Just returned from taking Sophi on a girls weekend. We went through "Passport to Purity". Poor girl, she so dreaded it, although in the end (after some hair, nails, and shopping), she did return home smiling.
Oh, how I wish my parents would of gone through this with me. I can only imagine how "unfun" it would be, make you squirm kinda stuff, but how worth it.
Crazy, scary years ahead. I feel so unready and inadequate, and just not up to it. But, nonetheless, it's here. Boys, junior high... need I say more. How did this happen? She was just a wee baby screaming all hours of the night, did I mention ALL hours?
She's still strong willed, but Oh, how I'm trusting the Lord to bend that for her good and His glory. All I can do is lead her to Him and stay on my knees. And just think, there are 3 more to go.

A step closer

This past week Brian met with his VP in Chicago and they gave us a thumbs up for the move to Vancouver. It should happen before the end of the year. So exciting. We're still in the process of pursuing partners. There are still meetings that have to take place to begin this process in our own church, and meetings taking place with other churches, it's a process.
Partnering with us in this journey isn't just about the finances. More importantly to the ministry are prayer partners. We need warriors who will go before the throne on our behalf, seekings God's will and provsions and protection. Accountablilty to our partners is another benefit of God's people being apart of this, not just CN sending to Vancouver alone.
Exciting times are ahead. The countdown is on... 4 months and counting... maybe less!

Watchmen on the Walls

"I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth. Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the high way Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations!" Isa. 62

What a charge we've been given. This coming just after the Lord proclaims in the chapter prior that He is coming to set the captives free, bind up the broken hearted, open the eyes of the blind; all for the display of His splendor. Christ has already come and finished His work for our salvation, He now forever lives to intercede for us. Our continual watchmen.

In our ministries as watchmen on the walls, as vessels that God wants to use to bring healing to a broken and hurting generation; we can not give until we ourselves have received complete healing from past brokenness.

We cannot stand firm in the Lord and fight powers of captivity and darkness of the enemy unless we are first make whole and healed in Christ, walking in obedience to Him. We can not be watchmen fot the Lord with out first being released from captivity of our own sin and pain. We can't minister and comfort others if we ourselves are still rooted in sinful reaction patterns to unhealed wounds. If we are hurting we will hurt others.

There is a process of wholeness in Christ. Our confession of sin with honesty before the Lord. Whether our hurt and pain came because of our own sin or someone elses against us, we must choose forgiveness and repentance, otherwise pride, unbelief, rebellion and deception creep in and claim a false truth.
Let Jesus heal up our hurts instead of dening them, not wanting to face them. "what's done is done". It becomes a wall the enemy uses to alienate us from others and even more importantly God. That's why Christ came, to set us free from the captivity of sin and pain. That's the ministry he gives to us, His work in us. But we are not able to help others until we've taken our own pain to Him and let Him, along with other believers bring healing.
What follows is the release of the strongholds and bondage's of spiritual warfare. Satan wants to kill,steal and destroy, and how better to do it than to wound the soldiers who are to be standing strong in battle. Finding healing in Christ before going into the battle is the only way to stay strong and healthy. Our wound will not heal if we are still in shackles. The enemy does not want to let us go, but our God is stronger, the battle is His.
Let Him reveal our sin and wounds to us. Ask Him for help in prayer for deliverance from strongholds of enemy. Pray to receive the character and power of Christ in place of dysfunction.

*These are my notes taken from a study in Sylvia Gunter's Prayer Portions

www.thecrossingsvancouver.ca

thecrossings, in downtown Vancouver, B.C.

Our goal this week is to finish up our informational and introduction letter to send out. This will give enough info hopefully to let everyone know our goals and plans for our move to Vancouver, along with a timeline and needs for right now. Approximately two weeks after that we are officially putting our house on the MLS market and actively pursuing partnerships with individuals, families, and churches.

The Lord has already been making divine appointments with others convinced that the Lord has a heart for church planting and reaching the unconvinced all around the world. These are exciting times, not just for our family and thecrossings team, but for all believers globally. His work is not finished. Until His return we are to till the ground, plant the seeds, and seek His growth.

www.thecrossingsvancouver.ca

Preparation, the work of Barren Lands

And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:17

The Wilderness was all too familiar a place for the Israelites, wasn't it? We read how they cried out to the Lord and He heard their cry for salvation from slavery. And no sooner had he delivered them that they cried to return. Forty years of this clinging to and groaning at the Lord led Israel to one pivotal moment... possessing the promise land. Oh, but those were not wasted years.
Deut 8 says this, "You shall remember all the way which the LORD you God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that HE might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.
That word discipline makes me shrink back right away, until I see that the Lord doesn't discipline as just any man, but as a father in love with His child. Every time He mentions our discipline it's to be done with love. The word is sophron, it literally means to "save the mind, to train up". So, why the wilderness? Besides being the landscape for most of the Bible lands, apparently it's His choice tool for training us up!
The wilderness is where God sent John the Baptist to declare the coming of Jesus. All the prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and there he stands in the wilderness shouting repentance. Could it be that the message is still the same today? The wilderness stood to represent desolate, deserted, lonely, uninhabited places in scripture, but I know those places still exist today in our own lives. Hard times, dark places.
What would the Lord have us to know out of the dry weary lands? First of all, to our astonishment, it's not always about correction. Dark and desolate places sometimes are the ramification of our own sin, and so then repentance is the point of the wilderness. But sometimes it's something altogether different. Picture how our Heavenly Father led His son into the wilderness. Just after Jesus had been baptized by John He was led into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. After He had fasted forty days and nights, He became hungry. Every time the enemy tempted Christ he returned to him with the Word of God. Jesus drew his strength on the Word of God alone. I don't think wilderness times are always a result of the enemies attacks, remember that the Spirit led Christ there. But one thing is for sure, our Father used the same way to teach the Israelites as He did his own son, and so I think we can be sure He's still teaching us the same way today.
In the wilderness of tough times we too are HUMBLED, HUNGERED AND FED. It's His way. He causes us to hunger for something not of this world so that we might know that man doesn't live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Our lives, our ministries, our heritage depends on our remembrance of this. In Deut 8, just before the Lord reminds his children of how he led them in the wilderness for 40 years, he tells them to "BE CAREFUL to do all I command to you, that you may live and multiply, and go in and posses the land and which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers."

Summer is here!

WE made it! The girls and I finished our first year of homeschooling! If it were not for Veritas, i could say they must be all the dumber for it!! Can't say that i am the worlds best teacher, but i tried. They taught me a whole lot, and i sure did relearn a whole lot!
Daniel finished 1st grade, can't believe he'll be in 2nd grade next year. Where does time go? My little man is growing up so fast! JB misses the cut off for next year kindergarden, i'm glad he'll be home with me another year.
When we get to Vancouver will decide where everyone goes to school next year...homeschooling vs. public. Time will tell.
So thankful for all the great things the Lord has done this past school year!