Destination: Home

Travelling overseas is one of my joys in this missionary calling I have.  I love exploring new cultures, eating different foods, immersing myself in the mosaic of God's people.

87 Apple pies made as a fundraiser for the
GO Conference we attended in October.

Discipleship Training School has two parts: the lecture phase where you dig into your understanding of God and build your relationship, and the outreach phase when you take some of that new understanding and share it with others, often in a different culture.  My previous DTS experiences have taken me all over the world, from New Zealand, to Southeast Asia, to India.  What a huge privilege it has been...some of the most challenging and rewarding seasons of my life.

Since returning from India last year I have been eagerly anticipating a return trip in January 2014.  This Outreach would be even more special than others I have been on because I would be returning to the place I went last year.  Working with the same family who I grew to love and cherish.  Eating the food that makes my taste-buds dance.  Wearing the clothing that reminds me each day, I am not in Canada anymore.

It made sense that I would staff the team going to India.  I had experience and going back to India was what I wanted.  I procrastinated praying about it because I felt like it was one of those no-brainer decisions when God would tell me something I already knew...yet at the same time I was a little bit nervous to pray.  What if He said no?  There was no other overseas option...

Finally with a little push from the other staff I sat down to ask God what was on His mind for me in this outreach season. I did not get the answer I was looking for. I'd love to tell you that I took it all in stride and submitted myself to God's plan without skipping a beat. However, the truth is much more selfish. I cried. I whined. I complained. I felt sorry for myself. I sighed deeply and resigned myself to the lot I had been given, dug my heels in and determined to make the most of it.  In my submission I have found peace and excitement to stay here in Canada for the outreach time and am really looking forward to seeing what happens in this season.

Home Sweet Home in Oliver, where I will be doing my outreach.

Initially I thought I would be spending six weeks in Northern Alberta working with a missionary establishing connections with First Nations communities, however that door has closed for me. A team of two from our DTS will be working there so please include them in your prayers.

It turns out I'm not going anywhere! The outreach team I am a part of will be staying in the Oliver area. When I moved here in May I had felt like it was time to put down roots here in Oliver, but never imagined that would also be happening during the outreach time.  It will be great to build on some of the relationships we have formed over the past seven months and to build new relationships as well.

As I prepare for this Outreach time please remember me in your prayers.

Prayer Requests

• Increased Revelation of God's Love and the Truth of my Identity: This DTS has been incredibly challenging for me personally as I have dug into some areas of doubt and pain in my own walk with God.  Although challenging at the moment, I know this will make me stronger in the end.  Please pray that I will lean on God for my strength during this time of pruning.
• Financial support: I am still praying for more monthly supporters to stand with me for my basic living costs.  I am grateful to my 17 supporters, but need another 37 supporters at the $20/month level.
  During the outreach time my expenses will not increase greatly as I will not need to fly overseas, but there will be transportation costs of around $200 on top of my regular monthly expenses.
• Team Unity: We have a team of 4 core members (3 students and myself), but also another 4 "satellite" team members (2 students and 2 staff) who will be working with us for parts of the outreach.  Please pray for team unity between this core team and also that we would have unity with our satellite team members, even when they are not physically with us.

Praise Reports

DTS students and Staff chopping beets at the
Okanagan Gleaners in Oliver.

• Provision: Over the past year of living fully on support I have only spent $200 of my own savings even though my monthly support is still not at a sustainable level.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
• Opportunities to Serve and Strengthening Relationships: We have had so many opportunities to serve our local community of Oliver during the past few months of DTS.  From helping with set up and clean up at the Festival of the Grape, to spending a morning slicing beets at the Okanagan Gleaners, to helping our neighbours with yard work in our community we are so thankful for the openness of this community.  Staff and Students have also begun to strengthen relationships within the Church communities here and have become involved with Church activities such as playing on worship teams, helping with youth events, reading scripture in services, working with catechism classes, and participating in church choir events.  I am also very blessed to have been able to meet one on one with the female students each week, and to have built some very strong friendships with the staff here at the base. Being a part of God's body is a huge privilege.
• Time Spent With Family and Friends: Living only three hours away from "home" means that I have been able to spend time with my parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, and friends during some of my weekends.  The encouragement, prayers, and rest have helped me continue on when the hill seems too steep to climb.
• New and Confirmed Revelations: Each week there is something in the lecture, in conversations with others, and in my own personal time with God which encourages me or gives me a glimpse of what God has in store.  The trick now is to figure out how to apply all these amazing revelations to daily life!

Thank you all for your encouragement and support!  Emails and messages are always a huge blessing.

Stronger than yesterday...

Whew!  Over a month has passed since the Discipleship Training School began here in Oliver.  The time is flying by!  My apologies for not updating you last month...

Our DTS students and staff.

Staffing and learning to co-lead the DTS has been more rewarding--and more challenging--than I imagined.  Our schedule is packed with lectures, maintaining the base, serving the local community, building friendships within our team, and time to practice spiritual disciplines like prayer, worship, and bible meditation.  We also spend time processing all that we have learned through journaling, small groups, and one-on-one time.  As DTS Staff I have the privilege of meeting with our female students and getting to know them more deeply during one-on-one time.  I am often surprised at the way God uses this time to help both me and the students grow in our understanding of Him and His ways.  A student tells a story or asks a question and a verse or analogy just pops into my head...something I had never thought of before!  One-on-ones are some of my favourite times during the week.

Each week we cover a new topic and each topic brings metanoia.  Metanoia is a Greek word often translated in the Bible as repent, and can be defined as a change in thinking.  As staff I am not immune to the need to change my thinking.  In fact I think I am more open to this process now then I was when I was a student myself.

Lately the changes in my thinking have had a lot to do with my independence and my lack of trust and confidence in others.  When I moved out of my parents' home after finishing high school I began a process of getting to know who I was and what I was actually capable of.  I often underestimated myself and was too scared to try new things.  Through my time in university, my travels overseas, living in different locations, and working in a variety of jobs I have been stretched and have grown stronger.  All this has been wonderful, but has allowed me to develop a very bad habit of trying to do things in my own strength instead of asking for help and working with others.

Leaning on my roomate,
one of our DTS staff.

As I step out again on a new adventure in stretching myself it's a bit different this time.  This one is far too big to handle on my own....I need to rely on the other staff, the students, my supporters, and most of all God to get through each day.  Feelings of inadequacy, failure, doubt, weakness bombard me and push me down...but when I'm weak, God is strong.  Paul writes about how God taught him this same lesson in his second letter to the church in Corinth:

But he [God] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.  ~2 Corinthians 12:9

It is incredibly humbling to work with a DTS, but I know our school will be stronger as we put our trust in the Lord and support each other.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. ~Philippians 4:13

Prayer Requests:
- rest and time to find that rest
- health (there are many students and staff with colds right now)
- wisdom as we begin to plan for our overseas outreaches
- continued growth and humility
- unity in love (Colossians 3:12-14) 

Three Wishes...

There is a billboard that I pass a few times each month in my many travels.  It asks the question, "If you had three wishes...?"I guess the idea is that a lot of the things we wish for can be purchased from a store, because it is for a store called Three Wishes.

It has led to many interesting conversations as I ponder aloud with my passengers what our wishes would be. Unfortunately for the store, none of us have wished for anything we could buy.

Road trips are always a great time to ponder and dream.

It's a tough question, but it has made me wonder if wishing might be a very healthy thing to do.  Dreaming, hoping, believing....all these things are necessary to move ourselves forward from present circumstances into growth, success, and fulfillment.  That is if we see our wishes as being someday attainable and not unrealistic pipe dreams that we think about to escape and are unwilling to work towards.

The church I have been attending has been spending a little time in Hebrews 11 over the past couple of weeks.  It talks a lot about faith and what that has looked like in the history of Israel (or if you like the Hebrew or Jewish people).  The verse I have heard quoted most often says:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

This is all very encouraging and leads me to believe with certainty that certain dreams and hopes I keep tucked in my heart will some day come to pass.  But as I read more of the chapter, I am needing to come to terms with some of those historical examples that look a little different than what we may be hoping for.

Some of those heroes of faith from the Old Testament (Abraham, Noah, Jacob, Abel, Moses...) did not actually experience in this life those things they had hoped for and were so certain would happen.

All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.  Hebrews 11:13

The writer goes on with this thought to show why this is a good thing:

And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return.  Instead they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Hebrews 11:14-16

Sometimes I question God when I see where a person's life ends here on the earth, but this scripture encourages me.If I have faith (hope with certainty) that there is actually more to come, and those things to come are more than we could ever imagine then I can continue to hope for more in my own life.

This is why I think wishing is important...it pushes your mind to believe that life can be more than it is as we know it right now.

What are your three wishes?

Growing Pains...

When I was a kid I used to get this pain in my legs...an ache that didn't go away.  My mom told me it was called growing pains and it hurt because different parts of my body were growing at different speeds.

Sometimes I still have growing pains even though I've been the same height since grade seven.  My growing pains now hurt in my heart and mind as I grow faster in some areas than others.

I have always been the type of person who is driven to achieve, to be successful; some might even call me a perfectionist at times.  I work hard to avoid failure. Sometimes this means I avoid trying things I think I might fail at. In the past this strategy seemed to work.  No failure meant no disappointment, no pain, no struggles. But I have realized there is a flaw in this plan: when I avoid areas I am not strong in I avoid growing, I avoid challenges, I rely on others instead of learning from my own mistakes and growing stronger.

Learning about gentleness and strength while
dancing to the Maori song Kia Kaha:
"Be bold, Be strong, Be steadfast and sure.
For God is our shelter and He is our strength"

This past week has been full of growing pains.  As I work in ministry, I am constantly challenged to step outside my comfort zone and sometimes I fall flat on my face.  I am trying to open myself up to the possibility that failure isn't all bad.  Failure will help me grow, even if it hurts at the time.  I struggle because I don't like the growing pains, but I am not a quitter.  Fortunately I am surrounded with people who accept my failures and mistakes.  They are willing to help me up, dust me off, wipe my tears, and encourage me to keep pressing on.

One of the areas I have been feeling growing pains is in my communication with others.  I have been challenged to watch my words, and my tone: to consider how I speak to my coworkers here.  Interestingly enough I have had the same struggle as I am learning the Pacific Islander dances: my movements need to be less sharp and rigid.

My words and movements need to be softer...gentler...

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.  Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  Colossians 3:12-14 

The pain as I bite my tongue and hold back my pride will be worth it to grow in gentleness and step closer to my identity as one of God's chosen people, beautiful in spirit and my inner self.

Prayer Requests:
- courage to step into situations that have a risk of failure
- humility to accept correction and not be defensive
- gentleness and softness in my words and movements
- strong relationships with people and God to comfort me in my growing pains

Making the Move

What an amazing month it has been.  I moved from Salmon Arm, where I had been staying with some wonderful

Coming down the driveway of the base.

friends, to the base in Oliver on May 14 and it feels like so much has happened since then.  I am happy to announce that after saving and storing boxes since my decision to go to New Zealand and take my DTS in 2009, I have finally gotten rid of them!  Every place I have lived since my return from New Zealand felt temporary, but this move to Oliver seems much more permanent and it's a great feeling.

There are moments when it feels a bit surreal...when I started writing this post I looked out the window to a gorgeous rose bush, a rugged rock face in the background and trees rustling in a gentle breeze.  The two guys from the island of Samoa who live on base were sitting out in the yard and their Samoan singing and guitar music mixed with the sound of the crickets chirping outside.  The country girl in me is loving it out here.  The base is about 5 minutes from the town of Oliver which has everything you "need" and just over half an hour from the big city of Penticton for those extra wants.  

One of the kids playing in a storage ottoman in the office.

I've been settling into full time YWAM life again and am getting used to being on a bigger base with more people over the past few weeks.  At times it is definitely challenging--there is no separation of home from work so there have been some long days. Dealing with communication with different people, and trying to make extra time to study my bible and pray more have all been hurdles I am dealing with.  At the same time each one of those challenges brings with it amazing blessings: living at work means that you can also take a break if you really need to, and also if I want to step out of the office work role I can go outside and goof around with the kids for a bit.  The staff here are much more of a family than co-workers and I absolutely love being an honorary auntie...even if it does cause drama at the dinner table as the kids fight over who sits next to me!  

Maori dance performance at the open house.

I have been learning some cultural dances and songs from different parts of the world for our upcoming performances so that is really fun, but also a big challenge. I must admit I feel very white when I try to figure out how to move my body in ways so unfamiliar as these big Samoan and Tongan guys are giggling to themselves trying to teach me how to move my hips. 

Our DTS school begins in September and we have already begun preparations.  Praying over student applications, starting to book lecture speakers, preparing rooms and acceptance letters are just some of the specific things that I've been doing with the other DTS staff.  I have also been trying to spend more time in prayer, bible study, and memorizing verses to build my relationship with God.

I have also been involved in some community work during the past month. Once a week I help with basic landscaping at one of our neighbours' houses.  They are an amazing couple with such a great testimony to God's faithfulness even when life doesn't look the way we expect.  It is such a pleasure to spend time serving at their home.  I have also begun working with one of the churches' youth ministries in town with a few of the other YWAM staff.  We spend one or two evenings a week playing sports and games with the youth and will soon begin participating in a teen-oriented book study on a different take on the Bible called "The Story."

Although I collapse into my bed exhausted many nights, I feel completely at peace with my move to Oliver and am excited to see what is next.

Prayer Requests:

- trust in God's provision and wisdom in how to raise the money necessary for living expenses and staff fees on the base

- wisdom and discernment about how best to manage my time--right now I am juggling between bible study, prayer, scripture memorization, individual quiet time, relationship-building with staff, relationship-building with community, different areas of service on the base (administration, kitchen work, hospitality, childcare, gardening, ministry)....

The Joys of Weeding

Weeding a flower bed at the Oliver base.

There is something I find incredibly satisfying about weeding a garden.

I have worked and felt like I have achieved something for my efforts....I can see the difference I have made. Something that doesn't always happen in other areas of my life.

I like things to be neat and tidy, but life doesn't tend to work that way.  It's a constant war against 

chaos, unpredictability, and a lack of control.  A garden that looks great after hours of weeding will have a totally different appearance a week or two later.  Sometimes all the hard work seems like a huge waste of time.  Why bother to remove the weeds, they're just going to come back again.

But a garden that is constantly maintained and cared for will eventually have less weeds coming up.  If those weeds are removed early then they won't be nearly so difficult to remove.  If the soil is mulched and watered, sometimes you can get a huge long grass root out...now there's a natural high!  I have learned that the effort is worth the reward, but it requires commitment and an investment of time and energy (as most worthwhile things do).

I think another reason I love weeding so much is that it gives me an excuse to be outside.  I don't sit still well.  Those jobs people dream of where you get paid to sit around and do nothing would drive me crazy!  I need a purpose, something to keep me occupied.  I like to think I enjoy sitting outside reading a book or lounging in the sun, but after half an hour or so I get restless.  Give me a bed to weed and I'll happily spend hours outside.

Even more so, weeding gives me time to think.  It doesn't take a great deal of concentration to successfully pull up weeds, so my mind is free to wander wherever it so chooses.  With the task at hand in front of me, and being a person who loves a good analogy I often think about what lesson I can learn from the weeds themselves.

So much grass to remove from this bed!

On the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences website I found out what the biological definition of a weed is:

A weed is a plant out of place, not intentionally sown, whose undesirable qualities outweigh its good points.  Some crop plants even can become weeds when they grow where they are not wanted....weeds are troublesome in many ways.  They reduce crop yield by robbing water, light, space, and soil nutrients.  Weeds can produce allelopathic substances that are toxic to crop plants. Weeds often serve as hosts for crop diseases; they also may provide shelter for insects and diseases to overwinter...To plan an effective weed management program, a producer must be able to identify weeds present and understand how weed biology affects where weeds are found and their relative competitiveness.

I have come to believe that weeding a garden has a lot in common with growing in myself.  There are habits that I have cultivated unintentionally which have undesirable qualities.  They may even be useful or good things to do or believe, but grow out of  control or in areas of my life that they are not wanted.  They have reduced the amount of fruit my life has produced my robbing my attention, my skills, my time, and my energy.  They have produced toxic thoughts and have placed me in close proximity to things that are not healthy for my mind, body, and spirit.

When I have identified these things as weeds or unnecessary I can try to remove them from the surface.  If you've ever tried to weed out grass or other plants with lots of roots you will know what I'm talking about.  I can pull the grass up and the flower bed looks great, but there are still heaps of roots below the surface.  In no time at all new grass will spring up.  I remove all those things that look bad on the surface from my life, but I haven't removed the beliefs and attitudes that cause these things to grow in my life and sure enough in a little while they are back again.

If you're lucky, you can find weeding buddies :)

There are a few things that I have found useful in combating the weeds once I have identified them.  The first is digging deep and removing the roots.  This is usually harder work and may require some tools and patience.  Once you have identified a thinking pattern that is the root of an unhealthy behaviour then you can begin to remove it.  Removal is not enough though. The newly weeded area needs to be sown with other plants that you do want to have in your life, or it will easily be overtaken by weeds again.  Replacing an unhealthy habit with a pastime that is beneficial is a great way to prevent those behaviours from re-occurring.  The last piece of successful weeding is maintenance--keeping an eye out for those attitudes before they get out of hand and removing them right away works well.  Covering that area with something that will make the soil healthy (like a mulch) and the weeds from getting light will also help--just like spending time in God's word has helped me to protect my heart.

Here's hoping I'll continue to find time to weed my heart while I'm out in the garden this summer!

How I see me...

I've always believed that clothing is a great way to tell your story. ~Carson Kressley 

This is a story about me and my clothing.

I've always had this desire within me to have the things I wear on the outside look a certain way.  My mom tells me that when I was little I used to change my clothes multiple times a day leaving little puddles of dresses and t-shirts all over my bedroom floor.  I remember wailing "I have nothing to wear!" ten minutes before the school bus was supposed to arrive and feeling like this was a life altering catastrophe.

What I've chosen to cover the outside of me has often reflected what was going on inside me.  I find myself buying less expensive items because I don't feel as though I'm worth the cost.  Settling for good enough, and ending up feeling uncomfortable when I try to put things together.

I find myself desiring comfortable clothes, when really what I am seeking is comfort in who I am.

All dressed up for church on our second day in India.

When we travelled to India the girls and I needed to purchase new outfits there so that we were culturally appropriate for our time of ministry.  As the garments we needed to wear were lightweight, comfortable, modest, and beautifully colourful we were all looking forward to our Indian shopping trip.  We had no idea what we were in for!

On our arrival day in India, our team set out to find our clothing for the month.  It was a family trip, our whole team of five Canadians and one Australian piled into the auto rickshaw along with our Indian hosts and their two young children.  Did I mention we had just spent 18 hours flying, with an 18 hour layover and 3 hours driving before setting out on this trip?

Upon entering the store all eyes were on us as we made our way past the counters and shelves and up a couple flights of stairs to the area of the store with "ready-made" outfits.  We walked up to the counter and the three or four staff immediately began pulling packages off the shelves and removing the tunic-like tops from the wrapping.

Thoughts began swirling through my head as I tried to remember what colours I liked (and looked best on me), what combination of colours I liked, how much "bejewelling" and embroidery I wanted, while at the

Feeling mosquito bitten and plain next to
beautiful young women like this lovely student.

same time doing the 51 rupees to the Canadian dollar price conversion in my head and thinking of all my supporters at home who had generously contributed my clothing budget.

After much debate I thought I had picked three suitable outfits of baggy pants, light scarf, and top.  One of the other girls recommended trying them on, but I didn't anticipate any trouble-they looked like the kind of clothes that would fit anyone.  In the change-room it was another story...all my insecurities came bubbling to the surface.  Half the pants didn't seem to fit and the ones that did seemed to be made for someone much larger than me.  In Canada, no problem, just get a different size...but there were no other sizes and so I had to start all over again.

This time as I approached the counter I could feel the tears well behind my eyes as I had to turn back so many beautiful clothes because I knew they wouldn't fit or they were too expensive for my small budget.  I just wanted to get out of there!  This was not the shopping trip I had been dreaming of.

The girls and I dressed up in saris.

Each time I got dressed I was reminded of this struggle and because I was already in that negative thought pattern each imperfection seemed to stand out even more...frizzy hair, dark circles under my eyes, mosquito bites all over my face....I felt anything but beautiful.  I looked at the other girls in their gorgeous outfits and tried to hide my own disappointment about the clothing I had settled for.  I mean after all, they were just clothes right?  It's what's inside that counts....so I laid it all out in my quiet time with God.  In my journal I wrote, "I don't want to base my happiness on my looks and I want to see my beauty more clearly."

Let me tell you, when God answers prayer he does it fully.  I realized that part of the reason I was so self conscious about my looks was that I was struggling with a need to be noticed and recognized.  On one of the days I had the opportunity to dress up in a gorgeous sari and I felt like the princess I always dreamed I was as a little girl.  I got words of encouragement from our host "mom" Hepsibah that I was beautiful and that I did not need to be afraid because God is with me (noticing and recognizing me every day).

Being myself with the kids at the
church build in Mexico last November.

I discovered part of the reason I love working with children so much is because I feel like they see the real
me.  I can trust them and I don't need to guard myself.  Slowly God helped me peel back those layers and masks I had created to let the real me shine through all the time.

I listened to sermons each day as part of my devotional time and one in particular resonated so much.  It talked about how each of us is a letter about the power of God working in our lives, a letter worth reading because it is a letter written by God's Spirit.  Each of us is a letter of God's grace, power and his message to the world.  There is nothing more valuable than me, than each one of us because we each hold that unique letter, a treasure kept in the clay pot of our imperfect earthly bodies.  This sermon reminded me that I was noticed, recognized and valuable...I no longer believed the lies that let me hold myself back because I felt unimportant.

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.  You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

Before we returned to Canada, we did a little shopping for gifts to bring home.  I prayed about what I should buy and who it should be for.  Through this prayer, I knew in my heart I had to brave clothing shopping again, but this time there would be no settling for second best.  I was to buy an outfit that allowed me to show the me inside without insecurity, without any doubt of my own beauty or value as a daughter of my king Jesus.

Modelling the green and purple outfit at the
students' DTS graduation with my dad.

We went to a different store this time, and I could feel my fears and insecurities trying to push through again. I heard a voice in my head reminding me that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14) and as we approached the counter a bright emerald green tunic caught my eye.  They pulled it out for me and it was so much more beautiful than any other I had seen, with dark purple pants to go along with it.  I picked one other one to try on to make sure the pants would fit...first try was unsuccessful and I almost felt like giving up, but I knew God had exchanged my ashes for beauty (Isaiah 61:3).  When I tried on the green and purple clothes they fit perfectly and I could feel myself beaming from within.

I read a quote from Pascal Mercier that said, "To understand yourself: is that a discovery or a creation?"  I think for me it's a discovery of the potential God has placed within me, the letter written on my heart.  As my understanding of myself builds as I discover more about this potential, it is up to me to let the Holy Spirit create in and through me.  What a beautiful process and though I still have my ups and downs, it feels great to have those layers peeled away and to feel the sun warm my skin with God's perfect love.