There's no greater reason for living!: Bowling, sleepovers and God times!

So, things have been busy as spring is coming. I'm back from Brazil now, altogether. Even though my body got here on March the 7th, I don't think my mind was fully back until a few days ago...

I'm now back on full swing with everyday life, my kind of everyday life, I guess... with a packed schedule from Monday to Sunday. We've started the rehearsals for our Easter drama "Choices", which promises to be really cool. It'll be an all out musical/dance/drama... I hope lots of people come!

I'm also back to teaching some of our Highway to Maturity, really cool classes, and I love it! Teaching God's word is such a joy, and I'm becoming more and more comfortable at it every time.

The main thing I'm focusing on, however, is planning, praying and talking about our plans for the young adults in the months to come. See, we used to have a young adults' group at our church a few years ago, and it was really good, but ended up dying off. Even though I was busy enough at the time that I didn't really mind, I've felt the need since then for something to happen for the young adults. And, somehow, God is now setting it all up, and allowing me to be a part of the process! It's so exciting too, to see how all the pieces are falling into place! I wish I could relate all the intricate details! But I know there's too much, so I'll try to summarize.

When I returned from Brazil and told Pr Frank that I would not be going away to Cambodia anymore, but would be staying here for sure, we started discussing right away the possibilities of my life group becoming a young adults' group by September. Supernatural things had been happening here in Canada, especially in our life group, while supernatural things were happening to us in Brazil. I got to hear about it all through e-mail after the Acampamento, and it was all really exciting.

So, by the following life group night, God had grown a dream in my heart for what can happen with our group as everyone does their part, sorta like on that cleaning day in Brazil. As I shared it with the life group, everyone got really excited. See, there's something innate in human beings, especially young people, that we need to be a part of a challenging, exciting dream, something way bigger than ourselves. Otherwise we feel bored, lost and confused. So these plans that God is giving us, they're way bigger than us, but the Bible says that we can do amazing things by God's strength!

After I shared the vision for a young adults' group, we prayed, and it was awesome. Wowowow... there are few things more beautiful to see than a group of 20 some young Christians storming the heavens with sincere prayer! And that intercessory prayer thing is getting so strong amongst this group of young people, it's amazing.

The following Friday, 3/4 of the people who showed up at Friday night prayer were people from our life group. And, once more, it was a powerful prayer time. At one point, I looked at Janine, and she had sparkly gold dust on her nose. But when I quietly asked her if she was wearing makeup, she said no. I looked at her hands, and they were covered in gold dust. Mine were too. And so were Rebecca's beside me. So were Dina's and Sarah's... and Pete's! By the time we finished praying, we all looked at our hands and realized everyone had it. Lucas had some on his neck. It's like the gold dust was sweating out of our pores... it was so cool. It had become almost normal to us in Brazil, but I was quite surprised to see it happen here... random, but so cool!

Saturday was our bowling party. That was really fun. And then, we continued the evening at Rebecca's house for a girls' sleepover party... a sleepover with very little sleep. We hung out, took random pictures, laughed alot, ate... and oh, another miracle here: with all the cake and goodies that were on the table, we ended up leaving most of it and chomping away on the cucumbers and red peppers instead! And not because we were being weight conscious... really. Now that's a rare occurrence at a girls' party! ; )

At 1am ish, we got the urge to start praying. And we kept praying. I got up and went to bed at 2:30ish, cause I was leading the music team in the morning and needed energy somehow. But the rest of the girls didn't stop. They woke me up at 4:30 am cause they were praying so loud! I don't think they stopped until 5am... and I was up at 7:00 to be at the church for 8:00... Now that felt like Brazil!

After a great church service Sunday morning and a bit of rest in the afternoon, everyone was back for life group at 5pm. I started off by clarifying some things about our plans for September, all very exciting things, and I asked Pete to share a vision he'd had the previous week while we were praying.

The Bible says in Joel 3:28 "Then after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions."

And that's what's been happening. Sunday night was evidence of that. Pete told everyone what he had seen: a small dragon boat racing really quickly with a team of rowers rowing in complete unity as God is leading them. Then the picture changed, and he saw oars of many colors and shapes as a part of a great huge structure. It took him a bit of time to see what the structure was, but as he looked, he recognized it as being a big huge ship that wasn't done constructing yet. The meaning of all this was really that right now our group is advancing as we work together as a team, each doing our own unique part, and that God is building us into something much bigger that will include many people who need to know Jesus.

Friday night, Phil had also had a similar vision, of a large old fashioned ship packed with rowers rowing in complete unity. But as they were rowing, they turned around and realized it was God who was actually pushing the boat to make it advance. So they stopped rowing, but then God stopped pushing. God would only push it as we did our part by rowing together in unity.

As we were sharing these things in life group, Dewald chimed in a "woh, that's so cool... I've been having dreams about boats! And boats in dreams are supposed to represent ministries..." He went on to share what he had seen in his dreams, and although I can't remember now, I know it was really in line with what the others saw.

Then someone else chimed in "wow, I've been having visions of a huge cruise ship with tons of people on it..." and so on. It was like vision pingpong... so cool! I've heard of things like this, but it's different when you witness it first hand!

And so it has been in life group, in prayer time, in church, while bowling, in sleepovers, at Timmies, in parking lots... and it's just the start. This year is a new year, and God has been building us and preparing us as young people and as a church to step up to a new place... it's so exciting, and so real! Some of the things God is doing, I believe he's just doing to build our faith, cause he has so much more planned! Our God is an awesome God!

Here are some pics from our bowling night:

Some of the crew : beside me is Lucas, our friend from Brazil... it was in his bedroom that I spent my first 2 weeks in Brazil, in Aracatuba... but no worries, he wasn't there. He's been studying in the USA for a few months and stopped by for a couple weeks before going back home to Brazil... and he's lovin' it!

Check out the sexy shoes!

Wow! Myriam is so good she can play backwards! ; )

Supasta!

Luv.....

Luv....

Luv... teehee...

The accidental red team : Kyle, Noemie, Kile

Proof : Brianna did beat me by 114 points!

Congrats to Brianna, but not for beating me at bowling... this was for her graduating High School! She just went back in the fall to finish her diploma, and did it! Good job, girl! Reason to celebrate! Beautiful cake Sarah and Rebecca!