This is the last post for three weeks and a bit:D

This will be my last post for a while, since I will be going on a missions trip:D I am sooooooooOoooOoo excited about what God has planned for us on the road ahead. I am just so pumped that I can go and do something good for God, instead of just working all summer. I have to thank Chris for giving me these three weeks to go experience an experience of a lifetime. I would just ask that everyone who reads this, pray for the team as we bring kids to Jesus! Please pray too that God will be with Pat, our "boss" as she tries to lead us and keep us focused and that the team will get along with each other and not kill each other.
We sure will be praying for you guys. Good luck at work and good luck on your trip to BC and Reese, may God be with you as you go on your new and exciting journey. I am going to miss ya lots!
You are all in my prayers...Bye for now,
God bless!
M
:D

Resolutions....Half Way ones:D

Ok I have to credit Reese for this idea, what about July resolutions.. so here are mine and well, if ya see this why not try it to? Let me know how it goes...
1. I will not complain about work, instead i will appreciate that I have a job
2. I will live each day as full as I can
3. I will be more thankful to God for all She has done for me
4. I will dedicate myself to my prayer life more fully
5. I will accept all people as brothers and sisters of Christ and treat them that way
6. I will do something Justice related every month
7. I will stop talking about work outside work
8. I will spend more time with friends
9. I will share God at work by my actions
10. I will spend more time reading the bible

Here are just a few... I will tackle these with the help of God! Basically I want to put it all in God's hands and keep it God focused. My life needs to be more God focused

Peace
M :D

...And Justice for All

I know most of you will be surprised by this blog entry. Ok, I actually was reminded the other day of how good some old eighties music is. I am talking about Metallica. OK, I only like some of their songs mostly to work out to when pumping weights. But I must admit that their album and title track "...And justice for all" has a good message..here are a few lines from the song
Halls of Justice Painted Green, money talking Power wolves Beset Your door, hear them stalking, soon you'll please their appetite, they devour, hammer of justice crushes you, overpower
The ultimate in vanity, exloiting their supremacy, I can't believe the things you say,
I can't believe, I can't believe the price you pay, nothing can save you, Justice is lost, Justice is raped

Yeah money sure talks when it comes to justice. The power of the green bill overpowers anything. Our world is being run by the superpower nations and all the poor nations just keep getting pooer cause of having no money and owing millions if not billions to the bigger countries. Yes our justice system has been raped. The true meaning of justice has been lost. Take all the court cases, how many were won cause someone was flashing bling bling. Yah Lady justice take off those blindfolders, you won't need them anymore, you need to see what colour the paper is that is being handed to you. This will determine which way the scale will go.
Money talks, and to the poor countries, Justice has been lost, raped by the Bushes, Martins and others in this world, and we too have raped madame Justice. Why? well cause of all our consumer wants and how we waiste food and think of no one but ourselves. Yah, I am just as bad too. I have to stop this want and learn to live on the need. I hope and pray that the missions trip will help me with this. What do you think? Has Madame Justice been raped? Is our justice system not justice anymore?
Peace
M:D

Registration time again!

Can ya believe it??? Today is the day we registar for our first semester. Wow, where is the summer going? I guess it is going too fast! In two months, we will be back into the grind of books, papers, presentations and the like! It is hard to believe that three years are already gone. This time next year, God willing, I will be preparing for AST. But I know that God has big plans as always for this year! I am just sitting here, as I watch the wonderful sideways rain fall, reflecting on how my decision to say yes to God has brought soo many blessings in my life. I would never have met the amazing pple i know now if I did not say yes.
Firstly, Rev. Brian, I miss you terribly but I know you will be back to Canada soon. Thanks for being the awesome man of God that you are and showing me what the church is about.
Rev. Ned and Arlene, I am so blessed by both your you guys. Your love and hospitality has made my transition from my old church to St. Mary's so warm and comforting. You took me under your wings.
Rev. John! I am soo blessed by your support and belief in me. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to help me out with my sermons and other things even though I did not preach them here. Remember the sword! I know the next few years, we will grow together in awesome faith and love for God who is more than we can ask or imagine
Rushan, I thank you for your patience and for taking me under your wing and also for teaching me that youth group does not have to be a formal sunday school at a different time. God works all the time "Where two or three are gathered in His name, so am I in their midst" Thank you for teaching me that sometimes just spontinuity works best with the kids. I learned more from you than you will ever know. You are a true blessing in my life and I pray we continue to grow together in faith and friendship no matter where God takes us! Let us continue to be servants for God!
To my CC friends and Ebenezzerites... heheh I never can spell that name right.. sawwry Rita. Amy and alkfjalfkjalfkj.. and Rita.. I luvs yas all and I really thank God that you are all in my life you are such beautiful gifts to me. Your love for God and knowing God's grace has shown me that I am loved by God no matter if I screw up or not. Yah Psalm 139 pretty well puts the icing on that cake. Rita thanks for being my Spiritual director. God works awesomely in you. I feel it everytime I am with you. Amy, what can i say... You are an awesome friend and I can't wait to see you in like a week. ADFALFKAJFLKa.. I am soo proud of the job you took this summer. Even though I know sometimes it is difficult, but I know you are going to grow way more than you could ever ask or imagine. You all rock
To my cc friends, thanks for accepting me even though I am on a different faith journey. You are all a blessing and can't wait to see you all again. Mis syou much..
I am soo blessed, but when I was pondering the thought of saying yes to God, I was scared but look at all these and others God has put in my life. I am blessed indeed!!!
Blessings on a new day
Melissa
M

Prayer part 1

Wow, what an awesome day and night I had spent with Rita! I know it is amazing how God works, who would have thought that this past Sunday was going to be the day that Rita had no church so she decided to come to mine. It was really neat too that by this coincidence that I had to serve at the 11, which I only go to if I have to serve. So this worked out super awesome:) Poor Rita probably would not have made it to the 9:15! She would have had to gun the old Jetta down the road.. oo Look out TJ is on his way!
At first, I was a bit hesitant about it cause I knew I wasn't going to be sitting in the pew with her and I knew that it would not be fair, but thanks be to God, it all turned out good. I knew it was going too!! It was sooo awesome having Rita at a worship service. It was nice for her to get to know us crazy Anglicans. He he..
But I think it was the afternoon and the evening that really took the cake;) The morning set the tone and the afternoon and evening just went awesome! The dinner was yummy... And our time of just chatting and reflecting on God's wonderful work and the wonderful interruptions and picture sharing and than the getting down to business;) That chapter was amazing.
I must admit that after doing the little bit that we have done, I can now say that when I Pray I feel closer to God. I am learning soo much about prayer that it is all just blowing me away:D Wow, I now wish I could have had that when I was younger. Now is the time to set the time to spend with God, I hope to get up to three hours and I will be smiling.. imagine spending three hours with the creator of the universe? WOW!
Now it is down to memorizing psalm 139...and the missions trip preperation...I know God is with us for sure:D
Glory to God whose power working in us can do more than we can ask or imagine.! Glory to God from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever.. amen!
Now , I am going off to my prayer spot.... Peace to you all and know I am praying for everyone of you:D

Journey

This entry will get you thinking...

Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
As I was looking on the internet for a good quote, I came across this one from Jeremiah 6:16. We are all on trips or like most pple like to call them "journeys". This passage is a beautiful one because it tells me to stay on the right path, the path that God has layed out for me and as long as I stay on this path, there will be peace and rest for my soul. We must continue to walk on it! Unfortunately, for me anyway, it is hard to stay on God's path. I encounter many potholes and fall plenty of times but I know with God's forgiveness, I can get back up and continue on. Sometimes it is hard for me to stay focused on God and put God in front of all I do.
Sometimes, God calls us to do things we never would ever do. But the thing with God, is that like Samuel, God will continue to pursue you until you say yes. Sometimes, when we reach a fork in the road and don't know which way to turn, God helps us along our path by speaking to us through others. I can attest to that plenty of times:)
Sometimes the words may not be what one wants to hear and other times they are. But God is beyond our wildest dreams and She knows what She is doing. A lot of the prophets had to deliver messages that were not pleasing to the kings of the time but they had to be delivered.
Sometimes, God requires you to learn from others. These people may appear to be blessings or curses to you. I, like others have had both versions ;) I have learned from teh curses that I can't get along with everybody. I have learned that they will not change so I must. I have learned that I am a curse to someone too because it is impossible to get along with everyone. I believe that these crosses have prepared me for what lies ahead in my journey. The suffering I endured just made me stronger just as St. Paul who writes about the athelete who trains, he must train everyday and resist the pain to become stronger, so to am I who endures the blows to become stronger and the be better at the spiritual war! And we can not forget Job, whose suffering had made him stronger. Yah we all ask why God does these things, but in reality how are we to grow if we do not have some challenges in life.
But the question with Job and us is how much suffering is too much? After watching 360 vision on Vision TV. They were interviewing past and present clergy who are taking lots of slack from their parishonners. Some verbal abuse got so bad that some clergy had to resign. There is really no protection for the clergy or other leaders in the church. It is a shame, because a lot of these people have many gifts that could benefit the ones who are giving the abuse.
If there is any question I have concerning the church, that is the one I have.. why are people so judgemental, when Jesus told us to love no matter what? DO these people realize that they are killing the body of Christ instead of building it up?
I am scared as to what the future holds for me when, if , I am called to the priesthood because well, after seeing the show, I now have to start discerning how to put up with the abuse. It would be hard to go to church on Sunday morning and well, see the abusers sitting in the front pew. How to deal with them, how to approach them how to carry oneself around them that is Christ centered, even though the abuse is far from Christ centered. It is sad, I don't know who gave anyone the right to think that clergy are perfect or that they can solve any problem, well wake up! they are human just like you and me. And just cause they have a collar, does not mean they are closer to God! DUH! We are all called to do God's work on earth... job status does not mean anything to God, as long as you are sharing the gospel, that is it! We are loosing great clergy and other ministers over these abusive words! It is time to think before you speak, sometimes, silence is golden! We are in a Christian church where love dominates, or does it? What do you think?

God, He or She?

Ok, here is a post for my friend the mad chef ;) In our society, we always refer to God as male, but in all reality, God is both male and female, because he created us both in God's image. So sometimes when I do my blogging i refer to God as female. I do that because it adds a whole new demension to God. WE mostly picture God as a male figure with an old beard sitting on a throne. But God is not just male! God is a spirit and has both features. So I use the female description because God is a loving and forgiving God, it is time to get rid of the male agressiveness of God. God loves us soo much, God proved it by sending God's only son to die for us. Jesus was the only one who was not spared, Abraham's son was spared, and so other ppl in the bible but Jesus, the perfect lamb was not. God did that out of unconditional love.
If you want to go deeper than that, well whenever we describe God, we are actually limiting God. I think that is why when Moses was questioning what was behind the burning but not really burning bush. God replied "I am" So I guess I can say I am sent me, but even that limits God to humanity. I know this is deep but really it is nice to think about. God is so beyond anything here on earth, beyond language, time and space that no amount of words can describe God. I guess sometimes all we can do is worship God because the act of worship can not be described as well. It is a mystical thing which we humans can never grasp but the feeling of worshipping awesome!
So to me I like to think of God as female, cause God loves me and keeps me in her arms. She is the master potter I am the clay! I serve a loving and awesome God!
Praise God!
Peace to all of you:)

Prayers for missions

Ok here are three prayers that I ask you pray for our missions trip and others around the world. .. Peace and thanks a bunch
Day One
Lord, we are ready. We are here in this place to be your servants. We all desperately want to please you, both those of us who've done this before and those of us who're brand new at it. We enter this week looking to receive nothing in return. We expect nothing from those we'll serve. your son taught us to love without condition. WE will show the world that kind of love this week, Lord. We will work with eace other side by side. WE will put away our differences and do your will. We are energized, Lord! We can't wait to begin! Pace us, though, Father. HElp us keep this feeling the entire week. Keep our hearts and minds on the work before us. We know we are the only "Jesus" that some of these pple will ever see. Help us to show them the true Christ. The son of God. Help us to show unconditional love of our Saviour. With your help we can. Amen

Midweek
We are growing weary, Lord. Our hands hurt. Our feet ache. More than once we've asked ourselves "Why are we doing this?" Then we remember. We see the faces of those we serve. We see our accomplishments. We see the roads we've begun to journey down, and we remember why we do this. Give us strength, Lord. Our hearts are willing but our bodies need help! But we want you to strengthen our resolve-not just our bodies. Strengthen our hearts...and our hands will follow. Let us feel your love, and the rest will be easy. Your servants will not fail you. We are of one mind and heart. We are here to do your work. We are here to spread your love and your word. Give us rest and peace of mind. Let us put away those things that distract us fromthe job at hand. Help us remember that we are here in the name of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

End of the week
God we are still here. We survived. We are your servants. We have accomplished so much with our hands and heart. We have shown the world that youa re who you say you are, the giver of everlasting love. We take pride in what we've done. And we have done well. Now it's time for us to go home and rest- a well deserved rest. But as we go home to real lives, help us to remember that our real lives are alien to the ppl we have served here. Help us to better apreciate what we have at home. Help us to remember the faces of your children who don't hav ethe good things we have. Help us to walk in your love for the rest of our lives as we have walke din your love this week. Amen

All these prayers came from the Book of Uncommon Prayer By Steven L. Case....
Please pray these, for I will be praying them as well...
Thanks a bunch
God's peace be with you all :D

Hidden Treasures

In thirteen more days, I will be travelling with twelve other people who are on fire for God. We will be spending three weeks together learning about God and sharing God's word with all who come out. We will be going to Bethel, NB; Glasgow Rd, Ebenezer and also Elmsdale, NS. There will be kids from all over the country with us. Some from out west and others from around here. I am very excited about it and also kinda scared just cause we have to have many things memorized before we go. Our music ministry will consist of a tin whistle, dejembe, guitar and piano and also two fiddles. Woo hoo I smell celtic here. Our theme is hidden treasure, which is what is hidden in the parables. Each week, we will be doing festivals, which are like vocation bible schools. So we have skits to do and community bbq's too. Our boot camp is on the beach in PEI. I know, I can't picture a boot camp and beach in the same sentence. God sure does work in awesome ways. I am so lucky to have such awesome friends to be able to do things like that. It is awesome that work is giving me three weeks to do it as well. My prayer everyday is that those who have prayed about going on this trip and have answered the call of God will be blessed and that God will use us as his instruments to bring His light to all we come in contact with and that we will grow in faith as well. We, as Christians must remember that we are ambassodors to Christ so all our actions are being monitered so we must be like Jesus 24/7. What a challenge. But what an honour, we get to represent Jesus! As St. Paul said.. "We are ambassadors for Christ." Let us go out and spread Jesus' love and message to our co workers and those we do not know. I ask that when you read this blog, to please pray for Pat, and the rest of our team as we will just meet on the 19th and start that night. All our skits will be practiced individually. But we know that threw Jesus all things are possible. May God's peace be with each one of you.

Psalm 139

As most of you know, I have been meeting with my spiritual director and well, I just thought it would be nice to write a bit on what we are doing. My spiritual director, Rita, is really awesome! When we first met, we started into this book about prayer. It is not your original book but a book on how to prepare to pray. Most books tell you how to pray! This book take you threw everything from an examination of conscience to where to pray. Well, the last couple of times, we did the 22 examinations of our conscience or sins. I found out a lot of new "sins" like for example..did you know that not paying attention to God's word when it is being read or not paying attention to the sermon is a sin? I guess I am going to pay attention more often. Yah, I must admit that going threw the whole 22, there was not one that I did not do, so at the end I felt kinda like crap. But as we went on, I felt like I was closer to God because I asked God to forgive me for each of the sins I committed. The author talks about how we must go threw an examination of our conscience before we can even think about chatting with God. Our sins keep us away from God and so well, they are like a vacuum. If your friend came over and you wanted to chat but your mom had to vacuum the house, well we all know that it would be next to impossible to even hear your friend.
At the end of the chapter on examination, we find the request to read psalm 139. It is amazing how God works, Psalm 139 is one of my favorite psalms, like psalm 95. The psalmist talks about how God knew who we were before we were born. "He knitted us in our mother's womb" How beautiful is that! If anyone is familiar to knitting, we all know how time consuming it is and how easy it is to lose count of the stitches. God took the time to create us and He cares enough and loves us enough to know what our lives will be! God loves us all, no matter what! How awesome is that? So after being shot down with recalling all my sins, I realized that reading psalm 139 has brought me hope! Hope knowing that God loves me soo much he sent Jesus to wipe away all my sins. So even though I mess up sometimes, God loves me just as much as He did the day I plopped on this planet. How awesome is that? God loves you too, just as much as He loves me. God is amazing. So now that my conscience is cleared, at least for a bit;) I can come before the Holy of Holies and have a chat:) I know right now, I feel like a ten tonne boulder has been lifted from my shoulders. I usually feel like that after confession. I feel closer to God at this moment, I think it is because I have asked for forgiveness, so the slate is clean. It is important for a Christian to pray everyday because if we don't it is a sin! God is our best friend and we have to treat Him like it, so I hope that if you have not talked to God in a while, that you go and do it. He is waiting to hear from you ;)
God loves everyone, I know I am saying this alot, but I must say that with the issues in the church today, I really think that the church has lost touch with the true teachings of Jesus. We seem to be more tied up within a doctrinal society than a loving one. I think we are going back to the old ways where the law, or Torah was it! Jesus came to destroy that kinda thinking and put a new covenent. Jesus was seen with prostitutes and other "rejects" of society. So to are we called to do the same. It is not our place to judge others. That is God's place and God's place only. Christianity's job is to include everyone, regardless of sexual preference, race or religion..What do you think Jesus would do today if He was confronted with the Marriage issue? I really think He would just love and accept everyone the way they are because as the bible tells us, God's ways are above our ways and God's thoughts are above our thoughts.. as high as the heavens are above the earth so high is you ways above our ways, Oh Lord! God sees us skin deep, for remember he knitted us in our mom's womb!
Jesus came to set an example, and if we are true disciples of Christ, why are we fighting over man made rules when Jesus clearly stated that one is to "Love one another as I have loved you! " Well Jesus' love was soo agape that he layed down his life for both the ones that were here and us who were not even a thought! How awesome is that? If you read psalm 139, you will understand how amazing it is when you come to the verse that says "you hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand on me", (5) We are children of God, children of the light..we were created by a God who loves us and continues to love us very much. It is time the church puts away the doctrines and starts to live with justice, mercy and walking humbly with God. Putting God first and not human desires first! It is only when Jesus is the center can we do God's will. So think about it! A church without boarders,, is it possible. of course, as St. Pauls says : I can do al things through Christ who strengthens me" Phil 4:13
I have to have Psalm 139 memorized by the end of the summer so, here is a taste of it from the NRSV.."I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well' Psalm 139:14. I don't know about you but I feel really honoured to be loved by the creator of the universe! I just hope that I can share God's love with everyone. Let us pray for a church that goes beyond boarders (doctrines) to include all. What would Jesus do?
God Love :D

What does the Lord require of you?

Have you ever thought deeply about this question? Many pple of the Old testament knew what God required and from the Prophet Micah 6:8 we see that God requires us to act justly love tenderly and walk humbly with our God. This passage does not speak of worship, or fancy church services... This passage gets deep down to the heart of what God wants. God wants us to act with Justice! How to achieve this? Does tithing do the trick or donating to many children's charities across the globe? No! I mean not NOOO but it is nice to donate to these charities,but have you ever considered looking at justice with two feet.. WEll ya got your right foot that represents all the charities that you know of. So we all donate to these charities and so our right foot can move forward. But without our left foot, we can only move one step and thanwe are stuck. Our left foot represents our "actions" like helping out at the soup kitchen, raising awareness to our fellow brothers and sisters about poverty. Than we can move towards making poverty history.
I really enjoyed John's sermon this morning but I think not only should we raise awareness to everyone about the crisis in Africa but that not only should the G 8 leaders do something about it but we should too. One thing is to cut down on waste and have a do I need this attitude? NOt I want attitude.. this will cut down on waste. Do we really need three tvs in the house? Do I really need six pairs of shoes? or Do we really need to go out for supper everyday? If you only knew how much at work we waste it would make you want to puke!
When the prophet Micah calls us to love tenderly, I think it is about loving like Jesus loved us! Wow a challenge... to love our enemies and forgive without ceasing. It is a beautiful and selfless love. It is a God love! To love at all times is hard, for me cause we always have sin to take us away from it. To love those who made our lives difficult is a big challenge. Jesus calls us to love, love, love... It is His main part of teaching. To love one another as I have loved u! To treat everyone as your brother or sister. I think if we have this kinda outlook on life, poverty would be history cause how many of us would want to see our sister starve?
Oh the last one, walking humbly with God.. wow to walk humbly is what Jesus did when he was on earth. He never held the best seat of the house, he never drove he was always walking. He had no money, only God. He loved everyone and just cause he was God's son, he never made a big deal out of it! We too are blessed because God has chosen us to serve HIm. Sometimes this can get to our egos.. ya know.. my best friend created the universe, what did your best friend do lately? WE are all called to bring everyone to Jesus. Jesus is the key and Jesus wants us to do it with a humble heart, a servants heart. Only this way will we win souls back to God. How awesome would that be, be an instrument for Christ!
So , going to church is all kool and that but Micah tells us that there is another way to do what God requires. So if we all treat every human like they are our brothers and sisters.. how our outlook on life will change. So I challenge you to go and do what Micah 6:8 tells us.
May God bless you on this wonderful day:D

Your words may become a dagger in someone else's heart

Over the last few days, I have been praying and reflecting on how constructive criticism can become evil. It is nice to get criticism because it helps to give you another outlook on the situation. But when it gets too much do these pple actually realize that their words can become like daggers. We all know the saying sticks and stones.. but it comes to a point when those words do actually hurt us. I wonder if these pple actually realize they are hurting others feelings. I also wonder if they actually spent their negative energy on more positive things, how amazing the youth programme would be or any other program anywhere. we should all strive to turn our negativity into positivity because it only takes one negative comment to erase all the positive ones that were given. It is a shame:( Especially in a Christian environment where we are not to judge but to love everyone as much as possible. To follow Christ's teachings. So if there is anywhere where negativity is not to be.. it is our church community BUT unfortunatly,,, it happens all too often.
People get the picture that clergy members or other members of the ministry team are perfect therefore, they should run things how these pple want. Sometimes, these ministers get abused verbally soo bad that they have to resign and seek help. I know it is a shame that society had built these men and women of the cloth up soo much that at one time they were not to be questioned. Now it is time to put away the preconcieved notion that they are perfect and can fulfill every need. They are human like us and they make mistakes too but it is up to the community to help them. There is only one of them a lots of the community. It is time to realize that they are on a journey of faith as much as we are, we are not any more or less important than the next person.
So it really bothers me to see someone work so passionately at youth ministry just to get shot down. It worries me cause this person is soo dedicated to the work God has given him and well, he does have many pple supporting him but I think right now, all he is thinking of is the dagger that has hit him.. No nice comment will ever heal the wound.
I know there is a passage in proverbs that talks about how our words can be really harmful. I don't know where it is so sorry but I will leave you with a thought.. Next time you speak, make sure it is done with lots of thought so as to not discourage the receiver. I know we all have pple we can't stand in life but remember, we also have ppl who can't stand us! Try to give constructive criticism with a thoughtful Jesus loving heart.

So rid yourselves of all evil, all lying, hypocrisy, jealousy and evil speech. As newborn babies want milk, you should want the pure and simple teaching. By it you can grow up an dbe saved. 1 Peter 2:1-2