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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!!

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!

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...

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!

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

It all started when...

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

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!

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?

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...

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...

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!

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

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

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

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!

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...

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

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

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...

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

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!

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

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...

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

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...

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

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!

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

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~

Back to school... and homework

Well, I was down in Saskatoon for my appointment. Thank you to all who prayed. I'm on the surgury waiting list, but it's looking like if I get in sorta early, it'll be in the middle of Febuary and I'll need 2-3 weeks bedtime.

We'll see what happens. In any case, it is a herniated disk that is ailing me. Thanks all, and I'm sure I'll let you know what is going to happen again soon... There's always a lot on the go. Have a good day everyone!

xie-jin
~brotber James

Razzle Frazzle

Today was a good day. It's sunday, and tommorrow I've got to write a song for school. I'm at home and not in school because I'm waiting for a surgery consultation which is on Tuesday. I'll perhaps update some more when I wake up and if not, I'm sure I'll add something when I've found out what is going on with my health status. Thanx for all your prayers! :D

Have yourselves a great day.
~Brother James~

By request from the guy...

...who finally learned how to tie his tie right, comes this, uh, picture.



Yup, there ya go man. I'm leaving yer account now...
-e

This is my 65th Post~!~

Hey there to everyone! I'm now 20. Wheee. Today we have a day off so I'm using it to send some mail out and to do a lot of homework. WE'll see how that turns out. I'm anxious for Christmas and hoping that we get a whole whackload of snow soon!

have a great day y'all!
EH!

Go in Peace
~James

Happy birthday to moi!

Hey hey! I'm 20 in ... um... 2days! So.... yeah! that's my update. That and I'm almost unsick... :D COUGH COUGH!
~Have a good one!

Don Diego de la Vega

Out of the night, when the full moon is bright,
Comes the horseman known as Zorro.
This bold renegade carves a Z with his blade,
A Z that stands for Zorro.


Zorro, Zorro, the fox so cunning and free,
Zorro, Zorro, who makes the sign of the Z.


He is polite, but the wicked take flight
When they catch the sight of Zorro.
He's friend of the weak,
And the poor and the meek,
This very unique senior Zorro.


Zorro, Zorro, the fox so cunning and free,
Zorro, Zorro, who makes the sign of the Z.
Zorro, Zorro, Zorro, Zorro, Zorro.




Obviously, this was an American song or the Z wouldn't rhyme with free. As it is, I do not mind Americans at all. Therefore, I can sing this song with a certain joy in my heart. Oh, and by the way, HERE'S A NEW POST! I'm sorry it's been so dreadfully long... It's just that I always have so much on the go that I run out of time for things like this. Well, here I am in any case.


School has been very busy, but I've enjoyed it. We've been having a lot of 'revival' talks and whole whackload of prayer. That's been really kewl to see. All the work there dictates that I will have very little time, and goodness my socks, I should practice my pianoing today too! Yeah, there's a lot of things on my mind... do you know how to tell? You can tell by the observation that I begin to write things down. If I don't do that, I'm not nearly as stressed or anxious.


I'm not in the top of my class by a long shot... But I'm hanging in there and doing my best. I really enjoy the teachers and it's been a lot of fun to get to know them. That's really kewl.


Recently, I've been doing a lot of thinking... heh, and those of you who know me know that it isn't always a good thing! However, I need to start to think of next year. My plan standing right now is to go with VTI this next year. This has been my plan from before I went to NBI, but I would VERY MUCH appreciate prayer on this matter. Finances, social life, school, degrees, work, and education are all pressing matters... By the way, if the person(s) who ever sent me $3000 for school happen to ever read this, thank you with extreme gladness. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard... and I guess I'll have to ask God to bless you since it was so very well concealed. Thank you very much!!!


Missions has been on my heart for a long, long time, and so it's with Venture Teams International that I want to go. They use the arts to spread the gospel, and their role isn't so much church starting, but their purpose is edification, or building up of the church that is already there. I'm up for that, so this is something I hope to do. And if all goes well, I'm going to send off my application in a short while. Tonight I'll see the group and I'll see if I can steal an application from them. :D In the meantime, all I can say as far as the most important things I will need are: Prayer, Prayer, and Prayer.... everything else falls into place when the most important things are taken care of...


In any case, I'm already getting restless. This is missions week coming up to the school there, and wow, there are so many things that I would like to get into. Sometimes I wish there were 3 000 000 of me so that I could join all these missions and touch all the world with God's love. Unfortunately there's only one of me. Therefore I'm going to have to wait of Him until he shows me where he wants me to be. If I can stress one thing to you in this post, I ask you to consider your thoughts on prayer... do you use one when you eat and when you go to bed? Is that all you do? Prayer is the most important thing one can do in the Christian walk, it may seem like foolishness, but time changes that. Prayer is not just sitting there talking to God... Prayer is fellowshiping with Him. It means sitting with Him in silence, it means talking to, it means listening, it means warfare in the spiritual realm, and it means that we can learn to see that God is not the God somewhere in the past or the future. He's the God of now too! I urge you to give prayer some trying and some persistence. It will change your life into something so amazing that only God could have known.


And if in the end you do in fact to decide to pray, please remember our brothers and sisters around the globe who are persecuted and die for their faith... remember to keep this country that is falling apart in prayer...only God can save it now. Keep me in prayer as I try to do what I have been called to...and as you do, I hope I can pray for each of you as well.


It's strange... for the first time in my life, my eyes have been opened to the awesomeness to God as he really is... this is what it was like...


When I was young, people could tell me about the mountains in BC and Alberta, and I was like, 'wow' that would be kewl to see. Later, I finally had the chance to go. Then there finally what I thought was a dark horizon, I realized was a huge line of mountains all of them huge and ominous. That was overwhelming... but then as I got really close, it became that much more real. Then it was like I went and tried to climb one of the mountains thinking that this much be all there is, but then as I reached the top, all I saw were miles upon miles of sharp rocky peaks....... there is so much more to God than any of us can see unless we try. We will never see everything, but as you learn more, you eyes will see more and then you will learn to live a life full of strength, power, joy and love. I'm still learning, but wow, it's great to be learning.




And now may you learn to pray with the one who made you. May you learn to listen to His voice and wait on Him. May he open your eyes to the wonders of Himself...
And let God's grace and peace be with you all!
Keep striving for Christ!!!
-Your brother James

Ok, so I heard this joke....

How do you catch a unique rabbit?
U-neak up on it!!!
How do you catch a tame rabbit?
The tame way U-neak up on it!!!

:D:D:D:D

Oh, and Karina's blog addy is: www.spuddingplace.blogspot.com
:P

Thanx! :D

Hah!

I'm posting on a blog that isn't mine. But you know, I'm testing the layout. Do you want me to change the font, or is it a ok? Oh, and I couldn't recall Karina's blog url. You'll have to change that. Adieu.

essy :D

Spazzing Kumquats!

I finished the 10 page essay... YAY! Now I have to go and read my textbook. Thanx to Essy who I think is perhaps making up a new template... OH! IF you want some good pics essy, ask my sister!! :D Anyways, things have been crazy here... I was up til 4:30am typing that essay cause i haven't been around... We didn't win the soccer tourney, but we won our first game, and then tied Briercrest 4-4 which we lost in a shootout. They cheated... but I'm ok with that now... I mean that will all honesty. ONe of their players for sure tried to take out our goalie from the start of the game and he hurt his wrist. We lost the 3rd game cause we had so little time to rest inbetween. The bethany guys had 3 hours rest, while we had one. Fatigue caught up with us. On the plus side, the Bethany dudes were kind. Not like Briercrest.

Have fun. i'm going now. :D

NBI

Nipawin Bible Institute is located just outside of Nipawin to the south. It is the typical small town, in which at any one intersection, you can't ask whether to turn left or right.... instead, you must ask whether to turn to the extreme right, mild right, slight left or the major left. It makes for interesting road trips.

In any case I'm alive and there is only one computer that lets me update this blog. I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope you have a good day.

P.S. Pray for a friend of mine who is ill. that would be kewl. :D

ATTACK OF THE SAVAGE GREEN DISEASE!

Oh wait... perhaps it's just my allergies. In any case, they make me feel awful. lol. For anyone around here... they can tell you that this drabby weather doesn't help. heh. Have a great day all! And eat all your vegtables.

Art...

It is amazing how God can take the tragic events that plague our lives, and then turn them around into something beautiful... Taking the shattered remains and arranging them into a masterpiece. How he makes things so ugly into things so beautiful is beyond my comprehension...

then again, so is making stars with the sound of one's words.......



'Art in me' by Jars of Clay
Images on the sidewalk speak of dream's descent
Washed away by storms to graves of cynical lament
Dirty canvases to call my own
Protest limericks carved by the old pay phone

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "see the art in me"

Broken stained-glass windows, the fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls, an eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to you in awe once again

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "see the art in me"

Odd...

So a few days ago we had a storm... and some rain.... and then we started to notice a little more of a commotion down on the end of our street. So after we finished our dutch blitz game, we went to check it out.... there was a mighty big puddle on our street that at it's deepest was 3 ft. Ergo, Tim and I went out for a walk :D

Slumber....

I've been having a real big problem sleeping consistantly... and therefore I'm getting tired... I was even able to nap yesterday... that was nice. :)
In any case, I'm hoping to apply at Superstore today. WE'll see how that goes. I've been keeping busy visiting people and getting stuff ready witht the china team. It's been lots of fun and yeah... I'm beat. But all the kinks in my back are gone for the moment... I was treated to a most excellent massage.
aNyways, have fun all, farewell and have a good one!
~Wong-Xu~
~j~

WARRIOR MONKS?!

Alright.... so.... I type up a page of updated stuff... and this thing deletes it...
...
...
...
That makes my blood boil.
...
...
...
WEll, I'll just say that the title is a great oxymoron and things are grand but I need a job. That would be simplified version... ARG.... I don't like computers.
They hate me. O.o

Oh, and that's Randy Friesen (sorry if that's spelt wrong there Randy) and myself after our outing at the great grand wall. :P

xie-jin

Due to popular demand....

I have returned! Not just returned however, but much, much more in fact! I am returned and also blogging. Check that out! :D

It's been nice to be home. I missed some of our culture.... the rest I was saddened to see again. There are so many things that I had almost grown used to seeing, and now they're gone. Thank goodness the smells are gone... :) I'll not forget all the beggars, the poor, the peddlers and the musicians on the streets. And the markets. heh... wow... what fun.

I'm in the middle of sorta getting ready for school, and at the same time thinking of things to do for this last month I have before Bible School. I'm hoping to do some more recording, but I don't know how well that'll go with all the renovations we're doing on the bathroom. It's loud indeed.

Yup, NBI is a go, and it'll be VTI next year Godwilling. Looking forward to it, and I'm gonna be chillin with all the other freakishly scared people starting this year. Like Hannah! :D Are you worried Elly? If so, I shall try not to freak you out too much or too often. Yeah. Ok, well, there you have it, I finally did a real post again. Wong-Xu the great Monk of Antioch has return-ed. WHEE!!!

;)

Morning y'all!

I've returned! heh. I'm going to Calgary this weekend though, so I won't be here... again.. heh, but I'll be back Sunday evening if everything goes as planned.

I'll have to get some pics up when I get them! :D Thanx to all for prayer and contact! :D WHOOT!!

Superman?! Me?!

I think I may have lost 15lbs already... but I'm not sure. It's 10 for sure. So much running and walking running and walking. I just recorded a bunch of children's songs for the teachers here. Songs like, 'Jingle Bells' 'The More We Get together' and... um.... 'If you're happy and you know it'... stuff like that. Ken and I recorded them about 5 minutes ago... well, we a finished about 5 mins ago. That went well.

Everyday is very very busy. I get up, plan, teach the children's group until lunch, then take a mamoo (taxi... sorta) over to the school, and then I have lunch and a meeting there. After that, I play for the 140 adults for about a half hour, teaching them these kinds of songs. Then, I take another mamoo back to the hotel where the kids are being taught and I help teach in the afternoon. Today for example, when that was over, I was motorbiked over to a small house with about 15 guitar players (2 weeks worth of learning) ... wow..... I felt like a celebrity. They asked me to play some songs, I taught them 'You are my sunshine' and then I spoke to them about my family, friends, Country, my bonnie over the ocean, and my guitar playing. What was really wierd was they liked many of the same things I do. I mean, after the whole guitar thing, there was singing... they all LOVE to sing. Ok, and then one of them came and flat out asked me, 'Do you draw?' lol, and laughed and... well, yeah, I guess I do! So she hurried off to get a piece of paper. I drew a mountain scene like I did for you on the back of that card. THey all ooed and ahhed and then started to fight over it... that and everything that I touched almost. I had a bunch of simple old polaroid photos that always get in my way, so I asked if anyone wanted one, and WHOOSH, everyone was there to grab one, and fight over them. wow.... heh... one of them wants me to write out a paragraph for her to read tommorow.

Ok, so at 6:30 i finally dragged myself away from the kids, and 'Elton John' their teacher who so despretely wanted me to come, started taking me to the school on his bike. We got there to find my students who had come for games. However, Elton convinced them to tell me to go for supper with him.... (he speaks NO english).... so, off we go. We found a street vendor that was cooking after driving for 10 minutes and so we stopped there. He ordered stuff and I was told to sit and wait. Soon it came, and I was eating away. ANd wouldn't you know it, I dropped a dumpling... but i didn't hear the little 'ploosh' sound of it landing in the water, I heard the sound of giggling. I looked up, and there are 30 people at about 5 tables staring at me. lol. wow. Ok, so I sit there and ate more, never dropping any. That was kewl. Then another plate came, and i recognized the shape of it. It was fried fish.... like, battered, whole, fish. That kind of fried fish. Whee! Ok. So, i gave a quick prayer and off I went. I wanted to not see them anymore, so I ate them all.... then I ate this other wierd tasting tofu... the good things about the street eating is that when you finish something, they don't cook you more. YOu have to order it. Unfortunately, I forgot Elton was watching, even though he wasn't at the table. So, logically, if I ate them all, I must have REALLY liked them... so he bought me more.... 'NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!!!' I screamed silently in my mind.... blah... oh well, and off I went ... eating more happily fried fish. Then i drove back to the school and had a great time there hanging out with the kids and having the girls of the town call me pretty and beautiful.... O.o
THen I got back to the hotel, walking. That was fun, and lol, THEN i recorded that cd with Ken, and now I'm back to where I started.

WhEw

What a day.... that of course is just the summary. THere was much much more that happened, but would take far too long for me to type everything. One I can mention is that one of the kids' primary leaders, organizers, and head of the team left today for Hong Kong. That means, now I've been promoted. That, and the kids call me superman... but that's another story.

It's been busy. Anyways, I hope you all have a great day, and well, take care!
xie-jin

THIS IS A TEST

If you can read this, drop me a line at

encaitar777@yahoo.com

I NEED TO KNOW!!! BAH!!!
:)

xie-jin
Wung-xu

WONG-XU

THat'd be my new name, 'Rising Sun' (Wong-shuu) :D

It's been..... 4 days i think... oh I don't know anymore...., It's been about 100% humidity... or more, I dont' know it it can be more... if so, it is. We didn't see the sun for the first 3 days (because of the fog in the air....not smog.... FOG... it's VERY humid.) Temperatures have been up around... meh.... 35+ on a rainy day which we've had a few of... and it's more like 40ish when it's sunny. The humid feels worse though.

The food's been good, and I've been given strength everyday to keep going. Currently, I'm in three different teaching groups... sorta. Remember before I was supposed to be just a plain adult teacher? Well, I get here, and I find out that they want this to be very FUN. FUN means music. Gary(17) from BC and I are about all the music talent they have, and lol, he doesn't like to sing that much. Ergo, I do the singing for the teens about 20 of them, every morning now, and then the adults, about 140, in the afternoon at 2. The first day scared me out of my mind, but even though it's very scary, I've been able to do alright with it by my standards, and very well by what everyone else tells me. I have a bit on video already to see what it's like to do what I've been doing. I've met many people, and seen so many things that will take an entire day to explain at all.

Qichun is indeed a village.... and (it's pronouced Chee chwhen) it has about 100 000 people as a lower sided estimate. Ex. Population of Wuhan in books is 7 000 000, but in reality is closer to at LEAST 12 million.

THe bathrooms at the hotel are western, so that's kewl, but at the school, it's the other extreme. It's a trench with a slant, and every so often someone comes with a bucket and sloshes it from one end to the other. Great fun. :P I'll need a good shower when i get back... whew....

Oh, I got a haircut! They shampooed my hair alone, twice, for 20minutes in total. The actual cut took about 40minutes. They did an amazing job.... It's assumed I'm probably the first westerner they've ever seen in their life, ergo, they pulled out all the stops.

Yeah, it's all good. ANyways, Gary's losing to a computer here, so i'd better help him out. Heh. It's Quarter to 8 here, so, goodnight to you all very soon! :D

We're almost here!

Hey everyone! WE're in Beijing, and I was having trouble getting to this blog of mine... it was being... stubborn. WE had a few mishaps, including Tracey losing some luggage. It should soon be with us again. Also, we had a rough landing here in Beijing... a little fast and swerving... lol I enjoyed it... though most did not at all.

THere are so many things that I want to talk about right now, but I want to show pictures, and ... blah, I'm lacking terribly in time. We're leaving for our final flight to Wuhan in a few minutes. After that, we can finally sleep... 25 hours already I've been awake. lol, and it's only 6:05 pm here. It's wierd.

xie-jin
take care all
email me at: encaitar777@yahoo.com

Here is my flight schedule!

July 7th Leave Canada (3ish am from PA to Saskatoon)
July 8th arrive Beijing and meet up with Tracy
July 8th leave Beijing
July 8th arrive Wuhan at about 8PM
July 10th leave Wuhan for Qichun
July 23rd leave Qichun for Wuhan in moring
July 24th leave Wuhan for Xi'an on train in evening
July 25 arrive in Xi'an in morning see Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an
July 25 leave Xi'an in evening by train
July 26 arrive Beijing in morning and check into Hotel - some shopping
July 27 Tiananmen Square and Forbidden city -shopping
July 28 Great Wall and tombs- some more shopping
July 29 Depart Beijing and arrive in Canada again which I think makes it the 28th again

Well, I'm going to bed. I've got 7 hours to sleep. Have fun everyone, we'll see ya all later!! Pray that we have a lack of problems! C.S. Lewis' the Chronicles of Narnia are sweet... I think I'll read them on the plane... :D

xie-jin

THink you're short?!!!!

Lastly for now, that's Drumheller's TREX vs me.... lol. I'm 5'9"ish... that thing is big.

Doodlezing!

That's Spudnik... :)
yeah, I know she looks like Kim Possible... It's done in that style FYI. lol.

Chillin'

Just a kewl pic from Calgary, that's Jason, Debbie, myself, and Chris the youthguy!

Look at all the people!!!

mmmmmemories!

Ok, so there I was...

Sitting in my house when I'm typing to a friend who says it's starting to thunder. It had been so sunny all day, I thought that she was just imagining things... or else that she was just getting different weather on that side of town. But sure enough a few minutes later, I could hear it too. But we had a thing downtown that we were supposed to be at ... a concert of sorts, and now it wasn't going to be outside... because it started to pour. We waited until we were suppsed to leave, at 6:15 or so, and it started to die down,a nd the sun came out brilliantly.

THen it poured.... for about 15 minutes... rained for about 15 minutes.... all in brilliant sunshine... I've never seen anything like that. Over a half out of pure sunshine, sparkling through thousands of thousands of raindrops... That was something wierd. On one side, to the west it was pure blue and bright. Straight above me, White billowing clouds wrestled with the blue sky to a stalemate, and to my right, the east, a dark black and blue sky full of thunder and hail. It was something else.... wow...

haave a good one everyone! xie-jin
I shall be posting up my itinerary soon!

Hey Everyone! THis is my new portrait profile thinger. I just changed the head and made a background available. Have a good one y'all!!! EH!! OH, HAPPY CANADA DAY IN 3 HOURS!!!! WHOOOOO!!!!!!  

Greetings and Ni hao to all!

Well, times is still ticking, and the packing anticipation is catching up to me. Prep has continued along smoothly. Unfortunately I've caught a cold along the way. It's a bit unnerving being that it's the same style of cold that took me 3 months to get rid of last summer. Kinda creeps me out. In any case, I believe everything will work out as it was meant to happen.

On the flip side, today has been slow none the less, and when you're slow you realize there are people that you suddenly miss a lot more than usual. For all those who have felt the same way, I nod and smile in your general direction. ;)

Have a great day everyone!
xie-jin

Exoitment and Anticipation

Well, here I am... 11 days I think are left? Hmm, i lose count on the weekends. The seventh will be soon here and I shall have to find out how good my english and teaching skills really are. Anticipation grows as I look at different suitcases, as I decide which will match best with my watch.

We had my second commisioning service today. (two service weekend, so logically we had it twice) Both times, we had one of our team members gone... but it's never the same person. In fact, we usually have someone gone here or there. It's all good though, and everyone's been learning very hard. I am also happy to announce that we have raised enough funding for the team now.... lol, i think. It may after all turn out to be more than enough. That would be nice to have 12 offering baskets left over to give to people who need it, or to future mission expeditions.

As most of you should know, I am now unemployed. As such, I have plenty of time to write music and pack. I need to do a little more Chinese learning this week, and so I hope that goes well. The rest of my time will be spend on English lessons and projects that go with them.

Please pray that we don't get lost along the way. (It could easily happen being that we're going about 4 groups, but there are only 7 of us.) That'll be fun to find a new person at every stop at every airport.

Pray that we aren't attacked by severely large rodents or bugs as that could be a little strenuous on my energy levels if I must fight them off me to sleep or while I teach english.

Giant Waterbeetles are creepy... But they're fun to watch.

I can't say the same yet for cocroaches sinch I haven't seen one yet.
But I must bid thee Adieu.... I think that's spelt right.

Our family is heading out, so I must go too.
xie-jin and thank you all

THE END!

WEll, so ends my librarian career. Today was the last day of my contract. Farewell books and barcodes. Farewell all!

xie-jin

AUGH!! THE SUSPENSE!!! O.o

Ok... well... I'm now waiting to hear again from my financing plan. Their decision still decides my next few years at least. If they recognize VTI as a proper internship, then I'm going next year.... Otherwise I'll be going this year.

Prayer would be nice. I really don't want to mess up my life for the next few years. ;)

thanx all!
xie-jin

Hordes of Mosquitos.... O.o

Ok, so me and the guys are like, 'Let's go to little red and have schmores!!' Sweet. Ok, so we go! I grab my guitar and some socks and shoes cause I know there are those couple annoying mosquitos... As my title probably forbodes... there were not just a couple mosquitos...

I pulled into the parking lot across from Jami and Graham. They laugh and point above me, and thought they were mocking me, so I mocked them back, but then he, very clearly, pointed OVER my head... so... I looked around. I saw the moon... but nothing else. Finally when i gave up guessing, I opened the door and looked up. To my suprise, there was a swarm of mosquitos hovering right overtop the car.... AUGH! I said, and jumped back inside.

When the others showed up, we finally got out, and the swatting began...

And continued...

Even as we tried to eat those great tasty shmores, the plagued our every move. Two I remember in particular got me well. One on the forhead. One on the Left hand's pinky. Both swelled up pretty nicely. The one on my head was about the size of a silver dollar.... orAbout a quarter x2. My pinky lol... just looked swollen and stupid and felt funny. Most of the swelling has gone down now, but wow... those mosquitos really give me a run for my money. I hear the ones in China are less potent.... I should be hoping so.

In any case, they finally go sick of tormenting us and decided to go to sleep for a few hours. The rest of us, ceasing the opportunity, pulled out the guitars and began to sing. Just then, we were interrupted by a guy who had a car/truck thing. He told us the park was closing in 10 minutes. Simply, we would just park outside the fence before they locked up. Problem was that they already locked off the one we were parked next to.... Therefore, we had to drive all the way through the park, back on to the highway, and then to the outside of the gate we had parked next to. It was good though, and we had another hour of happy singing and fire... and no mosquitos plagued us that time.

That I believe was the end of our adventure that night.... Have a good one people... and remember you bugspray for outdoors. :D

xie-jin

That was scary.... O.o

Ok, so I wake up at 6am for a bathroom break. (normally I don't get up until at least 9) Nobody else gets up until at least 7 or 7:30.... and for the second time in the same week I think... someone else was up.

So I open my door and I'm all dazed and I look up. Standing in the doorway of the recroom, Jenna's looking at me with her white nightgown.... 'AUGH!' I said. 'hahaha' she said. This is the second time she creeped me out like that. Has anyone ever done that to you?

The only way people creep me out is when i know that they SHOULD be somewhere else, and my mind is certain of it... then if they show up somewhere else, I get so lost and confused.

In any case, today I am going to the school, and so heh, that should be good. :D I want to see if I can run into old friends and teachers. :) After that Luke, and Nathan and I suppose myself too, are finishing up Luke's project... I think we have to have Nathan hit by a car.... ;) It'll be fun. At my birthday i did that last time!!! :D

In any case, as of today, I'm leaving in exactly a month. Yup, one month before I leave for China. As such I'm doing a lot of China studying, and a lot of english studying Lots to do. heh. In any case, I hope you all have a great day, and thanx for stopping by to see what's going on in my life. You're great!

xie-jin

Wow... that's amazing!!!

It's incredible the things I've heard from the VTI team that was here in PA. They're leaving for Saskatoon tomorrow. Please keep them in prayer, that God will keep them safe, and that they will be able to share Jesus with people thirsty for Him. (if you want to hear some stories... just ask me!!!..... or preferably, go see them!!!)

Speaking of which... I really need prayer. I'm trying to decide whether to go to NBI this year or VTI.... I know that I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to... and I know that the team here REALLY REALLY REALLY wants me to.... but perhaps.... perhaps that it's just not the right time. In any case, I am very uneasy. I'm already accepted at NBI, so I don't really want to back out... but in that case, pray that God will secure my financial situation and that I'll be able to work with VTI perhaps later.

Anyways, lol, I'm excited to see God work this summer, this fall, the next ten years and tomorrow. Pray that I use my time wisely and for HIS glory, not mine.
Have a great day everyone.
Peace be with you...
xie-jin

If you are bored this weekend...

THE VTI TEAM IS HERE!!!! Well, they will be here soon. At 6pm I believe. In any case, come see the team and say howdy to one of our Prince Albert residents, Karina!! That's her blog in the links park that says, Spudnik. Yeah, so... have a good day, and go see the team! GOoD moRninG by the way! Man do I ever feel sick and loopy.... Crazy allergies.

xie-jin and whatnot