My Life By a Snapshot

Hi there, I was recently accepted into His Hill which is the Bible school located in Texas I was hoping on attending this Fall. This is very exciting news for me. However, often when I tell people that I am going to Bible school they don't quite understand what that means. So, today I thought it may be helpful for me to take some time to quickly explain what Bible school is and why I decided to go. First, let's tackle the what. What is Bible school? His Hill is a Bible school, kids camp and retreat centre that is a member of Torchbearers International. Torchbearers International has 26 centres like His Hill all over the world including the one in England my parents met at, the one in Quebec my family worked at and the one in Japan my sister currently works at. They're all a little different but have the same goal; "T o tell others about Jesus Christ and to disciple believers in what it means to be in Christ and to be indwelt by Christ." Bible school is a d...

Hi, Back in January of 2017, I told my testimony. However, testimonies are ever-evolving, ever-growing and ever-changing. As you grow and mature you see things that you've never seen before. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. Meaning that so often we can only see what was really happening when we look back on it. I recently applied for Bible school and a part of that was a written testimony. So, I decided to share it here too. I've tweaked it a little and edited it to be a little more appropriate for this platform. Hre's a warning. My story is a really long, complicated story. But, I think that everything is important. A lot of my story requires a lot of explaining. So, here we go! I had the great privilege to be raised in a solid Christian home. Church attendance was mandatory, even if we were on vacation. Modesty was highly encouraged. We were always involved in the church. But we moved a lot. I’ve lived in about 15 houses during my life, that I can think of! My mo...

Hi, My older sister, Jordy, and I just spent the past month in Japan. I had written a whole blog post about some of the things we had done in Japan. But after I had written it I had some good conversations, read some other blog posts and decided to write about something a little deeper and way more important. Instead of writing about the adventures and places we went I decided to write about the church in Japan. The churches in Japan are suffering!!! You heard me right. The churches in Japan are really suffering at the moment. Their numbers are dwindling and missionaries are becoming few and far between. This problem is far more tragic than any of the tragic natural disasters that have hit the country in the past. This problem has eternal repercussions.  The country has often been called "The Missionary Graveyard"! So, what's going wrong? Why is this happening? Our view of Mount Fuji by from our picnic spot. First of all, let me start this out by saying that Ja...

Last year, for my 17th birthday, I shared 17 things I had learned that year. I’m a huge believer in everyone having something to teach you! So, for my 18th birthday, I decided to share 18 things I’ve learned this year. Many of these things I’ve learned from others. So, I’m just passing the knowledge on.  And to go along with this I've included 12 of my favourite photos, one for each month of the past year. 1.    When you give something fully and wholeheartedly to God, He’ll do great things with it!   I have a problem with trusting God. Sometimes, I fear giving up control to God, even though I know deep inside me that He’s the best One to give things to. I know He will take good care of it and He knows what's best for me. But sometimes I still struggle to give everything to him. So, this past year, I’ve been learning a lot about trusting Him. So many times this past year, He asked me to give something to Him and I hesitated. But every time I give it to Him,...

“What is love? What would you say love is?” I was asked this the other day and I had no clue how to answer it. But I’ve been thinking about it a little bit. I’d say I love a lot of people and if I’m being honest with you, I’d say I think I love them well. But what does that even mean? Since I started following God I’ve learnt so much about what love is, especially his incredible, perfect love for me. Jesus is the ultimate example of love. He was a walking, speaking, breathing example of true love. But I still can’t put into words what love is. I think everybody’s answer would be different. I don’t know if you can actually perfectly describe it with one word or even a sentence. But I think you can show it with your actions. So, to me, these things are love. True love is based on God and a reflection of God. God is love so he is present in every loving relationship, encounter or heart. He’s my inspiration and model for love. True love is unconditional. It doesn’t matter who they...

Hey there, So, the other day I saw a man pushing his son in a stroller through a park. They got to a road with a large drop down from the curb. The father was concentrating, trying hard to gently lower his son safely to the road below. The toddler strapped in inside was just staring blankly at the sky above without a worry in the world. He was just chilling there probably dreaming about the shapes of the clouds and the dinosaur he could see in them. He didn't seem to realize that his father behind him was working so hard to keep him safe and comfortable. He had such a total and oblivious trust that his father would take care of him. His father had total and complete control of the little boy's life yet he trusted him fully with it. You know when a father throws their child high into the air, then catching them as the child giggles and screams with joy? Imagine the amount of trust that that child had for their father in that moment. Children trust their parents to take care o...

Dear Reader, My birthday was while ago now but in June I turned 17 years old! Yep, I've been blessed with over 17 years old living now. I am by far not the wisest person out there and I have a lot still to learn but everyone always has something to teach you and so today I thought I'd share with you 17 things I've learned in my 17 years of living. These are in no particular order; just the order in which they're coming to me as I write them now and there are some photos sprinkled in there just to break everything up and so you can see the beautiful faces of our students again :D  1. If you have ants in your sugar put it in the sun for a while and the ants will leave on their own because they don't like the heat . Lee May taught me this one day when we were baking together and I found a whole bunch of ants in my white sugar. It's a very handy trick if you live in Cambodia.  2. It takes more courage and self confidants to cover my body instead of sh...