What's Up with Merv?

Hi I Everyone,
I know that truly many have wondered "What's up with Merv?" Yes, I'm still on the planet but with all I'm trying to juggle, I've failed to keep up with communication. I'm so sorry! I've been exploring the every demanding world of work & business. As many of you know, I'm no longer in full time volunteer service with Jubilee (That season came to a close in March of 07) and for the past year, I've been holding down a day to day job with WSI Belize Web Design. It's been a desire of mine to develop websites and with this job, I'm finding where I fit in the web development world. I'm also exploring other possibilities of having my own business which I'm doing on the side at the moment (mainly on my free time). I do mainly graphic designing & audio production type work. Check out some of the work done & business vision by visiting TAS Portfolio blog. I've of recent started some media training as well, teaching the basic intro dynamics for Photoshop, cool edit & other useful media tools. I have 9 students which is cool. Teaching has always been one of the area I've stayed away from and now I feel the need to lean into that fear. I guess, as you can gather, all this eats up my extra time.

I was explaining to a friend recently that I'm searching for new strategy to beat the "gosh I need to respond-back to email" mountain as well as getting appropriate rest. Since I work on a computer all day, I come home & the thought of turning on a computer to email or do anything seems very exhausting. I do however want to apologize to anyone whose felt out of the loop with happenings with me. I strongly believe that communication expresses value and YES I do value all of you & my lack of communication was more me trying to adjust to new seasons of my life and NOT a statement of no value. I do try to keep my blog update but for sure I can do more work on that as well.

God's Favor w/ my Job

God has really blessed me with a wonderful job that's flexible enough for me to still be involve with youth ministry work mainly with Momentum (Jubilee's youth group) and Legacy Youth Ministries. I'll write more about Momentum & Legacy in another email.

If someone would have told me years ago I'd be doing what I'm doing, I wouldn't have believed them, but God is soo cool in how he leads us. I think God smiles in delight and have a blast when he watches me trying sooo hard to make the right moves, calculating and making sure my decisions are in line with what He wants. I remembered the weeks & weeks of praying through and pondering in my heart if I should keep my job or do something different. I took my 2 weeks vacation time and went up to Phoenix to serve for a couple weeks with Extreme Prophetic knowing that many times God speaks to me while doing some kind of volunteer service work.

The time up in Phoenix turned out different than how I envisioned in my mind but all in all it was wonderful. I learnt sooo much and RESTED. I got to sit in a video training course for a week, did some prophetic street evangelism and saw how God can use normal people to do really cool great extraordinary things when they love him and obey him. God really used the time to help me address a lot of my insecurities as well as glean much wisdom for business, management & working with different people. And yes! I believe God spoke to my heart to stay on with my Job for another year.

While in Phoenix, I saw that I was really favored by God and this job was where he had me. Many young people would give a lot to have the job set up I have, get the pay I'm getting plus have the freedom to do more stuff on the side. I thought about Daniel in Babylon & Joseph in Egypt and how both men were favored by God & I felt I had the same opportunity before me. So I made the decision to stay on with my job in obedience to what I believe God was leading me. Don't be fooled in thinking that there's no challenges, and my biggest one is getting proper rest and not getting so busy that I neglect the few things that's most important in life.

I Recently got a raise at work; God is faithful. I was pondering on asking for a raise and before I got a chance to ask for the raise, my boss approached me and told me they're giving me a raise and guess what? The amount they offered me for the raise was around what I was thinking in my mind of asking for. I've had several experience like this recently where I think of something or asking for something and before I can do it or ask, it comes together.

God's Favor w/ good Friends

God has also surrounded me with wonderful friends and truly I'm privilege to have access to what many of us long for which is a family of friends that will to love us through the hardest seasons of our lives and Also give us a KICK IN THE BUTT when we need it. Friends in which you can be real and be who God has created you to be. They help pull out the best in you and challenge you when you are stepping out of God's will. I recently got a "kick in the butt" type correction from a friend and truly Hebrews was right in saying that No correction is enjoyable but if we're trained by it, we reap the pleasing fruits. I confessed that I resisted it at first because of my pride and feelings of pain from the sting :) but God worked on my heart to show me my error. I was 100% wrong and my only response should have been and needs to be, I"M SORRY and I need/will change by God's grace.

Well for the sake of your reading, I'll cut things short here and write more on my next update. But I do want to thank all those who has prayed for me during this time. I can't even begin to express how much I appreciate that. God's love is for real and it reaches down into the darkness pits to pull us out. I heard Wes Martin from IHOP - Kansas City quote this "God is the great diver who will dive to the greatest depths to rescue us." I've experience this from God time to time in my life and my prayer has been of recent, "Help me to see you more & rightly relate to You God." He truly deserve more than I'm giving him...

Prayer Request

Greater Passion & love for God - I know this means more test an opportunity to choose rightly so I guess I'm asking that God would strengthen my heart to help me choose rightly & quickly.

Favor with the bank - I'm in the process of applying for a loan from the bank to purchase & build a little starter cottage for myself. I go in Monday for a bank interview.

Breakthrough with the youths - We so long to see God do a deep work within the hearts of the youths within Momentum. Many of them are hitting walls in their lives and need to see God for themselves, personal encounter that would awaken desire for God within their heart. I know God's doing it though, today in worship I notice several of them pressing in to engage their heart in worship. YAY GOD! That's a big step

My personal battles - They're areas of my own life that I'm still warring against for greater victory.

• Fighting for greater security in God
• Be more free from fear of man and fear on a whole
• Needing to be more bold and courageous
• Stronger purity in my life
• Guarding my heart & know what's going on in there.