post-surg

Friday, Jenny's dad (John) and I took Jenny to Niagara Falls to have the cyst (demon) on her tailbone removed. John and I ate at Perkins, cruised the Falls, and sat at Tim Horton's while we killed off the time that Jenny was in surgery. We picked her up about 7pm and headed home for St Catharines. Jenny was in considerable pain, but relieved that her body was now in recovery mode instead of coping mode.

Yesterday was to be the Celebration Bible College (CBC) graduation feast at Niagara Celebration Church (NCC). We had out hearts set on going since early January, and Jenny's stubbornness in the end won out (and also the fact that we paid $50 for our tickets)! We went and partook of the buffet and Christianese conversation that ever-so-often dominates these kinds of events. But we made the best of it (seeing that Jenny was in obvious discomfort), raving it up with the Karanfilis' and Nita and others. The pleasantness(?) of the evening hardly made up for the night of pain Jenny endured as a result of going. I don't like to do it, but Jenny has now been officially grounded until her body heals. PEI and Double H Ranch are much too important to be rescheduled due to a relapse.

So, today we camped out at the Vine, watching Gremlins 2, missing church at Scott St Manor, and the actual CBC graduation service at NCC. Jenny really wanted to go seeing as her twin (class president Jessica) was to speak a presidential address. Thankfully, NCC streams its services so we were able to watch the proceedings live. It was doubly sweet seeing that Jenny had arranged the NCC bus to pick up residents of Scott St Manor and drive them to the service to watch Jessica and Colin graduate!

We are praying that Jenny would have a speedy and complete recovery. Tomorrow I take her back to Niagara Falls for a follow up to see how she's healing. Thanks for the car Heymans!!

its been hot

I love this picture! It make me have funny, like if Winnie Banov hits me with a 'JoyBomb!' or something.
My Flyers are through to the next round! Next up: the Montreal Canadiens.
I put a new poll up on my sidebar asking the question where you think I'll be at the end of August this year? Two years ago it was New Mexico, last year Russia. Where, this year? Jenny and I have a couple of options but have yet to make a decision in any sense of the word.
And a few days ago, Julia (the chef at NCC) asked me to take some Duffins in to sell to the students and staff. I did and sold six Duffins at long break!!! My Duffins are growing in influence!

Jenny has her surgery tomorrow to remove that demonic cyst from off of her tailbone. It all started back on Jan 2 when I drove her to the clinic straight from work. Since then I have literally been taking care of her; helping her walk a lot of the time, cooking for her, running errands, etc. I don't have confidence in her being left alone so I have kept pretty close. The times are few, but, she has been forced to move along in a wheelchair at times. So, the surgeon will cut her up tomorrow, and says recovery should take a week or so. SWEET!! This has gone on long enough. And we so wanna attend the CBC Grad Banquet the day after she has her surgery :). We'll see how that goes. I gotta go, this new Facebook instant messaging thing is totally demonizing my Blogger experience! I can't concentrate. Thanks Kylene!!

We have made it back to St Catharines. Sunday, we were able to join the Heymans family for church at Harmony Community Church. It would've been sweet had I been able to stay awake, alas, I could not :(. Bonnie Wallace led worship though and as the congregation sang I was overwhelmed with a 'spirit of missions'. It's a spirit that comes on me from time to time that consumes me with thoughts of foreign missions. Not that I don't already have constant thoughts of this, but there are times when it gets a bit more.........intense. Such was one of these times. I can't wait for the time when it is once again time to head out under the banner of the Gospel. Anyways, Heymans and I tag-teamed the 524Km drive from Winchester in just over 4hr. We made pretty sweet time indeed. This week is supposed to be absolutely beautiful here in St Kits.

Today Jenny and I were gonna participate in a 'Hymm Sing' at Versa Care but the place is in lock down from an upper respiratory illness. Sorry CBC'ers.........no evangelism credits today!!!

My Flyers have made the playoffs and are the #6 seed in the east. They are against the Washington Capitals in the 1st Rd and the series is 1-1.

I am reading more about St Francis of Assisi. Dangerous stuff. This man might've been more hardcore than Jesus. Maybe a bit (or a lot) off on his theology, but hey, I believe we all are.

Superbowl Sunday

I never went to church this morning but I watched a bit of it online. Peter Youngren was a bit choked at the idea of church members skipping church this eve to watch the Superbowl so he made someone change the sign out front and promised an AMAZING sermon in place of the football game. Well, I just got back from NCC and I've definitely heard him preach better messages. And it didnt seem to matter to much of the congregation since most of them did indeed skip out on church to watch the game (or pray, or fast, or intercede, or something, hopefully!). And I never watched the game but the New York Giants have won the Superbowl beating the New England Patriots 17 - 14.

And if you wanna see something incredibly disturbing click -->HERE<--.

grad photos

I was just playing around on the net and I was confronted by my Holy Given grad photo side by side with my Celebration Bible College grad photo. Can you tell the difference?

CBC Graduation service

The grad ceremony was awesome, in my opinion. The worship (however little there was) was great. The speakers (Pastor George, Stephen Boss, Jenny Brown, Peter Youngren, Age Aleskjaer) were all great too. Our valedictorian (Jenny) delivered a message that was straight out of Jeremiah 5:14. Absolutely amazing. I should get the video for it posted tomorrow morning. All in all, it was a good evening. Peter Youngren even took time out of his busy schedule to pose for a picture with Josh Squared (see above).

So now the excuses are over. I went out for coffee with Kyle and Jenny afterwards and we got to talking about the future. I said that now there are no more excuses. Even in the atmosphere of Bible School we can use that security as an excuse not to pursue God with 100% of our devotion. We can say, "This is my preparation time. After two years, then I'll be ready to do great things!" Well, now Bible School is over, and it's time to put up or shut up. What will we do with the deposit that God has entrusted to us? There are no more excuses. We have been trained. We are never gonna be more ready than we are now. Jesus alone is enough. And we have Him without measure...................

CBC Grad Banquet

Tonight was the Celebration Bible College graduation banquet. It was a pretty decent time, nothing too amazing, but alright. Peter Karl delivered a decent message, and the food was great, etc. It really was a pretty good year, filled with some great people. I may have been a wee bit hard on some of them, but hey, I am what I am. There is a fine line between wanting the best for someone, and seeming like a harsh guy. The Vine had a bunch of us over afterwards for a get together. More good people. I pray that each one of them will walk in the fulness of God's calling for their lives. No compromise. No retreat, no surrender. An army, drafted by God for this very season, for this very purpose: to advance the Kingdom, with power. Tomorrow is graduation. CBC is closed. Next?

monday

Yesterday evening, Melody Wallace and I led Kid's Church at NCC. The kid's were fairly bad, as usual. We got them to do paintings (#1, #2) and Spencer painted this goalie. We were having them get up and explain to everyone what their paintings meant but Spencer wouldn't do it, so I grabbed his painting and explained it. Here is my "Jesus Revealed in Spencer's Goalie":
The weird oversized greenish puck is actually a portal which leads directly into a third Heaven experience. The red goal posts symbolize the blood the Israelites painted on their doors at the first Passover, preventing the Angel of Death from killing their firstborns. The goalie pads represent sheilds which can block all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And you can see that he is clearly decked out in the full armor of God. (Ok, I know, it's a stretch...........but so is the real 'Jesus Revealed......' course!!).

Today for our 2nd Yr course "Practical Ministry 2" we went to Henley House for a day at a nursing home. It was pretty sweet. We got to sing at a church service. Fabio got to open in prayer , and Jenny Brown and I got to read scriptures from Luke for the seniors. Good stuff.

But it's almost time to go to bed. I get up at 4am, start work at 5:30am, school between 8am-12pm, them work till 5pm. After that is ministry, or relaxin time. Later everyone.

a less intense post (thank God)

Last week we studied 'apologetics' with Peter Karl Youngren; good times. It might've been the best week of Bible College. This week we are studying 'Revivalists and Reformers' with Sam Youngren; it is excellent too. The last couple of days we studied Martin Luther, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and William Carey; some of the greatest men in the history of the Christian Church. The rest of the week should be more than awesome as we get into Charles Finney, Aimee Semple McPherson, and others.

In other (less dramatic) news work has been good. I'm doing full time custodial duties at NCC, and am working at WalMart on the weekends. On top of Bible College it has been a heavy workload, but it has been good. Josh Heymans and I have booked a ticket out to Redding, California for a week following graduation to visit Bill Johnson's church. That should be an awesome time. I know a few fellow HoGi's that are attending the Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry there.

In other more exciting news, I got an email from Iris Ministries hospitality in Pemba asking if I would like to come over and help staff the Holy Given 5: International School of Missions this summer. Sweet!! It would be a perfect opportunity to get back into the swing of things (seeing I've been off the foreign field for 2 yrs!!!) and I could likely stay on afterwards and springboard to Zimpeto, Sudan, or wherever. So that is like super cool. I am all fired up again. Good times. I want to get back to the foreign mission field REAL bad. It's something that is constant in my thoughts. Neverending. I love it.
.......................................................more to come.

15 minute preach

All us 2nd yrs at CBC had to do 15 minute preaches as part of our ciriculum. Here's mine. I spoke on the subject of "the poor", an often unspoken message here in the West. It went well though. Most of the students really seemed to recieve the 'encouraging' words I spoke. It's in 2 parts cause the file size was too big for YouTube.

Part 1


Part 2