2009!!!

Happy New Years Everyone! Well I hope you have all said goodbye to last year and are all feeling good about the year ahead. I know I am. I started off the new year at a wonderful place called staff retreat. Here's a picture from our banquet.
Already it's been an interesting experience for the year. The morning of Jan 1st me and 10 other guys jumped into the ocean for a sec for the polar beat swim. It had just snowed so the ground was freezing and it took like 5 hours to warm up fully again. It was torture! But I loved it. Later on that night I went on the ferry to visit a friend on the mainland. While seeing her God gave me a huge opportunity to help out her and her sister with a family situation that rose up. It was really cool that God brought me there at that time to be with her and her sister.

After a few days it was time to go back to Kaleo. I went home for a few hours to finnish my homework and see my parents one more time, unfortunately 5 min before I am about to head back to Kaleo, the malahat gets closed due to snow! So I got to spend an extra night at home then got picked up by the interns the next day. It's really good to be back.

During staff retreat, one of my youth girls came cause she was working a week in the summer time. It was cool to see her there. She's been struggling with life and it was really encouraging to see her come to camp instead of go to a party and find herself in trouble. She is applying for CIT which I think she could really use. Im so excited to see where God takes her this summer. She's been climbing out of a ditch and isn't doing to badly. It's been a blessing from God to watch her grow through her life experiences. It brings me back to when I was her age, and how I didnt think about the future much, how everything in the now was so dramatic, and growing closer to God was at the end of my life list. It's cool to see.

This week our classes started up again. Theology of Mission. Don't ask me what it's about cause I don't fully know yet hahaha. Pray for focus and energy for not just me but the whole class as we will have a LOT of homework to do soon. I'm excited to learn what this is about, our prof. seems pretty cool. other than that, not much is happening. Keep in touch everyone. I'd love to hear from you. God bless!!!

Snowflakes and Subway

Well right now I'm sitting in my room watching the snow fall after a good day at work. My dread of going back to work has so far ended up in being a really good experience! I've found that I have a lot more joy there and that I am able to handle the customers well, as well as remembering basicly everything. Being home has been really good. I've been able to see my friends, as well as lay around with my cat, and make money. The snow is making everything better because I LOVE snow!!!

This week was interesting but really good! Umm it started with a trip to the bungee zone and our kaleo christmas banquet, then to our interns sharing an AMAZING secret with everyone, to my birthday, to kaleo christmas and home. I can't tell you everything that happened because SO much good stuff happened. Below's a pict from kaleo christmas, the bungee zone, my birthday, and umm.... I think that's it. Ooh, the banquet! On my birthday at midnight, ny roommates set up an AMAZING (wow Im using capitals a lot haha) party for me. Cake, presents, a card, and everyone! I was really happy and felt SO amazingly loved. I was almost in tears because I have NEVER felt so loved on my birthday before. It was that moment, when I knew that everyone at kaleo loved me. That may sound crazy, but it's true!

When I came home, I got some unfortunate news about one of my youth girls. It ended up in her getting help and she should be ok. I dont want to mention any details, but it would be really good if you could keep her in your prayers for safety. Umm...but it was really good because another girl that I've been talking to a lot and I meen a lot, was able to see the power of prayer actually happen in front of her because of this incident. It was so thrilling to see God work through her in this situation!!! It really made me happy.

This week consists of me working at subway and hopfully seeing more friends. We shal see what happens this week, especially with this snow! I'm really excited to be home, and though I miss my kaleo family, I'm not to sad. Hope everyone has an amazing week, I'd love to hear from some of you too! God bless.

Christmas is upon us!!!

Well I'm pretty sure I have never been excited for christmas before my birthday untill this year. Jordan has forced christmas music on us in the office and in the vans, I have wrapped all my gifts for here and I'm waiting to put them under the tree, and Yes kaleo has a live christmas tree!!!! We got to go to a tree farm and pick out our perfect christmas tree! It's a really nice one. Here's a picture of it all decorated.

This week was a busey week. I worked on my papers quite a bit, umm.....Ooh we had another guys and girls night. It was pretty sweet. We went for a hike, and went to the pool, and had coffee, and then went to Jim's house and chilled and ate food and ahhhh it was so relaxing. Ya it was pretty sweet. Here is the pict of us from our hike.
So to talk about my ministry, this week was our last youth for the year of 2008. This comming friday we will all be taking off in different directions and going home for christmas. It was good to be able to chill with the kids, we didnt do much, but it was still fun. Slowly I find my heart melting for those kids because I love them so much. I love just being able to talk to them and see where they are at in life. I hope to see a few on sunday and say goodbye till the new year. I'm going to miss them. Ooh we also had our kaleo 6 tallent show sat night. If you check our K6 blog you can see some photos of that. http://kaleosix.blogspot.com/ This next week should be AMAZING!!! on monday we get to go to bungey zone and watch everyone do something crazy, (im doing a zip line some are doing other things) and we have our christmas banquet with the staff, Tues we are doing HOMEWORK!!!, on wed I get to have the honors of being legal all over the world (aka I turn 21) thurs is our kaleo christmas morning!!!!!(so excited for that), and then friday we all say goodbye and head home! It's pretty sweet. I'm going to be very sad to say goodbye to people here for 3 weeks, but I'll be so occupied with work when I'm home that I'll be able to keep myself busey. Anyways, hope everyone else has a good week. Pray that I get my papers done, cause I'm really struggling with them. Other than that, happy holidays!!!

Hmm....no idea what to call this one

Hey everyone, Hope the Christmas spirit is settling in well. This week was an interesting one for me. We had our 4th class, Church Ministry. I didn't really find that I get a lot out of this one. People keep asking me why, and I don't really have an answer, I just wasn't very interested in it. Not to say that it was a bad class or anything, cause it totally wasnt. But anyways, this week started off with me and Josh realizing that no one was going to go to Colombia besides us two. Josh was not happy with that, so he switched to a different trip leaving me by myself. After realizing that I really didn't want to do this alone, I went to Jim and got switched to New York. so for my missions trip I am going to new york.

Throughout this week I've been able to catch up on my sleep, and be able to wake up almost normally again! Though it felt good to sleep, when mens retreat came, the sleep ended once again. Anyways, Having classes this week caused me to not really have time to do other things, but on thursday I did go to the ladysmith show of lights. That was AMAZING!!!! I really enjoyed it. I brought my camera with me to try and see if I could get any good shots (my experience with night shots and no flash normally turn out horrable) But Jordan showed me what to change on my camera, and it worked!!!! I was so happy! Here are some of the good ones below.

This weekend I was unable to go to youth due to me having to work my last full weekend. It was Mens retreat. Now the past 2 years I have amazing weekends at mens retreat, but this year sucked. I was really tired, and kinda grumpy to start, so working was really hard for me. You run out of food for the men, they flip. It was really challenging not to freak out at some of them for different situations. Im pretty sure that I was not being a good christian this weekend by my attitude. Other than that things were good. Please pray that I get my last 2 papers finnished for the semester, and that this next week will be resting yet fun. Ooh, and also that mt washington will get enough snow so that our ski trip doesnt get ruened on a week and a half. Hope you all have an amazing week!!!

The Power of Prayer

This week was so amazing. We had our 24/7 week of prayer. This was the week last year when I decided that I was giving up on life for a bit, and I was applying to do kaleo six. It was amazing to be able to experience this week at last. I've decided to really try to focus on my photography. I've been watching some of the photographers here and have really been trying to get out there and start showing God's creation through my photos. So I made another blog. http://www.leilasphotography.blogspot.com/ Check it out and tell me what you think. These are some pict's of the prayer room...

Anyways, God's been putting something on my heart lately. I've had a problem with being able to talk to our male intern without feeling awkward or scared. I dont know why, but there's been a huge fear in me that just wouldn't seem to go awayno matter what. A few weeks ago I had decided to go and try and change the situation around. After failing at that, I decided to pray about it, and then left it for a while. A few nights ago I had a dream about us talking to eachother normally. He was hugging me as I cryed and we were just talking about the situation. It was a really good dream! I woke up and imediately thought "I have to change this NOW!" In the prayer room I focused a lot of my prayers on this situation. God was yelling at me to go talk to him but I didn't know what to say as well as being to scared to go up to him and ask him to talk. So I turned to Jim. Jim and his wise words. He sat down with me first and then the both of us and we talked about the situation. That day I had no fear in me whatsoever. I was amazed to see God work so quickly after I listened to him and went to talk to Jordan. It was a really good experience! I feel so much better now that that wall is down. It's been a few days since that convo, and we are both so much better around eachother. My smile won't leave again! It was truly an answer to prayer!!!

So this week I found out that I have an ulcer in my stomach. Not a bad one, but bad enough that it has cut my energy level in half. Though I have a special diet which includes no coffee (tear) that's really the least of my worries. The most of my worries is how bad I'm doing on my papers hahaha. I do not have a really good feeling about my papers, but that's ok. I'm sure that I'm doing ok. Ooh my room won our first anual roomchek. yes I spelt that wrong on purpose.

This week at youth we played a game that didnt make sence at all. With agents, batteries, a flashlight, ya I didnt get it. I'm really enjoying my yout hgroup. Though no kid has fully come up to me and asked to talk yet, it's still been really fun getting to know them. There's this one girl who loves to hang around with me, it's kind of cool because it reminds me of when I was younger. I tended to hang off of my leaders. Hahaha, still do. But it's been cool being able to be someone she can look up to. I've had a lot of experiences lately where kids have looked up to me. I've waited a while to really experience that, but to be looked up to as a mature adult is a really good feeling! It kind of motivates me to become a better christian because of the kids that are following in my footsteps. I love it! Im really hoping that the kids at my youth group will start opening up to me a bit. I could use some practice with kids that age. Anyways this monday we start classes again, Church Ministry. Pray for focus for me and alertness for on friday our mens retreat happens, and I'm working full weekend which meens that I will be EXHAUSTED by the end of it. I'm really looking forward to what's ahead, hard to believe that this semester is almost over. Oh and feel free to call me sometime, I do have a phone in my room. my number is 250-246-3014 ext 279.

Layers

I am lying here on my bed at home sucking on this huge jawbreaker lollipop thingy. It's so good. Hahaha. It has many different layers. Insode the layers are colours, and flavours. Each time I get through a layer, I expose a new colour. It's gone from white to yellow to red to green to orange to blue. The blue part is my true heart. Kaleo is supposed to be a place where everyone can open up to eachother and share our true hearts with eachother. That hasn't happened yet. I a lot of people have been talking about it and saying that we really need to start being more open and truthful, yet no one wants to. I feel that I have been as open as I can be at the moment. I've shared my testimony, I've told people things about my life that I dont let out to often, I've put my trust in people here. I would reallylike other people to start doing that. it seems like we are still on the red part of the lollipop. It would be really good to get some prayer reguarding that.

This past week was pretty chill. After the retreat I got to go home for 4 days for reading break. It was really cool to be able to be back in the real world for a bit. I went to a concert that was held in a bar, and I have never noticed till now how much bars stink like beer and shots. it was gross! My life a year ago to now has flipped around so much. A year ago I would of been in that bar to get drunk with my friends. Now, the thought of alcohol makes me feel sick. I love it! Other than the concert I didn't do much. I bought a new camera lense finally and I did my friends 3rd photo shoot. Here are a few pict's ....

Not much has happened ministry wise lately, I've been talking to a girl from camp through facebook who really just needs a mentor in her life, and is struggling to find that person. So I've been trying to fill that role in as much as possible. Other than that, Life's good and I'm excited for this comming week. It's our 24/7 week of prayer, so I will be praying all week!!! We will see what changes come out of this. Take care everyone!

God's Work

It's pretty sweet to be able to see God start working in me. I didnt really notice it till a couple nights ago. Wed during chapel, it was Jordan's turn to tell his testimony. I've been waiting for a leader to finally tell their's. Jordan was the first one. The way he told it, and what he said in it really opened my eyes to what God's been trying to do in me this year. It brought tears to my eyes throughout that day whenever I would think of it. It was really good to hear it.

This past week we hit up the caves, and had some good times with homeless people. It was a really good oppertunity to be able to go down the streets of downtown victoria and hand out food, clothing, gloves, and sleeping bags. Some of the people we talked to were extremely greatfull for what we were giving them. It put a smile on my face to see that. And the next day, my group hit the caves. After going un and seeing the millions of spiders on the roof of the cave, I decided that this was out of my comfort zone. So I kept on walking. We went up a waterfall, down really steeply slanted slippery hills, through a birth canal (I swear I got stuck like 60 times) and then finally out of the cave. It was scary. After that we hit the nanaimo pool and swam and relaxed for a few hours. It was so nice.

On the weekend, Camp had their Jr Hi retreat. I've been waiting for this for a while. I was really blessed to get to counsel again, I was counseling with one of my Kaleo friends, Jesse, and we had a blast. There was a girl that I met in the summertime and spent the whole week with. Her name is Kaelin, and she is 17 with a mental disability. I had requested to have her in my cabin for this retreat, and I got her. She is this little star that is really hard to understand but is amazing to watch. She can read, she can write, she can sing, she memorizes things really well. She's at the point where I had to follow her almost everywhere, and make sure she new what she was doing, as well as where everything she might need was. But she was really good. I ran around with her, tucked her into bed, and just watched her go about her day in her own little world. People like that bring me so much joy by just being who they were born as, and by how excited they get over the smallest things like qtown, and her qwanoes shirt. I plan on keeping in touch with her and watching her go through life. She truly is a gem. And I am so glad that I had the oppertunity to work with her. Below this is our cabin picture for the weekend. Hope you all have a really good week!