Blogalog

End of Old Seasons

2008-05-09T22:22:00.005-07:00

If there is one influential force in my life that I have more mixed feelings about than anything else, it's change. Some days I love it, others I hate it. What's so bad about change? Nothing, in principle, as new things are awesome. The tough part is letting go of old stuff that one gets so comfortable with...

I have been out of Streams Academy New Hampshire for a little over 2 months now. During that time, I have revisited nearly every core group of people or friends that I've been involved in at some point in time. The first group was the tournament Scrabble players from the West Coast; we had an awesome time at the Vancouver Club's annual tournament. However, as always with tournaments, it's over almost as quick as it starts, and just like that, the people are gone again. Unless you go to the same Scrabble club weekly to play games, the main method of keeping in touch and playing is via ISC (the Internet Scrabble Club, where people like me play online Scrabble games), or via Facebook. While it works to some extent, it is 1) not the same as interacting with them in person and 2) interacting with a computer really isn't the same as interacting with a person period.

I got settled into Kelowna after the tournament (celebrated my 22nd birthday!), and the very next weekend, went back with my older brother Luke to visit the Streams Academy internship in Vancouver. Some of the people in leadership there went to school with me and Luke in Streams Academy New Hampshire's 06-07 class, including his fiancée Jesse (same name as me, I know!). We were going for an engagement party being thrown for Luke and Jesse, and for two other engaged couples in the internship. While some of the people were welcoming, I was stunned at the way I was treated by some of those that I had gone to school with; it was almost like I'd never even been a part of their lives. At one point after something happened, I was so overcome with emotion I walked out of the party, went down the street and cried. It took some time to forgive them, and while I have, God used it to show me that what needed to be accomplished in my life through the 06/07 class was done; that season of my life was through.

In early April, I went to Calgary to help Mom with the landscaping business that we own as a family there. While it's not my favorite thing in the world to do, it is an great source of quick income, so I agreed to go for a few weeks. When I wasn't working, I went to visit my old church, SunWest Christian Fellowship. I got to see the young people I used to hang out with from my young adult group, and while it was fun to catch up, I felt distant. Granted, there are still several individuals from SunWest I keep in contact semi-regularly with, but those are more "we can pick it up right from where we left off" relationships. I'm blessed to have them. However, like with the others, I felt a little distant; they've gotten on with their lives, and I've had yet to get on with mine.

On another of my days off in Calgary (due to a snowstorm a few days before), I went to visit SAIT, where I got my web development diploma in '05. I had the privilege of catching up with several of my former professors, but the theme with everyone else I'd met up with in Calgary remained: distance. I felt welcome, and even like at some point it was home, but no longer.

In late April, I decided sporadically to go on a trip back to the Boston area to play in a high-profile Scrabble tournament being held there. Getting there was comical; I was laid over in SFO overnight due to delays, my baggage was lost for several days, a dog had peed on the floor of a bus that I rode on at the airport in Boston, the list could go on...like at the Vancouver tournament, I had an awesome time with the East Coast Scrabblers. In the tournament, I actually placed fairly high, so I won money. It was pretty cool; like Vancouver though, it was over all too soon. I had a day before flying home, so I decided to surprise my former intern class ('07-'08) and show up for a night to say hello. It turned out all but one of them (Sharon Felder, South Carolina) had gone on a roadtrip to UConn for the weekend. Sharon picked me up from the New London bus stop and promised not to tell anyone I was coming. We got back to the girl's lodging house, and caught up with each other on stories and such. When I heard the vans full of people coming up the driveway, I took my ice cream outside and just casually ate it, waiting for them to notice I was there. You shoulda seen them run out the car at me! I felt very loved and welcomed, the most I had in quite some time. Even in New Hampshire though, I couldn't help but reach the same conclusion I had everywhere else: it had been home, what happened while I had lived there was great, but home it was no longer.

When I got back from Boston, I stayed in Vancouver for a few days. I went to go visit Trevor Lewis (Langley, BC), my old next-door neighbour when I lived in Langley from 1994-1998. I talked with him and his family some, and then went out to the back bush area to see where we used to explore and play as kids. It was completely different; a tree with a swing on it that we once used had since been cut down, and the 'mudslide' hill that we'd toboggan down in the winter had since been infested with weeds and waste materials from building projects. I looked for a sideways-growing tree that we'd built a fort on (the Beaver Lodge, we called it), but it was lost among the random plant growth, weeds and waste materials that now dominate the area. I also briefly looked into the backyard of my old house; very little looked the same. The house siding was still white, the basketball court was still there, otherwise the rest was completely made over. It hardly even felt like I'd lived there. While it was good to catch up with Trevor, the universal feeling of distantness I'd been getting everywhere else also showed up in Langley that night.

The next weekend I drove down from Vancouver to Oregon to play in one last Scrabble tournament. I'd always wanted to do a road trip with a good friend, and there was finally a chance. I have known James Leong (Vancouver, BC) for 8 years from Scrabble, both in person and online. The whole experience turned out to be a little more difficult than the rest, though; me and James actually fought at one point regarding getting directions versus buying a map of Oregon, and my fairy-tale dream world of a "perfect friendship" crashed down. Me and James had fought online before, but as those were typed fights, it didn't have the same effect. Couple that with a bleh result in the tournament, and being sick up until the last day, and things don't seem so "perfect" anymore. Thankfully, getting to hang out once more with West Coast Scrabblers (including some who couldn't make it to Vancouver) was fun again; we even got to play Ultimate Frisbee one evening! Due to a tough last day of losing all 4 of my games, I actually got kinda mad and didn't really want to stick around; I asked James if we could drive back, and so off we went. It took about an hour to let the steam off, and realize that Scrabble, albeit fun at times, has consumed my time, money and even my emotions, and the reality is, there has not been a huge payoff.

While I will likely never stop playing Scrabble competitively, I am beginning to wonder how much of my time will be invested in improving at it. If one wants to be elite, it takes a lot of game playing experience, and a whole lot of studying (words and strategy). I don't want to spend my young adult years doing that, yet at the same time, I get affirmation from performing well in Scrabble, so I'm tugged back and forth. There is so much I want to get really good at, but realistically, the time is not there to do 'everything'. The problem with wanting to get really good at stuff is doing so for the wrong reasons. I know my affirmation should not come from stuff I do, especially in how well I do it. I am still struggling to allow my affirmation to just come from God first.

What's next for me? It's not too terribly clear, unfortunately. Here's what I noticed though: 8 is the number of new beginnings, and it's the year 2008. Almost everything that up to this year has been a dominant part of my life is either losing its appeal or has lost its prominence. After this year, Scrabble will likely fade off to near nothingness in terms of tournament activity. As nostalgic as I get when I watch youth playing league soccer, it seems like a lifetime ago that I ever took part or had the desire to take part again. As hard as that will be to do, I think it will be for the best. I know that music needs to be part of my life more, due to the sheer joy that I get from singing and/or playing the piano. On a random note, near the end of this year I will be going to Guatemala to take Spanish immersion, as I've always wanted to learn to speak the language properly, and what better time than the year of new beginnings?

Ultimately, I am feeling the Lord's peace most when I am in Kelowna, so I know this is where I am supposed to be right now. While uncertain about what's immediately next, I am excited to see where God takes me. At the same time, I'm scared to step out. Did I mention that I have mixed feelings about change?

Weekend in Massachusetts

2008-02-20T17:57:00.003-08:00

It's been a long time since we went on an outreach, but we finally did this past weekend. Our schedule was to go to the MetroWest Bridge church in Natick for a youth impartation night, then an evangelism primer at the Olive Branch bookstore, then application of the previous by going to mall to practice, then the Fusion event at the North Shore Bridge church. A loaded weekend for sure!

For new intern Ann Giddings (Port Perry, ON), it was her first time going to Massachusetts. On the drive down I-95, we pointed out the Boston skyline to all the interns who had never been. Obviously nothing like being in Boston for real, but gave them an idea of how looked, at least. Anyways, after several hours of driving (plus the usual bathroom stops for certain interns who need to pee every 5 minutes) we made it to Natick. We had a few minutes before we needed to be at the church, so we stopped by a deli for dinner. Me and Amber Cranfill (Illinois) figured there would be a lineup ahead of us, so we went into a specialty piano shop to kill a few minutes. I got to play on a piano that was selling for $74000! It sounded so nice, but I just couldn't see how it was worth that much.

Most of us were curious as to what the youth impartation night was all about, but we didn't get much clarity on that, even after asking pastor John Thomas. His response, coupled with a mischievous smile, was, "We're just going to do what God wants; we're going to be lead by the Holy Spirit." Definitely a faith building experience! The night ended up being a mix of speaking prophetic words over others, intercessory prayer and fellowship. One of the biggest surprises of the night was seeing Long Islanders Jeannine Adipietro, Christine Konior and her daughter Sarah show up; it was totally unexpected! Turned out they were in town early for the Olive Branch mini-conference. During last year's intern program, they were gracious enough to house us while we visiting Long Island. Since then, their church, the Lighthouse, has become a Streams Bridge church, making them even closer linked to us now. Hopefully that means we get sent New York cheesecake, mmmmm...

The next day saw us going to the Olive Branch bookstore (click here for a previous blog entry explaining what it's all about). I was dismayed to discover that they are going out of business at the end of the month; I have grown to love the store and any time we've gotten to visit. With a 20% discount on everything, I decided to load up on several books and CDs. I have enough reading for several months now!

Former intern Anton Luse is now on staff at the MetroWest Bridge; he does a lot of speaking with John Thomas regarding street evangelism. Both of them spoke at the Olive Branch about street evangelism, including different techniques, general no-nos, and knowing your level of favor with a person. During one of the sessions, I went downstairs to the Ugly Mug cafe to grab a few snacks. There I found fellow staff member Sharon Felder (South Carolina) with the two store owners, and they were getting hit with the Holy Spirit! They one by one fell down under His presence, yet still holding hands the entire time. I couldn't help but chuckle...clearly they didn't care if anyone walked in and saw what they were doing. How I envy that level of confidence!

When it came time to go to the mall, I was paired up with Beth Giobbe, a member of the MetroWest church who I've ministered with before. We went to the nearby Solomon Pond Mall to practice some 'street evangelism'. At first, I really honestly didn't want to evangelize; I've always had trouble with forcibly presenting God to anyone. However, the two of us found a solution. Both of us are comfortable with relational evangelism, which as the name suggests, involves relating to a person before evangelizing. We got to pray for an exasperated cell phone salesman, and an information booth attendent (her brother had cancer). The coolest part (at least for me, anyway) was getting an idea while walking by Abercrombie & Fitch. There were two female store greeters, both about 18, and I thought out loud, "Wouldn't it be cool to interpret a dream for them? I bet no one's ever asked!" Beth agreed it'd be fun, so we went up to them and I asked. They thought it was cool, but couldn't remember any dreams. They asked us to check back with them in 10 minutes once they remembered. When we came back, one girl managed to remember a dream. It was a fairly simple one to interpret (she dreamt that her hair was falling out), but as I've been learning, what might be simple to me is profound to someone else. When she heard that God had given her a great anointing & a lot of gifts, and that the enemy was trying to take it from her, it wowed her.

After the mall outreach, me and the other interns headed off to the North Shore Bridge for Fusion. Basically, the event's premise was to connect closer to the Lord than one would in a regular worship service. Streams recording artist Josh Young lead worship for the event, and was joined by a host of other talented musicians from various Streams churches. Past intern Brandon Crummer (Maui, HI) surprised us when he arrived; having him there, along with other former interns and ex-Streams staff, I felt briefly like I was part of the old internship again. I have had a hard time during this intern year with the massive change from the way the program used to be to the way it is now, and this provided some relief from those feelings.

We spent Sunday morning at the North Shore Bridge, where John Paul Jackson was guest speaking. He spoke on the different spiritual 'ranks' of churches, and in it, he gave a prophetic word about the church being an Apostolic Resource Centre, which happened to be the highest spiritual 'rank' of church. He spoke of the early church in Acts, and how they were stuck in Jerusalem for so long, until God intervened and scattered them all throughout the known world. It was exciting to hear about what God has waiting in the wings for their congregation.

After the service, various interns were assigned to teams to give prophetic words, and me, program director Ali Johnson (New Brittain, CT) and Dustin Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) were formed together to be a dream team. The consistent theme for us was very abstract dreams. One woman in particular shared this dream with us:

"I was with my son at a service in a church I didn't recognize, but knew was our church. He told me that there were 4 people we had to kill. He pointed at one and said to start with him. I was very uneasy about it, but because of the confidence in his voice, I agreed. The two of us sat on either side of the man he had pointed out, and both of us, with a knife each, stabbed him through his sides. We dragged the body down the aisle and into a bathroom. I was standing guard at the door, watching for anyone coming, while he disposed of the body in the bathroom. I was worried when I saw the blood on the floor, scared that someone might notice. Suddenly, a man dressed in desert army fatigues walked by, asking if everything was ok. I said yes, so he walked on. After that, my son came out of the bathroom with a big wad of money, and he was really excited. I knew that he hadn't stolen the money from the man, but that it had somehow appeared after disposal of the body was complete. He ran into the pastor's office excitedly, slapping the money down on the table and all smiles. Suddenly, the church elders came in and said, 'That's the one who did it!' and grabbed him. Still smiling, my son was being tied up. The elders commented, 'We'll take him back to the United States where he can get some help.' Until that point, I had no idea we were somewhere other than the United States."

I had a few ideas almost right away, but not a complete meaning. Ali stepped out by interpreting some of the first part, and then I added, and Dustin added. We kept playing off each other until the full interpretation came together. Basically, she had a dream where the Lord was showing her that He wants to bring about a new creative expression in his church, and that the old mindsets and preconceived ideas of the church needed to be 'put to death'. During that purging of the old, it will be uncomfortable for her, but she will know that it is right, and that some of the church in general will be upset with change, even to the point of her facing persecution/judgment; they are more comfortable with traditional Western thinking, as is evidenced with the comment 'We'll take him back to the United States...' She was blown away by the dream and received a lot of peace from getting the interpretation for it.

That marked the last weekend outreach that I will be on with Streams, as I fly home to British Columbia on the 27th. Only a week left in my time here...it is going by so quickly!

Tom Brady, Tom Petty, Tomfoolery...

2008-02-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

Tom Brady on screen as interns watch

Hey, no one said we had to be all holy and spiritual all the time! Today, we were all invited to the house of our pastor at the New London Bridge (Scott Evelyn) to watch the Super Bowl and just hang out in general. I'm not a huge football fan, but I've gotten to like watching sports more, and at the very least, there's great commercials to be seen. Boy, were we in for a treat! Normally, we don't get to see the Super Bowl commercials in Canada, since the coverage is syndicated. Canadian networks put on their own commercials, and usually they're not so great. The baby that had a man's voice talking about buying stocks and stuff constituted two of the best commercials this year. Bud Light had some great ones, as was to be expected. Coke's weren't too bad either...

The game itself, however, was not too exciting until the last quarter. It sure picked up then! Listening to Matt Mummert (San Diego, CA) cheering in an anyone but New England fashion was rather amusing; it reminded me some of my little brother Caleb. Lucy Nelson (Belmont, MA) is clearly the most vocal of the girls in the internship, but especially when it comes to sports. She loves her Patriots! Unfortunately for her and the other Pats fans in the house, that was not meant to be, as New York played very well at the end, in combination with the Pats playing not so well, to take the Super Bowl.

I enjoyed being with everyone in a not as religious setting for a while. How Sharon Felder (South Carolina) and some of the others could leave with 10 minutes to go in the game is beyond me, but hey, if it don't float your boat, I guess it makes sense. Oh, and note to Tom Petty: in the future, avoid having a moving light replica of an electric guitar that looks suspiciously like noodly appendage...

New Beginnings

2008-01-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

'08, the year of new beginnings, is upon us! I rang it in playing Scrabble at a tournament in Albany, NY. Rather random, but hey, that's me in a nutshell, so it fits.

Several days later, I found myself back in New London, NH, back with Streams Academy. This time, though, it is somewhat different; I am no longer an intern. I finished the entire student year in December, so I made my return as one of the leaders here. Adjusting to that difference is going to take a while...

This past weekend a group of us went down to Concord, NH to go ice skating at an indoor arena. It turned out to be a lot of fun; while we were there, I recalled days gone by having lived in Calgary when we lived on a lake. Matt Stewart (Sutton, NH) and new intern Rachel Mosley (Reno, NV) were among several who received skating lessons, as they'd either never skated before or hadn't in a very long time. My brother Luke taught different people how to do a stop, but with only moderate success. Lucy Nelson (Belmont, MA) and Elisa Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) actually got the hang of it, but not without entertaining us all with some literal 'slip-ups'.

One of the things we get to look forward to is air-time on a radio program at the local college, Colby-Sawyer. We have been asked to interpret dreams live on the air, which absolutely excites us. Once the interns have finished taking the 201 at the end of the month, we will start the program. Even pastor Scott Evelyn will be on it!

Haunted Happenings, Week 1: Salem, Massachusetts

2007-10-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

Jess Mott (Croyden, UK) and Lucy Nelson (Belmont, MA) hosting outside our tents

Excitement has been abuzz ever since the Salem trips were first announced back in September, and this weekend was the time to finally go! We arrived in Salem early on Friday afternoon, full of spiritual adrenaline. This year the Gathering Church has been given the drained water fountain and surrounding area in the center of Essex Street to set up a stage, a hot chocolate tent on one side, and dream tents on the other side of it. Various artists, both local and from the surrounding area, perform on the stage while we hand out free hot chocolate, give spiritual readings or interpret dreams in the surrounding tents. After we finished setting up, which in itself was a hefty endeavour, we got down to business for the afternoon. The streets were already starting to fill with people after lunch, so it wasn't hard to find people willing to come in. At one instance during the afternoon, two highschool-aged girls sat in front of my group for a spiritual reading. For one of them, I got a picture of a yellow bobcat digging around, which I ended up sharing as a metaphor for the reconstruction that was currently happening in her life. Tom Schwabe (Los Angeles, CA) got a picture of a silver a ring for the other girl, which we explained was symbolic for the upcoming redemption for promises to her that had been broken in her past. Both of them left in a daze of amazement that someone cared for them that much. It is such a thrill to be used by God to impact His children, even if it isn't always deep or profound.

At closing time, I had forgotten to take the signs down advertising our tents, so a group of 5 women came up to the tent and begged me to let them in to a team. I went in the tent where Broie-Christian Orr (Richmond, VA) and John Harding (North Shore, MA) were sitting talking with a teammate about the day's encounters, and despite tiredness they graciously accepted. Afterwards, all parties involved felt it was worth the wait! We are constantly in awe of the spiritual hunger that rests in Salem.

For the evening there was a special event happening at the Gathering Church called 'The Brimstone Chronicles'. It was an interactive role-play event where a funeral and a feast were used analogies for Heaven and Hell. For one part of the event, people were locked in the vault, as an illustration of Hell being life absent of both light and God, who is our Light. When people were eating at the feast, different members of the gathering were stationed around the room, waiting for people to eat apples. Every time a person ate an apple, all the stationed people said together, "Oh no, they ate the apple!" as a unique way of conveying the Bible story of Adam & Eve and the forbidden fruit.

Saturday was predictably a much busier day; it took forever to get anywhere on Essex Street due to the hordes of people. As a result, we decided to move one of our tents from the fountain to the front of the church, so that we could hopefully spread our traffic out.

Street performer Ryan with his sister after an act

During the afternoon, we met several indirect forms of resistance - the first came in the form of aggressive street preachers, who were doing their thing fairly close to our tent in front of the Gathering Church. Lucy Nelson watched a woman walking by roll her eyes, look at her and sarcastically say "Hi sinner!" to which Lucy replied back mischievously, "Hey sinner!" Not even 2 hours later, acrobatic street performers set up for their act right beside our tent and began their show, with their music blaring and lead performer broadcasting his voice via microphone down most of Essex Street. It was impossible to focus on the task at hand, so we just watched their 15 minute show (which was actually really good), and then we were able to get them to move further down the street for their later performances.

In the evening we had a group of 7 friends come up to the tent in front of the Gathering. We decided to take 3 first, and then 4 (we were the only team operating at that tent at the time). In a bit of random weirdness, one of the guys in the first group shared a dream which involved a jelly donut singing opera to him! In the last group, one of the guys had a dream where he helped Asian kids escape from a mentor by hiding them in his closet upstairs until it was safe again. Academy Leader Ali Johnson (New Britain, CT), Nicky Ogston (Scotland) and myself were able to affirm his call to be a father to children that are not just his own. The 7 of them left completely dazzled and in awe of what they had all been told. Later on, Matt Stewart (Sutton, NH) came by and excitedly shared with us that in one of the groups he was in, the people sitting in front of them insisted on paying after getting their reading!

Essex Street

Sunday morning we attended the service at the Gathering, and then went back to business on the street. The early part of the afternoon was a frenzy; at both tent locations there were always several people waiting. One of the most amazing stories of the afternoon involved 2 guys who sat in front of Dustin Zupancic's (Abbotsford, BC) team for spiritual readings. They were both so blown away by the words given to them that they both eventually accepted the Lord into their lives. Not wanting to leave them high and dry, Dustin sent sister Elisa Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) to the Gathering to grab his Bible, so that he could give it to them!

We actually had to wrap up early during the evening, because there was pretty much no one on the streets of Salem. That was almost certainly due to the Boston Red Sox being in Game 7 of their series. We weren't upset though, as most of us had become very tired by that point.

Next weekend we go to Salem again, and this time my older brother Luke and my Mom & Dad will be there with me!

First Outreach: Claremont, New Hampshire

2007-10-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

Although we didn't go far, Claremont still felt vastly different from New London. We arrived on the main street a little after 8 AM to begin tent setup. Two ends of the street were blocked off while tents were beginning to get set up all around us, ranging from US presidential candidates to jewelery merchants to the Chili Cookoff tents. Mmmm, chili...

The chili cookoff tents

Understandably, the beginning of the day for us was slow for getting traffic. Around lunch time people started pouring in, and then we started having fun! For many of the interns, it was their first time attempting to give spiritual readings (our street terminology for prophetic words) or dream interpretations on the street, so there was some nerviness, but it didn't last long. The joy of being able to impart hope and new life into complete strangers quickly takes over! In one instance when a man sat in front of me and the other 2 members of my team, I got a picture of the inside of a Subway restaurant, with a custom sub being made. I interpreted that for the man as God telling him that he has a gift of "custom-making" people, in the sense that he can see their gifts and guide them towards their purpose in life (the "complete sub"). We found out at the end that he is actually a pastor...talk about confirmation of a prophetic word!

I got to have an hour break for lunch, so I decided to go participate in the Chili Cookoff judging. I had to pay $5 to get a "paid" wristband, a spoon and a large ticket. After passing through a booth to try their chili, that booth holepunched their name on my large ticket. I actually liked the first one I tried the best, strangely enough. There were over 20 to try, so it took quite some time. I found out just how picky I am with my chili taste! After voting for my favorites (3 categories to vote in), I headed back to the tents to work again.

Skater Zac with the chili cookoff mascot

For the last part of the afternoon I got to be the tent host. My job was to write down the names of people interested in a dream interpretation or spiritual reading, and tell them a bit about it. Close by our tent, teenaged skater boys set up their random props and were trying to do various grinds. One particular guy with them, CJ, wasn't really a skater, but knew them all and was bringing some of them to our tent! I found out he was raised Catholic and is on a search for his own spirituality, rather than what was "branded into him." Another skater, Zac, didn't end up coming in to the tent, but I did get to talk to him some between his tricks. He reminded me some of my older brother being 14 years old; Zac was the most talented athlete of them all, but was driven by a performance mentality. It was awesome to just be able to affirm him and relate to him; that to me is just as much ministry as anyone in the tents that I had words for or interpreted a dream for.

Next weekend we're off to the MetroWest Bridge in Natick, Massachusetts for the Eyes to See conference (we'll be working at it as volunteers). Biggies like Doug Addison, Jim Driscoll and Aaron Evans will be teaching/preaching...gonna be a blast!

First Trip

2007-09-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

I decided to return to Streams Academy in New London, New Hampshire for the fall, so that I will complete all 3 trimesters of the internship program. I have already completed the last two trimesters, but not yet the first, so my last trimester is among a whole bunch of others who are just beginning their first.

A street corner in Salem

This past weekend marked our first weekend trip together as a group, and to a very special place to us: Salem. Some of the interns had never even been to Massachusetts, much less The City of Peace itself. A city of approximately 40000, Salem sits right on the East Coast overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded in 1627 and originally named Naumkeag (a Native American word meaning 'haven of peace'). Naumkeag was renamed in 1629 to Salem, taken from the Hebrew word for peace, Shalom. Salem would later become home to the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692 that resulted in the hanging of 19 people. We will be on Essex Street during Haunted Happenings, a local street festival that runs through all of October, interpreting dreams and giving spiritual readings (our way of saying 'prophetic words', in non-Christianese language).

Our first stop in Salem was on the famous Essex Street. The Gathering is a church located in a former bank on Essex Street. One of the defining characteristics of the building is the huge vault located at the back. Jessica Ellis and Lucy Nelson (Belmont, MA) were among the first to get a picture in front of the vault.

Phil Wyman, the pastor of the Gathering, took the time to share with us some insight into the Neo-Pagan culture, including similarities of their beliefs and ours, key differences and some of the different types of Neo-Pagans that we will encounter in our ministry times during Haunted Happenings. Throughout the whole time he was speaking, Phil's heart for the Neo-Pagan community was very evident. Learning about what the Gathering does has brought such joy and relief to me; I have sought to better understand the Neo-Pagan community, as I have several friends who are practicing various forms of witchcraft.

The next portion of our trip took us to Gloucester, Massachusetts, a fishing port founded back in 1623. We had some free time to wander, so I walked down to the harbor and explored that portion of the city. Academy Leader Sharon Felder (South Carolina), Calle van der Linde (Vancouver, BC) and Matt Stewart (Sutton, NH) spent some time observing large schools of fish just off a harbor pier while I walked further on to a beach to gaze at the vastness of the open ocean. I grew up on the Canadian West Coast, so the sight of the ocean makes me feel right at home. Contrast that to the arboreal density of Central New Hampshire, the area where we are during the week.

Noah playing the djembe

In the evening we made our way to Eagle & Dove Ministries of Gloucester. Wow, was this ever a different church experience! The service is completely open to creative expression. Worship was a combination of a woman on a keyboard/synth pads, an electric guitarist, a bass guitarist, two djembe drummers and a percussionist. It was spontaneous in nature, completely open to the direction of the Holy Spirit; songs only barely followed a structure of any sort. Several artists were painting as worship was playing, and others were dancing with flags. Something that stood out to me in particular was that people in the congregation were also part of the band! A woman near the front had a Middle-Eastern drum with her that she played, a man near the back was playing a djembe, and the pastor himself had a djembe that he played at different points. He offered it to several of us during worship so that we could play, too - Noah Macdonald (Hopkinton, MA) took him up on the offer. A Phillipino woman preached about humility and death to self, which climaxed with her action of washing the feet of all those attending. The healing presence of the Lord that was present during worship became even more heightened, affecting many in attendance.

On Sunday we attended the Northshore Bridge Church in Beverly, Massachusetts. It was a great surprise to see former Academy leaders Caroline Hyden (Colorado), Jon Bohy (Massachusetts) and John Harding (Massachusetts) in attendance! Josh Young, a Streams Itinerant Ministry Team member, leads worship at Northshore, and it is quite the treat to listen to. There is lots of space in the back, perfect for people like me to dance; it's a good thing you don't have to be a talented dancer to do so at church! Ernie Freeman, pastor of the Bridge, continued with the weekend's healing theme by speaking about some of the meaning behind James 5:13-16, an often debated set of scriptures.

To wrap up the trip, Noah's parents graciously treated us interns to lunch at Acupulco's, a Mexican restaurant. It was a perfect chance for me to practice my limited Spanish with the waiters...Calle speaks some as well, so the two of us practice during the week.

Next weekend we'll be in Claremont, New Hampshire for this trimester's first outreach - the Claremont Chili Cookoff. I'm gonna have my tastebuds ready!

Boston Rescue Mission

2007-06-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

Jacob and Ken preaching

Hard to believe, but this weekend marked the very last outreach of the trimester! It doesn't seem that long ago that I was going on my first outreach to Wakefield. And hey, if I'm going to start in Massachusetts, why not end there? This last outreach, though, took us to Boston.

Anton Luse (New Jersey) was the leader for our outreach event from Friday to Saturday. We were at the Boston Rescue Mission, a living center for recovering narcs/alcoholics. All people living in the building had to have gone through a detox program before entering, and while living in the building they have to regularly check in with a non-resident case worker in order to determine their outside privileges. One of the building's main caretakers (Dennis) had lived on the street himself for 10 years before he checked in to the Boston Rescue Mission. He lived in the house and cleaned up after 2 years, and has since been working for the Mission. Although he has a rough personality, he has a good understanding of the Lord and His ways, and we could see His love in Dennis.

We attended the Friday night church service that they have weekly in their 'chapel', which is the 2nd floor with a piano in the corner, and sound equipment in a closet where CDs are played for worship time. Anton was the main one preaching, while Ken Nelson (our leader), Sharayah Quinn (Huntington, NY) and Jacob Garrett (San Diego, CA) had short sermons to preach as well. One of the residents (Katie) give a testimony of what the Lord had been showing her, which was that not one person can ever satisfy everything for you and only the Lord can.

Afterwards Dennis showed us the different floors that the men and women stay on (only the girls could go onto the women's floors, and only the guys could go onto the guy's floors), and then brought out two huge pails of ice cream for us. It was almost midnight by the time we were done eating and talking to him about dreams, and he had to be up at 4 AM to start cooking! The rest of us had to get up by 5:30 at the latest, so we quickly headed for our respective rooms. We were staying in locked, isolated areas of the building for the night.

On Saturday morning me, my brother Luke, Nathan Fox-Helser (North Carolina) and Dustin Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) listened to a black guy named George tell us about his adventures/trials growing up and his time on the street. Luke told me that he had seen me praying for this guy in a picture he got from the Lord, so once he had finished speaking we asked if we could pray for him. I started out, and then the others joined in. He had a broken arm so we all got to pray for it, and we believe that Lord is healing his arm.

The rest of the morning involved us doing various forms of manual labor, everything from cleaning the kitchen area to carrying boxes of food to moving pallets of stuff to making sandwiches. The sandwiches were being made for the Mission's program they do every Saturday, which is to go out to the Boston Common and feed the homeless there with sandwiches. Each sandwich is wrapped in an hand-made 'tract' napkin, which in this case is just different encouraging scriptures or uplifting words people wrote on the napkins.

By the time 1 PM hit we were all very tired. We were originally going to help with feeding the homeless in the Boston Common, but instead we got lunch and then headed on home. The car ride was the most quiet it has ever been!

That was it...outreaches are finished. We also had graduation on Sunday (pictures to come), where Scott Evelyn and John Paul Jackson himself were present to either speak to us or pray over us. Pretty cool stuff. We leave on Saturday for my most anticipated part of this trimester: Mexico!

Tornado Watch?

2007-06-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Yep, you read right. There was a tornado watch on Sunday, but I'll get to that later.

Our fearless leader David Carpentier (Rowley, MA) had a different sort of outreach for us this past weekend. We were to go on Friday to the quarterly prophetic meeting at Northshore Bridge Church in Beverly, Massachusetts, and teach the members of their prophetic team how to do prophetic ministry and dream interpretation on the streets. They had only ever done ministry in the Northshore Bridge, so our job was to teach the 'street lingo' that we use and different approaches to avoid being too religious. One way of doing that was having all of them get ministry from us (the interns) one by one, and we ministered to them using 'street lingo' instead of 'Christianese' (our word for religious lingo). The prophetic team was amazed at how well it worked and how completely nonreligious it was.

As a useless random trivia bit, there is a woman on the prophetic team at Northshore Bridge who was the voice of one of the screams in the Jaws movie trailer...how's THAT for nonreligious?

After the meeting we went to the McDonald's across the street, where we encountered an employee who is Christian and just starting to find out about prophetic ministry. I felt like we were supposed to minister to him, but I had a hard time getting anyone else to join me. He came out after his shift was done, so I took the chance to sit in front of him at a table and start talking to him. Jody Demske (Michigan) came over with a note of words for him that she had written. He expressed how much it impacted him, and that he'll never forget it. That's the kind of ministry I love, when it's random and not defined by a particular time.

Pretty funky artwork @ the Gathering

Saturday we all headed to one of our favorite places in the world to do street ministry: Salem! This time the outreach was only going to last for 3 hours, and the streets weren't exactly full of people. After an hour we did start getting a steadier flow of people come in, and at that point I was able to start teaching my team. The picture I saw for the first woman sitting in front of us was a picture of a tent with only a set of bright eyes visible in it, and then bright stars circling the tent. I told her that there was a mystical quality about her, that people are naturally drawn to her and see something she has that they want. My two teammates added their input, and then she revealed that she is a field nurse, and that often in the ambulance rides people reach for her and cling to her hand. She said that she was a Christian, but then a little further on mentioned that she uses tarot cards 'for fun' to give people hope. After we prayed for her and she went off, I used that opportunity to teach my two 'apprentices' about how to handle that sort of situation, which involved us praying after she was gone that the Lord would show her using tarot cards was wrong.

In the Gathering Church (see previous blog entries about Salem if you don't know about the Gathering) I noticed a lot of artwork from local artists. Pastor Phil Wyman mentioned that he is making the Gathering more than just a typical church, which includes welcoming local artists to 'do their thing' in the Gathering. There was this one clay sculpture in particular of a shoe in a handbag that looked so real, I couldn't even tell it was clay from far away the first time I saw it! I learn something new about Salem every time I go, it seems. One thing always remains the same, though; Lunch at Cafe Kushco! (some of the best food in the world)

There's another John Harding? Egads!

After the outreach we went to a little port town called Newburyport in Massachusetts, where our John Harding, who just so happens to be a local, took us on a mini-tour of the harbor area, and then took me to see a few of the shops. We got hungry rather fast, so the two of us went to eat Indian cuisine. As we ordered our food, we got a phone call from David saying that Newburyport had issued a regional tornado warning! The lights started to go on and off, and all the sudden the rains just hit Newburyport out of nowhere. David said that the two of us needed to get to the van, but the van was several blocks way. The rain was pouring down so hard that there were puddles and "mini-rivers" as deep as half a foot! John Harding had an idea, though - we asked for garbage bags, and the greeter laughed as she got them for us. They were bright white! We covered our heads with the bags, and on the count of three, rushed out into the monsoon rains, splashing through puddles and giggling like schoolgirls. We stopped under the awning of a cafe, and the looks we got from the people inside were priceless! As we ran onward, I decided to be a little crazy and just took the bag off my head. I got absolutely pummeled with rain and soaked, but it felt awesome as I jumped into the van with a goofy grin on my face. As we headed back to the Carpentier's house for the night, heavy hail started to fall...what a mess!

Sunday we went to the Northshore Bridge to promote the Streams Academy internship program and then prophetically minister to the people of the church one-by-one. I always have a hard time with it, as I only feel called to speak to specific people. I decided I would go to people that I felt were being 'highlighted' to me, and that seemed to work better. I didn't always feel the Lord when I was speaking, but the response from each person was always good. My confidence is ever rising...

After church Drew McGee (associate pastor of the bridge) had something called 'Take an Intern to Lunch' where different people from the church took us to their homes for lunch and to talk a bit about what was happening with us at the internship. Our hosts were Spanish speakers, which delighted me! It was great to get some practice in.

This upcoming weekend I have off - after that, there's one more outreach, graduation and then the trip to Mexico. Things are wrapping up fast!

Memorial Weekend

2007-05-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

In Canada we're used to celebrating the May long weekend in association with Victoria Day, which occurs a week before its US equivalent: Memorial Day.

The drive to Hampton Beach on Saturday morning was one of the shortest we've ever taken, as it is a coast town about an hour and a half east of New London. It was a relief to go a different way than the usual toward Massachusetts, as we're all just about sick of driving on I-93 every trip.

Hampton Beach is definitely a village geared towards youth. Most of the houses are small and older, and the street adjacent to the beach (Ocean Boulevard) is laden with local businesses. The atmosphere and culture was completely different to what we've been used to; obviously people walking around wearing very little has some to do with it, but there was more to it than that.

Taking a break on Hampton Beach

Outreach leader Anthony Acevedo (Richmond, VA) instructed us to go along the walking path just off the beach and survey people about dreams. Basically the questions were "Do you dream?", "How often do you dream?", "Do you feel they have any meaning?" and "Can we interpret one for you right now?". I was grouped with Jessica Hamlet (Richmond, VA), Emily Phelps (Virginia) and their visiting friend Brittany Gray (Virginia). We were kinda unsure about what to expect, but that left after we surveyed our first two people. They were uncertain at first as to whether or not we were psychics, and then they later revealed that they were from North Carolina and had been to Morning Star Ministries, a group in conjunction with Streams. They even knew who John Paul Jackson was when we asked them! We were really encouraged that God would show up so quickly to encourage us that way.

By the time we got back to the beach for our break, we were pooped from all the walking! We got to just lie on the beach and enjoy the scenery. Me personally, I just power napped for an hour.

Ocean Boulevard at night

At dinner we all took turns relating stories about the people who had been positively impacted by our ministry to them, but particularly those who had their dreams interpreted. Brandon Crummer (Cody, WY) and Anton Luse (New Jersey) told us they got to pray for a woman in a wheelchair who wanted to be able to walk for her granddaughter's wedding in the fall, and Emily shared about how we interpreted a dream a woman had about dancing with a man whose face she couldn't see (the Lord wanting to "dance" with her). The evening was wrapped up with some music on the beach, and then we went off to David Carpentier's house in Rowley, MA to spend the night.

We attended the North Shore Bridge (worship leader Josh Young's home church) Sunday morning, where David's dad gave me words of knowledge about part of my calling (to youth). That in combination with the worship totally overwhelmed me and brought me to tears. I have been scared of the idea of working with youth in my own insecurity, but that doesn't stop God from expressing what He wants of us. I'm looking forward to seeing how God plays that out in my life.

Jessica and Emily playing frisbee

After church we drove out to Gloucester Beach in Massachusetts to have an afternoon to ourselves and enjoy the weather. The beach was far less commercial than Hampton Beach had been; the sand was almost white and there was a significantly smaller number of people around. I quickly noticed that there was a small island just slightly offshore and my adventurer spirit kicked in. The tide was low enough that I'd only have to walk through water waist-deep at most to get to the island. I went with Jessica Hamlet and Sharayah Quinn (Lindenhurst, NY) over to the island, but only Jessica wanted to climb up. There was no defined path, just different rocks, clefts and ground previously trodden on to refer to. I got whisked back to this childlike place of being an adventurer, imagining finding a new world as I went up. At the top, we just took some time to admire the view and creation all around us. However, my curiosity quickly took back over and I wanted to go explore the rest of the island. Jessica went back down as I explored further through the bushes, trees atop the grassland and quarries on the island's top. In one particular quarry the seagulls were all flying a mere several feet above my head! They were flying back and forth, diving down and coasting up, making me think they were going to lunge at me, oh fearless explorer that I am!

We spent Memorial Day back in New London, mostly just enjoying the great weather and relaxing. In the evening Brandon Bower (Airdrie, AB) was in charge of cooking the burgers and hot dogs for our picnic while the rest of us played volleyball in the yard. Jody Demske (Michigan), one of the oldest people here (mid 40s) is actually our resident expert on volleyball and she can play a pretty mean game herself!

This week we have all the mornings off to just relax and rest, which is definitely something we all need. Oh how I love sleeping in...

Street Ministry: Worcester, Massachusetts

2007-05-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend the interns were divided up to go to two different outreaches. One was in Maine, the other in Worcester Massachusetts. To be honest, I was disappointed at first when I was told I was going to Worcester, because I've never been to the state of Maine and I really wanted to go. However, God quickly fixed my perspective when He reminded me that I'd been to Pennsylvania last month, where half of the interns couldn't join us. As the weekend progressed, I realized it was definitely where I was supposed to go (good thing God knows best!)

We left New Hampshire Friday afternoon (later than we usually do when we leave on Fridays) to head to Worcester. Before this weekend I'd only ever heard of the city, due to the fact that the way it is pronounced is not even close to the way it is spelled (WUS-STAH). I wasn't even sure what to expect for ministry, as all I had been told was that we would be ministering in coffee shops Saturday afternoon. I was surprised to find out that we would be in the poorest area of Worcester, ministering to homeless/low income individuals. Did I ever mention we've been in almost every setting on outreaches?

After arriving at the Starbucks in Worcester, we met up with JJ, one of the guys from the Woo Church (the church in Worcester we were working with). He bought everyone coffee compliments of Luke (pastor of the church), much to the delight of the Starbucksaholics. Due to my sugar fast for the month of May, I declined. To add insult to injury, once we got to the Woo Church, there was a box of free desserts from Starbucks for all to enjoy. This wasn't going to be easy!

The Pilgrim Congregational Church building

Despite the fact that it is in the poorest part of Worcester, the church building itself is majestic! Originally for the Pilgrim Congregational Church, it was built in 1885 to meet the need for a place of worship in that region of New England. Its slogan, as inscribed over the front door, is "In This Place Will I Give Peace." In its prime the church seated a full house of over 1000 people. However, the current owners of the church get about 10 people per service, the youngest being in his early 70s! As a result, the upstairs area where the 1000+ would congregate has been locked up; they instead meet in a small room in the basement, backed by a beautiful stained-glass window. Every second Saturday evening for church services, the Woo rents one particularly large room in the basement of the church, formerly used as the dining room & games room.

On Saturday morning, Pastor Luke's wife made us an amazing breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage. I decided to try eating pancakes without syrup, and they actually weren't all that bad. I can't wait til I can eat sugar June 1st...After breakfast, we found out Pastor Luke only just started the Woo church back in April over Easter. We quickly realized part of the reason we were there was to encourage the church and impart life to them. Before heading out, we prayed over Pastor Luke & his wife, Assistant Pastor Bob & his wife and JJ. Off to the streets of Worcester we went!

Almost as if scripted for a movie, it was grey and raining outside. Some of us went to the PIP homeless shelter to spread the news that we would be interpreting dreams in two coffee shops, and then serving free dinner before the service at the Woo. It was awesome to see how much some of the people's faces brightened and their demeanors change when we spoke into their lives. Particularly amusing was speaking to the people that were either high or drunk, as some of them were so far gone it was almost impossible to understand anything they were saying. I did get to have one conversation in Spanish, albeit brief, with one particularly drunk man outside of the PIP shelter. Even though we weren't really able to minister to him, I was pumped that I actually carried out a conversation in Spanish. Worcester has a fair amount of Spanish-speaking people, which I was delighted to discover. Lots of practice for Mexico!

On the way to the One Love coffee shop, my group ran into a woman named Lydia, who we learned was homeless and had been drinking for 3 days. Despite her heavy drunkenness, she was not completely unreceptive to our ministry to her. At one point while we were talking to her, she looked at Rebecca Wallander (Sweden) and Kaylene Spresny (Bay City, Michigan) and said "Such pretty young girls, and you believe God can help me? No way, I'm unsavable." We eventually convinced her to come with us to the coffee shop. Unfortunately, when we got there, she went off with a man to prostitute herself for another drink. She would end up coming and going from the coffee shop while we there.

We found that we didn't really get to interpret many dreams or do many spiritual readings (we actually only did 3 in the 4 hour period), but we were instead doing more personal ministry to the street people (Lydia being one example). At the church in the evening, there were only a few street people that ended up coming, despite the initial numerous positive responses earlier in the day. Perhaps they thought we were going to try to convert them...oh well.

Stained-glass window in the church

Pastor Luke may be young, but he certainly knows the Lord. He preached a casual, yet effective sermon on the Lord's Prayer and what it means to us. Lydia had come in just before he started preaching, and several of the interns were around her to make sure she didn't get into trouble. Pastor Luke told the congregation that he was going to tell them a story, and Lydia unexpectedly heckled by saying "Can ya keep it short?" Even he laughed, and then continued to tell the story. Lydia stumbled out near the end of his sermon, but we weren't upset; we'd planted some seeds in her life.

At the end of the service, we decided to set up a "Fire Wall" (see From Silence to Intercession for an explanation on what it is) for the members of the Woo. They remarked how much they all got from it, both spiritually and emotionally. At that, we were ready to head home to New Hampshire.

Just when I thought we've done ministry almost every way possible, I get surprised. This upcoming weekend we'll be at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, doing live dream interpretation on the beach. I can't wait!

Christians United For Israel: Boston, Massachusetts

2007-05-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

One particularly prevalent theme for the last several outreaches has been the diversity in expression of faith. An event with Christians and Jews together is no exception!

The prayer wall in the Olive Branch

However, for the day before the CUFI event, we were split in half. Half of us would go to Boston to interpret dreams and do prophetic ministry on the street, while the other half would go to the Olive Branch bookstore in Northborough to do the same. I was on the team that was sent to the Olive Branch.

In one of the groups that I ministered with, a guy had a dream where he was running after several majestic white horses while an avalanche was fast approaching from behind, yet he felt no fear. We had great delight in telling him that the Lord was showing him how much favor and authority he was about to walk in.

After finishing up at the Olive Branch, we drove to the MetroWest Bridge in Natick to spend the night. It just so happened that we got there as the Brazilian Church (which uses the same building as MetroWest) was just finishing. I got to see my buddy Andre! He greeted me in Spanish, and then spoke to me in a bit of French. Evidently my French is not up to par, but I have been improving on my Spanish. He taught me how to say thank-you in Portuguese (obrigado), and then his wife joined us, who speaks more Spanish. We actually had a short conversation that I understood, which is a step up for me in learning.

Early Sunday morning we drove out to Boston, which I would be seeing for the first time! On the way in we passed by the Green Monster in Fenway Park of baseball notoriety. Our final destination was the Massachusetts State House, located on Beacon Hill in downtown Boston. The Beacon Hill area is a site to behold; while everything is older, it isn't dirty and it actually looks really good! A particular point of interest is the Boston Common, a public park originally used as a military camp before the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Today it is a hotspot for locals and tourists alike.

Our job before the event was to set up all the stuff people would be seeing. Large banners depicting various messages in Hebrew were hung, and the US flag & Israeli flag were both hung slightly in front of those banners. There was an unexpected job which me and some of the other interns took on. We were asked for 6 guy volunteers, and I was one of them. We were asked to 'flag-bear'. We were to walk around half of the auditorium holding large Hebrew emblems (there were 12 in total, and each was representative of a tribe of Israel). It was a whole lot harder than it looked! The emblems weren't heavy, but awkward to move around.

A gazebo in Boston Common

About two hours before start time, we were all set to get changed into our formal attire and then go through dress rehearsal. I realized at this point that I had left my black dress shoes (that I borrowed) in the van! Desperate, I got the keys to the van from Mike Wise (Houston, TX) and then asked Dave Carpentier (Boston, MA) for directions. He told me to go across the Boston Commons (at least a 10 minute walk), look for a particular hotel and then eventually spot the van. I went all the way and could not find the van, even after going an extra two blocks in every direction besides what he told me. With an hour and a half before start time, I was in a panic. Finally in desperation I decided I had to buy new shoes. I asked the doorman at a ritzy apartment complex where I could buy dress shoes. He gave me the directions to a Macy's, which happened to be all the way back to the State House plus another two blocks! As I was in the process of trying on shoes, I got a cellphone call telling me to hurry back, as dress rehearsal was starting. Oy vey! I got back and got changed just a few minutes before the flag-bearing rehearsal, sweat dripping as I changed into my outfit. I wasn't perfectly presentable, but I had made it.

The event proved to be eye-opening and well done, despite the preceding chaos and lack of thorough pre-planning. There was a speaker from Israel and a speaker from Japan (surprised us all I think) that laid out the truth about what's happening in the Middle East, and our role. One of the things that shocked us the most was a quote given from an Iranian leader (and hidden from the media): "Give us the Jews, and we'll give you (America) the oil!" If only people knew just how deep in we are, and how much our decisions truly will affect the Middle East. Genesis 12:3 makes it pretty clear: we must stand up for Israel.

One of the larger banners

God For People Who Hate Church: Salem, Massachusetts

2007-05-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

As soon as I first heard what we were going to be visiting Salem for, I knew the weekend would have to be awesome. The conference was going to have several well known speakers coming in to talk about their views on how the modern church as a whole has played a large role in driving people away, ultimately confusing those people's feelings about God.

On Friday we set up tents outside of The Gathering (refer to my February entry for background on The Gathering and Salem as a whole) to do dream interpretation and spiritual readings for the public. Unlike last time, it was actually somewhat warm out so we didn't freeze. Part of the afternoon I was on a dream team with Brandon Bower (Airdrie, AB) and Emily Phelps (Virginia), and we had several cool experiences. The first was with a young guy named Bob who was looking for a spiritual reading. After we encouraged him with words for the Lord, he revealed that he was a recovering ex-narc with a daughter that he loved very much. He left profoundly impacted at the words he received. The other interesting experience was when two Mexican women came in for spiritual readings; one spoke fairly good English, the other almost none. Since I'm in the process of learning Spanish right now, I said several small Spanish sentences at various points throughout the process. I messed up the verb conjugation when I tried to say "Running in the Holy Spirit", but they still got the message and quickly corrected me. They got something from God, I get something from them!

The evening marked the beginning of the conference. Jim Henderson of Off the Map Ministries (based in Seattle WA) was the first speaker of the weekend, and he is still one of my favorites. He spoke of the different ways that the modern church has not lived up to what Jesus intended, and some of what we can do to change that. He asked several interesting questions, one being: "What if we stopped being the most pious people and became the greatest listeners?" He spoke about how being a true listener is the most basic form of spirituality, and how spirituality isn't just an "Oh Hallelujah!" moment. Jim had us laughing a lot of the night, simply through his bluntness in showing the weaknesses of the church. However, he also offered sensible solutions. Not a lot of it was new to me, but there was some more perspective added that I definitely was able to take from it. There was one point near the end where he talked about solid proof that Jesus doesn't expect us to live every second doing something of pious importance; he pointed out that Jesus "did nothing" for the first 30 years of His life, and then "time wasted" a lot throughout His 3 years of ministry. If you look at Jesus' life, he literally tithed himself! (10% of 33 is a little over 3) Jesus is all about using ordinary people who do "almost nothing". That was a huge thing for me, as I've always feared I don't do enough.

Watching the late night movie

Shortly after Jim finished speaking, me and some of the other interns helped prepare the room for our late night movie showing. The movie was called "Lonnie Frisbee: Life & Death of a Hippie Preacher". It featured the story of a young guy who found the Lord while he was on drugs and then proceeded to create a movement in California, part of it influencing the start of the Vineyard Church. Controversy was revealed surrounding Lonnie's sexuality, so people in church leadership were mad that God would use "someone like Lonnie" so powerfully. Lonnie eventually died of HIV, and at his funeral a prominent church leader gave a eulogy which basically said Lonnie could have done so much more with his life/ministry if he had "overcome his circumstances". For those of us watching, it provoked feelings of disbelief and even a bit of anger. It brought up a good post-movie discussion about how the church has failed to reach that group of people appropriately.

Saturday had even more controversy in store. As Jim Henderson was preparing to speak again, a Gathering staff member was trying to help get video up on the screen, and somehow accidentally put up a porno video. It was fairly quickly dealt with, as pastor Phil Wyman made a public apology/declaration regarding the incident, and the staff member made his own statement of apology, saying he lent his laptop to a friend last week. The congregation took time to pray and bless the rest of the day before continuing on with Jim's presentation.

The Neo-Pagans speaking at the Gathering

The panel after lunch featured a group of Neo-Pagans from Salem. The first was Teri Calgren, Director of Witches' Education and owner of several witch shops in Salem. She was born in the Bronx NY, raised Irish Catholic. While she was taught growing up to not be discriminatory but loving to all, she had the opposite demonstrated to her by her church family. She has maintained those values she was taught, but instead has focused it into a form of witchcraft. The woman in the middle was Susan Wade, a practicing Neo-Druid. She owns a memorabilia shop in Salem's historic Pickering Wharf area. She was raised Orthodox Hebrew, and one of the first things she remembered being told as a child was that she couldn't play with non-Jewish people. As she grew older she felt more and more that there was something wrong, and finally felt she got confirmation on that when a dream told her she had yet to step into her faith. Through a series of events she eventually found Neo-Druidism and is now quite content. The last was Christa Grillo, a solitary Wiccan. She was raised Christian, but started to question it after several events. One of those was someone in church telling her "Dogs don't go to heaven" when she asked for prayer for her dying dog, and the other was her mom dying of breast cancer. Christa at first turned to atheism, but found in it there was nothing to live for and no joy. She found a book about Wicca and fell in love with it. A consistent theme for all of them was some lack of love from the church, and their dismay at how people devalue what they believe, which in turn devalues them. This really struck home to all of us listening, as at some point we've all done that to some degree. We wonder why people automatically assume all Christians are the same, and yet we do that with witches. Thought provoking.

Following the Neo-Pagan panel, Phil Wyman started an interactive workshop for all the conference attendees. Basically we were all split up into 7 different teams, and each team was responsible for coming up with a 10 minute segment of a non-traditional way to do church. Ideas flew, and I couldn't wait for Sunday morning...

The Judson Window at Salem's First Baptist Church

Saturday evening featured Jay Bakker, pastor of a church in a bar in Brooklyn, NY. He spoke more about loving people where they're at, but at the same time being firm about our own beliefs. He gave a really interesting new twist on The Fruits of the Spirit: "There's a reason Jesus chose it to be fruits of the spirit - fruit trees don't eat their own fruit!" While it may seem glaringly obvious, it's something we've really missed as the church.

Finally, Sunday morning! It truly would be one of the oddest, but one of the most fun 'church services' I've ever been a part of! One segment was philosophically influenced; two guys sang 'Plastic Jesus' (much to our great laughter) and then asked us to talk about how the church has made Jesus 'plastic'. Another segment featured us putting whatever amount of money we felt we should into an offering plate, and then once it got up front there was a surprise. The lady leading the segment merely blessed all of the money, told us to take back what we had put in and use that money to advance God's kingdom, since all of our money is His anyway! I definitely wasn't expecting that, liked that part a lot. There were several musical segments that were really unusual, one of which was several people playing djembe drums as the congregation was called to dance and shout out praises to the Lord. Finally, Phil Wyman introduced us to one of his church's practices. He brought out an inflatable globe, and explained that whoever has the ball points to the country currently on their heart and then prays for it. I really liked it, and I now want to find a globe of my own to do that with at home!

I immensely enjoyed my time in Salem. It definitely had its difficult and stressful moments, but as of late it seems like every outreach has. Tis a good thing God's bigger than all of our troubles!

Susquehanna University: Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania

2007-05-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

Shortly after getting home from last weekend's event, it was announced that one vanload of interns would have the privilege of going to Pennsylvania and other various locales on the way there and back. I immediately went to the signup sheet, and the next day was overjoyed to find out I was going!

For the first day (Thursday) we were going to drive to Tolland Connecticut, minister at Pastor Westin's homegroup and stay in host homes for the night. It just so happens that the interns who didn't go to MetroWest last weekend went to Tolland and met Westin, as they ministered at the University of Connecticut and then at Westin's church. We were graciously welcomed and treated to dinner before doing dream interpretation and prophetic ministry at Westin's house, where homegroup was being held. Kaylene Spresny (Bay City, MI) was in my group with Brandon Crummer (Cody, WY) ministering, and she did remarkably well for her first time!

Fred, the Bassetts' gecko

Me, Brandon, my bro Luke (Calgary, AB) and Dave Carpentier (Boston, MA) were all staying with the Bassett family for the night. Luke had met Amy Bassett (the mom) and her kids the week before for the UConn outreach, and her kids had quickly grown attached to Luke. They were really excited to hear he was back! Amy quite clearly understood Luke, as they got along really well and talked at a really comfortable level. The kids have a really cool gecko named Fred, and one said of him, "When we gave him his name it was weird, but over time it became good." I love kids.

Friday morning we blessed the Bassetts' home before leaving, and had an unusual surprise on the way over to Westin's house. A turkey randomly dropped down and flew in front of the windshield, nearly getting pegged! We all woke up pretty quick after that, and were ready to get to Pennsylvania upon reuniting with the rest of the crew.

Jamie Bower (Airdrie, AB) shows up Vanna White as Dave Carpentier (Boston, MA) satisfies his sweet tooth

The main part of our trip for Friday was getting to Hershey Pennsylvania, home of the Hershey Chocolate company. My first impression of Penn was "Wow, it's green everywhere!" Take Alberta, remove the mountains, add a few hills, scatter some deciduous trees, make everything lush green and you have Pennsylvania. Once we got to Hershey, we stopped in at Chocolateworld; boy was it ever a treat! (yes, the pun sucked) There were special trolleys outside the builing, just waiting to take people to different places. Inside is a sight to behold; on the left is a "movie theatre" where one can learn more about Hershey's history. Straight ahead is the Hershey's shoppes/store, and slightly to the right is the Hershey Guided Tour. Off to the far right is the "Make your own" station, where for Friday people had the option of making their own Hershey Kisses. I went into the tour, and it was better than I had expected: we got to sit on a monorail while it took us through. I'm likely going to have nightmares with the 3 singing cows in them for days ("It's the milk-milk chocolate!") The chocolate creation process was explained in detail, with various demonstrations of Hershey machinery and video displays. After the ride I went and bought a huge sundae with Hershey fudge, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups sprinkled on, two brownies wedged in, topped with whip cream and a cherry. So much for my diet...

Our host home for Friday night was in Hershey, with the Stein family, who Streams came to visit last year on a trip to Pennsylvania. They live up the hill from a community golf course, and the view was just breath-taking! Michael Wise (Houston, TX) cooked burgers and hot dogs for dinner, and then we went wandering about the golf course. I went into the living room after dinner to fiddle with one of the Stein's guitars. Their son Norman and his friend John overheard me attempting to play, and actually taught me a few chords. I tried learning guitar about 10 years ago and gave up right away, but I think I actually want to again!

Part of the golf course

When it got dark, we lit up the fire pit and talked around it; me and Dave talked some about angels and the role that they play in our free will. During that time, Luke, Kaylene and others were out late walking on the golf course. By the time we got to bed, we'd all been on the course at some point.

It was only on Saturday morning before leaving the Steins' house that I actually noticed that the air outside smells like chocolate! Thoughts of a fairy tale environment partially existing sprang forth in my mind. After snapping out of it, I went with the others to give goodbyes before we went on our way. The Steins were truly amazing people, incredibly hospitable. They are moving to Virginia to open up a Christian-influenced coffee shop to uniquely minister to people.

We were finally going toward the main reason of our trip: Susquehanna University! The main reason for the whole trip was that Streams Academy had been hired by an entertainment company to "work" at SU during a university fair. We were officially hired as dream interpreters and spiritual readers.

An airborne Sharayah Quinn (Lindenhurst, NY)

Selinsgrove consists of either brick houses, brick buildings or older houses, some of those clearly labeled as frat/sorority houses (using various Greek letters). Selinsgrove in essence is just a college town. SU itself is rich with heritage and noticeably older; all the buildings on campus are made of brick and are bungalows (some with basements though). It was evident that the 1500ish students on campus are more interpersonal than you'd typically expect for a university. That gave SU a definite small town feel. Ken Nelson (the director of Streams Academy), Mikey Wise and Jessica Hamlet (Virginia) were the 3 doing the dream interpretation for the afternoon. The rest of us explored Selinsgrove and then had fun with the various games at the Susquehanna fair. Some of those were boxing with giant gloves, a bouncy slide and a basketball 3-pointer shooting contest with some army guys.

After finishing at Susquehanna University, we were set to go to our last major stop on the trip: the Lighthouse Church in Lindenhurst NY, home to Sharayah. It was so refreshing to see the Lighthouse again; I knew we'd get a hearty welcome from Kari (Sharayah's mom) and the rest of the Lighthouse crew. Not only that, but we got some New York style cheesecake, too - so good!

We attended the church Sunday morning, and much to our delight there were fresh New York bagels waiting! In the service Ken spoke about honoring leadership (specifically the church's pastor), as there had been some drama going on at the Lighthouse. After the message, Ken had the congregation line up around the sanctuary in a circle, so that all of us interns could give prophetic ministry to them. It was an powerful time, especially for one girl named Roseanne. Her friend had brought her to church knowing we were coming. Roseanne received multiple prophetic words of encouragement relating to her health, which caused her to break down. She revealed to us after that she was recently diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. She did not know the Lord but had felt something special when receiving the words she got. Ken talked with her for a while, and eventually Roseanne decided to accept the Lord into her life. That alone, if nothing else, totally made the trip!

Upon leaving the Lighthouse, we decided to try to get to Central Park. Unfortunately traffic was too congested, so we had to abandon that idea and head home instead. At various points during the drive, Ken drilled me on different Spanish words and phrases, which really helped me improve both my comprehension and vocabulary.

This was definitely my favorite trip of any yet; I'm likely a little biased due to the fact that it was more fun than actual ministry. That being said, we return to Salem Massachusetts this weekend to help out at a conference called "God for People Who Hate Church". I can't wait!

Healing Conference: Natick, Massachusetts

2007-04-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since we've been on an outreach, but finally we got to do our first one of the trimester. This one sent us back to MetroWest just outside of Boston to attend their healing conference.

On the way to MetroWest

Friday was fairly straight forward; the guest speaker was a guy named Doug Collins who has recently gained favor in the Christian world because of God's impartation of signs and miracles to him. He basically went straight into praying for people and involving us interns in the prayer process. While others were assigned to different people, I specifically saw one woman who stood out to me. Her name was Annie, and she had flown in all the way from Vancouver. She is in a wheelchair due to MS. It was rather funny; I thought I was going to be the one ministering to her but she ended up giving me some ministry of her own! Once she finished that, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to sing words of life over her and then pray. She was able to get up on her feet holding me and then go a few steps, but then had to sit back down. I was told later that's more than she has been able to do before, which is pretty cool! We are going to be keeping in touch over email.

On Saturday Doug gave a brief message before sending everyone out to the streets. We were to ask people if they would like prayer for anything in need of healing. This part of the trip was hard for me. The interns were all split up into individual groups, and I was randomly asked by 3 older women to join their group. It's not that they weren't nice, but I really wanted to have at least one other guy in the group, and I couldn't just say no because of that. We went to the local mall, and things just got more awkward as my group was steered towards the ladies' sections in department stores (including a brief trip through lingerie), and then a baby store. In the latter location, I split off from the others to try a different approach: connecting through children. A man in his early 30s was watching his 6 month old daughter in her carriage, and I went up and just made conversation involving his daughter. Finally after I was comfortable enough with our discussion I asked him if he would like prayer for anything in particular that needed healing. He said no, but pray for the people in Iraq and Virginia Tech. I wished him and his daughter well and went back to reunite with my group.

Once we got back to MetroWest there was a time of story sharing and then Doug prayed over different infirmities in need of healing, and then empowered people through prayer into different ministries. As we were cleaning up, I went into the portion of MetroWest where a Brazilian church takes place. I met a young guy named Andre who speaks Portuguese, some English, some Spanish and he is currently learning French! He was a lot of fun, and we'll be keeping in touch. He said he wants to have phone conversations with me in a different language each time. I'm going to have my hands full!

While we're on the topic of languages - there is a team of 7 of us going to Mexico: me, Jamie Bower (Airdrie AB), Jessica Hamlet (Virginia), Anton Luse (New Jersey), my bro Luke (Calgary AB), Sharayah Quinn (Lindenhurst NY) and Jesse Smith (Michigan). My duty is to teach the team some basic Spanish, but here's the kicker: I'm learning it before I teach it! Jamie has expressed great interest in becoming fluent and teaching as well, so the two of us are going to work together at instructing. I'm really looking forward to the challenge!

Goodbyes Galore

2007-04-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

It has been all about goodbyes this week. Annalee O'Dell (Massachusetts) surprised us all on the 6th when she said that she was leaving the internship on Sunday the 9th. She is moving with her sister to Washington DC soon. Annalee has a great intercessory prayer gift, and carries such a servant's heart. I remember her telling me that all she wants to eventually do is cook dinner for her family and be a great wife. I have absolute confidence that you will be, Annalee, and you are certainly going to be missed here!

The first goodbye that we knew was coming was for Micah Jackson (Oregon) on Tuesday. He has moved out west from New Hampshire to Oregon to work for a while and do something different. His unique presence and persona will be missed.

My thumb nails with painted-on Scottish flags

The second goodbye that we've known was coming for a while was for Dan Collier (Scotland). In order to celebrate him in a unique way, we decided to host a Scottish theme party for him, which all went down yesterday. The house was decorated with various lights, photos of Dan and then several Scottish flags drawn on large paper. We were all asked to wear some form of plaid clothing to the party. I wore my plaid pajama pants, while others had made T-shirts with Scottish flags on them, and a few of the guys even dressed in homemade kilts! Mandy Wise (Houston, TX) took on the job of face painting whoever wanted it done. Noah Zehr (Utica, NY) had a Scottish flag painted on his entire face! I went more conservative; I had the flag painted on part of my left cheek, and then a flag painted on each of my thumbs. Nathan Fox-Helser (North Carolina) didn't have any plaid clothing, so he drew plaid on his arm with sharpies - crazy kid. Finally, for the finishing touch, we turned on the soundtrack from Braveheart. We were ready to have a party!

Dinner was chicken pot pie and an Americanized version of haggis, a traditional Scottish dinner dish. I tried some haggis and it actually was fairly good. I think I'll need to eventually try some of the authentic stuff in Scotland though...

The first thing planned for after dinner was a Dan impersonation contest. Dave Carpentier (Boston, MA) threw a chair in the middle of the room, and muttered stuff like "NUGGET!" and "GYPSY!" as he was pretending to fix the chair. The room applauded Dave's excellent impersonation, and Dan roared in approval. There were some other very amusing impressions, but difficult to describe in writing. Our second contest was a riverdancing contest. Dave was really good, Dustin Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) did a hilarious rendition of something sorta resembling riverdancing, Chad Seymour (Michigan) & Sharon Felder (South Carolina) had fun trying, and then my brother Luke (Calgary, AB)/Jon Bohy/Jacob Garrett (San Diego, CA) used two of their fingers each on their own palms to 'riverdance'. Ali Johnson (Connecticut) had us scream in unison who we thought the winner was, and from there she would take the top 3 names she heard and have them do an encore. We all burst out laughing as "REE-BEE-COO!" (Rebecca Wallander of Stockholm, Sweden) was the loudest of all the names, despite the fact she hadn't even danced! The laughing was even louder as Rebecca actually did end up riverdancing (or at least trying to).

A cliche techno song (Vengaboys - Venga Bus) was put on for the purpose of amusement (click here for a short clip, click here for a short instrumental clip), but it became even more amusing when the Holy Spirit decided to use it to move in and take over. Chad in particular started manifesting and getting 'drunk in the Spirit', while Luke, Jamie Bower (Airdrie, AB), James Kyllonen (Michigan), Jesse Smith (Michigan), Kaylene Spresny (Michigan) and Anton Luse (New Jersey) began to follow suit. It didn't take long for me, Sharon, Jon, Anthony Acevedo (Virginia), Emily Boe (New London, NH), Sharayah Quinn (Lindenhurst, NY) and Caroline Hyden (Colorado) to get into the action and start dancing, praying for people and breaking loose. A few years ago I never would have thought that strong Christians could actually have so much fun and be unreligious! It is amazing to see what God chooses to use to bring glory to Himself...

Before he left us today, Dan prayed various anointings over us based on which tribe of Israel he felt different interns represented spiritually - that was a really cool mini-impartation to receive. It was hard to see him go, as he truly has made a great impact on us all.

Just when we thought the goodbyes were done, there was another surprise goodbye announcement - Danielle Pitre (South Carolina) is going home to South Carolina on Tuesday! Her plans are to pursue other schooling, so while we're really happy for her, it was totally unexpected. All these goodbyes so soon are really tough to handle!

Mandy Wise at work as Sharon Felder looks on

The Week Between Trimesters

2007-04-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

The last day of the Winter trimester (March 29th) came like a flash - seemed like only a few days before that we had joined together. My brother Caleb (Calgary, AB) revealed to the interns that he was not returning for the next trimester, which came across as a total surprise to all. Interns had been asking me about Caleb for the last few weeks, but due to his request I avoided giving any direct answer.

The interns on the pitch

A whole slew of us interns went outside before dinner to play a US versus International soccer match - it was quite a contest! The competition heated up quickly when Rebecca Wallander (Stockholm, Sweden) scored the first goal for us, causing the US to pour more into the game. In the end, the International team was leading 4-0 when the US quit to get ready for the wrap-up party - WE WIN!

At the wrap-up party they played a long slideshow of different photos from the winter trimester and from the fall trimester (the trimester I missed). Dance music was played as some of us randomly jived to the beat, including the infamous Hokey Pokey song.

Because of Caleb's decision to return home to Calgary, I went home with him to visit Calgary for a week. This unique situation allowed me to majorly surprise one of my good friends (Melanie) back home in Calgary. She hosts board game nights on occasion, and she scheduled the first one of the year for March 30th. Before I knew I was coming home for the trimester break, Melanie jokingly asked me to fly home and attend her games night, so I said I couldn't because it was too much money. When Caleb told me he wasn't returning to New Hampshire for the next trimester, I found out Mom & Dad would pay for my flight home and back, and I never told Melanie of the change in the plans. I had Mom drive me and Caleb up to her house, and then had Mom go to Melanie's door, where Mom claimed that "Jesse knew you were having a games night and asked me to bring something for you, but you have to come and get it!" The expression on Melanie's face and her reaction when she saw me and Caleb at the end of the driveway was one I'll definitely not forget - the night was absolutely special! We played a variety of games, including ImaginIFF (great party game). It was a great way to launch my week back in Calgary.

Saturday I worked at landscaping with Mom to earn money to help pay for my next trimester in New Hampshire. I then met Rachelle Nicholson (who might as well be my lil sis) at Bonavista Baptist Church after their Saturday night service and joined the BBC crew for a late dinner and chat at Santa Fe Bar & Grill. It turned out to be the last day I would see any form of good weather in Calgary; by the time the sun went down, snow was starting to fall!

I thought it would be amusing to just randomly show up at my home church (SunWest Christian Fellowship) on Sunday after being away for 3 months. I was right - I enjoyed watching some of the reactions from different people when I ran into them. More than that though, I was shocked at how much pastor Willy Reimer's sermons have changed. He has obviously done a lot of digging and probing into different materials to gain new insight. The message he spoke on (regarding foot washing and applying lessons learned from it to today) had content one would never expect to hear in a Mennonite church. The Bridge church in New Hampshire still feels the most like church as I think it should be, but I am definitely liking the directions Willy is clearly starting to explore at SunWest.

Caleb's new occupation post-internship

Since there was snow on the ground, I wasn't able to landscape with Mom for any of the rest of the week. Instead, I earned money doing various odd jobs for her business logistics. Also, in our boredom me and Caleb did some random stuff, including Texas Hold Em with our stuffed animals (don't ask). To wrap up the week home, I went and surprised the Calgary Scrabble Club players by showing up for Scrabble Club yesterday. Boy did I enjoy getting some real competitive games in! I played 4 games and lost only 1 - not too bad for being away for some time...

The week in Calgary was great, but oddly it didn't feel much like home. I think that's a sign that I need to be in New Hampshire right now, as it feels the most like where I need to be. When I finally got back here, the joy returned - I was immediately entertained by the random crew of interns that came to the airport to pick me up.

Upon arriving at the Yellow House, I got to meet two of the new interns for this trimester: Kaylene Spresny (Michigan) and James Kyllonen (Michigan), both friends of Chad Seymour (Michigan) and Jesse Smith (Michigan). They're cool cats and will be a great fit. These next 3 months are gonna rock!

Dave Carpentier (Boston, MA) "calling" someone

International Fair

2007-03-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were informed by leadership that in the evening, there was a special event happening at Colby-Sawyer College (New London and surrounding areas' largest college). Every year Colby-Sawyer hosts an international fair where students of various ethnicities set up displays to share more about their countries and cultures. I jumped at the idea of going, as I love learning more about other cultures, and even more than that I love the chance to learn words, even if they're in other languages!

We got there at about quarter to 7 PM. Unfortunately, the displays were only set up for 5 PM - 7 PM, so I didn't have much time to learn about many of the countries. The first table I stopped by was the Iranian table. I spent about 5 minutes talking to the woman there about various Iranian anecdota, which included everything from Iranian caviar to learning about Iranian currency. She showed me several different rials, Iran's national currency, and even let me keep two! Before she left, she taught me how to say God Bless You in Farsi, Iran's national language. It is written like this in Farsi: خدا بركت دهد )م.ل.( It is pronounced Hoe-dah Haw-fez, and the H sound that we have in English for the first word is slightly changed - the easiest way to describe it is that you pronounce the H throatily.

My next stop was at the Turkish table. It was almost 7, so I didn't spend as much time at this booth. I did get a brief primer on Turkish culture from the woman there, and she was so honored that I expressed genuine interest that she allowed me to keep several Turkish Lira, Turkey's national currency. I then briefly went over to the French table, but the woman had already put almost everything away. I had a quick conversation with her in French (she was surprised at how well I did, as short as it was) and then moved over to the Peruvian table. The dude there was really cool; he let me look for a few minutes at his booth before taking it down, even though it was already past 7. I learned about surfing in Peru; he mentioned the difference in water temperature depending on the region in Peru. Their national currency (Nuevo Sol), translates in English to New Sun. I briefly conversed with him in Spanish, and then went on my way.

I briefly spoke with several women from different African countries, but their booths had already been taken down, so it was more small talk. The gal at the Rwandan table in particular was very kind, and shared a little even though she had nothing really to show anymore. The last table I went to that still had something on it was the Polish table; I made some more small talk and general questions, and then asked for clarification on their national currency. I know from Scrabble that it is zloty (pl. zlotych), but I had no idea how to pronounce it when I asked. I was embarrassed when she corrected me, but she was surprised I even knew what the currency was! Her table had postcards on it, and I happen to collect postcards, so I asked if I could choose one and she said yes. When I asked about zlotych, she told me that I could email her and she would actually give me some zlotych for my collection. Pretty cool!

Samputu and his friends performing

Although we all but missed seeing the displays, we got there just in time for the 2nd half of the fair; one person from each booth from each country said hello with a brief message in both their native language, and then in English. After that, we were in for a special treat. Several people from Rwanda were set to perform for us through singing and dancing their cultural songs. Samputu was the name of the guy who did most of the talking between songs and all of the singing; he clearly had an incredible musical gifting. His voice was so pure and resonating - it took me right into his culture, as he sang in both Kinyarwanda (Rwanda's national language) and English. He told the crowd that for all of their songs, they try to sing in multiple languages, but Kinyarwanda and English were the two he interchanged the most. During one song he called up the Rwandan woman who I had spoken to earlier; he asked her to dance while he sang. The way she moved was hypnotic; one couldn't help but follow her every step and swing. Halfway through the song, another Rwandan man joined her in her dance, and he was just as good!

One of Samputu's last songs was called "Children Are the Future"; he said that it is requested of him to sing it, more than any other song. As soon as he released the first note from his mouth, my heart melted; the power and passion from the song was immediately present. Interestingly, the Kinyarwandan portions of the song felt more powerful to me than the English parts. I'm believing more and more than when someone prays or sings in their native language, God's power is even more present.

For the song following "Children are the Future", Samputu excitedly proclaimed that it was now his turn to dance! He had another Rwandan man come up to sing while he danced. Samputu was also fairly good at dancing - that really didn't surprise me though, as he was so clearly gifted. He then told us that it was OUR turn to dance! Abby Webb (Michigan) was one of the first to get up after he said that - it was obvious she was really enjoying the whole experience. After taking a few pictures, I joined in with the dancers. Samputu sang the whole song in Kinyarwanda. When the song was done, Samputu told us that the Kinyarwandan song title means "Time to Dance" in English. How appropriate!

I was definitely disappointed at first that we missed the displays for the most part, but the Rwandans definitely made up for that disappointment with the show that they put on. My desire to eventually internationally travel has been renewed!

Various flags of countries at the fair

From Silence to Intercession

2007-03-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

Thursday marked what for some was an incredibly difficult challenge. Starting at 6 PM, we had to be speechless for a whole 24 hours! The point was that we were to fast something corporately. Nearly all of us also agreed to fast eating for 24 hours, and I even added on fasting my computer for 24 hours. I wanted to go for it!

I knew that not speaking was going to be the hardest part for me, not the loss of food or computer. The primary way we were to communicate was using a pen and paper, or the whiteboards in various locations around the houses. Some of the more amusing moments for Thursday evening was playing Hangman as we walked outside, me being taught Rummy with no speech involved, and Dustin Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) using an soundboard of Arnold Schwarzenegger audio clips from the Ebaum's World website to speak for him. I unfortunately slipped up on talking twice; the first time I messed up, I was trying a card trick but messed it up and muttered something out. Claire Tatton (UK) was sitting across from me and wrote "Start the Public Humiliation!" and showed it to me, much to my amusement. We were allowed to giggle and laugh a bit, but no talking. The second time I blew it, someone held the door open for me as I walked into the house and I instinctively said "Thank you" before realizing my mistake.

Interestingly, I dreamed before waking up at 10:30 AM. I looked around the room after I woke up, and my vision seemed a lot better than usual for the morning. After a moment I realized I was so tired from Thursday that I'd left my contact lenses in all night! I got very lucky in that my eyes weren't in pain despite my forgetfulness.

By this time I've noticed my thought process has changed; words are not queued at the back of my tongue so readily, rather they are flooding through my head and occasionally getting onto paper. I started to notice the little sounds, like a roommate exhaling, Crasher (the dog) scuttling his tiny paws across the floor, and a doorknob being turned elsewhere in the house. I listened to some teachings in bed for a while, then went back into half-sleeping mode as I listened to soft music for almost 2 hours. Between 10 & 1/2 hours sleeping and the half-sleepy time, I'd spent a total of 12 hours resting!

In the last few hours of the fast, I made my way over to the Yellow House (the girl's house, also the dinner house) with others from my "dorm" to await dinner. I went outside with David Carpentier (Boston, MA) to throw a frisbee around for a while, which is amusing with the inability to talk. Mandy Wise (Houston, TX) came out to join us briefly, and then went back inside. After tiring of frisbee, Dave and I went inside. All the interns were starting to gather in the family room, anxiously awaiting 6 PM and ultimately dinner time. When what seemed like forever finally passed and 6 PM arrived, the room let out a unanimous triumphant cry! We all eagerly took up our plates and went after the lasagna which had been made for us. Needless to say, it didn't last very long!

Saturday took us in a whole different direction altogether. The New London Bridge (our home church) has been planning an event to honor regional intercessors for several months. Basically the idea was that we as an internship and as a church would honor intercessory people. Some of this was to be accomplished with a free luncheon and a time of worship for the intercessors to fully express themselves where the church may have shut them down in the past. There were about 135 people that ended up coming! Part of what made worship special was that Aaron Evans (an international seer residing in Newbury, NH) called a friend of his, Virginia Sullivent, to come up and do the worship session for the event. She is of the acclaimed prophetic worship group Winds of Fire, and came all the way from Orlando FL! She was clearly very gifted and spiritually driven, creating an incredible atmosphere. It was one of the wildest worship sessions I've ever been in, but one should expect that with a room literally full of intercessory people, right? Near the end of the worship time before the luncheon, a small group of people (including a lot of interns) went up on stage at Virginia's invite to dance. Claire Tatton (UK) came up to me and said she felt the Lord tell her to go on stage but that she was hesitant, so I offered to go with her to make it easier. At that point we both went up there and danced up a storm!

To end the event, church leadership and all the interns created what is called a "Fire Wall". We line up on either side of the main aisle, leaving space for people to walk through the middle like one would a tunnel. We were instructed to impart whatever the Lord placed on our hearts to the intercessors, as we know they have given parts of their prayer lives and very lives themselves for our wellbeing. I felt the need to impart the renewing of the mind to all who passed through, and sometimes imparted that via singing to the person going through. It really is quite a unique experience, both being in the wall on the outside and going through it yourself!

The event honoring the intercessors was our last of this trimester; our last day of classes/activities for this trimester is this Thursday evening, which will be our commencement party! (YEEHAW) I will at that point be officially halfway through my time down here, and yet there is still so much to do and to learn...help please, Lord!

Snowstorms Mean Changes of Plans

2007-03-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

That they do. The earlier part of the week was so nice; we had a few sunny days, then a few rainy days, and we were doing just dandy. Unfortunately, when Friday hit, we proceeded to get buried under about a foot of fresh new snow. Jamie (Calgary, AB) and Chad (Michigan) made a less than wise decision to drive into Concord despite the weather. They ended up getting stuck and were forced to spend the night at a motel! 6 of the girls went together in their car to drive to Lebanon but were in for a bit of a surprise as the car got a flat tire on the way. In the meantime, I just stayed put in the house, playing on the piano and doing other random stuff to pass the day's time. As part of dinner, Noah Zehr (Utica, NY) made all of us Vanilla ice cream shakes with lime flavoring, while I made French Toast for all who wanted some. While it seems like an unlikely combination, the both of them together actually was really delicious!

We were scheduled to go to Rhode Island for a conference from Saturday to Sunday, but due to the snowstorm and the roads icing over, leadership canceled our trip out there. I was somewhat disappointed because I wanted to add another state to my list of states I'd been to, but I definitely would rather be safe than sorry.

My living quarters

I decided that since there was more time to do random things now that we weren't going anywhere, it was time to clean my room and take a few pictures of it. I've put up one of the better shots of my room for you to have a look at. The closet (off to the right of the picture) in my room is quite small; I have to duck every time I go into that closet, and I can barely stand up when I'm in the part of the closet with the highest ceiling. The view from my windows overlooks the side yard and the mini-highway that passes by this house. I can't wait until it is springtime, so that I can leave my windows open and the fresh smell of the outdoors can come into my room. Right now all that comes in is a lot of cold...

As our alternate event for the day, there was a youth worship event happening at the New London Bridge (our home church) that evening. I have to say, it was absolutely sensational! The music was just so well done, and led us all into that place of praise and adoration of God. The house was really gettin' down, dancing away as we went through the more uppity songs. I was movin' 'n' groovin' the whole time, too - I'm starting to think that worship is the best form of cardio on the planet! There was also a surprisingly large number of adults present for the evening as well; I suppose since we're all young at heart in the Lord, it's all good. We experienced a pleasant surprise when Kevin (the youth leader from the Wakefield, MA Vineyard) brought his wife & kids and some of the youth from his church up for the evening. It was unfortunate that we didn't get to spend a lot of time talking with them, as we were in worship the whole time and they had to leave early to get home to Massachusetts at a decent hour.

The auditorium at church

Something else that made the worship night special was that Kelly Guerra (Texas) was involved on the worship team as vocalist and guitarist. I'm not sure if she is going to be playing on the worship team for church tomorrow, so it could very well have been the last time we got to hear her sing and play guitar. Kelly has an incredible voice; the very essence of it imparts healing to those who listen. We have a special going away party for her happening on Monday evening, and then she leaves us on Tuesday morning. A few weeks ago, Kelly was proposed to by intern alumni Josh Steeper (Victoria, BC). Kelly and Josh are set to be married this summer, so Kelly is leaving Streams to go to marriage counseling and then marry Josh this summer. We will miss her dearly, but we are so happy that God is taking her to that stage of her life. Adios, mi amiga!

Free Weekend

2007-03-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago there was an unusual change of events - our trip for this weekend had to be canceled because our destination site was unable to host us. For the first time in a month and a half, we weren't going to minister anywhere on the weekend!

Dustin Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) and Jamie Bower (Airdrie, AB) well represented the creativity and humorous nature of us Canadians by setting up a weekend activity for us all to do. We would go to the major shopping mall in Concord, NH (about a 20 minute drive away) to do a photo and video scavenger hunt! The list of things we were to take pictures of or capture on video was of course impossibly long; they wanted to see what each of the groups would pick to do. I was assigned to a group with my younger brother Caleb, Jessie Smith (Michigan), Annalee O'Dell (Massachusetts) and Jessica Hamlet (Virginia). Even on a trip like this where things were meant to be light, I ended up learning and being reminded of something elementary yet valuable along the way. I quickly noticed a glaring issue of idle time spent figuring out which pictures and videos to take. Being the ever impatient one, I suggested that we at least take some pictures of the easier challenges listed on our sheet while we thought of something to do for the harder ones. What response did I get? "Chill out, relax..." I had to basically bite my tongue and just let things flow. Surprisingly, I actually didn't dwell on 'trying to win' for long, like I would have done in the past. Instead, we just ended up having a great time doing stupid stuff together, including getting two women working in a camera shop to dance with us to cellphone music (we captured that on video)!

When we were finally out of time for the hunt and gathering back at the Food Court, I knew that we definitely weren't going to win the competition, but it didn't matter anymore; I'd actually learned to *gasp* cooperate and let others have their way! Simple concept, yet amazingly difficult sometimes...

(I don't have the pictures/videos from Jessica's camera yet, I'll post some once I get them)

The other thing I figured out over the weekend was whether or not I'd be staying for the next trimester here at Streams. I've resolved that there are still some issues and strongholds I need to face and overcome with the help of covenant community, and this is the best place in the world to do that. I'm going to be here until the end of June for the next trimester, and then for the last week in June and the first week of July, some of us here will be going to Piedras Negras (Black Stones) in Mexico to do missions work. Part of the preparation for that will be in the next trimester upcoming - we will be taught Fundamental & Conversational Spanish at some point during our learning week, along with instruction on piecing together a sermon/message. Although the Mexico missions is not going to be the full 3 months like originally planned (which was disappointing), I am still quite excited to be able to do that. This is gonna be a rockin' spring...

My Birthday Weekend

2007-03-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

This weekend was certainly gonna have a different feel to it. Usually at about this time every year I am in Vancouver, British Columbia at their yearly Scrabble tournament, as it falls on the same weekend as my birthday. This year, I am on the completely opposite coast doing something completely different!

For the weekend, we were going to be interpreting dreams at the Olive Branch bookstore in Northborough Massachusetts, and then interpret dreams or give prophetic ministry at the MetroWest Bridge church in Natick, Massachusetts. Before we left, I got lots of birthday hugs from people - there's always an excuse to hug now it seems, but hey, I'm not complaining!

Olive Branch bookstore

The Olive Branch bookstore is in a town called Northborough in Massachusetts - the building it is in was built originally as a luxurious house, sometime around 1830. As a house, it went through several wealthy owners, the last one being a woman of faith. Although she was selling the house to a business investor, she prayed that the house would become a place of healing. The house became a small business venue for the next 2 owners, but then the next owner (co-owners, actually) made the building into what is now the Olive Branch bookstore. The woman's prayer was answered, as the current co-owners have done so much with the house! They added a cafeteria called The Ugly Mug; I got a good laugh out of the name the first time I saw i. While the resources and publications were added to the building, the feel of it being a home and communal place was remade. Various spiritually-related classes are taught on the top floor of the house, adding further to the healing atmosphere upon the bookstore.

When we do prophetic ministry or dream interpreting, we work in 3s; we believe this method fulfills Biblical principle, as God himself works in a 'team' of 3: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My dream interpreting team for the afternoon was myself, Kelly Guerra (Guatemalan girl from Texas) and Anton Luse (dude from New Jersey). Probably our coolest dream from the afternoon came near the end:

"I was walking through a house - I noticed everything was black and white. I walked out onto a porch and then back into the house. I went upstairs into a room, and started to paint a rooster on the wall. As soon as I did that, the rooster was the first thing I saw in color, and then everything else had color too! I went past a large room where there were bug paintings on the wall, and they started to come off and come alive! I went back out onto the porch I'd been on earlier, knowing the bugs were coming eventually."

We got to share with her that God was showing her a picture of her spiritual life. The black and white indicated her lack of spirituality. The first time she went on the porch, she got a glimpse of what she could have in Jesus. The rooster was symbolic of "the sun rise", which is a play on words alluding to "the Son's rise" in her life; basically it was an image of her acceptance of Jesus. The bugs coming off the wall were representative of issues in her life in need of being dealt with, and her second visit to the porch indicated more divine vision for her, in this case to deal with the bugs in her life. We assured her that it was a good dream and indicative of what God has done and will do for her.

Anthony and zee Parrot

After finishing our workshop, we packed up and drove to Annalee O'Dell's house for a lovely dinner. The interns surprised me by singing Happy Birthday and presenting me with a card that most of them had signed. I felt very much loved throughout the day, but this was very special. Dinner was chicken-fried steak (weird concept, but tastes really good), mashed potatoes and veggies: it was quite delicious!

Once we'd all pigged out on food, we expressed our thanks and then made our way over to the MetroWest Bridge Church in Natick Massachusetts, where pastor John Thomas was leading a youth event. Basically it was a time of inviting the Holy Spirit in to do works in people. Some received a seer anointing; if they didn't already have it, they received a greater measure of it. Others were hit with holy laughter (one girl laughed for over an hour!), and one girl was "slain in the Spirit" for more than 2 hours...it was quite something.

Most of our trip's purpose was now accomplished. The next morning, the remaining trip agenda consisted of the MetroWest church service and then prophetic ministry/dream interpretation following the service. I always like to say, John Thomas is one of the closest things you can get to Jesus. What I mean by that is not that John Thomas is a god, but that he is an amazing man of God and a representation of part of God's very nature. He is one of my favorite people to hug - I never want to let go each time I hug him. After an intense worship session, John Thomas preached on divine authority and protocol (i.e. why Satan had to ask God before doing stuff to Job's possessions, family and then ultimately Job). At the end of the service, he called forth anyone who was feeling condemned to come to the front for prayer, and anyone who was feeling convicted to go to the back for prayer. He released the interns and other prophetic voices to break those strongholds off the people of the church. Although I personally wanted prayer for feelings of conviction (I'm thankfully past the stage of feeling condemned), I was asked to prayer for others, so I complied and went with Kulbir Raju (intern from the UK) to pray for people.

As I was wrapping up and about to leave to join my dream team, I saw a girl from the Emerging Leaders conference we'd attended last month. During ministry time after a message, I got to pray for her in regard to her "spiritual hearing". She came over to me and gave me a great big hug, telling me that the conference and the time I'd spent with her had changed her life. She revealed herself to be a newer Christian and explained some of how me and the conference had affected her for better. I also got to meet her boyfriend before giving her a hug and heading off (I offered her boyfriend a hug, but he wasn't comfortable with it). She gave me contact information because she wants to keep in touch and ask questions she feels I can answer for her. It's flattering, but I'm remembering to leave all credit to God!

For the after-church dream/prophetic team, I experienced almost complete blockage on revelation for people and really had little to say. Before I might have gotten upset at that, but the Lord clearly wanted to work through specific people in my group, so I was ok with taking a mostly supporting role.

The evil Dunkin Donuts box

John Thomas kindly treated us all to pizza before we left for New Hampshire. On the way home, my van drove too far past a key exit on an interstate highway, so we stopped briefly at a Dunkin Donuts before regaining our direction. I went in and got a box of "Munchkins", which are their equivalent to Tim Horton's Timbits (Canadian pride!). I can happily say that Munchkins have absolutely nothing on Timbits, which are by far better tasting. It's all good though - I like sugar!

When we got back, Mike and Mandy Wise (leadership couple from Texas) had made dinner for all of us - Fish 'n' Chips. They cleverly disguised a final surprise for me, though; they called a 'meeting' after dinner in the dark, where they brought out a homemade cake they had made just for me! It was primarily chocolate, but they had done something particularly unique with my cake; what would usually be icing between the layers of cake was whip cream...it was so incredibly good! I had more than enough of a sugar fix for some time after that. Mandy Wise had something else to tell me, though. She pulled me aside and told me that she and Mike want to host me for a Mexican dinner on Wednesday as a 'gift' to me. I of course said yes - I'm really excited and can hardly wait!

My 21st Birthday Cake

Vineyard Winter Youth Retreat: Freedom, New Hampshire

2007-02-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

I was all set to go at 6:30 AM, as we were asked to be prepared by that time. Unfortunately, one of the two van drivers mistakenly filled up our van with regular gas instead of diesel, so we had to wait for some time for a siphon to empty the tank. Many of the people that were supposed to ride in our van fit into the other one, but I was one of the 'select few' that was asked to stay behind. Naturally I was somewhat annoyed with getting up so early on a Saturday morning only to be told to wait.

There was an increasing amount of trouble with the van, so finally we elected to take an intern's truck and a leader's small car to transport the remaining 6 of us to Freedom, New Hampshire, where the retreat was about to begin.

Until we got there, I had no idea that the retreat was actually at a summer camp! Cody looks exactly like an authentic summer camp should, but of course winterized. Sporting fields and recreation areas are abundant, and most of the cabins are very close to Lake Ossipee. Cody has been around for most of the 20th century as a summer camp exclusively for boys.

Camp Cody's cafeteria and Lake Ossipee

We arrived around lunch time, but much of the food publicly available in the cafeteria was already eaten. There was grilled cheese sandwiches and salad left, of which I gratefully partook. I usually don't have grilled cheese, but it was actually surprisingly good. I'm finding more and more that as I eat stuff that I used to hate or merely said I hated, I actually end up liking it!

In the afternoon us interns were split up into several teams to do different workshops - I was in the prophetic ministry workshop. Basically what we did for the youth was briefly explain some foundational concepts for prophetic ministry, what God's voice can be, and some stuff to do and stuff to avoid in prophetic ministry. Each group we had was very receptive and posed little to no problems at all.

With each of our workshop groups we split them all off into groups and had them play a game called 'The Revelatory Wheel'. Half of the people in a group stand in an inner circle, and the other half surround that inner circle in a circle of their own. People on the outside 'listen' for a word, symbol, picture or feeling for the person they're facing on the inside, and then relay it to them. The teens were naturals - all we really did was explain some of the more odd symbology for them. In one case, one guy prophesying to another guy in the middle saw footprints on the ground, and then someone else walking in those footprints; I explained that the guy in the middle is a leader in the kingdom of God, and what he has walked through in his life will be of valuable assistance to others who encounter similar experiences in their lifetimes.

After finishing the workshops, we headed back to the cafeteria to grab dinner. In the parking lot, I saw Aaron from the Wakefield Massachusetts trip last month - he walked up to me with a grin on his face and gave me a big hug. It was so good to see him again, especially seeing how he's already grown as a person in one month. We caught up as I ate a heaping plate of Chicken Penne Alfredo - possibly one of the best meals God ever allowed to be invented! If it weren't so fattening, I'd quite possibly eat it every day...

Aaron showing his skillz

Upon dinner's completion we headed over to the main gym, as that was where the evening worship service and message was going to be preached. I kicked a soccer ball around with Aaron before the service, accomplishing my mission of finding another way to relate to him. How he enjoyed himself!

We were all set to do prophetic ministry at the altar call at the end of the service. Unfortunately we were never called upon by the camp leadership, despite having made previous plans with them. Slightly disappointed at that twist of events, we packed up and returned to the cafeteria to grab some dessert before leaving. I ran into Aaron one more time in there, where he asked if I was staying for the talent show the teens were all involved in. I was really sad to not be able to stay to watch, especially because Aaron said he and some others were going to be dancing, and I really wanted to see Aaron's artistic gifting in action. I gave him one more great big ol' hug, and then gathered with the other interns to leave Cody. It was so hard to leave him behind!

Next Saturday we'll be going to minister at the Olive Branch bookstore in Northborough Massachusetts, and then on Sunday to a church called MetroWest, about 20 minutes outside of Boston in Natick Massachusetts. There's one other cool part about next weekend, though - on Saturday I turn 21!

Worship in the gym

Sweet Dreams: Salem, Massachusetts

2007-02-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

We were given some interesting news this past week: as of now, we'll be going on an outreach and/or ministry trip every weekend until the end of the trimester. Because of that, I'll try to update every weekend with what we've done and what's going on.

Our event this past weekend took us to one of Streams' most beloved cities to visit: Salem.

Although Salem was originally known "The City of Peace" (Salem means peace), it is today nicknamed "The Witch City" - this is because of the infamous Salem Witch Trials that occurred there in 1692, resulting in the hanging of 19 people. Random factoid: the term witch encompasses both men and women - the occultic community does not refer to male witches as warlocks, as warlock was a term originally coined by witch hunters to differentiate, and the word warlock literally translates to "traitor".

Usually Streams Academy interns come down to Salem during Halloween to set up a dream interpretation tent on the streets. People are attracted because it is free, as we don't charge money like the witches and occultists do. This time we came down during a chocolate and wine tasting festival, and due to the cold, we weren't going to work outside.

Preparing for worship at The Gathering

On one of the historic streets in Salem there is a church called The Gathering. It was founded in a building that used to be occupied by a bank, built in 1803. Inside you can clearly see the vault where money and other valuables were once held and safely locked away. Something I like a lot about The Gathering is its slogan: "Short on rules, long on relationships." Their emphasis is very similar to Streams' doctrine: focus on loving people like Christ does, and let it go from there. Their pastor, Phil, originally came from California as he felt lead to be there. This is particularly significant, as Salem's official witch (Laurie Cabot) came from the west coast as well, a while before Phil. Phil has been plowing ground by loving people and winning them over to a relationship with God.

We briefly took time to set up inside, and then prepared to start ministering to people for the next 5 hours. I was surprised as Mandy Wise (one of the Academy leaders) pulled me aside and asked me to be an intercessor instead of a dream interpreter for a while. I've long struggled with engaging in my own prayer life, much less prayer for others. This, I would find out, was my lesson from God for the weekend. Praying for the people coming in and for those who were getting dream interpretations and/or prophetic ministry was admittedly quite awkward for the first while. However, I began to realize that intercession, and thereby prayer, could be just as much 'casual conversation' as any conversation I could have with other people. That was the way I began to pray, and then it became easier.

During the last hour of ministry time, I was assigned to a dream team with John Harding (an Academy leader) and Sharayah Lee Quinn, one of the other female interns. We only got to minister to several people due to our late formation, but one particular story for us stood out. We had a woman come in who appeared very afflicted. John asked her if she had a dream she would like interpreted. She was hesitant, so John mentioned that we also give 'spiritual readings' (our street terminology for prophetic ministry), to which she responded "To hell with my dream, I want some of that!" We were able to give her some very accurate prophetic words, which then made her more comfortable to share her dream. In this case, she actually had 2 dreams, both of which were recurring. Something that we know from our dream courses is that recurring dreams are a message of great significance from God, so we were eager to hear what she had dreamt about. In her first dream, she said that she was at a campground with a good friend from her childhood named Ken. In her other dream, she said she went to a college from her hometown to take a Criminal Justice program. As she was relaying dream details, I couldn't help but chuckle. John asked her what Ken signified to her, to which she said "He was the only one I could trust," and that made me chuckle even more. John turned to me, knowing I had the interpretation and asked me to share it with her. In her first dream, God was showing her that He is like Ken, wanting to take her to a place of rest and letting her just trust in Him. In her second dream, God was showing her that she was about to go through a time of spiritual training/education, where she would be tapping fully into the justice that God has for her, and for her to provide to other people who need it. She was absolutely blown away, and wanted to know more. John started to share with her about God, prayer and how to connect with Him, which she eagerly took in. When she continued to press in, John took an even bigger step and asked her if she would like to go through a prayer with him to 'spiritually cleanse' herself. She wasn't quite ready for that, but she said that she did have a lot to go home with and was clearly quite relieved upon leaving.

During the evening time of sharing stories, we heard a story about a woman who came in with a dream she had recurring over 20 years. In her dream, she dreamed about holding different babies and caring for them. Her interpreters shared with her that 'the Creator' wants to use her to assist in birthing new things, to which she cried tears of joy. Before sharing her dream and getting its interpretation, she had just been prophetically declared as a woman of great compassion and love for people.

The original Salem Harbor Lighthouse, built in 1671

The next morning I got up early to see the Atlantic Ocean, as I've never been within walking distance of it. Although I've seen an ocean before (having previously lived on the West Coast for 12 years), it was really cool to see the 'other side' of North America. On the way back to The Gathering, I passed by the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, where various pleas from the people that were hanged are engraved in stone in the ground.

The church service was one of the best I've ever recalled being in - the last song we sang was an oldie - Fly Away (by Albert Brumley). I just couldn't help but dance to it! After the service, we got to prophetically minister to people of the church (as opposed to people off the street from the day before). It's completely different prophetically ministering to believers - for less experienced dream interpreters, prophetic ministry to believers can be difficult, because believers tend to have much more complex and vivid dreams. For this reason, I currently prefer working with people during events like Sweet Dreams.

Although we didn't participate in the wine or chocolate tasting, we did get to take pictures of the various ice sculptures set up on the historic streets of Salem. It was amazing how good they all were - there were fishes, seals, an ice castle, even an ice piano! I don't know how they do it, but what a gift. Speaking of gifts, I was introduced by a fellow intern to a cafe called Kushco's - they have the most amazing wraps and milkshakes! Upon my return to Salem, I know where I'm going for lunch...

One of the many ice sculptures

January Wrap-Up

2007-01-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

The first of three months in this first trimester wraps up tonight. It has been action packed so far!

We go to a small building in North Sutton, New Hampshire to partake in classes and complete work assignments. The classes go from 9:15 AM to 12 PM Monday to Thursday, and the work assignments go from 1 to 5 PM. Our classes vary from day to day, but one of the main ones is the ISD 201 - Understanding Dreams and Visions. That course wraps up at the end of this week. In it we were introduced to dreams and their role in the Bible, Biblical dream interpretation and how it's done today, dream symbology (based on Biblical influence), dream elements and their representations, and the different types of dreams we are given. My favorite part of that course was the understanding of the symbolism in each major colour (for instance, blue represents revelation and communion). Other classes we are in include Angelology, Saints & Mystics and Hermeneutics. The major prophetic voice of Streams Ministries, John Paul Jackson, usually comes in once a week to teach us something complex that God has revealed to him. One of those concepts was how Jesus' statement in the New Testament about the Father living in Him, and He in the Father was actually possible, and then how that points to the structure of the tabernacle as God instructed back in the Old Testament.

We have gone on two outreach trips this month - the first was to Wakefield, Massachusetts and the second to Lindenhurst, New York / Cranford, New Jersey. We went to the Wakefield Vineyard to make a presentation to the youth in that church. It was all about different ways God speaks to people (including dreams & visions), and prophetic ministry. A few of the kids in particular were very clearly gifted in the reception and interpretation of the Holy Spirit. That being said, during various prophetic exercises that we gave the kids to do, we were amazed at how profound all of their words of knowledge and prophecy were.

While instructing the kids, we also took time to demonstrate prophetic ministry to them. We picked random kids out of the crowd to demonstrate. One of my favorite people that was ministered to was Aaron. He was a 13-year-old kid who clearly had been shut down by his social peers and lacked self-confidence. He was given various prophetic words about how he had a voice that needed to be heard, that he has a brilliant mind gifted to him by God, and that he is free in Jesus to express himself as he truly is. A 6-year-old girl received a picture from the Lord during Aaron's time of ministry and drew out exactly what she saw for Aaron. Her picture had a door outside of a large heart, and a key close to the heart. Various other objects of symbolic significance were also drawn, some of which Aaron later revealed were elements from a dream he had and other prophetic words spoken over him from the day. It was amazing to see how much God was showing Aaron that he is loved and cared for.

Near the end of our time there, we split up into small groups (3 interns from Streams Academy, and 10 kids/parents per group) to interpret any dreams that they had. This was my first time attempting to interpret a dream live, although I was in a group setting so I didn't solely have to have an interpretation for a dream. It was very exciting when I did successfully interpret my first dream, though. I won't take any credit for it, because it is always the Holy Spirit that reveals the truth and meaning in a dream, but I was excited nonetheless. A mother there had a dream that went like this:

"I was in a medical lab. I knew that I was with a doctor, although I could not see him. The doctor told me to look into a microscope. When I looked through the microscope, I could see that there was blood on a petri dish. In the blood there were blue particles spreading."

Still somewhat lacking in the confidence that I could successfully interpret, I leaned over to the intern leading our group and whispered what had instantly popped into my head. He told me that it was good and to relay it to her. My interpretation for her was that the doctor was God, and that He has placed her in an overseeing position of authority over the spread of revelation (the blue particles) throughout a small part the church (a drop of the blood of Jesus).

That trip taught me that God indeed speaks to everyone (including me), even though I felt like I would never hear from God.

The outreach to NY/NJ was also interesting in terms of what was in store for me to learn/do. I very much enjoyed the drive down, as I had never been to Connecticut or New Jersey. The first day we were only driving as far as Lindenhurst NY, as one of the female interns (Sharayah) lives there and her church (Lighthouse Christian Fellowship South Shore) in particular is very much in pursuit of learning about prophetic ministry/evangelism. Although we were scheduled the next morning to minister to people in church, and then to go to a Jason Upton conference in Cranford, NJ the next evening, God's biggest influence/message for me happened that night. I had a really good conversation with another female intern, Jessica, about struggles in my life. Shortly after, all of the interns were called into the seating area for prayer and then ministry time/worship. Jessica was praying for me, and first she had some encouraging words for me. After that though, she said she felt the Lord tell her that I "needed to just dance". I knew for sure that she must have heard from Him, because I have been afraid of trying to dance for so long. I didn't say no this time; I went with her and we both started individually dancing in worship. It was an incredibly freeing experience as I felt much lighter. Throughout the night I received several random words of prophecy regarding breaking off the fear of man and my freedom of expression, which further confirmed God's intent for me to live free of worldly fear.

The next morning after church we had groups set up to either interpret dreams or receive prophetic insight for people of the church who so desired to take part. Although the theme for all of the people who came to my group's table was resting in God's peace and all had wonderful stories, the coolest of the people we ministered to by far was the last couple that came to sit at our table. It was a Portuguese woman named Ana, along with her husband. She came to the table looking for a dream interpretation but also for prophetic words. She had a recurring dream involving her ex-husband and people of her past, and she was afraid that it would hamper her current marriage. We assured her that seeing people of the past (including an ex-husband) doesn't necessarily mean that it is about that specific person or people, but something perhaps from that era who hold a value as significant as the person portrayed. In this case, it was something that was as intimate to her as was, at that time, her husband. The other two girls in our group gave Ana and her husband several specific words about their character and their lives in general, which caused them to laugh and cry out in joy. They revealed that they had come to another group when Streams was at the church last year, and that they received those words almost word-for-word from a different group of people! The last part, which was really cool, involved language. I felt for some reason that Ana should pray for us in Portuguese, so I asked her to, and she did so. Midway through she got very passionate and obviously anointed as she was praying. After the prayer, she revealed to us that just that past Thursday, she had told the church board that she was struggling with her confidence and overall ability to speak to and pray for people in Portuguese! I had a brief conversation with her in broken Spanish/Portuguese before we finally wrapped up and got ready to leave for the Jason Upton concert.

On the last part of the drive down, my brother Caleb was set up to be the van's navigator. Unfortunately, he had a little trouble getting the directions right, so our vanload of people, plus the other two vehicles of interns, had to stop and re-coordinate ourselves. One intern (Chad) had a GPS system in his car, so we chose to use that to get to our destination in New Jersey. However, due to some misprogramming on Chad's part, the GPS took us straight into the heart of New York City! I was in awe of the city - in particular though, I have never seen such stupid pedestrians! They honestly just walk whenever they want, regardless of when they're actually allowed to; not a wonder vehicles take so long to move around there. We got to drive through Times Square, which was really cool, and ended our escapade in New York by taking the Lincoln Tunnel from Manhattan to the New Jersey Turnpike.

Although I never cared too much for Jason Upton before the concert, I actually did enjoy it; part of that was surely because of the freedom I was receiving over the weekend. There were some people from a Holland-based ministry group that were given some time to speak to the audience regarding ministry to the poor/less fortunate, and then after the concert prayed for people. They made the night an opportunity for some to receive the Lord for the first time; it was exciting to see what was happening for some of the more 'hungry' people.

An Streams Academy intern alumni graciously hosted me and some of the other interns for the night, sending us on our way the next morning with French Toast casserole in our stomachs.

January has been an incredible month - I can't wait to see what February and March have in store!

First Few Days

2007-01-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

Just getting here was quite a challenge in itself. Me and my older brother Luke, along with 2 friends of ours (Jamie and Brandon Bower), got to the Calgary International Airport around 6:30 PM on the 4th. Our planned route was a flight to Edmonton, an overnight flight from Edmonton to Toronto at 1:05 AM, and then a flight from Toronto to Manchester, New Hampshire at 8:30 AM. Getting to Edmonton was no problem, sure. Our flight out of Edmonton was delayed by a half hour, which made time to get to our connection flight short already. We were certain we weren't going to make it. I couldn't sleep on the plane because I had an aisle seat, so I watched The Guardian on one of the plane TVs to pass the flight time.

Upon arrival in Toronto, we had to transfer over to the new terminal, pick up our bags and take them with us to Canada Customs. To our dismay there was about 200 people waiting to get through customs, with our flight set to stop boarding in 20 minutes! We thought for sure that we wouldn't make the flight, but an attendant called out for all of us flying to New Hampshire and brought us to the front of the line. Me, Jamie and Brandon all got through customs very easily, but Luke was unfortunately pulled aside for secondary questioning. There was a lineup in the questioning area, so I was told that Luke would not get out in time for our flight. Jamie and Brandon left for the flight, but I opted to stay behind with Luke and wait for the next flight. To our dismay, we found out that the next flight after the 8:30 one was at 5:30 PM! The two of us spent most of the day sleeping under chairs in the waiting area for our flight - probably the longest 9 hours of my life. Luke and I in the meantime both got a little sick (me with a tickly throat, him with a stomach flu), and the unusually hot cabin temperature in the plane to NH didn't help things much. We were both quite relieved when we finally hit the ground at 7:30.

One of the interns came to pick us up at the airport - a uniquely quirky fellow, David Carpentier. My younger brother Caleb had spent the Christmas holidays with him in Boston. They really compliment each other; each have their own degree of weirdness, but it's what makes them so lovable. There are two houses the Streams Academy interns stay in - the Grey House and the Yellow House. The guys all stay in the Grey House, and the girls all stay in the Yellow House. The interns go to the Yellow House each night for dinner, since most of the cooking is done there. David drove us up to the Yellow House, since dinner had just finished by the time we got there. As expected, we were mobbed with hugs by other interns before we could even get into the house. Oh how I've come to love those hugs already!

Saturday morning was orientation morning for all of us - our teacher/leader, Ken Nelson, wanted to get us all familiar with the curriculum, but then he added a special surprise: he was going to pray over each of the 4 new people (of which I was one), and prophesy over our lives. Ken's word for me was powerful; I openly wept because of the impact of what he had said.

In the evening, there was a salsa dance party to celebrate the forthcoming beginning of the winter trimester. Luke kept pushing me to try, but I didn't want to because of my fear of how bad I'd look. Finally though, a Indian female intern from England named Kulbir asked me to join her. She had quickly become one of my favorite people to be around, so I decided to try just for her. Unfortunately, God gifts us all in different ways, and dancing isn't one of mine...I gave up after 10 minutes because I couldn't get a hang of the footwork. I tried, though!

On Sunday we went to what is called a Bridge church in Newbury, New Hampshire. Upon setting foot in there, it was different from any church experience I'd ever had. Worship felt more authentic for me than it had at any time previous in my life - tears filled my eyes as I sang in complete reverence. The sermon was one of the best I've ever heard - a big black guy named Aaron Evans was preaching to us concerning the fear of man. The pastor introduced Aaron as "the guy who tells the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego as Shadrach, Meshach and A Bad Negro!" Aaron was just totally transparent with us; he relayed a very humorous rendition of his story about how God convinced him to move up to Newbury, New Hampshire from Orlando, Florida. He discussed his fear when sitting at a prophetic round table with John Paul Jackson, Bob Jones and Bobby Connor all around him. It made me realize just how human the prophetically gifted can be, too. I had this impression for some reason that they all had nerves of steel, so it was relieving and assuring to hear his story. He then called any of us who so desired, to come to the front to receive intercessory prayer to break the power of the fear of man. He had an intercessory team, along with himself, pray for each of us as we individually passed through. A few months ago I might never have even left my seat; this time I went, because I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone at Streams.

Today we had our first day of classes - Ken Nelson taught us about the major covenants of God that were established at different points in Biblical history, including the covenants of blood (Old Testament via an animal, New Testament through Jesus), the covenant of tears/sweat (an allusion to Jesus' sweat whilst praying in Gethsemane), and several others. In the afternoons we all work in various departments at the Streams Ministries offices - my job is in the Web Development area, and I will be assisting in the programming/coding of various Streams-related websites that will be launching this year.

Monday nights we do something called Monastic Mondays - before dinner, all the lights in the Yellow House are turned off, and the house is lit only by candlelight. The dinner usually contains no meats, and little to no noise can be made (we are to whisper or speak very softly). This is to honor the traditions of monks, and allow us to eat a 'holy meal'. After dinner, Ken usually speaks, but for this first week, we did something called soaking instead. Instrumental music is played in speakers around the living room, and all of us are to sit on the couch or lay on the ground and just let the music and the Holy Spirit 'soak' into us. It is quite a surreal experience; I felt great peace during the soaking time. Several others experienced holy laughter, but due to it being Monastic Monday, they stifled it into giggles.

It has been such a relief to see the lack of a religious spirit here - I feel ready to learn what it is I am to learn while I'm here. Tomorrow we start to learn about the saints in history!

Christmas Eve

2006-12-24T19:53:00.000-08:00

The holidays this year are certainly different than any previous year. The idea of only part of the family being present for Christmas is not new, as Luke was in Israel on a kibbutz at this time last year. This time, both Luke and Caleb are gone for Christmas, so I'm the only brother left at home with Mom & Dad. I am also saying a lot of goodbyes, due to the decision to join my brothers in New Hampshire for an internship program with Steams Ministries International.

Mom & Dad and a friend of theirs (Sandy) decided to come join me at SunWest Christian Fellowship (my church in Calgary for the past several years) for the early Christmas Eve service. Because it was the last service that I would be attending at SunWest in a very long time, I appreciated them being there with me. During the singing at the service, Mom called me over to the chair beside her. I looked puzzled, so Mom told me that she wanted to harmonize with me. It truly was special getting to sing with my mom - she has the voice of an angel and is truly gifted.

After the service, I got to get my goodbyes in to several people at SunWest that meant a lot to me. It wasn't as nearly as difficult as goodbyes have been for me in the past - I think God is starting to give me more grace for significant changes, which is really awesome.

Me, Mom, Dad & Sandy went to the Zoolights afterwards to take in the sights. I'd never been all the way into the zoo before, and it was surprisingly good! It was evident a lot of time and thought were put into all of the display, organization and flow of the light setups and designs. My favorite was one of the large oak trees in park being completely wrapped in a tritone design of pink, white and blue lights.

Upon getting home, we wound down by playing cards and then watching Ice Age 2 together - Scrat never fails to make me laugh in his quest to get that acorn.

Merry Christmas everyone!