I actually read a whole book...

That's right, from cover to cover. And It only took me about an hour yesterday morning...and three straight hours last night. What can I say? It was an absolutely incredible book and a very, very good read. It's challenged my faith in ways I don't think it's ever been challenged. And just to cure your curiosity, the book is called "Left to Tell" written by Immaculee Ilibagiza. It's her real life account of surviving the Rwandan genocide in early 1994. One million Rwandans perished at the hands of their own friends and neighbors because of tribal jealousy/hatred. I have never been able to read a book like that where it's kept my interest and focus on the story the whole time. What this woman goes through and all the stories of others she encounters is heart breaking. This woman suffered through 3 months in a tiny concealed bathroom with seven other women cramped in there. She heard exactly what happened to her brother when he was brutally murdered and saw the evil and hatred burning out of the murderer's own eyes. The most amazing part of this story is how her faith in God stays so unbelievably strong through this whole ordeal. I can only imagine what my own faith would be like after enduring all that. It was amazing to see all the ways God answered her prayers, how he blinded the enemy when she was right in front of them and all that happened. Incredible! I just wanted to cry with Joy and sorrow at the same time reading this book. There's one part in the book I'm going to type for all of you to read because it is so beautiful and amazing. It might be long, but bear with me, it's worth the read!!

"I arrived at the prison late in the afternoon and was greeted by Semana, the new burgomaster of Kibuye. Semana had been a teacher before the genocide, as well as a colleague and good friend of my dad's - he was like an uncle to me. Four of his six children had been killed in the slaughter, and I told him he must have faith that his little ones were with God.
'I can see how much the world has change; the children now comfort the parents,' he replied sadly.
As burgomaster, Semana was a powerful politician in charge of arresting and detaining the killers who had terrorized our area. He'd interrogated hundreds of Interahamwe [the organization of people killing the Rwandans] and knew better than anyone which killers had murdered whom and he knew why I'd come to see him.
'Do you want to meet the leader of the gang that killed your mother and Damascene?'
'Yes sir, I do.'
I watched through Semana's office window as he crossed the courtyard to the prison cell and then returned, shoving the disheveled, limping old man in front of him. I jumped up with a start as they approached, recognizing the man instantly. His name was Felicien, and he was a successful Hutu [the tribe that was killing the other tribe, the Tutsi's] businessman whose children I'd played with in primary school. He'd been a tall, handsome man who always wore expensive suits and had impeccable manners. I shivered, remembering that it had been his voice I'd heard calling out my name when the killers searched for me at the Pastor's. Felicien had hunted me.
Semana pushed Felicien into the office, and he stumbled onto his knees. When he looked up from the floor and saw that I was the one who was waiting for him, the color drained from his face. He quickly shifted his gaze and stared at the floor.
'Stand up Killer!' Semana shouted. 'Stand up and explain to this girl why her family is dead. Explain to her why you murdered her mother and butchered her brother. Get up, I said! Get up and tell her!'
Semana screamed even louder, but the battered man remained hunched and kneeling, too embarrassed to stand and face me.
His dirty clothing hung from his emaciated frame in tatters. His skin was sallow, bruised and broken; and his eyes were filmed and crusted. His once handsome face was hidden behind a filthy, matted beard; and his bare feet were covered in open, running sores.
I wept at the sight of his suffering. Felicien had let the devil enter his heard, and the evil had ruined his life like a cancer in his soul. He was now the victim of his victims, destined to live in torment and regret. I was overwhelmed with pity for the man.
'He looted your parent's home and robbed your family's plantation, Immaculee. We found your dad's farm machinery at his house, didn't we?' Semana yelled at Felicien. ' After he killed Rose and Damascene, he kept looking for you...he wanted you dead so he could take over your property. Didn't you pig?' Semana shouted again.
I flinched, letting out an involuntary gasp. Semana looked at me, stunned by my reaction and confused by the tears streaming down my face. He grabbed Felicien by the shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. 'What do you have to say to her? What do you have to say to Immaculee?'
Felicien was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I'd come to say.
'I forgive you.'
My heart eased immediately, and I saw the tension release in Felicien's shoulders before Semana pushed him out the door and into the courtyard. Two soldiers yanked Felicien up by his armpits and dragged him back to his cell. When Semana returned he was furious.
'What was that all about Immaculee? That was the man who murdered your family. I brought him to you to question...to spit on if you wanted to. But you forgave him! How could you do that? Why did you forgive him?'
I answered him with the truth: 'Forgiveness is all I have to offer.' "

Those are the last two pages of the book, but how wonderful. What an incredible message and lesson to learn. I can't imagine what I would be like in this situation. But God completely sustained Immaculee and kept her faith strong through this whole ordeal. God is amazing! Praise God for who he is and his incredible love!

Just a Note...

Just a quick update as what's been going on. I haven't written anything about what's new in awhile, so here goes! Shouldn't take too long as I have no life :P haha just joking
Well, These past two weeks have been unbelievably busy. I've had six assignments due within ten days, and only having the four days to work on them. I'm happy to say though that I was able to finish my assignments that are due this week today. that was a huge relief! Now I'm able to kind of relax and plan ahead for the upcoming weeks with multiple, MULTIPLE assignments due. I'm hoping to get at least three done this weekend. We're going to My sister's place in Medicine Hat for the weekend. I'm getting one done there called "When I grow Up" and hopefully I'm going to be wearing Marlys's wedding dress and looking in the mirror. Then I have one with a bridgestone tire where we have to take a picture of a bridgestone tire showing it's dedication and commitment to the community, safety, and another topic, but I can't really remember. Anyways, I want to do a shot of a gladiator from a low angle, and he'll br crouching with his spear, and the tire will be his sheild. Then I want to photoshop it to look like a scene out of the movie 300. Hopefully that'll work, and hopefully my brother will be willing to get into a gladiator suit. Anyways, this shot is for a contest for Bridgestone and I have the chance to win up to 3000 dollars! First place is 1500, 2nd place is 1000, 3rd place is 500 (that's just for each school) and then the winner of all the schools gets 3000 dollars. so we'll see how that turns out!
Like I said before we're also going to visit Marlys and Terry and Kyle this weekend. I'm super excited to see them and it should be such a great weekend!
Tomorrow night I might also go back to the bible study one more time to determine whether or not it's a good idea to keep going. I haven't given it a second chance yet.
I know this whole post is pretty scrambled and rushed, but I don't have a specific thing to write about haha, and I'm tired and want to go to bed! Just a note to say hi to all of you out there reading this! Miss all you at home, and hope all is well!

This day...

Beautiful song by Jadon Lavik. Wish I could have found the audio for you guys, so beautiful!

This day two lives become one
This day a new journey has begun
Our hearts full of lasting love
Brought together by the hand above

To share a life that draws us closer
To the one that we live for

And I will give you my heart
And all of who I am
And I will give more than vows
And words could ever say
Yes I’ll give you my all on this day
On this day

On the cross his love was shown
And this love will build our home
Standing now in front of you
We profess a love we know is true

To share a life that draws us closer
To the one that we live for

And I will give you my heart
And all of who I am
And I will give more than vows
And words could ever say
Yes I’ll give you my all on this day
And I’ll give you my all on this day

And I will give you my heart
And all of who I am
And I will give more than vows
And words could ever say
Yes I’ll give you my all (on this day)

And I will give you my heart
And all of who I am
And I will give more than vows
And words could ever say
Yes I’ll give you my all on this day
And I’ll give you my all on this day

On this day, on this day

Trip back to Grande Prairie

You bet! Best weekend ever and it came and went so fast! I realized that it would be possible to go home for the weekend about 2 days before I wanted to leave. Thanksgiving was cancelled in Red Deer at my Aunt's (which wasn't a good thing) But upon realizing that, I was excited to know that I would be able to go back to Grande Prairie! How awesome! So I packed up my things, phoned a couple people and made my way home! The drive went really well, went slow on the way there and fast on the way back. I just had a very relaxing weekend catching up with everyone. I really needed that trip. Now I feel more at ease about being gone so long, and I feel like I'm able to concentrate on school better! It doesn't seem like it's going to be forever until I move back home for the summer. So that's great! I was also able to go see our old place and animals again. Really hard, but good to know the animals were doing good! Those were the only pictures I got from the weekend because I was too busy having fun! So now it's been 3 days since I got back and I miss it already! 1.5 months down, 6.5 left to go!My two dogs Max (left) and Maya. They sure remembered me!This is Smoochie Pants (my brother named her :P) Best cat everJust a few of the familiar and wonderful sights!

Aunty Kari!

Yep! It's true! I am officially going to be an Aunty! My sister Marlys is pregnant and due on March 27 2009! I don't know what else to write about that, only that I'm really really REALLY excited :D My very first niece or nephew. Hurrah! :D

Just for Hannah :)

So I told Hannah I'd put up some pictures I have taken. Just to let you know Hannah, these are pictures from before college, so they aren't too great but hey, I'm learning! Hope you enjoy them! These are just a few of my favoritesSo there are a few of them! There's some more that I like, but I don't want to put them all up, and I need to go to bed haha. But I hope you enjoyed them!

Family Weekend!

Our family has been planning a weekend retreat for our extended family, especially with everything that has been happening over the past months. We all needed a time to relax, recuperate and encourage each other. It turned out to be a really great weekend. We got to know new members of the family (Lori and Nicole mainly) And it was just a good, Christ glorifying weekend. There are some pictures from the weekend, but not too many. We were all so busy enjoying our time, that we forgot to get some pictures! So there's just a few I took from saturday night!This was when the men just got back from the football game! This isn't all of us yet. A few are missing, but it was a great weekend. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!
This is Brad and my Uncle Mike...The Uncle we don't talk about haha!
And this, Is my wonderfully hilarious brother. Isn't he charming?

This is my Uncle Trevor and his new wife Lori! Trevor's son Kris is next to him, Tamara (Trevor's daughter with my Late aunt) is in front of him, Lori is in the middle, and Nicole is to the right, and she is Lori's niece! It was great to get to know Lori and Nicole this weekend!This is Aunty Pam, Mike, Brad (Middle Back) Austin, and Lauren

This is Uncle John, Aunty Cheryl , Colleen in the front middle, Chris in the back on the right, and Chantelle and Brent.The founders of it all, Grandma and Grandpa Knapp. They're so cute :)Grandma and Grandpa and the Kids! On the left, My dad Darrell, then Pam and then John. Missing my Aunty Deb who passed away in 2000.
And last but not least, my family! There's mom Ruth and Dad Darrell at the front, Left to right: Marlys and her husband Terry, Kyle and me! This was the best one we got, Kyle doesn't usually take nice pictures, he's too much of a joker :)

Cake Decorating Fun!

So at our family retreat this weekend, we had two birthdays in the family, and I love to decorate cakes, so I really wanted to make some fun and neat cakes. I decided to make two car cakes and a soccer field cake. Here's some of the pictures!They have the initials of the birthday boys on the front and their ages on the top! The reason it's a smash up derby is while I was decorating the blue car, The back end of the yellow car fell completely off, so Mom said make it into a smash up derby so I did! It worked out pretty well haha :)And of course, both of them love soccer, so I made them a soccer cake, complete with lego peoples! It was delicious!
And the two Birthday Boys! Terry on the Left, Austin on the right! Happy birthday guys!

Open House Pictures!

So As I promised there are some open house pictures! I'll try to keep them at a minimum so that they'll load at a reasonable time! Here they are!!This is the open house set! Record store theme, as I posted in the other post.
This is the product of the scene! Might be a little hard to see, but I guess click and it enlarges. Pretty cool stuff!Our print show! this is only half of the room, but you get the idea. People who go tour the area get to vote on their favorite black and white picture, and their favorite color picture. It's pretty neat!
These are the pictures I entered. A lot of the younger kids liked the skittle one haha. I knew kids like candy :P

That's about the basics of it. It wasn't that eventful! Just sat at the booth, handed out information to people, and took their votes! It was a good time though!

Bible study

Yes Indeed! I did go to it, and I did find it (with a minor loss of direction.) I showed up early surprisingly because they didn't start until 7:30 and I was there at around ten after. So that was weird. Anyways, it turned out to be pretty good! I'm still a little wary on some aspects, but I'm going again next week just to try it out. I can't judge it by one time, so I'll try one more time and keep praying about it for sure! The subject they are doing though is very interesting. It's called the "Truth Project" and it is being distributed by focus on the family. It is created for believers because all too often now, Christians are getting sucked into the lies of the world and starting to get a worldly world view. Truth Project brings you back to the basics of Who God is, Who man is and how it all works. It's so very interesting, and it is very biblically sound. My parents and I actually went to a training seminar for it last weekend so we are "technically" equipped to start our own small groups. (I'm not going to be doing that yet that's for sure!) I'm very excited about the whole subject this group is doing. I think it's going to be quite a wake up call for many christians out there.
Anyways, back to bible study. It was a very friendly group, everyone was talkative and outgoing which was nice. The only problems I had with the group was that they didn't have a set leader. So it was basically just a bunch of college aged kids/young adults saying what their own opinion is on the subject, they weren't bothered by keeping tabs with if it's right or not. I was really wary about that. The other thing I was uncomfortable about was that it felt like almost a singles "bar" per se where it was like, "alright, let's find me a wife." I doubt that that's the mentality of most of them, but still, I've never been in a situation where it's strictly all singles who are all college age, and a lot of them are looking to settle down. Something I'm not used to. BUT that's my own personal issue, not an issue to bring against the group. So we'll see how it goes again next week. Subject matter, I'm very pleased about, group discussion/leadership, not so much.

Open House!

Well at the beginning I wasn't looking forward to open house at all because now we're going to be two days behind in preparing for our project that's due monday, but today as everything was getting all set up, i started to get more and more excited. It was really awesome, we cleaned up the two main rooms, hung up some large pieces of styrofoam and we each got to hang two of our own prints (First years, second years got to hang 8) and now anyone who tours through there gets to see our prints. There are also voting sheets. Anyone who goes through there gets to vote on their favorite black and white print and favorite color print. I don't know what happens for the person who gets the most, but anyways, it's good to know if you have the "best print in show" Per se. Last month the second years had to come up with ideas for a large photo shoot, so the vote that won was "Record Store." That photo shoot took place in the other large room. It waqs so crazy to see all the lighting set up, the set work that had to be done and everything that went into producing a great shot! Since the theme was record store this year, one of the second year students also took individual pictures of all the characters in the big shoot to make posters for the open house.
Oh, in case you don't know, Open House is there for the whole college. It's for anyone who's remotely interested in going there sometime so they can check out some programs and find out what they'd most like to do. So it's a pretty neat thing! Tomorrow I'll try to bring my camera to school to get some pictures of all the set up and posters and what not and show you guys. It's a pretty neat and intricate thing. But I'm off to go buy my wonderful flash! I will talk to you all another time.