moving on

I am getting sick of moving. Yet again, I seem to be in the process, and somehow, there always seems to be a twist that makes the moving process more complicated. For instance, we moved in April, and with having to leave our old house a day before we could get into our new place, left us moving our stuff into other peoples houses, then on the day of me leaving to go tree planting, I had to move my stuff into the apartment, where I left it all in a mega mess, poor kjersti and jannaya could not get into the closet. When I came back from tree planting, jannaya, was still subletting my room, so my stuff was still in the closet, untouched since april, and everytime I wanted to get something such as my clothes I had to hobble over things, which usually ended up in me squishing something or getting stuck or making a bigger mess. However, I travelled around the province which mostly consumed the free time I had in august, but still, I didn't really have a place to stay. And when I got back into saskatoon, I didn't even bother unpacking my storage boxes because the retarded increase of rent was forcing us to move, so I deemed unpacking to be unnessesary work. Now everything was fine and dandy until last week we got a phone call, and to make a long story short...we won't be able to get in until the 20th of October.(p.s to people...get things in writing....) anywho, so come sunday, Kjersti and I will be nomads, staying with friends and family until we can get in. Now, I should be packing, but I felt slightly fustrated and needed a break. So I am done now..but I was thinking that it will be a good time being able to stay with friends that you don't normally live with. So thats cool, and once I will be able to set up my own room (after five months of really not having a room) it will make me appreciate it more. And I was also thinking about the homeless people, and I am not really stressed about it because I know that everything will be fine after this little stint I will have a place to stay. But the ones on the street face this reality everyday, never knowing if they will ever have a home. So it kinda puts things into perspective and helps the levels of anxiety to go down.
On an other note, I was also thinking how many times I have done this in my past too, moving... When people say where are you from.. I now can say I am from frontier, which leaves most people wondering where the heck it is. But when I was a kid, I moved from saskatoon (where i was born) to Raymond Ab, to sterling, to new dayton, to warner, to edmonton, to slave lake, to kinuso, to cold lake, and then finally back to saskatchewan...frontier. So in a time span of 13 years, I moved ten times. I don't know all the reasons why we moved, some of them was because of different jobs, being on welfare and finding affordable housing, and I know that we moved to edmonton becuase my mom wanted to upgrade her grade 12. But at each place that I have lived I met all sorts of people and experienced different things. As, I have said before, my parents were not the most wealthiest people, so growing up I lived in bad areas in Edmonton (our next door neighbor was a herion addict, and she had a son, whom, I used to play with, and then one day, police and some other people took him away, and my mom told me that he went to live with his grandmother....)to living in a town that was basically a reserve, (the reserve and the town were one) exposed me to certain "elements". Then the move to Frontier was different, acutually it was a huge ajustment, they were all church goers. So, there I was, a 13 year old girl that dropped the f-bomb every second word (just to say the least), and was a very pivital point in my life, and if it wasn't for me moving to Frontier, I would have gone down a very shaddy and different path.
I find when stressful situations arise, there is always the calm before the storm, the hurricane, and then the aftermath, then life returns to homeostasis. The thing is though, and the reason why, I put that story up there is that, life moves on, and you will be okay. Sometimes I need reminders of that; that is why I think back to how many times I have relocated and how I can see God tangibly moving and directing my life. I know I can put my foot forward,and move on, for my God will never leave me nor forsake me, and He holds to that promise for you as well.

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You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do you light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to the whole house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

There is a lot of darkness in this world. This summer I was asked, why does God allow or let bad things happen. Honestly, I have been wrestling ever since. It seems like a simple question, I could give a simple fake, make you feel good answer, but it is a lot more complicated than that. And people who have been vicitmized and/or don't have a christian background, my answer would be substanceless...

In a village of 1000 people: (roughly one tenth of the world's population)
-584 people are asian, 124 are africans, 95 are east+west europeans, and 52 are north american
-329 are christians, 178 are muslims, 178 are Hindu, 60 are buddists, 45 are atheists.
-165 can speak manderin, 86 can speak English, and 83 speak Hindi/Urdu
-1/3 of the population are child, half are which are immunized
-60 people ar over the age of 65, 28 babies wil be born, 10 people will die.
-out of the 10 deaths, 3 wil have had starved and 1 would have cancer.
-1 person will have HIV
-200 people will have received 75% of all income.
-800 people will share the remaining 26% of the income.
-70 people will have a vehicle
-1/3 will have access to safe drinking water
-1/2 of the adults are illiterate
-there would be 7 teachers and 5 soilders
-the village would have enough nuclear weapons to destroy itsef and are controlled by 100 people
-500 people would not have ever had a phone conversation
-10 people would have post secondary education
-10 people would have a computer
-500 people cannot attend a religious meeting of there choice due to fear of harassment, torture, arrest, or death.
-250 people have food, shelter, clothes, shelter while the others remain in absolute poverty.
(stats are from my sociology class, I thought that they were interesting)

When people say they cannot see God in the midst of pain, I dont really blame them. Can you see God in the midst of reading these statistics or newspaper headlines of "Police believe a missing Quebec teen may have been sold from one gang to another for less than $3,000 worth of cash and drugs", a mother who has cancer? Broken families where people commit adultry or when the wife is beaten? In allies where people shoot up or sleep, or how about when you read about natural disasters, sucide bombers, school shootings or how about reading about the sex slave industry or how people starving to death?

Pain is kinda a universal language and yes we live in a fucked up world.

But it shouldn't just stop there, I firmly believe that there is a lot of light in the world too. "For God so loved the world he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him......This is the verdict: LIGHT has come into the world.." I don't know why bad things happen, but when they do happen, I know a God that loves you so much that he would give his son, his only son, so that we may have and experience the Light free of cost. I personally have experienced the light and I was thinking that I personally cannot stop anything bad from happening. I don't think God wants anything bad to happen to us, (man I could go into it here, but) and I as a Christian, need to show my light, to put it on the stand and let it shine to those who are still tangled the darkness. God gave us commands for us: to love our neighbor and love Him above all else. To love our neigbor is to help, display your light. I am guilty of hiding my light, I say I want to do things but never get around to doing it, more than ever I am learning that it is nice to say nice things, nice words, but in truth, my actions towards people will speak the most. I feel like nice words only hold up with the actions of love that you do behind it.

let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds...

The process...

So for the longest time, I have been wanting to get a tattoo. I really like tattoos and is always fascinated by those who have them, usually because it shows a bit of their life story or has personal meaning. My ideas of what I wanted to get were always changing,(sometimes I am indecisive..) so I thought that it was best not to put anything permanent on my body incase of future dislike. However, lately I have been thinking about the word beloved. I know lots of people probably get hebrew words tattooed on them, and the idea is not really orginal, but I really like the meaning of it, and if it has personal meaning and is not just some random piece of art work, then why not get it?? Now I have to find a person who knows hebrew, although it is handy that my sister goes to a bible school were she has a teacher who knows hebrew, then I have to design it, and then find a good tattoo place to get it done. So eventually I will get a tattoo, but I am kind of scared that once I get one, I want would want more.