[sigh]

dear Lord...
what can i say? i have no excuse. i've tried and not gone through with it. lord, you've given me everything i could ever ask for. why am i still procrastinating?
Lord, i feel like i'm ... i don't even know. i've gotten selfish and egocentric without you. even in here i've said my own name more than yours.
Jesus.......i've gotten angry, annoyed, rude, you know the rest. i need you more than ever, lord. arrg. why can't i just start and keep it going? why don't i feel motivated? maybe that's my problem. maybe it's that "i" am starting instead of You. then may you start it. in your own time, your own place. why does your plan always have to be so different from mine though?? so unexpected, so...surprising.
[sigh]
thank you for listening, Lord. thank you for your love. i praise you for your plan, cuz i know it's always gonna be better. thank you, Lord. thank you.
daniel, et, tcwt, n, s, a,....thank you lord.

dear God...

Make my life a prayer to You...I want to do what you want me to. no empty words, no white lies no token prayer, no compromise. I wanna thank you for the life you gave through your Son that you sent to save us--from ourselves, and our despair. It comforts me to know You're really there.

And i wanna thank you now for being patient with me. oh, it's so hard to see when my eyes are on me! and i guess i'll have to trust and just believe what you say...oh, you're coming again, coming to take me away.

Thank you Lord.

today

wow. this afternoon was absolutely...pure.
on the walk home from school...it was silent. there was no wind at all, and the snow covered EVERYTHING. (even my view)
it was beautiful.
it was pure.
peaceful.
calm.
:)

uh-thor-i-tee

after serious contemplation of the dec 9 tc mandatory devos, "crazy people", i have come to the realization that i've never truly been IN LOVE with JESUS. i always think, yea, God is so great, i love him cuz he's so awsome, and blah blah blah, but yea, i have to say i haven't gotten to know JESUS himself the way i could have.

i've always had a problem with authority. no, i don't get in trouble or talk back....quite the opposite actually. i respect authority so much i can never draw close to them, or see them as friends i can talk to or joke around with.
parents.
counselors.
teachers.
coaches.
Jesus.
as a matter of fact, i'm too polite even to my own friends that i don't get close to them either. that's why i get so boring sometimes...haha. shoot.
i heard a quote once that said something like 'politeness is what kills the relationship' or i donno. k, it definitely wasn't that. anyways, my point is, being polite = saying or hiding things so that the other person doesn't get hurt. which kills the brutal honesty, and hence the relationship...etc etc.
*sigh*
how'd i get here? wasnt i talking about loving Jesus before?
well i figure in order to fall in love with Jesus i have to get to know him in all purity, of couse, so one of my goals for..whenever...is to get to know HIM. just start fresh, finding him on my own instead of getting spoonfed on sundays and friday night bible studies.

remind me of that.

Realize

To realize
The value of a sister/brother
Ask someone
Who doesn't have one.

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother
Who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother who has given birth to
A premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor
Of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one-second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one.
Treasure every moment you have.
You will treasure it even more when you can share it with someone special.

snaw

hey everyone, SNA coming up the 17th, at Richmond Hill Chinese Community church.
http://www.saturdaynightalive.ca

saving memories

semi-post...

a lot of time i realize that whenever something happens, i "save" it to tell certain people, and hide it from others. am i the only one?

lately....
-i think i'm learning how to juggle. not really, but trying. (wes found juggling balls somehow) haha, by the next time someone asks me, i'll be like, juggle?what? give me a soccer ball!

-Ranger reunion on saturday/sunday....shopping and eating [nonstop] and watching slideshow of camp, and oh! watched part of the first season of OC, (cmon, who in the world would ACTUALLY be as pretty as those people)...but i guess i didn't enjoy it as much as i could have, cuz i was tired and didn't realy want to go, so i didn't try to enjoy it. it was ok catching up with people though. ah! and the girl's house i was sleeping over at, she had this very..friendly dog. we were sleeping in the basement, and the dog kept coming over and crawling all over the matresses...bleh, dog hair EVERYWHERE. on a lighter note, the dog was really cute. hehe.

-sunday didn't go to church. hmm i already miss it.

-got home on sunday, had tc worship. it was great! yea go fruit roll-up fights. hahaha.

-haven't been doing homework really. as a matter of fact, i'm not really caring about school much anymore...or going to uni either. arrrggg. this sucks.

-haven't been doing devos lately either. i need God...i need to spend more time with him! it's like having a wonderful, faithful, perfect friend, and only talking to him once in a while. preferring computer or blogging over him. (mental note: PRIORITY) maybe i'll stop all hw/msn-ing/blogging/whatever else at 10:30 every night, and spend some time with Him. that way i'll sleep earlier too. =)

x-structure

That's right.

on second thought...

...the passion concert wasn't so awsome because of the music itself, but because of the thousands of people worshiping together. just the sight of everyone with their hands raised singing to God...WOW. (ok i admit it, hubes triggered the thought)

winter+passion

or passion in the winter. haha. passion for GOD, ANYTIME! yay!
"Teach me your way, O Lord, that i may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." -David, in psalms 86:11
hmm...what does "fearing" mean? why would an undivided heart cause you to fear God? i'm thinking fear as in respect.....??

i came here so many times and was about to blog, but laziness won me over. you see, i emailed a huge email to some cr friends about passion concert and didn't want to write it all over again.....so here's the email. yes, i copied and pasted. haha. by the way, it's the best time of the year in costa rica, really nice and sunny, but not humid. mmmmm....i'm thinkin BEACH right now. i can almost smell the saltwater.....

i'm with all the really cold winter'ed ladies....like 10 cm of snow just fell LAST NIGHT!!!! and we had to walk to school in all the coldness, and all the stairs at the school were wet and dirty and not quite safe. oh it's a sight to see when everyone's in their winter gear, but sweating underneath it all. hahaha. and goodness those tukes, messes your hair so badly and, yes, so static-y!! haha i tried combing my hair back down with my hands, but forgot they were gloved, and it just made it stick all the more to my face and whatever else it could get in touch with!! (my hair, i mean). happend the other day, i went to a concert with a couple friends....oh!! I WENT TO MY FIRST CONCERT you guys!!!

it was absolutely amazing, it was passion concert. (passion is group of 3 christian bands, chris tomlin, charlie hall, david crowder...donno if you've heard of them, but we sing a lot of their songs in the church. have you heard of "indescribable"?? GREATEST SonG EVER!! or "how great is our God", GREAT song too. anyways. they travel doing evangelistic stuff. our concert was FREE cuz they saved up the offering from other concerts to come to toronto. they're from the states,by the way.) wow long parenthesis. ANYWAYS, as i was saying, it was ABSOLUTELY AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i felt it was way more than just a concert....there was a message and louie giglio (ok, now i'm just throwing names out there) got the whole crowd to do prayer triangles, and just oooo it was amazing!! the whole concert was to remind us of how GREAT, how BIG and how AWSOME our God is! louie showed a whole lot of photographs of galaxies and just...HUGE stuff. we're merely a speck of dust in the universe!! or, not EVEN. we're like...nothing. "just a passing wind" (or something like that)

he was showing us pictures after pictures of different galaxies...guess what? they were shaped like an eye! "now tell me God isn't watching you!!" so neat! and at the very end, he showed us a picture of the greatest, most beautiful galaxy that was the farthest out of them all---a picture of jesus on the cross. GIGANTAGEOUS cheer from the crowd! SO TRUE though....he showed a photograph of a whirlpool galaxy way out there somewhere,(31 million light years away, i looked it up just now) and said how there was this x-void thing in the center of it......and it was in the shape of a cross. how AWSOME is THAT!!! NOBODY can say the earth isn't filled with HIS GLORY!!! :D

ah, well, school isn't so bad now, i'm getting to know people better (hah after two years, shame on me) and stuff. ummm oh!! our school's athletic council is starting a indoor soccer league!! hoping to round some people up to join.....how i miss the indoor soccer!! :D man i can't wait to get out of the snow though! sure, it's lovely, but gets ruined so quickly by dirt and cars. sigh. how fragile.

it's like our lives...so fragile. and even though we start out so pure, we get ruined by the things of the world we live in. very quickly. and if we try to keep it sheltered from the mud of the world, it'll just melt away anyways. um. i donno how the melting relates to our lives. just a thought!

hmmm i'm in art right now and supposed to investigate Cubism.....

lately i've been thinkign about how a lot of worhsip songs sounds like love songs...actualy, cuz eva noted it during tcwt. and the words Jesus or God or even terms like forgiveness or sin or calling.....they sound so silly to truly be believed in nowadays. like, if i say, 'i trust that Jesus has called me to share His love with you', well, people are gonna think i'm nuts.

but then...if i'm afraid to talk about Him here on earth, what will i say when i stand before the Lord?? and, by the way, i think the songs we sing ARE love songs...cuz we have a love story with Jesus.

diay

por ninguna razon en particular, quiero escribir en espanol. lastima que no tengo tildes en este compu. jaja, pues entonces espero que puedan leer las palabras correctas. de todos modos, no creo que muchos de mis leyentes puedan entenderme.

Costa Rica...mi patria querida. quiero volver pronto, la extrano tanto! claro, extrano mas los amigos que la tierra. si que los extrano. :( se que mas de 3 de mis amigos van a volver para la navidad, y planeaba ir yo misma, pero busque los tiquetes demasiado tarde. ayayay... mis espanol esta pesimo. jaja! anyways, se que Dios proviene, y si El quiere que yo vaya, abrira puertas. talvez la proxima vez que volvere a verlos sera cuando estemos en el cielo...con Dios mismo.....

una amiga me dijo una vez: "Como misioneros, muchas veces no tendremos un lugar que llamamos 'hogar', sino nuestro hogar esta en el cielo."

Perdonen mi espanol, no he practicado en anos.

Today

..... is someone's birthday.
........ someone celebrated the birth of a child; today someone mourned the death of a loved one.
........ someone died. A grandpa, a friend, a son, a mother.
.......... a mother watches her child die.
....... a friend is betrayed.
..... someone's heart is broken.
......... someone is suffering.
....... someone is starving.
....... tomorrow it could be you

grrrrr....last night i was so angry--at certain people, at myself, at the situations around me....
i tried praying, i told God everything that was on my mind..or did i? i kept imagining myself venting out on other people instead of God. almost as if God isn't tangible enough to me...i don't feel like He's gonna answer, or respond right away. don't get me wrong. i BELIEVE he will, in his own time and way, but i don't FEEL it. i like the human way of talking and getting comments right then.
...............
or is it that i don't truly believe enough that he's there and present?? is that why i always pray for his presence?
Lord.....Master....

ah! guilt kicks in again. even here, even when i say the Name, i think of people reading this and what they'll think. *sigh*
============================================
i've been reading other people's blogs, and hearing sunday messages; they're all saying the same thing: slow down, breathe.
maybe everyone else is learning the same thing i am. or maybe i just think i'm learning it cuz everyone else is. oh whatever.

anyways...i've been so busy with stuff, that i hardly take a moment to have a good conversation with anyone. so rushed nowadays, yet so lazy. but that's no the point. i haven't gotten to know anyone better...i'm too focused on other tasks and being a 'leader', that i don't take the chance. and when i do, i kinda just shy away from it cuz i'm a bad conversationist anyways. rarely had a conversation without breaks. darn i hate talking. i hate not knowing what to say, not having a good comment for something. or not making people laugh.
i love making people laugh, cuz then i feel accepted.

talking about acceptance.....another thing i've realized is that i'm never gonna really be a part of this...world. this culture. i don't know what to talk about, i don't do the same things people do. i don't find getting drunk or gambling or watching family guy something to laugh about or to be proud of.

and talking about family guy...(i know this is gonna offend a lot of people--you can yell at me later, whatever)....i don't see how God-loving, children of light can watch it. do you even dare to think of God when it's on?? i mean, just LOOK at it!!! it's disgusting--the jokes, the type of humor--why do you watch that CRAP??? i see why this world is called a "perverse world".

maybe i'm insensitive to the influence and the way people are raised here, and maybe i'm just overreacting against a "fine" show, or extremely sheltered and too narrowminded. maybe it's that i've only watched one show (ironically, during a church softball bbq)and shouldn't judge so quickly, and maybe i'm being obnoxious and entirely wrong. probably all of them. but maybe i'm simply more aware of the devil's traps against us. oooh...i feel like a preacher. but grr, everytime i see it or hear of it...it just makes me mad.

[silence] *sigh*

i'm usually a people pleaser, never try to offend anyone, not even my family. i guess today's an exception. and i cant say sorry this time, cuz i mean every word of it.

i'm so out of it. am i just....wrong??

more stuff!!!

oh yea!! and one of the uruguayan missionaries that steve hawkins was introducing...she said she was living in costa rica!! got so excited!! hehehe :D man i miss that place.

and the clock on this thing was really wrong.....

weekend + stuff

this last weekend was both tiring and AMAZING!! daniel, teens missions night, church of course.......i spent most of any time left over doing my art homework. so proud of it!! :D we had to do this photorealism thing, and i stupidly picked a pretty detailed thing of a house. took well over 10 hours i htink, altogether. haha maybe i'm just a slow worker. did i mention that before?? well...i'm the slowest [home]worker you'll ever meet. IF we have met. ah whatever donno what i'm saying.

bible study at fellowship on prayer...great discussion group :) it was on matthew 6 (don't remember the verse) said something like "when you pray, go to your room and shut the door." prayer is such an intimate thing...like talking to a best friend, talk about anything, anytime....you know how sometimes you just want to get away from everything else and talk to your friend about stuff that's going on...even jesus went away by himself to talk to his Dad. something that i find really great is how some people make it so personal by saying, "Hey Jesus,.." or "Papito.."(which means Daddy) It makes it that much more personal...and real.
oh, and i think worship went great, yay!!! so proud of the team....

TEENS MISSIONS NIGHT!!!!! aw it was so great! i can't believe none, i mean NONE of the ETers went except for me and wes. how sad. :( but it was absolutely awsome, the speaker , steve hawkins, spoke about missions...being EXCITED about the word of God, and prayer, and all that has to do with God. no emabrassed, ashamed of it....but grasping every opportunity to show it. every time we leave our home, or our church...we enter our mission field. i remember that for a while ET had the sign "weclome to your mission field" posted on the doors. so true!!

well it was also the first time the tc worship team got to lead together.....so much spirit of worship!!! the "heart of worhsip"...it was there! i could see it in the faces and in the sound of the congregation. or would you call it a congregation? *shrug*

oh haha we were there at 1 (or 1:30, if it was me) and when we went out to get dinner, we realized there wastn' enough time, so we took it all to go. the waitress gave us a huge box of all our food...haha and hubert (tcwt leader) payed. hahaha the waitress kept calling him "dad". anyways, so we couldn't eat our dinner til after the meeting, which was around 9-ish...but i STILL didn't get to eat cuz we didn't know if we were going out or whatever, everyone just took their own food...since i was sharing with 3 lovely ladies they took the food. and we went out to this bubble tea place that smelled really smoky...aw i felt so bad for the owners. we went in there and said there'd be about 15 people coming, but as they were organizing the tables we just left. (well told them of course. but still aww) we went to this other bubble tea place and the service was quite s l o w....but i didn't order anything anyways. like 4 of the orders were canceled for no reason at all...how silly of them. never go back there again. or at least with less people. haha. so i STILL didn't get to eat until i got home around 11:45. i hadn't eaten since breakfast...that's a big thing for me, not eating!! ayayay.

well then i find sleeping is a big thing too...need to get more of it!! 11:17 pm.
(chatting with david...
me: so what have you been learning?
d: i need to sleep more!!
m: well i need to too, so gonna go sleep.
d: me too latez
m: good thing, applying what you learned!!
hahahahha)
11:21 pm...told you i'm slow.

Tagged!!

oh no!! i got TAGGED!!

Rules of the game: Post 5 Weird and Random facts about yourself, then at the end list the names of 5 people who are next in line to do this. Also leave a post on their blog space to let these people know.

here goes....see if you can beat my wierd and random facts hahaha

1. I make faces at myself in the mirror just for a good laugh :P

2. i smoked an REAL indian peace pipe before!! you see, when i was at ranger camp we went to a native healing lodge and sweat lodge (named accurately, it was a sauna that we sat in for about 2 hours, literally dying in there!!) and afterwards they passed around a peace pipe since it's tradition, and it went around TWICE since they couldn't finish the tobacco, so since i refused it the first time i puffed it the second time just to say i did it.

3. Sometimes, just sometimes, i'm so conscious of my thoughts that i'm afraid people can see them in a thought bubble over my head. (no kidding!!!)

4. in sports, i can do awsomely at practices and think that i have it down perfect, but i can never apply what i learn to real games. *sigh* i hope it's not the same in my spiritual life!!

5. in my spare time alone, or when i'm utterly bored, i think of wierd and random questions i can ask people (once upon a time i played a game called the "onion game", kind of like hot potato but you pass around an onion. whoever it lands on, one of the people beside him/her get to ask 'em whatever question they want. )
for example: "HONESTLY, do you admit to your farts??"
"what's your biggest contribution to your family?"
"if you had a massive, annoying booger in your nose and you HAD to pick it, would you eat it or wipe if off on your clothes?"
"what's your ideal date?" (haha miss congeniality: 'um, i think may 27, because it's not too hot and not too cold and all you have to wear is a light jacket'....and i think i got the date wrong ...anywho)

that was fun. now, darren, matt, ada, hazel, (uh oh i don't know any other blogs...*shrug*) ...YOU'VE BEEN TAGGED!!! hahahahahahaha.....feel free to answer any of my questions in YOUR wierd and random facts.

jumble of lessons learned

i find i get more bloggable thoughts/ideas when it's later in the night...anyways...

"...He loves us not because of who we are, but because of Who He is."
Go ahead, read it again! It really struck me when i heard those words of a newsboys song (i think). And all this time i thought WE might have had a little part in his reason for loving us!...i mean, sure, he created us and all...but no, that's not the reason he loves us. it's because of who HE is: all in all magnificent, powerful, tender love incarnate!! <--(is that the right word? hmm) and leading back to alfred's message today...if we could only catch a GLIMPSE of who HE really is we'd be satisfied forever! changed, renewed, awed...
and "maybe what we need is not for God to CHANGE our circumstances, but simply to catch a glimpse of him...and change US!!"

BE A MOON!! that's right....be a Moon!! we're not meant to be stars, not meant to be the ones shining the radiant light of love, we're only meant to REFLECT the SON's light!!! (haha, sun/son, how perfect. i wonder some times if God planned the words to be like that so it'd be understandable at our human level of intelligence) psh, what, beacons?? "make me a MOON!!!!"

i saw this on a billboard thing outside a church:
TO PREVENT BURNING, EXPOSE YOURSELF TO THE SON.

forward that made me smile

European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

a theory that ought to be slapped

i've developed this theory in my mind, that whenever i have a good time at school, i won't have such a good time at fellowship, and vice versa. it also 'applies' to church and tc worship now.
(allright by now you're probably saying, "what?? how in the world...?")
and the more i believe that, the more it happens. as hard as i try to have fun and have a good time in one or the other, it always seems as if one is better and one is worse. i know i'm not supposed to look at it this way, but it's hard not to, now that the theory is drilled into my mind.

however, there are times when the theory doesn't apply. those days are when i'm either extremely happy or just feeling..bleh. There was one time that i remember really well when the happy one occured. I'd been a bit bleh for a while, so i asked God for happiness. i know this sounds silly, but believe me, it's a GREAT FEELING. and what all peoples have longed for for ages, i had for a couple days. (not that people now don't have it, it's just that, well i hadn't had it for a while...and that sentence sounded very poetic.)
so anyways, that was when i was just entirely happy all day, just enjoying every bit of the day. (as an afternote, i realized that in my 'happiness' i wasn't glorifying God, really. i figured that my 'happy' just led me to talk a lot more...hence the feeling i had a really good time. so God took it away and showed me the REAL happiness that comes knowing him)

there are plenty of times where the theory didn't apply because i was feeling bleh. today was one of those days....but what i've realized now is that i've been measuring my happiness by how much i talk. (if you've ever noticed, i talk A LOT less when i'm sad/feeling down) oh my. How depressing. that's no good... (concerned.......)

jesus......

praise = strength

Psalms 8:2
"From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise..."
Praise had a superscript letter on it-- and it said "strength". Hmmm. Praise. Strength. It goes on to say, "...because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

PRAISE IS STRENTH!!!! It's by praising God that we silence the devil and his tempations, burdens, troubles, etc. WOW!! Just by praising God we overcome so much!!

Take Job, for example. so much stuff happened to him that would make anyone give up any hope God. Yet he persisted in praising God, and he OVERCAME.

Remember that song "You have turned my mourning into dancing, You have turned my sorrow into joy....This is how we overcome, this is how we overcome..."

Keep praising God, he commands us.

happy thanksgiving!!

sunday i got to meet the tc worship team for the first time..quite amazing experience, i have to say. there are 8 of us, 6 girls and 2 guys-3, including worship leader. (girl power! but not too much..we were out-talked by the guys--by FAR)
we did introductions and a get-to-know you game, then bible study, which took up most of the time. it was on Acts:2:42-47, the fellowship of believers. what really stood out the importance of humility on this team, it was clear that there was absolutely NO ROOM FOR PRIDE. the leader, who was also the interviewer, told us how if they saw a hint of arrogance or pride in the interviewee, they stopped the interview and immediately put them on the "cut" list. tc worship was BIG in tc, you're basically idolized for 2 days....no need to add on to that. and it really takes the focus off what it's all about. since we're bringing people into the presence of GOD, we should look and feel SO small!!
an example of humility--the guitarist for chris tomlin. he's amazing at what he does, but everytime he has to play a solo or a part he backs away instead of, say, jumping up and down at the front of the stage.
prayer and fellowshiping-accountability and sharing- was also stressed a lot. the people on the team...you could just tell that they were so spiritually mature and had that fire for God. i was like...WOW. and being able to talk/share with them, you both grow so much!! i can't wait to get to know these people better, to get to know GOD better!
i was expecting it to be hardcore practice, but that's far, far from truth. we spent over 2 hours on bible study and getting ot know eachother, and about 35 mins praying in pairs. at the end we only did a little singing with just the guitar. it really brought the focus back to jesus.

after that, i went to the oracles dinner. i don't know if i really should have gone...i almost felt as if i were intruding on their thanksgiving together, since it's not like i ever got to play with them or get to know them as well as they did eachother during the summer. maybe it's just that...oh i donno. i can't imagine all that i missed!! but it was fun, in any case, with a lot of volleyball (how ironic, it's a softball team), and a lot of FOOD. if anyone wants mash potatoes for the next two months, feel free to raid the church fridge! the food was abundantly good, there was the stubborn beef that took jon 10 mins to cut and 10 more to chew, haha. there was, of course, turkey and stuffing, corn, croissonts (spelling?),string beans,.....ooh and apple pie and ice cream later in the night. good stuff. i took it home :)

anyways, i wil continue working on my homework. pray for me!! i have a calc test tomorrow. and physics and bio tests and 2 essays later this week :P

why am i so busy on weekends???

my schedule this weekend:
Friday: sinsperation practice @ 6, and fellowship til 10 at least
Saturday: Katsu sushi @ 11, tims ordination @ 2
Sunday: church, tc worship from 2-5, maybe oracles dinner, maybe go to orillia for family thanksgiving dinner
Monday: come back from orillia, do homework? i have a calc. test the next day.

!!!!!

i was just catching up with my best friend who's in costa rica now. it was so exciting!! just to tell her about all the things that have been happening in my life, and ask her about what's been going on in hers ( i was emailing). i just couldn't stop typing!!! although i eventually did, and decided to write her snail mail in continuation of the letter. nothing like catching up with an old friend that you haven't talked to in the longest time.

my point is, if only i could be just as EXCITED , or even more, when i tell jesus about what's happening in my life!! to LOOK FORWARD to just talking to him, telling him about what's going on, and not just ask for stuff when i pray!

another friend of mine was sharing once, how instead of calling a FRIEND right away when something great or horrible or anything happened, to call on GOD. "God's throne or the phone!"

still keeping that in mind...

this sunday was the first practice for the new daniel singsperation team. (we're not allowed to call it worship cuz worship takes a lot of other forms) it was unnecessarily long and only somewhat accomplishing, i feel, since i was leader, but i think it was because of my unpreparedness. we were missing a guitarist and i'd picked out the songs that morning. during the practice we had so many suggestions that we never settled for anything..though i guess that could be a good thing. i've resolved to be more encouraging. i realized that i hadn't encouraged the team once, how shameful of me. in all the worship team's i've been in, the leader was soo encouraging and knew exactly what to say/do.......
when i got home later, after actually playing the songs through, for once, i came up with a more concrete order of songs and stuff....my great accomplishment. or is it? we won't know until practice on friday.

pray for:
-the danielship: new leaders, new year, (all new!) sinsperation teams: attitudes and purposes in check, work well together, GROW together
-discipline! so i won't be so lazy and procrastinate and stay up really...er, early
-decision of where to go after high school....been thinking about nursing- it's more beneficial to people and would be more useful in the mission field and anywhere else, instead of journalism or design.

what is worship??

i couldn't answer that question this morning at the interview. (i couldn't answer any of their questions, for that matter). but the most basic, essential question of all- what is worship?
all this time i've been busy with 'worship', and i don't know what it means??is it becuase i'm not fully convinced of my purpose as a worship-er?? or just that i don't take action? maybe the hurried duty of it hid the real meaning. i began to see it as people in front leading other people to SING. whatever happened to the bowing down, giving all the time, all the focus to Jesus?? when you worship something, you're infatuated with it, you're obsessed and focused on it, willing to sacrifice for it, you admire it more than anything else. worship is a time to be obsessed with God!!
i love it when lightbulbs come to my head..."God moments" :) Thank you Lord...Master..make my life a worship to you!
There's this song i kept thinking of on the way home from interview:
Make my life a prayer to you, i want to do what you want me to
no emty words, no white lies, no token prayers, no compromise
i wanna thank the life you gave through your son
you sent to save us from ourselves and our despair
it comforts me to know you're really there.

and i wanna thank you now for being patient with me
oh it's so hard to see when my eyes are on me
and i guess i'll have to trust and just believe what you say
oh you're coming again, coming to take me away

busy busy!!

wow i've been so busy lately and i don't even realize it. especially on weekends...at least these weekends-- daniel committee, sunday worship, children's worship...homework...oh, and saturday (24th) morning i have an interview for tc worship. so for those of you who are reading this before that happens, well, pray for me. that's at 11 am, and then at 3:30 i have to go for a dental appointment. (haha imagine having to go for the interview right after a dental ...and they made you sing too. )
anyways, with all the worship stuff going on, it robs me of my standard 8-10 hr sleep. and i find i'm tired a lot and break out in pimples haha! after doing homework til 2 on thurs night, next morning i woke up at 8:20 am for school. 8:20!! but haha i still got there on time. good thing my locker's close to the homeroom. talking about school, i joined the art council and christian fellowship too. now why did i join art council and add onto my responsibilities load?? i donno. why not it looks better on the record.
aaah, ok, maybe this is why i don't get my sleep...it's past 1 am now
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

just words?

what if all i said before were just words?? sure, i long to have a missions experience and bringing people to jesus and all that, but am i just dreaming? when i heard about rangers, i thought, what an awsome mission trip that would make! a camp where i can work and be with girls my own age, it's perfect! but what happened...i sank into their ways.
suppose it's because God had other plans, i learned other things from it.

but what about just leaving people behind? dwelling on old friends and stuff hinders making new ones....how could i ever leave for so long? well actually, i guess university would be the same, going away for a long time. lose-lose, unless it comes down to toronto universities.

anyways, about leaving people behind....i'm reading the Left Behind series right now, and the church doesn't seem to have the 4th book, Soul Harvest. does anyone have it so i can borrow?? anyone?

wow i'm really bad at this blogging thing.....

school's been going on for two weeks now, first two weeks of my 12th grade year! yay! but there's still so much longer to go...can you believe school uses up almost 10 months of a year?? sigh...
arg then all those decisions come...where to go, what to study, hm, what do i wanna be when i grow up? darn those decisions, i hate having to make decisions. but then it would stink to have someone else decide what your life will be.
my options right now are kinesiology, journalism, some kind of art or design, maybe industrial design or architecture or somthing. or i could take a year or two off of school and do missions aboard the Logos, a ship that sails around the world doing missions and selling Christian books. the missionaries have to raise their own support, though, which is a lot if you're gonna travel for a whole year. they have their own duties on the ship, for example, cooking, or engineering, outreach, etc. it sounds so exciting-- i got to visit the ship when they stopped in costa rica, and met missionaries from france and japan and nepal, etc etc. and they told us that that year they went to germany, brazil or argentina, and some country in europe...norway or switzerland or something of the sort. anyways, imagine all those people from all over the WORLD coming together and ministering all over the world!! how amazing is that?! i went to ranger camp and met people from other places in ontario and it was already so amazing...imagine the GLOBE coming together!!
There was this other program too, called Katimavik.It got people from different provinces, about a group of 12 or so, and they go to three different provinces for 9 months to work, staying in each for 2 months. no wait, that doesn't work out...well anyways that's not the point. they work for charity organizations in the provinces, but they don't really get paid- only about $3 a day and at the end of the nine months they're awarded $1000. all living and eating expenses are paid for by the government, though. great work experience. so i'm considering that too...the only downside (is that right? shrug) is that there probably wont be a church community around for support. spiritually, i mean. if i could barely go two months, what would 9 do to me???
anyway....i'll stick with high school for now. i challenged myself to enjoy this year, and so far, it's good i think. :)
daniel fellowhsip too, i don't know if i'm prepared to be a leader. i've always been more of a follower, and whenever i am a leader i tend to bring attention more to myself than to God. i pray for humbleness. for his spirit, for guidance.

the other point of view

going back to ranger camp, although it was a great learning experience and i got to know a whole lot of people, it was very spiritually depressing. being the first time i've been in a nonchristian community, it was hard to stay focused on God and take a few minutes to talk to him. praying at mealtimes slowly faded, as did my awareness of, well, ungodly thoughts. sure, i had a christian roommate, but unfortunately never got the chance to talk to her about it. or anything else, for that matter. mentioning the name "Jesus" seemed awkward on my tongue, and the "God" that i heard was an outburst of exasperation instead of awe. *sigh*
coming back to church and hearing prayer said aloud was kind of inspiring in a way, but it sounded really wierd. and saying a prayer aloud was even wierder. well, i have to admit, since the camp, i've never appreciated christian community more. having encouraging people around is SO comforting!!!

RRRRain-jer camp!!!

8 weeks, 10 hrs from home, with 18 other 17-year olds, working in the bush...an AMAZING experience!!! oh, ranger camp, place of many memorable moments, hehe.

On the way to the camp, there was this punkish looking girl sitting diagonal to me, (kind of scared of her) figured she was a ranger too, since we were the only ones that got off at Thessalon after 10 hours of bussing. "hey, uh, are you a ranger?" "uhm, yea, are you??" "YEA, at McCreight's?!" "YEAA!!!!" "YEA!!" *low five and a hug*

well, plenty of WHMIS, tool, Safety& Harassment, first aid, etc etc trainings, ALL WEEK LONG. they actually had a classroom set up!! more education days to come every friday, but those were more interactive. work = clipping trees and trails, mostly. there was a 4 day canoe trip where we just cleared portages. our supervisor drove for over 2 hours looking for the trail that led to the lake, and when we found it we discovered that gigantuous vans and canoe-racked trailers really CAN climb trees!!! hence, on the way back 8 of us dragged the trailer halfway through the trail....


more to come later it's late and my gramma's yelling at me to leave!!! hehehe.....