Vancouver 2025 Day Six
By: Adeleecia
Hello hello everyone! Today was another full day working around on the island. Our team split up once again for the morning; Eric went with a gentleman named Dean to Nanaimo for the day to assist with the food bank. Olivia, Abby, and myself went over to a wonderful lady named Jean to do some maintenance on her property while Tymon, Kathryn, Jacob, and Wade went out to cut down a lot of broom (an invasive species that’s on the island). Randy, Charlotte, and Matthew went to the southern part of the island helping with cutting firewood and property maintenance.
For my group, we had incredible conversations with Jean, discussing topics from her wonderful garden to how she had lived in Toronto. We had finished the list of stuff she had wanted for us super early, so we were able to jump on other tasks around her place. Before we had left, she told us “My favourite thing to do when teams come over and they’re about to head out, is to gather around, hold hands, and say a prayer together.” Some tears were shed during this which was precious.
The team, aside from the ones who went to the southern part of the island and packed a lunch to stay for the whole day, came back to the church we are staying at to enjoy some lunch together. After some yummy food, we got back in our cars and headed out to our afternoon plans. Most of the team went to do gardening and weeding at different locations. Wade and I stayed back and did some tasks around the church that is hosting us. The southern crew headed over to a farm to do cleaning around the farm, taking some metal scraps down to the scrap lot, and built a fire. That crew had a lot of conversations with the people they worked with, especially about their stories of coming to Christ. It was a huge win for the ones sharing.
Once we reconvened for the late afternoon/evening, we turned on the leafs game (what a brutal loss😬) and discussed what to do for dinner. We ended up checking out a local restaurant, walked around to see the main part of town, and came back to the church to meet with Grant. Before Grant met up with us, we did our daily devos discussing how Jesus changes us by sharing his gentleness and mercy with us. The scripture we focused on was John 11:1-16, Isaiah 9:2-7, and Psalm 42. Shortly after finishing, Grant came and we debriefed about our day, discussing the conversations and interactions we had. We planned out who was going where and who was doing what for tomorrow and Friday. Tomorrow is quite exciting as we’ll be assisting with the youth program that the Community Gospel Church has.
Our evening ended with some more team bonding, playing a round of Pharisees, then promptly off to bed. The team has grown quite close with each other, which in turn has helped up grow closer to God. Being able to serve with this team, and learn more of each other and how God has been in their lives has been truly a gift from God.
