Hello Friends! This is my WInter update letter!! I send out a letter out, every four months along with some other YFC stuff to everyone who signs up to receive it! I decided for now that because there are alot of you who follow this blog but aren't yet signed up for this letter that I will post it here!
For those of you who have already signed up, a letter is in the mail so quit reading so you don't spoil it! :D
ryan.russell@yfccanada.org
thanks for reading!
Merry Christmas everyone! Or to be politically correct according to the sign I seen at the mall the other day: happy winter celebration! Haha anyways its almost the end of this year and I cant help but reflect on how much has changed, how much I have learned and experienced this year. Even in the last couple months since the fall prayer letter so much has changed. Hmm… Where to start?
Well if you have been following my updates then you would know for a while that I have been looking for a place to store the Trax cart so that I would be able to do outreach outside of streetlight nights. Well guess what? We found one! Central United Church downtown has allowed me to store the cart there! For the last month myself and Sam (a awesome volunteer from Germany) have been going out with the cart downtown three times a week to serve! It has been really amazing! For one we have been able to not only meet people where they are at, but also have been able build relationships and pray for some people. I have come to realize that though we may just be serving free coffee and snacks, there is so much more to what is going on…These streets are the battleground” those are the words God told me the first day we rolled out. God is establishing Trax as more of a flag or a banner. You see I have come to take this very seriously. Unconsciously I believe by us being there, standing in the gap we are telling the least of these that: God does love them, that they are valuable, and that there are people who do care about them! What a blessing and an honor to be apart of this great fight that God has called us to! We will lift this flag and we will fight! Darkness will not prevail!
I pray that this truth would establish its self on your heart even as you read it! It something I have struggled with in the past and I hope this can be an encouragement to you!
Dear Friends:
Merry Christmas everyone! Or to be politically correct according to the sign I seen at the mall the other day: happy winter celebration! Haha anyways its almost the end of this year and I cant help but reflect on how much has changed, how much I have learned and experienced this year. Even in the last couple months since the fall prayer letter so much has changed. Hmm… Where to start? Well if you have been following my updates then you would know for a while that I have been looking for a place to store the Trax cart so that I would be able to do outreach outside of streetlight nights. Well guess what? We found one! Central United Church downtown has allowed me to store the cart there! For the last month myself and Sam (a awesome volunteer from Germany) have been going out with the cart downtown three times a week to serve! It has been really amazing! For one we have been able to not only meet people where they are at, but also have been able build relationships and pray for some people. I have come to realize that though we may just be serving free coffee and snacks, there is so much more to what is going on…These streets are the battleground” those are the words God told me the first day we rolled out. God is establishing Trax as more of a flag or a banner. You see I have come to take this very seriously. Unconsciously I believe by us being there, standing in the gap we are telling the least of these that: God does love them, that they are valuable, and that there are people who do care about them! What a blessing and an honor to be apart of this great fight that God has called us to! We will lift this flag and we will fight! Darkness will not prevail!
With all that said I have a story for all of you! So I have been trying to make contact with the youth I talked in my second prayer letter “John”. For some reason he stopped contact with me all together most likely because I was challenging him on aspects on his life that he wasn’t too proud of. I would call every week. Leaving funny messages saying how I missed him, and because of how much I have been contacting him sounding like a needy girlfriend. Haha Anyways a couple of weeks ago I met a very intoxicated roommate of his at StreetLight. I told him to pass along the message that I would like to meet with John but honestly I wasn’t expecting much as this guy was really out of it. So anyways I get a call outta nowhere a week later. “Hello” “Hi Ryan it’s John. I believe I owe you a conversation.” So we meet up. We end up talking for four hours. Then here’s the awesome part: HE GAVE HIS LIFE TO CHRIST! Awe man God is so good. I just want you guys to be encouraged that your prayers when I asked for you to pray for him have not turned void, but that our uncreated God listens to the prayers of His people! With that being said I also want you guys to pray for John that his heart would absolutely be set ablaze for Christ with the desire to expect nothing less then what God has for him! that this seed now harvested would produce a harvest 100 times what was planted for Christ!!!!
Now to address the title of this prayer letter: no expectations. What a weird thing to say it usually is a negative statement I mean going into something expecting nothing really doesn’t make any sense. Allow me to explain how this applies to me. For a long time I have been focused on my performance in ministry and even my relationship with God. Often saying things like “I could be doing more” or “I could be doing better” God has been working on this with me and I have been blown away with what God has taught me! Want to know the awesome thing I have discovered? We don’t have to do anything expect love Christ and make Him known. We aren’t God’s employees! It is a blessing and an honor to do what we do! For a long time I have known this but because I allowed these lies to establish themselves in my life and gave away that authority. I was saying I wasn’t good enough, That at the root of it I was saying that I wasn’t a Son of God. But guess what! I am! If God calls us worthy we are! Who are we to call ourselves otherwise? God’s opinion of ourselves is infinitely more important then our opinion of ourselves!If you have given your life to God then He sees you in the same way in which He sees JESUS!!
"Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion." — Brennan Manning
I pray that this truth would establish its self on your heart even as you read it! It something I have struggled with in the past and I hope this can be an encouragement to you!
With this knowledge God has taken me to a place where he asks me to expect nothing…except that He Himself will show up and work in the hearts of the individuals we come across. I am to be his hands and feet to bring Him Glory, nothing more or less. What a beautiful place to be! With this new attitude I see the “work” I am doing not as “work” but as a blessing, honor and privilege. And it is! Absolutely; that I can do these things, and that I have people like yourself who are behind me by lifting me up in prayer and blessing me with the fiancés I need to thrive for God! Thank you SO much! I am so blessed to be able to do what I do for a living and to be surrounded by people who are behind me! I hope you have an amazing Christmas! God bless you!
Love
Radically. Live Righteously.
Love in Christ
Ryan Russell-Timbrell
