Christians have lost something important

Just over a month ago I met with a dear friend of mine whom I do not get to see enough of. She is a wonderful woman who fears God and longs to serve him in Pakistan. We have very deep discussions most of the time when we got together. She mentioned something that she was missing out on and it was at that time that I knew for sure that I was missing the same thing. You see when you live in a settling like I did when I lived on campus at Heritage you build awesome community. In fact it becomes such a part of you that you do not think that you will miss out on it until you actually move away from it. There was always someone around that I could go to when I needed someone to talk to or to hang out with. This is what community is great for, then there are times when you just want some quiet and you cannot get it because there are too many people around.
Now that I live off campus I miss that and know how blessed I was to have it. Once I left the campus I did not have much of a community. I was missing out on a key element of the Christian faith. Community within the Christian community is what holds one accountable. How often do we just hang out with our Christian friends and not even pray together? I share meals every so often with my friends we pray over our food which is great, but do we take the time to talk about some of the things we are working through and then pray together. The typical answer to this is no. Why do we think that this is ok? I do not actually think that we think this is okay, but we forget how important it is for us to do this together. Not only will our relationship with God be strengthened through this exercise, but so will our relationships with the ones that we are praying for.
I started doing this with one of my friends here in Cambridge. We have only met twice, but already I feel so blessed and encourged by it. I plan to talk with my other friends and try to express how I feel about this and tell them that I want this to be happening in our relationships. Not only will it challenge my heart in the times that we are together, but it will challenge me in my time with God outside of those times with my friends.
I am drawing nearer to God today in this month than I have in almost a year because I am seeing the importance of what my faith stands for and this here is just a piece of it.

My challenge for you my dear reader is to take this and use it. Where are you at in your relationship with God and with your family or friends? Are you content there or is God asking you for more?

Best Surprise Ever!

Yes my dear readers I have been surprised. Saturday I was at work and knew my step dad would be picking me up after work to bring me home for the long weekend. Even though this is what I knew my parents were very good at pulling a fast one on me. I was standing up at the front waiting for my manager to finish off with a customer so that I could rat on one my co-workers. I was in a goofy mood and told my co-worker that I'm going to go tell on her that she is not smiling and making the work place fun that day. To which my co-worker started laughing at me, and I said I'm going to do it and went to. While I was up there fixing a shirt on a hanger I saw a boy coming to the door with a girl following closely behind him. I thought to myself "Wow does that girl ever look like Patience" then it clicked that it was Patience, but it took me a second because they live in New York and was surprised to see them. I dropped what I was doing and ran to them for a hug each and the waterworks started! I hadn't seen my niece since last summer and it had been over a year since I saw Hayden. What a better way of announcing that my parents had arrived then to bring my 13 year old niece (who is taller than me) and my 10 year old nephew. What was better than that was that I got to spend the entire weekend with them. They made a sneaky plan my parents missed the reaction, and my manager didn't know what had just happened, but handed me the tissues anyway. Then I had to wait until I could talk (yes, I got that choked up. I was so happy) to tell my manager what just happened.



After work we all went to Subway for dinner then picked up my belongings. I think it is safe to stay that I have not had a sleep over with these guys in about 6 years. I was a lot of fun to spend the weekend with them for sure. Hayden even decided that he wanted to go to church with me Sunday morning. What a blessing that was too, we walked to church and we sat together in church. He did not want to go to the children's program, so he just sat with me. Asked questions when he didn't know something. It was an awesome experience. I never took him to church before, but I did take Detrick and Gavin with me before going to school.

God is so good, I missed these guys so much because it had been so long. Yesterday my sister came to out parents with her boys so we had them all together. Wonderful!

Under Serious Conviction

I have been working on an annotated bibliography for my Research in Missions course. I have chosen to dissect missionary debt. Now I will say that if it was not for the Ontario Government I would not be in my college years in the first place. I know that student loans can leave you feeling hopeless especially when you see the lump sum that you owe in your final semester. I am there right now. I have done everything that I could to lower my costs for school. I have been working right from the second semester of my first up til now. However that does exclude my time in Calgary and overseas. I was an RA for two years I received bursaries and scholarships every year as well excluding the first year. The thing is though that I used the money that I made at my jobs to help me to have a life, to do fun things. Then I got a credit card with the smallest amount on it possible. This year I allowed the bank to double the funds available. Unfortunately I was not very disciplined with it and had it near maxed out. I have not used it since December and planned to just slowly pay it off. With all the research that I have been doing I decided that it needed to be taken care of. So I just now paid it off with the left over from my student loan and then removed the card from my wallet and put it in a safe place. Now with all this done I now have to slowly but surely deal with my other loans. A student line of credit which has a good sum on it because that is what I lived on while I was in Calgary and I have made a small dent in paying it now. The interest is lower than my credit, so I will not be as worried with this loan as I was with the credit card. I now know that I should be super careful with my spending. I need to remember where it is that the funds come from and that I only have a job because God provided it for me. Where are those pays going? Well right now I am getting enough hours to scrape by barely mind you. However, I know God will provide and I will be just fine. Come March and April hours will pick up at work and I will be even better than I am now.

Though now it is nice to see and know that one of these things is taken care of. I will work on the other things. Thank you God for convicting my heart in this area. Please help me to remember these things and apply it into my daily living.