In His Embrace (YL Leader Retreat 2014) - Part 1

[Thankful]

God I am so grateful to you. What you put into motion this weekend was a beautiful thing. The act of describing all that unfolded is a great one, but I will do my best because I want to give the glory back to You in this way.

I just got back from a Young Life Leader Retreat (Jan 24-26th, 2014) at Camp Nakamun. 185 leaders from all over the Western Region came together to share in the joy of what God is doing through Young Life. It was a time of refreshment, beautiful beautiful worship music, drawing close to God, sharing our hearts and our struggles, learning, equipping, and experiencing joyful community. A team of nine volunteer leaders, including myself, journeyed from Slave Lake to see what God had in store for us this weekend. When I was praying before the trip, God gave me this image that this weekend was like a big wrapped gift and that He had so much to give to us - so much that we could take from this retreat.

[To go or not go?]

In my life, and probably in yours, whenever God is about to do something awesome - I get sideswiped with an obstacle. Sometimes it is a feeling of apathy that clouds my intrigue in what God has to say to me. Other times, something else requires my attention and I wrestle with the notion of passing up God's thing for that. I believe this to be a spiritual attack and the way that I seem to experience spiritual attacks before Young Life trips or events, is through a sickness. It comes out of nowhere, and the doubts start pouring in about whether or not I should participate. Luckily, in the past I have usually been main leader, and so I HAD to persevere and go regardless of whatever pain I was in. This trip was different - this was something I COULD have backed out of. It was a team of adults and they didn't "need" me to carry through on this retreat. But the beauty of this sickness was that God had actually prepared me mentally the week before to handle it.

[The context]

You see, for the past week or so, God had been stripping away my sense of dependency. My dependency on people for when I was feeling low, my dependency on TV shows and internet to distract me from feeling lonely, my dependency on my role in YL to make me feel valued and important. In a spell of a couple days - I experienced such a strong fear of loneliness - a fear that I had been blocking out and watering down by relying on distractions to fill my time. But when those distractions dried up - I was forced to face just how independent I had become in my relationship to God. It was a really hard realization but oh so good. And when I was hit with this bout of sickness - I was suddenly challenged to put into practice that realization and depend fully on God.

I KNEW that this retreat was a gift that God intended for me. I KNEW this sickness was not from God but an attack to make me doubt in God. But INSTEAD, I chose to cling to scripture. I couldn't take medication - my stomach was too sensitive. All I could do was pray. I felt like Job (on a much smaller scale) - and I decided to praise God in spite of how I felt. I still battled the idea of going to the retreat - not because of being sick - but because I didn't want to get anyone sick. God GAVE me the strength and determination to praise and trust Him in spite of how I felt. After wrestling back and forth with the decision, I decided whatever God had in store was just too good to pass up, and so I decided to go.

[Friday, Jan. 24th]

We arrived Friday evening at Camp Nakamun, walked into the lobby and there were a sea of smiling people. Something I love about Young Life is once you've connected with someone at a Young Life gathering - doesn't matter if it was a year or summer ago, the community is so strong, you feel instantly welcomed back in. It is an inclusive ministry - whether you are brand new to Young Life or have been around the block, as a teen, leader, staff, parent of a YL kid, or committee member.

After a few hilarious mixers (watching people try to stomp on each others' feet, imitate eggs, chickens, dinosaurs, and royalty) we were welcomed into the chapel to start the night's program.

[Worship]

The worship band was a mixture of leaders from different areas - with the lead singer - Chris - from Calgary. When they started to play the very first song, the feeling for me was incredible. You know when it's been a long hard day, and you are feeling parched and your throat is dry. You take a sip of clear crystal water and it feels like the best thing you've ever tasted. You suddenly realize just how thirsty you are and you just want to drink it in? That is how the worship at the YL retreat was for me.
Worship is something (that when done well) brings me right into the embrace of God. I can feel Jesus' presence so clearly through worship.

I have been thirsting for this kind of worship since I moved to Slave Lake. It was powerful, beautiful, amazing and I was drinking it all in. I could feel God's presence so strongly through the lyrics, and the music, and the Holy Spirit moving in that chapel. I began to cry as I sang - I was so thankful for God. I had walked into that chapel feeling fatigued, sick, drained, at a loss for joy and God just met me right where I was. I didn't have to muster up a false energy, I was able to just worship God with all of my heart and I felt that I was in His embrace so strongly. I could not keep my hands down - I just wanted to praise God with all of my being. A thought honestly went through my mind that if this was my last day to live - that I felt complete. Whole. Made new. Full. That is not a feeling you can just conjure up on your own. It was a God-given one and it was the beginning of the gift that He had in store this weekend.

[Speaker: Christine Woods]

Christine Woods got up to speak and let me just say how much I admire this woman. She is humble, funny, smart, kind, and incredibly passionate about her love for Jesus, her family, and Young Life.

This is what I took from what she shared...

-Her friend challenged her that she was living a lie. She did not understand and she felt angry with her friend because she felt she was so busy doing lots for God and her family and friends. She asked God if this was true?
God gave her 2 truths. He showed her that at one point in her life, she was running around in circles and too busy for 2 things:
1) being still before God
2) transformation through God renewing her mind

-Story of Martha and Mary- Luke 10:38-42
Jesus comes to visit and Martha is running around getting things ready and doing everything for Jesus whilst Mary is just sitting at his feet listening.

Christine pointed out - nowadays we don't sit at people's feet (it's kind of awkward). But if you were to sit at someone's feet, you would be really close to that person - you would be committed to hearing what they are saying. You would be engaged.

Martha walked up to Jesus and said "Lord, don't you care that I am doing everything by myself. Tell Mary to help me!" (vs. 40)

Jesus' response was "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed - or indeed, only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her." (vs. 41-42)

1) Jesus says only one thing is essential (vs. 42)
2) Jesus has Mary's full attention

Christine read a quote about what it means to pay attention. It means to be fully present in the moment - so much so that you experience things to a much deeper level.

[Small groups]

After the talk, each area got together to discuss questions. These were the first questions and the answers that our SL team came up with:

1) Why do we glorify being busy so much?
-sense of success
-don't want to appear lazy
-want to seem like we have important things to do
-a way to not have to engage with people/care about what is going on with them (i.e "How are you?" "Busy" = end of a conversation).

2) What distracts you? What's the biggest distraction in your life?
-people
-fb
-phone
-sleep
-always thinking
-feeling tired
-making up lists of things we need to get done

3) How would your life look different if God had your full attention?
- be more at peace - less stressed
- would be able to give more - probably wouldn't be as distracted
-probably would be healthier lifestyle wise - wouldn't be rushing from one thing to the next
-might be used by God in more ways - because of being open to His direction more

All in all - Day 1 was a really great start to the retreat. Thank you God for the first part of this gift.

Awoken From a Selfish Slumber

It's been a long time since I've written. Let pieces of my life unfold on this keyboard - bright moments, dark spaces, fleeting thoughts, whispered prayers.

My life has been so busy, the passion for writing went into hibernation. But just now I read something that moved me deeply. In my spirit. It spoke into my heart in a way that awoke my desire to write. To share this profound moment. And so I write...

Lately I've been lost. Burdened with petty things. A monotonous job. A repetitive day. An early sunset.  Seeing God move all around me but caught in my own selfishness. Addicted to the internet and an endless flow of Netflix stories. Trading quiet time with God for sleeping in til the last possible moment, dragging time out so that the act of going to work is prolonged. Filling up my free time with mindless games. And yet God has been moving all around me despite my slow-moving figure. Though I am blundering along caught up in myself, He continues to use me.

Young Life has started in Slave Lake. We have a leadership team of 11 volunteer leaders and a committee who are actively taking steps to build YL into the community. A supervisor who gives me sound advice, accountability and encouragement. Churches and people stepping up to support. Parents who repeat their thankfulness each time they drop their kids off. Our little community is growing and God is so active in this ministry.

ALL of this is because God wanted it here. I am merely a tool a vessel that He has been forming, shaping, moulding to aid in this. Thank goodness. If it was any other way - if a ministry like this rested on human achievements and limitations - where would we all be when our strength is zapped, when we fall into a stupor of selfishness? Thankfully God continues to move regardless of my state of selfishness or selflessness.

Last year a man prophesied over me a number of things that spoke deeply into my heart. One thing was that I would be instrumental in the lives of teenagers who struggle with cutting and suicide.

Today I experienced that declaration in a way that awoke me from my stupor. It took me on a journey of searching for information, for knowledge, for a sense of my place in all this.

Have you heard of the organization - "To Write Love on Her Arms"? This is the story:
http://twloha.com/vision/story

Once you read it, tell me if you feel like you're awaking from a similar slumber? Look around you. Ask yourself - what can I be doing for someone today? How can I encourage a stranger? A friend?

It's 12:23am and my husband thinks I'm crazy. I need to sleep so I'll let this go. But I had to get it out - this familiar feeling of needing to write it down. To share what was on my heart. It's been too long.

Thank you if you've taken the time to read...

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.