I caught an early screening of The Crazies last night and was not expecting too much. I figured that even if the movie sucked, I didn't have to pay a cent to see it, so in that sense, it couldn't fail. So when the screen faded to black, I smiled because it turned out to be a win-win situation; it was a free and good movie.

Now, apparently the movie is a remake of a classic by horror legend, George A. Romero. I've never seen or knew that the film existed so I didn't have that same baggage going in. But I'm a horror hound so I guess I'm biased as far as that goes.

The movie takes place in a small farm town called Ogden located in Iowa state. We follow the sheriff as he tries to unravel three deaths that have occurred in their humble community. All the deaths were marked with intrigue as the killers were found in a zombie-like, semi-conscious, passive state. The sheriff and his deputy discover that a plane had crashed into one of the nearby lakes which serves as a source of drinking water to the town. The plane had been carrying some sort of biological weapon, eventually trickling into the local residents. It's not long before the government in and the sheriff and his wife find themselves on the run.

There were a lot of technical things that I liked about the movie. Firstly, I liked the way the movie was shot, making the small town of Ogden and its surrounding landscape look so rich on screen. I loved the wide shots of the fields that really conveyed how hopeless the characters seemed to feel. On top of that, I thought the post-rock style of the score by Mark Isham really fit with the cinematography. The two worked well together in creating this barren atmosphere and putting you in the middle of it. The action and gore had a really rugged and raw edge to it, which made you cringe anytime our heroes got hurt. Also, the suspense in some of the scenes made the movie quite gripping... always a positive.

Although the infected people seem to have been zombie-like beings, it's not clearly defined whether they were indeed zombies. They're referred to as "the crazies", "the sick" and "infected" so I guess that's all that really matters. The approach to the story is unique. At the end, I realized that we only saw maybe three or four deaths incurred by "the crazies" yet we saw hundreds of deaths caused by the humans. So really, who are the real "crazies"? The infected or the drone like humans? I love stuff like this that make you think especially from horror flicks.

Timothy Olyphant did a pretty good job as the sheriff, but to me, the standout character was the deputy officer who basically played the role of us, the viewer. While the sheriff was more a typical alpha-male horror hero, the deputy was more rational in his decisions and thinking. Heck, he even saves the sheriff a number of times. So who's the real hero?

The movie was not without its flaws though. There was one glaring plothole that related to one of the sequences near the end so I won't spoil it. But if you do decide to watch this just think about how it was possible for certain characters to get where they got. That's all I'll say about that. I also thought that they could have done more during the third quarter of the movie, when our heroes were on the run from the government.

I also thought that there were too many of those cheap-jump scares type moments in the movie. It just didn't seem to fit with the style of shooting that the movie was going for. The theater was packed pretty much to a full house and every time a jump scare occurred, hardly anyone reacted to it, so they clearly didn't work. I can understand the use of it in teen horror or slasher flicks, but this was a horror movie with somewhat of a class. You don't need that low grade shit.

The Crazies was quite an enjoyable movie. It was good but not great. At the time of publishing, the movie is receiving 74% on Rottentomatoes.com (29 positive reviews out of 39), so I guess it worked for the real critics out there. It's worth to check out if you're a horror fan and if you're not, it couldn't hurt either. Til next time, later geeks!



Categories: horror , movies , the crazies

In case you didn't know, I love bad movies. I hate bad bad movies but I love bad movies. For me, it's difficult to create a scale to weigh out movies that I like or don't. For example, I love good big budget movies but I HATE bad big budget movies. Yet at the same time, I love low budget direct-to-video movies, which in a lot of cases are worst than bad big budget movies, but their lower budget gives them an endearing quality of sorts. Are you confused yet? Let's put it this way, if you're a bad movie but you went straight to video, there's a better chance that I enjoyed you more than if you had made it to the big screen.

Which brings me to The Wrong Side of Town (the name of the movie and not the place of course). This was a bad movie, but I found it wildly entertaining. I think a large part of it is because it stars two major wrestlers and as a hardcore wrestling fan, it behooves me to enjoy this tripe. The poster on the left is a bit misleading though. It places Batista (real name David Bautista) in the center of the poster, occupying the largest area, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that he was only in two scenes. In actuality, the star of the movie is Rob Van Dam (if you're not familiar with him, his name is a play on Jean-Claude Van Damme because of his similar looks... and similar acting chops after seeing this).

In this movie, RVD and his wife head out with some neighbours to a highscale club for some dinner, dancing and fun. At the club, his wife gets hit on by an addict of sorts and while defending her, RVD accidentally kills him... well, he sort of kills himself. Shit turns shittier as it turns out that the addict was actually the brother of the club owner/crime lord. The crime lord puts a bounty on RVD's head, triggering waves and waves of local hoodlums and thungs after our would-be hero. The movie then becomes an epic tale of survival for two couples stranded on... THE WRONG SIDE OF TOWN!

They had me right at the start of the movie. The opening credit sequence that they used was pretty much something plucked out of a James Bond movie. No, there's no famous singer doing the opening song, but there definitely is a song AND there definitely are silhouettes of females doing provocative dancing. Come to think of it, you don't see that in movies much anymore, not the dancing women, but the songs. I think adding songs with lyrics to any movie instantly makes it classier.


The acting is what you'd expect out of wrestlers. For me, even though he wasn't the main star of the movie, Batista was the clear standout. His acting was not only better than RVD's but it was better than any wrestlers in those craptacular WWE produced movies. RVD is quite an acrobatic and aerial wrestler but his weakest quality was always his talking and promos. Even though his acting is clearly bad, they try to minimize it by focusing on his action instead. So what the movie lacked in the acting department they made up for in the bad-ass department in the hiring of noted thespian and Grammy-nominated artist, Ja Rule. Unfortunately for Ja, he was only in one scene, and I'm sure the budget was all it could afford. But they make the best with what they were given and I definitely laughed the loudest during his scene.

So friends, I'm not ashamed to say that I had a good time with this movie. It had action, it had wrestlers, hell, it had Ja Rule. What more can a mortal man ask for! Good times were had. Later geeks!



Categories: action , dtv madness , movies , wrestling

After watching this movie, it made me wish that I were a black guy in the 70s. Black Dynamite is a throwback to the blaxploitation movies that were popular back in the 70s. This was such a fantastic movie!

The story follows Black Dynamite as he tracks down his brother's killer. What at first appears as a low-level gangland crime becomes something more as Dynamite uncovers a giant conspiracy that leads him to none other than The Man. The movie is filled with kung-fu fighting, gun blazing action, car chases, foot chases, love-making and all that good stuff that you would expect from a blaxploitation flick.

Despite its limited budget, Black Dynamite succeeds in capturing the look and feel of the 70s. The clothes, the sets and all the music take a page right out of that decade. They even play on its low production value as in some scenes you'll see the boom mic dropping into the screen and Black Dynamite just looking at it.


Michael Jai White owns it as Black Dynamite and it's no wonder: he masterminded the script! At first it tricked me though. Before watching the movie, I watched its trailer on Youtube. They never mention Jai White, but call him by a pseudonym instead. I didn't realize it was a fake name, so the whole time I was watching, I was thinking, "he looks and sounds a lot like Michael Jai White". It wasn't until afterwards when I IMDB'd the movie that I learned of my foolishness. Black Dynamite, you've done it again! Bah!

It's out on DVD now and I implore you to check it out. If my words weren't enough to convince you, take a moment to absorb the wisdom of Black Dynamite. Hopefully that will convince you. Later geeks!

"Your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!"

"Now Aunt Billy, how many times have I told you not to call here and interrupt my KUNG-FU!"

"You diabolical dick shrinkin' mother fuckers!"

"Ain't nothin' in the world get Black Dynamite more mad than some jive ass sucka dealin' smack to the kids!"



Categories: action , black dynamite , blaxploitation , dtv madness

Last night, FreeChurch hosted a coffeehouse to the community of downtown Toronto. It was an awesome night showcasing some the young and talented musicians of the community.


My Living Room was in charge of preparing the whole night and it was just amazing to see it basically empty at first, but have it fully decorated and filled with people 2 hours later. We did it all from setting up the sound equipment (phew!), to throwing fabrics around, placing candles around the room and even preparing all the food and drinks. Once the music started, it felt nice taking a step back, surveying the hall, watching people have a good time.


There were some good and varying sets of music; starting with more acoustic-y and melodic tunes in the beginning, to some pastor raps, ending with two full band sets. I think there was a little something for everyone.

By the way, I learned quite a few things tonight. The one that sticks out the most is that those really small and low candles aren't called candles at all; they are called tealights. And now you know.

You can view some of the pics I took of the night (here). Below are two videos I recorded of some sick tunes. Til next time, later geeks!

Pastor Cyril Guerette freestyling. See if you can hear some of the name drops. He gives a shout out to my brothers Justin Aitcheson, Drew Dafoe, Andrew, Brad and even a Jeff Lam. I'm in a rap song, I think I can sleep happily now!


The pastoral intern Matt (ie. the nicest guy on the planet) lays down his own beats! So illin'!



Categories: coffeehouse , freechurch toronto , life stuff

It has been quite an eye opening few weeks lately, in a positive way though. It's been amazing the way kindness has been shown to me in my life. In some ways its by new friends, in other ways by close friends and in more surprising ways, by people I don't even know. It's been a humbling experience and sometimes I have to take a step back and say "wow". I've been shown so much that sometimes it becomes confusing; why am I receiving all this kindness? I don't truly understand it but I know that God is gracious, that is certain.

I was looking through the Bible earlier to find some good words on kindness and I came across this in 2 Peter 1:5-6 where it talks about how we should live our lives based on everything that God has blessed us with. Specifically it reads: "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love." In this verse, there's a chain of different behaviours, where one leads to another with the final result being love. We as Christians are called to have love, to show love and to be love. And according to that verse, one of the key connections to get to that love is the concept of kindness.

I know that I have to show this more in my own life. In general, I'd like to think that I'm a jovial, laid-back, and joyous guy (I wonder if I come across this way though?). You'll often find me smiling and laughing more than I am sulking or balking. Back in the day, I was the happy breed of emo kid! But at the same time, I know I can be a quiet and shy person, which can really hurt my attempts to show kindness. And so if I'm not showing kindness, how can I truly say that I'm being loving? This past month, I've been keeping this in mind more and letting down my own guard to show kindness and warmness. It's still a work in progress but already I'm seeing the results, not only in myself, but with the people surrounding me.

Last week I was with a few friends on a late Tuesday night at Starbucks talking about our faith and how we are as followers of Christ. What stood out to me in our conversation was this idea of a dichotomy in the human behaviour stemming from the choices we make. For example, if you're angry for whatever reason, you can choose to exert that anger on others, ruining their day and making them angry. They in turn can take out their anger on someone else and so forth, creating a domino-like effect of fire and brimstone. However, on the flipside, we can choose to be kind and share joy with others, thereby, making others feel good allowing them to reciprocate that same feeling unto others; creating a domino-like effect of kindness.

The ideas are similar but on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. What we do and the way we choose to act can be infectious. But it comes down to how you choose to react. Do you choose to be a positive infection or a negative infection? Who would have thought that an infection could be a good thing!

I should also note that at the end of that night at Starbucks, one of the employees there handed me and my friends each a voucher to get a free drink at anytime at Starbucks. No rhyme or reason, we didn't know him. Kindness in action. Amazing.

I'm not a man that believes in coincidence or chance, so really, it's only fitting that this coming Sunday, Pastor Cyril will be preaching the fifth message in a series about the fruits of the Spirit; namely, kindness. Crazy huh? Life comes full circle. So if you wanna hear more about kindness, FreeChurch, February 21 at 5pm.

And to end off, I leave you with a silly picture. Later geeks.



Categories: christianity , kindness , life stuff

Okay, so this movie was bad, let's get that out of the way. It was a waste of time on my part, for taking time to watch it, and on their part, for taking time, money and effort in making it. Three key reasons come to mind.

I think it was a mistake to show that the stepfather was a murderer from frame one. Right off the bat, we know he's a killer which takes away from a lot of the mystery that they could have built. I mean, we know from the trailers that obviously this stepfather is an evil dude, but there's no sense of suspense to it. The only "suspense" out of it are all the times the stepfather pops up in random places to scare the kids. It's not scary at all and by the third time, it comes across more as comedy to me.

The second flaw, which is closely related, is the lack of motive for said stepfather. He just kills for the sake of killing, there's no rhyme or reason. He's just as mindless as Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th or the birds from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

The last mistake was the ending or the lack thereof. Nothing is really resolved, making the one and a half hours that you spent watching it, mean nothing.

Clearly, the director must have had some sort of crush on the young lass, Amber Heard. The camera was literally making love to her anytime she was onscreen. Also of note, she was half naked throughout the movie. It'd be fine if it was just one scene, but when it happens throughout the movie, it becomes a bit ridiculous. I mean, do girls really walk around in their underwear or bikini everywhere? I don't think that they do. But if they do? Then: jefftlam@gmail.com.


So don't watch this movie. There are so many other fun and good horror flicks out there, especially coming out of 2009, rendering this as pure garbage. Later geeks.



Categories: horror , movies , the stepfather , thriller

In celebration of Avatar becoming the largest (unadjusted) grossing movie of all time, I thought I'd go back and review one of James Cameron's earlier works. It's time again to get into the wayback machine. Let's return to 1981; a time before CG in movies, before Aliens and Terminators... to a time when it was possible for James Cameron to make shitty movies. Unfathomable!

I watched the original Piranha about 3 years ago and I loved it. It was the exact balance of cheekiness and horror that you'd want in a low budget horror flick. A movie trying to capitalize on the fame of Jaws except with killer piranhas, how could it be bad? It was great. This sequel? It was not.

A big problem with the movie was the incoherent story. The way they cut the film made it hard to follow the main story and all the side stories of the supporting characters. On top of that, random characters are introduced, disappear and then reappear much later. As far as I can remember (yesterday), the movie takes place on a Caribbean resort with killer piranhas lurking in the seas. There are a bunch of characters and they get eaten by them. The end.

If you're a fan of B-movies and bad horror movies, then Piranha 2 would probably be passable. That said, I love bad movies and even I had a hard time liking this movie. I would not put my friends through this unless it was to prove that James Cameron at one time did make bad movies. Aside from the confusing storyline and lack of a climax (almost needed movies like this), I just hated that the piranhas could fly. You read that right. Flying fish! It was just ridiculous and probably too over-the-top. I can believe in killer fishes but not flying fishes.

The movie is gory so it has that going for it, but it is certainly not scary. The only scene I found really scary was actually a scene played for laughs at the beginning. One of the characters holds up a live fish to a woman's face while she's sleeping, only to stare at it as she wakes. This frightened me. My close friends will tell you that fish is one of my biggest fears. I think I would shit myself if someone did that to me.

So as the movie progressed, I found it harder to believe that the same man who directed this movie would 3 years later, direct The Terminator... that 5 years later he would direct Aliens... that 17 years later he would direct Titanic... that 28 years later he would direct Avatar. I wonder while he was directing this, did he have any idea how iconic he'd become years later. Unfathomable.

Anyhow, it's 2 in the morning now. I should sleep, but before I leave you, I made an animated gif of James Cameron laughing at us because he's rich and we're not. Later geeks!



Categories: horror , james cameron , piranha 2 , retro rebound

This past weekend, Matt from FreeChurch (ie. the nicest guy on the planet) invited a bunch of us for a good ol' poker night at his home in Hamilton, which I dubbed The Summit of Men. It was a good time but probably one of the strangest poker games that I've played in. First, the n00b player of our game tied probably the most pro player of our group for third place. Then there were the number of bad flops that didn't seem to help anyone that much. Thirdly, the dude who looked like he was going to be the first man out of the game ended up winning the whole shebang. And lastly, there were at least 6 split pots throughout the night. Pretty unbelievable. But we all left Toronto as men and returned as warriors, so that was good. It was a good time bonding with my brethren if anything.

It's been a while since I've done a movie review, but there are a crapload on the backburner. Really, I just need some time to flesh them out. It's why the past week has seen a few shorter postings. Strange, you'd think that an unemployed geek like me would find time but I find that every day is busy with different random things. Not a bad thing though. Simple post, simple times. Til next time, later geeks!



Categories: life stuff , summit of men

Coinciding with the launch of Army of Two: The 40th Day for the consoles was the release of the same title for the Sony PSP. Although they share the same title, the gameplay was entirely different. For the consoles, generally the game was played as a 3rd person shooter similar with Gears of War mechanics, but for the PSP, this game played more as a top down shooter, perhaps akin to something like Smash TV or the downloadable title, Zombie Apocalypse.

In this game, you play as Salem or Rios (an AI player will take control of the other) as you infiltrate terrorist operations in Shanghai.

Onscreen, the game is beautifully designed with nice detailing done on each of the stages. The game also incorporates comic book style in-game cut scenes which were welcomed. The voice work is also good. That's about all the good in the game.

This game was crap. So many technical gaffs kept this game from being any good.

The first thing that's wrong with it is its control scheme. To move your character you use the analog stick (on the left) and to issue commands to your AI teammate, you use the direction pad (also on the left). To fire your gun is the most ridiculous thing, you use all 4 buttons of the button pad, with each button corresponding to its associated direction. So basically, you could only fire in 4 directions. However, the system tries for a smart fire mechanic, locking you on to the closest enemy in that particular direction, even if they are diagonal from you. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work, and you end up firing at the air instead of the enemy. All this would have been averted if the PSP just had a second analog stick.


The second biggest gaff is the AI partner. Sometimes he can be completely unresponsive. There are battles where working in tandem is key to winning, but the AI will just stand and refuse to do anything. Aside from combat, there are times where he just won't follow you. The game feels so dead at times because of this. I mean, it's called Army of Two, not Army of You. Oh, I need to trademark that.

I feel bad for the PSP. It's such a strong system technically, but the industry seems to give it the shaft. Games like this really don't help either. Until next time, later geeks!

Categories: army of two , gaming , psp

I started listening to Howard Stern Radio again these past few weeks. I used to listen to him everyday when he was still on terrestrial radio, but not so much when he moved to satellite, only because I didn't have access to it.

Anyhow, I was playing catch up and listening to Tuesday's show when Robin made a very thought provoking comment. I'm paraphrasing here, but she said, "Why is it that when people from ravaged countries come to America, they see nothing but opportunities? But the people who are born in America see nothing but obstacles?".

I'm mulling over this right now, it's such an interesting thought. Later geeks!

Categories: howard stern radio , life stuff

The Road was written by author Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote No Country For Old Men which was adapted into the Academy Award winning movie. This is the first book by McCarthy that I've read and the only reason I decided to pick it up is that I wanted to go on a journey. And boy, did he bring me on a journey.

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the few survivors left live their lives as scavengers and nomads, raiding each town they come across. We don't know exactly what happened to the world, but we know it's ashen, to the point where the sun is blocked out; darkness is abundant where hope is limited. Throughout the book we follow two characters only known to us as The Man and his Son. They begin somewhere in the middle of America and journey south to the coast. It's a cold world and the Man figures that it will be warmer if they headed south, but not knowing for sure. They journey from town to town scrounging for whatever morsels of food that they can. They have no hope left in the world. The only hope they have left is in each other.

I found the book quite harrowing and bleak. It was bleak to the point where I felt sad about my own life even though it had nothing to do with what was going on in the story. As I was reading it, I found that I was digging deep to those moments of sadness in my own life. It sounds like a bad thing, but really, this is a testament to powerful writing. I think what made it really work was McCarthy's ability to paint sceneries and descriptions with his words. With every flip of the page, we can taste the crumbs that they're eating and we can feel the tears that are in their eyes. It's a gripping and sad story, but thankfully the ending gives us a glimmer of hope.

The story was adapted into a movie that was released this past fall. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear it's a faithful adaptation of the book. This was a great read though and I highly recommend it. Later geeks.

"They ate well but they were still a long way from the coast. He knew that he was placing hopes where he'd no reason to. He hoped it would be brighter where for all he knew the world grew darker daily."
-Cormac McCarthy; The Road

Categories: books , cormac mccarthy , the road

It was quite a week last week. It started off on a more heavy note last Sunday, but as the week wore on, things became better and more clear. So let's do a little recap. This is going to be kind of long, so if you find this kind of stuff boring I've inserted pictures of funny cats for your entertainment. So...

1.5 Weeks Ago

About 1.5 weeks ago, my friend Jon from Living Room gave me the contact info for his uncle. His uncle is an engineer and apparently was looking for new grads and new hands to hire. That week, I gave him a few calls but he wasn't there when I called him and when he returned my calls, I wasn't here either. We were playing phone tag that week *insert schoolgirl giggle*.

Sunday Morning

So last Sunday morning, his uncle gave me a call at 9 am (The morning! My weakness! HISS!) and we talked about stuff. I was telling him a bit about school as well as elaborating my work/coop experience as he didn't have my resume yet. So he goes on to tell me about his friend's company who just spoke to him about hiring someone. He tells me about the company, what they do, their purpose and elaborates on the science behind the whole process. I should note that as he was explaining all this jargon, that it was going over my head; the company is more related to electrical engineering whereas I'm chemical. Anyhow, he tells me some terms and companies to look up and suggested tweaking my resume towards them. And I guess that's when things started to get heavy.

Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the job or company at all, but I guess it really put my job search and what I've been doing the past year into perspective. I was trying to weigh out two different things; on one hand I could settle for a job in a field that I'm not familiar with or on the other hand, keep searching and chase my dream. Even though I've been applying to all sorts of jobs, ideally, I would have liked to have been in either the clean air, clean water, energy, or environmental conservation/assesment field. That's the dream at least. At the moment it all felt so real.

So the whole day I was weighing all this out in my head. I guess my biggest fear is to trap myself in a field that I can't get out of. That afternoon one of my friend's had on his Facebook status this message: "2 questions! Do you have big dreams? Are you doing things to make it happen?". It felt so relevant at that moment. So the weight piled on. What am I doing about those dreams?

Chapter 3: Sunday Evening... church brings clarity

At church that evening, the pastoral intern Matt (ie. the nicest guy on the planet) gave an awesome message about Love (if you're interested, you can download it [here] or check out the website [here]). While not directly related to the battle waging on in my head that day, the message he spoke was with such reverence and grace that it helped clear my mind of the war inside. After service, I told one of my friend's the story of the battle and how it felt like there were two choices. I concluded that of course I would apply to this job, but to keep my eyes open still. I asked him to pray for me and that was that.

That night I skyped with my friend Ally from school and also elaborated on the whole situation. We went through our school transcript to see what courses and experiences I could tack on to my resume to appeal to the employer. It was too tough and too much of a stretch so I decided, I'm pretty much going to send the resume as is and we'll see what happens.

Act IV: The Morning Light

I woke up Monday morning feeling renewed. I don't know what it was, probably the prayer I received, but I felt less burdened than 8 hours prior. I just felt like it all made sense and I felt sort of dumb for even having battled myself with such a simple situation. For the past few weeks I've been asking people to pray for discernment and to help me listen to God. It felt like He was trying to tell me something that day, probably along the lines of, "hey, you've been praying for a job. I've been trying to throw you a bone here, wake up!". So wake up I did. I changed around a few of the words on the resume and fired it off to Jon's uncle. I felt better because I realized it wasn't the end of the line, it's just the beginning. There's so much to do and so much to look forward to. The days are still young.

On Tuesday morning, Jon's uncle gave me a call at 8 in the morning (8!) to ask me a few things. Here is an account of the conversation:

Jon's Uncle: Hi Jeff, I wanted to ask you about your salary expectations.
Me: uhhh... (it was 8 in the morning!)
Jon's Uncle: Did you have any thoughts or ideas on how much you're expecting?
Me: I was going to keep my options open to anything.
Jon's Uncle: Oh... well, don't settle for anything less than between $X or $Y (where X and Y are pretty big numbers).
Me: Oh okay. Goodbye. Zzzzz.

WHAT?! HOLY CRAP! That's way more money than I've ever seen! It was just funny because I already felt better about the opportunity anyways, but this made the pill easier to swallow. Money isn't my motivator, so I would have been happy either way.

Conclusion - Hope is where the heart is

So basically as it stands now, it's in the hands of the employer. Jon's uncle is vouching for me and sent the employer kind words about me so hopefully it'll pay off. If it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, well it doesn't. This isn't where my hopes lie. The story continues.

On Monday evening, I met with my friend Denise who was also from my program at school. She's a frequenter of this website, so she was up to date on some of my life things. She pointed out specifically my dream of working in the water industry to provide water to countries without good access to this resource (from this [entry] near the bottom). She pointed out that a friend of hers did exactly that with a Christian organization called Living Water Canada. She explained what she knew of their projects and my ears perked up. It was EXACTLY what I wanted to get into. That night, I checked out the website and found that they had changed their name to Water Ambassadors Canada (website [here]). I liked everything that I read and saw on the website. I sent them an email just to ask about the projects they have going on during the year and what the dates are. The next day, I received four emails from four different people, clearly they were enthusiastic about any interest in help. So right now, I'm conversing back and forth with them just trying to get more information. What they do is they'll send teams of a dozen people or so to countries like Guatemala or Nicaragua, and have the team drill wells, repair wells, or install water purifiers. What's great is that all this is done within 1 or 2 weeks.

This is what I want to do as my mission for God. It would only be 1 or 2 weeks of a year, which would be totally manageable. I could take on any job here, and yet still take time to go away and do this for a week. It seems like such a good and worthwhile cause. So right now my goal is after finding a job, hopefully within 1 year to go out and do this.

I've been praying for clarity, wisdom and vision, so I guess this is it. It's all pretty much still out of my hands, but if anything, I feel even more hopeful and more focused.

The other night I was flipping through my sermon notebook and came across a line that sank with me:

"The worries aren't worthy of someone who's trying to seek God."
-Pastor Cyril Guerette/iLL seeR

Amen.

Categories: dreaming and achieving , life stuff