The Lord's Prayer.

Jesus said this is how we are to pray.

Lord, my heart is heavy and burdened for your creation: your people, your land, and your critters. Thank you that you dwell in goodness and faithfulness and love and mercy and grace. I rejoice in the power of your name.  Your plan is to restore all of creation; I pray for that now in this moment. Make earth new, just as it is where you are. Until then, give us what we need each day to serve you and serve your creation. Sorry we are hurting the works of your hand and making it into a place where suffering and brokenness play. I choose to love the perpetrators of this, including myself. Protect us from ourselves and other sources of pain and greed and corruption. This place is yours, we are yours. Make yourself known.

Amen.

At work in the small things.

It's been two months now that I've been serving the students of Mount Royal University. It has been a really amazing experience. God is teaching so much to me about his heart for people, and his heart for all people. It's been amazing to really learn to celebrate diversity. There's no other place to learn that than in a University. There have definitely been hard moments, moments where things are quiet, conversations feel uncomfortable, and I feel tired. In these moments I question why I'm here and whether this is really where God wants me. I question if it is necessary for me to be here, if students need someone like me. And then there are days like today when I saw a hunger and desire to have spaces for meaningful dialogue about faith, to have an individual to talk with about inner struggles and fears, to be cared for in a way not offered anywhere else in the institution. The reason I felt so excited to be here in the beginning was because of the faith crisis people enter into post high school. Students are smacked in the face with different ways of living contrary to the way they were raised and many have no safe place (even within their own faith communities) to question and wrestle. I always tell these students how God delights in their questioning. By questioning, I believe God recognizes your pursuit of Him, your eagerness to be true to him, to know him.

I'd like to share the last two days with you and how I have really felt God using me to be a safe place for people to question and wrestle, as well as be encouraged and commissioned.

Every Wednesday on campus we facilitate a Christian worship time. This was a beautiful time of worship and prayer and encouragement. We shared about our hope and how we live out our hope.

I met up with a young woman named Carrie who has a huge heart for broken people. She is very keen to serve in Africa with my husband and I this coming May. She has a Catholic/Native spirituality background, but doesn't seem to practice anything seriously now. I could see a passion in her for people that I am convinced can only be from her Maker himself. I left feeling incredibly grateful for people like her.

A few days ago I had a young lady flag me down, almost desperate to meet with me. We met up Wednesday and spent an hour and a half together, sharing our stories, sharing our challenges, and praying for one another. It was beautiful.

Thursday started with a student Interfaith Dialogue I help facilitate. We had a few students and faculty gather and share on the question "What do you see as your role in the world?" It was amazing to hear the different perspectives, but most seem to talk about bringing hope, restoring people, bringing change.

After the dialogue, there seemed to be a number of different students gathering in our office. It's an extremely small office so the 8 of us packed it pretty good. Out of the 8 people, there were 7 faiths represented. We immediately engaged in an amazing conversation about faith and different faiths and what it means to pursue faith intentionally. We were able to challenge one another on seeking God whole-heartedly, on questioning what is the world and what is God, on what life is really all about. After most cleared out, there were three of us left: Muhammad, Nasra, and myself. Muhammad and Nasra had never met each other prior, but both are from Pakistan and have an Islamic background. Muhammad left his faith and has been searching since. Nasra opened up about being really uncomfortable in her faith and wanting to explore also. She said she's been reading the Bible a little bit and has been connecting with it, but is really scared because of her family. She expressed, very emotionally, that she wanted to seek out Christianity because it feels true. Muhammad expressed how he knows exactly what she's going through and encouraged her to be courageous in her pursuit of God, that she needs to do this and be confident in it. Nasra was really keen to meet up with me next week to ask questions and share our journeys. I feel absolutely privileged to be the one to journey with students like this. Not that I'm trying to snatch them up to convert them, but that I really care for them and want to walk with them as they journey through their questions and doubts.

There is a scripture that has been energizing me lately:

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved." Romans 8:18-24

All of creation, everything that lives and breathes, is waiting for this hope: to be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God! Lord, may it be so!

Thank you so so much for your prayer and financial support and participation in my life in general! You are absolutely essential to this ministry. Please continue to pray for the students I mentioned, as well as energy and spiritual discernment. There are 13,000 students on campus and I'm trying to figure out ways to connect with them, so wisdom is also needed!

If you are looking to give and don't want to support monthly, an online donation via credit card can be made at http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?charityID=s54389

Kristal

i am a chaplain

There have been months passing me by. They have been spent basking in the sun, running around with medium to large children, playing in water and trees and on mountain tops. These days, I find myself spending more hours in a concrete box within a concrete jungle. But there is life in it.

I've recently taken up an opportunity to serve as a chaplain on campus at Mount Royal University. It really feels like many dreams coming together as one beautiful gift. I have the privilege of building relationships with students, having meaningful conversations of faith and life and how they mix together. The focus of my day are names, being present to students. Seeking out students. There is no curriculum to uphold, there is no expectation of numbers. I almost can't believe it's real.

I spend my days booking coffee dates, sitting in the office and having lunch with whoever drops in, praying with students and church leaders and faculty, planning how students can engage deeper with the Creator, providing opportunities for students to connect with community.


I have had the opportunity to meet a number of students already and share stories over tea. I met a fiery girl named Dara who walked in darkness for a while. All throughout these dark times, she was very aware of a Spiritual Being who loved and cared for her. Her story is amazing. Light versus darkness. Light won.

I hope the same for another fellow I met. He practices Wicca. Working in multi-faith, this is not something that would stir me as much as this fellow did. We asked if he came from a different faith background and he said Christian. He justified why he moved from Christianity to Wicca and it broke my heart the claims he made on Christianity that just weren't true. It saddened me that this is how Christianity is viewed. This is how Christians have manipulated and distorted Jesus. This is how I've manipulated and distorted Jesus. My prayer and hope is that I can represent the Gospel - God's good story - in its purity and fullness of truth.

I partner with University Campus Ministries to be able to do this. They contribute a portion of money for my well-being (well for mine and Will's since he's studying), but the remaining space in our budget is up for grabs. Please let me know if you'd like to contribute and partner with me. I'm hoping to raise a few more hundred each month.

Love love,
Kristal

KONY 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Let's do this people!

beauty in the desert

so a recent dialogue has brought me to understand further what it means to be in a desert. we know in the christian faith that growth comes from spending time in a desert, but i've been recently challenged in my view of that growth. we see a desert (or tough, barren times) as something to quickly scramble out of in order to continue on our ascent towards perfection. we view the desert as a vital way to grow in our human condition to reach this perfection. but we are already made perfect in Christ. which means that perfection already exists within that desert just as well as perfection exists out of the desert, on that mountain peak.

today as soon as i got off work, i drove to will's work to greet him with a coffee and a muffin. i then stayed with him until he was off, 2 hours later. during those two hours, we sat mostly in silence, but found deep richness in the state of being together. there was something extremely special about it. reflecting on it now, i am truly thankful for this because if it weren't for the job i'm working and the life i'm living, that moment would not have been possible. if it weren't for this desert, i wouldn't have discovered that beauty and perfection lies within it.

peace and joy in a puddle of uncertainty

outside, my life looks pretty standard. inside it feels pretty bizarre. i'm married to the most incredibly sweet and considerate and funny and stone-cold-foxy human being. i work in a coffee shop part-time. i live in a house. we have friends we see occasionally. we eat popcorn and watch movies often. we ski on weekends.

inside, i question a lot.

who... what... where... when... ummmm why?

answers please.

i have a ton of dreams. we could do this at this time in this place for this very great reason. orrrrr what about this? orrrrr ooh ooh this one would be soo great!

i battle with it a lot. there is incredible value (most times it is crucial) in waiting and listening and resting and being uncomfortable in this stand-still. but what about everything that's going on outside of this lovely millarville home? what about clearance and lorraine? what about the mother that abandoned her baby in the dumpster in lloydminster? what about the somalian women in britian who continue to take their young girls to somalia to be circumcised, feeding their own oppression? what about the kids in our schools waiting to discover that they can question? what about the kids who just need someone to see them? what about any of the people here (rich, poor, fat, thin, ... broken) suffering?

there's got to be something brewing for us.

until then, i guessssssss, i will try to be patient. until then, i will embrace the beautiful moments with my husband in this quiet time. i will embrace the peace and joy that somehow exists within this.