i feel so bad for this kid....
a bunch of the gr.7/8 kids went on a trip to Detroit this morning, and come back tomorrow. i heard that the trip costs about $880.
one kid wanted to go. he has a sister from a different mother, i think, and he's like:
"my sister's going, cause her mom's paying for her... i can't go, cause my dad's cheap!"
poor kid... no pun intended!!!.. i swear!!!!
i did NOT mean to do that intentionally....
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Finch Ave....from McCowan Rd. to Jane St
week 2...
sooo last friday we went downtown to one of the salvation army locations... located on Queen St. east of Eaton's Centre... and there we hung out with some homeless people, bringing with us juice, and friendliness. there we met some of the homeless people that stayed at the Salvation Army shelter, some of the guys we met weren't actually homeless, but were staying at the shelter cause they were on different addiction programs... where they would stay at the shelter for however long the program was, and would go thru different activities and whatnot, helping them deal with drug, or alcohol addictions and such.
one of the guy's i met was from guyana, and he was separated from his family and didnt keep in touch. he was about 30-40, and lived by himself at yonge and st.clair or something, and was attending this program to help him get rid of his former drug addictions. he attended the program, and he actually learned about christianity, and accepted Christ about a month ago
... it was interesting, cause he was really passionate about serving God, and he was actually telling me he was thinking about going to bible college to become a pastor.. so i told him to look up tyndale and such...
we were able to bring one of the jr. high youth to join us downtown, so it was a good experience, bringing one of the boys, Enoch, downtown with us to just hang out and kinda mentor him, while reaching out to the homeless.
on saturday, we brought a couple other of the boys downtown to play ball. we took Godwin, Jerome, Jevaughn, and Rashawn down to an outdoor court at harbourfront, and we were also able to play ball inside at the waterfront community centre, which was really cool. it was a good time mentoring them and just building relationships with these jr. high kids, and letting them experience the world outside of jane and finch. we also met these 2 asian kids, recently from taiwan, who live in scarborough. this one guy who goes to Birchmount, was only in gr.10 but he was a pretty tall guard, who was doing all these Hot Sauce/AND1 moves, who actually did the moves pretty well, he actually asked me to play 1 on 1, and i learned later that he did that to record his moves for his mixtape that he was making... unfortunately for him, he didnt trick me, and he didnt win either :P LOL. but he apparently went to TCCC (my church) a couple times, and he asked me for my email address, so i dunno, he might contact me. john knight was able to talk to the other guy, named jason who goes to sir john a. macdonald, and was able to minister to him, as he was a church goer, who didnt really believe in Jesus, but had a lot of questions. so that was a cool trip downtown. those kids are hilarious.... "APPLES SUCK!" lol
on sunday, we had church service... again the worship is amazing. wow. i heard the sr. pastor for the first time, and he was pretty good. they had communion, and it was interesting how they did it, it was a bit different then how i've done it at my church, but interesting... after service, us young adults we hosted a community lunch at the senior's home next door, so we opened it up to any of the seniors to come join us for lunch. it was a really good time of just getting to know some of the seniors, talking to them, loving them, getting to know them, eating and fellowshiping with them, and just hearing all the things they have to share. the turn out was pretty good, and most of them had a good time. i got some contacts of some of them, so im gonna try to visit them every now and then during the summer, and see how things are goin with them.
after lunch and clean up, i relaxed for a bit at my j&f home, before going back to Scarborough, and eating dinner with my family. i was able to join campus challenge for a bit of the night, joining their worship service and hearing Jesse share, and able to join the rest of the Laurier family at university time. the rest of the night was just filled with chilling and seeing some old friends, and fireworks, hide and seek, i spy, and the rest of em.
anyway, tuesday... the first day back for this week, i just woke up more sick than before... just coughing a lot more, and just a constant runny nose. very annoying.... today we held a bible study at the York University campus, at one of the residences there. we were joined by 4 other york students, 3 of them from campus for christ, and we just had a good discussion/bible study about non-violence, and the passage about 'an eye for an eye' and how our culture and society is all about revenge, or the whole 'if you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours' mentality....
later that afternoon, during afterschool program, i was working with terrence again. this time, he was a bit more patient, and accepted my help. we got thru a lot of fraction addition and subtraction questions, and i even taught him how to make the multiplication table, as he didnt know how before, and im not even joking, but after the session, he said 'i love math... it's one of my favourite subjects' tho i doubt he'll be saying that for long.. hahaha. but it was awesome and encouraging to hear that he learned a lot today, and it helped him in understanding math, and how he said adding fractions is easy now, after saying he hated them with a passion on thursday.
random note: there's this girl ashley in the afterschool program, and i thot she was one of the helpers, cause she's about my height, 5'8, and i thot she was in gr.10 or 11 or something, helping out with the kids, and today she told me that she was in gr.6. dang she towers over all the kids. all the gr.6 and 7 boys are tiny. hahahaha kids these days....
oh and maybe it's cause im not used to hearing this, but im learning from so many of these kids, that they have multiple homes... because of separated parents.... step parents here and there, siblings with different parents..... and this is with so many of these kids... what a culture difference. i learned that marlon has a home in the building next to mine, and also one in brampton with his real father, and the court recently told him he has to go there every weekend. and i also learned that jevaughn has never seen his father, ever... wow. how do these kids do it?
anyway if you could, please pray for me...
God bless
sooo last friday we went downtown to one of the salvation army locations... located on Queen St. east of Eaton's Centre... and there we hung out with some homeless people, bringing with us juice, and friendliness. there we met some of the homeless people that stayed at the Salvation Army shelter, some of the guys we met weren't actually homeless, but were staying at the shelter cause they were on different addiction programs... where they would stay at the shelter for however long the program was, and would go thru different activities and whatnot, helping them deal with drug, or alcohol addictions and such.
one of the guy's i met was from guyana, and he was separated from his family and didnt keep in touch. he was about 30-40, and lived by himself at yonge and st.clair or something, and was attending this program to help him get rid of his former drug addictions. he attended the program, and he actually learned about christianity, and accepted Christ about a month ago
... it was interesting, cause he was really passionate about serving God, and he was actually telling me he was thinking about going to bible college to become a pastor.. so i told him to look up tyndale and such...
we were able to bring one of the jr. high youth to join us downtown, so it was a good experience, bringing one of the boys, Enoch, downtown with us to just hang out and kinda mentor him, while reaching out to the homeless.
on saturday, we brought a couple other of the boys downtown to play ball. we took Godwin, Jerome, Jevaughn, and Rashawn down to an outdoor court at harbourfront, and we were also able to play ball inside at the waterfront community centre, which was really cool. it was a good time mentoring them and just building relationships with these jr. high kids, and letting them experience the world outside of jane and finch. we also met these 2 asian kids, recently from taiwan, who live in scarborough. this one guy who goes to Birchmount, was only in gr.10 but he was a pretty tall guard, who was doing all these Hot Sauce/AND1 moves, who actually did the moves pretty well, he actually asked me to play 1 on 1, and i learned later that he did that to record his moves for his mixtape that he was making... unfortunately for him, he didnt trick me, and he didnt win either :P LOL. but he apparently went to TCCC (my church) a couple times, and he asked me for my email address, so i dunno, he might contact me. john knight was able to talk to the other guy, named jason who goes to sir john a. macdonald, and was able to minister to him, as he was a church goer, who didnt really believe in Jesus, but had a lot of questions. so that was a cool trip downtown. those kids are hilarious.... "APPLES SUCK!" lol
on sunday, we had church service... again the worship is amazing. wow. i heard the sr. pastor for the first time, and he was pretty good. they had communion, and it was interesting how they did it, it was a bit different then how i've done it at my church, but interesting... after service, us young adults we hosted a community lunch at the senior's home next door, so we opened it up to any of the seniors to come join us for lunch. it was a really good time of just getting to know some of the seniors, talking to them, loving them, getting to know them, eating and fellowshiping with them, and just hearing all the things they have to share. the turn out was pretty good, and most of them had a good time. i got some contacts of some of them, so im gonna try to visit them every now and then during the summer, and see how things are goin with them.
after lunch and clean up, i relaxed for a bit at my j&f home, before going back to Scarborough, and eating dinner with my family. i was able to join campus challenge for a bit of the night, joining their worship service and hearing Jesse share, and able to join the rest of the Laurier family at university time. the rest of the night was just filled with chilling and seeing some old friends, and fireworks, hide and seek, i spy, and the rest of em.
anyway, tuesday... the first day back for this week, i just woke up more sick than before... just coughing a lot more, and just a constant runny nose. very annoying.... today we held a bible study at the York University campus, at one of the residences there. we were joined by 4 other york students, 3 of them from campus for christ, and we just had a good discussion/bible study about non-violence, and the passage about 'an eye for an eye' and how our culture and society is all about revenge, or the whole 'if you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours' mentality....
later that afternoon, during afterschool program, i was working with terrence again. this time, he was a bit more patient, and accepted my help. we got thru a lot of fraction addition and subtraction questions, and i even taught him how to make the multiplication table, as he didnt know how before, and im not even joking, but after the session, he said 'i love math... it's one of my favourite subjects' tho i doubt he'll be saying that for long.. hahaha. but it was awesome and encouraging to hear that he learned a lot today, and it helped him in understanding math, and how he said adding fractions is easy now, after saying he hated them with a passion on thursday.
random note: there's this girl ashley in the afterschool program, and i thot she was one of the helpers, cause she's about my height, 5'8, and i thot she was in gr.10 or 11 or something, helping out with the kids, and today she told me that she was in gr.6. dang she towers over all the kids. all the gr.6 and 7 boys are tiny. hahahaha kids these days....
oh and maybe it's cause im not used to hearing this, but im learning from so many of these kids, that they have multiple homes... because of separated parents.... step parents here and there, siblings with different parents..... and this is with so many of these kids... what a culture difference. i learned that marlon has a home in the building next to mine, and also one in brampton with his real father, and the court recently told him he has to go there every weekend. and i also learned that jevaughn has never seen his father, ever... wow. how do these kids do it?
anyway if you could, please pray for me...
- i am officially sick. coughing like crazy, and my nose will not stop running. (i am wiping my nose as i am typing this...)
- continue to be able to reflect Jesus and be able to show Godliness as we interact with the kids, seniors, people in the community
- ..that i truly dedicate my summer to God and this ministry
- that i keep up with my devotions and spend a good significant time with God
- that i can keep up with my online course that im taking for university, over the summer
God bless
Friday, May 16, 2008
it's the hardknock life...
soooo it's been about a week now since i first came here...
i'm already starting to feel at home here, again, the young adults group, the interns, the church staff, and all the people inbetween, are sooo welcoming, and have all been so amazing to me.
i went to the Christian Centre Church service on sunday, and it was pretty awesome.
the worship team is amazing... it's like gospel Hillsong with some like kinda carribean/exotic flavour.... haha there was just a drummer, keyboard, and bongo's, and singers.... like kinda soulful women singers, and the lead singer was awesome too.... good worship leader... and she'd always say Hallelujah! hahahaha, but it was awesome, and the children's pastor was preaching that sunday about mother's day, but overall it was a really good service. Very charismatic, very lively... really positive, cultural, spirited vibe in the congregation. it was really different from the chinese christian churches.... automatically, you can compare kinda how conservative we usually are, well at my church at least.
after church, they always have 'soulfood' which is just a lunch at john knight's house for anyone after service... so it's really good fellowship, really good conversations and stuff, i've met so many people it;'s so hard to keep track. and again everyone is from different parts of the world! one guy i met was from stratford, there are some girls from ghana, asha's from bermuda, chris the sick drummer is from the bahamas, audrey is from vancouver, jessie is from perry sound, john;s from oshawa, yohan is from bombay, pastor olu is from new york, sarah's from st. catherines... i dont know.. everyone's from everywhere, but then we';re all brought together... it's a pretty cool thing.
anyway, these past few days, we've been really really working with the kids... like the jr. high kids. so my schedule for the past week has been....
in the morning....
- we meet together, but have some individual time of prayer and meditation
- then come together and pray together and share prayer requests
- then we do some admin stuff, do random stuff that needs to be done... like some planning, errands, etc...
- then we all eat lunch together
- afterward, we do a bible study with just us interns, we've been doing 1 Samuel so far....
- then we prepare for afterschool program, and on tuesday we went to go hang out with some of the low income senior people that live next door.
- then we run the afterschool program that consists of some basketball, and like a homework club, so like a chunk of time where the kids do their homework... but it's not as easy as this... i'll share more about an interesting story that happened to me today
- afterschool program ends at around 6, then we usually walk some of them home, or cook dinner, then dinner, then on tuesday i had a night off, wednesday i tutored a highschool kid in gr.11 math (lol, me of all people, tutoring...MATH?!?!?! ...yeah i know...)
- on thursdays we run a basketball houseleague program for the youth at the jr. high next door.
but ok, so here's some stories....
so there's this cool kid named marlin. he kinda looks like yung joc. hahaa but he's a cool kid. he's in gr.7, and i walked him home yesterday, he lives in the building next to me. i think there's a really good mentoring opportunity right there.... he just had a rough incident yesterday where he beat up a kid cause another kid said something really offensive... anyway, i was just talking to him, and he just randomly asks me...
m: can you fight?
j: ...ummmm... why do you ask?
m: you have to be able to fight! if you're black, you have to, to survive here....
he asked me where i'm from, and i said scarborough, and he's like...'yo, they're all soft there...." and he's right. it's true... scarborough is soooo soft compared to the people here. i never really feel scared in scarborough... but it's different here... it really is...
another story.... today pastor olu asked me to do something with him,.... so we went to mississauga this afternoon to pick up some mattresses/boxsprings from some warehouse that provides free mattresses (with government policies, permission) to some government subsidized homes, so we were getting some for some lady in the community that doesnt go to church, but i think one of her kids goes to the afterschool program... but anyway, after bringing the mattresses to her home, like, it was such a huge contrast. it was honestly the worst conditioned house i've ever been inside. (i'm not trying to make fun of, or complain, but im just tryna give a description of it, and give you a better understanding of it, and how people really live there) the front door was broken first of all, and when you go in, there's a big stench... the walls have no distinct colour, as everything is soo worn down, and there are rips in the wallpaper, or the paint on the walls is coming off, and there's some writing on the walls, i went upstairs to move a mattress, and the railing on the stairs isn't even secure on the wall, so the railing is completely uesless, the floors were pretty gross, the rooms were pretty filthy and just the flooring and walls were in terrible condition... and there was a family with 2 little kids living there, and i just felt sooo bad. like we are sooo blessed and so fortunate.... we live in luxury, but there are people that live in such terrible conditions. when we removed one of the mattresses, i noticed how badly worn down the previous mattress was.... there were rips everywhere, it wasnt really a solid piece.... and it reeked of urine. it was terrible. it was definitely an eye opener, to some of the terrible conditioned homes there really are in toronto, and in this jane and finch community...
another story, today during homework club, i was helping a bunch of guys do their homework, and one guy, terrence, just would NOT do it, he said he hated math so much, and he didnt do anything, so i kept telling him to do some homework and he wouldnt... after asking him more times then he would say, OK FINE, but then just start copying down the answers from the back of the textbook... it was very difficult, but like after trying many many more times to get him to do homework, he like blew up at me, and like threw a chair.... and he got really mad at me, saying that i wouldn;t leave him alone, and i couldn't tell him to do homework, and i couldn't keep him there and stuff... all i was doing was just being there to help him with his homework and to get him to try and do some homework..... it was really difficult...
anyway, i'm really tired, long day... so i will probably end it here, but...
prayer requests:
- continual health and safety... i think im getting sick or something... i'm coughing here and there
- the kids/youth, that God remove the callices of their heart, and be more sensitive and receptive to hear God
- that me, and the rest of the team of interns, be transparent, and that God's glory, and love can be shown through us, and we can be reflections of Him.
- for God to remove social barriers whenever we interact with people.... it's socially unnatural for us humans to just approach people we don't know, and just love them... so for God to work in us to be able to do that and have compassion for people, and just approach people...
i think that's it. thanks for reading! please feel free to leave me a comment, or anything... i'd love to know who's reading this!
God bless
i'm already starting to feel at home here, again, the young adults group, the interns, the church staff, and all the people inbetween, are sooo welcoming, and have all been so amazing to me.
i went to the Christian Centre Church service on sunday, and it was pretty awesome.
the worship team is amazing... it's like gospel Hillsong with some like kinda carribean/exotic flavour.... haha there was just a drummer, keyboard, and bongo's, and singers.... like kinda soulful women singers, and the lead singer was awesome too.... good worship leader... and she'd always say Hallelujah! hahahaha, but it was awesome, and the children's pastor was preaching that sunday about mother's day, but overall it was a really good service. Very charismatic, very lively... really positive, cultural, spirited vibe in the congregation. it was really different from the chinese christian churches.... automatically, you can compare kinda how conservative we usually are, well at my church at least.
after church, they always have 'soulfood' which is just a lunch at john knight's house for anyone after service... so it's really good fellowship, really good conversations and stuff, i've met so many people it;'s so hard to keep track. and again everyone is from different parts of the world! one guy i met was from stratford, there are some girls from ghana, asha's from bermuda, chris the sick drummer is from the bahamas, audrey is from vancouver, jessie is from perry sound, john;s from oshawa, yohan is from bombay, pastor olu is from new york, sarah's from st. catherines... i dont know.. everyone's from everywhere, but then we';re all brought together... it's a pretty cool thing.
anyway, these past few days, we've been really really working with the kids... like the jr. high kids. so my schedule for the past week has been....
in the morning....
- we meet together, but have some individual time of prayer and meditation
- then come together and pray together and share prayer requests
- then we do some admin stuff, do random stuff that needs to be done... like some planning, errands, etc...
- then we all eat lunch together
- afterward, we do a bible study with just us interns, we've been doing 1 Samuel so far....
- then we prepare for afterschool program, and on tuesday we went to go hang out with some of the low income senior people that live next door.
- then we run the afterschool program that consists of some basketball, and like a homework club, so like a chunk of time where the kids do their homework... but it's not as easy as this... i'll share more about an interesting story that happened to me today
- afterschool program ends at around 6, then we usually walk some of them home, or cook dinner, then dinner, then on tuesday i had a night off, wednesday i tutored a highschool kid in gr.11 math (lol, me of all people, tutoring...MATH?!?!?! ...yeah i know...)
- on thursdays we run a basketball houseleague program for the youth at the jr. high next door.
but ok, so here's some stories....
so there's this cool kid named marlin. he kinda looks like yung joc. hahaa but he's a cool kid. he's in gr.7, and i walked him home yesterday, he lives in the building next to me. i think there's a really good mentoring opportunity right there.... he just had a rough incident yesterday where he beat up a kid cause another kid said something really offensive... anyway, i was just talking to him, and he just randomly asks me...
m: can you fight?
j: ...ummmm... why do you ask?
m: you have to be able to fight! if you're black, you have to, to survive here....
he asked me where i'm from, and i said scarborough, and he's like...'yo, they're all soft there...." and he's right. it's true... scarborough is soooo soft compared to the people here. i never really feel scared in scarborough... but it's different here... it really is...
another story.... today pastor olu asked me to do something with him,.... so we went to mississauga this afternoon to pick up some mattresses/boxsprings from some warehouse that provides free mattresses (with government policies, permission) to some government subsidized homes, so we were getting some for some lady in the community that doesnt go to church, but i think one of her kids goes to the afterschool program... but anyway, after bringing the mattresses to her home, like, it was such a huge contrast. it was honestly the worst conditioned house i've ever been inside. (i'm not trying to make fun of, or complain, but im just tryna give a description of it, and give you a better understanding of it, and how people really live there) the front door was broken first of all, and when you go in, there's a big stench... the walls have no distinct colour, as everything is soo worn down, and there are rips in the wallpaper, or the paint on the walls is coming off, and there's some writing on the walls, i went upstairs to move a mattress, and the railing on the stairs isn't even secure on the wall, so the railing is completely uesless, the floors were pretty gross, the rooms were pretty filthy and just the flooring and walls were in terrible condition... and there was a family with 2 little kids living there, and i just felt sooo bad. like we are sooo blessed and so fortunate.... we live in luxury, but there are people that live in such terrible conditions. when we removed one of the mattresses, i noticed how badly worn down the previous mattress was.... there were rips everywhere, it wasnt really a solid piece.... and it reeked of urine. it was terrible. it was definitely an eye opener, to some of the terrible conditioned homes there really are in toronto, and in this jane and finch community...
another story, today during homework club, i was helping a bunch of guys do their homework, and one guy, terrence, just would NOT do it, he said he hated math so much, and he didnt do anything, so i kept telling him to do some homework and he wouldnt... after asking him more times then he would say, OK FINE, but then just start copying down the answers from the back of the textbook... it was very difficult, but like after trying many many more times to get him to do homework, he like blew up at me, and like threw a chair.... and he got really mad at me, saying that i wouldn;t leave him alone, and i couldn't tell him to do homework, and i couldn't keep him there and stuff... all i was doing was just being there to help him with his homework and to get him to try and do some homework..... it was really difficult...
anyway, i'm really tired, long day... so i will probably end it here, but...
prayer requests:
- continual health and safety... i think im getting sick or something... i'm coughing here and there
- the kids/youth, that God remove the callices of their heart, and be more sensitive and receptive to hear God
- that me, and the rest of the team of interns, be transparent, and that God's glory, and love can be shown through us, and we can be reflections of Him.
- for God to remove social barriers whenever we interact with people.... it's socially unnatural for us humans to just approach people we don't know, and just love them... so for God to work in us to be able to do that and have compassion for people, and just approach people...
i think that's it. thanks for reading! please feel free to leave me a comment, or anything... i'd love to know who's reading this!
God bless
Saturday, May 10, 2008
my jane & finch citizenship
my first day was pretty goood...
i got to jane and finch at 11am, and my summer mission began...
so i first met up with john knight and met 2 of the interns... asha and laura..
(asha's from bermuda, and she's graduating from York for bio in june, she's really cool, i just chilled with her, and learned a lot bout her background and that she just came to toronto for university and found a home here at jane and finch and the christian centre church, she's cool)
(laura's a cool girl from burlington, and she does graffiti, so she jsut started graffiti'ing some of the jr-high kids' tshirts for $2 each.. and all the kids all line up for her to graffiti stuff... she's also a skater girl, and she loves kids. im gonna get her to graffiti a tshirt for me :P)
then i moved into my apartment, which is at the corner of jane and shoreham, and the apartment has a sick view. it looks over the jane and finch corridor, and it opens up right there, so out the balcony, you can see the whole plaza infront of my building, the intersection of jane and shoreham, jane st, you can see apartments all around, you can see a bit of York housing, you can see Christian Centre Church, and brookview jr high next door, and the community center, you can even see the CN tower! like the view is amazing, and i love the apartment.. it's not as ghetto as i imagined. im rooming with Ian knight, john's brother, and andre who is this black guy who's from kitchener, goes to York, and plays bass for CCC. they're both awesome, friendly guys.
afterward, i went to the church and met some of the jr. high kids. (brookeview is a jr. high LITERALLY next door to the church, like 2 ft away from the church, with about 600-800 kids)
and we had like a basketball program during their lunch, just for whoever wanted to play...
when i did the bridletowne project a couple summers ago, workign with the inner city kids of scarborough, at warden and finch, i thought those kids were different in culture and attitude from what i've grown accustomed to seeing, but THESE kids are even more different.... kids interacting in a way i've never seen. the kids seemed a little selfish at times... like when playing basketball, the kids wouldn't pass the ball too often, and would usually try and do things by themselves. sometimes they would even steal the ball from their own teammates, often not trusting their abilities. and also another thing i noticed was how much the kids talk, and kinda talk at each other, putting each other down... it just seemed like i haven't seen kids act like that towards one another before.... (just the kids i saw yesterday)
after the basketball program, we had a staff meeting, went over some leadership stuff, the whole internship thing...etc.... and honestly, i feel that God has blessed me so much, because He's given me so much through fundraising already, and it didn't come as easily for the other interns and stuff. anyway, we filled out some forms and stuff, then me and asha headed over to john's house. john's house consists of himself, his wife, jessie, sarah, laura, asha, and soon there will be another girl living there too... hahah and the house isnt big either.... but it's like a 2 min walk from the church and like 3 houses down from the young adult's pastor. i talked with asha, and just learned about her, and the community, and the people and it was really cool hearing another side of seeing the people and community here.
by the way, this whole day they were fasting, so i didnt eat either, so we were all starving, so at 7pm we went over to the young adult's pastor, Pastor Olu, who lives 5 sec. away from john, and they had a young adults group there. mannn it's very diverse there... very multicultural, but people were still extremely warm and welcoming to me. There were some former hindu's there, some girls frm ghana, a guy from the carribean (i think), an asian woman, 2 brown girls, and me and the interns. it was extremely multicultural and diverse, and i never experience the act of worshipping and praising God with people of different skin colour and praying with them too, the prayer just seemed so powerful, cause it just seems like it's one of the groups' strengths... and the focus on prayer seems so intimate and so tremendous. after meeting so many nice, friendly people, we had a feast at the pastor's house and it was really cool meeting all the different people, learning about them, and how they all know each other...etc. it was really cool, esp. since a couple of them welcomed me to jane and finch several times... it was really nice. plus, a lot of the people seem so intellectual and a lot of them seem very insightful, and always wanting to discuss things to have a better understanding of things, or they will discuss small things that have 2 sides to it, but would try and exchange opinions to see different perspectives and stuff like that, it's really cool, and the people are great, and very spiritually mature.
yep, so after dinner, and after walking a new friend home, me and ian walked back to our place and chilled, and i had some cupcakes which was really nice. i couldnt really sleep till like 2am, and we had to wake up at 6:30am for a basketball tournament the next day...
so at 7am we all meet together at the church and get on a bus to go to trenton, which is like 2 hours away, near kingston... sorta..... and there was a basketball tournament at some air force/military base. it was cool. i felt soo minority... first of all, all the teams there were mostly white people, from trenton, pickton....etc... then we brought 2 teams from jane and finch, so our teams were all black, except for me, john, and ian. and i was the only asian guy in the whole tournament. our team consisted of me, john, ian, and 4 gr.10 kids who are actually pretty good, and the other team consisted of a bunch of gr.11s who all play together in highschool. our team lost the first game by 18 (against the championship team of really old/jacked black guys from toronto), won the second game by 13 (against one of the trenton teams), then went into overtime in the third game AT THE BUZZER, after being down by 14 pts, with 3 mins left... we came back, made a huge run and tied it at the buzzer to send it into OT, but then i pulled my calf muscle, and we kinda didnt really play well and we lost by 4 in the last game. we ended up in 6th place. the other team won their first game by 33 pts, lost their second game (aganst the championship team) by 6 pts, and lost their last game by 4 pts, and they ended up 3rd place overall. after the tourney... we went to the local trenton church for the afterparty...
at the church, they have this upstairs part with like this old brick wall, and they have a traffic light, and a whole bunch of street signs, and it looks like a cafe, and there's 2 pool tables, and a stage for like a youth group service, it was a pretty cool place, and they hosted the tournament, so there was hot dogs, sandwiches, chips, popcorn, pizza, and pop and stuff....for free.. and then they gave out awards and medals. this one guy from the championship team, shared his testimony bout how he used to sell weed and rob people and stuff, then he came to know Christ... and it was new, hearing the urban language in his testimony about giving his life to God... "but like yooo, God's there for you, still... and like yoooo God does big tings, yo, trust." hahah stuff like that, no but it was cool, i have nothing against it, i just thought it was.... something i dont hear too often.
then after this, we all got on the bus, and went back home... dropping some of the kids home and then going back to the church. honestly, this was a crazy experience in just this one day, hanging out with these inner city highschool kids, they're all black, and they'd all be listening to lil wayne and other rap music, and so deeply consumed in the rap culture and stuff like that, and some involved in gangs and stuff, like they would be talking about bloods and crips and stuff, and they make fun of each other a LOT, and they yell a lot, they're very rowdy, very agressive, but also sometimes very funny, but 99% of them would be talking non-stop... hahaha, most of them have a lot to say. HONESTLY, im not even joking... it's like the kids in the movie 'Hardball" with keanu reaves, or from "coach carter" or from "grid iron gang"... like the youth are just like that... some of them even look like those guys.... honestly, i felt like i was in those movies today, especially when we all got to trenton, being in a completely new and foreign environment, playing in a dominantly white place, beign the minority and playing basketball, kinda like we have somethign to prove, then going to that trenton church, where it seemed like those kids were just so amazed at all the new stuff.... it's exactly like the kids in 'Hardball' when they got new uniforms and made it to the final game and stuff and had pizza... just like something new and exciting for them, that they can enjoy, a break from some of the troubling, and hard lives that some of them have to live everyday... it was kinda bittersweet in that way..
in the late afternoon, we came back to jane and finch, and me, ian, and john walked down jane street to block buster to rent a movie, and we got some christian movie about a used car salesman.... it was a low budget film produced by some church in georgia.... the acting was TERRRIBLE, but for a whole production made by a church, it was not bad, but the whole thing was really cheesy, lol. but yeah anyway the walk down jane street was cool, it really shows you had small and close the community can be, we bumped into like 6 or 7 people that john knew, and it was cool meeting some of them.... it was cool just walking down the street and just really living out the community and experiencing it first hand.
the people here, especially most of the people i see, are dominantly black, but there are still a lot of other cultures... very multicultural and diverse, like muslims, mandarin people )though, i've only seen maybe 4 or 5 chinese people), spanish people, and a lot of people from islands like bermuda, carribean, and stuff like that. most of the housing complexes and apartments are either government subsidized housing, or some market rent apartment buildings.
but yeah, tomorrow i'll be going to their sunday service, for my first time, and i hear it's very..... NOT-CONSERVATIVE... and i hear it's very diverse and very powerful... i guess we'l see.
if you have any questions or comments or anything... DEFINTELY feel free to leave me a comment, and i'll try to get back to you asap.
im exhausted right now from 4.5 hours of sleep, and a whole exhausting day of traveling and basketball, so im dead tired, and i mustve made a lot of spelling and grammar errors. sorry.
anyway, thanks for reading... God bless
nts: survival kit, cupcakes, andrea volcheck, cardboard box, walk-home-...
i got to jane and finch at 11am, and my summer mission began...
so i first met up with john knight and met 2 of the interns... asha and laura..
(asha's from bermuda, and she's graduating from York for bio in june, she's really cool, i just chilled with her, and learned a lot bout her background and that she just came to toronto for university and found a home here at jane and finch and the christian centre church, she's cool)
(laura's a cool girl from burlington, and she does graffiti, so she jsut started graffiti'ing some of the jr-high kids' tshirts for $2 each.. and all the kids all line up for her to graffiti stuff... she's also a skater girl, and she loves kids. im gonna get her to graffiti a tshirt for me :P)
then i moved into my apartment, which is at the corner of jane and shoreham, and the apartment has a sick view. it looks over the jane and finch corridor, and it opens up right there, so out the balcony, you can see the whole plaza infront of my building, the intersection of jane and shoreham, jane st, you can see apartments all around, you can see a bit of York housing, you can see Christian Centre Church, and brookview jr high next door, and the community center, you can even see the CN tower! like the view is amazing, and i love the apartment.. it's not as ghetto as i imagined. im rooming with Ian knight, john's brother, and andre who is this black guy who's from kitchener, goes to York, and plays bass for CCC. they're both awesome, friendly guys.
afterward, i went to the church and met some of the jr. high kids. (brookeview is a jr. high LITERALLY next door to the church, like 2 ft away from the church, with about 600-800 kids)
and we had like a basketball program during their lunch, just for whoever wanted to play...
when i did the bridletowne project a couple summers ago, workign with the inner city kids of scarborough, at warden and finch, i thought those kids were different in culture and attitude from what i've grown accustomed to seeing, but THESE kids are even more different.... kids interacting in a way i've never seen. the kids seemed a little selfish at times... like when playing basketball, the kids wouldn't pass the ball too often, and would usually try and do things by themselves. sometimes they would even steal the ball from their own teammates, often not trusting their abilities. and also another thing i noticed was how much the kids talk, and kinda talk at each other, putting each other down... it just seemed like i haven't seen kids act like that towards one another before.... (just the kids i saw yesterday)
after the basketball program, we had a staff meeting, went over some leadership stuff, the whole internship thing...etc.... and honestly, i feel that God has blessed me so much, because He's given me so much through fundraising already, and it didn't come as easily for the other interns and stuff. anyway, we filled out some forms and stuff, then me and asha headed over to john's house. john's house consists of himself, his wife, jessie, sarah, laura, asha, and soon there will be another girl living there too... hahah and the house isnt big either.... but it's like a 2 min walk from the church and like 3 houses down from the young adult's pastor. i talked with asha, and just learned about her, and the community, and the people and it was really cool hearing another side of seeing the people and community here.
by the way, this whole day they were fasting, so i didnt eat either, so we were all starving, so at 7pm we went over to the young adult's pastor, Pastor Olu, who lives 5 sec. away from john, and they had a young adults group there. mannn it's very diverse there... very multicultural, but people were still extremely warm and welcoming to me. There were some former hindu's there, some girls frm ghana, a guy from the carribean (i think), an asian woman, 2 brown girls, and me and the interns. it was extremely multicultural and diverse, and i never experience the act of worshipping and praising God with people of different skin colour and praying with them too, the prayer just seemed so powerful, cause it just seems like it's one of the groups' strengths... and the focus on prayer seems so intimate and so tremendous. after meeting so many nice, friendly people, we had a feast at the pastor's house and it was really cool meeting all the different people, learning about them, and how they all know each other...etc. it was really cool, esp. since a couple of them welcomed me to jane and finch several times... it was really nice. plus, a lot of the people seem so intellectual and a lot of them seem very insightful, and always wanting to discuss things to have a better understanding of things, or they will discuss small things that have 2 sides to it, but would try and exchange opinions to see different perspectives and stuff like that, it's really cool, and the people are great, and very spiritually mature.
yep, so after dinner, and after walking a new friend home, me and ian walked back to our place and chilled, and i had some cupcakes which was really nice. i couldnt really sleep till like 2am, and we had to wake up at 6:30am for a basketball tournament the next day...
so at 7am we all meet together at the church and get on a bus to go to trenton, which is like 2 hours away, near kingston... sorta..... and there was a basketball tournament at some air force/military base. it was cool. i felt soo minority... first of all, all the teams there were mostly white people, from trenton, pickton....etc... then we brought 2 teams from jane and finch, so our teams were all black, except for me, john, and ian. and i was the only asian guy in the whole tournament. our team consisted of me, john, ian, and 4 gr.10 kids who are actually pretty good, and the other team consisted of a bunch of gr.11s who all play together in highschool. our team lost the first game by 18 (against the championship team of really old/jacked black guys from toronto), won the second game by 13 (against one of the trenton teams), then went into overtime in the third game AT THE BUZZER, after being down by 14 pts, with 3 mins left... we came back, made a huge run and tied it at the buzzer to send it into OT, but then i pulled my calf muscle, and we kinda didnt really play well and we lost by 4 in the last game. we ended up in 6th place. the other team won their first game by 33 pts, lost their second game (aganst the championship team) by 6 pts, and lost their last game by 4 pts, and they ended up 3rd place overall. after the tourney... we went to the local trenton church for the afterparty...
at the church, they have this upstairs part with like this old brick wall, and they have a traffic light, and a whole bunch of street signs, and it looks like a cafe, and there's 2 pool tables, and a stage for like a youth group service, it was a pretty cool place, and they hosted the tournament, so there was hot dogs, sandwiches, chips, popcorn, pizza, and pop and stuff....for free.. and then they gave out awards and medals. this one guy from the championship team, shared his testimony bout how he used to sell weed and rob people and stuff, then he came to know Christ... and it was new, hearing the urban language in his testimony about giving his life to God... "but like yooo, God's there for you, still... and like yoooo God does big tings, yo, trust." hahah stuff like that, no but it was cool, i have nothing against it, i just thought it was.... something i dont hear too often.
then after this, we all got on the bus, and went back home... dropping some of the kids home and then going back to the church. honestly, this was a crazy experience in just this one day, hanging out with these inner city highschool kids, they're all black, and they'd all be listening to lil wayne and other rap music, and so deeply consumed in the rap culture and stuff like that, and some involved in gangs and stuff, like they would be talking about bloods and crips and stuff, and they make fun of each other a LOT, and they yell a lot, they're very rowdy, very agressive, but also sometimes very funny, but 99% of them would be talking non-stop... hahaha, most of them have a lot to say. HONESTLY, im not even joking... it's like the kids in the movie 'Hardball" with keanu reaves, or from "coach carter" or from "grid iron gang"... like the youth are just like that... some of them even look like those guys.... honestly, i felt like i was in those movies today, especially when we all got to trenton, being in a completely new and foreign environment, playing in a dominantly white place, beign the minority and playing basketball, kinda like we have somethign to prove, then going to that trenton church, where it seemed like those kids were just so amazed at all the new stuff.... it's exactly like the kids in 'Hardball' when they got new uniforms and made it to the final game and stuff and had pizza... just like something new and exciting for them, that they can enjoy, a break from some of the troubling, and hard lives that some of them have to live everyday... it was kinda bittersweet in that way..
in the late afternoon, we came back to jane and finch, and me, ian, and john walked down jane street to block buster to rent a movie, and we got some christian movie about a used car salesman.... it was a low budget film produced by some church in georgia.... the acting was TERRRIBLE, but for a whole production made by a church, it was not bad, but the whole thing was really cheesy, lol. but yeah anyway the walk down jane street was cool, it really shows you had small and close the community can be, we bumped into like 6 or 7 people that john knew, and it was cool meeting some of them.... it was cool just walking down the street and just really living out the community and experiencing it first hand.
the people here, especially most of the people i see, are dominantly black, but there are still a lot of other cultures... very multicultural and diverse, like muslims, mandarin people )though, i've only seen maybe 4 or 5 chinese people), spanish people, and a lot of people from islands like bermuda, carribean, and stuff like that. most of the housing complexes and apartments are either government subsidized housing, or some market rent apartment buildings.
but yeah, tomorrow i'll be going to their sunday service, for my first time, and i hear it's very..... NOT-CONSERVATIVE... and i hear it's very diverse and very powerful... i guess we'l see.
if you have any questions or comments or anything... DEFINTELY feel free to leave me a comment, and i'll try to get back to you asap.
im exhausted right now from 4.5 hours of sleep, and a whole exhausting day of traveling and basketball, so im dead tired, and i mustve made a lot of spelling and grammar errors. sorry.
anyway, thanks for reading... God bless
nts: survival kit, cupcakes, andrea volcheck, cardboard box, walk-home-...
Thursday, May 8, 2008
one more day...
actually in less than 24 hours... the summer missions begin...
tomorrow morning, i'll be moving into john knight's old apartment and i'm gonna start this jane and finch summer internship.
excited? yes
nervous? yes
scared? a little bit
sad? a little bit
worried? actually, not so much
but i really think God is gonna challenge me in ways i would have never known, and be stretched to my limits as His servant.
anyway... i shall blog more another time.
i really should start packing... like NOW.
God bless
tomorrow morning, i'll be moving into john knight's old apartment and i'm gonna start this jane and finch summer internship.
excited? yes
nervous? yes
scared? a little bit
sad? a little bit
worried? actually, not so much
but i really think God is gonna challenge me in ways i would have never known, and be stretched to my limits as His servant.
anyway... i shall blog more another time.
i really should start packing... like NOW.
God bless
Sunday, May 4, 2008
GOD IS SO AMAZING... it's unfathomable
tonight was the Streetlights' event to fundraise for my missions trip.....
and i just have to say....
GOD NEVER FAILS TO AMAZE ME.
Never doubt Him. Ever. When you think it can't be done, when you think it's not possible,
when you think it won't work, He will blow you away.
Thank you to everyone that came, and for everyone that's been so extremely supportive
You are all blessings from God. Thank you. It's crazy... all of it.
The way He works behind the scenes and makes things happen....
The way He always provides, when you're full of doubt and worry...
GOD IS SO AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE.
this experience, of just this one fundraising night, just goes to show you, how POWERFUL He is.
When He has something for you, when He's calling you to do something, or go somewhere....
there WILL be challenges, it won't be easy, but you cannot run away from Him, and He will make a way, no matter what. He's not gonna leave you out to dry, He WILL carry you through.
do not worry, and do not doubt.
i really hope that God was able to speak to all of you, and really start something in your heart, to change and transform you from the inside to not be satisfied with living comfortably, and being in this comfort zone, and bubble, but i hope instead, that He places an urgency in you to break away from this, to really GO out there, do something BOLD for Him, that you follow Him, no matter where He calls you!
God bless you all!
Thank you so much, God. I love you. You are so incredible, Your love is unfathomable.
and i just have to say....
GOD NEVER FAILS TO AMAZE ME.
Never doubt Him. Ever. When you think it can't be done, when you think it's not possible,
when you think it won't work, He will blow you away.
Thank you to everyone that came, and for everyone that's been so extremely supportive
You are all blessings from God. Thank you. It's crazy... all of it.
The way He works behind the scenes and makes things happen....
The way He always provides, when you're full of doubt and worry...
GOD IS SO AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE.
this experience, of just this one fundraising night, just goes to show you, how POWERFUL He is.
When He has something for you, when He's calling you to do something, or go somewhere....
there WILL be challenges, it won't be easy, but you cannot run away from Him, and He will make a way, no matter what. He's not gonna leave you out to dry, He WILL carry you through.
do not worry, and do not doubt.
i really hope that God was able to speak to all of you, and really start something in your heart, to change and transform you from the inside to not be satisfied with living comfortably, and being in this comfort zone, and bubble, but i hope instead, that He places an urgency in you to break away from this, to really GO out there, do something BOLD for Him, that you follow Him, no matter where He calls you!
God bless you all!
Thank you so much, God. I love you. You are so incredible, Your love is unfathomable.
Friday, May 2, 2008
the crazyness behind the scenes
i can't believe streetlights is today.... in like.... 16 hours.
so far God has been so gracious and has blessed me tremendously... it's really crazy!
a lot of people are soooo supportive and helping me with so many things....
and a lot of people have such big hearts and have blessed me with some donations!
PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!
i didn't think it was possible, but God again, never fails....
it's crazy how much God has done in the past 3 and a half weeks, He's created something from nothing.....
God, You never cease to amaze me. You're incredible.
STREETLIGHTS'08 tomorrow!!! be there!!!
6:30pm at FBCM (Kennedy & Denison)
so far God has been so gracious and has blessed me tremendously... it's really crazy!
a lot of people are soooo supportive and helping me with so many things....
and a lot of people have such big hearts and have blessed me with some donations!
PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!
i didn't think it was possible, but God again, never fails....
it's crazy how much God has done in the past 3 and a half weeks, He's created something from nothing.....
God, You never cease to amaze me. You're incredible.
STREETLIGHTS'08 tomorrow!!! be there!!!
6:30pm at FBCM (Kennedy & Denison)
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