Lil Message

Hey everyone who reads this!
Two years ago we all went on different trips and faced hard times but through it all we were able to spread God's love throughout the world. My hope is that you remember these trips and the things God taught you on them. Through these trips we used what we learned from kaleo, although hard at times, to accomplish some pretty incredible things. Although I loved kaleo and maybe didn't use it to its fullest potential, I still have doubts about doing it, but there are things that always remind me of why it was an important step. I thankyou for the memories and truly hope you are all doing well. As much as I would love to hear an update from you all, I know its hard to keep in touch, but i'm always open to getting a life update! Either through facebook or on here or a letter. haha. that may be stretching it. Anywho, all I really wanted to get out of this short post was that I'm just remember the mission trips we served on and just remembering some of the fun we had. God is good.

Update on Nate

Hey, just got an update from Nate Lofgren's mom:

Nathan asked me to keep you up-to-date so that you can share with the Kaleo blog whats happening with his recovery.

Nathan has been at teen challenge now just over a week. We were not able to have any contact with him until today - he was allowed to call me briefly.

He said that he is loving the program and really feeling God moving in his heart. He is learning more about forgiveness and how to listen for God. He sounded so at peace. It was a great confirmation for us that He is where he should be.

Thank you for your prayers.

So, let's keep praying for Nate! Such an important time for him!

Hey guys! Logan here, I figure we should do this Skype thing soon before we forget about it, so let's do Saturday at 6 B.C. time 7 Alberta, 8 Sask, 10 Ontario? Unless there are any outstanding objections/you guys want earlier. I'm easy whenever, just chose a random time that I thought we might all be free. hope to see you guys soon!

It's about time!!

Hey Fam!!

Sooo I don't think I have ever posted on here... Or if I did it was a longggg time ago. So I think it's time for an update! I was looking threw our Kaleo yearbook this morning and something hit me really hard. It was God telling me it was time to let my family know whats been going on in my life. As you all know I haven't been good at keeping in contact with all of you and I am greatly sorry for that. Truth is after Kaleo when I got back home I went right back to my old friends and therefore my old lifestyle. When I went out to Kaleo I was honestly doing it mostly for my parents. Throughout the program I learned more about God and his love for me but I still didn't let him take control over my whole life. I wasn't in the right place at that time and therefore didn't use Kaleo to its full potential. I believe that's one of the main reasons I went back to my old friends and was able to fall so easily. I continued to live at home until about four months ago when I got an apartment with an old friend. This is where my life took a turn for the worst. I started getting involved with a very bad crowd and started experimenting with very hard drugs. In a sense I just gave up on myself and said this is the life im meant to live. I literally sat in my apartment everyday for almost three months with my roommate doing drugs and drinking and thinking that, that was the best life for me. I knew God was real the whole time but felt like it was too late to come back. I thank God for my parents and their faith in him. Even though I gave up on myself my parents never gave up on me. They continued to pray everyday that God would work in my life. Well I can tell you now he has and like never before!! About three weeks ago now I woke up one morning and decided I just didn't wanna get high that morning. Well I can say that was definitely God and the power of prayer! I went out to my living room where I have been spending the last two months of my life and I just woke up. I saw all these things on my table that I once told myself I would never do. God definitely woke me up that day and told me there is a way better life I am meant to live. I went home the next week to my parents such a broken child and told them everything. I cant say how thankful I am for them and their grace to me. They welcomed me back home and said its time to start over. I am now two weeks to this day sober and I can't even explain to you how good I feel. God has already moved in my life soooo much in these last two weeks. I applied for the teen challenge program here in London and am heading out there near the end of January! So please pray for me as I am both excited and scared for the journey ahead. I thank God everyday now for my life and for my family. He is amazing and full of sooo much grace. This high I have now on Jesus is better than any high I have EVER experienced. This change in me now is soo different than ever before. My parents let me go and experience what I needed to, to reliaze that wasn't the life for me. I have come home now to God and my family and fully ready to do God's work from here on out! I have fully given every part of my life back to God and have FINALLY let him take full control of my life. AMEN!!! ahhhhhh i still can't get over this amazing feeling I have rushing threw my body. God is sooo good and I hope this is an encouragement to all of you! I love you all and hope you are doing well! I deleted facebook to get away from my old friends so this is the communication I have for now but I would love to get back in contact with all of you! :) Stay strong my brothers and sisters for God is good all the time!!
Much love
Nate

MERRY ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!

Hey guys! I hope every one is doing very very well :) I am getting excited for Christmas myself, and all the fun stress of school work to be done for a lil bit!! I was wondering who all might be up for a big group skype over Christmas? I was thinking sometime after Christmas, like from the 27th onward, or even in Janurary at some point. All I know is that it has been much too long since I've seen most of your loverly faces, and I would like to have the experience once again. If we can get a general feel for when will work for people, then I will go around to everyone's facebook pages and let 'em know too! Hope to hear from you guys!

Many Much Blessings :)

Loges Magoges

surprise

hey guys. i have a present to send to everyone who wants one. please leave the address of where you will be over christmas break if you are interested. love always, b.

Life.

Hey you guys.
Sometime it feels like our year never happened. But it did and when I remember it and talk about it, I know it was good. Hard like we all know, but the experiences will last a lifetime. To be honest, Life was hard after Kaleo. I didn't know where I fit in with knowing what to do so I took the year off and it was probably the hardest year I've had, but looking back I know there was good in it. But I won't talk about that. I'll talk about life now in the present.
I have moved to the states and now attend a Christian college (Dordt) in Iowa. Random. But my sister did go there and when I was looking for what to study and where to go, I wanted to go to a Christian college. I wanted to have the rest of my college experience in a Christian community. I needed it because I was so out of community. I think its good for me to have gone to a college where I didn't know a whole lot of people. I have met a lot of people and it has been good. Somedays I don't know why I'm here, but thats normal. So yeah. After the year I decided to come here to study social work and psychology. As I have a couple nieces and nephews now, I want to work with kids. Actually my goal is just to marry a doctor and aspire to be a stay at home dad.. haha. but yeah, I hope to become a child life specialist, which focuses on working with kids in a hospital setting. Kids who have illness and what I would do is tell them what is going to happen, give them tours of the different places in the hospital, and then design activities that will suit what they can and can't do. But that won't be for a while. I have about two years left and then a one year masters program which I will do either in Canada or the States. I prefer Canada, as there are to many quirks in America haha. Amurica!. Its going alright. I have met some really cool people and the atmosphere has been great. There is chapel every wednesday and praise and worship on thursdays and lots of opportunities. So thats my life in a nutshell right now. I would love to hear more about what you guys are doing because I don't know what half of you are doing right now. I pray for you guys constantly.
Speaking of prayer. I need prayer that I will stay consistent in my personal devotions. As I go to this college with all these opportunities I fail at spending my own personal time in devotions which has been a struggle.
I do miss you guys, but I trust that things are going okay and that you have had all different/awesome experiences since Kaleo. Oh how I wish we could spend a week on a boat or climbing a mountain. Nostalgic.

easier to read now. typed it wrong the first time!

Hey family. I miss you. I sit in my bed, up way too late (shocker, right?) feeling like tears are coming to my eyes because I just miss you all. It's been a long time since we were all last together and sometimes it feels as though it never happened at all.

I keep waiting to write on this blog until my life is together, until I've accomplished something or something big has happened in life or something, but nothing seems to be happening so I figure I might as well post anyways.

Last time I posted, I told you all that I was moving to Vancouver and staying at UBC, even though I wanted to be at Briercrest. I am now in my last few weeks of classes for this term at UBC and it's been okay. Definitely not what I wanted or what I feel I still want, but I have to keep believing that the Lord has me here for a purpose. I keep thinking, "When will it get easy? When will I get to live and completely love where I am?" I don't see it yet. And it's really hard.

I'm lonely. I don't really have community out here at UBC. I don't have time for anything because my work schedule is crazy and inconsistent. When I'm not in class, I'm working and when I'm not working, I'm usually home because it's 10 pm. And when I manage to get an evening off of work, I don't really have friends to spend it with.

I currently go home twice a week which also decreases my chance to really build relationships here, but I'm not there long enough to do things with people for one of the nights and the other night people are busy, so I feel like I'm less connected with friends at home too. I'm still involved at my church's youth group and I'm now also attending morning services there. Sometimes I wonder why I'm still there and I come to the conclusion that I just can't leave my youth girls. I'm still attending Ethos which has been really good for me. I'm getting involved in serving there and trying to make more connections.

The Lord had His hand in setting up my living situation. I am living in the place I'd hoped for much cheaper than I could have possibly dreamed. I am 10 minutes from campus and 4 minutes from work (2 minutes if I sprint). I live with a couple who has been married for 42 years and have served as overseas missionaries for many of those years. As most of you know, missions is my heart and it is really cool to have them to mentor me and encourage me in the faith and in those desires. They are so loving and so hospitable and have really just taken me into their family. I just love them.

God is good. I know that. I know that more than I know if I'm going to breathe my next breath. But it's hard to live each day feeling like I'm never going to be in a place where I am going to love every day. I get afraid to hope for things because I'm afraid that God will tell me no and ask me to do something different and scary. I am so lonely and I really just want to love where I'm at. I want to be faithful where I'm at. I want to do what God has for me here. I don't think anything is happening, I don't know why I'm here and why I continue on.

Please pray for me. Pray for me to find the Lord in where I am. Pray that He will show Himself to me in indescribable ways and that I will see Him. Pray that He will be my Friend, my Companion, and my Joy. And He is my joy. I can tell you that I still have joy, even though I'm lonely and unhappy.

I love you all. I'm still learning to rest.

Holly

PS Kylie, the friend of mine that I mentioned in my last post has been coming to church with me since April accepted the Lord and I got to help baptize her on October 7th. Praise His glorious name for this soul who knows Him. My beautiful friend who is more like my sister is now my sister in the family of the Lord. Soli Deo Gloria!

Its my birthday, I'll share if I want to...

I know I haven't posted in a while, but last weekend I was visited by a blast from the past, my old youth leader, Amanda. She made me realize that right now, in my stage in life, this season I am in, I am lacking community. When I realized that I pondered on what community felt like, I hadn't felt it in a while. Looking back on it, even though we didn't always like each other or get along we were still considered a community and as hard as it was, I liked it. I miss the people, you people! 

Now that the reminiscing is over with, I will share a little of my life... I don't know if you all know this but, I am in my first year of my nursing degree to become a registered nurse. In fact  I am almost finished my first semester! I still live at home in Duncan with my rents and commute to Naniamo four times a week to go to school. I have a fabulous husky puppy whom I love and of course the moment you've all been waiting for....

I am...



NOT engaged yet, but still dating the love of my life.


 The main reason I wanted to post on the blog is that coming home from school tonight I noticed a peculiar thing, there has been a ridiculous amount of people trying to crush my dreams. And the thing is, MY DREAMS ARE TO BIG TO BE CRUSHED! mwahahahah!
 But seriously, most of the time when I tell people what I want to do in life their first reaction is to walk away because they think they are talking to a loonie bin. I want all of you to know that if we want God to move mountains we have to believe He can. That means we have to sound a little (or a lot) crazy and dream BIG and pray BIG and live life BOLDLY! I hope I'm not the only crazy one out there, and if I am then God and I have a whole lot of mountains to move.

In response to this post I would love, love, LOVE to hear what your craziest and wildest dreams are and maybe we can help each other out and make our dreams come true or maybe just inspire each other.

Many Blessings and Mucho Love,
Mary

Alright People!

Hey guys, I've been checking the blog pretty much every day for the last two months, and nobody has posted, so I figured I'd go for it! I only have a few things though, so someone else will have to post soon as well ;)

School is going well, I am enjoying my classes, and like last time I posted, am in the process of making the final touches to a sermon in David Ernst's Homiletics class. I'm doing it on 1Cor. 12:12-27, and though I am not as excited for this one as I was the Ecclesiastes sermon, it should still be alright.

We had a mod week just over a week ago, and I went to my friends house in a town an hour away from here, and had a grand ol' time! We did airsofting, hot tubbing, played some Settlers, actually did some homework, and hung out. It was a very nice break, and I was glad for the breather before school began to become heavy.

Ok, now for what I'm excited to talk about! Just before I left home, I met a lovely young lady, named Marissa. She attended a few Bible studies that I was a part of, we had a sending off night for all the college students (which pretty much includes every one from my friend group but Marissa, she's working this year to save up for college). It was a nice relaxed night of stories by the crab apple tree and around the camp fire. During the course of the night, we started picking up apples and lobbing them at each other. I lobbed one over my friends head and hit Marissa on the arm. I pretended like it didn't come from me and looked away casually. It didn't work. No sooner had I shifted my attention, was I met by the hard smack of an apple against my temple! She's got a good arm :)

Anyways, long story short, the apple broke the ice and bruised my noggin, and a DTR came not too long after. We decided that since I was leaving for school soon, we would stay friends for now, but still make an effort to get to know each other. So we have been skyping, and I have to say that I am pretty taken by this gal. She is much like me in the way that she acts and jokes around, and she has a deep love for our Lord and gets energized by ministry. She is very thoughtful and wise, but loves being goofy too. And she is very pretty! I have a picture of her and I together for you guys...



So as you can tell, 10 outta 10 knock out babe :)

 

Yeah, that's been the excitement in my life lately! At Christmas time we are going to see how things are going, and consider dating at that point. Alright, now it's somebody else's turn! Looking forward to hearing from you guys!

P.S. The college she's saving up for begins with a B.


And ends with a riercrest.