Trick or Preach

On the bus today there was a man preaching the word of God.
He didn't care who listened or about anyone's response. He was there to preach the truth of God's love. After he was done he just got off calmly and left.
He wasn't preaching on a condescending manner or with a lot of pizazz, but somehow there was power in the words he was speaking. The boldness that only the Spirit can give. I think we should all be more like that

Also accompanied my kids trick or treating (not take) it was soo....at risk.

Going to Stratford this week.

Born Into Brothels

-Watched a documentary on the life of kids born in the brothels of the red light district in India. It made me want to go get a teaching degree and give those kids an education at any cost so they won't have to be live in such injustice.

-Celebration Night tomorrow I'm excited my girls are doing a black light worship dance and it looks SICKKK.

- Today one of the kids snuck into the kitchen and grabbed A BUTCHER KNIFE and proceeded to chase and try to cut another kid.

Just another day.....

Life?

One year a lot will change. I went back to MCBC for men's cell the other day and was surprised at how different the basement looked. It symbolic for me. A physical representation of the change that is happening everywhere around me.

Things will never be the same.

I remember saying something like "I won't miss this but I will treasure it"
Now that I look back... I do miss it. Growing up is bittersweet. On one hand you have a strong desire to push forward but on the other hand your scared of losing the people that will be left behind in the process. You've grown to much to go back but your reluctant to move forward.

Lately, God has been showing me gifts and abilities I had that I didn't even know I had. Its exhilarating but scary at the same time. When I start to piece together who I know I am so far, all my talents and gifts it all comes down to one thought: God is going to use me to do crazy things. He definitely didn't create me for a "normal" life. I think I would die or boredom living a normal life anyways.

Where will I be in 5 years?

Be Persecuted.

Small groups today

Studying early Christians, the cultural context in which they lived and comparing it to how we live in the world today.

Its soo much easier to be a Christian when your persecuted than when your not.
In North America it seems dry like God isn't really present. In other countries across the world where its hard to be a Christian, God is doing amazing things that just blow my mind everytime I hear about it. In North America when we're NOT persecuted we get "bored." We end up doing more damage than good. We fight amongst each other, worry about things that aren't important and end up being so comfortable we forget about God. Whereas if we were being persecuted all the stupid things wouldn't matter and the important things would really be brought into light.

What really amazes me is that during times of intense persecution is when the body of Christ grows the most. I think to the past when the early Christians were persecuted by the Romans. They were being killed left center and right, but in the end Constantine ended up declaring the empire a Christian nation because of the amount of Christians! I also think of the countries today that are doing the best spiritually: China, India, Iran etc. I mean in China over the past decade over 130 000 000 people have become born again even under persecution.

In North America, its hard to be Christian when our nation is supposed to be "Christian." We do these things in the name of Christ that is completely against his word and tarnish His name. Leaving people skeptical of God.
Its almost impossible for the world to be able to tell those who have the light of Christ within them and those that don't and are using Christianity as a brand.

We get sucked into lies that cover the true light of Christ.
Its the small things I hear things like:

"Its ok to put school ahead of God"
"God wants us to get good marks in school"
"God calls all of us to get a degree and go to university"
"That idea is to crazy you got to be responsible God wants you to take care of your life"

All whack.
God calls us to give EVERYTHING up for His Kingdom.

That means we can't expect any of our plans to workout. We have to be open to what God is calling us to do day by day because it could change very fast and unexpectedly. Sometimes we're so set on something, we deceived ourselves into thinking that OUR plans is God's plan.

We're not called to get 90's in school and kill ourselves studying. We are called to do everything to glorify the name of God. That means to use the abilities that God has given to us to their full extent and to have a good attitude when working but not to lose sleep and to WORRY over it.

I've had some pretty crazy ideas but there are always these voices telling me that its stupid or that I haven't really thought about it.

We get this idea that being "safe" is "Christian"
but when I read the bible its COMPLETELY opposite.
I mean the early Christians weren't safe they SOLD EVERYTHING they had. They had NO security they depended on God for everything.

We tell God we long for Him and we question and ask Him why it seems like HE isn't working. Yet we don't give Him much of our lives to WORK with.
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Camp today was good. God is doing awesome things.
Pray for wisdom in how to train the older youth to be mature leaders.

The Story

Come Children and listen to the story
The story of God the King of Glory.
Since the beginning of time,
Father, Son, Spirit existed in perfect rythme.
His love was so great he couldn't help but create
People He could fill with His love who in turn could create to show more love.
Everything was perfect. Everything was good.

But you see then we were all deceived. Tricked into eating the forbidden fruit
and thats when sin started to take root. Becuse of our lust for power what was good turned sour.
The serpent was to blame and since then we've been trapped in his evil game.
Held down by our sin unable to win.
but God the main character
In His love promised a saviour.

Christianity ain't no philosophy, epistemology, ideology
its a......lifeology made possible only through God the Father
who sent His perfect Son Jesus to be slaughtered
so that we can be called His sons and daughters

yeah, so that we can be called His sons and daughters

In Him we have life that is beyond this life.
We are free from our sins that are hidden deep within.
Given a hope an inexpressable joy
A supernatural love that sanctifies our souls.
A clean start a new heart.

We've all been down to the bottom
We all got stories when we've hit rock bottom
When the pain is so great you think that no one can relate.
Every day is a fight there seems no point in doing whats right.

its in those times when God does His heart surgery
and heals our spiritual injuries
Changing us to who He wants us to be
Revealing truth so we can see true reality.

In Christ you are more than a conqueror
Through him you inherit the Holy Spirit who gives us power to face
each challenge that comes as we run the race.

So
Bring Glory to the Great King.

All Around Downtown

Went to the Argos game with the kids today.
Good times. Except the game was boring.

God worked and I didn't have to do a thing.
The kids came across a homeless person and started talking to him, then a street musician I could see they really got a lot out of just talking to them.

They're starting to talk about God more and asking questions which is good.

The only incident we had was a kid almost getting hit by a subway because another kid pushed him.

"All Asians are rich man stop lying"
"man why do you people always have awesome talents your taking over everything"

-quotes of the day from my kids about asian ppl LOL

The other day we had a class on preaching.
I am required to prepare a message deliver it.
awesomeness

UH...Rapped?

I was really tired today.
Made a lot of mistakes.
but also learned a lot.

For the celebration night on the 30th the girls at camp are doing a black light dance
They were doing their dress rehearsal today... and it was beautiful.
It took a lot of effort to get them to concentrate during practices but it was worth it.

The love language of this culture is very different. A lot of more physical. Which is completely opposite of the Chinese culture. It gets time to adjust to.

So today after camp all leaders except me had a meeting. However they did not know that SIX of the girls (the most hyper ones) were still in the building. So as I'm getting ready to leave they all run into the gym and jump on me. They are vicious. I kept trying to get them to go home but they wouldn't leave. Things got really physical. At Urban Promise it is against policy to have any physical contact except for high fives but I really had no choice. I tried.

I think it was after I gave up that I realized that they were just playing and this is how they showed love.

Suburban Promise

SO this morning was my first day volunteering.
I was placed in the grade 1+2 split class.
Definitely not in my comfort zone, but God has been placing me out of my comfort zone for so long now, being comfortable is starting to feel uncomfortable.
Anyways this was a catholic elementary school and they happened to have mass today.
It was a new experience I must say. It felt extremely awkward as they were praying to Mary 0.o

I also did not understand half the ritualistic things they did or even what they meant. All I heard was a lot of monotonous chanting like robots.
and I wondered... where was God?

Anyways I decided to go hangout with the kids during recess much to my teacher's surprise. They all jumped me as soon as they saw me. LOL
It felt nice. When the kids are in their school environment, it makes it easy to tell how much they love going to camp. Its like home to them a sorta church.

The difficulty we're having right now are with the highschoolers who have gone through are program and come back to visit while struggling through tough times. The good thing is that they remember the love of this place and come back to it but the bad thing is: We don't have a highschool ministry, making it impossible to care for them in the way they need. We help set the foundation but....after that its in God's hands really.

Imagine what a huge difference the church would make if they opened their doors for 2 hours everyday after school to students around their area?

When I think of MCBC doing this I can see so many lives being transformed in a real way. I can see whole high schools changed for God.
Unbelievable things would start happening.

"Suburban Promise"

family?

Today I got a glimpse of the families in which some of the kids live.

There was a huge fight today. One older guys was fighting with three of the younger kids who were ganging up on him. I had to restrain the older one physically from beating the younger kids.

Since it was a fight we had to suspend the kids.

We took one of the kids home and explained what happened to his grandmother.
Of course the kid lied about what actually happened so the supervisor had to tell the truth. The grandmother didn't believe us though she yelled at the supervisor for 20 minutes about how her kid shouldn't be suspended because he didn't do anything wrong. She justified the kids point of view.

After camp we met one of the dads. He basically told us that revenge was the right thing to do. If someone wrongs you its ok to kill them.... He told us that he would BEAT his kids FOR us. HE seemed like a 14 year old in a grown man's body
...and THIS is the father of a 4 year old kid?

today was a hard day.
Where do we even begin?

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Finally starting volunteer placement at the school tomorrow.
I was looking forward to sleeping in too >.<
sigh*

Not by Works

God has been teaching me many things.
Its hard almost impossible to write it all out.

Sometimes I feel really out of place when I'm with people
who aren't as passionate for God as He has made me for Him.

Something huge I have learned is that it is God who changes hearts to love Him.
Its impossible for us to love Him on our own because our sinful nature contradicts Him.

God works in people's lives differently and in different times.
With the apostle Paul His change was immediate and fast
but with the disciple Peter it took awhile going through a lot of challenges before he was ready to minister.

When I see things in this way its hard for me to judge others because I know that its not anything I did but what God does.

One Victory!

Worry. stress.
I think in our culture its normal to be stressed, worried.
but the thing is .....its a SIN.

"Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God"

"Do not worry about tomorrow"

commands right out of the bible.
Its easy to forget that

As followers of Christ we should reflect Him. I don't think Jesus stressed about all the people he had to save or worried about the little time He had on earth before He died.

When we worry it shows our lack of faith in God.
Really its an insult to who HE IS.

When we worry we're telling God that we don't think that He will or is able to take care of our future, our problems.

On top of that worrying kills our spirit makes what was hard...impossible.
as Christians a lot of the battle is in the mind.

That was me. I was so worried about tonight.
but somehow God set me straight and I walked into camp trusting in Him.

A lot of unexpected things happened

The start of camp was rough. The Tyndale student were running late. Youth were coming in late. New kids kept coming. Grace and I were running around trying to keep things in order. Tyndale students didn't really know what they were doing, they were scared of the kids.

but in the end God worked in an amazing way.
The Tyndale students were able to share their testimonies with the full attention of the youth. They were fully engaged taking in everything that was said. We haven't really been able to do bible study with the kids so today was a small victory.

It was really encouraging to meet new brothers and sisters on a different path. It was weird because they we're first year students (same age as me) but I couldn't really tell because they all seemed so mature. Overall it was just good.

Its On

Somedays things seem fine because on the surface it is.
Other days you feel the battle raging deep inside the hearts of the youth.

Today was one of those days.

Things went pretty well in the behaviour sense.
People wise, the leaders are starting to see and be more aware of various issues.
All of which come from an incomplete/poor family life.

The balance during camp is very delicate one thing could tip it the wrong way....

I dunno why but sometimes I get scared of the youth. Its like I can feel this evil presence clinging on to them, blinding them, deceiving them.

One things for sure: There is a heck of a lot of invisible stuff going on behind this camp. Its been hard to teach anything from the bible.

Its also been refreshing to see God work. I always tired and worn out but as soon as camp starts I get the energy to love. Its like God zaps me with power for those 2 hours.

Gradually I've been building relationship, trust, respect from everyone youth, street leaders other interns. (its all God through me)

I've also been given more responsibilities. Being entrusted with more.
This Friday my supervisor is gone speaking on a youth retreat and both street leaders are gone. One is in the hospital and one doesn't work on Fridays. So its just me and a placement student named Grace running program. To make it more interesting 21 students from Tyndale University are coming to help. Its my job to feed them and plan a program which they can lead in which youth will enjoy and grow.

Pray for me.

Easy Day.

I slept at 9 and woke up @ 9 still tired wanting to stay in bed but I forced myself to get up.

God gave me an easy day.
Only 10 youth came .
They behaved and did their homework.

I think some of the girls were possessed because they helped clean the church after program and started singing worship songs as I played piano.

I'm confused but I guess thats ok.
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Its hard to sit back and watch.

I don't really have much time to talk to my school friends who graduated with me.
The times I do get to talk to them and see how how they're doing it makes me want to DO SOMETHING.

To somehow save them, show them the truth., open their eyes to a life filled with love and not..... crap.

but ....I can't.

Keep praying.

Weary

its been a long weekend.
so many things have happened.

I have no energy left.

Drained. mentally, physically, emotionally.

im done.
its time for God to do his work with me (as he has been doing)

Fathers

He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.
-Malachi 4:6

We had a house meeting. Throughout the next few weeks the guys will be learning on how to be fathers both spiritually and physically.

Almost all the kids grow up not knowing their dads, having their dads abandon them, incarcerated, having multiple dads or abusive fathers.

So we are called to be that role model to them.

Its funny because the way we view God comes a lot from our own fathers.

We always pray "Our Heavenly Father"
Whats the first thing that comes to mind when we say "father?"

Our own father of course~ and sometimes its not a very good image of a how a father should be like. We're not perfect.

In the program you can see the effects of having no male role model. The youth are looking for someone to look up too. They may disrespect you on the outside but really in their hearts they want your love.

That's a lot of pressure on me.
How am I going to portray what a father should be like? I'm just a boy.
but God has been speaking to me showing me a little of what its like.

Another thing is, there are just SO many kids. we have 26 and only 4-5 leaders at one time. Each youth has a different need. Its impossible to be able to care for them all on a personal level.

God worked today there was PEACE His peace and also unity and love.
Praise God.

At Risk

We had an intern class on factors and characteristics of at-risk youth.
Something huge I realized in class was that many of the people I know from the CBC youth culture would fit most or all of the characteristics on some level...even the church goers. As we discussed the behavior patterns, things started clicking in my head. I could relate to a lot of the behaviors patterns personally but I could also see them in my peers.

Its funny because sometimes we buy into this lie that people who need help are somewhere out THERE, when really they were right in front of you the whole time.

"we are all broken"
it is out of our own brokenness that we serve.
We are all equally in need of God's grace in our lives

I always knew that in my head, but its wasn't until I really got it and understood it that I was able to see people in a different light. To be able to get past my own frustrations and problems with their imperfections and realize that I'm not any better.

I have to remind myself everyday of my own brokenness so that Christ can work through me.

The work is intense. Even though its only 2 hours a day, to love like Christ drains all the energy out of you. Its easy to fall into the trap of taking it as "work." To focus on yourself and getting out of there ASAP. Its also easy to focus too much on getting things done and neglecting relationships which is at the core of what we are called to do.

"God chose to use relationships"

You gotta be in tune with God to be filled with His grace and love daily.
If your not.... if one little part of you is out of place it shows in how you interact with the kids and they watch every LITTLE thing you do and say.

So far we haven't been able to do devo's or teach the youth about God.
We can't even get them to stop playing for 2 seconds.
We have been able to develop relationships though.

keep praying.
pray that God will open up the opportunity for the team to show and teach who He is in a real way.

Decisions

The girls in the program have always been a lot of deal with. Today we were talking and we came to a hard choice to make.

Two of the girls have the worst attitudes, have crazy mood swings and they cause all the other girls to act up. Today they started fighting like crazy hitting each other with brooms not just playing; serious fighting. One of the leaders had to hold them down. We've tried everything but we haven't seen ANY change over the summer or even before. Suspension is usually the punishment that works but it doesn't work with these girls they just don't care.

Its getting to the point where we can't run program normally. We spend all our time on a couple of the bad kids and neglect the ones that behave and want to learn.
We were given the advice to "let them go." Suspend them for the rest of the year or until they're ready.

This might seem like were giving up but really its out of love.
We can't do anything if they don't want to be helped.
It hurts us cuz we know that if they're not in program they can be in a million other not so good places.

Right now we have them in the program but separated from everyone else. The problem with this is it takes up one leader to take care of them and we are already short staff and getting more youth everyday.

Tomorrow we are going to pray about this and leave it in God's hands because they're ultimately His kids.

Pray for us.
Pray for wisdom.

Detox

I have decided to do a detox.
Only fruits, vegetable and nuts for 5 days.

I want every part of my life to be glorifying to God even what I eat.

Anyways program today was .....well I learned a lot.

The first part went really well with the boys although I have to simplify my bible study stuff so they can understand better. They're your typical boys curious with no attention span.

It wasn't until I started cooking with some of the girls that things went bad.

They went crazy.

to discipline the kids is a hassle cuz you have to go through so much. A lot of the time you don't wanna bother. You have to go through the attitude and the complaining and it takes a lot of time to actually follow through.

The kitchen was a mess. I was actually really temped to clean it myself instead of getting the girls to do it. But I forced my lazy butt to go make them do it because it was for there own good and I was there for them not me.

I walk in to where they ran off to see a girl eating a stolen yogurt from the fridge which I had told her not to take earlier. As punishment I told her to wash the dishes. I then went to the supervisor and she heard me telling him what happened.
In the kitchen she was giving attitude didn't wanna do it and things just got out of hand. She went off like a black women and started yelling at me "your not the boss of me" SOO LOUD and then I snapped and started yelling to but she didn't back down and that was my mistake.

Somehow things calmed down and she went to wash the dishes.

It was then that I learned that my mindset had to be right all the time not just most of the time. The kids pick up on your attitude and how your treat them; every small detail. I'm not there to order them around but I'm there to love them and to teach them.

I went to go apologize with the right attitude and when I did all the girls apologized too with the same attitude. (woot small win I think)

Hopefully things will get better.

Marriage

We had a party today for one for of the interns and the topic of conversation that came up was marriage.

So here all the interns were talking about when they want to get married, how long they want to date for, what type of person they want to marry and where they want to go for their honeymoon.

I felt very out of place because I have no plans for the future. I'm just living life day to day trusting in God and where he takes me. It seems really pointless to me to make ANY sorta of plans, to even expect to get married or even live long enough to get to that stage in my life.

Do I want to get married? of course.
I want to experience the awesome thing God has created called marriage.
I want to love my hypothetical wife (LOL) so much that everyone is able to see the image of Christ's love for the church so that His name is glorified.

I want my "wife" to be the most loved woman on the face of the planet~

but this life is not mine.


I never thought that I would be blogging these words because a part of me wants to do a lot of things like get married and live a comfortable life.

But honestly I would rather have God and than anything else and if that means giving up good things than I guess I will have to do that although it will be hard.

"Without Him nothing is made that has been made"
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Learning soo much its hard to take it all in. Its like an explosion of candy and I'm trying to grab and hold on to as much as I can.

"give me the grace to do what you want me to do just when I need it"

I think this weekend back is going to be a huge challenge, the real test of my faith.

Can I rock what I got? or will I crash and burn?
I know that whatever happens one or the other God is going to be there.

Whacked Out Day

Today was one of those days where everything is confusing.
One of those days that makes you second guess every choice you made.

I went to the first meeting for TC Media today. How did I end up there? No clue. I was just asked and I ended up going. Honestly I never expected to be back for another year. Even now I'm still unsure of why or what I'm doing there. I guess God just throws really unexpected things at you all the time.

Right now with Urban Promise things are also a little confusing. Sure I'm running an after school program and showing the love of God to the kids but so far I don't know how my talents and gifts fit into this.Right now I feel like I haven't done much and I don't see where things are going or how they're going to workout.

The one I do know though is that God is working. I can feel Him through the people He has been placing in my life and just by talking to Him.


Even though it was confusing it was also a testimony of God's grace.

For media we had a pro dancer come give us a workshop. God really used her today to bless the team. She's an awesomely passionate Christian and just by talking to her I was able to see some of the miraculous things God is doing. She was telling me about how she feels like God is going to use Toronto in unbelievable ways because of the wide diversity of culture in the city.

I feel it too
"greater things are still to be done in THIS city"

Everyday is another adventure you never know how God is going to work. Sometimes it's "normal" but other times something supernatural and unexpected happens.
Don't be fooled by the illusion of predictable routine.

Friday Night

On Friday nights we hold a youth program instead of after school program and cook dinner for the youth.

We started a fire in the kitchen while try to deep fry fries.
but overall it was good.

I have the younger boys so its hard to go through bible study but the other groups had really good conversations.

Instead I ended up playing games with them and just talking to them there actually the most unique kids ever. Even when they're really rude to you or do whack things, you get mad but its hard NOT to love them.

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I've been praying a lot for different people and tonight my friend excitedly started messaging me about how awesome fellowship was and how cool it was that everyone had a different picture of God. Her parents don't really want her to come for fellowship but she has been able to the past few weeks.

It is encouraging to see God work.

Take it Slow

The past two days have been crazy but good.

Fights broke out:

a little kid tried to whip a girl with a MOP that was like 2 meters taller than him

a boy spit in a girls face who then SMACKED him upside the head.

one of the kids tried to steal our N64 systems.

and another decided to run into a wall and cracked it.

BUT Gradually I can see the kids calming down, getting into the routine.

Getting to know them better might be able to train up a band, got some pretty talented youth PRAY for that.

Some of the other youth in the community want to go to the program but are scared of the other kids. Pray for that.

Amidst all of this God is working. I can feel the Spirit beside me, walking with me empowering me, convicting me. He LIVES inside of us. I think we don't take that fact seriously enough. I gotta stop thinking that I gotta do this or that, but just trust and be faithful in the moment God has called me in. The Spirit will work and is working according to His timing and will.

Its only been three days and things have gotten a lot better.

On another note a police officer came to educate us on the gang situation in the area. The Crypts are in the community where we walk our kids home and they're warring with another gang in Jamestown shooting back and forth. We were Just told to be careful.

Apparently some of the moms have a say in on what goes on in the gangs cuz the gang leaders come home to their moms LOL. its funny and sad.

Just Pray........ seriously.