Fellowship!

There are about 10 of us who have been going to church together and meeting for little bible studies/devotionals. I have become especially close with a girl named Victoria. She is 26 and dedicated her like to Jesus about a year ago. Although we are 6 years apart in age, spiritually, we are on the same level. We started going to a bible study of other believers in their 20's up here in Toronto. I really like that this particular group calls themselves disciples rather than Christians because we are constantly growing and learning from Christ. Victoria and I have developed some really great friendships with some of the people in the group. It's really fun hanging out with them because they know the city so well!

Last weekend we volunteered with some of the people from the bible study at a homeless shelter called the Scott Mission where we served about 45 homeless men! The Scott Mission is a Christian-based organization that serves the homeless community here in Toronto. They open the doors for 45-50 men around 7:30pm and offer them a meal, a sleeping mat and blanket, showers and bathrooms for the night. They have breakfast for them in the morning as well, but they must be out of the building by 7:00am. After helping prepare and handout the meals, we were able to go around and chat with some of the men. I wasn't fully comfortable just walking up and talking to them on my own, but I listened in on a couple of the conversations.

These men are deprived of daily conversation and really just want to talk and be listened to. And that's exactly what we had to offer them: our ears. Some of the men were so interesting. A lot of them were from other countries who had traveled to Canada, lost all of their money, and couldn't get in touch with their family back home. Some of the men were extremely intelligent. One man in particular has a hoarding problem. He collects books and magazines and is paying over $1000 a month for the 4 storage units filled with his collection. He has money to pay for storage, but he doesn't have an apartment! He seems to be emotionally connected to purchasing and saving these items because it started right after his wife passed away. The woman who was having this conversation with him works in finance. She was discussing with him how much money he could save if he stopped buying the books(he purchases them daily) and he was adding the sums in his head faster than she could write them down. It's sad to think that this man could live a fairly comfortable and secure life financially in a decent apartment if he didn't bear the burden of his collection.

Our night at the Scott Mission truly opened my eyes to a new view of the homeless. I feel like I better understand where they are coming from when I pass them on the street. It may not be in God's plan for me to play a huge role in the homeless ministry, but He definitely wanted me to witness these interactions!

I've developed a new hobby: painting mason jars!!! It's a great way to recycle old pasta sauce or pickle jars! Mason jars make for great drinking glasses because the cups that are in our apartment are really tiny! So these are some of the finished jars I've painted! I told my cast mates that if they brought me an empty jar I would decorate it for them! I just have them give me a theme or a color and then I paint it for them. I find it really relaxing! I think they make great gifts for people! There are tons of uses for jars!