I am Human.

Heyo!

I can't believe it's nearly been a month. :) Work has been garbage, but that's for another day. Time does fly when you repress stress and anger and suffering. But time also flies when you're living what feels like a dream. And that's what I want to focus more on right now. :P I can't believe I have a boyfriend and I can't believe it's been nearly a month with him.

So, ya. :P It's been a wild ride. In the last month I've been more honest and open with what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking and just being real. It's been so insanely good. Like, I don't have words for it. And for the most part it's been so wholesome too. :) He bought me sunflowers. We went to the art gallery. We cooked together a bunch. We've walked so many miles together holding hands. We ate fresh baked goods. We watched fireworks three times. We just sat in peace on benches, and beaches, and rocks, and couches, and buses. We've spent probably an hour just staring into each others' eyes. When I'm with him I don't want to be anywhere else. :) 

Most of my friends are from work (Starbucks), or from church. And it's basically been the same story every time I tell people: coworkers - suuuuper excited for me; church friends - kinda awkward, don't quite know what to say, express their love and care for me, confusion based on my previous statements in past years, varying degrees of communicating they don't exactly agree with what I'm doing. And that's ok. I wish the conversations with coworkers went deeper more regularly. They generally stay pretty shallow. Excitement. Asking about him and details about dates and date ideas and stuff. So, like, I love my coworkers, but I feel like I really appreciate the depth of conversation and the conflict happening in my Christian friends. Not only are they reassuring me that they care about me, but they are all expressing that through how they decide to approach the subject matter. Do they ask more about him? Do they ask me how I feel? Do they ask how my thoughts and convictions have changed? Do they express their thoughts? Do they invite me to dinner to better discuss it? All of those ways are them expressing they care and love me, just in different ways, and I'm so happy I've got so many people that are willing to stay engaged and show their care for me. It's given me time to think. It's given me questions to address. It's given me space to figure out my own thoughts and turn them into words. I know there are people there to hear me out, and people I can go to when I need someone to talk to. I'm so incredibly blessed and thankful for this place I'm in now and how much support I truly have.

More internally though, I feel like I'm allowed to live. I feel like I'm allowed to express what I'm thinking and feeling. I feel like I'm ok and don't have to pretend to be someone else. 

And like, maybe you're reading that and thinking "ya. obviously." but like, I've spent so many years hating my thoughts, hating who I was, hating that I couldn't change this, hating that I had to always pretend and fake and censor myself. I know I don't have to tell everyone every thing. But the freedom to be real as topics come up. The freedom to be ok and acknowledge feelings and thoughts. The freedom to not know what to do, but know that whatever happens things will be ok; that I will be ok. That's what it feels like and it's incredible. There's such an intense and heavy weight of shame that I don't have to carry right now, or anymore ideally, regardless of what happens in the end. I am me. And that's ok. Jesus calls people to himself as they are, he heals and forgives and empowers to live for him. I still need to figure that out. I've not had much free time between work madness and stress, and SH joy and bliss. :P I've got time off, I've got vacations planned in the coming month. But again, that shame. It's ok that I struggle with this and am wrestling with what to do.

I'm gonna copy and paste something I wrote a few years ago. I don't think it was the worst day of my life, but it's the one day that I most clearly remember hating being me. There've been a lot of days over the past 10 years where I'd be tempted and hate my thoughts and my imagination and everything and like go to my bed and just attempt to block it all out. Sometimes there'd be a lot of internal yelling, a lot of desperate prayer, sometimes some kicking, sometimes some crying. I hated that this was me and it felt like I was wrong. But on this particular day it felt super bad. (As I'm writing this I haven't re-read it yet.)

Background: I'm in Japan. Me and four other young adults from my church have gone to help teach English to help a church in Northern Tokyo share the good news about Jesus with children and the elderly and anyone who came to the church for English lessons. Our other friend had been there all year doing similar things. We were there just for a week for a summer camp kind of thing. Me, knowing Japan somewhat from anime, knows that hot springs are a thing and are definitely a tourist destination. Generally, Japan doesn't think anything wrong with nudity in such instances and the baths are separated for men and women. So, the chances if I said nothing were high that our team would go and I'd be forced to decide in the moment not to participate; not to go to the baths with the other men on the team or from the church (whatever may happen). So I told them in Canada "I do not want to go to any hot springs. Do not take me to the hot springs." Or something to that effect. So, you would imagine how annoying it was that for our like one full free day they planned with the church to have us drive way out to the hot springs. The whole day sucked (in my memory. Still haven't read it yet). The drive up: dreading it. The lunch beforehand: didn't want to eat. Onsen time: sat outside. And this is where I wrote the following:

"12:37 august 1.

I'm actually so sad right now. Everyone is going to go to onsen and I can't. I don't know what I will do. I don't know how I will feel then. But right now I feel like the worst. Like I'm less than a normal person. But I know I don't want to see anything I wouldn't want to see. So I know it is a better choice. I'm definitely not in a place today where I could go to onsen and be OK. But this feeling sucks.

Aug 2 on the plane.

Honestly yesterday sucked. I felt like it was a complete waste of time to drive so many hours for me to just sit and wait while others bathed in the springs. I was very annoyed by a few other things too. What is permissible is not always beneficial. To sit out was the better choice. Unfortunately I chose to give in to temptation earlier. God had provided so much and I don't want to keep living this way. Even if it is hard I want to do all I can to change the future.

God's steadfast love is better than life.

That is how the verse goes. That is what I want to experience. That is what I want to see. But I feel so torn when it feels like I need something I know I don't need. When the desires of the flesh scream for attention and demand obedience.

I seem to have convinced myself that I do need those things.

When I think of how following God will mean never experiencing so many things. Never fulfilling so many desires. Never knowing the things I don't know. I feel deep sadness.

But the steadfast love of God is greater than life.

Better than any sin or otherwise. If I have to give up the world of sin it would be worth it. If I had to give up the world it would still be worth it. If I had to give up everything it would still be worth it.

But I've convinced myself that the fleeting pleasures of sin are greater than life and worth dying for.

That is craziness.

Like actually. Read that sentence. I've convinced myself that fulfilling a curiosity and fantasy or desire is so valuable that I'd give up God's eternal love in exchange for fleeting pleasure and eternal wrath.

That is madness.  "

Hmmmmm. Not exactly what I thought I had written. I like, literally cried myself to sleep waiting outside the baths. I thought I would have gone into more detail about not feeling like a person. "I feel like the worst. like less than a normal person." less than a person. that's how I always felt when this came up. I saw myself in monsters in shows I watched. I related more to them than the normal human protagonists. There was so much brokenness and shame just at the idea of thinking about having a boyfriend, or legitimately anything smaller than that. At just a single tempting thought I'd be spiraling into shame and self-hate and desperation to be anything or anyone other than myself.

And that's gone.

I'm human. I'm totally and utterly human. I do and will make mistakes. I'm free to have these thoughts and know that they don't define me. Who I am is deeper than what I think or say or do. Obviously I want those things to align with who I want to be. Who I want to be might be the question on the table now. Not entirely sure. But I know for sure I do not want to carry around shame and self-hatred. 

The stuff from on the plane though. This is what I'm now having to wrestle with. "God's steadfast love is better than life. ... that is what I want to experience." I still feel like that. I think anyways. But the problem is the dissonance between the statement and the feeling. Over the past few years I'd been thinking like "what do I need from God that will fulfill this temptation in a positive meaningful way?" like if I feel this desire so badly day in and day out there must be an answer. As I'd regularly say in sharing the gospel we all have a God-shaped hole in our hearts, thirst leads us to water, our other desires we try to fulfill through sin are there to lead us to their complete satisfaction in God. Or something to that effect. But I couldn't figure out what I needed. And it felt like week after week God was getting more silent or further away as I was asking for help, asking to know what intimacy with God looked like, asking for satisfaction in Him. But each day that would go by unsatisfied and emptier the more I'd think I needed to change something. Lately I've been thinking like "if God really wants me to not have a boyfriend and to not struggle with these things, He needs to be the one to supply the strength to overcome it. Otherwise He needs to supply the grace to live in brokenness." Or something like that. Idk.

Like I said, I need to spend some more time thinking and reading and praying through the topic more. 

I've never felt more whole.

But the question is am I giving up eternity for this bliss? Is there a way that it can work together? I can't go back to hating myself day in and day out. I want the best for both me and SH. I can't promise the future. I can't promise anything until I figure this out, but at least I'm alive and I'm moving forward, whereas before I was static and unwilling to move in any direction slowly feeling more and more empty. 

Jesus, show me again who you are and your grace. Lead me in truth and help me figure out what you need from us. Help us experience your lavish grace and love. Give me fresh faith and help me show your love to those around me.

Light in the Darkness

God is faithful.

Even in the midst of our darkest times, He shows up. He calls out. He proclaims salvation to the broken and to the hopeless He makes a way.

God gave me the chance to go to Urbana 2018 last December and if I hadn't gone I don't know where I would be now. But that's a story for another time. ;P One thing though: we were studying the book of Revelation. And one session we were looking at Revelation 18 and focusing on the call in verse 4: "Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of [Babylon], my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues."" From the study and context it is not Babylon literally, so much as figuratively. To the churches Revelation was written to, Babylon was the Roman Empire and various aspects of the culture they felt compelled to compromise with in order to prosper or gain some sort of benefit, whether it was trade guild idolatry, or other things which would allow them to fit in rather than face persecution or exclusion. Reflecting on that we were called to think through what ways we compromise with the world and culture around us and how we need to repent and turn back to God and His ways (in light of who Jesus was revealed to be and His worth :P).

Anyways, in light of that thought, my interaction with my coworkers the other day has drawn me to reflect on God's graces and mercies.

We were having a board game potluck night thing at a coworker's condo. Lots of talking. Lots of food. Good times. Our boss was there too. She's the best. :D We played code names and had lots of fun. Later when people were leaving a game that had been on the table all night was brought up to be played. "Cards Against Humanity". :P It's a pretty bad game. Really not appropriate content for younger people. It's essentially an adult version of "Apples to Apples", but like, really bad, mostly sexual content. Reaaaaaaally not life-giving or enriching in any way. I knew it was bad, but I had never played, and thought, well, if no one else was going to play somethign else, I might as well play? 

I think I probably should have said no. :/ Even if it meant being a little weird, it may have been a better idea. We are called out of Babylon. Not to stand at the edges. What happened to Lot? His heart slowly was drawn to the things of Sodom and he lost his wife and everything he thought was worth pursuing. 

The grace though. One of the cards was "what makes life worth living?" and I had "The Holy Bible" in my hand. :] I didn't care that I wouldn't win that round. I had to do it. God is what makes life meaningful. Had I never read of His faithfulness and all He had done through the cross to bring me true life I don't know what I'd be doing. His faithfulness to call me out of the darkness is so much greater than I frequently see and so much more than I can imagine. I pray He uses the time I spent building relationship for His glory and even the testimony the next time when I say I'd rather not play to speak truth and love to them.

May I have eyes to see Him and ears to hear Him everyday. :]

D.Fa

大大前天 和 大前天

Ok, I've been pretty buried in light work recently. I've also been not at home during the time I normally blog, so ya. This will be a summary..?

Thursday:
I honestly don't remember much about Thursday. >.> I'm pretty sure it was a jam packed day of classes and labs. I think I wasted a lot of time again on facebook and youtube and was really feeling guilty and upset with myself for all of the time I have wasted this week. I still had a lab report due on Friday and I really hadn't done very much of it. By this point I was hoping to have been done and able to start the next lab report which was due monday. I don't think I stayed up too late..?

Friday:
I walked to school because I had planned on not biking home. My first discipling with LT. He had bought a new camera app for his new phone. Well, he also had this really cool smart alarm clock app that measures how much you roll around while sleeping and from that tells when you are in REM, light or deep sleep and wakes you up when you are almost awake up to half an hour before your actual alarm time. It seems really cool. We started going over my personal development plan. As JW knows, I'm not always the most responsive or thoughtful person, and when it got to the question about which verse or promise you'd like to claim for the year, or which command or exhortation to keep in mind, I had nothing. I prayed about it. I had two phrases come to mind: 'feed my sheep' and 'keep in step with the Spirit'. >.< Hmmm... LT thought that the first one might have something to do about loving God more, which is definitely something I need to grow in. I really don't know why these came to mind. I hadn't read those verses in a while. I intend to reread them soon.

I then left to go to my meeting with KC. Today's lesson was about our relationship and fellowship with God. Our relationship as children of God, offered to all who believe, is not broken ever. However, unconfessed sin can break our fellowship with God. When it came to 'repentance' and the definition given being 'a change in attitude which will result in a change of action', I asked if he could give an example. He, ya, didn't think the same way I was asking the question, I meant, like based on this definition is there a 'real-life' (meaning not sin-related) example that fits it? So, I gave this example about how I use microwavable plastic containers. My housemates keep telling me how it's not healthy. My change in attitude towards the plastic containers would lead to me not using them anymore. (Fyi, my attitude to microwaveable plastic containers has not changed, so kinda a bad example, but anyways...) I'm excited to continue meeting with him and I really hope God changes him and does great things through him.

Chem lab- shorter than usual.

Then I got to help LT carry pumpkins into the C4C weekly meeting room. Then I was official greeter. !!! Two of the guys I followed up with back in the beginning of September finally came to Weekly Meeting!!! Not that this is the only way to get involved, but it's the fastest way of integrating, making new friends, seeing what C4C is about and feeling the full experience. BS and MdS! Anyways, during Weekly meeting JB gave her first talk. Later we carved pumpkins! They were really cool and it was a lot of fun. Then we smashed two of the four pumpkins because no one wanted them. We went to Loeb and stood on the roof and dropped them like two floors. XP (We cleaned it up.)

Then me and AL bussed to EE's house. She was having a movie marathon. One reason we went was actually just so that we had somewhere we could be during another video chat with our EA family. This was done mainly for MC who wasn't able to join us last time, however, she couldn't join us again. lol. I got to see PW finally!!!!!!!!!!!!! T.T Typing this right now is making me tear too... I swear, that was like the saddest moment ever (recently), leaving her alone at the hotel and bussing to the airport without really having a good goodbye... and she was crying... T.T But she was her happy, crazy, super asian self again. T.T (tears of joy) We'll need to do it again for MC and because not everyone was on at once. xP

So, in the end, at EE's I ate a pile of candy (my main meal of the day), watched part of 'Psycho' and the start of 'the Shining', video chatted in EE's room, and slept through the rest of 'The Shining'... lol... We got a drive home from AL's nocturnal (I'm exagerating) dad at like 4am.

(more summary to come later)

I was offered a Gatorade, so I guess it's okay.

When you are a mover, as I learned from Seinfeld, you are supposed to be offered a drink. One guy actually did offer us some of his gatorades.

Anyways, today I had a whole day, whole body workout. This was accomplished by day 1 of students moving into residence at Carleton. Frosh Facils apparently bond and cheer and act over the top this weekend in preparation for frosh week. Well, actually, the majority of people in res are frosh, so this is technically frosh week now. >.>

So. The way this worked was I woke up early, walked to school, waited at the meeting place, and then the day began. We would all eagerly await the cars that would pull up. Then we'd chant 'Pop That Trunk!' with claps on the words. Cheer enthusiastically as it popped open. Ask where it was going, then take an armful of stuff. Drag it up the stairs, or wait for the elevator (in which case we'd practice being sardines. literally sealed and packaged with oil) and get to their door. We'd then have a drum roll as they reach for their keys and go to swipe. As it opens, more enthusiastic cheering. Welcoming and kind words as we unload and leave. Run down the stairs. Redo.

At the start of the day I was not happy about being there. I was not happy about not knowing anyone on my team.

Hauling massive amounts of clothes, water bottles and various other stuff all over the res was a lot of fun. I went to Prescott, Renfrew, Lanark, Frontenac and Leeds! When I went to Leeds (which is on the other side of the campus basically) it was to help an international student from India who had just got to school from the airport after a 36 hour flight! I'm really glad that Carleton has an ISC to help International Students.

Umm. Ya. By the end of the day I was so pumped to be out there and just meet these first year students! I'm really glad I have signed up for the Language Exchange Program and the Orientation Mentorship Program! I'm really excited to get out there and start mentoring and maybe even discipling first year guys!

I also got to see three of my friends and help them move in. DK, SC and CC.

Anyways, I need to sleep again. I also need to buy books eventually... >.> When? Who knows. >.>

Ttyl.

D.Fa

PS. I think it's pretty awesome that I didn't burn out today. 9 hours of hard labour and having a smile on my face the whole time. I didn't have breakfast either. lol. Thank God for getting me through it!

PPS. My mom is going home tomorrow. Pray for her. She's going to be very weak. She's been in a bed for nearly two weeks. Very thankfully, however, she is going home and the whole problem with [prescription/over the counter] drugs and stuff is worked out and she should be way better off than she was before.

VBS!

Yo, I got back in Ottawa a little bit ago.

VBS was kinda really intense. 5 days from 7:30am to 8 or 8:30 in the church. Only 4 teachers. A godsent 5 youth volunteers and a bunch of aunties and uncles. It was a sprint from one thing to the next, but the youth really helped give us some breaks. Whenever we felt really tired, they were there taking our places.

Truly God has been answering prayers all week. We got the 10 kids we needed. I got stretched into doing things I wouldn't have. We had our great weather for the park trip. The church was really encouraged by this VBS. The youth, which are now five kids instead of three are really solid and are all great friends now, so much so that the church is looking for a youth worker so that they can grow.

Last day was good. Finding the day's mission involved popping massive amounts of balloons, so we blew a lot up and a bunch of people (after RL did it first) drew faces and stuff on them. He made them emotionally connect with balloons we were gonna pop. >.< One girl was like 'No. Don't pop the blue one!' and the girl who was currently popping hit that one really hard. >.<

The kids weren't really paying attention during the story.

They answered all the questions during the review game though. Poor FY... He answered all the right answers, but gave away all his points. >.> For a ten year old, he really knows a lot about the Bible. And I love his accent. lol. He did win the game even if it was a close one and everyone got prizes anyways, because the point of the game is not who knows the most or has the most points, but that they all know God loves them and sent Jesus to die for their sins, raising him from the grave and giving us the choice to become children of God.

I'm apparently too good at playing 'graveyard'.

We watched the end of the Incredibles. Then we started filling water balloons. lol. Mine were all full. The girls however didn't really make them big enough. We went to the park for water games. RL was getting pretty angry at anyone who soaked him. lol.

We got back and it was almost time for the open house. They made some fruit kabobs. I gave them their prizes (candy) and then it was time for a summarized presentation to some parents and friends of the kids. Super Cooper had his final showing. Maintenance Mac had a summary of all the missions and Bible stories. The kids all sang and danced for everyone (so cute!). AL did a gospel spotlight / rope trick which went very well. Then we had dinner with everyone although we became slightly segregated. There were four tables and it was mainly parents, kids, youth then Ottawa...

Such great changes this week though. M(?) voluntarily popcorn prayed Friday morning! A(?) prayed for the lunch. The volunteers all really bonded. The kids grew too and we grew.

I think I love Charis EFree Church now. I didn't really want to leave. I wanted to be able to help more with outreach and discipling (not that I know much). But I can't really just drop everything and live in Scarborough. >.>

Modern Family with RL and MC. So good.

Today was sleeping in until 8. Packing. Breakfast. Debreif. Prayer. Lunch. Egg Tart! Playing with Tina who bit me a lot. >.< Then off to the bus station. The bus was significantly late.

Slept most of the bus ride. Read the rest of it.

Grandma made us a lot of Baozi. <3

I'm gonna miss Scarborough.

D.Fa

PS. Pray for my mom. She has basically been a slave to prescription medication and over the counter drugs for a while and since she has been in the hospital to look at her stomach, the doctors, seeing all the medication she was taking looked into it and she had been overdosing. A lot. So she's off all of them right now. A drug holiday, and she is suffering from withdrawl right now. She's a little bit out of it. I know that God got her to go to the hospital for a reason. Pray for her.

The Letter B.

So, I just wasted like an hour and a half and I will now explain using B words:

Broom
Blue Bin
Bored
Borrowed
Bb gun
Bb
Beer cans (root)
Bull's eye
Bounce
Behave
Broom
Better
Blog

Anyways, I have a limited vocabulary. Deal with it. Also, I wasn't supposed to touch those bb guns, so don't tell JK. Also, RL is scared of anything that might hurt him. Also, I feel like guns are way cooler now, but I will still continue to refuse to play Halo.

Ttyl.

D.Fa

Back to 'Reality'..?

Hey, so as I'm sure you know, this weekend was Getaway!

It was, in two words, very good. In more than two words it sounds like I memorized a pamphlet (apparently).

I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with high school aged people and got to play a lot of worship music. I got to hear about how we can hear God's voice better and I got to see how great all the kids were. I mean grade 10 students were leading small group devotionals and were really discussing and not just sitting there. I don't think there was even a split second where something was bad. Sure the camp was a little muddy and sure it was a little cold, but it wasn't raining, it wasn't snowing, and we all could just focus on God and worshiping / listening to Him.

Late night worship was absolutely the best thing ever, even if it was kinda poorly planned. It was Spirit led and all the kids sang Not Be Shaken without even having slides up. Best thing ever Singing God's praises with all your heart at night in a big sweaty room with a large crowd. Worship songs are always so much better in person when you can feel the Spirit moving rather than in recordings.

I really dislike how I have procrastinated all this school work so that I pretty much have to do it nonstop until Friday, but then I will have more time, right? No. not really. I just need to prioritize better. God should always be at the top of my list of priorities. If I turned all my procrastinating time into God time I'd be in a much better position.

This weekend I have really felt that I should be more actively involved in ministry. I'm always just sitting back and following whoever is leading or just not putting enough work in. I'm not a high schooler anymore.

Also, I have felt that it would be amazing if SZ was more like R(?). R(?) reminds me of SZ except for the fact that I've never seen SZ talk about or carry around a Bible (not that I've heard R(?) say anything about the Bible). So, I have felt that I should pray for SZ, that he would come to know God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit in his life.

Ya, those are the two main things that I felt this weekend. Pastor Rob also was very encouraging and now I've memorized another verse. Psalm 118:17 "I will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done."

Through Jesus' death on the cross, God has taken away our sins, which lead us to death, and has given us His righteousness and the chance to know God personally, which is eternal life. I will not fall to sin, but with God's help live a life that is pleasing to Him that glorifies His name.

That's all for now I guess.

Ttyl.

D.Fa

PS. I need to have a conversation about discernment.

I have been saved.

So, ya.

Today was a major stress and I would be dead right now if it were not for a few people.

If you would like to skip that giant beast of a paragraph, feel free to, but it has a lot of the details of how I am still alive and more specifics, I think... xP

I woke up this morning at 6am knowing full well that I had barely scratched the surface of a 12 page bio lab. I went to bed at 12 knowing that my computer hates me and would not allow microsoft office to work. So, on the off chance that my housemates had left one of their laptops on the main floor I woke up early (This is in direct contradiction to one of my 'resolutions' I posed back in January to not borrow without asking that I still have not been doing... I have borrowed tweezers, tooth paste, laptops, guitars, ice cream, a bedroom, CD player, printer, laundry basket, frozen vegetables, margarine, towel, a matress, a blanket, herbs, a laptop charging cable thing, an xbox, a device for shaving, ummm I don't know what else... but I digress. This is in paratheses.) in an attempt to borrow one of their laptops. Since this did not happen, I quickly tried to do some of the Intro for my lab on a draft for a blog post (which I don't think will be posted..? o.0) because it could be transferred between computers. In any case I run off to school on the bus. I get to the computer lab in Steacie building and holed myself up there until everything was done. At 10:30 my support coach for East Asia PRoject was going to call me and talk for like half an hour. He was too busy, Thank God. I had been budgeting my time, kinda, and I knew that at 1 I'd be kicked out for a class that uses the lab. It was like 1:20 and still I was there. Thank God. lol. I was not done yet and relocating wouldn't have sped up the process. So, I thought I'd need like 5 minutes maybe to get to class (starting at 1:30) and so when 1:30 passed I was like dang, I'm gonna need to finish ASAP. Going as fast as possible I managed to finish to a satisfactory level and went to print it. Guess what? PRINTER JAM! WHAT!??! I spent 4$ on a printer jam! with only 1$ left on my campus card, ie not enough to actually pay for the new copy I'd have to buy at another printer somewhere.......... On top of which it was now 1:40 and I think that 'if you are more than 15 minutes late to a lab you cannot enter' and must do a make-up or fail or something. So with all this stress (because I had no idea how to unjam the printer which is locked in a plexiglas cage with a padlock) I suddenly thought of the Integrated Science Centre room or whatever it is that DK had shown me only once before. You just (as an integrated science student which I am not) bring paper to the room and you can print (double sided is an option) for FREE! So I ran off there (and just so happened to leave my laptop charging cable there, as I have just found out at 9pm.) and freaked out because I was so late.... I then had to ask to borrow paper from people I don't know. This girl gave me some. I rushed to print everything. I got to about the 5th last page and no one in the room had any more paper. I had to ask again and they told me to ask one of the profs or whatever they are that have rooms in that hall. The woman the next door over gave me a huge pile of paper. So, I managed to print it all. Thank God. I then sprint to the bio lab. I got there just as the lab coordinator was finishing describing how to do the lab that I had not prepared for at all. My lab partner has been, no offense, utterly useless in helping me with the labs. I mean she just doesn't get things very quickly. I'm sure if I got to know her better we would be in a better situation. In anycase, this week we were in groups of four, thank God, and they seemed to know what they were doing. Not really, but it gave me time to figure out what we were doing. lol. This lab had no actual experimentation, so it was a really quick lab. Thank God. I had earlier planned to work on my resume with CW in Rooster's after my lab, so I ran off to there. I needed this resume ASAP for a summer job that I was already a week behind in applying for and now that I had sent an email and He had responded I really had to send a resume. CW is like the best older brother ever. Thank God that he is in my life. lol.. He has been really useful for a lot of things. Not only because he is in English and that is my worst subject, but also in encouraging me in my walk with God and just everything. So, we (he) worked on that for like an hour and a half. I then ate breakfast (5:30pm a few granola bars). CW left to go home and study. Then I realized I had like 15 minutes until my bio lab was due (electronic submission in addition to the hard copy, I know really..?) so I ran off to the computer lab again and did that. Thank God CW left... lol we could have been there another hour. Anyways, I had been planning on helping SC with his Japanese film that night. I was gonna skip Discipleship group and just help him. He ended up being too sick. That is too bad, but in a way, I got to go to DG and hear the end of the prodigal son parable and I learned some neat things. more about prodigal son later maybe, summary, younger brother takes inheiritance from his father who isn't dead yet and wastes it all. He comes back ready to beg to be a slave because they live well enough. His dad comes running to him when he comes home and prepares the fatted calf for a celebration. The older brother who had been working hard for years is kinda confused, jealous, angry among other things that he never had a young goat to celebrate with his friends. Their dad comforts him by saying that everything he has is his son's and that it is good to celebrate because the younger brother was dead but is now alive again, he was lost but now is found. Thank God that I got to go to DG and just hang out with MW, DJ, CV, RM and DL. I havn't actually been to DG/C4C in like a couple weeks and can't go on Friday either, so I thought it might be kinda like I'm dropping out or something. In any case they really encouraged me. God too. I mean I had never thought about it that way. I'm just no good at individual Bible study, I mostly just read. So, ya. I went off to my parents for dinner. Free leftovers, thank God. Then JW finally called and I talked for a while and used the computer my brother had been using for his Anthro project until I high-jacked it. There is a lot of stuff I need to do ASAP for project. I mean if I don't do anything, then I definately can't go right..? Anyways, I am now at home borrowing JK's charging cable for my laptop. It's a good thing they are interchangeable, thank God. Also, after thought: Thank God I didn't have work this morning. >.>

So, summary: I made a lot of plans for today. Things I thought would be good. Prioritizing because it was on my schedule of things to do, and guess what. Most if not all of those plans fell through, but for the best. God's plan for my life is far better than mine. Thank God that he is on our side. If we were His enemies it would be like trying to swim up a waterfall. It's not gonna happen. But because He loves us and is patient with us He overlooks our selfishness and helps us to do what He wants us to do. He gently calls us back. He will never force you to do something against your will. If anything had been different today I would be in a Much worse position than I am. I know that there is a lot to do this week, but with God's help I will be able to pull through and get to where I am supposed to be, where God wants me to be.

God has saved me from my sins and has helped me continue moving forward.

(I already have 50 names on this piece of paper. Just because the average age is around 18 is kinda sketchy though.... lol.)

D.Fa

Bulk Barn Punch

TODAY!

T is for Trifle
O is for OCBC
D is for Dylan wearing a bow tie
A is for Asia
Y is for YA

So, today was pretty amazing and there is no way I can summarize into a cheesy acrostic, so I will elaborate a bit.

First was Sunday school, then church, then we played and recorded this amazing song that I will not go into detail about, but I could have played it all day I love it. lol. Then we went to McD's. I played with TONKA trucks. We went to PETAG and by peer pressure I ended up wearing a bowtie. It was a pretty sweet bowtie I'm not gonna lie.

We then went back to the church to start setting up. FYI, I am not a neatfreak, I am a freak who is neat. This is the most interesting type of person. Anyways, I swept and mopped the whole sr. parlour and then we set up tables and got the food and all that and when I got back it looked so nice. I then got to have the most fun ever serving buns to the married couples. I had to ask if the were having the fish and chips. If yes the response was 'your fries will be coming with you meal later'. If no, I was to ask if they would like a white or whole wheat bun. I played this up for a while until I got to AW and DW at that point AW was just cracking up and so I also cracked up.

Anyways, we made the salads and put the entrees on plates and made the deserts and it was a lot of fun being a waiter. I wish I was a waiter for real. It was a lot of fun.

We got pizza and leftovers for supper.

I also got a call from JC, a C4C staff in Toronto, about my project application. I don't have any medical things, so it appeared as if I had just not seen them becuase I didn't write anything, so they wanted me to verify that I had seen it by actually answering them. It was also a bit about the confidential question about purity and clarifying some stuff. The main point is I'm going to East Asia for 6 weeks on a missions trip! Yay!

Also, I recently found my testimony that I shared at a C4C weekly meeting a long time ago, in late October..? So, look forward to that.

Also, I got so many random comments about this sweater and the bowtie and my haircut today. 1 I hate the sweater. 2. It's just a bowtie. and 3. It's just a bit of hair.

Ya.

ttyl.

D.Fa

Update.

So, many things hapened today. Not really, but ya, a lot has suddenly happened and I shall breifly summarize you with an update.

-Friends, so good.
-Bio
-Quiditch!
-Chem
-Creeped Aquaintance
-Oasis
-Stumble Upon
-Prayer Meeting
-CU Frosh Facil..?
-Weekly Meeting
-AFTER PARTY!
-Fireworks! BOOM!
-Beavertails! YUM!
-Heart of Worship! SUNG!
-...McDs......
-BUS!
-Blog!
-Instant Noodles FTW.
-Sleep.

D.Fa

The Peace of God

Hey.

So you know how I was away at Winter Conference last week..? Well, ya. I was. xP

You know how it was so amazing?? Well, ya. It was. xP

My point is shrouded somewhere within these last two sentences. My point was that Winter Conference was soooo great. 24/7 no worries. I got to sleep. I got to eat asian food. I got to sing. I got to hang out with my friends. I got to play volleyball. I got to dance. I got to go to an amazing new years eve party. It was just so cool, not to mention how God affected me during that week. There was absolutely no stress that whole week.

I have recently come back to the reality of school and work. I don't mean to complain about all this stuff, but ya... It just hit me like a pile of bricks. I had to suddenly buy books, buy school supplies, figure out having two part-time jobs, having 30 hours of school a week, having YA, DG, C4C, church, worship practices. I also had to lead worship this week, I have to buy food, I had to start doing pre-labs, preclass quizzes, assignments.... I was applying to go on project. I just had a lot flying around on my schedule... I was starting to really stress about it.

I was planning on going to this EFCC conference this Friday and Saturday. When I went to check my schedule for next week I discovered that I had two shifts. Saturday and Sunday 6:30-2....... There was literally no one left to take my shift...... Now I was starting to really stress................. I really hate talking to my boss...

That night I went to YA. Actually... I ran from work to home to YA. I was really stressing........

When CW showed up to YA he asked how I was and I told him. This is an advantage to actually answering questions. CW told me to pray about it. I realized I actually hadn't.

That night at various times my schedule was prayed for two or three times.

The next morning, after finding KC in Loeb Cafe (xP), I called my boss. Honestly, my boss is a God send. He always fixes my schedule if I ever ask him. He is willing to change the whole week's schedule so that everyone gets the time off that they want. So I called and he said he'd deal with it.

With that off of my schedule I could focus on all the other junk.

I ended up spending a lot of time just playing guitar and singing.

Before I realized it it was Saturday. What I didn't realize was that I hadn't been stressed since Thursday night at the beginning of YA. After praying about it I was no longer stressed, my schedule got worked out and I got a lot of work done.

Ya. Everything works out if you pray about it. xP

I need to pray about going to Asia. I talked to my parents breifly and they need more information than I already have... xP I discovered in that conversation that I knew very little about what I actually will be doing. xP

Ttyl.

D.Fa

PS. The Phillipines!! w00t!

"The Meaning of Life"..?

So, heya!

As I said earlier, I will now tell you all about what I did last night (other than falling asleep on my textbook. xP).

So. I'm pretty sure I've told you about the morning, so, (its soooo much fun to eavesdrop. Especially when the people are enthusiastic and are talking about a topic that is interesting to me and when they know less about Japanese than I do. xPPPP but I digress) I will start with after lunch.

So, I went to MATH class with KC. KL was not there as usual. xP We got our tests back. I don't usually study very much for calculus, so I end up having to logically find the answer, which ends up working because it is straightforward if you get it.

We then had a MATH class about integrals, which we (or at least I) had just learned in the tutorial because our TA doesn't go to our classes, so she just goes over what she thinks we have learned so far, which is not at all how far we've gone because my teacher was sick last week and we are kinda getting behind... xP

Anyways, after that I would normally run off to my CHEM lab. As you know, I did. Just not to do a lab, but to hand one in. After that I went to the Minto Center because I usually just hang out in the area of my next class when I have spare time even if the next class is hours away (except for Wednesday. I do not hang out at St. Pats the whole day.... no thanks... xP).

So, I was in the Minto center waiting 3 hours for my FILM class when AL appears as if out of nowhere. I had been studying, kinda, but not really when she appeared. She had a Philosophy class at 4:00 until 5:30. So I went with her after having a very quick breifing on what the class has been like. Apparently the teacher is quite a character "DM is in love with Susan Wolf. But not erotically" is one example of how some things he says can end up describing him in a humerous way.

So, when we entered the room we ended up sitting in the second row. I feel that if you are going to audit a class you should 1. go to a BIG class so you can just blend in 2. you should sit a good distance away from the prof, just in case and 3. the class should not be at the same time as another one of your actual classes. Only the second number was not followed, but I accounted for this by pretending to take notes the whole class. XP. I was actually just studying for Bio, but eventually I did take a few notes because the topic was quite interesting and I could relate to it.

The lecture was mainly about this book that some guy named Klemke had written about his view of the meaning of life. There was a general overview of the points made by the author and a general discussion to understand what he was talking about and the other views associated with the topic, to avoid bias. Klemke had three main topics that point to a God: religious experience, classical arguments and something else (I don't remember what... xP)[AL says it is Religious Scripture]. Yesterday's lecture was mainly focused around a classical argument: The teleological argument.

Teleology (a summary):
Point 1- A high degree of order and complexity manifests design/purpose
Point 2- The natural world has a high degree of order and complexity.
Conclusion 1- The natural world manifests design/purpose
Point 3- If something manifests design/purpose, it must have a designer/purposer.
Conclusion 2- The natural world had a designer ie God.

Honestly, being in science and liking nature, I end up in awe of it all. Like, the central nervous system makes absolutely NO SENSE! How in the world can a few electric signals store memories or thoughts..? How can feelings, emotions, thinking come from electricity..?

Where did the stars come from..? And don't say the big bang, because then I will ask, where that came from. "Energy cannot be created or destroyed." First law of thermodynamics basically says that creation is impossible. It had to start somewhere right..?

Modern 'theories' of evolution start with some elements that just happen to make something a bit more complicated. A few of them then just happen to end up in the same place within the time that the slightly more complicated thing has to exist before it breaks down. The idea of entropy does not like random things happening.

What originally made RNA copy itself..? Ribozymes..? Why did the ribozyme 'want to'..? It can't want something. Its a few elements put together.

It doesn't make sense.

All that to say, the deeper you go in science, sure you 'solve' some things, but only to find more difficult problems. People were satisfied with elements. Then they found atoms. Then they found protons, electrons, neutrons. Now they keep looking even deeper. It's not going to solve anything... Just make things more complicated and at the same time, more ordered.

I don't see an answer. Except for one.

Klemke however did not see the way I do. He found all of the 'evidence' too subjective saying that they were really not good arguments, basically. If he were to fall into a pit and just happen to be caught by a rosebush hanging above a dragon and the bush is starting to fall, but he saw the rose he would find contentment in that. The meaning of life is based on your attitude is what I wrote down.

I may audit philosophy a few more times. It seemed interesting.

Ya. I'll talk to you guys later I guess.

おやすみ。

Ｄ。Ｆａ

He Will Never Leave You.

Hey.

Sup..?

I havn't had supper yet. xP. I have to go to sleep though.... xP I havn't had supper in a few days... xP I have like 3 heads of romain in my fridge that need to be eaten, but clearly not for breakfast and lunch is inconvenient for a salad, so supper is the only possibility I have left......... They cost me 4$ yo.

Anyways, I managed to get everything done today and even kinda read over the stuff I'll be going through with KC tommorow. It's in this book "Knowing Jesus Personally". Lesson 1: Understanding Your Relationship with Jesus Christ. I suppose I should breifly cover the gospel in case you havn't heard it so that it all makes sense.

4 main points:
1. God loves you. He made you perfect and in his image so that you could have a relationship with Him and fulfill the purpose and plan he has for you.
2. Our Condition: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This sin separates us from Him. This sin is anything that keeps us from a relationship with Him such as going your own way for selfish desires or just ignoring Him. This condition that we have makes us impure and unable to establish a relationship with Him by our own means.
3. God's Response. God sent his only begotten son to die for our sins. The wages of sin is death. Jesus had no sin. You cannot get rid of your sin, but Jesus has already paid the price for your sins. He died on the cross and rose from the dead.
4. Your Response: Knowing this is not enough. Neither is an emotional experience. You must accept the gift of eternal life and invite Jesus into your life. You can do this by praying a prayer repenting for your prior sins, thanking Jesus for paying for them and asking Jesus to come into your life and lead you to become the person God meant you to be.

Anyway, that is a very basic general overview of the gospel.

So, ya. Tommorow's lesson has 5 truths.
1. Christ forgave your sin.
2. Christ made you a child of God.
3. Christ came into your life and he will never leave you.
4. Christ gave you new life.
5. Christ gave you eternal life.

There are various bible quotes and thought provoking questions associated with the lesson. The last question is "Which of these five truths are especially maeningful to you now?" and "Why?". I'm really bad at deciding one thing over another. I can't decide between 1 and 3. I have sinned, but He still forgave me. He hasn't just forgiven me, He is also giving me a purpose and he has a plan for my life, even though I was a sinner. On top of that if I ever happen to sin He doesn't just throw me aside, He is always there. He always calls us back to Him, we just need to hear Him and repent of the sin.

I probably didn't explain what those truths actually mean to me properly, but you get the point, right?

Anyways, I'll ttyl.

D.Fa

PS. DG was cool.

Oh. Snow. Oh No!

So, ya...

Today I seemed to have done some work. Not nearly as much as I had hoped to, but it's a start I guess. I'm almost done my BIOL lab... xP......... That means I still have all of my CHEM lab, a BIOL quiz, my PHYS lab and hopefully some CHEM readings to do.

Anyways, today worship practice was interesting. I was 'leading' and it's gonna be my first time tommorow. So, ya........ xP

Then we had a worship leader study.

Then we had 'Saturate' which is our monthly night of worship for all YF / YA. SB and MM shared a testimony with us. I didn't actually really get to talk with MM, but I don't know what I would say...

So, this is the point where I would type up that testimony I had lost and then found, but I have once again misplaced it... xP

Anyways. When AL first invited me to YF, we did this 'Alpha Course' and MM and SB were my group leaders. MM has been a missionary in Cambodia on and off for a long time, so right after Alpha he went back to Cambodia and I havn't seen him since.

You know, a lot has happened in the last couple years. I noticed today. Especially when Pastor DB said "Dylan's going to be a discipler!"

Since grade 10, I have gone from knowing pretty much nothing about faith and christianity, to the Alpha course at YF, to going to church, to joining the worship team, to graduating to YA, to being baptised, to sharing the gospel with stangers, to being worship leader, to helping someone accept christ, to becoming a discipler. "Can you believe that quiet kid is now singing on the worship team?" It's like I've gone from knowing nothing to being able to teach others. While still actually not knowing anything. There's a lot more for me to learn, a lot more for me to surrender to christ.

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking "Whoa. in like two years or something I'll be leading a DG like TM or RM. That's so soon!"

Apparently that's not soon enough.

God does crazy things sometimes.

Anyways, it snowed. !!!! It's winter TT.TT so sad... now I should probably wear a coat / get shoes that are meant to be worn in cold/wet weather.

Ttyl.

D.Fa

PS. I very much dislike the title of this post. =P

Breifly and for a While

Sometimes I am just too shy...

So, ya...

--- just discoved that I have lost my testamony.... xP.....

So, ya.

I grew up in a pretty normal home. Loving parents, a crazy brother, pets. I was just another normal kid. I was going through life because I had to, not for any real reason. I got good grades in school and because of this, school ended up at the center of my life. Everything I did was somehow related to school. Until a couple years ago when a friend invited me to YF.

It was at YF in the Alpha course that I was introduced to who Jesus is and what He actually did. How he came to pay our debt and give us life. and that's what he did by bringing me to church. Since then I've been learning more, meeting new people, going to youth events, singing worship songs and growing.

I tried to overcome obstacles on my own and fell flat on my face a number of times, but since I've been able to put down my pride and ask for help I've come much further along this narrow path.

I still have a way to go, but now I'll have help moving forward each day, whether its inching forward or taking a larger step. And if I start to turn from this path, I know I'll be called back.


So, ya... That is a brief testamony. I feel like I use too many cliches and not enough of my own words, but I'm terrible at English and using words to express what I mean.


I'm also supposed to have specific detailed goals for how to grow spiritually in the next year.

I can [mostly] only think of goals that are based on regrets involving miscommunication... like:

Tell my parents 2 weeks in advance, in detail, of events that will be happening;
Start at least 5 conversations that are more than just "Hi" "Hi" "How are you?" each week;
Tell at least 2 people about the gospel each week;
Invite at least 1 person to church each week;
When someone asks a question, do not give the short version, ie "i don't know" or *shrug*;
Spend 15 minutes, minimum, each day reading the bible;
Before watching an episode of anime, read 3 chapters of the bible;
Pray every hour;

So, ya.... I should sleep.... xP




I found this song today. xP Big Bang FTW! It's got a crazy beat.



Ttyl.

D.Fa

Apathy sucks.

Hey.

Today I had a talk with Pastor DB again. Today's was about baptism. Which can be broken down into three parts: symbolic, ceremony, and start.

I spent a lot of today cleaning my room, or at least moving stuff around... Only my shelf and closet look slightly clean...

I don't know what else to say...

I got my student ID and bus pass today with RL. He couldn't get his though because he needed better identification. He kinda yelled at his parents again... I saw KC at carleton. While we were at carleton it felt like we were being watched...

ttyl.

D.Fa

Compilation and Chronologicized VBS Blog Posts

“The border crossing was kinda odd. Pastor DB's car got threw easily then the other two cars, following directly behind, had to get out and everything. Mostly because the guy switched, even after Pastor DB said there were two other cars...

Anyways, we stopped and had lunch at McDonalds. Apparently the church is paying for our food and we all got like 5$ allowance for lunch.

Ttyl.

D.Fa “

“It's 7:39. We are nearly there. We are about to get onto Staten Island and then Brooklyn. Yay! ... >.>”

"I didn't kill my children. I could be a father."

“Driving around in circles just to find a parking space is not really very fun... It is 9:01. We finished supper at Nathan's Famous Hotdogs and have just located the Dorcas Center in China Town. There is a CVS like across the street from DM. Which will make getting Advil PM easy this time. I wonder if we have to go in groups to go anywhere, even nearby places..?

Whatever.

D.Fa “

“First night is done. It is midnight. We just finished two games of monopoly deal. The twins each won a game. I'm tired, yo.

I hope the rest of the week goes well and that all the kids are amazing.

Night.

D.Fa “

“Hey. It's like 7:30 and I am now kinda looking over my lines again. I think I have like 2.5 days kinda memorized.

Anyways, guess what..?

There's cold water in the shower! Yay! So, I had a moderately heated shower for once.
Church is at 10:45. We woke up a bit early, but whatever. =D

D.Fa”

“Night 2. 11:04. I have just 'finished' turning my belt into a toolbelt. XP... I found some plastic tools so it's not as heavy as it was orignally.

Anyways, today was pretty hard work. Church was really cool though. It was so similar to our church. Like the speakers gave feedback, the songs were familiar, it started at 10:45 and they released the children. Oh. There was even like the same thing Auntie S taught the kids at our church. XP.

CW is now snoring. XP

Oyasumi.

D.Fa”

“Hey. It's like 10:06 or something, but like this is the first time I've used my phone all day. Like at the start of the day I was pretty freaked out and everything, but as the day went by things smoothed over. I got to meet at least like 20 of the 33 kids that I am dealing with this week. Our group has like 11 grade 2 kids and 20 or so grade 1 kids. I have deffinately acted like a teacher today. Like it was great having one on one time with all these cool 6-8 year olds.

... “

“...

Like today I 'played' pokemon and yugioh/zatchbell with this grade 1 kid. We were definatley playing by his rules, both because he was 6 years old and because he had chinese cards, so I couldn't complain even if I wanted to. I lost both times, needless to say.

So, I'm in charge of the devo tommorow morning, so I need (underlined and italicized) to wake up (wake. Up.) at 6, not lie around for an hour... XP

So, ya... Today was Unexpected, but so amazing and cool. A very new experience.
Ttyl.

D.Fa”

“Hello. Everything is cool here. My matress is the most inflated and it's the only one that is completely manually filled. I'm one of 7 people from our church that are at the grade 1-2 vacation bible school. They are really cute and only like 5 of the 33 are kinda annoying. The grade 1s are ridiculous, but the grade 2s are pretty cool. Me and 3 others are in charge of the grade 2s. There are 11. The thing is that 2 of them don't speak english very well and there's one crazy kid. We've been having mostly asian food with rice. Its all been tasty. We just got back from the Brooklyn Tabernacle Prayer meeting. It was very intense. Everyone keeps telling me things like "roaming charges are 2$ per minute that your phone is on" and stuff, so my phone has been off most of the time. I'll talk to you later.

D.Fa”

“So, today was the third day of vbs here and, ya, it's been a long one... I guess.
All my clothes and even my sheets are getting smeely, so I washed some of my clothes. They are in the dryer right now.

We went into town and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and walked around and stuff.
I have my hair in a gel-less fauxhawk too by the way.

We don't get to watch the "Who Wants To Be A Superhero" videos anymore because they are a bit too much for 6 year olds... >.>

I'll ttyl.

D.Fa”

“"Now you're just 'dum'!"

Okay. Hey.

So, there's just one day left.

RL is depressing me and tommorow is gonna be really sad because all these kids are really cool. I love these kids yo.

I suppose, well, I definately believe that this is a different situation then normal. I mean, normally I'm shy and stuff, but I've actually talked to and bonded with so many of them. T.T I'm pretty sure that I might cry tommorow...

I really want to like hug all of them tommorow. >.>

...

D.Fa”

“"because he was in CW's car."

So, ya. Today was the last day of the vbs. It was sad seeing all the kids leave and the skit was kinda messy, but today was good overall. I made a cape and mask! "Dynamite Dylan". Basically, Gambit's powers of exploding things, but more flashy. XP... I made it up only for the alliteration... >.>

We also went shopping today. I have no US money left now. Poor CC...

So, ya... We are now wasting time staying up playing board / card games while listening to worship songs. We will likely stay up all night.

It is now 1:45.

D.Fa”

A Week Away

So, ya.

This week has really been great.

I've had time to spend reading Mark and bonding with my brothers and sisters and I've had time interecting with children that God has made unique and special and I've had time away from the way I've conformed to the world. I just want to stay in this new pattern, seeing my Christian friends all the time, spending more time with God and doing work for Him, and not getting caught up in the world's problems.

I'll edit all the posts from the trip a bit later, they are slightly out of order because I was originally going to just save them all on my phone, but I could only save like 8, so I had to send one. Then my dad emailed me saying to email them, so I did and that was also a post to the blog. Today I sent the rest in whatever order they are in.

I got like 300 pictures this week. xP VBS worship songs are ridiculous. I'm tired from last night... it was really funny staying up until 5:30 then sleeping until 7 and waking up again to pack and then leave.

Ttyl.

D.Fa

"Hey AL, I don't have a girlfriend yet."

New Life

Hey.

I havn't blogged in a couple days. Stuff happens. I had quite a bit of work this week. Also, I had meetings about next weeks VBS in Brooklyn. Wow... less than a week left. And my laptops's internet gets mad at me for no reason sometimes. and my cellphone was in CW's car last night.

So, ya. A brief update:

1. We all sang "As The Deer" in Bakery. It was very unexpected.
2. Bats aren't that scary... It's not an ax murderer or anything.
3. September 12th is one month away.
4. "Are they Po'..?"
...
"What..?"
"Are they Po'?"
...
"What..? Are they Poor..?"
"Ya. Are they Po'?"
5. I very much dislike wearing shorts.
6. Seriuosly my absolute favourite thing that I have ever done and hope to do again often is seriously to sing with a crowd at a worship concert. Especially if the person beside me is good at singing, so we can sing in harmony.
7. Mysterious Mushrooms!
8. Charmander FTW.
9. H-E-R-O, God is my Hero!!!!!
10. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba.

I probably missed a lot, but that is a vague summary of some random events that happened these last couple days.

So, ya. #3. September is the date for our OCBC church picnic. That day there will be a baptism service. Hopefully, I will participate. That is to say. I will be baptised. My first assignment is to write a summary (half page max) of what I understand the gospel to be.

I will be writing it here. =D

In the beggining there was God. He created the world. The universe. Plants, animals and finally He created humans in His pure and holy image so that we may have a relationship with Him and watch over creation. Since then we have all sinned and turned away from God and that sin was passed down from generation to generation. God loved the world, but our sin kept us from having a relationship with Him because he is holy and we were not, so he sent his only begotten son, Jesus. Jesus lived around 33 years and although he was tempted in every way that we have been, he never fell to sin and temptation; he went through everything a human would, but was God. The punishment for sin is death. We deserved death and judgement for our sins. Even though he was sinless, he died on the cross and payed the price for our sins. He removed our sin, past present and future, the sins of the whole world for all time and gave us his righteousness. His blood has washed away our sins and made us perfect in His sight that we may have a relationship with God. Jesus was ressurected on the third day after his crucifiction and showed himself to hundreds of witnesses. Jesus has victory over death and sin and with him we also share in this victory and will share eternal life with him in heaven. Until then God has given us the Holy Spirit within us to help us grow into His likeness. Drawing from the power he has given us, relying on it everyday, turning away from sin and professing Jesus as Lord over our lives we can be born again with new life.

That was probably too much..? Probably adding a bit at the beggining and the end that isn't 'the gospel', but it's all important, right?

So, ya. I've really felt I should tell K(?) that I'm getting baptised.

Anyways.

Ttyl.

D.Fa

These are two songs I've been hearing on the radio.





"Hey AL. It seems that 'daily' is a bit too hard, eh? I mean you only get a somewhat 'monthly' report from RL. >.> xP I don't have a girlfriend."

Awesome Creation

So. Hey.

My cell phone was confiscated Friday night, so I couldn't blog this weekend.

Part of the point of the camping trip is to get away from technology and electronics, but ya. This post is going to be a summary of the trip and I'm gonna start at Friday.

So, I woke up and had to finish choosing songs. Apparently I missed a couple though, but really I had to figure out how to print a document that was on my laptop. I thought emailing it to my computer would ruin the formatting because my laptop was all like older ms word's might not keep the same formatting and the whole point of a large portion of the day Thursday / Friday was formatting the document, so I tried to set up my printer to my laptop... It was taking so long, so while that was happening I also emailed myself and the formatting was fine. This was like 10 minutes after I should have been leaving my house... xP I also hadn't really finished shoving stuff into my bag. I ended up forgetting my towel which is hanging on the back of my door because I never threw it on the pile of stuff I was taking.

So, ya.

We were camping in Gatineau Park by Lac Phillipe. This is the same camping site as two years ago. (This is an annual camping trip for the YF in our church.) So, for the missions trip next week we bought walkie talkies so we were testing them out on the camping trip sometimes. NC is funny.

The first night Pastor DB broke the B string on the guitar... xP It was fine, but there was no B string, so like the chords kinda had a low chord and then a high note. xP

At like 11, we were told to get ready for bed and stuff. The other guys tent was pretty loud... xP There were 5 guys in it and really there wasn't enough room, so JS had to lie on top of them... xP This caused much of the noise. By like 12 almost everyone was making an attempt to go to sleep, except for Pastor DB and TM who were talking quietly at the fire, and the boys tent. They were being quite loud and everyone was telling them to be quiet. Nothing worked until HK, after unzipping her tent, yelled "Boys, if you don't stop talking you're going to be cleaning all the dishes tommorow!" Pastor DB and TM thought she was yelling at them and immediately went to bed. xP It was silent after she yelled. xP

AL gave a cool bible study on Prayer Saturday morning, we went to Mont Cascades (I got burned. xP), there were group activites / competitions which ended in everyone sharing bubbles / smores.

The meals were fine. At sometimes there was a bit too little for everyone, but overall it was fine.

We spent a good portion of our free time playing this game that all the YA have been playing recently. I still have only won once... The game 'Monopoly Deal' is pretty fun, but when you have 7 people playing, the game gets kinda messy. We stayed up until 2 playing yesterday. xP That last game was intense. Here's an online demo if you want to know how to play. http://uk.pogo.com/hotdeploy/uk/promotions/marketing/monopoly-deal/ I bought the game on Tuesday, so I can play it too. xP

Today we (my tent) woke up at 8 and then changed, packed up, ate breakfast, then it was time for church. This year, mostly for the parents who would have to come pick us up and possibly miss church Pastor DB decided to have two services; One in the Park and one back at OCBC. No parents showed up for it though. xP

After we got back to OCBC, I stayed and helped the worship team by doing A/V (all the A/V people were on the camping trip. xP) so I heard the sermon twice. It was about the extraordinary schemes of the devil in our lives. Which is very clear to us because our friend has gone through a lot, but that's all I will say on my blog.

The main reason that having my phone taken away this weekend was troublesome is because I like taking pictures of cool still lifes or landscapes and we were in the Gatineau hills, which are so cool. So, ya... that was annoying, bu t I borrowed SB's camera and CC's camera sometimes.

Aside from all that stuff is only the most amazing point.

I seriously spent at least an hour or so just lying on the ground looking at the stars this weekend. I seriously really like looking at the stars when I am in an area with less light pollution. And there were no clouds. none. It was sooo awesome. Like yesterday I spent at least 20 minutes lying on the ground, at about 1 am (it wasn't that cold last night.), staring at God's amazing creation praying. Like, your creation is so amazing and I can't even take a picture of it or express it in words. I deffinately saw like 5 shooting stars last night.

I'm just really glad that I got to spend this weekend in fellowship with all those guys and soon I'll get to spend a week in New York with some of them.

I'll talk to you later.

D.Fa

"Hey AL. I don't feel I talked to you very much this weekend, but sometimes it takes more then words. Just being together under that sky was fun. ROFL. lol... I don't have a girlfriend."