Almost one week

John 12:23-26

Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

These verses were part of my bible reading yesterday and as I poured over the text and tried to focus, they stuck out to me. Whoever hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life, that to me has been powerful. I have been struggling in this one week of being here with perceived loneliness (as oppossed to actual loneliness), and with just not really feeling a sense of beloning. Perhaps for the first time in my life I actually grieve the absence of friends of routine maybe. I have been dwelling unwillingly on the conflict between feeling like I should somehow always be active with others, and the other hand, just being completely and utterly exhausted by all the action, activity, screaming and laughter all the time. I think what I maybe miss most is the one on one connection with people and that takes time to build. And here is where that verse comes to mind that I just quoted. Not all things we are called to are easy, and they are not always what we like. The expression that comes to mind is "growing pains." Being put out of my comfort zone, where I maybe didnt even expect it to be that uncomfortable is maybe just what I needed. This is where God has chosen to have me for the next year, and this is where I am eing taught over and over again to humble myself, to give up my own pretensions as to my future, to forget that I studied things for 4 years, and to actively and completely work on my faith and on giving everything up to God. Is it hard? Yes, I most definitely feel that it is. And thats where I come back again to that verse. "those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." I am here to follow God and change those things that he deems need changing. I hope it keeps on being hard, but what I pray for is the joy to keep on changing even when it's really hard.

Now, on Wednesday we went to Whistler. Whistler is beautiful, the drive is excruciating, and the place we stayed at was kind of weird. It was a really good time, however, to do some heavy excercise, but also to just lay around and read and listen to some awesome music. I am discovering classical music all over again, as I have been listening to it a lot lately. Anyways, what sticks out about Whistler is Thursday. Thursday was a day for us to do whatever we wanted to do. Three of us had decided that we wanted to hike, but then found out that there were not real hiking trails, but more walking trails that left the actual townsite of Whistler. We resigned to the fact that we would try to find the most hardcore of these latter trails, however, on Thursday morning another option popped up. We could leave somewhere closer to our retreat centre and hike up to a lake. As we made the decision, our group doubled in size. So, at 11 AM 6 of us started at the Rainbow Lake trailhead. This was one of the most amazing experiences I have had in my life. Not only did I get to know more people, but the hike was long and hard. The roundtrip was about 20 Km, in which we gained 850 meters, and then of course, on the way back lost those meters again. The trail was hard, there were not that many switchbacks and was almost continually slopping upwards. After about 2.5 hours people were almost ready to quit. We had just encountered hikers coming down from the lake who told they had been coming down for almost a half hour (coming down is faster anyways). We had a team meeting and we decided that we couldnt quit now. The goal was almost there. And from what we had heard, the lake was beautiful. That was the best decision ever. The last half hour was brutal, it was hard, and yet we continually told each other that we could do it. It was a team effort and when we reached that lake, we did not regret it. There was a feeling of accomplishment, of relief, and most of all, the fact that we knew that we could stretch ourselves beyond what we thought we could do. I am not going to explain how this can be analogous to what we are doing on a missions trip, one that is so aptly named TREK. Figure it out. It was amazing, pictures will be on facebook.

I get to drive today, which is so sweet, because not having driven for a week now drives me up the wall (hehe, not driving drives me up the wall, I just love it)

I know you guys are all busy, but I'd love to hear from you guys, comment or write an email. Let me finish with another couple of verses

Then Jesus cried aloud: "Whoever believes in me bleives not in me but in him who sent me. And hwoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that eveyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness"

John 12:44-46