India bound

I apologize for not posting for a while...the last month has been full of surprises and possibilities for new adventures and I didn't want to share with you until I was certain what was going on.

Me with a couple of the kids I help with in West Kelowna.

As part of my ministry in Kelowna I provide daycare for another YWAM base in West Kelowna.  They are running a DTS right now and many of their staff have small children.  It's been great for me because I have been missing the kid-time I get when teaching and a huge blessing for the base.  Through this work I found out about another opportunity to serve this base.

They will be sending an outreach team to India in January for a month and because all their female staff have small children, they were in need of a female staff to go with the team.  After a lot of prayer and conversations with my own base directors, friends, and family I have decided to go.

I will be leaving for India in January and have been spending extra time at the base in West Kelowna over the last few weeks so that I can get to know the students and staff better and prepare for outreach.  I am really excited about this opportunity to serve in yet another unexpected trip, however, more than ever I will need both prayer and financial support.

My work with YWAM is completely unpaid and so I have been living off financial support and my own savings for the past 6 months (mostly my own savings).  I am so grateful to those of you who are already supporting me in your prayers and who have shown so much interest in my work here.  I do not by any means want to minimize their importance...prayers and encouragement are infinitely more valuable than money!!

Me with the students and some of the staff from the West Kelowna YWAM base
and their lecture speaker last week.

That being said, money is necessary for this trip and if I am unable to raise enough support, then I will need to begin searching for paid work when I return from this trip.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and I am completely willing to re-enter the paid workforce if it necessary, but the reality is that it will divide my time and attention from my work here at the YWAM base.

I have definitely been learning about humility over the past six months, because as many of you know I am quite an independent person.  As I shared in my last post I am continually being taught how to ask for help when I need it and how to allow people to care for me.  Prayer, encouragement and financial support has been a huge blessing to me and I am so grateful that God has been showing me how to include this in my life.

If you would like more information please get in touch with me as sharing what God is doing in my life and hearing what is going on in other people's lives is one of my favourite things to do!

Here is a video the students and staff who I am going to India with helped me create.  I hope it answers some questions about the trip.  I apologize for the audio...it is very very quiet...this is my first attempt at creating videos with this camera and apparently the mic is not very good.

So...tell me about your trip to Mexico!

Mexico. Wow. I don't quite know where to begin...when people ask me about a trip, my first instinct is to list off all the things I did and the places I went.  If the person who asked doesn't have a glazed over look in their eyes by this point and they ask some guiding questions I might actually get to the heart of the trip: how I changed, where I saw God working...

The neighbourhood we built the church in Vincente Guerrero (from the roof of the new church).

Me painting

So I'm going to try to start this post with a few things that really stood out to me about this trip and try to make it a different kind of list:

1. I was sick the whole time and basically had no voice.  This didn't affect my ability to work on the house, but it definitely changed the ways I could interact with other people on the team.  I wasn't so worried about not knowing much Spanish because I couldn't speak much English either.  It forced me to observe and listen more than I probably would have otherwise.  It was also another reminder of how God places people around to look after me and I don't have to do it on my own.  Between my brothers and the other members of the team I felt so cared for.

 

The work site, day 4.

2. Our work site was described as a bee hive, or an ant hill...each person was busy doing their own job with no lollygaggers to be found.  To me this was a great representative of God's church as it should be: the body of Christ that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.  Each person brought skills, strengths, gifts (carpenters, electricians, site managers, painters, willing workers), and most importantly a desire to serve.  Each person was valuable.  I spent a lot of time painting and didn't technically build much, but I didn't feel any less important than those building trusses and walls.  The church went up really quickly because of the skills in our team and the way we worked together.  We were even able to bless the church with an update to their old church (fresh paint, concrete floor, kitchen area), a dollhouse and soccer nets for the kids to play with, and curtains for the new church.  It was incredible to see how things came together.

The dollhouse.

Gordon teaching me how to wire a plug!

3. We were told many times that our team was not typical for this project for the reasons I just described, but I think it had even more to do with this: servant leadership.  Each person who had skills was humble and willing to serve in any area.  They were willing to teach and willing to learn.  "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humilty value others above yourselves..." Philippians 2:3

Keith and Gordon building benches.

4. It was so natural to be with my brothers all week long that reality almost seems stranger.  We had a great mix of family time and our own thing.  I loved seeing them in their element on the soccer field working together, or working alongside other people on the team.  We even ended up sharing a cabin at the facilty we stayed in since there were no other single girls for me to bunk with.  

Siblings after a delicious meal.

5. Tacos.  THE BEST tacos I have ever eaten in my life.  I know this isn't as philosophical as the other things, but I continue to be amazed by the quality of food that I am blessed with on mission trips.  Granted we did eat PB&J for lunch every day, but there were definitely some moments that I was reminiscing about my DTS which we nick-named the "fine-dining DTS."  

So many more stories to tell and things that happened, but I will leave it at that for now.  Pictures are worth a thousand words and there are more posted on the Evangel Chapel Facebook page if you're interested: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Evangel-Chapel/329771290081

Completed church on the inside.

¡Vamos!

One of the perks of not getting the job I interviewed for in September and being in full time ministry has been the flexibility I have to travel and visit friends and family.

Keith and I on one of our many hikes up the Enderby Cliffs.

I spent an amazing 10 days driving down the Oregon Coast to California in September with an awesome new friend.  I spent Thanksgiving with (most of) my family on their farm and I have had many visits with old and new friends throughout the Okanagan valley over the past three months.

I honestly can't think of many things I enjoy more than the company of my friends and family, good food, beautiful scenery, and great conversation.

And that leads me to my next adventure: I'm jumping on a plane once again this Saturday to head down to northwestern Mexico for 8 days.  It's not an all-inclusive vacation, and that makes me even more excited as some of my most memorable trips have involved serving rather than being served.  I'm going with a church from Fort St. John, BC who are
doing a mission trip to build a church.

Craziness runs in the family...

As much as I'm looking forward to being back on a foreign mission field, I'm (selfishly?) most excited to be going with my two brothers on this trip.  They are a couple of my favourite people in the world and I can never spend enough time with them.  As I get closer to the age of dirt (my brothers kindly remind me of this often...did I mention they are both younger than me?) I realize more and more there is something very special about family and I am pretty darn lucky to have the one I've got.

Gordon building a house with the team in Mexico, 2011.

The church we are going with have been in this area of Mexico before and have done house-building projects (one of which my youngest brother went on a couple years ago).  This is the first time that they've built a church and so that's exciting.  It won't be extravagant by any means, but it will be a place to gather together and build their community.  The other cool thing is that it's a YWAM group that we will be working with.  I am always interested to see and hear what being a part of YWAM means in different parts of the world.  Here are some links to the pastor from Fort St. John's blog if you want more information:

• This one talks about our trip: http://evangelfsj.com/evangel-ventures/item/252-ev-news-mexico-church-build-november-11-17-2012
• This one is the first of 8 blogs he wrote from their last trip to Mexico.  It gives information about what we will be expecting. http://www.evangelfsj.com/blog/item/181-following-jesus-means-we-go
• This one gives some information about the pastor of the church we will be building (Margharito) and the YWAM missionary we will be working with (Asher). http://www.evangelfsj.com/blog/item/189-two-great-men

With that in mind please keep us in your prayers over the next 10 days.  Some requests to keep in mind as you are praying:
- safe travels (flying to San Diego and driving down to Mexico)
- health and rest
- relationships and unity within our team (I don't know anyone except my brothers)
- cultural sensitivity and language barriers (clear communication)
- opportunities to share God's love and to experience it ourselves in  new ways
- that the church we are building would not lose focus that they are first and foremost a church as a group of people, not a building and that the building we leave them with will be a venue to build up these and even more people to become who they truly are, and to experience who God is through this community

Paper Hearts

Just over year ago a man came to my house and cut out paper hearts.  His name was Dan Botkin and he was about to get married.  My brother was his best man and had come to my place to get help working on a slideshow for the wedding.  In all the chaos that comes along with getting married Dan just needed to spend an evening with his best friend.

My brother and Dan with Dan's car on his wedding day.

He came under the pretense of helping, but he spent most of his time looking up goofy videos on his phone.  And my brother didn't mind.  He worked away at the wedding video and called friends to troubleshoot and watched the videos with Dan.  The guy on a buffalo was their new favourite, and I watched as the two of them laughed and re-watched.  They were two peas in a pod...walking alongside each other through the highs and lows of growing up.  They shared the same quirky sense of humour, love of big air and big trucks, and a faith that there was something more to life than the here and now.

Their friendship had a comfortable kind of honesty.  It gave each of them permission to be and encouragement to grow into who they were. A person to celebrate the extraordinary and the everyday and a person to lean on when the going got tough.  I admired the simplicity of their just being there for each other.

I was teaching music at the time and I wanted to make some magnets to teach the kids about how different kinds of notes made the beat.  I had seen someone cut hearts out and draw the different kinds of notes on them and thought it was a brilliant idea, but hadn't had time to cut out the hearts yet.  So after a childhood full of cutting for my mom's kindergarten project I took a hint from her and handed the scissors and paper to Dan.  He looked at me like I was a little crazy at first, and then shrugged and started cutting with his tough fire-fighting hands.  That's the kind of guy he was--go with the flow and if you can help someone else out along the way, awe-some!

The wedding was beautiful (I didn't attend, but I saw the photos and heard stories).  Everything came together and it was what a wedding should be: family and friends coming together to celebrate love, joy, and hope for the future.

Fireman Dan

Two months later Dan was gone.  A firefighting accident sent those same family and friends and the entire community struggling to come to grips with that reality.

But a year ago he cut paper hearts, and dreamed of the future with a smile on his face and a guy on a buffalo on his screen.  Those little moments are what makes a friendship, a marriage, a life, and Dan's life was full of them.

Even though I didn't know Dan as well as some people, life as I know it hasn't been the same since that December day.  Each moment is a gift and any excuse to spend time with another person is a good excuse. I try not to let my doubts and fears keep me from leaping into vulnerability, from seeing a future friend in each person, from setting aside moments to walk alongside the friends I already have.

I feel so blessed to have shared a little moment with a man so well loved and respected by so many, who lived out the verse "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." John 15:13.

Dan and his wife on their wedding day.

I pray that all who were there to celebrate love, joy, and hope for the future on October 29 last year found a way to celebrate it again this year and will continue to do so every day.

So what is it that you do again?

The long-promised catch-up blogging will begin today...or maybe I should just blog about ketchup (juuust kidding...that was my sorry attempt at a joke for those of you who have suffered through my ketchup information sessions).

So back tracking to the last time I actually shared about what I was doing instead of my random ramblings I was teaching Grade 7 Science and Grade 10 Social Studies in Prince George and then I went to Calgary, Alberta to take a TESOL course for a month.  After that I didn't really say much about what I was doing because I didn't really know what to say...

I moved back in with my parents for that summer and ended up getting a job in Salmon Arm at the local college coordinating their tutoring center and tutoring English and Humanities.  And then I got another job with the school district teaching kindergarten music and helping with a grade 7 band at a different school.  And then I got another job teaching night courses for the Education Assistant course at the college.  And then I got another job teaching kindergarten music at a different school.  Did I mention I was also teaching on call a bit?  Needless to say I used my skills in organization keeping track of my life over that school year.  I only got mixed up once and went to work an hour early, so I think those are pretty good odds!  I also began dating an incredible man I met online who lived in Edmonton so I logged some frequent flyer miles.  Unfortunately it didn't work out for a number of reasons, but I wouldn't take it back for the world.

In the midst of the changes in my professional and personal life I was house sitting with a lake view in Salmon Arm.  When the owners returned I got to realize a childhood dream and moved to the booming metropolis of Enderby (I always wanted to live "in town" instead of on our farm) with a friend from Prince George who I got reacquainted with through my soccer team.

During this time I realized that I had come to a point in my life (age 29!!!) that I could make a choice.  I found myself with very little responsibility (no permanent job, no mortgage, no husband, no children...) being offered work left right and center...and none of it was going in a direction that led me toward my passion.  I thought back to what I told people I wanted to teach in uni...and it wasn't music, or English, or grade 2, or special education....it was science/environmental education.  I didn't become a teacher to work in a classroom so it was about time to figure out how to do that.

I had kept in touch with some YWAMers I met when I was in Florida and discovered that they needed staff for a brand new base with a farm using sustainable agriculture techniques they were getting started in Kelowna, BC.  I decided to consider taking a year to be a part of the ministry and see if that led me closer to where I wanted to go.  And then I found out about another job opportunity....coordinating programs at a local science center....my "dream job" or so I thought.

What the YWAM farm looked like in September.

So I moved to Kelowna and worked on the YWAM farm for the summer...and applied for the job...and waited...and didn't make any plans...and trained for a half marathon (see http://lifeasiknowit-julie.blogspot.ca/2012/10/but-i-dont-understandwhy-would-you-run.html )...

By the end of the summer I had an interview for the position, but didn't get it (see http://lifeasiknowit-julie.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-next-step-sept-10.html ).  And so here I am in full time ministry at Youth With a Mission Life Harvest Network, living in Kelowna doing all kinds of things.


More about that next time...

But I don't understand....why would you run 21.2km??

A while ago I wrote out a list of a bunch of things I thought I'd like to do someday....

California, Sept. 2012

I'm not really sure anymore why I decided to write the list.  Probably something made me think that writing things down might make them more likely to happen.  Or maybe I was scared I would forget what I dreamed about. Or it could possibly be because I get a certain satisfaction from listing things on paper....and then checking them off.  There is something about checking things off a list that makes me very happy.

The list has been misplaced in all my moves, but I wish I could find it because I'm pretty sure I could check some things off since the last time it was updated.  If I recall correctly scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef was on there...CHECK!  And seeing the Redwoods in California....CHECK!  And going on an overnight backpacking trip...CHECK!  

One of my more satisfying checks would come from what I did this past Thanksgiving weekend (October 7 for those of you who aren't Canadian). I can now check off "Run a Half Marathon."

21.2km. 2 hours and 24 minutes.  I'm not fast, but I wasn't running to be fast.  I was running to finish.  To prove to myself that I can do more than I think I can.  Because right now more than ever I need to believe that in my weakness I can be used to be part of an incredible journey.  I need to believe that putting one foot in front of the other and taking one day at a time will eventually lead to something meaningful.

BMO Half Marathon, Oct 2012

I'm a missionary.  Full time.  When I say it to other people it feels like I need to explain myself or justify not having a "real job" or using my education the way the recipe says I should.  But it's where I'm at right now, and it really feels like I'm still on the right track.  Each day I put one foot in front of the other, and work on the tasks that need to be completed.  Already I've run much farther than I thought I would in this journey.  And it feels a lot like training for a race.  

The first time I ran 10km I felt good, and I realized....I'm not dead!  I think I can run even farther than this!  I felt the same way in my first teaching job.  And again when I was given huge responsibilities on our YWAM base.  

The first day I ran 12km I thought I was going to pass out.  It felt like a really long way...and I knew I needed to almost double that distance in one month...I didn't know how I would do it.  But I kept putting one foot in front of the other and found myself at the finish line of a half marathon feeling as though I had just finished a 5km run.

I don't want to run a half marathon every day.  I don't even know if I will run one again.  

But I know that I have. 

And I know that I can.  

And that gives me confidence to face whatever comes my way in a life that seems anything but typical.

To end, here's a song that I was reminded of today.  One of my favourite music videos and an amazing band to see live.  My favourite lyric from it goes "And I know there's got to be another level...And I'm feeling like it's now or never, can I break the spell of the typical"

So here I am...now or never...and it's not typical...

The Next Step (Sept 10)

I posted this on Facebook on September 10, but wanted to add it to the blog to keep it up to date so bear with me if you've already read it.  Will hopefully be posting a new update soon!

Thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement over the past couple months as I was applying/interviewing for the job at the Okanagan Science Centre in Vernon.  For those of you who hadn't heard, I applied for the Program Coordinator position and have been waiting to see what would happen all summer. 

I just found out today that although I was "tied for first" with the person who has been given the position, I didn't get the job.  It was a tough decision, but they decided to go with someone who had done graduate studies in Science Information--more focused on informal education than me. 

I am not going to say I'm not disappointed.  The position would have been a great opportunity and would have given me job and life stability that I have been craving so much.   

But on the upside it makes things a bit more clear as to the direction I will be heading.  I will be praying about my role at Life Harvest Network here in Kelowna and with the farm and upcoming OATS school.   

Last week after my interview I had a little chat with God while I was weeding the garden, saying you know where my heart is...I will do whatever I can to serve you.  So if this job is not where you can use my gifts and talents best, then don't offer it to me.  I have felt since then that I had not gotten the position.  

So please continue to pray with me as I make decisions about my next step, about finances, about where to live, about travel, about ministries/churches/small groups to be involved with...and for strength and health.  Right now I have a bad cold so being able to breathe would be awesome, especially as I need to continue training for a half marathon in October! 

Thank you again so much.  I am so incredibly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life and to have been able to spend time with so many of you during such a crazy summer!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28