The Last Few Months

First off, I want to begin by thanking you again for taking the time to read this and pray for me! I will be taking much more time to be blogging in the new year, and I am excited to have a team of people that I know are going to be reading these posts and taking the time to pray for me. I'm home sick from work today and between naps I thought that I would take some time to let you all know how I am doing. Thanks so much!

These Last Few Months
The last few months for me have been quite a ride. Work has been great. Transcend is an amazing company and incredible people work there. I am getting trained as a barista in the new year so that is an exciting step, but besides Transcend I am doing very well. God has been teaching me a lot over the past few months and I look forward to blogging about it soon. For the time being I will simply let you know what I have been up to. 
The last two months with House of Prayer have consisted mostly of fundraising and training. While Fundraising has been quite challenging, God has come through every month as we are often wondering where money is going to come from. It has been a stretching time but God has been growing my faith in Him as well as my ability to trust Him for things like finances. Please continue reading if you would like to support me financially. 
Possibly the most exciting thing that has happened in the last few months was the training provided by House of Prayer (for more information about training, please click here). House of Prayer has offered three different levels of training Intentional Discipleship Training 1&2, and Leadership Discipleship Training. IDT 1&2 focussed more on what some key elements are to being a disciple of Christ: Intercessory Prayer and Worship, the Foundations of night and day prayer, A Sermon on the Mount Lifestyle, and Prayer and the End Times (for example). These two levels of training were awesome and I know that I wasn't the only person who was challenged as well as encouraged to get real in my walk with God and take steps in seeing my relationships with Him be all the more fruitful. LDT focussed more on the practical aspects of what happens in our time in the prayer room (combining worship and intercession) and we took time to focus on the prayer room model . What was extremely exciting about LDT was to see the amount of people (14 or so) come every week for 6 weeks and really devote themselves to getting raised up and being excited about House of Prayer. These training times were great for me and I would encourage anyone reading this to click here and find out when the next times these courses are being offered are!
Other than training and fundraising, my job with House of Prayer has been very task-oriented. Week to week the realities and needs of the job are shifting so every week I am focussing my time a bit differently. 
Looking Ahead
2011 is  a very exciting time as much of what has been happening recently is, we believe, God preparing us for this new 'season' of ministry. Like I said, there are many people who have gone through our discipleship and now we can honestly be excited about them becoming leaders (and some of them hopefully missionaries) in the new year. 
One of the things that I am extremely excited about is opening the prayer room more during 'non-work-hours.' We will be opening the prayer room on Tuesday nights in February and part of my responsibility will be to plan those times and ensure that there are worship/prayer leaders present. 
Along with this (this is what I'm most excited about). HoPE is taking a trip down to Kansas City in February to the International House of Prayer. IHoP is not a prayer room that we are affiliated with but a lot of the heart behind HoPE has come through IHoP teaching and IHoP's prayer room ministry. Their prayer room has been open for over 10 years 24/7/365 and it will be a privilege to go down there and sit in their prayer room/meet leaders there and be a part of that culture. This trip does come with a large financial aspect to it, though, and I am praying that God will help me fundraise additional amounts of money so I am able to go on this trip. If you are reading this paragraph and would like to support me by paying for a portion of this trip (flights, hotel room for a night, gas for the car ride home etc.) Please contact me and I will let you know how you can give and receive a donation receipt. I am extremely excited for this trip!
Please Take some Time to Consider... 
Thanks for taking the time to read what I am up to and what I am looking forward to over these next couple months. As you can tell, every day is a journey of faith and it's exciting to know that God is looking out for me.
As this year winds to a close, I would like you to take some time to consider how or if you could support me financially. Every bit of funds that you would give will get you a charitable donation receipt and will go towards my day-to-day expenses as well as this trip to Kansas City. Your prayers are also appreciated that God will continue to provide! Please contact me if you would like to join with what God is doing at HoPE financially.


Thanks for taking the time to read this! I pray that you will be blessed!

Daunavan

Post #1...What I'm up To!

First of all, I want to thank you for reading my blog! My prayer is that it will be useful for you as far as understanding what God is doing in and through me at House of Prayer, but more importantly, I hope that this blog encourages you and uplifts you in your walk with God. I will be pretty transparent with what God is doing in my heart and my hope in that is that God will be speaking to you through what I'm learning and doing! So thank you so much for reading. If you want to, please subscribe to the blog as I will be updating it (hopefully weekly) starting this week!

So I figure for the first blog post just to give everyone an update on what I am doing in life right now! I am primarily working 20 hours/week with the House of Prayer Edmonton (an organization here in Edmonton committed to seeing night and day prayer established in the city as well as discipling and raising up believers here who will be faithful intercessors in their own churches). My job with them is an intercessory missionary (this is a fancy way of saying that I am raising my own support in order to be able to intercede (pray) for the city!) At this point, a typical week with House of Prayer consists of 10-12 hours in the prayer room (3-4 of which I am leading worship) praying for the city, 4-6 hours of fund-raising and support, and the remainder of my time I spend doing discipleship training (being discipled and (soon) discipling), working on technical aspects that have to do with the prayer room, and getting the word out about HoPE (through video work, meetings, and telling everyone I know). This is an incredible job as it really has set me on fire for God and what He's doing in the city. If you want to know more about HoPE check out their website or give me a call and I'd love to tell you about it. If you'd like to be a part of what God is doing at House of Prayer either financially or prayerfully, please email me and I'll get ahold of you immediately!

Along with House of Prayer, I am also working at Transcend Coffee and McKernan Baptist Church (3rd service Intern). Both of these jobs are great as they are supportive of what I'm doing in HoPE and my involvement in each is a positive benefit to the other! I encourage you to stop by sometime at Transcend Argyle (I work from 3-6) Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and I'll have you try some awesome coffee!

My internship at McKernan is the last item that I would like to tell each of you about as It's going amazing! This year, we have had huge amounts of people out each week and the way that the Holy Spirit is working has been awesome. I have an incredible team of leaders around me and they are really helping to 'lighten the load' as the service is becoming a tremendous amount of work. I invite you to come check out the third service sometime (McKernan Baptist Church Lighthouse @ 6:00 on Sunday's 11119-76 ave) as it is quite a different service and I believe that you will be blessed if you come! As well, the first Sunday of every month we are providing a free meal, so feel free to come on a communion Sunday and you can eat with our community!

Thanks for reading my blog. I look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions or want to get together for coffee.. as busy as my schedule sounds, I would easily be able to find time to meet with you!

Thanks and blessings,
Daunavan Buyer