Well its come to that time of year where the homework is all in and all the adventures are finished. Yes, Kaleo 6 is ending in 3 days and looking back over the year I have been amazed at what has happened in the last 8 months. On the first day of Kaleo I sat in 211 and wondered, what are my roommates going to be like? Am I going to be able to do all these adventures this year? Can I afford my mission trip? What challenges am I going to go through? Can I do college? Will I finish all my work? and so many more questions that are still spinning around in my head. Yesterday, as Mount Washington was closed I hiked up to the top of the mountain and looked over to Mount Albert-Edward and thought back to that trip and how much everyone has changed since those days of hiking through the late summer forests. As I sat there at the top of the mountain God started revealing answers to this year to me. Your roommates were divinely placed, you have lived and grown through every adventure, you took on your mission trip with full strength, you have grown through struggles and challenges, you can do college, and your work is all done with great marks.
All though this year has been amazing, it has not been without its struggles. Many things this year have caused me much grief and pain but looking back on the year here at the end I can see that because I was taken through those struggles I have grown so much closer to God. I think one of the most memorable times for me with struggles this year did not actually happen here at Kaleo but in Vancouver. As I was at home for the funeral of a teacher and a friend, I spent time with my old buddies and learned that the way that I was living before had no positive outlook for me. Don't get me wrong, I still love my friends at home but I don't see myself going down that road anymore. I have grown comfortable with who I am and what Christ has set me aside for. Through all the struggles that I have been placed in I have come out with one teaching for every struggle. The reason why we struggle and experience pain is because we
have turned away from the will that God has for us. As I walked humbly and peacefully with God I learned so much and felt such peace, but the moment I turned to do my own will, I suffered. I know this sounds old and overused but trust me, as soon as you find the true meaning behind what I just said you will never want to follow your own will ever again. Throughout this year I was worried about so many things but I have learned that I need to know that the plan that God has for me is the best and there is no way that I can possible think of a good plan myself. So stop worrying and just trust what God is doing. God will use pain and sin for his plan to teach you to be more like him.
The adventures that I have experienced this year have been life changing. Whether it would be climbing mountains or surfing waves or flying across to New York, everything that pushed me physically this year has taught me something. When I was the top of Mount Albert-Edward I learned that God was bigger then the box I was putting him in and that I needed to let him shape my life. There at the top of that mountain is where I had my first moment of surrender this year. Then on the SALTS ship I learned that God will protect me even in the scariest things and through fear. Through the first surfing trip I learned that even when everything looks horrible I still need to focus on the one thing I can trust in, God. In our first ski trip, God was setting things up that would be key in setting the first step into a new godly foundation. Missions Fest showed to me that I had grown comfortable with the Christian community in Vancouver and that it was time to become unco
mfortable. A few weeks later in the cold middle of Canada, God showed me what that new community was, Briercrest. I have a new community to enter into and through that I will continue to grow more towards a Christ-centered lifestyle. My trip to New York taught me so much about who I am and revealed so much pride that I need to still work on. New York taught me so much more but if I was to list all of it this blog post would be able 2000 words long. And these last 3 trips of surfing, skiing and kayaking has taught me that I need to sit still and know that entire world is in the hands of a perfect and wonderful maker.
I think I might have found a church that I want to stick to. Warmland Community Church has given me so much confidence in who I am and also felt like a real church family where everyone knew everybody else. It just had that small church feel that I have been longing for. South Delta is an awesome church but I don't feel like I was being put to full use there. Who knows what God's plan is for me and my two most favorite churches they are both amazing. Anyways, with Warmland this year being on Media for sunday mornings made me feel like I had a role to play in the church I felt like God was truly using me. Getting to know the people around the church and being invited to their houses for lunch helped to build a community for me. I now know that I can walk into several houses when I am in trouble and there will be a family there that will care for me until I am ready again to do whatever I need to do. Ladner was a great community but I felt like all the families I knew there were like the family of my parents. Here in Crofton, this is my family and I love everyone of them. Wednesday night youth group many weeks held me here at Kaleo. There were many times this year where I felt like I couldn't go on any longer and I needed to get out. Wednesday night was exactly that for me. I loved it! There are just too many reasons to say wh
y I loved it but it was amazing. I want to thank all the youth on Wednesday for being such great kids, and (this is for Olivia) I want to thank Olivia and Abby for being great friends to me and joining me when I didn't want to run around and play the games and also for just being crazy. Sunday night was the icing on the cake that made Warmland what it was for me. It was a chance to be a leader to kids who are going through exactly what I was going through just a few years ago. It was also an awesome time just to act like a kid again. I want to thank all the guys that would ride around in my car with me. Yeah, sure we got into trouble and we acted stupid in the car but hey it was fun and I enjoyed hanging out with you guys. I'm looking forward to seeing all the Warmland people again in a few weeks and over the years as well. I want to watch the church, the youth group and the youth themsevles grow and I want to be a part of it.
And so after a long and amazing year I leave you guys with my victory pose.
Semper Fidelis
"Forever Faithful"
April 15th
So I was a little bogged down with stuff last week so I didn't get a blog post out but here is a blog post for the last two weeks! I'll start with our class with Cal from last week. Worldview was an awesome course that taught me one very key thing about my life... I am a modernist. I like to be in control and I like to have the answers. Thankfully God is taking me out of my modern worldview and ideas and turning me more towards him and a Christian worldview. Yeah, it was really cool to see the differences in what the world was and what it has become and where Christians need to fit into this melting pot we call the 21st century. This class was the first one in a while where we have had homework every night so that kept me from doing a lot of other things last week but the good news is that I got a lot out of this class and I understood a ton of it because of the amount of work we did.
Now to the water part! Firstly this week we started of with a sweet surfing trip to Tofino. I only surfed for the first day because on the second day I was up for the hike that was going on. Anyways, on that first day, just as I was heading in for lifeguard duty, I let like 6 waves go under me then I saw the perfect wave so I caught it and rode it all the way into the beach which was like an awesome 45 seconds of wave riding which is awesome for a beginner. Then on the second day we went for a hike to what is called the "blowhole." and what that is, is a crack in the rocks where the waves come in and shoot back up and out towards the ocean. I thought it was cool but after a while I decided that I wanted to just go out to the edge of the rocks and just look out at the ocean and think back on everything that happened this year. A lot has happened and God has taken me through so much this year. Just looking back at my blog posts throughout the year I can see what crazy adventures I've been through and what struggles God has lead me through.
More water! Today I went for a sweet Kayaking trip down a river just east of Duncan. As I was traveling through the rapids I though to myself, "I freaking live in B.C. and I never do this...WHY?!?" I think that the trip we did today was one of the most fun trips we've done all year. Going over rapids, going around Jake's Rock, and going down waterfalls. Awesome trip!
So as this blog post ends I'm thinking back to the awesome times I've had this year and the more awesome times that I'm going to have in the next week.
Tons of Photos for you guys next week!
April 11th
So here it is friends, tall tales and stories from my time in the biggest city on this continent. New York was an amazing time and I really enjoyed doing everything that we did there. So we arrived on the 9th and when we got there I was surprised at the area. When people talk about the ghetto in Vancouver the idea that most often comes up is East Hastings Street which is packed to the brim with people normally on drugs or homeless. But when I stepped onto Bushwich Ave in Brooklyn I was stunned to see the difference in the Vancouver ghetto and the New York ghetto. Don't get me wrong its still somewhere that you have to be careful and I would not say to go outside without a friend and wearing a Metro Ministries Tee-shirt (aka New York bulletproof). It was awesome to see the area that Metro has down in Brooklyn.
We first started in the center which is an old Jewish hospital/infirmary. So the saying that the Metro people have for that building was that it was a place where people came to die, now its a place where people give life from. After spending some days working on that building and other buildings in the area. By working I mean painting, destroying random things, and moving around about 100 boxes of food. We sat in on our first Church service. I'm going to have to say that I have never experienced anything like that before. Think of the most crazy outgoing jump up and down church...then multiply that by 10 and now you have the Metro Sunday Morning Service. It was crazy and I'm still trying to understand a lot of what was shown and said at that church.
After attending a Sunday service and chilling around on Sunday, it was time to head into Manhattan for some sightseeing and shopping. We hit up Times Square first and WOW I don't think I've ever seen so many lights before. We walked out of the M&M's store there at like 10 PM and it was still bright out because of all the lights. It was awesome being able to see a lot of the things that you only see in the movies. Times Square was an awesome experience for me but after living in Brooklyn for about a week it was weird seeing the difference that the "middle class" lives in and how blind they are to the poorer people living a 15 minute subway ride away.
After doing the whole Times Square experience we headed off the next day for visitation. Visitation is when the staff members go out to the different families around New York that have kids that attended the Yogi Bear Sunday School. the Yogi Bear Sunday School is when the staff members at Metro take their 18 yellow stage buses out to different places around New York and setup a place most likely on a street corner where about 300 kids show up to hear the good news of Christ and of course play some sweet games. Anyways the visitation program is when the staff members go out to the kids a day before Yogi Bear and just sit and talk with the families. The reason why the staff do this is because there is the idea of a constant reliance in Yogi Bear that the staff will always be there and caring for the people that want to have a part in the church. Visitation was awesome I went with Phil and Ryan Wood and we visited some really sweet kids in Ryan's area and also in Scotty T's area. When we were in Scotty's area we met a kid named Wykee who was the most awesome 4 year old boy I have ever met. He was just super excited to see us and was really waiting to go to Yogi Bear again. On visitation it was another clear indicaction that people in the richer part of New York have no idea about the poorer part and there was a big difference in the two ways of living.
After working another week of painting and Visitation we took another day to go on tours throughout New York. We visited Battery Park, The South Side Sea Port, Brookyln Banks, Ground Zero, and Central Park. All those areas were awesome but I'm only going to talk about Central Park. It was amazing to see the most talked about park in the world pretty much. Even though all the trees were not in bloom and the grass was mostly dead it was still cool to feel like your in the middle of a forest but look around a tree and see the skyscrapers of New York. Going to the Ice Rink and the Zoo were awesome too even though I didn't get to do anything on the two on them. After being in Central Park we headed off into the suburbs of New York and I got to dip my hands in the Atlantic Ocean. Finally I've seen the other end of North America.
Yeah so that was pretty much My New York Experience. I'll Post about my Ground Zero experience, which was pretty huge for me, when I get the chance to.
March 31st
So you are all probably waiting to here about how my New York Trip went. We'll for now I'm going to say that it was an amazing experience and I enjoyed it so much. But the only problem is that it is currently 11:20 PM and I am still on East Coast time so I'm really tired. I have been working on trying to get the next blog post up for the past hour but I have been distracted or frantically working to get the blog up. Needless to say that the New York Blog Post will be up tomorrow because right now I'm in some need of sleep and I'm still getting ready for class tomorrow. So New York Blog tomorrow. I'll leave you guys with a photo of me in times square but tomorrow there will be many photos and lots to say. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow!
So I'll start this weeks blog post by explaining my title. Today was the release of the new U2 album that I have been waiting for, for well since they announced this album, so I have been listening to it non-stop since I downloaded it. Also this week our Youth Group went to a Manafest concert in Ladysmith which was also sweet. I'm not one for rap but when the Spirit of God is in a room and in the lyrics it always seems to sound better, so the concert was pretty awesome. Yeah so music wise this was a pretty good week.
Church and Youth Group wise this week was also sweet. I got to help out at 10/10 which is the Sunday school program at Warmland. Although I was really tired and I didn't really do anything but hang out with the kids, it was still awesome to see what Stevie G. does with the kids on a Sunday morning. So if any of my youth peeps are reading this blog right now go to 10/10 on Sunday mornings cause its pretty sweet (you get to watch a bit of a movie). Wednesday night was also pretty cool because I didn't get attacked at all this week. no hair pulling, no shin kicking, and no stealing of things. The message that Stevie G. planned for us was also cool because it was all about getting to know our kids better and them getting to know us leaders a little better. Sunday night was ok, I mean hanging out with the kids was awesome since we were down at Qwanoes this week but... I hurt myself again. This time I pulled my butt muscle and now I can't really walk without limping. It's getting better but if you can please pray that I will stay healthy for the New York mission trip.
Which brings me to my next point. New York mission trip. To be honest most people are really "freaking out" about these trips and wondering a whole bunch of things. To me the biggest thing is that I've always been afriad of inner city areas and I think going on the trip will be good for me conquering that fear. But other then that we are working with a youth group and I've been blessed with the gift of being about to work with kids so I'm ready for this trip!
So yeah that was this last week for me.
Oh yeah Although Manafest was cool
U2 still wins.
March 2nd
On time this week! Yeah this week was pretty sweet, even got a lot of homework done! (sorry if this post doesn't make much sense but it's late and I haven't slept well in like 4 days. Where to start though? I guess I'll start with this weeks youth group. After 2 weeks of not having my Ipod at Youth Group I have managed to win several "battles" against the evil hair pulling girls. So for the last 2 weeks I haven't had my hair pulled often and I haven't been kicked in the shins at all. This week we did a combined group with the grade 6 boys and I got to get in a small group with some of the boys that I've grown pretty close too so that was sweet. It was a bummer that I wasn't able to go to Warmland Church this week or go to Sunday night Youth but...
YOUTH QUAKE WAS AMAZING! it started at 4 in the morning on Thursday and ended about 6 hours ago with all the bus rides and spending the weekend at the "mothership." Yeah the first hour or so of being at Briercrest was a bit overwhelming but after everything wasn't so brand spanking new anymore I started to settle in quite well. So Friday was a bit of an overwhelming day for me but I got to see Briercrest a bit and started to figure out if I wanted to go there or not for the next 3 years.
Friday rolled on and I had a sweet time hanging with Kaleo 3 through 6 and other people that I knew at Briercrest. Then Friday Night rolled around and the concert was sweet! RED blew the roof off of that place and the moch pit was pretty awesome to. So little story for all you people that are use to cold places. During the concern I had a water bottle dumped on me and I was really wet, including my hair. So when the concert ended I headed outside to go back to my dorm and a very odd thing happened to me. My hair froze. That has never happened to me before! I was kind of scared so Don Taylor, Old Testament Prof/Briercrest Police Sherif, was in his squad car on my way back to my dorm so I went over to talk to him and I asked about my hair. His response was a polite chuckle and told me not to worry about it. That was so weird! frozen hair...
Sunday morning was my best time there and I really felt at home sitting with all the Kaleo students in front of me, behind me, and beside me. Really I felt like I was home, in a weird and cold way. So I'm sorry to all my friends back here in B.C. but I will be going to Briercrest next year. So if you guys could pray for me that I can get the money to pay for it and also that my body would adapt to the cold there so I'm not sick 24/7 next year.
Here is a YQ Kaleo Photo of all of us praying before we headed off
Feb 23rd
Ok so I should probably explain my title. So we are in week 21 of Kaleo and I'm going to be talking about how crazy this last was. It started with a crazy study session in our room for our Old Testament course. After studying for about 10 hours over two nights and a day we headed into what has been the hardest non-math exam I have ever taken. But I think I did fairly well but I probably won't know my mark until sometime in 2011 because Briercrest marks things so slowly. But hey I don't blame them they have to mark a lot of papers.
Anyways, after that crazy test came the start of the 2 weeks of HOMEWORK CRUNCH! yes here at Kaleo we are now in homework craze and have to read 2 books, do 3 papers, and read 3 of the 4 gospels so I haven't had much time to do anything else but homework. AND MY KEYBOARD IS DRIVING ME INSANE! sorry i'm having some keyboard troubles which evens out the score Mac=1 PC=1.
Aside from all the homework I decided that I was going to go on a talking, food, music, Internet fast for about 3 days this week. so that was a very interesting experience in becoming more humble and focusing more on God and other people rather then me. Although it was very hard to communicate with people when I couldn't actually talk.
Oh another awesome thing that we did this week was we said goodbye to the old skatepark! the matiance team, some Kaleo students and me went to the old rotting park with crowbars, sledge hammers and a tractor! so now all thats left of theold stakepark is a pile of ashes and a huge hole in the concreate.
Then it was Youth time! this week was just a nightmare for youth group. Well the Kaleo students led the night and that went sweet, but the rest of the night was crazy! we played a game of manhunt and that turned into a mess really fast and then some guy who was hanging around the school called the cops on us and 6 cop cars showed up so yeah crazy week.
Then came the manly things. I'm going to list them off from least manly to most manly. First we trapped some of the girls who pranked our rooms in the laundry room, then we destroyed the skatepark, then we went on a cougar hunt (and failed), and finally the most manly of all we made a fort in the lounge out of couches and blankets and wouldn't let girls in.
Yep thats my week, and guess what there's more to come!
No new photo this week but here is a photo that I really like
Feb 16th
Well its come to that time of year where the homework is all in and all the adventures are finished. Yes, Kaleo 6 is ending in 3 days and looking back over the year I have been amazed at what has happened in the last 8 months. On the first day of Kaleo I sat in 211 and wondered, what are my roommates going to be like? Am I going to be able to do all these adventures this year? Can I afford my mission trip? What challenges am I going to go through? Can I do college? Will I finish all my work? and so many more questions that are still spinning around in my head. Yesterday, as Mount Washington was closed I hiked up to the top of the mountain and looked over to Mount Albert-Edward and thought back to that trip and how much everyone has changed since those days of hiking through the late summer forests. As I sat there at the top of the mountain God started revealing answers to this year to me. Your roommates were divinely placed, you have lived and grown through every adventure, you took on your mission trip with full strength, you have grown through struggles and challenges, you can do college, and your work is all done with great marks.
have turned away from the will that God has for us. As I walked humbly and peacefully with God I learned so much and felt such peace, but the moment I turned to do my own will, I suffered. I know this sounds old and overused but trust me, as soon as you find the true meaning behind what I just said you will never want to follow your own will ever again. Throughout this year I was worried about so many things but I have learned that I need to know that the plan that God has for me is the best and there is no way that I can possible think of a good plan myself. So stop worrying and just trust what God is doing. God will use pain and sin for his plan to teach you to be more like him.
mfortable. A few weeks later in the cold middle of Canada, God showed me what that new community was, Briercrest. I have a new community to enter into and through that I will continue to grow more towards a Christ-centered lifestyle. My trip to New York taught me so much about who I am and revealed so much pride that I need to still work on. New York taught me so much more but if I was to list all of it this blog post would be able 2000 words long. And these last 3 trips of surfing, skiing and kayaking has taught me that I need to sit still and know that entire world is in the hands of a perfect and wonderful maker.
y I loved it but it was amazing. I want to thank all the youth on Wednesday for being such great kids, and (this is for Olivia) I want to thank Olivia and Abby for being great friends to me and joining me when I didn't want to run around and play the games and also for just being crazy. Sunday night was the icing on the cake that made Warmland what it was for me. It was a chance to be a leader to kids who are going through exactly what I was going through just a few years ago. It was also an awesome time just to act like a kid again. I want to thank all the guys that would ride around in my car with me. Yeah, sure we got into trouble and we acted stupid in the car but hey it was fun and I enjoyed hanging out with you guys. I'm looking forward to seeing all the Warmland people again in a few weeks and over the years as well. I want to watch the church, the youth group and the youth themsevles grow and I want to be a part of it.
