mission burnaby

happy holidays!

2009-12-31T18:52:00.005-08:00

happy new year everyone!

i hope you all had a fab 2009 and have a great 2010!

if you want to email me email my mom and she'll let you know my email address
tracey@traceylheppner.com

i hope you all have a happy holidays and

will always remember it for a long time.

so have a have a happy holidays!

love you guys so much!

and hope you enjoy this picture of

my funny, lovely family!

and thanks for following my blog

merry christmas and have a wonderful, happy new year!

love rosie

a christmas hmmm

2009-12-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

This is incredible. My mom forwarded this to me...and I was moved to say the least. What are your thoughts?

Buy nothing for Christmas

December 5th, 2009
This is something different. It’s similar to the Advent Conspiracy, but I like it because it’s Canadian! What can I say?! I’ve been ecouraged by some of the Canadian sites popping up these days (makes me feel less alone in cyber land lol). Anyhow, my cousin sent to me via facebook. I was looking into it and thought it was interesting. What are your thoughts on it?

Buy Nothing Christmas is a national initiative started by Canadian Mennonites who offer a prophetic “no” to the patterns of over-consumption of middle-class North Americans. They are inviting Christians (and others) all over Canada to join a movement to de-commercialize Christmas and re-design a Christian lifestyle that is richer in meaning, smaller in impact upon the earth, and greater in giving to people less-privileged.

This is an Advent calendar that has a bite to it. On each day of December leading up to Christmas, count the appropriate privilege/blessing and pay the fine. Send the money to a group that fights poverty.

1. 10 ¢ for every hot water tap in your house
2. 75 ¢ for every vehicle your family owns
3. 5 ¢ for every pair of jeans you own
4. 25 ¢ if your family subscribes to the newspaper
5. 5 ¢ for every bed in your house
6. 3 ¢ for every /beauty makeup item you own
7. 3 ¢ for every pair of footwear
8. 3 ¢ for every light switch in your house
9. 20 ¢ for every tub/shower
10. 10 ¢ for every flush toilet
11. 2 ¢ for every bar/dispenser of soap
12. 15 ¢ if you have dishes to eat off of
13. 15 ¢ if you have cooking pots in your cupboards
14. 5 ¢ for every window in your house
15. 10 ¢ for every outside door
16. 20 ¢ for every television in your house
17. 5 ¢ for every magazine subscription
18. 25 ¢ if your family has more than 25 CD’s (music or video)
19. 5 ¢ for every meal you had meat with this past week
20. 10 ¢ for every non-water beverage you drank yesterday
21. 25 ¢ if you have a snow blower or a gas/electric lawn mower
22. 3 ¢ for every item of hair care stuff
23. 15 ¢ for every bedroom in your house
24. 5 ¢ for every blanket in your house
25. 15 ¢ for every gift you received this Christmas

From http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/

check out their catalogue: http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/catalogue/index.html It’s pretty neat! If nothing else, it sure makes me thankful and feel truly blessed for all that we have!

look!

2009-11-29T18:17:00.001-08:00

like my new specs? :)

when it's cold outside...

2009-09-09T10:11:00.001-07:00

read the following excerpt in Brennan Manning's book, 'The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus', recently:

One hundred years ago in the Deep South, the phrase 'born again' was seldom used. Rather, the words used to describe the breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus were, 'I was seized by the power of a great affection.'

have been spending time thinking about my own relationship with Jesus, and whether i would characterize it with similar words. i find it curious that such mystical and deeply emotive language has been lost for so many of us. the common language of being 'born again' isn't entirely wrong or offensive, but in some ways it implies the not-so-practical notion that one's conversion results in an immediate alteration of who we are. theologically, i think our conversion choice does immediately realign us with God's redemptive mercy.

but salvation really is more than just being born; it's a lot like growing up.

and maybe that's why i like the idea of being 'seized' by a 'great (and transformative) affection'...because it implies His inherent work in me despite my best efforts to screw it up...in spite of my consistent languishing and immaturity.
all this brings john wesley's language to mind...how he found his heart 'strangely warmed' when encountering jesus' powerful grace. and today, when it's cold and rainy outside, this is what i seek. i long for the mystery of His love to centre me...to seize me...to warm the cold and inflexible parts of my heart.

i want to trust His mercy more than my own efforts.

Behruse meets God and we stand in awe

2009-07-26T15:16:00.004-07:00

Last night Brian and I witnessed someone experience God for the first time.
It was unexpected. For us. And for Behruse.
We planned to leave. So did he.
God had different plans. I'm in awe of His timing.

The plan was to find a comfy spot at English Bay in Vancouver to watch night 2 of the Celebration of Lights. It was South Africa's turn to show Vancouver what they've got. The forecast was to be about 29 in the afternoon and 23 in the evening with 10 percent chance of rain. It was to be the perfect night for fireworks. I heard on the radio they were expecting 350,000 people to be there.

After a great supper at SalaThai - yum... It was about 7:30, we walked down to the water and found a nice little spot not right on the beach but with a beautiful view... and then the clouds began rolling in and it started to rain. We kept telling ourselves that it wasn't going to last, we'll wait it out and it seemed to slow down a bit. I got a call from a couple of friends who were going to meet us who decided not to come anymore due to the rain. We talked about it and decided we probably wouldn't stay either. We were soaked and the sun was beginning to go down and we were not prepared to be wet AND cold.

Brian, who was just in a tshirt and shorts thought it would be a good idea to head back home knowing that there are 2 more fireworks shows next week that we could go to. Me being the stubborn girl i am, wanted to stay. I thought we were already wet we were already there, with great seats, and really i just didn't want to be a "quitter"... someone who couldn't handle a little rain. lol. But after talking it out for a bit, we packed up our stuff and began towards our car.

Once we got up to Davie street it continued to rain at a steady pace but we were warming up due to walking so we decided to keep walking down davie towards the water in a different direction and just stick it out. By this time the sun had begun to set, and it was absolutely breathtaking. People were stopped in the rain taking picture after picture. It was thundering and lightening out like crazy, something i don't think i have ever seen/heard since living out here. I kept saying/thinking wow all these people came out to see fireworks and God's like "i'll show you fireworks". It was beautiful.

It was almost 9pm when i got a hankering for yam fries. As we kept walking we found a little restaurant/pub on Davie that had their menu on the steps that had yam fries on it. We tried to get in, but the door was locked and said use other entrance. We were seriously soaking wet and as we tried to find the other entrance we decided we were just too wet and they probably wouldn't want us in there.

This is when we met Beruse.

As we're standing on the crowded street by the pub a man watching the sky turned around towards us and approached us. My immediate judgment I'm sad to say was that he was going to ask for money... although he did not look homeless, then i went on to think maybe he was going to ask if we had any weed... as that's a common occurrence here in Vancouver. Instead the first thing he asked was. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Before we had the chance to fully answer he answered his own question saying, "I have lived here for 22 years and I have never seen a sky like this". He went on to say, "I'm not normally a religious man, but this sky is a sign to us, to me, that God is real. That God is with us." He went on very passionately listing different gods and expressing his need for one. He repeated God, Jesus and literally cried out how he needed Him. How he was lost and weak but how he could feel Him inside of him. He cried out to know Him and to see Him and as Behruse was calling towards the beautiful sunset for God lightening would strike. I couldn't help but laugh at God's response!

On the middle of Davie street in the pouring rain surrounded by thousands of people Behruse began to weep as he cried and prayed telling God how he needs Him, how he promises he'll go to church, but only if He will show up like He did tonight. I still can't believe what I witnessed, I don't know how to put it all into words. He spoke out of his heart into the sky through tears his desperate need for a God who knows him and who has chosen him for this moment to be caught off guard and caught in His beauty. He admitted to us his brokenness that for the first time in 6 months he drank alcohol tonight because his cousin had to leave, that he smoked 2 puffs of marijuana, that his wife and daughter who is 14 and son who is 25 isn't with him anymore. He told us that in his country he would be shot dead in the middle of these streets for doing what he was doing now, speaking to us of a God who has caught his attention and stolen his heart. He continued to ask us if we could understand him because his english was normally very poor, but what we heard was extremely eloquent and passionate, He thanked God for that miracle.

I said to him that we were planning to leave earlier, that we weren't really expecting to be down here on davie tonight, but that I was convinced that God had a specific plan for all of us to meet. He also said that he had actually left earlier deciding not to stay but later decided to come back because God wanted him to see this beautiful sign of His beauty. He prayed that he would never forget it and that everyone walking would see what he has seen.

I still am in awe that in hundreds of thousands of people that God connected us to Behruse. Not really to say anything special or to be these great Christians with answers, but simply and majestically to be a witness (as Behruse put it) to this man's first connection to God, the the One who made heaven and earth. To be an ear to hear this man's story, to catch a glimpse of what our desperate need for God looks like.

I was so challenged and encouraged and just knocked to my feet. To find that hunger, to live with that conviction. To see God in everything and let it transform me! I'm so thankful to have been there last night, for God to interrupt our plans.

We ended up just getting to the beach as the fireworks started, and let me say, they were beautiful, but God could not be outdone, he continued to do His light show in the sky that just showed me His awesome power and beauty, how I'm honored to know Him. To be called His daughter.

a convo...

2009-07-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

A couple thoughts...and the beginning of a convo...

I have been reading much

listening much

reflecting much

And trying to digest all that I see, feel, and sense.

I have decided that I want to start writing some reflections and invite you to chew a little bit with us.

On what you ask?

We would like to wrestle with who Jesus is and His reality versus what (I said ‘what’ intentionally...keep reading) we have made Him personally...and corporately.

Still there?

I have blogged my initial thought on our blog: www.jonathanandscott.blogspot.com

Join us...

J

SLAVERY

2009-07-25T08:42:00.001-07:00

Thoughts...

I don’t know about you...but before about 6 months ago...i didn’t think about slavery very often. How often do you think about slavery? How often to do you think about it in terms of an issue that we must wrestle with today? Let me talk to you a little about the internal Pandora's box I have opened...
People trafficking is one of the greatest human rights challenges of our time. Millions of people around the world suffer in silence in slave-like conditions of forced labour and sexual exploitation.
In the West, slavery has been outlawed since the early 1800s. But the modern scourge of human trafficking is no less a form of slavery than the one endured by Africans and others at the hands of wealthy merchants and landowners two hundred years ago.

Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing areas of international crime - and, sadly, one of the most lucrative. Worldwide, people traffickers will make between seven and nine billion dollars every year, with very little outlay at all.
In fact, some crime syndicates are now switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, because the potential profits are higher.

According to the UN, there may be as many as four million people trafficked every year, 70 percent of them female and 50 percent children. Both groups are targeted mainly for pornography and prostitution. Yet it's difficult to be precise about the true scale of the problem and teenage boys and men are sometimes victims, too, being trafficked into forced labour.
There are more than 28 million slaves world wide. Perspective? There are more slaves today, by percentage to the worlds population, than at any other time in history.

Victims of people trafficking normally come from developing countries, but trafficking is also a problem for nations like the Canada and the US, where, according to the Justice Dept, as many as 250,000 American/Canadian children may be at risk of being trafficked into the sex industry within our own countries.
The Council of Europe has identified people trafficking as a major problem in Europe, too. It says that trafficking has hit "unprecedented levels" and acknowledges that it really is "a new form of slavery".

Human trafficking seems to flourish in societies that are going through, or have just come out of, long periods of conflict. For example, during the Kosovo conflict, women and girls were often kidnapped by armed gangs or enticed away from refugee camps. Today, the former Yugoslavia has become a primary trafficking destination and an important transit point for European trafficking.
Trafficking also increases when poor countries share borders with richer neighbours. Poor people look at the opportunities over the border and are easily lured by false promises of a richer life on the other side.

What can be done about the stain and horror of international human trafficking?

Some people might argue that since slavery has long been a part of human history, there's not much we can do about it. But we can't afford to be complacent or defeatist in our attitude. Either we shape the future of our world, or someone else's vision of that future will reshape us.

Some global thoughts first.
Governments NEED to maintain humane and sensible immigration policies.

Some people have tried to use trafficking as an excuse for closing borders altogether. But people will always want to migrate, especially if there are better opportunities abroad, and immigration brings many benefits. Denying people access through safe, legal channels only makes it more likely that they will fall for the false promises of the traffickers.

Governments also NEED to courageously tackle the problem of prostitution.
In 1999, the Swedish government made laws prohibiting the purchase of a sexual service, with the penalty of fines or imprisonment.
Since then, there has been a significant drop in the number of women in prostitution and a reduction in the number of men who try to buy their services. The fall in demand has also reduced the number of foreign women who are trafficked into prostitution.
Some governments NEED to reassess how they treat people who've already been trafficked into their nations. It's one thing to free a victim, but then they need to be re-educated, re-housed and basically given a whole new start, one without discrimination or legal hassles.

More Personal thoughts...

We NEED to begin to grapple with how trafficking is linked to economic reform and development programmes. Tragically, there are lots of cases where the sex trade has served foreign aid workers and even peacekeepers.

And we need more research into the factors that fuel the demand for people trafficking -- including the links between migration policies and the demand for cheap labour.

It took more than a generation for William Wilberforce and his colleagues to bring in laws banning slave-trade in the British domain. But their persistence - and their faith - paid off.
Ours is arguably a much more complex world and organized crime is the dark underbelly of globalization. But at ground level, in vulnerable areas, there are still things we can do to guard people -- especially the young -- against trafficking.

There are anti-trafficking charities that community groups can connect with. Some educate children in vulnerable areas, developing skills that will help them to avoid being trafficked. Others work to encourage children to stay in school longer, while create local jobs for when they leave school.

We NEED to be morality driven even in our necessary consumption. Meaning? Where you shop and what you buy has slave trade implications. Do we shop at stores that use Fair Trade goods? These products are traffick-free and buying them helps people to lift themselves out of poverty, making them less vulnerable, as opposed to purchasing and using goods that have used child labour and the slave trade to build their economic prowess.

We NEED volunteer more. For example, choosing to work in one of the projects that helps people find their way out of prostitution. We can donate to support a safe house for trafficking victims.

We NEED to write to local MPs on the issue, to keep the issue front and centre in political terms. Check out the following websites regarding how you can be involved:
www.freetheslaves.net
www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Canada.php
www.savethechildren.ca

EDUCATE YOURSELF. How often do we read stuff that turns our stomachs? How often do we choose to learn or push our way into understanding the dark underbelly of our world? What good is the light if it refuses to be used in darkness? If you would like a list of books that you could read, email me...i have many on this issue.
Finally, we can talk up the whole issue of people trafficking, through letters to local newspapers and the like - and even just in conversation with friends. John Pollock, in his biography of William Wilberforce, wrote that: 'One man can change his times, but he cannot do it alone.'

Like Wilberforce and his abolitionists, we must once again do whatever we can to end a vile trade, by standing for those who cannot stand for themselves...and standing alongside people and organizations who are giving their lives for others freedom.

I wanna change the world.
J

we have THE coolest family pics ever!

2009-07-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

soooooooooooo.... here is our family pics that we got done in may by our dear friends, reilly & miranda of blue olive.

tell me...are these not the coolest, ever!? thanks again R&M... you make us look too cool for school... ;)

click on the link below:

heppner family shoot by blue olive photography

summer is crazy

2009-07-06T01:08:00.008-07:00

i'm busy with weddings most weekends.
and busy with the kiddies and some office work during the week.

head over to my blog to see what i'm up to.. :)

www.traceylheppner.blogspot.com

happy summer!!

taken on the sunshine coast in gibson's bc

the door

2009-06-08T10:29:00.001-07:00

IMG_9900, originally uploaded by tracey heppner.

it is there..you see it every day.
its whether or not you choose to actually go thru the door.

you put your ear up to it.
you strain to hear what is on the other side.
it sounds exciting..fun..alive.
yet, risky, uncertain, unknown.

you stand on this side and wonder.
wonder what it could be like.
what it could REALLY be like.
what you THINK it could be like.
yet still, you hesitate.

you hesitate like you have, every other day.
what if there really is nothing on the other side?
what if it's just all in your head?
what if you are disappointed when you open the door?

what to do...do you ever wonder that?
wonder about the possibilities of what is
on the other side of that door?
wonder what life could be like if you walked thru that door?
wonder if you should just stop wondering and just do it?

you put your hand on the knob & can almost feel the anticipation.
you can sense the life.
you know that it is exciting.
yet...you dont turn it.

yes, this door is for you to open every day.
every day it is there, waiting for you.
waiting for you to open it.
waiting for you to walk thru.
waiting for you to embrace all that is on the
other side.

the door to your dreams.
what will you do today?
what are you waiting for?
walk thru it.

you have NOTHING to lose.

-tracey heppner, june 8, 2009

easter feast..

2009-06-07T21:28:00.005-07:00

some snaps from our easter feast back in april..

What i DO believe...at least some of it...

2009-06-07T21:24:00.001-07:00

A number of conversations, real and virtual, have recently been gotten me thinking through about "how far" should we go in a process of deconstruction. When we start process of dismantling previously held
convictions...you know what I mean, asking questions and wrestling with answers...it is painful and difficult. But when is the tipping point reached when it becomes easy and pain-free to be forever dismantling.

I want to guard against a glib iconoclasm(literally ‘image-breaking’): where the "old" and the "previous" is immediately disposable and somehow of no value. The great danger that we end up facing is that it can be satisfying to debunk narrowness and cultural exclusivity. That satisfaction that leaves us with our own new barriers and orthodoxy.

I think that with the wrestle of deconstruction there has to be a commitment to the elements of construction...of building.

So, as a corrective to constant affirmation of what I do NOT believe, here are a few provocations to ponder that might balance and present what I DO believe. This is not exhaustive...but off the top of my head thoughts, that may not be very well thought thru...chuckle....:

The Christian faith is not just a matter of creeds and system of belief (it is way of life - worship, community, daily witness, a holy lifestyle etc etc)...BUT unless we can talk about the historic Jesus and connect our story with the life of the church through the ages, then we end up building a new "religion" (devising our own creeds, however palatable and "humane" they may seem) which is human-centered rather than God-centered.

The church needs to be a place of safety, inclusion and welcome, NOT a place of judgment and exclusion...BUT unless we give and accept permission to each others pain, we cannot call each other to a life that truly reflects the reality of Jesus the risen Christ...and we will end up lost in our own brokenness.

The church is a place of equality where the least is the greatest NOT a place of patriarchy and hierarchy...BUT unless we can model godly leadership and authority, we are denying the transformative effects of the gospel on the structures of human society.

Teaching is just one of many gifts given to the church and should NOT be an opportunity for elitist (‘I am better than you’) monologues that are detached from the lives of real people living and working in a real world...BUT unless we build relevant means of discipling ‘Jesus followers’ in scripture and tradition, we will be left wallowing in the self-satisfaction of our own knowledge rather than sharing it with others and passing it on to future generations.

Followers of Christ are NOT just adherents to a religious lifestyle that expresses itself with vehement arguments against the cultural and/or religious issues of our day...BUT they are people whose imaginations have been captured by the power of Jesus to hope in the greatest darkness. They are a people who ask the greater more personal questions of:

What does Jesus think about our consumptive lifestyles?
What does Jesus think about the enviromental crisis?
How would Jesus respond to the ever lowering standards of television?
What would Jesus’ response be to reality of our economic position in the world and the presence of poverty and injustice?
How would Jesus respond to the sexuality of our age?
What would Jesus’ comments be regarding the shallowness of so many of our relationships...and that we hide who we are behind the masks of addictive lifestyles?
...to name a few....

Worship is NOT just a time to be joyful and proclaim personal truths but a space to come together in shared lament, protest, struggle and mystery...BUT if we lose celebration and the expectation of God joining with us by His Holy Spirit, we lose the source and energy for any gift that we may think the church has to offer the world.

God is God and we dare NOT feel that we can package and own all the truth about who God is BUT we do know something and unless we own the story we are in danger of falling into the worship of someone or something else, (our spiritual search and journey is really about unmasking that which what we hold as most dear...its His kindness that draws us to Himself...and its His kindness that unmasks our true ‘affections’...and leads us to repentance – the great affection transfer).

first MB bbq of the summer!

2009-06-07T21:15:00.003-07:00

the last sat in may most of us from the team got together for a BBQ.

saweeeeeeeeet. :)

and the girls found a callapillar, which halley still talks about.. :) so sweet.. :)

happy summer!

a little update from Brian

2009-05-12T22:27:00.003-07:00

well it has been quite some time since i have put anything on this blog and i think that i should.
i hope that it hasnt been this long but in october i got a job in the school system as an E.A. and i was at this one school filling in for someone for 7 months until the end of April. Since then i have been on call and have been going to various high schools and elementary schools in the area. It has been nice to be able to check out some different schools and working with different types of kids.. I am not sure what the summer holds but i am going to trust that something will come up and it will be great.
as well at the end of March we moved to a 2 bedroom basement suite just down the road from the apartment we lived at before. it is great to have space for guests and just some more room to move around. it is over 1200 sq.ft and about the same cost as our other place, plus washer and dryer which is a big bonus. if you go to Meryl's facebook, in her latest videos there is a little 2 min. video of our new place. we have an extra room so if you want to come visit just let us know.
Thats all for now. take care and for those of you that read this, thanks.. i hope you are doing well back home and wherever you are.

hi

2009-05-08T08:05:00.001-07:00

hi every one today my brother gets too go to playland. And i have a subtitute teacher :)

little mister man

2009-04-20T11:31:00.005-07:00

brandon rocks our world.. is he not the CUTEST little guy you've EVER seen!?!?!?

garage sale!

2009-04-20T10:57:00.004-07:00

so we all got our stuff together that we NEVER use and had a garage sale on saturday.
it was awesome!!!!

our goal was to make money to redo our front lawn which has been a work in process since we moved here..

so...we made enough to sod it! woot woot!! thanks god! :)

my most treasured...

2009-04-14T14:45:00.001-07:00

i shot some photos of my kids on their last day off of their 4 day weekend. i am so incredibly proud of them. they are such amazing and good kids. :) i know i'm biased. but really...they are remarkable.

getting my son, however to let me take photos of him, is another story..i got a few shots. he HATES getting his photo taken - wonder where he got that from!?? and miss rosie - she's so fashionable, and is posin' and stuff..she rocks it. :)

here's a few from our mini-session.. :)

Easter Thoughts

2009-04-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

I love the story of the two the disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32).
Two men are walking on a road from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus.
Two days after the Crucifixion.
As Frederick Buechner says of these two, “There was nothing left to do that Sunday but get out of town.”

That Sunday? It is not hard to imagine the gamete of emotion they struggle with as they walked a dusty road. All the hopes and dreams that came with following Jesus. Watching Him heal and set free. Hearing Him speak to thousands, yet know He is speaking directly to you. The thoughts. The emotions. The tears.

So they went to Emmaus. And where was Emmaus and why did they go there? Emmaus was a place of short-lived military victory for the Jewish people of Jesus’ day. Judas Maccabee won a battle there in 166 B.C. BUT it was no place in particular really, other than it was some seven miles distant from a situation that had become unbearable.

I have walked that road with them. Emmaus can be a renting a flick just for the sake of seeing a movie or to a pub just for the sake of the beer. Emmaus may be the mall, with its many ‘treasures’ or a new car or eating more candy than you really should or more food than you want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may even be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred, and numb the pain that echoes off the piles of broken dreams that mark all of our lives.

Maybe those two men went (fled is probably a better word) to Emmaus to try and forget about Jesus and the great “failure” of his life.

Sometimes we focus so hard on success, particularly spiritual success, that most of us do not know the first thing about what to do with failure.

But tonight as I sit here contemplating...and trying to feel through what it would have felt like to watch all I had to live for bleed and suffer on the top of a mountain, nailed to two pieces of wood...

I realize that the first mood of Easter was despair. By every account Jesus had failed, and these two men did what I know I have done at times in my life. Leave. Flee. Avoid. Run. Move on...and move on fast.

The story continues with a stranger joining the men on their walk. We, as readers, are told it is Jesus, but the two men walk all the way to Emmaus and still don’t recognize Him. Even though He does what they have seen Him do hundreds of times...He reframes who He is and who they thought He would be. But they don’t get it...until they reach Emmaus. They sit down to eat after Jesus breaks the bread and blesses it, the lights come on. They recognize him. And as soon as they do, he disappears.

Strange story.

All the stories about how Jesus appeared to people after his death are strange and maybe the strangest thing about them is how normal they are. How little fanfare there is attached to them.

I think I connect with this story because of where it happens: Emmaus.

The place of escape. I find it profoundly moving to realize that on my road to Emmaus, He has been walking with me, challenging me, pushing me, arguing with me, pulling me, engaging my heart, and reframing who He is and how He loves. And I am deeply moved to realize that I have often not recognized Him because of my own selfish anger. Anger directed at a world that has obviously been created to thwart ME and MY dreams. Anger that covers my pain because I do not understand the ways of Jesus and will never understand why He doesn’t DO SOMETHING.

Martin Luther said once, "If I were God, I'd kick the world to pieces." I know that feeling.

And so, I slow down to drink a coffee and allow my heart to still. I watch the sun rise, or set. I listen to the wind in the trees. I reflect on who I am and who I long to be. And the lights come on.

Jesus keeps re-entering my world in grace to help me realize that His heart is big enough. He pushes towards me, as He pushes towards all of us...with grace, and peace and hope. He meets us where grace and suffering intersect. On the road to Emmaus.

We all have an Emmaus in our lives...My prayer is that you would have eyes to see and ears to hear so that you may meet with Him, cuz He is probably already there.

J

At the foot of the Cross
Where grace and suffering meet
You have shown me Your Love
Through the judgment You received

And You've won my heart
Yes You've won my heart

Now I can

Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross

At the foot of the cross
Where I am made complete
You have given me life
Through the death You bore for me

I'm laying every burden down
I'm laying every burden down
At the foot of the cross.
Kathryn Scott

Holy Saturday

2009-04-11T09:45:00.004-07:00

Was just reading some thoughts of Henri Nouwen's this morning...which is never a good idea if one wants to remain the same. :)

He reminds me to be quiet today...to rest...to lay silent and still. why? Because today is the day in which God's voice was silent...the living Word lying cold and broken in a tomb.

I'm struck by how little of this season's rhythm i've grown to live in. The whole world knows it's Easter...but few of us absorb the meaning of these days. The season of Christ's passion is easily engaged on friday (in corporate 'celebrations' of his sacrifice) and on sunday (when our worship and liturgy announce his resurrection). But saturday...well...it's just saturday, isn't it?

Holy Saturday is a day of passion...but a quiet, subdued, broken pathos. Jesus' family, friends and followers wept...their hearts crushed by watching jesus suffer and die. Their dreams were shattered...all hope was dead. And everyone else likely went on with life as usual. Much like i have on this day...overlooking the fact that...

God the Father was still...His heart broken...His lips sealed. All of heaven stood in somber silence...raptly looking for any sign that the story wasn't over.

And while we know that with tomorrow's dawn comes the reminder of hope reborn...today's passion is silent, internal, and dark...in remembrance of Jesus' body held by the tomb's cold efficacy.

In waiting, looking, and weeping today, we engage the darkness in our hearts...the darkness that needs the piercing light of Easter morning.

photowalk...

2009-04-10T12:11:00.004-07:00

i love walking around with my camera taking photos.
i try to take my camera everywhere..
not cuz i have to but cuz i want to..
cuz i find it helps me appreciate the little things in life even more..
and who says learning to appreciate life even MORE is a bad thing!? :)

here's last weeks photos from several photo walks.. :)

Adventures???!!

2009-04-02T17:51:00.009-08:00

Well, our adventures moving in are continuing. :s But in not such a good way! Nicole and I moved into our new place on Saturday, and Tuesday.. As I rode my bike into the back yard, I noticed water streaming down the outside of the basement door. This could be normal in Vancouver.. If it was raining! But it wasn't raining.

I walked in the door, and out kitchen and bathroom were flooded with a mini-fire-hydrant spraying out of the bathroom!

Well, I doned my rubber booties, and hopped right in trying to shut off the water valves. The good thing is, that we had nothing on the floors, so nothing was damaged upstairs. Although in the basement (where it poured like a rainstorm), a few boxes of my files and journals and books and Christmas decor got soaked. Unfortunately, it leaked into the carpet in Nic's room. Sooo.. We have the 'emergency' crew in right now, ripping out the flooring, some drywall, drying out the place and we PRAY that repairs are done quickly! If not, we'll be relocating to a different rental. Sigh. Graciously, Brian and Meryl have Nic crashing there for now, and tonight.. I'm at the MB house.

Thank goodness for lovely friends. :)

My room with all our goods crammed in..

Adventures down Union Street!

2009-03-25T14:44:00.012-08:00

Nicole and I are moving into the main floor suite of a beautiful character home in the Strathcona area. And we'll still be on Union Street!

Strathcona is a beautiful area, with parks and coffee shops, and Italian grocers.. A couple blocks from Chinatown, steps from downtown Vancouver, and a little jaunt to the skytrain. Sigh.. And I can walk to work!

The saddest part will be adjusting to 'Vancouver' instead of 'Burnaby' on my address, although I'll still only be a short bus ride away from the MB House. (Mission Burnaby House.. :)

This is the pre-moved in pics..

Backyard, dining room, and bike rack outside of Union Market a block away.

Kitchen, and fluffy neighborhood foilage!

Upstairs bedroom, and pretty plants.

Dunny and downstairs bedroom.

tracey's "2008 at a glance" post

2009-03-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

i had wanted to get my 2008 at a glance post up sooner..however between getting my external hard drive recovered from a terrible hard drive failure and then working on my new website (that will go live in a couple days!!) i am only NOW getting to it.. :)

so let's us begin the journey back thru 2008..some of the highlights.. :) grab a hot drink, sit back and have a good read..

january..

i had the priviledge of shooting a couple features in IMPACT magazine, one was a workout session and the other a success story! check out the post here - IMPACT MAGAZINE SHOOT

road trip to seattle with my BFF, who has been featured many a time on my blog.. :) we had decided a road trip to january was in order. perhaps we can do it every couple years.. :) hint hint! we stayed at this fabulous bed and breakfast just a few minutes from downtown seattle, musical house bed & breakfast. check it out, you will surely love it!

at the end of january i went to kelowna to stay with my sister for a week while the parents went to las vegas.
we had such a fun week together!! there are several blogs if you go to my january archive to see our fun...ended our time taking some "snow white" photos of her.. :) love you sisterhood. xo

february..

started with a trip to saskatchewan for a wedding in -50 weather!!! amanda & kirk didn't let the cold cool off their love! their "sub zero affair" was absolutely lovely! and the kids got to have 2 weeks off school and we visited their cousins so that was an added bonus!

one of my very good friends, kimmy, was due to give birth around the same time as when the wedding was..and i was her doula! luckily their little man, nathaniel, gave us a couple days to recover from wedding, take some maternity pics, then made his grand entrance.

another friend in saskatchewan had a baby the same week, so i was able to squeeze in a family session with them and their little Kai. :)

when we got back to a much warmer vancouver, we ended the month with a visit to the zoo for the day.. giraffes and cute kids are my favorite. :)

march..

with wedding season slowly approaching, i love winter for the simple fact that i am not busy. :) march came and went, with a few product shoots now and then, but for the most part, getting my creative juices back in working order for the anticipated BUSY wedding season that was coming!

april..

april started with the sudden passing of my beautiful grandmother, jenny gladys. i had lived with her and my now passed grandpa fred for a couple years in calgary before i got married, and it was a time i will always be grateful for. the kids and i headed to calgary and celebrated her life with my extended family members. my dear cousin also wrote a song for her.. she will always be remembered and loved by many. these photos were some of the last taken with her that we have.. :) for her post, see my lovely one post.

after our trek to calgary and back, i successfully got distracted with some gigs.. :) {just being real, folks!} i had the priviledge of working with lorien henson of limelight events, and the 30 DAYS OF SUSTAINABILITY. i shot 5 different events during the 30 days and it was so much fun! thanks for the fun experience lorien!! :)

april also is when i started shooting with erin gilmore.. she scouted me out and asked if i'd like to work with her as her second shooter for 2009..and that any times i had open yet in 2008 we could use that as a "can we work together?" period. well.. we had fun and i can happily say i'm working with her lots. :)

do you use FLICKR? if you dont, you should. it's a medium where you upload photos and you can see others photos. it's really fun. and you can even get your photos used in random things..like i did, with this photo..they used it in a travel page online for gastown.. kinda fun.. :)

some amazing friends of ours that i met while in BNI, needed business portraits done..and while we were at it i did some post-wedding pics..they just celebrated their 1st anniversary last month and are missed terribly, as they live back in ontario... love you R&D!!!

because j and i got married in 4 days back in 1995, we never had the opportunity to have professional wedding photos. now being who i am and taking lots of wedding photos, over the years i have always wanted someone to take photos of us that could capture who we really were, in the place of wedding photos. it was when i first heard of blue olive photography and checked out their site, that i knew...that a) i want THEM to take our unwedding photos and b) i'd like to get to know this really cool couple.

well it was this month of april that both happened...they captured us to a "T" in a portrait shoot we had with them {check out the blog post about our shoot with them - blue olive shoot!} and little did i know that i would end up being one of their second shooters from time to time..what a lovely beginning to a beautiful friendship!! (and we're super stoked - as soon as the sun starts showing itself a little more, we're doing an urban family shoot with them - can not wait!)

the end of april celebrated the 36th anniversary of my birth.. :) i don't much like birthdays..i'm not sure why...maybe because i wish i was being taken away on a trip, or dropped with $500 to shop or secretly wish for a surprise party or something outrageous like that! nonetheless..36th came and it twas a good time to eat cake and be with friends. :)

the last weekend of april, my new (and now amazing and dear!) friend jeanie and i made our way down to seattle for training with NILMDTS. we play saturday in seattle, wandering about on broadway, finding an amazing soap store - bliss soaps - that uses our pics on their wesite now, and ate yummy food. :) check out my blog post - road trip with j-gurl!

sunday was the all day training which was really great. for more info on NILMDTS, check out their site - www.nilmdts.org

may..

a trip to kelowna and some headshot snaps of my beautiful sister started the month...

then i headed over the island to shoot a wedding, and my lovely erin friend accompanied me..we happened to be in victoria last year too for may long..so we called this the annual BFF weekend to vic.. and little did i know i'd introduce erin to her now hubby pete this weekend too!!

meg and andrew's wedding was so lovely. they had their celebration at a church in cordova bay then at a beach front resort for the reception..take a boo at their pics - meg & andrew

what was the MOST exciting part of may was when our little family went over to the philippines for 3 weeks! my lover's parents have lived there for over 20 years and both our kiddies were born there. i basically did a day by day blog of the trip.. it begins here - destination: philippines.
it was the best family holiday we've had yet!

june..

we arrived back in canada after our holidays in the philippines and then a day in http://traceylheppner.blogspot.com/2008/06/our-trip-comes-to-endbut-before-we-head.html and got home to go right into my sister's graduation and grad month in general!

here's some of my grads i had the priviledge of shooting..

another one of my all-time dreams came true this year..going to a MLB game with my lover. :) he got us tickets for the toronto blue jays vs the seattle mariners..it was so amazing!!!!!!!!! we sat behind mid-right field about 4 rows back..was so loverly. :) thank you lover.. xo

i shot my first fashion shoot.. angelica of angelica crossman design had some of her one of a kind fashions being made for a show in saskatoon in august. it was so much fun!!! check out the full blog here: angelica crossman design.

and as always lovely, fun portraits to start the summer off...

july..

not only was july chalked full of weddings with liz, erin , sarah and blue olive.

but i had some fun shoots in between as well. kristi's maternity was one of my favorite maternity shoots i've done yet.. :)

and when sarah from bliss photographic asked me to do some pics of her and her hubby before their baby was born in the fall, i was delighted! they were such a hoot to photograph!

and remember that wedding i did in victoria in may? that my best friend erin came to with me? and met her now hubby? ya.. it was in july that he came over to vancouver and we got some "un"official engagement photos (they got engaged a month after, so it worked well as their engagement shoot!)

as for on the family front - caleb started football.. he was torn after a couple months, as to whether or not he wanted to continue. he finally, after several days of thinking it thru, decided it was a sport he enjoyed more watching. :)

and we celebrated rosie's birthday a month later - our little girl turned 7..how time flies!!!!

and us? we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary! :)

august..

more weddings is pretty much what august brought! with erin, liz and blue olive, it was a really fun month!

mid-august i declared we go, during the week, down to the oregon coast for a couple days. and boy, was that the best idea ever! i had been down the coast several time in 1991 when i went to school in portland, and was really excited to take lover and the kids down there..

september..

the kids made their way back to school after a long summer break..caleb into grade 5 and rosie into grade 2.

our dear friends had some family photos taken before their 2nd child was to be born the next month.. what a great time we had! and miss hayley worked the camera real good!

weddings continued into september full force!

and i was counting the days til sept 17 - when my best friend erin and i would take off to europe for 2 weeks, where i would be shooting my first international wedding...in a castle in germany, of all places!! so getting euros and eurail train tickets was in order!

i blogged almost everyday while i was away in europe, which was yet another dream come true for me - to visit europe, especially venice, italy, which we planned 4 days there at the end of our trip!

when we arrived in germany and drove to fussen we visited linderhoff castle where we got some fun engagement photos..

then it was in neushwenstein castle that we had the fairytale wedding come to life.. for the extended blog go to kerri & russ' post.

before the wedding and when we initially flew to europe, we flew into switzerland and spent the night and headed on a train to munich. we had fun exploring the city, and also taking in the ever-famous OKTOBERFEST!!

we then met the kerri & russ in fussen, a small countryside town that was full of much character!

post wedding, we went to venice.. no words can describe how i feel towards venice. i love her. and will go back again..and again..and again.. :)

yes my trip to europe seems like a dream... :) a dream that continues to live in my heart..

october..

ah, yes..back home to reality.. :) and wedding season was far from over for me!

little brandon was born to our dear friends.. :)

jonathan celebrated his 34th birthday...

and two of my best friends from estevan, sk, surprised me with a 4 day visit!

the colors of autumn were definitely in the air..and walks in the park amongst the leaves were plenty.

the school the kids go to are always coming up with ways of fundraising for the school projects and extra activities. being the co-chair of the PAC (parent advisory council) i volunteered to do a photo night..and what fun and success it was! the school made some good coin those two evenings and we plan to do one in the spring when it's nicer and we can go outside!

and i got back into my beloved photowalks..wandering about taking photos..of most everything that i thought was photo worthy. ;)

the month ended with our traditional pumpkin carving..and lovely pumpkins they were.. :)

november..

the last of my weddings ended in november..

and then it was caleb's 11th birthday..he wanted pizza and bowling, so pizza and bowling it was!

we set up our christmas tree, in our ever traditional EARLY way.. :) i think it was nov 4th this year.. :)

we also took a trip down to vancouver/portland area and stayed with some friend of mine from college days.. and of course, i ended up taking some photos of their ever growing family!

and some more photowalk action, of course.. :)

a lovely spa night with my muffin!

and the amazing ability to find the most delicious chocolately goodness in the city!

december..

the last month of the year..boy did this year fly by!! the december celebrations began with an amazing aislewalk party hosted by the amazing erin. :)

packaging up 70+ shoeboxes for kids in south burnaby, along with 2 van loads of toys and cans for comments!

lots of christmas choirs!

letters to santa & the santa claus parade and baking yummy cookies!

after a lovely quiet christmas at home with our little family, the year ended with an unexpected opportunity to second shoot with michael wachniak, a new friend in the industry. twas a fun day, hey mike!! :)

that is pretty much the year in photos.. :) give or take.. :) it was a good year.. new beginnings, old friends, new places... with second shooting, being a mom, starting a vancouver network for photogs and second shooters, being a PAC chair and all the other hats i wear, it was a fun, full, adventurous year.. so many dreams came to life..so many fun times..wonderful friends..

yes 2008 was fabulous..and i imagine 2009 to be more of the same, along with some new adventures and dreams. :) thanks for reading!

much love,
trace
xo

caleb got baptized.. :)

2009-02-21T22:25:00.006-08:00

so on friday night after our rad MB potluck together, caleb was going to get baptized.

he had told j monday that he thought it was time he get baptized. j asked why and caleb said to him, well cuz it said so in my bible reading today and i want a new life.

so fast forward to friday.

caleb shared why he wanted to get baptized then we all prayed for him..then upstairs we all went to our ensuite tub. :) j baptized him and caleb decided he needed to go back down again..such a funny kid.

and i guess after we all went back downstairs, caleb said to j, "dad, high fives...i have a new life".

pretty much i cried when j told me that.

our kids rock. sigh.. :)

A wee update.. :)

2009-02-10T14:38:00.010-08:00

Hey,

Thought I’d let you know what I’ve been up to.. A bit overload on the links, but it's honestly bizarre, the amount of relationships and opportunities. I wonder at the connections, relationships and diverse opportunities that our whole team has had. It feels like God is creating the puzzle pieces, but has not yet shown us the whole picture of why we are here. It been a hard at times, yet fantastic journey so far.

Here’s the BOB Newsletter for the non profit I work at. There is a short exert about moi, as well as a success story about one of the guys I work with, Roderick, and details on the Community Benefit Agreement which is the project I’m working on at the moment. Woot, woot! Enjoy..

http://www.buildingopportunities.org/newsletter/02-2009/index.html#a1

Also, a video about the organization was made and I got to feature the program I do.

http://www.buildingopportunities.org/about/bob-video.asp

With the downturn in the economy, a lot of individuals that I helped put into jobs, lost their jobs. So my dream project was to get individuals from the inner city to help with the renovations of delapitated buildings on the downtown eastside. It's happening! We have a crew of 8 people working for 3 weeks getting paid and learning skills! And Global TV, doing a story about the situation down here, met with some of our guys. The portion about a building becoming an art studio is my project!

Scroll to the video Beacons of Hope. Our project is featured at 1:24-1:52.
http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/bc/microsites/McCardell/index.html

Also, I volunteer (and recently asked to sit on the board) for Working Gear. A super awesome non-profit of all volunteers helping down and out people to get the clothes they need to get a job. Basically, we dress up, boost the confidence and give a bunch of sweet clothes for free to men who are trying to change their lives on the downtown east side.

www.workinggear.ca

AND.. CBC did a segment on them and you may catch a few glimpses of me!

In the box 'Search LIVING Videos' type Working Gear at this site:
http://www.cbc.ca/livingvancouver/columns_topics.page?

On a lighter note, I recently joined a group of coolio peeps in trying out Salsa dancing!! So fun.. Also, Tracer introduced me to one of her photographer friends, Jeanie. While Jeanie is hanging out in India, I'm house sitting for her in Gastown. Such a great opportunity! It's a half a block from my work, which is a big blessing. And I must say that this past weekend, being at Erin's wedding was amazing! OH MY GOODNESS. I'm so happy for Pete and Erin, and it was so good for my heart to be with so many people that I love and miss.

I think that's all.. Sorry if it's a bit overloaded on the links :).

Have a beautiful evening everyone!

Lani

wedding bells!!!!!!

2009-02-10T13:44:00.002-08:00

if you haven't already taken a look, head over to my blog to check out the photos of our very own erin reesor's wedding to mr peter lewis! and make sure you congratulate them as well at erinreesor@hotmail.com !!

my blog - traceylheppner.blogspot.com

my blog name

2009-02-08T11:37:00.003-08:00

hi everybody i have my own blog so if you want to know what the name is it is
www.theworldthrurosieseyes.blogspot.com

love rosie

i'm so exited/pete and erins wedding!

2009-02-08T08:10:00.005-08:00

My mom said yesterday that i could make my OWN blog because i asked
her! I said mom can I make my own blog? and believe it or not she
said YES. yesterday was Pete and Erin's wedding I was taking
pictures with my mom of course. I got my own camera from Erin.
The Erin who got married yesterday. gotta go do my homework
project

love

rosie

yea lochdale community school!

2009-01-12T23:58:00.002-08:00

our local school was in the paper..regarding the shoebox campaign we did this year! yea lochdale students and families for an awesome shoebox drive!!

Students share the spirit

Jennifer Moreau
Burnaby Now

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Burnaby students have gone above and beyond the Christmas call to help their communities. To pay tribute, we are dedicating this column to the many activities students have organized, from selling sushi for charity to collecting coats for kids. Often, the people helped were right in our backyards.

Kitchener Elementary

Students decorated their school Christmas tree with more than 300 pairs of new socks, which were donated to the homeless.

Nelson Elementary

The school's spirit council raised money and collected food, toys and gifts and to go to needy families in Burnaby. They also decorated a Christmas tree with new scarves, mittens, hats, school supplies and toys for the Burnaby Children's Fund. Teams competed for the "heaviest load" of food bank donations.

Clinton Elementary

Clinton students held a drive to raise money and collect items for the food bank. They collected about 22 boxes of food and raised an estimated $500. Students brought in items, and donations were collected at Christmas concerts.

Twelfth Avenue Elementary

Every year, 12th Avenue helps the school's neediest families with food and gift hampers. The school holds a food drive, and the parent advisory council pitches in to help with hampers, and gifts are bought for the families' children. The Burnaby Children's Fund throws in gift certificates so families can buy anything else they need to make Christmas even brighter.

Taylor Park Elementary

Taylor Park Elementary students exceeded their 500-item goal and collected more than 600 items for needy families. One little girl brought in 20 items, bought with her own money. Grades 4 and 5 students coordinated the effort: they decorated collection boxes, counted the donations and made daily announcements.

Brentwood Park Elementary

Students at Brentwood Park collected more than 500 coats and sweaters to help families keep warm this winter. The donations went to the Coats for Kids project. The school also collected donations for the food bank.

Cascade Heights Elementary

Grade 3 students at Cascade Heights held a penny drive for the food bank and collected $200.

"That's not bad for pennies," said principal Marilyn Kwok.

The school held a Christmas pancake breakfast on Dec. 18 and also collected donations for the food bank then. In all, 15 boxes of food were donated.

South Slope Elementary

Students at South Slope got involved in a call from a local radio station to collect toys and food for Lower Mainland families. The move was part of The Beat Cares Holiday Toy and Food Drive, an annual fundraiser organized by The Beat 94.5 FM.

Division 1 students organized the drive, which raised six boxes of toys and six boxes of food.

Brantford Elementary

Brantford students hit the streets, leaving flyers on doorknobs requesting donations of canned goods and gently used coats as part of the school's annual Jingle Bell Walk. Later, students, parents and community members returned to pick up donated items. The donations went to Stride Avenue, Edmonds and Maywood schools. To show appreciation, Brantford hosted a special community tea and Christmas carol sing-along on Dec. 17.

Stoney Creek Elementary

Stoney Creek students held a food drive to help restock the school's food cupboard. More and more families have been using the cupboard in the past three months, said community school coordinator Lawrence Ryan. Students set out to collect 1,000 items in 10 days. At Stoney Creek's annual Breakfast with Santa event, 400 items were donated. They raised 960 items, Ryan said, adding they'll meet their goal once he finishes the counting. Extra food went to Edmonds and Stride Avenue schools.

Lakeview Elementary

Lakeview students collected donations of food and new or gently used clothes for needy families as part of the school's annual Jingle Bell Walk. Students, parents and staff collected more than 80 boxes of food and more than 300 articles of clothing. They also had an "angel wall" set up at the school to help collect presents for the Burnaby Christmas Bureau.

Lochdale Community

Lochdale also had a food drive, and donations were used to create hampers for about 15 school families, whose children also received gifts, paid for by donations from groups using the school's space.

Some families also created gift shoe boxes to donate to other local families. They filled a shoe box with items and labelled them with the age and gender best suited for the gifts. More than 70 shoe boxes were stuffed and sent to Stride Avenue and Edmonds schools.

Cariboo Hill Secondary

The school's leadership class collected toy donations in support of a drive organized by JACK FM radio. They also collected several dozen coats for South Burnaby Neighbourhood House's Coats for Kids program. If that weren't enough, the class held a food drive and used items to put together five hampers for families.

The youth action committee collected money to buy toques for the homeless, and they are also selling World Vision gifts. The school's choir also performed for seniors in a nearby retirement home.

Burnaby North Secondary

The Christmas Cheer Club at Burnaby North carried on a 12-year tradition of helping during the holidays. This year, students, sponsored by teacher Clyde Sokugawa, raised more than $10,000 to donate to the Burnaby Christmas Bureau.

Moscrop Secondary

Sushi sales, a raffle and a coin drive were part of the activities students organized to raise money for family hampers. They raised enough for six hampers going to families in the Moscrop neighbourhood.

Alpha Secondary

Members of the school's Offence Club have been serving baked potatoes to the homeless in Vancouver's Pigeon Park. Students have been collecting items for the food bank, selling origami cranes, with proceeds going to charity, and raising money to adopt an animal through World Wildlife Fund. The school's knitting club made 19 scarves and donated them to a women's shelter.

Burnaby Mountain

Leadership students collected donations for Coats for Kids, and student council members have organized the school's annual food drive, which brought in enough to stuff about 80 boxes for the food bank.
© Burnaby Now 2008

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mmmmmmmmmm:)

2009-01-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

CHRISTMAS AND PRESENTS!!!!!

2008-12-19T18:11:00.003-08:00

today i got my brother's Christmas present. i bet he will like it very much!!! I got it from
Wal- Mart . He is trying to guess alot. We got it after school today. I hope you have a happy holiday
love Rosie

how blessed am i..

2008-12-15T21:42:00.001-08:00

today had to be one of the most rewarding and blessed days i have had.

it started with taking over 71 shoeboxes (remember when the count was just over 50? we got more!!) from our kids school--along with TWO van loads FULL of new toys donated by a neighbouring school--down to south burnaby to stride and edmonds schools.

our community school coordinator, our community school office secretary and myself were overwhelmed with how much STUFF we were able to take down to the schools. south burnaby has a very high population of low income and refugee families. one school showed stats on their school's demographics..it was amazing!

as we unloaded our vans and saw the faces of so many volunteers and parents light up with their prayers being answered to be able to give their kids toys this year, i was overcome with great emotion.

the community coordinator from the one school said that they set up several days this week as "shopping nights", and qualified parents in need reserve private times to come "shop" for their children. such a gracious way to do it -- the parents able to maintain their dignity in such difficult times. how blessed are we that we have so much to give..in the midst of our recession, i see so many people lending a hand and helping in every way they can to those who this recession is truly making life difficult for. and in the midst of this recession, we are seeing, truly, what community really is.

so as i drove home from this amazing morning, my thoughts went to cans for comments, the amazingly simple yet impacting way to give this year instigated by CHRIS+LYNN PHOTOGRAPHERS. what a small thing to comment on posts...but what an impact the food banks around metro vancouver, canada, the usa and beyond, will have. all because of people like you and me, wanting to give back to our communities.

as i shopped around safeway collecting cans of all sorts, i began to wonder what each of the cans may be used for....sauce for a family to eat spaghetti dinner..cranberries and pumpkin to finish off a holiday meal..soup and tuna sandwiches for kids' lunches. it was then, right there in safeway that i began to cry... such a simple thing, can make such a huge difference. and i am but one person..can you imagine the impact that we are ALL having?? wow...how sobering.

thank you everyone who was involved...we are changing lives...we are loving, encouraging, caring...thank you for partnering with me this season..i am so grateful for you. and i am extremely blessed by god to have such a good life..my heart is overwhelmed..and very full.

be blessed friends..
my heart,
tracey

the 2nd year of christmas in a shoebox

2008-12-12T17:55:00.001-08:00

last year, missionburnaby along with our kids' school teamed up to launch christmas in a shoebox. adapted from the same idea as samaritan's purse operation christmas child campaign, our shoeboxes were being made for kids by kids, and staying local. we had the kids gather shoeboxes full of toys, goodies, hygiene and school supplies and were giving them out at several schools in south burnaby where there was great need.

last year we had just over 25 boxes to give out..what a great start!

THIS YEAR i was blown away! the community school coordinator at our school was overwhelmed at the great response from our kids at our school.

on tuesday we went thru the boxes and counted 51 boxes ready for delivering! and after we wrapped all 51 boxes, we got calls saying we had more boxes coming the next day! what a great job the kids of our school did this year! they are giving back to their own community..such a warm feeling in the heart when you see this. :)

happy holidays!

a few advent shots

2008-12-10T11:36:00.001-08:00

to add to scott and j's advent post...

caleb and rosie were asked by scott to do some advent reading, and then lighting candles..so sweet. :)

Advent Thoughts

2008-12-10T10:40:00.002-08:00

two nights ago, our community did some advent reading/reflection. this is my favourite time of the year...probably because i'm drawn most strongly to the mystery of our faith at christmas. and to be honest, sometimes i need that 'drawing' feeling. at the end of the day...it's an incredible story.

some of you may practice advent, so this is 'old hat'. but some of you might be clueless when it comes to the age-old traditions of liturgical practice. note: all the 'tradition' stuff becomes clearer/simpler when you realize that the church has been doing what it does for two millennia. this path we walk is well-trodden.

which is why one thought on friday really struck me. advent is not about celebrating Christ's birth/coming; that feast/celebration formally starts on christmas eve. no...advent is not technically part of the celebration.

it's a time of remembering...a time of awakening to how much we NEED him to come.

have you ever stopped in the furious activity of the season to think and feel through how badly our world needs jesus? HE is what we need...

his infantile innocence
his bold and abrasive disdain for religiousity
his care for lost and broken ones
his selfless sacrifice

our businesses, our schools, our relationships.
our hearts.
we need Him.

what do you think?
sw

I have often thought about the consequences of truly encountering Jesus in the everyday. I know I often get distracted by the comings and goings and doings and beings...that I forget that He waits for me in even the most simplest of tasks. Christmas makes this come alive in my heart...Jesus, in the simplest of ways coming to me...pushing for me to realize what only He can give. Peace. Not only for me...but through me.
This becomes painfully apparent for me as I reflect on some of my current relationships. The final vision of the dream of the Church is that not only will all men and women recognise that they are brothers and sisters called to live in unity but all members of God's creation will come together in complete harmony. Jesus the Christ came to realise that vision. Long before he was born, the prophet Isaiah saw it:

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the panther lie down with the kid,
calf, lion and fat-stock beast together,
with a little boy to lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze,
their young will lie down together.
The lion will eat hay like the ox.
The infant will play over the den of the adder;
the baby will put his hand into the viper's lair.
No hurt, no harm will be done
on all my holy mountain,
for the country will be full of knowledge of Yahweh
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:6-9)

I am reminded at Christmas that we must keep this vision alive. “I am doing my Christmas dreaming a little early this year” is the lyric, but I think I would rather sing, I am Being His Christmas dream, a little early, and prayerfully all year...

Thoughts?
j

check out the conversation blog we have started at www.jonathanandscott.blogspot.com

mathmathmath

2008-12-06T17:06:00.002-08:00

2-5)=4(=15

cans for comments - what fabulous christmas cheer!

2008-12-04T20:35:00.002-08:00

check out my blog..you won't be sorry you did!

tracey's blog

happy holidays!
tracey

My Saskatchewan Moment

2008-11-26T00:31:00.002-08:00

I was doing a presentation this morning, sitting in a board room, talking to a group of people I just met. One lady asks me a question about a program I'm explaining and I reply with, "Well, it's better if you don't use the shotgun approach. Be intentional and specific like a rifle.. "

At this moment I look around the room, and see a bunch of blank expressions. They clearly had NO IDEA what I was talking about! So what can I say except, "Right... Sorry... I'm from Saskatchewan!" I guess there isn't a general knowledge of gun use that is used as an analogy here. Opps! As my brother Daniel says, "You can take the girl out of the prairie, but you can't take the prairie out of the girl."

Have a great night everyone!

Lani

baby shower time!!

2008-11-21T13:14:00.001-08:00

on monday we had a baby shower for brandon, dar & scott's newest addition. the ladies from her team came and, boy, did we have a fun time! from all the yummy food, to the crazy games we did, it was a lovely afternoon.

i got one of the game ideas from my dear friend rachelle on the weekend; you fill diapers with melted chocolate bars and everyone has to guess by smell, the name of the chocolate bar...needless to say, this was a fun game!

welcome to the world, little brandon! we love you! xo

caleb's golden birthday - nov 11

2008-11-21T11:54:00.001-08:00

on nov 11, caleb turned 11. so hard to believe he is 11 really.
i'm making a special gift for him and his sister for christmas that reminded me of how fast they grow up.. :) sigh.. :)

so caleb requested bowling..so bowling we went! he and his buddies had a fun time..ate pizza and cake and pretty much did what boys do..play!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON! LOVE YOU!! XO

celebrating my BFF..

2008-11-20T12:09:00.001-08:00

today is my dear friend's 30th birthday!

i met her for the first time in 2001..and it wasn't til about 2005 that our friendship truly began.

she moved this fall to the island to be near her fiance, a guy i went to youth camp with..yes i introduced them. :) my first and last successful matchmaking endeavor!

i miss her lots..but what i miss the most is just seeing her smiling face everyday..she lived in a suite in our place here in vancouver for the last year and a half.. it's not until something is gone, that you realize how much it really meant to you. :)

she is beautiful, articulate, creative, funny, smart, caring, loving, thoughtful..and she is quirky, a tad OCD, a little odd, and dorky too. :) just like me! that is why i love her.. she is such a spectrum of wonderfulness. :)

so happy birthday dear friend..i miss you everyday. and love you more.
here's to celebrating 30 years of wonderful you! xoxox

my first post about erin.. read here - we did it er! we did it!! :)

us checking out burnaby for the first time - read here.

lovely trips to ikea - too many to count!! :) read here.

our crazy pics down in kitsilano and at science world...watch for bikers!! :)
read here.

our first trip to the island - and we even stayed in pete's house!! read here.

or last year's birthday for you at the noodle box. read here.

or when "the house" did a day trip to granville island.. :) read here.

or when you were still the only one in the house with a mac. read here.

giggle..or our trip to grouse mountain when you were "sick".. ;) read here.

and when we went and sang christmas carols to dear shirley.. sigh.. :) read here.

ah yes, our weekend trip in seattle.. :) mmm... read here. and here.

how about your mini photoshoot the day it was sunny in yaletown?! :) read here.

or the crazy faces we tend to do on birthdays? and pretty much everytime we get a camera in front of us.. heheh.. read here.

or the weekend you were my assistant in victoria and finally met your man?? heheh.. read here.

and our craziness on our way up to nanaimo to head back home and when petey wee called and was bummed he didn't come with us.. chuckle. read here. where will we go next year for our BFF weekend?? :) you live in victoria now!

your unofficial engagement photos..hee hee.. read here. tres honored you liked them and used them on your wedding invites!!

and then of course our trip to europe...i'm glad you are who i went with. :) i read a post i posted a couple years ago that i was hoping one day we'd go somewhere.. glad we did. and it wont be the last. ;)
read here. and here where our trip begins...

us in munich...

and in cortina, italy..

of course, in burano.. :)

and in the heart of venice.. <3

i'm sure there are many more "highlights" of us..but here's just a few.

love you friend. i celebrate YOU today! :)
xoxo

adoption

2008-11-18T09:23:00.003-08:00

Do you ever feel like God is fully messin with the events of your life? Like He sets you up? You know what I mean...random life happening and then shazaam, you are in a moment and you can’t walk away from it. You have been forever moved.

I am in one of those moments.

Trace has friends from her bible college days that we recently went and visited in Vancouver, Washington. They recently adopted a little girl from china named Rebekah. Beautiful. Both the adoption and the little girl. And redemptive. Choosing to step into a long term relationship and in so doing...saving a life.

They are in the process of adopting another little girl. Except she is not so little and the circumstances are incredibly moving...you know...from random to shazaam.

Here is a post from their blog.

Patterson and I began to inquire again regarding other children. A new agency sent us a waiting list. We sat down together and began looking over names and sibling groups. I felt it was time and I was ready to do it. After we began, I felt my heart sort of struggling along and I wondered if I was really ready. I found that I felt little emotion when looking at the kids. When we were done we decided that our kids weren’t on the list and we just needed to wait. The next day I felt totally overwhelmed. The thought of searching through a sea of orphans to find our children seemed such a daunting task and, well, maybe I wasn’t ready. That afternoon I found myself completely losing it on the kids. Yes, I made them all cry (except for Jeremiah who was, lucky for him, in the basement). I ran down there to escape and cool down. As I paced the floor, I cried to the Lord and told Him I desperately needed His intervention. I told Him I was tired of feeling as if we were groping around in a dark room trying to find direction. This wasn’t a calm, logical conversation; this was a freak out, desperate, emotional conversation with the Lord. I begged the Lord to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING that would give us direction. Everything we tried to do with our adoption just ended with us starting over. I felt like every time we made progress, we ended up being pushed back to the starting line. When I was done, I dried my eyes, took a deep breath and headed upstairs, a calm, rational mom, ready to apologize to her poor kids.

Three hours later, Patterson called. He said our caseworker had just called him to ask if we might consider a 14-year-old girl from Ethiopia (I will use Elizabeth for her name, as this will be her middle name and we can’t publish her Ethiopian name until she is legally ours). Our caseworker got emotional as she told this young girl’s story. Elizabeth was living with her grandmother because her mother had died. Actually, the Grandmother had five children, four of whom are now deceased so the Grandmother was left with the five grandchildren. Grandmother couldn’t afford to keep all five grandchildren so arrangements were made for Elizabeth’s four cousins to be adopted, leaving Elizabeth (as she was the oldest) to live alone with her grandmother. In July, when our caseworker was in Ethiopia, the Grandmother approached her and told her she was sick. She wanted to get the paperwork done for Elizabeth so she, too, could be adopted and implored our caseworker to find her a US family. The paperwork was done. Last month, the Grandmother passed away. Elizabeth cared for her until she died; this left Elizabeth completely alone. As the conversation progressed, our caseworker shared that she and her husband had two of Elizabeth’s cousins. They were desperate to find her a family as soon as possible. That evening, our caseworker sent us pictures of this young girl. It didn’t take us long (we had really decided before we saw her) that this was our girl. We called our caseworker and with great joy and elation told her we would take Elizabeth.

I immediately fell before the Lord and thanked Him for answering my plea! Psalm 34:15-18 came to my mind:

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

So, here we are, not even one month later, and we have been given a court date for Elizabeth. It is December 12th!!!! On that day, the courts will decide if Elizabeth will become legally ours. Hopefully, all the paperwork will be in order and they won’t need extra documentation. We are very excited and still look back in wonder at all that God has done this year. We enter the Thanksgiving holiday very thankful, indeed. God has turned our mourning into dancing! We are hoping to travel in January. What a wonderful way to begin the year...

Patterson and Rachelle have until July 7, 2009 to finish all the paperwork and get approval from the courts or she is considered ‘unadoptable’ because she will have turned 15. The resulting consequences of which are bleak. The two likely professions left to her are prostitution and becoming a paid slave – a maid.

As I have asked more question regarding her other family, here is what I have found:

* Her dad is dead; we don’t know when that happened.
* She has an older brother, but if he is alive no one knows where he is.
* This child is truly alone.

We are not even sure she knows that Patterson and Rachelle are trying to adopt her. Their case worker has been to Ethiopia to check on her, but in terms of what has been communicated to her, little is known.

Here is the random to shazaam. Trace and I have gotten involved for several reasons. The most significant being that how often do we get to be tangibly involved in saving a life? And how often do we have an opportunity to fully see life as it is…where I see the stuff that irritates me and the things that I struggle with as they are? Petty.

The costs of adopting a child from another countries varies, but it usually costs around $30,000. Patterson and Rachelle are short about $14,000. And because this is time sensitive, they have to have $5000 by their December 12th court date.

I am wondering if you want to help us bring this child ‘home’?

What do we need?
20 people to give $100
10 people to give $500
3 people to give $1000
1 person to give $5000

Join the Shazaam moment...or maybe I should say ‘movement’...
and when you do...let me know and I will tell you how to get money to them.

Jonathan

For more info see:
http://www.thecakefamily.com/Adoption/041608.htm
http://www.bringmysisterhome.com/

2008-11-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

scott and dar and hayley welcomed their second little munchkin a month ago... little mr brandon.

we were able, after all the visitors left and life got back to normal, to take some family pics and some pics of little man brandon, before his "newness" turns into little boy.. :)

there's nothing like newborn sessions..they always remind us how precious life is..what an amazing reminder of the intricate details that god has!

here are a few of my faves from our family shoot..

and a few from my time with just the little man..

so there are my faves..they are just a few...but i just couldn't keep them to myself. :) love you guys! xo

honoring our dear friend..

2008-11-09T15:28:00.007-08:00

to some she was a grandma..
to some she was a mother..
to some she was a prayer warrior..
to some she was a fighter..

to some she was a gentle wind..
to some she was a loving rebuke..
to some she was two arms that hugged..
to some she was words of encouragement..

to some she was a pillar..
to some she was a beacon of light..
to some she was joy and laughter..
to some she was their protector..

dear grandma anna..we will miss you so..
your life was always a testament of jesus..
our tears are many, and our hearts heavy..

dear grandma anna..we can only imagine you now..
how you are dancing with your savior..
alas, you are home.

(photo courtesy of mackenzie colbow, granddaughter of anna johnson)

what if starbucks marketed like a church?

2008-11-06T22:28:00.001-08:00

We're All In This Together...

2008-11-03T19:41:00.004-08:00

Since watching High School Musical 3 with Rosie, I think this should be the Mission Burnaby theme song! Check it out :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHYZtwjFTs

i need...

2008-10-30T21:21:00.000-08:00

Here’s an interesting thought I read today…

“A Christian who is inclined to think that other people need Jesus is one who may need Him the most. Everybody needs Jesus. Not everybody knows it. Some Christians know they need Jesus. Some Christians don’t. Bottom line is: knowing you need Jesus is a lot more important than being a good Christian.”

I’m not sure this is the way I have tended to think over the course of my life. In fact, my life has kind of revolved around being a “good Christian.” Not entirely sure what that looks like but I’ve tried to understand that and done my darndest to live it.

And now here I am, almost thirty, and just in the last quarter of my life have I realized that knowing I need Jesus has been more important than anything… and that Jesus is the most important thing (person) I can share with people. Not my survival tactics, not my discipline secrets, not my wise and wonderful experience (ha!)… just the fact that I need Jesus more than anything else life can offer.

wandering in a starbucks

2008-10-29T18:02:00.002-08:00

‘Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything.’ - St. Gregory of Nyssa

'My idea of God is not a divine Idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence….all reality is iconoclastic.' C.S.Lewis A Grief Observed (an iconoclast is a breaker or destroyer of images)

My whole life I have been fascinated with ideas. The fresh. The exciting. The invigorating encounters with things as I have not seen them before. Maybe that is part of why I love airports so much. Sitting on a hard chair staring into space, watching people come and go, planes take off and land, things change and happen with speed and in every direction at once. Wondering where every one is hurrying too, and where they are coming from. The random, new, fresh, busy environment is wonder-full.

Today I sit in a Starbucks in Calgary wondering if I am an introspective person at all...because i am always looking for the next thing...as if in a hurry to get away from the past and the present. I always have thought that I have been good at understanding who I am and what I believe and where I am going...and maybe, because of this, great at using my life experience to express truth. But I am more aware today that I can see other people's lives much more clearly than my own. I can read a story in their eyes. But read my own story...sigh. Not so good.

Why do I yearn for the adrenalin rush...from a great touchdown strike, a roar from a crowd, a moving piece of music, a scene from a movie that totally captures me...?

This fascination with ideas, which for most of my life has been the energy of searching for the fragmented soul of a generation and finding hope in community encounters with the divine...is this all bad? I have been told many times that i dream too much. That i oversell. That I manipulate environments. That i need to be realistic and stop saying things that will never happen...

SO...having said that...let me share a couple of my reflections on ideas and wonder.

Ideas are simply that…ideas.
There is only one real danger in loving ideas. And I have discovered it in my own heart: I understand that in lots of caverns and spaces in my heart I have substituted Jesus for an idea of Jesus. My quest for creating atmosphere and environments that allow people to encounter Him has really been my personal quest for wonder. I want to be awed. To be overcome. To be startled by the divine. To meet with Jesus in such a way that I am shaken by His wildness. His truth. His fixed gaze. As Brennan Manning puts it, His 'relentless tenderness'. I want to be gripped by this maniacal love...that pursues me into my own hidden retreats of darkness.

Could the idea of Jesus that I have wanted to follow since I was a toddler be more than I think He is?

***break time...needed to get a refill of coffee. Am truly NOT learning to appreciate Cafe Verona...

You want to know what I think the battle that we, as the church of Jesus Christ are in right now? A war between dullness and wonder.
Not abortion. Not pornography. Not the disintegration of the family. Not moral absolutes. Not MTV. Not traditional or emergent church strategies. Not drugs, racism, sexuality or whether we drink or not. These are simply symptoms of something bigger.

Dullness.

We have lost our astonishment.

The Good News is no longer good news. It is okay news. This journey of faith that has been blurred with the title of Christianity is no longer life changing. It is life enhancing.
Jesus doesn’t change people into wide-eyed lovers of life, of people and of Him. He changes them into ‘nice people' who have a new group of friends.

Think about this for a minute. When we try to capture the Kingdom of God and the story of Christ, we don't often hear(or use) the words: Wonder. Awe. Astonishment. It is usually GOD = laws, commands, rules, sin, wrath, repent, hell, and then salvation, etc.

Sometimes it feels like the story of Jesus is some subversive way of tricking us into a trap. To get us under control. To conform us. To make us clones.

If this story of Jesus is simply about the Son of God coming in human form to be crucified, raised from the dead, descend into hell, ascend to the right hand of the Father, etc...SO that we could stop doing bad stuff, it seems like an incredible waste of energy.

There has to be more to it.

Think of the incredibleness of the story. From the last supper to Peter and John doing the 100m dash to the tomb. Its extraordinary.

I think what I have missed too often, and maybe my whole life, is the extraordinary story that is written when I/you/someone fully engages this awe-some story of Jesus.

Think of the implications of this story:
If God, the creator of the universe, stepped into human history and took the initiative to take on flesh and blood and walk among us in actual time and space...and if God would be so intent on bringing us into intimate relationship with Him...that His passion play, performed on the stage of human reality, would culminate in Jesus allowing Himself to be brutally tortured and crucified on my behalf and in a moment consciously bear the darkness of who I am and what I have done and will do...its says allot about who He is...

But here is the more overwhelming truth. One that moves me deeply in wonder...

Consider, just for a moment, what it says about me. And what it says about you.

When I look wide-eyed at this, suddenly my disappointment with who I am and who the church is not...fades. Something of a larger and more brilliant story springs to life.

Could the ideas, the dreams, the hopes, the insane yearnings, the lust for life, the hunger for adrenalin that we all have at some level be the pieces of His dream that are woven into our soul?

My mom told me years ago that she had read that for most of us our physical thirst mechanism is so weak we mistake our thirst for hunger. So instead of drinking a glass of water, we eat and numb the desire.

Could this be where many of us are at in terms of our faith journey? Could this be where I am? So many of us live frustrated and we misinterpret our own inner callings. Instead of being drawn deeper, or ala The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe going 'farther up and further in', we shut off and lash out.

This grand idea, this dream called the Church will always be an unsolved mystery. Yes, a mystery. Something that we cannot fully define. Its a journey filled with cut knees and bruised elbows. William Newton Clarke said that 'Faith is daring the soul to go farther than it can see!'

We must learn to live in the questions, to love the questions. Because they call us farther up and further in. Bono said, 'The soul will be described, but God may not use the people you expect.' Followers of Jesus are meant to be translators of the deepest longing and desires of men's hearts. Too often we opt for critiquing as a way of insulating ourselves from our own longings and desires. We cannot translate what we will not take time to hear in our own hearts. So I am left asking the questions: in my passionate commitment to self preservation and a natural healthy avoidance of pain have I mistaken the instinctive yearnings of my soul for a lack of faith or a youthful arrogance?

Maybe, just maybe, His great idea is made up a a whole bunch of wandering wonder-ings. And maybe just maybe the fully alive-ness, the creativity, the imagination, the joy, the interdependence and commitment to journey with others by these wandering wonder-ings create collective wonder in a world searching for meaning. And maybe, just maybe they will want to wander with wonder too...because that inevitably leads us to the one who is wonder-full.

I believe that Jesus actually knows that we can change the world. But He also knows that the world begins in my heart.

awakening
Jonathan

little mr. man has arrived!

2008-10-15T08:06:00.002-07:00

yesterday night at 720pm, a 10 lb 1 oz little mr wall arrived at st. paul's hospital, downtown vancouver, to scott & darlene. we were ecstatic!! they came home last night just before midnight...stopping for a chai for dar on the way home..of course!!

dar did amazing, of course and i giggled as she walked up to house.. "so what did you do tonight, dar?" i asked... we both giggled..wow...i told scott he and dar had QUITE the date tonight! :)

here are a few of the snaps i took of him with no flash, iso CRANKED to 3200...but oh, is he cute!!! :) :)

and then the little guy decided he was gonna give tita trace a little smirk, almost to say, "oh YOU..yes you can take pictures of me ANYTIME." ;)

giving thanks..

2008-10-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

thanksgiving dinner 2008

we decided as a team we were going to have a turkey+ supper on monday. not only for ourselves but for people we knew would be spending it alone..we had a WONDERFUL time!!

there were 25 of us...and the food.. mmmmmmm...can't even tell you how great it was..
everything from turkey to ham to ribs to perogies to stuffing to sweet potatoes to salads to pumpkin and apple pies.. wow! talk about TOO much to choose from.

i'm so thankful for our team...and their hearts and the journey we are on here in vancouver. i'm thankful for my friends and family who make life full, whether from here or from afar-they are always in my heart.. i'm thankful for our life..my husband and my kids..i'm thankful for freedom and the right to believe.
i'm thankful for our home that is home to many..i'm thankful for our school where our kids feel loved and learn so much from their amazing teachers..i'm thankful for the life that my savior gives to me..without it, i would be nothing..

ah, yes..so much to be thankful for.. :)

here's a few photos from our feast..

these are us making prettiness to the tables..

then the finished product..

and then...THE FOOD.. :)

giggle..and i caught this one of my darling boy diving in.. :) oh to be a ten year old boy.. ;)

A bit of my heart's struggle

2008-10-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

Another update from Brian so quickly after the previous update.

As I last posted an answer to prayer as I got the on call EA job in the school division so that was super cool. I worked one full week Monday-Friday and then this last week I didn’t work at all. I still have shifts at the home and am hoping to get some more calls from the school this week, as well I applied for a full time position that I should hear if I have an interview this week.

Meryl doesn’t really like her job, as we all have been there. As she has mentioned she commutes about 3.5 hours a day because she has a split shift so that gets very tiring and for what she gets paid doesn’t always seem worth it. She hopefully will get a transfer to a closer center this week but still then that brings my heart to a wondering place…

Lord what do you have for us.. our hearts are to work with youth, to possibly travel and speak to youth in different capacities as I did previously with True Lies/Painkillers.

There possibly is an opportunity with the same organization of Street Invaders- Lifeforce that might look to do some more media centered messages in schools in western Canada.. right now they are praying for God’s timing and the right tools to effectively put something into action.. This is something that sparks my heart Everytime I think about it.. I feel alive when I am interacting with youth and especially when I am talking about the media and the issues it brings up in their lives all of the time, Meryl comes alive talking with girls about self esteem and body image and those things.. seems like it might be a good fit be we are not sure on the timing and our place in it right now. You can pray towards that end if you feel like doing so.

Meryl’s heart again is to work with girls as she can identify with some of the issues they are facing with what she has gone through in her life. She has been in contact with the Looking Glass which is an organization just starting up that will deal in some aspect with eating disoders and body image and so on, but it seems to be taking a while to get up and running, then there is Mercy Ministries that is out in Surrey which helps women in distress whether it be young single moms, or drug issues, or pregnant girls but that’s all the way in Surrey- do we need to move to Surrey?

We all talk often about the next step God has for us and being patient for that, but as Meryl so eloquently put that we have been waiting for a year and maybe we need to act on something and push towards something? So I lay awake in my bed tonight wondering what is next Lord? Is there something I/we need to be doing to prepare and push towards whats happening next? This is a little bit of heart struggle from Brian to the blog world.. you want to know what to pray or how to pray for us.. pray for God’s clarity in our lives as to what’s next, a new job for Meryl perhaps, something consistent and full time for Brian, pray that we would have a peace about being here and the place we now find ourselves.. Thanks for reading and for caring.

Brian

train ticket

2008-10-08T15:13:00.002-07:00

Imagine having a train ticket but not knowing how to read it. You’re pretty sure you have the right train because the schedule says it’s leaving at the right time and the city you want to go to seems to be one on the list of places it stops. But when you look at your ticket it’s like reading Italian!

Carrozza 001
Posto A
Sedere 25Fi
Corridoio laterale

So carrozza could mean something like carousel. Maybe it’s the first section on the car when you get on. But how do you know which car to get on to? Maybe carrozza is the car number. But do they mark the car number on the outside of the train? Not on the ones in Germany. Hmm.

And what about posto A? On the track across from me there is a big B hanging from the roof. And if I look farther down the track to the right there is a big C. Is there no A? I look to the left. Oh ya, there it is. Way down at the end of the track. Maybe that’s what the posto means. But those A, B and C signs aren’t hanging over my track. Does it apply anyway?

Sedere. That’s got to be seat, doesn’t it? That seems like the only logical conclusion. 25Fi. What is Fi?

And corridoio laterale? Lateral corridor? What the heck does that mean? Hopefully it’s not important!

Here comes the train. Second class cars fly by first with a big 2cl on the side of them. There’s another number underneath on this train. What is it for? The numbers are getting smaller, 6, 5, 4… and there is a little symbol underneath them. It looks like a… my head snaps from left to right, following the symbol. It’s a train car… so maybe that 001 IS the car number!

Here comes 1st class, a big 1cl on the side along with a 3… then a 2… then a 1. Our car. Let’s try it, it’s under the big A, it seems logical. We climb our way on, dragging our weight-limit-met luggage. Looks like the numbers are right. Thank God we don’t have to truck this luggage all the way through the train like in Zurich!

25 and 26. Wow these numbers jump fast! There they are! But it looks like there are people in our seats. What the heck!? Ooooooooh, no they aren’t. They are in 23 and 24. Fi means finestra! Window. There are our window seats, tucked in behind two sixtyish year old business men on their way to Milano.

Sweet! We have seats!

I was thinking today about how sometimes life feels a bit like this train ticket reading experience. I have the ticket but I don’t always understand what it is telling me. I am often traveling in a state of “I think I know what I’m doing… kinda” or “This might mean…” you fill in the blank; deathly afraid of getting it wrong. Making the wrong choice, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, being the wrong person.

I’m slowly, very slowly, beginning to understand that I can’t do anything without doing something. That was profound hey! What I mean is, I have to make a decision and do it. If I’m wrong, I move from there, knowing that wasn’t what I wanted. If I have an opinion or a thought I need to share it, trusting that if people don’t agree or if I’m wrong, that’s ok.

We’re not robots. We’re not all the same. We’re not supposed to be. On the days when I feel like I might know what the ticket means but I’m not really sure, I need to talk it out with the people I’m in relationship with and let them help me figure out what’s going on in my brain. That includes talking to God about it. He’s usually pretty good about finding ways to communicate what He’s thinking, whether it’s through people, His word or His Holy Spirit. He doesn’t want us running in circles aimlessly any more than we do. He’s got better things for us than that.

Just a thought for the next time you’re not sure if you understand what’s going on… but you think you might…

*thanks for the awesome pictures trace (tracey l heppner photography)

hayley's got skills.. :)

2008-10-07T13:30:00.002-07:00

a few days before little mr brandon arrived, hayley came upstairs and we painted.

she's so great! she really has some mad skills! :) xo

Here i am again

2008-10-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to those for the gentle reminder to blog.. I assure you this was not something I was avoiding but rather completely forgot, I guess I have been waiting so long for a change in my job situation that I forgot to blog when something changed. All that to say… since I came out here last summer I have been trying to get into the school system as an on call Educational Assistant. For various reasons it didn’t end up happening until I got an interview last week for the on call EA position, which basically means if they need an EA to sub whether someone is sick, maternity leave, vacation or what have you they will call down the list the on call EA’s and give them (us) opportunity to work at these open short term placements.

This Sunday night I got a call asking me to work this whole week at a particular high school in Burnaby. Sweet. This is what I have wanted for quite some time.

The particular class I am working with is similar to the life skills class in estevan, which I didn’t spend that much time helping in. So this was kind of new territory for me but similar in some respects. There are quite a few autistic males which is new to me too but some of the similar behaviors I have seen so I am slowly learning how best to approach them. It has just been good to be in the school, with all the kids, just helping in the class… although I have 2 art classes and a technology education and wood working class so some of you that know me, these aren’t my strongest areas so its been stretching but a good thing. So I will work at this school till the end of the week and then hopefully be put back into on call rotation so I can have opportunity to work at some of the other schools in Burnaby.

I am still continuing to work at the group home as well, at least for October I already have my schedule so I have 10 shifts there as well so I have pulling a couple of 830-245pm at the school and then 4-12am at the group home shifts so that has been quite tiring but there is a bible verse that I hang on to that says something about God being my strength and giving me what I need to do what he has put in my path and being greater than obstacles that I may face.. so that has kept me going for sure.

It seems like the need for EA’s is very great so I am hoping to have some more opportunities to work in other places and then perhaps apply for some full time positions that get posted every 2 weeks.

Whoah.. hopefully you are still with me and I keep you wanting to keep reading.. ha

This is all I am going to write for now b/c I don’t want to make it soooo long that its to much at one sitting so for those reading if you want to know something more specific regarding anything you want to know just make a note and I will do that..

One last thing.. we are planning to head back to Yellow grass and perhaps the farm for Christmas so a bit of a crazy schedule this month can hopefully make it easier to be able to pay for tickets and such. God will provide and has provided. Thank you all for your love and support and gentle reminders.

brian

transitioning...

2008-10-03T17:19:00.002-07:00

so i was just thinking (due to a question lani asked me!) and i realized that some of you might not know what's going on in my life...

i'm in a definite period of transition... as of august 2/08, I am engaged! i know! kinda crazy really... the engagement story is on my blog... erinleereesor.blogspot.com...

my fiance, pete lewis, is from victoria hence i am currently in the process of moving to victoria. well, technically i am here but some of my stuff is still in burnaby :) at the same time, i am looking for a job and figuring out a new transit system... i had my first interview this afternoon... there is so much going on in my heart and head but i'm not always able to verbalize it... sigh...

as with any transition, God has lots of opportunity to teach us more about ourselves and the things we depend or don't depend on... He definitely is doing that in my life during this time... i'll keep you posted :)

Lani's Update

2008-10-03T10:48:00.041-07:00

Here's a little blurb that I sent to the Estevan Church of God for an update. I've added a couple of more pictures for your enjoyment!

Me on the left with my good friend Amanda.

It's about relationship.

I'm sitting in Starbucks, having just said good bye to my new
friend Jill, a single Italian woman. I sat down in a comfy chair next to her, and we both began chatting about our day. She lives at home with her father, taking care of him since her mother died 15 years ago. She spoke about her work, and asks me questions that she only listens to one syllable of before filling up my sentence with what she assumes in my answer. Could this be ministry? Living authentically, together in community, in a way that welcomes and embraces everyone that God sends our way? Could this be the church?

At Mission Burnaby we meet together, we worship together, we pray together and we eat together. Much of our ministry is the moments that God brings across our path each day where we can build relationships and we can love people. I love the moments God introduces me to people like Jill... It’s a gift.

A couple doors from my work is Canada’s only safe drug injection site called Insite. This is Terry who I met outside and he offered to set up his rock (cocaine) and pipe for me.

It's been an interesting journey, this last year and one month that I've lived in Burnaby. I started work in Vancouver's downtown eastside where I've had the privilege of supporting individuals who are coming out of addiction, homelessness, mental illness or are new immigrants as they begin the process of going back to work. Through this I've been able to meet so many organizations and businesses that have blown me away by their courage and willingness to make a difference.

Chilling with Shirley Chan, my boss and the premier at SUCCESS Walk of the Dragon, and with co-workers as we participated in the Sun Run together.

I've been so grateful for the space to adjust, and really begin to make Burnaby my home. It has been an emotional roller coaster at times, as God continues to say 'trust me'.

And just what has 'trusting him' meant?

Choosing to let God's love release me to enjoy Vancouver instead of being on a mission to save it.
Allow myself and others on the team to have grace as we learn to live in community.
Constant setting aside of my pride as we build relationships, not programs. (This is interesting since I've placed a lot of my own value on what I've done inside the church, not outside of it in the past few years.)

An exciting, yet sad change (for us!) is that Erin Reesor will be moving to Victoria to work and live as she prepares to get married in February. We have loved being able to get to know Pete Lewis, who is a very fun guy and is passionate about Jesus- we really like him even though he is whisking our friend away!

Thank you for all your prayers and support. We continue to pray for you all as well. Let our journey to practice what we've preached by 'being Jesus in the world around us' inspire you, even as you've inspired us to be willing to take this risk.

Love,

Lani

With my nephew Samuel, and then Trace and I at the MB house.

check your friends list

2008-10-02T14:44:00.004-07:00

read an interesting bit last week in 24hrs...one of our 'in-transit' newspapers here in vancouver.
the basic premise of it was this: recent research points to the fact that 'we use technology to connect with friends and family an average of 17 times a day compared to only two in-person encounters.'
this got me thinking of how much time i spend 'interacting' online [which is modest compared to many of you, i'm sure]...how many times i've misinterpreted a text or email...how many times a day i check into communication 'ports' hoping to hear from a friend (or at the very least check their status). i realized that i'm fairly disciplined or intentional when it comes to this way of living...which began to bother me slightly.
the article mentions that 'there's no such thing as a comfortable silence' on a cellphone, or for that matter, a phone call or IM conversation. whether we assume that someone's tuned out or that we've lost the call, chatting this way often removes the 'humanity' and 'being-togetherness' of facetoface encounters.
i was thinking about how many family and friends live too far away to meet...necessitating technology's help. but i realized that, for me anyway, most of my 'tech talk' isn't necessarily meaningful connection as it is time filler.
this got me thinking that if i was as intentional in person as i am online or via text, i may not have as many 'friends', but i would maybe be a 'fuller' person. what about all the time i spend 'connecting' with people...fully ignoring those right beside or close to me?
any thoughts? at the very least, try to create more than two in-person encounters today.
peace.

a little bit of europe.. :)

2008-10-02T13:24:00.003-07:00

hey blog readers..

in case you didn't know, erin and i went off to europe for two weeks (sept 17-30) as i photographed a wedding in germany..

i pretty much documented our entire trip on my photo blog..
so if you're into reading, head on over there.. it's a good read! and there's pics to look at too (i can usually only read books with photos.. :)

so ya.. take a boo.. :) www.traceylheppner.blogspot.com

:) trace

(venice at dusk)

update from Meryl

2008-09-29T19:40:00.002-07:00

Hey Everyone! Meryl here... figured it was time to get my blog on!
Here's a little update...
We had an unbelievable time doing Street Invaders in Estevan, we had the opportunity to learn a lot that we probably wouldn't have just working all summer. We were both really excited to come back to Burnaby and kinda pick up where we left off. I went back to working at the YMCA doing childcare... (I'll let Brian blog himself and share what all he's doing and been doing... so for now I'll just speak for myself.) It's not exactly my most favorite thing in the world... but I must say the walking to and from 4 times a day is great for my calves lol. Gotta look at the positive when you're not crazy about your job!
Hmmm... well Trace and I have agreed to give the BMO Vancouver 1/2 Marathon a go, which is on May 3rd or something like that.... so we got plenty of time to train our butts off - literally. Last year we trained and it was soooooooo good, unfortunately we didn't get to run it together, but this year for sure!
My big exciting thing for October is of course Brian and I will be celebrating our 3 year anniversary! wow... married for 3 whole years - crazy eh... but as great as that is... I have been waiting my WHOLE life... well not my whole life, but close like 15 years for this moment - On October 20th we will be sitting in GM Place at the CELINE DION CONCERT!!!! I'm not even joking, I hope I can stay concious for the whole thing, but I just might pass out! I'm a freak i know. But I seriously heart her... so so much! Brian got me the tickets last Christmas, so it's been a long time coming!
I'm waiting to hear back from an organization that I will be volunteering with that is a group of people who are raising money and support to build an Eating Disorder Treatment Center in Vancouver. The organization is called The Looking Glass www.lookingglassbc.com check it out. I'm really excited to see what will come of this, cuz it's totally my heart to help girls with this issue that plagues so many.

Just so those of you read this know, I have a little personal blog that I update once in a while if you wanna check it out www.heartisonfire.blogspot.com

I know this was kinda random and all over the place, but take what you can get i guess!
Hope all who is reading this is doing well and is living in the reality of who Jesus has called you to be!
Blessings!
Meryl

7 days and counting..!!!!!!!!

2008-09-09T23:13:00.001-07:00

so a week tomoro erin, my BFF, and i will driving at 430 am to seattle and jet off to cinncinati and thru to paris, france, and our final flight to zurich, switzerland..

i'm a litte excited now.. WE LEAVE IN A WEEK! and then brought tons of stress - I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE STAYING, WHERE WE ARE GOING AND WE LEAVE IN A WEEK! chuckle...so it was wonderful to have tea with our neighbor, iolla, who is from italy. :) she let me borrow a great book on venice and told me places i "must see"..

then i got home and full on stressed - erin, do we drive from germany to italy or train it? after much discussion, we decided we'd buy our eurorail passes and leave out mondo stress! great! we now have transpo from zurich to munich (travel day 1 of 5 with our pass!)

(zurich, switzerland)

we are staying in zurich one night with my friends, who are getting married, at a 4 star hotel - their treat! this will be cool to explore a bit there..from there we will use the eurorail pass and go to munich.

(munich glockenspiel)

when we get to munich, that is the only part we are still uncertain about.. where we will be staying. will we be staying in munich or outside of munich? the thing is, it's oktoberfest - and that brings in 6 million visitors! that's what i said, what!?!? :) so i asked j if he met/knew anyone from germany, namely munich area from his week long leadership thingy he had in malaysia last year. he said he did! so he will email and we'll see what we can do! :)

(garmisch-partenkirchen)

from munich we'll spend 3 days south in a place called Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a market town, not too far from the border of austria. this is the area in which my friend's wedding will take place..we've talked about the castle in lindorf.. that would be a FABULOUS place to shoot! :)

(city of venice)

from Garmisch-Partenkirchen we will train to venice.. :) we're actually going to take the train late at night and sleep thru the night - no need for another room for the night - sleep on the train! and will stay almost 4 days there. we are staying in a hostel there.. very cute place with great reviews.. woot! this is where my tea with iolla comes in! our hostel is right in venice, and we plan to go to burano and murano islands too...the colored glass and the lace apparently is really cool..and san marco square and the bridges and the canals..as iolla said, "get lost in venice..cuz you can always find your way by following the flow of people".. so i'm thinking getting lost is in order!

(canals in venice)

(burano, 7km from venice)

then we will head back to munich and probably crash at the airport that night - our flight leaves munich at 7am! we then fly to paris, have a 3 hr wait and onwards west to cinncinati and back to seattle.

doesn't that sound crazy?? i actually can't believe we're really doing it.. altho after buying the eurorail pass, i was like, "ya i just bought an EXPENSE train ticket!" so it kinda sunk it! but sooo much fun!

i'm packing light - a small suitcase or large backpack for my stuff, and my small laptop backpack. i know! i can't believe it! whether or not that ACTUALLY happens or not is another, but thinking that is the way to go when we're going from place to place.

so ya.. :) if you have any packing tips, ideas for things we should see, etc, email me.. i'd love to hear them, as we're keeping everything pretty open!

and i will do a daily blog, when possible..how many photos i'll post is another thing - it may NOT be as extensive as our philippines trip..but then again, who knows! :)

i'm going to bed..my brain is mush and i'm going to dream of venice.. :)

anybody else in this boat?

2008-09-05T23:48:00.003-07:00

God...
I have no idea where i am going. i do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do i really know myself, and the fact that i think that i am following your will does not mean that i am actually doing so. but i believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. and i hope i have that desire in all that i am doing. i hope that i will never do anything apart from that desire. and i know that if i do this you will lead me by the right road though i may know nothing about it. therefore will i trust you always though i may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. i will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton
-- Thoughts in Solitude

look at this picture

2008-09-02T22:10:00.003-07:00

so...for everyone who doesn't live in vancouver, you should know that one of the things we're doing here at missionburnaby is exploring/thinking/reading together, most recently through a book called 'Exiles' by Michael Frost. for those of you here, you know that i'm posting because i said i would. ;)
this past week, we were talking about how Jesus is 'pictured' or portrayed in the xian tradition. and frost made this interesting statement; he said that if we choose 'pictures' of Jesus that are 'tame', we are betraying our own avoidance of what Jesus really said and stood for.
so i started thinking about my 'pictures' of Jesus. I realized that while i've 'imagined' some alternative pictures, i usually conceptualize him as serene, confident, calm, confidently affectionate, articulate, well-groomed, good with kids. more often than not, my pictured Jesus resembles a placid performer...a guy who always gets his lines right. i suppose michael frost would ask how i deal with such passages as Mark 3:21, where the gospel writer records that Jesus' family thought he was nuts. or how about John 2 where Jesus throws a rather conspicuous temper tantrum, violently 'disturbing the peace' in the name of religious purity?
the point isn't that we don't sometimes imagine Jesus doing these things; the problem is that we NEVER portray him this way. none of the pictures/plays/dramas/movies i've seen show this kind of Jesus (unless you count Life of Brian, but that's a different conversation). and i agree with frost...if we sanitize our pictures of Jesus, it's totally implicit that we would sanitize our rehashing of his teaching.
have you read through some of Jesus' teaching on justice lately? what about his railing against religion in Mt. 25? and how about his 'attacks' on materialism in Luke 10?
what Jesus do you see?

tickling the ivory..

2008-08-12T20:16:00.002-07:00

just a random pic of miss hayley playing my piano.. :)

a postcard from scotland

2008-08-12T15:57:00.001-07:00

my sweet jeanie friend is shooting a wedding in scotland this week. she's touring about on the days prior and post wedding..taking amazing photos and experiencing the scottish culture..

she had mentioned that she wanted to rent a 16-35 L 2.8 lens for the trip.

i was like, "girl! i have one - use mine already! dont pay to rent!" so she brought it along with her.

i told her there was only one stipulation - she had to take a photo of my lens in front of a castle... :)

side note: i'm kinda starting a collection - any of my friends in places i'd like to go to with any of my gear or anything that belongs to me, send me a pic of my stuff at the place..liz started it in february..see that blog post here!) yes i know..i'm a weird breed...)

she did. she rocks. :)

sometimes the reminder is needed..

2008-08-12T10:40:00.003-07:00

an old friend from my portland bible college days posted this link to his blog that i'm subscribed to...

wow...this is a video of louie giglio...watch it and be utterly amazed.

some days, these sorts of things bring it all back into perspective..

with this ring

2008-08-05T10:58:00.001-07:00

i have this fabulous friend i met in college way back in 1991 in portland oregon where we met at our school. her name is ali.. she was/is one of the most amazing hair stylists i have come across...an amazing singer (she had a amazing singing career too!)..and a genuine woman.

in the last few years she established this really amazing foundation..i won't try and explain it all to you, except that it is touching many across the world.

check it out..and what a fabulous charity to give to if you're a bride and would rather some of the money you use on favors or what not, go to a cause that will make a difference for generations to come.. and if you're already married, i challenge you to take a look...

be blessed!

www.withthisring.org

Grow

2008-08-01T21:03:00.002-07:00

Oh growing ache
That does not suspend
Feed into my withering heart
A longing that will not end

Comfort, dispel, guide and mark
Bring hope and life and grace so stark
For moments' work and pain

Give me Mystery's living water
Sustaining dark and doleful furrows
Where small seeds dropped in ancient age
Grow restively, beyond where darkness can assuage

Transition

2008-07-30T21:42:00.007-07:00

hey friends...
wanted everyone to know that darlene and i have officially transitioned into being 'minivan' people...something we find hard to admit at some levels. :)
yesterday we took our beloved Honda Civic named 'Phil' [who transported us safely through the freeways of Toronto...to Tennessee a couple of times...and across the country to the coast] to the dealer and purchased our new Nissan Quest. needless to say, we're excited about having more room with another baby coming in oct; it'll be nice for camping too!!!
finally...if you have any name suggestions for the van, please feel free to suggest!!!
peace.

lucky number 13!!

2008-07-29T17:57:00.001-07:00

who said 13 wasn't a great number!?

this last sunday was our 13th wedding anniversary! i know...time flies!!
we saw each other for the last 45 minutes on sunday; j and kids were in hope sat/sun at a camp he was speaking at and i was shooting a wedding with blue olive til just after 11pm! good thing for us, we usually celebrate for a week.. :)

so the cards keep getting passed, some dinner with the family at our very favorite cristo's greek taverna on hastings..perhaps we'll watch a movie tonight..maybe we'll go out tomoro somewhere for lunch or afternoon coffee..thurs we're going to celebrate with dar and scott who also celebrated their anniversary this month.. such a great week, hey!? :)

here's to us! what an adventure we are on..and have pretty much been on since day ! love you babe, so very much!!

and here's some of our fabulous portraits we got shot for our 13th anniversary from our wonderful friends at blue olive!

a berry fun time..

2008-07-25T17:35:00.001-07:00

the wall's and caleb and i headed out to delta early this morning...it's a berry pickin' time again!

we picked for an hour and a half and got a gallon of blueberries and a gallon and a 1/4 of raspberries! all for $16. pretty great deal we thought!!

and now for the sampling..and maybe some jam... :) mmmmmmm...

holy photos batman!

2008-07-16T19:28:00.004-07:00

so i am taking the photos of our trip to the philippines out of my aperture program on my mbookpro...and i thought, "hmm..i wonder how many photos i ACTUALLY took while we were away.. .the final count....3597! holy cow! that's a few.. :)

just thought i'd share that!

YES!

2008-07-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

Friends,

“Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.”
19th century theologian William Newton Clarke

Sixteen months ago we started on a journey. Long story short, we purchased a house in Burnaby that we affectionately dubbed our “the house”. The cost? $867,500. Our sending church, the Estevan Church of God, mortgaged their property and loaned us $300,000 for a down payment. We agreed to pay it off over the next year. We partnered with people all across Canada and the United States, people gripped by a Kingdom dream.

And we have some GOOD news! As of July, the debt of $300,000 has been repaid!

Thank you for believing in us. For praying for us. For choosing to partner with us. He has been good to us!

What now?

I was reflecting on where we are and how we have gotten here during a conversation with a young leader in Western Canada. He asked me if I still believed in what we were doing. We have worked hard to get here. We have had to spend lots of time raising money and traveling, which is a tiring endeavor. We have chosen to engage our community and learn to breath the air of this city. And sometimes we have had less than kind responses to our passion from fellow believers who ask ,‘What exactly are you doing?’

This is what I know today:
God has a dream. And the dream is called redemption. The transformation of men and women, boys and girls; of people of all races and colours; of all cultures and belief systems; of all languages and geographical locations; of all perspectives and theological persuasions; of all political perspectives and intelligences; of every kind of brokenness and sinful reality; into a people who are called His.

I am more convinced than ever that Jesus has an incredibly high view of humanity and through the dream of redemption, people have the potential of greatness. I truly believe that He thinks we can change the world.

I think He calls us to dream a dangerous dream of Kingdom Reality. Where the systems and rules of this temporary world are brought into submission to a higher law; the laws of His Kingdom, the law of love. This idea is foreign to so many of us who have been taught to hunker down and hold on till He comes! God forgive us for allowing the Dominion of Darkness to scare us away from venturing into a place of influence in our communities.

We truly believe that everyone is longing for Jesus. They are yearning and hungering for what only He can bring. We believe that the role of the Christian in our time is to become translators of the deepest longings of men’s hearts. People are yearning for that which they have no language for…and yet it is a language we speak. The language of His Kingdom.

This means stepping into people’s lives. Into their darkness. Into their brokenness and forsaking the elaborate structures we have built within our hearts to protect us from the world. A world who desperately needs who we are. The People of God.

It’s messy. It's unpredictable. It’s dangerous. Scared? Look at that word. SCARED. Rearrange the letters a bit. S A C R E D.

I believe that as we step into the places of greatest need in the people who rub shoulders with us every day…we will find Jesus already at work there. And we will also find that He has been there waiting for us to get there.
SO…what will we do? We are going to pursue people. And love them with all that we are. And point them to the dangerous lover, Jesus the Christ. How will we do that? Well now, that is the great adventure. We will be sure to let you know as we experiment with love.

We will keep you updated on our journey.

Let me leave you with a prayer by Sir Francis Drake that my friend and brother Scott Wall sent me. It has captured my heart and urged me on. May it so with yours.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And push us in the future
In strength, courage, hope and love.

Pursuing Him,

Jonathan, along with the Mission Burnaby team.

happy birthday rosie muffin!

2008-06-18T17:08:00.005-07:00

today marks the 7th year we have been blessed to have our rad little daughter...aka rosie :)

i can't describe the joy (for the most part!!) she brings me..she's always ready to give hugs..she's always got something to tell you...and she has the most contagious laugh.. she, indeed, is god's gift to us!

tonight we're gonna have her fave for dinner - perogies SMOTHERED with butter and sour cream (there goes all of this weeks's calories in one sitting!)- with us and her uncle josh, then the 5 of us will make our way down to silvercity theatres and watch KUNG FU PANDA! woot woot! a birthday party with friends is scheduled for july, post crazy end of school season!

i will leave you with this video made by a friend in the philippines to honor our dear muffy.. we love you babe!!

rosie's birthday video

Good Bye and Thank- You

2008-06-15T09:53:00.002-07:00

Hi my Mission Burnaby Friends,
I LOVE YOU!
Thank-you for being here for me during this last 6 months.
Thank-you for being present
Thank-you Rosie and Caleb for being awesome
Thank-you Hayley for making my day by saying " Hi TANYA" every time I walk in the room
Thank-you for loving me as I am
Thank-you for having faith in me
Thank-you for opening your hearts and homes
Thank-you for showing my your tangible love
Thank-you for feeding me :)
Thank-you for giving me a warm place to sleep
Thank-you for being fun
Thank-you for making me laugh
Thank-you for giving me good books to read
Thank-you for teaching talking with me
Thank-you for praying with me
Thank-you for being you
And thank-you for being an open door
just like the heart of God..
I LOVE YOU! Did I mention that??
Until we meet again. MO Peace MO Joy (FUN)!!! MO faith MO courage and love in this grand adventure we call LIFE!!! See ya soon.
Tanya Dawn little t, tanin, tanenbaum Gillespie

the art of rain...

2008-06-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

I made my way to Saskatchewan on Tuesday night. After being mistaken for a flight attendant three times, running into a guy from Estevan while waiting for the bathroom and seeing a guy I worked with in Regina over six years ago, I landed in Regina. Marcy and Dwight met me at the airport and we caught up during the trip to Moose Jaw and when we got to their house. We slept for a couple hours and then we were off to the farm in Consul.

If I didn’t know better I would have thought I was still in Burnaby; it was cold, rainy and windy. When I got to the farm, I had lunch with grandma and grandpa, salmon, while looking out the window at the rain falling… Again, I was a bit confused about where I was.

The rain continued Wednesday and most of Thursday off and on, always gray, sometimes windy and sometimes calm, mostly wet. The farmers are thankful but I can’t help but hope the sun will come out soon.

The rain got me thinking though. The difference between rain in Burnaby and rain at the farm is cement. In Burnaby, when it rains you get a little wet. Walking to work or waiting at the bus I get a little wet. The bottom of my pants get heavy and sometimes pretty soaked but that’s easy enough take care of with the heater under my desk.

Here, rain means mud. The mud was so thick and the puddles so deep I almost lost my grandma’s mud shoes on my jaunt over to see Heather and Geoff’s new house. Heather calls the puddles her moat. Evan lost his boots in it today. He got stuck and Heather had to pull him out and leave the boots behind. (She got them out later with a shovel ☺)

I can’t help but think about what a difference the ground makes when we talk about the results of rain. Some surfaces are completely unaffected. Some can be completely reformed with a little bit of moisture. Some are so parched and dry that the water can hardly even penetrate the surface.

I have to wonder what the state of my heart is. How receptive am I to the rain? In whatever form it may come… pouring and painfully harsh, tender and misty, or constantly unpredictable in fits and spurts.

what have we lost?

2008-06-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

"So do you go to church? I mean that is what you are supposed to do right?" was the question posed to me. And the thought that began to form in my mind looked like this: what does it really mean for the people of God to 'come'? Especially 'come together'? and why? Is it a gathering where we sit and listen? is that it?
Could it be that how we do this 'coming' thing is actually a read out, if you will, of the condition of our hearts?

What does it look like for you/my heart to 'come'? Who do people see when you 'arrive'?

If we come together right, we come fully and nakedly ourselves...we come with more of our humanness showing than we are apt to come to most places.

We come like Moses with the evidence of being a shepherd on our shoes, with muck on our shoes - tired, sore feet, travel stained with the dust of our lives upon us: our failures, our deceits, our hypocrisies...because if, unlike Moses, we have never killed anyone, we have again and again withheld the gift of humanity from other people. Including with-holding from those who are 'nearest' to us, the love that might have made their lives worth living...not to mention our own.

Like Moses, shouldn't we come as we are? Maybe even as strangers and exiles...because wherever it is that we truly belong, whatever is that is truly home for us, we know in our hearts that we have somehow lost it and/or gotten lost. Something is missing from our lives that we cannot even name - something we know best from the empty place inside of us all where it belongs. Some times we just know it as the ache.

And too many of us spend our time avoiding that terrible feeling of emptiness/darkness and we spend our time searching for something that reminds us of what it felt like...and in the end life becomes about us...which is a very sad and twisted reality. Just living for ourselves...

Could 'running from something' or 'searching for something' be synonyms?

Is love not the transformation of a life...from being all about me, to being all about you?

I think we come together to find what we have lost. We come together to acknowledge that even if we are the best we can be...we are lost and helpless to save ourselves. That we need the reality of Jesus...not just in a supernatural personal/private experience...but His reality manifesting in others.

We need the gift of being able to confess our sins to someone with muck on their shoes too.

Could it be that what we search for is a place of love and no fear...where we can rest and allow the journey to be what it is? The pathway of being found...

so back to the beginning...Could it be that how we do this 'coming' thing is actually a read out, if you will, of the condition of our hearts?

Is my ability to invite others into my very personal journey a barometer of my selfishness? of my love? What if in the coming we discovered what it meant to return to that which we truly long for...a place called home.

just thoughts
j

life is precious...

2008-05-25T15:54:00.001-07:00

I went to visit my friend Shirley at the hospital today. When I got to the room she shares with two other patients, there was a little asian man occupying her space. Needless to say, I was a little worried. I hadn’t been to visit her the previous weekend and not being as medically astute as might be helpful, I didn’t know what could potentially happen in a two-week span for a stroke patient. With a bit of trepidation, I asked the nurse at the station if she knew where Shirley had been moved to.

“I think she has been transferred to TCU. Let me just check.”

TCU! What’s TCU? That doesn’t sound good. That’s kinda like ICU. Let’s not jump to any conclusions…

“Ya, she’s been moved to the Transitional Care Unit… She’ll be there until they find her a place at another facility. It’s in the West building, room 420, bed B.”

O good, TCU is a good thing. Relatively.

I found her and her cute new roommate, Nellie. I had a nice little chat with them both, together for a while and separately while they got their diapers changed. Nellie is so sweet with her English accent, her constant apologies for forgetting and her “I’ll have to get back to you on thats” when she can’t answer a polite conversation question because she just can’t remember.

And Shirley, with her “Do you see that spider? Do you see those eggs? Ed (her husband) kidnapped us last night and got arrested.” She has arachnophobia and according to her allegedly arrested husband, has some delusions as a result of her stroke. I’m not sure what to believe anymore. But that’s ok.

I hope it makes Shirley’s days better when I go to visit her. It sure makes me appreciate my health and my family and friends more. A reminder that this moment is all that is guaranteed and sometimes even it is cut short.

Shirley told me today that she’s claimed me as her daughter and that she tells the nurses that’s who I am. I’m ok with that. Whatever makes today easier for you, Shirley.

So I’ll continue to visit her when I can and feed her thickened water with a spoon and join into her delusions with her. It’s one of the better ways I spend my time really.

Oh and some day soon, Shirley, Nellie and I are going on a picnic at Stanley Park. Shirley said I can carry all the food and stuff. I thanked her for the honor.

destination = philippines!

2008-05-24T08:32:00.003-07:00

at the end of last year, jonathan got asked by the church we planted with his dad and 3 other pastors - church of god makati - in the philippines, to come and do a conference this june as a part of their 10 year anniversary.

then jonathan's dad asked if the kids and i would like to come too, as he had airmiles for us all.. so we are!!

in fact, we leave TOMORROW and are all very excited about it!! our flight on the ever satisfying asian airline, CATHAY PACIFIC, leaves actually 1am on monday..so we'll be at the airport tomorrow night! we have a few mini trek's planned, (boracay and then subic bay) along with some stuff at the church while we are there. we even get to stay for the afternoon/evening in hong kong so it will awesome to take the kids thru there!!

if you go to my personal photo blog while we're away, you will see that i am posting photos and snippets from our trip every day we're there! so bookmark it and check it every day!

tracey's photo blog

bon voyage!
the heppner's

lochdale teacher's luncheon

2008-05-20T17:13:00.008-07:00

we had the priviledge to host a luncheon for the teachers at lochdale community school, where our kids go, on their pro-d day, last friday, may 16th.

they were completely overwhelmed that we would serve them; they are used to do so much work and to have them being seated and serve them...i think it was just what the doctor ordered!!

they are all so amazing and fun!
we gave each teacher a gift with this attached to it:

A teacher is like Fall,
With methods crisp and clear,
Lessons of bright colors
And a happy atmosphere.

A teacher is like Winter,
While it’s snowing hard outside,
Keeping students comfortable,
As a warm and helpful guide.

Teacher, you do all these things,
With a pleasant attitude;
You’re a teacher for all seasons,
And you have our gratitude!

To the staff of Lochdale Community School,

We, as Mission Burnaby, wanted to put this luncheon on for you to thank you for choosing a vocation that is fulfilling and life giving yet, at times, hard. Thank you for living with your hearts as you teach and interact with our children and the children of this community. This community that we & many others have called “home”, is filled with children who have had people, namely you, in their lives everyday, partnering with us, as we grow them into the citizens of tomorrow.. citizens who will be able to change the world around them.

We simply can’t thank you enough.
Let this be a small token of thanks for the sacrifices
each one of you makes every single day.

Our hearts,
Jonathan, Tracey & the team at Mission Burnaby

so here's some pics from the luncheon.. enjoy. :)

Getting to Know Me...

2008-05-11T12:03:00.002-07:00

I figured, it's been a while since I have written on here, so for those who read it here was my wknd:

I just had an amazing weekend. A weekend of eyes being opened, dreams being stirred, hearts being encouraged, purposed being awoken. I went the this conference in Surrey called Life Women Conference. There were amazing speakers there such as Helen Burns who pastors at the Family Victory Church in Surrey/Vancouver, also Bobbie Houston was a speaker who along with her husband pastors at the Hillsong church in Australia, then the amazing Charlotte Scanlon-Gambill who with her husband pastors at Abundant Life Ministries in England.
There were about 1000 women attending the conference, all with one purpose, to hear from God. To hear His voice through the worship, through the speakers, through the Holy Spirit pulling on our hearts, what a beautiful atmosphere. I know I left that place wanting to rise up with purpose.

I've been in this funk lately, this lazy, purposeless funk... I've been distracting myself with stuff, consumed by working and sleeping with little or no time for anyone else. In this funk I've been thinking... i guess whining is the word, a lot about what am I going to do with my life? How is this little life of mine gonna be worth it. I'm 22 years old and I've been on mountaintops and I've camped in valleys, I've felt cradled by God and so far away from God, I've been a dreamer and I've been a doubter, but I am not satisfied with what I have had or where I am now. I want more. I was created to want more. I think that's a good place to be... wanting more, but only when this hope and desire is brought to and met by God. Where I've been at these past few months these wants and desires have been empty complaints. They haven't been given or tucked away in prayer, I haven't offered them to my Father. I've held them, and I feel like they're stealing life from me.

Yesterday Charlotte spoke on 1 Samuel 25. A story I can honestly say I had never heard. The story of Abigal, Nabbal and David. Go read it. It's amazing. The basic outline of the story is that Abigail and Nabal were married, not the best match, Nabal's name means "Fool" and Abigail's name means "Joy of her Father". David had been watching over Nabal's land and flock's. One day his men went to Nabal's door to inform him of some news. Nabal with no respect tore into them and offended David. The men told David about this and David's first response was "Men, grab your swords!" That's where women step in :) A servant ran to Abigail to tell her about what has happened. She shared David and his men's cause then said, "can you see what you can do?"

Next it says wasting no time Abigail grabbed loaves of bread, cakes, wineskins, grain, and loaded up her donkey. She took off to go find David, when she found him, she lowered herself and blamed her husband's actions on herself. David responded saying, "Thank God he sent you to me so quickly, you have saved me and others from much bloodshed."

That's all paraphrased of course. But wow... "can you see what you can do." Abigail didn't respond like her servant likely expected... These men were coming to kill all of them, she didn't respond with a sword, she responded out of what she could do. Cakes. Wow. And she saved lives by doing it.

How often do we place our own gifts so low on the totem pole and place so little importance on them and try to do what everyone else is doing and completely miss the mark. God has placed something so specific inside each of us. Something that will change our own life, and save others. The next thing that happens in the story is Abigail goes home and her husband has dropped dead. David then comes and proposes marriage to her. Holy smokes. By being obedient to God at what HE has placed inside of us, he will change our situations, He will bless us, He will turn evil into good.

I was just really challenged by that, by so much more as well. I want to be exactly who God has created me to be, I want to make room for my gifts to grow. I'm tired of crowding them by trying to plant in myself gifts that other people have. I'm tired of pushing the gifts He's given me back in because they look different or I dont have time for them. I want to fully live! Fully for Him! Because even if this weekend was just a glimpse of hope for me and my future, and the life I could be living, I want desperately to walk into that glimpse. I only have one life on this earth. One chance. It's time to get moving... It's time to be me... as He created me..