Lethbridge

Being back in Herbert with an injured shoulder really sucks! However it’s been a good excuse to go off and pray by myself with no one around and really dig deep down into God, as this gave me more time out from the physical activities. The following weekend after Banff we travelled to Lethbridge, a city 5 hours south west of Herbert. Here is where a largely expanding church lives called the River of Life Church (ROL). During our time there we would be doing small jobs for them, getting involved into the youth there and really trying to gain as much knowledge as possible as they run a Bible school and had some great teachers. ROL is also where Josh Erbs mentor works; his name is Todd Atkinson, a simply amazing, out of this world human being who has such a passion for God that you can even feel it by him just being in the same room. Todd is a Bishop at ROL and he is responsible for moving the church into a Convergence movement, which combines all 3 of the church ‘styles’: Charismatic, Evangelic and Historic. He also makes sure that the church lives up to their vision, part of which is to bring the 5 Passions of Jesus Christ's life: Presence, Teaching, Community, Calling and Missions.

Because of this he is extremely busy and since he is such a powerful man of God with such knowledge and a great testimony, everyone wants to have ‘Bishop time’ with him and hear of his experiences and knowledge. Luckily we got a chance to have some ‘Bishop time’ with him and for an hour or so, as we could ask difficult long winded questions that maybe most others could not answer. This gave me a real insight into the church and its prospects and why the church and the Christian faith is the way it is today. On one of the days we went for a hike which as usual we had perfect weather, however as usual, avalanche high risk warnings allowed us to only venture a couple of miles into the mountains to a frozen waterfall where we stopped for lunch.

We also had time to pray healing upon myself and Josh’s shoulders. In fact between us plus Kiri and Lauren, we went into deep prayer all afternoon... 

And I mean all 6 hours of the afternoon! 

But thankfully my shoulder relaxed and I can start to have a range of movement and little pain which has helped me get back into the swing of the Soul Edge culture.

On Sunday after the service we were invited to sit in a lecture to Bible College students about Church History. This was surprisingly extremely interesting and gave me great insight as said previously to church growth and where the church may be going in the future. We were taught right from Pentecost and the disciples being sent out by Jesus, through Rome with Constantine, the Great Schism, Reformation and now the Convergence movement which ROL church are moving into and want to spread.

I think that my home church St.Marys, being Anglican, forms to a Historic church focusing more on liturgy with some Evangelism. Being Historic it keeps to a structure with reading the words out loud from a screen. I am most definitely not saying abandon all liturgy and sacraments and just ‘see what happens’ like the Charismatic Churches, as I find that liturgy, such as the Eucharistic Prayer and other sorts can be a reminder, setting in stone our beliefs and proclaiming them. I like to see more time for the Holy Spirit to move (not just 30 seconds after prayer) and through that, more teaching on how to do this so we can use that time wisely and empower us to grow in faith. I also think, from the perspective of a young person who has just recently left the youth that evangelism can be very inspiring and energising for us as young people, as this focuses on the word of Christ and can lead us into action.

So in a nutshell that is what I think, won’t go into too much more detail about it now but I guess what I’m trying to put across from what I’ve learnt at ROL church, is that our society is changing, however we don’t want our beliefs to change as a result of worldly changes. We need to go back to the roots, look to Jesus as a church and focus on him, too many churches and movements have gone off on tangents due to disagreements and that is the reason why there are more than 30,000 denominations in USA alone in the western church. If we study Jesus and what he does teaching on the 5 passions, as a faith we can send out strong, educated disciples who can shine light into the darkest of places and help strengthen and maintain mature Christians in our congregation.  

The week leading up to our mission, we completed ‘The Ranch Run’, a 8 mile run starting at 7am, running from the Town of Herbert to Josh Erbs parents ranch (where we do most of our activities). I was looking forward to this however my shoulder was giving me grief days before; therefore I needed to run in a sling which made it more difficult to get in the swing of things. Anyway I completed 12.5k in 1hr 26mins which I thought wasn’t too bad seeing as I hadn’t ran at all 3 weeks prior! We had breakfast at the ranch then went home to crash and resume sessions and man do I still ache days after!

Prayer Points:

• The full restoration of my shoulder, as ill be needed to do a lot of activities when I’m out in Pelican, logging every day, hauling and a 5 day canoe trip a the end.
  
  
• For the Team members and leaders that we all may be able to prepare for mission efficiently and not miss out any small logistics. 

Banff (Woo)

The prospect of going to Banff made me climb the walls due to the most amazing, stunning views that could be seen and what activities we would be doing there.

Day one as always was travelling nine hours west to Banff National Park, stopping off every few hours as usual for Subway Lunches and Tim Hortons coffee (I’m very addicted to the French Vanilla coffee and Cotton Candy ice cream!).

Day two we travelled to the ski resort Sunshine Village to snowboard for the day and put into practice what we learnt on the big slopes. Here I perfected my grabs and rotations and nailed a method. However I did damage my shin coming off a rail which left me with a second knee which wasn’t cool. The weather and slopes provided perfect conditions and we all had a great day. At the end of the day there is a route that you can board right down to the car park which lasts about 20 minutes, so was a nice cruise down as a cool down.

We planned to hike but because of the snow there was a severe risk of an avalanche (of which I do not want to repeat that experience again). Instead we went to a tubing slope which we bombed it down a 100m slide in a rubber ring. You could go down yourself or up to 8 people could join rings and go down together, however we ‘accidentally’ couldn’t hold on and bashed into each other which was fun. After lunch we trekked into the wilderness and set up our own abseiling ropes. I never thought much of abseiling but when you descend under your own accord it can be fun, fast and cool to try and jump n spin off the rock face.

It was during this time where Tom and I went out onto the frozen river to mess about and saw two coyotes trotting towards us, which was very uncommon due to coyotes usually tend to be shy. These were the first decent wild animals that I’ve seen since coming to Canada and was a relief to get a good sighting of them.

On day three we went cross country skiing near Lake Louise which was soo much fun and was slightly easier as there were previous tracks we used so our skis didn’t slip out as easily. As always throughout the week we were blessed with amazingly great weather, of which cameras could not do it justice. Banff is truly one of the most spectacular, breath taking environments I’ve come across, no surprise that’s it’s a tourist hotspot all year round!

Day four I had been looking forward to since arriving in Canada. Yes today was the day that I ICE CLIMBED!!! That morning we travelled to Johnston Canyon and caught sight on an Elk which was sick, as I had tasted an Elk burger two nights before. We then trekked a couple of km to a frozen waterfall where our mission was to climb a 20 metre high vertical slope. 

It was definitely harder than I thought as although the technique is to climb with your legs and support with your arms, due to the difficulty of the climb my forearms and hands were definitely destroyed afterwards and cramp set in on my first attempt. 

However my second try allowed me to persevere to the top. I even managed to attach a few GoPros which should come out with some decent footage. That evening we went to Banff Springs Hotel and went to the hot baths there. They also had 1940s swim suits that we could rent so after being peer pressured I gladly did.

Day five we travelled to Lake Louise to snowboard which was a great experience as world snowboarding and skiing competitions have been held there. I got the chance to switch from a solid board to a more flimsy flexible board to allow me to jump and spin better. The board I was using, to buy, would cost over 500 dollars so was great to use such a high performance board. However a disadvantage of having a flexible board for me is that I cannot turn and have control as easily; and as a result of going down a black diamond run I picked up too much speed and dislocated my shoulder in the process of bailing. 

Within a minute everyone was around me and Josh Erb relocated my shoulder. This made me out for the rest of the day snowboarding, the only benefit of which was to have an adventurous sleigh ride down to the bottom with first aid by a skidoo. After being checked out by a doctor I have my right arm in a sling for a minimum of three weeks before I can start rehab. It doesn’t ache too much and I should recover quickly. So that was the end of my time in Banff, sadly it didn’t end on a high note. I’ve come to realise that there is such a happy uplifting presence within the Soul Edge team and have a lot of people who are there for me in times of need, I’ve genuinely never felt happier and more at peace.

One small note to add in this blog, probably one of the biggest things I miss about the UK is the water, Herbert water is absolutely vile and stinks to high heaven! Plus the fact that instant coffee out here is also diabolical, I've converted myself to a tea drinker and my progress is great!

Kananaskis Country

Eight hours later from leaving our small town of Herbert we arrived at the base camp of Blue Brana, situated in the Rocky Mountains at the foot of Mt Armstrong. There we lived in small cabins which were basically sheds with prison type bunks inside.

Upon arriving in the evening we immediately carried out a night hike up to Cougar Ridge, a small mountain which took half an hour each way up and down. This was cool but there were strong winds and we couldn’t see a thing so it made it a bit less exciting. On the way down we had the chance to slide down half the mountain which was fun taking people out. 

On the first full day we hiked up into a mountain range with snow shoes. Snow shoes were essential as it allowed us to walk easily over powder and not sink knee deep after every step. We did a 17km loop reaching the summit of one of the mountains experiencing high winds when on the ridge up to 70km/h. Towards the top it was cool as we had to take off our snowshoes and physically climb up the last 100m on rock to the summit. The weather was amazing with clear blue skies and everyone’s spirits were high.

The second day was the first day of our snow camping experience. We hiked 9km climbing 5000ft up to where we found a small flat area within the forest to camp for the night. We chopped down trees for fire and used the stars as a blanket as we did not use any tents or roofs, just some tarp as a windbreaker and the fire to keep us warm. The morning after we broke camp and hiked another 4k uphill to the boarder of BC which was so sick as trudging up we experienced blizzard type weather and everyone was feeling drained in motivation and blistered up, however as we got to the border the clouds cleared, the sun was out and I for one felt determined to carry on and complete our hike. We were actually the first team to hike to BC as previously it hasn’t been reachable. It was then a nice descent of 13km down to where our cars were, which was great to take some snaps, although my shoulders and knees hurt a lot (poor me).

Day five was a slightly more relaxed day getting up at a later time of 8 o’clock compared to the 6:30 usual start. I lead worship for the first time on soul edge and Seb lead a talk speaking about Peter and identity. After this it was a good time for solitude and finding a quiet space around base camp with some spectacular views. In the late afternoon we went up to Cougar Ridge again but took another route and scrambled up. This was a great opportunity to exercise my previous bouldering experience and see for miles around the mountain range. That evening we had some great food and a chance for us to relax and drop knives from a height on ourselves to see if it hurt...

Our last day in K country we were meant to get up early, hike up to Cougar Ridge and watch the sun rise. However the leader’s alarms failed to go off and we woke up to the sun shining bright through our windows which sucked a bit. Because of that we packed up early, the other guys did a naked lap of the cabin in waist deep snow and we travelled the 8 hour journey back to Herbert.

During my time in K country I prayed for strength and determination many times, and God gave me the energy to carry on when i had nothing in the tank. Leading worship also gave me the drive to step out in confidence and start my leading experiences, so a pretty decent fun-filled week.