Tuesday, 11 October 2011

What are you willing to risk?

Love so amazing, so divine! demands my life, my soul, my all.

What is the Task?
-Matt 28:19, Rev 5:9

People often ask, "Why bother going to all the nations, when there is so much need here?"  The answer..  Most everyone here has heard what I have to say..  Out there, there are 6900 unreached people groups who have never heard the gospel.  So the other question comes "Why are you trying to change these people, why are you interferring with their lives with bringing them this?"..  Second answer, Because its GOOD NEWS!  Jesus' love goes so far beyond what we can comprehend.  I love God, and I want everyone else in the world to see and feel how much God loves them!  We are not meant to be ethnocentric.  I am not trying to downplay the importance of the work needed here, but why do we have 8 christian leaders on one troubled teenaged kid who has heard the message a thousand times and under 20 missionaries per every 20 million unbelievers in places like India, Mongolia, Taiwan.  He sent his one and only Son! to die, on a cross!  The most humiliating, excruciatingly painful ways to die, for our sins, and for every single persons sins.  So lets soak up his love, so that we can spread it to the nations.

Am I different? ... I hope so.  I want people to look at me and know that I am different, for what I believe.  Not of this world, but in the world, making a difference for the poor, the impoverished, the starved, the unhealthy, and the weak.

So I ask myself this... am I willing to take the risk?  480 christians are martyred every 24 hours.  In places like India, Egypt, Israel, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and many more.  Am I truly willing to give up my life for Christ?  Am I willing to dedicate days, months, years, decades, trying to reach the unreached... I think its worth it, do you?

God works in many ways, and I am incredibly scared to say it, but I want God to use me to the fullest extent.. Missions exist, because Worship doesnt.  It is not everyones call to go forth, every missionary needs the body of christ backing him/her up, financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically.  All I am saying is dont miss out on what God has called you to do.. Listen to Him, practice his presence, put a penny in your shoe and whenever you feel it, reckognize Gods presence, and respond.  If we all would start to regularly listen to God, and practice His presence, and respond to His word... Wow,.. what crazy amazing things would happen.

So.. in all my ramblings, I ask for your continued prayers, and that God may keep revealing His love to me. As well also for my earthly father, whom I love, and whom the Father loves, and cares for deeply, and wants to see him turn to Christ as well.

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Seems to easy to call you saviour... Not close enough to call you God

Hey Guys,

I figured it has been a while and I would update you on the circumstance that God has led me into.  It is the third week of DTS now, and so far we have spent a week on lectures about "Father, Heart of God", and this week is now Foundations of Christianity.  These may seem basic but the implications of what they mean go so much deeper than we can ever fathom, because God is that awesome, and there is always more to learn about Him, and who we are through Christ.

Let me ask you this... How do you respond with other people are blessed?...  Grace and the undeserved love of God destroys cause and effect.  Its hard for me to grasp but I am starting to realize more and more that I do not deserve.. anything.  Just because I have been a christian for 20 years does not mean I deserve more blessing than the newborn christian of 45...  The father desires a family where those who do a little are loved as much as those who do a lot..

This being said... a universal desire for every single person on the planet is this... to be known and to be loved...  So how about this, lets get our heads out of our own butts, and try spreading some love on those around us.. I am 100% positive, it will be appreciated.. if you truly mean it.  People can tell if you are faking insenserity.  Gods love is free from comparison, so should ours.   In spite of who YOU are, and in spite of who I am, God loves.

Alright, lol, this aside... I hope you are enjoying the pictures, because I sure am having an awesome time living them out.  A regular day in my life consists of waking up at 6:45am for breakfast at 7.  Worship at 8.  Lectures from 9 till 12'oclock lunch.  then it is either track at 1:30 or more lectures or small groups.  At 3 I have work duties which for me is helping to build the hospitality 4-plex across the street for mission builders.  Currently we are working on siding.  This will go to 5 and then its supper time.  Which usually means the day is done.  Except for tuesdays in which we have evening worship and lectures and thursday which we have community meetings.  Soo, my days are pretty jam packed.  And in all that I have to find time for bible meditation, prayer, and reading my assigned book.  So again, my apologies for not responding or writing very much.

Finally, for those of you who are curious, my outreach is taking place in Penang, Malaysia!  I will be leaving Dec 9th or something close to that and be back around Feb 10th.

Please pray for me,
Blessings,
Kieran

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Lakeside

So here I am, I have made it to Lakeside Montana and it is the third day of our Discipleship Training School... I cant say enough, how AWESOME it is here!  God is moving in amazing ways here, that is for sure.  I feel so incredibly blessed for the opportunity to be part of this group and place here, and I am excited for what God has next for us during outreach.

Today I got to hear the story of how YWAM Lakeside started and all the miracles God pulled off just so the base could keep running and it is absolutly mind blowing with how God worked to get this base to where it is.  I will try to share a little of what the base directors told us today so that you can get an idea of how this base started and how it led to today.  So, heres a little history, sorry if its boring and it is definitely missing things, im just trying to remember what our leader said this morning.

In the 1800's the whole area here around Lakeside and Kalispell Montana was all Native American owned and they followed traditional Native American religion.  Well the chief of the tribe in this area named Chief Shining Shirt, received a vision from some spirit who told him He was the creator and He had a message for him.  In this vision the creator spirit told him that in the near future there would be a group of fair skinned people dressed in black and white and that they would come, and with them they would bring a special book and they should follow the teachings of this book and what the men had to say.  In the vision to Chief Shining Shirt the creator also gave them visions of the cross even though he did not recognize this symbol, as well as told them about an evil spirit in which they should fear and avoid.  Well Chief Shining Shirt told his entire tribe about this vision and they started to wait patiently on these fair skinned men dressed in black and white who had a special book to show up.  After waiting patiently for months upon months, no one showed up.  So the chief organized a group to travel the distance from here to St Louis, which was about a months journey by foot.  The first time they went the men they found, which turned out to be catholic priests, rejected them saying it was far to dangerous to make the trek out to this remote location.  So the group went back to their tribe and told them what happened.  However Chief Shining Shirt did not give up so easily and sent out the group three more times in which finally they found a man who would come back with them to share the good news about the bible.  <-- Awesome.

Continuing on now into 1985.  The United States Airforce had a base here in Lakeside that they no longer were going to use and decided to auction it off.  At the same time out in China or somewhere southeast Asia, a group of men who were talking about wanting to set up a YWAM base, just finished a missions trip and were heading back home to United States.  As one of the two guys was driving home down the I-93, he noticed something sparkling in the sun (which turned out to be the army bases water tower) and decided to check it out randomly.  He arrived at the Airforce base and found out that they were auctioning it off as a silent auction.  Well the gentlemen who found the base immeadiatly called his buddy and told him "I found our base".  So they quickly met together again and started praying over this idea and if it was what God wanted.  So after praying and fasting and wondering how this would ever work as they did not have nearly enough money to pay for this base as fundraising only brought in a little bit, the Air Force changed their mind and decided to have a public auction as all the offers they were getting were far to low.  So these guys managed to borrow money from a few guys for a down deposit of 50,000 dollars and joined in on the auction.  They had prayed much beforehand about how they were going to pay for this base and all God kept telling them was, "Whatever it takes".  So they got into this auction and they only had one other contender on the base, the Mormons.  Well the bidding commenced and the two guys were in a bidding war with the mormons and ended up beating the mormons out of the bidding at a grand total of 475,000 dollars.  These two guys who wanted to start a base managed to get a dingy run down army base for a fraction of what its worth to start their mission.  Only one problem, the Air Force said they needed the total amount in a matter of a month.  Well these gentlemen started praying and asking God how they were going to get the total amount of money for this, and after a couple weeks, only a small fraction of the money they needed rolled in.  Well God was definitely looking out for them because the Air Force all of a sudden called them up and decided that they needed to do some extra surveying of the land before they could hand it over so they asked if they could wait a year for the exchange.  Well the YWAM leaders were all for this so they continued to raise money throughout the year and through some amazing people, good status with some bank people, managed to raise and take out a loan for the rest of the amount to pay for the base.

Neat thing as well, and something that shows how amazing prayer is, the Commander of the base's wife, who was a christian, prayed specifically, and all the timem that the army base would be turned into a place of training missionaries...  Just awesome when I heard that.

Other neat little stories of how the base got transformed, because when they bought it from the army, the buildings were not insulated, had flat roofes, and were filled with an inch of dead flies.. Why you ask?  Well when the Air Force first built the base they shipped the building materials for the base in Montana to California and the California base materials to Montana, so it was built for heat all year round, not for cold and snow.  So one neat little story was about when the base was expanding and needing more room.  The base leaders were praying for an answer and God told them to use what they have.  Well the only building on the base that was no longer in use was the old boiler room, which was upgraded to have boilers for each building.  So the leaders and staff had no idea but knew they had to do something with this old boiler room.. so, they got all their students at the time, staff, leaders, families, to come together and pray about what they should do.  So everyone was talking about what they heard from God and one person felt led to say "Museum"... Well okay they thought, thats kinda weird but they wrote it down anywas.  Another person felt led to say "Ebay".  Another strange thing but they wrote it down anywas as well.  So the staff took everything that was prayed about including this weird stuff and just started talking about it.  Well one of the staff perked up and said, Hey, I know a lot about ebay what if we try to sell the colossal boilers on ebay.  Well alright they thought, and they listed the boilers starting at 0 dollars but the person had to pay for shipping.  Well the boiler ended up selling for 1 dollar on ebay, which is hardly enough to pay for the demolition of the building they had to do just to get it out of there but oh well they thought, at least the guy is coming to pick them up and we can be rid of them and have more class space.  So the guy showed up, and they punched a massive hole in the wall just to get these boilers outside where the guy could load them up with a crane onto his flatbed.  As everything was finishing up the leader of the base asked the guy... So.. what are you needing the massive old run down boilers for... And the gentlemen responded, I own a steam museum on the east coast and these are exactly the pieces I needed.

Yea Awesome again, God just worked in crazy ways to get this base started and there is so many more stories that I am not telling you.  And just for me to think, that God had a plan for all of this, for so long, and that I was a part of this plan, figured out in God's head from so long ago, is just awesome.  So again, I feel so blessed being here, and getting to be a part of it.  So far I am learning about intercessory prayer, getting into that, reading some books, doing a lot of breaking down walls and just realizing the kind of person God has shaped me to be.  Which is different and amazing than anything I could have fathomed.  And that God has a plan for me, I just gotta respond, and react to Him and that plan.

I just wish you all could experience this as well, DTS.. is awesome!

Good night

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Of God and Cowboys

Two signs of a great church:

1.  The only items the pastor brings up to the music stand/pulpit are a fully sized wall clock and the Bible.
2.  Open arriving at the church, the sign outside reads... "Cowboy service starts at 7:30 Saturday".

So buckle up and down, because you know you are in for one heck of a scripture led ride at this wranglers church. 

Well sorry to my family for waiting this long to have an update on my blog, there has not been a whole lot going on here at Turner Valley.  Its a quaint little town with not much to do other then hang out here at the base.  In town there are two bars, both which are almost always empty, two mom and pop restaurants, and a library... So not a whole lot of places to get into trouble just yet.  However, that should change once I head down to Lakeside Montana this saturday morning.

Im sorry if this is not very informative to everyone but I feel like I dont have much to write about right now.  Just wasting time here till my DTS starts.  So.. if you have any questions or what not, I would be glad to answer them or whatnot, but untill then..

Peace, Love
\ Kieran Ocean

Sunday, 28 August 2011

Disney

Has a week passed already?  It seems like only yesterday that I was just a child at play..

I will start out by saying this, if it was not for friends and family, I would gladly live in Turner Valley for this place is absolutly amazing.  Never have I been able to see mountains, climb hills, and sit in a fresh water river that flows out of the mountains so freely and easily.  Its a whole new world with a new fantastic point of view that sends me into the amazement and wonder of God everytime I look out my window.  There is so much more to be seen and even more so that can ever be done.  So.. Sorry to the Manitoba Plains that I am quite sure hold some sort of wonder and marvel that I myself, perhaps just havent seen in my 24 years of life living there.  However, I was taught every day of my childhood that even when we grow old, home will be where the heart is... never were words so true, my heart is far, far away, home is too.

With the messy stuff aside, I will now attempt to inform and delight you with some of the things I have been doing thus far.  Primarily this week I have had two jobs, one in which I was a landscaper, or glorified gardner, and the other has been as an electrian.  Odd I know, but I have been working on and looking for a lot of the bare necessities here at YWAM Turner Valley and Evan (Maintenance Director) has provided me with a long list which will attest to that.  My work here will continue to take me through the joys of plumbing and carpentry as well, but for now I will just have to be satisfied with whats been givin to me. 
Aside from work, I have been taking time to enjoy the outdoors!  This thursday evening I went mountain biking with a couple guys and just spend the time following the leader wherever he may go.. which was awesome.  In doing so I got the chance to take some pretty sweet photos of the landscape as he lead us up a mountain.  Yesterday we went shopping at walmart and I bought a few things to add to my collection of many things I dont need on this trip.  Looking around youd think I have everything, but who cares, its no big deal, I still kinda want more. 

Tranquil as a forest, and on fire within... Please continue to pray that I may grow whilst out here and that God will make a better man out of me. 

If you didnt catch the references already, one Gold star to somebody who can get them all.

Peace.
Kieran

Monday, 22 August 2011

Here

I have never considered myself a writer, nor did any of my teachers throughout high school... but here I am, recording my first blog for the sake of family, friends and perhaps myself, so that future Kieran can look back on here and remember this hopefully life changing trip.  So! sit back and enjoy this tale as a young man argues with his father somewhere in Europe.

Summer 2011, which shall henceforth be known as X, has flown by and my first day at YWAM Turner Valley, which will now be known as Y, has arrived far sooner than expected.  This change of scenary has marked a significant change in my life and it is sad to say but X did not live up to the extreme expectations I had put on it.  X was my first summer away from camp and with it was supposed to come camping, fires, and hanging out with friends non stop... However, Y put a damper on that and I spent most of X working at the Source.  This being said I must give koodos and thanks to Joel, who will now be referred to as Z, for turning X into something amazingly spectacular.  Laughs and living space were shared as the TV constantly rang out the sounds of batts cracking, pitches being thrown, and cheers going up as homeruns were brought in.  This being said, without Z, X would have been one of the worst summers ever, and without X or Z, Y would have never happened as well.  But now is a new chapter of life, and Y is finishing X off in the best possible way.  All the best to my family and friends, miss you, and I hope to hear and see you soon.

Kieran