Peace is the only answer, love is the only way.

6 days and 13 hours into THE RESCUE (see previous post), 500+ people are going strong in Chicago..... still unrescued. Every other city in the WORLD has been rescued but everyone at Invisible Children and the abductee's who came out all agree that Chicago will be the culminating city. They aren't going home for anyone other than Oprah, Obama or Mrs. Obama.

6 days for a cause so important, so vital to millions of peoples lives. 

6 days for a cause crucial to political stability in DR Congo, Uganda and surrounding countries. 

6 days for 50,000 children abducted.

6 days for 23 years war.

6 days for over a million ugandans displaced in their own country.

6 days for peace. 

www.invisiblechildren.com

Peace is the only answer, love is the only way. 

Rescued, April 25, 2009.

On April 25, 2009 Tori, Jenn, Jasmine, Hanna Wendy and myself, along with 99,994 thousand-ish fellow worldians took to the streets and 'abducted' ourselves. We congregated at Dundas and Yonge square and waited for instructions on our march orders. After about an hour, we began our march with a ton of people watching and police shutting down streets for our 500ish fellow Toronto Rescue Adbuctee's. 

We separated ourselves into groups of 20 and each grabbed a hold of the rope, symbolizing being tied together as we march like the child soldiers often are. 

As we marched we handed out little cards inviting people to the event and we made a whole heck of a lot of noise!

Wouldn't you know it but Aaron Carter showed up! He's the little brother of Nick Carter, former Backstreet Boy. I told Aaron that I used to love Brian from BSB and was dead set on marrying him but someone else got to him first. Then .........

I let Aaron in on the little known fact that my roommate Jenn (in red) auditioned for his music video when she was a whole lot younger! And for not chosing her (a decision that he's probably regretted ever since) he was chill enough to hang out with us for a few minutes and take a ton of photos. 

We get to Queen's Park and set up camp. It was (up until a few minutes after this photo was taken) beeeautiful outside but we saw these dark clouds coming over the city and the wind started picking up....

Jenn and I pray for clear skies as Tori is on the phone with her boyfriend and he's telling her that its storming like mad at his house a few km's away so we hunker down and just as Jenn and I say amen, the skies open up and it starts to p-o-u-r!

Because we are such good planners, we brought little more than nothing to The Rescue but were blessed to find a random backpack and after i asked around if it was anyones, I grabbed the sheet of hole-y plastic that was attached to it and all 6 of us hunkered down for what we thought would be a quick downpour. 

Here we are an hour later with the rain still coming down. Unfortunately the rain drove some of the abductee's away but we hardcore'ers, decided to stick it out!

We got 'rescued' pretty soon after we got to Queen's Park. Olivia Chow and Jack Layton came from the NDP party and Jack said he came only because he recieved about 1000 emails the previous week and after researching this 'invisible children' organization all these young people were emailing him about, he was shocked he didn't know the situation, and vowed to us his support for the cause. 

We decided to embrace the rain and take the obligatory jumpy photos for a while. Notice the giant puddles forming all around us. Also notice the vert Tori pulls off here and how I can barely get off the ground. 

Apparently there was a statue in the park of the man who brought 'sunday school' to Canada! Neat!

Rick Mercer, from This Hour has 22 Minutes, came by too! I asked him if he could call George- they are on the same network after all. I then asked if he was going to make another Talking to American's.... he said nope. 

Around 11 or 12, Tori and I took a walk and we took some photos. 

The boy in the photo behind me is fighting in Uganda right now. He was abducted and has yet to be rescued. 

This was our home for the night. It was not nearly as comfy, warm or dry as it looked. In fact, my head was cushioned by a saturated sleeping bag. Luxury, i know!
This is our little home we rigged up in the midst of the downpour. I think next time we'll pack a tent... or at least a tarp. 

Who would have thought that 4 years after seeing the Invisible Children movie, The Rough Cut, I'd be camping out overnight to support a cause that had been seeded so deep in my heart. Who would have thought that at 20 years old i would watch a documentary that would turn out to be the catalyst for some MAJOR life changes. Now.... 4 years later, here i am! A new creation, changed from the inside out, experiencing life and hope and love in a way I'd never thought possible. Wow......

We left our little bench home at 5:30am in order to catch our greyhound bus back to Peterborough at 6:30am. We got home at 9 and cleaned the house prior to church at 10:30am. 

As we were standing at Dundas and Yonge at 4pm yesterday, I started tearing as I thought about my friends in Uganda and the Amani mama's who had fled the war in the North- the same war that I was fighting against at that moment. 

During the night I met some fellow abductees from across the path who were making their own shelter. We started chatting over talk of twine and discovered we were all Christians. We had the most beautiful amazing alive impromptu prayer session and it felt unbelievable to worship and pray with virtual strangers, to the same Savior. Beautiful!

I met a guy from HQ of Invisible Children in San Diego and had an amazing conversation about our mutual love for Uganda, Galatians, the gospel, and youtube :) I told him if they ever need a nurse, I'm their girl! 

I wept through the church service today and had a sob through a worship song. My friend and the youth pastor was speaking on freedom in Christ and I cried and cried and cried the entire sermon. I was an exhausted emotional mess and ditched the young adults lunch for some alone time at home. 

A wonderful night!!! And as I finish this off and head to bed, there are STILL cities left unrescued. check out the website HERE to keep tabs on how things are going. 

Study Bible Break!

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Galatians 2: 17-21

Did you know.......

that the strongest chemical influence on breathing is H+ ion sensed by the central chemoreceptors of the medulla?

that in a typical 500mL inspiration, about 150 mL fills anatomical dead space and 350 mL reaches the alveoli?

that there are 4 kinds of hypoxia, a deficiency in oxygen in the tissues?

that airflow is directly proportional to the pressure difference between two points and inversely proportional to resistance?

that an alveolus is composed of squamous and great alveolar cells and contains alveolar macrophages (that last line of defense against inhaled debris)?

gastric juices consist mainly of water, HCL and pepsin?

that chief cells secrete pepsinogen, a zymogen which HCL converts to pepsin and that in infants the chief cells also secrete the fat digesting enzyme gastric lipase and the milk curdling secretion chymosin?

that prostates grow from apricot to lemon size between 20 and 65 years old?

that glomerular filtration and urine output increase to dispose of both fetal and maternal wastes but the capacity of the bladder is reduced by pressure from the uterus?

that i am slowly going crazy 1- 2-3 -4 - 5- 6 switch, crazy going slowly am i , 6 -5 -4 - 3 -2 - swtich. 

that i have 29 hours until my anatomy and physiology final exam covering 8 months and 1011 pages of ridiculously cool but incredibly frustrating material?

that this could possibly take the cake for the most boring/ coolest post depending on if you hate or love biology?

that i'm taking a 10 minute break from the respiratory system and this is what i've chosen to die (i'm also enjoying a diet coke)?

that i keep forgetting to mail rachel and arielle their super funny card that i got them the day after i received theirs but just cannot for the life of me put it in the mail?

saved and being saved

Saturday = the bridge = goodness. 

during debrief we listened to a voicemail that had been saved about a kid who's given his life to Christ and is pumped about it. He was thanking the message reciever for all his help and said how he met a guy playing guitar and told him 'what he's all about' (aka- Jesus) and then said something that struck me soooo deeply. the kid asked what he could do for this guy who's really been there for him. 

whoa. that may not seem like a big deal but its phenomenal. a lot of the time these kids can't think past themselves and for him to say in effect... 'i appreciate you and what you've done for me, i want to give to you now'... thats what we pray for. thats the kind of change we long to see. 

so awesome. church today was incredible. i went to a different one than my usual because my friend was speaking and it was awesome-- all about Isaiah 61 and how Jesus came to heal the sick, bind the brokenhearted, set the captives free. He's here and wants to heal us from all the junk that happened in our lives prior to knowing him or while knowing him and taking those lies we believe about ourselves and exchanging them for the truths that are in Him. so good. 

6 days till THE RESCUE!!

Chunk of Change

My roommate Tori is going to Martin Sexton tonight in Toronto. How i wish i could go! He's unreal. Blows your mind. Am i jealous? Yes. 

I have been finding/ mollie has been finding the best blogs ever. I've decided to do a favor to the world and post them here for all you to see. It takes a very specific kind of humor to find them funny but they are gold and gold is worth sharing.

www.jedidiah.tumblr.com

www.behindthescenes.invisiblechildren.com

www.yodawgyo.com

Also if you like odd(aka really sweet) music then you will LOVE this song/visual extravaganza then click HERE. 

In other news I had a killer convo with a kid at the bridge that straight up made my day. And the best part was that Jenn- my roommate- had an equally killer convo with another kid that straight up made HER day, and when we reconvened at The Night Kitchen moments later for a slice of za and told eachother our stories, we both were floored. 

This God we serve is out of control awesome. This youth center we serve at is what Jesus is all about and I think if he was here physically, He'd be a regular. 

This saturday, myself, a bunch of friends and 950 other people (so far...) are meeting in Toronto and abducting ourselves for the child soldiers in Uganda. We're being tied together and we're marching 2 miles to our LRA base camp in a park in downtown toronto where we're waiting for big names in the world to come rescue us. We're causing a peaceful ruckus and the words getting out. An extra cool part? Some bridge kids want to come too! There's something inexplainable about being involved in changing a nation, ending a war, and bringing kids home and doing it with 100,000 other people around the world....simultaneously. I believe the right word would be privilege. 

Check it and wreck it. 

www.invisiblechildren.com

Kind of freaky

I had a dream that my mom and I were in some war zone and Sophie was with us. There were these potato looking bombs being thrown at us and they'd explode close enough to make me think i was going to die but far enough away as to not kill me. I had my phone and I got a call from a family friend, Shaun, and he asked me if the war was really bad and as i opened my mouth to answer, a bomb hit right near me and I grabbed Soph and my mom and I ran into this beautiful beautiful building that looked like the inside of an A&W but it was a university. Shawn was still on the phone and we huddled between these 2 giant cement pillar things, he asked me if i was ready to chose Jesus if a soldier came to kill me or renounce my faith. 

Then i woke up. 

When the Saints....

Lord I have a heavy burden of all I've seen and know, it's more than i can handle, but your word is burning  like a fire shut up in my bones and I can't let it go.

And when i'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left unfought I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard, I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

and when the saints go marching in, i want to be one of them. 

Lord it's all i that i can't carry and cannot leave behind, it all can overwhelm me but when i think of all who've gone before and lived a faithful life their courage compels me.

I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaoh's court, I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

I see the long quiet walk along the underground railroad

I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear

I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta night

I see the sister standing by the dying man's side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor

I see the man with a passion come kicking down that door

I see the man of sorrow on his long troubled road

I see the world on his shoulders and my easy road. 

And when i'm wearing and overwrought with so many battles left unfought, I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard, I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars. 

And when the saints go marching in, I want to be one of them. 

- sara groves. 

Proverbs 3

Don't lost your grip of love and loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. 

Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of people.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. 

Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track.

Don't assume you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! 

Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life! 

Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best.

Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over.

But don't, dear friend, resent God's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction. 

It's the child he loves that God corrects; a fathers delight is behind all this. 

...........

Never walk away from someone who deserves help; your hand is God's hand for that person.

Don't tell your neighbor "Maybe some other time" or "try my tomorrow" when the money's right there in your pocket.