Thailand Update

North Thailand

Hey All,

Things have all come together for the Thailand trip.  Praise the Lord!  Thanks so much for your support financially and spiritually as I seek to further God’s kingdom in the next short-term mission.

I just got my fairly detailed itinerary yesterday and wanted to share it with you guys as I will most likely be out of contact for most of my time in Thailand.  We will be moving around a lot!  I am not planning on bringing my computer as it would too easily get in the way of moving around the country with ease.  But I will contact and update this page in the appropriate times.

Below is the schedule.  It is subject to change drastically as missions trip always are:

May 1-Arrive in Bangkok & stay in BKK

May 2-BKK city tour-9am-5pm

May 2 & 3-Travel to North Thailand via Train (Sleeper-15 hours & $30 per person) & Van (5 hours & $50 per day w/driver + gas)

May 4-7-Annual MB Family Camp (May 5 & 6) . . .Be ready to serve in children’s ministry w/aprrox. 50 children ages 6-15 (Davis’ will send more specifics)

May 8 & 9-Visit Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand & Laos) + Ministry in Khmu Villages

May 10-Fly from Chiang Rai to Bangkok . . .I can book tickets but I would need you to send passport names + money ASAP . . .tickets are approx. $75 per person.

May 11-18

-TLC, Bethel (Dave & Louise’s Church) & Angsila Church visits & ministry

-VBS @ Slum community (May 14-17)

-Goodbye Pizza & Pop Party @ ALH orphanage (May 17)

-& Much Much More!!

I hope that gives you guys an idea of what will be happening.  Now all that is left is finishing my last course at CBC, buying some malaria pills, moving out, and doing two days training for the thailand trip in the states… then I’m off!

Pray for:

God’s Kingdom to be advanced, Health, Travel, Team Unity, Spiritual/Mental/Physical protection.

Blessings,

Jon

Thailand on the Horizon

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Life has been continuing on here at Columbia Bible College.  I have been finishing up my fourth (or sixth depending on how to count it) year and looking to the next stage of life.  I hope to have a season of working, doing music, and being involved in the local church.

As I’m coming to the end of my time I have been encouraged by my own passion, my peace in prayers, and by some of the leaders here at CBC to go on the schools missions trip to Thailand at the end of the year.  I’m not sure what the Lord would have of me on this trip, but through prayer and community support I hope to follow up on this call.  One of my professors decided randomly that he wanted to meet with me and encourage me. I don’t know him all that well, but one thing he sensed as he was praying for me the weeks before was that the Lord desired me to go on one last cross-cultural mission experience before I begin my ministry here in the Lower Mainland.  Little did he know that I had just been asked by one of the leaders of the trip to come and help him with the trip to Thailand the day before.  Now it may sound like they had some kinda secret plan to get Jon on mission with their CBC team, but it is not.  The professor didn’t even know of the the trip to Thailand.  haha! Through prayer and the sense of peace that has been given I have continued to follow up and began taking the steps to going.

The Lord has provided my deposit already!  I have no money but am looking forward to seeing how God will bring it.  If he wants me there he will provide!  I am continuing to pray and rally up some people for the financial and spiritual support for going.

It will be a short-term mission for 3 weeks to Chonburi (I think that is how it is spelled) to support MB missions full time missionaries that have been there for over a decade.  They have been planting a church, running break dancing programs, and running english teaching schools the past years and we get the privilege of coming alongside them at the hottest time of the year to help out (apparently Thailand heat is unbearable).

The cost of the trip with flight included is around 2600 dollars.  We hope to fund raise some of that cost as a team together, but some of it (around 1200-1500) will be personal fund raising as well.  Let me know if you sense the Lord’s nudge to give finances or prayer support.  I have an account with MB Mission that can be given to online, through phone, or through mail-in and you will be given a tax receipt.  Send me and e-mail and we can figure out the best way or if you want more information or I can even show up to your house; I’d love that! Contact me at: jon@familyharris.ca

Blessings!

Jon Harris

 

 

Getting to the Heart of your Desires

What's in your heart?

It seems what is on my heart is how I have so much expectation in my time with the Lord.  I’ve made it this name “time with the Lord” that sure makes it inticing, but what does that really mean?  For I can read my bible and it not be time with the Lord.  I can write a whole bunch… I can sit in silence…  but where does the Lord come in?  The Lord does not want me to have my time with him anxiously expecting to receive a word quickly from him so I can move on with my day and check off my Jesus time box on my schedule.  It is a time to be filled.  It is a time to search the heart and see what its burdens are.  The Bible is good, but I am finding that it can more and more get in the way of actually wrestling through the condition of my heart.  I look to the Bible for correction and wisdom into God’s character…  but what of actually being filled with his Holy Spirit?  Am I really taking my time out to enjoy him and his characteristics that I have learned from the Bible?  Am I actually experiencing my relationship with God?  I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I know that I actually don’t connect best with people through studying them.  I connect best through experiencing life with them.  When we do together, then we have things to talk about.  If all I do is go to the person in hopes of fulfilling my duty, I have lost the big idea.  The big idea in the theme of the Bible…  God wants my heart.  He doesn’t want we to be some great leader, he doesn’t want me to be the best dad above all else, he doesn’t even want me to be the best Christian, but what he is deeply concerned about is what my heart desires.  Does my heart desire money?  God wants that desire…  Does my heart desire a spouse?  God wants that desire…  Does my heart hate?  God wants to heal that and redeem those energies given to hate to turn to energies used in love of himself and his people.

Big question Jon.  What does your heart desire right now?  Honestly…  What desires are not as they should be…  Let me explain why they shouldn’t be there… let me explain why they cause you anxiety…  Let me take your burdens that your desire may be for me and love of the kingdom.  I’ll take care of the rest.  Just ask me and it will be given.

So I pass on the question to you…  What does your heart desire?  What is the deepest desire of your heart?  If you could be given anything in your life right now?  Because if it is not God, he is jealous.  God wants that and will fight ferociously for it…  He has killed millions that his people may give their hearts to him.  He has even given up his own son, that you may know how great his love is…  But really examine yourself.  Let the Lord’s love take over any other desire that your heart may have for it is peanuts in comparison to his great love.  Something so great, yet so overlooked by our hearts is the fact that the God of the universe is willing to care for you…all of it…if you but turn your heart to him and walk with him in pursing his kingdom.

Back at it!

Hey all,

Just thought I would update anyone who is still looking in here to my life.

Things have been a-shiften, if you don’t mind me saying so in a funny manner.  I got home to not having the usual house that I stay at.  It was sold.  It has actually been a good thing.  A good motivator to get me going on from old places.  Though Tsawwassen has been my home for many years, it seems that my community there is hard to find.  I come home to find that relationships are not really re-entered, but rebuilt.  Some are lost, some are remaining.  Some are more distant.  Some are closer.  Some come out of nowhere.  Some cause joy.  Others bring back memories both good and bad.  It may seem like I’m saying some of this in a sad state, but that is not true.  It is just that feeling that many missionaries, and those that have moved a lot start to feel.  You enter what once was home, only to find that it is really just another missionary field to begin a new work.  It is like starting over in many senses.  Home, as so many have said in the past, is simply the place where you have community.  It is the place where you don’t have the constant anxiety of wondering who your friends are.  It is the place where you don’t have the constant anxiety of trying to have something good to tell others you are doing so you feel dignified in some weird way.  Home is where you have peace.  Thanks to the Lord and his Holy Spirit we are able to have peace anywhere.  Perhaps it is more fleeting in some places more than others, but the same God is everywhere.  His rules apply across the universe.

I was worshipping the other day and was blessed by peace.  It seems there is much to not be at peace about, but in the Lord’s presence I have found it.  It is sad that it lasts for such a short time, but all the more reason to go back to him and worship with all my heart.  It is where I have found my strength to remain. My strength of getting through those times where you soul just doesn’t want to be at peace. We must worship!  I have learned this the past year.  In all those times where I felt lonely or just out of passion, it was in worship that my bitterness once again was turned to thankfulness.  It is worship of him that we are made.  So it makes sense that if I am not worshipping him with all my heart in what I do that I start to go empty.  Just as a car does not run on air, my soul does not run off nothing.  But if I want to keep a heart on fire for the Lord it is going to take maintenance.  Not hard maintenance, but joyful, passionate, all-heart giving worship.

This has been some of what has been on my mind.  I hope I can encourage all out there who are empty in soul that the Lord does fill!  He will bring peace.  Perhaps it seems the farthest things from reality, but that it when seeing him come through will mean all the more.

A song that I keep on repeat right now is:  Love Came Down by Bryan Johnson.  I suggest it.  Not just once, but all day!

Blessings until next time.

Hadime Juniors Program

This is a video that was made from the 4 day Hadime Juniors program that we as a team put on in San Jose del Quince (a city just outside of Guadalajara).

1st collector for Hadime Juniors Program
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Ending off Well

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My time here is coming to a close.  It is interesting how fast it is coming.  I think now it is only 3 weeks.  I come back on the 13^th of June.  I still have 2 weeks of debrief left in Abbotsford.  It is an interesting feeling having to come to an end of knowing a bunch of people for seven months.  There is somewhat an ignorance of the ending time.  It is kind of like the ignorance of death.  We just keep going because what really can we do.  Do we sit and focus daily upon the fact we are going to die?  Hopefully not…  But the same with my time coming to and end.  Unlike death, I know the exact date it is coming.  I will be leaving and will have a whole bunch of awkward moments with people.  Some people I will never see again.  With some I may cross paths with again.  I say goodbye and then… do the awkward wait…  Usually it is followed by some comment that tries to cut through the awkwardness, but usually is just adds to it because it is not something you would ever normally say.  I think I am getting too good at this whole awkward goodbye thing.  Here is a little summary of my goodbyes:

I’ve had to do it first when I left Tsawwassen to do my year of the Quest program at CBC.  Then I had to do it at the end of quest.  Then I had to do it at the end of my Africa trip as well.  Then I went home for two months, then had to say goodbye because I was off to the Trek program.  Then after training for two months with a bunch, we had to say goodbye.  Then after my time in Germany I had to say goodbye being sure that I would never see many of them again.  Then, back for debrief to say goodbye for good to the other teams that were in other parts of the world.  Then is was back home for two month until I again left and said goodbye to go back to CBC.  Then half way through the year at CBC, I said goodbye to all and went to Jerusalem.  After four months I had to say goodbye to those in Jerusalem.  Then it was straight to Malibu without really seeing anyone at home.  Then after another 4 months at Malibu camp I had to say goodbye.  Then I spent the next 6 months between to worlds.  One working in Tsawwassen and the other in Ellensberg in which I would eventually say goodbye to both.  Then it was off to Toronto for training again.  I got to meet a big group of people but as well said goodbye with my team to Germany again.  After a month again in Germany seeing people I never thought I would have seen again, I had to say goodbye to all again.  I went back to Toronto to say goodbye for good to the other teams that were in other parts of the world.  Then it was back home for a small time until I said goodbye again to all and went off to do Trek for the second time.  Same goodbye thing happened after the first two months with all the other teams.  And now what is to come, but another goodbye after seven months of living in Mexico.

I don’t recount it to complain.  It id just interesting to look back at the past four years and think of all the people that I met and will never seen again if not in heaven.  Needless to say, I’m getting pretty experienced in this hello and goodbye thing.  It is kind of sad because I don’t really get sad anymore.

I continue to hold on to thanking the Lord for all that he has brought including this time in Mexico.  It has been a different life than I had expected, but looking back at the hard times and the good times it see his hand at work.

I’m looking forward to see all of you who are reading this once again.  I hope we can meet up soon enough.

Blessings to all

PS – the pictures are some of the thing that we have been doing (Ministry in other parts of Guadalajara, in other parts of Mexico, and our times spent here doing thing for the Matthew Centre.

Sheep and Goats

I was reading my bible today and this impacted me a lot.  Sometimes I get frustrated with serving and wonder why I continue to pursue a life focused upon seeking the Lord’s kingdom when everyone tells me we are all going to heaven if we say Jesus’ name in a prayer once.

The Sheep and the Goats

31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”