Grace

I think that grace is an art that we have not yet perfected and we need to realize that this year or more like the five months we have left will be hard and not easy but every time we get upset or "hate on" things such as camp qwanoes actually mostly camp qwanoes the more bitter we will become and the harder our hearts will get. This is a year of grace and sometimes we just need to be reminded of that. We need to let go of the things that are causing us to be angry or grumpy or creating a wall between us and Jesus. I know that probably sounds really cheesey but I'm just trying to get my thoughts down in kind of a readable way so that people might understand what I am talking about. These past months in Kaleo have made me so bitter and the past week I could actually feel my heart turn to stone and I wasn't going to let anyone know what was going on in my life and I really just didn't want to talk to anyone and I pretty much just wanted to make a small little fort with room for just one under my desk and fall asleep and I wouldn't even care if I woke up in the morning or not. There was a wall there and I could feel something trying its hardest to break through that wall and I tryed my best to stay strong and not let anything through that barrier. Then Friday night came and my heart melted. Just so you know, that hard up act I was putting on only lasted a week. Jesus was fighting pretty hard for me and that is why I love him. There is no way that I could give people grace without help from Jdawg. Grace is a gift and us Christians are people who enjoy giving. So in conclusion, this is just a reminder for myself that I need to be aware of grace and where it is needed most in my life I guess its a reminder to all who read this too I guess. Chow for now!

p.s. I think its really ironic becasue I am reading "Whats so amazing about grace?" right now by Philip Yancey its got some really sweet stories in it so maybe if your board you could read it.

Emergent?

Since coming to Kaleo I have learnt some crazy new Christian jargon. Really I had never heard the word discernment in my life before coming here and its a word that is used on a regular basis now. I guess that means I'm growing? Haha at least my vocabulary is... Another word that I learnt about recently is emergent. Right now we are preparing for our Foundations in Church Ministry course that will be happening next Monday and we have to read a book called "Why we're not emergent " and some people love it. I however hold a strong grudge towards this book not really the book itself but just one of the book's authors. Because the book is written by two guys I just don't like one of them. The other guy is super boss and makes everything make sense because the one I dislike doesn't ever make sense to me because he uses words that no one understands. I only dream of being as intellectual as that guy. By the way I still don't know what emergent means but its more christian jargon. There is emergent and non-emergent. To me emergent seems like it could be anything under the sun. I'm sure its a good book I just really enjoy reading books without dead lines and taking notes about them. I love reading. I LOVE READING! I really do, I'm actually not lieing to you. I wish I could read what I want to and not the million text books that briercrest gives you to read, although we have been pretty blessed our textbooks are pretty boss. Back onto the topic of words I watched Juno last night with some of the girls and Bleaker says "Wizard" a few times in the movie and the context he uses it in is like he is substituting the word cool for wizard so we were thinking we could take any word of something you think is cool and substitute it for the word cool. For example I happen to believe that pom juice* is cool. So instead of saying cool I would say pom juice. Then after we have that down its our mission now to make other people use it in they way I intended it. I just want you to know that my love for reading has just started this past year so I have quite a few books on my "to read list" and I am hoping to get a lot of reading done during Christmas break unfortunately that is when I have to do my camp ministry readings so I am not super positive I will get around to reading what I want still. Sorry this one is getting long. I could write more but I will let you get on with your real life. Now please go and enjoy the rest of your day!

*I don't actually think pom juice is that cool but it was the coolest thing beside my computer.

Bubbles are too comfortable.

So I had the privilege of helping out with Sunday school at church today but it was more like just sitting in and observing how Sunday school works because in reality, I've never been to Sunday school before so I don't know what goes on in there. It was sweet though it was the older group of kids and they are all super sweet and we learnt about what the bible has to say about demons and evil spirits and witchcraft. And then the nicest couple drove us home and today we had the best lunch! It was grilled cheese sandwiches and eggs benny. Anyways my point of this blog is that I miss those days when I was super involved in the community and I had the choice to go to one or two church services and then I would go to bible study twice a week and go to young life. I loved it and I wish it could always be like that but things change which means its time for us to do a little changing ourselves. Its not all bad but its not always easy. I just feel like while I am at Kaleo I am stuck doing the same things and not really pouring into the community at all. Now the question stands how can I pour into this community, this new place I live in. Scheduled hangouts are good and so is doing homework but sometimes its nice to do something for the community outside of our Qwanoes bubble. Well that's something that I just thought of so now I am going to do homework and ponder the answer to my question.
P.s. pray that I would be able to finish my homework it pretty much always seems impossible.

This is.....

RIDICULOUS! Its snowing for real! I am so excited because I love snow. We can build snow forts and snow men and snow women and pretend like we are Eskimos and miss school because clearly there is too much snow for us to go to school. Unfortunately I can't pull that excuse for not showing up to class. I live at my school. However tomorrow is Saturday so there is no school tomorrow but I am at home right now and at Qwanoes there is such thing as snow watch and you get a phone call in the middle of the night saying that you have to get up and knock all the snow off of the tents around camp. I could possibly be missing my first ever snow watch. I'm sorry team I'm letting you down and not being a very good trooper. But snow is a reminder that Christmas is coming very soon and I love Christmas! Lately I have been very sad because November is my favourite month because you get to start getting ready for Christmas which makes you even more excited for Christmas. Just in case you were wondering, there are 35 days until we celebrate the day of Jesus Christ's birth. Anyways I hope that this snow would stick to make for a fun day tomorrow!

Birthday Bumps

Last week we had a class on interpreting the bible and it was called Hermeneutics. I loved it up until about the second day. I loved it because it was just a really cool way to engage your mind to what you are reading (something I am not familiar with). I'll be honest I don't actually think that much although since coming back to school I am thinking a lot more and I can feel my brain being exercised which is a brilliant feeling and I love it!
I just realized that I have never watched breakfast at Tiffany's and now I feel like I've been deprived of a glorious movie because everyone talks about it. Thanks a lot Amy!
Anyways horrific hermeneutics, I started to not like hermeneutics when the homework took me forever to finish and stressed me out to limits I have not been stressed out to before. Now there is a research paper that I have to do by Friday that I haven't even started so now I am going to be stressed to even grater levels. Lets just take a moment to praise the Lord.
I am also battling this dreadful sickness that makes me grumpy pants. But I am trying to be positive so... lets just take another moment to praise the Lord for all the good things in my life. I know you probably don't care about praising the Lord but its just a reminder for me as I write that I should be grateful.
So it was my birthday on the weekend and I turned the big 19. And it was the best! I have such amazing friends that came and surprised me so bad!! I wasn't even expecting it. It was beautiful. My Anna and I built a fort (it was also Anna's birthday too) and it was so ballin and we slept in it. I also got one hundred roses from the love of my life! It was another great surprise.
This week us Kaleo are embarking on our 24/7 week of prayer which is much needed this week and I look forward to tell you the fruit of this week in my next blog. So until then may you be guided by the mighty hand of God and inspiered to be unpredictable.

We Are The Privileged

Hey there I am back in action from my relaxing reading break and had I was so lucky to have been able to hang out with a couple of my good friends including KELLY AND ERIN! Who I haven't seen in almost half a year so it was good to see them! And also I saw Amy and Victoria and we went frizbeeing with the girls and boys bible study so it was good to see all those people again and to see how God is working and changing thier hearts. Also I got to talk with Sarah Barber for a bit who I love so dearly. I thought she was in the United Kingdom going to school to become an optomitrist but to my surprise she is at home in Victoria taking a gap year because her visa didn't go through. I think that it is a blessing in desguise because she was looking into going on a missions to Africa this summer and this will give me a bit of time to speak into her life and help her prepare for it if that is God's will and my prayer is that she will learn so much about God through this experience. Erin, Kelly and I were also talking about going to Greece next summer and doing a girls trip for a couple of weeks which I think is the best idea! My time away from camp was a much needed get away but not much of a rest and I was also able to get lots of home work done although I still have a lot more to do.

This weekend I was so privileged to have been able to counsel seven girls in grades eight and nine. They were the coolest girls and we had such a blast so it was more like I was just hanging out with my friends. But they taught me a very important lesson that I have herd so many times before but this time it was ment to stick. Its something that God has been teaching me this whole year and it became really real to me this weekend. Never take any situation for granted. God has created these beautiful girls with such amazing hearts and most of them have unfortunatley gone through situations that are beyond thier years faceing many deaths in thier families and parents that don't understand or even appreciate them. We are so privileged to have found Jesus so that we do not have to go through these situations alone and so that we can rely on Him to hold us up when we can't feel the solid ground. Take nothing for granted every day is such a blessing and a gift from God. Know that you are His masterpeice and beutiful in His eyes. I'm not sure if that makes sense, whenever I have thoughts its hard for me to get them down on paper so they actually make sense. That's all for now folks! Enjoy the rest of your week :)

Old Testimate Beauty!

So last Monday we finally had our first real acedemic course and it was AMAZING! I don't know how well I will do on this exam on Friday but I feel so much more knowledgeable about the old testimate I actually understand some things that are going on and why they are important. But I am pretty worried about the exam so please join me in prayer so that I will pass this exam with flying colours currently I am not good at school. And as much as I love hanging out with my friends I feel that this reading break isn't long enough for the amount of homework I need to do. So I will spend all my days cooped up in my room reading Epic of Eden and Spiritual Disciplines. Sorry friends I love you so much and if I don't get to see you this week its because of my obssesion of accumalating homework that should have been done weeks ago.
Halloween was bunk since I'm not in the loop of whats going down around town Taylor and I went to the Forest Discovery Center on the Halloween train which was pretty sweet and then we went to my house and watched a movie. I guess I'm just not much of a Halloween fan. But I am SO STOKED FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!
Also its Tee Baines' s birthday so if you see him around today say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEE BAINES!!!