Mountain Clouds

Reflections from Vancouver...

Shannon and I spent a week (June 29~July 6) in the beautiful city of Vancouver, to lead the Serve Asia Training for our workers departing to the field. We had a proposed schedule("structured spontaneity" as Shannon would say) for our time there: 1 day of preparation, 3 days of training, 1 day of meetings and 1 day of free-time. It was cool to finally meet up with Nick, Joel, Queenie, Simon, Lesley and Pamela (Serve Asia Workers) departing from the BC area. Getting to meet them after all that e-mail correspondence was a true blessing.

Meeting up with Lesley at Guu was an interesting experience. Being that it was a busy restaurant, we put our names down and waited at the Starbucks across the street. The guy in charge of seating came (40 minutes later) running to where we were sitting (patio of Starbucks), shouting my name across Robson! Anyways, we finally got our seats and listened as we ate our Beef Carpaggio (thanks for the suggestion, Esther!) to Lesley's journey with Serve Asia. She mentioned a Christian author...I forget his name now...who donated his signed books for her to take on her missions trip to distribute to her students in her country of service. The people over there apparently love his writings, so Lesley was pretty psyched about getting these to them.

Training was also a blessed time for both Shannon and I. It was cool, 'cause at one point, we were all in the kitchen doing the dishes (Shannon stacking the dirty dishes, Simon soaping, Queenie rinsing, Joel and Nick drying) and Nick turns to us and says, "Whoah, it's like we're family, eh?!" We looked at him and smiled. He then says, "it's so cool, because it feels like I've known you guys forever and it's only been 2 days." Cool. It's definitely the result of prayer :)

We dropped off the guys at the airport on the 3rd and they set off for their ministry in Thailand. I felt like a mom sending off their kids...All of them are so unique and precious. God is so cool that He gives us the amazing privilege of working with beautiful people. I sensed leadership and initiative in Nick; in Joel, I found creative media talent; and Simon had the playful heart to serve. What a good mix :) We then set off to have lunch with Queenie, who was a bit "under the weather," because her extension to study in Canada wasn't approved.

We met Pamela the next day at a local restaurant, White Spot in Abbotsford. We took care of some admin details and chatted for an hour about her passion for libraries and her missions to the Philippines. Looked at her scrapbook and prayed with her. Please pray for her younger sister.

The more memorable accomplishment was that Shannon and I finished...finished the Grous Grind. It took us approximately 2 hours (we took lots of breaks), but we finished it. Did I mention, we finished the Grous Grind? Man! It was pretty brutal, but definitely worthwhile. Felt like shouting: "I'm on top of the world!"

Look at how steep it was...

We took the cable car on the way down, because we were advised that it's far more dangerous to go downhill than going up.

We went home, washed up and went to Aberdeen Mall (picked up a gift for Dennis' family) and went over to have dinner with DK's fam. They were so cute...When Shannon and I got there, they were all peering out the window waiting to see if I arrived. We had dinner (huge plate of sashimi and steamed crab) and some white sparkly wine. It was delish. Shannon ate too much sashmi, which resulted in her moaning and groaning all night long :(

Set off early the next day to visit Granville Island (thanks again Esther!) for a couple of hours before heading to the airport back to T.O. Saw the Emily Carr Institute, visited cute shops and ate at the marketplace.

Whew! What a week!

One last pic of Vancouver...the Mountain Clouds: