the upper room and the chains of culture

there's this little room upstairs here in niverville, where i gather with a small handful of students each week, to pray for our little town and school. we meet before school, so it's pretty hardcore for these kids to be coming...and yet they come. warm beds beckon them, complacent crowds discourage them, religion does not demand this of them, but still a few do come.

we gathered today, and i'm recalling right now that i had shared that in our busyness - that's when we need God the most! so instead of shelving our relationship with him, we seek him when we "should" be doing other things...and see what happens when we trust him. so there's my sermon, and i have to laugh as this was said early this morning, and only now, midnight, i think about it again...and realize i've been going non-stop since then and pretty much lived out the antithesis of my sermon. eat my words.

but there's always redemption, for me, and for our little niverville. sometimes i think this ol' town is goin' down. it feels like there's a vast sea of grey, where people fence sit in spiritual apathy, but recently i've heard some people claim blatant non-christian stances. this is rare for niverville. call me morbid, but i'm actually kind of excited about this, for it seems like something is awakening. there's also a group of us young adults going through a dvd series called truth project, which is a strong anti-fence-sitting tool. i guess i'm not afraid of a challenge to the truth i believe in...for the truth will prevail. it's time we draw lines. it's time we see the chains of our culture and let the gospel set the captives free.

i think these kids in the upper room are helping to draw lines. booya.

LIFE [before and] AFTER FIJI: the swing of insanity

for those of you who don't know, i spent this last summer outside of routine; the basic routine involved with living in the same town with the same job for the last four years. oddly enough, i never quit my job, or moved away.

but it feels like i broke this routine, for this spring my good friend, and only other coworker for the last four years, moved away. sad times. but we hired two other good friends of mine. booya. then i took off to try and walk home from saskatoon with my brother. (whole other story). three weeks later i was home...helping the drop-in centre, where i've been working all this time, a whole new ball game with different staff.

a little later i left for fiji (another "whole other story"). three weeks later and i'm back. with both these excursions, saskatchewan and fiji, it's been so laid back, with a lot of time to think and listen and meditate. like a mental detox. now i'm back into the swing of insanity, so much good, hard and intense things. but these intensities drive me close towards God, which, i guess, only intensify the situation even more, because i'm learning (slowly) that God DOES actually answer prayer, especially when we're patient...and desperate, and when light goes into a dark place...there is an intense reaction!!!

i learned so much from the hearts of fijian believers, something so real that we're missing out on in our busyness...and in our wealth. i now look at our culture and see many many camels trying to fit through the eye of the needle...reading christian literature to navigate themselves. it's rather silly.

and....now my good man (mcmahon) eric is getting married. good good. and more busyness:) so, here's to a whole bunch of jumbled thought on my swing of insanity.

my walk through saskatchewan (check out "saskatales" in my posted notes on facebook for the full story)

my adventures in fiji (check out "the Fiji Experience" in my photo albums on facebook for the whole story).