Wednesday, October 26, 2011

snow blows

We had a snow "storm" here in Arvada last night. I wasn't the happiest camper, but many of my friends who had not seen snow yet were very excited. I generously let them be the excited ones, so that my intense happiness would not drown out there enthusiasm (note sarcasm).


Luckaly I get to go to extremely warm countries in a couple of months!!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

one month!

I have been out of Saskatchewan now for an entire month! I miss it but I can call it home here now, too.

"But if home is where the heart is then my home is where you are. And it's getting oh so hard to spend these days without my heart!"

I love and miss you all back in the motherland.

Friday, October 21, 2011

snail mail

SEND ME MAIL BECAUSE I LOVE GETTING IT AND I WILL SEND YOU MAIL BECAUSE YOU PROBABLY DO AS WELL!!!

Gillian Walker
Ywam Denver
12750 W. 63rd Ave
Arvada, CO
80004
USA

Thursday, October 20, 2011

I am somewhere in between

I drew this today in class to represent what I feel that God's done in my life this week. Crashed over me and all my short comings and covered me with His love. He is a great God.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Monday, October 17, 2011

what's new scoobydoo?

It was just over three weeks ago that I left the beautiful city of Saskatoon in the review mirror to dive headfirst into an adventure down here in Colorado. It was not all that easy to leave the comforts of home, family, and friends, and I will admit I cried a few tears as I drove off. However, looking back now, I wouldn't trade even just these three weeks for anything.

In so many ways it feels as though I've been in Denver for months on end, and in a lot of other ways it feels as though I got here yesterday. God is doing amazing things in my heart and in my life. I've met so many amazing people here. I've also experienced some crazy stuff that I think if you would have asked me before I left; I would have told you would never happen. God is good. It's like He's been preparing my heart for this intense time for the last couple of years.

For those of you who are very confused about what I am doing and I haven’t told you about it at all, I apologize. Let me explain a little bit. I am living in Denver, Colorado (or, well, Arvada, which is basically just a sub city to Denver) with an organization called YWAM (Youth with a Mission) doing a program called a DTS (discipleship training school). Essentially, it is a 5ish month program where I get to learn how to “know God, and to make Him known”. We have weekly modular classes on different things each week (for 12 weeks here in Arvada). Some different topics include: The Character of God, Relationships, The Father Heart of God, The Heart of Worship, The Holy Spirit, Spiritual Warfare, Worldview/Kingdom view, Lifestyle of Repentance, and Missions and Evangelism. THEN in mid December I will take off with a team of my choice to either Honduras/Nicaragua or to Brazil for six weeks to put into practice all of the things we’ve learned and to do service work and tell people who have never heard about Jesus!

So I got here and the first week was all quite a blur! We basically had sessions and things going on all day everyday with maybe five minute breaks in between. It was all super intensive. We had worship (which is so amazing, by the way). There were sessions on: the flow of worship, relinquishing your rights up to God, intercession and what it means, and a lot of “bonding time” with our school. I felt pretty overwhelmed coming out of a tight knit community at camp where I lived for four months into a different one where I didn’t know a single person! Also, switching from being the teacher to being the taught has been quite the adjustment. The people here were all so welcoming and wonderful but it has just been so different from everything I’ve ever been used to.

God has really been drawing me closer to Him and teaching me how much He truly loves us in SPITE of ourselves. “He loves us as we are, not as we should be, but He also loves us way too much to let us stay this way.” Sometimes when I think about how HUGE God is, it freaks me out and humbles me until I feel as though I’m smaller than an atom. Then He comes and reminds me that He loves that little atom and He made me exactly as I am (every little part) in order that I could live in relationship with Him. It’s perplexing. He’s so infinite, but so personal! He is unfathomable and I love getting caught up and mystified by it all!

I've built some really sweet friendships and relationships as well. My specific school (the musicians dts) is made up of... I think 17 guys (nate, freeman, alex, zach, mats, taylor, jon, jake, michael, yannik, sam, sungboam, tim, ryan, graham, patrick, austen) and 10 girls (maddy, kiny, sujin, yvonne, jayeon, bri, brittany, lindy, simona, and myself). I have an amazing small group (yvonne, jayeon, bri, and I). Our leader's name is Erika and she is superbe and quite word-nerdy. She likes to put/smudge words together, just like me. All of the staff are really amazing, as well as my classmates. I have a lot of fun with them!

Week 2 we had a guy named Egbert de Zwaan come and talk to us about The Character of God, a lot of what I learned is summed up above! Ha! Looking a bit at who God is and how perfect He is has made me think about what it truly means to draw near to Him. To sit at His feet and just be in awe, wanting to learn all that I can about Him so that I might be even just the faintest reflection of how great He is on this world that we live in.

Week 3 we went to this conference called the “Acts 1” conference. If you do not know the story of the book of Acts, chapter one, it goes a little something like this: After Jesus ascends to heaven the disciples gathered together in “the upper room” and waited for God to show up. They had no idea how He would do it, but they waited together, anticipating greatness. Then whoa whoa whoa the Holy Spirit showed up and they were empowered and enabled and filled to start spreading the gospel. Cool, hey? That’s where the Christian church started.

So this gathering was in a way sort of a “waiting on God” thing. We went and spent 3 almost full days (other than meals) just worshiping in song, in fellowship, and in prayer; listening to whatever it was that God had to say to us. The main reason ywam did this was because they’ve felt a big move in what God wants to do through ywam in the US, so they are looking to God to prepare them for it. It was a really neat time because basically God did a lot of correcting in people’s hearts (including my own). I will admit to being a bit of a skeptic about some of the stuff that ywam does (the more Pentecostal/Charismatic stuff) but who am I to put a limit on what God can do? He’s all powerful. All I know is He is moving and it’s exciting.

I feel like I got a lot of freedom from some apathy and rebellion I know I’ve had on my Christian walk with God. With that freedom, a spirit of just clarity, discernment, and a renewed passion for THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST was renewed in my life. It’s so easy to simply live a happy-go-lucky Christian walk without ever taking Matthew 28:18-20 to heart. I want to be the kind of Christian who takes that charge seriously and proclaims God’s love to everyone.

God is good. I’m growing in ways I didn’t know were possible. I’m truly thankful for this focused time to just develop and solidify my foundation and relationship with Him. I don’t want God to be an after-thought in my life. I want Him to be the base on which I build my life. Of course I miss home a bit (especially certain people who I’m sure will know how much their friendships mean to me and realize that this is written about you). I hope to come home a transformed person who is rooted and established in God’s love and who has a heart for what God has a heart for.

One verse that God has blessed me with is Zephaniah 3:17:

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

It is a great God that we serve!!

God Bless until my next long rant,

Gill Walks

where you live should no longer determine whether you live -bono

THIS IS WHERE I LIVE!
 In our backyard, there's a beautiful lake!

 This is the base.

 I like to take walks in the rain around the lake with starbucks because it's pretty out.
 Someone thought it would be funny to edit this sign from "no skateboarding" into "go skateboarding" HA
 I live here. I didn't even have to clean it for the picture (take note, maman)

Monday, October 10, 2011

canadiah

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my lovely Canadians out there!!

Saturday, October 8, 2011

five alive

Meet my beautiful YWAM Room Mates!
 
Laura (from Florida, USA)
 Maddie (from Australia)
Janine (from South Africa)
Kiny [Konnie] (from Virginia, USA)

We've got some American, Australian, South African, Korean, and Canadian all tossed into one room! They are wonderful and unique women and I am blessed to get to live and grow with them!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

cruise control to colorado

 Here are some pictures from my road trip down to Denver Colorado with my beautiful mother!
19 hours of driving is a lot!
We stayed at a neat old hotel in Rapid City, South Dekota! Just beside it was an incredible alley filled with a ton of "grafitti" art work! It was incredible! I even got to spray paint my initials (and it wasn't illegal!)
 
More cool things in Rapid City (we could've spent our whole trip there)
 We ate some delicious greek pizza at this wine and cellar restaurant and then made our way the next morning to see the faces of Georgie, Theo, Tommy and Abe!
 View of Mount Rushmore through our bugged windshield.
Mom holding one of the drills they used on the mountain's construction (it was EXTREMELY heavy!)
 Mother Hen looking as esteemed as the presidents themselves!
Me picking Abraham Lincoln's nose, looking slightly less esteemed.
 I live in the states now!
 You can't go to Mount Rushmore and not get a picture like this one!
 Among the greats!
We went to a place called the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in a suburb outside of Denver called Golden. It's a bit like the Gorge by Quincy Washington State. It was a natural amphitheatre. There were probably 60 people who came JUST to work out. It was fun, and rather cool. Not to mention the crazy high altitude!
 After that, we went to the Denver Aquarium! They didn't have any really big sea creatures like whales or anything, but it was still really really fun!
 However, they DID have on-site Mermaids who put on a show!
Cody Tillman, These two pictures are for you. THEY HAD OTTERS! They were snuggling in their little den off to the side of their exhibit. It was adorable, and it made me miss you.
ps: I hang out with the stuffed otter (star shine) you bought me every day.
One mile above Sea Level in Downtown Denver at the state capitol! Featuring Vivy as Vanna White!
 Dearest Mother Bear, thank you for the aaahhhh-mazing roadtrip! I am so blessed to have a mom who will drive me 19 hours all the way down to Denver, and who will take me to the zoo even when I am 19! 
I love you so much!