calebs going to ywam????

So i got my acceptance letter to YWAM in a place called jaffrays bay south africa. It starts in septemeber and runs til march 09. Facebook, as lame as it gets at times, has served as a gateway to meet everyone who is going to jbay and its really nice to talk to people and get to know them. Man other than that i am still working at the pool up in lac labiche..saving lives..and sometimes wishing to hold screaming kids faces under the water ...just or a bit to have some peace and quiet in the pool. My last day in july 30th and after that i hae a family reunion in edmonton and my sister is comming back! AND then i am going to living in westlock and working with my brother until the 15TH of september, so i am looking forward to doing some physical work..and show my brother up with my powerful biceps and what not. I am really excited to finally have all the paper work done for my trip, as many of you know i have wanted to go to Africa for sometime and now it is getting closer to me actually going, so that is awesome. I am looking forward to having more knowledge of life, culture and tradition and the history of South africa as well as how Jesus is moving in that country as well as all the other faiths and religions. South Africa is a country that is sliding down hill in so many aspects from spiritual to economical to education, not saying there are not improvements or revivals of christianity but it seems very different from anything ive read about anywhere else in the world at this time or in history. I am hoping to better understand how north americans are viewed by south africans and how minority people groups will respond to the faith that was held by those who oppressed them in the past. Please pray that i will be be changed by God and be humble in every aspect of the planning process as well as when i am intertacting with my classmates and the teachers and the nationals i will be working with. Again thanks for reading my blog and ya tell others where it is as i am sure i have missed telling some people.
caleab

whats happening with caleb

So i realized that i am bad at keeping people updated on what is happening with my africa plans and my life and where i am and what i am doing. This page is where you can find out whats happening with me and africa and what i am doing. So after my year at mount carmel i got a job with alberta highways and wored with some buddies from westlock, it was greatly boring work...lots of standing around..lots of nothingness. I also moved in with my basketball teammates from high school justin and tyler. It was insane, really messy..me living in the living room three guys not doing dishes..fun stuff. From there i went and worked at ross haven bible camp, it was fun to do another camp besides BBC and really changed my perspective on things. \it was a totally different set up that BBC, one director all summer, same program all summer, multipl camps for the same ages, different food ideas(food wasnt as good as BBC tho), different setups different everything. It really challenged me to change my outlook and be creative with situations because i had to handle them differently than at bbc. All in all i really enjoyed my time at ross haven. \From there i worked for Jason Price and his sister and brother in law out by the bustling metropolous of Busby!!! They needed a hand with farm stuff and fencing and housestuff and ya i had nothing else to do so it worked out great.I was out there for a month or so and then i went to the Baxxmans farm for barley harvest. Ive worked on farms ..or slaved on farms since the fairholmes needed a "hand" but i have never done a harvest. It was amazingly fun, germany people, german language, german food it was awesome. we had radios in the machines and they always were talking in german and i felt like an american with the enigma machine in ww2...i couldnt understand what they were talking about, although i pretended i did..i had some german words..like fire abent...and obalanker...two words which are pretty usless....but i over used them and felt kinda german by the second week. As with the Price's i really enjoyed living with the Baxxmans and getting to know them better than just sunday morning. I got to see how a family works and how a father relates to his kids, his wife, his job and God. It was really great. After harvest i went back to the Prices and stayed there for another 2 months mainly working for Jasons sister and brother in law getting their new house ready and doing some cattle stuff. I learned some new stuff about farming and grazing and water pumps and all that stuff which was kinda intresting. I also worked with jason and roland rivard building a shop for jasons sister, i never really knew roland that well..or at all and it was a blast working with him. Funny man....big hands. I also spent some time at my moms house and hanging with my brother on wekends and rode my bike...lots...From there i went to the Lategans and house sitted for a week as they were off doing something in the warm weather, had some bonding time with there dog..played some fetch....watched some rubgy and slept in...Then i was out at..wait i was out at the Meakes place for 10 days looking after their horses while they were gone for christmas. I got to know the meakes pretty well and wished i would of hung out with them sooner in my life. From there i went to work for Nabors Drilling..which was intresting...its a great oppurtunity to show that you are different...my first day my crew noticed i didnt swear and the fourth day they were asking why...and wham theres a chance to tell them about christ...so it made my days a little easier, but at the same time being alone in that kind of atmosphere is really hard, not having email or a phone that works to talk to christains was insanely hard. I wish i would of asked people to pray for me, im sure people were but i needed more...i really felt the effects of not setting up a network of people to pray for me. at the same time it helped me get a whack of money for africa...i always thought i kinda knew how much money was in the oilfield....i didnt. they paided me 25$ and hour which seems like alot but its like you paying some kid 5$ to cut your grass. making that kind of money really helped me understand why people get stuck on the rigs for life....they buy new things because hey why not i can afford it and its a big contest with your crew..so ya and its hard to go back to 40 hours a week at 14$/hour instead of 25$/hour 12 hours a day for two weeks with no expenses...So im done with the rigs now and got a job working for Jen Desranleau(they used to go to the chapel before they moved) at the portage pool in lac labiche as a seniorlfieguard. I really enjoy it, its fun and i get to interact with my coworkers and kids so its awesome. Now to africa stuff. The original plan was to take a hands on training program with SIM in south africa. The cost at first was 13000$ for everything, plane ticket insurance, flights in south africa, tuition room and board. Then went to 25000$ and i could not justify spending that much money so i decided not to go with SIM. From there i looked into working with the pentacostal missionary church in tanzania(which i am still working on) i am waiting on a visa and and still trying to figure out how i am going to fit in and some church politic issues and what not. I am also looking into a YWAM in Jaffrays Bay south africa. Nothing is written in stone um i have the paper work done for YWAM and the Pentacostal Missionary Chruch so thats good, and ya other than that...umm thats it, thanks for reading i'll try to update once every two weeks...or once a week just keep checking and thanks for taking an inrtrest in what i am doing and let me know whats up with you. you can post it on my blog or if you dont have an account you can email me at calebwest1987@hotmail.com
see you sometime