It would seem I know many much people

This has been a good weekend, week, couple of weeks. Yes, a good couple of weeks indeed.

So I haven't posted anything about my job...yet. I am the full time receptionist at an engineering consulting firm, downtown. It's pretty good, lots of things to learn and HUGE shoes to fill from the girl that worked there before me. I'm sure it'll all come together, but while we're on the topic you could definitely pray for God's patience, grace, and love to be evident in my life to my coworkers. Thanks friends. :)

I got all my marks back, and I am now officially finished-work placement and all. I even passed accounting (albeit with a lower mark than I would have liked). I survived, and the only thing left is the graduation ceremony. Last week (or sometime therein) I got an invitation to an awards night for next Thursday, May 8! I'm receiving the Nicole Burgoin Memorial Award for..."demonstrating top speed and accuracy in keyboarding" and showing "initiative, expressing oneself well in writing, and excellent analytical skills". Pretty awesome! So yeah, that's this week. So exciting, so many cool things happening! :)

Excalibur was AMAZING. I couldn't have asked for a greater group of volunteers. Everything was finished ahead of schedule, and without the stress of previous years-when there was less pressure due to time constraints. It was just a really great group of people to work with and I'm so thankful. Also, good God things happened ...

A woman who attended the conference came to our church on Sunday morning, which was pretty cool, and we as a church had an amazing opportunity to share the love of God with her. Before the sermon, our pastor asked if anyone had something to share that they learned from God, cool experiences, etc., from the conference. This woman got up and briefly shared a VERY powerful lesson God taught her and a conviction to go along with it. In front of 250 strangers she asked for prayer to make a very difficult (but what she felt to be God's will) decision. The coolest thing happened: our pastor didn't just pat her on the shoulder and say "it'll all work out", instead one of our ladies immediately prayed for this woman, and throughout the service's worship time a number of different people went up and shared God's truth and love to this perfect stranger. I'm praying she shows up tomorrow and that God has given her the strength to make it through this week. It was SO cool to see God's people acting out the very words he has written for us...

"14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

She wasn't without clothes or food, but she was definitely needing love and encouragement from brothers and sisters, and that's what she got. We didn't pat her on the head and say "we'll pray for you", as is SO customary in Christian circles. Ridiculous (the 'pat-on-the-head' syndrome).

I don't tell you this story to say my church is great (even though it's pretty awesome), I write this to encourage believers to live out the faith, to encourage people that there ARE Christians who love, to never forget what happens when God's people act out of love.

Along with those last 4 paragraphs goes the fact I've been reading an AMAZING book by Mike Pilavachi, titled "When Necessary Use Words: Changing Lives Through Worship, Justice and Evangelism". The entire book surrounds the verses I quoted above, that we can't just wish people well. Nor can we feed them Scripture, without acts of kindness and love out of genuine compassion for their well-being. "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care", the same quote could be used to say that people don't care WHAT (ie. God, the gift of salvation) you know, until you show them God's love through your actions.

So passionate about these things right now... God has been teaching me and reinforcing things I've been learning again and again, and again, and again. It's amazing.

phew.

On a lighter topic, I spent much of this weekend with the girls from Sanctuary-minus Bethany (a Saturday morning Bible study with a group of amazing women). Last night we went to the Freeway coffeehouse in downtown to listen to a couple bands and it was awesome. Finally I'm getting to the blog title...knowing many people. We were at the coffeehouse when I saw a few people from church and thought 'hey, that's cool'. Then as we were sitting there, I saw a guy I thought I recognized from the ELC conference last weekend, Dave from Burlington. Let me set the scene:

(group of us sitting at a table, chatting)

Niki: I think I recognize that guy... oh, but I dunno. It's probably not him, besides we only talked for a couple hours, I'm sure he wouldn't recognize me.

(I get up out of my chair a couple times and sit back down, thinking it would be ridiculous to say hello to a near perfect stranger)

Someone: Well, go say hello then.

Niki: I, uh, guess. Okay... um, (walk a few feet, run back) I'm sure I don't know him.

Lauren: You probably do...

Niki: (deep breath) Ok, I'll see.

(walking towards him)

Niki: umm, (raised eyebrows) Dave? I uh

Dave: HEEEEY!

Niki: ...yeah, uh, ELC?

Dave: Yeah, totally! Woah, what are you doing here??

Yeah, so we chatted for a bit (he remembered me, yay!). And as we're wrapping up our conversation he tells me he's working for Muskoka Woods so I ask do you know "Marcus __?" (who, by the way, I met 3 1/2 years ago when I was working at camp when he was on a missions trip called Outtatown from Manitoba, on his way to South Africa). Dave says "no, I don't-BUT! His brother Jon is here, 'hey Jon!'". Complete ridiculousness. As if that wasn't all weird enough, when Dave and I were talking at ELC last Friday we discovered we knew a bunch of the same people, because he went to Trinity in BC ... and we knew people from different camps and such. Seriously, so weird.

Then today (long blog post, I know), the girls and I did "Doors Open Hamilton", a cool province wide initiative where a bunch of stuff is free for people to explore, like historical sites and the like. Anyway, I kept seeing people I knew in downtown. I mean really, I'm relatively new to this area and it seems wherever I go, I find people I know. Just randomly. I either have a very good memory and remember people I've only met once or twice, or I talk too much.

Anyways, this is getting really long and I have stuff I was going to work on tonight, yet. Hopefully pictures from DOH will come later (*cough* Lauren/Amanda/Laurie *cough*)

much ♥

niki