Catching Up

Hey guys, It's been awhile. 
Someone brought up blogs a month or so ago and I've meant to come check in, but it wasn't until the threat of losing my email that I truly found the motivation to look it up and anyone who may get notified of the post should probably refrain from acknowledging it lest I get spooked and stop blogging again. But I think I'd like to start again. 
Covid has been a mess eh? I feel like it's just been drama after drama for over 2 years if you count all that pre-covid nonsense... clowns, riots, a new country in Seattle... By the time Covid hit I was just done with the news... well.. to be fair I've never been big into the news, but it seemed the only thing people would talk about. Gone was the days of God is Love & God Created the World. In came the End of the World & Government Control.... It's been an exhausting few years that's for sure. I will admit that I enjoyed the urgency faced by many church members, Suddenly we got excited about spreading God's soon return, about sharing that this is the beginning of the end. I think as things are settling I'm going to miss that passion for sharing the news of Christ's soon return. Though it's nice to get a break from all the end of the world panic. 

I guess the struggle now is where do we go from here. Personally I'm feeling a little lost. The world is open and ready for us to soar once again... but if these past years have taught me anything it's that there's so much work to do. It's truly overwhelming. This past week I've found myself considering advice from my favourite animal the Cougar. I love so many animals but the Cougar is the one I aspire to be... These days I feel more like a Panda... Fat, Hungry & Sleepy... But according to the Indigenous culture the Wisdom of the Cougar is: 
Freedom from Guilt

Gaining Self-Confidence

Balancing Power, Intention, & Strength

Using Leadership Power Wisely & Without Ego

I think it's the human condition to suffer from the plague of guilt, these past few years I think I've lost all my self-confidence... Spent so much time becoming isolated, being reminded of my ignorance, becoming shut down in various ways... I think it's time to start growing my self-confidence, and letting go of the guilt of merely being insufficient. Leadership has truly been a struggle during the past few years. How can you balance & lead when the world is in chaos and everything gets shut down? 

Not knowing what the next couple years will bring, my New Years resolution has been to get to know the heart of Jesus again. I started off the year with the 30-day challenge of only Christian Music for 30 days. It was beautiful... I've been reading a few books by John & Stasi Eldredge; Wild at Heart, Captivating and now Fathered by God. I feel like it's not enough, but it's a start... and I'm working on freedom from guilt ;) so little steps, guilt free. Sometimes I think we get so comfortable with God running the universe & providing for all our needs that we forget to search for His heart. But if God is love (1 John 4:8) then how come we settle for God the provider, the Lord of the Universe, and forget about God who loves us with such passion that He gives us a sunrise every morning, and a sunset every evening... He created the earth to be not only functional, but beautiful... because He longs for nothing more than to lavish His beauty upon us. How is it that we forget that God is not only there to care for us and accept us... We forget about God the Lover & Friend... 

I know this was a little bit unorganized, mostly just a brain dump of thoughts... I'll try to be less crazy soon. But for now I hope something can be gained from this... If nothing else go read those books by John & Stasi Eldredge! They are much better organized than me 😉

Last year I made a Resolution to memorize 100 verses in the year... unfortunately I let life get the best of me and I fell short... I only have 63 cards in my box of verses... though if you count how many verses are on each card I may have hit my goal...

Regardless of the outcome, whether I achieved my goal or not... I am so proud to have gotten to know my Bible better. I had such a great time memorizing, studying, I fell in love with the Bible all over again...

This year I thought about making a more achievable goal... 52 verses... 1 for every week in the year. But you know I think I've changed my mind... I'm aiming for 100 again this year. and I'll probably aim for 100 again for several years until I succeed... There's no sense in lowering the bar... Set the standard you want to achieve.

God doesn't ask us to be perfect... But He does ask that don't settle for average... He made us better than that. It's ok to fall short, it's ok to make mistakes. But if we let those mistakes dictate where we set our goals, we'll never be who we want to be.

The soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing.

But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich

Proverbs 13:4

Wow it's 2017 already!?! I know I'm a few days late on my New Years post :P but since when am on time for posting anything ;)
(Warning this will be a long post!)

I know the world has all the "2016 of Doom" posts... and everyone is just hoping things get better this year... But I have to say... 2016 was amazing! I had a couple New Years Resolutions last year...
1. Seek Perfection
2. Soar4Him

1. Goodness knows I'm not perfect yet... but this year I've been learning much more about what perfection means... and so much more about the only Being who knows true perfection. It's been an interesting journey... one I fully intend to continue. Goal... to Keep Seeking Perfection...

2. This one was sooooo awesome! anyone who's been keeping tabs on me over the years knows I tend to dream big, and I have many life goals, from opening the next wit's end, to traveling the country in a tiny house with a rock wall, and all my other crazy plans, (that yes... I fully still intend to work on ;)still just working on the details) well this year I decided to stop focusing on the end game, and start working on the journey... You know Jesus didn't start His ministry till He was 30... I still got some time... (Even if I reach 30... Jesus died at 33... soooo.... If I get started 3yrs before I die... I'm still on time ;) ) But God's been taking me for quite the ride this year... (Though I'm not sure who's fault it is that I'm so busy... His, or mine... probably a bit of both...) I've got a fullish time job looking after 96 donkeys, 4 cats, & 2 goats... I've got a Youth group thats started small and disorganized but is growing into a thriving group of young people ready to learn more and serve God.... I've got a training program from FAST ministries that we're starting group 2 on! I'm learning more about being an Area Coordinator for Pathfinders, kinda sorta trying to work on my Master Guide, and I get to help with the Pathfinder club in town every couple weeks! I'm soaring alright! soaring on cloud 9, and I know there's no way I can be doing this without His help. It's so incredible how making a commitment to Soar for Christ, He takes you so much Higher then you ever knew you could be. Especially for a such a short time frame as I've been flying... Seems like only yesterday it was January and I was struggling to figure things out, feeling like gravity was holding me so tight... looking forward and wishing I could just get off the ground... Now it's January again and I'm not going to lie... some days I don't remember what being held back even means!!!
New Years Goal 2017: Keep Soaring for Him.

I know I should take this "New Year" as a chance to make "New Goals" but goodness gracious I'm not ready to start "New" I've just gotten going!

I got an email from an old professor a couple months back... Due to a series of crazy events I didn't actually get to reply back until now... as I was writing it out, I thought maybe I should copy and paste this here... because this is the very definition of what I am learning about Soaring 4 Him this year... Besides... it's pretty well a run down of my entire life at this moment.

My apologies for the delay in replying to your previous email. 
You sent it during my final 2 weeks of figuring out my 1 year plan... I sent her an email but unfortunately she was unable to speak with me until after my self-made deadline. So I have passed by the internship opportunity at this time. during the last week I had so many people decide to "catch up" with me and my life that I am afraid I've never quite caught up and then when I was going to sit down and send a reply to "How are things and what is happening?" I was having an awful week and I had no idea what to reply with :P 
but in short, here is an update on How things are and what is happening in the life of Me.

Things are great and I love my current life! I'm broke... and busy... but when has that not being the story of my life? Just continually learning to find the balance between paying my bills and trusting that God will take care of things if I put Him first in everything. 
I work at the Turtle Valley Donkey Refuge, and on my worst stressed out weeks about finances they give me a raise before I decide to talk to them about more hours. It's more or less a part time job, they're always promising more hours but right now there is much chaos on the farm as they have finally sold the old farm and can finally afford to build the barns and get all the donkeys moved to the new place. They've been working on training me to help with more health care so that when we have all 93 donkeys in one location [the assistant manager] has some extra help keeping up. (We do have 103 all together but 10 are in foster care) At this point I mostly just clean barns, which gives me a good couple hours of silence which can be used for prayer, listening to my audio bible, I tried listening to Steps to Christ but everyone was very chatty that week so it was hard to focus :P It's a good 4 hours where people are learning I'm kind of a religious nut... Vegetarian, No caffeine, have never drank, never smoked, always have some sort of youth group event on the weekends, bible studies monday nights... leads to some good discussions, haven't had alot of depth but it's fun... I got named as the most religious person they know by one guy who was around for a month or so... I won only because of going to a religious school. 

With the refuge keeping me busy in the mornings I am also running the youth group at church. I think more and more about how I regret taking ABC [Adventure Based Counselling] instead of ABYL [Adventure Based Youth Leadership], but I knew that would happen either way I had decided :P The Youth group is going well though, we're aimed at the 15-35 age group, which is a large group, but it's very hit and miss as to who will show up and make it to everything. the group we have mostly grew up in the church but there hasn't been anything for them once they leave the church school in gr. 8? so they end up at the public school, making new friends outside of the circle and there's just nothing to keep them around. some of them live out of town and visit they're parents every couple weekends, some have families that keep them "busy" and so it's difficult to plan events that everyone will be happy with... Our supper & vespers on the 1st Sabbath of every month is going really good though, we had our 2nd last night and I think we've averaged about 15 people at either. I've decided to invite church members to host them at their home, get them involved, get to know the church family a little better and who doesn't prefer meeting at someone's home with comfy couches or a fire pit vs a dark empty church thats cold... Unfortunately with that decision comes much stress depending on who has accepted host duty... it's hard for me to not be completely in charge and to rely on someone else to be prepared... probably good for me :P but definitely not easy! last nights was at one of the group members home and they are a home of chaos so we started late trying to get food prepared... but she had invited some non-church folks and there was some good discussion around the fire so let no one ever mistake chaos for failure.

I'm also helping out with Pathfinders, I talked to the Pastor about how I was there to help out, but I don't want to take over too much because I grew up in Pathfinders, leading Pathfinders and I needed to just let him do it until I can learn his way so I don't end up taking over [my way]... He actually told me he'd hand it over... but trying to get my life balanced I declined the offer this year.

I'm working on starting up a discipleship training program with the church. I'm not going to lie I barely know whats involved... but it's a 26-week study to help; - build a spiritual foundation: devotionals, verse memorization, etc - train disciples to give bible studies, share the gospel - and I believe it finishes with training the individual to train others. so hopefully that will be started in November and then I'm really committed to being around for awhile.

With all of the above I've decided not to look for more work because I just don't have the time. but I pick up odd jobs when I can, the Grill in Sorrento keeps asking me to come back and work for them, I cover a shift or 2 if they're desperate enough... as one with little responsibilities of my own, I'm the go-to person for house sitting around my family and friends. Living with my grandparents in the upstairs apartment and helping them clean out their house of dust collections... The more I find to get rid of for them, the easier it is to convince them to let go.

As far as the future goes: I'm starting to look into the possibility of being a youth pastor, I haven't really gotten to the point where I know what I'm looking for specifically or what kind of education I need to look for with that plan. And I'm still trying to decide if Youth Pastor, or Owner of a "wits end" type cafe is a better thing to aim for. Or if maybe I should be aiming for both. 

I will not lie, it can be very lonely out here. I'm surrounded by old people who are convinced people will go to hell for wearing Jewelry, my closest friend (geographically as well as personally) doesn't go to church and although she comes to the odd AY event (usually the hikes that no one else comes to). My closest church friend has a family of chaos. The pastor is still young and I find when I try to work with him we just end up arguing over dumb things and unintentionally he is pretty good at making me feel like I'm failing. [an old classmate] actually moved nearby but he's still a 40min drive and has a family that doesn't make our schedules very compatible. But I do find I have at least 1 person who can be there for different things.

God is definitely blessing me, and although He certainly does not always make the road easy, He's fun to work with. I live in the country on a mountain top, I work with 93 wonderful and often bratty animals, I can be there for my family and friends when they need me. I have a fantastic role at the church where I basically do my job by making up a social life. I have cheap rent and free food. I still have a beautiful jeep that runs on prayers by the grace of God... and in my spare time I get to organize disastrous piles of junk(well... priceless treasure ;) )! (and weirdly enough... yes... I find great joy and peace in that)  

Well Here it is... my attempt to really get this going... I'm not great with consistency, lets be real... how many of us can really say we're great at those new years resolutions? The ones we say I'm going to do ______ every ____ for the rest of the year so I can feel better about my ____ .... we all say them, we all fail... it's just what happens.

My resolution of 2016? Soar4Him.com ... I was going to have a wonderful website that was going to be epic! well... I think sometimes I dream too big and I try to start with perfection... One thing I'm working with... is 1 step at a time... because everything at once... is very hard to keep up with :P

Well here it is. My 1 step at a time. Where I will make an effort to update you with whats going on with my life, what I'm learning, how I'm growing, and How I am Soaring 4 Him! Because truth be told... Social media and the world wide web isn't whats important. What I really wanted to do was learn what it means to Soar 4 Him... and believe me I'm learning... I'm lost, I'm confused... but by the Grace of God I am so blessed.

So Here's my life right now.
I work at the Turtle Valley Donkey Refuge Society in Chase BC
I'm a Youth Leader in the SDA church
We do Bible Studies every week
Vespers every month
We fellowship in a God - Centered Community
And we have a great time doin' it!

Here's too many hopeful new posts and updates!