Wisdom

If I hashtagged, the hashtag to this post would be "reminding myself to shut up sometimes"

as I remember that a listening ear can perhaps speak more care than talking lips. 

Sometimes I think that the days when I was younger and shyer and

quite frankly, 

didn't know how to carry on a conversation, (#homeschooled....if I hashtagged)

were days where I also carried a wisdom which I have perhaps slightly lost now. 

Now I find myself being able to hold my own in conversation

but I also waste words, speaking thoughts just for the sake of speaking something. 

Making jokes simply to make a joke,

that probably only I will find funny.

 

Silence carries more subtly poignant and profound meaning

than a thousand thoughtless words ever could. 

As Spring is slowly approaching in Edmonton,

emphasis on the slowly....

Every time Spring seems to creep forward

Winter comes out another coarse gesture covering with the ground with snow...again.

But alas, Spring is still approaching and I can hear it in the birds. 

And as Spring is slowly approaching

and as I hear the evidence of this in the birds and in the wind and rain,

I am reminded to listen.

To not try and fill in the absence of words with words that would be but noise. 

When I walk outside, 

I can let my footsteps be footsteps.

I can let the songs being sung be music without lyrics.

I can let the beauty of the trees speak for themselves and just watch,

just observe,

 what each twisting branch and spring bud is trying to say 

through their movement in life. 

When I stop speaking and offering answers and solutions to everything...

I can ask myself, "what are the branches reaching for?"

"Who are the birds singing to?"

"Where is the wind headed and who will feel its touch today as I have felt it?" 

I know pretty soon, if I carry on this way,

 that I'll be telling you to sing with all the voices of the mountain

and that the herring and the otter are your friends.

But I'm not going to go there, because I don't really want to say or tell you anything at all.

This time,

I just want to listen. 

"Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue" - Proverbs 17:28

A Simple Awe

My first round of travels this year has now come to a close.
Back in Canada now with great people and a particularly special girl :)

I was walking home late last night and just thinking about life.
I was enjoying the brisk Canadian air,
watching a city rabbit hop through the wet grass
and thinking about how I long for an ever greater awe for the simple things.
To have an awe for God's creation and to be able to see the intricate
yet subtle beauty in all things.
To see the touch of God in nature.
I would trade all my stuff and any riches for something like this.
After all, if you found such joy in the free things, what need would you have for anything else.

Flying over Russian rivers

At a Filipino School

A walk with some of the kids from Noah's Ark

View from Restaurant in Batan, Philippines

Koh Panyee, Thailand Schoolroom

Koh Panyee View

Koh Panyee

Bangkok Chalking

Alligator Wrastling

Takua Pa Wildlife

Koh Samed Wildlife

Flying over Alberta

"I will be poor, if it means I can find

more of a passion, for the secrets You hide"

-Delirious

Who Am I

I have been in Bangkok, Thailand for about a week now on an adventure of experience. 

A week that is about experiencing, listening, watching and deeply being affected. 

I cannot even begin to bring to words all that I have felt this week as I and my team have been a part of teaching English to community Thai kids under the overpass. 

As we have prayed through the floors of the Nana Plaza, a red light district in Bangkok. 

I cannot bring to words the love for the hurting and the anger for the injustice. 

I find myself wondering who am I to be living these moments. 

Who am I to have been blessed by the story of a Sri Lankan refugee family living in a tiny apartment and looking for a home.

Praying to be seen by the UN and ushered into a new place. 

Yet their joy and satisfaction in Jesus humbles me. 

All I can say from the hour long visit with them is that they were the hardest people I have had to say goodbye to this whole trip. 

I also find myself wondering who am I to share the stories of people who have experienced circumstances in life beyond what I could imagine. 

I have been broken and deeply affected. 

Today we visited Rahab Ministries who reach out to prostitutes. 

As I sat in a room full of women affected by the sex trade but who had now all found new life, and as we all began to worship together I could not help by cry. 

God is good in all things. May our hearts be stirred by what we see. 

May our hearts be shaken by experience and story. 

May they be broken by the brokennes which wounds the heart of God. 

I wish I could write more, but no amount could do justice to the stories anyway. 

This week I am continually reminded of how much I do not know that is happening in this world. Pray for what affects your heart, and pray for the things that you have no idea are happening.  

Pray that all the world may open their eyes to, and experience the true love of God face to face.

Journey On

God is good,

All the time,

everywhere, forever.

I feel so blessed to be living in the days and in the ways I am living.

Now sitting in an internet cafe at a hotel in Bangkok I am reflecting on the past number of days.

I just finished a week in the Philippines with a wonderful team of people. While there we stayed at Noah's Ark Orphanage in Banaue and spent time getting to know the kids there as well as sharing the Good News in various schools throughout Ifaguo Province.

God was amazing to us this week and I was so blessed to be able to have this as my first experience leading a team overseas. Each day I felt refreshed in God as we spent time in His glorious creation and with His children.

One memory which I will keep for a long time is that of the girl with the pink headband.

While visiting a central school in the town of Banaue we encountered a situation more difficult than we thought we would. What was supposed to be a presentation for one class of about 40 kids ended up being a presentation to almost 1000 kids. The whole school.

We were in an open gym in the middle of the city, before a thousand children with a small ipod dock as our sound system, and only our voices with no mic or loudspeaker.

As the presentation went on we found that what began as us standing in front of all the children had turned in a large number of the children completely surrounding us, and unfortunately this pushed us further away from the children who were sitting on the large cement stairs. We soon discovered that you could not hear the speakers from the stairs and so as we led songs a few of us jumped out of the circle and tried to sing loud enough so that the children on the stairs could here. Participation was minimal from them however...perhaps my singing voice was to blame for this.

The only thing that would keep the children's attention and quiet them down was doing dramas or the HMS dance, most efforts of speaking were in vain. Realizing this I remember praying during the songs that somehow God would work and some kids would be reached. This prayer God would answer.

As I played guitar as background music for our skit I noticed one little girl in the front of the circle. While many kids were talking amongst each other or laughing at parts of the skit that are not funny but because that is just how many of them respond...this little girl with the pink headband was really watching what was going on. As the characters of the skit acted out the small story of someone whose heart was broken again and again, but eventually they found a new one through the Word, prayer and our God, this girl really watched.

Following the skit I would normally speak for around ten minutes just explaining the story and the love of God. Knowing that would not be possible this time around I shortened what I had to say to around two minutes. At the end of my quick message I just said to the children that what I wanted them to remember was that God loved them so much. And when I said this, that little girl, who was listening the whole time, simply nodded to show that she had heard.

And that was enough for me. It was enough to know that the girl with the pink headband really heard about God's love. One in a thousand is a work that we cannot underestimate the potential of. I know and trust that God knew what He was doing. Our task is to serve Him with our hearts, and whatever happens with the serving is up to Him. I do not need to see the fruits, only to know that I faithfully planted seeds. The rest is up to God.

This was only one of many times where I knew God was at work even though I, we the team, may never see the results of the work.

I now traded the rice terraces of Banaue, Philippines for a computer desk in Bangkok. But tonight after meeting with the rest of the teams and forming a new one I will head south to Takua Pa to be a part of English camps going on there. Please pray for the teams as we transition from one phase to another and join another part of God's work here on earth.

I hope that I may always truely feel so blessed to be a part of what God is doing as His will is done on heaven as on earth. May we be a part of bringing heaven to earth so that many people may experience His love and peace even in part until the day we experience it in full in heaven.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Life your eyes to heaven there is freedom.

It is Time

3 months before my internship to the DRCongo,

t-minus 3 hours before departing for Asia.

I will soon be flying out to Vancouver, Hong Kong, Manilla

en route to Banaue, Philippines for a week of stay.

Following this will be a journey to Takua Pa and Ko Panyee Thailand

Finishing this trip will be a week in Bangkok and team days on the Thai Coast.

Please keep our teams in mind. 

If you wish, please pray for our protection and for motivation to do 

what is set before us with thankful hearts and willing spirits.

Pray that we will remember the real purpose behind our work,

and the tasks and jobs are a means to a much greater end.

Pray that we will fall in love with the people

and that we all may fall deeper in love with God.

I have no idea what is going to happen on this trip,

so I guess I will just have to give all the credit for the amazing events

that will come to be,

to God. 

Crazy Times

So in about 20 days I head to Asia for the second time. 

Philippines and Thailand bound

2012 has been a magnificent flurry so far and the days

these day, are definitely crazy times. 

Lots of homework, prep for this trip

and prep for my upcoming internship internship in the summer.

I've definitely been neglecting slowing down.

Remembering the reason behind each task that I do,

it is not pointless, it is not work for the sake of work or even for adventure.

There is something much bigger going on. 

Just got to change my perspective when I'm stressed,

when I'm triggered emotionally.

How true it is that the way you look at things 

also changes the way you feel about things.

Clinging To

I had been immortalized. 

             Well, not I, but my name for it has been written into the pages of history. At long last and with much effort I have attained for myself a position of greatness in the world. Many thought this an impossibility for I was a young person from a no name place, in the midst of a bunch of people whose names will never be remembered beyond a decade of their death aside from those they call family.

                I desired to be unlike those around me. I desired to be great and to be remembered. I was an individual with high ambition, though I admit my motives were not gold, but who has not desired to be beyond what they are. I do not think that this is altogether too unsavoury of an appetite for one to have in this life.

                My desires brought me to the practice of rigorous and severe self-discipline; aiming to perfect my philosophy on life, my attitude towards the world and my confidence in myself.  I sought for guidance from those who knew what it was to achieve that which I wanted. I sought out the wealthy, I sought out the proud, and I sought out the great. With them I knew I would discover a future unlike what anyone thought possible for me. And this is what I found.

                I became connected with high society. I found those who I saw as rightly deserving the place of honour at the feast and they taught me what it was to be like them. I kept my goal always before my eyes, religiously reminding myself reminded myself of the duties I must perform in order to be like those I had surrounded myself with. I disowned all that was of my past, disconnecting myself with any ties to the humble ways of a nameless place. I knew that though one day the low and the weak would serve me, lowliness could be of no service to me in my pursuit.

                In time and with much effort I began to take shape, to be moulded into the likeness of those I followed.  Wealth, it was mine. I acquired an estate comparable to any other of outstanding greatness. Fame, it was mine. I became a teacher and instructor to many, advising them in the ways of success as those who had brought me into this place. My words of wisdom have been recorded in the most celebrated articles of this time; my face on the cover of what will be the most remembered journals; my name is written into the history books. And power, power was very mine in better ways that I had imagined. When I was young I dreamed of the power to move any boulder standing in my way. But as I grew I had come to realize that true power was not the ability to move the boulder on my own, but it was the ability to make others do this work instead. I had the ability to completely shift any burden I had to bear onto the shoulders of another. Corrupt? Perhaps, though I shall never admit it. In control? Definitely, and I should admit it until my dying day.

                So I had thought, and so I had believed. It has now come to both amuse and disgust me how significantly my thoughts and beliefs change when I lie before the door of eternity and my dying day has finally arrived. Oh how my thoughts change when the physical control of my body has so ailed with age that I scarcely have the ability to perform necessary and basic bodily functions without the assistance of someone more able. I desired to be served, but not like this.

I realize now, but all too late to avoid wasting a life, that my greatness had become my greatest weakness, and the weakness of those I mocked, was their greatest strength. I realize that as the pages of this life have finished turning, it does not matter how immortalized my name becomes in the magazines, journals and history books. It does not matter what famous historian’s hand would come to write my story. The only hand that has ever meant anything is that which would have written my name into a book recording those who gave their lives while on this earth, not those who took it. I thought that by great effort and ambition I would carve my name into eternity, but I doubt that I have achieved an etching of any significance into even the least of persons such that it will extend by the days of earth. For the least were precisely those I had ignored, and it was precisely the least of lease whom I needed to pay the most attention to.

This I realize as a humble servant changes my bedpan and washes my feet, that in these acts they do far greater things than I had ever done. As they hum some old hymn that I had long ignored I know that their investments would reap far greater benefits than my wealth could ever compare to. They have taught me something now that far outweighs the lies that I had propagated. I had thought I had immortalized my name, but rather, in my constant kicking against the goad I had immobilized myself in the pains of selfish ambition, conceit and my efforts were all in vain.

 And now the truth: that my greatness and satisfaction in life would never, and could never be the conclusion to a story where I was the one turning the pages. My greatness could only have ever been found by tossing that book into the fire, and clinging to the pages of another story written by another author...by the Author. And yet even then I would have realized it was not my greatness, but His, a far greater one than I could ever achieve, that I would be clinging to.

(written for school assignment based on Matthew 23:4-12)