Kate is a legend!

And Laney too :)
Thanks for the parcel guys!!!

Kate and Laney are some friends of mine from Australia, and they sent me over some fudge (mmmm sugar) and custard powder and birthday presents :) Yay! it was so sweet :) These freaky Canadians tortured me over Thanksgiving with awesome apple pie....with NO custard!!! Oh my gosh, they don't know what they're missing out on... so next time I have pie or cake I'm getting custard to go with it. I swear, I country with no custard...it's so sad...

And now I have chocolate fudge as well :) Kingsley reckons that I'm addicted to chocolate, and that it makes me hyper, but I had a week off eating chocolate, and I had just as much energy, so there goes that theory. Sucked in Kingsley! You don't read my blog, but hey. I told you to your face already...

Hmmm. I think now I have to ask my mum how to make syrup pudding (if I can get any golden syrup) so I can eat custard with it... Hi mum!

OH! and complete change of topic, last night I saw Orion - the constellation. OH. MY. GOSH. It was so amazing, there I was, missing my pointer stars (the two that 'point' to the Southern Cross) and then all of a sudden, over the top of a building, I see three stars in a row that look very familiar... So I cross the street, and there it is. It was like giving me water when I was dying of thirst, I swear.... Northern hemisphere stars are boring as... *sigh* but now I have my wonderful Orion to keep me company :) I wonder if you can see Scorpius up here...

The pic of Orion up top is courtesy of this website - joemorris.mystarband.net. University makes us do references. Sorry, force of habit :)

Amish people

YO, it was so sweet, I've done kettles three times so far, and the first two times a heap of Amish people came through the shopping centre where I was doing it..

Kettles is where you stand near this weird bubble on a stand, and accept Christmastime donations for the Salvation Army. Yes I am aware that it is only November, but these guys have been starting on Christmas stuff since Halloween...

So yeah, the first time was last Saturday from 9am till 1pm (I did 2 shifts) and a lady and a man came through with a little girl and a little boy. The kids were so cute, awwwww. So yeah, I asked Tim who was the guy doing the next shift who they were, and he's like, they're Amish (duh) and I'm like, SWEET! I wanna steal his hat :)

Well, not really STEAL cos that would be mean. But dude! That's the first time I've seen Amish people, so I'm allowed to be weird. And in Australia, when I get off at the city train station and there is a Salvation army guy selling War Cry's in uniform (and hat) I always wanna nick off with his hat too. And then give it back. So it's not just the Amish guys. It's just anyone with a mildly interesting hat... Yes I know I'm weird, but at least I'm good at it...

And then I did kettles again yesterday morning (Tuesday) in the same place, and a whole heap of Amish guys came through in two groups, so yeah. The little boy was with one of the groups, man that kid is cute... he's gotta be like, 6 or something.

And now I am heaps curious about Amish people, so I am going to look them up online after I do my next post :)

Day off...

Yay, how good are Mondays? They're our day off. The pic above is the view facing away from the front door of the office. The big pointy tower is the CN tower. I think. Is that what it's called? I hope so. ANYWAY...
So it was Thomas's birthday on Saturday (my brother) he turned 18, woot! At least I emailed him on time. Took the time difference into account and everything. So I 'm trying to find a time I can call when he'll actually be home, but haven't been able to yet... sorry!
Oh, and Myrtle from Inala (Brisbane, Australia) is over here visiting Heather Power, which is sweet! She actually calls street directories by their PROPER name - it's a REFIDEX guys!!! So it's cool - someone here actually speaks my language! Yay!!
Church yesterday was legendary - and we were nearly late because we were on the other side of the city making long distance phonecalls for some nursing home residents, and the off ramp for the highway was congested...
So yeah. Sandra talked about how people always think about "us" and "them" and how stuff is always made worse when you're looking down your nose at "them" instead of treating them like the "us" they really should be. Basically. Except she said it way better than that. I should take notes in church so I don't bollocks it up when I'm remembering stuff... *sigh* she had an example too - like when you walk into church, and you can see all the people looking at you and judging you (pointing their finger at YOU) and then you see that and start pointing YOUR finger right on back (YOU hypocrites! YOU're all so judgmental) So you become guilty of using the same weapon that was hurting you to start with - US and THEM instead of just US.... It causes wars...not cool.

So anyway, I am going to a concert fundraiser thing tonight. I hope I can figure out where it is or I will be wasting my evening off searching the city...

New background

Ok guys, there have to be about three of you out there reading this...

Which background do you reckon I should go with? The old one or this new one? I can't keep changing, cos then I have to put in my links all over again. Which is a pain.

So yeah. I want opinions!!!

Ignite blog site

Ok. It's stupid that I have to write the same stuff twice, SO I think I will put in the link for the Ignite team blog site. Our exalted coordinator Fiona has decreed that we must all blog there also, so I guess you can read what I put in there too, if you want :)

Righteo, it's at ignitegapyear.blogspot.com, so go look :)

I'm really liking stuff here. My placements are fully hard sometimes, and you're always watching yourself - behaviour and words and stuff, and always hoping you're not going to make a complete idiot of yourself, but hey. It's really good afterwards when you HAVEN'T made a jerk of yourself :) And classes and bible study are always good. I think I will try and put a copy of my roster up so you can see what I'm doing...no, I'll just write it in

Mondays: Day off

Tuesdays: Prayer at the office 6:30-7:30am
Team bible reading at home 9:15-10:45am
Volunteer with Grade 2 kids maths class 12:45-2:30pm
Building of relationships with church or community people in the afternoon
(enforced socialising, lol)

Wednesday: Volunteer at the River St community cafe 8:50am-1pm
(can be chatting with people, or helping out with the food bank, whatever really)
Brownies (girl guide variety) 6:30-8pm

Thursday: Breakfast van 5-8am (we drive around and serve breakfast to homeless people out of a van. )
Socialise with people at the Bloor Central community lunch 11am-2pm
Mentoring with my mentor 5:00-6:15pm
Bible study 6:30-8pm

Friday: Class at the office 9-12pm
Team meeting at home 12:15 till it finishes
Kids squads 5-8pm
Prayer walk 9-11pm (praying in the neighbourhood)

Saturday:Kids squads 9am-1pm
Enforced socialising in the afternoon. We usually have some squads kids over to make cake and watch a movie or something.
Go to church at at St Jamestown 7-9pm ish

Sunday: Holy space 7:30-8am (read - team devotions)
Every second week we go to Korean corps in the morning, and once a month we go to Bloor Central services 10:45am-1pm
Pack van 1pm (with all music equipment etc to take to the community centre where we have church)
Soldiers class/Discipleship class 2-3:30pm
Church (including set up, eating dinner and packing away) 4-8pm ish

Oh, and every morning except our day off we have personal devotions 7-8am unless we are doing something like prayer or breakfast van. And curfew is 11pm (us in bed) except Sunday, cos Monday is our day off.

So yeah. I'll write more later. Oh and I think it's Ashleigh Duyzer's birthday tomorrow (she's from Pine Rivers Sunbeams, yay! So if anyone who knows her is reading this, tell her I said happy birthday :)

Halloween!

Holy mackerel Bec! I think I found a holiday just for you!

It was so random; people dressing up as pretty much anything, and fully canvassing the streets scoring free candy from pretty much everywhere! Dude! Sure, the age limit is like 15 (18 if you look young) but still! It was so weird. The entire neighbourhood coming and knocking on people's doors, and being expected, and getting candy and stuff FOR FREE, everywhere - that sort of thing never happens in Australia. Seeing as we don't have Halloween... or even anything similar.

But it was really cool. There was a huge sense of community; some awesomely decorated houses, and OH! I got to carve a pumpkin! I ran into a random 6 year old I know, and she randomly gives me a free pumpkin! And I'm like, ok, are you sure you don't wanna carve this? And she's like, no you can have it. And I'm like, sweet! Thanks!

So I went home, and Grace said I wasn't allowed to be boring and do a face - she suggested doing flames all around. So I did, and it turned out ok! It was just a little pumpkin, but hey. I saw heaps of cool ones elsewhere, and took a bunch of photos. Eventually I will see if I can put a photo of my pumpkin on here so people can see it... WHICH I have now done, so go look at the top of this post :)

So there we go. My first experience of Halloween. My options for dressing up without buying anything for a costume were wearing my PJ's or donning one of my gorgeous scout scarves from camp. I was gonna do the PJ's option, but then decided I couldn't be bothered. And then Fiona said "You should dress up as a scout!" So my incredibly creative costume (not!) involved my normal clothes plus a red, yellow and blue scout scarf :) Yay! I was going to buy a Canadian scout shirt I saw at a thrift shop, but when I went back to see if it was still there, it had gone. Oh well. My scarf was cool :)

Pity I am too old to score free candy :(
(Check it out - I used the Canadian word - candy! How do you say it in Dutch again? I know it begins with a 'sh' sound...snoep? Ik weet het niet meer. Does that mean I can't remember? I'll check my notes when I get home...)