I'm back!

Well, I'm back at Living Faith.  Yay!!!  I had a great, but absolutely crazy busy summer at home, and our extremely slow dial-up internet makes any kind of blogging quite difficult.  Therefore, the fact that I haven't posted anything since...April?  Wow.  That's pathetic.  Oh well.  I'm back now :)

As of right now, I'm taking a course on the Christian family.  Our textbook had some points in it that I do not necessarily agree with, but it also had some very good thoughts.  Basically, a major thought was this:  If we're not willing to die to ourselves--our own wants, desires, and ideas--daily if necessary, then unity in the family is almost impossible.  We have to let God deal with the issues and junk in our personal lives before we can truly have a family that glorifies Him.  Hmm.  Pretty good point, I think...

I love my family.  We are nowhere near perfect, but I know that all of us desire with all our hearts to live for Christ and serve Him.  This picture was taken about five days before I left home...aren't they gorgeous??? :)

I think so.  The little ones are getting so big...which makes me realize how fast time is really passing.  In a few years this entire dynamic could be completely different...spouses, grandchildren...yikes!  I thank my parents for everything they've done for us, and thank God for allowing me to grow up in the Godly family I had.  What a blessing!

Obedience...it's generally the best way.

I had to preach a 5-10 minute sermon in class today.  This was to be instead of a final exam for Communications class, which was basically on preaching and writing papers.  Hence, the aforesaid sermon. 

I've known for weeks what I wanted to speak on--a passage that God has been using to speak to me a lot lately.  It's Jeremiah 1:4-9, 17,19.  I'm not going to quote the entire thing here, but I would encourage you all to read it.  How ironic to get the material for your first sermon from Jeremiah... :S

Basically, it's on being obedient.  At least that's the angle I took on it.  God is telling Jeremiah that He has had a plan for his life since before he was born--He is calling him to be His prophet to the people of Israel.

Honestly, what I love about this passage is that Jeremiah is so human.  Basically, his response goes something like this:  "Oh God, why me?  I'm too young!  I'm inadequate.  I can't do it.  God, I don't think I'm the right person for this job."

Isn't that what we do so many times?  God asks us to do something that is in some way either a little or a lot out of our comfort zones, and we respond with, "Please, God, pick someone else!  I'm so inadequate.  Please don't make me do it!"

God didn't let Jeremiah get away with that response, and I don't think it's any different for us.  When God calls us to do something, we'd better obey.  He probably won't strike us with lightning from heaven immediately if we don't, but I can say with complete confidence that we are the ones going to be suffering for it.  God knows what He's doing.  And He will never ask us to do something that He won't also give us the strength to fulfill.

This is what I've been learning.  And it came true in the preaching of this sermon.  Just another example of something that I didn't think I could do, and God showed me that with His help I could...that's my story.  What's yours?

LYFE!!!!!!

Hey, sorry I haven't posted anything again for a while.  I've been running around like a mad chicken, together with everyone else around here, in preparation for our LYFE (Living Faith Youth Encounter) youth retreat.  But now it's officially over, and we actually have time to relax and SLEEP!! :)

I have to say, it was an absolutely amazing weekend though.  This is now my second youth retreat, and they have both been amazing times with God for me.  Normally, it seems, the Saturday night of the weekend is the night that God really shows up in a powerful way.  Well, this time it already started Friday!  We had an awesome altar call on Friday night, and I got the opportunity to pray for and with another girl, which was a direct answer to MY prayers! :)  The two of us then hung out a lot for the rest of the weekend, and have hopefully formed a lasting friendship.

I had the best group of girls staying in my room too.  Love you Liberty people!

Saturday was an intense day.  Courtney and I did an afternoon workshop together, all about how God loves us just the way we are.  This is something that both of us really needed to hear as well, so we basically just shared bits of our own testimonies, and how God had been speaking to us.  We definitely don't have it figured out either.  We only had six girls show up to the workshop, but it went well and one of them even thanked me for it the next day. 

The evening service was awesome.  The worship band that we have had out for the past few retreats is absolutely incredible, and this retreat was no exception.  They really led us into the presence of God in a powerful way.  After a short break, I was up right away to do a special number with DaeJu, our Korean student.  I hadn't been that thrilled about this when I was first asked (wait, make that "informed." I really didn't have a choice) to do it.  But we got together and practiced just a simple worship song--"This is the Air I Breathe"--that he also knew in Korean.  So we got up there, and DaeJu introduced the song with a little mini-message about how we can't see God, but he is always there.  We were so proud of him, because he is still fairly unsure about his English.  So that was awesome.  Then we sang our song, doing parts of it together in English, parts with DaeJu singing by himself in Korean, and parts where he would sing in Korean while I sang the corresponding part in English.  Those parts were the best.  When we had first decided to do that in practice, we both really felt that it was somehow unifying.  Like the language difference all of a sudden wasn't there, it was just two people in two different tongues singing praise to God.  It was awesome.  DaeJu received thunderous applause at the end, and other people told us that they had really been touched by it too.

Then we had a skit, which talked about giving everything up to God.  After that we had a testimony time where five of us students had been asked to share our testimonies and I was the first one up.  Pretty sure Sean was trying to kill my nerves that night.

Anyway, it was really cool, because a lot of what I shared about had to do with giving everything up to God, and trusting that He loves us and answers our prayers, even when we don't understand.  It was really awesome.

The worship and message last night was absolutely amazing, ending with an altar call for those who wanted to give their lives up more fully to God.  A good number of the people who went forward (including me) were students!  I began to realize just how selfish I've been in wanting attention for myself, and refusing to let go of things that God is asking me to give up.  He has given me an amazing hunger for more of Him, and I hope that never dies.

So anyway, we had an awesome weekend.  Anytime when God shows up like that is bound to be amazing.  I love you God!

A few more pictures...

Lance and Danica, our crazy-awesome MCs

Caleb and Bobby doing a skit.  Great job guys!

Sean.

Leona petitioning to save the clock tower...she tied herself to the

side with ropes.  Yeah.  We had fun. :)

The hardest things in life are usually the best things...

I am in the process of writing a paper right now for the Christian Foundations class we are taking.  The topic I chose out of the numerous options we had was one on doubts.  Basically, you have to choose a spiritual area in which you have experienced/are experiencing doubt, and write about it. 

I chose this topic because I knew I could relate to it, and because it seemed like less research than some of the others :-)  So I'm writing in on my doubts about God answering prayer.

Now this an area that is so fundamental to our faith that it sometimes seems almost heretical to admit to having doubts about it.  But I think it's something that we've all experienced at some point or another, and we may as well admit it.  We pray hard for something that we believe should be right, and it doesn't happen.  Why?  I've struggled with this so many times, and it still doesn't make much sense.

So in that way, this paper is ending up to be a lot harder than I thought.  I have to look into the Scripture and see what the Bible actually says about God answering prayer, and then wrestle with this versus my own experiences.  Is He always faithful, or are there times when He just simply remains silent?  What about when we ask for things the Bible tells us to ask for, like wisdom or guidance, and we still don't seem to be any closer to an answer than before?  Why does God sometimes heal in answer to prayer, and other times not?

So these are some of the questions I'm dealing with in order to write this paper.  I can't say that I've necessarily found the answers.  In my heart I firmly believe that God is faithful and that He does want to answer our prayers, but maybe sometimes we need to be willing to admit that there are things we don't understand, instead of pretending to have it all together when we don't.  I don't know.  Those are my thoughts.  The rest, I guess, is up to Him.

I got pranked!!

Soooo...I love the girls in my dorm.  I really do.  We have become like sisters throughout the last half year, but dare I say...they are an interesting bunch!  Amy and I in particular have a very interesting relationship.  Our personalities are opposite in a lot of ways, but we also have numerous traits in common, one being that we both have a mischievous streak! 

Amy was on the opposite tour team from me, and I was in the dorm by myself for numerous days while their team was gone.  So one day I went into her room and pulled all the socks out of her drawer and hid them in random and varied places around the room!  She came back, and very quickly guessed that it was me.  Our team then left for tour, and she texted me halfway through that she was still finding socks!

I had a feeling that this was not going to go without retribution on her part.  I got back from tour fully expecting my room to have been sabotaged in some way, only to find out that it hadn't.  However, she told me to be expecting something.  Oh dear. 

Two days after we got back, I woke up Wednesday morning and left my room in the dark.  Attempted to, that is.  I opened the door, only to nearly run into a wall of toilet paper rolls that went halfway up the doorway!  A multitude of other rolls lay scattered across the hall.  Yeah. 

I carefully removed a couple of rolls so I could step over the wall, then went to have devotions in Charis' room like I do every morning.  Her mischievous smirk told me that she was not completely innocent, either.  Turns out she, Danica and Amy had stayed up till twelve the night before to make sure I was asleep, and then stacked 118 rolls of toilet paper in front of my door.  Apparently the wall had once reached to the top of the doorway, but at some point during the night half of it had toppled over, fortunately for me.  This is what it looked like when I found it:

Yeah.  So I was forced to clean up 118 rolls of toilet paper, while being threatened with extra work detail for hucking a few of them at Amy as she came out of her room.  She will be paying for this at some point.  Oh, the joys.

Back from tour...

We just got back from tour!!!!!!!  Well, I don't know whether it's really as exciting as all that.  I had an amazing team and an amazing trip, and being back means homework.  Bummer.

But let me explain a little of what we did.  The student body was divided into two teams that went out into different areas to perform a children's production called "The Disappearance of Dr. Withers."  Since both teams were using the same set and the same van, we had to go out one after the other.  So the first team left end of February to go to Montana, Idaho, Washington and B.C.  They got back on March 4, and our team left March 5 for Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The production was geared for children, with a very strong salvation message.  We had so much fun!  I got to play the part of Mrs. Hopewell, a strict, stern school principal who has a bit of a fun side to her as well.  I had a blast getting to develop that character and show her funny little quirks.  It was awesome, and....I have pictures!  Yay!!

This is our set, with most of the characters during a scene.  Dr. Withers, Mrs. Hopewell, Dawn, Terri, Randy(yes he is a giant raccoon) and Tony.

This is me having to dance with the giant raccoon...yeah, don't ask :)

This is Arthur the Scottish mouse who lives in the wall of the school, and his random fuzzy wall-dwelling friend...I did say this was a children's production, right?

This is Dr. Withers leading Harry, the Australian school custodian, to Jesus.  Yes, the puppet does get saved...

So those are a few clips of our production.  The other aspects of tour were pretty awesome too for the most part.  I was constantly being bugged about the flatness of Manitoba by my Albertan and British Columbian schoolmates...yeah.  Didn't have much of a defense for that one.  I did, however, take a valiant stand for the honor of my province!!!  :)

Here are a couple other random tour pictures:

This is a shot I got of everybody--and I mean everybody--except Jill and me in the front seat and the two drivers, completely zonked out.  I thought it was pretty cool. :)

Our leader Sean had a birthday while we were on tour, and one of the girls had packed and brought along a cake for him.  He wanted to have a piece, but couldn't very well fork it himself while driving.  So Jill, who was sitting behind him, took it upon herself to fork-feed him.  This is a shot of the interesting scenario this made...

Phil and Lance had a lengthy conversation via banana-phones...while sitting right beside each other...is this what tour does to you???

One of the tour highlights for me was getting to stop at Cornerstone, my home church.  Sean had Matthew, Karissa and Amanda completely enthralled with his little magnetic balls...I thought it was so cute!

This is our group plus a bunch of church people from Ste. Anne, MB, our last stop.

So yeah, that was tour.  We had an amazing time, and our team actually still liked each other by the end of it!  We definitely sensed God's presence and protection with us all along the way, so that was pretty amazing.







Wow, I'm bad at this.  Need to get on that again.  2nd semester has now started full force.  We're taking an Old Testament Survey course, which is basically covering the entire Old Testament in a three-week block.  It's intense.  The course is amazing, but there is homework due almost every day, which makes it a little overwhelming.  I read almost the entire book of 2 Samuel today, and still have 1 Kings and half of 2 Kings to have done by Tuesday.  It shall be fun.

Christmas back home was awesome!!!!!  It was so nice to see my family again, but it made me realize that I will now forever be torn between Alberta and Manitoba.  I miss my family when I'm here, but being home made me realize how much Living Faith has become a family to me too.  I guess that means I can be happy either place, right?

The year is going great though.  I can honestly say that I have never had as intense a period of growing in my life as I have the last five months.  Right now I'm struggling a little bit with what to do next year, and where God actually wants me.  I know He has a plan for my life, and I think He is slowly revealing it to me.  We'll see where that goes.

More soon!
Alicia