ok so here it is 12:30 am still bright enough outside to see pretty clearly one of the quirky Alaskan things, but i figured i should just bear the lateness and just write a quick something.
so its been like a month since the graduation of our winter DTS which it seems like june went speedy fast, i had half a week of time off which was nice and then we had a short term mission mime team that was passing through town come and stay for a couple days and we helped them help us in a few great service opportunities in town like helping at a desert/ auction fundraiser for 3 couples from around the community who's houses have burnt down recently, where it wasnt necessarily a christian event and the families arent necessarily Christians but people of the church community wanted to bless these people in the midst of their loss. we have been meeting every morning to have a corporate worship ( i havent blogged about it yet but one of my biggest pet peeves is having "worship time" unless you schedule it for 24/7 and stop limiting the word worship to singing) we sing, we pray, we read the bible aloud, and its really been about reconnecting with each other, trying to set our hearts on who God is and how we can serve Him best. and i spent 3 days on a canoe trip which was fun, it was my first trip like that in Alaska. we have been ferociously trying to paint our building, but then we all got really busy with planning stuff that its kinda unfinished at this point, Im glad i graffitied some stuff on the half finished wall.
looking to what is ahead things get pretty busy, we still want to consistently have time in the morning to meet and worship together, but I have alot of projects on the go. for Hockey camp at the beginning of september( one of our major local outreaches) we are starting to try to get sponsors, trying to get raffle stuff together, starting up communication with the rink to finalize some stuff, working on the website updating information, working on getting jerseys, working on advertisement, etc. And next year we want to start a Adventure DTS where pretty much we are trying to embrace challenge as opportunity going out into the wilderness but also to the people/ tourists of the trails. almost every other week we are out in the wilderness doing things like hiking, canoeing, and fishing, and then we have one week of lecture. so we have to do some more ground work, promo video and trying to get stuff together for the website, etc.
so these next months look like this, working on all that stuff^ as i am on both those projects. On july 10th to 24th i am in a small village called ouzinkee doing some more renovation on a mission house, which we have been working on for a few years, and will be glad to see completed so it can serve the purposes it was build for 50 years ago, to bring the love of Jesus to the community. and then we have a Mini DTS from july 28 and then it goes for 3 weeks. and then I come home for a week and a half august 21-31 for Kurtis's wedding, and then return to homer for the Hockey camp sept 9th to the 13th and then hopefuly go up north for a month or so and then we have staff conference in early november and then i have to fly home before november 19th to renew my "visa".
so thats my life, i really would like to update relational news like interactions with people, some of our guests have had a wealth of knowledge and encouragment but i have a meeting in 1 minute so adios. so i didnt finish this the first attemp at 12:30 at night but i fell asleep and finished it this morning.
-chad
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
what can I say?
Well I spent the past 3 days mon-wed on a canoe trip a few hours north of here ill share a little bit about that, but I don't think that's where this post is headed. so we headed up monday bright and early (and actually up here in alaska it is quite bright even when it is early as the sun comes up around 3(im actually not sure how early it comes up but that sounds about right)) and spent 3 days paddling, portaging and camping. We were on a scouting trip for a new DTS (discipleship training school) that is going to be an adventure DTS, so all that hard work of paddling through 23 lakes(16 different lakes), and portaging 5 1/2 miles wasnt just for fun haha. we had a few just awe inspiring moments of peaceful calm, watching a moose swim across a lake, looking at the mountains in the distance on some of the lakes. i feel so blessed to know my Creator who created the beautiful landscapes but made us in His image, we are His best work, hard to believe but we are.
....
I keep on asking myself, what are you doing with your life? measuring and judging the core of my existence, keeping notes on tangible perspective. If you will dare to venture on a trail of analogy, Haiti was HOT: scorching, boiling, ferocious. For me leading a team in Haiti was like a fire, like a test, parts of that test I "failed"( o boy did I fail), parts of that test I passed, and God rejoices in both my passing and my failing because of His sovereignty He chooses to teach through the "failings". I keep on being frustrated with myself and the severe lack of vision, endurance, passion, communication skills, and most of all courage. as i want those things to overflow from my mouth and actions, i want my life to be like the shining stars in phillipians 2, i want to be constantly pouring out and being filled. Alaska is cold: freezing, cool, ice. As i came back from Haiti i really in my heart needed to process all that i could of my Haiti experience before i got to busy to, and ive been doing it, but theres more of a depth i dont know how to get out, mostly because i dont really comprehend alot of it. this life is a journey, I am at the 20 year mark. learning to be brave, wanting to be real, finding humility, holding onto hope. this summer wherever i go, whatever i end up doing, i want to grow from what God has shown me about who He is but also about who He has made me to be. right now we as a YWAM base are in a weird season, its supposed to be a refocus/ rest time with a good mix of local and almost local outreach, and a mini dts in august and thats kinda been the story, but i was really looking for a opportunity to go out and so being a counselor at a camp on kodiak island might be in my plans and if not helping coordinate hockey camp and adventure dts and a 2 week mission house remodeling project on spruce island would fill my time. keep praying for me, i hope to drop something encouraging off soon about specifics of what Gods doing in my life and to share wisdom.
we have a team of of 14 youth here for a couple days and we are facilitating some work projects and evangelism for them and hopefully tomorrow we are going to set up some prayer stations on the spit "free prayer" today we set up/ cleaned up / helped run a auction to help out 3 couples in homer whos houses have burned down recently, i bid 200 on a quilt but didnt get it haha.
well my battery is dying now too
chad
....
I keep on asking myself, what are you doing with your life? measuring and judging the core of my existence, keeping notes on tangible perspective. If you will dare to venture on a trail of analogy, Haiti was HOT: scorching, boiling, ferocious. For me leading a team in Haiti was like a fire, like a test, parts of that test I "failed"( o boy did I fail), parts of that test I passed, and God rejoices in both my passing and my failing because of His sovereignty He chooses to teach through the "failings". I keep on being frustrated with myself and the severe lack of vision, endurance, passion, communication skills, and most of all courage. as i want those things to overflow from my mouth and actions, i want my life to be like the shining stars in phillipians 2, i want to be constantly pouring out and being filled. Alaska is cold: freezing, cool, ice. As i came back from Haiti i really in my heart needed to process all that i could of my Haiti experience before i got to busy to, and ive been doing it, but theres more of a depth i dont know how to get out, mostly because i dont really comprehend alot of it. this life is a journey, I am at the 20 year mark. learning to be brave, wanting to be real, finding humility, holding onto hope. this summer wherever i go, whatever i end up doing, i want to grow from what God has shown me about who He is but also about who He has made me to be. right now we as a YWAM base are in a weird season, its supposed to be a refocus/ rest time with a good mix of local and almost local outreach, and a mini dts in august and thats kinda been the story, but i was really looking for a opportunity to go out and so being a counselor at a camp on kodiak island might be in my plans and if not helping coordinate hockey camp and adventure dts and a 2 week mission house remodeling project on spruce island would fill my time. keep praying for me, i hope to drop something encouraging off soon about specifics of what Gods doing in my life and to share wisdom.
we have a team of of 14 youth here for a couple days and we are facilitating some work projects and evangelism for them and hopefully tomorrow we are going to set up some prayer stations on the spit "free prayer" today we set up/ cleaned up / helped run a auction to help out 3 couples in homer whos houses have burned down recently, i bid 200 on a quilt but didnt get it haha.
well my battery is dying now too
chad
Sunday, June 13, 2010
bon bagay (good thing)
trying just to share some more of the positive things of Haiti and what is getting accomplished. alot of my team had opportunities to help with the prison ministry that one of the staff members at YWAM Haiti started and thats the video I'm going to share with you.
chad
chad
Saturday, June 5, 2010
haiti report
sorry its taken so long for this to get up here, i wanted to at least have a few of the paper copies out there before i did this blog report, so this is my trip to Haiti summed up on a 8 1/2"x 11" sheet of paper.
May 24th 2010 Haiti report/ summer outreach
Greetings from Chad Reimer in Homer, Alaska
First of all I want to let you know that I thank the Lord for all of you out there who are taking the time to read this and for your prayers and support. God has given out many different roles/ gifts in the work of His Kingdom, and its my prayer that we can see God purposes for our lives and be faithful with them, because we are called to do the work of Jesus. Hebrews 12: 12-13 is a verse that stuck out to me during our outreach.
So April 12th we(I led a team of 4 students and 3 other staff) went to Haiti not really knowing exactly what our time there was going to look like so we came with a heart to do what ever was needed. We worked with YWAM Haiti in St. Marc (which is about 1 ½ hours from Port Au Prince), St. Marc is a place where the earthquake hit too (but not as severely) and a place where some people(roughly 12,000) from Port Au Prince fled to. YWAM St. Marc has been in Haiti for 20 years so they are firmly established and so when the earthquake happened they were set forth into motion sending out rescue teams, setting up tent cities, taking over a abandoned medical clinic, and distribution of foreign aid among other things. So our time there was split between working at the YWAM base doing things like sorting medical supplies, distributing food, working on building a school, interceding for Haiti through prayer and worship, preparing housing for future house building teams, doing day to day tasks so that Haitian staff could go out and do ministry, etc.
The other half of our time in Haiti was spent out in the field, we lived in a tent city called Parisse for a week and a half with a translator really living life with the people, we were the first team to work with those people and so a lot of our time was spent doing assessment, seeing where they were spiritually, praying for them, really trying to build them up in the faith to help them see hope after such a disaster as a lot of them lost everything they had including family members. In prayer and worship we wanted to show them Gods love, we wanted to show them that God is worth our attention, that He is the rock in whom we should build our house upon. We also worked with the physical needs, we provide the basic needs of food shelter and water but we are working with them to build houses on the same piece of land that the tents are, so they are getting paid to build houses that they will get to move into which will hopefully give them a sense of ownership and so they can see that there is a way to see hope physically also. We spent up in the countryside up the mountain in a area called Guavier, we were measuring land to see how much Coffee was growing up there because we want to create up to 150 jobs by setting up a co- op program and building some sort of processing area so they can export their coffee internationally so that they can get good prices. The rest of our time was spent was planning land for a new tent city, clearing the land with machetes and praying for it also
The spiritual atmosphere of Haiti is a bit confused and that is really represented in the physical. Most will say that they are Christians but practice voodoo and don't really understand what sin is, so pray for a softening of hearts and a fear of the Lord which brings understanding. I don't have exact numbers but I know that in single events hundreds of people came to Christ throughout our time in Haiti and even though my team was more behind the scenes when it comes to typical evangelism souls were won for Christ.
So I just got back here in Homer Alaska after those 6 weeks of outreach and I'm starting to get to look at my summer plans, and so far they are undefined but they have a lot of potential. I will update you more on those plans with my next letter, I'm just happy that I get to focus on Alaska and its people. Thank you for getting behind me and really making this happen, praise the Lord for all He has done in my life.
3838 Bartlett st, Homer, AK, 99603 Chad Reimer
chad.reimer@gmail.com 1-907- 235- 9339
May 24th 2010 Haiti report/ summer outreach
Greetings from Chad Reimer in Homer, Alaska
First of all I want to let you know that I thank the Lord for all of you out there who are taking the time to read this and for your prayers and support. God has given out many different roles/ gifts in the work of His Kingdom, and its my prayer that we can see God purposes for our lives and be faithful with them, because we are called to do the work of Jesus. Hebrews 12: 12-13 is a verse that stuck out to me during our outreach.
So April 12th we(I led a team of 4 students and 3 other staff) went to Haiti not really knowing exactly what our time there was going to look like so we came with a heart to do what ever was needed. We worked with YWAM Haiti in St. Marc (which is about 1 ½ hours from Port Au Prince), St. Marc is a place where the earthquake hit too (but not as severely) and a place where some people(roughly 12,000) from Port Au Prince fled to. YWAM St. Marc has been in Haiti for 20 years so they are firmly established and so when the earthquake happened they were set forth into motion sending out rescue teams, setting up tent cities, taking over a abandoned medical clinic, and distribution of foreign aid among other things. So our time there was split between working at the YWAM base doing things like sorting medical supplies, distributing food, working on building a school, interceding for Haiti through prayer and worship, preparing housing for future house building teams, doing day to day tasks so that Haitian staff could go out and do ministry, etc.
The other half of our time in Haiti was spent out in the field, we lived in a tent city called Parisse for a week and a half with a translator really living life with the people, we were the first team to work with those people and so a lot of our time was spent doing assessment, seeing where they were spiritually, praying for them, really trying to build them up in the faith to help them see hope after such a disaster as a lot of them lost everything they had including family members. In prayer and worship we wanted to show them Gods love, we wanted to show them that God is worth our attention, that He is the rock in whom we should build our house upon. We also worked with the physical needs, we provide the basic needs of food shelter and water but we are working with them to build houses on the same piece of land that the tents are, so they are getting paid to build houses that they will get to move into which will hopefully give them a sense of ownership and so they can see that there is a way to see hope physically also. We spent up in the countryside up the mountain in a area called Guavier, we were measuring land to see how much Coffee was growing up there because we want to create up to 150 jobs by setting up a co- op program and building some sort of processing area so they can export their coffee internationally so that they can get good prices. The rest of our time was spent was planning land for a new tent city, clearing the land with machetes and praying for it also
The spiritual atmosphere of Haiti is a bit confused and that is really represented in the physical. Most will say that they are Christians but practice voodoo and don't really understand what sin is, so pray for a softening of hearts and a fear of the Lord which brings understanding. I don't have exact numbers but I know that in single events hundreds of people came to Christ throughout our time in Haiti and even though my team was more behind the scenes when it comes to typical evangelism souls were won for Christ.
So I just got back here in Homer Alaska after those 6 weeks of outreach and I'm starting to get to look at my summer plans, and so far they are undefined but they have a lot of potential. I will update you more on those plans with my next letter, I'm just happy that I get to focus on Alaska and its people. Thank you for getting behind me and really making this happen, praise the Lord for all He has done in my life.
3838 Bartlett st, Homer, AK, 99603 Chad Reimer
chad.reimer@gmail.com 1-907- 235- 9339
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
accross the continent
well its been a week and a half since ive been back in Alaska but this past week has been pretty busy to say the least, im going to share a little story of my trip from Haiti to Alaska and my next post should be a clearer look at what my time in Haiti was like.
so we left Haiti the morning of the 19th of may, starting the night before there was a team from Kona Hawaii that was doing a 24 hours of prayer and worship and so pretty much I decided im not going to go to bed because we are probably going to leave around 4am, so i spent the night in between the prayer room and the main dining hall area reading my bible, so i'm not sure how smart that was but im pretty sure God gave me energy because i really wasnt that tired until the next night. so we left around 5am on our drive to port au prince. it was a beautiful drive on the countryside as the sun was rising, we made it to port au prince, the city really had a different feel from the last time we were there more tents up, seemed more developed in ways, but still looking at the "tents(cardboard, little pieces of tarp, etc.)" that they were living in really gave us a good look at how much longer Haiti is going to be in rebuild. well we got to the airport and we cleared all that, got some of my snacks confiscated, and made the horrible mistake of saying "you too" to the person who checked my bags and then said "enjoy your flight" haha we both had a laugh, i said i meant "have a nice day".
got to Miami almost a hour late, had 40 minutes to clear immigrations and then clear customs and then get to our next plane.so i start going through immigration i get into a relatively short line and proceed to the counter, i tell him i was just in Haiti and now im on my way back to alaska where i was before, i show him my one year entry form(little paper thing on my passport saying i can enter the US for a year), he says it looks good but he doesnt think its the right form for me to enter from Haiti, so he checks and then tells me yes it is infact not the right form and so i should go get the right form and come back and he will have his supervisor and he will stamp it and i can be on my way. so im traveling with a group of 5 others and they all are long gone by this point. so i hurry to fill out a form that looks exactly like my old one. go back to the counter, no supervisor. he hands me all the stuff i filled out and my passport in a red folder and tells me to follow someone to this backroom so i go thinking oh maybe his supervisor is in there ready to stamp my form but no here is a room full of people like 100 people mostly from mexico or cuba. so i proceed to wait and wait and wait, until most of the room was empty there was me and 3 other white people, i'm praying that the rest of my team has left on the next flight after the one we were supposed to be on, and they did. so i wait for 4 1/2 hours at 4 hours they finally talk to me, they give me the usual run down where are you going why are you volunteering ? whos supporting you? how do you survive? are you sure you dont want to go back to canada and find a job instead? they send me back out and then call me back in a little later give me my passport and tell me i can go. so now my passport is a mess they put a wrong stamp on crossed out another one of my stamps and gave me a 6 month form instead of my year which was already almost 5 months used.
so i get through and then down to the re booking desk, they rebook my on a completely different flight path i mean it ends up in the same place but instead of flying to chicago i fly to seattle the next morning and so i was like well im going to have to sleep at the airport by myself (because i found out the rest of my team was on way different flights) but no they were at first just going to give me a discount on a hotel because it really wasnt there fault that i got held up but then i told them that my first flight was a hour late and i dont even know if i could have gotten to it and so they gave me a free hotel room, and after sleeping in a tent with 3 other sweaty smelly guys a huge bed to myself was really nice. so i got a room at the marriot in miami for free and also met like a whole bunch of other guys traveling alone and sitting at restaurants alone, it was cool i met a guy who had been to both alaska and winnipeg and another guy who had just been to winnipeg and who was working on designing earthquake proof windows for Haiti. then the next morning i proceeded on a 6 hour flight across the country and then a 3 hour flight to finally go across the continent and into alaska.
the end
more news soon, hopefuly i can get back into blogging mode and actually keep this more up to date.
God bless
chad
so we left Haiti the morning of the 19th of may, starting the night before there was a team from Kona Hawaii that was doing a 24 hours of prayer and worship and so pretty much I decided im not going to go to bed because we are probably going to leave around 4am, so i spent the night in between the prayer room and the main dining hall area reading my bible, so i'm not sure how smart that was but im pretty sure God gave me energy because i really wasnt that tired until the next night. so we left around 5am on our drive to port au prince. it was a beautiful drive on the countryside as the sun was rising, we made it to port au prince, the city really had a different feel from the last time we were there more tents up, seemed more developed in ways, but still looking at the "tents(cardboard, little pieces of tarp, etc.)" that they were living in really gave us a good look at how much longer Haiti is going to be in rebuild. well we got to the airport and we cleared all that, got some of my snacks confiscated, and made the horrible mistake of saying "you too" to the person who checked my bags and then said "enjoy your flight" haha we both had a laugh, i said i meant "have a nice day".
got to Miami almost a hour late, had 40 minutes to clear immigrations and then clear customs and then get to our next plane.so i start going through immigration i get into a relatively short line and proceed to the counter, i tell him i was just in Haiti and now im on my way back to alaska where i was before, i show him my one year entry form(little paper thing on my passport saying i can enter the US for a year), he says it looks good but he doesnt think its the right form for me to enter from Haiti, so he checks and then tells me yes it is infact not the right form and so i should go get the right form and come back and he will have his supervisor and he will stamp it and i can be on my way. so im traveling with a group of 5 others and they all are long gone by this point. so i hurry to fill out a form that looks exactly like my old one. go back to the counter, no supervisor. he hands me all the stuff i filled out and my passport in a red folder and tells me to follow someone to this backroom so i go thinking oh maybe his supervisor is in there ready to stamp my form but no here is a room full of people like 100 people mostly from mexico or cuba. so i proceed to wait and wait and wait, until most of the room was empty there was me and 3 other white people, i'm praying that the rest of my team has left on the next flight after the one we were supposed to be on, and they did. so i wait for 4 1/2 hours at 4 hours they finally talk to me, they give me the usual run down where are you going why are you volunteering ? whos supporting you? how do you survive? are you sure you dont want to go back to canada and find a job instead? they send me back out and then call me back in a little later give me my passport and tell me i can go. so now my passport is a mess they put a wrong stamp on crossed out another one of my stamps and gave me a 6 month form instead of my year which was already almost 5 months used.
so i get through and then down to the re booking desk, they rebook my on a completely different flight path i mean it ends up in the same place but instead of flying to chicago i fly to seattle the next morning and so i was like well im going to have to sleep at the airport by myself (because i found out the rest of my team was on way different flights) but no they were at first just going to give me a discount on a hotel because it really wasnt there fault that i got held up but then i told them that my first flight was a hour late and i dont even know if i could have gotten to it and so they gave me a free hotel room, and after sleeping in a tent with 3 other sweaty smelly guys a huge bed to myself was really nice. so i got a room at the marriot in miami for free and also met like a whole bunch of other guys traveling alone and sitting at restaurants alone, it was cool i met a guy who had been to both alaska and winnipeg and another guy who had just been to winnipeg and who was working on designing earthquake proof windows for Haiti. then the next morning i proceeded on a 6 hour flight across the country and then a 3 hour flight to finally go across the continent and into alaska.
the end
more news soon, hopefuly i can get back into blogging mode and actually keep this more up to date.
God bless
chad