I Learned Something Today

Today was an interesting day to say the least. I was supposed to go out for coffee with a guy I know from the Flood this morning. We have been trying to connect for a long time. Since he works in Sherwood Park and that is where I was going to be in the afternoon, I schedualled a time with him.

But he didn't show up.

That ranks extremely low in my books and I was none too pleased. But the odd thing was the barrista working at the Sherwood Park Starbucks said to me when I walked in, "You're Kayle and you go to Harvest!"

I said, "Who are you and how do you know this information?"

Turns out she and her husband visited Harvest on and off for a while and remembered me. The story get's even wilder when she told me that they really liked me and have decided to name their first son 'Kayle'. I thought she was joking, but nope... she sure wasn't!! So I have decided that I must go to that Starbucks a little more often when I am in Sherwood Park. Make sure I get to check up on my namesake.

I then moved onto praying at the store. It went very well. Yvonne was suprised that people showed up and we were surprised that she was surprised that people showed up! I don't know what was going on there, but the afternoon turned out great. A lady came who had previously been told there was no prayer and we were able to focus on her the entire time. It was a sweet time to say the least. God came really strongly to this wonderful lady.

Then this evening was the traditional Friday night veg-a-thon. Sorry, Kristy-anne, I know you have been praying, but I think that made our time even better! haha!! Although I did have a slight "incident" before the TV watching began which almost caused me never to watch TV again.

If you will look at the title of this entry, you will notice that I said I learned something today. What could I have possibly learned? Simple, I have learned to read carefully anything that you put into your eyes.

Our whole family wears contacts. Mine were a little dry and bothering me, so I went into Aaron's bathroom and grabbed the contact lense solution. It was a big bottle and looked normal so I tipped that baby over and gave it a big squeeze directly into my right eye.

What I didn't know was that I was pouring a significant amount of burning acid directly into my cornea. This is a special solution that Aaron uses for his contacts and there are warnings all over the bottle NOT to have direct eye contact with this solution. You have to put it in a special contact lense case which will neutralize the solution in six to eight hours and ONLY then are you able to put your contacts back in.

So you can imagine what pouring that directly into your eyeball socket would feel like.

Actually, you can't.

I began to panic in the bathroom and couldn't figure out what to do. I knew I needed help but I also couldn't move because suddenly my eye was being eaten away by this lovely acid. Or so it felt. I finally got my wits about me and popped my contact out and poured some water on it. Strangely, pouring water on a contact doesn't help make your eye feel better when it's melting. There was a small little bottle of something on the counter, but I was not prepared to put another mystery substance in my eye at that time.

I then went to get help. I made some sort of sound when I got out of the bathroom, but nobody was around to hear my pitiful grunt. I couldn't figure out what to do because I was in so much pain that I couldn't really yell and I was trying to figure out how the heck I would get down the stairs and get some help and then walk all the way back up the stairs. Yes, it really hurt that bad.

Luckily, Aaron walked up the stairs right at that moment and I said something along the lines of, "I need solution NOW." Aaron went to get some from Bobbie's bathroom and to my horror I heard Bobbie say, "I don't know if I have any!" At this point I was trying to figure out how to get my head under the bathroom tap and how much more it would hurt to turn the tap on directly into my eye.

Bobbie did have a bit and I was able to begin flushing my eye out, which took a surprisingly long time for the pain to get back to manageable levels. Once I realized that my eye wasn't actually going to explode I began to read the bottle for signs that I would also not be going blind. I was happy (and sad) to note that all the package said was to not put this stuff in one's eye or else burning and stinging will occur.

All I have to say is that they have no idea what they were talking about. I would have been happy with some burning or stinging. Try, "If this comes in contact with your eye, you would rather have someone slowly peel back your conjuctiva with a jagged, rusty spoon and then sprinkle sea salt in the open wound."

That is more accurate.

And with that, I am now going to bed.

Arizona

Tonight was part three of the healing series I'm teaching at our small group. Although tonight was a very large group, which was fun. We had a good time. There are two teachings in this series that really make you think and it challanges the traditional mindset of what we believe concerning God and healing. As per usual, it got people thinking and talking which was good, but we had to bring it to a quick close so not to loose everyone. It ended up being very good, all in all. It's definately not my favorite teaching to give, because it is heavy and not all that encouraging. But still, it is very necessary and makes you really think about this Christianity stuff rather then just going with the flow.

And to make this entry as disjointed as possible, this afternoon I went out for coffee with a guy who goes by the name of Andrew. It's part of my hobby of meeting cool new people and we had a great chat at..... shudder.... Second Cup. (Amanda, I know you'll be proud of me for that) He has some of the most hilarious stories of personal injuries I have ever heard. For example, knowing his leg was broken, but not doing anything about it. He's a tough cookie, apparently. His doctor was a little surprised to say the least.

Mom and dad came home from Arizona tonight. Sam, the dog FLIPPED OUT!!! I think he had resigned himself to the fact that they may never be coming home, so when they walked in the door Sam was yelping and crying and running all over the place. It was quite funny. Mom took some of the most incredible pictures of the Grand Canyon. I may post a few... or link a few because I'm retarded when it comes to posting.

And now as if this entry isn't all over the place enough, Kristy-anne, here is the link to the Watchmen stuff that we were talking about. Lots of info to read and look through. I would include the address, but I don't feel right putting it on the internet, so get my e-mail from Con and e-mail me and I'll send it to you, if you want. I promise you, you'll be very, very blessed by what the Lord is doing at these prayer meetings. It's life. And you don't need to know any history at all because it's all about God and his INCREDIBLE presence.

There. Public conversation now closed.

I will now say that I love you all.

A Wonderful Evening

I really don't have time to update. But I know if I don't right now, I probably won't later.

Last night was really neat at the Old Flood. Something I have been wanting to do is meet new people there. For a long time I didn't want to meet anyone and I was perfectly happy being "that guy" who nobody knew on the back pew. Then that changed and a made a few friends. And now I want to get to know everyone!!

It's not that I was anti-social before, I just couldn't handle going to a place to look for people rather then for God. Since I didn't know anyone I could easily go for God. And now I am able to go for God in other people, which is nice.

I got to know a few peoples better last night, which really made me happy! Jaron, Nate, Kristy-anne and I all went out after the Flood and it was a smashing great time. The world got to be a little smaller when I found out that Jaron was at a YWAM in south africa with two people that I know quite well from Eagle's Nest. That was neat!

Today I am off to the city-wide pastoral meeting to pray with the city fathers and mothers and make contact for the praying for the city gates thing that a few of us are spearheading (the praying on the train as Jason has referred to... and if you haven't read his last entry, you HAVE TO!!! See links on the side). So that should be good.

This afternoon I'm gettng all my hair cut off, thank God. Every once and a while I have this urge to grow it long and then a few months later I just have to shake my head and wonder what the heck I was thinking.

It should be interesting to see what happens because I actually have some hair to work with.

I need to be leaving my house very soon for the trail ride across Edmonton again, so I need to go get ready.

Those Maniacs!!

I am currently reading a wonderful little book called "Orthodoxy" by this guy named G. K. Chesterton. It was published in 1908 and it has not been doctored to fit the language of now. This is good. There are many classics out there which have been changed for "easy reading" but it esentially santizes the text into boring and somewhat less awe inspiring language. It is sad really. There are a few that have been santized by taking out basically all of the miraculous and nearly unbelievable accounts in order to fit current religous doctrine. I think that is so sad.

So note to all - when buying a christian classic, make sure you find the one that has not been doctored. I should copy a little tid-bit from the editor of another classic I have. He goes on a raging rant against publishers who "santize" and I have never in my life seen such strong language used in an 'uppity' classic work. It is wonderful!! The one that I am referring to is a collection of Madam Guyon's works. One being her autobiography and the other being a little book she wrote called "Experiencing Christ". It is nothing short of astounding what she writes. I have recommended it to others and they made the mistake of purchasing the mass market version and it really is shocking to see how they have changed the text from something that will literally take your breath away to something that is boring, lifeless words. So sad.

Anyway, I picked up this book called "Orthodoxy". It was written by an intellectual at the time and he set out to create his own belief system. He was completely against religion because he thought he was beyond that and when he was finished writing up his little belief system, he found he had Orthodox Christianity and he quickly gave his life to Christ.

His version of Orthodox Christianity is much different then what you or I would initially think of when the word "orthodox" is used. His writing is hilarious and full of life. And it is stinging in his rebuttles of his anti-christian critics and those who thought religion was a bunch of junk compared to the science of the time.

I just finished the first chapter which he devotes completely to explaining how there is no different between the athiest and an insane person, or as he refers to them constantly, a "maniac". It's a lovely little chapter full of incredible logic that has made me stop and laugh because you just can't get around it.

I thought I'd include a little bit that he wrote concerning people who would claim that they are a new christ or start a new religion... as he says, "a madman who would call himself Christ."

"So you are the Creator and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger that butterflies! How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really no life fuller and no love more marvelous then yours; and is it really in your small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!"

I loved that. This whole book, so far, is full of little bits like that. Quite an interesting read so far.

But now, I think I'll take advantage of the sun and go read Mr. Bible for a while on the back patio, prepare for a few little meetings this week and soak up some amazing sun-rays! And then tonight is The Flood... wonderful Flood.

Bible Stories with Kayle!

It was such a wonderful evening that I decided I would sit out on the back patio and read my Bible for a while. It has been a long time since I have been able to sit and read my Bible in the sun. I have been doing it in the cold, dark dungeon of a basement in this house, wrapped in many layers of blankets and clothes. It has it's advantages in feeling cocoon like, but still... It's nice to be in the sun, in fresh air and listening to the little birdies and the water from our little pond.

I started in on John today.

Something that I have started to do while reading the good old Bible is to write down the things that stand out to me. So instead of thinking, "Wow, that's neat" or getting a question in your head about what the real language is (the original Greek or Hebrew, verses the translated English) or just wanting to chew on something more and pretending that I would remember and then move on only to forget about it, I stop what I'm doing (apparently write a horrific run-on sentence) and jot a note down in this rad YWAM Daily Prayer Journal that I was given this year.
So here's the notes for today. You may find them as interesting as I did...

John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Seems fairly straightforward until you notice that the translators had a little trouble with that word "understood" and also said it could be translated to say "overcome". Whenever I see this in the Bible, it really interests me and out comes the concordance. Turns out that word for "understood" or "overcome" is a wild word that I can't even begin to pretend to pronounce or spell but the meaning is quite interesting.

Here's a good illustration of what the word "understand" is translated from: "in a good sense, of Christ by his holy power and influence laying hold of the human mind and will, in order to prompt and govern it". Now that's a little bit more powerful then "understood".

The darkness has not overcome the light in the way that Christ, by His holy power and influence has layed hold of my soul in order to give me leading and govern my very being. It turns that little verse around to really show the real power of Jesus in a rather unique and beautiful way, don't you think?

Another little chunk that I had a chuckle about was John 1:35-38. This is when Jesus gets his first two disciples! Mr. Baptist John is already making a scene dunking people and confusing the pharisees. He's telling everyone that Jesus is about to come on the scene and I often wonder why they believed the guy. This is after something like a 400 or so year period of silence from the last prophet. Now this guy is sticking people in water and saying the messiah is about to come. And they all believe him. Makes you think that we are missing something from the awe and wonder of the story... if we read it without the Holy Spirit...

Anyway, John's there with two of his disciples. We can assume that John was baptizing. All it says was that he saw Jesus passing by and you have to imagine the scene. I suppose John was a little surprised to say the least, and this is not the only time that the gospels record Jesus just passing by rather nonchalantly, seemingly with no intent to stop. Another great moment is when he's walking on water, and I think it's in Mark and it says that he was walking past the boat, "as if to pass them by" and he scares the crap out of all his disciples.

As if God doesn't have a sense a humor.

Anyway, Jesus is out for a stroll and John looks up from dunking someone and says, "Oh my, there's Jesus." How John knew that this man was Jesus and not any one of the other men around once again makes you wonder what has been left out of the text or possibly what the writers just assumed was so obvious that they didn't have to include it in their works.

It says that the two disciples overheard John mention that Jesus had just walked by and they begin to stalk him. Of course, this is all happening within the space of two sentences, but just imagine the picture that is being painted for us in scripture. These two guys are probably freaked out and who knows what they are saying to each other. Somehow, they believe John's rather random comment of "There goes the messiah over there" and just start to follow Jesus. Jesus probably was wandering around for a while until he notices these two guys mirroring his every step. Verse 38 once again provides great comedic value and says that Jesus simply turns around to figure out why the heck these two guys are following him around and says rather point blank, "What do you want?"

I love that. We can read over those couple of verses and totally miss out an entire story that is filled with wonder and awe and is honestly pretty funny.

If you read the next few verses these two disciples start freaking out and are totally convinced that they have found the messiah. Remember, this is a pretty outlandish statement at the time. This is what the entire weight of the bible is all focusing on. Thousands of years of prophecy and journey and wars and events all leading up to this moment - the Son of God, coming to earth to right a cosmic wrong, defeat a great evil and set free the whole of humanity back into their rightful destiny as God's perfect creation.

And he just walks on by...

What made them believe right at that moment? Imagine the presence that Jesus walked in for people to just know.

They bring Simon to Jesus and the first thing that Jesus says is, "I know your name and it's Simon, but I'm not going to call you that. Instead I'm going to call you rock." And you'll notice from that moment on Jesus only calls Simon by his prophetic destiny, which was to be a rather significant rock for the rest of humanity.

Interesting way Jesus chose to introduce himself.

Another interesting little verse is John 4:1-2. I don't really know what to think about it right now, but the author decided that it was important to note that Jesus wasn't baptizing anyone. His disciples were the ones baptizing people. Interesting to just think about what that means... Because I don't really know right now.

Then a little while later in chapter four we read verse 29. This is after Jesus had his conversation with the woman at the well and she runs back to town. It says she left her water bucket, which makes you think that she really did believe what Jesus said about the living water and never being thirsty again and then she tells all the townsfolk to meet the man who told her every single thing she did in her life. Makes you think that they probably left a few details out of the story again. I'm betting that conversation went on a heck of a lot longer then a rather confusing interchange about this lady and her relational past.

Can you just imagine this lady sitting there while Jesus relates the entire contents of her life. Before all this she half way mentions that there is word that the messiah is coming back. Imagine as veil after veil is pulled from her eyes and she slowly begins to realize that this is the messiah actually talking with her! Imagine the awe and the excitement as the ever increasing revelation exploded in her soul. And I just love how it says that she left her water jar... she wasn't thirsty no more...

Jesus drops a major bombshell at the end of Chapter 5, which is going to cause a great deal of wonderful meditation to go on for me at least. It's verse 45 and he says, "Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set."

Wow. That is one loaded verse. Jesus is laying out the only two covenants we get to engage here on earth. Jesus, being the covenant of grace (which is an incredible thing to honestly think about - just what exactly is grace and what does that mean for you and me) and the other covenant being the law, which in order to get that to work for you one has to keep it all perfectly. We've all already blown that one pretty good.

It's neat to change words and idea's around a little. So let's do this, "Do not think grace will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is the law, on which your hopes are set."

Jesus is basically saying, "repent!" which literally means to change the way you are thinking. "Repent, change the way you have been thinking about your salvation for the last thousand years. Don't measure yourself against the law. Don't set your hope on the law. Set your hope in me! Accept the new covenant of grace, for when you get to heaven, grace will have nothing bad to say about you to the Father - only nice things, so set your hopes in me."

I like that. Jesus only has nice things to say to the Father about you.

Now how would your life change if you honestly believed that?

A Slight Risk

I think I have found yet another reality TV show to be addicted to. I just pulled myself away from a significant marathon. Ceaser's 24/7 on A&E... it's interesting to say the least.

The most interesting is this one lady who walked in an promptly lost over $250,000 and then waltzed out. All she said was that she had retired at age 31 and if you don't have the money you shouldn't be at Las Vegas. She wasn't worried at all that she just blew that much. Interesting...

But during one of the adds I saw an even bigger gamble. You know those American drug commercials with the low voice that comes in halfway through to ramble off "This drug may cause diarrhea, loss of vision, heart arythmia, vomiting, margarine headaches, strokes, brain damage, syphilis, gonnereah and death" all while beautiful young people are running through fields of flowers having the greatest time of their life due to said drug.

Here is one I have never, ever heard before. Part of the caution was "caucasian or asian race".

Hmmm... that is somewhat broad and makes me feel uncomfortable. If you are part of an entire race you may have troubles with this drug.

And now for a random switch of topic, Carissa I have been trying to get that CD to you all week but whenever I go into Starbucks you are not there! I haven't forgotten!!

Good News Everyone!

I just watched a little bit of 20/20 on ABC tonight. They had a wonderful little piece where they did a blind taste testing of some of the major coffee brands. They had Folgers, they had an instant coffee brand, they had a very expensive brand and also they had Starbucks.

The people brewed all the coffee's the same way and then did the blind test. People only knew that they were going to get five cups of coffee. Then they had to rate them bad, average or great.

Guess who won the whole thing?

Starbucks.

Folgers came in dead last.

Of course this was highly unscientific, but still... three cheers for Starbucks as always. Which, by the way, they have a very curious new blend out right now. Komodo Dragon. Very different and I'm trying to figure out if I like it or not. My friends at the Starbucks said that it tasted like mushrooms, but I don't think it does. Although there is a strong earthy characteristic to it. Maybe it's because I can't remember the last time I had a mushroom. Who knows... this could be the pre-curser to me liking those filthy fungus blobs again.

Last time I had some mushrooms it was with Daniel and Carolyn at one of the greatest resturants ever called "The Vineyard" in Medicine Hat of all places. I thought for sure I'd like the mushrooms there because the place is posh, food wize... but nope... still wanted to hurl when I ate one.

It's strange because I can vividly remember passionately loving mushrooms when I was a kid. I can remember how they tasted and wanting to each tons of them. Now they taste the exact same to me as they did when I was a kid. I can honestly remember loving that taste and now it is repulsive to me.

Maybe my mom and dad prayed extra hard that I would develope a dislike for them because, as I have been told, when I was really little I would run through the forest and eat random mushrooms that I found.

Could that possibly explain my current condition? A few too many "mystery" mushrooms...

This Could be Pure Insanity!

As many of you know I have been struggling with what to do this summer. I have a few options. Some make much more sense then others... which is usually a bad thing because more often then not I side with the one that makes little to no sense whatsoever. It's just more fun that way.

Speaking of making no sense, by the way, I just got an e-mail from my wonderful friends Bryan and Ryan who are currently touring Europe. They are in Rome and can't wait to leave the place! Tonight they are on an all night train ride to Lusanne, Switzerland and are looking forward to that. They went to Europe with basically no plan at all. No places to stay, no... anything... and are having a wonderfully wild time. I'm jealous.

So... Australia. Could be going there, but I have heard little to nothing about it. Could be three weeks of glory and ministry, but still don't know. So that's up in the air and I don't know what to think about it.

Quebec City is all ready and booked. This is am looking forward to like you wouldn't believe. Last night while Aaron and Bobbie and I were driving home from the Watchmen prayer thing I realized that for the first time I am scared to attend an event like this. I'm honestly scared for what the Lord is going to pour out on all of us and on this nation. I have been to large Gathering's before, but this one they are expecting at the least 4,000 people to be there from all over Canada and the world. The last one I was at had just under 800 people attend and it was the most powerful "conference" I had ever been to in my life. Multiply that by a billion and have at least 4000 people all going wild for the Lord and you have something that you just DO NOT want to miss. History in the making we are getting to live.

Then I have been asked to join a cross Canada tour that will happen in August which will be much like the Proclaim Tour, but more focusing on the GenX and Millenials, calling them out, finding them, doing stuff like that and ending the tour by storming the (Parliment) hill. We'd meet up with however many MP's would have us and pray and prophecy over each and every one.

But once again, not really sure any of this will happen. Except, of course, Quebec City because that's already booked. If this does all come to pass there will have to be a significant financial miracle and a lot of stuff put into place. And this blog could become a heck of a lot more exciting!

Hmmm... in the coming weeks this blog will definately be a lot more exciting because I will be heading to Vancouver for the BC Rise Up Gathering! Waaaa-hheeeee!!! We are confirming a 15 passanger van and will fill it with some of the most insane, Holy Spirit, wild people you have ever met in your life.

For example. Jill. Jill is a wonderful friend of mine and girlfriend to an equally wonderful friend named Matt. Jill and Matt are insane when it comes to Jesus. Matt sadly cannot come, but Jill will be. Currently, as I type this Jill is on a plane to Iqaluit in Canada's far north. She needs to be there for a massively significant gathering the begins on the 29th, but this was the only flight they could find for her. For those of you familiar with the Transformations video's, this is the where the transformation is happening in the Canadian tundra. It's an honor to be with these men and women when they come down south and be with us, but to be with them on their turf?? WOW!!!

Anyway, Jill is about a week early. As of last night Jill still didn't have any place to stay. Matt lovingly mentioned that they have a homeless shelter...

So can you imagine going to the freaking far north, a week early, with no place to stay at all? See...? Insane.

So Jill is coming to Vancouver. That is just one story of the caliber of Jesus Insanity that all the people joining us on the trip walk in.

Oh yeah, Jill also has her class 4 driver's lisence so she can drive a school bus.

That has nothing to do with anything, but still it's funny.

Next blog I will probably highlight the life of Matt and how wild God stuff happens all around him, how he is being used to stir the youth across Canada in a mighty way and how he generally has no idea of what he is doing.

Birthday's Everywhere!

Happy day after your birthday, Trisha!

I have been drawing a blank as to what to write in here these last few days. So I will tell you about birthdays. Obviously, it was Trisha's yesterday. Which, incidentally also falls upon the day of birth for our little dog Sam! He turned 9. Which is something like 63 in dog years, so Sam would be the oldest in the Mumby family now. Good job.

Since my parents are away in Arizona right now I have the house all to myself. It is a glorious thing. Except for the fact that Sam has an inability to sleep anywhere but on a bed. He normally sleeps on the bed with mom and dad (that alone is all the athiests need for cold hard facts that there is a God) but since they are far, far away Sam opts for my bed.

Sam is a strange dog. I have been testing some things with him these last couple of days. He really has fallen in love with sleeping and when you say, "Time for bed" to Sam, it almost causes him as much joy as when you say, "Where's the cat?" So last night I turned the TV off after watching the most stressful Amazing Race ever recorded and said to Sam really quietly, "time for bed."

Sam raced up the stairs and was on my bed long before I got there.

This morning I thought I would try his reaction to other seeming random comments. I slept in longer then Sam is used to. Mom and dad get up painfully early, so he was getting restless and decided it would be fun to lick my face. I didn't think it was as fun as he did. I laid there for a long time and then whispered as quiet as possible, "Want to go outside?" and Sam did a flying leap off my bed and ran downstairs to the doorway. He ran outside, barked at the imaginary cats that plague his mind and then came back inside, got up on his chair and promptly went back to sleep.

I don't understand this animal.

And now I will push another one of Sam's magical buttons and get the keys to open our mail box. Somehow Sam knows the mail key sound and will come running from wherever he is in the house to join me in walking all the way across the street to get our mail. This is glorious fun for him.

Traffic MAYHEM!!!!

I will be the first to point out that traffic in Edmonton is the worst in North America. Not because there is a large volume of it, but generally because the majority of driver believe they are the center of the universe and everyone must bow to their will. Either that or they are all just dumb.

Regular readers of this blog will note that I often rant about Edmonton traffic, but since I am a Christian and can't technically blast the finger everywhere I go I save it all up for a passive-agressive vent via electronic communication.

Today really wasn't that bad. Until about five blocks from my house when I saw two small children nearly have an early exit from live. Why? Due to one of the afore mentioned lord's of the driving universe who was hurtling down the road and neglected to think, "Gee, there is a line of cars stopping at an intersection with a cross walk. Could that possibly mean that someone is trying to cross?"

Instead he thought, "Cars have stopped. If I push the gas pedal all the way down I can race in front of them and save myself 3.2 seconds of my precious time."

As he pressed his gas pedal, he quickly decided that he would rather press his car horn just as hard and tap the brakes a little. Those poor little kids were freaked right out, and so was I as I prayed that these children would run as fast as their little legs would carry them.

A little while later I drove past St. Albert's City Hall. Complete with three stop lights in less then one block. Yes. This makes perfect sense. Of course, when you put 90,000 stop lights all within 20 feet of each other drivers are going to get a little annoyed. Especially during rush hour and the lights are going green for about 2 seconds as people wait to cross. I made it through and laughed pretty hard as a good line of drivers just ignored the red lights and kept going.

They should put those red light camera's on those lights. They'd make over $1500 per car because they have to cross three red lights in less then a block and all the red lights are over a cross walk!

About five minutes later I made it onto 184th Street. This is a good one and flows quite well. Until the dump truck and it's trailor runs over a squirrel or something and it actually get's lodged in the trailor's tires causing them to lock. There was massive skid mark down the road and the smell of burning rubber. And half a squished squirrel body to start it all. Yuck. But strangely hilarious.

I'm now on Anthony Henday behind a long line of semi-trucks that are not going all that fast. I was going over the bridge, so there is only one lane. What does the zippy Honda Civic do behind me? Ride my bumper so close that she could have driven straight into my truck bed. This makes a lot of sense. Ride my bumper so I can go where, exactly?

I finally reach Whitemud and that goes relatively well. Until I look in opposing traffic and notice the semi with the exploding engine. Yikes. Un-fun. Massive amounts of white smoke was billowing out of the front end and the trucker was running around. I was glad I was not that man right then.

I made it to the church and the prayer thing and thanked Jesus for the safe trip and that I was still alive.

Prayed for a while and talked for a while. There was this pastor from Chile who just happened to show up and he was a crazy revival man. Not one of those psycho annoying ones, but a man who when he opens his mouth you listen because suddenly the presence of God is THERE. It was amazing what this man shared. I prayed earnestly that I would really hear what he had to share and that these pastors would too. I went to shake his hand after, just cause I wanted to meet him and he gave me the biggest hug ever. I was honored. He didn't speak a word of english, but you can just tell when someone honestly walks with the Lord. I'm kicking myself now because I wanted him to pray for me so bad, but I didn't ask him for some strange reason. I hope he is there next week and I will tell him to put his hands on my head and unleash.

Now I have to drive home. This is a scary prospect. Back on the streets of Edmonton. It all went pretty well until Anthony Henday again. This one confuses me. There was a car that flipped right into it's hood and was perpendicular to the flow of traffic. How does this happen? I'm thinking you'd really have to try to flip your car over and spin it around to face a direction that traffic doesn't even go. You could side-swipe the guy, but still, how does that flip him over? It just happened before I got there so the emergency vehicles were arriving and I was just scratching my head on that.

Then to top it all off, as I drove back into St. Albert a man runs by. A man with only those skimpy running shorts on runs by. A man who was likely trying to burn off his winter fat and tan his winter skin. But still... probably shouldn't be doing that along a major roadway. I was thinking... if ladies have to wear shirts in public, maybe the men should too... especially if said men have breasts the same size or larger then the ladies. It's just not right.

Anyway... I'll stop venting now. I have to prepare to drive across the city again, this time to Whyte Ave. I'm meeting up with a group of college aged kids to talk about Jesus and how cool He is. Should be fun!

And the name is...

So I think it is about time to name the i-Pod. I got a lot of cool suggestions. Aaron's was possibly the best. They named their the i-Mumby so I can't take that one. He suggested I name it the i-Suck. Hmmm... tempting...

I believe the one with the best ring to it is "Moses". Actually, I'm still at a toss-up. I saw Kristy-anne tonight at the Flood and she had suggested "Erwin". So which one should I pick?

Oh my crapness, I just noticed that it is midnight and I have to go to bed right now. Tomorrow I am waking up super early (for me) to make the trek across this great city of Edmonton to the most south east side. I live on the most north west side. So add rush hour into that and you got yourself one fun time! I'm meeting with the city-wide pastoral gathering and hopefully going to have some time with the leader of the group to chat about some stuff.

So this is going to be cut short right now. Sorry about that!

Somewhat Random

This weekend was a roller coaster of emotion.

First I watch "A River Runs Through It" and desperately want to be in the mountains. Then tonight I watched "A Perfect Storm" and desperately want to move to the ocean. But I'd perfer to stay alive rather then what happened to those guys. I also watched "Spinal Tap" with Aaron and Bobbie which was... unique...

Ocean and mountains... can it get any better then that?

It made me think of one of my highlight moments of life so far. It was a couple years back and I went on a trip to Catalina Island, just about 25 miles off the coast of LA. It was a "ministry" trip, which was actually just a paid vacation. An incredible paid vacation.

By the time this trip came around I knew that I was moving away from Redding and had instituted the "actively enjoy every single moment to the fullest and deepest rule." Which I discovered is a pretty good rule to live your entire life by.

Anyway, this was prime time to activate this rule as I would be driving 10 hours to LA and then spending a weekend on Catalina Island with a small awesome group of people that I had spent two years of my life with. Also I would be fulfilling one of my dreams which was to be so far out on the water that I couldn't see land. I would also be fulfilling a dream of being on an island. I like things like that.

I was quite happy to have Peggy with us. She had grown up in this area and had taken the ferry a billion times. She knew how much I was looking forward to this and showed me all the secrets for enjoying the boat ride over to the fullest. One was standing at the very back of the ferry to let the wind blow in your face and watch the waves go by. Those waves went by at an astounding speed too! Our little ferry went insanely fast.

We got out a ways and into some sort of shipping lane, I guess, because there were tons of MASSIVE ships all around. There were also somewhat large waves. Waves that I was not expecting. I was standing on the back corner of the deck, in awe of fulfilling a dream of mine and taking the scene in - all I could see was water.

That water also seemed to be just as excited and wanted to see me.

I heard all my friends give a blood-curdling scream and I whirled around to see what was wrong. I turned around just in time for a huge wave to break over the side of the boat and land it's fullness directly on my head. Of course, since everyone was paying attention, they got out of the way - somehow... I still don't know how they got away from it. Since I was watching the back of the boat, I just turned and was suddenly soaked straight through and I didn't really know what had happened.

The rest of the ferry sure had a good laugh.

I needed a large "land-lubber" sign, but I suppose me being completely soaked from head to toe was sign enough.

Once we got to Catalina, though, everything was better. We got to swim with incredible fishes that scared Katieann so bad she almost drowned. We would have helped her, but it's hard to swim while laughing so hard. Also the public showers were a blast, especially when the girls ran out of tokens and had to walk out to the front to get more after the water turned off halfway through washing their hair. One of the best parts was walking down to the water-front and searching for the casino that we had heard so much about. We wanted to check this amazing casino out, so we walked all around this massive, breathtaking building and found zero doors to get in. Turns out casino just means "meeting place" in spanish and it was simply a huge ballroom.

Which we got to go into, anyway. We somehow were invited to attend the reception for a massive mexican wedding up in the casino and we got to see the 3rd largest ball-room in the United States and be a part of the thundering loud mexican music that was blasting over the entire island. We had met the best man the day before in a restaruant and he invited us over. We were the only white people amidst about a thousand mexicans! No... we didn't stand out at all.

Still... we got to see the Casino!!

Much more happened that weekend, but it's almost 1:00am now and I think I'll go to bed.

Them There Mountains

I watched "A River Runs Through It" this afternoon. That's a really good movie. It actually tells a story rather then the usual that comes out of Hollywood these days. It's set in Missoula, Montana which is smack in the middle of the mountains.

I've decided that I really want to go to the mountains. Take a tent and just be there for a while. That would be so sweet. Our family used to go to the Rockies every year and I miss that.

Don't really have much to say other then that right now. Keep submitting names for my little i-Pod Shuffle in the commments section!!

It's Late

Yeah, it's late, but I feel like posting.

I am currently amazed with my new little i-Pod Shuffle. I didn't know so much could go on one of these things. I now have over 6 hours of music on the little guy and it's just over 1/3 full. A lot more to go!! It's so neat, though, because I can just pop the thing on random and it's my own little worship service. I have no idea which song is going to come next, but since I am loading a bunch of music I worship to, it's always good!

I was sitting here loading music into it for the last hour or so and that was quite fun. People say that smell is one of the strongest senses tied to memory, but I think music has to go in there too. I guess it goes something like music is tied to emotion, which is tied to memory.

If I had more time, or if it wasn't quarter to one in the morning, I'd probably pop a few cool stories in here. But I'm not going to because I want to go to bed.

Interactive time! What should I name my new little i-Pod Shuffle? Leave a comment and I'll talk it over with little Shuffle. Hmmm... maybe that's it... Little Shuffle... hmmmmmmm....

This calls for a second update

Oh me, oh my!

I just had to post a second update about today. Probably more for my own brains and retention of new thoughts then anything.

Tonight was the first installment of the Healing School. It was the biggest and heaviest teaching, but one that I LOVE to think about and LOVE to teach. Basically it's laying the foundation for the rest of the sessions and lays down the idea of healing and the Kingdom of God.

Two very good questions were brought up at the end, which is good because that makes us all think. One was the whole Job thing, and I personally believe that you just have to make peace that Jesus did it all on the cross for us and I much rather having Jesus in heaven, reigning in power then forcing him back up on the cross in order to fulfill my own powerless mindset.

The second question was concerning Paul and that pesky thorn in the flesh which we always fail to properly study. When I got home, we cracked open a bunch of massive books and started searching around. A few conclusions have to be made. So here they are:

#1. If proper exegisis is done it is extremely unlikely that the thorn in Paul's flesh has anything to do with sickness. The much more believable outcome is that the thorn is people. People oppositing Paul's work. This makes much more sense and doesn't go against the very Gospel of our God.

#2. If Paul was in fact sick, then some serious questions must be asked. If Paul was sick and made a case for it, then that would go directly against all of the teaching of Jesus and the atonement that Jesus made for all humanity once and for all. So then you must ask yourself, "Was Paul saying that Jesus was lying?" which then you must ask, "Was Jesus not telling the truth concerning healing and telling us to pray on earth as it is in heaven?" Of course we know that Jesus was not lying. Of course we know that Paul was not saying that Jesus was wrong. So if Jesus was right and Paul was right, we can then come to the conclusion that probably we are wrong with what we are thinking. Therefore we must change our thinking and realize that Paul was not sick.

Once again, if Paul was sick and said God allowed it then he is going against the full weight of Jesus and His Gospel. The only other option in this is that we are wrong and what we are believing isn't right.

Bring it back to proper exegisis and you'll find that the thorn in the flesh was the people opposing Paul, which caused Paul to stay humble and die to his soul (what we often call.... flesh).

#3. The question arises, "Why do people so badly want to find loop-holes out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?"

Tonight was great fun. The questions caused me to really think, which is what this particular teaching does. You really have to come to some serious conclusions about what you believe, why you believe it, and does it honestly line up with the word of God?

Either way... I WANT MORE!!! GOD GIVE ME THE FULLNESS OF YOUR SPIRIT!!!

Nearing 10,000

Hello one and all...

I just noticed he little counter at the bottom of this blog. We've turned over the 8000 visit mark and now 10,000 is coming into reach. Weeeee!!! That's a lot of page views. Mostly from me checking my own blog 650 times a day to see if there are witty comments. Just kidding... but still... there are few witty comments.

If you really want a witty comment, check out A+B's blog and the current posting and reply via the comment section. Quite funny.

This morning I woke up relatively early and drove over to Starbucks on 137ave. Met up with Tyler and had a grand conversation about everything. The highlight was seeing the senior pastor of Bethesda drive by in his rental Magnum. It's a sweet car. But I don't think he knew people were watching and he drove to an empty part of the parkinglot and laid a patch down with the car. I was impressed... that car really lit the tires up.

A few minutes later, he walked into Starbucks and Tyler and I just started laughing. He instantly knew what we were laughing about, but gave him much praise for doing such a good burnout.

Now that's a good pastor.

I am teaching a healing school starting tonight, which should be fun. I have to work on getting a bunch of notes typed out so I can hand them to everyone who comes. So I guess I'll go do that now.

It Just Keeps Getting Better!

So, not only is Trisha coming up with a whole bunch of Redding for a visit in May but today I went out and purchased a little i-Pod Shuffle. Also good, but not half as exciting as a Trisha visit.

I figure that I am my own travelling office and I have been thinking about how to become more streamlined. When I go somewhere I usually have my suitcase of clothes and such, plus a back-pack full of my CD's, discman, books and such. That takes up a lot of room. So now I have eliminated the largest space-taker-upper by getting a tiny little thing which I can put 240 songs on and slip it into my pocket. I have these massive, super good headphones that I travel with all the time and the little shuffle makes them sing wonderfully!

Now I just need to get one of those palm things. Actually, what I'm wanting to do is get a blackberry because that mixes a cell phone, e-mail, and daytimer all in one. That will REALLY streamline and help with the travelling office thing.

If we could just figure out a way to make shoes ultra streamline...

Anywho, that is my materialistic entry for the day. I'm meeting up with Tyler, from the Flood tomorrow morning, which I am looking forward to. That guy is a good friend. And better yet, he shares my passion for St. Arbucks so we never have to figure out a place to meet up. Sadly, this time we will not be in the St. Albert Starbucks, so I won't get to see my friends there. Sorry, Carissa... haha... I know you are reading this!!

Which brings me to a little shout out and shameless advertising. Carissa's blog is really cool and she has lots of neat thoughts on it. I think you'll like it, so check it out!

Breaking News!

Okay. You need to sit down if you are going to read any further. Since you are probably already sitting down in front of a computer, that last statement is therefore deemed dumb.

You heard it here first. Unless I have already called you and told you. Or unless your name is Kayle or Trisha or my mom. Trisha Wheeler is officially coming to Canada from the 6th of May until the 14th. The ticket is booked and confirmed.

Trisha tells me that she went on the website and prayed that there would be one leaving from Redding for less then $300 (which is insane and unheard of) and wouldn't you know it? Amidst all the $600 tickets was one hiding, waiting for her for under $300. Crazy.

So all you Edmontonians, just you get yourself ready. It's gonna be good.

What a Wild Time!!

I just got back from St. Paul today. It was a really incredible time. God showed up. And we all know that when God shows up that the impossible and the supernatural MUST occur. Not as a matter of God being obligated, but simply because this is the nature of the God we serve.

The trip was rather funny because Carolyn and I had no idea what we were doing. Daniel Baker invited us to join him on this conference and we thought we'd just be along for the ride and be there to pray for people. You can imagine our surprise when we pulled up to the church and saw our names all over the posters! We were featured guests!! As you can well imagine, we had a good laugh about that. The featured guests had no idea that they were even speaking!

Anyway, the first night was awesome. We found out that this church had been seriously praying for three weeks previous to this weekend, and we walked right into the middle of one serious prayer time. The atmosphere was primed and everyone was hungry for God. Which was wonderful, because I was one of them. I was (am still) hungry for more of God. As far as I have figured out, I have not experienced all that there is to God quite yet, so I want more!

Daniel spoke the first night on something. I can't really remember what, but I'm sure it was good. I think it had something to do with destiny. I was a little blasted in the Lord. Worship was so incredible and I saw heaven open up above us. Lots of angels entered the room and when that happens, I generally just..... go.

The next morning Carolyn spoke her trademark message on "Desperation vs. Passion" which in my opinion is one of the most important messages that the North American church needs to hear. The definition of desperation is to be without hope, to be in a state of despair. That is impossible if you have Jesus in your life because he is the living hope. The definition of passion is that which Christ felt on the cross. Check your dictionary - it's in there. Imagine if we get filled with real passion and run with the passion on our lives what would happen?

We always pray to bless people's passions and to set them free in them each time this message is preached, and it's always fun. Amazing amounts of freedom comes to people when they finally get permission to be who they were always created to be and to run with wild abandon towards that.

Saturday night I preached and my goodness.... God came. And not because I preached. He came before and we essentially had the ministry time before I was even able to speak! Worship lasted two full hours and it was intense, powerful and intimate the entire time. Different people each lead out in prophetic songs and my entire message was literally preached by the crowd of people before I got a chance to! To be honest, it really tested my desire and prayer that the Holy Spirit would come and lead the meetings. We all religiously pray that because we think we are supposed to, but when the Holy Spirit actually shows up and takes over, when you're thinking you've got something nice to say to the people it tests you to see how alive you really are to your own flesh and gives you a great opprotunity to hop up on that altar and die to yourself and your selfish motives.

But, after two hours, they jammed a microphone in my face and I had to figure out what the heck to do. They already preached the message and had a wonderful ministry time on their own. Why would they need me now? I did talk and exorted them that even though they are experiencing the power of God that there is still a distance between what is happening in a church and what is happening on the streets and that distance was each one of us. We had prayed and declared and interceeded over St. Paul for two hours, the windows were now open and the question I felt that the Lord was posing to us was, "Now what are you going to do about it?"

I talked about a bunch of other stuff, but kept hammering on "what are you going to do about it?" and kept asking how St. Paul was going to be changed because of this stuff. Also I reminded them of their rightful inheritance, which is heaven itself and called them to a life of supernatural power and to release heaven all over St. Paul. The basic call of "if it breathes, pray for it" not out of a place of bringing them to heaven, but out of a place of bringing heaven down on them like Jesus taught us to pray. On earth as it is in heaven....

We proceeded to do some whole sale healing and seven people got healed. One lady had a severe neck injury for the past seven years and was in constant pain. Her neck was out so badly that you could easily feel what was wrong, just by touching her neck. She was totally healed as God came and quickly and easily touched her. Nobody laid hands on her, God just came and healed her as we prayed!

And then we moved into asking God to blast us all with an even greater measure of power, so that we could have even more to give to the streets. Blasted is what we got. Carolyn, who I have never seen fall over was literally flopping all over the place. We couldn't touch her because she'd go flying or just collapse in a heap, which was really bad because the three of us were laying hands on everyone and we just got knocked around by the power of God. Daniel is a big man, and he was our stabilizing force and Carolyn and I bobbled all over the farm.

It was quite run, really!

The senior pastor said it was the best service in the history of that church. Hmmm... I wonder if God is up to something there? My faith exploded again to see entire cities saved by the power of God. St. Paul is right ready for it. Pray for them if you think of it.

Anyway, it's midnight and I should be in bed. It's always nice to crawl back into a bed that is your own.

Breaking News

Let us list the news and proclamations of today:

#1. TRISHA COME TO CANADA!!! COME COME COME COME!!!!! CANADA CANADA TRISHA TRISHA COME!!

#2. Katieann has asked me to dispense the news because her sub-par diaryland account will no longer work. The news is this: Katieann has a boyfriend. His name is Joshua Browning. I'm sure if she was writing there would be much more details, but since I am male a name is all you get.

#3. I'm off to St. Paul, Alberta this afternoon for a weekend of ministry fun. Pray for me as I am slightly ill in my chest (and head, but that's just normal) and last night at our little prayer time didn't help one bit. I had to drug myself in order not to hyperventalate in my coughing fits. The blue pill aided in a good sleep.

#4. Trisha...... come to Canada. It's worth it.

I remembered!!

In reference to my last entry, you will be pleased that I remembered what I was going to write. Actually, you may be a little disappointed, but I don't care.

I got an e-mail from my friends Bryan and Ryan who are currently in Europe. Well, they just arrived. The plan was to fly into London, spend the day there and hop on a bus late at night for a trip to Scotland and tour the land of Scot for a few days.

So I got an e-mail from then saying that clearly I am not praying hard enough for them. Why? Because they got to London alright, but what was left behind was Ryan's bag. Now that's a downer. Go to Europe for seven weeks and they loose your bag containing everything you need.

Alas....

They said that the airline would make sure that Ryan's bag would arrive in Scotland somehow for Ryan to pick up.

I am honestly amazed at the ability for an airline to get your luggage to you after they loose it on a huge flight. How is a bag going to get to Scotland for Ryan? But it will.

My greatest experience with mystery bag placement would be when I went to Argentina. It is a surprisingly long trip to get to Argentina. I started my journey in Edmonton, flew to Toronto, flew to Chicago, flew to Atlanta, flew to Sao Paulo, flew to Buenos Aires and finally to Cordoba in Argentina. That took a long time.

Half way we got stranded too! Lo and behold when we reached Sao Paulo we were informed that our ticketed itinerary simply did not exist. Strange, seeing as we had the tickets in our hands.

So what does one do in this case? We are in Brazil, which is clearly not the right country to be in. We still have to make it to Argentina somehow. Luckily we had a fluent Spanish speaker on our team. Sadly, the language of Brazil is Portuguese. But they are similar enough that our Spanish speaker was able to work things out with a Portuguese speaking agent.

We got put on a sweeeeeet flight from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires (1st Class, which was a step up from Business class on this plane) and once we reached Buenos Aires we had to drive across one of the largest cities in the world, get into another airport, get checked in and on the next plane all in 15 minutes.

WHAT???!!?!?!

Luckily we caught that and fixed things so that we had a few hours. Varig Airlines even arranged a taxi van to pick us up and drive us to the airport in BA. That was cool.

An added twist to the story is that my ticket was the only one that carried on the original itinerary for our group, so Randy Clark was somehow able to use it for the remainder of the trip and get to Cordoba on time to speak at the first massive revival meeting we were scheduled to be in.

Did I mention yet, that when I reached Toronto and crossed customs, my luggage didn't join me? They had no idea where it was.

So now I'm in Sao Paulo with no luggage and our flight doesn't exist. My ticket has been switched for Randy to use. We are being re-routed on a completely different airline through a brand new route and to airports we were never supposed to go through in the first place. If you notice your luggage tickets you'll see that they are paired with certain flights and they go through an incredible underground computer system making sure that they get to the correct flight in most cases. Either that, or they are taken by hand to the proper flight, but when your luggage misses that...

I wasn't the only one with no bags, either.

So we eventually get to Cordoba with the promise that our luggage will be there. Of course, mine isn't there and this other guy named Steve doesn't have any. What are we supposed to do? We were planning on buying new stuff because we honestly thought there is no possible way for luggage that was lost a loooong time ago to somehow find us in Cordoba, after our original tickets and routing was apparently non-existent.

But wouldn't you know it? Two days later it did! Although Steve was pretty worried because when we picked up our bags a security guy opened mine up and checked the whole thing. Steve smokes a pipe and had a large brick of tobacco, which looked a lot like something else. Since we don't speak Spanish how would Steve possibly explain this to the security guy? But apparently Mr. Security man was happy with what he saw in mine and let us go.

We were happy to have clothes back because we were going on our fourth day in the same clothes and it was hot and humid to say the least!!

All that to say, I'm amazed Ryan's bag will join him in Scotland. As annoying as it is to have an airline loose your bags, it's really amazing the lengths they will go to return one piece of luggage to one guy when they are flying millions around the world everyday.

Next I may tell you about our Russia fiasco and almost getting arrested at the border! That was fun... I never ran so fast in my life. Yes... I may tell you that one later.

What was that again?

I had something so good to write in here today. Sadly, I waited until tonight and I have completely forgot what it was. I'm sure it was completely life changing. Oh well, we may never know.

Tonight was our little kinship (small group) night. I love them. I am fully convinced that all of the neighbors of the house we meet in think we are a cult. We are very free in letting the Holy Spirit move and quite often it comes with rather loud results. In the summer all the windows are open so all can hear. Add to that our loud singing during worship and you got yourself one interesting night for the outsiders to watch.

Especially tonight as we all gathered outside to take some pictures. It is for a gift to be brought to the far north of Canada, only we didn't have half the stuff to take a picture with. But because of the wonders of modern technology and having a very professional photographer in our group, he snapped away and will be able to edit in the missing parts. Like a giant map that we all pretended to hold. Instead of a map we had a cross-country ski in our hands and we were lifting it way up above our heads, triumphantly!

Hmmm.... not usual.

I am finding myself really missing Redding these days. It is probably because it is getting warm again and that always reminds me of my time in California. What is happening in Redding is really unbelievable, yet it is real, so you are forced to believe it. My friends there are the best I have ever had and I honestly never knew friendship like I have gained in Redding ever could have existed on planet earth. But it does... and I miss my friends.

I think I took for granted being able to just hop in the car and drive to whoever's house I wanted to see whenever I wanted and just hang out. I know in the last couple of months that I had in Redding I really took the time to savor each and every moment, but that made it way harder in the long run when I had to leave. I found that when you really take each moment for as much as it can possibly be worth you get some incredible relationships out of that which become the new definition to intimacy.

But as the Lord would have it, I have found myself way up here in Canada now. I used to think people were exaggerating or being poetic when they would say that not a day would go by when they wouldn't think about someone or something. Now I know what they mean. Not a day goes by that I don't think of Redding or my friends I made during my time there.

You know what? I kind of like that. That feeling of missing them never goes away (at least it hasn't yet), but that's okay, I suppose. It reminds me of what is possible with the people I meet here in Canada. And I have found that here. Of course, they all live hours away from me, or in Europe, but I did find it again.

It's weird because nobody can replace another person and as you keep finding more and more friendship's, knowing the possibility for the intensity of such a relationship is there with each one of them you find that your heart grows bigger and bigger every time. I find that interesting.

In our school we did a bunch of training on this sozo inner healing stuff. Part of what we were taught was this thing called the "father ladder". To explain it very quickly, most of the time we relate to our heavenly father the same way we related to our earthly father. If our earthly father was cold and distant, that is generally how one honestly related to Pappa God - until healing and revelation is brought into the mix. The way we relate to the Holy Spirit links up with how we related with our mom. And finally the way we relate to Jesus is linked with how we relate to our friendships.

As lovely as friendships are, they still aren't going to get me into heaven. Only being in relationship with Jesus will do that. I feel that there is such an amazing double blessing involved with friends and Jesus. My friends in Redding opened my eyes to a Jesus I never knew. As I go deeper with new friends, I keep seeing more of Jesus that I never knew existed and I love it. And then as I see more and more of Jesus, I find that I'm able to see deeper and experience more of my friendships.

I kind of like that.

Truth is such a wonderful thing. Not just a knowledge of truth, but a revelation of the truth because that is when it becomes a part of who you really are. I want to feast on truth and let it change every part of me.

My New Office

Hello Hello

I wish I had something really exciting to write in here, but sadly, right now I do not. Oh well. I have decided that my new office is Starbucks. I am meeting with so many people there these days. And I have recently switched to Green Tea because of my current sickness. I'm trying my best to put good things in me and rest a lot because I will be going out of town this weekend and it is generally a good idea to be healthy when ministering at a church conference.

At least that is what I hear.

Yesterday was The Flood and I had a great time, as usual. I like it there, because I can usually stand way in the back and not worry about anything and just be with Jesus. It's so nice. I got to pray for a few people and God rocked their worlds, which is always fun to watch. Then afterwards was the tradition trip to Earl's. Although this time many more people came, then those who usually join us. It was fun to say the least.

And now this morning I am paying the price for laughing really hard. I was drinking gallons of hot water and lemon just to keep my throat from not exploding, but this morning when I woke up my throat was still trashed. I can hardly speak - which is probably good.

The Amazing Race is on tonight and I am far and beyond excited. This has been the greatest reality TV series ever! I'm cheering for the brothers to win because they are freaking hilarious and my friend Kandyce wants to marry both of them.

Stoned Again

I have been a little under the weather these last few days. Today I took a Tylenol Cold and Flu pill. For the faithful, longtime readers, you will remember my adventures with the Tylenol Cold Medication that I wrote about in the old e-diary. Today will be much the same. For I am flying high. Which is strange because I took the day-time medication which isn't supposed to wing-nut you. This one really cranked me one. But it feels better then sick, so who cares?!

This entry will be short, but I am giving you a glimpse into possibly one of the best blog online. It is a friend of mine who lives in Calgary and is an INCREDIBLE creative writer. She sends out these "Jesus Blurbs" and now has begun to post them all online. So click on the link and when you reach her site, I highly recommend reading the entry called "Undevided Focus". It's probably one of my most favorite writings she has released.

Enjoy.......

VERY Cool Thought

So the Pope died. Weird. Most of us our age are going to see things that only happen once in a lifetime. A new Pope, a new King when Queen Elizabeth goes, world wide revival...

Stephanie had a very cool thought that struck her about what I wrote last time and what she saw on the news concerning the pope. So go check her diary out. It really hit me hard what she said.

Other then that I feel fairly ill. My whole body aches and my throat is raw. Oh well, I'll get better right quickly.

Also today was so fun. I got to hang out with Ryan and Bryan all day which is wonderful. They are some of my most favorite peoples. On Tuesday they are off to Europe for seven weeks, which is wild. They are so excited they haven't been sleeping much this past week.

A good plane ride across the Atlantic and into tomorrow will fix that.

Okay... time for bed.

Love to all!

The Pope's almost gone and other strange events

Let's review the events of today:

- The pope is ready to pack it in. At the beginning of this year a well known prophetic voice in the world prophecied that the pope was going to die, but right before he would release an important word that would rally a large group of people and bring a lot of people back to real faith in Jesus. Currently there are 70,000 - 80,000 people keeping vigil outside the pope's window. Interesting...

- I went to pray at the cancer group and heard the most bizzare story of a guy whose body has literally begun to work opposite like it should. Let me explain... he's not eating from hit butt and well... you get the idea... what has happened is his immune system, instead of killing viruses and things like that is killing his healthy body. His liver has stopped working and he is in constant tremors and constant severe pain. We met with this guy a while back and prayed for him - he wasn't saved. Now he is, which is wonderful and the doctors are slowly beginning to unravle the mystery that is his body. Sometimes sugar will relieve muscle spasms and it was recommended that this guy put a spoonful of honey in warm water to aid in relaxation. This guy took two spoonsfulls and my friend who was with him literally thought he was going to die because his body reacted exactly opposite and freaked out. Wild. Every single thing they do does the opposite of what it is supposed to. I wanted to suggest we take him to McDonalds everyday and we'd surely see a healing, but I didn't think it was appropirate.

The guy is getting better, though, which is wonderful and is amazingly hungry for Jesus!

- Upon driving home I heard on the radio that the high level bridge was completely closed. But they weren't saying why. Also a whole section of the river valley road was closed due to fire trucks. My guess is that someone has decided it prudent to jump off the bridge or something dumb like that. Great way to stop all traffic in the downtown core. When I figure out what is happening, I'll let you know.

- Then not one, not two, but three semi trucks all crashed on the Yellowhead, which is where I was driving. I got to spend a great deal of time watching people freaking out and picking the fastest lane (they were all going slower then I can walk) and generally creating such a mess that it took twice as long if they just stayed sane and stayed in the lane they were in in the first place. Edmonton drivers are the worst in the world. And I can say that because I have been to most major cities in North America. Edmonton drivers really are astonishingly bad, stupid and rude.

- Now that I am home, I have wonderfully invited myself over to Aaron and Bobbie's tonight for a night of vegitation

- Tomorrow my wonderful friends Bryan and Ryan are driving up from Red Deer. They leave for Europe on Teusday for seven whole weeks so it will be good to see them before they leave.

- I'm really looking forward to Monday night so I can go to the Flood and see all my friends there, whom I have not seen in a long time.

And now this weird blog will now come to a close.

Amen.