Happily Hammering Homebuilders in High River

Hello again from High River, you lovelies. The last few days have been mighty productive, with work happening at three different locations. There's been much painting, cutting, digging, and the like. And coffee breaks. While we've all had some fun at the work sights, the best times were probably those spent before and after the work day. With devotions and singing alongside breakfast, and assorted activities after supper, such as a leisurely walk through town, and a visit to the majestic rocks at Okotoks, it's been a riot (not really, those can be violent). We're all thankful for the fan mail we've received, and can't wait to sit in a van for another nine hours. Cheers!

Pictured from top-down: A bunch of us atop the Okotoks rocks; Mel bringing an end to Stanley the stump; Brody and Mikayla enjoying some down time (With Waddles); A work-in-progress job sight.

This has been an RJC ALSO broadcast. Good day.

ALSO Alabama - Mobile April 29

Blog Post Number Three

            Today, both the Ransom Cafe crew and the Habitat crew were at new locations, and we had a small group go to the food bank. As per the usual we all worked very hard and exceeded everyone’s expectations. At the food bank they actually ran out of things to do, props to Carter, Dannica, Nick, Renee, Christian and Wally. At our Habitat locations we started filling in the frame of a new house. In the blistering sun we worked on insolation, framing and roofing. Needless to say the tan lines were almost as straight as Lloyds cutting and the house looked much better by the end of the day. At the Ransom Café we had the privilege to work at their beautiful location, The Hanger, a world war two themed restaurant. This was the original birthplace of the Ransom Café, complete with ping-pong table, basketball hoop and plenty of places to relax and eat amazing food. We cleaned transport vans, prepped sanitation kits and of course prepared and served lunch.  The real highlight though, was the great people we met and volunteered with. They have such open and loving hearts it was truly a blessing. For the icing on the cake we spent the evening on the beach, beautiful sunset and all.    

Daughter and Mom working duo - Jade and Leanne

Zac and Roch

Roofing

Gulf Shores State Park

ALSO Alabama

Today, April 30th,  we have another two crews out volunteering at Ransom Cafe.  The larger group has returned to continue working on the roof at the  Habitat home. Tomorrow April 30 is our last day in Mobile. The entire group will be working for Habitat in the morning.  We then will return to camp to pack and clean and hopefully depart  from Mobile in the early afternoon.  This will be our last post from the South as we will be travelling back to Saskatchewan for the next 40 hrs.  Look for our final post upon our return when we post our final wrap up blog for  ALSO Alabama  2015!  Pray for safe travels!

Thinking About Poverty in Regina & Saskatoon

On Tuesday we went to Aden Bowman and we took part in their Collective Voice program.  They write radio shows and articles for the local paper; we told them about the documentary we were writing for ALSO week and they told us about what they had done. It was a cool that they each got to have their own voice, and that it was so public.

After we were done there we went to The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse does many things for the community, low cost living, emergency shelters and dormitories. They have really great staff and the Lighthouse Family/clients that we met seem very happy and caring. It was nice to see so much effort being put into the help of the community. The last place we visited was the food bank. At the food bank we got to do some hands on work and it was actually kind of fun. Besides some minor heat stroke I think everyone had a good time.

On Wednesday we got to go to Regina. When we arrived in Regina we went to the Carmichael Outreach which is a place were people who are homeless or don't have a lot of money can go and get food, clothes, take a shower, and just hangout in other peoples company.  With our time at the Carmichael Outreach we volunteered by helping sort clothes and serving food to those in need. After we spent some time helping out we reflected on poverty as group for about an hour. After lunch we went to SCIC. (Saskatchewan Council For International Cooperation) We got to hear from all the workers there about what SCIC is, what they do, and what we can do to help countries in the Global South. After spending about an hour at the SCIC headquarters we started our journey home.

Jared & Abby


Jared White
April, 28, 2015

Guatemala and El Salvador - day 5

Hola from Guatemala! 

We spent the last 3 days at a farm in rural El Salvador. It was an amazing experience of delicious fresh fruit, hot sun and amazing people. If you think you know what oranges, mangos, and avocados taste like, well you don't. You've tasted nothing until you've climbed a tree and picked one for yourself.

We worked in a jungle putting in fence posts and digging holes for coffee plants. It was very hot, sweaty and dirty work. It gave us a new appreciation for coffee farmers and how hard they have to work. 

Last night we had a simple church service in both English and Spanish, which was very moving. We sang hymns in Spanish that most of us knew in English and we also sang some of our songs. They told us we sang like angels and that they felt like they were in heaven, which was extremely humbling and memorable. The people of the church also prayed for us by laying their hands on us. It really impacted us because although we are so privileged, they still blessed us. Even though they had no money, they were still very rich in spirit, and became role models for all of us. 

We'll never forget the people at the farm and their stories and we're very grateful for their hospitality. The entire experience was very impactful, and we all bonded by sharing our beliefs and tears of joy. 

As Pastor Jaime said, "We are all family because we are all children of the same God."

God, please help us see. 

ALSO Alabama - Mobile April 28

BLOG ENTRY NUMERO DOS

On behalf of everyone; hi dad! So today when we woke up it was no longer dark and stormy, but overcast and humid! Everyone split up and went to different places to volunteer. We left to repair houses with Habitat For Humanity, make and serve meals at Ransom Café and sort items at the food bank.

At our Habitat For Humanity site we sweat more water than we drank (which, to clarify, doesn’t mean we didn’t drink a lot, we sweat buckets). We went to two different houses. At one house, we taped walls over with plastic so that we could scrape the popcorn ceiling off. We got to be Ghostbusters for a day and fight roof crime. #hazmatsuits #whoyougonnacall #rjc We also ripped out cabinets in the kitchen and carpet. #Lloyd’saboss At the other house, we laid down tile and laminate flooring. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching sweaty day for all of us.

Manny

Dannica and Hayley

Habitat tiling and laminate group

Ahren and Isaac on the tile cutter

Another crew got to go to the Ransom Café. RJC has never volunteered with this organization before, so it was a new experience for everybody. At the Café, people can come in and eat, but they are encouraged to pay what they can, or what they think their meal is worth. If that is not an option for you then you can pay for your meal through volunteer work. The neighborhood that the Café was located in today is low income with a high crime rate. The church in this area is very involved in the community and has partnered with the Café, which allows for deliveries for those who cannot make it to the kitchen for whatever reason. This doesn’t happen at every location, so we got the unique opportunity to be able to make home deliveries and get to know the neighborhood. Afterwards we ran the Café; taking orders, assembling meals and serving people. Liam was the doyen of the assembly line. On the menu today was a BBQ pork sandwich, BBQ sausage sandwich and a BBQ salad with pork. On the side was your choice of baked beans, corn on the cob, potato salad, or coleslaw. You can wash that down with either sweet tea or water! For dessert: a cookie or a piece of cake provided by the local bakery, The Flour Girls! Yum. We had good conversations with good people and good food. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching meal for all of us.

Cheyenne and Dusty serving up meals at the Ransom Cafe.

A small crew went back to the food bank and returned with this fun fact: we sorted 12,350 pounds of donated food! Congrats to us, y’all! All in all, it was an incredibly enriching statistic for all of us.

In conclusion, it was all in all, an incredibly enriching Tuesday. Got the blog going up (rhythmic pause) on a Tuesday. 

Another piece by the poetic pair; Katie Rempel & Cheyenne Epp

Sorry for the double post today but finding fast internet is difficult.  We will try to post once more tomorrow before we leave on Friday !

ALSO Alabama - Pass Christian and Camp Christian April 26 and 27

BLOG ENTRY NUMERO UNO

On behalf of everyone; hi mom! This Sunday morning, we excitedly drove to Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church. Yet again, it did not disappoint. We had been told that it would be great but that did little to describe how truly amazing the service was.  The church welcomed us with open arms. The singing was out of this world, unlike ours (sorry Richard- we learnt the importance of practice because, let’s just say they asked for an encore after the first song, but not the second one). Rev. Harry Touissant delivered a passionate sermon about how, unlike gumbo, we can’t change the Bible to our taste. It was not uncommon to hear people from the pews yelling things like “amen” and “can I get a witness” or to hear the piano dramatically playing along. After the service, we were invited to stay for lunch and the home cooked meal was a wonderful break from fast food. We fellowshipped with the congregation and definitely made some lasting connections. Hearing our host, Billy’s, stories never gets old and neither does watching Joe do the “Nay Nay” after the girls from church taught him. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching morning for all of us.

A Warm Welcome

Pastor Harry Touissant

The music was outstanding

Our good friend Billy Morgan

We had some time to kill so we went to Bay St. Louis where previous Alabama participants had built. We went to a beach and played some hardcore, intense ultimate Frisbee and had nice peaceful walks along the shoreline. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching time-killer for all of us.

Chillin by the Gulf of Mexico

Finally, we went on a swamp tour at Cajun Encounters where we were all excited to see some ‘gators. Unfortunately only one of our tour boats got to see some good ‘ol ‘gators, but the other group got the privilege to hold a baby ‘gator. It was really excitin’ and coo’. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching adventure for all of us.

Katie and Danielle and their new friend

Reanne and Erika

Alexa

*WOW WE ARRIVED AT CAMP* All in all, it was an incredibly enriching arrival for all of us.

It was a dark and stormy morning, on our first day of our real ALSO experience. The rain was pouring but our motivation was rising. We all went to the Bay Area Food Bank and rocked out some sweet volunteer work. We sorted donations of food into categories and discarded based on expiry date. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!! We also helped with come clerical work by stuffing envelopes and filling binders. They were surprised by us finishing sorting all the donated food before lunch, way before they thought we would. They had to find us extra work to do because everything they asked us to do we finished with mind-blowing haste. Interesting fact: you can back date canned goods up to five years past the expiry date!!! Lloyd Schmidt found that extremely exciting and cannot wait to tell Cheryl! #savvyshopper. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching day of volunteering for all of us.

Sadly, since the weather is unhappy today we could not go to the beach but instead are going to the mall, in fact, there the bus is now, we’re late. All in all, it was an incredibly enriching race against time for all of us.

See ya later alligator, in a while crocodile! (Interesting fact: crocodiles are bigger than alligators #Karaleelovesgators #thebusishere #thebusisactuallyhere #we’renotready #Danielle’sworried #youshould’veseenthisblogbeforeBeveditedit)

Written by the poetic pair; Katie Rempel & Cheyenne Epp