Cars, Host Families, & Updates.

Sunset taken outside of walmart. Photo belongs to Miles Dame. Stitched together by Ben Mahaffey. 

Well it's been a few days since I last blogged and I want to apologize for taking so long to give you another update. Last Friday was the two week mark since our arrival here in Edmonton. We met a lot of the church members and have changed host families. Our first week here Ben and I stayed with the pastor and his family while Khayla and Nikki stayed with another family from the church both have young children, but one week ago today I road out with pastor Jonathan to the airport because one of the families in the church is going on vacation and have lent us their car for the duration of their trip. So after we met them at the airport I followed Jonathan back to his house. We made a trip to wal-mart before heading to the church and the four of us bought food for the three days we were supposed to fix our own lunch last week. That evening we spent our first night with our current hosts.

I'm thinking that I would like to do a blog post for each day that way I can do short updates daily and am better able to remember what happened. Also it would keep things from piling up and keep me from creating   monster huge blog posts. So in order to catch up Lord willing I will be trying to put up and blog with photos for each day from here on out and then also doing a blog post for each day since June 15th so that I can get caught up. Hopefully this will work fairly well if not I can try another plan. So the Lord willing this evening I'll do a post for today and probably yesterday at the same time and do a post describing day one or two depending on how I think the first post about arriving does in describing that.

P.S. Lord willing be looking out later today for two posts. :)

Prayer Requests

This is a short post and I'm sorry I have not uploaded anything else since the last post nor have I put up many photos. Lord willing I will in the morning since we have the morning off, but I was wondering if you guys could be praying some things if you think about them throughout your day.

1. Team unity for all of us, help us to be open and honest with each other and loving with Christ's love
2. God is working in and among us and I've failed Him today in that I knew He was telling me to do something, but I didn't so just pray that I'd trust  and obey Him more.
3. Also God is working I'm sure in all of our lives in various matters and so if you could pray that He would continue and that'd we will have sensitive ears, eyes, and hearts to know what He is saying to us.
4. Pray for one of my good friends that God would open his heart and mind to be open and receptive to Jesus.
5. Pray that I'd be aware and alert while driving around up here.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support I really appreciate it/them :)
Love you all,
Miles D.

P.S. Please comment with or text me or email or tweet or facebook me with any prayer requests you all have that I might be praying for you as well :) Thank you so much.

Canada Day 4

Where are days 1, 2, and 3 you might wonder? Well I didn't post any updates on those days so I'll probably include some stuff from those days here haha :)

our flights we very punctual it seemed  in regards to taking off and landing on time in relation to the time listed for them so that was nice. We didn't have any trouble in security or customs so that was a blessing. I did not eat anything other than the snacks I had brought with me and the snack on the first plane until dinner that night. When we  arrived in Edmonton from Toronto we met up with Pastor Jonathan from JPBC, the church we are volunteering at to help with their ministry and the camp that they go to and which the Pastor's wife is a director at I believe or something like that. He took us and a couple of our bags out to his van and from the airport we drove to the house of a family from the church. We ate dinner with the pastor and his family and this other family. That family was the one whom the girls on our trip Nikki and Khayla are staying with and are very nice.

Today (Monday, June 18th) we had orientation and had a devotional and shared our testimonies and learned some more about Canada and Canadians. Our devotion and testimony sharing time was amazing you could tell God was there speaking and moving and even today just opening up my eyes and teaching me things about discipleship and evangelism. I really believe that God has me in a time of refining in which is is removing things and teaching me things and really solidifying what I believe and how I live for Him. It is still such a work in progress though or rather I am a work in progress. I'm just really excited about what God is going to do this summer in each of our lives. It was so awesome to hear how God specifically led each one of us who have come here to Edmonton this summer and that we were really sure why God was leading us to Edmonton, but that it was just the the one that stuck out to us. I think that is awesome because it just shows that God wants each of us here and we are each here for His purposes and His work (Ephesians 2:10).

Prayer Requests: Please pray for protection spiritually speaking because I think that we will need it to fight against satan as he comes against what God is doing in and through us here this summer and obviously we cannot do that on our own, but Christ lives in each of us and in all who are believers and is stronger than satan. So In praying please pray for God to be glorified in us and that we would be humble servants of His and that we would be faithful in prayer for God's strength in us. Coming here I felt so weak and not ready or capable and God reminded me of the truth about when we are weak Christ is strong in us found in 2 Corinthians; "⁷ Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to ^[b]torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! ⁸ Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. ⁹ And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast ^[c]about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.¹⁰ Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with ^[d]insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." Pray for myself and my team mates Ben, Khayla, and Nikki that God would bring us all closer and lead and guide us as He desires and use us for His glory as He has planned and that we would have unity. Pray for JPBC, the church, that their would be unity there and that God would work in and among the church members who have graciously welcomed us into their church for the summer and are opening their homes to us. Pray that God would use us to serve them and be an encouragement to them (all members youth, children and adults). Pray that we would be sensitive to God's leading and guiding and that God would make it very clear to us what He wants us to be doing for Him at any given moment. 

Thank you all and love you,

In Christ,

Miles D.

Many Miles To Canada

Many Miles To Canada

Canadian Flag Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada

For this first blog post I'd like to share what I can of the story about how God brought me from thinking barely any about Canada to the point where I am now, being weeks away from flying there Lord willing.It's pretty cool how God worked out everything for me to go and I firmly believe that it's His will for me to go.

Last semester right around the beginning, I suppose right at the beginning of the semester I began praying and asking for prayer about what God would have me to do this summer. I had an idea in my head about working during the day and volunteering with a Christian non-profit in my area at night, but God had a different plan. At one point during the school year, which semester I am not sure, I got a flyer/booklet containing information concerning mission trips through SCBCM. One day I was in my room sitting on my bed, I believe I was praying and spending time with God and Canada came to my mind and I felt that God was telling me to God go to Canada for the summer. I looked in the mission pamphlet and there were at least a couple of trips to Canada. Well I kept putting off applying or asking my BSU director if it was too late or not to apply. Finally one day after not doing much about it for awhile I felt like God was telling me to go and ask our BSU director if it were possible to still apply-not to late to apple. I walked in his office and asked and he said that, in fact, he had just received an e-mail listing the trips still available. As he was going through them he mentioned two Canada trips one of them was the one I had been thinking about going on! IF that was not awesome enough that God had worked that out, but that trip had one slot left and it was for a guy :D. One night I sat down and applied and not too long after God allowed me to be accepted as well :).  I and three other students from my school who were also going on trips with the SCBCM, but different trips from me, all attended the orientation for our missions trips together.

As it is only 11 days until our departure date, June 15th, I am starting to feel less apprehensive and more excited about the trip. My three team mates going are Ben, Khayla, and Nikki. Lord willing I plan to write up a packing list and perhaps I'll post it on here later for you all to let me know what you think.

Some details about the trip itself, well let me see. We will, Lord willing, be working with a church in Alberta and part of the time be helping with a camp. I suppose the best thing to do would open this post up for questions. If you have any questions at all ask away and I'll answer, within reason of course.

Also if you would be willing to pray for all four of us and the pastor and church we will be working with and the camp that'd be great. I must admit I have not been as faithful in prayer as I should be for this trip.

One last thing if anyone knows of a good way of getting a cell phone in Canada I'd appreciate the help, low price is key :)