I do have my concerns about this man. Most of these revolve around my stance as it concerns pro life versus pro choice. Only time will tell how that will play out. I do however believe that he has the USA’s best interest at heart and that the people spoke loud and clear on who they wanted to be their president this time around. More than ever before.

A friend of mine put it well as a prayer. One that I would encourage any of my praying friends to echo.

So before closing I want to bless Obama, as a King under a King in
heaven, we pray for wisdom and revelation, dreams and visions,
encounters with Jesus, we bless his health, we bless his marriage and
family, we ask for his protection, download divine understanding, may he
wear Your yoke, may he look to You Lord, may he walk in justice and
mercy, stir desire in him for Your word and Your presence, may he walk
in righteousness and in Your commands, In Jesus Name.

Amen.

In other news. Jacqui and myself will be getting a newsletter out soon. With lots of info about what’s going on. Also possibly a new blog that we write together on. I’ll keep this one up to put more of ‘my’ thoughts and musings down as time allows. So stay tuned.

Stuarts Story

Well, my story started several weeks ago, calling Jacqui’s dad as asking him for his daughters hand in marriage. He said yes, so that was good! The ring was ordered (thank you receding American economy for providing a great deal) and it was wait time.

Ten days later, the ring was shipped and it was time to put a plan into effect. I had budget a most generously provided my one of my supporters so I had some rescourse at my disposal. My biggest wish was for a surprise, a complete surprise.

After thinking about the last 15 months of our dating, I had a plan, for a surprise, and hopefully for something romantic.

I put out some calls for help to Mark, Hillary and the Pallisters, who were all delighted and excited to be a part of the occasion.

You see several weeks ago (before I had even called Jacqui’s dad) we had organised to try and get Wade (Pallister) into heroes. Heroes just happened to be the beginning of how me and Jacqui stared to spend a bunch of time together as well.

I got Mark and Hillary to shoot some footage of me, and proceeded to edit up a little declaration of my love to Jacqui. I then spliced it into heroes at an opportune moment about 5 minutes into the show.

I’m almost bursting with excitement as we hop on our bikes and head over to the Pallisters to watch some ‘heroes’, at this stage, Jacqui is completely in the dark, I’ve been misdirecting her all week about a fancy date on Friday night (tonight is Thursday) and she’s bought it, she had no idea what was about to happen.

We settle in and heroes comes on,  after five minutes the screen fades to black and a song fades up, words start to appear and my plan is in full swing. I go grab the ring from my bag as Jacqui’s excitement builds, and then drop to one knee and ask her to marry me.

In the midst of her excitement, Jacqui actually forgot to say yes, and had to be reminded by Wade that ‘yes’ was the word I was waiting for… she said yes.

Now the pressure was off, I’d existed a week in the planning and execution of this, it just about killed me with the anticipation. It was all worth it, Jax was delighted and surprised, which is exactly what I was aiming for.

Out came the Aussie champagne, the chocolate covered strawberries, the chocolate cheesecake and the ‘engagement wings’ (check out DIY Gourmet for the wrap up of that one) and tim tams. Some phone calls and general celebration began.

thanks Jacqui, for being amazing, for loving me and for saying yes! I love you.

We did go out for our fancy date on Friday, it was one of the most mind shattering dinner I’ve ever had, and that will be the subject of our next blog post. The best bit about that dinner was I was not nervous any more, this was a celebration!

Jacqui’s Story

Last week as we wrapped up our work week and looked at what the schedule would hold for the following week Stu said to me, "We should go on a nice date next Friday night." You may think that Stu asking me for a date on Friday night would be normal, but this particular date felt a little different from that moment to me for a couple of reasons.

One – Stu doesn’t usually ask me out that directly or that far in advance. Usually sometime around Wednesday or Thursday one of us will say maybe we should go for a date on the weekend and then we’ll talk about what else is going on and squeeze something in.

Two – About a month before Stu and I had spent a Saturday afternoon looking around jewelry stores downtown talking about settings and carats and cuts and fire and ice … something special was bound to happen very soon.

So the following week went on – here and there Stu would drop some kind of hint about how special Friday was going to be … one of my roommates, Hillary, even seemed to be in on something as she helped me think about what shoes to wear and what to do with my hair. I knew that something was up but as more attention was drawn to Friday, the more I thought it would be just another dinner out because Stu had made it clear that whenever he was going to propose he would try to make it a surprise.

By the time Thursday rolled around I had done everything in my mental power to eliminate the expectation that I would be engaged on Friday. We were planning on hanging out with some friends to start watching Heroes in preparation for the coming new season … so we went over to Wade and Jo’s to start Season 1, Episode 1. We all gathered around the TV and settled in for a little "save the cheerleader, save the world."

About five minutes into the episode the normal fade to commercial happened but suddenly "Don’t Wait" by Dashboard Confessional winds up and I start thinking that one of our favorite songs is a strange soundtrack for a commercial. As the words "it all started with … and then there was …" with the …’s clearly describing moments in my relationship with Stu, I started to get on the clue train. Stu then came on the screen and delivered a beautiful little speech about how captivating I am and how rich he is to have me in his life.
THEN – the following words came on the screen:

JACQUILYN BROOKE FABER
WILL YOU …
(very dramatic pause)
LET ME ASK YOU THIS QUESTION?

So Stu asked me to stand up and he said, "Jacqui, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, (then he got down on one knee in Wade and Jo’s living room) will you marry me?" To which I giggled and said, "I love you, you are amazing, I can’t believe it, ect …"

Eventually I said yes.

And then there was much rejoicing including the most amazing teriyaki "engagement wings" (thanks Wade!), Yellow Tail Bubbles, hand made chocolate covered strawberries and cheesecake (thanks Jo!).

As always, click on the pictures for a larger image!

There it is, the best story of the week!

This:

which means ‘maybee’ a vancouver show this year! Excited, yes i am.

check them out here: mutemath youtube

More news to come!

To keep you in the loop a bit, I was at the Giants hockey game last night. The Canadian national anthem has this line in it.

"from far and wide, oh Canada, we stand on Guard for thee.

God keep our land, glorious and free. Oh Canada we stand on Guard for thee".

I’ll take that, I’ll own it.

God, Keep Canada. Keep it under YOU. Keep it Glorious. Show me what my part is in all of this.

RATM are not a Christian band. There’s a minority out there that would say that Rage against the Machine are Evil and that I’m sinning by just by listening to them or *dare I say it* Endorsing them. Let’s get this clear, Rage are very angry, very flawed in their thinking and sometimes flawed in their methodology. What they succeeded at was that they brought something to the music world that No band ever did; A focused anger and a thought out rage against what they perceived as injustice and greed. THAT is why they are so powerful on stage.

Essentially they have counterfeited a kingdom theology that we can war with our words and I for one draw from it sometimes. Their lyrics inspire me in the strangest ways sometimes. I’ll give two examples both very recent.

The organization that I work for is currently in a battle. We’re holding on by our fingernails to a building that we believe God has said we are to occupy. We don’t have the money and we’re experiencing some opposition to our rezoning. During a prayer time, PWADE (through tears of hope) quoted this RATM line: “what better place than here, what better time than now. All hell can’t stop us now”. Cutting through my heart, tears welling up in my eyes, God worked that line into my heart for this situation. Did I really believe that hell would win? Did I believe that THIS was the time?

The second example comes from this morning. I’d come in to lead our base in worship, and through a series of events I was thoroughly under prepared. There were several people there in a bad state (It’s been an intense few weeks for our community). This really wasn’t going to be an easy morning. After a quick prayer, I sat there in silence battling with actually getting up and abandoning my post as leader. What is possibly RATM’s most famous line popped into my head. “F*ck you I won’t do what you tell me!”. Everything was telling me to quit, take the easy way, to deny what needed to happen, especially this week. That line resolved me. I wasn’t going to give into my weakness, I wasn’t going to let darkness win. I bucked up did what needed to be done, and God was glorified.

RATM are for the oppressed, they are against greed. Yes, this comes from a socialist standpoint but I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. If capitalism comes from ‘capitalizing’ (read at the expense) of others, then we could all do with a little rage in our lives. If Zack and the boys managed to have an experience of God, and come into a relationship with him, you’d bet your bottom dollar that they would be still raging against just about everything they do today.

I’m rambling now, it’s time to wrap this up.

I’m a Christian, I love RATM, and I don’t feel at all incongruent in existing like this. I’ll leave you with one more line:

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

Wake up to truth, wake up to what this world could be when a kingdom comes. Wake up to what YOU could be if you refused the ordinary and took up challenge to live as an agent of God’s kingdom, following Jesus’s example of raging against a world of hypocrisy and greed.

So I’m back in Vancouver, after a long flight with United, and a few days in rainy Seattle (It was cold as well, bit of a shock to the system after a HOT Jan in Melbourne). I’ve hit the ground and not had to run too hard.

Our 3 teams are still on outreach, we will be having them back later this week, which means Jacqui will also be back, the thought of which makes me VERY happy.

Oh, I turned 30 last week. That was Crazy. Went snowboarding, ate BBQ and generally had a good night. There will be a bigger party when most of my friends get back from OS.

We should have another school starting in late march, however we’re short on Students, time will tell. I’m a bit each way personally. One one hand the school will be great, on the other, there’s a few things that will have to wait for the school to finish if it does happen. We’ll see, I’m putting it down to obedience, if God wants the school to happen, I’m IN.

I might have a hook up on a new apartment to rent, an actual main floor with actual natural light. All you prayers out there, be praying for that.

More to come, I’m off to do some other writing. You’ll be hearing from me soon. thanks for reading!