After arriving in Toronto on Saturday evening, we’ve had a great time visiting the city and the people.
On Sunday morning we went to a worship service at the church we are staying at for the week. We met some very nice people, but we got to know many more that evening when the church hosted game night. There were about 70 people of all ages playing basketball, volleyball, ping pong, card games, and more. They prepared lots of food and really enjoyed the fellowship together and we enjoyed it too. But after a long day, we were ready to get to bed.
In the middle of the day on Sunday, we went on site to the church where the March Break Day Camp for Urban Promise (the organization we are partnering with) is being held. We set up, decorated, and prepared for the week. The theme is “Welcome to Hollywood” and the Bible stories are about Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
We found out that we will have 3 days of camp at Don Mills – on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. For Monday, Urban Promise received tickets to the Raptors 905 game (their D-league basketball team). So we were responsible for about 30 children ages 5-10. With the other mission team who is helping, plus the Urban Promise leaders, we had a ratio of about one child to one leader. It’s a good thing we had that many eyes and arms because it was a challenge to get the kids to and from the arena (they rode the bus and subway (we were driving our rented vans and met them at Union Station to walk to the arena) and to manage them during the game. There were many drink and washroom trips. But we learned a lot, got to know the kids much better, and everyone had a good time!
We explored downtown Toronto as we walked and drove to a few places. It’s been really cold and has snowed today too. We walked to the CN Tower to go to the observation decks, but things didn’t work out today as visibility was very limited because of the snow and so it wasn’t going to be a good deal for us. We ended up spending some time at Eaton Centre, a large mall, for dinner and shopping.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning we meet back at Don Mills to get started with our theme, lessons, and stations.
