Slave Lake Young Life - so much has happened!

So much has happened since my last post - incredible stuff. God is so faithful. In the last post in Oct 2012 I shared about feeling burnt out and the lack of physical support in Slave Lake. I took a break from writing for a few reasons. But now I want to share how incredibly thankful I am for all that God has done in the past 5 months.


1) Oct 2012 - Met a wonderful lady by the name of Theresa Rachar, took her to a Young Life Committee conference Oct 19-21st in Sylvan Lake, Alberta. She decided to come on board. Theresa has been a God-send. Literally. She so clearly 'gets' what Young Life is all about and her experience of other committee work, starting different projects, her presence in the schools and her connections within Slave Lake give her all the background she needs to be a Young Life Committee Chair. And then there's her heart. She is so willing to be honest with people about who she is, what her struggles have been, difficult things that God has brought her through and I am incredibly inspired by her faithfulness to always be spending time with God, in prayer and learning from Him. Again - God couldn't have picked a better person.

2) Kathy Dabbagh became my "supervisor". We began having weekly phone meetings. Kathy is a volunteer herself doing a number of other things for Young Life and so it was a privilege to be able to touch base with and gain wisdom from her on a regular basis - particularly because we had decided it would be best to start up Slave Lake Young Life with a junior high focus (an area I had no experience with and was quite intimidated by). Kathy has done years of junior high YL work and was able to really give insight onto why it made sense to start with that age bracket in Slave Lake.

3) Dec 2012 - We sent out our first official prayer/update newsletter for Slave Lake Young Life. It featured everything from stories from the committee conference (Theresa, Jeff, & Ruth Anna's take on it), a piece of Malerie's story on what Young Life has meant to her since she came to Rockridge Canyon August 2012, to upcoming events in January and February.

4) January 11-13, 2013 - A group of six adults (including moi) and one grade 12 student headed down to Camp Caroline, AB for a YL Leadership retreat to get a glimpse into what YL was all about and what leadership looked like. It was a fantastic time and in our Jan 2012 newsletter the group shared what stuck out to them about the weekend - great community, fun games, awesome people, lots of learning, worship time and sincere fellowship. It was a fantastic weekend! Out of that weekend, two of the people that came decided to come on board as volunteer YL leaders.

5) Feb 8-10, 2013 - Myself along with 2 other female leaders and two male leaders got the opportunity to join Edmonton Young Life for Winterblast Camp. We brought 11 junior high kids from Slave Lake. It was a fun-filled, high-energy weekend! The kids had a blast and the leaders had a great time as well! We came home fairly certain that we would have a great deal of these kids coming out to Rockridge this summer.

6) Feb 22, 2013 - Slave Lake Young Life partnered with Grande Prairie Area Director, Dylan Bressey, and a few Edmonton volunteers to host a big Info/Dessert Night in Slave Lake. Theresa and myself had spent the previous months presenting at different churches, explaining what Young Life was and inviting people out to our big info night. Over 70 people showed up. I couldn't believe it! It was an amazing mixture of community members, pastors, teens, parents, and teachers. It was so exciting to see all these people interested in Young Life. It was here that Dylan was announced as Slave Lake's supervisor, taking over Kathy's role. I was sad to lose Kathy but excited to have a set supervisor who would be available to provide training to future leaders and the like.

7) Feb 23, 2013 - On the day after our big dessert night, Michelle and Andy Hildebrand hosted a leadership training session at their place in Marten Beach. Out of that meeting, we now have 8 volunteer leaders (including myself and Jay). Incredible!  After the meeting we headed back into town to pick up kids for a YL broomball game and club. There were about 29 people (kids & adults) that came out to play/watch and then up to Joey & Melane Mouallem's house afterwards for club. It was so exciting to be able to give people a taste of Young Life club!

8) March 2013 - Young Life Slave Lake got the opportunity to go and volunteer at a much music dance in SL. It was a great opportunity to get involved and offer a team of adults to help with the event. We saw kids we knew and got to meet more of their friends. On March 16 we had a Young Life hangout event at a local school gym and 20 teens came out. We did a mixture of games and finished up the hangout with hot chocolate and cookies provided by our committee members. It was a lot of fun!
Am working on our March newsletter and looking for every opportunity to fundraise for camp as we hope to take 25 junior high kids and 8-10 senior high kids to Rockridge Canyon this July.

Committee: We now have a team of 4 committee members with 3 more thinking about coming on board.
Leaders: We have ten volunteer leaders ranging from grade 12 to 50 years of age. We have weekly leadership meetings to connect, do training, pray together for the kids we are reaching out to.

From my last post to this one - it's been an incredibly journey of seeing God draw people to Him through Young Life, experiencing lots of growth in my own walk with him and meeting some incredible leaders and teenagers. I really look forward to reaching more kids in Slave Lake, and giving them encouragement and the hope that comes from knowing Jesus and about a God who deeply loves and cares for you. 

A long overdue thank you.

       Well the last couple months have been a roller-coaster ride for a whole lot of reasons and it's about time that things changed. This whole journey of wanting to start Young Life in Slave Lake has been a real stretch for me and I'm so glad. I just thank God for plucking away the things that I lean on and depend on and I hope He continues as hard as it is because it is in the desperation of those places that I really actually seek Him.

        Amazing things have happened with Young Life - don't get me wrong. People have been interested, four kids came to Rockridge, and left with a renewed excitement for Jesus and what Young Life could look like in Slave Lake. But somewhere along the way I got caught up in all that I had to "do" and put so much pressure on myself to "give, give give" that I burned off all my energy until I had none. I came to a place where I realized I had put "doing stuff for Young Life" before spending real time with God, before spending real time with my husband and that realization came to me in a big way.

        I showed up in Ontario for a week feeling burned out and spent emotionally. I had no desire to think, talk or pray about Young Life. I felt frustrated at the lack of physical support. I had prayer support, and financial support but no one physically coming forward to say - "Let's do this together." But it wasn't really that. It was me. I was trying to make something out of nothing. I was convinced that people wouldn't get involved and so I was putting so much pressure on myself to provide the resources here in Slave Lake. But the thing is - there are a whole bundle of resources out there. People who are trained in Young Life, providing conferences, camps, events, the works and all I have to do is show up with people. There's resources online, videos, you name it. And yet I felt like I needed to provide my own - to get people onboard and excited and doing things.

        Now I see how naiive I was coming into this. Starting a ministry is a slow process. It requires hours and hours of prayer and relationship building and stepping out and stepping back and waiting and those are things that I have NEVER been good at. I want things to happen quickly, NOW,  for people just JUMP on board and for things to just come together. I don't want to sit and pray - I want answers. And yet these are integral things for a ministry to stay on track, to develop in total tune with God's desires and heart and intention. The moment I make it about me and my intentions and my timing - I am digging a huge burnt out hole.

     And I see that now. And God I thank you for letting me fall into that hole. What a dangerous place to be. Thank God that I actually didn't have a team of volunteers and people working alongside me. Those people would have fallen in with me and a lot of what makes Young Life such a beautiful testimony of Jesus would have been overshadowed by the stress of it all.

     I need to start from a place where I am moving when God moves, and going where God goes and speaking when He speaks. And I need a team of adults around me to be praying through this process and encouraging each other and reminding each other of these things. So God I just lay all of that chaos at your feet. Forgive me for running ahead with my own agenda. Forgive me for putting tasks ahead of time with You. Help me to pray for the right things. Bring like-minded people into this - not people that I am playing tug-o-war with - but people that really have a heart for a ministry like this.

      Give us opportunities for people to actually taste of Young Life's ministry. I don't expect anyone to commit to something they have not experienced for themselves. I wouldn't have. It is through my personal experience of meeting Jesus time and time again through the ministry of Young Life that has me so sold out for starting it here. Nothing more. Not the amazing camp or the crazy fun games - although those things lend a beautiful credibility to it as a ministry. More so the relationships I have developed through it - with God, with other leaders, and with the kids that I have such compassion for.

     God I just praise You for how You are orchestrating our lives right now. Jay was restless at church so we visited another one this past Sunday. A woman spoke up about her bible study group and how it's all about 'doing life together' and it just caught ahold of me because that is where my heart is. I asked her to meet and we went for a long walk today. I shared about Young Life and my heart and she shared her heart and the things she said and the desires she has for her family, her kids, her community just so resonate with where I'm at and with Young Life mentality. God You are gonna do amazing things in Jay and my life as we step out of what we are comfortable with (i.e a regular church, and whatever else you call us out of) and I'm so excited to be pulled and prodded and to see how Your design comes together so perfectly in the different moments that You bring about in Your perfect timing.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. It's LONG overdue!!!!

Plans of the heart - part 3

Grant - May 19th Sat teaching session

Luke 5  - Simon Peter and Jesus met
-not by chance, but so that Jesus could get in the boat of Peter

Peter really struggled to trust Jesus when Jesus asked him to fish. See Peter was a fisherman - he knew all about fishing, when the best time to fish was and Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman. But Peter humoured Jesus' request regardless.

Challenge:
Do I trust God with the things in Young Life I have no idea about?
Do I trust God with the things in Young Life that I know a lot about?

Grant gave an example of Apple. They are so good at creating all of their software to go together. Lots of companies boast that you can pick and choose different pieces to go together. And yet, Apple specifically created their products to work together.

Likewise, God has created everything to work together. So often, we want to pick and choose what we want to trust God with. "Well God, you can have this, but I need to be in control of this..."
How incredible when we just trust God with everything - the things we are sure of and the things we aren't sure of...

Plans of the heart - part 2

    God is just incredible. I just can't express to you how incredible He is. Words just won't describe. I went to the National Young Life conference, hoping for God to reveal His purpose, to confirm the plans in my heart for starting Young Life in Slave Lake. I hoped that through this conference - I would grow closer to Him, that I would become even more attuned to His heart for Slave Lake and that He would show me a clearer picture of what it takes to start Young Life in a new area.

One of the most stretching things that I encountered on this weekend was something that Jay and I had to process together. We had come to the conference with the Edmonton crowd - a great group of people who love God and love Young Life ministry. We came, excited to reconnect with Ontario Young Lifers - as it had only been 6 months since our time with them.

What we came to realize quickly is that we weren't really part of either of those groups - neither Edmonton nor Ontario. It hit us both quite hard and it was a pretty difficult realization. To go from being part of a team of leaders, of that support group, to this kind of pioneering adventure we have found ourselves on, kind of put us in a different category. Suddenly we realized, we were no longer 'Ontario' leaders. We were 'Slave Lake' leaders - just the two of us. There was no team of leaders, no fellow volunteers to give us that sense of community. We were starting essentially from scratch - just us two.

On one sense it was an emotionally draining feeling. I had to go out onto the balcony at one point because I just didn't want to cry in front of everyone. And yet, in the midst of the tough stuff, God was caring for us and drawing Jay and I closer. In that moment when I left to go outside, Jay knew exactly why I'd left. He understood exactly where I was coming from.

I gave myself a moment and then walked back inside, trying to hold back the tears.
I had just walked in the door, when I glanced over and saw Bonnie Rawling - a woman whom I had connected with during camp week last August. She asked if I was ok and I immediately indicated that I needed to go outside. When she asked what was wrong I began to explain to her that Jay and I were trying to start Young Life in Slave Lake and that we felt so alone in it all - that we just felt overwhelmed.

As soon as I mentioned Slave Lake, Bonnie's eyes lit up and she said, "Wait a minute! That's you guys? You're the ones starting Young Life in Slave Lake?!!"

Turns out a family friend of ours - Richard Muir - had contacted Bonnie a few months ago and asked her to contact us, to encourage us in our endeavours in SL. Bonnie had been quite busy with things and hadn't got around to it. She had never made the connection of who we were.

In that moment as we realized how perfectly God had orchestrated this moment - we were just blown away. Just then, Jay walked out to the balcony to join us. We shared with him what'd we just discovered and it was so incredible to see God so blatantly caring for us in His perfect timing. Jay and I talked some more with Bonnie about where we were at and she prayed with us and then we went back inside.

It was an emotional thing - this feeling that Jay and I were going through . And yet - God turned it around. He showed me how Jay and I understood each other in where we were at and what we were struggling with. He showed me Jay's strengths and how his strengths compliment my weaknesses and vice versa. I came away from this weekend so convinced that I was part of a good solid team - of Jay and I and that God knew exactly what He was doing in His perfect timing.

As hard as it is to grasp, we aren't a part of Young Life Ontario anymore. We surely have their support, their prayers, their encouragement and that truly means the world. But this desire - these plans that God has laid on our hearts to start Young Life in Slave Lake is a new path that we alone have to walk. We aren't a part of Young Life Edmonton either. We hope to be involved as much as we can, in being connected with their community, and learning from their examples, and yet starting  YL in a small town like Slave Lake is an entirely different venture.

What I am convinced of is this - that God knows the ins and outs of Slave Lake. He knows the youth intimately - he knows their hearts and what they think of him. He knows just what'll it'll take to reach these kids and introduce them to Jesus. Jay and I may feel as though we are floundering on our own sometimes, but I know as long as we are surrendered to God - He will make incredible things happen. He is making incredible things happen in just the short time we've been here. And I just can't wait to see more!

Plans of the heart - part 1

I should go to sleep but I am wide awake - so blown away by the ways that God is working in my life.

And I can't just leave it in my journal - I need to testify out in the open of God's faithfulness and amazing character.

"The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established." - Proverbs 16:1-2

I just can't get over God's amazingness. I am not liberty to share the most recent thing God is orchestrating but I hope to be able to share it by next week. But He has revealed so much to me in the past week that I have plenty to share regardless.

Last week I wrote a blog about having kidney stone pain. Reading back on it, it seems quite dramatic and yet I assure you, I meant every word.

Last wednesday I was taken by ambulance to Edmonton. Thursday night I was back in Slave Lake hospital, with a kidney stent installed and on a high dosage of morphine. In spite of the morphine, I literally felt like I was battered - like someone had kicked me over and over in the ribs and back. The stent was to relieve that pain and yet it took a bit to kick in. I actually had to wait for the morphine to wear off so that I could get different pain meds because the morphine wasn't enough. I was hallucinating like crazy and talking out loud - Jay probably would have laughed a lot , had the situation not seemed so serious. I thought to myself - there's no way I'll get to go to the National Young Life conference in BC this weekend. It just didn't seem possible .

I tell you the extreme pain I was in because I want to testify of God's faithfulness. Literally, Thursday morning came and I felt like a different person. I still had pain but I felt like I could actually get up. And I did. Jay picked me up, we went home and packed our suitcases. Jay went back to work and I rested. By Thursday night, we found ourselves driving down to Edmonton to stay the night at a friend's. Friday morning we were up at 5:30am, and by 6:30am we were on a bus headed down to BC for the conference.

As if this wasn't miraculous enough - I kid you not - I had no pain the entire weekend. I went from being on 7 different medications to taking one pain medication along with my antibiotics and other pills. It was just incredible. Here I was at a camp in the middle of the mountains, walking all over camp, up and down the gravel paths to my cabin and I was pain-free. I just couldn't believe God's grace. I was able to attend every worship/teaching session. I was fully able to engage in all the different aspects of the conference. It was incredible.

the truth. plain and simple.

It's a startling realization - our fragility. That with a flip of a switch, I find myself trembling and pain-stricken at the mercy of strangers in a hospital.

That nothing I can do can change the pain I'm feeling. I am completely helpless. It is perhaps one of the most frightening feelings out there.

You go into the bathroom and the person staring back at you is a ghost. Pale, dark circles under eyes. You move around in a daze - numb to anything but the awareness of your pain. You can't think beyond it.

The other patient in the room was an older man. By himself. I am so scared of the inevitability of being old and sick and quite possibly alone. It's bound to happen. I'm only 25 and I have a kidney stone already.

Being sick, the hardest thing has been the absence of my family, especially my mum. She has a way of telling me everything will be fine and I choose to believe her because she can say it so convincingly.

The realization that I don't want to have kids in Slave Lake hits me hard in this moment. I need my mum close for that. And I wonder how long God will call us to Slave Lake. I do desire to follow Him and so that is the main factor.

When you're in pain you feel as though you are far away from everyone else. Walking in circles - a current that takes you around and around and you can't stop it. People drop suggestions, opinions, medications at your feet and you take it in blindly, barely caring.

Your appetite is gone. You get viciously sick of drinking water as every medication reads 'take with plenty of water.' You want to crawl into a hole and wish it all away.

Waiting on God is the hardest thing. He has done so much already - giving me the ultrasound Monday when someone cancelled so I wouldn't have to wait a week. Giving me medication that does work. Giving me friends by my side when I break down crying in church because it feels so hopeless. Giving me Jay to just hold me when I feel so fragile and empty.

But it's still hard. I will continue to praise Him - I do continue to praise Him. But it's still hard.

I don't know how Job did it. I don't know how people with chronic pain or cancer or other painful diseases do it. In fact, I don't know how anyone can do it without God to believe in - to give you hope.

Trying to remember scripture.

You , O Lord, give a perfect peace to those who hope and put their trust in You. Isaiah 26:3
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3

These are the mantras I cling to. When my sleep is interrupted every hour by dreams that wake me up to pain, I say these over and over.

And when the pain is gone, when the meds have kicked in, you pretend you are a normal healthy person. That it was all just a nightmare. That it was in your imagination. You feel liberated and yet you are not perfectly pain free. Your muscles ache from the intense chills. Your head throbs from tense shoulders. You are still hovering on the edge of the nightmare. Enough to stand it. Enough to smile , but enough to sense that the pain will come back around.

I write this because as I lay in bed in agony, these words started jumping around in my head. Writing is a good release. I don't write this to ignite a pity party or to make it seem like my life is unbearable. I just write the truth for myself. So that when this is all over, I will look back and not take health for granted.

Because we do take our health for granted. Like we have the right to be healthy and yet it is by God's grace that we are given that gift. And when our health is shaky, by His grace He gives us the strength to get through it.

and that's the truth. plain and simple.

overwhelmed by God's perfect plan

"One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit." - Oswald Chambers


I love this quote. It totally resonates with where my heart is at - with Young Life and the things that God is teaching me in my own walk with Him. 


I jumped feet first into this 'starting Young Life in Slave Lake' thing - eager to see things happen. You know those verses in Psalms that talk about waiting on God. Well - it's very easy to say "I'll wait on God" but it's a whole lot harder to do it. 


I kept seeing potential Young Life people and I would excitedly share my heart expecting that they would just jump in with me. But things weren't going as I'd thought they would and it took someone challenging me to pray a different prayer - "God, who do you want on this team?" Once I stepped back and started praying that - my agenda was irrelevant. Suddenly the pressure was no longer there - the pressure to give an awesome sales pitch and get this person to jump on the YL bandwagon. Suddenly it became about what God was doing and how He is moving in all of this and not about me talking to the 'right' people and doing the 'right' things to get people on board. 


I tell ya - it is incredibly comforting to let go of the reins and give stuff up to God. Technically, I never had control of the reins in the first place - I had just convinced myself that the burden was on me to shoulder the load and so I had to do whatever I had to. But God has been challenging me - through Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest & through the book - "Breaking Intimidation" by John Bevere. Both sources have been pulling me towards God, towards scripture and the power of prayer - all things that are essential in starting a ministry in a town. 


And I think with starting a ministry that the beauty is that there will continue to be times of God opening doors - BAM BAM BAM - just like that. There will also be times of discouragement. There will be times of just waiting....and waiting...and waiting...for God to move, to direct my steps. And those times of waiting are just as vital as the times of opening doors and confirming my decisions. Those are the times that stretch me and mould me into what God would want in someone he wants to use in ministry. 


Even in the midst of opening doors there are things up ahead that still look impossible but I truly believe that God will resolve and do incredible things - but it will be in His perfect timing and on his agenda - not mine. 


I just wanted to write this to give Him praise for all the amazing things that are happening in Slave Lake - opportunities to get into the high schools, conversations with kids that have been so eye-opening and challenging me to go to scripture for answers, people that are interested in the ministry of Young Life and see potential for it in Slave Lake. 


There have already been blunders on my part, miscommunications, and struggles. I feel often that I am floundering around - desiring to do what God has laid on my heart and yet feeling so ill-equipped and discouraged at the times I get in the way of what God wants to do. And yet there have also been times of forgiveness, of trusting and building of relationships - of encouragement and reminders to keep focused and stay attuned to God's heart. 


That's what gives me hope- that in spite of the messed up sinner that I am - quick to anger, quick to impatience, worrying, trying to take control, saying things I shouldn't, ignoring God at times, putting myself and my needs over God, the list goes on and on.. In spite of those things - God wants to use me - me of all people for a ministry that could get totally messed up by the things I struggle with. And yet as I learn daily to surrender that stuff to God - I am reminder that 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' - that "He who has begun a good work in me will bring it to completion" - that "He so loved the world (and me) that he gave His one and only Son - that whosoever believes in Him will receive eternal life." 


It's craziness - that the God of the universe would offer to us what He does - that He would give us a second chance, and a third chance, and a tenth, and a 100th - that He cares about every detail of our lives and His greatest desire is for us to know Him intimately and know His love and to glorify Him the way we were created to. That in spite of our junk and our messed up selves - He would give himself up on a cross - as Jesus - to save our measly little lives. Just ridiculousness. I can't express how amazing it is. 


Read a tattoo today that a guy just got - "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future." Not sure what his interpretation of it was but I just see it as a hopeful statement - a reminder of our humanity and yet the hope that we have a future in Christ. So cool. 


God I just praise you and ask for your protection over the youth of this town - over kids whose hearts are turned away from you or towards you - that you would bring these kids into a real lasting relationship with you - whether through a youth rally, or church, or youth group, or Young Life - I pray that more and more adults hearts would be motivated to invest in these kids lives - to bring encouragement where there is none and share hope with the hopeless. I just pray these things Jesus in your powerful name. Amen.