Two Rivers Ministries is a non-denominational ministry serving the Church and city through prayer and compassion. It is our desire to be a catalyst to uniting local believers and Churches together in prayer, seeking God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in Heaven.

Two Rivers Staff - acting up!

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not shouting “I’m clean livin’.”
I’m whispering “I was lost, ”
Now I’m found and forgiven.

When I say…”I am a Christian”
I don’t speak of this with pride.
I’m confessing that I stumble
and need CHRIST to be my guide.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I was weak
and need HIS strength to carry on.

When I say.. “I am a Christian”
I’m not bragging of success.
I’m admitting I have failed
and need God to clean my mess.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
but, God believes I’m worth it.

When I say.. “I am a Christian”
I still feel the sting of pain;
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not holier than thou,
I’m just a simple sinner
who received God’s good grace, somehow.

This morning was a series of small miraculous moments with the students - I am filled with joy.

• joy found in waking early - You have done great things
  gifts poured out in unlikely places - You have done great things
  emotion revealed in the reading of Your Word - You had done great things
  ears open and hearing - You have done great things
  prayers offered without mocking - You have done great things
  fulfillment and satisfaction in working - You have done great things
  realized joy in serving - You have done great things
  laughter, sharing, juken - You have done great things
  unexpected responses - You have done great things
  little things and yet miraculous - Father You had done great things

This morning I am in Birmingam - and in the confusion of knowing or not knowing if B-Ham was centeral or eastern time zone - I am up an hour earlier than planned. Oh - well it makes way for the time to put some thoughts down about my desire for the life I seek to lead.

practicing extreme obedience - fierce faithfulness - swift in care for others - responsive, rushing readiness - to move at a moments notice - when even a hint or a whisper of God’s will - reaches my listening heart - no part of God revealed going unnoticed - ever repentant - throwing down the erected altars of the old me - with all its fading glory - broken though made whole - at war and yet peaceful - ruling while being ruled - rising while bowing down - extreme freedom in the midst of slavery - resting though laboring - longing for something more and yet strangely content - being me not at all - yet more fully myself than ever before - joyful dichotomy of a life hidden an yet revealed in Christ.

Some of the things that we prayed about:
Effectiveness in accomplishing what God wants
180 Revolution - that is would be about God, that he would show up powerfully, that we would experience a move of the spirit in the students there, etc
That there would be 2 Pastors that would catch a vision and join us to pray for this community
That Pastor Barnett would catch a vision for what God is doing here
Unity for the YW staff - team bonding, vision for what God is doing in Cairo
Prayed against the stronghold and spirit of racism here, we verbally told the spirit to GET OUT OF CAIRO
Asked for God’s protection - as we warred against this spirit
Claimed victory over this spirit in the name of Jesus
Prayed for a spirit of prayer to fall on the Kids at Kids Club
Godly wisdom - we need much!
Disernment - we need much!
After prayer we all agreed that God desired us to make prayer a part of Kids Club - if a spirit of prayer is to be released - the kids have to pray!

• Live in Cairo.
• Get to know my neighbors.
• Pray.
• Do a cookie ministry from my front porch to get to know the kids in the neighborhood.

There it was - Kristy’s ministry plan for Cairo - prayer & cookies.

As I just wrote that - I realized - I wasn’t too far off. Prayer is the foundation of what God has called me to do here - and kids still come to my house to bake cookies. God’s plan has just turned out to be a little bit more extensive and requiring a whole lot more faith and dependence on Him than I could ever had imagined.

I appreciate that God is sometimes secretive in His plans for us. If He had let me see too much of His plan - I know my faintness of heart would have had me cowering in the corner, babbling something about killer monkey’s in the land of mist. (I had just recently seen that movie with the ape that could communicate through a talking wristband - and how she helps discover this great treasure in a rainforest)

Just to let you know - He still has to reveal things a little at a time - and though my faith and trust has grown immensely in these past few years, I still have Peter moments - where I jump out in faith on the water and then start to look around at the circumstances and begin to doubt.

I’m glad God keeps secrets!

September 2000 God called me to 30 days of intercessory prayer. Every night I went to my church sanctuary and prayed. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for 5 or 6 hours. 30 days turned into 60, then 90 and finally, in February, almost 6 months into this prayer thing, I knew God wanted me to resign from my position at the church.

This had not been the expected outcome of this journey in prayer. I was looking for revival in my life, in my church, in the city. Instead, I lose my job. I put in my letter of resignation. Friends and family ask, “What are you going to do?” I don’t know. I have no job - so - I buy a house. This doesn’t make sense. My uncle, who is a banker, says no one is going to give you a home loan. It’s my first house, I don’t have job. Why would they. But they do.

I find out about a youth mission ministry on the internet “YouthWorks.” It sounds like a great ministry and I don’t have to raise support(remember - it hasn’t been to long since my two year support raising venture) - in fact I get paid! I have a job for the summer, but I have to move to Red Lake, Minnesota. A Chippewa Indian Reservation becomes my home for 10 weeks. It is an amazing summer of God’s power at work. I love it.

I’m offered a full time position with YouthWorks. I didn’t apply for it - they just ask me to consider taking the job. But, it would mean that I have to move to Minneapolis. It’s a great opportunity, the perfect job as far as I’m concerned. But the timing doesn’t feel right. I just bought a house and I’m looking forward to living with my brother this next year before he gets married. I love my new church and I have been growing spiritually in new and exciting ways there. I turn down the job. A week later, they offer it to me again, this time with the opportunity to continue to live in Springfield and commute to Minneapolis. Whoa! God opens the door for my perfect ministry opportunity. I take it.

Fall of 2001 and Spring of 2002 are amazing and exhausting, wonderful and challenging. God shows me a lesson in His faithfulness all year long. Random meetings and opportunities are not random, but God’s supernatural working on my behalf to accomplish His will. I’m learning some very important lessons here. Fall of 2001 I visit Cairo, IL for the first time (except for the random times that we drove through the town on our way to somewhere else). I’m shocked by the poverty and decline of the town and am excited that YouthWorks will be here this next summer. At the end of 2001 a GreaterWorks Intern comes to work with me in Springfield. I meet Anna, who will become one of my closest friends, ever.

Late Spring 2002
I think it may be time to consider moving to a YouthWorks community - I love this GreaterWorks Internship thing, but I really need to live in a community where we have a summer site to make it work. Maybe St Louis. Maybe next year.

Summer 2002
I help to get the Cairo site started - I love our summer staff there and am looking forward to the last week of the summer when my church, Glad Tidings Assembly will take their first YouthWorks mission trip to Cairo, IL. God is tugging on my heart about something but I’m not ready to acknowledge it. The summer is a wonderful whirlwind of God showing up. Second week in August, I’m in Cairo and my life get’s turned upside down.

I’m supposed to move to Cairo. I know it. I don’t want too. Small town - uggh. I’m a city girl - St Louis - that’s my choice. Cairo - that’s God’s choice.  End of the week - I’m driving to St Louis. I cry most of the way.  It turns out that I want God more than my own way.  Yes God. Yes God. I’ll go. BUT, you’re going to have to make a way. Where am I going to live (there are hardly any rental properties), what am I going to do with my house in Springfield, will YouthWorks even let me move there, what will my parents think? (In the back of my mind I’m thinking - that’s a lot of variables, maybe it won’t work out, and I will have a way of escape!)

YouthWorks not only says yes to me moving to Cairo, but wants me to try to be there and set up to receive an intern by January. WOW - that’s quick. Mom and Grandma Lindsay come with me to Cairo to look at houses. I’m assuming that I will have to be making the mortgage on two homes (the one in Springfield and now one in Cairo) so I set a max house cost of $50,000. There are a lot of homes and they are amazingly cheap, but I’m just not finding what I’m looking for. I really want a two story with two bathrooms, to accommodate all of the people that will eventually live there. My grandmother doesn’t like Cairo, and she’s afraid for me to live there.

I come to Cairo a second time.

So, back to the question - where to start? How about here: Since I was 15 I thought I would be a missionary in some far off land. When many of my friends were hoping that God would never want to send them to a place like Africa, I on the other hand, desperately wanted to go. It would be 15 years before I would ever have the chance to leave this continent - and as it turns out, only for 3 weeks. Twelve of those 15 years were spent doing youth ministry in a typical church setting and by then I was pretty restless and couldn’t quite understand why God wouldn’t answer a prayer like “God let me be a missionary!”

As I write this today - the answer has come - but in a most unexpected way. You remember the old Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers”? Well, if I had written it, it would have gone a little different, sometimes God’s greatest blessing is “no, I’ve got something better in mind.”

So, my answer was a “yes” and a “no” and a “yes” and another “no” and then a “yes”. The first “yes” came and I prepared to go to Budapest, Hungary as a church planter - but after language school, training and two years of trying to raise the support needed and stalling at about 60%. The resounding “no” sounded like a big, fat failure on my part and if I’m honest, I wondered what happened to God in all of this. For me, those two years had been about preparing to go to Budapest so I could do ministry for God, but in hind sight I realized that for God, those two years were about preparing my heart to follow Him wherever He called and that ministry had happened in the midst of the preparation.

The second “yes” came with the opportunity to go to Mozambique, Africa.