Summertime reflections

The next couple posts will detail some of the exciting stories from the fall, but before I get there, here are a few of my Summertime reflections:

After a semester full of new vision and ministry; and a rapidly growing community; I spent the summer resting, planning for the upcoming year and embarking on adventures!

I started the summer a little hectically, as I quickly bid farewell to the interns, and packed up my room to make space for the Toronto Urban Partnership to inhabit our house during the month of May. While my house was occupied in May, I was in Bangladesh with 3 Ryerson students and 11 other students from Queens, McMaster, Western, Waterloo and Ottawa University. I had a blast with this fun group of students and an amazing staff team, and though Bangladesh wasn’t quite what I thought it would be, it definitely left an impression on me, and I came back changed!

After Bangladesh, I hit the road on the Greyhound and spent 6 days in rural Pennsylvania setting up and standing in my best friend’s wedding! It was a hoot, and I learned a whole new set of life skills, as I encountered “roughing it” in ways that were vastly different than my “roughing it” experiences in Bangladesh! After the wedding, I hopped on the bus and went down to Florida to visit with Sasha before she headed out to Kolkata on a Global Urban Trek. I remained in Orlando for a few days and rested and met up with friends; then headed to North Carolina for the Wild Goose Festival! An experience like no other, I enjoyed the time there and found rest in God despite the lack of many of my usual comforts. After the Wild Goose festival, I headed to Washington for a few days, and caught up with my good friend Crystel and was cared for well by her and her family. After being on the road for 3 weeks, it was nice to have South Asian parents take care of me. After Washington, I slowly made my way back to Toronto, to embark on the next new thing.

The next new thing being my household being filled with new housemates, we welcome Dan and Joy in at the end of July (Sara moved in while I was in Bangladesh). The rest of July was spent sorting out new household rhythms and planning for the new year of ministry with my new staff team and my new exec leaders. The new exec consisted of 4 women that I had invested in over the past year, Lauren, Bethany, Amber and Sandra; I was excited to see how they would work together and the vision they brought to ministry on campus! We met as an exec team a number of times over the months of July and August; first at Dan’s parent’s cottage and later at our house. There were a lot of great ideas and new vision for the ministries we would pursue this year.

All of the GTA campuses made a commitment to have the Gospel of Luke be the main teaching text for the year, so there would be an excitement building as students prepared for Urbana (where Luke would be taught) as well as so there would be consistency as we did GTA wide ministry and conferences. The exec students were excited about this possibility, and coming out of bible study of Luke, we wanted to model how we engaged people and relationships after Jesus’ interactions as well as pursue issues of justice as an expression of our faith and from these desires we shaped ministry for the upcoming year.