so i just got back from Washington D.C. last night at about 10pm, and boy are there many stories to share...
ok, so the original Washington Trip plan failed, because of some setbacks and whatnot, so we weren't able to help out doing a VBS, but we DID attend the Sojourner's 'VOTE OUT POVERTY' campaign, which is an American campaign to mobilize the Christian population to advocate for social justice, more specifically, Poverty, through spreading the awareness to christians and their home churches, to get everyone on board to contact their local congress or whatever local political leader, and also like voter registration and whatnot, mailing the president/presidential candidates...
and what not, basically to make poverty an extremely important issue in terms of presidential leadership, and getting these leaders to hold them accountable to actually do something, follow their "Millenial Goals" to reduce poverty by at LEAST 50% in the next year or so... somethin like that.... that was the campaign in a nutshell...
so on our drive down... we take a pit stop at the Cranberry Township, located in Southern Pennsylvania, and we're looking for somethin to eat.. so we stop at this mall/plaza, we find this place called CiCi's Pizza, and we walk in and look at the menu, and they have All-You-Can-Eat buffet (all you can eat Pizza, Pasta, Soup, Salad, Dessert) for ONLY 4.99.. and we were all like... no wayyy, that MUST be the kid's menu or something, we ask, and he's like "NOPE! it's really just 4.99!" and i swear we were asking each other 'IS THIS FOR REAL?" for like 5 minutes... then we finally accepted that this was just the best deal ever.... the food was pretty good for a pizza parlour like that... but it was such a sweet deal.... it was such a good deal, that we insisted that we would come back on our way back to Toronto. The service was also amazing, the people working there were just very nice, friendly people. I HIGHLY recommend anyone to go there and eat if anyone ever passes through pennsylvania passing by Cranberry Township.
we drove by the area for a bit, to get back on the highway, and John was like...'man some places have such lame names...such as.."Hollywood Tans" some tanning salon, and then "Smokey Bones" which was some bar and grill kinda place (like Montana's) and that was like the root of like MANY MANY MANY inside jokes for the whole trip.... countless laughs and jokes about those 2 random places, alone. hahahaha. you'll hear more about this later down in the post.... (but pretty much, we promised ourselves, we HAVE to make a pit stop to both of these places, and joke around there...)
anyway, so we drove down for about a total of 9hrs, and it was already like 11:00pm, and Sarah couldn't drive anymore cause she was tired, so we stopped by this small town in Maryland, about an hour or so away from Washington, and it was like a small quiet town, and we passed by a church, so we thought, hey how bout we sleep on their lawn (since we didnt have ANY accomodations whatsoever... no where to sleep for the next 5 nights..) so we went to a gas station first to get any supplies, use the washroom and wahtnot, then we went to the church.. some RANDOM church, mind you, and then we saw some guy still awake and on his balcony (some house located on the church property) so we asked him if we could sleep on their lawn, since we didn't have anywhere to sleep, and he was like "yeah sure, but you should probably sleep on the other side of the church where you could have more privacy!"
lol, so that was like the first blessing we had on our trip, permission and somewhere to sleep. the weather was nice, so it was pretty warm, and their lawn was pretty decent. we literally slept on the grass with just blankets.the sleep was alright... decent for a sleep outdoors... but there was some dew on the grass which left things a little damp, and there was actually a slug on my bag, and a random slug INSIDE my camera case... (yeah, how is that possible?) but anyway, so we left the church before they had mass at 8am.. and we finished the rest of our drive down to washington.... and we joined the conference in the morning. we actually saw the head hancho, Jim Wallis, author of a couple books, more recent was The Great Awakening, and he's the founder of the Sojourners organization, who publish a christian social justice magazine, and he's like the main leader in trying to mobilize christians in America for social justice... so he's a pretty big dude, and we saw him and Calford went to him and said "Hey Jim, we're from Canada, and we don't have a place to stay, but we were wondering if you know any churches or church lawns in the area that we could stay at, even a backyard or something..." and he's like "hold on, lemme talk to a few people" 5 minutes later, we get a message saying to go to the desk and they give us 2 resident rooms on the campus for free, worth about $228 in total, and jimmy dub just hooked us up for free! he even mentioned us in a short speech during dinner, saying "we christians, need to help each other, today i mnet somne canadians that said they slept on a church lawn and needed a place to stay..." hahaha and we were all laughing how he mentioned that infront of everyone. MAJOR BLESSING (#2)
anyway, so the whole conference was pretty inspiring... honestly, i've grown up, not caring about all the world issues there are... ignoring and sometimes even avoiding all the social injustices worldwide... the global poverty, the economic injustice, oppression, racism, but like... i feel like im beginning to have a new set of eyes... so me and John were talking, and he was teaching me a little bit about Micro Finances, it was just a brief thing... but here's the WIKI definition...
"Microfinance refers to the provision of financial services to poor and low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed.[1] The term also refers to the practice of sustainably delivering those services. More broadly, it refers to a movement that envisions “a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers.”[2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfinance
so John was suggesting it would be cool to help out in this, especially cause it's sort of Business related and at the same time helping in overcoming social injustice, and since Laurier has such a huge BUSINESS dept. and lots of biz kids, why not start a campaign at Laurier to advocate for economic justice and fundraise and help those people with very little opportunity, so that was a big idea and something God inspired me with during the conference.... but just a heart that cares more about what's going on in the world... being more environmentally friendly to help slow down global warming... being more aware of the poverty and injustices in the world.... not spending money on unnecessary things, and things that aren't essential, and even just having compassion for the broken and people considered social outcasts and stuff like that... (well just to let you know.. all of this stuff, im still working on, i am by no means, an expert in any of these things) i was able to learn some tips and tricks on video advocacy and campaigning with media, and also a bit on campus advocating/campaigning with some of the workshops so that was helpful too... that's kinda what i got out of it...briefly...
ummmm, after the conference we went to Capitol Hill, and checked out some of the tourists-type things in Washington. we were lucky enough to find some free parking since it was a sunday (another blessing) so we checked out the US Capitol/US Congress, the big tall Washington monument, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial or 'temple shrine', that was a little weird, since it was like total idolatry, the White House, the Museum of History, and the Korean and Vietnam War Memorials... it was cool checking out how historic Washington was, and everything
for lunch calford and john wanted chinese food, so we found CHINATOWN, and we went to some little restaurant, the food was alright... not pure authentic tho, but decent. it was pretty cool/fun walking around washington and just exploring the city. in the evening, we got a call from one of the people we met at the Sojourners Conference, and she said we could stay at their community house, so it was pretty sweet (blessing #4). we first went to a grocery store and we bought dinner, 2 packs of wings (like 12-15 wings each pack) for $1.75 EACH pack and we bought some wedges and some vegetables and some pop (we had to be really really efficient and economic with our money, if you haven't noticed) and we parked by the side of some street near Capitol Hill, and we just sat on some random apartment's lawn and ate dinner there, and we didnt wanna pay for parking at a parking meter, so we sat sorta on the lawn by the car, so if we could move it at any given time... soooooo ghetto.. but it was fun.
at night we went to the house we were supposed to stay at, which was at 7th and G st. but little did we know, there are 4 different quadrants! we went to 3 different "7th and G" intersections. and we pretty much travelled through all of washington to find this... lol apparently, washington was designed like that to confuse their enemies during times of invasion. they definitely did their job in confusing us....... there's like a million sets of A,B,C,D....H streets, and a million 1st, 2nd, 3rd.....8th streets.... GEEEEZ. but we finally found the house, and it was pretty sweet. it was like one of those really narrow houses connected with the ones beside like on TV. the house was actually comprised of like 10+ residents, all from different parts of the states, but they heard about this organization, Brethren Volunteer Services, that allows you to do some volunteering stuff/social justice work but gives you a place you can live at, covering your rent, utilities, and essential things... so there's always people moving in and moving out with different volunteering placements, and they let us stay at their lovely community basement and they were such great hosts, esp. for people who didnt have a place to stay... we watched the Lakers/Celtics Game 5 with them, and then headed to bed.
the next day, we headed to the zoo which was ALSO free (more blessings) and checked out some of the cool stuff they had there.... there was this crazy cool spider exhibit with no glass, so we were all wondering, couldn't the spiders escape, and crawl around everywhere, but apparently the spiders they had (which looked like the one that bit peter parker) couldnt crawl on those walls, and only stayed on its web. One of the zookeepers showed us how spiders ate... so they fed some crickets, throwing them onto their webs. The spider literally ZIPPED down the web in a flash and just bit the cricket, injecting venom to slowly kill its prey and also turn the insides into mush for easier eating. it brings back the prey to the middle of the web, and slowly starts to wrap it up in its web, but it's cool how it uses its 6 legs to stay on the web, and 2 legs to just wrap the cricket up... then it slowly eats it and leaves the corpse. CRAZY!
anyway, after the zoo, we were going all around town to find a good deal, we ended up driving everywhere but then just going back near the community house, parking at this local gym, through one of the community house residents for free (super blessing #6) so we walked to a Subway, and got this pretty sweet $5 Deal, and it was soooo goood.. we then walked around this inner city community and found this park with a huge playground, tennis courts, beach volleyball area, and this part under the highway with a full basketball court and even some skateboarding ramps and rails. it was such a sweet area. we saw some gangster/skater kids who came afterward and they were doin some cool tricks and stuff off the ramps. i wish i could grow up with a park like that, and a basketball court under a highway like that.. it was sooo sickk
we walked back to that local gym, to ask where the Salvation Army and thrift store was, and it was like 16 blocks west from there, but at that point there was such a huge thunderstorm outside, the streets were like flooding with rivers flowing down the sides of the streets, it was pouring rain and it was just crazy, so we first ran back to the house which was nearby, BUT it was locked and nobody was home, so we were locked out and soaking... we checked some of the local churches in the area, but all were locked... so we decided... to walk to the Salvation army, 16 blocks away and hopefully buy some dry clothes there... so we walked down 16 blocks in the pouring rain... passing by 4 different A streets. it took about an hour, then when we got there, we asked somebody where the salvation army was, and they said it was closed, cause everything closes at 4pm because of the crime rate in the area, and it was like 5:00pm, so we decided how bout we take the bus back, but we only had $3US, and not enough for 4 ppl to take the bus, so we decided to walk back 16 blocks back to the house... still in the pouring rain..... but it was alright, we made the most of it, singing every single pop song we all knew. good times. when we finally got back, someone was home so we were able to get in, but John's shoes did NOT survive as they were already in terrible condition.... with a sole that was so mangled and a big hole in the heel of the shoe. 2 hours walking almost aimlessly in the pouring rain...... good times...haha and that was the end of that chapter...
back at the house, the main host, a girl we met at the conference made us all taco's for dinner, for us and the other like 9 or so residents that were present... it was pretty cool meeting all these different people from different parts, with different backgrounds, doing different things, but all living there to do their different respective jobs in some sort thing for social justice.... cool stuff!
anyway the next morning we left at like 9am to head back to Toronto, driving for almost 4 hours, we finally reached our first destination, CiCi's Pizza, and delighted the staff that we met from the first time we met them. enjoyed the 4.99 all you can eat deal, then as we discussed during the whole trip, we had to stop at Hollywood Tans and Smokey Bones, just for jokes. so we took some pictures outside of both, but the funniest moment was at smokey bones.... we went inside and talked to the hostess and then also asked WHO was smokey bones, and if they were there. it was so hilarious, except the response was "i'm not sure, i just started working here 3 days ago..." but the manager came out and he was like it's the name of the ribs we have or whatever. lol it was hilarious. you had to be there...
after about 7 hours of driving, we finally arrived back in the heart of Jane and Finch, back at John's house... but it was a fun trip, eye-opening and inspiring conference, and just a great time away from Canada, learning and experiencing the American lifestyle....
anyway just to let everyone know, THIS SATURDAY, we're having an Intern Party...
so for us students interning at Christian Centre Church, me, asha, bronson, calford, and john and jessie, we're holding a party at john's house to fundraise for some of their intern funds, and we wanna invite everyone. $5 donation at the door with hot dogs and some pasta included...
EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO COME!!!!
for more details like location/parking just let me know... but i'd love to see everyone there, show you the community we have here and just celebrate the summer!
81-2 Gosford Blvd.
7:00pm
$5 donation
hot dogs and pasta included.
ALL are welcome!
thanks for reading, peace out.
