Here's the beef. - Dustin Zupancic's blog

Turbulent Passions

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:56:00 +0000

"When at any time the passions are turbulent, a gentle retreat inward unto a present God, easily deadens and pacfies them; and any other way of contending with them rather irritates than appeases them."
-Madame Guyon (A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, Chapter 11)

Peace is one of the hardest things to gain and it can be one of the easiest things to lose. It's so hard to stay in a place of constant peace, a place where the mind is still, the soul is settled and the spirit rules.

There is a clarity one has when they can live in a place of peace, there is an ease to connecting with God and hearing his voice, why is it that we so quickly trade that for the chaos of our own solutions?

"Notice the way God does things; then fall into line. Don't fight the
ways of God, for who can straighten out what he has made crooked?"
-Ecclesiastes 7:13

I believe peace is a decision, we have to allow ourselves to be robbed of our peace. The more your mind is in control, the more you are ruled by your fleshly desires, the more offensive the ways of God will be to you. God's ways are not our ways, when we allow our peace to be taken from us it shows the reality of our heart. That we don't believe God knows what He's doing, that He does not know what is best for us, that He doesn't have our best in mind.

The sooner we can allow ourselves to slip back into a place of trust and release the control of our destiny and simply listen and obey, the sooner we can return to the green pastures and still waters the Lord desires to lead us to.

God knows the desires of our heart and he knows the pains of our struggles, surely the one who bore all of our iniquities to the cross can relate to our everyday struggles.

God knows our situations intimately and instead of fighting and struggling through the valley of the shadow of death, we should seek to have no fear and follow the Shepherd asking how we can agree with what He is doing instead of complaining like the Isrealites and condemning ourselves to wandering in the wilderness until we can walk in victory.

A New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:35:00 +0000

This message marks a change in my blog thus far. Previous to this I had this blog to keep people updated on what I was doing in New Hampshire while I interned and was on staff with Streams Ministries. Now the purpose of this blog is just for to put up what ever I please, maybe reflections, things God is speaking to me, things I think warrant thought, whatever!

Time will tell if I keep updating this so don't hold your breath!

-Dustin

I'm back?!

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 02:52:00 +0000

Yeah I know it's been a while, this really isn't going to be much of a post, I'm more writing this to let you know not to hold your breathe.

I've been so busy as of late on staff here at Streams Academy, there is always a lot going on and in my spare time, I like to relax, read and not think about what I have to think about all the time, so hence, I end up not writing much here.

But just so you know. God is in the heavens and he does as he wishes. (Psalm 115:3) It's not always what I would choose for myself, and sometimes it's almost scary because I start asking, hmmm, how come I need to know some of this stuff? What does he really have planned for me?

Well, the best things don't come easy and I don't intend to settle, so maybe I'm resigning myself to a life of difficulty, but I'd rather pay for it on the front-end personally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound as if I'm complaining, I wouldn't trade what God has for me for anything, even though I don't know really what that is, I get glimpses every now and then. That for me is good enough, it's enough for me to know that He knows what He's doing. As long as that's still true, I'll be ok with it.

What I would appreciate in this season is your prayers, specifically for wisdom, I desire to get everything I can out of this season, I don't want anything to happen unnecessarily, I'd like the wisdom to see what God is doing so I can partner with that.

Thanks for reading, I still get people asking me when am I going to update this, I got to admit, the amount of people who've read this still surprises me, I never thought that many people besides my family would read this, but well, here you are! I can't promise many new updates anytime soon, but you never do know now do you?

What is new is I added links to testimonies from my intern year in Salem, that's 2006-2007, there are two MP3's you can download, look for those on the right!

Until later...

Animal Magnetism

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:51:00 +0000

So I've seen a lot of animals lately.

Pretty unremarkable maybe. But I'm going to share the tally with you anyways.

In the last month, I've seen:

4 Deer

1 Fisher Cat

2 Skunk

1 Great Horned Owl

1 Porcupine

1,000,000 Wild Turkeys

I gotta say, it's pretty exciting chasing skunks, running after porcupines, scaring wild turkeys and pursuing fisher cats. It kind of sounds like I may be turning into a dog or something though, I think maybe in the future I'll try to use more discretion in the animals I'm chasing...

Hmm... Well there really is a lot new, but not much that I want to type about right now. We are finishing up our Salem outreach today. We'll be leaving soon for Haunted Happenings, the final day, Halloween! It will be crazy busy, I'll try to update with some pictures after, we've just been so crazy busy that when I do have a moment I haven't felt like doing this!

I will however throw up a picture and a video from my adventure with Matt Stinton to Boston to see Of Montreal in concert. Yes it was weird, but it was also fun.

Picture: Matt and I on the train

Picture: Oh Look! A guy with wings...

Picture: Slumber Party!

Video: A Wee Short Clip

----------------
Now playing: Luke Temple - Family Vacation

A few pictures to catch up on

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:34:00 +0000

As promised here are some extra pictures from last week/weekend...

Picture: Here's Elisa in Salem, MA by the Atlantic ocean taking a picture of herself.

Picture: Some of the interns at The Gathering Church

Picture: Here I am.

Picture: Here be Dan.

Picture: Noah(Massachusetts) eating some pizza(well, not in this picture, but...)

Picture: Here I am, with my Scottish mentor, being as Scottish as I can muster

----------------
Now playing: Handsome Furs - Sing! Captain

Preparing for Salem

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:15:00 +0000

Last weekend we all packed up and headed out to Salem for training before Haunted Happenings this halloween.

It was a lot of fun and really good as well. As a special bonus treat for you all, we got all technological here and Tom (Los Angeles) recorded the session with Pastor Phil as he talked about what a pagan actually was, how to relate to them and everything in between. The recording isn't the best but hopefully when I have time to improve it I will post a new one. Until then, you can find this audio file here and on the right side of my blog where I'll post any other audio recordings that I make.

Check out Phil Wyman's blog at http://squarenomore.blogspot.com/

I'll throw up some pictures here later but I wanted to toss up this file for anyone who's interested. It's almost 2 hours long but it's gold!

The Whooping of Mt. Kearsearge

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:58:00 +0000

It's true, I took Mt. Kearsearge down. Well, I didn't do it alone. Most of the interns and staff came as well.

In fact, I took a group picture, minus myself because I took the picture of course.

Picture: The group, I'm too lazy to write all the names...

Mt. Kearsearge is a pretty big mountain in these areas but back home we know this kind of thing as a large hill. It was not a long hike maybe 20 minutes up and a 7 minute run down for me, but it's a ton of fun doing something that light and hanging out at the top. There is an amazing 360 degree view especially if you go up into the tower they have there.

Picture: If you really squint you can see Jess Mott up there

Thought I'd throw up a few pictures from the hike, other than that, it was a free weekend so we did a lot of relaxing and hanging out with each other. All in all, good clean fun!

Picture: Elisa and I in the windy tower!

Picture: Matthew M(California) climbing the tower

Picture: Sharon(South Carolina), Ali(Connecticut), Jessica H(Michigan) and Charles(Colorado) taking a breather at the top

But wait! That's not all! Just when you thought this blog post couldn't get any better I pull out amazing news like this. I know you all are dying to get into the excitement of my life so I thought I'd share with you one of the most exciting things that's happened to me tonight.

I finally got around to pulling out a big 'ole food dryer that was left here. So as I write this, unspeakably delightful delicacies are rapidly becoming devoid of all moisture while locking in the deliciously delectable flavours that will prove to be a potent prescription of palatable pleasure that I imagine to be hardly sustainable by myself.

Picture: Here I am testing an unfinished apple.

----------------
Now playing: M. Ward - Sad, Sad Song

Update-O-Rama

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:32:00 +0000

All the interns arrived on Saturday, well, all save my sister Elisa that is. You can keep her in your prayers as she has been having difficulty with customs people getting her Visa but she'll be here soon enough!

Everyone has been getting adjusted, most are finished unpacking and setting up their rooms and we've even started our first classes! Scott Evelyn started teaching the ISD 101 class (The Art of Hearing God) Monday morning and has been doing that every morning thus far. "How come you aren't there?" you may be asking. Well let me tell you. Today is my morning off which has been amazing thus far. It's so nice to get a break and to be able to sleep in a little bit and to be able to find some time to update you all!

It's definitely different being in leadership this year as opposed to an intern last year. I haven't worked out exactly the nature of all the differences but it's definitely more tiring! I really am finding it an amazing exercise in being in tune with God all the time. I am constantly asking God what He's doing, what's going on, for insight, wisdom and everything in between! It's tiring but so rewarding and I've really noticed personal growth in my perceptions of things as I try to ask God to be always revealing His will in every situation that comes up.

I think I'm starting to have a glimpse of what Jesus meant when he said, "I only do what I see my Father doing.". I'm painfully aware of when I don't do what I'm supposed to, but I'm starting to see how I can make God a constant part of my day, how I can walk in his will all the time. There's a big difference between remembering to ask God what to do and then making an adjustment in your walk/day/attitude/decision than trying to be sensitive and aware to what God is doing constantly.

It's a shift that I cannot explain, I think it's kind of by revelation that we can learn to walk in it. All I know is that it's exciting, I see God move more and it can be tiring.

Scott Evelyn said during the 101 class this week that, "We cannot become more spiritual, but we can become less fleshly.", I feel like that kind of is a summary of what God and I are doing lately and it's been a lot of work to try and continually walk in the spirit, it's much easier to do things the way I think they should be done. It's a constant battle, during the day when I feel myself slipping into the way I think things should be done and into my own perceptions, I have to consistently ask God to align myself with His will and kingdom plans for myself and for everyone around me.

It's been good though and I would really appreciate your prayers for continued and greater discernment, wisdom and understanding.

Other than that, things are going pretty good, I still don't have any pictures really, I'll try to work on that, soon hopefully I'll get a picture with all the interns on it so you can picture them and pray for them as well!

I also have an address for all you people out there, I know you are all dying to send me care packages, well friends, fret no more because below is my mailing address!

Dustin Zupancic
88 Main St.
New London, NH
03257

Until later, bless you all a whole bunch!

----------------
Now playing: Battles - Race In

A New Season

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:52:00 +0000

It's about time isn't it? I've been gone to New Hampshire a little over a week and I haven't had the consideration to write a blog yet. Well that all changes now! At least for now. We've been crazy busy here in the little hamlet of New London as we are preparing for interns coming, mostly on Saturday, but one today and then Elisa tomorrow!

Dan (Scotland) and I were up to 12:30 am last night cleaning at one of our new properties that we are moving into tomorrow. There's a lot of work to be done and even more that is done but it's been fun working with the amazing team of staff we have down here.

Sorry no pictures yet, but hopefully soon I'll throw some up.

The weather here has been pretty lousy, the only warm weather we got was really muggy heat, and I hate muggy heat. Other then that it's been typical BC weather here, rain, in a whole variety of ways, drizzles, deluges, sprinkles and showers. At least it's not boring.

When I first arrived we basically jumped right into it. We had some leadership training meetings with John Paul Jackson, Patty Mapes and Scott Evelyn, hopefully later I can throw up some good quotes for you all to ponder.

I gotta get going, work will be starting soon, but I just want you all to know that I am, in fact, not dead. I kind of doubt I'll be able to update this very much over the next week as I will be really busy still. But I'll try. No promises, I mean come on, get off my back man!

Summer Update

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 06:01:00 +0000

It's been a while so I thought I'd throw up a hodge-podge of different things that have happened in the last few weeks-ish.

So let's see, well my family went to my Aunts place in Vancouver, she has a rooftop apartment so we watched the Annual "Celebration of Light" Fire works competition on it. I got one picture but it's pretty lame and blurry, but here it is.

Apparently this is the biggest fireworks competition in the world, and on the Wednsday night that we went, we saw Canada take it's turn exploding things in the air.

There were only three competitors this year, kind of a shame because up until a few years ago, Benson and Hedges (A tobacco company) was sponsoring it. Now Canada banned liquor and tobacco companies from sponsoring such huge events, this has led to a large lack of funding and hence the quality, at least in my opinion has suffered. Tsk tsk, remember the good ole days?

Let's see, I also went to a football game with Andrew, Jake and his dad. We saw the B.C. Lions play one of the most boring games ever against the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Honestly, it was kind of lame, I was very disapointed in their game playing, however, it was still a lot of fun.

Well I guess this brings us to one of our family nights, that meant that we took my parents new RV out for it's virgin run. We ended up underneath the mission bridge where we had some family time, Zupancic style.

I also found out that I am approximately 1894 high. At least according to the flood level of that year...

Here are some of us underneath the bridge (l-r: David, Elisa, Anna, Dan)

And this would be the bottom side of the bridge

Then there was camping, not only once, but on several occasions! I'll let the pictures do the talking(or typing?).

Here be Jake and Marg

Erin, Sheri and Tanya playing, of all things, Disney Trivial Pursuit

Myself and Jake

Andrew cooking me something delightful

Like most camping trips, this one was eventful. Yes there was cliff jumping, yes there was injuries, yes there was interpretive pole spinning and yes, there was a beetle-smore. What more could you ask for?

And this video portrays Andrew's rather large diesel van in which we both slept in lieu of a tent.

Half-way through the camping trip, a Junebug unwisely decided to make a home in our marshmallow bad. After giving me quite a scare when I discovered him with my hand in the bag, we decided action needed to be taken to prevent this junebug from ever mocking us so blatantly again!

There it is, a typical junebug smore.

Needless to say, I think that's the last we'll be seeing of the little fella

After camping I went with my parents and brother and his wife to the Agrifair, that's right, Abbotsford's own country-ish fair. We saw many exciting things, like a demolition derby, a large horse, a logging show, a sheep being sheared, a beer garden and quilts that don't need to be sewn! I have to say, as it is every year, the roll-over competion is my favourite. That's where contestants race their car towards a ramp and see how many times they can flip their vehicle over. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to get all of the on video, but I did get one and a little of the derby.

I even managed to get in a little golf this summer.

Here I am showing off my golfing prowess...

You know in retrospect, I think I've done a lot more stuff than I thought I did... Well this has been a pretty graphic/video intense post, so I'm tired. But I will leave you with one more "treat". You may wish you'd never watched it, but don't you just want to know what it is?

Picture perfect

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 06:03:00 +0000

Mostly my summer has consisted of working, that's not much to write a blog post about. But I thought that I could throw a few pictures from a recent photo shoot I did for a good friend of mine, Rachelle Kostelyk, for her upcoming EP she's releasing. First are a few pictures of me taking pictures compliments of her sister Janna who accompanied us as a Director of Creativity and Overall-General-Support.

Picture: Taking a picture

Picture: Showing a picture

We took advantage of the summer sun and used up as much of it as we could. After we had all but finished it off, we ended our photo shoot and took a late dinner break for some sushi. Not only was it pretty good, but it was really cheap $4.95 for 18 pieces and some soup. You just can't beat cheap sushi.

Picture: Eating some sushi

So here are some of my favourite pictures from that day. We're working on what we want to do with them all, which ones will be used for what, that kind of thing, but here's a preview.

Well I hope you enjoyed this, I know I haven't been posting much this summer, but I will be heading back to New Hampshire in the beginning of September to go as a Second year intern at Streams. What I'm trying to say is that if you hang in there, before you know it, regular updates will be the norm again!

Canada Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:20:00 +0000

(I loved how the birds just sit and relax on the horses back!)

This weekend was Canada Day (July 1), so it was a long weekend for all, which is nice, I'm sitting here on a Monday morning really enjoying not being at work! You all can educate yourselves about this day at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Day.

Andrew and I celebrated the weekend by driving first up to Merrit where we checked out his Dad's cabin that they are building and then we took out a 4x4 and went driving around in the mountains around there.

It was pretty eventful, we scouted out a lake to check out a camping spot, and we drove on the trail where they were having a horse race, that garnered us a few dirty looks, but most of them didn't mind too much. I gotta say though, it was kinda scary because the big 'ole Suburban kept shutting itself off and it wasn't always really easy to start, I really didn't like the thought of us having to hike way back a few hours to where Andrew had parked his car. Not really an appealing thought.

We even saw some cowboys, likely rustling cattle...

After we had seen all there was to see and done all we could do, we hopped back into Andrew's car and headed up to Kamloops where we visited with some friends, Dan and Cindy Sczebel and Kate Allard.

Then we drove the 2 1/5 hours home where we watched "Dog Soldiers" a British movie about werewolves, but with a title like that how can you go wrong?

All in all, it was a very pleasant day and only one speeding ticket, so what more could you ask for?

Here we are while 4x4'ing

48 hours later

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:16:00 +0000

Josiah and I spent the night in Montana and that was it. We headed home. I drove the first five hours and then Josiah said he'd give me a buck to drive the rest of the way home, well I just can't resist making an easy buck, so I drove the rest of the trip which turned out to be a total of 15 hours.

After this road trip, 3200 miles in 48 hours, driving a few hours is nothing. It really changes your perspective on driving any sort of distance. Although I have to admit, when I got home, I was dead, pretty exhausted, so I took a day off and then the day after I started working with my Dad painting. I think I would have liked at least one more day off, but well whatever, I need to start saving up so it's as good a time as any!

Not much of a claim really...

Day 1 and 37 hours later

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:57:00 +0000

It’s Monday night, we left Sunday morning at 6:00 am and now, 37 hours into our trip across the USA and we’ve made our first stop. Well, not really our first stop, we stopped for gas, food and a few other quick stops, but we ended up driving through the night instead of stopping in Illinois, so this really is our first stop. At the moment we are in Montana and we will actually be able to get home by tomorrow evening so we’ve made pretty good time. All the way from New London, New Hampshire to Abbotsford, British Columbia in three days.

Map: This is what we traveled, from 6 am yesterday morning till 9 pm tonight, 2260 miles(Around 3600 kilometers for us Canadians)
New London, New Hampshire - Billings, Montana

So far it's been a good drive, in the first 37 hour segment, we went through 12 states:

New Hampshire - Vermont - New York - Pennsylvania - Ohio - Indiana - Illinois - Wisconsin - Minnesota - South Dakota - Wyoming - Montana

And tomorrow we'll be going through Montana - Idaho - Washington before we get back to good 'ole British Columbia.

Picture: Here is Josiah and myself, barely awake but about to leave from New London

Picture: This was supposed to be a picture of our first red-light of our road trio, but we were a little slow...

Picture: The United States is finally catching on.

Picture: You're just going to have to believe that it's us, but there we are in front of Lake Erie

Picture: Josiah got a little lost, but I found him eventually

Picture: This morning we were greeted by a pleasant surprise, the best that Minnesota can offer, a 60 ft. Statue of the Jolly Green Giant!

Picture: I'll be honest, it was kinda cool being at Mount Rushmore, but it was a lot smaller than it looks in pictures, almost not worth the $8 parking!

Picture: Josiah and myself at the mount

Picture: This is South Dakota captured completely in one picture, this is all we saw for hours on end. It's only redeeming quality is Mount Rushmore and even then I was overcharged for parking... Well, at least my parking pass is good for a year, so if I want to see what those 4 guys are up to before December 31st, I'm good to go!

So far Josiah and I have been having a ton of fun, we've seen more than our share of dead animals, and unfortunately, I even contributed to it. This morning I swerved to avoid a crossing possum and instead of missing him nailed him square with two tires. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry so I laughed. And Josiah joined me.

More to come as I continue the journey home.

Check out Josiah's blog at http://josiahcooper.blogspot.com

Homeward Bound

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:16:00 +0000

Well, it's over. It's all over, we had graduation last week and it's finally all wrapped up. Some of the group left to go to do the Mexico trip and the rest of us have been here still doing clean-up, getting the properties in order. Truth be told, I'm leaving a bit early myself, but Josiah Cooper and I are driving home, so we are getting a head start on leaving.

That means that starting tomorrow at hopefully 6 am, we will be beginning our journey across the USA to my mother land of Canada.

To celebrate this, I wrote a poem, it goes a little like this.

The Incredible Journey
By Dustin Zupancic

From coast to coast,
and sea to sea,
the Atlantic to Pacific,
Soon home I shall be!

I don't know how tired we will be but it's a 48 hour drive, so I'll try to update my blog a little when we stop, but no promises so layoff me alright?!

Below I posted a few pictures and a video from this evenings barbecue that we had on the Pinnacle Mountain. Enjoy!

Picture: Dave jumping over James, Jacob, Anthony and Claire

Picture: Rebecca and Myself

Picture: Now just me.

Picture: James just showing you all how it's done

Picture: Joni and some future interns!

Video: A well meaning but poorly executed, semi-acrobatic manuever

To the rescue!

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:29:00 +0000

This week was amazing. It feels like God has been doing a lot of shifting and rearranging in my life. I don't know what it all is, but this week was really a significant experience for me.

Much of it has to do with my really good friends Jess Mott(London, England) and Denise Heffernan(Ballincollig, Ireland - Blog at - http://heffernandenise.wordpress.com/) coming to visit me for a week on their vacation down on the east coast. It was so good to see them, I forgot how much I missed them, I hadn't seen them in a long time and it was really good to catch up with them.

I'm still trying to figure out what God did in me during their visit, but there was a shifting of seasons for me(whatever that means - I don't know yet how to explain it...) and I feel like I MUST go over to the that part of the world, before it was more like a desire, but now I feel like a part of those countries has been put into my spirit and now I NEED to go there.

It was so awesome to hear Denise's passion for Ireland and prophetic evangelism, very encouraging for me! So I'm not sure what's going to happen out of it yet, but I know that something happened, now I guess I'm just going to have to pray into it! Jess, Denise, thanks so much for coming it was so good to see you!

Picture: Jess, Myself and Denise

Another weekend, another outreach. This time we were split into two groups, one team going to the Metrowest Bridge(www.mwbridge.com) to go to a healing conference, and the other group going to the Boston Rescue Mission(www.brm.org) which is where I ended up.

We got there that evening where various members of our team ran the service, after the service we prayed and talked with people. We got a tour that night and then it was off to bed for us. I only got one hour of sleep, there was construction happening outside my window as well as a bar so it was loud for a long time, then along with Nathan, Jody and Luke, I got up to help in the Kitchen for 4 am. That made for a long day, which was spent by just doing whatever, from packing up food, mopping floors, painting, pretty much anything.

I really enjoyed it, we haven't done a whole lot with homeless people this year, so I really enjoyed being able to just help out in their daily operations.

Good 'ole Babson...

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:58:00 +0000

The weekend before this one, us interns packed up our bags and headed to Bear Skin Neck at Rockport MA. It's a small little touristy town on the water. Lots of fishing, quaint shops and new age stuff around in that area. So basically, it was perfect for us to set up teams of people doing dream interpretations and spiritual readings(Prophetic words)!

Picture: Here I am. At a sign.

Our fearless leader this weekend was Abbigail Webb who did a steller job arranging everything and working it all out. We spent the first afternoon there talking to people and walking around the area praying. We did get in trouble once though, we had an entertainers license, but unfortunately, we found out when the police busted us, we didn't have written permission on the form to have chairs or our small signs. That meant we had to continue on, sans signs, but it worked out alright anyways.

The place was like a mini-Salem, lots of new-age/witchcraft stores all over the place and everyone we talked to was really open to what we had to say, so that was really neat. It was fairly slow, but the quality of the encounters we had with people were great, lots of favour with them.

Picture: Oh that Babson, what a guy!

That night we went to "Judah's Roar", an evening presented by Eagle and Dove Ministries(www.eagledove.com) in nearby Gloucester (Say: "Glaw-stir" - don't worry, I don't get it either...) where we joined one of their art/dance/prophetic/worship/anything-goes meetings. It was good, I think we all had a lot of fun, even though we were tired from being out in the sun all day.

Picture: Where us guys did sleep

That night us guys went to our host home, it was really neat, the house was built in 1690, you just don't get that kind of history on the west coast where I live, so I loved it!

Picture: Noah, Jamie Dave and I

The next morning, Dave(Massachusetts), Noah(New York), Jamie(Alberta) and I(British Columbia) went to the beach in the morning, which started out as good innocent fun and ended with Jamie and I having a contest to see who could fit more live crabs in our mouths. Jamie won with 13 and I got a measely 12, I think I'll be able to beat him next time though.

Picture: A group of us in Rockport

That afternoon it was back to Rockport for some more teams which went well again. Then that evening, we packed up and headed for home!

Picture: And here is Anthony

An abbreviated review

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:36:00 +0000

I've been away in Canada for a few weeks, but I got back at the beggining of this one. I'll do a really super quick catch up, but then you are going to have to wait till after this weekend.

I went back home up to Abbotsford, British Columbia way out of the west coast for a couple of reasons. I was first going to go to my best friend Jake's wedding. I was the best man so I figured I should make an appearance. I also went early so that I could go to Avalanche youth conference up in Kelowna with Ken, Eric, Chad, Luke, Caleb and Jamie. We went up there to do some workshops on hearing God and on dream interpretation as well as advertise for the academy. (www.StreamsAcademy.com")

The day before the wedding on June 1, Jake, Sam, Steve and myself went golfing which was amazing, I did really good considering it was my second time golfing ever! I even got a birdie so I was pretty impressed with myself, even though I did come dead last by around 20 strokes...

Picture: Left to right: Jake, Sam and Steve

Regardless, the wedding the next day was a lot of fun, it went off without a hitch, except for them that is... Late that night after the wedding and an hour and a half of sleep, my friend Andrew drove me to the airport to begin my long trek back to New London, New Hampshire.

Picture: Jake, Marg and myself

That kind of really quickly skims over the last three weeks, certainly doesn't do it justice, but I am leaving in 45 minutes to go to Rockport Massachusetts on an outreach, so I'll try to take a bunch of pictures and update you all later!

Oh Chad...

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Tue, 22 May 2007 05:28:00 +0000

What could I do? I was helpless. Normally I wouldn't write a post like this about one person, but honestly, through a recent string of events, I've been forced to.

My roommate Chad, I love 'em to pieces, but that doesn't mean that when he does ridiculous things, or when I have some good video on him, that I do nothing. I really feel compelled to share this with all 15 of you out there.

So let's start off with a story.

This previous week, Chad, Luke and Jamie stayed over night at my house because we were going to be going to Avalanche in Kelowna. I was on a different flight and wasn't there that night so this is second hand, but I'm pretty confident in all the sources.

Turns out that Chad decided to brush his teeth that night, I don't know if he forgot his toothpaste or just decided to use someone else's. Regardless, he saw a tube that said "Menthol Gel" on it and decided to go for it. Without regard to the actual content of the tube, he started brushing his teeth. Unfortunately the extra smooth gel that didn't foam didn't tip him off. Neither did the fact that his mouth felt numb. After he finished brushing his teeth he found Luke and told him that he just used the worst toothpaste ever. Luke went and looked and discovered that Chad had in fact brushed his teeth with my grandma's A535 Muscle Relaxant.

Apparently Chad needs to work on some discernment...

Below I also included a video clip of us waking up Chad one morning in Kelowna before the Avalanche Conference.

And here's a clip of what Chad had to endure on the ride down to Abbotsford from Kelowna. We were all exhausted and me and Ken had nothing else to do the entire ride but have fun with Chad.

I got to say, Chad is amazing, and I can't believe that he put up with half of what he did, I'll probably end up paying for it when I go back there after the wedding in June, but I think it's worth it.

Salem Update

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:55:00 +0000

I just got this link off of Phil Wyman's blog at http://salemgathering.blogspot.com, it's for an article that made it to the front page of yahoo, check it out here at http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070510/ts_csm/cbelief_1 and also keep checking out The Gathering's blog!

Also all the recordings from the sessions of the conference are now available at the aforementioned blog, on the right side.

So what are you waiting for? Go listen to what went on!

A Stately Affair

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:54:00 +0000

I'm back. Turns out my outreach was a wild success, but I mean, come on, who didn't see that coming?

We left Saturday at around 10:30 pm, we had a bit of a laid-back/late start because the last few outreaches ended up being pretty intense, so we thought we'd switch it up a bit.

One of the vans went to the Olive Branch Bookstore where they did Dream Interpretations for the people there and my van went to Boston where we roamed about praying and bringing the presence of God.

It was a ton of fun walking around Boston, John Harding lived in that area for a while and he loves history so he took us for a great intercessory prayer tour around some of the places in the city.

Picture: The Boston Team

Later we just split up into groups and walked around praying and changing the atmosphere. One really cool example was when Anthony(Virginia), Kaylene(Michigan), Anton(Everywhere) and myself were walking together. We came upon some people preaching and shouting in the park and all surrounding them and yelling as well were a big group of Youth Pride people. They were all gay youth doing a peaceful demonstration that day who happened to come upon the preachers as well.

When we got there a whole a bunch of yelling was going on and some very upset people so we just started to pray and Anton and Kaylene were talking to people from both groups and it was like all of a sudden, peace from the Lord came. Everybody stopped shouting, people were sitting down and talking, it was such a dramatic departure from when we arrived. It was really neat to see the Lord come into a situation like that so quickly.

We were there in Boston till 9:15 pm, we made a good day of it. Then we headed to the Metrowest Bridge where we met the other van and spent the night.

The next day we were up early and left to head to the Boston Statehouse at 7:45 am and we started working at around 9 am and didn't stop till about 10 pm. It was good we had so many interns there because when there wasn't enough work for everyone whoever was doing nothing was just praying for the event or walking around the statehouse praying. It was definitely good we were there or they would've been short of help, I think we cut it pretty close in getting everything ready as it was.

Picture: The venue: The Boston Statehouse

Some of the various jobs we did that day was helping set up a massive backdrop, I gotta give props to Noah(New York), Nathan(North Carolina) and David(Massachusetts) who worked like machines with the guys who were setting it up. We did various other set-up, doing whatever they needed, wherever they needed. When the program actually started at around 5:30 pm, many of our people were ushering, helping guide people around the building as well as other people registering all the guests. Seven of our guys also helped carry these huge banners, one for each of the tribes of Israel during the program.

I ended up spending much of my time running to and fro, making sure everything was running with a semblance of smoothness. All the interns that came, there was a total of 26 of us, did such an amazing job finding work for themselves as well as praying for the event. They were such a huge help to me and to everyone running the evening. I think that as the leader for this outreach I'm allowed to brag a little on the people that joined me for this event. If not, I'll repent later...

Picture: Kaylene(Michigan), Myself(British Columbia) and Anthony(Virginia)

Picture: Half boat, half bus, all tour duck.

Picture: Vin Diesel sighting? You decide.

Picture: Self-portrait in front of a statue

Picture: Jamie(Alberta) and Sharon given'r

Picture: Rebecca(Sweden) by a Swedenborgian?

Video: Anthony playing a short seafarers song

Video: Short small clips from Boston

Kids these days

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:50:00 +0000

It has been hot out these last few days. A little too hot, a little too suddenly for my liking. The last few days have hit around 27 C (that's 81-ish F for you americans), that's great and all, but it's been a bit of a shock to my system and I must say it's relieving to know that it's supposed to drop down to a much more manageable 16C(65F) tomorrow. Just in time for our outreach!

This weekend we are headed out to two different location on saturday, one team to downtown Boston MA to pray/love the area, and the other team to Northborough MA to the Olive Branch Bookstore (www.thebranch.com) to do dream interpretations. Then on Sunday we are all going to "A Night to Bless Israel" at the Boston Statehouse (www.cufima.com) to help out logistically mostly. I'll throw up some pictures and give you more details after the weekend.

I could definitely use your prayers as I am the one who is organizing us interns to do this outreach. It'll be interesting as I don't really have a whole lot of details on how Sunday is going to go, so you can pray for grace, wisdom, discernment, for the event and for Israel!

I'll leave you today with a delightful video of some wonderful goats that live just a few houses down from me. I'm sure you'll enjoy them as much as I did. If you don't like the video, you must be a very cold and calloused individual. What kind of a person wouldn't like cute goats?

No "Dayton" in the internship!

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Wed, 09 May 2007 01:50:00 +0000

I thought I'd write about two weeks ago finally.

Anton and I went to Dayton Ohio with Scott Evelyn, Recie Saunders and Elmer Atlookan. Scott and Recie are both Itinerant Ministers with Streams Ministries, sometimes the itinerant ministers will take interns with them to help them out at conferences as well as to just mentor them.

Picture: That green arrow is Dayton, Ohio.

This was such a great experience for both Anton and I, we just learned so much. Well, I'll start at the beginning.

Anton and I flew into Dayton at around 12:30 pm, unfortunately for us, they forgot to pick us up and the only cell phone number we had to call happened to be the only cell phone that they forgot at the hotel. So we ended up waiting there for about 4 hours before we managed to get a hold of the church. After we called they picked us up 10 minutes later. But don't worry, we weren't bitter or anything...

We had a ton of fun just hanging out with Scott, Recie and Elmer, they seemed to really enjoy giving us a hard time, maybe they enjoyed it too much... It was really good we had such an enjoyable time hanging out with them.

Picture: Elmer and I
Elmer is from a ministry called 120 drums and part of what they do is go from place to place and reconcile with the first nations people of the area and ask for permission to minister there as well as bring healing to the land. It's a really cool ministry, I've never seen anything quite like it.

The sessions of the conference were really good with Recie, Scott and Elmer each doing a session from one session Friday night, two on Saturday and one on Sunday. On the Saturday night session, at the end of it, they had Anton and I come up and join them in giving prophetic words to people in the church. It was alot of fun and really a blessing to be able to join them at this conference.

We both really felt like we got a big impartation from them, that just hanging around them and watching how they do things, how they run the conference, it was so valuable. It was good to see how they ran things, they were so sensitive to what the Lord wanted to do, if they felt God was changing the direction from what they had planned, they would just go for it, totally change their plans or cut off their message to facilitate what He was doing at that moment.

It was also such a blessing hanging out with David and Josette Allen, the pastors of the church (Five Rivers Vineyard - http://www.fiveriversvineyard.org/) they were amazing people and so hospitable, our host home fell through so they put us up in the same hotel as Scott, Recie and Elmer. They also treated us all to our meals so besides our flight there, we didn't have to pay for anything which was really amazing for both of us.

Although I did pay for my Tim Hortons, I couldn't believe my luck, I knew at that moment the true depths of God's love for me when I saw that there was a Tim Horton's only a 5 minute walk from my hotel. Surely God knows the desires of our hearts!

God: For people who hate church!

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Mon, 07 May 2007 01:33:00 +0000

Just got back this afternoon from Salem Massachusetts where all of us interns helped out Pastor Phil from the Gathering church put on his conference called "God: for people who hate church" the name is a little shocking, but it'll definitely make you take a second look!

I put below here the brochure click on the picture for a larger view of it. It has an excellent explanation of what it's all about!

Front of the brochure

Back of the brochure

Advertisement for Jay Bakker

It was an awesome event, we got there on friday morning and we set-up our tents and did dream interpretation and gave prophetic words to people who were walking around, then that night it kicked off at 7 with Phil Wyman and then Jim Henderson. After he spoke at 10 pm there was a late night movie shown at the church called "Frisbee - the life and death of a hippie preacher" (Check it out at http://www.lonniefrisbee.com/) it was a documentary on the late Lonnie Frisbee. I really enjoyed it, it was kind of sad maybe but I'd only previously heard little tiny bits about him, it was really good to get an overview of his life and ministry. It may have been a bit biased here and there but hey, eat the meat and spit out the bones right?

Saturday found us very busy indeed, I was very tired that morning. Ken for a roommate makes for a late night... Saturday was kicked off with Jim Henderson speaking, then there was a panel of Atheists who were interviewed. Then there was another panel discussion with Jim Henderson, Tony Jones, Ken Nelson, Jay Bakker and others. The session after that was with three pagans, Teri Kalgren (witch), Suzy Wade (ADF druid) and Krista Grillo (solitary witch).

Picture: Left-Right: Jay Bakker, Karen Ward, Tony Jones, Beth Maynard, Ken Nelson, Jim Henderson and Phil Wyman

All of the discussion panels were amazing, I learned so much about how Atheists and Pagans view Christians and about how to just love people and let the Lord work in their lives.

I don't want to talk too much about it at the moment, I may write some more reflections later. Pastor Phil did an amazing job organizing it and making it interactive, in fact if you go to http://salemgathering.blogspot.com/ he had people blog the whole time about what was going on. Basically you can read some good notes and get a good idea of what was said. On the right side of that page there are links to other people who were blogging at that time as well. I included one here below...

John Smulo - http://www.johnsmulo.com/

They recorded all the sessions and most of them should be available on a free podcast so when they come up I'll throw up a link, definitely worth listening to!

Anyways, I'll leave you to read some of the other blogs to get a better idea of what went on and I'll throw up some pictures below.

Picture: Anthony, Barry and Jessica playing some music in the street

Picture: The Vault!

Picture: Seems kind of useless to me...

Picture: Mike Wise(Texas) and Emily(Virginia)

Picture: (Bottom - Left to Right) Anton/Jessica/Jody (Top) Ladies who were ministered to wanted their picture with the team!

Awe TV

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin Zupancic) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:37:00 +0000

Tomorrow, bright and early, at 3 am, I'm going to be leaving for Dayton, Ohio. Anton(Connecticut) and myself are going to be joining Scott Evelyn and Recie Saunders from the Streams Itinerant Ministers to help them at a conference they are doing. I don't really know many details, but you can pray for us as we are there.

Well I forgot to put the link up, but a while ago I told you I was going to have my dream interpreted by John Paul Jackson for AWE WebTV so here it is below, you can also follow the link at the bottom of my post to see all the other Awe TV shows.

http://www.awewebtv.com/