100% for Jesus!

I was thinking I would add this thought about my internship, just to let you know how that's going!

I am teaching now at a high school in Saskatoon, for my internship as a last requirement before I get my degree! I remember leaving Panama last year and thinking "OK... now I am leaving the "tough" stuff, to go and finish my degree, and then when I am done, I will go back to the "tough" work of a missionary." But you know what I am learning is that if you are living 100% for Jesus, whether it's as a missionary, or as an interning teacher... it's TOUGH...

I have 3 stories to share in the following posts! I hope that these stories spur you on toward love and good deeds! As always I am praying that together we can all make the most of what has been entrusted to us!

Philemon 1:6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

As I share my faith, and I see/experience the amazing faith of others and the acts of God are happening in front of me… I begin to really understand through experience, the good things we have in Christ!

Story #1.. from Saskatoon!

Jenelle reading the bible with one of the girls on the bus!









I told you in my last letter about the "love lives here" bus ministry, well...
This last Wednesday, I went to “The Lighthouse,” which is a shelter for the impoverished here in Saskatoon. What’s amazing about the lighthouse is that it has a basement full of beds reserved just for women. There are many shelters for men, but when it comes to women the shelters are mostly specified for battered or beaten women, and if you need help but don’t fall into that category there’s little for you. Above the basement are individual rooms. These rooms are a luxury to those who receive them, usually after having lived in the basement with one small shelf for your belongings and sleeping with people coming in and out at all hours. There is a common room on the main floor, where we hold our bible study. In talking to one of the women there, she began to tell her life story. She was abused as a child and ran from home, only to find herself a pimp at the age of 11 and stay with him until she was my age… 23. For over half her life, and since she started at such a young age, she really knew NO different way to live. Along with the lifestyle she was born into came abuse, drugs, and poverty. For 2 years now she has been drug free and has come to know Jesus!!!!!!!!!! She still struggles with poverty, but she is trying! She told me very passionately “He (Jesus) changes me, He really changes me.” And I said “I know,” and she said “NO… He REALLY changes me!” And I realised that I would never fully understand what she meant.
She continued to tell me about how God is using her to help the women who live in the basement of the lighthouse. How late one night a young woman had come to her, and she told me the story saying; “I have never heard a woman wale like that… but this girl had been diagnosed with Aids and given a week to live, so I told her about Jesus, and how He changes you, and she took Him into her heart and then lapsed into a coma 2 days later, and she should pass away some time this weekend, but she’s gonna be ok!” As I listened to this woman tell her story, I was silenced by the awesomeness of God.


Some of the kids at the bus!

Story #2... from BC

The students and staff from the University of Saskatchewan who came to Winter Conference 08-09!


I asked in my previous letter if you would pray for myself, and especially for the girls from my bible study at the University of Saskatchewan, as we headed to BC for a conference that would renew our vision for the fulfillment of the great commission! Well WOW… I wish I could sum up for you all that God did over that conference, but I know I am already being wordy in this update! I will tell you about the one evening I got the girls from my bible study together for some prayer and sharing. They are taking great steps for God! One wants to serve Him as a missionary, another wants to go to Northern Africa, and another to Asia, and one of the girls just sat there and began to cry uncontrollably. I didn’t know what to do, I asked to pray for her, but she smiled at me through tears and said “praise God for these tears Jessica, because my heart has just been broken for the lost in ways I can’t even comprehend.” I smiled, because of God’s great work in her heart, as she cried. It was an amazing moment!


Me and the girls from my bible study... all dressed up, and ready for the New Years party the last night of Conference!

Story #3 .. from Panama!

Myself and some of the girls (+Steve my trusty companion!) after Cindy's final thesis was presented!



I asked in my previous letter if you would all pray that the shepherding trip (which I went on for 2 weeks) would be an encouragement and a blessing to all that we would minister to while there. Well, in asking that, I thought in my finite mind that this meant that I would have to muster up something great! That I would have to bring great gifts and say great things; that I would have to pray great prayers and cast great vision. It’s interesting how sometimes we just have to be ourselves! My former team mate, who is still ministering there, said to me “Jess, just your presence is an encouragement.”
I decided in going to Panama that I would let the STINT team know I was coming, but all the Panamanian staff didn’t know of my arrival. Slowly I had the privilege of bumping into them, whether at staff meetings or at church and it was an unspeakable opportunity to make them smile!! One of the girls I discipled while I was there, named Cindy was unable to contain herself when she found out about my arrival, not because I am so great, although I know she loves me, but because of what God had done in her life before I arrived! Her mom had had a dream a few months back that I was to be in the crowd of witnesses when she presented her final thesis to complete her law degree. Cindy’s mom had told her about the powerful dream she’d had and how she felt that her daughter was going to see me soon! Cindy dismissed it, saying it was impossible because I was in Canada. I phoned her shortly after I arrived, which happened to be about 5 days before her thesis presentation. When she invited me to come, I gladly said I would and she FLIPPED! It’s interesting how we prayed that I would be an encouragement, and how God used this small fulfillment to uplift and encourage and to spur on Cindy, as she saw him come through with what was laid upon her mother’s heart!


Cindy, shaking hands with the professors who oversaw the presentation of her final thesis.