It's hot - humidity drips from the ceiling and coats all thing with a generous spread of sweat, clingy, smothering blankets that hover over you and morph to your wet body. It's heavy and it pushes you down.

I love it.

Hot summer nights... sleeping, or not sleeping, in your underwear. Curly, frizzy hair stuck in a high bun, ringlets hanging out precariously. The full moon seems fuller tonight, bursting with the sun's reflected heat, layered in a smog, a hazy fog gently swept over the illumination.

God is a bit like humidity, everywhere, surrounding you, embracing your whole being. All the dehumidifiers in the manufacturing world can't really take the edge off of it. He's around - deal with it. Love it - love HIM!

To have your heart radiating warmth from the inside out - hot, melting from that lovely heat - soft in that beautiful furnace, refined in that glorious fire. BURNING for Jesus - not just his lights, we must be his energy, electricity. We must be on fire - unquenchable fire for Him.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

that annoying silver lining

Sometimes if I go too long without writing I lose all motivation to even begin to conquer the ever-builidng stacks of thoughts that twitter around in my mind. My favourite quote recently is: "Allow me to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket." - Captain Jack Sparrow, 3rd Pirates.

A thicket seems correct, maybe a jungle, maybe an unsurpassable rainforest.

My life of late has been rich, like a fine cream poured generously into a Milchkaffee. It's been rich with emotion, raw with feelings and a bit of confusion thrown in there - and that is why I dread every key my fingers hit. There's too much to write that I don't know what to write about. So here goes nothing :]

A friend of mine recently encouraged me to continue writing on this blog o' mine (thank you, Mark!), which was delightful because I was pretty positive no one had perused this web page for some time. I write at night, with the window open, coming off of a drive home, a glorious sunset, a sliver of a moon, and a heavy-hearted discussion that has left me a bit empty.

Last month I went home to Germany. I walked those streets filled with memories, I spoke to old neighbours, ordered Schokos mit Sahne, spent hours with dear friends who are more like sisters than ever and hiked through the plush forests, so green it is almost blinding. And yet, what is this place? It feels probably like the most familiar thing I know but it isn't where I was born. It's not where I'm from or one of my passport countries. I felt uncomfortable and foreign when I lived there and longed and pined for it when I left. Going back, it felt comfortable. It felt like a piece of me was back in place. I realized how I'd subconsciously shut off parts of myself in order to blend into a new culture, to fit in to a shape that wasn't my own. And when I was back in Germany, that part of me came flooding back and I remembered and was liberated. How can I describe home? Is it the last place I had grown to be accustomed to? Is it where I am most alive?

It's been almost two years since I moved to Canada. I look, sound, probably act Canadian but I sure don't feel like it. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm still learning, that it's a foreign culture that I'm not used to yet. But it hurts sometimes - when things or people aren't what you think, when it seems so natural and obvious that you should fit in but you stagger backwards, stopping with surprise when you realize again and again that you don't. These people that seem so like me aren't because they are of a completely different culture. I am still learning to meet their needs in their own culture.

Tonight I just wanted to write a sad, melancholic, melodramatic account of my emotional state. Do you ever just want to leave out the silver lining, just be sad and not add any 'buts'? I really wish I could do that but it would be denying what my whole life is based on: the HOPE of Christ. And with that hope comes an understanding of situations, a reconciling to certain events. With that hope comes acceptance, excitement to follow even when you can't remember why you're excited, an eagerness to find contentment because you know there's a reason you're where you are... As dramatic as it sounds, the feeling of not belonging anywhere has been one of the easiest ways to understand Jesus better, to understand what it means to belong to the Kingdom of God. I am thankful for that but that doesn't mean that it doesn't make my cry sometimes or make me write sad blog entries :]

In grade ten I had a vision one night. I was a nurse and I was caring for thousands of people and God said to me, "Heal my people, Katy." Ever since then, it has been my deepest desire to love the unloved and heal any hurt that people carry. Currently I'm deciding between pursuing Nursing or Education. Both are practical ways of helping and healing people, both in different and similar ways. I will await God's guidance but I realized that it doesn't really matter in the end. God has given me a longing that will never be satisfied and whatever I do, that will be my main priority; to heal, whatever that looks like.

So here I am. Perhaps a bit broken myself but I am reminded that my true identity lies in Christ and it doesn't matter where I'm from but how I act where I am and where I lead others to.

For there is no place for me but beside my LORD in Heaven and there is no goal, no aspiration, no desire but to serve God and "heal his people". Luckily, I don't need to have the right passport for that :]

So there it is, the silver lining, the paragraphs that change the tone of the essay, the upward climb after the dip, the hope of salvation.

Besides, too much rich cream is bad for the cholesterol.

the TIME given to us

Easter Sunday - Jesus conquers death, his victory over sin is complete, he rises from the tomb and looks right into the faces of those that love him, those that can't believe that he actually rose from the dead and defied TIME.

Easter Sunday morning - I'm driving to our school to lead a small morning service. Beth is in the front seat, putting on her makeup. We didn't have TIME to really get ready. We were rushing and focussed and we had gotten frustrated with each other. The gravel is loose, it's been so dry here for so many days. I'm listening to the Easter Weekend Pray As you Go and amidst discussing something with Beth I'm catching snippets of the calm voice, reflecting on the holiness of this day, this weekend: "Think about your weekends. It is a time of relaxing. The weekend is the time we waste the most TIME. We have more of it and we squander it..." Her voice drifts on out of the speakers and I look down to pause it because there isn't TIME to listen to it all then. As I look down, the car starts to swerve. I oversteer and over-brake. We go from one side of the road to the other, back to the other side, turn around backwards and flip over into the ditch. It was slow and it was so fast. There didn't seem to be TIME to react. We're hanging by our seat belts, upside down in the car. Making sure the other one is okay we figure out how to get out, grab our valuables and climb out the back door.

Here we are. We're fine. The windshield smashed, the top of the car crunched. But we are here. Spared, at least for now.

At the same moment, 7 hours away in Germany, a friend catches another friend as she faints and falls to the ground. There isn't any TIME to react. She's out of TIME before they start CPR and she's out of TIME when they stop 50 minutes later. She's not here, she's gone.

TIME. It is everything and it is nothing. It dictates our lives, how we treat others, where our priorities lie. It decides for us whether or not we can visit our grandmother or quickly thank someone or hand in that paper. It is an invisible force, precious and rare. It is the most valuable thing on earth and the only thing we can't make more of. And that is why it makes us selfish. We want all we can get out of it so why should we 'waste' our own TIME to make someone else's TIME more enjoyable, easier or more productive?

Jesus devoted his entire life, all of his TIME to his people. He taught, he prayed, he preached, he laughed, he noticed, he cared, he listened, he healed, he understood and he instructed. Every single thing he did, every event in his life on earth had someone else in mind. Every moment he was focussed on the Father, every second he was ensuring that someone find salvation in him. On this weekend, he chose to end his TIME, to give up his spirit, to fall into shadow and spend three days in the presence of darkness. He trusted that God would raise him after 72 hours, and that he would come back to earth to spend the rest of his TIME devoted to his people.

Easter Sunday morning - All sense of direction is lost, up becomes down, it takes forever and it happens so quickly. And as I'm rolling, the voice comes back to me, "TIME. How are YOU spending your TIME?" And as I hang in my seat belt, looking down at the roof of the car, I think, "I am spending it, completely on myself. I'm not giving it as I should. I'm not treating it like it isn't my own or like it is the biggest gift God has ever given me. I'm not treating it like the person I love most in this world sacrificed his life to ensure that I have it."

Two lives spared, one taken to rise again with Jesus. Each is a gift of time, one of life on earth, the other of eternal life above.

Life - each moment filled with endless opportunities to give what I have received.

And TIME should not dictate how I live but why I live. And the reason I live is because Christ gave me his own TIME, to live as if I were him - continuously giving back.

Thank you LORD, for life, for time and for your sacrifice.

Praising God that Mari Ellen's soul has found rest in Him.

The People of the Praires

The people of the prairies are much like the land of the prairies – open, no surprises, and able to see a long way beyond themselves. It has been a beautiful time adjusting to this world and this culture. I find myself growing increasingly ‘prairie like’. Of course I will always have a heart for Europe, for the beauty and the elaborate and complicated detail but there is something infinitely beautiful about the simplicity of this place and these people. The adjective ‘simple’ often has negative connotations but to me simplicity is something rare and delicate, something that is scarcely grasped or deemed important in this complicated world. Let me explain: Being simple implies that one does not think hard or deeply about something, that one does not wish to complicate things with thought. Simplicity describes what one is beyond oneself. To live a life that exhibits honesty, selflessness and purity, one must eliminate all complicated presumptions and pretences. To really be perceived as Christ did, we must invite people in with simplicity. We all know Christ was the farthest from simple any man could be, and yet there was a simplicity about him and his message that drew people towards him. If we are seen as moody, full of issues and complicated problems, we do not seem open to loving other with a selfless love. We do not invite confidence or portray a listening ear. Of course we all have our issues, but if we fully give our burdens and idols and idleness to Christ, he will refine us and teach us the most simplest of lessons: love.

Some spiritual lessons seem extremely confusing at first. But the more we see the world through Jesus’ eyes, the closer we come to the message behind the lesson and those messages are surprisingly simple. But it takes time and patience and surrender to God’s love to find that simplicity and to recognize it in everything. Even the way Jesus taught is a good illustration of this point. He often spoke in parables – confusing riddles that more often than not stumped even his disciples. Upon asking Jesus to elaborate on his teachings, Jesus would answer in only a few words. So why didn’t Jesus just say that in the first place? I could be wrong, but I sometimes wonder if he was teaching us a lesson even in the way he taught. These parables, when understood and heard through the love and grace of Jesus, become very clear. Life seems so complicated. And yet, when you step back, look at the big picture, trust in God’s grace, you see just how simple it is.

It makes me think of the ocean – raging and pounding waves crashing against the sand. The sea seems wild and dangerous on the surface. But underneath the waves, it is calm. The only movement is a steady current. That is how I often feel. For a moment I am tossed and thrown about in the waves, pounded into the sand but then God gently reminds me to sink down into him, to settle into his current. And he moves me in his stillness.

So we see that when we exhibit simplicity, it doesn't mean that we are simple people or that we don’t think about anything. It means that we have the peace of Christ and that peace is what draws the world to us, and to Jesus.

I am content to be a person of simplicity, a person of peace, a person of the prairies.

Where I am.

Change. It is never sudden. It is never the same one day and different the next. It is a process, a great spinning wheel of woven thread, ever intertwining, ever creating, ever meshing until that last string is sharply cut, separating that sweater, blanket, or sock from the man-made creator. But even then it is not finished. The sweater is sold in a shop, bought for a husband, handed down to a son. The blanket is gifted to a granddaughter, who holds on tight and then grows up, draping it over the rocking chair in the living room. The sock is worn, and then worn again, torn, torn again and then mended.

We are always changing, being moulded and fashioned. It is a process and each season brings new doubts, emotions and sorrows.

One year and a week ago we left Germany. At this point last year our home was filled with bland boxes, piled to the ceiling in our dining room. Our walls were blank, clean canvases, and our hearts and minds were fixed as steadily on the future as on the present.

I never cried. I haven't once cried about leaving home. But I am heavy tonight. It has been growing and building in me for the last while. Summers in Kandern were filled with rolling green hills, fresh forests, the spring-fed pool that I found my way to every day. I miss it all. I miss it more than I ever have tonight.

Maybe the adventure of moving, the excitement of novelty has worn off and I see where I am. Although perfectly contented and at peace about where I am, I'm not sure where I am.

As cliche as it is, the question, "Where are you from?" is the most dreaded one. I realized recently that I can now say, "I'm from St. Pierre, just down the road" and it relieved me. But did it really? Is it really home or just an easy answer? I am grieving the loss of my home .. ever changing... never fixated.

I miss my dear friends, thousands of miles away. I miss big trees, hills, driving 45 mins. to the Alps. I miss talking freely about the places I've been and the things I've seen.

I miss Brazil, I miss Germany.

The spinning wheel keeps turning, the yarn keeps intersecting, homes are created, changed, remodelled, sold. But my identity lies in my creator - the master weaver who spins lives, ideas, emotions, homes and stories that are shaped into who we are but then he cuts that string and calls us to move forward, to let go and begin the painful, beautiful, healing process of starting again as a single thread. As hard as it is, it is exciting to watch as that thread is shapes into something beautiful and who's final form is a complete mystery.

He has blessed me with a world far bigger than I know what to do with and a life constantly in motion.

I miss.

But that's how it should be.

remembering gratitude and forgetting to be exhausted

Today as I drove to work, I was struck again by the beauty of this magical, wild land. I was driving away from my school and I had a flashback of the icy, snow-covered barren landscape only a few months ago. We drove past old cars, almost completely buried in snow every day. Now they look like normal cars, sitting casually in the heather and perfectly green grass, drinking in the sunshine as if they had never been frozen to death.

It is a blessing to live in this country of extreme weather; blizzards, tornadoes, ice storms, wind storms, hot humidity and dry cold. It is beautiful.

I love the days when you look across the horizon and can see the natural curvature of the earth.

I love the days when the rainstorms travel across the sky and you can see where it's raining and where it's not. And then you try and guess how many minutes it will be until you crash into those far off sheets of rain.

My mother and I took the librarian from my college out for supper tonight. It was 75 cent hotdog day the the Tourond gas station and the community embraced the event, full of enthusiasm. It was a wonderful evening, complete with sunshine, shorts, running into some little kids I babysat this year, hotdogs and swirled ice cream.

I am thankful and God is so good every single day.

I am writing this now because I am exhausted. By the time I get my next day off, I'll have worked 15 consecutive days. Yes, I am thankful for the amount of hours but I feel slightly overwhelmed. When I do have some time, I have a lot to get done and it's hard to remember what needs to come first.

But I remember how I greeted this day, smiling to myself as I drove those 31 kms, an inner joy so deep seeming to well up and engulf me. And I know that joy is always in me... and I know it only grows deeper as we experience surface sorrows.

As flighty, moody and unsatisfied as our human characters are, I pray that my spirit will ever overcome myself and remind me of those moments when God shows me that, "It is good."

whilst drinking hot chocolate and watching lightning

This afternoon the clouds began to gather, pulling each other so close. They were bleach white against the dark grey sky, advertising their importance as well as full capability of bringing in a nasty storm. They reminded me of knuckles clenched too tightly. It was almost like the clouds were knit so closely, pent up with so much energy, that they were ready to explode.

These past couple of days have been so full of smells. So often a smell will transport me back to a place, a memory, another life almost. Lately its been the humidity and the smell before it rains (one of my favourite smells). Interestingly enough, one of the places that holds the most smells for me is my Grandparent's farm. My Grampa passed away a few years ago and soon after my Grama moved away. I remember thinking when I was a little girl how the day Grama and Grampa sold their farm would be the saddest day. But when that day came, it was natural and although sad, it was a good ending to a legacy of memories. Life is so often like that. If we are in the right place and our minds are focussed on the proper things, those events that loom before us, seemingly catastrophic, end up being greeted by a surprising acceptance.

We spent so many summer on that farm, though. Quading through the back brush in the overgrown fields that were sprinkled so healthily with wildflowers and heather... there were campfires beneath the trees, great bins of grain, cows with their rough tongues and the salt they loved to lick, big swings that took you up and up as if you would touch the sky, and then brought you back down to the soft grass... there were hay bails to climb, kittens to hold, and a baby grande to play for hours in the house. One summer we had a golf cart. Me and Beth's favourite thing was to take it out at sunset, driving so carefree and full of life, singing Cowboy Take me Away in harmony. All of these things hold such strong memories and their smells are forever planted in my mind... and scent.

Today was a different smell, though. It was the smell of sitting in the wind outside by our tent in Spain, feeling nine-year-old pretty in a new purple nightie. It was the smell of that one thunderstorm in Ghana and the winds that blew our chimney off the roof in Brasil. As those white clouds loomed and threatened to burst, the wind and fresh breezes filled my room through the open window. I love nights like these; the soft pattering of the rain, the stark, magnificent bolts of lightning, and the dark, angry sky. But it's not mad anger, it's fun anger. The kind where you just go crazy, so entirely free that you feel aggressive and crazed by the liberty flowing through you. It's the kind that just lets you loose, releasing you from the bounds of your own derived pretences of how your character should be perceived. It is simply YOU.

And that is how I like to picture God in a thunderstorm. There he is, just being himself.

I am reading Jeremiah and I came across a beautiful passage that describes today:

"When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses."

(Jeremiah 10: 13)