<--me climbing the whiskers on the ship to the TOP! :) it was an incredible view!

So I am still alive! J So I have had a crazy awesome last week here in B.C.! Last week we left on Monday to go sailing on a 130’ schooner sail ship! It was called the Pacific Grace. We spent 5 days on a sail ship out on the Ocean! Our first day sailing was the best day we could have had out of all the days out on the Ocean! We were tilted to the side the boat and soaring through the water. The waves were so high to the boat. It was definitely incredible! We sailed Monday till Friday, sailing in the afternoons for a bit than anchoring just before dinner time for the night. The really neat thing was we all had to do night watch. This meant that each night there would be a list that would go up and it would tell us who was going to wake up at what time and go watch the ship for an hour. I had 3 shifts! The first night I had to wake up at 4am and my watch went until 5am! The purpose of this watch was to make sure the boat was not moving a whole bunch during the night. When I would go watch my partner and me would look for a landmark and keep an eye on it so we made sure by the end of our shift that we had not moved a fair bit. It was a fun opportunity to talk with people and look at the amazing stars in the middle of the Ocean! Another sweet thing on the boat was the FOOD! It was incredible! I think it’s the best cooking I have ever had (sorry mom) haha. My favorite was the first day we had hash brown. But it was mixed with vegetables and crème of broccoli sauce. Night times were the best!  Every night we would “muster” up on the deck.  That would mean we would all gather up on deck. The crew had games for us to play each night. My favorite game was we picked two people to go out of the room and they would get told that we were making up a story and they had to come back nto the room and guess it. What really went on is we had no story and when they came in and asked a question whatever word they ended in if it was even than we said yes but if it was odd we would say no. Neither people that went out of the room thought that we were making it up on the spot. One girl Deborah made her story about Greek mythology with a dragon and a sword and beef.  Another guy Jake made his story about kitchen appliances. After doing a game we would get guitars out and have a sing along. They were a mix of worship songs and secular songs that were awesome! So all in all the S.A.L.T.S trip was amazing!

  My church experience is going awesome! I attend Warmland Community Church on Sundays and I really enjoy it. This previous Sunday I helped lead Sunday School with Stevie G who is the leader. It is held across the street from the community center where church is in the fire hall which is really neat! It's sort of antique fire hall and its neat. This sunday was about God making us all unique and how in the image of God he made us all unique. We had the kids make body parts on papers such as eyes and nose and ears and arms and legs and mouths. We than had them put together a skit about what body parts don't go with the others. I had my girls line up and do a fashion show haha. They walked across the front and had ears with arms and so on. I met this girl named sarah that sort of stood out to me. She was really nice and i hope to see her at church on sunday again! This week I'm looking forward to wednesday night junior high.

So this week we have our first course. It's called spiritual formation. It's with Marv Penner which is amazing. We had our first class today which was pretty good. This week is all about forming a more personal intimate relationship with God. We get a little bit of time each day to have quiet time and write in a journal that we have for the course. Im really excited for this week to grow with God and see what he has for me in store to show me. We have some course reading to do and we are going to be reading the book of proverbs and handing in a written report about the heart by the end of october. I'm thinking starting this week i want to go on a facebook/internet fast. Just because i want to concentrate on my course and do my work and have no distractions. So i will not be on internet until friday or saturday to tell you all :).

Upcoming events:

Next week we leave tuesday-thursday to go SURFING in Tofino! Which i cannot hardly wait because it looks so gorgeous and i have always wanted to go surfing! I'm really excited for this oppurtunity!

Some things to pray for this week:

*for me to be open to what there is to learn

*to be challenged with the work

*to have discipline not going on face-book/internet for a few days

*to have an open heart to new things

thanks everyone!

Love Alivia :)

Kaleo Ministry 2

             "Team Awesome Sauce" 

This is my team from the left eric, phil, me,

 jesse, jordan, deborah, paul!

As you can see we were all so tired! This

 picture was taken the 3rd day 

when we finished!

Hey :)

So my week has been pretty awesome but SOOOO busy! This week I did a number of things. Monday through Wednesday I hiked up a mountain which i told you a little bit about. We left on monday morning at 6:30am and it took about 2 hours to drive to Strathcona park to go on the adventure to hike up Mt.Albert-Edward. We all had big back packs to carry while hiking! Over the course of 3 days we hiked 34km! We were split up into random groups of 5-6 people in each to hike with. My group name was "team awesome sauce"! haha! We were professionals :) So we hiked 10km the first day than camped out off this beautiful lake. I love camping! At night a whole bunch of us played some dutch blitz and went down by the water and chatted and the sky was gorgeous with tons of stars away from any busy highways or city lights! We got up early the next day and met up with all the other groups and hiked up the mountain. It was a 14km hike which was so INTENSE! I can't believe i did it! I know that without everyone there i probably would not have made it but because we all worked together and we were all in it together made it sweet to climb knowing everyone was experiencing some sort of emotional or physical pain from the intense hike! 

So we hiked for a few hours and it came down to the last lil bit of the hike and inside my head i was like i did it we did it! Were almost there i can see the top! A few of us joined hands in a line across the bottom little part of the mountain and we walked up it like a summit! It only lasted for a few mintues with us being all eager to get up to the top! Once we got up there it was breathtaking the few was wow...words cant even describe the beauty i saw on that mountain that day. I wish i could capture it all in my camera but there is no picture that would have the same impact as being there in that moment of beauty! It was a gorgeous day which was terrific and the sun was a shining :)

So lets talk about my church I attend! I will tell you a little bit about my church. THe name of it is called Warmland and it is in the Cowichan valley which is the warmest place known around B.C. It's a church that is about 1 and a half years old and it is all about inviting people out to a whole different experience of church and seeing the love of God through different ways. It's a very inviting church with very nice people and an awesome pastor! The sunday services are a little bit different than your regular church. Service starts around 10:00am and than they have a secular song to open every week relating to the sermon. It's really neat idea i think because for some people it makes them feel more comfortable to hear a song that they might recognize and it might be there first time coming to church. After this song the band sits down and the Pastor Scott makes some announcements and than does his sermon. They have worship after the sermon to reflect on what was preached. It's an awesome way of going at the sunday service i think and i really enjoy it! I've been there now 2 sundays and its been awesome! I help out on Wednesday nights with youth group. The ages of the children are grades 5-7. I have a group of Grade 7 girls that i am starting to lead and be their leader! 

I am so excited for the many more experiences and things that i will be doing in my church coming up! Tomorrow i leave from 21-25 on a sailing trip! I will be sailing for a few days on a tall ship which i can't hardly wait to do!  Although i am having all this fun there is work involved and i need to finish some work before i leave.

Soooo some prayer requests over the next few days could be:

-Pray for me to get my work done and not procrastinate with my homework.

-Pray for safety traveling back and forth to Victoria.

-Pray that everyone will have an amazing time and we will continue to grow together as an awesome community and for sweet friendships to keep on being made!

Love Alivia :)

here are some pictures from Mt.Albert Edward!

This is me and erin! :)

Getting close to the top of the mountain! You can see the peak! 

We had a huge snow ball fight near the top of the mountain! It was really funny!

A little glimpse of the beauty on the mountain top!

Team "Ontario" were #1 lol :)

Hope you liked the pictures! I'm still learning how to work this out! :)

Kaleo Ministry

Hey y'all!

So this is my blog for the year! I am currently in British Columbia at Bible college in a little town called Crofton. I live on a Camp site similar to the camp I go to in the summers in port sydney, Ontario. I am embarking on a 8 month foundational program for young leaders. The program is called Kaleo and it's an adventure Bible program that develops leaders! We go on lots of out trips such as sailing, surfing, snowboarding and much more. But while we are doing this we also have course work we are assigned to do. For instance right now I'm reading a book called" The life you've always wanted" by John Ortberg. Its one of my course requirements to finish this book before the course and do the questions and essay assigned. Its all about spiritual growth and development and its pretty good! Also we join churches around the area and help out at youth group or sunday services and attend them and come into their church family! We are also trained on the challenge course aka known as high ropes course where you can do a number of fun thing such as the zip line which is awesome! 

So this Blog is going to be about my adventure, my challenges, my prayer requests, my church I am joining and my ministry here while at Kaleo in B.C. I have already done some amazing things and am so excited to tell you all about them! I will try and keep you updated about every week on what i'm up to and how things are going! 

For instance this past week i climbed a mountain over a course of 3 days we hiked 34km! Which was so intense but very rewarding when we got to the top of that mountain! It really helped with everyone doing it with me!

I will have more to update on for sure! I hope you enjoy reading this blog and looking at all my pictures :) I've taken ridiculous amounts already! 

Sincerely,

Alivia :)