The Start of a Journey

After three months of looking forward to it, tomorrow I'm off for GMA Week in Nashville! I fly out of Timmins Friday morning and will return the following Friday (April 7th). Following the most direct route Nashville is 1827 km away from home (that's 1135 miles)- praise God for the inventions of airplanes!

Needless to say I'm pretty pumped up for the week- I still can't believe that I've been blessed with this opportunity! I've got interviews lined up with Hawk Nelson, Superchick, Kids in the Way, Starfield, Paul Wright, Skillet, Kevin Max, and so many other great artists- it's going to be a blast!

Also after the what the past couple of months have held for me, I'm really looking forward to the change of scenery and the change of pace. As I found out on my trip to the East Coast of Canada last year, there's something special about leaving what you know and exploring what you don't. It a journey. And for me journeys are holy moments.

I'm not sure what internet access will be like and if I'll even have any spare time to post, but if I do, you'll be hearing from me at some point throughout the week. In the meantime, I covet your prayers for a safe trip, for good health, and ultimately for a spiritual journey that leaves me forever changed.

"So my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God.

We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God had established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go, It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." (Donald Miller- Through Painted Deserts)

Claim To Fame

Recently I've come up with another one of my infamous "claim to fame" ideas. But unlike all of the other silly ideas that I've come up with, I think this one may actually work.

As reality television continues to climb in popularity and as webcasting is becoming easier and easier, I've found the perfect way to combine the two: with my own reality tv show broadcast on the internet. Brace yourself cause this is going to be good.

You see my family is infamous for one thing: our dinner time conversations. It's almost embarrassing to have people over for supper because we can get a little out of control. But with these random tangets comes a lot of laughs.

Don't believe me? I'll let you in on one recent dinner time conversation (and these are word-for-word quotes):

Senior 1: "Your cat is biting me." Reply: "I hope not- we don't have a cat."
Senior 1: "I went bezerk- I lost control!"
Senior 1: "I killed a man once." Dead silence in the room for one minute. "Well, I almost killed a man."
Youth 1: "I'd rather smell a smoker than a chimney."
Senior 2: "Looking back now, I'm convinced that my father was on drugs."
Senior 1 to lady talking about her sick husband: "What are you complaining about? Everyone has to die!"
Senior 1 after that conversation: "I spent a useless morning talking to her."

And this is just a glimpse. During one point in the dinner my sister and I were laughing so hard that we were shaking, thus the idea of our own webcasted reality tv show came into being.

Wouldn't you watch a show like that? I think I just may have something here...

On the topic of reality (and web based) television, check out some hilarious videos on Google Idol.

He Is Enough

One of my article's titled He Is Enough has just been posted on relevantmagazine.com.

Click here to give it a read.

A Preview Just For You!

As some of you may or may not know I spent a good deal of my summer working on a book project titled "Walking Through A Fallen World". The primary of the focus being why bad things happen to good people and what we can learn from the hard times in our lives.

I was even blessed to be given a publishing agreement for the book, but unfortunately I found out just recently that the publisher was sold to another and I got lost in the shuffle.

But I'm not letting that stop me. I've revised the book to tell my story of the past couple of months, while incorporating the teaching portion of it around the story. The new title is "From The ER to the OR: A Spiritual Journey Through Illness" and I've spoken to a few publishers about it and I'm hopeful that it will be published soon.

In the meantime I thought I would give you guys a preview. Below are links where you can download or read the first three chapters. If you can't read them in that format, please email me and I will send it to you as a .doc file.

How Did I Get So (Un)lucky?
Can Someone Turn Off That Megaphone?
Christmas In October (And other ER adventures)

If you have a chance to read the chapters, I'd love to hear your feedback on it! Drop me an email or leave a comment here!

What A Story!

Check out this inspiring story about an autistic boy who's dreams were made true when he was brought in to play during the last game of the year for his high school's basketball team.

I won't give the whole story away, but I will say that this is the kind of story that movies are made of. Watch the video: you'll laugh and you'll cry.