Hannah Price

"YES WE CAN!"

2008-11-11T23:26:00.002-05:00

It's a day in history that our children and grandchildren will learn about in textbooks, and ask us "where were you on the day that Obama became president?"

Farzam and I were downtown on an 'election crawl' We went to 2 different Irish pubs playing CNN on a big screen, as well as the U of T Hart House, and a fraternity house which had a screen and lawn chairs outside. It was pretty incredible how suddenly Toronto; a city of strangers; formed a community of kinds for a night, watching together in awe and celebrating hope and the fulfillment of a dream....and he's not even our president! Even taxi drivers had parked by the fraternity house and were leaning on their cabs, watching with smiles on their faces.

What is it about this that has captured hearts across the world?

ELECTION DAY IN CANADA!

2008-10-14T10:54:00.004-04:00

The day has finally arrived. After 6 weeks of following the Campaign trail here at CTV, Election day is upon us. It's just a shame I'm not a dual citizen yet and can't even vote! For once in my life I'm up on politics, and can make a VERY informed decision.

But for the rest of you who CAN vote, here is a little taste of our candidates...
Who are YOU voting for???

Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois?

Stephane Dion of the Liberal Party?

Jack Layton, NDP leader?

..or Calgary cowboy (and current Prime Minister) Stephen Harper?

GO VOTE!!

And Life Moves on...

2008-10-10T10:24:00.004-04:00

I looked at my last blog and realized that perhaps some of you think I'm in Sierra Leone right now.

Well I'm not.

Actually I'm doing quite the opposite in some ways. Instead of living in the slums and spending my days with the poor, I'm working for CTV Toronto: Canada's biggest TV station. Don't worry though, I haven't lost my mind! God just closed and opened different doors than what I'd expected he would...but isn't that the adventure of life? I plan to blog regularly again, and in doing that I'll fill you in on the twists and turns of the past few months.

I want to say a huge congratulations to Amie and Andy on the birth of their beautiful little Isabelle Grace! Amie is a wonderful blogger...check it out. I can't believe this friend of mine is a mother, even though I know she'll be the best one ever!

MY LIFE IN A NUTSHELL SINCE I LAST BLOGGED
-I graduated University (BA HONS Psychology)
-I went back to Africa
-I went to England
-I fell in love.

PS: I am going to Israel in a month!

The Least of These...

2008-03-25T09:11:00.005-04:00

I've applied for a 4 month internship in Sierra Leone with a wonderful community called Word Made Flesh. It runs from August to December, and I'll find out on April 5th whether I got accepted.
I'm also heading back to Zambia in July, for a very exciting project which I'll talk about on this blog soon!
This being said, I've been reading and meditating and learning so much over the past year about what it means to live in community with the poor, to be broken and share life together, and how Christ manifests himself to us in the opressed and vulnerable and marginalized, in order that they might lead us to the heart of God. I've written on this topic here before, but below are some thoughts. I didn't write them, but I absolutely agree with them, and will wrestle more along these lines soon..

WHAT THE POOR HAVE TO TEACH US:
* They know how deep our world needs redemption.
* They rest their security not on things but on people
* They have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and no exaggerated need of privacy.
* They expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
* They can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
* They are patient, because they have known dependence.
* Their fears are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
* They can respond to Jesus with an abandonment and uncomplicated totality-- because they have little left to lose.

Headlines and Hobbies

2008-03-21T23:18:00.005-04:00

In other news..
New Hobbies I have taken up recently include:
Surfing! (a work in progress)

Salsa!

RockStar!

Libraries! (a forced hobby for the last year of my undergrad)

Learning to appreciate snow, even after 5 months of it..

If anyone still reads this, there's such a lot that has gone on since the last time I blogged. (However if I have you as a friend on Facebook, the pictures are all old news!)
There are many thoughts and stories that I want to begin sharing on here, so stay tuned.

Good Friday.

2008-03-21T12:38:00.002-04:00

The late Henri Nouwen wrote a series of prayers during Holy Week 1986. Though he originally resisted writing about the Sacred Heart, a friend's request led him to focus on this traditional Christian theme. Below are selections from his Good Friday prayer.

Dear Lord Jesus,

You, “the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for whom all things are created in heaven and on earth, everything visible and everything invisible,” you hang dead on a cross. You have just spoken your last words, “It is fulfilled,” and given up your spirit.

*****
I look at your dead body on the cross. The soldiers, who have broken the legs of the two men crucified with you, do not break your legs, but one of them pierces your side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flow out. Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space. Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity. There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out. There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched. Together with all people of all times, I look up to you whom they have pierced, and I gradually come to know what it means to be part of your body and your blood, what it means to be human.

*****
As I look, my eyes begin to recognize the anguish and agony of all the people for whom you gave yourself. Your broken heart becomes the heart of all of humanity, the heart of all the world. You carry them all: abandoned children, rejected wives and husbands, broken families, the homeless, refugees, prisoners, the maimed and tortured, and the thousands, yes millions, who are unloved, forgotten and left alone to die. I see their emaciated bodies, their despairing faces, their anguished looks. I see them all there, where your body is pierced and your heart is ripped apart. O compassionate Lord, your heart is broken because of all the love that is not given or received.

*****
Blood and water flowed from your broken heart. Lord Jesus, help me to understand this mystery. So much blood has flowed through the centuries: blood of people who did not even know why they were trampled underfoot, mutilated, tortured, slain, beheaded and left unburied; blood caused by swords, arrows, guns and bombs, tainting the faces of millions of people; blood that comes forth from angry, bitter, jealous, vengeful hearts, and from hearts that are set on hatred, violence and destruction. From the blood of Abel killed by his brother to the blood of the Jews, the Armenians, the Ukrainians, the Irish, the Iranians and Iraqis, the Palestinians, the South Africans and the countless nations and ethnic groups victimized by the evil intentions of their sisters and brothers in the human race, blood has been covering the earth, and cries have gone up to heaven: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?”

*****

Let the blood and water that flow from your heart give me a new heart to live a new life. I know that in this world water and blood will never be separated. There will be peace and anguish, joy and tears, love and agony. They will be there always—together—leading me daily closer to you who give your heart to my heart.

The long and winding road..

2008-03-20T10:22:00.004-04:00

"Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in the magic will never find it."
-Roald Dahl.

I'M BACK! I've been really desiring to blog again for a few reasons.
1) To write about things can keep me accountable/keep things in perspective.
2) I really appreciate the feedback from people.
3) It helps me process life.
4) It will be my sanity over the next few weeks when every major paper is due!

Out of India...

2007-06-30T18:31:00.001-04:00

This is the update that I e-mailed out to close friends and family. I've added a few pictures, to it, and I apologize for the length!
Calcutta is one insane city. It's the most extreme urban poverty that I've never laid eyes on before, even in comparison to Africa. It's so explicit: whole families living on the streets, you're literally stepping over them when you walk down the sidewalk. There are NO road rules, so we took our lives into our hands everytime we got into a car! The horns never stop, it's polluted, noisy, dirty, busy, crowded and teeming with life...and death. There are even crows sqwawking all over the place, circling around carcusses. Not quite the exotic birds I'd anticipated! The heat is immense...the heavy kind that just sits on you like a big thick blanket that you can't shake off.

Hinduism is everywhere and in everything...they're ruled by it completely. It's interesting because Karma dictates life, and the belief is that people are reincarnated according to the decisions of the Gods. Therefore, one would never help a beggar, because that would interfere with divine Karma. Consquently, the contrast here is that In other countries of poverty, there's a realization that it's a negative thing, and the end goal is for the poverty to be eradicated ( e.g. Zambia). In India, it's perfectly acceptable and actually embraced, because it's the circle of life; people's destiny, and that's the way it's supposed to be. Therefore, because it's not a shameful thing, it's extremely graphic, and there's not much being done about it at all.

The curse of death on the city (Kolkata = city of death) is very evident in everything. Even the animals lie around dead and uncared for. Walking around it on the first day, observing as an outsider, was totally overwhelming. We saw some horrific sights....I saw a child tied to a rope on the edge of the street all alone, he was naked and looked about 2. Jo saw a little boy in a dark corner of the train station, lying dead as the world rushed by. People are hollow when you look into their eyes. There's a spirit of hopelessness. "At the well" centre is a bright light in the darkness. The first time I went in it was full of these the train station kids (who all looked like mowgli!) and it was incredible to see them in a safe place, allowed to be kids. As Monique Shaw walks through the red light area, all the womens faces light up and she greets each one. It's been amazing spending time with them. One day I got to go around with one of the Indian workers, Meena, to invite the ladies to the church service. We spent time with one wonderful lady, Kajul. We had to wait for a bit because a customer was in there, and when we went in she was cleaning herself off with dettol to get rid of the sweat and germs of the man....what a life. These ladies are so brave, so strong.

We went into the Kali Temple on the last day. It's about 50 metres down the street from the centre where we worked and is the most famous Hindu temple in the world, attracting thousands of visitors from all over the place. Kali is the goddess of death and destruction, and therefore, because she's so bloodthirsty, they sacrifice 16 goats every morning to her. When I walked over to the altar, I could see hooves lying around on the floor, and pools of blood. I watched a man put his head into the part where the goats head goes to be chopped. He stayed in that position meditating on the thought that the goat had paid the sacrifice for his sin, and I just wanted to pull him up and tell him that someone had paid his sacrifice in full, but it wasn't the goat, it was Jesus Christ! I went into the "inner chamber" very briefly, where the manifestation of the goddess Kali is, (a big stone with 3 eyes surrounded by a ring of fire) but found it too oppressive so didn't stay. In my few moments in there though, I felt such anger at Satan, because I looked around at all these people fervently worshipping the goddess, and saw how he has stolen their souls and their hearts, and how they are trapped in total bondage to him. It made me so so angry.....

The painting in the brothels was interesting. We were supposed to paint 2 rooms, and these two rooms were chosen because the ladies living in them have recently becoming Christians and have agreed to holding a weekly bible study in their room! The first one turned out beautifully, bright yellow with all kinds of flowers, and a vine archway over the door. We wanted the painting to bear a message, of new life and growth and nurturing and watering, because that's what happens in a garden, and that's what happens in bible study! I wanted the vine around the doorway because it reminded me of a wedding arch, and how Jamuna (the lady) is now the bride of Christ, betrothed to him and belonging only to him, no matter which men come through that door. (she has stopped prostituting right now and is looking for another income). We also had the first cell group/prayer and worship time in the room while we were there, with a bunch of the ladies from that brothel which was really exciting!

The second room we painted (actually I wasn't involved in the second one, by that time I'd realized I needed to focus on the train station kids which I'll talk about in a bit!)...anyway, the second room painting was harder. They painted and felt very very heavy that whole day in there. There were some Hindu Idols in the corner of this lady's room, and they talked with her about giving your whole heart to Jesus and not dividing it between him and the Idols, and how he needs a surrendered life in order to work in you and transform you etc.. She listened hard, seemed to understand, and even promised to come to our church service the next day. She didn't come, and when they went back to her house, all the paint had been scraped off the walls. It was really sad, and we think that her husband had a lot to do with it, since he doesn't like the fact that she's become a Christian AT ALL.

Ok......so the Howrah train station kids. These children broke my heart and made it very hard to leave! Some are orphaned and many have run away from home because of terrible abuse. They end up at the train station because they can collect plastic bottles from the trains to sell for a few rupees. They sniff glue/white out/solvents all the time to numb the pain and curb their appetites because they don't have money for food. The police (who are supposed to be the authority) beat them constantly and often throw them into jail for periods of time (especially when somebody important is arriving by train to Calcutta, so that it looks cleaner without the kids there). These kids are completely on their own, completely independent, very much 'them against the world.' Perhaps the saddest moment of the whole trip for me was when I asked Stewart (the missionary we were with) why one of the boys was missing an arm and a leg. He told me that he'd been run over by a train, and how this was a frequent occurance. Sometimes at night, when they're high, the kids just fall asleep on the tracks, and when the trains come, despite going slowly pulling into the station and clearly seeing the children lying on the tracks, they will RUN OVER THEM without a second thought. In that moment I realized the horriffic truth; that literally nobody cares about these children. They are worth NOTHING in this society. In a country where you get stoned to death on the street if you hit a cow, street children are purposely run over by trains and nobody blinks about it. It's such a terrifying paradox...

Whenever I was at the train station with these children, it felt like they were literally invisible to everyone. It seemed as though the thousands of people rushing by (its the busiest train station in the world) could not physically see them. I was so aware though, that Jesus could see them, and more than that, that he was WITH them. It's hard though, because the first day we were down there, Stewart asked me to pray for a group of kids, and I really really didn't know how to. I felt like my prayer was just an unrealistic wish list that would never come true, because the situation seemed so utterly hopeless. I still struggle with feeling that, but in our theme verse, Isaiah 61,1-3, it talks of putting on a garment of praise over a spirit of despair. I'm beginning to realize that God actually commands us to praise him instead of despairing, and how we need to obey him and do that. To praise God isn't a feeling when things are good, its somehow standing in the depths of 'despair' and being able to praise him for who he is in the midst of it. It's hard! Even the sadness though, must be just a fraction of what Jesus feels when he sees these children and all the people in darkness. I can't even IMAGINE the pain in his heart. Every Thursday we took the kids back to the centre. It (called "At the well") It was really powerful to see these WILD children (who all look like mowgli from the jungle book) tamed by the sight of a puppet, or by a task as simple as a colouring sheet. Because they've never been in school, such simple stimulation is so enthralling, and the love they're receiving allows them to be in a safe place for a few hours a week. (They're currently buying a centre for these kids, and they'll take some of them to live there, go through rehab, and learn a trade). There was one boy who I got to know a lot, and his name is Saurav. On the first day I told him he had a lovely face, which was translated for him into Bengali. A few days later, when I came back, he came running down the tracks to me, clutching his cheeks and asking in Bengali "do I still have a nice face??" I spent a lot of time with him and really see him as a leader in that group of kids. He wants to know Jesus more and he takes care of the other kids a lot too. On the last day, when I went to say goodbye to him, I couldn't find him. His friend told me he was lying down in a corner because he'd been hit by a train that morning. I found him lying there with a big gash in his head, and I sat with him in my arms, talking to him and praying for him and crying because I didn't know how I was supposed to walk away, knowing he has no one in the world to care for him. It was one of the hardest things I've done. Leaving an 11 year old boy all alone lying in the corner of the train station having just been hit by train. Short term missions is tough like that, because you come into peoples lives, especially children who get attached so fast, and then you just leave. I kept telling him that even though I was going back to Canada, Jesus wasn't, and that he'll always always be with him. Here he is.

We also worked with a group of 16 beautiful street children who live right outside the "At the well" centre on that street. They'd always see the Shaw family bringing kids and women to the centre, and they finally said "what about us? We live in your doorstep, why don't you do anything with us?" So they did! They started a kids club/English class every afternoon for them, and we also got to take them to a huge VBS with 1000 kids, which they loved!! We did an assembly in a school one day which is all Hindu teachers, and they loved it so much they've made us come and do it again. They've never had any foreigners or Christians in the school before, so that was a big deal! We did 3 church services for the women and kids in the red light area, and those were really cool. such an amazing privilige to be a part of. I even choreographed a dance to "we are a moment, you are forever"! It talks in that song of us being the broken and Jesus the healer, redeemer, mighty to save. We shared and did songs, dance, skits, and spent lots of time in prayer with individuals. It was a great team.....we were all pretty different but the differences complimented eachother and we had a good dynamic. We all learnt so much and really worked well together. I miss them all now! We went on the overnight train ride up to the Himylayas for a few days, and all trekked off at 3am one morning in jeeps up the mountain to see the sunrise over Everest, but it was so cloudy that we didn't see a thing!! What an anticlimax... Actually though, I was thinking about that verse in Corinthians that talks about "now I know in part, then I will know fully, even as I am fully known". I was thinking about how we were all standing there full of anticipation, not because of the clouds, but because of what we knew was BEYOND the clouds: the sun rising over Everest. Its the same with Jesus...here on earth our understanding and knowledge of him is so veiled, like the clouds, and yet our life is about that anticipation of waiting for the clouds to part. Everytime the clouds seemed to move a little that morning, everyone gasped and rushed closer to the fence to see! It's like when God reveals something new to us....little by little until one day the clouds will lift completely and we'll see and know him in all his glory!

Oh, one more story......under a bridge at the train station I met a family: a lady with a baby and a 4 year old girl. The lady was amazing and loved her kids with everything that she had. She told me that she also had a 2 year old daughter, but about a month ago, while they were sleeping, the child was taken away/kidnapped. She has no idea where she is or how to find her. The next week I was in England, and there's a 5 year old girl, Madeleine, who has been abducted from there. EVERYWHERE you go in England you see this girls face plastered on the wall. The whole nation is on her case, and they're all searching for her. It was such a paradox to think of this little lady living at the train station in Calcutta India, who had also lost her child. The difference was, no one knows about her, and even if they did know, no one would care enough to do anything...here she is below.

LAST STORY FOR NOW: We each got to spend a day at Mother Theresa's home for the dying destitutes. I expected it to be the most depressing place I'd ever set foot in, yet I was so amazed to find LIFE in there! Some of the ladies are so feisty and chattery and the workers are amazing. Having said that, It was shocking to walk into that building and see rows and rows of skeletol bodies...the kind of legs that look like sticks with apples in the middle of them for knees. I spent the day there, and just before I left, I went to sit with a tiny tiny little lady, who had been sitting up in a chair all morning watching everything and finally had been placed back in her bed to lie down. I sat on her bed and stared into her face, stroking her hair back and praying and singing a little and then just looking at her in silence. I searched her eyes wondering who she was, who had loved her, if she'd had children, where they were, how she had gotten into this state, why she was alone, what her passions and dreams had been...all those things. As I looked at her, I saw tears form in her eyes, and I too began to cry as a wiped hers away. Then suddenly, her frail little hands came up and she took my face in them, then she took them back, kissed her hands and placed them on my cheeks again. It was absolutely amazing....so often the people you want to comfort end up comforting you in an even deeper way.

Anyway, there's much to tell but I hope you make some sense of my scrambled thoughts and stories. Thanks for your support in all this...it's been incredible and I deeply appreciate each one of you. Please pray for the people I've spoken of, and please feel free to tell their stories to others, because it makes them less invisible...

Back to Blogging!

2007-06-30T18:31:00.000-04:00

FINALLY! For a while I just didn't have chance to blog, and then when I came to do it, it wouldn't let me in! I've finally changed my account details and found my way back to my blog. I'm really ready to start telling stories again, so I hope that peoples still check once in a while, although I don't blame you if you've given up completely on me!

FAME! "I'm gonna live forever..."

2007-02-12T10:56:00.000-05:00

At the moment my life is being semi-taken over with the musical FAME, and I am LOVING it!
I am doing 10 hours of dance rehearsal a week, and it's just the kind of dancing I've always wanted to do. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!
Three times a week I get to spend 2 hours in the car with 2 of my favourite friends, Krista and Marielle (yes its a long drive) and we have such fun and great chats.
We're doing this production with a Newmarket Theatre company, and it's a fantastic cast who I'm really enjoying getting to know.
I love using a different side of my brain from academics, having a creative outlet, and using my body. I am so blessed to be healthy and to have energy. We should never take our youth for granted. Seriously!
If you are in Ontario, the show opens on March 22nd and runs for 2 weeks. Come and check it out!

Trip to Calcutta (Kolkata) India.

2007-02-03T18:12:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd throw this letter up on my blog to let you guys know what I'm going to be involved in this May, very exciting!

STUDENT MISSION TRIP 2007

Dear Friends,

Greetings! I want to share with you a tremendous opportunity that God has opened up to me to serve Him this summer. I have been accepted as part of a student team that will be going to Calcutta, India for several weeks in May. I am actually going to be leading the team, along with another Tyndale student. Partnering with Stewart and Monique Shaw (Peoples Church missionaries), we will be assisting with their ministries to child addicts living on the streets, and with prostitutes and their families. The women on the team will work with Monique in outreach to the pavement dwellers outside their Coffee House and in the brothels. The whole team will also work alongside Stewart in his ministry at the train station to the kids who live there, many of whom have substance addictions.

I am excited about the experience that lies ahead, both for ministry to others and for personal growth as I seek to communicate Christ cross-culturally. India is somewhere I didn’t anticipate having the chance to go, but God has really had a hold of my life as he’s lead me into this adventure. Going to Urbana (A huge youth missions conference) in St Louis, Missouri, in December was a catalyst in my life for God doing new things in my heart and leading me into a deeper commitment and relationship with him and with his kingdom here on earth. He has been teaching me a great deal recently about what it means to live in this kingdom and to minister to and with the poor and the oppressed.

We recognize that our service needs to be supported in prayer and so would first ask you to consider joining our team in this regard. I will supply you with a schedule and prayer needs before I leave, and will share with you the blessings of what God accomplishes through us on our return. It would be great to have you minister with us through your prayers for the people of India.

We also have financial needs to cover the airfare, inoculations, room and board, health insurance and ministry costs of this trip. Each team member needs to raise approximately $3400, and this amount must be on hand by the end of April. Please consider being a part of this mission team in this regard. If God leads you to participate with financial support, make your cheques payable to Tyndale University College and Seminary and note ‘India Trip’ and my name on the memo line. All donations for the student mission team are tax deductible and will be receipted accordingly. Note that receipts are usually sent out at year-end, but can be issued immediately, upon request.

Thanks in advance for your prayers and financial support. May God richly bless you as you partner with us in this outreach. I know many of you have supported me in the past with my ongoing work in Zambia, Africa and I want you to know just how much I appreciate you in my life. The Lord has taught me a great deal through your obedience and love, and I am very thankful.

Your sister in Christ,

Hannah Price

Tyndale University College and Seminary, 25 Ballyconnor Crt., Toronto, ON, M2M 4B3

April

2007-02-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

This is my roommate April. We've lived together for two years in our apartment here in Toronto, and I love this girl to death! She graduates in April and my heart hurts just thinking about it.
Therefore, I decided to make this tribute to her.
April Jeffs, the Cambodian beauty. Parting is going to be such sweet sorrow.

Diamonds

2007-01-16T00:25:00.000-05:00

I wanted to write about Urbana, but decided instead simply to cut and paste some sections of my journal. (somewhat edited)I hope that, if you are interested, you will read through it, and maybe make relate to/make sense of a thought or two in there!

Urbana. I think that getting to know Jesus is like looking at a diamond. There are so many different angles you can look at it from, and each time the light hits it, it reflects differently! I saw the light hit the diamond in different ways this week than I ever have before, and it was amazing! No matter how much you know Jesus, there is always SO MUCH MORE!!
Here are some of the treasures that were illuminated in my heart this week.
We live in the tension of the now and the ultimate reality. A paradox of beauty and tragedy. Of glimpses of glory and throngs of suffering. As a reaction to a lady with AIDS, a girl said “The sores on her skin remind me that there is a kingdom that has not yet come. The smile on her face reminds me that it is already here.” (Hope in the Dark reflections book) This is where we are called.

Word made flesh (amazing organization, look them up!)sees the poor as “god’s best.” They are so aware and respectful of the special place that God has for the poor and oppressed in his heart, and the time he takes to mention them
in his word. They say that they want to see God’s best given to God’s best. That means that if we are to go and be in community with the poor, then....
We must be a restored individual and in a restored community ourselves, before we can be a part of peoples restoration.
For me this is a calling, a specific one, an essential calling if any more of my “calling” is to be manifested. I need to KNOW that I am beloved, before I can share with others that they are beloved. I need to be restored by Jesus before I can bring his restoring hope to others.
I need to know my captivity, to understand my liberation. I cannot share it with captives unless it is a reality in my own life. At least not in a way that counts. To be a part of transformation, we must be transformed.
The poor offer us such grace in their suffering. Mission is changing. I think that is HAS to undergo radical revolution, mostly in attitude. Ephesians, talking of the body, the unified body of Christ. Pride must be massacred. Rebuked daily. Pride for the west, for the whites, for the “privilieged”. It cripples what God wants to do.

The upside down kingdom excited me like no other because it is beautiful hope. After studying Luke this semester I have become so much more aware of that whole “redefinition” that jesus brought when he was on earth. Revelation 18:11-14 talks of the “earthly” kingdom, with gold and riches at the top of the pile, and the souls of men and women enslaved right at the bottom. Chris, a guy from "Word Made Flesh", talked of how in heaven, they are going to PAVE THE STREETS WITH GOLD, not because it is precious, but because it is worthless!! It means nothing, thats why we can walk all over it. Instead, at the top of this kingom, is the souls of men and women, no longer enslaved, but redeemed and restored!! How amazing is THAT? Incredible.

As I stood in a stadium of 22 000 people at the turn of the year, all with our hands raised to God praising him with our hearts overflowing, I thought “HOW CAN I EVER DO or WANT ANYTHING ELSE?” Nothing else can satisfy, nothing else can redeem, nothing else can quench, nothing else can give a joy and peace that surpasses understanding. This is life, this is being alive. How GOOD he is to us, that we should be called children of God, that he should call us his BELOVED. Out of this reality comes a life “worthy of the calling” rooted in him, interdependent upon his body as we seek him and obey him in this world.

PROBLEM: We are enslaved. We do not have the courage to respond in the ways that he wants us to.
WHAT ENSLAVES ME?? I think that I feel lacking, lonely, crippled by lack of confidence.
Here is another revelation I had at Urbana. At the risk of sounding cliched, but realizing that what I am saying is not a cliche, I have recognized, in humility, that we can never dream too big, we can never hold back on our imagination. I constantly hold back though, the reason being that I get to a certain point and then think “I could never do x so I won’t go there”. I place the confidence in MYSELF. What a mistake. Our confidence can always and only be found in the one who holds all the power and all the sufficiency to make manifest his dreams in our heart. This really excites me, because I've always known that I have an overactive imagination, and never really recognized it as a tool for God to speak into. Exciting stuff!
“Unify us, purify us, so that we will change the world.”
IMAGINE TO THE END OF IMAGINATION. DREAM TO THE END OF DREAMS. This sounds really sentimental. But here is the thing: IT CAN BE REALITY. Oh God how I want to live a life that is not inhibited by my humanity, but inspired and carried out by the fact that YOU ARE GOD. In those three words are full implications.
Our eyes have been opened to the world this week in a deep way. The spiritual realm, the God breath, that is everywhere, making itself known in the most ignored, oppressed, unexpected and dangerously horrific places on earth!

Here are some things that we assume we can take for granted here in the west but in actual fact we cannot at all.
-Our unrighteousness creates injustice. In so many more ways than we are aware of.
In so many ways we are destroying lives across the globe.
We buy clothes which are made by enslaved children in india.
We laugh at Herbal essence “organic” commercials, rich with sexual induendos, which in turn fuel the child sex trade in Thailand and Camobodia.
We own our education, and it is not ours to own. When we take it, we are thieves.

We have forgotten how to blush, said Chris from Word made Flesh. He said that we have become the prostitutes, because it takes so much to shock us. (E.g. not phased by "organic" herbal essences). We are de-sensitized, which perpetuates injustice. Unrighteousness perpetuates injustice. We have been made righteous, so we must walk in it. How can we not? When we don’t we are killing others. We have to build the bridges and make a stand for purity in EVERY area.
“The reprocussions of injustice are felt in the broken bones and spirits of Thai children.”

Living in true unity means feeling their pain. Oh that we would feel their pain like they were own own family, which they are.
If we have eyes to see our belovedness, then we have eyes to see the belovedness in others and cannot help but respond to that.
GOD WANTS TO USE US MORE THAN WE WANT TO BE USED.
The poor must not be seen as victims, but as friends, as mentors, as guides. They are donors, leading us to the heart of God like no other. They are our sisters, brothers, partners and friends.
NEVER SETTLE! This is part of the golden thread that goes along with imagination, dreams, and living a life worthy of the calling that God might take it and use it for his glory. I despise using phrases I have heard enough times to make them sometimes cliches from my mouth. But as I write this entry on Jan 3rd 2007, they are not cliched. They are spoken from a deep place.

Live a life worthy of the calling.

2007-01-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

Beloved young people, about to choose your life’s vocation,
ponder how we are called to goodness
and how the older generation -
my own, I regret -
is leaving you a heritage of so
much selfishness,
of so much evil.
Renew,
new wheat, newly sown crops,
fields still fresh from God’s hand,
children, youths:
be a better world.

Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, page 66, July 23, 1978

More to come on my week at Urbana very soon....

Christmas Holidays...

2006-12-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

How I love the break from school! Sleeping in, watching Christmas movies, hanging out with friends without thinking that I should be leaving to go and finish a paper or study for an exams...its so relaxing!

I got to hang out with the Stouffville crew. Here are some of the girls!

My friend Stuart came to visit! He is a scouser from Liverpool. Here he is with Katherine (one of my good stouffville friends) They are both LTS students at Capernwray this year.

Here it Tim....being Tim.

Me and Mikeybabes!

Here are 3 of my favourite girls, Danielle, Marielle and Krista, who I took on a horse drawn wagon ride for their Christmas present! They are currently on the beach in Mexico. (without me!)

Here we are with Santa, our driver! We are so cool.

It was a wonderful ride through the countryside ending up in Milton where all the kids went crazy because Santa had arrived! "Santa" wants to buy a farm with his wife and open a home for troubled and abused teenage girls, using horses as a therapeutic method in their healing. I think it sounds amazing.

Mum and Dad in Zambia!

2006-12-19T14:27:00.000-05:00

After over two years of hearing me talk and talk about my time in Zambia, my parents got to go there! They happened to be speaking at a conference in Lusaka (the capital) so then they arranged to go up to Isubilo in Ndola for 3 days, and spend time with all my precious orphans and children. It's been so wonderful for me that they have now experienced this! God is so good.

Here they are with my hero, Lontia Bwalya. She has leprosy and cares for four of her orphaned grandchildren. What an amazing woman; so courageous and full of joy, she's been a powerful inspiration to me.

Here is Mum with my beloved Mehetabel, whose story I have told earlier on this blog. She is growing big and is looking so healthy, which makes me SO happy!

Here is Dad experiencing "Saturday school" at Isubilo. The children don't have father figures in their lives, so they were very drawn to him.

For once in my life people were asking him "You're Hannahs Dad?" rather than asking me "You're Charles Price's daughter?"! It made for a nice change!

L'Arche Daybreak.

2006-12-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

Last night I went with my parents, and Emily Yeskoo and her family, to a special Christmas carol service at L'Arche Daybreak. L'Arche is a community for mentally challenged people in Richmond Hill, and any of you who have read Henry Nouwen's work will know that he was a key figure there until he died.

It is built like an ark, and the interior is absolutely beautiful. It overlooks a lake, and the residents live in homes around the lake. There is a woodwork shop and a candle making shop where they learn skills each day. The main building has a wonderful chapel and many retreats are held there too.

I have mentioned Emily on this blog before, but not in a while. Emily is 13 years old and has MLD, a terminal neurological disease which has taken most of her physical abilities away and confined her to a chair. My family and hers have become very special friends over the past year and a half and I have the privilege of working with Emily every Wednesday. I also worked with her full time for 2 1/2 months over the summer. The richness and lessons that this family have brought to my life are irreplaceable, and I love them to death!

Emily has started going to L'Arche two mornings a week for special classes and worship times. The worship group she attends is called the "Spirit Movers" and they praise the Lord through movement in an incredibly beautiful and profound way. Last night the Spirit Movers were participating in the carol service, which is why I ended up at L'Arche. My Mum has been asking me to come for ages, this place has become her second home since moving to Canada and she identifies with the people and the community there more than anywhere else.

I watched beauty and freedom dance last night.

The service was beautiful, involving the telling of the Christmas story through carols, scripture reading, and dance. Each person who participated did so with such freedom; there was no expectations for a polished performance, or a schedule that had to be kept to; people were allowed to take their time, make mistakes (which weren't mistakes at all) and embrace us all into their world in each moment.
Emily's dance was a beautiful expression of praise, and she had such peace on her face as non-wheelchair dancers lifted her hands and spun her chair around in worship.

As the members of L'Arche expressed their love for Jesus, I sat and cried.
I felt handicapped.
Here they understood what it means to be free, to live a life of uninhibited love and worship. As soon as the final prayer was spoken, the room errupted into noise and dance. The piano played a lively tune and their excitement and joy knew no bounds. In complete freedom and with pure beauty, they danced and yelled and laughed and sang, their faces shining brightly with the glory of God.

The depth and profoundity of this moment cannot be captured in my writing, aside from to say that being there amongst them made me feel purified and that beauty was re-defined for me last night.

In the words of Henry Nouwen, "Knowing God's heart means consistently, radically and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from God. This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without any conditions or limits."

These people know.
I want to know.

2006-12-14T23:23:00.000-05:00

I want to get married
I want to get married
I want to get married
I want to fall in love....RIGHT now.

"Two from Galilee."

2006-12-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

Here are a few pictures from the show. It was a great success, and in fact went better than any of us were anticipating! We have had good feedback and many were impacted by the message. Hopefully it is a stepping stone to the Alpha course for some people.

I played a Nazarene girl called Leah, as well as an angel and a belly dancer: quite the variety actress!
(The angel scene required a full body harness as we were in the rafters..SO fun!)

Two from Galilee...

2006-12-12T11:09:00.000-05:00

Here is a taste of the show this weekend....more to come, but first I have to get through 5 exams.

Lobster anyone?

2006-12-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

I would just like to share the fact that, I, while sitting here in my apartment gazing out at the snow covered world, am experiencing the discomfort of sunburn.

YES SUNBURN.

Yesterday I arrived at the dentists 20 minutes early, and so to kill the time, I decided that the tanning salon next door would be a great way to get a bit of colour before I am subjected to the bright stage lights this weekend. (ahhh the play starts in 3 days!) As I hadn't been in the sun since.......summertime, the lady put me in for the minimum time allowance: six minutes. For six minutes I stood in a "sun shower" feeling warm breezes and California like sunshine warming my skin. Delicious!I stepped outside into the cold Toronto afternoon and wandered over to the dentists office, feeling quite pleased with myself for such effective time management.

It is now 24 hours later, I am bright pink and I sting all over.
I am ridiculous.

Friends and such.....

2006-12-04T21:34:00.000-05:00

These are my cousins, Beth, Sarah and Naomi. (9 year old Jordan is missing from this picture). They recently moved from South Caroline to Uxbridge so we get to live close to them again, happy times! (PS: Beth has featured in previous blogs such as the infamous fart machine prank)

This is my wonderful friend Andrew, who SADLY moved back to Australia this week! Andrew, come back!! It's been wonderful having him here for almost a year and getting to know him when he joined our college group. Luckily for me, I am going to spend next Christmas in Australia, and he's already promised me surfing lessons!

This is Jacob. He is great and he reads this blog.

This is Jo, Lauren and I just after we had jumped off a huge bridge at midnight! (taken at Fair Havens during the frosh retreat)

Ok......back to the papers!

BIRTHDAY FUN!

2006-11-30T22:53:00.000-05:00

Yay for birthdays! Here is the fabulous four: Krista, Hannah, Danielle and Marielle (left to right) These girls have become such wonderful friends over the past years, and together we have a LOT of fun! In the cool and original fashion that is typical for us, they decided to attack me with a birthday surprise! (It was on November 6th)

The night began with them charging into my apartment covering me with silly string and whipped cream and then blindfolding me!

The night consisted of much fun and frivolity, involving whoopee cushions, crazy dance musc, and hourly doses of chocolate whipped cream in the mouth. Perhaps a highlight was when Marielle "kidnapped me", pretending to be a creepy man and forcing me into a different car. She didn't speak for ages, only breathed heavily, until suddenly she spoke, and though I was pretty sure deep down that it was her, the scary raspy voice almost made me jump out of my skin, and I sat in the car, blindfold tied tightly, with my heart beating and my body shaking for 15 minutes!

PS: She is a TERRIBLE jumper. Krista and I are way better.

We ended up at Dave and Buster's for a night O' fun! While Danielle posed sexily on the Harley Bike, I took my turn at Sea-doing. Krista hit up the wheel of fortune and Marielle showed her great strength on the strength-0-meter. Basically we sucked and our prize was pathetic, so I vented my frustration out on Scooby doo. He can take it.

Finally, the nerd brigade ended up following our noses to Demetri's for some delicious crepes and ice-cream. All in all, a Birthday to remember!!

I'm back!

2006-11-29T00:14:00.000-05:00

Hi all!
Sorry for deserting my blog recently, and also leaving it ugly for about a month. I joined Myspace and initially that was really exciting, but already the novelty is wearing off, so I am back to my faithful blog once again.
It's been wonderful to hear from some old friends recently on here, especially Capernwray folk! Thanks so much for all your comments and encouragement. I am so thankful for this channel of communication with you.
Anyways. I just wanted to check back in and promise that I will write a blog soon. I have pictures of my surprise birthday adventure to post!
I also need to gather up all my links again and compose a new list.
Less than a month till Christmas!
You'll hear from me soon...

PS to my Toronto friends, the show I am in begins next Friday. You can get tickets at the People's Church website and it's called "Two from Galilee."

A few insights....(or procrastination by writing blogs)

2006-10-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

I changed my lay out and lost all of my links! Do you like this one better, or the old one? Let me know before I put in the effort to make all the links again.

This week I have to behave myself and be more serious about life. I have a big paper and an exam to get through, so no more pranking around...for a few days at least.
Today I realized how much this place (my apartment) is starting to feel like home, and it's a feeling I enjoy. This afternoon I went to the grocery store and checked out my goods with a lady I have gotten to know a bit in there, who was born in the SAME HOSPITAL AS ME IN ENGLAND! Isn't that great? We have a bond that goes back a long way..actually, our entire lives.......
I finally got a bike to ride to Tyndale, and proceeded to venture down the big steep Bayview hill today with Lory on the back, clinging on for dear life!! Lory is one of my wonderful room mates. She is Ecuadorian, but grew up in Canada. I love hearing her speaking on the phone to her Mom in the most beautiful Spanish. She had never ridden a bike before today, so she was very brave to climb aboard!
(After one day of biking to school, Lory couldn't sit down from the pain, and I had to take a bath to ease my aching body. I know...we are pathetic)

I am reading two marvellous books right now, neither of which are anything to do with school, but I can't put them down. One is The Poisonwood Bible, upon high recomendation from various people, including Beth Johnston, whose opinion I trust immensely. The other is Captivating, a book I have heard talk of for quite some time. I find myself underlining stuff on almost every page so far.

April is another of my fantastic room mates, and she is half Cambodian. I also love listening to her on the phone with HER Mom, speaking in Khmer (pronnounced Cumai). I am jealous that these girls grew up bilingual! Today April and I happened to see our 'groundskeeper' Wally, wheeling cart after cart of stuff over to the garbage dump outside our apartment building. Being the broke-barely-any-furniture-apartment-renters that we are, we leapt over our balcony (don't worry, we live on the ground floor) and ran to see what treasures we could steal. 15 minutes later we were the proud owners of a beautiful TV cabinet and shelves, a coat stand, a full length mirror, a camera, and a pile of brand new CDs. Ingenious!

The down-side of this escapade was when we were climbing back over the balcony, April felt something land on her shoulder, and when we looked up, we saw 2 grinning boys who looked about 20, spitting on us from the 10th floor! Can you believe it? Don't worry, Wally yelled at them. (Wally is a lovely middle aged man who tends to the apartment and its property, and he would probably take a bullet for us. He is a fatherly figure who is constantly looking out for us. Good ol' Wally!)

PS My Third room mate is the lovely Jenna, who is as white and non-bilingual as me. She does however, speak the language of art in a very beautiful way, and you should see her colourful bedroom!

The Three Musketeers Strike Again!

2006-10-27T13:51:00.000-04:00

It was a Tuesday night after a week of Midterms, and though my body and mind were exhausted, I was determined to take advantage of this rare 'night off'. Together with my partners in crime, Laura (sister) and Beth (cousin), we set off to wreak havoc on the city of Toronto. (or should I say REEK havoc....pun very intended!) Armed with our weapon of mass destruction, (an extremely realistic fart machine with 15 varieties of fart) we entered the TTC system, where we spent the next 4 hours going from subway to subway, platform to platform, springing chaos on poor unsuspecting members of the general public.

I have not laughed this hard in months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Let me explain how this contraption works: There is a small black box -with boom-box technology no less- that can be hidden anywhere. Mostly we hid it on the body of one of the three of us. Then there is the remote control, which works within a 100 metre radius, allowing the button presser to be far away from the scene of the crime and never suspected as the farter.)
Here are some highlights of the night:
1)The Eglington Subway platform where a gentleman in his thirties was beside himself with laughter at our antics, finally figured out what we were doing, and proceeded to join in with us, explaining to everybody standing around that "she can't help herself, she has a problem."
2) The guy who tried hitting on Laura, walking towards her saying "hey there", to which Beth (holding the remote) promptly responded by letting one rip (the machine was in Laura's jacket), -the guy just about jumped backwards onto the tracks in his hurry to get away!
3)The couple who were mid-makeout session, until I walked past and destroyed their magical moment. The girl collapsed onto her boyfriends chest in laughter, and when I walked back past a moment later, the guy held out his hands in protection and said "STAY AWAY FROM US!".
4)The TTC workers in their office who were becoming more and more disturbed by the loud flacculence noises coming from the platform, until finally one marched out and shouted "We need to evacuate the building"!! Upon seeing Laura standing around the corner, he exclaimed "You???? And such a pretty girl! You need to eat more vegetables."
5) The group of five guys in their 30's who, after hearing the obnoxious noise, all blamed their friend "Dave" who tried in vain to defend himself and proclaimed "it wasn't me, it was that girl over there"! .......Yeah right Dave.
6)The group of three guys in their later 20's who were in full conversation until they heard a large fart, to which they suddenly hushed, and a few seconds later, a small voice could be heard muttering "safety."
7)The guy in a long black trench coat who sussed out what we were doing on the train, and got so excited about it that he wanted to order his own fart machine. When we told him about it, he yelled out rather loudly; "It seriously has 15 varieties of fart???? Can I please listen to them all?!"

As a psychology student, it was interesting to look at the social psychology lessons in the way that people reacted, the genre of person that people blamed as the culprit, and the way that humour breaks down social barriers with complete strangers!
We found in general that the male population shared our "toilet humour" far more than the females. The typical female reaction was to wrinkle her nose in disgust and shoot a dirty, shocked look in our direction. Often she actually got up off the bench and walked away! As for the boys and men, they were either trying desperately not to laugh, or had given in to the hilarity of the situation and were practically rolling on the floor guffawing.....(guffawing, what a great word!)

As for Laura, Beth and I, I don't think we'll ever grow up, and we most definitely will never become 'ladylike'...it sounds far too boring.

PS: The next day, Jesse, Jo and I spent a good hour in the Tyndale school library pulling similar shenanigans. Sorry sem students!

I'll bring the OJ

2006-10-26T01:15:00.000-04:00

Tonight I went to a halloween party with a wicked costume. Here it is.

Yep, I was inside it.
I also took with me my "secret weapon"; a device which I have to write another whole blog on. Check out my cousin's blog if you can't wait to hear of our adventures, otherwise tune in tomorrow....!

He loves me, he loves me not, he LOVES me.

2006-10-23T00:04:00.000-04:00

I have felt so encouraged by his love this week, in a few different ways. It's been like God has been hugging me, whispering to me how much he cares. One of those was definitely the guitar. Such an extravagently beautiful gift, and maybe I'll never know who gave it. Will I ever understand the love of God? No, but I am clutching a precious glimpse right now. I think that the more we understand his love, the more we are able to love others in a way that is real and deep and joyful. As Max Lucado says, "He loves you with an unfailing love, and that love, if you will let it, can fill you and leave you with a love worth giving." True love is ALWAYS worth giving, but what is true love? His love. Him.

Here is a quote by TS Elliot that I LOVE, though I don't understand it fully yet. What are your thoughts on it? (especially you English majors!)
"Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance."
There is tangible beauty EVERYWHERE. open your eyes and find it somewhere new today....

The Greatest Gift.

2006-10-16T23:05:00.000-04:00

In order to understand this blog, you have to read the one before it.

Yesterday afternoon I was home in Stouffville, and in the middle of the afternoon, I went to open the front door, and there, sitting on my porch, was a most BEAUTIFUL brand new guitar in a beautiful case, with a note saying "Hannah, let's not let the music fade".

This is what it looks like. It is so beautiful. I am totally gobsmacked!
I DON'T KNOW WHO IT'S FROM.
I thought I did, but I don't!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
Please reveal yourself to me.

When the music fades...

2006-10-14T21:26:00.000-04:00

I'm really craving my guitar right now. I miss it terribly, it's such an outlet for me. I can wander anywhere with it, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. My favourite physical place to wander around here is the weeping willow tree outside my apartment building. I love sitting under it to play, especially early in the morning. When I have my guitar I can wander the corridors of my mind and let my thoughts dictate the music. I can stop off at whatever memory or thought that I like, and allow the associated emotions to emerge as the notes begin to fill the air. My guitar can really take me places ....and right now I just want to go somewhere! Sadly, I lent it to a friend while I was in BC this summer, and it got stolen. So now I have no guitar. The end.

Hello everyone!

2006-10-07T23:43:00.000-04:00

Hi, it's me, Hannah. I have become a terrible blogger. By that I mean...I haven't blogged in ages! It's not intentional, I just haven't felt the urge to sit down and write about a particular thing. Maybe my life is totally boring and I don't want you to have to endure reading about it, or maybe my mind is in a zillion places a day and I have no idea which parts to write about. I think it's the second, but whatever the reason, I am still alive and well, walking through the world day by day, and learning lots. I hope to be back on here soon writing something worth reading. Despite not contributing to cyber space myself, I am still reading your blogs and living vicariously through your adventures! Happy Thanksgiving to all you Canadians, and for all the British who don't have thanksgiving (let's face it, we aren't a very thankful bunch), have a great weekend!

Some Trivia for those as ignorant as I was: Did you know that pineapples grow out of the ground like this? Before living on a pineapple farm in Zambia, I thought they grew on trees!

Wake me up when September ends...

2006-09-10T17:11:00.000-04:00

Highlights of the last 2 weeks:
1)Leadership training retreat; we got to hang out at Wasaga beach and I really enjoyed getting to know the team of 26 Tyndale student leaders.
2)Frosh Week: although exhausting, it was great to welcome in a bunch of new students to Tyndale and do a week of activities with them. There's a story behind each person, and I look forward to the opportunity to get to know some of them this school year.
3)LAST NIGHT I SAW BRAD PITT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was the Toronto Film Festival and last night was the Premiere of Brad's new movie. (yes that's right, we're on first name basis now.) A bunch of us went down to "stargaze" and found the streets lined with hundreds of people...mostly girls. Krista and I ingeniously found some rails pretty high up, at the back of the crowd. We balanaced, straddled between the two rails with one foot on each, for A WHOLE HOUR waiting for him to arrive. The cameras and papparazzi were all there, the red carpet was ready, and finally the sleek black car pulled up to the Roy Thompson Hall. Out came Brad, to the sound hundreds of people screaming his name and taking pictures. Very surreal. Brad Pitt is one human being, who neither knows or cares about anyone in the audience, yet we were all there just to see him. Not even talk to him, just simply catch a glimpse! It's scary how much the media has intensified the worship of man. We are all hungering for perfection, because we know deep inside that it exists. Sadly, many people do not acknowledge that absolute perfection is found in God, and so they look for a substitute. Physically, Brad Pitt is closer to perfection than most of us (!) and so he is elevated and "worshipped" by thousands.
(By the way, he puts on a TERRIBLE British accent!)

2 of my favourite people.

2006-08-25T15:55:00.000-04:00

I just spent yesterday with Andy and Eira Patching, the missionaries who head up the project where I work in Zambia. (www.isubilo.org)
It was more wonderful that I can express to spend time with such dynamic Godly people and I came away feeling somehow purified.....
I want to go back to Africa.

Andy and Eira, with me and my dear friend Tracey.

Sieze the day.

2006-08-16T13:25:00.000-04:00

I arrived back home late Sunday night from BC, after some crazy security lines in the airports! I can only be in one place at once, so it always takes me a couple of days after leaving a place for my mind to leave it too. For the past 2 days my mind has still been on Thetis Island, so if I haven't answered phone calls, then that is why. It takes me a while to re-adjust my heart and mind before I start picking up all of the strands of my life here again!

It has been a wonderful six weeks at Capernwray Harbour, and I feel so privileged to have the chance to spend summers there during these formative years of my life. I was able to learn a lot about myself, through situations, relationships and listening to the Lord reveal things to me. We were able to invest in the lives of some pretty special teenagers, and share truth with them. I came away with a renewed sense of confidence in my identity, who I am, and where my values lie. I'm so thankful to belong to someone so much greater than me, and I want to choose him every day that I live in this world, because he came to bring life in its fullness, and that life is HIS life in ME. I will never understand this, but I believe it.

I learnt to wakeboard.
I love wakeboarding.

The day after I came home, I went to a lunch downtown with my parents, which was a part of the international HIV/AIDS conference that is taking place in Toronto this week. The lunch was for only about 20 people, and was led by Rick Warren (author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and pastor of Saddleback church in California). I was a bit intimidated to be sitting around a table with a bunch of hot shots in black suits, but then I decided that there was really no point being intimidated by such people, and so I struck up conversation with the "hot shots" around me and had a great time! Rick Warren even announced that he wants his son to marry me.
It was a really informative time, and many things that were said were nuggets of truth and wisdom that I wish I could have scribbled down on paper because the talk was so rich with them.

It's funny where each day leads us....one day I am scrambling around in the ocean with a bunch of kids with salt in my hair and dirt all over me, and the next day I am sitting in an exlusive hotel board room eating lunch with exlusive members of society. Life is an adventure and each day is to be embraced. We should never stop stepping out of our comfort zone. Never.

Last night I was in the house alone and I got scared because I kept hearing banging from what sounded like the basement. I went out onto the porch to call someone to come over because I was nervous that there was a scary man downstairs. Just as I was making the call, Mike Middleton came around the corner followed by Jacob- I've never been so relieved to see anyone in my life! They ended up rescuing me for the night, and I went back this morning and searched around, and whatever/whoever it was seems to have gone. I think I was just nervous because I spent 6 weeks on an Island in a TOTALLY safe environment and now I am all alone in a house on a street. It's funny how everything seems 100 times more sinister at night time.

I'm sure there will be more stories from BC, but I have to jet right now for a meeting with Dave Roberts about being missions co-ordinator at Tyndale this year. It is something I am really anticipating and looking forward to.

The Island life.

2006-07-19T18:59:00.000-04:00

I've been sitting here trying to upload some pictures onto here, but am not successful. I hate Macs! Anyway, sorry for the lack of visual images, but I will still attempt to highlight a few things that have been going on here.
I can't believe I'm almost half way through! It's going far too fast. Whenever I am at Capernwray Harbour, I always want it to last forever. It's my favourite place in North America, and definitely in the top five list for world favourites.
In case you don't know, Capernwray Harbour, Thetis Island (one of the gulf islands in British Columbia) is where I am for 6 weeks at the moment. It is where I spent a year at bible school in 02-03, and this is my third summer on staff. I am working with the teenagers, in six consecutive family camp weeks. I work with a great guy, Dan Bjorn, from Germany, and we make a good team and balance each other out pretty well. We've had some wonderful and interesting kids to spend time with, teach, and learn from. We get to do lots of high energy activities with them such as ropes courses, the screamer (a 40 foot pole that you climb to the top of and jump off for a trapeze), overnight campounts under the stars and lots of water sports and swimming. It's absolutely stunning here, surrounded by mountains and ocean and forest. I love the staff that I get to work with, and in many ways this is my spiritual reference point, and so to be back here is really allowing me to clarify my mind and heart.

Some highlights from the past three weeks:

*When a 7 year old boy peed all over me after I told him he had to wait a minute before going to the bathroom.

"When Amie (one of my BESTEST friends) and I went for ice cream at the marina and met Derek: the guy who knows EVERYTHING. (seriously)

*When Sam crashed the golf cart into a window and it fell out of the wall and smashed everywhere.

*When I am whizzing around on the speed boat with my hair flying everywhere, soaking up the sun and the beauty.

*When Katherine and I saw two seals mating in the water.

*When I get to sit on the end of the dock alone and watch the sun set.

*When we went to Victoria and flew one-hundred-dollar kites.

*Spending time with people here, like Amie.

*When 6 year old Deseree decided to walk down the dock with her eyes closed and walked straight off the edge, caught on camera by her father.

*When kids from previous summers come back and are really excited to see me.

*When I played Mafia for the seventieth time with last weeks group of teenagers.

*When I eat Bear-Claw flavoured ice-cream.

*The phosphoresence. (AMAZING. It is a chemical reaction in the ocean at night, and when you stir a stick in the water everything sparkles and shimmers like magical golden fairy dust!! You have to see it to believe it. It's incredible)

There you go...a few insights into summertime on Thetis Island...pictures to follow soon.

A prayer

2006-07-10T20:22:00.000-04:00

"Stir in me the songs that you are singing,
fill my gaze with things as yet unseen.
Give me faith to move in works of power,
making me more like Jesus.

Then one day, I'll see him as he sees me.
Face to face, the lover and the loved.
No more fears, the longing will be over,
there with my precious Jesus."

Blessed Assurance

2006-06-29T17:38:00.000-04:00

I haven't written for a while. Sometimes I stop and think about the different people that read this blog, from different parts of my life, and how difficult it is to write something that spans all of you, in which I remain consistent in who I am. The other day in church an entirely random man came up to me and said "Are you Hannah, the one with the blog?" He had somehow stumbled upon it and read it. It made me think though, I have no idea who is reading this, and I think it is a good challenge to be consistent in all areas of my life, to the point that I am comfortable with anyone reading this.

I fly to BC in the morning, to Capernwray on Thetis Island, for 6 wonderful weeks of being on staff for "Holiday bible weeks" (family camp) I am really looking forward to being there, it's one of my favourite places on earth and in many ways, my spiritual reference point. I have dear friends there and can't wait to spend time with them again.

It's been a draining couple of weeks in many ways, with first Steve Kruger from Capernwray dying very suddenly, and then Alfie, one of the Jr High boys in our youth group, passing away on Sunday morning; also a huge shock. It's made me desire to be far more intentional in spending time with those I love and having meaningful conversation, saying what I want to say and making sure they know what they mean to me. I have been really unsettled inside this week every time I've said goodbye to somebody, because I've realized, in a deeper sense, the vulnerability and fragility of life. Even the most youthful and heathliest of lives.
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine."
It is a blessed assurance indeed to know that both of these precious people can say with confidence that Jesus is theirs. They are now in his presence, hallelujah!

All for now, I will try and update while in BC.

Silence on the Subway.

2006-06-08T10:03:00.000-04:00

The subway is so wierd. Seriously. People may as well be in coffins on it. Everyone acts like they are dead, or at least lifeless. Yesterday I sat in close proximity to all the people in my section of the carriage, and I really wanted just to start playing a game of "would you rather" or "telephone" or something with them all, but if you so much as smile at someone they think you are stalking them! If people would just let loose we could have all been friends by the time I got off at Sheppard station! We are meant for community, it is natural to interact and engage with one another. Everyone just sits there looking down or reading a book or staring into space. It's so sad. It's so unnatural. City life.

The wierd and cool thing was, on Sunday I was downtown for the global day of prayer, and after it was finished, thousands of Christians poured out of the stadium and over to the subway, and we were all chatting and mingling, hanging out on the subway...even though we were strangers! It was really great and a lot more natural.
When did we become so inhibited?

Bring it on.

2006-06-05T15:11:00.000-04:00

I have been getting restless recently, for something new and exciting. Well I am no longer restless, because lots has been happening. So much that I can't even keep up with this blog!

Funny how something or someone can just come into your world and rock it. I am starting to feel more myself again..sometimes I need a shake up for that to happen.
Could I be any more vague you ask?! Well probably not, but I am not sure what and how to write, so for now..I am just checking in so that you know I'm still alive!

Rodeo's, princesses and tennis hotlines...

2006-05-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

Well I just arrived home in Stouffville because there are two things I want to go to around here tomorrow. First one is a concert in the Stouffville Baseball part to raise awareness for Africa, so I plan to be there (especially since its going to be 27 degrees). The other one is a RODEO!!! I can't wait! Cowboys and horse shows and country singers and bull riding...what a day it's going to be.

Anyway, enough of my excitement. I've had a wonderful week working with Emily. (We have been writing her blog every day so check it and leave a comment. http://emily.quist.ca )It's been really cool figuring out ways to really engage her and excite her. The best one I have come up with began in Starbucks the other day when we went for our weekly hot chocolate trip there. It takes her about an hour to drink it, so we were sitting there by the big window, and I started telling her a story. It was about a 13 year old girl called Emily, who was a princess. As I began to make it up, Emily started smiling, tipping back her head and laughing, and as the story began to develop, her eyes locked into mine as she listened intently to a world in which she was a princess who could run and dance and talk and sing. It was a wonderful time and now every time we go back there I give her the next chapter of the story. (If you think of any ideas for the adventures of princess Emily, let me know!) I'm certainly learning a lot from Emily, she has a serenity about her that is quite amazing, and it is true, as her Mom says, that no one who meets her is the same again. Her Mom was interviewed on 100 Huntley street on Wednesday and she told Emily's story. It was really powerful and if you're interested in seeing it, click here. and choose Wednesday's program with "Lindsey Hall Yeskoo."

Last night around 9:30pm, my friend Andrew and I went to play tennis, but the floodlights weren't on. After attempting to play in the darkness for a while (which in itself was very amusing), we found a phone number on the gate for a tennis "hotline". Upon calling it at 10:30pm it was answered by a girl who was still on call for all those tennis players like ourselves in emergency predicaments. Who would have thought?!?!

Um...that's all folks!

Baby Pandas

2006-05-25T11:47:00.000-04:00

How cute are baby Pandas?! I was with Emily at the library yesterday looking at a book of them, and now I want to take her to the Zoo to see them. I want a pet one!

Meet the Fam!

2006-05-22T10:50:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to thank some of you for your encouraging comments on my last blog. It's so nice to be surrounded by friends who care. I really appreciate it.

Here is my wonderful family! My Mum and sister Laura share the same birthday and this year it was a big one..Mum's 50th and Laura's 20th. For those of you who know us all and haven't seen us in a while, enjoy...!
The fam at The Keg
The SIBS: Me, Laura and Matt.
Dad, Hannah, Laura.
Can you believe she is 50?!

Hiding

2006-05-20T14:15:00.000-04:00

I feel like recently I've spent a lot of time hiding, either behind my sunglasses, or by acting fine, because I don't want anyone to see inside. When I hide like this I feel untouchable and safe, yet also extremely dangerous.

Crap..I just somewhat gave myself away- In a very vague sense. Maybe that's a good thing though.

Here and there....

2006-05-14T16:56:00.000-04:00

Today is Mother's day. My brother decided to make a special slide show for my Mum on the computer, but by the time he asked her to come and watch it, she wasn't in a good mood, due to a prank he had attempted to pull on my sister or me (vaseline smeared on the toilet seat) but which my MUM had been the unfortunate recipient to when she went to the bathroom.

HAHA Will Matt EVER learn the rules of appropriateness?!?! Reminds me of another time a few years ago, when we were having dinner with all my Grandparents in England, and Matt, not knowing what it meant, yelled across the table, "Laura you are a lesbian."

I think I would like to take up tennis more this summer. There are courts by my apartment. Anyone?

I have started working with Emily and look forward to spending every day with her. She has a blog. in which we write about what she does every day. So check it out, and comment if you like, because I will read her comments to her every day, and she loves it.

I've been really enjoying not having school and just having the opportunity to hang out with people and spend "quality time" talking and laughing and such. I've had several conversations this past week with very different people, yet a similiar theme has surfaced, and it has really made me think. I may post on it when I have processed more.

Summer is a whole different rhythm of life and I love it.
My pool opens next week!

Something that has been formulating in my mind a bit:
What happens when you have been given the answer before you've had chance to ask the question?

How to Spot a Billionaire.

2006-05-10T23:00:00.000-04:00

Delectable

2006-05-08T16:54:00.000-04:00

Today I went on a picnic with my friends Dylan and Tara. It was great, because I love sunshine. The best time to eat food is
1)Outside,
and 2)When you are really hungry.
We fulfilled both those criteria, so it was delicious.

I am back from England, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The only downside was that it was too short. The weather was even beautiful, and for those who have lived in the north of England, you know what a rarity that is! I will post some pictures soon, once my sister (who absentmindedly loses most things) finds the camera chord to upload pictures.

"We don't forget, thought Mma Ramotswe. Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which come back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are."

This quote is from a wonderful series I am reading, called "The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith. It's set in Africa and its great light summer reading. Anyway, after just being home in England, I completely relate to it, so I thought I'd stick it in.

(Another great book I just finished: C S Lewis, "Till We Have Faces.")

SUMMERTIME!

2006-04-25T12:14:00.000-04:00

Woohoo!!!
I am done exams and off to England in 3 hours.

BRING ON THE SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have they figured out how to fast forward time yet?

2006-04-17T22:20:00.000-04:00

A week of exams is looming.......

Cousins and Easter adventures

2006-04-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

This weekend I am home in Stouffville, which has been so great. Today our cousins came over and as usual, the 7 of us went on some form of adventure involving exploring new territory...ask me about past adventures of this kind if you are interested!
This time it was to see Matt's tree fort in the forest.

We ventured across perilous creeks....

Clambered over wobbly branches....

and much more, until we finally arrived at the spot.

...only to find a scene of brutal vandalism.
The couch which Matt and his friends had so laboriously carried through the forest was burnt.

The wall they had constructed was torn down....

How can people be so cruel? Seriously I could write a whole blog about mean kids who like to be destructive, but that would spoil the mood..
We still managed to have fun though, by taking a large piece of rope deeper into the forest and creating a tarzan swing over the river...

Of course Sarah fell in, as did Matt, after acting all cocky and trying to push the rest of us down.....sucker.
The other cool part was finding a "shoe tree" in the middle of the forest...check it out!

"A Day in the Life...."

2006-04-13T13:28:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture that made my day. I think I may have mentioned on here before, how Tracey and I spent the last 8 months working hard on a DVD of Zambia footage that we took last May. The main project was a 20 minute documentary entitled "A Day in the Life of a Zambian Orphan." The orphan that we focused on was Nicholas Mubamba, who is sitting in the middle of the picture in the red shirt. We finally sent the finished copy to Zambia few weeks ago. This photo is of the main children who feature in the movie, watching themselves on the DVD for the first time! These kids barely ever look in mirrors, and hardly see photographs, and so to see themselves moving around on the screen is, as you can see, highly entertaining!! (They are sitting with John and Priya, who head up the orphan program at Isubilo.) Suddenly, all those countless hours of video editing, losing and corrupting files, and fighting with the computer were all worth it, just for the look on their faces. Priceless.

PS: I just wanted to to say how much I appreciate the people who read this blog and leave encouraging comments. I really am encouraged! Thank you for taking the time to do that, especially when I write something so long..;) It's such a blessing, and I especially love hearing from Capernwray people on here!

Settle Down?

2006-04-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

As I sit here attempting to begin a 15 page paper for my personality class, my mind is everywhere but here.
I want to become a journalist, so that I can go and be an advocate for the injustices done to children all over the world. I also love drama and public speaking so I think it's a good fit. (Maybe I can work for the BBC if I hold onto my accent.) I want to stand at the scene of the atrocities and tell it to the world. I imagine that I would become too emotionally involved with individuals and want to stay and invest in their lives though, so maybe it wouldn't work. Actually, my Mum brought up that last point, and she knows me PRETTY well. But I'd like to do it for a few years at least.
I want to become a teacher too, because it's like a ticket to anywhere in the world, especially if one wants to live in another country. That way I can move permanently to Africa and set up education programs out in the bush. My psychology degree will hopefully help me to work with traumatized children, if I can take more classes of that focus. Speaking of which, here two links for a horriffic situation taking place right now in Northern Uganda. One is the INVISIBLE CHILDREN and the other is this one. These are children who are abducted on a nightly basis to become child soldiers/killing machines, trained by a rebel army who is trying to overthrow the government. We can do something, so check out the sites if you want to help. If you live in Toronto there is a giant "night commute" in 2 weeks time. I have to miss it though, because I will be in England. But YOU should go.
I want to be out of school and right there, spending my days rescuing vulnerable and needy kids and pouring love into their lives, watching them blossom like flowers under the sunshine as the realize that they are worth something and loved. Yet at the same time, the practical side of me wants to use this time of being young and free from responsibility to get as educated as I can be. It's kind of like putting eggs in a basket or something...and I want a lot of eggs. Speaking of eggs, the goose in the courtyard at Tyndale has laid 5 of them and attacks anyone who ventures near her nest. (I speak from experience) But seriously, if I am qualified as a teacher and a journalist, and have a BA in psychology, that should set me up for something. I can do teachers college in one year, and an intensive journalism program over one summer, so it shouldn't take me until I'm 80 to leave school. There is SO very much I want to do. So much I want to experience and explore and feel before I...hold on a second....before I WHAT?
..Someone told me yesterday, "Hannah, you need to settle down soon." Do I? Why should I settle down? Give me one good reason. Is it a requirement in life? For some reason, the phrase "settle down" sounds like "stop dreaming" to me. Please tell me I never have to stop dreaming? Whenever I take those little personality test things, I always get the description involving the word "dreamer". Everytime. To stop dreaming is to crucify something inside. Maybe I am too much of a dreamer, but I'd much rather live in the hope of dreams that burn brightly inside than "settle down" and feel cold and grey -like ashes. Dreams allow me to be a part of something so much greater than myself at this moment in time. They allow me to reach outside of the tangible and illuminate far more of life than every day existence allows.
Maybe I will never own a house and have a "killing me softly" 9-5 job. Maybe I will never even get married. I feel so driven towards this dream, that it has to take priority. There are not many things I am so sure of as this, and therefore I am holding this as a reference point. Consequently, not too many guys fit into it, and I don't think I like dating casually. I'm the wrong personality type for that. It want it to be all or nothing now. That's Ok, I only need one guy, and I am happy to wait until he's the right one. I often tell God that he had better be blazingly obvious God Ok? Maybe I will become something so far away from the norm, and if so, and it's God's plan for me, then that's cool. Whatever it is, I have this theory that it will be what makes me feel alive. Being in Africa amongst these children, rescuing, loving them, and catching their contagious zest for life...this is what being alive means to me. More than anything else in my life so far, this has lit a fire within me and caused me to feel like I was doing what I have been born to do. I know that God has placed that inside me. It's not normal, yet it is my desire. Therefore, I believe it is God given.
I received a letter from Zambia yesterday, from my friend Beulah Kalunga, who is 15 years old. Talk about a perspective check. I don't have it with me, but I will post it when I do. I actually want to do a few posts along this line of thought. Anyway, for now I am going to get back to my paper, but with these beautiful faces in my mind, suddenly the reason for writing it seems a lot more compelling...

Crunch Time

2006-04-05T16:14:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't blogged properly for a while, I am in the middle of term papers and exams and all that fun stuff. I hope to get some good thoughts and stories up on here very soon...

Meanwhile, some highlights of this past week;
-We got new neighbours across the hall, they are two girls our age, and they seem lots of fun!
-Last week I wore flipflops and t-shirts, and right now as I write, it is snowing. Canada is wierd.
-My good friend Katherine is going to be working in BC with me this summer!
-We WON our intermural floor hockey championship..I have a sweet medal hanging from my mirror now, and I look at it every morning and feel athletic.
-I might stay at Tyndale next year.
-I go to England 3 weeks today...that means 3 weeks today it's SUMMER and school is done!
- My sister was on TV on monday..on the Much Music VJ search show, anyone watch it?
-Speaking of TV, my Dad (Living Truth) will soon be on TV on ONE THIRD OF THE PLANET. Nuts!

-I am going on a Jr High retreat this weekend, and I REALLY need energy.
-For the past week I have been deaf due to an ear infection. It has been so frustrating asking people to repeat themselves over and over that I kind of gave up and decided to be a loner for a while. Turns out I quite enjoy my own company!

Sometimes being quiet is a really good thing.

Who is this guy???

2006-03-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

Somehow his picture ended up on my phone, and then my e-mail, and then my blog. Hmm..

My Favourite Colour

2006-03-27T00:40:00.000-05:00

My favourite colour is blue, because it reminds me of eternity. It's like looking out over the ocean or across the sky; I can see all the way to the horizon, but I can't see past it, because I haven't been given the key to understanding what eternity looks like yet....but I know it's there, and it fills me with hope.

Wonderwall?

2006-03-21T16:45:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw OASIS live in Concert at the Air Canada Centre. They were amazing! They played for a straight hour and a half and sang all the classic old ones too.

I went with these two lovely fellows, Hans and Mike.

We were in the same room as the Gallagher brothers, crazy! They are legends.

I have always wondered exactly what a "Wonderwall" is. I discovered yesterday, in the words of Liam Gallagher, that a Wonderwall is "whatever the hell you want it to be." Thank you for your words of wisdom Liam.

I actually had a really amazing moment during the concert. There is one song in which the chorus line goes "We're going to live forever." The audience was belting it out along with the band, and as we did so, the spotlights started moving all over the stadium which was packed with twenty thousand people. As hundreds of people at a time were lit up with their hands in the air singing "We're going to live forever", I had a sudden glimpse of heaven, when the millions and millions of us that love Jesus will be there with our hands lifted up in praise, not to OASIS or any other idol of man, but to the one true God and King of the universe.
And with him, we will live forever.

Adventures!

2006-03-18T13:08:00.000-05:00

On Thursday night, my room mate Elea, me, and the "often-imitated-never-duplicated-Jonathan-Gordon", set out on an ADVENTURE...and ohh what a time we had.

First stop: The Black Sheep, a good ol' English pub in which we enticed Jonny boy into drinking our surprise concoction (which happened to be something known as "Liquid Cocaine") This brave individual swigged it back, even clamouring for more!

(Side note: To get to this particular pub, we had to creep down a sketchy Toronto back-alley at 11:30pm, which all added to the adventure)

Second stop: Mcdonalds, purely because it was Thursday, and what does Thursday at Mcdonalds mean??
TWO CHEESEBURGER MCDEAL!
An offer too good to resist, especially when we ended up getting the burgers for free. The guy in the line behind us was very hungry and agitated, and struck a deal with us: if we let him go in front of us in the line, he would buy us cheeseburgers.
"Um...OK!"

Here is a shout out to Danny our new Mcdonalds buddy.

Third Stop: ASIAN KARAOKE!!! (Good things always comes in threes...or perhaps thrices April??)
We had noticed it as we drove past before, and thought it would be a laugh to check it out..

We parked the car and entered down some stairs where we could hear the Asian beats blasting. It sounded like quite the party! However, when we reached the bottom of the stairs, we thought we must have come to the wrong place! It seemed as though we were in some sort of tanning salon, with a front desk and lots of small individual rooms.

I apoligized and said that we were looking for the Karaoke, and the Korean guy behind the desk smiled and said "Welcome welcome!" (He also made some sort of bowing gesture to us)
We were then led into a small room with 2 TV screens, a microphone and some pink sparkly tambourines. He informed us that the idea was to rent a room and do Karaoke..alone or with friends, singing from the words (all chinese) on the screen.
WHO KNEW THESE PLACES EXISTED?

By now we were finding the whole thing very amusing, and our hysteria intensified when the guy shut and locked the door and proceeded to perform a Korean rap to us!!
After making some hasty excuses and promises to return for a full concert from this Asian pop sensation, we made a quick getaway.

What a night to remember. Here's to spontaneous adventures!
(For an alternative commentary of the night, check out Elea's blog).

Ashley

2006-03-16T14:16:00.000-05:00
This last week my friend Ashley came to visit. She was at Tyndale last year but left to become a Dental Assistant. Since all the colleges in Ontario are on strike at the moment, she came back to visit, and it was great!

I like Ashley a lot.

In this moment.

2006-03-13T13:10:00.000-05:00
Today I am unquenchably restless. I just want to go on a great big adventure. (I know that this is nothing unusual, but today I want THE adventure.) I want my eyes to be opened in a new way so that I can drink in the beauty that is bubbling out of everything I experience. I want to taste suffering and let it plunge new and permanent depths into my soul. I want to live life in long deep breaths, not shallow fast ones. I want to absorb it all and have the wisdom to process it. I want sing my heart out from the top of a mountain. I want to run and jump and fly and soar. I want to know that I am in this moment and be able to understand all that it means for me to exist. I want to cry until I feel like there's nothing left in me. I want to watch a sunset and find that it is indescribable enough to awaken my soul. I want to laugh until I fall over crying and then fall asleep in his arms. I don't want to put things in boxes. I need to look at the horizon and know that there is so much more beyond it than I can even dream. I need this irripressible hope to take over everything that threatens to suffocate my spirit. I want to live an uninhibited day. I want to feel alive.

Maybe all I really want is to know you Jesus?

The beginning of a dream...

2006-03-04T13:32:00.000-05:00
I scanned this picture onto the computer today as I am using it in a powerpoint presentation at school tomorrow. It's me, Mum and Laura in Zimbabwe. I was 7 years old.

Amazing how this dream has never faded; it's only growing stronger...

“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing -- then we truly live life “

Emily

2006-03-02T16:18:00.000-05:00
I've been meaning to write about Emily for some time now.
Emily Yeskoo turned 13 yrs old last Saturday.
She loves the colour purple and eating chocolate and watching "That's so Raven" on TV.
Emily has a 14 year old brother Chris, and an 8 year old sister, Madeline. I have the privilige of babysitting them every Thursday night, and it's one of my favourite times of the week.
Emily is suffering from a rare terminal illness known as MLD. She is now confined to a chair, and sits in it like a princess on a throne. Her laugh lights up the room, so it's fun to be funny around her! Her family is absolutely incredible. I am so thankful that they have been brought into my life this year.

Last night they rushed Emily to Sick-Kids hospital because her feeding tube had come out. I stayed with the other siblings. She is doing Ok today, but the severity and unpredictability of her condition prompted me to write about her on this blog, so that you can pray for her, and for her family.
I wish I had a picture! I will try and get one up soon.

Frolicking in the snow...

2006-02-28T17:32:00.000-05:00
This weekend I was away up north with my wonderful college group from church, on a retreat. What a great weekend of fun and games and teaching.
Here we are on the bus before it broke down!

Yes, you've guessed it, the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, and we were without heat for a couple of hours as we waited in thick snow to be rescued..ohh the memories!

Danielle and Marielle and I sometimes get a bit giddy together...but it always makes for a great time!

Here is the crew, a combination of 3 churches, standing in front of Ontario Camp for the Deaf (I think it was the cheapest place to go?!)

My new favourite hobbies include:
Tackling boys in the snow
Being tackled by boys in the snow
Stealing boys 6-packs of coke that they hide in the snow
Hiding underneath cars in the game of capture the flag

On a more serious note, It was a great time, and just what I needed. Those STARS...incredible!! I was so happy to be surrounded by natural beauty. I get so claustrophobic in my city apartment sometimes. God was very faithful to me this weekend as well, and he brought me back to him in such a wonderful way.
And as for the capture the flag game...that could merit an entire blog...

I bought you to set you free.

2006-02-23T11:50:00.000-05:00
I heard this story last week, and found it really powerful. I don't think I need to make any comments, it says it all.

Back in the 1800s, a young Englishmen traveled to California in search of
gold. After several months of prospecting he struck it rich. On his way home
he stopped in New Orleans. Not long into his visit, he came upon a crowd of
people all looking in the same direction. Approaching the crowd, he realized
they were gathering for a slave auction. Slavery had been outlawed in
England for years, so this young man’s curiosity drew him to watch as a
person became someone else’s property. He heard “sold” just as he joined the
crowd. A middle-aged black man was taken away.
Next a beautiful young black girl was pushed up on the platform and made to
walk around so everyone could see her. The bidding began.
Soon the bids surpassed what most slaveholders would pay. As the bidding
continued higher and higher, it was apparent that two slave owners wanted
her. The miner stood silent as anger welled up inside him. Finally, one man
bid a price that was beyond the reach of the other. The girl looked down.
The auctioneer called out, “Going once! Going twice!”
Just before the final call, the miner called out a price that was exactly
twice the previous bid. An amount that exceeded the worth of any man. The
crowd laughed, thinking the miner was only joking. The auctioneer motioned
to the miner to come forward and show his money. The miner opened up the bag
of gold he had brought for the trip. The auctioneer shook his head in
disbelief as he waved the girl over to him.
The girl walked down the steps of the platform until she was eye to eye with
the miner. She spat straight in his face and said through clenched teeth, “I
hate you!” The miner, without a word, wiped his face, paid the auctioneer,
took the girl by the hand, and walked away from the still-laughing crowd.
He seemed to be looking for something in particular as they walked up one
street and down the other. Finally they stopped in front of some sort of
store, though the slave girl did not know what kind of store it was. She
waited outside as the dirty-faced miner went inside and started talking to
an elderly man. She couldn’t make out what they were talking about. At one
point voices got louder, and she overheard the store clerk say, “But it’s
the law! It’s the law!” Peering in, she saw the miner pull out his bag of
gold and pour what was left on the table.
With what seemed like a look of disgust, the clerk picked up the gold and
went into a back room. He came out with a piece of paper and both he and the
miner signed it. The young girl looked away as the miner came out the door. Stretching out his hand, he said to the girl, “Here are your manumission papers. You are free.”The girl didn’t look up.
He tried again. “Here. These are papers that say you are free. Take them.”
“I hate you!” the girl said, refusing to look up. “Why do you make fun of me?”
“No, listen,” he pleaded. “These are your freedom papers. You are a free person.”
The girl looked at the papers then looked at him, and looked at the papers
again. “You just bought me… and now you’re setting me free?”
“That’s why I bought you. I bought you to set you free.”
The beautiful girl fell to her knees in front of the miner, tears streaming
down her face.“You bought me to set me free! You bought me to set me free!” she said over and over.The miner said nothing.
Clutching his muddy boots the girl looked up at the miner and said,

“All I want to do is serve you- because you bought me to set me free.”

Olympic Pride.

2006-02-21T14:55:00.000-05:00
I have really been enjoying the Olympics. Fortunately, I am home for reading week, and my mother is a sports FANATIC, so she makes a rule that involves us not being allowed to watch anything else on the television for the two weeks it is on. (the same goes for wimbledon) My favourite has to be the figure skating, and I always start dreaming about if we had left England earlier and I had grown up here in Canada...then I would be standing on that podium in Torino this week for SURE.
Ok well maybe not but I would have loved to have the chance to figure skate, since I did a lot of ballet, and it can't be that much harder...right??
I also love watching the snowboarding and ski-ing tricks. I just watched the "ariel" where they do about 17 flips in the air on skis and land back on the hill.....imagine the adrenaline rush?!?!

All that being said though, I find it very interesting, how some guy from Toronto skating around the ice in Italy and being rewarded a chunk of metal around his neck, can make us feel so good, while sitting on our couches here in Canada. It's like we had something to do with his win, like we are talented. The whole patriotism thing just goes again to show how much each of us long to be in community...to be a part of something much greater than just ourselves as individuals. That's what the Olympics is about. We take pride in associating ourselves with certain countries, in joining together as one..its very strange once you start dissecting it...
Yet it leads me to understand that God made us for community, it's ingrained in our very essence, and the Olympics is just one manifestation of our need to belong to a community; ultimately, the community which we were created to belong to: the body of Christ.

Oh England.

2006-02-19T21:36:00.000-05:00

I have been craving England for the past couple of months. Just really aching to go home.

It's been about 16 months since I was last there, and during that time I have lost two grandparents, which makes me want to go back even more.

This is Capernwray Hall, where I grew up. It's a bible school in the North of England. My house was just beside where the picture was taken, across the field of sheep and cows (I am being totally literal)

Today my wonderful father, who understands my plight, handed me a ticket to go back to England for 10 days as soon as my exams are done, so I am leaving April 25th to go home.

I am so happy.

Dancing Roommates.

2006-02-13T02:21:00.000-05:00

It's 2:20am. I have a test in the morning, and a paper due, all for my 8:30am class. That's 6 hours and 10 minutes. I haven't gone to bed yet. I wonder if I will...
Hey, here is something cool...me and my room mates attempting to learn the dance to "You got served" That's me, Amanda in the middle, and April on the other side. Elea was taking the picture...good excuse Elea.

Actually, we love to dance, which is why we frequent the country bar "Nashville North" all the time! Here are some pictures of our home away from home...ohh good times.

A thought.

2006-02-11T16:50:00.000-05:00
"It's Ok to admit that you're not Ok."

The Absurdities of Hannah...

2006-01-27T10:16:00.000-05:00
So my wonderful and delectable roommate Amanda Maurice, "tagged" me to write 5 obscure thing about myself. (not including the fact that I use the word "delectable" a lot more than the average person)

Here we go...!

1) I have always LOVED having my arm stroked/tickled. It is the most relaxing thing to me, and many people have been subject to being my arm stroker during my lifetime. Let's just say its one of the top criterias for my future husband... (and no Dylan, it is NOT the same thing as you stroking Jordan's thigh.)

2) My biggest phobia is flopping fish.......ahh even just writing it has made me all jittery. It's the freakiest and grocest thing to me, the thought of a fish jumping/falling out of the fish bowl and flopping around on the ground while suffocating. AHHHHHHHHHH SO DISGUSTING I have to stop writing about it now before I choke.

3) I pull my hair out. I have this wierd "condition" called Trichtillomania. It's slightly an obsessive compulsive thing, and when I am stressed or being intense, I pull my hair out from the roots. Consequently, my hair is a lot thinner than it used to be, but because it used to be super thick, its hard to tell, thankfully. (www.trich.org)

4) When I was a kid, I had an extremely overactive imagination, and I personified everything. My bike had a name (James) and a blanket over him night so he wouldn't get cold in the garage. One day my Mom had taken me to buy a new pair of shoes, and there was a thunderstorm that night, so I got out of bed, went and got the shoes, and tucked them into bed with me, so that they wouldn't get scared! I could go on....

5) I used to be TERRIFIED of Santa Claus. (again..the overactive imagination kicking in) I was so scared at the thought of a strange man coming into my room when I was sleeping, that I insisted on putting my stocking in the living room each Christmas eve. I would stay awake trembling with excitement and nerves each year, and my poor parents could never get to bed before 3am.

There you go, I'm sure there are many more, but this is probably scary enough as it is..
I am going to tag: Amie Dyer (www.amiedyer.blogspot.com)
Beth Whitaker (www.bethwhitaker.blogspot.com)
Christina Russel (http://bond-slave.blogspot.com/)
Elea Hofman...who still hasn't done it! (www.xanga.com/eleahofman)
....and Andrew Martin (www.xanga.com/andzine)

HAVE FUN!!

School to Stars

2006-01-20T18:37:00.000-05:00
Hi....

....I am definitely having a hard time in school at the moment, I am so restless for some reason. Not an ounce of my being is motivated to sit in classes. Gotta work on that. I always get restless. At least I know when I will next be out of here. I am going back to Beautiful BC for 6 weeks of the summer...sigh...

Finally after 6 months of sparadically working on it, Tracey and I have finished our first DVD of Zambia. We have one particular video that I love, entitled 'A day in the life of a Zambian Orphan" documenting my little friend Nicholas Mubamba. Please talk to me and I will be happy to show it to you! We had the opportunity to go into North Toronto Collegiate Highschool this week and do some presentations about Isubilo and the AIDS crisis in Zambia. It went really well, and I'm already corresponding with a couple of kids from the classes who want to go to Africa when they graduate this summer as a result of our talk! Very encouraging. One of my orphans...11 year old Joshua, died last week, so it made me all the more fired up to tell his story and the story of all the other children...

The other night my cousin Beth and I met this really great homeless guy downtown. His name is Chris. He's a poet. We found him under a sleeping back reading Homer's "The Iliad" and clutching a bible. He rapped us one of his poems, and one line has stuck out in my mind ever since...

"We live under the lights, but we don't see the stars."

He was referring to the city, and it's profound. It spoke to my heart about the spiritual realm too. So often in a day I don't see past what is man made and man centred . My eyes can't see the spiritual realm, the big picture. They are blind to the divine. Open my eyes lord...let me see past the lights. I want to see stars.

The Unbound Heart.

2006-01-03T21:53:00.000-05:00
Brace yourselves for something deeper than the previous few...( but on a side note my nose is officially broken!)

Recently I've been pushing down and attempting to ignore the sense that I am living at about 30% of who I really am. A reoccuring restlessness for more than this has forced me to stop and kick myself up the butt. I've allowed so much of me to be crushed and compressed, telling myself that it's useless to stand in the middle of a fast moving river and expect to stop the current; much easier just to let go and start flowing along with it....easier but definitely not better. I've been ignorning convictions to the point where they have become almost too faint to hear. It's like I'm skating on a layer of ice, knowing that there are great and mysterious depths beneath me, but neither daring or caring to venture down into the deep. Not daring because in my heart I want so much and am scared it will be too hard and difficult to find, and not caring because I seem to have let complacency take over many areas of my life. I think I've resigned to complacency because of the first reason..the fear of daring.
Anyways, I could expand on this much more, but I save that for my own journal, a brown book with a cover like the skin of a rhinoscerous.
Here is a quote that sort of shouts what I'm feeling.

"Would we learn to bring forth what is hidden, to rescue into consciousness the endangered worlds and ideas that enlarge our sympathies and our senses and connect us to a greater whole, beyond the perennial tides of ignorance, greed and aggression? With the chrome taps opened wide, and the wild thundering of the waterfall within me, I could only hope those radiant waters, hidden in our deepest collective being, would never be dammed or diverted but-like the dream of unknown places-carry us beyond all divisions into the currents of the unbound heart."

-Ian Baker "The Heart of the World"

A Christmas Day Memory.

2005-12-28T00:42:00.000-05:00
Christmas day was magical. My family (Mom, Dad, me, Laura (19) and Matt (15) went to Uxbridge to be with my Aunt, Uncle and four cousins. After lunch us 7 "kids" decided to go sledding. We went to the Uxbridge arena where there are some steep hills. One extra steep hill slopes down to the tennis courts, which have a wire fence surrounding them. We decided to hurl ourselves off of this particular hill since it had a pretty sweet jump half way, and all you had to do was either turn the sled or bail before you hit the tennis court fence. As the oldest one there, wanting to look equally as daring and uninhibited as my brother and impress all my cousins, I took a big run and jump and went hurtling down the hill at top speed...such a top speed that by the time I realized my face was zooming straight towards the metal pole, it was too late... I've never lost so much blood so fast...and it looked especially dramatic on the bright white snow! My sister, who is in first year nursing, was frantically trying to remember everything she'd learnt, before I passed out. Needless to say, the rest of Christmas was spent trying to stop the bleeding and slow down the swelling of my rapidly increasing face! I now have two black eyes and an extra large nose...and have been searching my house for a pair of huge sunglasses to wear when I go out! I suppose its the stuff memories are made of....

The Previous Blog

2005-12-19T19:12:00.000-05:00
Sorry for the IMMENSE disappointment you are feeling at not being able to see me dance in the clip below! (or perhaps it was immense relief?!?!) I will figure out how do it, and get it up and running very soon. Today I went Christmas shopping to the mall......ahhh the mall at Christmas.......just take me to Africa...............

2005-12-16T14:19:00.000-05:00
This is a clip from the play I was in last week, called "I'll be Home for Christmas" I am dancing at the front on the left!

A Beautiful Zambian Child

2005-12-16T10:07:00.000-05:00
This is Mehetabel (pronounced "Martabell") She is 11 years old and live in Ndola Zambia...

This is her story.....

I first found Mehetabel walking along the dry dusty road one day in the heat of the midday African sun. I stopped and did a double take, never had I seen a child so thin before. I was terrified her legs were going to snap if she took another step. At the time I was with Phil, a wonderful guy who was heading up the Orphan program at Isubilo. (http://www.isubilo.org) We went over to the child, and she took us back to her home..a tiny shack in the back of another hut, with a large hole in the roof through which the rains constantly came (it was rainy season) She lived with her mother and three sisters; their father had just died..of AIDS. We quickly enrolled Mehetabel and her family onto the program, and soon found out that she had both HIV and TB. this child suffers more than almost anyone I know, and yet I have never met a human being so serene and peaceful. Cheesy as this may sound, she's the closest thing to an angel that I've ever met. Today I just wanted you to meet her, and celebrate her with me. She's beautiful, and she's alive and smiling...and what an impact she has. Pray for her today if you feel like doing so.

Disclaimer

2005-12-14T13:36:00.000-05:00
So I decided that I might as well keep going with this site instead of starting a brand new one. It means that the stuff I vented on here and thought no one else would ever see is now public, but hey, its good to learn how to be vulnerable..I am definitely not always feeling secure in myself and stable and confident, and I'd rather people know that right off the bat.

Some Links to my Life...

2005-12-14T13:28:00.000-05:00
I am going to get this thing rolling just as soon as I am finished exams tonight...that's right, TONIGHT! Yes...finally Christmas break is within reach.

Here's a few major parts of my life that you can find floating around in cyberspace..

http://www.capernwray.org.uk/capernwray-hall/index.html -
Where I grew up, in the most beautiful part of England.

www.capernwray.ca
Capernwray Harbour Bible School in BC where I was a student for a year and worked on Staff for 2 summers.

www.isubilo.org (Isubilo means HOPE in the Bemba language)
This is the project I worked with for 6 months in Zambia last year with AIDS orphans and vulnerable children.

www.thepeopleschurch.ca
This is my church and the reason my family moved from England to Canada 4 years ago.

www.tyndale.ca
The university I am currently attending in my second year of a BA in Psychology.

www.hotornot.com
If you are ever bored...here's your answer.

re: The real blog is soon to come...

2005-12-09T12:49:00.000-05:00
So I decided to start a blog site for real this time...in fact this one right here was never supposed to be a blog site, I just needed one in order to post on someone elses, and I can on randomly and vented a couple of times, but really everything below this is irrelevant, so please disregard! I am going to start a real one...and I will let you know the address of it when its up and running..! Hey, if you read this, message me, I want to know if anyone does...since I never told anyone about it, it would have to be totally by chance..!

I lost myself......

2005-09-16T00:39:00.000-04:00
Life is going along just fine, in fact better than it has done for ages.....but I know what's missing. I'm not FEELING. I can't remember the last time I let something pierce right into the pulse of my being and overwhelm me. Am I scared? Scared of what I won't find down in the depths of "me".....secretly longing for there to be more, for myself to be more established and ready to take on life. If I let myself go deep, perhaps all I'll find are huge gaps, and that is a weakness. Who wants to be weak? To be honest, I don't, not just because I care too much of what others think, but also because my own expectations for myself are ridiculously high, so I gloss over things often, and just live moment to moment without absorption and process.

Africa changed things...

I don't think I can witness raw human suffering and the blatant fight for survival and come back ready to throw myself into debates on current movies or even what a church should really be. Sometimes I think I am holding back because if I unlatch the door to my heart the outpouring might cause something inappropriately big. How did I become reserved and introverted?

Partly not being able to have anyone fully understand what I began to understand in 2004 in Zambia, partly insecurities and self doubt, partly fear of a life uninhibited, although deep down it is my wildest and most constant dream. To live an uninhibited life.

We only have one life, why do I inhibit myself? Because I don't know myself yet. But how do I go about changing that? How do I understand who I really am, what I really believe and want and love.

I haven't mentioned God once, yet I love him the most in my life. How I long to live in the reality of him and him IN me. I LONG for it..because 99% of the time it is not reality, but rather head belief.....yet there is a huge hope that tells me there's so much more......and there's always going to be so much more!

Yet in this moment I am not getting/living/believing/being what I could..... Be PURPOSEFUL Hannah, in everything...especially prayer.

Hmm.......that's a start for now, and perhaps this outlet will allow me to work through some thoughts and respond to convictions.

Mary Magdelene

2005-03-19T16:07:00.000-05:00
I'm playing Mary Magdelene in the good friday production at church this week. If this is possible, I've fallen more in love with Jesus through studying her, particularly the way he treated her, and It's also been so good just being in the gospels. I just wonder what it must have been like to follow Jesus around on earth, in Galilee; to watch his miracles and witness his gentle love for each person. To observe the way he never rose to an argument and the way he depended completely upon his heavenly father in everything. What humility, what a messiah we have. When Jesus rose again, the first person he revealed himself to was Mary Magdelene. She was crying, he didn't rush over and tell her everything was OK, he was here now; all he did was from a distance, calmly stand and say "Mary" He acknowledged two things in that moment; one, that he KNEW her, and two that they were in a relationship. I wonder if sometimes like MAry, I don't recognize Jesus through my tears, I don't hear him calling my name, so gently, so lovingly.....so near to me.

this is what it takes to write a comment on regans blog?!

2005-02-19T14:43:00.000-05:00
Well sorry to disappoint all you thousands of people eagerly rushing to my blogsite, but the only reason I opened it was because my friend Regan is in Africa for a year, and updates us all with her blog site, so I wanted to write her messages on it......and thats why I had to open this one up.

maybe one of these days I'll wow you all with something on here........just wait and be patient.