2015 Annual Report
Be on the lookout for more stories of this semester, but in the meantime here’s the 2015 Annual Report!
Sisterhood/Brotherhood of the Travelling Book
Launching 20,000 Extraordinary Kingdom Leaders by 2020 has been our vision at IVCF Canada for the past few years. One of the factors we use to measure Extraordinary Kingdom Leaders (EKL)s is Influence, specifically
Influence: An Extraordinary Kingdom Leader is regularly instrumental in leading others, individually and in groups, to spiritual growth and richer Christian community. Witness and Service are hallmarks of others lives because of this person’s influence.
“It’s really exciting that you’re sharing something you received while you were in Toronto to bless your church community” – Me
“I know! I’d never done manuscript study until I came to Ryerson!” -Student
These past few weeks have had me meeting brand new students on campus, but also reconnecting with former students, while I share about my transition to OCAD and seek new prayer and financial partners. In the process I was amazed as I heard stories of manuscript bible studies starting up in churches in Etobicoke, Innisfil, and Trinidad by former students! I listened as I heard their stories of feeling called to share what they had received on campus with their church communities and asked for advice as they stepped out in faith leading these studies!
I also heard about the Sisterhood/Brotherhood of the Travelling book. The book being Henri Nouwen’s Wounded Healer which I gave to my former student RA who’s home in Trindad for the year. After finishing the book herself, she’s taken to passing this book around in her community. She told me her mom is currently reading it, then it will get passed on to her youth pastor, then it will get passed on to the senior pastor’s son!
After doing campus ministry for so many years it’s still exciting for me to hear these stories of students going to or returning to faith communities and extending their influence in these places.
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.
Oh the Places You’ll Go
It’s my favourite Dr. Seuss book, and I have fond memories of one of my first events as a student in the Ryerson IVCF community had Jess, the Campus Minister at the time read this story to the graduating class. I always planned on doing something like that when we had a big graduating class, and this year we themed our Year End Party around this Seuss book. With bright decorations, nostalgic games and themed food we celebrated a full year of ministry with friends new and old. I widely announced to the community what’s coming up for me, and ended the party with a reading of Oh the Places You’ll Go.
Oh the Places You’ll Go
Forgiveness
RA is a dynamo! She is full of vision, leadership and wisdom. This year has been a tough year for her, she’s had a number of health issues and has had a number of issues emerge for the students in her care in residence. One such incident with a residence student triggered a traumatic event from her past, and she was caught in a hard place between caring for this student and being filled with anger at the incident and what it brought up in her. When she told me this story, she said, “I’m trying really hard to love this student but I HATE him, I really really hate him for what he’s done.” Just after our last meeting as a leadership team, she felt prompted to go talk to this student. She planned to let him know how he’s been out of line and all the pain he’s caused other people. She knocks on his door, and is completely disarmed when he starts crying. He confides in her that his mother passed away in the last month and he hadn’t been dealing with it well, and all his problematic behaviour was his way of not dealing with his grief. Now as all this is transpiring, RA is talking to Jesus, she’s annoyed because she knows He wants her to minister to this student and care for him in his grief because she’s been through similar experiences of losing someone close to her AND also knows how to distract herself with self-destructive behaviours instead of dealing with her grief. She knows that God wanted her to forgive this student and love him, not scold him as she had planned to do. She felt her anger melt away as she heard more of his story, and she was able to offer him words of hope and encouragement coming from her own experiences. She told her boss after this encounter happened, and her boss waxed poetic about how great she was for using her experiences to help and heal others, and she quickly asserted, “No, this is God teaching me about forgiveness.”
Students reaching Students for Christ
Often when I raise support, I invite people to help me reach students as they reach other students for Christ. This year moreso than any of my other years on staff it’s been clear to me that every single person who’s come to an outreach event, potluck or bible study has done so because of a relationship with someone in our community.
It’s been thrilling to come alongside my students as they boldly reach their peers and share the hope they have in their life.
“You spend a lot of time with these people,” is how a conversation started with AP and her coworker N started. For N, an international Masters student taking 3 courses and working 2 jobs; she couldn’t understand why AP would spend so much of the time she could be working on her thesis, on campus with this community. And so, rather than tell N all the reasons why she chooses to invest in this community, she invites her to come to dinner with us. And then she invites her to come to other outreach events we’re hosting. And then, this summer she’ll invite her to be part of a seeker study with some of their other coworkers.
When I think about the odd community of leaders I had serving alongside me this year, I’m struck at how they are remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. Did I lose you?
Here’s what I mean, each of the student leaders are involved in significant relationships with people outside of our community. RA as an RA in residence, Patchy in a large but intimate engineering program, AP with her Masters professor and colleagues, Dumplings with her Nutrition and Cooking Group friends and Swift, Pink and Beaker with their friends in classes and from high school. If I were to take a poll, none of them would say they have the gift of evangelism, but each in their own way have witnessed to those around them the redeeming work of Christ in their lives in ways that are both remarkable and seemingly unremarkable, as it just flows out of their lived experiences.
Each one has shared about this mysterious and intriguing campus group they serve with, and each one has come around as a community to love and care for each other’s friends.
X is a student who is friends with Patchy. He came to our last 2 events in the fall semester, and turned up at a bible study this February. The study was led by AP, and ended up being a space where X was able to ask his big questions about Christianity. AP then gave him her copy of a new seeker series we are launching designed by Becky Pippert. A few weeks after this study, RA went on a 2 hour walk with X to debrief his experience. She was able to hear his experiences, answer his questions and encourage him to keep asking questions and seeking to understand Christ. X is still on a journey of discovering Christ, but he now knows there’s a community that wants to journey with him.
Sometimes it means letting go
I had one objective going into the meeting: convince her to stay. I was terrified, I didn’t think I had enough trust developed, I wasn’t sure she’d listen and I was worried it would all blow up. But I felt the prompting of the Spirit to just listen and ask questions; to seek understanding before pleading my case. In the two hours we spent walking around the neighbourhood, I listened and I asked questions.
And she painted the full picture of what she had been experiencing in the last few months. Stories of pain, isolation and deep anguish. She spoke of the many costs and pressures she endures for the sake of being an international student in Canada. She spoke of how hard it has been being away from home, and how the home she’s made in Canada still lacks. She shared about how the psychological pain she’s ignored has now manifested into physical ailments. I heard the ways our community wasn’t there in her times of need. I began to see that even the BEST option here couldn’t meet all of her needs.
“I think you should go home.” What? Did I actually say that? Yes, I did. Even though I have a huge stake in her staying. Even though I thought some of her reasons were rubbish. Even though I walked into that meeting with the purpose of convincing her to stay. It was clear, if she willed herself to do it, she could manage, and she would make it work if she stayed. And I listened as she rattled off all the voices in her life telling her what to do and why their reason was the best for her life. And though I planned to be another one of those voices, I just knew, she couldn’t keep going like this. She needed to prioritize her healing, and she wouldn’t if she stayed. I prayed with her and released her to spend more time discerning with God what he wanted for her.
She called me a few days later to let me know she decided to spend a year at home. To transfer some of her schooling and take time to attend to her health, with the plan to return and finish her remaining credits the following year.
I will miss her, and I will deeply feel the loss of her on campus and in our community, but I trust that God will use this time to replenish her and strengthen her, to heal her and transform her, and I look forward to the day when our paths cross again.
Pi(e) Day Celebrations
For the past few years, I’ve enjoyed celebrating the somewhat nerdy holiday of Pi day, which happens on March 14 (3.14 in honour of pi). This year’s pi day was even more special because it would be 3.14.15!
Last year I celebrated with pie and a private viewing of Life of Pi at my house, which ended up being a sleeper hit with a vast variety of students and fringe acquaintances attending. This year, I brought the party on campus, but we celebrated one day early (so we wouldn’t make the students come in on Saturday).
We made pie flyers, a variety of pies and set the room to welcome people well. I decided this year to show a few clips of the movie and then allow space for more focused discussion. The clips got people deeply invested in the story and the discussion helped us reveal how and what we resonated with. As we finished with the big question of which story did we prefer the one with the tiger or without and how it is the same with God, I could see the moments when it all clicked into place for the students. After the event, one of my leaders who was wrestling through a big decision saw her story in the movie and realized that the thing she was trying to hold onto was like the mysterious carnivorous island, what once was a very good life-giving thing for her now was destroying her, and she needed to let it go to move on.
One of my highlights from the event was how we started off the event with pie-themed haikus (pie-kus) and had a pie-ku battle. I started off the festivities with this gem:
I love cherry pie
It is my jam and so good
Wouldn’t you agree?
Here’s some of my favourites written by my wacky students (clearly some struggled with the rules of writing haikus):
I enjoy all pies
Savoury as well as sweet
Which do you prefer?
We are so fly eat-
Ing blueberry apple pie
Why won’t you be mine?
Roman numeral
It’s used in mathematics
Math, math, circle, math
You smile with you eyes
Cuz we got loads of pie bloat-
Ed but we won’t die
Today I ate pie
However I did not die
Because pie saves lives
And the one that closed down the competition:
3.141
5926535
8979
The Arch 