One Year Later

Well friends, it's been a year. A year since I was crying in an airport. A year since I was saying good bye to so many important people in my life. A year since I was standing on Australian soil. 1 whole year since I got on a plane, said goodbye to Australia and hello to Canada once again.

I am so bewildered to look back and really reflect on how fast time moves. On how much we really do need to stop, look around and take it all in. Because in the blink of an eye, we could miss so much. It feels like just yesterday I was exploring beautiful beaches. Just yesterday I was scuba diving. Just yesterday I was hearing "mate" and "how ya going?" Every single day of my life. HECK! Just yesterday I was petting a kangaroo. Not a single day goes by that I don't think about the amazing people I met, things I saw, experiences I lived. Though when I look back, it all feels like a dream.

It is awesome that I have all these memories and pictures I can reminisce on. But sometimes I get too caught up in the past. Sometimes I lose myself in the adventures of Australia that I forget to look ahead at my future and just live in the day that it is. I get caught up in what was and completely forget about the now. I find myself more concerned about missing it and wanting it back than remembering it.

I have such an amazing future ahead of me and even right here, right now, my life is so blessed. I am sitting in India. I mean how crazy is that?!? YOLO y'know?

I loved every minute that I was in Australia. I loved the people, the places, the life. And as much as I want it back, that's not what is for me right now. I have so much more living to do. So many more adventures to go on. I have an amazing program I am attending in September. I have amazing people in my life. I have so much to look forward to. And that is what I have to do. Look forward, not look back. Because although the past was so incredible, it's isn't now anymore. I have no doubt that I will go back to Australia one day, I will. But that is a whole other adventure to live. Live differently.

Australia, you were amazing. From Melbourne to Sydney, Brisbane to Perth, the heavenly beaches of the Whitsunday islands to the exotic animals of Mooloolaba, the winding roads of the great ocean road to the penguins of Phillip island. From the late night walks to k-mart to all-day-church Sundays, tram rides to zip lines, scuba diving to beach lounging, driving on the wrong side of the road to how I met your mother marathons, nan fan reunions to footy games. Did I mention I went to school there too?

I will never forget all the people I met, made unforgettable friendships and shared tears with. The people I met and reunited with are really who made my Australia life so unbelievably incredible. You all know who are and always remember this: you all have scuba special place in my heart. I will never ever forget the time spent with each and every one of you. Thank you so much for making my dream a reality. Thank you so much for making Australia amazing-as. 

INDIA

Well, it's official. 1 week and I am off to India! Holy camoli! I didn't even realize how quickly this was going to happen. It was just 6 months ago we started planning this, and just 6 months ago we were saying "HOLY! We go to India in 6 MONTHS!!" Now it is just one short, teeny, tiny week away from us taking off from this cold Canadian island. The amount of disbelief in how quickly this happened is actually astounding. Not to mention I haven't even been in Canada a full year yet and I am leaving it again already. Love you Canada.

So here is the game plan:

-We leave Vancouver on May 29th at 1:20 pm and are flying through Shanghai and we arrive in New Delhi on May 31st at 1:35 am! (early morning start, but less traffic. You win some you lose some y'know?) My wonderful friend Sahil will be picking us up at the airport to take us to our hotel.

- We are going to be in New Delhi for 5 days spending time touring and helping out where we can.

-We then leave for Agra to start our official volunteer work at the Mother Teresa Orphanage. We will be there for 3 weeks or so.

- Then it is off to Varanasi to do some more touring and helping out for about a week

- Then we will jet off to Nepal to start our volunteering with elephants in Chitwan. We will be in Nepal for the remainder of our journey.

- Then it is back to New Delhi on the 30th of July where we will fly straight home!

PHEW! This journey is going to go by so QUICKLY! But we (Stacie, Mary and I) are so excited to see the work God will do with us while we are there. 

There are a few things I am a little bit worried about. If you talked to me a while back, you may have know I was extremely terrified to go. So much so the thought of leaving would stress me out a bunch and give me extreme anxiety. But God, being the cheeky monkey He is, told me over and over again "DO NOT BE AFRAID!" Seeing quotes almost everywhere of  "He knew we would be afraid, that we would doubt. That's why He tells us again and again in the bible, 'FEAR NOT'" and "Fear and faith cannot coexist" - supplied by pastor Christine Caine #liveundaunted. And not to forget Isaiah 41:10

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." 

Not to mention our church is behind us 100%. Supporting us with prayer and continuous encouraging words of wisdom and inspiration. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful church to back us up on this. God certainly does not want me to fear, so who am I to question Him? He will protect us. He will guide us. I have complete faith in this. 

The second uncertainty I had was the concern of my health. Some of you may not know this, but I have recently been diagnosed with narcolepsy. I allow you to take a moment here to giggle to yourself quietly.

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Moment is over. 

So with all the experimenting with different medications, I was fearing that I wouldn't find one that would work before my trip. But thankfully, as God is so good, I managed to find a medication that worked just in time. Now I wont fall asleep on little children while I am playing with them! YAY! Praise the Lord!

Now all there is left to do is go. With just my backpack, friends, faith and little travel butterflies I am all set! I am so excited to watch God move and to see His presence so strongly where we go! I am so excited for this amazing adventure we have ahead of us. Mary and Stacie, strap on your seat belts  because this journey is going to be amazing-as. 

If you are interested in keeping up with our trip follow our blog here:

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/cmsindia/1/tpod.html

For updates from me, Stacie and Mary as our journey unfolds. We will be updating this as much as we can so follow! We will be posting our blogs on Facebook too! 

Life, oh, beautiful life

There are only certain times I will use text acronyms. When I am trying to be funny. When I am making fun of texting. When I am actually too lazy to say the words (yes say, I not only just use acronyms in certain situations, I also speak them.) And when I am EXTREMELY excited. Friends, I can truly say this is an OH-EM-GEE moment.

I GOT ACCEPTED INTO LIFETEAMS!!!

WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Now, I found this out a little while ago, but never blogged about it. Until now. So a good majority of you who are my friends already know this. BAHHH! I am just so ecstatic!!

Lifeteams is a youth ministry and outreach program based in Abbotsford, BC. It is a discipleship program as well as a mentorship, practicum and college type course program thingy. I am going to be starting in September. Mondays are volunteer/outdoor days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are classroom days. Wednesday and Fridays are practicum days. One of the reasons I am so excited is because they only accept 8-10 students a year and I was one of them, so I feel pretty dang special. Another reason is that I know this is something God wants me to do.

 I have been waiting (and so has He) to start doing something for God. I was stuck in business, just pluttering along, not really know why I was there, but knowing that I knew I was going to get a job when I was done. The question I kept asking myself was "Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life? Am I really going to enjoy the job that comes out of this? Am I going to be making a difference?" and the answer was always "No."

So finally, FINALLY! I am doing something that I know I will enjoy. I know I am going to be making a difference. And it is the first step into the field I want to go. (If you didn't know already it is human trafficking prevention and rehabilitation specifically in girls aka youth). I want to bring the worthiness of God to those who feel worthless. I want to bring the hope of God to those who feel hopeless. I want to bring the love of God to those who feel loveless.

I am so excited to start this new chapter, new season and new journey of my life. I am so excited to just soak up our amazing Saviour each and every day for 8 whole months. Glorifying Him, working for Him, and learning from Him. This is going to be a season that is amazing-as.

I need to pray more.

 I need to remember that God loves me so much and He is really all I need. 

He PROVIDES

I don't have to waste weeks, days, minutes or seconds feeling down because I have a Saviour who rescued me.

Saved my life. 

Took my burdens on a cross. 

Died for me.

So that I can live freely.

So that I can live joyfully. 

So that I can know how much He, my Lord of Lords, loves me.

Oh, how He loves me. 

"I think we're just going to have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that. "

---Margot Tenenbaum

Patience

God has so much planned for us in one year. Though we may not notice, may not see change or may not experience anything new, God is at work. He stirs our plans throughout our lives and it is more than imaginable. God works in mysterious ways and sometimes not even in ways we expect or want and sometimes not when we want.

As the New Year rolled in, I was constantly asked what my New Years Resolution was. I never had an answer to give anyone. I am not a big "resolutioner" if you will. I have never made the decision to resolve anything in my life. I think mostly because I am lazy and I don't think of these things enough. I have never put in any effort to change something as soon as the new year comes around. I am more of a change-things-as-the-problems-come-up kind of person. Also I have never wanted to make a resolution I didn't mean such as go to the gym more, pick up a new instrument, be nicer to people on the street. Heck, I feel fit enough, I already play 3 instruments and I think I am a pretty nice person (you can all hold me to this and prove me wrong if you feel differently)

But God showed me something new. In a Facebook post I read, there was some talk about a "word of the year". Not a resolution that you change as soon as the New Year starts, but a whole word to define your year and help you grow in the Christ-like way we should as believers. As soon as I read this I was immediately praying, searching for my word. You see, a word isn't just a "hey I am going to put cheetah speed effort for the first three weeks of the year and then turtle down as the year continues" kind of thing. It is a long lasting thing. It follows you. It pops up. And if it comes from God, there is no getting rid of it.

My word didn't just pop up right away when I was praying, it has been brewing up in my head for quite some time. God has been working this into me for a long, long, long, long, long time. In relationships, family, life, faith. I am a bit ashamed to say I haven't listened as well as I should. I am pretty hasty, I like seeing results, I like things going my way and I don't like people messing it up and bugging me. More over, I don't like putting in the effort needed to fill all the previously mentioned things. Woah, is it hot in here or is it just me? So when this word thing popped up I was into it from the start. A word. One word. To work on, to grow, to change, to define myself, my year and my faith? Yes please!

So for this year, 2013, my word is:

PATIENCE

Yup, patience. I need patience in almost every aspect of my life. In my faith. In my family (goodness they get annoying sometimes- patience, starting now). In my relationships. In my future. God's timing is perfect, it is time for me to be patient with Him and know his plan is perfect! 

So I am going to start working on this. If you want, hold me to it. This is part of my life that I really want to work on. Patience. I am so excited to see what this year holds for me and what God is going to do with me. I am so excited to practice patience. Amazing patience.

"We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised" --Hebrews 6:11-12

Be still there is a healer...

I love Jesus. I love my God. I love my faith. I love the fact that I live under the power of grace. I love that every day I can wake up knowing that the Lord has made that day. I love how He loves me. I love how He provides for me. I love my faith and that is why the fact that I don't have this in common with my family, breaks my heart.

I just got back from an amazing weekend at Camp Imadene. I am seriously so incredibly blessed to have a place where I can worship and see others worship God so strongly. Every time we are in chapel I can't help but think how much God is smiling down on us, watching the countless young people raising their arms in praise to our Savior King.

We were extra blessed this weekend to have youth pastor John Thwaites come in and speak. His story struck so many similarities in mine. Like him, I also grew up in the Catholic light. Like him, I also had my fair share of partying. Like him, I want to minister to youth. I got to speak with him a little bit on how to start a life in pastoral work and what he did to get where he is today. He gave me some tips and told me to keep in contact with him which I am so grateful for. Seriously, thanks John!

He was speaking on how we are running. Running in this race. And in this race there will be roadblocks. Roadblocks that keep us from the prize and roadblocks in our walks with God.

Like every time I go to camp, I come home hyped on God. This fire in me burns so strongly and I love to know how strong my faith is and see how much, even if it is a little, my faith has grown with just one little trip to camp. And like every time I come back from camp I want to share some of this good news with my family. But when I hear my grandma say "that's enough religious talk, I don't believe in it and I just don't understand it", it hits me hard. Roadblock.

Lately I have been feeling super attacked by the enemy. He knows my faith is growing and getting stronger each and every day and that scares him. He wants to take me down. He also knows he can get to me through my family. It has been hard. I know God has been opening doors for me and giving me the opportunities I've prayed for. I thought I was really getting somewhere with my grandpa. He's been so keen on learning more about my faith and I have so much certainty in my heart that he believes there is a God up there. He asked me himself to say grace. He told me himself that he believes as a doctor, he is being used by God. "One of God's agents" were his exact words. You can't imagine the smile on my heart when I heard that. You can't imagine how quickly it was taken away by the "I don't believe in it and I just don't understand it". Roadblock.

I would love so strongly for my family to share this passion with me. There is no doubt in my mind that God will put this passion in their hearts. But until then, my heart is hurting for them. I am constantly praying and constantly trying to witness. Who knows when their hearts will soften. It could be tomorrow. It could be a year from now. Or it could be on their death beds. But until then, I will continue to pray. Continue to try and get God's word to them.

God is so powerful and so strong. He will not let the Godly slip and fall. He will not forsake or leave us. He is working in me and I have complete faith in Him. He will turn this around. He will. But for right now, my heart is breaking. For right now, I have to be still and wait on God. For I am in this battle and I have been equipped with the tools, but it is God who does the changing. He is on my side.

Exodus 14:14
"The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."