A few pictures from our trip and so much to tell...
Journey –
1. a trip somewhere: A trip or expedition from one place to another
2. Process of development: a gradual passing from one state to another regarded as more advanced, e.g. from innocence to mature awareness
• A spiritual journey
This morning I felt the need to look up this word in the Encarta dictionary. As I speak of our lives these days, this word comes to mind. I love what it says to me. While it may say something different to you, what I see is the difficulties in this life are moving me to a “mature awareness.” As a kid, I couldn’t wait to grow up. All I ever wanted to be was a grown up. I had my life perfectly planned out. I would become an English teacher with summers off, a big wedding to the man of my dreams, 2.5 kids, a dog, a house with a white picket fence, sipping lemonade on my front porch in my rocking chair listening to the crickets chirp. This was my idea of maturity. Sounds perfect right? Well perfection in my immature mind.
So it leaves me with the question, what does maturity look like to me now? I’m not sure; I’ll let you know when I get there. "Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." ~ James 1:4 In the meantime, we are moving forward in our journey.
While Robert was unable to go back to Australia this year, God blessed us with an amazing opportunity to go to Canada. Though it was not in our plans, it was obviously in Gods. The church in Canada I visited with our church in May, asked Robert to come and perform magic at their annual kids camp. We prayed. They were looking for volunteers, and we simply did not have the means to work it out, we said we truly appreciated the offer but needed to say no. Several people who had heard this started offering money for us to go, even though we had turned the church down. Robert was offered some random side jobs to help friends with work, to perform magic at my work, various offers for money we didn’t count on. A few days later, the church asked again with a small offer of pay. We listened.
Friday we leave for Canada. Robert is performing at the camp and we are getting a couple of days away by ourselves. God always amazes me, I love that moment. I did not believe we could work this trip out, and I was right…we couldn’t.
Please pray for our time in Canada with our friends at Churchill Meadows Christian Church and the kids coming to camp, and the time we get to reconnect, rest and rejuvenate.
Serving Him,
Liz
1. a trip somewhere: A trip or expedition from one place to another
2. Process of development: a gradual passing from one state to another regarded as more advanced, e.g. from innocence to mature awareness
• A spiritual journey
This morning I felt the need to look up this word in the Encarta dictionary. As I speak of our lives these days, this word comes to mind. I love what it says to me. While it may say something different to you, what I see is the difficulties in this life are moving me to a “mature awareness.” As a kid, I couldn’t wait to grow up. All I ever wanted to be was a grown up. I had my life perfectly planned out. I would become an English teacher with summers off, a big wedding to the man of my dreams, 2.5 kids, a dog, a house with a white picket fence, sipping lemonade on my front porch in my rocking chair listening to the crickets chirp. This was my idea of maturity. Sounds perfect right? Well perfection in my immature mind.
So it leaves me with the question, what does maturity look like to me now? I’m not sure; I’ll let you know when I get there. "Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." ~ James 1:4 In the meantime, we are moving forward in our journey.
While Robert was unable to go back to Australia this year, God blessed us with an amazing opportunity to go to Canada. Though it was not in our plans, it was obviously in Gods. The church in Canada I visited with our church in May, asked Robert to come and perform magic at their annual kids camp. We prayed. They were looking for volunteers, and we simply did not have the means to work it out, we said we truly appreciated the offer but needed to say no. Several people who had heard this started offering money for us to go, even though we had turned the church down. Robert was offered some random side jobs to help friends with work, to perform magic at my work, various offers for money we didn’t count on. A few days later, the church asked again with a small offer of pay. We listened.
Friday we leave for Canada. Robert is performing at the camp and we are getting a couple of days away by ourselves. God always amazes me, I love that moment. I did not believe we could work this trip out, and I was right…we couldn’t.
Please pray for our time in Canada with our friends at Churchill Meadows Christian Church and the kids coming to camp, and the time we get to reconnect, rest and rejuvenate.
Serving Him,
Liz
What's it worth?
I watched a video of a guy tying his shoe in 1 second. He actually showed how to do it. Of course he had to do that over under thing we all do to start it. That didn't count in his time.
So I tried to tie my shoe as fast as I could and I did it in just under 2 seconds. I'm actually pretty good at it. I would put my shoe tying skills up against anyone. I'm that good at it.
Anyway, I did the math and I think I would have saved something like 14 hours. Now that assumes an average of 2 shoe ties a day for 45 years per foot. I'll put the first 5 years on my mom. Also I'm not counting the times I tied my kid's shoes. I'll let Liz take those. So that's 2(avg.times per day) times 365(days in a year) times 45(years) divided by 60(number of seconds in a minute) divided by 60(number of minutes in an hour) = 9.125 hours divided by (actually you have to multiply) .75 = 6.8 hours times 2 (number of feet) and the grand total is 13.6 hours I would have saved if I had learned how to tie my shoes in a second.
What would I do with an extra 13.6 hours? What would I do with an extra 13.6 hours?
Probably just sleep. Oh well I guess I will just keep tying my shoes the same old way. Because after all it's my 13.6 hours and I will spend it any way I want.
If you had my day today, you would understand this so much more.
Have a good day,
Robert
What the...?!
So, yesterday started out as a pretty good day.
I got a lot done in the morning.
Mike and the team arrived home safely from Australia.
A guy I know got out of prison and found a room at a sober living facility. He still needs work, but at least he's trying.
I went to lunch with Edgar and Jamie. We went had 85 cent tacos. I had 2 al pastor and 2 chorizo.
I mean a pretty good day.
There were around 50 people in line for Community Assistance and we had a bunch of volunteers.
Then all of a sudden things changed, and not for the better.
One of our volunteers came in and said "Can you talk to this woman?" "Her boyfriend beat her pretty bad." I said sure. I don't know what I was expecting. I mean I've talked to women who have been abused. Bruises, swelling, tears. I figured I would be ready. My plan was to make sure that she had called the police. If she hadn't I was going to, no matter what.
I walked into the room and sat down. I was at a total loss.
This woman had a dark purple, I mean almost black, bruise from the neckline of her shirt to her hairline. Both eyes were swollen, one almost closed. Her lip was swollen. She had scrapes all over her face. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. Then I realized that I was angry. I skipped right past compassion and flashed to anger. "for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." James 1:20
I took a deep breath and talked to her. I told her how sorry I was. I asked and she had called the police. She met with them and they had taken pictures. They assured her that he would be arrested.
I asked her if I could pray for her. She smiled at me and said "The other guy did already. But I could always use more." I prayed with her.
I told her that she could come by anytime and speak with our Woman's Pastor. She said she was given the name of the counselor who has an office here at KACC. She got up and got some food.
I walked out.
I went back to my office.
I finished my day.
I went home.
I hugged my wife.
I cried.
Ephesians 4:26 says " BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger,"
Apparently I don't know how to do that. 'Cause I'm still angry. I guess I have to work on that.
Robert
I got a lot done in the morning.
Mike and the team arrived home safely from Australia.
A guy I know got out of prison and found a room at a sober living facility. He still needs work, but at least he's trying.
I went to lunch with Edgar and Jamie. We went had 85 cent tacos. I had 2 al pastor and 2 chorizo.
I mean a pretty good day.
There were around 50 people in line for Community Assistance and we had a bunch of volunteers.
Then all of a sudden things changed, and not for the better.
One of our volunteers came in and said "Can you talk to this woman?" "Her boyfriend beat her pretty bad." I said sure. I don't know what I was expecting. I mean I've talked to women who have been abused. Bruises, swelling, tears. I figured I would be ready. My plan was to make sure that she had called the police. If she hadn't I was going to, no matter what.
I walked into the room and sat down. I was at a total loss.
This woman had a dark purple, I mean almost black, bruise from the neckline of her shirt to her hairline. Both eyes were swollen, one almost closed. Her lip was swollen. She had scrapes all over her face. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. Then I realized that I was angry. I skipped right past compassion and flashed to anger. "for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." James 1:20
I took a deep breath and talked to her. I told her how sorry I was. I asked and she had called the police. She met with them and they had taken pictures. They assured her that he would be arrested.
I asked her if I could pray for her. She smiled at me and said "The other guy did already. But I could always use more." I prayed with her.
I told her that she could come by anytime and speak with our Woman's Pastor. She said she was given the name of the counselor who has an office here at KACC. She got up and got some food.
I walked out.
I went back to my office.
I finished my day.
I went home.
I hugged my wife.
I cried.
Ephesians 4:26 says " BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger,"
Apparently I don't know how to do that. 'Cause I'm still angry. I guess I have to work on that.
Robert
Canada Eh?
Seems to be the one thing everyone says to me, "how was Canada, eh?" My family has caught me a couple of times saying "eh" in a conversation as well. However, I came back with a lot more than an accent :).
First let me say thank you so much for your prayers. We felt them at every turn, God really used us and stretched us in ways we didn't imagine. We found ourselves in the most culturally diverse city in the world (yes the world) and got to see first hand how the Christian Churches are reaching out to those around them.
We were with Churchill Meadows Christian Church (CMCC) in the Greater Toronto Area. A mega church and flagship church plant from Impact Canada. We were blessed by spending time with a Polish Church plant, sharing, listening and encouraging them. A
Brazilian/Portuguese Church plant just forming - we walked thru "little Portugal" in downtown Toronto with Jose, the new Pastor and Jerry a gentleman feeling led to help them, handing out flyers, placing them in store windows, etc. Of course we stopped and had lunch in a Brazilian restaurant, so good!We visited a Buddhist Temple, a Hindu Temple but the most memorable was our visit at a mosque with a young imam, Munir, who was very open with us and allowed us to ask any questions we had. While he explained Islam to us, we were able to ask some tough questions of him, some he admitted he did not have answers for. Please pray for him as he continues to seek the truth, as we all agreed to do as we left.
CMCC has 46 different ethnicity's/people groups represented in the congregation. We saw this as a tiny glimpse of heaven, "every tribe, tongue and nation..."
Canada has a great need for Christ. With the diversity came a huge influx of different religions and tolerance. Though the tolerance doesn't seem to extend to Christianity. We sat in a meeting with the Christian Church Pastors from the Greater Toronto area, 8 of them. (I believe 2 could not make it). 10, yes 10 Christian Churches for approximately 2.5 million people. Please do not stop praying!!
My heart remains heavy for this part of our world. As Jim Tune (pastor at CMCC and president of Impact Canada) expressed, while Canada is a first world country economically, spiritually they are a third world country.
We attended Life Groups, classes, movie night, hung close to 2000 door hangers on various homes around the church; anything we could to encourage our brothers and sisters.
Mike spoke at CMCC on our last Sunday there, and 3 people came forward to give their lives to Christ!
My life is forever changed by a small 10 day trip. My prayers are focused and numerous for the family there placing tracks in front of the train coming, as fast as they can.
My heart overflows, and there is so much more to tell. Please keep these warriors in your prayers and those they are reaching for Christ!
Liz
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)