This week's challenge

"wherever you are, be all there"

I first heard that quote during LDP, and it's stuck with me ever since.  As things start wrapping up with first semester (we've only got 3 weeks left until Christmas break - I'm not 100% sure how that happened!), the challenge becomes not checking out too early.  It can get super hard not to start wishing to be home, surrounded by familiar faces and traditions.

This week has been challenging - dealing with tiredness, burnout and loneliness, but I also believe that it's worth it.  I love my job; I love what it allows me to do, who it allows me to be, and how it challenges and stretches me.  That doesn't make it easy.

I miss you all like crazy - and I'm so grateful for your thoughts and prayers.  Knowing that there are people back home who love and support me makes such a huge difference.

Sandy

ps. It snowed for the first time today!  Boy oh boy do the mountains look amazing when it snows :-)

The most remote place I've ever been.

If you were to travel to across Canada to the far west coast, hop on a ferry over to Vancouver Island, drive pretty much all the way up and across the island and then get on another boat for 20 minutes... you would reach Esperanza.  And that is where I just spent a week off then internet/cellphone grid - and it was fantastic.

What wasn't fantastic was our 4:00am departure time to leave Hope, BC (for Esperanza, which ironically enough means 'hope' in Spanish).  We had to be at the harbour by 6:00 to hold our reservation on the ferry... it was a hair-raising, rainy, dark drive; we arrived at 5:57.  Phew.  

And it was a looooong day of driving, including the windiest, hilliest road I've ever driven on.  But it was worth it in the end - Esperanza was breathtaking.  See?

the barge taking our luggage over

Unfortunately, I got stuck on the barge with all our luggage.  So instead of a 20 minute sheltered trip over the island, I stood in the frigid wind for an hour.  But I made friends with a little 3-year old boy out for the trip.  Which was hilarious when he was sitting on my lap that Sunday at church and we had the following conversation:

Sammy: What's that? (grabbing my necklace)

Sandy:  That's my necklace

Sammy: I have a scorpion necklace at home

Sandy: Oh wow!

Sammy:  What's that?  (grabbing the zipper on my shirt)

Sandy: A zipper

Sammy: What are those? (pulling out the zipper and looking down my shirt)

Sandy: ... 

And then I burst out laughing.  So did Christine, who was sitting beside me.  I figured out later on that he was probably looking at the writing on the shirt I was wearing underneath, but that didn't stop it from being the funniest thing I heard all day!

Sunday was actually one of the coolest days of my life.  One of our students, Laura, decided that she wanted to get baptized at Esperanza, and that she wanted me to baptize her.  I was so honoured.  And totally terrified, because, honestly, who am I to baptize anyone?!  But Steve reminded me that "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called".  

So Laura and I headed into the Pacific Ocean on November 7th, 2010 to proclaim her faith :-)

Laura & I

 ... and it was awesome, salty and cold!  Not that that stopped some of our crazier students from jumping off the docks afterwards.

getting ready... 

 Now, when I was being briefed about Esperanza, I was told we were gonna chop wood in the rain for a week.  And we got the most beautiful week ever!  We probably got 2 inches of rain all week in a place where it's not uncommon to get 10 inches of rain in a morning.

And I discovered on that first work afternoon, that I just adore chopping wood!  We had a competition later on (Dan, Pete, Jake, Raf, Blayne, Scones and I haha) to see who could split one of those giant logs into quarters first.  I came last... big surprise, eh?  But I did it!

chopping away!

Blayne.  Mad skills.  

 We ended up chopping all the wood that first afternoon (which was a little disappointing, since I just discovered how fun it is!), but we went trail-blazing all week long.

heading off to the trail head

We were helping to clear some new portage trails... and that meant: MACHETES.  Woot. 

hardcore

 It really was in the middle of nowhere... And there was no trail to speak of when we first arrived... As you might be able to deduce from the picture below.

Pete standing at the takeout

 Funny story.  Jake and Pete were trying to remove a root ball from the trail, where it was half buried.  They'd already removed the rest of the tree and were trying to roll the stump down the hill.  Pete was pulling and Jake was pushing, when out of the dirt came a giant hidden root - right up between Jake's legs.  It flipped him up and over the stump and onto Pete and they both rolled a little ways down the hill. It was the funniest, most surprising thing that happened all day.  I thought Scones was going to pass out he was laughing so hard!

Pete & Jake - mid roll

 I've mentioned already that Esperanza was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  The clouds hung so low over the water, between the mountainous hills on either side of the river...  And because it was the ocean, you got tides - which sometimes exposed starfish...

the docks at Esperanza

 My day off that week was gorgeous - I went kayaking, hiking, chopped some wood, went swimming...

out in the woods

 ... and fell through a tree.  There was a stream running through the compound - it was really neat actually, because it was salmon season, so you could watch them swim upstream to spawn.  I tried to find a place where I could see them jump, but instead I fell through some tree roots and got a really wet foot.

stupid salmon river... 

And that was our week.  We got some great classes on First Nation/White Man relations and colonization, played a lot of Cribbage and Dutch Blitz, cooked our own food and laughed together.  It was a lot of fun and we made some great new friends, but I don't think I could live there for a year.  

Lots of love

Sandy

Happy Halloween!

I finally did it folks... after 3 years of waiting, I was a semi-colon or Halloween!!

oh yeah :)

Just thought I'd share.

Sandy
xo

Piggy-backs, caving and deer... oh my!

Hey everyone!  Here's a bit of an update from the middle of October.  We've been hanging out at Camp Squeah in Hope, BC and it's just a beautiful place!  We're in the middle of the mountains and eating some of the best camp food I've ever had in my life!  And all that food has left us with a ton of energy... 

Rueben, Jake, Pete, Blayne, Darren and Caity present: the Ultimate Piggy Back

We had a great time relaxing at camp after our crazy Guy/Girl week - and it was really needed, because the next week we headed off on another Urban Plunge.  This time, we were going to help out in Vancouver.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here!

I spent a weekend in Langley, BC with my fantastic friend Kristy.  We had a sushi trio going on back in Waterloo - some Sundays after church we'd head off to Ye's All-you-can-eat sushi restaurant and just stuff our faces with sushi.  I always left feeling slightly ill and unable to even think about sushi until the following Thrusday.  So, since we were re-united for a weekend, Kristy and I decided that we just had to have sushi.  

We found a great place... and it turned into a bit of an adventure because 2 minutes after we showed up, the power went out!  So we had sushi by candlelight.  It was lovely!

Kristy & I

Before we took off for Vancouver, we had one last adventure waiting for us in Hope: spelunking!

Here we are showing off our fabulous caving coveralls. 

The challenges began even before we got into the caves... we had to find the entrance, and that sure wasn't easy!

Christine's feeling a little lost amongst the boulders...

Once inside, the challenges continued... we were never sure that everyone was going to make it through those teensy tiny holes

Dan's feeling a wee bit squished...

Now some of us were a... little nervous crawling around underground with no real idea where we were in space (ie. me), but others just lit up and went a little crazy crawling around.

all smiles for Christine!

I did pretty good in the caves, considering that I'm slightly claustraphobic...  But I did panic once or twice when we had to squirm through the really tight places, and when our guide casually mentioned that he always got lost in this section of the caves and once had to sit down, breathe and tell himself "it's all good, I'll get out of here eventually..."  It was about that point in time that I started to really need sunlight.

group shot in the caves; Dan missed the memo that said 'smile!'

The area we were caving in was gorgeous.  They must get a lot of rain here, because everything was covered in this intensely green moss.

Mimi & I

 See what I mean?!

Nadine & Allison

However, all that damp meant that while our clothing was clean(ish) - thanks to the coveralls - we all had rather wet rear ends...

After our caving adventure, we trekked back to camp, showered and took off for Vancouver, but I'll tell y'all about that at a later date.

We just finished up our service day at Squeah... and Steve totally jinxed us.  He mentioned that it just poured for his service day at Squeah, and what did I see when I opened my door the following morning?  Rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  And it rained all day!  But it meant that I got to wear my fantastically bright rain gear and jump in puddles.  Yay!

yay for rain!

the picnic table crew

 Now, most of the jobs were things like raking leaves, moving mulch, clearing trails.  Pete, however, managed to snag the job of helping one of the camp staff skin the deer his friend caught on the weekend.  I have never seen someone so excited for a service day before.

big smiles for the deer

And that brings you almost up to date on my life.  More to come as I get pictures!

Miss you all and love you bunches.

Sandy