Haiti

Hello all,

Haiti was amazing! Thank you so much for your prayers and support, without them, this trip would not have been a success.

There are so many stories I could share but it would make for a very long blog post so I will give the readers digest version here and if you would like to hear more feel free to ask me!

In Haiti we worked with an organization there called Mission of Hope. It's a really amazing ministry with more vision and fav

or from God than any place I've heard of.

If you want to know more about them, their website is mohhaiti.org

As soon as we got to Haiti we went by the mass

grave where all the earthquake victims were

buried. That was a sobering site for sure...

In the mornings we got to partner up with

some ladies in the church and go out into nearby villages and minister to widows and clean their houses. Some of the widows were paralyzed and all they could do all day every day is just lay there on the dirt or sometimes concrete floor of their house.

We were able to see the villages that Mission of Hope has built houses for earthquake victims in

and hang out with and love on some of the kids there. And we saw where Mission of Hope will be building new schools and more houses.

In the afternoons we did some work projects

to help out the Mission of Hope staff. We

painted their staff housing, did a little touch

up paint here and there, and whatever else

they needed help with.

Then for two nights we put on a women's conference

at the chur

ch. There were so many women there and they were all worshipping so passionately it amazed me. So often I will look out into the crowd when I am on stage playing guitar here in the states and I will see only 4 or 5 people really passionately worshipping and it breaks my heart. But these women, they've got it. They understand what is really important in life.

God is literally all they need because He is literally all they have.

I wish that everyone here in the states could experience that for just a few moments and it would change the way they worship forever.

The second night of the conference we put pearl necklaces on every woman at the conference. Amber told them the process of how a pearl is formed and the message was that each of them is precious to God like a pearl.

Overall the trip was amazing. I would love to go back. Thank you all so much for all your prayers and support.

I'll update on the rest of November hopefully in a few days.

Leaving the Country!

This will be an update on October and then next week I will update again on how Haiti was!

Fall is here! The leaves are changing colors! It's cold and windy outside! It's beautiful! I'm almost sad to leave it for Haiti's hot humid weather....but it's for souls right?

October was pretty busy for me. I had the opportunity to play guitar at several different retreats, youth services, and even for the main service at one of the smaller New Life campuses.

Being on staff at New Life is pretty cool, even if it's just part time right now.

The coolest part by far though, is that four of my closest friends are on staff here as well.

I've also gotten to hang out with Cadre quite a bit since I am working at the church most everyday and they are also at the church everyday. I got to go up and help out with their missions training event that is one of my favorite cadre events.

Had a minor accident with a guy friend of mine on a four-wheeler...I was driving and he was riding on the back going up a really really steep hill...which was a bad idea I know...

Anyway, as we are going up, the front wheels come off the ground and the four-wheeler goes completely vertical, throwing the two of us off, and instead of falling back on top of us like gravity would have required, it stayed on its back two wheels on this very steep hill and didn't move. Which allowed us to get out of the way in case it did fall backwards and then pull the front down so that we could drive it on all four wheels down the hill, forgoing the plan to go up that way...

Once again, thanks to God's crazy protection on my life, my guardian angels, and a mother that prays for me everyday, I walked away with one bruise and a small cut instead of becoming a pancake from a four-wheeler falling on top of me. (Thanks God and Mom:-)

Other than that, life in October pretty much just consisted of working, playing guitar, working, cooking for the girls at my house (yes I cook now!...sometimes) and more working.

Thank you to those of you who sent me money to go to Haiti! My trip is now completely paid for! Praise God! I will take lots of pictures and update as soon as I get back. Please pray for our group and the women we will be ministering to.

I will have my phone and potentially have internet abilities, so I may be twittering, so if you follow me on twitter you can get updates on the trip.

That's all for now, I'm off!

The Greatness of Our God

I feel like God has been showing me so much the past couple of months that my mind could explode.

First of all, I discovered that one of the main reasons I have a bad day or just plain am in a really bad mood is when I am in the flesh; when my focus is all on me.

As soon as I get the focus off of myself it's like a whole new world!

A couple of months ago a good friend of mine asked me to be her intercessor this year.

At this point in time I was experiencing a very dry season with God and couldn't figure out why I wasn't passionate about reading the Bible or spending time with God. (something I usually desire everyday) So I started to pray for her everyday. That was the beginning of my revelation.

I'm not the best at praying for people. I've always wished I could be one of those great prayer warriors that can pray for hours and hours and it's their prayers that kept someone alive or something like that. But I've never been able to do it consistently. I will get bored 5 min into prayer or run out of things to say or fall asleep. But I was determined to keep my promise to pray for her every day.

I knew it was going to take trying something I hadn't done before if it was really going to happen.

So I started reading scripture out loud over her, changing the tense or a few words here and there to make it apply to her. And I would just go through a book of the Bible picking out verses and praying them (out loud) over her.

As I prayed scripture over her every morning, I began to get more and more passionate about spending time with God. I started to be in a much better mood most days. And I started to become more and more passionate about intercession and learning all I can about what exactly it means.

So I started reading a book called Intercessory Prayer and it has been rocking my world.

I really wish I could explain the change that has taken place in me and in my relationship with God. He feels more real to me now than He ever has before. And the funny thing is, I have hardly prayed for myself at all in the last 2 months. The more I pray for other people, the closer I feel to God. It doesn't make any sense to my brain at all but it's true.

My God time used to be all about me reading the Bible for me and praying for me and what I can get from God and what God can reveal to me.

And theres nothing wrong with having times of that. I think that there are definitely seasons where we need a touch from God and we have to cry out to Him for ourselves before we can fight for anyone else.

But for me, it was time to go deeper, and having God time every morning for myself wasn't cutting it.

I think that if we will just get the focus off of ourselves and fight for the people around us, God will take care of us.

This is the first of many revelations I will try to share...

September is gone, October here we come!

As slow as August felt, September totally flew by. Fall weather has begun to grace us with its presence here in Arkansas. The time for pumpkin spice lattes, hoodies, scarves, and long sleeve is finally here!! :-)

September has been a very good lesson in patience and waiting on the Lord. Trusting that He has me where I am for a reason and that He will provide.

So I have been working two days a week for Ms B at the office of the church, mostly answering phones and doing any random office projects that any of the admin people needed help with.

Then, last week I was asked to be in a meeting with one of the pastors and one of the pastor's assistants. In this meeting they offered me a job part time (for now) with a hope of being full time staff by November. So for this job I am helping the Conway campus Pastor with basically overseeing the facilities and making sure that everything is clean, working, and ready to go for the weekends and then during the weekends making sure that all the guest service people (greeters, ushers, parking team etc) are where they need to be; making sure we have people at every door and such.

Then I have a few other random things that I'll be helping with to take some things off the plates of some other staff that are overwhelmed with way too much to do.

So that was a major answer to prayer and was cool to think about how God set that up because if I had gotten the job at Starbucks like I'd wanted or anywhere else like I'd tried so hard to do, I would not have been able to work for ms B two days a week and would not have been thought of for this position at the church. God is cool. He makes me nervous sometimes, but He's cool.

In other news, another one of my best friends got married two weeks ago at 6 o'clock in the morning on a mountain.

I must be growing up or something because my friends are all getting married and having babies and getting real jobs and it's weird!

Another sign that I'm growing up is realizing that groceries are expensive! I am a "homesponsor" at the Cadre girls house, me and my friend Audra buy some of the food and help keep up the house and such. Groceries are not cheap! Toilet paper is not cheap either! I have never had to buy it so I had no idea.

I'm not so sure I like this part of being a grown up. I am however becoming fairly good at finding things cheap/ finding friends that work places that can give me things for free.

I think that all restaurants should be required to give their leftover food to some kind of organization that will distribute it to people that need it. That would be cool.

I leave for Haiti in one month from today! I'm so pumped! I miss going on missions.

Thank you so much for those of you who have sent in money to support me on this trip. It really means so much to know I have people in my life that believe in me and what I'm doing enough to help in any way they can. I'll definitely send an update when I get back and let you all know how it went!

Hello September!

I'm not going to lie, I kind of felt like August would never end...But now September is here! I am so excited for fall weather to start happening!

August seemed like such a never ending month for a couple of reasons.

1. I came from two months of being spoiled by Minnesota's 80 degree weather, back to Arkansas's 90-100 degree weather. I am very thankful to have missed two months of it though.

2. I have been trying my hardest to get a job and those days of waiting to hear back from a business to see if you got the job or not, seem like an eternity.

But it's ok, I'm learning to wait on the Lord. Something that is much easier said than done. It's easy to tell someone who is being impatient with something that they just need to relax, give it to God, and "wait upon the Lord" *insert super spiritual voice here*

Yeah, then the tables are turned and you realize, "dang I made that sound like it would be a piece of cake and it kind of sucks!"

I've been waiting to hear back from Starbucks about a job that sounded promising about 3 weeks ago but I am still yet to hear anything more. To be completely honest, it's been really hard to trust God on this.

God's timing is perfect though isn't it?

About two weeks ago, Ms B, (the mother of the pastor, and basically boss of the whole church) asked me if I would come in and volunteer a couple of days at the church in the office just helping her out with some stuff.

I didn't have anything else to do and I love helping Ms B so I said, "of course"

Then the next week she asked me if I would want to work (and get paid) at the church on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Doing the same thing I did the previous week but get paid for it. Let me think about this...yes!

I worked this past week and apparently did a good job because I was called and asked to help again with something else this weekend.

The waiting paid off, even if it was just a little tiny pay off, it's a step in the right direction! I think God is up to something.

So if you would all join me in prayer that I won't get in the way of whatever God is doing in my life right now, I would greatly appreciate it.

On another note, I am getting very excited for my trip to Haiti the first week in November. It's going to be an incredible trip. It is an all women trip and we are going to be basically just serving and loving on the staff at the Mission of Hope and then putting on a women's conference in the evenings. I'm so excited for what God is going to do in and through us.

My roommate and I are still selling t-shirts to raise money for our trip. If anyone is interested in buying one they are $15 or $18 if you would like it shipped to you.

Or if the Lord puts it on your heart to support my trip to Haiti in a bigger way you can mail a check to:

3235 Lakeview Dr

Conway, AR 72032

If you would like it to be tax deductible, make checks out to New Life Church with Haiti Missions in the memo and a note attached that says it's for me.

Thank you so so so much to those of you who have already sent in money to support me. I really cannot thank you enough.

Whether you can support me financially or not, I ask that you would lift up the trip in prayer. Where we are going there is a lot of witchcraft and voodoo. We will need all the spiritual covering we can get!

Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for staying involved in my life. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family surrounding and supporting me!

~ZuZu Ford

What's Next?

Hey, friends and family!

I hope you are all doing well and staying cool this summer!

I wanted to let you know a little bit about

my current plans for this next year. Seeing

as I just spent the last three years of my life

in intense ministry training, I figured it would

be a good idea to put some of that training to use!

So I'll be living and working in Conway, Arkansas, in the house that I lived in during my 3rd year in Cadre, going to New Life Church and serving in various ministries there, and I'm looking at going on three different mission trips.

I'm for sure going to Haiti with New Life Church November 5th - 12th where we will be putting on a women's conference and working with Mission of Hope Ministries.

Then in December/January I'll be going to India with my dad. We have a missionary friend there that my family has supported for many years, and he has always wanted us to come visit and see it all for ourselves. So we will be doing all kinds of ministry there and traveling to many of the churches that he oversees.

In April or May I am hoping to go with Cadre to Kenya for a month again where we will be splitting up into teams and traveling all over the country and doing all kinds of ministry.

I would appreciate your continued prayers for all these trips and the fund raising that will allow them to happen. As more information becomes available for each trip, I will post updates.

Would you please pray about supporting me financially for any of these trips?

In between trips I will be working as much as possible to raise the funds, but I will need all the help I can get!

This is what I'll need to be raising over the next year:

• The Haiti trip is $1550 with $600 due on August 16th
• The India trip will be roughly $1500
• The Kenya trip will be roughly $3000

To send money for the Haiti trip

you can send a check to New Life

Church with Haiti Missions trip in

the memo and a note attached that

has my name on it.

*Please note that in order for it to

be tax deductible my name cannot

be on the check.*

I am also selling t-shirts to raise money for the Haiti trip.
"Espwa" means "Hope" in Haiti Creole.

They are $15. If you would like to buy one and help me get to Haiti you can get in contact with me through one of these various forms of communication:

Email: zford@iamcadre.com

Phone: 214-212-7648

Snail Mail : 3235 Lakeview Dr, Conway, Arkansas 72032

Thanks for your prayers and support!

God bless!

-ZuZu Ford

Here we go....!

Hey everyone,

I decided this will be the easiest way to keep you all updated on where I am and what I'm doing! So whenever I update I'll email you a link to this blog so you can catch up on your ZuZu news.

Again, if you do not care to be spammed by the goings on of my life then just let me know and I'll take you off my list.

If you enjoy getting these updates then I'll keep sending them!

Well the only thing I have to update you on as of right now is that I might be converting to a Northern every summer for the rest of my life.

And my next aspiration is to be a rapper.

That's all for now.