My life so far...

one beautiful day in may, mothers day to be exact, a precious and stunningly beautiful baby girl was born. that was me!
May 12, 1985 i entered the world and haven't stopped since the day i was born.

my first year is filled with sleeping mostly (i slept A LOT!) and eating, a similar experience to many of my friends i hear. my mom stays us many nights with me begging God to stop my vomiting after voracious bottle session but to her dismay, i vomit up everything as soon as she burps me and she's left, literally, crying out to God in sheer sleep depravity, while my dad comes running in, takes me, and tells her to go change her baby vomit pj's.

i begin to love dolls, dresses and anything girlie. i sport an extreme mushroom cut (i'm still a little mad about that one) and the boyishness of my haircut is offset by my giant frilly dresses....a lovely dichotomy.

i play hard and sleep harder....and on hard surfaces. i fall asleep often on the cement front stairs to our house after many hours chasing my best friend in the whole wide world, sonja, back and forth between our houses which were conveniently located a mere 5 houses away from eachother.

sonja and i spent out days selling rocks, and playing house in the giant refrigerator box that my dad turned into a play house for me.

about this time my mom puts locks on the outside of my bedroom door because i am changing outfits 5 or 6 times a day. i begin to be tucked into carrot beds at night with myself in the middle and 15 dolls on either side tucked up to their chins like i am. i sing a lot.

at 4ish we move from the big city of edmonton to gibbons alberta. a dinky little town of 2000 people. to my sister and i's surprise, we have BOY who is smack dab in the middle of our ages next door named Tristan (one of 7 Tristan's in the world he tells us). we immediately go about knocking a board out from behind the tiger lillies so we don't have to walk around the front of the houses to get to eachother...this was much more convenient.

i get in trouble a lot for being impulsive (thanks ADHD!) and doing dumb things like stuffing my neighbors cat under their cement stairs in winter and packing it with snow, slitting my neighbors couch cushions with scissors, throwing rocks at cars off bridges, throwing rocks at my dad's car parts and breaking the windows, taking the christmas lights off people's trees, mooning the mail man (biiiig trouble for that one!) and putting dead gophers on the train tracks and watching them explode.

i start school and i'm super popular. i have 2 friends, both named danielle and we hang out all the time.

grade 2 and i'm the star of our class play, snow white. i desperately want conrad to be cast as the prince but kirk is and i am actually disgusted. i remember something specific about a bathtub and a tub stopper and some kind of mean thing he said to me about it but the memory is failing me right now.

Grade 4 i start at the local Christian school. my mom forgets to pack me a lunch my very first day and to add insult to injury, she crimps my out of control hair and i wear it in a side pony tail.

i become super tight with the only 4 other girls in my class, justine, jenn, sam and teresa. we all sit together and talk about boys a lot. i love a boy named nathan and will continue for many years.

i get my first boyfriend in grade 8, mark. he's in grade 7 and its scandalous because he dumped his girlfriend for me. my sister and marks sister- who are best friends, plan our wedding.

we break up and i have my first real kiss with a boy in the language arts room at school during art class. i'm horrified and grossed out and we never talk again. i am chatty in class and get placed beside the 2 exchange students from Korea who know no english. we become fast friends, hyun, myung and me, and i learn tons of korean!

grade 9. my mom homeschools me. enough said.

high school! i thrive and my friend angela and i like to call ourselves first and second popular. i am a part of the 'plastics' (for all you who've seen mean girls) but i'm nice...i promise.

i date a boy named daniel who's captain of everything sports wise for a long time. he writes me the cutest letters all the time and are really cute together but oddly matched now that i think about it.....we have a bad break up in grade 12 and so begins a string of boys coming and going....(I can't help that i'm so attractive and wonderful!;) all through highschool i had a crush on a guy named M and i would sit behind him in chem and distract him by talking the entire class. my permanent seat in bio is at the very back of the class, facing the back wall and everyone else is facing the front (once again, thank you adhd) and i also spend a lot of time sitting the hallway.

i go on 2 missions trips to mexico and love it but know that africa is for me.

i graduate high school with only good memories and good times and proceed to bible college. i meet gord the first week there and we being dating the 2nd week of school. i get really involved at school, and run for student council and win...of course!

i hate being on student council and butt heads with the president a lot. i apply to be a resident assistant (RA) and get to the final interview where i'm told that i'm too intimidating, seem like i have it all together, and girls can't relate to me. i get angry and upset and am really really hurt. a few months later i get a call saying another RA is sick, isn't coming back to school and we'd love to have you! i'm weary after what they've told me but my best friend is on student council that year so we will get to do lots of fun things together.

i hate being an RA. its a lot of work, i am soooo different than some of my girls, and i have animals in the dorm all. the. time. bethany tells me cassia is going to africa and so me and cassia get together and decide to go to africa together. i graduate and leave prov with many many many tears and awesome memories and friends i'll have for a long long time to come.

i work at an ice cream shop in the summer to save money and a month before we leave for africa God tells me not to go to kenya, but to go to uganda. i say ok and head on over to Jinja.

uganda for 3 months. awesome. beautiful. wonderful. hard. fun. love. heartbreak. new friends. i meet rachel and arielle and michelle who become some of my best friends in the whole world. we have a blast at with the kids at the orphanage and blast with our friends from town doing random things like going to body building competitions! we fall in love with musa, our shamba, and take him under our wing....(my dad loves musa like his own son and does wonderful things for him)

i go home break up with Gord and am home for a month before i can't stand it anymore. i slip into depression and isolate myself and cry and cry and cry for the things i'm not a part of and for the babies i've left. rach air and i decide to head on back over to UG and 6 months later i'm there with my bestie, bethany.

have the time of my life, once again, and meet the most beautiful ugandans... david, jp, ronnie, RAOUL, melody, nina, ruth, mama, papa, florence etc....me and beth have a tough time at the orphanage and decide that we'd be better used with our church and get super involved with JInja Deliverance Church and The Youth Together ministries. we join the TYT choir and travel around uganda with our friends singing at weddings and concerts and its hilarious and wonderful! i learn to fast and to pray and to listen for God's leading. i learn to lean on him and to pray pray pray.

jan 30, 08, i head home. i work and am miserable. i have a great friend C who listens to me all the time and sits there and its my sounding board. i yell at him with my anger for the world, and he helps me deal with all my psycho emotions and panic attacks and is faithfully praying for me. i begin to learn how to control my tongue and i work on keeping some things for myself instead of yelling at people (which i think is a good thing...agree?)

september 08 i move to peterborough and start classes at trent university. i live with the most wonderful roommates, meet the most wonderful friends, attend the most wonderful churches, volunteer at the most wonderful youth center, and have the most wonderful time....all the time...and i'm sooo looking forward to the next years of my life, knowing that Christ's hand is all over it, i dont have to worry about a thing (not even africa, or my babies, which is a new concept to this worrier) and that in all i do, i'm going to work at it as if working for God and not for man.

thats my life in a nutshell.

that being said....i have some pathophysiology to read!

Success

A wise wise woman (mel inglis) prayed last night during debrief at the bridge that our success isn't measured in results but in obedience. isn't that such a relief?

imagine we served a God who looked at our results sheets before we entered those pearly gates and thats how he measured our success?

last night at the bridge i had a really great chat with Sarah (not her real name). She told me about how she's recently ran away from her foster home even though she knew they really loved her and had given her the best christmas of her life. She is now living at the youth emergency shelter until april when she turns 16 and is officially out of children's aids hands. she said she lives her life day by day, never trusting anyone, never hoping for anything, never believing anything until it turns out to be true, always protecting herself from disappointment and hurt. sad.

i had a chat with another girl who just had a baby and doesn't have custody. she sees the baby twice a week and from what i gathered that seems like a good amount of time. sad.

i had another talk with (i know its bad) one of my favorite's and she's young and gets all her self worth from relationships with guys and has no idea what love is and has no idea what a healthy, loving, stable relationship looks like. she loves drama, both creating it and perpetuating it. sad.

Bea and I were talking at the canteen and i just told her how heart sick i was that night. Its draining to hear the stories of these kids and see the kinds of lives their living. but i am so thankful that week after week Christ works through me and speaks through me words of love, affirmation, and respect to these kids who so desperately need it. Sarah told me that through it all (running away, living in the shelter, being on her own at 16) she chooses to be joyful because if she wasn't it would be too hard. Tom(not his real name) told me that he's so happy he has this girlfriend because now he has something to live for.

This is what i pray for for these kids and the bridge and you can join me too!

-protection from the ENEMY who is working overtime on these kids, dragging them into depression, drugs and alcohol abuse, and telling them all sorts of lies about sex, love and relationships, belief in witchcraft and all things not from Christ.

-protection from themselves. (self harming etc)

-their hearts would be opened to the love and change that Christ brings. that their hearts would be made new and all anger and bitterness and rage would be replaced with love, kindness, and confidence

-that the girls would become self confident and learn how to stand up for themselves and that all the female staff members would be good examples of that and be living it out for them to see

-the building itself would be protected from all attacks from Satan. It's his favorite spot on brock street and we can definitely feel when he's got a hold. pray for the Holy Spirit to be covering the whole property and washing us with his spirit as we enter, stripping off all that we might bring in.

-for the spirits and lives of the paid staff (Mel, Tim, Carlo, Shelly, Sherry, Melissa, Brenda...) it's tough work and not always rewarding (or rewarding in physical tangible ways) but that they would be renewed daily and encouraged in the relationships they've built with these kids and with the environment they've provided them to come and hang out in a safe place.

Non-years resolutions

1. go to every class even the ones i hate and even the ones at the most ridiculous times (seriously....5pm on a friday evening??!!)

2. try to eat things that aren't processed or that comes covered in plastic. (i loooove cheese slices)

3. read my bible through in a year

4. watch every single new episode of grey's anatomy and the bachelor no matter what the cost, be it academic or social. :)


I got a new textbook yesterday and although it felt like high way robbery (173 dollars) i was very excited to bring it home and open it up with my roommate tori and look at the gross photos of people with diseases in it. I LOVE that kind of stuff....

Here's a really funny website. It's called Fail Blog and really all it is is photos or videos of things that aren't quite right. it great.

I miss these people!!

Love, Where is Your Fire?

Yesterday night a friend came over and gave me 2 pictures Soph has made for me and a few videos of her and Steffi and Mama Lois, Mama Eyotia and Florence. He went to Uganda with Watoto in November and had taken a few hours out of their busy schedule to hop a coaster over to Jinja and take a giant suitcase packed full of stuff for Mama Lois for me.

We got to talking about Uganda and missions and I saw a lot of myself in him. He's fresh from Uganda, with that high that comes from Africa, that feeling like you've glimpsed something incredible and need to tell the world about it. I love that feeling. But i think what i feel now is much more sustainable. I love Uganda. I love it like it was own country. I love it because it bore my hopes and dreams for my future and it was the place where our Lord took my faith, crushed it , and rebuilt it from the ground up and from the ashes the older, wiser, more faithful Amy arose. I was set in the kiln in Uganda but it is here in Canada that i'm being refined in that fire.

As we sat talking and i could see his passion for UG glowing, i was so cautious with what i said. I agreed with a lot of what he said but there were some things i just couldn't anymore. I was in his position once where only Africa matters anymore and i thought God placed this very specific call on my life. But I believe missions/service/calls, whatever you want to label it, must go beyond borders. The Lord has not called me to Africa. He's called me to SERVE. And if i'm not doing that right here at 'home', then i'm not living my call, and i'm missing out on great service experience here and i'm cutting my own self short.

As Christians we are so content with writing a check and watching the video montage of those adorable babies, or the time lapse video of the school/church/home being built. But when it comes to putting on the gloves, picking up the hammer/bottle we pause. There's work. There's my retirement fund. There's that BMV we really need. There's someone else to do it.

We're lazy people. We like others to do the work but give a little someone to feel like we've contributed. And i'm definitely not saying that the people who write checks and work hard to be able to write those checks are bad or wrong. They are needed and fulfilling a need with what God's blessed them with. Which is good.

But we need to find our Africa, India, Mexico, Haiti, Brazil etc and bring it here. We need to use that fire and that passion and that feeling and use it serve out own North America that is dead spiritually and bring it back to life. We need to heal the sick, bring hope to the broken hearted, provide for the poor and the widow and the orphan HERE. I believe Jesus would be disappointed in me if i lived for the day i could return to 'missions' and ignored the 35 million who needed Him right in my back yard.

My friend said that African's have faith, and that their faith comes somewhat easily because its all they have. I say not true. Some may have little, but some have plenty and their faith is the same as the destitute. I say faith is something that requires 'work'. You can't just leave JC out of your life, only let him in when its convenient or easy or you need help. The mentality is whats different between us and them. We don't rely on Jesus for our meal. We don't rely on the Holy Spirit to heal our disease. We have things and systems in place to do that for us. Does that mean our faith should come easier or harder?

Not necessarily. it should just be. A relationship with Christ needs faith. The amount of money you have shouldn't effect us that much. If it does, then we're giving those with millions and no faith a scape goat of sorts.

The hands and feet of Jesus don't recognize arbitrary lines we've drawn for ourselves over land masses.




some tell me to be temperate but luke warm will never do.

A sweet short video

Watch



THIS


video! It's my friends Carlo and Steve from The Bridge and they did a really sweet Christmas mural on the wall at my church, The Third Space.

Its beauuuuutiful!

love.

Boxing Day

Up here in the northern part of north america, Canada has a wee tradition called Boxing Day. On December 26th, millions of people leave their warm homes and pile into malls and big box stores. I went to Future Shop today because my new MACBOOK was 150 dollars off. (so handy considering i bought it 4 days ago!) OF course I wanted a price adjustment and wouldn't you know, no on takes returns, exchanges or price adjustments till the 28th, one day after the price of my mac going back up to 1399. You can imagine the fuss i'm going to kick up if that 150 is not back in my checkings account.

I went to north america's largest mall (no its not mall of america- we beat it by 1 million square feet), West Edmonton Mall and it was if everyone in the city of Edmonton had packed into the mall. It was nuts. Line ups for Lulu Lemon and this weird clubbing clothing store Pusch had lineups over 100 people long!! Future Shop was a nightmare with my sister and I circling the parking lot, stalking people coming out of the store to their cars just to find parking. Inside it was madness but i guess if you're going to by a tv you might as well get one thats 2000 dollars off!!!! Some stores had signs for 75% off. The news tonight had camera crews out at the mall and many people had bags and bags and bags hanging off their arms...no signs of a recession here...

Imagine my surprise when i turn on KXLY news from Spokane and they showed video from their malls and they were literally empty.

Seems more american's saw the Advent Conspiracy video than Canadians :)

Now here are some adorable photos from my beautiful Christmas Eve night with my family and Our 2 Ethiopian family friends! IT was AWESOME!