A Lesson on Real Life Worship!

Wow, it has been quite a week. I met a girl named Jessica a few months ago at an outreach that we did here at Joe's Place called Torch. She surrendered her life to God and ever since I have been mentoring her as she grows into her relationship with Christ. It has been such a growing and learning experience becoming friends with her. She is 9 months pregnant with her third child and is working towards cleaning up her life free of drugs and alcohol and prostitution.


On Wednesday she asked me if I could drive her to Regina for a doctors appointment. I didn't have much on the go for Wednesday so I took the day off and went with her. It was a trip to Regina that I will never forget. She grew up in the 'hood/gheto' of Regina so that is where her doctor was. As we drove she pointed out to me memories she had in the place we drove by. "That's where I used to live with my kids before they got taken away from me...that's where my boyfriend almost murdered the guy and thats the dumpster he dumped his body...thats the car Brian used to live in...etc." Wow these were stories I hear of on the news or in movies but never have I met and been friends with someone who this was the reality of their life.

After the doctors appointment we went to visit her cousin and her children. My friends, I have never felt my heart break into as many pieces as it did this day. We walked in at 1 in the afternoon to find the children and parents all still sleeping. The three youngest kids had soiled their diapers at least three times and had not been changed. None of the kids had been fed that day including the 5 month old baby. The parents were hung over and so Jessica and I picked up the babies and took them down stairs to get them cleaned up. We looked for food in the house and all we could find were three cans of soup and four pieces of stail bread.

Jessica and I had just come from having lunch at Humpties and had brought our left overs with us. We gave our leftovers to the kids because there were no clean dishes to even make the soup in. I felt the love of God burning in my heart as I held these kids and fed them.

My friends I can't even write into words to the brokeness I felt holding and feeding these kids. You could tell they don't get held a lot and so for the next 3 hours I just hugged them, played with them and told them how precious and beautiful they were and that God loved them.

After an hour and a half of us being there the parents got up and I took the mom to the food bank for her to get food for her family. This was also such an eye opening experience as food that most of us would never think of eating cause it was too bruised or outdated her and her kids were rejoicing at how much great food was there. I usually don't think of myself as rich but I was reminded that I truly am blessed to have been raised in the home that I have been and have the opportunities that I have had.

After we returned from the food bank I looked around the house I didnt see one toy around. I asked one of the older boys what they do all summer and he responded "watch cable". At Humptys Jessica had found a yellow bouncy ball leaning up against my car wheel as we were about to leave and was like "Leanne, look it, we've been blessed". I smiled and was like cool I like balls. She brought it into the car and we had headed to her cousins. So when I noticed these kids had no toys I told charles, the lil two year, "hey budd I have something for you in my car. He ran to look and found the ball. His eyes lit up the size of the moon and was like "for me?" yep. Him and his lil sister and I just played catach for like 20 minutes before i had to go.

The reason I share all this with you is because while all this was going on that day Isaiah 58 continually kept coming to mind and replaying over and over again. I went home and the next morning read this passage. It reads as follows,

5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD ? 6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness [a] will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. "

It broke my heart to see the way these young kids lived in neglect and fear. I felt utterly hopeless at first because I don't have any means to help these kids out of their situation. However, as I read this passage I realized that if I feed them, provide for them, love them and point them to Christ that these good deeds will shine to them and give them hope in the darkness of their reality.

Jessica and I took two of the older kids back with us to Moose Jaw for a few days and took in and cherished every moment that I spent with her and those two precious kids. I loved them, played with them, fed them, taught them about Jesus and at the end of the week I knew that this is what real worship looks like. This is the kingdom of God. These are His precious children and He has placed us to be a light in the world to shine in the darkness and point children and families who are broken and in despair to the love and hope that is found only in Jesus Christ.

May you feel spurred on to feed the hungry, meet the needs of the oppressed and show grace to those who society frowns upon and shake their fingers at; and remember we too don't deserve the grace and blessings of God but He is merciful and loves us and delights over us and we have been called to do the same. May we all learn how to be the hands and feet and mouthpieces of God to a wicked and depraved world and shine like stars in the darkenss.

A Father's Delight Over His Children!

So the past few weeks I have been house sitting for one of the girls from Joe's Place. Her family is on holidays and God opened the opportunity for me to spend the past two weeks to stay in their house and look after their pets. Although many of you may not know I love dogs because my family dog, Max, is crazy and I very rairly have any praise to give him becaues of his stupidity... the one thing I do love is taking dogs for walks. So it has been so much fun getting to walk Sheba, the family dog. The first day I took her for a walk was just through the back alley to the school field behind their house because I had no leash for her. As I was out there I realized it was going to be a beautiful sunset so after her walk I left her in her house and went for a drive to try and find a field to watch the sunset. (before I left I looked for my camera but couldnt find it anywhere so I just left cause I didnt want to miss it).
I didnt really know where I was going becaues it was my first night in that neighbourhood but when I got to a 4 way stop I felt I should turn left although I was pretty sure that was just another part of the suburb. But I followed my gutt and drove it ended up leading right to a field on the outskirt of town right by the traintracks (I have a new fedish with trains since being out here). I drove down the road for a ways and then turned around as the sunset was past its peak. I thought to myself "well that was nice, but God was there more you wanted to show me?"
As I drove back towards the suburbs I noticed another car had stopped to admire the sunset. I then got to the train bridge and saw two middle aged men standing on to of the bridge with bears in their hands admiring the setting sun. On the cliff of the hill (yes a hill... i know...it was very small but it was still a hill) were two teenage guys also taking in the firey sky. I began to feel as though I was no longer even driving but that I was now sitting in the passengers seat watching through Gods eyes. I passed by a grandmother pushing her grandchild in a stroller and a middle age man gently leaning over and kissing his wife on the cheek on their front porch.

As I continued to drive I felt so close to my heavenly father as He was showing me His heart for His children. It doesnt matter where each of those individuals are in their relatioship with God. They couldbe seeking Him, they could be close to him or they could be running as far away from him as they can get. But that does not change God's heart for them. Each day He gives us gifts and delights over us and finds joy in us. The Bible says that God lets the sunset on the righteous and the evil the same. All of creation is God calling out to His children to take notice of how much He loves them and is wanting them to delight themselves in Him. We all know that when we see a sunset or we look up and see the stars or the northern lights that there is something inside of us all that makes us feel so small and yet so warms and loved inside. Why is it that these things seem so romantic to us and make us feel intimacy inside of our hearts? I truly believe it is the love of God our father, woeing us to himself. God could seperate day fom night by just turning off the sun like we do with light switches. but instead each day He delights in creating a fresh new sunset, one that is new and unique from the rest just so he can display a fresh the care and love He has for His childrnen.

I came home that night and I journaled and just creid with joy that Godloved me and all of us that much. I then was like "where is my camera? thats so weird I cant find it". I looked for the third time in my backpack and found it right where I knew it was all along. I believe God allowed me not to see the other times I looked for it becaues I would have been so busy trying to capture the moment that I would have missed the gift of being still and being in God's presence.

Friends, make sure to take time to be still and intimate with God this week. Go for a walk in a park or in the woods or down a dirt road. and ask God, is there more to this moment you want to speak to me? God can often be silent but if you ask Him questions he often responds in ways you never imagined.

Be blessed this week my friends and seek God while He can be found!

God cares about football Games!

So last weeks Riders game was amazing. We took 25 youth to Regina for Sakatchewan Rough Riders vs Edmonton Eskimos game. On the way there our old Joe's Place bus began to shake and was crawling at about 30 km 15 minutes outside of Moose Jaw. After a few minutes of this I looked at Adrienne and Amy (other staff) and was like we should pray... I stood up and told the youth that I believed that God had provided us this opportunity to go to the football game and we should pray and ask him to allow the bus to work so we could get there and back becuaes God cares about even this kind of stuff and I believed God woluld fix our bus. I prayed and sat back. for another 5 minutes the bus kept shaking and I went up to talk to Curtis who was driving the bus about what we should do and all of a sudden the bus just kicked in and drove smoothly the rest of theway to Regina. We got to the football stadium and stopped to ask directions to where to park th bus and the bus just turned off and wouldnt turn back on. God got us all the way to the Stadium and not an inch further. wow.

The game was amazing and we won sometime like 46 to 16 or something amazing like that andkids had an amazing time (inspite of the squelching heat) . After the game we got the chance to go out on the field and meet 4 of the key players of the game and they shared with our youth their testimonies of how God has taught them to put him first in every part of their lives and how God has taught them to put their trust and faith in him alone. they challenged the youth to do the same then the youth got to get their pictures taken with them and get their autographs on a little hand out that had the gospel written out for them by one of the players. we returned to the bus after hanging out with the players and prayed that God would allow the bus to start again and get us home. As was before the bus wouldnt start and was just sputtering so Curtis turned it off. then all of sudden the bus just started on its own without the key being turned on. Praise God! We got all the way to Moose Jaw's main street when the bus started shaking again 3 blocks from Joe's Place. we pulled into joe's place and I just sat there amazed at how much God cares about these youth and that he loves them enough to get them to and from a football game in order for them to hear more about his love and that they could see the power of God displayed in even our rusty old bus.