8 weeks..

i returned from new york on monday morning, only to discover that id lost all sense of time, and it was now almost may. somehow there must a vast catecism with all my lost minutes and hours laying there with no sense of worth. i tend to loose quite a lot of time, of course, to my dismay.

so i only have 1 month and 25 days left of pais work in canada. thats 56 working days left. well. minus the sundays or the days off. so roughly 50 days left.

50 days left to make an impact on my youth
50 days left to continue to invest and build relationships
50 days left to be an example of Jesus to people-if i have ever done it previously....
50 days left to experience Vancouver before i return home for 2 months
50 days left to serve my church as well as i can
50 days left with 4 amazing guys on my team

Q: whats 50 days to 80 years?
A: thats up to you...

***

new york was amazing. it was a week ministering to kids in one of the roughest areas of new york- brooklyn. we lived in the ghetto, we worked with metro minsitries as if on work shadowing-no training, no warning. just hard work and hard fun! of course...its all about the kids....

metro ministries is an example of good foundation, the Love of God, the generosity of the heart and the hard work of Jesus. they heal, love, inspire, challenge, resource and build with kids.

and these kids are not your average westerners.

they don't have a lot.

seeing broken homes and broken lives reminded me of the sheltered life i have so far lived. coming from a village to vancouver was a change, but vancouver to brooklyn was a leap. it opened my eyes to how blind we so often are to other people's troubles, pains and realities.

so often we get caught up in the black hole of ourselves that the people around us become obsolete and uninteresting. they become mere playthings for our benefit and the motives of our heart blacken our souls. it is at that point that we need to cry out to God for forgiveness, healing and open eyes.

open eyes to the world are not only important, but integral to a Christian's ministry.

after all, how can you minister to the blind when you're struggling to see yourself?

new york

well tomorrow i fly to new york. however, i have yet to actually believe it.

do you ever find that big life changing times just dont become a reality untill you actually return?

i wonder if that is a result of a self centered life style...

why is it that humans just dont have the natural instinct to be selfless instead of selfish? so many times ive cauught myself adrift to far off worlds when other people are trying to talk to me. i dont know if its because im insecure when its a one on one, or is it because im so preoccupied with myself and my own gain that i cannot even begin to think about another person's needs? or even, have i made some sort of subconcious decision that their point of view is not worthy of my time?

what is my drive when i ask another person how they are? am i truely concerned for their state or am i asking with another intention-to be vouyeristic and poke at other people's problems, compare them to my own in order to make myself feel better.

with east side vineyard, we've been looking at being emotionally healthy as a church. challenging issues such as 'being broken and vulnerable' , and today we looked at how we love others by listening. sounds pretty easy huh?!

i never realised just how important it truely is to just listen to someone. that person infront of me who is pouring out their heart is acutally real! their problems do actually exist and are totally genuine. why is it that ive never encountered this before?

listening to someone takes time. time is something that we will never get back, so our greatest gift to another is our time. the time that ive taken to write this ill never get back. there is no second chance. there is no other life. this is it. God has given us howver long in our lives and we only have one shot at it. so surely we should invest our time wisely into others, giving them what God has given to us-our experiences that have grown us, our struggles that have made us stronger, our joys that have spurred us on and our lessons that are changing and challenging us all the time.

these things are not for us! they are not for our benefit. they are for the growth of the church. they are for the growth and benefit of those that God has placed around us.
to love others is to give these things.

to give our time that we will never get back is the greatest gift and one of the biggest sacrafices that we can make.

it also shows us that we are not the centre of the universe.

its not all about us......