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!