Today is the first day of June, the year twenty-twenty.

There is a world-wide pandemic keeping the majority of beautiful humans tucked away in homes, attempting to avoid possible contact with this virus. You’d think with this home lockdown situation I would have done nothing but write blog posts and accomplish all my other side-dreams and goals. But, I’ve actually had the blessing of an active job, which has kept me busy.

My last blog was posted in November of 2019, 6 months ago. Recently it hit me that it’s now June, and we are at the year’s halfway point. What?!

People often asked me after I graduated 3 years at Hillsong College: “Did it go by fast?” and I would swirl my head because it did, but it didn’t. It felt like 3 years, and I love that it did. I think God prepared me with little tricks to really soak in every single second on that precious adventure. Now it’s over, and I have 3 years worth of memories to hold onto and look back on and carry into my future.

But now here I am in a whooooollle new season that looks very different, and yet feels all too familiar. But it’s like March sped into June and… now we’re here and I’m scratching my head wondering how the time has gone so quickly. And I look back at my season in Australia remembering how trying to post a blog every month was an excellent way of pacing my season, tracking the God moments, and keeping my eyes on the horizon.  To be honest, I don’t really care about who all reads these entries (although thank you if you are), but it is a treasure for me to click back into days and months that have happened. Posting it online simply makes it more officially “finished” for me, and thus allows me to take a step forward, peaking eagerly around the corner without feeling like I missed the season “back there.”

And so, after this lengthy, somewhat unnecessary explanation, I’m going to post memories from the last 6 months as a way of catching myself up to the present, and recalling the beautiful moments of days recently passed.

I hope you’ll take the time to do this for yourself, as I believe it to be such a beneficial exercise, and I hope you’ll enjoy my personal recaps.

“Dad! I found flights!”

December 2019

I have never wept so much at a New Years Eve party.

January 2020

So, I was home for Christmas and New Years by miraculous flights. My heart was happy, but also playing tug of war in regards to my “next step” after 3 years of being the “Australia, Hillsong Girl.” That season was over, and the fog loomed before me.

My brother Kev – a gatherer of people – hosted a party with a handful of young adults at his house. It was good, but it was weird. Being gone for 3 years means some friends have entered your previous group of friends and now the dynamic is totally different. You’re an outsider coming in, but since there’s history, you’re kind of an old insider too. Anyways, I was glad to be around people, we played games and ate a whole lot of great snacky food. Kevin had planned that nearing midnight we should spend some time worshiping and praying (classic Bethel student, AmIRight?).

I gladly took the stool in front of his upright piano and played and sang through the few songs we had chosen, and then my heart was heavy to pray for people. I shared aloud that I felt like there was an open invitation, and in our small crew of friends, Rebekah shot her hand up. I immediately felt the Holy Spirit lead me to stand behind her and lay hands on her shoulders. I did so, and while the casual conversation in the room happened before we “got spiritual” I suddenly began to weep. I felt the Holy Spirit SO strong as I began to pray aloud over this precious girl. I can hardly express what I felt that night, but it was like that loving ache I have felt in the past towards the people of Harvest Christian Fellowship Church and Cornwall. We prayed for multiple people that night, and every single time I heavily wept, feeling the heaviness of the Holy Spirit for these treasured humans.

This was probably one of the most intense corporate times I have emotionally and spiritually sensed the Holy Spirit at work through me. I spoke out promise and blessing and life over these people, and it rocked me. I didn’t realize I could feel all of that or say all of that, and really believe it and sense it. To top it all off, I was at a place that I felt confident to do such things as well.

I say none of this to brag because really I didn’t do anything except try to listen to the Holy Spirit and speak out the whispers I was hearing. The others in the room who didn’t know me very well may have thought I was some crazy foreigner who cries a heck of a lot, but I honestly don’t care. I just want to be full of the Holy Spirit, and fearless to express his heart to others.

This was my favourite New Years Eve to date!

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After filling up on Tim Hortons and snow, I headed back to Australia on January 7th. I returned to 32-degree weather and the realization that I was about to have to say goodbye to many of my friends leaving, beginning with Charlie, the class clown. I became a snotty mess when we were up past midnight, standing in a circle of our close-knit group of friends, praying over our brother who was about to head back to America. I wept when I heard him pray over us, and thank God for the blessings that had flowed for the past 3 years. I won’t soon forget the bonds created amongst the “Legends That Just Send It,” and I look forward to watching how we each step into new seasons and roles.

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These are snaps of our last night all together, which included climbing into an empty neighbouring apartment suite where we took bathroom selfies. What a flippin’ crew.

January in Australia was a ride. I needed to find a place to live, and although I thought I would have my answer-to-prayer car as soon as I stepped back into the country, I learned that I would have to wait a little longer for that as well. Oh, the times we are forced into learning patience and navigating disappointed and unmet expectations. But in the middle of it all, I now realize those small setbacks and scenarios were actually last-minute gifts and blessings from Jesus.

Room for Surprises.

Since I arrived in Australia “homeless” my previous housemates graciously allowed me to stay with them a little longer, until I had a plan. In this beautiful house that I lived in for 3 years, there was always one particular bedroom that had been my “second choice.” I loved and grew accustomed to my own room, but I had been fond of these other four walls. The room had large windows that welcomed the morning sun in and an interesting wall shape. It felt artsy. It had been the first room I slept in when I had initially arrived in 2017, because the girl in the room at the time was away on a trip, and happy to lend her bed to someone else until I had a mattress.

Well, it just so happened that this “second choice” room was free upon my arrival back in Australia in 2020, and available for me to stay in for a short time. How funny that God arranges things so perfectly sometimes, even in our anxious times where we wonder where our next accommodation will come from or how we will get there? I found it satisfying and funny that the first room I stayed in would turn out to also be the last in this beloved “House 29” (plus it was a perfect space to make some golden sleepover memories with Jess!).

Room for Answered Prayer.

I finally had my funky little blessing-of-a-car (I didn’t use the word clunky, because I always wanted to speak life, and this car never let me down!) and had jammed it with nearly all of my belongings and drove for the beach!  Well, drove for my new shared apartment, which was 3 minutes from the beach 😉

Oh, how glorious this was! But before I float back to these beautiful memories, let me pull up a journaled prayer from November of 2019:

“God…Would you please provide finance and resource for an apartment with white walls by the beach. Also a car.”

HA! Not only was I driving my white car, but I had walked into an apartment that was glowingly WHITE. I kid you not, EVERY WALL WAS WHITE. The couch was white. The pillows were white. The kitchen table was white!

Only since putting together this blog have I realized this prayer and answer to it, and it makes me grin and giggle! God is hilariously generous!

This month of living in my white apartment with my white car, 3 minutes from the beach was an absolute paradise (even though my room was so small that I had to put my iMac on my dresser and sit in front of it as a makeshift desk). This was a dream location that I had prayed for and it was all such a refreshing getaway after 3 intense years of classes, teaching, and serving schedules. I loved my routine of morning devos at the beach, coffee at a local cafe, work at home (video editing), and then a beach visit in the afternoon to cool off in the heat. Not to mention discovering rock pools and new running trails! Glorrrryyyyy!

The Glow of Green.

And in amongst the “vacation-mode” of my beach season, December and January were intense decision-making days. Was I going to stay in Australia on a working holiday visa? Was I going to move back to Canada? Was I going to apply for jobs elsewhere in the world? I struggled and wrestled through the tangled trail (that never seems to be blazed, ever) of decision making.

I randomly applied for a job in Vancouver, which I ended up getting, which would have meant full-time media work and great pay, but I also ended up declining this offer. The whole time I stared at the clueless reflection of myself in the mirror, shrugging my shoulders and saying:

“I just don’t know.”

The frustrating part was that I was seeking the Lord! I was asking, I was listening, but I wasn’t hearing anything helpful. Actually, scratch that. I wasn’t hearing anything directional. I was hearing plenty of helpful things like God saying, “I love you. Trust me.” This is likely what I needed to hear, but not what I wanted to hear. Surely God had a specific plan for this point of my life, and he should reveal it to me, right about now… Or yesterday. Right?

Wrong.

One day while contemplating my options, I got this picture of myself standing in an empty traffic intersection. It was so foggy I could hardly see anything except the beams holding up the light fixtures and the hazy glow of green. Green! And green in all directions.

After this, and much prayer and many conversations with loved ones, I decided, out of all my options, to take a job in my hometown of Cornwall, Ontario (which would turn out to be such a God move, but… I wouldn’t find that out till later :D). After making the decision I sent texts to my entire immediate family, and my future boss, but then I spent the next day and a half not looking at my phone and going with an I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-anyone-and-want-to-live-on-the-beach-forever vibe. I was still so nervous about making a “right” or “wrong” decision.

A mentor/friend of mine said to me, “Karen, there will always be a fork in the road.”  There will always be options.  Sometimes it is obvious which way is “right” which way is “wrong.”  Some times there are grey areas, or what I like to call “foggy intersections.”  You can’t tell which way is the God-ordained, right, absolute, nothing-else-will-work, kind of way, but maybe God is more concerned with our heart than our pathway at times (amiright, Adam?!). Maybe he doesn’t care too much about where the railway leads, he just wants us to pick a train car, get on, and enjoy the ride! I can only speak for myself, but in my experience, I’ve had desires, and I’ve had options, and God has a lot of times left it up to me.  I’ve been wondering if this is a sign that he trusts me (this is a concept that could take a whole other blog post!) but I’m starting to think maybe it is.

Creative Flashes.

February 2020

When my own song challenges me.

This month I got to finish off some vocal recordings for my EP, and I had a particularly intense session that shook me. We were working on a song called “No Fear, No!” and it’s exactly like the title implies. It’s emphatic, it’s a declaration, and it’s upbeat and fun! Andy Burnette was pushing me to put more gusto into my voice, and sing with passion rather than singing “pretty.” And he was right, this song really needed it. He talked me into a jacked-up mental space and threw karate air kicks behind the glass window to get me in the mood. I locked eyes with the lyrics in front of me, the lyrics I had written, the lyrics that punched me in the gut when I started singing them for real.

“Risk it, baby, you’ll never know…”

My mind raced through too many times in the past when I had let fear get in the way of life, when it had gotten in the way of what God was calling me to. I got frustrated with those memories.

“Say no fear no.”

Something in my heart and mind clicked. No more. Fear, you’re not allowed. I pushed my vocals as I declared these lyrics over myself, and prayed that they would ring true over listening ears later.

“That was really good!” Andy’s comment came through my coms after a take. “Tell me what you did?”

Suddenly through tears, I was explaining that in that moment I was proclaiming freedom over myself, and over the ears of those who would listen to this song when it was finished.

Thank you, Andy, for guiding me through this session. It was impactful to me, and I hope it will impact many others.

A Mirror in the Waves.

I was running along the beach, eyeing a group of rocks being splashed with incoming waves, holding a tall mirror under my arm. In what other scenario, would I ever be doing this?! I thought as giggled as I jogged across the sand. I was on a film set.

My dear friend Brooke had hired me to create promotional content, specifically a video, to market her incredible book, “Robust in Love.” I absolutely loved the creative process of coming up with a concept and then running with the ideas – literally.

Here are the final products of what we created together.

February brought a few “lasts,” with it. My last day at Maxx Music, the music school I had spent the last 2.5 years working for, learning as I taught various students various instruments. Last road trip (well, for now at least) adventure with Zahli, discovering new places in Australia (there’s still so many places I’d love to discover there! Such a stunning country) and spotting a wild kangaroo and two wild wombats! Oh, and also sleeping in my car at midnight in a random town so that I didn’t fall asleep on the drive home.

Goodbye, Australia.

March 2020

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” 

Winnie the Pooh/A. A. Milne

I leaned my head against the small round window, and with a weighted heart, I watched my birds-eye view of that beautiful Sydney coastline slip away. That huge scope of sand easily seen from the sky – Marley Beach – was the first place I saw on my Google Maps tour to Australia 3 years prior. Despite it always being on my bucket list, I had never managed to touch that bit of sand with my own toes or capture that beach with my camera and add it to my collection of ocean wave photos. Tears of grief slipped across my cheeks unreservedly. Thankfully the seats next to me were all empty (likely due to a threatening pandemic on the loose) so I didn’t have a witness to my uncomfortable emotions. My thoughts were circulating around two words that I could barely form with my lips.

Goodbye, Australia.

I felt the loss of saying goodbye, of transitioning into a somewhat known and somewhat unknown season. I felt the pain of hugging my friends farewell, not fully knowing the exact date of our reunion – or if there would even be one someday.  But deep down in the layers beneath rippling emotion was a centering peace.

God knows.

I allowed myself to sob my way into the sky as thick clouds enveloped the plane and stole the ocean, sand, and burnt bushland from my view.

Three beautiful years in a place I never thought I would live, with experiences I never really believed I would have. Yet there they were, flipping through my mind like pages of a favourite book, documented in my brain, there for enjoyment, there for the telling, and there to weep over. But it was indeed time to turn those well-inked pages and begin writing new lines.

Lasts & Firsts.

Last Hillsong Church services were so very bittersweet. It’s hard to pop out of a culture that you have been so engrained in for 3 years, but I was blessed to be sent off by a message from Christine Caine that actually spoke so clearly to my transition season!

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My last service serving on the Video team at Hills was an emotional one. I was so blessed as the head of our Video team, Brad, took time to pray over myself and 2 others who were leaving, and then he also gifted us Bibles!

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Despite facing the reality that I was leaving Australia, I had a few things to look forward to before leaving, and one of those was being part of Colour Conference 1 in Sydney 2020. I had served for multiple conferences before, but was so excited to be part of this one and to be serving in the main TV broadcast control room! I had previously served on IMAG or camera, but to be a Producer Assistant in the main control room was such an honour! It was a wild ride (just as every Hillsong conference is) and I’m so glad I could be part of it (especially since the world tour of Colour Conference was cancelled due to COVID-19 and I believe we ended up used the recordings from Conference 1 to send to worldwide delegates!)

Last visit to Manly beach (which was the first beach I experienced in Sydney). I developed a sweet friendship with my girl Alexa, and although I have multiple “adventure buddies” we had gone on a few beach days and coffee dates, always with rich conversation and loads of laughter. On this particular morning, we soaked in the rising sun (the Beatles were our soundtrack) and I snapped a few photos of a beach I have had many amazing memories on.

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Last adventure with Jess also included the first visit to Wattamalla Lagoon – a spot I had eyed for quite some time! It was absolutely dreamy and a beautiful last adventure for this sweet girl and me (which of course included sausage sizzlers!).

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Hello, Canada.

Home.

And then I hit Canadian soil. I stepped out of my parent’s van just before midnight on March 12 and stomped along some crusty snow that still blanketed my parents’ front lawn.

Hello, Canada.

I dumped my belongings in my familiar basement bedroom, which was for the most part still in the same shape I left it in. I later pulled everything out of my closet and did a deep spring clean/get-rid-of-stuff party. I did this partially because things were becoming outdated, but mostly because I needed things to change. I was not going to come back to Canada and “go back to normal,” or be the old Karen that used to live in this room. I had changed deeply over the past 3 years.

Work.

It became clear very VERY quickly that God had brought me back to Cornwall for such a time as this. On the first Tuesday after my arrival I arrived at my “new” and “old” workplace – Harvest Christian Fellowship Church. I stepped into the church building, knowing all too well every fragment of carpet and tile on the floor. I had been the janitor for this Church for almost a year before I moved to Australia. I knew this building well.

I made my way to the offices where my brother Ryan got me settled in. Then we had a staff meeting (with 4 people). I was taken back by how different this felt to the “Staffy’s” at Hillsong, with hundreds of people and linked in locations. We got straight to the facts of the growing pandemic in our world.

“So, we will no longer be having in-person services for the next few weeks.” Pastor Roy had said. “Let’s do whatever we need to do to get our services streamed online.”

What an announcement to face on the first day of work! Not only because of this world-wide crazy pandemic situation, but also for the fact that suddenly my 3 years of training and working with media, video, recording, and all this technology were about to be put to good use! My brother Kevin reminded me that this had actually been one of my prayers in coming back to Canada.

Honestly, I felt quite nervous. I didn’t know HOW to put a live link together technically, but if there were cameras and lights to organize, I was keen! Wednesday brought planning sessions and glimpses into my new reality of wrangling DSLR’s, lights and editing sessions – bring it! Plus, it turned out that the elements I didn’t know how to handle were Ryan’s specialty. I couldn’t believe I was suddenly in a position to offer helpful knowledge on topics and tasks that I loved and felt made for!

A D J U S T M E N T S

April 2020

The Present.

I love the Red-Winged Black Bird’s call.  It’s so much more agreeable than my Australian bird friends who squawk and disturbingly remind me of a youngster in distress.  The one who taught me about birds and their calls is currently knee deep in sun-warmed soil in our “back forty” – my Dad.  He’s wearing his maroon shirt, gloves, kneecaps, and is working the ground into submission, his plans for gardening and tree planting spurring him on.

My “Mum,” (Aussie spelling) with her super-cool, over-the-glasses shades is reading a book about enneagram personalities on the back deck.  She told me earlier today in my first escape from my basement office about how it is helping her better understand herself and would have been helpful to her years ago.

My parents are legends. By that I mean they are stunning humans. They are faithful. They are faithful to one another, to our family, to me, and most importantly, to God.

Indeed my parents are lovely, but it is certainly a strange change from living with peers who are fun ladies my age and in my stage of life, to now being around a retired couple 24/7. They are in more of a season of homeliness, which is I think still an adjustment for my Father – a hard worker who was at the same company for nearly his whole career – and my Mother, who is still battling myeloma cancer, but the doctors say she is in “partial remission.” Meanwhile, I am still chomping at the bit of adventure and attempting to find my feet on a career path, ’cause that’s what I’m suppose to do, right?

It’s nearly 20 degrees, and I’m sitting on our living room couch. It’s the first time since my move from down under to the great white north that the door to the outside is standing open, and the sweet spring air is wafting in. It is welcome indeed, but the dance of summer, regardless of how beautiful, is an adjustment from the cozy hibernation of winter.

#Seasons

The Past.

April brought with it the cheek slapping reality that I did not have a return flight to Australia (as I normally would have, after a month in Canada). This was a series of days in which to continue navigating the loss of the previous season and the faces I suddenly didn’t see anymore.

The other day I saw someone’s Instagram story and was so confused to see this particular acquaintance in Australia! Didn’t they know that they can’t travel from Canada to Australia with this pandemic—oh wait, I was viewing someone that I thought was part of my church in Cornwall, but was really someone I had met in Australia. WEIRD. Later that day I did a double-take of a gentleman I had seen at the beach, who also looked like another Aussie acquaintance colliding with my Canadian world. He turned out to be a stranger.

The Sweet in Bitter-Sweet

With these adjustments also came sweet moments. Like emails with Pastor Dick  (an elder and all-around incredible man in our church) who said he sees me almost as a daughter and if I needed anything I could reach out to him. And my 12 years long close friend Rachael randomly swinging by the house to gift me a ring with a musical note on it, reminding me that I have friends who know me and love me, in multiple corners of the globe.

Speaking of people and corners, this month I also started a girl’s small group at HCF, and looking back after several weeks, what an incredibly sweet time I’ve had with these girls! I’ve witnessed God blessing our time together by lining up conversation topics with Sunday’s sermons and I absolutely love seeing how our group has become a family of protective, willing-to-go-beyond type love. I’ve also experienced such energy from my time with these people, which surprised me, to be honest. Only because I am more introverted, and I know that at times after gatherings I’m more drained than I am energized, but these times have been refreshing to my spirit and soul.

Remember the “Legends that Just Send it” and how I looked forward to how we would all step into new things?

In April we heard from Daniel that he was getting a job at his church in media! At that moment I realized that four of the five of us were working specifically for churches as videographers, producers, or editors! How crazy and wonderful that we spent 3 years studying these things together, and now get to use our skills for the church around the world (of course, Jonny’s still rocking the barista world, but reading and writing scripts and analyzing movies in his spare time)!

#IS THIS MY LIFE?!

I have a good Aussie friend who prophesied over me that I would have moments in life where I’d go “Is this really my life?!” (spoken with an exasperated, HAPPY, hardly believable tone).  And, I have had numerous moments like that since her speaking those words over me in, I believe late 2019.

One of those moments was when I found myself sitting at a plastic fold-out table in front of a A-TEM switcher, toggling between 3 cameras set up in the next room.  My brother was a few feet away, acting as the only camera operator for Harvest’s Good Friday service being streamed live to Facebook and YouTube from our Pastor’s living room.

If you had told me that after graduating from Hillsong College that I would have been working for my hometown church as a “director” or “producer” I probably wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, the initial job description for the position I now hold had to do with administration work.  I was keen for whatever was put into my hand, but what a blessing to be able to work a job full of cameras and directing and cutting and editing content the way I like doing in my free time.  My brother Kevin reminded me that a fear of mine that I had had coming back to Cornwall, was that I would somehow “lose” or not use all the media and broadcast video/tv skills and experience I had just accumulated over the 3 years in Australia.  But boy, are they being put to good use!

On that Good Friday, I was so excited to whisper into my phone microphone to my sole camera op who was wearing earbuds in the next room to give me “a slight zoom in on camera 4” while I watched it on my preview monitor.  I’m hoping this is just the beginning of what could come out of my season here in Cornwall, in regards to media and film things.  We shall have to wait and see.

Gaining Momentum

May 2020

“Natalie, did you hear what we just prayed?!”

It was small group night (virtual style). My gals and I had just chatted for over an hour and were ending the night by praying. One of my girls prayed over me, and at my request, prayed a blessing over my creativity, because producing creative ministry content is basically what I do right now. I received her words and then prayed over the others. Right as I finished, Natalie joined the video call, not knowing a single thing that had just happened previous to her jumping on. Suddenly she popped in, and started praying over me, specifically my creativity and that Holy Spirit would bless and anoint it. Ha! I exclaimed to her afterward that she had just prayed exactly what I had initially requested!

“I think this is a sign that God’s got it.” Natalie said.

Yes. I think you’re right.

May brought with it familiarity and the “new” routines becoming more normal routines. It’s part of my week to shoot and edit and record and plan and schedule and design. And I really like it. And yes, as we prayed, I still really want what I “create” to be God-honouring and on point. Yes, it’s for a church, yes it’s for ministry, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to simply get caught up in the act of creativity and just come up with something that sort of fits the bill. I want what our church presents to be anointed and prophetic and sharp.

And on that note…  One Sunday in May we decided to do a more “creative preach” and shoot with Pastor Roy outdoors. God ended up aligning things so well, like the message with the setting, and a random worship song that we don’t normally do to cut in with the sermon (and me crying while singing it because God’s presence was so stunningly intense that moment) – it was beautiful!  I love how God can absolutely use video footage and ideas to minister to people. And to minister back around to me, too.

I’m blessed to have such a job as this and to know that God’s got my back when it comes to anointing and blessing the work of my hands.

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And well… This has been a long blogpost. Thanks for reading and being part of my journey. On to the next chapter!