Fireside, SALTS, and JJJJuniors Retreat...

Hey Everyone...

Alright So every few weeks or so, us Kaleo students are randomly divided up and matched up with certain staff here at Qwanoes for an evening of fun, snacks, and 'get-to-know-you-time. The nights are called "firesides"-but actually do not include any fire whatsoever...

This past week we went over to the A-Frame-home of Jenna, Bec, and Cindy. We had chocolate fondu and were forced to share embarrassing stories or things people didn't know about us whenever we dropped anything into the fondu-pot. One of the Kaleo guys had the urge to get dressed up and so the theme of "work-out" was selected. Goodtimes were had:)

On Thursday, half of us went down to Victoria and met up with SALTS again to help them winterize the ships. We were assigned various tasks such as taking down the sails, cutting ropes, cleaning, lifting out the dories and folding up the sails and checking for tears and holes. It was great to lend a hand and see everyone from SALTS once again.

Then on Friday through Sunday I had the opportunity to counsel for the Juniors Retreat here at Qwanoes. Ever since I was a camper, I've always wanted to someday switch it up and try out counseling and experience what it's like to have that huge influence and impact on kids lives, that was so beneficial and helpful for me growing up. I had six lovely girls-all age 9 in my cabin with my co-counselor Cecilia. Wow, they were such amazing girls!! It totally felt like God hand picked them all and placed them there with me for a reason. I was super excited and nervous all at the same time on Friday night as my campers were arriving. But it was so sweet when I felt an immediate connection to them all. I don't think the retreat would have been the same if one of them were missing. 

Two days was way too short though. I wish I would have had a full week with them. But man alive, do they ever pack-in the activities during those two days! We were constantly moving from event to event and by the end of the day my campers were just dead, with little energy left over for me as well. On Saturday the kids had a couple hours of free time to try out all the challenge course activities, etc. and I was assigned to belay for the Elevator ropes course. I enjoyed talking with the boys and girls about how they were liking camp and just being there to hear about all their random stories as I harnessed them up. My campers would always come running back to us to tell us the things they accomplished and what they had the chance to do. One of my girls even went and bought me and Cecelia snacks with her tuck money-SO sweet of her! 

On Sunday we played a huge hide and go-seek game with the campers searching for all the counsellors through out the camp grounds. I went and hid way out in the forest and got caught in a mud swamp-which ended my further bush-wacking travels early. I had some close calls to being found, but wasn't actually caught until the end of the game. During my time sitting in the shrubs and mud I was able to reflect on my time with my campers over the last couple of days and take some time to pray for them all. It was great to have some other Kaleoers on staff with me this past weekend as well. The encouragement and support of their friendship and random high-fives were super rad and appreciated. It was definitely an awesome weekend though. I made some pretty close friendships with the girls in my cabin and it was hard saying goodbye on Sunday when they all departed. One of the mothers even gave me a big hug and thanked me when she came to pick up her daughter, it surprised me cause i wasn't expecting it, but it was super encouraging to know how grateful and appreciative some parents are for the people and the time that we invest in their child's lives. God is definitely starting to stretch my heart and passion for working with kids.

Hopefully these pics work out...

October fun...

Hey there!

Alright, man alive another week gone by way WAY too fast. The week started off with Thanksgiving Monday. Everyone who was away-visiting back home, made it back for our fabulous feast later that evening. We all got some what dressed up and enjoyed a night of fun, fine dining and thanksgiving. 

Later that week we departed for our girls and guys nights out. All of us ladies packed into the vans on Thursday afternoon and headed off for Nanaimo. We had dinner at a lovely Indian restaurant right by the ocean. Some of the girls weren't too into the whole Indian dins, but it was delicious! :) We then headed to Parksville and spent the night in the beautiful beach house of the VanderLee's. It was a really good bonding time for us girls. We laughed a lot, played

 games, sang, ate too much, had some 'interesting' discussions and some solid sharing times as well. After a filling brunch the next morning we spent some time on the beach, walking along the ocean, and then headed back to Nanaimo for some shopping. We all had a sweet time. 

I love all the ladies here, and I don't think Kaleo would be the same if any one of them were missing!!

Youth group this week was awesome. We had a huge turnout and a lot of new faces. It's encouraging to see that the kids are feeling more comfortable and that they want their friends to come see what it's all about as well. After a few talks with some of the youth last week as well as this week, I found a lot of them are struggling to fit in at school and are dealing with the difficulty of trying to do what's right and not giving into peer pressure. The lesson that Michelle did that night, I think really hit home with a lot of the kids. Hearing about her own difficulties growing up and choosing the right path and the hardships that she experienced, left the youth kids with some good questions and a sense of hope and encouragement for what they themselves are going through. 

Some things that I would appreciate prayer for right now is for one of the Kaleo guys here-who is also part of our Lake Cow crew. Jonathan has been gone this whole last week back home to Alberta. His Grandpa, who he's quite close with and who's had a huge role in Jon's life, has recently passed away. Prayer for his family and for Jon-and that we as a group here would be able to talk and listen and just be there for him when he returns later this week.

Also, stress-wise for me...I'm getting a little overwhelmed with the work load that has been piling up from our courses. This weekend i'll be working at the Juniors Retreat, and then next week we will be starting our Hermeneutics course. So just prayer for me that I will remain focussed and not get too stressed out, and that i'll stay healthy-as there is a bit of a sick-bug roaming about...

Thanks for taking the time to check in!!

"Let's Go Surfing now.. Everybody's Surfing now..."

Another week gone by incredibly fast!! We left early Tuesday morning and headed off for Tofino to do some surfing. We made a quick stop in Nanaimo for those of us who wanted to vote. And then we also stopped in Coombs for some delish sweets and a few of us gals got some funky floor mats. Before reaching our campsite in Tofino, we made some beach stops and watched the massive waves crash in and out on the rocks. They were up to 20 feet high that day. SO crazy!!Setting up tents and getting unpacked didn't take too long, so we had the skim boards out and a soccer game set up pretty soon after arrival. We were blessed with some pretty sweet weather-it was supposed to be super rainy and wet during out days there, but the weather held out and we had no huge rain-stormy spells-except for one unexpected hail storm out of the blue...haha. 

The next day we were out surfing until supper time. Me and my friend Amelia were water-buddies and were both pretty new to the sport. All of us were decked out in some wicked awesome-full-body wet suits-head cap included. In some ways we looked like a massive speed skating team...haha They worked really well though, I never felt the icy water, except for my face-which got splashed pretty much every 10 seconds..:) I got up a few times on my board, but it was always followed by an amazingly ungraceful bail...

Overall the trip was a blast, moonlit beach walks, ultimate beach frisbee, camp fire stories and sharing and good times all around.

Friday we started our Camp Ministry course with our Kaleo leader Jim Badke as our prof. We all had to form our own groups before the class started to do the pre-reading with and discuss the given questions, etc. We then had to come up with a team name and theme song. Our group's name was the "mustache-smurfs". And we made up a pretty rad song to go with it...

This coming week we'll have a couple more classes with Jim. And then it should be a pretty chill week event-wise. Us Kaleo girls have our night/day dates out this week so that should be fun. We have no idea what we are going to be doing yet, it's somewhat of a surprise... Other than that my week will be full of me reading and writing papers:S Sounds like loads of fun hey?! There are SO many distractions here at Qwanoes it's sometimes hard to say no, and just buckle down and do some work.:S

We had our second night of youth group out at Lake Cow this past Friday as well. There were a few less in numbers compared to the kickoff the Friday before, but i was super psyched to see some of the older gals, that were so indecisive about coming back, there!! It was another fun night of games and solid hang time with the youth. Two Kaleo students, Sherri and Michelle, from the program last year are in charge and running the youth group this year. Sherri lead the lesson this week, but we'll be taking turns in the weeks to come and helping our in the bible-studies. 

I hope everyone's thanksgivings were wonderful. Ill try to do another blog post about what i did this past weekend while i was back here at Qwanoes during the long weekend.

Here are some pics from the surf trip:)

Rainy Days, Courses, Kickoffs...

Hey ya!

Another week gone by SO fast...

This week we started our first course, Spiritual Formation, with Marv Penner. It was a super challenging week with Marv, he stretched our understanding of what it means to be spiritual and covered everything from Lectio Divina to the difference in ways that boys and girls think. He touched on some important topics such as: solitude and retreat, scripture memory, fasting, journaling, meditation, confession, personal barriers, and prayer.

During the week Marv had us go out and find our own place of solitude here at Qwanoes, and on the very last day of class we all went out and spent the whole morning as a spiritual getaway with us and God. Awesome experience! 

I really appreciated Marv's honesty and how real and open he was about his own life experiences and current happenings in his own walk of faith. It was disappointing that we only were able to spend one week with him. 

Truly the class isn't officially over, as now we all have papers and reports to finish off...:S

These last few weeks i've been attending the Lake Cowichan Baptist Church. There are four of us in total from our Kaleo group that make the awesome 45 min drive from Crofton out to Lake Cow every Sunday morning. The drive out is beautiful though, and we were given a lovely little red truck to commute in, so we all have great chats and the drive goes by fairly fast. LCB was quite the new experience at first. It's way more traditional than i'm used to back home-in that we sing mainly from the hymn book, assisted entirely by the organ player and occasionally a piano player as well. The church congregation is mainly made up of seniors, (surprisingly we had only 15-20 people in total, our first time there!) but has been growing in numbers over the last couple weeks. Our second Sunday there, we had our first youth attend. We invited her to sit in our pew after finding out that she had never gone before. After that service, we invited her to come back next Sunday and told her that we were super psyched to see her again. We weren't quite sure if she would try it again, but it was super cool to see her smiling face that next Sunday! It's our hope that we can start to bring more of the youth and teens out on Sunday mornings. We have a few musically talented members from our group, so we are planning on doing a couple Sundays a month-leading worship,etc. So maybe this will also spark an interest with them as well...

This past Friday, we had our big kick off for the Lack Cow youth kids. We had a pretty sweet turn out with about 16 or so kids there. We had home made pizzas and snacks and played some rad games-including a scavenger hunt around the church where the teams were all tied together at the wrists. I tried to talk to a lot of the kids that night and get to know them a bit more, some were more open to convo than others. A lot of these kids come from difficult and hurting backgrounds. They really need some huge love right now and just an ear to hear them out. Much prayer for these kids would be greatly appreciated!! As well as for us leaders as we work along side them and build up solid relationships with them. Because the youth group ranges from grades 7 all the way to 12, it's really hard for the older ones to fit in and not feel like the 'oldies' of the group. Some of them already weren't too keen on making a second appearance in the weeks to come. I told them how pumped I was to seeing them come back though, so we'll see if they happen try it out again. I'll be keeping you updated on what's going on in the youth group and try to get some pics up as well.

Thanks out to everyone who's been praying for me! My ankle is doing AMAZINGLY better now, so I'm super thankful about that! This next week we start our Camp Ministry course with Jim Bad as the prof. I'm not sure yet if i'll be making it home for Thanksgiving weekend, but if I do, hopefully i'll be able to touch base with most of you and catch up a bit:)

Miss you all!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!