Summer Fellowship
This is the first summer in 3 years that I haven’t been on a Global Partnership. It has been an interesting experience being able to experience the fullness of being in Canada for the months of May and June! I’ve been blessed with times with friends, celebrations of anniversaries and time to rest and reflect on the past year.
I also have had the opportunity to be more involved in the GTA summer fellowship. In the past few years, the summer fellowship has been inter-campus and dominantly student run. But this year, myself, and a few of my colleagues are around for the summer, so we wanted to be more invested and involved in the GTA summer fellowship.
Christa, staff at U of T St George and I gather students from all the downtown campuses on Thursday nights at Ryerson for a summer topical study called “Loving Your…”. Each week we have a new topic like loving your neighbour, loving your enemy, loving yourself, and so on. We’ve alternated between leading studies ourselves and training students to lead studies; and we’ve been using scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments. And one Friday a month, we invite students from all across the GTA to join us for a social event, like Shakespeare in the Park. This has been a great way for us to partner with Christa’s husband and his students at U of T Mississauga.
I have never had so much fun during a summer fellowship! I love leading with Christa, and I’m constantly encouraged and amazed at the work God is doing in the lives of the students we have been gathering!
After the first week of study, one Ryerson student who’s been on the fringe of our community, came up to me and asked if I had extra copies of the scripture so she could lead this study with her parents! The next week I asked her to lead the study with another Ryerson student, it was the first time for the both of them and they did a fantastic job! Also after the first few weeks of study, the students would stay after the study chatting with each other for another hour and then would go out for late night food afterward. I was hoping these things would happen by the end of the summer and I am still pleasantly surprised at how soon these things are happening!
GTA summer fellowship 2015
MarkCentral 2015
Ever feel pulled apart in 4 different directions? At our annual week-long Mark manuscript scripture conference, I was wearing 4 hats.
Hat 1
I taught the second half of Mark (Chapters 8-16) with colleagues and friends of mine, teaching some heavy-hitting passages including the transfiguration and crucifixion; and it was also my first time being a teacher at MarkCentral. I enjoyed the group of students we had in our section from York, Ryerson, McMaster, U of T, OCAD, Queen’s and Carleton. After a hard year on campus, being in so many passages related to suffering was challenging but needed. Our section struggled grappling with the depth of these teachings, but by the end of our time together, things really landed for the students as they looked through passages that were at varying degrees of familiarity with new understanding. One of my highlights was finding new ways to make the text more interactive. For the rich ruler passage, I asked the students to write down on a rock things that they prioritize over their relationship with God, they kept those rocks on their tables all week, and then after we finished studying the crucifixion, I led the students to a nearby stream and asked them to reflect on what they wrote in light of the crucifixion and to choose to release the rocks physically and metaphorically into the stream. Words don’t fully give justice to the feelings that arose as I heard the silence pierced by the individual thunks of rocks hitting the water. Afterward at dinner, a student from our study came up to me and told me, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been as happy as he was when he let go of his rock and what it represented.
Hat 2 and 3
I also was going back and forth between serving and caring for the team of students from Ryerson and the students at OCAD, and feeling like I wasn’t really caring well for either, as I technically hadn’t transitioned to OCAD yet, but my staff partner wasn’t around so I was trying to care for the students there in her absence. After each worship night, we were invited to gather with our campus groups and check in and pray with one another. I asked for Ryerson and OCAD to be together so it would be one less thing I was split between. Our first gathering was awkward. But the next gathering which was 3 days later, revealed that in the time that had passed, the students had sought each other out and were becoming friends. I planned to divide the group into the different campuses to pray, but felt actually the Spirit had been doing some good work binding this group together and it made sense to pray together. I was especially encouraged as the students who were studying Mark 2 with me revealed how over the course of the week the Spirit revealed things in their lives they needed to cut out and choose differently. This felt especially redemptive as I heard from some of my Ryerson leaders who named the things that had been holding them back all year and express remorse for not choosing to do something about it sooner.
Hat 4
I also was a major part of the team responsible for hosting our friends from Bangladesh. All year I had been talking back and forth with our hosts and friends from Bangladesh about getting students to come to MarkCentral. After lots of factors, it wasn’t possible for students to get the visas needed to come to Canada, but Brother Peter, the general secretary of the movement and his associate Brother Bony were able to come. It was challenging trying to host them well in the midst of all the other things I was doing that week, but I had a team of Canadian staff and friends to help with hosting. After the week at MarkCentral, Ashley, one of the staff on my GUP team last year and I hosted Peter and Bony around the city and even took them to Niagara Falls!
In the midst of all these hats I was wearing, I was grateful for those of you who had been praying for this conference; and was aware of all the different ways God was calling me to trust and rely on Him to make all things happen. At the end of the week I was exhausted, but grateful.
The End of an Era
The Seuss themed end of year party had some great moments; my favorite being a game poking fun at Patchy, called Pin the Beard on the [Patchy]. I also had a lot of fun blind-folding (and terrifying) the winner of the Richard Baker Award, an Award that’s been a tradition at Ryerson given to graduating students who go above and beyond choosing to extend hospitality and invest in younger students especially in their last years of their degree which are usually the busiest. I had her blind-folded and brought to the front of the room, then proceeded to talk about all the wonderful ways she’s blessed our community, and relished as she squirmed thinking she was in for something awful, then I had the blind-fold taken off and gave her the award. I think she was more upset at the anticipation of something terrible happening than if I had actually done something terrible! But she was grateful for being honoured with the award.
At this point in the festivities, I made the announcement to the larger community (and now to you) that I would be leaving Ryerson and becoming a campus minister at OCAD University.
After this, the same student who won the Richard Baker Award, called me forward, and asked me to sit in one of two chairs at the front of the room. She took the other seat, and then proceeded to conduct an “exit interview”. I think it was meant to be more lighthearted and funny, but some of the questions (which I had no prior knowledge of) were a little awkward to answer without preparation.
After a few more games and tons of desserts, the party was over. I had a lot of fun, but as my last RIVCF party on campus, it felt like a bit of an anti-climactic ending. My last official Ryerson-specific event after this party was a final leader’s meeting to debrief the year.
At our last exec meeting, which was 2 days later, we spent the time eating pie and sharing with each other what we appreciated about one another and about all the things we were glad to receive this year in leadership. I was encouraged as I saw this group of strangers had become deep spiritual friends and deeply loved one another.
As you likely know, I’m an avid reader, and as a parting gift I gave away some books for the students to further their development moving forward giving each a specific book to meet them where they are at, many of these titles may seem familiar as they are ones I’ve mentioned on this blog:
- Patchy: Real Life by James Choung
- AP: Small Things Done with Great Love by Margot Starbuck
- Beaker: Pursuit of God in the Company of Friends by Richard Lamb
- Swift: Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
- Pink: Everyday Justice by Julie Clawson
- Dumplings: Baking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens by Lynne Christy Anderson and Corby Kummer
- RA: Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen
It felt good to give the students my personal copies of these books and share the insights I’d received these books and bless them into the next things in their lives be it more school or entering the workforce.
The Arch 