5000 Miles from Home for Christmas

by Harry Muller

Luna and I will be spending our 3rd Christmas in Canada this year. We are really looking forward to it. We are excited to catch up with all our friends we have neglected during the semester, and we love to put on a Christmas dinner and invite others over who are away from home.

Ever since we came to Abbotsford there have been many lovely people here who have made us feel welcomed and loved, and who invited us over for dinner. There is something about this act of hospitality, about this opening your home and welcoming someone into your family that warms the heart and builds deep relationships.

Our first Christmas here was not easy. After a very busy first semester at Columbia Bible College, we finally had some time at our hands. Suddenly we realized how much we missed our families and friends back home. The next year was easier; we had moved to a different, homier place and our friends were more like family than the year before. 

“Home” for us is vague concept in any case. Luna was born in Croatia, but moved to Germany when the Yugoslavia War broke out in the 90’s. That is where I am from. My parents live in a small town outside of Berlin. However, since I am married, my parents’ place obviously does not feel like “home” anymore.

Home has to do with family, of course. I think for God’s family ‘home’ has two dimensions: One is the here-and-now, the fellowship of love, and houses of warmth that we invite others into, and that can be a refuge for those who only know the brokenness and ‘homelessness’ of this world. The other dimension is that we are not home in this world either. We experience pain, suffering, consequences of sin, and we lament world-wide disasters like war, famine, and natural disasters. This world is not like our God created it; it is not the same ‘home’ that he made for humans to enjoy. But he will restore it to; he will make it “homey” again. 
 
So for me, that means that my wife and I want to help others experience a glimpse of ‘home’ already in this age. Columbia is doing the same by emphasizing ‘community’ and putting lots of effort into building it. The great thing is that every student can contribute to this ‘community away from home’.

If I had to choose one thing that I am most thankful for at Columbia, it would be this community. That being said, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas; enjoy the glimpses of ‘home’ you will have and invite others in to share our hope for a fully complete home with them.




Harry is in his 3rd year of a BA in Outdoor Leadership. He is married to his wonderful wife Luna and will be enjoying Christmas in the Fraser Valley. To learn more about Outdoor Leadership at Columbia visit www.columbiabc.edu/outdoorleadership. 

IMPRESSIONABLE IMPRESSIONS: A Reflection on Service Practicum

by Luke Friesen

A large part of education at Columbia is learning to integrate what you are learning with the community you belong to. Each student is required to participate in a weekly Service Practicum; volunteering their time in the community. Luke, a first year Youth Work student, shares his experience.

I have learned a lot through my Service Practicum, particularly, that I have to watch myself much more carefully. Before, I could basically do what I wanted to do and I really did not have to think if it would affect anybody. Now that I am a leader and I have these young little guys watching me, I have to be carefully of what I say and what I do in my spare time. It really makes me think in what I do. Is what I do useful for anything, or anybody? That is one of my biggest challenges being a youth leader. A challenge for the best, to try and improve on myself.

I have also learned that not everyone will like me and some kids are harder to reach out to than others. There are some real ‘punk kids’ in there - real raw. Those guys are my challenge, then there are guys who are just amazing, who just need a friend. These guys just need a little push and they will be on the track for great things. Many of these kids do not have any older role models in their lives except for their mom and dad’s. Most impressions they have of older people my age are people who do not care about anything and only care about themselves and having a good time. I hope I can change their point of view and show them that we, as older members of the community and potential role models, can be better than that.

I can apply anything I do within this youth group for the future. I want to pursue youth work, and anything I learn from this I can apply for the future. I am pretty sure right now that God has called me to become a youth worker, and so I want to be as great as I can be at it. I have never done anything like this before I started working with this youth group, so any experience is a good experience, because it is all learning for me.

Luke Friesen is in his first year of the Youth Work Program and is completing his Service Practicum working as a youth leader at Northview Community Church in Abbotsford. When he is not volunteering with youth, Luke moonlights as Clark Kent. 

To learn more about Youth Work at Columbia, visit www.columbiabc.edu/youthwork. 

LEAVE YOUR EXPECTATIONS AT THE DOOR

By Briar Van Driel

I had to leave my expectations and pre-formed opinions at the door when I boarded the bus heading for the downtown eastside (DTES) of Vancouver.  The Church and Mission class here at Columbia filed onto the bus not knowing what our weekend would hold, but I can guarantee that we all walked off that bus as changed students four days later.  

           
I walked into the weekend viewing this as a missions trip, thinking that I had something to offer the people of the DTES, but this view was turned on its head within the first hour of arriving there. We walked off the bus and were greeted by Trista, a pastor of The River Church who went on to take away every preconceived thought and view of what we thought the weekend would be like. She gave us an idea of what the DTES looked like and gave us a new truth to hold onto for the weekend. We were told that what we were going to do in terms of missional work this weekend really wouldn’t make a huge difference in the long run, but that this weekend would be more of an eye opening and personal “inreach” rather then outreach.

Throughout the course of the weekend I found this statement to ring truer and truer. The people of the downtown eastside do not need more charity, or people handing them food and clothing, or even people evangelizing to them. They need people to listen to them; people to talk with and people so show them Gods love rather then tell them about it.

           
After hearing from and interacting with multiple people who live and work in the downtown east side with the purpose of reaching out to the marginalized people, one thing started to become more and more clear to me. I kept coming back to the truth that these people, the homeless, the drug dealers, the prostitutes, the people we look down on, these people seem to grasp the understanding of love, honesty, truth and community better than I do. We tend to hide our sins behind our wealth and sometimes fake smiles, while the people of the DTES wear their sin on their sleeves. Opening up and being real with our problems and struggles to one another is another important thing I learned. There is truly beauty in the broken things of life. God works through circumstances that we view as pain and suffering and we can know that God's hand is in every situation every step of the way.

           
If I look at how I perceived the downtown eastside a few weeks ago and how I view it now, it is a complete 180 turn. I learned that I need to throw judgment aside. I got a first hand view of what living life down there is like and was told by some people experiencing that life what it is truthfully like. Now, instead of viewing the DTES as a cold, painful and suffering place I see it as a place of love, community and hope. God is working in Vancouver and I can only pray that His good and faithful servants continue working down there showing His love.

Briar is a first year Intercultural Studies student at Columbia Bible College. To learn more about how you can be a part of inner city ministry, visit www.columbiabc.edu/interculturalstudies.

A FAITH JOURNEY IN REVIEW

By Nicholas Pope

On April 21, the Columbia Bible College community joined together to celebrate our 76th Graduating Class. With 147 students in caps and gowns, it was our biggest graduating class ever. Over the past 4 years our community has been blessed to have several outstanding individuals. Nicholas Pope, a Biblical Studies graduate, is an extraordinary student with a deep passion for social justice and a genuine love for his neighbour. Nicholas shared the following part of his story with his friends and family during the graduation banquet.

"Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Great is his power, infinite is his wisdom, and relentless is his love.

I came to Columbia four years ago, and I am now a very different person than I was back then. My life has been affected by the community around me, my thinking has matured, and my understanding of what it means to truly follow God has become more accurate.

In my first year of Columbia I was readily embraced by a community. I was in Quest, where the idea of being fully known and fully loved was emphasized, allowing me to be vulnerable and make good relationships that spurred me on to seek God and love others more. In this community, I was encouraged to face the challenges I had not wanted to deal with, including the challenge of relationship with my family. It was here that I started to realize that I should not just leave them behind as a part of my past life, that it is so important to try to reconcile those relationships. This started a slow journey of trying to change old habits and ways of relating with them, and it’s still an ongoing process that might take a while, but God has brought me this far. He has convicted me, guided me and given me people to support me as I seek to live out the ministry of reconciliation and ethic of love that he has given us.

This community he gave me was so good, yet I valued his gifts above him, the giver. The summer after Quest, I realized that I was loving relationships with people more than relationship with God, and this was idolatry. Community is great, but not when it is relied upon more than him. People are not God, and they will fail us. Trying to get my fulfillment in life from having good relationships with people did not work out, and even caused some harm in relationships as I expected from my friends what only God could give. So, I asked God to help me put him first, and he answered.

Returning to Columbia, I found myself without many good relationships as nearly everyone I knew from the year before had not returned. From this position of aloneness, God drove me to seek him and find my fulfillment in him. I was blessed by the many opportunities there were to join with others in trying to seek God and be in relationship with him through prayer. In this time, though I often found it hard to see or hear God, somehow, in the very act of seeking I think I may have found him. And although I often felt alone, through seeking God I found community with others who were seeking him as well.

This community has been so important to me especially in my later years at Columbia. Throughout my time here, I have been on a journey of seeking the truth - seeking the truth about God, about life, about who I am; about ethics, the Bible, relationships, history - seeking a truth that is useful and guides me into a better way of living. This has led me to ask many questions. I have had to ask questions about the very core elements of my faith, and challenge my most basic presuppositions about life. This has at times been very unsettling, leaving me confused and uncertain about my beliefs, yet this community has helped me through the process. At Columbia I have enjoyed the safety a place where I can be completely intellectually honest without fear of rejection or condemnation. I have been surrounded by others who are going through the same process, giving me a sense of normalcy in the my tumultuous journey. And I have been provided with many different voices from books, students and profs, so that I could make informed decisions and be cautioned when my thinking is leading me to be less loving. It has been so freeing to be able to be intellectually honest and seek the truth no matter how unsettling it may be.

In my seeking of truth, I have been led to a much better understanding of what it means to truly follow God. Coming into Columbia I had no desire to pursue a secular profession because I wanted to follow him fully with my whole life. I did not want to seek my own gain during the day and only seek him on Sundays and evenings, or just live out my faith by doing something as trivial as being nice to people. But, in my time here, I’ve seen how I do not need to be in a traditional ministry position to live a life of ministering. I have been shown how important faith is to every aspect of the world, not just the parts traditionally labelled “spiritual.”

I have been shown that true faith requires having such a trust in God’s salvation that I take the risks and act for the purposes of his kingdom in such a way that would be considered foolish by the world - That would be considered foolish if not for the reality of a saving God. That true faith is not having all of my systematic theology figured out, but is seeking justice, loving people, and walking humbly in the will of my God.

And so, I see my faith leading me into the ministry of the legal profession. To help protect the rights of the oppressed and be part of a movement for justice. In these four years I have learned more of the character and will of God. Now I hope to clothe this knowledge with fitting action and go to law school to learn another skill which I can use to take part in the inbreaking of his kingdom into this world. I want to be open to be someone God will use to bring freedom - freedom to those enslaved in the chains of physical oppression by humanity’s greed, and freedom to those enslaved in the chains of the North American myths that say that consumerism and entertainment will bring them fulfillment in life.

In all of this, I confess to you, that I do not really know what I’m doing. I’m just a fool searching for his father. I am still seeking to try to know him and love him, and to love people both those who are close to me and those who are far. I do not have a grasp on God, but I believe that he has his grasp on me.

I am so thankful for my time at Columbia. It has had its confusions and struggles, but there have also been so many simple joys. Communal meals in the dinning hall, unit meetings, Vespers, talent shows, camping trips, coffees, sunny days, snowy days, walks, games, study parties, Greek, and all the crazy things we got up to in guys’ dorms - God’s hand has been over it all.

Blessed are you, oh Lord our God, king forever!"

Nicholas graduated in April with a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies. This summer he will be working on a leadership team for the camp he has served at for several years before pursing his vocational goals in Law. Nicholas is pictured here at Petra last summer on a trip to the Holy Land as a part of his Biblical Studies degree. To learn more about Biblical Studies at Columbia visit www.columbiabc.edu/biblicalstudies.

A QUEST TO COSTA RICA

By Ashley Bloudoff

The QUEST team in Costa Rica

This year has been so incredible. I don’t even know how to sum it up more than by saying it has truly had a wonderful impact on my life. Not only has this whole year in Quest been a great year all together, but the Costa Rica mission trip was definitely a huge highlight for me. It was so impactful and so amazing to be able to go on this trip this year and see what God is working on in that area of the world.

While we were down in Costa Rica we met with three missionaries who live there and were able to guide us through our week with them. After our first night in San Jose we continued on and spent time in the jungle with a pastor of a church in an indigenous village. We hiked 3 hours to the church in the jungle where we stayed 3 nights. Now, I absolutely hate snakes so the hike was quite interesting for me as I stressed about seeing one on our journey; it was a long hike for me, that’s for sure.

When we arrived at the church we setup our tents and a makeshift shower out of a tarp and learned what we would be doing there for our weekend stay. We worked on a water well project to get water up to the church from the stream as well as making benches for the church and spending time with the people there. Though it was challenging to communicate at times, we all had fun acting out what we were trying to say! Our group quickly learned that no matter what needs to get done or what projects need to be finished, the only thing that matters to the people there is quality time with each other. I learned how to really slow down on this trip and take the time to be with other people in an intentional way. One of our days included a community soccer game and lunch with the indigenous people. Even though it was pouring rain, our group still played soccer in the mud and puddles and as a result, the people from the area saw us and just had to join in on the game!

Ashley enjoying some local produce

Our group is the only group of Christians the village people have seen and so to see us having a blast in the rain and mud made them want to play and spend time with us! It was amazing to see how interested and grateful they were for us being there. We then had a church service where some of us from our group shared a little of our faith story as our guide translated for the people. We sang songs and prayed in ways churches here in North America don’t. It was so amazing to see these people thanking the Father, the Son and the Spirit over and over again. This service had such an impact on how I view worship and praise and community, and I want to live my life in the way we were all shown by this small group of people who just live simply and faithfully. 

Not only was this group of people blessed and impacted by our presence, help and willingness but all of us were also so blessed to have experienced all that we did in this amazing culture. I know that God planned our entire trip to change so many lives that week; it is amazing and powerful how he brings people together to do his work. I am so thankful to have experienced this trip and had the chance to see God in so many new and amazing ways. Looking back it’s amazing to see how God prepared and changed our hearts throughout the preparation for and during the trip. We are so blessed in life and Costa Rica changed my perspective in great ways, equipping me in many different ways to be a light in God’s Kingdom.

Ashley is wrapping up her year as a QUEST student at Columbia. To learn more about QUEST please visit www.columbiabc.edu/QUEST.

SOLITUDE

This ridge I walk
Seeking its majesty and to stand atop

My Creator smiling as I indulge in
what he handcrafted and created
Like a father smiling as his child
opens the gift he gave him
The gifts he wishes to give me

Everything I have in this life
is a gift and what’s more is it’s free 
How could this not be something
I realized in my heart

Long ago from the beginning from the start

I couldn’t do a thing to deserve 

what you have in store for me

So all I can do is be still and wait on you 

You are the silence in the noise

And in the silence you are the voice  

To carry me home to the kingdom of heaven

The state of my heart not a place we go to in the end

I reach back as you extend your hand

Lord you are my compass, my guide, my friend.

You made me ferocious, protective and wild

Yet still you humble me like a child

You give me what I need and what it takes

The stakes are high and I accept your invitation

And now we move forward together

I give you these hands, these feet forever

To learn more about Outdoor Leadership visit www.columbiabc.edu/outdoorleadership.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Reframing Men's Spirituality

by Gareth Brandt

www.mensspirituality.com

Men are famous or infamous as it may be, for being independent sorts. Strong men have traditionally or stereotypically been “lone ranger” types, fiercely independent and self-reliant. Jokes and stories abound about men who are hopelessly lost yet refuse to stop and ask for directions or consult a map. “It must be around here somewhere,” is grumbled after the umpteenth time around the block. When men are injured they often stoically grin and bear it, moving on to the next task or play. “I’ll be fine,” as they hobble along with an excruciating grimace that would make even the most cold-hearted mother reach out with assistance. I’d like to counter this tendency by saying, “Be man enough to ask for help!”

This book has been a communal project. A lot of people helped. Being a man, it did start out that way. My quest began in a tangible way with a four day retreat of complete silence and solitude on Vancouver Island. I was skeptical of the Christian men’s movement but had never spent a lot of time investigating what it was really all about. Maybe I needed to give it a chance. During my retreat I read all the books on men’s spirituality from all perspectives I could get my hands on: secular, Roman Catholic, mainline, evangelical. I read stories of men in the Bible. I wrote in my journal in response. I walked for miles along the beach listening to the waves. My retreat of solitude and silence was a very valuable time for me, but all my reading left me deeply unsatisfied.

I did not set out to write a book on men’s spirituality. I set out on a personal quest. After reading almost a dozen books on the subject I was left with the craving for another voice. And a voice inside said, “Then speak up!” The thought of writing a book on male spirituality terrified me because it seemed that I was just at the beginning of this journey of discovery. But maybe this was a good way to start the journey- by writing about it. It did not matter if anyone else would ever read it.

Although I am an introvert and was invigorated by my retreat, after my time of solitude I was convinced that this is not the path to a healthy and holistic male spirituality. This path must be traveled in company with other men: men of the Bible, my spiritual ancestors throughout history, and most importantly my friends, brothers and colleagues. Are we all traveling alone thinking that this is the only way to go?

Purchase your copy of Under Construction

I wondered about the possibility of discussing my writings with a small group of men. I e-mailed a few dozen friends from my church and colleagues at work and in less than 24 hours I had a table full of men (and a waiting list!) that were interested reading my writings and then meeting together at a local pub on a regular basis to talk about male spirituality.

In conversation I began mentioning to people what I was working on during my sabbatical and found an unexpected and enthusiastic interest in this men’s spirituality project. Because of the interest I thought I might increase the circle of conversation by starting a “virtual” group as well and contacted acquaintances across the continent. Again, within a very short time I had a response of about 30 people who were interested in reading and responding to what I was writing and a number suggested others they knew who would be interested.

How did it come about that I used the story of Joseph in the Old Testament as an outline for the book? As I was reading books about men’s spirituality I wondered whether the archetypal models are particularly Christian or biblical. As a Christ-follower, it is important for me that the metaphors, models and motifs for male spirituality come from the authorities and traditions of my life. The Bible, as a revelation of God’s story and God’s person, as well as the human story, is an important authority in my life. What biblical story would help me in exploring men’s spirituality?

Perhaps it would be good to see all the men in the Bible as our community of spiritual wanderers. They have great variety and so do we, but for simplicity of presentation it would be good to have one narrative. Is there a story of one man that might provide us with a multiplicity of metaphors for male spirituality? I had a dream during my retreat that said it should be Joseph. How can I argue a dream!?

2 Aside from the dream there is more about why Joseph is a good choice in chapter 3 of the book.

An interview with Gareth about his book, Under Construction: Reframing Men's Spirituality. 

 

Gareth Brandt cycles to work every day in Abbotsford, BC where he teaches practical theology at Columbia Bible College. His educational background includes degrees in spirituality, theology and psychology with an emphasis on the spiritual formation of young adults. He has a background in congregational and denominational youth ministry.