Day 64 - new big brothers & sisters.

Woke up especially early today so we could get into the Stampede for free on Family Day and get free pancake breakfast! Mmm...

At church today, I saw Christina from Richmond Hill. She's working here in Calgary too! It was so cool to see someone from home here even though I don't really know her. In fact, I only know her name, I don't even know how or where I know her from. Turns out she use to go to RH3C and she's a friend of Olga's. Which reminds me, I think I saw Gary Cheung at the mall last week too, another one of Olga's friends. I wish people that I'm seeing from home are actually people I know!

After church, Dot left me to fend for myself. So I stayed close to a friend who took me out to lunch with other brothers and sisters. These brothers and sisters in Christ have become like real big bros and sis to me. One girl in particular is like the older sister I've always wanted. She's fun, really cool, wise, a good role model and takes good care of me. No offense to my real older sister because she's a great sister and I wouldnt' trade her for anything in the world! But when we were growing up, I wanted a much older sister. My sister and I are very close in age. I use to look to her for direction, and for some things, I still do. But a lot of things, I can't look to her anymore because somewhere a long the way, I caught up to her. There's a lot of things she can't help me with because she's still figuring it out for herself. But more importantly, as we grew up we became very different people. We deal with different issues, face different challenges and sometimes have very different views in life. I can't really model after her. As much of a leader as I might be, my entire life has been a search for someone I can follow.

A good pastor friend of mine told me something once that really striked a note with me. He said that everyone needs to have an up, a down and an out. An 'out' being someone, most likely your age who you can share and reach out to. A 'down' being someone you can mentor and an 'up' is a mentor that you can look to but also who will take the initiative to disciple you. When I heard that last part about someone who can disciple me, it really hit me hard. When I was younger, I was great at bringing people to church but I was horrible at discipleship. Once I brought the people in, I left them there for others to care for. I was only taught to bring people to church, I had no idea how to care for them, how to disciple them because no one had discipled me. I mean I had lots of sunday school teachers and pastors to teach me lessons. And there were a few people over the years who taught me things and helped me grow in my faith but no one consistent and truly took on that mentor role. I have lots of outs and I have a down but the up position has never been filled. So my search and prayers continue!