Diving into the Word

To study...or not to study.  There is no question when you are studying God's word!  The first week of classes started this week on Monday, and I am loving every minute of it.  Spiritual Formation with Cal Macfarlane, all the way from Briercrest in Caronport, SK to teach us how to engage the spirit in our lives more effectively.  Being out of school for so long, since June, although it feels almost blasphemous to say this, I'm really glad I'm back in school now.  To sit and learn and soak up so much truth about God and about his spirit being active in our lives hardly feels like school, but the more I learn about Christ, and the life that he has for me, the more I fall in love with him.  Cal just speaks with such passion and intensity, that it's hard to be bored in his full-day lectures.  They are more like golden nuggets of truth that you pray you never forget.  Today we had part of our class down at the dock, and I was looking out across the ocean as I was listening to him talk about suffering, and making sure that we make room for suffering in our lives because then that is when Christ can work and is glorified.  He gives us opportunities to go off and meditate on Scripture by ourselves each day and let God's word soak into our hearts, so that the teaching doesn't just become words and head knowledge, but that it really permeates into our hearts. 
The wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon said, "Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.  Search for them as you would for silver, seek them like hidden treasures.  Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.  For the Lord grants wisdom!  From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding." - Proverbs 2:3-6

Where You go, I'll go; Where you serve, I'll serve. I will Follow.

It's one thing to see service from afar, and appreciate the many tasks which are being done for you, but quite yet another to jump at it full force and immerse yourself into the mess of life.  I simply cannot stand and watch others serve, or see the many needs of the world and let the need continue or allow less hands struggle to carry all the weight.  Christ has called us to be his hands and feet and help the least of these, "I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!" Matthew 25:40.
As part of the Kaléo program, we are called to serve in the areas of camp and church ministry.  Camp Qwanoes has been home for the past 6 summers, and it is no strange task to be gladly helping out here once again!  I'm so delighted to be able to give back in a more permanent way thoughout this next year and serve alongside my fellow students, and also the year-round staff that have given their lives to follow God's calling of service.  Along with serving at Qwanoes, each of the students are assigned a local church to attend, serve, and be actively involved in.  Myself, along with my friends Michael and Evan attend a church called Warmland Community Church in Crofton, BC, not even five minutes out of the camp.
There are many opportunities to serve here at camp.  With a camp that usually runs with over 500 campers each week in the summer, year-round there are numerous retreats, guest groups and special events such as the Qwanoes Road Tour which is held at supporting churches.  I am involved with helping out in the dish room washing dishes once a week after dinner with a few of the other students, helping out with activities for guest groups such as belaying in the challenge course or supervising the skate park, and in the upcoming weeks, I will be working full weekends counseling at the Juniors and Junior High retreats.  I love serving here at Qwanoes,  I feel that God has called me to this place for the purpose of bringing glory to him.  I was so excited just to be able to lead by example to my fellow peers and show them how things are being run at camp, hopefully making their lives easier as well.  It brings me such joy to be able to see the people I am impacting here at camp become closer to God while I allow them to have fun on activities or be able to have clean dishes or ask their questions about life and faith.  I have come to be content and even eager to serve in whatever area of camp I am needed in order to allow Camp Qwanoes to run, and thousands of people to come to know Christ more deeply.
When we were being assigned our churches, I was eagerly waiting and expecting to be serving in a church where I could use my God-given talents and just to be able to offer up my gifts and services wherever they were needed.  But when it was announced that my church for the year was going to be Warmland in Crofton, I am sorry to say that I was a little disappointed.  Warmland was the small local church, well known to the camp, that the camp worship leader and games leader both served at during the year.  I guess I had presuppositions about the church because I had come from quite a larger church back home in Coquitlam, and I was doubting that this was where I was really meant to be.  I knew that Crofton was a small seaside community with a lot of twisted problems that went back far into the family tree, and I did not think that this church was going to be well organized at all.  But of course, in all things, the Lord had a divine plan that is far above mine, and I reluctantly decided that I was going to trust in whatever he had in store for me.  The first Sunday, Michael, Evan and I arrived at Warmland, and by the end of the service I felt like God had done a complete 180 turn-around in my heart.  This small church was not at all what I had expected, full of fake and shallow people who didn't really want to come to church, but instead I found an amazing community of believers who were trying to reach out to a desperately lost community by drawing their neighbours into a community that could only be characterized by Christ's love.  As I talked with the pastor, Bryan, and many other attenders there, I felt a huge welcoming and I knew that Christ had put me there for a reason.  My LinQ, who is another staff member at camp that a student is "linked" with for the year, Alycia, also attends Warmland, along with my good friend Kayla, and I could see that Christ was affirming my place in Warmland Church.  I was a little hesitant about the first youth kick off on Friday night, but right away when I got there, I got talking to some of the girls there.  They wanted to get to know me and play with my hair and jump on my back, and I welcomed it all in stride.  I was a bit taken aback at the size of the group, the 12 students there, because at my youth back home, there would have easily been 70 students on a given week. Even through all this, I saw that Christ was showing me that faith is not all about numbers, it is about building into those lives that he gives you.
Not even two weeks into Kaléo, and already I can see God's hand in everywhere that I serve.  As he continues to give me opportunities to serve him, all I can hope is that I really do serve with all that I am, and not do it for selfish ambition, but only to glorify his name.  I pray that I would not lose sight of the mission, and catch myself trying to have selfish ambitions, but that my service would mold me into the woman of God that he intends for me to be, the woman of God who selflessly follows his call wherever he may lead.
"And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other's feet.  I have given you an example to follow.  Do as I have done to you.   I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master.  Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.  Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them." - John 13:14-17

Here I am, on top of the world. A mere speck in the vastness of creation.

And I stand in awe of You

Upward and Onward

You never know what being on top of the world feels like until you actually stand on the top, after grueling hours of getting there.  The burn of the lactic acid in your muscles, haggard breaths and side cramps threaten to deter you from your goal, your mission, but determined you press on.  Our Kaléo group took three days in Strathcona Park, and  trekked on up Mnt. Albert-Edwards.   Over 6k on the first day, 10.8k the second day all the way up to the summit at 6800 ft, it was probably one of the more difficult feats I've accomplished in my life.  Your legs get so sore, your face is sunburnt, you run out of water, and it is a while til you see the next glacier-fed lake.  Throughout all of it, though, you are looking around you and see the beauty of God's majesty and glory.  As you climb higher, you can see your campsite and the many lakes as tiny droplets in the distance, and you realize just how big our God is.  At one point I saw the Pacific Ocean and the mainland a blueish haze in the distance.  I was so close, but so far away from home.  Every time I wanted to give up, I had to keep telling myself to push on, that God was going to give me strength.  I saw others who were struggling more than I was, but we all managed to make it up to that summit, victorious.  This hike for me was more than just a physical activity, or something to bring our group together.  This hike was my life.  There were flats and downhills, but it was the uphills and the rocky places that really tested my endurance and will to continue.  If I had tried to climb on my own, I know I would probably not have made it in the shape I was, and with such a positive outlook.  The backpacks that we hiked up to the peak with were not the big hiking packs, but smaller day packs.  God pointed out baggage in my life that I had been trying to lug around me everywhere, and is now telling me to put it down.  When I focus on myself, all I can think is how heavy that weight is and how tired I am, but when I finally get to the summit, and look around, I see how small I am compared to all his glory and how big his grace and love is for me. 
"I look up to the mountains - does my help come from there?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!" - Psalm 121:1-2

"Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.  Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths." - Psalm 36:5-6

God's creation, the ocean as still as glass overlooking Salt Spring Island.

Soaring on Wings like Eagles

Hey friends,

Some might call me crazy, some might call me ignorant and rash, but others might call it following the call of God.  I'm here at Camp Qwanoes on Vancouver Island taking a program called Kaléo, an eight-month leadership course filled with adventure trips, nine modular courses from Briercrest Bible College, community with my peers and ministry in local churches and overseas. I'm beyond excited, just for this day to be finally here, after waiting for so long. 

The call started years ago sitting as a Junior High camper, here at this very camp, and by his grace, here I am - a living proof of that call.  

Kaléo actually means "voice" and to hear God's voice this year is what I have set out to do.  Living on Vancouver Island, in the midst of God's creation and surrounded by this incredible community that I quickly adopted as my family, know that this is where I am meant to be.  

Inspired for Life. Called to Lead.  Two sentences that will fan out in a very real way this year as God unfolds his calling for my life.  My life needs to be radically changed by God, I know that full well.  Everything that I do or say needs to come straight from him.  My favorite verse, Galatians 2:20 says, "My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."  I know that he has brought me here to Camp Qwanoes so that I can listen to his inspired voice, his Holy Spirit, and live the life that he has planned for me, which is too great for me even to imagine.  I know that God wants me to be a leader in all walks of life, whether it is to my peers, those who I mentor, in work or in sports.  This year is going to be much more than a leadership development year, though.  This year is going to shape me for the future, set into a life of following the call that my savior requires of all who call him Lord.  

So I'm looking out at these next eight months with anticipation and eagerness, wanting to be stretched and praying for growth.