Peace like a river

    I am 50 % funded !!!!!!!!!!!! Praise the Lord. After lots of haircuts, scarf making, a giant yard sale, paintings, and the generosity of people I don't even know, this process has been amazing and uplifting. I cannot believe that training camp is just less than 2 weeks away and then just one month left after that until I say goodbye until next summer!

 This past weekend I had a huge yard sale/BBQ and bake sale at my church here in North Bay. All the money raised went towards my world race and my friend Winnie who will be travelling to Mozambique to work with Iris Ministries. After lots of bargaining and a crazy sunburn we were able to raise over 1600 $!!!!! That is a lot of toonies and loonies or for all my friends in the U.S Dollar bills 🙂 I was so blessed by all of the people who came to support and help out and even showed up to help at 6 AM on a Saturday. THANK YOU !

  I wanted to really write a blog about how the Lord has been encouraging me lately and I have not even been able to find words to describe all of the joy, love and peace that I feel right now. So I thought I would share the types of songs I have been singing lately. To me I am usually always listening to music, have a song in my head, or singing them. Those songs usually reflect my mood, how I want to praise and worship the Lord and what I feel like He is saying to me. So the past few days all I have had in my head is…. CHILDRENS SONGS!! Yup thats right:) My mom recently told me that she was going to give me her ukulele before I leave for my trip ! I am SOO happy because it is such a beautiful instrument and it is way easier to backpack around than a guitar. So I started to look at old songs I would sing as a kid in church so that they would be easy to translate and sing for the kids I will meet this year. As I started to play these songs and thing of how easy they were to play and the words were clear and easy to sing I realized how sometimes as christians we can complicate our lives in areas of worship, praise, prayer, and talking about the Lords goodness.

  God doesn't care how fancy your worship may look or how intense your prayers may sound He just cares about the heart behind it all. Even in telling people about Christ we can get so worried about how smart we sound and how cool we look that sometimes I think He would prefer the simplicity of these children’s songs. There is so much I want to right about but instead I am going to post the lyrics to one of these songs. I ask that you just read through that and meditate on the fact that Gods heart is not one that is complicated and full of confusion and if that is how you feel He is not the one to blame. Meditate on these words and be filled with the love of God and let it overtake you. It is that simple just let Him strip away all the extra stuff that your holding onto that is temporary and weighing you down and find your strength in the one who is waiting with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever !

1 John 3:1-3See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure

I’ve got the Joy Joy Joy Joy down in my heart

                                                I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
 
  Writing this blog has been such a bold experience for me and has been great practice especially if I’m going to let this little light of mine shine in 11 countries! I love all of you reading this blog and I hope this week you are encouraged to keep it simple and let your light shine till Jesus comes 🙂  God Bless