#netcanada

[isetouttoservethelord]

Netters getting pumped before team announcements! #dosomethingamazing #netcanada @netcanada (at Circle Square Ranch Arden)

[faithisbeingsureofwhatwehopefor]

[faithisbeingsureofwhatwehopefor]

Team Prayer

On NET, as a team we will have team prayer every day. It's between 45-60 minutes long, and it's 90% praise and worship. 

This team prayer is super powerful, and often times, it's when I feel closest to God. It's said that singing is praying twice or three times. 

Isn't that beautiful?

So recently during team prayer, I have been getting some really powerful messages whether it's for myself, for someone else, or for the whole team.

Today I received a message for myself and it was this:

"Hunter, I love you. You are my daughter, and I am your God."

I was so surprised by this because it was so clear and evident that God wanted me to know that He loved me. I've been feeling really ashamed about things lately, and I've been feeling a strong need to go to confession. So when I received this message today, i began to cry because even though I sin again and again, God still loves me and He so badly wants and needs me to recognize that. 

He never gives up on me, and that gives me the strength to push through.

[faithisbeingsureofwhatwehopefor]

Vulnerbility and Prayer

I didn`t realize how hard it would be for me to be vulnerable with people while being on NET. I didn`t realize how much I have been guarding my heart. I`ve been finding it really hard to let go of my insecurities, my fears, and allow people to enter into the inner depths of my heart.

Being on NET, has opened up a lot of wounds in my heart. Which isn`t a bad thing. It`s just that God still has some work to do in certain areas. But it`s hard for me to go there again because I thought that I had healed from these things. I thought that I had gotten over them. And God was like, no Hunter. You are going to cry a little bit about this, you`re going to open up to people, and you`re going to open up to me. And I was like ah God, you`re so intense but you`re so right!

Okay.. so it didn`t happen quite like that, but I think you get the idea.

So I`ve been feeling a lot of things. And my brain is so packed with new information that I am just emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. I feel like I could sleep for a week straight. I feel a lot of pain from my past that I just don`t quite understand. I`ve been missing people that I shouldn`t miss. I`ve been missing things that I shouldn`t miss. And it`s harder than I thought it would be.

Ever since I got to training, I have been feeling a strange sense of sadness. It`s not constant, and I don`t believe it`s even mine. It`s almost like I`m feeling what other people are feeling. And it`s really hard because I just don`t understand it and I don`t particularly like it. I`m asking God why this is happening, and I`m not getting a response.

I`ve also been lacking in my prayer. I have been trying so hard to hear God, and I`m having a really hard time doing that. But there have been a lot of good things happening in my prayer as well. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and feel the need to pray for a friend of a family member, and so I do. There have been times that I just open up my Bible in prayer and find something really beautiful and it`s totally what I needed, or what someone else needed. And the most significant thing that has been going on in my prayer, is that I have been blessed with the ability to rest in the Holy Spirit. It`s so beautiful. I never felt so much peace before in my life, until I was able to rest in the Spirit. It`s truly a beautiful experience and peace just washed over my entire being. I have received some beautiful messages through it as well.

The Holy Spirit is truly doing some amazing and beautiful things in my life here at training. And I am putting my trust in the Lord that this is all going to prepare me with what I need to finally get out on the road to evangelize youth.

Please pray for me as we finish up training and leave on the 28th to begin our journey. Here is a picture of my team, I ask that you please pray for them as well.

Thank you so much, and remember that I am praying for you always.

God bless,

Hunter

Follow NET Canada on facebook, instagram, and twitter. Also, visit their website www.netcanada.ca

[captainteenjesusfreak-blog-blog]

NET Canada Retreat

So these past two days were absolutely amazing. And it comes along with a little story as well (which is slightly hilarious). 

So I've been in the application process for a ministry program called NET Ministries for a long time now, I recently did a Skype interview with one of the staff members and I was invited to come into Toronto for a come and see retreat which started yesterday and ran until mass at 5:00 today. Since my mother is absolutely dead set on me going to school next year and becoming a missionary is a one way ticket to being kicked out of my house on my 18th birthday, I decided to take a train to Toronto. Yet taking a train to the middle of a big city like Toronto is scary, and the train station wasn't even close to the church the retreat was held at, named the Nativity of our Lord parish.

It's for this reason, Thursday night I invited my best friend Nick to come with me (his Tumblr is http://coverflagella.tumblr.com/) so it would be a safer trip from the train station to the church using public transit (ie. subway and bus). Since Nick isn't the most religious guy, I convinced him to come by telling him then stop our bus gets off at is "Rathburn at the West End Mall" and we could go shopping for the day before the retreat started. To my surprise, Nick said yes, and the next morning I met him on the train to Toronto.

When we arrived in Toronto, we went down into the subways and took a 20 minute subway ride from Union Station to Kipling (with one transfer, we're getting fancy now) which was a really cool experience that I enjoyed quite heartily. After the subway ride, we had to catch the 112 bus that would take us to "Rathburn at the West End Mall". So seconds after checking out the map, the 112 bus pulls up to the bus depot and opens it's doors, so we step out of the building. There was quite a few people around and I just stopped walking towards the bus. Seconds pass and the bus leaves so Nick asks, "What are you doing?" and to that I simply reply, "I hesitated". We spent a good couple minutes straight up laughing about my "hesitation" while we walk down to the other end of the depot where the 112 bus is supposed to stop. 5 minutes later, the next 112 shows up, but this isn't your ordinary 112, this is 112C. So naturally Nick and I look at each other and go, "112C? Is that the same as just 112?" So Nick and I, laughing again, decide to wait for the next bus.

This time, the bus stops and we get on it, but just as we're getting on the bus, the driver gets off. Since neither of us have never ridden the city bus in a big city like Toronto before, we have no idea where to pay, or if we even have to, so we sit down close to the front without even paying, and so does everyone else getting on the bus. Moments later, the driver returns and we're on our way. Half a bus ride later, and a couple of pickups, Nick and I start worrying about how to get the bus to stop at our stop, since we just go past each and every stop if there's no one waiting to be picked up. 

Since we feared missing our stop, I asked a couple sitting across the bus from us exactly what we had to do and they explained that we simply had to pull on the wire above us on the bus a little before our stop and the driver would let us out. Knowing what we had to do was a relief, but what wasn't a relief was arriving at a stop titled "West End Mall Crescent" which wasn't even close to a mall. Naturally like 4 more stops with "West End Mall", which I later found to be a street, I ask Nick, "should we get out here?" To which he replied "no." in a sort of "what are you thinking" kind of tone, but I had already pulled the wire. So when the bus stopped everyone stared at us awkwardly for like 30 seconds while we just sat there and giggled a little like the immature kids we are. 

Only a few stops away was a stop actually named "Rathburn at West End Mall" so we exited the bus and I could see the church just down the road. The only problem was, there was no mall for miles. We were in the middle of a residential area, right beside a subdivision. Luckily, there was a subway less than 100m away because we were hungry.

Side note, I had the pulled pork sandwich, which turned out to be a horrible idea being the second Friday of lent and we all know we are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays. I get it, I'm bad, I just forgot :(

For the next 4 hours before my interview Nick and I had to hang out in a residential area in Toronto with absolutely nothing to do but get kicked out of No Frills for asking this woman what croutons were (long story short, I guess people from Toronto don't like jokes) and lay on the play equipment, out in the freezing cold, at a play ground. Time flew by faster than I thought, and before I knew it I met the people running the retreat and my interview, Ashley and Cameron, some Alumni, David, Trevor, Ben and Renee and 3 fellow applicants, Samantha, another Ben and Anthony. My interview went really well and Nick and I played guitar and a very out of tune piano (it was bad) until the retreat started.

The retreat went off without a hitch, we sang worship songs, took part in expressive prayer during a 30 minute long adoration, we played ice breakers, slept on the floor, had a lot of food, walked to timmies, had personal prayer time which included three segments of 7 minutes names "Worship", "Ask" and "Listen" and learned exactly what the missionary lifestyle is like on NET. To top it all off, Nick (who, as I already mentioned, isn't too religious) took it all in! He told our small group he was loving it, that he really felt like God was listening to his prayers, and that the witnesses the alumni and the staff gave made him super excited about the faith in general! 

So I was extremely psyched, I just discovered my best friend is someone who now understands more of what my passion is all about, and has become someone I can not only joke and game out with, but someone I can talk to more in depth about my religion. Plus, I only have to wait 2-4 weeks until NET will tell me if I have been accepted, they want me to wait a bit, or if I am denied entry.

P.S. I know I can say this without fear cuz Nick would never read to the end of this, he doesn't have that drive

P.P.S. If you're reading this Nick, I love you, and congrats for reading this all.