Beauty...

The first couple of weeks of a dts (discipleship training school) are usually pretty intense, there is usually considerable growth with just one week of being out of your comfort zone in a place where you feel you can trust people, but more importantly God. Breakthrough in how we view ourselves is inevitable when we look to who our Lord is, there has to be a intense fear of the Lord when we look to Him, He is Holy, He is Righteous, He is love. How can we apply this to how we view ourselves, well simply said we have to look at the throne of this lovely yet all powerful God first.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We believers are Gods "pieces of work" now you can take that in a joke because we all know we are real pieces of work. But God is/has creating/created us in Christ Jesus and we are His handiwork, made beautiful. Why is it so easy to see each other in a judgmental way, why is it so easy to see the ugly side of things. we need help.

I thank the Lord for the healing of the hearts of these students, the live giving breath of God that is leading us to experiencing more and more of His love, more and more of His grace, more and more of the fear of the Lord(which may sound like a bad thing but really it isn't, I wish more people had it). We have put deep pain from the past, shame, guilt, rejection, and lies, down at the foot of the Cross not because its easy to let go but because God meets us there and gives us new life. Redemption is a word I love, I love it when God reminds me, you are redeemed, i payed for you. that's where I find my worth, my beauty. In the ashes of death, in the new life that springs up.

Do we look at the landscape around us, the sunsets, the mountains (wheat fields for you Manitoban's), those places we go to, to find beauty or do we go to the people around us and say to ourselves or directly to them" wow the glory of the Lord is shining on you, that new life in you is radiating love."

which is more beautiful?

sunset in homer




our small but oh so great winter DTS 2010

yes i see the Saskatchewanite, and I love him and find him beautiful.




dont get me wrong I love the sunset, I thank God for revealing some of his beauty through it, but i seriously question our ability to see others through Christs eyes sometimes. its something God is teaching me being up here, to love others as Christ loves.

give God all the glory, he has it already so you might as well let him give it to you through Jesus and not pretend to have it already.

some writings of this past week

What is this, where does it lead; A journey on the narrow path. When is it alright to numb myself to this world, when can I face it with a warm smile. Is there hope apart from Christ, Certainly not! when does reality bend to hope, when does hope break reality. I think where the word hope loses its meaning is when we use it to describe uncertainty, long shots. Is that what the power of Christ has been reduced to.

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Homer Nazarene Church sermon notes

Names of Jesus i relate to this moment.
The Lamb of God (pure), Light, I AM, Messiah, Provider, Mercy seat sitter.
time to offer ourselves Romans 12

John 2:1-11

Jesus turns water to wine.

-God is concerned about both small miracles and big
- God changed the water into wine. not just in appearance, He transformed the molecules, it is no longer water but wine.
-Christ gives extravagantly
- abundant life= transformed life
- sometimes God waits for us to be thirsty before He pours out transformation

im here

HOMER Alaska

Ill tell you a little about my journey here to homer, and how God brought me here.

well wednesday the 7th was my last real day in winnipeg, I had a night where anyone could come say goodbye fortunatly most of my friends had already said goodbye to me, throught the many parties and Christmas celebrations. I was feeling a bit nervous on wednesday, not about anything specific, I had to combat it. so at 1 in the morning on the 8th we started the trek to granforks, me my brother and my car. we got to the border and thats when i had to get my "visa" so first they asked me questions about what I was doing and all that kinda stuff, so i think everythings going good, but then they talk amongst themselves , tell me to wait for a bit, ask me more questions, they really didnt understand why I would want to volunteer and actually pay to stay. but after a hour of hmmming and hawwing they give me my entry for a year, which is a ptl.

get to the train station down in grandforks, its quite stormy on the american side of things we pass by a pretty serious accident, but we get to the train station on time and I have a really awesome brother who bought me candy and other goodies for the train ride. the train arrives one hour late, ohh great(the most i can really be late is one hour), the train attendant tells me that they can probably make up the time, so we get going and when we are almost across ND the train stops at the train station which i miean was normal but then we stay sitting there, they tell us they are doing some minor mantainence which turns into three hours, so we are running 4 hours late, im going ot miss my flight. me not knowing anything about flights and stuff like this start freaking out a bit, But meanwhile Im reading the bible looking to God for some sort of peace, and really Gods telling me trust me. I try to get online every little stop, everytime we get into a little town, try phoning my mom, to change my flight, which would have cost me $200. but everytime i got close to changing my flight the internet would die or when i phoned my mom the line died. you know through this im trusting God, im trying to expend my options but really throughout it I know that God is going to pull me through.

and so I meet some people on the train some very interesting people and some very helpful people, no real amazing conversations but alot of good ones. I get to talking to this couple from billings MT and we make a few connections and they are Christians, He tries to help me phone the airline but i jsut get the busy line. and so they offer to drive me to the airport, which actually didnt same me time but was really good. so i get to the airport, she puts me on standby for free, which is probably normal but still amazing to me(here i was trying tochange my flight for 200 and its free, God must have not wanted me to waste my money). i go to security and then realize that i dont have my wallet, i figure maybe i put it into my bag (i had to pay for my luggage) but i get through and no wallet, so i go back to the check in desk and there my wallet is.i get through security again, and then try to call my friend who is supposed to pick me up, here my flight is 8 hours later then it was supposed to be, late friday. He cant pick me up anymore which was really understandable he had to go down to homer earlier, and so now i have to find a ride down.

i phone like 10 people trying to figure out a way down, half of the lines are either busy or not there and so I finally get ahold of my aunt who lives about 4 hours from anchorage and she has a friend who might be able to pick me up and let me stay at her house for the night and so she picks me up, without one hesitation i pick her out of the crowd never having seen her bfore. turns out my aunt and uncle have to drive up to drop there daughter off at university and I just hadnt asked them before if they could pick me up because i had a other ride that i didnt even have to ask for. so it worked perfectly for them to pick me up the next day, after calling them 3 times and getting the busy signal the first 2 times.

The Lord is good

its soo good being back here, turns out I am a small group leader which means im co in charge of the guys in the DTS, which they had asked me the day I left if i would do it so I said i would pray about it on the train, and getting here it was a yes. still getting ready to go down to vancouver in like a month not with the school but with some of the other staff here. continue to pray for me as i continue to pray for you.

if you want to support me financially this website will help you http://www.ywam.ca/donations/index.php
they send it through vancouver so that they can change it from cnd to usd for me. there is also some way you can do it through credit card, but i dont know what that link is.

thank you Jesus

update soon