Love, Marriage (15 years!), and Other Stuff

Wow, I guess I haven't written here for a long time! I've been busy, never forgetting about the good news but not having as much time to really write (uninterrupted that is). Looks like we'll be starting to have church soon and I'll keep everyone posted about that. It will be my Dad and Aaron taking care of worship and preaching/teaching for the most part, and I'll be figuring out something for children. Doesn't that sound really well organized? To be honest I'm pretty nervous about organizing anything, being part of 'church' in the formal sense but I'm also excited and so ready for fellowship and sharing good news, seeing people get free. I HATE seeing people suffering in fear and bondage and condemnation, HATE it. I want everybody to be happy! Not perfect, just happy--together!


Aaron and I got to go for a week long vacation to Mexico a month or two ago, all alone. He won the trip in a contest at work while I was still pregnant with Amilia, and it was so nice to be alone together just relaxing. When we got back home with Amilia (the other three stayed with their grandparents in Delaware for a few more weeks) I flew out to Toronto with her to visit my sister Kelly and her husband Mike and got to meet my nephew Fenn who had recently had surgery. He's doing well and is very very cute and personable. And cuddly too. We had a lot of fun together eating take-out Indian, battling each other on Super Mario Bros., going for walks etc...and I even got to see an old friend of mine that we once shared a house with way back in Fredericton. She's as crazy fun as ever, we had such a good time staying up way past our bedtime! Well that's the nutshell version of my summer so far! I've also been busy trying to get our health and nutrition in line so we all can feel better and have more energy and have been blogging about that on a different blog.

But the thing that's been on mind the most lately is relationships, you know, love and marriage stuff. In three days it will be our 15th anniversary. In one way it feels like some kind of accomplishment, in another way it seems that I've only just begun to get a glimpse of what unity in marriage really is. (And when I say 'marriage' I'm not talking about a legal contract or technicalities, I'm talking a true union of love, though we do happen to be legally married haha, can of worms now opened.)

Sometimes I feel almost as girlishly emotional and idealistic as I did at 18 walking down the aisle barefoot in my vintage dress, wreath of wildflower on my head. I still want to be loved and treasured far above any other woman by the same man, still dream of him being intoxicated by my beauty. I still daydream about him, and still get tingly at the thought of his touch.

Most days my main goal is to get him to myself for a few moments at the end of the day, not always an easy task with 4 kids to take care of. When I cook or clean, it's with him in mind, though I certainly am not the best housekeeper! When I wash dark clothes I put in lots of his socks because he hates it when he runs out of socks for work, and socks, or laundry in general, are not my strong point (I have a huge overflowing basket of unmatched socks ALWAYS). No matter what I'm thinking about, he's going to hear about it. We can still talk each other's ears off whether about our run-of-the-mill day or intense theological debates. We can still get on each other's nerves regularly, and we can still make the other cry though thankfully we don't fight as much as we used to!

Aaron is my best friend in the world. I can't imagine anything without him. He's the only man I've ever been with, the only man I need to be with. No one can make me feel as terrible as he can if he wants to (or unintentionally) but no one can make me feel so happy and loved either. I don't know if there are many people in today's world willing to risk the former in order to experience the latter, but I think many people are missing out on something amazing. We are one, we are so different but we are truly one. So many flaws in both of us, and we know each other's flaws very well. As we get older I think and hope we are learning to protect each other's weaknesses instead of selfishly exploit them or criticize them.

Coming into grace has been wonderful, really wonderful. I would go so far to say that it saved our marriage, getting out of legalistic religion. But, grace didn't make us perfect. We deal with many of the same issues we always have, maybe always will. But when we know that God loves us because he loves us, we can love each other 'just because'. Loving someone feels good, it is good. Of course it hurts sometimes, but it's worth it, I swear.

I write all of this even while being dissatisfied with some things, wanting more and yet, all the rest is still true. When will we make peace with the imperfection of our flesh? See it as so temporary, as so insignificant? The irony lies in the fact that until we believe we're ok exactly the way we are, in Christ, we will continue to fight an impossible uphill battle toward growth and maturity and change. We can only change when we know we are loved exactly as we are even if we never change, because then we are freed from shame and fear and feelings of unworthiness and we are able to truly love back.



So I hope you know, Aaron , that I think you're the sexiest man on the planet and  I love you more than ever, you're the only one for me.  Thanks for being with me for so long and hope you stick with me much longer.  Happy Anniversary!

Any Songwriters Out There?

Now that I'm no longer pregnant I don't hate music anymore I'll will probably get back into song writing. I was wondering if any other of you gracers do any song writing and might be interested in some kind of online get together where people could share their stuff and get feedback, suggestions, critiques of song structure as well as lyrical content. I myself mainly do worship stuff but any style or type would be fine, just thinking there needs to be more songs full of grace and truth! Let me know, I think it could be fun...

New Arrival...

I'm a little late posting this, but I've been a little busy! Things are starting to settle down a bit, or at least it seems like it, so here is the official announcement:

Amilia Gloriana was born at 12:42 am November 4, 2009 weighing 8 lbs 12 oz 21 inches long.

That's my biggest baby by close to a pound! I made Aaron nervous during delivery, he said he's never seen me in so much pain. I say he's seen me in as much pain 3 times before, he's just never heard me in so much pain haha. Anyway, apart from the pain everything went well and I'm feeling better emotionally than any previous birth. I think that's because I got out all the craziness during delivery...

Anyway, here's a picture, there are more up on facebook of course!

Baby Names...

In case you haven't heard, we've found out that we're having a girl. I already knew that, but some people needed some sort of confirmation. Anyway, Aaron and I always have a hard time agreeing on names but I thought it would be fun to see what other people think. Not that it matters really! I like old fashioned names, and I do not like trendy or popular names. Feel free to use trendy and popular names for you own babies, but I just don't prefer them myself. I also don't like soap opera names, or names that have bad meanings. A name should have a good (or at least not bad) meaning either literally or through being a worthy namesake. The middle name will most likely be Glorianna (glorious grace) so it's the first name that's up for debate.

Here are some of my picks, they'll be roughly in order according to which ones I like most:


Alice (noble, also my grandfather's mother's name)

Margaret (pearl, also a name hated by Aaron and most of my family haha)

Felicity (happy, with possible nickname Lettie)

Wren (small brown song bird)

Charlotte (little, womanly, probably go by Lottie)

Adeline (nobility)

Priscilla (ancient, famous woman I'm thankful shows up in NT, probably go by Cilla)

Sage (wise, healthy)

Agatha, Agnes (good, pure, probably go by Aggie)



Well, there are a few...we'll probably have a little list with us when she's born to see who she looks like!

New Developments on Voice of Grace

There are a few changes happening around here. Two new writers will be joining me on the blog, which is great news for everyone! For me, it means more frequent posting without any extra work, for you it means more grace writings to read. This is going to especially great for me since my writing will be decreasing during pregnancy and life with a new baby in the family.


So without further ado, I am excited to announce that my husband Aaron Morris and our very good friend Bertie Brits . will be joining me on the blog.

I'm not sure how often Aaron will be writing but he's been talking about doing this for quite awhile now. I'll be putting up Bertie's first post shortly...looking forward to seeing what God does with all this! Hope you all enjoy the new additions!

Glory and Grace 2009...Here Goes

Wow, a little nervous to be my honest self, seems like I'm too radical for even some of my grace friends! I feel over the past few days the enemy is coming at me from many different angles, and unexpected ones, to make me feel very alone and even tempting me to be apologetic for my passion for the gospel. This is not to say that there aren't some faults on my part for how I can often come barreling into people with too much at the wrong time and knock them over before they know what hits them! I don't ever want to lose the passion, intensity, and boldness that I believe God loves about me, but I would like my love and compassion to become more obvious to people, if you know what I mean. Some days we have to be content knowing God loves us whether other people do or not.

K, so none of that has to do with Hong Kong really. I don't know where to start. The trip was long, I think I already mentioned that. So, the first thing of note I guess was that I got to visit with Ryan and Kylie for an afternoon before the conference started, and it was so exciting to see the stacks of Ryan's freshly printed books! This is one new ministry that has me really excited, Ryan's vision to start making more grace resources available by publishing and distributing books and worship music. AMEN!!!!!Thank-you Jesus!!!!

The next thing of note is that when I went to meet Lydia at the airport we somehow missed each other so after a few hours I finally went back to my room and there she was! I was so proud of her for finding her own way, believe me, she must have had guardian angels. Having Lydia bunking with me was definately a major highlight of the trip, we've never gotten to spend so much time together, uninterrupted especially! And the girl is oozing the joy of glorious grace, and FREEDOM! We had some amazing fellowship, though I think we stayed up too late most nights. Also if you want to see pictures, head over to her blog, she's got quite a few up or to City Church's facebook group page, hundreds more there.

The conference started the next morning on Wednesday, and opened with Rob furiously preaching the gospel (after a couple of worship songs and an opening of the conference by a Chinese family from City Church). It was classic Rob grace preaching, doesn't get any better than that! The second session was Rob continuing in the same vein to lay the foundation for the conference. We had the afternoon off and mainly we rested and ate. Unfortunately we really didn't do any sight seeing except for an afternoon down at the waterfront with a ferry ride. Poor Lydia! But she claims she didn't mind...

The evening session was Joshua Mills I believe. He was sharing some testimonies and stopping every so often to pray for certain people in the crowd, Fini and Isi were among the first, he actually came out with their full street address though he didn't know them! He healed some, and came walking through the hall showing us the oil that was coming on his hands. A lady in front of us got some off his hands and let us smell it, it had a strange smell (some said like vanilla, others said other things) I think that was also the same night we were smelling other good smells all night.

Josh is very pleasant and joyful and I really like seeing people get healed and hearing testimonies so I found it all enjoyable. I personally didn't find he showed much of an understanding of the difference between Old Covenant Glory and New, though he began to talk about it a little more later on. He seemed to know the Old Testament very well but rarely if ever used New Testament. I was very glad that he was able to hear Rob preach the gospel and hope that God will use the experience to strengthen the foundations of his ministry even more, and that even more signs and wonders and miracles and salvations will come as he begins to see Jesus more and more as the glory cloud we now live in!

Some people were not bothered by any of this at all, but I found myself leaving not feeling satisfied, as I've begun to notice is what always has happened to me in the past when my focus is on experiencing some amazing thing. I found that being at the conference dredged up some old stuff that I've always had issues with in charismatic settings. Rob had talked a bit in the beginning something about not hindering what God wants to do, something in regards to manifestations or being self-conscious, I don't really remember exactly. This really really distracted me, probably in large part due to my history of interactions with charismatic ministy times in the past, having been criticized and judged for not falling or acting weird enough. I guess the assumption is that if nothing weird appears to be happening to your body then you are not free and must be resisting the Holy Spirit's work in your life. This has always left me feeling confused, self-conscious, and condemned. I want to state clearly that I KNOW this was not Rob's intention, and it is clear how much he loves people and just wants them to be free. Nevertheless, I ended up in the bathroom stall crying my eyes out to God during worship of the first session on Thursday morning.

Ahhh, God is good. Of course he spoke to me and loved me and comforted me. He is so happy with where we are in our relationship right now, and this may sound weird but he said he is not a rapist. He will never push me to expressions of love which are beyond where we are in our relationship, he will never treat me like a prostitute. He showed me that my intimacy with my husband has grown and evolved the longer we are together and the more we trust one another, but if it had been forced on me it would not have been love. The main purpose of experiences with him is to bless me, not to impress anyone or please him. It pleases him to please me, and he KNOWS me, really KNOWS me and knows exactly what I need, want, and enjoy. I don't know if I'm explaining this right, but after this I was much better and able to be much less distracted and worried about what people were thinking of me. After all, I just wanted to be able to freely enjoy God and his presence!

So the sessions, the order ect..I'm fuzzy on a bit. I'm sure there will be much more detailed accounts (and possibly at least some recordings) coming soon from others anyway. I know Fini spoke on ministering out of rest, out of God's presence and how church is just meaningless when God's presence isn't there. So true! His main text was come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. One of my favorite verses of all time! Fini seems very laid back and pretty happy, two qualities I always appreciate, of course he's still passionate in worship, I particulary remember one point where he started kicking up his legs dancing, it was quite funny!

Thursday night was probably my favorite night. Annaline (I think that's right) led worship doing lots of great songs with amazing words and then Rob preached and led ministry time, part of which involved getting those who knew they were lightening conductors that night to come forward and get extra-charged then go back into the crowd. We all held hands and Ursula, of course a lightening conductor, ended up miraculously right next to us though she had been way up in front originally. She didn't even know at first because she didn't have her glasses on. Anyway, Lydia and I were laughing hysterically, I was crying I was laughing so hard and Lydia was in a heap on the floor half the time. She kept trying to get up though, she was a little nervous of getting hurt down there, probably with good reason haha! Anyway, it was just fun and a delicious manifest presence of God with us.

Then Rob called down pastors/leaders and wives, at which point Ursula told me to go down so I did. The City Church ministry team was wonderful, so gentle and loving and of course powerful in ministry. The atmosphere became so quiet, peaceful and full of God love and Rob became this totally gentle father to us. I'm still blown away by him, and how much we love him without having to idolize him. Don't know if that makes sense, it's just that since coming into grace I love how I can love and respect and honor people without putting them on a pedestal or having to agree with them 100%. I think it's so freeing. We can let people be people and love them and realize we're all different and that's good for us!

Also, backing up a bit, Thursday afternoon we got to spend with some of the people from Grace Revolution, which was another major highlight. Ryan came with us, and we got to meet Wayne Duncan, Tony Yu, and many others. Meeting Wayno was not dissappointing! He and Ryan were mocking our supposed accents a bit though, talk about pots calling kettles black! They can't even distinguish between 'pill' 'pole' 'pull' etc...all just sounds the same, we had the same issue with Bertie, but in grace we overlook such things.

I guess I'll continue this in another post since it seems to be getting long! There will probably actually be two more posts, one to finish telling about the conference and time we got to spend with Urs, and another to sum up what I took away from the whole thing.

Reporting From Hong Kong...

I am seriously behind on keeping the blog up to date on relevant news. I have a few rather big announcements actually, and one is that I'll be attending the Glory and Grace conference '09 in Hong Kong! I'm actually already here and the conference starts tomorrow, I'll be meeting Lydia at the airport tonight and we'll be staying together in our somewhat flashy hostel, which God graciously allowed our room to be upgraded (believe me, this is a big blessing, I should have taken a picture of the room I stayed in the first night!). I've already gotten a chance to visit with Ryan and Kylie as well, and now have in my possession two autographed copies of Ryan's freshly printed books! So exciting, I believe they'll be putting up an online bookstore before long and plan on making more and more grace materials available, something that's very close to my heart as well. Finally, I'll have someone to send my manuscripts to haha!

So I left on this journey last Wednesday afternoon, taking the kids with me to drive down to NJ where I flew out from. The 12 hours of driving took me closer to 25 or so, do to the fact that I was very tired, probably having to do with the fact that Bertie had been staying with us up until Tuesday, and he kept us up half the night telling us crazy stories and sharing great revelations of grace (he might argue that we talked more than him but don't believe it). Seriously, I think we have entered into a lifetime friendship and partnership in grace and it was extremely encouraging, and very timely. I'm definitely going to be spoiled this month!

Oh, and back to another reason why the driving part of the trip took me so long. You see, when I'm pregnant I feel much sicker when I don't get enough sleep. So for those of you who don't already know, yes, number four is on the way. And NO, this was not planned by us and I was in quite a state of shock for a couple of weeks. On the positive side, I began getting sick while Bertie was visiting and one morning was on the couch feeling like I had the stomach flu (having already emptied my stomach 3 times) unable to move, which is typically how I spend all nine months of pregnancy day and night with varying degrees of nausea. Bertie prayed for me and I immediately felt much better and have not since been that sick. In fact, a few days later I woke up in a hotel and went downstairs and ate breakfast like a normal person. That my friends, is a miracle, believe me.

So, I should be able to post a little while I'm here if I find time. I'll probably be pretty busy once the conference gets going though!

Bertie Brits in Moncton!!!

So I already mentioned this a while back, but here are the details...

Bertie will be preaching on two night, Friday March 6 at 7:30 and Saturday March 7 at 7:30. The meetings will be held at 1212 Mountain Rd. Moncton, at Water and Wine Assembly who have graciously allowed us to use their building for free. Bertie is also coming at absolutely no expense to us so we'll probably have an opportunity to give for anyone who would like to support Bertie and his ministry. If you're not familiar with Bertie, he is a wonderful and powerful grace preacher who preaches the gospel boldly with signs and wonder following! You can visit his website, Dynamic Love Ministries, to read testimonies, bio, or hear his teaching.

You don't want to miss this if you live anywhere near Moncton! If you or anyone you know is sick, injured, or depressed, please come ready to experience the real and dynamic love of God, it will change your life. If you are on Facebook, you can visit our events page, Bertie Brits in Moncton, and let us know you're coming. For all of you who sadly live too far away, pray for us, pray that people get revelation of the glorious gospel of grace and get SET FREE!!!!!

Great Preaching!!!

I know I've already plugged Bertie Brits, but I'm watching the grace channel right now and it's AMAZING! You have to get listening, you will be so blessed and I promise you will experience God's love. He is preaching the true, one and only, GOSPEL!

And by the way, for those of you anywhere near Moncton (or not), we just found out that Bertie will be coming here in early March. Stay tuned for more details! I'm am SO excited! God's plans are so much bigger and better than ours...not to mention he gets things done much quicker than we ever dream!

The Reason For Being So Quiet...

Well, Aaron and I just got back from a flying trip to Delaware for his grandmother's funeral. Our computer has been broken for about a week now, so I don't know when I'll be able to get computer time. Just wanted everyone to know and not be offended if I'm not answering comments or email.

The time with Aaron's family went well and we had a good time seeing everyone despite the sad moments. God was faithful to manifest his presence and we were able to bring encouragement, love, and lots of hugs. We even got to lay hands on one of his cousins for healing, he broke his back a few months ago and still suffers from nerve damage and pain but he's walking with cane and is recovering beyond expectation. So everybody pray for Bil (who is not a Christian) , especially that God would reveal himself to him in many clear ways!

Well, I'm in a hurry so I have to get going! I hope everyone is enjoying the weeks leading up to the holidays!

New Covenant Grace Church, new link

I've finally just set up, I think for real this time, a website for our church. It's just a blog and it's not finished or anything but at least I'll fix the long broken link on my side bar! We weren't able to figure out how to keep paying for the website we set up as it was linked to a U.S. account and we're now in Canada. Anyway, here's the link:

New Covenent Grace Church

I'm Writing a Book

It'll basically be my testimony of what it's like to live under the law and how much better it is to live in grace! So please pray for me as I try to discern what's important to include and what isn't. I've got 3 rough chapters so far, but I don't think this will be a very long book.

If anyone has any suggestions or advice, feel free to let me know. I may post some of what I'm writing here from time to time as well. Don't worry Lydia, I won't be publishing any of my love letters to Aaron hehehe.

Hong Kong Trip Part 3

I just posted the conclusion to the story of our trip to City Church International in Hong Kong over at the Rob Rufus blog, so I'm putting it up over here too, mostly just so it's here in my life journal...


Ok, I'm seriously late in posting this, but in my defense we've moved and had my sister's wedding so we've been a little busy. I left off just before the final meeting on Monday night with the Mills and Kaye Beyer.

We had a great worship time again, similar to Sunday night, and then Kaye got up to basically share her testimony. Her husband had died just 6 months before, and they had been in ministry together for something like 40 years, which is amazing! Some people had a difficult time hearing her as she was somewhat quiet and not at all dramatic, but this was one of my favorite parts of the conference. I love hearing testimonies and grew up reading biographies of famous men and women of God. She passed around some pictures of miraculous manifestations (such as some money with a note from God to her grand daughter on it) and was also wearing a huge ring with a beautiful green stone in it that God dropped at her feet. It was very sparkly, and green being my favorite colour I believe he should give me one too (though I'd probably have it set in a crown instead).

She shared about the joy that comes from knowing God in the midst of difficult times, and at the end invited people who lacked joy to come for prayer. She looked a bit shocked when nearly everyone came forward! . .(A lady sitting next to us from the church explained that depression is a serious problem in Hong Kong...) There were only a few of us still sitting in our seats, and soon we were busy moving chairs out of the way as many started falling to the floor. Kaye and Janet Mills moved around the room praying and laying hands on people in such a quiet and gently manner it was rather surprising the violent effects of their ministry! Josh was still manning the keyboard and singing, and we were happily taking it all in.

When Rob recovered and got up off the floor hehe, he started calling certain visiting people forward to be prayed for. He called some people from a church in China (I think?) up, and then he called us up. Janet was excited that we were church planting in Canada, asked us where and she answered that the Maritimes need churches. Neither Aaron or I remember another word she or Kaye said after that! She then very gently placed her hands on Aaron's face and he was out like a light, then she put her hands on my face and it was so glorious, God's loving joyful presence just wrapped me in light. I didn't fall or anything, I think was struggling to remain standing because I didn't want Janet to stop! Ahhh, but she did...

And then Rob was dealing with something demonic in someone and I was glad I didn't miss it. I had noticed earlier that someone was struggling with a demonic issue and hoped it would get dealt with, so I was intrigued to be able to be up close to see how Rob handled it. I always pay close attention whenever I'm close to someone experienced in casting out demons, which unfortunately doesn't happen very often. This is one area of ministry I'm dying to jump into more, and one thing I really have more than enough faith to make up for the lack of experience.

That night we stayed at the YWCA where the church met, and the next day a lady (Marika)from the church picked us up and drove us to nicer accommodations that she and her husband had arranged. She was so kind and generous and gave us lots of information about the city. That night we had quite an adventure getting lost with a taxi driver who spoke no English, due in large part to us being hungry at midnight for a real meal for most of the time we were there, 12 hour time difference! I think I won't get into that! Suffice it to say, God got us back to our room!

So Tuesday and Wednesday of our trip involved sightseeing and lots of walking. The weather was great, we went to the Peak (where we waved to the Mills and Kaye Beyer out the tram window!) and got to see all the great views. And we did lots of wandering around the shops and ate mysterious Chinese food.

On Thursday Marika picked us up again and took us over to the Rufus' house where we chatted with Rob and Glenda and then ate together with a few people from the worship team who were there early for the prayer meeting that night. The prayer meeting was really great and intense...and loud! There were lots of prophetic words and testimonies, and Rob asked Aaron and I to share a couple of things we'd shared with him as well, just some encouragement God had given us for the church. We got to meet even more people that night and everyone was so easy to talk to. If we weren't so obviously called to be planting a church here in Canada, I think it would be extremely tempting to move to Hong Kong! We then went back to Ryan and Kylie's house for the night as we were flying out early the next morning. We stayed up talking again, and the next morning as we stood by the taxi about to get in , I felt such a wave of sadness wash over me. I already missed them!

One little testimony here: We needed taxi money to get to the airport on Friday morning and I wasn't sure how much we'd need, I didn't think we had enough Hong Kong dollars left. We could have gone to a bank and gotten some more out but that would have been inconvenient and I didn't want to exchange more money than we needed, so I just asked God on Thursday to provide the money we needed. Well, at the prayer meeting, a lady from the church came up and slipped me some money, she said it should be enough for the taxi. Wow, God doesn't waste any time! As we were leaving, Rob and Glenda gave us money for the taxi as well, we told them we didn't need it anymore but they said to get a nice breakfast at the airport. It wasn't too long before Ryan and Kylie gave us some money for the taxi, also insisting we keep it when we told them we had more than enough! OK God, you've made your point, you're pretty generous, according to your riches in glory, not my need!

Anyway, we had a good flight back and safe trip home though it took me quite some time to readjust to the proper time zone. Thanks again to Dan for your faith and generosity and investing in kingdom building in Canada!

What's Going On???

I recently realized it's been pretty quiet on my blog, mostly because it's been anything but quiet in the real world! If you remember my post a little while back about needing a house (Invading the Impossible: Buying a House)you'll know this is a real answer to prayer. We moved into our new house 3 weeks ago, and it all happened pretty fast! I've posted some picture on facebook if you'd like to see them.

Then both my sister's were home visiting and we all went to Cape Breton for the weekend for my sister Kelly's wedding. Later that week we had a reception for the rest of the family and friends who didn't go to the wedding, for which I made about 80 cupcakes and a small cake. And last Saturday we had our first church meeting in our new house! We had two new families visit (with 10 kids between the two of them!) and 3 other couples we're friends with visit as well, so it was a full house! We all brought food, the kids ran around outside and had a great time, we worshipped, Aaron shared about not calling what God calls clean unclean... We had a great time. ">

Not exactly sure what Aaron was doing with his thumbs... We've also added 2 silkie chickens and 2 kittens to our family. Anyway, that's a very brief summary of what's been going on! It's so exciting to have a home and be able to fill it with people, God is so generous.

Hong Kong Trip Part 2...

Here's what I posted over at the Rob Rufus Blog:

Well, I think I left off on the afternoon of Sunday...before the evening meeting with Joshua Mills...
Sunday night started out with woship, being led by Bonnie Rufus and a whole bunch of other worshippers from CCI. We sang many simple songs about the glory of God, including "The Glory Realm" by Ruth Heflin. It was very very good. I know, that's not very descriptive! The worship time was both powerful and intimate, and the presence of God was obvious. Now my memory is getting fuzzy, uh-oh!

I believe Joshua got up and took over at the piano once we were really getting lost in worship, he was singing songs (I think probably both songs he's written as well as prophetic/spontaneous songs) but at that point I was not completely aware of anyone else. I was deeply engaged with Jesus, having many heavenly imaginations run through my mind, I say heavenly because they seemed to be of me in heaven with Jesus. Sometimes words that Josh was singing would kind of float in and influence the direction of my thoughts. It was probably one of the more intimate experiences with God I've had in a corporate setting.

He also called out several words about people being healed of specific things, a couple of them we heard testimony of later that week at the prayer meeting. Then he spent some time teaching us about the glory realm. This was not preaching, but more a gentle but authoritative sharing of truth,wisdom, and God's word by the Spirit. More than anything, I would say it was extremely faith building, something of an impartation. He shared several amazing personal testimonies as well, including some of teleporting, but I'm not going to re-tell them here, you should listen yourself-- you won't be bored! He also took an offering of sorts and really blessed the church with the money, refusing to allow CCI to give any of it to him.

We then went home with Ryan and Kylie and stayed up too late talking again! We spent the morning hanging out with their family (somewhere along the line Aaron got his first taste of Veggiemite, which he wasn't exactly impressed with). I don't think there's any way to adequately describe how much we enjoyed getting to know Ryan and Kylie and their girls. Then Ryan dropped us off near a bank so we could exchange our money and wander around for a couple of hours. While in the bank, we saw Glenda and so we started chatting outside the bank. After a couple of minutes, Rob turned up and joined in.

We then started walking together to the point where we were going to part ways, and ended up standing in the street talking for probably 45 minutes. Finally, we left to look at a temple, and were taking pictures inside when Rob came in a couple of minutes later and asked if we'd like to eat lunch with him and Glenda. We graciously declined in favor of shopping-HAHAHA, I don't think so! We were of course thrilled and quite surprised! So we got to eat lunch with them, talking the ears off for another hour or two. This was definately one of the highlights of the whole trip for us, we got to share most of our testimony and thank them in person for making the message of grace available to so many people. And we talked about you too Dan! And shared some of Keith and Lydia's testimony as well, and probably some of you other people, you know who you are! All good things we said, don't worry.

All our friends want to know what Rob and Glenda are really like in person, so I guess I should give my impressions. I've given my impression of Glenda in the last post...so about Rob, he was less intense normally than when preaching hehe, which I think is for the best. They were very easy to talk with and very normal people, I think exactly what we would expect from listening to all the messages online. In other words, it would seem they are real people and don't bother faking it for church and ministry. I'm not sure of their impressions of us, but they seemed to like us well enough!

I don't think I mentioned this yet, but before we left, God kept telling me over and over 'they're going to love you' , meaning both me in particular and Aaron as well. That may sound strange, but in light of the fear of man problem I talked about, it was just God's kindness to me making sure I would thoroughly enjoy our time in Hong Kong and not be hindered from receiving all that God had for me there. Also, he kept showing me this glimpse of Rob laughing heartily at something I said, which I got to see in real life! I think I wrote on my own blog before leaving that I hoped they could handle me over there, it would seem that they can, and that makes me happy.

Anyway, Ryan had to hunt us down since we sort of forgot to meet him when we were supposed to...but he was very gracious about it.

Also, click HERE to see some pictures I put up on Facebook. Also, I'll put up a couple of video clips as soon as I can figure it out!

Next post, I'll continue with the evening meeting on Monday night with Joshua Mills and Kaye Beyer...

Our Trip to Hong Kong, Part 1

This is a slightly edited version of what I've posted over at the Rob Rufus Blog. I'll be posting on both blogs pretty much the same things with slight alterations where appropriate...


I guess we've held everyone in suspense long enough. Well, my husband Aaron and I just got back a few days ago from visiting City Church International in Hong Kong, and we're slowly recovering from the 12 hour time difference and an extremely long trip in a relatively short space of time.

Our trip began on the morning of April 17th, when we set out by car with our 3 children to drive south for about 14 hours.We met up with Aaron's parents in New Jersey and spent the night in a hotel there (on them) and set out from there without children for JFK airport in New York City. Everything went quite smoothly once we finally found a suitable place to park our car and we were flying out by late afternoon on a 16 hour flight over the icy north. We arrived on the following evening and after finally getting through customs/immigration and hunting down our luggage we headed out to be welcomed by Ryan Rufus, who had been waiting patiently. We all recognized each other right away, which was good haha, and then he drove us to their apartment where we stayed up talking with him and Kylie for a couple hours before getting some sleep.

We were at home right away, and fell in love with the Ryan and Kylie and their 3 beautiful daughters. It was such a great time being with people who have such a similar understanding of grace, and I guess it makes sense since we've been listening to MP3's from the website for more than a year and a half. We really felt like they were long lost friends, they were so easy to be with. They also have an amazing testimony of how God brought them out of legalistic religious control into the freedom of the Gospel of Grace! And I think Aaron appreciated Ryan's late night sugar stash as well...

In the morning we piled into the car with Kylie and the girls to head to church. It was so weird to walk into the room where they meet and start being introduced to people with familiar names and voices, having heard them pray, or give prophetic words, or sing, or testify at some point over the time we've been listening! I can honestly say we were just as excited to meet these people as anyone else, part of the reason we decided not to try for the Grace and Glory conference in Sydney. We were there for the prayer time before the service, and Glenda came over to welcome us just as prayer was starting.

I was not prepared for how beautiful she is in person! She's certainly pretty in pictures I've seen but in real life there is a dynamic godly beauty that I have always been taught to strive for in certain past legalistic contexts, but didn't actually exist there. I guess I've mostly seen weak counterfeits of this kind of beauty, the kind that leave you feeling condemned and ashamed of how far you are from the 'standard', so it was refreshing to meet a real woman, ha!, real women (yes, there are more of these lovely ladies in the church, they are not an exclusive elite set of superwomen!) living in the grace of God and glowing with the unfading glory of the New Covenant. It's funny what seemingly small things make big impressions on me!

During the prayer time, there were 2 prophetic words about canaries (I believe one is on the MP3 for that Sunday), which I only mention because we'd been telling Kylie the story of how my sister rescued a canary from the streets of Toronto a couple of years ago and still has him. It was a little amusing that canaries came up in the prayer time!

Rob came over and met us before things got started as well. To me, one of the most surprising things about the whole experience was my complete lack of fear or nervousness. Normally I would be shaky and sweaty at the thought of meeting so many new people, especially people I admire so much. In the past growing up in the church I always put men/women in leadership up on pedestals in some strange way, so I was encouraged that maybe finally I'm growing up, learning that there really really is no hierarchy in the church!

This really is a great answer to something I've been praying about for a long time, the fear of man I lived under for my whole life could be debilitating at times (a speech in school would have me crying for hours before or after, and I actually missed up to 40 school days a year during high school as I would make myself sick with worrying that my teachers hated me). Though God has been setting me free a little at a time over the past years, this message of grace has brought a freedom I didn't even know was possible. Strangely, I think this is one of the more significant things I'm walking away with from this whole experience. We even got up in front of the church to give a brief testimony of sorts, and I actually spoke a couple sentences as well, seriously, you can listen, my voice wasn't shaking, that's a miracle! But there's more!


(I like to call this "Rob Dylan")


Rob preached an amazing and intense prophetic message (There's a Flood of Glory Coming, transcribed by Dan over on the Rob Rufus Blog)complete with performance of a Bob Dylan song. We were sitting in the front row and it was almost too much for me at times, and I'm a pretty intense person myself. What I mean by too much is that I couldn't really take it all in at once, we still have to go back and listen to it again. So glad Dan transcribed it because I don't think I would even know where to begin with note taking! It was just so good to be there, though a bit like a dream, everything happened so fast. We got to meet a lot of great people afterward as well before heading back to Ryan and Kylie's.

TO BE CONTINUED....

To listen to the message click here and scroll down to April 13th

City Church International, Hong Kong !!!!!!!!!!!!

O.K., I've been sitting on this one for quite some time and I have to spill the beans now, with Dan's permission. We are leaving on Thursday for a very long trip, driving from Moncton to Newark NJ with our 3 kids (about 12 hrs driving),spending the night there with Aaron's parents who will be taking the kids to their place while we're gone, and then driving to JFK in New York City to fly out on Friday to arrive the following day in HONG KONG. That's right, I believe this will be my 3rd time on a plane... so you can see I haven't done much travelling, well, I've done a lot of driving!

Anyway, of course we'll be going to City Church International on Sunday morning, and Joshua and Janet Mills will be there on Sunday and Monday night. Then we'll hit a prayer meeting on Thursday night and have high hopes of getting to spend a little time with Rob and Glenda Rufus, and Ryan and Kylie Rufus, people who of course we've never met but have been listening to over the internet, talked to on the phone a little, and exchanged a few e-mails along the way. I hope they can handle me, ha! I'm hoping for many things actually!

If you recall I mentioned not too long ago that we don't really have any money so you're probably wondering how we can afford a trip like this. Maybe you're not wondering but I'm going to assume you are anyway. Well, we still don't , not to say God is not providing basics right now...Aaron's job is going well and sales are beginning to pick up, but we certainly don't have money for something like this!

So going back to the beginning, a few months ago Aaron and I had the following conversation (witnessed by my mother):

Julie: We haven't gone away without the kids for more than a few days since I was pregnant with Eva (our first child, now 7)

Aaron: Well we won't be going anywhere for a long time either

Julie: No, except Hong Kong

Aaron: We're not going to Hong Kong, we can't even afford a house. It's impossible (obviously in Aaron's defense he said this before the Invading the Impossible series...haha)

Julie: Well, you can stay here if you want but I'm going to Hong Kong this year.

Aaron: We don't have any money.

Julie: Well, I'm going into heaven and taking what I need, but I'm going this year whether you want to or not! ( notice the quiet gentle submissive spirit here, I said this very very impulsively without any thought whatsoever...)

Well, that's the general idea of how it happened anyway...Of course this was not a bad conversation, I can see how it might read as a fight or disagreement but it really wasn't. These conversations are not really unusual and neither of us thought much about it.

That night I couldn't sleep and I was annoyed and finally got up and went out to the computer to check my e-mail. To my great surprise, there was an e-mail from Dan (a very good friend of ours who we met through blogging, we've never actually met!) Now considering the timing of all this, I do not think this was a coincidence. Here's a bit of the e-mail:

...You may have noticed from the Rob Rufus website that the next "Glory and Grace Conference" has been announced! Alas, alas it is at the end of March and so far too soon for me to be able to make it.

Would you two be able to go for the week if it was not a question of money? Can you free up the time to make sure you are there?

This isn't to be a loan or anything like that. It's a gift. I want you to be at that conference so it can be your turn to receive the impartation of God's glory. I think it's essential beyond words for the spreading of the glory in Canada. You won't "owe" me anything ...

That is just a little bit of it. I sat and read and re-read that e-mail crying, I couldn't believe it! There was no hope of sleeping after that! It was the beginning of corresponding back and forth figuring out what God was doing in all of this. Obviously, we didn't go to Australia for the Grace and Glory Conference in the end of March. For various reasons, we felt God had other plans. Long story short, we're going to Hong Kong instead, in just a few days!!!

Dan has been such a blessing to us, not just because of money, but because he's forever sending us encouraging words and prophecies and we are so aware of his prayers for us. He is a true brother and we know some day we'll actually get to meet him! It will be an amazing meeting for sure. He is so gifted in writing and editing material in a way that makes it accessible to many many people, and making it all available for free, he is definitely a gift from God to the church worldwide. We're so excited to watch the transformation the grace message has and is making in his life, he's truly a bold preacher of the Gospel. Thank-you thank-you Dan for being such an expression of God's grace and blessing to us! Thank-you thank-you God for your amazing lavish goodness to us!

I'm pretty excited at this point. I'll be taking pictures and notes (or Aaron will) and be sharing everything when I get back, if I don't have computer access there. Make sure to keep an eye on the Rob Rufus Grace and Glory blog as well. In theory I'm a contributor there though I've never posted yet, but this time I'll have to!

Please keep us in your prayers for a safe trip and for us to embrace God's will in everything that will be happening. I don't know if that's the best way to word that, but I think you understand what I'm trying to say. I really feel that God has promised us some significant things in all this and I can't even imagine how glorious the fulfillment of those promises might be!

New Address for my Blog!

I'm getting ready to change my blog address from julnbde, which seems kind of random, to voicegrace. I'll put the link here so you can bookmark it and there'll hopefully be no confusion when I change over. I've never done this before so we'll see how it goes...

Link:

Voice of Grace


Ahhh, I just figured out how to do a redirect so everything should be fine!

Invading the Impossible--Buying a House

We looked at 3 houses yesterday, none of which are "the one". It's funny because there's no earthly way we could get a mortgage right now, or for quite some time having 0 savings left and no credit in Canada, and not a long enough job history here.

There's a book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" that Aaron got for Christmas one year which talks about two different mindsets that directly influence whether we'll be prosperous or not in this world, not a spiritually minded book in the least, but lately God has been bringing that phrase to my mind. Do I live like my Dad is rich or poor? I grew up with a poor mentality, when I was young we often had very little money for food and people would drop of food on our doorstep many times just when we needed it. God always provided, and it was great to live that way in one way, but my mentality both with my parents and with God was to only ask for the least amount possible, what I really needed and nothing more. Now God is reminding me that not only is he rich, but he's very generous and really enjoys lavishing good gifts on his children, just like any loving parent does!

So anyway, while driving away from the last house we saw, which was very low in price and pretty much unlivable, God spoke to me that the elders should be given to hospitality. And that is really on our hearts and it's killing us not being able to have our own place to have people in for meals and really get to know them. But he then said if hospitality is so important to him, then we should ask him to be hospitable to us first so we can be hospitable to others. In other words, we need him to give us a home first, BUT WE NEED TO ASK. I think as far as requirements that God has in order for us to receive from him, this is a pretty simple one. We just need to ask. It's that easy, because the work is finished, in Jesus we already qualify for every blessing!

The temptation all along has been to feel we should 'settle' for a place that is not ideal for what we need it for and also to settle for a place that looks more practical but is not the home we would really like. But when I got home again, God told me to look for my farmhouse. This is something I had given up hoping for because I thought it was impossible and not practical and I didn't 'need' it. So I looked, and I found the perfect place. We've been looking at houses on the internet for months but hadn't seen this one because we weren't looking in that area. It's a very good price (less that 2 we looked at yesterday) under 90,000 with 5 bedrooms and 50 acres of land backing onto a small river. Anyone who knows me can imagine how much I would love this! So now we just need the money, such a small matter haha! I told Aaron last night that when I looked at the pictures it was the first time I really felt faith rising up in me to believe it's possible, and of course it is! There are other impossible things happening right now and I'll share them a little bit later, so stay tuned...

Winter Wonderland?

So far I haven't really alluded to the crazy 'old fashioned' Canadian winter we're having our first year back. The kids are definately being initiated into Canadianhood very quickly! I've lost track of how many snow storms and snow days (school canceled) we've had so far... Here are a few pictures: