Many of the members of the youth group have been praying about the possibility of a youth room for a long time. Last Sunday the congregation in our church voted and 92% of the vote was for the youth room!

I am so excited for the prospect of having a place for the youth of our church to have a place that they can call their own. I pray that God uses it as a place where the youth will seek and find who he truly is.

It brings me joy to think of the potential for community involvement that this trailer could have. The thought of lives that could be changed through this new room is amazing! I hope that God uses it in great ways as we rely on Him to guide us in how to use the building that He will bless us with.

You are the receptionist at the land survey company where I am working this summer. At first you intimidated me because you knew so much about the job and I thought I that I would never be able to learn it all. There was so much to learn in what seemed like such little time, but that’s all just part of the learning curve.

Today was your last day before you vacation and tomorrow I officially take over your position. I know that you taught me well and I will do fine. I hope that you have a great time in BC for your vacation but please come back! The office won’t be the same without you around.

The reason that I couldn’t tell you until now that I am going to Brazil is because there could have been issues with getting a Visa to stay there. There was a chance that the consulate would not give me a Visa and then I wouldn’t have been able to go at all. I am happy to say that I do have my Visa and can now talk about all of the preparation work that our team has been working on since before January.

I am a member of a team of almost 30 young adults that are going to Brazil to work in an orphanage, help build a school and visit hospitals, jails and the slums. We have an average of 2 meetings every month where we are learning Portuguese, doing a bible study and bonding as a team.

Another part of our prep is creating drama and puppet presentations. We will be using these for presentations in the orphanage, in the slums, in the street and in churches. I am on the puppet team and we are memorizing skits that will be translated when we are down there. Here is a picture of myself with Violet. She is definitely a blonde girly-girl. She loves to shop and could talk your ear off any day. We are both excited to interact with the kids we come in contact with and playing hide and seek and tag with the other puppets!

It makes sense to make my first entry of this x365 of my cousin since she was the one that introduced the whole idea to me.

To be completely honest, I don’t remember much about you when we were younger. I see all the pictures of us in matching dresses and sweat shirts when you lived in Calgary. My memories hanging out with you all revolve around your farm outside of Saskatoon and sleeping over in your room. You taught me to not be so afraid of big dogs and introduced me to TLC.

I love that I had to do this project with my school because through this whole blogging experience I have gotten to know you better. I wish that we could have spent more time with each other when we were younger, but I know that we have so many years to make up for that. I am so excited that you are getting married and can’t wait for September! I hope you come and visit so that we will be able to eat gelato and go shopping downtown.

I love ya!

I found this on my cousin’s site and if you look at x365.org you can find out what it is all about.

Basically, each day (or as often as I want) you write about a person who has made an impression on you. I think that this is a great idea and I hope to keep it up and use it as incentive to write on my blog. I am going to try to and be as honest as possible in my responses with those that I talk about, but keep in mind I may disguise some identities . . .

Here we go!

I posted this a while ago but was told to take it off because I didn’t have my visa yet. So some of you may have seen this but others won’t have.

I am officially going to Brazil in August!
I’m not going on a holiday, but on a mission trip with a group of young adults from my church, Bethany Chapel. We are flying into Sao Paulo and are staying in Holambra at an orphanage called Lar Feliz. We have been practising Portuguese and rehearsing skits and preparing our hearts to go down there. We are going to be staying in an orphanage, helping with the building of a school, visiting hospitals, prisons and slums and doing whatever else we see that needs to be done.
I am so excited to go and I know God has huge plans for me while I’m down there. For more information visit this site for our teams updates and photos. It hasn’t been updated in a while but it will hopefully soon.

Well one thing that I must say that brings me joy is when people say things they think are brilliant . . . but really aren’t. haha

Case #1

Subject: Michael Clarke

“People living in Nunavut are called Inukshuk’s”

Truth: Inukshuks are stone structures, not people.

Case #2

Subject: Allan Lambie

“I’m so excited to wear my gargoyle tomorrow!”

Truth: The fabric that is in the shape of diamonds is called Argyle, not Gargoyle.

It’s long overdue that I write something on my blog!

I apologize about not keeping this up as well as I did when it was for homework. I can’t believe how busy my life is getting. I just need to take the time to breath and write my thoughts out.

I will start with my last post. I wrote about my weekend at YC, but not the whole weekend. When Michelle and I got home we were greeted by my aunt and cousin from Saskatchewan and my other cousin from California. Although we were exhausted from shouting our lungs out we decided to stay up until 2am to watch a movie! I took the day off of work because I knew that my family was coming and I wanted to spend time with them. Michelle got my mom to call her school as well and we went shopping. I just followed everyone around because I just wanted to spend time with my family. I must say that I started to have a fabulous time when I went shopping for clothes and gifts with my cousin. We had a fun time running around the mall trying things on. We then went to Chianti’s for dinner which was amazing! I just wish that I would have had more time to spend with “Paige” while she was here. We didn’t get to go to Suzi Q beads or for Gelato which bummed me out. You better come back so I can make it up to you!

I spent this past weekend in Edmonton Alberta at YC and had an amazing time. For those of you reading this that don’t know what it is you can check out the website. The weekend started on Friday night and went non-stop until Sunday night. I am still exhausted!

Here is a brief summary (thanks to Celine) of the weekend. She wrote her summary on Facebook and I am “stealing” it and changing it a bit. I hope she doesn’t mind…

Sitting on a bus with many others. Watching National Treasure and Mr. Bean episodes while covering my nose from that nasty stench. Putting on neon green bracelets that are our passes into the Rexall building. Passing through the doors while holding our arms up so they can see we payed for this experience and praying they don’t check my purse and take my water bottle away.

Kicking a band out of our awesome seats. Music so loud that it left my ears ringing for hours afterwards. Screaming, shouting, jumping, dancing for God. Losing my voice so that I just have to mouth the words because no sound comes out anymore, but then getting it back just to lose it again. John Bevere speaking about fearing God and how he will magnify our steps as we walk for Him. Singing to our heavenly father with 17,000 people in unison, truly worshiping without worrying about who is watching me.

Unloading the bus and setting up snack. 23 of us on a midnight search for a donair place to find it demolished. Laughing at the idea of walking through the Tim Hortons drive through and then shocked that they actually let us. Iced Capps at 1am. Playing Family Business until 2:30am. Cleaning the kitchen with Marc. Going to bed and waking up to find that I had a conversation with Emily while I was sleeping - weird.

Reggie Dabbs speaking, shouts of “Carpe Diem - Seize the Day” “We are all chocolate!”. Safeway for lunch, ditching Marc (I’m still sorry for that). Trying to get into Amanda Falk’s girl talk but going to a boring missions one instead. Finding Marc and worshiping with Vicky Beeching. Parachute Band! Hearing Omega’s story of God’s Mercy. Liz and Dayna’s turkey baster (KJ52 actually rapped about it!). Eating my second fruit tray. More of Reggie speaking. Moved me to tears. Being shocked at the number of kids who stood up for prayer because of suicidal thoughts. Worshiping God with tears rolling uncontrollably down my face. Getting back to the school for prayer and discussion. Being so proud of my little sister for declaring her conviction for her future. Watching boys play their stupid game. Getting attacked by my sister with a water bottle (I’m still hurting). Laughing so hard I couldn’t stop crying and people being concerned. Cleaning the kitchen with Marc…again. Sleep.

Cleaning and packing the bus. Being late for Sunday’s morning service. Leeland leading worship and the Aussie man making us sing to a DVD. Chicken fingers for lunch at the restaurant. Cute little Asian lady running around to get us our food. Parachute Band once again. Amazing worship. Papa San “shake your tambourine!” Finding Avery, praying that God spoke to her in a huge way! More Reggie, singing to his saxophone playing. Leaving during Newsboys. Getting home exhausted but staying up past 2 again!

Incredible worship. Praising God like how if might be like in heaven. Feeling the Holy Spirit in the room and being moved to tears and singing with a shaky voice. Screaming till it hurt. Feet sore but standing anyway. Realizing that I need to be still and focus on God’s voice speaking to me. Knowing that I should not hold anything back and that I need to focus on what God thinks and not to be concerned with those around me. He made me and thinks I am beautiful. I need to seize the day, every day. No day will be wasted.

My sister and I were out driving tonight (wow, it seems like we do that a lot!). I had to go fill up my car with gas which is a sad thing these days because it is so stinkin’ expensive, but the Tsui Tina Reserve is close to where I live and they sell their gas for at least 10 cents cheaper than everywhere else.

After getting the gas we figured we needed something cold to drink on this very nice day in Calgary. We headed for Second Cup because we both had gift cards, but after I parked and locked the doors of my car, we walked to the front door to find it locked. For some reason that certain store was closed after 6. As we sadly got back into my car a man in a red convertible pulled up and did the exact same thing. We laughed and headed to Tim Hortons.

At Tim’s we pulled into the drive-through and who pulls in behind us? The same guy from Second Cup! As we were waiting for our turn to order this thought was running through my head that I should pay for this random guy behind me. I thought about it and my hands started getting sweaty but I pushed that idea aside and tried not to think about it. Then the thought came back and I told Michelle my idea to find out she was thinking the exact same thing!

We got our Iced Caps (made with half chocolate milk) and I paid for us and the guy behind us. As we took off we waved. I have no idea what he thought of that, but I just hope that it blessed his evening. It sure did bring us joy as we drove away!