rainy days..

the day started off a little bit as a downer. taylor left this morning at 6 am. so when we all met for lunch, it seemed extra quiet and lonely. on top of that, our plans for walking around UTM 7 times were desolated due to thunderstorms all day. walking around UTM was actually our backup plan, so we were definitely up the creek without a paddle. it kinda felt like we weren't really doing anything. we tried to plan for the week, and think of creative ideas to reach out to the staff at sheridan, but still felt as if we weren't accomplishing much. we tried to contact kevin, the student from UTM, to see if he would be interested in having a bible study tonight, and we also remembered that people from the Sanctuary meet on tuesday nights for lifegatherings. so we decided to go to the lifegathering if the bible study with kevin fell through. we ended up heading to lifegathering, which was intriguing and enjoyable.

surprisingly, the topic of discussion was homosexuality, and how the church approaches it. it was really neat to hear the dialogue between the group, and realize that God uses people in different ways according to their personalities to reach the lost. and that when it all comes down to it, we just have to love like Jesus loves, and let the Holy Spirit do the work.

tomorrow is canada day! whoo-hoo. so..we've been brainstorming on how to reach out tomorrow. a few people from the church asked if they could join us in our adventures tomorrow, which is very exciting! holidays are huge in canada..meaning everything kinda shuts down for big celebrations. so what we plan on doing is spending the afternoon in mississauga, finding some festival type things, and handing out water bottles, stickers, and little canada tattoos to the kids. i've mentioned previously that canadians seem to get pretty surprised when stuff is handed out for free, so we're praying for some opportunities to share the love with some people. :)

tomorrow evening, there is a festival in streetsville, close to mississauga, that we are hoping to head over to and possibly hand out glow sticks. which i think would be super fun! :) maybe we'll see a few of our bus driver friends along the way, and make some new friends.

continue to pray for the staff here at the sheridan, that we will find ways to reach out to them, and just be an encouragement for them. pray for kevin, that we will be able to find a time for a bible study this week, and that he will have an open heart for the Lord. also pray that we will get a chance sometime this week to actually finish our "jericho walk" around the UTM campus! i do believe God has some great plans for the UTM campus, and i don't want to miss out on "the walls falling down!"

always,
thanks for your prayers and support.

i have some catching up to do. yesterday was a very busy day! we started the day with church in the morning. church was good. :) we talked about Jesus..and sang, and brett preached more on joshua. we talked about how sin affects not only yourself, but also your community. then after church, a man from the church asked our team if 2 of us would go to lunch with him and a friend of his. so carson and i decided to go to lunch, and we had an opportunity to share with rogered. it was really interesting talking to rogered. he was born in the philippines, moved to canada when he was 6, and was raised catholic. he asked us alot of questions on the differences between catholic and protestant, and seemed interested in how "different" we were. he said something to the effect of being surprised of how passionate we are about what we believe that we would come to canada to share with people. i just stated that we truly believe Jesus loves us, and we want to share that with as many people as possibly! i felt kinda convicted by the fact that its so much easier to come to another country and share the love of Jesus than at home. my prayers are slowly changing, asking the Lord to place more lost friends in my life at home/school.

after we got back from lunch, we found out one of our team members is headed home. taylor feels called to head home and spend more time ministering to her family. so she leaves tomorrow morning, bright and early. since it rained all day yesterday, we decided to hold off on walking around UTM 7 times today, and we plan on walking tomorrow...even though the campus will be deserted.

while carson and i were eating lunch with the 2 guys, alyssa and taylor were grocery shopping. we all got back and had a team meeting with brett to plan for this coming up week. our plans aren't really set in stone for this week. we are still looking for a neighborhood to really focus on, so be praying that God will lead us in that area. we will also be helping out with some stuff with the Sanctuary too probably. we ended the day with a greek dinner at the verbeeks. :)

today was our off day. we got up and left at around 7:45 am toronto bound. we walked around the city for several hours, shopping, exploring and having a good time. we ate lunch at a really cool restaurant called richtree. it was alot of fun. but it rained. so that was kind of annoying, but we still had a really good time. i have alot of pictures on the way! so check facebook. :)

update on the finger: its getting much better. the swelling is almost completely gone, and just a few aches now and then. i worry a little about the future of my finger and my upcoming piano recital, but i know God has it all under control. thanks bunches for the prayers. love you all.

end of the week.

i am so tired today. its only 8:20 and i think i'm going to hit the sack very soon. we didn't do a whole lot today, in fact our plans didn't work out the way we thought. we prayerwalked like normal, prepping ourselves for the long walk tomorrow, then we headed to plan #2.

alyssa and i looked for a neighborhood/park in west mississauga to try and start up a ministry last night. we found one that looked promising, and had planned to have a free car wash there on tuesday and put up signs today in the area. when we got off the bus, we realized there wasn't really a good place to have a car wash, the neighborhood was quite large, and apparently the only way to have car washes is if you have a cause.

so we headed home for supper, a little bummed, but looking forward to hitting up the oakville waterfront festival. we weren't exactly sure where the festival was being held, so we looked it up online, only to find out there was a $15 charge to attend.

we finished off the day with a batch of cookies, popcorn and a movie. i fell asleep several times during the movie, realizing that i'm pretty tired and probably should get to bed earlier tonight. so, that ends my day. no real exciting stories today, but i look forward to church tomorrow morning, shopping for groceries, and the 10 mile walk around UTM. :)

freezies and friends.

the day started out with a quick breakfast and freezies. so brett brought the freezies by early, before alyssa and i were awake. some of them weren't completely frozen, so we had to find the ones that were the most frozen.

handing out freezies went really well! so many people thought there was a catch to what we were doing. this one guy stood about 3 yards from us asking us what our agenda was. he refused to believe that we were just giving away something completely free. he stood there for probably a good 10-15 minutes waiting for his bus to come. we told him we weren't expecting anything in return, we just believe that Jesus loves us and we want to spread His love. the guy seemed completely confused. we told him we were from the states, and that confused him even more. he said..if i went on a trip to the states i wouldn't be passing out free freezies for fun. (you liked that alliteration i'm sure) i hope we got him thinking. and i hope to see him around some more. we didn't catch his name, but you can pray for him as the freezie boy.

after passing out freezies, we went prayerwalking once again. the song "God of this City" continually came to my mind. its such a great image of what God can do on the UTM campus: "greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city." it just excites me so much to think what God can and will do on the campus. maybe this summer or maybe for years to come. its so exciting!! :)

we headed back here after prayer walking. we bumped into tammy, the bus driver we met the first day. it was really neat seeing her again! she talked with us like we were close friends. continue to lift her up, and pray that our paths will cross more and more. she told us about a festival going on in oakville this weekend. we're gonna try to hit up some of that!

so tomorrow we plan on prayerwalking around UTM, scoping out a neighborhood to start up a ministry and the festival. not sure what order, but i'm pretty excited! the finger is continuing to get better. the swelling has gone down dramatically, and the pain is less and less. praise the Lord! :) i don't know how much longer i could have dealt with that..thank goodness for Jesus and medicine!

thanks, as always, for your prayers for me and my team. love you all!

canadian hospitals, sandwiches at 2 am, coffee shops and such..

so much has happened since i blogged yesterday! last night..i rushed to the emergency room at 11 pm. (not really an emergency..but i'm really glad i went.) like i said in my blog yesterday..my finger was swollen and in alot of pain. so leeann and her mom (some people that go to the Sanctuary) came and picked alyssa and me up from the hotel and took me to the hospital. we got there and found out since i'm not from canada my insurance has no bearing, so we had to pay $400 up front. ridiculous, i know. so anyways. we wait in the waiting room for about 2 hours before they call me back. then they call me back..and i expect to go to a room, but they actually just sit me in some chairs in the hallway. apparently, canadians don't care so much about privacy. so anyways. we sit there next to a woman whose whole arm is swelling up by the minute from a bee sting. so while we sit there, the doctor comes and examines her and they start an iv. yes, while we sat there.

finally, after another hour or so, the doctor comes to me. and lets me know that i have auto-immune inflammatory arthritis. in other words, arthritis in my index finger. she gave me some prescriptions for prednisone (not my fav..but i'll deal with it) and something called tylenol 3 (hard core tylenol with codine!) almost 24 hours later..i'm feeling 10 times better!! yay God for giving me drugs to feel better!! :) the bad thing is arthritis never really goes away..and i have a senior piano recital coming up in oct. but i guess i'll just cross that bridge when i get to it.

so we finished up at the er around 2:30 and went to a 24 hour pharmacy..which i thought was pretty awesome..i didn't even know they existed. and the pharmacist actually let me take some of the pain killers right there..he got me water. :) anyways. so alyssa and i got home around 2:45 and sat down for some sandwiches so i could take the prednisone. we finally rolled into bed around 3 am. we left a note for taylor and carson informing them i had broken my finger in 5 places and was having emergency surgery soon. we didn't think they would believe it, but they actually did!! it was so funny to see their reaction this morning. we have such a great bond within our team.

we decided to leave a little later than normal today, go to the campus, prayer walk and have our bible study. yesterday we invited several people to the bible study, but only 1 guy showed up.. he is a student at UTM, but he also attends the Sanctuary. his name is kevin. kevin isn't a christian yet, but hes SOO super close. we spent the evening with him, had a lot of deep discussions and genuinely had a good time. the team agreed that today felt like our first real day..we actually did what we came here to do.

so tomorrow, we will be going to the UTM campus to pass out freezie pops. we are praying for hot weather and lots of students!

thank you all for your prayers for my finger! i know that satan is trying his hardest to discourage us..but its really not working. :) i'm pretty excited for tomorrow, and looking forward to spending more time with kevin and hopefully some more UTM students! love y'all!

p.s.- i think all proms are over..not that i even noticed the 2 rival schools here last night because that codine really kicked in..apparently some people were arrested and 1 person got alcohol poisining. not good.

blogging early today in case i don't get on later. besides extreme pain and swelling in my finger..today was a good day. we went to the campus and prayer walked like usual..then we did our "surveys." the survey included 5 questions:

1.are you originally from canada? if not, where?
2.when do you spend the most time on campus (so we have more of an idea of when a good time to minister is)
3.do you believe in God? religion?
4.what will happen to you when you die?
5.would you be interested in attending a christian bible study?

the answers we got were veryyy honest. most people didn't really have any type of religion. out of our whole team we didn't find not one christian. that was a little discouraging. i had a few opportunities to share my faith..which was exciting. a couple girls, when asked question #4..answered "hopefully i will go to heaven." i took that as a nudge from the Lord to share why i know i AM going to heaven.

its sad to see that there are so many lost..but its exciting to think what God will do! He is all-powerful! and He is also compassionate and hears our prayers. everyday as we walk around the campus, i am reminded that God has all the control and He will do His will..which could be mind-blowing to us..or it could seem so small in our eyes. but the cool thing is..its God-sized!!

while we were prayer walking we came upon a doe. we were superrr close to it..and it walked about 40 ft. in front of us. it was amazing. the way deer run/jump always amazes me. one leap gets them so far. in alot of ways, as a believer, when i run and leap, my leap is as powerful as a deer, because of the power of Christ in me. He gives us the strenghth we need, each and every day.

so here are some names to lift up:
-continue praying for ziad, the guy we met on the bus. we contacted him and are hoping to hang out at some point.
-april, a girl i shared with today
-mohammed, a muslim i also spoke with
-alexis, another girl i shared with
-andrew, a guy alyssa talked with for about 45 minutes
-and a few others that carson and taylor spoke with

continue praying for my finger. i think i am going to the doctor for it tomorrow since the swelling and pain are getting worse. thankfully, it stopped hurting around the time of our surveys..just long enough to talk with my last person. i believe that was the Holy Spirit helping me stay focused on the mission.

tomorrow we will be passing out freezies (popsicles) and prayerwalking. we found out that everyone is having exams and next week they will all be off and the campus will be deserted. pray for more opportunities to share.

tonight's blog is going to be short because i only have one hand to type with. first of all i just want to thank you guys for ALL your prayers and support! words can't even begin to describe how much it means to me. so about the hand. some of you know that i began having problems with my finger about a month ago. it swelled up and was hurting so i went to the doctor and he said its tendinitis. it stopped hurting and went away..so i didn't worry about it. well yesterday it started bothering me again..and this morning i woke up..and i have another little sausage finger. whoo-hoo. its quite painful right now, so please be praying for that..despite how juvenile that may sound.

today was a little different. we had plans to head to the university to prayer walk and do surveys to get an idea of the "spirituality" of the campus. so after lunch..alyssa started feeling sick..so we decided to wait a little bit to see if she felt better. by the time we left..all we had time to do was go prayer walk and come back. so we didn't do the surveys or get to meet anyone really.

we went to dinner at the hudsons..which was absolutely wonderful!! and kinda hung out for a while watching youtube videos. yes..i know..very missionary-like. :) we had a good time.

tomorrow we plan on prayerwalking and doing the surveys. pray that all that works out. no new people to pray for today..but remember my poor little finger. due to the finger issue..i may not blog for a few days..we'll see how its feeling after a day of immobilization and lots of advil. :)

first official day.

officially, today was our first day. we finished orientation yesterday..and this is what we've been preparing for. we left a little after lunch for the university. we walked around the whole campus, praying, and realized that sunday is gonna be alot of walking. it took us a little under an hour to get all the way around the campus. soo..walking around 7 times is gonna be fun! i definitely felt better after today about our mission at the university. when we went on friday there weren't many students at all..the campus was pretty deserted..and we were wondering if there were going to be any open doors on campus. today..there were ALOT more students. so that was comforting and reassuring.

i met one guy from the middle east. i shared with him what i was doing while he lead me to the multi-faith room..but we didn't get long to talk. the multi-faith room is definitely dominated by the muslim faith, not surprising. muslim is definitely one of the predominating religions in this area. there also seems to be quite a bit of wiccan practices happening.

the place we are living is basically a college residence which turns into a conference center over the summer. so we never know what kind of conferences or groups may show up. the other night there was an after prom party here. alyssa was sitting in the lobby when the students all came in and overheard the directions. they directed the students (high school couples that were checking into rooms together) to smoke in their own rooms and drink responsibly. this came as quite a shock..but thats how it goes. they were sooo loud. at about 4 am they banged on every window. it was a nice welcome and greeting for us statesians. :) so there is a prom party here tonight as well..and 2 tomorrow. so the next few nights should be interesting.

i also kinda met one of the guys at the front desk. his name is tyler..and hes working here for 2 more days..so if God wants anything to happen there it will have to be quick. which i'm not worried about. He's got it all under control. so right now we have 2 front desk guys to be praying for: tyler and frankie.

our plans for tomorrow are more prayer walking and doing "surveys" on campus to get an idea of what the spiritual-"ness" of the students is like. i'm praying we meet at least 1 christian. i think we will find alot of "no religion" people, muslims and maybe even some wiccans. be praying for boldness as we will basically just be putting ourselves out there..definitely out of my comfort zone! and also be praying that some really good conversations will start and that seeds will be planted. love y'all!

Sanctuary

today was the first time going to church. i absolutely loved the service. it was great! i love worshipping in other countries! its so great to see how universal the Lord is! i also just love seeing complete genuine worship from the whole congregation. (not that we don't have that in the states..its just smaller churches with new believers come across as more sincere. does that make sense?) but God's love extends across every border. and thats just sooo exciting!

our team decided to model the story of the battle of jericho in the book of joshua on the campus of the University of Toronto in Mississauga. so for this week we plan to walk around the campus 1 time each day and then the 7th day walk around 7 times to symbolize that we have faith God will break down any spiritual walls around the campus and win the battle for us.

so brett, our supervisor and pastor at the Sanctuary, preached on that exact passage in joshua this morning!! what confirmation! just proof that God is backing us up allll the way! it was so neat to experience that.

so after church we went back to brett's house for lunch and to discuss our plans for the week. then we went grocery shopping as a team. afterwards, alyssa and i decided we wanted to head into the city for a festival that was going on. it ended up being an indian festival..and we were probably the only caucausians there..but it was still pretty awesome! on the way..we met ziad at the bus stop. we ended up talking to ziad for probably about 30 minutes or so. really be praying for ziad, because we will most likely hang out with him again..and hopefully share the gospel! he's from egypt and wants to go to college in florida. but he seemed interested in what we were doing and really wanted to hang out again. so theres tons of potential there!!

i really can't wait to see just all that God is gonna do. i know that we make plans, and have expectations..and it completely excites me to think that God's plans are FAR better and He will go above and beyond our expectations!! how COOL is that! :)

tomorrow we hit the UTM campus..and we're basically going to be prayerwalking all day. there is power in prayers..and i can't wait to experience it!!

planning day.

so today we spent a couple hours figuring out what this summer is gonna look like. everything is still really tentative because we don't really know what God's gonna do. we have yet to really meet any students at the university. but i'm really excited about what God is going to do.

our team picked our team verse: "Look around at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded by what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn't believe even if someone told you about it." habakkuk 1:5. i just think its so great to realize that God is gonna do some reallllly awesome stuff..stuff we might not even believe!! how great is that? :)

so anyways. we have church tomorrow..and then we're going shopping! for groceries. :) haha. then monday starts up our real job. no more orientation! yay! short blog today. so keep my team in your prayers as we start off this new journey. love y'all.

2nd full day.

today was very similar to yesterday. we spent the first couple hours this morning finishing up the "book" part of orientation. we talked a lot about missional living the idea of planting seeds in peoples lives through every day interaction. its really an interesting concept. like..how often do we share what we are about and see what God does with that? i mean..you don't have to live on the mission field to plant a seed. i will say that it is much easier..having a purpose, as opposed to just doing it naturally..but i guess that is something that you can develop over time. one of my goals this summer is to learn how to live missionally..live life as a missionary (sharing the love of Jesus in everyday life) whethere i'm on the "mission field" or walking across campus. our visual goal for the summer is to plant 1 seed a day for everyday we are here. we actual have a vase in our room, and a bag full of sunflower seeds. for every seed we plant in someone's life, we add a sunflower seed to the jar. it is really exciting and motivating!!

we talked to several people on the bus transit today. one woman we basically talked about the whole bus system and gave her a little information on the church. a guy that was sitting across from me overheard me talking about church and moved over to talk to me. its actually really exciting to see that people eavesdrop (i know its weird) and get curious enough to start a conversation. we talked a little bit about what kind of work we were doing in canada, why we were here...and then he asked if i had a boyfriend or was looking for one. yes..i know..weird. and awkward..but God handled it for me. :) we invited him to church..and i really believe he might actually come! which is really exciting. he shared with me that he is trying to find the right religion. his name is andrew. so be praying for him as well..i'll keep you updated on whether he comes to church on sunday!

we talked to 2 other people briefly on the bus. one, a young muslim guy, we are going to try and actually go back to visit since he works at tim hortons, and pray that God would open doors there. the other was a girl, natzia, who was completely shocked that we would even want to come to canada for the summer. she was obviously unhappy in canada, and told us that she plans on moving to california to go to school for fashion. i think she may come to church also..which would be cool. :)

we finished up the day with exploration of the university of toronto in mississauga which is going to be a huge part of our mission this summer. one of our goals by the end of the summer is to have a bible study started on campus. when we went to the campus today, we realized its gonna have to totally be a God thing! which is great. i completely trust that He will do what He wants. the campus was pretty scarce. i'm sure it has to do with it being summer. it seems there is a pretty big muslim influence on campus (from what we gathered from the website), and that in the past christians have been nervous about starting anything for fear of opposition from the muslims. it seems they have a pretty big stronghold there.

we met brett, our field supervisor, for supper and had a mediterranean dinner..which was excellent! then we headed back home to rest up. my roommate and i are looking for a place where we can see moose..cause that is one of my personal goals this summer. :) so we spent some time googling moose in the toronto area. we plan on witnessing to the moose by the way!

God is gonna do an amazing work this summer..i can already feel His presence in all that we do. i can't wait to see what happens next!!

from the beginning.

wow. so much has happened in the past 2 days! well..i packed up all my bags (which probably weighed over 100 lbs all together) and got on a plane! i had the opportunity to talk with 2 people about my summer work on my way to canada which was super exciting!! God worked it out for me to sit next to a guatemalan woman from the bahamas going to toronto to visit family. it was so neat! she opened up to me about her family and life, and i had a chance to share with her about my family and what i was doing in canada for the summer. so neat how He works those things out, you know?

so i arrived in canada..got through customs with no problem and met up with leeann, a pretty cool gal from the church i'm working with this summer called The Sanctuary in mississauga, ontario. we rode to my summer home (a semi-dorm/hotel located on a college campus) to meet the rest of the team. i got all checked into the room, and we headed out to dinner.

my team is basically amazing! we instantly clicked, which was definitely an answer to prayers. there are 3 of us girls: me, taylor, and alyssa. and 1 boy: carson. we basically laughed alll through dinner and until about 1:30 am. it was great!

this morning we started orientation and are kind of getting an idea of what exactly we will be doing this summer. of course our ultimate goal is to spread the news of Christ, but mostly we just want to build relationships with the people in the area and encourage church planting. its definitely going to be a step out of my comfort zone..which will be absolutely wonderful!

we spent the afternoon exploring the city of mississauga..riding the bus and trying to figure out whats around and how to get from point a to point b. it was fun to explore and hang out! my team and i got a chance to speak with a few people..conversations which mostly started by asking questions about which bus goes where..but turned into more at times..which is sooo exciting!!

i covet your prayers! seriously. i ask that you pray for me as i step out on faith and get out of my comfort zone. i ask you to pray the same prayer for my team. and i ask you to pray for those we will encounter, that we would really be able to build relationships and minister to the lost of mississauga. pray specifically for stephanie and tammy. we met stephanie at the bus stop and invited her to church on sunday. tammy is a driver for the bus system in the town we are actually living in..so we will probably encounter her frequently! pray for their salvation. i believe God will do a work in their lives and i'm excited to be a part of the process!!

i love you all so much. and thank you for your ongoing support.