Winter in Victoria

I can't believe I'm pretty much halfway through my time in Victoria.  It definitely hasn't been easy, but the Lord's grace was sufficient to bring me through.  I'm learning to take constructive criticism at work and to learn from mistakes.  And I'm trying to connect with the brothers to pursue the Lord on this lonely island.  I've got a good support group in my family and a few close spiritual companions who've been checking up on me, it's much appreciated.  In other news, I've been busy applying for part-time jobs and working on my co-op report.  I hope to do a better job keeping in touch with you all in the new year.  Super excited about leaving for California in 4 days!   

Gave Jerry a tour of downtown Victoria this past weekend.

He came to sleepover and we had some good fellowship.  And on Lord's day after the meeting we played 3 hours of basketball at the University of Victoria - soooo fun.

2 weeks ago we had a nice visit from Jerome, another co-op student in Victoria

So after the meeting we played around with the Christmas decorations in our meeting room.  We found Mr. and Mrs. Santa who would dance and talk with a touch of a button.  One of them didn't work so Peter was threatening to steal my camera batteries to use, haha.

We just had to include them in our traditional group photo

I made Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus hold hands, hehe

Beef noodle soup

Chilli chicken with green beans

Rotini with italian sausage

Porkchops

I'll quickly share some recent enjoyment from the Holy Word for Morning Revival.  I was touched that the real significance of prayer is to contact God in spirit and to absorb Him, not about whether or not our prayers are answered.  Also, the principle of prayer is that man must pray for God's will to be done before God can accomplish and carry it out.  Lord, gain worthwhile prayers from us, by praying to be in sweet fellowship with you, praying according to Your heart so You can have a way on this earth!

See some of you at the winter training!  Miss all y'all, keep in touch please.

Pasta

Almost halfway through my time in Victoria.  Nothing really new so I'll just post some recent photos: 

Pho with the bros after our Lord's day meeting

Sisters as well

Beef and spinach (my only non pasta dish recently!)

Chicken linguini 

Spinach fettuccine

Mac and cheese!  with an egg on the side

Lasagne (took awhile to make but was worth it)

In case if you haven't noticed yet, I like pasta, haha.  I'll try to add more variety to my cooking skills.  Thinking of making beef noodle soup.  I'm open to suggestions!!

Some recent enjoyment in my bible reading:

2 Corinthians 6:1, "and working together with Him, we also entreat you not to receive the grace of God in vain."

Footnote 1: We work together with God by a life that is all-sufficient and all-mature, able to fit all situations, that is, able to endure any kind of treatment, to accept any kind of environment, to work in any kind of condition, and to take any kind of opportunity, for the carrying out of the ministry.

This life we have is indestructible and eternal, far above all earthly frustrations.  May we learn to appreciate the transcendency of this life!

Meetings + Food + Santa Parade

Been awhile since my last update.  I've been doing okay, just busy with things.  I can't believe I've already completed 1/4 of my time here in Victoria.  It's been 2 months of lots of learning - on the job, things at home, managing my time.  Not exactly the easiest times but these situations only made me more desperate to turn to the Lord.  It's always been nice to receive Skype/phone calls from you all, it's very cherishing to me on this lonely island, haha.  I'll share some recent enjoyment in my bible reading then I've got lots of photos below.

1 Cor 13:4-8a:

Love suffers long. Love is kind; it is not jealous.  

Love does not brag and is not puffed up.  

It does not behave unbecomingly;  

It does not seek its own things;  

It is not provoked and does not take account of evil;  

It does not rejoice because of unrighteousness,  

But rejoices with the truth.  

It covers all things, believes all things,  

Hopes all things, endures all things.  

Love never falls away.

Just appreciating the definition of God's love, and seeing how my human love falls way short of the love described here.  Only the divine love is eternal, unchanging, enduring.  Lord, increase our love for You.  May this love become the love toward You and others.

First meeting without sister Jean.  Nice to see Peter Lai around again!

Baked macaroni chicken casserole

Beef and spinach

Spaghetti 

Alfredo Rotini with beef

The next few photos are from an annual parade in Victoria called the Santa Parade with thousands of people lined up on Government Street for an hour.  Reallly nice.  The pretty lights at night reminded me of Christmas time in the Philippines.  

Dinosaurs and Christmas?  Not quite sure how they are related, haha.

Mostly parents and their little ones watching the parade.

Chinatown

Marching bands

Parliament buildings lit up at night - 

Ferris wheel installed just for this event!

Horses in downtown.  Now you don't see that everyday in downtown Vancouver.

My favourite photo from the night.  Stunning views of the water + lit up buildings at night.

Don't be shy to comment, it's a good way to keep in touch with you.  Hope you're all doing well and can't wait to see you all around next month!!

Lakeside Bible Camp + Updates

So I think being home sick is finally starting to kick in.  It was different in Montreal because I always had the brothers with me.  And even in Quebec City, I had made some good friends who I'd hang out with after class + my housemates were awesome.  Here, I've been trying to keep myself busy to avoid missing home.  Work is going great, I'm learning lots every day.  But I still miss family and friends a lot.  I miss the home cooked meals.  The daily tennis.  The prayer times.  The saints.  The meetings.  But I'm learning to turn to the Lord for all comfort.  He placed me here for a reason and I'm just open to all the Christ is to be gained here.

This past weekend I was in Whidbey Island for the college retreat.  I wasn't planning to go until I received a phone call from Emannuel's mom at 10:30pm on Thursday night, who said she could pick me up from the ferry terminal.  Praise the Lord for the members in the Body!  Some enjoyment below:

The topic of this retreat was God's Full Salvation, with a particular emphasis on judicial redemption.  I enjoyed that we need a thorough and deep appreciation of this because God's organic salvation is maintainedconstantly through God's judicial redemption.  Understanding how firm and solid of a foundation we have in redemption will help us in our experience of organic salvation.

The judicial aspect of salvation is to meet the righteous requirements of God's law through Christ's redemption, as the procedure of salvation.  This includes forgiveness (Eph. 1:7), cleansing (1 John 1:9), justification (Rom. 3:24), reconciliation (Rom. 5:10), and positional sanctification.  

The brother asked us a question in our Q&A session: when was the last time you applied the blood? We have to realize that we need the blood every time we come to the Lord, coming to Him on His merit and not based on who we are, how good of a day we've had, how we're feeling, etc.  The example he used was the high priests in the OT, who had to sprinkle the blood on the expiation cover of the ark before meeting God face to face.  If the cherubim did not see the blood when the high priest would come to the ark, the priests would die instantly.  The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), so we have an insurmountable debt that we could never pay.  But hallelujah, He paid it for us! And we have the receipt as the resurrected Christ.  For spiritual application, we need to humble ourselves before the Lord, realize we are sinners, and apply the blood constantly tomaintain our fellowship with God, otherwise we will have spiritual death.

Another question was, how do we know if the blood is operating?  The brother pointed out Exo. 12, where the children of Israel applied the blood of the Lamb on their doorposts on the Passover with a hyssop plant.  Hyssop plants are very small (2-5cm wide leaves).  This signifies that we apply the blood with only a little hyssop (little faith).  We just need a little bit of faith in the blood, and we get this faith by the hearing of the word.  This word is our boldness to declare to God and even to Satan that we are fully justified.  Don't apply the blood by your feeling.  Once the children of Israel applied the blood, they went inside their house, meaning that they didn't have doubts about the blood.  In the eyes of God, the blood of Jesus is fully acceptable.  We can have peace toward God!  We don't need to wallow in our sins until we feel better.  We don't need to try to make up for it with good deeds.  We simply need to know the value and preciousness of the blood of the Lamb.

Hearing about this word made me fall freshly in love again with the Lord Jesus.  The blood is something so sweet, practical, application, and experiential.  But once we apply the blood, we shouldn't just run in circles around the bronze altar.  We need to go on to organic salvation, to the Holy of Holies, living in the presence of the Lord moment by moment. 

Pursuing the Lord with the bros was great!

My secret spot for morning revival at 6:30am..

Baptism

Praise the Lord for this divine transfer into the kingdom of God!

Proof to Pa and Ma that I can cook.  Here's my shepherds pie.  I try to cook a new dish every week.

Cod + Veggies.  I'll be making chicken macaroni casserole tomorrow!

We received a pleasant visit by 25 saints from the Lower Mainland (mostly Richmond) to the church in Victoria.  Small localities are really supplied and treasure visits by saints :D  *hint to Lower Mainland saints

Looking forward to my visit back home during the next long weekend.  Please keep me updated with how you're all doing.  

*edit (Nov. 2) - please leave me some suggestions of dishes I should try cooking and I'll post pictures of my attempts!  I need more ideas.  Thanks!

Divine romance.

Hello family and friends.  Sorry for the lack of updates.  I've been on a busy schedule of work, studying, working out, swimming, prayer times with spiritual companions, housework, and etc.  

Things have been going well.  The weather has been gloomy and rainy, I'm guessing Vancouver has been the same.  I'm getting better at cooking.  I'm planning on buying a guitar over here.  At work I've been able to do some exercise prescription with head injury clients which has been pretty neat.

I don't know if you've noticed from my photos but the number of saints in Victoria have been decreasing since I came here.  3 families have moved, and pretty soon sister Jean will be going away for a few months.  Which will leave us with just 4 saints who meet regularly.  Despite the small numbers, the meetings have been quite enjoyable.  Everyone is functioning and everyone knows they need to bring their portion of Christ they have enjoyed from the week.  

Jerry and have been joking, pretty soon it might just be us two.  O Lord, but we won't let that happen though.  Next week there will be 20 saints visiting from the Lower Mainland plus 4 of our gospel contacts.  Please pray for this time that the Lord will strengthen His testimony in Victoria!  It's really not that bad here, you just need to visit!

I'll end with some enjoyment from our morning revival on the Minor Prophets:

The Lord went through all the difficult processes to gain and capture our love.  He's the one that stepped out of His glory and put on the lowly form of a man to fulfill His purpose.  He went through the sufferings of human life in order to be fully qualified as our Redeemer, living a perfect God-man life.  He paid the highest price with His own blood in order to wash and cleanse us so we could come to Him.  He resurrected and ascended and now He's in His heavenly ministry dispensing Himself to us, making us the same as He is so we can match Him as His bride!  And what do we have to do?  Simply love Him.  Don't be hardened, drop your concepts, eat that tree, take in Jesus every moment He's so sweet!

Also, I am appreciating what it means to be romantic with the Lord.  It means to be personal and affectionate.  Personal meaning we open and come to Him as we are, and share with Him what is on our heart.  Affectionate meaning we respond in time to His tender love.   And although we may fail many times, it's okay because His love is still eternal and unchanging (Jeremiah 31:3), and He is just waiting for us to respond to Him.  We just need to stop being disappointed about what's in us because the only thing worthy of marriage is the Lord's life in us.

Continue to keep in touch and I hope to be in Vancouver again during the long weekend in November. Much grace to you all.

Settled in

In hindsight, I realize that the Lord really does provide the best for us.  Reminds me of the verse, Matthew 7:11, 'how much more will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those who ask Him'.  And I'm not just talking about the outward environment, but more importantly, He prepares us situations for our inner being to be open, making us desperate for Him, and experiences to work Himself into our vessels.  

The transition to Victoria hasn't been too bad, since I've had a full-time job and I've lived on my own before.  This lifestyle really allows me to have more personal time with the Lord.  At work, we deal with many clients who have been injured and are going through extensive rehab, and some of their attitudes are that they are just thankful for another day of being alive.  They are happy just to be able to walk and carry out normal daily activities.  It really puts things into perspective.  Every day, I want to go on my knees and thank the Lord for another day of breath, another day to experience and enjoy more of Him.

One of my favourite things about the place I live is that I'm literally across the street from a fitness centre/pool/basketball court, so I'm there pretty much every day (see photos above).  It's my second home, haha.  Starting to get into swimming with hopes to do a triathlon one day..

Also, this past weekend Jerry slept over and we played basketball, prepared for the prophesying meeting, toured Victoria and had some good fellowship during the night.  Praise the Lord for companions.

Chinatown entrance

And our meeting continues to get smaller, but praise the Lord it is still so enjoyable!  I really enjoyed hymn #499, 'all that I am came to an end, and all of Christ is all to me!'

Cindy's family is moving back to China, so it was their last meeting in Victoria :(

This painting was supposed to have a 3-D effect.  Do you see it?? 

Anyway, I can't believe I'm already in my fourth week in Victoria.  Time flies.  Hope to see you soon when I visit during the long weekend!!