Freakin eh!

So yea. I am done my worship class for school. I sent away all my assignments yesterday and got my grades back today. Two A- and a B. Wow, I haven't got grades like that since kindergarten. I took my final exam today as well and kick the butt on that. So, needless to say I am happy, relieved, proud, and done. Anyway, tonight I plan on sitting back and watching the office with some bros as a celebration of being done.

Thanks Joe and Steph for inspiring me to go back to school.

More Snow

So tonight there was more snow in our fair city. It has been a cold, rainy, sleaty, snowy day in Seattle. It reminds me a lot of growing up in Winnipeg. I remember those winter nights when I would drive through the city. It was alway's so quiet and beautiful out. No one is in any rush to go anywhere, people are all just driving carfully and slow. It was so peacefull out. It is like that here in Seattle tonight. I drove over to my friend Daves house to watch the Seahawks game and it brought back so many good memories of driving at home.

Emma and I also took some time tonight to make our snowwoman right this time. As you can see she is a little taller and has much more shape than the last one. Apparently Emma got hungry while I was out at Daves cause she ate the nose before bed time. Nothing quite like a frozen carrot. Anyway, you can check out the weather more in Seattle here.

The first snowman

Today was the first snowfall of the year in Seattle. It was great. Well, it didn't start out great, it started out crap. Just another cold rainy day in Seattle. But, when the sun went down the rain turned to snow. Emma and I went skating today, that's ice skating for you North Westerners. You know that by the previous post. On our way home Emma fell asleep in the car.


When she woke up at home the ground and everything else was covered. She woke up real fast. So tonight after church we stayed out and made the coolest mouthless snowman ever. It was great. One of those things and times when you just have to be thankful for the things and people we have in our lives. I am so thankful for my family. They rule!

After we finished the snowman we came in to strawberry hot chocolate by Amy. I hate strawberry hot chocolate, but Emma likes it. So she had hot chocolate and I blogged. Anyway, looks like the snow will be here for a while. We will enjoy more of it tomorrow.

Good night

Skating

Emma and I went skating today at the Seattle center. It was great. I love hanging out with my girl.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you. Our family had a great day. Abby woke up happy as usual, and Emma woke up wanting to watch cartoons as usual, but today she wanted to watch them in bed, I think she knew it was a lazy holiday kind of day. So we spent our day making turkey, potatoes and stuffing, along with a box of Stove Top for me cause you just can't make it like Stove Top. We snacked a lot, watched the parade, watched the Cowboys game and cleaned the house. It was one of those day's where you just hang out all day in your sweats and your oldest most comfortable shirt and putter around. I did have to go out once though to get some coffee.

Tonight was also great. We had some friend over for dinner. There were 9 adults and 5 kids running around. Well the adults weren't running to much. It was great to be with friends and eat good food. There was no family fight, no tears, except when one of the kids smacked another kid, and lot's and lot's of good food and drink.

I am very thankful today for the things in my life. I am thankful for my family (immediate and the ones in Winnipeg), my friends, YWAM Seattle, my health, Jesus, Apple Computers, the internet, Sarah Mclachlans new Christmas album (even though I am not a Christmas Album kind of guy), the Bible, laughter, tears, my car, rain and sun. There are a ton of other things I am thankful for, but it is late and I am tired from the triptipan. I hope your day was great as well. Thanks for those of you who joined me in mine.

Essay

It has been hard for me to write as much as I have wanted to lately as it is a busy time and I am working on this worship paper for school. The other thing that is hard is that we don't have the internet yet. It is supposed to come today. So, this essay I am working on. It is on worship which I am excited about, but I am kinda freaked out to write it. It is an essay on the biblical view of worship. I am writing on the tensions of God being transcendent and imminent and the tension of participation and presentation in worship. I am trying to figure this whole thing out as I write, so I hope it turns out good. If you have any thoughts now would be the time to share. I will put you in my footnotes.

Anyway, I hope that you have a great thanksgiving tomorrow. I hope that you can spend some time with family, friends and also those someone who doesn't have anywhere to go. Enjoy those cold turkey sandwiches an hour after you utter those famous words "I will never eat again."

Digital Liturgy

On Wednesday Ben and I got together and lead worship and intercession for the base here in Seattle. Ben DJ'ed with some ambient electronic music and I VJ'ed with some images that reflect God's character and beauty. It was really fun to be apart of. We also put out some stations for people to go to. They could meditate, pray, read, paint, sculpt, or just sit and watch the images. It is great that an unmusical guy like me can still facilitate and lead a worship time.

For our time of intercession I thought that it would be good for people to pick someone in their life that they want to see come to Jesus. Not a group of people, but one person. We were to write that persons name on a white board and spend 15-20 minutes praying and asking God for his heart towards them.




Ben played some coldplay, Dropkick Murphy and some of his original stuff during this. I put the names that people wrote on the white board into the VJ program and projected them on the wall. It was wild what God did that morning. People were weeping over their unsaved friends. I was praying for my friend Brendan and decided to write him a letter. We have not been in contact for a long time.

It is so important that we intercede for our friends and the people in our lives who do not yet know Christ. What better can we do for them. I hope that this is not just an one time deal for me or us as a base. I hope that we can continue to engage with God to see change in the world.

The system is down

Sorry that I have not been on in a while. The system is down at my house. Actually the system that we have been illegally borrowing/stealing free internet from is down. We have been using one of our neighbors signals for a while now and a few day's after I got my new machine the signal mysteriously disappeared. At first I was mad at this, which is ridiculous. It is kinda like being mad because someone stole something from you that you stole from someone else.

I guess what I am saying is that if I can trust God to provide me with a sweet screaming fast MacBook then I can trust Him with providing enough money to get it on line legally. I get this wired view of God sometimes that He is going to provide us with stuff, but not provide a means to use the stuff. For example: almost a year ago we were given a van. WOW! God gave us a van, unreal. The sick thing is that I was worried thinking that we were not going to be able to afford the gas or insurance for it. Sorry for being an idiot Jesus.

Anyway, today we ordered comcast internet. It will be there on Tuesday next week. I wonder if I should put a password on it so that Jesus can speak to someone else about borrowing internet? Just joking.

Where do I see God?

So Ben and I are running a worship night at Calvary church in Seattle on Sunday night. I am running visuals and Ben is DJing the evening. As I was putting pictures together I was looking for pictures of the cross, Jesus, renaissance art and prayer. We want to teach people that they can worship God in many different way's, as long as it is about Jesus. Even though I have been thinking this way for some time now I still was stuck in the thought that in worshipping Jesus in this way you needed to look at pictures of Christ and Christian icon's.

As Ben and I were talking about this yesterday I was challenged to put pictures into the presentation of things that make me want to worship Christ. So today I sat in World Cup Cafe for 2 hours and listened to Siga Ros while looking at images that made me want to worship God. I thought of color, and nature, a red tree frog the poor and peoples faces. All of these things are a reflection of Gods character and his beauty and for this he is worthy of my and your worship.

So on Sunday night I am not going to put pictures up of Jesus, but I am going to put pictures up of his character. I want people to worship Jesus from looking at his creation and even looking at there own faces to realize that they are fearfully and wonderfully made.

A Post I Never Thought I'd Write

I have needed a new laptop for some time now, so after some fund raising I decided to order a MacBook, black of course. On Thursday I placed my order on line for a refurbished MacBook, which was $200 off the original price. I felt pretty good about myself for finding such a deal. Then Jesus stepped in. You see, the main reason that I need a laptop is to run visuals for the worship night we are starting in Seattle. I will be running a VJ program called Arkaos VJ and it requires a screaming fast machine. Anyway, back to Jesus.

So on Friday the family and I headed out for a field trip and ended up at The Mac store. While we were looking around Amy saw that they were having their monthly garage sale, which I thought I had missed as it is usually at the end of the month, but for some reason they were holding it at the beginning of the month for Nov. I saw on the table a MacBook Pro, which is much more of a machine than the MacBook, hence the name Pro. Usually the Pro runs for approx. $400 more than the MacBook, but this one was the same as I had paid for my MacBook a day earlier. I made a few phone calls, cancelled my MacBook and proceeded to purchase this new gift of God.

So, here is where it gets a little weird. I am lined up, shaking, at the counter and the cashier calls me by my name. I guess I go to the Mac store a lot. We end up talking, after he tells me how good of a deal I am getting, and he notices that I work with YWAM. I guess he used to know some YWAMers and his brother works with YWAM in a country that we used to send teams to every fall DTS. We talked a bit more and I asked him where he went to church. "I go to Lake Sammamish Four Square" he says. Wow, that is the church that helped us get to Seattle in the first place. I would conceder them YWAM Seattle's mother church. So weird. So, all this to say that I believe God wanted me to work with excellence and have the hardware to do it, this is inspired by my friend Ben and Wade. I don't want to get to Christian, but I do believe Jesus cares for such excellence. Anyway, now I am typing away on my new machine and I will never forget this gift.

Now I just need to proceed to buying the VJ software this week, as Ben and I are running a worship time at a church next Sunday. I am excited about what comes next, I want God to be glorified and worshiped and I believe I and can play a part in that.

I want to thank Hank and Mary, Jason and Nancy, Gordon and Deborah, Rob and Karletta and Tom and Tracy for your generosity.

By the way, I called her Miracle, even though my friend Mel thinks it is a cheesy Christian name.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

Tonight was one of those nights. Not one of those bad nights, but one of those good nights. I went to the Union Gospel Missions Homeless Women and Children's center with a few of the DTS students. I really love it there. The time goes slow at times, but I know that we are making a difference. Tonight I spent most of my time with a by named Mohammed. Mohammed is in grade 6 or 6th grade for you American's. He asked me about being a Christian, because he thinks that Christians have more fun than other people. Mohammed is a Muslim, or at least that is what his father is. His mom just became a Christian and is in the hospital under intensive care so he is in the Shelter. I am not sure about the rest of his family, but I do know that they are mad at his mom for becoming Christian.

Mohammed and I talked for a while about Islam and Christianity. We talked about the differences and similarities. He feel like he is going to become a Christian, but that is a big step for him as it goes against everything his family minus his mom believes. If you think of Mohammed please pray for him.

After the Mission I headed downtown to try my hand at getting free Joan Jett tickets. I made the mistake of taking the 1st offer which was $10. The face value of the tickets was $25. I hung around for a while outside as the show didn't start till 11 and came across a lady who gave me a ticket. I figured that I could sell this one and make a couple of bucks, but it was harder than I thought. Eventually this guy came up to me and asked me for the ticket. I sold it to him for $5 and he turned around and tried to sell it for more. Funny.

The show was rad. My friend Michael Friesen and I used to listen to Joan all the time. I remember in 1988 we were in line to met her at Sam's record shop in Winnipeg when Mike realized he had to work that night so we had to leave without meeting her. It turns out that Mike didn't have to work and we went home for nothing. So tonight was 18 years in the making. She was totally cool and rocked hard. I recommend the show. It was definitely worth the $5.

Good night.