home again.

My, oh my, what a crazy couple of weeks it's been!

In the week after I posted my first blog, I had my first class, Spiritual Formation. What an amazing class! I have never enjoyed class so much or wanted the next day's class to come so much. I learned a lot about God and how much He loves us and how we are designed to be in relationship with Him and through that become our true selves, the people who we were truly created to be, not the shadow of our true selves this world encourages us to be.

One of our assignments was to memorize two passages of scripture a day for four days, down to the punctuation. What a toll this took on our group. You would often find any of the Kaleos talking about memorizing the verses or trying to memorize the verses, often with some friends, often to no avail. =) But we got it done and I am really glad we did it. The passages we memorized are: Matthew 5:3-12, Mark 12:28-31, John 16:12-15, Ephesians 3:14-21, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Galatians 5:16-26, Romans 12:1-2, Philippians 2:1-11, and 1 Peter 4:7. Some of these I already had memorized and so it was just a matter of reviewing for punctuation, but I also got to learn a lot of new passages that I know are going to be useful. The Word of God never comes back empty.

I also spent from noon on the Thursday of that week to 7:30 am on the next day in solitude, silence, and fasting. What a time to spend with God, just focussing on Him and what He wanted to tell me. I was worried about this time because in previous solitude times I found myself getting frustrated at the lack of results I was seeing, so I wasn't sure how this was going to go, but I was to be greatly surprised. I started off the time by going straight to bed because I knew my body needed the rest and I wouldn't be able to focus if I didn't. After I woke up, I went downstairs, made myself some tea and just read my Bible. Never have I spent so long in the Word without getting bored or antsy. Somehow, the Holy Spirit worked in me to extend my patience and satisfy my hunger because I wasn't really hungry either. God really revealed some things in my life that need to change and also worked in a miraculous way that made it so clear that He was present in my time with Him. God showed up in such a crazy way that day. I am still in awe of it.

Cal Macfarlane is a wonderful professor who made class interesting and was so funny making it easy to be in class. I'm really glad that was the first class we had. It made it easy to be in class for 6 hours a day and get used to this format of school.

Then last Monday, we left camp for 5 days to go on a sailing trip with S.A.L.T.S. This is a wonderful organization that takes people sailing around the Island and the surrounding islands. The crew trains you in sailing and all the work on the boat is done by the group that comes. The stuff like cooking and more difficult, need-to-be-a-certified-sailor stuff was done by the S.A.L.T.S crew though. The food was so good!! My favourite part, however, of the entire trip was the evenings spent together. We'd have dinner then a little bit of chill time before we all went up on the deck to play some sort of crazy game. After that, we would go down to the "hold" (where the guys slept/dining room area) and sung songs, then Jim would have some way for us to encourage each other or admonish each other, and I believe that our group grew through it. We were asked to verbalize our hopes for each other this year and how we see Jesus in each other, and other sweet things that helped us grow closer as a group and helped us grow in our relationships with Christ. Wonderful, wonderful nights. A part that wasn't so great was night watch. Throughout the night, someone always had to be watching the boat, so in groups of two we went up and did watch for an hour. I fell asleep twice and was only able to stay up for the entire hour once... oops! I also got to steer the ship!! I steered it out of the harbour in Victoria which was really cool. I know now which side is port and which side is starboard, yet for the life of me I can't figure left and right. Weird...  This was a great experience and I am now a certified Junior Sailor!

A sunset while we ate smokies on the boat. What a masterpiece  handpainted by the Master Himself.

The boat we spent a week on, the Pacific Grace.

Yes, I can use life saving equipment.

The Kaleo 8s and the S.A.L.T.S crew at the end of the trip.

This coming week we're headed off to Tofino to hit the waves! It'll be so cool experiencing Tofino and maybe trying something I've never done before. Also, I'm so stoked to see how our community grows through this trip as well.

As always, I need prayers! Please pray for safety on this trip while we're travelling and while we're in Tofino. God is a God of protection so I know we can trust Him because He has always come through for us and praise the Lord, no one has been seriously injured yet.

Also, please pray for my spiritual growth. Please pray that I will continue to grow in the Lord and that it would be radical growth. I don't want to remain static, but rather be dynamic. Too, please pray that God would continue to reveal to me things that need to change in my life and that I would be able to make those changes.

Always, please pray for my church. We still have a lack of youth coming, so please pray that God would do something crazy and unexpected and totally revive the youth of this hurting town. The people of Cowichan Lake Baptist Church are so wonderful, so please pray for blessings for them for the way they've totally welcomed us with open arms.

Blessings!