Life at the Seminary

So… it’s almost time to go. Today I am doing laundy, packing most of my stuff and (hopefully) clean my room. Don’t know if I’ll get to everything, but I’ll certainly try, in between the regular daily prayers, a funeral at noon and the BBQ with the Duck Bay prayer group.

Speaking of them, the other day some of them came over to our Bible Camp to sing for the kids. I think they did pretty marvellous! I uploaded a video to my webspace of them singing. This Blog really sucks when it comes to imbedding videos (I can only get YouTube videos to work, and these are too large to upload to YouTube… so bear with me!) You can see ‘em singing for the kids if you click the following link: Duck Bay Prayer Group at Bible Camp

At the BBQ tonight I’ll be taking some pictures, because I am working on the cover of their first CD. For those of you that don’t know this, I’ve got a degree in Communications and for two years a lot of my professional work (before I went into seminary) existed in designing stuff. From brochures, websites and news articles to videos, pop cans and book covers. It’s quite a lot of fun, and this way I can say ‘thank you’ to these people here and to the Archdiocese of Winnipeg that has given me this great opportunity to be here.

I’m pretty sad about leaving… tomorrow I will squeeze in one last catechesis class at Bible Camp. I really got the feeling the kids are listening a lot better now and I can actually get something across. Not much… but something It makes it a whole lot more fun. Also, I connect with the kids better than the first day I came here. And I really consider this a learning experience. It has taken me a few weeks to figure it out, true… but at least I learned something very valuable here.

Now, a last video I want to share with you is this: Thunderstorm in Camperville. Man, this was some thunder. You don’t even see the worst part in this movie. We had 4 short power outings here and the satellite gave up on us, so we reverted to watching Everybody Loves Raymond on DVD and managed to have a fun evening anyway. Next update, probably from Winnipeg! Right on!

This post is a review of the book Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits by Bishop T.D. Jakes.

Let me say this much about Bishop T.D. Jakes: he’s an extraordinary fellow. This man has seen the depths and heights that life has to offer. In his book Reposition Yourself the bishop writes about times where he had no money to put food on the table for his family. He writes about scraping every penny together and borrowing quite a lot more just to afford that Pontiac card he wanted so badly to show the world he really ‘was somebody’. I think this is a feeling everyone has: we all want to be somebody. This book shows you essentially that: you can be somebody, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Now I admire bishop Jakes a lot. He has a lot of charisma and he talks sense. I think his honest conviction is to help people and I think that he is a real believer in God and Jesus Christ. Each chapter of his book starts off with a part from the Gospel and the explanation that follows shows exactly why Bishop Jakes has become so popular: he is able to transform the message of the Gospel to something meaningful for people today. For those that are in debt, not feeling good about themselves and left alone. It’s no wonder the bishop is a popular guy in a snazzy suit who by now has made a lot of money (which he uses for many charities). But how deep goes this Christian message exactly?

In Reposition Yourself bestselling author of over 30 books, Bishop Jakes, starts off by writing about his experience in Kenya. Here he was received by a woman whose house was self-constructed out of dry branches and cow manure. And she was proud of herself. The house, devoid of any commodities we take for granted in our ‘world’, was her own castle, even though her bed was made out of cowhides and the dirtfloor betrayed rake marks where it was swept clean earlier. The bishop demonstrates here that we can have a sense of inner peace, no matter what situation we live in. Throughout the book, Bishop Jakes makes it clear that he does not proclaim succes and prosperity for the sake of success and prosperity. On the contrary, what he wants is to show people that by repositioning themselves they can lead the life they want to lead, instead of being lead by the life they are leading now.

Shaping your own destiny
The Bishop believes that God blesses all his people and that faith is the substance of whatever it is that we hope for. He teaches that faith is connected to good works and responsibility and that if we believe that faith by itself is all that is necessary, we believe in magic. I think he is saying: we can’t sit around and wait for something to happen, or pray and believe alone. We have to take charge of our own lives! Now, there is a very fine line here in my opinion, between ‘making life yourself’ or ‘letting God work through you’.

Allow me to explain. As a child, I was so sure: whatever I wanted to do, I could do it if only I really wanted to do it and gave all my energy to do it. This is how I met with one of Holland’s ministers in person, how I got money together for my first trip to Canada by myself (18 years at the time), appeared in a music video of a popular German artist and eventually graduated from Holland’s top university with my Master’s Degree under my arm. It was not until many years after my baptism when working for World Youth Days that I learned I could not do things myself, even if I really wanted it. One project I set up was a mission team that would visit schools together and promote World  Youth Days at Catholic Schools. One of the tasks I had was booking the schools. After one day of phoning from morning till late afternoon and with the use of all my telephone skills (I worked professionally in telemarketing for nearly three years), I was unable to book any of the nearly 40 schools I had called. That night I prayed and said “Lord, I am doing this for you. I don’t need to see this all happen. It’s fine, I just thought it would be important for your kingdom. That it was really your work. So if you want me to do this work, you better come and help me!” The next day, the first school I called up said “yes, it sounds interesting. When do you want to come?” It is a fine line, that is not very clear in the Bishop’s book, I find, but that I do want to mention. Yes, we humans can do something, and as Jesus says at the Ascension “don’t keep staring up into heaven”, we gotta work at it ourselves. But listening to what God’s will is in us, that is what is most important of all. In the end it is all His work! Even if we become rich and famous, what good does it do us? These few years on earth? If we work along with his plan, even if we are poor, we will most certainly be filled with that ‘inner peace’ that the bishop describes.

This all being said, let’s get down to business: what’s in the book?

Facing the Indifference
First of all, Reposition Yourself attacks indifference. Indifference is our greatest enemy. We can easily be content. Even a drug addict or homeless person may accept her ‘destiny’. Or we work one job for 20 years. It doesn’t allow us to grow anymore, we don’t enjoy ourselves, but we continue going. Or we take loan upon loan and sink further away into debt without caring anymore. He brings in several characters to “stop the madness”: Dee Dreamer, who wants us to be able to dream again; L. Lover, who wants us to open up to our friends and family once more; Manny the Manager, who wants us to face our administrative situation and make decisions; and Bee the Believer, our spiritual self who relates with God and seeks His truth in all areas of our life, challenging us to leave behind our apathy. This all is an interesting use of the process known in psychology as intervention, where a group of close relatives and friends confront their beloved with the problem they perceive he has. The Bishop concludes by saying we can never ‘do-over’, like we cannot retake a strike at a baseball match. However, we can do a ‘make-over’ by repositioning ourselves.

Beating the Air, GPS
Back in his younger days, Jakes got into a fight with this kid a grade above him called Harold. Even though he thinks he could have beaten Harold, he knew nothing about fighting. He fought with his eyes closed and threw punches in the air. In this chapter he goes to show that we use a lot of energy on useless activity. If we’re smart, we could be a lot more efficient with our time, money and efforts. In the following chapter he uses the example of a GPS system. It tells us not only where we are, but where we are going and how to get there. So first of all, we need to know where we are, before we set where we should go. The bishop uses several phases, not very different from what I have heard during several seminars I attended. He says that in our activities, we can position ourself in one of five phases (revelation, inspiration, formalization,  institutionalization and cyrstallization). He describes how many of us get stuck in phase 2. We discover our companion, career or whatever (revelation), we overcome that which stands between us and our heart’s desire (inspiration) but we don’t allow ourself to really choose (formalization). Boy, that sure is true. The first few weeks of seminary it dawned on me that I had chosen to become a priest. I wanted to leave so badly! And then I realized why I got so nervous at the thought: I had never really chosen anything for real in my life. I could be spending my entire life choosing a new career, a new partner, a new house, a new place to live, a better movie, a better game, a better pastime, etc, etc. Another danger is landing in phase 5, where deterioration has taken its toll. It’s a terminal stage, where little functions the way it once did. This could be pictured as a couple loving one another but no longer being able to live with one another anymore. Big eye-opener.

Life isn’t Fair
This, to me, was one of the most important chapters of the book. Life isn’t Fair. God did give Mary more grace than any other mortal. No matter how cool a rock star, sportswoman, scientist or (preferably:) Saint we could be, Mary is Mother of God. Who can beat that? I was born in a small relatively well-off family in the relatively well-off Netherlands. Jihi is born in a poor village in Kenya and has to build her own house out of cow manure. Go figure. When someone gets cancer, when someone’s child dies, etc. — respecting these people’s feelings, of course! — they always ask ”why me!? Why did this happen to me  (us)? What have I ever done?” Well, the wake-up call that Bishop Jakes gives and that is so true is this: life isn’t fair. That doesn’t mean you can’t be upset. This doesn’t mean that you have to like it. But many people get stuck in their lives, wallowing in self pity. Jakes explains how to lose the battle but win the war. No matter how unfair life seems or how often someone may have failed in the past, one can still change and improve their life, IF they are willing to reposition themselves. He uses the example of Moses: sold as a slave, falsely accused, he still became ‘prime minister’ of Egypt, because he didn’t allow his past failures to drag him down.

The rest of the book
I can’t go into all the details of course, and I am sure that (if you’re still with me), you want to come to a conclusion also. Impressive is that Bishop T.D. Jakes is really direct and personal. He shows he is thoroughly familiar with the pains in peoples’ lives. He does not give an answer. Only in a few specific cases he gives concrete tips (like how to get out of debt), but overall, he confronts your indifference, self pity, inefficiency and he challenges you to decide what you really want. He also deals with the situation of attaining success and how to get your family involved and what to do when you reach your goal.

Conclusion
Bishop Jakes is not a man big on theology. I don’t agree with him on some issues. I do think he is too worldly. I do think he focusses too much on man-made success. But he has charisma, a really good heart and a lot of experience. He’s been to that valley and he has been to the mountain top. He wants people to get the best out of themselves. I believe that this book could be really useful for people, provided they really commit themselves. While I didn’t buy it for myself, but more as a way of being able to help others in my ministry through Jakes’s methods, I did get a few things out of it. Definitely written from a Christian point of view, anyone can get something out of this book, but don’t expect it to go too spiritual. Personally, I think it should pay more attention to what God wants from us, because if we want what God wants, then we will surely succeed!

It’s time for me to already look forward to my next destination: Winnipeg. This Friday the Missionaries of Charity will take me back with them to the capital of Manitoba, a six hour drive from here. That means that I have to say goodbye to the people I have met here over the past few weeks (even though I’m not yet gone!)

While we would have a BBQ with the prayer group in Duck Bay, many people cancelled and we decided to abandon the idea of a BBQ that afternoon, only to find out that we would have a BBQ here in Campeville! Ernie and his wife Lynn invited Rose and Joe and another couple from the parish, as well as the two Sebastians from the rectory to come out for some sort of ‘going away’ BBQ. The Oblate Sisters (of Mary Immaculate) were there as well, and it turned out to be a wonderful evening!

After a delicious dinner (including bison steak, pork ribs and various salads), we enjoyed talking about so many things together. Rose even baked me a ‘going home’ cake and they got me a lovely card and a stuffed toy dog as a going away present. It was really terribly sweet and I feel grateful that I could be in their presence this month. You see, God gives all sorts of blessings to his children to turn them humble and thankful!

This morning I went to Bible Camp again in Duck Bay. It was a great morning, where I could tell the kids a lot about Abraham and Lot, and the birth of Isaac. We even played dodgeball with one team playing Lot’s shepherds and the other team Abraham’s. The kids had a great time, and that makes it worth all the effort!

So Friday was my day off and while this would normally mean I could kick back with a good book at home, I now had the opportunity to go out to Swan River with two wonderful parishioners, Joe and Rose. Now, Swan River is the closest thing to a small city that we have around here. Folk from Camperville drive out there regularly to do their shopping, banking and pursue whatever hobby they might have. It’s about an hour’s drive… and this year they were celebrating their centennial (100th birthday).

The day started out well with a great parade that lasted well over an hour. The mayor even waved at me. Too bad for him, he won’t be getting any votes out of me. Then he said ‘Nice day for a rodeo, eh?’ The man was right about that! We had a wonderful day with about 26 degrees and a light breeze: it was a nice day for a rodeo! Now there were all sorts of things in the parade, from horseback riders, a band, old coaches, wagons, unique cars and so on, to candy girls-and-boys tossing all sorts of crap at you that you had to pick up from the street. Yum. Apparently a tradition here. Still, it was a really cool parade! The picture here shows this guy driving a tractor without actual tires. I’ve got a friend in Holland who is by now retired and who told me he used to sell these things. I didn’t wanna believe him, but I guess here is the proof that they really existed!

After lunch we went to the rodeo (because it was such a nice day for it anyway!) that they hold here annually. Now I must admit it was a lot of fun! There was a nice fair, old sorts of booths, folks selling clothes (all cowboy stylish, ya know?) and my friend Ernie was calling bingo (for six hours, the poor feller) for the local school band. They robbed me blind with the bingo. I bought several cards and won nothing. Which, statistically, is what happens when you play with 30 other people :p

There was loads of fun stuff to see out on the tracks, too. We went to see the barrel racing, bucking horses, the bull riding and the chariot race. There’s a pretty cool video I took of this guy being thrown off his bull quite fast. One guy actually stayed on for 10 seconds (although it seemed like half a minute to me!) After all this cowboy fun, we went to the local talent show which, I must regrettably admit, was of extremely low quality. I got a good chuckle out of this one kid singing Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire and singing lower and lower as the song progressed, and this girl who really used her voice badly so it came out half-hoarse. There were some that were singing really decent, too, though and all in all we were out of the house for around 10 hours that day. This weekend we’ll have the Duck Bay prayer group BBQ to look forward to, so keep posted!

Finally, I managed to start a photo gallery on my site! You can now use the link in the menu “Photo Gallery” to get there. Problem is, I already used up the 100 MB that Flickr is giving me this month. Bummer. Unless someone wants to donate money for an upgraded Flickr account, that means I will only be posting a pic here and there on the site. Don’t worry, more  pictures will come in August, I assure you!

In the meantime, a lot has been going on. First of all, the kid’s camp in Duck Bay is still going. There are less kids showing up than at the start, but still around 20 of them come. It makes things a bit more manageable. I am now actually giving some catechism classes, but we have to begin at the very basis, so with actual stories from the Bible. The other day, I was able to tell them about Noah, the day thereafter about Abraham, and now Moses will be up shortly.

Apart from the camp, there are still the regular Masses in the various parishes. Today we had Mass at Camperville, where I took the pictures that I’ve just uploaded to my photo gallery. It’s a gorgeous church, don’t you all agree? Tomorrow I will have a day off, and Rose and Joe (who you can also see in one of the pictures) are taking me to a rodeo in Swan River. I bet that will be sooo cool!

The last week of my stay here begins tomorrow. At the one hand, that makes me sad, because I have learnt a lot here. Often if you are in the middle of a process, you don’t really realize it. Like someone that organizes an event but can’t enjoy herself because she’s too busy organizing it – she knows what is going on, but can’t really perceive what happens… that’s how I feel at times. I know God is working in my life and through my work here, but I can’t say exactly what it is. All I can say is that I am filled with a feeling of deep gratitude. I know that there are many out there that do pray for me and my apostolate here. I am very grateful for that, and please, continue! I need it!

At the same time, I am looking forward to go to Winnipeg. Already there are some events scheduled. There will be a BBQ with the seminarians, I’ll see the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (everyone knows I love football – the real kind, not soccer!) and I will meet with the archbishop. Also I will meet my good friends Fr. Albert and the other oblates, as well as Richard Osicki, my old boss from St. Paul’s College. Anyway, time for me to eat whatever Fr. Sebastian cooked up for us. He’s taking really good care of me, so don’t worry about me

Soon to come: a review of Bishop T.D. Jakes’s Repositioning Yourself

Hey everyone,

between activities here I have found some time to work on the website, but all my efforts seem to be useless. I am trying to install a good photo album on my site, but after three seperate attempts, I still have no success. Therefore, in order to give you some of the pics I took on the weekend trip, please go to my Flickr page, which I am temporarily using to post pictures.

If you wanna see what we covered in our Journey, go to google maps and search for Camperville, MB. We went South to Dauphin, then through the National park to Minnedosa. A little after Minnedosa we turned West through Erickson and later South to Virden, where we spent the night with another priest of the Heralds of the Good News.

The next day we went up North on Highway 41 to St. Lazare, a French speaking village in Manitoba, then continue North on Highway 83 to Russel where we visited Fr. Leo. At Roblyn we turned East again to Dauphin and then back North to Camperville. It was a gorgeous ride! Go see the pictures!

Hello friends!

Yes, I have survived our 2-day trip across Manitoba. For my Dutch readers, picturing going to Paris and then coming back home via a longer way. It’s been quite a few hours in the car! I’m dead tired and there’s a program waiting for me tomorrow. I’m expected to give two catechesis classes at camp, which I am looking forward to a lot. So, I am going to get some sleep now first and post more on the trip tomorrow.

There’s more good news as well: I got my camera. I’m going to be uploading picutres as well tomorrow!

We are very fortunate over here. While the average pastor in Holland will bless himself if he has 2 weddings a year, we just had the second wedding since my arrival here July 3rd. Another wedding is coming up for coming Saturday, and then another one in early August (although by that time, I’ll probably be back in Winnipeg).

I really had a wonderful day. In the morning I did some house cleaning (after sleeping in long enough for once!) and we were off before noon, heading to Duck Bay parish. The curious thing here is that the priest has to take care of the church himself before Mass, i.e. ready the paraments, the water and wine, sacramentary, candles, etc. Another curious thing is that there is a rotating schedule of families here that will clean the church. However, after a marriage, the married couple is responsible for organizing the cleaning of the church. Fr. Sebastian just went to say Sunday Mass in Duck Bay now, and I wonder whether anyone has cleaned up the church from yesterday’s wedding. Very doubtful

In any case, we went home for a while after the wedding. I just read and listened to some music and enjoyed the sun! Even though it was only a short time, I felt very revitalized to head out at 5pm for the supper. Now, these suppers are huge! They just rent a hall in town and feed 150 people easily. They also decorate the hall extensibly. The food is always really good and we ate a lot quite quickly, because we had to be in Pine River for Mass at 7pm. Mind you, it’s an hour’s drive from Duck Bay.

After Mass one of the parishioners invited us home for donuts and all sorts of other snacks such as cheese, sausage and pickles. Yum. Three generations of the family were represented and we had a good time. I was set on watching Pulp Fiction when we came home, although *yawn* I gave up after the first hour and went to bed. Today when Father comes back, we will head out to Virden as promised where we’ll be staying until Monday. So… you guys’ll probably have to wait a two more days for the next update!

Greetings to all who went to World Youth Day in Sydney, we’ve been praying for you a lot over here!

Friday was such a nice day! No rain and no morning activities for once. That’s to say, for me. A friend from the council office, Ernie, came to pick me up at noon. We went over to his place where we had lunch with him and his wife, both active in parish life here. It turned out we had some friends in common, too! The lunch was really good, but the best thing was just to sit down and talk with these wonderful people.

Just meeting some people here was wonderful. We had a coke with the guys that do the plumbing around here and before I knew it, it was 4 ‘o clock and we were back at the council office, where Ernie showed me lots of pictures, which kept us busy till five. Then he dropped me off again here, so I could kick back with a beer and watching a movie (Blue Streak, which was pretty funny). Today (Saturday) there will be another wedding and a Mass at Pine River. Hope everyone is doing well!

So… has anyone of you guys woken up with a squirrel sitting out on your porch? Didn’t think so. Today it happened to me, though… it made me think back about what someone asked me the other day “So, what wild life do you have in Holland?” Out here, animals are just a part of life. When I say animals, I do mean mostly mosquitoes But yeah, they got caribou, elk, moose and whatnot around this place, too.

As you might have guessed, the bible camp of the Sisters of Mother Teresa up in Duck Bay has kept us quite busy. Tuesday was a tough day for me, I must admit. There were 45 kids now and all going crazy. I tried giving them a little introduction, but really no one was paying the slightest bit of attention. I had to give up working with these kids – as you can see there is still a lot to learn for me, too. I have done quite a lot of youth camps with the Brothers of Saint John, but lil kids ministry I only have a little experience with. Still, there are still quite some kids that really take to me. They come talk to you, ask all sorts of questions (that I wish grown-ups would ask, too!) or just look at you and laugh. Some just lightly punch you and then run off giggling. I take these as signs of affection, so as not to become completely depressed

Wednesday we didn’t go to camp in the morning, but instead we went to visit some sick people here in Camperville. Of course, Fr. Sebastian also distributed communion and each time it was wonderful praying along with the rite, and praying for these sick people. Visiting sick people is not as nice as it sounds. You come into a stranger’s life all of a sudden to share in it for a relatively brief moment. Your love goes out to these people, but it is hard to put in words without actually saying things that might be clumsy, stupid and whatnot. It is also quite hard to see people suffer, or tell you that they wonder why they should still live at all. It has a great joy to it, too, because you get to meet Jesus in them, and they can, hopefully, see some of Him in you.

In my spare time I am trying to read a few things. I am almost done with Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin, and my new book just came in. It is called Repositioning Yourself by Bishop T.D. Jakes. I added his blog to my blogroll. He’s not a Catholic bishop, but he’s pretty cool for a protestant. The book helps people re-orientate their lives with the use of scripture and according to God’s plan. I figure this book might come in use when doing family pastorate or personal counselling: the two things I really am looking forward to when being a priest, apart from celebrating the Sacraments and doing lots of youth ministry.

Wednesday Mass was – as usual – in the evening in Duck Bay. When we came back home, Fr. Sebastian actually tried to make me watch Terminator II with him. I told him that him and another priest had already made me watch Rambo III and that that was more than enough for me!!

Today the camp went a lot better than on Tuesday. I got to tell the smaller kids the life story of Saint Joan of Arc. This makes me realize all the more  how badly I need to start working on her page on my site here, it still doesn’t contain much, but it is getting frequent hits. After camp, I did some grocery shopping (almost 30 minute drive!) and we had evening Mass here in Camperville. Tomorrow a friend from the council office here is going to take me around the community, so I am really looking forward to that. More on that later! In the meantime, keep praying for me!