Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 1/29/2012
Trusting and hearing from God can be a challenge. These are the two things that God has been working on with me for the last year. Lately, He has been speaking to me about trusting in His plans. He has given me the complete freedom to say no, I will follow my own plans, or yes, I will listen to you God. I have chosen the harder of the two and said Yes Lord. I have been hearing His voice clearer than any other time in my life and when I will just be still and listen He loves to speak to me. He loves to reveal new things to me if I ask Him.
A couple thousand years ago God spoke to Jeremiah. The Lord declared that He knew the plans that He had for him; plans for his welfare, not for disaster, to give him a future and a hope. At this time there was a lot of disaster about to take place. God was speaking to Jeremiah about disaster that was soon to come if His people did not repent. So for Jeremiah to trust in what the Lord told him was huge.
God spoke that word to Jeremiah about 2600 years ago. 2600+ years later, God has spoken the exact same words to me that He told Jeremiah. He knows the plans that He has for me and they are not to lead me into disaster. They are plans to give me a future and a hope. These plans are not going to be filled with sadness and depression. They will be filled with excitement and adventure!
As you may know, over the past couple of years God has transformed me. I am at a point right now in my life that I am completely sold out to the Lord. I know that I will live for eternity and I know that I only have a short amount of time on this earth to do God's work. Therefore, I have decided to trust the Lord with everything I have. A few of the things I have laid in His hands are my: wife, future, job, finances, words, actions, plans, and thoughts.
Sometimes it is hard to trust that the Lords plans are better than mine. However, I have decided to place every inch of trust that I have in what He has planned for me and I know that He will be faithful to me. He is not going to lead me into disaster but instead He is going to lead me into an amazing future with Him.
Abba is so good! I challenge you to join me in this journey in trusting God. He will not let you down.
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 1/22/2012
Over the past couple of weeks God has done so much in my
soul. I departed from my house in Memphis on January 2 to spend the next 4 days
worshipping God at a conference called Passion. I spent the next 96 hours full
of the Holy Spirit. I was high on the spirit and loved every moment of it. The
theme of Passion 2012 was freedom and while I was there God brought me so much
freedom. He taught me more about walking in freedom and spoke identity into me.
He told me who I was in Him and who He created me to be. It is amazing to be
the son of a king! He is absolutely amazing if you don't know that already. 
(Worshiping God at Passion)
After the Passion conference I went to Gainesville, GA to
serve over 100 people while they tried to find out where God is leading them.
This conference is called Project Search Light. I wasn't a participant but I
was able to be a servant. I was able to take the trash out, help the cook, set
up the tables and chairs, take people to and from the airport, etc. While I was
there God continued speaking to me and filling me up with His spirit. I also
believe that He used me to speak life into people. God was using me to speak to
other people. The words I were speaking were not my own but were from the Lord.
After 6 days of serving, I started leadership training for
The Passport. We as leaders learned all about what is expected of us and how to
fulfill those duties.
Two days later I went to the airport to meet my team. All of
the leaders met our teams and then went on an adventure in Atlanta to do some
team building. After our adventure in Atlanta, we headed to training camp and
spent the next 4 days experiencing the presence of the Lord.
After four days of training camp we boarded a plane headed
for Nicaragua. When we arrived in Nicaragua, we jumped into the back of a cattle
truck and headed three hours north to a place we now call home for the next
four months. 
(Our 3 hour ride in the back of the truck)
The first day in Nicaragua, we built relationships with some
of the locals. The next two days we built a roof for one of our cooks. And
today we went to the beach!
It has been an exciting couple of weeks filled with the Holy
Spirit. Yesterday our amazing team came up with a team name that the Lord gave
to us. We call ourselves "pies hermosos" which means beautiful feet in Spanish.
The verse we took this from is Isaiah 52: 7 “How beautiful on the mountains are
the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good
tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"”
The amazing thing is when I was back in Memphis praying for
a prophetic team name, God gave me the word beautiful feet. Without mentioning
that to my team I asked them to pray for a team name and God gave them all the
same word! He is so good.
Thank you for all of your support. Please pray for me and my
teammates as we bring the gospel to Nicaragua. We are really in a healthy place
right now so please continue to pray for unity, peace, God's presence, and
whatever else the Lord puts on your heart!
Blessings,
Ryan Hurd
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 1/18/2012
We arrived at our contacts house in Nicaragua last night with all of our people and all of our bags. I will post a blog next week letting all of you know ministry details. Where we are staying is absolutely amazing. We have a breath taking view of volcanoes surrounding us and palm trees in our front yard! Thank you for believing in me to send me here. God's kingdom is expanding!
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 1/5/2012
Crowds of people. Oh the lovely feeling of being right in between thousands and thousands of people. Come join the crowds to watch their favorite football team. Some join to drink beer. Some join to worship God. And still some join just because they were invited to come.
I show you all of these crowds of people to share with you one main point. All of them and everyone who has ever lived on this earth will be judged by God. Matthew 12: 36-37 says “I tell you on the day of judgment people will give an account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
2 Corinthians 5: 10 says “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what he is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
I wanted to write this blog because God inspired me to write it. I have been looking at people through his eyes as I have been in large crowds lately. He has been speaking to me about the judgment that will come to everyone who lives and my soul rejoices but yet cries out at the same time. It rejoices because I am confident that I will receive what I am due when I get to heaven and I will spend eternity with my abba. My soul cries out and anguishes because I know a lot of people who do not have a relationship with Christ.
I challenge you this week to share the gospel with your family and friends. God is in control and He loves to use people if you will only allow Him to.
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 12/28/2011
Ephesians 2:8-9- For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourself, it is the gift from God- not by works, so that no one can boast.
For the last couple of weeks God has been speaking to me about grace. He has been showing me all of the grace He has extended to me and teaching me to extend that same grace to other people. I used to be walking in the darkness every day. I smoked weed for a long time, I drank alcohol only for the reason of getting drunk, I partied like a rock star, I sold drugs, and I really couldn't tell you how many times I have promised God that I would do something and an hour later broke that promise. I am a messed up person.
These are only some of the things that I needed forgiveness and grace for. God has forgiven me for all of these things as soon as I asked Him for it. Although He forgave me, it took me a long time to forgive myself for what I had done. But through my walk with Christ, God has taught me to forgive myself when I mess up. He has taught me that I am an imperfect person and if I don't forgive myself then guilt will just keep piling up and I will soon stress myself out about it and walk away from God because I think I am failure.
I have come to realize that the enemy loves to tell me that I failed. He does this because I used to think when I failed, God was mad at me and didn't want to talk to me. I didn't think I was worthy of Him at the moment so I wouldn't talk to Him for about 3 days. But through time, God has taught me that He wants to teach me through my mistakes and extend His love to me during those times. God showed me with a couple of nails, a cross, and His son just how worthy I am to Him. He didn't buy me with a billion dollars. He bought me with the price of His son.
As I dig deeper into the bible and study Gods word, it is very clear that Jesus extended grace to people as He walked this earth. It didn't matter who they were or what they had done. Jesus always seemed to shock people and go against the religious attitude that so many people had when He was alive and still have today. The religious attitude I am talking about is thinking that you are better than someone else and condemning them because they have done something wrong in your eyes.
Jesus came face to face with a prostitute and gracefully forgave her. He came face to face with the people who murdered Him and nailed Him to a cross and with His last words, He gracefully forgave them. And above all else, You and I murdered Jesus and God has gracefully forgiven us! Wow… just soak that up because that is awesome!
God has been teaching me more about His word and showing me how to live a biblical life. One of the things He is teaching me is how to correct people when they need to be steered back in the right direction. However, He does not want me to condemn them as I correct them for the sin that is in their life. He is teaching me not to judge them but to have grace with them just as He has had grace with me and show them what the bible says in a loving manner.
I believe the real reason I am writing this blog is to show others to have grace with people. To my non-Christian friends, please have grace with us Christians because we are imperfect people just like you and need God's grace to get us through this life. To my Christian friends, please have grace with non-Christians because we are just as messed up as they are. In other words, don't condemn someone that is a murderer, a pimp, a homosexual, a thief, a prostitute, a drug dealer, etc. You have crap that you're trying to work out in your life too. Love these people as Christ has loved the church and then they will see God's light shining in you and through you. Also pray for these people because the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
To sum all of this up, God wants us to be walking examples of who He is and one way to do this is to have grace. He does not want us to disassociate ourselves with people who are not Christ followers. They need Christ and He has put you in this world to show them Christ. One of the ways to show them Christ is to have grace with them by not condemning them for what they do but teaching them what the bible says to do. I challenge you to have grace and pray for the next person you want to condemn.
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 11/30/2011
In January, I will be leading a Passport trip to Nicaragua.
I will be co-leading with an amazing woman of God, Shawndell St John. Over the
last couple of days I have been asking for support from my friends and family
and God is providing! Let me explain a little of how I got to where I am today.
I'll start with telling you that when I got back from The
World Race I was thrilled to be home. I loved everything about being home. I
was able to be with my family and friends in Memphis, I was signed up to get
back in school, I could eat whatever I wanted, I could go to the gym and I was
independent again! Believe it or not, I was so excited about going back to
school because I was ready to learn more about business and stretch my brain. My
intentions were to go back to school to finish my degree and then hopefully
start a career. I followed through with going back to school and have done very
well in school. The semester is almost done and I am passing all of my classes
with A's right now.
About half way into the semester I was at school and God put
The World Race on my heart so heavily that I could not help but pray and ask
God what was up. I could not get The World Race off of my mind so I started
praying. When I prayed, I asked God what He was trying to tell me and
immediately He responded “I want you to squad lead”. So I said ok God I will
obey you and follow you wherever you want me to go. I kept praying and asking
God when He wanted me to squad lead and He told me “January”.
I thought January was
really soon but I still said ok God I will trust you and if you want me to lead
in January then that is what I am going to do. It wasn't the easiest decision
because I wanted to finish my degree and I am so close to doing that. However,
I knew that I needed to follow Gods plan instead of my plan.
I started looking
into The World Race for trips leaving in January and did not find any. From
there, I kept praying asking God if I was hearing Him correctly. I didn't get
an immediate response from Him so I decided that if He wanted me to lead in
January then He would make it happen.
A couple weeks later I was on Facebook and saw that one of
my friends was leading a passport trip. Let me explain what Passport is before
I go on any further. The Passport is
Adventures in Missions's missions program for college-age (18-22 years old)
individuals. Passporters spend 1-9 months securing their identity in Christ,
getting equipped and growing empowered to advance God's kingdom alongside local
churches and ministries overseas. In addition to sharing and living out the
gospel, contending for justice on behalf of orphans, the poor, and the
trafficked mark the ministry experience of the Passport. 
Now that you know what the program is, I will go on with the
story. I saw that a friend was leading a Passport trip in January and
immediately God started working in my heart and speaking to me. I asked Him if
this is where He wanted me to go to squad lead. I felt like He said yes but I
needed more confirmation before I made this huge decision. Throughout the next
couple of weeks, I kept praying about it and God kept confirming that He wanted
me to go. There has not been one time when I heard God say don't go.
After much prayer and confirmation, I called Adventures in
Missions and interviewed with them for leadership. A week later, I was accepted
to lead a trip. I really wanted to go to Nicaragua and wanted to stay as far
away from Africa as I could. I had a rough time in Africa while I was on the
World Race and thought I could be used more efficiently somewhere else.
Not to my surprise, when Kayla called me to tell me I was
accepted to lead a Passport trip, she also said the only trip for a male leader
that we have left is the African expedition trip. It was to the same countries
I had already been to. I thought about declining Kayla's offer but God had
confirmed it to me in so many ways that He wanted me to lead a Passport trip so
I said “Ok, God has confirmed it to me that He wants me to do this so I am
going to follow Him wherever He leads me”.
After accepting to lead the trip to Africa, I got a call
back from Kayla later that day telling me that some circumstances had changed
and I may have an opportunity to lead a trip to Nicaragua instead of Africa. I
didn't know for another week where I would be going but I put my trust in God.
Then on November 29, 2011 I found out that I would be leading a trip to
Nicaragua!
So here I am, fully putting my trust in God, about to lead
10-15 college age students on a four month journey in Nicaragua. Please keep
praying for me as I embark on this journey to follow God around the world.
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 11/22/2011
Not For Sale is a non profit organization that equips and mobilizes Smart Activists to deploy innovative solutions to re-abolish
slavery in their own backyards and across the globe. In other words, they have taken a
stand against human trafficking and want to end it for good.
Every day there are people around the world, including in the United States, that are
stolen and sold for a price. Some are taken against their will and some are taken with the consent of families in promise of a better life. Either way, people are being stolen by evil
people and it needs to put to an end.
I want to take a moment to share a few statistics about human trafficking:
27 million: Number of people in modern-day slavery across the world.
800,000: Number of people trafficked across international borders every year.
1 million: Number of children exploited by the global commercial sex trade, every year.
50%: Percent of transnational victims who are children.
80%: Percent of transnational victims who are women and girls.
161: Countries identified as affected by human trafficking.
Do
these numbers shock you? 27 million people are being sold into slavery? Really? And why are there not many people standing up to fight against human trafficking? Because many people do not know it is going on. Yes, these numbers are correct and they are growing each year. The statistics are not just numbers, they are people. How does this happen? Most of the time, a person will go to a community that is severely under privileged to recruit young children between the ages of 12-17. The person recruiting will talk to a family and promise them a better life for their child. They will tell them that they have a job for their child in another country where they will be making lots of money. After the recruiter has convinced the family that their is a better life for their child, the recruiter will offer the family a price for their daughter or son that is hard to refuse because of their economic status. Usually the family is uneducated about this scheme and sees it as a blessing or an opportunity they cannot pass up. The family then takes the money because they want a better life for their children and sends their children off with a complete stranger who has just bought the child.
After the child is bought by the recruiter, He/She will then take the child to an auction to sell him/her to a brothel owner. Once the child is bought by the brothel owner, the brothel owner will begin to control the child. This usually happens by forcing the child to do drugs so they get hooked and depend on the brothel owner to provide them drugs. Eventually, the sex slave becomes dependent on drugs and sleeps with around 40 men per day only to receive a stiffen of drugs to get them through the day. Most of the sex slaves are mentally and physically abused so they will not try to escape. Another way recruiters get women is by kidnapping them. The recruiter
will scout out people, mostly women, for days and at the perfect
opportunity they will snatch them up. After they lure them in by some
kind of trap and steal them, they take them to a brothel owner and sell
them. 
We the people need to fight back. Human trafficking is a huge issue around the world and it needs to be abolished. Here are some ways to help abolish this issue: - pray for the trafficked to be rescued
- pray for the traffickers to get caught
- pray that families will not buy into the scheme
- educate yourself and others about human trafficking
- donate to organizations who are fighting against human trafficking
- get involved with organizations fighting human trafficking
To abolish human trafficking is not an easy task. The reason it is so hard to abolish human trafficking is because it is usually invisible to the eye. However, there are organizations that have made it their mission to abolish human trafficking around the world. To learn more about this issue and for more information on how you can help, here are a few organizations against human trafficking: http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
http://www.endhumantrafficking.org/ http://www.humantrafficking.org I encourage each one of you to learn something about human trafficking and get involved to end this issue for good. 
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 11/16/2011
Dear friends,
I have been back from the World
Race for about 4 months now. I want to thank you for all of the support that
you have shown for me already. Many of you prayed for me, financially supported
me, and helped me through some rough times while I was on the World Race. I
came back home fully expecting to finish my Business degree. I will be
completing my first semester at The University of Memphis in December and
expected to continue my education in January. However there have been some
changes to my plan.
God has called me back out into
the mission field. He has asked me to lead a passport trip for four months in
January. Through much prayer, I have accepted this challenge and have been
accepted as a leader for January. I will be leading a group of college students
between the ages of 18-22 to Nicaragua or Africa. The specific place has not
been set yet but I have decided to follow the Lord wherever He leads me. So
what does this mean? I need you to prayerfully consider supporting me again.
I need to raise $3000 for this
trip. The trip itself is $1500 for leaders and I need to raise $1500 to cover
personal expenses. The trip expenses will cover my food, shelter, and
transportation for four months. The personal expenses will cover my
transportation to get to and from the place we will depart from, shots (if
needed), medicine (if needed),personal money for overseas, minimum amount due
for school loans, my car insurance for 4 months, and my cell phone bill at minimum amount for 4
months. I am raising personal expenses for this trip because I have been focusing
on school and have not had a job ever since I have been home. I have done a few side jobs to keep me going but it supports my gas money and that is about it. While on the
World Race, the funds I had raised for the trip only covered my food, shelter,
and transportation and I used a lot of personal money. I had no problem with
doing that because I had the money to use through Gods provision but this time
I am completely walking in faith asking God to provide for everything since I
don't have anything.
I need to have the full $3000 by
January 1, 2012. There are a few ways to support me. You can donate online at
ryanhurd.theworldrace.org or you can write a check to Ryan Hurd and send it to
6561 Sungate Dr. S. Bartlett, TN 38135. If you can support my trip expenses you
can choose either option. If you can support my personal expenses, please send
a check to the address above.
I know letters are very
impersonal so if you want to know more about this trip and what you are
supporting, I would love to talk to you in person or over the phone. You can
give me a call at 901-652-9058 or email me at ryno0424@yahoo.com and I would love to
tell you more about what I am doing.
Blessings,
Ryan Hurd 
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 11/1/2011
Adopt A Street  On September 17, 2011, Soma kicked off their annual adopt a street cleanup. Soma is a faith based organization committed to sharing the love of Jesus in all nations. On this particular day, 12 people gathered together to pick up trash on Midland Ave. to serve the community. I was pleased to be a part of the street clean up. Doing something good for the community is always a blessing in my eyes. After we had cleaned up all of the trash on the street, we had a total of 5 garbage bags full of trash. Our only job description was to clean up trash that was in the street or on the sidewalk of Midland. We had a short orientation telling us where we were supposed to go. In this orientation, they mentioned that we should not go onto private property because there has been issues with it before. Therefore, we strictly picked up trash in public areas only. Rusty Woods is the campus outreach minister. If you would like to get involved with the adopt a street ministry please call 901-452-1717 or email Soma at csc@somamemphis.org P.S. To everyone reading my blog because of the World Race, this article is an assignment for class. We needed to post it on a blog and I already had a blog so I figured I would use it. 
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Posted in General Posts by Ryan Hurd on 9/28/2011
I have now been back from the world race for about 2 months. I am approaching the half way point in my first semester at The University of Memphis. Since I have been back in the states, I have had some difficult times and some great times. For the past couple of weeks, God has been really activating my spirit and doing a great work in me and through me.
About a week ago, I was in the gym working out and I decided to go to one of the rooms that I could isolate myself from everyone else so I could pray. As I was praying with passion I started feeling the Holy Spirit speak to me. He said "Ryan, The University of Memphis is your mission field now for the time being." So I RESPONDED by praying for God to give me the University of Memphis.
I learned through the world race that we can pray for God to give us cities, states, countries, and even continents. So I prayed that God would give me the University of Memphis. Since that prayer, God has been SHOWING UP! He has connected me with a lot of believers on and off campus. He has been leading me to do some radical things like stand on campus with a "Can I Pray For You" sign. He has also been teaching me to be loyal and speak life into people everywhere I go.
God is doing some amazing things in my heart right now and I am expecting Him to do some amazing things on campus throughout the time He has me there.
I need some things from you.
- Pray for me every day to be used by God and to be a person who changes lives on campus.
- Pray that I can challenge people in their walk with God in a healthy way.
- Pray for the struggles that I go through.
- Pray for energy. I have been really busy with school and other activities so I need the energy to keep pressing on.
- Pray for the people on the campus of University of Memphis. I am not asking for 3 people on the campus, I am asking for the ENTIRE CAMPUS.
- Pray that I will be able to learn what I need to in school and that I would excel in everything I do.
Thank you for your support and prayers! God is rocking my world right now and the only reason I am living on this earth is to spread the gospel so others can enter the kingdom along side of me.
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