Outreach!

My outreach team consists of my staff leader Adrienne (myself - I am co-leading with her) and three of my other friends here: Morgan, Angela, and Kimberley.  So far we haven't figured out what we're doing for the first month in Italy, but at the end of May we will be staying on a ship until the end of June! We start off with a 30-something hour sail somewhere around Sicily (i'm so excited) and it is a YWAM base/ship.  We'll be stopping at different places around Sicily from what I know right now, and doing street ministry - hopefully dance parties and playing music, etc.  We also had the idea to make bracelets, and any little things we could hand out to people.  We only have 3 more weeks of lectures and then we begin outreach in a town called "Sherbrooke" about an hour from where we are here in Dunham.  We'll be going around to different schools and churches doing some presentations.  Then, we leave!! Here's a picture of my team dressed as Italian as we could be. (We're spelling Italy)

Bike Riding in Canada

Since yesterday was so beautiful (not extremely warm though) a few of the girls and myself decided to go on a bike ride! We found a bunch of old bikes down in the basement but all of the tires were flat, and they had cobwebs all over them.. regardless, we decided to take on the challenge.  Without a working pump in the house we met our next problem.  We had 6 bikes outside that we had dragged up the basement stairs, through the house, and off the porch, and we were just about to go to the gas station on the corner to find air for our tires! I got on my bike, pressed the breaks, and they didn't work.  I immediately knew this would be a problem.. me on something without breaks would just not work.  Then my friend Morgan's bike wasn't up to par either, so we had to ask one of the families that live at the house if we could borrow a couple. They said yes, but on one condition: we had to wear helmets.  It was fine with us, we already looked ridiculous in the clothes we had chosen to wear that day, and so we were off.

We found a foot pump at the gas station for about $10, got our tires solid and trekked all the way to Cowansville! It's just the next town over where we do all of our grocery shopping since there are actually big stores like Walmart and Super C there.

We made it there, snapping pictures the whole 8 or 9 kilometers, and ended up at Tim Hortons.  I rolled up the rim of my cup to win ANOTHER coffee! Abbie came out with the prize, an XL coffee because apparently she could choose any size.  But we rolled up the rim of that only to be disappointed with the message reading: Play again.  We sat outside and ate our baked goods and candy, then decided to go to Walmart.

The thing is Walmart was not right next door, it was across this somewhat busy street with a traffic light/intersection and the driveway to get in was a little further down past this intersection.  I had my camera strapped around me ( as I had the whole way there ), my back pack on, and my helmet hanging from my other arm.  So the irony begins.  The light was red, but still some cars were approaching the light.  In the gap between the cars sitting at the light and the cars coming toward it were us six girls crossing the 3 lane street.  Most of them were in front of me, and so I thought "oh this would make a cool picture!" Just as I was reaching to get my lens cap off (keeping my other hand on the handlebar) I decided I was moving a little too fast so I automatically rolled my fingers around the break and gave a little pull.  Well, here's the first problem: it was the left break... the front wheel.  Problem 2: I was in the middle lane.  Problem 3: I was wearing my camera, and not my helmet.  Irony: This was the only time I wasn't wearing my helmet, and the breaks that were lacking on the bike I originally had, were working a little too well on this bike.  So within an instant I was launching over the handlebars, only landing on my knees, me and my bike just laying in the middle lane of this road as cars were still coming...  I can only imagine what entertainment I provided them.

 Luckily Abbie was behind me so she helped me get out of the road as I was a little bit shaken up... I was mostly glad that my camera was ok.  It seemed like a miracle to me.  Conveniently we were right in front of a store that sold band-aids and we got a few of those put on right away.  Anyways, we continued to Walmart, printed some pictures from our journey, and then went on our way back.  Everyone was complaining that their butts were sore, as my legs pushed through the pain of just moving in circular motions with the pedals.  At least it made a memorable story... (and scars probably).

Rollercoaster

Here's a song that I wrote Sunday night... I was really sad that I hadn't written any songs while being here... so here is the first one! It's about a roller coaster (representing God) and how I (and many others) go on these short trips or roller coaster rides with Him.  I always get this fear and nervousness while I wait in line to get on a roller coaster, right up until the moment I'm getting on it, yet once it starts I have the time of my life.  I really just had this feeling on my heart that night for some reason... so this song is about that desire to be on a roller coaster ride with Him forever.  ( and a special thanks to Morgan and Brett who helped me with this video )

Agape

We have this thing called "Agape" once a month, and this one was a Masquerade Ball!!  I was so impressed by everyone's masks/outfits.  We had a lot of great food: fruit of all kinds and fondu!! crackers, cheeses, and pizza bread things.  There was a scavenger hunt, and DANCING.  We learned some Scottish dances from Fiona, and then we just had a silly dance party for a few hours.  It was a great time to just celebrate and enjoy life.  Here are some pictures!

We got a LOT of snow...

So..... I got to go snowboarding IN Canada  FINALLY!!! It was sooo cool.  I don't think the mountain was as tall as the one in Vermont, but it was harder!! (Probably because there was SO much powder) It was so awesome though.  I learned a lot more control (going through the woods - and not even on flat terrain - it was hilly, there were jumps everywhere, and you never really knew what was going to be ahead of you)  That's also why there are no pictures :/...  It was a great experience and I hope I get to go again!!

One More Thing

A few weeks ago we took an offering for the base because they are in desperate need of new ovens in the kitchen.  They estimated the cost to be about $9,000.  We ended up raising about $7,000 among our DTS through our offerings.  Some people gave just a few dollars, some gave everything they had, and I decided to give $70 - the amount that I still owed to pay for my lecture phase here.  Though I'm not expecting much, because I didn't take a HUGE leap of faith, I'm still waiting to see what happens with that because God always provides.  I know that, especially because of what one of the other students just shared.  HE GAVE ALL THAT HE HAD IN HIS BANK ACCOUNT.  YESTERDAY HIS PARENTS CALLED TO TELL HIM THAT 4 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT HAD BEEN IN HIS BANK ACCOUNT WAS NOW THERE.  That is God.  I really want to see miracles like that happen in my life, but it is a difficult thing to hand over, especially since I am so young - I felt it wouldn't be very wise to give away all that I had with college and everything... but I hope that someday I would be able to do it, and see how God works in that way.

It's been a while!

I have not been keeping up with this very well, I've been sick for a few days, and we've been busy busy busy.  Let's see... I went to another Hardcore/Screamo concert of "Haste the Day" on Tuesday, had small group on Wednesday night (we went out to Med Pizza - so good!!) Wednesday and Thursday nights I was up until the morning hours working on a video project for our week on "Justice".  My group's topic was Modern Slavery.  It was our job to do the research on the topic and manage to create a video from our own imaginations.  We somehow managed to do all of that in 2 days.  

  So this week has been packed - even right on through the weekend.  Yesterday (Saturday) 3 of the guys and myself got up at 5:30am and headed out the door at 6am for a road trip to Smuggler's Notch in Vermont! (Where the school ski trip is).  It's about 1 1/2 hours away from where I'm living here in Dunham, Quebec!  So we got there around 7:30, and eventually we found the condo that my friends were staying in... I ran up, so excited to see everyone - only to find a huge pile of snow and ice right in front of the door of the condo. My first thought... ok, maybe Ashley told me the wrong address... It looks like no one is even living here.  So I walked around, knocked on a few other doors... and then a man walking down the sidewalk!! I asked him if he knew of any groups from Buffalo, and he directed me to where he knew they had been staying.  I ended up standing outside of the guys' condo, and to my surprise I heard my name.  Standing in the window was Mr. Hycner doing the dishes in the kitchen.  So I ran up to the door and Steve Potter let me in.  He reassured me that the condo I went to in order to find the girls was correct - they had pranked the girls with the nice pile of snow that prevented me from running in to surprise them all.  After all that trouble though, it was an awesome day!  Seeing everyone for the first time in a couple of months, AND getting to go snowboarding on a real mountain... I can't ask for much more than that. 

 So we headed back to Dunham around 3 o'clock because we had to then leave at 5pm for Montreal! It was the 25th anniversary of YWAM Montreal, so we had to attend the event.  It was a fun time, and we ended up getting home around midnight.  Talk about a long day.  And these are some photos from a photo shoot my friend did.