial, sustainable, and practical, to start off slow and allow your body to develop, your appetite to change, over a period of time. With consistency, what started out difficult, becomes a craving for routine, order, cleanliness, discipline, a desire to truly enjoy a lifestyle of health and wellness. The same has been true with the secret places that God has developed me. My second year of Bible College was a time for growth in worship. Especially after a gnarly experience of being gang-stalked (which also lead me to write that song I previously mentioned, “Thief”), I knew that no other arms could truly protect me nor fight my battles. I needed a big God to do that. I needed to believe that He was actually good and strong enough to keep me from the evil one. In running to “the throne room” to worship God, my fears decreased, and my passion for His presence increased. Only with Him had I felt known as I felt the bigness of God in times of worship, and recognized my and others’ inability to fight for myself, my life, my joy, my peace, my freedom, direction, and love. Only God could be that protection I truly craved. Only His voice and opinion truly mattered when I saw Him for who He truly was/is. My second year of College could be summed up as me being made low (freedom session), to be remolded and brought back up (in times of worship where my identity as a child of God was solidified and His identity as BIG became tangible).

After graduation, peers were asking me, “what’s next?”, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I really was banking on God sending me to YWAM Switzerland, as this deep call to reach the Francophone only increased with age. However, God was up to a work I would have never believed nor chosen had I known.

Just when I was out of the nest and, learning to flex my adult muscles and rely on God more personally and daily, God sent me back to my roots to be hidden, to solidify and grow those seeds of missions, worship, community, and freedom. I moved back home with my parents in 2013. Everyone I had built a life with there pre-College had either moved forward and crossed into new domains and lanes from me, like marriage, or had remained in their current season and station, like entering into their third year of College. I felt a little lost for that first year and a half back home. All of the folks I had wanted to be my pillars for life back in Louisiana could not be that for me. My sandy life in Louisiana now needed some work.

I felt like I had lived a double life in Canada. I sang in pubs, hung out with young adults, attended various churches, learned new languages, explored new cultures, given myself in missions to a people group living in a beautiful island, then to return to the swamps, the familiar, my childhood home, was daunting. All of the freedom I had experienced through Freedom Session was now actually being revisited.

How did I respond to this feeling like God was burying me under His wing? I resented it and the people He placed back around me. I wanted the new, the adventure, not the same old same old. I fell into a depression that Christmas. I didn’t feel like I had any direction or purpose for my life. I felt stripped back by God with no one to lean onto. So what did I do? I looked around at the doors opening before me, and decided to give them everything I had because I had no other clear path opening up.

The next four years from returning home after Bible College looked like this roller coaster ride where first you begin on the tracks that lead you onwards slowly. Let’s picture, a roller coaster that begins in a dark tunnel and treks parallel to the ground, then little by little it lifts upwards to the heights, and finally with no preparation, flings downwards, catching many loops, thrills, and feels. The first year and a half was slow. Especially as I was emotionally focusing on everything the Lord had “taken” from me. Then as I began releasing more of my actual self to Him, a slow death, He gave me more life then I could have imagined.

I went back to University in that time, did French Immersion programs, held a steady job in the community working under the government (I always knew I would work for the government, but didn’t think it would be as a librarian or lifeguard) and gained the nickname CC, helped co-lead youth ministry with one of my to this day very best friends, Dudley, quit University, led an adult worship team, started my Advocare business and fitness journey thanks to the life coaching of one of my other very best friends to this day, Lindsey, all the while releasing most of my young adult loved ones to married life, and releasing my very best friend since 10th grade Janea to a life on the missions field. I highlight marriage and missions as these were two things the Lord knew I had desired very much to have in my life. However, I needed a stripping and ripping from this idol as I had really desired to lean onto these things to gain identity, not because I actually had anything of value yet to give. In these years, I had also sunk my heart and soul into helping build my local church, I was determined to be a role model as being a PK or pastor’s kid came with responsibility. Since I had many stories to share and a journey with God unfolding, sinking myself into youth ministry was actually the hardest and most rewarding thing I had ever done up until this point. I remember, in Bible College I had even jokingly told a peer, “I would never want to be a youth pastor” as I had saw what I thought was a certain type of youth minister in my Bible College days, and immediately dismissed the idea of me ever doing that. Little did I know that was the exact thing God had wanted me to do to truly develop and mature my walk with Him.

As you lead others, you are placed on a higher standard of responsibility for the course of life and actions you take. What started off as meeting a need in the church, truly became the joy set before me . So because of youth ministry I was willing to “suffer” by not being married, not having my own place, and not having a solid College degree worthy 9-5…with God and these teens, depression faded as purpose emerged. Instead of seeking to have some sort of sermon that would pierce the hearts of the kids for a brief moment, I wanted to live a life worthy of copying. I wanted to be the mentor that I had never had. I wanted to use my age, experiences, and time freedom to help coach others in a path of less pain and more freedom than I had experienced as a young person. I would use my testimony, and stories of freedom, with no shame, to warn teens of the dangers of dating or messing around, the dangers of isolating or depression, and of the dangers of wanting to be so independent of God, family, or friends. I told the teens how I was stalked in Canada, how I was a moldable partying 14 year old, and how I had fallen into depression as God uprooted me to expose how my life was built on sand. I told them about my health and wellness journey. I told them how I had almost ruined the very voice I now use daily to praise and worship Jesus because of bulimia. I told them about how I sang in pubs in Canada to Fleetwood Mac covers but felt deeply empty, as if I had given away my innocence and purity with each note. I told them how I struggled to release my best friends at their weddings as I looked around the room and couldn’t find anyone for me, all of the young adults in Louisiana were either married or they had moved away. I told them how I didn’t read the Bible while in Bible College. I told them how I only would spend time with God on Saturdays just before leading our church congregation in Sunday morning worship. I told them about how I was fighting not to be jealous of my best friend who was living a life on the mission’s field that I had desired to live. I was vulnerable with them. I had nothing of myself to boast about or give. I was a young adult living at home in a community filled with families. Maybe you are thinking this wasn’t such a good idea to be so open with teenagers about my faith journey and ups and downs, but I actually think that it not only strengthened me in my need for God, but it also opened up a community of vulnerable individuals who soon became family to me.

Granite, I told them about the victories of a life lived with and for God. I told them about how I had evangelized on the streets of Bourbon at Mardi Gras and led others to the Lord. I told them about how I saw God heal a deaf girl and grow out many peoples’ short legs. I told them about how I heard God’s voice and found random $100 dollar bills when I prayed for it. I told them about how I spoke in a speech class about God and was honored by atheist teachers in scholarship recommendations. They were now a part of my journey, my growth, and they allowed me to be myself, Chelsea, the youth pastor who has nothing of value to give unless the Holy Spirit first gives it to me. Chelsea, the girl who can relate to a lifestyle of drunkenness and teenage angst, but can’t get enough of worshipping and talking about God. I morphed as a youth pastor. First, I was like Jesus with the crowds. Then over time, like Jesus with the disciples, we began doing life together, it was actual discipleship.

In 2015, the deeper I became in my love for my actual church, and the young people, I began stepping down from worship coordinating and leading in our Sunday morning corporate services to focus in on leading the youth group. I’m not sure as to where I was leading them, but I didn’t necessarily get my worth and value from youth pastoring, I gained purpose and perspective. In that year God asked me some pretty big questions regarding the teens of my region. “What if I only call you to be a missionary forever in your hometown, would you do it? What if I call you to be single for the rest of your life, would you do it? What if I call you to live with your parents and help continue to lead the local church with them, will you? What if I want you to work with young people for the rest of your life, would you lay your life down for them, which means not being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, they are looking up to you, do you have a life worth following?” With these questions, looking around at the life I was now handed over, I felt I had ran out of options and was deeply persuaded to give God a resounding “Yes, why not God, I said I surrender to you how many times growing up, I said you could do with me whatever you want how many times God, now, SURE take everything from me, my identity, my outward appearance (this marked the beginnings of my Nazirite vow to not cut my hair, drink alcohol, nor go near any “unclean” or dead thing…like certain movies, events, etc.), my income, my education, my relationship status and friendships…it is all YOURS.”

I was hidden but found my groove, in this season I stopped wanting to be known by others nor prove myself, I liked being able to pour out to those younger than me. God had not only given me opportunity with the youth to lead a consecutive Christian lifestyle and of missions as we spent so much time together road tripping to youth conferences, playing sports, attending worship events, remodeling the church, but I was also able to utilize my musical training to teach various teens guitar, singing, worship leading, as well as help train up new youth leaders to someday “take over”.

With this Nazirite vow, I asked God “how long do you want me to give all of myself, time, energy, resources, etc. to youth ministry?”…He said two more years. I had already been quite involved for 2 years but I was willing to say yes as I saw that there was a need for young people to be coached and encouraged to live a radical life of faith and trust in God if only someone would be available. I was available, and so with the vow, I told/asked God, to let me plant seeds, water seeds, uproot and weed-ed, as well as harvest from this ministry. The next two years were exactly that. I will focus in on the last season, because harvest is sweet and I still can’t believe how beautiful it all was. I will save stories of the planting, watering, uprooting for later, but the main take away is that harvest only comes in evidently from a place of commitment to love, where you fight for family with blood, sweat, and tears, and decide that there is no plan B regarding the relationships that God has put in front of us.

I became a prayer warrior as a youth pastor. I spent many lonely nights with just the Lord. It wouldn’t fill me up any to binge on Netflix or dance the night away at some wedding, nor would it be cool for a young person to walk in my shoes if I was binge eating all day. I wanted a life worth following as I said before, and youth ministry really has a way about calling you up higher. Consistently taking Sabbaticals to hear from God, praying daily, working out, meal prepping as with the vow I had also given up eating meats and sweets (with the exception of seafood and chocolate) reading not only the Bible through but also sinking my teeth into almost any and every Christian book I could get my hands on took over my day to day routine. I became a house visiting junky, as I wanted to know the families of the teens I was mentoring. I craved more and more to cultivate a lifestyle of hearing God’s voice, and after attending IHOP KC Onething Conference, the Lord solidified for me, recognizing His voice and operating full on in many of the spiritual gifts He had given me.

In youth ministry, I began to see healings, legs growing out, I began worship leading now with the teens as a youth worship team had emerged. I saw the Lord raise up not only youth leaders but full on families to help facilitate and orchestrate gatherings. We prayed hard, played hard, worshipped often, and God truly encountered all of us.

Not only that, I was simultaneously part of an online training school called Field Training with the Burn 24/7, similar to IHOP, this group plants houses of day and night prayer around the globe. God was opening up relationships that to this day have become family as you will hear later. I also studied for and received my Minister’s License with the Foursquare International Church.

The grind of youth ministry lasted way longer than the speedy harvest I actually just before this New Year, experienced. Like some of my random jobs during that season (I worked at organizing every nook and cranny of our local church, as well as became a house cleaner with a fellow prayer warrior in our region), there was a lot of cleaning out, and re-clearing out, organizing, and re-organizing, daily maintenance to do. Things shifted often. God gave and took away. God stripped and rebuilt. The seasons kept changing but my commitment remained and God’s faithfulness proved trustworthy. God gave me my own business apart from my already flourishing Advocare business I mentioned earlier, in this season as well, which both complimented youth pastoring quite nicely.

God utilized my vocal and piano training from Bible College, and my French, Math, and English training from University to begin as a traveling tutor in my region. I was able to continue studying and practicing these subjects as well as got to know and further impact young people, from not only my hometown and church community, but in the “secular” world and from across my region at large. I was able to be my own boss, and pray with students before we started our session. I was able to teach students Christian worship songs to sing or play on piano. I was able to spend time with the families I worked for after sessions, and these house visits became centered around talking about what God was doing in our lives, and my latest fitness or food routine. I was able to really share of who God had developed me to be in this season.

With Advocare craft shows, Jesus talk house visits, Regional French and Music Tutoring, Youth Pastoring, Regional house cleaning, Church closet organizing, I can see now how God was, “training my hands for war”…He was flexing and strengthening muscles I now utilize daily in Cambodia like evangelism and music teaching.

Following Bible College Grad, the season went from dark to light, and I became dedicated to actually remaining in Louisiana now for the rest of my life. I loved attended sporting events that teens from our youth group were in. I loved going to their talent shows and social studies fairs, and I loved allowing God to be my financial covering as I now deeply depended on Him to provide and grant me favor and wisdom with my business.

I loved making house visits and connecting with people. Throughout the time of the vow, God truly was giving me a life worth sharing with others and worth being followed. I wanted to be mind, soul, body, and spirit fit, and God was sculpting and fine tuning everything in my life. People weren’t my rock anymore nor did I need anyone or thing to lean on to have a good time. I released what I didn’t have to embrace the life that God had given me. Though the ministry and those I was running alongside shifted from time to time, my world didn’t crash based on circumstance, it only pushed me to further seek God’s face for direction, guidance, encouragement, provision, and passion.

In the summer of 2017, the harvest came. There was a type and shadow the summer before however that I want to highlight, because, as I said before, God speaks to me twice over. He allowed me to walk in Harvest only after having spent four summers at this camp (the Lord also uses the timeline of 4 years in my life, as I will mention later in regards to my current season with YWAM).

I had spent the summer of 2016 back in Canada at the Native American Camp called Esperanza. Here, the Lord utilized my literal and spiritual Lifeguarding training/ lifestyle to lead hikes, dance teams, worship/campfire music, counsel young people, lead a mini-Burn night (a time of worship and prayer), spend time in the prayer room with fellow staff. Prayer this year in particular was key. It made us all the more unified as a small army and spiritually on point to preach the gospel and facilitate a sign and a wonder among the campers. On the very last night of teen camp, our worship and preaching camp fire time became a very long time of deep inner healing. I was not only moved to weep and mourn with the Native teen campers, but also I was able to rejoice with them as I led a few of my cabin girls to the Lord that night. I preached the gospel three times a day at this camp with a now fellow YWAMmer to some of the very same campers I had mentored three summers in a row prior. I was able to share similar stories God had allowed me to share with my youth group back in Louisiana. It was the most beautiful thing to not only attend this camp once more, but this time, God was my friend and talking about Him three times a day and more was natural. I could hear His voice, I enjoyed preaching His truth, I loved young people as if they were my own brothers and sisters, and I worked enthusiastically alongside a small army who deeply desired to pray, worship, and see God do something huge. We were a John 17 community that summer and leading into the summer of 2017, I can see how God did it again but this time in my hometown.

Summer 2017: my youth group and I attended the very same youth conference I used to attend throughout high school and college, Ramp. I first heard about the Nazirite call at the Ramp years ago. Now with the youth group, living it out as their leader to hearing the call again, I couldn’t help but deeply pursue God with them through worship and prayer. We all watched God release truth to the deepest part of our being from the speakers, and we saw God move mightily in not only our youth group but with waves of young people. After one evening gathering, I vulnerably shared with my youth group, as I would have done with Christian peers*, what God was doing to me in that conference. The Lord had used a speaker and her illustration from the race of the famous horse named Secretariat to call me up and onwards even more. With the statement, “You have permission to run”, I realized, it wasn’t about me stepping down to the same level as the teens to relate to them, or entertain them, no, God had placed me to run in the same lane as them to actually set the pace. I needed to have permission to run so that I could provoke and propel the next generation under me to actually go further than myself, live even more devoted to God than I was…and guess what? They did. I confessed my new goal as their pastor, to run further, and faster, and invited them to join, and they did. We woke up the very next morning for 6am Bible Study and quiet time with Jesus, as well as for some time in the gym before breakfast and morning session. I had invited them to do what me and God were already doing in my overly large prayer room/bedroom at my parents’ house. My secret place lifestyle followed me into youth ministry. I let them in on it.

The fun thing about that morning was, one, they showed up after a nonchalant invitation, and two, God used our workout and Bible study energy throughout the day to provoke a bit of “holy” jealousy…those who weren’t part of it felt like they were missing out on something wild. After all, after each speaker preached that day, somehow, those of us in the Bible Study that morning, couldn’t help but with wide eyes turn towards one another, point, and say, “God spoke that to us this morning while reading such and such verse!” All it did was deepen our desire to spend time with God and spend time seeking God together, not just at this conference but for the next few weeks and even the month following the conference.

A new page was turned in our youth group, I stopped trying to mentor the youth and just began inviting them in on the lifestyle of prayer, intercession, worship, quiet time with God, and adventures with God that I was already living. They just joined in and I never truly had to invite them. Their hunger to hear God’s voice on their own was their fuel. They began tithing, giving large offerings, waking up super early on lazy summer days to spend an hour exercising with me in the mornings to then spend hours at a host parents’ house to pray, eat breakfast, and really study the Bible in order to hear God’s voice. He lit a fire inside of all of us. More and more teens and parents alike joined us and desired to host whatever this was. It edited the way we as a youth group worshipped Sunday mornings and hung out throughout the week. We truly enjoyed and loved one another. We wanted to do more life together. We couldn’t get enough of God and hearing Him speak and move in and around us. Not only was I preaching on Sundays more regularly at this point but now teens from the youth group wanted to share testimonies on Sundays and Wednesdays. Further, the teens and I were leading worship for our local congregation more regularly. We desired to seek God’s presence together and sing those anthems of praise that joined us at the Ramp.

This was the harvest I had prayed for, similarly to what God did at Camp Esperanza where we as a staff and campers alike reached some sort of raw John 17 community only after having given of myself four consecutive summers, to be able to see God do it in my hometown with the ones I had been running alongside for the past four consecutive years was a dream. Everythigng up until that moment now seemed totally worth it. I can’t act like the culmination of years of waiting, being tested, being stripped down, feeling broken, crying out to God, not cutting my hair, choosing not to date anyone, house cleaning even ex-boyfriends’ homes, attending wedding and baby showers solo wasn’t difficult. It was…but it was all worth it.

Just when we reached a pace onwards and upwards to Jesus as a community of love, my two year Nazirite vow was soon coming to a close. With that, I was beginning to ask God, “Now what Lord, I think you did it, and I am just thankful I lived to see it through. Harvest is sweet, what is our 2018?”

God was indeed shifting things and ordering my steps for a new beginning of some sort. There were people in place and in line to take the youth group farther than I had, as well as God was sending the worship leaders to lead our congregation more often…as well as my business was doing well but was feeling, in my heart, dry, especially as I saw others younger than me in need of some sort of income, I wanted to grow it or pass it on. I wasn’t necessarily weary as I wanted to share what I had with others, I wanted to expand what I had to someone else.

What I had pioneered, I was ready to release to a “settler”. Simultaneously, in September I was preparing to help host a “mini-burn” in my region with Kiwi friends from my online Field Training Burn 24/7 school. My heart wasn’t necessarily divided then, but it was expanding to wider horizons I had never decided to dream about anymore. No, my home, and position in the Kingdom, was set, except I wasn’t hearing any more clear direction regarding youth ministry, the worship team, my business, or my life in Louisiana.

I was a missionary in my region and I was seeing good fruit. I had my own business, the youth were encountering God, prophesying, preaching, worship leading, praying, and I loved my day to day house visits between Tutoring, Advocare (health, wellness, fitness), and Jesus hangs with so many locals from my surrounding region. So why were things shifting?

God was my rock and was about to bring the biggest wave my little house of a heart had ever experienced.

A team of 7 came from New Zealand to my hometown as I mentioned previously. With them, they brought a gift of community, worship, and intercession. They helped fan an already now burning fire of not only worship and prayer in my own life but further in the life of my region, among worship leaders from local churches, and my youth group. We as their Louisianan hosts, friends of mine from various churches, along with my local church and youth group, came together to form a sort of John 17 community in order to host and facilitate the move of God this John 17 New Zealand community carried.

It felt like the culmination of my past four years had brought about this worship gathering, but, I quickly came to realize, it wasn’t me at all nor what I had done, the fasting, the praying, the worshipping, the mentoring, the not cutting my hair, that had brought this…no, it was hunger.

I couldn’t silence during the entire Watershed Worship Intensive and Encounter, as we called it, a Bethel tune ringing in my ears that said, “I have come to this place in my life, I’m full but I’m not satisfied, this longing to have more of you, come and do whatever you want to, further and further, my feet come away from the shore, whatever it looks like, whatever may come, I am yours…and you crash over me, I’ve lost control but I’m free, I’m going under, I’m in over my head.”

I didn’t know how prophetic these lyrics were about to become, but exactly on the last night of the Intensive, God answered my heart’s desire to know, “what’s next God, what’s our 2018, the vow is up…?”

The last night of the intensive, after a deep time of corporate spontaneous worship was coming to a close, but just before it did, my best friend grabbed the mic and said, “I just feel like we need to pray for Chelsea.” Everyone gathered around me and God not only encountered me, but deeply ministered to every part of my being. In this encounter he eradicated fear of man, pushed people pleasing deeply away, led me to a shore of His liquid and tangible love and spoke into the mission of my life. He breathed new purpose, desires, with new questions…

As you may have heard already, I thought that maybe I would either live forever as a missionary in Louisiana or I would someday be a missionary to the francophone (French-speaking) world. In this time of intercession and my encounter, God clearly said some of the most radical and life altering things.

Now, a few months prior to this encounter, someone prophesied over me, “you are going to write a book one day called, ‘My experiences experiencing God’”. I half believed them, but now as I write this, maybe they meant to say, “you will blog about your experiences experiencing God”.

So here it is, an experience for the books. I will not share every detail about that encounter. It is too personal, however, many of my most beloved in Christ family were a part of it, and so they know, and are probably reading this, smiling. My hope is that I’d rather, continue to walk it out, and simply share about it, as it comes nonchalantly. For now, I can share these words the Lord spoke to me there.

He said, “you won’t be a French missionary, you will give your car away, you will shave your head (the vow is up), you can eat meat and sweets again, you will give away almost everything and yardsale the rest, you will be portable-having a packed life (Pac Life), you will minister among a people of a different language, you will need a go-phone (or rather, your phone needs to go), you will trust me for finances, you can go to YWAM now, you will go to New Zealand and minister among the Maori someday, you will minister to the mentally ill, you will use your voice, and everything unique about you, even what you don’t like about yourself, to bring me glory, you will help birth a Ruth and Esther generation as well as an Ezekiel and Daniel generation (which means I will first live a lifestyle like Ruth-leaving everything behind to say to a people, “your people, will be my people, where you go I go…etc. see Ruth 1:16, and Esther because I will somehow continue to influence or be a part of government in some way, as well as will have an audience with the King. Second, with Ezekiel, He lived as a prophet that spoke to the valley of dry bones, to come alive, and they did and formed a great army, and I too am called to speak to dry bones, maybe sing over them, and call them to rise. With Daniel, he was set apart (also in gov,t.) and was a prayer warrior type man, who, operating under deep convictions, didn’t change based on fear of man, but stood His ground to not eat the King’s meat, nor stop praying despite a law against prayer (lion’s den).)

I went through a new birth in a way and a complete stripping of myself, my plans, dreams, desires, ideas, my family, my valuables, everything. God was calling me to die then and I am thankful He got my attention long enough for me to trust Him. I wouldn’t be in Cambodia today had I not exercised all of the faith that the Lord had trained me to cultivate last September into this past January.

Another thing prophetically spoken in this encounter, was the Lord had me walk over to a map on the wall. He had me place my left hand on the map (in my head and heart, I thought He was having me place my hand on New Zealand), but instead, He said to me, “I have called you to the place where your hand is.” My hand or thumb was on Indonesia and unbeknownst to me, until recently, my pinky was on Cambodia.

I started blogging at the end of last year out of obedience to God from that encounter, to let people in on my life with the Lord and especially to relay the message of God’s faithfulness to me since stepping out from that radical and prophetic encounter we had in September. If you have kept up, or have read any of them, you will hear the common theme, that first I heard His voice, had finished one season well with the torches already ready to be passed, I had been faithful and committed to the end and wouldn’t have changed course unless I heard so clearly to do so. Also, I listened, because “what if I believe that God is actually my provider, covering, protector, best friend, author of my life, lover, what if I actually believe that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that having little stuff or no hair really doesn’t define me nor change my identity in who He has made me to be. What if I actually believe that He loves me and is inviting me to leave and cleave into His arms, what if I believe that my life is a living testimony to those around me and that God wasn’t actually asking me to give up what He wouldn’t himself provide when and if I needed. If I believed it, it would change everything. So I believed it. I still believe it. It has changed everything. It is changing everything.

Here I am, now writing this portion of this blog on a beach in Koh Rong, Cambodia. Like me, it too has been a destination of beauty with life, once built up, torn down, and now built up again. I sit near my hammock on a rock, listening to the sounds of the boats, and the waves and think to myself, “I am so thankful that I said yes to Him…Look what He does, I can’t out give God, I can never work too hard or too little to earn His love, He just loves me. He doesn’t need me, He wants me to find purpose, passion, joy, life, and provision, everything in Him. He really is my Father, my lover, always faithful and true…no matter if I am in Louisiana, Canada, or Cambodia. He is true and His love really endures forever. Nothing I have ever done is wasted, He uses it all and utilizes every dream and gift He has ever placed inside of me. He uses my training, all of this to bring deep joy, and fulfillment to my heart of hearts. I am walking in step with Him and am finding that life on this side of grace, doesn’t run dry. There is always more of God. As He becomes your daily bread, if you strip it all away, you can know truly who you are, who He has made you to be, what He wants from you, all you need to do is trust, believe, and release to Him truly…everything.

I am on the other side of surrender. I went from the hidden places where God developed me into living a dream where everything about me makes sense here. Every gift is utilized, everything He has trained me up has found its purpose in full swing here. I am doing a very similar thing. Nothing radically different. I am in Cambodia teaching English (like tutoring and preaching to youth group), I am worship leading on and off of our base, I am waking up early, working out and spending time with the same God who has always been there for me.

It is everything I would have ever wanted, nothing I could have dreamed, it is trying at times, but worth it, it’s beautiful…how can I take you up to speed to now, June 11, 2018, and these past few months in Cambodia.

Again, if you’ve been reading you’d know that God lead me to do a DTS in Kona, Hawaii this past January. I knew I would go on outreach but had my sails drastically altered when God shifted them onwards to Cambodia, the land, they call, of chaos. The only words I had about Cambodia was first this, “Chelsea, I want you to trust your leadership and this YWAM covering, if I really am your good Father, than you can believe I wouldn’t lead you to be led by a people or organization I wasn’t first directing and speaking to”.

So when my leaders addressed me one night asking me to consider changing my outreach location from Papua New Guinea for 2 months to doing an outreach in Cambodia for 9 months, I at first felt the shock and sting of the commitment, but decided to take the door the Lord was opening. Again, God is good, but God is a pusher. Equally, I need people and Him to be that in my life from time to time, as I can get pretty tenacious and stuck with my plan A. We all know, man makes His plan, but God truly directs it.

If you are reading this thinking I am the most spontaneous and reckless full of child-like faith person you have ever met, give that credit to God…He is fashioning me to be more and more like my childlike self I once was, in no way is my adult brain conditioned to live like this. So, I feel pretty radical from time to time.

Obviously, I did say yes to Cambodia but I really needed a few clear words about it to fully commit or feel like God was steering me in this direction, especially after having had my “September encounter”.

I don’t even remember everything I prophesied then, but God will write this story, I don’t need to know all of the details. God has reminded me often that He had placed my hand on the map, like I mentioned, and I did land in between Indonesia and Cambodia. He spoke #Mission2Pacific but I wouldn’t have in my own vintage point thought Cambodia though it is technically just off of the coast of the Pacific.

“Okay Lord,” I prayed, “why me, and what are you doing there, why them (my team and leaders), who, what, when, where, and why!?” He spoke again, “The Bride is not afraid to get her hands dirty. You are that bride and I am sending you to bring peace to chaos, so go and discover the beauty that is the Khmer people, because I am here, in Cambodia, and because they (my team) are the Bride too and I want you Chelsea to minister to the Bride. Lastly, go because you were destined to go.”

What has happened in Cambodia? From now, where I am currently on a short debrief before continuing to minister in our Poipet community for 6 more months, to when I first arrived?

In short:

We have ministered to a mentally ill father and daughter who came to experience the peace of the Lord through prayer and worship, we have seen people who have never heard the name of Jesus hear of the love God has for them and invite Him into their hearts. I have spoken so much more French to either older Khmer people or western travelers than I have since Immersion in 2014. I have sang Hillsong Young and Free’s “Where you are” at local schools, and have spoken at a school assembly about being a brave woman. I have taught English in private schools and slums alike, and have taught music, like the ukulele, piano, singing, guitar, and I, with my team, have learned a traditional Khmer dance and performed it during their Khmer New Year Celebration (I totally forgot the entire dance, but they gave us a re-du and if you ever watch the video, ask for the second time, trust me). I have begun learning to speak and write Khmer, I have shared pieces of the gospel inside of various homes and at nail salons. I shared my story of leaving Louisiana to share Jesus to many travelers, especially since being on debrief.

Just yesterday, I met a young 7 to 8 year old French girl on Lonely Island, Koh Rong, and was able to share not only a swing with her but my love for Jesus to her.

I have continued to give away personal items but simultaneously have continued to receive. I have come to learn more about the lifestyle of Natives through the Khmer people. I have helped mentor and coach others in the ways of worship as I’ve been a worship leader for our YWAM Poipet base.

I’ve been given the mic while also been given the secret place. Just like how I have equally lived hidden while in the lecture phase in Kona (student but also preached at a Foursquare Native American Conference) here in Cambodia, I have been preaching to the unreached and praying for them one day while also have been given the stage and pulpit to be able to share something of Jesus with the masses…God has literally given me a lifestyle here that I only dabbled in a bit, while living in France, while living in Canada, Louisiana…here it is 24/7.

I am preaching, evangelizing, teaching English or music, worship leading, interceding, exercising, socializing…doing everything I have ever done before except with a new people, new culture, and a very new language.

I didn’t think I was capable of loving more, but each time I see a street or slum kid, I can’t help but think these kids in this season are my nieces or nephews, they are my family. I can even see how God has brought me in this team so that we too can become a John 17 community like I have experienced before with the Kiwis (at Watershed), my Louisiana people (especially at Awaken the Dawn October 2017 or that summer of 2017), and now, God is having me operate out of identity in Him so much so, and in love, that I am excited to continue the journey of becoming one with those God has set before me. Do I love it here? The answer is yes. We are just 1/3rd through our 9 month commitment and already we have seen, as a team, God do so much, personally, corporately, and in the lives of those we minister to. I have never laughed so hard, served so much, met so many new faces, became best friends over night with so many, nor have loved neighbor children so much, not until here. I never knew I had it in me but the dormant child-like full of joy and peace laughing Chelsea I once knew as a kid, has returned, and full blown, fully set free and ready for whatever God has with whomever.

Oh there are just so many stories to tell…I have tried to document somewhat of a “day in the life” I have had as a fulltime missionary and English Teacher but life on the field could never be 100% captured in a blog, vlog, photos, or a picture. No, if you want to know, come and find out. Why not, trust that God is actually right there with you holding your hand and putting those random nations on your heart. Come into the field. The Father is here.

I had no clue why I was learning French for 8 years except that God would maybe want me to be a French missionary, but no, He sends me all the way to Asia, to Koh Rong, even on a quote un quote “holiday” from missions, to sit on a swing on the beach with a 7 year old who reminds me much of me as a kid, to tell her about Jesus and God’s love for her, et tous en Français! God has a funny way of doing these things, steering our lives so that He sets up total and beautiful blind sides. He gets all of the glory, and He can keep writing my story, it is so bizarre!

I wish you could see the transformation I saw as a family deeply broken and hurting after 3 weeks of visiting with prayer and preaching of the gospel has now, a completely different house. It is a house now of peace, not of the chaos we first experienced that first day with them.

I wish you could see my students singing “Reckless love” by Bethel, or my older students from our YWAM YDC (Youth Development Center) hosting a dinner party for our class, or I want you to see the first Khmer woman I met and how our friendship unfolded over the weeks, or how the Khmer Christians I met in Battambong completely welcomed and embraced me into being family with them, or how the Lord used a YWAM group from New Zealand to breathe life back into my and my teams bones with the Maori song “Kia Kaha, Kia Maya, Kia Manawanua, be strong, be steadfast, be willing”…or how a YWAM team from Norway led our third “Burn night” with not only our Poipet base staff attending but also with local Khmer, and a random English Christian prayer warrior prophet who had and blew the shofar…or I wish you could have seen my little slum kid friend pick up my Ukelele and totally blow me out of the water with His prodigy skills, or I wish you could have been part of the times of worship me and some peers had late into the evening, no…there is just too much to say about what God and I am doing in Cambodia.

I am not even 100% sure as to who all is reading this, but my deepest desire is to somehow provoke you to trust God and go where He leads.

I want to share more, but again, I am not even sure what more to say except I hope that you can hear my passion for God in this blog and my passion to say Yes to Him and equally my passion that others reading this or somehow looking at my life would desire to also say their own yes to God. I long to be just the one to relay the invitation to others, “you have permission to run”.

Look, God is up to something, so much so, that I think the “fruit” in Cambodia, though it is mainly a Buddhists nation, has corruption, trash, loud music, and chaos everywhere, is almost TOO ripe. That’s right, too ripe. There are not enough workers here for Jesus to pick up the harvest that is just falling out of the trees, literally just heard coconuts falling out from the palm trees near by me.

The people are hungry for hope, joy, peace, life, Jesus and I hope to relay to the Western Church, COME, COME COME COME COME!

Like the Ramp famously declares, “What we sew in the lives of other’s children, other’s families, other’s nations, we will reap in our own life, our own family, and our own country” is actually true. I don’t want you to leave where you are at just for the sake of adventure. No, if you don’t finish well in one season or if you aren’t content right where God has you now, you wouldn’t enter into the next season well or content. First, look at the doors in front of you. Look at the youth, children, or nation at your front door. Ask God to develop you where you are now, and give Him your fully committed for life Yes, no matter what. Then as He faithfully shifts you into the “more of God”, you can hang back in complete child-lik trust and freedom because you have already seen Him come through. He was faithful with the little you gave Him, so trust Him to be faithful with the big you give Him….equally, you be faithful with the little in front of you, and He can trust you to be faithful with the big.

The life I am now living is, I repeat, a culmination of every other season in my life God has ever lead me to live, except in this time, I have crossed over into living a sustainable lifestyle of faith and trust in God, not works based, but based out of love and hearing the voice of my beloved. My beloved, Jesus, is saying from the prophet Isaiah, “this is the way, walk in it…and equally I say to Him back the words of Moses, “do not say to me go this or that way unless your presence goes around, behind, or before me.”

He hasn’t failed me friends, He has continued to provide and surpass whatever I could have asked, thought, dreamt, or imagined. I am living my best life now, and so can you. Say yes to Him and take the next step trusting Him to guide you and surprise you.

That brought you pretty up to speed, I am sure there is more to share that I will get to in another blog, or with you in person, but I want to tell you, whoever you are, of what’s next or at least, Lord willing, what may come in the near future.

To the faithfulness of God, I laughingly say, me and Jesus are going back to Bible College…this time under the name BCC (Bible Core Course), and I will actually read the Word this time. As a Poipet YWAM Staff, we are taking this YWAM secondary school for 3 months, together, and not only with my “Kona Outreach team” but also we will be students with local Khmer Christians as well. Also, I will be “going native” again, as I, with a few other outreach team members, will be living in a Cambodia village for 3 weeks with one of our ministry partners from the Philippines, who day to day, reaches the unreached villages of Cambodia with the simple gospel, that Jesus came, died, rose again, and lives and loves. He is why I, and our team, have come to Cambodia and so we will share this message with villagers. Further, because I love how God speaks through time, numbers, and seasons, exactly a year to the day of my “September encounter”, God is (Lord willing) sending one of my since 10th grade best missionary friend, Janea, to come alongside me as a mission’s builder at our YWAM Poipet base for a season! He is good. On another note, not that I actually understand what this really means, but whie in Kona, the Lord gave me a word that I would give YWAM 4 years. Hmmmmm…I know a lot can happen with a committed heart for a four year time frame, so I am game.

Logistically speaking, if you feel led to support financially or via prayer, I will need finances for monthly staff fees at $220 starting this July as well as will need funds for the BCC (Bible Core Course) (3 months) $1200. You can donate direct on my homepage @ chelseachaisson.com via pay pal.

Prayerfully speaking, my team is going into a transition period, from the YWAM outreach grind into living in a Cambodian village evangelizing for 3 weeks then we will all be students with local Christian Khmer studying the Bible intensively (BCC), then my friend will be joining our small army, then I will prayerfully enter into full time ministry that God opens up and paves the way for me to walk through for the last few months that I will be in Cambodia (until our team’s second debrief in Kona in December), so yes, lots of shifting here in Cambo.

Lastly, I have no clue what God has in store for 2019…after looking back on how and what He answered me when asking about 2018, (I had no clue He would give me summer for an entire year and wreck my heart to fall in love with Cambodia and the Khmer people) I can just imagine what my next step with Him will be. So stay tuned and keep me and this nation in prayer.

I like being a lighthouse for the Lord, a living and breathing testimony of what it can look like to abandon everything in order to follow God and live out faith as a lifestyle on display. What I can say is, He has already been speaking…planting little seeds here and there, about even “more” that He has in store. With that in mind, I am intentionally enjoying the present and have decided to keep practicing the training He has led me to live, like keeping a bagged pack, travelling light, preaching Jesus, singing and worshipping Him daily no matter what, inviting people in on my journey and time with God, hosting Burn nights of prayer and worship, language learning, all the while I am not keep an agenda. I want to start well, finish better, stay faithful and committed, and become a John 17 family with those around me.

No matter where I end up, nor the timing, He that began this good work in me has proved time and time again that He is faithful to continue to shape, mold, perfect, purify, prune, sanctify, test, grow, beautify, provide for, be with, me.

Your turn, you go, you speak, you sing, you mentor, you grow, you take the leap, listen to His voice, and say “Yes!” Then, don’t look back, trust that He is good and will provide you with a home, family, instruments, friends, ministries, open doors, etc. He really is good, and He really does have great plans for you.