March Update!

Hello loved ones!
I can’t believe I’ve been in the “Great White North” for over a month now! March madness has begun! Spring is in the air, hallelujah! I wake up and think “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it no matter what happens!” But let’s be honest, it’s a whole lot easier to have that attitude when it’s sunny and warm instead of grey and raining! Are you with me? Praise the Lord for his marvelous sunshine in this season of spring! There is so much to tell that has happened over a month’s time. I will fill you in with highlights!

The Hub (youth centre) has been bustling with kids! A few weeks ago, the town started holding meetings with local teens to involve them in more activities to get them “off the streets”. Well, the Hub was suggested for a meeting place. The meeting time ended up being Wednesday right before our Supper Club program. The teens in attendance now stay for Supper Club and come to the Hub for our other programmed nights too! We are consistently having around 25-35 kids during the nights we are open. That’s double the amount of kids we were seeing before! It’s awesome to see how God works in unexpected ways!

In all of this, please pray for the Hub staff team. Pray that we would be able to connect personally with each youth that comes through our doors. Pray that God would turn these youth to Him, that we would see a revival spread like wildfire all over this town to Toronto to Ontario to Canada to the States and to the world! So often we put God in a box and think, “Those are nice thoughts, but get realistic, revival like that is not going to happen, people aren’t going to change.” But let me tell you, if there is one thing God has been showing me lately, it is this: “I am HUGE and you are so, so small! Yet, I care for each one of you and pursue you so deeply, so intensely. And you might not be able to ever comprehend my love for you or how much the cross meant, but that’s okay because I made you and I know how your mind works. My ways are not your ways nor My thoughts your thoughts. I know sometimes you doubt. I know sometimes you want to give up because you feel like nothing is happening. But I am bigger than that doubt, I’m bigger than you, and I’m bigger than anything in this world! I’m the One who changes people. I’m the One who created the world and the One who changed it by hanging on a cross. I’m the same now as I was then. I have this world in the palm of my hand. So just go love people and tell them my Gospel. I’ll take care of the rest.”

How comforting is that? How powerful is it that we have this God dwelling IN us? What in the world? I am continually in awe of Him and His purposes for our lives.
PlayZone is going awesome with the little preschoolers. Another 10-week session is up and the town has informed us that the next session is already full with a growing wait list! There are many single struggling parents and it’s such a sweet program that let’s them gain a couple hours of sanity in their day! (And a couple hours where we get to act like kids!)

Mercy House has seen some big changes over the past month. For one of the ladies, it was God’s time for her to have a heart attack and survive, for another it was her time to move on from the House, and for another it was time for family reconciliation. God is continually building on each one of these ladies’ incredible journeys. My prayer is that God would fill these women with His heart and mind. That they would have a spirit of peace, joy, and courage to face whatever comes. I also pray that their past and present trials would just be building up an even greater testimony for God’s glory!

This weekend I was also blessed with the great opportunity to hear a well-known Christian speaker and author, Beth Moore, speak. The conference theme was “God is Up to Something New”. Boy was her message a blessing to my heart! Isn’t it exciting to think that God is in the business of making things new? He doesn’t just want us to patch up our old ways; He wants us to have a life that is completely new with Him. After all, that’s why He sent Jesus, in a way entirely new – the King of the universe destined to be born next to donkeys, to love those who hated Him, to die the most brutal death as the most innocent man alive, only to come to life again to cleanse a people completely hopeless to totally revolutionize the world! And not only does He make our hearts new, but He gives us new mercies each day; when our trials in life increase, so do His mercies, proving that we’ll make it through with Him because He always gives more than enough. But I love that He doesn’t stop at making us new only on this Earth, but that He also promises someday all things will be new! What a glorious day that will be!

There is so much more I would write to you all, but it all comes down to this: God is at work! Not only in the hearts of the beautiful people of Bradford, but in my heart, and I pray in yours as well! How great and faithful and loving is our God?
Thank you for your prayers and support! My life would not be the same without them. You are in my thoughts and in my heart.

Love,
Alicia