Saturday, June 24, 2006

Vacation

I'm now a little over half finished my two week vacation, and it has been a blast! I spent the first week with Jordan, and we did all sorts of crazy things together. Camping, Mining, Hiking, Randomly jumping into the lake, Salsa (yes, the dance :S) lessons, going to a fancy restaurant, etc. It was a lot of fun, and a god time to get to know each other a little bit better and talk things through at the same time.

I came to Vancouver yesterday, and have been hanging out with the family ever since. It's a fair bit more low-key than hanging out with Jordan. Current my sister and Carys are both sleeping and I'm watching Argentina and Mexico battle it out in Golden Goal.

Vacation has been incredible. It reminds me how key it is that we take the down time to spend with friends and most importantly God. We so often get busy working ourselves to the bone that we forget to stop and breathe for a bit. This is my breather, and I'm loving every moment.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Youth Retreat and more!

































So it's been far too long, but here is my report on the youth retreat! Things went really well, and while I walked into the weekend exhaughsted from preaching, and walked out the same, God worked! It's awesome to see how He'll take something that I just really feel won't work and makes a difference through it.

































The theme for the weekend was Spiritual Gifts, and God definetely used that. We did some teaching about all the different gifts, some challenges to the youth to find out what their's are, and to start using them. And the responce was powerful!

































On the last day, I had the pleasure to lead them in a discussion of just HOW they could start using their gifts... and they decided that a drop-in would be the best way to utilize them. So this coming year, Kevin will be working on forming a youth leadership team to start getting the drop-in off the ground and running. The key in that will be to make sure it is a youth-led initiative!

































From here on in, I'm no long an intern. I'm leaving early early tomorrow morning to head out to BC for two weeks of vacation after 10 months in my internship... and when I come back Bethel has asked me to stay on as a full-time pastor until December, at least. So as of right now, I'll be working with the children's ministry come the fall, and I'll be just a regular sponsor with the youth!
































It is both an exciting time, and a scary one, as I know that stepping into this role puts me into a position I never expected to find myself in, and have never prepared for. Yet I am also confident that this is exactly where God wants me. So I'll keep on moving forward knowing that God is faithful and will carry me through to the end.
































For now, I plan on relaxing VERY hard over these next two weeks, visiting Jordan and then Lorelei, Paul, Orlando and Carys. It's going to be awesome!

































I trust that God is blessing you also!