Mexico! March 17

My time spent in Mexico was used in a variety of ways. Our main project that was planned for us was to raise the lot at a local church. Any time it rained this lot would flood making it impossible to drive on and the water would leak into the church. Fortunately it wasn’t anything that 18 able bodies with shovels and 19 dump trucks of dirt/sand couldn’t fix! Oh yeah, and 4 dump trucks of volcanic rock to top it off. It was a lot of physical labor but our group was up for anything and did it joyfully! The best part of this was how efficiently it could be done. This project was estimated to take up the entirety of our funds and the majority of our time but it turned out costing a third of the price we thought and only took us 3 days (we were there for 2 weeks). This opened up all sorts of other opportunities for us to serve. Dwight, the missionary in El Papalote, is building apartments on his property for when small groups or couples come they have a place to stay. We were able to finish dry walling in the one he had and build the foundation and get the piping in place for the second, something he didn’t even dream of us starting!! Other ways we were able to serve included hosting three events, one for kids, one for youth, and one for the church. Our team split into three groups to plan these events. I was involved in planning the youth event. We had it on the beach, provided hot dogs and had a fire, performed a drime, then I spoke a two minute message (we were pressed for time) with the use a translator, played soccer in the sand and a few brave souls went into the frigid ocean. There were two mornings where we were able to volunteer at a day care centre. This centre is essential to the lives of these babies and children; if it wasn’t there they would be left at home alone. It’s extremely under staffed and only the very basic needs are met. It was such a joy to be able to go and make the kids smile while we played with them or prevent a baby from crying by holding and loving it. Another day we spontaneously walked into a public park in the middle of town and started playing music, I played guitar while Nick played a djembe. Once we had their attention we performed our drime again. Of course there were some relaxed times for when the team needed a break. During said times we were able to walk around the small town and stop at the convenient store and order ice cream in Spanish or one day we climbed a volcano. The of course there was my favorite thing to do, eat fish tacos!!!! Man oh man Mexicans know how to make a mean fish taco J

I figured it’s time to take a break and add a humorous story. The day the team took some time to ourselves and climbed a few volcanoes did not end in the way I had expected. After summiting two volcanoes (don’t be too astounded, they’re probably not what your picturing right now) we went down to the shore line to check out the crashing waves….and pick up a few more rocks for Dwight’s garden. It was a really cool view and the waves were splashing hard against the rocks. Brent (my roommate at school) and I decided to go the farthest and highest point we could. It appeared to be a safe place to go, not a tough place to get too and no waves were splashing up to it…or so it appeared. We reach the point and enjoy the view for a few seconds while a small wave causes a gentle splash off to the side. A few seconds later we see the next wave coming in, we both think to ourselves “hmmm that looks like a really big wave”. The wave hits the rock and the water flies up. Time stopped for a split second as we stare at this wall of water towering over us. While that second didn’t last forever and it all came down! In unison we both cry “que Paso”, the commonly used Mexican phrase meaning “what is this?” yup we were soaked to the bone! Not the most pleasant ride back but hey at least we got a story and a cool picture!

Thankfully there weren’t too many things that I found difficult on this trip. I have been on a missions trip before and knew that the language barrier would be difficult to work around. I was expecting to see people in the state of poverty and had mentally prepared myself for that and again have experienced it before so as disheartening as it was for several people it did not have as much of an impact on me. If anything I admired their poverty and low standard of living because it really proved that their joy was coming directly from the Lord. I would have to say that the hardest thing that I had experienced wasn’t while I was in Mexico but once I got home. While we were in Mexico we had a lot of involvement with the Church through attending services, doing service projects for them, hanging with the youth, and interacting with the pastors. We had the full Mexican church experience and it was awesome! The congregation came alive during worship, all were attentive for the pastors message, many people were involved in the service, everybody greets everybody and they don’t  just say good morning but rather calls them brother or sister and says God bless you. The church was alive and well; literally they had new converts on a weekly basis. What was hard for me was coming back to Canada and realize that our churches are struggling. All around people are slipping away, lacking unity, leadership and responsibility, losing the passion they once had for God and the church. Yup, it’s frustrating. Don’t get me wrong, I love church and know that there is plenty good that comes from our Canadian churches; however, it still appears that our problems are more evident than what I experienced in Mexico.

God is good and uses His people in outstanding ways when they let Him. There were so many times that we experienced God’s goodness on this trip, let me share with you my favorite. As I had mentioned before, there was a drime that we had performed in Mexico. “Everything” by Life House is the one we did, it portrays humans falling away from God and getting caught up with temporary pleasures of the world and the emptiness you are left with then how God is constantly longing for you back and will always take you back and bring you true joy. This is something that we had prepared prior to arriving in Mexico; we had practiced diligently and felt confident in our ability to perform it. By the end of our trip we had performed a total of 5 times in 3 locations. I believe it was during our third time when God took over and showed us something great! This was the day we went to the public park and attracted a bunch of strangers to a stage in the centre where two white boys were playing music. While we were playing music the rest of the crew was getting costumes and music ready. Oh, in case anybody doesn’t know what a drime is, it’s like a drama but instead of words we mime with music in the background. Drama+mime=Drime.  The music is essential for timing, emotion, tone and just conveying the overall message. A really cool touch we added to ours was we found the song in Spanish! Ok there is a reason that I’m putting such a strong emphasis on the music, it’s because we really missed it when we didn’t have it! While we were getting set up we discovered that there was no way to play our music, our player wasn’t working without being plugged in and the outlets within our reach were not working and it was very discouraging. We were seriously contemplating not doing it at all, it’s just not the same without music and we felt like we would have looked like a bunch of fools in the middle of the park. Dwight, the missionary, assured us that it would be fine, he had seen it done without music before and it still worked. While since the whole trip was to assist him with his ministry we went for it anyways but still weren’t feeling too great about the whole thing. We finished and it wasn’t horrible but didn’t think anything would come from it. Right away Dwight came to us and pointed out that there were two specific girls watching, one grasped the concept of the whole thing and was explaining it to the other. That cheered us up a bit and we thought maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Instead of just putting on a performance then walking away we had a few local pastors and students come with us to hand out tracks and talk or pray with people. We were shocked to see how many people were willing to engage in conversation. We non Spanish speaking people were feeling a little helpless right then so several of us spent some time privately praying. Something great has happening before us and we were totally unaware. That day in that park a man accept Jesus Christ as his lord and savior. At this point I was left in awe of what just happened. First of all we meander into a public park, get on a stage in the centre of it, pull out some instruments and start playing music with the intention of drawing people in. then we perform our drime in front of these people, feeling like it was our worst production. But that’s what makes it so marvelous! Our worst production had turned into Gods best! This just emphasised all the more that God was working with us and deserves all the glory.

Thank you for sticking with me this far, there is just one last thing that I would like to share with you and that is what God did in me. To be honest as I was preparing for this trip some questions had raised about is this practical thing to do? How much will it affect the people in El Papelote? Will it change us permanently or just give us a “spiritual high”? Through all of this I had decided to create a new vision of what I wanted to experience on this trip. I wanted to experience a new kind of unity, not just unity within the team or within the Christian community in El Papelote but rather between two cultures, Mexico and Canada working together to serve and worship the one God who created us all. I am pleased to say that this revealed itself in a number of ways. First of all we were literally working together. Every project we did there were always help from the pastors or other people in the community. There was by no means a sense that they just wanted us for our labor, they certainly appreciated all that we did but were working alongside us just as had, if not harder, as we were. Another thing that stuck way out to me was how they had quickly accepted us and made us feel at home, aside from giving us a place to stay and cooking supper for us every day their hospitality became very apparent in church. The first Sunday we were there they introduced us to the congregation at the beginning of the service and at the end they had a time of prayer and invited any to the front who wanted prayer or who wanted to pray. Once they had finished they had specifically asked all of the Canadians to come to the front so that they could pray for us. They did not just pray for the time we were down there or for the work that were doing there but for us and for our families, these people sincerely cared about us. On the last Sunday we were there again at the end of the service they had invited all of the Canadians to the front but this time it was to thank us for the service he had provided them with. However instead of just saying thanks and clapping or whatever, each and every person came up to the front, formed a line, shook our hands, hugged us and personally said thank you. Through the time spent with the church I can speak on behalf of the team that we felt as they were blessing us at least as much as we were blessing them. Finally unity between us was evident in our ministry opportunities. We were consistently working together to spread the word of God. There was only so much that we could do on our own since we literally couldn’t talk to the people. So the role we played in outreach was to open the door. Having a missions team there was an excuse to do stuff. we drew people in by planning the events, paying for the costs then just interacted as much as we could while the locals could build real relationships, have real conversations about God and follow up afterwards. It was great teamwork and through this we were able to build close connections not only with the people we were reaching but with the ones that were constantly by our side working with us. God works in many ways and He definitely astounded me with all He used us for.

 

I'm going to Mexico! February 11

Well tomorrow is the big day where we load up the vans and begin our grand adventure to El Papalote, Mexico! I really appreciate being able to take our ‘Perspective in Missions’ class prior to our trip, I believe it really opened all of our eyes to what we are really getting into. Our Prof, Tim Stabell, is very educated and experienced in missions and was able to pass on a lot of his knowledge onto us as we prepare for our own missions trips. He brought to surface the many dangers that are involved with short term missions (STM) and the common mistakes or misunderstandings that North Americans have in STM. There was definitely a strong emphasis on all of the negative effects that STM potentially possess which makes me a little worried. However there is no question whether STM can be a good thing, they can, as long as we are fully aware of the dangers and prepare ourselves accordingly. Being able to take this class beforehand means that we can take what we learned and apply it right away, the timing of this class could not have been any better.

I am really excited to be able to partake in another mission’s trip! The organization that we are partnering with seems to already be doing some really powerful work already; hopefully we can be a blessing as we join them.  Oddly enough I don’t feel nervous about the trip at all. It feels like I should have numerous concerns about travelling, the language barrier, the work we’re going to do, health, etc. Ultimately I’m just excited to go and serve the ministry by working alongside people from another culture. I am really excited about the different opportunities that we have while we are down there. We get to be involved with children’s ministry, youth ministry and church ministry, as well as music and physical labor. I am super excited about the group that we have going down. I know that we are all going to work well together and our gifts are very complimentary to each other.

It is undeniable that there will be challenges and hardships throughout our trip. Our first “test” will be our brutal trip down there. Between driving and flying it will be approximately a 24hour trip with little opportunity to sleep. It’s a rough way to start the trip but it won’t be the first time this group has been crammed together for extended periods of time. I feel like we all know each other well enough by this point that we know how to avoid getting on one another’s nerves and there will be little quarreling. The only other part that I’m a little worried about is sharing a short message for the Mexican youth. I have a hard enough time doing this for people in my own culture. I know it will be a stretching time for me but I know that it will help me grow and that God can use whatever I give him.    

Missions Fest! Jan 31

This last weekend I was able to attend Missions Fest in Vancouver. Having never been to Missions fest before, I really had no idea what would be in store. Overall it was a really great trip, however, I think I may have anticipated too much and not everything met my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised with all the different Seminars that we could choose to attend, there were many that caught my attention…too many as a matter of fact and I could not attend all the ones that I wanted too. The group sessions were very well done, they knew the type of people in the congregation and made it appealing to them.  I was astounded by how big of an event that this was and how many people came both as representatives of their organizations and as someone coming to learn.

There were a great selection of seminars to choose to attend; unfortunately you did not always get what you expected. Plus if you didn’t show up early you wouldn’t get in (learned that one the hard way). I think my standards were a little too high for what I was expecting to get out of these sessions. Being accustomed to the types of classes in the Kaleo program (7 hours a day with top notch professors) I failed to consider that only so much can be covered in a one hour period. As interesting as the stories were and even though there were some excellent points made and the ones leading the seminars were exceptional scholars and well prepared, I was still left with a vague and surface level lesson. This doesn’t mean that all sessions were disappointing, there are the exceptions. One of the main speakers, Louis Palau, had a phenomenal presentation of his message; he was an outstanding speaker and captivated the congregation. He spoke on our “call” to missions, “if God wants to speak to you tonight are you available?”  And how we all have a role to play in missions. My favorite quote was from when he tells the story of why he waited to get involved with ministry, he said “I’m waiting for the call” and his mom responds with “the call went out 2000 years ago” (referring to the great commission Matt 28:19-20). As simple as it was (and humorous in the way he told it) I believe it left us all with something to think about.

It was awesome to see how many different organizations attended Missions Fest. There were around 200 booths that were set up presenting what they do in regards to missions, either cross cultural or within the community. What I found really encouraging were the many different approaches that are being taken which allow all people types to get involved and passionate about missions. Everything from camps to translating the Bible to schools to long and short term missions opportunities and even to rapping preachers! I personally enjoyed walking around and being able to associate myself with different booths such as walking by Briercrest or Camp Qwanoes and being able to say “I’m a student there” or stopping at Peace River Bible Institute and talking with old friends. It was great to see the amount of people at Missions fest and how many people care about spreading the gospel around the world.

My highlights of the weekend actually had very little to do with Missions Fest itself. During one of the seminars I turned around and to my surprise I see my cousin! We are fortunate if we see each other once a year. Thankfully we had the opportunity to go out for coffee and catch up; we shared some stories of what God is doing in our lives and where we believe he is leading us. I was a little shocked to hear how similar of a call to youth and pastoral ministry we have. I found this time very encouraging and made me really appreciate the family that I have been blessed with. Another highlight for me was being able to be a part of the worship team and play on Sunday morning for the church that housed us during our time in Vancouver. We decided to do something a little different and made a new worship team for this occasion which allowed for some of the students who haven’t been a part of a worship team before join in, including our fantastic leader who led worship for his first time that Sunday. With only three practices with people who have never played together before and a lot of prayer it was amazing to see how God used us. During the time of worship I would glance up at the rest of the team and see them pouring their hearts into worshiping God, not making any type of performance but humbling presenting our talents to the Lord. As a result the congregation responded passionately as we sang Praises to our Lord.

Appreciating my home church Nov. 25

After finishing my class on church ministry I feel a lot more aware of how the church is intended to operate and how a lot of the churches actually operate. At the same time I have been exposed to new qualities of the church while I attend Warmland. No church is perfect so there are aspects of my home church that Warmland does not provide and vice versa. What I miss the most about my home church, North Country Community Church (NCCC) is how involved the youth are and the leadership potential that they possess. I find that NCCC has more outreach programs for the congregation to get directly involved with. What I probably miss the most about attending NCCC is the fellowship that took place, I felt very at home talking to anybody there. These qualities do not make one church better than the other; they are just what I am used to and appreciate about my church back home.

NCCC has an outstanding youth group. Despite there only being four dedicated youth members, they have proven to be an outstanding contribution to the church. It is incredible how these young believers show such leadership and contribution to the church. On a regular Sunday you will see youth holding each other accountable to regularly contribute to their sponsor child, teach Sunday school, lead worship, read scripture, or play during offertory. During a special service such as Christmas Eve, the youth will usually put on a drama or play a special song. All of this is on top of attending a youth Bible study every Wednesday and youth group every Friday. These youth are preparing to one day be the sole leaders of a church. I am proud to have once been part of that youth group and even more proud to spend my last year there as one of the youth leaders.

There are many opportunities for people to get involved at NCCC. There are of course many of the “regular” opportunities such was worship, greeting, sound, Sunday school, youth group etc. What makes NCCC different are the programs they support. An amazing program was birthed from NCCC called “Rising Above”, which serves the community by providing help to the people who can no longer provide for themselves due to continual loss of jobs, addictions or the like. The church is presented with many opportunities to practically support this program by providing prayer partners, helping with building projects or simply connecting with the participants as some choose to attend church. Another program that I loved being a part of was “loaves and fishes”. Every Sunday our church would provide a meal and clothing for the homeless. These are rare opportunities   that you cannot find in every church. I feel that these opportunities really helped me create a sense of identity with the church.

Another part of my church back home that I miss is the fellowship. Every church has fellowship but each is unique in its own way. I feel that Warmland has great fellowship; I just have a hard time comparing it to back home. I attended NCCC for ten years and knew everybody very well; I could have a conversation with anybody in the church and was always one of the last to leave. I’m still getting know everybody’s name at Warmland so have not been able to take part in fellowship on the same level as I could at home. NCCC has a time set aside for people to greet and say hello to someone you have not yet said hi to. Warmland does not regularly do this, last Sunday they attempted it but it ended up taking too long and being a distraction so it probably won’t happen very often. I enjoy it when people intentionally take the time to get to know everybody; it makes it feel more like a family. Being away from my home church really makes me appreciate some of the things that I took for granted while attending there.

God enhances my ministry experiences Nov. 11

God is so good. He is enriching all of my ministry areas and making them thrive. This weekend we have the sr. high retreat at camp. I don’t have any responsibilities with the retreat this weekend so was able to watch from a distance and observe the work of God. During the campers free time I was wondering around mingling with different people. Everywhere I went people were filled with joy, they were excited to be hear and taking full advantage of the opportunities. Because I wasn’t technically involved with this weekend I was able to sit back and see how much God works through this camp.

This week I have seen such an improvement in my relationships with the youth group and my Sunday school class. The boys are really warming up to me; I have made it into their accepted groupJ. At youth we were playing hide and go seek in the dark and one of the boys, Quinton, right away wanted to partner up with me and hide together.  During the game he was caught but the “it” person didn’t realise that I was also there. Quinton covered for me and lead the “it” person away. It’s a silly game and a small deed but it’s the small things that make a big difference. At Sunday school this morning two of the boys, Tyler and David, spent every minute after church talking with me. During Sunday school we had a great discussion on doing good things that people will remember us for then afterwards we just hung out and talked about silly things and had fun.

It looks like my worship opportunities will be expanding a lot very soon! Russ Smith, the music leader at camp, will also occasionally be doing music at my youth group. Russ asked if I would like to help. Sometime this week I get to practice with him and some of the other Qwanoes band members. I should mention that this year’s camp CD won a music award for best children’s music in Canada or something crazy like that. Russ himself was part of the former band “Hokus Pick” and is legitimately famous! I feel way out of my league but it will be a great chance for personal development. I could see this greatly enhancing my worship leading ability. God is doing some really fantastic things here and I’m so grateful that I can be a part of it.

following under leadership Oct 27

Throughout my time in the Kaleo program I have seen countless actions of leadership. Fortunately almost all of these examples are positive, however that doesn’t mean that they are easy to follow. It all depends on the scenario you are in and if you are willing to succumb to taking directions. The first thing that came to mind was our OT video project. This is an example of really good leadership; three students were designated as directors thus having control over the project. They all were all experienced in this field and had a passion for it. However due to everybody having their own idea of what they wanted the movie to look like and a time crunch at the end we were not all able to get exactly what we wanted. The directors had the final say in how each scene would be filmed and if any parts had to be cut out. This was at times was hard to follow because I felt like some parts could have gone better if we did them a different way but I am so thankful that the directors were who they were and did what they did because in the end it turned out to be a fantastic production!

A really good example of leadership which I believe all the students experienced was on our S.A.L.T.S trip. It was so easy to follow under the experienced crew of the ship and there are a few reasons why. One is because we had no idea what we were doing but were all willing to learn so at every opportunity we had to try something new there were people all over it wanting to listen to the directions of the crew. Another reason is how the crew lead, they didn’t boss us around or demand anything, they came down to our level and taught according to our skills. Most importantly they took the time to get to know us personally and build a real relationship. That is major importance to have when there is group working under you. I was thoroughly impressed of the leadership abilities the crew expressed.

One last example is from our worship team. I love being on the worship team but since we are still a new group and figuring out what works best for us, it can cause a bit of conflict. I would not have picked a different leader for our group; he is very talented and has a great taste of music. The problem here is that so many of the members, including myself, have played on worship teams before and we intrude on our leader’s position trying to make it our own. Often instead of listening to what our leader is suggesting we give a counter suggestion of what we want. This at times can be good but first we need to be able to work together as a team in our respected positions, once we have that established then we can start expressing personal opinions. A good example that I have seen come out of this are people stepping up into leadership. When conflict rises there are certain people that step in and become the “peace makers” trying to find a compromise to make everyone happy, it’s really easy to follow these people because they are obviously showing a concern for the group and attempting to do what is best for everyone.

Connecting with my church Oct 10

Now that I have been attending Warmland church for a month I feel a lot more connected than I did on that first sunday I showed up. Don't get me wrong, im not saying that the church wasn't accepting,  they are a very welcoming church, it just takes time to make it your home. I did have to take initiative on getting to know the other members. Unfortunatley this does'nt exactly come naturally to me so it was, and still is, a stretch for me. I found that I am able to get connected to the guys on the worship team because I know of a common interest between us to get conversation going, also I help with putting chairs away and my work hasnt gone unnoticed and relationships have been building up with the guys who usually take on that task.

Im getting more and more invovled with youth. Connections with the youth have been coming along really well, especially since road tour. Road tour is a big event that connects all the local youth groups in one big and fun worship night. Considering this was only my second event with the group I was able to make a solid connection. During this event I did try really hard to spend my time with my group and show them I was there to be with them not my other friends. Even though I was the "new guy" (actually one of three new leaders) I felt like they accepted me into their friend group. I first noticed this during a game that was played and each youth group had to designate one leader to particpate, I was the chosen one! When it came time for the bus ride home, I walk towards the bus and even before I get on there are kids yelling at me saying they had saved a seat for me. My intentions had paid off and my relationship witht the group is off to a great strart. I do wish there were more boys...it was a long bus ride with mostly 12 year old girls. Fortunatley last week we split off into small groups for a little while and I could get to know the few guys there a little better. A new friendship has also come out of my participation with the youth, Theres another guy working with the youth thats my age and we have been able to hit it off. I'm thankful to have a friend in the church thats outside of my school group. The main youth leaders do a great job about being intentional with us by having us over for lunch every sunday for fellowship and to discuss youth buisness.

The relationship with the pastor of Warmland is also going well. I will make a point of having a breif conversation with him every sunday but he was been doing more initiating than I have. Two weeks ago he had invited myself and the two other students (Evan and Rachel) for lunch after church. We all enjoyed the afternoon getting to know him on a personal level along with the rest of his family and another couple from the church.

I have an easy connection with the worship leader, Russ Smith. He just so happens to be my "link" (leader who watches out/prays for me) at camp Qwanoes. We get to see eachother all over the place, in fact we are meeting for coffee this friday morning, I think he will really be able to help me grow, especially with music.

I'm excited and very thankful for these connections that have been made. I know all these relationships are still at the beginning stages but I feel it's a really strong start and they will go a long way in the 7 months that I have left here.