God Does Magic Again!!

My sister is going to India for 9 months, and I’ve been praying for a while, asking God how much $$ He wants me to give her. He’s consistently been saying $500. Yesterday, I discovered that I didn’t have enough $$ to give her the $500, and the money I DID have, I needed for text books.  As I was driving home from University, I asked God way more seriously than I had before, to please magically provide the money, and give it to ME so that I could give it to Zoe, my sis. 

Guess what He did!????!!!  As soon as I got home, Zoe was all ex cited and told me this awesome, amazing story that she just received exactly $500 from her friend Hannah in the mail THAT  DAY!!

I told her my end of the story, and that same night, Zoe ‘happened’ to sign in on skype, which she rarely does, and Hannah ‘happens’ to also sign in, which she rarely does, and they started chatting. Zoe told her my end of the story, how God said $500, and I asked, and Hannah gave.

When Hannah heard this, she freaked out, and said that was exactly what she needed to hear! She was certain that God said for her to give $500, but her parents weren’t so keen, and she was doubting herself, and if she can hear God’s voice.  But this was the exact confirmation that she needed to hear!

I just feel a bit odd that I don’t need to donate… :p 

Thanks God for providing...

God @ Swing Dance!

Aug 21, 2011 - Late post.

Swing Dancing is where I'm focusing on sharing God's love lately. My family @ Kansas City really encouraged me to pursue that. So I'm sharing the love, and stuff I've learned with the people at Swing! :) I like it. It really shows God cares about me cause He knows I love dancing, and He's providing Swing Dance to be a way for me to start a simple church. 

'Suburban Swing', every Sunday night!

All us girls having a blast.

 

I tell my dance partners what I did this summer (basically said that I learned God's love, and how to have it come into me and in my life more) hehe luuved the reactions, and convos that followed :D. Most of them didn't really understand what I meant at first, and people thought it was a trip where I went and helped poor people. But NOPE we did some of that, but it was mostly a “Summer of Love”, as I described on a previous blog post.

I prayed for a dude that was quite depressed, and had amnesia. I spoke into his life, blessed him, and he received it. 

In Swing, we rotate dance partners during the lesson, and when I got to this one dude I asked him how he was doing, and he replied, “Lonely”, and he remained quite downcast throughout the practice.

Later, I had to something from my purse, and the same guy happened to be sitting right in front of it, so I thought,  

ok, God, I think this is a sign. I'm going to talk to him ok? And God said it was okay so I talked with him. I asked him how it was going, and he said, 

“Not good, it's pretty bad right now, I have amnesia.”

He's got 30 min short term memory, and some long term memory, and he told me some horrible things that he's witnessed, and crappy stuff he's done. Something about an accident, someone getting shot, him getting shot, and sleeping with a guy. 

I somehow knew exactly what to say the whole time, and how to deal with all of this! Thank you God! And I finally said 

“Y'know, I don't know about all the other stuff, but what I do know is this: God really does love you.” And I looked at him right in the eyes and he looked back, and said that God can't love him, and if God loved him, then why would he let all that crap happen to him? I was slightly stumped for a sec, but then remembered God's heart for this dude, and said, 

“That doesn't change that He still loves you.” then he said,

“God doesn't exist”, and I said, 

"Well dude, I know for a fact that He does, and I wouldn't even be here right now if it wasn't for God” and asked him if I could pray for him. He said yes, and I asked if I could put my hand on his shoulder, he agreed, and I prayed for him. Right there by a floor full of people Dancing.

I prayed that his amnesia would be gone, that he'd know God's love for him, blessed him, and prayed for protection and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Met up with a man named Florence (but pronounced 'flu – RGOH'), a French man, that I knew before KC, and met his new girlfriend. I had already talked about God and such things with Florence, he doesn't believe in God, but is searching it out (that 's what he said). I told him that on my trip, I learned more about God's love in my 'heart', than in my head.

And of course... God really BLESSED me with a fun evening full of learning new and fun dance moves, and good, healthy, human interaction! :D

Back in Canada, and God's Still Here!

 Aug 22, 2011 - Late post! Sorry!

There's so much that my brain is still processing since arriving back here in Canada from Kansas City. Every day I am still learning things! I learned so, so much, while in KC, and in such a condensed, and concentrated amount of time, that as I am still processing it all, I'm realizing new things that I didn't even know I learned while there!

Most of the things I learned were from other people: simply by being around them, listening to them, and seeing how they act and function in every day life.

And certain moments, or things that they said to me, I'm recalling every once in a while, and God's still showing, and teaching me new, and awesome things through those memories!

Here's the thing: I'm applying the stuff that I've learned in Kansas City, right now! Right after I learned it! That's one of the concepts that we learned there too, is that as soon as you learn something new with God, then you go, and share it right away, ASAP. 'The next day', as our leader Myles always emphasizes.

For the first few days of being home, I was a little zonked out, cause it's so weird to be back after all that's happened... but then, I met up with my sister, Zoe's, Simple Church group on Thursdays.

Our simple church - quite often we do the dishes together, gets the job done faster! :) Note: the jar in the foreground with my 'dubbed' name on it (Dorky)! :p

This is another story all together! You see, BEFORE my trip to KC, Zoe and I went to this World View class, which was extremely enlightening, and one of my top 3 favourite courses I've ever taken, but we'd go with a group of us carpooling, and every night, on the way back from this class, we'd start talking about deeper issues in our lives, and/or what we thought about God, and things. When we'd get to the house of the person who drove the 'vanload' of us, there was a group of us who would just sit there in their van, and talk, on and on about God-related things – a simple church. And we'd pray for anyone who needed it, and encourage each other.

I was kind of facilitating a bit, because I'd be asking all these questions that God showed me to ask. It was cool, and we'd feel, and experience God's Spirit do things. LOVE IT!

But anyway, after I left, Zoe continued that little simple church, by inviting them all to our house on Thursday nights. So as I was in Kansas, I'd be giving tips to Zoe about what I'd be learning about simple church and all that. AWESOME ZOEEEE!!!!

So far, the group on Thursdays has only been 'Christians', and I can't wait to see what God's going to do with that, with adding un-churchafied people, and non-'Christian' people. That's going to be so neat. :D

God totally knows what He's doing, so I'm not worried about it, and it's really cool to have my sister around to bounce updates and ideas off each other.

Today:

We have these awesome neighbours who are totally open to God, and my mom's been hanging out with Jill, the mom, and recently, I've been hanging out with Hailey, who's 16 or 17, their oldest daughter. They have two daughters, Hailey and Jenna, and the parents names are Alex and Jill. Anyway, they're really awesome neighbours, and have a lot of things in common with my family and I, so it's natural, and easy to chill out with them, whenever. Both our families are into music, art, nature, spinning, and handcrafting things, photography, and travel. I suppose we're both kind of 'hippy-ish'. ??? Oh, and we both have some Dutch woven in there too! :) I can't escape it. Haha.

Today, God told me to go for a walk, and I ended up going for a 'Walk'n'Talk', as we call it, with Hailey, and we discussed A LOT! I just want to make it clear that I didn't plan this, God did. It was totally cool.

Anyway, so we went for a walk, and we so naturally started talking about God, and religion etc. Hailey = AMAZING! She blew me away with what she knew about values, and beliefs, religion, love, and deep stuff like that! So much understanding and wisdom in her! (I hope she reads this, cause it's so true!)

At one part of our conversation, Hailey started talking about love, and how some people mistake love for other things that it isn't, and how you should know about the different kinds of love. She asked this really awesome question: 'Where does love come from?' OMG, dude, OMG! That's a really cool concept to ask yourself!

So then I shared about how God is the dude who started the whole love thing in the first place. I said 'Y'know, if God really did make the world, and us, then why would He not love us?'. God even created the entire world, and everything in it including people, out of His over-spilling Love! God = Love. And everything good.

We also shared some stories about how God speaks to us. I liked that. And we BOTH had some pretty awesome stories. Some of mine are posted on my blog, 'The Red Shoe Express', but others I haven't posted yet, cause there's just so much! So, more proof that God can, and does speak to everyone. And He speaks to us in all sorts of ways, like in our heads, and through signs.

So today was one time where I really realized how valuable all the stuff that I learned in KC was! It was so freakishly easy to talk about God with another person! So natural, and simple. All I had to do was go with the flow of the conversation, and listen to God's Spirit. I used to be so nervous and up-tight about talking to people about God, and feel fear, guilt and shame as a motivation to talk about God with people – but now, it's TOTALLY not like that! I'm free, and it's a natural thing for me now.

So at one point, Hailey was talking about how she really believes that each person should really discover their religion, or belief system, or viewpoints, on their own, and search it out to see if it's good. Then I told her I like to read 'Jesus stories' for guidance, cause it's good to look at guidance. She said her favourite quote is from the Dali Lama, and it's this: 'My religion is simple, my religion is love.' I TOTALLY agree with that statement! God = Love! And religion = a person's belief system (everyone has one). So, if you like, you can see it like this: my belief system is simple: it's God!

Hailey asked me if I'd like to read some Jesus stories with her some time! I've never had someone who doesn't read Jesus stories that much, ask me that! WOW! Normally, I'm the one to ask! :) But nope, God's got other plans, cause God's NOT NORMAL!!

So we're going to hang out soon, maybe do some healthy baking, photography, or painting! We both love all of those. And read some Jesus stories together. :D Can't wait.

God = awesome! I love God.