This is the warcry, stories from the battle front about a modern warriors search for Knighthood, stories of an epic loved affair lived out on a raging battle field.

Going to Latvia: Boothcamp II – Prologue

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

So today we fly of to Riga, to prepare for three days of Boothcamp, a National Latvian youth camp in the small town of Drusti. It is the second time we do this camp but a first for Hanna to speak at an event like this.

At the camp we will be teaching “Epic” and the four streams from “Waking the dead”, teaching people that there is a full life to be lived in Christ, where you can find your unique part in God’s story and walk an intimate walk with God, hearing him speak daily. We will also concentrate on Spiritual Warfare and naturally how all this will enable us to fight the Salvation War! Last time the all age meeting at the end of the camp was especially powerful where the older generation prayed for and blessed the younger generations to march to war.

The warfare has been getting fierce the closer we have gotten to the event. Our sleep has been interrupted (more than usual) and tempers have been flying high. The added pressures of Sunday placements at corps and essays at the college all colliding in  these last two weeks have not helped either. I am assuming that the enemy is not pleased with our plans to, through the power of God,  set hearts free in Latvia.

Please Pray for us, as much, and as hard as you can, we will need every bit of support we can get!

28.01.2009 Battle report, Hanna, Latvia, Patrik, Prayer requests, Salvation Army, Wild at heart, youth work View Comments

What a faithful God have I

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

It is amazing how God deals with us. Today I was stood in the kitchen washing dishes when it came to me that God has truly been healing me the last week, the last month, but then I realized that it was not just healing it was forgiveness, and the healing that comes from realizing that you are forgiven.

I can feel a strength in my faith that I honestly have not felt in years. God has faithfully honoured every step that I have taken towards him over the last few months with that wich only God can give, the turning back of the clock, the rebirth of the Soul, the new grace producing new life making sure that today is a new day and with tomorrows sunrise it is a new brave world to be conquered.

Joy flooded my soul and all I could do was to sing: What a faithful God have I!

05.08.2008 Battle report, Christian life, Faith, Patrik, worship View Comments

Pandoras box

Monday, August 4th, 2008

I have been staring at this post for a long time. Not because I have nothing to write but because there is so much to say and I do not know where to start. I am wondering if I chose the right title. Pandora’s box it sure feels like it, I opened a door to my past and all sorts of feelings and locked up emotions came rushing at me like a freight train without breaks.

At the same time it is more like the first steps on a journey, Frodo leaving bag end, Balian leaving the cinders of his old smithy, William Wallace riding of from the only home he ever knew. It is not just a journey though; It is more like the journey. It is a journey of discovery, learning who I am and where I am but it is also a journey discovering whom I was meant to be and where I am going. It is a lot of things. Just like Pandora’s box contained a chaos of things welling up from the prison where it had been locked down for so long.It is a bit like “There, and the way back” except there is no going back to the things where after any real Journey. Bilbo never could get back into ordinary life after his trip to the mountain. Frodo never could adjust back to the ordinary life of the Shire after having been a ring bearer.

Where will this journey lead, if not back again? I do not know. It is a bit scary and extremely exciting at the same time. Like life was meant to be, a real adventure!

04.08.2008 Battle report, Christian life, Ponderings, Wild at heart View Comments

Walking the walk.

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

As Christians we know how important it is to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Hanna has therefore bravely decided to help raise funds for breastcancer research through walk the walk. Hanna will, together with two other cadets in our session, do a Moonwalk, a late night walk through town in their bras.

Please help support Hanna here

Here is an excerpt from the walk the walk website:

This will be the night that Bollywood meets Rock n Roll… the night when 15,000 women and men will pound the streets of London in their decorated bras… and it could be the night that you take your first step to better health, fitness and making a difference! In 2007 we raised in excess of £8.5 million to be granted to vital breast cancer causes… with your help we could make an even greater difference in 2008 …

Walk the Walk is the grant making, health charity behind the famous MoonWalk events in London and Edinburgh and the SunWalk in Bristol. To date the charity has raised in excess of £35 million for vital breast cancer causes, with the 2007 Playtex MoonWalk raising almost £5 million to date.

Walk the Walk is dedicated not only to promoting power walking for fitness, but raising awareness of breast cancer and encouraging people to adopt a healthy and holistic preventative lifestyle.

Please help support Hanna here

30.04.2008 Battle report, Extreme sport, Hanna, London, Mission, Social action, Support requests, The world View Comments

Weapons and Worship

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

The last six months have been a desert experience for me, it seems that every time I am in any kind of spiritual training this is what happens, I feel completely cut off and dry spiritually.

One thing I have realised lately though is that one of the reasons I feel so dry is that  I have not been preaching and preaching for me (I have recently discovered) is one of my greatest times of worship. To boast and rave about how great God is. It is not singing or playing an instrument it is lifting up God’s name by telling people how great he is in a sermon.

Therefore I figured if I could just perfect my sermons I will be given the best worship ever, if I like Brengle could be the absolute best speaker ever I could then lift God’s name to heights I have not yet known myself and by that I would get out of this dry patch.

Then last week God spoke to me, not through the bible or a quiet time in prayer but through Terry Brown. Terry has been a Martial artist for 40 years and been doing Western Martial arts for more than half of that. He is over sixty but that didn’t stop him from playing with me like a cat plays with it’s meal, bare fisted, with single sword or longsword.

Terry told me this:

“The body must be the servant of the weapon.”

So in my context, I must be the servant of the message. I thought I could perfect the message to lift up God’s name but God was telling me that through my worship he would perfect me!

It is such a simple thing really, it is so obvious, that it is not my message, not my meeting, not even my worship…. it all belongs to him, I am just offering back what he has given me.

16.04.2008 Battle report, Christian life, England, Knightstale, OS, WMA, worship View Comments

Books, books, books

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

Today I went with Angelina to Wesley Owens in Croydon to attempt to make a dent in our reading list. So far we have been given half a dozen study guides and they contain at least 24 A4 pages with literature to read with roughly 10 books to a page that makes 200+ books that we are recommended to read.

So there I was at the Christian Bookstore hoping to at least find one book per course to get it started. Two hours later I had found two books of the list. Plus an NRSV for me and Hanna.

I was delighted when the price tag was not to high only to realize when I got out of the store that the person at the cash register (probably his first day) had only charged me for half the items. When I went back in to tell them they had charged me to little they where very confused and didn’t really know what to do with me.

I frankly don’t see how we will have time to even read a tenth of the recommended reading and I doubt our economy will handle even that.

Don’t get me wrong I love books, and I love to read. But in between lectures, family time, personal evangelisation project, worship team, personal devotion time, resource cadet duty and training, where will I find time to read?

Dear G, I know I have asked before but could we please add 12 hours per day.

AMEN

06.10.2007 Battle report View Comments

T minus 5 days and counting

Friday, August 24th, 2007

PICT3021So I missed to write yesterday ….. Well yesterday was a big day for Angelina. For the first time ever she went in to the sea and let go of her footing, she had inflatable arm rings and a Mickey Mouse lifesaver and she let go with her feet. I said Angelina look at you you are swimming. She said No, no Flying! Childhood is fantastic, a miracle around every corner and an adventure every minute, that is the way we all should live life.

The weather is to hot to mention and so humid you can hardly breathe. My only wish would be that I wasn’t injured so I could take the car and drive us far away from all the tourists and stuff and then run and jump around and play with Angelina and Anja instead of feebly hobbeling around.

Ah well, time to bed down and pray for rain tomorrow ….

24.08.2007 Angelina, Battle report, Croatia View Comments

T minus 7 days and counting

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

And counting, and counting…..

Little colder today only, well about 29 degrees. Swimming (technically I am not allowed to swim so I got me a pair of flippers so that I can only paddle with my feet) and drinking lattes on the beach.

I know we should start thinking about college but here we are in paradise and the thought that we are actually in the middle of a move between countries is still alien and rather ludicrous.

22.08.2007 Battle report, Croatia, OS View Comments

T minus 8 days and counting

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Today we went shopping in the morning and bought a DivX enabled DVD player for our room here in Croatia. We decided to take it easy today and not go to the beach. So we stayed in the house in the afternoon. I got some time in on the training cycle and we got some rest.

Angelina, who has a hard time learning how rough she can play with her sister, managed to run into Anja full speed knocking her head in the balcony railing and chipping one of Anjas front teeth. Now Anjas million dollar smile has become a million dollar smile with character.

It strikes me how frail we are, i spend ten minutes playing with daggers with a friend and now one month later, I still can’t walk down a flight of stairs. Angelina and Anja spend a minute on the balcony and now Anja has a chipped tooth for the next six years. It takes so little. It is such a miracle that I am still in one piece that we all are. Praise God for all the near misses and all the bullets I have dodged throughout my childhood and teenage years.

College? What’s that?

21.08.2007 Angelina, Anja, Battle report, OS, Patrik View Comments

Last words…

Friday, August 17th, 2007

Today is my last day in Latvia, I’ve had my last lunch in the small hall, my last sit down with Edvins and Edgars, my last salary and made the last call on my cell phone before handing it in. The last boxes has been loaded on the truck and we will have our last meeting with all the youth tonight before having our last night at Bruniņieku iela 10a-6.

I also had my last physio therapy at Sporta medicina 1, wher I was instructed in how to train to make my knee stronger. I was also told that If I wanted to start any kind of training I had to by a very “Robo-Cop” type of brace with metal hinges doing the job of my ligaments. But as all space technology it was ridiculously expensive.

Tonight at the “Party” I will be ordering my last Latvian Sushi and for the last time pretend that I do not understand what they are saying around me, ka ludzu?

Tomorrow morning 5:20 we fly (homeless again) to Croatia to spend ten days with Hannas family before moving in to WBC on Denmark hill the 30th of August! It will be our last vacation for a long time and in the back of my head I hear the song playing….

ooooo Oh ooo Oh you’re in the Army now …..

During my time here I have come to love the Latvian people and hate the Latvian comforts (comforts like electricity coming out of your showers, power spikes breaking your hard drives, Staircases that WILL NOT admit baby carriages at the stores, garbage trucks, people staring at each other refusing to budge and move their car at the tunnel entrance to the Salvation army etc.)

But my friends, and I leave many friends behind, are friends that I would trust my life to! Friends I have prayed, cried, shared and grown together with. Our cadre! You know who you are, it has been an honour serving with you! Thank you for being friends, Thank you for being true! Thank you for being you!

17.08.2007 Battle report, Family, Latvia, London, OS, calebs cadre View Comments

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