Part I
The theme this week is Cross-Cultural Training! Nothing too out of the ordinary except that our work duty on Thursday has been replaced with going to Tabor Home to visit with some elderly folks and to tell them all about Trek. We also have a prayer meeting at a church at 7 am tomorrow....it's early but we've been told that if we behave we get to go to A&W for breakfast!
Part II Prayer and Praises!
Praises first because there's a story that I forgot to tell from the Silent Retreat! Petra is one of the other girls on my team. For several years she had a problem with her right arm falling out of its socket quite easily and at random times. It was really painful for her and she had been seeing a specialist and was probably going to be scheduled for surgery sometime this year. During the silent retreat she was praying by herself in the prayer room when suddenly her arm was shaken violently. God asked her to raise her arm, she did and it felt great - better than it had in years. This past Tuesday she went to see her specialist once more and he told her that her right shoulder is now stronger than her left!! Praise God for healing! Prayer - please pray for Steve's chest! It still hurts from when he fell during the Amazing Trek (which was 4 weeks ago already!). We're thinking that he cracked a rib so pray for healing for that. Pray also that we will still stay engaged and focused during sessions - we're all really excited and it's getting harder to stay here when our minds are in Europe!
Part III Ukraine information!! 2 apartments have been rented for us, a smaller one will house 3 people and a larger one will house the other 4 and will probably be where we will meet and have meals. They're 20 minutes apart which isn't what we would call ideal because we will be separated but it will be great anyways. And we are SO thankful that we don't need to bring our own bedding!! None of us were looking forward to the extra bulk and luggage that would've taken! John and Evelyn have connections with the city of Zaporizhzhya so we will probably be doing a lot of community service projects. Because they've only been there for a year, we won't be working with a specific church. There are 4 MB churches in towns around Zaporizhzhya but none in the city itself. We will mostly be helping build relationships with people from the community and will be visiting different churches on Sundays. We also had a Russian lady named Lydia from the area come to the Mark Center one evening last week to teach us Russian. She is coming again tomorrow and I plan on getting my hands on a Russian dictionary as well before we head out.
PS As I was trying to post this blog the prayer and praises part came out in the teeniest tiniest letters ever no matter what I tried and it was normal-sized when I would go back to try and edit it. Not trying to over-spiritualize everything but in light of what we learned last week on Spiritual Authority I prayed and what do you know, it turned out. We know that satan is out there trying to attack anything we can bring to God's glory so we really have to be on our guard and ready with the full armour of God on! (Ephesians 6:14-17)
Friday night we had a boys' night/girls' night. The boys played poker and watched a movie, and the girls went to Rosanna's place for food, games and pool time.
We got teas in Kitsilano and headed over to the cutest little shop EVER called Cupcakes. I TOTALLY want to start a shop like this in Winnipeg, or maybe there already is one that I just don't know about yet! Someone tell me if you knew about this and didn't let me in on it!! It reminded me of a shop at Disney World, very girly and cutesy. 
By this time it was pouring so the only logical thing to do was to get some gelato! We went to this place that had a billion different flavours!! Seriously! Long Island Iced Tea, Wasabi, Balsamic Vinegar (it tasted like feet). Here is Steve enjoying his coconut gelato (I got chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough). 
Then Jaclyn drove us back to the Mark Center and the weekend was over once again. Only one full one left in Canada!!
This is the deck at the back of the Klassen property. Man, pictures just don't do anything justice!! I could have sat there all day and just stared at creation!!
The cart boys were shouting "Kak de la!" all day, which in Russian means "How are you", but they've started using it as a greeting, to express anger and frustration, as a pick up line, or just shouting it out randomly. So throughout the day we heard from across the way "kak de la!" or when they'd drop off a load of branches it would be thrown around by everyone. 
Finally, the last 20 minutes before the sun went down, we finally got a roaring, successful fire!!
Jo's Experience: So our mission was door-to-door evangelism. I had total mixed feelings about it, but it turned out to be very non-invasive and quite lovely. And I kind of figured that if the JW's get lots of people that way why can't Christ?? We drove around for the first while just praying and seeing where we would be led. We ended up in Aldergrove in a neighbourhood filled with townhouse complexes. We had Ross Road Community Church flyers with tracts inside them and we went door to door asking people if they would like one and then if they'd be interested in answering a short questionnaire on the spiritual feelings of the neighbourhood. From their answers, Phil would segue into the gospel message. So the very first house we started at was a family who were mormons. He had been one for 4 years but his wife had been one since she was a kid. Therefore, we got a 45 second run down on everything they believe and Phil talked through it a little bit with her until she got pushy and then we left. The second lady we met had 30 cats in her townhouse and 200 more in shelters in the area. Phil explained the gospel to her but she couldn't understand how God is good and loving if he lets so many cats die...especially when people shoot them in the face with bee bee guns. So that conversation was done as well. Another lady was really interested and we went through the whole salvation message with her, got her number and gave her numbers of people she could call when she was ready to take the next step, so that was really cool. Spent pretty much the whole day around the one complex. Today was Rachel's and my crack at it. We were SO nervous going in to it, but I studied my 5 point gospel message last night and in the end, never even got to use it. Disappointing!! We started the same way, driving around praying and ended up again in Aldergrove. We started on some townhouses that we had seen yesterday. The very first lady at the very first house pretty much shouted at me, so it was off to a great start!! And the rest of the day was really no better. Talked to a few people, left tracts with people. We encountered a lot of rejection today all the way across the board...it could have been discouraging but at the end of the day we were still full of joy! We met one lady who said she's pagan, and we prayed for her because she's been sick for 3 days. She wasn't comfortable answering our questions but was happy that we prayed for her and hopefully God will turn that into something amazing! And some people were just really excited about the church information so that was great to see as well. 
Tomorrow we're following around and learning from some people who are in MTI (Missionary Training Institute...I think) here in Abbotsford as they do their normal everyday evangelism stuff (knocking on doors, chatting in parks, etc). Wednesday afternoon we're actually the ones who have to do the talking and the leading while the MTI'ers look on and pray for us. EEEEK. That being said, I think Steve Klassen talked about having a bonfire for work duties on Thursday, there's lots of free time this week and the weekend is another free weekend so the rest of the week should be slightly less terrifying for myself personally. I'm going to throw out a prayer request or two as well.... that we'll say what the Holy Spirit leads us to say on Wednesday when we're actually the evangelists and just pray for us as we enter week 5.... we're halfway done and I'm experiencing a bit of self-doubt and lack of motivation. So if you could add those to your lists that would be really appreciated!
Late Saturday afternoon we caught a ride into Surrey and spent the night at James and Vanessa's house. We had pizza night, watched some movies (that were made all the more awesome because Steve kept a kill count during Taken; hand kills, gun kills, and tool kills. It was pretty hilarious). This morning we went with James and Vanessa to Real Life Community Church, and before they dropped us off we all took a walk around Mill Lake here in Abbotsford. Steve was testing out some of the settings on our new camera this evening and I thought that this picture turned out pretty cool. I was actually shaking the camera from side to side and it turned out really clear. I'm impressed. 
After getting the picture developed, we had to go back into SuperStore and find the prices on 10 items. From there we got a reference for a library book that we had to find at a library. It was 9 a.m when we got the the library and it didn't open until 10. We were SO mad because the other team was 45 minutes behind us and now they'd have time to catch up and we'd lose our lead! So we hid behind a snowbank so that hopefully they'd keep going to the next library. They did go on by, or so we thought, so we gave the all clear and the first person to stand up was Dan. He stood straight up and a girl from the green team was standing RIGHT at the bottom of the hill. Dan did the most stealthiest move I've ever seen in my life! He did this awesome slow motion flop onto the ground and then log-rolled under the fence back behind the snowbank. It was just the thing to break the tension and make things fun again. But the other team saw us anyways so we ended up going down to the library. The green team was wandering away so we decided to hide around a corner where Steve shook a squirrel off a fence. And then at 10 a.m we all ran into the library. Green team found their clue first so it was a foot race to the next place. We ran to some outdoor stadium and Team Red ended up beating them there other than Steve who was off trying to look for a different building. So 3 people from our team had to run backwards around the track while we took turns dunking our faces into a bowl of pudding to look for gummy worms and then dunking our faces into a bowl of rice krispies to look for a 2nd gummy worm. It was disgusting to say the least but our team got the clue first and again we were off and running. We missed a bus on South Fraser Way but Travis took one for the team by running it down and we all managed to get on. We took it down to a Sikh temple where we were supposed to have lunch. However, we were all covered in pudding and felt SO disrespectful for going in looking gross. When we finally worked up the courage to do it, they kicked us out. So we phoned Luke (Trek director) and he told us to go to a temple on the other side of Abbotsford! We were nice and phoned the other team to tell them what was happening but we were mad when we went back to a bus stop and waited around for a bus. We got on one after about 10 minutes but it was the wrong one so we got off and waited another 15 minutes for the next one. In the meantime we sang songs, Dan busked in front of the bus stop (people literally walked behind us and WAY around to avoid him, it was hilarious) and we took pictures of us all spelling "Ukraine" in sign language.
We finally caught the right bus and there were these 2 old ladies who told us that we had to entertain them, so Travis did a magic trick and we sang Amazing Grace for them. We just finished and the Green Team got on the same bus!! Immediately talks started and we agreed that Red team would win (because we have 7 people) and we'd split all the gift card prizes among everyone. We were all satisfied with this, hugged the old ladies good-bye and dismounted at the Sikh temple. Sikh temples are an interesting place to be. We had to take off our socks and shoes, wear head coverings and wash our hands a LOT. These lunches are open to the public but we were the only white people there. You get your food (which was naan bread, green snot-looking stuff that was spicy and good, liquidy sour cream stuff and sweet rice) and boys sit on the floor on one side and girls sit on the floor on the other. An old man came around with oranges afterwards that we had to receive with 2 hands. Apparently the boys didn't know this (who would???) and some of the older men were upset but whatever, then write the rules on the wall for outsiders to read so we don't do stuff wrong next time! We bussed back to the first apartment we went to for "breakfast", pretended we were still rivals and did some mind games. Then we ran out to a field for an obstacle course where Steve was blind-folded, Dan was mute and had to act out what Steve should be doing while Kristine couldn't look at the course but was shouting out what Steve should do by watching the actions Dan was doing. It took a few tries before we got it, and it was SO frustrating to watch, and the guys in charge kept changing the course the whole time, so it really sucked. 
But we got out of there before the other team and headed off, in a van FINALLY to Lori's (asst. director of Trek) house to literally find a needle in a haystack. Needless to say we hadn't found it after 45 minutes so we got our other clue and left. 
The next station we had 20 minutes to make up a dance routine to a song we didn't hear, and then we had to perform it and get marked. It was hilariously fun and such a fun thing to be doing right after something so tedious!!
This picture is of the finale of our dance when Travis jumps across into everyone's arms and Petra and I in front do jazz hands. It was a pretty awesome dance! The final station of the day was driving out into the country to Steve and Evy Klassen's house (Steve is the Mark Center guy). They're house is on a hazelnut farm and looks out over the Fraser valley and WOW was it amazing! The task was to shoot paintballs with a sling shot to receive certain amounts of matches, to build a fire to burn a rope that was holding a bag of groceries in a tree. Each team was given a raw egg first thing in the morning and had to carry it all day to this point without breaking it to cook over the fire we built. I was in charge of the egg and it was safely held in my person all day. 
We had left the haystack thing before the Green Team had even shown up, so they were at least 45 minutes behind us. But lo and behold, they showed up here about 15 mintues after we started this task so obviously again were being helped along the way by not having to stay as long at each place. The last thing was to get dropped off at a certain place and run up the hill to the Mark Center and then it was done. Our team had some confusion and lack of communication as to where to be so the Green Team ended up getting there first anyways. There was pizza supper waiting for us so we gobbled it down and had a debrief to go over why they made us do all of this. It turns out it was the best way they could introduce stress to our teams so that we could see how everyone reacted under pressure. I think our team did really well, and the Green Team spilled the beans that we had met up and decided to not compete, just to get through it. So we all get $25 gift cards to either WalMart or House of James. And we all get to be so sore that we can't walk for a few days!!! 
