Picture time and reflections.

So I now have less than 2 weeks left here, which is something I've been processing for the last week. I don't know what it's going to be like to leave because it's a new thing for me.  So I'll just have to wait and see.
These past two weeks have been really good though.  Last weekend Allison came to visit me and we have a great time exploring Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo. It was awesome to have her here and I'm glad I got to see a little more of BC.And we had great weather, which is more that can be said for this week - rain and clouds every day:( It's amazing how much the weather affects my mood, most of the days this week I felt like I never really full woke up.  But I kept busy with work and reading and movies.  Mostly this week I've been making a record of all the songs the church has for the praise teams. I had my last official visit at the hospital this Thursday. I had 1 1/2 hours and was planning on visiting 2-3 people but instead ended up spending it all with a woman named Eda. She obviously loves to talk and has a few stories she tells over and over, but it was great to just sit with her and listen.  Her mother grew up in Budapest which I think is really cool.  Next week I'll do another Hymn Sing on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to it. 
I love experiencing that transition of feeling really uncomfortable in a certain area or with certain people but then as you spend more time with them you're apprehensions start to fall away and you can begin to relax and interact one human to another.  I feel like I've been through that lesson so many times and will continue to learn it over and over again.  I had the same lesson while working with the food bank the church hosts each Monday.  I've been getting to know a few people that come each week and on Friday I was walking around downtown and ran into a few of them and it was so great to just stop and chat.  It's amazing how God continually strips away our judgements to bring out his love. I'm so thankful he hasn't given up on me yet.
This Sunday service went really well once again.  I was singing again and I got to watch the congregation come to life as they took streamers in their hands and began to worship God with their whole bodies.  I love seeing the kids run up and down, grabbing this streamer or that shaker and showing their sibling or parent.  There is such a great energy in each service.  There is no forth wall between the congregation and leaders but full communion where we can be our true selves together and praise God for it. It's a really beautiful thing to see and be a part of. 
The suns out!! I just turned around to look out the window and there it was! There's no blue sky but it's breaking through light clouds! Yay sun!
So I haven't posted any pictures yet so I'm going to make up for it now. Here they are:) 

View from Turkstra's house.

Downtown Harbor

In Vancouver watching game 6

Christ Community Church

The sanctuary, before July

My office:)

Visual for July 3, Cloud of Witnesses

July 10, Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

Emily in the wet suite and board I rented

Downtown market

Surfing....

I wrote this one a week ago so it's a bit out of date.  I was going to add pics but I don't have them yet.  I'll get them on here later:) 


So this weekend I went camping and attempted surfing. The camping was great but I'm not sure surfing is going to become a hobby of mine any time soon.  Not that it killed me or anything, I don't have any really amusing/embarrassing story, it just wasn't that fun.  I know that is often how it goes for first time surfers and it gets better as you go along, but I don't really feel like working on getting better.  It's so much work for such a short thrill. You finally get out to the waves, manage to turn your board over, get on it - hopefully while keeping it straight and not being too far up or back, and then you paddle and ride the wave in, which is fun, but then you're back at the shore and have to walk all the way back to the waves again, all the while spitting out the salt water that keeps getting into your mouth and tastes disgusting. And then there are the times when you don't ride the wave, but the wave rides you and you get thrown every which way while your board goes the other, not that much fun. I know I sound like I'm wining, but this is what my surfing experience was like so I'm sharing it with you.  And it's not like I regret trying it, not at all, I'm totally glad I gave it a shot, but I just probably won't give it another shot.
Unfortunately, my biggest mistake was forgetting to get a picture of myself in the wet suit with my board...sorry Nadine. So I'm just going to have to describe it to you. So close your eyes and imagine me wearing a back wet suit with a hood that fits tightly over my head and black booties.  Now imagine me holding a blue surf board that's 9 feet high and a little to wide for me to grab with one arm so I get to awkwardly carry it with two arms across the beach, every so often putting it down to readjust my grip, or lean it against my hip so the wind doesn't push against it.  Ok, now I'm in the water with my board beside me walking out and jumping over the waves that come past.  Now I'm out deep enough so I turn my board around, see a wave and get on it on my belly.  I start paddling, the wave comes, My board rides on top of it... but then I guess I'm too far up it or something so all of a sudden the top of my board noes dives into the wave right in front of the break and I go flying...haha, yay. As long as you can imagine all that, you won't need pictures.
So that was my surfing experience, again, not regretted, just probably won't be repeated. But overall the weekend was really great.  I had a great time camping with Kathleen, Nicole, Dan, Matt, Rob, Emily, and Matthys.  And I we saw a salmon run! Which is an area in a river where they are swimming up stream to spawn.  So there are hundreds all packed together in this little area and they are flinging themselves into the air trying to get over a fairly large rapid, which was so cool to see.
I came back from camping Saturday night because I had to be in church on Sunday for our first inter-generational service! I was really excited and nervous because this is one of the main things I had been working on and I was doing more in the service than I had before.  Overall it went really great! We had our first part of the visual up, which Isable and I had worked on all week, and I did the congregational prayer taking prayer request, which also went pretty good.  During the message I had people in the congregation come forward and hand me one of the Biblical figures while Turk talked about their faith story and Isable and I did a little demonstration of running a race to show how we need to stay focused in our walk/race with God.  At the end of the service we sang a re-done version of 500 Miles, which the Sunday school kids know really well as well as the Gems so I asked some of them to come forward to do the actions with Trish and I.  We had a great time just dancing and singing at the front with everyone else singing and dancing with us. It's something we're going to do at the end of every service and I think it's going to be a great each week.
So that was my weekend.  And now the Turkstras are gone on vacation for 2 weeks so I have the house to myself until Thursday when Allison fly's into Vancouver!! I'm going to meet her there and we're going to explore Vancouver and Victoria before heading back to Nanaimo for 2 days.  It's going to be soo great to have her here!!!

Fishing

So I went fishing for the first time yesterday and it was pretty great.  Turk took me out on his boat and I caught one link cod and one other teeny tine fish but we threw both back since they were so small.  We didn't catch anything worth keeping but it was still fun to finally get out on the water.  It was so beautiful in the morning.  It was kind of cloudy so everything had that early dawn glow and the mountains were dark silhouettes against the sky with the sun shining through the clouds on them, like a bright yellow accent.  And the water was so smooth when we first got out, it looked like melted glass reflecting everything around it.  I know I'm being a little more poetic than normal, but it was crazy beautiful.  I couldn't stop smiling as we raced through the ocean.
So that was my morning, a pretty good way to start the day but it makes it hard to continue the rest of the day because getting up at 5am isn't very sustainable for my awareness.  But it was day off so I could just nap and read and relax, which is exactly what I did.  Other than that everything is business as usual.  We have one week before we start our inter-generational services so I'm busy making sure everything is in place.  We have these visual we'll be using the whole month and Isabel (the youth coordinator) and I will be making that early this week.  I'll also be taking over for Lynnsey (the church administrator) for Wed and Thurs in the office because she'll be away.
And then we have Friday off like everyone else and I'm going camping with friends!!  I'm soo excited! We'll be at Port Alberni, which is about a hour north/west of Nanaimo and then we're going to do a day trip to Tofino, which is the place to surf!!! Yes, I will be attempting to surf.  Nadine has already made me promise to have my attempts documented so you may get to see my failings and hopefully at least a few successes. But it's going to be great to get out and see more of the Island and make up for the camping I'm missing out on back home.

Keeping Busy

So I've gotten a little behind on keeping this blog up to date so I'll be summarizing a lot. I've been here for almost three weeks and things are going really well:) I've got a bit of a routine down and I feel pretty settled in. I sang for last weeks service and did the prayer and announcements, which was a first time experience for me and I still need to work on my speed of speech but I think I was a little better this Sunday.  Another thing I'm working on is the service series for July.  Christ Community Church (CCC) is going to have inter-generational services which means all the kids will stay for the whole service and participate.  We have a bunch of curriculum from another church that has developed these services so part of my job has been to read through it and think of a basic template for how CCC will do the services each week.  On Tuesday and Wednesday I talked about it with Chelesy and Turk and we pulled something together so now we can start focusing on what each week will look like individually.  At first it was kind of overwhelming because there is a lot of curriculum, but then I just went to the Bible verses assigned for each week and everything started to fall into place after that.  So hopefully things will keep falling into place as we get closer to July.
Another thing I'll be doing each week are hospital visits. I had my first few this Thursday afternoon and they went pretty good. I visited with two women.  I think it's going to take a little bit of getting used to and just becoming familiar with the hospital and the people.  Fortunately one of my friends from CCC is a nurse in the area of the hospital where I'll be doing most of my visits so I have a familiar face around.  I'm also going to arrange three hymn sings in the little chapel in the hospital, which is often done by different groups but drops off during the summer so I'll keep that going a bit.
I've also been involved in the youth as they end their year.  This Saturday they had a rock concert to raise money for the Life Campaign to build wells in areas that need clean water.  It went really well with over 70 tickets sold and over $900 raised! And it was a lot of fun to help with!
Today has been going really great so far. I did announcements and prayer again and we had some deacons and elder installed and 4 guys made profession of faith.  After those services, I went to Isable's (she's the youth director) house with Chelsey for coffee and then Chelsey and I headed back to the church for a "Royal Tea" that was being held there for women.  It was a really great time to get to know more of the women of the church and hear about their passion for this community.  I can really see the Kingdom of God moving and growing in this community through the people.  They live with such a beautiful passion and care for each other.  Tonight I'm hanging out with the college and career's group which will be a great time to just relax and then tomorrow I'm planning on going to Vancouver to watch the game downtown!!!  I'm so excited!!!  I'm going with some friends from church and I can't wait to see the city, especially at such an exciting time! So hopefully I'll be able to say I saw the winning game in Vancouver, we'll see!

Arrival

Well I'm finally here! I've made it through one of the most stressful semesters and am at the place I've been looking forward to the entire time.   I was a little anxious on my way here Tuesday but as soon as Turk picked me up at the airport I was much more at ease.  The first thing that stood out to me: the trees and mountains - wow! I've never lived my mountains before and it is so gorgeous. Unfortunately it's been rainy since I got here, but it still makes the mountains look cool.  It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow so I'm really looking forward to that!  Today at 4:00 I'm going to the Gems year end retreat with Trish. We'll be at a beach house with the 20 girls that attend Gems and we'll walk on the beach, play games etc.  I haven't seen the ocean from the ground yet so another thing to look forward to!
 So far I've just been settling in at the church.  The first day I went to the church staff meeting, set up my office a bit - yea I have an office! - and that night there was a youth event for picking up garbage on the side of the road.  Turk and I had one street so we got that done and then went back to the church and I met a few of the people in youth group - I'm going to have a lot of names to learn!
Yesterday I worked with Trish on a devotional I'm going to do for the Gems and wrote my schedule out and read a little.  Since Turk has been here, he's started a focus on building faith at home.  It's a focus that is continually growing all over North America.  There are a few books about it written by Mark Holmen so I'm making my way through them.

So I'm taking my time writing this blog and I just got back from the Gems retreat and it was sooo great!!  The beach house was beautiful! It had two fully furnished cabins each with a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom.  The main house had a ton of room with three kitchens and everything was decorated so beautifully! It belongs to a member of the church and she lets people in her community use it for retreats etc.  It had a great view of the water and mainland mountains and was on a higher area of land so you had to walk down a bunch of steps to get the water.  We had campfires and went to the park and looked for shells when the tide was down and just hung out. It was so great to be outside and playing.  It was also a great way to meet more people because when you're busy doing things there isn't so much empty space to try and think of things to say, I could just become familiar with the community a bit more. 
So now I'm back and going to relax for the night.  I have to go to bed early because I'm singing in the praise team tomorrow and we're meeting at 7:45am to practice.  Things are going really great and I'm looking forward to meeting more people and doing more things!

Intro

So for those of you who don't know, a Nanaimo bar is a wonderful dessert/square made with chocolate, coconut, more chocolate and vanilla custard/icing.  While it may not sound all that temping, believe me, they are known for their awesomeness! They are very often the first to go off of the party platter, possibly only second to those awesome brownies that are half cocoa butter. This year I was surprised to learn that these wonderful treats are Canadian! Rumour has it they were invented in the city of Nanaimo, BC, on Vancouver Island, which is why I am writing this blog (no, I'm not going to be talking about squares of chocolate the whole time).  For 10 weeks this summer, I will have the amazing opportunity to be in Nanaimo doing an internship at Christ Community Church.  I am doing this through a Calvin program called the Jubilee Fellowship, which takes 12 junior students, has them in a class about ministry and then sends them all over North America to work in different churches. During my time in Nanaimo I will be learning and working in the areas of Worship Leading, Youth Ministry, and Pastoral Care. I am living with the pastor, Turk, and his wife Trish and their two sons David (15) and Nathan (11).  I actually am already in Nanaimo, but I'll write about that in my next post:)