Day 3 - Sunday

Greetings to all who are taking the time to read this blog entry. It's early Monday morning, and I just wanted to give you a rundown of our day. I'll do that via pictures and words, so read on and enjoy.

After a not so sleep filled night, I awoke to the sound of laughter in the kitchen (Tamara seems to be an early riser and very chipper for being due any day now). The smell of coffee drew me too. Nothing like a good cup of coffee to get your body moving once again.

Breakfast was once again delicious. We are being spoiled here at Calvin. That's for certain. Everyone enjoyed the breakfast.

This morning at 10 am we held our regular worship time. This worship time was a commissioning for the SERVE team. Participation from some of the team members, and Pastor Ken, as well as Shellie. It was a great time of worship together.

Here we are again, singing praises to God.

Tyler loves to play the guitar, so he joined in the praise group during church.

After church, we spent some time playing games together to pass the time until lunch (it seems we certainly eat a lot while on SERVE. I've gained 3 pounds already).

Lunch consisted of potatoe salad and sloppy joes. Here you can see the Dutch influence coming out VERY strong. Evert, Annet, and Bea are eating sloppy joes with a KNIFE AND FORK of all things. I couldn't believe it. So dainty and refined are they. I just let my sloppy joes squirt out the side of my bun onto my neighbours plate. THAT's the way to eat them.

Here we find Alex playing "grab your nose" with Rey.

They've made up after the game was over.

It was time to take a shower (we all needed them) so we drove to Redeemer Christian High School. All was going great, until we stepped into the shower stall and turned on the water. It felt like ice cubes coming out. No hot water, as the heater had broken down. I've never heard guys scream so much like girls taking a shower. Alex and Kyle encouraged each other as they played a contest of who could stay in the cold shower stall the longest. At one point Rey sees them both sticking their blue faced heads out the opposite shower curtain sides, teeth chattering away. We got a chuckle out of that one. Shawn was NOT impressed with the cold either, but Tyler seemed to take it all in stride.

We hope we have hot water for tomorrow.

A slight change in plan due to the weather, and a beach volleyball tournament that happened yesterday and was being cleaned up today at Mooney's Bay. We were off to Parliament Hill. The skies cleared up just as we were leaving to take the bus to downtown. Here we are getting on the bus. It took a good 5 minutes, but the bus driver was VERY understanding.

After a bit of a walk, we arrived at the eternal flame. Here is a nice pose from three new friends. Amy, Rebecca and Shona

Elysha and Alex best of friends.

We continue our walk up to parliament hill and the peace tower.

A brief stop on the steps for a group picture.

Here the RCMP officer joined us for a picture.

After going through security, we waited for a minute to collect everyone.

Then it was up the elevator to the top of the peace tower to look over Ottawa and Quebec. Here Rebecca and Julia enjoy each others company.

Silene and Kyle posing.

Geert is checking to make sure the construction is up to standard.

Jenny proved to be quite the historian. She was interested in many of the things we saw and asked lots of questions.

Several security guards were very kind and allowed us to pose with their hats on. Shawn thought that was the GREATEST. Here Olivia poses for the picture.

Amy got her chance too.

Then it was out and around centre block to see the stray cat sanctuary at Parliament Hill.

A bit more of a walk and then a short rest. It was getting hot with the sun out.

Some ice-cream to cool us down before heading back home on the bus.

Here we are on the bus ride home. We had to go in two separate groups as the buses were very full because the blues fest was on. Here Kyle is having fun, but it looks like Hannah isn't. Hmmmmm, not sure why though. : )

Back home RIGHT AT 6:00 pm. (It's very important I stay on Anne's good side and get the group back for the prescribed meal times). Right Anne !! : ) Lasagna and garlic bread was the meal for the night. VERY good.

Oh, and look, Evert and Annet are eating with their FINGERS. I didn't think it possible. (tee, hee).

Some of our kitchen helpers. We are VERY thankful for them volunteering their time for this.

Shawn taking some time out to do a crossword puzzle.

At our evening worship time, Tyler again took up the guitar. Shawn finally decided it was time to get into the action, so he picked up his guitar and the two jammed with the praise group. (Tyler occassionally giving pointers to Shawn to improve playing technique).






Your not really reading this, those of you from Calvin, but yes, we had basketball in church tonight as part of our object lesson. Shellie tried to score some points. Never made a basket, unfortunately.

Some of the Particpants tried their skills out. They faired better than Shellie did, sorry to for Shellie. But she's tough. She took it well : ) Our theme tonight was "learning." We learned that it is important to do justice, love mercy, and walk with God. We are on His Team.

We closed the worship time with a song of togetherness. To God be the Glory.

Just before small group time, the mentors did some drama's. Quite talented folks actually.

This is the hub of the community life department. Always some planning going on here for the days activities. Bea and Grace are doing a GREAT job. Keep it up.

And finally, off to bed for the participants, and a brief mentors meeting, and then everyone off to bed. We had a great day, and tomorrow we start working at various work sites, and then it's off to Mooney's bay for some olympic activitites and some beach time.

Some final observations of the day:

1. Janine should get a medal for putting up with my constant demands to "Take a picture, take a picture." You're a real trooper putting up with me.

2. Alex can be a real clown at times. Love to joke around.

3. Shawn is always smiling and trying to draw people into what he is doing.

4. All our mentors are just fabulous. Gifted, loving, patient people, who have put their fellow participants ahead of themselves. We are succeeding because of you and you should be proud of how things have been going so far. Keep up the selfless work. (And I'll get to know everyone's names soon, I hope).


Talk to you again tomorrow.