Kayla's journey to MONTREAL....

A couple months ago I asked one of my best friends to move to Montreal to join me on this crazzzy journey I find myself in... I was on a road trip with Wendy Andrews (24-7 US team) and we got into a conversation about how I often feel alone and discussed what it would look like to grow a 24-7 team up in Canada. I knew in that moment that I needed to seriously ask Kayla to move to Montreal, for real, to join me on this adventure.

From a small town somewhere between Kansas City and Minneapolis I sent Kayla a serious, God inspired text message asking her to pray about moving to Montreal.... She said YES!!

Kayla just started blogging, in preparation to move, and recently wrote this blog about her journey of prayer to Montreal:

So I've been wondering where to start and really the best solution I have come up with is to share my journey (thus far) on prayer.... since after all that's what I'm going to Montreal to do.

So here's a bit of an overview on my last 10 years...

I can remember as far back as the late 90's, when I started my first ever prayer journal. I've always been a big journaler, but I remember a distinct season where my journal consisted entirely of prayers. I was dependant upon it. Another memory I have would be in 2001, went I to Summit Bible College. It was there that I became a member of my first ever prayer group. There were 6 girls, who got together everyday after supper to pray together. This group was a significant group/marker in my life, as I remember getting together with these girls to share my heart and pray. There were people in the group I wouldn't normally hang around with but we were so close we felt lost when a day would go by that we couldn't meet with each other. Then I remember going to Brazil in 2003. While I was there I remember thinking one day near the beginning of my trip, "I didn't realize no one would speak English here, and I'm so staved to talk with someone" but it was there that I learned that God can become our conscience, and what I mean by that is after a while my thoughts became prayers. I got to a point where I couldn't really separate my thoughts from a prayer. God was my friend, and we just hung out together all day. Two weeks into this trip someone came from Canada I think they almost died of talking overload. I talked for an entire afternoon straight! But it was weird the more I had people to talk to, after a while, I just wanted to find space alone so I could be with God in my thoughts. Then, last summer, while I was in Calgary, I worked a place that was a 45 min walk from my house. The walk seemed long at the beginning, but soon my walks became prayer walks, and soon I got to a place where I was wishing the walks were longer. I would get to work everyday in tears, just so in love with God. Then last September I remember being in a place of brokenness, I remember being at the end of Kayla, and feeling so lost for answers in life. I journalled a lot, but every time I did I found there were more and more question with no answers to those questions. It was there that I declared myself in a "season of prayer", because there was nothing else I could do. God reduced me to this point, and at the time I thought it sucked, but I realise now that He was doing something. At Thanksgiving I met up with my friend Daria (whom you will hear a lot about in this blog so remember that name) and I told her about my "season" and she said she was in that same place. So we decided to pray together on the phone. With honest efforts, we have been doing this since (although when she's on the road its more difficult) little did I know that God was doing all this for a bigger purpose. Daria is one of the girls I prayed with daily at summit, and now for the last year holding each other up in prayer, and now I am moving to Montreal to live with her and start this prayer community. Funny how God works!

God has sewed prayer into my life through certain events and seasons, and he is continuing to do so. Prayer isn't the answer to all of life's problems, but God is! Prayer is the gift we have been given to commune with God, to join his rhythms, and to see his face.

SOAR MONTREAL- 1 week of 24-7 in 4 environments.

It's been an exhausting but great week here in Montreal. Last Wednesday over 200 youth showed up in Montreal to "shine" in our city. They spent the first few days in orientation, learning about the city and getting to know each other. Then Sunday night began a full week of prayer and mission- it has been amazing!

We've been praying 24-7 in 4 different environments since Sunday night. The first time I've ever done something like this but we needed to find a solution to not have access to the main prayer room at night and all the students going out on mission during the day. The schedule is pretty colorful but we're managing to keep the prayer going all day and night!

Saturday afternoon I did two workshops on prayer and in each one we set up a prayer room: one on the guys floor and another on the girls floor for them to take turns praying through the night. Then Sunday, I set up the prayer van which has been at different mission assignments all week. I had no idea how it would work, but 5 days in, it actually seems to be working!

I was just walking over to Second Cup to write this blog and a couple guys stopped me to share their prayer room experience. They said that they've experienced God in an amazing way through these prayer rooms this week- One of the youth even said that he goes up to the all guys-all night prayer room during the day when he needs some quite time away. Many people are asking for more info on how to start a prayer room back home.

The prayer van has also been great. We've printed cards in french and english that say, "How can we pray for you" with space for people to write requests. Most teams have had the opportunity to 'prayer card' in the area they're serving and pray right in the community for all that is going on.

Overall, it's been an amazing week of God doing amazing things through prayer. Love it!

Even Strippers Pray..... My Dream for Montreal.

I need to be up in a few hours to drive to Ottawa but can't sleep...

I just had an amazing night.... I could write until the sun rises, but for now, I'll just write about what impacted me most. I went to Montreal's biggest, best and most known strip club tonight. One of my best friends used to be a dancer at this club around nine years ago and has been a Christian now for two years- amazing girl with an amazing heart who is totally willing to help and support me in getting to Know Montreal's sex industry. We've been praying about this for months, have even prayed outside a strip club and felt tonight that we were ready to go in (unless God said otherwise and stopped us).

We reconnected with Sabrina, one of her old friends who is still dancing there nine years later. Toward the end of the conversation we asked if she needed anything or if there was anything we could pray for her... after giving us a couple prayer requests she proceeded to tell us that she prayed every night. You know when you have those lightbulb moments... I had one and now I can't stop thinking about it.

This is my dream:

Even strippers pray and are seeking spirituality. What if we had a 24-7 place of prayer in the heart of the city? This place would be open around the clock to welcome busy city people to just come pray, be still and connect with God at any hour of the day. It would be creative, artistic and full of authentic and fun community to just be there or play music, paint, pray with people, answer questions, have a meaningful conversation... A place where we could invite people, like Sabrina, back to pray if she needed some space or someone to chat with. Our generation is deeply spiritual, especially in Quebec where we've grown up in a post-catholic, extremely secular culture with very minimal religion... People are open to prayer and God... Maybe people just need a little support and prayer at times to keep walking in the right direction...

So God, I pray for this dream.... that you would prepare us for it and bring it on!!

Catching up...

I do appologize, I've sucked at blogging the past month. Time to get serious again!

I don't even know where to start now...

I need to start by writing a blog about BC, which was amazing... So many stories to tell. Overall, I loved the unity happening there and the amount of stuff starting- some really passionate people with a hunger for more- so good!

I write this from Starbucks in St. Catherine's, Ontario. I've been wondering around Ontario all week. We had our Ontario regional gathering last weekend which went really well. I'm trying to teach myself how to video-blog so my plan is to video-blog this week... we'll see how that goes!

Last night I met with a couple girls involved with STEP (Sex Trade Exit Program) downtown Toronto. Crazy, I actually know the founder of the program from school- small world! They have a cafe on Thursday nights for sex workers from 9pm-3:30am, it inspired my dreams for Montreal!

Going to hang out with the Jones family tonight in NOTL and Brantford this weekend. Tomorrow I have a wedding and Sunday I'll be at Freedom House in Brantford, the City of God. Looking forward to this weekend!

Come join me in MONTREAL!!

Interested in learning more about urban ministry, intern with 24-7 Prayer and live in a bilingual city-community in one of the most un-reached places of North America?!

This year we're starting a new partnership with the YWAM Urban Cultures DTS in Montreal so you could come learn all the awesome stuff YWAM teaches and intern with a developing 24-7 team in Montreal.

For more info contact Daria at daria.tomiuk24-7prayercom

A little more on the program:

URBAN CULTURES is a totally new and unique school offered at Youth With A Mission in Montreal. This school is being developped with several objectives in mind. First of all, we want to give students the time to be involved in practical ways and over a prolonged period of time in various ministries and community organizations operating in the city. The second is to give them the time to discover and understand the city (with Montreal as a laboratory), its’ identity, its’ culture, the ways in which it functions and to learn how best to serve it. The third objective is to permit students to better grasp and integrate the teaching of the DTS (instead of twelve weeks of intensive classes, the courses will be spread out over nine months).

URBAN CULTURES is a training school that wants to be relevant and practical at the same time. It’s founded on the principle of incarnation. It’s designed to give students the needed time to get involved body, soul and spirit in the life of the city. We hope to train people who will, at the end of the school, will have the know-how to initiate new ministries here in Montreal or elsewhere in the world with YWAM, their church or other missionary organizations.

URBAN CULTURES offers each student the possibility of choosing one or two internships in which to commit themselves for either a part of or the duration of the school. These internships will be developped with YWAM staff or in partnership with other city ministries with whom we have close relationships. Consult the list of internships.

52 Days of non-stop prayer in Victoria, BC.

Just arrived on Vancouver Island this afternoon and heard about the 52 days of prayer that just ended yesterday in Victoria, BC. It Sounds like it was an amazing and transforming time of city wide prayer, with 32 churches involved in the Greater Victoria area- Amazing! Click on this article for the story.

Thoughts from a morning run...

Running is one of my favourite times of prayer. Running has become especially important to me as I travel for two reasons: sometimes it's the only solitude time I get with God all day AND most people feed me so well while I travel that if I didn't run, my clothes wouldn't fit me anymore!

Being in BC this past week, running has been great. It's amazing to be in cities yet running a sea wall or looking at mountains. The Rooke family, in their wonderful hospitality, has been feeding me way to well so I've especially needed to run this week!

A few days ago Nathan showed me the run that he does, which ends going up a huge hill, so I tried it yesterday. Last night when I was going to bed I realized that the back of my neck killed, it's a strange and unique pain, one that I don't feel often if ever. When I did the run again this morning I figured out where the pain was coming from. As I ran up the big hill yesterday and looked up the whole time it totally strained my neck.

I remembered that on my run yesterday I spent the whole time looking up the hill for the end, I guess I thought it would come faster that way! This morning I tried looking straight ahead, at each side walk block and not only was it faster and easier but it also didn't completely strain my neck.

Moral of the story- I think when we're going through a difficult time, running up one of life's 'big hills', we need not try to look so far ahead for the clarity of when it could end- that's straining! Instead we need to look straight ahead, move step by step, day by day and TRUST in the hope that the end will come... and we're going to get there...

Picture: A little over half way up the hill...