A Nice Bit of FUN!

Today, Carla, Russell, and I went for a walk out behind Makkovik. It was so nice. We took some photos and had some fun and on the way back we even stopped by to the school's playground to have a swing. We are going to try to go for a nice walk like that every Saturday... let's see if we actually do it... I would say we will!

Romans 8:38-39

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither heights nor depth, not anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

What's Your Opinion?

Since I was a young child I have loved going to church. I was never forced to go and I never complained about going. Church was a fun place to worship God and learn more about Him. It was exciting and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I grew up in The Salvation Army church in my home community, an evangelical church. The church was very alive and still is today. People within my church fostered my spiritual growth and they were very encouraging when it came to the youth. The church allowed the Spirit to move, they were open to change, they spoke from the bottom of their heart expressing the joys of serving God within the services and they prayed not from a book but used their own words. There was nothing boring about going to church. God was very much alive in those services.

Yesterday I went to church like I always do on Sundays. I think if I was a child I would have complained about going yesterday. The church is definitely not what I am used to but I go because I know that as a Christian I should be in fellowship with others and secondly, if God needs to use me within the church how is He going to use me when I am not there.

Anyway, within the church they have liturgies. (Please note: I am not saying that there is anything wrong with liturgies). Yesterday, as they were doing the five page liturgy with prayers for the sick, prayers for forgiveness, and other prayers which I cannot recall at the moment, I had a hard time to sit there and participate. I kept thinking no wonder not a lot of people are here, they don't see the joy of serving God! I found myself having my own prayer time, praying my own prayers, and praying for the North Coast. The liturgy was monotone and it seemed that we were just reading it for the sake of reading it. It was like there was no joy in praying to Jesus and I consider praying to Jesus one of the most joyful things to do! With that being said, I am sure the people in the church know how important the words of the liturgy are.

So now I ask you your opinion. . . what is your opinion about reading prayers from a book?

I should also note that contrary to the liturgy... the sermon was really good yesterday. He talked about prayer and how we should be praying everyday not just on Sundays and prayer should be a continuous thing. We should be continuously conversing with God on our own. I hope God will use that sermon to speak to the hearts of many who were present.

Have a great day with many blessings!

Our Snowball Adventure

Well, we have had snow a few times since mid-October but nothing that has stayed because the ground is not completely frozen yet. However, tonight we are having a wicked snowfall. The ground is frozen more now so hopefully this snow stays and before we know we will have our "machines" (skidoos) out. I cannot wait to go riding and going for drives on the bay ice and doing all the fun winter stuff. It is so awesome! I wish you all could experience it.

Anyway, tonight for a bit of fun Jennifer, Russell, and I decided to go out to play in the snow. Well, before we knew it, we were having a snowball fight. And before we knew it there was about 15 students out having a snowball fight with us. Yep... it was quite the snowball adventure... they have good aim too, unlike me!!! Anyway, it was a good laugh... I think the kids had fun too!

Have a great day and enjoy all of the snow!

Rebecca

Being a Christlike example

It is very important for us to be Christlike examples for others. Somedays this is easier than others and today I was on the "others" side. I felt very discouraged about my Christlike example when I returned home from school around suppertime tonight. I was in such a foul mood over unimportant things really. . . a messy classroom made very messy by my students, a couple rude comments by students, and minor other things that built up throughout the day. Normally, I try to be very positive but today was different and by this afternoon at 3:30 I was in a foul mood and by the time I got home suppertime I was discouraged about the example I was living.

Every morning during my devotional I pray that I will be a Christlike example for others throughout the day. I pray that I am able to let my light shine for others to see Christ in me. I pray that people would see how wonderful living for God is by my example. I believe that as Christians we should be trying to do this daily for Him.

I know that as a Christian I should have a positive attitude, I should not be judgemental, I should not participate in gossip, I should not be critical of other Christian friends.... but I should be setting an example. I should only be living for an audience of one, Jesus. I should be living in response to God and not in response to others. I should be trying my best to be more and more like Christ. I should try to be "SET APART". By SET APART I mean... we should be "set apart" for God. Other people around should be able to look at us and know that we are followers of Christ, that Christ is indeed alive in us. I do not want people to look at me and wonder... why is she a Christian, she's no different? That's sad hey?

Yes, it is sad and I feel sad for the way my foul mood affected me today. With this being said. . . another co-worker told me that I was being too hard on myself, that no one is perfect. I do not believe that I was. I believe as Christians we have to set the standard high for ourselves, we cannot let ourselves slip causing others to see us as hypocrites or causing ourselves to be a stumbling block to others. Well for me this afternoon I just know that at that moment I did not have the attitude that God would have wanted me to have.

I am not really sure why this has had such an intense effect on me today but it certainly has. I think it has just accumulated over the past couple of days and I have grown so much in my Christian walk that I don't want to slip. I want to be living the life that God wants me to live. I want to do everything according to His purposes. I want to be "set apart" by God. I want Him to be at the center of my life. I want to be a Christlike example. I want Christ to be alive in me.

"Jesus, help me to live only in your footsteps. Help me to only walk in your ways. Help me to only do what you want me to say or do."
I just pray that each day as Christians that we are only striving to be more and more like Christ. That we are striving to let our light shine.

Many blessings,
Rebecca

Student Accomplishments

I was impressed by one of my students today. Last night she had come to my house to ask me if I would go to Uncle Jim's house with her to play for him on Saturday afternoon. I agreed and at 10 to 2 sure enough she showed up at my house to walk down to Uncle Jim's house to play. Uncle Jim, who appeared on CBC recently, has an avid interest in music and photography. He loves to hear people play musical instruments and loves to see the younger generation of this community learn music so their rich musical traditions can live on. So today my student played for him. I figured she would play about 5 songs but she played about 20 or more songs on her fiddle. I was quite impressed with her and so was Uncle Jim. It was so rewarding to see the accomplishments she has made in violin/fiddle since I first heard her play last October. Not only could see read the music she can also read in 6/8 time. I am so happy for your accomplishments. I just hope that she will continue to play fiddle when she finishes school. Here is a picture:

Answering God's Call

My application to CFOT for September 2007 is going well. Presently I am waiting for the full case papers to be sent to me and I am awaiting my appointment time for the psychologist appointment. I completed all the online, paper psychological testing a couple of weeks ago and at the moment that is being assessed. There a few more things I have to do in this process. I find this very exciting and I can't wait to complete this process and hopefully be entering Training College in September 2007. Since I finally decided to follow God's will I have been on a very exciting road.

My journey to this point began in the summer of 2004 while I was working at Camp Walter Johnson in North Carolina. It was here that I really began to hear God clearly that summer and on July 23, 2004 while waiting to go to TMI in Oklahoma, I felt God's presence enter my room in North Carolina. I was drying my hair thinking about what I would wear on the plane in the morning when the Holy Spirit entered my room. His presence was that strong that I immediately fell to my knees in prayer and it was then that God placed full-time ministry on my heart. That night I prayed that I would be obedient to God's will.

The next day I headed to Oklahoma on the plane for TMI. When we arrived at the camp, Mike and I went to check out where we would be staying. Originally we were told that we would be staying in the hotel-like rooms, however later we discovered we would we staying in the cabins. Both of us were a little put out by this but didn't complain and did stay in the cabins with people who were younger than us. However, I believe this happened for a reason. I was placed in the cabin with the Territorial Candidate's Secretary for the US South Territory. During the week I had the opportunity to share with her about what I had felt on July 23rd. We were able to talk about it and pray about it together.

After the week was finished I returned home and shared my news with my family. My parents were not very supportive (mom, if you are reading this... you are agreeing with me). They both told me to go finish my degrees and teach for awhile and see what happens then. The next day I boarded a plan to Alberta with many prayers on my heart and a more concerned about how my parents felt about what I was supposed to do with my life than what God, my Heavenly Father, wanted from my life.

Two weeks later I returned home still with many prayers but headed back to St, John's for school. In September I began to struggle with God's call on my life and I began going back out again with the guy that I knew that God had told me so clearly to not go out with. And there it was... I was disobeying God's call. I still led my Christian life, prayed and focused upward to Him but I was being led astray by the guy I was going out with at the time. He had a strong faith but came from a church that had switched their doctrines drastically and his beliefs differed from mine a lot in some very important aspects such as Everlasting Life. It seemed to me that every scripture I led him to, he had another scripture to contradict what I was saying. I found myself sinking in what I believed because I couldn't defend it to him. Eventually he started going to church with me and the night that he would not speak to me after the service because a woman had preached in the church I knew that something was up with this. In February, I knew that I had to end this relationship and I did that. I left the relationship very broken spiritually. For the next two months my spiritual journey was on a roller coaster and then in April 2005 my 28 year old cousin was killed tragically in a motorcycle accident in Korea. And spiritually it hit me like a ton of bricks and I had a lot of questions. For the next month I struggled spiritually.

In May I began praying for the answers to all of my questions. I began praying constantly. I spent much of my days in prayer and Bible study. On June 2, I totally gave myself to God again and completely surrendered to Him. Within a week my plans for the next year had changed. I decided against going to Laval University to study French for the year... I felt that God was leading me to this one job in the paper for the North Coast of Labrador and I applied for the job. I got it and I am still here today. At the time I had no idea why I was being led here but I now know. I am certain God wanted me to meet my Christian roommate Carla, He knew I could learn a lot from her. He also knew this is where I needed to go to fully devote time to grow spiritually. He also had ministry opportunities in mind for me that He knew I was willing to do.
I came here with the verse Hebrews 12:2 attached to my heart and even today it is still completely implanted in my heart.

However, when I came here I had no idea that four months later I would be experiencing the same experience I had in North Carolina a year and half later. On January 23, 2006 God's presence entered my bedroom here and once again I felt God calling me to officership. Only this time it was stronger. Everywhere I went I felt God placing ministry on my heart. As was teaching I would hear God say to me, "Follow my way Rebecca" or "Fix your eyes upward" or don't worry Rebecca, you know what I want you to do". I kept hearing His voice throughout the day and finally at the end of February I applied to take the course Introduction to Officership for March. In March I started the course and enjoyed every minute of it. However, I still did not have any support from the home front and it wasn't until I returned home in June that my parents were willing to talk about it with me. In the meantime, I did the course, planned financially for Training College, and planned a meeting with the Territorial Candidate's Secretary for when I returned home in June. I returned home in June had the meeting and then talked it over with my parents. After a few days, my parents decided to support me. On July 2, I did the service in my church as a part of the course and God provided me with much support from my corps.

Ever since January 2006 I have been on my journey to full time ministry. I have accepted God's call and I have a burning desire to do His work. I cannot wait to enter into full-time ministry for Him. I feel completely "free" since I accepted His will. I'll just leave you with the song that stays with me and states exactly how I feel.

Jesus, all for Jesus
All I am and have and ever hope to be.
Jesus, all for Jesus
All I have and have and ever hope to be.

All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands

For it's only in Your will that I am free,
Jesus, all for Jesus.

Sorry for the long blog but felt like I should share my story with you.

In Faith,
Rebecca