Dreams Can Come True. So Can Nightmares

November 7, 2008 by

Last night I had a horrible nightmare. Wouldn’t you know it, today, in fact early in the morning, it came true. What are the odds? I won’t even write about what the nightmare was, I would actually hope to forget all about it.

Yesterday was good. I went downtown early and walked around Young and Dundas to pray. When I got back the team had arrived. Remember Amy? She’s that young, nice girl who faithfully comes out to each homeless outreach. She’s from Manitoba and is living with her sister while working here. She might go overseas for a few months on a dangerous mission trip. Well she walked to church, a trip that took her about 45 minutes and it left her feet in pain. Luckily I had my pair of emergency socks in the car, which she put over hers, and walked around downtown with only socks on, no shoes! It was both cute, daring and crazy since it is November. I was worried that she would step on something but she didn’t.

We prayed and then headed out, taking care of the needs of the homeless at Nathan Phillips Square. I forgot to mention that I talked to my cousin W for the first time in more than 20 years. She’s 24 now, married with 2 children. She still lives in Guyana so we we are talking online. The last time I was in Guyana we didn’t have electricity or running water, let alone internet. We frequently send barrels of clothing and cool stuff there for everyone. Once in a while a friend of a friend will ask for us to send back something very specific. One of my friends uncles asked us to send him “a few of those magazines with naked white girls.” I did not fulfil his request lol. I remember when W and I used to play together as children.

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In Time

September 19, 2008 by

Back in 2001 I was stopped at a red light going up Goreway Drive at Derry and I looked down for like 10 seconds to reach for my gatorade and when I did, an ambulance skidded into the oncoming traffic, smashed into the car directly beside me and both vehicles were destroyed. Then around 2004 someone sped in front of me on the same street, and they crashed into the car in front of them while I drove right by.

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A Bit Groggy

July 21, 2008 by

I’m groggy. I didn’t sleep well last night. I tried to but it was really hard, so many things kept making noise. My cell phone battery was dying and kept beeping, the carbon monoxide battery started dying and thus it was beeping (even though the stupid thing is plugged into the wall). Saturday was good, I went to a African missions fund raising BBQ to help out and found out they didn’t get many supporters.

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Silence Is Medicine

June 9, 2008 by

I was at a breaking point yesterday, stressed and frustrated so much. I took a long 4 hour drive up north, ending up in the town of Shelbourne and then spending most of my time in Mono. I found a nice orange dirt road and took it south. It was so winding I was scared the car wouldn’t make it, after all I haven’t replaced the tires as yet and they are on their last treads. I can’t afford to replace them right now, I can barely afford the gas I used for the drive, but I really needed it and it was good therapy for me.

There was a massive rain storm during my ride home and it was so much fun to be on those picturesque single lane roads deep in the forest. I could stick my hand out the window and touch trees.

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Continuing

January 7, 2008 by

Sheesh. So much stress my eyes are constantly twitching. I think it’s just too much all at one time, and nothing working at all. Nothing. On another note I’m already in the 6th or I think 7th book of the Anne of Green Gables series (Anne of Ingleside). She has 6 children and the story has become darker compared to the light hearted comedic original. I read that Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote the books after her own life and she struggled a lot in her latter years. Sheesh.

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I’ll Laugh At This Later On

October 16, 2007 by

I’ve been frustrated with myself this whole year, but for the first time in my life I can honestly say I’m frustrated at God a little bit.

I’ve given everything to Him and His cause. I show up to church 2 hours early every time, I stay late to help clean up. I’m in church 5 times a week. Since 1997 I’ve been a champion for the Kingdom and I feel as if I’ve done my part over and over and over, and I’m now waiting on Him, and He’s really running late. This whole year has been one big pile of crap. And I’m keeping the faith and still believing God that He will keep His promises. On the bright side I’ve involved myself in so many great missions projects that I still have good news coming in from all over the world about hundreds of lives being saved and healed by God. But what about me?

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Even with all the noise around me I can hear my stomach grumbling

August 20, 2007 by

I guess there’s a motorcycle gang or club nearby because there is constant motorcycle engine noise. Constant sirens. Yelling. Screaming. Sometimes laughing. The sound of bottles being broken against the concrete. Crack whores yelling outside my door. My phone ringing. There is so much noise going on around me and yet I can still hear my stomach growling. I’m in a pretty bad situation right now, and I’m a bit shaken.

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30 Hour Famine? Please We Grew Up That Way

May 23, 2007 by

30 Hour Famine. It’s where you don’t eat or drink for 30 hours and raise money for missions work. White people are awesome. For them 30 hours of not eating is called “famine”. We went entire weeks and months without proper food when we were growing up. The youth stayed over at the church from 6pm to the next afternoon and most of them didn’t sleep much. That was a blast. I made a lot of connections with the youth but my days of staying up all night are pretty much done. I loved how most of the youth thought they were doing something amazing by not eating or drinking for 30 hours. I tried to explain to some of them that most of the world has no choice but to live like that and they couldn’t believe me. This is the future of Canada – a generation spoiled so rotten that they won’t even know about 3rd world life and culture.

I’ve been having trouble focusing on school, so I will have to pause classes for a while and get zero on my current classes. DOH!

Current missions work is going perfectly fine but I’m not able to start any new projects. This is okay because I have so many ongoing projects that I don’t feel completely bad about that. But you know me, I like doing more. Maybe that will be my downfall? Any way the reports coming back are good good good.

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January and I’m Already Tired

January 23, 2007 by

On Friday my sister came home from school for a few days. I picked her up and then we picked up Mason and Eggbert and went to church. At church we had a fun service with worship and prayer and discussions. After we all came back to my place for a sleepover. Mason fasted from food Wed / Thur / Fri and I fasted Thur / Fri. Eggbert fasted Fri.

We watched a movie and went to bed. I slept in the kitchen and pretended I was in a space ship. The next morning I woke up and did my prayers, I made them all toast, eggs, sausages, pancakes. We then went to A&P and purchased $70 in ingredients, then bake lots of goodies for the church bake sale. I don’t believe in church bake sales, they aren’t a good idea. You spend more money on the products than you bring in. In my opinion, just give the money to church.

After we relaxed and watched some tv, ate roti and curry for dinner that we got from Bramalea City Centre. We showered and I took a nap.

Around 930pm (Yes the day went FAST) we went to watch a movie at the theatre, something I rarely do these days. Sis and Eggbert watched something with Hillary Swank (Freedom Writers) and Mason and I watched The Hitcher which is a horror. Don’t know how girls watch such boring movies. Around 1am we drove them home, and went home.

Sunday I dropped sis off to school in Waterloo and then went off to church. I took the LONG way unfortunately so it took forever.

When I got there we had a nice service, and then we sold our $70 in goodies for like $30. LOL. Church math.

Filed Under: children, Family, fasting, Friends, Fun Tagged With:

$1 Million Cash On My Coffee Table But I Rather Have Jesus

December 16, 2006 by

Overall, I didn’t make a profit this year. One business made money but the other lost, one investment went up and the other went down. When everything is all said and done, I lost money. I won’t know how much until an accountant preps my books but I’m sure it’s at least 5 figures. I worked like a dog. I worked all day. I took only a few days off. I pushed and pushed but it just seems like things didn’t work out. I’m exhausted.

Some of my notable 2006 expenses:
– $4,054 food
– $3,259 travel
– $3,086 banking
– $5,078 phone

Add that all up, multiply by 10 and I gave slightly more than that to outreach, evangelism, missions and new churches this year. Unfortunately I didn’t save anything, and I have a bad feeling about that.

So lets end this on a super happy note.

As I started driving out to Guelph for Dana’s wedding, it dawned on me again how fast life flies by. I met Dana online in 2002. We’ve become the best of online friends since then and met in real life in 2006. We only spent a little bit of time together in person, but hundreds of hours chatting online.

Dana’s dad and mom are pastors and missionaries. They’ve been all over the world saving lives. Their family and friends are missionaries as well. This kind of thing means the world to me. Dana grew up on the mission field and it’s molded who she is today.

The long drive to her city was a bit tiring for me, and I’ve done the drive many times to visit my sister at school. When I got to the church my jaw dropped, partially because from the outside it looked like it was sinking into the ground, partially because it looked like it was 1,000 years old. It was covered in beautiful wood and stone.

I met J for the very first time but I heard about him from Dana a lot. J’s family are also missionaries and J has been all over, especially Indonesia where he tells me his hobbies included swinging from vines in the jungle like Tarzan. I setup my camcorder and camera equipment and recorded the short and beautiful wedding ceremony. After, I gave Dana and J their hugs and went about my life for a few hours while the professional photographer took photos.

The reception was in a beautiful updated community centre. When I got to the reception we did more videotaping, we ate the most delicious foods from all over the world (seems like almost everyone was a missionary so they knew about all the different kinds of foods from all the different cultures). It wasn’t catered, people from all over the world cooked food. I had some delicious basmati rice with red curry. Most of the people there were white but collectively they had done church ministry work everywhere worldwide. The food was beyond amazing. The fact that a white person made curry better than brown people made me think.

I walked around and talked to men and women, children and adults, young and old. Many people were simply on break from a 2 year mission trip. Some were heading back to the airport in a few days to start a new mission trip or continue one. One young man told me he won’t be going into missions. “I’m going into business, someone has to stay here and pay for these missionaries to go do what they do, someone has to provide the money, it doesn’t grow on trees you know.” hahahaha! A man after my own heart. He was currently in business school and everyone in his family were full time missionaries. I had a good conversation with him. I talked to teen girls who weren’t into the latest pop music or celebrities but instead talked endlessly about 3rd world villages being transformed by the salvation message of Jesus. Can we trade some of these teens with our spoiled brat teens?

After the reception was over, I helped pack away the reception hall as is my custom, and to my shock all of the young people helped as well – without being asked. They were picking up and packing the folding tables themselves and doing it more efficiently than me. I was amazed and remembered again that missionaries have a lot to teach us. These kids aren’t concerned with what they can get for Christmas, but what they can give. I work with teens everyday and I’ve been trying and trying to teach them these values.

I said my farewells to everyone after it started getting late and I drove home that night in amazement of God. Even right now as I type this, I’m just floored. All those missionaries, in one room at the same time. If we could get them to stay in one city of Canada for 2 years they would transform the city. It’s one reason I’m happy to go overboard funding missions work.

On a silly note, while at the reception I was also honored to be the only colored person there. Everyone was white except for me. That is until 4 of Dana’s friends from school showed up late who were brown and black. After everything was finished I sat down with them and we all laughed about how cool it is to be a minority sometimes, especially when everyone else is so nice.

You know what, I can’t stop talking or thinking about this. I met over 100 amazing missionaries, yes I counted over 100 and talked to almost every one of them. I walked around the room shaking peoples hands and introducing myself. Dana’s whole family are missionaries for life and so are J’s. People of all ages, all educations, all kinds of skill sets, who have collectively been to almost every country in the world representing Jesus. Countries I’ve never even heard of! It was one of the most amazing experience for me to be in their presence.

Let me explain this better:

I was 17 years old. Summer. It was approaching evening. I had a home office packed with regular customers. The doorbell rang. 2 large black men came inside. They didn’t say a word. Both were carrying a Price Chopper grocery bag in each hand. 4 bags in total. They emptied the bags in front of me, on my fake wood coffee table.

$100 and $50 bills, Canadian, American and Euro currency. I stacked that money into separate piles of $30,000 each. It was so much I had to call my friend Steve to help. Steve was in the other room (my home office) dealing with some of our clients. When he saw the pile of money he was literally speechless. I mean literally. I thought he was going to faint. He stuttered a few words and then started counting. Steve’s been my buddy since grade 3.

We made over 30 piles, and counted almost $1 Million in cash. We sat there, looking at the money like it was a super hot girl. After we finished doing that, we packed the money neatly in a suitcase and rolled it over to the bank. The lady at the bank snapped at me saying “this line is for business only.” When we opened the suitcase a bit to show her, her mouth opened up so big I thought I could fit my head inside. Because of the sum of money some paperwork had to be done to make sure everything was in order, then we deposited the money just like we were depositing a paycheck for $400. Most of the money was then wired to Germany. When I got back home I logged into my dial up internet access, using my Cyrix 686 with 32mb of RAM and sent an email to a German company: “Hi, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Asif Zamir, and I’ve just wired you $XXX,XXX.XX Please send the shipping container(s) to this shipping port and address…”

I should take a moment to mention the following:
– the whole thing was completely legitimate and fully legal
– nothing illegal was going on
– i never have that kind of cash in my home
– the cash wasn’t mine
– the shipping containers were filled with food-commodities going to a developing country to be sold at retail.
– cash was being used because the business owners involved were used to dealing with only cash. Later on they switched to more updated payment methods.
– it only sounds very shady when I talk about it

Needless to say, that was an interesting day for me, a 17 year old boy. But this day, this wedding of my great friend Dana and the reception where I met and talked to and prayed with 100 missionaries, and having some of them pray over me – and hearing about hundreds of thousands of souls being won for Jesus, about communities being changed and lives being completely healed, about the expansion of the faith and hundreds of new church plants doing well – this is truly more amazing to me than all the money in the world.

Filed Under: Family, fasting, Fun, girls, Life, ministry, work Tagged With: , , , ,

My Sis is Roommates with Roaches

September 17, 2006 by

Sunday Sept 3, we woke up, drove gramma home, packed up Freddy’s SUV, and then drove sis to school for year 2. Her apartment (which she described to us as gorgeous with dishwasher and amenities) was a disgusting dump with roaches crawling everywhere. The poor girl apparently saw several apartments, and one was gorgeous but she signed the lease for this one. I feel bad for her.

We unpacked her stuff, setup her desk, chair, bed etc. We spent a few hours there, ate at pizza hut and then left. She slept over at Katie’s that night, and I suspect she’ll be sleeping over at Katie’s many more nights.

The next day (labor day) I worked and then went over to visit Mason and Eggbert, who had just moved back.

Mason and Eggbert and I visited sis to see how she was doing. I was disappointed that her apartment was still not cleaned or organized, and that her roommates seemed to be party animals. My sister had broken the mirror I made in 1994 shop class (grr), and she said Freddy did it. That’s what made me more angry. Is there anything I can do that my family won’t destroy and then blame on someone else?

Any way. I dropped out of high school to work so we could have some money, and I started college without getting a high school diploma. I realized that I need to get a GED in order to get my bachelors degree. So after a few years of talking about my GED (high school equivalency) I signed up for it 2 months ago. It was being held at 2180 Young Street in Toronto – the TVOntario office on the 7th floor. When I saw the big TVOntario logo on the wall I was reminded of some of my favorite childhood tv shows, and wiggling that tv antenna around so I could watch them clearly. Cucumber Club, Polka Dot Door, Today’s Special, Read All About It, Dear Aunt Agness, Elephant Club with Sharon Louis and Bram and what else…I can’t remember but there were more.

On Friday I left one hour early, but because of traffic I was one hour late for the exam. I pleaded to take the exam instead of re-scheduling, because I really didn’t know when I would have the time to come back. They accidentally put me down for the French exam so I was a bit flustered by that. Luckily I wrote my answers in English and I was able to use an English question book even though the rest of it was in French.

I did my exam and left about 1.5 hours early that Friday nite.

The next morning I woke up and left at 8am to get there for 8:45. I did my portion of the exam, finished early and then left and ate breakfast at McDonald’s. I then came back and did the next portion. There were breaks in between portions. After I had 1.5 hours to spare so I walked around downtown. I then came back and did the final portion of the exam. Leaving about 3 hours early. I thought I did pretty well, I’ll find out in a few weeks.

I drove home and then showered. I purchased a super cheap guitar at Walmart and I hope to fill another goal by it – to learn guitar.

Now honestly, this was really just half the stuff that happened these past 17 days.

Filed Under: fasting, Friends, school, work Tagged With: ,

Human Wheels by John Melloncamp

July 9, 2006 by

(singing “Human Wheels” by John Melloncamp). Yesterday was Freddy’s birthday, and we went to a church picnic in Mississauga. I brought 150 pages of school work with me but part way through my sis and I left to go pickup her drivers license from Square One, which was long overdue. This has always been my life, and it will probably always be this way. Invited to a picnic, I’ve got to study and drive someone somewhere. Invited to a dinner, I have to make it 1/2 work 1/2 pleasure. Going to the movies, taking 4 children with me also.

While walking along in Square One, I saw a nice young lady and I thought to take a closer look at her, and when I did; she was wearing these shorts that were so short, part of her butt cheeks were just hanging out the bottom! I always wonder how girls do that in such public places. I like girls butts just as much as the next guy but girls, please, cover up at the mall.

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Kontroll

March 30, 2006 by

I watched a fantastic Hungarian film (English subtitles) called Kontroll (1993). The storyline was about a group of friends who worked in the Hungarian subway systems as ticket checkers. In Hungary there are no turn-styles or official way to verify someone has paid for a ticket other than to have someone else check. Well it’s a very dangerous job, they get poked with needles, beaten up and at least threatened by people who have not purchased a ticket or who simply do not want to show their ticket stub. (sounds like a typical night walking around Malton) I told a bunch of my friends that we could all go and work there for a while to have adventures. They reminded me that they should go, but that I should stay here because my life has already had too much adventure. I agreed.

Then today I thought up of another fun adventure we could all have: If we had a large cruise ship it could double as a treasure hunting ship. I heard there are more than 1,000,000 ships that sunk and have not been discovered. I wish I could leave for this job tomorrow. Things at work are really unstable.

I hear that every month, 1500 pastors quit their job in North America. Burn out being the number one reason. I’m there. I want to help save everyone around me and in return I myself will need saving. I’m there.

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N-Large

May 29, 2005 by

In the 90’s I applied for student loans and then decided not to take them, I’ve been paying my college as I go, which means I do it much slower, but debt free. The ultimate goal is to earn a PhD or Doctorate. I don’t think I’m the PhD type but Ill go as far as I can. I should have done my entire life this way.

Growing up, we would use our possessions as gently as possible, and when we outgrew them, we would send them to Guyana. Sometimes I’d get irritated because it seemed like the better stuff would go to Guyana and I’d be stuck with crap. In grade 9 I wore clothes from Goodwill. I remember my $4 pair of jeans with someones name written on the inside tag. “Johnathan.” it said.

Shoes were the most annoying. My shoes were the cheapest shoes you could find. They would always be falling apart and I would repair them as best as possible. I would really wear my shoes out though. In grade 9, for about a full semester the entire bottom of my shoes had simply wore out so my socks and feet were actually touching the ground. It was embarrassing but so much other stuff was going on in life that I just went with it. When you’re defeated, you’re defeated and that’s how I spent most of my young life. I put my feet in plastic bags before I put them in my shoes, and that helped a lot. That’s not actually the worst. At Yorkview Public School there was a rule that you had to wear boots during certain weather conditions and change into clean dry shoes when you got to school. If you didn’t do this, you would have to walk around in your socks all day. Yorkview was a fantastic school. The teachers were overall very kind and we had a neat french immersion program which ensured that I got top grades in french my whole life. But this one rule was nuts. Of course I didn’t have a pair of shoes to change into, so I would always be in my socks, walking down the wet and cold hallways. People would ask why I was so forgetful to bring my “extra pair of shoes.” which I thought was simply a white people luxury at the time, and I would tell them to go to my house and ask my parents and get their head busted open in the process, instead of mine.

Now in terms of glasses, I used to have perfect vision. Then in grade 5 my vision started to slip. I couldn’t see the chalkboard even from the front row, but we couldn’t afford eye glasses. Well, maybe we could – when I told my parents / guardians that I needed glasses, they responded “no, you’re just bad.” Stupid monkey people.

Grade 6, grade 7, grade 8 my teachers would say “if anyone wants to come up to the front to copy off the board you can do that.” I wasn’t the only one, there were several people who really needed glasses. I got my first pair of glasses in December of grade 9 – the end of first semester, and I only got them because my french teacher told me not to return to his class unless I had glasses. The jackass made a mockery out of me in front of everyone, in front of all of my poor friends who couldn’t afford glasses. He was pretty much the most hated teacher in all of high school, everyone hated the guy. During class he would ask me to go get him paper towels from the bathroom, because his armpits were sweaty and he would need to soak up the sweat during class. Bloody french people, I thought to myself. I still think that actually.

I returned the next semester in his class with glasses, the cheapest pair we could find. Unfortunately 1 or 2 of my classmates couldn’t afford it and didn’t return to his class. Some of them didn’t even return to school.

This month I got myself new shoes, and new eye glasses, the kinds I wanted. And I gave a bunch of new clothes, shoes and new prescription eye glasses to people who really need them, who will make good use of them. It’s a nice feeling to take a car load of people to the mall, male and female, young and old and tell them “everyone get what you need and get something you want.”

One boy, age 14 put his brand new glasses on and told me that it feels so good to see properly and that he felt like crying.

I know the feeling.

Filed Under: children, fasting, Fun, Life, ministry, school Tagged With: , ,

Jesus Heals

June 26, 2003 by

I took a trip to Peterborough Ontario, I haven’t been here since like 1999 or 2000 and the last time I was here, I didn’t get to stop and enjoy as much as I wanted, but this time I did. Now when I got out of the van, of course the button on my jeans flew right off. It got sewn up right there in the parking lot while they were still on me which gave all the onlookers something to talk about before service.

We went to this church that had free delicious orange drink and donuts that you could eat before, during and after service. I have never seen this before in my life and I think it’s just the greatest thing. Also the sermon started with a Jim Carey video clip on a projector screen and I have never seen this kind of technology used in a church before, just old fashioned overhead projectors and not even free water. After there was a question and answer time. This is the most modern church I’ve ever seen.

Any way to my main story. Back in like grade 6 there was a beautiful girl name Maryanne. We called her psycho bitch because she used to beat us up, put caterpillars down our shirt and squish them. Every time we would see her, we would run away because of all her roughhousing. This was crazy because we (the boys) would roughhouse as well. I mean back then we would light things on fire and cause all kinds of mischief, but we couldn’t handle being beaten up by a beautiful girl.

I became a Christian at age 17, and I lost contact with Maryanne a few years prior, although I would hear about her once in a while because she dated some of my close friends.

When I was in college and doing an internship around age 19, I met her again at Tim Hortons. She was a cashier and just had a round of chemotherapy. She had cancer and had lost all her hair from the treatment. She was smiling at me while holding back tears. “I’ll never have children” she said. Without thinking (story of my life) I told her that Jesus would heal her, and tried to tell her as much as I could about my new found faith before I had to go (there were other customers in the line). I gave her my contact information.

I make promises to people all the time. Most of the time I come through, sometimes I don’t. When I tell people about Jesus though, I really boast. I boast big. And I had boasted big about Jesus to Maryanne in front of other people. When I got home I almost started to panic, because I realized I promised this girl that Jesus would come through for her and that one day she would have kids.

Fast forward to right now, several years later. I had just picked up a Medium pizza with Nathan and when we were walking outside of the mall in front of Price Chopper, I hear a scream “asif, asif!”. Maryanne ran up to me and before I had a chance to react, she jumped on me, arms and legs wrapped around me completely. I was surprised my spine didn’t collapse. All the weight lifting has been working out. Her hair is long and beautiful, in fact she’s more beautiful than I remember.

She went on to Nathan about how great of a man I am. (She and Nathan had never met prior). She really went on. And of course I’m not, but God is so great He came through for both me and Maryanne. I wish everyone who was in the Tim Hortons years prior could see. Both of us grew up in tough environments. Both of us came up from the wrong side of the tracks. Both of us have been healed by Jesus.

And yes, she now has a beautiful biological son. I write these journals so that I can one day read them again. But this story doesn’t require a journal entry. I’ll remember it for eternity.

Filed Under: children, fasting, girls, memories, ministry, school, work Tagged With: , , ,

You wouldn’t believe me anyway

December 31, 2002 by

Due to a computer failure, I’ve lost over 50 good journal entries. To complicate the situation, the website that I used to post my entries on has gone bankrupt and shut down. These entries told of my many, many great adventures like being stabbed at, almost blown up by a fire bomb, plus fun things like camping and visiting Lake Huron and eating dinner by a campfire. I also lost a lot of photos that I took with a digital camera. :( which means a lot of these things will become distant memories later on.

The internet is really growing, and technology is advancing a lot but I kind of miss some of the good old ways which were more secure.

I’m ending 2002 the right way, with prayer and fasting. And boy do I need the fasting! If not that, then bigger pants. Ha-ha, okay seriously, I watched Lord of the Rings part 2, gave away a ton of cool Christmas presents again, had 7 children under my care, petted a bunny rabbit, fed a candy cane to a bunny rabbit, went golfing, failed at building a go cart, failed at adding a motor to my mountain bike, and so much more.

2002 has been a good year, full of wonderful family and friends time, trips to New York and great lakes. Swimming and laughing and eating, what more can a person ask for? Oh – and there’s a redhead at church that my friends and I are all trying to talk to, I talked to her last week while my friends distracted her family for me, things are in motion!

Filed Under: children, fasting, Friends, ministry, Poetry, travel Tagged With: , , , ,

I ate 400 slices of pizza in 300 days and now I’m a fatso

November 29, 2002 by

If you read my Ottawa Adventures series of posts (see 2001) then you know that I was struggling for several months financially and wasn’t eating properly because I couldn’t afford to. To be fair, I grew up mostly not eating enough because we couldn’t afford to, and was 96.5lbs up to the year 2001. Sickly most of the time as well.

This year has been good to me financially (and in many other ways). Because of the lack of pizza last year, I ate 400 slices this year so far, over and above my other meals, and I’ve gained 65lbs. It’s mostly fat but some of it is muscle because I’ve been lifting weights and working out. I’ve got stretch marks on my legs, biceps and shoulders even though I have a slim build overall. My stomach unfortunately is 42″ and has no stretch marks. I’ll cut back on the pizza now, which should help me cut back on my stomach. In high school I was called Mr. Abs and spaghetti arms, looking at me now you’d never know it.

Food is needed often. You don’t technically have to have it every day but after a while, you’ll die without it. Growing up my stomach was usually growling with hunger pains. Some of my friends as well. We’d be at school and would dread when there would be silence in class because then you could hear our stomachs growling for food. In grade 1, 2 and 3 at Yorkview Public School I would rarely ever have a lunch. They had a system back then that all the kids who didn’t have food would get food from the kids who did have food. It was a good system. One person would give an apple, another would give half of a sandwich. If you were lucky someone would share their chips with you.

In middle school things were a bit better for a short while, but then by high school things got rough again. My friends would often times share their lunches with me and I would get invited to dinner almost every night which was amazing for me. At my house we ate rice, and curry. At my friends house we would eat every kinds of food imaginable. I’m even convinced I ate horse meat but I can’t be 100% sure because my friends have been known to trick me. One time I was invited over to my friend Sandy’s house for lunch and her and my friend Carla slipped some booze into my orange soda, which upset me because I wasn’t into that sort of stuff. I had too many responsibilities to also be a drunkard.

I remember art class the most, because it was one of the quietest classes plus one of my favorites. My stomach would growl and growl and my table mates would chuckle. I was a real starving artist.

I ended up getting so frustrated with poverty that I dropped out of high school to pursue business, figuring if I waited till after college I’d die of starvation anyway.

Things were different in Ottawa. I was starving, for just about 3 months maybe. But I didn’t care. It was no big deal because every since I gave my life to Jesus in 1997, my life has been filled with fresh purpose, so things like food don’t bother me. If I have it, I have it. If I don’t, then it’s just a minor frustration.

Spiritual food, well you need that to and I have a lot of that. God provides us all with a lot. He says in the Bible that creation itself declares God’s glory, and the universe declares His majesty.

When I was a kid, I missed out on pretty much everything. When I was a teen I missed out on a lot, as I got older I learned that you have to miss out either right now, to gain later on, or you can get something right now, and later on live in regret. I’d rather sacrifice now, and gain later on.

In Ottawa, for about a month, my diet was hot peppers. Why? I had a bag of hot peppers in my freezer, and nothing else. I’m going to enjoy my big fat stomach and smile every time I see it.

Checkout these cool Canadian films: Flowers and Garnet, Blood and Donuts, Road to Avonlea.

Filed Under: fasting, memories Tagged With: , , ,

Whining about wine

June 22, 2002 by

I did something I really regret now. Years go (in the 90’s) I was given, as a gift, about a dozen bottles of vintage wine. I was a teen, I didn’t drink wine at the time, I didn’t understand that wine 50 – 75 or more years old would be so valuable and highly sought after. Those wines stayed in a cupboard for a few years then one day I thought to myself “who drinks old wine? that’s so gross, I want fresh wine even though I don’t drink it”. So I threw them out.

My friends are also making fun of me because a few years back we went camping and I threw a steak in the campfire, but that’s a completely different story.

I’m a minimalist. That means I like to have the minimum amount of stuff. I don’t like clutter, I have 2 pairs of shoes, and when I feel overwhelmed one of the first things I do (aside from pray) is start throwing things out and giving things away.

Jules is about 7 months old and he woke up around 230am with a fever and crying. I made him a bottle and it was obvious he wasn’t feeling well. I took time to pray with him and we did some webcamming with my night owl friends. Everyone loves a beautiful baby. Jules was born with drugs and alcohol in his system thanks to his mom. He’s severely underweight but he’s been getting healthier and healthier because he’s surrounded by people who give him lots of love, affection and prayer. After he was nice and happy he went back to sleep AND SO DID I.

June is fathers day and the last few years I’ve been getting fathers day greetings from children who’s lives I’ve been a part of, who don’t have fathers. I even get cards once in a while which is sweet.

On another note, Patrick was being super good, so I promised to buy him a car when he turns 18. Everyone heard, so I’ll probably be held to this promise. Good thing he’s still a baby :)

Filed Under: children, fasting Tagged With: , , , , ,

My 14 cents

December 21, 2001 by

Mom picked me up, on time! Driving from Mississauga to Ottawa and then back. It made up for all of the many hundreds of other times I didn’t get a ride. The ride back to Toronto involved my mom and her friend yelling at me though, which was a bit annoying, to say the least. I’m living in Etobicoke for a few days, staying at my moms place. She lives with a roommate who is from Africa and who has a husband in Africa who she prays will one day make it to Canada.

I have about 14 pennies to my name at the moment, plus a leftover postage stamp, so I put the pennies in an envelope, and prayed over it, and went over to the mail box and sent this off to a local Christian missions organization that I really enjoy. I can’t do anything with the stamp or pennies anyway.

Filed Under: fasting

I can do 300 to

July 11, 2001 by

Too much stress all at once. U have no clue what I mean. Hum. I was on my phone with my mom and she was telling me how the bank was closed. I said “yeah they arent open on Saturday” She said “Asif, its monday!” Yesterday I went to her house and she is fasting for like 21 days. Well, we were talking and I asked “what day is it, Thursday?” She said “can I beat you?” Oops. Today I forgot it was Wednesday. I walked over to Wendy’s to get some food. When I was in the line I got a huge hug. Melina. She asked if she can visit me so I told her next week. She is a very tall 9 year old, however shes wearing those shoes with the huge platforms to make her much taller than me. Her mom asked if she can visit me at my new place wherever it may be, and I said sure. Melina was about to cry when I told her that I may be moving away far to Ottawa. She asked why I cant just move close to where I am now, with a childlike, hopeful look on her adorable face.

Shes such a good kid. God bless me.

I’ve been using the internet for over a year now and I really enjoy it. I talk to missionaries all over the world even in remote areas. Before we would have to do snail mails or wait for them to get back.

I was thinking about the Old Testament warriors. One would be considered great if he could fight off 300 other warrior men. One by one. One after the other. Thats pretty freakin good! Is that maybe why God let them have more than one wife? After all, when I finished off 300 enemies, will one wife be enough for me when I go home? Don’t tell anyone I said all this.

Filed Under: children, fasting, Friends, girls

Please

July 10, 2001 by

Hmmm. I rode my sis’s bike home, and it started to pour (rain). I decided (after another few days of fasting) that it was time to eat. I got my umbrella and started walking in the pouring rain.

I didnt know what I should get, either Wendy’s or MCdonalds. I wanted Wendy’s but at the last minute I figured for some MCdonalds. When I got in there and was my turn to order, a man came into the store frantically and he didnt speak much english, but he was yelling and making the jesture as if he was talking on the phone, and said “911 911”. Then I understood, as his wife ran in (screaming) holding their baby, who, had stopped breathing some time ago and was foaming at the mouth. Now, as the Mcdonalds person was calling 911, I walked up to comfort the family including the older brother who was crying, and to touch and pray for the baby. I was nervous, everyone was so frantic, except some crazy people up at the counter ordering food who simply didn’t care what was going on. They just needed their food and to get out of there. Dying babies don’t matter to everyone. I tried to talk to the father but he just had no idea what I was saying and the mother was too frantic. Some more women came over and comforted the mother and we had her hold the baby boy in a flat possition. The baby started breathing. A translator (someone who spoke the language) came and started talking and basically, they were driving by and the baby (who had a fever today) just started crying, then his eyes started rolling all different ways and he stopped breathing.

Filed Under: children, fasting

Oh Boy

June 29, 2001 by

Arm.
1. An upper limb of the human body, connecting the hand and wrist to the shoulder.
2.) A weapon
3.) To equip oneself with weaponry.
4.) To prepare oneself for warfare or conflict.

Reflection.
1.) The production of an image
2.) Mental consideration.
3.) A consideration of some subject matter, idea or purpose, often with a view to understanding or accepting it.

Determination.
1.) The ability to persist opposition or attempts to dissuade or discourage.
2.) An unvarying and conclusive tendency toward an end.

Filed Under: fasting

The end of something important

June 22, 2001 by

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.
– Revelation 22:21

And now for the beginning of a another new chapter in my life.

Filed Under: fasting

Black and White

June 16, 2001 by

“Dragon Whips his Tail”

His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth… – Holy Bible, Revelation 12:4

Woke up. Lounged around. Found out that the wedding was at 1 instead of 2. I did a mad rush to shower and get to church on time. The ceremony was great. It was so nice to see my best friends S and R get married. After a very sweet and long courtship. They are just 2 lovebirds and it was nice seeing them take vows. Its so cool to see my Christian friends court. Because everything is so pure and sweet and without DRAMA. I remember the many times S said she ‘slept over’ at R’s and I’d say “WHAT??”. And she’d explain how she slept downstairs and R slept upstairs and PARENTS supervised.

After the ceremony I met a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while. I go my pics taken with the
bride and groom, my mom and sis. And a bunch of other people. My personal highlight of the day? I even got a kiss from a female friend I haven’t seen in a while, on the cheek of course, thanks L. What is it about a kiss from a beautiful girl, makes your whole day better :)

I took a taxi downtown Toronto. Anyway I go there right when the bus was about to leave at 9pm.
Halfway through the trip to Ottawa we stopped so people could get food and use restrooms.
I went into the restroom (the bus had a bathroom as well but I wouldn’t dare use it) and the stalls were filled, and so I figured I’d use a urinal for the second time in my life (other than when I was a kid
and used the kiddy urinals). The urinals were spaced to closely together, like 16 inches
apart, and this trucker guy to my right was looking over at me excessively. And he was not looking at my face!

Afterward I got a tuna sandwich and twix and fruit punch for the rest of the ride and arrived around 130am. Got up at 7am. It’s nice to wake up with gentle sunlight splashing on my face. Its harshness weekend by the drapes. I ordered breakfast for $25 and it was very very disappointing :( I did try some ‘yogurt’ though, something I haven’t really honestly done.

Showered, and left for church. Pastor G preached about really knowing God. He talked about evaluating yourself and then coming to God in sincerity to repent and follow Him. About how some people know God, but get stuck in a rut and then begin to wonder, especially if Satan gets into their lives. Some ‘evaluate’ their current relationship with God and go back, while others dig deeper and deeper into troubles. He is using the book of 1 Corinthians and says he has one more sermon left
in that book. He preached that sermon because he was ordaining 2 deacons that day and there were some unsaved people in the service. Good stuff pastor! Kinda funny cause its the same kind of sermons we get at any other church. Except our pastors do not do much chronological teachings, it could be one topic this week and another next week, from one end of the bible to another.

After service so many people came up to talk to me, and to make things even more awesome, this was my first time in this church, and everyone was white and I was the only brown person, which I personally love. The people I sat beside when I arrived moved right away when I sat beside them. No big deal, another family invited me to a BBQ. This is what I love about church. You walk in. You’re family. Okay okay there are rotten churches to, but you know what I mean.

Another couple was moving to Nova Scotia for good and it was their last week there. Sorry to see u go!
They were serving lunch downstairs but I had to leave, I had other things on my schedule.

Hopped on the #85 back to the Hotel. I decided to do something I rarely do – to stop and smell the roses. So I got to the hotel, but then decided to walk around Ottawa, enjoying the downtown, Rideau Canal and all the great sights. And I figured my manly direction skills would get me there. Instead I ended up going west back towards the church instead of east to the canal, and felt so silly after I asked for directions. I was walking which made it worst.

So I saw beautiful Parliment, Rideau canal, which is s dirty, I mean there is lots of green stuff growing in it. I was thinking it would be like fresh spring water. Whilst walking down Rideau lots of those white flower things were blowing all in my eyes and annoying me. I had my camera to snap pics and I ended up at a park. Ok walking down the park holding a camera, during a hot day. well there were a lot of people bathing in the sun. Girls wearing skimpy bathing suits, some wearing thongs for some reason. I learned that there were 2 large colleges nearby, and then I clearly understood. I was wearing my long pants, t-shirt and favorite shirt which happens to be a very furry sweater type shirt.

So anyway I felt awkward there with my camera, cause I was the only one not nude. Well, I decided to just get out of that park, cause I was just pretty much walking through anyway. On my way out, some girl strips down to some sort of invisible thong type bikini, and my right hand unconsciously slapped me in the face so hard that it stung. I just turned around another way and laughed and laughed cause I couldn’t believe my own hand would slap me.

I stopped at a bench to let my aching feet rest, I had been praying and walking for 5hrs straight.

Walked back to the hotel, got my bag, went to the via rail station, ate some burger king, got on the train.
Train pulled in the Toronto station at like 10:30 pm. Took the subway to the bus station, got there at 11pm.

Ran up to get the 11:03 bus home, missed it. I didn’t actually miss it, the bus didn’t stop
at its usual place but stopped at a new place across the parking lot because of construction or something. Doh! There was another girl waiting there named Angela. She was a young single mom. (I never met her before). We had to wait for the midnight bus so we started chatting. She told me about her weekend and I told her about my weekend. It started raining so I insisted that she take my favorite shirt and wear it till we get in the bus (I found out we live a few streets down from each other in Malton).

Anyway I had crouched down on the ground next to her and her son, age 11 comes and says “hey mom ask him for his phone number, hes the nicest guy, not like the others.

I’m not really good at exchanging / asking for phone numbers. Back in grade 3 I liked this girl named Kaitlin, and I hid in the corner of my school while my friend Ronald asked her for her number for me :) I got her number but now I’m used to having my friends hook me up. I still remember that number to this day.

Anyway the boy really wanted to be friends. He was sticking around me and asking me questions and stuff while we waited. I even left for 5 minutes to make a phone call and he came looking for me in the station.

But anyway I got on the bus, enjoyed the drive home with my new friends, walked home, went to bed.
I’ll remember this trip for the rest of my life.

I was riding my bike yesterday and a little girl with very nice crimply strawberry blonde hair
jumps out from behind a short bush I tree type thing and says ‘BANG.’ And I stop (I wasn’t going very fast) and she says ‘what are u doing here’. And I said ‘I’m riding my bike is that ok?”
She said ‘yup’ and continues to play.

I purchased a bunch of good plants because all of mine have died because of lack of sunlight (Although I have a gorgeous one on my desk which has flourished) I purchased them and left them in the car, the next day the sun was out and it got very hot in the car, because when I went outside the plant was dry and withered, almost cooked. I wont be coming to Ottawa this weekend, I have so much work to do here. But I thought of something, wouldn’t it be interesting to live there for a while?

Contemplate: to view or consider with continued attention: meditate on

– Asif Zamir

Filed Under: children, fasting, Friends, girls, memories, travel Tagged With: , , ,

Little Sleep

May 29, 2001 by

For the past while I haven’t been sleeping well. Yesterday I woke up at 2:30am and couldn’t fall back asleep so I lounged around…ate some snacks and then at 5am went for a bike ride and prayer time.

This morning I went to a different park to pray and enjoyed the outdoor gardens. I wanted to visit the greenhouse but it didn’t open until noon.

I’ve just finished another round of fasting.

Filed Under: fasting Tagged With: , , ,