Urbana: Update

I thought it might be a good time to update some things from Urbana. It has been difficult.. the adjustment from Urbana to real life. The transition has been seamless, in that Urbana feels like years ago. Obviously this isn't a good thing. I've forgotten a lot of promises I made to God.

In my commitment card, I made it a point that I would share the gospel with a co-worker. That hasn't happened. However, something really neat happened, where an ex-co-worker called me out of the blue and asked if I could set him up with someone that could answer some of his OT-NT questions. I was really excited about this, and I've dialogued with him quite a bit since then and he'll be meeting up with my pastor likely next week to get some questions answered.

Also in my commitment card, I committed to serving in a short term mission this year. Of course that will be Longlac. I need to book my years' vacations next week so it will be officially etched in stone by then.

I've been working on trying to finish my Perspectives project. It's been interesting to say the least. I've had to explore my own imagination on how the people of Longlac can be reached, in a long-term basis. Pretty much the ideas that I had hoped to get out of the Longlac committee that never came together, I am now needing to put on paper. It's also made me realize how little I know of these people. I really need to make it a point to understand them this summer, understand what makes them tick, how they would be brought to worship God, how they would enjoy worshipping, their general thought processes, what they strive for and what they hope to get out of life. All these are important things to learn about them, as part of research on learning the most effective way to evangelize to them.

So that's my update for now. I will try to update from time to time, to keep myself accountable.

Post #1001

Firstly, I have updated the comments to haloscan so that anyone can comment. I think people have been having trouble commenting because of the new Google-login feature of comments.

Anyway, I've decided to make a non-Urbana post regarding all I did during my vacation that was un-related to Urbana. It will be in list form and not organized at all. Good luck.

-The flight was seriously boring because my brother slept the entire time so I had no one to talk to
-I watched the movie "Invincible". Pretty good feel-good, zero-to-hero story. 7/10
-The lady sitting beside us evidently never flew before, she was complaining incessantly at the flight, food (no meals), drinks, pilot, Americans.
-Went to In-N-Out burger. Very good. VERY GOOD.
-I bought a laptop at Circuit City, it's a Toshiba Satellite, M115. It's mostly Vista compatible, but then again, it's not like I'll be using Vista any time soon.
-Went to Carl's Jr. These burgers are amazing. AMAZING.
-Vegas is seriously boring unless you gamble, smoke, or have never been there before.
-Watched "Pirates of the Caribbean 2". Quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. 0/10.
-Watched "The Break-Up" again. What a depressing movie, although it does have its moments. 6/10.
-Went to a Japanese restaurant called Osaka, which is supposed to be ranked #2 amongst Japanese restaurants in Vegas. I'll admit, the food was good. But expensive beyond belief. I got a chirashi that costed enough for 4 people to eat at Sushi Bong.
-Are you still reading?
-I saw and played a PS3 at an EB Games. They had 3 available at the store, but everyone was asking about Wii controllers. Anyway, out of the 3 new consoles (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360), the PS3 has to be the biggest waste of money out there.
-The Colts defense is looking good, but the offense doesn't. How will they fair against the Ravens? The future isn't looking so bright.
-Big (lucky) win by Seattle. I can't help cheering for these guys after they got robbed of the Superbowl by the NFL officials last year.
-Urbana was awesome
-Went to Red Robin, yet another burger place. Burgers were huge. I was still burping up burger meat the next morning.
-Watched "Apocalypto". I've decided that Mel Gibson is a mad man. Pointless movie, but good action and very exciting. So much blood. The blood "cloud" was a neat effect.. 7/10.
-We went to Primm, NV, for their massive outlet mall. I walked through the door, took a right into BR and bought pretty much ALL the clothes for the day. Sales after sales after sales. It was great.
-When I arrived in St. Louis, I quickly texted Ina to see if she was still there, she was. Thank goodness, because I'm pretty sure I would have gotten lost without her.
-We (as in the non-student T3Cers) texted a whole lot throughout Urbana in order to track eachother down. I can't wait to see my cell phone bill. Telus is 15 cents per message.
-The hotel rooms were nice, at the Adam's Mark. Allan refused to share beds so we each had to take a turn on the floor.
-In fact, one night he decided to try sharing so I had to only use half the bed. When I woke up I found him on the floor again.. he couldn't stand the tiny space. Unfortunately I didn't know so I was scrunched up the entire night thinking he was still there.
-Allan called Mils every single night. I thought that was sweet and romantic (or just responsible?) of him.
-I have 4 weddings that I know of, to go to this year. This is surprising because I thought my group was finished. I guess this is the second wave.
-I can't believe you're still reading..
-We have a dog, named Dusty. He's a pug. He's soooo cute. I am proclaiming that Dusty is the cutest dog in the whole world. He knows he's cute. When you call him for a hug, he'll take his fine time coming out.. he'll yawn a few times, stretch his legs a bit and saunter over. It's the cutest thing (although also annoying sometimes because you just know he's taking his time on purpose).
-My mom refuses to set the temperature at home above 70 degrees. That's 21 C. Maybe I'm spoiled but that is really cold to me. Plus I think 21 degrees there is different from here because I have a relatively smaller area for the hot air to cover, and it retains the heat. For some reason, it always feels cold in the house at Las Vegas. Except of course in the summer when it was 37 degrees.
-A lot of people are getting sick. It's some kind of cold virus, that just won't go away. I hope I don't get it.
-Dexter's season finale was quite possibly the most surprising twist I've ever seen. There is no way I could have seen that one coming.
-Speaking of television, my brother and I caught up on Smallville and it is confirmed that this show is going down the drain. One really exciting (but since quashed) rumor was that there would be a spin-off of Smallville for a live-action Justice League. The prospects of this would be unbelievable, but think of the budget too. They recently attempted an Aquaman spin-off that crashed and burned before the pilot even aired.
-During my stay in Las Vegas, I watched and caught up for the show Battlestar Galactica. This is a great great show. I watched all of seasons 1 and 2, and then what's left of 3 so far. This show is so awesome..
-I watch way too much television.
-My mom told me that Rachel Ray won #2 for most influential female. #1 was that first female speaker in US government whatchmacallit. That one is impressive. But Rachel Ray? Really?!?
-I wonder if there are any naysayers of the TJ Ford for Charlie Villanueva trades left. Ford is a beast.
-My brother bought me Far Cry Vengeance for the Wii for Christmas. I haven't touched the Wii since I got back.. but then again I haven't really done anything period.
-I'm starting to get a little bit concerned that I may have bit off a bit more than I can chew, regarding my Perspectives project. Most people do these things in groups, of 3 or 4. I am doing it alone. 2 weeks left til the deadline..

So there you have it. A quick and brief update of my vacation.

Urbana: God's Will

At Urbana, pretty much anyone you ask would say that the reason they were at Urbana was to learn more about God's will in their life.

I've now shared about several different perspectives or thoughts about what I experienced at Urbana. I will now delve into areas where I felt God speaking to me, and how I dealt with each of the little lessons God taught me.

Over the past year, several things have resonated through my thoughts and prayers.. if you looked through my blog entries (at least the ones that were serious and non-sports-related) over the last 2-3 months, you would remember several posts related to the following:

1) Missions

I've already been over my missions decision-making and prayerful requests for direction. To summarize, I felt God nudging me towards serving at Longlac once again this year, based on the general lack of concern for these people at a missions conference as large as Urbana, on God speaking to me through scriptures, on people I spoke with in regards to missions and their experiences.

2) Meaninglessness at work

To summarize, I have felt for a long time that the work I do is meaningless. What purpose do I have, for supporting a web-application at work? If I stopped, how many people would be critically affected? Is God pleased with what I do?

I registered at Urbana under the "Open for Business" track. Seminars belonging to this track were related to BAM (Business As Mission) and other business-related topics like money management, goals and ambitions, greed. I registered in this track having no intention of attending any of the seminars. I'm in computers. Who cares about business? I'm just a geek.

Over the conference I met several people, including Joe, an IT guy who worked at Saddleback (Rick Warren), and another guy named Brian, an owner of a software company that uses their income to fund missions. Both of these guys had valuable insight on the IT vocation, and how we can be used to further God's kingdom. Joe was a staff for Saddleback, and he talked to me about his missions work in China teaching computer and also psychology (he was now taking psychology in school). They'd travel from factory to factory in China to educate people about relationships, work ethic, and spirituality, and of course God would be a central focus on the latter. I met Joe completely at random, he was assigned to the same section as I had been, for the Stadium Servant (usher) job that I had volunteered for.

As for Brian, another chance meeting, I happened to sit down at his table for breakfast and found about his ministry. He had a software company that was using its proceeds to fund missions. He had created an openSource portal software, that gained popularity and advertising money through the Internet. He was now working on a content-management portal for churches (this is actually something T3C is, or at least should be, looking into).

I was really surprised when I talked to these two people and learned of the usefulness of what I do. It excites me in knowing that God uses everyone in some way, even computer nerds like myself.

I also ended up taking a seminar where a man spoke about innovations and inventions, creativity and entrepreneurial efforts that were used to further God's Kingdom. One story that particularly touched me was a group of women from Europe, who brought fabric and sewing materials to Africa, recruited sex workers and prostitutes, and made their own clothing line. They then shipped these back to Europe and sold them, creating a steady income for these women who could now support their families without needing to sell their bodies and risk the transfer of sexual diseases. What an amazing idea that essentially provides a sustainable income for a group of people who really needed it.

I don't believe in coincidences. God placed these people in my life so that I could have a chance to hear their stories and to learn about ways that I can use my skill set to build on His kingdom. No longer am I going to work just so I can evangelize to my co-workers. There are several different options out there for me to experiment with.

This truly gave me a renewed sense of excitement and passion about my work.

3) Relationships

I've lamented throughout the year about girls, the perfect wife, being single (and loving it). It's been a topic that seems unavoidable at times, due to the sheer volume of friends getting married or engaged, co-workers asking me, parents, etc. There's just no way around it.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I truly believe that it is up to God whether or not we find that special someone. Some people function better with a partner, others excel by themselves. There is no right or wrong. God says yes or no, and that's it.

Maybe I sound foolish in saying this, but I put this entire thing into God's hands. I am a true believer that God provides when we ask. God answers prayer.

(You may be wondering how this fits into my Urbana sharing. It just does..)

4) Worship

I have been asked to lead worship. Personally, this notion scares the crap out of me. I am not sure I can think of anything more scary than leading a congregation for *anything*, let alone the possibility of playing an instrument, while singing, while leading. That is just plain scary to me. And to have to have the onerous task of trying to get the congregation into the right mood, the right "place" -- seems almost impossible. I have enough trouble down in the pews trying to find a way to stand before the Lord and truly worship Him myself.. and then now, to have the responsibility to get people there? Yikes.

I have been asked to lead worship and I am scared at this prospect, because it's been asked several times now by different people.. people who don't even know eachother so I couldn't just blame it on a secret plot against me. It's not just a big coincidence.. God's trying to tell me something.

At Urbana, I repeatedly found myself at that "place". Coming before God, in His presence, being filled with the Holy Spirit. The emotions I felt, the freedom of letting go of myself, releasing my self-awareness. Of looking up and reaching out for Him, arms out and inviting Him in.

I don't know how to bring people to that place. But I am interested in finding out.

This is a topic that I will have to revisit because I am just totally scared at this point at the prospect of leading. I'll be praying but I'm asking you to pray with me.

--

So to summarize:

God answers prayers.
God places people in your life for a reason, not by coincidence.
God will tell you things you may not want to hear, but you should listen.
God has put you where are today for a reason.

Urbana: Poverty and Injustice

Love your neighbor as yourself
See a need and meet it
Defend the powerless
And in heaven be richly greeted

Our lives are but a breath
Only one chance to throw it away
To die to oneself
And see Jesus anew each day

Poverty, and dealing with poverty as well as the AIDS pandemic was one of the major subjects this year at Urbana. What our roles are in this battle against disease and suffering.

On Friday evening for dinner, Urbana delegates enjoyed a special meal. What made it special, was that it was a mixture that World Vision gives to the poor in Africa, a mixture of corn meal, some grains and vitamins.

It was difficult for me to enjoy it.. first of all it didn't taste very good at all. I put in one packet of sugar and heard many put in 3 packets. But the point wasn't to enjoy it but rather, to give a glimpse into the life of a poor african (or other country) grouping up in a poverty stricken world. I was touched by that.. and even more so, an hour later when my stomach started growling for more food.

This level of poverty really makes me think about how I spend my money, the level of luxury I live in, the number of useless things we in North America complain or debate about. Kinda puts things in perspective.

For instance, sitting in a nice 4-door sedan wondering if I should have gotten leather seats instead of cloth.. how cleaning my interior could have been so much easier if I had leather seats. Or while driving, I start to wonder why I didn't just splurge an extra thousand bucks to have the volume control on my steering wheel instead of way over there on the dashboard. To put things into perspective, the money spent there could easily have fed several villages for years.

The evil one is evil
God is faithful and true
They're fighting over your soul
So whatcha gonna do?

He promises to guide you
Promises clarity
So please don't take His call
To just mean: "Clothes for charity"

One kinda cool part of that night was that Bono from U2 teleconferenced in and spoke to us. He spoke about the war on AIDS and our roles as Christians. It was neat.

This world that we live in.. there is just so much parity between the many blessings that I've had compared to the many horrifying atrocities that others have experienced. But I think that the asterisk on both accounts would say that we all need God.

All the evil and injustice of the world goes streamin
Into city where kids cannot even start dreamin
Cuz they laborin' without knowing the hope of Jesus
Or they simply dying of preventable diseases

It may seem daunting friends
But your battle gear is useful
Every day spent in the Word of God
Is making you more truthful

God is concerned with the last, the least, the lost and the littlest. One speaker, Sharon Cohn told us a story about a woman named Elizabeth, a Christian. She was told about a job that would allow her enough money to support her family, only it turned out that she was captured and sold to a brothel, where she was imprisoned and forced to become a sex slave. She was raped and abused repeatedly. She prayed for God's help. A year later, when she was finally rescued, they found this written on the wall of the her prison cell, where she had been tortured and abused:

"The Lord is my light and my salvation --
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life --
of whom shall I be afraid?"

"When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall."

"Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then I will be confident.

(Psalms 27: 1-3)

When I heard this story, it nearly broke my heart. To endure the way she did.. I wonder and fear if my faith is as strong.

(italics are a rap written by Jedd Bloom)

Urbana: Unify Us

We lift our song
Sing as one voice
To the King, let it ring
We need You

We lift up our lives
A living sacrifice
Give it all, all Your call
We need You

At Urbana I was exposed to a huge dose of God, of prayer, praise and worship, a constant feeding of God's word and instruction. I felt the Spirit moving in me, I felt peace, and this unending urge to smile and laugh as a result of it. It was a 5-day spiritual buffet of love, an all-you-can-eat of blessings and teachings.

Going from what I suspect was a tiny morsel of what heaven must be like, to the "real world", I feel the need to feed again and I'm just now realizing how hard that can be when we are faced with so many distractions, negative thoughts and feelings, sin.

Unify us
Purify us
So that we will change the world
So that we will change the world

It's made me realize how much I need God. How much WE need God. How I need to always recognize His grace, in knowing that He is there for me, that He is calling my name and reaching out His hand towards me. It's hard, I think, to also have that mindset with all the things going on around us in everyday life.

And as I try to continue this walk in Jesus, I must strive to maintain a balance between gorging on spiritual nourishment, and eventually feeding others. God is a missionary God, we're all called to serve in missions one way or another, so we need that balance.

Jesus you are our hope
Giver of life
Without you what could we do
We need you

Towards the end of the conference, the emcee Greg Jao spoke about how the transition between "Urbana-world" to "real-world" would be difficult, because regular life is so much busier, so much more distracting, etc. I've been feeling that this morning. So many overwhelming feelings and thoughts, and as real life creeps back in, so many distractions and temptations.

We need you Lord
We need you Lord
We need you Lord
Here our cry

Urbana (Happy New Year)

I felt so happy today. I'm still happy. I feel so unbelievably blessed.

Worship time was so good, the place just absolutely erupted tonight, it was so amazing. God broke down the walls of inhibitions tonight. I sit here today and admit, proudly, that I, ebrian, danced. I've made this excuse in the past, where I'd say that dancing is silly and that I would probably only dance if something truly amazing happened, like for Jesus' second coming. Well that's not quite what happened but I let's just say I was really into it.

And honestly, I probably looked pretty ridiculous, but I didn't care. God was "in da house" and I was soaking it all in.

I spent most of the day reflecting on what God has been speaking to me about over the past few days. I've committed myself to the Ojibwey people of the Longlac area. I know it's where God's calling me to commit, and that feeling of being certain of where the Almighty wants me is so satisfying, so fulfilling. That fact alone had me smiling for most of the day, and just feeling so uplifted and relieved. I don't know how else to describe it other than that I felt "full" of spirit.

I know what Chris Tomlin was singing about in his song "Enough", that all of God, is more than enough. I feel satisfied like I had a big meal and you kind of just sit there patting your stomach and smiling.

God is good.

Urbana pt 2

Today I felt a major breakthrough, in terms of figuring out what God wanted me to do. The pieces finally started to come together, through the people I met, through scriptures, and through what I felt was God's speaking to me.

There was a speaker who said that to confirm a calling you need 3 things: Confirmation from scriptures, confirmation from the Spirit, and confirmation from friends/family. I felt that all those came together for me yesterday, through prayer, readings, and through people I interacted with.

The schedule finally allowed us for some free time and that allowed me to go into the Global Connexxions area to visit all of the mission agency booths and theological seminary booths. As I wandered through the 350+ booths, I realized something rather disheartening and yet exciting. I spoke to many mission agencies. There were tons of them, covering the globe from Asia to Africa to Europe to North and South America. Urban ministries, tribal, unreached people groups, bible translations, business as missions. There was even an army booth, and aviation ministries, engineering, english teaching, radio, even internet ministries. Out of the 200+ agencies I walked past or spoke with, there was only 1, yes ONE Native North American missions agency. Talk about a forgotten people.

I spent a good 20 minutes talking to that one agency, and accidentally conveyed the idea that we were looking for an agency to send us, which certainly isn't the case. What I was really trying to do was find some ideas as to how they handled longer-term solutions for the reserves, but instead they thought I was volunteering our team for their ministry. Talk about a big misunderstanding, but I figure that as they send me more information, I can just use that information and share it with our church.

I kind of felt that because this was my second Urbana, I wouldn't get caught up in all of the emotions and grandeur of worship. I don't think you know what it means to worship in unity until you've attended a worship session in a size as large as the Urbana venue. The sheer magnitude of it is awe-inspiring. Picture the Air Canada Centre full of 20,000 happy, jubilant Raptor fans cheering for the Raptors as they just won an NBA Championship, or similarly, a Leafs game of the same -- actually we Leaf fans have suffered enough, let's just stick with the Leafs victory and just imagine how crazy the fans were. That's kind of what it was like today in worship at Urbana, only instead of Leafs we were cheering for God, and instead of 20,000, it was 22,250.

I was noticing that it felt like all the delegates had let go of their inhibitions and were fully worshipping God with not just their voices but their arms and body language. It's like people finally let go of their inhibitions, casting all there crowns upon Him. It's an amazing thing, when everyone does it all at once.

Urbana

I've been finding increasingly that Urbana's seminars are no better than Perspectives. That's not to say they're a waste of time, but the fact is, I haven't learned anything in a seminar/workshop here at Urbana that Perspectives didn't already cover.

However, the speakers during the plenary sessions have been excellent.

I started attending the "Open for Business" sessions, which is what I was registered for, but was previously completely ignoring because, well, I'm not a business person. But they have sort of recognized that people like myself, (ie: technology) also fall into the same category. Today they talked about innovative ways to help those less fortunate, and ways to minister to these countries through innovation and entrepreneurship. I thought it was pretty cool.

During this time and through constant prayer (seems like I've been doing a lot of that lately), I've actually leant the opposite direction and am now almost 80% sure that I will go to Longlac next year and not China. It's just that over the past day, God has been speaking to me about several things:

- the issue of urban development
- stuff about sustainable development
- developing long-term relationships and partnership
- First Nations people
- "keep on going" -- at one point one of the speakers asked us to stand up and say this to one another

I actually saw Richard Twiss, the speaker at Ishskwaday, lining up for seats and I felt this excitement, and then another guy spoke who was half First Nations' blood. And I guess in general, I started to think about how, everyone is focusing their attention towards reaching Muslims and Hindu's, and people suffering from AIDS. There's so many people out there that need God, but I kind of feel like the First Nations people are being left out.

Also the whole entrepreneurship thing has gotten me all excited. I think it would be pretty cool to come up with an idea and then share it with others, and then together, work on it and market it, and then either use the money we raise to help others, or invent something that would help others. I always had that kind of a dream back when I was in school.

So..for those reading, please continue to pray about my decision. Although I am now leaning towards Longlac, yesterday I was leaning towards China, so who knows right?

St. Louis

I'm in St. Louis for Urbana. St. Louis is supposed to be the most violent city in North America. You wouldn't guess it if you walked around the downtown area though.. this city is dead. It seems far too underpopulated to be a violent city. Anyway..

I've been praying that God will speak to me about which missions opportunity to take -- whether it be 2 more weeks in Longlac, or 4 weeks in China teaching english.

The two choices can be broken down into the following thoughts:

(a) 2 weeks in Longlac
- continued growth in my missions journey
- continuing what we started at Ginoogaming #77
- continuing to build friendships we forged over the past 2 years
- getting a chance to share the gospel directly to the people
- saving 2 weeks of vacation for visiting family at Christmas time

(b) 4 weeks in China
- taking a big step into my "missions career"
- first chance at ministering to Muslims, something I'm pretty excited about
- teaching english is not my forte.. and I'm somewhat reluctant to use it as an avenue to minister to people. But I realize it's a way to put your foot in the door. Still, on this note Longlac is better because we get to actually share the gospel without getting arrested. Speaking of which..
- first exposure to a country where the gospel isn't allowed
- possible start to a longer-term commitment

So that's kinda where it stands. I've been praying about this for weeks now, ever since I was invited by one of the pastors at our church to be one of 6 to go on the China trip. It's been a struggle, I know that God would be proud of me for either one, but I feel like this is a turning point and I can either start devoting everything towards the First Nations People, or I can direct my attention towards the Muslims in asia. I feel that both are good.. however I feel that the First Nations reserve thing is something that is popular and more suited for "new missionaries", kind of like a stepping stone.

Today after a plenary session sermon by Brenda Salter McNeil, I'm leaning more towards going to China. She spoke about Genesis 11 and 12, about how Abram and Terah settled in Haran even though they had intended on going to Canaan. She challenged us that we should not settle, that we should go exactly where God intends us to go, and when God opens doors we need to just go and stop making excuses.

The one thing I guess I should mention was that there was originally a major hitch for me to go to China, because it was originally a 5-week trip. I didn't have enough vacation days to go, and I was going to have to beg my boss for time off in addition to using all my remaining vacation days (including carry over). But then God answered that prayer by having the trip changed to 4 weeks.

I felt like God finally (after being silent now for quite some time) was letting me know that I don't need to be afraid of unknowns (like teaching, which is something I'm not all that comfortable with), and to just go for it.