Life is not in the WHERE but in the WHAT.

"Sometimes we don't always need to take the time to carefully pray over something for months. We don't need to pour ourselves into making every decision in life. If there is a place you can serve with a need you know needs to be met- just do it. Be there."

Our young adults leader carried on, I sat nodding in agreement from my seat. "Oh yeah" I thought "of course", "very true"...but I didn't always think this way. It has taken me months to get my head to catch up with my heart and affirm these words. Let me explain...

The first week I moved to Pickering I sent the Pastor of the church I have attended an e-mail to introduce myself and see if he was interested and able to partner with me in going to volunteer overseas, and in turn and in the meantime how I could partner with him and his church and be involved. When I stepped into his office he said "Laura when I first got your e-mail and read about your background in music my first thought was that I wanted to send you to Guatemala right away. We have lots of music need in Guatemala. But then I read on in your e-mail and saw that you were interested in going to Africa again."

"That's right." I can hear myself saying again. I remember thinking to myself "Guatemala? That's far fetched."

What were the real thoughts behind those words were this: I have just broken down the walls of comfort to be open to going back to serve in Africa. But Africa in a sense is what I already know, am already more familiar with. And so God had yes broken down my comfort zone to going back, but then I had created my own comfort zone for being overseas- Africa.

And I never thought about Guatemala again. Until last month it was announced in church that the young adults missions team needed just a couple more members to join them to work in Guatemala. All I could think of was the pastor's initial words to me "I wanted to send you to Guatemala, there is so much music need in Guatemala." Now I was ready to see that need again and realize that it is not about where I go to serve, but that I serve.

And so it is with great excitement and expectancy that I leave with a team of 9 others to Guatemala in the end of July. For the first time I feel excitment and peace over what is next and I am eager to be there, and most eager to just meet the children our team will be working with, running music with them, and meeting with the leadership staff at the school to catch their vision for music with these kids. Who knows what that vision looks like or if I will be called back again. But for now I have been broken again and am determined to be more open; because I can't help but wonder if the walls I put up, my comfort zone and my own ideas draw out the process of God working through me how He desires.

What's it gonna take to slow us down...to let the silence spin us around..? -Switchfoot

Last week I was in beautiful, cherry blossoms blooming, crayon colour vibrant green, mountainous Oregon. Having found a really great ticket sale I went to visit Angela, one of my dearest friends from tour. I told her that what I really wanted to do together was hike a mountain. So much of our time was spent outside at the top of a mountain, overlooking a lake, atop green hills, beside waterfalls, looking out on the world. Most days we shared sitting together on the outskirts of life, looking down from a mountaintop view on the business of life in miniature scale. I love the same view from the plane- where the cars looks like only toys on a play mat, the houses small dollhouses that could be picked up between your fingers, and all the stresses, arguements, noise, and business of people completely quieted and hidden in simpleness.




"I love to be on what seems to be the outside of the world looking in. I imagine that's how God sees us, from a place where everything is quiet and peaceful and He can control life or stop a car crash with the flick of a finger." (Ang)

It must be how God sees the world. The author of 'The Shack' drew a simply lovely illustration of how God sees the people of the world. He imagined that God sees each person as a soul of glowing white. Each personality and unique make up of that person's character is a glow of a different hue. I imagine green being kindness, red pure of heart, yellow as strength and so on... It is so easy to get caught up in the noise of life, and make noise to mask the problems we don't want to face and the insecurities we don't want to work through in ourselves. I hope the words don't sound cliche or overdone, but how much more beautiful the world we live in would be if we could see the people around us in the colours of their positive character. Maybe then would the streetlights dim, the sound of our anger and pride die down, and so much of the tension from our selfishness and sleepwalking through the fast pace of life slow down to a point of mountaintop peace.

8. Always live in community

As I engage and re-engage with solitude I rediscover my essential connection and desire to be in community with others. Walking into church a couple Sundays ago a sense of warmth rushed over me from entering the door into a community of people. Less and less I try to unveil the mystery of God's will for my future with worry.There is a story to live by an author where by my His radiance my own imagination pales in comparison. I am allowing my heart to be stirred with the excitement that comes in confirmation that He wants me to be serving at the church I am trying to make home. "Make thoughtful decisions" I once read, "but don't consume so much time thinking over a choice over how to help and where to do so when you could just be out there serving." Serving is for a lifetime, the process of discerning just where and how isn't. On Sunday confirmation to being here came in the Pastor's words, "God sent Laura to our church", when introducing me to the children I am running a children's choir for now. The workings of God seem to become more real when someone else sees you as divinely sent to them. The experience is so different from that of my time rehearsing the choir, the children I have now cannot really stay on key or match a pitch or tune- but more importantly than that is what these children need...and that is to be needed. It is more important that they gain the confidence and see for themselves that they can lead a church in worship, and that bridges of song connect these younger ones to the church body.

I love children and their child-like faith...with that thought come two stories, the first being a prayer by one of the little boys in the choir.

"Dear God help us learn this music for Easter. We do not have a lot of time to know the songs and we have never sung a song for the church. And so God can I be honest with you? I'm scared God because it is new. But in the Bible you say that you will always be with us and you will never leave us. So I know that we are going to be good. Amen"

The second one comes from one of the most energetic girls in the group. She comes to me today saying that her family volunteered to clean the church on Friday and she snuck off to the practice room to where all the words for our songs are posted on the board to practice. "I'm so ready for Sunday. But don't worry, I practiced lots so I am better and I didn't sing for my parents yet...I want it to be a suprise on Easter!" She glowed with confidence and then cocked her head at me, smiled, and gave my a huge hug.

Today I added "always live in community with people" on my list of lifetime goals. I don't know the future from here, but God has showed me where to be for the now- and may that be all I need.

What I learned while drinking coffee...

What I learned while sharing over coffee in visiting my supporters from London this past weekend:

1. Everyone can be lonely.
I was once told that writing down all your fears would help you see all the things that you put up as obstacles to fully living your life. I'm afraid of tornados, but that doesn't count. It takes you awhile to get started on what fears are very real, but once you start thinking, getting past even the initial fear of seeing yourself so vulnerable and get writing, then the page fills up easily. At the top of my list is being lonely and alone in life. I fully acknowledge that it is one of my greatest fears of doing long term missions work- moving into a different culture where nothing is familiar and there is not even one close friend, right there, to share the transition, beautiful and bad, with. I asked my friend Beth who has served in Thailand for almost 4 years if she was ever lonely. "Of course!" she said. The first year of her work there she described as the hardest year of her life. But then she said that when she came home after living there for 2 years she talked to some of her closest friends still living in the same city who surrounded by the familiar and more company were lonely. Loneliness isn't a phenomenon that can only be experienced when you live far away. Everyone is lonely when there is a lack of doing good and a lack of relationship with God. But here at home it is less evident when it is easily satisfied with food, phone calls, friends, media, entertainment, careers, or just noise.

2. Transition is easier than you think.
I asked a long standing friend and supporter, Diane, what the hardest part about living in Africa for a year was for her time there. "Coming home" she answers. I kind of just sat there for awhile looking at my coffee trying to understand it. I didn't think her answer really answered my question...it wasn't actually about living in Africa at all, but that was the hardest part? She interrupts my thoughts..."You transition easier than you think Laura. If you don't highly value North American comforts like having running water at your finger tips and a hot shower- if you are the kind of person who living with the easy access to everything isn't what you live for." Well then, you take maybe 3 months to get comfortable with this new lifestyle, and you've grown away from the things you "needed". But then the hardest thing is coming back home and realizing it only takes one day to go back to your luxury life in Canada as it were.

3. People will support you for a good cause.
I don't know where the idea came from that people wouldn't want to support me and make the commitment to help me prayerfully and financially once again with where God places me next. From guilt in asking for support? From not believing in myself to be able to fulfill God's purpose? A dear family friend told his daughter when she asked her Dad why he didn't want to spend money on celebrities, supporting their records, buying magazines on their lives, that he would rather support "Miss Laura" (as I have always been known to their little girl as) because with his support and money I can make a difference for other people.

4. God has big plans for all our lives.
As I said goodbye to my Mom's bible study ladies group after sharing over a night of desserts and tea one of the ladies turns to me, studies me for a moment, and then says "Laura- God has big plans for your life. I just know it." I've been thinking about that...I think God has mighty plans for how he wants to use each of us for His glory and in His service. It gives me an anxious and excited feeling...

5. I can easily become overwhelmed.
Sometimes my missions pastor tells me "that sounds scattered Laura." Often since moving to Pickering I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I'm going down a track and running towards a vision and with a passion and then suddenly I feel overwhelmed the next day with life. I've come to see in myself that this is only when my thoughts become scattered. I hear about one amazing opportunity, five different ways people are serving in Africa, a handful of amazing organizations giving a voice and hope to children, think of all the wonderful places there are to travel, and all the different things I could do and want to pour myself into all of them. Then my vision gets stretched in too many different directions and I feel overwhelmed because I can't do it all. Although I wish I could. I wish life was 5 times as long and I could volunteer for everything and everywhere. Instead, I need to make the most of the one chance I get at life, and not let all the opportunities overwhelm and scatter my thinking from the course I'm on.

6. I am overwhelmingly loved and blessed by it.
There is a support network who have been faithful to me throughout tour and are ready and willing to support me again when the time comes. I have a handful of people who take me out, care for me, and take pride in what I do as if I was their own daughter. I don't know what I have ever done to deserve it. I only know I haven't done anything, but rather it is the grace of God that has.

God illustrations in the dark

I have never liked highway driving at night.

Driving back from going to see a Rascal Flatts concert with my sister late last Thursday night I began to feel that same sense of nervousness make me tense as Heather slept and I started down the highway. Late at night with only my thoughts to keep me awake I began to wonder why the highway in the dark, on the clearest of evenings always makes me uneasy. I've had my license since I was 16, my mind reasons...unlike driving on tour I know where I'm going... I've never been in an accident...it isn't even snowing, I have insurance...Logically, I know I am safe. I know that, but my heart is always still a flutter. Passing through well lit cities along the highway and then going back to the long stretches of darkness, driving through a couple patches of flurries trying to stay in the cars headlights infront of me to see more clearly and then speeding up again as the snow clears I pray for safety and it dawns on me. I like to see the stretch of road ahead of me. I like to be able to see the next bend in the road over the horizon instead of trusting that my headlights will guide me through the small illuminated area four white stripes long on the road right before me.

That's the way it is between me and God lately living in the mystery of his will. Do you know the old song "thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path"? The song doesn't say "a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my life" if it did there would be no reason for faith, trust and suffering with him. Most of the world woke up today and didn't even know if they would be able to eat today. I woke up and worried over if I will find a job in the next month and how long I would stay in it. If I could always see my life like I do the stretch of highway in the day then I would never have to rely on Him and have Him central to my decision making in life. God gives us enough light for our feet- the step ahead, the move we make day by day. But I find myself always wanting to be able to see past that- just like wanting to see past the little light my headlights shine in the dark. But both light is sufficient. In both I am safe and I have enough. What I do need is to turn worry into prayer, and more and more trust, again and again.

The biggest truths in the smallest stories

Last Sunday I met female disciple Tabitha at Safe Haven Church that I've started going to, in Acts, chapter 9, in a sermon on compassion. Pastor Martin talked about the difference between pity and compassion. He said that pity is a heavy burdened heart for someone in a hard/sad situation...but that is where is stops. But compassion extends a hand to reach out to someone past the point of pity. At this point the Pastor turns to people and just shouts: "SLOW DOWN AND HELP PEOPLE!"

How often have I heard this sermon? What does it take for one to reach out after being moved? We can sit in church and be moved by his words, but yet we come back to the same seat next week and don't even know the names of the people that sit beside us. I call myself a Christian, I claim to love my neighbours, and yet I don't even know my neighbors names. How much does the Pastor have to raise his voice, and shout because he so badly wants us on this Sunday to "get it" and live it?


This past Tuesday I took the subway into downtown Toronto to meet with a friend I haven't seen in months. For the first time since moving here I was in a rush as I tried to get from the OHIP office to Starbucks. I ran with the crowd at the crossover to the Bloor line and stopped for all of a heartbeat to watch a staggering hungover woman struggle...no, I shouldn't make this sound nice...flailing around, smash her head into the wall, spilling her coffee everywhere. I looked- and just as quickly turned away and caught the subway.

As soon as I sat down on the train I had this sinking feeling as I realized just what I'd done- exactly what Pastor Martin told us not to do.

If I was in Africa, Asia, the Ukraine...I would have stopped to help her- in fact, it probably would have been shared as a heart touching story, or snapped as a brochure cover for some great humanitarian organization. But in my own neighborhood? I was too busy again.

I arrived at Starbucks 5 minutes early. That's all it would have taken for me to help her stand up and walk to somewhere out of a dirty stairwell where she could have sat down and had something to eat and a simple glass of water. I had time. In fact, in the stories that immediately come to mind in the bible that illustrate compassion- Jesus, the good samaritan, they were both headed somewhere. They didn't just aimlessly wander around looking for random acts of kindness- they had their own day and schedule ahead of them, people following them, and people to meet. But they had time. And so either way you look at it, I had time too... 5 minutes early, or even if it meant being 15 minutes late- I had time.

And so I thought I could check off the "not busy" part of the sermon as I look at my life and try to plant my feet here serving, being in relationships and community. But in a mere few days I lost it and became a failure once again to the Christian love Pastor Martin shouted about. I wouldn't even call it pity that came across me, but only pitiful.

...And so I wonder, what does it take to hear but then act?

Time In Between...

I've been walking the streets of Pickering this week, getting this girl with no sense of direction oriented to my new city to the tune of Francesca Battistelli. Her lyrics seem to always have this uncanny ability, on any given day, to capture where I find myself. Today it is in the "Time in between... That I fall down to my knees...Waiting on what You'll bring...And the things that I can't see...I know my song’s incomplete...Still I'll sing in the time in between."

Oh, I'm singin' alright...loud and clear down the streets of Pickering, much to the humour of others on the sidewalk of that I'm sure...trusting God to this time of transition- being in the middle of a tour that has finished and what is next in life. I have come very accustomed to, and often avoid the question "What is next?" Not because I don't have an idea of what I want to do now that tour is over, but because the question doesn't ask for what is before then- this time of preparation.

And it's for that reason that I still want to keep blogging. Last night talking to a dear friend she asks "was it you that said you wanted to blog every week?" Admittedly, and if you could see me right now with a sheepish look on my face, I know that I haven't done that faithfully. But writing here once or twice a week is part of my list of goals for this time in between. Since being home, processing, and going to Urbana (the largest missions conference in N. America) I have a better idea of what I want to live for, and now want to keep writing the vision of getting there.

Part of my inspiration for getting there comes from author Donald Miller, who says to think in narrative rather than goals, for goals will get met in the journey of the story. A story involves wanting something. I want to go back to work long term in Uganda- living for a mission that brings hope to children by developing their potential and confidence through both education and the arts. Another want...
I want to design a music education/music therapy program to work with Ugandan children, specifically children that were former child soldiers and are child mothers.

The second part of God giving us the pen and writing out our story says Miller is to envision a climatic scene- see it, imagine what it looks like, smells like and sounds like to keep it real. And so I start to work towards being surrounded once again by the most genuine joy I have ever felt of living with, forming relationships, and teaching children in their context- a culture that is beautifully relational.

Lastly, Miller says that we need inciting incidents in life- we need to solve new problems, work towards that vision and get moving! And so for those of you wondering..."So, what are you doing now?" This is what I'm working on to get me there...
1. I'm going to start by taking a course called perspectives- a 15 week discipleship course. I've lived many different experiences, but also want to get the education now on missions, different cultures, and examining missions throughout the context of the bible.
2. I'm working on gaining a support network here in Pickering, and planting myself in a home church that I can partner with, and most importantly right now that I can jump in and serve with! More to come after Sunday in my I PROMISE weekly updates this time!
3. Improving my own music skills- I'd like to volunteer at a Toronto hospital with a music therapist and take a course in Kodaly. (For those of you wondering what is this? Imagine yourself in clothes made out of old drapes in a horse drawn carriage singing along "do re me..." with Maria in the Sound of Music and Kodaly is that system of teaching music!)

I'm so glad for you reading this and following with me- life blesses you with wonderful friends and then with each new chapter scatters them near and far. Thank goodness for places like this where with the click of a button we can be together in thought.