Fun Fun Finland

So much to tell...this week Mike Pilavachi from the UK has been speaking with us. He is a preacher in a church north of London called Soul Survivor. He also started a ministry of the same name almost 20 years ago that hosts a huge youth festival every summer. I had never heard of him but evidently if you are from the UK, you have. Not many people get this reference, but he reminds me of Red Skelton, the comedian. He has talked about the wilderness-Moses, insecurity-Jacob, and how to be relavent to the culture. All have been quite insightful and extremely entertaining, especially for me because I enjoy dry, sarcastic, British humor. 

Yesterday we all found out who is in our outreach teams and where we will be going in January. At first we were given a piece of paper with a sound on it (mine said, "A duck killing an elephant") and then blindfolded we were supposed to imitate the sound and locate others making the same sound. Wow. I just said, "quack" and hoped others would catch my drift. So I have 10 people in my group: Isaac, Philip, and Suzi from the UK; Olivia, Andrea, and Kristyn from Canada; Joe, Carter, and me from the US; and Peter from South Korea. Not very culturally diverse, haha. Then we had to go on a scavenger hunt following clues to figure out our outreach leaders. We were one of the first groups to locate them: James from Canada and Lizi from the UK. Awesome. Theeennnn, we had to sort through cut up pieces of paper to spell out the name of where we are going. Drum roll please....we are going to FINLAND!! 

Reaction= I knew that Scandinavia was a common destination so I wasn't too surprised and I didn't really have any specific desires to go to any one location so I was fine with it. I look forward to our group melding together and becoming more like family, and I think it's funny I'll be going to Finland in the dead of winter considering I don't favor the cold but did promise God (and everyone) that I would not be complaining about the cold this winter. I said this meaning the winter in Canada. haha. Now I get to go somewhere even colder!! PTL I'm actually looking forward to it. I will be stocking up on cold weather gear when I go home for Christmas (family, you know what I'll be asking for!) We don't know our specific areas of focus for the trip yet but I'm praying for a real passion of the people/work in Finland and that we are truly effective for Daddy while we are there.

In other news, we also received our assignments for conference duties for the Mountain Movers Conference next week: I will be a greeter from 8:30-12:30pm every day. And we got our work duty assignments for where we will be every Thursday afternoon from here on out: I will be in the cafe. Today I washed windows, how exhilarating. I'm praying for a sort of Brother Lawrence kind of experience throughout this. 

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!!

We had a three day weekend for the holiday which has been lovely. Saturday I was one of about seven people in the building and spent time journaling and making collages. Quite relaxing and needed. They did show some movies that night to provide a bit of entertainment for which we were grateful of course. Sunday, I went to church and then to a friend's grandparents' house near the lake. I had not realized just how much I was missing simple things such as neighborhoods, vibrantly colored trees, houses, and not industrial-styled buildings. O wow, it was glorious. The house was absolutely adorable as well and a short walk from a park with a trail down to the lake. We were in heaven. Then we had dinner....YUM!! Properly cooked food followed by desserts! Again, o wow, it was glorious. Definitely ate more than my stomach needed but it was delightful. My friends and I stayed up quite late chatting and still planned on waking up to walk to the lake for a magnificant sunrise. Two of us managed to get down there and, as is the case with all skyscapes, the pictures do not come anywhere close to doing the beauty of God justice (but then maybe that is because He works out of grace...lol nvm bad joke). That first pink light was spectacular over the water and I really wished our school were in Mississagua instead of by the airport. And then today for dinner we had steak! Big, fat, juicy, pink steak! ...and it was followed by dessert! And now I am back ready for a new week of good times and fun; it's going to be great because that is all that God can be. Love y'all!

Blown Away

...by the love of God and how He moves in our lives. While I am so often reminded by His love for me and the place in His heart that I possess, it is so easy to slip into the mindset that He is content with a relationship with me where our only connection is me worshipping Him. Totally not true! He wants to talk back, want to give me revelation, wants me to grow, wants us to go deeper. Together. Wow, awesome. 

So our healing life's hurts week just kept building in goodness. Thursday I had a major revelation of a major root in my life that caused me to live out of a scewed perspective. I went back to my list of ungodly beliefs and found that 10 out of the 11 I had dealt with were directly related to this massive root! Forgiveness and repentance followed shortly after. Thurs afternoon we had "Anger Day" where we learned how important it is to appropriately express our anger and not stuff it or bottle it up. A nice scream/wail/crying/yelling/etc. session came after. It was fabulous. Forgiveness and repentance followed. 

Today we dealt with generational stuff and deliverance and now we all feel much freer, lighter, and happier. :) I consider this week quite wonderful, yet I am reminded once again that God is not done with me and is not satisfied with just giving me this amount of breakthrough. "He that started a good work in you is faithful to continue the work and carry it out to completion." Yeah, I need to get this. I walked over to the "Come, Holy Spirit" meeting at the church to chat with a friend working the sound booth, and he revealed two other MAJOR issues that have been holding me back in life and walking in the authority that I have. Wow. I am again blown away. And He is still not done with me.
PTL

Life Hurts

We are only past the third day in this week's teaching of Healing Life's Hurts and so much has gone down. We've discussed the topics of the importance of inner healing, Forgiveness (you know 90% of our freedom from the junk in our life comes from forgiveness? from releasing those from whom we have taken offense? amazing, right?), Stony Hearts, Soul Ties, Judgments, Inner Vows, and Ungodly Beliefs (things that appear to be true and that we think are true but according to God's Word are totally false e.g. "I can never succeed" "I will always be alone" etc).


Again the revelation has come to me in spurts, which I am learning to appreciate because with all the crap we carry around, I don't think I would be able to handle it well in any bigger doses. Yesterday we also went through Walking in the Light, which is where in our small groups we confessed to each other things that we have kept hidden in our lives. When we confide in another and bring to light things that have been hidden, the power they have over our lives diminish incredibly. Today we went through a checklist of common UGB's (ungodly beliefs), repented, and established new godly beliefs to take their places. I have quite a few and I just checked off the ones on the list; who knows how many others are operating in my life! I still have a lot of processing to do in this area.


This week at the church there is a Partners in Harvest conference going on for pastors in "sister" church from all over the world. This afternoon there was an intern fair for us where some of the pastors told us about intern opportunities for us students when we finish school here. Some were from the area and others were in the States, the UK, and even one from China. Currently, I don't have plans for after "graduation" so hearing about these opportunities was really cool. Maybe there will be a door opening up to one of them, and maybe not, but this can at least get me thinking and dreaming. (Mom, keep your passport current) 


And I'll end with a shout out to my wonderful roomies, Erin and Esther. Thanks for the awesome music and providing jams for our/my random dance parties. Lillian, I love you too and trust you are having a blast in Mozambique! 
Peace.

Let's Go To Timmy's

First of all, I would like to make a shout out to the lovely and dear-to-my-heart, Julie Hanley, a faithful follower of this blog. Girl, I love you and it was fabulous to chat with you via Skype the other day. Thanks for keeping my brother (somewhat) inline. Can't wait to see you soon!

Last Monday we had off so six of us girls took the bus/subway downtown to do some sightseeing, I mean, shopping. It was a rather dreary day with rain sprinkling on us but we got to travel up and down Queen Street and visit a few shops. Some of us also went to Eaton Centre, a very nice shopping mall; a lovely experience. On movie night we got to watch the new Robin Hood movie. Tis a movie (aka not wholly realistic) but quite an enjoyable one, especially due to the attractive actor. :)

To pass the time on Saturday I learned the game of Munchkin which took about 2 hours, and then signed myself up to play a game of Axis and Allies, the extended and more involved version of Risk. That took about 3 hours before we left and went to dinner; I did not return to finish the game (sorry, Dale).

Recently we had the first installment of Staff v Student soccer. In utter honesty, the students have great room for improvement. It was a sad display of futbol for sure but hopefully we will get stronger and play better together as the time goes on. I heard rumors that the next game will be indoors, probably a good thing since it's getting colder. I am not a huge fan of 'cold' but I have determined not to complain about it this year. haha. Other fun things to fill the time we have off include walking to coffee shops as I have mentioned, painting or attempting to be creative in the Creative Room, and holding 'dance parties' in the lounges. More good things to come!
Peace.

Father Heart Week

Barry Adams came to speak on the Father Heart of God this past week which included the topics of forgiveness, the orphan spirit, identity, and the roles of mothers/fathers in relationships. He shared with us the Father's Love Letter video which you can watch here. It is a compilation of Bible verses and is touching and powerful. We went through releasing our parents from any past hurts and let Daddy God minister His love to us. Lots of tears all around and hearts touched for sure. I kinda went into the week hoping for this tidal wave of revelation and love to basically crush me into knowing - really knowing - the Father's love, buuuuutt it didn't really happen like that. Revelations came to me more in the form of multiple little light bulbs flashing on in my mind. I probably survive better this way. God is so good. Healing is definitely happening in my heart concerning my relationship with my dad which is very welcomed and I'm realizing the areas where I have given God faulty characteristics that don't belong to Him. He really is the perfect Father but I haven't fully grasped this yet.

At CBN this week Barry spoke on Fear and Freedom. The image was a lion caged in a zoo. God wants to free us from whatever is holding us back but often, like a prisoner who is finally released from prison, we don't know what freedom is or how to walk out in it. The unfamiliar scares us and we are apprehensive to actually come out of the cage that has held us so long. For me, no longer. I may have "sea legs" and be a bit wobbly at first but I choose to embrace the freedom that Christ granted me on the cross. I am free, and now I plan on walking out in that freedom. Hold me to it.

I am a Sign & a Wonder

Life is good. Last week was rather busy: Monday afternoon (we did have the morning off which was nice) we had ministry team training in preparation for the conferance, Tuesday we were with Ivan and Isabel again which was good though hard to sit through three sessions that lasted all day when we had heard from them for four days the week prior, and Wednesday started the conferance craziness. All the students were assigned work duties and mine was a four hour shift in the Cafe which meant I had to wipe down the tables when people left and to vacuum when it closed after lunch. Kristyn was on duty with me, but there really wasn't enough work for two people for four hours so we had significant time chatting with friends on lunch break. Not too bad. One downside was that we missed most of the afternoon sessions. All students were also considered on the ministry team which meant that if there was a prayer time or an impartation time we were the pray-ers or catchers or ministers. So much fun to take part in such things.

Conferance= Signs & Wonders with speakers John and Carol Arnott- founding pastors of CTF, Wes Hall- from IHOP Kansas City, Randy Clark- was in here at the start of revival in '94, and Andres Bisonni- on-fire pastor from TX. There were tons of healings- back pain, Parkinson's, cartilage in knees, scoliosis, etc. One session Randy Clark showed a video where tons of people were healed and then spent the rest of the time hearing from people who were healed while watching it. He didn't even pray for anyone and the Holy Spirit touched so many; it was so cool! God works in so many awesome ways and He is so good to us. Two of my friends were healed of scoliosis this weekend which makes it even cooler.

Works of the heart were also in abundance this week. God is bringing a lot of stuff up in my heart and I can't wait for it to be completely dealt with. This week is "Father Heart" week. I am so excited; it's going to be hard, uncomfortable, snotty, and full of tears. And I'm banking on a lot of healing too. Next week is "Inner Healing" so after these two weeks, I should be an entirely new person! :)

Backtracking a bit, Saturday night was especially mindblowing. I was rather tired from working all week and always being in the conf. sessions, but before the night session God gave me a bit more pep in my step. Doing fire tunnels during the ministry team prayer time definitely helped too. haha. We were practicing for later that night because it is typical for us to do fire tunnels the last night of a conferance -Saturdays are the impartation days. This led into a great worship session led by Nicole Smith and then Wes Hall leading a healing/ministry/preaching time. I got to pray for pastors and students and others= so fun. The HS presence was so strong the whole night! Since it was rather late our pastor had us pray for each other and then released all of us because the ministry team had had a long week. We SoM'rs were a bit disappointed so we stuck around for a bit more of the HS. We thought about starting our own fire tunnels but instead we got caught up in learning more about being a "seer" from our prophetic friend Mark. He was teaching Jez to pass it on (principle of giving and receiving in play here). Jez' hands got super hot and had oil on them which he passed on...later I got it too! I have had glitter a few times but never oil so this was a really cool experience. Also it was encouraging Mark told me I was super sensitive to the Spirit even though I think I'm not. PTL. Everyone receives from the Spirit differently and manifests differently so it's important not to get discouraged when how I feel it (or don't) isn't like everyone else. That was one major lesson that was emphasized to me this week. Slowing but surely, I'll get it.

Peace.