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Letter asking for support for mission trip

Dear friends,

It is time for my next adventure!  God is leading me to beautiful Quepos, Costa Rica this time!   My friend Rebecca and I are joining a team from New Life Fellowship Foursquare Church from Denver, Colorado to help with the local church in Quepos.  We will be teaching English classes, sharing our testimonies, ministering to the pastor’s families, community outreach and starting construction on a Ministry Center.

We will be there for 2 whole weeks!!  July 7 – July 21, 2012.  The approximate cost of the trip is $1,500.00.  I am looking for financial partners.  If you can help in any way, it will be greatly appreciated!  All money needs to be raised by the end of June, with most by the end of May in order to book flights.  Please send checks directly to me, or if you’d like to take the tax deduction, you can make out a check and mail it to New Life Fellowship Foursquare Church, 2241 S. Holly St., Denver CO, 80222.   Please write “Tammy Koch CR Mission Trip” in the memo line. 

I also need prayer partners!  Please let me know if you are willing to stand with us.  I will give more details to this team so you can keep the team and I in prayer.  Please let me know ASAP if you’d like to be on this team.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter and for considering helping me fulfill this calling in my life. 

Be blessed as you participate in the Great Commission, that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14)!

In His love,

Tammy Koch

I will gladly share all my pictures when I return :)

Where's Tammy?

Where have I been?  not sure, mentally anyway.  the depression has been kicking my butt lately.  It seems like waves in the ocean.  It pulls back and I can breathe, then comes back and knocks me down.  I get back up and do it all over again.

Guess the point is to keep getting back up, right?

I do.  I'm not giving up.  My God is so much bigger than this ocean.  Even if it seems to go on forever.  I get stronger each time I breathe.  And He's always the One picking me back up.  Even when I make myself fall.  Sin's like getting caught up in seaweed, I think it looks like fun to play in, even though I know I'll get tangled up and caught up.  I won't be able to brace myself for the next wave.  I ask for my Father's help and He picks me back up.  He protects me from the waves and the sharks.  He hasn't taken me out of the water yet, I guess there's swimming lessons I still need to learn.

So, why all the ocean talk???  Hmmm... maybe because I'm prepping for my next mission trip, to Costa Rica!  I'm so excited (well, as excited as this phlegmatic personality can be anyway!).  I'll be there for 2 weeks in July with a team from Colorado.  And a friend from my home church is going with me!  It'll be her first mission trip, yay! We'll be helping out a church down there.  Wow, God calls me to some of the hardest, roughest places, I know ;)

I'm looking for financial and prayer partners for this trip.  Let me know if you'd like to help in both or either area.

The weight loss journey... well, kinda been at a stand still.  I've gained back 48 lbs since my lowest weight (early 2011).  It makes me mad and upset with myself, but I've been fighting other battles, so this had to go to the sidelines.  

The MS is still in remission.  I stopped taking my injection about 5 months ago, because almost every time I did it, I screamed out in pain.  I saw my neurologist last week and we're going to try the new drug on the market.  Its a pill!  Possible scary side effects, but my God is bigger than that too, and nothing that can't be fixed.

I feel like a bad friend.  If you're close to me and don't think so, that's awesome.  But if you used to be close to me and it seems like I've dropped you, I'm sorry.  (insert a ton of excuses)  But it's not that I really meant too.  Blame MS, blame depression, blame busy lifestyles, blame the things that we don't seem to have in common anymore... blame life.  But please don't take it personal.

OK, enough of that!  Gotta run and get back to work, hope you all are well!  I love feedback, so feel free to leave some! 

Single Awareness Day

Most people consider this Valentines' Day, but as my title suggest, for some of us it's something totally different.  Random fact I heard this morning... St Valentine is also the patron saint of the plague and of bees (or was it bee keepers?)... need I say more??

OK, enough negativity!!  The Lord spoke the sweetest thing to my heart Sunday morning.  I thought about just keeping it myself as a private treasure, but I think there maybe someone out there that might just need to hear this too.

Driving to church, I somehow got on the thought pattern of 'why am I single' and 'what's wrong with me'.  This isn't something new, and it's not something God and I haven't dealt with a thousand times.  I normally 'hear' that its just not the right time, I'm not or he's not ready, just be patient... gentle answers that I don't disagree with.  I just wonder sometimes if God wants to just tell me to shut it and move on, but He's not unkind. But this go-around I heard something new...

"You are one of my favorites, you are precious to Me and beautiful.  I'm just not ready to share your affections yet"

Tears and tears and tears :)

So, on a day I would normally want to wear all black and eat a container of ice cream, this year I think I'll spend time praising and worshiping Him instead!

Awesome power in the tiniest things

Have you ever witnessed God change someone's life?  Ever been a part of Him doing something amazing in a friend's circumstances?  If not, ask Him to let you be.  Even though I can't go into details here, because of these people's privacy, let me tell you God has been up to some awesome things.  He always is, don't get me wrong.  But sometimes, a lot of times actually, we don't see it or don't recognize when He does.  Never underestimate the power behind simply excepting someone where they are or the power of doing something little for them.  The love of Christ is the loudest thing in the universe, but we only hear it in whispers.  We only see it in glimpses even though it outshines the brightest star.  Want to be a part of spreading that love?  Remember little things matter.  Our time on this earth is tiny, our time with each other is minuscule, make the most of it.  He speaks, listen.  He shows Himself, watch.  He loves, except it.  He cares, open your hands.

just a glimpse

when was the last time you took a glimpse of Heaven?  not the clouds or the stars, but where we'll spend eternity?  If you've excepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, and except His sacrifice on the cross, you will spend eternity with Him in Heaven.  We'll see the saints of old, have meals with Abraham and Paul, chat with the peoples' lives we've touched.  I mean people that are touched by the ripples of our prayers and our giving.  We'll see the scars on His hands, feet and side.  We'll be enveloped in the love that died for us.  We'll see God face-to-face.


That last part, seeing God.  Think about it and try to imagine it... crazy huh?  The one who made the universe, the galaxies, the stars, the planets, the sky, the clouds, the animals.  Who made it ALL, as small as a flower petal is as big as a black hole.  We will be with Him.  Forever!  


In that light, my troubles seems small.  My pain, my sickness, my worries.  My joys, my victories, everything seems small.  What will this dirty living room or that bill that needs to be paid, really measure up to against worshiping directly at His feet?  I'm not saying to not clean, or to not pay that bill, but the amount of time and effort we put into those worries... they won't mean much on the other side.


Ask Him to open the eyes of your heart, to open your imagination, to open you hope, to the image of Heaven. Of eternity.  Of His love.  The rest will fade, and you won't be so worried about today or even tomorrow.

Adopted and blessed (and a little insane)

Did you know if you adopt a child, you cannot disinherit them?  but you can disinherit one who is your flesh and blood?  If, as Christians, we are adopted daughters and sons of God, the Heavenly Father, by our faith in Jesus Christ, He cannot disinherit us.  Every spiritual blessing in Heavenly places that is ours to inherit through the blood of Christ, the Father won't decide that at some point we don't deserve it.  let that all sink in... man, He loves us and those blessings will overwhelm us... wow!

we started a new round of small groups at church last Wed (Sept 14th) and I'm in one where we're discussing the lies we have built up on top of the Truth of the Gospel.  Stuff like religion for the sake of rules and guilt and stuff like that.  I'm loving it!  The Truth sets us free, lies hold us down.  Have you ever said to someone, or yourself, that you can't really be a Christian if you (fill in the blank)?  Why do we think it's so much more complicated than just a relationship with God?  it all weighs us down, and we then weigh other people down. 

one of the things I said last night in group kinda came out like it was one of those thoughts I'd had for awhile, but was new, at least formed into words that made a sentence anyway.  maybe a year ago I was all proud of myself for losing weight.  ya me, I'd figured out my formula.  guess what?!?  I hadn't.  I was so focus on my little success, I'd forgotten Whom to give the praise to.  I haven't figured out a stinking thing.  I do know I need to exercise and I do know I can't just sit around and eat donuts and fried chicken all the time and expect my health to improve (darn!).  but He was the one Who took my small amount of effort and blessed it.

Kinda having the same issue with my debt.  I keep asking Him to bless me, to help me with the paying down part, but I'm not trusting Him, I still use my credit cards.  I mean, come on, my budget is set so that my NEEDS are met, the WANTS end up on the credit cards.  All the while praying He'll show me the 'coin in the fish's mouth'.  Hello!  Definition of insanity is .... :-/

I forgot how much just talking with others about stuff helps me think things out.  I've been going around another round of depression and it's so easy just to retreat into myself.  Forget the world, and friends, and help, I'd rather just watch another episode of... I started a new anti-depressant a few weeks ago, this has not been a fun experience, but I do have moments when I know I'm getting better.  Those moments are starting to last into an hour here and there, so that's nice.

So, new adventures on the horizon that I can't wait to talk about, but at the moment I can't.  Changes coming, but we have to be sensitive to the people involved and His timing.  Just know He has a new assignment for me, one that will stretch the mess out of me (goodbye mess, but oh, this is gonna hurt!).

Oh, and YA!!!! for Fall!  I LOVE autumn, just not so much with the allergies though.  Temp wise, this time ROCKS!  Just need to invest in a respirator I can wear :)