So I'm writing you this letter...

Dear God,

I know you know all things. That your ways are NOT my ways. I know that I shouldn't question you when things happen. But I can't help but ask why? What is the purpose? It seems that no matter how hard we work, people keep cancelling appointments with us. How are we supposed to ignite a fire or cast a vision to people if we can't even meet with them? How is the money supposed to come in? You said you own the cattle on a thousand hills. You've put a fire in our hearts to go to Tanzania but we won't be going if we don't get our support raised. And God...it doesn't look like our support will be raised by the new year. I know you already know what our situation is, so please God, increase my faith. Implant in me a new hope. I feel down, discouraged and just plain sad. I know you've called me to this ministry. And I know that all things happen IN YOUR TIME. So please, I am waiting on You. Say to me what you said to the rose to make it unfold. Rain on me. Shine on me. Grow me. Make me into something beautiful. Something that reflects YOUR beauty and YOUR glory.

Your daughter,
Vanessa

Island life

You know when you are driving at night and you're the island?
Do you know what I mean?
It's when you can see lights in front of you and in your rear view mirror you can see lights behind you but they are both far away.
When you are bridging the gap between the "behind-you" cars and the "in-front-of-you" cars.
When you are the island in between the two mainlands of cars.
It's a cool feeling.
And if you drive slow enough, the "behind-you" cars will catch up and you'll soon be surrounded by other people in their cars driving to their individual and unique destinations.
I like being the island.

Unfailing Love - Reflections on a Chris Tomlin song

You have my heart
And I am Yours forever
You are my strength
God of grace and power

God you do have my heart, but it is so weak and frail and prone to wander. Thank you that you hold me in your love when I am falling down.
I thank you that I don't have to live on my strength. It's in your strength, God of grace and power that I can do all things!!!

And everything
You hold in Your hand
Still You make time for me
I can't understand

You! The God of the heavens and the earth, the God of millions of stars, galaxies, planets, glorious constellations...it's YOU who holds me in YOUR hand! You make time for me! You care about what I'm feeling, you forgive me when I sin against your Holy name when I deserve to be blotted out.

Praise You God of Earth and sky
How beautiful is Your unfailing love
Unfailing love

Yes God, your love is beautiful. I thank you for it. You love me unfailingly...what a concept.

Winter Wonderland

I love snow. I love winter. How can you look outside, see a soft blanket of white covering everything and shake your fist at it? Ok, so I know that tons of winter-haters do this every day of winter, but I LOVE it! Done and done.
I prayed every day for 2 weeks when I was like 10 years old or something because I wanted snow and a week later (it was in January) we had snow like never before. Of course I felt this was something amazing (which it was) and so I shared this story at church as an answer to prayer. There weren't too many people loving me that night. But I did get a lot of offers to shovel their driveways...:D

How Great Is Our God!

Genesis 1:1, 16 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
Psalm 8: 3-4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
Psalm 147: 4-5 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
-Thom­as Ken 1674



These pictures were taken by the Hubble Spacecraft in outer space. For more info or pictures check out www.hubblesite.org

H2O

I love Danone's Silhouette Grapefruit & Green Tea water. Thank you to the lovely Tamsin for opening my eyes to the beauty of this water.
Mmmm! Delish!

The ball is rolling...

Thanks to those of you who have been praying for us in regards to support raising - don't stop! :D
This weekend we did a "blitz" and tried to get back on track and get that big, metal, ball of support raising rolling. And roll it did. I made almost 50 calls and over this week and a bit of next we have 9 appt's set up and I still have a bunch more people to call. Please pray for us for referrals as we are nearing the end of our contact list. If anyone knows of anyone who'd be interested in hearing about what Jamie and I do, PLEASE don't hesitate to get in contact with me.
God's showing and teaching me a lot and on the drive down to Kitchener, Jamie and I listened to a sermon by Miriam Charter on the great commission and the importance and command to make disciples. It was so CCC and so bang on to what we needed to hear (or at least what I needed to hear) to rev my engine and get me pumped for a support appointment. God's placed a passion in my heart to minister to women and build into them - and yet often I feel so inadequate for the job. I know He can use me and I know I have a part to do in learning and taking time to read and educate myself so that I can pass on information and life lessons and God's truth to others.
Something else that God has put on my heart is the intense desire to be mentored by an older woman who can build into me. It has been a really long time since I had that kind of relationship and I know that it's a godly desire. That will be something I will be praying about in the next little while.

One step closer...

As I was listening to U2's "How to dismantle an atomic bomb", the song, "One step closer" came on and as I listened I really identified with some of the lyrics in this valley of support raising.

I'm on an island at a busy intersection
I can't go forward, I can't turn back
Can't see the future
It's getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing

One step closer to knowing

I guess with how the past month has gone, and the lack of momentum, it's just going to be so hard to get the ball rolling. It's like I've got this huge metal, iron ball in front of me, and if I can just get it rolling, things will pick up and it will be a whole lot easier to keep going. But it's just the whole problem of getting the ball rolling. I push and push and it's just so darned heavy!

Supersize Me

A couple of nights ago, Jamie and I sat down to watch "Super Size Me". I was both blown away and really disgusted. I mean, who doesn't know that fast food is bad for you? But I guess I just didn't realize how bad and how processed and pretty much poisonous for you it is.
Jamie and I both really liked the part where they had this guy talking about a group of people he was sitting near to at a restaurant. One person was berating another at the table for smoking and of course telling the person how bad it is for you, and yadda yadda yadda. Which it is. But what he noticed was that there was an extremely large woman also at the table. But it would have been entirely inappropriate for this person to then turn around and start berating the woman for eating so much and hurting her body with the bad food she was eating, etc. Being fat and overweight is completely acceptable in our society.
In the end, I was challenged to take a look at the food I eat. I don't really eat fast food that much, but I want to cut it out all together - and I want to start eating healthier foods, foods that haven't been processed and are all-natural. Unfortunately this means a definite spike in the size of the grocery bill.
Why is it that the healthier, all-natural foods are more expensive? By calling them "all-natural", does that not mean that they are doing less to the food? ie. not processing, putting crazy pesticides, etc. into the food?
I'm sure there is more to the story, but I'd actually like to watch that movie, like once a month so I can remind myself how important it is to a) stay in shape by exercising, and b) eat properly and healthily. (Is that a word?)

Christmas is coming...

I don't have a whole lot to blog about...except that I'm very excited to be approaching the Christmas season. I love the whole season. The decreasing temperatures, the snow, the Christmas songs in the malls, and I'll admit it, I love the whole commercial aspect to it as well. I love the baking, the relatives, the memories and buying presents for people.
This year will be sad as Jamie and I don't have our own place to decorate and celebrate in, but it's all for the best I guess.
And this year I'm hoping that all my cousins and I can get together and do Christmas together - a Cousins Christmas! I am pumped so I hope it works out. Games, food, drinks, movies...good times all 'round!
Much to look forward to and much to do in the meantime! :D

Coldplay - Square One

These lyrics struck a chord in me the other day (it's not the whole song, though):

You just want somebody listening to what you say
It doesn't matter who you are

Is there anybody out there who is lost and hurt and lonely too
But they're bleeding all your colours into one
And if you come undone as if you'd been run through
Some catapult it fired you
You wonder if your chance will ever come
And if you're stuck in square one.

Interesting.

Treat pic 'o the month

This month's treat pic is Hershey's Cookies n Cream chocolate bar. In highschool I used to buy these all the time, break the bar into small pieces and the suck the chocolate until the cookie pieces were loose. Mmm...delish! Go out and enjoy one today!

I love recipes

I have this obsession with browsing online for new and exciting recipes. I love looking at recipes. I don't know where I got it from - my grandma maybe? - but www.kraft.com, www.allrecipes.com are two of my favourites. There are many more, but here is a little exciting recipe I came across:

3-Step Nanaimo Party Size Cheesecake
Prep Time: 10 min
Ready In: 3 h 50 min
Serves: 16
Ingredients

4 pkg (250g each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
3 Tbsp. (45 mL) Bird's Custard Powder
1 cup (250 mL) sugar
4 eggs
1 prepared, unbaked 13x9 in. (33x23 cm) crust, made with Oreo Baking Crumbs, prepare by doubling ingredient list on box, adding in 1/2 cup each chopped pecans and coconut
1/2 cup (125 mL) whipping cream
6 squares Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate

Directions
1 MIX cream cheese, custard powder and sugar with mixer until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until just blended.
2 POUR batter into prepared crust.
3 BAKE at 350°F (180°C) for 40 minutes or until centre is almost set. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Heat whipping cream and chocolate over low heat. Pour over chilled cheesecake.

And my favourite part about recipes is the picture...*drool*

He is Sovereign

This past weekend (as I mentionned before) I was in Bancroft for a retreat. It was a good retreat. It was filled with laughter (LOTS of it...I can't remember when I laughed so much and so hard!), a good amount of quiet time to spend with God and reflect upon Him and His goodness, time to catch up with some wonderful people that I don't usually spend a lot of time with.
God really met me there and spoke to me and I think it was undeniable that the Holy Spirit was working in the hearts of those who were there. He has been orchestrating this past weekend for a very long time so that in the 20-something group at Rexdale life change would occur and continue to occur and all the glory would go to Him.
I have been blessed, now I want to be a blessing.

sharing my heart

This evening Jamie and I head up to Bancroft to Joy Bible Camp for a retreat with Rexdale's NEXT> group. As I have gone about this day, I'm filled with a sense of anticipation, excitement and nervousness. I know that I don't really know any of the 20-something age group that well any more and so this is a time when I will have to put forth the energy it takes for me to go out, involve myself and meet new people. I do love meeting new people, but it is not completely natural for me to do so. I want to make some good connections and I am praying that God will bring some godly, amazing women into my life that I can minister to and be ministered to as well.
We are also doing an informal interview with Adrian (the wknd's speaker) on our ministry with CCC and how God has called us into full time missions. Here in Canada and possibly overseas in the future. I know this will also be a key time to meet some new contacts and help us seriously boost up our support so that we can finally get on campus.
I am feeling unworthy, untalented and unequipped - I know that God has and will continue to equip me to what He has called me to but I know that I will have to rely on His strength to remain joyful in a place of my own weakness and be a reflection of Christ.
I just have a feeling of ... anticipation about this weekend. For what God is going to do in the hearts of those who attend this weekend as well as in my own heart and Jamie's.
I would love to meet other Christian couples, but I think that it's a well-known fact that the 20 Something group is for Rexdale's hottest young singles. ;) It should be a fun weekend overall and I am looking forward to it - despite my weaknesses.

I'm a chicken

I hate scary movies! I have an overactive imagination that goes into overdrive once the lights are turned out...yipes...*shifty eyes*

funny typos

Don't you just love it when you're typing something and you totally type the wrong letter but then it ends up being something really funny?
I just wrote in an email "Thanks a log." For some reason that made me laugh out loud. It's too funny...thanks a log. heeheehee.
Let's just say I'm easily amused.