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
2 comments:
keep up the energy! it's great to hear the stories.
you're being prayed for! feel those angels all around haha =)
Keep up the good work man and I hope that we get to see more such stories from you in the future also.
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