Tops of 2009

So I'm sitting here at 2:44am, on a Tuesday, unable to sleep and I start thinking about the things I've done this past year. Books I've read, movies I've watched, yadda yadda yadda. Well all that remembering and contemplating has led me to this...the tops of 2009!

Top 5 books I read...
5. Do Hard Things-Alex and Brett Harris
4. Coming Attractions-Robin Jones Gunn
3. The book of Hebrews in the Bible
2. Chasing Fireflies-Charles Martin
1. Crazy Love-Francis Chan

Top 5 movies I watched...
5. Horton Hears a Whoo
4. Hannah Montana (yeah, that's right)
3. Where the Wild Things Are
2. World Trade Center
1. The Last Sin Eater

Top 10 "moments"...
(This one was hard because there's been lots of amazing moments! These are not ordered in rank, just as they came to mind)
10. Recieveing a very specific vision from God about this generation of youth
9. Jonathan praying prophetically over me about being called to a generation
8. Family day at the Rosenke's with the ministry team, everything about it
7. Standing arm in arm with Julie singing Awesome God while watching fireworks
6. Singing He Has Done So Much for Me in the cabin at staff training after cabin devos
5. Dancing in the epic storm with Jenny, Karissa, Levi and Tim
4. That Thursday morning chapel at Inner City Camp
3. Standing arm in arm with Colette while praying over Debbie
2. Watching the ministry trip team preform "Everything" at The Rock
1. Prophecying over the bass player at youthedge

Top 5 worship songs...
5. For all You've Done
4. Mighty to Save
3. The Stand
2. I Give You Glory
1. He Has Done So Much for Me

Top 5 other songs
5. Beside You-Marianas
4. Fireflies-Owl City
3. You Belong with Me-Taylor Swift
2. Be Alive in Me-Abandon
1. I Will Go-Starfield

Top 6 funny moments...
(again not in order by rank)
6. Floating around in the middle of the lake for hours with Debbie, Kaylyn, Craig and Gary...then that boater came and circled us a few times!
5. Playing sardines in the edmonton church, squishing with all the guys behind that one table while Josh kept dropping the other one and making a racket!
4. Dressing up like fairies with Jenny, Rick and Frank
3. On the last night of teen camp, running to the bathroom and back like fools with my cabin and laughing up a storm until Shane yelled at us!
2. Pretty much the entire trip to Alberta and back with frank..."MOTH MAN!!"
1. Chugging the expired juice we were supposed to be dumping out with Janelle at the Edmonton foodbank then laughing and laughing after!

Top 5 places I went/events I attended
5. Nipawin with Debbie
4. Missions Fest
3. Jaylene's baptism
2. PraizFest
1. Youthedge

Some people (not an exhausted list) who have greatly influenced and/or impacted me in 2009...
Jenny Anna Danae
Jonathan Karissa
Brett Jaylene
Becky Aimee
Kaylyn Mary
Alvina Gary
Beatrice Debbie
Janelle Colette
Cory Rick
Frank Brian

5 things I learned about myself...
5. Unfortunatly my feelings are very easily hurt, but I usually bounce back pretty quick
4. I'm actually a pretty quiet person
3. I feel most loved when people make an effort and want to spend time with me
2. I strongly desire the gift of prophecy more and more
1. I can and will stand up for what I believe and know to be right and true when it's really important, even if no one else supports me

Some random, good memories...
-Camping with Becky on May long, everything about that camping trip was wonderful!
-Spending an entire Saturday with Jenny and Jonathan, the entire day was so fun!
-Canoeing back from the dairybar with Debbie and being so far behind everyone but not even caring
-laying on the trampoline with Debbie, Danae and Josh Ramshaw talking about life, love and shallowness
-Talking with Josh A in the Chinese church until 2am
-listening to a Chronicles of Narnia audiobook with Cory on the way to Regina
-Kellie's disasterous birthday cake
-getting to hold Erin just hours after she was born
-going to sleep at 10pm after D-camp was over and Debbie saying "Real old ladies we are"
-attempting to make bannock at teen camp, epic fail!
-When the girls thought there was a bee on my bed and Kaylyn jumped to my rescue at teen camp
-mini golfing after camp in the dark
-swimming with Jenny and Janelle at Meadow Lake
-driving back to the camp after the dairy bar walk with a van load of girls
-putting glowsticks in Exner Lake with Jenny and Levi
-playing rock band with Gary and Brett for hours then watching Muppets From Space
-two words...BOOT CR3W!
-my private communion down at camp of Good Friday
-everyone sleeping on the hard floor in one big room at The Rock with just some small dividers to seperate the guys and girls
-the rap I wrote in my dream, "I'ma white girl, but my heart is brown! With the Lord on my side I can't wear a frown..."

Ahhhh yes, 2009 was a good year <3

Teen Camp 09 slideshow

This video might not be interesting for everyone, but then again you never know. Anyway I just watched it and I cried. There are a few reasons why it made me cry and I don't really feel like sharing them at this time.

I love teen camp. I love it.

It is a tradition afterall.

Every year my community has a Carol Festival around this time.
It's a tradition.
We all gather in the Rec Centre, sing Christmas carols together and listen to brave people sing solos or duets or trios. The school bands always play.
(Except for this year.)
It's a tradition.
Every year I do something at the Carol Festival. Sometimes I sing with a couple other people, the past couple years it's just been me and my guitar.
And every year while I'm preforming my face turns bright red.
It's a tradition.

So that's the point!

You know the other day it hit me, what the birth of Jesus really was. It turns out I've had a slightly skewed idea of the awesomeness of it for a long time now. I've always read the story in Luke chapter 2 and had such thoughts as these, "Wow, a virgin birth. That's a miracle!" or "Imagine, the King of kings coming to earth as a baby and born in a barn nonetheless, amazing!" Now those things are all true and I'm not trying to say it's wrong to have those thoughts. The birth of Jesus was an amazing event but there's so much more to it then the birth!

Jesus' birth was the fulfullment of prophecy!

All through the Old Testament we see how God has promised that a Messiah would come for the people. "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth. Edom will be conquered; Seir, his enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong. A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city." [Numbers 24:17-19] "The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness." [Jeremiah 23:5-6] "Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." [Isaiah 7:14] There's lots of verses I could bring up but the point is the people knew that a Messiah was coming, the prophets had told them it would happen. The people of Israel were waiting in great anticipation for the coming of their Messiah.

When Jesus was born the prophecy was fulfilled; the Messiah had finally come!

There's another prophecy though that hasn't come to pass yet. Jesus is coming again! "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." [John 14:1-3]

Am I waiting in great anticipation for the return of the Messiah?

Please read this entire blog entry before you react drastically...

So last night I had to sleep in my car. I'm not really sure why, the details on that are fuzzy. I think I was parked in Anna's yard though...anyway it seemed to be an ok sleep. Some tossing, some turning, some strange sensations that didn't make sense at the time. In the morning when I apparently woke up I saw that Craig was walking into my uncles house and I thought to myself, "Craig?! What is he doing here and how does he know my uncle?" So I unwrapped myself from my blanket, started my car and drove over. I let myself in of course, although I don't actually remember opening the door...then I went and sat down at the kitchen table with everyone. My uncle was talking about a man wanted by the local police. They knew exactly who he was too they just couldn't seem to find him anywhere. They were spending a lot of time and effort looking for this man because he was doing something creepy and illegal. According to what my uncle was saying this man had spent that entire night breaking into peoples houses and painting their bellies red. I know, strange isn't it? My uncle said, "The paintbrush just tickles so it doesn't actually wake you up." As everyone else continued to talk I was thinking to myself, "What? And I was sleeping in a car last night? If this guy can break into a house without anyone waking up could he have got into my car?" Suddenly I remember feeling someone brush my hair from my face as I slept. Oh no! Did I too have a red stomach now? I wanted to check...at this point I became aware that I was in my pajamas...but I couldn't bring myself to do it in front of my family and Craig, who I still didn't understand why he was there. I could almost feel the red paint, now dry and stretching, on my skin. I didn't want it to be true!

That's when I woke up in my bed covered in goose bumps.

And that is why I was awake and baking cookies at 6:30am this morning.

Christ in you, the hope of glory

A couple of weekends ago I took some youth down to Youthedge. It's an awesome youth retreat that Millar College of the Bible hosts each year. Now I've been to lots and lots of youthedges but this was the best one EVER!!!!

Seriously.

Let me tell you all about it! First off the speaker and worship leader worked together during the entire weekend to really bring us into a place of worship. It was amazing but not only that, both of them hung out with the youth during the weekend. That was very encouraging to see. But even more amazing then that was the youth that were there this year. Those teenagers were so ready to hear what the speaker had to say and so ready to experience worship. It brought tears to my eyes more then once to see those kids making public declarations and commitments to the Lord. On Saturday night I was sitting there in the gym, surrounded by hundreds of people, most of them 18 and younger and I saw something amazing. It wasn't something I saw with my eyes but something that God showed me in my spirit. I saw that this generation of teenagers right now isn't going to grow up to love the Lord whole heartedly, they aren't going to grow up to serve Him with their entire being, they aren't going to grow up to do outrageous things for the Kingdom of God. They are going to do it right now. Right now! This wasn't just a fleeting thought I had, I know that this came from God. This generation of teenagers, who are believers, are going to rise above the low expectations put on them by society and do amazing things. It's so exciting!!! It was such an awesome experience to be there and to see that and to know that God is bringing some exciting things on the horizon.

Also something that made youthedge so good this year was how many alumni were present! This year more then any other years alumni brought youth. I was so blessed and so encouraged to be able to spend time with friends, some that I have not seen in a really long time. God is good and I was so thankful for that!

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity --1 Timothy 4:12

Beauty makes me cry...

and this is beautiful.



I hope it touched you as you watched. Thanks to my friend Jonathan for bringing it to my attention.