What a month! I’m trying to get better at writing and working out while I’m travelling but this month I failed miserably. I drove back to Montreal a couple nights ago after an adventurous, stretching and awesome month away, now 6.5lbs heavier and with a lot of updating and processing to do!
I started my month in Florida, on my way to Kansas City, to reconnect with my childhood best friend I had barely seen in 9 years. I had a great time staying with the Aube’s, my friend Luc’s parents; they are a refreshing reminder of generous kindness, love and true hospitality.
Kansas City was amazing. My purpose was to connect with the 24-7 USA base team and Campus America staff, who mostly all live in KC. Because we share a boarder with the US, Campus America is also having a large influence up here on our Canadian campuses. It helped to learn more, first hand, about how they’re managing and resourcing this movement. If you haven’t already heard of Campus America you need to check this out: www.campusamerica.org. It’s an amazing initiative of 24-7 Prayer and is inspiring campuses to pray like never before. I stayed with Wendy Andrews,... ... who has been involved with 24-7 for years, in her new house with 4 other girls – great community experience. She gave me a tour of the Kansas City Boiler Room, 24-7 offices and prayer room and we went to IHOP (international house of prayer). We also had great conversations about life, personal struggles, faith, Jesus, relationships, leadership, hope and of course changing the world!!
I flew back to Toronto just in time for the Toronto Auto show, the second biggest auto show in North America, quite the exhibit! For Eight days I stood in front of the SL 65 AMG Black Series, met some really interesting people, had fun and learned a great deal through the life experiences of a few of my wonderful new model/actor friends. AND this opportunity gave me the financial ability to keep doing what I love a little longer without having to worry too much about finances. These short contract opportunities have been great.
I left the auto show a couple days before it ended to head to Niagara on the Lake for our 24-7 national team and board meeting- What a weekend!!! In all the years I’ve been involved in 24-7 Prayer, I think this was my favorite meeting ever. Our team is amazing, gifted, growing and totally hand picked by God. All weekend I just felt so thankful for these people and for what God is doing across our nation. We had all 5 board members present as well as a regional team leader from every province, except Manitoba and the Maritimes. We had a great time together talking through ideas, praying, strategizing, laughing and of course eating a little too much!
This past ILG (International Leaders Gathering) in England, I left wondering what God had for us in Canada. The amazing and encouraging thing about the ILG is that you hear all kinds of amazing stories of what’s going on in nations around the world. The natural tendency is to want to copy what others are doing, a lot of great leaders actually even do that, but what I sensed was a need for Canada to start asking God what HE has for us in this nation. What keeps coming up for many of us is CITIES… it’s becoming more and more clear to us that our vision in Canada is to help our cities unite and pray… And pray A LOT! We’re exploring the many facets of this, but truly feel that it is where we need to begin.
A little over a year ago, statistics were released saying that now at least 50% of our world’s population lives in a city. In the early 1900’s it was only 8%. I’ve been doing a little research on the urbanization of Canada today and discovered that as of 2006 over 80% of Canada’s population actually lives in a city- wow! Now wonder why God is giving us a heart for cities, it seems to be where most people live in Canada.
These next few months I’ll be travelling to different cities across Canada to connect with what’s going on across our nation (stay tuned for my blog!). The past few years there has been a lot going on that we’re just starting to hearing about. I spoke at Brock University last week; they’re starting there annual week of 24-7 Prayer on Monday, it’s the fourth year they’ve done this and we just randomly heard about it a couple weeks ago. We hope to connect with these developing movements, encourage, resource and ‘fan into flame’ these hearts for prayer, mission and justice. (If there is someone in Canada you feel I should be connecting with please let me know)
I’m supppper stoked about what God is doing in Canada. God has been showing me his heart for people and has been giving me dreams and visions about what HE is birthing in our nation. It’s amazing and I truly feel blessed to be moving with him on this journey. Everyday feels like a new adventure with him, especially when I open my inbox and hear stories from across our nation!
I’ll be in touch soon as I’ll be working at writing more and losing these 6.5lbs- Feel free to keep me accountable!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
