Next Stop, Kenya

My Inspiration:

One of the greatest aspects of traveling, other than the food, is being able to stand in awe of the vast and immense creation that surrounds us. From the enormous Canadian Rockies to rolling English pastures, from lush Italian vineyards to the desolate Egyptian desert, and from pounding Bolivian waterfalls to tropical Hawaiian beaches, each setting never fails to take my breath away. There is so much evidence around us that points towards the existence of a creator, THE creator, and every time I look outside, the desire I have to know the creator grows stronger inside me.

A few months ago (before coming to England) I got pulled over for speeding while driving through Saskatoon. I was rushing to get to school on time and got caught going 30 over the speed limit. Imagine if I had tried to get out of the speeding ticket by telling the cop each of the laws that I hadn't broken. Obviously, that would have been ridiculous, and the cop would have thought I was an idiot. We can't use laws that we have KEPT to balance out laws that we have BROKEN. It's the same with each of our lives, good works cannot cover up our imperfection.

The amazing thing is, there is something that actually CAN cover up our imperfections. Imagine that one day you are in court, being charged for a horrible crime that you know you ARE guilty of committing. All of the evidence proves it, and there is simply no way that the judge could think otherwise. The judge looks at you and has NO other choice than to sentence you to being hung by the neck, because it is his duty to bring justice. Now, imagine that after declaring this sentence, the judge stands up, takes off his robe and comes over to you. As he embraces you, he says "as your judge I had to sentence you to death, as your friend I am going to go to the gallows for you. Your sentence is now pardoned through me." This is exactly what Jesus has done for each of us! Romans 5:8 says that "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us." Jesus is the Son of God, and He died in order that our sins may be forgiven. 

But it didn't stop there: Jesus came back to life again and is alive today, ready and waiting to have a relationship with us. In the Bible, it says that "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name"(John 1:12). The suffering, death, and new life that Jesus went through was a beautiful gift, and it is meant specifically for YOU. If we choose to recognize and see our imperfection and the fact that we need saving, and if we choose to believe in him, we are promised a new life with Jesus, and the incredible bonus of spending eternity in heaven.

I am excited and proud to be a follower of Jesus. I have realized that I desperately need saving, and I have found this saving in the one true place it is available: through Jesus' gift of forgiveness and new life. He has given me purpose and has become my inspiration and backbone. He literally gave his life for us, and many of you may have heard and responded to this great news already. If you have not heard this before, I hope that this inspires you to search for and respond to the TRUTH and the saving grace that is found only in Jesus.

Through Smoke

Coincidentally, the weekend that the large amount of us bible school students were in Edinburgh also happened to be Halloween weekend. I had never seen Halloween celebrated in such an intense and openly spiritual fashion. I have always understood that the basis of this celebration is quite paganistic, but it is very easy to ignore that fact in North America, as the effects of that are not regularly witnessed, at least on my part.

It started off 'normal' enough, in the sense that all weekend the streets were covered with people in costume. Just like every year, the costumes ranged from cute kid's characters, to creepy zombies, to costumes that nobody could quite distinguish. The night of Halloween itself, however, became much more out of the ordinary.

As seen in the picture below, there was a group of 'pagan spiritualists' of sorts who held a parade down the Royal Mile. It is difficult to put the details of their parade and 'presentation' into writing, but I will admit I found it all quite ominous.

It began quite innocently, as they marched to the beat of drums from the Castle to in front of the Anglican Church down the street. As soon as the drums began, the skies opened up and it began to rain, and the rain continued until they stopped in front of the church, at which point it ceased.

With the drums continuing, the painted pagan people gathered in a circle for a period of time, individually breathing deeply from a smoking bowl and then passing the bowl to the next member of their group. This went on for a number of minutes, with eerie screams being let out by persons in the circle at different times, until all of them had had a turn with the bowl.

Following this, with the rhythmic beating of the drums continuing, they began to dance and scream and shoot fire. They continued to draw an ever growing crowd as they performed in front of the old church.

With the smoke hanging in the air, the people with the painted bodies writhed around each other and danced to the drums unremittingly for hours on end.

What is even more difficult to explain, is the extreme sense of evil that was in the air. It was noticed not just by me, not just by the Capernwray students, but also by others on the street who do not believe in Jesus. Even one of the local cops was expressing to me how dark the night felt.

 

I cannot say that I had any bright moments in this time; that I stood up boldly against the powers of evil in the middle of the streets of Edinburgh or even that I tried to discuss my faith any further with the cop.. However, this situation did cause many of us to go to our Lord in prayer for the city, and played a part in opening our eyes to the seriousness and reality of the opposing beliefs and spirits that are active around the world today.

I can't help but wonder... What if it wasn't a common coincidence that over one hundred Capernwray students were in Edinburgh on the darkest night of the year? What if we were placed there in order to bring the light of Christ to a city and a people who have strayed so far away from Him?

We have been placed on the earth for such a time as this. 

As the world grows darker and stronger, it is our time to stand up in boldness and live as warriors against the evil that is around us. It is time to throw off our attitude of indifference, to no longer be average, and to begin living passionately and purposefully every single day in order that those around us begin to notice and CRAVE the difference that they see in us. It is time to get serious about our commitment and consistency in Christ, in order that when the time comes, our familiarity with His character will allow us to see through the smoke.

We are the generation God has prepared to change the world. Our time is now.

Public Foothpath

The other day a few of us capers went on a walk up a hill. It looks pretty small in the pic, but it had an amazing view of the ocean and rolling hills.
For pedestrians to be able to get to "points of interest" in England, there are often 'public footpaths' set up for them to follow. The strange thing is, these often go through people's property. The path to get to the top of this hill literally took us right up a rancher's driveway and in between their house and garage. The owners of the house were actually outside at the time, and they just smiled and told us where to go. We literally had to jump the fence into their field of horses and cows and hike through there.

Myself, Alyssa and Kaitlyn with castle in the background

Walking towards the hill from the Capernwray loop

Ruins of some sort at the top of the hill

 

Nice and green, eh? 

Follow my blog with bloglovin

The Manor

I have finally gotten access to a strong enough Wi-Fi connection that I can upload some pics for you! These pics are from our initial arrival at the manor house and grounds.

Carla and I leaving

The Manor side view

The courtyard

The front of the Manor

The runners loop

I live in one of the rooms overlooking the courtyard (the pic with the clock tower and picnic tables), as do the rest of the guys. The ladies rooms are in the rest of the castle/manor house and under the conference hall (which I don't have a picture of).

Groin

You are privileged to know, that I am writing this as I ice my groin.


Have you ever heard of P90X? It's a hardcore 90 day workout video series. My fave is 'Ab-ripperX', it's super intense. A couple people have different selections of it on their laptops, so I've been joining up with them every once in a while to get sexy. yesterday however, I'm pretty sure we were doing one called 'Groin-ripperX'; because somehow I pulled the muscles in my crotchial region like you wouldn't believe.


This of course makes it painful to walk.. or sit.. or dance. But even worse than that, I couldn't get my pants on. As my roommates watched in amusement, I kept struggling and cringing (making numerous attempts) before I finally let out a Tarzan yell and jumped into the pants.


It's funny, last night a few of us guys were discussing James chapter one together, and one of the verses we talked about for the majority of it was verse 2. It says "My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various trials...". I don't know what the point of this trial is, but now every time I move, the pain reminds me to "have joy", so I smile.. a pain-filled, cringy smile.

Castles and wifi don't quite mix

Yes, castles are incredible. But unfortunately, at least with this castle in particular, they aren't in convenient locations for internet..

They claim to have wifi here, but I have attempted to access facebook, skype, gmail, hotmail, etc., and I can't even get to their home pages. for some reason, though, blogger is slooowwwlly loading. So I apologize for the lack of communication, but blame the Brits. It's their fault for not providing me with better service. I just waited for literally ten minutes to try and load a picture of the castle for you, but couldn't even get to where it allows me to choose the picture I want.

I will update you on the positives of this place as soon as I can get to a cafe in town or something. For now I am going to go sheep tipping or play football or something more interesting than this super slow internet.


Ps. the exciting news of the day: there is an outreach opportunity for 10 Capernwray students to go to Kenya after Christmas. I want to go.