Coming Home?

Tomorrow evening I leave for Holland. While I am there just for a visit. It is kind of like coming home. Four years ago, I was ready to leave Holland, move to Canada and take on this new adventure. This journey is in its concluding stages. This week I finished my last work and I graduate May 23rd, pending the grades of my final weeks of course.

In the mean time I am visiting Holland. Spending time with my family, going back to my old home town of Ede, visiting Barcelona, and I get the chance to reflect. It is kind of weird coming back to Holland. The last time I visited was during Christmas of 2006 at that point I was still very much rooted in Holland and getting rooted in Hamilton. Today it feels a bit different, I have started to grow deep roots in Hamilton and my roots in Holland are established, but no longer growing.

So, I leave for Holland, my home country, yet it doesn't seem like I am coming home. I will feel that I am coming Home when I fly into Toronto again on May 15. This June I am moving into a house with some dear friends. We have been given the opportunity to live in a beautiful house on the Hamilton Harbour. Six of us will be living in the upstairs house and two will be living in a separate, but connected basement apartment. We will have the opportunity to just live. Be intentional about the simple things in our lives, give thanks for the abundance of blessings, and seek to combine a sense of community and culture in our home. (Once we get closer to that day, I will post pictures and be sharing more about this.

I am coming home. Perhaps surprisingly Hamilton has become that home to me. Initially due to my four years at Redeemer, now it continues to be home as I will start the next part of my journey here. There is so much to be thankful for.

The people I have resided with for the past two years.

This is dorm 28 - slightly chaotic - wonderful nonetheless

The Home - we had good times last year - we also made full use of our landlords artifacts

Faith

Sola fide - the doctrine of justification - the idea that we are justified by faith alone. We are made right with God by our faith not by our actions. I think it is something I have assumed for a long time. I don't think I have thought about it to much though. Being raised in the Calvinistic tradition it is perhaps something that is often just assumed. Dr. Payton made me think about this again... these thoughts are mainly his or at least by inspired by his words.

Romans 3: 21-24 tells us "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." This being made right with God is through faith in Christ. Through faith alone, not through deeds because we all no matter how good fall short to God. However, being justified through faith alone does not mean that we can sit on our lazy bums. It is not a one time, and now we are good for life commitment.

Yes, only by faith we are justified. However, faith is not something that stand on its own, it can't. Without the body of believers nourishing our faith, without being challenged in our faith, our faith stands alone. When it stands alone is cannot be living. Faith in Christ is not an one-time thing, it is something that changes over the span of our life. We sin and get raised again with Christ, we fall down and get picked up by His love that we can see in the body of believes. If this, our faith, is this one time commitment it is dead. We run the danger of becoming a mouse in a cooke jar, to steal an idea from Soren Kierkegaard. All around us are Christians who have made a faith commitment, and their faith might be alive, but they are all around us, and so we assume we are also a Christian whose faith is alive. However, we need to be aware that our surroundings don't determine where we think our faith is at. Perhaps my faith is not something living, and I am just someone trusting on the idea of justification throug faith.

To me being safe in a Christian environment is a huge encouragement, however, within my heritage we run the risk of thinking we are cookies. Whether it is in our church, school, or work communties our faith should not be lazy, it should spur us to a more active life rooted in Christ and the faith we have received by His grace.

Future plans

So, lots of future plans all confirmed in the last couple of weeks - God is Glorious

1. Finish this school year
2. Live with awesome guys and have a great summer on Glancaster rd. - staying in Hamilton
3. Painting - lots of it, it will be my summer job, and I am very excited, I will be working with some awesome people
4. RAing with James Cuthbert
5. Leading a ministry that I have come to love (CITB), very exciting, should be very stretching and challenging as well.
6. I am sure there is a six... but I forget.

Redeemer Gold, Raptors blow out, and March Madness

Lots of sports news...

25 years after its humble beginnings Redeemer University College wins their first golden medal within the OCAA. I love this school, and I love the fact that a school of about 850 people can beat a school with about 15000 students in the Indoor soccer finals! Redeemer wins gold! The OCAA website tells us, "No Redeemer men’s tournament or league team has ever won an OCAA gold medal…until today when the Royals dethroned the Humber Hawks 2-1 in the Championship final. "

Yesterday I was at the Raptors game. And I guess it was historic - 96-54 for the Raptors against the Heat. Biggest margin of victory for Toronto ever, lowest points against for Toronto ever, and third lowest points (54) in the NBA ever scored by the Heat. The icing on the cake was Jamario Moon's sick dunk > see Video.

And also March Madness started today! College basketball is awesome. North Carolina all the way!

Thank you

Thank you Jesus, for making life a bit less academically busy, while other things were crazy. Two Campus Visit Days, Banquet, and Church in the Box in four days, makes me quite tired! Imagine another load of papers or such on top of that.

Campus Visit Days for me have been something that I have and still absolutely love. For me it is quite easy to still resonate with young people coming in, wondering about Redeemer, University, and life in general. It is awesome to just stand by there side, show them around, answer questions from concerned parents, etc.

Dr. Wolters highlighted the passion of palm sunday. Christ the King does not come without a Christ who suffered. There the one and the same, and so our lives are going to be full of times where we confirm the kingship of Christ or where we suffer alongside with Christ.

Right now Matt VanderVecht, Ben Bouwman, Jared Dalton, and I are looking into places that we ould possible live for the summer. Pray with us that we will find a place where we can get a better understanding of what Hamilton is about.

Currently Reading: Cries of the Heart - Ravi Zacharias
Current most loved song: God of this City - Christ Tomlin
Current best food - Anything involving Rice!
Current time: 00:01 - time to go to bed

This might be a temporary revival

Well, it is reading break right now. And it has been a while since I was active on this blog. There are a few things I want to share that have happened since October.

Life at 49-20 Kitty Murray Lane has been really good. The guys I have been living with and myself have been thinking a lot about how to live our life, thinking about community, trying to be a group of people welcoming to others. Matt V, Steve, and I have been going to First CRC downtown Hamilton which has been awesome for us.

Last semester ended in a very good fashion, I was able to visit Jen, Rachel, and Cheryl in Vancouver, and went to Calgary to celbrate Christmas there.

This week (reading break) offically means that we are halfway through the second semester, and this means there was time for some relaxing. The last 4 days I went to New York, which was an amazing trip where I was very impressed with the city and that it has to offer. Today, I went home, and tomorrow I am going to my first Leafs game which is also something I am really excited about. To top it all of I am going to the True City conference on the weekend - which is something really exciting - since there are so many churches working together on the city of Hamilton.

Earlier this semester I was also able to enjoy my time at the Calvin Worship Symposium, the Faith and Social Justice Conference, the Marva Dawn lectures, and the winter retreat. There are so many stories behind all these events, that listing them really doesn't do them justice, but hey, I am making up for 4 months of not bloggin. Anyway, expect more posts soon.

In between

YouthWorks is done, it has been for the last almost 2 weeks, but I am just slow with updating people on my life. Redeemer doesn't start for another 2 weeks for me, so right now I am in between. I like being in Barrie, I always have, but it somehow has become a place where I am always longing to go somewhere else. I used to go to Canada (on vacation) more specifically Barrie, and I would love it everytime. It was time to relax, spend time with family, enjoy nature, and be in Canada (all great things). Today when I visit Barrie, I often take the go up to Newmarket where my mom will pick me up, and after a couple of days of saying hi to family and some people in church that is about it. It is weird how the exact same place has become something completely different to me, Barrie does kind of feel like home, but it is not where I grew up and it is not where I want to be right now... Thus far for my thoughts about Barrie.

In the meantime, I am trying to keep myself busy. Finding a job in Barrie when I don't know that many people and have only limited time (about 3 weeks) is hard. And so I have been doing a lot of reading lately. I think 2007 is the year that the great secret of reading books has been revealed to me. This summer I was still able to read quite a few books, even though YW schedule didn't always allow that, but so far this is my summer reading list.

My summer of 2007 Reading list:
-Already Read
Irresisteble Revolution - Shane Claiborne
Amazing book, goes beyond an amazing story of God's love, and challenges us to be that love to others
The Cross and the Switchblade - Rev. David Wilkerson
Amazing story of How Teen Challenge came to be and how Rev. Wilkerson was lead from being a small town preacher to leading gang leaders to Christ in NYC
Three mini biographies on D.L. Moody, Billy Graham, and John Wesley
Fun to read, not very in depth, but a great overview of their lives
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The series have ended, will there be a series in like 10 years about Albus Severus?
Under the Overpass - Mike Yankoski
Living on the streets, learning from Mike's experiences - is quite challenging

-Reading
Sidewalks in the Kingdom (New Urbanism and the Christian Faith) - Eric O. Jacobson
Something I am really interested in, basically a Christian framework for understanding Cities, Suburbs, and Urban life.

-Still to Read
Velvit Elvis - Rob Bell
Cries of the Heart - Ravi Zacharias
Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller (I got 2/3 durin Christmas break, then I lost the book)

Anyways I feel like I am all over the place, so I will end. Peace.

Honestly

Honestly, I don't know how well I will continue to update this blog, but today I will at least update it. I am halfway done my undergrad, which I guess is a really cool thing. I have enjoyed many of the courses I have taken, but have been even more enriched and challenged by some of the activites outside the classroom. This year, was completely different from anything that I expected it to be. I expected my second year to be first year part II. However, there were new people, new struggles, and new brokeness and beauty.

After first semester I was not doing that great, I struggled a lot with my faith, in the way that I did not care about it that much. I can't do things on my own, I can't...
"you can’t do this alone! you can’t work/grind hard enough to make this happen, to pull this off. this i will do great things through you, but you must walk, stand, run, hide, jump, fly with me. it is all through me. don’t go it alone or you will fall and you will fall hard. it will be violent and bloody (spiritually). please trust my word, i am telling you now."
That is what God told me and some of the people that mean a lot to me at the beginning of this school year. I think it took me a while to listen to that.

It is a slow process growing from brokeness to healing, from insecurity to trust, from earthly to spiritually, from me to God. But, then there are people helpingme people caring for me. People learning to challenge me, and I try to challenge others in the same way.

I was set on working in Barrie this summer, living in Barrie, making the money, living at home... I am happy I am not going to do that, although I would love to spend more time with my mother and some family. I am excited about what God has told me through people around about, community, my summer, God's plans, and something called Youth Works. So, this summer I will be leading mission trips, where I don't know yet, I know it will be in Thunder Bay, Vancouver, or Toronto, but I don't know where. Please pray that God will use me as his servant, that I can influences the teens I will be hanging out with in a Christ-like way. That's it for now.