Update Letter - October 09, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:                               

I wanted to send you all a letter sooner, to let you all in on my adventures! How was Thanksgiving for you? I went to see my Gram Elaine (in Prince Albert), along with great grandma Polly, my second cousin Curtis and his lovely wife Jamie and their two boys, Great Aunt Pat and Uncle Berry; we all celebrated great grandma Polly’s 90^th Birthday!  Sunday afternoon we ate turkey and pumpkin pie!  I wonder how many other people shared the same traditional meal, and who ate chicken instead?! I know my mum and dad had chicken! My parents have been working around the clock with their new house! I am so grateful to them, and blessed by my family... I am already home sick!

If you already haven’t heard, I am now attending Millar College of the Bible in Pambrun Saskatchewan.  While I’m missing home, I AM enjoying my time here at Millar! With all the changes, the Lord knew Bible school was exactly where I needed to be. For an extended time, I carried unanswered questions like luggage I’ve been meaning to unpack. Being at Millar, I have been addressing each question with God’s Word, and greatly encouraged to continue towards a true, personal relationship with Jesus! In the first week I learned that Jesus is reflected in the Old Testament, a promise made to be fulfilled by Himself in the New Testament. I was one of those people confused with the Old Testament’s relevance. As Jonny Nash once said, “I can see clearly now”, and in this case I am seeing the Bible as a whole much more clearly.

I got a call from my mom last week about my loan.  Are you ready to hear the news? Drum roll please!! I have been ACCEPTED for a partial loan. It WILL allow me to stay for a full year, and I’ll make up the rest to Millar during the summer. I am so excited, and glad! Thank you everyone who prayed with and for me! The Lord is so generous, good, .. I don’t feel I deserve all this!

Millar is wonderful! We have so many things that bring all “Millarites” together!  I’ve made countless friends, and all the girls here are so encouraging! My roommate, Breanna, and I have become the best of friends! We’ve gone geocaching together (a treasure hunting game; find out more at geocaching.com) and we rock out to music in the morning while she begs to sleep in and I’m singing and ready to start another day!  Were laughable, yes, but in the words of Anne of Green Gables, we’ve become close “Bosom buddies” (Breanna loathes the term which makes me laugh, but I do love Anne of Green Gables and I value Breanna).  

Homework is HARD, but God’s keeping me sane through it all. It’s just a lot of reading rather quickly, which I’m not used to. Breanna is just amazing because it only takes her an hour to read 100 pages (I might be exaggerating… but she really is brilliant)! On the other hand all my homework is quite rewarding, and growing my faith like wildfire to a dry field. So in the end, homework is hard, but it’s worth it!!

Last week in chapel, we had a speaker talk about her mission field with SEND International, specifically in Japan.  What a need there!  There are 127,000,000+ people living in Japan right now, and thousands still affected by the earthquake from last year, still living in temporary homes, poor, and some very lonely and hurting people. Japan’s in dire need of keen hands to build homes, devoted people willing to GO and bring staples to those who cannot afford them, comforting arms willing to extend to the lost and desolate,.. Even though Japan has many people, Christians are very few there. What a call, to be sent to Japan for the needy, and for prayers! You can go to www.send.org/japan/ for more information on SEND in Japan.

On another topic, I got to go sing to an elderly home in Swift Current last weekend. After the church service, two guy’s on my team and I ministered to one lady, named Rosemary, by singing to her more hymns, and this lady knew EVERY HYMN in the book, NO LIE. She couldn't speak that well, I can only guess based on her condition that has placed her in a permanent bed chair.  Nonetheless she swung her arm to the beat and mouthed the words. It was so sweet to see her sing along!  She repeated these same words between songs, and it went like this:
“How old are you?” said Rosemary to me.
“Im 21” I’d reply.
“How old am I?” she asked.
Pondering for a moment, then I answered, “I don’t know,..”
“65, and I’ve never walked a day in my life!” She exclaimed, in a high pitched whisper.
“oh wow!” we all marvelled.

“People used to star at me and I used to say, take a picture because it lasts longer!” She said as her grinning face turned tickled pink! Her smile was like a child, and oh, how we all feel in love with Rosemary. (You should have seen these boys I was with, talking all sweet to her, making jokes, asking her questions, and never for a moment bored of being asked, even for the 6^th time, “how old are you?”. Afterwards we prayed with her, and it looked like she was a little downcast when we were leaving. I’m not sure if the Lord reached her through our prayer, if it was our saying goodbye, or if she was just tired.  It broke my heart to leave, but we DO get to see her again this Sunday!  (I still can’t forget that sweet face, or her joyful arm for the Lords songs.)

If you would like to pray for me, I really appreciate that!

Please pray for:

        ♥     My Friend Tori, who’s a student here at Millar, and because of her fainting spells and Seizers, she has left school to seek medical attention.  She has come from a hard past, so pray Christian women can come alongside her and encourage her, caring and knowledgeable people to help her when she falls, and for healing (from past hurting’s as well as physically).  I do pray for her to get better, but I also believe the Lord is using this to walk Tori through this hardship increasing her faith and those around her to be drawn to Jesus.

♥      For My Gram who’s caring for her mum, my Great Grandma Polly, and for my Great Aunt Pat, her sister. All these ladies have health and emotional burdens to bare, and praise the Lord they are Christians!  My great aunt Pat has cancer, and is rapidly going downhill, and both Gram and G.G. Polly are sorrowful and discouraged.  I pray for all the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-26), thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6-9), and that they put their trust in the Lord (Psm 23:4 ; 31:24).  I really pray God will comforts these ladies personally, especially being as I cannot be there!

♥      For homework: that I can catch on to things a little faster in my reading, and for God’s discernment and wisdom (I do not want to learn and believe faulty things). Miller is strong about Spiritual growth over homework being done, which I struggle to understand, but nonetheless pray that my priorities are not for the grade, but fixed on Jesus!

♥      For my roommate, Breanna: That she is strengthened by God to overcome fears and pursue after God’s will. That she ministers and gives a Christ-like example for the kids and coaches she works with. Her mom has a lot of health concerns, majorly “Osteopenisis” (regarding the bones). For her studies, spiritual growth, and that she learns to seek after Jesus in all that she does.


♥      For Millar students: community growth, building friendships, ending “cliques”, and finally building one another up to be God honoring and continually focusing on God’s Word!! Pray that our being here generates a passion to live as examples and share the gospel to friends and family back home AND to those we meet during community work! Pray all this for our teachers and staff too. 

      ♥      For Japan! Rosemary!

        * For Paris: For discernment concerning whether I should stay a second year at Millar, or come back after I pay off the first loan. Pray also that I become a biblical vessel, because I laugh so much I’m starting to wonder if I’m being just perceived as a clown (pleasing for a good laugh) and not an encouragement to my fellow peers.  Also, I’ve recommitted myself to the Lord, seeing that I was baptized in 2006 and didn’t keep my promises of dedication to God.  I am seeing now what it means to follow the Lord, and really choose Him over all my wanting’s and plans. 

        *And lastly for my Parents, because they work so hard, and struggle with daily stress.. I also pray that the Lord will soften their hearts and show them their need of the Savior, Jesus..

Thank you, for reading all this! I know I write A LOT,.. it took me over a week to write this.. Forgive me, and I’m actually REALLY BAD at keeping in touch with people via snail-mail! So if you have an e-mail address, just shoot me a message. Then I’ll message everyone electronically, and most likely earlier then a week’s worth of writing. You CAN write me snail-mail to, if your without a computer. I’ll work extra hard to keep in touch! (The post office knows it’s for Miller students, so you don’t have to write the college.) 

Here’s an awesome verse that was given to me and really encouraging! Enjoy~

Philippians 2:1-5 (NIV)

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:”