Week Fiveteen

It is Monday night as I write this. We just came in from playing some pretty intense indoor soccer in Crofton with the Kaleos. This week was a relaxed week. It was the week after snowboarding at Mt. Washington and the week before our Intro to Theology class. We had Jim's camp ministry class for a couple days in there. Altogether, not too much has happened this week, other than doing an extensive amount of reading from our Christian Doctrine textbook. I can't count how many times I drifted into a sleep reading that book.

I just had a thought as I was writing this. I was thinking about on Monday night, a week ago today, where we had a worship night, and it was a time filled with prayer about unity. I had a flash back of first semester and many of the struggles that we had with being disunited. I truly am thankful and blessed by the people that I am in community with, especially the guys. I have a brotherhood with them.

Seriously though, this week was a good week, but not much happened. For me it was a time of reflecting on the events of last week, and I am still thinking about them. It was a week where I saw some answer to prayer, though not in a way that I expected at all. Several mornings this week I tried some lectio divina reading of Scripture, asking the Lord to reveal certain things to me that he wanted me learn. One morning, I felt like the Lord wanted me to realize who I was in relation to who he is. I asked the Lord then to humble me in whatever way possible. At the end of the day, I had been humbled, though, by my own faults. It was if I had humbled myself as a result of my shortcomings to obey the Lord. A strange thought, but wasn't that what I prayed for? The next time I read, I felt that the Lord wanted me to trust him about my future and next year. This is hard for me, but I am trying to do this. Its funny, because I have applied to a couple schools, completely open to anything now. I like this time now, because I have done everything that I can do to prepare for next year, now simply it is up to him to take care of me and reveal to me what his will is. Please be praying for me as I spend time with God, that he will constantly be speaking to me. Pray that he will constantly be humbling me, and that my trust in him will be growing exponentially.

On Friday, we had a youth event for all the youth groups of the Cowachin Valley held here at Qwanoes. This was a sweet event and it was so great to be in community with other kids and other leaders all under the same roof for the same goal. I really do like my youth group. I am becoming good friends with all the leaders, and I have solid friendships with the kids in the youth group, especially the grade eight guys. They are a blast! Several of them are actually going to Vancouver to perform on the streets during the Olympics as part of a drumming troupe. Pray for them and their outreach that they will be doing there. I find that when I go to youth group, I naturally get along with the outgoing kids who are engaging and I can relate to, but recently I have been trying to be more intentional about spending time with kids who do not seem to get any attention.

My favourite part of the week once again would be Sunday nights for our homeless ministry. As we were walking down the traintracks to the place that we normally meet people, we heard three teenage guys yelling at us from quite a distance. We ignored them and kept walking along, until they started cutting across the field over towards us. Finally as they were only a small distance away from us, we stopped and so did they. There was three of them and four of us, me, Justin and two girls. We prayed for a bit, and on the way, I was praying for boldness in our words and actions. Other nights, I have felt such a boldness in what we do, such as approaching loud voices that are coming from behind trees in the dark, or intruding on a private bonfire. I secretly was hoping for these guys to come over to us and we could talk to them. Actually, I wanted to keep walking and go up and meet these guys. But we stood there, and so did they until they went on their way and we kept going. After a while, I started thinking about what is the difference between boldness and foolishness? I appreciate the leadership that Justin displayed in that scenario. Maybe the situation would have been different if it was just me and him, and maybe if I wasn't a student under his care. I don't know. Even still, I don't want to live my life in fear or hesitation of stepping into the dangerous, exciting and challenging life that God calls us to live. Please, if you have any insight to offer me about what the difference is, tell me. I want to live with the spirit of power, love and self-discipline and not of the one of timidity, however, in no way do I want to be foolish in my actions. These are simply developing thoughts.

This week is our Introduction to Theology class. Please pray for me as I have always struggled with the idea of theology. Pray for pure understanding and interest too as I sit through these classes. More than anything, would this class encourage me and enable me to live more like Jesus.

Be praying for preparation for the Olympics for us. We leave on the 10th and want God to be moving, working and preparing us for the work that he has set aside for us long before then. Pray and hope for big things!

I will leave you with a quote that for some reason has been in my mind these past few minutes.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot.

Week Fourteen Pictures

Sweet powder days

Matt jumping off the balcony....

....into about 9 feet of snow

View from the top

Bo shredding the gnar

Justin, ripping it up

Backcountry rainbow rail we found

Boardslide

50-50

How can this compare to Blue Mountain?

Snowshoeing. So fun!

Jade, Caroline, Matthew, Tim and Nicole ready to drop in

Week Fourteen

This has been an incredible week. Thank you all for your prayers for us as we were at Mount Washington this week. I have seen some very real answers to prayer this week. But I will fill you in on that a bit later.

As you all know, I am from Ontario, which means that any snowboarding that I do is on a hill, make that lump. So this week, for the first time in my life did I snowboard on a mountain. It was such a blast! Five days of shredding the gnar with some of my best friends with fresh snow every day! I have never had so much fun snowboarding before in my life. There very few feelings as good as ripping through several feet of unridden snow in the backcountry, dodging trees and watching them fly past you as you catch air off jumps and drops. Besides the incredible snowboarding, the nights were great too. We would come back to a warm chalet at the bottom of the mountain that we could snowboard right to, and there was three hot tubs, cooks that came with us from camp and we would all pile into this warm house at the end of a long and tiring day. Seriously though, as great as the snowboarding was, the best part of the entire week would be the chapels that we had each night. At the beginning of the week, Jim warned us that the place that we were staying was sacred. It was a place where God did big things in the past and spoke loudly. I can see now that this is indeed true. This was a sacred place for us. On the first night that we had chapel, we all talked about where we could see Christ in others. This took a long time, because there was a lot to say, but everyone could see Christ in everyone and it was voiced. I felt a huge amount of unity and encouragement on that night. How crazy is it that Jesus Christ lives within us? The God of the universe dwells within me! I never want to loose this feeling of unworthiness/excitement and I want to be continually having myself living less and less and having Christ being shown more and more through everything that I do. Thank you Lord that you live in us. Please pray that I would be growing in the authority that I have been given through having Jesus live in me. If Jesus lives within me, I want to certainly be living with the authority and fullness that one would have with the incarnate God living within them. That was Monday. Tuesday was my favourite day of the week, since the snow was incredible and we had a great day of riding but also the chapel was the best one that we've had this year. Jim talked about how Jesus gave Simon a new name, Peter. He said that that name was out of character for Peter at the time, since this so called "Rock" was actually an impulsive, wavering, emotion filled boy. Sure the name Peter would have been an encouragement, but also, it was a huge sweater to fill. It was admonishment. That night, we were given new names too. Names that would encourage us where we were at, but also names that would push us and challenge us. I have prayed in the past that God would speak to me and glorify others and himself through the words that he spoke to me, and that is exactly what happened that night. I would be sitting there, and a word would randomly be put in my mind about a specific person and I knew that I would just have to say it. That was the Holy Spirit speaking to me, not for my own glory, but for the edification of the body of believers of Kaleo. When I would say a word, it was completely confirmed by several others that that was the same word that they were thinking or the same idea. For that reason, I know that God was speaking that night, and that it was not merely our own thoughts that gave each other names. God was giving us new names! My name is Shepherd. This is the name that God gave me and was confirmed by many others. To be completely honest, I welcome this name because I know that it is from God, but I am intimidated by it. Shepherd is a big role. Man, does this sweater feel big. I am encouraged in the present by this name of Shepherd, but I am indeed challenged to become more and more like the Shepherd that God has in mind for me to become. Jim said that it was a dangerous name, because it means pastor. I kinda wanted to walk away when I heard that. I do not want to be a pastor, at least not the pastor that I am familiar with. I think that my own preconceived ideas of what a pastor is and what a pastor isn't is clouding what "pastor" really means. I believe that I can be a pastor, without actually being a pastor, if that makes any sense. It is a dangerous name. Be praying for me please, that I would develop in every way into the Shepherd that God wants me to be. The cool thing about these names is that I often feel distant from knowing God's will for me. However through this name that God gave me, I feel that I have a little direction as to what God wants from me, and what I will be doing for God. Please pray for this too, as I am trying to think about where to go next year, that God will continue to affirm things in me, and continue to guide me. The next chapel we talked about things that we need to give up. The analogy was this, that after a long day of snowboarding, we are wearing old, wet, cold clothes. Jesus is standing in the warm chalet with toasty warm and dry clothes for us. So we lifted up to the Lord things in our life that we needed to shed. The thing is, is that it wasn't a time of sorrow and guilt in our confessions, but it was done with a very thankful and submissive spirit, since we were giving God things that were holding us back and taking hold of the things that were genuinely better for us in every way that we could imagine. I told God that I needed to shed my pride in order for me to become more like Christ, and that instead of pride, I needed to cloak myself with humility. I believe that every time we talk to God, we should come away changed. We should not remain the same after talking to the God of the universe. I felt a change in my heart even that night. Please be praying that God would be continuing to shed from me these wet clothes of pride that I cannot remove on my own and replace them with the warm clothes of humility. That is a little taste of the week. Pretty awesome eh? I didn't go to youth this week because we got back to late from Mount Washington to make it. Saturday was a good day, where I was supposed to be doing homework but the beautiful weather made it impossible to do so. I was down at the dock barefoot, in jeans and a t-shirt, and I felt warm. It was insane! Barefoot in January!? I thought about all of you back in Ontario shovelling snow. Can't say that I feel jealous at all. Later that day I went mountain biking up one of the local mountains with a girl from Kaleo who competes in bike races. I was glad I got the invite to go biking, but man was it intense. A complete hour of biking uphill. So worth it though. I had a great time hanging out with her too, considering that I never really hung out with her before. Also on Saturday, I randomly ran into Nathanael, a good friend that I have made just in the past couple of months, even though I have only met him three times. He is the one who I keep meeting on retreats. We talked and prayed for a while together in December, then by surprise we ran into each other again in Vancouver at Missionsfest and he prayed for me for a while there, then he was at Qwanoes on Saturday just for a visit. It is cool to see God setting up these encounters, definitely divinely orchestrated. He is such an encouragement. I got to tell him about the answers to things that he has prayed for me, and we took great joy in that. When I think of him, I think of the word authority. I can see that he has authority from Jesus. When he prays, he sees right through me, and prays about things that I have not brought up, and it seems when he prays, that things do happen. Thank you Lord for such a good friend that you have brought into my life at just the right times it seems. I will trust that you will keep these meetings coming.

This week is a homework week. A lot of assignments to do, and a huge book to read on Christian Doctrine. I'm not sure how I will get it all done. Pray that I do.

Please pray that God would be giving me his strength to be meeting with him in the mornings. Let me wake up even before my alarm goes off. Pray that the word of God would be bound to my heart, and that I would LIVE in the word. Please be praying that God would be preparing me for the Olympics - teaching me how to pray, how to listen. Please give thanks to God for all that he is doing here at Kaleo. He is melting hearts of stone!

This has been a long post, but it has been a significant week. I know that in many years when I think back on Kaleo, this will be one of them that stands out the most. Thanks for sharing in my week.

Week Thirteen

Hey. I am soo excited for tomorrow! We are going to Mount Washington for the week to shred the gnar (aka go snowboarding). We will be going snowshoeing and tubing too, along with sweet chill times in a chalet at the base of a mountain. Tough life I know. I know that this will be a great trip, but please pray for listening ears along with the times of craziness. Pray that God would use each of us and his nature and beauty to speak to each person at Kaleo in a specific, personal way. I am praying that this would be a time of great intimacy with our Father and great vulnerability with each other.

Well this week was of a slower pace. We had a camp ministry class taught by our very own Jim Badke on Tuesday and Thursday. Jim is a great guy in every aspect, as a leader, a teacher, a friend, so it was no hardship to listen to him those days. To be honest though, camp ministry is not something very close to my heart. I cannot say that I have a passion for camp ministry as much as I know it is great and love camp myself. On Monday we had a great chapel. We were sharing about our Christmases and I felt like I needed to share about my Grandpa who passed away on January 9th. I was filled with great joy even as I mourned for him, and was sad that I didn't make it to his funeral. I talked about his life, how he was a man after God's own heart, and he is the cause of many generation blessings for the Derksen family. At first I felt nothing but joy and happiness for Grandpa leaving this earth, but as soon as I started talking about him, I started to cry. It felt good. It was what I needed to fully and truly express how I felt. Though even as I wept, I was still filled with joy for him. But I do miss him a lot. Thank you all for your prayers for the family.

We have been watching snowboarding movies in order to get pumped for next week. I think they are working.

I finished reading a good book this week called Forgotten God. It's by Francis Chan and its about recognizing and stopping the neglect of the Holy Spirit. It has given me a lot to think about, such as, am I really surrendering everything over to God? Am I truly empty of myself so that he can fill me? How do I hear God and have intimacy with him daily? Am I still being glorified through my works or is Christ being glorified through ALL that I do? I do not know the answers to these questions. Pray for that God would develop in me the fullness of his Holy Spirit, so that Christ would be glorified and not me.

I have seen a cool answer to prayer as I look back on things. Over Christmas, I told God that I wanted to give Him the best part of my days, every day but I needed his strength to do that. He has helped me get up every morning, definitely NOT on my own strength. When I turn off my alarm subconsciously in my sleep, someone woke me up, and other times I would get up before my alarm woke me up. I know that this may seem insignificant, but I feel that it is good to recognize answers to prayer, no matter what they are. Now for another answer to prayer. This is the unfinished story that I hinted at on my last post. My good friend Nate's sister has cancer in her brain and this was shown on her MRI in November. It has a survival rate of 0% and I believe that she is the only one under a certain age (can't remember but fairly old) that has this rare type of cancer. She had another MRI in January and this has been a journey for all of us here at Kaleo, dedicated to prayer for this situation. We have learned to submit to the will of God and also to pray in faith and with boldness. The results came in from her MRI and it was a total answer to prayer. She is stable, and the cancer is still there, but the exact same as what it was in November, which is unheard of as this type of cancer spreads like wildfire. Praise God for this answer to prayer and please be praying with me for Katelyn (Nate's sister). Pray that God would fully heal her. Pray that God would make his name great, no matter what. I pray that through this we would develop hearts that trust in God and in his mercy, justice and his will, which as we know is good, pleasing and perfect.

This has been a trying week. I have had days of discouragement, days of sadness, days where I have been strongly convicted of sins (thank you Lord) and days of feeling sick. I have also experienced God's grace in the midst of this. I have had some great times with friends, have had great times soaking with the Lord in prayer. Please pray that I would have the ears to hear what God is teaching to me.

I went to youth group for the first time since before Christmas. To be honest, I feel useless there quite often. We had a meeting on Thursday night, and in one and a half hours, we accomplished absolutely nothing. The climax of our meeting was playing a game called "Ching Ching Chowie". I was glad that they included us as leaders for their leaders meeting, but I would have also been content to play soccer like we usually do on Thursdays. Friday night at youth we had "the hunger" a worship night. I enjoyed it a lot, but I wondered how many kids were there just to hang out, and how many kids wanted to meet God there and were just not being fed. I feel like they could place a greater emphasis on God throughout their normal youth weeks. The Hunger is great because it is a chance for these kids to be fed, and I pray that they are being fed. I also hope to have a greater role and responsibility with these kids, but maybe I am really just supposed to be there to love these kids and do that by hanging out with them and being closer to their level. I'm not sure.

Once again, I am blessed, and challenged by our homeless ministry. I didn't meet anyone but we did have a great time of prayer over an area that attracts many homeless people. We actually cleaned up their spot for them, building a firepit and cleaning up their garbage. I suppose that this was a practical way of bringing restoration to all of creation.

Thanks again for checking in. I love seeing God moving and working here. It's visible.

Week Twelve Pictures

This is what is roaming around my domain. There's not enough room for the two of us....

Week Twelve

Wow, it has been a while since I have been on here. A lot has happened, both here at camp this past week and over Christmas. I will give you a very brief overview of my Christmas break by saying that I spent much of the break being with family, which was very much needed after being away from them for several months. It was fairly quiet, easy going, did not get to see as many people as I thought I would, but was very content with the peacefulness of this Christmas. My goal this past Christmas was to have my focus solely on Jesus' entrance to this world, and try and be as excited about the coming Messiah as what the shepherds and wisemen would have been. I know that is pretty hard to do, but I felt much more understanding and excited about Christmas this year than I have ever felt before. Most Christmases I am excited because, well, it's Christmas and that means no school and presents, but this year, it was about Jesus bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.

Though I was slightly hesitant to jump back into full speed at camp again, my fears quickly left me when I was ambushed in the airport by several familiar faces. I flew in on Sunday, and missed both a connecting flight to Nanaimo and church. It is a great feeling to miss church. Well, not being absent from church, but to know that there is a community of believers filled with great teaching, service, outreach, worship and fellowship that you just can't wait to get back to. That is definitely how I felt over Christmas. I really enjoy New Life and can't wait to get back there serving and attending. The more and more I think about it, the more I can see that this is the church that I was supposed to be at.

We jumped back into full speed quickly. On Monday we had our first class of this semester, called Theology of Missions taught by Tim Stabell, a professor at Briercrest but also a missionary in the Congo for fourteen years. This class grew on me over the week. It started off a bit slow I found, and I had a hard time finding relevance and significance early in the week, but I realized that it was all just foundation for things that we would learn later on. Missions really is at the core of God's heart, and I loved how this course was designed to help us understand better the heart that God has for this world. Tim was an amazing guy. He quickly gained my respect and he was gentle, bold, inviting and passionate. It was great for me to see a man who was so committed to the Great Commission and really believed it to be true. I am coming away with changed thoughts about missions. We spent this whole week thinking about missions. We went to MissionsFest in Vancouver this weekend and listened to passionate speakers talk about justice and perserverance. After this week, I am coming away incredibly curious as to where God is going to take me. I am desiring to bring justice for those who live under oppression and see the huge need for that. I also see a huge need to communicate the gospel to those who have either never heard it before or to take it into the places where people are afraid to take it, be it a hostile jungle or a dangerous ghetto. I am certainly open to whatever God has in store for me, but I just want it to be big. I want to be an extremely bright and powerful servant of God who is actively bring the kingdom of heaven to earth in big, bold ways. I would appreciate prayer for me know that God would be guiding me and that I would be able to hear what he is speaking to me in terms of direction for next year. University, bible school, missions? All of these are just thoughts right now with no strong leading in any direction. Pray for guidance please. Something cool that happened over the conference was that a friend of mine who I had recently met prayed for me after a session, and one thing that he felt that God was saying to him about me was that I had hands strong enough to bend a bow of iron. I don't really know what this means, but want to know. I found that interesting and am excited to see how that will play out in my life. On Saturday, Justin, James and I went down to East Hastings area in Vancouver, the poorest location in all of Canada. This place was a ghetto, full of drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless people. We found our way into a community building and enjoyed many good conversations with everyone from drug addicts, homeless musicians, and people who were involved in town council. I do feel like I have a big spot in my heart for these incredibly poor and broken people. An interesting fact I learned in the downtown east side is that men, aged 18-25 are the most common people to be kidnapped believe it or not, because people kill them and then sell their organs (not sure where, black market???) for top dollar. Someone can make $100 000 off of a male body. Pretty scary, and as I looked on the community bullitin board, most of the missing posters were of grown men. Times sure are changing.

I am realizing that I am very much a baby in many ways. One of my goals this year was to be able to hear God speak to me. Just like a baby does not know how to walk though and must learn, so I believe that I must learn how to hear God, and it starts with just trying. On Thursday morning, many of the guys woke up early and went down to the dock to listen to God, let him help shape our vision of this year, lift up our own hopes and aspirations of this next semester to him, and just pray together. As we spent time in quiet listening to God, I had a hard time listening. I did not come away hearing anything, but I am not discouraged, more motivated to take time to listen to God. I love these people even more than last semester, which is hard to imagine. I do feel that we have bonded as a greater community over the break.

This week we had a cougar encounter (you'll love this mom). Two girls were walking back from the gym at night and saw a cougar crouching in the woods. They looked at each other (animal to girls) then the girls came back to camp and the cougar followed them the entire way. It was spotted close to the dorms later than night. Kinda freaky, but all the guys grabbed lights and weapons and tried to go hunting, but were not permitted. Maybe we'll get another chance.

Please be praying for God to teach me to listen and to be patient with me while I learn. I don't really know what this semester looks like, I'm intimidated with the school work and don't want to neglect important aspects of my life this semester but have a good balance of everything I do. Pray for continued depth and growth with my brothers and sisters here. Pray that God will prepare us for the Olympics (we are volunteering there for our missions trip). Pray that God would teach us how to pray, since this trips is mostly a prayer trip. I'm learning a lot about faith too, about praying in faith and power of prayer. I will fill you in on this next week. There is a story that is not finished yet.

I need to go to bed, but I hope that you have a good insight to this first week back in "the greenhouse". Thank you for your prayer and support.

Week Eleven

I write this entry from the comfort of my own bed at home in Orangeville Ontario. This semester has been so incredible and I realize this more and more every time I tell someone about it or look at pictures. I want to thank any Kaleos reading this for the awesome ride this first semester has been. I'm looking forward to January!

Backing up in time a bit, the week after our church ministry class consisted of mustaches, Christmas trees, Bas Rutten, papers and a conference. On Tuesday we went Christmas tree hunting and had a Christmas banquet which was full of laughs and good turkey. Wednesday was a day dedicated to writing two papers due just before we all would head home for Christmas. Thursday, many of us (all but 8) left for Vancouver to go to a youth workers conference. This trip was a great thing to look forward to at the end of the semester and it was great to get off the island, and out of Qwanoes, even just for a bit. I got one of my papers done on the ferry ride, and that freed me up a lot to just soak in the conference. I learned many things on over this conference. Let me share a few things.

-One of my papers was on 'the ministry of reconciliation' as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 and I realize that this "ministry" that I have been given, is not a two hour even once a week, but a lifestyle. Every aspect of my life needs to be screaming of reconciliation. The reason I do ministry, the content of my ministry, and what my ministry offers all needs to be reconciliation. This is huge! and I want to not just realize this, but live it out.

-At the conference, Mark Buchanan, my pastor at New Life and a man that I deeply respect and know personally, spoke on Mark 9, the story of the demon possessed boy who the disciples were unable to heal, and then Jesus told them that it was something that could only be healed through prayer and fasting. I had never really understood this passage until now. These things that I am writing are not my own thoughts or conclusions, but what Mark spoke on that really resonated with me. First of all, the sentence, "I do believe, help me with my unbelief" I understand it to mean, "I do believe in you, but your church has let me down." This may seem like a strange and bold conclusion but through Mark's speaking, I believe this to be true. Jesus wasn't around when the father brought his boy to be healed, so he brought his son to the next best thing - his disciples. The father saw these men as equal to Jesus, with faith that they could heal them, however they could not. This made it more difficult to have total faith in Jesus, when the people who follow him have disappointed him in the past. I will come back to this point in a bit. Secondly, why is it that Jesus did not even stop to pray before casting out this demon, if it could only be healed through prayer and fasting? The disciples (most likely) were praying every prayer they could think of and could not drive the demon out. What Jesus means by prayer and fasting, is being constantly connected to the Father, much like a battery and charger. We need to be plugged into God through prayer and meditation so much so, that we are constantly full, so when we need to go and use the authority that Jesus gives us in his name, we are able to do so. Jesus spent every morning praying to his Father, and was always getting charged up. This was not the case with the disciples, and therefore, could not exercise the authority that Jesus had given them. I truly desire to be seen as equal to Jesus through the eyes of non believers, and I want to be someone that encourages other's faith in Jesus and does not add to their unbelief. This session really motivated to start abiding in God once again, every day. I went back to the church where we were staying that night and had an unreal conversation about all of this with a man named Nathanael. He was so encouraging and was such a blessing to talk to as he helped me work through some of these things. He reminded me of the passage John 15, where I need to remain in Him in order to bear fruit, getting my daily bread and spending adequate time in prayer.

-The sessions were incredible, but some of the best times were outside of the conference. Several of us went to all you can eat sushi and then Italian the next night, but meeting homeless people was the best part. I am involved, as you all know, in the homeless ministry in Duncan on Sunday nights and have really developed a passion for those people. This was a great chance to continue that ministry. Now, I am going to re-write a story that I previously recorded, of something that happened during the conference:

One day, James, Mark and I were walking downtown Vancouver when we passed a homeless man named Chris who had a sign that read "52 Birthday". Judging by the weathering of the sign, it was his birthday everyday, but nomatter. We stopped and seated ourselves down on the busy street corner and talked to him. Turns out that he really trusts in God, and God provides a lot of his daily needs. One night he prayed for some money, and when he went back to his sleeping bag, there was a 10 dollar bill on his sleeping bag. Every night he says a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord and that night, he said that the three of us would be in his. As we left, we all felt really great about it, and decided to come back later with cake to celebrate his birthday. So later that day, we gathered a large group of us to go down, Justin and I went earlier to make sure he was still there. He said he went to the same corner everyday. Sure enough he was there, and so Justin and I went to IGA and bought him a cake that said "Happy Birthday Chris" on it. As we went out beaming, full of excitement about 25 of us marching down to the corner, and then Chris was no where to be found! We split up and ran around looking for him, but we was gone. We were all pretty disappointed and didn't get it since I though that this would haver really blessed him. Quite dejected, we walked back to the hotel, and I put the cake in room service. The next day, we decide to try again, since he said he was at that corner everyday. This time, we brought along Jared Hall, an incredible magician who we met at the conference. This time there was only 8 of us. We walked down to the corner, praying in out heads and out loud that Chris would be there. We get down there and he was not there!I thought that my attempts to show Christ to these guys on the street was surely in vain at that point. We walked around for a bit. Jared and two others left and we decided to find another guy to come celebrate with us. So James and I go ahead back to the original corner where we met Chris, and across the street was a homeless man in a wheelchair with only one leg. We walk up and I wasn't sure what to say, I didn't want it to seem like I was just giving him a cake as charity or anything. I started about 2 sentences and then stopped both and just simple asked "What's your name?" He looked at me and said "Chris." At that point I was completely shocked and overwhelmed and excited and thankful all at the same time. In that moment, I knew that my attempts were not in vain, they were just reserved for someone else. I told him that we'd like to celebrate a birthday with him, since we had a cake with his name on it...literally! As the rest of the group showed up he was very happy and agreed to play along that his birthday was on December 5th. We all sung happy birthday to Chris on the street corner and apparently, I couldn't see as I was cutting the cake, but Christ was crying. He loved the cake and had two pieces and warmed up to us very quickly. Another homeless man named Dennis just stood behind us looking in at the cake, and we gave him some too. As we were sitting on the sidewalk, we tried to get others involved in the celebration as well. Some shouted "Happy Birthday!", others looked at us if we were insane and others blatently ignored us. Chris was shouting to the passer-bys, "Free Birthday Cake! You know you want some!"Someone walked up to him and handed him a box of "birthday donuts" from Krispie Kream. Chris had to leave after a while and so did we but I will never forget watching him put his cake in the donut box and treated that box like a little kid that had just received an awesome toy for Christmas. Chris was telling us "this cake is amazing!" and "this is the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me, you have no idea how much this means to me." I know that as we were singing, laughing, sitting and eating with Chris, we were also singing, laughing, sitting and eating with Christ since anyone who welcomes the least of these welcomes Him. Thank you Lord for inviting us in on your story.

This is just one of the stories that took place through these homeless people. This has been a challenging, motivating, rewarding and blessed experience at the conference. I enjoyed my last week of 2009 at Kaleo and am already missing my friends, or should I say, family. As I was on my plane back here, I had the thought that there is a spiritual significance of travel. As much as travel is a physical thing, it is very much a spiritual things as well. It is an in-between stage. Neither here nor there, but a time of reflecting on where I have just been and anticipating where I am going. I do believe that my time on the airplane was a time of just that.

Please pray for me over Christmas that I would continue to develop habits that exist outside of Qwanoes, that 'greenhouse' as a wise man once said. Pray that these habits of prayer and meditation on God's word would enable be to become fully charged, and that I would constantly be abiding in Him, so that I would receive the authority that Jesus offers me to bring belief to those who struggle with unbelief. Please pray that this Christmas I would be a blessing. A blessing to my friends both local and distant, and also to my family. Pray that my family would go to the next stage in our relationships as we are all growing up and entering different stages of our lives. Continue to pray for the homeless people that I have met and are now part of my life. Pray that Jesus would be their hope this Christmas.

It's been a great ride. Thank you Father.

He has come, and may he be your hope this Christmas as well.