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.