Wednesday, June 20, 2007

My Beloved

Is this my beloved?
Is it the one who loves God?
Is it the one for me?
Is it the one who will always be honest with me?
Is it the one so full of love that it is evident in his motions?
Is it the one that will give God his devotion?
When he looks at me, and I at him. What will be seen in our eyes?
Tenderness, honesty, love and commitment?

Or just a pile of lies?

Saturday, June 16, 2007

In Warrenton!

Well hello my friends! Just a little update while I have time! It's a good time here in the little town of Warrenton Missouri. I'm not actually in Warrenton I guess, we're 5-10 miles outside the town but it's a good time. The compound is small but it works for the amount of people they have on it at one time. In the summer they may have 100 on at one time but there are 65 OMS (over seas Missionaries) training here so right now is the busiest time. There are dorm rooms but my team got a small apartment that is separated from the actual dorm rooms that other girls are living in. We are the only apartment that has to go OUTSIDE from the building to actually get into it. It's alright though, there are two rooms, mine, because I got here Thursday night, got the big double bed and the other two girls got the room with two single beds in it! It's a nice little 'home' away from the classroom when we get out of there. This past week was going over a lot of teacher training regarding the materials that we received for the clubs that we're going to be teaching. Next week will be a lot of the overseas material and preparing us for that. We average 6, 45min classes a day and then after supper is 'team time' to build team unity. 'Guided study' for homework and STP which is basically evening chapel. My two teammates are Kristin Hanson and Rebekah (Becky) Dolan. Kristin likes to think she's 19 b/c her b-day is in a week and Becky is 18. Both have just graduated from highschool, Kristin in Nebraska and Becky in Iowa. Last night we went out and did open air ministries, which is basically street evangelism. It was interesting because we ministered in all black neighbourhoods but they were surpisingly open to what we had to say and even if they were going somewhere they would stop to hear a 15-20min story about Jesus and some of them even accepted Christ! It was a blessing for many teams! We leave for Belize on June 22, I don't know what time but I do know that we have a layover in Miami. It'll be interesting b/c I think the flight from Miami to Belize City is 7 1/2 hrs! It'll be a good time! OSM students are going all over the place! There's teams going to Ireland,Iceland, Bulgaria, Greece, Australia, Miami, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ft.Hood Txs. Salt Lake City, New York and of course Belize! It'll be a good time, we're all starting to get more used to eachother and it's been a good time! I love my teammates and everyone is really friendly. I still laugh when I say I'm from Alberta and ppl are like 'Oh I know someone in Toronto!' Kinda not close at all to me! But it's good everybody has been nice! Anyways, I should take off. We're going on a medicine run for Becky to get her Malaria medication picked up! I hope everyone is going well and I love you and miss you lots! Oh! before you ask, I don't know exactly where I am on my support, my parents are supposed to let me know in a few days! God Bless you all!

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Church today

So in church today the guest preacher was talking about how much the church as shifted from being a family centered institution to an industrialist center. By that he meant that we are very focused on building new buildings and setting up programs that are supposed to fill up the spiritual pitcher of what people need. These programs such as ladies groups, men's groups.kids clubs, things that are supposed to reach out to the community and fulfill there spiritual needs aren't working anymore! They are things that are put in the community to get these places back in touch with the creator but are not touching the fact that there is no creator in the home of most of the people in the community. He said that the main problem with most of what the church is doing today is that they are trying to put out these programs and not place faith back in the home and back as part of the family life but still kind of try and make it fit into a very industrialized, investment/money based world. He quoted some statistics which said that for young people who keep their faith after highschool the main reason that that happens is because their main spiritual influence was their mother. The next main influence was their father and then their pastor. What does that say about churches that do not try to bring a good solid faith into the families in the church but try to push their programs out into the community without that family value system? I don't know, if this makes any sense. But I was thinking about it this afternoon and was wondering what your opinion was on this.