Loving life with Jesus

             Miriam Adeney says that “ You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That's the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place”. I can not agree more with this statement, and I can see it becoming more relevant the more places I go to. A piece of my heart lies in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and now Nicaragua, and the longer I am here for, the more I feel at home and attached to the people. I guess that is why they say its a price you pay for loving and knowing people, because it sure does not feel good to have to say goodbye, not knowing when you will ever see them again, always having a piece of you that longs to go back. This week, we moved into a little village house to become immersed into their everyday life and learn how to live the way they do. This was a huge step for me, throwing me way out of my comfort zone, putting yourself into a survival m...

                                 And just like that, I am in Nicaragua, already done my first week. This past week has been full of stressful and unexpected but also amazing things. We have seen so many new sights and parts of this culture, giving me such a bigger picture of how amazing God has created this world! The volcanoes, all the different kinds of trees and plants, sunsets, and city structures have just been breathtaking to see! Nicaragua really is such a beautiful country. But coming here has also come with a lot of struggling and culture shock. I have heard of how different these parts of the world are compared to North America, but never really understood it, until now. When you go to living down with some of poorest people, your perspective gets completely changed on what life is really about and how rich a lot of us actually are. Driving down a road, where half of the traffic is people, car...

                                                                                                                    It is so surreal that I am sitting in 25 degrees weather right now, with palm trees right outside our house! We have just completed 3 days of traveling to Nicaragua and have made it all the way to Los Angeles. Me, along with three other young adults who are also doing this year long internship through the Youth Farm Bible Camp, started off our trip with driving all the way from Rosthern Saskatchewan to Idaho USA on our first day. Day two of our trip, we drove through Utah, and stopped to hike parts of Zion National Park, which was just breathtaking to see! We than drove into Las...

Street lights shine into the darkness of the night all around the city. Above, the sky is sparkling bringing off the radiance of perfection, but down below, I don't see perfection, but pain and brokenness everywhere I look. I see broken families, wounded hearts, addictions, homelessness, lost souls looking for some comfort, but unsure of where to find it. Hunger coursing through their bodies, holding on to the little belongings they posses.  Most of my life, I have been pretty sheltered from a lot of things, including homelessness. You briefly see a homeless person sitting alongside a building, but most times you pass by not thinking much of it. A lot of the darkness is hidden away from the eyes of the public throughout the main streets you drive or walk on everyday. When you don't intentionally go out looking for the people who are living on the streets, you won't see it and most times it will get pushed to the back of our heads.  I was given the opportunity to go out with...

  Everyone has giants in their lives that come and knock on their doors, threatening to take away their confidence, peace, and happiness. Even though the giant, Goliath, that David faced in the bible was a real human being, our giants are not humans but rather things like, fear, doubt, insecurity, habits, etc. These giants, when we are confronted by them, can seem larger and scarier than they really are. It may seem impossible some days to stand up and fight against them especially when they have been a part of our lives for so long. But no giant we ever face is too big for God, because the giants before us will never be greater than the God who is beside us. God is always standing with us, fighting for us every single day of our lives, and too many times we forget that we have the creator of the whole world fighting our battles for us. Deuteronomy 3:22, "For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory" . When w...

  Our world is full of fear, and that fear can rub off onto us without us even noticing. It creeps up like an animal looking for its prey, and jumps at the right moment when we are vulnerable. We need to always be on the look out for devil so we can be prepared for when he tries to attack us. There are so many different tactics that the devil will use to attack us with, but one very common one is fear, and especially in our world today, we can see it everywhere we look. The amazing thing is, we do not have to allow that fear to affect us because we have a weapon against it, and that weapon is faith. In the bible, God promises us that we can trust Him that He has everything in control, and will only do what is best for us, even when we may not see it sometimes. When Satan takes that fear and plants it into our heads, he is trying to control us and make us believe that God is not in control. We can either allow him to have the satisfaction of winning us over, or block him out and fil...

  I can not believe that it has already been 8 months since I started Bible School and now I am living back at home again. These past 8 months, I had my life planned out for me and did not have much to worry about. The thought of leaving scared me, because my future is unknown and I would be leaving what is comfortable to me and all the people I love. After living in this amazing place, I thought that moving back home would mean I would be downgrading back to how my life was like a year ago before I went to Bible school. These past few weeks I have been wrestling a lot with this idea, and God turned that idea I had and flipped it around to show me how I should view this change in my life. God showed me that living a life with Him is never downgrading, and even though it may physically look like I am downgrading back to my old life, I am different internally and can take this change and have a whole attitude and perspective on life. God is bringing me back home for a reason to...