Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Unite Canada 2010 reflections...
Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other’s hearts in prayer. ~Charles Finney
I’m just sitting in my new favorite spot, in front of our wonderful new fireplace, reflecting on Unite Canada 2010… What a year!
As I read over the calendar and website I’m reminded of the struggles and joys I faced this year trying to keep this year of non-stop prayer going. In all honesty, and I’m sure anyone who has ever led an extended prayer room time could relate, at times I wondered why in the world I would have done something like this?! If I had known then what I know now… After all, I had the idea in September 2009, slowly starting working on it with a small steering committee, launched the website on December 25, 2009 and began January 1… Perhaps I could have been more logical or realistic about the big idea but looking back, I now see God’s hand all over it.
I just did the math- I’m happy to say that we had 406 days of 24-7 Prayer in 22 cities across every province in Canada (except the Maritimes) in 2010- WOW! You’re probably wondering how we could have had 406 days of prayer when there aren’t that many days in the year and some days weren’t even covered- that is because of the overlap. At times we had a few groups praying and other times (especially the past month), it was hard to fill. Although the goal was to have every single hour filled, I realized that stressing over this was not the purpose of Unite Canada 2010 and eventually let it go.
The purpose of UC 2010 was to unite the nation in prayer and to simply pray A LOT for everything going on in our country. Believing that prayer changes us as we seek to know God more intimately and that prayer can virtually change anything, the idea was to mobilize people to, “Live as though it all depends on them and pray as though it all depends on God”. Every month we had a focus that was written on the website and we had groups praying for every big event that happened this year (including the G8 in Ontario and Olympics in BC). There were city wide events, prayer rooms on campuses, in basements, churches and virtually set up through facebook and 24-48hr conference calls. Pretty amazing.
I just wanted to thank each of you for joining us in this amazing year of prayer. Thanks to those of you who caught this vision, ran with it and did such an amazing job of getting your city to pray together. Thanks to all those who supported this vision financially, which helped us get the website up and running, print material and get the word out. The stories from the past year are too many to tell and I know I haven’t even heard half of them. I also thank God for being as awesome as He is and answering our prayers.
Hope you all have a great 2011!
Blessings,
Daria
Prayer lays hold of God’s plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit’s prayer.
~ Elisabeth Elliot
PS Please pray for the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada who will be praying 24-7 for all of 2011!!
I’m just sitting in my new favorite spot, in front of our wonderful new fireplace, reflecting on Unite Canada 2010… What a year!
As I read over the calendar and website I’m reminded of the struggles and joys I faced this year trying to keep this year of non-stop prayer going. In all honesty, and I’m sure anyone who has ever led an extended prayer room time could relate, at times I wondered why in the world I would have done something like this?! If I had known then what I know now… After all, I had the idea in September 2009, slowly starting working on it with a small steering committee, launched the website on December 25, 2009 and began January 1… Perhaps I could have been more logical or realistic about the big idea but looking back, I now see God’s hand all over it.
I just did the math- I’m happy to say that we had 406 days of 24-7 Prayer in 22 cities across every province in Canada (except the Maritimes) in 2010- WOW! You’re probably wondering how we could have had 406 days of prayer when there aren’t that many days in the year and some days weren’t even covered- that is because of the overlap. At times we had a few groups praying and other times (especially the past month), it was hard to fill. Although the goal was to have every single hour filled, I realized that stressing over this was not the purpose of Unite Canada 2010 and eventually let it go.
The purpose of UC 2010 was to unite the nation in prayer and to simply pray A LOT for everything going on in our country. Believing that prayer changes us as we seek to know God more intimately and that prayer can virtually change anything, the idea was to mobilize people to, “Live as though it all depends on them and pray as though it all depends on God”. Every month we had a focus that was written on the website and we had groups praying for every big event that happened this year (including the G8 in Ontario and Olympics in BC). There were city wide events, prayer rooms on campuses, in basements, churches and virtually set up through facebook and 24-48hr conference calls. Pretty amazing.
I just wanted to thank each of you for joining us in this amazing year of prayer. Thanks to those of you who caught this vision, ran with it and did such an amazing job of getting your city to pray together. Thanks to all those who supported this vision financially, which helped us get the website up and running, print material and get the word out. The stories from the past year are too many to tell and I know I haven’t even heard half of them. I also thank God for being as awesome as He is and answering our prayers.
Hope you all have a great 2011!
Blessings,
Daria
Prayer lays hold of God’s plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit’s prayer.
~ Elisabeth Elliot
PS Please pray for the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada who will be praying 24-7 for all of 2011!!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Cape Town and the Third Lausanne Congress...
It's been a while... again.
I'm just preparing to leave for the Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.
The emotions are kinda crazy. As I've read about and research the effects of the Lausanne movement I'm pretty excited about what God has in store for us. I'm pretty stressed, as I've been responsible for coordinating 160 dialogue sessions... and I'm not a detail person. I'm REALLy sad to be leaving my husband for 13 days, some moments I'm not sure how I'm going to get on the plane.
There are between 50-100 Canadians going... and around 4000-5000 people from all over the world, 220 nations.
God, I pray you prepare us/me as we prepare to go. May we be anticipating much and may we be fully open to what you want to do in and through us. I pray for huge amounts of your presence and for unbelievable breakthrough to happen globally through this time together.
I'm just preparing to leave for the Third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.
The emotions are kinda crazy. As I've read about and research the effects of the Lausanne movement I'm pretty excited about what God has in store for us. I'm pretty stressed, as I've been responsible for coordinating 160 dialogue sessions... and I'm not a detail person. I'm REALLy sad to be leaving my husband for 13 days, some moments I'm not sure how I'm going to get on the plane.
There are between 50-100 Canadians going... and around 4000-5000 people from all over the world, 220 nations.
God, I pray you prepare us/me as we prepare to go. May we be anticipating much and may we be fully open to what you want to do in and through us. I pray for huge amounts of your presence and for unbelievable breakthrough to happen globally through this time together.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Disappointment with God
I had an amazing week away in the beauty of Sumas, WA. There was no internet connection to be found, I don't even think the retreat centre has a website, nor do they use email- but it was incredibly beautiful and great to just take some focused time out with God.
We learned and practiced Lectio Divina, breath prayers, worked through the low and high points of our lives... did communion every night. There were nine of us there, which was a perfect size group. We met a few times a day to learn different ways of praying and debrief our times alone.
While doing Lectio the second day on the parable of the persistent widow I discovered something profound about myself. I had lost a large part of my faith...
Have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed and PRAYED for something and it just never happened? Since I've come to know God I have been praying a specific something for someone... I've gotten friends together to pray for this, fasted, cried and believed that God could do something... At times things looked like they were changing, but never actually did.
A little less than two years ago (after 8 years of praying, hoping and trying to save this person), I 'surrendered' this to God. I realized there was nothing I could do and took many steps back from trying. My mental-health is wayyy better but what I didn't realize was that I had stopped praying for this person. I stopped believing God could do anything... and I think I've slowly lost my faith in prayer- completely subconsciously.
After a few days of reflecting on this I discovered that I've just been so disappointed with God but haven't wanted to tell God or admit it myself. It's hard when God doesn't answer our prayers- in our time- in our way. My breath prayer became, "El Shaddai (Almighty one), renew my faith". And I believe God is renewing my faith.
I got some one-on-one spiritual direction from my prof and one thing I told him was that I just want that child-like-faith back that I once had... He reminded me that God wants to mature my faith, that this experience is stretching me and making me wrestle with Him... but in the end, my faith will grow and I'll understand him a little more. So true. No one said the faith journey would be easy- but God is FAITHFUL, even when it doesn't make sense and it's hard, He is still faithful.
So I told God I was disappointed, I think he can handle it. And I've slowly starting to pray for this person again... Why does prayer have to hurt so much at times?
"El Shaddai, renew my faith again today"
We learned and practiced Lectio Divina, breath prayers, worked through the low and high points of our lives... did communion every night. There were nine of us there, which was a perfect size group. We met a few times a day to learn different ways of praying and debrief our times alone.
While doing Lectio the second day on the parable of the persistent widow I discovered something profound about myself. I had lost a large part of my faith...
Have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed and PRAYED for something and it just never happened? Since I've come to know God I have been praying a specific something for someone... I've gotten friends together to pray for this, fasted, cried and believed that God could do something... At times things looked like they were changing, but never actually did.
A little less than two years ago (after 8 years of praying, hoping and trying to save this person), I 'surrendered' this to God. I realized there was nothing I could do and took many steps back from trying. My mental-health is wayyy better but what I didn't realize was that I had stopped praying for this person. I stopped believing God could do anything... and I think I've slowly lost my faith in prayer- completely subconsciously.
After a few days of reflecting on this I discovered that I've just been so disappointed with God but haven't wanted to tell God or admit it myself. It's hard when God doesn't answer our prayers- in our time- in our way. My breath prayer became, "El Shaddai (Almighty one), renew my faith". And I believe God is renewing my faith.
I got some one-on-one spiritual direction from my prof and one thing I told him was that I just want that child-like-faith back that I once had... He reminded me that God wants to mature my faith, that this experience is stretching me and making me wrestle with Him... but in the end, my faith will grow and I'll understand him a little more. So true. No one said the faith journey would be easy- but God is FAITHFUL, even when it doesn't make sense and it's hard, He is still faithful.
So I told God I was disappointed, I think he can handle it. And I've slowly starting to pray for this person again... Why does prayer have to hurt so much at times?
"El Shaddai, renew my faith again today"
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
My prayer life.
Ever feel like you're just too busy to pray? I think most of us feel like that most of the time in our lives...
I think the past couple months have been some of the busiest months of my life. We just launched Unite Canada 2010, Christmas, Urbana, trying to finish the hardest theology class of my masters degree, I got engaged, wedding planning, house hunting, celebrating... Life is great, just sooooo busy! Where do I find time to pray?
Lucky for me, I'm being forced to find time. Next week I'm taking a class called "Reflective Prayer for Transformational Leaders", in Sumas WA as part of my MA in Global Urban Leadership. I have about 1500 pages to read on prayer, which I just started, and part of my 'class time' is a three day silent retreat- Lord knows I need this!
So I'll be using this blog to reflect on my readings and journal through this class for the next few weeks- Please join me on this journey!
I think the past couple months have been some of the busiest months of my life. We just launched Unite Canada 2010, Christmas, Urbana, trying to finish the hardest theology class of my masters degree, I got engaged, wedding planning, house hunting, celebrating... Life is great, just sooooo busy! Where do I find time to pray?
Lucky for me, I'm being forced to find time. Next week I'm taking a class called "Reflective Prayer for Transformational Leaders", in Sumas WA as part of my MA in Global Urban Leadership. I have about 1500 pages to read on prayer, which I just started, and part of my 'class time' is a three day silent retreat- Lord knows I need this!
So I'll be using this blog to reflect on my readings and journal through this class for the next few weeks- Please join me on this journey!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Unite Canada 24-7-365-2010
Canada has been given some great opportunities for 2010, such as hosting the winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC in February and the G8 Summit in Huntsville, ON in June. During such a strategic time and after ten years of 24-7 Prayer activity in our nation, we think it’s time to act together.
Our hope and dream is to unite Canada in prayer right across the nation, including all generations, denominations, cultures, cities and ministries. Different denominations have completed a year of prayer for their nation (the Salvation Army have in prayed non-stop in many nations) and Canadian cities have united in prayer (7 churches in Regina for 40 days, 32 churches in Victoria for 52 days of non-stop prayer)... But we want to go beyond and unite ministries in every city to PRAY like never before, 24-7-365!
If you’re in Canada and would like to know more about how you can get involved in this unbroken chain of prayer please email me. I am excited to help join together one of the largest prayer chains that will have ever spanned our nation.
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