"All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."
CS Lewis - Mere Christianity

As Iron

I am writing tonight out of frustration yet again. I do not know why I am so frusterated but I am. The major part of it is financial frusteration. Everytime it seems that I am in the clear and will barely have enough money for school my knees of confidence are taken out from under me. I think that it is God trying to make me stronger and trust in him more but I am still having a difficult time deciding where he wants me to work for the next six months so I need your guys prayer. I also want to thank and praise God for these trials. Without him we are nothing and I believe that we have to be constantly reminding ourselves of that. I also may be going offline in order to save more money. In addition, I am pleased to say that I will soon be finished my first painting which I am going to go and work on right now. So good night and godspeed my brothers and sisters.

Decisions and Motivation

I have been meaning to blog for a while but I could not quite grasp what I wanted to blog about. With the help of my good friend Anton I have had an epiphany but with that epiphany comes frustration. This frustration rears its ugly head in my decision making and daily motivation.

I admit it...I had stopped going to church again. I realize now that it was the wrong choice but I did not want to be at Central Baptist any more. What had initially attracted me to the church was removed when I returned in the fall. Therefore, I hate to be all consumer's about it but I just did not want to be there. I chose to work on Sundays instead. Of course I still was a small group leader so I kind of had church on Wednesday nights. Now I realize that I also need church for myself on Sundays.

The epiphany came when Anton and I finally had a chance to hang out. It had taken us 3 months to finally hook up again since Peru but I finally had a Saturday night off so we went out for some drinks and food and I got to meet some of his friends. The best part was that he invited me to his church the next morning and I thought why the heck not. It would be nice to check his church out just to see what was happening.

I am not going to lie...It was a little awkward at first; however, I do strive off awkward. It was mildly awkward because for the first time in my life I was a cultural minority. When Anton introduced me to the only other white guy there I was surprised to find out that it was their pastor Rick. Long story short, I have been going there for 2 weeks and I am loving every minute of it. It is the first church that I have been to where the people are actually interested in you. There are an extremely welcoming family of God and they have set the bar for what other churchs should strive for. The other pro about this church is that the service starts at 9:30 so that means I can go and play hockey with the guys from work at 12. THANK YOU GOD!!!

The other thing that I love about the church is that God is using the pastor to hit me right where I need to be hit. God is just using him to tell me how to live out this phase in my life and I love him for that. However, this is where the frustration comes into play.

Whats frustrating about decision making is what to choose. I am not talking about little things like what to have for dinner I am talking about big things like where does God want me too work in order to save the money for Capernwray or what does God want me to do with my life after Capernwray? (I've been watching a lot of Scrubs and a doctor would be cool!) There is the stuff that I know I want to do but because I am not totally close to God right now I do not know if those are the decisions that he wants for me.

The other thing in my life that is really frustrating me right now is self motivation. How do people do it? I have a big list if things that I want to accomplish that day before work but instead I sleep in then get up and watch like 5 episodes of Scrubs or Arrested Development(I love Bittorrent) and before you know it it's time to go to work. Then I feel like a retard and completely useless. A lot of the things on the list are things that I want to do too like paint or learn guitar but instead I just sit my fat ass down in front of the computer.

Pastor Rick was talking about miracles and how to prepare for them. I am starting to prepare myself for a couple miracles and I was wondering if you guys could pray for them too. One is that God will provide me with the money that I need for Capernwray without having to go to a place like Fort Mac to cook at a camp. Second is that he gives me the strength and energy to motivate myself to be more useful in the kingdom of God. And finally that I do not drift away from him again because he is the best friend anyone could ever have.

Thanks for listening to me blab. You guys have to check out this Chinese church though its super cool I love it. And you will have to come play some ice hockey sometime. Oh and if any of the Scheinbiens are reading this...DAVE AND JOHN NEED TO MOVE TO EDMONTON!!! Kyle is moving out on Saturday in case you guys were wondering...yippeee!...jk...

Turkey Delight

Well Turkey Delight was a huge success. I thank you all for your prayers and support, especially Stephanie and her small group. Except for the fact that they sent all of my knives through the dishwasher (that's a huge no no) they were truly awesome and everything turned out perfect. Maybe the treasure in heaven for us will be a turkey dinner who knows? So now that this whole ordeal is all said and done I am sitting here tonight trying to think of how this project affected me and to be completely honest it did not. I feel the exact same last night as I do tonight and I do not know if this is normal or not. I thought I might feel warm and fuzzy inside you know that really good feeling you get inside of you when you know you sacrificed some of your time for the benefit of others. But there were none of those feelings in my heart tonight. I guess I kind of feel disappointed that I do not have those feelings because they are awesome. I know deep down that God used me to help other people feel good tonight but why doesn't that make me feel good? It is a school project so I have one more paragraph to hand in on this project but I have no clue what to write it about. Overall, I had a lot of fun doing this project over the last 2 days and I had a great time hangin out with Chet for it but for some reason tonight is just almost depressing to me for some reason. Maybe I am just tired and crabby so I am going to head to bed. Thank you all again for your support for this project you filled a lot of very empty stomachs tonight and warmed a lot of hearts. Stay classy my amigos!