Gift of Walking?

Saturday was a packed day full of activities. Sara and I started the day by going to the CNE with Mike, Susan, Steph and Dennis. It was so much fun! We ate at the food pavillion, browsed around the different displays of merchandise and played some games (Sara won a stuffed Homer and Bart Simpson dolls). After that, Sara and I headed to the India Mission team coffee house. It was a fund-raiser for the mission team and there were lots of people that came out to support the event. I walked into the almost-packed room and found my seat beside Hyal (we were supposed to meet up earlier to talk a bit on what's been happening with her, but traffic caused some delay). Sitting on my left side was Gideon, looking over at people happily while sipping his water. It was a neat event...there were lots of performances, skits, worship, auction, etc.. My favourite act was the guy who played the saxophone...he was awesome. A total Korean version of Kenny G! They ended the event with two praise songs...which I found to be appropriate, since everything is for Him. One of the songs had the lyrics "How great is our God." While this song was being performed, Gideon was singing especially loud...I was encouraged and prayed that I would get an opportunity to get to know him better. What you may not know about Gideon is that he has some deficiencies. He has Cerebral Palsy, debilitating him of some speech and hand movement. Anyways, the night was over and I headed to the washroom one last time before going home. I came out of the washroom and Sam came up to me asking if I had room in my car to drive one person home. I only had to take Sara, so of course I said "yes." He then asked whether it would be alright for me to drive Gideon home. From a room filled with so many people (many know Gideon better than me), I wouldn't normally be asked to do this. I knew then that God answered my prayer. In the car, I asked Gideon how he was spending his summer (a typical question that you ask someone to "break the ice"). Struggling to sound as clear as possible (it's still pretty difficult to make out what he's saying), he answered, "I've been walking." I was a bit confused by that and wondered what he meant. He explained to us that he walks from his house to church almost everyday. If you know where he lives and where the church is, you'll be shocked...If you know Toronto, he's walking from Bayview and Steeles to Don Mills and Eglinton! That's nearly 5 hours going and coming back! My initial reaction was, "why doesn't anyone give him a ride!" and I felt almost angry that he had to walk to church, because there was no ride. He explained further that he chose to do this in preparation for his mission trip to Albania this coming up January. He heard that there will be lots of walking during the mission trip and he wanted to prepare for that. You should've seen his eyes when he talked about going to Albania. He was using his ability to walk to glorify God. I thought to myself, how many of us use our many abilities to glorify God? We have been given so much...yet we waste them (often times) on things that seem so secondary. As C.S. Lewis once put it, "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." I've never made a mud pie in the slums or had holiday at the sea, but I'm guessing the latter option is better ;) Why settle for pleasing only ourselves when we'll find greater pleasure in satisfying Him?

Yay!

I got an e-mail today from Tyndale Seminary outlining my acceptance into their Masters program!!! I'm excited to study (I know...I'm such a nerd!) and to engage in forming some background in my knowledge of the most important Book ever written :) Thank you for all for your prayers!

B-Day Celeb...

My birthday this year was very interesting :) First of all, I almost forgot about my b-day...other people had to remind me. People all around me were asking, "so...what are you doing on your b-day?" Because I've been so busy (my fault for not saying NO!), I didn't have time to plan for it. But, it was good. On Saturday, I invited the "girls" over for a little get-together on the patio. Funny thing (well, not so funny)...our ignitor on the BBQ wasn't working, so I burned a piece of paper and decided to throw it in there...not knowing that I had the gas running pretty high on the grill. As soon as I touched the grill with the fire...well...you can guess what happened next. Yup. My arm hairs burned off. It was pretty scary.

It was good to have girl talk, chatting about guys, life, insecurities...you know...girl stuff. It was especially good to talk about what God's been doing in our lives. I love being used by Him!

Another highlight was the Sunday celeb. Some people from Milal decided to take me out for my b-day. I thought that it was going to be a small celebration, but it turned out to be pretty huge... I didn't even know a lot of them really well. When I got there, Sayah handed me a box (Books for Christ Label). I looked inside to see two books (one by one of my fav Christian author, Joe Stowell) and a DVD package of Ilumina. The Ilumina would be great for my Biblical Studies at Tyndale (if and when I get in). I'm thankful that God gave me such great friends to know exactly what I need :)

Stopped by Galleria (a Korean Mega Supermarket) for some delicious ice cream, bumped into a Chinese woman with the cutest dog named Lily and then went home. Left the house again to meet Alicia, Shannon and some of their churchmates at Milestones then headed off to pick up Melissa at the airport (she's the girl that went to Cambodia). It was a packed, but good day :)

Getting it Right

The most important thing about who we are and what we do, is our relationship with God. During my devo this morning made me to realize that He cannot work if we have any self-sufficiency left in us...It sucks to say many times, but as Christians we are "not for our own cause at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause." It almost sounds depressing if you really think about it.

Our world seems to be filled with people promoting a lifestyle that distorts the true intention of God's plan. It's funny, because we read about these things (promiscuity, gossip, idolatry, etc.) in the Bible and say to ourselves, "oh....that's bad..." and move on. When we're actually faced with situations and real people going through this, we wonder if we're being overly critical and/or judgemental and we rationalize to allow ourselves to "fit in to this world." We all know in our heads (even non-christians) that sex before marriage is wrong. But when we're faced with people who talk casually about it, we think to ourselves, "it must not be so wrong, if people all around me are so casual about it." Even people with the most upright conscience can rationalize to make themselves believe that how the world functions is how we should also.