I have been talking to my dad, trying to get him to help me find a job up in the Queen Charlotte Islands at a fishing lodge, since he has many ties up there. I have gotten an email or two from West Coast Resorts, but nothing confirming yet that I will be able to work there over the summer. I have been spending lots of time in prayer about this, pleading with the Lord to allow me to be able to work up there this summer, because that is the only way I can imagine being able to get back to Summit for this next September, besides of course taking a student loan, which I really don't want to do, for good reason. But I was spending a bit of time in prayer about this I believe on Wednesday, and I felt the Lord speaking to my heart and telling me that I should not be so stuck on the idea of getting back to Summit.
I have had a dream in my heart for the last while about after I finish my 4 years at Summit, I would like to take some counselling/psychology, IT and multimedia, and business courses. I just kind of feel that a ministry in which those things will be necessary is not just where God is calling me but really where my passion is. But I thought it would be great after I finish Bible College. I got that idea in my mind that perhaps I'm not supposed to return to Bible College. The more I thought about it, the more it kind of made sense to me as I tried to comprehend letting those plans go. I am realizing more and more the primary reason I have such a desire in my heart to return there is for the friends I have there, and the social life that I love at the college so much. The academic part, while I do enjoy that, I was not quite as interested in but I guess kind of just saw as my duty or obligation; part and parcel of the package. I suppose all this isn't helped in the fact that I have been reading a book by John Eldredge lately called 'The Journey of Desire'. I believe it is by the Lord's doing that I just happened to start reading that late last week. Now this is not just thoughts stirred up by this book, though the book has been an amazing guide in helping me with my thoughts and troubles with my plans here. Perfect timing, as the Lord is known for. I encourage anyone and everyone who is not fully satisfied and receiving joy and excitement from their lives all the time, and I imagine that is most if not all, to read this book. It is really awesome.
But anyways, as I contemplate these new thoughts and this new direction of my post-Rwanda life, it is seeming more and more practical to me that perhaps I should head for the stuff I wanted to do after Bible College a little sooner than I was anticipating. God has put dreams in my heart. I thought it would be years before I'd really be getting to these dreams, but it seems maybe these things are a little closer than I had imagined. Now this is all quite new to me. I didn't want to put this in a newsletter because this is not really ministry new per se, but more just personal contemplations. I have this dream in me to have a youth and young adults ministry that is totally focussed on multimedia and technology, taking the enemy's tools in this world and turning them against him by using those same tools to teach and train about the Kingdom God. I don't see this as being in one particular church, like some position somewhere, but something bigger and vaster than that. I don't really know what this is or what it would look like, but this is where I feel my heart leading me. This is where I feel myself being led to very soon instead of years off like I first thought.
You know when I first started planning for coming to Rwanda, like really first. About a month or two after I felt God calling me to come, I developed this whole big strategy where by I would go take these french courses, and intercultural study courses. I would spend time doing this and that. I would raise up my money for a couple years, work for a while. Eventually by 2010, or just after so I don't miss the Olympics in Vancouver that winter, I would head to Rwanda to work at some orphanage for an uncertain amount of time. Seriously, that was the original plan. It was by the well needed advice from Alisha Inch who just happened to be at my Church right around then that I got my head checked a little on those thoughts. I always seem to put these plans God puts into my heart off into some distant place. It is like I am saying, 'Oh yes Lord, that sounds great. I will certainly do it one day. Someday I will get right onto that plan. Just give me a few years to get ready.' It seems the Lord is often having to tell me, 'No, I don't want you to be ready, because then you would succeed, and I would not receive the glory by doing it through you. I want you to do it now, not later.' That lesson is a really hard one to try and grasp.
This is the dilemma of daring to dream: We can ignore our dreams and quite possibly then be shutting down the Lord's plan for our life, as well as basically just about killing our heart by not listening to what it is crying out for, or we can desire our dreams and go after them, making ourselves vulnerable and open to possibly failing; to possibly having our dreams crushed time and time again. Nothing hurts like walking down the 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams'. But along the way, the Lord will teach us to pick up the pieces and give them to Him, to keep pushing and going for our dreams no matter what. It hurts and it's hard, but it is really the only option, lest we choose a dead and uneventful life, murdering our heart as we do. And the passion, life and joy that can come from pursuing our dreams, our desires as John Eldredge talks about, there is nothing more fulfilling.
So, I don't know. These are the thoughts and contemplations I am struggling through right now. I don't know just what is right, or which way I should step next. I have a vague image of a dream in front of me, but it's like trying to reach a tower in the distance through some massive thick fog. 'Lord, your Word is a lamp unto my feet.' I need the Lord to show me the way, for I have an idea of a dream and a general direction, but I have no idea how to go about it or how to get there, or even if I am maybe way off-base on something here. I would like to ask all of you to pray for me. Really, really pray for me on this. Plead to the Lord on my behalf for wisdon, understanding, and above all direction. Please, if you would, it would be an awesome help. The more prayer the better, because I know by personal experience that prayer most certainly works, and works very well. And I also know that I need a lot of help. So please pray on my behalf on these matters. Thank you for reading, and I hope that everyone reading this can relate in some way to my thoughts and struggles, and maybe these words can help you in some way as well. If at all you have been encouraged, challenged, thought-provoked or anything like that, praise the Lord God Almighty from whom all blessings flow. I pray the Lord would bless everyone one of you in all you do, and thank you all for your unending support in every way.
