Team's arrival, Hottest day of the year, Birthday Celebration, Gay Hairdressers, Power Outage, Car Breaking down-- interesting weekend!

The entire team is here!!! Christy and Kaylyn arrived tonight! :-) Anneli (our local intern) came back from her trip to Estonia. We are now complete! The first camp begins on Monday. . . we are inundated with things to do but excited to get going.

We worked all day Saturday. Sonia & the interns surprised me with an exquisite German chocolate cake and candles. . . soooo good! We were all so exhausted, but they convinced me to go out to celebrate. So the interns + Liz & Merilene (from the Church) went bowling and out for dinner at East Side Marios'. Leanne is amazing at bowling!! She whooped us all!
It was so fun going to eat at East Side. Both Mark and I worked there in BC. We critiqued everything secretly! The food was about the same. The bathrooms were horribly kept. The layout was similar but I liked this one a lot better. Haha, we tried to figure out the "board" and name the table numbers--when we got the bills we were right (cuz it says what table you are at)! Lol, it was all silly fun but very amusing for us. Also interesting was that all the staff here reminded us of someone we worked with back home. Oh! I had already had 3 pieces of cake that day so I told them I DID NOT want any from there. However, of course I jump 3 feet when the entire restaurant staff comes out and belts their ridiculous birthday jingle to me and presents me with (another) absolutely amazing chocolate delicacy (we shared. . . )

Sunday, Mark went to his Jamaican church. They love him there! I went to help decorate the church with him last week and I noticed that they were dotting all over him and feeding him like crazy! I'm glad. . . because it is quite a challenge for him to be there, but at least he is well liked. He is preaching back to back for the next two weeks, running (well building) the youth program and helping to evangelize for their upcoming camps. We both tried the equivalent of a Jamaican Pop-Tart--- it was excellent... a bit spicy though.

Leanne, Tyler and I went to Hope 4 Tomorrow in the morning. Then Tyler went to the launch of the Everlasting Life Church Plant in their new building.

Leanne and I went to the Brazilian Church at night (IEQ). It was a very interesting experience. . . everything was in Portuguese!! It helped to have the words up during worship. We stood there and tried to translate as much as we could together by using our bits of knowledge of Spanish, Latin and French mixed together-- we actually understood the main concepts and key words! It's a beautiful language, but they speak much too fast. Thankfully we had a translator during the preaching. It was looonnng and looouuud! I think that's cultural. This will be Leanne's "home" church where she will be working with the youth and doing outreach. It's a VERY culturally Brazilian church. It was a very neat experience and they are lovely people (friendly) but it will be extremely challenging to work with. Presently they only have one youth girl and a few children. It's not reaching the young generation. If they continue in this same manner, it will be very difficult (if not impossible) to bring in and bring up the next generation-- how do you say that without offending them? Their hearts for serving Jesus are beautiful. We are hoping to see Leanne begin a summer youth program on a separate night and focus on building that for now, as well as look for leaders to invest in for follow up in the fall. I admire these interns. They are stepping into very scary and unchartered waters! They are nervous but they are faithfully stepping out and working as hard as they can. God sees their willing hearts and hands and is able to do the impossible.

We had Monday off and were planning on visiting Canada's Wonderland. . . but decided not to because it was 45 degrees with humidity! It was unbelievably hot! And I, silly me, decided to drive downtown with no air conditioning in the car to get my hair done and came back in rush-hour traffic!

It was a very interesting conversation with this Torontonian hairstylist. First of all, he's amazing... he's practiced in Vancouver, London, NY, Milan, France etc-- all the top places for the past 43 years. He's a big 'man's man'-- bit intimidating but friendly. Anyways, right away he asks me if I'm married-- "no" boyfriend? "no"-- silence... then we get into why I'm here- so I tell him about the interns and the church plant etc.-- "hmmm he says". "Do you have a faith?" I ask-- "Yes, I worship Mother Earth-- I'm aboriginal. Grew up Catholic, but what Aboriginal hasn't grown up Catholic?" he chuckles. He had heard about the "Forgiven Summit" last month, but didn't offer to share his opinion on it. So then I ask him where he enjoyed working best-- "I liked New York best, but I met my husband here in Toronto 25 years ago and am happy here now." "Oh!" There was a bit of a pause-- I knew he was checking to see if I'd judge him or get awkward so I maintained composure and kept making little jokes and small talk. He seemed to like that. We got along really well after that. I wanted to show acceptance, share a bit of my own testimony and pray for him. I could sense the Holy Spirit--hopefully he could too! Later the conversation gets a bit odd but funny. He boldly asks "so what kind of guy are you interested in?" (do ALL hairdressers ask this? I was rather surprised!) I looked a bit shocked, laughed and checked to see if he was serious... he was. So ok, I shared a bit. He nodded and agreed. Then he began giving me advice on how to meet someone with those qualities and then when I was married-- here's some advice... I was totally flabbergasted and laughing on the inside (this was hilarious!). He was actually giving really good advice (I guess he's knows what it's like to be with a man!). He was telling me stuff about commitment and sticking it through and loving through the ups and downs-- but don't rush into it, you need to know who you are first before you can share a life with someone else, etc. Anyways- he obviously was missing a lot because he doesn't know Jesus personally (yet) but I respected most of what he said (and his hairstyling abilities). I will continue to pray for him... you never know why certain people walk across your path and I believe that God uses His people to pray for others before they get saved.

More interesting things happened that day. I rushed back to Mississauga to pick up the boys and Leanne. We went to meet Pastor Barry and Susan Buzza for dinner. However when we got there all the power was out! NOTHING was opened. All the restaurants in the city were closed. A transformer had blown up like a bomb... it was caused by an overuse of air-conditioners that day! So we were blistering hot, hungry and watching traffic at a standstill as people tried to figure out the 4-way stop procedures (seriously where did these people learn to drive??). Anyways, so we walked to a nearby mall to wait out the traffic. There was some salvaged air conditioning trapped inside the mall (lasted for about 20 min then got hot like everywhere else). It was so nice to sit and talk though! I love my pastors! They are so amazing! They are encouraging and wise and caring. We were so honoured that they would take the time to spend with us. We left so encouraged (yet rather hungry and sweaty).

THEN (oh there's more to this day!)-- on the way home my car starts smoking (A LOT!). People are yelling at us telling us that are car is smoking (Obvi we know! haha!). So we have to pull over and call Pastor Ron. He comes and says "well this doesn't look right"... as he pulls the radiator off the ground! I guess his son (who owned the car before) tried to put it on himself to save a few bucks (never worth it).
OH! i have not introduced you to my new car! God is so amazing in the delivery of cars. This is my 5th free car. I never ask for them, people just give them to me! I was not expecting to have a car here, but one day Pastor Ron pulls up in this cute little red hyundai and hands me the keys. He said she's insured under my name and I can pick everyone up for work now (I was ok with that! This means I can finally stop by Sbucks and get a real coffee on my way there!). Leanne and I named her. Every car deserves a good name. . . which they don't seem to do here. Everyone we tell in Toronto thinks we're mental. I don't understand-- i thought everyone named their cars and computers and GPS'? Her name is Teia Dottholomew (short form is T-Dot). My GPS is Bridget Jenkins (she's British). Teia should be ok-- she's in the shop but should be ready again soon. Pastor Ron was very nice and picked us up today and then gave me his car to drive until Teia is ready-- he's challenging to communicate with, but he's got a soft inside there! I really appreciated that.

Ok, I think I'm caught up with the blog. . . gotta get to bed. Christy said she'll wake me up at 6:30 cuz she's never done tae-bo and wants to try that with me! Haha, that should be fun!
Busy, busy week ahead of us as we prepare for all the summer camps and get all our curriculum ready for the different youth clubs we're running. Soccer club on Thursday! :-)

Good night!