Jamaica

So, I am leaving for Jamaica on Saturday… I can’t believe it’s here already! The last month has been a flurry of prayer and preparation as I have tried to discern what God would have us share with the children who will be attending our VBS. In the end, the theme of our VBS is going to be “God has good plans for you – you can trust in Him”. Most of these kids are coming from broken and abusive homes with little hope for their future yet I believe that God does indeed have good plans for these children and I am excited to share this powerful, life-changing message with them.
Please pray for our team over the next few weeks. We will be leaving on Saturday, June 20th and returning Friday, July 3rd.

Some specific prayer requests are:
- For safe and smooth travel both there and back (no missed connections, etc.) and for health and safety while we’re there.
- For unity within our team – that there would be unity among the s, among the students and among the team as a whole and that our team would be able to be a reflection of Jesus to those around us.
- For the students on our team – that they would see God use them in awesome ways in the lives of those we’re working with, that they would be open to the work that He wants to do in their own lives, and that they would experience God in a more real, more intimate way than they ever have before.
- For the VBS which will be taking place during the first week, from June 22-26; Pray that God would bring out the kids that He wants to be there and that their hearts would be open and ready to hear what He has to say to them. Pray that we would be guided by the Holy Spirit as we teach these kids and that lives would be changed by the power of His word.
- That we would be open to whatever opportunities God gives us to serve / minister over there and that we would be a blessing to those whom we come in contact with.

Our Last Sleepover...

It went really well. We had our biggest number yet with 14 girls and it was a lot of fun. Like I mentioned in my last post, we had a lot of fun activities planned. One of those activities was wall climbing. The girls have been staring longingly at the climbing wall at Terra Nova since our first sleepover back in October and this time they finally got a chance to try it out. They had a great time and I was really impressed with how well they did…

As you know, my goal for this sleepover was simply to love these girls and to celebrate all that we have experienced together over the past year and I think we were successful in accomplishing that. We were able to have a bit of a heart to heart about their behaviour recently and I noticed a huge difference in their attitudes both towards me and towards each other. One girl in particular is definitely the leader of the group and usually the hardest to deal with but she and I were able to connect over the course of this sleepover and I was amazed at the shift in her attitude and so proud of how she stepped up and led the other girls in such a positive way. Finally, during our discussion time we did a brief look back on all that we have discussed over the course of the year and I was amazed at the specific details the girls remembered and at the things that clearly impacted them and have stayed with them over the past months.

Praise God for all He has accomplished in the lives of these girls over the last year, for the impact that has been made and for the many seeds that have been sown! Please continue to pray for these girls and for me as we carry on through the summer; may God continue the work that He has begun in their hearts.

Sleepover This Weekend...

On Friday we are going to be having our final sleepover of the school year and I would really appreciate your prayers… If I’m going to be honest I have to say that the girls have been very difficult to manage lately. The mother’s day dinner was great but the two most recent girls’ group events before that were trying to say the least. As the girls get more comfortable with me they are displaying more and more attitude and disrespect and discipline is becoming a real issue. I want to be both firm and loving at the same time yet it is hard to find the balance. My goal for this sleepover is just to love them. We have a lot of fun activities planned and I am looking forward to celebrating all that we have experienced in the past year. Please just pray that God would give me an unending amount of patience, that He would fill me to overflowing with His love for these girls, that I would have wisdom to deal with whatever issues come up and that we would just be able to enjoy one another and make the most of this last opportunity we have to be together in this capacity.

Thank you – I so appreciate your prayers.

Mother's Day

Just a quick prayer request for this weekend… On Saturday the girls and I are having a Mother’s Day Dinner for their mothers. This is an idea that I got back in the fall and it’s exciting to see it actually happening. There are two purposes behind this. The first is obvious: to honour and celebrate these moms for all the work they do and the important role they play in their daughters’ lives. The second is to provide an opportunity for me to continue to build deeper relationships with these moms. Generally, it is hard to get parents in this community to come to social events and be involved in the lives of their kids outside of the home but, much to my amazement, it looks like all the moms are coming. Please pray that the moms would indeed show up, that they would see how much I love not only their girls but how much I care about them as well, and that this would be a stepping stone towards a greater level of involvement in the lives of these girls’ families.

"The Rescue"

I want to shift gears from Cloverdale for a minute and tell you about another group of people that are very close to my heart… the children of Northern Uganda. For those of you not too familiar with the situation, for over 20 years the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, have been terrorizing the people of Northern Uganda in what has become the longest war in Africa. This conflict has become best known through the “Night Commuters”, thousands of children who would leave their homes in the village every night and walk to sleep in the streets of cities to avoid being abducted from the LRA. Since the war began an estimated 30,000 children have been abducted by the LRA and another 1.8 million individuals have been displaced, forced to flee their homes and take up residence in impoverished, over-crowded Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Peace talks over the last few years have put an end to night commuting and allowed approximately 900,000 displaced people to return to their homes. However, peace talks have since collapsed. Approximately 90% of the LRA is made up of abducted children and while others are slowly regaining their freedom, these children are still out in the bush under the control of Joseph Kony.
This weekend I will be joining about 200 individuals here in Montreal along with approximately 100,000 people in 100 cities worldwide in an event organized by Invisible Children called “The Rescue”

(http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com/). We will be ‘abducting ourselves’ on behalf of the abducted, walking to an ‘LRA camp’ and spending the night there waiting to be ‘rescued’ by local political leaders, celebrities, etc. who will take a stand and make a commitment to take action to rescue Joseph Kony’s child soldiers.
I have not yet had the opportunity to visit Northern Uganda and meet the children there yet when I look into the eyes of the children I have come to love in Jinja, Kampala and Luwero I am struck by the realization that if they lived just a few hours North they too might have been abducted into an army where they were forced to kill even their own families.
Proverbs 31:8-9 says: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." I have committed myself to being a ‘world-class Christian’, to advocate justice for the oppressed and defend the cause of those who have no voice with which to speak for themselves. That is why when I heard about what was happening this weekend I knew this was something I had to be a part of.

If you think of it over the next few days, would you pray about this event that is happening all around the world this weekend? Pray that as people of all different nationalities come together that awareness would be raised, that government would indeed ‘come to the rescue’ and that the day of freedom for Joseph Kony’s child soldiers would not be far off.

THE FOUR POINTS

1 – God loves me;
2 – I have sinned;

3 – Jesus died for me;
4 – I need to decide to live

for God...

It’s called “The Four Points” and it’s an increasingly popular evangelism tool that I learned while with Metro Ministries in New York (for more info check out www.thefourpoints.com/). Anyway, those four points were the basis for our devotion time at Friday’s sleepover and as always, they sparked a lot of discussion. What I love about the four points is how simple and clear they make the message of the gospel and the emphasis they put on our need to make a decision. As we worked our way through each one I saw things click and the lights go on for several girls for the first time as they truly understood, “It doesn’t matter how much good I do, one sin is enough to separate me from God… There really is no way I can save myself… That’s why Jesus had to die…” Still, the spiritual battle was as strong as ever and it was clear that the enemy did not want the girls to hear this message.

Yet God’s promise is clear:

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Please join me in praying that God’s Word that was spoken to these girls this weekend would accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it.

Next Sleepover

Just a quick prayer request… Our next Girls’ Group Sleepover is going to be on this Friday, April 10th. As it is Easter weekend, our discussion time is going to be focused on what Jesus did for us on the cross and the girls will have an opportunity to respond and make a decision to live for God. Please pray that God would begin even now preparing them for what they are going to hear and that they would be open and ready to hear what He has to say to them and make a decision to follow Him.

Thanks, I’ll let you know how it goes!