Maritime Madness.

This last week I've had the amazing opportunity of traveling the Maritime Provinces of Canada. I've always heard that these provinces have a culture of their own, but nevertheless I was blown away when the team and I arrived here. By the hospitality, the Maritime Pride, the history, and of course, the beauty. So here's a quick overview of some of the things we've had the privilege of seeing over the past week.

Moncton NB: A beautiful city with some of the most hospitable people I've ever met. A Tim Hortons on every corner (almost...), the James family, hard core American Idol fans, the cheapest second hand store I've ever set foot in, and Uplanders Baptist Church, one of the most welcoming church communities we've visited yet!

Halifax NS: A city of history, BEAUTIFUL universities, and a wonder board walk. We accidentally walked in on a free clothing give away at King's university in the girls dorm, and weren't apologetic about taking what we like. (Don't worry we were very much allowed to) We found there the most amazing second hand bookstore, visited Theodore the Tugboat, and had an amazing Thai supper!

The Bay of Fundy: I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this one.

Cavendish PEI: The site of Anne of Green Gables, the birth place and resting place of LM Montgomery, and a beautiful walking path through 'The Haunted Forest.'

Charlottetown PEI: Canada's birthplace. We were able to visit the parliament buildings, and the PEI government happened to be in session. We witnessed a hot debate about price fixing in the Lobster Industry, and also got to see the Womens Olympic Gold Medal Bobsled team be acknowledged by their provincial government and given a standing ovation. We enjoyed some fresh lobster close to the beach, and then took a drive down to the North Shore!

Needless to say. A stellar couple days off.

Jessica

A Letter to the Undecided

You need to start living for God. I am unapologetic about being straight forward about this. You need to let him in. He’ll fill the holes. You’ll sleep. Actually sleep; feel rested like you never have before. You need to stop running. You need to stop minimizing and attempting to discredit him. You are hurting him. He created you, and the way you are living breaks his heart. Not because of the decisions you make, but because of the hurt and the emptiness YOU are experiencing as a result of those choices. When you hurt, he hurts more. When you feel alone and thrown aside and not appreciated or cared for, he feels all that too and is devastated because that is not the kind of life he created you for.

The things you are looking for; companionship, (True, constant, loyal, and unchanging companionship) passion, (Unwavering drive and excitement, a goal that fulfills you and moves you forward) purpose, (A knowing that YOU are the solution and contributor to a certain and specific SOMETHING, that you are not here to simply take up space and then disappear) and acceptance. (The knowing, and never doubting, that you are valued, cared for, loved, in spite of anything you might do intentionally or unintentionally to sabotage it) These are things you will never truly experience in full unless you acknowledge the one who created them as YOUR creator.

And the SECOND you acknowledge that he is who he says he is, you give him permission to come into your life and begin to work. To fill that which was once empty. To heal that which was once damaged. To reclaim that which was once abandoned. To restore what was destroyed. To comfort what was hurt. To breathe life into the parts of you that feel lifeless.

I ache for you to experience this life. I was so badly for you to know this fullness. An existence free of doubt, torment, fatigue, loneliness, and helplessness. That is the kind of life I long for you to experience. But my longing pales in comparison to God’s.

He would do ANYTHING for you to be able to live this way. In fact; he already has. And now the only thing standing in between the awe inspiring God and the life he desperately wants you to have, is you.

I want you on my team!

This will be short.

So over the last couple months, I've been working really hard at learning how to speak with God, and actually converse with him. Like I would a person. Sometimes I write down my questions, and then write down what I think he's telling me. Sometimes we just chat. Today, we were chatting and I told God that I wanted him on my team. Then he said... So does everybody else. I will never know if he MEANT to reference Timbaland... but I will choose to believe so.

Jessica

Quest for Mitts...

If you’ve been paying attention during the last couple months, you will have noticed that it is almost impossible to walk down the street without seeing someone wearing a red pair of Olympic mittens. Now I’m usually not one for bandwagons, but I can actually see no down side to hopping on this one. Red is a nice color, you’re showing support for our country’s Olympic team, they’re affordable, you’ve got an Olympic souvenir, and your hands are kept nice and toasty! So this week I went on a quest to find a pair of Olympic mittens. It proved MUCH more difficult than expected.

There are three places you can go to buy such a pair of mittens in Canada. The Bay, Zellers, and Home Outfitters. So my first stop was The Bay. I stepped up to the counter and asked the lady if there were any more in stock. She looked at me and gave a sad little chuckle and then said “Honey. We’re all out. We’ve been all out for weeks. There aren’t any mittens left at any Bay in this city.” To which I said… “Will you be getting any more in?” She shook her head sadly. Strike one.

Next it was off to Home Outfitters. I didn’t even get through the door. Posted outside the store was a sign that said “ATTENTION SHOPPERS All HBC stores across Winnipeg are currently sold out of Red Olympic Mittens. Sorry for the inconvenience. –Management” I refused to be discouraged. It was off to Zellers.

I stepped in a Zellers and asked if they had any Olympic mittens. I was met with a sad shake of the head. “All sold out. Have been for a while.” I was beginning to potentially begin to think about accepting defeat. That was when I heard a voice behind me. “Are you looking for Olympic mittens?” I turned around and saw a young mother pushing her son in a stroller. She continued, “My mother in law was at the Zellers on Henderson Highway yesterday, and she said they got a huge unexpected shipment in yesterday afternoon. I bet if you hurry there would still be some there.” I thanked her and immediately headed to the Zellers on Henderson Highway. And they had some! The search was over!

What did I learn from this? “Never, never, never, never give up.” – Winston Churchill

Reading makes me think about other things...

God strips himself bare and comes as a man with no possessions, no reputation, no 'wow factor.' Why? Because we humans love a good show. We love celebrities for their style. We love politicians for their policies. We love athletes for their ability to perform. And there's nothing wrong with that. But God didn't want to be perceived by his creation, by his people, as yet another public figure. Love reduced to appeal of the eye and the mind was not the kind of love he was looking for. He wanted us to fall in love with HIM. Just HIM. Nothing else. Not the package, not the presentation. Simply who he was. So he stripped himself down. He stripped himself of his glory because he knew people couldn't handle it. He didn't want people to fall in love with the 'wow.' He didn't want us to fall in love with yet another show. I love the most basic God who ever offered himself to man kind and live according to a very basic truth. I love my father and the father loves me. No show here.

Taste of Sante Fe.

So the BUGirl teams are about to head out on the road. It is a matter of weeks now, and everyone's beginning to count down. The two teams have been living together for the last couple months, so being separated is going to be quite a change. I never thought I'd be used to sharing a kitchen with 12 other people, having an open door bedroom policy, and coordinating the schedules of 12 other people. But I will miss it when we hit the road again.

Because our time together is short, the BUG house has been a place where last minute bonding is taking place almost 24/7. The last week has been a whirlwind of working out together, making meals together, bunking up in each others beds, late night talks, team devos and reading time, etc etc etc. Last night was no exception.

Myself and Natalie Elliott decided to hang out with Jillian Michaels right after work, and she kicked our butts, in a good way. (google Jillian Michaels if you're confused...) After shredding it up we decided a good meal was in order. We researched sweet salads, and made a special trip to Sobeys to create the best Sante Fe Salad known to man. Some may call it epic. The meal came to a close with cheesecake fondu. And yes. It was as good as it sounds. The rest of the evening was filled with music, kitchen dance parties, cleaning bathrooms, reading...etc.

I am having a hard time imagining what life will be like without these kinds of evenings. I will definitely miss them when we hit the road.

Intimacy is honesty
Without fear or rejection.
Why is it that I know
You are infinitely aware of my thoughts,
My inner conflict,
My fear, feeling, frustrations.
Yet I shy away from speaking them
To you, directly.
It is that honesty
That I withhold because somehow
My thoughts seem wrong.
Unjustified, infantile, lacking.
To me they tell me to do more,
Try more, be more, bring more.
....
Come alongside me.
Teach me.
Be in me.
I am not enough.
I am not efficient.
But you are made perfect
When I fail.
You turn my embarrassments
Into acts I am in awe of.
I can't understand or predict you.
You are uncomprimisingly good to me.
You take delight in me.
You love me in my honesty.

A day in the life...

7:30 - Wake up in Thunder Bay
8:30 - Get taken out for breakfast in Thunder Bay. Eat eggs, toast, hashbrowns, and ham. Yummmmm. Got to watch a three year old play with Thomas the Tank Engine in the Restaurant, then ride around the restaurant on a tricycle. Pretty stellar start to a day I'd say...
10:00 - On the road.
10:10 - Stop at Kakabekka Falls. B-e-a-utiful. (Continue Driving)
11:00 - Wake up and realize it's snowing. Don't even care because that obviously means we're getting closer to Winnipeg...
2:00 - Stop for Lunch... Tims. Good.
4:00 - Re-enter MB. Flat never looked so good.
5:00 - Realize we get an hour back because of the time difference in MB and ON.
5:01 - Realize we get ANOTHER hour back because of daylight savings :)
6:00 - Arrive in Winnipeg! Team finally goes loopy in the van. Natalie's (E) been talking in a crazy voice all day, Binder joins in, Katelyn starts hitting herself in the head with various items before bursting into hysterical laughter, windows get rolled down and various team members begin to yell. We were just happy to be home I guess?
6:30 - Go grocery shopping. Run into parents in the candy aisle. WHAT? Yeah it's true.
7:00 - Get to BUG HOUSE!
8:00 - Decide trick or treating is in order.
9:00 - Pull in outrageous loot from East St. Paul and surrounding areas.
Turning in early. Three days of driving takes something outta ya.

Sacrifice and Perspective

There are a lot of things I could write about at the moment, but I'll stick to one simple truth for now. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of sacrifice, and trusting God with ALL things, and acknowledging that perhaps I on my own am simply not enough to do the things he has asked me to do. And I realized that all of these things that I've been thinking about, and wrestling with, and to be compeltely honest, feeling a bit sorry for myself over, make a lot more sense when you look at them from a different perspective.

My life isn't mine. It's that simple.

"So here's what I want you to do, GOd helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you in the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." (The Message Romans 12)

It's really that simple. In light of a perspective like that, my sacrifices aren't just managable, but they make perfect sense. And with a God like that, I can't help but be excited, expectant, and so filled with hope I don't know what to do with it all sometimes.

The Tale of Niagara Falls

Ever since I was a small girl, I have dreamed about seeing Canada's great Niagara Falls. And last week...that dream became a reality. I look back on the whole experience with mixed emotions. Because also, since I was a small girl, I have hated the feeling of being cold above all else. Well.. the only thing that I hate more than being cold, is being cold and wet.

It was a blistery Friday morning, and our team was ready to go bright and early. I was the only Niagara Falls newb of the group, and was trying to take it all in. The hoards of people in the tiny blue ponchos, being herded onto The Maid of the Mist, the roar of the boat engine, the beautiful falls that belong to the states passing slowly on the left, the even more beautiful sight of the not quite so far off Canadian falls approaching strait ahead... and this is where I stopped trying to take it all in.

Because at this point... all of the sudden all I could see was water. It turns out, that Maid of this Mist is actually code for Maid of the Sheets of Heavy Rain. And those blue ponchos they give you? Don't do much. I tried pinning it around my clothing every which way I could... to no avail. But then a funny thing happened. Once I realized that becoming wet and cold was inevitable... I just embraced it. And laughter has a way of warming you up...and trust me... our team did a lot of that. So even though I was feeling my boots fill to the brim with water, and my hair becoming drenched... I still enjoyed the falls... in a strange and very unlike me way. All in all... I don't think I'd trade in my first Niagara Falls experience for a dry one...but next time I'd definitely bring an umbrella...

Jessica

Some Random First Trip Thoughts

Fast facts.

Last location: Souris MB

Ate: lots of fresh ham, amazing corn flake squares, and a lot of good fruit.

Attraction of note: The Souris Swinging Bridge...582 feet of pure suspension over a river.

I guess today I was a bit blown away by the whole concept of hospitality. I think it's amazing that ten people can travel the country and have a roof put over their head and food placed infront of them because people are opening up their homes all across Canada. There is something really amazing to me about that. I would like to thank all of these people ahead of time. I love you already.

We also spent three hours driving across the prairies today...and I realized that for all the complaining we do about the general 'flatness' of the whole thing, and the constant (really lame) joke about the dog running away for three days...I really love the prairies. I like how you can see the wind because it makes things move for miles. That's all for now I think. Not much.

-Jessica

BAH! Fun in the BUG house...

Well. I was being silly. And then Natalie taped it. And here it is. A small peek at how things go down at the BUG house. Eleven girls...one kitchen...two bathrooms...monster loads of fun.

http://www.facebook.com/video/?of=514735361#/video/video.php?v=1164679011252&subj=514735361

Look how far you've come.

What I've realized these last three weeks is that what we have chosen to do is not easy.

I'm not talking about the BUGirl team. Leaving our homes, our comfortable places, our comfortable people. I'm not talking about the long days, the long drives, the short nights. The strange beds, strange faces, strange and unfamiliar towns. The lack of a surrounding that is stable and permanent. I'm not talking about these ten months, this year, or the year after that.

I'm talking about following Christ in general. So often Christianity is presented as a band-aid solution. "Here put this on, look, you can't see the hurts anymore." There's this notion that Jesus can magically and quickly fix all your problems. He is the easy fix. An instant solution. What I've been learning is that this isn't always true. While he absolutely has the power to enter a life and radically change it, something else has to follow that radical change. That's the hard part. That's the part where it's our responsibility to come alongside God and work a little. Work a lot. That's what I mean when I say that what we've chosen to do isn't easy.

When you say yes to God, it doesn't mean you've allowed him into your life so he can clean it up and leave. It means you've invited him to be a witness to you whole life. To watch the good with the bad. Not just to watch, but to stop you anywhere along the way and call you out. It means you're constantly listening to him as he tells you what needs to be left behind, cut out, put back in, turned around. It means you hand over control and say...you know best. It means you're listening to him when he says "let go, move on, step forward." It means that you're constantly aware that everything you know, everything you have, and everything you have been given is from God alone. It means your whole life becomes about giving everything back to the God who gave you everything.

There is nothing easy about that. It goes against everything that comes naturally, everything we're taught from birth, every automatic human instinct we possess. But.

It is the best hard thing I have ever done. Because while God is in my life directing, steering, guiding and challenging, he is also loving, encouraging, restoring, and inspiring me. As he's calling me out on my weaknesses he's giving me everything I need to grow and use my strengths. After he sits me down and gives me a new mountain to climb he inspires and completely fulfils me so I'm ready to do what needs to be done. When I feel overwhelmed, he turns me around and says "Look how far you've come."

That is the God I serve. The God I chose, the God who chose me.

Simple Evening.

I'm not all-together sure there's a huge difference between being independent and socially pathetic. Exhibit A: Me, yesterday night, sitting solo at Tims eating a chicken salad sandwich after getting off work. The time: 10:54 pm, and my big plans for the muggy August night were to finish the sandwich and go work out at Good Life. Perhaps read a few pages out of the Treasury of Great American Poetry.

Is this sad? I was invited to go out and do the same old same old...but I chose that. I was there, and I was happy. Walt Whitman says it best.

I know I am August,

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,

I see that elementary laws never apologize.

(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all)

I exist as I am, and that is enough.

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,

And whether I come to my own today, or in ten thousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

-Walt Whitman (Song of Myself, 20)

I worked, I ate, I jogged. It was a good night. I don't know if this means I'm a little sad, or just really easy to please, and I'm not particularly bothered either way!

-Jessica

(OH. And it was raining and LIGHTNING like nobodies business yesterday all through the night...perfection.)