May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. 

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. 

-Franciscan Prayer

The Gleaners

Today our team was able to take a trip to the Gleaners and help out with the work there. The Gleaners is a place where they take all the vegetables farmers cannot sell to markets because they aren't perfect (although they are still very good). They chop them up and dry them out and make soup out of the vegetables. They then send them overseas to help feed people who are in need. Each bag has about 250 servings and each year they make around 12 million bags of soup. Isn't that AMAZING! We were told that 1 hour of work will make about 10 1/2 bags of soup. So each hour we work we are feeding about 2,500 people.

The majority of people who work there are volunteers and seniors. It was actually so amazing to see so many people giving back. It warmed my heart so much!

I worked most of the time cutting up peppers and making sure they weren't rotting or molded. I was working with a man from Holland and he told me all about his family, his kids, his grandkids and his wife. He told me when he moved here and what he used to do for work. He was such a sweet old man and really loved his coffee. When it was coffee break he was up and at it faster than the road runner running away from the coyote.

Nearing the end I spent my time sorting out the chopped, diced and mixed vegetables onto the drying trays. Some of the veggies were frozen and it wasn't long before my nimble fingers had lost all feeling. I kept shaking them out in the few seconds I had between each tray. One of the men working with me noticed and said to me "cold hands but a warm heart". Just that sentence alone made me smile. And it really made me think; that's what it's really all about isn't it? It didn't take long for me to forget about my fingers and focus on all the people who would be receiving food from the trays I was sorting. It doesn't matter what your hands, feet or back feel like, it's all about your heart.

It says in Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it"

It is easy for us to do these things with a bitter heart and complain all the time. But that's not how we are meant to do things. God also calls us to be cheerful givers. Take joy in the work you are doing. Know it is for God what you are doing and let him warm your heart with that. Let what flows from your heart be cheerful giving.

I quite enjoyed my time at the Gleaners. I enjoyed the little conversations I had about family. I enjoyed talking with one lady who used to work in Tofino and was explaining how much she missed it there. I enjoyed the joy that these seniors had in giving back to their community. I enjoyed forgetting about my frozen fingers and thinking with my heart. I enjoyed knowing where the food that we would normally throw away was going and who it was helping. Above all else, I enjoyed that we were doing work cheerfully for The Lord and his people.

Napping

Here at the Lifehouse, there tends to be a lot of napping on days we have off (or even sometimes on days we have on... whoops.) But it got me thinking; is napping too intimate?

I mean, think about it. You're in a room, it's dark, you know the other person could potentially be asleep, but also is probably not. This thought came to me when I sluggishly went to my room to go take a nap and behold! One of my roommates had already shut off the light and tucked herself in. I got a strange feeling in my stomach (one that usually causes it to sweat, but in this case it did not) and I left the room. Unable to complete my quest to nap. Because, well, it was weird.

But the strange thing is, at "bed time", it isn't as weird. We all fall into bed and sleep on our own accord without really thinking of the other people in the room. So why is it so strange for me to nap in the same room as someone else?

The answer is simply this : it is just too intimate. Full stop. When someone says "come join in the napping party" with the lights off and all tucked in, I feel like I am being invited to a restricted, secret group beyond my understanding of what is right and wrong. However, if the same situation were to arise in a public area such as a park or a living room, I would gladly take my place on the floor or ground and cuddle up and drift off into the unknown abyss of sleep.

I know it is weird and silly but I tend to feel awkward in these situations. It's too intimate without being intimate. It is like we are cuddling without cuddling. I KNOW it's weird! IT'S WEIRD! It's like when you first get a new roommate and have to learn how to sleep in the same room without it being awkward. Good luck those first few nights of "do we say goodnight now? Or do we just leave it? Sweet dreams? AH, I don't know!" And good luck with the next morning "So how'd you sleep? Is this a good time to chat? Are they awake enough to smile? Good morning? BLARG!"

Being a chronic napper myself, I should be okay with this. I can take a nap in almost any situation. This should be no problem. But it is. Get over it. It is too intimate. Especially with the lights off and the door closed. 

Christmas Challenge

This year, I want to challenge you.

Christmas is a time where money is spent. Abundantly. Too abundantly if you ask me. Growing up, I was always told "no expensive gifts" . It was part of our Wish List Rules. We didn't have an actual list, but we all knew the rules.  I always thought "THIS IS SO UNFAIR! All my friends are getting TVs and discmans (yeah remember those? Apparently they are so old discman isn't even a word on the interwebs anymore.) Now that I am older, I look back at my young, foolish, selfish self and think only one thing: how could you. 

Christmas is such a privileged holiday. Only people with money can get the "right" things. Other than that, we are just a bunch of greedy and blessed people. While at the same time that you are opening your presents at 8am on December 25th, there are children and families starving. Not excited about the day of gifts and Santa, but just hoping they can manage somehow to make it through yet another day with pennies to their name. How will they feed their kids? How will they afford to fix the hole in the roof where water constantly leaks? How will they get the money for that one immunization that could very well save a person's life. 

So this year I want to challenge you. Instead of spending your $600 on gifts, donate it. Give this Christmas to a family who doesn't have the means to save a little bit each week to buy that iPod. Give to a hospital where children, mothers, fathers, grandparents are fighting for their life with something so simply curable like diarrhea. Give to an orphanage or a school so that kids can be educated and get a well paying job to support their families so they don't have to live in the same situation. Give to a cause that gives hope to all of these hardships. Just give. According to Stats Canada, in 2011, 3.2 billion... BILLION dollars were spent on ONLY gifts. That money could do so much more than the little trinkets and toys that come out of boxes. I heard that it takes 3.5 billion dollars over the course of 5 years to cure world hunger and poverty. So what are we waiting for? We are practically there with one Christmas. All it takes is one Christmas to make a difference. Just one. So let's do it. Let's all take the challenge this year and give.

I challenge you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGHHy43ICzo&feature=youtu.be