Thursday, April 26, 2007
Pinky on the Backspace...
I never realized how entertaining Bryce is to watch when he’s typing on the computer. He uses that backspace a lot.... and I think he's one of the few people I know of who spell checks everything... It's a good habit I suppose, that way you won't have as many speeling mistakse... ^_^ Heh, good times on long sunny afternoons. For all those wondering what we’ve been doing or how I’ve been doing, fear not. I’m about to answer your questions.
What:
We’ve been having this missions conference thing where a bunch of mission groups and Bible schools come here to try to recruit us. It’s been really encouraging.
How:
I’ve been sleeping very poorly. As such I’ve been tired and very sore most of the time. I think I’m now on the upswing now… at least I hope so. I’ll find out tonight. In any case, God has his reasons. He knows why everything happens when it happens and He’ll look after everything.
It’s good to be back.
Talk to you soon!
posted by
Encaitar Mapalon at 4:16 PM 2 comments
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Is there Anybody OuT there¿
It's one of those kind of surreal universes when you get back to VTI after a mere ten days at home. It's so short being on a break that you're sure it's only been a couple of days; and yet so long that anything you experienced so far on this year seems like some distant dream that only exists inside a faded memory. Truly it's an interesting experience.
For all those wondering, Germany was great. I recall having the grandest Easter Egg hunt I've ever had and it reminded me of being at home. That was real nice. Groundstaff was great to hang out with, and in fact I'd go as far as to say they've made up for all the other crazy problems we've had with the groundstaff at troubled airports around the world.
German airports were no problem for us this time around, though in Heathrow, London, we had some issues. This was just because we were allowed <----> that much luggage whilst we realized we had more like <------> that much... It did work out though. I apologize that it seems like it didn't phase us much. I was quite frantic for a while. But I knew that people were praying and I knew that God had been my only hope since ever when everything else dies. As such we trusted God and He didn't let us down. It's not to say He took away all our problems... God doesn't do that... He gives us the strength to get through them. As such, I would love prayer for my year after this one with VTI. Karina and I realized that God wanted us to pospone our wedding for a while, and as such I'm hoping to get more training and experience. Please pray that God guides me, because I feel like I'm quite at odds with myself sometimes when I'm working through things like this. Isn't it strange how things are always so much more impossible when it happens to you? I mean, if it happens to your friend, solutions seem so easy... it never seems that way from the person caught within these conflicting ideas.
With that in mind, look out more this week for people who need to know God loves them. How many people live near your house that have never heard the name of Jesus used in a context of love?
Love your neighbour....
And even more important, don't set up anything in the way of our loving God...
Nothing else will fulfill us.
It's fused as a necessity deeper than DNA could ever show.
Grace and Peace from the training camp near Calgary!
Brother J
posted by
Encaitar Mapalon at 7:55 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 02, 2007
That Lantern is never out of 'in'....
Chinese lanterns are great because they never go out of style...
Nor does music. And that is good because we've been able to do a lot of music with Groundstaff the last 2 days. One outreach I know some of you heard about because it was in the Chec Republic. That was exciting. God worked it all out really awesome. We got through the border no problem at all, and then we were able to set up. Before the program started however, we went for a walk to hand out flyers to the youth and kids in the area. We found some down around some the large uncreative buildings that a government at one time used to cram all of their citizens into. We had been taught a few basic words in Chec that basically equated to: Hello (ahoy) Here's a flyer!
Yeah, it was fun not being able to communicate again. As I walked towards these unsuspecting kids watching two older kids play some soccer, I practiced saying Hello...here's a flyer. There were 3 kids I spent the next few minutes with. They wanted to know if it cost anything, and we had fun writing symbols and numbers in the gravelish sand. What we got across was that it was free... But then they asked where it was...and I couldn't explain it for the life of me... Luckily, there were some German girls with us and so one came to help me... And although it did wonders for my moral support, she couldn't explain anything else either. Luckily again, there was another girl that seemed to know a good deal more about this communicating in Chec, and therefore was able to explain that we were in a theatre, 'that way'...
Oh, the joys of finger pointing... ^_^
So, we did the program, and there were only a few people who came who were not associated with the church there though there was about 60 people. What is awesome though is that there were 3 kids who came early at the start of the program and soaked in everything that night...music...art...drama...and the gospel. What they will do with it I don't know, but they each took materials about Christ, including the Jesus movie in their own language. That and they had a chat with the Pastor. Pray that God keeps his hand with them. This city is called Asch, and just like how it sounds in the back of the throat, it's a pretty rough town.
Being on the border of Germany, it's been a center for oppression, prostitution, and all kinds of crime and chaos. In fact it was known a short time ago as being the most rundown city in all of the USSR that had recently dissolved. To be able to bring a little bit of light goes a long way the darker the enviroment is. I hope God will be able to work there in a mighty way in the near future. Pray that God will keep working there.
That brings us to today. We were in a town an hour from Hoff. I believe it's called Saalfeld. Anyways, we had a good time there. We did a youth time and more music worship than I have done in a long while. It was really refreshing and then in the middle of the evening Groundstaff did a concert outreach thing. It was great. We finished it off by doing a good deal more music worship...in total that day it was like 7 hours of programs and music. We even slept there so we stayed up until about um... 1:30ish...and then us guys stayed awake until about 3:00ish...Some of voluntarily and some not voluntarily...It was good though and we apparently made some kind of an impact with the youth we hung out with cause when one of the girls was saying goodbye this morning, she came up to me and said, 'Goodbye funny freak!'...
Then we came home...
for any other pics of the adventure, check out the pics on my multiply site: http://encaitar777.multiply.com
Grace and Peace
posted by
Encaitar Mapalon at 4:42 AM 2 comments
