ALSO Edmonton signs in

The Edmonton group poses at the Habitat For Humanity build site in Edmonton just before beginning work.

The ALSO group in Edmonton put their first full day of work in today, spending the bulk of the day at a Habitat For Humanity build site.

We will return to the Habitat build site for another day on Wednesday.

The group was divided into smaller work teams, and sent to various jobs in a town-house complex in various stages of construction.  Some of the group were framing, some drywalling, and some putting up siding.  The Habitat supervisors were very welcoming and gracious and helpful, as our small group had all different levels of construction experience.  But that mattered little.

For supper, we found ourself in China town with $3 in our pocket (each). We simulated a scenario where we were to experience what it may be like for a new immigrant to move to a new county, and find food that would not be familiar to us.  We encouraged the students to pool their money together, and try something very new and foreign.  It was  rich experience, and which produced many interesting stories during our de-briefing time later in the evening.

Cassandra at the "Gate of Happy Arrival" in Edmonton China Town.

We are working hard and are very tired, but feeling quite rewarded with all our experiences so far.  Please continue to pray for our safety and enriched learning.

ALSO Saskatoon Day 2

Day two began with a short devotional at the MCC center in Saskatoon.  We then were whisked off to our work assignments for the morning.  We spent the morning in service at The Friendship Inn, the Foodbank, the Clothing Depot, the Salvation Army and the Village Green.

Erik Epp, Derek Yamchuk and Spencer Russell check expiry dates on cheese products at the Foodbank

Jennifer Regier, Suzanne Luitjens and Taylor Roy bag potatoes.

Holly Wheeler sorting clothing at the Clothing Depot

Jesse Woznickzka and Kyle Parton clean dishes at the Salvation Army

Julia Epp and Danielle Hunt clean shelves.

One group start their work at the community school, W.P. Bates today.  The students there escorted the ESL students of W.P. Bates to a folkfest hosted by a neighboring school.  

Dan Driediger and Tim Dueck join in a Turkish folk dance.

Coby Friesen shares a cultural lunch with students from W.P. Bates Community School

We also had several students out picking garbage in the cities core neighborhoods. 

Dylan Markwart cleaning the streets of Saskatoon's  inner core neighborhoods.

Today came the realization that service work is not always glamorous or exciting.  Even though it sometimes can be tedious and repetitious, it is always necessary and important work.  The experience of working along side the people that work and volunteer on a regular basis at these institutions as well as meeting some of the clients that visit these various services is often more important to our students' learning that the actual work being done.

In the afternoon we attended a workshop at the Village Green presented by Darren Friesen on how crime relates to urban poverty. 

The second presentation was a workshop presented by Rick Block (Heifer International) on food security. We watch a very informative video about urban gardening. 

Heidi Epp and Kyle Parton  question Rick Block on composting worms.

We arrived home late in the afternoon with a bus full of tired kids!

After supper, students were invited to visit the homes of some of the teachers for the evening. Each staff member planned an evening where the kids could relax, laugh, eat, and enjoy some time together. Hopefully it recharged us for a new day tomorrow!

Hugo Malan, member of 'Team Lloyd', hopes to outscore 'Team Bev' at the hula hoop challenge! 

Work Day Two

Today we woke at 6:00, packed our lunch at 6:30 and had AMAZING breakfast by 7:00. After a lovely devotional lead by Heidi and Kim, we went to work.

We were able to work until about 10:00ish without rain, and then it began to pour. It rained off and on all day, but it did not stop us from some major progress. It did stay humid all day, however, which was hard on some of us.

One group finished painting and caulking, installed insulation, finished some drywall work, and built some handrails. They also moved some serious scaffolding for more work tomorrow.
Lori, Bronwyn, and Angie wrote a song about their experience (to the tune of "favorite things"):

T-squares and drywall and screws and high ladders
stopping for nothing except for full bladders
filling and cutting and measuring stuff
coughing and sputtering as dust fills our lungs
as the rain falls and the dust flies and we're having fun
we put in one more screw no the closet is done
only three more to go...
oh no!

The other group began together, finishing some painting and siding. Once it started to rain, though, the painting had to end. At this time Kara, Karalee, both Allisons, and Callahan were moved to a different house (one neighbouring to the MDS site) to remove some fencing and stain some wood. The rest of the crew stayed and sided through the rain, COMPLETING the rest of the house! All that is left is caulking and another round of paint. This crew also got to meet the owner of the house, Mary Ann, and her little daughter -- a definite highlight. They will be joining us for dinner tomorrow.

In the evening we had a delish turkey dinner and then went for a tour of Pass Christian, seeing some of the sights and also some of the destruction that happened as a result of Katrina.

Tomorrow we are going for lunch at the Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church - something they do on Wednesdays for any volunteers in town. It should be a real treat for us.

Stay tuned!

We are now relaxing for about another hour

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ALSO Saskatoon puts in a busy first day!

Thirty one students boarded the bus today to begin their week of ALSO in the core of the city of Saskatoon. Our first stop was at the MCC Center for a brief orientation to inner city issues.  Our first activity led by Myriam Ullah was an exercise where the students were challenged to put a face on poverty by creating a profile of a person trapped in the cycle of poverty.  This was our introduction to the "Chalo" program.  Chalo is a hindi word that means 'let's go'.  Let's go learn, let's go do! 

Lexi Chalus working with her group Laura Civica, Abby Stewart and Suzanne Luitjens to put a 'face' on poverty.

We were then divided into 6 groups.  Each group was to complete  the 'Race For Survival'.  The 'Race for Survival' was about challenging oneself through experiencing similar challenges that an individual on social assistance without a home in Saskatoon, would have to go through.  We were dropped off at various location in the cities core and asked to find the answer to questions such as:

1. Find 3 help wanted signs-would they hire someone who doesn't have a resume and has a criminal record?

2. You're running low on groceries-find the nearest grocery store and price out eggs and bread.

3. Your family has not received a cheque from social assistance yet you need to pay your rent-where do you get a cash advance?  How does it work?

4. Find free entertainment for your family.

and many more.  

Heidi Epp and Coby Friesen pricing out the best deal for bread.

Need Cash?

We were also challenged to find a place to eat our lunch.

Jesse Woznickzka,Abby Stewart,Krista Dueck,Taylor Roy and Kyle Parton were lucky to find somewhere warm!

Brayden Holman, Dylan Markwart,Coby Friesen,Heidi Epp and Julia Epp weren't so lucky!

Our second activity for the day was an afternoon of service.  We spent the afternoon serving at The Foodbank, The Clothes Depot, The Village Green Furniture Store and at the Appleby Program.

Coby Friesen, Taylor Roy and Leon Pomedli package portions of meat at the Foodbank

Tiffany Lavoie sorting 'new arrivals' at the Clothing Depot

Tim Dueck on clean up at the Village Green

Rachel Klaassen cleaning the apartment for the Appleby program

For our last activity for the day we were again divided into 6 groups of 5 people for the Food Activity.  Two lucky groups were given $4.00/person to plan and buy groceries for supper.  These two groups also had access to a stove and oven and were allowed to shop at Safeway.  Another two groups were given $1.50/person to carry out the same assignment except for the limitations of only having a microwave and a toaster oven for preparations.  These two groups were allowed to shop at Extra Foods.  The last two groups were also given $1.50 to prepare supper but they did not have any cooking facilities and were only allowed to shop at the Giant Tiger.  We then returned to the MCC center to prepare supper and partake of our choices together. 

Danielle Hunt, Krisha Buechert, Erik Epp hope their $9.00 is enough to pay for their nutritious supper choices.

 After meal clean up we spent sometime debriefing and journaling.

Leon Pomedli and Spencer Russell begin their first journal entry for the week.

Holly Wheeler and Abby Stewart

The purpose of the exercises today was to open our minds to a collection of moments in the life of an individual who lives in a core neighborhood so we could grow in understanding.  Without understanding, it is hard to love.  We learnt many things today, least of all was that we found we did not have to travel far from home to find poverty or a place to serve the people caught in this cycle. 

First Day of Work

First, we would like to mention that the blog posted earlier today was actually from yesterday. It failed to reach cyberspace on time.

Today was our first day of work. We were split between two houses and separated into 6 work groups.

Heidi was at the house that crew leader Darwin was in charge of. Here is her account of the day:
    Today my group worked on a house close to where we are staying. We started off with some wet siding boards that needed painting and the group before us had started putting up the siding. Since we didn't have the supplies necessary for building the railing we had two groups working on putting up the siding and one group painting it. In the end we had a good amount of the siding painted and about 3/4's of the house sided thanks to our handy dandy sea horse and our efficient workers.

Levi was at a different house with crew leader Mike. Here is his account:
    Today we discovered our marvelous house on which we would be working. There was work to be done indeed, including painting the house, drywalling inside, and framing the railings outside. There was a fairly large group painting and managed to paint three quarters of the house by clean up time. The drywalling went quite well, so I have heard.  They managed to get drywall up in a few rooms and are nearing completion. We may begin mudding and taping tomorrow.  Outside, working on the railings on the stairs, there was some back-stepping to be done before progress could be made due to some mistakes made by the previous crew. Many screws were removed, stiles cut down, and screwed back up. After a long days work, progress is noticeable, and majestic. Everyone worked superbly and the house is looking fine. No injuries have occurred thus far on this work site.

Busy day had and more busy days ahead!

Sorry no pictures today, we are having troubles finding cameras tonight with the right memory card to fit into Heathers magic USB key. We are a scattered bunch enjoying our free evening. Some are playing basketball or board games, some went to the beach.

Talk to you soon.
   
   

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Fun in the Southern Sun!!!

Today our group is complete.  Elmer Enns flew into New Orleans yesterday afternoon and found us having supper in the French Quarter.  He joined us as we spent a fantastic day on the beach at Ship Island, a small coastal sandbar 11 miles off the coast from Gulfport Mississippi.  We were also joined by Peter and Lydia Schroeder(Torrey's grandparents) on the trip. They are on their way back to Saskatoon after completing a term of service with MDS as Project Leaders in New Iberia La.  We traveled by passenger ferry and despite what locals thought was "chilly" water and cool spring weather dove in!  the water was great.  It was the first day of the tourist season in the island, a National Historic Park, so the beaches were a great source of shells and other interesting finds, including a beached, and very dead, Dolphin.  We also saw live ones........many live ones.  At one point a large group of RJC students shared the water with a pod of 8-10 Dolphins who always seemed to be able to stay at least an armslength away.  We enjoyed fun, sun, frisbee and splashing in the water....all the things that make a day at the beach great.  We also were visited by a juvenile Bull Shark who was thrown on the beach by the surf.  He certainly caught everyone's attention as we watched to see if he would need help getting back into the sea.  He did.  Fortunately Jeff Warkentin, Bronwyn's dad, had always wanted to grab a shark by the tail and toss it far into the ocean.  It took several tries before the shark regained its senses and stopped beaching itself and swam away for good!!  How's that for a fish story, and it's all true!!

We then traveled a short distance to Pass Christian and the MDS site.  We were welcomed by familiar faces.  Peter and Ada Bunnett are serving as Project Leaders and Hosts.  The Bunnetts were in Pass Christian last year as was Cletus Yoder who is also back as Construction Supervisor.  Their familiarity with our group will certainly go a long way to making our time here enjoyable and memorable.  We are currently playing card games, laughing and having lots of fun.  Tomorrow we begin our work week with a 6:00 am wake up call.  We're ready!!

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We Love NOLA

The MDS crew hit the road at 7:30 AM and headed from Memphis to New Orleans. We viewed two films on the bus that showed the effects of the hurricane on the area. It was an unique trip into the city as we drove over the bayou to enter. By 2:00 we were nearing the French Quarter. We split into groups and toured the area taking in the sights. We wandered, listened to jazz, shopped, saw the St Louis Cathedral (see photo), ate crawfish or alligator (see photo) or beignets, and enjoyed the street performers. We are now located in Diamondhead Mississippi and enjoying our stay at the hotel. We will be leaving tomorrow at 9:45 for our afternoon at Ship Island. Some of us are very excited to see the water!

Will Post Again Soon!

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Made it to Memphis

The MDS crew made it through some rough weather in North Dakota to sunny Memphis! Thank goodness for fantastic drivers. Unfortunately, because of road conditions, the trip took longer than we anticipated and we missed our tour of the civil rights museum. Instead, we made our way to Graceland where we looked from afar at Elvis' home, saw one of his cars, and took in the numerous gift shops. We are now in the hotel rooms of the Comfort Suites getting cleaned up. Then it's off for some southern BBQ! When in Memphis . . .

We are all doing well and are happy to see the sun.

Will post more soon . . .

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Mississippi Here We Come!

The MDS Service Trip is close to departure and we are all getting very excited.

MISSISSIPPI ALSO TRIP 2009

Tomorrow this group of 26 RJC students, along with 6 chaperones, will begin the long bus trip south from Saskatchewan to Pass Christian Mississippi. While there the group will be partnering with Mennonite Disaster Service in their ongoing efforts to rebuild this small coastal city following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While there the group will be engaged in all aspects of new home construction for homeowners unable to rebuild their homes on their own due to age, disability or poverty.

Our route south will take us to Memphis, Tennessee where we will take time to tour the National Civil Rights Museum, located on the site of the former Lorraine Motel. This was the place where Martin Luther King was assassinated 41 years ago. We will also likely take a quick peek at Graceland, Elvis Presley’s southern home. We also intend to soak up the sights and sounds of New Orleans by touring the historic French Quarter and hopefully enjoying some Cajun or Creole cuisine.

Our primary purpose and focus, however, is service learning. We look forward to a week of early mornings, days of hard work using and aquiring construction skills and early nights of much needed rest as we help rebuild homes, communities and lives. What a great opportunity for all of us!

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers! We will keep you posted!

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Guatemala 09 Slideshow

Here is a slide show of our trip in February.