SFC Whistler Updates

Upgrade!!

2009-06-04T01:18:00.000-07:00

Ok so my buddy Matt is in the process of creating an awesome website for SFC whistler. and he has created a blog that looks like its part of the main site, and is way better looking than this one.
So now on i'll be posting at www.sfcwhistler.com/blog
Add it to your bookmarks!

He also made a facebook page. So search for SFC whistler on facebook and you can become a fan.

StrepSpleenCrash

2009-06-04T01:17:00.001-07:00

Hey there. Its been a kind of crazy couple of weeks. I got sick with tonsillitis or strep throat. I think they are the same thing, but i could be wrong. But i had some sort of throat infection that’s for sure. But being sick sucks because you cant work. Well I got better after a week of trying to get better by eating garlic. But that wasn’t working too well so i sucked it up and paid to see the doc for some antibiotics.

Last Thursday my really good friend Brett (he’s probably one of my favourite people) came back into town. He was living here this season, but left at the beginning of march to road trip all around the US in his van with a mattress in the back. The next day we went up the mountain for a day of skiing/riding and Brett slipped off a box and winded himself. We carried on riding for a few hours and thought nothing of it. I went to work, the

n found out a few hours later that Brett had been taken to Hospital to be operated on because he had ruptured his spleen when he fell. So he’s recovering right now in Hospital. Pray for him that he recovers quickly and that he keeps his spirits up.

So I went down to visit him a couple of times this week, and after we visited Brett, my friend rolled his pickup truck when we got back into Whistler. He was going too fast around a corner and we did 3/4 of a roll just stopping a foot short of a big ditch. My friend didn’t have a scratch on him but my arm hit the window as it smashed into the ground. We climbed out of the broken window and walked over to the emergency room that closes at 10. So we called an ambulance to let us in. The Doctor used 40 stiches patching together my highly lacerated/cheesegrated arm. He said that we both were extremely lucky, and that even though a chuck of flesh was missing, my major arteries were all intact and there is no nerve damage. The police couldn’t believe that we were in the shape that we were in after finding the truck smashed up and on its side.

So God was completely looking after us the whole time, and pretty much saved our lives. He is so awesome. So it has been a crazy couple of weeks, and i can’t work for at least another week. I have to find a new place to live at the end of the month. I’ve been having to trust in God with my friends, my finances and my health. And its been good to go though these times with him.

God constantly reminds me to focus on him. And not put things above him. If i don’t put God first and stop worshiping him, i start worshiping anything. Its unintentional, but i think we recieve our worth from what we worship so its so important to make sure we get that from him. Worship also has a massive impact on the spiritual realm, because when we are in direct contact with God, satan has no choice but to flee. God planted an idea into my head that i haven’t carried out yet of reading Psalms of praise while walking around the town at 6am. I wouldn’t usually say something like that on here that i hadn’t started yet, but I thought that it would keep me accountable, so when i’m waking up it will give me a bit of a driving force.

Anyway, i think this might be a personal best for how much i’ve written in one post, so i will leave it there. If anyone has any prayer requests I would love to be praying for you. Email me at jonny@sfcwhistler.com

Sasquach, Cavemen and a prayer closet.

2009-05-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Hey there. My apologies for not posting for so long. Blogging does not come naturally to me! Its been so long this update might be a bit all over the place.

The 24/7-prayer event went really well, It was held in this tiny hotel room that could comfortably hold about 3 people praying. One in the loft style bedroom, one in the living room/kitchen and one in the prayer closet. On my way in to do my shift at midnight, i was waiting at the bus stop and got chatting to this native guy sitting there. He asked me where i was going this late, so i said i was going to pray. I explained a bit more and he asked me if he could come and check it out. So on the half an hour bus ride we had this really in depth conversation which was probably 90% listening on my side. We talked about religion, Jesus (the time he spoke to him when high on acid), His 3 girlfriends, His involvement in drugs and alcohol, and Sasquatch. Anyways he came into the prayer room, checked it all out, but didn't want to pray or have me praying for him. He was totally disillusioned and confused about a lot of stuff, but i think God did something that night. Not sure what, but it felt like he did.

A group of us have been meeting up to pray in the village at ridiculous hours in the morning. Its been really cool, we have been prayer walking around the main part of the village. We have a route we take that just goes around the centre of town, sopping at random points to pray what we feel led to pray for. We are waiting for stuff to start falling down.

So i've moved home twice in the last month and a half, and need to move out again at the end of June. The place i'm living in now is awesome, i'm sharing it with a couple friends from church and its near the centre of whistler, we have been able to have people over, people crashing on the couch and a lot more freedom than i've had since i've moved here. Please be praying for a place to live somewhat like this, but a bit more permanent. I'm also slightly worried about my visa situation, and what is going to happen when my one year work visa expires in October. Why can't we just go back to the good old days when people just roamed about, not worrying about forms to fill out when settling down to make a life for themselves in a far away cave??

God is Good

2009-03-10T02:18:00.000-07:00

So today i had a pretty awesome day. I met up with this awesome guy called Jeff, who used to live in whistler for a number of years, but now lives in Hawaii working at the University of the Nations with YWAM. This guy is an absolute champ. I met him at Church on Sunday, but i feel like i've known him for at least a year. We spent some good solid hours in a hotel lobby chatting about what God has for Whistler, and he spoke some really relevant words into my life and about what I'm doing here. We spent some time praying for Seth, for him to find a way back into Canada. He also spent time praying for me, he prayed for my shin splints (that I didn't feel when i was on the hill later), he prayed for my ministry here, for God to work trough me when i'm on the mountain, when i'm hanging out with people and when i'm at work...

Which leads me onto my shift tonight. God totally blew me away with the opportunity he gave me. The other day, the newly hired bartender mentioned to me that she didn't know anything about the Bible and that she would like to read one that she could understand. So today i brought in a Message New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs and gave it to her. We had a brief random discussion on stuff like different denominations, mormons, greek gods, and bible bashers. She then said that she wanted a kids bible so she could get an understanding of the whole bible in simple terms, so i offered to tell it to her. We must have talked about the bible for about 4 hours. We went through Genesis and Exodus, David and Solomon, the Babylonian exile, Some of the Prophets, and pretty much all of the New Testament. I was also able to tell her about some of the symbolism in different numbers, Jewish festivals, cultural backgrounds, contexts and a few of the prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. It was awesome because i have never told a summarised version of the whole bible before, and what an awesome opportunity to tell it to a non-christian! She was really interested and was really keen to hear what happened next in the story. She even said at one point "F#*^%g customers, they are interrupting the story!". Her name is Hayley, so pray for her that God would just carry on reaching out to her, that when she reads the NT that i gave to her, the words would just leap out and hit her in the face! Praise Jesus. I'm really tired, its way too late.

Watchmen.

2009-02-19T21:52:00.000-08:00

Last week Seth tried to come back up to Whistler, but the Border Patrol guy was a real jerk to Seth and wouldn't let him in. I'll let him tell the story as he was there and i wasn't. But one thing I know is that the Border patrol guy was nothing like this one.

Anyways, I'm really bummed that Seth isn't here, and will really miss him, but I'm trying to look at it in a positive way. I am sure that God has a much bigger and better plan than we can come up with, so we are just going with it. Its pretty strange actually, as when we both met with the pastor of the Community Church he had this really random word for us about the Cupbearer and the Baker in Genesis 40. I don't really know the timescale of it all, and obviously the crows arent pecking at seth's flesh. But it seems to fit to what has happened in the last week. So I dont know when Seth is coming back, or If God has something completely different for him. All i know is that I wouldn't have been able to move here and set such deep roots here without him. Its been an exciting adventure and i have had a blast. Live is a lot quieter without Seth around, thats for sure. It's been cool in a way because I have found myself spending more time with non-Christians through work and skiing with random people. I have also been meeting with a few people from the church to plan a 24-7 prayer event. So hopefully that should happen soon, depending on whether we can get a location to hold it. We are thinking of maybe an RV or a hotel room.

I'm actually really excited about it, when we met up to listen a few days ago, we got given Isaiah 62:6. It says: I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest.

And also 52:8 (which is made even better by the verse that comes before it). It says:
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the LORD returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.

So we feel that we are called to be the Watchmen of Whistler, that we should have no rest, day or night and see with our own eyes the kingdom return to this place.

It seems fitting to hold a 24/7 prayer event.

2009-02-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

So Seth just left me here all alone. He had to go visit his own country because Canada would only let him stay 3 months. Next time hopefully it will be for longer. When we crossed the border last time lets face it, we looked a lot like young weed smoking bums with long hair and touques (thats what they call beanies up here, weird eh?). So it wasn't really a surprise that they gave us a hard time coming in. When Seth tries to come back over, he now knows how to be prepared. He cleaned out the car, got a haircut, has plans to buy a suit and tie, has a few character references from upstanding members of the Whistler community, and even left the samurai sword up here.
Even though he is much more prepared than last time, we really need your prayers for him coming back into Canada. Also pray for finances, as he doesn't really have any. And will probably need to show the border patrol that he has enough for the time he is up here.

In other news, I finally found a Job! I'm working as a busser (support staff) in a pub/restaurant. Praise Jesus that i got the job! To let you know how bad the work situation is here; there were 120 CV's/resumes dropped off in the 2 days after i had started work. I'm enjoying the job so far, i get tips at the end of each shift, and everyone is nice and friendly.

Thank you for all your prayers. We love you all.

The Golden Years

2009-01-18T00:22:00.000-08:00

Now having said that i'm not really sure where to start. i guess i'll just roll with it. whistler, so far, has been such an amazing place to be, the beauty of the mountains, the trees, the clouds, you get the point this place is beautiful. jonny and i have been so blessed here. everyone is looking out for us making sure we don't starve or go without in anything really. skiing this year has been super duper fun, due to lack of housing we haven't been able to get up as much as we would like. though in way it has been such a blessing everytime we do go up. and by the by jonny boy is pretty much killing it as always. it cool to see how our attitudes have changed from last year, being able to go up 120+ days, to this year. just loving every minute. anyways i got to go. love you all!!!!!! send us prayer requests if you have them.
seth

2009-01-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

Hey there. Sorry for the lack of updates, this is the first time i have ever had a blog so bear with me as i get better at it. We finally found a place to live! We moved in last Saturday which is exactly 2 months from when we first arrived in Whistler. We are really stoked.
So i got a call from someone responding to my ad in the newspaper on the Thursday, and we went to look at it straight away. It was this big house that was full to the brim with people. Kind of like a long term hostel. Anyways we weren't too happy about this place, but we felt pressured to move in there as we didn't really want to pass opportunities for a place to live while we were still homeless. Also the landlord was a pretty weird guy, and there was a very good chance of him being high on something. We went away unsure what to do so we spent some time listening to God and asking him for guidance for the situation. During our time of listening, i got a phone call about another place, which was way too expensive, but it let us know that we had other options. The next morning i got yet another call about a room in a family home that was much more reasonable, so we went to look at it and it turns out it is a family from the church that we go to! We moved in on the next day, and we are really happy here. God even confirmed it with a random verse from Haggai 2:9 where it says "The glory of this present house will be far greater than the glory of the former house" and i know that it is talking about Gods temple, but i think that God used it to tell us something.

2008-12-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

We need some more prayers for a place to live. Someone responded to our advert in the seeking accommodation section of the local newspaper, showed us around this 2 bedroom apartment that was part of a hotel staff house. We had arranged to share it with a couple of guys from the church, decided who was sleeping where and even gave the house a name. So we were going to sign the lease yesterday but she emailed us saying that some staff members had come up to her and asked her for the apartment at the last minute so she gave it to them. So its been a big disappointment, and we feel we are back where we started. We are staying at an apartment temporarily, but that ends on Thursday, and we don't have any leads on anything else. We are still faithful that God will provide a place for us.

I am also struggling to find a job. I lost my job at esquires for going to Banff for the Sfc leaders conference, even though they said that they were fine with it. When i came back, they just told me that had hired 2 other people and that i didn't work there anymore. So i have been handing out CV's/resumes in town, but nothing has come up yet.

So it feels like nothing is really working out. I knew that it wouldn't be easy sailing, and that when nothing works out, you don't just give up and have to persevere. Its actually an awesome position to be in as we have to lean heavily on God, and trust that he will come through for us in his timing.

God bless,
Jonny

Valley of Bones

2008-12-01T15:10:00.000-08:00

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "...Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.' " Ezekiel 37 1-14

God gave me this verse through a friend, and I believe its such a good picture of Whistler. There is a lot of oppression here, with spirits of greed and depression hanging out in every corner. Nearly everyone at the Sfc conference told us what a dark place Whistler is, and we have found it to be a valley of bones. In this verse there is a lot of hope in how God wants to breathe life into the bones in the valley that is Whistler.

We are still looking for a place to live. We have spent the last week sleeping on peoples floor, a couple of nights at a dirty hostel, and one night in the pathfinder. We really need your prayers. Pray that we will have enough endurance to stick it out, and that we can find a house/apartment/trailer/RV/storage unit.

We love you all.
Jonny

2008-11-25T17:23:00.001-08:00

We just got back into Whistler from the SFC leaders meeting in Banff. It was a fun time where we got to meet all the cool people from SFC Canada. A lot of stuff went down actually, intense games of table tennis/ping pong, hours spent on rock band, some riding, a bloodbath of a game of water basketball, as well as awesome times of worship, prayer and teaching. A big thank you to Chris Harder who drove us all the way there and back!

So we need a lot of prayer on finding a place to live. Apparently Whistler has been on the news on the shortage of housing and how people have been standing in the village with sandwich boards hanging off them saying how they are desparate for somewhere to live. The seeking accomodation part of the classifieds are about five times the amount of rental listings, and everyone that we call has already rented their place out. We know that this is just going to give more glory to God when he shows us that he has the perfect place for us to start this ministry. But your prayers are greatly needed. We have a couple of kind friends that are going to let us stay on their floor for a few nights, but we dont want to outstay our welcome, or be a hassle to them.

Jonny

Future in Flowers

2008-11-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Just wanted to say thank you for all your support and your prayers. God has been hookin it up here for sure. Last Sunday we went to two church services. The first one was Whistler Community Church, this place was rad subatical. Tim, the Pasteur at said church, preached on Grace it was awesome. After the service we started talking to people and introducing ourselves, and once again God hooked it up. We meet some people that we had been talking to and texting before we got there, and for some reason they were pretty stoked about meeting us. So we went back to there place and we cooked a bunch of pizzas and just hung out. Later that night went over to Church On the Mountain, this was probably my favorite of the two. We also met some cool people here who were trying to give us advise on where and how to find a place. By the way every time we meet someone and we tell them we are looking a place the first thing they say is," good luck, it's so hard." So if you want to keep praying for that as well that would be neat!

This weekend we are headed to the SFC leadership conference in Banff. We are really looking forward to it, meeting everyone from sfc Canada that is, so hopefully they can make fun about the pics coming from Joshy. Well I'm sick of typing now so we'll talk later.
Seth

2008-11-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

So we are up in Whistler now. God hooked us up with a place to crash for a week! Its right in Whistler village and its a perfect base to sort out a place to live. I found out that they have an Esquires coffee shop here in the village.. The same one that i worked back in England! I went in there and the owner seemed really excited when i asked for a job. I think his exact words were "Esquires in England eh? You do latte art? You want to start tommorrow?" So God needs some big praises for that.

Everyone that we have talked to here has told us that its really hard to find a place to live, So we need a lot of prayer. We realise that we really cant do this without God, and are excited about being dependent on him.

Over and oouut.
Jonny

2008-11-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, We made it into Canada! It was an awesome journey and we got to be blessed by lots of our friends on the way up. We started by going to Summit County, Colorado and spending time with a load of our friends there. We were able to go to the first SFC meet of the season, which was freaking awesome, worshiping with our family of last year. They prayed for us as they sent us off, which was emotional. Seth started crying like a sissy girl, I kept my cool though, maybe its because i'm english and am too polite to show any emotion. So anyway, we had a little delay getting off because we were told the CV joint on the car wasn't doing too good, which i think means that our wheels would have fallen off. I dont know much about cars by the way. But Seth's stepdad helped us out and put new ones on in just a few hours.

So we finally hit the road and made it to Salt lake city, Utah where we stayed with some good friends from SFC Utah. We had to get the car fixed on Sunday morning because there was a rip in something or other near the wheel joint thing and a dodgy clicking sound when we turned corners. We got on the road eventually, pumped that we were going to be eating a tasty dinner at In-n-Out Burger in little less than 10 hours. We stayed at Zak's pad in Tahoe that night and after a tasty In-n-Out burger for breakfast we made it to Redding California. Staying in Redding was so awesome, we went along to an unofficial video premier of a Christian surfing movie called Walking on Water. When the movie was finished, our trusty friend Tiff Read made a little announcement to the group of rad people from the Bethel School of the Supernatural that we were going up to Whistler to start SFC up there. They all prayed for us and prophesied over us, gave us some amazing words that were so relevant. We met this guy called Ross who was from the Vancouver area and he revealed to us that he's been praying for some people to go to Whistler for quite some time. That evening was a massive encouragement that was really needed.

We drove (well i say we, but as i dont have my licence, i mean Seth) from Redding all the way up to Bellingham, Washington. We drove for 13 hours straight in the rain and stayed with our friend from Ywam The Rev. Michael J Fitz. He is called the reverend because he became a pastor on the internet. A pretty rad guy. We hung out the next day and had dinner with our other friends from Ywam, Adam and Christina. They live just a stones throw from Fitz, and are really cool.

Today we left bellingham and made it across the border. It was pretty intense, The immigration guy grilled us with questions and although he seemed to like me, he really did not like seth. Seth is allowed to stay in Canada until Feburary 12th and if he doesnt leave, they put a warrant out for his arrest. So pray for that situation.

I'll keep you guys updated on our housing situation in about a week. I love all of you, you are cool.
Jonny

2008-11-06T16:35:00.001-08:00