Senior Girls Camp
“I would rather go on 5 GPs in a row than ever go to camp.”
I’ll be honest, when I first joined staff with Inter-Varsity, I prayed that I would never be sent to work at one of IV’s Pioneer Camps. I remember once boldly saying, “I would rather go on 5 GPs in a row than ever go to camp.” That changed this summer. I not only went and volunteered my time with one of IV’s summer camps, but chose to do so at the Rocky Mountain House site in Alberta at their Senior Girls Camp in July.
In addition to being a significant site for LIT, and Senior Boys and Girls camps; this camp is where MarkWEST is often hosted (a week-long scripture conference that is the Western field’s equivalent of City/Script). Many of my friends have worked and spent significant portions of their year at this camp, and I was struck by how familiar the site was based on their photos. I distinctly remember having feelings of having memories of a place at which I hadn’t spent time.
As a campus minister to University students, I was more than a little concerned that I would have difficulties working with girls aged 13-17. But, what ended up being the case was far from true! I was amazed that even in my support staff role at camp just how much time I got to interact and spend time with the campers.
My days were very full! I would start the day at 7:15 with a leaders meeting, then begin my day helping prepare and serve breakfast and lunch for the campers, then in the afternoon I would spend leading program blocks and following dinner I would help with technology needed for our evening program. In the midst of very busy days I got to have great points to connect and bond with fellow camp staff and campers.
Some of the highlights of my time at camp included:
- Reuniting with many of my friends who participated in the Global Partnership to Zambia in 2008, especially in their “home-turf” and getting to grow deeper in relationship with this common experience
- Working in the kitchen with an eclectic kitchen crew that consisted of men and women ranging from aged 14 to 77!
- Spending time with a group of welcoming, empowering, and affirming women of many generations!
I was inspired to go to camp after a conversation with my good friend Jenna, who impressed upon me the importance of the camp and campus connection, and instilled in me vision and excitement to be at camp. As an immigrant child of Asian descent, I’ve never experienced a “Canadian” sleepover camp, and so parts of camp were a little culture shocking for me, but I was struck by how many people kept checking in on me and making sure I was settling in well.
I didn’t expect to love camp as much as I did. By the second day, I already began brainstorming how I could come back next summer. I loved the staff, the campers, and the vision of camp, and really was excited to pursue further partnership between camp and campus ministry!
Summer Road Trip
6 Provinces, 2 States and 6 weeks of travel…all via Greyhound
6 weeks of this summer, I hit the road via Greyhound and travelled from Toronto to Sault Ste Marie, Winnipeg, Davidson, Elbow, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Coquitlam, Burnaby, Rocky Mountain House, Lethbridge, New York, Boston, and Ottawa; with a stop for 4 days in Toronto to move at the end of July. To say that I have had my fill of Greyhound travel would be an understatement!
As I look back on the adventures I’ve had and all the people I’ve spent time with, I am full of gratitude. In many ways, God showed me His abundant grace and redeeming love as I was homeless for 6 weeks. In His perfect timing, I was able to meet with friends, supporters and colleagues and be showered in their love and hospitality. New friendships were formed and deeper relationships developed.
I hope to add more highlight stories in upcoming posts, as I continue to marvel at the ways God spoke to me during these weeks and its continued impact even to this day.
Summer Visioning with students
“What followed was an explosion of creative ministry ideas…”
Following City/Script, my student leaders were excited to be begin visioning for the upcoming school year and explore creative ministries ideas.
During the last weekend of June, we debriefed the year and began to prayerfully make plans for the upcoming year. We studied the building of the tabernacle passage of Exodus 35, and asked God to show us how and where to use the gifts He had given us.
What followed was an explosion of creative ministry ideas, as we discovered using our passions as a way to engage in ministry.
- Jenna: running ministry, to offer a place to worship God while honouring and taking care of the bodies He has blessed us with!
- Elizabeth: movie ministry, to offer a place to use popular culture as a way to engage non-Christian friends in spiritual discussions!
- Bethany: Worship, to lead and serve the community in a ministry that has needed new vision and life for the past years!
- Lauren: Cooking Classes, to serve as places where her friends from her program could meet her friends from her faith community and discuss spiritual things while cooking!
God convicted us of the places where He wanted us to be more invitational to the people He was calling on campus. So we set forth to study a gospel to get people in Scripture and interacting and discovering the fullness of Jesus; and what His life and ministry mean and model for us. We chose to spend time this fall studying the Gospel of John in a manuscript study on Thursday evenings.
We also realized that as we engage in a lot of new forms of ministry, that we really needed to set aside time to pray with God, and see what He is inviting us into on campus.
As we took account for the ways our fellowship had not pursued students in the past, we began to brainstorm ways to reach new students. One of the ideas we had for orientation week and the first week of school was to provide a map for students of the campus and the surrounding areas, noting the places to eat, make copies and buy supplies and find entertainment. We would also point out on the map where our fellowship gathers and offer the map to students free of charge.
City/Script
“…it was one of the most moving moments of my staff life.”
Every May, the Inter-Varsity fellowships from across Ontario come together to intensively study scripture of Mark’s Gospel or Genesis for one week. This year marked the 7th anniversary and was my third year attending the conference.
Up until this year, city/script was one of those conferences that Inter-Varsity as an organization was excited about, but not one I was excited about. I thought it was great, but found myself much more excited by other ministries and conferences of Inter-Varsity. That changed this year.
This year, we were amazed as God doubled our enrollment for the conference! Last year we had just over 120 people, and 3 Mark 1 studies, 1 Mark 2 study and 1 Genesis study. This year we had 5 Mark 1 studies, 2 Mark 2 studies and 1 Genesis study and had 188 people enroll!
My staff role at this conference was to find ways for the students to creatively process what God was doing in their hearts and lives that week. I partnered with my friend, Dave, who is Campus Staff at OCAD University. Together we visioned for and set up a studio space with 6 stations and various mediums for students to creatively express how God was speaking to them through the Scriptures they were studying. We also organized a coffeehouse, in order for students to share stories and display the artwork that was created, that happened toward the end of the week. I loved this role! I’m sure I would have loved teaching scripture but I loved using my creative gifts for this ministry.
But the one thing that made me rethink how I felt about this conference happened when a student in my Mark study decided to accept Jesus as his Saviour. This student was part of a group of students from the University of Ottawa. He came as a non-Christian and left on fire for God! Throughout the week he would ask a lot of thought provoking questions that made the long-term Christians really come to terms with what they believed. His skepticism could be easily perceived by anyone in the room. Then, after a gospel meditation, something shifted for this student. Something HUGE. He left the room, then came back visibly shaken, and then shared what had happened, and how he had just gone outside and asked God if He was real. This student then confessed that he was terrified about how God would answer. What followed next was one of the most moving moments of my staff life, as this student shared what was happening for him, I watched as students from his campus who were dispersed around the room all began praying for him. Then, students from my campus and others who had just met this student 4 days prior, began to envelop him in hugs and prayers. The emotions were high in the room, as people surrounded this student. Soon as communal prayer time started, and the room began to pray for each other and for this student. We then took a break, and Dan our study leader (and Campus Staff and housemate of the above mentioned student) asked the staff in his study what to do next; to push forward in the text or spend time in prayer in our campus groups. We opted for the prayer time. When I ran into Dan later that night, and asked what happened during their prayer time, he shared that this student accepted Jesus as his Saviour! This happened mid-week, so for the rest of the study we got to see this student transformed as God’s fire burned bright in him! This student shared his testimony during the coffeehouse, and a clip of it can be seen here.
Seeing this student’s transformation not only moved me, but my students as well, and created in them a desire to be a community where stories like this happen, and to be the kind of community that welcomed this student into God’s family.
A Semester in Review
Before I launch into some of the amazing things that have happened this summer and fall, I want to share a few highlights from earlier this year.
The Ryerson Tree:
“If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.” – Romans 11:17-21
On March 5th, GTA Ministry Director and my supervisor, Jamie came to teach scripture at Ryerson. She taught from Romans 9-11 and focused her teaching on the grafting of new branches. As part of the application of this text, I made a tree with many branches and the students made leaves and wrote words to describe themselves. Some leaves were adorned with broad words like “nerd” and “mature student”; others were more descriptive denoting programs and ethnic identities. Once the students finished their leaves they took turns pasting them onto the tree. Once everyone put their leaves on the tree; we took some time to look at the tree and see how we were represented. We then, started noting what was not represented on our tree; students noted specific students that hadn’t been around for a few weeks; as well as programs of study like “nursing” and “engineering” and then groups of people like “international students”, and “LGBTQ”. We began to write these people down on the blank spaces on our tree and began to pray for ways we could begin to reach out to these people.
The follow week, Ainsley, a Ryerson Inter-Varsity alumna, came to teach scripture. She taught from Romans 12-13; and focused her teaching on Spiritual Giftings. As part of the application of the text, we spent some time doing a Spiritual Gifts test. Ainsley made leaves of each of the spiritual gifts and asked us to write our names down on our top two spiritual gifts; and then attach them to the tree. We took some time to look at the tree after everyone had placed their leaves on it; and see the gifts that we bring to the community and how these gifts can help us reach those who were not yet part of the community.
Tell Me A Story:
What happens when you ask University students to take a break from studying and tell you a story? You find yourself with a community board game.
One thing the students of the Ryerson Inter-Varsity group love is playing games. So we took something our community loves and decided to invite students, staff and visitors to the campus to help us create a board game by telling us a story in words or pictures. We took their online and in person submissions and used them to create game cards. Once the game was completed, we invited people to come and play the game with us and made copies of the game to be sold to fundraise for student scholarships for Inter-Varsity’s regional spring and summer conferences.
Moses, one of my graduating New Media students, clocked more than 50 hours on this series of events by creating all of the web and print promotional materials; postering around the campus and taking risks inviting friends from his program to participate in the events! Moe had this to say, “I enjoyed the creative exploration and experimentation involved when working on the print and web design for Tell Me A Story. The time we had creating surrealist artwork with the Ryerson campus was fun and helped me grasp a deeper understanding of IVCF’s passion for community building. I loved playing the game and seeing all the beautiful artwork that had been made.” (Check out Moe’s website here.)
We still have some copies of the game left, so if you are interested in learning more, please click here.
Year End Banquet
We feasted on a variety of homemade and store bought treats and said good bye to some of our Extraordinary Kingdom Leaders at our Year End Banquet. One of the unexpected highlights was when we invited people to share their answers to the questions: How did you find Inter-Varsity and what caused you to stay? Each person in the room shared their story, even the alumni and special guests, the room was filled with God’s wonder!
China GP Training Weekend
On the weekend of March 11-13th, The Central field China Global Partnership met for the first time as a team for a weekend of teaching and training. My friend Dave, IV Staff at OCAD and U of T St. George, is directing this Global Partnership and the meeting was hosted in the home of an IV ISM Staff.
I was talking to Dave as he was preparing for the weekend, and found out he was stressed out about figuring out meals for 17 people. Since cooking for large numbers of people is something I’ve done a number of times and enjoyed; I offered to help with the meals to free Dave up to focus on the teaching time.
It worked best for me to come and cook lunch and dinner on Saturday, as Friday would be a simpler meal time, and Sunday would be leftovers. I asked Dave if he wanted any Chinese meals during the Saturday, and he asked for dinner to be a Chinese meal, but said lunch could be a simpler more generic meal.
It was here, that my ambition kicked in. I decided to undertake making a Chicken Fried Rice for lunch (which I thought would be easy) and then a 6 course Chinese Feast for dinner. I also chose a bunch of recipes I hadn;t tried before and wouldn’t have time to test before Saturday. I made the list of ingredients for Dave to buy, and came early on Saturday to make the meals.
I’d never been in the house where the meeting was held, so I didn’t know that there weren’t many barriers between the kitchen and the space the team was meeting. I also didn’t know there was a gas stove (until this point, I’d never cooked on a gas stove). I found out about these factors immediately, and had to make some modifications about how I’d be in cooking in this space (mostly, i couldn’t have background music playing, and couldn’t verbally freak out if something went wrong). I also had to learn to use a gas stove. Despite these initial hiccups, the rest of the meal preparation went well. It was good to be close to where the team was, as I overheard their scripture study led by IV York KCF Staff, Dan.
I managed to finish lunch relatively on time. And the students thoroughly enjoyed it! There were no leftovers! However, I was running behind on my meal preparation for dinner. So, I called my friend Amber, who I had plans with later that evening to ask for help. Amber is one of my best friends from Ryerson and one of my go-to cooking friends. She came over and helped me with my ambitious dinner preparation.
Together we made:
– Sauteed Beef with Snap Peas
– Vegetable Stir Fry
– Pork Wontons
– And the filling for spring rolls (we ran out of time to make them)
– Egg Tarts for Dessert
I was worried that Amber would be upset about getting enlisted in my ambitious meal preparation, but she had a great time and was excited to learn how to make all these dishes!
We finished all the components of the meal, and served dinner at 6:30. We stayed to clean up and left around 7:30 pm. It wasn’t until we were heading to a movie theatre that I realized that I’d done a full 8 hours of cooking!
I really enjoyed cooking the meals, but my favourite parts of the day were the times when I was able to meet and chat with the students on the China GP team. I was excited to hear about their excitement and fears about going to China. I also had a few moments of getting to spend time with the staff on the GP team, it was fun to partner with them this way!
Cooking at York
This year, all of the members of the GTA regional staff team have been sharing our ethnic and cultural histories (more about my story can be found on my other blog). This has involved us sharing our ethnic background, as well as significant interactions with other cultures that have shaped our identity and ministry; and sharing a creative expression of our stories such as poems, songs or cultural dishes.
Inspired by the cultural dishes that were made, and by a desire to offer a service to his students while exposing them to new cultures; Dan, Campus Staff at York University began hosting bi-weekly community dinners with his York KCF fellowship. During these dinners, a guest chef would come and students would learn how to cook different meals, as well as have meals from a variety of different cultures.
I loved this idea not only because I love cooking, but I loved the idea of getting to spend time partnering with Dan and his ministry at York! I offered to cook a traditional South Asian meal of Briyani on March 7th. On the day of the meal, I headed over Dan’s house with two of my students, and began preparations for the meal. By the time York students arrived, most of the meal had been prepared by my students; but it left plenty of time of fellowship.
The timing of this dinner was shortly after our Kingdom People events; so many of the York students at this dinner had already met my students, and they were able to continue conversations started at Kingdom People.
I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this dinner. I knew that I’d be cooking a meal and hanging out with Dan and his students; but it was added bonus when a few of my students accompanied me. Conversations flowed easy and smooth while we ate the meal. I might have made it a bit “too” spicy, and there was a lot of people passing the yogurt to cool the meal. As Brian, one of my students said, “You raised the bar on spiciness”. Despite the spiciness of the meal, the students eagerly ate. Dessert was Chocolate Banana Bread made by Joy, Dan’s wife, which people thoroughly enjoyed and helped cut the spice in their mouths!
After the meal, the students lingered, and continued to have conversations until about 10 pm! It was a really enjoyable evening spending time with Dan’s students and having an opportunity for them to spend time in fellowship with some of my students.
Kingdom People
In January, rather than planning our own separate winter retreats, the GTA regional staff team and students from various campuses got together for three consecutive weeks of teaching and training. We called these events, Kingdom People, as we wanted to follow up on some of the teaching from the winter conference, Kingdom Calling.
We wanted to call the students towards living a life of the Kingdom, by offering stories and teachings about right relationship with God, others, and themselves. Each week, different staff amongst the team lead us through scripture study and interactive application. For more stories and photos of the events, click here.
My involvement with the events varied each week. On the first week, I lead the students through an interactive sensory experience; depicting the garden and the fall in Genesis. I also lead the students in an activity where they were to create a groundling, and continue to interact with their creation throughout the course of the evening. The second week, I helped create personalised invitations for the students, as part of their application of the teaching and invitations they had received throughout the course of the evening. The final week, our household created a meal as part of the potluck dinner served that evening.
I really enjoyed these events and interacting with students from various different campuses. It was exciting to meet them and see how they were processing through the teachings and invitations extended throughout the weeks of teaching. It was also exciting to see the students interact with one another and begin to dream up ways to continue relationship and support one another’s ministries!
As the weeks and months went by, these events served as a marker for many students of significant change and the beginnings of inter-campus relationships and partnerships.
First Week on Campus
With great joy I am able to report that with some additional funding that came in, I am now working on campus with students! There are so many stories that I would love to share, and will be featured in upcoming posts, but I’d like to share a few highlights about my first week on campus.
The first week on campus was January 10th-14th. I started the week by having a meeting with Student Exec President, Vanessa and visioning for what my time on campus would look like and what things we hope to do this semester. It was exciting to have this conversation and starting putting plans in place as I’d been dreaming and anticipating for my return to campus.
After Vanessa and I met, we went to the Student Executive Leaders Meeting. After spending some time catching up and sharing about our breaks, we began to plan and vision for the semester. During the summer planning meeting, we discussed the possibility of studying Romans for the winter semester. It was clear the student leaders were excited about following through with this idea. I was struck by God’s providence as we began to put this plan into motion. During the fall when I was off-campus raising support, I co-led a bible study at my church of the book of Romans. It was an interactive study that included watching a historical video series which sought to portray the context of the letter of Romans, as well as spending time studying the scripture. This study allowed me to connect with people from all walks of life within my church’s congregation and gave me an opportunity to both give back to the community and continue developing and using my leadership skills. At many times during the bible studies, I would walk about struck by the similarities between life in the Roman Empire and life on campus. I was excited to share my experiences of the book of Romans, and also learn from the interpretations and experiences of my students. We planned when we would study which sections throughout the semester, and actually developed our plan by building on the material that I worked with this fall. It was a great moment to see how God had really used my time away on campus to prepare my return as a stronger leader. It was also great to see ways in which my church community was able to tangibly be on campus with me, as I would be able to share insights into the scripture I’d learned from my church bible study group.
With great excitement we made preparations for the rest of the week in ministry. January 12th was the annual Ryerson Campus Caravan, which was very similar to the Campus Groups Day that happened in the fall. The students were excited to meet new students and invite them to be part of the many exciting things we were planning for the semester.
January 13th was the first Inter-Varsity community meeting for the semester. It also happened to be my birthday. It was a fun evening, as we spent time eating together and playing games as well as sharing the vision for what the semester was going to look like. Moses, designed a beautiful flyer for the bible study, and everyone was very excited about studying Romans this term! A few were disappointed we didn’t start the study that evening, as they were very eager to dig into the scripture! Vanessa, and a few students made cupcakes in honour of my birthday, and the students sang Happy Birthday. As they were singing to me, I reflected on God’s timing, as this was my first big re-introduction to the community and He placed it on a day already set apart for celebrating. Birthdays have often been bittersweet experiences for me, and this year, I was surrounded by the love of my students. All my fears about returning to campus and not being able to connect and build trust with students melted away as I heard them sing. We ended the evening with a rousing game of ultimate charades, and I went home excited about the things God would teach us and how He would use us for His purposes on campus this term!
Kingdom Calling
“The FUTURE of our movement is in this room…”
December 27-31, 2010 was the first ever Kingdom Calling Conference in Toronto. Formerly, the National Student Leadership Conference, Kingdom Calling focused on students in their third and fourth year of University, who are asking questions of how to live their lives for the Kingdom once they graduate. The conference featured key speakers from Servant Partners, Inter-Varsity, China Partners, Ratanak and a few other mission organizations. Throughout the week speakers would give talks, lead studies and share their testimonies about how they received and responded to God’s call on their life.
The conference had a minimal number of staff in attendance, as there was a desire to allow space for students to connect with one another and to hold each other accountable and minister to one another as they were in similar positions and facing similar decisions. In the past, this has been strategic, as these students will often stay in touch with one another and spur each other on to say yes to the various invitations they have received. I can assuredly say that one of the reasons that I am and remain on staff with Inter-Varsity is because of the friendships I’ve made and the conversations I’ve had with people I’ve met at this conference.
Since, the conference was taking place in Toronto; the Greater Toronto Area staff team was invited to host the students and staff in attendance of the conference by offering activities and tours of the city on one day of the conference. I lead a group of students on a tour of Kensington Market. The students were excited to visit and experience the market, and had a great time in the cafes and boutiques. I was really excited about leading this tour, as I love showing people my favourite parts of Toronto, and Kensington Market is in my top ten! I also had a delightful time with the students who signed up for my tour. I only knew one personally, as we’d met a few years ago at a city/script. But I knew a few others by association as they were students of staff with whom I was good friends. As I engaged the students in my group in conversation, I was excited about the various invitations they were considering; some were considering doing an internship with Inter-Varsity, while others were considering taking part in a global or urban partnership this summer. As they wrestled with their invitations they were excited to ask me questions as I’d taken part in both the internship and a global partnership in the past. It was also such a blessing to watch as they ministered and debriefed with each other about what they were thinking. I almost didn’t come to lead a tour, as I was exhausted after the holidays and needed to complete some assignments for a course I was enrolled in at Regent College. But, I willingly chose to sacrifice the time to invest in these students; as it was exciting for me to have conversations and debrief with students who weren’t my own but were students of my friends who were staff; I considered it an honour to have them share with me what they were thinking and to be able to offer follow up advice to my staff friends. I also saw this as an opportunity to invest in the future staff interns, as they could very well become partners in ministry in the near future.
Ironically, during my time and conversations with students, each one asked me the question that was actually the topic of one of the papers I had to write, “Why did you say yes to coming on staff?” So by spending time away from my paper, I was actually able to return to it with a much better sense of how I wanted to answer that question. I love when God surprises me and meets my needs in places I don’t consider!
As a thank you for hosting students, I was invited to attend one day of the conference. I chose to go the following day, and what a day it was! It was the last full day of the conference, and it was packed with testimonies, bible studies and lots of exciting conversations. I continued conversations started with students I met the previous day, and had some other conversations with students that were attending campuses in the GTA. During an early morning break, I stood on the perimeter of the room and observed the students, staff interns and staff interacting. I observed to my friend Jenn, who is staff at Laurier, and actually one of my many “conference friends”, that we were standing in the presence of the future of Inter-Varsity’s movement on campuses, camps and around the world! It was such an honour and a blessing to be in the room and have conversations with these students at such a crucial juncture in their lives!
Another highlight from my visit at the Conference was spending time with Ashley (who I’ve mentioned in a earlier post). It was encouraging and exciting to catch up and hear about the things she’s been reading and engaging around her ethnic identity since our last conversation. I was able to bring along a book that had spoken deeply to me to show her, and offer her hope through sharing stories of my journey. I also had the opportunity to join her table group for the bible studies that afternoon, and it was such a blessing to watch her lead. I am excited for what the future holds for Ashley as she continues with Inter-Varsity!
By the end of the day, I was so excited by the things I had been able to witness and experience, I was surprised to discover I’d been there for over 12 hours, and spent most of that actively speaking or listening! In the days and weeks that followed, I heard many great stories of how the students who attended the Conference were responding to the invitations they’d received and continue to be excited for what the future holds for them!
The Arch 