Thanks!

Thank you for telling me when God uses something you find here! Praise God and many blessings!

I think last week or the week before visitors here were evenly divided between US, UK, and Canada. That was interesting.

Today, more visitors from Canada.

A Canada story - I grew up in a Presbyterian church in Central Upstate NY. My mom was an organist. My father and various members of my extended family were elders, choir members, etc etc. (I decided to be an agnostic in high school, LOL!) We moved off the farm and to a new town and then moved again, back on a farm.

My first year in college - I was commuting. A group of high school kids in this new town had come back from a camp in Canada on fire for Jesus - kids from 2-3 different churches (there were only 3 churches in town). Before long, kids they knew who weren't going to church began giving their lives to Jesus, too. At some point, they started a Christian folk group and wanted another guitar player. Our family went to the Presbyterian church and my sister must have told them that I played guitar so I joined them.

After playing with them for about a year we went to Toronto to take part in a Christian folk festival at St. Paul's Cathedral (this is early '70's). I was sitting on the bus, waiting for everyone else to load to come home and for the first time I "knew" with every part of my being that God had a purpose for me - not a specific call but a purpose. I was "born again"! The passage from Jeremiah 29:11 - I know the plans I have for you plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope... the Matt 17:20 scripture, if you have faith as a grain of mustard you can say to this mountain be up and cast into the sea were very much alive to me as I was sitting there. I didn't have an exact quote in my head at the time but that was the gist of it.

Anyway, I will always have a soft spot for Canada and Canadians because sometime in April 1972 I was re - born in Canada . . . and it's so interesting because I googled our parent Canadian Christian folk group yesterday and one of the members is now a global worship leader. One of the pastors from the faith community I attended near the end of college and after in the Finger Lakes region in Upstate NY is also a global worship leader. . .

Glory to God . . . it's just interesting!!!