Saturday

oh man fun fun fun times.... it sucks that not our whole session could be there for our outing to Denny's, but we did pretty good with 9 of us there. soooo much fun. it was becky's last saturday before she leaves, so we thought we would head out to lunch. i thought i would just post some photos and that can tell some stories.

so I have come to the conclusion that a) our session looks just plain hot in that first photo

b) i have a HUGE mouth

c) the boys r just plain weird

d) the girls r sooooo pretty!

but it was the best time ever. it was just sooo good to bond with the session and just have a time where we r just having fun together and not having to do anything War College!! as for becky leaving, its really sad. i am gonna miss her soooo much. i love her like she is my sister. so it will be hard to see her go, but i know she will be back... well for 2 weeks in August! i love you becky!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

dont u hate it when u write a blog and then it disappears. that just happened to me with this blog, so i will start again.

Today has been a good day. we had holy space this morning and despite the fact that most of us dont like holy space, this one was a good one. we spent the whole time just encouraging one another and building each other up. then we had a discipleship party at Starbucks because it was our last one together cuz Becky is leaving next week. that was fun.

then i was waiting for the bus to come to teen cell and as i was hopping on the bus, some of the kids that come to Mac school program hopped on the bus with me. these kids need alot of love and while i was trying to love on these kids, they were calling my friends in the Downtown Eastside junkies and saying that, that part of town is a zoo. it made me really sad and upset for my friends and its hard when u get frustrated while trying to show patience and love to these kids but they r downing my friends. i eventually just told them to show respect and that these people are real people too and to not call them that. then they just laughed at me. *sigh* the joys of working with troubled kids.

Missing home!

ok so how cool is my little picture thingy that Becky made for me at Christmas. it is currently my wallpaper on my computer!!! every single one of the people in this photo ( except becky), i am missing sooooo much. i am just missing home at the moment. i think there are a couple of reasons why i think i am missing home. 1) because i go home in 4 months and being here for almost 8, 4 seems not long at all. i feel soooo close to the end that you get to a point where u wish time would speed up and you could go home. 2) i am growin at the moment and growing requires some pain and endurance and i am having a bit of a rough time and i know i could always count on my friends to help me up. but thats not what God wants. he wants to help me up. he is teaching me to rely on him more. and its hard, very hard, but i know it will be worth it.

the last time i missed home soooo much was at Christmas time. its kinda like that but not to that extent. and the past few nights i have had a few dreams about friends back home and stuff, so its been interesting. so i know not many of my friends read this back home, but i love you all and i miss you soooo much!!!

Intercession

For most of the time that I have been here in Canada ( 7 months), i have been told that God has given me the spiritual gift of intercession. and if u asked me before i came here, what was the one gift that i didnt want, i would have said intercession hands down. for so long now i have been trying to figure out this gift. because i pick up other people's hurt, pain, and feelings. not always are the feelings bad, but when you are down here it can get a bit intense. when i went to Knee Drill last night i was feeling really down and discouraged. i knew exactly why, but there was definitely more there. and i couldnt pin point exactly what was going on, all i wanted to do was cry. and i knew it wasnt my own stuff ( Praise the Lord for having some sort of discernment happening!). Then Dan, who was leading the worship played this song... dont ask me what its called, what the lyrics are but it was powerful. it was talking about crying out for the lost and the ppl on the street.

and for the next 10 mins i wept. and i knew exactly what it was. On Tuesday nights, i preach once a month at a women's rehab centre and i met this woman there on Tues night and she was praising God cuz she was saved from the streets etc. then yesterday ( not even 2 days later), i found her on the streets again. thats why i felt discouraged, but i was interceeding for her. i was feeling her pain, was feeling God's pain, and i was crying out for her, cuz she was lost to come home. it was intense. but it was sooo good. i have never cried out like that for anyone before, so it was a new experience, but it was powerful and amazing!!!

for so long now, i have not liked the fact that i have this gift cuz i couldnt discern what feelings were mine and what werent, so i would just assume they were mine and i couldnt understand the gift. but now that i am starting to understand it more, its a powerful, amazing gift to have and i really feel blessed that God has given this gift to me!

This past week

This past week has been a very intense week for me. alot of tears, alot of hurt, alot of not fun stuff.... and thats life sometimes and i know that God is using every situation to help me think and grow. so its amazing how he does that. however this week has not been easy at all.....

see i have been disconnected from my emotions and disconnected from my session and its been hard. and this week was hard cuz i received quite a few blunt, honest, harsh words from someone really close to me and i didnt receive them well at all. but i have been thinking about some of the stuff my friend said and you know what... some of the stuff she said was right. i have been spending too much time putting the blame on other people that i havent stopped to examine my life and my heart and see what i have to do to change. another thing that she said was that i was letting things affect me that shouldnt affect me. for the past month i have been letting everything get to me, and even if it wasnt something bad, i would make it out in my mind that it was bad. and on Friday i was thinking about why i would do that. and i guess the only thing i can think of is that before holly left, i knew it was gonna be hard for me and i would feel lonely and i had no faith that the session would reach out to me... so i already have this negative thoughts in my mind, so in a way i made it come true. now that this is happened, i just dont know where to go. i feel like i am at a dead end street, with nowhere to go. i have put myself in this situation and i dont know how to get out of it....

i have been lacking intimacy with the Lord (again, that is my fault) and struggling to hear him, so it makes it especially hard cuz i am finding it hard to reach out to him cuz i cant find him at the moment. so here i am, at a dead end street feeling like there is nowhere to go. so where to from here? i dont really know. i guess the process of getting back to a good place has started with me trying to reconnect myself with the session. on Friday night i spent 1.5 hrs with Dawn in the WR and that was really valuable to me. then i went to Metrotown with becky and matt on sat and then today some of us watched a movie.

I am still trying to process some of the stuff my good friend told me.... but i think i have to let go of any hurt that i am feeling and realise that she does this because she loves me. she tells me how it is because she wants and desires to see me grow. she never intends to harm me, and i know that. just need to walk out in it.

so where to from here??? any ideas???

sorry if this blog is a bit messy... i just cant get my thoughts straight bout my life... its annoying!!!!

Some days you are soo over it

Some days at War College ( not all!) but some you kinda get over it. over everything. over being round the same ppl day in day out. over getting up at 8:00 every morning and going to class to pray the bible, over eating harbour light food, just over everything. Now today has been a good day, but i am also over a few things.if you are in War College or have been in war college, you can definitely say that you do have some of those days!!!

but i am only over a couple things, exclusivity. that is the main one. i was discussing this with a friend of mine and we just dont get why there is so much exclusiveness. and it is noticable around here everywhere. and i am just sooo over trying to be included into the exclusive groups and trying to break certain cliques up.... i am just over it. this stuff really causes a bit of tension in community, but no one knows what to do bout it. argh it just makes me soooo mad that ppl are also unaware that they are exclusive. they need to WAKE UP AND TAKE A LOOK AT THEMSELVES!!!!

on another note, we had class today about Holiness, it was really good. i am starting to understand this whole holiness thing a little bit better. still not entirely sure. i also spoke my mind on a topic which was cool. getting better at being honest so thats good too. God is good.

man i got major conviction on Monday. every monday i do this program called mac school. and its tough stuff... i find it really hard to love the kids. these kids most days have absolutely no respect.

anywayz, joshua got hurt and he had a little scratch on his knee and there was no one in the office, but i found a teacher and she fixed it up and we got talking. she teaches one of our little girls, one of the hardest girls to take care of u will ever meet. and i said "how do you do this every day, i come here once a week and thats plenty for me. i just cant do this, how do u do it?" and she said " we just love the kids. all of the teachers just love these kids and wouldnt want to be anywhere else." oh SNAP! i dont even know whether this chick is Christian, but if she isnt oh man, she just fully outdid me in the love department. i just got fully convicted about loving these kids. i need to love them.

but in all fairness, i didnt choose to do this program of kids ministry!!! so i blame denise on that one! she assigned me there.... its all your fault Denise!

My Celebrity Look-alikes

he he.... becky and i were being stupid with the camera and this is who i apparently look like!!!!!! sooooo funny!!!

DTES is weird!

during street combat this week i got told i have a big nose. and then today when i went to the store to buy diet coke i got asked whether i have gained weight. oh man if i have to live up to the worlds standards i am stuffed with my so called 'big nose' and my so called 'gaining weight'. lucky i am not living up to those standards!!!! he he! i was bored on Friday night so i took some pics of myself.... here are some of them ( just for those of u who dont get to see me!!)

dont i look soooo hot!!!

oh and i dont normally post 2 days in a row, so sorry that my posts are sooo close together at the moment!