THE REALM OF ALCAR

We Have a Baby!

2011-04-01T11:41:00.003-06:00

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPkuwQVmnTs

Here is a video of our new baby boy Walter. :) We've lost track of keeping this blog up-to-date...but now we have a good excuse to post things again :)

'Maternity Ward' is spelled with an 'O'.

2011-03-23T09:41:00.004-06:00

The short of it is, Walter Moses Witherow was born March 18, 2011, @ 1:54am. He was 20 inches long and 8lbs 2oz.

It took a frantic new father a bit longer to get there because it turns out that they don't have any maternity ward signs. It's spelled Obstetrics I believe. More like Upset Tricks. It surely was a tricky way to upset a brand new Dad to be, lost in the hospital... haha. But it all worked out really well. She was in labour from start to finish for 5hrs. Not bad at all!

She is currently doing very well, resting at home with Wally, or Walt. :)
I'll have more pictures up soon!
Thank you all for your calls/concerns/prayers/encouragement/etc!

Grace & Peace
James

Apologies.

2010-10-27T11:37:00.002-06:00

We've not updated anything in pretty much forever.
Now we hope to start again.
Because life keeps moving, and I think we should be as well.
Even when your traveling ends.

Greetings to everyone,
Love J & K

From Nipawin!

2009-12-03T11:25:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately... lol...

I suddenly realized. I've been using facebook more than blogging because suddenly, there are people all over the place here who I have to keep in contact with.

I figure, I'm keeping in contact because I'm communicating! It's like when you always leave the house with your laptop, and then one day, when your wife asks you to bring something, you leave the house with it, get to work and realize, 'Oh, I have that thing, but I left my laptop!'. There's my excuse! lol.

It's been and is busy here in Nipawin, we're in the middle of gearing up for a nifty Christmas! :D I'm also working on a secret in the evenings I don't have youth responsibilities.

Thanks for all the prayer you have all been offering on our behalf. Karina and I are really doing well, and we're really excited to start to become a part of some other kids' lives. We've recently really been seeing His hand at work. Pray that God will move here in Nipawin. People always talk about saving a town, and I think on the most part when we think of that in general, we think of it outside of reality... along the same lines as, 'Wouldn't be nice if we didn't gain weight from food?'

I truly believe though, that if we keep praying, we may in the end be very surprised at what God may do. :P Here's hoping.

Grace and Peace
Our # is 862-5121. Have a grand day!

New News

2009-09-17T21:38:00.003-06:00

Well, it seems Karina and I finally have a 'job' somewhere. The somewhere being Nipawin at the Alliance Church there. It's been a busy summer, if not for my mind, then for my body, and then vice versa.

We've been in Prince Albert for the summer. It's been good being with family and friends for a little while since we've been gone for the last few years. Thank you again for those who have been following us, praying for us, sending money or small kitchen appliances. :) We've been very blessed by what you have all done for us.

So, if you're wondering what our current plan is, we're officially starting Oct.1, and until then we'll be somewhere inbetween... Getting ready to move. Crazy. Well, if all works out well, we'll be staying actually above Rhys & Janelle's. It's always nice being near good friends.

Thanks to all of you again!
For those who don't know, our email is jkwith@yahoo.ca (my old one DOES work... in case you're wondering)
Grace and Peace

James & Karina

P.S. The lightning picture Karina took from her parent's house. It was pretty spectacular! :P

Flippity Floop! (it's from Bugs Bunny... I dunno...)

2009-04-13T09:31:00.002-06:00

Well, we’re on the mend. Karina and I are still both sick. And both of us are on anti-biotic. I was at the bronchitis level with my 2 month cold. Every time it seemed to go away, it would come back with double the force. Karina’s fighting another infection, but we caught it earlier this time, so it’s expected she’ll be fine in no time. So, as our doctor put it, we’re trying to get a lot of R & R & R & R & R. We’ll see how that works out.

We’re currently at my Karina’s folks house.... We’ve been having a good time catching up and playing croak-anno...(however you spell it). That game that’s a bit like curling but you can do it on your kitchen table? Anyways, it’s still fun. My family came over a couple days back for supper. Karina and I finally attempted Mark & Fee’s AWESOME LEEK & POTATO soup. Sorry... it still excites me. And hey Mark? It turned out pretty good! Lol, the next day we ate up all the leftovers! :)
I’ve been able to practice a little more on the guitar again. I learned a Jon Foreman song of Psalm 23, and I learned Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce. I’ve been excited to have some time to write some more lyrics too. Really I would have been practicing singing at this point but I’m still ridding myself of this cold. The rest is good though.

I have yet to hear about the tour for this spring. I’ve been under the impression that we’ll be coming to PA here, but I haven’t heard anything from up top yet. I’ll fill you all in where we’re going to be going when I find out. Lol, leaders are always the last to know... :D

Oh, while I think of it, thanks everyone in England who put up with us! It was a blast. I really really enjoyed my time there, even though it was really busy at times. We won’t forget your hospitality.

Also, Hello anyone from Rwanda! :) Long time no see!

It’s really weird trying to keep up saying hello to hundreds of people from all around the world. Lol. Oh well. Thank you all for your prayers! I’ll put up a few pics from the last post til the latest pics I have. You all rock!

Grace and Peace

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

2009-04-04T11:35:00.005-06:00

We saved the busiest for last....Whew....
This last couple weeks have been definitely the most busy, but in the end, they were also some of the most fun.

We did a lot of RE lessons here. RE stands for religious education. Here kids learn about the 4 major religions right in school. Since they have exams soon on Christianity they said we could come in and just let kids ask us questions. The questions they ask here vary to the extreme. Some will ask questions about humanity or theology, questions about suffering and why God allows it, etc. And some are legitimate, but very cute questions. One of the cutest ones I heard while I was here was, ‘Were Adam and Eve born with the leaves on them?’ Hehehe.

Kids.

The other thing that we have done a lot of here is music. This entire trip overseas we haven’t needed much for our sound system. In Rwanda mostly because we didn’t have power in a lot of the places we went, and here in England because usually they wanted us to kind of team up with what they had. In any case, everything we did we still had a lot of fun doing. But then we got here and we realized that we would be doing concerts... no not the 2000 people jumping all over each other screaming on a giant stage concert, but a concert just the same. So, suddenly all these songs that we had learned from way back to kind of ‘break the ice’ with people became the songs we used most often. Therefore, this last couple weeks has been Music 101 for our team. Going back to where we’ve been and then rapidly trying to learn new stuff and not just play a song to get through it but to have fun playing and play it skilfully. I must say it has been a joy. Some of the songs we’ve recently been doing are: Stars – by Switchfoot, Dead Man – Jars of Clay, Almighty Silence – Tree63, Up and Up – Relient K, I’m Yours – Yfriday (YFriday’s singer dude is the guy who wrote the song ‘Everlasting God’)

Anyways, it’s been a good time though it’s been busy.

The first major concert we did was 1 hour and we had nobody show up when it was time to start. So, we waited and ... we waited... and then a few people came. 2 guys who were biking outside came in, and they stayed for the whole thing. That and two cars of girls showed up. It was a good night, though it had a fair amount of glitches.

Along with the concerts, we went down to one of the pubs that was having an Open Mike time. We did some acoustic songs there! No one threw anything at us. It was nice to be able to present Christianity and music that was nice and fresh...not typical church music that they're used to...like really old words in hymns! Joanna started with one of her songs...there was a stunned silence at the bar. All the men were sitting there sighing. I'm sure I saw one man wipe a tear from his eye. Joanna always sings so beautifully. Then, for the next song, Charis joined Joanna, and Karina and I did two songs. Some of the people there invited Karina and I to come back for a folk festival. We'll see. That would be fun.

The second major concert we did was at the local youth centre and it was 30 mins long. Most of the 50 kids there were not from associated with the church. We had a blast with them. They loved music and we hung around for a bit to play some sports and dance a bit.

The first minor concert was in the school that we had been doing RE lessons all week. We did some music classes there too. (I got to lead the class in playing Eye of the Tiger when I was there... heh heh... go Rocky!) Anyways, we had only 10 minutes and so we did a couple songs and a chalk art. Really one of the big reasons of being there was to publicly say that we were doing one last concert in the church up the road on Friday night. Last night. We started with around 15 people there and by the end there was about 30. We had little groups of kids come in every so often and we really had a blast with them. Some of them were church going kids but others I believe had no connection with the church. Never the less we all had a really good time and we were able to present the gospel clearly. Tabitha did a Christmas/Easter chalk art and did a great job. We also did some dramas and an illusion, and we all had a blast. It was our best program we’ve done this VTI team year. We had a lot of fun with the kids and got to visit afterwards, we did some more songs and at the very end, for the few who were still around, Blair, Dillon, Nathan (with Leo the cat) and myself) publicly for the first time, SANG.
That was fun. :D

My major fear was that with a lot of us tired and sickish and worn down and tired... well you get the idea... that we’d all kind of sputter out instead of finish strong. Indeed, that was where we were heading. But we’ve been talking a lot with the team lately and we told them about our wanting to finish this time overseas with some vigor. To not just drag across the finish line, but to do some kind of triple sow cow across the lovely line at the end (that’s for you fans of figure skating). Anyways, I’m really proud of the team. They really have pulled together extra in this last little while. We appreciate the prayers you’ve been so regularly praying. They have not been in vain.

My hope to for a lot of us to be able to tell you these amazing things we’ve seen in person, though I know I won’t be able to see all of you. Know that we would love to if we had the opportunity.

God has been with us and we’ve seen Him even answering the very simple prayers. And recently, it’s been really fast answers too.

The other day, Nathan misplaced a very important cord for the video camera. He had looked everywhere and couldn't find it. He went home and couldn’t find it and he went to the church where we were and couldn’t find it. Well he left again to go look and then we prayed about it. Well, 10 seconds after we prayed, *ring* Nathan called and he had found it. The same happened Karina and the VTI wallet just a bit a ago. She had looked all the usual places, so I said, (just like my mom always says) ‘Well, let’s pray about it.’ So we prayed, and again, 10 seconds later, Karina had found it.

I know God doesn’t always answer with that kind of ferocious speed, but I know that he is real, he hears and he responds.

Thank you all again for all you’ve been doing there, even when it doesn’t seem like much. It’s a huge thing and we couldn’t have survived without all the prayers you’ve been giving.

Grace and Peace
James & Karina in Sidmouth in their final bout before the home trip. :)

Wha??

2009-03-16T03:59:00.002-06:00

So... I'm leaving right away, so I'll give everyone a really quick fill in.

Karina and I took a week off from the team to rest. However, that night when we fell asleep at Mark and Fee's in Clay Cross, Karina woke up with a very high fever. 42.8C or 109F ... that's hot. Anyways, so the paramedics came and they took us away in an Ambulance.

For the next 3-4ish days Mark and/or Fee took me back and forth between the hospital and their home. Visiting hours at the hospital are very strict and so I could only get in between 2-4 and 6-8... The doctors would come in the morning and I wanted to find out what they were doing. The whole ordeal for me was very close to nightmarish. I couldn't rest... think... sleep. I just wanted Karina to get well, and I had to fight to even see her.

Now during this whole thing Karina had some really great talks with people in the hospital. Nurses, Doctors, Patients and random other folks. It was good for her and I think it reminded her a bit of Paul. The way he made the most of wherever he ended up.

Well, 2 days I went to see Karina in the morning... even though we're not allowed... And I mean strictly allowed. The one time, I got in for a little over an hour, but I was warned by about 6 nurses that I shouldn't be there. I really had to fight to stay for the time I did.

The next time was the last day she was in the hospital and my nerves were shot. I remember praying that God would let me get in just so I could be there with her. When I got up to the locked door, I knocked and I saw the nurse at the desk and I knew she was on her way to tell me I couldn't come in, when all of a sudden from the side, a painter walked over and opened the door for me. In I went. I walked straight down the all and by the desk that had 10 nurses, and none of them said anything, and it was almost like none of them saw me.

THen I sat with Karina in the hospital and I was there all day. From the morning till 5ish when they released her. And I never had any warn me. God is awesome... and I know he doesn't always answer in our immediate favor... but that really was a moment that I'm going to cherish for a long long time...

:)

So, since then we've been chillin with Mark and Fee and visiting the Holmgate church and members periodically. It's been a really great time and we're sad to be leaving, but time moves on.

Thank you everyone so so so SO much for your prayers... We can tell you've been praying.

By the way, for those wondering, Karina's problem was one we were previously aware of. She had a bladder infection and she took antibiotics to treat it... THe problem was that the bacteria was resistant to the two kinds that she tried. Thus the infection spread to her kidneys... there was the problem. Now, before anyone freaks out, it's alright. She's good now. lol, she's better than me!

I've still got this lingering head cold that I've had 4 weeks now. I am getting better though. :D

Anyways, I'll throw some pics on here from the last weeks. Thank you all again, and now we're off to Northwich and we're going to meet up with our team! :D

Cheeeese Gromit!

2009-02-23T03:58:00.003-06:00

England is nice... but I think I’m gaining weight. Lol. I had my first Wensleydale cheese tonight. Karina and I are in Elpakutype mode... (that’s ‘I’ll pack... You type...’) So, Karina’s packing and I’m typing. It’s now been two weeks since we have arrived here in England. Blair has already bought a Welsh flag. Lol, I’m expecting him to wear it like a cape and start dancing in the streets soon. We’re going to be going to a town tomorrow that’s very close to Wales and he is simply itching with anticipation.

Our first week here, we hit the ground running. We had missed our original flight out of Rwanda and so Karina and I were running around trying to get everything sorted out so we could leave. Eventually it all worked out and we got on the plane, and then we flew to Ethiopia and stayed in the airport overnight before flying to London. *whew* We did RE classes (religious education) from a ‘Christian’ perspective in a few schools. It kept us really busy and we had a great time with the kids. I forgot to mention that the first town we were in was Walsall, and I was there 2 years ago. As such, some of the kids at the school we spent more time in remembered me. It was great! We did a lot of dramas, music, and illusions and testimonies. It felt like a blur most of the time just because we were involved in a lot of things. When we had to leave it felt like we had just got there. We spent Valentine’s Day there and Karina and I got our names made out of wire... along with a lot of hearts... It’s hard to explain it... There was this guy on the street who takes a piece of wire and with some needle-nosed pliers makes a stand with names and designs or whatever kind of thing is going on. Anyways, it was really neat. :)

So, time moved on and we had to say goodbye to all of our friends in Walsall as they dropped us off in Clay Cross. This week we did kind of a DVBS with the kids. Every day we played games, did crafts, dramas, puppets and other things to a space theme. It felt like Star Trek most days. The items we did focused around the journey of Peter throughout the gospels... Fisherman to Disciple to Denying Jesus to Prison for Preaching... He had quite the journey. Mark and Cheryl Sorell from Calgary came to see how we’re doing as a team (they’re our directors). It was a really great week too. I was able to wake up every day excited to see the kids and to hang out with Simon and company. I was on team STARS... lol... I think we came in last on the point system, but we had a lot of fun playing games and learning.

At the end of the week, 4 of the kids from the winning team, ‘The Rockets’ got to cream pie 4 leaders of their choice. Haha, it was a blast. Each day our team members acted out parts of a story about a family that was beamed into space. Karina’s puppet Grandma Ida played Grandma Ida Watt, Dylan played Rick Watt (a typical video game crazed kid who doesn’t want to grow up), Amy played Wendy Watt (the annoying but smart sister), Joanna played Mummy Watt (she loved cleaning things...and one time while she was cleaning the teleporter, she was beamed to an enemy ship because the kids were playing with buttons), and the adorable robot/computer was played by yours truely... Me! I got to wear a tin foil covered box on my head. It was great fun, and we were starting to catch on to our roles when we were done at the end of the week. We had so much fun with the kids. Oh, and we got to wind it all up at the end with Tabitha’s birthday party. We had a lot of cake and I remember there being a really big card for her. She had a good day I think :D.

For our day off, the church rented a big tourist bus and between the church members and our team we easily filled up the bus and then went to the city of York. Turns out York comes from Yorwik... which comes from Jorvik... which is obviously of Viking origin. York, way back in the day was a Roman garrison and then it became a town, and was conquered for a while by the Vikings and I think a while by the Normans too. Everyone fought over it for a while. Apparently, Emperor Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor in York. (look for his statue in one of these pictures...) Anyways, the week we happened to go to York is VIKING week! As such there were a lot more people than normal, shops were all open, and there was so much so see and do. All the guys on my team, other than myself, went and got war wound paint on their faces. And before that the 4 of us guys got our pictures taken in Viking outfits. (Mine is the Beowulf outfit and apparently the helmet I wore was one of the 8 actual helmets from the recent Beowulf movie... Who knew? ^_^ ). It was a great day to take in some new sights and catch up on some history. We eventually came back here and had a good morning and evening service at the church. And now here I am digesting my cheese and crackers.

There are a good number of stories of kids that we have been helping to impact, but my prayer is that it won’t really be our team who encourages or changes people, but that Jesus would be doing that. We can only be here a week at a time, but Jesus will be sticking around long before and after we’ve come. Keep praying that we’ll be able to stay on our feet.

This last week I’ve had a bad head cold. I didn’t actually do very much singing or talking like I normally would. I think I’m just about over it now. I’ve stopped coughing and now I’ve just got a runny nose. I know our whole team must be a bit tired. On that note Karina and I are actually really bushed. We’re going to be (after this coming busy week) going to be taking leave from the team for a bit to let them grow and function on their own for a bit. During that time I’m really going to be trying to get some rest up since I’ve been pretty much toasted since getting ready to leave Rwanda.

Pray that the team will keep going and that they’d be able to really function well without Karina and I there and that they’d be able to help each other grow.
Well, I need to be hitting the hay right away here. Have a great one and sorry it took so long to let you all know what we’ve been up to. We haven’t forgotten about any of you. We just didn’t have a massive amount of time to say ‘hi’. Have a great one!

Grace and Peace

Goodbye, farewell, I'll see you in a while!

2009-02-07T02:48:00.002-06:00

So... 5 hours before we leave for the airport.
Our whole team is getting ready to go, and about half of them are in denial. Nathan wants a pizza. He hasn’t changed a whole lot. He says he shaved though...

Last week we were able to go on a Safari. We saw one giraffe, zebras, baboons and hippos. It was a really fun time, but it was really really squishy. We were in a small van, and there was 4 people per row where there would normally just be 3... well, in Canada that is. At one point, Noel, who was doing some camera work in the park there, got out to get a video of a big baboon. All of a sudden the baboon came running at them and the three guys standing in the door of the van started freaking out and were trying to get into the van all at once. Meanwhile, that baboon jumped into the van window in the front. That’s where our tour guide was sitting. She held up her jacket and clubbed the baboon until he hopped back out. They’re really intimidating. Dillon was commenting the other day that as we drove away from the baboon, he said to it, ‘Bad Baboon’... to which the Baboon looked at him and scratched his armpit. Goofy Baboons.
I found out that mosquitoes still really love me here. They know I’m leaving soon so they have been snacking on me more than normal.
I loathe mosquitoes.

Ministry wise this week we haven’t done as much. We’ve been trying to rest... trying being the key word.

Another day... Another sunrise

2009-01-20T01:41:00.003-06:00

Here we are again. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to type up some new stuff about what’s going on here. Not because we’re not doing anything, but because there’s always something happening.

Our team tried out some traditional dancing just a few days ago. It was Nanai’s birthday, and he does the teaching so we gave it our best. Lol, good thing too because the next day when we went to a new church down the road from here, the Pastor, for the closing song asked Karina and I to join them dancing. Lol, that was scary. I kept looking over at Dillon and Blair...(get up here) I kept saying with my eyes. They finally started coming up the aisle.... and then the song was done... lol. Dillon is actually not bad at dancing. I think he’s better than I am.
Oh, for those who don’t know what Rwanda’s traditional dance looks like, it reminds me a bit of Spanish dancing... if you don’t know what any dancing looks like.... Think of it as standing in water up to your neck, and shuffling your feet to the right and then swinging your arms to the left and going the other way. I don’t really know how else to explain that. Lol.

By the way, the week of doom is upon us. At least, that’s what Blair calls it. He’s going to be assuming some of my leadership responsibility for a while. Please be praying for both him and for Joanna who’s doing more of Karina’s stuff as well.
About half the team now has had some really cool ministry times just from walking to the bus stops with a bag of bread and giving it to some of the needy people there. At Remara, one of the big bus stops near here are some guys who are missing either both legs or both arms or have other ailments. The other day Dillon saw the guy with no legs begging as they were driving away and he was able to find a simple bag of chips and tossed it out the window where he caught them with much delight. Food seems to be a simple way to bridge into relationships here.

We also have been doing house visitation now. Basically we go to the home of someone who is sick or needy and we pray for them, give them some food and talk with them and their family for a while. It’s a really hard ministry to do, but these people really need hope and love. The one lady I visited with lives near the base here and she doesn’t expect to live longer than this month. She’s HIV+ and she was really scared of what to do. There’s a lot of people here like her.
Please be praying for the team as they help around here with chores and with the different ministries we’re doing. We’re going to be having a big outreach this Friday. We’re going to announce the outreach on the radio. Should be neat!
In any case, there is a jumping spider attacking my foot. Therefore, i’m going to ship off for the moment. Have a great day everyone. Grace and Peace

- James
P.S. Emily says hi to everyone :D

Behold the New Year... Feels pretty much the same...

2009-01-03T03:47:00.001-06:00

Ma-rah-ho! (hello)

Well, hello to everyone! Happy New Year! We brought in the New Year over here with the occasional person being sick... usually myself, Karina, Blair or someone with a random headache or stomach flipping. Never the less, we are all on the way up again.
The sun is real bright again here today. And since there hasn’t been any rain for a few days, we’re all hauling a little extra water for cleaning and chores, etc. Yay for some good ol’ hard work.

As much as the water hauling is recreational time for us, we have had a couple times to play soccer. Lol, I don’t think that the people here are necessarily a WHOLE lot better at soccer than us, but they all have so much more energy and endurance. They run, we run.... then they run, and we jog... then they run and we walk... and then we lie the grass exhausted... and they wonder why we tire out so quickly cause they were just getting warmed up.

Our regular weekly ministries have been on hold a little for this week because of the holidays. We’ve been doing kid’s stuff in churches on Sunday. Tomorrow, Sunday, we’re going to be going to two churches. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. We’re going to be absolutely zonked by the end of the day. Church here is usually a minimum of 2.5 hours. The longest we’ve been to here has been about 4 hours. It’s very interesting... ^_^

Anyways, we’re keeping busy over here and we are really thankful for your prayers and encouragement. We were able to talk to a good number of you on Skype. Thanks for that! For those who we can’t talk to face to (proverbial/digital) face, merry new year and thank you all for supporting us with prayers and encouragement and money wise.
Well, farewell for now... :P I’ll get some more pics up soon! :D

Grace and Peace
James

*PS... thanks for everyone who held out chocolate on the Skype videos... it really helps us think about chocolate a lot less.... (note the extreme sarcasm) lol... we’re going to be eating chocolate sometime in England or Canada.... :)

Mirrory Chrissmas!

2008-12-25T08:16:00.004-06:00

Merry Christmas!
Behold.... our team is halfway through Christmas day. We spent this morning in a Church service and this afternoon we’re helping out with getting Christmas Dinner all ready for the newly arrived YWAM team from Hawaii. This last week we have been doing the typical ministries with widows, street kids and the different chores and tasks around the base. On the weekend though, we did some outreaches for the community here. We rented a projector and after doing some testimonies, illusions, dramas, music and then after all was said and done, we played a movie (to which Sylvan translated all the way through as well as presented the gospel throughout and near the end of the movie. The first night we played Narnia, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe... the second night we watched the second half of the Ten Commandments... (yes, the old ten commandments). Over 100 people showed up each night, and it was cool to see God work there. In total, there were at least 35 people who accepted Christ over those two nights.

This last Sunday there was a big YWAM thing for the supporters of this Training Centre. We made a Rwandan/Canadian band for the night and we played a bunch of songs and Tabitha did the ‘I Celebrate the Day’ chalk art at the end. (It’s the chalk art with the Cross and the Manger talking about how at Christmas we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, who was born in order to die, so that one day we could ask Him to save our lives)

Our team had our own Christmas here just before REAL Christmas, and we gave each other some gifts. That was special. Karina got me a dagger. :D We made cookies (chocolate chip , and peanut butter squares) and stuffing, mashed potatoes, and some chicken...Chicken is a little different here. They are smaller and tougher. But it was all really wonderful, especially with the gravy!!

We hope it rains soon. It’s been dry here, and our allergies have been giving us a little grief... Health-wise, we’re starting to adjust to the climate and chores...but our food still does some strange things to our digestion. Nothing is constant yet. I’m sure that will get better with time.

It’s interesting being here at the YWAM base. There are a lot of Rwandese people who are used to us. And we are used to them being used to us. So, when we go out of the YWAM base on a walk somewhere, I somewhat feel surprised that the people on the street STILL come up to us and point, and stare saying “MAZUNGU!” Even though Karina has braided hair, she still sticks out like a sore thumb. At least people really appreciate seeing her braided hair.

Anyways, merry christmas everyone! Have a grand day of eating the poor turkeys... or ham... or beef.. or ... ice cream. Run for the hills ice cream! :) And come to Rwanda... there's not enough ice cream here...

We had peanut butter today... it was beautiful!

I think I lost 1 litre of sweat yesterday...Whooo!

2008-12-12T23:33:00.004-06:00

Well, the last few days have been really busy and exciting. We have been doing ministry with Street Kids, Widows, and HIV victims... as well as whoever else shows up in these locations. It was a bit difficult starting off because we weren’t really sure what to be doing... What the expectations are. Now we know a lot more of them.

1) Repeating songs is not only encouraged, but it is preferred! (not like Canada!)
2) People are quite willing to listen about the Bible, Jesus, and preaching is often encouraged
3) People like different EQ (sound) settings... (you thought we like loud music in Canada!)

There have been others too, but those are the first that come to mind. The other day, Karina, myself and 4 others (I think) were going into the hills nearby to work with HIV victims and along the way we saw some large tents with goats and cows nearby. Karina took a picture of the goats and off we went. Very shortly after we were stopped by a very agitated soldier. Turns out, the tents were part of the army airbase area, and when they saw a camera, they started freaking out. He tried to stop the vehicle, but nobody saw him, and our driver didn’t see him either. So he had to go and grab a bicycle and chase down our taxi van. When he caught up with us, they brought us back to the road by the base and then they took all our cameras to make sure we hadn’t been spying for the French or the Germans. We were there for a good hour sitting in the van while all this was sorted out. Meanwhile we entertained a group of kids that were so excited to be visiting with some Mazoongoos! Lol, it was quite the experience!

We just were at the slummish area of Kigali again last night. There are some street kids there who have been chosen to play soccer. While they do however, they get to learn about Jesus and the Bible and they disciple those who want to follow Jesus. Their soccer cheer is, ‘1, 2, 3, JESUS!’ Very cool. Anyways, while we wait for them to finish practice (2 hours), we whipped out the guitar and instantly there was 20 people there. Granted in the end, there was more people there the first time, just because of the time of day... but there was still a lot of people and we had so much fun singing songs and talking, doing illusions and we even brought out a couple puppets too!

The area we are in is called Samadooha, and it’s the last stop for the buses in this part of down. Nothing like long bus rides home!
We have been trying to find the right adapter for a transformer we got to use for our sound system. However, most of the ministries we’ve done so far have had no power, and have been in places that people like us (if we were tourists) would never go. As such, we hear, ‘Mazoongoos!’ Everywhere we go... (it means White man...) and yes, they even call Nathan a Mazoongoo. Hehe.

Oh, yesterday, I was helping whack weeds out here. The tool I used is a little shorter than a golf club, but angled the same way... straight all the way down, with a crook at the end. Only that the metal is flat and wide with a sharp end at the bottom. Almost like a Machete. Anyways, I was out whacking stuff and the people kept commenting as they walked by. One told me I should be wearing gloves. Lol. Anyways, soon there was a group of 5 kids. They were having a grand time watching me swinging away. All of a sudden while I was swinging, I lost my grip on this weed whacker! It went flying straight up. I covered my head, ducked and went running. It landed harmlessly a few feet from me. One of the boys who had been watching just started to laugh, and laugh, and then he picked up a piece of grass and acted out what I had just did. Swinging and then losing my grip on it and then running away with my hands on my head, and then they laughed all over again. Lol, kids are funny. And I think they think I am. :)

There is a graduation for the students this afternoon, and so this morning we are going to be helping them get
ready, and this afternoon, they’ve asked us to lead the music worship. :D It’s going to be fun!

Therefore, I’m off to get ready, and oh, we’re going to be at one of the biggest churches in the area. Apparently 300 people is a little church... so we’ll see what happens! Thanks for your prayers and we are doing well. There’s the occasional sickish person and the occasional weary weary day. Everyone says Hi to everyone at home!

*********

The graduation was good! We had an amazing time leading music with them. lol, they just LOVE to sing and dance and cheer. It was really fun. The downside is that some of the students are going to be gone now... They're done the communications course here.

Today though is still going to be busy. There's a church nearby that Sylvan's brother is getting married in today and they want us to bring the whole sound system over on foot and do a drama and maybe a song! lol, we'll see what happens with that!

Jembe's not a Jembe here anymore!

2008-12-05T23:24:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, our team went and visited the Rwanda Genocide Memorial. It was a trying experience for everyone, and feelings were a bit mixed. It was a really good thing for our team even if it was hard to go through.

Over 1 000 000 people died in three months.

Yet despite all the evil that took place here not very long ago, the country has changed a lot. Sylvan, one of our hosts here, came to Kigali (the capital) one year after all these things happened. He was completely overwhelmed with what He saw. The system was gone, and it was everyone for themselves kind of thing. But in the time that has gone, people have changed. People have turned from a lot of the hatred that was consuming them for so long.

When we were driving yesterday, we saw at least 5 vehicles with Christian slogans... Phrases like, God is Love, Praise God, Jesus loves You... things like that... It was really cool to see how much healing has taken place and to see what is going to happen.

Most of our team now is over the travelling tiredness. Joanna was wandering around yesterday and the day before giggling at nearly anything that was normal or mildly amusing. She wanted people to know she hasn’t lost her sense of humour.

We actually have had some sun here once in a while, and we had a quick thunderstorm yesterday evening. The weather can change very quickly, though it’s not likely we’d ever get snow or anything here. The coldest it gets seems to about 15 degrees Celsius and it seems to usually be between 20 and 30. Not bad for winter! :)
There about 1 000 000 people living in the capital today. And they tend to live a lot closer to the tops of the mountains than the valleys. I know how most of the world lives in the valleys between mountains and hills... here they kind of live along them. I suppose the rainy seasons have something to do with that.

We are looking forward to going into town for a few hours today... I still want to find a jembe... and it seems Cody, from Rhys and Janelle’s GAP team this summer had a similar experience in a shop. He asked to see the jembes and they brought a garden hoe out to him. He was surprised and was like, ‘no a jembe I can drum on...’ ‘How are you going to drum with a hoe?’ was basically the reply he got. They still laugh alot about things like that here! :)

Everyone from the team says hello, and some should be able to send some emails today.
From F&F65, thank you all for your prayers and for your love!
Grace and Peace
- James

finally... internet...

2008-12-05T04:33:00.002-06:00

Well, it’s now 12:11am on the 4th in London right now... but we’re not in London anymore. Currently we’re halfway to Ethiopia from England where we will have a short layover and then continue to Rwanda. Roughly, it has been 24 hours since we have left Calgary and a good number of us are tired...
Lol, for the few who have never really gone flying before, I decided to see what they thought about this ‘flying’ stuff. They seem to share my opinion. Fun.... but wow... it’s a lot of sitting.
I and I think a continually higher number of the team are getting really excited about going to Rwanda. There’s a lot that we aren’t sure what to expect. Things like ‘rainy season’ come to mind. And being that I’ve never been in Africa ever before, it’s a completely new experience for me.
I am sure though that is where God would have us be right now. After the letdown of the Mumbai thing not working out, I wondered what God might do, and I certainly didn’t expect Rwanda. But I’m very excited though. Rhys, who was on my team for the last two years, spent the last bit of time on VTI in the same location as we are flying towards right now. He really was excited to see what God is doing there and what He did through the members of Rhys’ team. I am looking forward to the same.
As far as I understand, a very large part of our diet there is going to consist of rice and beans. Lol, I remember having similar meals in Costa Rica. It was kind of a staple meal.
Now, before I forget, on the way we have been running into different people associated with Rwanda. For example, the first flight Karina and i were on , we met a Christian brother who works with a sort of humanitarian aid organization in Africa, and as such has spent a considerable amount of time in Rwanda and many other countries. He was very excited about our going there and wanted us to know that we would really love the people there.
Then when we were in England, Joanna was visiting with an American guy who also does a lot of work with humanitarian aid. He was travelling, at least at the time, with the Rwanda ambassador to the UN, and so he quickly whisked us over to meet him.
We had a great talk with them both, and when they found out that we do some music, this guy from the UN wanted to hear something. Rhys, just yesterday was teaching us some kinyarwandan songs and so we sang for him, ‘I will love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.’
It was really cool, and I think it also encouraged all of our team, and helped to get some who were less than really excited to start realizing that this is going to be a great experience.

In any case, thank you for all your prayers, thoughts and for reading this. I’ll do my best to let you know what we are up to. I’m excited for what Jesus will do in not only the people we wish to serve,, but also in our very team. I love seeing God show us time and time and time again that He is worth trusting and He is the only one who in the end will never let us down.
With much love and greetings from everyone here in the stuffy plane,
James Witherow

We are now safely in Rwanda at the YWAM base. And nope, we didn’t lose any luggage... though I was quite worried for a while. I’ll fill you in more about what it’s like here soon. [and it is rainy season by the way]...

Wheee!

****

I'll send more news soon... almost another day has gone by. I'll post some pics too... But what I will say now is that we all slept good but some woke up a little confused.
Blair watched as Dillon was wrestling with his mosquito netting... He was trying to sleep while he was holding it up with his hand....
Dillon also tried shaving this morning with his toothpaste... The Rwandans probably think we're a little loopy.
Also... I found out very quickly that a hand drum, what I call a jembe (that's Swahilli)... in Kinyarwandan means a garden hoe. So I said I wanted to go into town a buy a jembe for our music... they just looked at me like I was from the moon and pointed out the window at a lady gardening... 'That's a jembe...' was all they said, and then we all had a good laugh.

Anyways, fare thee well for now!

Stubble Jumpers

2008-11-06T21:17:00.004-06:00

Today I am wracked with bittersweet thoughts...

Our team is now on the road, and we're in the Vancouver area. We'll be heading to Saskatchewan tomorrow... yay for long road trips.

For the last 2 days we have been working with the UGM, Union Gospel Mission and doing programs and other stuff around there to encourage the staff and the homeless. It has been a really cool time of growing spiritually (especially... though we've all been growing sideways as well)...

The other day, the team was approached by a deaf lady on the street and nobody knew what to do with her... that was until Nathan walked up, tapped her on the shoulder and started to talk with her in sign language... :D That was a really great experience for the team. I actually wasn't there to see the event though. Karina and I were in the Indian Embassy place when the team met the deaf lady... we had to wait about 3 hours to get through the line up... It was a busy day.

We were also at a church youth group last night and were able to do a program for them. That was a fun experience too.

Today though was a lot harder on me.

We as a team had planned to have some time to relax and take in the Vancouver sights. We went to stanley park in the rain and the team went down to the ocean front. Karina and I were talking at the van for a couple minutes, then we locked up the van and caught up with our team. When we got back, one of the girls was missing her backpack of clothes and her cell phone. Karina was missing some loose change that was in her backpack under the seat and my laptop bag was gone. (laptop, portable hard-drive, cds, mouse, wallet... flash drives... everything was gone... including my folder of my own written songs)

*sigh*

That was about 6 hours ago...

I suppose when you're on the road a lot and your bag becomes your life, if it disappears... it's kind of the same feeling you'd have if your house washed away.

So, I guess this next while is going to be a lot of making lists of things I'm going to have to find all over again. I'm not really looking foward to that. Really though, there are two things that trouble me about all of this the most. It's losing a lot of the pictures that I probably don't have anywhere else... (perhaps of my honeymoon and being in Ontario with Grandpa before He passed away) I hope I have those somewhere...
and the other is the songs I've written...

I hope the same God who has inspired to date, will help me to write again... and maybe... maybe even a little better.

I know that God is in control... whatever comes will come because this life is temporary. I know that some day we will wake up and everything in this physical world that we have cherished will be gone. The only bit that is left will be what we have done for Christ, that is, what Jesus has done though us for His glory.

I pray that I won't let this theft make my heart cold for the homeless... there are a lot of people out there that are desperate for love.

a minor update...

2008-10-07T17:31:00.002-06:00

Practice to Practice is where we’ve been at now here at VTI. We’re still in the Water Valley area. We’ve been trying to learn programs and get music together in general here so that we won’t look terrible when we go on the road. I’ve been sick for the last week and am still fighting off its remnants. It’s been tiring during this rush of information and trying to be creative on purpose is much harder than being ‘inspired’. In any case, it has been fun working with the team and I really enjoy working with them. It’s hard to keep track of 11 people besides myself. Heh. I’ve been listening to Christmas music already. I know, I know … it’s early… well… I like Christmas, and so it’s been refreshing to listen to some festive songs once in a while.

In any case, supper has now come and I am being whisked away to eat. I do like food.

Thank you all for your prayers... there have been many spiritual attacks already this year. I don't think the darkness is pleased we're going to India. I really hope that we'll be able to bring some light there especially. Pray that we will press on.

Sorry I haven't been writing much... I'll try to remedy that sometime soon and post up some fun pictures of our day off yesterday. We dressed up weird and went into town... :D

Lookin' for the Beary fat Bears!

2008-09-17T11:24:00.001-06:00

Training camp is now in the ‘full swing’ of things. We were running around Calgary yesterday trying to find team outfits for this year (minus the ones that we will get in India). It’s been good being back on team. Very different… but good! I’ve been used to 5 other people on a team with me (team of 6) for the last 2 years, and with that, familiar people on my team. Now there’s new faces, new stories, and a team exactly double the size. There are 12 including myself. 8 girls, 4 guys. It makes great for the statistic books that say that for every guy on the mission field, there are 3 girls. I think that’s right anyways… lol… it’s been a while since I took the classes here.

This last bit has been particularly stretching for me because of the musical diversity here as far as experience goes. There are people here who could be teaching guitar or piano… or vocals… and there are some who don’t play anything and don’t sing anything. All of them want to learn and soak up as much as they can, lol. It’s tiring teaching stuff, but wow, it’s really worth it.
One of the guys that I’ve been teaching a lot of things to is Dillon from Montana. We met him both years that we went down to the States. He’s wanted to come on VTI for about 8 years and so for him to be here and wake up in Canada, learning about how to share his faith through the arts is a living dream come true. The kind of passion that radiates from him is catchy, and people like that make me really love doing what I’m doing.
In this next month and a half we’ll be learning some ‘canned’ program material and practicing all the facets therein. Drama, Music, Art, Speaking, Illusions, and good ol’ Children’s action songs! :D On that note, of learning stuff, I learned a new guitar strum! I’m not positive of the name of it, but it sounds pretty trippy. It’s like combining drums’ rhythm and strumming with it. Weird. Took a good 2 hours just to do it right. *sigh* I hope you all get to hear it sometime to actual Hindi words! :D
It’s strange trying to tell you everything that’s been going on because it doesn’t feel like we’ve done much…. But that’s just because we’ve been going so fast that I don’t remember much of what happened past a day or two ago. Time just keeps flying.
I’ve been trying to write some songs again a bit. While they’re learning some of things that us ‘experienced’ team members have already learned, I have a little free time. Time to write this, time to sing… time to practice… so much time that gets eaten up by all the things I should do… need to do… should have done… practical things… thoughtful things… *whew* lol… it’s true… there are never enough hours in the day.
We have had some chances to goof around and expend some energy doing creative games and activites. Luke (from the Artists in Residence program here at VTI) and myself just did a scavenger hunt a day or two ago. Lol… we got them to take pictures of their team doing all kinds of strange things. Lol… I’ll try to include a pic or two on the blog here… ^_^

For those just tuning in, or for those who have been following my adventures for a while, my email is still: encaitar777@yahoo.com You can get a hold of Karina or I through that pretty easy. Thank you all for your prayers and notes and visits and lol, thanks Grandma for remembering Karina’s birthday! That was a blast for her… oh, lol… and Mom too! For calling and singing in the morning and making sure to check up on Karina and Nathan and Myself and everything…  Feel free to call again sometime!

Please keep praying that God protects our team and helps us to grow. I think pretty much everyone here has a passion to see Jesus move through the people we meet… here, Canada, USA, India, the UK, wherever, I hope and pray that God will do something sweet.
It hasn’t been a field of velvet though… there have been struggles on team… Usually pertaining to self-esteem or lack of a specified talent…. It’s been pretty emotional at times, but the team is really supportive of everyone and best of all I haven’t heard any cutting down of anyone. Very little sarcasm and… it’s just a bunch of young adults passionate to see God move. Lol… they make me feel old sometimes! :D I want to keep that kind of passion with me. Pray that God will keep us Passionate for Himself and for us to be passionate to share about Him everyone we meet whether by word or deed.
In the meantime from here in the foothills, Grace and Peace
James

what for is the grass but for standing?

2008-08-06T00:35:00.002-06:00

Well, we're sitting here right now in Budapest airport waiting for our flight. I think it's coming around sooner or later. Most likely in a while. I will have to put up an entry to mention some things about what has transpired while we've been here in CentralishandWestern Europe. Oh, for those wondering about my stomach problems and my ankle, i'm not entirely better, but I have definitely improved. Whee! lol, signs around Europe are crazy. If you're looking for an important road, there are often signs two or three streets before that for any of us looking for directions, we end up on entirely the wrong roads. We even got lost trying to find the airport... not for long mind you... And we arrived to find the airport basically empty...and once it filled to the brim we found out that our flight was 'lost' as well. Cancelled. However, we are on the 9:30 flight and this set back doesn't interfere with our connecting flight back to Canada... that's a huge... HUGE... blessing.

It's been a hard few weeks... Good few weeks... Hmm... here are some simple highlights.

The first few days we were at Pista's (Peeshta) we were able to help with some of their haying stuff out in the fields. That was sweet. They had a horse and cart... and horse flies LITERALLY an inch and a half long. A fleet of those could carry off a horse. On that note, i also that day saw the biggest flying bug I ever saw. It was longer than 2 inches and the hugarians described it to be as the 'Oh, the one that sounds like a helicopter?'.....it was big.

And I clubbed it with my hat... Never the less, it picked itself back up and flew away. I could still see it a hundred feet away.

Did I mention it was a big bug?

Ok, so getting away from the bug thing, we had the opportunity to go to some orphanages and churches and youth groups. It was fun. The kids loved the silly songs ... though the teens did too... And they loved balloons and music... It was really cool to hang out with these kids.

In Romania we went to the farthest Hungarian speaking villages. They had never even seen an evangelical Christian before. As such, in the one village especially we had a particularly unfriendly welcome... They wanted us to keep off their grass too... That's when Pista turn to us very confused...'What for is the grass but to stand on?!' It was pretty funny. Sorry if the humor is too removed from this situation. I suppose you'd have to hear him say it. Grand I tell you.

Anyways, about this lady with the unfriendly welcome. When we finally brought over some kids, we got down to business. We did games and balloons and ate chocolate... sang some songs. And suddenly our host lady changed. She stopped frowning and started to be excited and supportive of what we were doing. We weren't able to share the gospel there at that time, but we were able to build valuable bridges for the next time Evangelical Christians come to visit. I don't think they've ever met a foreigner... most of them anyways.

I know Jesus will visit them again.

A last quick note...
One night we needed to sleep outside on our trip around South Central Europe. As such we were looking for a building a bit out of the way with some roof in case it rained. We stayed that night in a ruined 150 year old ish Jewish Synagogue. The entrance was covered in Anti-Jewish/Christian slogans, sybmols etc. I have the distinct feeling that whoever did it though was pretty out of it. On one wall they had tried to spraypaint 666, but it ended up 665. Sad.
Point of all this?

We reclaimed it for Christ. Karina and some of the others prayed that night that Jesus would protect us there again where for many years had been worship of the same God that we worship. Then in the morning... (after a GOOD sleep I might add) Myself, Jeremy and Beth picked up some chalky stones and rid the Synagogue of the terrible graffiti.

Truth being rediscovered... Being reclaimed... It was a beautiful thing to see Jesus' name on that wall instead of Satan's.

This whole trip we have seen God at work. There has not been a day when we needed Him (even knowingly) helping us some way some how to get through the day... or find something... or to open our eyes to something that has always been there but that we just haven't been able to perceive.

To see God actively involved beyond anything I can or could ever do on my own was amazing. Awe Full.

Looking forward to hearing from you all... If you have questions, please write, and I'll try to answer as best I can.
Please pray for Pitti (Petey) and Pista as they're still travelling and Pitti's back really bothers him from time to time.

I'm almost home everyone! I hope to see many of you soon.

Oh... and Please, pray for my Dad's family...especially my Grandma. My Grandpa Witherow passed away the same day I became an Uncle. And if Grandma is reading this, I love you very much, and it's going to be terrible landing in Toronto and not being able to see you again yet. I love you and Grandpa, and I'm praying for you. Jesus will be with you as surely as he has been here to protect me on this trip...

*And despite all this driving (over 4000kms...I'll find out for sure how many later), I STILL haven't had any back trouble... despite other sickness... lack of sleep... sitting too long... sleeping sitting... tenting climbing and walking...

Man is He faithful or what?!

He's worth trusting. :)

Modern Times!

2008-06-28T13:10:00.001-06:00

Well, just a few days ago we arrived back from Montana. We spent almost a week at a camp and then we spent another…almost a week at a Day Vacation Bible School. For the camp part we had the privilege of staying with the Carolls and with the family that Janelle and Coralie stayed with last year, Tom and Anne. It was a great time there. At camp, there wasn’t many people who showed up, but I knew a good number of them and because there weren’t many of us we were able to have everyone hanging out a lot of the time.

The weird thing was that, even though it was June, they had been having a lot of rain. Then when we started up the camp, it snowed. Not just the little wimpy snow either. It was that fat, wet, thick snow. We got near 6 inches in total. As such, we were freezing often in the Hall where we had been meeting for chapels. It was a long log cabin with holes through it here and there. One thing I liked about it was a big fireplace in the side of the hall. While we were all standing around the fireplace trying to stay warm, Dave Caroll (camp director guy) lamented the fact that most of the heat was actually going up the chimney. Not missing a beat, Dylan (who I might add has been VTI’s biggest fan for years) spoke up, “Let’s block up the chimney!!” It was a lot of fun being at camp. While it was snowing the rest of the week we eventually moved everything into the dining hall. We did EVERYTHING in there. Chapel, eating, board games, music, talking, movies, cup stackers… It was great. I even learned how to play Axis & Allies (it’s a WW2 board game that’s pretty complicated) while I was there.

After camp, and right before we left Tom and Anne’s, Tom and Dave took, Rhys, Karina, and myself out to some random road with a small valley between us and the next hillside. He brought with us a 30odd6 and a gun that was a little less powerful. In any case, we had fun trying to shoot some rocks. Being that I had never shot anything bigger than a pellet gun, it was a pretty big shock. We had a great time though and it was an experience that I will probably never have up here in Canada.
After that we went to Ulm, Montana. It’s a really small town about an hour and a half south of the border near Great Falls. Last year, Ulm was our first stop in the USA. It was nice ending there and again seeing some old faces. We even met another few kids from camp last year. I realized around then how tired I really was. When I sleep now, I can sleep a lot longer and soak it up like a sponge. As such, this week I’ve really tried to get a little more sleep this week because GAP teams are coming up very soon. Karina and I were briefed a little on our trip that’s coming up and I know it’s going to be a stretching experience. I thought we had to be flexible in Russia! It’s going to be a whole new experience… In fact, I don’t think VTI has ever sent a team there yet, so we’re going to be treading on fresh turf. Actually, Rhys and Janelle will be too, they’re going to Rwanda and I don’t know if VTI has ever sent a team there either.

So, what this all means is that in the next while Karina and myself will be closely watching some videos that Mark brought back of how to pronounce the words of certain songs and say certain phrases. We have to see if we can learn how to say these things to some extent so that we can teach the kids who are coming in less than a week. It’s pretty crazy stuff!

And that brings us to now I think. I’m in the van again driving towards Calgary to practice more Hungarian. I feel for Rhys and Janelle even more… they have to learn some French AND Kinyarwanda… that will be stretching for them I’m sure too.
Please be praying that we will do our best as we get ready for GAP teams and that God will not only be stretching and showing new things to us and to the kids, but that God would really do some awesome stuff in the lives of the people we’ll be with overseas… and the many orphans we’ll be with while we’re in the Hungary area.

Grace and Peace to you all! Fare thee well.

To leave again...

2008-05-27T05:50:00.004-06:00

May 10, 2008
It for me has now arrived at the point where to say that we have been busy seems to be no different from any other post I’ve put up in the last year. It has been busy… however it has been good. I type this as we are staying in a church in Pierre, South Dakota.
We’re on our way to Nebraska, but we were held up when we ran into a snowstorm in the Calgary area. It snowed 14 inches. It was pretty crazy… and we couldn’t make it to the training centre that night… let alone get onto the grid roads that would have taken us there. A church in Cremona let us stay there overnight, and then we drove down to Briercrest yesterday and now we’ve arrived in the States… I should add, for once we got through the border without difficulty.

May 18
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 8 days down here in Nebraska already. We did a children/youth service last night in a Hispanic church in Lexington. Earlier this week we’ve been going to schools in and around Beaver City, as well as a seniors home. It’s been really good. I’ve enjoyed being back into the touring! I don’t think I got a picture of it, but at the new school they’ve built a large auditorium with a huge stage for dramas and musicicals and whatever else. It reminded me very much of Russia. It was a really cool feeling being that Bruce was there too.

May 27
It’s hard to believe that we’re leaving this morning from Beaver City. One thing that I really don’t like about travelling around to all these different places is that you always leave a piece of you behind. Lol, funny how you can do that and still gain weight… What I mean is you leave a piece of your heart there. In Beaver City here, we had the chance to stay in ‘relatively’ the same place for a couple weeks. You learn who people are. You learn about their struggles… their joys… their past… families…friends…experiences. It really is sad to leave.
By the way, that Hispanic Church in Lexington? Well apparently 12 people came to Christ at one of the services. That was exciting for our whole team to hear and certainly a highlight.

After we did the majority of our programs everywhere else, we helped the town out by preparing the area for memorial day. We planted some flowers, helped plant Pastor Dwayne’s garden, destroyed a rotten stump, rote-tilled the garden before we planted it, weeded, transplanted strawberry plants, and cleaned out flowerbeds.

Karina meanwhile had been sick for a bit and while she was home, she wrote a song called ‘Ebenezer’ for the town of Beaver City. They were just celebrating the 100th year of a statue that was erected to honor those who died in the civil war. Anyways, to Karina, it was like an Ebenezer (which means, ‘thus far God has brought us’) and so anyways, we got to play this song for them on Memorial Day. They fired 4 canons off at the end of the ceremony too. Wow… you can really feel the blasts.

And right up to date here… yesterday was the imfamous ‘Memorial Day’ and we had the privilege of helping to raise flags up in the cemetery early in the morning as well as lead the singing in the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and another hymn ‘My Country tis of Thee’ (it’s the tune of God Save the Queen). Anyways, it was a really great time to be there with the veterans. Oh, and they fired off a canon at the end of both memorial services we did. It was really special. Finally last night we had a supper with the church that we didn’t get to do a service for because of being stuck in the snowstorm in Calgary. Not everyone there was a Christian and I hope and pray that the songs we sang and the stories we shared will encourage them to take the risk of stepping out and giving Jesus everything. It was really cool.

Now we’re here. Ready to leave… but not ready to leave. It’s been a good time, and great to see God work. I will miss this little town of Beaver City and the amazing people we’ve met here.
And Connie, we’ll even miss cutting out all that flannel graph! :P
Grace and Peace
- J

P.S.
The Website wouldn't let me put up all the pics I wanted... so you'll have to copy and paste this link into the address thinger.... (There are a few that are labeled... :P)
http://s128.photobucket.com/albums/p174/encaitar777/?mediafilter=images
Hope that works... :P

BC... Wales.... What's the Difference?

2008-04-22T21:40:00.001-06:00

It’s been a long couple weeks. We’re on the road again and it feels like we’re ‘finally’ going home. We spent this last while in Abbotsford and Vancouver primarily. I’m afraid that even though we missed the snow that came down in Calgary (28cms), we did leave some snow there before we left. Actually it was a really funny thing. Karina and I were invited by our hosts to go and see the view from the top of Burnaby Mountain. We got to the top and everything was covered in snow… it was snowing and you couldn’t see any of the amazing view they kept mentioning. It ended up going something like, “Right in front of you there is Vancouver Island, most of the Burnaby area… the river over there… and you can usually see for miles. Um… Yes… Usually!” It was a great tour. Karina and I thought we’d enjoy the trip up the mountain by rolling down the big hill there a few times. Me in my flipflops rolling down a snowy hill. It was quite the sight I’m sure.
I really enjoyed our time here ministry wise. We spent a good deal of time with Union Gospel Mission. At UGM we worked at sorting clothes, simple maintenance, doing programs as well as praying and visiting with people. It was a really cool experience. I’ve never been down to the Vancouver area here…
1) Daffodils everywhere (the yellow ones)
2) Some areas of road have traffic seemingly on the ‘different’ side of the road due to the parallel roads
3) More roundabouts than many of the Canadian cities I’ve visited
4) Only place I’ve had Potato and Leek soup
5) UK and BC are the only place we’ve hooked up our sound system and had radio start coming through the speaker system…
6) The abundance of Tetley’s tea and the number of tea drinkers
7) We stayed with Rhys’ Grandparents… who are in fact Welsh… that just made it all the more Welsh
8) Being tired all the time
9) The climate… Green and Oceany… O.o
10) Welsh cakes (they’re basically tea biscuits)
11) The Fraser river and the bridge reminded me of the Rhine River that separates England and Wales
12) The one time we put on the Weather channel there was a British lady doing the news
13) The massive amount of religions and immigrants
British…Columbia… trippy.

Anyways, it was really great to see God working wherever we looked. At UGM we were there to see a lady who has been bitter and angry for a very long time come to Christ! The most amazing work that happened though was on our very own team. The short of it was that one of our team members was frustrated with a lot of little things and let it build up until they were so bitter they were ready to leave the team. This person even said they were going to leave. But God started working, and in the midst of our brokenness Jesus began to heal our team. We are again united strong and excited to still be doing His work. Pray that God continues to unite us.

We are now headed back to the training centre for a couple weeks before we head down to Nebraska. That’ll hopefully give us some time to brush up on our Spanish songs. In any case, thank you to all who have been praying for us. We’ve needed them more than you know. Especially since the end of the year is now coming into sight (though it’s still a ways off) and the stresses of deciding our futures are beginning to mount.

***April 19thish***

** As an update, I am now at the training centre with a bunch of mission reps and bible school reps. We're having a good time hearing stories and praying and whatnot. Please pray for Karina and myself as we are trying to stay focused, refresh ourselves spiritually and physically while at the same time asking God for where He will lead us in this next while. Please pray for our direction and for us to wait for His leading.

The epic of Costa Rica

2008-04-07T14:27:00.001-06:00

The epic of Costa Rica

March 18, 2008
1:33am
We’re awake because of the Mission Heights team who came into the training centre (it’s a really large team, so I’m not surprised) and our own adrenaline. Who in their right minds would be up this early? My stomach’s a bit upset so I’m probably not going to eat. I’m excited though. We’re leaving VTI’s training centre at 2:15am. See you on the plane. I’m going to be a mad house.
12:20pm(1:20pm Texas time)
So, we’re in Wichita Falls. TX while we wait for the tornados to clear out of Dallas area. They’re ordering pizza for all of us as we sit here on the tarmac. We’re not really sure how this is all going to work, but we’re all enjoying the hospitality and visiting. I wish my guitar was out. It’s cool to see God working.
3:25pm(TX time)
We had some Domino’s pizza, a prayer time, and it looked like we were just about to leave and then another system has moved in. It sounds like our flight for now is cancelled, but I think we’ll still be going. Food was good to this plane. And to me for that matter!
4:35pm
We’re leaving…Bu the way, an hour ago we had some Dr. Pepper Coke. That was a blast. Here we go to Dallas! (Coke is the word for pop down here…. Coke coke, Dr. Pepper Coke, Pepsi Coke… it’s weird)
6:30pm
We are stranded in the airport. We arrived at 5:30pm and though I’m not allowed to say to the others yet, we may stranded here for up until Friday. Don’t tell anyone. Never know when God might do something crazy. This is all very exciting.
March 19
7:50am
Apparently last night Nathan Hill said to his Dad Tim, or vice versa, “I’d rather trust a blindfolded monkey with a straight razor.” We all slept ish. A few minutes here and there. People were stealing our cots last night, but on the plus side we were able to get some blankets from the airline to keep a little warmer. They make good capes. I forgot! At around 6ish this guy drove by saying “…’scuse the cart! ‘Scuse the cart please.” Joel mentioned such wonders to me, but now I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.
11:35am
Karina and I were going to be leaving to go to our gate 33 to go to Miami to get to Costa Rica with mostly everyone but our own team! Now I hear they’ve tried to reshuffle it into teams. If so, Karina and I probably won’t be going anywhere. And Karina needed some NyQuill so I’ve got less money now in American. *sigh* Tough I’m still optimistic, it’s getting harder and harder. My Debt card won’t work here by the way…
1:30pm
Off to eat a hamburger… I’ve been reading and visiting all morning. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here for. The other team is about to leave now.
1:35pm
Karina and I are just about to leave for Miami! You see how things change? Unfortunately our team is still stranded. On the upside, we’re in a Boeing 777! I’ve always wanted to fly in one. Anyways, I’m praying that God will get our team out safely and soon so that we can be with them.
1:39pm
Never mind…. My team all just walked on in! Weird! God Rocks! This is so weird. AJ’s team, Mission Heights might not all get on, but to have this many already is incredible!
7:45pm
Ok, so we got to Miami, and we had little time between flights. Mark didn’t know that our entire team didn’t have tickets for Costa Rica yet. As such, mass panic nearly ensued. Mark went off to do something and I suddenly became the leader. Crazy. This always seems to happen to me in airports… Oi…. So, we were trying to figure out why we had confirmed tickets for Costa for the guys on Mission Heights who hadn’t come yet… We really messed up the counter guy…well, technically the airline did. He was pretty stressed anyways. So Karina and I again are on the plane for a 3hr flight and we are hopefully going to Costa Rica. One day late, but it feels like many more.
10:25pm (Costa Rica time)
We arrived in Costa Rica safe and sound. Met a Canadian guy out of the airport who works here. His name is Jeremy.
March 20
At 7:45 this morning a Spanish lady came into the boys’ cabin and started greeting us in Spanish as she came and got some cutlery and then took off. That was surprising! We had some fruit and cereal for breakfast which the smell triggered memories from mornings in China for me.
We’re having our orientation right away and then this afternoon we’re going to pick up our luggage and other left behinders.
10:00pm
Ben, Pastor Tim and a few of the girls on our team got here around 7ish. It’s great to have the whole team together again. We had a time to sing and talk and pray tonight at 9:30. It felt interesting though. Like something is out of place. And though I’d like to think it’s in other people, I want to hope it’s me instead. I need God to give me the ability to work here. I cannot do it on my own. Guitar included.
March 21
In a nutshell, we did ‘team building games’ after breakfast this morning. It was pretty strenuous, but it was really fun! Then just before we played soccer I was hanging out with Tayler and Adam and then Tayler jumped off this stump and I heard a ‘pop’ sound and then he was in a lot of pain and couldn’t walk. Jeremy brought over the little tractor with trailer as a couple of the adults on our team were examining him. He had to sit around in the dining hall area for a few hours while we waited for someone to come with a vehicle to come pick him up to take him to the hospital. What’s funny is the day before they told us about this kid, last year or the year before, was fooling around on Good Friday and split his head open jumping in the river. Good Friday in a very Catholic nation means that there probably won’t be many doctors around. Anyways, everything worked out perfect for this kid in years past, and then we realized… it was good Friday today!!! I went with Tayler and his mom Leahn to the hospital sitting on the wheel well in the back of a jeep for the 2 hour ride there. Long story short, Tayler did in fact break his leg. The whole situation though was really funny. Tayler does crazy things and has never broke anything, until he jumped off a small stump in Costa Rica… lol… Oi.
March 22
3:40pm
Today was a work day. We got up early today to see off the Mission Heights Team. One girl got a piece of bread covered in jam, stuck to her face. Some of the leaders I tell you…. O.o
All morning I was chopping brush on a trail with a machete, and all afternoon (after a spaghetti lunch) we scraped rust off a rook and tried to get cleaned up before this evening. I’m not sure yet what to expect.
March 23
9:34pm
Last night was great. We went to a youth group and sang some and did an artsy activity. We had to make posters about Integrity, Strength, Faith, Courage and I think Obedience too. Anyways, it was fun. Unfortunately Karina’s ankle started acting up because of our 3-5 km walk (it was mostly uphill). So going back, Rhys and I stood on either side and helped her all the way back.
Today was interesting. It was Sunday and we were supposed to all wear nice clothes. I had my dress pants and a white dress shirt with long sleeves. We had breakfast at 7ish and then we packed up everything we needed and then got onto the bus. Karina had sent me back for her wallet, and while I was looking, I found our second IPod. I didn’t think we needed it for this particular program, so I left. I got to the bus and we started out, and that’s when I asked about if we needed the other iPod. Turns out we did need it. Only Karina and myself knew where it was, and because of her ankle, I went off running. About that moment Karina prayed that wouldn’t hurt myself. Joel at that same moment turned and simply said, “He fell…I mean uh… he stumbled… no…. no, he fell.” I had indeed. I was running downhill through dips and one jus didn’t go right for me and the ground started going faster than my legs. I hit hard, but I was pretty good for it. I missed the gravel, but when I returned my shirt was all dirty. I brought an extra shirt. All I had to choose from was my ‘You are what you eat’ China shirt and my ‘Skillet’ (they’re a band I like) shirt. I went for Skillet.
We got to the church and we rushed around getting set up for our first program. It went pretty good, though there were still a lot of bumps and quirks along the way. Crackling mikes and translating certain words and some intermediate stage presence, but otherwise it was all good. I enjoyed it…and I can be pretty critical… :)
Their music, before we went up, was led by a 17yr old guy named Kevin. He had fluffy curly hair that bounced when he danced and sang. The people down here don’t stand very still! They love to praise God with their whole being. Body and all!
At the end of the service, they gave an altar call. One of our guys went forward to rededicate his life to Christ and a girl from our team that we had been praying for went up to become a follower of Christ!!! On top of that a couple people from the church went forward. It was awesome! I made friends with the Associate Pastor Nelson. He gave up having his own clinic and a scholarship to Spain for the ministry. That was cool to hear a bit about his life. Plus, after the program, while they were bringing out some food, Kevin had seen my Skillet shirt and he had some of their music on the computer, so we listed to some together. As I was talking to him, he was all excited that I had a Skillet shirt. Turns out they’re one of his favorite bands too! He wished he be able to find one someday. I thought about for a second…. “Would you like it?” I asked him. “Serious?” He was plainly excited. “Yeah!” I replied and I started to take it off. (don’t worry… I had an undershirt on….) and then he said that we could just switch! Ergo, I have now a fancy dress shirt from Costa Rica, and he now has a genuine Skillet shirt! :D
We came back to the camp afterwards and relaxed. I chatted with Tayler for a while before we went to eat. After supper we all stared a bit about the day and things we discovered. It was all really great. Then Barney asked me to lead a time of singing. We must have sang about 15 songs. At least 10 anyways. There was crying and laughing and praying. It was good. And now, just about 15mins ago I found out that another girl on our team gave her life to Christ. (she’s still kind of nervous and shy about the whole thing though….) The ladies are going to be doing some discipling tomorrow. That should be great fun! It’s so exciting to see God working! And my hand hurts from writing all of this in one night. Good night. The girls are screaming because of the moths.
March 24
8:50pm
Early this morning at around 3 or 4 in the morning, Karina and I were awakened by a strange animal noise. WHOOEEOOO!!! A sort of high pitched whistle… but less airy… the same way a guinea pig can sound. Anyways, it kept us up for a while and we never found out what animal makes that sound in the first place….My guess is maybe an armadillo. There are the occasional ones around here, though I’ve not seen one yet. I don’t know what they sound like, so I think it’s possible….Another theory is that it’s some kind of nocturnal bird. But I don’t know of many birds that can make grunting ish noises. Oh well…
I woke up this morning completely wiped. I had so little energy. I would walk to wherever, sit down and almost pass out from exhaustion. It was as if someone threw some heavy blankets on top of my head and I just put my head down because I became so tired. I was exhausted like that all morning and after lunch I took some time off from our painting/scraping to rest. I fell a bit better this evening, though it’s like my body can’t retain water. Very weird. Turns out I’m not alone either. Leahn for example has very similar symptoms. This evening she’s been like how I was this morning. Well, we’re gonna paint more tomorrow and then maybe do some program stuff in the evening. We’ll see.
March 25

As promised, we spent most of today painting. I’ve been feeling a bit better. We did a program at a boy’s home a little ways into town. They were really shy of the girls. It impressed me how much they wanted to serve us. A boy with a Harley Bike shirt came up right after the program and gave me some pop. That was cool. Ben did a great job tonight helping me and doing his testimony. It was really great to see him stepping out of his comfort zone so willingly. I’ve been learning some phrases here:
Pura Vida = that’s life (very Costa Rican phrase)
Mucho Gusto = (Big) With Pleasure! (it’s like you’re VERY welcome!)
Mucho Gracias = Big Thanks!
On a side note, I’ve been experimenting with making redundant phrases… things like very much good thank you…. It’s fun. :P
March 27
11:00am
Yesterday we went to the slum area in San Jose known as Carpio. They tried to excessively scare us, therefore only two digital camera went. It was nowhere near that scary. (though 6 gangs operate there… one for each bus stop) Never the less, it was sad, smelly and hot.
I was in a group that was painting gazebos with burnt oil/diesel. That stuff is potent… smalls bad in the heat too. Karina was painting in the unventilated Boy’s washroom and Rhys was digging out a trench for the rainy season (6 months long). Then we had lunch there, came back and were able to relax a bit in the afternoon and evening.
Last night however was the funniest! Leahn was freaking out about moths. It was really windy and there were people somewhere outside trying to scare us on top of it. Therefore Leahn was very jumpy. Screaming and flailing was commonplace during our game of cards. I have never seen moths dive-bomb anyone, but these 2 moths that got in both had a go at it. She threw the cards she was shuffling the one time too. It was grand. Oh, and Kelsey thought it was a conspiracy…me and the guys trying to make sure they’d have trouble sleeping... Twi was having too much fun last night too and helped freak the girls out.
Today, we got up and started painting again, and an hour before we were to finish, two fully loaded city buses full of kids showed up. I recall Cheryl saying “No…no…no…noooo!”
Therefore we are now killing off an hour before lunch with Aces to Kings (it’s a card game). We’re doing a program shortly into this afternoon and Rhys’ team is doing one in the evening.
10:30pm
We enjoyed the program. It was a long service however. I remember the one thing I didn’t like so much is that the music was too shrill and too loud. Even some of the Costa Ricans were trying to get the sound man’s attention. Other than that though, it was a great evening. We’re all every tired now and I’m still a wee bit sick.
I saw my first Cockroach in Costa Rica today. It was in Jesse’s pants. So she went screaming to find someone to find it. We found it about when we figured she imagined the whole thing. So then when it fell out we all freaked out. It was crazy fun… Buenos Noches! (Good night)
March 28
10:18pm
It’s been a long day, so here are the highlights:
- People are getting tired/sick (even if they don’t know it)
- We went to the orphans up the hill. We made some new friends there, friends such as Paul.
- Painted some of a metal roof on a shed
- Hard day for Karina… lots of things went sour for her today… I did my best to help. She doesn’t like being injured…
March 29
11ish
Today I had a great time hanging out with Tayler. He taught me some card games and a bit on guitar and I taught him some in return. That was really great! I’ve been enjoying learning new stuff on guitar now… It’s like it’s suddenly become much easier and I can learn new things again!
We went to the church late this afternoon and we hadn’t had supper. We got supper around 10:30..oi…our team was tired. While we were there we had some time to hang with the youth and play soccer. They schooled us. Bad. Anyways, one thing that was really hard tonight was that the other teams came back. And now we’re not really the ‘leaders’ anymore… And some of those in charge have had differing views on some things. That has now built up some tension and it’s bringing about some unrest with our crew. I hope it all works out tomorrow… We’re supposed to do a church service with 70 of us up there on stage… EEEK!
March 30
Sunday 11:20pm
Our last day here in Costa Rica is tomorrow. We’re going to the beach! I hope it doesn’t remain. It was a long day today. Our team did the early morning service and then we were supposed to watch/participate with Rhys’ team. The service today had dancers in front of the stage. That was different. Karina just kicked a wooden ladder with her ankle by accident. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s had a hard time trying not to hurt herself. We had a stressful morning trying to get our drama up and running. Three people in it were either delayed or sick or both, so we had to improvise new people into the drama. It worked out. Then Rhys was supposed to be doing a kids program. Only problem was, Rhys never showed up. Apparently Rhys had gone to try to get something from Camp Roblealto. In the process, He accidently hitched a ride to the top of a mountain instead. Thus he missed his program. Tonight and this afternoon we had a lot of sharing and singing and prayer. It was good. Wow… I’m tired. Rhys is funny. So is Estevan… the guy who took Rhys up the mountain.
March 31
Beach day. That was nice. I loved the waves and the sun we did get. I lost Karina’s bandana when I got decked by one of the waves. Never the less it was really fun. In the evening we went to an overpriced souvenir shop. Then we packed until midnight. Good morning.
April 1st
9:05am
- got up this morn at 5:30 and went to the airport…. That was way too early…
- said goodbye to Estevan and Arthur… they were fun this last couple weeks.
- in the airport we got to listen to this guy who was playing some Spanish guitar and some familiar tunes… ones from fiddler on the roof and things like that…. ‘What a Wonderful World…’ hehe
- got onto the plane when an announcement came on about if our ticket read 2166 to Dallas we were on the wrong flight and we were headed for Toronto…. Everything went dead quiet. “April Fools! Haha ha ha ha…” Crazy people make me laugh sometimes… hehe
April 6, 2008
11:12pm
It’s been a few days since we made it back… Yes, we did make it through the airports… :P
Karina and I were able to have some fun with our team before we left to meet up with our Encore teammates. Since then we met up, cleaned and packed, and we’ve done a couple times of playing music at churches. Tonight we just finished up a week of a mission type conference they’ve had going on… It was fun. The team is all pretty tired… However, we’re trusting God to renew us and get us psyched up about being back and having the chance to communicate in our own language again.
It’s nice to back on the road… And wouldn’t you know it… We played a Spanish song tonight…. Ha ha… :P

¿How do you say faster in Spanish?

2008-03-03T14:42:00.006-06:00

Last year on VTI it could be compared to a marathon, learning to pace yourself and it's really long. This last weekend, and the recent getting ready for Costa Rica has been what the staff have dubbed 'a sprint'. As such, it's been busy. This weekend we had over 70 people. That's about 60 more than I'm used to here at the Training Centre. But although it was really busy, it was a really good time. We learned until our minds wanted to leave on vacation, and made sure to eat enough to survive the day. It was good. I really enjoyed hanging out with the team that Karina and myself will be traveling with. They're fun. :D

Oh, and I shaved most of my hair off... Karina mourned the loss of my hair for a while...

And the skies have been beautiful around here.

So, most of the team is chillin out here at the Training Centre and we're going through 'empty nest syndrome' almost... 70+ to 4 is a bit a shock. O.o

We're getting in a bit of rest and relaxation today and then for the next week we'll be swinging by differing places in the Calgary/Three Hills areas. It'll be good. I hope you are all having a good one. Feel free to drop me a line!

Grace and Peace
J

**PS... you'll notice a black box you can click on just above this... It's a picture of the night sky out here I took. It looks pretty good when you open it up bigger. :P

only if...

2008-02-16T17:22:00.002-06:00

Snap your closed eyes open
much more happens than you know
and the world is calling for a savior
They cry out for one you know

I’ve been challenged a lot lately as to the direction of my life. I suppose it’s not much of a change from the norm. We all struggle and fight to find our place. ‘The bane of our existence’ as some would put it, is trying to find our ‘voice’. I know I personally don’t just want to blend into the rat race of this world, but I would do so as to be the one who is in, but not of in order that some may be saved.
I’ve realized that one of the reasons I probably find it so hard to figure out what in the world I am doing, is simply because I spend more time thinking about it rather than praying. We all underestimate the power of prayer too much. As a simple tangible example, I wanted to tell you about my electric razor. Karina had borrowed it the other day when we were in Brandon MB. She remembered giving it back, and I was sure she hadn’t. Therefore we checked all our bags. We went through everything. I found the power cord, but the razor my dad had bought for me was gone. It was annoying and inconvenient but not the end of the world. We prayed about it, and we figured it might be in the van. Maybe it would show up. That kind of thing.
Then out of the blue one morning we woke up and we had been in Calgary a few days, Karina opened up her computer bag (which she frequently uses) and the razor was sitting on top. I have no idea how it ended up there. Neither of us do to this day. That is other than God put it there. My only guess is that as much as He is involved in the big things in our lives, he is also intimately involved in the small things of our life.
As I’m getting ready for the Costa Rica spring break teams and learning some Spanish songs, I’m realizing that I need to be concerned with the little things. The things that only God sees. The things I do when nobody is around… the things that I don’t get the credit for… the little things.
I only wish it were easier to put into practice; these ‘live life with meaning’ kinds of things.

on a side note, here are two really good quotes.

"play the silence." - Jacob @ Briercrest (I asked him for guitar advice)

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke 1729-1797

Previews tend to delete things...

2008-01-13T17:30:00.000-06:00

The date is January 10, 2008. It’s been a month of change and travel, of stress and bliss, snow and sun. I write this as I wait for Karina to return from Starbucks. Lol, she has a grudge against Tim Hortons… lol, yeah our last place wasn’t that great. :S
Well, for those who have been wondering about what has been going on, I got married and had a honeymoon in Saskatchewan and Ontario. Karina’s beautiful by the way. Coffee’s back! :D
Well, I was in Calgary with my team trying to finish up our CD EP of VTI experiences around the second week of December, and right after that we headed back to Prince Albert to try and get our last minute planning all done up. Well, again, Karina and I had no idea how we’d get back home. Then again, a few days before, I was able to get a hold of the same James who gave us the ride out here at the start of the Encore year back in August. He was a dear. We were so grateful! :D So, we stayed a day at Rhys’ place again, and then James picked us up at 5 in the morning, and we were back home by 2 in the afternoon! Whee. Alright, so then the planning extras began. Flowergirls to honeymoon plans, we began to get stuff ready… well… we tried. Right when we got back we had to get ready for another wedding. Karina’s brother and his fiancée got married the day after we were back home!

It was very nice, but suprising! Lol. Anyways, although our brains were a little scattered, we did eventually get on track and thanks to our parents, things all worked out great! They even had some fun with it in the end. Everything went perfect for the wedding. The weather, the church, Karina’s hair, the getaway car, it all went great! It snowed in the morning, then it got sunny for the actual wedding and then when we left inbetween the ceremony and the reception for pictures, the sunshine became a bit hazy… which is beautiful for outdoor pictures! The wedding ceremony was great! Special thanks to Mike, Rick, Kyle, Bryce, Dielle, Mark, Cheryl, and Jeremy for helping everything sound great with your expertise and musical talents! Another huge thanks to Pastor Howard and Pastor Wilf for the encouragement before our wedding and then all the work you put into the actual ceremony! Thanks so much to Brent, Nathan, and my own dear brother Luke for all the video work! The DVD turned out great! Thanks! And lastly, but not leastly, thanks so much to all of you who came, didn’t come but wanted to, those who wrote, called, visited, and other wise sent other forms of congratulations via other forms of communication. (ie. Smiling, or not pranking me…) And on the pranking note, I know where you live, Jamie…Wade… and I will find you. And your conspirators! O.o
Well, we spent a few days in PA before we went anywhere. We spent our time at a secret location as well as visiting family, skating (which Karina enjoyed very much), and eating. Goodness, it’s like I’ve been eating forever. :) As I told my Aunt Debbie the other day, ‘the food paradox is when you are too full to eat without dying…but the food in front of you is so good. Whether to live to eat another day, or to die happy…’

So, we chilled out in PA, then we went to Saskatoon and went to visit my Dad’s family in southern Ontario, courtesy of my parents. They rock by the way! :D
So, we got down to Toronto around midnight. However, there was a few delays after we had landed and then we also had some trouble with the baggage. In the baggage pickup area, there were about a couple hundred people, but there was 4 or 6 times that amount of luggage there. We figure from other flights people got tired of waiting and so they left. Therefore huge piles of luggage were left. So, we eventually did have our stuff show up, and we had no problem finding my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Bruce. That was good. We got to Mount Forest about 2:45am where we were pulled over by the cops. Aunt Debbie was driving at the time, and she had hesitated at an intersection when she was uncertain what another driver was going to do. As such, we were pulled over. He came to the window and asked for her drivers and registration… she was already digging into her bag and promptly handed him her debt card… lol. We bugged her until we left about it. Hehehe. Sorry Auntie! It’s just so funny! :)

Mount Forest was great! We stayed with Uncle Bruce and Aunt Debbie and we visited Uncle Barry and Aunt Joanne, Uncle Ian and Aunt Phyllis as well as my cousin Troy and his band, Uncle Gary and Auntie Gwynne Smith, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Nan, Aunt Shirley, as well as my Grandparents Elmer & Yvonne. I suppose I also visited my cousin David there too… though it was over the phone. :P As we were visiting many people, we kept fairly busy. However, we had a lot of fun.

The first day there I was able to bring Grandpa and Grandma to Uncle Bruce’s place, after Karina got a tour there. She really enjoyed that, and it was a breath of fresh air to see Grandpa getting around being able to show off his new toy tractor colletion. It just keeps growing! I sang some songs for them at Bruce’s home, and we were able to share supper together. It was really great! The next day we went to Durham. When I got there I found out that Troy was out with his band practicing. (some of them had come from Hamilton which is a pretty long drive for that area) However, we were invited to and visit them there. So, with Uncle Ian leading the way, we went off to the edge of town to a workshop of sorts. So amongst powertools and sawdust, Troy, Stuart, Aaron, Jimmy, and Kyle were jamming away trying to figuring out new songs that Troy had written. I was actually quite shocked by how good they sounded. Their band is called the Land of Caanan. Give them a listen at www.landofcaanan.ca! Troy does the singing. Anyways, we had some hot chocolate there, courtesy of Aaron and we enjoyed listening to them and sharing some songs with them too. After that we went back to Ian’s and visited until supper. Troy and his girlfriend Stephanie joined us, and we enjoyed Chicken Fajitas! :D Yum. Right after that, Barry and Joanne came by and visited with us too. Haha, I was pretty well talked and listened out. Whew… but what a great day. Did I mention to check out land of caanan? :D

We had other times to visit and catch up with Gary and Gwynne, as well as Grandpa and Grandma. Gary was mourning the loss of his large train set, but now has a smaller one and is beginning to expand that one as well.
Lol, when we went to visit Uncle Bob and Aunt Nan, I had directions to get there, and I had directions to get to Aunt Shirley’s … lol, I got them mixed up… I knew I had it wrong, but it didn’t really clue in for me. So it was kind of a shock when I realized that I had showed up on time at the wrong Aunt’s place. Haha… It all worked out in the end. I found out that Uncle Bob and Aunt Nan do more travelling then I had thought, and I found out that He’s Welsh! From Swansee. Now I have to go tell Rhys, from my team. I thought he was like the only Welsh guy I had ever met, other than his family that is. Apparently not. I found out they’ve also been to China at least a couple times. It was great to be able compare pictures… while eating Christmas cookies of course.

Everywhere else, it was catching up and seeing faces that seemed only familiar as if I had dreamed of them once upon a time. That’s a weird feeling. Oh yeah, we went to Church twice on Sunday. The First Baptist in the morning and in the evening to the Faith Baptist. In the morning we met up with Gary and Gwynne. We met a couple there that have done mission work in Russia, so we had fun greeting each other as such. Lol. I’m a bit rusty I think. In the evening, I shared a bit about VTI and what I’ve been up to the last few years. Then Karina and I played a song. But not, I might add, before Karina played piano for a couple of the hymns that evening that she had never been able to practice. She did amazing. Lol, the only consolation about me not being able to play the piano very well is that she can. :P I felt kind of bad at the end of the service because we had a number of people express that they would have loved to hear more of our singing. That was nice. :P And it gave me incentive to start working on more music and songs. That’s something I’d like to do this year while I’m touring and getting ready for next year.

Karina and I had a great time in Mount Forest and we both got haircuts a few hours before we left. Uncle Bruce and Aunt Debbie drove us to the edge of Toronto. There we were able to meet up with Jeff & Paula. Paula (Bruce and Debbie’s daughter) got married a few years back and I had seen Jeff just once. As such it was great to be able to visit with them and get to know them better. I really was glad to have been able to meet them. Yesterday, Karina and I went to the CN tower, the Royal Ontario Museum and basically just walked around a lot too. It was really fun! However, I don’t think most travelers on the subway felt the same as we did. I think we were only ones smiling. I think people don’t like to smile in big cities. :P Weird. I was glad Jeff and Paula smile… but they’re from small towns originally, so that seems to make sense to me. In the evening, they took us to the best Asian food restaurant I have ever been to. It’s called Spring Rolls. Wow. What a place. It’s one of those places that you wish that you could have brought several stomachs along. So…soo ….sooooo…goooood…. I highly recommend it, that is if you enjoy Asian food. If you don’t, then I recommend Burger King or something. :)
Well, that was just last night. This morning Karina and I braved buses, subways and security checks to arrive to where I have been sitting typing for the last couple hours. This trip was great. I was glad to see relatives as well as things like the CN tower… and being able to help Karina to overcome her fear to be able to get off the glass floor after I had pressured her to try standing on it. It’s over a thousand feet up on a pane of glass. Crazy. It’s scary… (Karina says: Even for you James…) Meh, it’s true.

It has been amazing to see how God has been provided so much and blessed, not just us, but the people around us. I am really looking forward in this next little while to see how He is going to lead and open our eyes to see so much more. I want to see people without hope find it. And really hope that God will use Karina and myself as tools to bring that hope to those who need to find it.
Thanks for your prayers!
Grace and Peace
James

The end of Bachelorism

2007-11-26T14:14:00.000-06:00

I have now officially dubbed this year ‘the year of the Chameleon’. This is not to be confused with Chinese New Year kinds of things, but merely a way to creatively describe what this year has been like so far. You see last year, it was crazy and busy and hard, but it was predictable. Well, to an extent. This year however has been anything but predictable. Just like as a Chameleon walks along and ends up changing it’s colour according to its surroundings, this year has been changing back and forth as it goes on.

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Throughout this last while, our team, staff, friends and families have been going through a lot of change. There was a huge staff ‘overhaul’ this year at VTI so there have been a lot of changes that are still being felt as the new staff try to find their place here. Second, Kelsy joined our team a bit later on, and though it’s been great having her here, it was another thing that was changing everything. Then we toured with a new staff member for our driver. That was an experience to get used to as every driver has different tendencies and driving quirks. Probably the biggest change however will be coming up this December over Christmas break. Karina Gradin, my fiancé who has been travelling with us on Encore this year and I are getting married on Dec.28th 1:35pm @ the First Baptist Church in Prince Albert.
For obvious reasons it’s been an interesting ride with the team this year.
In any case, things on team are good now, though we still struggle with communication on occasion. The thing is, the problems we usually have are small things that kind of ‘snowball’ and get worse with time until they pummel somebody. By the grace of God we’re working through it.

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This year so far has been spent primarily in Alberta and Saskatchewan working with recruitment. Something that had been a bit of a let down for me we finding out that we most likely would not be doing any ministry in places that weren’t ‘Christian’. I wanted to be able to get out there and do some evangelism with the team… you know, build bridges for the churches in the area. That kind of thing. Well, long story short, we started out this year mainly doing recruitment, but recently it’s begun to change. Especially when we went to my hometown of Prince Albert about a week ago. When we were there, we had the opportunity to go into a Native Cultural school (one that I might add surprised our Christian friends there that we had even been invited), and a school two of my siblings still attend that I went to when I was younger. They had previously never had any ‘Christian’ groups come in per se. But they let us do our programs in both these places and everyone there had a great time. It completely surprised us as to the positive feedback we received. Only God seems to be able to figure out these things. *By the way, we never would have been invited to these places if my parents hadn’t ‘promoted’ our team, so a huge thank you to them for helping to get us in these schools* Another thing that was amazing there in PA was going to one of the men’s jails. We were able to see a few of the guys we had seen last year there, and encourage them to make a difference in their communities.

One man I met there in the jail looked relatively young, maybe 22 or 24. Turns out he was 31. Because he blends so well into the youth culture, when he gets out he wants to start working with youth about drug awareness and helping to get them off the streets. He used to live on the street and told me a good deal of stuff he went through. He lost his two younger brothers, his best friend was murdered outside of his home, his mom died on the street at 45 years old… on and on. It was a very sad tale. What made it interesting though was that he knew the answer to escape it all. He knows the only chance he’s got will come through Jesus. But he has not been able to surrender all of himself. He’s always kept a little back, and that is why he is where he is. It was encouraging to see the potential that this man had. I hope and pray that God will help him to surrender that last little bit so that he will be able to live the life that he was created for.

Being able to see lives like his gives me the energy to keep going and to not give up this work. God is working.

Please continue to pray for our team as we are on tour again. This evening, tomorrow and part of the next day we’ll be doing street ministry. Pray that God will place people into our path who need to hear whatever we will be presenting, and that we will be sensitive to do what Jesus wants of us while we are there.
**The F&F64 team to the Philippines & Uganda left yesterday, and already God is protecting them. One of the girls had lost her boarding pass as they were getting on, and so she couldn’t go. Turns out however, the guy working there at the time, is a good friend of Bruce (our recently retired drama guy who went with us to Russia) and so this guy was able to pull the strings necessary to get that poor last one onto the plane. They should be arriving in Manila within the next day or so. Pray that God would work extraordinarily in both their lives and the lives of all the people they will meet!**

Oh, yes, and lastly, we had a great time in Nipawin. We were there for the Missions Conference and were able to catch up with a lot of old friends and make some new ones. It was great. :) Thanks for having us all you Nipawin people!
***Grandma suprised me with a ice cream cake while I was there... :) That was really special! ^_^

Hark!

2007-10-23T22:17:00.000-06:00

It’s been quite a ride since I’ve last left any messages or anything for that matter. If I were vain, or just absent-minded, I’d have to welcome myself here.
It’s been busy. Wow. Our Encore team 15 has 6 people officially on it now. AJ, Kelsy, Karina, Janelle, Rhys and myself. Right now we’re in La Crete, AB. In fact, this is where Karina and I became engaged over a year ago. As such, there are a lot of memories that linger in this place. It was good coming here again.
It’s been a very hard battle uphill this time on team so far however. Everyone has been having troubles with spiritual battles in varying forms. Everything from physical injuries to depression to anger to stress to absolutely whatever. It’s made living desperate some days. Having to be determined when we wake to not succumb to the lies that float around us day and night. It’s been hard. But I know that you have been praying. Had you not, I don’t know how we’d be holding up. But when these times have come, we’ve always made it through. Even if that meant we ‘survived this moment’… it’s always enough for us to get to the next moment… and then the next.
He is faithful that way.
There was a lot of concern earlier this year about how our team would work together being so different. It’s been going well. It’s not without its bumps along the way, but it’s good. This is a nice team.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of talking and visiting and though it’s been very tiring, it’s been great. Being able to build relationships and make new friends, and to be an inspiration to them and them to me has been great.
I also had a little time to type out some of the song lyrics I had written from this last year and prior to that. That excited me and I hope I can practice my music more this year again.

Lastly, I’ve noticed more than usual a strange craving for Christmas to come. I’m excited for the season especially this year being that I should hopefully get to spend some time at home. ^_^
In the meantime, hello to everyone, and I’ll be doing a little better not to be so much of a stranger. We’re off to do a practice day/youth event tomorrow here in Le Crete. Thanks for your prayers!

Grace and Peace

Don't hide the Candle...

2007-09-12T22:23:00.000-06:00

Life is weird sometimes.

I'm back in Alberta out in Water Valley area. In the foothills here VTI has a training centre. We'll be here for the next month at least with the Friends & Followers team that is going to Philippines this year. Karina and myself, as well as 3 others from my team last year are on Encore That makes it Karina, Janelle, AJ, Rhys and myself. This first week we've spent refocusing and trying to get all of our programs up in order.

Getting here in itself was quite an experience. I'm glad God is watching out for each and every one of us. And thank you to all who are praying!!!

As of the day before I had to leave to come here to Alberta, I found out that the ride that Karina and I were going on wouldn't work out. Janelle, who normally goes the same way we would was taking a plane, so we couldn't get a ride with her. The short of it was that we didn't have a ride... I should have been freaking out. However, as weird as it may seem, I wasn't worried. I was saying to myself, 'If God wants me there, He'll get me there...' By 8pm that night, there was still nothing. However, my sister invited two of her friends over to jam with me in the evening on guitar. One of them was also a James that I had gone to school with. Anyways, he went on to explain that he couldn't stay too late cause he had to go to Alberta in the morning.
Alberta?

Anyways, then he was like, 'Well, near Calgary'...and I was like, 'I need to go near Calgary. Just a bit north, to Cemona.'...
He apparently was going to be driving straight through Cremona.
Presto, a ride! :D

God has been good. I have don't have a very complete idea of why I'm here, but I know this is where God wants me. Please pray that I'll be open to listening for God's voice as He leads all of us on the Encore team this year. Also please pray for the Friends and Followers team. They're a little overwhelmed, but they've been really encouraged that we are here to give them advice and to see that we are living proof that one can survive a year of this.

Just a few days ago all of the guys went on a mountain hike like I did last year at this time. Last time we were there, it was extremely hot. This year, it was freezing. In fact, it got so cold on the top of the mountain that we had to leave relatively quickly. When we got down, it began to snow. And snow it did. All the way back until it began to rain. It was a great hike. One thing that I realized while I was walking. A journey to the summit of a mountain and back is like the journey of a life. You have highs and lows and ups and downs, curves, backtracking and lots of things that can get in the way. But what I noticed more was that on a journey like that, if you're living to get to the summit... it gets boring, and long and you get tired of walking. You start to ignore the trees, rocks, sounds and all those other things. However, if you make the effort to enjoy the things around you. To be attentive to things going on, it's exciting and interesting. Time flies by quicker but every moment is worth so much more along the way. And then when you get to the top, it's so much more enjoyable. Doing this, even the way back is more exciting than it would be otherwise, and in the end, it is worth it. All the pain and effort and the joys and memories all mesh into one entity and you can look back and be satisfied.

If we are living for every moment ... living like there is no tomorrow... living knowing that we are here to be the hands and feet of the Son, life becomes worth so much more... it becomes worth so much more... to so many more...
Can you make a difference in someone's life today? Is there someone you can encourage? Something you can do to make someone's day a little brighter?
Don't wait until tomorrow... cause tomorrow never comes...
Do it today.
Live.

Grace and Peace
James

**Oh, and for the record, congrats Tim on being baptized! Way to go man!!! :D

BBQ to DQ

2007-08-25T23:45:00.000-06:00

Today I went to the park with some of my friends and did our best to have a hot dog supper. Unfortunately, we forgot a few things along the way... like... How are we going to start a fire? Or how are we going to drink anything if there are no cups and there are some kids here who are sick? Also, there was a miscommunication and neither Karina, nor I brought any hot dogs... we both brought the buns instead. All these things happened at once. And I realized that I had lost my wallet shortly before leaving town, and then I realized that I had to swing by to visit a lady fresh out of surgery and pick up her daughter for the BBQ with my siblings. The wierd thing is that it all worked out in spite of me freaking out.
My wallet was found this evening, YAY GOD! Whoo! (thanks Karina for grabbing it), the girl got picked up my other friends who were coming, and I didn't even know if she had been invited because I couldn't get through on the phone line, and then two of the groups who came brought hotdogs, so there was plenty, Tim found some cups at the lodge, and he had a hatchet to chop with... as well as he went and got wood. Hannah's folks had all the piro stuff in the car by which we could make fires. I had the only pop bottle, which we filled up and Tim put out the fire with it. Nathan's crew brought hot dog sticks, and the Letts brought marshmellows. It was perfect.
Everything worked out exactly right... even after that this evening. I got to hang out with my friends from youth from way back and they treated me to ice cream when I didn't have the money, and then I ran into another old friend who I hadn't seen since he went to Toronto, and we had a good talk. So good in fact that he said, 'Hey, aren't those your friends leaving?'. I turned around to find all of their seats empty. There was like 12 of them. I didn't even hear them go! But then I look up, and facing out of the DQ, are all my friends, lined up and staring at me... all of them...
lol.
I turned to my friend and said, 'Well, it's a good thing I love attention...' ^_^
Yeah, it was all good. THen I hung out with Luke for a bit. I haven't been able to do that in a long long time. And then Karina showed up and she was happy. It was a good evening.

God is good. It's too bad I have to leave so soon... Dave Huston, thanks so much for the sigh....

*SIGH*

Yeah... so below is a current 'letter' per se as of the date this was published. Have a great night. Enjoy your summer! :D

Zdrastvutye! (That's hello in Russian) Thank you for reading this blog. For those who may be wondering, 'Where has that James guy gone?'. I've been serving with Venture Teams International (VTI) for the last year. VTI is an organization that trains young people in the arts (drama, music, illusion, preaching and chalk art) in order to reach some of the world with the good news of Jesus Christ. I had the priviledge to go to 2 locations in Russia, England and Wales, as well as Germany and the state of Montana. In Russia, one of my highlights was going into a school in Northern Siberia. There was a psychologist there who would have preferred to have all the kids addicted to hard drugs then for them to hear the name of Jesus. Hearing things like that opened my eyes again to the need for Jesus' name to be spread around the world. Many of the Church in Russia are 1st generation Christians. Most of them in fact where told about Christ through their Grandmothers. Most of the Pastors we spoke with had been addicted to drugs and alcohol, they had seen their families torn apart. But when they got to the end of their rope, they joined up with a Christian drug rehab center. These places changed their lives, and now they have their families back...the divorced were reunited...the 'chained' set free...
It was like watching the book of Acts unfold. Simply incredible.

This year has helped me realize that I have a passion to see people discipled and trained to be ready to live for Christ wherever they are. As such, I have signed up for the ENCORE team for this coming year. I'd be training others with what I've learned this year and attending missions conferences and Bible Schools to raise awareness for the need of Christ around the world. This year I need to raise about $9000 by the end of the year or about $550 a month. If you feel you would like to be involved in supporting me financially or through prayer, please let me know so that I can send you my prayer letters that are sent out a few times each year. Specifically, it's hard to trust God to provide everything you need. For instance, I was told I had to raise $16 000 by the end of this last year. God has been faithful in providing thus far, but I am still $3000 behind. In any case, it has been an incredible year of seeing God at work. And I know He is faithful in whatever happens.

Please pray that God will give me the discernment I need to be sensitive to how I can be Jesus’ hands and feet to those around me. Also please pray for my family as I know they miss me and I them. This will be another trying year, but I am looking forward to the adventures and misadventures He will bring. I wish I could thank each of you individually and spend hours telling you all the highlights of this year. From Kransnoyarsk to London, from Wales to Great Falls in Montana, God has been working. Thank you all so very, very much for everything. May God give you His Grace and Peace as you continue to run the ever changing race of life. And may you give God praise that he never changes no matter how the winds of time may blow. Yet He is so vast that God will never become any less mysterious, or less adventurous. May you discover the adventure to satisfy your soul forever. Jesus.

Grace and Peace
James Witherow

The Breaking of the Fellowship

2007-08-22T10:39:00.000-06:00

Well. I'm back home for about a half a week. After that I'm back to VTI with Encore.
For those wondering, the IMCO conference went great. But the end was bittersweet. For it would be the last time we are together as a team. Friends and Followers 63 is now officially over after completing one of the longest tours in VTI history. Four of us from that team are coming back on Encore, Coralie is joining staff, Bryce is going back to NBC for more schooling.
Karina will also be coming on team.
This year is going to be altogether different, and it will come with it's own challenges and bumps along the road.
However, as it is, I've had very little time to spend with the family. So, I'm off to spend time with the family.
Have a great day. I'll be back soon with more updates!
Grace and Peace
J

Omega...the beginning of the end

2007-07-30T11:50:00.000-06:00

For some strange reason I suddenly have a loss of words. This is very strange because in the last few days, I've wanted to talk very incessantly...and so I've been talking a good deal. But I've for some strange reason found it impossible to communicate myself thus far this morning.
My mind is overflowing with interesting and provoking thoughts and I can't seem to get them out. Oi.
The ending is annoying... of anything... Not for Bryce anyways, he loves moving on...
For those who have ever ended anything... Saying goodbye to your friends... watched an amazing movie series... Or whatever, the ending brings with it, this longing... wishing... for it to continue. I even get that after reading a good book. Wierd.
This was thought #1...

Thought #2: Girls seem to view their shoes the same way a Guy would eye a nice car. They argue and coverse about design features and mention how this model compares to other similar ones and how it beats out 'last year's model'. And both shoes and cars are designed to take us to varying destinations... Wierd.

Thought #3: I think we underestimate righteousness... (right living by God's way of thinking) Or perhaps we over estimate it. Maybe we just don't quite get it at all. I find it so easy to wallow around in my comfortable world of semi-righteousness. Things are going so good right now... But as I read through the Psalms, I found that it's not worth it in the end to live like that. The ones who really are living the way God wants will be richly repaid... even if they find it hard now... and those who find it easy now will find just how much they may have been displeasing God as He watched silently. It's been like a cold shower shock to my thinking lately. We need to be doing what God wants of us, whether or not things are going good for us. A lot of bad things happen to good people. And many will hold on until near the end and then give up and freak out. We need to hold on. People like Job and David reminded me just how much we need to be clinging onto God's love and trying to be holy. But it's not to be like one of those... 'Oh, now I have to be holy... ' things. It's like if I know I'm going to be meeting someone special, say Karina, and I notice that I stink... or I haven't got very good breath... I'll go and get cleaned up for her arrival. It's not something I have to do. But it's something I want to do. That is how we should love God. Whether things are good or bad.

Thought #4: God doesn't want sacrifice... he wants us. Broken and willing to be used by Him. That is what is: a) Pleasing to God, and b) Pleasing to us. We find ourselves most fulfilled when God is pleased with us.
.
..
.
This week I was more sick than I've been all year. This nasty flu came and swept through AJ at camp 2 weeks ago, and then at the start of this week Rhys caught it and then I caught it right after him. I'm not quite recovered yet. My throat is still really sandpapery. None the less, I have much more energy then I did before and I'm glad to be able to get around and expend some energy again.
We finished our 'last' sunday service program other than our last 'last' one that's at the end of this week... and of course not counting our last last 'last' program which will in fact be a bunch of program stuff at the big IMCO conference in the middle of August they have once every 4 years. I'm very much looking forward to that for several reasons. One, I get to see my family... Two, I get to let them see our programs stuff... and three, I get to see everyone else, and they all get to see our program stuff too! ^_^ I'm very excited for it.
Anyways, this last sunday, it was really fun. Things went well, and we enjoyed doing our best for God in that program and He was definately helping us to do it. lol, we have this drama where AJ comes in on his knees to find Bryce, Janelle and myself all kneeling in the middle of the stage. He excitedly informs us that he has legs. We all laugh at him for it. I mean, to think of someone actually having legs to move about with? Absurd! Anyways, he rocks our world by telling us that we have legs and then he lifts us to our feet and we all join with him in our excitement. At the end, we want to go tell others, but instead of walking to them with our legs that we have now, we use our knees. We need to be using the things God has given us to use for his kingdom. Now, normally, I just crawl down the stage steps on my knees and go to my seat. But this last sunday, I was wearing one of my pairs of 'smooth' dress pants. ER... trousers. Anyways, so as I was going down the steps, I slipped and went head first down to the floor, my feet stuck in the air. My team thought I was just going over the top with my acting, but lol, if they only knew that I had accidently nearly faceplanted myself into their carpet.
It was fun.
Speaking of fun, I have Onion Rings to finish eating. Have a wonderful day and may you listen for God is the quiet today.
Grace and Peace
James

Cycles of pain... Cycles of joy

2007-07-17T16:50:00.000-06:00

I write this, covered in several layers of sweat. Cabin dudes lookin over my shoulder. The sounds of chattering and stomping feet… Mosquitoes biting my bare back.
This was a great week… though I’m very very tired.
I’ve been counselling this week with a guy named Steven. He’s real awesome. At the start this week, I had asked if he could share his story for later this week. I never really grasped how much that may mean. It was a tough week. But a good week. Anyways, yesterday I asked Steve if he could share his story again. The guys in our cabin joined in the interest of Steve’s past. That’s when we got a bit of a surprise. We found out that 2 years ago to the day, Steve had been in an accident in Mexico.
He had been stick fighting with a friend on a short mission trip with metal brooms. They were in this high building and when he held up the broom stick at one point, the power lines were nearby… The 14000V electricity made an arc across to the broom and went through Steve’s arm and then down the building into the ground. This accident left him with a charred arm and clenched hand for a while and he had to stay in the hospital for 7 weeks. It was really painful for him to talk to us about this, because this day was the anniversary. It was really cool to see God work the healing process. It gave the whole cabin a great respect for him. Suddenly I realized why he did some of the things he did.
It was so great to see him telling these kids that God can use even terribly painful circumstances and problems to work out good things in the end.
Things will work out in the end…
That is a comforting thought.
An end to pain and suffering…
An end to bitterness…
An end to endings…
And the beginning of forever…
- July 14th 2007

Another week have camp has begun. This is not the same camp, nor does it feel anything like it. We are at Camp Evergreen and I was quite pleased that I got a free staff T-shirt, that not only fits, but that I quite enjoy how it looks. In large letters, 'Reckless Abandon' in a strong yellowy orange straddles chest.
This week has been interesting in that it is a lot larger than any of the camps I have previously been. They have a lot of staff. In fact, our VTI team's responsibility is only to take a half hour in the evening. Normally, I'd be let down that we don't have much to do. On the other hand, this allows for me to be able to catch up on some very much needed rest and this frees us up to focus on the IMCO conference that is beginning to loom ahead of us with many mixed feelings. It's great as far as the conference goes. But we also realize that the IMCO conference at Briercrest will be our last opportunity to experience as the team F&F63. Bryce will be going to Bible School next year instead of coming back on Encore. Alas, we will cease to be 'Portable Instanity' without him letting us know when we do crazy things.
He will be sorely missed.
As also I have sorely missed many of you all this year. Thank you so much for your prayers. You are not forgotten.

Life is such a strange and fragile thing. We blink and we see moments pass us by that will never return. And to dwell merely on the thoughts such as this as we watch ourselves and others age would only lead to sorrow and hopelessness.
This is why I am so exceedingly glad to know that life does go on. We were never made to live forever in this body. But one day we will. In fact, the very longing for immortality, for joy and a lack of pain is our souls longing for the day that is inevitable when things are set right by the Creator of all things. What a day that will be.

In the meantime, let us show the world to which citizenship we truly belong.

~James

I have returned!

2007-07-08T10:17:00.000-06:00

The van smelled like people. Sweating, tired, people. At least it wasn’t 104 degrees like the day before, but none the less, it was really hot. The funny thing is, I didn’t mind the heat. Being in China 2 years ish ago, I learned to enjoy the feeling of having to perspire a lot. It’s weird, I know, but at the end of a long hot day, having a simple cool shower makes a refreshment that we cannot otherwise understand. It is so cleansifying… I know cleansifying isn’t actually a word, but it serves the meaning I wish to convey better.

Coming down here to Montana we were stuck at the border for 3 hours by a crossing guard who I was sure thought we wanted to smuggle in herds of buffalo or thought we wanted to get all the cattle in Montana to start a revolution. As such, we had to wait for a while in the office. While we were waiting, I found after a while I could relax a bit and as such I was able to cheer the others up a little. I even realized that their office was actually painted like their flag. Red, white and blue… weird. We aren’t near as proud of our country. It’s a shame sometimes. One of the main reasons they held us there was that one of our letters of invitation, out of three, was an email print off with no letterhead. As such we had to get VTI to send the border a detailed summary about who we are, what we do, and whether or not we were going to serve juice or hand out markers (seriously….) So, we waited… and waited… three hours in, a different guy came up very apologetic saying that the fax machine had gibbled up and accidentally lost our fax in with another. So they did find it, but had taken a while.
This was our introduction to the U.S. of A.

We did Day Vacation Bible school the first week were there in a town called Ulm…Olm…I forget now… But it sounds like those. It’s just slightly south of Great Falls. Anyways, I immediately realized a couple things. One, they still had mosquitoes south of the Canadian border. And two, that things are a lot more ‘Christian’ in the States. I mean, in Canada, religion has to be carefully regulated and *gasp* to think you could maybe find something ‘religious’ in a store or something?! Oh the horrors. But in the States, ‘Christian’ things are everywhere. Advertisements for example sometimes portray cross necklaces being worn on the advertisement. It was different to see. Other things like that.
Perhaps, one of the reasons it interested me so much was that I had recently been reading a book by Rob Bell called, ‘Velvet Elvis’… It talks about ‘repainting the Christian faith’. Now one of the things he talked about was that by definition, a Christian should be living a better life. You know a more fulfilled one. Or simply a better one. Living life to the full. Using the talents God has given us and just giving a 110% to give God glory in what we do. This is Christian. And there are times where people will sell things that are ‘Christian’ that aren’t. Like, say, there’s this new ‘Christian’ band out but they don’t portray anything good…. Is it truly ‘Christian’ then? Anyways, I was in the middle of a whole lot of thinking and trying to figure out things like that when at the end of the week at VBS I became very upset. Not angry. More depressed. I was looking over my life, my purpose and how I should be living. I realized that no matter what I did, I always seemed to mess up. I’d ask God to help me be a good leader, or to work hard, or to not sin, the typical, but I kept on messing up. What’s with that? It was a very hard time for me. And I was like that for nearly 2 weeks.
Meanwhile we had been doing 2 DVBS programs a day in the towns of Avon and Elliston. The kids were great but I felt awful. But God broke through. I don’t quite understand everything that happened, but I remember driving home one evening and that despair that had been floating above my head lifted and I felt joy again. It was amazing. And it was really great that I was back on my feet just before camp started at Camp Mizpah. We worked with Dave Caroll and his family. It was a great week at camp. God worked there. We were able to share so much about ourselves with these kids and they with us. It was great. We’d be out there at this little fire pit area with an American flag. Out there we saw these kids spill their hearts out to each other. The first night we really started sharing with each other, there was so much pain that they poured out all at once that you could feel it hanging in the air. We sent up a lot of prayers and there was a lot of group praying that was done.
The next night there I was able to share about letting God take us. It’s only from Jesus that we can find who we really are. My problem was I was looking in on myself, and the more I did so, the more I lost myself. The more we look to Jesus, the more we find who we are. It’s weird like that. Anyways, so we had more prayer and praise and it was a great time. I miss all those kids now. It was a great week at camp. I have pics up from all of that. It was great. I had a nasty sunburn. AJ and myself. As such, on swim day I was out there in a full big brown hoody so as to not burn myself any further. They thought was I was weird. But they were really glad I came, especially the guys from my cabin.
So, this last week we had another 2 DVBS programs every day. One in Belt and the other in Highwood. I think that’s right. It’s also somewhat near Great Falls. We had a good time there and the kids were great. We also had a lot more energy this week because of all the helpers they had to assist us in the games and crafts. I enjoyed making tie dye shirts. Hehe.
I realized that they liked it when I spiked up my hair… so I did that a fair bit of the time… Those kids were great. The Pastor there is named Brent, and he would faithfully water down the road every morning. The reason he did so was it would get so hot that the tar on the road would get sticky… I mean, really sticky…. And it would inevitably end up on kids’ shoes and on the church carpets. Therefore, he’d make sure to water the road to try to keep it cool enough not to get sticky. I sometimes got quite stuck later in the afternoons anyways though….
After our fine time there and being able to stay with Ron and Pat Long, we made our way back to Canada in a big ol’ white van.

And now we arrive at where we first found ourselves.

AJ was content all afternoon listening to music and occasionally listening on something crazy that was happening.
Bryce was content all afternoon reading, eating and (when he could get a hold of the laptop) to play freecell. We had a grand time bugging each other and comparing speculative thoughts on varying issues.
He liked eating the cookies.
Coralie and Rhys sat in the front after we got back into Canada, making sure to wave at every oncoming vehicle. What they discovered is that on the main road, roughly 10% of the drivers waved back. On smaller roads near smaller towns, the percentage increased to more than 25%. Very interesting. My theory is that Alberta people are just playing hard to get. Unlike Manitoba who’s licence plate motto is ‘A friendly place’ or something to that effect. Alberta is Wild Rose country… hard to get…beautiful but with some thorns you know? Saskatchewan’s people are always looking to the ‘living skies’ because they don’t want to look at the roads they have to drive on… J
Janelle. She was trying to learn some German and to count the train cars we would see whenever we were stopped by a passing train. Our job was to try to make sure she’d lose count. It was a blast. Hehehe.
Me? I was just thinking over what to say in this entry and trying to make sure that Janelle would lose count of the train cars. It was a great ride back, and this time we didn’t have trouble at the border.

God has been doing amazing things and He helped renew my spirit and I’m eager to get back out there doing my best for Him. So we learned a few things on the way back…
One, people must think we’re weird because we’ve been so overtired the last while. You know how you can get loopy at the end of a long day? Yeah… it’s great.
Two, that God can do amazing things if we are willing to let Him work.
Three, God can use anyone…
Four, bikers are more friendly than the rest of the vehicle drivers.
Weird.

Now today it is Sunday and I'm hoping Karina will be swinging by. We're heading off to Camp Evergreen, near Okatoks, this afternoon. Should be an interesting week.
Thank you all for your prayers!
Grace and Peace
~ James

a journey of epic proportions

2007-06-11T20:45:00.000-06:00

Today was a day off. We were in Strathmore... and I desired to get a picture...
But first I had to wait for Bryce to wake up. He woke up near 12... I was up near 10...which I might add was late... very late in fact for both of us. The others had gone to Calgary. Yet we would not be turned... we were going to accomplish this task.
But then there was a wonderful snack. We had to stop for a snack... so we did...
But then we were going to leave and would not be turned...
But first I wanted to see their bird named Kingsley. He is a very beautiful bird, even when he's attacking your ears.
So, after a good while playing with Kingsley, we finally decided we would be ready to go. So we were going to go...
But that's when it began to rain, as well as thunder.
Never the less, we would not be stopped and decided that we would still try to get to Walmart...
Unfortunately, though we had very good directions, I failed to remember them properly, and Bryce and I turned the exactly opposite way.
We did notice our mistake however, and we did our very best to make it to Walmart. We past hills of grass...

Many buildings...

Construction sites...

A Lake...

And crossed a sandy wasteland until finally arriving at Walmart.
And then we had another 5 kms or so to walk back...

It was a good walk, and I got some nice photos out of the deal....we even made it back first try.

So tomorrow, we're off to Montana! Thank you so much for all your prayers... If you thought the above was wierd... you should see us in person when we finally unwind on days off... :D

Grace and Peace...
James

Dandelion Castle

2007-06-04T14:12:00.000-06:00

It truely was a epic moment of sorts arriving back here at VTI. We're in the Water Valley area again, in Alberta. When we arrived and came down the hill we were greeted by a field of yellow. Now normally, a yellow field would imply something like, canola, mustard, or perhaps even a large lemon truck collsion with a truck filled with yellow paint. As it was however, this yellow field was of dandelions... I've never seen so many of them. Now I must admit... you can still see green... but if it keeps up like this, you won't in the next few weeks I would say....save for the green of dandelion.
Trekathon, VTI's annual fundraiser was pretty fun minus the absolutely crazy panic in order to get those things in order. But it was good, I didn't get a farmer tan, and I'm almost recovered from the running and biking. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. (We don't have high speed internet here)
For anyone wondering what we've been up to, we just came back from our Manitoba/Aberta tour... we went down to Austin MB, where Bryce is from, and then we ended up after a while there coming back to southern Alberta from whence we had come. Somewhere inbetween all this, we stopped for a bit near Edmonton and then we stayed overnight once in my parent's home in PA. It was real good being back for a little. Thanks Luke a lot for the video work you did! That and the whole Marvel DC thing. heh heh.
God has been working a lot wherever we've been going, and also has been doing a lot in each of our lives individually. For myself, I've been reading more and writing more music and I've been contimplating more significant areas of the Christian life... defining what 'Christian' should look like and how to best be doing what God wants us to do. It's been exciting to see what God is teaching me...
So, that brings us to today... Monday... my Sabbath... I'm enjoying the wind passing through this building and the sun reflecting it's glow off the hill of dandelions... it's all good. We'll be here the next two days planning and prepping and learning. I hope you all are doing well. Thank you for your support and prayers!
Grace and Peace
~J

Ordinarily Extraordinary

2007-05-07T22:53:00.000-06:00

Wierd. We find so many things in this world boring. You know, you see the sun go up and go down... You see trees... Love... can love get boring? Does a flame get boring? I know some people who I don't think will ever be bored by flame... in fact, I generally get enjoyment out of their enjoyment for their flame... Pyros...you gotta love em... Wierd. Rhys is a Pyro...and since he's been gone with some relatives lately, I've got to set all the fires! :D

I like fire...

I remember one time when I was real little and I stuck a hot dog stick, a metal one in the fire for a real long time and then i pulled it out and grabbed the end. I don't know why I did it... What I do know is that I never did it again. Because, boy, red things that come out of a fire are HOT! Whoo!!!

We are now in Calgary...and from the amount of looking back on my life you see above, you have probably already noticed that I must have too much time to think right now... In actuality, the last couple days have been the first in a long while that I have not been significantly ill or had a bunch of programs or travelling. As such, all that my mind wished it could have thought about in the last 8 months has now started to spin its way out. I've even started to dream again. I didn't realize that I had stopped until, well, I started realizing I was actually dreaming again. Again, very wierd.

Currently, I am staying in a VTI alumni's home. Her name is Ellen, husband's name is Jack. They're great. THey, like my parents have been involved in some Native ministry as well. That's been real great for a conversation starter. We've been able to relax a bit and now tommorrow we're going to be working with Mustard Seed here in Calgary. It's been really good. Really.

For those wondering, I am still in prayer about my coming year. I would very much appreciate any prayers my way... and thank you to all who have been praying. I want to be sure that I am moving in some way or form for God to direct me, but not moving so sure that I cannot be turned.
Again, thank you all so much...
I know you've been praying

May God grant you His Grace and Peace
~Brother James

Pinky on the Backspace...

2007-04-26T16:16:00.000-06:00

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!

Is there Anybody OuT there¿

2007-04-22T19:55:00.000-06:00

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

That Lantern is never out of 'in'....

2007-04-02T04:42:00.000-06:00

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

Who in the world says, 'Deophobic'?

2007-03-26T11:55:00.000-06:00

Apparently, Deophobic is a word that was made up by John Cooper of Skillet. Basically it means to have a twisted misplaced view of God and to be afraid of Him. This word is in a song that we've been working a drama to for use here in Germany. It's been a while since I've been able to tell any of you what is up. We have just started doing programs here in Germany, mainly in schools. It's strange in that it feels a lot like the schools in Russia, but there's a splash of England into the mix.
We've had a bit of time here and there to relax and to reflect on the last while travelling overseas. I should be writing more than I am. Songs that is. There is so much inspiration and I seem to miss out on it most of the time lyrically. It's been fun to expand myself in music. I've been practicing drumming once in a while, and just two days ago I was able to try to play a 5 string bass. It's a lot of fun having a lower string to fiddle with. O.o
It's been a great time here...
We've been staying in a church here and it's packed full of instruments, chairs, tables and chairs... But one thing that I've enjoyed specifically is the interactive prayer room. By interactive I mean that there are stations with visual aids to remind us to pray for specific things. For example, there's a place with Israel's flag, to remind us to pray for the Jewish nation. Things like that. It's been really great to be able to consciencely spend more time in prayer. That's been really good.
Well, I'm going to head out for now... Some of the others are needing the computer. Feel free to check out AJ's webpage as it has the most recent everything on it...(How he aquires time to do this emailing blog stuff I'll never know...)

O.o

Have a great one! May God's grace and peace be with you!
Romans 6:15-23

Vas?

2007-03-22T03:53:00.000-06:00

ThaT means 'what?' In German. We're all safe here and doing well. Though I should have gotten more sleep. We went to a youth event last night with a german leader who spent a year in Winnipeg, MB. So now she has this native german accent, and it's so fun to hear her talk. Wow... Anyways, it's all good. We have to go for breakfast now. Thank you for your prayers! Grace and Peace...
J

Implied Meanings

2007-03-19T15:38:00.000-06:00

Well, here we are in the last days of the United Kingdom. Wales has been good... :D We went to the ocean yesterday, and that's where these pics are mainly from. Thanks to everyone for your prayers. It's been a trying time here. Always, always busy. And I know it'll be busy in Germany as well. I sure hope God gives us the strength to keep on going. I know He will. ^_*

I'm going to miss all the RE classes. That was one of my favorite things to do here. There are so many misconceptions about Christianity that I am glad to have the classes simply to correct some of the strange things that I've heard. At the same time, it's been interesting to learn more about other kids' beliefs. Everything from Atheism to Muslim. All along the line, the talks have been interesting. It's something I really will miss.

I hope that us as the Church of North America will be able to catch the same passion as the Church here in England and Wales that we've been involved with. They have been hard out for Jesus everywhere we've gone, and it's been so refreshing despite our busy schedules.
Anyways, again, thank you to everyone, and alas, I must be off again. Hope you enjoy the pics. Wow... God is awesome... I have never experienced such a powerful wind...

:D

You can check out more pics at my photobucket link...(the same one with my London pics)

Grace and Peace

P.S.
Happy Birthday Grandpa Witherow! And for anyone wondering, I now have a sister website up for this one. http://encaitar777.multiply.com
check it out! :D

The Attempt to kill Jaimal

2007-03-15T16:39:00.001-06:00

http://lastchancetobreathe.multiply.com/

Yeah...check out this link here! AJ, from my team has posted up literally hundreds of our pics! :D

Mock-Tees On March 7

2007-03-08T15:42:00.000-06:00

I’m alive.
The sun is shining and the air smells like spring. Roadwork is in full swing, and people are complaining about it. We’re definitely back in England! This is our 2nd last week here in the UK. We just finished our time in Chepstow and now we’re in a town just north of Birmingham called, Walsall. It sounds very close to Warsaw because of the accent. It’s interesting to say! Give it a go if you want… Wool-sool. Interesting. Anyways, we did some open ministry yesterday. We were out in the town square and we did some music to have people stop for a moment and listen and then there were a good number of people out there giving out tracts. It was good, but wow, it can be hard. For those who regularly do that kind of thing. I salute you. It’s hard work. It’s been interesting to think about our time in Russia and the UK so far… I’ve been trying to think of what it will be that I remember most importantly. I think that will be prayer. Prayer has been so important. And we never ever spend enough time with God. I don’t anyways, and that’s something I need to work on disciplining all the more. Keeping my eyes on Christ is one of those extremely simple and extremely difficult things to do. But I’ll keep trying, and I’ll just have to trust that Jesus will give me the patience and discipline that I need… and the passion to spend the time with Him that I should.
We will be doing a few different things here in Walsall, such as ‘improv drama’…making stuff up on the spot. But we’ve never really done that kind of thing. I think it’s because they think we’re like a group that has been here called, Life Force. So we’re either going to have to get better at our improv drama, or, we need to let them know we might be doing things a little different. We’ll see how that goes.
It’s been an interesting time here today. We visited with a good deal of elderly folk. It was really a good time. One lady told how she had very bad memory. Therefore I let her name me something more memorable. Fred. Yup and get this! She remembered James because she was calling me Fred! Weird. That is how my mind works sometimes. I was able to play one of my songs for them, but I played it in two parts. Halfway through the song I got a real bad nosebleed. lol, that was interesting. I was able to fix up my nose before I got blood on anything so that was good. Unfortunately it was rather nasty at slowing down and therefore it made doing any songs we had left and one drama a little more interesting for me. That and I suddenly couldn’t pronounce certain words. Words like time, came out as timeb. Or habby instead of happy. Rhys made sure to remind me of this fact or factb every couple minutes. It was all in good fun ^_^.
But yeah. For anyone who is wondering what we would love prayer for, we need prayer for energy. We’re very tired. But until we completely burn out we’re going to go hard out for Christ! And so long as we are relying on Him for our strength we shouldn’t burn out. For his yoke is easy and his burden is light. He will carry us through the hard times and stay with us through the long stretches. It’s all good. :)
Anyways, take care everyone. May God grant to you His Grace and Peace to you today.
Brother J.

***THE NEXT DAY***MARCH 8***
Today was long and trying. But God was good. We did some drama things with the kids in the school, and they all enjoyed it very much. Coralie was able to catch up on her rest and so we're going to be going at this again tommorrow... with I might add, an extra hour of sleep. :D That will be nice.
We are still as a whole very tired. Fatigued... But we're hoping to be renewed. We'll see how that goes. Keep praying! God is working.
Grace and Peace
P.S. We had a good bible study tonight... I now have many things to ponder as I await the JWs who we are hoping will stop by tommorrow night. (Rhys met them when he was sick here at the house and they wanted to come back with an Elder to talk about some of the things that Rhys asked them about... it should prove interesting. I really hope they come!) O.o

Eclipse

2007-03-04T07:19:00.000-06:00

Behold the lunar eclipse. We had a great time watching this thing overtop of Wales here. We had seen a full moon heading out to our last program while we are here in Chepstow, and on the way into the house when we got home, Vicki pulled me back outside to see the moon half gone, and then it kept on disappearing. Soon enough, it had turned to an amazing shade of red. It was something else. Just like the rest of this week. We've been doing RE classes the whole time basically and we've had a couple programs. Last night we were all very overwhelmed and very tired. But God gave us the unity and strength to finish strong. And he did work! I had a good but short talk with a couple of the guys, and everyone there I think was touched by God in different ways. Thank you to all who have been praying. This was one of those time that I got into a lot more detail in my testimony. It was amazing to see how simply telling people where I've come from can help others around the world. I hope God keeps on working as he has been. Please pray that our team can soon be refreshed and be able to get more energy into everything we have been doing. We're all running kind of low right now. Thanks so much for your prayers!
Grace and Peace
¬James

New Pics New Places

2007-02-26T03:15:00.000-06:00

http://s128.photobucket.com/albums/p174/encaitar777/London%20Area/
check it out! The other link to get there is over here on the left and it says, OTHER PICS. That will take you to the same place ... yeah.
Off to Wales we go. It's been great staying here with Patrick & Claudette (I hope i spelled that right) and their son, Craig. Take care everyone!
Hi Ho Hi Ho, it's off to Wales to we go...

Behold the Morning

2007-02-25T01:47:00.000-06:00

Here I am on our last full day here in Plumstead. It's been a good time here. Yesterday I was able to go with Bryce and Rhys to visit the Prime Meridian. lol, it was interesting to think about who it was who decided to establish the beginning of time here. There were some museums there and many many clocks. We spent the whole day almost wandering around that area. It's a large park with a bunch of museums. Museums I might add, that are free! FREE! That was awesome.
Yesterday evening, I went to the church's yearly talent show night that was raising money for Uganda I believe. I went because there were some kewl guys that we met there the day before that. So, I went and I had heard that they all left, but lol, they were just up in the balcony. Anyways, we all had a great time there and it was kewl to see all the different people from the church there.
I need to go have some breakfast, so have fun and take care.
Grace and Peace

Stars

2007-02-23T01:52:00.000-06:00

Maybe I've been the problem

Maybe I'm the one to blame

But even when I turn it off and blame myself

The outcome feels the same
I've been thinking maybe I've been partly cloudy

Maybe I'm the chance of rain And maybe I'm overcast And maybe all my luck's washed down the drain

I've been thinking 'bout everyone, Everyone you look so lonely

But when I look at the stars

When I look at the stars

When I look at the stars, I see someone else

When I look at the stars

The stars, I feel like myself

Stars looking at a planet

Watching entropy and pain

And maybe to start to wonder

How the chaos in our lives could pass as sane

I've been thinking 'bout the meaning of resistance

Of a hope beyond my own

And suddenly the infinite and penitent

Begin to look like home

But when I look at the stars
When I look at the stars
When I look at the stars, I see someone...

***This is a Switchfoot song... When you look up at the stars...heaven...you see someone else, and it is only then you begin to feel like yourself...the way you were meant to be...

It's been quite a ride here lately. We were in Welwyn Garden City last week, and that's about an hour north of London I believe... Now we're technically in London itself. I don't remember the name of the city here or anything. It at one time was a village and it got larger like the other ones nearby, and then suddenly London engulfed them. That's like on this little green Island... O.o

The church here that we are working with is called the Slade Evangelical, I believe. They are very Evangelistic in their approach, and as such, they have a diverse and strong group of believers here that want to see the gospel preached. It's been a real blessing to be here so far. I'm staying with Patrick & Claudia. They've really blessed us in letting us stay here.

I've been struggling in trying to find time. There seems to be no time ...which isn't true... But it all gets soaked up all around us by all the things we have to do in a day. But they have been good things! We've been able to get into a few schools here already, with two more coming up today. We've mainly done short programs within an assembly, but we've had a good number afterward of hour long chances with a smaller group afterward... Part of their Religous Education Class kind of thing. Yesterday for example we did a pure RE class. As such, we flat out presented the Bible and Jesus to them. We had some good questions, but they were typical questions like, 'Will I recognize my friends in heaven if they die at a different time?' or 'So you mean that we have to be born again to go to heaven?'... I enjoyed questions like that... :D Anyways, that was really good for our team and we've been doing better... though, lol, we had a harder time with some of the program items at the Kids Club last night....

We had one of those moments where we were all like, 'What's happening next?!' I asked two people because I couldn't see the board...They didn't know, either. So, I, in a dire effort to kill time gave a wonderful example of what to not do when on a stage. I walked up to the mike and made a popping sound. 'That sounds cool!', said I. lol, it was just one of those nights I guess. When we actually realized what we had all done or not done after the program we had a good laugh... It was even funnier when I retold the story to my billets.

The time here has been good... We'll have to see what will happen in the next while. Keep praying that we will have strength and boldness to make the gospel known... I'm also preaching this Sunday evening... I haven't tried since we were in North America 4 months ago... so I need to get 'back into shape'. May God's grace and peace be with you all!

Grace and Peace

<---One side to the Other--->

2007-02-07T16:48:00.000-06:00

This has been a different time here in England... Welcome to English... Welcome to the real world... the one where people can understand you and you can understand them. WOw.

It was a brisk day out when we started up this morning. We're along the coast here in southern England, in a town called Worthing. They've been hovering near -1 degree temperatures and there are many worried that it could snow. Snow here throws life into absolute chaos. This morning, all the vehicles had a layer of ice on the windshield...and it seems Andrew(the youth leader I'm staying with) that he will use anti-freeze in the windshield wipers, pour water onto the windshield, or use other kinds of sprays... But it's not a scraper that he thinks about. I did it after the water and sprays he put on began to freeze... :P

Anyways, today was the first day here in Worthing that we did a program. We were in two schools. Worthing High...and Davisions. Worthing High was interesting. The class of 40 came into the auditorium to find us still frantic and rushing to finish setting up for everything. We started off with some simple questions and some of them began to answer. But then all of a sudden, the dam broke. Out from the gaping hole in the wall, difficult questions began to pour out... wow. On the far side to the left there was a boy who seemed to be a Christian...even if he wasn't...He knew a fair bit, and he was talking positively about Christians and Jesus. On the right side, extreme right, last chair...sat a young man with red hair. I do believe he had some freckles...This boy asked the most difficult questions. Everything from, how do you prove God exists?, to Carbon 14 dating (Evolutionary methods of telling people how old fossils are), to the Gnositc Gospels and why the Israelites killed everyone in Canaan. Oi... They were very polite, but wow... it was harsh. Most of our team just sat out and watched me go at it with the rest of the students...so therefore when it was over, I was worn out... wow...

But we didn't have long, because after that we were off to Davisions, an all girls school. I must say that when we drove in I was already nervous... Girls in small groups can be really intimidating sometimes... I had no idea what it would be like with 300 in one room (which there were)... But it all went well, other than the janitor had no idea that we were coming. It was all good. :)

But then this evening, I had the opposite extreme. After a rushed busy time of watching the family here get both supper ready, and their house ready for home groups, people finally began to arrive. We had a devotional video, then discussed things for a while, and then we prayed. After that we began to chat. I met a few of the ladies and men from the Worthing Tabernacle, where we've been having our base of operations, as it were. Anyways, afterwards, Brother Andrew, an elder in the church here was having quite a debate with a lady named Brenda. The short of it was that since Andrew wasn't a Pastor, but was being paid for doing, 'the job God gave him'...He must ask God for another job because that one doesn't count... He needed another job...
Needless to say, that spurred a good deal of discussion and debate...wow...
On the one side, having a boy who hated the Church, and on the other finding out that we are amoung the 99% of Christians who are wasting our lives because we haven't asked God for a job. It was such a mind thrash I had to sit down. O.o

Anyways, if nothing else, I hope to talk much more with Brother Andrew. He's a very faithful servant and is extremely sold out on loving people. I want to know more about him, so we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, please pray that we boldly declare God's truth... Most of this week will be spent doing evangelism, discipleship and going into schools. We need all the prayer we can get. And may God bless you for your diligence.
Keep your eyes on Christ...
Everything else will follow...
~Brother J

PreEnglandPhotos

2007-01-29T17:20:00.000-06:00

Jesus is my Superhero

2007-01-29T16:30:00.000-06:00

We're alive and well...for the most part...in England, just east of Wales. AJ has been a little sick lately, and I've been struggling a bit with an occasional cough. We had a crazy bit of time in the Moscow area for those who have been wondering what all happened...

We were 3 hours late getting to Moscow because of a snowstorm... and so we arrived, it was the same reason that our contact who came, 3 hours late, broke to us the news that we had no vehicle anymore... the one we had asked to be there took off to make more money. That's life.... sigh... so we were there in the airport for about 4.5 hours before we left... and we had to pay him 4000 rub. to take us halfway across town... (that's 150 american)... and then when we arrived to pick up our freight, they REcharged the same price we had paid to ship it... it was a 'holding fee'...sigh... then we were dropped off in a dark winter alley with three big german shepherds that were spying us out...The door of the building was frozen, so we couldn't get in... it was midnight...the buildings all around were abandoned... and we to simply hope this other driver would show up so we could pay him 3000 rub....But it worked out and we arrived at the airport...

We were told that at most at the airport in Moscow that it might cost us 1500 American... When we got into line we found out that they had upped the price of overweight luggage (anything over 20kg per person) and that meant if we were to leave with anything it would cost us 6000 american.

Needless to say, we didn't do that. God worked it out so that an offical from the airport came to talk with us when the way was shut. We combined what money we had (because we couldn't take any more money out on the team card that day...due to other issues...) So we delved into our debit funds and came up with enough...2000. But we're here now and safe.

God definately has been watching over the team... all the details. The little ones and the ones of huge proportions. He truly is everything we need.

But wow... I was almost a nervous wreck for a while... I was all trippy for a while... God was so good. In our desperation he got us through... We had no other way we could have come here with our equipment... but God worked it all out...wow...It was like watching a mountain disappear...crazy...!!!!
Praise God... and thank you all so much for your prayers... we had only had 2 hours of sleep in 2.5 days ... but God helped us hang in there... Hopefully I'll be fully recovered soon. :)

We did our first English program today. Two of them for children in a school. It was a lot fun. heh... I'm really looking forward to the rest of the time we're here... it's just too bad that I'm still so tired... I hope all the sleep I can get will last longer in the long run and be worth it in the end.
There is always something going on and so it's too bad that I've not been able to update things here so much.

Keep praying that God will be at work here... I'm eager to see what He wants to do here. Take care!
¬Brother J

2007-01-20T03:10:00.000-06:00

the sunset is a sunset...
the archer is an archer... it has something to do with Genghis Khan
and the MIG is a MIG...I think it may be a MIG 19 but I'm not sure... that's all I know.. :)

A Contrasted life...

2007-01-19T19:21:00.000-06:00

January 20, 2007
Well, we’re still alive and kicking over here in UlanUde. It’s been very interesting being here. We recently came back from a two day trip to some villages nearby. We had a couple programs, one at an orphanage and one at a ‘house of culture’ in a village of 2000 people. There we saw a strange contrast…those who had a future and a hope… and those who didn’t.
John, right when we arrived at the orphanage to set up began to speak with a little boy who was smiling away…He rolled up his pant leg to show John that his leg had been scarred. ‘My mother did this to me.’ He said. ‘And when my father got home he killed my mother for it. Now my father is in prison… But he was RIGHT for doing that, wasn’t he?’ John didn’t really have a response to that…
On the other hand, you have completely different responses to the same kind of thing. We stayed with a grandmother (bAHbushka) in the village for two nights. It was a nice size for a home there. It overlooked a beautiful little valley that had a fresh spring, and large trees and hills. Oh, it was beautiful. Her husband had built that house, but he was only able to live in it for 6 years. A day came where he went hunting with some other men. Her husband told them where it was safe to shoot, and where it wasn’t. One of the men ignored his warning and when he came to find the animal he had shot, to his horror, it was her husband. He was 38 at the time. It’s strange. When people were telling her to press charges and to make him pay for what this man had done, she refused. She told them, that putting him in prison to pay for the mistake would hurt his family that much more… And he needs to be there to care for them.
When one of her sons was 28, he shot himself.
Her life has been full of hardships and grief and pain… Yet she found strength to go on. She found her strength in Jesus…though she may not have completely understood it at the time.
You see, her father, when she was growing up, was a Christian. But they didn’t have a bible or anything. But he was a God fearing man, and he taught his family the Lord’s prayer and other simple little ditties. She had to put her hope in God… He was all she had for sure.
But she is very very thankful for everything she has. She doesn’t have much… but to her, she is very well off. God has blessed her with a home, he has given her comfort. She has grandchildren now… And she is more than glad to know that Jesus is her Saviour.
For all these people here in Russia. It is so very hard. Life is rough. And especially in this area that is very Buddhist, it’s just part of your accumulated sins from previous lives…You have to pay your debt.
It’s frustrating… Jesus is here…right in front of them when they need him, but so many walk the other way. However…there are a few who see the light. And once they are set in their decision to follow him, nothing…not even death has any power over them anymore. People full of Christ truly are full of his power to accomplish whatever God has set out for them. I want to be like that…I want to have that much of Jesus.

Wowzers Trousers

2007-01-13T10:01:00.000-06:00

Well, look at that! Here we are, over halfway through January and into our last little bit here in Russia. It's amazing that the time has gone by so fast. It's too bad, and then again, it's great to know that it's less time to see everyone back home again.
We just had a big outreach program tonight... over 300 came out and I suppose it was the biggest crowd we've had so far. It was really encouraging... But more so, I was glad we were able to share the gospel with them. Here it usually is a long time before a Buryat becomes a Christian simply because the whole worldview of the Bible is very different from the worldview that people here have grown up with and it takes time for them to learn to believe only one or the other. Most may think you can be both a Buddhist and a Christian... it's different. As it is, friendship, love and trust go a long way... but everything takes time.
Thank you all for your prayers.
It's been exciting here... lol, and cold. Yesterday we were out at a village that it was cold enough in the hall we were in that when I was singing, whifts of fog would brush along my glasses' lenses. That was interesting. lol.
Alas... this is Siberia... and now that we're further south, it's sunnier and colder. Weird.
Have a great day everyone!
Take care!

New Land

2007-01-08T11:22:00.000-06:00

Monday, January 8, 2007

It’s a bit of a shock to the system today… we have a day off… A day where the only thing really that we’re supposed to be doing is having some orientation from the head missionary here in Ulan Ude, John Wicker. They met us on the train when we arrived a couple days ago. John, Sharron, his wife and his children, Heather-Ann, Matthew and Heidi. Another couple in this area is Leif and Jamie Gustafson. They have been getting us to where we need to be and filling us in on the quirks of this area. Here the population is half Buryat.(boor-ee-at) They remind me so much of the Native People of Canada. Lol, and some even laugh exactly the same! They have fun games and jokes, love to walk and to hike. It’s really great being here. Yesterday we did a program for the local church here. It’s very small, but we sure filled it!

We did a full program set up in an area about 8’x6’… wow… that was a squeeze. That morning I was very sick… blah… But as the day went on I felt a lot better. After the service I met another Sasha who played guitar and Bryce went on to teach him some new chords. This was when we met Elizabeth . She’s a SEND missionary from Germany . She’s doing our registration stuff today if she can. Apparently she’s a master at getting out of problems. John said that she can get off with a warning from police if they catch her going the wrong way down a one way street, and run into a police car when she doesn’t have her license… she says, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again…’ and they let her off…(I doubt that ever really happened…but I do hear that most things that she gets off with, John always gets in trouble for…but that’s how the law works here sometimes)

Last night after the church meeting, we went to a service in the home of Shannon . She’s the equivalent of Olga if she had been born in the US . But now that I’ve met her…she reminds me a little more of someone else… hmm… Anyways, she was very excited to have us there and so we did little bits of program material and I helped play background guitar for their Christmas songs in Russian… That was fun. ^_^ Apparently we’ll see more of those youth in the next little while. Almost all of them were Buryat. Come to think of it, even the lady who comes in here to cook for lunch and supper is Buryat.

It’s different here. There’s more Chinese influence here. In fact, there’s even a Chinese restaurant on the end of our block… that was surprising.

I’m still very uncertain of what we will all be doing here in the next little while despite our schedule. What I mean is, it’s a little different trying to think of what to expect here. Elsewhere we’ve been in Russia , people have not been very ‘spiritual’…but here, it seems there’s a lot influence from Buddhism and other religions. Pray that God would break down the strongholds and that these people who are truly searching… the ones who are tired of life will hear about the Creator. Jesus.

We’ll see what happens.

Thank you to everyone who is praying…we had a problem free time getting here and God has kept us safe.

We played a couple games last night that were a lot of fun… electricity (you have two lines of people who hold hands behind their backs… on one end is a bottle… on the other a guy with a coin. When he flips the coin and it was heads, the person standing there watching would squeeze the hand of the person next to them… eventually the hand squeezing gets to the end and the person at the very end grabs the bottle. If they get it, then the team rotates one member to the other side. To win, you have to get back to where you started….) That was fun… other was this hand tapping game where you sit in a circle and have you hand on the knees of the people on you left and right. When someone taps their hand, you have to keep tapping and go around the circle. The trick is that if you double tap, then the direction changes… and if you flinch to move your hand, then that hand is out. Eventually you get down to two people… I actually won that game with both my hands still good… that plain shocked me… lol. While I was there I figured out a way to say something is really great….’Superr Ochin Herrisho’…which means (Very, Very Well) As far as Russian goes… it’s being very redundant… like if you were to ask someone if they would like butter for buttering your buttered toast…same kind of deal… Anyways, it’s truly a treat to add some Crazy Canadian to the Russians here who for many of them haven’t felt free in nearly ever. It really is something else to see them laugh. It’s fresh…and it’s new to many of them… I think it’s because it’s fueled by a deeper joy…

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers!

Keep your focus on Jesus!

Grace and Peace

~James

2007-01-02T17:26:00.000-06:00

January 1, 2007

Snovem Godem! Happy New Year! We were up until 5am this morning bringing in the new year with the Church here in Lesisebirsk. We wouldn’t have survived at all except that we were able to have a nap yesterday afternoon for a few hours. That and I slept for 2.5 hours in the van. Apparently Janelle and I were conversing in our sleep. And she was having a very strange dream about me drawing a beard on her face.

The team is all starting to recover from all the stress of travel lately. It was a good time here despite some of the difficult times. We’re starting already to mentally prepare ourselves for going to Ulan Ude. Bruce, who has been with us the whole time will be staying in Krasnoyarsk. We’ll on the train for near 27 hours. To think of traveling still fills my heart with a little dread. There’ll be 6 of us and a whole lot of equipment. *sigh*

Oh, and for everyone who has been praying for our health, my wrist is still a ‘thorn in the side’ sometimes. It is getting better, but it’s slow recovering. It’s not hindering my work here in the slightest… but it is annoying. ^_^ Coralie who had been feeling a little ill the last while is doing much better. Otherwise, we’re all doing very well!

It’s hard trying to sum up all the things you’ve seen and heard and experienced all in short blog entries. There is a good deal of overload that occurs when you’re trying to take in all of Russia at once!

Last night for New Years we arrived and visited for a while until they started a drama. It was a cross between the story of the little match girl who was having a hard time selling matches, Father Frost (Santa Claus at New Years) and the Christmas story. Very strange and abstract. As such it was very enjoyable as I often enjoy things a little out of the ordinary sometimes. Right in the middle of the drama, they broke things up and got us to all go and eat. I remember eating a lot of orange slices and trying some raw red fish. As far as fish goes, it was pretty good fish! Unfortunately, I still have a very difficult time appreciating the flavor of fish…therefore I didn’t a whole lot of it. Never the less, it was a great meal. This was followed by people handing out sparklers… Those metal sticks that you might see on birthday cakes sometimes? We all had one of those and we went from person to person, sparkler to sparkler lighting the room up here and there until the countdown was over. Then we went as a big crowd outside and started to shoot off fireworks. We saw some going off to our left, and some off to our right, and our folks were sending them right overhead. It was quite extraordinary to watch…to think we were watching fireworks all over town, in Russia. In the snow. Weird.

We did some music and drama in pieces for the rest of the ‘morning’ after that until about 4. We were able to go to bed by about 5:30. Now it is morning, and you’re all caught up for this moment. I wish I had time to tell you about all the other strange things that happened.

I will leave one with you…When we returned from that big trip, us guys went and slept for a few hours. When we woke up, no longer than 5 min later, a couple ladies came into our flat and started to tell us things in Russian. They thought they had the wrong flat… they were looking for Igor…We told them that he was out and then they started talking in Russian again. They didn’t understand much of anything we told them and vice versa…Even though we used gestures… I don’t they were the gesture type. What one of them did say was that she lived in that flat, and then she turned and said, ‘Go!’… I started to grab my bags and move them out of my room into the living room. Soon she understood that she had said that incorrectly. She came back and with a chuckle said, ‘I go.’… that made more sense. I had figured they came there to see Igor and to change or get something for New Years. Later that night, I found out that I was right. She had left some of her things there and had come to get them. Never the less, us guys were so confused for a morning. There is nothing stranger than waking up and finding a couple ladies walk into your apartment who try to tell you things that you don’t understand… or then again… being a couple ladies and walking into a flat you are familiar with and finding 4 guys who can’t speak staying there. Truly life is strange sometimes. But it’s the strangeness that lets us enjoy the things that are a little more normal… *_^
Go with God! Spogum!

December 30, 2006

Today was one of those stupid awesome days. Or awesome stupid days…. Whatever you want to call it. We had a rough start with the team… it was a long trip to a small town Yenesisk… It reminded me of Northern Saskatchewan as far as the people went… but it was a lot like the Yukon from 29 years ago. Crazy.

We did a program at an orphanage and we gave everything we had, and wow… it wasn’t pretty… That really discouraged me… But today went well over all. God is working… But as a reminder for myself, PRAY FOR VAELERA!!! He gets discouraged over the lack of fruit…spiritual fruit… But wow… it was great to hear both his and Alexi’s testimonies… that was all we needed for God to snap us out of our tired frustration.
Don’t worry… We’re still giving all we have… God will be all we need.

December 29, 2006

We’re heading to a ferry right now. We got to Lessisabirsk safely despite the crazy roads and we were able to push another guy out of the snow… that was fun! The time here with Pastor Roma, Igor and Leanna has been great. All us guys stayed with Igor and his roomy in a rented flat. But even though we’d be getting back at 10 or later, he’d run over to the ladies’ drug rehab center and grab Leanna who was from Moscow. She understood a bit of English, and what she did know, she knew very well. Apparently she hadn’t had to use her English in 6 years so she had forgotten some words. We had a great time talking with them and we’ll see them again on New Years.

The spiritual battles here again have been fierce. Pastor Roma, for our first program had asked a army guy… I don’t remember his rank, but I know he’s in charge of a large amount of the military training in the area. Anyways, it was his responsibility to let people know about our first program, and only 15 showed up in a auditorium in City Hall made for 200. God still worked though, because now Pastor Roma has a chance to lead this army guy to Christ. Pray that that will go well.
In the afternoon we headed out to do a program in the school. Unfortunately, the psychologist of the school caught wind of our program and went into a fury about how we shouldn’t be allowed to be there. She called for the school security to come keep an eye on us, and so there was this big guy watching us. We never had a clue at the time, but he had a hard time with us because we walked on in, 4 of us bigger guys. I for instance walked up to this guy who was supposed to be looking real big and tough to watch for anything fishy was eying me so I walked up to him and gave him a big ‘Zrast-vutye!’ (hello) to wish he was caught a bit off guard and replied with a weak hello of his own. Anyways, when we started bringing in stuff that psychologist met us on the stairs and wouldn’t let us pass and we were sure we were going to be kicked out. But then someone else came to our rescue. Another teacher I think, and then the way was open. So we went in and did our program and then had a second one. It went really well. But meanwhile there was a lot going on. The lady throwing this fit went to her office and began to write out a letter of complaint to give to the city Judge. When Roma asked what she was doing she told him and then added, ‘When he gets this letter you’ll never be allowed in here again to spread your religious propaganda!’ He told her, ‘You don’t even know if we are. Come see for yourself. Then you can write your letter.’ So, for the second program, she sat at the back and began to write her letter of complaint. Our program was anything but preachy, and I’m sure she had a hard time finding things we were doing wrong. In any case, afterwards, she left in a huff and went to argue with the other teachers and James L.

The short of it was that God gave James L. the right words to say that completely destroyed the arguments that she had. She had complained that our program had no knowledge in it. But James argued that there were many things they could get out of it… despite that she wouldn’t let us speak freely about God. We were teaching that love is powerful and we should by love, and with love for each other. When we live for ourself, we ruin our lives. Sometimes we need help from others. She argued that we should have talked more about the trees that Canada has…James argued that there was time for questions, and they didn’t want to know about the trees. They wanted to know about why we had come all the way to this town, way out in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to teach them things that could help their life long after we had left.

Anyways, in the middle of this, the teachers showed up and were wondering why she was trying to ruin this great program that was put on… and then the kids came out and asked her why she was trying to stop the program that they had enjoyed. So she said, well, then I’ll do a seminar about how to get a man for you girls. Then they cut her off and said, ‘We don’t care about that… how come you think your programs are so much better. You have to try and ruin ours?!’ Anyways, soon she couldn’t take it and went off to finish writing her letter.

It was then that the vice-principal came out. She had been watching our whole program. She was very blunt. ‘So what if you taught about turning to God when nothing else works…if our psychologist tries to send that letter, I’ll fire her. I really liked your program.’

God rules!

That was a taste of what God is doing. Pray that God continues to have his way!

December 26, 2006

Well, we’re heading for Lesosebirsk…I’m not sure if that’s how you’d spell it, but it’s about 5 hours north of Krasnoyarsk. I don’t know what to expect up there except that I’m sure it’ll still cold. That’s life here…and we just hit a big pothole…This van we borrowed from Chad is taking quite a beating. Hence, ‘Sorry Chad’ has become one of our primary sayings here on the road. *BANG* ‘Sorry Chad’…You get the idea.
Well, we’ll see what the north brings… that and New Years. Apparently, they stay up all night… and all next morning

Potential Whatevers

2006-12-23T10:07:00.000-06:00

Twas the night before the night before Christmas,
and all through the apartment...
the guys ate ice cream...
Well, that's what we've been doing tonight. We're here until lunchtime of the 26th and then we're heading up into more northern Siberia for a while. Then we'll return to Krasnoyarsk here on the 2nd of January. Then on the 5th we'll be heading to Ulan Ude, just next to Lake Baikal. It should prove to be quite the adventure!

Okay, I'll try again...

Twas the night before the night before Christmas
and all through the flat
all the boys were all eating
Until we were all fat
On ice cream and sausage
Pilmeenee* and bread
And fighting off sleep so that this could be read
I hope all are well, as we have been here
Likely next time I write you
Will be sometime next year
Thanks for stopping by the blog here today
May God’s grace and peace be with you always
Well, work hard for God and remember us here
And Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!

*Pilmeenee is spelled phonetically for the use of pronunciation. It is like a small perogie that has some meat, usually pork, inside. It is similar to the Chinese wonton, but smaller. It is one of the commonly eaten types of food that are common to Russia…We ate it almost everyday on our first week here… O.o
.

We were down by the river today looking at ice sculptures... it's a big deal here and you can see them everywhere downtown. It's quite spectacular. Thank you all for the emails and comments... I love you all, and I sincerely hope you have a great Christmas back home. Here we're going to be celebrating Christmas twice. Jan 7th too.... :D Anyways, Merry Christmas and Take care everyone! Thanks for readin the blog!
Grace and Peace
Brother J

December 22, 2006
The start of a new day…yesterday was our very last program day for about 5 days which we’ll spend enjoying a North American Christmas and recovering from the last while of programs. I’m personally hoping to rest my wrist. Way back when we were pushing a car that had been stranded near Bogotol I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my wrist…Not serious…but annoying. It’s like if I had sprained it…I just can’t lean on it or bend it very far… Still prayer for our team’s health in general would be appreciated.
I had a really good time with Zhenya this evening. He plays guitar and basically just as well as I can. He’s been learning North American church songs and doing them transliterated…So we were able to sing along with some of them and it was a really great time of sharing songs and music. He doesn’t often get to play guitar since nobody around here owns one. That is too bad for there are a large handful of guys who would love to play guitar more if they had the chance. It really is great how much fun we had…I think I ate too much bread just before bed though…lol, it’s these late snacks they give us… *sigh* But the cheese spread is just so good!!!
It has been really good to see how much God has been working…Everywhere we turn we see God doing something great. And yet… strangely in all that God is doing it’s possible to feel alone. I’ll be missing my family this Christmas…it’s the first one away from home. Well, my immediate family. So to all, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
From Russia with Love
~James

December 21, 2006
To ARMS TO ARMS! ‘Tis been a battle of sorts here in recent times. For the last three days we have had programs in places where we are to make no use of ‘propaganda’ of any kind. Which means, ‘You cannot speak of Jesus’. So most of the programs we did were mainly concerts to keep the people interested. Right at the end however, we played ‘One Way’… Jesus, you’re the only one that I can live for. The kids loved it, and we’d always catch a few who were dancing along with it… some were even singing it! In fact, yesterday at a college we were asked for an encore, and so we played Awesome God for them. Truly God is awesome that He has brought us into these places that for so very long have been absolutely closed to the Church.
We’ve been spending the last few days in a city named Dubinina. The church here is seemingly young. Most of the church leaders have been Christians for less than a year! It’s incredible the passion that they have. The director of Children’s programs in the area is named Zhenya (Zh = J in bonjour)…He was saved somewhere in the last 5 years I believe… I remember him talking about 2001 being a key year for him. Each of the people is an amazing testimony of what God can do with a person’s life. Most of the guys that we’ve worked with, less than a year ago were near the end of their life because they were doing so much with drugs. But God has completely turned them around. In Canada so often I’ve found my spiritual life kind of … complacent. Average and meh… But you can’t do that here. If you were to try to live life in the middle here, you’d get dragged right out of the church by your own mediocrity. Here you must be on fire for God if you want to do anything for Him. I sometimes imagine what Canada could become if we were as on fire for Christ as are the Christians here…. Wow…. It’s strange… our being here has given them a fresh potential in the area. Many places that they normally could never go into see our team from Canada and say, ‘Great! I never knew the church did anything good! Sure, come on back!’ Most people around here have been brought up thinking that the Baptists were some kind of small cult. But now they’re beginning to see, not only that we’re a lot larger than they thought… But also that within the Church, Russia’s people will find their only hope for their existence…the only way… the One way… Jesus.
Oh, how I need to be desperate …. We need to be desperate to see God work. This is a battle… And we have everything we need to win. We just need to ask for the help. We need to look past the simple physical problems and see that there is so much more at work right now. May God ignite in all of us a fresh passion from the Holy Spirit for the lost. May today be found fresh for you!
Grace and Peace
~Brother J

December 17, 2006
Well, we’ve arrived after getting delayed/lost for an hour… We’re in a fairly large town here and we’ll be here for about…4 days I believe and then we’ll be heading back to Krasnoyarsk… It’s hard to believe that in just a short while, it’ll be Christmas. We had a good service at the church that we had been staying at. I was a bit grumpy though as I didn’t get enough sleep… I have the foreboding feeling that it’ll happen again too. It’s actually after midnight… so it’s the 18th now… crazy. Speaking of crazy, I’ve come to the conclusion that Mexican movies are crazy as well…
It’s strange… though I know very little about the couple where Bryce and I are currently staying, it does indeed seem slightly Mexican… I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because this is truly the most simplistic home I’ve seen yet. I was grumpy again this evening… Bruce and Olga were talking with Bryce and I… and it was in one of those moments that I felt very…alone. Alone and different. I strongly dislike moments like that… Because it makes me feel very small and useless. I hate feeling useless. Oh well… I realized it was like Sam in the Fellowship of the Ring. He’s not useful, and most people overlook him. It doesn’t seem like he could play a signicant… if any part at all… in the story. As it turns out, Sam is who keeps it going in the end when all hope fades. Perhaps… perhaps I was born for a moment. Just in order so that when that one day comes… that one moment that I can truly be useful…that I WILL be … I wonder.
We’re all useful in our own ‘special’ way I suppose. And hey, thanks to all who are saying in your heads, ‘He’s not useless!’… It makes me feel better when your prayers are headed this way. Anyways, I’m gonna let Bryce do some journaling. Have a great night sleep! Farewell and Namarie.
~Brother James

December 15, 2006 (EVENING)
Well, it indeed was another long day… I’m beat. We had a program at an orphanage and then we went out to a village in the area. It was not sure if the gospel had ever come there… There were about 15 people, but always some going and coming. One in particular who would come and go was drunk. He was covered in tattoos, had fairly dark skin and desperately wanted to sing a solo that evening… The audience was not about to grant his request… It really was too bad that man was drunk… He has an amazing story to tell I am sure. He was telling James L outside about how he had been in prison for 17 years and on death row at one point. On his back is a huge crucifix tattooed with some women kneeling on either side. On his front is a huge tattoo of Mary. He was claiming to be a Christian to James and then he wanted to go and get his tarot cards and tell his future… It was very interesting. It’s sad to see what people do to themselves… But what is really amazing is when God displays His power in places that are so bound by sin, Satan and despair. I hope salvation comes to that man, and to all his village there. That would be so awesome! We’ll have to learn what God does one day… I wonder…

December 15, 2006
Last couple days here actually have been ‘relaxing’…we had a later morning and a program later in the day. Pastor Sasha here is the twin of Pastor Andre in that little village area with the snowstorm. Recently I’ve been the klutz of the team. I banged my head on a wall yesterday really hard and it levelled me… and I had only got 5 hours of sleep the night before… so I wasn’t sure if that dull pain was from the wall or from sleep deprivation. Never the less, I did get some better sleep last night. The first night it was very cold. So this time I came prepared with all these extra clothes… and then we didn’t even use them! This time there was heat…. Oi! lol. That’s life. Then in the night I put a blanket against the corner of the wall where my head was because I was sleeping and then I smoked my head on that wall too! So then I rolled over and took Bryce’s elbow to my face… wow… it’s been amazing hitting my head on everything…I can’t wait to get more sleep. The girls I think have arrived which means I should go and have breakfast real soon…
Oh, right now we’re staying in a Baptist church that isn’t finished yet. What’s interesting is that when Bruce was first here, this building was only a dream. Russia for the longest time would make a church meet on the far edge of town in a shack away from people… so the change is absolutely staggering that we are in a LARGE Baptist church, but they were allowed to build it right in the heart of this city of 60 000 people. Go figure! Only God can accomplish things like that.
Praise God that he’s still working! He is still working today!  Grace and Peace…
~ Brother J

December 13, 2006
Dima was up at 9 to make sure we had time to shower and to eat. We had a good time saying our goodbyes and then we went to the church to hear Pastor Sasha’s testimony. Apparently he used to be into a lot of ‘healing’… healing by demons… that kind of thing. And he told us the struggles and the story of how he met Jesus. It was really very exciting! It reminded me of both testimonies I’ve heard from Native people from northern Canada who have had spirit troubles…and also of the early church in Acts. He had aquired a huge library of these occultic healing books and certificates, and one day God got a hold of him and he went and burned them all in the back yard… then he gave up all of his former life and wealth and decided to live as a poor worker of Jesus. Wow. It was an eye opener for all of us, and it was hard to let us go.
Now we’re on the road back home. We’ll see what today brings. Take care!
Grace and Peace
~Brother J

December 12, 2006
This became a wonderful day to get out many of those issues that we had as a team built up from just being around each other too much. It was a good venting morning. We spent most the morning doing prayer, personal work time, and putting things right again. It was refreshing and yet strangely draining all at once. In the afternoon we went to a school, with mostly youth attending. It was one of the best programs we’ve done to date. It was really fun to do, and it turned out that all that had stayed at our program could have just gone home, as school was out, but they had chosen to stay. So for those that did stay, we felt very honoured. After I had carried some of the equipment out afterwards, I stopped to look at a curious stained glass art piece in the stairwell. It was of three Russian cosmonauts floating about a deep red sun. In the middle of the sun was a small man with a flower in his hand. It looked like something out of some Greek myth. It was interesting in any case. As I was looking at it, there was this older lady down on the main floor who began yelling. I turned to look and to my surprise, she was yelling at ME! I didn’t know what to do… ‘Uh…’ I muttered…’Yanee, pannee, my-you, Parruski’… Which is basically I don’t understand Russian. She looked at me really funny, and then a young boy, Victor’s son, Victor, had come up the stairs and told the lady that I was one of the Canadians and then grabbed my arm and whisked me up the stairs. I recall seeing the teacher look somewhere between confused and embarrassed. I was for a while too, until I found Olga and James and got them to tell young Victor thank you for saving my life. It turns out that she thought I was Russian and was wondering what in the world I was doing in this school… She wanted to know who I was and why I was there at all. ‘Ha!’ I told James, ‘I’m blending into the culture…. Even with my pompom toque!!!’
It was my triumphant moment for the day.
After we went back to the church where I was given a little teddy for a present to remember them by. I think it’s a Christmas tree ornament. And then Rhys and I finished the song about the duct tape Perspectives bag…to the tune of ‘A little More’ by Skillet. It’s quite interesting, and I hope some of you who want to hear it will get a chance to listen to it.
James and Molly came with AJ and myself to Natasha’s. After a while of waiting, Dima showed up to unlock the flat. We visited for a good long while there drinking tea and eating. It was exciting to hear about how they had grown up. Please pray for Dima… he’s searching but doesn’t really want to be a Christian right now…His mom is a strong believer. After almost all was said and done, AJ and I visited with Dima and Natasha after James and Molly had left. Natasha got out some paper and crayons, and we each drew them a picture. It was really fun, but it left me very tired. Oh, I gave Natasha a cd of some of my songs on it. She was really happy and kissed me on the cheek. Haha, she told me that since AJ and I were sons there now, we were entitled to special treatment. Dima was happy to call me a brother. That was really great. He’s near 30 now and is in the army… it’s weird having a big brother… I’ve always been the oldest until recently… it’s a really strange feeling. But pray for him… He needs the Lord. He needs fulfillment. He’s sick of life in the army…He said that AJ and myself were the first kind faces he’s seen in over a year. Pray for him. We went to bed … sometime before 2. I’m not really sure when we got to sleep.

December 11, 2006
Bogotol the village was called. The Pastor there was Andre…and we arrived for tea, chocolate and to sing them ‘It is Well With My Soul’. From there we went to our first program run by a lady who can speak very fluent French. France French. Indeed it seems like a very romantic language. We had some issues with the sound equipment which got us, moodwise, off on the wrong foot. It was very good though that the kids there were very fond of balloons. We made a bunch of different balloons for each of them and after it all was said and done, they sang us a song. But a song I had heard when I was a kid. ‘Higher, Higher… lift Jesus higher’… That was really special. Unfortunately, because we had to enjoy their wonderful hospitality we ended up being very late for lunch. So late in fact that we came in, prayed, sat down, ate 0-5 bites depending on how fast you could eat the hot stew (Rhys for example ate 0… I on the other hand ate five… but I burnt my tongue…), and then got up, put on our coats again and left. A huge snowstorm had blown in and it was very windy and brought with it, obviously, very much snow. Being it was so stormy, we drove fairly slowly and found a car that had just gone into the ditch. James L stopped his car and we got out and started trying to help him. When that didn’t seem to be working, we flagged down a big Russian jeep. After a few attempts, including snapping the tether line, we eventually pulled and pushed the car out. Back on the road, we found that now we would be an hour late. So when we arrived in our last program location, a small community hall, we very hurriedly began to set up our equipment. And right in the middle of it, the host lady came in and said that we must stop what we were doing and enjoy some tea, chocolate and cookies. So we did… you dare not argue with a host lady. So, eventually, about 2 and then some hours later we started our program. It went really well. We couldn’t stay a long time afterwards because we didn’t want to get snowed in or anything and we still were hoping to get to the banya. So, in the dark night we followed large trucks down the highway. There was blowing snow everywhere, the snowdrifts were crossing the road, it was hectic and scary driving… But we all made it safely back into town and by 10:30 we were
arrived at the local banya. It was nice. Basically to explain the banya, it’s hotter than a sauna, with drier heat, an overall lack of clothing…and leafy branches to thwack yourself with. Obviously there is a girl side and a guy side, so that made things more comfortable. But sweating with 5 other men in a small little room dodging the leafy birch branches that were swinging everywhere was really quite interesting. Oh, here’s a helpful sidenote… If ever you are having a Russian shower… turn off the hot water first. It can get very, very hot and in a very short amount of time. In you are not fast enough you can burn yourself. Just thought I’d let you know that…because it hurts and you don’t want to do that. Anyways, it was a very enjoyable experience. It was wonderful for the pores. That night I planned to go to bed right away.
We arrived home after 12 and so we were sure that our host, Natasha would be asleep. Nope. Turns out that her son had arrived that night from a 3 day train ride. That meant that there would not be an early bedtime. We stayed up for a while and enjoyed more tea and each other’s attempts at each of our strange languages. Natasha’s son’s name is Dima…(deema) and he was really great to talk with, though that night it was a lot shorter than I’m sure he would have liked to visit. Praise God there would be only one program for the next day. *sigh* Yes, in case you were wondering I miss you all back home every once in a while… God has been good. We’ve never had to experience the oppression that people like Pastor Andre have had to deal with. And yet we have the opposite issue. Let us not continue to be complacent…live every life as it were you last moment. You may not get another chance. Grace and Peace
~Brother J

December 10, 2006
Day off day… in theory that is… We went to the Baptist church in the area called ‘Living Waters’. It was a great time. Our team did a couple songs there, and on the spot they asked me to do a song I had written! Crazy! I did ‘Sunshine in the Rain’ as Bruce had been talking a bit about communion and about Bridgrooms and Brides… I was missing my Bride to be back at home. So I did that song because it was about Karina and it was about my Saviour. It was a great time. Afterwards, we visited until around 4… the service had started at 11. At 4 we were sick of sitting around eating… For real, we had been having tea all afternoon with different groups coming in to spend time with us. At 4 we all went outside and we had a snowball fight between Canada and Russia. We were quickly overwhelmed, haha, so some of the fellow Russians helped us out. I got one in the face real hard near the end. lol, it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we did it. Afterwards we went inside to warm up and… You guessed it… had more food and more tea. *sigh* I was telling the rest of the team… I don’t remember what it means to be hungry. And I’m quite sure if I wasn’t filling my being with food all the time, I’d be losing a good deal of weight with all the walking and stairs and programs that we’ve been doing. But as it is, there’s no end to the food, and so there simply is no way I’ll be able to fit these trousers if this keeps up for much longer!!!
The same gal from the first program we did in the cinemas was there today. Her name sounds a lot like the French ‘vwala!’ …I think it’s the short version of Valintine. Russian language has a LOT of short form names. In fact they found out that my full name here if it were in Russian would be Yakov Blainavich…there was a short form of Yakov too I believe.. but I don’t recall it now. It’s crazy how much a name can change here.
After everything around 5:30pm we started heading back to our billets to relax…except for AJ who wanted to work on chalk art. In fact at 9, he’s still not home here yet. When I got back, Natasha was wanting to feed her dog, Gelda. I figured, sure I’ll come for a quick walk down to see your dog. She asked if I needed a fur hat. I told her I’d be fine with my little cap. I did take the mitts she offered though as I had left mine in the van. Well, the little walk was over 2 kms one way. Through the neighbourhood, out into the edge of the town to where there were hundreds of sheds and garages. I escorted her all the way down attempting to chat in my very very broken Russian. It was interesting. Eventually we turned into a small ‘alley’ which was fairly wide, but all of it was deep snow except for a small footpath that had been packed down. My ears were beyond freezing at this point and so I had pulled them under my hat. (It was because of the wind… the temperature was dropping to near -25 tonight) We walked a ways down this alley until we reached a small wooden gate. She unlatched it and let me come through. It was a garden! Well, I mean, it was still all snow.. But it was a large fenced in garden. Her dog stays there in a dog house and guards the area. Most of the dogs around here are treated a lot different than we would treat them in Canada. They’re treated a bit like semi-tamed wolves. They wander through the streets and through yards, but some are regular pets, and some are completely homeless, and then some are guards on the prowl. Anyways, Natasha stooped down and called the dog…no answer. She poured out all the food she had with her and called again. No answer. So she shrugged and walked away to leave. So I started to call the dog. ‘Here doggy!’…… Curiously, it was answered… I didn’t see her dog… But there was a low growl….*rrrrrrrrr* … I repeated the process several times enjoying the low growl and then we left. About 7 minutes later walking, I heard something coming; walking up behind us. I spun around when it started getting close, and there was a dog! Natasha let out a cry and started to pet the dog that looked a good deal like a german shepherd crossed with some other dog with black floppy ears. It was scared of me, but it enjoyed being with his master for a little bit and then she clapped her hands and sent the dog back home to do guardwork. Strange.

We saw some stars out there on the way back… in fact, I think that was first time I had seen stars since I’d been here in Russia. It had been quite cloudy most of the time we’ve been here. So it was really nice to see them out. They were exactly the same as at home. ‘Zeeovs-dee!’ she said, proudly pointing to the sky. Alas, we made it back and then we went through some photos of friends, family and our travels. Then Natasha went to read a book and I went to journal. And now here we are. AJ returned a sentence ago and then I caught him up with everything I just finished telling you here.
Please pray that Pastor Sasha will be given wisdom in how to go about building a large church. Right now they have a huge building that is next to the church that they’re working on. But Sasha doesn’t know how in the world to work on a building or anything. He just used to sell things. PLEASE pray that God would do something amazing for the church here. Wow. Oh, and for anyone who wants their church to grow? Prayer… that’s what will set in motion. Any age so long that it’s heartfelt. That and small groups meeting to discuss and pray…. Pray….and be at peace!
Brother J

December 9, 2006
Wow… we’re tired. lol, we had only two programs yesterday, but they took a lot out of us… or perhaps it was all the food we had to eat… Whichever…
We did a program in a medical school last afternoon. That was really fun! They were attentive, and we found out after that it was a miracle that they didn’t stop us in the middle of the program. We were forbidden to tell them about the evening program, yet a few of them knew simply because of the massive advertising the church had done for us here. They advertised us on TV! The evening program was actually in the cinema. There was a massive room for about 400 or so. It had a very large stage and we were nervous just being in such a large room. About 120 people came. Something like that. But we were very pleased to find out that many of those who came, perhaps even 60 or more weren’t involved with the church at all and many of the things they heard they were hearing for the first time!!! Praise God that it went well. There were issues. I had a bad cough and AJ happened to pick out the only bad cord to hook up his drums. Yet when push came to shove, God pulled us through despite our potential to fail. My voice didn’t just hold out, it was better at singing than I’ve ever done to this day. AJ noticed that his drums didn’t work at all at the start of one of the songs, but it wasn’t imperative that he came in at that moment. Literally he was able to fix it about 1 second before he came in, and then he came in with a wonderful ring of cymbals. It was wonderful how God provided.
Afterwards, Bryce, AJ and myself were invited upstairs to listen to some other music from a fellow musician who had come to watch us. They went with him when the program was over. The rest stayed to visit with the people still around. I was on my way out and then Olga stopped me. Apparently there was a girl who had wanted to fellowship… that was what Olga said. I’ll have to ask about what else they had talked about. But we had a good visit. She realized quickly how different Canada and Russia are. But as Olga was translating for us, we were able to compare our stories of how God changed our lives and it was really very interesting. Many of the Christians here are first generation Christians, and if there were any other Christians in their family, it was usually their Babushka…Grandmother. I have to hand it to those Grandmothers. It’s a reoccurring story about how these women of faith never let go of what they had been taught when they were growing up, even in the face of the despair that Communism brought.
During prayer this morning I was suddenly reminded of the goodness of Christ… of the wonder of his love. I remembered the struggles we’ve been having, the difficulties… the pain… the fatigue. And out of the blue, I was thankful. It’s these hard times that truly let us find fulfillment in these tasks that God gives us. We can look back at the end of the journey and be glad that we didn’t have it easy. And we can see that he has not let even one of our feet step without his knowledge or guidance. It is so comforting to know that our existence has been choreographed and planned out in accordance with the free will that God has given us. May He remind You of his undying faithfulness. Truly He is more faithful than even the rising of the sun.
Go in peace
Brother J

James Found the Internet!!

2006-12-08T01:46:00.000-06:00

Ok, This is Karina on behalf of James...for all those who are wondering...

So James finally was able to connect to the internet some where! He had been saving up a lot of blog entries, and so when he finally had time to be on the Internet, he emailed all his blogs to me. So, the next 6 entries you see posted here are from James and his adventures in Russia!! Enjoy!

~karina~

2006-12-08T01:45:00.000-06:00

December 6&7, 2006

Several important things happened on the sixth. We
met up with another Pastor Sasha in a nearby
city…We were supposed to do two programs but we
did 4 instead. I was absolutely beat. Not
sore… just tired. Yoora…our host here in
Nazarova had his 54th Birthday! We had a big meal and
lots of celebrating. He’s a great musician and
singer and has dreamed of making a cd of sorts of
songs for his friends and family for after he’s
gone. I gave him some money for the celebration and
for his dream. I hope it turns out well. He has been
a huge blessing in the last few days. He is so
incredibly on fire for God it is humbling. He’s
been an incredible encouragement to our team…
and as he’s been used by God to help
us…God’s been using us to help him. He
said that though he’s really enjoyed having
other teams come in the past… this is the first
team where we’ve felt like we were brothers.
Connected…in some mysterious way through
God’s Spirit.
While we’ve been here we’ve been able to
go into some schools where when previous teams came
through, they had claimed there was no hall in the
school at all where a program could be done…we
did programs in these halls that weren’t there.
Wow hey?!
One school director this year told Pastor Sasha that
he would rather the students all addicted to hard
drugs than to be exposed to Christianity… pray
for Russia…it’s not near as free as some
of us would like to think.
This morning I was awoken by roosters that live
underneath the floor… that was strange. We had
a few programs today… Pretty typical
stuff… except for this evening… After our
program in an orphanage, they asked if we would like
to stay for part of their Christmas program practice.
Most of it consisted of girls singing and swaying to a
tape on the stereo. There were some boys who must
have been around 11 years old who were trying out
breakdancing moves…. Wow… you need a lot
of muscle to do that…I still think the boys in
China who did backflips off their forehead still
topped them… but it was still amazing. What
made it really ‘interesting’ was that
after this exceptionally flexible gymnastic routine, I
was mentioning to Rhys that it felt a lot like those
characters you see in movies who are invited by some
prince in some exotic place in Arabia or India and
they call out those dancers… that was just the
feel of it…
Right in the middle of that statement, in came 4 of
the teen girls dressed up in very exotic
Arabian/Indian garb, and they started dancing…in
typical exotic style of course… All us guys
could think of was… ‘eye contact…
EYE CONTACT!’…
I think all us guys were surprised to run across
dancing and dress of that kind in the middle of a
smaller town, in the middle of winter… in
Siberia! Weird.
Pray that us guys continue to be strong in resisting
the ‘eye candy’ that tends to be quite
frequent.
It has been a truly amazing time here in the mornings
and evenings with Yoora. God has used him to refocus
our team on what is really important. I hope I can
learn a lot of lessons from just the way he lives his
life. It’s evident that he wants to be like
Jesus.
I want to be like Jesus…

It has been truly amazing to see how one who has so
little can have so much. Joy truly lives here in this
man and his family. You can see it in his
eyes…and he knows it. It’s strange how
often we want to have all these amazing and abundant
things. To have merely enough seems out of the
question… we need a lot. Yoora sang us a song
that basically says: ‘I don’t want an easy
life… make it full of hardships and struggles
that I might be counted worthy of you. All I need is
you with me Jesus. You are enough.’ Truly it
was humbling to hear it… and even Yoora was
telling us that that particular song is a tough bite
to chew… We shouldn’t ask for the
privilege to suffer should we?
Perhaps there is more to life than having a good
job… a great house… a loving family…
a clean bathroom… good hair… food in the
fridge… a fridge at all for that matter…
perhaps all the things that we
‘need’…aren’t….
Maybe all we need is Jesus.
Merely Jesus.

2006-12-08T01:44:00.000-06:00

December 3, 2006

We’re back and it’s morning again in
Krasnoyarsk it was a good time overall. We met up
with Pastor Pasha, who was a good friend of
Bruce’s the last times that he had come to
Russia. With him we met a girl named Nastye…
that’s kind of how it’s pronounced.
It’s short for Anastasia. She came along with
our crew and helped a bit with translation and with
some of Pasha’s songs(She had just got back from
spending 3 weeks in Canada… She wants to attend
school there). The girls really enjoyed having
another girl on the team, and she gave us some insight
into the mind of some of the youth there. I, for
example, have large mitts, a bright orange scarf and a
toque with a pompom on the top of it. Typical
Canada… sort of anyways.  It turns out
that there are two reasons to chuckle at my wardrobe.
Pompoms on toques are usually worn only by kids under
5. But in my defence, there are some people now who
are getting with it and have pompoms too! I am not
alone! Anastasia came up to me yesterday morning and
she had my mitts. I told her that they were and she
explained that she had borrowed them because they had
a ways to walk the night before in the cold and she
needed them. Then she added, ‘Oh, and I took a
picture of them and showed my dad and he had a good
laugh.’… lol… it’s the mitts.
They’re these large white skidoo mitts with a
trigger finger. Haha, she said they reminded her of
the Ninja Turtles off of TV. That’s life I
guess.
Rhys, Bryce and myself were able to stay in the house
of Ira (ee-ra) and Natasha her sister. They were fun
to have as hosts, but we had a rough time trying to
communicate. Most of the time we tried to use
gestures and different sounds. They were very kind to
us and we enjoyed staying there. We had an Indian
meal once (I guessed RIGHT!!!) and I noticed that a
particular tapestry in the living room had a very
oriental flair to it and so I inquired as such.
Unfortunately I was told it was Russian… hmm, I
was thinking… it has to be from China… or
at least from near China. Right then Ira came running
back in and got out one English word.
‘Mongolia!’ she said with a large smile.
That made my day… it was nice to have a piece of
China in a room with me again. It felt very homely.


We did 3 programs the first day, and come to think of
it, 3 the day after too. At all of them Pasha did a
couple Russian songs. They’re really catchy.
They’re kind of blues meets jazz meets typical
Spanish. I am hoping to get one of his cds from one
of the churches here in town. Pasha’s one of
those guys that humble you just by being
himself… He reminded me a lot of Pastor Rob from
my school years. It is very evident that God is with
him. He told us jokes and tried pieces of English
here there and everywhere. In fact, he was the only
Russian so far who was able to pronounce Saskatchewan
fairly well! After all the 2 days of programs we as a
team were a little stressed … so we took some
time in the morning to pray and discuss team
issues…After things had settled we realized we
had used up the time we were going to use for sliding
at the hill…(or hills as Divnygorsk is all
mountainous hill type country). We were planning to
go tour the large dam in the area… but we
thought about it a minute, and we all decided we
should go sliding and just enjoy being with our
friends there. So we did! And we had an absolute
blast!!! lol, for Tim and Nathan, missed you guys
here… it reminded me of old times at little Red!
 There was a childhood friend of
Pasha’s there who was flying around the area on
a Skidoo, and if we were at the bottom when he was, he
would give us a ride up to the top. That was real
cool. 7 of us loaded ourselves onto a skidoo and a
dogsled tied onto the back and he’d motor it up
to the top… He had to push it real hard to get
it up there. Heh, I don’t think that skidoo was
unused to punishment though… it had no shell and
constantly backfired… I saw him trying to ramp
it up a ditch incline that was covered in rocks the
size of my head… lol, it was quite the sight!

Eventually we had tea at Pasha’s to say goodbye,
and then we had a prayer, packed into the vehicles and
were off to do a children’s program at an
Orphanage. When we arrived, we were greeted by
several of the children… it was really cool. We
went and set up and we finished getting ready for the
34 kids that would be coming… and when they came
in, we knew immediately that we were going to have an
interesting program. Two Thirds of the kids who came
were in their early or late teens. AUGH! lol, then
our cd music and sounds went on the fritz… that
was awkward… but I was sure glad we had a
guitar. We whipped out the guitar and many balloons
for everyone. Anyways, it all worked out… we
had a great time and we finished, came home and
relaxed and went to bed.
But alas! Today is new, we have a program in less
than 2 hours for a youth event. Have a great one, and
thanks for your prayers!
Take care and God bless!
~J

2006-12-08T01:42:00.000-06:00

November 30, 2006

Alas, it again is morning and we have 3 programs to do
today. It will be a very busy one no doubt…If I
remember right, we’ll be about an hour and a
half south of here…And the city starts with a
D… Debvenorysk… I don’t know for
sure. City names here are hard. But apparently it
has a huge dam there… that’s why the town
is famous and hopefully we’ll be able to see it
for a while.
Our program yesterday went fairly well. We had some
issues with our drama because we changed a whole lot
in it and then we suddenly switched it completely over
to Russian, so we didn’t know our cues any
more… That led to some of us being COMPLETELY
lost up on stage… heh… that was awkward.
Never the less, we pulled through for the last part
and people there really enjoyed it.
Afterward we were invited out for tea with the Pastor
and some other folks who had been around to let us in
to the large school that we did the program in. The
place we went for tea was actually a drug
rehabilitation center with about 6 people there right
now. It was a bit like a little farm house. We had
cheese, chocolate, pickles, sausage, and of course,
tea… it was really good. And while we were
there, we heard several testimonies about how God
changed the lives of these people who were there. One
of those men had given his testimony during the
program. It was a moving story about how he,
literally, had tried everything to get off drugs and
couldn’t… until he met Jesus. Another
older man there, Nicolae, told us how he had two
divorced marriages and children by both wives but he
had been such a drunk and into so many drugs that he
ended up getting kicked out or just leaving
both… now his kids are grown and he hasn’t
been able to see them… But just very recently,
Nicolae heard about this drug center… there he
learned about Jesus and in the last few months now, he
has been completely drug free! He’s enjoying
very much the new start God has given him.
We would have loved to stay longer to chat with
everyone, but we had to get back on the road. It was
just under a three hour drive… so we ended up
getting home just around 11pm. This morning we have
to be on the road at 10 so that doesn’t leave a
whole lot of time for dilly dally. Anyways,
we’re off and I trust and hope that you are
still praying for God’s work to be
accomplished… Grace and Peace
~J

2006-12-08T01:41:00.000-06:00

November 29, 2006

It’s not bright, but early this morning. God
let me sleep a lot more last night. I slept for an
hour and a half before bed yesterday… and then I
went back to sleep. I think I got near 9 hours of
sleep at least! That was a big lift as we had prayed
that I could get better rest the next day. We have a
program of sorts this evening. I hope that all goes
well. It’s going to be interesting trying to
get around to all these different places with all this
equipment and only a handful of people. It will be
extremely great to have James and Olga translating for
us. Pray that God moves… We could have a good
program and nothing may happen with the people at all.
God MUST be involved in all aspects. Pray that His
Spirit is with us while we do our programs!
Last evening we went for a quick walk downtown and
were able to enjoy some of the scenery. We went
through a couple of malls real quick as well as an
outdoor market. Again… they very much reminded
me of China. Just how they do the layout and
everything….It was so very familiar. While we
were there we had what I equated to Pork crossed with
a tortilla and a Hamburger… hmm… Perhaps
just a tortilla and a hamburger crossed… after
all, there’s still ham in that equation.
Anyways, it was pork that had been fried and then put
in a flour wrap with sauce, dill, onion and likely
other seasonings. It was different, but it was good.
I’ll try to send up some pictures of our walk
sometime soon. James is the one who took us down
there on the buses… I think that was my favorite
part…though it was also the most congested.
Take care everyone! Keep on praying with us!
~J

2006-12-08T01:40:00.000-06:00

November 26, 2006

This was our second day in Russia. It was -20 again
when we woke up at 8:30. We had egg omelets for
breakfast. That was all good.  James L.
came and found us this morning and we walked for a few
blocks to the bus stop and then from there we rode
about 10 minutes until we came to our stop. From
there we walked about 5 or 6 blocks… It may have
been longer, but it was around large apartment looking
buildings, a large park that had a nifty path and
trees, benches and a stage…There were long
streets with billboards everywhere … It reminded
me a lot of how China looked while I was there. It
was really interesting to see the look of everything
inspired by communism. I was mentioning to James
along the walk, I really enjoyed having to walk again.
They walk a lot in Russia because of the lack of
money and because most of the time things they need to
be near are close enough to walk. Anyways, that was
something we had to do all the time in China. I
really really enjoyed being able to go for a crisp
refreshing walk. I’m sure there will be days
where I tire of walking everywhere… but for now
I’ll try my best to enjoy the moving around. It
helps a lot that James keeps us from getting lost.
Oh… I was going to mention, I’ve been
trying to get the team to call me something else than
James… everyone calls James L. James…
therefore, everytime they need to talk to him,
I’m up looking around. Rhys has started to call
me Jimbo. Whatever works. 
Church was interesting… We sat in the very back
of a theatre type room in a school. Apparently the
church rents it out there. It was amazing. Being in
a country, with a Bible in my hand in a country where
not just Christianity, but God has been outlawed for a
good long while was something very awe inspiring and
humbling. The service actually reminded me a lot of
my home church, the New Life Indian Alliance
Fellowship. It was fairly easy going and had a lot of
testimonies, some accompanied by long songs, poems,
sparse singing throughout the service and food
afterwards.
Our team played through ‘It is Well’ and
were able to introduce ourselves, with some assistance
from Olga, a good friend of Bruce and our interpreter
for a good long while during our stay here. Our first
impressions of her have all been good. She has a good
sense of humor and an amazing gift for language. She
never studied English, but simply picked it up on her
own from reading bits and listening. I know she can
speak Turkish, Russian, and English at least… I
don’t know yet if she can speak any
others… But I do know that she just picked up
Turkish during this last little while. James was
saying that he wishes that he could wishes that a gift
that amazing could simply be purchased!
After the service, the grandmothers were very quick
and getting myself, and later the rest of the team to
drink some tea and eat the cookies and cake put out.
They would toss the crowd in front of us out of the
way and toss us into the gap and made sure that we
left that spot with our hands and mouths full…
lol, we speculated that perhaps they were getting us
to eat because they wished to spare themselves from
hearing our fragmented and simplistic Russian
greetings and clumsy responses. I experimented a fair
bit with trying to figure out what people were saying.
It didn’t go so well. Heh, I had to get one of
the more English people to help me out. The people
there are really interesting… But then I
suppose all people who are any bit different from
myself are interesting… foreign or not…
Interesting. Oh, speaking of English people. I met
another man in church today and I had a really good
talk with him… in English… REAL English.
Over this last month, I’ve met people from
England everywhere I went… in really fluke
situations…at least from a normal perspective.
In fact, I never even realized all these people I was
meeting until Janelle brought it up. I’ve been
pondering if there is some other reason that I keep
running into people from England … even when in
Russia. I wonder what God has got planned out. This
is going to be an interesting time here.
For those who are praying for us, keep team unity in
mind…and for our unity to be founded in nothing
or no one else other that our Savior. There are still
some tensions here and there… personality
clashes etc… But I can’t help thinking
that there is more at work here than mere personality.
Pray that our work here will not be hindered.
Tomorrow we start more ‘orientation’ type
stuff and we’ll go through some of our
programming with Olga. We’re going to be going
all over. I wonder what the kids, youth and adults
will think of our programs and all the stuff in them.
I mean, they won’t be able to understand our
songs for the very most part (we have one song right
now in Russian, but it still needs some work). It
truly is humbling when you can’t even converse
with a 3 year old… and it has nothing to do with
the 3 year old’s grammar…It’s
because you can’t keep up with the kid. Ha, all
I can say to them is Hello, I don’t understand
Russian, and thank you… as well as a few other
simple words, greetings and good-bye. It’s a
tough life. The missionaries have quite a different
life. Indeed the Russian culture is different. And
just some things that we would take for granted can
become very difficult. For example, tonight we needed
some groceries, so AJ and I watched our bags that we
still had with us at the door while the others went to
find the food we needed.
Meanwhile a real tough looking guy showed up. Shaved
head, black leather jacket, a scar on his face…
He was on his way out of the door to smoke and eyed us
down so I said Hello to him… He looked at me
real funny and then walked out muttering a
‘Hello’ back. He returned a little while
after and asked if I spoke English. I said yes and
asked him if he did… nope. He ended up getting
a couple of gals from the store to try and figure out
why I was there… One girl who was had been
working the till came and asked why we were standing
in the entranceway of the store, eventually… and
I do mean eventually… was able to get her to
understand that we were waiting for some of our
friends. I don’t know if they were planning to
kick us out thinking we were bums or something…
But I personally don’t think they were… I
think they just thought we were funny looking or
something and wanted to know why we weren’t
inside, nor outside… We were in the in-between
room. Anyways, whatever it was about, we were being
watched over by someone higher than any could ever
fathom or comprehend. Please pray.
Anyways, I must go get ready for bed… I think
I’m almost used to the time here. Have a great
day everyone… Feel free to email me… but
it may be a while before I’m able to respond.
Grace and peace…
~Brother J

2006-12-08T01:31:00.000-06:00

November 23, 2006

In a quick summary of how our trip was, I suppose it
would be tiring…But I suppose that is quite
typical of people traveling to the other side of the
earth. I was glad to socialize for a little while
with the flight attendants… We traveled from
Calgary to Frankfurt, Germany, flying directly over
England on the way… that was cool. Then from
Frankfurt, we flew to Moscow…Immediately it
reminded me of Wuhan…very little English, wet
and humid (it was raining a bit), and a lot of big
communist style buildings. I had been in a bit of
panic for a while as I was desperately needing a
washroom. I never found one for a couple hours. The
Moscow terminal #2, in other words, the
uninternational flights, was very crowded and
congested. There was one bathroom on the far side of
the building…We were on the other side with a
thousand Russians going to and fro and standing or
sitting nearly anywhere you could think people could
sit… I’ve been so used to going to waiting
areas where there’s always a lot of room and
everything. I wish I had taken a picture of the
crowds there… It reminded me of China. See here
in North America everything is very individual
centered… in China and Russia, the individual
isn’t important… Only the group. In
groups of that many people there you cease to be
‘important’ … you become just
another number or statistic. Anyways, it was a strange
sensation all over again.
When we finally landed in Krasnoyarsk, it went from
the near Zero degrees we had experienced in Moscow,
and it suddenly dropped to below -20. WHooo! That
was a difference! We had to wait a good while out in
the cold for the building to open where they were
going to put our luggage. Oh, and speaking of
luggage… we found out in Moscow that the weight
limit was a lot different than any of the other
airports. They only allow 20kg per person…
total… for all of one’s luggage. In
short, it would have cost us another 1400 American!!!
God provided huge for us and we were able to get off
with paying only $500 of that. It still was painful
but we had to remember that this is God’s
money… He will take care of everything.
Anyways, we finally were able to get our luggage and
we loaded up to the hilt, a couple of vans. The girls
went to stay with Ronada. She was glad to have them,
and I was glad I didn’t have to stay there as
she had a cat… Quite a playful cat though…
Bandito enjoys string a lot.
Us guys are staying in an apartment. It’s real
nice here and I’ve got a lovely mat on the
floor. It’s real good!  Anyways,
we’ve got to go and shop around the corner.
Keep on praying that God will have His way. Have a
good one!
Grace and Peace
~Brother J

Here are some pictures of my last days in Canada!

2006-12-06T00:12:00.000-06:00

Karina was tired after the Commissioning Service, and a little sad too.

But we were able to have a nice time together...she actually stayed around for a WEEK! YAY!

We walked up to River's Edge Bible Camp to see the mountains and take pictures...and I had actually been there before as a kid! It was crazy!!

Nathan kissed the cat good bye.

Our team got to help at the BIG Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary for their service about Remembering the Persecuted Church.

Family Picture...minus Jenna who wasn't able to miss school.

But Tim and I were able to have some fun and even do some Disco moves!!

Guess what? Siberia is actually warmer than Saskatchewan right now!! Ha ha ha...

More updates to come.

Saying Stras-voo-cha to Babooshkas

2006-11-27T21:28:00.000-06:00

Stras-voo-cha! (Hello in English!)

I can hardly believe I'm here in Krasnoyarsk, southern Siberia! God is good and has answered many of our prayers! All of our flights were on time and there wasn't much turbulance at all. Our landing in Moscow was a bit bumpy... it may have been the tarmack! We had just enough time to get from one plane to the next (the longest we waited for our flight was 45 mins in Frankfurt.) When we arrived in Moscow, we made our way through Customs without any problems or questions. We walked over to the luggage carosel and there was every single piece of our luggage! James Lesheid and Chad (SEND missionaries based in Krasnoyarsk) were waiting at the airport with taxis to take us to the domestic terminal 20 minutes away. They were flying with us back to Krasnoyarsk. We were so grateful that they were there to translate for us and help us get all of our luggage through security and the ticket agent. Our luggage was very overweight, even with Chad and James taking some of the baggage themselves. We ended up only paying 1/3 of the overweight costs.

We arrived at Krasnoyarsk airport Saturday morning at 6:00 and walked across the tarmack in -20 degree weather to meet Pasha, Paul and Molly. They had woke up early to come and pick all of us up at the airport. Along the way, some of us were able to sleep on the flights, but we as a team decided to try and stay awake until 9 pm Saturday evening, so we could get our bodies in sinc with Krasnoyarsk time. Janelle and Coralie only lasted until 6:30 pm, who both slept through the night and have been sleeping well ever since. Us guys have been waking up earlier than normal (2,3,4 am), so we're hoping our bodies adjust quickly.

Sunday morning we went to a Baptist church. James Lescheid sat behind us and translated parts of the service/sermon for us. I enjoyed the time of testimony/sharing. People of the congregation shared answers to prayer from the week. It was also Mother's Day here in Russia, so a lady from the congregation receited a lengthy poem. She was very expressive, so we "felt" and understood the meaning of the poem that way. At the very end of the service, our team was introduced and we sang "It Is Well" for the congregation. We then experienced Russian hospitality... the babooshkas pushed us guys straight to the front of the food line and made sure we had chai (tea) and sweets in our hands at all times!

Monday and Tuesday we've had time set aside to practice our material with Olga our translator. She is an amazing lady, only 2 months younger than myself. We've already begun to alter scripts to fit with Russian culture, and we've been relearning parts of our Russian songs. We've realized that we have a lot of work to do before we do our first 2 programs on Wednesday. We are very fortunate to have James L and Olga travelling with us for our entire time here in the Krasnoyarsk area. They are great resources!!

Well, our bedtime is drawing near. Janelle and Coralie will need to be alert tomorrow morning as they try out the Krasnoyarsk bus system on their own for the first time tomorrow. They're coming to the guys apartment on their own...CRAZY!

Prayer Requests from the team:
1. Adjusting and recovering from jet leg
2. School Programs - know who to talk to about coming into the schools and how to communicate gospel truths/virtues
3. Language understanding & learning of culture
4. Creative use of time as we will be travelling a lot and doing numerous programs

Spech-on-eh-noy-che (good night!)

YAY!!

2006-11-26T21:35:00.000-06:00

HI EVERYONE!
I have now crossed the Prime Merridian!! Your today is my yesterday!! I made it to Krasnoyarsk!! Safe and sound!
More updates to come!!
Thanks for your prayers!

The Journey Begins!

2006-11-23T20:10:00.000-06:00

Hello my faithful friends!
I will have some pictures on here soon of my last week of the training I had at VTI. Now, I am actually flying! I departed from the Calgary airport at 5:45 pm. I should arrive in Moscow some time on Saturday. CRAZY!! How am I posting this message while I am airborn? EAZY!! I have a lovely fiance who I can now get to do my dirty work...or...uhhh...who can help me out in that area! -_^ (I love you K!)
More updates to come...
Talk to you later.

There and Back again...

2006-11-14T09:39:00.000-06:00

Well, we had a good trip. We left the training centre here about 2 weeks ago and traveled to Okatoks, Calgary, then to Prince Albert, then Nipawin. After that we went to Drumheller and Bysiker…I don’t know how to spell that… ;)

Here are some of the highlights!
Okatoks: This was a youth event, and our very first program on fall tour. We had a lot of issues with this program… Heh, the projector turned off in the middle of the songs… the laptop froze on a video…we did a song we hadn’t practiced because of a lack of communication… But anyways, everything DID work out really well. We stayed at Dan Schroeder’s place…(He’s the youth pastor). It was a great time being there as they are very very missions minded. It was really great.

Calgary: - Here we did a children’s program in Foothills Alliance Church. That is a BIG church… wowee! We stayed at the Good’s house…Melissa Good was on Karina’s team 2 years ago…
The next day we went to Rhys’ church. They meet in a community hall and it was great to see all the different cultures and peoples that met there. It’s a very ‘cultured’ church :D…This was also the first day I spoke a sermon on tour… that was scary… heh.
Oh, I had forgotten to mention. While we were there, we had a big snowstorm. So we had to drive real slow as to make sure we didn’t run over anyone. It’s absolutely crazy…the weather here in Calgary area. Weird.

After Calgary we did the … 8 hour drive I think it is, back to Prince Albert. It gave us time to listen to some of the Chronicles of Narina by C.S. Lewis on CD. That was fun. 

Prince Albert: It was great to be home again. All the guys were staying at my place and it was fun to hang out there. lol, Mom kept spoiling us there... lol, I was always full. It can get really hard to eat all the time!

While we were there we were able to tour NCEM, Northern Canada Evangelical Mission. Dad works there doing a lot of camera and computer work for Tribal Trails...come to think of it, Mom does a good deal of work there too.
Anyways, at NCEM we met up with Tim Gradin, Karina's father. He did an overview of prison ministy and the missionary work with Native people. He's the one who took us to both prisons. heh, he had previously joked about taking me to jail... ;D Mrs. R, (Howard Rensberry's wife) took us into the woman's jail. It was a really humbling experience. We did three programs in the ladies jail and 1 in the mens. They were all very well behaved and particularily attentive in the men's jail. It was a real great time we had to be with them.
On Friday we had a youth program at the Community Bible church...(Karina's church) It was fun and it was great to see so many new and old faces. There were several other groups who came out too. That was real fun. :)

Nipawin: After leaving PA, we arrived in Nipawin, my other home. We spent several days there and I was glad to hang out with Grandma and with all my classmates from last year who were attending again. There were some new people there that I knew, and some that I was able to meet for the first time. It was great! :D It was hard to leave both Nipawin and PA...

lol, on the way back to Alberta, we got ourselves lost and it probably delayed us almost a half hour. What was interesting though was that was what God had wanted for us. We showed up just in time to help a couple vehicles that had ended up in the ditch. There was ice all across the road. One huge layer. It was absolutely awful to drive on. Anyways, it was a great adventure to push out these people.

I'm running out of time... so I'll just say, ALberta was good! We had a few programs in different places for all ages and it was a real blessing to be there. We found that when we don't tape our programs we do them consistantly very well... whenever we tape them, something goes wrong. O.o Wierd.
At Coralie's place they celebrated all our team's birthday's this month. That's Coralie, Janelle and myself. It was great to be a part of another person's family get together.

And now we're home...my third home. VTI. Keep praying that God will move in the people the different places we go...and beyond for that matter. Consistanly we saw God move. It was incredible. People everywhere are so thirsty for something more than what they can get from tradition or religon...or attending church all the time. We want to go to these places to let God refresh them and revive them to do the tasks that He's given to them.
Keep on praying! God is doing amazing things!!!
Take care everyone! Go in God's grace!
~J

WE BE BACK!

2006-11-13T09:42:00.000-06:00

We made it home... I'll fill you in on the details later!

It all started when...

2006-11-04T09:51:00.000-06:00

Bryce found his sock that was lost but now was found...and there was much rejoicing...on his part anyways ;)
We finally made the tour to PA a few days ago... and today we are leaving again...:( We had a couple prisons that we did programs in and both went really well...Better than even our host Tim Gradin, Karina's dad, had anticipated. We had a really good time with all that and then we finished off last night with a youth event at Karina's church, the Community Bible Church. There were near 80 people and it was a great time. We were all very drained and fatigued, but the Adrenaline got us through. Don't worry we had a great sleep! :) I'm up a little earlier than some of the guys today though. I wanted to send this before we head out to Nipawin today.
Keep praying that God will do amazing things in the hearts and llves of people as we're going. I'm real excited to see what He'll do.
Take care everyone! Oh, and get this! The two girls and myself have our birthdays in November! Crazy!
Have a good one!
Go in the Grace and Peace of the Father
~J

Happy Halloweeneven

2006-10-30T18:37:00.000-06:00

Howdy there everyone...
Tour is now underway. We're in Calgary right now for our day off. After tonight we'll be heading up to Prince Albert and Nipawin. I look forward to seeing all of you in that area again.
We had a great time in Oakatoks and at Rhys' family church. It was informal and multi-cultural... it was really great being there. I spoke my first sermon this tour at that church... it was pretty unerving at times that morning... that's for sure...
The morning of that day we looked out and there was a good 4-6 inches of snow... lol... it sure made getting to the church an adventure. God watched over us however, and we made it there safe.
I'll hopefully make another update soon. Take care everyone!
~Grace and Peace

Alas we have Survived!

2006-10-22T20:31:00.000-06:00

We did our full length GA (General Audience) program today at Bethel CHurch. We made it! lol, I was so proud of my team! They really did their best and God let us pull it off! On top of it all, AJ's folks came down to see him here and they were able to see him do very well at Chalk and drumming... it was good. :P
To top it off we ended tonight with a good ol' game of RISK. And get this! It didn't take us any time at all! Bryce won... took the whole world, all 4 of us... in ONE TURN!!! The fifth turn. It was truely impressive.
To celebrate this occasion and the last week of our training camp, I shall post this graphic of wisdom. Enjoy. (I'd love to make it into a T-shirt someday... ^_^)

Ever have those days?

2006-10-18T20:18:00.000-06:00

You know... the ones where you want to sit back and ponder why things are... why you feel the way you feel... why...
I had been talking with Helmuth the other day. He had made the statement that humans since the fall have not been normal.

What is normal?

So I thought about it... normal is relative. Your normality is dependant upon your perspective of what you define normal as... (ex. Normal = common Would mean normal is Chinese or at least made in China)
Therefore, I suppose from a human perspective, fallen man is 'normal' but from God's eyes it still would appear to Him 'abnormal'. There has only been one man who stayed truely normal all His life, and that was Jesus.

Normal.

~Grace and Peace

Frosty Morns...

2006-10-14T19:11:00.000-06:00

Hello there everyone. It’s been busy at training camp…again…
That seems to be a reoccurring theme! We’ve working on getting down some dramas and new songs, puppet scripts, writing songs and scripts and Bryce and I have been working on sermons. We’ll be doing a quite a few of those this year. It can be overwhelming sometimes when everything is happening all at once. Anyways, we’ll be doing our best here. Again, if anyone wants to drop me a line, I do love emails, and thank you so much to all of you who have been keeping in touch. I really appreciate all your encouragement.
For an update for anyone wondering where exactly we are going, though this is an extremely vague list:
Fall Tour - North America…Russia – Ulan Ude, Krasnyarsk(I think that’s spelled wrong), and Moscow…England – London and elsewhere…Germany – Frankfurt (I think…), and again, elsewhere…
After that we have a break for a little more than a week and then we’re back at it until Aug.1 in North America going to churches, camps, city streets… wherever. It’s all good.

It’s been really interesting taking a course here called ‘Perspectives’. It’s all about missions, the history, the future and the present. It can be summed up with this statement: ‘Missions exists because worship doesn’t’…The purpose of missions is to give them the chance to know the God who made them so they can worship Him. (see Revelation 7:9)

Anyways, I’ve got to get back to the workforce here… Have a great day everyone.. I’ll try to keep you all updated. God bless you all!

JB from India...

2006-09-28T22:20:00.000-06:00

JB was this guy from INdia who came to our training camp to talk to us about faith. About halfway through his hour long sermon, he set out a chair and asked if we had faith in that chair being there, not being a figment of our imagination. Naturally, we all were like, yup, that's real. That's a chair alright. And then he asked us if we believed that JB was standing in front of us. Again, naturally we all said, yeah... And then he shouted back, WRONG! He took off his shades, hat, and vest, and started to talk with a Canadian accent!!! It was Darrell, our speaker who we were told couldn't make it!!! That was wierd. We found out that he did play the part of JB accurately, as in sharing his testimony, but then we were so confused for a bit.

Just when you think you know a guy... O.o

Anyways, it's been good here. The Phillippine team is having a grand time trying to adapt to the jetlag. They did make it there safely... I don't know much more than that. These next two days are our spiritual reformation days, where we can relax a little and spend some time with God; refocussing for the second half of training camp. Please pray for us to be able to focus on God when things are easy and when they're hard, instead of the 'task'. We're called to worship God, everything else is secondary. If we give him our first place, then everything else will fall into their proper placement.

One thing that excites me this year is that the theme is STAND. That's what we need so terribly much over here in our conplacent countries. We need to draw the line and actually STAND for Christ. In our work, at school, in our community, and in our entire life. It's not a one or two day thing. We are called to recklessly abandon ourselves, completely surrendered to Himself, no matter the cost, no matter the odds, no matter what the outcome. We are His.
May the Grace and Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all...
Brother J

Well, there's that!

2006-09-24T16:26:00.000-06:00

We did our first children's program today! It went well. It was hard, and required a lot of energy, but it all went very well. There was about 30 people... 17 kids, 6 teens and a handful of adults. It was fun and all went well, for all who were wondering. Tonight we're seeing off the 4wrd team! THey're off to the Philippines! So if anyone is ever trying to get a hold of me I'm usually here on monday... Well, this week I will... next week I shant. Anyways, have yourselves a good day! Keep prayin for all of us! We'll be needing it! O.o
Grace and Peace
J

With Great Power comes Great Responsibility

2006-09-15T07:18:00.000-06:00

I'm not so certain about the great power thing... But I've recieved a lot of responsibility as of yesterday. I'm going to be the Team Leader of F&F63, as well as the Music Coodinator, a Puppeteer, and one of the Preachers(Bryce is the other). Bryce is the Drama Coordinator and other things... (i have the smallest list)...Rhys is a bunch of other things... Luggage guy, to creative teacher, to soundman. Coralie is our driver and ladies' advisor. It's all good. Janelle is the children's coordinator... tis a hard job. AJ is the youth guy... He's perfect for that part... He's always got a positive look on life and energy to boot! I think that's everyone... heh.
Anwyays, have a good day, I'm going to go look at the new snow that just fell last night. 3 inches! Farewell, Namarie
Grace and Peace
~J

The Infamous Training Camp

2006-09-07T17:55:00.000-06:00

Well, I've made it through the first 2 days of training camp with only minor scratches. There are two teams here at VTI, one team, 4wrd is going to the Philippines and then there is the Friends & Followers team, which is my team. There are 6 of us now. Bryce, Reese, AJ, Jenelle, Corellie (sorry about the spelling guys) and myself. It's really been a blast so far, challenging and I know it'll get a lot more busy, but it's been really good. Thanks to all who are still praying and supporting me through this. We're really looking forward to how God is going to work. Oh, for all those wondering how my health is, primarily with my back, it's been quite exceptional. I need to work on still getting more sleep, but it's been a joy to see how God has been taking care of my back.
Right now the girls are out at a retreat, and the guys will be going on the same kind of mountain climb retreat tommorow morning. We spent today trying to build up the guys on our team. So, there was just the 4 of us and we had to accomplish tasks on obsticle courses of sorts. It was really fun and it did help build us up. The two girls on our team are the only ones on our team of six older than I. So, I'm the oldest guy, but I'm still pretty young. It's a strange feeling. Well, I'm looking forward to how God is going to move. Please pray for us!

Thank you everyone! Grace and Peace from our Lord Jesus Christ!
~James

Aug26

2006-08-27T16:09:00.000-06:00

Twas the day of Jordan and Valean's wedding and all through the morning, everyone was sleeping, or else they were choring... being all ready for the big wedding day, but James and Karina were elsewhere that day...

That morning, we became engaged! :O THe soonest we'd be getting married is Nov next year...2007 so check back! And pray, VTI is still underway!

my email is: encaitar777@yahoo.com
if you want to chat... I'll have more info soon I hope! :D

howdy there everyone!

2006-07-21T11:04:00.000-06:00

Well, it's the 21st of the month we refer to as July. I've been trying to prep for the coming year with VTI while I've been working at Davidner's western wear... that's kept me busy for about the last 4 weeks. It's been good there, but I don't think it's my profession... It's a great oppertunity to learn more and gain more experience. I've been trying to learn a little bit of Russian on the side... I can say goodbye hands down now, but I have a hard time with a lot of different other phrases... It's hard to make your brain look at an alphabet and reinterpret the sounds that the letters should be making... Heh, I think it's the closest you can get to Greek without learning greek! Meh, we'll see what happens...

The family all got home a little while ago from their trip to Ontario... Hey to everyone down there that I wasn't able to see this summer.... I really really wanted to be there... Perhaps I'll get to see you all soon. I miss Ontario sometimes... heh...

However, my time flies, and I must send out some more letters and some sincere thank you letters. Have a great day everyone! Keep prayin for me if you think of me. It means so much to me!!! Shalom. (peace)

A another new day...

2006-06-15T09:17:00.000-06:00

Well, I started working at Tim Horton's this last week, six days in a row, and I found out something important... I don't think I was created to work fast food!

I had to finish there for health reasons... the long hours and stress work it's way up when you're there for a while. I found a new job I start tommorrow at a Western Clothing type store. I like the smell of leather there, and I think there is much more of an emphasis with the customer. That's the part I missed. Anyways, I am hoping that God continues to lead me in where I will work and how it will go, so I'll continue trusting Him.

Please pray for me as I continue to prepare for VTI!
~James

Dream Inspired

2006-05-30T16:04:00.000-06:00

This was a piece inspired by our very own, Nathan Wolfe. He has very vivid dreams and this is a reflection of one of them! :) Have a good one!

Independence Igloos

2006-05-25T19:56:00.000-06:00

Greetings all! I'll be posting up my prayer letter soon. The one for VTI. So, yeah, I've been chilling here this evening listening to 'GEtting into You' by Relient K... I've been lounging around laughing with K, and Dave Joseph, um... and Cathy, a friend of my mom's. Yeah, we've been laughing so much... I'd say that I've laughed so much I feel like I ran ten miles, but it's my face that hurts.

**
I just thought that I'd note that this blog is committed to the highest standards of broadcasting...and as such we've been eating all the freshest pineapples...
**

Don't ask...

It's one of those days I suppose. Yeah, those days where you wonder in your bed... 'Oh.. I hope I can get back those IQ points...' Yeah. It's tough, but I enjoy being me, and I enjoy it when people can be their me with me.

You know those zits that are really red, and you get them on your nose and they hurt alot? Yeah... They hurt a lot. That and I'm looking for a new job.

Did you know Karina has this thing with popping zits? That's why I don't tell her about the really painful ones on my face... *_^

Yeah... check out my photo webpage, I try to regularily update it with new ones, even if they're old ones. ^_^

Have a wonderful day everyone, I'll be back here soon enough. You all are awesome!

P.S.
Feel free to comment....

Anyone ever heard of...

2006-05-15T12:34:00.000-06:00

Venture teams international? VTI for short of course. Anyways, I'm planning on going with them this year to, currently, the location is Ulan-Ude... just north of Mongolia in southern Siberia I believe...

In any case, it's Russia, and God's called me there despite the $15000 I'll have to raise... no doubt, soon I'll be sending out prayer letters asking for primarily prayer and secondarily money...

I'll keep you all up to date and I'm sorry I haven't updated this for a while. I'm looking for a job here in Prince Albert after I had another fall through. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks to all and to all a good night!
~J

AUGH

2006-04-04T12:22:00.000-06:00

WEll, if anyone is wondering where I've been... I've been doing homework... Lots and lots of homework. That and I'll be doing my follow up check up in Saskatoon tommorow... so yeah, that's where I'll be... and for those who haven't yet... Check out my pics! I hope to have some new...old ones soon. :)

Have a great day everyone.
~J~

CHeck it out!

2006-03-29T14:57:00.000-06:00

I have some pics up now! CHeck it out! It's that flickr button on the left side... :D
~J

GReEtings all to the WoRld

2006-03-25T10:19:00.000-06:00

I am off to go touring with my team LIving Proof this afternoon. We have a banquet concert tonight, and then we play in Saskatoon tommorow. It'll all be good. In any case, I've been having a crazy time with homework and school. Of course there are always other things that crave attention in one's life that you just sometimes have to avoid.
Yeah, so I hope you all have a great day!
I'm looking forward to hearing how the new Superman movie goes. :D I hope it's good.

Anyways, I'm prayin for as many of you as I can remember. Please remember me! lol. I could use it...

~Brother James~

As a matter of fact...

2006-03-12T22:29:00.000-06:00

I am alive! crazy eh? I am home for about20ish hours to relax after a great weekend at school doing three60five, the youth retreat at NBI. It was fun, and I think one of my favorite parts was seeing the movie thing we made. It was a bit of a matrix spoof, and several other movies/genres. It was fun.

Anwyays, I hope you're all doing well. I'm getting around, though I know I should be sleeping more. (I had to stay up all night to finish some work on the DVD) so yeah, I'm going to go to bed now. Check out Essy's page, she'll probably have some pics up soon if not already. Farewell!
(J)

Hey Yall

2006-02-25T13:24:00.000-06:00

Well, here we are on a delightful Feburary the 25th, Saturday. I'm getting around the house now a lot better than I had been before. I've enjoyed the time resting, but now I'm getting very restless. Ergo, I am hoping to be back on campus at NBI but Sunday, like tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes. If I in fact go back, I'll be most likely be spending most of my time lying in bed. I really want to get back so that I'll have time to prepare a little for three60five, the youth event weekend there at school. I personally prefer to call it TSF. But meh...

Yeah, for all those wondering, I do still have leg nerve pain, and it's expected that it could be around for a while, short of the providence of the Father. I'm hopeful and I know it'll all work out right in the end. In any case, that's been annoying in general. The surgery did wonders for my left leg however, and that's been a real blessing, along with all your prayers and letters and many ecards, lol. Thanks everyone for everything. :)

Anyways, I'll be heading off now, take care everyone.
Farewell and xie-jin
~Bro J~

he's baakk...

2006-02-21T14:13:00.000-06:00

Journalling by Karina Gradin
(Jan16/06--- "Uncut")
The Day of the Surgery...February 16, 2006...by Karina

It was a crisp, frosty morning with a chilly breeze. We left Uncle David’s house at 7:48 a.m. The temperature gage that was on the ceiling of the van said it was -32˚C. As we drove through Saskatoon to get to the University Hospital, Blaine had a hard time seeing outside the windows. Apparently some vehicles weren’t used to the cold weather and died in the middle of the road. That caused a barrier for us to maneuver around...a task not so easy when you cannot see who is coming behind you!!

After we escaped the rushing streets with the mystical, swirling snow, we finally arrived safely at the hospital. Blaine dropped Rachel, James and me off at the door and went on to find a parking spot that ended up being right close by. James laughed when I poked at his hand that was closest to me. He was carrying a bag of stuff. Finally I told him, “Switch hands,” in mid sentence of something else that we were talking about. We went inside and promptly found the admitting desk. This lady with white or blonde hair said to James, “Come with me!!” She reminded me of my dad’s voice in the morning...not pleasant, not angry, but a little gruff.

So James went to be questioned by the gruff woman, and Rachel slid over right close to my left side and smiled, bringing her shoulders up in a way that most females do. She said to me, “It was really good you could come!” Then we talked about how cold it would be at home and how my mom was going to manage today with the chores. Then Rachel jumped up and decided to see what was happening with the room situation. She walked over to James after the gruff lady had left to go print something off. Apparently, the semi-private room was $100 and the private room was $120. James chose the semi-private room. Hopefully he won’t have a roommate that is cranky and doesn’t like Winston (the small, nylon stringed guitar that we brought along).

After we left the admitting, we were told to go Same-Day Surgery admitting. We still hadn’t seen Blaine and we began wondering where he was. Rachel said, “James, he’ll see you with your orange scarf.” So James walked in the middle of the walkway. Up ahead, we saw Blaine come in and walk the other way. We laughed.

Then, when we got to Same-day Surgery, James got ushered into an interrogation...I mean, interview room. We were put in a waiting room that said “For the consideration of others, no food or drink in this waiting room.” And we hadn’t had breakfast yet. We asked the nurse if that would be a problem...she looked a little sheepish, but she smiled and shook her head and said, “go for it.” So now we amuse ourselves by Blaine flipping through the channels until he found the Olympics showing hockey, and I sit here and tell the story.

At 9:10 a.m. we were all invited to come into the interrogation room. James was given a stapled handout explaining all about his back surgery. We had fun trying to take pictures of his hospital wrist band that said all of his allergies: dust, cats (I thought it said rats...), and mold. He looked very lushing and dashous in his hospital garb. Then we all came and sat in the waiting room and stared at the lions...

At 10:20 a.m., we were joyfully joined at the hips...I mean we were joined by Tim and Nathan. They had gotten a little bit lost in the hospital. They ended up in the cancer ward...☺ Suddenly the room with the lions was no longer quiet. It began “roaring” with sound!!! We all laughed at the Olympic commercials of people running around and doing all their sports with a huge flame following behind them! At 10:55 a.m. we gathered and prayed for James. Meanwhile, as we continue to wait, Nathan amuses himself with his video camera. And Tim plays with a foamy dice...gambling.

At 11:27 a.m. the physio nurse came for James to talk to him. Tim, Nathan and I began to lip sink the people on T.V. as it was muted. Much to the amusement of the other waiting patients. Then we left the Same-day Surgery waiting room at 11:37 a.m. They were slightly behind schedule...typical Saskatchewan. The nurse took us all to another waiting room. There, all the doctors and nurses involved in the operation came and talked to James, telling him all what they would be doing. They gave us a really warm blanket! It must have just come out of the dryer. Everything in this hospital is warm!! Even the toilet paper!! (It was sitting right above the heat register.)☺

They took James to the operation at 12:26 p.m. We then went to yet another waiting room. Tim and Nathan parted our company to go shopping. Rachel decided that she was going to go start the van to make sure it would not freeze up. So Blaine, Rachel, and I prayed for James together, and then she left. So Blaine and I passed the time drinking our frozen juice boxes and listening to a family talk and laugh in French. Apparently they were from Prince Albert as well. They were waiting for someone who was coming out of ICU from heart surgery. His operation was 5 hours!! I’m glad that James’ surgery isn’t supposed to be that long!

At 1:45 p.m. I decided to have a nap. I sat with my head resting on my hand and Rachel read the paper and Blaine wandered and looked around. At 2:00 p.m. Dr. Griebel came in and said that it was a very successful surgery and that James is in the recovery room and is waking up now. So soon we will join him in his room upstairs. Praise the Lord!!

At 2:50 p.m. we finally got a phone call saying that James was going to be taken up to room 6315 in “5 minutes.” So we packed up all our things, and I grabbed Winston and started walking. I stopped and asked Rachel, “Do you think I can walk up with him?” They figured “why not?” So I stood at a corner a little ways away from the recovery room and waited for about 15 minutes. I heard his voice once when the door opened, and soon enough he came out with a couple of nurses rolling his bed down.

I called out and asked, “Is that James Witherow?” And the one nurse asked me back, “Are you part of his family?” I answered sheepishly, “Yeah...” So she waved her hand for me to join them. So I got to be the first person to see James!! Yay!! And we got to the room and no one was there yet. So the nurse came and cleaned up around the dressing...James warned them, “WARNING...I have NO pants on!!” They laughed. Then after about 20 minutes, Blaine, Rachel, and Uncle David came in. We all talked for a bit, then Uncle David left.

Rachel left to go get the Lindor Chocolates from the van, and actually ended up going to sleep listening to the radio in the front seat. Then a couple of nurses came in to do an “assessment” so Blaine and I were asked to wait outside. Then all these ladies came in and there was a big “party”...poor James...he still didn’t have any pants on...evil women!!! Grrr! They were trying to “help” him “void”. But one good thing was the LPN named Renelle grabbed some pants.

I asked James what happened when he woke up. The first thing he could think about after he woke up, was that he was hungry. His tummy was growling a lot, too. Rachel and Blaine left so James could sleep. He wanted me to stay with him. And about 5 minutes after he closed his eyes, “knock, knock, knock...Supper!”

whickwhack

2006-02-15T09:47:00.000-06:00

So here I am, today is the day I head down to Saskatoon. My dad, mom, Karina, and I think some of my family, of whom, I am not sure, are all coming along this evening. The surgery is tommorow morning.

I had just realized that I haven't been able to post any pictures for a long time, and so I suppose this is to 'make up' for some of the winter pictures that never made it here to my blog. Oh, by the way, the pic above, if it has three people in it, is part of 'Stupid Mondays 2' our official homemoviemaking extravaganza. Yup, I'm a version of James Bond. Karina is a Russian spy, Tim although he looks dangerous is actually trying to steal a rubber ducky from a clueless fellow played by our esteemed director Nathan Wolfe, he, Tim and my brother Luke who's been doing all the filming for this deserve the most credit, namely for ideas and secondly for putting up with me being out of commission for the last while. There are also guest star appearences in this particular part of our movie. Luke and Nathan Siemens both play valuable roles! :D It's great.

Have a great day everyone, and I hope I'll be back soon to talk more. I AM ON READING WEEK!!! :D YAY! Fare thee well!

~Bro Jam~

It's nearly here!

2006-02-14T12:48:00.000-06:00

Today is valentine's day! :D

Yeah, I got her roses for anyone who was wondering... hehehe...

But anyways, my surgery is on the 16th, which means two more days, though I must be there in the evening on the 15th. We'll have to see how that all goes. I'm praying that this will fix my pain problems, but it's kinda, I dunno, sad in a way. Being in pain so often helps one to focus more on God. Pain does that. But I'm glad this time has come and I'm awaiting good news with a thankful heart and an open mind. Thank you all so much for your prayers!!!

It's been a busy last little while. We're trying to get ready for the big youth event that will take place in the first week or so of March. I'd like to be back for that. It's called Three60Five and we're hoping that we'll get around 250+ kids. but that also is a prayer that will have to be answered, being that as of now there are roughly 30. In any case, we're hoping and we all hope that i'll be a fun time, though tiresome.

I sang a new song for class today and it went over very well. I had many people come to me later and encourage me. That was really great. Perhaps when I'm supposed to take it easy, I'll write some more. I want to get a few songs that are really good and done well so that when the time comes, I'll be able to record some more songs if there is given oppertunity. In any case, we'll see what transpires and I shall bid thee all adieu... I think that's how it's spelt... And farewell from the capus of NBI. Fare thee well.

~Brother James~

Chezigndnks

2006-01-20T19:11:00.000-06:00

Well, there we go. Sitting here in the basement of NBI . My speeling is being corrected by none other than Elly from Melfart. There are about 12 of us here trying to think of anything we can do other than homework.

We are watching Brad for entertainment.

watching watching wattching.watshing.

Perhaps we shall overcome the fear of being stuck in the void of .... something... as Mike the Gandalf would say.

Farewell.
~Brother james~