Stories from Squamish

Well it's been a few days since going up to Squamish, and wow...what an incredible weekend. We started off by driving up the notorious Sea-To-Sky Highway in low visibility and pouring rain! Even with their "improvements" the whole highway is freaking retarded still!

Friday night my buddy Matt Davies and his dad Glenn who are planting a church in Squamish welcomed us and shared their vision for why they're planting a church in the city of Squamish. Later on that night Matt shared from God's word and helped us become better listeners to God's voice. This was preparing us for what was coming up on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we woke up (only getting about 4-5 hrs of sleep), and went out in two groups to pray over the city of Squamish. For three hours the two groups prayed over areas in the city like Quest University, the downtown core, various businesses etc... This was an amazing experience and many of the students shared afterward that this was an incredible opportunity for them to live out their faith.

The rest of the afternoon we spent time sightseeing at Shannon Falls and it was a beautiful sunny day. That night we had a great dinner at McDonalds, went swimming, and then learned that there is a cost in following Jesus. But the hope we have is that whatever the cost is... Jesus gave his life for us...and paid the ultimate cost for our freedom.

Sunday morning we joined Squamish Baptist Church during their morning service and were treated to a potluck lunch after. I don't think they were expecting 14 students to be eating all that food...so we gave them our lunch supplies that we had left to ensure everyone got something.

During that lunch I was introduced to three African girls who moved to Squamish to attend Quest University. What was amazing was on Saturday morning we prayed over that campus and asked God to raise up leaders on that campus to be a light. Getting to tell those 3 girls that we prayed for them just blew them away! I've already gotten an email from them saying how blessed they are to know complete strangers are praying for them!

Truth is this couldn't be a youth group missions trip without something crazy happening. This trip's "crazy" moment was how the Suburban I was driving was nicknamed the "Flaming Turd". I don't know this happened, but we drove around Squamish all weekend with this written in the dust on the back glass of the SUV.

I look forward to the next time we can get back to Squamish to continue partnering with Glenn & Matt and their church. To God be the glory...now and forever!

-Ty