Ramona

where you are now we can not see, its too bright in a sense. however we can take a glimpse into what your seeing, and we are walking closer and closer to the light in which you live. your road like ours had flowers but also had thorns. I can smell the fragrance of goodness, that ever so sweet taste that brings new mercy, that delivers us hope. there were many storms these past years, lots of rain but you stood firm in your faith, you knew that the sun was above those cloud bursting at the seams, and its shine lit your face up.

purity

went to something at southland community church in steinbach called the watch last sunday the topic was purity Jesus vs everything else ( a picture of general media).

Sin is something that I've struggled with (Hope that's not too shocking for you(I could go into more detail about it but i wont ) and there seems to be a lapse of time from the time that I said yes Jesus I want you In my life to the time where sin didn't seem to control my life. Here's where purity comes in, you see I struggled hard, harder than I theoretically needed to, but you see it took me time to harden my heart and God wanted me to understand (as much as you humanly can) the things that hardened my heart so I could work through them with Him instead of me trying to cover up and make excuses for my short comings.

Like a bad toilet sin has a way of coming back up if you dont plunge it completely, and any attempt at doing this yourself is feeble at best. Here's where Jesus's blood comes in, its like the drain- o of eternal life. So what we have is a answer to our problem of sin, our purity comes straight from God. Here's where the battle seems to take place, we understand with our minds "sin is bad but Jesus came to take this sin and end sin for those who believe in him" but we dont understand that this purity comes from obedience, listening to the word of God and being recklessly dedicated to follow it. I just started reading through the old testament from beginning to end and I am in exodus 25-30 area, and honestly I have a hard time not just skimming over all the rules and regulations of how the tabernacle is supposed to be built, how the clothes are supposed to be made, how the animals are supposed to be killed, etc.. but it paints a very clear picture of what purity means, God has given moses exact measurements, exact process and while i still have a few chapters to go to see if they actually do it exactly as told I think they do.

So heres where our purity comes into play, the trap of wanting to make a golden calf because you havent heard from God in a while. If we want this purity we have to hear the voice of God, and one of the worst things i could tell myself would be that He's not talking, because more often than not we arent listening (I'm really bad at this). we surround ourselfs with t.v., music, facebook(now if only God had a facebook page and chated with us on facebook chat), and while we can hear God speaking to us through these things, he wants a much more intimite relationship. we often view Jesus as the garbage man, He comes and knocks on our door and we say "hey I put my garbage out last sunday, why are you here" or we see Him as our pastor or ministry leader he comes to our door and knocks we say " hey ill see you on wednesday, when I get to help you with your work". I hate watching this generation of Christians being dulled to what is sin because they like watching the latest TV show, and not caring about God enough to let Him have some input to what we input. this is my struggle, I've let myself be dulled so that I dont have to be the one who says enough is enough. we hate the sin yet we love the sinner, its often a hard balancing act. And my prayer is that we can live purely and wholey abandoned for the one who is making us new creations.

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJyW55AXJAk

sorry my next post is taking longer than i thought it would to post

well ill just give you a update of my life.

the past week has had its ups and downs mostly up, time seems to be going so fast yet so slow, my days have been pretty lazy to say the least, as my job has to do with snowfall and snowfall alone, i have only worked 3 days in the past 3 weeks which has really sucked for my morale but ive been able to get alot of stuff done, but not as much as i would like.

as for my future plans I am going to be leaving winnipeg on the 7th of january and arriving in anchorage on the 8th taking the train from grand forks to seattle then taking a flight from there. I will be up in Homer alaska thats where the YWAM base in alaska is, I am so glad to be going up but also sad to leave behind all my people here, expecially the kids and young adults i get to minister to through my church and camp, I mean i guess my friends and family have a different kind of missing. I am going to be in vancouver for the olympic outreach www.morethangold.ca which is sweet, im so pumped to be working at something so big. from there I really dont know what ill be doing with ywam but I definatly will get to go back up north and thats really what i feel called to.

Its crazy how blessed I am, before I go to alaska I get to go to mexico with my family for a week, my first real vacation since i was a young kid. and despite what my mom thinks I dont believe Christians are called to take poverty vows (though some possibly could) i am excited to go on this trip.

things you can pray for
-ramonas funeral is tomorrow, i thank the Lord for her life
-I'm trying to get my car ready to sell
-pray that i will be able to communicate well this week
-pray that as i take a small step of faith in going into ministry where I have to pay to be there, that funds will come
- most of all i thank God for all He has done all that He is doing and all that He will do He's so good

learn from your mistakes

some notes from my first congregational meeting.



-there are some very dedicated members of my church who have served very diligently. I applaud not only their effort but there faithfulness.
-the holy spirit is definitely at work creating something new, birthing something, the test that i see is whether or not we will put that something new in new wineskins
-policy isnt a word that i really like yet i understand a need for some sort of policy
- just because you want to hear more opinions on a motion doesn't mean you(me) should second something and not really know what your talking about when you try to explain why your seconding it.
- I am very glad that kinks seemed to get worked out, things made sense in the end, biblically
- I am excited that the elders are starting to understand the need for this next generation to take some responsibility, though i hope that it will become a collaborate effort because we all need to be a part of this.
- end off being very encouraged

eyes light up.

what it takes to light up eyes.

having built some level of trust, having them know that we care for them. simply slipping a folded piece of paper into the hand of a unpretentious child telling them to put that folded piece of paper into their pocket without reading the simple words on them. turn the lights off, they can barely make each other out in the darkness... a moment of chaos... this is life without God, living in sin. "you can take out your piece of paper now" brings the focus back a little bit. "read it" brings the chaos back. click, the piercing rays of light from the flashlight seem like they should be making more noise than the kids, fortunately I'm there to call them towards the light to read the words God has written for them. they seem interested in the flashlight for a while but what they are really looking for is the lights to turn back on, despite how much fun it is to scream and run around in the dark. God is the light, we sit in a semi circle and read our simple truths. "God loves me" "God has a plan for me" "if God is for me who can be against me" "Jesus died so i can live". they are so much more than words, especially for kids who are honestly looking for hope, and honestly not finding it anywhere else. if those words stop when the sound waves end perhaps they enter your head they can be burned away with apathy. but however hot the fire of apathy it produces no light, the fire in most of the kids eyes that I saw burned so bright that even if it was just for a moment it melted my heart.

this is all here at home kids from the community who came to pioneer clubs
the harvest is plentiful

chad

traveling

In one sense we are always traveling
And traveling as if we do not know where we are going
In another sense we have already arrived
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of love in this life
And that is why we are traveling and traveling in this darkness
But we already possess love by grace
And therefore in that sense we have arrived
And are dwelling in that light
But Oh! How far are you and I go to
find that love in whom we have arrived
- Thomas Merton

blood, its in you to live... oh wait i think the slogan says give

well after having not given blood for almost 2 years, I went and gave again. I didnt realize it had been that long, i had been once in that time but my iron was too low. Something about giving blood I just really like, I think its know that I am contributing to life. Maybe the weird concept of thinking that something inside of me will go inside of someone else is what intrigues me. anyways its fun to give blood so do it, get past your fear and do it. think of what that blood might be do for someone, think of your friend who is battling cancer, think of what would happen if no one gave blood.
I'm B+, what are you.
chad