A simple thought.. in a time of refining...
Am I going to follow the crowd or am I willing to
Stand Alone?
I keep coming back to this...when God gives us a dream, hope or vision it's really easy to go after it when everyone supports you, when you have friends walking it out with you, when you have networks of people etc etc. But are you really willing to go after what God wants
Alone? And by "you" clearly I mean "I"...haha... (isn't that the way it always is?). God is refining His people and I choose not to give up!
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." Luke 9:23-24
Ignition
I'm selling out--I'm going to my first "Christian concert" tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. The churches in Victoria have gotten together and invited Salvador, Joy Williams and Tree63 to come and put on a "Christian rock concert." They've opened it up so anyone can go- free tickets, pre-events with free food and lots of free prizes with the hope that lots of young people will come and invite their friends as well. At some point during the evening evangelist Billy Gramham's grandson- Will Gramham will give a message on what it means to have a faith with Jesus Christ and if anything hopefully it will connect young people with churches and encourage them to seek out a mentoring relationship with youth leaders and pastors.
Victoria in the autumn... it just isn't like home
I miss autumn colors... I want to stand on the top floor of George Martin Hall and look out over the entire city of Fredericton and see all the beautiful colors...
You want the truth or the lie?
It was so beautiful in Victoria today. Shorts and T-shirt weather. I have a lovely burn on my face and shoulders, but I'm certainly not complaining...it's good to have some nice weather because I've been informed that it will start raining soon. So, I'm two weeks in, I feel at home and am excited that I'm starting to finally think straight. I feel like I have vision for so many things... but I constantly need to go to prayer and remind myself that I'm here for one year and that I'm one person. Right now I'm totally just asking God how He wants me to spend my time. I'm really being given a lot of opportunity to explore who I am as a "Godbearer (an evangelist)" in these next few weeks. I had two weeks to walk the streets with Rick and see how he interacts with the kids.. but now I'm working more independently.
Today started out pretty slow. It was a little scary at first..Rick is kinda like my "security." All of the kids know him and they associate me with him. Today I went out on my own so my "safety net" totally felt pulled away. I walked around for a bit.. and was actually starting to get a little discourage because I couldn't even find any of the kids. I went to all the "spots" and there was no one. I think the crazy hot weather must have played a part in the "relocation" of a lot of the kids today. Anways.. just as I was about to give up I spotted a man, not a teen and I pulled up a piece of curb next to him. His name was "
Red." Red was almost fifty and has been on the streets most of his life. When I first walked by he asked me for fifty cents. I sat down beside him and asked him what he needed it for. Red said "
You want the truth or the lie first?"... I laughed at him and asked for the truth. Red honestly said that he needed to go buy wine to celebrate with his friend.. (he was only fifty cents short). I said I couldn't give him fifty cents for wine but I did have some granola bars in my book bag. So I sat on the curb on the busiest street in Victoria and ate granola bars. Then Red goes,
"They call me knitter man."
I was like, "
oh yeah...????" So he whips out this scarf he's knitting for the winter (it's beautiful I might add) and begins to knit. Now I'm sitting on the busiest curb in Victoria eating granola bars with a homeless knitter. It's a beautiful sight.
Then Red goes,
"You wanna learn?" Beautiful. I learned how to knit today. I've wanted to learn how to knit for a long time..
and the one person that had all the patience and time and confidence in me was the homeless man. I have a new friend.
Mountains
Some pictures of the mountains..you have to look close
aw...the internet died...more pictures later
This is my journey
Two more pictures. This is me in the car with my mum on the way to the airport and again another picture of just hours before that-- I had gone for a walk and explored my neighborhood and the places where I had played when I was little ( I highly recommend it to everyone). This is the house that I was brought home to when I was a baby and that I have lived in my entire life (minus school etc.). My mum is looking at selling the property this year while I'm away so this may not be home when I return!
drinking some Star Bucks on a Tuesday afternoon...
Finally got some pictures downloaded onto my laptop...and am able to get some internet connected to my laptop for a few minutes. I'm on a really pathethic connection so I'm uploading one picture at a time to blogger.. so I'll try and give you a taste of a few things that have been going on in the past couple weeks.
This is the skateboard competition at Stone Church two Sunday's ago. I really hope the school is able to maintain a relationship with the skateboard community. I know God is doing stuff there.
saturday's swirling spiraling spinning sequence of stimulating sentences
I feel like if I don't blog for a day I disconnect from the whole world. Mah.. not true. Today was a beautiful day off.. the first one that I've had since I've arrive. Instead of doing nothing like I should have I got up super early and rode the bus for a half hour to the tim hortons and read for two hours.. IT WAS WONDERFUL!!!!!! The book "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell is really changing me. You should read it if you haven't. I met another church army officer today..Ian Gibbs. He picked me up and we drove an hour to a place called Duncan where I met some Anglican youth leaders in the Diocese. I guess they meet with Ian every so often to plan and have lunch and talk. It was funny.. the same old anglican "church stuff" goes on back home as it does here. "Services aren't relevant..there isn't enough money...the priest doesn't support youth ministry." It was a good afternoon though and I was happy to meet some people and have conversations with people other then the bus driver. So things here are going good. I'm going to try out a church tommorrow..I ran into a guy yesterday while I was on a bike ride (God set up or what?) and he had Christian music blasting from his car and I asked him if he knew where a particular church was. It turned out that was his home church. He gave me directions and we chatted and then he prayed for me. It was one of those weird God moments.. I had tears in my eyes cuz I don't think that man knew just how much he had blessed me in that exact moment. Something so simple as a 30 second prayer goes a long way when you're all the way across the country and you know no one and nothing is familiar-- there certainly is peace in knowing you're with the right people and that you have family in the Body. So I'll be checking this church out tomorrow.. I don't know much about it. I listened to some online sermons and have been through their webpage a couple times.
I need sleep..I'm almost finished velvet elvis for the second time for those who know what I'm talking about.. it's messing me up good this time. I'm being remade. Goodnight...
day three
a little bit of an emotional day...the lack of sleep is catching up to me. I still haven't adjusted to the new time here, still waking up really early and not being able to go back to sleep. My body is upset with me...but it was a good day, PTL!
I ride the bus downtown everyday..it's 40 minutes each way... and coming home today I really started to think ( I don't do it often). A lot of people in downtown Victoria do "outreach." They bring food to the homeless, provide shelter (or try too), toilets and showers, drug clinics and counselling etc. I got to thinking how should evangelism be different then outreach? Or should it? Do they go together? How should an evangelist with a bag of food
look/
act different then the neighborhood outreach worker down the street with a bag of food? Is it evangelism in a true form without using words? What does the word evangelist mean?
Thoughts?
Day Two..
I had a really good day today. I'm starting to get a better understanding of what Rick actually does and although it's definitley not limited to any one thing or any two things for that matter I definitley admire his passion for youth and his desire to see them come to faith. I also admire that after many years of ministry and the challenges and struggles that come with ministry he still plugs on as if it were his first day. Wow... so day two, I walked a million miles today and I met lots of new people. I spent the first part of my day hanging out at the shoebox place where a few kids came in for lunch- then I headed downtown where I spent the rest of the day walking the core downtown with Rick, meeting new kids. I think this is what I'm mostly going to be doing. "Street Prowl"....trying to build relationships with the kids. Rick has such a unique relationship with so many of the kids; they really do trust him. We spent a lot of time with a couple of people.. Rick tries to do everything he can to make life easier for the kids. We spent the morning at the shoe box working on birth certificate forms so one girl could go back to school, we took another guy to shoppers to buy supplies for his baby and then we took another guy to payless to buy shoes because his were falling off of his feet. I've come to realize that no day is going to be the same and that hopefully through meeting the needs of others and spending time with them they will meet Jesus. I'm learning. Pictures soon.
Day one on the streets
I think this four hour time difference to New Brunswick is going to break my addiction to msn. It's eight o'clock and everyone is in bed at home. I like the sounds of that. Today was my first full day in Victoria. I couldn't sleep after 6:00am (cuz really it was 10:00), so I got up and unpacked and showered and got ready for the day. I explored my new community of Saanich this morning, I found a nice little physio clinic that I think I'm going to become quite familiar with and explored the Baskin Robins and the grocery store. I really enjoy the place where I'm living- I live in a condo complex that has a private pool and tennis court. It's kinda neat. Later tonight I picked pears and peaches from the complexes fruit trees and ate them for a snack. I'd never seen a pear tear! I spent all afternoon downtown Victoria. I took lotsa pictures of the Rockies (when I have internet working to my laptop, I'll post them) and of the ocean. I spent some time at the "shoe box" place meeting volunteers and a couple of the street kids that hang out there and come for food. Later we walked the core section of downtown and Rick showed me all the hotspots for buying and selling Crystal Meth and Coccaine. I met a few of the kids but mostly Rick and I spent the afternoon talking about what I would be doing for the year. I'm excited for this crazy adventure....I have no clue what to expect. I'm totally out of my element. I'm heading for a nap.. later skaters
I've arrived!
Landed in BC at 3:30am New Brunswick time.. whatever that is in BC time I have no idea. I'm just unpacking and getting settled in, more later!
a slow day
Everything felt sleepy today..I was late getting up (not that I had anywhere to be)...then I sat around and read most of the morning and afternoon. I saw the doctor this afternoon and took the bus back to Saint John this evening. Everything feels really sleepy and slow. I'm excited for a regular routine and for the pace to pick up a little bit next week. My back is a bit better tonight, thanks for praying y'all.
"In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame. Be my rock and my refuge, to which I can always go..."
T-minus 4 days
push in
my back feels wrecked.. travelled home on the bus and it stank... please keep praying, I'm contending.
House D
Welcome to House D...usually a quiet home. This year four fun femmes from all across Canada live in this residence. Rachel from Ontario (third year student), Susan from Newfoundland (also a third year student), Jessie from New Brunswick (also a third year student), and Hilary from British Columbia (a first year student, yay!), and myself, a residence houseguest for just one week! I really think it's going to be an exciting year in residence.. I'm kinda jealous, but I know that they'll have fun!
where I'm at..
I'm in Saint John for the week at Taylor College working with George Porter and the rest of the students to do a youth outreach to the skateboarding community. Please pray for my back and neck- I have complete mobility but am quite uncomfortable and can only sit or stand for so long. I have another doctors appointment tomorrow afternoon. Also a lot of you have mentioned you know names of churches I should check out or names of restuarants or beaches I should visit in Victoria.. if you can think of them or any pastor contacts e-mail me (erintracy@hotmail.com) or just leave me a comment.
Thanks!
Take me to those western islands...
Spent last night downtown enjoying the city! Leave Monday...
