Week Eleven

I write this entry from the comfort of my own bed at home in Orangeville Ontario. This semester has been so incredible and I realize this more and more every time I tell someone about it or look at pictures. I want to thank any Kaleos reading this for the awesome ride this first semester has been. I'm looking forward to January!

Backing up in time a bit, the week after our church ministry class consisted of mustaches, Christmas trees, Bas Rutten, papers and a conference. On Tuesday we went Christmas tree hunting and had a Christmas banquet which was full of laughs and good turkey. Wednesday was a day dedicated to writing two papers due just before we all would head home for Christmas. Thursday, many of us (all but 8) left for Vancouver to go to a youth workers conference. This trip was a great thing to look forward to at the end of the semester and it was great to get off the island, and out of Qwanoes, even just for a bit. I got one of my papers done on the ferry ride, and that freed me up a lot to just soak in the conference. I learned many things on over this conference. Let me share a few things.

-One of my papers was on 'the ministry of reconciliation' as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 and I realize that this "ministry" that I have been given, is not a two hour even once a week, but a lifestyle. Every aspect of my life needs to be screaming of reconciliation. The reason I do ministry, the content of my ministry, and what my ministry offers all needs to be reconciliation. This is huge! and I want to not just realize this, but live it out.

-At the conference, Mark Buchanan, my pastor at New Life and a man that I deeply respect and know personally, spoke on Mark 9, the story of the demon possessed boy who the disciples were unable to heal, and then Jesus told them that it was something that could only be healed through prayer and fasting. I had never really understood this passage until now. These things that I am writing are not my own thoughts or conclusions, but what Mark spoke on that really resonated with me. First of all, the sentence, "I do believe, help me with my unbelief" I understand it to mean, "I do believe in you, but your church has let me down." This may seem like a strange and bold conclusion but through Mark's speaking, I believe this to be true. Jesus wasn't around when the father brought his boy to be healed, so he brought his son to the next best thing - his disciples. The father saw these men as equal to Jesus, with faith that they could heal them, however they could not. This made it more difficult to have total faith in Jesus, when the people who follow him have disappointed him in the past. I will come back to this point in a bit. Secondly, why is it that Jesus did not even stop to pray before casting out this demon, if it could only be healed through prayer and fasting? The disciples (most likely) were praying every prayer they could think of and could not drive the demon out. What Jesus means by prayer and fasting, is being constantly connected to the Father, much like a battery and charger. We need to be plugged into God through prayer and meditation so much so, that we are constantly full, so when we need to go and use the authority that Jesus gives us in his name, we are able to do so. Jesus spent every morning praying to his Father, and was always getting charged up. This was not the case with the disciples, and therefore, could not exercise the authority that Jesus had given them. I truly desire to be seen as equal to Jesus through the eyes of non believers, and I want to be someone that encourages other's faith in Jesus and does not add to their unbelief. This session really motivated to start abiding in God once again, every day. I went back to the church where we were staying that night and had an unreal conversation about all of this with a man named Nathanael. He was so encouraging and was such a blessing to talk to as he helped me work through some of these things. He reminded me of the passage John 15, where I need to remain in Him in order to bear fruit, getting my daily bread and spending adequate time in prayer.

-The sessions were incredible, but some of the best times were outside of the conference. Several of us went to all you can eat sushi and then Italian the next night, but meeting homeless people was the best part. I am involved, as you all know, in the homeless ministry in Duncan on Sunday nights and have really developed a passion for those people. This was a great chance to continue that ministry. Now, I am going to re-write a story that I previously recorded, of something that happened during the conference:

One day, James, Mark and I were walking downtown Vancouver when we passed a homeless man named Chris who had a sign that read "52 Birthday". Judging by the weathering of the sign, it was his birthday everyday, but nomatter. We stopped and seated ourselves down on the busy street corner and talked to him. Turns out that he really trusts in God, and God provides a lot of his daily needs. One night he prayed for some money, and when he went back to his sleeping bag, there was a 10 dollar bill on his sleeping bag. Every night he says a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord and that night, he said that the three of us would be in his. As we left, we all felt really great about it, and decided to come back later with cake to celebrate his birthday. So later that day, we gathered a large group of us to go down, Justin and I went earlier to make sure he was still there. He said he went to the same corner everyday. Sure enough he was there, and so Justin and I went to IGA and bought him a cake that said "Happy Birthday Chris" on it. As we went out beaming, full of excitement about 25 of us marching down to the corner, and then Chris was no where to be found! We split up and ran around looking for him, but we was gone. We were all pretty disappointed and didn't get it since I though that this would haver really blessed him. Quite dejected, we walked back to the hotel, and I put the cake in room service. The next day, we decide to try again, since he said he was at that corner everyday. This time, we brought along Jared Hall, an incredible magician who we met at the conference. This time there was only 8 of us. We walked down to the corner, praying in out heads and out loud that Chris would be there. We get down there and he was not there!I thought that my attempts to show Christ to these guys on the street was surely in vain at that point. We walked around for a bit. Jared and two others left and we decided to find another guy to come celebrate with us. So James and I go ahead back to the original corner where we met Chris, and across the street was a homeless man in a wheelchair with only one leg. We walk up and I wasn't sure what to say, I didn't want it to seem like I was just giving him a cake as charity or anything. I started about 2 sentences and then stopped both and just simple asked "What's your name?" He looked at me and said "Chris." At that point I was completely shocked and overwhelmed and excited and thankful all at the same time. In that moment, I knew that my attempts were not in vain, they were just reserved for someone else. I told him that we'd like to celebrate a birthday with him, since we had a cake with his name on it...literally! As the rest of the group showed up he was very happy and agreed to play along that his birthday was on December 5th. We all sung happy birthday to Chris on the street corner and apparently, I couldn't see as I was cutting the cake, but Christ was crying. He loved the cake and had two pieces and warmed up to us very quickly. Another homeless man named Dennis just stood behind us looking in at the cake, and we gave him some too. As we were sitting on the sidewalk, we tried to get others involved in the celebration as well. Some shouted "Happy Birthday!", others looked at us if we were insane and others blatently ignored us. Chris was shouting to the passer-bys, "Free Birthday Cake! You know you want some!"Someone walked up to him and handed him a box of "birthday donuts" from Krispie Kream. Chris had to leave after a while and so did we but I will never forget watching him put his cake in the donut box and treated that box like a little kid that had just received an awesome toy for Christmas. Chris was telling us "this cake is amazing!" and "this is the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me, you have no idea how much this means to me." I know that as we were singing, laughing, sitting and eating with Chris, we were also singing, laughing, sitting and eating with Christ since anyone who welcomes the least of these welcomes Him. Thank you Lord for inviting us in on your story.

This is just one of the stories that took place through these homeless people. This has been a challenging, motivating, rewarding and blessed experience at the conference. I enjoyed my last week of 2009 at Kaleo and am already missing my friends, or should I say, family. As I was on my plane back here, I had the thought that there is a spiritual significance of travel. As much as travel is a physical thing, it is very much a spiritual things as well. It is an in-between stage. Neither here nor there, but a time of reflecting on where I have just been and anticipating where I am going. I do believe that my time on the airplane was a time of just that.

Please pray for me over Christmas that I would continue to develop habits that exist outside of Qwanoes, that 'greenhouse' as a wise man once said. Pray that these habits of prayer and meditation on God's word would enable be to become fully charged, and that I would constantly be abiding in Him, so that I would receive the authority that Jesus offers me to bring belief to those who struggle with unbelief. Please pray that this Christmas I would be a blessing. A blessing to my friends both local and distant, and also to my family. Pray that my family would go to the next stage in our relationships as we are all growing up and entering different stages of our lives. Continue to pray for the homeless people that I have met and are now part of my life. Pray that Jesus would be their hope this Christmas.

It's been a great ride. Thank you Father.

He has come, and may he be your hope this Christmas as well.

Mt. Tzouhalen

Week Ten

Its hard to see that the end of this semester is quickly coming. Three months come and gone so quickly! The weeks are going by faster and faster as the year progresses. This week was no exception. We had our church ministry class with David Ernst and as my friend Nate said, it is the professor that makes a class, and David definitely made this class. It was a cool class because we talked about a lot of things in the church that I had never even thought about before, like the purpose of the church, the process of choosing and the role of leadership, denomonations and other grey areas that are pretty controversial. The thing that I really liked about this class is that he relied on class participation and conversation to teach us the course. It was really great. Several things that I really got out of this course was:

-Grace. The most important thing that the church has to offer others is grace. That is the only thing that sets Christians apart from other religions and the church, the place where grace needs to be in excess is often the place where grace is no where to be found.

-Grey areas, such as women in church leadership, which we studied, God probably cares more about how we treat those who hold different views than us, than our position on a certain issue. After all, if we have not love, we are nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

-Another thing that I knew already but was really emphasized again was the we are the church. This came out more and more in every lesson that we learned, that the church is the people.

On Thursday night, most of Kaleo attended "Light Up Ladysmith" which was the kickoff of winter pretty much in a town called Ladysmith. There was INCREDIBLE fireworks and a great winter parade, which me and six others actually joined. We walked in a sang Christmas carols arm in arm for about 20 minutes. People loved it. It was slightly ironic that we were singing song welcoming Jesus' coming as we were walking behind the "Ladysmith Shriners Club". A lot of this week I was, and still am working on a paper about women in leadership in the church. It is interesting because before I had absolutely no opinion about this matter and didn't really think anything about it. But since I had to write a paper on it, I did a whole bunch of research and developed my own ideas and opinion based on how I interpret scripture and what non-topical sources say about this issue. It is so fun! I love developing my own thoughts on controversial issues. I want to do this assignment for many other issues out there that I do not really hold an opinion to. This week there was some pretty intense flooding in the city of Duncan, so we got a chance to go and fill sandbags for the flooding. It was a lot of fun and we were all working in the rain, and we actually got out of class a bit early because of it. At the end of the week, Friday, around 8 of us went and hiked Mt. Tzouhalen, a mountain on the edge of Duncan. It was a beautiful sunny day and felt so good to get out after a week of class. I realized the love that I have for God's creation. I want to experience it all the time! We were up so high it was incredible. This weekend I was working in the dishpit for the men's retreat that was here at Camp Qwanoes. This meant that I didn't get a chance to go to youth group on Friday night, but I was serving at camp in the meantime. Believe it or not, it was pretty fun working with a bunch of friends in dishpit. I loved seeing around 100 men come together to worship and learn together in a camp environment. It was kinda weird, like they were campers and everything, but it encouraged me to see older men who clearly love the Lord. On Sunday, I managed to get out of dishpit in order to go to church. Man was it incredible! It was the greatest service I had been to since I've been here. I really felt like I was worshiping God and praising only Him. The worship team was the youth team and consisted of a tap dancer, a dance team, and a drum team, like the little drummer boys. It was an excellent kick off to advent and we talked about hope. I realize how much hope that we as Christians have. Later that night, I went to the homeless ministry in Duncan. Justin and I walked down the traintracks to see James, and we found two others who were having a bonfire. We joined them and heard some incredible stories from a man named Roy. He had actually beaten up someone so bad that he killed him. After spending three years in jail, he knew Jesus as the creator and lord and he really knew Jesus' teachings. He learned to turn the other cheek when people would beat him up. He told us that he knew that he was walking away from Jesus and wanted help giving up his life of sin. Such an amazing man who earnestly wanted to walk with Jesus. We prayed with him and the lady he was with named Jackie. She was halarious! Very drunk, but halarious. I love this homeless ministry. Today, we wrote our Church ministry exam and as soon as that was done, me and four others went rock climbing in Naniamo. This was soo good to get back climbing again. I had been itching to get out and go and we had a blast all bouldering together. I have been feeling badly because I haven't really been doing my devotions like I had hoped too. I haven't woken up early in a while and I miss that. I am sometimes worried that I am not getting all that I could be out of this year because of my lack of committment to getting up and spending time with God.

Things have gotten incredibly busy here, and I don't want to put a higher priority on studying God, than walking with Him.

I am starting to get excited for Christmas! As much as I don't want to leave this place, and the people here, I can't wait to spend Christmas with the family and be in Orangeville again. Please pray for Kaleo this week as we will be going to Vancouver for four days for a youth conference. It will be a lot of fun, but I want to learn a lot too, and not feel much pressure to do homework. Pray too that as we get ready to go home for Christmas, we would all be ready to go and that home would be a good place for all of us to go home to. Some people here are not as fortunate as I am to have a healthy family to go home to. Prepare our hearts to leave this place for a while. Please pray that this week would be a time of real consolidation for me. A time to realize all that I've experienced this semester and let that motivate me even further. Most importantly, please pray that my love for Jesus and my dependence on Him would grow exponentially every day.

Hard to believe that this is the second last week.

See you all soon.

Week Nine

This past week was our 24/7 week of prayer. How it worked was we had a specific room where everyone would pray in, and at least one person would always be praying for 168 hours. I signed up every other day at 3 in the afternoon, then every other day at 3 in the morning. I chose this time because in one of the sermons that I heard at New Life, Mark talked about the "3 am factor", where God would wake up people in the night to talk and meet with them - completely out of the blue. The example he used was God waking Solomon up around the third hour to talk to him. So I decided to try the 3 am factor. In this room, all our pictures were up on the walls with paper under our names, a cross in the room, dim lighting, and a bible there. It was so peaceful and every time I walked into the room, I could definitely feel that the Lord was there too. Over the course of the week, the walls filled up with prayers, the papers filled with encouragement and the windows were covered with faces to pray for. In that room is was so much pain, so much hurt and many many troubles. A lot of bitterness and brokenness and huge questions that were expressed in that room and that troubled me, but made me super thankful for the grace that I have experienced in my life. I loved what that room brought out in us. So many times I had incredible times of prayer with good brothers, either just two of us, or one night we had all the guys praying together. Even this morning, my brother was clinging to the cross today and weeping over his family, and we were able to share that time with him. I love the openness and vulnerability that occured in the room, and even though most times I was in there by myself, I felt like I became closer to others through praying for them and reading their prayers on the walls. This week I had to do a lot of homework. I wrote a paper on the dwelling place of God over time, focusing on the Tabernacle, the Temple and finally our bodies. So cool that now, God lives WITHIN us and we do not need a priest to meet with God for us! I learned so much from this paper and was one of my favourites to write. I had to do some power reading as well. I read What's so Amazing About Grace, and The Emerging Church for my Church Ministry class. Unfortunately, I missed going to the homeless ministry on Sunday because I had to do the homework. Church on Sunday was great, as Mark talked about having spiritual friends and how important they are. I am so blessed to be in a place where most of my friends here are "spiritual friends" or "Rafiki", as Mark called them. Here we are not only good friends, but we are encouraging each other, challenging each other and holding each other accountable. On Friday night at youth it was Fear Factor night, and even though I did not feel particularly useful, I had fun cheering on kids eating blended Big Mac combos, and other gross feats. My favourite thing about youth however was after it was done and me and Jon, another Kaleo, wrestled some of the guys. They loved it! And it was a great bonding time for me and them I felt. The guys here at Kaleo did a "UFC Kaleo - Friendships Collide" night. We all were wrestling downstairs and was so much fun. Another cool thing we did was play indoor soccer again with Edgar and some others from Duncan. This was great to continue this interaction with the community of Duncan. This week is our Church Ministry class, and it will be a great class and a great week. Please pray for me this week as I want to learn as much as I can about how I can be the church, and what that really implies. Please pray for continued friendships that go deep, pray that this place would really bring about healing to those who truly need it. Would love to hear from all of you! Look forward to Christmas.

Week Eight

Hey, hard to believe its already been eight weeks. This past week was our Old Testament class taught by Don Taylor. Don is such an awesome guy, so humble and easy going. Really knowledgeable too. So I enjoyed this class very much, actually it is my favourite class so far, mind you we've only had three. This class covered a lot of ground and moved very fast. We had to cover the entire OT in 5 days! I have never spent much time in the OT because I find it intimidating, boring and irrelevant. Don said that if we wanted to read the New Testament well, then we need to first understand and read the OT well. I learned so much about the OT! I now do not see it as irrelevant, intimidating or boring, just because of what I was taught this week. I really see the need to understand certain things before reading them, such as context, like when is this being written, what is happening in the big picture and things like that. So many times in the class I just wanted to get up and just go read the OT for hours. Part of our OT class was to create a movie involving the entire class. It was quite a project. Check out the K7 blog because it will be up there soon. www.kaleoseven.blogspot.com Some of us were actors, some of us were directors, some of us were editors, and all of us were writers. Mark and I were the writers for the Gideon scene, so check it out if you get a chance! Several late nights considering we had to make a movie on the entire OT in pretty much 3 days, so some of us didn't get any sleep the last two nights. That pretty much consisted of the entire week since all hours of the day were spent making this movie. Friday night we watched UP with youth group and that was fun, and its awesome when kids come up to you and just want to hang out with you, and when kids who were originally shy around you really start opening up and having a lot of fun with you. I have seen and experienced both of these things on Friday night and it is an encouragement knowing that what we are doing here is not in vain, and we are indeed being part of what is happening at the church. One cool thing that happened this week was Edgar, a man who we went to his house for lunch two weeks ago, invited some of us to play indoor soccer on Thursday night and so Justin and I went to play. It was sweet, it wasn't a church thing but a community event and so we got to meet other people from Duncan not from the church and play some super intense indoor soccer with them. Such a blast, I think we will go again this week. I am learning how to enter into a brand new community such as Duncan, and I see how crucial the church is in becoming part of a new community.

This week coming up is the 24/7 week of prayer, so there will always be someone praying throughout this entire week. Pray for this time that we will "learn how to pray" and that it will be very two-sided, not just us talking to God, but God talking to us and we are listening. Also, I haven't been feeling very well the past couple of days and H1N1 has breached Kaleo, so healing from sickness would be great to pray for too. Please pray for opprotunites for conversation to go really deep as well. This past week has been great for that and it has definitely been allowing this community to grow tighter together.

A good week behind me once again.

Cheerio

Week Seven

This week was reading break. A time where I really enjoyed having no schedule, no agenda and just a time to do the things that need to be done. A big focus for me this week was to finish my hermeneutics assignment. Mission accomplished! I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed that assignment. I have never dug so deeply into such a small amount of Scripture before. It was great. I did it on Galatians 2:19-21 and I feel like I have such an understanding now for the context in which that was written and what those verses actually mean now. Though I find that very difficult to do outside of school, and just for personal study. Still something I need to learn how to do.

On Tuesday we went to Victoria for the day, which started off as a sweet day of longboarding the oh so perfect spiraling parking garages of the city and turned into a time of ministry to the homeless and poor. Before leaving the van in the morning, Kristie, one of our leaders encourages us that we are salt, and we are light, and Victoria needs us. We went into that day with a much better perspective of “Who can we bless?” Nate and I met a blind homeless man named Ken who we bought lunch for and he was very thankful. We also met two travelers who were broke and I guess became very comfortable in the culture of drug dealing. They were hungry too, so we bought them food as well. It was cool since later in the day we actually ran into them again and they smiled and waved at us. We met an incredible man named Willy too. He actually joined us for lunch thanks to the invitation that Emma gave to him, along with two buskers who were super friendly and cool. The three of them joined about 8 of us Kaleos in a fish and chips restaurant right on the Victoria harbor and we shared many good stories, especially Willy who was full of them, telling us about his childhood on a native reserve and going moose hunting, to falling through the ice when playing hockey. The two musicians became friends to us and they walked around the city with us after playing a couple songs and talking with us for a while. Really enjoyed this trip as I went into this city with a new perspective, seeing people in need of grace and love, and not so much as a time of having of caring for myself and what I want to do.

Wednesday and Thursday were big paper days for me as I had to do my hermeneutics assignment. However, Thursday was incredible for me. Justin and I were walking out to the point ( a 40 minute hike to a cool piece of land that sticks out into the ocean) and we were having great conversation. I remember almost “venting” to him about how I never really hear God speak to me, and that more than anything I wanted to be able to identify the voice of my shepherd. Well after that time, we got to the point and we spent some times in silence. And the coolest thing happened, I heard God speak to me. He said “Why do you come to meet me with these expectations? Look around (as I was looking at incredible creation). What makes you worthy of anything? Do not come to me with these expectations, but instead, just enjoy spending time in my presence.” It was sweet. It spoke to me there, exactly where I was. I had wondered why God had not just given me whatever I asked for, but really, I deserve nothing, I don’t know why I think that I do. My perspective needed to change as to why I came to spend time with God. I am learning to just enjoy soaking in his presence. Justin asked me a question that I cannot seem to get out of my head. He asked me “When do you feel most alive, when is it then you feel as though this is what you were created for?” At first I said that it is when I am doing something epic, like being up very high holding onto just a tiny ledge or piece of rope or flying through the air, or something like that. But then after I gave it some more thought, I realized that I feel like I am doing what I was created for when I am sharing the gospel with people. To be honest, I was pretty hesitant to say that, since I was scared that it might lock me into something. But saying that, with no expectations or preconceived ideas about what that means, I think that I feel most alive when I am sharing the gospel with people. I love it and want more opportunities to do that.

The next day, with a good friend Mark, I went to the point again. It started raining as we were about to read our Bibles, and we decided to wait it out. Then it rained harder. So we decided to camp out under a tree, and I thought, how cool is it that wherever we come to meet with our God, whether with a beautiful view in the sun, or in the pouring rain under a tree with branches uncomfortably poking into our sides, God will be there with us too. I went to the pool later that night with our youth group and I actually had a hard time with my kids. Maybe it was the change in venue, but I didn’t really feel very needed as a leader there, and I know that I could have easily just spent the night selfishly and enjoyed the waterslides and hottubs to myself, however I really wanted to spend my night with the kids. I did not really enjoy the night at youth since I couldn’t find my kids for most of the night, but I did find some guys that I had met the week before and were new, so for the last bit of the night I spent some time racing them down the water slides. One thing that came up in a conversation that I had with Justin was that some of the kids that go to the New Life youth group are actually really hungry for Jesus and his gospel, yet it is frustrating because I feel that New Life does not provide time for it to be discussed or taught. There are kids who go there for years who do not know Jesus and don’t even know what he says, and I feel that New Life doesn’t even really allow the time for kids to come and be filled with him. Just an observation, though. They do have a good heart for the kids that come out.

Saturday the thing that stands out most is the time that Justin and I shared in the morning before lunch. We went down to the dock and read the passage in Acts 5 where all the believers sell their possessions, shared everything and gave money to those in need. We had a great time of asking questions and wondering what the church’s responsibility is today for something like this. We both have a huge passion to see the church be reconciled and reunited again with all believers. To see the body of Christ behaving like the body of Christ. He told me of a homeless man who was getting kicked out of a church parking lot by some police officers on Friday night, right here in Duncan. That really got us thinking. We want so much more for the church and want God to invite us into this movement. We want to be radical in our love for Jesus, and what that requires of us. I’ve been thinking of this for a while and am still thinking about this, but its cool because I feel like we are getting invited into this. On Sunday night our New Life Young adult group went down to where we normally meet with homeless people and we prayer walked. We prayed over some of our meeting spots and parks and such. As we were praying along some rail road tracks, we saw this man in a ditch with a very sketchy tent fly strung up in the trees above his head. We asked if we could come and talk with him and he generously welcomed us into his home. Gave us chairs and greeted us with warm handshakes. His name was James, and is 69! Living like that for a while now, likes to drink but he seemed very sober when we were with him. He was definitely all there. He has had an incredibly tough life, as his son, a great guy he tells us, hung himself when we was in his thirties. He never sees his kids, and has colon cancer and barely eats. Broke my heart. Such a friendly man with a huge heart for us even. He said that he didn’t want to talk to anybody and then all of a sudden, we came along, and he wanted to talk to us, and he said that he felt great! We are getting invited into what God is doing here in Duncan, and I get to be part of it! Our love for Jesus should have no confines of age or economic status. In fact, God says that he has a special place in his heart for the poor and I am hoping that I am developing a spot for them in my heart too. This is my favorite thing about New Life by far.

This week is my Old Testament class. Lots of work to be done. Lots of learning to be had, and I’m really excited about it. I have to understand the OT before I can understand fully the NT. Sometimes I feel though like I am not learning anything. Pray that I would be able to see things in a new light, with a new approach to them so that I can really learn as much as possible. Pray with thanksgiving about what God is letting me be part of, and ask him that I would experience more of that, and that in all of this, I would be able to see God’s guidance in my life for after Kaleo. Clearly this is something that I feel passionate about and am excited to see where God will take me with this. Pray that God would help me listen to him, and that I will soon be able to identify my shepherd’s voice.

This has been such a great week. So many thoughts and ideas running through my head, but sometimes I feel bogged down in work. I had to stop reading my Old Testament assigned reading since I was reading it like a textbook, not even reading it more like eyes skimming over words, and I did not take the time to carefully and lovingly respect the words enough to care what they said, so I stopped and handed in my reading assignment incomplete, which was hard for me. But I’d rather not read it that it to become a textbook for me. Besides if I had taken the time to actually do it, I would have missed out on meeting James. Totally worth it.

This was a great week, sorry for the long post, once again.....

Week Six Pictures

James, Matt, Me and Justin

View from lunch spot

Joel shreddin the gnar

Group huddle

Cathedral Grove

Lunch spot

Long Beach, Tofino

Roadside stop

Week Six

Well this has probably been the best week yet. We started off on Monday morning going to Tofino to go on our surfing trip. We stopped a couple times on the way up to see some cool sites. The first stop was in Cathedral Grove, which is a beautiful park containing trees up to 800 years old! It felt like I was an ant walking around in there, and am still blown away by the massive trees that I saw. Then we had a lunch stop by a cool waterfall where we all just threw logs over and took pictures and ate lunch. Finally we were on the road again and we made it to our destination, Ucluelet, where we would be staying for the meals and nights in a church. Once there, we all went down to a lighthouse on a point where I experienced the strongest winds I have ever felt before. You could actually lean a decent amount into the wind and you would be held up by it. The town itself was a pleasant place to stay, but that night was pretty low key since we weren't going surfing till the next day. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday we went surfing in Tofino! And it just so happened, that the O'Neil Coldwater Classic surf competition took place in the same spot and time that we were there. It was awesome watching some pros surf and then be able to surf the same beach that they did. I am totally hooked on surfing though. It was hard, harder than what I thought, but I got the hang of it and was riding some 6 foot waves. Can't wait to go back. The water didn't feel cold at all, since we were wearing full body wetsuits. As awesome as the surfing was, some of the best parts of this trip were the chapels that we had afterwards. Other Christians from the community of Ucluelet who had been part of this trip for the Kaleos almost every year came to worship with us and share with us. The chapels were again a time of crazy vulnerability and honesty and it really united us, to hear some really painful stories, and some really joyful stories. Ever week we get to know each other better and every week is just incredible. This week was no exception. Almost the whole week we had four guys who did Kaleo with us. Three of them did K5 and one of them did K3. They all went on to go to Briercrest after and it was great getting to know them and have them part of such an awesome week. This Kaleo community is really a family, not just for those in one year, but to everyone who has gone through this program. So the surfing was great fun, but also great time of growth.

Friday was my birthday, and it was one like no other. Around midnight on Thursday (going on to Friday) I was hanging out downstairs when my roomate Matthew asked me for a hand up in our room moving something. I went up, slightly suspicious, however no one was in the room when we entered it so I relaxed. Then when my back was turned, Trent and John, my other roomates jumped me and tied me up with my hands and feet tied together to my neck, then a pillow case was put on me and I was carried away. At this point I was just loosing it, laughing so hard and loving every minute of it. They carried me into the basement where my pillowcase was pulled off and everyone is around me with pillows and Nerf swords. Then in the midst of being pummelled by everyone, pirates of the carribean music starts pumping and someone tosses me a sword, which resulted in an epic sword duel between me and about twenty other people. One of the best birthdays that I've had and it was a blast. Later that day I had actually planned on sharing my testimony when as soon as chapel started, I knew that I shouldn't go. Another girl shared her story which was totally inspiring for me to not just be a Christian, but to fall in love with Jesus. I find myself asking myself, how is it that I have known God my entire life, but don't have a love for him quite like the one that was shared that day, where as she has only been a Christian for several months and is so deeply in love with Jesus, and everyone can see that. It challenged me and inspires me to really love Him more. That night at youth, we had our monthly worship night and it was pretty good. I met some kids who have never been there before and I hung out with them for the night, trying to make them feel welcome. I love the kids that I get to hang out with and I'm surprised at how other youth, like the sr. highs, who I don't really have very much contact with, are getting to know me and vice versa. On Saturday, Halloween, we went back to our church for their "trunk r treat" night, where people decorate the trunks of their cars and dress up and hand out candy out of the back of their cars in the church parking lot. We all dressed up, not very well as we got ready to go in less than 5 minutes since we were running a little late, but we tried to look like Narnia characters. We brought foam swords and had battles with little kids dressed as knights, Jedis, even doctors. It was a blast. I really like the church that I'm at! So many cool opportunites and ways to get involved. On Sunday, I tried something new at church. As many of you know, I have a bad habit of falling asleep in church. It's really not because I'm tired, who knows, maybe the same voice for 45 minutes just knocks me right out. Being sick of missing every sermon, I stood at the back for it, and it was great. I didn't fall asleep at all and I listened to and learned from the sermon. I will be doing this weekly. After church we went to an awesome house for lunch where I had one of the best meals that I've had in a long time, but not only was the food great, but the company was even better. It was a fairly young family, with two super energetic sons who were "all boy". We got along great. The dad, Edgar really had some great ideas about church, and his dreams of what it should be. He was hoping one day for a church, maybe through him maybe not through him, that represented every believer. Young, old, white, black, poor, homeless, middle class, rich, single, married, everything! This idea for me was cool because he pointed out that church that I know are pretty much middle class people and wealthier. This is so true. If we were able to have a church where all parts of the body were there, it would look a lot different, and would be a lot different.

Later Sunday night I joined New Life's young adults ministry in their homeless ministry. This was an incredible time, though its not what it may seem. Incredible meaning challenging and hard and frustrating and rewarding and good all at the same time. Starting off, Justin and I and two other girls not from Kaleo but New Life, went out on a prayer walk. Very early in we heard some people and decided to go over to them. From the start I could sense hostility from one man named Pete. The only other person there was a woman named Vivian. Pete asked us if we were Christians, and said that he could smell us coming, we had that odour about us. I have never seen and experienced anyone with so much hatred within him. It is so evident that Satan rules his life, and he even admitted to being best friends with Satan. He openly mocked Jesus and ridiculed us and the God that we believe in. I know that we experienced some spiritual warfare firsthand there. He was trying to interrupt and stop the good things that Vivian was saying, such as wanting to stop her alcohol addiction and the he tried to stop the girls from praying with her. It really makes it hard for me to love him. The verse that stuck out in my head the whole time was 1 Peter 4:14 and 16. "So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.... But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name!"

Please pray for this week ahead, as it's reading break and I'm just chilling out here at camp. Most people are here, only about 5 people or so have left, so I don't feel at loose ends or anything, but I do have a lot of work that has to be done this week and I'm kinda feeling pressure to get them done. Pray for deepened friendships that surprise me. Pray that I would totally fall in love with Jesus, and that God would really wake up my love for him. Pray for Pete too as he really needs Jesus. Pray that God would show my how to be effective in this homeless ministry as I so love it. Pray that as I am using the bible as my textbook it would not just become meaningless theology and doctrines but I would learn huge things, and the things that I learn would only enable me to love my God even more.

Thanks for checking in. See you next week.

Week Five

Well another week done. This week was our hermeneutics class with Merrill Dyck. I seriously don't have a lot to say about this week. This class was kinda tough to get through. I had hoped to really understand how to read the bible effectively and more intensely, but I feel as though I was just taught about the bible this week, and not as much about how to read it well. Regardless, I did learn a lot, and I think that it is so cool that my textbook this year is my bible. If I learned anything out of this class, it would be these notes that I wrote down:

Exegesis - what it takes, to get “good” at reading the bible

-a careful and loving reading of the test

-respects the detail enough to notice

-respects the words enough to get them right

-loving God enough to stop and listen carefully to what he says

-an act of sustained humility-not mastering the text but submitting to it and getting all the help we can to be formed by it

-disciplined to bridging gaps of time, location, language and culture - through careful study

-committed to responding to God’s word consistently to his intent

I am still really interested and dedicated to learn how to read this incredible book better and better. I have been surprised with the amount of school work that has to be done. This past week has consisted mostly of classes throughout the week, then homework after. Of course there are always crazy things going on that helps break up all the school work. In fact just a couple hours ago a bunch of us went slip n sliding down the hill in the rain then had a mudfight.

One thing that I am really excited about this week is that every morning before breakfast, Justin, our intern and I have started meeting together in the mornings to read and pray and just hang out with God together. I'm really hoping that these times will be times where I can learn from this man who I really respect and love spending time with. The coolest thing is that I was hoping to become more spiritually conscious this year, and not as physically conscious, and I find that I am instead of craving physically food, I am starting to crave my spiritual food. I really look forward to these times in the mornings and crave them. Another thing that really excites me is that me and my good friend Nate have decided to hold each other accountable and be dedicated to growing with each other as brothers in Christ. If you could pray for these times, with me and Justin and me and Nate, that they would be such awesome times of growth and community.

I did not go to youth group or church this weekend, but instead I was a counsellor for the Juniors retreat. I was teamed up with another counsellor who did CIT here at Qwanoes this past summer. He was a cool guy, but we had five guys in our cabin this weekend. I really find counselling exhausting but I did have a blast with the kids. They were actually asking us some really good questions that I enjoyed answering. I love the camp environment and the fun that goes along with it, but I just find it so exhausting.

Once again my young adults group went to Duncan tonight as part of the homeless ministry, and once again I really wanted to go to it, but I was swamped with homework as I was counselling all weekend. I'm really excited for the time that I can go to this ministry, hopefully next week.

This week has not been very eventful, and I'm wishing that I had more to report to you. Tomorrow, well actually later this morning, we will be leaving for Tofino to go surfing! So excited.

Thanks for checking in.

Week Four Pictures

Tight squeeze

Nate loving it

Hockey

The Men

One of our daily fooze battles

Week Four

Well there was a change of plans this week. After thanksgiving last weekend, we were supposed to go surfing in Tofino for three days, however this was not meant to be. The trip was postponed due to bad weather. We were supposed to be going camping while surfing, so it would not be much fun being wet and cold all day surfing and then returning to camp and being wet and cold for the night too. We will now be going surfing after this week of classes. So sure enough, today has actually been the first day without rain in about a week. This is my first taste of the west coast winter I think.

Not willing to let the elements control our week, on Tuesday we all went caving in the Horne Lake caves. It was a blast. Having done a lot of caving in Orangeville, I always enjoy going underground through the tight rock tunnels. These caves were incredible though, way better than any other caves I've been in. After that we went to a market place called Coombs, then finished the day with several hours at the Nanimo pool. Its amazing how much fun the simplest of events can be when surrounded by good company. I'm reminded by 1 Corinthians 15:33 that says, "bad company corrupts good character". I know the opposite to be true too. It is incredibly beautiful and exciting watching this community take shape. We've had a lot more free time this week due to the fact that our trip was cancelled, but as a result we have had some amazing chapels where several people have shared their stories and have really set the tone of being honest and open right from day one. A sense a large amount of trust between people here, and I have seen the truth of the fact that "as iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend". Jim described this place on the first day as a rock tumbler, and we definitely are grinding each other down to perfection. Please pray with me for this community. I thank God because I feel like this is the type of community that God has in mind for us. A community of openness, love, encouragement, discipline, laughter, support, correction, forgiveness and compassion.

Here's a taste of some things that happened this week in our community. From Thursday lunch to Friday lunch the girls and guys separated for their time called DTG, ditch the girls or ditch the guys. I can only talk about my experience of this time, but it was amazing. Such a good time of fun with the guys. We rented an arena and played a good game of ice hockey, followed by a game of ultimate frisbee and grounders in a nearby park. We retreated back to Jim's house (our leader) for a manly meal of steak and fries and ice cream. These were good times, but the best part for me was the part later on in the night when we all got together, along with four women from around the camp to ask them anything our hearts desired. We had a lot of fun I think doing this, but our questions had definite purpose: we wanted to know what it meant to be a godly guy, and what a godly woman looks like and how we can be godly men. Jim and even the girls were telling us how desperate the church is for godly men these days, and I believe it. Please pray for all of the guys here at Kaleo, that we would grow into godly men, men who are confidant in Christ and not afraid to take a stand for Him, men that are leaders in their relationships, and in the church and in their communities. Also that we would have opportunities to develop into godly men. After we came back from Jim's house, as we slept there and had a great waffle breakfast in the morning, we entered our rooms and to our great surprise, we found that our rooms were spotless! Not how we left them! It turns out that as we were out, some of the girls decided to "prank us" and clean our rooms. Funny how we were talking about women's roles the night before........ just kidding! Also posted on our doors were notes of encouragement to each of the guys from the girls. It was so encouraging. Truly this is community as God intended it. I developing a huge heart for my brothers and sisters here.

On Friday night we had youth group. It was "Fruit Night" for me and the Jr. High group. I was skeptical at first of how we could spend a whole night playing fruity games, but I am constantly surprised by this youth group. We had a blast. I am really loving the kids that I am involved with. This week was particularily great because I got to lead the small group that had a bunch of grade 8 guys that I really enjoy. They are CRAZY! So wild and off the wall, but I love them! They have embraced me and I have done the same. I enjoyed having a lot of fun with them, but also the fact that I can be an example to them as someone older that follows Christ. I really hope that my life would be inspiring to them. Please pray for these guys, and for my role with them. I never really know what my position is every week at youth. The first week I was with a group of grade 7 guys with another leader, who was the known leader, and I just helped him out. The week after that, I guided the grade 8 guys around Duncan, handing out cookies, and then this past week I led the grade 8 guys group. I really want to stay with these guys, even though I am supposed to be with the grade sevens. I am so happy when I think of what I can be part of. This is all new for me, having to join a new church and be part of it. I feel that there is no greater way of doing this than through serving. On Sunday after church, as usual our church group went out for lunch to someone's house. This Sunday we went to a couple's house whose son was a worship leader at the church. There was 12 of us, the couple, their son and his wife and their two small kids, and then all of the Kaleos who go to New Life. It was a great meal, great conversation, but my favourite part of the Sunday was when Justin and I played soccer with Rebecca and Micah, the two kids probably aged 6 and 8. I think that I can understand Jesus' love for children after playing with these kids. It brought me so much joy to see their smiles and hear their laughter. Later that night, a bunch of Kaleos went to the homeless ministry that New Life's young adults program offers. I really wanted to go to this, but I just had way to much work to do. Its hard sacrificing things that I really want to do, to do school work. It makes me wonder, what is better, to write a paper about what Proverbs says about the heart, or to go out onto the streets with people that want to share their hearts with me.

Today was the first day of Hermeneutics class. It was long. It was slow. But I know that it is important. A wise man once said to me, "The mind can only absorb what the butt can endure" and I was beginning to wonder how much my mind was absorbing. Please pray for me, as I really feel that this is the stuff that I need to learn and learn well. This is going to be a challenging week but I guess those can be the times that we grow the most. My goal is to spend solid one on one time with every prof that comes here to Kaleo. I started that last course and I'm thinking of things to ask Merrill, the prof for hermeneutics.

I'm starting to be intentional with spending time with God, in the mornings giving Him the first part of my day. Its such a peaceful time of the day and I find that it really helps me meditate on God throughout the day. I think that I am going to start reading with someone else too, trying to read the bible like it was originally used back before the days of the printing press. I am going to be working this weekend as a counselor for the Jr. High retreat. Please pray for this weekend, for my kids that I will be spending all weekend with. Prepare their hearts and mine for what can happen this weekend. Also pray for me as I have a paper due soon, and I don't know how much work I will be able to do this weekend, probably none.

Thanks again! See you in a week.

Week Three Pictures

Being up on the mainstays

Matthew, Nate and I on Saltspring Island

Beach at Pender Island

The sister ship of the Pacific Grace

The Pacific Grace

The Pacific Grace

Anchored at sunset

The Crew

Birds eye view

Bunch of Scalleywags

Peter Pan

Offshore adventure

Up on the topmast

Week Three

So this past week was one like no other. We were all aboard a 140 foot ocean schooner, called the Pacific Grace for five days, where we (under the direction of 6 crew members) sailed the ship. It was incredible. I totally felt like a pirate, and it fulfilled my childhood dream of being Peter Pan. We arrived in the Victoria harbour on Monday morning and there was our ship, in all its glory. I don't feel like I can even do justice to this past week by writing about it, it's definitely something that needs to be experienced. We had a couple windy days where the sails were up and the boat was completely off axis as we cut through the ocean. Over the week, we had lessons and at the end of the week we took a test to become Jr. Sailors. It was through an organization called SALTS, meaning Sail And Life Training Society, where they have two ships run out of Victoria.

Let me go into more detail about this past week. All of the guys were in the hold, and it was a bit tight. Fine by me though, I loved the feeling of not having a lot of things, just a sleeping bag and a couple extra clothes. Thats pretty much all the room that we were able to have down there. My bunk kinda felt like an oversized coffin, with about 8 inches from my face to the ceiling, really awesome feeling. The food was incredible. They went all out. Fresh bread was made from scratch for pretty much every meal, and to be honest, there was no meal that I didn't enjoy. Everything from fresh cinnamon buns to greek pitas, to thai peanut wraps rolls to spaghetti and meatballs. The food was a huge bonus. A couple times the whole crew would take the little dories out to the land, and that alone was an adventure. Cramming about 12 people into a dory that makes you constantly question if you will make it to land dry or drenched leads to a lot of screaming girls and a lot of close calls. Every night on the boat, we would all play a game on the deck which would always be a riot, then we would all cram downstairs in the hold and belt out songs led by a couple of guitars. After the singing we would have some really good chapels where I really felt our whole group coming together even tighter, it was a good time of raw honesty. My favourite thing about being on the ship was the times that I spent climbing the schrouds, which are the rope ladder type things on the sides of the ship. I love climbing and I love heights, so this was awesome, being 100 feet above the deck of the ship and the ocean, just looking out over the ocean and seeing massive mountains in the distance. Who wouldn't feel like Peter Pan up there? We also set up a ropeswing off the side of the ship when we were anchored in a quaint little harbour outside of Victoria. We were really blessed with beautiful weather. Not one day of rain, everyday was warm and sunny. Blue skies which led to gorgeous sunsets of red, orange and purple. The cool thing about this trip was that I was a part of the entire experience, we weren't being guided around, but we were swabbing the deck at 7 in the morning, watching the sun rise, and we were the ones panting heavy after raising 7 sails, and we were the ones steering the ship and doing dishes. The crew really made this trip a stellar time. All of the staff of SALTS are Christians so we had some awesome conversations and it was cool to see possible amazing jobs that are still a huge missions field, since they often take school trips our and other trips around the world. This ship went to Japan and Papa New Guinea recently. Part of our duties were to be on nightwatch, which was super cool to wake up in the middle of the night and along with someone else, hang out ontop of the ship. It was such a peaceful time and really quiet. The stars were always amazing and it perfectly allowed really deep conversations. Aboard the boat, I was trying to read passages in the bible about the ocean and being in a boat. Two passages that I read were the stories where Jesus calmed the storm when all the disciples were scared and the one where Jesus walks on water out to the disciples. In these two passages, I really felt like Jesus was asking me, "Where is your faith?" Going on what I said about last week, about how I was being very one-sided in my approach to growing with God, I felt like I needed to stop all of my expectations, and just focus of spending time with God, and not force my own growth. He will do what he intends and what is best.

So coming back from SALTS, feeling that I want to do it again and thinking about volunteering there for this summer actually, we rushed straight to youth group. This was a great week. I'm really feeling like I'm getting into the group and I know people's names and they know mine. We actually had a blast. I took a group of about 11 crazy twelve and thirteen year olds out in Duncan and we handed out premade cookies to everyone and anyone, as just an act of love. It was so funny, watching 11 super hyper kids run and swarm around people shoving cookies in their faces screaming "TAKE OUR FREE COOKIES!!" I totally wouldn't take them if I was out and they came up to me. I feel that every week just gets better at that youth group.

Well this is the first Thanksgiving that I am away from home. On Saturday morning, Me and two friends we on a ferry to Saltspring Island and hung out at a market before catching another ferry on the other side of the island to Pender Island where one of my friends has grandparents. We went there, had an incredible thanksgiving dinner, and then the next day just hung out in Pender. Not a whole lot to do, went to some beaches and then we took a ferry to Victoria where I am now, staying with one of Matthew's friends. We need to get back to camp and do some homework, as this is still school. (Best school ever....)

Thanks for reading this blog, and I hope that you will get a real good sense of what I'm up to this year. Please pray for a girl in Kaleo, as she is starting to feel the symptoms of Potts syndrome that she was very sick with a couple years ago, and now it is starting to come back. Please pray that God would give me new eyes as well, to things past myself, as I'm so often concerned with my own needs. I want to see people and opprotunites as Jesus would. There's nothing that I feel that screams that I need prayer for though. I always appreciate that you pray for me as I know that you are, for some of the things I brought up last week, for our Kaleo group in general, that we would be able to be a HUGE light in the community, even though we are kind of in a bubble at camp, and also for our Hermenutics class coming up in a week. This stuff if pretty heavy and I want to really learn how to read the good book well and correctly, its kind of hard to get into my brain, so maybe pray that the prof would have really good explainations and patience.

Thats all for now.

Week Two

Well another week has come and gone, this one much different from the last. This was a class week where we did not go out on any trips but had our first class of the year. The class was Spiritual Formations, taught by Marv Penner. This was an awesome class! It is funny how excited all of us were to go to class and it was very interesting to listen to. I would say that this is the perfect class to have at the beginning of the year, since I think it will really kickstart our year of intense growth. The course focused a lot on spiritual disciplines, such as fasting, prayer, journaling, solitude, celebration and about a dozen or so others. This class had a very personal feel about it, not like we were in bible school, but almost as if we were studying the bible as a large group. At the beginning of the week we chose a spot around camp that would be our "sanctuary" or the place we would go to meet with God. I went down to the beach and sat on a very large piece of driftwood. In our class we would learn something, then have a chance to practice it, such as praying the psalms, then we would go to our sanctuaries and pray one of the psalms. In the middle of the week, I was having a really difficult time in the class, just because I felt as though I was in a very awkward stage in my relationship with God. I felt like I didn't know a lot of the answers about my faith that I really should know. I was also having major questions about my spiritual growth, that seemed non-existant, so one night I went over to the guest house and hung out with Marv and we just talked for a couple of hours. He really helped me through some questions. I told him that when I was meeting with God, I really didn't feel very nourished. He told me that when I came here and did CIT two years ago, I learned a lot really quickly, but things that grow quickly don't really have very deep roots. Here, I have a whole year to let my roots grow deep, but it will take time. He said that that summer, I was given spiritual milk, and it was perfect for that time in my life and it definatly filled me and nourished me. I have felt though that over this past year, I had been coasting on what I learned two summers ago, and that I have not really been growing or challenged since CIT. What he said next really encouraged me. He said that I am now ready for meat. I now need more solid things to fill me and to nourish me, and I am really excited for that, except that I don't know how to eat meat. I'm not sure how to read the bible and study it in a way that digs deep into the word. This is something that I need prayer for. Please pray that I would learn how to eat this spiritual meat, and that I would not be discouraged in the time when I am learning this. At the end of our class, we did a solo time where we spent three hours with God, putting into practice some of the spiritual disciplines we had learned over the week. I came into this time with expectations, which I regret, and wish that I could have just entered this time looking forward to spending time hanging out with God. Instead I was really looking as to how God would speak to me and trying to hear what he was saying. I did not feel as though I heard God speaking to me, and maybe that is because of my expectations coming before him. All in all, I am inspired to learn more and spend more intentional time with God.

My church group went to another house for lunch after church today. Thats probably the best part of New Life. I really enjoy meeting people in the community. I found the place we went to a little bit difficult to form conversation, but they were very generous and genuinely interested in us. On Friday, we went again to youth group. It was a fun time where I could get to know the guys in my small group better. Last week felt a little awkward, but this week we had a lot of fun. We know each others names and I think that this will be a really good, fun year in youth. I hope that my small group guys will be inspired by me. I am getting to know more and more people in the church. It is a unique feeling having to get to know people in a church, but I know that I will be in a similar situation many times over the years. Going to the same church all my life, I never feel like I need to be part of it, because I have been for as long as I can remember, but now hopefully I can see what it means to be new to a church and need people to take in interest in me. This situation will probably change me to see newcomers differently.

This week has been a lot of fun. There haven't been many pictures taken around here, so I don't have any to show you but we've had a lot of fun times skateboarding, "Kaleo's Best Dance Crew" night, good guitar playing and singing, fight couch, birthday party, foosball, created our own chapel services, bonfires and late night picnics. Tomorrow, we are all going on our S.A.L.T.S trip, which is five days on the high seas on a 140 foot ocean schooner, where we are the crew and we live on the ship. There will definitely be some amazing pictures from this trip. Some of us are all dressing up as pirates. So beware, if you are planning on sailing through the Gulf Islands this week....

Pictures

Thought I'd post some pictures of the past two weeks. Enjoy

Justin, Jon and I going swimming after church on Sunday

Our fearless leader Jim, and the view from the mountain.

This is our church group outside of a house we visited on Sunday

This is the group of Kaleo students who attend New Life Church

All of us at the summit of Mount Albert Edward

My hiking group

View of the mountain from our lunch spot

For more pictures and movies, check out kaleoseven.blogspot.com