THE WEEK I ALMOST DIED TWICE

The Date: July 1967, The Location: North Channel of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. The organisation: John Island Camp.

The Kismet supply boat stopped about 500 feet from the sandy beach that would become our wilderness home for the next month. One by one the canoes, which had been tied behind the boat ,were brought near, loaded with food, axes, pots pans, matches, clothes, sleeping bags, personal items and the all essential TP (toilet paper). With great excitement and a bit of anxiety the 18 teen-aged campers, guided by our leader Mr.Koski, made our way towards the shore line of Aitken Island,

The closer we got the shore the more evident it became how pristine and undeveloped this magnificent island was. We beached the canoes and together placed our feet on the sandy shore that would be our home for the next month. It was here that we would build all the necessities of home; sleeping shelters, a safe food storage area, build kitchens, fire pits, and a loo to go with the TP.

Our training regimen began the next morning. The trip of a lifetime was only three weeks away and we had to be in shape for the arduous task following the ancient voyageur canoe route from the Spanish River, along the North Shore, down the St Marys River to Sault Ste. Marie. Every day we practiced righting overturned canoes by canoe over canoe rescues, solo paddling, swimming, strength training, water proofing sleeping bags, practiced first aid and developed menus and food lists for the week long adventure.

The day of our departure arrived and we began packing the all important food. We packed the last meal of the last day first and successively backwards from there to lunch on day one. A large bag of prunes was placed in the bow of every canoe for daily sustenance. Before long we were heading up the Walesback, past John Harbour and on our way to the unpredictable waters of the North Channel. Just out side Iron Bridge when we encountered our first disaster.

We had been surfing down the front side of four foot waves when the rogue wave struck. Looking over my shoulder from the bow seat all I could see was a wall of water picking up the stern of the canoe. With in seconds the canoe was doing a cartwheel. Seconds later we were capsized and swimming as hard as we could in the turbulent waters. The canoe survived, we survived, I and still had my glasses on. Later that evening we would discover that our water proofing techniques were proven adequate as we would sleep in dry sleeping bags under the shelter of our overturned canoe. The remaining two days were uneventful. Paddling for six to seven hours each day, we often took breaks by lashing two canoes together and hoisting a small piece of canvas as a makeshift sail, allowing the strong winds of the North Channel to guide us towards our daily evening camp site. By day five we had finally reached the mouth of the St. Marys River. With-in a few hours the second disaster would strike.

The current in the river was running about 3-4 miles per hour and our average paddling speed 4-5 miles per hour. The trip up the river should have taken an hour or so; it was going to take us a whole day. Ever so slowly we progressed from marker buoy to marker buoy resting at each one and hanging on for dear life so our forward progress would not be impeded. A narrow section of the river would prove to be our undoing.

We were making our way along just inside the shipping channel markers when a very large Bethlehem Steel freighter came up behind us. Looking up toward the forward deck we could see a deck hand mimicking our paddling action, while other deck hands cheered us on. Suddenly the water around our canoe began to churn violently and the canoe began to be pulled backwards towards the stern of the freighter. We could hear the low rumble of the giant propeller, slowly we were being sucked into its wake…at 15 years of age I thought were about to die. We paddled with all our strength, but to no avail. We were being drawn into a whirlpool created by the prop wash and the wall of water being displaced by the sheer volume of the ship. Death was immanent. Suddenly we found our selves being shot away from the ship towards the shore. Like a rocket our canoe flew forward though the water and beached itself on the exposed shore line. We had survived, we were in tact, the canoe was intact, and we had escaped. Nervous laughter soon turned again to horror as we watched a three foot wall of water racing towards the shore, smash into our canoe and once again throw us into the water. The ship was pushing a might wall of water out of its way as it traversed the narrows of the river and as the stern passed our location that same wall of water returned with a vengeance.

We arrived in The Sault. near suppertime, exhausted, tired and excited that we had completed the ancient route taken by the voyageur sand would go down in Canadian history. There to great us was the John Island truck, the canoe rack on the back and enough money for a nice restaurant cooked meal. We had completed our assigned task, delivered all the campers and red canoes intact and on time. Our summer adventure had come to an end but the memories would last a lifetime.

A CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM GOD

Dear child,
It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival; although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth just, GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER. Now, having said that let Me go on.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santa and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can and may remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish I actually spoke of that one in a teaching explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 – 8 in the Bible.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it.

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know. They tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing “George” complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up...it will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in Greater Sudbury will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile. It could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day, they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive If you don't know them (and I suspect you don't) buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the, the Salvation Army or the food bank . They will make the delivery for you.

9 Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

P.S Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work. Time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love. And remember, I LOVE YOU.

Found this in my Christmas file, Author Unknown

THE MIRACLE at MCFARLANE LAKE

The year was 1977. It was summer, and it was our first trip home to Canada as husband and wife.

Eileen and I had been offered my Uncle Albert Magee’s cabin at the end of McFarlane Lake for a few days of R&R. Arriving by small boat and outboard motor; we had no idea that during the next two days our lives would forever be changed.

The purpose of our trip was to introduce my American wife, Eileen, to my home town of Sudbury and show her off to all my relatives and friends. For years I had been living without a Visa in the USA and now, after getting married, I could come and go freely between Canada and the USA.
So here we were in my home town, nestled in a rustic camp, accessible only by water, down an isolated corner of a pristine Canadian lake. We enjoyed the peace, the isolation, the sounds of nature, all of which were in dramatic contrast to the noise, pollution, and traffic of living in New York.

The sun was shining brightly over the quiet, still water. Eileen and I were sitting on a homemade bench on a hill just outside the cottage door. We looked at each other and the most insane idea landed inside our heads at the exact same moment. Why would we spend the rest of our lives in the chaos that was New York when we could live in the calm serenity of Sudbury? We had not previously thought of moving here. We had no discussions on the matter. These thoughts were right out of the blue. Or were they?

In the months leading up to our trip to Sudbury, both Eileen and I had been offered some amazing career opportunities. Eileen was being wooed by a medical firm to become their international director of marketing. The firm was located in Denmark, and they wanted her to move to their world head-quarters. I, on the other hand, had been offered a spot as a lounge act on the Las Vegas Strip, worlds apart from Copenhagen, Denmark. During this period, God was slowly drawing me back to Himself.

Through a series of bounced cheques from bankrupt bars and an increasing awareness of my rebellious lifestyle, God was letting me know that all would not be well if I stayed in the entertainment industry in New York. It seemed time for a change, but I figured it would be between Copenhagen or Las Vegas!

However, God was working out HIS plan for our lives that did not include Copenhagen, Las Vegas or New York.

His plan for us was centered in a little mining town, miles from any large city, in the middle of Northern Ontario by the name of Sudbury. A city in which I grew up, left, and was committed to never returning! But all that changed on a summer day, on a homemade bench, watching the sun sparkle off the waters of McFarlane Lake, when the God of the universe let us both know that He had a better plan for our lives than we had for ourselves.

Stunned that we would even consider abandoning our blossoming careers for the uncertainty of Sudbury, we headed back up the lake. Arriving at my parents’ home on Danforth Avenue, I posed a question to my dad, Kitchener. Would All Nations Church be willing to give me a job for just one year so I could transition out of the entertainment industry to whatever job God had in store for me? The answer was a resounding yes!

Eileen and I returned to New York to wrap up our lives there. I cancelled my performing contracts, went back to school and finished the last two semesters of my B.A. We discovered that summer Eileen was pregnant. After selling our house we packed up everything we owned in the Allied Movers van. When we finally returned to Sudbury (with four month old twins this time!), waiting for us was a lovely ONE bedroom basement apartment, a warm welcoming church family, and a salary of $9,000.00 a year. Prayers were answered. A prodigal son returned.

It was August, 1978: just over a year from when we experienced the Miracle on McFarlane Lake. Little did we know that this one year adventure would turn into a lifetime.

How a Year Turned Into a Lifetime

My Dad Kitchener, his wife Jean and myself, arrived in Sudbury Ontario Canada on March 18th 1953 after a two day train ride from New York City and after a week long boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean on the S.S America all the way from Belfast Northern Ireland. I was three years old at the time.

My dad came here to be the pastor of a group of Christians who had gathered in Sudbury from all over the world to work in the mines. On any given Sunday people would stand and read the weekly bible verse in their native language which would include, German, Russian, Finnish, Ukrainian, Italian, French English and the like, hence the name All Nations church.

After meeting in the old Sudbury Business College behind the Sudbury Arena they met in several locations including King George Public School on Regent Street and the Odd Fellows Hall on Howey drive and another school on Martindale Road. (Name I can not remember).

To facilitate Sunday evening services in the summer the church commandeered the LaSalle Drive-in Theatre and built a giant stage reaching almost as high as the bottom of the outdoor screen. Church goers would drive in, put the speaker in their window, roll up the window to prevent mosquitoes from attacking and sing along with the choir and the accordion player which was broadcast from the giant stage.

In 1958 during the first strike at INCO, (now called Vale) the first permanent church building was constructed in a vast farmer’s field called New Sudbury. Located on Churchill Avenue the church was erected for $20,000.00 from a loan by the royal Bank of Canada, secured by bonds from a non-church member and now famous land developer in the South End named Ernie Holditch.

In the later 60's Kitchener Mahood took to the air waves of CKSO Radio, live on Sunday mornings at 8:45 am. Later Kitchener would make good use of a half hour of television time provide by Canada's first independently owned television station for the use of the Sudbury and District Ministerial Association, of which my dad and his church were members.

By the mid 70's the church was bursting at the seams and the house next door, which we called Oliver House (named after the owners) was purchased. By 1975 my dad’s health began to deteriorate from a genetic heart and circulatory defect. Never intending to return from my nightclub and entertainment career in New York City, God intervened in my life and made it quite clear he wanted me in Sudbury, not New York.

In 1978, Eileen, my wife, our four month old twins and I returned to Sudbury, to a basement apartment and a $9,000.00 a year job as assistant Pastor of All Nations Church. The previous year in NYC I had made over $100,000.00. Our intention was to come for one year to see how we could help the church transition from my father to its next pastor. That one year has now become 33 years and now we are looking to see how to transition again. This time not from father to son but from son to...well we just don't have that information as of yet.

Kitchener Mahood died in 1983. As of September 2010 Jean Mahood will be 86 years old. The twins are 33. The church has grown from 85 families in 1978 to over 650 families in 2010. We have moved from the Churchill location to Prete St. a former Pentecostal church build by David Manse of 100 Huntley Street fame and we currently worship in Fraser Auditorium on the grounds of Laurentian University. The Prete Street building now houses a Day Care centre owned and operated by the church.

The church broadcasts live each Sunday morning over the KFM radio network through out Northern Ontario and around the world on an a parallel internet feed. Live streaming is also available at www.allnationschurch.ca. Construction is underway to build two 13,000 sq, ft. Monolithic Domes with an 800 seat auditorium and a children's pavilion perched high over down town Sudbury overlooking Brady Street and the Kingsway.

Be careful what you decide to do for a year, it may turn into a lifetime.

DRIFTING AWAY FROM YOUR PURPOSE

My left eye went out of focus the other week. It seems the prescription for my glasses needs changing, again. It actually took me a few days before I realized that my left eye was not quite right. During this time my right eye did an amazing job of compensating for the lack of focus in my left eye and things looked ok, just not great. I knew something was wrong but only discovered the problem when I closed my right eye and concentrated on seeing through my left eye. Sure enough the trees were fuzzy, the computer screen blurry and when I looked in the mirror some of the wrinkles in my face had disappeared.

Here is the problem as I see it…sometimes life just doesn’t work quite right. We are not sure what is wrong but we know all is not right. It’s not so much that life is bad…it’s just not quite the way it should be. Maybe you are out of focus. Perhaps your alignment is off. Could be a lens needs changing or you need a slight adjustment. The problem could even be that you have drifted from your intended purpose.

Drifting from your purpose…the reason you were created…the mission you were assigned, is the primary cause of life’s dissatisfaction, discomfort, disease, and depression.

You are only fulfilled when you fulfill your purpose; the purpose God created you to fulfill. When you are out of focus with God you are out of focus with life. When you are out of focus with the Creator you are out of focus with His creation. Try as hard as you may to bring clarity to your life you will be unable to do so until you change the lens through which you see your life.

As surely as my optometrist designs a prescription that is uniquely suitable to only my eyes so God has designed a purpose that is uniquely suitable to only me. I can not wear your glasses or fulfill your purpose. You can not wear my glasses or fulfill my purpose.

I can not make up my own eye glass prescription…I need the doctor to do it! You and I can not make up our own purpose…we need the creator to do it!

Until I get the prescription right, my world will be out of focus. Until I get my purpose right, my life will be out of focus.

Jesus made the following statement to a group of followers ‘I have come to give you life and give it to you in abundance.” Just as I asked Dr. Vachon for a new prescription for my eyes perhaps you need to ask Jesus for a new prescription for your life.

When you ask Him, God has an amazing way of bringing clarity to your life.

Hey,just picked up my new glases from Costco... and I can read the fine print! I can see clearly now. It's amazing what a new perscription can do for your clarity!

A DOUBLE MINDED GOD?

Sometimes I wonder if God is not just a bit double minded. In some verses of the bible he is destroying, ripping up, invading, punishing and in other verses he is patient, kind, gentle, forgiving.

I have wrestled for years with my understanding of Gods anger at sin and yet his forgiveness of sin. I have had many a great debate over the concept of a God that says, “come to me, I love you” in one breathe and then says,” If you don’t come to me and let me love you I will destroy you” in another breath.

In John 3:16-18 we read,
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son”

Notice in verse 17 where he writes about God not condemning us, but desiring to save us.
Notice in verse 18 that the ones who are condemned are the ones who have not experienced the transformative power that the name or the authority of Jesus gives to them.

In my mind this is how the justice and mercy of God fit together. God is perfect, complete, and holy. Because he is complete, perfect, and holy nothing can exist outside of God, with out his permission that is not complete perfect and holy. His perfection, completeness and holiness must consumes and destroy all that is not like him.

We as humans with all the incompleteness that our disobedience has produced in us, should not be able survive one nano-second before a Holy God. We should be consumed. We are already condemned by our imperfection. But God because of his mercy and love has intervened in our lives and offers us a way of escape from the consuming tsunami of His perfection. God accepts Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as if it was our own death. God then covers our incompleteness with Jesus and when God looks at us he does not see what we are, but who we are in Jesus. God makes us perfect and complete in Jesus Christ…and we are not consumed.

Here is the difficult fact to get our minds wrapped around. God will eventually consume, destroy and eradicate everything that is not complete, perfect and holy. He is compelled to do this. The very characteristics of completeness, perfection and holiness can not exist in a universe that does not match those characteristics.

God has some how placed himself under restraint for a certain duration of time in order to display his love to us and give us the opportunity to respond to that mercy. One day that restraint will cease. God will then consume all that has not been made perfect by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This event in history will be known as the unleashing of the wrath, or anger of God. Love demands destruction of all that is not love. God is love and he will not exist in an environment other than love.

This world and all that is in it is condemned before God, ready for demolition. God offers you a way out through the blood of Jesus Christ that purifies you from all condemnation.

WHEN GOD SAYS," That's Enough! "

I wonder if we as a society believe in the concept of “consequences” any more. Do we believe that there is a reaction to every action, a result to every behaviour, a punishment for every crime? We may say we believe in the law of consequences but it seems to me our behaviour makes many of us out to be liars. Take my weight problem for example. I understand the law of caloric intake which simply stated says that if I eat more than I need my body stores the excess as fat! But I choose to ignore the law of consequences with every slice of cherry cheese cake I devour.


Almost every one has seen the scientific evidence that smoking cigarettes shortens people lives. Most people have seen pictures of badly blackened lungs taken at autopsies of diseased smokers, but we defiantly keep on puffing, willfully ignoring the known consequences of our behaviour.

Here is a truth for you! You can ignore the consequences of your behaviours but the consequences of your behaviours don’t ignore you. Eat too much you get fat. Smoke and you get sick. Run away from God and you get caught!

I think that as a society we want to believe in some form of justice; that at some time right will prevail over wrong, that unfairness will be compensated for, that restitution will be made, that somehow the inequity of illness, loss, corruption, the domination of the disadvantaged will all be made right.

I think we want a God who can do something about the mess, the pain, the oppression. Not just a God who lets “stuff" slide by unchallenged, and uncorrected but a God who has the guts to “call” this world on its abuses and its abusers, and dispense appropriate consequences.
If that is the God we really want, a God who will do something, a God who will call it like it is, a God who will ensure that what is right ends up being right, then perhaps we need to give God permission to begin that same process in our very lives. Perhaps we need to give God the opportunity to call our lives like he sees our lives, to call us on our disobedience, our own injustice, our own self consumption. Perhaps we need an awakening to the law of consequences, our own consequences and understand if we want God to judge the inequities and iniquity in our world he most likely has to begin by judging the inequity and iniquity in our own lives.

Sound scary? Well here is the good news…We can judge ourselves or God can do it! We can pay attention to the consequences or ignorantly ignore reality. When a consequence comes to claim what is its right…don’t blame God!

THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN BEING A SURVIVOR

It seems almost everybody you meet today defines themselves as a victim of “something”. Just think about this for a moment. People are victims of credit card fraud, ponzi schemes, thefts of all kinds, sexual assault, divorce, wayward kids, road rage, and even drive through screw ups!

I wonder why so many of us want the identity known as victim. Some people even define their life by their victimization. The stories they tell are from some by-gone wrong that was perpetrated on them. They have no new story, nothing about today and worse no story about what their future could be.

I am not trying to minimize the seriousness of tragic events that happen to well meaning people. I am seeking the answer to the question of why we would want to define our lives by some event in the past.

Then there is what I will call the “survivor syndrome.” If I am fortunate and perhaps work hard I can move the definition of myself from a victim to a survivor. Sounds good to most people to be a survivor! I am just not so sure that defining yourself as being a survivor is any better than defining yourself as being a victim. Sometimes I think that a survivor is just a victim turned inside out. Life defined by a moment in time, defined by the past…perhaps a past that is healing but still the past. It’s the “in thing” to be a survivor today…every body is surviving some form of victimization.

Maybe being a survivor is like winning the silver medal in the men’s Olympic hockey final. So you won silver…so now we know you are the best of the losers! Not a winner! Simply being rewarded for losing! If you don’t believe me go back and look at the television footage from the silver medal ceremony at the men’s Olympic hockey game. There was not a happy face in the bunch…no not one. I am not so sure that survivors are necessarily happy people either…better than a victim but still not a gold medal.

The bible talks about an amazing class of human beings called victors. A victor is one who runs the race of life and comes in first. Not second, not third, just gold…pure gold. In fact, in the spiritual journey of Christian discipleship there is only one medal…gold.

God does not reward failure. God does not reward average. God does not reward excuses. God rewards only the gold medal race. Here is an amazing piece of information; God makes it possible for each of us to win Gold. He places His Spirit of love with in us and asks us to simply be obedient to Him… and He guarantees the gold!

Think about this statement, obedience guarantees the gold! God did not say we had to be faster, smarter, brighter, work harder, longer or wiser…He just said we had to be obedient to His word, co-operate with Him in His agenda for ourselves, this universe and the people in it…and you get the gold. There is no silver, no bronze…there is only light or darkness, love or hate, life or death…gold or no gold. Jesus Christ made it possible for us all to get the gold, it’s simply a matter of obedience. Simply a matter of choice…obedient or not obedient…you get to choose your reward. If you happen to be unhappy with it…remember it was your choice!

HOW TO LOVE DIFFICULT PEOPLE

Years ago I cam across a saying; “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. It is my belief that people are looking for understanding, acceptance and real love, not necessarily more information.

For years churches have dispensed information; information about God, theology, ethics, rules, regulations and the like. And for all of this information that has been given out from Sunday sermons, Sundays School classes, in midweek bible studies, on radio and television far too many Christians’ lives remain the same. They may have more religious information than any other time in history and yet very little if anything changes in their day to day behaviours.

Here is an incredible truth. You can know all sorts of information and never experience any transformation. We are ‘knowledge-aholics”. We crave more data, more information, more sources, more input…but we never seem to let that information affect our behaviour. We know a lot, we just don’t do much with what we know.

The Apostle John in 1st John calls it like he sees it! Simply put he says that talk is cheap! Even for Christians he says if you don’t live it, it doesn’t count. You can say you love Christ or are a follower of Jesus, but if you don’t reach out and help a brother or sister that you see in need…well to put it bluntly…he says you are a liar and there is non of Gods love in you.

The test that you are a true follower of Christ is this; you never pass up an opportunity to help when you have the God given opportunity to do so.
So here is the deal. The world we live in is so self focused that if people actually saw a group of people really helping others out…going out of their way to give practical care and assistance…they would sit up and notice. They might even wonder why in a world so “me” driven, people would sacrifice their own agendas for the benefit of others.

People do not care what religion you are or what beliefs you hold, whether you have the ‘truth” and great spiritual insight. They just want to know if you will care for them in real practical down to earth ways.

This is what Jesus ministry was all about… he hung out with the poor, he healed the sick, he taught the common people, he fed the hungry, he spent time with children, he ate dinner with prostitutes and the disenfranchised, was the life of the party, he visited the grieving, kicked the “stuffing” out of those who took financial advantage of others and had the guts to religious leaders a “brood of vipers”.

Let’s stop talking about and get done! Love can change the world but only if you live it!