hi! wow, ok, i know i PROMISED that i would blog like 2 weeks ago, but alas, our laptop has seizures, i swear. and then we can never get on. so currently i'm on the internet at the hostel we're staying at right now. ok, let me back up a bit...
Sylvan Lake... last week we had Blaine Greiner as our speaker. he was awesome! he talked on relationships and it was really great! and part of his teaching was practical team building stuff, so we did an encouragement night where we all shared the things we love about each other and a prayer night where we all shared things we were dealing with and a floor hockey tourney! i loved the hockey. brought me right back to gr. 11 PE class with all those psycho boys! i was so stoked! so excited in fact, that i do believe that I (yes, i know, hard to believe that gentle, mild Janelle could ever have an agressive bone in her ;)) may have bodychecked a few of my fellow peers hard core into the boards. ouch. but we were all ok! it was so much fun. and then we drove 9 hours to Sicamous (me and the other BC peeps spent so long trying to convince the team that yes, it IS pronouced "sick-a-moose" and not "sick-a-miss") which just happens to be the houseboat capital of canada (cool hey?) and got on 2 boats: the Sunset Drifter and the Ship of Dreams. Get this: TV, DVD player, Play Station 2, hot tubs, 2 bathrooms with showers, a complete kitchen, and beds in rooms for all of us ... on each boat! i think i watched a good 17 hours worth of movies and "Alias" that weekend.
*side note (esp for Christa, Lynz, Kelly, Bekah, and Bree): "Alias" is the "Stargate SG-1" of back home for a few of us. it's AMAZING! this one girl here has the first 2 seasons and we watch usually an episode a night! ahh! we're not addicted :)*
anyway, so it was awesome. there were these amazing waterfalls that we hiked to and all that jazz. and wow, so beautiful. we had a day of silence where we were sent on to the mainland and couldn't talk to anyone. it was good, but i didn't really feel like much was accomplished. it was only a 6 hour silence because of our schedule, but it was still good. we'll have more of those days to come that'll be the whole day.
then we drove to Hope to Camp Kawkawa which is where Site 3 (South Africa) is for the fall, and our male team leader's fiance is one of their girls leader's fiance. whew, that sentence was trippy to write. lol. and yah! so kawkawa for only like 4 hours. i bouldered around in their climbing wall room which rocked. and then 3 hours to Vancouver and we've been staying in (drumroll please) the Ivanhoe! hahaha! it's actually NOT that bad at all. not that divey. oh, except the men here (not our guys, the other residents) always use the girl's bathroom, so us girls always have to stand look out for one another.
we've been working this week with YWAM. it's been SO great! for the first day we lived on the streets and hung out with people and ate at a soup kitchen. i told my friends that my Uncle John (Affleck) worked at the Union Gospel Mission and they went in there and talked to him and ended up vollunteering! cool hey? it was funny cuz i got my meal from the UGM that day and when i got to the front and Karis and Tabitha passed me my muffin and bread i was like "wha?" and laughed. it was sweet. then on Tuesday we cleaned up garbage onthe streets. gosh, my time is almost up, but i'll try to put as much as i can down.
we met these 3 native guys and took them out for mc donald's. then these 2 others showed up so we bought them food too. and we spend almost 2 hours with them! it was awesome! they were so cool! and just so real and open and honest and fun. i'll write more later, or ask me in person :)
then last night we did a prayer walk and handed out roses to prostitutes. that was harsh. so many of the girls are SO young and they are all so skinny and look so desperate and sick and... gah, it was hard. again, more later.
yesterday morn we had some time off so we skytrained it to metrotown to shop. wohoo! so many of the girls here are using their student loans for spending money. lol, it's kind of funny, but it might hit them hard later. one girl has given me her debit card and said that i have to "approve" all her purchases. but really, i have no power. she's like "Janel (rhymes with "anal" .. just because. we all have nicknames), i really really love this hat" and i'm like "Xena (real name is CHristine, but there's another Kristine with us), you can't afford it. and you've already got one like it." and then she tells me to shove it and hand over her card or she'll beat me up. so i give it over, because she played rugby AND was a wrestler! lol. it's awesome.
today we did a temple tour, just like the one we do in Christian perspectives at school. we did Buddhist, Muslim, and Sikh. it was pretty nifty :)
what else? tomorrow is PMG (Peer mentoring group... 4 of us in groups that meet every week to hang out and pray and whatev) day and so me, Xena, Pan (Raeanne) and Julia are hanging out from 10-6. it's a surpise what we're doing. it'd be nice to go to Stanley Park or Granville Island tho, but we may have an assignment to do, so we'll see how it goes.
and THEN... i'm coming home for the weekend! no joke! my friend Jo is dropping me off at one of the exits on the way to Chilliwack and i'll be home until early Monday morn. so call me! let's hang out! all of you! i really must go, but i can't wait to see you guys this weekend. things are good. peace to all!
J