Thanksgiving and Niagara Falls!!

As you may have picked up - we went to Niagara Falls and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving for the first time. We had such a brilliant weekend with our mate Bruce and his family, and I reckon I couldn't have designed a better time if I'd tried. That's how brilliant it was. Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

But first - Niagara 'My goodness this place is indescribable' Falls.

We (40 of the students) took a hike neer the Falls- it was so beautiful there.

Look at these amazing colours.

I am finally introduced to a Monty by my mate Bruce. (I took this picture for you Burg.)

We walked on the side of this river- so gorgeous.

Us in our beautiful waterproofs just prior to getting on the Maid on the Mist boat that went right up to the edge of the Falls. Truly, an experience of a life time. I screamed and wooped - a lot.

Isn't it amazing?!!

Such a lovely tree -planted by Queen Victoria apparently.

Brook trying to disguise himself as a squirrel- not very succesfully.

America is to your right.

Us, before we got drenched. It seemed to be raining, but it was the wind throwing mist onto us from the Falls. Me and me fella had such a laugh - as usual.

Look at that power. It flows so quickly, it's pretty exciting to stand this close to it.

Truly beautiful.

Thanksgiving!!

This is the family we stayed with. Little Bruce is the on the left and his lovely sister Hendria is on top right. This, my friends, is the Vanden Berg (correctly spelled) family.

Here we are loading the car getting ready to go to Barry. Bruce came to pick me and Lizi, Claire and Jan Ole up.
We didn't get very far because, after some truly shockingly bad hints that we hadn't eaten yet, we pulled up 1 kilometre down the road at Tim Hortens - the local coffee shop.

Bruce's amazing Mum and sister saying what they were grateful for.

This is the Vanden Bergs back garden, and this is a combine harvester and I asked if I could get a ride and Warren/Walter said I could and it was soooooo cool.

We went to a drive in movie place. It was so fantastic. We brought blankets and pillows and snuggled together to watch 3 films after each other. Unforgettably great.

Look at this amazing food. Turkey, with all the trimmings, and pumpkin pie - wow.

We went for a walk in the woods and ran around screaming and taking zillions of pitures and playing hide and seek and generally being very immature - perfection. We laughed the whole weekend it was just so much fun.

So here we all are on our walk. This weekend and the Niagara Falls day trip are two events that I will most definitely never forget. So lovely to all get on so well and enjoy each others company so much. The school is going way to quickly an I'm going to really miss these people. May the Secret Six gang rule forever.

The answer to the worlds biggest question....

Don't tell too many people about this ok? I haven't thought it through properly yet. I mean, I 100% agree with myself, I just haven't got all of my discussion answers in order.

So here we go. The worlds biggest question:

What is the meaning of life?

Now depending on your background and faith, you may,or may not, believe in God. If you don't believe in God you, no doubt believe in evolution. We could go on forever discussing that one and maybe you'd be able to prove it to me, (allthough I'd like to see you try.) Let's just say you did manage to convince me that I evolved from nothing. So, we've established the how - excellent, shaking of hands and patting of backs follow. However, we're missing a major point here surely. An enormous question.....why? Why did we evolve? Or, my preferred question; Why did my Daddy God make me and you my friend?

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If this in any way sounds cocky or arrogant, then either you don't know me very well or you're sensitive to this subject. If that is the case - stop reading now. If not read on.

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The Bible says that we were made to be loved. That is why I was made.

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If any of you have kids you'll understand this. You didn't have kids in order to make them work for you or worship you or to forever be striving and straining to somehow impress you. You had kids because you wanted to love them with all of your heart.

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In 1 John 4 v 19 it says the following:

We love because he (God) first loved us.

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We can only love God from the love he first gave us. If we don't get filled up with his brilliant love and affection, we're just running on empty. How can we truly love other people if we don't get filled up with love first? We were not made so that we would worship God. Our primary purpose for being made was to be loved-to receive endless,unconditional, non-judgmental love. Wow!!

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Let that sink in a moment.

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Now imagine this. We were always supposed to be like a glass being filled from an endless source of lush water. Out from the overflowing of the water comes our love back to God, our worship and our love for others. Soooo much easier this way. We love because (since, due to the fact that) he first loved us. We (are able to, can afford to, can't help but) love because he first loved us.

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Maybe some of you are thinking this:

"Well that's nice for you. But my boyfriend, family and friends love me so I don't need God."

I can see where you're coming from, I really can, but I try to think in this way. Here's a quote from the film "About a boy." If people can make you happy, they can also make you unhappy.

It doesn't always work out in the long run to have our one source of love come from human beings because we have a tendancy to let each other down - sometimes quite badly. We were meant to get our main source of love from God and be resources for each other. People who say they can't live without each other are sometimes headed for a nasty suprise.

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Do you see my point? A bit? I'm just asking you to think about it. I'm not preaching to you. I'm just telling you my happy news. Thanks for listening.

Prophecy Week.

I've been looking forward to this for aaages!!

It was worth the wait.

This week we were taught how to listen to God's voice in the form of prophecy. Here's what I will pass on to you:

1) Prophecy is not fortune telling.

2) It is a gift from God and he's the one that gives it to us.

3) It's allways supposed to be encouraging and loving and simple.

4) It goes well with words of knowledge. (Words of knowledge: Simply asking God for insight into someone's life in order to heal them of sickness or to help them emotionally.)

5) The way you say it is more important than what you say.

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We've been practicing prophecy and words of knowledge on each other. It was a really good laugh and quite moving at the same time. I know that this may freak most of you out and you'll think I've lost my marbles for good this time. All I can say is this: God is the loveliest, nicest, and most generous being EVER and he never puts anyone down -He makes me feel so brilliant and loved when he speaks over my life.

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Sooooo, my advice to you about coping with this blog entry would be to maybe ask me to practice on you, or ask God to explain it to you through the Bible or to keep an open mind and not judge too quickly. Thankfully, I have noticed that my non-Christian friends, (most of them) have been very generous to me regarding my experiences. (You know who you are and I thank you.)

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Have a brilliant week. Big love to you all.

Goodbye and HELLOOOooo!!

Here are some pictures, almost in the correct order, of our lives and surroundings at the moment. Juuuust wanted to share them with you.

Picture by Jon Kristian Fjellestad.

Our goodbye concert at Frikirka.

'Your curious nature will take you somewhere special.

Our bathroom/en-suite at the school.

Our bedroom and gorgeously comfortable bed.

Outside of the school.

At the passport check in.

No octagonals allowed - strange.

On the plane- VERY excited.

Nearly there.

Gatwick airport.

A cool wall near the Old Town.

Mmmmmm.

SRK cheesily modeling for ICICI bank in the little India part of town.

Henna tattoos.

Shopping for Bindis.

My 'Study group.'

Our classroom.

Conferance Lady.

Conferance lady demonstrating how not to pray. Very VERY funny.

Our church - LOVE IT. Lots of dancing and singing and loads of different nationalities- very including.

Living close to the airport is pretty interesting. We see planes pass every 3 minutes or so. Really cool.

The annual 'Board meeting,' held in Toronto for scate boarders. There were so manyof them. So happy to have witnessed it.

Our local favourite coffee shop:'The dark horse.'

All of these pictures are taken from the hippie market. You can buy amazing second hand clothes here or just relax in 32 degrees celcius by listening to amature singers play out their tunes. This bloke was really good.

Me cheesily showing how to pour the free green tea we got in the chinese restaurant we went to.

China Town was so cool.

Balancing stones for money.

Real snow in 32 degrees celcius. All in the name of hockey.

Feel TRULY honoured to have seen this- wow.

The famous CN tower.

So there you have it. The longest blog entry ever. But it was worth it - to show you what we're up to. Biglovetoallofyou.

What's going on?

Soooo, we've been here for 9 days at the School of Ministry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We're learning about: Hearing God's voice, our identities, our destinies and how to get unlimited love. How does that sound? To me it sounds amazing and, believe me, it is. There are around 70 students repesenting over 16 countries, between the ages of 18-37, who all want the same thing: To be loved and to love. This is just the school.

We went to Toronto city centre last Saturday, and just had a brilliant day. We've had a second summer coming here. I've been walking around in flip-flops, vest tops and skirts. Last Saturday was approximately 30 something degrees celcius - fantastic!!!!! We went to China town, Indian quarter, entertainment district and ate chinese food and looked at the hippie market and had some lovely coffee. Just the best day. In the evening we had film night and just relaxed with popcorn and groovy films. The metro and bus system is so easy and fun. People here are just so unbelievably friendly and when asked for directions actually say: "Well,have fun, enjoy yourself." I'm amazed.

The other day some of us went to Wallmart and walked back from the bus stop to the base. A bus pulls up next to us and asks if we want a lift. A bus. I mean- wow. The food is great, our bed is super comfy, our room is huge and our bathroom is bigger than the one we had at home. I feel very close to some of the students already and we're both learning so much about love. I can't remember ever being this happy.

The bluetooth on our computer went all daft on us- so I can't put pictures out yet - but sooooooon.

From Canada

Just wanted to write a quick update - I'll write more later because I've run out of time, again.
Allow me to say the following:
This, is absolutely brilliant!!
:)

The konsert.

Just had to write and thank all of you for coming to the concert and supporting us. I still can't believe just how many people turned up - it was totally packed!! Thankyou also for showering us with money and just being our mates. Impressive that so many of you joined in with the singing at the end - really fun.

(Us singing 'Flowers in the window.')

For those of you that could not be there let me just say this:

1) Playing with those three lads was sooo much fun.
2) My husband rocks on the guitar - love to hear you sing too.
3) My voice still hasn't fully recovered from screaming out 'Hey Jude,' - especially the end part that I copied from my favourite Beatle - Sir Paul McCartney. (Except that I screamed way more than him - that's what Hamar will do for you if you stay here too long. At least 7 years worth of screaming went into that song - it was very satisfying.)
4) The recipe for salsa that some of you asked for is here:

Salsa for 3-4.
a) Cut 5 big tomatoes into chunks.
b) Cut 1/2 a massive onion into small slices - add to the toms and fry in oil.
c) Cut up half a bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro for my yankee mates) and add to saucepan.
d) Crush one clove of garlic - add.
e) Add 2-3 tablespoons of water and 2 tablespoons of tomato puree - stir.
f) Add 1/4 t-spoon of chili seeds (or more if you dare) and salt and pepper.
g) Consume.