A bit of an intro.

 I put off writing a blog for a really long time. I sort of flirted with the idea for about a year or so; word processing my thoughts and saving them for when I finally got around to it. After running out of reasons to put this off, without further ado, here it goes! These are the thoughts, rants, ideas, and free-form prose (maybe) that often come to mind and that I seek to share with whoever is willing to read them.

I guess the way to start this would be to give you a little background about who exactly is behind this. My name is Katie Martin (Kerrison), I am primarily a Christian, secondly a student of Christianity in pursuit of a degree from the University of Waterloo. I am originally from Mississauga, Ontario and grew up in what I can only describe as an amazing, loving, non-Christian, religious-ish, home with parents and a brother whom I love dearly. We almost never agree on matters of faith but that has never affected us more than my fundamental desire for them to know Jesus—to really know Jesus—and to experience the love and truth found only in Him. Even if we disagree, they’re still the best, hands down.

 I also have this great husband named Josh. We met at UW last year and got married on September 2^nd of this year.

He works two jobs : a restaurant line cook/dishwasher/sometimes the only cook there because they didn’t hire a new one for a long time, and as a support worker with adults with developmental disabilities. He makes me proud (the good kind) every day, and takes on the role of best friend better than I could have ever imagined. 

Apart from studying, I do in fact work. I teach horseback riding lessons and do secretarial things for a lesson barn/trail riding facility in Waterloo—probably one of the most flexible, lowest paying jobs I’ve worked since high school but every time I quit I find my way back. There’s reasons for that, I just often ignore them because I get fed up with standing in the cold, smelling like poop, and yelling at children to sit up taller or else they’re going to hit the dirt. It’s really quite a good job.

Last summer I took a position as an assistant camp director for a church in Hamilton and was living there with a wonderful couple who allowed me to camp out in their home and eat their food for two months. For free. Just saying, but God’s provision is never what we expect but is always entirely what we need. Just wanted to mention that.

Camp itself has always been a huge part of my life. I came to know Jesus at camp, I came back to know Jesus at camp, and I’ve been working out what it means to love Jesus and follow Him—through camp. I firmly believe that God uses summer camp ministries to show His infinite love to children and youth in out of the ordinary ways. Camp takes kids out of their day to day context and exposes them to and intense dose of Kingdom community in the span of a week. On our end of things (in camp ministry) that means we have to be following Christ ourselves and actually be living out the Kingdom of God in camp ministry. But that’s another whole post in and of itself, me thinks. I’ll get to that later.

So all in all, I really feel that God has been pushing me to start keeping this blog. It’s not at all about sharing what’s going on in my life, but about what He’s doing in it. If Christ is my life, than I consequently have none without Him. So when I write and reflect on this life I’m living—it’s hopefully gonna be all about Him.