Hairline Fracture

Well...

It's that time again. Time to talk about my latest hairstyle. This one was a doozy. We were trying to go for some sweet blue chunks... and it crashed and burned. I would tell you more about it, but it's nearly mid-night (my appointment started at 8:00) and I still haven't packed for the trip to Quebec City tomorrow, which I must leave my house at 6:45am.

Needless to say, my hair is all one black color. It was the best we could do! I was pretty dissapointed, but it has been a while since I have been one uniform color so this will be a nice change. I actually like how it has all turned out.

It was quite the adventure, to say the least.

I do not know if I will be able to update for the next week, hopefully I will be. If not... I'll see you next wednesday!

Here I goooooooo........

A Note From Baghdad

I was forwarded this message written by a man I know who lives in Redding. It's an interesting read and since I don't have time to write a entry of my own, I thought you might like one from Baghdad. This man is a police officer in the US and is part of a group helping train the officers in Iraq. Talk about a wild job! Take a second to pray for this guy. I'm sure he'd appreciate it!
--------------------------------

Greetings from Baghdad!

I know, I intended to head to Babylon but there were no openings to go there, so I ended up in Baghdad, with what is called the P-3 unit which is supposed to "coach" the upper echelon on the Baghdad Police, generals, colonels, etc. in operating and administering the police departments in a manner consistant western departments. The history of the Iraqi police is that they were an extention of the Baathist military, a very top down totalitarian structure. The police were on the bottom and seen as corrupt and brutal.

The US has been trying to change that by putting police at the lower levels, including police academies, but with the structure on top unchanged, the improvements in training and mentoring have yeilded inconsistant results at best. What the P-3 unit is supposed to do is get the upper management on board....this will be difficult, but I think the idea is sound.

It s spiritually very hard here, but God has certainly been blessing me...I've been able to start each day in the Word, which is still really opening up to me. God has really impressed on me to pray for a compassionate heart for these Iraqis that I am meeting, so if you remember, I would really appreciate your prayers in this area. I know that from an earthly perspective this task looks virtually impossible, but this is the land of the city of Nineveh.

This is my third day of work, and I'm finding my perspective changing day by day, if not hourly. This, from a worldly perspective, has to be the most dangerous place on earth right now, a combination of Mad Max and Blackhawk Down. Everyone, including myself is armed with fully automatic weapons and our drives to and from work are like Code-3 runs without benefit of lights and siren. We travel in armored Chevy Suburbans with these huge antennae on them which make us really stand out from the local's vehicles, but everyone gets out of our way because they know we are targets for the terrorists IED'S (improvised explosive devices)...and yet I feel safe...I even had a white feather float down in front of me the day I got her (it's in my bible)...

I'm staying in what once was a 5-star hotel, maybe 30 years ago, and there has been some real effort to refurbish it (especially since march when a garbage truck carrying 1500 lbs of explosive detonated just east of the hotel-my room looks out onto the blast site-which blew out every window, door and hall ceiling in this eight story place....however God's hand was on all the 400 or so cops in this place, no one was killed but the two terrorists driving the garbage truck!)...

I know I'm rambling...I had another e-mail written that I couldn't get through to you, I trust that this one will.Will write more later,

In Christ,
Pat

Off to the Lake!

Ahhh... the Lake. Off I go once again. I have nothing to write, nor do I have time to write it. So... here's a picture! Yeah.... don't really have any explaination on this one. Just found it and made me laugh...

900 Trees Later...

So... have you ever removed 14 huge trees... 14 huge trees complete with a wasp's nest in the cracks of the driveway? 14 Huge trees with wasp nest of a condenmed house because it was someone's cat house?

No?

I took on that great enjoyment today.

It wasn't actually that bad. Hard work to say the least, but not torture. Maybe that was partly due to the fact that I was the only one on our crew who didn't get stung... I was told at one point to take one for the team. I offered to roll around on the concrete, but then thought twice.

I quite enjoyed the comments from the last post. So sad for those of you who read it and didn't comment. I forgive you. I had a good laugh at the repeated "this is why you don't have a girlfriend" pointer. Ahhh yes... girlfriends... keep cigar out of nose and I'm sure to have a girlfriend. I have solved all my problems.

Probably, I shouldn't keep going on that or the next batch of comments will be all my other shortcomings in the romantical area. But since I am not at all interested in having a girly friend I'm not too concerned at this point in time. Maybe I should at least learn a little bit for when that time comes so I'm not a blundering dolt.

But that just wouldn't be keeping with the pattern of my life and there will be much less to laugh hysterically about.

Today I did something a little new. I slathered after-shave soothing cream all over my arms. It was my only option. You see, when you run a chipper all day long your arms get ripped to shreds. Add that to grabbing huge armfuls of spruce and not only are your arms getting whipped, but they are getting poked from a billion little needles. I now refer to my forearms as my two open wound stubs.

Anyway, if you are ever working on spruce, you will notice that they are really sappy. When the sap hits your skin and dries it turns into this strange layer of blackness. Interesting, really. But to get said layer of blackness off you need something akin to sandpaper. Then you must apply said sandpaper to your already open-wound like forearms and scrub like there's no tomorrow.

They have this neat thing called.... called... I can't remember... that has little bits of sand and a powerful soap like substance that you can use to get grease and crap off your hands. I was worried about using this in the shower after work today because... like I said... vigoursly scrubbing sand into your wounds doesn't feel all that great.

I went and found some of that soap stuff and was relieved when I read that it had orange in it. I don't know why I stopped there, but I decided that if there is orange in some sort of soap product it obviously doesn't have sand in it.

I proceed to dump that on my arms and I went to town. Quickly I began to stiffle a scream as this orange does actually come complete with tiny bits of what I will now refer to as "acid sand". Ah yes... scrub acid sand into "open wound stubs". That's exactly what I wanted to do.

Since I didn't want to walk around in public with giant sticky black blobs on my arms I just grit my teeth and went for it anyway. Alas... let's have a moment of silence for those last few layers of skin I have forever removed from my body.

I finish my shower and dry off only to realize my forearms are burning like crazy -- much more the usual and I need to take immediate evasive action. I need something soothing and I need it now. The only product within immediate reach was my dad's fancy soothing aftershave balm. I trusted he wouldn't mind and slathered up my arms in this stuff! Woo!!! That worked like a charm!! A cool refreshing sensation envoloped my "open wound stubs" and miraculously restored them to slightly operational forearms. Still they are hideous to look at, but at least they feel cool, refreshed and smell overpoweringly manly.

And now, I'm off to bed. To enjoy my cool forearms and maybe sneak a little sniff a couple of times tonight.

Oh yes... the picture for the day is.... Nichole, myself and Natalie looking cool as ever. Picture taken in my beautiful California home.

Cigar Tips?

I enjoy the occasional cigar. I used to enjoy quite a regular cigar, but now it's just occasional.

Cigars are an interesting thing. I do not smoke those cheap store bought cigars because I am a cigar snob. I also think that if you are going to smoke one, you'd better smoke a real one because then you are really smoking a cigar and not just a bunch of old, smelly tobacco. It's kind of like drinking wine - you don't just drink Boone's, you get the good stuff because then you can sit there and really enjoy wine the way it was always supposed to be.

I attribute much of the closesness of myself and my brothers to cigars. You are forced to sit down with each other for at least an hour! Haha...

Okay... side note worthy of mention....

Someone just called about this man that we are aquainted with. He was homeless and lived in his car. He came to church every now and then and was a decent man. He had recently moved to Vancouver along with this family he was very close with. This family didn't have much money either, but they always looked out for this guy and they helped each other out for the longest time.

So the other day this man get's a phone call of sorts.... telling him that he had won a certain settlement that he didn't know about (I don't really understand that fully). He was also told that this settlement is for $4 million!

He has now bought some land on Vancouver island and called up this family that helped him out all the time... and is building them a house. He'll buy some lawn equipment and start up a little business. He has said that all he ever wanted to do was have a family and own a home. He's now on his way. He decided that this little business will help keep him busy. How cool is that?

End of side note.

Now back to the entry I was doing. I was about to tell you that I have been having some difficulty lately in smoking these cigars. I don't know what is wrong. People point and laugh at me. Some people shake their head and just walk away. I'm really confused and troubled by this so I took a picture of myself smoking a nice cigar. Take a look at the picture and maybe you can help me out. Please leave a comment, I know this is a safe place.

Random Blog Style Entry

Well...

I'm currently waiting for Aaron and Bobbie to drive by and us all to head out to the lake. So if this entry ends rather ubruptly that is why. They have come and I have gone.

I discovered a few things yesterday, of which I will now outline:

1. Waking up at 5:45am calls for a remarkably long day. Kind of neat actually. I think I have just discovered a way to double my life time.

2. Eating a Dairy Queen cheese burger and blizzard both at around 10:30pm does nasty things to the insides. Unless of course you are like my friend Tyler who once proudly proclaimed, "I have a stomach like a gutt!" Hummm.... yes, Tyler... you do.

3. The power of a thankful heart is unlike anything else.

Since I am going to the lake I will now post a nice picture of our lake. You'll all have to come one day or another. And if you have not read my last entry, please read at least the beginning and help me find the name of that band. PLEASE!!

Okay... I couldn't find one of the lake. So here is one in honor of Katieann who is getting married soon. This is when she was finally able to use chopsticks! We're so proud of her.

Musical Trivia

Okay....

Before I forget, I need help figuring out a name of a band. For some wild reason I keep thinking of this band. I don't know any of their songs. I can only remember a bit of one video. I haven't the foggiest idea what their band name is. So let see if we can help solve this mystery!

Here's what I think I know:

- They made a video a bunch of years back that was pretty popular. If I remember correctly it was this weird animation to reality and in the animation the lead singer was drawing himself. Like the drawing was drawing himself and the drawing was of the lead singer... make sense?

- I think the band is named after some mythilogical god or something like that

Yep that's about all I know. Great, huh? So if that rings any sort of bell I would greatly appreciate it because things like this drive me nuts. And I want to go get their CD to see why it's bouncing around in my head so much.

Anyway....

Today I woke up at lovely 5:45am. Craig and I had to go do one small tree job way downtown before all the traffic started up. When I woke up it was pouring rain and I wasn't really too happy about that because I knew I would get soaked, but it turned out to be a good thing.

We did the tree work... which included me having to drag the brush down about a city block to where we parked the truck. It also included me and Craig dodging needles that we found in the undergrowth of the tree stem. That was freaky. And I had a pleasant, but rather bizzare conversation with a very mentally unstable man for a while.

The job was quick. We were done by 8:30 and then off we drove back to the yard. This is when the rain came in handy. Craig said he would have done more work today if it wasn't for the rain! Aaaaahhhh!!! Thank you Jesus for the rain today!!

Soooooo.... get your music brains in gear and help me out! Leave a comment with what you think is right.

And here's a nice picture for your efforts. It's the economical way I travel. And it also happens to be Trisha's trunk at the Sacramento Airport.

I Thought I Hurt Yesterday...

Ouch.

Today was another enjoyable day. But now... oh my sweet goodness... it is yesterday times 10 easily. I could hardly take my boots off after work today. Another few days of tree work will cure me of that.

My brain is totally blank right now. I would type something fun and exciting, but I just can't think of anything.

Pray for my back. Pray that I will not go overboard with the abuse I am putting it through.

I think I have to confess that I am completely addicted to this new game called "Settlers of Catan." Well... it's not really a new game, just new to us. Kristy-anne would be happy about how I am no longer addicted to reality TV (mainly because my favorites are not on) but since she has vanished from the land of blog we can only hope that somewhere out there she's happy.

I'm going to find a nice little picture to post now.... This is me and Andy. He from Norway and is one of my most dear friends. He's coming back to Canada soon. Beginning of August and I cannot wait to see him. We'll hang out for a while and then he's off to do and SBS at the YWAM base in Montana. Yaaaay!! Three cheers for Andy!

Robaxacet, Meet Kayle...

It's day 26 of year 24 and day 1 of two weeks of heavy labour.

I also took two Robaxacet this evening and my back and neck is feeling pretty good! My head hurts a little, but that's okay. A good sleep tonight and I'll be ready for the next stage tomorrow. I don't know what I was thinking but I even said I'd work on Saturday REALLY early in the morning to help prune some big old trees by The Brick Warehouse. Of course they asked me that at the beginning of the day when I was still too stupid to say no.

I am really happy to be working with this crew. I know two of the guys from church and we get along really well. Then another guy I just met today and he's awesome too. An amazingly fast pruner. Like AMAZINGLY fast. We did a job that would normally last at the very least a half day for a usual crew in just one and a half hours. I was amazed.

I also thought I was going to die at this point!

Mistaken, I was, in thinking that I could perform at my old abilities. I got rather into it and went hog wild on the chipper. Soon after I was getting ready to meet the Lord. hahahahaha!!! Nope... not at my old level... gotta work up to that again!

Anyway, all in all, a good day. I had fun. I hurt. But oh well. Tomorrow is another day and I'm looking forward to it.

Hmmmm.... I don't really know what to write here. I thought of something really good last night, but that was last night. I think that I was going to write about my last Bible reading adventure. I broke into Acts and already in the first three chapters there are some really cool things that I've never noticed before.

For example when those two guys (can't remember right now..... kind of zonked) healed that one dude at the temple. The man was full on expecting money. It says so really plainly. But what he got instead was his legs back. He was expecting something and God quite radically exceeded his expectations. I like that. Makes me remember that I am expecting a lot of things, but what is actually coming down the tubes is something altogether different and entirely more incredible.

Then later on they are explaining this healing and they say that it was because of faith in the name of Jesus that this man was healed. I could go on for about 600 pages about how the phrase "the name of Jesus" has been hideously taken out of context by most of the western Christian culture, dumbing it down to just a name that people say with the idea that it is a magic wand to do our bidding, but I won't. Yet. Let's just say that the name of Jesus is like getting married to someone and you are now in the name of your husband. It's all about relationship and an intimate knowing and it's through taking on that name that stuff begins to happen. Jesus was very much in the name of His Father... think about that.

Anyway, this guy gets healed and they say it's by faith in the name of Jesus. What I found interesting is that this guy was just about the farthest away from having any faith that he would be healed as anyone in the Bible. He has no idea what was about to happen. He was expecting, or having faith, that he was about to get some money. So his healing had nothing to do with his faith, but everything to do with Peter and Paul's (I hope I have that right) faith. Once again reinforcing in my mind that when someone doesn't get healed I really need to go back and check things out in my heart, my belief system and my relationship with Jesus. Not to hammer down on myself and say I'm evil, but to be able to see the waiting opprotunities that I have to become more like the One I love.

I find that incredibly exciting, don't you? A chance to let God come and transform you more into... Him!

Anyway... rambling. Time for a picture. I think I'll post one taken in Oregon. My friend Jeremy and I were getting some gas and noticed the rather unusual sign on the gas pumps. I hope you can see it. I'm glad they put the sign up there, because I was about to fill up my water bottle... yeah....

Look Out Labor Force, Here I Come!

Well.....

I believe today is the 25th day of year 24. I really can't remember anymore, so I hope I'm getting it correctly. It is quite possible that in a few more weeks I'll be proudly announcing that it is day 416 of year 24 and I won't know what is wrong.

Events of today include getting a job. Rather, a job getting me. There is this guy in our church who owns a company called Alberta Arborists and he needed a guy to work for the next two weeks. I happen to have the next two weeks free, so thought it might be fun. I have done three seasons of tree work before, so at least I am familiar with it. Although, I do not know if I will be familiar with what will happen tomorrow. I asked Craig (owner) who I would be a groundsman for and he said that now they don't send out two people work crews, but they send out one big 5-6 man work crew to do a big job. They do in one day what would normally that 2-3 days of a two man crew. So tomorrow I may get to see the famous lift-truck at work and dodge large chunks of wood falling at me from the sky!

But I do get to chuck stuff in the chipper, which is always fun.... until it's willows and I get the skin whipped off my arms.

Seeing as I haven't done any labour work for a lot of years tomorrow should also be interesting. I'm praying my back will be able to hold out and I won't have parts of my body going mysteriously numb as usually happens when I do any sort of work with my back. Ahhhh the joy of car accidents... try not to get in them. They inconvenience your entire life afterwards.

But in an effort not to have entire parts of my body go numb my dad and I went out and got some nice new works boots. Now I'm about three inches taller then usual and it is really funny. I'm sure I will get teased tomorrow showing up with gleeming new everything, ready for work. I may just roll around in the dirt for a while tonight to look the part.

I'm thinking I should start a lottery. People can bet on which body part will go numb from day to day. It will be like the roulette wheel at the casino. You can pick from right leg (highest probability), left leg, right arm, left arm, entire left side (often, but not as common), entire right side (usually only when driving long distances, so not high odds), or you can put all your money and prayers that tomorrow my back will finally be healed and I will live the rest of my life with no pain (casino owner greatly encourages this avenue, even though it will put said gambling establishment out of business... hahaha).

Yeah.... maybe I'm a little sick thinking that way. But I do expect to be healed. That was one of my new years goals I set. To pursue the healing of my back and not let up until I see it happen.

So tomorrow the test will start. And it's only two weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to maintain myself for that long.

Tonight I'm going to go clomp around in my new giant boots for a while and hopefully break them in a bit. Maybe call Aaron up to play a game of "Settlers of Catan" which is the best board game I have played in a long, long time... maybe even better then the game of Life! Shocking, I know.

Now...... let me find a picture to post....

Found one. This is a picture I took of our beautiful lake this past fall. I kind of like it. Hope you do too!

Just Another Day.... WHAT???!?!?!

Well....

Today reinforced my lack of a normal life. For example, this afternoon I went to pray at the health clinic that I pray at. Soon I will be able to make a link to it in this here website, for one is being created! Woo!! Now, a lot of people pray, but I'm not sure a lot of people pray at a health clinic for patients who are sick. A lot of people should pray at places like this!!

We're starting to see some really neat things happen. Two weeks ago we got a miracle right in the middle of a surgery. I think I shared that story here... can't really remember. To make a long story, we prayed for a girl who was going to have major surgery because something nasty was happening in her insides. We prayed, they opened her up for surgery a few hours later and... couldn't find a thing wrong!! WOO-HOO!! I like that.

Then today we prayed for Yvonne who has been suffering from some sort of nasty mystery rash that would come and go. We don't like that, especially with our beloved Yvonne so we prayed. At one moment I felt the Lord come so strong and it was like he was purifying her system of whatever was causing this rash. Right when I was feeling that Yvonne said, "I feel so hot from the top of my head to my feet!" Very often when we pray for people they get really hot when the Lord starts healing them... I don't know why... it's just pretty common. So I am confident this rash will no longer be bothering Yvonne. It was a really neat prayer time.

After this, I hopped in the mighty Mumby Mobile and drove to meet with Faytene and a crew of youth she has been working with this week. We went to speak with MP David Kilgour. For those of you not from Canada an MP is one of our federal government representatives. The people we elect in a national election to represent us. The "MP" stands for "Member of Parliment" which is our national government assembly.

I was very, very impressed with this man. Interestingly, he is the first that Faytene has met with and hopefully I will be joining on a tour this August to speak, pray for, prophesy over as many MP's as we can get our hands on. I hope to be taking part in the first half of this tour where we would do rallies and meet with MP's in Edmonton, Lethbridge, Regina and Winnipeg. That would be over the course of..... one week. Details still need to be finalized. Pray with me that they do.

Once they do then I could be home for a grand total of about five days in the month of August! Weee!! Two days or something like that after the tour I hope to drive on down to Taber, Alberta for a week of street outreach with an awesome church. Help train up their young people and hungry people and go make a mess of the city. It's Mormon central for Alberta.... should be fun! I love Mormons!

Okay... I'm getting off on a rabbit trail.

When we were at David Kilgour's office we met up with some pretty wild people. One guy from India who was the head of some sort of third world rights group, a lady who is one of the leaders of the Polish community in Edmonton. She told us a bit of her story which was WILD. Fled Poland, got thrown in the prision camps in Siberia anyway, somehow survived and fled there, got placed in Uganda in another refugee camp and eventaully made her way to Canada. Now there was somebody with national pride. She said she didn't know if she would make it until she came to this beautiful country, Canada.

We asked what we, as young people, could do and Mr. Kilgour gave a very passioned plea for the young people to get behind the person in government that they most identify with. He said if we as young people get behind that person that they would most likely win because of the pull that young people have now days. He totally recognized it, which was awesome. All his staff in the office were very vocal in agreeing with this point. Another thing he gave a passioned plea for was to call our representatives and ask what the government of Canada was doing about the situation (or shall I say genocide, because that's what it is) that is happening in Sudan. Between 5,000-8,000 are being killed there every week. He said flat out the way the international community is dealing with Sudan is simply another Rwanda and we have time to stop that before it turns into a massive blood bath, further then what it is. Mr. Kilgour was very strong in saying this was an important thing for us to do. Call, or better yet, visit our MP's office to ask and really ASK what Canada is doing. He said if we don't get a good answer to call him up and he'll deal with it.

I went away knowing that this is a man who really knows his place of authority in government and I was very impressed by the ability of one man to be able to really shift and change or at least bring to light situations in the world and that Canada would be able to address it in one way or another. I was impressed by the fact that democracy really is alive and well in Canada, we just need to get off our little behinds and really do something about it. Like talk to our MP's.

Well... at least this August we will be hitting up a bunch of them. But I don't want to stop there. A one time deal isn't enough. If I love my country I need to be more invovled. We can pray and pray and pray, but there is still that whole thing of what are we going to do about it now. It's not hard to become pro-active and from what I saw just today it really does create and effect. Become pro-active with God behind you and look out. This nation can really be changed.

Today really made me want to become more invovled with government. I kept thinking of a group like Watchmen and if each person involved in that group made sure their voice was heard, stood behind their government leader that they believed in, met with their MP's and all that... wow... I'd wager that we'd be light-years ahead of where we are now.

So get involved!! It's not hard. They're nice people. Mr. Kilgour was blown away that he'd have this many young people in his office. In fact he said that he's never had that many people in his office ever. That was both exciting and sad. Exciting because it's starting and sad because... he has never seen that many young people in his office before. There was about 20 of us in all.

I'm really looking forward to the next election now!

And now since I can post pictures, I am going to continue posting some of my most very favorite pictures ever. This one was from my 22nd Birthday. I think this is my favorite picture that I have ever taken. And I will put another little quote by C. S. Lewis. It's from "The Last Battle" which is part of the Chronicles of Narnia, which in my humble opinion everyone simply must read... and often. This is a character named Emith speaking who simply hated Aslan, or at least the idea of Aslan until he suddenly met Him. Emith tells one of the most spellbinding and breathtaking stories in print, I think and it only takes a few paragraphs. The main characters simply stumble upon Emith in the most unusual place and know something has changed the man. He's been searching for Aslan after a rather lifechanging encounter. The chapter is called "Further up and Further In" which is what Alsan and the characters keep saying to each other and they finally get to run into Aslan's country... the place where they've always longed to be for so many years... I like to think about Emith's encounter with Aslan like my encounters with God... I think this picture illustrates it well... enjoy....



"And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog..."

Tropical Storms and Such

Well....

This afternoon I went out to buy a new worship CD. I was fully intending to get the new Hillsong Youth band CD thing, because everyone is listening to it and I love it. But when I stepped into the store I noticed a CD that literally took my breath away. It's one by Kate Miner. The first year I was in California someone had somehow gotten her first CD called "Live from the Strip" and it rocked our world for a long time. But that CD wasn't yet being carried by any label so it was VERY VERY hard to find. I'm still looking for it, in fact... I'm guessing if I go to her website I just might find it.

The first CD is rather raw, but it is incredible. And I mean absolutely incredible. She just goes for it in worship and you can't help but be taken along for the ride, even by simply listening to a CD. The one song that constantly goes through my head is called "Dream Before You". Wow... Plus anyone who has released a CD called "The Could Have Been My Greatest Hits" you just know is a good artist. hahaha... I love it.

So I walked out with Kate Miner's new CD called "Prodigal Martha". It should be a good one. I listened to it a bit in the store and really liked it.

Then I went off to Starbucks to sit, read Mr. Bible for a while and think. It was nice. Until the sky opened up and dumped down it's wrath on us. I think the tropical storms that are hitting Florida came up here for a little visit. It was crazy!! The wind was blowing so hard that when I stopped the Mumby Mobile it was rocking back and forth.

I have really been enjoying the Bible lately. There is just so much in it. I may have another Bible Story Time with Kayle here soon because a lot is pilling up and I need to re-process it and since my best way of processing is through these funny little keys, I may just subject you to forced Bible study. Well... it will just be the stuff that I have dug out and find particularly neat. For example, John 17 Jesus is praying for His disciples and for us. There is a little tid-bit at the beginning of His prayer where He asks Pappa God to come and glorify him with the glory that they had before the world began.

Interesting.

Usually I would just rip right over that... yeah, yeah... glorify... before the beginning of the world... glory, glory....

Wait a minute! What does that mean? That was the glory before we went and messed everything up in creation! That was the glory that didn't have a significant rift through it due to the sin we allowed to enter the world. That was the glory that God intended all of creation to live in. That was the perfect, pure glory that was untouched and had no knowledge of sin. Hmmm... so now God has given that to Jesus. And then Jesus goes on to pray that Father God would then give that same glory to us, now that we believe. And when you read that prayer along with John 16:31 you'll notice that it took a little while for the disciples to actually and really believe Jesus was the son of God. Jesus get's pretty excited and I found it interesting the time-line from the disciples really, truly believing to this incredible prayer that sets the precident for the rest of history for us as believers. Once they really believed, they got the download from heaven. I find that very interesting and very exciting. It's neat to see what is really available to us. Not just words, not just idea's, but a living, breathing God who does wild and crazy stuff to us and through us. This is one of the first times where Jesus also mentions to the disciples that the same way that Pappa God sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus is send us. He reminds them of that a little while later in John 20:21 in a kind of freaky way, just to emphasis the point, I suppose... hahaha....

Hmmm.... so much in there. So, so much. And I want it all.

It is also interesting to note all the times that Jesus mentions, "Ask anything you want and it will be granted to you" through chapters 12-16. But there is a little key to that... ask anything you want in my name and it will be given to you. There is a pre-requisite of relationship that is present in all of that. I noticed how Jesus wasn't given them some magic wand to just utter the name "Jesus" and wham-o there's your miracle, but it was a call to take on the name of Jesus... the who of Jesus. It was a call to take on the very person of Jesus through that deep, wonderful, living, breathing relationship. Kind of like, when you really get to know this guy, you'll know what to ask for kind of how Jesus modelled to us through His relationship with the Father and only doing what he saw God do. Jesus never failed. I want that relationship.

That still blows my mind. The God of the universe, who created EVERYTHING and holds it all in His hands... and me. We get to hang out together. We get to know each other. We get to explore each other - although He has already done a pretty good job of getting to know me already, what with creating me and knowing all the days of my life and all. I kind of like that, though. Some people know rocks stars, some people know world leaders, some people know the insides of Hollywood. I know God.

Excellent....

And now for a picture and bits of a cool song by Jason Upton to go along with it. This kind of illustrates how I feel right now.

A cloud by day
And a fire by night
I'll keep moving on
It may seem strange
But I know it's right
I'll keep moving on

Pictures... Finally?

I just noticed that little picture button over there on the top right of my little entry screen. So I'm going to test it out and see what happens....

Wow!! Look at that!! I posted a picture!!!!! FINALLLLY!!! My dream has come true! It's like Christmas all over again.

For those of you who care, this is one of my favorite pictures. The Sun-Dial Bridge at my California Home in Redding with some of my most very favorite people. I just may do a very favorite people series and tell you all about them.

That's Katelyn and Seth on my left and then Trisha and Jeremy on the right. Aren't we beautiful?

Now That Was Wierd

It's day 19 of year 24 which is day five of month 7 in year 2005. Kind of sounds like a complex star date on Star Trek.

Something else that is completely from outerspace is what happened last night. Once again I head off to the Flood to discover that nobody is there and once again I am oh so happy that I just drove 30 minutes to arrive at nothing. It was a long weekend, but since the day off was Friday, I didn't think that they'd skip monday too. Baaaaa....

Since I now had an evening wide open I decided to call up Jon and we went out for coffee. When we go out we need to choose certain coffee places that are not the popular joints, or else we'd never get to talk. So Whyte Ave was out of the question because we know many people on the ave and they'd all sit down and decide to talk with us. Generally not a bad thing, but when you want to actually talk talk then interruptions are not always welcomed.

Sadly we went a bit too far off the beaten path.

Jon had a 2 for 1 coffee thing for 2nd Cup, so we decided to use it. Normally when we go out for coffee we head to the Jasper Ave Starbucks because nobody is there. A 2nd Cup just happens to be a few blocks down the road so off we went.

I should have known this evening would be weird when off in the distance I noticed a girl putting up a poster. I mentioned the girl to Jon and he takes a closer look and says, "Uh... Kayle... that's not a girl..."

Could have fooled me. When we walked past it was definately a guy. Strange how I thought this person was a girl. Very strange indeed.

We get to 2nd Cup and walk inside. Greeted by a man fast asleep, head back, mouth open with a fresh hot coffee in front of him. All I said was, "You don't see that everyday" which really is just wishful thinking for me. I see stuff like that much more often then not.

We get our coffee and step outside to the patio thing.

I look to my left. There is a guy reading an obviously gay book. I look to my right. There is a highly femanine man sitting with his "girlfriends". I look behind me, more guys. I look back to my left. Now there is another man gently touching first man's shoulder. I look to Jon... oh sweet Lord what have we gotten ourselves into this time?

A natural reaction probably would have been to get up and walk away. But we'd just gotten coffee and we were darn ready to sit there and drink it. So we did. We didn't say much. There was just not much to say. Either that or the uncomfortable meeter was registering a 15 Billion on a scale of 1-10. I kept bursting out in laughter every few minutes and hoped I wouldn't get straight bashed. A car eventually pulled up and drove first gay man away, not before the driver waved to every guy around us and some exchanged bits of converstaion.

Eventually it was too much and we got up and left. As we were walking back to the car I decided to check out the poster that the first person I saw was putting up. Turns out it was a poster for a 80's Glam Party. Not so bad, I thought to myself, until I noticed the fine print.... an 80's Drag Glam Party. I guess that's why at a distance I thought the guy was a gal.

WHAT THE FREAKING HECK IS GOING ON?????

All I wanted was a coffee... just one normal coffee... that's all I ask....

Actually, if wacked out crap like this didn't constantly happen to me, then I'd never have anything to update in his here blog.

And once again I'm amazed at the different culture that is out there in Edmonton. I'm amazed that I'm so out of touch with it. I'm amazed that honest, true Christian's are not bombarding that place with bombs of unconditional love of God and a trusting, listening ear.

I drove home once again, praying furiously for more boldness. I don't quite know how to cross that bridge at a place and situation like my 2nd Cup night, but I know I need to. The people I had coffee with are just as much the same sheep at the drunk ones on Whyte Ave.

Merry 4th of July!!

It's that time of year again. That time when Canadians feel high and mighty for pounding the USA and criticizing everything about them, yet still happily go vacation there three times a year. Yes, that's right... it's Independance Day!!

Many people I know do not understand my attitude towards the USA. They don't like the USA and all the Canadian media says that the US stands for, but I for one love the US. I took some time and actually went there, got to know many people and really dug into the culture. I witnessed many incredible things and was blown away by the American people. Anyone who says they are arrogant, ignorant, war hungry, agenda pushing bigots better just turn that paint brush around and paint their own face with that very same paint. I don't know if that made any sense, but who cares...

I love the United States. The best years of my life so far occured in the United States. I used to live in St. Louis, MO and that was a time when I was honestly blown away by the friendliness, the community and the genuine love of the American People. I can honestly remember times when I would stand shocked because of something that just happened to me and how it totally blew away my previous perception of who and American was. I regularly fell in love with them.

While in St. Louis I travelled extensively throughout the US, going to a different city about every four days. I keep thinking I have seen some of the best of America, and not the rich... the best. I saw some of the poorest of the poor, but still I saw the best.

While I was living in California I got to witness and be a part of a huge shift in history. I was visiting my home in Canada and flew back to the US just hours before the 9/11 Attack. Even though I was clear across the country, it was something else to feel the shock wave and see how it affected us over in California. This is where I saw true patriotism come to life. Never again will I criticize an American for being a "Flag Waver" as so many people do around the world. They can wave that flag all they want and I will join in with pride.

I was just with Carolyn Neary and she had just returned from Sacramento. She got to walk around the State Capitol building on Memorial Day and she said that she was very nearly overcome with the presence of God because of the amazing patriotism and national pride she witnessed. She was sharing that with some Canadians and you could tell that it just didn't compute, but I was so happy because finally another Canadian has seen through the smoke and mirrors and seen the powerful truth that God has placed on the American people. They know freedom way more then we do. We need that impartation.

So with that, I will say "Happy Independance Day!" to all my American readers. Cheers to you. Cheers to your country. Cheers to freedom.

Thus ends what I think is my 18th day of year 24. We'll see if I have been counting right in a few hundred more days.... hahaha...

God Bless America!

Home Again

Well...

If I have my math right, it's day 16 of year 24. This last week was a doozy. Made some awesome new connections with a few world leaders and once again am humbled and amazed with this crazy fun life I get to lead.

Still trying to make peace with the fact that I just don't understand it.

Still fun, though....

A great relationship was solidified with a lady named Donna Jordan. She has a huge prophetic ministry and travels extensively in the nations. For example when I said goodbye she was on her way to Sweden, soon would be in Singapore then to New Zealand or something like that. CRAZY!!! She's a wild grandma and we both are excited to see where our friendship will go and what God will do.

This week at the Ranch was bitter-sweet. It was awesome to be there, but I was sad that I wasn't going to spend the whole summer there. But it is for the better, I know more and more that I am to be home right now and really hunker down for a couple of months in the presence of God. I don't know what this fall has in store, but I believe it's time to get ready for what is coming. Donna really kicked my butt in a few area's like that and wonderfully challanged my faith. She even kicked me in the shins a couple times! And I mean she really kicked me!! What is it with big leaders and them beating on me? Todd Bentley elbow drops me and now Donna kicks me in the shins. Hahahahaha... so funny...

We teamed up for a session and I lead a time of prayer for the summer. I think we were all thinking it would just be a quick deal, but the Holy Spirit showed up something significant and swept us into about an hour and a half of DEEEEEEP, powerful intercession and experiencing the glory realms of God. At one point a staffer read Ezekiel 37, about the valley of dry bones and prophecying to the four winds to come and blow life into the army. So we did that and at the end I felt like we were to call for the winds of heaven to blow on us. So we did, after a sustained time of powerful intercession for the 4 winds to come. Ummm... Wow? People were laying all over the place overcome with the presence of God, others were kneeling, some (like me) didn't know what to do with themselves and I just stood there bawling my face right off. It was pretty intense and I loved every second of it.

My spiritual pappa, Dennis Wiedrick was there too, so it was awesome to spend a week with him. We had some awesome times, as always. He's a good, good man. It's so strange to think about what we are all doing. Since the last time I saw Dennis (which was only 5 weeks ago) he had been to South Africa, England and a few places in Ontario and now here. In between those dates he literally had only one day to turn around for his next date of ministry. More and more I am blown away by this man. I am greatly looking forward to September to spend some time with him and the Apostolic Family over in Hamilton. Slowly, but surely, I'm collecting my pennies to put towards the trip. Even if all I can do is get out there for one day, it's worth it. That time will be amazing.

Oh yeah... we had a little fundraiser banquet for ENR. Can you guess how much was raised? Okay, okay... I'll give you some sort of basis to guess a number. There were about 350 people there, each paid $25 for the dinner. So this number is above the $25 that was raised. Think of a number... really think of one... okay... now can you believe that just over $296,000 was given in one offering for the Ranch? Yes, you read that right - $296,000!!!!!

Anyway, when the week was over I went to Calgary. Someone got me a hotel room to stay in and I crashed for the evening, to wake up early the next morning to spend time with four ladies who probably pray for me more faithfully then many people around. I am honored and blessed to have them in my life. We went to a farmer's market outside of Calgary. I bought Llama Pepperonie... we'll see how that works. I thought Aaron and I would enjoy it. It's super spicey. And I was craving fresh carrots so I bought a bunch for $1.00 and ate them all!! Hahahahaha...

So that was that. I grabbed some lunch with Carolyn and headed off to Red Deer to meet up with some more friends. Hung out with Devan and Audrey until about 8:00pm and then finally headed home.

........Home.........

So much more to share, but that's the crazy update for now. I'm doing my laundry, to be ready for the morning and then I'm off to the lake tomorrow afternoon for something that I can't remember. It's some sort of party, but I don't know for who or why. I just know I'm to be there! hahaha!!

And special greetings to the new readers and the readers who have renewed their blog visiting. It's good to have you back...