from the little red journal

19 may 6:03pm

My dad is a assorted variety artist and I appreciate him very much. The sound of fingers sliding along a guitar neck to change notes always reminds me of him. I like his voice and not just the one you can hear.
I have some of his songs on my Ipod, some are silly, some are sad and I am extremely glad to have them
There is this one called "Harvey" that he wrote when he worked at the church. There is something special about a song written for a man who is unaware there is a song written for him.

HarveyMr. Harvey what happened to you? did you go on a bender? did you come apart at your seams?
I saw your garden growing, in fact I had some fruit-no salad and vegetables from it.
I heard you got beat up real bad that night at the bar, your out of your head you got out of your car.
You went on a rampage all the way to Nova Scotia and then the church paid your way back to know us
You showed up here in a tie you were mistaken, there was no job no job for you
And I use to wonder what kind of a mind it took to plant a garden, I cant do it, I don't have the Patience like you.
and you were running, running home running home running home
I hope you don't stay running running home running home running home running home
I met you and I like you
I got nothing against a guy who has some drinks
There are to many Pharisees handing round these parts want to make you change and it always makes me think, what if that was me down in the gutter?
would they even stop to pick me up? I don't think so they got their nose in the sky and I don't think they'd see you as they pass by
Mr. Harvey
where are you? Mr. Harvey where are you?
are you still running, running, running?
are you still running into the blue?

come with me go places

Its been so long since I wrote a real blog that I am almost stumped on how to start.

We will start with India! I bought a plan ticket to that land that I know nothing about and will be heading out on feb 17th and coming back home april 2nd. My beautiful friend Laura Pope is going to India on a practicum through her school, I will be going half way through her trip. I dont exactly know what Im doing yet, I fly into Kolkatta/Calcutta on a saturday and volunteer orientation at the mother teresa house starts on Monday, so I have about a day to get my self ready to go for my time at the mother teresa house.After that Im taking a train to Pune where Laura will be, suddenly I am terriable at understanding the internet so trying to find volunteer/missionaries has been a challeng but Laura has told me of some people who work with people who have Leporsy and of different street kid programs also programs having to do with HIV/Aids. All three of these things I am very interested in. So yeah, India really has a different vibe to me right now then Africa did and maybe thats because of my lack of knowledge and because this trip will be much shorter...who knows...but I am very excited.


My lovely friend Stanley is in Canada. Stanley is one of the main people I worked with while i was in Masoyi. Its lovely to connect with him again and to show him where we are from. This past weekend he introduced me to what he calls hi "top 7" apparently the team he works with make sure that they are aware of each others "top 7" so they know how to love each other. Top 7 means your 7 favorite things.
Stanley asked me my top 7 and I answered that they are. Jesus, family, friends, traveling, arts+crafts, journals, and hearts.

What are your top 7 favorite things?

September aka at your favorite coffee shop

September's theme in the 12 month project was at your favorite coffee shop

Street art aka August

Like I mentioned in my previous post, Brianne and I are doing a 12 month picture project.
The theme for August was street art. We are each taking turns picking what the themes are and Im so stoked on street art right now that that was odviously my choice.
Although, Calgary doesnt have a very strong street art culture and I really felt like I was out of the city most of August, my "street" art ended up at camp... I got the kids to do "moss grafiti" which is a street artform. It was fun! so thats how that one panned out

feet in the water aka July

Brianne and I have had some pretty good ideas over the years, but I think one of our best and one that im super duper excited about is our recent "12 month" project. It was inspired by a blog we mutually read. We have come up with 12 themes and each month we are each going to take a picture that goes with the theme and mail them to the other with a letter. I think we both plan on making scrapbooks at the end of the year with all the pictures, This project is also something I hope we do forever! We have just finished our first month and this feels like such a precious thing, Brianne lives in BC and we call and email and stuff but this just feels like a even more special way of sharing our lives.

July was "feet in a body of water" I plan on sharing the photos and maybe parts of the letters in my blog every month.

New journal day

Every 2 or so months I get to have the lovely experiance of "new journal day"
Today is "New Journal day" and I am very happy. Its a wonderful feeling to put the tattered, FULL (in more then one sense) book on the shelf and pick out the clean blank yummy new one!

just thought I would share that...

Mortson

So if you recall my journal project where i randomly leave handpainted journals all over the place you may recall part of what i write in them. The second paragraph usually has something that says "make your life a story worth telling"

switching tracks. Tonight God was with me in a more tangiable way then ive felt lately and it kind of makes me want to weep.
When i look down at my life and my interactions at the shelter i am astonished that this is me...that I am blessed and get to do this job.

Its weird for me to go into details about stories of people in the shelter on my blog but....tonight was just so surreal!
Sitting and making this incrediable connection with a 22 year old male who is in a gang, who recently stopped selling crack and crystal meth, who tells me "i can only really handle being friends with people who are fucked up"

so...Make your life a story worth telling but tonight i also learned that sharing your story can bring so much worth to it.

a friend of mine recently put a story in his blog with this quote " It’s time we gave up a little piece of who we are, so that others can become who they are supposed to be" and as scattered as my thoughts are right now i feel it goes with this.
(you can read his blog posting here)

broken pieces

"“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” – Mother Teresa"

I just spent a long time asking God to use me this way...tonight i feel like a story collector, adding stories of broken-ness and dead ends to a pile that i have stored in my mind.
Beside this pile of broken-ness and dead ends there is a doubting thomas asking me so many questions "how could these things happen?" "where is God in all this?" "God IS love right? i didnt get that wrong did i?"

This is where i will be tested, in these stories, in these stories of devastating self destruction, of pain i can not understand, in these stories of being hated and stepped on.
These are the stories I will ask Jesus to come and sit with me after hearing...and although i have this doubting thomas whispering to me, his doubts were eventually proved wrong, that is what will happen with all this....I know that much.

worrrddd

yesterday i was going through an old journal of mine and i found this quote

"a good conversation is a process where we give each other life and meaning to go on, to celebrate together, to be sad together and to inspire one another..."

and then yesterday this quote just came to life in my goings on...

"where we give each other life and meaning to go on"
when i got to work i was able to sit down and talk with one of my co-workers that i never see who is very experianced at the seed, i was able to vent some of my frustations and he totally encouraged me...even just the fact that i was able to vent was awesome but then that my ventage was met with actual wonderful advice!

"to celebrate together"
over my one hour break i spent a good deal of time looking at plane tickets for my next adventure...im pretty excited even though its a year away. But when i came off my break i spent some time telling my co-worker about it and we were both excited!

"to be sad together"
we were short staffed and i had to do of some of the things day staff do, so im running around the mat area and then I see a guest who had just spent her first night at the shelter and she is sitting on the floor bawling. I go and sit down beside her and ask her whats wrong, she replies with "i dont want to be here" and im thrown back to the place i always am where i just feel absolutely useless with words.
"we still have hope...you still have hope..." i tell her "i will pray for you...and thats not just something im saying to you...i will pray for you...legit"

"and to inspire one another..."

im on my way to bed but im feeling pretty inspired....

To do list...

so i have a "bucket list" although i hate calling it that cause then it seems like something inspired by that silly movie...so i just call mine my "to do list"

I have a bunch of things on it and recently i realize i havent been actively going about accomplishing them because most of them are big things like...go to india, visit a skate park in jeruslam, see the northern lights...etc. But i went over it today to pick out the things that i can accomplish in the next little while and this is what i found

-donate blood
-go to a concert of a band i've never heard of
-plant a tree
-Knit Jay Bakker a scarf
-Go to a monster truck Ralley
- take a course on the Bible

When i was in Vic with Brianne i told her that i want to take on more projects These are going to be my "projects" for the next little while till i find something worthy of being called a "project"

anybody interested in doing any of these with me?

coffee and cigerettes

I have two blogs that i would like to spill out right now but i will do my best to make them one.

I dont know whats wrong with me but yesterday i found myself thinking "well what if i didnt work at the shelter?" but tonight that idea is absolutly unthinkable...

I promise her over and over that we are not going to call the cops and that we do care about her...

Tonight my love for the people in the shelter is almost overwhelming, my liberation is truely bound up with theirs and i am forever blessed that God picked this place as a stop on the love tour.

I am going to BC at the end of this week, for a wedding and for so much needed time with my beautiful friends Brianne and Matt.

In thinking about the shelter and thinking about BC, I have been meditating on how absolutely impactful my first trip to Vancouver was and how it all ties together to where i am now.

3/4 years ago we went as a group from West side kings to spend two weeks on east hastings, my views of homeless people was radically changed and i am pretty darn grateful for that experiance...it birthered a new part of me, a new part of what i know of love...so part of my heart feels like its going home...

I dont know what it was so easy for me to blog stories of africa and so hard for me to get the words out of what ive been living these days...

i am tired of waiting

somehow randomly on facebook i came across a album of photos of someone i dont know who is in africa right now, the pictures really stirred up my heart and gave me peace at the same time.
sometimes it feels like next year wont come soon enough!
but...life is beautiful.

gingerale

Once for my birthday my aunt sent me "Anne of green gables" on tape, and let me tell you, i think i can still reciete the story off by heart.
There is a part where mariala notices that Anne doesnt talk as much and she makes a comment and Anne responds with something along the lines of "i still think as much but (whatever the teachers name was) has taught me that it is so much nicer to think dear nice thoughts and keep them to one self like treasures"

this is how im feeling about blogging these days...one day my drive will return im sure!